Some Tivo Premiere Specs

[socrplyr]

According to Engadget via Best Buy's system, the Premiere and Premiere XL will be 45 and 150 hours, respectively. (~320GB and ~1TB) The price tags will also be $299 and $499 with an ETA of March 27.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/25/tivo-premiere-xl-dvrs-show-up-in-best-buy-systems-for-299-49/

It also lists 1080p support. It also lists what looks like the current pricing on plans. One other thing I noticed is they are including an HDMI cable (it is about time CE manufacturers stopped letting their customers get ripped off).

[BlackBetty]

How many tuners?

[dave13077]

Looking at the specs it says the warranty is only 90 days on both units. It also says that you will have access to on-demand without a cable co DVR.

Maybe just reading too much into the little information shown.

[socrplyr]

How many tuners?

No mention, trust me, I looked. :)

[socrplyr]

Looking at the specs it says the warranty is only 90 days on both units. It also says that you will have access to on-demand without a cable co DVR.

Maybe just reading too much into the little information shown.

I don't read that, I see it as a reference to Amazon/Netflix/Blockbuster, although it could be read either way. If it is your interpretation it definitely means tru2way, which would also mean no Tuning Adapter. If true, I will replace my current box (maybe not right away, but reasonably soon).

[dave13077]

One more thing. I am not at home right now but can anyone compare the measurement specs to the current unit?

[janry]

One more thing. I am not at home right now but can anyone compare the measurement specs to the current unit?

Tivo HD XL: 16.5 x 12.8 x 3 inches; 10 pounds (Per Amazon's product listing)

Tivo Premiere XL: 19.6 x 12.6 x 6 inches; 10.3 pounds


Just doesn't seem right to me.

[MediaLivingRoom]

TiVo Premiere DVR (TCD746230) = 45 hours of HDTV is 320 GB HD
TiVo Premiere XL DVR (TCD748000) (buy it) = 150 hours of HDTV is the same 1TB HD.

[MediaLivingRoom]

Tivo HD XL: 16.5 x 12.8 x 3 inches; 10 pounds

Tivo Premiere XL: 19.6 x 12.6 x 6 incHes; 10.3 pounds


Just doesn't seem right to me.

We need a truck to pick on up.

[Eisenherz]

I don't read that, I see it as a reference to Amazon/Netflix/Blockbuster, although it could be read either way. If it is your interpretation it definitely means tru2way, which would also mean no Tuning Adapter. If true, I will replace my current box (maybe not right away, but reasonably soon).

I agree 100%, this will be the deciding factor for me also.

[MediaLivingRoom]

If this is just a new part number with a new name, then TiVo announcement is a HUGE FAIL

[anthonymoody]

6" tall for the XL? Makes no sense.

[socrplyr]

If this is just a new part number with a new name, then TiVo announcement is a HUGE FAIL

What is the point of making that statement? We know very little about what will be announced, and no matter what we know you won't be happy with it. Why do you bother coming to the forum?

[Scyber]

6" tall for the XL? Makes no sense.

I don't know how the current TivoHD is listed in Best buy's intranet system, but my GUESS is that the dimensions listed there might be the size of the box the new tivo ships in. Box size would be more relevant than product size if this is coming from a shipping/warehouse application.

[socrplyr]

Tivo HD XL: 16.5 x 12.8 x 3 inches; 10 pounds (Per Amazon's product listing)

Tivo Premiere XL: 19.6 x 12.6 x 6 inches; 10.3 pounds


Maybe best buy has the size of the box, not the unit. From the insert found in current TivoHDs it definitely APPEARS to be smaller than the current units.

[lew]

I don't read that, I see it as a reference to Amazon/Netflix/Blockbuster, although it could be read either way. If it is your interpretation it definitely means tru2way, which would also mean no Tuning Adapter. If true, I will replace my current box (maybe not right away, but reasonably soon).

It could also be the SeaChange deal finallly seeing the light of day.

[MediaLivingRoom]

What is the point of making that statement? We know very little about what will be announced, and no matter what we know you won't be happy with it. Why do you bother coming to the forum?

In the first few years, TiVo seems very good with it's community, as you can see I have been on this forum since 2002 and over the years, TiVo is getting behind and losing ground. It feels like they need a new leader who can turn things around. I hope and hope.....

[lessd]

Tivo HD XL: 16.5 x 12.8 x 3 inches; 10 pounds (Per Amazon's product listing)

Tivo Premiere XL: 19.6 x 12.6 x 6 inches; 10.3 pounds


Just doesn't seem right to me.

