The Secret Origins of TiVo

Davis Freeberg writes "TiVo is probably better known for their ad zapping technology than their television advertisements. In fact, other then a few lousy infomercials and a commercial that was rumored to be banned by the networks, TiVo has never really had much in the way of TV advertisements. Apparently though, one of TiVo's more rabid fans did some sleuthing and discovered a hidden easter egg video buried deep within TiVo's own website. The video itself exposes the true origins of TiVo's technology and how they got their hands on that ad zapping photon remote to begin with."

Comments

File format?

[spooje]

Were .mp4 files around back in 1997?

Re:File format?

[jeffehobbs]

No. MPEG-4 was ratified as a standard by the Moving Picture Experts Group in 1999.

Now if only Tivo boxes would be able to play back MPEG-4, then we'd have some news here.

~jeff

Re:File format?

[gwiner]

The unit in the video demonstrates features that were not available until the Series II units w/ LAN capability were introduced (photos, music), so I'm thinking this was meant to promote the series II, or perhaps the forthcoming Cable Card models.

Re:File format?

[MegaZone]

The forthcoming Series3 will have a decoder that does MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, and VC-1/WM9. Whether or not the software is enabled for the new formats, we'll have to see.

Don't like TiVo, huh?

[sdo1]

Linking to a 40 meg file hosted on TiVo's servers on the front page of Slashdot? Not nice.

Re:Don't like TiVo, huh?

[Hassman]

Uhhh... Wha? This isn't a real ftp link. Something tells me this is a bit planned for.

Re:Don't like TiVo, huh?

[Gonzotek]

What about YouTube? TiVo Bluemoon Video posted by (Dave Zatz

Re:Don't like TiVo, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not nice, like taking open source code and then locking it in hardware that prevents people from modifying it?

Not nice, like sueing companies for having the gall to implement playback and recording at the same time? Or sueing companies for making it so that pressing "play" after fast forwarding/rewinding causes playback to resume slightly before the button was pressed?

Not nice, like removing the commercial skip feature due to pressure from TV studios?

I wonder what TiVo could possibly have done to make people hate them. Other than acting like complete asshats, of course. The GPLv3 rewrite is, in part, to prevent other companies from closing up open source code in the same way TiVo did.

Re:Don't like TiVo, huh?

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

What? TiVo is a commercial enterprise, and bandwidth is a cost of doing business. It's not as if they linked to a 40 MB file on the Dalai Lama's website-in-exile or something.

Re:Don't like TiVo, huh?

[ovit]

The nameplate for the guy at the desk is A. Waterman!

Any other ex tivo employee's laughing at that? :)

      td

Re:Don't like TiVo, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

One word: Akamai

Re:Don't like TiVo, huh?

[HeroreV]

They want you to watch this because it's an ad. What isn't nice is posting ads to /. and not telling you that it's just an ad.

Re:Don't like TiVo, huh?

[NewsSurfer]

On most TiVos, push Select-Play-Select-Play-3-0-Select re-enables the commercial skip feature.

Re:Don't like TiVo, huh?

[HTH NE1]

On most TiVos, push Select-Play-Select-Play-3-0-Select re-enables the commercial skip feature.

I've yet to encounter a functioning TiVo that didn't.

BTW, it is Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select (you have an extra Play there), and best done while playing a recording from Now Playing/Now Showing, not Live TV (to avoid tuning to channel 30).

The latest version of the software on Series2 units gives less audio feedback when entering the above code (no noises for the first two Selects, 3, or 0), and seems to have some other peculiar bugs. (I had part of the To Do List go inaccessible for awhile. I need to get a video hosted somewhere before I report it.)

Then then then... than?

[dsanfte]

"TiVo is probably better known for their ad zapping technology then their televison advertisements"

And then their television advertisements what? Did they do something after that? Oh, hehe, no, you're trying to make a comparison! For that we use "than". I know they've devolved to homophones in certain english dialects but that's still no excuse. This is such a commonly made and silly mistake that it bears pointing out when it appears on the front page of Slashdot, for heaven's sake.

Re:Then then then... than?

[Anonymous Coward]

bears pointing out when it appears on the front page of Slashdot,

Well, better on Slashdot front page then New York Times.

Re:Then then then... than?

[gwiner]

This must be planned for - This isn't a real FTP link, rather HTML. The images are hosted on akamai, so they're clearly expecting some traffic. Of course, can't wait to see if my guess is right muwahaaaa

Re:Then then then... than?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you!

Re:Then then then... than?

[tater86]

Actually, the A=B part is the comparison. After the comparison is made, if A and B are equal, then you go to 100. So really, you haven't corrected anyone. You supported your parent's statement.

Re:Then then then... than?

[Atzanteol]

Tell me you're joking...

Re:Then then then... than?

[x2A]

You could use 'then' to do it list format, although a comma's probably required for that...

"is probably better known for their ad zapping technology, then their televison advertisements, then their funny little SOS signals they send out"... ...maybe...

Re:Then then then... than?

[rbarreira]

Take care! A joke almost hit you...

Re:Then then then... than?

[Anonymous Coward]

Say we're trying to do a comparison between A and B in BASIC:

        10 IF A=B THAN 100

Syntax error.

