# Breakthrough TiVo Innovation Allows Customers to Easily Download Internet Video



## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080107/aqm172.html?.v=20
TiVo Applies Highly Valued Season Pass Functionality to Web Video 
Further Demonstrates TiVo's Commitment to Providing a One-Box, One-Stop Destination for all Entertainment and Content Needs

ALVISO, Calif., Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO - News), the creator of and the leading innovator in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs) today announced TiVo subscribers will soon be able to easily watch an enormous variety of video content from the web directly on their television sets by applying TiVo's popular Season Pass functionality to web video. With the proliferation of content available online today, consumers have access to thousands of hours of content from well-known networks to special interest videos, but need an easy way to search, discover, and enjoy this entertainment on the TV set.

TiVo users can subscribe to and watch a broad range of content available on Real Simple Syndication ("RSS") feeds, including everything from network nightly newscasts, to vignettes and original content from major networks such as Comedy Central or Discovery, as well as niche interest and hobbyist videos covering areas far more specialized than cable and satellite channels, not to mention new, independently produced media content such as DiggNation and Ask A Ninja. Through this new approach, TiVo elevates web video, making it easily available as part of the personalized and customized TV viewing experience that TiVo provides.

"By adding the Season Pass functionality to web video viewing, we are providing consumers a new way to easily and automatically access the content they want to watch on their television sets," said Tom Rogers, President and CEO of TiVo. "TiVo is building toward the dream of providing one stop for all content, through one box, integrated into one interface, accessible through one simple remote control. With TiVo providing this web video feature, along with 20,000 Amazon titles, millions of songs, thousands of music videos, and an enormous collection of photos, we have already gone a long way toward building out the dream."

In delivering web video automatically, it will appear in the user's Now Playing List alongside recorded TV shows. In addition, TiVo will provide an on-screen guide of select web video sources for users to browse and select Season Pass recordings. Consumers can even get a Season Pass recording of their own personal video folders on their PC, where they save their home movies and other video downloads. And High Definition Television enthusiasts will appreciate that TiVo will preserve the original quality of high-resolution web videos when delivered to TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD DVRs.

The new web video capability requires TiVo Desktop Plus 2.6, an update to the Windows application which also converts recorded TV shows for viewing on portable devices like iPod and Sony PlayStation Portable. TiVo Desktop Plus 2.6 will be available in March for a one-time fee of $24.95, and will be a free upgrade to earlier versions.

"With our innovative and robust broadband offerings, TiVo already provides more content than any other TV service that exists today," said Tara Maitra, Vice President of Content Services at TiVo. "Now that TiVo has made retrieving web content easier than ever by integrating it with the popular Season Pass technology, consumers can enjoy great web video as if it's a whole new set of TV program options. And, if the writers' strike goes on, these options on the TV set may become more important to many viewers even more quickly."

TiVo boxes are available at leading consumer electronic retailers including Best Buy and Circuit City. See http://www.TiVo.com for details.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

Beat me by three minutes. Excellent.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

Nice.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

:up::up::up:


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## dylanemcgregor (Jan 31, 2003)

As someone who doesn't have any broadcast television I'm very interested in this. It will be exciting to see what is available.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

If it doesn't require TiVo Desktop at all, then it would be a real feature I could get excited about. Unless we are talking about a rewritten TiVo Desktop, adding more features that make the app even more buggy than now isn't that appealing.


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## c293716 (May 16, 2004)

Not trying to be a doubting thomas, but how is this different than the video podcast stuff you can already download and "season pass"?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

c293716 said:


> Not trying to be a doubting thomas, but how is this different than the video podcast stuff you can already download and "season pass"?


It appears it just makes sharing "easier" from TiVo Desktop. Right now, you can't subscribe to video podcasts from a TiVo except a select few that TiVo has in it's TiVoCasts that are encoded in a special TiVo format. This new "feature" of TiVo Desktop appears to just make sharing easier and it uses the transcode feature to TD+ to convert video podcasts to mpeg-2.


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## dylanemcgregor (Jan 31, 2003)

c293716 said:


> Not trying to be a doubting thomas, but how is this different than the video podcast stuff you can already download and "season pass"?


My quick read is that you will set up a SP in TiVo Desktop on your computer for any sort of internet video download content that uses RSS. TiVo Desktop will then automatically download as soon as new content is available, transcode, and then transfer to the TiVo.

