Microsoft's love of DRM

Microsoft has been in a ton of news lately: they lost their takeover bid of Yahoo in an attempt to garner a better internet strategy and two stories this week pointed out their embracing of Digital Rights Management (DRM), even when such measures can be hostile to their own customers.

The first story is the shuttering of their MSN Music service. It was an attempt to take on the iTunes Music Store and offer paid music downloads. After a couple years of service, they've decided to close down the service but in doing so, they'll turn off the servers that authorize your music tracks so if you ever update your operating system or buy a new computer, your old purchased music files will not play. You would have to buy the songs again using the newer Zune store.

The second story is about NBC shows coming to the Microsoft Zune media player, but with one feature NBC wanted added to the device: the copyright cop. If you buy a NBC show and transfer it to your Zune, a small application will check your Zune for "pirated" shows and movies that weren't purchased from the Zune store, and delete them. It's rumored that this is why the NBC/Apple partnership ended at the iTMS and they removed shows -- because Apple refused to build in this kind of capability.

My takeaway from recent news regarding Microsoft is that they're making a lot of short-sighted decisions in an effort to please large copyright holders, in an effort to build partnerships with studios, but they're forgetting their customers. The iPod and iPhone are fairly locked-down devices and the iTMS sells almost entirely DRM protected content, but it's more popular because the devices and purchasing is easy to do and there's a level of trust between Apple and their customers that Apple isn't going to pull the rug out from under purchasers of music.

Aside from operating systems where they clearly dominate, Microsoft plays second fiddle in a lot of their other businesses. I'm sure there are people on the Microsoft campus that know and understand when MS makes these kinds of customer-hostile decisions to shut down purchased music and delete your content that you will continue to lose customers to other companies, but if MS wants to gain marketshare in any of these fields, they'll have to rethink their strategy. That Microsoft called their version of DRM "Plays For Sure" is the icing on the ironic cake.

(photo from my tour of the Microsoft booth at CES in 2005)

May 8, 2008 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

Comcast HD Quality Reduction

There's a great post on the AVS forum about Comcast HD Quality going down, featuring screenshots and analysis.

A few months ago, I switched from Comcast to FiOS for more HD channels and a lower monthly price and I did notice that non-HD channels definitely looked better and HD channels were about the same. I have wondered how Comcast keeps playing catch-up with FiOS and the Dish Network -- in my last month or two of having Comcast it seems they were adding new HD channels every month. I know fiber has a ton of bandwidth available, but I wasn't sure how Comcast was figuring out how to stuff more channels into their old coax lines. Looks like according to this AVS forum post, they're reducing the quality of the HD channels to fit more channels in their available bandwidth.

March 31, 2008 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

Comcast Testing Embedded Cameras in your Living Room

Scary new technology out of Comcast's labs according to NewTeeVee

At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room. The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations.

That sure doesn't sound "Comcastic" to me, it sounds more like a frightening privacy invasion for very little gain in convenience. Can't I just rather pick out my profile name when I start up their DVR? [via laboratorium]

March 22, 2008 in News | Permalink | Comments (9)

YouTube coming to TiVo

TiVo announced YouTube support coming to Series 3 and HD TiVos and Google themselves have a short case study on the project.

Sounds like it'll be a lot like the AppleTV feature which I personally like, but only occasionally use. It's great to be able to add something to a youtube playlist on your PC, then walk over to your TV to view it, especially for longer videos that play like TV shows, so I suspect this feature will get quite a bit of uptake when it rolls out to newer TiVos.

March 12, 2008 in News | Permalink | Comments (7)

Today's Woot: TiVoHD for $180

The deal-a-day site Woot is currently selling a refurbished TiVoHD for $179.99 + $5 shipping while it lasts. This probably won't last too long, so if you're considering one and don't mind buying a refurbished unit, I'd say jump on it asap. Discussion of the deal is here.

March 5, 2008 in News | Permalink | Comments (0)

Screenshots and a tour of the new Apple TV features

The Apple TV update announced last month at Macworld has finally been released to the public and I finished downloading it a couple hours ago. I ran through the options and took a few photos of the new and notable sections, which I'll describe after the jump.

Overall it feels like every inch of the software has been updated. Instead of an empty box that plays music and movies from another computer, it's definitely starting to feel like a standalone settop box capable of quite a bit on its own. Here are a few shots of areas I hadn't seen mentioned or explored in the Macworld previews:

Flickr in the Photos section

The Flickr feature allows you to navigate a single user's recent photos, favorites, and photo sets, but it doesn't use the Flickr API to log you fully into the service. Without the API, you won't be able to view private photos or view photos from your contacts/friends and there doesn't seem to be a way to even follow RSS feeds of photos from Flickr. Still, it's a nice way to view photos if you're a user of Flickr and have friends on the service.

HD Movie Rentals

To test out the movie rental feature, I rented a few HD movies to check download speeds and download priorities. Two things jumped out at me: one is download speed and the other is the lack of simultaneous downloads.

Even on my top speed Verizon FiOS 30Mbit line downloads were quite sluggish. Judging from the first hour of downloading, HD movies will take several hours (about 6-8 hours is my guess) to download in full even over broadband. This may be slow servers on Apple's end of things due to the new feature coming out and causing some slowdowns thanks to demand because my connection can normally download a 2-3Gb file in less than an hour. On the positive side, the HD rentals being downloaded had enough video downloaded in about 15-20 minutes to begin real-time playback of movies, but I didn't try it out with a movie to see if the download rate kept up with the viewing time.

I quickly noticed that only one movie could be downloaded at a time, and the one that took priority was the most recently purchased one. Even on the Downloads page under Settings, I could not change the order if I wanted my first purchase to complete before my 2nd or 3rd. I was happy to see that while movies were being downloaded my connection wasn't being saturated and I could browse and use the web normally on other networked computers.

Podcasts

I'm pretty impressed with the wide array of choices in the Podcast view and how easy it is to browse -- there are popular shows, HD video, animation, and other interesting genres shown front and center. Looking at the vast array of podcast choices (I looked up a dozen of my favorites and found a dozen more I'd never heard of that looked good), this was the first time I kind of realized that podcasting could become the new Cable TV, offering thousands of options for anyone looking to learn something or be entertained (and it was all free!). I noticed a lot of larger podcast/tv/studio networks get their own option and major players like HBO seem to be copying their video on demand content into the video podcast format.

Ordering from the couch

Something I hadn't seen mentioned in the Apple TV previews was that aside from buying and renting movies, you can buy pretty much everything else on the iTunes Music Store. You can buy albums and whole seasons of TV Shows in addition to the movie stuff. I didn't notice any way to buy just a song or a single episode of anything. Also, once you store your iTunes Music Store password, you can save it and make purchasing new items a one-click process.

AirTunes

It was a nice surprise to see AirTunes in the new version of Apple TV. I had no idea they were adding this capability and though it seemed a little weird at first (can't you just stream music from your Apple TV to your computer instead of the other way around?) I realized this could be a cool feature if a friend comes over with a laptop and just wants to stream music quickly and easily. Also, another cool feature is that the Apple remote is functional and actually pauses and advances music on your connected iTunes computer remotely from your couch.

Conclusions

Overall in the short time I've been able to play with Apple TV 2.0, I've seen a lot to like and the biggest change is definitely the feeling that this is now a standalone device that I can use to browse photos and look for podcasts and it's not simply a container for my downloaded music and movies like it was before. As predicted, the Apple TV device did suddenly become a Pay Per View box in that most of the menu options are geared towards browsing, buying, and downloading other content, with just a tiny option at the bottom to look at your stuff. Most of the menus are definitely geared towards other new stuff. It'll be interesting to see how Apple TV evolves when the next update comes along.