I'd like to believe this is a joke. It's not even remotely funny, though. That leaves me to conclude that you are serious and very seriously stupid.

Re:Then then then... than?

[Moodie-1]

Oooh, sarcastic today, aren't we? Seriously, TBFTGO?GI (There but for the grace of (insert whatever) go I.) More power to you, man.

Re:Then then then... than?

[Lost Race]

I disagree: if the New York Times subsequently makes the same error, that's certainly no improvement!

Re:Then then then... than?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things, sweetheart:

"than". --- should be "than."

heaven's --- should be capitolized

Re:Then then then... than?

[dsanfte]

1) The period ends the entire sentence, not the sentence in the quote, so it stays outside the quote. Read the MLA format summary sometime.

2) I don't believe in God.

Re:Then then then... than?

[mabinogi]

What exactly does capitolized mean?

Using "then" instead of "than" is a very jarring mistake that no one with a primary school education should make. It also changes the meaning of the sentence.

Not capitalising a proper noun is most likely either a typo or just simple laziness, and doesn't really change the meaning.

As for the placement of the full stop, even if it should be within the quote marks, I'd personally put it outside simply because that makes far more sense in this context.
I have heard of the rule of always putting the full stop inside the quotes if the sentence ends with a quote (even if the quoted portion is not itself a sentence), but it sounds like the sort of rule that merely existed to make the life of a typesetter easier. It doesn't make any sense from a gramatical point of view.

There's a difference between making a complaint about a genuinely bad spelling or gramatical problem, and just being a dickhead. Choose your battles if you want people to pay any attention to you.

BTW, I'm aware that there are probably any number of style issues with the above post, but I have read it over (and used the preview button) and as far as I know I'm at least using the correct words and they're spelt correctly, which makes the post more than suitable for a forum like Slashdot. If I were submitting it to some sort of professional publication, I would take the time to ensure that it complied with the style guidelines favoured by that publication. But I'm not, so I won't.

Re:Then then then... than?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a shame you missed the joke.

But in fact, the correction was dead on. "Than" isn't universally used in a comparison (as s/he demonstrated with the bit of BASIC. According to Webster, "used as a function word to indicate the second member or the member taken as the point of departure in a comparison expressive of inequality." (emphasis mine)

As in "less than", "older than", etc. Had the original grammar nazi stated his rule correctly, he would have mentioned comparisons of INEQUALITY. And that's what he left out.

Re:Then then then... than?

[ronaldb64]

I agree. It's better to have it on the Slashdot front page first, and then on the New York Times'... Or were you trying to make a comparison? With "than"? Wasn't that what started this whole thread...?

Re:Then then then... than?

[HTH NE1]

What exactly does capitolized mean?

The unification of church and state I'd guess. Or it's part of the standard spelling troll to make one obvious error.

Using "then" instead of "than" is a very jarring mistake that no one with a primary school education should make. It also changes the meaning of the sentence.

Then it's a good thing he used the right one. (It could also be a dyslexic problem, as the typewritten-style "a" is almost schwa-like and could be misperceived as an "e".)

Not capitalising a proper noun is most likely either a typo or just simple laziness, and doesn't really change the meaning.

And there's some disagreement over whether "heaven" is a proper noun. I'd want to check my Scrabble(TM) dictionary to be sure (its rules exclude proper nouns).

As for the placement of the full stop, even if it should be within the quote marks, I'd personally put it outside simply because that makes far more sense in this context.

The rules about the placement of the full stop always use examples where someone is being quoted and attributed, and never seem to address the use of "scare quotes" where they're used more for emphasis than quotation.

And the trend is toward treating the full stop the same as when an exclamation or question mark is used (inside if the quote is an exclamation or question, outside if the sentence containing the quote is an exclamation or question). I note in passing that there's no similar full-stop exception for the usage of parentheses.

I find the best way to learn how to write properly is to read books. I learned more from good examples in books than I did from schools. I would not include newspapers nor websites as good examples. (You don't want to get me started on closed captions, and subtitles are only slightly better than captions.)

Zap Ads?

[russ1337]

Does TiVo 'Zap' Ads? Does it actually skip the whole section of ads with one click and no further interaction? I dont have a tivo, but I thought it ony fast fowarded them. I have a mythtv and that can skip the entire ads and detects the end of the advertising segment where the show starts again, but didnt think TiVo did this. - Anyone?

Re:Zap Ads?

[Aadain2001]

In order to prevent a massive lawsuite storm from all the major networks, TiVo officially only allows you to fast-forward through commercials, not skip them (similar to using a VCR). Unofficially there is a feature you can enable through the remote (hitting a combo of buttons) that allows you to change the 'skip-to-the-end' button into a 30 second skip ahead button. Most of the time you only have to hit it 3-4 times to get through commercial breaks. But that's unofficial ;)

Re:Zap Ads?

[309east]

Tivo has the ability to do a $minute jump, so if the commerical break was ever exactly that long, you skip them all. It's FF is actually pretty bad compared to most other DVR's, only a slow and less slow speed to choose from. Interestingly, some DVR's have a similar functionality (comcast 2tuner*) but the supplied remote has no buttons for quite alot of their functions. *http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use_a_Motorol a_DVR/Programming_the_Remote On another note, why couldnt they have a summary of the video in the top description, as grabbing 40MB @ 30kps sucks.

