Major New TiVo Service Offerings

Jeff The Riffer writes "At the Consumer Electronics Show today, Mike Ramsay of TiVo announced three major new product offerings to come in the next year. First off there's the DVD Recorders, HD DVR, and Home Networked Enabled Products. TiVo/DVD Recorder boxes have been out for a bit now but looks like the offerings will continue and there's going to be new units by Pioneer. Second we have TivoToGo, where TiVo users with Home Media Option will be able to transfer files off their TiVo onto their PC and either play them locally or burn them to DVD. And finally there's XM Radio for TiVo."

I may be ignorant

> And finally there's XM Radio for TiVo."

Is there a Tivo like device for normal FM or AM radio? I enjoy a few programmes on radio but not too many, and it would be a benefit to record these simply.

I guess I could use my PC for it but it would be more convenient to have a Tivo like option

mac desktops, dare to be nude [scrounger.ath.cx]

Just What I Need

Now I can spend more hours sitting on my ass drinking coffee (gotta watch out for that Type-2 diabetes ya know), watching the Simpsons over wireless.

Early Take

Well, a very rare first take. I was wondering about Tivo's Subscription service vs. The others. I know I believe, And they are here. I suspect Google and Tivo to crush the competion like nothing ever seen before.

I am forecasting a little bit. I can promise these vendor's are downplaying DRM as much as possible. While
promoting interoperability.

Re:Early Take

From their website:

Accessing "TiVoToGo" requires a TiVo Content Security Key and TiVo-enabled versions of the Sonic Solution (NASDAQ: SNIC) MyDVD(R) and CinePlayer(TM) applications.

Sounds like DRM to me...

HD signal

I'm not up on the current situation, but isn't the whole point of HD being undercut by broadcasters taking advantage of digital broadcasting to cramm 6 channels into the space of one, thus delivering a very inferior image. I notice this on my non-HD DISHnetwork system, especially in fast motion scenes. The quality is more consistant than what I got over antenae (and a lot more channels), but heavy compression makes the images far more blurry than DVD on the same TV. It makes me worry HD sets won't solve anything except make DVD viewing better.

So, when they say HD-PVR, what kind of compression are we talking about?

Re:HD signal

I'm not up on the current situation, but isn't the whole point of HD being undercut by broadcasters taking advantage of digital broadcasting to cramm 6 channels into the space of one, thus delivering a very inferior image

Aiieeee!

No, you're quite thoroughly confused. But that's because the ATSC standard is confusing.

ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) replaces the current NTSC (National ...) standard. It has 18 different modes, ranging from 480i (480 lines of vertical resolution, interlaced) to 720p and 1080i (p = progressive/non-interlaced; which is better depends on what you need. The 1080i has a higher resolution, but 720p is better for fast moving action). The maximum broadcast rate is 21 Mbps, which you can use for one program or multiple programs. The bitstream is MPEG2 encoded with Dolby Digital (aka AC3 or DD) audio. Note that DD is a requirement -- no other sound encodings are allowed by the spec. For reference, DVDs are MPEG2 encoded video with a variety of audio options (dolby digital is required, but DTS is on many disks as well; DTS is usually recorded at a higher bitrate, so some people prefer it).

All of that said, how much they can fit into a single "channel" depends on how much compression is used. Thus far nobody has really tried the multiple channels on one station gambit, although it is allowed. Even if it is done, odds are that you'll have a much better picture than what you get off cable (digital or analog) or either of the sat systems (although DirecTV is allegedly going to change this -- with their new sats going up later this year they'll have tons of bandwidth, and there are rumors that they'll bump picture quality back up to mid-90s levels). Realistically, both cable and sat systems broadcast their SD (standard def) programs at sub VCR quality nowadays -- roughly 240i. Yes, it really is that piss poor. On small sets you generally don't notice. On big ones you do. The digital broadcasts are cleaner (less static, no ghosting, etc) than the analog ones, but are prone to macro blocking if the bitrate is too low.

