CmdrTaco's Week with Tivo 397
What is it?
The TiVo is supposed to be a Digital VCR. Instead of inserting tapes and programming your box to capture channel 11 from 9-10, you say program it to 'Record the X-Files'. And if you opt for a "Season Pass", the device will record The X-Files whenever its on: syndication on FX? The official sunday night show on Fox? It doesn't matter: the TiVo allows you to forget what channel you're watching and what time your show is on.
I'm a fairly busy person, and to me this sounded like a godsend: I could tape shows that aired while I was at work or away on business or asleep, and stockpile them... then I could watch them (fast forwarding through commercials and deleting the rerunrs) when it fit my schedule. No more channel surfing. No more reruns. Less wasted time. I must say its pretty amazing to turn on your TV and see "Whats On" and see a half dozen shows I wanted to see from the last few days, but missed.
As you use the TiVo it gets smarter. It remembers what you've recorded (and with a simple 'Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down' option on the remote, you can tell it what you like and don't like) and attempts to guess what programming you might enjoy. I don't have any comments on how well this works, but since I had selected DragonBall Z and The Simpsons, it was essentially taping virtually any piece of animated crap being broadcasted on nickelodean (No offense to Rocko, Ren & Stimpy, and Angry Beavers, all of which are excellent) . Supposedly it'll get smarter with usage.
Its also pretty useful for watching TV in real time: the device is always recording whatever you are watching. You can pause/slo-mo/or rewind whatever you're watching. This allowed my girlfriend to catch a joke she missed during the Simpsons while running upstairs for a glass of water. And it allows me to slow-mo the gratuitous Sculley Cleavage from this weeks X-Files.
<RANTA>Anyone who bought a Dish knows that the consumer is being royally screwed by the FCC and the powerful television lobbyists who are fighting to keep broadcast TV off the dish. If I want local programming, I'll get it, but I don't, so why do I have to have to install cable just to watch the handful of network programs that don't suck? I don't want local news or weather, so why should I be forced to have 2 sets of wires. 2 Bills. 2 User Interfaces. 2 Boxes. It makes me want to go Goku on somebody. This is being resolved in larger markets, but it'll never get out to me in the middle of nowhere. </RANT> As a very nice side bonus, the TiVo tuner encapsulates both the Dish and the Cable's tuner functionality into a single interface: no need to change devices and interfaces simply to flash between FOX and Comedy Central.
Cost/Installation/Privacy
Installation is easy, although somewhat time consuming. In my case I plugged it in, feeding an input from the DirecTV box (RCA jacks) and the cable (Coax) One output into my receiver and the other into the VCR (for "Archiving"). Also a cable connects to the DirecTV's serial port input which allows the TiVo to tune the dish. Power. Phone Jack. Done.
After that the box makes a few phone calls and indexes programming. This takes several hours. Plus, if you have a dish, it thinks you have every single channel! I had to go through 999 channels and turn off hundreds of pay-per-view channels (to say nothing of the sports channels and crap I'll never watch).
You purchase a box based on the amount of video you want to store. (15 or 30 hour version: I paid $699 for the 30) The hours is at the lowest compression. High quality gets me 9 hours out of the 30 hour box. Thats enough except when I leave town for a week. It is definitely pricey: A high end VCR would cost half this, but it seems pretty reasonable considering what it all does.
You also pay for a subscription so the unit can download TV listings. from each night. The fee ranges from like $10 a month to $200 for a "Lifetime Subscription". I'm kinda curious if I can use 1 subscription on 2 TiVo's if I chose to hook one up to a second TV.
The documentation and the tivo website both have extensive commentary on privacy. They basically say all the right things. I have no reason to believe that they're lying, but just the same, my tivo knows what I watch, when I watched it. The service subscription knows my units serial number and my name. Putting 2 and 2 together wouldn't be that difficult. They claim this will never be an issue.
I have no problem with them using information and making a truckload of money off it. A million TiVo's are gonna generate excellent, accurate ratings someday. And relationships between programs and viewing habits: "People who like The Simpsons don't like Veronica's Closet" type information. Hopefully someday this will mean that the TiVo will be capable of more accurately guessing programming choices tailored to me. The big scary question is will this be done anonymously. I don't want to start getting FOX spam because Philips sold my email address to FOX because I watch The Simpsons every sunday.
And now the problems...
Technical Stuffs
First off, my unit was screwed. It crashes regularly. It goes anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours, but it always freezes up: it made it for like 6 hours on saturday, but crashed twice during the X-Files on sunday. I called TiVo tech support and a very nice representative named Kendra was quite helpful (this was thursday). On friday I got another call to confirm some problems from another techie. I was told that I might get a third call from a top level specialist, or else a guy to coordinate the replacement of my defective unit.
It quite clearly was a bad harddrive. I assumed that after the second or third time it happened. It took a bit of time to get it replaced, but they did it. They shipped me a spare unit, and although it obviously forgot my preferences, I was back up and running.
Interface/Problems/Suggestions
As a whole, it works great. It is very intuitive. I didn't need to look in the manual to get anything done, however it was very slow at times. I suspect that this might have had something to do with the hardware problems, but on several occasions, generating menus would take 5 minutes or more: particularly long ones like the 'Whats on Live TV' but occasionally in the menu where you search for programs to record. A status indicator would be nice any time its gonna take more than a few seconds to do something, however I figure this was pretty abnormal since most of the time these thigns all happened instantly.
