TiVo to Let Users Record Shows Via Cellphone

Carl Bialik writes "Verizon Wireless plans to offer a new service called TiVo Mobile that will allow its customers who also have TiVos in their homes to schedule TV shows for recording when they are on the go, the Wall Street Journal reports. ' A customer might use the service to impulsively schedule a sitcom for recording after the show is recommended by a friend at a party,' says the WSJ, adding, 'Verizon Wireless executives said the service, to begin this summer, is expected to cost less than $5 a month, in addition to normal cellphone-service charges and TiVo subscriber fees, which are $12.95 a month.'"

and orb

will let you do it free..

yea, I read engadget too.....

Re:and orb

and beyondtv and sagetv and any other pvr software with a web server. all you have to do is point your mobile web broser at it and schedule for free.

not to mention all of these packages get guide data for free rather than forcing you to lock in to a monthly plan.

personally i built an htpc and use beyondtv as a replacement to my series 2 tivo because

a) i want high resolution output
b) i don't want to pay monthly fees

Re:and orb

I recently scheduled the oscars to record from a web enabled phone by going to online tivo scheduling.

WTFITBD?

The hell I'm going to pay for a specialized app on a phone that has internet access already.

Standards are there for a reason, if a phone can access normal web pages it can do hundreds of things, if it has a bunch of nickle and dime apps that raises your bill it's a POS and your provider is screwing you.

If your phone can only view "mobile pages" there are scripts that you can run on your own webserver that'll strip everything but the actual info and serve you that.

A bit obsessive

Seriously, are there TV shows that important one needs this service to ensure they don't miss them

Yawn

Media Center, and I'm sure the linux htpcs too, have been able to this for ages. And we dont have to pay a monthly fee.

Where's the advantage?

Why should I pay $5 more a month for a service that I already have for free? Why not just go to the Tivo web site on a web-enabled phone and do your remote scheduling there?

Re:Where's the advantage?

> Why should I pay $5 more a month for a service that I already have for free? Why not just go to the Tivo web site on a web-enabled phone and do your remote scheduling there?

Because if you do it that way, Verizon doesn't get $5/month out of you! (Alternate: Because when you signed up for Verizon, they disabled the web-enabled part of your phone when they installed their ugly red user interface and branding onto it, but will re-enable it for $5/month.)

Oh, wait, you're looking at it from the customer's perspective. Never mind.

sounds like this thing that works on ALL carriers

http://www.dvreverywhere.com/ [dvreverywhere.com]

or... don't waste $5 a month

And use the tv.yahoo's tivo scheduling.
Wow... $5 a month?

Expensive

This is too expensive even after I give them the benefit of doubt and assume it can be managed online as well (unless being able to view the tivo'd or bought shows is possible).

Anyway, my point is they'll try this service .. few will buy in .. and then they'll say it failed "The market doesnt want such a thing"

Then someone else (Apple?) will do it for free successfully and Tivo/Verizon will run around claiming they were first. No they wasn't. They did it all wrong.

This is what happens when you charge an exorbitant amount for something that's dirt cheap to provide.

MythWeb...

I don't want to turn this into a "TiVo versus MythTV" argument, but I think it's worth noting that the MythWeb plugin that comes with MythTV allows you to schedule shows from any browser, anywhere. Because MythTV runs on a Linux box, you get a webserver and fileserver and all that out-of-the-box. So you can log into your Myth from anywhere that has internet, and schedule a show to record, on an impulse. You can even remotely (via SSH) transcode a show, and download it to your local computer for easy viewing.

There's no reason why you couldn't access your MythTV from any laptop or PDA that has some basic web access. I often, as the summary suggest, record a show on an impulse, when someone mentions it to me. This is an awesome feature that I'm sure TiVo users would love to have. However even at 5$/month it seems overpriced to me. This should be included for free as a "value added" that would encourage people to buy TiVo and and sign up for Verizon.

Cool but....

A customer might use the service to impulsively schedule a sitcom for recording after the show is recommended by a friend at a party.

... for "less than" $5/month? USD? I dunno... I can't think of a TV show so great (that I haven't already heard of) that I'd need to pay a monthly fee to remotely record it before I got home. Maybe a small fee per use or something, for those times you are away for an extended period or something...

TFA says that TiVo allowed you to schedule via the web - did you have to pay per month for that?

Japan

Last year in Japan they had a tivo-like device for the cell phone.... Not to record shows at home, though.... To record shows ON the damn phone since they all have sattelite receivers in them now...

