TiVo to Offer SDK

Thomas Hawk writes "TiVo has begun an effort to court third party developers to try and figure out a way to provide additional add on type services to somehow differentiate itself from the satellite and cable providers that are presently nipping at their heels. Initially the company plans to release three add ons: a weather information plug in, an RSS reader and a game. David Pogue of the New York Times is out with some of the features [NYT=Check soul at door] that at present already make TiVo a superior offering to the cable and satellite freebies. "

Comments

We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[richardoz]

I have to say that the Tivo wins the usability contest hands down. Even though the Cox box has the ability to record two channels at once, I prefer my Tivo.

The GUI is intuitive to operate - it took my wife no time to figure it out. As for the Cox box, well we haven't even figured out how to delete a show we are watching without fast forwarding to the end - to get the "special menu".

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[FredThompson]

Nothing prevents you from having more than one TiVo. DTiVos have 2 tuners and balance the ToDo list between them.

Yes, the UI is superior to all the competitors. Hack the box to get TivoWebPlus and JavaHMO on it and you're cooking.

RSS has been available for quite a while. Weather, sports stats, caller ID, stodck info and headlines have been available for a few years.

Some form of ToDo list killer based on matches from a list would be great. IOW, run the internal priority process then remove from the ToDo list those entries which match the list.

Parsing the song data from the music channels and pulling the album cover from allmusic or Amazon and putting that on the screen along with persistent album and song title would be nice instead of the stupid blackout.

Shoutcast support including serving across a LAN would be cool. Yeah, like the music mafia wouldn't have a cow over that one...

Theoretically, a web browser could be made but support would have to be for very limited formatting and no motion. Still, wouldn't it be cool to do overlays from IMDB while a movie is on?

JavaHMO has a tic-tac-toe implementation but the hardware isn't capable of sophisticated graphics. You could do nethack but that's about it.

IR keyboard support would be great, especially when searching by titles. That would also allow text-only adventure games. Heh, 20 years later and we go back to 40-column text adventure games.

PiP isn't really supported but maybe some kind of text IM with buddies as text overlay on the lower third of the screen would be possible. Would require keyboard support, though.

Well, OK, if we've come that far, blog overlay.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

Press stop to get the 'special menu', you can erase a show from there.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[hackstraw]

I have to say that the Tivo wins the usability contest hands down. Even though the Cox box has the ability to record two channels at once, I prefer my Tivo.

The GUI is intuitive to operate - it took my wife no time to figure it out. As for the Cox box, well we haven't even figured out how to delete a show we are watching without fast forwarding to the end - to get the "special menu".

I've never used a Tivo, but I recently got the Cox HDTV DVR and its usability is very impressive. At least for my DVR to get to the "special menu" when watching a recorded show I hit the stop button and it asks me what I want to do. The model I have is the dtc6208. My only complaint is that it seems to be "busy" sometimes and ignore commands from the remote, but seems to have disappeared recently. Also, its terribly annoying that you cannot map the volume on the remote to do something like adjust the volume. I have to switch the remote "mode" to audio, then tinker with the remote and then go back to the cable mode. Very annoying, especially since the DVR does not have any volume adjustment on it whatsoever.

You may be able to take your Cox box in and get a new one, its worth checking out.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[Lumpy]

unfortunately you are in the minority.

Rumor has it that a couple of larger cable companies are looking at starting a "trade-in" program on tivo's.

trade in your tivo and get 2 dual tuner HD dvr boxes for free as well as 3 months of free HD/extended premium tier service.

this will pretty much destroy the TiVo when it happens. I love my Replay box, but the dual tuner motorola DVR box records digital channels far better and easier than Tivo or Replay can ever hope to... The advantage of having the decoding and descrambling hardware in the box is huge. While the "cable card" ready tivo is years away.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold down the audio button for 5 to 10 seconds, like your gonna program it.

Press volume up.

Then whenever you press the volume button on remote, it will adjust the volume on the audio equipment.

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[tgibbs]

this will pretty much destroy the TiVo when it happens. I love my Replay box, but the dual tuner motorola DVR box records digital channels far better and easier than Tivo or Replay can ever hope to... The advantage of having the decoding and descrambling hardware in the box is huge. While the "cable card" ready tivo is years away.

The outboard cable TiVo is doomed. As superior as the software is, it cannot compete with dual tuner HD cable boxes that are now available in most markets for a few bucks extra on your cable bill.

Of course, DirecTV users are enjoying the best of both--dual tuner TiVos--even HD if you are willing to pay the stiff price for a HD TiVo DVR. Between DirecTV and the TiVo equipped DVD recorders, TiVo will probably be OK for a while. But even DirecTV is looking to move away from TiVo to their own DVR (even though they just released a new Tivo equipped model).

So the future of TiVo is probably the CableCard equipped systems. To compete feature-for-feature with cable boxes (so that users can send back their rented cable boxes and save on rental fees, making TiVo's own monthly fees more palatable), TiVo requires the CableCard 2.0 standard, which won't be ready until next year (assuming the cable companies don't manage to beg a delay).

However, once the CableCard standard comes in, Tivo has a good shot at moving in on the high end of the cable box market. Since cable box DVRs are rented, users have no financial commitment, and can potentially be wooed away by TiVo. The delay may even work to TiVo's benefit, because in a year or two TiVo should be able to offer a system considerably more attractive than the cable company DVRs, and cable companies are going to have a hard time keeping up, because everytime they roll out a hardware upgrade, existing customers are going to want to swap their boxes.

The real wild card is Apple--the one company with a reasonable shot of surpassing TiVo for software design. Jobs was talking a lot about HD in his last address. I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple spring a DVR equipped Mac as soon as the CableCard 2.0 standard is final.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[CaptDeuce]

Even though the Cox box has the ability to record two channels at once, I prefer my Tivo.

We have a Philips DSR6000 DirecTV Tivo receiver and it records two channels at once when connected to a dual channel dish. It also has a built in multiplexor which allows another DirecTV unit display one channel while the TiVo displays/records another.

The only thing it lacks (our unit, at least) is a second video output which would let us use PIP (picture-in-picture) capability of our TV; it has multiple connectors (coax, s-video, component) but only outputs one signal.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[gweedoz]

It is hard to appreciate the ease of use of a Tivo until you use it. I have had a Tivo for over a year and recently got a timewarner HD PVR (Explorer 8300HD). Tivo has a simple remote and VERY intuitive software. My 7 year old mastered it without any trouble. This "new" cable DVR, while it seems to be good hardware (HDMI, dual tuners, etc.) has the worst software I've seen. The remote has a button for every function, the majority of which don't do anything unless you are in a specific part of the menu system. There has been little thought of design and ease of use, rather it has simply put in the basics of recording. It is not that much better than a VCR.

The Tivo sets the standard for finding programs to record, recording them, prioritizing your recordings, setting up season passes, parental controls, channel listings, program information, innovative features (fast forward adjust) and on.

One could argue that the cable companies will catch up, but I don't think so. The cable boxes I've used recently behave no differently than they did when I had them over 5 years ago. They are still horrid ugly poorly thought out things.

I hope Tivo can get their cable card HD box out before the unwashed masses get sucked into the mediocrity of cable pvrs.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

this will pretty much destroy the TiVo when it happens.

I doubt it. I think you're underestimating just how much people love their TiVos. Sure, some people will switch, but by and large, TiVo customers are extremely loyal.

There's no way I would switch, even if I wanted to (which I don't). I have a wife and two daughters who would kill me.

(By the way, my oldest daughter has been able to find her shows on the TiVo all by herself since she was four years old, before she could even read. That's how good the UI is...)

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[wcrowe]

I've had a TiVo for over a year and recently got digital cable and the DVR from Cox. I have to say that TiVo has spoiled me. The Scientific Atlanta Explorer from Cox is laughably inferior. It can't handle "season passes" properly. Searching for shows takes forever; there is no searching by title and then displaying all upcoming episodes; no "wishlist" capability. If it is already in the middle of recording a show, you can't tell it to start playing the show from the beginning. It doesn't warn you if you have exceeded your capability -- it just stops recording shows. It is, in short, a piece of crap. It is like the Wal-Mart version of DVR's, and I predict in five years nobody will know what a TiVo was.
That is because Cox' cable modem does something that my TiVo cannot do -- it records digital channels. A lot of consumers who have never used a TiVo will probably think it's great, which is sad.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[DaveJay]

Well, if they were smart (they being Apple) they'd just buy TiVo.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[tgibbs]

Well, if they were smart (they being Apple) they'd just buy TiVo

I'm not sure what that really buys Apple, unless TiVo has patents critical to making a well-designed DVR. After all, Apple is fully capable of developing user-friendly software on their own. Apple's brand-name recognition is at least as good as Tivo's. And getting Tivo's current money-losing business hardly seems like a big plus. It's a new world when the CableCard standard comes in, anyway.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[acidream]

My series 2 directivo has two tuners and can record two channels at once. Very nice for conflicting schedules.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[Suidae]

It can't handle "season passes" properly.

Not having a Tivo, I don't really know what makes a 'season pass' special. If it could do something like transparently pull down episodes that I missed six weeks ago, it might be worth it.

The Cox DVR will record by series with several options (first run, reruns, on any channel, etc) Unfortunately its too stupid to know that the SciFi channel airs the good stuff twice, so I always get two of everthing.

Searching for shows takes forever; there is no searching by title and then displaying all upcoming episodes;

You must have had the old software. You can search by title and it will display all upcoming episodes. The search is a little popup keyboard that you use to type the name of the show. It does a partial text match so you rarely have to type more than a few characters. As you type it will grey letters on the keyboard if there are no further matches for the search term that would be created by appending that letter to the current search term. It works quite well.

no "wishlist" capability.

That would be nice. So would predictive capture (IE, compare what I've selected to record with what other people have selected and make suggestions based on similarities). Lots of options there, that would probably be third on my feature wishlist (after centralized recording (the equivalent of a 1000 channel decoder and unlimited HD space) and the ability to deliver shows to other TV's in my house (preferably on a standard cable channel so I don't need multiple boxes)).

If it is already in the middle of recording a show, you can't tell it to start playing the show from the beginning.

Hmm, can't remember doing that, but it does have a 'Play from beginning' option from the List menu. I'd be surprised if that wasn't available if it was already recording.

It doesn't warn you if you have exceeded your capbility -- it just stops recording shows.

Only if you have told it to never erase anything. Otherwise it starts recording over old stuff, also with no warning.

It needs better handling for marathons too. If someone plays 50 episodes of Flying Circus I'd like to only get about 4 of them before it starts ignoring them.

It is, in short, a piece of crap.

I'd call that overly harsh, its not crap, it just has lots of potential :)

The big attraction is that for about 15 bucks a month and no committment (ie, if I decide I don't want it I can take it back, no questions asked) I get a full HDTV digital cable recorder that works pretty well.

What I'm really waiting for is for the cable company to start recording every show they broadcast so that I can view them at any time without having previously selected to record them. They do this now with Stars, Showtime and (iirc) HBO. Its fantastic.

Next I want them to archive all aired episodes of every show, trim the commercials and let me pay a buck or two to watch each one (including recording and burning to CD if I so desire).

Finally, I want them to give me an application that runs on my computer that, when I'm on their cable modem network (or otherwise validated as a subscriber to their service), will allow me to do all of this directly from my computer.

I'd also be fine with whomever owns the rights to episodes doing something similar. I'd be happy to pay Paramount or whomever a few bucks to download any commercial-free episode of their shows from their servers, to play on my computer or to write to VCD/DVD to play on my TV.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[javaxman]

I'm not sure what that really buys Apple, unless TiVo has patents critical to making a well-designed DVR. After all, Apple is

Well, at least according to Tivo ( and several companies who have licensed Tivo patents ) they do have patents critical to making a well-designed DVR. But... IF Apple was looking to get in to the DVR space directly themselves ( they're not, IMHO ), they might just license rather than buy, huh?

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[wcrowe]

Not having a Tivo, I don't really know what makes a 'season pass' special.

The season pass gives the TiVo the capability to record a show whenever it airs. If the network changes the broadcast time, or airs another show on a different day and time, the TiVo will catch it. If the network airs the same show more than once, the TiVo will only record one airing. If two new shows are aired back to back, the TiVo will record them.

The Explorer supposedly has this capability, but it really just allows you to set up a day and time to record a show (much like a VCR). It doesn't appear to know what show is being recorded, because it sometimes records a different show that the network has substituted in the same time slot.

Another weakness is that your choices are to record only one episode, in one timeslot, or all of them in one timeslot, or all of them in all timeslots, never taking into account that two new episodes might sometimes be run back to back, or that a person might not need four copies of the same episode. Basically, it requires one to keep more "on top" of the TV lineup in order not to miss something. It seems like the cable company expects my life to revolve around TV, whereas TiVo allows me to watch the few shows I like, and glean out others that I might like, while freeing me from being a "vidiot".

The TiVo wishlist is a feature I frequently use. You can create a wishlist by pre-defined topics. For example: you could create a wishlist for "Sports-Fencing". Then every time a sports show featuring fencing was going to be aired, you would know about it. You can set up a wishlist for an actor. If you set one up for TOM HANKS, then every time a show, movie, whatever, with Tom Hanks in it came on, you would know about it. It helps you to zero in on the kinds of shows that YOU want to watch.

The short "user manual" (really just a few paragraphs) that came with my cable DVR was focused on pausing and recording shows that I was already watching. They seem to assume that I'm some sort of couch potato stuck in front of my TV all day long. Anything else I've learned about handling the DVR has been through trial and error. The interface is not very intuitive.

As I said, if you haven't had the pleasure of using a TiVo, you probably think the Cable company's DVR is great. Without a doubt, the cable DVR has technological advantages over TiVo. But I stand by my assessment that their interface is crap.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[wealthychef]

Yes, the UI is superior to all the competitors. Hack the box to get TivoWebPlus and JavaHMO on it and you're cooking.

