Filed under: Home Entertainment

TiVo looks to be sending out its latest update for Series2 recorders on a first-come-first-service basis, taking requests for the update on a priority list on its website, and promising to get it out to you in three business days. According to TiVo, bumping your unit up to 8.1 will give you enhanced support for recording live events (like adding extra time), improved system performance, WPA network security and, well, that’s about it. While it’s just for Series2 units at the moment, TiVo seems to be saying that Series3 users can expect an update of their own as well, simply stating that “this update is not yet available for these units.”

[Via Zatz Not Funny!}

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Since advertisers — and broadcasting companies — aren’t exactly fond of folks cruising through those ads while watching a recorded show through their DVR, and can’t seem to get legislation to make it illegal passed just yet, a few companies have resorted to clever tactics to get those spots viewed. KFC offered up a “secret message” that could only be seen if witnessed in slo-mo, and TiVo has been testing fast-forward-proof banner ads to get the idea across even when blasting through the commercial breaks. Now Sony is getting in the act, by teasing viewers with an interactive plug for its Bravia TVs that shows “alternate endings” tailored to both men and women. It should be noted that only viewers watching through a DVR / TiVo will have the, um, luxury, of being able to pick and choose which endings to see. Sony apparently hopes to draw more attention to that fresh new LCD lineup by making stagnant ads a bit more lively, but we think they should be focusing on ramping up production on those sure-to-be-sold-out-everywhere PlayStation 3s.

[Via PVRWire]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment

Our peeps at Hack A Day just came across this sweet mod that combines a cell phone with a VCR — you know, the one you’ve been keeping on the off-chance that you might want to watch that tape your parents shot of your vacation to Sea World back in ’85. We’re not sure if it’s the VHS nostalgia or classic Ericsson, but something about this rig really makes us want to put away our mobile-enabled TiVos and Media Centers, and get back to basics recording our shows the hard way. It’s just more rewarding that way, ok?

[Via Hack A Day]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

So if you’re a consumer electronics manufacturer in the midst of a highly-publicized product release, you’d think that the last group of customers you’d want to alienate would be the die-hard fanatics who participate in your forums everyday and were among the very first to place orders for said product, right? Well judging by the tone of the comments on the TiVo Community boards, that’s exactly what the company has down to its so-called VIP subscribers — you know, the ones who possess those coveted lifetime subscriptions and woke up extra-early this past Tuesday to ensure that their new Series3 boxes would arrive the next day. Except TiVo apparently wasn’t ready to handle the deluge of orders that it received, and after two days of wondering what the heck was going on (calls to customer service were met by confusion and misinformation on the part of the phone reps), everyone finally received an email confirming the delays and promising shipment by Friday. Luckily TiVo had the good sense to refund the shipping charges — in some cases $50 worth — to these early adopters, but much to the VIPs’ displeasure, they learned that they’d be unable to cancel their pending orders if they wanted to go the retail route; and what’s more, there was some confusion as to whether store-bought TiVos would even be eligible for the $200 lifetime subscription transfer. As of this writing it seems that only a handful of folks actually got their boxes on Friday, with everyone else scrambling to reschedule the CableCARD installation appointments they’d made with their cable providers. So while there’s little argument that TiVo makes a fine product with a world-class interface, perhaps when it eventually comes out with the Series4, it’ll do some better planning or leave distribution to the professionals — apparently, TiVo and e-commerce don’t seem to go too well together lately.

[Via HDBeat]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Either cable channel FX reads Engadget, pays attention to USPTO filings, and/or is genuinely concerned that it’s wasting away (along with other American TV advertisers) an estimated total of $8 billion annually. On September 22 and only in the UK (for now), FX will use its 30-second ad slot to display a single still image hawking its new drama “Brotherhood,” so that the estimated one-third of its British audience using a PVR device (like this Sky box shown at right) will be able to follow FX’s sales pitch even after thrice hitting the fast forward button. We wonder if this may actually be more effective than those “interactive and on-demand” ads that have been showing up on TiVo over the last few months. Apparently the US PVR audience isn’t quite yet ready for the sheer awesome power of low-tech advertising (no, not this one) that has existed for well over a century in print magazines.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Features, HDTV, Home Entertainment

You didn’t think we’d leave you without some accompanying videos, now do you? Dave shot some sweet videos of unboxing the new TiVo Series3, the new TiVo bootup sequence, and going through all the new high def video modes. Definitely a must see for TiVo fans whose staid boxes have changed very little in the past few years. Enjoy!

