Comments on: TiVo Enables Custom Video Podcast Feeds

By: do

do — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:07:05 +0000

This shortener “Numerify” seems designed to make it easy to enter via Tivo remote: http://2580.tk/

By: gt

gt — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:37:10 +0000

i was going to mention try using a url shortener. if some expire after a certain time, surely there is a url shortener site that doesnt expire after time. otherwise there should be a special tivo url shortening site. also, (from the bit.ly example above), does tivo recognize uppercase/lowercase in url’s? somehow i doubt it

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:50:07 +0000

Painful indeed! And of course, the two video streams I tried to use were both invalid. Still, a very cool feature, and I’ll look up that DVR Remote app!

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:36:51 +0000

Forgot to mention and forgot to try myself… those of you with iPhones and iTouches should hunt down the keyboard-ed DVR remote app on iTunes. (My app doesn’t run anymore, just hangs or crashes. Maybe you’ll have better luck.)

By: Sulley

Sulley — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:27:53 +0000

This is a painful feature to use — no other way to say it. But, at least it will try to auto-populate the custom RSS feeds if it has been used before.

I appreciated the expanded listings, but they have gotten a little large to navigate easily, even with a 8Mbps wired Ethernet connection.

It is, however, incredibly picky about what it will accept. They say they want H.264 video. I have tried three different feeds that are in that format, but it says that no compatible video formats were found in that feed. It’s particularly frustrating after spending 2-5 minutes entering a URL that’s 300 characters long. They need to expand the formats permitted.

I’m definitely in agreement that needs to be included on their MyTiVo webpage for entry of custom feeds. Doing it through the TiVo UI is painful and, at least for me, so far useless!

By: Dale Dietrich

Dale Dietrich — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:55:01 +0000

OH my Gosh that was painful to watch! P-A-I-N-F-U-L-L!!!

Thanks again for taking one for the team.

As I mentioned above, if I could set these up with Season’s passes I’d definately go through the pain for my video podcasts. But, I’ll never remember to dig down that deep into the interface to manually look for updates when iTunes/AppleTV just dish up all my latest podcasts effortlessly for me.

But I appreciate TiVo heading in the right direction. I’ve wanted customized podcast choices for a long time, but never expected them to implement it this way.

Cassidy, I don’t think that is the feed because the new feed is the ENTIRE show, not just the lightening round. I looked on the feed in iTunes to see if it revealed the URL in the More Info tab and couldn’t find it. You can get it from the iTunes store at this URL:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=57910932&id=147247199

If someone knows what the actual RSS feed URL is I’ll try it out on my TiVo, assuming this function is available in Canada.

But, again, won’t use it regularly until I could set it up as a seasons pass – then I’d probably really enjoy it.

…Dale

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:44:14 +0000

I’ve updated the post with a video and an extra pic, taken from that video showing how/where these custom feeds are retained. The typing is brutal, but the feature is decent. I’d prefer it automatically download new episodes in my NPL, but I’m not as agitated as bkdtv – especially since it seems like TiVo is using these links to build out their library. But how will I know when my “custom” feed because a library item and will I be automatically migrated? Somehow, I doubt it…

Cassidy, I think I emailed you at your old address… But, for all: Some of those URL shorteners expire links after a period of time.

By: bkdtv

bkdtv — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:46:17 +0000

As far as I am concerned, this “custom RSS feature” is completely useless until TiVo adds the option to create a season pass to automatically download new “episodes.”

Who wants to navigate to the screen and download (or stream) every new video manually? Very few people will use the feature if they have to do that.

I want to “set it once and forget it.” I want every new “episode” downloaded to my DVR and organized into a folder with the name of the program, just as we get with television programs.