I know there both the same size (Premier and Premiere XL) and from the Cable Card insert for the Premiere the height is about 2.5 inches. (Some of the December run of the TiVo-HDs has the Premiere/Premiere XL Cable card insert) OH! the pictures of the UI on this insert looks the same as the TiVo-HDs except it only shows one cable card slot, this could mean the UI is not updated for HD or they used old pictures of the UI)

[phredster]

I just keep thinking Tivo has some innovation up their sleeve they want to get out there - hence the big 3/2 announce.

Increased capacity is not innovative so that's not it.

Better search? Uh, hmm, maybe but if that's all there is then the 'big news' is all marketing hype.

Integrated wi-fi 802.11n - frankly I'd love to see this, although hardly innovative.

Integrated Sling-box-style playback - now this would be cool for Tivo although it wouldn't exactly be new.

DLNA support - I can wish, can't I?

[MickeS]

The main thing TiVo needs is a new UI that better integrates LAN and Internet streaming media. The only thing they need hardwarw wise is CPU power to support that, and maybe WiFi built in. Since these specs say nothing about that, I will wait to judge it...

[CrispyCritter]

In the first few years, TiVo seems very good with it's community, as you can see I have been on this forum since 2002 and over the years, TiVo is getting behind and losing ground. It feels like they need a new leader who can turn things around. I hope and hope.....
Baloney. Anybody who's been around that long knows that you were complaining strongly about TiVo's approach during those early years, a quick example (http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=980758#post980758). I'm afraid your comparison has no credibility at all.

[MediaLivingRoom]

Baloney. Anybody who's been around that long knows that you were complaining strongly about TiVo's approach during those early years, a quick example (http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=980758#post980758). I'm afraid your comparison has no credibility at all.

I love it.

[socrplyr]

In the first few years, TiVo seems very good with it's community, as you can see I have been on this forum since 2002 and over the years, TiVo is getting behind and losing ground. It feels like they need a new leader who can turn things around. I hope and hope.....

I don't necessarily disagree with you on all points you make and all wishes that you have, but in reality your initial comment wasn't constructive to the speculation going on about the new hardware. I agree that Tivo isn't ahead of everyone else in the field anymore. In some ways they are in others they aren't, but that doesn't mean that just because a product doesn't have everything you want that it is bad. It just means that it isn't good for you. In honesty, if the new product has the following features almost no one could claim that it is bad (even you I hope):
tru2way
1080p
updated and faster HD UI
3 tuners
multi-room via streaming

Now I wouldn't hold my breath for all those features, but they haven't been completely ruled out yet. Now there are a ton of things on my personal wish list that I know will never happen, including:
Store OS in FlashROM so a hard drive could be swapped without a computer
Integrated networking (Wireless or MOCA or both)
Single recording list amongst several machines
Native file support for just about everything
Support for more web videos (HULU, etc)
Not being ripped off by the cable company for a CC (CCless CC Tivo)
Integration into DLNA or other such techs
and the list goes on

I understand your frustration with Tivo, but sometimes I think you just put it in threads where it doesn't belong and isn't always constructive.

[MediaLivingRoom]

I don't necessarily disagree with you on all points you make and all wishes that you have, but in reality your initial comment wasn't constructive to the speculation going on about the new hardware. I agree that Tivo isn't ahead of everyone else in the field anymore. In some ways they are in others they aren't, but that doesn't mean that just because a product doesn't have everything you want that it is bad. It just means that it isn't good for you. In honesty, if the new product has the following features almost no one could claim that it is bad (even you I hope):
tru2way
1080p
updated and faster HD UI
3 tuners
multi-room via streaming

Now I wouldn't hold my breath for all those features, but they haven't been completely ruled out yet. Now there are a ton of things on my personal wish list that I know will never happen, including:
Store OS in FlashROM so a hard drive could be swapped without a computer
Integrated networking (Wireless or MOCA or both)
Single recording list amongst several machines
Native file support for just about everything
Support for more web videos (HULU, etc)
Not being ripped off by the cable company for a CC (CCless CC Tivo)
Integration into DLNA or other such techs
and the list goes on

I understand your frustration with Tivo, but sometimes I think you just put it in threads where it doesn't belong and isn't always constructive.
yes, I would like it all too.

[MichaelK]

... One other thing I noticed is they are including an HDMI cable (it is about time CE manufacturers stopped letting their customers get ripped off).

the HD directivo's actually came with hdmi AND hdmi->DVI cables if i remember correctly.