Re:Japan

While this doesn't have Tivo-like features, it does run Linux: P901iTV [linuxdevices.com] Some people go too far with their Japanese fetishes but, in general, it is pretty sad how far ahead the Japanese consumer product market. Simply go to any shop in Akihabara or Yodabashi camera and there products years ahead of what is considered new in the U.S. Hell, the free phones in Japan are better than $100-200 models in the US!! The US consumer market is way too slow in adopting new technologies - or even having them available for the bleeding-edge, early adopters to play with! When a bloody $5 per month "service" to let you schedule recording on your Tivo is considered news on a tech-centric website, you know something is wrong.

and I can do it for free without cable!

So, someone's finally starting to get what we want.

For some time, I have had a media box set up at home (behind the couch) running Azureus [sourceforge.net]. Combine that with Hamachi [hamachi.cc], Firefox [mozilla.com], the ConQuery [mozdev.org] extension and the WebUI [sourceforge.net] plugin for Azureus, and I am a right click away from downloading any torrent I want whereever my laptop is. Tivo's got me beat though, because I can't do it from my phone (yet...).

On the other hand, I've got Tivo beat because I can do what I want with the media I get this way.

TiVo from the cell

I don't see why this service wouldn't work. I'd love to say "AWW! Forgot to set my TiVo to record 24! Let me call my TiVo."

Although I can't fancy seeing me paying 5 dollars a month for this functionality. (Disclaimer: I don't have a TiVo)
I'd be more apt to be able to log into a web interface and do it. ( i don't know if you can do that now )..
Hopefully one of the OpenSource Guru's has a free way to do this not long from now.

$60 a year?

I have Verizon service. I have TiVO service. I can't imagine how this add-on could be worth $60 a year to me. That's the same price as Verizon web access. The arrogance of these two to just assume people will pay whatever they ask! Can't wait till advancing technology and the free market make both of them a memory.

$5 / Month?!?!?

You can do this for free with MythTV via MythWeb.

You can also do it for free at tivo.com

Totally ridiculous.

TiVo users are suckers

They'll pay $13/month for a "service" that is just letting them use hardware they already bought. Of course they'll pay $5/month to send SMS on a phone they already pay to send SMS on.

Re:TiVo users are suckers

I'm a sucker? No. Like I've said in other stories where this inevitably comes up, I pay not to have to deal with the bullshit. I fight with computers every day because it is my job, and because it is a hobby. Yet, I don't want to have to mess with kernels or libraries or dependencies or drivers or modules or the latest bug in mythTV or lousy hardware or whatever other problem there might be with running a typical PC. MythTV has its uses, and some people swear by it. Maybe you like it when your video card craps out on you. Maybe you're the type that walks/swims 8 miles to work instead of paying the bridge toll (haha sucker - I live under my desk!). I have no idea.

I pay 13$/month because I don't want to screw with my television (+DVR), I just want it to work. TiVo obviously provides me a service for this - the most obvious being the guide data. It is a small price to pay, imho, for the (nearly) worry-free joy that is my TiVo. If the series3 isn't vaporware, I'm all about it.

coincidence?

I just realized that I got to see an ad for Verizon Wireless early because I saw an ad for Verizon Wireless [slashdot.org]...

Hacking the TiVoSphere

I can see it now:

Having your roommate get TiVo $xxx per month. - $xxx.

Having your roommate get cellphone-enabled TiVo for $5 a month - $5.

Hacking your roommate's TiVo remotely via an SMS remote hack - Priceless.

How about a pen and paper for free...

I can't think of anywhere I would be that a friend would tell me to record a show and I couldn't jot it down on a scrap paper, napkin, back of my hand, put it in my PDA, or write it as a txt msg to myself from the same cell phone they're trying to charge me $5 to use.

TiVo WAS an amazing product at one time. Truly cutting edge and brilliant. Now it's just a sad, dying company grasping to try and retain some sort of market.

They should just open source the whole thing, and focus on making the hardware dirt cheap. Or maybe make a single PCI card with all the inputs/outputs and concentrate on selling that.

TiVo's days are surely numbered. I have my Series 1 that I've hacked and it still runs like a champ, but with things like Meedio, MythTV, Media Center, and the bazillion other PVRs coming down the way (often included IN a Television or Cable Box these days), I don't think they're innovating enough to keep up.

You can buy the Season DVD for that Price

5/month - I know a few have mentioned that's a bit steep. Well, to bring in a valid comparison to just how steep this is - it's CHEAPER to buy the show on DVD than to pay for this service that allows you to tivo DRM'ed television.

