# TiVo to Provide YouTube Videos Directly to the Television



## Curtis (Dec 2, 2003)

"TiVo to Provide YouTube Videos Directly to the Television
Wednesday March 12, 8:30 am ET

ALVISO, Calif., March 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO - News), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced an agreement with YouTube(TM) that will offer access to YouTube videos directly from the TV via a TiVo DVR. The service will be available later this year to broadband-connected subscribers with TiVo Series3(TM) DVRs, including the new TiVo HD.

Every day hundreds of millions of videos are viewed on YouTube and hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded. Upon launch of the TiVo-YouTube service, TiVo users will be able to search, browse and watch these videos directly on their television sets through their broadband connected TiVo DVRs. The combination of having the YouTube experience with the convenience and familiarity of TiVo's intuitive user interface will provide TiVo subscribers with the ability to discover and enjoy the most shared and most discussed web videos in the world on their televisions. Importantly, users will be able to log into their YouTube accounts directly from their TiVo boxes and access their favorite YouTube channels and playlists.

"We're delighted to be working with the world's leading online video community so that TiVo subscribers can access YouTube's popular content on the TV via the TiVo DVR," said Tara Maitra, Vice President and GM of Content Services at TiVo Inc. "Being able to make available YouTube videos to the TiVo subscriber base using one device, one remote and one user interface is another major step in our commitment to combine all of your television and web video viewing options in one easy to use service."

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080312/aqw013.html?.v=48


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## GoHokies! (Sep 21, 2005)

Awesome.


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## brettatk (Oct 11, 2002)

If the video quality is going to be as bad as it is on the ATV then there isnt much to get excited about. I guess if you have a 19" LCD TV it might be ok. 

But hey, atleast it's progress. They've fallen behind with some of there features (or should I say lack thereof). Good to see them add something new.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

brettatk said:


> If the video quality is going to be as bad as it is on the ATV then there isnt much to get excited about. I guess if you have a 19" LCD TV it might be ok.
> 
> ...


Well it certainly won't be better. This is just more feature creep and blitz. TiVo is doing more an more of this stuff and doing none of it well. Meanwhile we're still running buggy software.


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## jtreid (Jan 12, 2006)

You know....it's kind of gettin' to a point that we're going to need a keyboard for Tivo. Think of a Tivo web-surfin' wireless USB keyboard. That could really get interesting. You could get your favorite TV shows, music, YouTube and porn all without leaving the comfy of you potato throne.


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## etz (Sep 8, 2006)

> The service will be available later this year to broadband-connected subscribers with TiVo Series3(TM) DVRs, including the new TiVo HD.


S2 users left out?


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## Test (Dec 8, 2004)

etz said:


> S2 users left out?


One of the first signs of the s2 going the way of the s1?


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## Darthnice (Apr 29, 2002)

Test said:


> One of the first signs of the s2 going the way of the s1?


My guess would be that the S2 doesn't have the decoding hardware to support YouTube. YouTube can be viewed on an iPhone, but not because the iPhone supports Flash, rather the video is transcoded to H.264 which I believe the S3/HD supports but the S2 doesn't.


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## GoHokies! (Sep 21, 2005)

That's an interesting omission - I wonder why? I can't think of a technical reason that the S2 would be excluded.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Yes, it would be because the S2 platform can only play MPEG2 video.


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## ToddNeedsTiVo (Sep 2, 2003)

I guess I have mixed feelings. What's next, a web browser? I'm sorry, but I barely have the patience for the Ouiji board interface to schedule recordings as it is, much less find YouTube videos with it.

YT videos look like crap in a five-inch window on my computer monitor; why would I want to watch them on my HDTV? Especially if it's such a hassle to get there without using a keyboard or being sent a hyperlink in an email?

Granted, I've heard that YT is reprocessing some of its content to provide a higher resolution, but I'm skeptical about how this would appear on television screens.

I would be sorely disappointed if developing this is taking away from the effort to handle SDV. Or, for that matter, clear QAM mapping. Can we stick with the core functionality, please, of recording cable & OTA stuff?


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## Breadfan (Jan 7, 2008)

I'm pretty excited about this. I have heard that YouTube has been gradually adding higher quality videos so maybe it won't look too bad.


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## dylanemcgregor (Jan 31, 2003)

How about adding Hula content?


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## janry (Jan 2, 2003)

Now, if they'd just allow access to videos on X-tube, I'd be set.


