This week’s specials includes a Mexican movie, El Callejon de los Milagros, which can be purchased FREE. Or you can conveniently choose to RENT it for $2.99. 😮 Its not TiVo unless its a … oh, well. 😉
You can find the movie under the Special Deals category right on your TiVo.
Not sure why in the world this movie would be offered as a free bee. Free downloads coould indicate tough going for TiVo on Unbox or just good marketing, but this?
Enjoy!
TDG is pretty hot on the meaning of the new Unbox on TiVo Direct.
Unfortunately these guys haven’t heard of the Xbox (Live!) or heard that the DT & S3 are selling like cr@p. 😉
However, they are right in theory about the importance of getting video to and ordered from a TV-connected box to expand the DOD business.
7/12
New Media, old formulas, structural changes.
Added Sweeney, “It’s not just about the new media and how that might impact our businesses. It is about the whole structure of the business.”
“I devote an awful lot of my day right now to dealing with new media and where our content is,” said Moonves, who wants to avoid having the TV and movie business follow in the footsteps of the music industry. “You’d be surprised how often I’m dealing with that now in my day-to-day life in New York City. I wouldn’t know how to begin to talk about a formula (or) how this would be shared since it is such an experiment right now for all of us.”
The executives are taking aim at residual structures established in the early 1960s and partially revised 20 years ago, when the guilds went on strike to fight a losing battle over residuals for videos. The unions have vowed not to be left behind again when it comes to broadband and other new technologies.
The most vocal of the three, Meyer said, “We have to make fair deals. We just think that the model has to change, that the sharing should be done on profitability…”
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Video downloads planned for TiVo in Australia. Megazone. Especially interesting is the plan to include YouTube videos. YouTube recently started going AVC for iPhone; this may indicate TiVo boxes will have access to AVC content from places like YouTube – and why not in the U.S.? 😉
Other video content from the internet, such as YouTube clips, would also feature prominently. But only a limited number of content sites would be supported for the sake of usability.
“You can’t open up the world because the fact is [with TiVo] you’re navigating the world with a remote control – it’s very different to sitting at your PC,” said Mr Lund.
7/11
TWC is Lovin’ SDV:
Time Warner Cable Austin’s Director of Digital Systems Todd Bowen
“Any channel that is put into SDV is unavailable to CableCard equipped (unidirectional) TVs and PVRs such as the TiVo Series 3,” writes Bowen. The resultant subscriber experience of loss can be “emotional,” he adds. (An understatement, given the psychological profile of a typical TiVo devotee.)
🙂
We knew ordering via Unbox would come soon, and it is here today.
I’ve looked at this from a couple of directions and I see a modest revenue contribution to TiVo from the Unbox orders. Assuming TiVo gets 10% of revenue, I figure in the beginning TiVo is due for revenues in the 10’s of thousands per month.
There are several points of resistance to Unbox as it stands. 1) Video & audio quality: less than DVD and stereo only. 2) Price – interest really kicks in with 99 cent rentals. 3) Viewing can only start after download completes.
As TiVo’s broadband connected units grow – even in spite of an end to growth in total SA units next year – I expect its Unbox revenues to grow. Also, business will pop when HD/anamorphic/DD5.1 content becomes available. I’m sure there will be a little extra business from tire kickers this week too. Eliminating the delay in viewing the rental/purchase would allow for more spontaneous use.
It is going to take several quarters before Unbox revenue makes a noticeable contribution to the company’s revenues.
References:
AccuStream Research: Streaming Subscription and Download Media Forecast at $2.6 Bil. in ’07
Download movies, forecast at $60 million in 2007, is up 133.4% over 2006, and on track to break the $100 million threshold in 2008.
Movie revenue growth has been hampered by limited availability of both front line titles and catalog depth
IPTV Will Take Off, Says Study
Netflix: 5M Online Views in Six Months
Netflix Instant Watching Feature Scores 5 Million Viewings in First 6 Months – Press Release
TiVo Eliminates PC from Movie-Download Equation
Neither Andrew Pray, a TiVo spokesman, nor Drew Herdener, a spokesman for Amazon, would say how many customers used the service.
