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Tivo On Board With YouTube's New API
impuLsive writes "YouTube has announced they're rolling out a brand new API. The API will allow you to integrate YouTube into a website, allowing for features like: uploading videos, adding and editing video metadata, fetching localized feeds, custom queries, and a customized player UI with controlled video playback. Alongside YouTube, TiVo announced that they will be supporting the site's content via the Series3 and TiVo HD DVRs starting later this year."
... and calling it WebTivo, or maybe just WebTV?
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those conversations at work that start out "did you see show_xyz last night?"
Television is about to get more customizable, whether you believe this is a good thing or not, if YouTube makes itself available to anyone that can plug in a box like a Tivo, well that means joe six pack will watch more YouTube.
Wonder what the response of the MPAA and others related will be? Outlaw YouTube on television screens?
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I wonder if Apple will put this functionality into Front Row? It seems like a natural extension to what is already on offer.
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The remaining question is, do you have the skills to do this fast enough, and do you work cheap enough, for it to take less than $400 of your time?
Don't get me wrong, I'd do it regardless -- although VideoDownloader is absolutely NOT what you want to be doing from your couch; I'd look for whatever API they gave the iPhone and just stream h.264.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I received a TiVoHD unit for the holidays, and while it has some interesting features, I'm continually frustrated at the nickel-and-dime tactics of TiVo. People often don't realize that TiVo, while still charging a fee for the unit and a monthly service fee, still has advertisements laced into it. The subscriber agreement allows TiVo corp to activate even more intrusive ads if they so chose to. And the "added features" on the box, especially PC-related features, often require paying for TiVo's upgraded computer software to do anything but the basics. And then there's the DRM and non-anonymous statistics reporting.
What concerns me is that TiVo is that these new "features" are just going to end up as more annoying ad clutter, and at every menu option will be a prompt to pay for some new feature. Just like so many other devices spawned of the communication age.
TiVo corp has yet to turn a profit, so I'm sure they're just looking for more revenue streams. I'm sure the latest software update will be just what I'm waiting for.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
Or the skills to do it at all. I'm definitely a geek, but I'm a mechanical engineer... while I physically built my computer, I've just never delved into Linux based systems. I just don't program anything, and rarely have the time to start from scratch. But TiVo has pissed me off enough to the point where I think I'd rather have spent the extra time to have something I have full control over, let alone not having to pay a monthly fee to use.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
The only thing that remains are issues of "quality" that one gets from expensive productions (crane shots, long tracking shots, fancy lighting tricks, quality make up, good direction and acting). So, the funding would have to come from somewhere - the economic model would have to work - but if it is settled either through fees for DL or subscriptions or whatever, then basically two things happen: the broadcaster business model is mortally wounded and the advertisers that support it will have a harder time keeping eyeballs...
This youtube / tivo thing is a harbinger of the future of TV, and is a BIG step in the right direction.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I made a solid attempt to do just that. But, the POS box i got didn't have a supported video card, so that's another 100 bucks on top of the 100 for the HD Tuner. Then Zap2It got killed and none of my roomates could work the thing, so we got the crappy DVR from comcast at 10$ a month. As I understand it they have since resolved that and have a service you can use, just a little to late is all. Besides, TiVo isn't exactly marketed to those of us with the time and resources to do all that, its geared much more toward the people who want to buy a box from the local Big Box Retailer (TM) take it home, plug it in and have it work. There are plenty of people out there who think that an extra 200/300$ bucks is well worth it for that security, as well as the TiVo interface which is frankly a hell of a lot nicer than MythTV (at least when I was using it).
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Just curious...what or why has Tivo pissed you off about? I have moved my Tivo to the bedroom (series 2) since I have a crappy HD DVR in the main room now. But I ALWAYS set up Tivo to record whatever the HD DVR is recording, because sure enough, at least once a month the HD DVR doesn't record something, or cuts it off etc etc...at that point I can still watch it in the bedroom...just not in HD. Tivo has yet to let me down in the 3 years I've had it.