The Powerpuff Girls Problem
Powerpuff girls have an eratic schedule. Because of this, it overlaps frequently with other programs. The "Season Pass" feature refuses to ever allow 2 season passes to overlap... therefore, if any episode of The Powerpuff girls overlaps with anything else I want to record, I have to choose one or the other.The Simpsons Problem
The Simpsons airs every day twice on fox in my area. It also airs a "New" episode sunday evenings. Selecting a "Season Pass" treats all 11 episodes identically. I select all 11 showings as a unit, even though they most definitely aren't. I can tell it to record only The Simpsons on sunday, but it should be able to tell syndication from the prime-time showing.The South Park Problem
South Park airs several times a week: during a week, the episode is the same. By selecting a Season Pass, it records each and every showing: so I get 4 copies of the same episode. A simple scan of the plot summaries would be helpful. Dragonball Z suffers from the same problem: 5:30 and 12:30 are both the same episode. I get both. The TiVo should save plot summaries (when available. Its gonna be tougher when no summary is available. It seems like at least an episode number should be possible tho) of shows it records, and have a user definable time frame during which 'reruns' should not be taped. That way I could say "Don't tape the same episode of south park for 30 days" and be much happier.Precedence
Basically there needs to be a set of rules that allows me to select a precedence for overlapping programs. Rules like "I've seen this episode in the last 30 days" or "This is prime time" or "This is syndication" need to be defined in order to help clarify what should and shouldn't be recorded. Then again, when these things can hold 200 hours of footage, it won't be as big of a deal.The future will be interesting: it would be cool if I could email shows to a friend. Obviously today bandwidth is to restricted, but if this thing was hooked up to say a cable modem instead of a phone line, it would be reasonably feasible. Its pretty obvious that in the future programming will be stored on mammoth servers and streamed to viewers rather then mass broadcasted and then stored locally. Then we could effectively pass the equivalent of URLs about instead of the actual streams, although in the future, a gig or so for a television program won't be the end of the world. Just don't expect that one tomorrow.
Summary
I got a bum unit, but despite that and a few significant problems, its clear that this thing is gonna change the way people watch TV. This version still has shortcomings, in hardware, service, and software. And there is definitely a looming possibility of some sort of security problem. But with all that aside, until the internet has the bandwidth to allow us to watch programming on demand, this is best thing out there. If you're tight on time, it will make television more enjoyable and more efficient.
The strangest part is the realization that you're not watching TV: you can pause whenever you want. You can fastforward through commercials, or if the phone rings, you can back up to where you left off. But I still found myself thinking "I need a commercial so I can go to the bathroom". Some things never change.
ReplayTV vs. TiVo (Score:1)
Commercials disappearing? (Score:1)
1) Integrating ads right into the programming, either through blue screen insert spots (e.g. the label on a soda/beer can) which can be changed for individual markets (Did Ross call Ed's Towing in Dubacha, Kansas or Johnny's QuickGo in NYC?). We've already seen this happen with Dan Rather at Time's Square or in sports games.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/25/digita
2) Commercials with irratic/irregular timing. Right now there is a pretty clear distinction, some seconds of black.. but how about if this space had noise inserted into the it to prevent it from being easily detected? Or if the space was eliminated all together.. doh.
Re:Problem #1 (Score:1)
People who own guns who are killed at home are a) suicides, b) victims of domestic violence, or c) criminals engaged in criminal activity. Gun control would not effect any of these deaths. The fact that these crimes occur at home is meaningless - a lot of gunshot victims happen to live in crack houses, flop houses, drug dens, etc. Drug dealers, pimps, gangsters, etc. all live in houses - thence, whenever they get offed, this gets labeled as a gun crime in someone's "home" and as more "proof" that keeping guns in one's home is "dangerous"!
Statistics show that gun profilaration correlates with people getting shot.
Figures lie, and liars figure.
Shall we apply a little logic? The fact that those areas in the USA with the most violence also have the most gun control laws? That areas which allow concealed carry for ordinary citizens showed a drop in crime? The fact that these "statistics" completely ignore the cases where the ownership of a firearm prevented a crime? Or recent studies showing the ownership of firearms prevented far more deaths than were attributed to firearms in the same areas?
Extreme example: compare western Europe and USA.
That's what makes you hoplophobes so charming: your complete ignorance of the facts and determination not to be swayed by them. Why don't you compare Switzerland to the rest of Europe? Switzerland has a higher per capita gun ownership level than the USA. Why not compare current USA crime rate to crime rate of 50 or 100 years ago? Guns are actually less prevelent now in American culture than they used to be, yet the crime rate is several orders of magnitude greater.
But then, you would have to use the critical thinking skills that God gave you, rather than emotional flim flam.
Re:Problem #1 (off topic) (Score:1)
Black Box (Score:1)
The answer is obvious... (Score:1)
Re:A revelation... (Score:1)
Consider this:
TiVo does all of that and a bunch of other neat tricks. And if you really want a particular program archived, there is a dump to VCR option. How much do you archive? I probably kept 1 show out of every 10 I record using a VCR, and I always had to remember to use a different tape for shows I wanted to save. No longer a problem.
TiVo changes how you watch TV because you don't have to watch it when things are on -- but unlike a VCR, TiVo doesn't run out of tape. When you're out of HD space, it tries to make space (delete automatic suggestions by TiVo first, then oldest next, etc.)
It's not perfect, but for first generation technology, it is very impressive. Try one out for 30 days and return it if you don't like it. I was a little skeptical at first, but it seems to do everything it promises. There are still some problems, but according to TiVo support, v1.3 of the software should be released to all TiVos sometime in the next month.
A bit of advice for everybody. (Score:1)
Really. Really-really-really. I swear.
Try it some time. Try to manage a week without turning the bloody box on. It can make a world of difference.
I apologize for ACing, but my karma is exactly 42 right now, and I want to keep it at this value for some time.
Re:TiVo: Good and getting better (Score:1)
X10's remote and video sending kits are wonderful for this apartment life. Stupid place only has one cable connection, and so I had to run an approximately 50 foot coax all the way to the bedroom.
Re:A few "phone calls"? (Score:1)
Re:Black Box (Score:1)
Of course, if you're paranoid like the other poster, then that's a separate issue.
Re:How do you select programs? (Score:1)
There was to be some sort of offset that could be put in around version 2.0 of the software, so that when broadcasts are put off after a long sporting event, you could say "start recording this show 35 minutes later than it's listed." But for now, you're just stuck to watching live in those situations. For my cable here, it's 99% accurate. I can only recall a handful of times (certainly less than 5) that I selected something to be recorded and it wasn't that program at all.
Re:two shows on same time slot (Score:1)
Re:Replay control details (Score:1)
I'm curious, how does that work? Do you mean to say that when an advertisement for a show comes on the network, you can click a button and Tivo knows which show to tape based on the ad? That's pretty damn cool. No, Replay can't do that.