Some of the stars of Stargate have put together a film called A Dog’s Breakfast which is available on UnBox and iTunes.
Those of us with broadband connected TiVoes get a near exclusive through UnBox on TiVo. 🙂
TiVo is offering a discount on the DT (80 or 180) of $15 to be used towards Unbox. Its not clear how they enforce that since it looks like the $15 comes off at check out.
TiVo has released a new search feature run from an HME app called Universal Swivel Search.
Called what? Well, ok this is TiVo, and they are not the brightest bunch.
USS is a necessary addition to program search features to keep TiVo competitive. It could be a platform for the future of TiVo searching if the application is extended properly.
What does it do that Wishlist and title search didn’t do. Well, first, it ONLY searches for title keywords (incl. wildcards, ie. ‘wo’ = woman = worst …) So far you’ve gotten nowhere. But then the process expands into links based on various criteria like Actor, Director …. So if you know the title of a program, and it is showing on a channel you receive in the next 13 days or a download is available, then you can get somewhere. USS also contains data not just from TV channel schedules, but UnBox and TiVoCast, unlike the old search functions that only have the TV channels.
From a show you locate you can then search other criteria, but every search is individual and only produces other shows. Forget about searching movies Alan Alda has been in with Carole Burnett, because its going to give you everything AA has been in – TV and all. Oh, well, could have used the Wishlist thing to filter on AA movies. Basically USS reminds me of a HyperCard app. As I recall, you put in a bunch of data into each card with links to the other cards. Thus you could find all cards with Valerie Harper on them, but not isolate cards where Marlon Brando acted with Roger Corman as director.
To illustrate the limitations of using USS, suppose you want to search for Marlon Brando. First you have to think of the name of a movie he was in and hope it comes up, otherwise think of another title… Once you find a title, its easy to go into it and choose MB under Actors. Then you get everything MB was in (haven’t figured out if titles he directed but didn’t act in would come up,) but you can’t narrow any further. However, you can easily go into each title and back out to the MB screen to hunt and peck for what you want.
USS also isn’t fully integrated into the TiVo DVR interface yet. While it is accessible from a program in the Now Playing List, you can’t get at it from a Program Record screen. Thus, you can’t leverage off things you might find with a Wishlist, an important shortcoming.
USS is good for a first release, but needs much more development to keep TiVo in the running.
The strength of a TiVo in the broadcasting world is that it is a universal receiver of content. TiVo is largely unprepared for the transition to Internet delivery. Unfortunately its legacy boxes don’t support natively the standards being used; even the S3 is missing much in that area.
Meanwhile, the emerging competition is offering greater versatility in the reception of Internet content.
Broadcast home movies.
Confusion: You don’t use it because you have a TiVo, you use it because someone you know has a TiVo. Actually, you use it because you want to publish something, and that the occassional TiVo can now receive it too is a little boost. If you have a TiVo, you ask the person you want to hear from to use it.
Not terribly useful in the way it is presented, but potential for niche content creators to distribute to modest sized followings.
Cellphone Programming:
Minimally useful.
Time to stop reading the article after leading with these two dullards.
TiVoCast:
Content is a C- and is destined to remain in the C’s because of the need for TiVo to sign up each source. TiVo will never keep pace with the changes in popularity and availability of content.
Operation is a B. Casts come days late or not at all at times. Content producers seem responsible for reliability of delivery. The internet is much about instant access; getting Casts hours or days late is a negative.
Overall a B-ish grade.
Amazon Unbox:
Overall the best offering with the most potential. Remains to be seen what Amazon Unbox can provide for content. Content is expensive.
Podcasts:
Pogue obviously hasn’t tried to pause one. Without manual intervention, you are limited to the choices TiVo displays. Grade C.
Guru Guides:
An absolutely terrible idea (maybe because I am not a follower) that just doesn’t work. I’m not sure it even interacts with TiVoCast.
Music & Photos:
Nothing new; this has been around for years. It works nicely for what it does, but is very limited in features and limited to MP3…No signs it will ever be enhanced.
Internet Radio:
It works pretty well and is worth using for listening to radio.
