Major New TiVo Service Offerings

Jeff The Riffer writes "At the Consumer Electronics Show today, Mike Ramsay of TiVo announced three major new product offerings to come in the next year. First off there's the DVD Recorders, HD DVR, and Home Networked Enabled Products. TiVo/DVD Recorder boxes have been out for a bit now but looks like the offerings will continue and there's going to be new units by Pioneer. Second we have TivoToGo, where TiVo users with Home Media Option will be able to transfer files off their TiVo onto their PC and either play them locally or burn them to DVD. And finally there's XM Radio for TiVo."

Comments

I may be ignorant

[Saven Marek]

> And finally there's XM Radio for TiVo."

Is there a Tivo like device for normal FM or AM radio? I enjoy a few programmes on radio but not too many, and it would be a benefit to record these simply.

I guess I could use my PC for it but it would be more convenient to have a Tivo like option

mac desktops, dare to be nude

Re:I may be ignorant

[fyonn]

talking about UK tivo's, are we due to see any more tivo's in the UK. I've got a thompson tivo as do half a dizen people I know but they aren't available any mroe and I've heard nothing about newer models with new features. sure there is sky+ but I've heard that it's not very good and of course, you've got to pay for sky which I don't want.

I'd love to see a new uk spec tivo with dual freeview tuners (maybe even three), bigger HD's, ethernet port, rendevous support (tivo claim to support it) and lots of new features.

does anyone know what tivo's plans as regards the UK are?

almost everyone I know who owns a tivo, owns one because they've seen how great mine is. I know they didn't sell that well in the UK but i think that was a marketting problem rather than the market not wanting it. I guess it's just a hard product to advertise. people need to use them to find out ho amazing they are.

dave

HD signal

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not up on the current situation, but isn't the whole point of HD being undercut by broadcasters taking advantage of digital broadcasting to cramm 6 channels into the space of one, thus delivering a very inferior image. I notice this on my non-HD DISHnetwork system, especially in fast motion scenes. The quality is more consistant than what I got over antenae (and a lot more channels), but heavy compression makes the images far more blurry than DVD on the same TV. It makes me worry HD sets won't solve anything except make DVD viewing better.

So, when they say HD-PVR, what kind of compression are we talking about?

Re:HD signal

[pyser]

I work for a CBS-owned TV station. Last spring we broadcast the NCAA basketball tournament, and on several evenings we carried four games simultaneously in standard-def on our DTV channel. We were one of the few stations in the country that had the equipment and expertise to pull it off. You'll be seeing more of that sort of thing in the near future, because it's possible to make more money selling ads on 4 program streams than on one (hidef) stream.

Interesting

[A1an Cox]

TiVo's software and subscription service is at the heart of its digital video recorders, which can store television shows on a hard drive and pause live broadcasts. The company has been facing competition from Sonicblue's ReplayTV set-top box, Microsoft's UltimateTV service for satellite networks and other developing DVR technologies.

However, the announcements at CES should help to distinguish TiVo from rivals while also planting the company in the middle of another new trend: creating a hub for home entertainment. Earlier at CES, start-up Moxi Digital announced its software platform that will enable set-top boxes to become a hub of this sort. And software giant Microsoft announced similar plans Monday.

TiVo's plans are not as ambitious because they don't include making content available throughout the home. But that's partly by design. The company's new idea involves a push toward a more comprehensive product, something analysts have said TiVo lacked.

How about a new anti-NBC feature

[bwalling]

NBC has found a nifty way to defeat Tivo - they change their shows to run from 8:00 to 8:31 (preventing you from recording an 8:30 show on another channel) or from 9:59 to 11:00 (preventing you from recording a 9:00 to 10:00 show on another channel). They debuted this on Thursday nights, but it has moved across their lineup now. Basically, I just watch less of NBC now, but if other channels start doing this, the Tivo won't work well unless I just record from one channel per night.

I'd love an update from Tivo that would allow me to side step this by setting a recording to start one minute late. Currently, you can have it start early and end late, but you can't make it start late, therefore it just won't record the program unless you do it manually.

Re:How about a new anti-NBC feature

[whyde]

Ted Turner originated this idea back when TBS started broadcasting the starts of every show at 5 minutes past the hour. The thinking was that during most network content's first commercial break, people flipped around. TBS was the only network which showed the beginning of a new show during that window of opportunity.

And, it also made it difficult to get back away from TBS since at the end of a show, you have just missed the beginnings of all other network's programs because you wanted to watch the end of the TBS program.

Leaving TiVo

[maroberts]

I have a TiVo but suspect that I will be discontinuing with their service sometime this year. Its not because I dislike my TiVo either; its given good service, but the times they are a changin'

The reason I'm migrating is because I suspect that MythTv and similar Open source projects may offer me the same functionality just for the cost of my net connection

TivoToGo?

[ptomblin]

There are already third party applications that let you take TiVo "streams" and watch them on your PC or burn them to DVD - I'm on the verge of buying a TiVoNet card for this very purpose. Does anybody know if this new service is going to make TiVo lock out those free applications?

Perhaps a new method for advertisment supported TV

[ZombieEngineer]

I am probably going to be branded a troll for this but...

A lot of TV programs are supported by advertisments (no brainer), the other option is a hideously high (relatively) subscription cost for an advert free video stream. With the latest developments with video recording it forces a change in the business model for the media industry.

