Zatz Not Funny!

Rhapsody Music Service Lands On TiVo

The TiVo Rhapsody music service announcement made last January bears fruit today:

With Rhapsody on TiVo, you can choose from millions of songs, search for your favorites, tune in to continuous music on Rhapsody Channels, and build your own library—straight from your TV using your TiVo remote. Whether you’re in the mood for classical, hip-hop, or anything in between, it’s all just a few clicks away. And with a Rhapsody membership, you can listen all you want, without the need to buy individual songs.

Essentially, anyone with a Rhapsody account ($12.99/mo, free 30 day trial) will be able to access “artists, albums, playlists and channels” via a broadband-connected Series2 or Series3 TiVo. TiVo intends to flip the switch and activate the service today under the Music & Photos DVR menu, but you’ll need the fall software update (v9.1) to partake.

New Blog Alert: “Comcast Must Die”

We’ve got a potentially interesting and a, most-assuredly, provocatively titled new blog in town… According to Multichannel News:

Giving Comcast subscribers an online forum for complaints about the cable TV operator, media columnist and radio commentator Bob Garfield launched Web site ComcastMustDie.com on Friday. The Web site debuted about four weeks after Garfield first penned a column headlined âComcast Must Die,â? in Advertising Age.

While my Comcast service and interactions have improved lately, like all companies there’s room for improvement.

Gotuit Good News

I got an email from Gotuit the other day about the latest enhanced video site they’re enabling. In this case the news is about a Luke Bryan video remix site (apparently he’s a singer with EMI’s Capitol Records Nashville), but the press release was highly reminiscent of several other Gotuit announcements. In other words, not very interesting, except for the fact that it piles on one more example of Gotuit’s latest success. In September the company announced a deal with the FOX Reality Channel and with Sports Illustrated for the 2007 Heisman Watch site.

Using the announcement as an excuse to revisit the Gotuit website, I found that behind the scenes they appears to be making changes. The company site has been completely revamped to target business customers only, not consumers. Smart. It’s a lot cleaner and quite slick looking. I don’t know anything about the company’s financials, but focusing on a B2B audience has always seemed its most promising route. Rather than fight the consumer video wars, Gotuit is establishing itself as a trusted content delivery system at a time when the business world is just starting to scratch the service of online video applications. I see huge growth potential.

TiVo Series3 Multi-Room Viewing Is Here! (sort of)

While twiddling my thumbs waiting for the official Multi-Room Viewing (MRV) and TiVoToGo (TTG), I went ahead and cobbled together my own very nice MRV solution.

I’ve read online that the max distance for a non-amplified HDMI cable run may not meet my needs, but quite a few vendors offer long HDMI cables. So I took the plunge and paid $51.01 (including shipping) for Monoprice’s most expensive 35′ HDMI cable. That allowed the living room Series3 to power the 42″ plasma locally via component, while simultaneously powering the 30″ bedroom HDTV via HDMI (with the help of a $5 13/16″ drill bit) as shown below. Video and audio come through very well, and there’s no indication that the source TiVo is out of range.

The next challenge is remotely controlling the TiVo… And at the same time this plan was percolating, Monster offered me their Harmony-powered IR+RF remote (AVL300) for review (MSRP $400). I’ve programmed it to control the bedroom TV via IR and the livingroom Series3 via RF. Response through the walls and around corners has been instantaneous, again with no indication the TiVo is located somewhere else.

Overall, this solution is very nice. I’m enjoying the immediate playback from a remote DVR, including HD content… unlike TiVo’s Multi-Room Viewing which doesn’t always stream (standard def content) real-time without having to wait for the buffer to build. I also like the idea of having one DVR to manage, though I’m limited to recording on the two Series3 tuners. (I still have a Humax DVD-burning TiVo in the bedroom… for now.)

NAB Takes Low Blow At RIAA

Normally, I don’t really care for all of the politics that go on in Washington, but even I can appreciate the irony of the NAB taking a swipe at the RIAA. You know things are getting crazy when big media starts to turn to cannibalism. Apparently, the RIAA wants to start charging radio stations for … Read more

TiVo PayPerPost Update: Program Killed

TiVo has pulled the plug on their PayPerPost advertising program. Following this forum thread, it appears that TiVo did intend to have a 5 second “bumper” on each video indicating it was a paid/sponsored clip – either TiVo or PayPerPost dropped the ball in delivering (and explaining) that asset to participants in a timely fashion. … Read more

First Two Season Passes Dropped

Prior to recording even the first episode, I dropped Bionic Woman. And after watching the debut last night of Discovery’s Last One Standing… I dropped it too. LOS is a reality show in which 6 athletes are shipped around the world to participate in “tribal games.” The problem is about half the locales/games involve combat … Read more