TivoWebPlus is Not There Yet. They are working hard, but it really doesn't add much to the user experience. The delay in loading is extremely long, on a par with resorting the season passes, and there are important features missing, such as the ability to manually record by time and channel. The only win is that it is nice to use a keyboard instead of the remote control for the features it does support.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[brianosaurus]

Unfortunately he's not in the minority. The Tivo (and ReplayTV) interfaces are both fantastic, and much better than any other commercially available PVR I've seen.

The cable cos aren't be doing the trade-in because their boxes are *better* than Tivo. They're doing it because they want people paying them the extra $10 a month, instead of paying Tivo. They don't really care about the features, because they will be the default option.

They'll give away (well, lease) the boxes, while a Tivo will cost about $1000 for HD. Guess which one will ship more units. Its kind of anti-competitive, which is why they came up with "cable card". Of course none of my TVs or equipment accept cable cards, so that doesn't help me. How about you?

So even with the cable card protectecting them from being called anti-competitive, it still boils down to whether people will buy a $500 box, or take the free one.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[FredThompson]

I don't think I said TWP was hte end all, be all.

It doesn't let you create a season pass.

You seem confused about season passes. Modifying the ToDo list wrt priority as it relates to upcoming shows is a function inside the TiVo, not TWP. TWP gives you some really nice ways to sort the list. TWP gives you the ability to sort the list however you want then save it.

TWP also gives you the ability to save the season passes, wish lists, etc. and transfer that data to another box or back it up.

Viewing the contents of the box via a web browser instead of the TV screen is incredibly helpful when you've got large drives. TWP also shows the episode titles, TiVo's on-screen display doesn't do that.

TWP isn't a complete replacement for the remote control, it's a darn good complement, though.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[Suidae]

If the network airs the same show more than once, the TiVo will only record one airing.

This is the only part of season pass functionality that the Cox box doesn't do yet (Its commonly requested though, so I imagine it will be in the next software update).

You can create a wishlist by pre-defined topics.

This would be a nice feature. If the Cox DVR has it, I haven't discovered it.

As I said, if you haven't had the pleasure of using a TiVo, you probably think the Cable company's DVR is great.

Its far from great, but it works with my digital cable (yes, I could use some silly remote control setup to chain the cable box into the Tivo, but that won't let me use dual tuners), its got a very low entry cost, and the interface, while not fantastic, really isn't that bad. The worst part about the whole thing is the remote control that came with it. The 'Live' button is the same shape and right next to the fast forward button, so I frequently accidentally hit it when I want to jump past commercials. It remembers where I left off, so its only about three button presses to get back to where I was, but its still annoying. I also found that the IR codes that it uses are incompatible with my learning remote control, so I still have to drag around two remotes (unfortunately its hard to replace my learning remote because so few remotes support X10).

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

they dont care about the extra $10.00 a month.

they care about the people upgrading to more profit tier packages.

the "expanded or digital package" is pure fricking profit for them. the basic is the cutting it close option.

they want these people to subscribe to higher tiers. that is the reason.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[wcrowe]

I don't care for the remote either. I hope the interface improves, but taking into consideration the amount of space their pamplet gave to PIP (as opposed to operating the DVR), I'm thinking Cox has an idea of their customers' expectations that do not parallel mine.

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[brianosaurus]

I dunno. $10 is $10.

They've always been wanting people to upgrade to higher tier packages. This is something new for them, and another opportunity to extort^H^H^Hract more money from you.

A monthly PVR fee is absolutely, positively 100% profit for them. A PVR is not a service, its a device. Its a digital cable box with a hard drive and different software.

- they already send out a program guide with digital cable/satellite TV that gets parsed by the box (its especially obvious with sat boxes: program guides have the same info, but look different across different manufacturers' boxes), so nothing new here.

- all the PVR work is done inside your house by the set top box.

Once you have the box in your house and connected to the line, it has the capability to record shows off the cable without Comcast (or whoever) having to do anything at all.

The monthly fee doesn't "cover the costs" of anything to do with a PVR. They flip a bit that turns your box on, and they're done (again, something they already do with regular cable boxes). The only work they might have to do is flipping it back off if you stop paying. Nothing new here.

Tivo's monthly fee is understandable, because they have to generate and distribute their own guide. There are costs associated with that. They actually do something to earn your $10 (or whatever it is now).

The cableco's see people spending $10/month for "PVR service" with Tivo, and figure they can just do the same. They have no associated expenses, so its all profit for them.

Profit is profit. They're all about an extra $10/month, hoever they can get it, and however many times they can manage to pull it off.

TiVo with a game?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess... Pong?

Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[bigtallmofo]

Every technical person knows how great Tivo is, and further how open and extensible it is, etc. But that isn't what makes Tivo popular or successful. It's the average non-technical person that discovered Tivo and was willing to pay a fee per month to digitally record their shows. Now that cable and satellite is giving such a service away with no extra monthly fee, I'm afraid there's nothing Tivo can do to keep their customer base long-term.

The SDK and the gizmos that will come out of it will attract a small set of the user base... But that won't sustain the company unfortunately.

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[medication]

Actually, after RTFA, I disagree. I think the purpose of releasing a SDK is to foster new innovations. From the article:

The company is out to show that the TiVo service "is much more than about DVR," said Howard Look, vice president of application and user experience at TiVo. "All the great ideas don't have to come just from us."

The strategy isn't to address a small community of developers and techs, but rather to generate functionality that can be developed by the Tivo people and pushed to the larger/non-technical population.

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[millahtime]

Actually, after RTFA, I disagree. I think the purpose of releasing a SDK is to foster new innovations. From the article:

The company is out to show that the TiVo service "is much more than about DVR," said Howard Look, vice president of application and user experience at TiVo. "All the great ideas don't have to come just from us."

The strategy isn't to address a small community of developers and techs, but rather to generate functionality that can be developed by the Tivo people and pushed to the larger/non-technical population.

I highly doubt it. Popularity comes from making it easy to use and marketing/brand naming. Microsoft, AOL and others have shown that to the average joe six pack it's not about innovation.

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what provider you have that gives away PVR/DVR for free. Most cable companies I've seen usually charge up to $10/mo. extra for the service, as well as requiring you to jump up to their more expensive digital tiers etc.

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[crawling_chaos]

Popularity comes from making it easy to use and marketing/brand naming. Microsoft, AOL and others have shown that to the average joe six pack it's not about innovation.

I'm about to do something I never thought I would -- defend AOL. At the time the original AOL was released, it was innovative. Nobody else was packaging a bulletin board system that was as friendly or as feature laden. People started to get on to AOL who found Compuserve or the local BBS scene far too intimidating.

The Internet sort of drove a stake in to that model, and it can be argued that AOL hasn't done any innovation lately (except in the creative marketing and creative accounting fields), but the original product took off because it was something different from what was already out there. Isn't that innovation by definition?

TiVo seems to be in a similar boat. They've brought a technology to the masses that only the truly geeky could have had before. The real question is can TiVo find a way to add a feature that makes owning a TiVo and paying the service contract worthwhile? And before you say that there is nothing out there, remember that many analysts didn't think TiVo would make it this far, as everyone already owned a VCR to tape Friends.

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[Frequanaut]

Which cable companies give them away?

Definitely not Comcast. I believe it's an extra $15 a month.

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[pgudge]

UK Sky+ subscription is an extra £10/month unless you are paying top wack for their highest package (£41/month)

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[freemacmini]

"But that won't sustain the company unfortunately."

Open source the code
sell boxes and service ...
profit!!

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[NotoriousQ]

True. But if TiVo gets enough street cred, then you will hear comparisons between "TiVo" and the "stuff which came with the Cable". If that comparison is made by the general public, TiVo won.

For that to happen, TiVo needs to provide some cool features to keep the public impressed. Here they simply let the public do the product development, and when something good comes of it, they will support it, and sell it as a feature that "the thing that came with cable" will not have.

Which brings into their long term strategy of having all cable companies license the system in order to stay competitive with satellite, which comes with one.

PS. I am not a TiVo fanboy. I do not have one, and I have barely used one. All I know is that TiVo is less about restricting what can be done with recorded content than Comcast.

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[terrymr]

Thats about $77 in US Dollars .... the everything on it digital cable package here in the states is WAY more than that ... at least with Comcast anyway.

I miss sky TV

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[pgudge]

How many channels does that get you though? We now have about 20 channels with "+1 hour" programming, so if we miss the 10th repeat we can watch it repeated again in 1 hour. Is the US cable as bad?

I think this whole subject in general is getting too much talk, TiVo in the UK is a PVR and thats as far as it goes. The US TiVo's are obviously alot more than PVR's.

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[hondo77]

$10, at least where I live (Southern California).

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[brianosaurus]

Yup. Its about marketing the innovations.

I've had ReplayTV ever since it was available. I love it. I prefer it to the Tivo interface, but that's a personal preference, and others are plenty entitled to be wrong. ;)

A couple of years ago I got a DishPVR (dish networks), figuring the video quality would be better since it could save the mpeg stream from the satellite instead of going through another round of D->A A->D.

The DishPVR sucked. So bad. It was a glorified VCR with a hard drive instead of a tape. When you picked shows from the channel guide, it would set up time-based recordings, rather than show-based, so if a show moved it would end up recording whatever was put in its place.

Unfortunately , if I had never used a ReplayTV or a Tivo, I might have been impressed. I mean, it beats the hell out of a VCR, and if I was coming from VCR-land (like probably 99% of the potential market), it looks plenty innovative. And its practically free from your Cable or Sat company.

That's what Tivo is up against.

PS - as for your PS, Tivo is becoming more restrictive, perhaps just as restrictive. Thier Tivo-To-Go feature has been ripped to shreds in many articles. It supports the "HBO says you can only keep 'Six Feet Under' episodes for 2 weeks, even if you didn't watch it yet" flag, among other studio-driven annoyances.

Tivo is not alone; as mentioned in one of the articles, ReplayTV's commercial skip and Internet sharing features have been pulled from the latest boxes. Internet Sharing is fabulous if you miss the first episode of a new show.

And commercial skip was a Repetitive-Stress-Injury godsend; it saved me from having to press the "quickskip" button 4 times quickly when the show cut away. We've skipping through commercials on VCRs for 20 years, and all the networks are still around (and then some). I don't get it.

No, actually I do get it. Its the studios that don't get it.

I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[Zapdos]

Myth Check
Weather... Yes
News...... Yes
Games..... Yes

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[Mr Guy]

And while we're at it (To give them some more ideas)

Myth Check
DVD Playback - Yes
DVD Ripping - Yes
Picture Gallery - Yes
Music Jukebox - Yes
Easy web configuration - Yes

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[Naikrovek]

it must be exhausting to stay up on that high horse all the time...

i like my tivo. it cost less than a new pc and a new tuner card would cost, at least in the short term.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[FredThompson]

Why stop there?

Direct satellite signal recording
Myth NOPE!!!
TiVo Yes

DirecTV with TiVo receivers store the actual satellite signal, not a captured version of an analog signal. Most of what you credit to Myth is really a PC with a video out card. May as well claim Myth supports RAR, WMP, QT, Flash, etc. ad nauseum.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[krony]

And now:

Tivo Check
Picture Gallery - Yes
Music Jukebox - Yes
Easy web configuration - Yes

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[FredThompson]

Actually, let's build on the video-out idea.

hacked TiVos support Media Portal for XBox or PC. [url]http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/[/url]

I've got 3 DTiVos and a video-out PC in the same system. Combine them with Girder and a decent A/V receiver to get something really nice.

It's also possible to hack the Sony disc carousels to serve tystreams.

TiVo and TivoWeb (regular or Plus) offer remote access to almost all the onscreen commands. You can set recordings, delete recordings, change priorities for the autoscheduling, etc. from any web browser.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[dr_canak]

"Picture Gallery - Yes
Music Jukebox - Yes
Easy web configuration - Yes"

These are already available in the Series 2 Tivo's. I finally got around to getting a proper USB network adapter (a couple are officially supported, several are reported to work, but unfortunately most are still a no-go).

Anyway, it took 5 minutes to get my TIVO networked and start sharing photos and music files from one of my desktop p.c.s. Really nice actually, and with the TIVO wired through the home stereo, works quite nicely. There are other features I wish it had (like the ability to save and load pre-set song lists), but maybe that will come with time.

I did quite a bit of research into building my own PVR/Myth box, but it seemed that cost and time to set up just was too prohibitive, despite all the additional features that come with building you own. With Myth, my impression is that even the most tech savy have to put forth some effort to get the thing completly streamlined and working flawlessly. To TIVO's credit, it really is a very simple plug and play device. And aside from adding an additional harddrive, the cost of TIVO with the monthly fee is still quite a bit less than building a dedicated PVR/Myth box. And as another user pointed out, my wife who is not the most tech savy had Tivo figured out in no time. With the added benefit of remote programming from work, she's thrilled.

And on a somewhat related note, as a shareholder in Redhat, this is the kind of stuff where Linux is the future and gets me excited; writing custom apps for proprietary hardware. It just seems like there is so much potential there. I'm glad to see TIVO offer up an SDK to keep the features coming.

jeff

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[slashnutt]

Lets do the apples and apples thing.

The tivo machine you can get ~$100 after some rebates. Now lets add in a lifetime subscription fee of $300 and an upgraded drive that any PC user would have which is 160 gig for $100. Now we have apples to compare against a PC which make it a conservative $500 for the Tivo machine.

I just built a HTPC using a cheap MATX board for $50, got the hard drive $100, case $50 processor $150, memory 1gig $150, capture card $50. For a grand total of $500 and best yet this machine is the fastest in the house right now.

So you can't use cost as an issue of DIY. Just not wanting to do it is the only viable excuse.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[Anonymous Coward]

And for some of the new TiVo models:
DVD Playback - Yes
DVD Recording - Yes

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[adam_j_bradley]

SIP compliant Phone - Yes
Xbox client - Check
EPG - Urm, in Australia, not really - Maybe
Cable decoding (support for multiple channels - No

However, I use it as a front-end for my MythTV server - 2 x DVBT cards - and it works a treat. If only I can find a source for high/low tides in Australia so I know when to take the dog to the beach...

