If you’re in the market for a TiVo HD (MSRP $300), I doubt you’ll find a better deal than this any time soon: $185 shipped via Woot. Keep in mind it’s a refurbished returned unit… However, for several years, my primary (problem-free) TiVo was a Humax DVD-burning refurb. In addition to the hardware savings, TiVo’s offering 3 free months of service by activating with code 3FREEHD.

(via TiVo Lovers)

Netflix isn’t the only online video service quizzing customers… Amazon’s also looking for input - to presumably guide future Unbox offerings, or perhaps to validate their existing (HD) intentions. Of course, it’s the theoretical scenarios that seem to get folks into a frenzy. So, without further ado:

Free Video Streaming with ads – The ability to watch movies and TV shows online within an Internet browser. Watching videos would not cost anything but would include advertisements.

Burn to DVD - The ability to burn purchased movies and TV show downloads to a DVD for playback on a DVD player. To burn videos to a DVD you would need to have access to a special DVD burner on your PC, and use a special type of DVD.

DVD & Instant Stream - The ability to purchase a DVD from Amazon.com and receive a streamed video of the same title you could instantly playback while you wait for your DVD to arrive. This would be included in the DVD price.

High-Definition Videos - The ability to purchase and watch High-Definition (HD) movies and TV shows. *

DVD & Digital Copy - The ability to purchase a DVD from Amazon.com and, for a small additional fee, get a permanent digital copy in Your Media Library.

Hit Movie Subscription Service – The ability to watch a defined number of videos per month for a flat monthly fee, including top Hollywood titles. Not all movies would be available for viewing; however, the selection would be comparable to most pay movie channels (i.e. HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc). *

Video Extras - The ability to select and watch video “extras� (i.e. DVD extras) when purchasing or renting a movie.

Paid Video Streaming without ads - The ability to immediately watch your purchased Unbox movies and TV shows on your PC within an Internet browser without commercials, instead of having to download them to your PC or TiVo.

Independent Film Subscription Service – The ability to watch a defined number of independent films per month for a flat monthly fee.

Browse your Unbox media library on your TiVo – The ability to access all of your purchased Unbox videos on the TiVo user interface. *

My preferences are itemized in the screengrab below (and starred above). However, both the Xbox 360 and Vudu have proven that I don’t neccessarily need true HD pixel counts for good looking content - but I do need a more appropriate aspect ratio and better encoding than Amazon Unbox is currently feeding my TiVo and 16:9 HDTV. Interestingly, Mac support wasn’t explicitly offered as an improvement… Would that fall under web browser playback or is it entirely off their radar?

Thanks to BlackBetty of the TiVo Community for the heads up and survey access!

TiVo has updated their site and sent out email notifications confirming that the current referral program will conclude 5/28, as covered earlier this week. However, they’re going out with a bang - new rewards include TiVo HD packages of 120,000 and 150,000 points with Lifetime Service (which I suggested). Nice! They’ve also alluded to a replacement loyalty program debuting later this year…

I’ve done a pretty crappy job marketing myself and have only 92,000 points to cash in. So unless you kind readers take care of me (davezatz@yahoo.com) these next few months, I’ll be loading up on Glo Remotes (7,500/ea) to give away.

Over on the TCF we’re having a amusing philisophical discussion initiated by a family man who’s upset that his TiVo has been advertising a “Free SI Swimsuit Video.” While I don’t find that text offensive, I did come across a troubling Cosmo ad last night after watching Jericho (on tape-delay). This AM, prior to my morning Starbucks run, I shot a quick video. So ignore me when I say the offer is linked to my credit card… The TiVo is linked to my credit card, but the subscription results in a snail mail or email invoice.

I have a second reason for posting… Last week, Google launched AdSense for Video as a means for web publishers to monetize their video content with contextual advertising. However, during the beta, they’re only accepting sites with over a million monthly video views. According to YouTube, I’m only responsible for about 330,000 impressions over the last 20 months. Fortunately, Amazon’s also recently launched a new affiliate service allowing smaller publishers (like me) to spam their viewers, as you can see above. Unlike Google, publishers pick the advertised products and frequency - but Amazon pays commissions on sales, so it’s probably harder to make a few bucks. Though, I’m relatively pleased with Amazon’s encoding and the clean look of the video widget - and placing ads is a simple process.

As a viewer, I’m interested in your thoughts… Are those few ads tolerable if it encourages me to shoot more video (and get a better camera)?

Rumor has it that the TiVo Rewards referral program will cease as of 2/28. While the person reporting this doesn’t have much of a history on the TiVo Community Forum, the associated TiVo credit card offer does appear to be inactive:

Thank you for your interest in a Juniper Bank account. Unfortunately, this offer has expired. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Coincidence, technical glitch, or are TiVo Rewards really history? I’ll check in with TiVo…

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with a TiVo support agent who says they’re alerting callers that the Rewards program will be ending - the last day to earn referral points will be April 28th and the last day to redeem points will be May 28th. As this contradicts the Feb 28th date posted to the forum, I’ve also pinged a PR contact for clarification. Regardless of timing, it sure seems like this program is on the way out.

UPDATE 2: My PR contact had confirmed what the support agent relayed, but asked me to keep it on the down-low until TiVo had a chance to post their official FAQ - which they now have.

Bear Stearns is out with a new report today suggesting DirecTV (DTV) may warm to the idea of renewing ties with TiVo under Liberty Media’s ownership, leaving Murdoch’s NDS venture behind. Or perhaps choosing to upsell a TiVo solution.

We believe the new DTV management may be more amenable to renewing a relationship with TiVo. The TiVo HD-DVR offers several advantages over the NDS DVRs, including better user interface, wireless access can provide quasi-VOD service, ad revs would be incremental, and TiVo’s HD-DVR is already cheaper than NDS’ HD-DVR.

Though there haven’t been any recent DirecTV TiVo hardware introductions, the two companies are currently collaborating to support existing DirecTiVo customers. And while both camps have a reciprocal do-not-sue clause in effect, DTV’s recent acquisition of ReplayTV’s intellectual property muddies the issue - and could give them leverage in negotiating terms. We shall see…

Yesterday’s other big news was the beta release of DVD Jon’s DoubleTwist software - that aims to be the Swiss army knife of multimedia conversion, sharing, and syncing. The feature (rightfully) garnering the most attention is the behind-the-scenes conversion of DRM-ed iTunes into unprotected MP3s for playlist synchronization onto non-iPods. Though, being a video geek my first experiments were with TiVo content…

On a fairly clean Windows XP install (TiVo Desktop, minimal codecs), DoubleTwist was unable to play TiVoToGo content. In fact, the program didn’t see the video files (or directory) until I changed the file extension from .tivo to .mpeg. And as you can see above, once found, DoubleTwist doesn’t utilize TiVo’s .dll during playback. I was interested in seeing what would happen when syncing TiVo video to my iPhone and Nokia N95 as a possible free replacement for TiVo Desktop Plus, but I discovered device synchronization is currently limited to audio files.

Speaking of that N95, DoubleTwist immediately identified the photos and videos I’ve shot - had I wanted to share them with someone. Though, that brings up a problem (for me) with this software. I imagine DVD Jon is a nice guy, but the required online registration and service connectivity is a major turn off. I want to convert, sync, and possibly share privately.

Now airing in New England…