Broadcasting in 480i or 480p is generally considered "DTV" (digital TV). Broadcasting in 720p or 1080i is considered HDTV (High Def TV). True HDTV is considerably more detailed and clear than anything you'll get out of current generation DVD players (the next generation HD DVD will be another story of course).

So, when they say HD-PVR, what kind of compression are we talking about?

Whatever the broadcaster has done. The HD DirecTiVo will do no compression of its own -- it simply writes the bitstreams directly to disk.

Interesting

TiVo's software and subscription service is at the heart of its digital video recorders, which can store television shows on a hard drive and pause live broadcasts. The company has been facing competition from Sonicblue's ReplayTV set-top box, Microsoft's UltimateTV service for satellite networks and other developing DVR technologies.

However, the announcements at CES should help to distinguish TiVo from rivals while also planting the company in the middle of another new trend: creating a hub for home entertainment. Earlier at CES, start-up Moxi Digital announced its software platform that will enable set-top boxes to become a hub of this sort. And software giant Microsoft announced similar plans Monday.

TiVo's plans are not as ambitious because they don't include making content available throughout the home. But that's partly by design. The company's new idea involves a push toward a more comprehensive product, something analysts have said TiVo lacked.

XM Radio stream ripping

The combined service will allow XM Radio subscribers to connect their PC Radio device to the home network and then access and publish their music on their TiVo Series2 DVR.

Well, I don't know, but that sounds like making copies of songs that you don't have the right to copy... Then again, is it illegal to make tapes from the radio? Wonder what the RIAA thinks...

If it rips the songs from the stream with correct tags and the appropriate filenames, I can see how some people would find feature desirable. But, you'd have to pay the Tivo initial hardware costs, plus the montly charges for both tivo and XM radio... and considering I can do the same thing for free with a shoutcast server and streamripper, I don't think this is going to sway me over to buying a tivo...

Re:XM Radio stream ripping

The thing with the XM PCR device is that there's never a digital stream of audio going through the USB port it uses for a connection to the computer. What the XM PCR does, is simply connect to the PC for control purposes then does output using a standard headphone jack. You wouldn't need to do anything special in the slightest to get the PCR to record songs on the PC, just copy the stream info tags (which are unfortunately limited to 16 characters, at least on my SkyFi unit) and start capturing a line-in.

However, the stream is a compressed one from orbit, so you might wind up with a not-so-pure recording when you encode it again for playback on a device.

It's perfectly legal

There is a legal concept called "fair use". Just as your can use a VCR to record your favorite tv show, you have the same right to do this with radio. The US Supreme Court has continually reinforced this right of individuals over copyright restrictions.

The problem is that the media companies want to 1) put barriers up to prevent this fair use and 2) create an atmosphere where people actually believe it is illegal and that there is no fair use right.

It looks like they are succeeding for the average user. For the rest of us, the media companies can go screw themselves. I will copy my DVDs for backup, strip the encryption off so I can watch them under non-authorized media players and refuse to purchase any medium where these things aren't possible.

Service Model ascention

Is this evidence of the ascention of the "service" model over the "product" model for business? In other words, it seems that TiVo and others are realizing there is far more revenue to be had in providing a wide range of services rather than trying to get rich at $199 a peice for the hardware and a 1-year subscription.

Certainly-- if the loss of advertising revenue because of TiVo didn`t scare the cable companies, this new angle should: it is aimed directly at their throats (providing end-services to the customer). If TiVo succeeds, then cable will be relegated to a simple provider of digital feed-- a commodity that may come via cable, dish, or TVoIP. If I worked at TimeWarnerAOLComcast, I would be worried.

Re:Service Model ascention

I wouldn't be worried at all if I were a cable TV company. All that TiVos, home networks, and portable players do is let you watch your cable TV in more and better ways.That means more hours of TV delivered per household per day, more ad impressions per day, and more value for the feed. How could that be bad?