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Missing mention:
Autotranscode:
Here is where I think TiVo could make some hay. Using PCs to receive and process a broad range of content to be transmitted to the TiVo boxes in a way they can handle is necessary. Let’s see how far TiVo can get with this.
I found a bug that allows me to download an Unbox vid to several tivoes.
After clicking the download button on the downloads page with the list of your unbox videos, you get a thumbnail page with a drop down box to choose the device and click another download button.
After doing that, a confirm page comes up (for me in a new tab) which I close. I am left with the prior thumbnail page that still has the drop down box. I can then choose another device to download to and click download…
… repeat as many times as you like. I have a vid on 4 tivoes right now.
The downloads to each TiVo happen one at a time, and not necessarily in the order you requested.
An enterprising fellow, Doug Swallow, has created an HME App which allows browsing and purchasing of Unbox content on your TiVo. Doug gets 10% of the revenue from the referals.
The program requires you to run it on a PC to avoid giving your personal information to third parties. You’d have to be a fairly active Unbox browser to make that desirable; TiVo’s future app will be hosted by them (or Amazon,) and perhaps have access to functionality folks like Doug aren’t afforded. On the other hand, someone like Doug will probably come up with innovations beyond TiVo’s version within what he can make use of.
People like Doug doing this calls into question the size of the business TiVo can get, but makes the possibility of good business for Amzon greater, and that means TiVo is more likely to get premium content in future deals.
TiVo announced Home Movies today.
I expect little impact from the offering, which I looked at previously.
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This is actually a Beta program with limited usage until 4/30/07.
Just a week after enabling downloads on the S3, comes Amazon Unbox to all broadband connected Series 2 and 3s. The blue dot on the S3 pops on while while the Unbox video is downloading. In my case, with the $15 of download credits a TiVo user gets – thank you TiVo and thank you Amazon – I can buy the 4 (too bad I bought one to try out when Unbox/TiVo was announced) 3 lbs episodes I don’t have free and have change left over for rentals.
Like other TiVoCast content, the Unboxes can’t be played while downloading, so don’t be fooled by the buggy menu that indicates a play option right away; once you see the Keep Until option you’re good to go. Also, don’t bother looking in the To Do List, or thinking MRV/TTG.
For TiVo the bit rate has been upped to 2800 from 2500, but all the videos so far are MPEG2 4×3 (Letterboxed if Widescreen – no Anamorphic to date.) *
I also want to deal with License Purgatory…
Purchased Unbox vids can be downloaded to 2 PC/TiVo devices total. Downloads to each PC lock up one license which can’t be easily released. According to Amazon personnel, in order to release some licenses without having to download the content you want to keep all over again: move your existing Unbox content to another folder (except the video(s) you want to release,) uninstall the Unbox software, reinstall Unbox software, move content back into the Unbox folder and use the “Import” option under the Help Menu to get Unbox to recognize the videos. I haven’t done this, and also don’t know what might happen if you re-import a copy of the video you wanted to release after you’ve sent it to another device.
Each TiVo seems to act like a PC, except it is easy to release the License: Just delete the Unbox vid (completely incl. the Recently Deleted folder) from the TiVo and within about 3 minutes the License is free to use on another of your registered TiVoes or PCs.
As you can readily see, you lock yourself into a bad position downloading to PCs, so keep an unfettered License for your TiVoes.
* Edit: I might as well mention that sound is only MP2 Stereo. Also, since the 2500kbps for PC is video bit rate, I figure 2800 for TiVo is also; the 192kbps audio is on top of that.
See also – https://hdtivo.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/tivo-gets-significant-content-via-amazon-unbox/
TiVoCast was enabled on the Series 3 last night. Once your S3 connects it will ‘get the message.’
So far reaction on TCF is minimal with only a handful of people commenting. Downloading things virtually no one would want to your Series 3 is just not very exciting. Amazon Unbox will create more buzz when it becomes available in a few weeks.
TiVo announced its first significant mainstream content deal today. I have no details on the financial arrangement; whether or not TiVo is sharing in the revenue, this is the first positive news from the company in a very long time.
