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TiVo to Let Users Record Shows Via Cellphone
Carl Bialik writes "Verizon Wireless plans to offer a new service called TiVo Mobile that will allow its customers who also have TiVos in their homes to schedule TV shows for recording when they are on the go, the Wall Street Journal reports. ' A customer might use the service to impulsively schedule a sitcom for recording after the show is recommended by a friend at a party,' says the WSJ, adding, 'Verizon Wireless executives said the service, to begin this summer, is expected to cost less than $5 a month, in addition to normal cellphone-service charges and TiVo subscriber fees, which are $12.95 a month.'"
will let you do it free..
yea, I read engadget too.....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Seriously, are there TV shows that important one needs this service to ensure they don't miss them
my cell phone only made calls to local numbers and that's the way I liked it! The thing weight three pounds, and had a battery that only lasted for one 30 second phone call or 1 hour standby and that's the way I liked it!
Why don't you quit your job over at the WSJ and become a Slashdot editor?
Media Center, and I'm sure the linux htpcs too, have been able to this for ages. And we dont have to pay a monthly fee.
Thats almost as good. If you can browse the net on your phone, it would be the same thing.
Why should I pay $5 more a month for a service that I already have for free? Why not just go to the Tivo web site on a web-enabled phone and do your remote scheduling there?
"Chances of RHIC-induced Armageddon are exceedingly rare, but... you never know." - MIT Physicist Bob Jaffe
http://www.dvreverywhere.com/
You'd be surprised what's not on the map in this country. - Mulder
And use the tv.yahoo's tivo scheduling.
Wow... $5 a month?
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This is too expensive even after I give them the benefit of doubt and assume it can be managed online as well (unless being able to view the tivo'd or bought shows is possible).
.. few will buy in .. and then they'll say it failed "The market doesnt want such a thing"
Anyway, my point is they'll try this service
Then someone else (Apple?) will do it for free successfully and Tivo/Verizon will run around claiming they were first. No they wasn't. They did it all wrong.
This is what happens when you charge an exorbitant amount for something that's dirt cheap to provide.
I already do this with Windows XP Media Center and a homebrewed solution I have. I assume you'd be able to do this easily with MythTV and any phone with internet access also.
I don't want to turn this into a "TiVo versus MythTV" argument, but I think it's worth noting that the MythWeb plugin that comes with MythTV allows you to schedule shows from any browser, anywhere. Because MythTV runs on a Linux box, you get a webserver and fileserver and all that out-of-the-box. So you can log into your Myth from anywhere that has internet, and schedule a show to record, on an impulse. You can even remotely (via SSH) transcode a show, and download it to your local computer for easy viewing.
There's no reason why you couldn't access your MythTV from any laptop or PDA that has some basic web access. I often, as the summary suggest, record a show on an impulse, when someone mentions it to me. This is an awesome feature that I'm sure TiVo users would love to have. However even at 5$/month it seems overpriced to me. This should be included for free as a "value added" that would encourage people to buy TiVo and and sign up for Verizon.
and, oh, right: let's you actually PLAY your content streamed to whatever Web device you're on
transcoded on the fly to the appropriate bitrate and format
free
You'd be surprised what's not on the map in this country. - Mulder
... for "less than" $5/month? USD? I dunno... I can't think of a TV show so great (that I haven't already heard of) that I'd need to pay a monthly fee to remotely record it before I got home. Maybe a small fee per use or something, for those times you are away for an extended period or something...
TFA says that TiVo allowed you to schedule via the web - did you have to pay per month for that?
Please stop APK.. you're only hurting yourself.
Last year in Japan they had a tivo-like device for the cell phone.... Not to record shows at home, though.... To record shows ON the damn phone since they all have sattelite receivers in them now...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
For some time, I have had a media box set up at home (behind the couch) running Azureus. Combine that with Hamachi, Firefox, the ConQuery extension and the WebUI plugin for Azureus, and I am a right click away from downloading any torrent I want whereever my laptop is. Tivo's got me beat though, because I can't do it from my phone (yet...).
On the other hand, I've got Tivo beat because I can do what I want with the media I get this way.
I don't see why this service wouldn't work. I'd love to say "AWW! Forgot to set my TiVo to record 24! Let me call my TiVo."
Although I can't fancy seeing me paying 5 dollars a month for this functionality. (Disclaimer: I don't have a TiVo)
I'd be more apt to be able to log into a web interface and do it. ( i don't know if you can do that now )..
Hopefully one of the OpenSource Guru's has a free way to do this not long from now.