Dude, the Series 3 is discontinued. It's replacement, the Tivo HD, is about 2-fiddy. And it does a bit more than just play YouTube videos.
Neuros OSD has been able to do this for a very long time now, too. Sure--this is a good new feature for Tivo but it's sort of something everyone else seems to have already done; makes this seem like more of a 'me too!' feature at this point but I guess most of the Walmart shopping non-geeks wouldn't know it.
Amen. I bought an HD for ~$300, and really couldn't be much happier with it. It has a Rhapsody and Unbox client, the Tivocast content is nicely geek-targeted (much comes from ZDnet/CNet, so you get Dvorak's talk show, DLTV, etc.). More to the point, the box just works.
I sunk $200 in for a lifetime transfer from my Series 2 and another $200 for an external WD 500GB SATA drive, so I guess I'm in for $700 total. Until the next big TV paradigm change, though, I don't see having to touch it again.
Is there finally a Linux/Myth compatible HD tuner card with CableCard support? If not, they simply cannot be considered a viable alternative to the Series 3 / Tivo HD.
Let's see what it would really take to assemble a MythTV system that could do everything the cheaper ($300, less if refurbished) HD-TiVo can do:
And when you're done, you still get to deal with an interface that is far less intuitive than TiVo's... and in my opinion a lot uglier as well.
There are two main reasons I prefer the MythTV solution to TiVo: first, if you're in full control of the system, you're in full control of the data it records, and you don't have to deal with any encryption crap for the media saved on your own drive. Second, MythVideo lets you play other video files easily, whereas with TiVo you have to use a rather cumbersome TivoToGo hack to do it. But the total inability to record encrypted HD digital cable channels is the deal-stopper for me.
"because sure enough, at least once a month the HD DVR doesn't record something, or cuts it off etc etc...at that point I can still watch it in the bedroom...just not in HD."
My DVR does the same thing occasionally, but that's when I turn to the internet and bittorrent. Problem solved.
Well, I have the time and resources to do that, but I would still pay $200/$300 more. I'm also lazy, have lots of work, and don't want to worry. That, of course, supposing it works as I want it to.
Sometimes, even us geeks just want to sit back and relax.
morcego
Sounds exciting. Perhaps the best brains in the business are now having an impact at YouTube? The interface is a lot better these days too.
1) You're ignoring the TivoHD, which is $262.94 from tivo.com right now (cheaper if you go elsewhere)
2) As someone else in the thread mentioned, there is no CableCard support for MythTV, AFAIK. (Even with the Windows support for cablecard, can you do dual cablecards, enabling recording 2 channels simultaneously, regardless of OTA/cable or analog/digital?)
3) Even with MythTV, you'll have to pay for the guide data, since it's no longer free (though there are probably more hacks to web-scrape from online listings.. still more stuff to break and keep hassling with). You didn't mention it, but another common complaint about Tivo, the montly fee. I believe you can still buy lifetime (for $400) on Tivos, so 'keep paying every month' isn't currently a valid complaint.
erm... no, not just yet...
That will make sense once there's decent quality (and non-copyright infringing) material at a much higher resolution -- we are several years away from that being YouTube.
Although, I guess it's perfect right now if you normally tivo pets skateboarding or teenagers doing retarded things. Or you are one of the very few people who like to see slideshows of lame celebutards to a soundtrack of music that only a 12 year old could possibly enjoy.
I agree with this post overall, but want to add a couple of comments:
1. I have used the HDHomeRun unit with good success - it has two ATSC/QAM tuners and can record two streams simultaneously. It records over your network to a destination such as a MythTV box. It costs around $170.
2. Outputting HD video to an HDTV via MythTV is non-trivial. So much so that I am going to try a TiVo HD unit for a while to see if I can live with it (been using MythTV for 4 years), because MythTV requires endless tweaking to get this to work and I have not been entirely successful.