Because people could copy/pirate the feed? No. If somoene wants to seriously pirate a movie they can go down to the store, buy a DVD and they are home free. If they want to pirate a TV signal they can just pump it into an A/D converter and out it goes. All these stupid restrictions and DRM garbage do is keep regular folks from doing useful and legitimate things with their feeds, and it makes me pretty mad!

Because TV programmers like to control when people watch what? I know that the programmers love the idea of controlling what times people see programs, but it's not their call. I want to see thigns when I want to see them. It's not their call and it shouldn't be. They are making content, not running my life...are they?

If I were working for Comcast I would be giving away a TiVo with home networking to every customer right out of the box, and banish all DRM. A high value product like that means higher revenues. It just means looking at the market a little differently.

Change is good! Embrace it, don't fear it!

--Brian

How about a new anti-NBC feature

NBC has found a nifty way to defeat Tivo - they change their shows to run from 8:00 to 8:31 (preventing you from recording an 8:30 show on another channel) or from 9:59 to 11:00 (preventing you from recording a 9:00 to 10:00 show on another channel). They debuted this on Thursday nights, but it has moved across their lineup now. Basically, I just watch less of NBC now, but if other channels start doing this, the Tivo won't work well unless I just record from one channel per night.

I'd love an update from Tivo that would allow me to side step this by setting a recording to start one minute late. Currently, you can have it start early and end late, but you can't make it start late, therefore it just won't record the program unless you do it manually.

Re:How about a new anti-NBC feature

NBC has been doing this for quite a while, well before TiVo came out. The recent change wasn't with the shows, but with their guide data to reflect the reality of the situation. They do this to keep people watching NBC once they start.

Before the guide data was fixed, shows would get cut off because of NBC's screwy primetime timing. TiVo simply codifies the desired result: watching NBC because you (or your TiVo) started watching it.

NBC is an investor in TiVo (which is why you see so many "Thumbs Up To Record" widgets on ads for their shows) so it would seem dumb for them to try and fight it. Not that I would base my argument on the logic of the entertainment industry...

Leaving TiVo

I have a TiVo but suspect that I will be discontinuing with their service sometime this year. Its not because I dislike my TiVo either; its given good service, but the times they are a changin'

The reason I'm migrating is because I suspect that MythTv and similar Open source projects may offer me the same functionality just for the cost of my net connection

Re:Leaving TiVo

Does MythTV have anything like the Home Media Option? I'm pretty excited about the DVD burning potential there.

MythTV is TiVo on steroids. It's not for newbies though so I won't even pretend to suggest your dear Aunt Ida can go install her own without spending 8 hours of your time setting it up. For those of us who like working on fun projects with Linux though it's a blast. This weekend I'll be building my new MythTV backend server with dual Hauppauge PVR 250 cards, a 3ware 8506-4lp SATA raid controller, and four 200GB Maxtor (quiet fluid dynamic bearings) SATA drives. I haven't decided whether to go with RAID-5 or RAID-0 yet so I'll have somewhere between 600GB and 800GB of space for recordings. At 2200bps and 480x480 resolution my testing with the PVR-250 has given me files about 1.2GB/hour. I may crank it up to 3300bps to get around 1.6GB/hour and deal with that for improved mpeg-2 quality.

Anyway, if you're not interesting in Linux projects stick with a TiVo. MythTV has a DVD player (and ripper) modules, MythMusic for playing mp3, ogg, flac, etc. as well as ripping CDs to ogg, mp3, or flac format, MythWeather gets weather channel maps for your area and displays the weather forecast, MythGame interfaces to MAME under Linux to play games, MythVideo provides a nice interface for playing DivX or other movie files and ties into IMDB to download cover art for movies it can recognize by title (i.e. if you have a waterboy divx file it'll search for it on IMDB and prompt you if what it found is correct, then from then on it'll associate cover art with that file and a summary and synopsis. It's quite nice. Oh yea, and remote real-time scheduling and control over your recordings (delete, browse, etc.) via mythweb. Don't take my word for it, just go to www.mythtv.org and check it out. It is by far the best open source PVR at the moment and is very mature.

