Series 4 TiVo wishlist

Justin Mecham has a fantastic wishlist for Series 4 TiVo features he'd like to see. Most of them are season pass related and I have to say I agree with them all 100%. Some of them are a bit complex, but I could picture the menu options in most cases (like setting defaults for season pass options).

For myself, in addition to everything Justin mentioned (especially Hulu integration), I'd like to see the two-way CableCARD technologies implemented so that video on demand and pay-per-view content directly from cable companies could be accessed.

I'd also like to see other ways to be notified by my TiVo, perhaps by RSS, when an important event is coming up. I keep a bunch of wishlists around that I don't set to automatically record, but I often forget to periodically check them for the 1 in 25 upcoming items I do want to see. If I could subscribe  to a feed of upcoming keyword/wishlist items with a handy link to record, I could easily scan recent matches and ignore or record items without having to dive into deep menus on my TiVo.

In addition to Hulu, I guess I'd like to see something more like boxee where I could play any media file on my TiVo (which is just a small computer capable of running anything), but given TiVo's ties to the major studios, I doubt that ever happens.

Comments

[Jemaleddin]

One of the things that makes a TiVo great is that it's so darned quiet. The way they achieve that is by running the absolute slowest and coolest possible processor they can get away with putting in the box. The way they get away with that is using an encoder and decoder optimized for just one kind of video file. All these recommendations to add support for a bunch of other formats or to add to the processing requirements would mean a real change in the hardware and direction.

I'm happy with my quiet little TiVo. But that's me.

[Jason C]

I'd love to see TiVo suggestions with different profiles. That way, I, my wife, and my kids could all thumbs up or down different shows and our own folders of TiVo suggestions; sort of like how we have different queues on the same Netflix account.

Which reminds me, I wish Netflix would open up the Instant Queues to our different queues on our account and those would be available on out TiVo. My wife thinks watching Netflix movies & shows on the TiVo is great, but would rather have her stuff available instead of hoping I've got something interesting on mine.

[Russell G.]

Can't the series 3 already play other media files with the TiVo Desktop Plus software?

From:

http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/howto/downloadmoviesandtv/howto_download_videos_using_PC.html

These can be home movies, videos downloaded from the web, or any other video files, as long as they are one of the following formats:

• Windows Media Video (.wmv)
• QuickTime Movie (.mov)
• MPEG-4 / H.264 (.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v)
• MPEG-2
• DivX or Xvid (.avi, .divx, encoded with the DivX codec, version 4 or higher, or with the Xvid codec. No other video formats are supported within .AVI files.)
• .tivo files.

[Eric]

My wife suggested a trim feature. If you are like us sometimes you record a long show and watch part of it. Why not trim the part you watched if you can't finish it at that time? Academy Awards could be watched 1 hour at a time and you could reclaim space as you go!

[Big Dave]

I use streambaby (http://code.google.com/p/streambaby/) to stream all sorts of media to my TiVo. Mostly divx/xvid but it works perfectly!

[Rick Odyessy]

how about allowing to back your preference, season pass data online in your account with a restore button. So if you your box crashes and need to reformat or swap it out, you don't loose all your season pass and preference settings. I think this is a must have feature considering how may times their hardware and software fails.

Then giving us the ability to schedule a recording on another box if the box you are using does not have open spots. Full meu control of other boxes in your house. Stream shows instead f transferring them. so oyu can watch HBO shows for example in the bedroom. ReplayTV has had these features from day one. It is so good that you only need to connect one ReplayTV DVR to a slingbox and you control them all.

[Nancy Watson]

I think that's a great idea. I tape Tennis matches on my Tivo and I can't always watch the matches entirely in one sitting. Especially for the major slams: Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. They can go from 6 to 10 hours. And I even sometimes miss it because I can only add 3 hours to the end of the recording time. While I'm at it: Why not have the intelligence built in to recognize the match isn't over and continue recording? Now, that would be fantastic! But I don't think we're there technically yet.

[houston00@operamail.com]

I think the trim feature for the TiVo would be nice. The streaming of shows would be just as nice as well. Overall, the TiVo is really great but there is always opportunities to improving it.