February 12, 2008 in News | Permalink | Comments (9)

Apple's new set-top box: the old AppleTV

At yesterday's Macworld keynote, Apple announced an update to Apple TV and the availability of standard def (720x480) and high def (1280x720) movie rentals from the iTunes Music Store. The new AppleTV software isn't out yet but promised "soon" though rentals are now available from an iTunes update (HD movies are only going to be available on AppleTV).

While I've liked my AppleTV, it's always felt like a limited-use device that could do much more. Adding rentals into the mix (along with more podcasts and photo integration) is definitely going to make me use the device more. While I've rented a few Amazon Unbox movies on my TiVo, I haven't been a fan of the low video quality. I've also bought few shows/movies for AppleTV because I rarely watch a movie more than once. I've tested out dedicated Pay-Per-View devices like the Vudu and been grossly underwhelmed (mostly due to the thin selection).

Apple TV is suddenly much more interesting because they have loads of studios on board offering thousands of movies (great selection) along with a new 720p HD option for 100 recent films (hopefully with more to come). Given these new rental options in addition to the old "plays any downloaded web video converted over" and "easily show off all photos from iPhoto" features, I'm much more hopeful for the future of Apple TV as well as the future of the iTunes Music Store becoming something big for everyone.

January 16, 2008 in News | Permalink | Comments (8)

CES 2008

I'm not going to CES this year but as usual, the best places to see everything from afar look to be Engadget's CES page for all the general stuff and TiVoLovers' CES page for the TiVo-specific and home theater specific news.

Personally, I haven't seen anything too exciting out of CES this week (but it's early), though I'm looking forward to the new logitech remote (anyone know if it does bluetooth?).

January 7, 2008 in News | Permalink | Comments (1)

Netflix/LG set-top box announced

After the long-rumored (from 2004) Netflix/TiVo deal fell through (in 2005), it looks like Netflix and LG are going to create their own set-top box to facilitate downloads of Netflix movies. Even better is a mention that they might just bake it into existing dual format HD-DVD/Blu-ray players.

It's interesting that Netflix found a new partner and a way to get studios on board to allow them to do it -- I suspect TiVo was seen as a hostile force for the studios a couple years ago when the Netflix/TiVo deals were first discussed. Also it's obvious that the landscape has changed since 2004. People have broadband and are willing to buy downloadable movies, and the companies that offer them aren't huge sources of problems or piracy.

Another interesting aspect is that LG is already thinking of how to add it as an added feature to their existing product line. That's a great approach because I have to admit that I've played with a Vudu box and it's incredibly dumb to think people will pay $400 for a box that only plays $2-5 rentals and holds a limited number of $10-20 movies permanently. It's good to see LG recognize this from the outset and not strive to build dedicated PPV boxes you have to pay for.

January 3, 2008 in News | Permalink | Comments (1)

First reports of the Comcast-TiVo box

Steve Garfield, a blogger in the Boston area is one of the lucky few to get the first deployments of TiVo's software on the Comcast/Motorola boxes (reviewed here in 2005). The comcast/tivo deals were announced a couple years ago and pushed back time and time again, but it's finally becoming real.

Steve's story of signing up and receiving the software mentions that he was actually the very first customer to get it. His story mirrors a lot of my experiences with first deployments like this (I'm getting FiOS internet/TV today after waiting for two years), with customer service people confused and claiming the service isn't available.

He's also posted a bit about how fast forwarding is different and has an entire gallery of screenshots over on flickr. For comcast customers waiting the past couple years for this deal, keep an eye on his blog to hear how it works out. It just may be that the Motorola box running TiVo is a better deal than buying your own TiVoHD and paying the monthly price.

December 21, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (7)

HD DVD & Blu-Ray Disc Players from $219 Shipped at Amazon

Dealnews has a roundup of HD DVD & Blu-Ray Disc Players from $219 Shipped at Amazon. The Blu-Ray players come with 5 free movies (which go for $20-30 each) and the HD-DVD players come with 5 free plus 5 more free via mail-in rebate.

For anyone looking to go upscale in their movie watching, these are some of the best prices ever seen for high-def DVDs. Unfortunately, that means you have to choose a side in the format wars. Personally, I'm still wishing to see a <$500 dual-format player come out. I know the Samsung BD-UP5000 is starting to get close to that, but the LG model is still about a grand. Hopefully by this time next year cheap dual players are abundant.

I've had a Playstation 3 playing Blu-Ray movies on my 46" 1080p LCD for about a year and I must say, movies do in fact look a lot better (especially anything in the background), but I must confess with most movies I forget about how good it looks after the first five minutes.

December 12, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (6)

TiVo brings back lifetime subscriptions, plus gifting

I've been meaning to post this for the past few weeks, but TiVo finally brought back the lifetime service option:

through January 2nd, 2008 -- current TiVo owners can upgrade their Series2 to a Series3 or HD with lifetime, or simply upgrade the service on their current S3 / HD -- equipment aside, the service will set you back $399

They also added a way to give a lifetime service TiVo as a gift. The gift+lifetime option is great because one thing that has prevented me from giving anyone in my family a TiVo is that it means another $12-16 month payment for them. It makes for a very expensive gift, but it's a much better way to just give someone TiVo and not have to worry about how much extra cost it will entail for them down the road. [thanks Jon!]

November 30, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (6)

TiVo finally comes to Canada

After years of waiting, it looks like TiVo is finally coming to Canada. There is also an official TiVo mini-site about Canada.

This has been a long time coming with reports going back over two years that this was "coming soon" following almost four years of hacking together some solutions for home-spun guide data.

It looks like the offering isn't HD, just the standard dual-tuner 80 hour box but after many years of waiting, at least it's better than nothing. (thanks, Iain!)

November 26, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

Washington State students offered cheap TiVo in dorms

This is a pretty cool story out of Washington State. As part of the campus housing TV services, students will have the opportunity to buy a dual tuner 80hr Series 2 TiVo plus a full year of service for only $125. That's almost half the cost of the same box and service contract directly from tivo.com.

It's a bit of an extravagance for college, but back when I was in college I remember everyone would rush home for Simpsons and Seinfeld and having something like a TiVo would have been incredibly convenient for watching on my own free time (it'd also be a great way to procrastinate before a test).

November 16, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

TiVo 9.2 Release and initial reactions

Getting video off a TiVo onto my mac has been a long time coming. It was promised as long as three years ago and when the Series 3 TiVo was released last year, transfers were disabled by default -- but all that changed today.

Yesterday I signed up for a priority download spot for the 9.2 OS and today I got the update. It adds external storage, multi-room viewing, and (finally) TiVoToGo downloading.

(screenshots and my first transfer details after the jump)

I immediately tried it out with Toast 8 ($99 download) on my mac and downloaded the smallest file I could (a ~500Mb 30 minute cartoon). It transfered in about ten minutes and played ok in the special video player. After fumbling around in Toast, I eventually figured out how to initiate an export and conversion to an iPod/iPhone friendly format, but the program died. Roxio's support forums are filled with similar tales. An unfortunate beginning but all was not lost.

(screenshots of Roxio's transfer and video playback)

Thankfully, the open source TiVoDecode Manager (free!) is still around and works just fine with the Series3 TiVo video format. I was able to connect and transfer the same video in about the same time, with the resulting file being a standard mpeg file.

It's nice that the transfered video was completely stripped of DRM, since it meant I could move the video to any other device I wanted. Also, it exports at the native size, whereas TiVo's official Roxio export limits video to a low quality maximum of 320x240. It'll take another conversion using something like VisualHub to get it on my iPhone, but it's nice to know there's a free option available (that produces higher quality output, to boot).

