Automation Adventures

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.

TiVo Lovers has an article describing a new feature of the TiVo, Amazon Unbox Video Downloads on Tivo. This service allows you to send Unbox content you get from Amazon (either purchased or as part of a special offer) directly to your TiVo, allowing you to watch it on your regular TV.

Not all content is available to be sent to your TiVo, but that probably will increase as this service takes off. Also, there currently is no way to order videos directly from your TiVo, but with the HME environment TiVo has opened the door to anyone to write an application that can do this.

If you register for the service by April 30th, you get $15 credit for movies and TV shows.