Comments on: TiVo Adds Jaman and Disney VOD

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:58:06 +0000

We enjoyed our two free Jaman movies. Lord of War and The Bank Job. Definitely need better encoding and higher resolutions though.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:28:05 +0000

Greg, The Series3 and TiVo HD platform does support H.264 (MPEG-4). That’s what the YouTube application is using. Also, the revamped UI they’re working on (linked above) gives me some hope of seeing a more unified (16:9) experience – whether pulling Internet content or stuff from the cable-co.

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:07:00 +0000

I wonder if the problem is that TiVo does not support MPEG4. Other devices that do HD downloads use MPEG4 compression so that the files aren’t too large.

By: dwgsp

dwgsp — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:21:44 +0000

The lack of VOD HD may be a business decision, based on where Tivo management thinks they will get the most bang for the buck. Anyone care to guess about how the number of SD vs. HD Tivo units are connected to the net?

By: Jim Vaughan

Jim Vaughan — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:26:16 +0000

I wonder if this has to do with transfer speed?

I still cannot stream in real time from one TiVo HD box to another (connection is 100M).

By: Derek

Derek — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:33:50 +0000

Offering more Standard Definition Content is not moving forward, it’s jogging in place.

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:11:34 +0000

Besides scheduling, the internet features of TiVo are far from the same high standards of the rest of the TiVo platform. For starters, why do the menus switch to 480i resolution once you go into the online content? Has anyone tried to do something as simple as get traffic or weather news? It’s terrible. Look at how elegant the Wii does with weather reports.

And of course, you’re right that TiVo VoD is only 480i, even for content that exists at higher resolutions. Look at podcasts like Tekzilla – an HD feed is available, but you can’t get it on your TiVo.

It’s pretty clear that the internet features of TiVo are an afterthought, and they weren’t developed by the same team that develops the rest of the TiVo platform. It detracts from the experience.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:45:12 +0000

Yeah, I’m with you. Wonder what the hold up is? Several months back I heard whispers Amazon HD was pulled back from testing. If TiVo and their partners get to HD soon, they compete much better against cable VOD, Vudu, AppleTV, etc.