That's the idea. I know some channels can broadcast other information outside the audio/video signal, PBS sends the current date/time which some VCRs can use to set their clock. This [tivo.com] press release says they partnered with NBC, Showtime and Encore (to start) to implement this. I don't have Showtime/Encore, but I haven't seen it happen on my NBC channel yet.
Re:Tivo needs an ethernet damnit! (Score:1)
All these "I won't buy it until it does X, Y, Z" is pointless. It is a product right now. If it fits your budget/needs, go for it. Otherwise, go away. That said, I refuse to buy Snickers until they add peanut butter. I like peanut butter, and by golly, they had better address the peanut butter enthusiast crowd. Reece's Peanutbutter Cups do, dammit. I want snickers to as well!!
Re:What Happens if Tivo Dialup Service Provider Di (Score:1)
What if the world ends tomorrow, am I out the $499 I paid for my Tivo? That just can't be right. Time for a nasty email to Tivo to see what their post-apocolyptic business plan is. Not just that, but this TV I have is rather new, I don't want to be out that money. Damn you Sony! Why didn't you sell me a television that was impervious to the aliens that blew up Earth?! Is that too much to ask, I mean, really? And I want a full refund for my rent that isn't used. Those commie bastards don't need to keep my rent when there's 8 days left in March.
Re:Increasing the HD size (Score:1)
The software and serial number seem to be only on the first drive, so that would be harder to upgrade. And, well, you have to get someone to buy a 30hr unit so you can copy from it. The guy that did this said several drive copying programs didn't work, but told the one that finally did. I'll watch the forum for a while, see if his thing blows up or anything too bad before trying it myself. I certainly worry about how it would handle software updates (like to 1.3) with a hacked system like this.
Re:A few "phone calls"? (Score:1)
Re:TiVo needs open source (Score:1)
Re:ReplayTV anyone? (Score:1)
And just what "more direct control" does their software give you with recording? I mean, with Tivo, you go up/down (or page up/down) through the channels and listings, hit Select, and voila you can record it. Other than a speech/mind recognition bit, I just don't see what could be more direct. I'm sure the user interface is different, but is that what makes it more direct?
And with this new thing in v1.3.0 where you can record a show when you see a preview of it, that's just even easier for us lazy folk.
Re:Yeah? And? So? What? (Score:1)
Since I got my Tivo in early December (just a few days before they started that $100 rebate, but I'm not bitter), I haven't watched many commercials. Well, other than the two or three flashes during Tivo's fast forward. And I must say, life is grand. I watch shows in 20 minutes per half hour, never missing a beat.
As for advertisers, well, commercials have always been the time when people go to the bathroom, make a sandwich, etc. When they crack down on toilets and mayonnaise, we can bitch some more.
Re:Are there any possibilities to expand the unit? (Score:1)
As for sticking any old hard drive in, I'm not so sure you can. It uses Quantum QuikView drives, which are IDE, but somehow tweaked for multimedia stuff. As the hard drive is constantly going, you'll need a good quality drive like this so it doesn't blow up. Besides, next month Sony's unit will be out which is supposed to be a 30hr unit, at Phillip's 14hr price.
Re:Notes from a TiVo user (Score:1)
Think of the cracking possibilities... (Score:1)
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Solution #1: (Score:1)
It'll happen.
- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Blame Canada? (Score:1)
ttyl
Farrell
Only 1 MPEG-2 Encoder chip (Score:1)
Hidden subscription fees (Score:1)
From what I've read, ReplayTV units make long distance phone calls to connect back to their service and the total charges come pretty close to being the same as TiVo's subscription fee. TiVo uses either a 1-800 number or a local number so it doesn't run up your phone bill at all.
Re:ReplayTV anyone? (Score:1)
Re:Would TiVo be worth it if... (Score:1)
According to the AVS forum it does (Score:1)
OK, don't take my word for it then... read some comments from actual ReplayTV users [avsforum.com]. One poster said it costs him $40-50 per month. It may not cost you anything if you're near one of their local numbers, but it apparantly does elsewhere.
Re:Hidden subscription fees (Score:1)
I own a ReplayTV and it most certainly makes a local call.
OK, so it may be local for you, but it isn't local for everybody. Don't take my word for it... read some comments from actual ReplayTV users over at the AVS forum [avsforum.com]. One poster said it costs him $40-50 per month.
Re:Would TiVo be worth it if... (Score:1)
Damn, I hate the number of things that require a phone line today. DSS, pay-per-view boxes, Tivo, hell, even some appliances can be set to dial-up for service if they are about to break down.
The real kicker was about a month ago when my bank suspended my on-line account. They ran a 'security check' and found that my home phone number and my home address didn't 'match' (I use a cell phone.) I had one hell of a time convincing them to let me get my money out! Apparently, if you don't have a land-line phone, you're not allowed to do business with this bank. Nice.
Re:Tivo without the subscription: ReplayTV (Score:1)
ReplayTV: 20 hours, $499.99, $0 subscription fee
Tivo: 30 Hours, $699.99 plus $199 subscription fee
14 hours, $399.99 plus $199 subscription fee
How is ReplayTV $200 more than Tivo?
I wonder if either of them supports adding external storage? I think ReplayTV has a firewire port, but I am not 100% sure on that.
Re:A few "phone calls"? (Score:2)
Re:Problem #1 (Score:2)
...phil
Cable boxes? (Score:2)
Re:The HD seems like the weak link.. (Score:2)
Re:The HD seems like the weak link.. (Score:2)
Re:TiVo is GPL - cute. (Score:2)
Re:TiVo is GPL - cute. (Score:2)
The HD seems like the weak link.. (Score:2)
A Hard drive..
Hard drives are reliable in the long term. They wear out. Plain and simple. What happens when a head crashes, or some other nasty thing with these beasts? Perhaps 3 years down the road, when my model wouldn't be produced anymore?
Re:Does this beat a phat hard drive and a tv tuner (Score:2)
An example. When a meal is over, I like to just rinse the dishes off and put them in a dishwasher. It cleans, disinfects and dries the dishes pretty well. In short, some pretty useful functionality. I, of course, could have gone to the hardware store and bought the high pressure pumps, heating coils, enclosure and spent the next 5 Saturdays building my dishwasher, or I could go to an appliance store and buy a dishwasher for a few hundred bucks and have it delivered and installed.