Watch [WMV] – unboxing
Watch [WMV] – startup sequence
Watch [WMV] – video mode options

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Filed under: Features, HDTV, Home Entertainment

The world’s first THX-certified, dual CableCARD DVR has finally arrived in the form of TiVo’s Series3. It doesn’t come cheap with a price tag of $799 (don’t forget service!), but it’s a fine cable company DVR replacement if your budget allows it. What are you waiting for, click on for the full rundown and lots more pics!

Design

Oh come on, like you need us to tell you that the S3 is TiVo’s best looking DVR to date. The solid unit has a gleaming black top with a stylish black and silver front bezel. From a couch, the front-panel OLED display serves little practical purpose without Chuck Yeager vision (or better), though we’ve really enjoyed studying it up close. TiVo’s trademark peanut remote is glossy, well balanced, and features pleasantly glowing buttons.

Functionality

The TiVo interface is exactly what you’d expect: after all these years, the competition still hasn’t been able to match the intuitiveness, ease, and power of the original DVR. Familiar features such as Wishlists, Suggestions, and Season Passes are present. Music and photo streaming from Mac or PC also work as expected.

Toggling between tuners can be performed via the programming info menu or by pressing the LiveTV button on the remote. Any two incoming signals can be recorded simultaneously with the option of watching a third signal of recorded content.

The Series3 is designed to replace a cable box, not control it. The S3 supports OTA broadcasts (both ATSC and NTSC) in addition to analog cable, but to fully appreciate the unit a pair of CableCARDs are needed. If our experience is representative, getting them installed will test your patience. The S3 supports CableCARD 1.0, and it’s our understanding a single M-Card (CC 1.0+) will replace 2 CableCARDs once they become available.

HD details

Obviously, the primary selling point of this unit is its ability to handle HD. Not only does the S2 handle OTA and digital NTSC, it includes a variety of settings to optimize incoming content for specific screen types. Unlike analog recordings, digital content is directly recorded bit for bit without any degradation of quality. The trade-off is that the unit only stores about 30 hours of HD programming (or up to 300 hours of SD). Tribune guide data now includes information source video resolution in case your eyes still can’t tell the difference between a nice cable signal and a fat HD pipe. The Now Playing list includes a dedicated HD folder.

Specifications

While the Series3 provides only two inputs (antenna and cable), the THX-certified unit finally provides numerous outputs including HDMI and optical audio. The S3 contains a 250GB Western Digital Caviar hard drive plus an eSATA port, which paves the way for future storage options. While we weren’t able to receive confirmation from TiVo, we feel it’s likely the internal hard drive can be upgraded. Connectivity to the mother ship is (still) handled via phone, Ethernet, or supported USB network adapters. The hardware supports AVC (aka H.264) though it hasn’t been enabled in the software yet, which leaves us wondering what TiVoCast might have in store for us down the road.

Disappointments and concerns

TiVo continues to develop and evaluate Multi-Room Viewing, TiVoToGo, and external hard drive support in relation to CableLabs certification. While we recognize certain aspects of this issue are largely out of TiVo’s control, the absence of these value-added features makes the MSRP more difficult to swallow. And while we were pleasantly surprised that the Series3 allows you to scan and tune unencrypted QAM programming, we were disappointed in the inability to manually map those channels to their respective networks. TiVo tells us this functionality is being evaluated for a future software update. Lastly, the cable industry appears to be in flux and it’s not clear when/if technologies such as OCAP and SDV might impact Series3 functionality.

Cost and Availability

Being an early adopter is gonna cost you. Those leaks and our own forecast were spot-on: $799 will be the price of admission. Unfortunately for potential S3 consumers, TiVo is at a disadvantage compared to the deep-pocketed cable companies and satellite providers who operate under a different business model and underwrite hardware costs. If it’s any consolation, the 30-hour Series1 and the HD DirecTiVo both retailed for $1k at launch (and then proceeded to drop in price).

Service fees remain $12.95 a month, or $6.95/month for those who currently have a non-bundled pricing unit subscription. TiVo also offers pre-paid pricing at the rate of $155.40 for one year or $299 for two years. TiVo is offering two promotions in conjunction with the release of the S3. First, you can prepay three years of service for the price of two ($299). Second, as we revealed last week, $199 lets you move Lifetime Service from a S1 or S2 unit to the new S3.