The freedom to do what you want with MythTV is great, and I have used pretty much all of the MythTV plugins over the years, but I am growing tired of messing with it. Paying $180 for a refurbished TiVo HD unit (e.g., recent woot.com deal) is attractive, even with the monthly charges. Believe me, I have paid so much for MythTV-related hardware over the years that I could have bought a couple of TiVo lifetime subscriptions.
It's called 'spare time' for a reason. By the way, I would kill for a job that landed $400 for 2-3 days of work. Perhaps I'm just looking at it wrong, but unless I'm taking time off work, my time has no monetary value.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Actually, my main reason for the DIY habit is that nobody can cripple my PVR but me. There's no feature lockout, no HDCP bullshit, no planned obsolescence or "unsupported codecs". I make the rules, and sure enough after running my current media center system for over 6 years, it's still going strong and being used daily with fresh content. It just works.
If I had bought a Tivo, I would probably have spent thousands on upgrades and replacements. It's not like they make a 2-terabyte Tivo anyway.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
"Instead of spending $600 on a Tivo Series3 device, you can buy a cheap $200 computer, use MythTV to replicate what the Tivo would offer, put Firefox and the VideoDownloader extension on there to watch all the YouTube videos you want on your own time."
True, but would it offer all the ease a set-top box would offer? A few years ago I'd agree with you, but for $600 it does everything without any troubleshooting or incompatibility problems. Maybe if you're poor college kid and you're the only one that uses it, but if you're a family guy or if you're trying to get laid (having a PC connected to your TV reeks of uber-dorkness) then just spend the extra cash for the Tivo.
FYI you can always watch Youtube on a Nintendo Wii and skip the new Tivo entirely.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Where do you live?
If you're employed in tech in the US and not making $400 or more for 2-3 days of work, there's a decent chance you're doing something wrong. $16-$25/hr is not particularly special, it's entry to mid-level pay depending on exactly where you are (in the San Francisco Bay area, it's not even "mid-level").
As for "spare time" having no monetary value, that's pretty absurd. For some people, it may be effectively true (though I'd argue most such people have the financial sense of a rock), but for others, the monetary value of your time is whatever you can get for it.
A second job, side consulting, or even researching investment strategies are all ways to monetize time not spent working at a "primary" job. The question is not "Does my spare time have value?", it's "How do I wish to extract the value of my spare time?". The answer to that question depends on the answer to other questions, like (simplistically) "Is the money I could get from working two extra hours per day worth more to me than time spent relaxing?".
If you prefer to use your spare time to goof off, that's fine. Nobody can make the right decision for you. But thinking that time outside of a 40-hour-a-week job has no value is pretty silly.
Yes, they can cripple your PVR.
1) no cablecard support
Most people (not including me, btw) get encrypted channels. Having to use an "IR blaster" or somesuch is a really hokey workaround, but even then they have Macrovision or somesuch. I realize it can all be worked around, but you end up with more failure points.
Yep, I hear ya. I am recording from OTA signals only (no cable) so for me it is not a concern. I have been really impressed with the HDHomeRun for recording OTA HD signals.
I am on your website stealing your adz!
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Then maybe another question is: Do you see this as a chore, or as a hobby?
My suggestion here was simply that for at least some people, it makes a lot of sense to simply shell out for a TiVo, because now you get to spend your time actually watching that TV, or whatever else you wanted to do.
The fact that I'm off the clock doesn't mean my time is worthless -- I have a limited amount of it, so sometimes, I do simply throw money at the problem. Recent example where this actually made sense (MUCH moreso than the TiVo debate) -- I had a laptop with onboard sound which wouldn't work on Linux. After struggling with it for awhile, I bought a good USB soundcard. Problem solved.
Depends. Are those few seconds uncomfortable? Do I even notice them?
Erm... no, it costs no time to lose your shows when you switch providers, and it costs you no time to pay your subscription fee. You mean "several thousand dollars", period, based on those examples. A valid point, sure, but again, how much is that initial (and ongoing) investment for the Myth box, especially for Joe Public, who barely knows Windows, let alone Linux or hardware?