I thought the origina S3's came with HDMI too but it's been so long i can't recall exactly. Funny that they haven't included hdmi all along. Looking at the prices at monoprice it's not like hdmi needs to cost tons for some basic OEM cable.

[daveak]

Original S3 units did include an HDMI cable, among others.

[MichaelK]

so basically they just scimped on the tivohd?

[daveak]

Yep.

[Phantom Gremlin]

so basically they just scimped on the tivohd?

A different way to phrase that is the TiVo HD was half the price of the S3, and so they unbundled a few minor things.

[pL86]

It also lists 1080p support.

What does support mean? Does it mean the way a 720p set "supports" 1080i/p because it accepts the 1080i/p signal, even though it downconverts it to 720p to display it? Or does support = (native) output? I don't think it's clear.

[BigJimOutlaw]

Does the 1080p support tell us anything about the CPU that's being used?

Is it likely the same 2009 chip that's also in the Moxi?

[gweempose]

What does support mean? Does it mean the way a 720p set "supports" 1080i/p because it accepts the 1080i/p signal, even though it downconverts it to 720p to display it? Or does support = (native) output? I don't think it's clear.What I'd like to know is how would the TiVo even get a 1080p signal to output? Are any stations actually broadcast in 1080p?

[BigJimOutlaw]

There's no 1080p broadcast, but streaming/downloaded content can be 1080p. YouTube has some 1080p content already. VOD services will likely follow sooner or later.

[gweempose]

There's no 1080p broadcast, but streaming/downloaded content can be 1080p. YouTube has some 1080p content already. VOD services will likely follow sooner or later.D'oh! I completely forgot about online content. :o

[MichaelK]

i wouldn't get too excited about 1080p- supposedly the current boxes can display 1080p24fps also. But the software never turned on that ability.

So these could be the same exact boxes with just the switch thrown.

But it probably is a newer cheaper CPU - and since most seem fancier now anyway probably better. But it doesn't need to be the top of the line to do it- just has to be as good as or better the years old chip in the original S3's.

[bkdtv]

Does the 1080p support tell us anything about the CPU that's being used?

Is it likely the same 2009 chip that's also in the Moxi?The SoC in the TivoHD already supports 1080p24 output, but not 1080p60 output. DirecTV uses the same SoC in its DVRs to support 1080p24 on its PPV channel. There are no cable channels available in 1080p24.

The newer chip in the Moxi does not add anything new with regard to 1080p output. For now, 1080p24 output is only usable for rentals and purchases from Vudu, Amazon Unbox(?), Roxio Cinemanow(?), and/or PC video playback. The current Moxi software only supports 1080p24 output with PC video files.

The newest solutions from Broadcom and Trident (formerly NXP) offer full 1080p60 output, but are too new to be featured in any existing STB or DVR. Future DVRs based on these solutions should have a new "fixed 1080p" output setting. Examples include:

Broadcom BCM7410 (PDF) (http://pdfserv2.datasheetpro.net/3228-collateral-pb-7410-PB01-R.pdf)
Trident PNX847x (PDF) (http://www.tridentmicro.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Trident-PNX-8472-8473-Brief-10005A.pdf)

The BCM7410 began shipping in volume within the past few months, so it is still very new. At least one version of the PNX84xx line is available now, although I'm not sure which. Both offer around 4x the performance of the chip in the TiVoHD.

[innocentfreak]

Any guesses based off Tivo's past choices which chip they would go with for the Premiere?

[MichaelK]

Any guesses based off Tivo's past choices which chip they would go with for the Premiere?

one that's already old ;)

[jmpage2]

one that's already old ;)

This. It's almost unfathomable that they could be shipping a box with the latest hardware in less than a month.

[innocentfreak]

one that's already old ;)

Yeah how old though lol. I know with the HD they went with an older chip, but I don't think it was that old compared to what was readily available.

[TWinbrook46636]

A different way to phrase that is the TiVo HD was half the price of the S3, and so they unbundled a few minor things.

If it has HD in the name it should come with the appropriate cables. Of course TiVo is not alone in this.

[TWinbrook46636]

Any guesses based off Tivo's past choices which chip they would go with for the Premiere?

Recent enough to be better than the ones they are using now but old enough to piss us off.

[TWinbrook46636]

What are the odds they will add channel logos to the guide listings? When you have hundreds of channels those call letters get a bit overwhelming.

[jmpage2]

Yeah how old though lol. I know with the HD they went with an older chip, but I don't think it was that old compared to what was readily available.

The problem is that there is a massive performance difference between the "current" chip that TiVo could go with vs. the one that will be shipping later this year.

