TiVo, Inc. long ignored the Canadian marketplace. In fact, like the Australians, the Canadian marketplace consisted of imported boxes to be hacked for free (and local) guide data. More recently, TiVo did make legit service and guide data available to Canadian customers - though I believe units were only available for online ordering or required a trip across the border. If you like your standard definition recording with dual tuners, TiVo has good news for my northern friends:

The TiVo Series2 DT DVR will be available in early December at major Canadian retailers including Best Buy, The Brick, London Drug and Future Shop for just $199 CAD MSRP plus standard TiVo subscription fees. TiVo will not be available in Quebec immediately. 

I’m not sure if TiVo’s required to upgrade the system interface,  but at the very least they haven’t got their bilingual French packaging together for retail sale in Quebec. I assume they’ll offer a CableCARD-neutered TiVo HD at some point… to a variety of regions.

In a press release, which could be a mixed bag, Cisco reports:

Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company, today announced that commitments for its Switched Digital Video (SDV) platform in the U.S. have exceeded 7 million homes passed. By extending and distributing the management of the video and data network control plane all the way to the “edge” of the network (generally speaking, at the optical node), operators can maximize their network investment by sharing quadrature amplitude modulators (QAMs) across both video-on-demand (VoD) and switched digital video traffic.

While SDV currently poses a problem for retail CableCARD devices (think TiVo) unable to resolve switched programming, these 7 million homes may not all receive SDV channels. Yet. And of those that do, we’re probably only talking a few stations. For now. 7 million represents greater than 10% of US cable subscribers, and Time Warner has indicated they intend to deploy SDV to 50% of customer homes this year.

SDV allows the providers to more efficiently utilize their bandwidth, a consideration with digital and HD content proliferation, but as a TiVo owner I’m somewhat concerned. Sounds like the various stakeholders are working on a technical solution, but when will it be released and who pays for it? And I assume I’ll have to give up yet another spot on my surge protector.

(more…)

TiVoBlog reports on Roxio’s Toast (v8) and Popcorn (v3) software updates that resolve TiVoToGo troubles introduced with the TiVo 9.1/9.2 Fall Update:

• TiVo recordings created after TiVo’s Fall 2007 DVR update will no longer cause the application to hang during encoding
• Resolves issue that may result in failed transfer of recording from DVR
• TiVo recordings will be displayed with correct metadata
• TiVo HD recordings now play back at correct speed

(more…)

Both TiVo and Roxio have acknowledged what many of us have known for some time (PVRBlog, TiVo Community, Roxio Support Forums, several emails): TiVo’s fall software update (9.1/9.2) included some sort of change which impacts a percentage of TiVoToGo file conversions and DVD burning from Mac Roxio software. So I checked in with both TiVo and Roxio… TiVo PR confirmed that they’re aware of these issues and are collaborating with Roxio to produce a “timely” fix, and Roxio adds:

As a result of the recent TiVo DVR update and release of Leopard, some Roxio customers using Toast 8 and Popcorn 3 are experiencing technical issues which we are actively working to resolve. We plan to release updaters in the near future.

Until those updates land (no ETA was given), I suggest trying the free TiVoDecode Manager or SeasonPassGetter. You might even discover that you didn’t have a need for Roxio’s software after all.

DVR powerhouse TiVo, Inc. announced that they will be offering a new service that gives advertisers detailed information customer information. “Power Watch Consumer Panel,” a partnership between TiVo Inc. and Starcom USA, fires another salvo at long-established Nielsen as TiVo attempts to further monetize the data and statistics data that their DVR service gathers.

TiVo currently sells second-by-second subscriber viewing information of television programs and commercials. However, the new announcement is specific to TiVo customer demographic data including age, income, marital status and ethnicity. Before you get too panicked about the privacy thing, note that the program is is strictly voluntary and all data will remain anonymous:

TiVo recruited 20,000 households to opt-in to the viewership panel. Because these subscribers have opted in, TiVo can associate household data with the viewership data, and hence will be able to produce program and commercial viewership reports which can be looked at by aggregate demographic and behavioral audience groups. All data remain completely anonymous.

Continue reading at Brent Evans Geek Tonic.

Through February 2nd, TiVo is offering Lifetime Service subscriptions to existing customers at a cost of $399. Mathematically, only you can decide if this is a good deal. Adding a lifetime of standard definition service (TiVo DT, Series2) doesn’t make sense to me, but it could be entirely reasonable on a TiVo HD or Series3. However given the speed of change, industry in-fighting, and looming SDV issues - I’m not biting.

Described as a “holiday” promotion, TiVo obviously intends to tweak TiVo HD sales and push multiple units into homes. However, the offering dovetails nicely with the imminent Comcast TiVo launch… And it’s been widely speculated that TiVo stands to make more money off stand-alone customers than Comcast TiVo subscribers.

For other promotional changes and streamlining of TiVo’s convoluted tiered pricing structure, check out TiVo Lovers.

New England residents (unaffiliated with either company) may or may not be able to actually subscribe to the Comcast TiVo service, but everyone is welcome to visit their new page. I entered several regional zip codes, in addition to my own, but all came up blank. If you find one that works, let us know! (And tell us how much it costs.) Speaking of web updates, the Australian TiVo site has expanded ahead of a 2008 deployment.

(Thanks for the tip, mtchamp!)