Re:Zap Ads?

[TheGratefulNet]

you can hack it to skip at 30sec increments, but it will NEVER zap commercials.

tivo's "bosses" (the entity higher up the food chain, that trickles down 'stuff') wouldn't dare allow that, of course. I'm very surprised they even 'allowed' any skipping at all! I consider that a fluke, actually; in the age of 'do not FF' (the icon that appears when you first insert a dvd and are FORCED to watch stuff that you don't want or need).

Re:Zap Ads?

[Roger Wilcox]

In the biz, zapping refers to a consumer behavior of switching channels in order to effectively skip commercial breaks.

Perhaps the term is being extended to include the behavior of consumers who fast foreward or skip through commercial breaks using TiVo.

Re:Zap Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good question. Tivo does NOT zap ads, it doesn't even know how to skip them! As a matter of fact, in its out-of-the-box configuration, TiVo only can fast forward at three different speeds. One "feature" (one I find a little annoying) is TiVo assumes your "resume" when fast forwarding has a momentary lag, and thusly restarts the video after pushing the play button about 10-20 seconds in front of what was on the screen during fast forward. Apparently my reflexes are faster than normal because that feature would always land me too far back.

The other feature TiVo is know for is a feature TiVo barely admits to. Out of the box it isn't even available but there is the widely publicized 30-second skip hack for the remote. I believe it's called the SPSS hack (related to the key presses on the remote to activate it), and it has to be done a certain way, and every time the TiVo is restarted (as in power outages, etc).

Once activated, the programmed key makes the TiVo skip 30 seconds of video at a time. Typically a commercial break is some multiple of 30 seconds, so pressing the hacked button repeatedly is a quick and convenient bridge between show segments. Other than that, TiVo has no sense of advertisements, it's all up to the user and under the user's control.

(Aside: ironically, I find this feature makes me much more likely to view a commercial. As I "bump" 30 seconds I get a half second glimpse of the commercial, and often there are commercials that catch my eye, or I know immediately I won't watch. The ones catching my eye, I'll watch.)

Re:Zap Ads?

[dthree]

My ReplayTV box has a "commercial detection" feature that is pretty good at skipping commercials without any user intervention. They took it out of later models under pressure from the "entertainment" industry but at least they don't use software update to take features away from existing units the way Tivo does. Don't you love having features you bought and paid for disabled?

Re:Zap Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

(the icon that appears when you first insert a dvd and are FORCED to watch stuff that you don't want or need)

On Linux it doesn't and you aren't. Try using an operating system designed to help _you_ tell your computer what to do, instead of the other way around.

Re:Zap Ads?

[zCyl]

In order to prevent a massive lawsuite storm from all the major networks, TiVo officially only allows you to fast-forward through commercials, not skip them

Or you can just use MythTV, where you can automatically skip them without pressing anything.

Re:Zap Ads?

[Aadain2001]

MythTV can do that because they are not an entity that can be sued by TV networks (or at least not view as enough of a threat). I love OSS and Linux, but MythTV is not easy to setup. And don't forget the hardware cost. You don't want to do a sub-par MythTV box. Usually you'd want a very large hardrive (or four), a good TV tuner (or two), and enough processing power to encode a show or two and still watch TV. TiVo is a good option when you don't want to fork over $1k+ and want it to just work. Of course, once I get my hands on enough funds and time, I plan on making a kick-ass MythTV box. Until then, I'll enjoy my TiVo.

Re:Zap Ads?

[squiggleslash]

My Dish Network 625, which supposedly, according to TiVo advocates, is nothing more than a poor rip-off of TiVo's totally original wouldn't-have-been-invented-anyway technology does, in fact, have a commercial skip feature, which doesn't require any registry hacks (or secret key presses) to enable.

I'm kind of baffled by it. Why aren't the networks pissed at Dish Network? How is TiVo way better than Dish as TiVo advocates claim? I wonder if the "secret" commercial skip thing is itself viral marketing (Where's the fun in talking about a normal feature? A feature that's hidden because "The Man" doesn't want you to have it, on the other hand, is worth sharing with your friends...)?

Re:Zap Ads?

[Phrogz]

And Dish Network's DVR remote comes with explicit "30 second forward" and "10 second back" buttons. I love it. I used to have a Tivo, and I love having this feature built-in.

Re:Zap Ads?

[MegaZone]

SPS30S actually. Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select toggles the 30-second skip functionality on/off. I love it, and I've been using it for years, but, believe it or not, some people actually prefer the default skip-to-end functionality of the button. To each his own I suppose.

SPS9S is another one - it turns on an on-screen clock and elapsed time indicator in the lower-right corner of the screen.

Re:Zap Ads?

[MegaZone]

Funny, I've had TiVo over 4.5 years and I don't recall ever losing any features in an update. More urban legends. Quite the contrary, my units keep getting new features.

Re:Zap Ads?

[ben there...]

You don't want to do a sub-par MythTV box. Usually you'd want a very large hardrive (or four), a good TV tuner (or two), and enough processing power to encode a show or two and still watch TV. TiVo is a good option when you don't want to fork over $1k+ and want it to just work.

Wouldn't a sub-par MythTV box be TiVo?