On another note, I applaud people who have the audacity to turn off their tv and go out to a party thus living their life, but if the end result is that we're now spending more money to help us make sure we don't miss our tv programming, society has still taken a step backwards.

If any more signs of the apocolypse start happening, I'm going to say 'screw it' and eat all the bacon I want!

Mo Money!

$5 a month for something you will probably use a couple times a year (at most)?
on top of your verizon plan, on top of the tivo monthly fee, on top of the broadband connection...
(this won't work if your tivo still works on dial-up)

Never mind (as 50 other posts mentioned) the free alternatives...

Just doesn't make financial sense.

More proof that Who^H^H^HVerizon sells...

...revenue generating devices that allow interpersonal communication at high costs, and not cellphones.

Pay Per Use

Not that I want to pay at all. It should be free. But, if they're going to charge for this service, it should be like $0.50 a scheduling session. No one will do enough TiVo scheduling via their phone to make it worth $5/month. At $0.50 you suddenly have everyone recoding that one show they forgot to set.

tivoweb?

I'm an avid Tivo fan, although I'm in the UK where Tivo has unfortunately long since left. My Tivo has been suitably modded, ethernet, 600gig storage. Frankly it is all good! With the open source tivowebplus project sitting comfortably on my little PVR not only can I search, schedule and watch programs using my webbrowser, but I can access the web interface via my WAP phone (HTML rather than WML) and have done for a long time... What is all the fuss about? Surely an broadband connection, dynamic DNS (where required) and tivowebplus means you can access your tivo from a WAP/Web-enabled phone? I thought being the UK with a pre-y2k Tivo meant we were still in the dark ages.. Myth is good, but my good old Tivo just works(tm)

Presumably tivowebplus will run on the tivos you are talking about?

Feel the Verizon love

I am currently a Verizon customer. I am switching phone companies once I am no longer their bitch (contract is up in a year or so). What really pisses me off is how they charge you for every little small thing. Is it not enough that I am a current paying customer? That I paid that much more for a phone that could run a couple of apps? Nope. You have to pay for every single thing you put on your phone. And if something happens to your phone, it's a major hassle. Something happening can include replacing your phone, because their service sucks in your area. Somehow it's impossible for them to copy everything over.

So it's no surprising at all that they want to charge for this service. As many people have noted it's easily done already. But Verizon can sell it as a 'select' service you can get, to lure you into getting a 10-year contract. They won't mention the cost, until it is too late. They might also leave off needing a TIVO subscription on top of that. Until you get your bill, and realize how stupid it is.

They do that with their web phones. On some phones (like mine) you can actually change the gateway such that you can surf the net for free, until you realize exactly how painful it is to do with a cell phone, and give up.

Slingbox

http://www.slingmedia.com/ [slingmedia.com] I just got a Slingbox last week - allows you to stream a video signal over your lan / internet as well as control the device it is hooked up to ( in my case, a ReplayTV ) - works pretty well, you need about 300kbits for internet streaming.

Dear editor

Dear editors.

Please check who is submitting an article before you post it. In this case the article was submitted by a guy using the e-mail "[e-mail]". When the article says "A customer might use the service to impulsively schedule a sitcom for recording after the show is recommended by a friend at a party,' says the WSJ, it's not exactly difficult to put two and two together.

Slashdot is being used as free PR for companies. People have started to complain about this and yet no one seems to take a bit of notice.

Nickel and Dimed...

...for just a few ip packets. Uhh, I hope the way Verizon runs their cellular business is not an indication of how they'll treat us under tiered internet, but who am I kidding?

Anyone who has compared developing applications for Verizon phones vs. Sprint/Nextel vs. Cingular knows that Verizon is simply not an option unless you have $$$ and enough clout to negotiate access. No feature that Verizon thinks they can get an extra fee for is left unlocked. DRM is built in and all applications are signed so as to grant just the permissions that have been paid for.

Compare this to Cingular and international gsm providers, who have no DRM and allow access to the phone hardware (bluetooth, gps, ringtones, other content)and the network via java. You own the hardware, you pay for network access, and use it as you will. No getting billed for every single permutation of features like with this Tivo app.

Verizon considers each application a billable "feature" in and of itself, while more open providers bill for network access and leave applications to open hardware and software.