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[wowbagger]

Direct digital recording of Over the Air HDTV:

MythTV: Yes

Ignoring the Broadcast bit:

MythTV: Yes

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[IcEMaN252]

Most of what you credit to Myth is really a PC with a video out card.

And what do you think a TiVo is?

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[cooley]

Myth Check
DVD Playback - Yes
DVD Ripping - Yes
Picture Gallery - Yes
Music Jukebox - Yes
Easy web configuration - Yes

Skipping those damn commercials... Priceless.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[duncan7]

Tivo already has a Music Jukebox and Picture Gallery, as part of the (no-additonal-fee) HMO software. The configuration is not web-based, per se, but it is possible to schedule recordings via the web.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[ronaldb64]

I think the biggest factor that you leave out is that for the $400-500 (depending on whether you get the increased HD or not), the TiVo works out of the box, while you'd still have to install, configure and maintain/update MythTV and the OS on the box you just built.

Some people may want to do it, but just won't be able. And for others the TiVo might be a step towards MythTV or other DVR's. I don't think you can beat the 'appliance' factor that TiVo introduces.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[NotoriousQ]

If one truly cares, this can probably be done by opening the receiver and tapping the mpeg stream straight after the tuner/decrypter, and then running that into a firewire port.

I am sure someone already has sites about it. But I am too lazy, and someone else will probably reply with links.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok then.

Myth Check
RAR - Yes
WMP - Yes
QT - Yes
Flash - Yes
Realmedia - Yes
Ad Skipping - Yes
Ad Nauseum - Nope!

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[rhavyn]

The DirecTV HD Tivo can do that as well. As a matter of fact, it can merge the OTA broadcasts with the regular programming guide. It can also record the HD DirecTV programming. And since it's not July 1 yet, I'm guessing that the DirecTV HD Tivo ignores the broadcast bit as well. Of course, that may change after July 1, but you're not going to be able to buy TV Tuner cards that ignore it after July 1 either.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[FredThompson]

I won't post the links but it IS possible to imitate an HD VCR and get raw transport streams from some tuners.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[Nik13]

I much prefer satellite PVRs as well on some points. -Analog captures are of much lower quality (sound as well, not just video) -Better TV out than most vid cards -Really fast setup (no PC to assemble, OS/drivers/updates to install, software, config, ...) IT just works out of the box as expected. No codecs to install, remote to configure for every app, no paches to apply, no crashes... Otherwise, I use a DVB-S card to capture.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[mountain_penguin]

you are about as wrong as you can get i have no idea how you got modded up.
My mythbox has a dvb-t card that records the DVB stream to disk no conversion it records the raw mpeg stream (and is only powered by a celery 533). You should RTFM first http://www.ethics-gradient.net/myth/mythdvb.html

I already got enough weather apps

[Atrophis]

... However, the RSS reader would be nice. I would perfer to se all the news I read in thunderbird right there on my TiVo. Maybe an email reader would be nice too?

Same features as JavaHMO

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess someone at Tivo Download JavaHMO because these features have already been available for a while now.

Re:Same features as JavaHMO

[slushdang]

It's just an SDK it has no features... It has the features that developers build... All the stuff mentioned as 'features' are really just samples for developers.

Re:Same features as JavaHMO

[FredThompson]

Yeah, there's a direct connection to the JavaHMO project. Maybe this is why there haven't been updates lately.

Not impressive

[crunk]

Initially the company plans to release three add ons: a weather information plug in, an RSS reader and a game.

Does anybody really want an RSS reader or a game on their Tivo? Seriously, who is going to play a game on the Tivo, or purchase a Tivo because of these features?

A cool feature would be a network interface you could use to access your saved shows via the computer.

Re:Not impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

This feature already exists. It's called Tivo2go. However a 15 minute show is like 600megs of space with Tivo2Go. I'm sorry to say this but Tivo's new features suck.

Re:Not impressive

[Naikrovek]

its an SDK. since when does an SDK do anything useful other than show you how to do things with the SDK?

They're not features for everyone, they're examples. That's part of what SDKs do, give examples.

Re:Not impressive

[FredThompson]

A cool feature would be a network interface you could use to access your saved shows via the computer.

-

That's been solved for quite a while. Streams can be served across a network many ways. There's even a low bandwidth method which re-encodes so slow networks or those portable video players can show the files.

Re:Not impressive

[hackstraw]

Does anybody really want an RSS reader or a game on their Tivo?

A RSS reader would be very cool if it had a web browser as well. Also, RSS could be the next way (or even current way) that the TV channel info is provided.

Seriously, who is going to play a game on the Tivo, or purchase a Tivo because of these features?

Millions of people put up with Windows only because they want to play games.

A cool feature would be a network interface you could use to access your saved shows via the computer.

I havn't tried it yet. But my DVR has a firewire port that I have read online that can be read by Macs. I havn't bought a firewire cable yet, but am very interested in such a thing.

JavaHMO

[dangermen]

JavaHMO is pretty cool. I recommend anyone with a newer Tivo to check it out!

Re:JavaHMO

[mkraft]

Yep, JavaHMO can do basically everything that TiVo is adding already. Here's a list of what it can do from it's web site:

View images in the following formats: BMP, GIF, FlashPix, JPEG, PNG, PNM, TIFF, and WBMP.

Rotate images.

Play MP3 files.

Random/shuffle play.

View MP3 file tag information.

Play MP3 streaming stations on the internet.

Sort items by different criteria.

Organize MP3 files based on their ID3 tags.

Automatically download Shoutcast playlists of your favorite streaming stations.

Use the streaming proxy server to significantly improve on the inadequate support TiVo provides for online streaming stations.

Play your MP3 files and streaming stations using both .m3u and .pls playlist formats.

View live local weather conditions including current conditions, 5-day forecasts and radar images.

View local cinema listings.

Automatically download and view any image on the internet.

View a real-time image of your PC desktop.

Play interactive games such as TicTacToe.

Manual connections from TiVo.

Platform independent.

Supports TiVo Beacon API.

Provides a plugin architecture.

Organize images files based on their date information.

View fullscreen images of web pages.

Audio Jukebox.

View stock quotes.

iTunes playlists integration.

Read email.

View NNTP images from newsgroups.

View RSS feeds.

View NOAA weather alerts.

ToGo.

All that and it's open source.

Re:JavaHMO

[DJ-Dodger]

Hopefully with the new SDK they'll be able to do all of that without having to shoehorn it into an interface designed only to display images. Perhaps then I won't have to "rotate image 90 degrees" three times to pick the space I want to put my X in Tic-Tac-Toe.

Re:JavaHMO

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. This is the whole idea behind the SDK. It gives more hooks rather than having to hack things by saying "rotate image"

Re:JavaHMO

[waters]

"Yep, JavaHMO [sourceforge.net] can do basically everything that TiVo is adding already. Here's a list of what it can do from it's web site:"

And from the provided screenshots on the SourceForge site, it looks like JavaHMO will be available using the HME features instead of the hacks it has to use now.

http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/?page=screenshots

Question

[JamesD_UK]

Does anyone know if obtaining the SDK requires the agreement to an NDA or similar license agrement as some other SDKs do? It would be nice if the SDK does not preclude the writing of Free Software.

I mention this as I've had difficulties in the past developing software for platforms only documented inside a NDA 'protected' SDK.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get the SDK here no NDA required:

http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/

It is Open Source, includes full source for the samples and the SDK itself.

Re:Question

[Rambo]

"Does anyone know if obtaining the SDK requires the agreement to a NDA..."

Judging by the fact that they say it will be based on Java and hosted on SourceForge I would guess not.

Re:Question

[waters]

"Does anyone know if obtaining the SDK requires the agreement to an NDA or similar license agrement as some other SDKs do? It would be nice if the SDK does not preclude the writing of Free Software."
The SDK is release under the Common Plublic License and is a free download from http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/.

For who ?

[mirko]

TiVo was invented for people to busy to be able to attend complete tv shows.
Now,if they cannot afford to watch these, how come they have enough time to program it ?

Re:For who ?

[SlashCrunchPop]

It's not a matter of being too busy to watch, it's a matter of timing and freedom. Why should you stick to someone else's schedule when you can watch the show when you want and not when some TV station program says you should? It simply allows you to manage your time more freely. Besides, programming your favorite shows takes only a few minutes a week.

Re:For who ?

[aussie_a]

Sounds a lot like my DVD-RW or my VCR. Why do people get so excited about Tivo again? Is not fast forwarding commercials worth $300 ($100 for VCR and $100 for blank videos = $500, the cost of a Tivo. I'm being very generous with the cost of VCRs and videos ;))? As a society have we become THAT lazy?

Re:For who ?

[kosmicki]

Except it is much easier to program a whole week worth of shows on the Tivo and forget about it, with a VCR you have to set up each start time. With a Sat system, you also have to have it change the channel time, and keep in mind most have only 4 or 6 time slots to be able to record, oh, and the fact that a VCR tape is only 6 hours at best. Also, to get to a certain program you have to rewind to a certain spot. Tivo wins. :)

Re:For who ?

[javaxman]

TiVo was invented for people to busy to be able to attend complete tv shows.

That's just silly, and not very interesting at all. Tivo is for people who want to watch their choice of TV show on their own time, with the ability to quickly skip lame parts ( like commercials and lame announcers padding the show ). You don't have to be busy to like Tivo - you just have to like TV shows.

Not gonna save em

[natelr]

These still aren't that unique of features. What's stopping the cable/sat companies from just doing this same?

My digital cable box already shows weather and has for years. I think the only way Tivo is going to save its self in the long run is with that rumored parntership with Netflix to deliver downloadable movies.

I'm in...

[bblazer]

I have both a Tivo and a DVR supplied by Time Werner. Tivo wins hands down. I would be one of the first in line to get the SDK and start writing some apps for it. It would be cool to see a web site with a ton of free (as in beer) and pay apps to download to extend the functionality of the Tivo. If they opened it up, you might even see better bug releases. While this type of thing may not lead to a company's survival by itself, it may open the door to a new way to market the product (as in "Hey everybody, buy Tivo and you can download a lot of cool stuff to make it work how YOU want it to work!).

Re:I'm in...

[garcia]

While I have never used a hardware DVR that wasn't Tivo I must say that there are plenty of things that really irk me about my Tivo...

1. Tivo released this supposed software update to be able to use Tivo2Go. I signed up as soon as I saw it available and I still have yet to receive the Tivo upgrade to my unit.

2. Tivo service has been spotty for getting listings. I have been getting days and days worth of "Failed while negotiating" errors. Yeah it might not matter but I wouldn't know as I rarely watch TV live. What happens if something changed and my fiance lost an episode? I'd never hear the end of it.

3. And various other things that have been hashed and rehashed on all the tech site forums over the years so I won't mention them again here...

Will the SDK fix my negotiation problems? No, because Tivo is going to keep that locked up tight as it's their only money making scheme (which BTW I have no problem with as long as the service works).

Mp3 Album Art, Visualizations...

[Anonymous Coward]

Series 2 tivos already support the playing of mp3s via the home media options...but...

What would be really great was if this development kit would allow for a Jukebox type interface...one that allowed the user to browse by Album art to select a song. Also, a plugin architecture that would allow some snazzy visualizations would be killer too...

-h3dge

Great idea, but it won't help

[Anita Coney]

Without the ability to natively interface with proprietary cable and satellite providers TIVO is toast.

Re:Great idea, but it won't help

[Naikrovek]

Never heard of DirecTiVo?

Also I hear that FreeVo and MythTV are doing fairly well, even if the most vocal of their supporters seem to be elitists.. and they don't even have corporate backing at all, or native interfaces with cable or satelite!

Yeah you're right. TiVo is toast. I mean just look at all the other DVR companies that have gone down in flames because they're not integrated with cable. There's Replay.. no they're still around.. there's ... hmm. There aren't any.

Re:Great idea, but it won't help

[falzbro]

Without the ability to natively interface with proprietary cable and satellite providers TIVO is toast.

DirecTiVo handles this well for satellite (yes, it would be nicer if there were an open standard here and it would work well w/ competitors). Q4 this year/Q1 next year the dual tuner CableCARD TiVo will be out. CableCARD's are required by law by cable providers (in the 'states) and allow you to tune into digital cable.

There ya go.

Re:Great idea, but it won't help

[Anita Coney]

Haven't you heard, DirecTV and Tivo are breaking up.
http://www.betanews.com/article/DirecTV_TiVo_ Partn ership_in_Doubt/1105115186

And FreeVo and MythTV are doing great as niches. Maybe Tivo will do great as a niche too.

Most people in the coming years are going to want HD content from their cable and satellite providers. That will require proprietary set-top boxes that will not natively interface with TIVOs.

Cable and satellite companies will require their own proprietary DVRs to consumers that want them. TIVO will be toast because it will not even be given a chance to compete.

Re:Great idea, but it won't help

[joliet convict]

DirecTV is releasing their own DVR. TiVo missed the boat by not partnering with any CableCos. They don't have an HD TiVo that will work with cable. For that reason I just cancelled service on my two TiVos and have switched to two Motorola 6412s from Comcast. Between two tuners and HD TiVo can't compete.

Re:Great idea, but it won't help

[dreamt]

Most people in the coming years are going to want HD content from their cable and satellite providers. That will require proprietary set-top boxes that will not natively interface with TIVOs.

That is why Tivo is working on a CableCard TiVo. You won't need a cable box to work with a multi-tuner TiVo box for this. Once the cable companies are required to support CableCard 2.0, it won't be an issue.

Re:Great idea, but it won't help

[Anita Coney]

Mmm... You're right. That could definitely save TIVO!

I wonder if someone will make a USB 2.0 CableCard reader for homebuilt DVRs?!

Re:Great idea, but it won't help

[Anita Coney]

Yep, someone else already turned me around with the CableCard feature. That's a great idea on TIVO's part.

