As CES gets rolling, TiVo has announced plans to demo Roku and Chromecast clients… to cable partners. So there’s no telling when or if these implementations will make their way to us retail customers or to what extent, but it’s exciting stuff – on top of the already previewed Amazon Fire TV app. In the interim, you can effectively turn your Amazon Fire TV Stick or box into a TiVo Mini now by sideloading their Android app. Speaking of which, that app is being entirely rewritten from the ground up (to presumably add content downloads) and the iOS app will soon see the addition of “premium sideloading” … as the current implementation is uncomfortably slow and requires the app remain open for long periods of time. Should CES visual imagery present itself, we’ll update the post.
TiVo partners will receive private demonstrations of an ever-evolving nDVR solution, 4k demonstration platforms as well as a more portable TiVo experience for Chromecast and Roku devices. TiVo will also be demoing a completely rebuilt and optimized Android mobile application coming in March and rolling out premium sideloading to iOS users in the coming months.
Yes, I saw the OnePass stuff. Sounds real interesting, but hoping for some images before I move on it.
Ok, I admit it, I know a bunch of technical terms – but what does “premium sideloading” mean?
It would be very nice if Tivo iOS app could download content in the background (when the app is not open) – is that what “premium sideloading” means?
Premium sideloading sounds more like if you pay an extra fee you can sideload your content after transcoding it on your computer with the premium TiVo To Go program
“So there’s no telling when or if these implementations will make their way to us retail customers or to what extent…”
Why on Earth wouldn’t it make it to retail customers, and in very short order too? They’re showing it to MSO’s to try to get their business, but it’d break long-standing US precedent if retail lagged behind, no? And there wouldn’t be any rationale I can suss for it either.
“…but it’s exciting stuff…”
I continue to be a strong dissenter on the utility of this for non-road-warriors. (And if TiVo would just stick a damn WiFi radio in the Mini, it would eliminate the main home use-case-scenario I can imagine.)
Sure, you can save a few bucks up front over the Mini, but considering the recurring monthly amount you pay for cable teevee service, it seems a massively false economy to me.
As always, remember that the PQ via this scheme, after the transcode and bit-rate throttling, is going to be worse than current OTT video. And call me a freak, but I record our HBO shows on the TiVo, rather than watching on HBO Go, just because the PQ difference is so damn noticeable. And, again, the PQ with this scheme will be worse than HBO Go…
(Of course, that’s not to say that this isn’t a smart marketing scheme for TiVo. It likely is. As the famous quote goes, “There are idiots. Look around.” But smart marketing schemes doesn’t mean it actually makes sense for non-road-warrior customers.)
“Premium sideloading” sounds like a way to spend money to download content to a device. I’d just like a downloader that works in the background that doesn’t require the iOS device to sit with the screen on in the Tivo app in order to download content
Why on Earth wouldn’t it make it to retail customers, and in very short order too?
Potentially very different implementations… the TiVo Fire TV video showed the entire TiVo UI as it was purely a front-end for a cable providers cloud DVR service (and perhaps full frame HD). Whereas retail, this would be more of a virtual TiVo Mini for local transcoded streaming. Also TiVo’s gotta figure out how or if they’d charge in retail, which could complicate it for them/us — they’ve proven to be quite stingy despite sitting on about $1b cash at one point. I don’t think this would be a full time solution for most, but it’d be a very nice to have in certain circumstances – especially if the allowed remote access.
“Also TiVo’s gotta figure out how or if they’d charge in retail”
Understand and appreciate your other points, but on this one particular point:
Don’t they face the almost exact same dilemma here with retail as with MSO? (Leading me to believe this one particular point wouldn’t be a retail hangup…)
“Premium Sideloading” sounds like paying for cTivo, even though cTivo is already free!
“I continue to be a strong dissenter on the utility of this for non-road-warriors.”
Chucky – our house has four TVs. One has the Roamio, one has a Mini, and the other two have old cable boxes, but each of those TVs already has something, in our case, a Fire TV stick in one and a Chromecast in the other.