The later architecture allows anyone to get in on the game, while the former restricts access to those that pay up. You can bet that development companies who pony up for access will need to make a return asap, and so will be pushed towards making applications that maximize return quickly. This will only lead to fewer experimental ideas attempted, and fewer niche applications being developed.

If \.'ers want to support more open cell standards I'd suggest looking into Cingular, who at first advertised themselves years ago as "the company the support self expression" - of course no one got it. I hear their network has gotten much wider since the AT&T merger so they are worth a shot.

$5.00/month Saved can =

Ok lets say you're 24 years old. Forget the $5 per month and then invested the resulting monthly savings in an investment that earned 7.5% per year, between now and age 65, you would then be able to withdraw $153 from your investment each month...until you croak at 80!Then there is the service fee calculation [blogspot.com] that I did about a month ago.

not the typical tivo use case

i am a long time tivo user and advocate. the idea that someone would pay $5 / month for the ability to schedule shows from their verizon phone is absurd. i can say, since i've had access to the web-based equivalent (free) service (about 1.5 years), i've used it probably twice, and once was just to see how it works. it's just not the typical tivo use case.

this is like every other service offered on cell phones. cell phone companies are trying to build a proprietary internet for cell phones only and nickel and dime us to death with fees. you pay for bandwidth, and you pay again for the content! well, it's not working. proof is the state of the celluar web today. nothing but toy content that you try once and then can't believe you actually paid for it.

Video on the phone itself

Maybe it's the next step for these people, make tivo re-encode a mini version of the program it's just recorded and send it to your phone so you can watch it.

If you absolutely need to see the program and can't wait to get home because some things on TV are just too good to miss...

But I thought the point of TiVo was...

I thought the entire point of TiVo was that it learned what you liked to watch and automatically pulled content without asking for it. Why would I have to tell a TiVo that I want to watch a show, doesn't it already know?

I have no TV reception, just a big screen and a stack of DVDs but I always planned on getting HDTVoIP when Verizon rolls its Fiber service to my area as long as I could TiVo it.

Not enuf' time

I've quit my job. I need 15 hour in a day to program, update, modify or delete all my inputs, outputs and saves.

Need to open a port in your firewall?

So once you make that transaction with your cell phone, what happens next? The Verizon service tries to connect to your TiVo, which may sit inside your home network. How will Verizon access your device, in this case? Your Internet-facing router both NATs packets and blocks ports. If you change the requisite configuration as per Verizon's liking, who's to say that this will not leave your Tivo vulnerable to hack attempts?

I'm sick of this shit. Tivo and Replay and whatever other proprietary PVRs the cableco's sell dictate to YOU what you're allowed to do. You can't skip commercials, transfer video off the internal hard drive (unless it's resolution-crippled), and you probably can't extend the system to play free formats like FLACs, Vorbis, and Theora. Ah well, such is the price of consumers' complacency. Those consumers are the same ones who, a few years up the road from now, will subscribe to Symantec's antivirus for cell phones.

- Roey

So what? Where's that HDTV unit

I had Tivo. I liked my Tivo. I had an "upgraded" series 1 and it served me well.

However, their lack of HDTV support is a tragedy. As far as I know, they only have announcements to show for their effort, not counting the "prototype" that was just displayed at the last CES. Yes, they have forces working against them (its called competition!) -- but they should have put out the HDTV unit long ago. Instead, all I can use is my cable co's weak-ass DVR (Motorola DCT-6412).

And that is why I don't care about Tivo anymore. Great product and idea. Lousy execution.

Tivo - Schivo I like VDR

VDR is very cool and I can shh to my box and bring up an x session to program a recording, should I so desire, for free ... well almost.

  I guess since the windose crowd owns the place now this kind of information is useful for the ... network challenged ;).

    PenGun
  Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

That would have been great...

Too bad im gonna dump verizon as soon as my contract is up as I'm tired of being made to pay $5 for everything through "Get-It-Now".

The meds wear off...

There's a gun in my bullet, there's a gun in my bullet and I have one shot.

Don't need a Tivo for that

I've been doing that for years -- even before I got a DVR. I call home and ask my wife to record the show.

Tivo & High Def... am i wrong here?

I still do not understand why this company ceases to recognize it is losing customers due to its lack of a high definition offering. I would more then happily choose Tivo over comcast, but they do not offer a box through anyone but dish networks. Heck, i'd even purchase the box out of pocket (for about 500 bucks)! Tivo's products are by far superior, plus more consumers are beginning to buy with a conscience, sometimes it's nice to support those who developed a trend setting idea (i.e. netflix vs blockbuster).