I have Verizon service. I have TiVO service. I can't imagine how this add-on could be worth $60 a year to me. That's the same price as Verizon web access. The arrogance of these two to just assume people will pay whatever they ask! Can't wait till advancing technology and the free market make both of them a memory.
You can mod me down, but you cannot call me a coward.
You can do this for free with MythTV via MythWeb.
You can also do it for free at tivo.com
Totally ridiculous.
They'll pay $13/month for a "service" that is just letting them use hardware they already bought. Of course they'll pay $5/month to send SMS on a phone they already pay to send SMS on.
As someone who spent a frightening amount of his childhood fascinated by television, does it strike anyone else as downright bizarre these days to sit down in front of a television screen for hours at a time, on a regular schedule, to "be entertained"?
/. feels orders of magnitude better spent than staring passively at a screen for a large portion of my day.
Am I completely out of touch, is there anything worth a goddamn on TV any more? Even the significant time I waste arguing on
I just realized that I got to see an ad for Verizon Wireless early because I saw an ad for Verizon Wireless...
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
I can see it now:
Having your roommate get TiVo $xxx per month. - $xxx.
Having your roommate get cellphone-enabled TiVo for $5 a month - $5.
Hacking your roommate's TiVo remotely via an SMS remote hack - Priceless.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Even better, just call someone that can connect to Tivo's website using a PC. You know, like a parent, spouse, girlfriend, regular friend, kid, etc.
Why pay to have a cell phone do yet one more thing.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
I can't think of anywhere I would be that a friend would tell me to record a show and I couldn't jot it down on a scrap paper, napkin, back of my hand, put it in my PDA, or write it as a txt msg to myself from the same cell phone they're trying to charge me $5 to use.
TiVo WAS an amazing product at one time. Truly cutting edge and brilliant. Now it's just a sad, dying company grasping to try and retain some sort of market.
They should just open source the whole thing, and focus on making the hardware dirt cheap. Or maybe make a single PCI card with all the inputs/outputs and concentrate on selling that.
TiVo's days are surely numbered. I have my Series 1 that I've hacked and it still runs like a champ, but with things like Meedio, MythTV, Media Center, and the bazillion other PVRs coming down the way (often included IN a Television or Cable Box these days), I don't think they're innovating enough to keep up.
5/month - I know a few have mentioned that's a bit steep. Well, to bring in a valid comparison to just how steep this is - it's CHEAPER to buy the show on DVD than to pay for this service that allows you to tivo DRM'ed television.
On another note, I applaud people who have the audacity to turn off their tv and go out to a party thus living their life, but if the end result is that we're now spending more money to help us make sure we don't miss our tv programming, society has still taken a step backwards.
If any more signs of the apocolypse start happening, I'm going to say 'screw it' and eat all the bacon I want!
-THE END-
$5 a month for something you will probably use a couple times a year (at most)?
on top of your verizon plan, on top of the tivo monthly fee, on top of the broadband connection...
(this won't work if your tivo still works on dial-up)
Never mind (as 50 other posts mentioned) the free alternatives...
Just doesn't make financial sense.
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
"How could TiVo be used maliciously?" Bombard TiVo with enough PPV demands and it could start getting expensive. Fill the hard-drive with enough teleshopping or other pr0n, you've essentially managed a denial-of-download attack. America doesn't have anything similar to Open University, but that would be another potentially vulnerable area.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...revenue generating devices that allow interpersonal communication at high costs, and not cellphones.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
To all the people saying you can already do this for free with MythTV and even TiVo's own website:
This will let you program your TiVo from a CEL PHONE. Not a web browser, not a WAP browser, a CEL PHONE.
Thank you.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
Not that I want to pay at all. It should be free. But, if they're going to charge for this service, it should be like $0.50 a scheduling session. No one will do enough TiVo scheduling via their phone to make it worth $5/month. At $0.50 you suddenly have everyone recoding that one show they forgot to set.
I'm an avid Tivo fan, although I'm in the UK where Tivo has unfortunately long since left. My Tivo has been suitably modded, ethernet, 600gig storage. Frankly it is all good! With the open source tivowebplus project sitting comfortably on my little PVR not only can I search, schedule and watch programs using my webbrowser, but I can access the web interface via my WAP phone (HTML rather than WML) and have done for a long time... What is all the fuss about? Surely an broadband connection, dynamic DNS (where required) and tivowebplus means you can access your tivo from a WAP/Web-enabled phone? I thought being the UK with a pre-y2k Tivo meant we were still in the dark ages.. Myth is good, but my good old Tivo just works(tm)
Presumably tivowebplus will run on the tivos you are talking about?
Media Center, and I'm sure the linux htpcs too, have been able to this for ages. And we dont have to pay a monthly fee.