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## stream (Jul 25, 2007)

brettatk said:


> If the video quality is going to be as bad as it is on the ATV then there isnt much to get excited about. I guess if you have a 19" LCD TV it might be ok.
> 
> But hey, atleast it's progress. They've fallen behind with some of there features (or should I say lack thereof). Good to see them add something new.


Agreed--most of them are hardly watchable on a portion of a PC screen.


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## scottbr (Apr 28, 2005)

classicsat said:


> Yes, it would be because the S2 platform can only play MPEG2 video.


So, is that some sort of hardware enabling? Otherwise, why not push a software upgrade for S2 to enable other video formats?


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## derspiess (Jul 10, 2007)

I was really excited when I first saw the news, then realized I already access Youtube content on my TV thru my home theater PC, and that 320x240 video won't look too hot on my HDTV screen.

But what the hey-- always nice to get an additional feature.


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## Solver (Feb 17, 2005)

Test said:


> One of the first signs of the s2 going the way of the s1?


Have they announced the S4 yet?

(Afterwhich, S3 users will feel what we S2 users feel )


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## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

stream said:


> Agreed--most of them are hardly watchable on a portion of a PC screen.


Eh, kids love 'em.

Then again, youtube isn't really for adults. How many videophiles do you know who watch content in a 5" window?

Slick move, Tivo. Kids will eat this stuff up!


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Youtube is enabling higher quality videos later this year (I believe with a url hack, you can see these videos if they are encoded). So, it's possible TiVo will be using the higher quality videos for this service. In either case, you have to figure the reason why it isn't on the S2 is it will be using mpeg-4/h.264. This is good news for S3 users as it means TiVo will be enabling the hardware decoders on the boxes so we might can transfer native files to the S3 without conversion to mpeg-2. 

Btw, S2 boxes can only decode mpeg-2, so a software solution on these boxes isn't possible.


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## shady (May 31, 2002)

Test said:


> One of the first signs of the s2 going the way of the s1?


Which isn't a bad sign. The S1 still works as well as it did when it was brand spanking new


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Darthnice said:


> My guess would be that the S2 doesn't have the decoding hardware to support YouTube. YouTube can be viewed on an iPhone, but not because the iPhone supports Flash, rather the video is transcoded to H.264 which I believe the S3/HD supports but the S2 doesn't.


that is quite an irony that the first videocast only avaialable for series 3 and not 2 is the lowest quality video out there.

My guess is that UNBOX was not ready to support a format other than current for TiVo specifically and so TiVo went looking for someone to showcase they can do the newer mpeg4 H.264 stuff.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Well, this is interesting. I guess I don't need to bother finishing my version, then.* Although it does work with Series 2's...

Re: quality, it's not necessarily all that bad. It varies a lot, depending on the particular clip. But for the most part, I find the low quality is overcome by the amazing ability to type in a search for almost anything (well, anything short), and immediately get it.

* Plus it's gotten a lot less response then I anticipated, even for a preliminary version. Maybe I put too many disclaimers in that post...


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Awesome!


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## scottbr (Apr 28, 2005)

rainwater said:


> Youtube is enabling higher quality videos later this year (I believe with a url hack, you can see these videos if they are encoded). So, it's possible TiVo will be using the higher quality videos for this service. In either case, you have to figure the reason why it isn't on the S2 is it will be using mpeg-4/h.264. This is good news for S3 users as it means TiVo will be enabling the hardware decoders on the boxes so we might can transfer native files to the S3 without conversion to mpeg-2.
> 
> Btw, S2 boxes can only decode mpeg-2, so a software solution on these boxes isn't possible.


Again, I fail to see why this is a problem for S2 boxes. Tivo downloads software updates all the time (well, not frequently enough). MPEG-4 is a software file that should be able to be interpreted with software drivers. The S2 is a stripped-down computer, at its simplest. So, push drivers or firmware down to the S2s, right?


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## brettatk (Oct 11, 2002)

scottbr said:


> Again, I fail to see why this is a problem for S2 boxes. Tivo downloads software updates all the time (well, not frequently enough). MPEG-4 is a software file that should be able to be interpreted with software drivers. The S2 is a stripped-down computer, at its simplest. So, push drivers or firmware down to the S2s, right?


It's a hardware issue, not software.


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## gonzotek (Sep 24, 2004)

scottbr said:


> Again, I fail to see why this is a problem for S2 boxes. Tivo downloads software updates all the time (well, not frequently enough). MPEG-4 is a software file that should be able to be interpreted with software drivers. The S2 is a stripped-down computer, at its simplest. So, push drivers or firmware down to the S2s, right?