If we assume that adverts are required to support our favourite programs (a necessary evil), is there a way to have our recording devices to select our prefered category of advertising?, eg: we prefer to see adds for tech gadgets over medical products over personal injury lawyers.

The selection of the order for the adverts could be done using a statistical method (show four random categories, ask the user to chose the most prefered and least prefered advert categories, repeat 20 times).

This will result in better product placement to people who are willing to consider your product. Hence a 25 year old will never see a Fixodent (denture glue) advert because his recorder will steer away from those adverts, the current alternative is the advert is simply totally ignored by the viewer and does nothing but increase the resentment of adverts.

ZombieEngineer

Re:XM Radio stream ripping

[TellarHK]

The thing with the XM PCR device is that there's never a digital stream of audio going through the USB port it uses for a connection to the computer. What the XM PCR does, is simply connect to the PC for control purposes then does output using a standard headphone jack. You wouldn't need to do anything special in the slightest to get the PCR to record songs on the PC, just copy the stream info tags (which are unfortunately limited to 16 characters, at least on my SkyFi unit) and start capturing a line-in.

However, the stream is a compressed one from orbit, so you might wind up with a not-so-pure recording when you encode it again for playback on a device.

Re:Early Take

[AKnightCowboy]

Well, a very rare first take. I was wondering about Tivo's Subscription service vs. The others. I know I believe, And they are here. I suspect Google and Tivo to crush the competion like nothing ever seen before.

How quaint. TiVo is trying to finally do stuff to catch up to MythTV. Until they come out with a software update that removes the DRM entirely I won't be buying one though. What I record and how I archive my recordings is my business, not TiVo's. I support products that don't restrict your access to your recordings.

It's perfectly legal

[Ath]

There is a legal concept called "fair use". Just as your can use a VCR to record your favorite tv show, you have the same right to do this with radio. The US Supreme Court has continually reinforced this right of individuals over copyright restrictions.

The problem is that the media companies want to 1) put barriers up to prevent this fair use and 2) create an atmosphere where people actually believe it is illegal and that there is no fair use right.

It looks like they are succeeding for the average user. For the rest of us, the media companies can go screw themselves. I will copy my DVDs for backup, strip the encryption off so I can watch them under non-authorized media players and refuse to purchase any medium where these things aren't possible.

What pisses me off ...

[ubrgeek]

... is that, if I read the PR release correctly, the HD version is only for DirectTV. Tivo promised us one last year (in fact the promise may have been made at last year's CES, as I seem to recall it happening in January 2003) but never delivered. I can't take advantage of the (meager) HDTV offering Comcast sells because the Tivo can't capture HDTV broadcasts.

Fun technology but

[3lb4rt0]

with the low quality content of broadcast media why buy one?

I'll just stick to my home cinema and dvd collection for now.

TiVo viability?

[skidoo2]

NOTE: This is not intended to be a troll or a TiVo slam! I'm sincerely interested in /. opinion.

There are two clear (and in my opinion superior) alternatives to TiVo currently creeping into TiVo's market share:

1. In the less-features-but-easier-to-use department, cable companies (such as mine) are offering a service they're calling "TV On Demand." With my digital cable remote (and no phone connection, and no extra service charge) I can play many shows from the recent lineup at will. And pause them, rewind them, fast forward, etc. And of course my digital cable comes with a much faster, cleaner program guide user interface. Now the downside is that the guide is somewhat lacking in features, as compared to TiVo's offering. I can't search it and it doesn't have any intelligence for making suggestions or auto-scheduling.

2. Which brings me to the second alternative. I also have an ATI AIW 9600 Pro TV tuner card in a PC. This PC is hooked to my TV. I run myHTPC for the guide/scheduling/recording features, an ATI's new Easylook UI for actual TV viewing. The two work together seemlessly. This gives me *all* the features of TiVo (except season passes, big whoop), plus a whole lot more. And I don't pay a monthly service charge.

Which brings me to my question: isn't TiVo just a niche product that really should only be used by folks with an antenna feed or analog cable feed who don't have the savvy to set up a PC next to their TV? Isn't its current success due largely to clever marketing and a small window of market opportunity that they've now artificially prolonged? That is, I think there was an argument for TiVo back when it was introduced, but isn't that argument substantially weaker today?

Re:DirecTiVo

[cornfed]

Does anyone have any insight into whether or not DirecTV will finally change their policy on this?

I use DirecTV and have a series 1 TiVo, but it's a pain that all these great features are coming down the pike but none of them are available for the likes of me. All TiVo would need to do is partner with another sattelite provider or my local cable company and I would likely jump ship (just in case anyone from DirecTV is reading this).

We can already copy files, as well as stream them.

[AugstWest]

Check out TiVo-mplayer, and turn your TiVo into a media server for your entire lan...

With 802.11G, you can watch the stuff anywhere now. Pretty sweet.

Tivo Technology

[Pablo Deli]

When I bought my Tivo for direct tv, my wife said "why are you wasting your money on that crap, what's wrong with just watching tv?" Now, guess who uses it most of all? Tivo is the most incredible technology for those who watch tv. It records all of my favorite show so I don't have to interupt whatever I'm doing and I can watch TV when I choose. I can also fast forward through the commercials, which is what the networks REALLY hate. Gives me more time to work on my cartoon drawing: Comics