[socrplyr]

The problem is that there is a massive performance difference between the "current" chip that TiVo could go with vs. the one that will be shipping later this year.

That will always be the case. They have to go with what is available now...

[MickeS]

That will always be the case. They have to go with what is available now...

Yeah, it's a little ridiculous to complain that they use what exists, rather than what will exist in 6 months... since when THAT is available for development on and mass production, another chip will already be in the pipelines.

[TWinbrook46636]

Will they go with the best or the worst of what's available now is the question. I'm thinking worst. It will still be better than what was available when the Series 3 debuted but I think cost cutting is going to be BIG on these units. The only thing that would get me to upgrade would be triple tuners. I don't get a good vibe on that though. I think we're going to get stuck dual tuners.

[deandashl]

I don't need the new TiVo's to scratch my rear, walk the dog, and do my taxes like most doom and gloomers.

One thing for sure the new TiVo will NOT satisfy many of the people out there, but those folks have already declared that.

What little intel I can put together seems to point to a reasonable move forward with better functionality/compatibility in some areas that ENDLESSLY worry or "this is my reason for sticking with a MORE expensive crappy cable DVR" type people.

Yes, cable DVR's are more expensive and crap. I had one for 4 years--nothing new; NOTHING--for FOUR years. TiVo may be a little stale but it's still LIGHTYEARS ahead of MOTO and Comcast. Any TiVo update is another update cable has STILL not done. TiVo is just plain a smoother, tighter, much more functional, reliable, DVR.

[DocNo]

TiVo may be a little stale but it's still LIGHTYEARS ahead of MOTO and Comcast.

It's no longer light years ahead of Windows Media Center :(

I sincerely hope there is more to this to justify the subscription cost - if not I'm building my first PC in over 8 years. My biggest complain is the steady decline in performance and the absolute sluggishness of the UI that gets worse with every software release. I wish I could go back to the first or second version that my S3 came with :p

[BigJimOutlaw]

In spite of the visible cost-cutting measures we know about, I wonder what would make it cost $299.

If the rumor is correct that the new UI was running well on S3 hardware, then there's no reason for more expensive hardware just for that purpose. So I'm wondering if there's something else in the hardware we don't know about yet. Another tuner would sell me. ;) Guess we just gotta wait.

[Bierboy]

Looking at the specs it says the warranty is only 90 days on both units.....

It's always been only 90 days. I cracked my S3 open at 91 days to put in a larger drive.

[socrplyr]

In spite of the visible cost-cutting measures we know about, I wonder what would make it cost $299.

If the rumor is correct that the new UI was running well on S3 hardware, then there's no reason for more expensive hardware just for that purpose. So I'm wondering if there's something else in the hardware we don't know about yet. Another tuner would sell me. ;) Guess we just gotta wait.

There are several things that could make it cost more (cablemodem for tru2way support, pricier SoC, and built in network). We don't know if it has any of these yet, but there is another reason for the price. Tivo thinks they can maximize profits by selling it at $299. If it turns out it needs to be cheaper, then they will make it cheaper at retail. No matter what they don't want to introduce it at too low of a price. I think they feel they don't need to create their market by low-balling the price, but charge a good amount which can be lowered as initial sales start to drop. As for the S3 hardware, hopefully, the UI gets ported to it and it runs well. Tivo is not trying to replace the hardware found in each of our homes, as they make the bulk of their money on subscriptions. It is one of the reasons why I don't think we will ever see a completely revolutionary box out of them. They actually prefer (at least initially) that you stick with your old box if you are happy with it.

Josh

[socrplyr]

It's always been only 90 days. I cracked my S3 open at 91 days to put in a larger drive.

I thought it had a 90 day labor and 1 year parts warranty? (which their going rate on labor is $49)
Maybe I am crazy though.

[ZeoTiVo]

It's no longer light years ahead of Windows Media Center :(

I sincerely hope there is more to this to justify the subscription cost - if not I'm building my first PC in over 8 years. My biggest complain is the steady decline in performance and the absolute sluggishness of the UI that gets worse with every software release. I wish I could go back to the first or second version that my S3 came with :p

Well of course Media Center is ahead - it is a PC with massive flexibility and the ability to mix and match many, many different parts and software. The only issue any HTPC had was getting HD from a cable company due to digital and encryption constraints - that goes away this year. So it is always a mix of "time - money - power"

People keep saying the DVR gets more sluggish but my TiVo HDs and Series 2 DT all perform all menu functions within seconds and even TiVo search comes up in less than a minute for me. What am I doing wrong? :D

[RoyK]

...
People keep saying the DVR gets more sluggish but my TiVo HDs and Series 2 DT all perform all menu functions within seconds and even TiVo search comes up in less than a minute for me. What am I doing wrong? :D

That's an endorsement?

