Slashdot Mirror
TiVo Home Media Rollout
ncstockguy writes "TiVo rolls out its new Home Media option next week. Subscribers with a Series2 DVR box can get some impressive new functions to their TiVos. They'll be able to screen digital photos on their TVs, listen to music stored on their computer hard drives on their home entertainment units, schedule to tape a show "remotely" through the Internet, and watch a recorded show in different rooms on different TVs. Some of the functions will require two or more computers connected either by WiFi or ethernet."
It's a little suprising how much your view of Television in general changes when you get a PVR. When I originally bought mine I thought it would be a nifty little gadget, now it's painful to go to someone's home that doesn't have one. I'd forgotten how obnoxious commercial's can be.
I hope they have some solid security built in with the Web Server, I would be devastated if someone hacked my Tivo and deleted all my scheduled recordings.
What do you mean Dragon Ball Z didn't record?!?!
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
IMO, Tivo now offers two services: the ability to find and record shows easily, and the ability to stream information stored on a PC to consumer electronics devices. This last bit will probably be quite useful for those with video clips (*cough*) stored on their PC.
Still, it's worth checking out the alternatives, especially PC-centric ones like ATI's All-In-Wonder cards. Competition is good.
It costs $99 just to unlock the software. You still have to buy a USB ethernet adaptor. And for the old-timers like me, you have to get a series 2 TiVo. (And pay for a new lifetime subscription)
All I wanted was to dump the crappy built-in modem that has died twice in 3 years and use my internet link to get the guide information.
Stuff like this makes me want a roll-your-own PVR. (Gratuitous MythTV link)
I would gladly buy your service if you included Ogg Vorbis support. Any hardware that is capable of decoding video can easily decode Vorbis as well. I am not about to re-encode my CD collection to an inferior proprietary format for this feature.
P.S. FLAC support would be great too, while you're at it.
For multiroom viewing, you need two tivos, both with active service AND home media option. That's a LOT of money for something that doesn't even seem all that well integrated: the "other" TiVo shows up as a single entry in the "now showing list". It would have been better if the lists of both units were consolidated. I don't really care which unit a show is stored on. What I would like is to be able to simply add another tivo, and have all of them work as a single multi-tuner unit. Now *that* would be nice...
That said I bet its only a few months until the protocol is broken (like replayTV) and you are able to stream movies to an unprotected client.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
You can turn Multi-Room Viewing off on any DVR. You decide which DVRs can share programming. Television programming is not under TiVo's control. Programming providers may restrict or limit the transfer of particular programs. TiVo does not guarantee access to or transfer of any particular program.
They're asking us to pay $100 per unit to let the content providers decide what shows we can transfer? I like how they blame "programming providers" for crippling their software.
My TiVo is a great toy, but it's looking like it's time for this company to die. First they fire RB, and now they snuggle up to the content industry? Screw them, it's time to cancel my subscription and start hacking my box. They had a chance to earn their subscription fee from me, but they blew it when they decided that they were going to give Hollywood control over my own equipment.
Time once again for my obligatory alarmism about TiVo's anti-privacy potential. Unless you opt out, your TiVo can send info about every button you've pushed on your remote back to the mother ship.
Because it can do this, I don't trust it not to do this, even if I have opted-out. And under the Civil Liberties Nullification Act, if TiVo can get this data, the gummint can get it, too.
I was young and impressionable when I read 1984, and I still don't like the idea of my TV watching me.
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
What's to stop everyone from registering under the same household address? Then we can all share our shows. All Tivo has to do is overlook the fact that a few thousand people with Series 2 Tivos live at my house. Seriously though, how are they controling which Tivos can share their digital media?
You can share between two TiVo Series2 DVRs? Well that would be nice, except...
So to do this you need:
-2 Series2 TiVos
-2 active accounts (for 2 that 25/month or 598 lifetime)
-and 2 Home media options (99 each!)
I can't believe that they require both Tivos to have both the active accounts and the media options. Does SonicBlue's ReplayTV require that double charging??
DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
Pardon the ignorance here but can any explain why these devices aren't being used as consumer video edit decks? With all the digital camcorders and the like out there seems like an obvious feature for such a device. Perhaps its in there. I don't see any info on it :(
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
I got an ethernet card from 9thtee a while back, it is great! I then got a program called "tivoweb" which lets me remotely record, and even search future listings with a REAL keyboard (I like to compare it to my NetFlix list every now and then and queue up movies on the TiVo that I don't care about all those DVD goodies).
;)
Then there is my e-mail on my TiVo with the shameless plug of tivo_mail that I found a while back and people seem to like it.
- RR
I should put something clever here. Maybe someday.
Remember when Apex came out (intentionally or not) with the DVD player that let you turn off Macrovision? Now Apex is a decent company (they make a tv with a built-in DVD player that has a pretty good picture; saw one running as a demo/kiosk at Home Depot, of all places) but before that device, no one knew who they were. As much as I love (my) Tivo, I'm willing to bet (and hoping!) that some little company who doesn't care about hollywood's feelings/DRM/etc will come out with some little box that does everything a tivo does and more--save shows as files, move them over a network, let you edit them, burn to CD or DVD, etc. The technology cannot be stopped. Same with MP3 players. For a while, no one wanted them to exist, then the Rio came out, now everyone from Apple to Sony makes them.
and yes, I know about homebrewed tivos, but they're still pricey, take luck to assemble, and have relatively clunky UIs. but that's the thing--just like everything else, they'll get smoother, cheaper, etc. and either people will start making them commonly and easily or someone will start OEMing them.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.