Overall, I'm happy I can finally get shows off my Series 3 TiVo and I can't wait to load up my laptop and iPhone with video the next time I take a long flight somewhere. The official Roxio route still seems to have some bumps but the free TiVoDecode Manager works just fine if you want to use the feature immediately. TiVoDecode also lets you save $99, which is an added plus (just burn DVDs on a mac using iDVD and the raw mpeg files).

October 25, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (11)

TiVo coming to Australia

The official TiVo.com.au site is now up, with a scheduled rollout next summer, just in time for the 2008 Olympics.

It seems it will be based on the TiVo HD platform and for some reason, the 30 second skip hack will not function on the Australian TiVos. Hopefully that's a feature that never goes away, as I've grown completely dependent on it in the last couple years. [thanks, Matthew!]

October 23, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (2)

External TiVo hard drives now available

Good news: the reported TiVo OS upgrade capability to add external storage is now a reality.

TiVo began selling the Western Digital 500Gb external drives for TiVo HD and Series 3 TiVo DVRs. [via uncrate]

October 23, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (4)

TiVo enables external storage for Series3

Dave Zatz is reporting another software update has been released for TiVo Series 3 boxes that finally enables official eSATA external storage.

For the past six months or so, there's been a hack to enable it, but it looks like it's finally going to be official.

October 16, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (4)

DivX's Apple TV, but smarter

Nice preview of DivX’s set top box, which really could be an AppleTV killer (720p output, plays DivX, streams video from networked PCs) especially if they can bring the price down to a reported $99. They've also announced an open plugin/API for the device.

October 16, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

NBC leaving iTunes, hitching to Amazon's wagon

  For the past few weeks, stories have been circulating about NBC pulling out of iTunes. There were claims that NBC wanted to price their shows higher and take a much bigger cut. Their deal was set to expire this December, but they gave notice last week that it would end early.

Everyone's been speculating on what would happen next -- if NBC would launch its own store or if they'd go with another technology. Looks like the answer is Amazon's Unbox for NBC. They've just announced this Fall's shows will all be at Amazon. Starting September 10th, they'll even be offering free preview downloads of Bionic Woman, a new series set to debut.

Personally, when looking at my iTunes store history on buying TV shows, I pick up quite a number of NBC stuff I didn't get a chance to see live last season. Though I can buy shows through Unbox and watch them on my TiVo (as opposed to my AppleTV), since Amazon released Unbox, I've only watched two movies. The picture quality was fairly low so in the future I could only see myself using Unbox again when there was no other option to get a show.

Logically, it seems like a step back for NBC's distribution levels, if you compared the numbers of every video-playing iPod (tens of millions?) and AppleTV sold, compared with the number of TiVos out there (a couple million standalones?). If I was going to sit at a computer and watch TV, I'd just watch it off NBC's own site, but when it comes to buying video for portable devices or my living room, I'm guessing NBC just reduced their reach. Then again, I'm sure Amazon isn't in the position that iTunes was in bargaining-wise, so NBC probably got the bigger chunk they wanted of the pie.

update: Gruber points out that the DRM on NBC shows just got much more restrictive.

September 4, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (7)

Beyond TV 4.7 Beta adds iPhone support

Over on the Snapstream blog, they announced Beyond TV 4.7 Beta. If you're a PC user with an iPhone or iPod, this sounds like a pretty nice way to automatically pull down your recorded shows to your handheld device each night.

iPhone owners with a Mac can continue to use EyeTV to pull down analog cable or OTA TV, and automate moving new shows to your device.

If I still had a 90 minute daily train commute, I would be all over these devices. Catching up on the previous night's shows each day would almost make going to work fun.

September 3, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (3)

Wild rumor: DirecTV reps claiming TiVo coming to DirecTV DVRs

A friend of mine also named Matt recently canceled his cable and went with DirecTV. During the signup process he said two reps claimed TiVo software was coming to DirecTV boxes in a couple months.

I asked Matt for clarification on exactly what the DirecTV reps said and he told me this:

...they were both very convincing. The second guy even said "I have the paperwork on my desk right now." I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I'd be very surprised if DirecTV could work out a deal like this without anyone finding out (I have a feeling these same reps would be on various forums like tivocommunity leaking it), so I'm going to classify this as a wild rumor that is likely untrue, but with about a 1% chance of happening. Would the TiVo software run on HR20's? The upcoming HR21 Pro?

My guess is these DirecTV reps have been half-reading Engadget for the past year and crossed up the stories of TiVo releasing a OS updated to older Series 2 DirecTiVo combo boxes with the Comcast testing TiVo OS on their own boxes story.

Still, it'd make things interesting if it were true and since it came from a friend I trust, I'm posting it here.

September 2, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (19)

HD TiVo and some cable system incompatibilities

A few people have emailed me asking why their HD TiVo doesn't work with their Time Warner cable system in some parts of the country and Lauren Weinstein has a lengthy explanation about Switched Digital Video and why it is incompatible with current one-way CableCARDs.

There's also a helpful follow-up post on steps the cable industry is taking to ensure customers on their systems can still use CableCARD devices like HD TiVo (with a USB dongle).

August 26, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (2)

TiVo Desktop 2.5 released

Dave Zatz has the scoop on TiVo Desktop 2.5. The big news is that it will transcode DivX and XviD on the fly, making your TiVo basically a nice video player that's connected to your TV. Most video you find online (like TV episodes or movies) is in those formats that previously you had to convert. Now you can simply stream them to your television thanks to the new TiVo desktop.

August 8, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (4)

TiVo HD (series 3 lite)

Looks like the Series 3 lite version is official, dubbed TiVo HD. The "buy now" link currently goes to an error page, but I suspect any day now that will be a live order form.

The specifications are up and it sounds like it has a 160Gb hard drive instead of the full Series 3's 250Gb drive and the FAQ answers just about every other question imaginable.

It's good to see a cheaper dual-tuner HD recorder come out of TiVo and I think it'll sell way better than the Series 3 did, but as I've said before, it confuses their product line to have two products of similar capabilities at vastly different pricing.

July 23, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (12)

Amazon Unbox now directly on TiVo

This is good news, you can now access Amazon Unbox directly from your couch and buy/rent movies using your TiVo remote. You have to set a PIN here, and enter that PIN whenever you purchase anything. Of course, you will have to wait anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour before your entire movie gets downloaded, but it sure beats running to a computer anytime you're thinking of wanting to download something to your TV. Not even the AppleTV allows for direct purchases and downloads from the couch.

Screenshots after the jump

July 10, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (13)

GPL 3.0 released with anti-TiVo provisions

Today marks the release of GPL version 3.0, the first update to the free software license in 15 years. The GPL is the license Linux operating systems are released under and focuses on freely available code you can modify. Every TiVo has been built on a basic Linux kernel but the new version of the license may be at odds with how TiVo uses Linux.

The new version of the GPL includes a provision to prevent "TiVoization" which means you can download TiVo's open source code and modify at will, but you can't run it on your TiVo due to security keys and digital rights software.

Back in April, TiVo filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission warning that the upcoming GPL v3 could harm their business. With the new version out today, it's still too early to tell if TiVo can continue releasing their software under the v2.0 license or if they will be forced to move to the new version and provide a way for developers to circumvent any security or copy-protection limits.

June 29, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

Widescreen YouTube on AppleTV!

Last month Apple anounced YouTube for Apple TV, and it was released on Wednesday. I downloaded the update and played with it a bit and I quickly realized there was a definite lack of quantity of available video. There was some speculation last month that not everything would be playable or converted to H.264 versions required for AppleTV, but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason why some videos are available in AppleTV and most aren't.