[socrplyr]

That's an endorsement?

I agree with what you are saying there, but on mine it comes up in 15-20 seconds or so. Personally, I think the interface could be a bit snappier across the board, but I wouldn't call it unreasonably slow for me. Maybe it is just how I watch TV. I was TV to relax at the end of the day and I am in no rush. On the other hand if my computer reacted at those types of speeds I would be very upset, so it is definitely a reasonable gripe for many to have.

[oosik77]

Just a comment on including an HDMI cable. Okay for some that don't have one already that's good but for many of us we already have HDMI cables so why add to the price of a product to include something many of us that are upgrading will never need? I'd rather the cables were not included and the unit was cheaper. Just my 2 cents....

[jmpage2]

Just a comment on including an HDMI cable. Okay for some that don't have one already that's good but for many of us we already have HDMI cables so why add to the price of a product to include something many of us that are upgrading will never need? I'd rather the cables were not included and the unit was cheaper. Just my 2 cents....

I hope you realize that for a company like tivo to include the HDMI cable adds probably 20 cents to the cost right?

[oosik77]

I hope you realize that for a company like tivo to include the HDMI cable adds probably 20 cents to the cost right?

Nope I had no idea what the cost of their bill of materials might be. Didn't have a clue they could get an HDMI cable for 20 cents.

[vman41]

Just a comment on including an HDMI cable. Okay for some that don't have one already that's good but for many of us we already have HDMI cables so why add to the price of a product to include something many of us that are upgrading will never need? I'd rather the cables were not included and the unit was cheaper. Just my 2 cents....

I'd guess the great majority of people would need a cable because they are not buying it to replace an existing DVR doing HDMI output.

[bigpatky]

I hope you realize that for a company like tivo to include the HDMI cable adds probably 20 cents to the cost right?

no, i'm pretty sure those things cost $80. i saw them on sale at best buy. :p

[jmpage2]

Nope I had no idea what the cost of their bill of materials might be. Didn't have a clue they could get an HDMI cable for 20 cents.

Monoprice sells 6 foot cables for about $6 if you buy one. Buy 50 and they are about $5. I imagine if you buy 100,000 you get a much better deal.

[socrplyr]

Nope I had no idea what the cost of their bill of materials might be. Didn't have a clue they could get an HDMI cable for 20 cents.

I'll be honest that I don't know about 20 cents but it is definitely well under $5. Yes that's right that super expensive $120 Monster Cable is probably a lot nicer than the cheapo, but it still only costs about $10 max in materials and performs no better for digital signals at HDMI signaling rates. Basically it is either capable of getting the 1s and 0s right or it isn't (it isn't like analog where noise directly portrays itself in the signal). In reality I have mixed feelings about including cables. After years of owning a lot of HDMI devices, if they all came with cables you would have a stack. However, a large number of people don't even have a single HDMI setup (TV plus box), and even few have had one and replaced it to wind up with an extra cable. So really it makes the most sense that when HDMI first came out that all devices came with it (they were more expensive anyways), but then over time remove them so there are not a ton of extra cables floating around out there being wasted. However, most devices never came with one and then on top of that your local store wants to charge you on average probably over 10 times the production cost. For example monoprice.com currently sells a 5' cable for less than $4 (and they are making money at it) and if you buy 50 of them they are under $3. Personally I would pay $5 more for the Tivo if it came with the cable over the same model without it.

[RayChuang88]

US$499 for the Tivo Premiere XL? Are they nuts? http://www.en.kolobok.us/smiles/standart/negative.gif

You'd think with improving technology, TiVo could sell the Premiere XL in the US$399 to US$449 range--and they would clean up the market in no time flat.

[MickeS]

I hope you realize that for a company like tivo to include the HDMI cable adds probably 20 cents to the cost right?

Many little streams make a mighty river... sure it's "only $xx.xx for this thing" but when you have a lot of them it adds up.

[CuriousMark]

US$499 for the Tivo Premiere XL? Are they nuts? http://www.en.kolobok.us/smiles/standart/negative.gif

You'd think with improving technology, TiVo could sell the Premiere XL in the US$399 to US$449 range--and they would clean up the market in no time flat.

All companies bring new products out at a higher price to skim the cream of early adopters. Just wait a while and the price will probably be closer to what you are hoping for.