Sorry, but that's a big negatory.
TiVo users already have been able to schedule recording via the web for quite a while for free. In fact, it was a feature of TiVo long before Microsoft added MSN Remote Record to their offerings.
This isn't web scheduling; it's scheduling via your Verizon mobile phone.
Which is the stupidest idea I've ever heard.
I'm sure someone somewhere has been crazed enough to hack this sort of functionality into Myth, but it's not a current stock feature of MythTV, Windows MCE, or TiVo. Or ReplayTV, for that matter.
How do you like it? Mine's coming Thursday, gotta be faster than my 12" Powerbook at 1Ghz!
The revolution will NOT be televised.
You can actually do without the service if you don't mind entering all your start and top times by hand.
This hasn't been true for years; in fact, it stopped being true back in the days of the Series 1. Later Series 1 models and nearly all Series 2 models are doorstops without a TiVo service subscription.
(Back before TV listings became available online for free, people used to spend $3/month for TV Guide just so they'd known what was on. Same idea, only more advanced.)
$3 a month for TV Guide? Maybe in 1962. The cover price of TV Guide has been almost $2 for several years now, and I can't count the number of people I knew (my parents included) who just grabbed a Guide at the checkstand every week during grocery shopping.
Up until TV Guide quit doing TV listings, TiVo was pretty price competitive with newsstand purchase of weekly issues.
What bugs me is that they no longer allow you to buy lifetime service for a flat fee.
This is untrue. Lifetime service is still available, and is still $299.
They also still offer the ability to buy an annual subscription if you prefer.
Though if you were unlucky (as I was) your TiVo died on you before the 18 months was up!
If your TiVo dies on you out of warranty and you have a lifetime subscription, you simply send it to TiVo for a standard flat-fee repair. If your unit is repaired, your subscription will keep working when you hook it back up. If your unit is replaced by TiVo, they will transfer the lifetime to the replacement unit. This is not a new policy; it's been active for years.
Comon people, it's only $5, I am sure most of you spend more than that on crack.
I am currently a Verizon customer. I am switching phone companies once I am no longer their bitch (contract is up in a year or so). What really pisses me off is how they charge you for every little small thing. Is it not enough that I am a current paying customer? That I paid that much more for a phone that could run a couple of apps? Nope. You have to pay for every single thing you put on your phone. And if something happens to your phone, it's a major hassle. Something happening can include replacing your phone, because their service sucks in your area. Somehow it's impossible for them to copy everything over.
So it's no surprising at all that they want to charge for this service. As many people have noted it's easily done already. But Verizon can sell it as a 'select' service you can get, to lure you into getting a 10-year contract. They won't mention the cost, until it is too late. They might also leave off needing a TIVO subscription on top of that. Until you get your bill, and realize how stupid it is.
They do that with their web phones. On some phones (like mine) you can actually change the gateway such that you can surf the net for free, until you realize exactly how painful it is to do with a cell phone, and give up.
http://www.slingmedia.com/ I just got a Slingbox last week - allows you to stream a video signal over your lan / internet as well as control the device it is hooked up to ( in my case, a ReplayTV ) - works pretty well, you need about 300kbits for internet streaming.
TiVo WAS an amazing product at one time. Truly cutting edge and brilliant. Now it's just a sad, dying company grasping to try and retain some sort of market.
No, that was ReplayTV. Tivo was like Replay's dim younger cousin, always eager to play nice with "The Man".
Da Blog
Burn any DVD's with it? I'm curious as to how long it takes to groove up a full disc.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
The service works with a small software program Verizon Wireless customers can download to their handsets that will communicate back to their TiVo digital-video recorders.
Has nothing to do with SMS at all.
And anyone who can download apps to their phone has WAP.
Dear editors.
Please check who is submitting an article before you post it. In this case the article was submitted by a guy using the e-mail "wsjarticles@wsj.com". When the article says "A customer might use the service to impulsively schedule a sitcom for recording after the show is recommended by a friend at a party,' says the WSJ, it's not exactly difficult to put two and two together.
Slashdot is being used as free PR for companies. People have started to complain about this and yet no one seems to take a bit of notice.
I like muppets.
If TiVo and cell phones were built on a truly open architecture, this service would be free... someone would write a couple of 100-line apps, one on the phone and one on the TiVo, and they'd be open source.
Just as we'd have had caller ID in 1970 if POTS was an open network architecture.
My bicyles
...for just a few ip packets. Uhh, I hope the way Verizon runs their cellular business is not an indication of how they'll treat us under tiered internet, but who am I kidding?