I'd prefer a solution that didn't involve having to use the computer, as I don't like to leave mine on all the time. But I think the current problem with TiVoCasts (the video podcast stuff) is that it needs to be downloaded direct to the TiVo in MPEG2, since the TiVo doesn't have the power to transcode by itself. So in order to get content TiVo has to negotiate individual deals with each provider and have the content converted into the right format somewhere upstream. This of course limits what content is available to watch on the TiVo and makes it kind of a walled garden...this new approach should help to open it up a bit.

Now if they could figure out a way for this to work easily with streaming content that places like Netflix and Hula are offering I'd be in heaven.


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## ilh (Dec 21, 2007)

I don't think they know what "One-Box" means. PC + TiVo = 2.


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## dylanemcgregor (Jan 31, 2003)

ilh said:


> I don't think they know what "One-Box" means. PC + TiVo = 2.


They did say they are "building toward the dream of..."


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dylanemcgregor said:


> I think the current problem with TiVoCasts (the video podcast stuff) is that it needs to be downloaded direct to the TiVo in MPEG2, since the TiVo doesn't have the power to transcode by itself. So in order to get content TiVo has to negotiate individual deals with each provider and have the content converted into the right format somewhere upstream. This of course limits what content is available to watch on the TiVo and makes it kind of a walled garden...this new approach should help to open it up a bit.
> 
> Now if they could figure out a way for this to work easily with streaming content that places like Netflix and Hula are offering I'd be in heaven.


way more than a bit :up: They have the all on Tivo now in TiVocasts and not everyone on the internent is going to make a TiVocast compatible format.

It will be fun to see if we can use this to add in our own movie archives and even .tivo files we save to PC and present them back to the TiVo in a folder type manner. to me the big lack in Dekstop and ToComeBack is the fact that everything is in one big list and a pain to wade through if you archived a bunch of stuff.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> not everyone on the internent is going to make a TiVocast compatible format.


Mainly because TiVo will not let everyone do it. It's a shame that couldn't open up their system to at least allow content providers to provide TiVo specific rss feeds.


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## dylanemcgregor (Jan 31, 2003)

So anyone have examples of some good content that might be available this way? I know that most of the major broadcasters have at least some of there shows online. Do you think I'd be able to use TiVo Desktop for any of this, or is this all streaming content?

Just wondering if there is much professional video content out there available? Most of the free content available via TiVoCast so far has left me cold, and I haven't really explored what is available online since I don't like to watch video on my laptop.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

Yawn. I just wish they would fix the outstanding bugs they have now.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Unless they can fix the performance problems and memory leaks in TiVo Desktop by the time 2.6 is released this won't be very helpful since you'll need to periodically restart all the TiVo executables on the PC. 

On the positive side, folders are a much needed feature. Being able to transcode practically any video source (which can now be done using pyTiVo and Tivo.net BTW) is also a plus. Oh and HD on my S3 will be nice, but if it still needs to be in MPEG-2 format, it will still take a very long time to transfer.


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## dylanemcgregor (Jan 31, 2003)

morac said:


> On the positive side, folders are a much needed feature. Being able to transcode practically any video source (which can now be done using pyTiVo and Tivo.net BTW) is also a plus. Oh and HD on my S3 will be nice, but if it still needs to be in MPEG-2 format, it will still take a very long time to transfer.


I haven't really looked into pyTiVo and TiVo.net much, but can they auto-download content as well using RSS? It seems the automatic nature of just having new content show up on your TiVo with little to no human interaction is the real selling point of this. Of course it probably won't work quite as well as I'm imagining...


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## d_anders (Oct 12, 2000)

rainwater said:


> It's a shame that couldn't open up their system to at least allow content providers to provide TiVo specific rss feeds.


I agree, but even for the folks that are contributing TiVoCasts have to do special work to encode their shows just for TiVo...and some of them have issues keeping up with the cadence of their normal web delivery....this next version of TiVo Desktop 2.6+ should just be a stop-gap to a new revision of hardware.

The next series of TiVo...Series 4, should eliminate this need an provide a means of accepting (and have additional in-box transcoding, if necessary).

