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TiVoToGo For iPods and PSPs
BushCheney08 writes "According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, TiVo is expanding its TiVoToGo service to allow recordings to be viewed on video iPods and PSPs. Files will be transcoded in real time and will include digital watermarks to try to cut down on piracy. The service begins beta-testing for select subscribers today, with a widespread rollout scheduled for early next year. An AP article is also available at Forbes."
More than 50 percent of TiVo's 3.6 million subscribers have tried TiVoToGo, and nearly half use it regularly, Denney said. The number of regular users was higher than TiVo expected, and "it was surprising to us, to be honest,'' he said.
Based on how slow the transfers are for Tivo2Go I too am surprised that Tivo has that many people using it. Granted, I was only using it over wireless but I assume that's what most of the Tivo2Go users are using as well. It was taking *more* than real-time to transmit a show to the computer and then I had to run it through Dr. Divx to bring it down to a resolution that would play well on my mobile device. Will this automated transcoding process increase the time it takes to put it on the handheld even more?
I have mentioned before that I use the "Record to VCR" option to put shows on my mobile device as I have an Archos that will automatically record it in the best fit option if I so choose... Yeah, it's real time and it's a pain but it was actually faster and easier than using Tivo2Go. Being that I've moved to the DirecTivo I no longer have the Tivo2Go option (with a stock unit) so I am happy to use Record to VCR for now.
I've been carrying shows around on my iPod for years. I've got a dozen episodes of Farscape sitting on it right now. I watch shows from my iPod on my Laptop when I'm on the road. I have not bought a Video iPod yet and think I'd prefer to watch on a big laptop screen anyway.
Too bad they never added Tivo To Go For Macintosh, and I doubt they will ever add this feature to Macs either. Nice to be a second or even 3rd class citizen when it comes to Tivo because i own a mac.
FU Tivo.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
MPEG output. Open source. Built on any operating system you want. MythTV is simply everything TiVo, Sony, and Apple are not.
Including about 40+ hours of your time, and several wasted unsupported TV tuner card and TV-out video card purchases.
Is the Tivo program it self going to shrink the file down to be able to handle more then 1 episode of a show on the ipod? I can just see how the resoultion and filesize not working on it well.
I wonder how long before it will be that the same places that outlaw talking on a cellphone while driving have to add iPods to that list? I've never been in a situation where I needed to watch tv so bad that I felt I had to carry one around with me everywhere.
You've never been in a situation where you might want to listen to music or catch up on some TV? I am all the time... Sometimes I bring along a book (which depending on the novel is usually more bulky than my Archos) or sometimes I chat, catch up on e-mail/forums, or surf the web from my Sidekick, but if I *know* I'm going to be waiting a long time (i.e. I'm at the dealership having something done to my car) I'm going to catch up on the shows that I would have watched on Saturday evening.
I'd rather utilize wasted time wasting more time by catching up with the week's TV episodes than sitting there bored. I'm more of a evening reader anyway. That's me though.
Seeing as TiVo hasn't even bothered to make TiVo Desktop compatible with Tiger yet, I'll take this report with a grain of salt.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
It only took me about 3 hours of work to skim through the HOWTO, order the parts from NewEgg.com, put all the parts together, and pop in a KnoppMyth disc I burned myself. Of course, I actually read all the HOWTOs before just getting in my SUV and driving myself down to CompUSA to drool all over the unsupported TV-in and TV-out devices. You're* mileage may vary.
* Since you cannot read a HOWTO, I'm assuming that you think this is the same word as "Your," which is the correct word to use here.
I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
Just buy a supported card. Read before you try/buy, it's not that hard. Why would anyone buy something other then the Hauppauge anyhow, inexpensive cards and the best capture quality. Better then the Tivo's even.
It only took me like 4 hours to setup my Myth backend from scratch. It's been like a year since. I have done 3 upgrades via APT-GET and it works great.
I can even transfer my video from the box at Gigabit speeds.
I used to have a Tivo, and hacked it for full network access. This blows it away in almost every single point. I honestly cannot think of one single item that I miss from Tivo. The Tivo maxed out at like 1.3 Megabytes per second on transfer rate, my Myth box gets like 10-15 Megabytes per sec.
