Zatz Not Funny!

Web Not Good Enough for TV?

There tends to be a lot of confusion around the term IPTV. It doesn’t mean video streamed over the free-and-clear Internet like YouTube. It means television that is streamed over a regulated IP network. In other words, IPTV requires some service provider manage the quality and security of the television experience.

Yesterday Google warned publicly that the Web cannot support broadcast-quality Internet TV over the long term. The system won’t scale. So what does Google plan to do about it? Apparently the company wants to work with cable operators to “combine its technology for searching for video and TV footage and its tailored advertising with the cable networks’ high-quality delivery of shows.”

More On Amazon Unbox + TiVo

Those of you who read ZNF regularly or have come across some of my comments on the TCF can probably guess the Amazon Unbox on TiVo service excites me: Being able to rent feature length films via the Internet for television playback is my personal holy grail. So I checked in with TiVo, Inc this … Read more

TiVo And Amazon Bring UnBox To The TV Set

We heard early rumblings, but when it comes to TiVo, you never quite know which rumors will turn out to be true. As it turns out though, TiVo and Amazon actually have been in negotiations to bring Unbox to TiVo subscribers and they are almost ready to roll it out. It goes into testing on Wednesday, but initially it will only be in a few hundred homes. In order to use the service, customers will need to first purchase their movies directly from Amazon’s website. Though you can download the movie right to your PC desktop, you can also download the film directly to the TiVo box. Amazon allows you to download 2 copies of any film at a time, but because of the system’s dependence on downloading, it means you’ll still have to wait to see your content. I would have preferred to have access to streaming content instead, especially given that it’s already connected to my TV set, but hopefully we’ll see something like that introduced further down the road. TiVo refused to give a timeline on the broader rollout, but it would certainly make a nice update, if they could enable it at the same time as when they launch TiVoCast for their series 3 boxes.

This is an exciting development for TiVo and is a great feature to be able to offer their subscribers. With Series 3 owners having been forced to give up access to pay per view, the addition of the content helps makes for a better trade off. Amazon’s movie selections is still pretty limited, but hopefully as the studios become more comfortable with internet distribution we’ll see more content show up.

Dave Joins Sling Media (!)

Let’s just say it’s been a crazy few weeks… As the title says, I’ve joined Sling Media! Obviously, I’ve been a fan for a while and Sling’s CES announcements convinced me these guys are really out there pushing the envelope in the digital media space. So, I’m extremely excited and flattered to be able to work with this group.

I’ll have a variety of roles here at Sling — the two most visible ones will be my presence on the Sling Community Forum and as the point man for writers/editors in the blogosphere. The communication will be two-way: not only will I be conveying company information, I’ll also be taking everything in to keep the executive team and various internal groups informed. As a blogger, I’m also hopeful you’ll see me heading up something, somewhere, at some point.

Wal-Mart Unveils Movie/TV Downloads And I Don’t Care

Wal-Mart’s video download service debuts today (in beta form). Top new release movie purchases run ~$20 and TV shows are $1.96. But why would I pay the same price (or more) to buy a movie at “near DVD” quality and without extras? Heck, they’ve even outsourced the buying of discs and burning to me (assuming … Read more

TiVo Top Ten

If you watched the Super Bowl last night, chances are you tuned in for and even repeat-viewed some of the commercials. It’s the one time of year when couch potatoes actually want to watch ads, and TiVo capitalized on the phenomenon by making certain commercials download-able for enthusiastic fans. TiVo also put out a list … Read more

Motorola Readies CableCARD Compliant HD DVR

Since Engadget and PVRWire mentioned the new Motorola box (DCH-3416) this weekend, I thought I’d chime in with a bit more info. This HD DVR was announced at CES, and in fact Moto had quite a few on display (pic above).

First, it looks much sharper, more modern than the 6412 (and others). Second, the reason this is on the way to a cableco (or telco) near you is the FCC’s 7/07 seperable security requirement: This box supports CableCARD, both M-Card and CC 1.0. Mari tells me it contains a 160GB hard drive and is OCAP-capable.

But is it TiVo capable? TiVo believes their Java-based software can easily port to other platforms. While it’s not indicative of anything, I did observe TiVo briefing a group of Moto folks in Vegas. Hmm… or was Moto briefing TiVo.

The results of the raffle are in — You guys are awesome! Together we raised $1125 for the James Kim Memorial Fund, plus I’ll be sweetening the pot with my December Google Adsense income. It feels good to witness such generosity and I’m flattered so many entrusted me with their money.

Stephen randomly picked the winner of the TiVo Toaster (bread not included) which will be shipped from TiVo shortly. Bob Kemp, retired from IBM for 7 years, is the lucky recipient and hopes the Kim family is doing well.

Thank you for the contributions! Also, a big thanks to Stephen for his participation in this fundraiser.