I haven't priced it all out, but I'd imagine you could build a MythTV box for under $500 that would still beat TiVo. That's about the cost of 3 years of TiVo prepaid.

Re:Zap Ads?

[Smack]

It was not disabled to prevent being sued. That would be a very difficult lawsuit to win for the networks, as is shown by the Tivo competitors who have the feature.

The real reason is because originally Tivo had partner agreements with the networks. Like NBC paid Tivo to have a section in the menus (the Tivo Showcase) that highlighted what NBC wanted to promote that week. Also, NBC put markers in their show promos that made it so you could press thumbs up to record the show easily.

So Tivo had to play nice with the networks, and not having an obvious commercial skip was the way to do it. Money is more powerful than laws sometimes.

Re:Zap Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

(hitting a combo of buttons)

Up up down down left right left right B A

Re:Zap Ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, and then I can spend hours trying to get the poorly documented and kludgy installation procedure working, and when I'm done, I can have an ugly and user-unfriendly interface to work with! Yay!

Or I could use MediaPortal and skip all that crap.

Re:Zap Ads?

[Aadain2001]

Now that really depends what you mean by 'beat' TiVo. Will it have larger storage? Probably. Will it be able to convert to multiple video codecs? Probably not (not enough CPU power). Record multiple shows at once? Definately not (won't get two good TV cards in a $500 price cap). In the end, if you built a $500 MythTV box you'll get something more on par with TiVo, but with a significantly harder setup, less useful interface, and not many extra features. However, dump $1k+ into a MythTV box, and you get a laundry list of neat features that TiVo just can't touch. But I'll stick with TiVo until then.

Re:Zap Ads?

[Bastian]

I priced it out. (Years ago, so I'm sure the prices have changed.)

Tivo + livetime subscription: $500, $400 after rebate

Computer capable of running MythTV halfway decently: $1000

I like openness, but not costs-twice-as-much more.

Re:Zap Ads?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Until when, exactly?

And is the MythTV interface that bad? I thought it had won all sorts of awards...

Re:Zap Ads?

[SanityInAnarchy]

This is why not to buy Blu-Ray (yet). On Linux, or with VLC, or any number of other ways to allow you to fastforward, I don't know of a one of them that works without cracking CSS.

Speaking of which, I do agree with you about Linux, but VLC is cross-platform and does anything any other Linux player will do, even for Windows users.

Re:Zap Ads?

[Jonathan_S]

Funny, I've had TiVo over 4.5 years and I don't recall ever losing any features in an update. More urban legends. Quite the contrary, my units keep getting new features.

I can think of three unsupported "hack" features that were removed in TiVo software updates, and one futher from the DirecTV DVR with TiVo.

The hack features were:
TeachTiVo: With the backdoor code enabled (unsupported) there was an ability to directly view and modify the Thumbs Up/Down data for programs, show types, actors, directors, etc. (Most of this data is generated indirectly when a show is given a thumbs up or down)

Sort by experation date: When the sorting feature was changed from a hidden code to mainstream functionality one of the three existin sort types was removed (the ability to order the shows so that the show that would be deleted first when the TiVo ran out of space was at the top of the Now Playing List.)

Advanced Wishlists: The ability to group multiple wishlist criterial into a single wishlist and the support for OR matching in adition to the default AND matching.

However none of this functionality was supported and special codes (similar to game cheat codes) had to be used to enable it.

On the DirecTV DRV with TiVo, as part of the rebranding from TiVo to DirecTV, the TiVo startup animation was removed, and with it the TiVo button + 0 code to cause the animation to play from the menu without restarting.

But I can't recall a single supported feature that TiVo has removed from the software, and they have continued to add new features and distributed them for free to subcribed customers.

Re:Zap Ads?

[MegaZone]

True, some backdoor features were removed - or made harder to access. Some of the backdoor features are still in there, but you need to binary edit the software to enable them. I used to use some of the backdoors, but I haven't bothered to enable them since 3.x. I think the features that have been added more than offset the things that were 'lost'. Teach TiVo was interesting to play with, but I can see why it was never finished, it was really for just a handful of users. TiVo's philosophy has always been to keep things simple for the average user. I have an infamously long RFE list that has a reputation, even within TiVo, so I'm not shy about asking for new features. But I've been a happy user for years, and I look forward to the Series3.

Re:Zap Ads?

[dthree]

Sure, there are great new "features". Like the one that allows the tv network to determine how long you can keep your shows before they get autodeleted. And the one that prevents you from recording shows that the tv network doesn't think you should record. How about the one that lets the tv network pick which shows you can copy to your tivo-to-go device? Seems like they are giving the networks all the features.

Re:Zap Ads?

[MegaZone]

Yeah, and that's been such a problem... oh, wait, it has never once been an issue for me, or most users. And it is also unique to TiVo, no one using any other device has ever run into Macrovision - wait, no, some PC capture card users reported flags too. Could it be that pretty much every recording device sold has exactly the same software?

This is just a red herring and people who don't know what they're talking about always bring this up. It is reality for the industry. If you want to avoid it build your own box - and make sure the cards you using don't implement it.

So far the times that this has popped up it has been an error in the source - stations inappropriately adding the flag, etc. And it has been resolved.

