TiVo to Go Released

SimCityHippy wrote to us with the news that TiVo has TiVo To Go. Right now, the To Go feature is supported only on Windows XP & Win2k; no word on whether the feature will be rolled out to OS X or WinME. It's also interesting to note that while they recommend Windows MP, VLC gets a nod as well.

Comments

Obligatory product bashing

[Monoman]

Now we get to hear from all the folks that say Tivo sucks and how Myth and ??? is better. If you haven't actually used a Tivo for a week then you probably can't say.

The same goes for me I guess becuase I haven't spent any time with Myth of whatever else is out there. I just know that my Tivo works and it is simple enough for my parents to use it.

Re:Obligatory product bashing

[Umrick]

Having both a Tivo Series 2 and a Myth TV box...

Out of the box, Tivo is much nicer. After pulling hair and much fighting, MythTV is a heck of a lot nicer. There was a lot of pain to get there though, definately not for the faint of heart.

The main thing I learned in the process is don't overcomplicate. A PVR-250 is a fine card to use, the PVR-350 is just more features to pull out hair over.

TV Listings are a pain though. I have Direcway satellite as nothing else is available. The satellite receiver does some strange proxying. Because of that, my MythTV TV listings must be fetched via a ssh tunnel to a tinyproxy box at the office, otherwise it just fails.

If you have time, and patience, the MythTV solution is much more satisfying, otherwise Tivo is probably a better bet.

In our house, both are used. When Tivo finally dies though, it'll be replaced by MythTV.

Re:Obligatory product bashing

[wizbit]

Same situation here - Series 2 TiVo and a nice orphaned Windows PC-turned-MythTV box give me some experience with both.

I find myself hardly using the TiVo these days. I've moved all the "season pass" show schedules over to the Myth box. Originally got going with Myth because it would let me play my assortment of DivX movie files and let me record/watch tv simultaneously with a second tuner card, and the level of control linux/myth give me is keeping me on it.

One oddity - the best way to share video in multiple rooms with myth seems to be to NFS a huge volume with your recorded video. I remember Tivo's multi-room viewing gave you a combined list of programs and, when requesting one from another Tivo unit, simply downloaded the program to the one requesting the video and played it when ready. It'd be nice if I had each frontend contribute storage to the other frontends without having to build a huge storage machine and worry about it frying one night and losing all my saved programs.

Anyway.

I agree that the 350 is more needless hair-pulling for most, but if you're setting up separate backend/frontend boxen, a 350 is a nice one-card solution for watching TV on a cheap-o linux machine. Then again, so is a motherboard with on-board TV-out and ethernet.

My main concern right now (and one of the reasons I've not dumped another grand into building a nicer backend machine and some frontends around the house) is Myth is currently only useful for analog cable. The HDTV cards out there can only receive OTA signals (unencrypted) and the future of cable TV seems to be cable company-provided receivers w/ PVR capability that aren't easily controlled from a PC. Sure, there's some work being done for the firewire ports on some of the newer receivers, and you can usually get an IRblaster going or something to control the unit, but, bye-bye multiple recordings to my backend, and so on.

Myth could use some polish (I still like the satisfying little beeps and blurps when I use the Tivo) but I'm surprised at how much it does already. KnoppMyth is making strides to lower the learning curve for new setups. DVD burning still takes some hard work, but it's getting easier, and MythDVD has built-in background ripping/transcoding. Cool add-ons like MythPhone and mfe are fun to play with and could become more useful soon. And the Hauppauge cards are just wonderful - kudos and much thanks to Chris Kennedy and the IvyTV community for supporting this hardware so diligently. I'll be a Myth user for a long time if I can get an acceptable HD solution working with it.

burning to dvd...

[mobiux]

I have a feeling that the burning to dvd option will be a big thing. Big as in a desired feature and as a big problem with the studios.

People pay big money for full seasons of thier favorite shows.

If anyone can just set their tivo, and spend 5 minutes a week burning it to dvd, the studios may take issues with that.

Re:burning to dvd...

[Wordsmith]

The fact that this is even a point of concern shows that we've been conditioned to accept new norms for IP.

Burning to DVD is a problem for the studios? Yes. They'll certainly fight for DRM or other limitations. But why should it be this way? For years and years everyone KNEW they had a right to videotape whatever they pleased for their own personal collections. Many fans of shows videotaped every episode, and kept a complete personal archive. In what way is it different to do this with a Tivo and DVD than it is with a videotape? Hell, leave out the middleman - there are plenty of DVD recorder decks now available for consumers, and they work more or less like VCRs.

But we've gotten to a point where we assume that just because the studios have found a business model, anything that rips into it is fair game for litigation. And the studios might win such litigation. And that's just sad.

Re:burning to dvd...

[Kjella]

But why should it be this way? For years and years everyone KNEW they had a right to videotape whatever they pleased for their own personal collections. Many fans of shows videotaped every episode, and kept a complete personal archive.

Knew as in "this is a legal right" or "we'll just do it anyway" as is the case with current P2P networks? I'm sure you're about to quote me Sony vs Universal (aka the Betamax case), but it found that time-shifting was a fair use. It did not explicitly deal with personal libraries, but one would be a temporary copy, the other permanent. That would be an additional factor weighing against fair use, and the Betamax case was a narrow (5-4) win to begin with. In addition, timeshifting was believed to increase the market by including people who could not see it at the original broadcast time, while it is clear that creating a personal library reduces the market for selling permanent copies.

Kjella

Re:What other products have this capability?

[grung0r]

ReplayTV supports transfers over the network via DVarchive. The old 5000 ReplayTV series can share over the network nativly.

Mac version on the way

[Audiophyle]

On the TiVoToGo FAQ:

Are TiVoToGo(TM) transfers available for Apple Macintosh computers? At this time TiVoToGo transfers are not available for Apple Macintosh computers. TiVo is working hard to enable TiVoToGo features available on TiVo Desktop for Mac. We are currently working on ways to enable playback on Apple Macintosh computers. We will let our customers know in our newsletter as soon as this feature is available.

the fine print (from tivo.com)

[DiscoRaj]

*Note: Not all shows may be eligible for transfer from your TiVo box to your computer. Programming providers may restrict or limit the ability to record, display, view or transfer any particular program using a variety of copy protection mechanisms.

Re:To go?

[Duvs]

TivoToGo is a feature that allows Tivo subscribers to transfer recorded content from their Tivo devices (Series2 only) to their PC/laptop for viewing and/or burning to DVD. At this time the transfer is only one-way (Tivo -> PC), there is not current ability to archive to PC, then put back on the Tivo for viewing later.

A couple of weeks??

[pikapp767]

According to http://www.tivoblog.com/ this update could take several weeks to be deployed. Hopefully it doesn't take that long.

Bah software rollout!!!!!

[da1duc]

From Tivo:

Please note: Due to the large number of customers who are eligible for this software release, it will take several weeks for you to receive the software after you put in your request. Your patience is appreciated. You can check that you have received the update by confirming that your DVR is reporting software version "7.1x" in your System Information screen. You will also receive a message on your TiVo box once the new software has been installed. For more information about using the TiVoToGo feature, visit www.tivo.com/togo and our Customer Support site. Thank you for using the TiVo Service! TiVo Customer Support

This should have been something they were rolling out a long time ago. Wish they had a way for us to find out when this was going to happen. I was just about to do my New Year's clean up on my Tivo. Duc