Comcast TiVo In The Wild!

While most folks haven’t been cleared to receive the Comcast TiVo and pricing still hasn’t been revealed, some lucky New Englanders have the hookup.

But before we get to the exclusive pictures, I’d like to pose a series of questions… How much will the TiVo on Comcast service cost? I’ve heard monthly fees could be anything from $2.95 – $6.95 (additional) or Comcast might even charge a one time DVR “upgrade” fee. Will New England customers receive special pricing (or free service) while Comcast ramps up and builds awareness? Speaking of New England, what’s the time frame for deployment in that region (I’m hearing next month)… and the regions beyond? What hardware will TiVo run on? Two Motorola models were mentioned at CES, but that was prior to the release of Moto’s CableCARD boxes. But the question I’d really like to get answered: Is Firewire video extraction available? (Since, I assume, TiVoToGo will never be available.)

And now, I present the first photos of a deployed Comcast TiVo running on Motorola hardware:


Comcast TiVo Central with PIP and On Demand.


Comcast TiVo Season Pass Manager. Again notice the PIP.


Comcast TiVo Season Pass Options. Notice the HD flag!


Grid guide looks like the Comcast and TiVo UIs have been fused together.

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Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. Live TV on the Internet: Connected Home 2 Go Security Questions For A Digital TV World: Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection VOD Libraries More Double: Connected Home 2 Go Finding Worthy Nintendo Wii Games: Brent Evans Geek Tonic TV Caller ID Proves Popular: Connected Home 2 … Read more

Where’s the HD?

Chris, of Amazon Daily, and I were recently lamenting that we don’t receive many HD channels via Comcast (he’s in Seattle, I’m outside DC). Maybe it wouldn’t be so painful if we weren’t aware of other Comcast regions, such as New England, receiving at least a half dozen more HD channels – many of which … Read more

TiVo Updates Fall Software Priority List

TiVoBlog reports that TiVo has expanded their Fall Software priority update page to now offer Series3 and TiVo HD owners version 9.2 – you know, the one with official eSATA support. Though TiVo’s still leaving us in the dark regarding those new hard drive partners: For TiVo Series3 & TiVo HD DVRs the latest release … Read more

37 Flickr Upload Tools: Windows, Mac & Linux

Flickr announced a partnership with Microsoft enabling direct Flickr uploads via Windows Live Photo Gallery. This is yet another excellent way to get your photos to Flickr. But don’t stop there, because there are currently 37 different ways to upload pictures to Flickr using Windows, a Mac, Linux or even your mobile phone. I’ll give … Read more

Dude, I’m Getting a Media Center

The AccessoriesI don’t like to think about it, but the death of my PC could have ended much more tragically. Waking up and discovering that I may have lost all of my data, I progressed through each of the 5 stages of grief. At first, I tried to deny that there was a problem, then I got angry at myself for not listening to Thomas Hawk’s advice, this was followed by plenty of promises to be more diligent, if I could only figure out how to repair the computer, and when I ultimately realized it was toast, depression set in over my loss. Eventually, realizing my problems had nothing to do with my data, acceptance was easy — it meant that I was going to transfer my digital life into an entirely new media experience.

Three years ago, I made the mistake of buying a computer from my employer. They had extra units lying around and I liked the idea of having Microsoft Office pre-installed. The computer was old, but still an upgrade over my Windows 98 PC. At first it seemed like this a good solution but, what I didn’t realize, was that all the media-related functionality had been stripped from the machine. It ran on just a half a gig of RAM, had no CD or DVD burner, the video card couldn’t support higher resolutions, and somehow they managed to disable the microphone.

As a media nut, this was a brutal mistake to make for the home PC. So when it came time to get a new machine, I wanted to make sure that I kept all my functionality options open – such as handling PC gaming and streaming digital video well.

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