TiVo Archives - Page 93 of 149

TiVo Gets Canadian Retail Presence

TiVo, Inc. long ignored the Canadian marketplace. In fact, like the Australians, the Canadian marketplace consisted of imported boxes to be hacked for free (and local) guide data. More recently, TiVo did make legit service and guide data available to Canadian customers – though I believe units were only available for online ordering or required a … Read more

Scientific Atlanta Exceeds 7 Million SDV Homes

In a press release, which could be a mixed bag, Cisco reports:

Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company, today announced that commitments for its Switched Digital Video (SDV) platform in the U.S. have exceeded 7 million homes passed. By extending and distributing the management of the video and data network control plane all the way to the “edge” of the network (generally speaking, at the optical node), operators can maximize their network investment by sharing quadrature amplitude modulators (QAMs) across both video-on-demand (VoD) and switched digital video traffic.

While SDV currently poses a problem for retail CableCARD devices (think TiVo) unable to resolve switched programming, these 7 million homes may not all receive SDV channels. Yet. And of those that do, we’re probably only talking a few stations. For now. 7 million represents greater than 10% of US cable subscribers, and Time Warner has indicated they intend to deploy SDV to 50% of customer homes this year.

SDV allows the providers to more efficiently utilize their bandwidth, a consideration with digital and HD content proliferation, but as a TiVo owner I’m somewhat concerned. Sounds like the various stakeholders are working on a technical solution, but when will it be released and who pays for it? And I assume I’ll have to give up yet another spot on my surge protector.

Roxio Updates TiVoToGo Software

TiVoBlog reports on Roxio’s Toast (v8) and Popcorn (v3) software updates that resolve TiVoToGo troubles introduced with the TiVo 9.1/9.2 Fall Update:

TiVo recordings created after TiVo’s Fall 2007 DVR update will no longer cause the application to hang during encoding
Resolves issue that may result in failed transfer of recording from DVR
TiVo recordings will be displayed with correct metadata
TiVo HD recordings now play back at correct speed

TiVo and Roxio Acknowledge TiVoToGo Troubles

Both TiVo and Roxio have acknowledged what many of us have known for some time (PVRBlog, TiVo Community, Roxio Support Forums, several emails): TiVo’s fall software update (9.1/9.2) included some sort of change which impacts a percentage of TiVoToGo file conversions and DVD burning from Mac Roxio software. So I checked in with both TiVo … Read more

TiVo Markets Customer Demographic Data

DVR powerhouse TiVo, Inc. announced that they will be offering a new service that gives advertisers detailed information customer information. “Power Watch Consumer Panel,” a partnership between TiVo Inc. and Starcom USA, fires another salvo at long-established Nielsen as TiVo attempts to further monetize the data and statistics data that their DVR service gathers. TiVo … Read more

TiVo Resurrects Lifetime Service (for a time)

Through February 2nd, TiVo is offering Lifetime Service subscriptions to existing customers at a cost of $399. Mathematically, only you can decide if this is a good deal. Adding a lifetime of standard definition service (TiVo DT, Series2) doesn’t make sense to me, but it could be entirely reasonable on a TiVo HD or Series3. … Read more

Comcast Launches TiVo Webpage

New England residents (unaffiliated with either company) may or may not be able to actually subscribe to the Comcast TiVo service, but everyone is welcome to visit their new page. I entered several regional zip codes, in addition to my own, but all came up blank. If you find one that works, let us know! … Read more

Beyond Nielsen TV Ratings

Nielsen, TiVo and Snapstream Media. One of those three is well known for tracking television viewership, but the other two: TiVo and Snapstream Media (makers of the Beyond TV PC DVR software) are not as well known in this realm, but offer a more transparent and relatively useful snapshot of what Television Viewers like you and I are watching. Would you agree that Heroes and The Office are hit shows – at least better than Dancing with the Stars or 60 Minutes? Well you’d likely agree more with TiVo and Beyond TV users.

Since the early 1940’s the television and advertising industries have relied on Nielsen Media Research to measure the popularity and success of television programming. Nielsen continues to be the leading provider of this information and their list of the top TV shows by demographic are consistently highlighted in the media and watched closely by Advertisers and the Television Networks. While I’m still interested in what Nielsen is reporting as the top shows, I’m left wanting more.