TivoToGo?

There are already third party applications that let you take TiVo "streams" and watch them on your PC or burn them to DVD - I'm on the verge of buying a TiVoNet card for this very purpose. Does anybody know if this new service is going to make TiVo lock out those free applications?

Perhaps a new method for advertisment supported TV

I am probably going to be branded a troll for this but...

A lot of TV programs are supported by advertisments (no brainer), the other option is a hideously high (relatively) subscription cost for an advert free video stream. With the latest developments with video recording it forces a change in the business model for the media industry.

If we assume that adverts are required to support our favourite programs (a necessary evil), is there a way to have our recording devices to select our prefered category of advertising?, eg: we prefer to see adds for tech gadgets over medical products over personal injury lawyers.

The selection of the order for the adverts could be done using a statistical method (show four random categories, ask the user to chose the most prefered and least prefered advert categories, repeat 20 times).

This will result in better product placement to people who are willing to consider your product. Hence a 25 year old will never see a Fixodent (denture glue) advert because his recorder will steer away from those adverts, the current alternative is the advert is simply totally ignored by the viewer and does nothing but increase the resentment of adverts.

ZombieEngineer

Tivo + P2P

I was thinking last night it would be cool if with the takeup of broadband, and some decent licensing why couldn't tivo connect to a P2P network so you could watch someone else recording of someone and have it streamed from multiple Tivo to yours. That way you could watch the programs you missed Rus

Wake up Tivo

It's time for Tivo to wake up. Hey Tivo.. what about releasing your sweet products in Canada so we Canadian geeks can enjoy your fine stuff! There's a high enough demand up here! It's time to stopp sitting on your brains and release Tivo in Canada!

Digital Cable

What I am waiting for is a PVR with an integrated digital cable tuner. The chips are available, someone just has to build it.

What pisses me off ...

... is that, if I read the PR release correctly, the HD version is only for DirectTV. Tivo promised us one last year (in fact the promise may have been made at last year's CES, as I seem to recall it happening in January 2003) but never delivered. I can't take advantage of the (meager) HDTV offering Comcast sells because the Tivo can't capture HDTV broadcasts.

Why Pay for TiVO or wait?

When there are lots of free [sourceforge.net] alternatives out there which use Linux and bring you all the features of your PC such as DVD burners and internet access and RAID arrays of 120GB HDs for plenty of recording. (Damn Discovery Science Channel and History International and...)

I personally feel TiVO is a dead company as it's idea was great but can be offered with nearly as many options and more if you are Code/Script inclined. [mythtv.org] So look for cheap 400Mhz system to start on [ebay.com] and enjoy personalized TV in most countries.

Translation for the Technically Challenged(MBA): Liquidate TIVO from your portfolio.

Re:Why Pay for oil changes?

I suspect your theory is correct. Why, just today, I was thinking to myself, "I bet all of those oil-change places are out of business."

I mean, really. An oil change. Anyone can do one, for 1/4 to 1/2 the price that a Jiffy Lube or a gas station will charge you. How can those places stay in business with a model like that? It's unheard of.

Confident in my intellectual superiority, I drove to work, only to pass plenty of oil change places still doing a fine business. I was saddened and dismayed to find out that such thinking is, in fact, totally wrong. Shocking as it is, it seems people are willing to pay for convenience.

great.......

I just bought my Direct Tivo receiver, and if I had waited 6 months, I could have gotten one that was network ready and able to transfer media to my Mac!!!

You're in "luck."

DirecTV Tivos don't have to worry about any of this stuff. Currently, they're a major version behind in software, don't support HMO, and have their USB ports (which is where you'd plug a network adapter) disabled.

DirecTV is PARANOID that opening up their tivos like all the rest of them is going to result in rampant digital copying, and networks packing up and leaving.