The hardware of the TiVo (S2 or S3) doesn't allow for that kind of trick. Both the S2 and S3 have dedicated hardware to decode the video, it is not done in the cpu. The S2s lack the mpeg4 hardware that is in (yet still unused today) the S3 line.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

scottbr said:


> a stripped-down computer


ever tyr converting video on an old pentium PC with less than a gig of RAM. It aint fast and the PC can not process anything else.

anything other than mpeg2 just is not going to happen on an S2 and youtube is not going to make its content mpeg2. Time to just move on.


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## doormat (Sep 15, 2004)

scottbr said:


> Again, I fail to see why this is a problem for S2 boxes. Tivo downloads software updates all the time (well, not frequently enough). MPEG-4 is a software file that should be able to be interpreted with software drivers. The S2 is a stripped-down computer, at its simplest. So, push drivers or firmware down to the S2s, right?


H.264/MPEG4 Part 10 is extremely CPU intensive. The iPhone, AppleTV, etc all have dedicated hardware to do the heavy lifting required to decode it. There is no way the processor in the S1/S2 could decode it regardless of how efficient your coders and algorithms are. And there is no way to repurpose any other chips in there to do it.

What I really really want (please please TiVo with sugar on top?) is the ability to play MPEG4/H.264 from computers in the house instead of YouTube. I'd love to be able to stream H.264 video (with surround sound) from my WHS box. I'm already starting to rip all my DVDs to H.264 for my iPhone, it wouldn't be hard to rip another copy for my TV. 750GB HDDs are cheap and would store about 300 movies.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

doormat said:


> What I really really want (please please TiVo with sugar on top?) is the ability to play MPEG4/H.264 from computers in the house instead of YouTube. I'd love to be able to stream H.264 video (with surround sound) from my WHS box. I'm already starting to rip all my DVDs to H.264 for my iPhone, it wouldn't be hard to rip another copy for my TV. 750GB HDDs are cheap and would store about 300 movies.


TiVo Desktop Plus
PyTiVo
TiVo Dot Net
TiVo Publisher for Windows Home Server

Lots of choices, pick one and you should be golden.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

doormat said:


> What I really really want (please please TiVo with sugar on top?) is the ability to play MPEG4/H.264 from computers in the house instead of YouTube. I'd love to be able to stream H.264 video (with surround sound) from my WHS box. I'm already starting to rip all my DVDs to H.264 for my iPhone, it wouldn't be hard to rip another copy for my TV. 750GB HDDs are cheap and would store about 300 movies.


If they are indeed enabling the h.264 decoder in the S3 boxes, I see no reason why they won't update TiVo Desktop to support transferring this type of content. It would make it easier on them since they wouldn't have to transcode the content to mpeg-2 on the PC before sending it. Plus, it would be great for users in general since these videos take up much less space than mpeg-2 recordings. I think the Youtube content will just be the first test of the h.264 abilities of the S3 platform. Eventually, TiVo Desktop should support it and hopefully Amazon will support HD content through it.


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## kas25 (Mar 10, 2003)

CuriousMark said:


> TiVo Desktop Plus
> PyTiVo
> TiVo Dot Net
> TiVo Publisher for Windows Home Server
> ...


Tivo Desktop Plus allows you to stream Mpeg 4 files?


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## brettatk (Oct 11, 2002)

kas25 said:


> Tivo Desktop Plus allows you to stream Mpeg 4 files?


If by "stream" you mean "transfer" then I believe it does.

Copied from the Tivo Site:



> Supported video formats include:
> Note: Files with digital rights management (DRM) or other copy protection are not supported.
> Windows Media Video (.wmv)
> QuickTime Movie (.mov)
> ...


Edit: Nevermind, I misunderstood what you were saying. It sounds like you knew it would transfer in that format but was questioning the streaming part. My bad!


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## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

doormat said:


> What I really really want (please please TiVo with sugar on top?) is the ability to play MPEG4/H.264 from computers in the house instead of YouTube. I'd love to be able to stream H.264 video (with surround sound) from my WHS box. I'm already starting to rip all my DVDs to H.264 for my iPhone, it wouldn't be hard to rip another copy for my TV. 750GB HDDs are cheap and would store about 300 movies.


You can't stream, but as others have said, you can have your PC convert on the fly as you transfer now. I've archived off some TivoToGo content on a PC with a RAID-5 array, and once I know what the parameters need to be to get good native H.264 playback on the S3, I'll convert them all to that.

The big feature I'd love to get on TiVo is DVD playback of an ISO file with all the menus and features intact, but I'll probably always have a home theater PC so I can live without it.