Re:Great idea, but it won't help

[FredThompson]

Think about that. Are you seriously proposing DirecTV is going to cut off everyone with DirecTiVo hardware? That doesn't make any sense. They're still advertising the DirecTiVos units daily on DirecTV. What does that tell you?

Re:Great idea, but it won't help

[aussie_a]

Cable and satellite companies will require their own proprietary DVRs to consumers that want them. TIVO will be toast because it will not even be given a chance to compete.

And I would vote with my wallet and NOT support such companies. If there were any shows I desperately HAD to have, I'd either ask my friend to tape it (last I checked that wasn't something you could be sued for if you kept it offline) or buy their season DVD (possibly off ebay).

What's next? Cable companies requiring you to use their proprietary videos? Televisions? I hope people wouldn't put up with that, yet they seem happy to put up with this.

I just hope I don't have to tell my nephews and neices about how back in the old days any television worked with any channel.

skip registration

[Anonymous Coward]

pointing out the obvious:
Instead of selling your soul to read this, use the bugmenot extension

Uh you mean something like this?

[mkraft]

Um, TiVo already added the "cool feature" you requested. You can already copy your saved shows from your TiVo to your PC and burn them to DVD.

http://www.tivo.com/4.9.19.asp

Re:Uh you mean something like this?

[dafz1]

That's fine if you have a new TiVO(System Software 7.1) branded box and a Windows machine. However, I have a DirecTv TiVO(not supported) and a Mac at home(Linux users are SOL as well).

Here's my wish list:
1. Extract video to my Mac or Linux boxes.
2. Record video at 480P.
3. A cheaper HD box.

Re:Uh you mean something like this?

[mkraft]

In your case you should complain to DirectTV since they have complete control over what is or is not installed on DirectTV TiVo boxes. TiVo has no control in this case; they just license the software and hardware.

Don't expect them to upgrade the software though since they are dumping TiVo for their own box and one of the new features of their own box is something that is already in the 7.1 software. They want their box to be better than TiVo's so they won't be upgrading the TiVo boxes. They also won't be selling them after 2007.

Re:Uh you mean something like this?

[homebrewmike]

That's with tne new firmware. I've requested it, but haven't recieved it yet: are you using it yet? Know of a way to speed up the process of getting it?

Seems obvious...

[Anonymous Coward]

To simply restore TiVo to it's original functionality - watch TV with no stinkin' advertisements in your face. Bet the SDK won't let you do that.

Tivo is just screwed. There is no barrier to entry for this kind of device.

Comcast = not free DVR

[FubarPA]

A little off-topic, but when I checked into it, Comcast wanted to charge me 10 dollars on top of everything else for DVR functionality.

Re:Comcast = not free DVR

[jbarr]

A little off-topic, but when I checked into it, Comcast wanted to charge me 10 dollars on top of everything else for DVR functionality.

While it is true that Cable companies do not provide free DVD's, is this really an issue? Comparing "apples to apples", TiVo requires a $99 or more up front cost for the equipment, and then requires either a monthly fee (which is typically higher than what Cable companies charge for their DVR) or a "lifetime" fee that costs an equvalent of two years of monthly fees. Further, if your Cable company-provided DVR breaks or a newer model comes out, you just call them to exchange it--it's not as easy with TiVo.

Re:Comcast = not free DVR

[FubarPA]

I see your point. Unfortunately for me, if I want DVR from Comcast, it would require me to up my current cable plan just to get it. I like my basic+, it has what I watch, so Tivo would be a better investment. Or, for the price of a PVR250 and a bit of time, I'd build my own. Granted if it breaks I'm screwed, but at least I won't be forced into a high cable plan all because I want DVR.

Re:Comcast = not free DVR

[jbarr]

You bring up a good point, and you are a great example of the notion that all techmology is not right for everyone. That's why it's so nice that we DO have some choices. For someone in your situation, your best bet just might be to find the best standalone DVR that works for you be it a TiVo, a Media Center PC, or a home-brew box. The important thing is that you recognize that your setup lends itself to a standalone solution.

I spend the extra money (and probably too much at that) on lots of Cable channels, so adding the cost of a Moxi DVR was nothing more than an additional $10.00 fee. My main reason is that I was a ReplayTV guru, and simply couldn't get my ReplayTV boxes to work well with our Digital Cable boxes. There's nothing worse than messing with IR blasters that only work marginally. The integrated, dual tuner of our Moxi box sealed the deal. So for us, the extra cost and the lack of the occasional ReplayTV feature has been well worth it.

Wow! Really?

[NardofDoom]

I could make a MAME plugin! I could rip my DVDs to the hard drive for personal video on demand! I could stream video to computers or TiVos all around my house!

Or I could build a MythTV system and get all of these things and not pay a monthly fee.

Re:Wow! Really?

[Naikrovek]

yeah you can have your mythtv do all of that. for no monthly fee yes.

but the initial cost of your mythtv box is at least 10x what the initial cost of a tivo is. that's a large barrier of entry.

computer with dvd burner, large hard disk, tuner cards, video card with tv-out, costs a lot more than a tivo.

very tired of this 'mythtv is better than everything else in the whole wide world, and if you don't use it you are an idiot' business that is going on here.

Re:Wow! Really?

[NardofDoom]

I'm not saying it's better for everyone, I'm saying it's better for me. And if you do it right it won't cost you more than $200 and you have the capability to upgrade your system and extend it. Anyone who *can* make a MythTV box is better off making one.

At least until broadcast flag comes out.

Re:Wow! Really?

[marcop]

Although your 10X initial cost is little high... Don't forget about the cost of electricity. A PC will consume alot more than a Tivo box.

Re:Wow! Really?

[freemacmini]

A tivo does not come with a dvd burner or a large hard disk.

If you get a PVR with a dvd burner, a large hard disk and a lifetime subscription expect to pay close to a grand.

Re:Wow! Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whaaaaaa?

"10X initial cost is a little high" ...by an order of ten as previously posted here. And that is the worst case scenario. I happened to have an old case, mobo with AMD 1200, GF4 MX440 and a CD-ROM sitting around waiting for something to do. All I added was the PVR-250 and a first generation Microsoft MCE remote for $115 and $35 respectively.

Don't forget about the cost of electricity. A PC will consume alot more than a Tivo box.

Are you really a geek or are you trolling /.? A Tivo is a PC for all intents and purposes. It is purpose-built, but a PC all the same. A Series2 consumes measurably more power than my little AMD boxen which also shuts down when it is idle and boots itself up just prior to an upcoming recording.

Professional A/V integrators dislike Tivos. I oughta know because I am one. We dislike them for all kinds of reasons. Inefficient UI, poor connectivity options, ambient noise, and the considerable amount of heat they produce.
FWIW, I'm switching a boatload of my customers over to the Comcast Motorola DCT's and DirectTV Samsung units because the Tivo they just had to run out and buy without consulting us first doesn't do what they ultimately want - high definition.

We explain to them how disappointed they'll be with SD Tivo's 'integrated' into their beautifully crafted HD media rooms. They insist so we shoehorn the device into the control system, train them, charge them $200 for the service call and then wait for them to call with their tail between their legs asking about the HD Tivo. That's when we show them the math: rent the service for $60/year and wait for the market to offer more affordable DVR's or buy the HD Tivo. None have chosen the HD Tivo. None have complained that they miss the Tivo UI.

I'm happily shelling out $190 for a pcHDTV card this week and will be re-using the antenna in my attic to bump up to OTA HD. Quick budget check shows me at $340.

I know someone is probably going to point out that I can only record OTA in HD and not cable. All I watch/record is PBS and I can pull in 3 PBS stations with my line-of-sight. More math time here: 3 stations with quality content versus hundred of channels of utter crap. If I need more content in the future, I'll add a C-band receiver but I really don't see that happening. I currently record more hours of decent programming than I allocate to watching it.

Re:Wow! Really?

[MenTaLguY]

I think your 10x estimate is a bit high, but even if it weren't, from a financial standpoint it sounds a lot smarter to put off the purchase for a while.

You can set aside the money you'd be paying for Tivo monthly fees, and after a while you can use the money you've set aside to get over the initial cost hump for MythTV.

Monthly fees are forever, the initial cost is not.

Assuming electricity isn't too expensive (MythTV is going to use more power probably), you come out ahead.

Re:Wow! Really?

[gr1dl0ck]

FWIW, I've seen a lot of these "it costs 10x what a tivo costs" posts, and I keep thinking: how many people are actually building a mythtv box from scratch? I'm currently putting together a mythtv system mostly from old parts from various other machines. All I plan to buy is an MPEG encoder card (I'm eyeing the new Hauppauge 150 for $70). Then I'll have an AMD 1.4ghz, 512 ram, 240 gig system mythtv system for $70.

Based on the fairly minimal system requirements to get one up and running, it seems to me a lot of people will be using used parts instead of new.

Re:Wow! Really?

[Mike Bridge]

really? weird. this TiVo i have next to me has a DVD burner (humax DRT-800) in it, and only cost me $200 (after rebate), toss in another $300 for the lifetime subscription, and its $500, HALF of what you claim. yes, it is only 80 hours. lets see, pricewatch lists 200gb hdd's for $94, and 250gb for $114, either of which would work fine, and only take ~20 minutes to configure and install...

Re:Wow! Really?

[freemacmini]

I don't know where you got your humax but best buy has them for 500 (100 rebate). I have seen them on the web for as little as 350 after rebate but never for 200 after rebate.

So
350
300
114

and you are looking at over 750.

Also the humax is known for it's poor quality video. So you pay 750. Still cheaper to make your own.

Re:Wow! Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

TV tuners like the PVR 250 already cost 150$ with tax and shipping. So you can put a decent PC together for 50$? I too, am very sick of this "myth" is better than everything. Analog capturing sucks anyways, that alone is enough for me to not consider using it. And setup of such software is quite a pain. And if you want something sleek looking (like HTPC case or such) then the case alone could cost you over 200$. Anyone who *can* make a MythTV box is better off making one? Hell NO!

Check soul at door?

[shreevatsa]

[NYT=Check soul at door]
Not with Bugmenot (http://www.bugmenot.com/)
And if you are using Firefox (as you should be ;), look here http://extensions.roachfiend.com/index.php#bugmeno t

Re:Check soul at door?

[/dev/trash]

You me bugmenot works again?

My Cox PVR wins hands down

[jocknerd]

Just got it 3 weeks ago and for the money, TiVo has no chance in the long run. $10 a month for Cox's PVR. I was paying $13 a month just for TiVo's download of the programming. Plus recording 2 shows at once is huge. If TiVo had never made the Series 2 next to impossible to get the recorded stuff off of it, I would have stayed with it. But they gave in to Hollywood and the TV industry so screw them.

Re:My Cox PVR wins hands down

[FredThompson]

Yeah, right, it's so hard to pull streams of the S2s that it takes all of 10 minutes to hack. The DEAL is so easy to do if you want your DATA and BASE your googling properly.

Re:My Cox PVR wins hands down

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, TiVo made it EASIER to get shows off of. There is now a web server in the new version 7 software, and within a week of it being launched, users discovered that it can do this. It's not an official feature, but it works.

Re:My Cox PVR wins hands down

[lmsig]

So you can pull your shows off the Cox DVR then? I didn't think so.

How is Cox not even MORE hollywood, big business, evil empire?

Re:My Cox PVR wins hands down

[waters]

Guess you haven't heard of TiVoToGo. It allows you to "legally" pull shows off you TiVo(s).

You'll have to let me know how your getting those shows off you Cox PVR. Wasn't aware you could do that and since you switched because of that reason, you must be able to right?

John

Re:My Cox PVR wins hands down

[jocknerd]

TiVoToGo is Windows only and proprietary. Can't copy them to another computer without the required software. So I consider it useless. And I don't copy from Cox. If TiVo allowed for me to created mpegs then I would stay with TiVo.

Not interested...

[MaestroSartori]

...until I can actually buy a new set of tivo hardware here in the uk, why would I care about being able to develop for it?

I really want one, too, but don't fancy going down the 2nd hand route :(

Re:Not interested...

[aussie_a]

Guess what. I think there's a distinct possibility this article wasn't for you. It's an American site with an American bias.

Binaries released

[Balthisar]

This is what would really make TiVo compatible for the /. crowd: release the TiVo proprietary stuff binary only (so they won't have their pay scheme broken [although you can already get around it {Canada/Mexico}]), with an SDK for attaching to it. Then I can build my own TiVo box a la MythTV or Freevo, but with the superior TiVo interface. Then we can support everything else we can manage to write software for on the platform.

Are the series 2 TiVos still PPC based, or have they moved to x86 or something else? TiVo on a Mac Mini would be swell...

Re:Binaries released

[amgqmp1]

The series 2 units all run MIPS.

Tvs

[cparisi]

TiVo should get bundled with TV's. You can get any closer to the target market than that.

Re:Tvs

[duncan7]

One retailler is already bundling them, presumably with TiVo's blessing.

TiVo Cable/Satellite DVR

[Chappy01]

I have Comcast and have tried their version of the DVR, and there is absolutely no comparison between that and TiVo. There's no doubt that the cable/satellite companies have 'mastered' recording of shows, but half of TiVo is the UI, and it's simplicity. The Comcast DVR that I had was horrendous. It was slow, difficult to use, froze, crashed, etc, etc, etc. I had it for a week and sent it back. I then bought another refurbished TiVo, threw 2, 80 GB hard drives in there and I'm back in business and I'm never going back.

I would love to see the ability to transfer shows from one TiVo to another across my network (similar to the ReplayTV units of yesteryear). It would be awesome to pull a show from another TiVo to watch elsewhere in the house. If the boys in legal can figure out a way to appease the suits, it would be the next revolution in television viewing. I also think the ability to record one show and watch another is crucial. The satellite TiVo units have that functionality, but I want it extended to all TiVo's. If they start adding functionality like that, it might give them the boost they need.

Game emulation.

[LWATCDR]

Why not make a deal with who ever owns Atari and Sega to put game emulators on the Tivo. Retro gaming is all the rage these days. Throw in MAME just for fun and you are good to go.

