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TiVo Signs Up for Internet Video Content
lfescalante writes "TiVo, in an increasingly diversified attempt to offer new content to its subscriber base, today announced a partnership with Internet TV pioneer Brightcove to bring content partner video offerings from this company to Tivo boxes. The first fruits of this relationship should begin appearing within the coming months."
The average Slashdotter TiVoing the Internet would cause a bandwidth catastrophe. Based on prior viewing, thousands of pron sites would be swamped with TiVo DoS.
Oh You POS
I think we all accept that most of our entertainment will be brought to us over the net in the future rather than through standard broadcast. I doubt that the early offerings are going to get anybody too excited (our choice of commercials? oh goody!), but this will be good for Tivo to get ready for a few years down the road with a nice headstart on the technology. Any techniques and refinements they can develop will help them survive one all the bandwagon jumpers start climbing on board.
Goodie! Now then, I want all my ad's to be pr0n and vaigra...
When mad at one, try running a mile in their shoes. That way, not only do you have their shoes, but you are a mile away.
Brightcove seems to promise a lot of things, but they seem to be more vapor than actual service so far. They have a demo of a nice portal, but they're a new company and seem to have more going on in marketing then actual technology. Combined with Allaire, that makes for buzz, but really, what big-time content do they actually host? They have some announced projects, but not any actual big live content providers that I can tell. Their press releases are all "we're going to do this" rather than "we've done this." Someone like thePlatform actually already has the tools and feature set that Brightcove is still working towards, plus big-name customers (Verizon VCast, Ampd, CNBC, Starz, etc).
How about an astroturf mod?
Stay tuned for new sig...
If ever there's a reason for net neutrality this is it. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Time Warner throttles the bandwidth for TIVOs trying to connect to this.
As a Tivo fanatic and subscriber, all I can say is... *YAWN*
Why do I want to see any of this?
#DeleteChrome
Tivo has had Rocketboom podcasts since December 2005 at least. It was a promising start, and I hoped for more.
In English this means, Tivo, in an increasingly desperate attempt...
I thought the Tivo death knell sounded off last month, and the month before, and the month before, and the month before...
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
"Product Watch" was Tivo's announcement from just the other day. This somewhat dull product, an HME based application, enables a Tivo user with a broadband connection to browse through a collection of infomercials and select videos for download.
Now. Of course. Who would use this? Ads? Etc, etc. However all the Tivo pundints missed the bigger point. That being that this is IP/TV. Tivo now sports a box that integrates the TV (rabit ears, cable, or satalite) with IP content.
Product Watch is actually a smart business move, as that enabled Tivo to build the ground work, the back end, call it the infrastructure, for IP/TV with companies paying to place their content.
Now this deal with brightcove will be a no-brainer. Technically not a challenge at all for Tivo, only the usual of two companies hashing out who will be responsible for what and etc.
I think this Product Watch thing is not properly understood at what a big deal it is, and how Tivo will probably be announcing such IP content partnerships like this one again and again over the coming weeks and months.
On a somewhat related note, TiVo now supports the automatic download of a number of popular podcasts, or I can add a URL of my choice. As a result, what turned into the occasional viewing of Rocketboom is now a part of my daily routine.
-David
Principals with references (must be willing to sign binding NDAs) only, please.
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Guaranteed.
I't pisses me off how directv treats their TIVO subscriber base. I have the hardware for TIVO series two but DirecTV would rather try and push their substandard PVR than give their directv TIVO subscribers the same features as the standalone version.
Yes..I could hack my DirecTivo to get some of the features, but I should'nt have to do that!
Now they've backed themselves in a corner. People HATE their in house PVR but the company (or whoever sold the idea of making their own in the company) would rather stick their fingers in their ears than listen to their customers.
rant off!
TiVo and Vonage are circling the drain hand in hand. Face it, both companies are bleeding money faster than they can bring it in. TiVo simply can't compete with DVRs built into cable boxes that have multiple tuners in them and can record digital content without recording it off some crappy S-VIDEO interface using a stupid IR blaster to change channels. MAYBE their HDTV/Cablecard version coming out might hold their death off for a few more years, but the only long term option they have is to get in bed with the cable companies like they did with DirecTV and ensure their software (their hardware is essentially worthless commodity PC garbage, their software is the only thing valuable in their business model) is put on every cable DVR box that ships. The DVR software on a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 I tried for a week SUCKED ASS and was a glorified VCR... if they could capitalize on their name and get their shit into the cable DVR boxes that major cable companies rent they may just survive past 2008.
this will help TiVO with their so-called "techno-profiling," that wonderful system by which they "select" movies and television shows based on your past viewing. This is a truly poor system: for instance, it doesn't take into account the fact that maybe, just maybe there are more viewers in the house than just one. If they partner with an online service, it may allow some users to enter more than one profile per home: if my daughter wants to watch Lady and the Tramp, but I would prefer the latest Jerry-Frankenheimer-Blows-Stuff-Up-On-Screen movie, it would suggest ... BOTH?! Even better, I might be able to opt out of the crappy system altogether, because I don't want to be tracked any more than my various bankcards, ID numbers, e-mails, etc. already subject me to. Just a thought.
"Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
Tivo could have been this ubercool media convergence device... but wasn't.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I agree with everything you wrote. TiVo is obviously aware of this as well and has made agreements with cable companies.
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TiVo needs to get a deal going with Apple's iTMS and start allowing purchasing of content through a version of the store... download Music, TV Shows, Movies to your TiVo drive... watch full screen just like any other content.
Then they should work together on a PVR software solution for a Mac Mini with an adaptor box that converts signal to the various ports to work with all TVs, basically a TiVo in a Mac, without the subscription required... you can subscribe to TiVo content if you want, or you can download individual shows through iTMS. I guess they could even release a Windows compatible version too... since there's already iTunes.
This would make 'a la carte' TV a reality.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Didn't Tivo sign an agreement with Netflix to offer Netflix subscribers the option of downloading movies to their Tivos? I still haven't seen anything about that materialize.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
"TiVo and Vonage are circling the drain hand in hand."
.bust losses. Further, "TiVo simply can't compete with DVRs built into cable boxes that have multiple tuners in them" does not seem to be true. In fact, more and more cable companies are switching their boxes to Tivo because Tivo's interface is so much better. As a result, expect dual tunered Comcast Tivos in the near future. That won't need "some crappy S-VIDEO interface using a stupid IR blaster to change channels" as it will be integrated with Comcast hardware.
Please don't link TiVo and Vonage. Vonage is bleeding money for two reasons:
1. They have their price set below the amount needed to support their service (i.e. they have traditionally lost money on each customer).
2. They spend ungodly amounts on advertising. In fact, they spend roughly as much on advertising as they pull in as revenue. They spend five times as much on online advertising as the next biggest advertiser (classmates.com).
On the bright side, Vonage might make money if they stopped signing up new customers. Their two biggest costs are marketing and sales. If they stopped marketing and sales dropped to replacement level, they might actually make money for a while. This is sort of happening now. They're almost out of money (thus the IPO), so they're cutting back on the marketing for a bit. This has cut growth and in the first quarter, non-marketing costs were actually slightly lower than revenues.
Tivo spends less on marketing and doesn't have Vonage's
Btw, the stupid IR blaster works surprisingly well most of the time. Further, given the price of single tuner Tivos, I'm not sure that they aren't a better deal (for two) than dual tuner DVRs. Then one has not only dual tuners, but dual hard drives, processors, memory, bus, etc. The Google lesson: a quantity of cheap commodity hardware can be more effective than a single high quality piece of hardware.