You can sign in and view your listed of videos marked as favorites, but of the 30 I had previously marked, only 3 were available to play. I went to my computer and marked off another 10, and only 3 more were playable. I did some searches and found usually only 5 or less results for stuff that normally returns 50 or more results.

But the biggest surprise was seeing widescreen video properly handled in the YouTube player on AppleTV. One of my biggest peeves with viewing YouTube on my computer is that anything ripped from a HDTV (16:9 widescreen) source gets smushed into the default player's 4:3 aspect. I was hoping YouTube would someday make their flash player adjust to original source size.

If you do a search for "rodrigo y gabriella" (they're a cool acoustic guitar duo that mix classical and rock techniques) in AppleTV, you only get this one result of the 300+ you get in a computer browser search. But if you play it, it fills the screen of your HDTV with a fairly high quality version of their live set. The odd thing is on your computer, you'll get a vertically compressed version by default and even when shown full-screen.

So it appears the YouTube player for AppleTV only sees a minority of total available YouTube video right now, but of those available, the AppleTV player properly handles aspect ratio accordingly, playing both standard and widescreen aspect ratios. That's something even the browser-based player can't seem to handle.

June 21, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (7)

YouTube Coming to Apple TV

Wow, big announcement from Apple: YouTube Coming to Apple TV, New 160Gb model for $399.

I've loved my AppleTV since I got it, especially since I upgraded the hard drive to 160Gb with a weaknees kit, but one thing that is missing is being able to access YouTube content on my TV. Currently about the only easy way is to use a Wii running Opera, but that's far from convenient. It looks like Apple's struck a deal with Google to provide an easy interface to YouTube. Hopefully they allow stuff like logging into the service, so I can easily fetch playlists and my favorites to watch on my TV.

It's great to see them offering a 160Gb drive (though it'll certainly kill the upgrade drive market). The original 40Gb drive was simply too small for anything more than a few movies and half my music library. With the 160Gb drive, it's enough to cover all my music, all my movies, and every photograph I've taken for the past 5 years (and I have about 30Gb free to spare).

May 30, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (2)

American Idol and TiVo

The LA Times picked up on this week's finale show, which ran about 6-8 minutes long: TiVo users 'Idol's' big loser.

During the season, the show never went long but for the final episode, they were several minutes off, to the point at which when my TiVo was finished playing the show, they hadn't even gotten to the drumroll and final verdict yet. Luckily, I was only about 15 minutes behind the present time, and I could shift over to the Live TV buffer and see the ending.

In the future, always remember to pad your live recordings by at least ten minutes (big sports games, I add one hour, oscars I add 2 hours extra).

May 24, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (8)

Series 3 TiVo External Drive Upgrade FAQ

Engadget and the TiVoCommunity recently broke news that it was possible to use the eSATA slot on Series 3 TiVos, letting you easily upgrade to more storage space. The TiVoCommunity has a great, detailed FAQ on the process that highlights everything you'd ever want to know about the process.

If anyone has tried the eSATA upgrade, let us know how it worked for you, and any drawbacks?

May 7, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (2)

SlingPlayer for Mac v1.0

The long awaited SlingPlayer for Mac 1.0 version finally came out a few days back. It's the first slingplayer that feels like a real mac app, with a much nicer and easier to use interface than previous versions. I used a few of the late betas for the past month or so without any problems, so if you've got a mac and a slingbox be sure to download the update.

May 3, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (1)

AppleTV Upgrade Kits from Weaknees

One of the first AppleTV hacks to surface was a hard drive upgrade. With the tiny 40Gb drive, I quickly ran out of space and considered doing it myself. A 160Gb drive from newegg.com runs about $100-120 and it looks like it'd take a few hours to do it yourself. I've been looking for an upgrade kit and was pleased to see that Weaknees, the TiVo upgrade people, are selling a pre-formatted 160Gb drive for $199 that is a drop-in install.

I placed an order for one this morning and I'll share some photos of the install and my experiences with it sometime next week. It'll be nice to have room for instant access to every photo I've taken in the past five years, every song, movie, TV show, and podcast I've downloaded.

April 13, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (3)

TiVo Amazon Unbox service launched

Megazone has the scoop on the long-anticipated Amazon Unbox/TiVo service.

For launch day, they offer about 1,300 movies and shows, with shows going for $1.99/episode and movies going for either "rental" prices of around $3.99 or "buy" prices at $7.97 and above (I see a recent film at $14.99).

They have a FAQ and it mentions that stuff you "buy" is always stored at Amazon and you can re-download whenever you want, but I don't see a definition of how long a "rental" window lasts (I see it is only 24 hours on the purchase pages). Additionally, there's a really bizarre "Pay-TV Blackout Window" where stuff you bought and viewed before can't be re-downloaded for a short time when it is playing on Pay Per View. That one is really weird, considering no sane person would re-buy the same movie they already purchased at Amazon months before.

To get started, you need an amazon account, broadband-connected Series 2 or 3 TiVo, and after you link up the two accounts, you'll get a free $15 credit towards purchases.

I bought an episode of Studio 60 and the Borat movie to test it out. In about an hour, I should have both on my Now Playing list, and I'll check them out today and make a follow-up post about the video quality and experience. This looks pretty cool so far and I love that new movies on the day they are released to DVD will be available via Unbox. No more trips to the video store! (thanks Megazone).

March 7, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (26)

New TV community: Couchville

The folks behind Snapstream posted a teaser about their new service Couchville. It looks like a pretty cool guide that also ties into the community of existing BeyondTV owners, by showing you what's currently popular (last item on the tour).

My favorite thing is the Google Maps style dragging interface. Click on the screenshot below to see a short movie of me using the draggable interface.

March 4, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of things

Hacking Netflix has a cool idea using Yahoo Pipes, Netflix, and a PVR. Using your Netflix queue RSS feeds, it would be cool if movies being shown on cable could be recorded automatically from your Netflix queue, and removed afterwards so you don't have to rent them. The author mentions Yahoo pipes, a nice RSS mashup tool, but it's not totally necessary.

It's not currently possible, but it certainly seems doable, and something I'd use if it showed up on my TiVo.

The other thing worth sharing is "Beware the HDMI Scammers". It's about the proliferation of overpriced HDMI cables. A couple years ago, you could find a decent length of HDMI at many electronics places for maybe $50. Now, you'll often see them carrying prices of up to $300. I've heard that places like BestBuy carry cables that start at over $100. Even Radio Shack isn't immune to the greed -- my local store's cheapest cable was $69.

HDMI cables are all pretty much the same, it being a digital connection and all. You can find perfectly good cables in the $5-$20 range online at lots of places. Don't get snookered into overpriced cables the next time you buy a TV. Hold off and order them online for much less.

February 20, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

DVR owners don't always fast forward

Today's New York Times carried an article about DVR fast forwarding containing numbers that surprised even me:

It turns out that a lot of people with digital video recorders are not fast-forwarding and time-shifting as much as advertisers feared. According to new data released yesterday by the Nielsen Company, people who own digital video recorders, or DVRs, still watch, on average, two-thirds of the ads.

Only 1/3 of DVR owners skip the ads? Are there a lot of DVR owners that don't know how to use the remote?

Digging deeper into the article, the 1/3 number is actually an average across all TV viewing by DVR owners, including an interesting stat: average DVR owners watch 50% of their TV live. When you take out the live TV numbers, the 1/3 that skip ads jumps to 60 percent which still feels low.

They don't mention if the owner pool is strictly TiVo, strictly cable-company DVRs, or a mixture of both, but I would bet that among DVR owners that paid for their hardware (like TiVo owners), the number that watch commercials is lower than average. If someone loves TV (and/or hates ads) enough that they plunk down $300+ dollars for a TiVo box, chances are, they're not going to waste their investment watching ads, whereas I bet most people with cable company DVRs are watching a lot of live TV, and might not get the hang of the remote/UI provided with generic TV recorders.