SDK location

[Anonymous Coward]

You can download a copy of the SDK from Sourceforge. From the page: The SDK is released under the Common Public License (CPL).

Re:SDK location

[FredThompson]

Holy cow! Some a** stole the name javahmo. The whole thing looks like a ripoff of javahmo!!

http://javahmo.sourceforge.net/

Re:SDK location

[slushdang]

hmmm i thought HMO was the name of a TiVo product called "Home Media Option"? Duh it says on that page you need to have the Home Media Option enabled on your TiVo to use JavaHMO.

Re:SDK location

[slushdang]

this is an SDK the news reader, the games and all that stuff are just sample applications for developers not products... JavaHMO is a cool product.

Re:SDK location

[FredThompson]

As was just pointed out to me over at the TiVo hackers hangout, there's a direct connection between the SDK and JavaHMO. I'll slink off and shut up now, suitably embarassed.

Re:SDK location

[slushdang]

Hey Fred, here is an interview with Leon of HMO fame about hme and hmo: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137836&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&tid=129&mode=thread&cid=1152797 4

how about..

[hypergreatthing]

a plugin that allows you to record nfl games? That would be sweet considering that Tivo doesn't allow it (suckers :P).

Re:how about..

[ipxodi]

You can't? Funny how I was able to record the Pats/Steelers game. And the fact the Tivo included tips for recording the Superbowl in their most recent newsletter...

X-Box Media Center

[Celt]

Ok it don't record TV shows but...
- Shows RSS feeds
- Stream music
- Looks up movies entries on imdb.com
- Ripps audio CD's to mp3
- Records streamed music
- Allows browsing of network drives
- Tells you the weather

Plays divx, xvid, mov etc etc etc and also reads VCD/SVCD's that are still in .iso format :)

Re:X-Box Media Center

[Celt]

Oh also plays old SNES, Mastersystem, Megadrive, Gamegear games etc :)

Re:X-Box Media Center

[falser]

It can also play back shows recorded by MythTV, or if you run Linux on the Xbox you can use it as a true MythTV client.

Re:TiVo Cable/Satellite DVR

[FredThompson]

Sending recordings from one box to another is provided through HMO or the hacked variants. You can also server streams from a PC or Mac to TiVos. Want something really cool? Set up one of the modified Sony 400-disc carousels with a DVD reader on a PC and serve streams to your TiVos. How's that for a jukebox?

I love 'em, but they've missed the boat.

[Overzeetop]

The cool things that you can do directly with TiVo, and all the really cool things you can do with hacks (and roll-your-own PVRs for that matter) are the things that the studios don't want you to do. TiVo has the bonus of being able to be operated by just about anyone. This MATTERS! I want something my wife is comfortable with, and is pretty darned stable. Moreover, if something goes wrong and her show gets missed, it damned well better no be my fault. This rules out anything but a consumer box in my house. The ability to let the tech savvy strip/rip/burn to their hearts content means the whole family can play.

I'm frustrated that TiVo lets their name be used on DirecTV sets, as the gap between the real TiVo and the locked-down, abandoned, ugly step-child of receiver they call DirecTiVo grows almost daily. I have one, and it does everything my old standalone did...four years ago. Yes, it's cheaper (no dialups to wory about). Yes it records two streams (a feature lacking in the SA). But if you look at the comparison of features on their own website, it pales in comparison to the new features of the SA models. And even the SAs are missing some key features (real transfers, real commercial skip, cut points for recording, etc.).

They're caught between a rock and a hard place - consumers who will leave them if they protect the content, and studios who will sue them into oblivion if they don't. I think they've chosen the wrong path for long term success. *shrug* (BTW, the embeded DVD recorder versions do look promising, but -once again - they're not available for DTV)

Re:I love 'em, but they've missed the boat.

[FredThompson]

4.x can run on the DTiVo boxes so you can do all the HMO stuff.

Re:I love 'em, but they've missed the boat.

[curunir]

Ok, if this is the feature comparison page that you were mentioning, I see nothing in it that would lead me to want to give up my second tuner. Having 2 tuners is even more of an evolutionary step forward than the original TiVo features (pause, rewind, easy record) were. Time-shifting is one thing, but being able to watch competing programs in a reasonably live fashion is far more useful to me. This becomes especially important when more than one person watches TV. There aren't arguments over who's season passes get ranked higher since we rarely have 3 shows in the same timeslot.

So before you label DirecTiVo the "ugly step-child", you should consider it to be superior to the regular TiVo. Something to the effect of, "Yes the regular TiVos have online scheduling, burning to DVD and the home media option, but they're more expensive and all but useless without their second tuner."

Sorry, but it's NOT insightful!

[Anita Coney]

I've been shown wrong, my original post was crap!

Its a losing battle.

[tgd]

I had Tivo since a few months after it came out. Four total boxes, also gave another four or five as gifts over the years.

I called last week and cancelled my service. (Boy they make that hard to do...)

Why? They're two years behind the ball where technology is concerned. Their vastly superior interface is totally wasted because it can't actually record half the stuff I watch. Its a hack at best to get it to work with a digital cable box, and no HD support at all. They told me all about the new HD box they would have out in 18 months when I cancelled, and I just had to wonder why it wasn't out now? My TV has CableCard. Clearly Sony was able to see it was a needed step to take.

I've seen arguments made my people on /. that Tivo couldn't have been faster to the market because CableCard just became available, forgetting thats to consumers. Clearly the companies have been working on units for ages.

I may hop back into the Tivo fold if their new box lives up to reasonable expectations, but its hard to argue with a $10/month box with dual HD/digital/analog tuners, 160 gig of space and a tolerable UI now that Comcast has rolled out the new TV Guide software.

I think the SDK is a poor attempt to keep the attention of their core market -- early adopters, because early adopters have all adopted other video hardware that makes the Tivo obsolete.

I'm not sure the ability to see an RSS feed or weather on the Tivo will keep someone who just dropped $3k on a HD set interested in Tivo, when they can get a box from their cable company for less money that works with it.

Re:Its a losing battle.

[FredThompson]

Uh...you do know the DirecTV HD boxes are out and work with the extraction tools, don't you?

Re:Its a losing battle.

[allenw]

For now. With DirecTV rolling out MPEG4 compression over the next year+, the DirecTiVo HD boxes have a limited lifespan... and at an extremely high cost. It is hard justifying a $900-$1000 commitment to something that isn't going to be as functional for such a short time period. Who knows what kind of deal D* will give those customers who bought one...

[I was going to buy one, but being in the SF Bay Area means that we are likely to see HD locals over satellite before most of the other markets. I'd rather have a PVR that works with those. I've decided I'm going to wait for a while longer. The thought of switching back to cable is tempting as well.. ]

Re:I'm in... What about HD?

[ryandlugosz]

The advantage that TW has right now with their DVR is that (AFAIK) they have one that records HD programming and actually works - at a cost of just $10/mon. It's my understanding that the TiVo HD DVR not only costs $1k, but also seems to have some major build quality issues (they fail after a short while or something of that nature?).

Initial cost misinformation

[Mr Guy]

You, personally, may be an idiot, but I don't think what people (like myself) who love their MythTV are saying is that people are idiots. I think what we're saying is that the point of many recent articles is that Tivo faces a very real chance of getting pushed out of the market, and then you very well might be screwed.

Meanwhile, an open source alternative exists at a similiar price point (Assuming you have to buy everything from scratch).

Here's what I see for a Tivo:
$99 refurb from tivo.com 80 hours with a one-time product lifetime fee of $299.

$400

For a PC:

Generic case: $20
Hauppauge PVR 150 x2: $150
Generic mobo: $35
256 megs of RAM: $30
AMD 2200+: $70
GeForce MX4000 (For Svideo out): $30
Harddrive (120GB ~240 Hours@Tivo Quality): $70

$405

Now in the special case of people with satellites or High Def there is a difference, but then you can't use the basic $99 refurb Tivo for HD either.

The MythTV machine also is as expandable as any PC. There are lots of reasons to like the smooth interface, sleek design, and user friendliness out of the box for the Tivo, but price just isn't one of them.

Re:Initial cost misinformation

[theguru]

Does that include an easy to use IR remote? Sorry, I know I could go look at the Hauppauge devices online myself (and probably will), but as long as we're talking about TCO and building a comparable box. My Tivo, without an easy to use remote, just wouldn't be a Tivo.

Re:Initial cost misinformation

[Mr Guy]

PVR150's can come either with or without remote. Typically without they run about 10 bucks cheaper. I personally went the do it yourself route with the universal remote I already use and built a little IR receiver with parts from radioshack using a design from the web.

Here's a rough overview: Lirc Homebrew page

But there are more user friendly step by step guides out there. Takes about ten minutes to do if you're a complete novice with a soldering iron and circuit boards like I am, and about 10 bucks worth of stuff from Radio Shack (I actually had to buy the soldering iron too, so it cost more than if I just bought the dang thing)

Re:Initial cost misinformation

[wcrowe]

Generic case: $20
Hauppauge PVR 150 x2: $150
Generic mobo: $35
256 megs of RAM: $30
AMD 2200+: $70
GeForce MX4000 (For Svideo out): $30
Harddrive (120GB ~240 Hours@Tivo Quality): $70

$405

163 hours of time to get the damn thing working: $8965

Total cost: $9370

Re:Initial cost misinformation

[MrP-(at work)]

My TiVo was $70 brand new from amazon (ok 170 with a $100 rebate).. It was a 40 hour, I bought a 160gig weaknees kit, its now a 230hr (basic quality, same as the 40hr rating), total cost:

$70=$170 (ugrade) = $240.. I think the 140 retail box sells for like $260 after rebate

Either way, way cheaper than building a pc and trying to get it to work with my old 1998 tv tuner (I guess I could buy a new one but that's more money)

Yay tivo

Re:Initial cost misinformation

[Mr Guy]

My TiVo was $70 brand new from amazon (ok 170 with a $100 rebate).. It was a 40 hour, I bought a 160gig weaknees kit, its now a 230hr (basic quality, same as the 40hr rating), total cost:

$70=$170 (ugrade) = $240.. I think the 140 retail box sells for like $260 after rebate

And your service cost?

Re:Initial cost misinformation

[Naikrovek]

$14.95/month, you know that.

the point of the pro-tivo arguements (which you've apparently purposefully ignored) is that the intial cost of a TiVo is MUCH lower in parts (and especially labor) than a mythtv solution. for someone with only $150, one hour, and the desire to own a PVR, the tivo or replaytv is the only way to go. If you have several hours (or several days, depending on skill) to set everything up, make your own IR reciever (WTF??!?!), tuck it all neatly behind your entertainment center, get it all working 100%, then yeah maybe MythTV is for you. If you don't have the time or desire to spend that kinda time for something I already have, like me, MythTV is a bad idea.

Perhaps this is a business opportunity for someone. Prebuild and sell MythTV solutions. Handle the remote control situation for them, and put it all in a black or silver (beige is for losers) case that looks nice alongside their stereo and sell them. One time fee, no recurring charges.

do I totally deny the possibility that I could own a mythtv setup in the future? hell no, i want one, I just don't have the time to set one up.

Do you totally deny the logic behind anyone ever owning a tivo for any reason whatsoever? yes, it seems so.

which one of us is being more reasonable?

If I was TiVO...

[Walkingshark]

I'd branch out into content creation, and sell my stuff over the web for a dollar an episode or whatever, with an eye towards merging the two branches of the buisness into a next generation version of cable. I'd work file sharing and bit torrent into my content distribution and allow people to watch anything they bought on my tivo player or on their computers. Maybe even just release tivo software so people could use their windows box as a tivo machine instead of having to buy the big custom thingy I built. If I was TiVO....

The cable company DVR/PVR may be better value

[klausboop]

I don't know about Cox and other cable companies, but I have Time Warner's DVR in upstate New York. I know a few people who moved out of the area after having the Time Warner box, and, naturally being hooked on PVR, immediately bought a Tivo. They were disappointed.

They cited two things: First, Time Warner's Scientific American box can record one show while you're watching another on TV. Better yet, it can record TWO shows while you're watching one you've already recorded! And you get full transport controls of the show you're watching. The new Tivo owners couldn't believe that they were back in the days of A/B switchboxes and stuff if they wanted to watch one show and revcord another.

While the Tivo's user interface was unquestionably easier to use and the SA box's "Season Pass"-type functionality is flawed, the SA did everything they wanted decently enough to transform their television experience and hook them, plus it was an incredibly simple, one-connection-to-the-tv hookup to do everything they wanted. (Disclaimer: my understanding is that some of the Tivos that come with satellite have multiple tuners, alleviating that problem)

Second, from what they reported and I've seen myself, the SA box has a better picture. My guess is that the Tivo is having to re-encode the stream where the SA box, built on top of digital cable, is just saving the same stream you'd be watching through the regular digital cable box.

Even though the Tivo's season pass is better, and its guide is better, and it can do predictive recording and home networking, I think that customers, faced with an additional $5 for the Time Warner DVR (it only costs an additional $5 over plain Digital Cable) or hundreds of dollars for the Tivo on top of monthly fees (or more hundreds for lifetime)...well, the Tivo is just not so much better than my cable companie's offering to be worth that much money. That was the economic decision I made myself, though I certainly covet the wish list and home networking features.

PS - Another Tivo killer: with Time Warner, if you want multiple cable boxes in your house, it costs the same price to get another DVR as it does to get a plain digital cable box. While home networking would sure be cool, we added a whole second DVR to the bedroom for the same price as a Tivo monthly fee.

Moxi, a viable contender

[jbarr]

After using a Digeo Moxi box for several months, I really feel that the likes of TiVo and ReplayTV have huge hurdles against them. I am a long-time ReplayTV user, and though I chose ReplayTV over TiVo, I certainly respect and even envy TiVo's design and imp0lementation. TV viewing without SOME sort of DVR is, to me, a huge step backward.