We get a news story about a group of mysterious stormtroopers breaking into the Tivo headquarters and slaughtering its executive board.
I mean, didn't the MPAA just force them to allow remove-deletion of content at will? I can't imagine that promoting copying of saved tv shows will sit well with the cartels.
iPod seems to be turning into the canonical example of attacking an industry leader from below, as detailed in Clayton M. Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail" a decade back.
In business computing, PCs broke the dominance of mainframes in the computing environment by introducing relatively cheap gadgets that were more expensive and less profitable per business function than the industry leaders, who quite logically ignored them; and then PCs crept up the functionality curve to wipe out the dinosaurs.
In autos, the Japanese starting importing cheap cars to the US that were less profitable that our domestic industry leaders, who quite logically failed to respond effectively. While GM etc always made cheap cars too, they didn't try to match Japan's cheap-and-good model; Toyota etc crept up the functionality curve nearly to wipe out the dinosaurs.
Now in computing: the iPod, started cheap, and is creeping up the functionality curve.
The question is, will the industry leaders recognize and respond effectively? Or rather, can they? I don't intend to be making a yet another cheap flame of the world's leading software company, which cannot be ignorant of the what's going on, but responding may require breaking their business model.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
The chances this will be supported on DirecTivo....bwaaahahahhaaaaahahahaha 0
DirecTV tivos never even supported TivoToGo in the first place. The whole idea terrifies them.
I just don't see this flying. DRM and real-time encoding?? So you're limited in what you can do with the file AND it takes 2 hours to convert a 2 hour show and then however long to synch it with the device...
The people who really want to watch movies on their iPods and PSP will either have already created their own (DRM-free) hacks or will have bought the movie on a UMD. The people who only casually thinks, gee, it might be nice to have a copy this week's episode of "Stacked" on my iPod won't want to wait for almost an hour to get a half-hour sitcom... The nice thing about most PVRs and the ol' VCRs is that they're relatively simple to operate. Every additional step and limitation of this new system makes the recording technology less desirable - especially if the media can be found pre-packaged (from iTunes or Sony's UMD format).
"...will include digital watermarks to try to cut down on piracy. "
That's what I like to hear. Honestly, they'll never eliminate it because there will be the people that just won't pay, but if there was a distribution system (that offered better than 128kbps), was reasonably priced, and offered less restrictive DRM, the general public would have little incentive to pirate. The only things keeping me from buying legal tracks are the DRM and the bitrate. I don't even mind the dollar a song because I'm not getting filler tracks that I would get on a CD.
Anyway...I'm rambling...
TiVo's announcement comes as it faces stiffer competition from computer companies, cell phone providers and television networks that are scrambling to beam TV shows into any handheld device with a screen capable of playing video.
This is great news and I don't mean to be a troll but isn't it a bit disturbing that companies seem more focused on systems that promote vendor-lockin by controlling content?
Television is bascially a one-way pipe to a dumb terminal. I'd much rather see companies working toward bringing greater Internet access to these devices whereby consumers can shop for competitive content in an open market.
Just a thought.
I'm not sure I'd consider this a flame, but it seems unreasonable to compare this scenario to the bizarre need to constantly have access to a phone. (Don't get me wrong -- I have a mobile phone. I just turn it off sometimes. But I digress.)
Like a bunch of people, I travel for work. I spend at least 5 hours every week on a plane. That's airtime, excluding time sitting around the airport or going back and forth to the airport. And I know many, many people who take 45-minute train rides to work. Personally, when I'm home I want to do stuff that I can only do when I'm home -- taking some shows with me to kill 5 or 6 hours while I'm traveling is pretty convenient. I kill some dead time and regain some free time at home.
Currently, I do that with my laptop, but an iPod with video would allow me to catch up on some shows in the gate area or during my 40-minute cab ride, not have to juggle my laptop when my meal arrives on the flight, and still watch stuff in the limited space I get on small regional jets. I'm not sold on the new iPod yet -- I'll probably wait another generation and hopefully the screen will get a little bigger.