Re:Zap Ads?

[zCyl]

I priced it out. (Years ago, so I'm sure the prices have changed.)

Tivo + livetime subscription: $500, $400 after rebate

Computer capable of running MythTV halfway decently: $1000

I don't know quite where you got your prices. At least a year ago I picked up a TV card with remote for $50, and a spare 160 GB HD to dedicate to MythTV for around $100, and was able to add MythTV functionality to an existing Linux server for no more cost than this (the prices should now be lower). If you don't have an existing Linux server to add MythTV to, the other hardware requirements are quite minimal since the TV cards usually come with an encoder, and so a fairly cheap desktop could be used. A machine dedicated exclusively to MythTV wouldn't even need a second harddrive.

Also, it seems TiVo no longer offers the lifetime subscription you mention. MythTV of course requires no subscription. While of course there is the problem that you have to install MythTV yourself, I would say MythTV is both cheaper and more flexible.

Re:Zap Ads?

[Bastian]

Well, for one, I said years, as in plural. Computer hardware up to the task cost more in 2003.

Second, I didn't havethe luxury of being able to just upgrade an existing 'puter, I tend to use outdated laptops.

I didn't realize that Tivo no longer does the lifetime sub. I was just pointing out that for a lot of folks out there MythTV is not the lower-cost option. I'd say if it weren't for that this would still be the case - most folks I know use laptops that they cart around fairly often, and I'd assume that after you're done buying CPU, mobo, power supply, case, tuner card, RAM, hard drive, etc. to build a MythTV box from scratch, you're doing pretty good if you can keep the price down around $500.

Overload

[slidersv]

And the tivo.com goes down in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...

Wonder what this is promoting?

[gwiner]

Great spoof - The file timestamp is actually a GIF =). Makes me wonder what this was meant to promote, or perhaps just a good piece of viral marketing. According to some of those rabid Tivo fans, "Bluemoon" was the codename for the original Tivo iteration.

Re:Wonder what this is promoting?

[1u3hr]

Of course it's viral marketiong -- it costs money and takes talent to make a movie like that, not to mention hosting a 40 MB file. Rather (deliberately) reminsicent of the Dharma Initiative training film found in the show Lost, as well as many other influences.

Re:Wonder what this is promoting?

[johndierks]

Did anyone else see the single frame flash of the text www.tivo.com/bluemoon in the video (at 3:58)? I'd guess that Tivo will develop the bluemoon site further and then will find some massive way to publicize the video over the web. If I were them I'd start with Slashdot.

Re:Wonder what this is promoting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, too bad it doesn't make me want to switch to Tivo from brand x. Better luck next time, Tivo!

Mirror to MP4 file

[qcs-rf.com]

Enjoy!

http://www.qcs-rf.com/slashdot/bluemoon.mp4

Re:Mirror to MP4 file

[Anonymous Coward]

Karma whoring pirate.

Re:Mirror to MP4 file

[idonthack]

Thanks, your mirror is much faster than TiVo's site right now.

Re:Mirror to MP4 file

[Weasel404]

Thanks for the mirror. Tivo site was just crawling.

Re:Mirror to MP4 file

[Quinn_Inuit]

Thanks! It's still crawling. I'm sure Tivo thanks you, too.

Viral Ad

[DrKyle]

Don't bother discussing any implications or great ramifications, it's just another viral ad.

I love the smell...

[alienmole]

You smell that? Do you smell that? Viral marketing, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of viral marketing in the morning. Smells like - market share.

Re:I love the smell...

[MustardMan]

Aren't viral marketing ads supposed to be, you know, entertaining? I watched it on youtube and it wasn't funny at all. If it wasn't for the slashvertisement posting of this video, I would never have seen it - people only send viral videos around to their friends if they are actually enjoyable to watch. This was just stupid, long, drawn-out, and boring.

Re:I love the smell...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, since TiVo sue everyone, there is no market share to speak of- TiVo has it all :)

Re:I love the smell...

[alienmole]

Shhh, you'll spook the moderators!

Re:I love the smell...

[MegaZone]

Like most things in life, some people like it, some people don't. But I can say that I've seen it posted all over the place already, and there are a lot of discussions around the net. So it has been doing a pretty good job of getting attention. Lots of little blogs that normally never mention TiVo suddenly have entries about the video, and all the blogs that do normally cover TiVo have it, of course. So it is putting the name out there to more people than normal.

1-frame watermark

[slidersv]

There is a one frame at 3 minutes 58 seconds that flashes the link www.tivo.com/bluemoon. I think the reel is more of an entertainment than marketing project, that was meant to self-redistribute.

Re:1-frame watermark

[beebware]

I saw that as well - I was watching it, getting bored, and suddenly saw white text reading ".com/bluem" and then reversed and paused it to read the message. If it was just a single frame, damn, my eyes are good ;)

Ask Dan Rather

[krell]

"Were .mp4 files around back in 1997?"

He has some MP4 files that Bush actually recorded with his Powerbook in 1972.

Youtube....

[Kunta Kinte]

It's on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsXUPmWAfhY

OT: Sig

[3vi1]

The quote in your sig is wrong.

It's not "There are only 10 types of people who understand binary." It is "There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

Pictures behind Waterman's shoulders

[Nutria]

Are Nixon, as it should be, and what looks like GWB.