So you're not missing out on anything-- DirecTV won't have it anyway. Just the standalone tivos.

DirecTiVo

Buyer beware.

The TiVo intergrated with DirecTV receivers cannot be used in a HMO confguration. I didn't find this out until after I signed a contract. :(

Fucking USB port isn't even powered. :(

Fun technology but

with the low quality content of broadcast media why buy one?

I'll just stick to my home cinema and dvd collection for now.

TiVo viability?

NOTE: This is not intended to be a troll or a TiVo slam! I'm sincerely interested in /. opinion.

There are two clear (and in my opinion superior) alternatives to TiVo currently creeping into TiVo's market share:

1. In the less-features-but-easier-to-use department, cable companies (such as mine) are offering a service they're calling "TV On Demand." With my digital cable remote (and no phone connection, and no extra service charge) I can play many shows from the recent lineup at will. And pause them, rewind them, fast forward, etc. And of course my digital cable comes with a much faster, cleaner program guide user interface. Now the downside is that the guide is somewhat lacking in features, as compared to TiVo's offering. I can't search it and it doesn't have any intelligence for making suggestions or auto-scheduling.

2. Which brings me to the second alternative. I also have an ATI AIW 9600 Pro TV tuner card in a PC. This PC is hooked to my TV. I run myHTPC [myhtpc.net] for the guide/scheduling/recording features, an ATI's new Easylook UI for actual TV viewing. The two work together seemlessly. This gives me *all* the features of TiVo (except season passes, big whoop), plus a whole lot more. And I don't pay a monthly service charge.

Which brings me to my question: isn't TiVo just a niche product that really should only be used by folks with an antenna feed or analog cable feed who don't have the savvy to set up a PC next to their TV? Isn't its current success due largely to clever marketing and a small window of market opportunity that they've now artificially prolonged? That is, I think there was an argument for TiVo back when it was introduced, but isn't that argument substantially weaker today?

Re:TiVo viability?

NOTE: This is not intended to be a troll or a TiVo slam! I'm sincerely interested in /. opinion.

Then why didn't you read the dozens of other posts in any given TiVo article where someone asks the same questions/makes the same point?

But, whatever:

#1: Cable PVR. Sure. If you have cable, and your cable company offers this (Comcast in Chicago doesn't, for instance). And, if it's actually streaming on demand, then it's likely you can't see any given show that may have just been broadcast -- it's probably limited to the popular ones. No saving stuff for later, no odd shows.

Finally, on the note of cable, it's gotten a wee bit expensive. I pay less now for DirecTV than I did for Comcast, and that's including the TiVo subscription rate and more pay channels.

#2: Computer. Sure. Let's say the computer cost $500. (You could, of course, use a less powerful computer, but then you need a video card that does hardware encoding, and those are more expensive. So.) TiVo costs $250. You could say, "But the computer can have a bigger HD", but the TiVo could too -- if you're the kind of person who wouldn't blink at setting up a computer as a PVR, then installing a hard drive shouldn't be a problem either.

And, of course, there's the computer setup time. Now, personally, I think playing around with MythTV and the like is fun. But I don't confuse fun with popular or cost effective. I don't mind spending a day configuring MythTV to do what I want, but I think I'm in a small subset of the population on that one.

It's very simple. Time IS money.

I'm about as tech savvy as you can get. I've built designed and built motherboards from scratch. My job involves hardware designs with a dozen multimillion gate FPGA designs where I design the board AND write the VHDL for the FPGAs. I've done digital designs over 10 GHz. On the software side, I've been programming since the Apple II. I'm there, OK?

Yet I still bought a DirecTivo. I also have one of the first ReplayTV units. Why make more work for myself? Why go through the bother? The box was $149. Monthly fee? Who cares? I make a lot of money, and can deal with $5 a month. If it buys me a noccasional software upgrade and semi-well managed guide information, then fine. And season passes ARE a big whoop. They are very convenient.

