Tivo Testing Internet Download Service

knarfling writes "Yahoo News writes that customers will soon be able to download TV shows to their set-top boxes via the Internet. There is even speculation about being able to download an entire season at a time. Right now there are only three shows from the Independent Film Channel available on Aug 19, but it is a start. Will other companies follow this lead, or will this die down after the hype is over?"

Comments

tivo's not the first... nor is it necessary.

[ghee22]

with xbox media center on your modded xbox, install this script ooba and then you get access to Comedy Central. Some other media (from the readme) you get access to is:

BBC streams, Comics (comics.com and ctrl+alt+del), , TVTome episode guides, Adult media (movies and images from 5 porn sites), Danish radio and TV (DR news, DR boogie, DR radio), RAI Click TV (italian TV streams), SVT TV open archive (Swedish), YLE24 Mediasaali (Finnish radio and TV), XBMC Forums reader (simple reader), History Channel, Movies @ archive.org (lots of movies in high quality), Online music labels (monotonik/mono211), Dave's trailer page

also google video gives you access to some fox newscasts.

my point is that you don't tivo for this.

ps: because of my xbox, i basically have The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tivo'd through the internet

Re:Interesting

[FireFlie]

Well, all I know is that I pay like 40.00 a month for cable television. I wouldn't mind paying the same amount to watch what I want, when I want to watch it. I don't know how feesable such a system would be in that form.

Hell, I wouldn't mind still having to see commercials. Plus (as I believe it was said earlier) not only would that make schedule conflicts with favorite television shows a thing of the past, but networks would know exactly what people really wanted to see. With such a flat rate system in place I wouldn't even really desire to keep the stuff I watch afterwards (why not, I don't really get to now, right?).

I know it's just an unlikely dream, but such a system would put an end to there being times of days where there is nothing good on. I am probably wrong, but I don't see them losing out a ton either. Otherwise, I would be content with things staying pretty much the way that they are now.

Tivo as it stands is a flawed model

[Conspire]

I have been telling all my friends to short Tivo stock for some time now. There are several reasons:

1. Direct TV will drop Tivo eventually (they announced last week), Tivo loses majority of its subscriber base.

2. There are new competing products, with more functionality, cheaper pricing, and innovative download and subscription services coming out on the market very soon. Will make Tivo look like a silly and overpriced product.

3. Integration and convergence of devices. Look at Xbox 360, PS3, etc. And just wait until your brand new LCD or Plasma TV has built in digital video recorder, and allows you to download or stream movies, music, and alternative content from your PC AND direct from the internet.

4. Tivo won't get mainstream content. The studios hate them! The entire internet delivered audio / video services will change very rapidly over the next 2 years, don't expect Tivo to be a part of it! It just threatens the Tivo business model, and they are not invited.

5. iPod for the living room is coming, including video.

the list goes on and on and on............

God damn it, don't we have already enough DRM?

[layer3switch]

This is just asking for more DRM and content protection from Hollywood and/or program resellers until we have totally decripled machines everywhere.

I think, it's much safer to just let it be some cheap subscription model and let people watch it on-demand instead of downloading the entire content and have some key to watch it.

The idea is nice, but I know where this is going, and I don't like it. I think, we should do whatever to discourage Hollywood/resellers from growing brain from already tiny head.