Personally, I might watch 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 commercials that go by, if something catches my eye, and I've found that friends and family with DVRs follow similar patterns, so these Neilsen numbers published in the NYT today seem a bit optimistic.

February 16, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (14)

TiVo, Amazon offer video downloads

Wow, looks like the long-running "Amazon Unbox downloads on your TiVo" rumor is true. The LA Times is reporting an unspecified number of TiVo customers will start testing the service Wednesday.

It's perfect timing, with the AppleTV/iTunes store integration coming out this month and Wal-Mart launching movie downloads today. A lot more people have TiVos already and are likely to be Amazon users, so this seems like a natural fit. No word on video quality, file size, or download times, but I hope to see this rolled out to all TiVo customers soon. [thanks wendell!]

update: here's TiVo's official site for it.

February 6, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (2)

NetFlix streaming now available?

I decided to poke around my Netflix account today, wondering if the beta program for NetFlix streaming video had been extended to more members. Lo and behold, as soon as I arrived on the Your Account page, I saw the small screenshot above (here is a full sized shot). I asked a couple Netflix-using friends to try their own account page as well and they saw it too.

After clicking on the link, you'll arrive at a page leading you through the streaming video process as found on the Hacking Netflix blog:

Once you've clicked the button there, you'll have the "Watch Now" tab on your Netflix nav, and if you've got Windows/IE (or Parallels running XP on an Intel Mac), you'll be asked to download a Netflix app and upgrade your Windows Media DRM. Titles listed at Netflix under the Watch Now tab will have a "Play" button where the "Add to Queue" button usually is.

The selection of streaming video is fairly odd. It's mostly second-run films, outsider documentaries, and lots of old stuff from the 80s. It's probably a pilot program that studios agreed to test with lower demand stuff. Here's a shot of Bring It On 2 playing on my browser:

The video quality is so-so, a bit better than stuff you'd see at YouTube, but obviously pixelated if you chose to view full screen and even at the default size it's got compression artifacts (I'm on a 8Mbit connection so I should be getting fairly high quality streams). I watched a standup comedy movie I didn't know existed from a comedian I love and it wasn't so bad. I had the window running in the corner of my desktop and I listened to jokes and glanced at it while doing other stuff.

I would definitely prefer to watch movies on my TV with increased output quality but it was kind of cool to watch something instantly and maybe sample a movie before I throw it in the rental pile.

February 1, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (11)

NetFlix launches streaming video

There has been loads of speculation for the past 2-3 years over Netflix, and the future of movie delivery. Sending movies over the wire instead of using mail delivery was never a question of if, but when. Well, after much speculation and wondering if they'd launch set top boxes, partner with TiVo, or offer downloads to your computer, it looks like Netflix launched a  "Watch Now" option to select users.

Instead of downloads or even the ability to stream to your living room, it looks like Netflix embraced the culture of Youtube and simply tossed movies into a flash browser interface. The upside is that it should work on most browsers and platforms (no need for windows-only DRM) It's Windows/IE only, and the downside is you'll have to watch films on your laptop instead of your living room TV.

The Hacking Netflix blog also has a video demo of the feature in action.

January 16, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (10)

TiVo's new site

In the previous post, Josh noticed that the URL of the new TiVo site shown at CES is live:

http://www-qa.tivo.com/

The site looks very simple and streamlined, spending most of the space explaining and selling TiVo to potential new customers. The current site feels like a mish-mash of hundreds of pages all speaking to different audiences, but the new site looks like a manageable amount of information (maybe 20-25 pages?) that steer you towards buying one which should be the focus of a company site.

All the current owner information is behind the "My TiVo" login in the upper right, so there aren't any missing features. Overall, I really like it and think it's a huge improvement.

January 10, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

Apple announces iTV as AppleTV, out in Feb.

Last month, someone emailed me something that I posted here, claiming an Apple/TiVo relationship. It got picked up widely, but today at Macworld, Steve Jobs announced "AppleTV" formally without mentioning TiVo.

I never mentioned a second email I got from "the insider" which was basically "Apple is going to take over and own Pay-Per-View on your TV with this device." Seeing the device today, with a hard drive and storage for five downloaded 720p movies and music/movie streaming capabilities from five other computers, I tend to think that second prediction is right on. Ever since iTunes started offering movies, the next logical step was how to get it on your TV instead of your computer (I use a Denon iPod dock that transmits video and works well). With iTV, Apple finally gets your media into your living room. Here are the specs on it:

• usb2, ethernet, wifi (802.11 b, g, and n), HDMI and component
• 40Gb hard drive
• up to 720p video from iTunes
• auto sync content from 1 PC
• stream content from 5 additional PCs
• Use itunes to sync movies from Mac to iTV - place what movies you want on iTV's local store
• Does Video, Pictures, and Music
• $299

It's supposed to be on sale today and shipping next month after the keynote is over (store will be inundated for a few hours I bet). I'm gonna pick one up today if I can and post a full review next month after I've had it for a week or so.

January 9, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (14)

Loads of TiVo news from CES

TiVo announced a handful of long-awaited and interesting things today at CES. They are:

• TiVoToGo Mac client, finally! Dave Zatz has screenshots.
• Real and TiVo announced Rhapsody for music on TiVos.
• Comcast/TiVo partner device shown on the floor.

Remember that TiVoToGo was announced three years ago, and launched exactly two years ago. There has been talk of a Mac client for all of those two years, so it's great that the day is finally here, though it does come in the form of a $100 DVD-burning application and not a free download from TiVo. Also, remember it still will only work with Series 2 TiVos.

I'm happy to hear about Rhapsody's unlimited subscription streaming music service coming to TiVo. I always wondered why XM or Sirrius never partnered with TiVo but Rhapsody is a good fit (and no additional hardware needed). For people into music on Windows and Zunes and such, this will probably be a good option for streaming music on their home theater system, though I doubt it brings many customers to sign up with Rhapsody.

On the TiVo/Comcast front, I'm intrigued and can't wait to see what the device looks like and can do. These days, Comcast subscribers face the question of their $5/month buggy HD DVR versus an extraordinarily expensive Series 3 TiVo box. If Comcast releases some form of the TiVo OS to their DVR lineup, I can't imagine too many Series 3 TiVos will be sold. Of course, having TiVo shift to being a software company that relies on licensing deals is the way to go, especially since the many millions of Comcast customers would dwarf the current TiVo subscriber numbers. Making software for cable companies has to be a lot easier than building hardware and having to support millions of boxes in people's homes.

Overall, I'm glad to see TiVo moving forward with a lot of long-talked about stuff and still being able to surprise me as well.

January 8, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (14)

The SlingCatcher

Dave Zatz just broke news of the SlingCatcher by the Slingbox folks. It sounds like a great little device, acting as both an extender/client of your Slingbox media and also a bridge between internet content and your Slingbox network.

I'm setting up exercise equipment in a spare bedroom right now and assumed I'd need to use a laptop to watch any Slingbox accessible shows while working out, but now with a product like this, it looks like I could use it and a TV instead. Double bonus for the YouTube-to-TV feature as well, something I've wanted for ages.

January 6, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (0)

CES and Macworld: watch the announcements online

Every January, I look forward to both Macworld in San Francisco and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. I've been to both, and they're exhausting to try and cover by yourself (especially CES, which covers miles of convention space). Thankfully, major blogs have stepped up with teams of people covering all the big announcements next week. Expect to hear tons of news about new devices, products, and models from all the major electronics companies.