That said, the Moxi box is certainly not without its foults, and while I absolutely miss the ability to offload shows to my PC (thus I keep my ReplayTV 5000 running) the simple fact is that Moxi's integrated dual digital cable tuners, (eliminating virtually all scheduling conflicts) its ability to record HD programs, its inclusion of games, a Ticker (Weather, News, Sports, etc.) and forthcoming Video On Demand for under $10.00 per month with no up-front equipment costs blows the doors offf of TiVo or ReplayTV hands-down. Joe Sixpack isn't going to care if a feature or two are missing as long as he gets a high "cool factor" at a low price, and DVR's like Moxi deliver.

Re:Moxi, a viable contender

[DonM]

I had a Moxi box. After about a month of using it, and many discussions with the cable company reps (wow, there were some stupid conversations there!), I sent it back.

Anlog quality was *horrible*. HD did look wonderful, but our cable company does not have ABC in HD for some odd reason (the rep's responses were usually along the lines of "We don't? Well, I'm sure we will soon."). Discovery Channel etc also still analog. So, a few shows looked wonderful, and the majority were unwatchable. Flickering backgrounds, less resolution than TiVo and so on.

UI was really sad compared to TiVo. I'll check back with them in a few years, but until then my new Series2 Tivo will have to do.

Why this is big...

[graiz]

This is big news because it allows third party developers to create applications that play on the TV. This means that existing applications writers can extend the Tivo platform.
- Play your powerpoint slides on a TV
- Control your home automation on your TV
- Check your baby-monitor on your TV
- Get stock quotes on your TV

Any application that currently runs on a PC can explore opportunities to provide a TV based user experience. It's not about the three demo apps that are included. (Weather, news, RSS) it's about the 2 million homes that are now enabled with a platform that extends into the living room. In the next two months you'll see some amazing applications as all the Tivo enthusiasts go and create innovative applications.

(I believe this is the fruit of the strangeberry project)

It's here!

[BlueOtto]

You can get the TiVo Home Media Engine SDK from Sourceforge: http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/.

There is also a TiVo Developer Challenge: http://www.tivo.com/4.3.hme.asp
There are prizes for best overall, best music app, best photos app, best information app, best game app, and most creative. You can download and run a demo now! The demo has "SameGame", "Skull and Bones" (connect 4), and "Weather" in it. Checking it out now...

Time to get bought out

[mshurpik]

What is the purpose of any technology company? To get bought by *.soft before they get copied by *.soft. In order to do that, you just have to come up with something that Chairman Bill doesn't want to pay his R&D dept to do themselves.

One compelling feature is all you need. Like the Tivo interface. If you keep going after that, youre just trying to compete with *.soft, starting at a huge disadvantage.

Its sad. The days of starting your own tech company are over. Now we are all just inventors. If youre pretty enough, maybe *.soft will notice you and ask you on a date!

Check soul? Then stop using their reporting!!!

[bobalu]

This is so stupid. Dear Slashdot, if you're going to piss off at them every time you post one of their stories, why don't you just get a couple hundred reporters and pay them a SALARY and source your OWN stories, huh?

Yes, they have an obvious liberal bias, but it is the NEW YORK Times, and you can just read around it. But Slashdot and most every newspaper in the country uses their material.

Give it a break.

TiVo needs more porn

[Electric Eye]

I'm really not kidding here. If they really want to make some money, they need to somehow offer its users more porn. I'm sure this won't fly with the Bible thumpers in the US, but most of them will watch anyway after they publicly scream about it.
It's a dark, dirty secret that most hotel chains make millions in profits from PPV porn, which really sucks because it's NOT explicit. If there was some way to get a dedicated porn channel through TiVo, man would the bucks roll in for them. Either that, or somehow hook up with SpiceTV for a discounted service.
Again, I'm dead serious. This WOULD work.

Direct-TV Tivo is cheaper & better

[Prototerm]

I can record two programs at once on my Direct-TV Tivo box, and it costs about $5 a month for the Tivo service.

And the Season Pass (automatically record new episodes of a show, no matter when they're broadcast)is a must-have feature.

As for saving a TV show, I have yet to see anything on television worth watching a second time. A few are even questionable the first time.

Couldn't agree more

[kcm]

I couldn't agree more with you. No real HD; no AAC -- despite a partnership with Apple for, what, two years?; no TiVo 2 Go yet (I've been on the "priority list" for over a month); charging for HMO then giving it away free to those who chose not to support TiVo by paying for it -- without refunds to those that did; and now from what I hear, DirecTV is pulling out, which I expect to be a death blow.

As soon as I buy an HD set, my TiVo is likely to be ancient history. Too bad, since I've had them since the original HDR-112 and have spoken nothing but praise to everyone I've met until now. It's disappointing.

Also join the 'fuckthis' community.

[aug24]

NYT has a fuckthis/fuckthis logon. So have lots of other soul-sucker sites. Use them freely! If you find a site that doesn't, please add it.

NB, some have fuckthis/fuckthis2,3,4 etc. This is for the rare occasions when sites require updated passwords.

J.

Link to the Tivo SDK

[alanlewis0]

Have at it: http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/

Actually...

[tgd]

I had the 7.1 software and had no problem pulling the video off with a Mac.

Go to the Tivo's IP address with a web browser. Its got a web server. Just download it from there. Piece of cake.

Another plus for Cable DVR

[kuwan]

Another advantage that Time Warner's DVRs have over Tivo is the option of viewing/recording HDTV. Tivo's current plans for HDTV are to get something out by 2006! Now, you probably can't record very much HDTV content (20 hours is what they say) but at least they give you the option of having it.

We just got a projector to serve as part of our home theater and I'm not sure how long I'll be able to live with Tivo and standard television when I know that HDTV content is available.

--
It works.
Free Flat Screens | Free Mini Mac

All I want from my DVR

[RabidPuppetHunter]

Here is what I want to be able to do:

Record any show from Cable, Satellite (or I guess off air)
Fully network enabled
Automatically skip commercials (this is worth big $$ alone!)
Automatically transfer shows to a "media" server (no need to have a huge DVR disk)
Stream shows off media server to DVR or any locally networked suitable device (e.g., PC any OS)
Import any video to media center (including DVDs) to stream to DVR or networked PC (or Mac Mini?)
Play shows off of DVR or media server from suitable networked devices

I do all of this today with my ReplayTV 5040, DVArchive.and RTVTools.

Here is what I can not do yet that I would like to do:

Record two channels at one time
5.1 digital audio in and 5.1 audio out
HD recording

Personally I'll pass on the toys like weather, games and pictures. I already stream digital music to any stereo (Slimedevices) so I do not need a DVR to handle this though I think it would be a plus to have an iTunes compatible player of locally networked music.

On cost, yes, I had to buy the ReplayTV and chose to pay the one time $250 activation (total cost was about $350 HW+activation).

I am sure I missed a few features but right now I only miss the two channel recording and when ever there is reasonable HD content I may miss not being able to record that...

So, as for what I'd suggest TiVo and their SDK allow, at least all the above. At no additional charge.

They forgot about "TV Recording"

[swb]

Check this list of missing features:

Megazone's Tivo Feature Wishlist

Most of these Tivo could and should have been added years ago, but they have instead wasted resources on stuff like HMO and PC2Go. Not that those things aren't somehow valuable, but they're much better as farmed out SDK items than as Tivo-produced.

Tivo has also failed to see their hardware line as a source of profitability. It's kind of pathetic that as a geek I can't justify buying a new standalone 3 years after buying my first. At a bare minimum, where's digital audio recording? Why isn't a cablecard (despite the limitations of 1.0) Tivo that does HD and digital audio out *now*? Why not Tivos with 1394/USB2 interfaces for HDD expansion or adding DVD recorders? Even if the boxes need to be Tivo branded, *I* would buy them.

I love my Tivo and won't trade it, but not having HD recording and digital audio is increasingly frustrating. I'm increasingly tempted to trade up my SA3250 for the HD DVR Time Warner offers to AT LEAST get HD recording ability.

(DirecTV zealots: I can't have DirecTV, so don't start in on DirecTivo.)

Re:They forgot about "TV Recording"

[FredThompson]

TWP will give a bunch of the items on that list like undelete, negative offsets, etc. The list has some duplicates.

$50 after rebate is too much for a 40G TiVo? C'mon, that's just silly.

Lots of people who complain about HD probably don't know the MPEG4 standardization which is going on right now. Look at what is happening with the satellite providers and you'll see just how close things are to being stable. A mistep on standards at this point could be monstrously expensive for any company, be they makers of DVRs or disc burners.

There are ways to do DVD burning. However, think about the data rate required. The TiVos weren't designed for that, they're basically drivers for some dedicated MPEG2 chips, not wide buses.

Re:They forgot about "TV Recording"

[swb]

$50 after rebate is too much for a 40G TiVo? C'mon, that's just silly.

Sure, but it's another $300 for lifetime service. Not worth it, at least _another_ standalone standard-def one isn't to me. A cablecard standard def one would be, though. Still a bad bet for basic TV watchers vs. cable provided boxes, they can be had for $10 per month, making the Tivo box a 3+ year investment to pay back.

A mistep on standards at this point could be monstrously expensive for any company, be they makers of DVRs or disc burners.

So freakin' innovate. Partner with nVidia or ATI to come up with programmable decoders that can adapt to new codecs; since we're talking MPEG4 variants and MPEG2, none of this should be too hard. It won't be a $1.50 IC, but part of the idea is to make the devices worthwhile to buy.

Even if HD goes nutty for MPEG4 (I'm not convinced they will) and the box becomes obsolete for HD content, it's just an incentive to buy another box. The boxes can be sold for a profit, not just as loss leaders on increasingly too-expensive monthly service fees, and hardware churn sells boxes.

There are ways to do DVD burning. However, think about the data rate required. The TiVos weren't designed for that, they're basically drivers for some dedicated MPEG2 chips, not wide buses.

See above. Tivo needs to stop viewing itself as a razors & blades business where the razors (hardware) are given away and the blades are sold for a big margin. Look at the hardware as a profit center and quit figuring out a way to build the boxes so darned cheaply; build them so that they can be smarter and more flexible.

MythTV & NYT & Tivo

[Dan667]

Interesting in the same week that the NYT would slam Mythtv as tv show pirates and then glorify tivo for releasing a SDK to basically copy alot of the features already in myth.

Seems like to big a coincidence to me.

Re:MythTV & NYT & Tivo

[Lesson No. 25]

Interesting in the same week that the NYT would slam Mythtv as tv show pirates

Is this the article you mean?

I thought it was an interesting read. Not that I learned a lot from it per se, but it seemed a decent summary of what's going on, if you know enough of it yourself to sort out the half-truths. At least it sounds like the content producers are planning (trying?) to innovate in response.

Why don't they partner with IMDB?

[AugstWest]

It seems like a no-brainer to me -- every time we watch a movie, DVD, TiVo, whatever, we run to IMDB to look up all kinds of info on all the actors, the writers, etc.

It would also be a good way for them to pick up some ad revenue as well, I think....

Re:Why don't they partner with IMDB?

[Alphi1]

It seems like a no-brainer to me -- every time we watch a movie, DVD, TiVo, whatever, we run to IMDB to look up all kinds of info on all the actors, the writers, etc.

It would also be a good way for them to pick up some ad revenue as well, I think....

I was just thinking something similar to this the other day: if they were tied to IMDB for movies, they could be tied to sites such as http://www.tvtome.com/ for TV series episodes.

I mean, let's say that you set up your Tivo with a "season pass" for a particular show. If they were connected to tvtome, they might provide you a list of *ALL* episodes for that show. That way you could tell whether a particular episode was a new one, or an old one (and if so, from which season).

Heck, you might even have some way of "checking off" which episodes you've already recorded/watched (such as, for example, for a series in syndication).

Re:Why don't they partner with IMDB?

[JQuick]

Well the basic listing information already contains the information about whether it is new or a rerun.

Also, most networks submit additional listing information which is available locally on the tivo by hitting the "info" button from the episode screen. This information includes full credits for actors, director, etc., the original air date (when it was first released), episode number (e.g. 306 - season 3 episode 6).

So, the imdb hooks would only work for shows for which the network provides a full field set when they report to the listing integrator. All that information on an episode can already be viewed on the Tivo without making a network access.

I like the idea of keeping a persistent log of what episodes you have seen. However, the Tivo has very little memory, and disk access is precious since it already needs to do its index housekeeping, inter-Tivo networking etc., while recording one show in real-time (2 on a directivo) and playing back another.

In short, this doesn't sound worth any additional effort.

Re:Why don't they partner with IMDB?

[FredThompson]

You're thinking of a perfect match to IMDB. A title search could be done and the results displayed as an overlayed list from which the user picks a match. Alternately, any additional info could be used to make a strongly weighted guess as to the best match which would be displayed with a single-button way for the user to see a list of the other matches with variable sorting (% hit, release date, maybe something else.)

Re:Why don't they partner with IMDB?

[AugstWest]

Sure, you can see who the actors are, but can you see what else they've been in?

"That guy looks familiar, what have I seen him in?"

Re:Why don't they partner with IMDB?

[JQuick]

Yes, but not as thoroughly as via an imdb search.

Wishlist->actor

You can see if anything is showing soon, or even record items in the the wish list when they arrive in the future.

imdb integration would provide more information.

However, there is no revenue from such a partnership.
Therefore, I neither expect, nor wish for Tivo to waste time and money on this.

This is something that should be left for independent developers. I don't have 7.1 yet, so have yet to actually use the third party API they've recently released on sourceforge. My guess, however, is that something like that will have to wait for a later release of the Tivo development kit.