[daveak]

Sheesh, I was hoping for at least a 40 cent cable. Disappointed again. :D

[innocentfreak]

People keep saying the DVR gets more sluggish but my TiVo HDs and Series 2 DT all perform all menu functions within seconds and even TiVo search comes up in less than a minute for me. What am I doing wrong? :D

I definitely notice the sluggishness of the HD compared to the DTiVo series 2. It also doesn't help on all three of the TiVo HDs that the now playing list goes blank sometimes except for the Netflix option as if I have no recorded shows and I have to back out to reset it.

All companies bring new products out at a higher price to skim the cream of early adopters. Just wait a while and the price will probably be closer to what you are hoping for.

Well except for the fact the current XL only dropped in price to clearance it to make room for the Premiere. For me it will depend on what extras if any are included besides the 1tb and THX certification. They have already narrowed the gap going with a 320gb on the Premiere versus the 160gb on the HD though the price is 499 vs 599 for the original XL.

[daveak]

Maybe the XL version will have the better chip as well?

[innocentfreak]

If it had a faster chip whether just faster than the HD or even a faster version if they are going with a new chip, I would go with the Premiere XL over the Premiere.

Of course it wouldn't make sense from an economic standpoint since now they would be buying separate parts versus just buying more of one part.

I think they could even offer a middle ground at 399 with a 640gb.

[RayChuang88]

I think they could even offer a middle ground at 399 with a 640gb.

How about a 750 GB model for US$399? I'd snap one up in no time flat! http://www.kolobok.us/smiles/artists/just_cuz/JC_doubleup.gif

[stmckin]

the most eye popping thing about those specs is "Standard Remote" with two AA batteries which = no fancy qwerty solution...... major major deal breaker

[innocentfreak]

They could have also scrapped the Qwerty remote or it could be something they sell separately since depending on the use not everyone would need it and it would only raise their costs.

[innocentfreak]

How about a 750 GB model for US$399? I'd snap one up in no time flat! http://www.kolobok.us/smiles/artists/just_cuz/JC_doubleup.gif

I think the 640gb are supposed to be quieter and cooler since they are 2 320gb platters versus 3 250gb platters for the 750gb. Also this would give a better incentive to go for the 1tb since it would feel like you are getting a better deal. 640gb for 84 hours at 399 or 1tb with 150 hours for 499.

[ZeoTiVo]

They could have also scrapped the Qwerty remote or it could be something they sell separately since depending on the use not everyone would need it and it would only raise their costs.

plus if they sold it seperately then they get traffic to their website and some direct sales of their "popcorn items". Sometimes good business is not the best thing for the consumer ;)

[BigJimOutlaw]

Thinking like an electronic store might, I interpreted the "standard" remote line to mean it's "not universal", thus not telling us anything specific about it. But that's true, it could mean it's still the 'ol peanut too.

[innocentfreak]

plus if they sold it seperately then they get traffic to their website and some direct sales of their "popcorn items". Sometimes good business is not the best thing for the consumer ;)

Exactly which is why my theory is that the new warranty is 90/90 as indicated by the BB leak versus the old 90/365. It only makes sense when you take into account TiVo now has extended warranties available which I believe they were supposed to be reasonable.

[aaronwt]

I think the 640gb are supposed to be quieter and cooler since they are 2 320gb platters versus 3 250gb platters for the 750gb. Also this would give a better incentive to go for the 1tb since it would feel like you are getting a better deal. 640gb for 84 hours at 399 or 1tb with 150 hours for 499.

It depends on the drive. Some of the newer WD 750GB drives use two 500GB platters. As well as some of the 640GB drives too.

It's probably cheaper to just use the 500GB platters in everything they can.

[jmill]

US$499 for the Tivo Premiere XL? Are they nuts?

You'd think with improving technology, TiVo could sell the Premiere XL in the US$399 to US$449 range--and they would clean up the market in no time flat.

Isn't $499 the current price for HD XL? Seems to make sense by pricing Premiere XL the same as the unit it replaces.

[innocentfreak]

Isn't $499 the current price for HD XL? Seems to make sense by pricing Premiere XL the same as the unit it replaces.

The 499 price is actually down from $599. They marked the HD down to $249 to clear them out, which they did, and the HD XL to $499 to do the same. They still have HD XLs along with Amazon who has them for $399.

[jmill]

The 499 price is actually down from $599. They marked the HD down to $249 to clear them out, which they did, and the HD XL to $499 to do the same. They still have HD XLs along with Amazon who has them for $399.