Re:Pictures behind Waterman's shoulders

[Anonymous Coward]

umm, that's Ford you idiot

Re:Pictures behind Waterman's shoulders

[CptNerd]

*Sigh* Kids.

On the right is Gerald R. Ford, Nixon's VP after Agnew resigned, who became President when Nixon resigned.

Re:Pictures behind Waterman's shoulders

[One Louder]

The trouble with that, of course, is that the device shows the date of July 17, and the calendar on the wall is for 1973, while Ford didn't become Vice President until December 6, 1973.

Re:Pictures behind Waterman's shoulders

[TCQuad]

The 2000/2004 elections were rigged back in 1973 when George HW Bush was head of the Republican National Committee.

If you need more proof than the picture (which was probably obtained by fast-forwarding the nightly news all the way to the present), Diebold had just opened their electronic research, testing and development facility in Ohio...

Ohio! Think about it, people!

Re:Pictures behind Waterman's shoulders

[Alien Being]

No, I'm pretty sure it's a picture of Agnew.

Re:Pictures behind Waterman's shoulders

[Nutria]

*Sigh* Kids.

I'm old enough to remember watching the Watergate hearings on TV.

Since this is a viral marketing spoof, I see know reason why they would not put a grainy portrait of W up there as a bit of humor or political satire.

On the right is Gerald R. Ford, Nixon's VP after Agnew resigned

I know what Ford looks like. That's not Ford.

40 MB?

[nurb432]

Looks like 400 to me.. Ya, so im a sucker, but i was curious. Ill never own a tivo so its not like they are going to gain a customer out of this 'news scam' anyway.

Trust/ Who?

[mencomenco]

Trust? Trust Davis Freeberg to reject corporate viral propaganda...

Who Is Davis Freeberg? Is he(she?) as phoney as this story? Please, someone, run a D&B or google on this character quick. I for one demand the Truth!

Where are the /. skeptics when we need them - asleep on a Saturday morning? Do geeks really get Labor Day holidays?

On, Cowboy Neal, we trusted you to keep our beloved /. pure and uncontaminated by invitations to absorb another 40NB of corporate propaganda.

Oh, damn. Never mind... it's the Trust No One Department.

mirror, youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

Latching onto your comment for page position. Sorry.
Mirror1: http://www.qcs-rf.com/slashdot/bluemoon.mp4 (faster than the original site)
Mirror2: http://wakkah.net/pub/bluemoon.mp4 (uploading as I post)
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsXUPmWAfhY

Posting AC for no karma whoring

Re:OT: Sig

[qcs-rf.com]

Changed. Thanks for pointing that out.

"Ad zapping?"

[Guppy06]

At no point in the movie is there any mention of either advertising or what can be done with it. Considering the way you now have to jury-rig the system to enable some sort of 30 s skip, I'm guessing the submitter has yet to come to terms with the fac that TiVo sold out to advertisers a long time ago.

Re:"Ad zapping?"

[blakestah]

Let's get a few things straight.

First of all, TiVO never sold out to advertisers. They recognized, from the beginning, that TV is not free. Advertisters pay for your TV in order to get hits on you. If you remove their hits, they will come after you, big-time, and your cool little dot-com startup will be just another crash and burn. This is TV, the nature of the business is delivering targetting advertising.

Second of all, TiVO's future revenue stream is ALL about advertising revenue. Consider they can allow you to download a longer infomercial for any product you are interested in by having you click. They can and do record EVERY time you rewind a commercial to watch it again. They report this to advertisers for a fee.

TiVO is positioned to provide an additional layer of targetted advertising on TV content, Advertising WITH FEEDBACK on how the use watches it. How many time, where it gets paused, skipped, FFWed, etc. And not only that, TiVO can provide advertisers with cross-correlational analysis of who watches which TV shows in intimate detail with 10000 times hte power that Nielsen can.

TiVO is headed to becoming the advertising powerhouse of 21st century television.

Re:"Ad zapping?"

[shaneh0]

If by "jury-rig" you mean "pointing the remote at the TIVO and pressing a couple buttons" then yes, you're right, you have to jury-rig your TIVO for a 30 second skip.

And I bet you could even skip the "pointing the remote" step. Just make sure you're in the same room.

Re:"Ad zapping?"

[Guppy06]

"pointing the remote at the TIVO and pressing a couple buttons"

That right there is beyond the ken of most TiVo users. Which is exactly why they make you do it to begin with.

Re:"Ad zapping?"

[shaneh0]

No, the reason they make you enter a code to activate a 30-second skip is so they can show they've made concessions for advertisers. At the time this had the benefit of drawing the industries ire towards ReplayTV, which seems in hindsight like a pretty good plan.

Patented Technology

[CustomDesigned]

I noticed in the video that the box included a menu to select music by category and artist. Isn't this the patented tech that Apple just got sued for using in ipods? Another victim for the patent holder?

then != than

[pizero]

TiVo is probably better known for their ad zapping technology THAN their televison advertisements.

