Automation Adventures

One of the best chances for third party equipment to open the cable channels was the CableCard. However, implementation of third party devices that support CableCards, and the support from cable companies, were less than enthusiastic. I had very little success in using my TiVo series 3 with a JetBroadband cable card.

Now the FCC issued a Notice Of Inquiry seeking input on a new technology to open up cable channels to other devices, breaking the settop box monopoly. Engadget has a nice summary, with the non-surprising camps: Sony, TiVo and the Consumer Electronics Association make up one side, the NCTA (National Cable & Telecommunications Association) and the MPAA make up the other side. We won’t give away which side is in favor and which side is against.

But is this really the future of watching television in our homes? Since the NOI is the first step in a long process, we won’t see anything for years out of the FCC. By that time, the group of people watching TV in different forms (i.e. not through a settop box) will have grown even further. So any legislation coming out of this FCC process may be applicable or affecting only a small group of people who use old standards – similar to requiring the broadcaster to switch to digital broadcasting. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be watching Hulu, Google TV and Boxee Boxes, and ignoring whatever “new” technology the cable company tries to sell us…

Tags: boxee, cablecard, fcc, google tv, hulu, jetbroadband, tivo

I just received an email from TiVo, announcing the availability of a new HD DVR: the TiVo HD XL DVR.

The product specifications list this unit as:

• Save up to 150 hours of HD programming at one time
• TV signal sources: digital and analog cable, digital and analog antenna. Satellite NOT supported.
• Replaces your cable box using one or more CabeCARD™ decoders available from your cable company
• Video output modes: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, native, hybrid
• TiVo Series3™ architecture

Tags: hd, PVR, series 3, tivo

Last Thursday, I got sick.

I don’t know if it was a late reaction to all the holiday food, travel, family stress, or whatever. But waking up Thursday morning, I felt so miserable, that I was convinced my co-workers would be off much better without me kvetching at the office.

So I stayed home. After some sleep, hot soup and lunch, I was feeling a bit better, and decided to see what the TiVo in the bedroom could play from the TiVo in the living room. Well, apparently not the free content that I subscribed to, and could download off the Internet without any problems.

I subscribe to two shows on  TivoCast, CNet and Cranky Geeks. Both of these shows are available to anyone without paying a penny. Granted, the only source for the TiVo version is TivoCast, but otherwise, it seems to me that these shows are freely available. But when I was browsing the other TiVo, I could not transfer these shows between TiVos.

The reason that was given is that the copyright holder has requested that this content cannot be transferred. Although this is possible with the CNet (I couldn’t find a download link for their content), but it seems strange for Cranky Geeks, which on the front page has download links for several formats.

So what could be the real reason? Is TiVo tracking to see who downloaded the content? So why block me from transferring the content from one TiVo to another, within the same house? Are they tracking to see how often it is watched? By whom? Or is this some kind of default that the “copyright owners” haven’t thought about, because their content is freely shareable??

Anyways, it seemed kind of fishy to me. If anyone knows why this is setup this way, I would love to hear it.

Tags: cnet, copyright, cranky geeks, PVR, tivo, tivocast, transfers

The newest offering from TiVo, the HD DVR, might suffer from a problem when your cable provider uses Switched Digital Video (SDV).

This blog post on Lauren Weinstein’s blog signals a problem that might prevent the new HD TiVo’s, that are using CableCARDs to receive the channels, from receiving all channels when your cable provider is using SDV.

As it happens, two days after that blog post, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) made a filing with the FCC according to Lauren’s follow-up post. However, this solution (the OpenCable option) doesn’t sit well with the Consumer Electronics Association, who find the solution unduly expensive and cumbersome to develop.

Until a final solution is developed, the users of the Tivo HD DVR might have to resort to the old method of infrared switching of their cable boxes, instead of relying on the CableCARD technology…

When Apple TV was launched, arguably the biggest complaint was that you couldn’t record your own shows with it. Now it seems Apple is thinking about doing a HD DVR, but the limitation seems to be the internal 40Gb hard disk.

Enter the USB ports on the Apple TV. What if you could hook up an external hard disk? Miglia seems to provide the functionality Apple is looking for. However, making iTunes recognize that external USB drive may means some serious software integration, and it wouldn’t be in Apple’s best interest to leave Miglia completely independent.

Sources: The Apple Blog, Blackfriars, and MaxDailyNews.