Units go on sale today at TiVo.com and should be showing up within the next week or so at Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry’s, and Ultimate Electronics. Good luck on that decision!

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

So the worst-kept secret in the consumer electronics industry right now is that TiVo is on the verge of releasing the CableCARD-sportin’, HD-recordin’ Series 3 box — but no one seems to know exactly when you’ll be able to buy one. We heard from Todd the Best Buy employee that the new machines will be in stock on the 17th of this month, and now our friend Dave over at ZatzNotFunny has spotted the highly-anticipated DMR (remember, they’re not DVRs anymore, and TiVo won’t sell you one if you use that terminology) on Circuit City’s website showing an October availability. Now does that mean October 1st? The 15th? The 31st? Well if we knew, we’d tell ya, but at least now we seem to have an actual release window: the Series 3 will (probably) be available sometime between September 17th and October 31st. As usual, we’ll keep you posted as more information comes to light, but if that’s not good enough, you’re always welcome to switch over to satellite and pick up on of DirecTV’s new HR20-700 HD DVRs — thanks to HDBeat, we know that Best Buy will ship you one of those post haste.

Read- Series 3 [Via ZatzNotFunny]
Read- HR20-700 [Via HDBeat]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

We know that the TiVo isn’t inexpensive by any means: currently the highest tier (180-hour TiVo Series2 DT DVR) will run you a few hundred dollars per year. However, the newest TiVo, the Series3 will retail for $800, a fair jump from its last iteration. HDBeat examines the question: is the Series3 is really worth 400 Jeffersons (or 80 Hamiltons, take your pick) ? Here’s some of the things you’ll get for shelling out that wad of dough: NTSC, analog cable and un-encrypted QAM support, eSATA support, front panel display, Ethernet port, two USB ports, HDMI TOSLINK and component out, can record OTA or cable, and, of course, has CableCARD support. Also, we should remind you that your lifetime TiVo subscription is transferrable to the Series3 for an additional $200 (though it’s possible that TiVo’s dealings with Cox and other cable companies may make it possible for you to get yer paws on a slightly stripped down model for far less cash). Still, TiVo certainly has a lot of catching up to do in the marketplace, and the high price will make it difficult to help out the company’s bottom line — we’re gunning for ‘em, though.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

Looks like Popular Mechanics either jumped the gun or got the scoop, but either wait it’s displayed plain as day in their October issue that the price on the Series3 is, in fact, going to be $800. Um, that’s it. Didn’t sound like there was a launch date issued in this month’s book, but big ups to reader Matt for sending it in!

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

Things are looking up for EchoStar. After getting slammed hard yesterday with $90 million in initial damages and a permanent injunction that requires them to disable all DVR functionality for users in 30 days, EchoStar has managed to get a stay on TiVo‘s injunction while the court battle rages on. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals did the honors today, halting the Thursday injunction by a Texas Court, and while the current stay is temporary (they don’t say for how long), EchoStar is hoping for a longer-term stay, and are fighting for an eventual overturn of the Texas decision. Doesn’t seem like we’re close to the finish line here yet, so we suppose DISH Network users can go on with their regularly scheduled time-shifted lives for the time being.

[Via HD Beat]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

Way back in April a jury agreed with TiVo that EchoStar willfully infringed upon TiVo’s patent for a “multimedia time-warping system.” Then crickets for the last 4 months as the two battled it out in both the court of public opinion and at a bench trial where TiVo requested a permanent injunction against the provider of the DISH Network. Well, the ruling is in and EchoStar must pay TiVo an initial award of about $90 million and must disable all infringing DVR functionality within, oh, 30 days — we’re talking switching off the DVR functionality of four million users. Ouch! Oh, and EchoStar can’t sell new boxes, either. Is it just us or does little TiVo seem to be extra smiley this morning?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in, via Zatz Not Funny]

Update: EchoStar is definitely going to attempt to stay the injunction (they’d be fools not to) — more on that as it develops!