So TiVo will let us transfer shows to our iPods. This is the same TiVo that already makes their DVRs will obey the Broadcast Flag despite no federal legislation ever mandating such compliance. Seems to me that Disney, the WB, and every other studio will simply flag all their broadcasts as Do Not Record, blocking such free attempts to provide content to one's iPod and PSP and requiring these shows to be purchased. Therefore this announcement therefore amounts to NOTHING!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This is pretty easy to do on my Replay TV. I have put a quite a few shows on my ipod video already. Keeps the wife busy on long car trips.
Dvarchive to grab the shows from the Replay TV and then use one of the many free converters to change the format to IPOD friendly.
"Built on any operating system you want"
As long as you want Linux. *cough*
Great, so now i guess Tivo will make me connect my iPod to the phone line to receive "service updates" also?!?
The funny thing is that television got to be a one-way pipe to a dumb terminal precisely when it was the most monopolistic. The US government adopted TV standards, and sold (for a pittance) the rights to spectrum that has become increasingly valuable over the years. The terminal is dumb only because a standard was imposed; otherwise, the network affiliates could all have chosen different standards to try to lock you in to watching a particular network. Or you could buy a smarter box to read them all.
Now that the market for video delivery is far more open, you see companies doing precisely what companies do when they compete: try to lock you in to theirs. You've got many more options, and while being able to pick and choose is better for you, it's a loss for the company who would rather keep 100% of the attention that they pay so much to get (both in terms of bandwidth to deliver their content, whether from a web server or a broadcast tower, and in marketing to convince you to check them out in the first place.)
In other words, it seems to me as if the free market is doing exactly what it's always doing. In a sense what you're asking for is to remove an element of competition, by forcing the various vendors to adhere to some sort of standard.
It may be that those who choose a more open standard will form a cartel between them and eventually win over the others as you the consumer elect the single distribution channel with the most content. Or maybe not; even a decade after cell phones became widespread they still interoperate only via the original monopolistic network. It being an open market, it's up to the consumer to decide.
It makes sense that they would support OS X. The old TiVoToGo relied on Windows Media DRM which was unavailable on the Mac. The tech to make this new watermarking method available on OS X would be trivial. The files themselves *must* be compatible with the Mac if they are to play on the iPod. There's no way TiVo is getting around that.
Also TiVo Desktop *is* compatible with OS X 10.4.2 and 10.4.3 (I've heard but not confirmed 10.4.4 as well). There was an incompatibility with 10.4.0 and 10.4.1, but the later releases of Tiger worked well. The installer gives a false "failed" message, but it does install and it does work very well (better than 10.3.x).
It should also be noted that the CEO of TiVo is a Mac user. They very much wanted to provide Mac support for TiVoToGo, but didn't want to take the legal risk of allowing shows to be transferred without any DRM. Considering Apple won't license their DRM and Windows Media DRM isn't compatible with the Mac, TiVo had little choice but to release for Windows only and/or develop their own DRM method. It looks like the success of the iPod has convinced TiVo that it was worth developing a watermark method that would make the files compatible with the iPod, and as result, the files must be compatible with the Mac.
The only question remains is whether TiVo will provide Mac software that *pulls* (or pushes) the files from the TiVo to the Mac. If they don't, there are plenty of ways of getting around it, but I can't imagine TiVo wouldn't dedicate the couple of hours to develop this software on the Mac.
1. Transfers take forever, regardless of wired or wireless connection.
2. No Mac support.
3. Tivo is notoriously hideous on hitting their timelines. They annouced TivoToGo at CES 2004 and only released it a little before CES 2005 to limited beta testers (the full official unveiling of TTG was after CES 05).
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Another device that'll record to PSP video is the Neuros Recorder2.
It doesn't have the wide array of Tivolike features, but if you just want to convert analog video to digital for your PSP, this should work well.
I purchased a series2 Tivo three years ago and it has served me well, but when is Tivo going to finally release an HD capable standalone box? Three years is a lifetime for a struggling company not to release a major product update.
What features would you really like to see in TiVo?
TiVo has seriously fallen behind the technology curve and little software and marketing bandaids are not getting the job done.
I've been holding off on getting TiVo - never really saw the need, since my TV viewing time is limited as it is and between, SciFi, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, HBO and ESPN there's almost always something I *want* to watch on when I do have time.