If they could swing this on the TiVo HD/Series 3 models then great, otherwise they'd be fools not to consider eliminating the need for a PC with the next TiVo Series.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

d_anders said:


> I agree, but even for the folks that are contributing TiVoCasts have to do special work to encode their shows just for TiVo...and some of them have issues keeping up with the cadence of their normal web delivery


Yes, that is because they require them to attach special encoding/drm. All S2 and S3 TiVos can view mpeg-2 content which would not be hard for most content providers to provide if TiVo would just open up their system.

This solution they announced today will only appeal to a small group of people since it requires a much more complicated setup.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

morac said:


> Unless they can fix the performance problems and memory leaks in TiVo Desktop by the time 2.6 is released this won't be very helpful since you'll need to periodically restart all the TiVo executables on the PC.
> 
> On the positive side, folders are a much needed feature. Being able to transcode practically any video source (which can now be done using pyTiVo and Tivo.net BTW) is also a plus. Oh and HD on my S3 will be nice, but if it still needs to be in MPEG-2 format, it will still take a very long time to transfer.


I did some more reading on Zatznotfunny
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2008-01/ces-tivo-desktop-26-details/

and actually this is designed for a PC that you might not leave on all the time.



> TiVo Desktop 2.6 allows you to monitor a folder of video - which is automagically transcoded and transferred to a networked TiVo. Whats new is the whole element of automation Heres one of example of how you might put this to use: Subscribe to various video podcasts via iTunes, have TiVo Desktop monitor that folder, and specify the number of videos (of each podcast) the TiVo should store (as shown above). Once that setup is complete, whenever your PC is powered up new videos are automatically transcoded and transfered - meaning, video content resides on the TiVo and doesnt require the PC stay powered on for television playback.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

rainwater said:


> Yes, that is because they require them to attach special encoding/drm. All S2 and S3 TiVos can view mpeg-2 content which would not be hard for most content providers to provide if TiVo would just open up their system.
> 
> This solution they announced today will only appeal to a small group of people since it requires a much more complicated setup.


I am not aware of special DRM requirements for the casters. It is the audio that needed redoing to match up TiVo playback correctly and required the extra step to be used as a TiVocast.

So the PC idea is a way to use the PC horsepower to do the same thing for now until some way to do it on the DVR might be provided. problem as always there is that such a thing adds cost to the DVR which TiVo has a hard time passing along. The age old stroy of the needed hardware has to become dirt cheap and easy to implement in software to be viable in a commercially sold TiVo DVR.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> So the PC idea is a way to use the PC horsepower to do the same thing for now until some way to do it on the DVR might be provided. problem as always there is that such a thing adds cost to the DVR which TiVo has a hard time passing along. The age old stroy of the needed hardware has to become dirt cheap and easy to implement in software to be viable in a commercially sold TiVo DVR.


The problem is we aren't talking about sync'ing. To use the current TiVo Desktop software in the way they want you to, requires you have the PC running 24/7 and always logged into to the user sharing the video. This isn't going to appeal to many TiVo users (I would imagine the percentage of users who even have TD installed is small compared to the overall user base).


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## JohnBrowning (Jul 15, 2004)

Can I be first?

*Where's the Mac version???*


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## tgmii (Feb 21, 2002)

I was hoping this was all from the tivo. A rss reader on the tivo would have been better to capture the feeds.

I'll continue what I'm doing now... which is running pyTivo, pointing to the Miro output directory. Works great! All my desktops run Linux, and Tivo Desktop doesn't work on wine/crossover. 

Tom


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

rainwater said:


> The problem is we aren't talking about sync'ing. To use the current TiVo Desktop software in the way they want you to,


2.6 is not the current software but has a new way that does sync via a season pass type operation when the PC is on to load the requested files to the TiVo.

read
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2008-01/ces-tivo-desktop-26-details/


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

So does this require an update to the HME libraries to be able to "push" content to the TiVo instead of having to initiate a "pull" request?

If so, that same functionality should be able to be added to third-party apps like pyTiVo (for those of us that prefer Linux for our video servers).


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

windracer said:


> So does this require an update to the HME libraries to be able to "push" content to the TiVo instead of having to initiate a "pull" request?
> 
> If so, that same functionality should be able to be added to third-party apps like pyTiVo (for those of us that prefer Linux for our video servers).


Good questions. if TiVo adds it to the public API of HME then they are good to go, otherwise someone will have to reverse engineer the process and figure out the handshake that allows a "push"


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Good questions. if TiVo adds it to the public API of HME then they are good to go, otherwise someone will have to reverse engineer the process and figure out the handshake that allows a "push"


TiVo is no longer updating the public api for HME. If they aren't publishing the current version, then its doubtful they will be publishing any future changes.