Of course, I'll be watching Apple closely to hear if the iTV and iPhone rumors are true, and I look forward to any big announcements from TiVo. Though a lot of TiVo CES debuts have taken months/years to actually reach the market, it's always good to see where TiVo is going in the future.

Your best bet for non-stop coverage is going to be as always Engadget and Gizmodo. On the TiVo front, Megazone from TiVoLovers has gone to the past two CES events and I'm sure will have specialized TiVo coverage there. CES coverage should start tomorrow and Macworld's big day is Tuesday morning, Pacific.

January 5, 2007 in News | Permalink | Comments (2)

Get a Series3 TiVo for only $510.98

TiVoLovers is reporting that Dell has a promotion on their products that lets you get a Series3 TiVo for only $510.98 after rebates and discounts. $500ish seems like the price the S3 should have been.

Also worth noting: I tossed up a review of the Weaknees upgrade drive for the Series 3 TiVo. Weaknees sent me a 750Gb drive a few weeks ago and I've been happily enjoying it ever since. Of course it is an expensive add-on to a fairly expensive product, but it does triple your capacity.

December 21, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wild rumor: Apple & TiVo partner for iTV

I'm going to disclaim this upfront as a wild rumor that just landed in my inbox. I'd wager it's got about a 25% chance of being true but hey, I'd love to be wrong on it and see what launches next month at Macworld SF. Here's the rumor:

Apple will be licensing TiVo patented technology for iTV. Also, the name iTV has changed to Mac Media Capsule

I tried to find some shred of evidence this could be true. I took a look at pending Apple and TiVo patents and there's only one patent application owned by Apple that mentions TiVo, and it's in relation to buying a whole TV season at the iTunes store. Last summer TiVo was hiring Mac programmers, but I figured that was just for TiVo Desktop support. I couldn't find anything concrete.

Again, this is a crazy rumor with nothing to back it up and I'd be really surprised if any Apple device recorded TV, much less running the TiVo OS on it, but damn, if this is true, I would love to own such a device.

I do have to say the entire iTV concept as previously described is a little thin. People won't pay a couple hundred bucks just to have a device that plays iTunes Store purchases on their TV -- it has to do other stuff, but will it be TiVo recording TV for you? In that teeny form factor? I guess we'll know when Macworld happens in San Francisco on January 9, 2007.

December 5, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (27)

TiVo ads at the end of programs

Today TiVo announced "Program Placement" or ads inserted at the end of a recorded program when you are deleting the program.

Overall, it sounds less annoying than other ideas floated about ad inserts, since it's in a little-used section of a single TiVo menu. I haven't seen it yet, but hopefully the ad instance doesn't interfere with the ability to delete a show, because if "Show Me More Info About $Advertiser was the default highlighted option, I could see it being a big problem. If it's the bottom option to read more about something or just a banner graphic above the choices to delete, it'll probably be easy to ignore.

Anyone got any screenshots of this in action?

November 28, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (6)

YouTube ups CBS ratings

Lost Remote has a press release from CBS reporting favorably on their YouTube experiment. CBS uploaded 300 clips that were seen by almost 30 million viewers (mostly clips from Letterman), but they also saw a spike in TV viewership, especially on Letterman.

This is a brilliant move by CBS and it's great that they're embracing the viral nature of online video instead of blocking it like a lot of other networks. I haven't watched a Letterman episode in a couple years but I've seen 3 or 4 clips listed in their top 15 watched YouTube videos.

It's win-win. People that don't follow CBS shows can catch the stuff they missed (that everyone is talking about). CBS gets a bump in ratings because those very best bits of their shows do a terrific job promoting CBS shows.

Hopefully ABC, FOX, Comedy Central, and other networks wise up to the positive aspects of YouTube like CBS did and embrace the service.

November 24, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

BeyondTV 4.5 released

Looks like the Snapstream folks have released BeyondTV 4.5, which adds DVD burning as the main new feature.

There's a nice looking screenshot tour of the new app, which looks pretty dang slick. If you've got an extra PC and a basic cable outlet in the wall, this might be just the thing to simply record TV on the cheap without having to pay monthly fees.

November 17, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (0)

Big TiVo news for Tuesday

Thanks to a leaked embargo, you read about TiVo's Tuesday announcements include downloading internet video, sending your own video to other TiVo boxes (friends only, I would assume), and the downloading of CBS shows. There's no mention of mac support, so I assume there won't be any when they launch new versions of the TiVo desktop app.

The first feature sounds like a nice transcoder add-on for the desktop software, which is useful and cool if you just want to show people some funny and/or interesting video without everyone having to crowd around your computer monitor. The second feature is the most interesting: being able to send video to other TiVo boxes (which sounds a lot like ReplayTV's feature from eons ago). I'm sure there will be limits on what you can send and who you can send it to, but it'd be really cool if someone setup a sharing community so if you forgot to tape something, another TiVo user could send the episode to you. [via ZatzNotFunny]

November 13, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (3)

Xbox 360 offering HD movie downloads soon

The New York Times carries official word that November 22 is the day Microsoft will launch a HD movie download store for the xbox 360. I've heard rumors about this for the last month or so but I thought that the HD-DVD pack for the xbox 360 would derail any downloadable movie store. It's pretty impressive to hear they'll be offering them in high definition, as that's likely to push download times into the several hours instead of the 10-20 min it takes to get a low-res show from the iTunes store. The downside is that movie DRM will require that you watch the movie within 24 hours, but TV shows should last longer.

I'm surprised to see Microsoft beat Apple, Netflix, TiVo, Sony, and Amazon to the TV-integrated movie store. It'll be interesting to see how well it works out for Microsoft.

update: Engadget has screenshots of the Movie service in action.

November 6, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (4)

Gizmodo: How is TiVo Doing After Launching Series 3?

Gizmodo asks a pretty good question today: How is TiVo Doing After Launching Series 3?.

What follows are some fairly dire predictions based on TiVo's stock price and analyst musings. Personally, I think TiVo is doing about the same as it always was, but I'm definitely seeing them become a software provider for cable company DVRs, in addition to their own products. I suppose they could always use their patents to bash competitors and stay afloat, though I hope they don't go too far down that path.

It'd be interesting if Google or Yahoo or Apple bought TiVo and they didn't have to sweat their profitability any longer. If they got scooped up, I bet we'd see a lot of new ideas again as they'd be free of the business constraints.

October 30, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (4)

New word of the day: TiNo

Word of the Day: TiNo (first coined here).

TiNo v. To not watch a TV show saved on a TiVo or other personal video recorder. —n. An unwatched show saved on a TiVo or other PVR. [Blend of TiVo and no.]

The number of suggested recordings on my TiVo right now is about 120 shows, almost all of which will be TiNo'd.

October 25, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (0)

TiVo Series3 sale at $680

Dave Zatz noticed the TiVo Community Forum's new store is selling the s3 for $680. Still a high price (it'd be nice if the Series 3 was in the $300-500 range), but better than the price you'd find anywhere else.

October 24, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (1)

TiVo Series3 DRM glitches in the wild

Ouch: Cnet has an incredible story about DRM blocking HBO and Universal HD programs from playback, seemingly due to some bad digital rights flagging. This kind of thing should never happen to a customer, especially one just trying to watch some TV. Hopefully JVC and TiVo release a fix soon.

It's a shame that studios are so freaked out about piracy of digital content that they have to foist these "features" on end users, which in the end do little but aggravate owners trying to legitimately use their products.

October 11, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (11)

EFF: Who Killed TiVoToGo?