Also, the DirecTivo records the original digital stream from the satellite and has dual tuners and a very nice interface. I just can't see the point to reinventing the wheel. I could probably build my own mountain bike. I have the tools. I know how to weld. But why? I'd rather do something no one has done before.

At work, if I need an amplifier in a design, I buy a prepackaged component. My job performance would be seriously questioned if I spent $4000 in man hours designing an RF amplifer when one with identical specs can be bought off the shelf for $20.

My time is worth something to me. If I have to spend more than 1 hour a month dicking around with a PC based DVR, then I've "spent" more than $5 for that month. If it took me more than 24 hours of plugging things together and debugging, well, my time spent already covers the typical lifetime of one of these gadgets before the next one with new features and more integration comes along.

And you seem to be forgetting that 98% of the population is NOT as savvy as a typical /. user. There is an enormous market for these things, as large as the VCR market. I think the integrated products like DirecTivo and now Tivo DVD recorders are going to be what really starts to light a fire.

Another TiVo service offering...

......suing your competition into oblivion using moronically awarded patents [slashdot.org]

We can already copy files, as well as stream them.

Check out TiVo-mplayer [sourceforge.net], and turn your TiVo into a media server for your entire lan...

With 802.11G, you can watch the stuff anywhere now. Pretty sweet.

Tivo starting to catch up with ReplayTV

Yahoo story: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/ 20040109/tc_nm/tech_tivo_dc_1

"TiVo also unveiled TiVo-to-Go, which lets users who also subscribe to an additional TiVo home networking service to transfer shows they have recorded on the set-top box to a home computer. The system is kept secure by a unique key-sized memory device that must be plugged into the computer when the recorded content is watched or copied."

ReplayTV's have been able to do that for years, for free, without buying extra software, without extra monthly fees, and without Big Brother watching over what you watch and making you use "key-sized devices" to watch you shows.

What a joke.

In addition to that, my ReplayTV 5040 auto-skips commercials, lets me share programs online, lets me skip 30-seconds ahead at a time, lets me schedule OVER THE INTERNET what programs I want to watch, all for FREE without buying extra hardware and software. AND the monthly and lifetime fees are LESS than Tivo's.

But, I'm sure the people who have only ever tried a Tivo will tell me their over-priced under-performing box RULEZX0RS.

TiVo is a dying business

I've got an 80GB TiVo Series 2. I bought it last April. It does everything my wife wants. It records her shows. It does nothing I want. That is the ability to save my recorded shows to my computer. I can save them to my digital camcorder but thats a pain. TiVo-Togo is not the answer. I don't want to have to use some special software. Plus I want the ability to edit.

As soon as my cable company offers PVR which should cost about $10 a month, my TiVo is going on Ebay. Then I'll build a MythTV from one of my computers.

TiVo has no chance in the long run especially once the cable companies will offer the same ability at a low cost. TiVo is just way too expensive. $300 for the unit and $400 for a lifetime subscription fee.

Tivo Technology

When I bought my Tivo for direct tv, my wife said "why are you wasting your money on that crap, what's wrong with just watching tv?" Now, guess who uses it most of all? Tivo is the most incredible technology for those who watch tv. It records all of my favorite show so I don't have to interupt whatever I'm doing and I can watch TV when I choose. I can also fast forward through the commercials, which is what the networks REALLY hate. Gives me more time to work on my cartoon drawing: Comics [cgff.net]

Another company Just Says No to customers

Once selected, the secure and encrypted TiVo recorded programs are moved to the PC, where the TiVo Content Security Key is used to unlock the files for playback or burning, preventing files from being shared online, outside of the user's home network.

The TiVo Content Security Key and the TiVo-enabled versions of Sonic Solution's MyDVD and CinePlayer applications will be sold as a bundle at www.tivo.com.

The encryption "feature" is not something that any Tivo user has asked for. Features that users don't want, are called "bugs." A rival product that does not include the feature, will be more attractive.