This parallel seems not to sink in with a great many geeks when the functionality is being done by a computer. In most other areas of life, we've decided that the trade off of money for a functioning device rather than having to put in the time to build it ourselves is worth it. Sure, you can buy car kits and build your own car, you can build your own house, you can get a kiln and bake your own dishes. OR . . . you can go to a dealer and buy a car, hire a carpenter, and buy your dishes, all decisions most of us have made. However, to the greasemonkey, the hammer and nails guy, and the potter, doing all of those things yourself is a great reward.
Let those who want to trade off the labor related to computers by buying consumer products or packaged solutions do so.
Yes, the hardware to get this to work may be close in cost, but for the sake of arguement let's assume you make $20/hour(Totally random number to make the math easy). You work 40 or so hours per week at that rate. If your situation is good, you get 1 1/2 times that if you are required to work in your "off" hours. Setting up the arrangement you describe, which includes writing the software, would take most people several evenings/weekend days. Figure 6 hours of hardcore work in an evening 6-12pm and 8 hours on a weekend. Work 3 weeknights and Saturday in a week (we'll assume you coded, debugged and it works in that time), and you've got 36 hours in on this project. Grand total if you had to do this at work on the clock? $1080.
For a geek who loves to configure hardware, write software, etc. a donation of labor like that is no big deal. However, for most people, they'd rather donate that time to something else, whether a project or just relaxing.
LetterJ
No commercial-skip, no removable media, no TiVo.. (Score:2)
I'm happy to wait: I don't watch too much TV anyways..
Your Working Boy,
Re:TiVo is GPL - cute. (Score:2)
I would love to build a small device that just does the pause/rewind/slo-mo part of tivo. If TIVO were to sell a device that did just that for maybe 100 bucks, it would be great... then you wouldnt have to pay a crappy fee every month, you wouldnt have to deal with incompatibilty with several cable/satelite inputs... A simple box that worked well and was cheap would be great!
Ratings, eh... (Score:2)
Boy, would Nielsen kill for that!!!
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Re:Problem #1 (Score:2)
Remember, in Sagan's* Cosmos (the novel - ain't seen the flick), a guy invents a pattern-detecting chip that can detect commercials and thus, he ruins the TV "industry" as we know it. He then goes on to invent a chip that detect political speech, but this time, his invention gets seized in the name of national security...
* Yes, the BHA...
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Re:Does this beat a phat hard drive and a tv tuner (Score:2)
Yes, but... Think of the FUN you'd have designing and building you own dishwasher!!!
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Only an issue for on-air TV (Score:2)
The cost of these channels is in the subscription. HBO does not run commercials. MTV does, because they're jerking off the RIAA to begin with, and would sell children for more money. Pay-to-view and Pay-per-view are where we're headed, and commercials are exactly what Rob said - bathroom breaks.
Personally I prefer pay-per-view, but it needs to come down to earth. I have a satellite dish, which costs too much. I don't watch it while at work, or while asleep, yet I pay for 24x7 availability. I'd prefer to pay for the fraction of time I actually have available for watching TV.
After some thought, I think that the elimination of commercials, the added flexibility of replay and slo-mo and stuff like that, is worth the price of disclosing my viewing habits to the service provider. Maybe then science, sci-fi, nature documentaries and shows I consider interesting would get more funding, JMS would get millions to bring Babylon 5 back, and ESPN and home shopping would drop dead.
TiVo HD (Score:2)
Can I replace it with, oh, a massive RAID setup of 15krpm monsters in my basement to store a month of uncompressed video?
Can I access the HD as an HD? Say, with the intention of burning a DVD of that special event? Or archiving to DAT?
Re:Tivo vs Satellite vs Digital Cable (Score:2)
Re:Let's make a free one! (Score:2)
Re:A revelation... (Score:2)
Yeah, and those silly DVD things will never catch on either...
Maybe it won't be TIVO (Beta and Laserdisc didn't succeed), but digital video recorders are going to be very common place soon. Think of the possibilities. With increasing bandwith and storage capacities the possibilities are fantastic.
Pay-per-view : You'll be able to access a virtual video store and order digital quality movies on demand.
Archiving : Supposedly, TIVO is archiving every television show that's broadcast. It also would be possible to backfill many of the previously aired shows, creating a huge data warehouse. Researching a paper on the gulf war? Instead of searching papers on microfilm or internet, checkout the news broadcasts from the time period.
And there's all other kinds of things that can be done that I'm not thinking about. New technology is always poo-pooed because it costs too much and people are envious of the folks who can afford it. But prices will go down, and you'll be able to afford it soon, and then it will seem like a much cooler thing...
TiVo Tidbits (Score:2)
Also, regarding subscriptions, here's the screw: The lifetime subscription of $199 is for the lifetime of a single unit. If you upgrade to a new unit, you need a new subscription, though you can sell your old unit with its lifetime sub. It's totally transferable from person to person, but not unit to unit, and you can't share one sub with multiple TiVos.
Finally, for you college kids out there, TiVo and Phillips are having a special, knocking off $50 from the 15 hour version. They're running full page ads at UC Berkeley. I've never felt like such a squarely pegged demographic group in my life: "You can miss a class. You can miss a midterm. But you never, ever have to miss Buffy."
I can't find the URL for the deal right now. does anyone else have it handy?
Kevin Fox
Re:Problem #1 (Score:2)
Re:Hacking/Upgrading Tivo (Score:2)
blaster
Re:Notes from a TiVo user (Score:2)
Canada... eh? (Score:2)
First they insult us Canucks by including the offensive "Blame Canada" in the oscars, then they refuse to sell TiVo here, what next, steal our top comedians and pass them off as Americans??
Ok, so I'm just jealous. I've looked at both ReplayTV [replaytv.com] and TiVo [tivo.com] and want TiVo. It seems to have a slightly better feature set, and it runs Linux. Now I'm not saying that's a reason because I'm a rabid Linux fan, but that makes it much more likely that eventually:
But I can't get TiVO here!!. At first the reasons TiVO gave why they weren't selling the units in Canada was the lack of available TV schedule information here and that some encryption built into the system made the things illegal to export. None of these reasons really seemed to hold up, so I recently asked again. Last I've heard they can't expand into new markets because they're having enough trouble keeping up with demand in current markets. Argh!