Yeap. For some reason I suspect that current WD Expander won't be compatible with Premiere. It seems everyone is clearing them out as well.

[socrplyr]

Yeap. For some reason I suspect that current WD Expander won't be compatible with Premiere. It seems everyone is clearing them out as well.

There shouldn't be any reason for that. I think either Tivo is changing hard drive partners or they are going to make some kind of other change (open it up to any drive?).

[DCIFRTHS]

I'd guess the great majority of people would need a cable because they are not buying it to replace an existing DVR doing HDMI output.

Very true. I hope they include an HDMI cable. If there is a specific Best Buy model, I'm guessing that it may not include a cable so that the BB sales force can push expensive cables on people...

[t1voproof]

If I can update to a 2TB interal drive I will be happy!

[RayChuang88]

By the way, can the TiVo Premiere box support any of the current eSATA drives out there? I mean besides the Western Digital My DVR Expander drive. I don't mind having to reformat the drive for TiVo use, but having a 2 TB eSATA drive connected to my TiVo Premiere box means over 200 hours of storage of HD content! http://www.kolobok.us/smiles/standart/good2.gif

[reubanks]

By the way, can the TiVo Premiere box support any of the current eSATA drives out there? I mean besides the Western Digital My DVR Expander drive. I don't mind having to reformat the drive for TiVo use, but having a 2 TB eSATA drive connected to my TiVo Premiere box means over 200 hours of storage of HD content! http://www.kolobok.us/smiles/standart/good2.gif

We'll probably find out on Tuesday.

Randy

[socrplyr]

By the way, can the TiVo Premiere box support any of the current eSATA drives out there? I mean besides the Western Digital My DVR Expander drive. I don't mind having to reformat the drive for TiVo use, but having a 2 TB eSATA drive connected to my TiVo Premiere box means over 200 hours of storage of HD content! http://www.kolobok.us/smiles/standart/good2.gif

Like was mentioned, we'll find out soon enough. However, a 2TB expander with the base model would have over 350 hours and with the XL it would have over 450 hours...

[socrplyr]

Also in other news, my local Best Buy is clearancing the remaining Tivo HDs for $175. There was one left on the shelf in Ithaca NY.

[Phantom Gremlin]

You'd think with improving technology, TiVo could sell the Premiere XL in the US$399 to US$449 range--and they would clean up the market in no time flat.

I don't think TiVo would "clean up the market". I think that TiVos in general are what economists call "relatively inelastic" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand) in terms of demand. Which means that if you lower the price you don't necessarily sell that many more units.

Here's a long and boring personal anecdote to help illustrate my point. On Black Friday last year TiVo and Best Buy had a promotion together. Buy any HD TV at all, get a TiVo HD for only $100. Yes this applied even if you were buying the cheapest $200 loss leader TV. Which meant that, for anyone who was in the least bit interested in a TV, the value proposition for a companion TiVo was IMO very strong.

And yet, the TiVos weren't exactly flying off the shelves. I myself was interested in a very nice 37" TV that was selling for $500. I went to BB the night before to make sure they had stock, and I said I'd come back the next day so I could get the cheap TiVo as well. We discussed potential TiVo demand, and the BB salesman's considered judgement was there was no need to hurry in early in the morning to get the TiVo. They wouldn't run out.

The salesman was right. I went in early to make sure I could get the TV. There were plenty of TiVo HDs on the floor. I waited on line for quite a while to pay. There were still plenty of TiVos on the floor. I went back later in the day to buy something else; it didn't look like the quantity of TiVos sold had changed (BB was probably too busy to restock during that day, so when the appearance of the "stack" was unchanged I surmise it was because they weren't selling, not because they were being replenished).

So the point is that, on a day when people were buying TVs at BB by the hundreds of units, the companion $100 TiVo HD boxes were just gathering dust on the shelves.

That, right there, is the heart of TiVo's "problem". And I don't really know how to fix that problem. Certainly TiVo marketing has been nothing less than atrocious, totally inept. But it's more than that. For whatever reason, it is very hard for Tivo to "clean up the market in no time flat". Because there isn't very much of a market.

[ZeoTiVo]

That, right there, is the heart of TiVo's "problem". And I don't really know how to fix that problem. Certainly TiVo marketing has been nothing less than atrocious, totally inept. But it's more than that. For whatever reason, it is very hard for Tivo to "clean up the market in no time flat". Because there isn't very much of a market.

it boils down to the Monthly fee, unfortunately.
If March 2nd TiVo can anounce some cool content that comes with the TiVo itself then they might start to get some traction.