Read – Reuters coverage
Read – EchoStar’s response

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

The continuing challenge that Macrovision seems to have with flagging TiVo content has claimed another victim. A harmless and potentially terribly boring flick from 1968 called “A Flea in Her Ear” has been flagged to expire within 24 hours of its first viewing once recorded to your TiVo in a totally legit manner. We’re sure TiVo has some lame excuse this time like “broadcast noise” or something else totally irrelevant (the recording was, once again, made by a cable subscriber), and yes, we’re sure nobody is terribly choked up about not being able to keep this flick around forever and ever. But it still threatens to uproot a very cornerstone of our freedom, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of TiVo. Thomas Jefferson would be totally ticked off.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

So what's the dealio, DirecTV? The vicious cycle of delays surrounding its upcoming HD DVR has definitely not been pleasing, and these release date reports are beginning to lose clout. What we do know is that DirecTV's HD DVR has been delayed for months, and according to analyst speculation, the delay could be stemming from inventory shortages. Although we recently reported that you could (possibly) expect this much-anticipated device to drop in the September / October time frame, DirecTV has crafted a new statement shaving a month or so off that estimate. The company seems so sure (or just desperate?) about the forecast that a spokesperson made a point to "clarify that it's rolling out in LA in mid-August." While we realize it may actually be this fall before those outside of California get their paws on one, at least this party would finally get started somewhere. But before we put too much stock in what DirecTV is selling, it also proclaimed that "the box has performed magnificently in tests." While we can muster some patience waiting for a product to be done right, the question beckons: if it's all good, what the heck is taking so long?

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

In what could be seen as something of an ironic move, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has just awarded TiVo — the same company that’s made life more difficult for networks, cable companies, and industry-supporting advertisers — a 2006 Emmy award for “outstanding achievement in enhanced television programming.” Services like TiVo KidZone and TiVoCast helped the DVR king beat out such offerings as AOL’s Music on Demand, CNN Enhanced, and DirecTV’s Interactive Sports, with the official statuette being awarded on August 19th at the Creative Arts Awards Ceremony being held in L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium. Congratulations, TiVo, you’ve certainly had a big week: first you launched your Audience Research and Measurement division, then you formed a sweet marketing agreement with BellSouth, and now you’ve been honored for all your hard work with a shiny Emmy — but don’t go resting on your laurels quite yet, as it looks like there may still be dark clouds just over the horizon.

[Via Zatz Not Funny]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Remember how TiVo recently sent that letter to the FCC and cable operators telling them to be prepared for the Series 3 rollout, partly because of reports that some providers were refusing to hook up beta testers with the necessary CableCARDS? Well now it looks like the company's concerns may be completely legitimate, as a complaint on the website ConsumerFury contends that Time Warner Cable's Raleigh division responded to a recent customer inquiry on the matter by stating that "Time Warner Cable of Raleigh does not provide support for or allow TiVo devices on our cable network...CableCARDS will only be installed on cable-ready, CableCARD-slot-available television sets." Pretty harsh, especially considering the fact that Time Warner's policy may not even be legal: federal regulations concerning CableCARDS seem to indicate that providers must support them for any unidirectional TV, set-top-box, or recording device connected to a digital cable system. We certainly understand that cable companies see TiVo as a direct competitor to their own DVR offerings, but we're not sure that alienating customers with such a hard-line stance is the best move; after all, isn't a customer who brings his/her own DVR to the table better than no customer at all?

[Via TiVoBlog]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

Talk about having your cake and eating it too: after having sent the advertising industry into a tizzy by enabling consumers to skip over its commercials, TiVo is now offering to sell those very same ad agencies and their clients hard data on the actual effects of DVR usage. The company’s new Audience Research and Measurement division will initially utilize a random sampling of 22,000 subscribers to provide corporate customers with information about specific ads — such as how many people viewed them during certain airings — though the numbers will not be tied to specific demographic details. It will also use the collected data to tease out trends that may help advertisers combat the growing “problem” of commercial skipping; for instance, the type of program hosting an ad and its position in the commercial block may explain why it was viewed more often during one broadcast than another. This new offering may see TiVo heading towards a marketplace showdown with ratings giant Nielsen Media Research, whose own ad-tracking initiative is scheduled to launch this fall — although it will not actually collect data on individual commercials. Once again, we’ve really got to hand it to TiVo — the company that once looked poised for bankruptcy in the face of increasing DVR commodification has once again managed to stay in the game by leveraging the power of its considerable subscriber base to further diversify its revenue stream.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