The good news is that Sony is apparently coming out with their own TiVO unit soon (April was the last date I've heard), which is supposed to be far cheaper than the current Philips TiVO units. This price competition should make it easier to get any of these units (ReplayTV or TiVO) and should drop the prices for all PTV products.
Anyhow, a good website for information on ReplayTV [replaytv.com] and TiVo [tivo.com] is AV Science Forum [avsforum.com] (and yeah the flash intro sucks).
Anyhow, any other Canadians out there, eh? Do you want your TiVo, eh? Any ideas how we can get it, eh? Any rumours on when it'll arrive, eh?
To:CmdrTaco Re:Rant A (Score:2)
What you want is happening in the form of the 1999 Satellite Home Viewers Act. Here's the homepage [shva.com]
Thanks for the briefing, this looks like a transitional device, maybe the 2.4 version will have what you really wanted.;)
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Tivo prices are coming down fast (Score:2)
Tivo is basically an IBM PowerPC with hardware MPEG-2 decode, custom TV overlay graphics, a 30G HD, and an excellent custom remote control. Not bad for $3-400!!!
Sure you can watch TV on your PC, but Tivo as well as being very cheap is meant as a home theatre component to be located in your living room. I'd sure prefer to watch TV on a 35" TV while lying on my couch than on a 19" monitor in my computer room.
Re:Are there any possibilities to expand the unit? (Score:2)
"Hmmm, looks at my TiVo 2(beta) with SCSI RAID farm with 200Gb of storage connected to the back (don't put the RAID on top of the TV, btw - it fell through the case and I had to get a new TV). This can store up to 300 hours at low quality, and I can add another 6 of these 200Gb RAIDs for up to 1500 hours of televisual fun."
"Of course, I can't hear the TV with all of these fans blowing around, and it is quite hot in here all the time, so I got in an industrial air conditioning unit - I need the volume at 11 to hear anything! My neighbours moved away recently, but luckily the slashed car tires have stopped."
Re:Problem #1 -commercials (Score:2)
Think TV banner ads. :-(
You think those network bugs in the lower-right corner of the screen are annoying? You ain't seen nuttin yet baby...
Does this beat a phat hard drive and a tv tuner? (Score:2)
I don't see what the advantage is here.. $700 USD will buy a monster hard drive, and a ATI TV Tuner is cheap. We use the windows software and two 20GB hard drives to do most of this right now, and it wouldn't take much more to write a program to make it go to prevuechannelonline.com or something, and figure out when my favorite tv shows are on. It's just a matter of having enough space to buffer until the encoding is done, which does take a little while. On the other hand, I think you can get mpeg video encoders now that will approach realtime encoding.
Since when I get a nice place, the first thing I'm doing is installing a media server, perhaps most of this functionality can be the target of a new (or existing) open source project?
Maybe I'm missing something?
Kudos..
Re:CmdrTaco needs to research his rants. (Score:2)
CmdrTaco says very plainly that the local broadcast issue has been taken care of for larger metroplexes, which is exactly what you're talking about here. Nothing has been done to handle people in the boonies; there's not enough bandwidth to get everyone's local programming on the satellite broadcasts.
What really needs to be done to allow everyone to see their network shows is to go back to allowing satellites to broadcast network programming without local programming, just like CmdrTaco says in the post.
Not that there aren't plenty of times that slashdot articles are unresearched and inaccurate, but let's keep our criticisms focused on the inaccurate articles, rather than making inaccurate criticisms against the good ones.
Lame? yer crazy! (Score:2)
Re:Problem #1 (Score:2)
Now which is currently producing the best programs ? The call isn't down to price, great programs can be made on small budgets and awful ones on large budgets. Do you think South Park costs as much to make as some of the god awful stuff on US PrimeTime ?
Thankgod for the BBC, lots of top programs with no adverts.
This Sounds Cool and All... (Score:2)
Another problem with tivo, you're limited to whatever programming your cable or satellite provider beams into your home. What happens if your daughter wants to watch Bambi? Tivo isn't going to help you there. A VCR owner can just go out and buy it, or better yet, borrow it from the next door neighbor. Granted, this isn't really a knock against Tivo but it does demostrate that while Tivo sounds great, it is not a replacement for the VCR just yet.
Re:Does this beat a phat hard drive and a tv tuner (Score:2)
The biggest bit of the puzzle I see such a project needing is a 'user-freindly' scheduler. Like you said, pull the listing from TV Guide or Preview. As of right now, I need to know when everything I want to tape is on.
Media server? Video, audio, etc? Elaborate, if you will..
Re:Problem #1 (Score:2)
-motardo
Re:Great (Score:2)
Re:Great (Score:2)
A few rumors. (Score:2)
As many people have mentioned already is that there is another unit on the market known as the 'Replay'. This unit doesn't cost you a monthly fee to subscribe to the programming, but it costs $700 compared to $500 for the Tivo. Now the Tivo has an option to purchase a lifetime subscription for an additional $200. So as you can see there is no difference. $700 for a Tivo with lifetime subscription and $700 for Replay with lifetime subscription. With the Tivo however, you have the choice of not pre-paying the subscription fee. Useful if you can't come up with $700 or if you think perhaps the service wont be up long enough to recoup the $200 loss. There are allot of other issues to consider when deciding between the two units. Many people have made comparisons so you might want to dig around online.
In any case here is a link to one such comparison:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/elund/
I personally decided the Tivo was the superior product based on what I have read.
It also looks like the big investors think so too. Vulcan Ventures, DirectTV, and Sony all have invested into Tivo.
Another thing is that Tivo and DirectTV have struck some kind of deal. Not only has DirectTV droped a huge investment into the company there are rumors of a set top box that combines the functionality of the Tivo and a DSS into one unit. This is exactly what I would like to see, it could reduce the cost of the programming subscription for one thing as it could then be beamed down on the satellite data link. Of coarse nobody knows what they really have in store for us, at this point it is all just speculation.
If nothing else Television is changing, I like the way things are looking though.