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## brettatk (Oct 11, 2002)

Streaming is why I love my ATV so much and have started watching all my downloaded material on it rather than the Tivo.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

A link from megazone's blog:
http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/casestudies/tivo.html

So as he points out, TiVo is basically just using the same functions everyone else does.

I'm excited about the prospect of more MPEG-4/H.264 content. Come on Amazon, let's got that Unbox HD we've been craving.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

kas25 said:


> Tivo Desktop Plus allows you to stream Mpeg 4 files?


Stream, no. Transfer, yes. If saving the remote click to delete at the end of the show matters, then TiVo won't do it for you. Many have suggested that TiVo add a streaming mode to MRV, perhaps someday they will.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

CuriousMark said:


> Stream, no. Transfer, yes. If saving the remote click to delete at the end of the show matters, then TiVo won't do it for you. Many have suggested that TiVo add a streaming mode to MRV, perhaps someday they will.


I wnat the streaming mode to be from Netflix


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## h00ligan (Nov 29, 2007)

RoyK said:


> Well it certainly won't be better. This is just more feature creep and blitz. TiVo is doing more an more of this stuff and doing none of it well. Meanwhile we're still running buggy software.


I'd tend to agree with this. Is there really such a large demand for low quality streaming video on HIGH DEF pvr's connected to presumably HDTV - really I think there must be better things to spend time on. I have this feature on 2 other devices and never use it. I do however watch on my iPhone occasionally, which is fine as the screen is small and low quality 



ZeoTiVo said:


> I wnat the streaming mode to be from Netflix


+1


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

h00ligan said:


> I'd tend to agree with this. Is there really such a large demand for low quality streaming video on HIGH DEF pvr's connected to presumably HDTV - really I think there must be better things to spend time on. I have this feature on 2 other devices and never use it. I do however watch on my iPhone occasionally, which is fine as the screen is small and low quality


I remember people asking in this forum about getting YouTube on TiVo. I don't understand why either.


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## kas25 (Mar 10, 2003)

MickeS said:


> I remember people asking in this forum about getting YouTube on TiVo. I don't understand why either.


Its usually quirky home videos so I don't think most people complain about the resolution of seeing laughing babies. I use it occasionally on my Apple TV and its a blast.


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## doormat (Sep 15, 2004)

CuriousMark said:


> TiVo Desktop Plus
> PyTiVo
> TiVo Dot Net
> TiVo Publisher for Windows Home Server
> ...


I dont want to transcode back down to MPEG2. My WHS box only has a single core 1.7Ghz Pentium M in it and I dont know if it could keep up. Plus I really dont need the additional power consumption of it transcoding movies for no good reason.


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## Bodie (Mar 12, 2003)

Great, I can finally throw this PC out the window!!! Woohoo!!!


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

doormat said:


> I dont want to transcode back down to MPEG2. My WHS box only has a single core 1.7Ghz Pentium M in it and I dont know if it could keep up. Plus I really dont need the additional power consumption of it transcoding movies for no good reason.


If it is true that the MP4 decoder in the Series 3 Platform boxes is going to get software support later this year, then you will very likely get your wish.


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## h00ligan (Nov 29, 2007)

i was under the (mis?)understanding that tivoHD and series 3 could both stream h.264 via mp4, not that it transcoded on the fly?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

h00ligan said:


> i was under the (mis?)understanding that tivoHD and series 3 could both stream h.264 via mp4, not that it transcoded on the fly?


Since the h.264 hardware encoder isn't enabled it would be impossible to do so. TiVo is going to have to enable the drivers and update the software to support it which is presumably what this is all about.


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## Mars Rocket (Mar 24, 2000)

Anybody know when this will happen? Is this a "about to release" announcement, or a "about to start development" announcement?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Mars Rocket said:


> Anybody know when this will happen? Is this a "about to release" announcement, or a "about to start development" announcement?


definitely not an about to release. Pony has siad here that the next update is all about software tweaks and bug fixes.

so this YouTube will be the release later in the year at a minimum


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## rodbac (Aug 16, 2005)

kas25 said:


> Its usually quirky home videos so I don't think most people complain about the resolution of seeing laughing babies.


Don't forget all those raaddd skater boyz doing face plants on pavement... PRICELESS!

I don't know which ad wizard told them 4-minute low-def videos that you have to search fairly intensely for to find anything but random sht are a great use for high-definition video devices connected to 50" HDTVs, but in my humble opinion, he should be taken out back and flogged, and pointed to as Yet Another Example of Why Tivo is Losing Their Asses.