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

Ah, true ... the code to allow it could already be in the current implementation. Otherwise that would require a software update on the TiVo-side, right?

Looking forward to this ...


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

rainwater said:


> TiVo is no longer updating the public api for HME. If they aren't publishing the current version, then its doubtful they will be publishing any future changes.


TiVo has not updated the public API in quite some time. That does not mean they never will update it, just that it became a very low Java priority for TiVo given Comcast and the OCAP java implementation. I have no idea what the priority list looks like these days though, but they obviously have been updating their own private APIs.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

I hope the PC / Mac does not have to be on for these "season passes" to function. Most people do not want their PC on all the time -- and make the point of turning it off when not in use -- so any feature that requires a powered PC is basically useless for most customers.

It's not clear to me from this press release, but I hope the PC is only needed to add the season pass for web video, and once it is added, the TiVo can do everything on its own.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bkdtv said:


> I hope the PC / Mac does not have to be on for these "season passes" to function. Most people do not want their PC on all the time -- and make the point of turning it off when not in use -- so any feature that requires a powered PC is basically useless for most customers.
> 
> It's not clear to me from this press release, but I hope the PC is only needed to add the season pass for web video, and once it is added, the TiVo can do everything on its own.


I did some more reading on Zatznotfunny
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2008-01/...op-26-details/

and actually this is designed for a PC that you might not leave on all the time.



> TiVo Desktop 2.6 allows you to monitor a folder of video - which is automagically transcoded and transferred to a networked TiVo. Whats new is the whole element of automation Heres one of example of how you might put this to use: Subscribe to various video podcasts via iTunes, have TiVo Desktop monitor that folder, and specify the number of videos (of each podcast) the TiVo should store (as shown above). Once that setup is complete, whenever your PC is powered up new videos are automatically transcoded and transfered - meaning, video content resides on the TiVo and doesnt require the PC stay powered on for television playback.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I did some more reading on Zatznotfunny
> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2008-01/...op-26-details/
> 
> and actually this is designed for a PC that you might not leave on all the time.


Unless you have a super fast PC, you will still have to leave it on all the time to do the transcoding unless you don't have many podcasts. I certainly can't see slowing my PC all the time to do transcoding when I can just plug my ipod in and everything is sync'd in a few seconds.


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## Unix_Beard (Dec 22, 2003)

So Mac users are getting screwed by Tivo again? WTF?

This is so irritating. Its not like anything done here is proprietary.

And why can I not transfer Cranky Geeks or other v-podcasts between Tivos? They are FREE on the web. Why the constant nuisance?


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## Sevenfeet (Jun 24, 2000)

What I don't understand is why this feature even needs Tivo Desktop. I mean, just how hard is it to pick up an RSS feed with an Internet connected Linux-powered media server? I mean, really? I love Tivo, I really do. But I'm shaking my head at this one.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

rainwater said:


> Unless you have a super fast PC, you will still have to leave it on all the time to do the transcoding unless you don't have many podcasts. I certainly can't see slowing my PC all the time to do transcoding when I can just plug my ipod in and everything is sync'd in a few seconds.


I can transcode an entire TV show in about 10 minutes on my average PC to one of many different formats. I doubt the transcoding will be much of an issue and the idea is it works in the background anyway. It is not like this is real time recording to the drive or something time critical.

Sevenfeet - it is not getting the RSS feed - it is transcoding that feed to a format the TiVo can play. The desktop step in between is to do that transcoding, TiVo is hopefully considering more powerful processor and memory bus on the series 4


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Unix_Beard said:


> So Mac users are getting screwed by Tivo again? WTF?
> 
> This is so irritating. Its not like anything done here is proprietary.
> 
> And why can I not transfer Cranky Geeks or other v-podcasts between Tivos? They are FREE on the web. Why the constant nuisance?


Tivolovers mentions these features in Toast 9 planned for March
http://www.tivolovers.com/2008/01/07/tivo-desktop-plus-26-to-support-web-video-and-folders/.

I wish Cranky Geeks and others could be moved around as well. My guess is they just put up a wall on all downloaded content, which sucks.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

windracer said:


> So does this require an update to the HME libraries to be able to "push" content to the TiVo instead of having to initiate a "pull" request?