Over on the tivocommunity.com forums, there's been a lot of chatter about how and why TiVoToGo was disabled in the new Series 3 box. Everyone seemed to be pointing fingers at Cablelabs, TiVo, and the Hollywood studios. The EFF just published a short paper called EFF: Who Killed TiVoToGo? that looks into the issue. The most choice bit:

CableLabs has yet to permit TiVo to implement TiVoToGo in the CableCARD-compatible Series 3 HD. TiVo must first create a set of restrictions that satisfies CableLabs, and, if it cannot, the feature will remain extinct. Hollywood has openly wanted to rein in TiVoToGo, and any revived version will be more limited than its predecessor. Again, if Hollywood and cable companies had originally obtained such a veto power over the DVR itself, TiVo might never have been born.

The EFF has been beating this anti-DRM drum for years but it certainly looks like their fears of digital TV being locked down with DRM and hindering innovation is coming true.

October 3, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

Will Tivo box the Amazon Unbox?

Interesting news/rumor from TechCrunch: Will Tivo box the Amazon Unbox?

Although Amazon's Unbox has already caught some heat for the lame DRM behind it, I have to say I think it'd be a great fit if this turns out to be true. Two years ago, Netflix and TiVo were going to work together but eventually that idea died. Also, Apple entered the fray by announcing the iTV player to come out next spring and Amazon could beat Apple to the punch by using the already-installed hardware of TiVo boxes nationwide.

I'm a big fan of watching stuff on the couch. Currently I run a hacked xbox wired to a plasma TV and I frequently use usenet and bittorrent to grab missed TV shows. I have it completely automated to where I just click a single download link and about ten minutes later I can enjoy it in the living room. Video quality varies but is usually pretty good but I do wish HDTV were possible (and that my xbox had hdmi out).

I don't just download ripped TV shows, I also pay for video downloads. I've got a video ipod and I buy a lot of shows from the iTunes Music Store to enjoy on planes, trains, and automobiles. It is kind of frustrating when you come home and want to finish a show on your TV and instead you have to use a computer.

I'll likely buy an iTV when it comes out, but given Amazon's endless inventory and my already existing TiVo sitting in my living room, I'd go that route as well if it meant quick access to any movie or DVD in their inventory.

September 22, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (13)

Pogue Loves TiVo

David Pogue's amusing video love letter to the new Tivo. Here's his full review in today's New York Times.

September 21, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (6)

Adventures in CableCards

The first thing you learn after you get a new Series 3 TiVo is that soon after unpacking the box, your next major hurdle is getting two CableCards from your cable provider so you can get all your HD and pay channels directly from the TiVo.

The TiVo Community boards have loads of threads on the (mis)adventures of getting customer support reps and techs to understand what a CableCard is and how to get one. I'm a Comcast customer trying to get one and I've really enjoyed the official Comcast CableCard Thread.

If you read a few pages of it, you'll find a small number of people are able to pick up CableCards from their local office, plug them in, and call Comcast to instantly activate them, while everyone else is being told only cable technicians can do it. Some are saying only one card was delivered, and lots are finding out there are many bad CableCards on hand. Then there is the pricing. Cruise through a few pages and you'll find people hearing everything from $15/month/card to both cards being free. Installations are running from $75 to $17 to free as well. People are calling Comcast's 1-800 number several times and getting several different prices.

For the record, here's my experience so far:

• Called toll-free Comcast national number, was told two CableCards were free, but it'd be $17 for an installer to come to my house next week, with no chance of picking up cards locally. I'm turning in my Motorola HD DVR and saving $10/mo on my bill as well.
• Went into my local Comcast office today, asked if they had CableCards to give out and they said no, only techs are authorized to do it. I said I'd heard of other offices handing them out, and having the customers just call into Comcast to activate and the person behind the counter said "only techs have the clearance to do such a thing."

It sounds like a lot of people in the Seattle area are able to walk in and get perfectly working CableCards. On the whole, Comcast is being weird about this -- it's not rocket science and shouldn't require a tech to install (even those sound way more complicated than they should be).

Here are the main takeaways everyone should keep in mind:

• You should NOT be paying for CableCards, per FCC mandate or just nominal fees (see comments). Comcast should give you two cards for free. If they are insisting on $6.95 monthly fees, hang up and try another Comcast support rep.
• Almost everyone is requiring a tech to come out to install them, even if it only takes five minutes to slide a card in and call a phone number. If you are forced to go this route, don't pay more than the minimum $17 for the visit.
• TiVo's site has everything you need to know about installing CableCards on this page. Remember "If you see error 161-4 during installation, you can ignore it. If you see Error 161-2, it means that the card is damaged and needs to be replaced." Also keep the CableCard install notes handy for the tech that visits.

Anyone here have experiences getting a CableCard from their provider for the Series 3?

September 20, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (32)

Series 3 TiVos not shipping?

I ordered a Series 3 TiVo off tivo.com Tuesday morning fully expecting to get it by Friday. It said it would ship in a day or two, and I had overnight shipping. Thursday night, I got an email saying there was "excessive demand" and it would definitely ship Friday (and they'd waive the shipping charges) and I should expect an email. Friday came and went, and there's no email.

Turns out, lots of other people have had the same experience. Gear Live has a good wrap-up of TiVoCommunity threads and an HDbeat editor had the same experience I did. It's looking like no one that ordered online has gotten their new TiVo yet.

It's great to see TiVo have such demand for a high-end product, but I'm shocked at how poorly it is being handled. Everything in business is about managing customer expectations. From the outset, the expectation was set at 1-2 day for shipment and even as the orders poured in, you'd think a dynamic website could be programmed to shift that as the day wore on. Apple is a company that deals with high demand online sales and they're fantastic about estimating when something will be in your hands.

I would have skipped the TiVo.com route and bought one at my local BestBuy, but when I called them last weekend, they said they were only getting a couple units 1-2 weeks later. I'm really surprised to hear the TiVo.com online orders can't be canceled, as that seems borderline illegal for an unshipped unit.

I'm hopeful TiVo turns this all around next week. With all the people calling customer service, they must have gotten the message that they have thousands of disgruntled superfans on their hands, so I'd like to see an honest, accurate email Monday letting me know when I could really expect a unit. I'm glad I didn't schedule any cablecard installers yet, but I did buy a TiVo wireless g adapter from Amazon that is sitting here unused.

September 16, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (15)

Tons of news this week

While away at a conference this week, I noticed loads of new announcements worth talking about:

• Apple's iTV set top box. Apple finally announces a TV product -- one that can be used to easily stream their higher resolution video from iTunes to your living room. This reminds me of my current living room setup, where I have a xbox running xbox media center, and I download missed TV shows to a shared video directory on the network which streams to my set. iTV feels like the same experience, only people don't have to muck with networking, bittorrent, and other geeky things required.
• ABC offering free downloads of last year's major shows from iTunes. It is a great way to catch up and gain new viewers, and it'll run out when they hit a million downloads which could have happened already given the uptake of iTunes.
• NBC will be offering free streams of this year's major new shows from their own site. ABC's plan seems to be bringing in new viewers based on past shows, where NBC looks to be doing the same thing only using current and new shows. This is great and a handy way to catch all the newest shows you might miss.
• There's a new release of Democracy, the streaming/downloading video client. Nice to see this continue to evolve, it's both a bittorrent downloader and player, hooking you up with tons of free video out of the box.

September 15, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (6)

Series 3 TiVo on sale

Finally, the day I've been waiting almost two years for has arrived: TiVo is selling their HD-ready CableCard ready DVR. At the moment, they're selling with no rebate and no incentives, at $799. The pre-paid monthly plans don't save much money unless you do the 3 year plan, which saves you about $150 in fees.

Considering I pay Comcast $10 a month for a crappy box, I don't mind paying for the TiVo service on top of the price, but hopefully in a few months they'll bring the prices down below $500 with incentives and rebates.