4 Second Delay (Score:2)
Otherwise, the TiVO is damn impressive. It really does revolutionize how television is watched, if you care about that sort of stuff. The interface is pretty, lots of audio and visual feedback for UI selections... the collab filtering part is a little gimmicky but fun. The Season Pass feature needs a bit more intelligence about how syndication works. An ethernet jack would make those midnight phone calls shorter and less intrusive.
Re:A few "phone calls"? (Score:2)
ReplayTV anyone? (Score:2)
Why pay TiVo every month when you can get the same service from ReplayTV for free? (clarification: I don't own either TiVo or ReplayTV yet, so I don't have first hand experience with either.)
Your issues will be resolved (Score:2)
Tivo is awesome and I wouldn't know what to do without out. Every single friend who plays with it, wants one.
FYI - my unit has never crashed, even when running beta software.
Re:A revelation... (Score:2)
It's one of those things you have to see to really appreciate. The "TiVolution" will start slowly but it's going to grow.
There's a good article [teevee.org] at TeeVee.org that talks about Tivo.
--john
Re:CmdrTaco needs to research his rants. (Score:2)
While it is true that the bandwidth is limited, it is still ILLEGAL to receive network feeds from cities that are further that 100 miles away. I want Boston stations, but I can't legally get them here in Arizona.
Basically, it all boils down to the fact that if I want FOX, I have to buy cable, and If I want Boston's feed of FOX I have to hack my system and risk prosecution.
The FCC is way too powerful for our own good. It seems obvious that they are catering to the cable companies by limiting the programming I can get from DirecTV.
Great (Score:2)
Re:Problem #1 -commercials (Score:2)
This will just motivate advertisers to find different ways of advertising.
More effective and perhaps insidious advertising is that which is a part of content; either you want to watch the ad because it is entertaining or the brand is promoted as a part of the show you are watching. In both cases you have absorbed the content and was unable to avoid the commercial promotion. This is the future of advertising.
Re:Tivo without the subscription: ReplayTV (Score:2)
Benefits of the "digital personal recorder" (both TiVO and ReplayTV):
1) Pausing live television: If the phone rings in the middle of watching a live program, I can hit the Pause button, go answer the phone, come back to the TV, press Play, and pickup exactly where I left off.
2) Instant replay for live television: If you missed a line of dialogue or just want to see that cool slam dunk again, you can. ReplayTV has an Instant Replay button that auto-rewinds the last 5 seconds or so (you can keep pressing the button to rewind more than that or just do normal rewind as well). I don't know if TiVO offers this feature.
3) Ability to watch a taped show while another is being taped: I can be watching a taped episode of Ally McBeal while the Replay is also recording South Park. I CANNOT watch a different live show while another is being recorded because there is only one tuner.
4) Ability to watch a show from the beginning WHILE it is currently being taped: Let's say you record the X-Files because you thought you'd be out on Sunday night. You come home at 9:30. With a traditional VCR, you have to wait for the recording to finish. With the Replay, you can start watching right then and there from the beginning of the episode. If you catch up to the live broadcast, then it will just be like watching normal live TV through the Replay. (By the way, I thought the Scully Cleavage shot was pretty killer, and I'm a married heterosexual woman.
5) Theme-based channels: I like Jacque Pepin's cooking shows and equestrian programs, so I have the Replay set up to tape these programs whenever they come on, any time, any channel.
6) Easy to maintain library of recorded shows: We used to have to search through multiple tapes to find the show we want to watch because we were taping so many. Then if you watch one show on a 6-hour tape but doesn't get to the rest of the tape, that tape cannot be reused unless you want to risk accidentally taping over something else. With Replay, each show can be deleted or archived to VCR individually (archiving is a new feature with the January upgrade of the Replay software).
Things I like about ReplayTV that I DON'T like about TiVO:
1) I don't want to pay for my programming guide, not monthly subscription or one-time payment.
2) The TiVO UI is not as intuitive to use or pleasing to look at as the Replay (I saw a TiVO demo at the neighborhood Fry's).
3) TiVO has said that they might start carrying commercials built into their channel guide (like banner ads on web pages). I have not heard any plans to proactively carry advertising from Replay.
4) I REALLY hate TiVO's "smart record" feature where it will tape shows you MIGHT like based on your viewing pattern. Just because I like equestrian programming, doesn't mean I want to tape the entire lineup of Animal Planet! With Replay, I can create theme-based channels that are as broad or narrow as I want. I can just tape Jacque Pepin: Encore with Claudine episodes or any cooking show. This gives me plenty of flexibility but still full control of what gets recorded. This is especially important when disk space is a premium.
5) ReplayTV has a 30 second skip button that effectively fast forward through commercials one at a time. Usually at the start of a commercial segment, I press the button 4 times, and the show is back on. Replay has gotten into trouble with advertisers with this feature, but since I'm a consumer, I love this feature and would not want to see it go away. For what it's worth, I often rewind and consciously watch a commercial ON PURPOSE if it looked interesting.
Wow, for a first post from a new user, this message was hella long. Obviously the personal digital recorder is not for everyone. But for us, the device has really made a difference. And I'd definitely recommmend ReplayTV over TiVO.
--madoka
A bit of advice for you (Score:3)
Not dumbshit, but dumbed-down. Try watching some of the original Japanese episodes, completely untainted by FUNimation's [funimation.com] edits and idiotic dialogue. There's a wealth of them on the net, one source is Da Black Goku [cjb.net]. *bows* You're welcome.
Tivo without the subscription: ReplayTV (Score:3)
There is a similar device on the market which doesn't require you to give up your private info, and doesn't require a monthly subscription: ReplayTV [replaytv.com].
I'm not sure if Tivo has this feature, but ReplayTV also allows you to pause/rewind 'live' TV broadcasts... it records whatever you are currently watching to allow you to do this. Pretty slick.
I'd buy one, but I'm using an 'odd' TV provider, LOOK TV [www.look.ca], here in Ottawa, and Replay TV doesn't support the listings for that yet.