(And it doesn't have anything to do with piracy. It is perfectly normal for users to want to use all their usual standard apps to work with multimedia (to snip clips, burn to playback media, etc) instead of having to buy special tools.)

Writing your software to serve the interest of people other than the users, is a good way to guarantee that eventually, an open source/free software alternative will crush you. Tivo's product announcements bode well for the Freevo and MythTV teams.

What I'd Like to See

One of our VCRs broke late last year, and we haven't replaced it yet, because we don't use it that often, and there's another TV with a DVD+VCR unit attached. Still, it would be nice to replace that VCR.

So, why not a combo VCR and TiVO ? After all, the TiVO is basically a VCR replacment, but people still have tapes, and it saves an input jack to the TV. And given how cheap VHS parts are now, it wouldn't cost much more than a TiVO. Add a DVD recorder and then you've got a way to convert tapes as well.

DirectTV

My biggest issue with with my Tivo unit is that its licensed to DirectTV. DirectTV will not enable many of the cool new features that are actually supported by the hardware. Sure wish I could pick up a dual decoder Tivo that wasn't tied to DirectTV.

IS there anything on TV worth recording?

I cancelled my digital cable about a year ago because I realized that most of the 'programming' is just infomercials and RERUNS. The new season comes along and many cable station proudly announce that they'll be showing Friends, or 24 or ER or 7 days a week, is if showing [b]last year's Broadcast tv shows[/b] was a major accomplishment. Even on movie channels they replay the movies so much that they become re-runs almost immediately. The turner channels TBS and TNT really amped up this process when they began showing the same 'new' (to basic cable) movies over and over again, and ANNOUNCING the fact as it it was something to be proud of! I'm sorry but when a channel says that they'll be showing The Matrix Friday night and Saturday night and Sunday night that says to me that they don't have much programming on their channel - or they're skimping on product. Not the best wat to treat PAYING customers. Between the reruns, the endless repeats, the incredibly annoying little video logos in the corner of the screens that channels do now, the butchering of the ending credits of movies - playing promos for OTHER shows (really loud) before a show has actually ended, the infomercials and the endles number of clones of the same shows, the number of actual decent quality choices is decreasing faster and faster, even as the number of channels increases. So what is there to 'Tivo' anyway?

Mac support?

What about Mac support?

Home Media Option Crippled!

According to Cory (Boing Boing [boingboing.net]), Tivo to Go uses a properitary DRM system to protect the shows transferred to your pc.

Not sure if the DVD Tivo allows you to burn is a 'normal' dvd you can play on any player or is similarly crippled.

tivo - dvd allow video editing? (commercials)

do the tivo dvd-burner units or tivotogo pc software options allow you to edit the video before saving or burning the to disk?

if not, that makes the dvd burner functionality useless as you'll still have to skip commercials (and most dvd players are much worse at ffw & skip-ahead than a tivo)

Re:What is TiVo?

No, I'm in the UK and have got one. Wireless networked it up to my broadband connection as well, and installed TivoWeb so I can control it from work (although can't watch any of the programs). It's very good, but didn't really catch on in the UK. I don't think you can buy it new any more, but you can pick up some second hand ones on eBay.

Re:Linux and Tivo at the CES

the unit is slower than heck when you're scrolling the show listings or surfing between channels. Overall, I'm OK with it, but the slowness is frustrating

True that. I don't know about the rest of this post, but this part isn't a troll, just fact.

Want to make the listings really slow? Hit the enter button to change your listing options and choose the grid layout. It takes 5 seconds to draw the grid.

Re:Linux and Tivo at the CES

Frankly, I fail to see why this has been modded as a troll. It's an opinion, and a bloody good one at that. Mods, put personal feelings aside please. Just because you don't agree, doesn't make it a bad post.

Re:Linux and Tivo at the CES (explanation)

Maybe it's because if they admit to using Linux, SCO will release their lawyers on them.

Re:What is TiVo?

Us and UK only.

I am getting pretty tired of hearing about how great it is, since they won't sell them here [tivo.com].