Anyone who has compared developing applications for Verizon phones vs. Sprint/Nextel vs. Cingular knows that Verizon is simply not an option unless you have $$$ and enough clout to negotiate access. No feature that Verizon thinks they can get an extra fee for is left unlocked. DRM is built in and all applications are signed so as to grant just the permissions that have been paid for.
Compare this to Cingular and international gsm providers, who have no DRM and allow access to the phone hardware (bluetooth, gps, ringtones, other content)and the network via java. You own the hardware, you pay for network access, and use it as you will. No getting billed for every single permutation of features like with this Tivo app.
Verizon considers each application a billable "feature" in and of itself, while more open providers bill for network access and leave applications to open hardware and software.
The later architecture allows anyone to get in on the game, while the former restricts access to those that pay up. You can bet that development companies who pony up for access will need to make a return asap, and so will be pushed towards making applications that maximize return quickly. This will only lead to fewer experimental ideas attempted, and fewer niche applications being developed.
If \.'ers want to support more open cell standards I'd suggest looking into Cingular, who at first advertised themselves years ago as "the company the support self expression" - of course no one got it. I hear their network has gotten much wider since the AT&T merger so they are worth a shot.
Ok lets say you're 24 years old. Forget the $5 per month and then invested the resulting monthly savings in an investment that earned 7.5% per year, between now and age 65, you would then be able to withdraw $153 from your investment each month...until you croak at 80!Then there is the service fee calculation that I did about a month ago.
I mis-typed it.
i am a long time tivo user and advocate. the idea that someone would pay $5 / month for the ability to schedule shows from their verizon phone is absurd. i can say, since i've had access to the web-based equivalent (free) service (about 1.5 years), i've used it probably twice, and once was just to see how it works. it's just not the typical tivo use case.
this is like every other service offered on cell phones. cell phone companies are trying to build a proprietary internet for cell phones only and nickel and dime us to death with fees. you pay for bandwidth, and you pay again for the content! well, it's not working. proof is the state of the celluar web today. nothing but toy content that you try once and then can't believe you actually paid for it.
Maybe it's the next step for these people, make tivo re-encode a mini version of the program it's just recorded and send it to your phone so you can watch it.
If you absolutely need to see the program and can't wait to get home because some things on TV are just too good to miss...
Task Mangler
I thought the entire point of TiVo was that it learned what you liked to watch and automatically pulled content without asking for it. Why would I have to tell a TiVo that I want to watch a show, doesn't it already know?
I have no TV reception, just a big screen and a stack of DVDs but I always planned on getting HDTVoIP when Verizon rolls its Fiber service to my area as long as I could TiVo it.
I've quit my job. I need 15 hour in a day to program, update, modify or delete all my inputs, outputs and saves.
So once you make that transaction with your cell phone, what happens next? The Verizon service tries to connect to your TiVo, which may sit inside your home network. How will Verizon access your device, in this case? Your Internet-facing router both NATs packets and blocks ports. If you change the requisite configuration as per Verizon's liking, who's to say that this will not leave your Tivo vulnerable to hack attempts?
I'm sick of this shit. Tivo and Replay and whatever other proprietary PVRs the cableco's sell dictate to YOU what you're allowed to do. You can't skip commercials, transfer video off the internal hard drive (unless it's resolution-crippled), and you probably can't extend the system to play free formats like FLACs, Vorbis, and Theora. Ah well, such is the price of consumers' complacency. Those consumers are the same ones who, a few years up the road from now, will subscribe to Symantec's antivirus for cell phones.
- Roey
I had Tivo. I liked my Tivo. I had an "upgraded" series 1 and it served me well.
However, their lack of HDTV support is a tragedy. As far as I know, they only have announcements to show for their effort, not counting the "prototype" that was just displayed at the last CES. Yes, they have forces working against them (its called competition!) -- but they should have put out the HDTV unit long ago. Instead, all I can use is my cable co's weak-ass DVR (Motorola DCT-6412).
And that is why I don't care about Tivo anymore. Great product and idea. Lousy execution.
VDR is very cool and I can shh to my box and bring up an x session to program a recording, should I so desire, for free ... well almost.
... network challenged ;).
... Standards and Practices !
I guess since the windose crowd owns the place now this kind of information is useful for the
PenGun
Do What Now ???
Too bad im gonna dump verizon as soon as my contract is up as I'm tired of being made to pay $5 for everything through "Get-It-Now".
There's a gun in my bullet, there's a gun in my bullet and I have one shot.
I've been doing that for years -- even before I got a DVR. I call home and ask my wife to record the show.
This space intentionally left blank.