If there was an app, why would I invest $300 in TiVo mini? That’s the utility.
“If there was an app, why would I invest $300 in TiVo mini? That’s the utility.”
Cuz you’re likely spending something in the vicinity of $1,000 every year on your cable sub, and thus a one-time $260 cost to let you take significantly better advantage of the service you’re paying that very expensive recurring cost for seems like best practices to me.
YMMV, of course. But that’s the rationale for why I think it’s a false economy for most.
TiVo Mini is currently a $150 one-time cost (MSRP, maybe Chucky and Scott are talking two units)… Regardless, for part time TV, kids TV, vacation TV, an app would be a nice-to-have where you don’t need full time, highest quality.
I don’t know Chucky. We have a Mini in the living room. Full functionality. We have the Roamio in our master bedroom, full functionality. In my office, there isn’t much TV viewing, so a Roku app would be 99.999% equal in functionality relative to how rarely it’s used / needed. And in my girls room, they are 90% Netflix, 10% TV.
Yeah, I see no need to drop $150 in each of those two rooms for a Mini. Also having an app on a Fire TV stick or Roku stick is perfect for when we travel. Grab the stick and toss it in a suitcase. Chromecast less so, but to be honest, now that Roku has Miracast in their stick, I’m seeing less and less use for Chromecast.
“In my office, there isn’t much TV viewing … And in my girls room, they are 90% Netflix, 10% TV.”
Yeah. Like I say, YMMV. Every use-case-scenario is different. False economy for most, not all.
And teevees that are rarely used, or are rarely tuned into the mutlicast, are certainly excellent examples of where a free or reasonably cheap app would start to make good sense.
That was kind of my point Chucky. That it does make good sense, and isn’t a “false economy”. I think every house is a mixture of both use cases. Primary TV viewing might want dedicated TiVo hardware. But I’ll bet a good majority of houses in this country have some TVs that are lesser used. I know people who own more TV than there are people, and I’ve even known some people with TVs in the bathroom. A Roku stick or two might fit in well next to a Roamio and some Minis in a large number of houses. Anyway, I’m ready for the Roku app. Just release it already!
I will need to buy something to mirror my android tablet to my TV for TWC on demand viewing. Whichever stick can also be used elsewhere to watch the TiVo content gets the final sale. So there is some utility to the makers of the sticks as well – we all know that when everything shakes out it is the content and ease of access that wins out. Things like the apps can not be overlooked
I suspect the Roku and Chrome-cast outlets are going to be stream based – do any of the current cable co offerings have stream on board? I thought they were petty much all re-branded Premiere TiVo’s
The only possible answer is this is a strategy to meet the CVP-2 requirements. But I suspect we are reading WAY TO MUCH into the statement:
“TiVo partners will receive private demonstrations of an ever-evolving nDVR solution, 4k demonstration platforms as well as a more portable TiVo experience for Chromecast and Roku devices.”
No place does this announcement indicate who the target audience is for these new products – simply that they are limiting the demonstrations to “TiVo partners”
Bradley, when TiVo unveiled the Roku screenshots last year they were a proof of concept for MSO partners in regards to nDVR. And the video showing TiVo on Fire TV was a specific MSO partner in Com Hem. Having said that, clients that simply stream recordings could be a smaller undertaking and something retail would benefit from. But until TiVo comes out and says it, I’m not counting any chickens.
Also in regards to their cable partners, I believe most TiVo customers now reside outside the US … and do not use TiVo hardware. For US, RCN does rent Stream and a 6-tuner Roamio under “T6” as one example.
So, when they say the revised Android app is coming out in March, that means 2016, right?
Details on that “premium sideloading” – http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3006
Recent changes to security protocols have made it possible for TiVo to offer premium sideloading for iOS devices. This feature, projected for release in the first half of 2015, will enable TiVo customers to download shows from premium channels such as HBO to their iOS device without violating transmission or copyright provisions.
NOTE: Due to one-time licensing requirements, once a premium-channel show is downloaded to the mobile device, it is deleted from the TiVo set-top box.