Re:mirror, youtube

[idonthack]

Mirror 2 is now working

MirrorDot

[mapinguari]

http://www.mirrordot.com/media/ccbff8e5d33f5022937 f6bdafcc7ae89/bluemoon.mp4

BitTorrent download

[TheSHAD0W]

http://bittornado.com/torrents/bluemoon.mp4.torren t

Also known for tivoisation

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

TiVo's are also known for tivoisatin. They love receiving the freedom to add easter eggs, but are not big fans of passing that freedom on to others (or the freedom to remove their spyware, or the freedom to add features you want).

RMS gave a good explanation of this in his recent talk on GPLv3.

Re:Also known for tivoisation

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop whining and get back to work on MythTV. My MythTV boxen are crashing left and right here.

My home movies?

[BlueOtto]

Did anyone else notice the "My home movies" feature it discussed and showed? I do not think that's a current feature to stream movies-- only music and photos. I wonder if an update is coming soon?

Re:My home movies?

[MegaZone]

While it doesn't work the way it was shown in the video, you *can* transfer video from a PC (Mac, Linux box, whatever) to a TiVo over a network. It just needs to be in the correct MPEG-2 format. TiVo Desktop on Windows supports it natively. TiVo Desktop on Mac supports it as a hidden feature. And 3rd party applications like Galleon (which is Java and runs most anywhere) also supports it. It is a sub-feature of TiVoToGo, generally called TiVoToComeBack.

The PC shows up as another entry in the TiVo's Now Playing List, similar to how other TiVo's show up for Multi-Room Viewing.

alien technology

[sdnoob]

so, does that mean that tivo just invalidated their patents? looks like alien prior art to me. good news for dish dvr customers! ;)

fake timestamp

[Anonymous Coward]

As another poser pointed out, the timestamp for that file is a gif which is located at: http://a423.g.akamai.net/7/423/1788/00909b5e4f1ead /www.tivo.com/i/timestamp.gif

WTF?

Re:OT: Sig

[popeye44]

Yep 980K better than 54.. anyday :D Thanks!

Commercial Skip?

[popeye44]

Did anyone here skip this particular commerical? I feel used. violated.. etc.

Re:Commercial Skip?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I skipped it. Downloaded and deleted without viewing.

Stick that in your viral marketing and smoke it, Tivo. I won't be supporting your products while you use your junk patents to sue people for doing the same thing that you yourselves copied off existing products. ;)

Re:OT: Sig

[Anonymous Coward]

There are only 2 kinds of people in the world: those that know that you have to put a subscript 2 after a binary number to avoid confusion with decimal, and idiots.

Well Gollieee

[Nom du Keyboard]

So TiVo has a great story to tell, obviously intends for it to be seen since it's on their web-site to start with, then hides it as best they can? If this is TiVo Marketing at work, than it's no surprise to me why they can't gain traction in the marketplace except through lawsuits.

My personal rule is to avoid whenever possible companies who compete via lawsuit, rather than by price and/or quality.

about 3 minutes too long

[Temsi]

cool idea, but it stopped being funny very quickly... after that it was just more of the same.
got pretty banal pretty quick.

Dan Rather faked documents but the Swift Boat Vets

[WilliamSChips]

faked facts. I know whom I hate more.

TIVO deserves it!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linking to a 40 meg file hosted on TiVo's servers on the front page of Slashdot? Not nice."

TIVO deserves it! Those drm using bums!

http://www.fsf-europe.org/projects/gplv3/barcelona -rms-transcript.it.html#tivoisation

and next you see...

[Anonymous Coward]

And next you see how the box applies constraints on the user through a form of DRM.

Clear Pictures are not Guaranteed

[lullabud]

That's not Bush, it's the Safety is Not Guaranteed guy!

Er... no...

[SheeEttin]

Er... no... that's the smell of burning plastic. It seems to be coming from the server room.

than not then..

[4D6963]

damnit!

I'll never understand why people use then for than more then than for then, but than I guess the latter sounds weirder then then for than.

Re:than not then..

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... huh? Do you mean this kind of error?

If this is TiVo Marketing at work, than it's no surprise to me ...

Re:than not then..

[4D6963]

lol of course I do. It was to point out how then for than sounds better than the other way around, which nobody ever says anyways.

Re:mirror, youtube

[Goaway]

Thank you for doing TiVo's marketing work for them, and turning friendly conversation into ad space little by little.

'Masculine Itch Cream' golfing TiVo commercial??

[fmwap]

I saw a TiVo commercial on real TV once, it was one of the funniest commercials ever and I've never seen it again.

This was probably five years ago or so, but here's a recap:

(Three men on golf course, 1 of them T'ing off, we see his back)
Man A: (Swings and misses shot, shuffles at crotch)
Man B: What's the matter, Bill? ... Masculine Itch?
Man A: YES! How did you know??
Man B (Advertiser voice): Well, let me tell you about men's masculine itch cream!
(Scene cuts to 'flu-style' graph of man's crotch with lots of 'dots' focused on the crotch area)
Man B: You can see the affected area here ... (blah blah)
Man B then whips out a bottle of 'Masculine Itch Cream' and bends down towards Man A's crotch
Man B: And you just apply to the affected area! ...

(Scene cuts to a "There a some things on TV you don't want to see" style-ad w/ TiVo logo)

Everyone think's I'm some kinda of pervert when I try to explain that commercial...but it was hilarious.

