TiVo Will Stream Content From The Web

Patik writes "According to an article at the NY Times, 'new TiVo technology... will allow users to download movies and music from the Internet to the hard drive on their video recorder.' This is TiVo's next big push for subscribers after being dumped by DirecTV Tuesday. Blockbuster, Netflix, and Real are also looking into distributing feature-length movies over the web."

Comments

DirecTV

[The Only Druid]

Actually, Tivo wasn't 'dumped' by DirecTV. It was their stock in Tivo that they dropped (they had held 3.4 million shares).

This quote from the ArsTechnica article should elaborate:

"Though confirming the recent sale of TiVo stock for $24 million, DirecTV spokesman Bob Marsocci denied it indicates a change in the companies' relationship. "It's consistent with what we have done earlier this year in liquidating some of our portfolio of investments,'' Marsocci said. DirecTV sold its entire stake in XM Satellite Radio earlier this year."

As Ars mentions, this is certainly a bit of bad news for Tivo (and people like me, who love the extra features in DirecTivo units as compared to normal Tivos, and thus fear a full seperation...) but not as much of a 'drop' as this post implies.

Re:DirecTV

[The Only Druid]

There are basically two extra features:

1) DirecTivo units have two seperate tuners, so they can record two seperate shows simultaneously, while watching a third previously recorded show. Standalone Tivos have one tuner, so they can only record one show while watching a prerecorded show.
2) DirecTV broadcasts their content in an Mpeg2 stream (although not a completely standdard mpeg2, since they implemented their format before the mpeg2 standard was complete). The DirecTivo records this stream without recompression, whereas Standalone units re-compress whatever signal they receive. This means that the DirecTivo unit introduces zero loss of quality, so watching a recorded DirecTV show is the same thing as watching it live.

Re:DirecTV

[jgan123]

You say that DirecTV is not getting rid of Tivo, but you have to check out this article.
"Do we think that TiVo is dead? Not necessarily, but sometime in 2005, anyone who had a DirecTV/TiVo box may get a letter from News Corp. saying that they can continue paying for TiVo or get the NDS box for free,"

Re:DirecTV

[Zathrus]

Your quote comes from NDS, not from News Corp. NDS is a competitor to TiVo, so it's unsurprising that they would make such a statement. It also means that it has no relevance in reality.

The DirecTV/TiVo partnership extends until at least 2007. What happens after that is anybody's guess. But, yes, NDS could wind up being the solution after that time -- their largest shareholder is News Corp, the Sky+ boxes used by News Corp in the UK are based off NDS's XTV technology, and they're willing to license for less than TiVo (or so it appears at least; who knows what will happen by 2007 though).

I love TiVo (have two), but they've never managed to get their foot in the door when it comes to content distribution companies. DirecTV was the only one they succeeded with, and it's been their savior. If DirecTV dropped them, I question that TiVo would be able to continue independantly. The vast majority of their subscriber growth has been from DirecTV (which is good for DTV as well, since churn on DirecTiVo subscribers is 1/3 that of non-DirecTiVo subscribers)

Re:So where is Direct TV going with this?

[The Only Druid]

As I posted earlier, DirecTV is NOT dropping Tivo. All they did was to liquidate their shares, just as they did with their XM shares earlier in the year. DirecTivos are rapidly becoming the most popular option for new DirecTV customers, so I dont think they're going to drop Tivo without having a solidly established replacement.

5 Mb/s for DVD quality - WRONG!!!

[Danathar]

The article states that you need over 5 Mb/s to stream DVD quality video to consumers. Sure...if you are using Mpeg-2...

I've used the VideoLan player to stream a 3 Mb/s Xvid + 5.1 Surround AC3 stream with little or no buffering directly to my cable modem.

It works, and it's as good as DVD. Most cable modems are capable of at least 2.5 Mb/s. The only problem is network conjestion.

Two more extra features...

[CausticPuppy]

3) DirecTivo units record and playback Dolby Digital 5.1 content (though this relates to #2 that you mentioned-- because Tivo doesn't modify the original stream). DirecTivo units have optical digital output, standalones do not.

4) DirecTivo units are available that support HDTV. They are expensive, and they have 250GB drives, but there are no standalone high-definition Tivo units yet. Also, the HD DirecTivo units have FOUR tuners... two satellite, and two antenna inputs for local HD channels. I'm not sure if it's capable of recording on all 4 simultaneously-- that's a lot of hard drive bandwidth!

Re:Two more extra features...

[iceT]

I'm not sure if it's capable of recording on all 4 simultaneously--

No. You can use any two tuners simultaneously: two satellite, or 2 terrestrial, or one satellite and one terrestrial.

Re:Finally !

[evilviper]

Now, with that post scoring so low as to be below most people's filters, my first post just looks like its out of no where....

That is what the <blockquote> tag is for, genius...

As you can see from my post, it doesn't matter how far down yours gets modded, they will still read the blockquote at the top, and see exactly what I am repling to.

My Favorite TiVo code

[kallistiblue]

Make the Play bar disappear faster so you can read text on the screen.

This code take the format of "Select Play Select Something Select". These do not require backdoors to be enabled for them to work. The best way to do this type of code is to start playing a recorded program and do them while the recorded program is playing. They can be done from LiveTV as well, but people generally have a hard time getting them to work when trying to do that.

Select-Pause-Select-Pause-Select - Toggles the fast disappear of the Play bar. Appears to have no other major effect, but who knows.