:-).
But I just got an iPod video, and now the thought of TiVo-ing Adult Swim to my iPod video for watching while I commute to/from work is just *too* tempting
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
"Was it "piracy" when people videotaped hit TV shows in the 70s, 80s and 90s and then passed the tape around to family and friends? I don't think so."
Despite what you "think" you're wrong, it was piracy.
I would be interested to hear your reasoning on why it was not, however.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Not to mention the amount of money these greedy bastards.. er.. companies spend on the anti piracy movement. Why would I buy something from you that you are going to limit the amount of times I can watch/listen/play it? Isn't that renting the content and not selling it?
Can you imagine the quality of content that would be coming out today if these companies would focus on quality as opposed to quantity? And to top it off, invest in their product and not their legal staff?
Cheesy Movie Night
I guess you didn't read the huge just buy a happauge card they work in the HowTo's??
Realy the only huge issue that stops me from using MythTV is quality loss as compared to my HD direct tivo's, and there appears to be a rather unsightly and expensive fix for that one as well (hacked HD direct tivo's that output HD via firewire) I say unsightly as it requires anther external PC to run there code and isn't very living room friendly at least untill I get to putting in an equipment closet. I would love to see the day when we get a real interconnect standard in place firewire works very well.
No sir I dont like it.
I am right on the verge of cancelling my DirecTV service simply because they are dropping Tivo support. They obviously are morons and couldn't care less about thier customers. I paid $400 for a HD Direc-Tivo to be told they are dropping Tivo. Nice.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
"DirecTV tivos never even supported TivoToGo in the first place. The whole idea terrifies them."
It isn't that DirecTV is terrified by the process due to legal implications; its because DirecTV's parent company - News Corp. aka "Fox" - owns TiVo competitor NDS which does not have a similar option. NDS has been slow to market with just about every platform they've developed, and Rupert Murdoch is using DirecTV as a means of making his investment in NDS not look like a foolish mistake. If TiVo-To-Go and the other Home Media features were enabled on all DirecTV branded TiVos, who would seriously sign up for the NDS DirecTV DVR model? The only things going for the NDS model is that it has a 90 minute live tv buffer and it can display Caller ID info on the screen for incoming telephone calls.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
"The 1 reason to move to the US (TiVo) just got even hotter"
TiVo is now in Canada officially. Just thought I'd mention that.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
it was not. AFAIK it was "time shifting", a form of "fair use".
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
The question is: "why would anyone want to watch tv shows or movies on that small of a screen?"
The answer is: "because a laptop is not really usable in a bus or train, but watching an episode of House (*) during those commuting times would be great even if you have to squint your eyes a little."
(*) any other dialogue-based (as opposed to full-imagery-based) show would be nice.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Since I got my ipod hooked up to my car stereo (just through a $10 tape player interface), I've almost rear-ended 3 people. I'm always looking down to check which songs I want to play... and it is only a regular old non-video ipod. At least on my cell phone I can keep an eye on the road.
Nice to see Tivo do something smart, for a change. This company has disrespected and disowned the Mac platform since Tiger came out. A *one line* fix for the Tivo Desktop software is all they needed to release for final Tiger compatibility. As of today, that broken version is still on their web page. It also doesn't include aac audio support; a minor thing on other platforms, but a snub to the Mac users who have large aac collections. That version also lacks significant functionality that it's Windows counterpart contains. Noteably the TivoToGo (video downloading) feature. This is why I wrote TivoTool.
One goal of TivoTool is to represent what I think TivoToGo should be like on the Mac. It looks like soon I will be able to directly compare. The other goal of TivoTool is to put a friendly front-end on some "hacking" tools. You see, that is the catch - you need to decrypt their MPEG2 video streams to have true freedom. This requires you open the device (void your warranty) and hook up it's drive to your Linux box. Since there are many types of Tivos and many software versions, this process is not as easy as it should be.
In no particular order, here are some points about TivoTool v TivoToGo:
* The Tivo network drivers are slow. Even with a USB2 device and hardware support, the drivers just don't take full advantage of what they have. Of course the enthusiast community has come up with faster drivers.
