Commercial TiVo Photo Displaying HME App

This is one of the first commercial HME applications I’ve run across… Web-a-Photo (who?) allows you to share, edit, and order prints of your photos online. Their free beta HME app, which must be installed on your PC, serves up those web photos on TV via TiVo. I can’t say I’m overly enthused about this … Read more

Space Shuttle Launches in HD

HD Beat is reporting Mark Cuban’s HDNet will broadcast upcoming Space Shuttle, and some expendable rocket, launches in HD through 2010. Very cool! Well… very cool if the Shuttle ever gets off the ground again.

Slingbox Released in Canada

Any Canadian readers in the house? You can now pick up a Slingbox for $299 CAD, which roughly equates to the US list price of $249 — though on several occasions it’s been offered as low as $199 USD. Sling Media says: Sling Media, Inc., a digital lifestyle consumer electronics products company, today announced that … Read more

TiVo Goes To War

As many of you know, the next two weeks are critical in determining TiVo Inc’s future. If they are able to prevail in defending their “time warp” patent versus Dish Network, with court proceedings beginning today, TiVo should be able to work out royalty arrangements with other DVR providers – in or out of the … Read more

TiVo Series 2 Hardware Refresh

Several shopping sites have just posted listings for the mysterious new Series 2 devices (TCD649080,TCD649180) that feature dual tuner capabilities, Ethernet, and an 80HR or 180HR recording capacity at a list price of $249 and $349 respectively. No word on ship dates, however it seems the NTSC OTA tuner will be phased out well before … Read more

SlingPlayer Mobile Released

SlingPlayer Mobile has been released for PocketPC 2003 and Windows Mobile 5 devices with a touch screen. A version for non-touch screen phones should be available within a month, which works out well as I’m considering the T-Mo SDA. As promised the software was released in Q1, though the current edition is a public beta. … Read more

March Madness: SportsLine v. Slingbox

Ah, March Madness… definitely amongst the top sporting events. The first two days are especially exciting, each consisting of about 12 hours of competition and, if we’re lucky, some amazing upsets. I have no idea who Northwestern State is, but they sure were dramatic in sending Iowa home.

As I mentioned last week, CBS is webcasting games for free via March Madness on Demand. So I decided to check it out and compare the service to Slingbox.

My CBS SportLine experience didn’t get off to a good start with a 10 minute wait (see image below) followed by a Marriott commercial before I could access the feeds. Once in, I had several games to choose from — though one was blacked out due to regional restrictions. I’m not certain if that was determined by my IP address and/or the information in my profile. The CBS SportsLine site had banner ads as promised, but what I hadn’t realized is that they’d also be serving commercials during time outs. Though, they must not have sold all their ad space as static “Stay Tuned” graphics often replaced commercials.

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TiVo KidZone: The Experience

If you’ve been following along, you know TiVo was in Washington, DC this week to announce two new KidZone developments — the addition of Parents’ Choice Foundation for content suggestions and the ability of KZ to identify and record E/I programming. I got in touch with TiVo last week and reminded them I live in the area (and clean up pretty well). They were very cool in giving me the green light to attend what turned out to be an exclusive gathering of only a few dozen people including CEO Tom Rogers and Congressman Fred Upton. On behalf of the blogosphere, I thank you TiVo (and Thomas Hawk)!

When I originally learned of KidZone I was underwhelmed. After all, what do I care about parental controls — I don’t have children and I don’t have any immediate reproductive plans. Why aren’t these guys working on my VOD and Series 3? Having learned more and allowing this initiative to percolate for awhile, I’ve changed my tune… perhaps this is bigger than we thought. KidZone now strikes me a positive and powerful strategic move by TiVo of furthering Rogers’ goal of differentiating themselves from generic DVR offerings. With both public and political scrutiny of television programming recently, TiVo is using this functionality to command attention and align themselves with powerful allies (as in Congress). This kind of exposure will surely help in marketing themselves as a software solution to cable companies and in limiting customer defections. I’m not sure how many boxes KidZone will move on its own, but TiVo has picked up a new set of vocal evangelists by partnering with these various watchdog groups.

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