Series 2 and 3 TiVoes will get access to the Unbox content. The Series 2 will obviously have to get an MPEG-2 version, but it is not clear what the Series 3 will get. Apparently the formal roll out is down the road enough to include the Series 3 which will eventually get TiVoCast.
As I recall, the Amazon videos are 640×480 (nearly DVD quality) and some have DD5.1 sound. Not sure about whether they ever are anamorphic. The videos are WMV – essentially mpeg-4. According to the specs shown by Amazon, the videos are encoded at about 2.5mbps, which is great for mp4, but not so hot for mpeg-2. TiVo and Amazon claim the quality is better than TiVo BEST (5.5mbps @ 480×480) but that likely refers to resolution rather than overall quality.
According to Amazon, Unbox vids can be watched while downloading – after a brief delay. TiVoCast is not designed to allow such streamloading, and requires completion of the download before starting to watch. This is an odd design and breaks with the MRV/TTC&G way, which allows immediate viewing.
The content pricing at $1.99 for a TV episode and $3.99 for a movie rental, will keep this a very niche business, but until it is clear what you are really getting in the movie purchase, I’ll reserve judgement about movie pricing. When TV eps are $.25 this business will get interesting.
You can repeatedly download the videos to various devices (PCs, TiVoes, mobile players), but at the same time, not being able to just transfer videos via TiVo’s MRV or TTG is a waste of Internet bandwidth, and probably slower. I guess the “problem” of bandwidth costs has been solved by Amazon. 😉 From TiVo’s point of view, I expect Amazon is paying all the freight here and the TiVo box is just a receiver, leaving TiVo, Inc. with no costs. Referring back to the earlier comment about revenue sharing, it is just as likely that TiVo gets nothing from this, but gets a boost to the value of its service fee.
The bottom line is this is one a the biggest days in TiVo’s history. Good luck.
So TiVo and Comcast will someday put TiVoSoft on an SA box. Big surprise, as if no one saw that coming – and for the even more susceptible to shock – the port might be easier the second time! This PC World story – includes video of the MOT version.
According to Zatz, the demo was somewhat mocked up in that it wasn’t running off a real Comcast headend and there was ‘pre-populated content’, so the smoothness of the hardware response is questionable. I am betting on very poor real world performance considering all the JAVA/pre-OCAP/Middleware non-sense to make this buggy go.
DirecTiVo customers are having service problems and now TiVo is getting sued for patent infringement. Somehow the IP money flows just keep ending up in the debit column. Speaking of the debit column, two weeks until the end of FY07.
Not much excitement in music or TiVoCast. TiVo is providing access to Real Networks’ Rhapsody and Music Choice music videos. Music Choice provides those still pictures on those music cable channels. Will the few music video fans out there have to fumble around some huge library with the HME interface and wait 20 min for each video to fully download? Reaction to the offerings was pretty much silence; no word on whether pause works either.
Mac users finally got something, but it was from Roxio for $100. You can get it for less, but, again, what are they paying the service fee for? I keep hearing its not just for the Guide.
Now I wasn’t all that excited by what I heard about Vista, etal. or AppleTV, but that will be a rapidly evolving story which I may write about in the next days.
Looks like I’ll be spending New Year’s Eve without watching Rocketboom on my shiny new $800680 Series3.
TiVo just downloaded 8.01c to folks and there is still no sign of TiVoCast on the unit. You can probably forget any more software updates this year, so there goes the Nov. ’06 update into January along with eSata dreams.
The only hope is that everything is OK on the box side and just waiting to be enabled in software during a dialy connection when TiVo’s end is ready.
Otherwise its just another broken promise. 😦
I downloaded several TiVoCast offerings and calculated the following bit rates:
So the bit rates do vary widely. I did a poor job timing, but downloads were less than realtime, more like .5X. My Internet connection can sustain download speeds of 5mb.
Downloads tended to start 5-8 min. after selection or after the preceeding download.
No clue about resolution without TTG, and my limited skill set.
TiVoCast 2.0 was switched on in the middle of the night and we’ve gotten a decent look at it so far.