This is an HMO issue, not HME. (BTW, pyTivo is an HMO server, and does not use any libraries from Tivo Inc.)

The existing video transfer capability (requiring a pull from the Tivo) has never been publicly documented by Tivo Inc., AFAIK. However, it works similarly to the other HMO functions (Music and Photos). So I don't expect them to document this, either. But hopefully we can discover how it works...


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

Is the idea that the only function added is the push (publish) to the TiVo box?

Because I thought there already is auto-transcoding of videos in a monitored folder by TD into the TD video folder.

Where does the Season Pass come in? Is it a Season Pass you create on the TiVo to accept the published videos from TD? Or is SP just that you subscribed to a video feed on your PC which downloads into the folder TD is monitoring?


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

PR said:


> In addition, TiVo will provide an on-screen guide of select web video sources for users to browse and select Season Pass recordings. Consumers can even get a Season Pass recording of their own personal video folders on their PC, where they save their home movies and other video downloads.


For anyone at CES, this would be something to investigate further.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

wmcbrine said:


> This is an HMO issue, not HME. (BTW, pyTivo is an HMO server, and does not use any libraries from Tivo Inc.)
> 
> The existing video transfer capability (requiring a pull from the Tivo) has never been publicly documented by Tivo Inc., AFAIK. However, it works similarly to the other HMO functions (Music and Photos). So I don't expect them to document this, either. But hopefully we can discover how it works...


the current stuff has all been documented and can be found at
http://dynamic.tivo.com/developer/
this has not been updated in over a year 

the push is new and not in that documentation


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

HDTiVo said:


> For anyone at CES, this would be something to investigate further.


Dave Zatz has some pictures
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/?attachment_id=3046

did not see any at Megazone's site


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## ACraigL (Feb 12, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I can transcode an entire TV show in about 10 minutes on my average PC to one of many different formats. I doubt the transcoding will be much of an issue and the idea is it works in the background anyway. It is not like this is real time recording to the drive or something time critical.


Zeo,

Transcode to MPEG2 in 10 minutes? I assume a 30 minute show on that one and even then you'd need a pretty fast PC...

This is feeling like a lot of overhead to watch some internet programming <sigh>


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

ACraigL said:


> Zeo,
> 
> Transcode to MPEG2 in 10 minutes? I assume a 30 minute show on that one and even then you'd need a pretty fast PC...
> 
> This is feeling like a lot of overhead to watch some internet programming <sigh>


I was thinking of a 30 minute show from my TiVo at high quality (I looked at Avatar - and it was from TiVo to mpeg4) that I have been doing recently on a Celeron 2.66 Ghz PC. I also use this PC to do casual web surfing from my Home office. Only problem I have had going this direction is the darn memory leaks in desktop or else transfer takes the CPU tp 100%.

also the whole idea of converting podcasts does indeed already exist
http://www.tivoblog.com/archives/2007/12/30/how-to-watch-almost-any-video-podcast-on-your-tivo/

TiVo is just formalizing it for ease of use and adding folders at long last


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## dylanemcgregor (Jan 31, 2003)

ACraigL said:


> Zeo,
> 
> Transcode to MPEG2 in 10 minutes? I assume a 30 minute show on that one and even then you'd need a pretty fast PC...
> 
> This is feeling like a lot of overhead to watch some internet programming <sigh>


On my Macbook I use VisualHub and it takes about 7 minutes for an hour of video to transcode. This is on a not very powerful processor.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> the current stuff has all been documented and can be found at
> http://dynamic.tivo.com/developer/


No, it hasn't. Unless you see something there I don't... The HMO documentation covers Music and Photos only.


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> This is an HMO issue, not HME.


I'm going starting use HM_x_ then. 



ZeoTiVo said:


> I wish Cranky Geeks and others could be moved around as well. My guess is they just put up a wall on all downloaded content, which sucks.


On CNet's "Buzz Out Loud" podcast, the hosts have repeatedly said that they do _not_ want copy protection on their podcasts and wish TiVo would not do it. But like you said, it's apparently some high-level policy that all TiVoCast content is automatically protected, regardless of the content author's wishes.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

windracer said:


> I'm going starting use HM_x_ then.


They really are two separate protocols with almost nothing in common. I say "almost" only because there is a small amount of HTTP setup for HME, after which it does its own thing. (HMO is all HTTP.)