* Streaming video right off your Tivo and watching it on any computer in the house is cool (TivoTool does this). I don't forsee Tivo adding this capability anytime soon.
* With TivoTool, you can burn a DVD right from the main interface. TivoToGo requires that you purchase another program to do this.
* You also need to pay for some sort of MPEG2 codec. TivoTool uses MPlayer which has MPEG2 support.
* TivoTool can stream-compress to various formats such as avi and mp4 as you download it from the Tivo.
* Other stuff, I don't want to totally start comparing dick sizes. There is a Linux version of TivoTool though!
Finally, I should point out that this new software from Tivo will only work on a specific subset of Tivo hardware. Specifically the "Series 2" with software version 7.x. If you have a DirecTV Tivo, sorry. If you have a Series 1, sorry. If you are in the UK or Aus, sorry. Yes, TivoTool works with all of the above.
Also, notice the Mac platform was never mentioned in their press release. Only "iPod support". This *might* be bad news for the Mac platform, but I'm putting a little faith in Tivo because I still love their device and what it does for me. They can't just put in iPod support for Windows. That would be insane.
John Susek
control of the TiVo and streaming of the content right from the box (series2 from TiVo itself only): http://www.dvreverywhere.com/
You'd be surprised what's not on the map in this country. - Mulder
I really don't understand how you can claim Tivo caters to advertisers when Tivo is making TV advertising obsolete. People don't watch commericals when they can just fast forward through them.
It's already illegal in most states to watch videos or listen to music on headphones while driving already.
English is easier said than done.
The first iPod was $399. This invited many guffaws from MD owners/manufacturers, CD Walkman owners, and memory-based mp3 owners/manufacturers, even current mp3 jukebox (HD) owners.
I do agree Apple is distrupting Sony quite a bit. But they aren't exactly attacking the market as a whole from below. In fact, they really pushed new bounds as to how much you could charge for a music player.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
"Look! Smart, wealthy people use Macs, and I want to be one of them!"
You're awesome, and gosh darn it, people like you.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
I have switched to Galleon to stream music to my Tivos. It works fairly well.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Crap, now that's a stupid name. Or should I say, StUpId NaMe.
The filesystem is the package manager
As far as I know (which is a lot), MythTV doesn't run on Mac OS X. However, there is a MythTV frontend available for Mac OS X. "Porting" MythTV to Mac OS X theoretically wouldn't be too hard, since MythTV itself is mostly just a frontend to v4l and some other cruft.
now the thought of TiVo-ing Adult Swim to my iPod video for watching while I commute to/from work is just *too* tempting
Consider ReplayTV, with built-in ethernet. It's got a Java-based platform-neutral controller called DVArchive, and it produces MPGs suitable for transcoding to iPod or PSP with no DRM attached. Oh, and you can share and download thousands of shows from other ReplayTV owners using Poopli.
Da Blog
"The service begins beta-testing for select subscribers today, with a widespread rollout scheduled for early next year."
This is what really irked me when I was a Tivo subscriber back in the day. Take TivoToGo when it was first released for instance, it went through this same nonsensical beta-test/staggered rollout that they are doing again. Subscribers were randomly selected with no rhyme or reason to receive the software update over a span of MONTHS. Months. And before you can say "it was beta software", it wasn't. No update was ever given to the so-called beta testers, they had the final version.
Tivo tried to rememedy this and created a webpage where you could enter in your serial number and receive "priority" updates which did little good. It was ridiculous and pissed off more users than you would believe (check out the TivoCommunity forums).
Tivo, either release your software or don't. Stop with these bullshit software rollouts that do nothing but alienate your dwindling user base.
-Former Tivo subscriber and shareholder
Okay, I know DirecTV refuses to support *any* of the networking functions on DirecTiVo units; I have a Linksys WUSB54G plugged in to the USB port on my Philips DSR704R17, but it's not recognized. What do I need to do to enable all these nifty features on my DirecTiVo unit?
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
it's so obviously a joke. "unclothed girlflesh"? and a funny one at that. altho it's quite possible that it'll become a real controversy in a few months after a gazillion teenagers get video ipods for the holidays.