Well that makes a lot more sense then. I don’t really use HBO Go or Showtime’s app but do they allow you to download programs for off-line viewing?
“NOTE: Due to one-time licensing requirements, once a premium-channel show is downloaded to the mobile device, it is deleted from the TiVo set-top box.”
I started to get a bit indignant about this, but realized I’m pretty much fine with this as a better solution to “easily” get a movie onto my iPad for traveling/viewing in-air. It would be a bit more wonky for downloading a series, as there may be others in the house that wish to watch and would require redownloading those episodes…
Also, I wonder if this sideloading feature will take advantage of an updated TiVo Desktop-like app, or will still need to be done via the iOS app over wifi. To the point made above by Andrew, leaving the app open to download content at a relatively slow rate is a PITA.
An easy way around this would be to record the movie twice on the TiVo. One copy for home the other for the device. Almost all copy once content has multiple airings.
“An easy way around this would be to record the movie twice on the TiVo. One copy for home the other for the device. Almost all copy once content has multiple airings.”
Clever!
That was going to be my suggesiton – HBO, Showtime, etc all show their shows all the time – especially if you have multiple versions (HBO, HBO2, etc). Only issue is you would need to set a manual recording to pick up the second recording otherwise it will be skipped as a duplicate (or recorded 20 times if you say to record dups).
Once you set the first recording you can find another showing and hit record this also
Right — but its still a manual step :) – I’m of course assuming a season pass recording of one of their shows vs. a movie which you only want to record once (or twice in this case)
“Right — but its still a manual step”
Assuming we’re talkin’ shows instead of movies, I’ve got the solution! Set up two Season Passes: one for “new” on HBO, and one for “new” on HBO Pacific. Voila! Automated!
(For movies, a single extra manual step seems quite acceptable.)
—–
Now, if TiVo were to extend this download/delete scheme to normal TiVo downloads – aka TiVo desktop and the like – that’d make me really happy. (But I’m not holding my breath it’ll actually happen.) I used to regularly archive seasons from HBO off my TiVo, since I strongly prefer the PQ of the multicast to the PQ of OTT. Plus, archiving movies allowed me to avoid windowing issues.
@Chucky – I don’t see how that will work. It still knows it recorded the episode so the second one would be a repeat
“I don’t see how that will work. It still knows it recorded the episode so the second one would be a repeat”
You may well be correct. But since it’s the first showing on HBO Pacific, and you’ve crucially restricted both Season Passes to one specific channel, it might work, as it’s “new” once on each specific channel.
Only way to tell for sure is to test it. I’d actually expect it to work, but as stated, you may well be correct that it won’t.
Well, I know my behavior is what you get when having a season pass on HBO and HBO2. I don’t know if anything would be different with HBO-Pac because Comcast doesn’t offer it (at least not in MA or PA)
“Well, I know my behavior is what you get when having a season pass on HBO and HBO2.”
I stand corrected.
(Out of curiosity, what use-case-scenario prompted you to ever set up two Season Passes like that?)
It didn’t work as well as I wanted to, but my use case was that one tuner was often busy when something aired for the first time on HBO so I wanted to record the next airing which was on HBO2. What really ended up happening was that it waited for the next airing on HBO but I left the season pass in place anyway. It worked well because it would pick up whole seasons when HBO re-broadcast the previous season (on HBO2) leading up to the next season’s premier. I could watch the last episode or 2 of a show to remember what happened (though this is less necessary w/ Tivo access to Comcast On-Demand)
I can say while I never had a use case I know it can be done as when I was transitioning those wish lists or saved searches whatever they were over to the all channel season passes recently introduced I forgot to delete an old search. It recorded dual programs. Same channel, same time, recorded two.
Regarding Roku and Chromecast, Engadget spoke to TiVo…
In other CES/TiVo news, it’s still showing off the network DVR concept that we loved — but no cable companies have bit on yet — and it’s added the ability to stream its cloud TiVo service to Chromecast and Roku.
Nothing interesting there yet for us retail customers. I’m remain hopeful, but certain not counting any ducks.