Did anyone else ever see that?

Re:Dan Rather faked documents but the Swift Boat V

[Anonymous Coward]

The only swift boat vet who lied during that campaign was John F. Kerry.

Re:Dan Rather faked documents but the Swift Boat V

[WilliamSChips]

Wow, someone who still believes GOP propaganda! I thought everyone finally realized it was all crap, you learn something new every day.

disbelieve the propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Kerry lied about pretty much everything, including his "service". The Swift Boat matter was one of those "whose word do you take?" matters. However, at the time, Kerry was routinely making false statements during his campaign advertisements, so he had a major reputation as a liar already.

Re:disbelieve the propaganda

[Pitir]

I'm just glad the Bush administration has such a stellar record for veracity. Nothing they have ever said has turned out to be duplicitous, deceptive or misleading. It really does come down to looking at who has more of a better record for factual statements, and the Bush administration is the most straightforward, honest group of folks I've ever seen. Yup. *cough*

Re:disbelieve the propaganda

[WilliamSChips]

I know. They were so completely and totally correct about the location of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and they also never lied and said that they would bypass the Constitutional system!

Re:disbelieve the propaganda

[krell]

Q. How can you tell when a politician is lying?

Re:disbelieve the propaganda

[WilliamSChips]

Well, when they state that they will never break the Constitution and always get a warrant before wiretapping, and then wiretap without a warrant, that's called lying.

Re:disbelieve the propaganda

[krell]

A. When their lips are moving.

Re:disbelieve the propaganda

[WilliamSChips]

"Hello", he lied.

Re:disbelieve the propaganda

[krell]

"Ahem," he dissembled as he cleared his throat.

Rabid fan?

[deblau]

Is that why he only has 6 posts on the TiVo forums? And joined in September 2006 (i.e., yesterday)?

A cheezy attempt at viral marketing?

[doormat]

The S3 HD TiVo is set to be released early this month (Sept 12). Est. Price $799.

subliminal message

[krunk4ever]

did any of you catch the subliminal message around 3:58 where it shows this url for 1 frame:
www.tivo.com/bluemoon

Re:'Masculine Itch Cream' golfing TiVo commercial?

[MegaZone]

Yeah, that was one of TiVo's earliest TV spots. One of the guys was Joe Montana and the guy with the itch was Ronnie Lott - both retired from the SF 49ers.

Cómo se dice "Viral Marketing?"

[C10H14N2]

This is hardly an "easter egg" someone randomly found... this is an advertising campaign.

When it's been on /. for 12 hours and I'm pulling 5.1Mb/s from their site...it ain't no accident.

TiVo has never zapped commercials!

[Anonymous Coward]

"TiVo is probably better known for their ad zapping technology than their television advertisements"

What the hell are you talking about? TiVo is better known for NOT zapping commericals, preferring the side of the studios and networks.

ReplayTV was the company that actually tried to zap ads. Sure, they got the crap sued out of them, but the ReplayTV has always had better tools to skip ads than TiVo.

Check out Tivo's wrongdoing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's here: http://malfy.org/

Re:OT: Sig

[cob666]

Changed. Thanks for pointing that out. -- There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Actually, 2 raised to the power of 2 is 4 so 10 in binary would represent 3.
Your sig should read:

There are only 1 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Re:OT: Sig

[WilliamSChips]

There are 11 types of people in the world, people who laugh at the "10 types of people" joke, people who complain about silly things like a subscript, and people who don't know what binary is.

Re:OT: Sig

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, 2 raised to the power of 2 is 4 so 10 in binary would represent 3.
Your sig should read:
There are only 1 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

... and you are one of the later.

Re:OT: Sig

[cob666]

Sorry, I wasn't reading the sig literally.
By 10 representing 3 I meant 0, 1 and 2. Although the binary 1 represents two choices, they are 0 and 1.

I know I should have at least one cup of coffee before I post here!

Your an idiot and a chickenshit.

[wilec]

"by Anonymous Coward"

Your an idiot if you believe such Rove cooked up trash, and a chickenshit as your tag plainly shows.

Matthew

Your also an idiot and a chickenshit.

[wilec]

"by Anonymous Coward"

Your also an idiot if you believe such Rove cooked up trash, and a chickenshit as your tag plainly shows.

Matthew

Re:Your also an idiot and a chickenshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your != you're (you are). So you're ignorant about your grammar.

Re:Zap Ads? Use KnoppMyth instead.

[Guru2Newbie]

poorly documented and kludgy installation procedure

Why don't you try KnoppMyth? It includes quite a detailed installation manual, and does the MythTV installation using Knoppix, so all the hardware drivers, remotes, etc. are basically automatic. It takes about 15 minutes. There's a free "subscription" to Zap2It Labs for daily TV listings going two weeks into the future. To renew, every 3 months you answer two survey questions about TV viewing.

My first install was with a Athlon 1.3GHz, 512Gb ram, a Hauppauge PVR-350 and an 80GB drive. It worked the first time.

I've been using it for about a year, and have since upgraded to dual 320GBs, a 40GB boot drive, and a second PVR-350. Aside from local grid power failures, it's been running nearly continuously. It's awesome. You can program/view shows over the web or your LAN; you can burn DVDs, lots more. Check it out.