Nero's LiquidTV/Tivo

[jar_uk1]

As a footnote to my last mail saying the Tivo has gone, I emailed Nero and asked about a UK Launch, I at least thought I might get "some" indication of a UK Launch at some unspecified time, but after over a week, this is the reply I got.

Dear Mr. Ralston,

thank you for your e-mail.

Nero LiquidTV(TM) | TiVo(R) PC was released in the US, Canada and Mexico last year.
Currently Nero evaluates an introduction of LiquidTV to the european market. Information about potential countries for future launches will be given at a later date.

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Yours sincerely
...

I dont think it couldn't have been less informative.

John R

[pauljs]

If you let us know the Email address you wrote to, we can all give it a try. TiVo are probably telling them not to support the UK :mad:

[jar_uk1]

I had to fill out the contact form on the nero website, the email response came back from customer-service-emea@nero.com, the persons name on the email was Alexa Piblinger (Nero Customer Service).

What mystifies me is that the guide data is already being published, so unless they are using different guide data (different format of data??), surely it would be simple (in the big scheme of things) to allow the UK to use the product.

I am not a programmer, but if you have a program that accepts data and crunches that data, then records a video stream based on the outcome of those rules (in reality that is all tivo does) then how much work is involved in customising that for different regions once the initial development is done?

It could of course be a marketing thing, and they simply dont think the UK is worth it given projected sales. I doubt they are restricted from the UK, that wouldnt make a lot of sense, unless of course Tivo do actually have many more S! users paying £10 perm onth than we might think:D

Ah well I am waiting to build a nice little shuttle twin freesat HD box to load liquidTV on, as I dont think it will play nicely with my media centre, although if they could make LiquidTV works as a MCE plugin - now THAT would be good.

Sorry for the ramble

John R

[ptruman]

Do they have recommended "provider" hardware?

i.e. if it only works with DVB, then you're stuffed if you've got cable/sky - as otherwise you need a SCART (or composite) output to feed into your PC - and then you still need IR control for the STB - which I doubt comes with LiquidTV at this time - and I doubt they'll want to get into supporting anything 'weird' - and VM boxes are already iRDA and a PITA :)

[EDIT]

I take the above back - the website does show it comes with an IR blaster - but wether that can handle iRDA as well is another question (I've not seen anything about that yet).

[iankb]

What mystifies me is that the guide data is already being published, so unless they are using different guide data (different format of data??), surely it would be simple (in the big scheme of things) to allow the UK to use the product.Quite simply, Nero would have a lot of irate customers if TiVo were to stop producing the guide in a year's time. It's unlikely that TiVo will give Nero a reasonable 'guaranteed lifetime' for the guide data, if TiVo themselves won't commit to restarting business over here.

[Pete77]

Quite simply, Nero would have a lot of irate customers if TiVo were to stop producing the guide in a year's time. It's unlikely that TiVo will give Nero a reasonable 'guaranteed lifetime' for the guide data, if TiVo themselves won't commit to restarting business over here.

I thought Tribune were also providing more or less the same UK EPG data for Microsoft to use with Windows MCE?

Mind you Tribune were supposed to be in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and I don't know what has happened on that front lately?

[iankb]

I thought Tribune were also providing more or less the same UK EPG data for Microsoft to use with Windows MCE?I think that Microsoft use Gemstar (http://www.europe.gemstartvguide.com/uk/home.html).