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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. "
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".
All the worlds indeed a
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
Never confuse volume with power.
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!).
My
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.
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.
"Well, I am mad, and I'm a crazy fucka when it comes to tea"
TiVo should get bundled with TV's. You can get any closer to the target market than that.
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"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
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.
/. 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 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
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.