Comments on: TiVo And Amazon Bring UnBox To The TV Set

By: Schumann

Schumann — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 05:11:26 +0000

Wendell, stop being a d***head to people you don’t know. Dave (Zatz) is one of the cooler tech early-adopter bloggers, and happens to be a big TiVo proponent.

Nitpicking over an interpretation & an expression (subjective by definition, to start with!) and insulting someone that spends his own time to bring tech info to readers is really puerile. Grow up & learn to be polite – and maybe your point (which isn’t invalid) would even have made itself!

By: Wendell

Wendell — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 01:30:36 +0000

OK your blog tagline is “blogging the connceted home and digital lifestyle” Don’t you think you should do a little research before you print that “series 3 owners have been forced to give up access to pay per view”.
That is not true. You have all the PPV options on the Series 3 EXCEPT you can not order it from the box. You order over phone and it shows up on the PPV channels just like it did before CC implemented on box PPV ordering. No it is not as convenient, but it is also not “forced to give it up” as you said. Stop being lazy!

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 02:22:18 +0000

Lighten up, folks! Like MegaZone said:
“…give them a break. Let them get it out and working first, why do people always want all the bells and whistles in the 1.0 release?”

There are some obvious next steps (on-TiVo ordering, HD, Dolby Digital sound, etc.) which hopefully will all come over time as they establish whether there’s a market (i.e. “paying customers”) for the service.

Now if only there was a way for us to say “by paying for this as an early adopter, I’m not at all suggesting that I’m satisfied with 1.0. I expect that other stuff to come, but am buying now to show my support and encouragement!”

HD and 5.1 will require an S3, so I understand why they didn’t bother with that for now. Probably makes it easier to secure initial content too (not to mention faster to download).

By: Bierboy

Bierboy — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 01:59:02 +0000

This is all just a heaping, steaming pile of dung. The video is “near-DVD quality” and the audio is stereo? Come on….that’s ridiculous.

By: tedbill

tedbill — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:06:43 +0000

Anything that brings me close to dumping cable is a good thing. I wish they could have been able to do this deal with NetFlix, but if they are able to get the tech working and the price right I’m ready to jump!

By: Glenn

Glenn — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:20:24 +0000

Awesome awesome awesome. Obviously some glitches at first, and I’m not even certain I’ll use it that much right away, but this is the direction I want/need Tivo to evolve in. In the long run I would expect this to replace NetFlix, since they don’t seem to be going this way.

Obviously the devils in the details–how much, whats available, how responsive, etc etc. But we’re on the way…

By: MegaZone

MegaZone — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 19:53:53 +0000

Michael – I think an ‘on box’ interface is a logical evolution, but give them a break. Let them get it out and working first, why do people always want all the bells and whistles in the 1.0 release? The web interface for Unbox already exists for the PC downloads, adding downloads to a TiVo is the logical next step and the first necessary step for the service. Later they can add an HME-based interface for on box ordering, independent of the underlying service.

HDTiVo – I disagree about HME being limited. The SDK they use internally is FAR evolved from the public SDK. As seen at CES, the entire cable box software interface is written using the internal HME SDK. I think the current TiVoCast and Guru Guide apps are great, and a lot better than integrating them into the OS. Developing them this way de-couples development of apps from development of the OS. That means they can add new features and update them without tying everything to software update cycles for the OS.

Schumann – Right now Amazon doesn’t seem to do HD downloads at all. But I think that’s a logical progression for the future on the S3.

As for streaming and pricing – pricing tends to be dictated by the studios and not the service. That’s why all of these services have nearly identical pricing.

And streaming sounds great – until you look at the tech. Most people *do not* have broadband that can support streaming video at DVD quality (and forget HD completely). Really, I expect the Unbox downloads to be sub-DVD quality to keep the downloads reasonable. Most DVDs are 5Mbps or higher bitrates, on average, so you’d need downloads at that speed just to keep the download to real time.

The S3 could do better by using MPEG-4 or VC-1, but the S2/2DT only handles MPEG-2 so that’s a hard limitation. (I still think it was a mistake not to put an MPEG-4/VC-1 decoder in the S2DT.) Since the SD video has to be MPEG-2 for the S2/2DT, it makes sense to use it for the S3. Also, the S3 is a *tiny* fraction of the TiVo user base at this time, so I don’t see them spending a lot to cater to it. If they ever do HD I’m sure they’ll use one of the advanced codecs.

To do streaming video you end up making a trade off – you accept lower quality video for streaming performance. Personally I’d rather have higher quality and wait for a download.

By: Schumann

Schumann — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:31:00 +0000

Yeah – now THIS is the kind of BIG deal TiVo needs, and the awesome vsibility for Amazon too, that will move this technology forward!

Some good suggestions here, and there certainly needs to be
- an ability to buy ON the TiVo
- higher resolution (if not HD!) for S3 users
- streaming viewing, not the current state-of-TiVoCast that requires a download to finish!

I’m eager to try this out, and hopefully Amazon will push prices lower over time. One of my chief beefs with iTunes has been their ridiculous prices … cloning them does NOT augur well!