TiVO compared to Beta and Laserdisc (Score:3)
You can't compare TiVO to Beta and Laserdiscs, as in this case negative feedback does'nt apply: i.e., whether TiVO sells 50k units or 10 millions, it won't make a difference in terms of the service it provides to those who have bought it. Whereas if you have Beta VCR, or a Laserdisc, you'll be in deep trouble if you want to use it for watching rented movies.
My Year with TiVo (Score:3)
To respond to and add to some of Rob's points:
Recommendations. When I first got TiVo, I wasn't so impressed with this idea. As with Rob, it recorded a lot of crap early on. Nowadays though, I often don't bother getting season passes for things unless I critically feel I can't miss them. I just give them a thumbs up or two or three, and TiVo gets them for me.
Crashes. In the entire time I've had mine, I've seen maybe 3 crashes.
Subscriptions. You can't use one subscription on two TiVos.
Season Pass Overlaps. I've had occasional problems with this as well. Version 2.0 (due out "sometime this year") contains a "season pass prioritizer" that should substantially alleviate this problem.
Reruns. The South Park problem shouldn't happen. My TiVo never records the same program twice, unless I've already deleted one copy of it. That is, you'll never have two copies of a program on the drive at the same time. If you watch your shows very promptly, you may get duplicates after you delete them. The basic problem with this is that Tribune (their data source) is not consistent about things like providing episode numbers or rerun flags.
Overall, I can genuinely say TiVo has changed the way I watch TV. I watch a lot more PBS now because it doesn't matter that Nova is on at 5am, I can watch it at 8pm that day. Instant replay is great when you miss something, which means you can watch TV without dedicating 100% of your attention to it. If you miss something, replay. Being able to watch a program as its being recorded is really amazing too. Start watching a program 15 minutes in, and you can finish it when it finishes, after fastforwarding through commercials. Also very cool is the fact that you can watch a program at 3x with closed captioning turned on. Very useful when you're watching a movie and decide a scene is dragging
Another thing Rob didn't mention is the remote. This is one of the nicest remotes I've ever seen. Ergonomic, powerful, easy to use, and complete.
A lot of people question the video quality: I'm not a videophile at all (I've lived most of my life with just good antenna reception), but I find the lowest quality fine for all the TV I watch.
Overall, TiVo is an incredible device, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Re:Problem #1 (Score:3)
You say that TV will die. I say that BAD TV will die. I'd be much happier to pay a few bucks for quality programming than to have a kilochannel of mindless garbage. Witness NPR, to which I am happy to pay $100/year for the pleasure of quality, commercial-free programming.
-jwb
Re:A few "phone calls"? (Score:3)
http://www.tivo.com/what/faq_sub.html#q25 [tivo.com]
Yeah? And? So? What? (Score:3)
Wait, let me get this straight: You're complaining because commericial TV as we know it might kick the bucket? Why would this be a BAD thing? The day that happens I'm renting Bourbon Street for me and a million of my closest friends. The best programs that get broadcast come from member supported stations anyway. (PBS if I have to spell it out.) So "Friends" might go away! Hurrah! "Popular" would become not so popular? Yippie! "7th Heaven" sent to hell? THERE IS A GOD!
Hey, maybe, JUST MAYBE people will start reading BOOKS again. Wow. Y'know. Immersing yourself in something that betters yourself as a human being, that is intellectually stimulating. But I'm just a dreamer.
Sorry. I really, really hate TV. I hate TV like Hitler hated the Jews. Except for "Frontline." And "South Park." Ok, and "Buffy" every once in a while. BUT THAT'S IT. And "The Simpsons."
Ah, ferget it.
- Rev.The future of commercials... (Score:3)
TiVo currently chargest for service...
TiVo is connected to the net for this service.
What will happen:
I see a not-too-distant future model (competitor?) of TiVo where the service is free in exchange for banner advertising in the TiVo menus.
And a slightly more distant future where commercial-free programming is offered in exchange for banner advertising in the TiVo menus. These banner ads are stored on the local HD and served up according to the "projected" interests of the TiVo's user.
Why every advertising exec wants it to happen:
-"Banner" commercial content is cheaper to produce and deliver (a banner ad takes up a LOT less space and production resources than 30 seconds of FMV).
-Targeted banner ads based on watching habits of each and every individual viewer are a lot more effective than targeting a single ad for the entire viewership of a program.
-Given the choice, more people would rather watch commercials (even if it's just a banner ad) for things they're interested in rather than not interested in.
-People are a lot happier with the idea that it's the box on your thier very own shelf that watches what they watch, and not some huge invisible server somewhere in the Evil Empire's headquarters.
-You can FF or channel flip past a commercial, but you cant use a TiVo without a menu (your ad WILL get eyeballs).
I'm somewhat suprised the same hasn't been done by IE or Netscape. All of the components are there, it's just a matter of implementation.
What is the audio/video quality? (Score:3)
Thanks,
TiVo is GPL - cute. (Score:3)
Re:ReplayTV anyone? (Score:3)
Replay solves several of the problems mentioned in the Tivo review. It does save the program summary with the program, and its supposed to not tape the show again if it has the same summary. The subscription fee is bundled into the cost of the unit. The software gives you more direct control over what gets recorded.
Customer service at Replay is also GREAT. When I bought mine, it was 3 weeks before they released a far cheaper unit last November that had a better remote. I called to complain, and not only did they rebate me $300, but they sent me the new remote for free.
Now I'm having some minor problems with my unit that are suspected to be bugs in the latest software (which auto-downloaded into my unit a couple of weeks ago). I was on the phone with them yesterday, and today they are FEDEX-ing me a new unit to try out. I haven't personally used a Tivo, but my impression is that if you are the type of person who had trouble working a VCR to begin with, the software in the Tivo is oriented toward you. If you're the type of person who could program a VCR with no problem (i.e. 99.999% the /. audience) then the software in the ReplayTV is more for you.
You can buy Replay direct from them [replaytv.com] but its cheaper on Amazon [amazon.com] or 800.com [800.com].
Hacking/Upgrading Tivo (Score:3)
Part GPL, part GPL workaround (Score:4)
They wanted a filesystem suitable for direct-to-disk video recording: after all you don't want garbage collection or on-the-fly defragging to kick in while you're recording the Simpsons. They used some proprietary technology to achieve this. Filesystems generally involve a kernel change.