So it looks like TiVo is finally getting ready to roll out the long-awaited Series 3 DVR Digital Media Recorder, and just in the nick of time, it would seem; from what we can tell, consumers are chomping at the bit to start capturing the growing variety of high definition broadcasts available to them, making HTPCs a more attractive alternative as the days, weeks, and months pass with no HD TiVo. Zatz Not Funny is reporting that the DVR giant recently sent letters to both the FCC and major cable operators stating that Series 3 boxes are already being beta tested around the country and will be available "soon," though no actual release date is given. According to the letters, the CableLabs-certified device will sport two separate UDCP CableCARD slots, and TiVo is concerned about reports that certain cable installers have been refusing to provide beta testers with the necessary support -- no big surprise, as the industry has never shown much love for CableCARDs in the first place. Now, of course, we all want to know how TiVo defines the word "soon" -- previous speculation has centered around a September or early October release -- but we've been covering this beat long enough to know that hazarding a guess is pretty much useless, and that we won't find out any more info until the company is good and ready to reveal its launch plans. [Warning: PDF link]

[Via Zatz Not Funny]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

Following last month's deal with web video publisher Brightcove, TiVo has announced another round of partnerships that will bring various on-demand video clips to broadband-equipped Series 2 owners, with a new service called TiVoCast. The company has been making moves in this direction for some time now, but this is the first time we're being offered content that we'd actually bother watching, including NBA and WNBA highlights, New York Times-produced video (featuring David Pogue's often-humorous reviews), advice from CNET, and a dose of hip hop culture from H2O, along with male- and female-targeted programming from Heavy.com and iVillage, respectively. The new content -- accessible from the "Showcases" screen -- will not be available to everyone, however, as USA Today is reporting that neither DirecTV subscribers nor Comcast customers will have access to any of these value-added TiVoCast downloads.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

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Filed under: Features, Home Entertainment

Nonetheless, while adoption of Media Center has grown significantly as it has become a more popular option on high-end PCs, relatively few of these PCs have tuner cards integrated into them, and fewer still are actively being connected to a television. Meedio, then, at least as it exists today, is a long way from solidifying Yahoo’s “third screen.” Contrast this with TiVo’s customers, virtually all of whom access its services via a real television — televisions that are increasingly relying on a brain for their content as much as PC monitors.

That makes TiVo, which shares Google’s affinity for Linux, a more attractive acquisition candidate for the cash-flush search king, one that would leapfrog Yahoo! when Google seems focused on recreating much of it. Just as Microsoft subsidizes TV schedule content fees for Media Center, Google could do so for “GiVo” and once again offer customers and prospective customers an opportunity to enjoy the service without the now-inescapable subscription fees, thus providing a more differentiated alternative to cable DVR.

In return, Google could employ its knack for non-intrusive advertising to capture millions of more eyeballs, treating recorded shows, actors, directors and the rest of TiVo’s metadata playground as targeted keywords. TiVo, which has had only one profitable quarter in its history, would find its white (or blue, red, yellow and green) knight.

Without the sketchy proposition of an integrated Web browser, a Google-powered TiVo would lack the clickthrough immediacy of the Web, but at least part of the purpose of a “three screen” strategy is to stimulate cross-platform services. Selected ads could take the form of short videos or bookmarks that could show up in a PC-based Web feed or cell phone Java application.

The real winners would be TiVo users. First, of course, Google’s search technology would instantly improve TiVo’s usability. The large library of video that the company is hosting could also be presented in an Akimbo-like interface; existing TiVo hooks in Picasa could be enhanced to enable photos sharing across the Internet to other TiVo devices. Google’s Web savvy and communication infrastructure (Google Talk and Gmail) would also likely usher in new functionality, like the ability to tag shows that friends could opt in to record. Hooks to Blogger could make it trivial to comment on last night’s episode of Lost (complete perhaps with screen shots).

Google, which seeks to index the world’s information, would gain a treasure trove of data and relevance. Post-acquisition, Google could display screen shot links to relevant TV shows or perhaps even commercials in response to a Web search. Clicking their icons on a Google’s Web results page would schedule a recording. Of course, Google could also pursue deals with cable and satellite providers, and the company’s content and service focus, and freedom from subscription fees, would likely make a Google-owned TiVo a more attractive partner than today’s independent company.

TiVo is a CableCard slot away from its best shot at controlling the televisions of its viewers. So, Google, in your search for a television strategy, are you feeling lucky?

Please also see the following stories on TiVo and Google: Google has plans for TV, too?, TiVo to score big deal with either Google or Yahoo?

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Ross Rubin is director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm The NPD Group and a contributing editor for LAPTOP. Views expressed in Switched On are his own. Feedback is welcome at fliptheswitch@gmail.com.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs, Networking

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

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