SDK on sourceforge, contest, and press release

[gurgeous]

The SDK is out: http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/

Screenshots:
http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/?page=screenshots

TiVo is sponsoring a developer contest:
http://www.tivo.com/4.3.hme.asp

The press release:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050131/sfm023a_1.html

Re:SDK on sourceforge, contest, and press release

[slushdang]

looks like the SDK works great on Mac OS X too: http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2005/01/tivos_home_medi .html (see comments to the article)

TiVo... perhaps too little too late

[Thomas Hawk]

I think it's grasping for straws at this point. Microsoft has offered all three of these "toys" through it's Media Center Edition software for over a year. People do not buy entertainment DVRs because they have weather forcasts on them or an RSS reader. The games they might offer could not compete with the richer gaming experience found elsewhere. TiVo missed the mark by wasting the last year working on TiVoToGo which is useable by less than half of their subscribers (Series 1 and DirecTV users can't use it) and chock full of DRM and has been reported to have extremely slow file transfer speeds (this is probably as much do to problems with folks wireless networkds as anything.). Instead they should have been working on a two tuner standalone unit and an HDTV standalone unit. (Both things they say are coming now). They also had an opportunity to strika a deal with cable that Ramsay botched trying to hold out for more money. Boy I bet they wish they had that cable deal now. What TiVo should have realized from the beginning was it wasn't important how much they made from a cable deal, what was important was getting the users. Figure out a way to monetize them later.

Re:TiVo... perhaps too little too late

[slushdang]

I don't think tivo is releasing any "toys" with this.. it is just an sdk... the things cited as "features" are just example programs for developers.

Sorry Tivo

[blooba]

I read the author's article, and I have to say, it's time to short Tivo stock. My TWC DVR does all of the things listed in the article that I care about.

a few items

[anjrober]

Context Setting: I'm a big fan of Tivo.

I would like to see:
Music Playback control thru 802 enabled palm or pocketpcs!

Ability to play music with TV turned off

Use Tivo as web brower

Tivo vs Dish PVR

[wytcld]

I have a basic Dish PVR, a relative has a Tivo. The difference in used functionality comes down to two features. The Tivo usefully can skip recording if a show is not on that week; the Dish is stupid about that. The Dish can quickly skip commercials with its 30-seconds-forward and 10-seconds back buttons. The Tivo requires entering a secret code after every software upgrade to restore the (by default turned off) skip-forward function, and fiddling with the skip-foward and fast-forward/reverse buttonss to skip a block of commercials both makes a disgusting blooping noise and - more importantly - takes about twice as long to accomplish.

The Tivo has some other minor advantages. But since the main value of these things beyond recording is to skip commercials cleanly, quickly, efficiently, the Dish PVR wins. Have heard that NBC gave Tivo money to not have decent commercial-skipping capacity. It may be that taking this money has tainted their product, and that this will be their doom.

Re:Tivo vs Dish PVR

[Big Boss]

I've owned and used both. Your relative has some options here. The first is easy, just turn off the sounds. It's available in the configuration menu. I like them set low, but not off. Some have different prefferences. The other involves hacking, but you can make the 30-second skip the default. If you don't want to do that, a remote macro can make it simple to turn back on if you have a remote capable of that. The FF w/auto correction is also very fast once you get used it it. I agree that the 30sec skip should be a menu option at the very least. I wouldn't give either the edge on speed. On both my S1 and S2 DTivo units, 30sec skip is about the same speed as it was on my DishPVR boxes.

TiVo has a number of options that help it stand out from simple PVRs like the Dish boxes. Season Passes are smart, they can tell when a show skips a week, has special airings, and compensates for the stupid network tricks like 1 or 2 minute longer episodes. It can also skip re-runs and has MUCH better space management features. Suggestions are interesting, and wishlists are excellent. Some people don't use all these features, but many do. Add in HMO, and you've got a really nice box. HMO adds the ability to transfer shows between TiVos, show pictures and play music. With the JavaHMO server on your network, you can get weather info, movie showtimes, listen to shoutcast streams, and integrate with iTunes. That's just the stuff I use myself, there are many other options.

If you're willing to hack, you can do things like add a network adapter, add a web server so you can manage it remotely, extract digital video over the network, and serve RSS streams.

That's not to say there is no place for the simple PVR boxes like the Dish units. Some people want a simple, integrated box that they don't have to pay for. Dish and cable companies offer that.

I agree with your final point though, TiVo needs to stop sucking off the media companies and give thier customers what they want. This SDK is a nice idea, we'll see how well it works out.

Re:Tivo vs Dish PVR

[falzbro]

The Tivo has some other minor advantages. But since the main value of these things beyond recording is to skip commercials cleanly, quickly, efficiently, the Dish PVR wins

You're kidding, right? I got a Dish PVR when they were having a promo ($25). I wanted to compare it to my TiVo, and have the ability to output audio via optical.

The DishPVR doesn't even have a season pass. When I was watching a a few minutes behind "real time", when the Dish PVR has to record the next show, it would not allow me to continue watching my timeshifted show- it simply forces you to start watching the new program.

This also happened when I simply went into the MENU. (Similar to TiVo button).

It sounds like you use the DishPVR exclusively as a scrollback buffer, not to actually record any programming. My Dish PVR was back in the box in about an hour.

--falz

Re:Tivo vs Dish PVR

[Vancouverite]

You may be behind the times with this information. I have the dual-receiver DISH PVR (where one TV is direct connected, and the other is remote in another location in the house). I frequently will have show "A" recording on one receiver, show "B" on the second, and be playing pre-recorded show "C" (and D, if someone else is watching on the other TV).

IMO, Dish could use someone to clean up their user interface (e.g. making the "Record All Episodes" option the default was a stupid choice -- it should be Once, or All New, not All.) But their basic box, at least now, is definitely worth considering.

Now, if only they would enable the USB port on the back of the DVR.....

killer feature - accelerated playback

[blitz487]

If tivo wants a new killer feature, this is one I seriously desire. I've read about a technology where one can playback speech at higher speed without the pitch shift. Drop a frame now and then, and you have a capability that some TV stations use to shorten a show so they can add more commercials. Do it a bit and nobody notices.

I, however, would like to see this as a capability of tivo, with a variable speed acceleration throttle. I'd like to watch talk shows and news shows at higher speed. It'll be a big time saver for me. I'd pay extra for such a feature.

I just want to skip adverts

[Anonymous Coward]

with the disease that is Advertising i just want to remove all commercials from my entertainment
wether its TV inserts or trailers on a DVD

any PVR that can do this without hacks like fastforward ?, any development anywhere for this ? or are we still messing about adding 20year old games and RSS feeds ?

Tivo with a weather program?

[Manchot]

So Tivo's going to make a weather viewing program, eh? I hope that it's not Weatherbug! I'd hate to have to install Ad-Aware onto my Tivo...

Can't see a TiVo user switching to an ordinary DVR

[raitchison]

The cable companies have an edge with new DVR customers, since someone who has never used a DVR before won't know the difference between a generic "DVR" and one with advanced features like a TiVo (or even ReplayTV) DVR.

I Don't see many TiVo users dumping their TiVo's for the cable company offerings. Maybe a few who are obsessed over HD (even less households have HD capabale TVs than have TiVos) might but they would probably be more likely to get the cable company DVR and keep their TiVo.

As a TiVo subscriber myself I can't imagine life without it. I'd give up subscriber TV (go with over the air only) before I'd give my TiVo up. I'd also gladly pay for a TiVo rather than have a free DVR (in fact I did when I passed up the mostly free ($50 with no montly fees) DishPVR that Dish Network offered me when I signed up for Dish and bought a TiVo instead.

Re:A Republican must have modded this!

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT UP!

Corporate America (TIVO) labeling free services "Flamebait"

Restore Missing Features

[Nom du Keyboard]

And how long before someone offers a plug-in to restore missing features, like instant commercial skip, sharing recorded programs with other devices, or accessing free channel gude services?

Just the though of such choices makes me want to consider a Tivo again.

Re:Restore Missing Features

[FredThompson]

I've noticed that sometimes the guide data isn't up to date. There can be last-minute changes (something "big" happens) or maybe a local affiliate changes their schedule but doesn't inform anyone. This happens with one of our PBS stations.

Augmenting the TiVo guide data with data from other listing methods has been kicked around quite a bit. If you're in the U.K., you can use DigiGuide.

Seems like a no-brainer.

For that matter, there's really no reason to force all the heavy lifting onto the TiVos themselves. The SDK just might give a way to interface with the stored user configs and scheduling info. If so, there are a lot of nice possibilities.

For a while, there was some work on a buddy rating system where you'd enable a buddy list to influence suggested recordings. That would be a nice development. Imagine a genre-based autorecording based on collected ratings from fan sites.

You still dont end up with Tivo listings.

[Viewsonic]

Which is the best part about the entire device. Their show listings simply destroy anything from the competition, and provide far more accurate and detailed ratings, actors, directors, year, etc etc etc.

I love my TIVO

[queenb**ch]

Tivo's biggest problem isn't technical, it's legal. A lot of the really cool functionality that TIVO designers and engineers have wanted to include or used to include do things like piss off the networks, the RIAA, the MPAA, etc.

A significant portion of their efforts are devoted to avoiding legal battles. They used to automagically skip commercials. The networks and their advertisers rasied a total stink about it, so now TIVO doesn't skip the ads any more, it records them as a part of the show. The RIAA had a cow over the ability of TIVO to share music so now you can only share your MP3 file share to a TIVO you own. You can no longer go to a friends house and say "Connect to my music, I've got this song you have to hear". Additionally, you can no longer share your TIVO'd shows or movies so "I TIVO'd this show you need to see" is also out since you can only transfer recorded shows to TIVO's you personally own and have registered with the TIVO service.

All in all, I blame the RIAA, the MPAA and things like the DMCA for restricting my TIVO from being the coolest thing ever. For that reason, and many like, I urge everyone to stop buying music, videos, DVD's or anything else that puts money in the pocket of these loosers. Perhaps if they loose their funding, they'll eventually go away!

2 cents,

Queen B

Let it load any kernel...

[Glomek]

...and I would buy one.

A bittorrent pluggin

[TigerTime]

Woah, that would be the end of me.

That would be unbelievably nice to sit back and select a movie to download (for free) and have it arrive to your Tivo in a couple hours.

Instant Messaging would also be nice. Either a GAIM interface, or something else. If they could hook into the AIM network the teenyboppers would single handedly be able to support TIVO.

So much passion, so little understanding

[UpLock]

TiVo's TCO has not budged in 5 years...still ~$500-600 assuming the box 'dies' between 3-4 years as it is designed to do. Yeah, then you can hack in new drives, but joe consumer can not.

TiVo's value proposition has not changed since March 31, 1999 when the first box shipped (to Mike Ramsey's house) and it 'beat RePlay' to market by 6 weeks. It time shifts, FF's through commercials and schedules season passes...the rest is fluff that does not sell units.

Everything TiVo does today except ToGo was in the first box or on a list that Howard Look carried around on a clipboard in 1999.

TiVo has spent about $500/customer of investor money.

TiVo has no content. TiVo re-sells Tribune Media Services scheduling information for $13/mo...which is more than your local newspaper charges you to have that and a newspaper delivered to you door by a human.

TiVo still makes boxes on which it loses money.

TiVo employs 200-300 engineers at ~$130K/yr...and goes about that far in the red each year.

So, now they think the developer community will do fir them what they could not do for themselves? Make TiVo profitable.

No amount of good ideas will counteract bad business decisions at the top of the company.

Like everything else with TiVo since the product first shipped, Great Idea...executed 5 years too late.

Re:So much passion, so little understanding

[Sloppy]

TiVo has spent about $500/customer of investor money.
...
TiVo employs 200-300 engineers at ~$130K/yr...

Ouch. That's a disaster and there's no way around it. Why more than half a dozen engineers?

I've been using a Tivo series 1 for a little over 4 years now, and I think it's really nifty, but even at the instant I bought it, I knew it had no future, as its features were destined to be commoditized. And as soon as it became apparent that they had to make features consessions to please their "partners", it was obvious that a Free version, rather than a commercial competitor, was what was going to have to replace them.

They need to have done it cheaper -- at LOT cheaper -- and should have made their money back right away. If they are still trying to get their money back, they're doomed. Doooooomed!

It's the networking stupid.

[JQuick]

Of course it won't fix your negotiation problems because its a problem with your network, not theirs.

If you are connecting via a telephone line, you probably should look at your telephone wiring, and other devices connected to it. Perhaps you've got a device that changes the amount of power on the telephone line when your tivo attempts to make a call, or you try to use the phone often when when the tivo is thinking of calling. In that case it politely drops its attempt and waits another day.

If you are on a wired or wireless ethernet, check signal strength, and cabling.

Bottom line Tivo makes connection via TCP/IP. It used ppp over a POTS line, or vanilla IP over ethernet. None of my 3 Tivos have ever had a (failed negotiation) during the past 3-4 years. (2 via wired ethernet or phone line, 1 via phone line).

The problem is yours not theirs.

Re:It's the networking stupid.

[garcia]

Nah, it has nothing to do w/my network. The network connects just fine for everything else just not Tivo.

Other people have been complaining on the Tivo forums about similiar problems recently. The network has been up and running for several months without issue. It's only been the last couple of weeks that I have noticed this.

Re:It's the networking stupid.

[JQuick]

Sorry for jumping to conclusions.

For the past 4 weeks or so Tivo has been rolling out the
next major release of the OS. I'd bet they are deploying
several hundred to a thousand per night. I live on the
east coast, and have had no connection issues on any of my
Tivos. I know this because I check them once every evening to
see whether I've gotten the upgrade yet. (I got on the expedited
upgrade list weeks ago.)

Just out of curiosity, are you failing to connect at all (not getting
the clock set)? Or, are you failing far later.

Manually, connecting and watching the progress (which takes a
matter of minutes on a fast link) should narrow it down.

It is possible that your Tivos are trying to connect during peak
night time periods when OS downloads are happening.

Perhaps, you are timing out during download of the new OS yourself. And this is causing the failure.

Re:It's the networking stupid.

[garcia]

It will set the clock most of the time. Sometimes it times out there as well. It does get the schedule updates after a while but most of the time it does not.

Re:It's the networking stupid.

[garcia]

Well I just unplugged the USB wlan adapter, plugged it back in, watched it get signal and it works. Who knows?

Re:It's the networking stupid.

[JQuick]

That's good to hear.

There are a number or really crappy USB network adapters out there. I've had very good luck with both D-Link and Belkin adapters with Tivo, but mileage varies. If you continue to have intermittent problems, and consider replacing the network adapter you might want to search the tivo community forum for recommendations.

