Dave Speaks

Yes, I’m still here in Vegas and have a decent amount of stuff to share! I was briefed on the Comcast-Motorola-TiVo box and Digeo’s upcoming boxes. Yahoo also has some interesting stuff in the works and of course there’s the Xbox 360 as IPTV ‘cable’ box news. It’s just a matter of finding some time to get it all together.

In the meantime you can listen to two podcasts I did. In fact, you’ll hear them before I will! Let me know if they’re any good, otherwise I’ll pass. ;)

8 thoughts on “Dave Speaks”

  1. The main question on all of this if when, when, when? Especially on the Comcast/Tivo box in my case – I am waiting for a comparison between that and the Series3 before I buy an HDTV.

  2. Ars Technica has a pretty good article on the Tivo/Comcast port.

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070109-8585.html

    The most disappointing part is:

    “There’s no KidZone, remote scheduling, or home networking with the Comcast TiVos.”

    I don’t care about KidZone, and I didn’t expect home networking (since the S3 doesn’t have it).
    But I really was expected remote scheduling.

    What I still wonder about (besides performance/reliability):

    1) Can you choose IR codes, so two boxes can live in the same room easily (like on a real Tivo)

    2) Does it save Guide Data to disk like a real Tivo, or lose it on reboot ala Comcast?

    3) Is the Guide the same short description data Comcast uses, or do we get the longer into available on the Tivo (directors, guest starts, original broadcast date, etc).

  3. Ars mentions the remote is the same, though it;s actually tweaked a bit such as A, B, C keys. Question 1 I don’t know and Q3 I was about to ask, but got sidetracked… Damn, I want to know the answer as well. BUT the data I looked at and searched through was more comprehensive than my stock 6412 experience. Guide data is both local and on the head-end server depending on the relative date. There’s no remote web scheduling now, but it sounds like it’s something on the table with Comcast.

  4. Re. Comcast/Tivo…

    Did you have a chance to test it live?

    What did you think about the responsiveness? Was it acceptable, i.e. Tivo-like, or sluggish ala Comcast DVR?

    Did it ever miss IR commands?

    Was the guide responsive, regardless of whether the data was local or not?

  5. Yeah, I did play with three different units in the booth. I found it sufficiently responsive, but then again I find the stock 6412 software fairly responsive — the problem is the amount of clicks needed to get somewhere. IR seemed fine, didn’t notice anything unusual. The guide data was responsive, including new search features… however these are demo models at a show, so I have no idea what they’re connected to in terms of data.

  6. I didn’t think to program the remote. I only spent about 90 minutes with the TiVo folks… perhaps Megazone can answer that question. Speaking of which, I’m disappointed I wasn’t able to meet up with him at CES. Hopefully, I’ll get a proper Comcast-Moto-TiVo post up by Saturday.

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