Again: I'd certainly build one for myself (except I don't really watch TV now) sooner than I'd buy one. But it's not for everyone, and I'm not even convinced it's cost-effective for me. I'm a geek, I like to tinker.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
TV needs to change it's one-way media style to something more interactive in order to compete with media like the interent. I think in the furture we will see TV intergrated completly online almost in a p2p fasion where users can share their 'playlists'. I hate to say this...but I think Microsoft is on spot. I think were heading into a Home Server type system where your TV recieves brodcasting streamed from a computer and supported by content you selected. I stopped watching TV in 2003 becuase of the growth of video online with the likes of youtube and veoh. Many are in my same situation. The content on TV tends to be garbage anyways. If you compare news channel websites to the messages they broadcast on TV you will be shocked at the difference. I remember CNN broadcasting a story about Britney Spears all day while the website only mentioned Spears on a small column in the bottom right... Furthermore, we see a trend in broadcasting networks to provide high definition content online for free. Take Faux On Demand (fox.com/fod), when I want to watch House, I stream it from FoD to my Xbox =)
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
First, this is a false premise. That $200 PC with Myth is NOT the equivilent of a Tivo Series3.
You can get an HD Series2 Tivo for $100 that supports up to 1080i.
By going to a Series3 you get CableCARD technology. You're not getting that with a $200 PC running Myth. You get OUTSTANDING HCI, both in terms of the software and the exceptional remote control. You get dual tuners, you get a nice LCD output telling you what's being recorded. You get a LOAD of Media Center features including stream Rhapsody and Amazon UnBoxed at a single click of a button.
Second, You are wrong, too.
This is simple economics. Opportunity cost.
I work 50 hours a week, and, as a software developer, I make more than the US Median income.
The simple question of opportunity cost is: What COULD I be doing with these resources had I not done this.
Time is a valuable resource for most of us. Once you move out of moms basement, hang that B.S. on your wall, being your career and even perhaps begin a family, time is very, very precious. No offense, but you come across as somebody who cannot yet relate to that. When you're in your late teens/early 20s college years you have more constraints on your money than you do on your time. That resource balance shifts rapidly in the following years. You find yourself with all your own interests, the demands of a spouse and (perhaps) children, the demands of a career that--when you're making a decent living--demands far more than 9-5, 40 hours a week.
Finally, you said something thst made me laugh: "What's more, it's amazing how people focus on initial time, and ignore the rest." I started with ReplayTV. I've used Tivo for years. I also have some slim experience with the DVR from my cable company. And my brother ran Myth for years, and now runs Beyond.
TiVo has, bar none, the best HCI. It's far easier to do common tasks in Tivo. It's a polished user experience that's downright Jobsian. Its use of audible and visual feedback, the organization of its menus and options, its simple PNP tivo-to-tivo networking, its small form factor and quiet fan, all of it. It's all superior to every other DVR I'd seen.
Your argument holds no water here, my friend.
This is the benefit of the Tivo CableCARD slot. Not only can I record 2 HD streams simultaneously, I can record every channel I recieve, including HBO, etc, that are encrypted. And I don't have to use some crappy setup where I have an IR Blaster taped to the fricken cable box.
Not to mention, Tivo is the only setup I've seen that's been THX certified, that has an Optical Out port for audio, that has both HDMI and Component video outputs.
It's just a great, great appliance.
And it comes with the ability to get Amazon UnBox movies and Rhapsody music subscription at the click of a button, not to mention the ability to play your own music (and photos) from your PC. It also lets you watch things you've recorded on your PC, and on other Tivos on your network--and networking them is trivial--and it includes remote-scheduling that is a no-brainer for anybody.
It's downright Jobsian in its quality. Apple should scrap iTV and just purchase Tivo. Make the box white, run a trendy ad campaign, give it an iPod dock, drop Amazon UnBox and add iTunes. You do that, and nobody would ever know that it wasn't designed by Apple from the ground up. It's that good.