The target customer for a techie gadget like Tivo, is very likely to spend the money on a nice high definition TV. Until Tivo inc recognizes this, and the fact that they are dealing with individuals who are into the latest and greatest technology, they're doomed to fail.

Respectfully,
A true Tivo fan

could also be useful for...

sports fans who want to record the game they're attending. I know a lot of college sports followers that do that. It'd be cool if Verizon could get this up by next college football season if not March Madness time.

Your model is busted

Huh, the idea that I should PAY to schedule recordings on my own box is not going to drag me away from TV via BitTorrent any time soon.

Better Solution - Buy The DVDs

1. I don't have a satellite or cable TV service because I refuse to pay for any TV service that also throws advertisements at me every few minutes. (Fortunately I live in the UK and have access to the totally ad-free BBC TV and radio services for a relatively small licensing fee each year).

2. I'm not organised enough to remember to program any recording device on a regular basis.

3. I'm certainly not paying the cellular rip-off merchants even more money than I currently do for the ability to program a recorder when away from home.

As far as I'm concernd, the money I don't spend on the above is better spent on DVD boxed sets of TV shows that I can enjoy in my own time, without adverts, albeit a year or two after the first broadcast of the shows.

KISS has this already

(no - not the hottest band in the world, but) KISS [kiss-technology.com], the Danish company has had this feature in their DP-558 [kiss-technology.com] model for ages now. It actually works, and is free as in beer as well.

This Actually Is Useful

Ok, I dunno about actually paying for it, but it is surprisingly handy. I've been setting recordings via my (old and crappy) mobile phone for about a year [dvbowners.com]. I use the wonderful, open source WebScheduler [dvbowners.com], mobile phone method explained here [dvbowners.com].

I would use this perhaps once a month - and when I do, I'm always grateful for it. It usually happens when I'm sitting in a pub somewhere and a fellow boozer laments "you know, we're missing that David Attenborough doco right now ...". I've used it when I've been held up on public transport. I've used it when my girlfriend has expressed interest in a show I had declined to watch.

If you can get it for free - and from the discussion above it seems doable - then you should set it up.

TiVo's Season Pass Feature and Doctor Who...

If anyone is planning on recording the new-to-America *Doctor Who* episodes starting on Friday, March 17, 2006 from 9pm-11pm on the SciFi Channel and plan on making a Season Pass for the show, read this...

TiVo is "correctly" labeling the show's information with the BBC's original airdates from last year instead of the American premiere dates as being "new". Consequently, if you set the Season Pass to only record "first run" (aka "new") episodes, your TiVo won't record them even when they are first shown here on SciFi.

Feel free to complain to TiVo about the inconvenience even if they are technically correct. You can cite how they misreported the original air dates to the animated *Spider-Man* show from the 90s that originally aired on Fox. When the ABC Family Channel bought the repeat rights, TiVo used the "new" air dates for ABC Family. This caused confusion for many people who mistakenly thought there was a "new" Spider-Man cartoon on ABC Family.

The irony that a television show about a legendary time traveler would trip up the time-shifting TiVos.

This is the model ISPs want too

What's really scary is that Verizon seems to want a few dollars a month to allow you access to this "feature". They charge you $.10 per text message. They charge you a couple dollars to download a snippet of a song you already own to use as a ring tone.

They make tons of money for charging you for each thing you do, rather than just charging you for data access.

This is where the wired ISPs want to go as well. Rather than just charging you for data access to the internet, they want to figure out how much you'll pay depending on what the bits are. That'll be $.01 per instant message, $.10 per email, $.02/minute for VoIP, $1.00 to download/stream a movie, etc.

Why is it TiVO's web site doesn't just recognize mobile phone browsers as low bandwidth devices and give an light weight web page to do the same thing?

Re:MythTV has web front end

Yeah, and you can do on-line scheduling with TiVo as well. Just need a browser that can login to the TiVo website. No, it isn't an extra feature.

If you want to see what your TiVo has already recorded, you can even talk to it through a web browser. Just need to get to it through https, and have your media access key handy.

Re:RTFA damn it!

And considering every cellphone that will have the ability to use this feature will also most likely already include at least a WAP browser (if not a full HTML browser).... what was your point again?

Re:RTFA damn it!

Well yes, but when you have applications such as this one [opera.com] which is merely a standard web browser, then there isn't really any distinction.

Re:RTFA damn it!

So, $60 a year to program TiVo from a non-WAP cell phone then.

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to upgrade to a WAP cell phone?