I still do not understand why this company ceases to recognize it is losing customers due to its lack of a high definition offering. I would more then happily choose Tivo over comcast, but they do not offer a box through anyone but dish networks. Heck, i'd even purchase the box out of pocket (for about 500 bucks)! Tivo's products are by far superior, plus more consumers are beginning to buy with a conscience, sometimes it's nice to support those who developed a trend setting idea (i.e. netflix vs blockbuster).
The target customer for a techie gadget like Tivo, is very likely to spend the money on a nice high definition TV. Until Tivo inc recognizes this, and the fact that they are dealing with individuals who are into the latest and greatest technology, they're doomed to fail.
Respectfully,
A true Tivo fan
sports fans who want to record the game they're attending. I know a lot of college sports followers that do that. It'd be cool if Verizon could get this up by next college football season if not March Madness time.
tivo was trying to prevent you from recording certian things?
If it's going to cost you a call, then just ring home and say "hey baby, hit record for me...and put some beer in the fridge and then get naked!"
...or something like that...
Huh, the idea that I should PAY to schedule recordings on my own box is not going to drag me away from TV via BitTorrent any time soon.
2. I'm not organised enough to remember to program any recording device on a regular basis.
3. I'm certainly not paying the cellular rip-off merchants even more money than I currently do for the ability to program a recorder when away from home.
As far as I'm concernd, the money I don't spend on the above is better spent on DVD boxed sets of TV shows that I can enjoy in my own time, without adverts, albeit a year or two after the first broadcast of the shows.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
(no - not the hottest band in the world, but) KISS, the Danish company has had this feature in their DP-558 model for ages now. It actually works, and is free as in beer as well.
Ok, I dunno about actually paying for it, but it is surprisingly handy. I've been setting recordings via my (old and crappy) mobile phone for about a year. I use the wonderful, open source WebScheduler, mobile phone method explained here.
I would use this perhaps once a month - and when I do, I'm always grateful for it. It usually happens when I'm sitting in a pub somewhere and a fellow boozer laments "you know, we're missing that David Attenborough doco right now ...". I've used it when I've been held up on public transport. I've used it when my girlfriend has expressed interest in a show I had declined to watch.
If you can get it for free - and from the discussion above it seems doable - then you should set it up.
If anyone is planning on recording the new-to-America *Doctor Who* episodes starting on Friday, March 17, 2006 from 9pm-11pm on the SciFi Channel and plan on making a Season Pass for the show, read this...
TiVo is "correctly" labeling the show's information with the BBC's original airdates from last year instead of the American premiere dates as being "new". Consequently, if you set the Season Pass to only record "first run" (aka "new") episodes, your TiVo won't record them even when they are first shown here on SciFi.
Feel free to complain to TiVo about the inconvenience even if they are technically correct. You can cite how they misreported the original air dates to the animated *Spider-Man* show from the 90s that originally aired on Fox. When the ABC Family Channel bought the repeat rights, TiVo used the "new" air dates for ABC Family. This caused confusion for many people who mistakenly thought there was a "new" Spider-Man cartoon on ABC Family.
The irony that a television show about a legendary time traveler would trip up the time-shifting TiVos.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
OT, but do you know any WAP servers that work with Verizon's service? I had my phone working over a free WAP server a couple of years ago, but since then I haven't been able to find one that works with Verizon.
All that and the wife can use it without pain. Although she has a PhD., she doesn't want to fiddle with drivers and kernel updates just to record "Gilmore Girls". A refurbished Tivo w/ lifetime subscription is cheaper than the Linux based alternatives if you have to buy new hardware. When I do put together a MythTV box, it'll be a 2nd PVR, not the primary in our house.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
What's really scary is that Verizon seems to want a few dollars a month to allow you access to this "feature". They charge you $.10 per text message. They charge you a couple dollars to download a snippet of a song you already own to use as a ring tone.
They make tons of money for charging you for each thing you do, rather than just charging you for data access.
This is where the wired ISPs want to go as well. Rather than just charging you for data access to the internet, they want to figure out how much you'll pay depending on what the bits are. That'll be $.01 per instant message, $.10 per email, $.02/minute for VoIP, $1.00 to download/stream a movie, etc.
Why is it TiVO's web site doesn't just recognize mobile phone browsers as low bandwidth devices and give an light weight web page to do the same thing?
I don't think most people (Joe user) understand this until you put it like this...
Imagine you had to have a monthly fee to record with your VCR.
Why would I have to tell a TiVo that I want to watch a show, doesn't it already know?
Well, how would it know if you never tell it?
In this scenario, you're told by someone about a show you didn't know about. If you didn't even know you wanted to see it before that, how could Tivo??
Tivo is great, but it's not that great.