Yay!
I'll be able to watch over-compressed, out of focus home videos at 320x200 blown up to 1920x1200 on my HDTV!
I've been waiting for Tivo to do this for some time, seems like a natural thing for them to do. They already support various downloads like Amazon Unbox.
You're absolutely right! The $200 PC is infinitely more capable than any Tivo could ever DREAM of!
That much is true. However, there are innumerable problems with CableCards, and simply using analog pass-through is both more flexible and can give even better results (eg. smaller files with potentially visually better quality through on-the-fly encoding/processing).
You're the one who doesn't grasp economics. You obviously aren't going to be working every (spare) waking hour, so there is no opportunity cost here. If putting together a DVR required you work on nothing else 24/7 for weeks, THAT would be an opportunity cost. But that's not how it works. ie. No opportunity cost.
If you've used nothing else, it's easy to say that. It's hard to beat a flat list of files, being one click away from all your content, and any operations you want to perform on them. Yes, MythTV's UI also sucks, but it's a piece of crap I wouldn't dream of using or recomend. It's merely the press' favorite.
Obviously your experience is far too limited, but let's just go with it as a hypothetical...
Does your Tivo3 allow you to watch DVDs without being forced to watch trailers? How much of your time is wasted on every FBI warning and forced trailer? How many such DVDs will it take before it would have been quicker (or CHEAPER for you) to put together a DVR?
Better yet, does your Tivo3 allow you to STORE all your DVD, VHS, etc. movies on it's hard drive, so you never have to waste your time (or MONEY for you) removing them from the packaging, waiting for your DVD player to power up, cleaning them, etc?
How's your Tivo doing, replacing your CD player and disc collection?
How well does your Tivo allow you to edit out commercials, so that you don't have to skip through the commercials every time you want to watch a show that you've saved?
How good is your Tivo at allowing you to convert any videos to DVDs (or VCD/SVCDs) so you can give hard copies to other family members (eg. kids) to watch in another room and not bother you, or to give out?
How often do you think you're going to need to replace your Tivo, because it runs out of space or doesn't support some feature like CableCard2 or HDTV/QAM? What's the opportunity cost of losing all your saved shows and the like?
What's most disturbing about your post isn't how utterly wrong you are on all counts, it's how utterly sure you and your actions are the only right ones, and everyone else MUST be wrong, somehow.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I got this far: You're the one who doesn't grasp economics. You obviously aren't going to be working every (spare) waking hour, so there is no opportunity cost here. If putting together a DVR required you work on nothing else 24/7 for weeks, THAT would be an opportunity cost. But that's not how it works. ie. No opportunity cost.
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And I stopped reading.
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You just have no clue what you're talking about. EVERYTHING has opportunity cost. EVERYTHING. It makes no difference if you were going to be working-for-pay during that time or not. None. At all.
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Look, kid, this is covered in Micro 101. (And 201, 301, 401, Macro 101, 201, 301 and 401 for that matter). Go back, learn a thing or two, and then we can talk.
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k? thx.
I got this far:
You're the one who doesn't grasp economics. You obviously aren't going to be working every (spare) waking hour, so there is no opportunity cost here. If putting together a DVR required you work on nothing else 24/7 for weeks, THAT would be an opportunity cost. But that's not how it works. ie. No opportunity cost.
And I stopped reading.
You just have no clue what you're talking about. EVERYTHING has opportunity cost. EVERYTHING. It makes no difference if you were going to be working-for-pay during that time or not. None. At all.
Look, kid, this is covered in Micro 101. (And 201, 301, 401, Macro 101, 201, 301 and 401 for that matter). Go back, learn a thing or two, and then we can talk.
k? thx.
Seriously. That would rock.
- Have a picture
I'm not the OP but I'd kill for U$ 400 for 3 day's work. Hell, for a week's work. I live in Uruguay btw :P (I make about U$ 800/month before taxes).
:)
And yes, I should REALLY look into getting some of those outsourcing jobs you people in the US worry about
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.