Since I've been waiting forever for the box and keep losing recordings on my Motorola box, I splurged. I'll post a full review after I've had it a few days:

September 12, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (24)

Series 3 TiVo at Circuit City, available in October

Someone in the comments (from Circuit City) said the Series 3 boxes are just hitting warehouses this week, while Dave Zatz showed a screenshot from Circuit City's site.

I continued poking around the Circuit City site and found their shopping catalog has a page with the Series 3 marked with "Available in October". Screenshot:

Hopefully they'll be a bit early so I can enjoy the new fall shows on it, but October as a fallback works too.

September 11, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (6)

Ad to TV industry: Series 3 Coming Soon

Reader Ryan sent me a scan of this ad from TiVo (click for full-sized):

This ad ran in a television/advertising trade magazine that I happen to subscribe to, Television Week (September 4, 2006)

September 6, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (13)

Comcast adding ads to their HD DVR menus

The Chad sent me this screenshot a couple days back, showing banner ads on the DVR guide from Comcast:

Looks like people are noticing it in other places as well. I can't say I'm surprised, as I remember having a AT&T cable box in 2000 that used to be covered in TV Guide ads on both the guide section and when displaying show information. Still, seems silly to do this to owners, years after they've been using the guide free (not to mention there's already a $9.95 monthly rental fee for the box).

Did I mention I can't wait until I get rid of this box and buy a Series 3 TiVo? Please TiVo, release it before the Fall season really gets started! [thanks Chad and Chris]

August 31, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (35)

Wild rumor: Series 3 TiVo out on September 13th?

I noticed this comment on an old post here and this other comment HD Beat claiming that TiVo will announce the Series 3 formally on 9/12 and have it for sale the next day. Both are unsupported rumors that I'd rate up there with year 2000 doomsday predictions, but I'm posting these pointers because I really hope it is true.

I can't find anything solid to back up these claims. I've tried every nook and cranny of the TiVo site... about the only thing linking 9/13 to anything is a speaking appearance by a TiVo exec in NYC, but that's for a mobile media talk, nothing about HD or technology releases.

So, mysterious anonymous commentors, got any goods to back up the claims of 9/12-9/13 Series 3 launches?

August 27, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (16)

TiVo launches Series 3 mailing list

It's not hardware, but it's a start: TiVo has a mailing list sign-up page for the Series 3 TiVo which is still described as "coming soon". I'm sure they'll use the list to communicate launch dates or any snags they're finding along the way. [thanks Wendell]

August 24, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (0)

Built to order MythTV available

MythTV is an open source home theater application that runs under linux, but for many new to linux and building your own PC, installing and configuring it can be a daunting task.

The Monolith Media Center is a small footprint PC pre-loaded with MythTV, Ubuntu linux, and a TV tuner card, ready to go for $650. It'll even do over-the-air HDTV with a $275 upgrade card.

August 17, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (3)

Tivo House Party

TiVo just launched a new marketing thing called the Tivo House Party. It sounds like a Pampered Chef/Tupperware party kind of thing where you hold an open house in your neighborhood so everyone can see how great TiVo is. They promise special programming and other offers, but it's unclear what kind of shows would be a good test for first-time TiVo users.

House Party makes it easy: Sign up by giving us your email address and we'll send you an application. If you're chosen, you'll get to host a party for your friends and family, featuring something fun and free! Your free personal party website at www.houseparty.com will give you all the tools you need to send and manage invites, view and upload great photos and video, read and post blogs, and get inside info and exclusive offers.

The site also talks about a boatload of web features that promise to mimic evite, flickr, and myspace with invites, photos, and blog posts about the house party night. It's still kind of unclear what someone's incentive would be to host one -- perhaps the host gets a bunch of TiVo Rewards kickbacks?

August 16, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (3)

Hacking the AT&T U-Verse DVR

Fiber optic networks are slowly taking root in the US, with Verizon's FiOS and AT&T's U-Verse providing internet, phone, and HDTV over fiber to the home. The U-Verse system has only rolled out in San Antonio, Texas so far, but some customers have already figured out how to extend the system.

It seems when AT&T offers multi-room packages, they only provide one DVR, but they will give you additional (identical) boxes with the DVR functionality removed. It only took a couple weeks before someone popped open the back of a unit to see the internal differences between the DVR and the set-top-box w/o DVR.

Turns out they simply unplugged the hard drive sitting in the case, and you can quickly and easily plug it in to gain additonal DVRs on your home system. It's so simple it's almost comical that AT&T did this. [thanks frank!]

August 15, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (5)

Jeff's Quick Guide to TV on the Net

Wow. If you ever wanted to watch some TV on your computer, Jeff Pulver's Quick Guide to TV on the Net has all the options covered. They're not all full streaming live broadcasts, but there are 80 options listed for TV show and network video clips available online.

July 31, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (0)

Does a DVR Boost Viewing Hours or Not?

Everyone that is thinking of getting a TiVo or another DVR device often asks me if I watch more or less TV in the end. I've never had a good answer: at first I watched much less TV since I was only catching the 2 or 3 shows I really liked, but after a few years I ended up with 50+ season passes to stuff I loved and I probably watch more than I did pre-TiVo.

The New York Times has a tidbit on recent research that showed the heaviest watchers of TV tended to not have a DVR. The article mentions the findings conflict with a small test CBS did last year that showed DVR owners watched more TV.

If you check out Mediamark Research's press release on the study, you'll see that they focused on broader demographics type stuff and "23% less likely to be heavy TV viewers" is mentioned near the end.

I think I'd agree with the CBS executives on this one. The wording of the study findings sounds suspect. They are only looking at the top 20% of TV viewers, people watching 44.5 hours or more of TV in a week. That's more than an 8 hour-a-day job and definitely someone outside the norms of TV watching. I would be much more interested in the other 80%, the people that have normal lives and watch 15-20 hours of TV a week. Even if there was no significant difference between DVR owners and non-owners at that level of weekly TV viewing, it'd still be noteworthy considering they interviewed 26,000 people for the study.

It sounds weird to make a blanket statement like DVR owners watch less TV when you're only comparing people at the edge of the bell curve.

July 30, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (10)

Time Warner and the upcoming Tivo Series 3

Strange news from ConsumerFury.com: Time Warner Cable blocking customers from using upcoming Tivo Series 3!.

I would attribute this most likely to an uninformed tech or customer service drone. They're most likely only familiar with cable cards in TV slots and I could understand them saying they won't install or help you with your Series 3 TiVo but the bit about not allowing them to access their network is kind of crazy. Also, does Time Warner do HD cable in Raleigh, NC?

I'll put this in the unconfirmed rumor pile for now, but it will be interesting to see how cable companies react to sudden requests for Cable cards and the return of set top boxes. I can't imagine they'll be happy about the lost revenue.

Update: looks like this has been resolved and was pretty much what I suspected: customer service reps unfamiliar with the upcoming TiVos making claims they shouldn't have.

July 25, 2006 in News | Permalink | Comments (26)

TiVo Confirms Series3 Testing, Hitting Retail “Soon”

Dave Zatz has the scoop on FCC filings by TiVo revealing that testing is currently underway for the Series 3 box, and that they should hit retail outlets "soon".

I wouldn't be so quick to run down to Best Buy just yet though, as the HD Cablecard TiVo is a new concept that will have to see lots of testing on different systems and under different configurations. I wouldn't want to drop several hundred bucks (a guess) on a new Series 3 box and have the HDMI port go bad like the DirecTV HD TiVos often had at the launch.

Still, I can't wait to see it and will do everything I can to be the first in line to get one and replace my buggy motorola box.

July 19, 2006 in News | Permalink</