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

First, let me say that subscription web video is a good idea so long as a PC or Mac is only required to select the content. Requiring that a PC be running to access subscription web or Internet content is completely unacceptable.

I like the idea of Internet video in HD. But as far as HD video transfers from a PC, I don't understand what Tivo is doing. They need to forget this transcoding nonsense and add direct support for all formats to their box, when possible. If the hardware can't support that, then they need to make damn sure that future hardware can.

TiVo needs to stop looking backward. They should not allow the hardware limitations of the Series2 to *define* what they do with the Series3 and future platforms, but that is exactly what appears to be happening. With the analog shutoff for OTA, and cable providers moving more and more of their channels to digital tiers, the Series2 is essentially a dead platform going forward. Nothing can change that. IMO, TiVo should focus on making new and future boxes as compelling as possible rather than throwing more and more money after an older product that will soon be obsolete.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bkdtv said:


> As far as video transfers from PC to TiVo, I don't understand what Tivo is doing. They need to forget about this transcoding nonsense and add direct support for all formats to their box, when possible. If the hardware can't support that, then they need to make damn sure that future hardware can.


well we all know that a Series 2 can not do mpeg4 and never will. I am quite happy Tivo has added this to desktop so I know it works with all my DVRs. I am more concerned that the folders part of this will work correctly then the conversion part


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

bkdtv said:


> Requiring that a PC be running to access subscription web or Internet content is completely unacceptable.


I think this is ok as one approach mainly for the Series 2s. Extending the subscription life of a Series2 on average brings quite a bit of operating margin from the subscription business so these may be resources well spent.

I don't know how much people depend on their Internet sourced videos to arrive on a schedule (like CSI is on Thur @9pm). If not, a PC which is occassionally on and spends some of that time downloading/transcoding/publishing is not a terrible thing. TD has always had a priority setting; if that covers this workload it might control problems like interfering with one's own workload.

It'll all boil down to the implementation.



bkdtv said:


> TiVo needs to stop looking backward. They should not allow the hardware limitations of the Series2 to *define* what they do with the Series3 and future platforms, but that is exactly what appears to be happening. With the analog shutoff for OTA, and cable providers moving more and more of their channels to digital tiers, the Series2 is essentially a dead platform going forward. Nothing can change that. IMO, TiVo should focus on making new and future boxes as compelling as possible rather than throwing more and more money after an older product that will soon be obsolete.


I've been preaching about this sort of thing for a very long time. It is so critical that TiVo get its strategic direction in line with what is really happening/hot out there on the Internet, etal.

MSFT put out the stats again today about 17.7M Xbox360s sold in the first two years. 10 or 10.5M Xbox Live subscribers. 1M+ PS3s over the holidays.

Millions of Hi Def DVD players selling - I don't have figures. Netflix coming on there.

Slingboxes. $400 phones that play video.

People pay big money in large numbers for devices that do neat things they want.


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## Unix_Beard (Dec 22, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Tivolovers mentions these features in Toast 9 planned for March
> http://www.tivolovers.com/2008/01/07/tivo-desktop-plus-26-to-support-web-video-and-folders/.
> 
> I wish Cranky Geeks and others could be moved around as well. My guess is they just put up a wall on all downloaded content, which sucks.


Apparently, the Toast 9 thing was retracted. This is now added to the article:

_It seems PCMag was talking out of school. There is a Mac solution in the works, but at this time there is no official word on what form it will take or when it will be available._

Sounds eerily familiar to the Tivo To Go silence. :down:


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## MediaLivingRoom (Dec 10, 2002)

*BOOOOOOOOOOORING.

Give me Co-Op Scheduling. Kill off the old TiVo Series 2. Lower "TiVo HD" to $99 after rebate. Update TiVo Series 3 with SDV, QAM, and Blu-ray recording/playback*


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## Atomike (Jun 12, 2005)

> Give me Co-Op Scheduling. Kill off the old TiVo Series 2. Lower "TiVo HD" to $99 after rebate. Update TiVo Series 3 with SDV, QAM, and Blu-ray recording/playback


You'd be better off using a PC. I really don't think Tivo is for you.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Atomike said:


> You'd be better off using a PC. I really don't think Tivo is for you.


umm he wants HD recording quality -that gets pricey in a PC model.

PS - nice sig. thanks for pointing out that I am not a TiVo Zealot but do indeed see clearly that TiVo inc is a for profit company.