Currently Tivo can only use USB 1.1 speeds to access the network. Under the upcoming release of the software, some network interfaces will be supported via USB 2.0 drivers enabling much faster network performance for both wired and wireless connections. If you decide to replace the network interface, it makes sense to choose one which has a supported USB2.0 driver.

Do some google searches or search the tivo community forum for info on this.

radio audo synched with TiVo video?

[kazem]

My number one request for TV watching is the ability to replace the audio feed from the TV with an external audio source (radio).

Specifically, I want to mute commentators during football games and listen to the radio commentators instead. However, I need the voices of the radio commentators perfectly synched with the action on the field. Any ideas on how to do this? Would the SDK help?

Thanks.

-Kazem

Moxi is absolutely terrible compared to Tivo.

[Viewsonic]

I had mine for a week, and I can say without a doubt, there is no competition for Tivo from these guys. The video encoding quality is TERRIBLE, and is a known issue. The main Moxi guy posts on some of the forums and says this will never change. Their season passes are broken, as they see "first runs" as any show YOU haven't recorded before, even if its from 2001 and a repeat. Their show descriptions are the worst part, its usually TWO sentences describing the show, compared to an entire paragraph from Tivo! They dont let you know if there is any Violent, Nudity, Adult Content, etc in the program either! The GUI looks nice, but it really isn't usable at all. On Tivo, you can see 12 stations down the left side, and to the right, you can see the next 12 upcoming shows for each channel in advance, with the Moxi, you get to see THREE! THREE!

I'm very suprised you haven't sent that piece if junk back yet. Reading most of the forums, pretty much everyone feels the same way. Moxi is hopeless.

Re:Moxi is absolutely terrible compared to Tivo.

[jbarr]

I had mine for a week, and I can say without a doubt, there is no competition for Tivo from these guys. The video encoding quality is TERRIBLE, and is a known issue. The main Moxi guy posts on some of the forums and says this will never change.

Yes, for analog Cable channels, the encoding is poorer than just about any DVR I have seen (and I have used and seen several.) But let's not forget that it's also a mater of perspective. I'm using a 27" tube TV, and at 12 feet away, it looks decent. I certainly can't complain. But if you have a larger TV, especially an HDTV (to take advantage of the HD display and recording capabilities) you will definitely see very poor encoding on the analog channels. As for digital channels, their picture quality is significantly better, and for HD channels, the quality is stunning. Admittedly, Digeo's response tends to be "Wait until your cable company goes full digital and it'll get much better." While this may well be true, it's not a very good solution

Their season passes are broken, as they see "first runs" as any show YOU haven't recorded before, even if its from 2001 and a repeat.

For "hardcore viewers" this will certainly be an issue. We only record a select few shows and series, and so far, Moxi records them just fine. No doubt, if we required more sophistocated recording, we would get stung.

Their show descriptions are the worst part, its usually TWO sentences describing the show, compared to an entire paragraph from Tivo! They dont let you know if there is any Violent, Nudity, Adult Content, etc in the program either! The GUI looks nice, but it really isn't usable at all. On Tivo, you can see 12 stations down the left side, and to the right, you can see the next 12 upcoming shows for each channel in advance, with the Moxi, you get to see THREE! THREE!

Again, it's a matter of perspective. Yes, this article is a TiVo-centric one, but from one who comes from the ReplayTV world, Moxi is a Godsend because believe it or not, it actually provides much more information that ReplayTV users are used to! Its UI implementation, while cutesy, does have its shortcomings, but so does every other UI. My only real complaint is the lack of a "Grid Guide" and the inability to "go back" in time on the Channels listing.

I'm very suprised you haven't sent that piece if junk back yet. Reading most of the forums, pretty much everyone feels the same way. Moxi is hopeless.

I hate to sound redundent, but again, it's a matter of perspective. Yes, there are many, many disappointed Moxi users, but there are also a very large number of satisfied users. For me, the ability to have a dual tuner, HD-capable DVR with lots of extras outweighs all the hassles and problems I had trying to get standalone DVR's working with digital cable boxes using lousy IR blasters. Just keep in mind that Moxi is still in its infancy. A new software release that addresses a number of issues (but of course, not all) is forthcoming. TiVo is quite a number of software revs old and has had lots of time to mature. In many markets, Moxi is still in "Beta" so some of its shortcomings can be forgiven...

Also, about video on demand.

[Viewsonic]

The encoding quality on everything makes it all but unwatchable. Imagine watching a recorded show on Tivo with the lowest quality settings, and then double the the pixelization. That's VOD. It's something I can live without. And since I have a Tivo, why would I need to go back and look at movies that i've already recorded when they originally aired? It's a bit pointless at this day and age.

Re:Also, about video on demand.

[jbarr]

The encoding quality on everything makes it all but unwatchable. Imagine watching a recorded show on Tivo with the lowest quality settings, and then double the the pixelization. That's VOD. It's something I can live without. And since I have a Tivo, why would I need to go back and look at movies that i've already recorded when they originally aired? It's a bit pointless at this day and age.

As for the picture quality, yes, analog cable channels are poor in quality, but on my 27" TV, they are decent. Digital ercordings look great.

As for VOD, I think you are missing the point. VOD is simply an additional choice for the viewer. Yes, the VOD selections tend to be older movies, but they provide the viewer the ability to watch a show when he wants to watch it. "But wait," you say, "that's what my TiVo is for!" Yes, but can your TiVo hold the large, extensive library of VOD choices that the Cable company offers? I didn't think so. The whole point is to provide more options for the viewer when there is "nothing on" to watch. Yo don't have to watch them, but it'snice to know they are available.

collaborative advert skipping

[throwaway18]

A german company that I'v forgotten the name of reccently won a two year legal battle to sell box's that do advert skipping. I'd like to see it in the hands of the European masses soon as it will be hard to pass laws to ban it if lots of people start using it.

A PVR could do collabortive advert skipping. If advert skipping becomes popular then the TV companys will make it as hard as possible to automatically skip adverts. Some TV stations currently put out a fraction of a second of black at the start of an ad break or other signals that can be detected by a machine. We probably can't rely on them allways being there. The alternative is to connect PVR's to the internet. When ten people are watching a channel it would only take one to press a button at the start of and end of an ad break and everyone's PVR could skip the ads. It would require a bit of intelligence to deal with people pressing the button at the wrong moment, for example if twenty people are watching a channel you might require two people to press the skip button before it causes everyones viewing to skip
plus a rating system to detect deliberate misuse or people who just press the wrong button too often.

Similar, but not JavaHMO

[Anonymous Coward]

The HME SDK enables features which are similar to JavaHMO, but it is not related --other than the fact both are written in Java.

Download tv line up

[johnrob]

Here's a good SDK app - download tv line up data, so you can cancel the service and save $13 a month.

Arr! Barrier to entry: not high, says I!

[ArmorFiend]

Actually, after RTFA, I disagree. I think the purpose of releasing a SDK is to foster new innovations.

I donno, they sound pretty desperate to me. Any legal feature joe hacker dreams up will be easily cloned by their competitors.

Now if they create some illegal features, and are allowed to distribute them without tivo's knowlege or consent, that's something the cable companies won't easily be wanting to clone. Y'know, features associated with parrots, wooden legs, and X-marks-the-spot maps? Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

satellite/cable tuners needed

[wealthychef]

I wish there were tuners for Satellite/cable TV you could plug into your PCI slot. Then I would get one of the Linux interfaces, the names of all of which escape me and which I'm too lazy to look up. :-) Tivo is the best compromise, failing that. It has a pretty good interface, and great capabilities, compared to the crappy PVRs being sold everywhere that "compete" with TiVo.

Re:satellite/cable tuners needed

[Nik13]

There alerady are cards like thatfor satellite: DVB-S cards. Software wise, there is VDR (for linux).

Re:TiVo Cable/Satellite DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not use the multiroom viewing functionality built into Series 2 TiVo?

http://customersupport.tivo.com/knowbase/root/publ ic/tv2018.htm?

It's been available since the Home Media Option was launched, and is now free to Series 2 owners.

DirecTiVos

[rewound98]

Unfortunately for DirecTV subscribers, this SDK will not work on their DirecTV Tivos (well, out of the box anyway or on most hacked boxes either).

SDK?

[ElDuderino44137]

I've often thought it would be a good idea to ...

Provide a software package / SDK to make addons that comes w/ no hardware. Let the end users purchase low end hardware additionally (at a profit). But give the folks the ability to just build/buy their own Multimedia Computer.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the open source community doesn't have this partial solution out there already.

I think the market would support the sale of additional/optional low end hardware at a profit.

My main gripe is that I can't upgrade my TiVo.

Cheers,
--The Dde

Re:Can't see a TiVo user switching to an ordinary

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider me one who is "obsessed" with HD. I just unplugged and boxed up my Tivo. Its inabilty to record HD makes it obsolete for me. The single tuner and the need to use a phone line are just irritating.

Re:Can't see a TiVo user switching to an ordinary

[raitchison]

Certianly I understand your passion for HD (though I don't share it myself).

FTR you don't need a phone line with a TiVo, mine gets its updates over broadband and has never once been hooked up to a phone line, not even for it's initial setup.

Soureforge Project URL

[rdurell]

For those of you interested the sourceforge project page is at http://tivohme.sourceforge.net

sounds like

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like it's turning into xbox media center
www.xboxmediacenter.de (xbox sold seperatly)

Re:I'm in... What about HD?

[arazor]

The HD Tivo problems have largely been addressed. The machines built after September 3 2004 have been relatively problem free. However DirecTV and the other DBS providers are moving to MPEG4 starting middle of this year which will not work with the HD Tivo hardware. The HD Tivo of course will function fine as a over the air HD receiver as long as DirecTV keeps sending Tivo data. DirecTV says they will keep their current HD Channels in Mpeg2 format and will upgrade peoples equipment as needed.

That said I dont know if I would purchase an HD Tivo at the current 850 - 1K$ price. I bought one around August 2004 was about to get another one but DirecTV has apparently speeded up plans to go to MPEG4...

This is all about filesharing

[popo]

This is all about one thing: Filesharing.

The only way to save TiVO is to go to the one dark place that the Cable and Sattelite company DVR's won't go. What does every consumer want? Simple: They want "TiVo-meets-Kazaa". In other words they want to be able to search *other people's* TiVO's for the shows they didn't record, or didn't have access to.

But there are two problems TiVO faces if it wants to give consumers what they really want:

1) NBC is a major shareholder of TiVO. (this is the minor of the two problems)

2) (big problem:) Its a legal quagmire. Unlike typical filesharing applications which argue that there are "legitimate uses" of their networks, a P2P add-on for TiVO would have very few legitimate uses since 99.9999% of the content recorded is protected by copyright.

So how does TiVO, whose hands are tied by investor loyalty and potential legal pitfalls -- turn itself into the "killer app" of the DVR world? Easy...You Opensource it. Guess which hack everyone's going to add-on to their TiVO's first?

This is all about filesharing.

Re:This is all about filesharing

[FredThompson]

Filesharing is probably the LEAST possible aspect for the SDK. Every TiVo recording is unique so there's no standard "base" to fall back on. If you want to share a file, you'll pull it from the TiVo and put it on a PC running some form of sharing client.

The SDK is about taking a smart electronci VCR and turning it into a PC peripheral.

ReplayTV Does Advert Skipping Already

[meehawl]

A PVR could do collabortive advert skipping.

My 2001-vintage ReplayTV PVR does "dumb" auto advert skipping (using simple heuristics) that works around 95% of the time. I'm not sure you would get a good improvement over 95% with this extra technology...

2 little 2 late

[Anonymous Coward]

If tivo had done this 2 or 3 years ago... maybe they would be in a better position. Tivo has just made too many mistakes and pissed away their inovation. I love my tivo, but stopped recommending it to people last year.

Gotta defend Tivo just once

[RomulusNR]

Tivo check
Ability to acquire/implement for $200 with $100 kickback - Yes

Needs faster I/O connectivity...

[Kaldaien]

I own two TiVo series two boxes. One's an 80 Gb standalone and the other is a new Toshiba 140 hour DVD-R recorder. The REAL problem with TiVo is it uses USB. Not USB 2.0/FireWire... My new 140 hour has FireWire in for recording from external DV sources, but it's input only The real thing that sets TiVos apart from cable/satelite co boxes is their ability to share between other boxes in the home... And the fact that you actually own the machine(s) ;) But their only means of transfer are 2 USB ports. USB NICs can barely handle transfering a single recording from one TiVo to another (it's full of pauses). Realistically TiVo can't ever hope to scale up to CableCard HDTV tuner(s) without at least providing USB 2.0. Transfering and recording (to DVD) shows is more of a selling point (for me anyway) than any silly 3rd party weather plugin could ever be...

It's not a losing battle for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

> but its hard to argue with a $10/month box with
> dual HD/digital/analog tuners, 160 gig of space
> and a tolerable UI now that Comcast has rolled
> out the new TV Guide software.

Hmm - let's see. I have 320+ gig of space on my Tivo, so I'd have to lose space (let alone the fact that when one records HD, the reviews I've read say that space required is about 25 times what is required for non-HD broadcasts). You mention a $10 a month charge - so much for all the
arguments I've heard about 'getting dvrs for free from the cable companies' , and that ignores the fact that I bought the lifetime Tivo service,
so I don't have a monthly charge and in fact by the end of year will have broken even or better with the cost of the service. In fact, to get dvr service from my cable provider, I'd also have to upgrade to digital service, then add on the dvr stuff. Then there's the matter of basing things on the TV Guide data - which is even worse than the people who supply Tivo with their guide data.

Oh, but of course, I'd be able to record HD, right? But, I'd have to plunk down the $1000 or more to watch the HD. Hmm - looks like to move from Tivo to cable dvr, I'd end up paying nearly 3 times what it costs me for tivo.

For what appears, from reading about the cable dvr features, to be an inferior product.

Really great draw there.