I guess "BUT THE KIDS TODAY LOVE THOSE CRAZY VIDEOS!" is reason enough to work on getting something implemented at Tivo, Inc.

Of course, my caveat to all this crabbing is maybe this is just kind of a proof-of-concept for certain codecs or something, and the intent is to actually get something useful out of it eventually.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

ToddNeedsTiVo said:


> I guess I have mixed feelings. What's next, a web browser? I'm sorry, but I barely have the patience for the Ouiji board interface to schedule recordings as it is, much less find YouTube videos with it.
> ...


Ditto. I just played with Podcaster by adding Steve Gilmor's The Gang.

Try typing "http://feeds.gilmorgroup.com/TheGangFeed" on the TiVo with the [CLR] icon closer than the [DEL] icon.  (And THAT'S After you spend 5 minutes googling to find the feed URL.) I guess "feeds...Feed" means it's a feed, huh?

I was thinking I should set up a meta-feed on my network and just add that on that TiVo. I could edit it on a PC.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The next version of TiVo Desktop Plus will have a built in feature which allows non-native video formats, such as video podcasts, to first be download to a PC where they are then transcoded to TiVo friendly MPEG2 video and transferred to the TiVo. There is no reason TiVo couldn't exploit this same functionality to support YouTube videos. Only problem would be that S2 users would require a $25 software upgrade and a PC which is always on and ready to transcode.

Personally I think this is great news because it means that they will be enabling MPEG4/H.264 support on the S3 units. Which opens it up for the possibility of Unbox HD and native MPEG4/H.264 transfers from TiVo Desktop, both of which I think would be really cool. 

Dan


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## diceman719 (May 20, 2006)

doormat said:


> H.264/MPEG4 Part 10 is extremely CPU intensive. The iPhone, AppleTV, etc all have dedicated hardware to do the heavy lifting required to decode it. There is no way the processor in the S1/S2 could decode it regardless of how efficient your coders and algorithms are. And there is no way to repurpose any other chips in there to do it.
> 
> What I really really want (please please TiVo with sugar on top?) is the ability to play MPEG4/H.264 from computers in the house instead of YouTube. I'd love to be able to stream H.264 video (with surround sound) from my WHS box. I'm already starting to rip all my DVDs to H.264 for my iPhone, it wouldn't be hard to rip another copy for my TV. 750GB HDDs are cheap and would store about 300 movies.


You might want to take a look at the D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player?


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

It won't play Youtube directly.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

I'm not spoiled by HD TV yet, since I don't have one, so I might not be too disappointed in the resolution of this.


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## kupe (Apr 10, 2003)

Curtis said:


> "TiVo to Provide YouTube Videos Directly to the Television
> ...The service will be available later this year to broadband-connected subscribers with TiVo Series3(TM) DVRs, including the new TiVo HD.


Okay so any updates on when we'll see it???? 

Kupe


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

No, just that they are working on it.


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## brettatk (Oct 11, 2002)

I take back my original opinion on this matter. I have used my ATV to view youtube videos several times. The quality on most videos is lacking but as it's been stated it's not like you are watching a tv show or movie. I find that for a 4 or 5 minute clip its not as bad as I initially thought.


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## scurby2 (Feb 6, 2008)

hey this will be cool, a good feature thats included with the service..............i would like to see a web browser, like the old web tv


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## kupe (Apr 10, 2003)

Ohfercryinoutloud did the YouTube deal fall apart or something?? This was announced in March. Anyone heard updates?

Kupe


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## telcoman (Dec 27, 2007)

Test said:


> One of the first signs of the s2 going the way of the s1?


And the 8 track, cassette tapes, Betamax, 45 and 33 1/3 RPM records, etc.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

There is word of a summer update coming really soon. I can only assume it may include in-box MPEG4 and Youtube support (for HD models), and DTV convertor support (for antenna capable Series 2s).


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

It will be certainly nice when the support is added. I'm hoping your right. I would love to get that this summer=)


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## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

kupe said:


> Ohfercryinoutloud did the YouTube deal fall apart or something?? This was announced in March. Anyone heard updates?
> 
> Kupe


No date has been announced. We are still working on this.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Is this at all related to the deal with Jaman? Will the functionality for both come out at the same time?

It's been quite some time since the deal with Jaman was announced.



TiVoStephen said:


> No date has been announced. We are still working on this.


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## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

For Jaman: No date has been announced. We're actively working with Jaman to finish this project. There's no overlap with the YouTube deal, and they won't both arrive at the same time.


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