It just happens to be full of good people makinga geat product I really like.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I wish Cranky Geeks and others could be moved around as well. My guess is they just put up a wall on all downloaded content, which sucks.


I don't know the exact details, but I can tell you GeekBriefTV is unprotected, so I think there is some choice on the part of some videocasters to "protect" their work, or more accurately ad revenue paid per download, of which copying would possible limit that revenue.


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

According to megazone's latest blog post, the new TD 2.6 is using XMPP to turn your PC into a TiVoCast server. So it's not HM_x_/MRV based:



> So whats changed? The polling system is gone. TiVo is using XMPP now instead. What is XMPP? The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol - better known as the instant messaging protocol that powers Jabber, Google Talk, and other IM systems. Yep, TiVo is basically using instant messaging for real-time communication. Now when the TiVo server has a new recording to schedule, it will IM the TiVo to tell it. Or if there is a download to pull, it will IM the TiVo to tell it to do so. This is a much more efficient system and it eliminates latency. It is really a clever idea.
> 
> Now, the way this works with web video is that when the desktop finds a new video and has it ready to transfer to the TiVo, it sends an IM to TiVos servers. TiVos servers then send an IM to the TiVo to tell it to grab the video. Which brings up another new twist.
> 
> This does not use the TiVoToGo/TiVoToComeBack protocol, it uses TiVoCast. Yep. your PC becomes a TiVoCast server, and the TiVo grabs the video from the PC just like it does today from the TiVoCast servers online.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

Is this a greater security risk, then?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

jlb said:


> Is this a greater security risk, then?


How does the "TiVo's servers then send an IM to the TiVo to tell it to grab the video." inside my NAT/firewall?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

> Now when the TiVo server has a new recording to schedule, it will IM the TiVo to tell it.


If TiVo publishes this as a public API then we finally get the more advanced "HME" I have been wanting to see for 3rd party apps


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

It sounds great. I just hope pyTivo et al. can hook into it.


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## Globular (Jun 9, 2004)

I'm confused. Will TiVo Desktop simply handle converting HD (720p) conent I already have on my PC to play back in HD on my TiVo HD?

It's.. ummm.... educational videos. Yeah, that's it! Educational videos...


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> How does the "TiVo's servers then send an IM to the TiVo to tell it to grab the video." inside my NAT/firewall?


If it works like most IM programs, there will be an IM server that all TiVo boxes log into. That way TiVo can send an IM to any (or all) TiVo's logged into their server instantly (or vice-versa). So my take on this is that TiVo Desktop on your PC will send a message to TiVo central which will then IM your TiVo box which will then contact your PC to download the video.

I'm assuming IM messages from TiVo HQ will be signed and encrypted in some way since otherwise someone with a PC could log into TiVo's IM server (XMPP is an open source protocol) and start sending out messages to random TiVos willy nilly.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

morac said:


> If it works like most IM programs, there will be an IM server that all TiVo boxes log into. That way TiVo can send an IM to any (or all) TiVo's logged into their server instantly (or vice-versa). So my take on this is that TiVo Desktop on your PC will send a message to TiVo central which will then IM your TiVo box which will then contact your PC to download the video.


That's what I'd guess, except that I think it wouldn't quite be Tivo central IM'ing the box -- rather, the box would get the instructions on its next regular check-in, the way it does now with TivoCasts. (This may not even require a software update on the box side.) The IM would just be for Tivo Desktop -> Tivo central. But I could be wrong.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> That's what I'd guess, except that I think it wouldn't quite be Tivo central IM'ing the box -- rather, the box would get the instructions on its next regular check-in, the way it does now with TivoCasts. (This may not even require a software update on the box side.) The IM would just be for Tivo Desktop -> Tivo central. But I could be wrong.


If it worked that way then it could take up to 30 minutes for the TiVo to start downloading video files from your PC which wouldn't be efficient.

Read Megazone's blog entry about TiVo Desktop 2.6, specifically the part starting with the sentence that mentions XMPP. Basically it states the polling system is going away and being replaced with an IM system.

Switching from the polling system to an IM system is a great idea since it gets rid of the artificial delay that currently exists when requesting TiVoCasts or scheduling recordings online. If TiVo can make TiVoCasts start downloading nearly instantaneously and give you the result of an online schedule request in real-time (without requiring you to wait 30 to 45 minutes for an email) it would greatly improve the usefulness of both features.


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