Instead, they implemented an NFS-like filesystem, with the TCP/IP bit taken out: i.e. the kernel communicates with a userland process, which in turn does the HDD management.
Their userland process is *not* GPLd, and I understand it's protected by some patents.
--
CmdrTaco needs to research his rants. (Score:4)
So, the moral is, slashdot needs to research. IMAGINE THAT!
Re:Notes from a TiVo user (Score:4)
As far as crashing, I have never had my unit (the smaller of the two) crash on me. However, I have had a few problems where my satellite receiver stops responding to the serial input and I need to restart that.
A few things that are missing from the Tivo:
CT mentioned how you can rewind live tv. That is because the Tivo is constantly recording into a half hour buffer. This is a great feature, but there is no way to save this buffer. If I'm 10 minutes into a good show that I didn't tell the Tivo to tape, and I want to save it to show my fiancee, too bad. If I hit the record button, it starts the recording starting at the time I hit the button, not at the beginning of the show (which I could rewind and watch).
A couple of extra navigation buttons. ReplayTV has a 30 second fast forward button. Press it and you instantly move forward 30s. Since most commercials come in 30s blocks, it would be nice to just hit the button 3-5 times (depending on the network) and be back at the show, rather than using the fast forward button. Also a button that would take you to the start of the recording buffer would be useful (there is already one to go to the end).
Tivo records things that it thinks you may like on tv. It records these at the default quality setting (which in my case is Best). These shows are deleted first if the unit needs more recording space. It is possible to save these programs for longer, but you can't lower the quality setting (if it is using the Best quality for a cartoon it is wasting a lot of space). I don't know how they compress the video, so this may not be easily possible.
An expansion port. ReplayTV used to have (but no longer does) a firewire port that you could hook up an expansion hard drive to. This would be great. Hook up a hard drive to the firewire, tivo sees that it needs to be formatted to "Tivo" (whatever format that is), and offers to do it. At the end you get a message saying you now have 30 more hours of recording time.
This has been mentioned before, but I would also like to be able to give priority to certain shows in season passes.
If you like any of these suggesions, send them to Tivo (info@tivo.com) and tell them that you would like them implemented. Several of these require hardware changes, but some of them could be implemented on the units that already are in use, with a software upgrade during the dialin process.
Also, if you are getting shows like cartoons you don't want after asking the Tivo to record a cartoon or two, all you need to do is go to the show you asked it to record originally and give it a Thumbs-Down. When you record a show it automatically gives it one Thumbs-Up. If that is the only program you've rated then it only thinks that you like cartoons. This will get rid of the cartoon "preference" from the Tivo. That reminds me -- another feature I would like is to be able to get a list of all the Thumbs-Up and Thumbs-Down preferences that have been given. At one point I actually reset my Tivo, because my father-in-law had given Thumbs-Up to all kinds of old western movies and that was all the Tivo was recording. It would have been nicer just to let me see all the shows that have been rated, so I could re-rate them.
All in all, the Tivo is a wonderful gadget and I find it indispensable simply for its ability to merge satellite and antenna tv. It would be nice to one day have one that didn't have visible compression on the lower settings and supported things like an optical dolby digital connection, but we will probably have to wait for much larger hard drives.
Some xtra features could be handy... (Score:4)
Remote programming and scheduling. It already has a modem - why not enable dial-in capabilities? Say, you're in hawaii and your unit is somewhere in upper michigan... And you forgot to program the darn thing to record your favorite show!
Just think how cool it would be to have a terminal window open to your VCR...
v1.3.0 released this week (Score:5)
And sometime this year there's supposed to be another update to fix the season pass overlap issue. You will give a season pass a ranking, then the higher ranking pass gets recorded when there are overlaps.
Notes from a TiVo user (Score:5)
Firstly, regarding the crashing, it DOES crash occasionally, but not nearly as often as what Rob said. I agree that he had a bad unit. My unit needs restarting probably once every two or three weeks (hey, at least it's better than a windoze machine, right?). This is a concern, but realize that the product was just rolled out, and the software supplied for it is in early stages. Rob brings up some great ideas for future features, perhaps he should email TiVo about it so they could consider developing some of these things?
Regarding privacy, all of your preferences are left on your own TiVo, and although it is possible for TiVo to get this information and sell it, they have promised over and over again that they won't. It uses the phone line every night to download programming information--it keeps a program schedule for about two weeks! That's about 13 days more than my DSS dish keeps, and of course regular cable only keeps what's on right now.
Also, keep in mind that while Philips manufactures the machine itself, there is a seperate company called "The TiVo Service" that actually provides the programming stuff. (That's who you pay your subscription fee to.) So if anyone is doing anything sketchy, it's TiVo, not Philips. I don't think they are anyway.
The best feature, IMHO, of the TiVo is ability to pause/rewind/slowmo live TV. I use this constantly during sports programming. A huge play in the NCAA tournament, but no replay on CBS? Make your own replay. Want to see if Keyshawn stepped out of bounds? Do a frame-by-frame. On several occasions I have been watching sports, and by using the TiVo have determined that the referees have made a bad call. And, like Rob said, it's great for if you get a phone call or something, or have to go to the bathroom during a program. Also, if you use TiVo for this reason, you can fast forward through commercials later, a definite plus.
TiVo is expensive, but if you watch a lot of TV then it's definitely something you should consider getting. Video quality ranges from excellent to average (depending on how much HDD space you want to take up). I'm confident that new features are forthcoming--the nightly modem call can also update the software, a good feature.
Got 500 bucks to spare? Like TV? Thinking about buying a new gadget? Get a Tivo. They rule.
Problem #1 (Score:5)
And just how happy do you think advertisers will be about this idea? True, you can turn off your normal TV during commercials, or tape it and fastforward through it -- but this box makes it so much easier! Then, I'm guessing it won't be another 2 years before someone comes along with a plugin to automatically filter commercials out. Hey, I'm all for it, of course -- no one likes commercials anyway, right? Well, we tend to forget that commercial money is what fuels the TV networks. As commercials become much easier to screen out, the money is going to drift off, and, inevitably, program quality will go (further) down. Not that I blame TiVo for this phenomenon -- it's most likely coming no matter what, but it's a concern nevertheless.