TiVoCast 2.0 is the debut of TiVoCast on the TiVo box; before you did everything on the Web and the box received the videos. The box still gets the videos in Now Playing, but there is a new HME App called TiVoCast accessed from the bottom of Find Programs.
The HME does everything, only the downloaded videos are handled in NP. That means TiVoCast SPs don’t show up in the Season Pass menu and TiVoCast DLs are not in the To Do List.
Lack of integration into the DVR interface means the HME app needs to emulate as well as possible, and of course that’s rather imperfect for now. Frankly it is not simple and obvious. That TiVo didn’t just put it all in the DVR interface with the exact look and feel is a mistake.
Another big mistake is that TiVoCast can not, and will not in the foreseeable future, allow Downloads in progress to be watched! Excuse me, I thought this was a TiVo.
We send the file in a particular encrypted and compressed format, and the decompression and unencryption can only occur once the download is complete.
On the plus side, our average subscriber is able to download an average TiVoCast episode for (for example) Rocketboom in about 12 minutes, so you don’t have to wait too long.
Without Streamloading, forget watching long form content queued the same night – movies are out. Sounds like there is about a 1/3X download speed, so if you choose your movie at the 10 am coffee break, I guess that’s OK. Haven’t checked the bit rates much yet, but a 15 min CNET came in around 5mbps.
Oh, and you’ll be thrilled – not – that there’s DRM to the max (almost.) No MRV transfers; don’t bring up TTG smart guy. Plus the content providers are so stingy, they will only let you store 10 episodes at a time out of fear that you are not watching their stuff. No explanation for thatlogic when to store so many episodes you have to manually KUID on them which shows you care. Did I mention no Keep Until option?
TiVoCast still has the same limited (amount and interest) content as before; the meager functionality doesn’t matter much if you are not using it much.
Overall, what I’m seeing of TiVoCast is making me more sure that I’ll be riding the Vista Tsunami next year.
A couple of links to info about the future TiVoCast thingy…
Brief Interface Demo – Nov. 15th
Evan Young, TiVo Dir. of Broadband Services at Streaming Media West 2006, presents a strategic overview – Nov. ??
The Vista Tsunamis are coming, the first one hitting the day before Thanksgiving as Microsoft unveils its video download service to the Xbox 360.
The service will offer High Definition video including the remastered Star Trek series, and a decent assortment of other content to start.
The TV shows are download to own only, which is unfortunate. Many folks would love to download a missed episode for $.25 but couldn’t care less about owning them. Ownership at a reasonable $1.00 is always a possibility for enthusiasts. Buying an entire series (or season) for $.50 or $.75 per episode would be a good option.
On the other hand, movies are download to rent only. Now there’s something lots of folks would like to own for a few more dollars, as well as renting for $2 or $3.
Early DOD services like these will accelerate in acceptance once more reasonable prices and terms become available to consumers. That $24M in revenue iTunes got for $2 TV shows could be $250M for $.25 rentals.
Terms will also have to change. Viewing within 24 hrs is unreasonable because you can’t finish the next night without paying another fee. 28 hrs is ideal to allow viewing to start at 8pm one night and finish by midnight the next night.
If you are in the DVR or DOD business, move to higher ground by Wednesday.
Update: Nov 15th –
Based on info I saw in Endgadget, it appears Autotranscode is a manual process – except for the transcode part. 😉 You have to go to your computer, find a video on the Web, download it into the TiVo Videos folder, go back to the TiVo, use NP to find the video on the PC, and transfer. Sounds like the transfer is NOT on the fly, but happens when the video lands in the Videos folder. There will be a further delay with that. There is a preview player now for TD. No info on any settings or other features. Still not pretty.
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From what has happened recently, it appears the TiVo-Brightcove deal is seperate from other deals Brightcove does with content. That’s why recent content announcements have not filtered through to TiVoCast. Content providers may decide to use Brightcove, and content distributors can use Brightcove, but each need to match up with the other to start the flow.
There is an update coming which will allow TiVoCast Season Passes to be controlled at the TiVo box. This appears to be seperate and coming sooner than the announced things today.
Originally Posted by TiVoStephen
Brightcove is absolutely still our partner and they currently use TiVoCast to deliver the New York Times content. There will be more content coming via Brightcove in the future; stay tuned.
