{"id":30,"date":"2008-02-08T13:38:41","date_gmt":"2008-02-08T18:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/2008\/02\/08\/thinking-about-the-tivohd\/"},"modified":"2008-04-25T07:49:07","modified_gmt":"2008-04-25T12:49:07","slug":"thinking-about-the-tivohd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/2008\/02\/08\/thinking-about-the-tivohd\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking about the TiVoHD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, as my last two posts implied, I own a <a title=\"TiVo main web site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tivo.com\/\">TiVo<\/a> again.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, I own a <a title=\"TiVoHD information from TiVo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tivo.com\/whatistivo\/tivohd\/index.html?WT.mc_id=hmpgebb_LearnTiVoHD&amp;WT.ac=hmpgebb_LearnTiVoHD\">TiVoHD<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 <a title=\"Amazon Unbox for TiVo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/video\/tivo\/\">Pay per view<\/a> on the TiVo works through <a title=\"Cheap TiVoHD at Amazon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/TiVo-TCD652160-Digital-Video-Recorder\/dp\/B000RZDBM2\">Amazon<\/a>, so they have the best price.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve been playing with it for 2 days now and I have some thoughts, comments, and a small review.<\/p>\n<p>The TiVoHD is a much different device from the <a title=\"Sony SVR-2000 TiVo on Amazon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Sony-SVR-2000-Digital-Video-Recorder\/dp\/B00005I9R3\">Series 1 TiVo<\/a> I received 7 years ago. The Series 1 was intended to be connected to your cable box as a pure <a title=\"Wikipedia: What is a DVR?\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Digital_video_recorder\">DVR<\/a> addition.\u00c2\u00a0 The TiVoHD becomes your cable box and your Internet\/TV media center.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s hard to compare them since they are very different devices.<\/p>\n<p>The Verizon FiOS cable box with DVR is a lot closer, and the TiVo is worse in some ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>you don&#8217;t get On Demand or Verizon&#8217;s pay per view<\/strong>: This is working with Comcast now if you live in the Boston area.\u00c2\u00a0 I shed no tears for pay per view, but On Demand had a lot of free content.<\/li>\n<li>t<strong>he TiVo interface is almost unacceptably slow<\/strong>: When you press a button on the remote, it takes anywhere from a half second to a full second for the device to register it.\u00c2\u00a0 To make matters worse, with a Dolby receiver, the TiVo sometimes doesn&#8217;t make a confirmation sound.\u00c2\u00a0 This problem makes the device feel cheap and hard to use.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m amazed that they released it without solving this problem.\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/reviews.cnet.com\/digital-video-recorders-dvrs\/tivo-hd-20-hd\/4505-6474_7-32511935.html\">Other<\/a> <a title=\"Youtube Video Review\" href=\"http:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=bsl8iH60pGY\">people<\/a> <a title=\"PC Magazine\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pcmag.com\/article2\/0,1895,2161820,00.asp\">think<\/a> <a title=\"Engadget\" href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2007\/07\/24\/tivo-hd-review-roundup\/\">so<\/a> <a title=\"PC World\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/id,134950-c,tivo\/article.html\">too<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>entering text using the remote (for searches) is much, much harder<\/strong>:\u00c2\u00a0 Verizon had the ability to use the letter substitutions on the number keys to enter text.\u00c2\u00a0 So 228 matched CAT and BAT, but searching was easier and faster.<\/li>\n<li><strong>the guide doesn&#8217;t show which shows will be recorded already<\/strong>: this didn&#8217;t work reliably on the Verizon DVR, but it was nice to look through the list of shows and see that The Daily Show was going to be recorded.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s better in a number of ways too: the <a title=\"Standard TiVo Guide\" href=\"http:\/\/dynamic.tivo.com\/resources\/images\/downloads\/LiveGuide_HD.jpg\">channel<\/a> <a title=\"TivoLovers: Grid Guide\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tivolovers.com\/Photos\/Series3-Review\/Small\/Guide-2.jpg\">guides<\/a> are much much nicer; scheduling shows is easier and more understandable; fewer bugs; the TV picture seems better somehow (maybe a better MPEG decoder?); easier to use; expandable storage; ability to record shows to DVD or VCR; closed caption support; a better remote; <a title=\"Swivel Search Review\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zatznotfunny.com\/2007-05\/tivo-unveils-swivel-search\/\">swivel search<\/a>; and <a title=\"Guru Guides\" href=\"http:\/\/www3.tivo.com\/tivo-tco\/mix\/index.do\">Guru Guides<\/a> which help you find interesting things to watch.<\/p>\n<p>But the most interesting thing about the new TiVoHD happens when you give it a broadband connection.\u00c2\u00a0 TiVo seems to be trying to make their device a full media center.\u00c2\u00a0 You can listen to Internet radio stations, (on your stereo!) log into online photo sites and view them on your TV, purchase and play movies from Amazon, etc., etc.\u00c2\u00a0 It will also allow you to download recorded shows and movies to your computer, (and then to your iPod, etc) stream photos and music from your computer, and transfer videos from your computer to your TiVo.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, TiVo has released an <a title=\"TiVO HME\" href=\"http:\/\/tivohme.sourceforge.net\/\">API to design new applications<\/a> and do <a title=\"Apps.tv\" href=\"http:\/\/www.apps.tv\/apps.php\">cool and interesting things<\/a>. And here again things fall down.\u00c2\u00a0 There are some developers creating <a title=\"PyTiVo\" href=\"http:\/\/pytivo.armooo.net\/\">interesting<\/a> <a title=\"Galleon\" href=\"http:\/\/galleon.tv\/\">things<\/a>, but development seems to be slowing or stopping.\u00c2\u00a0 A grand community doesn&#8217;t seem to have formed.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, the forum is <a title=\"The TiVo Developer's Forum\" href=\"http:\/\/sourceforge.net\/mailarchive\/forum.php?forum_name=tivohme-developer&amp;max_rows=25&amp;style=ultimate&amp;viewmonth=200801\">fairly quiet<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Obvious ideas like Youtube videos, Facebook monitors, or networked games aren&#8217;t even being discussed.<\/p>\n<p>So, what&#8217;s going on?\u00c2\u00a0 Is TiVo too hard to obtain now?\u00c2\u00a0 Is there not enough of an audience?\u00c2\u00a0 Are the hackers all using the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mythtv.org\/\">open source equivalents<\/a>? \u00c2\u00a0 Is it too hard to install and use third-party software?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is this just a community management or advertising problem?\u00c2\u00a0 Or am I missing a vibrant community of people? Does it cost too much for developers?\u00c2\u00a0 (The monthly price seems to be much cheaper than renting the Verizon box&#8230;)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, as my last two posts implied, I own a TiVo again.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, I own a TiVoHD.\u00c2\u00a0 Pay per view on the TiVo works through Amazon, so they have the best price.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve been playing with it for 2 days now and I have some thoughts, comments, and a small review. The TiVoHD is\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/2008\/02\/08\/thinking-about-the-tivohd\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[13,11,23,22,12,10,14],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-tivo","tag-fios","tag-open-source","tag-technology","tag-tivo","tag-tivo-hme","tag-tivohd","tag-verizon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xkahn.zoned.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}