Originally Posted by TiVoStephen
We’re working to release the ability to manage TiVoCast Season Passes directly on your DVR’s menus as quickly as we can. (Working on squishing one last bug.) As soon as I have a definite date, I’ll let you know.
Zatz has reported that Smith is available on CBS for streaming, and iTunes or Amazon Unbox for purchase.
I liked Smith, I think?
The best thing I got out of TiVo’s announcements yesterday was stumbling on the fact there were more episodes available for streaming (FREE!!) 🙂
Maybe I will watch the unaired episodes, but it won’t be on my TiVo, will it? 😉
Thanks, Zatz, for telling us that there are summaries of more episodes.
But will consuming all this be like ending up at third base at the end of the evening?
Putting cancelled shows on the net for streaming is not new, and maybe something we should get in the habit of looking for…or maybe some enterprising company will make it simple for us…who’s listening?
The details about the TiVoCast announcements have come out today and are rather underwhelming. The 5 Press Releases contain TiVo’s usual assortment of on the come comments and other vagaries. Nothing is here today, its all coming ‘later this year’, or ‘sometime next year.’ I guess the November Update is looking more December-ish.
Most notably, the one potentially valuable aspect – “Unified Search” is left without a Press Release of its own. It sounds like the one that is farthest off, which is a disappointment.
To understand what is coming, it is helpful to divide functionality into TiVoCast (from the internet) and TTC&G (to/from the PC) categories. The S2 will have everything. The S3 will not have TTC&G related functions.
Home Movies – Upload and edit content on TiVo’s partner, One True Media’s (www.onetruemedia.com) website (who?.) Nothing to do with ‘casting’ directly from your TiVo box.
Success assumes everyone in my family and friends circle has a TiVo. Not clear what the advantage is over other sites that would allow a broader audience to watch. $3.99/mo. Also, the feature is run by a partner, limiting TiVo’s ability to control their customers’ satisfaction…for better or worse. as early as the first quarter of 2007
Guru Content – Basically more Guru stuff with video getting downloaded to your TiVo. Not interested in videos about which trees Dennis Haysbert prefers to hug, but I’d like to see the one where he describes how he went from President of the US of A to foot soldier while selling insurance. What’s the inducment for these celeb’s to make videos for <500K potential viewers? I doubt this feature will appeal to many. next year
Autotranscode – A handy way to transcode videos from all those genuinely interesting sources TiVo can’t seem to make deals with, but you can manage to get ahold of. No hint as to whether there is any ‘pull’ method from the TiVo box side; will I be running from the TiVo to the PC much? A necessary addition with a $24.95 price tag. What’s the $19.95/mo for again? Series3 need not apply for now. OK, I can download YouTube videos and watch them on my TV now for $24.95. Forget about watching your Vongo downloads via your TiVo, until you find a way to RIP, in which case I doubt you’ll be using Autotranscode. later this year
“CBS” content, etal – Well, it isn’t real Network content, but it expands TiVoCast’s offerings slightly. What happend to the bandwidth crankiness? This really isn’t what we’re looking for, but its free. Not clear when all this shows up, but some is already available.
Search – The big mystery. Makes me nervous thinking about the folks at TiVo digging around the DVR interface. One more reason to question that 3 year commitment. launching next year
It’s not TV until it’s on TV – Tom Rogers, President and CEO of TiVo.
It’s not on TV until someone gets the deals done – HDTiVo
TiVo is making some TiVoCast related announcements tomorrow. Seems they’ve found a way to charge $24.95 to let you watch YouTube videos or some such.
All I know is there are no movies (not even Burt Reynolds in the ’70’s) or Battlestar Galactica, etal.
Let’s see what they say tomorrow.
Brightcove has made a deal with Warner Music Group to make available music videos and other content. WMG will try to generate revenue from the online content.
TiVo has a relationship with Brightcove, so this might flow down to TiVoCast, but it is unclear whether separate or additional agreements are necessary for TiVoCast to participate.
So far the TiVoCast content has all been the result of individual deals between TiVo and each content provider.
HDTiVo Blog 