[innocentfreak]

it boils down to the Monthly fee, unfortunately.
If March 2nd TiVo can anounce some cool content that comes with the TiVo itself then they might start to get some traction.

Unfortunately. I think the person who could solve this dilemma for TiVo would be hired the same day and given a nice bonus lol.

[MickeS]

it boils down to the Monthly fee, unfortunately.
If March 2nd TiVo can anounce some cool content that comes with the TiVo itself then they might start to get some traction.

I always thought the "TiVo Plus" or whatever it was called was a good idea - the one where you got for free the full functionality (I think) except only 3 day's worth of guide data.

I know it goes against the TiVo philosophy and business idea, but at this point I think they should consider releasing a unit that gets basic guide data for 7 days and allows use as a manual recorder (maybe a limit of 5 SPs or something) without any monthly sub at all. In addition to the network services, I think that could be very attractive for a lot of people, and TiVo could get a cut of network service fees, so as not have to rely on hardware revenue alone.

I agree that the sub makes it a harder sell than it should be - after all, lots of people pay hundreds of dollars for their cable and cell phone, yet for some reason, DVR service, no matter how useful, is often deemed too expensive/unnecessary.

[innocentfreak]

Well I think it is also more a part of it is another bill. If the TiVo service fee was paid to your cable provider I think more people might just accept it as part of the fee. It is more the attitude of I already pay for cable so why am I paying TiVo. Many of those same people then rent a DVR from their cable company for $10 and then pay $8 for a DVR fee and another $5 for an additional outlet fee without really thinking about it since it just comes as one bill per month.

Hell I even do it. I dropped Netflix because I was tired of paying the extra $12 a month. It wasn't that I couldn't afford it, but more that it was one more recurring charge I got tired of paying. I felt if I didn't watch a movie as soon as I got it and sent it back the next day I was wasting my money. If the bill had been included in something else, it might not have bothered me.

If TiVo made money off the hardware I could see them offering OTA/locals for free even if it is just a week of guide data versus 12 days and then just require the monthly fee for cable channels. I think it would push hardware sales and if people upgraded their cable they would be tempted to upgrade their TiVo subscription.

Personally I wish they would offer guide data out as far as possible allowing you to set season passes for shows that are coming soon.

[BigJimOutlaw]

davezatz tweet:

Got what looks like a leaked Best Buy memo to managers. Don't know if it's legit, but it says they're investing $20 mil in TiVo marketing.

With Tivo's marketing budget fitting in a wallet, this is pretty big for them if it's true.

But back to the fees... I think they're necessary. But Tivo should do something bold and unexpected if they want to define themselves as a desirable product that rises above the idea that cable DVRs are "good enough." They should disrupt the market like the iPhone, iPod, or Wii did for their categories.

i.e. Don't compete with rivals, make them irrelevant.

Whatever that big idea is, it's not just a new UI, a tweaked this or that, or simple VOD partners. Those things are just the cost of entry at this point.

The invitation saying that inventing the DVR was just a warmup reminded me of how the Tivo really was a value innovation at that time. Since then, it's been mostly just value creation (incremental improvements) while cable and satellite embraced and smothered the DVR concept and market with cheap, junky boxes.

It would be great if Tivo found the next big idea that RE-invents the DVR and makes that monthly fee more willingly parted with, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on that yet.

[socrplyr]

davezatz tweet:



With Tivo's marketing budget fitting in a wallet, this is pretty big for them if it's true.

But back to the fees... I think they're necessary. But Tivo should do something bold and unexpected if they want to define themselves as a desirable product that rises above the idea that cable DVRs are "good enough." They should disrupt the market like the iPhone, iPod, or Wii did for their categories.

i.e. Don't compete with rivals, make them irrelevant.

Whatever that big idea is, it's not just a new UI, a tweaked this or that, or simple VOD partners. Those things are just the cost of entry at this point.

The invitation saying that inventing the DVR was just a warmup reminded me of how the Tivo really was a value innovation at that time. Since then, it's been mostly just value creation (incremental improvements) while cable and satellite embraced and smothered the DVR concept and market with cheap, junky boxes.

It would be great if Tivo found the next big idea that RE-invents the DVR and makes that monthly fee more willingly parted with, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on that yet.

Your comparison to the iPod and iPhone is completely false. Currently Tivos have much more of a feature advantage over its competition than those products ever did. Also note that one thing that made those products successful were their online services, which Tivo already has a pretty good offering of (well arguably the best of any DVR). The real reason why those products made it was marketing, as they typically could do less and cost more than their rivals.

[BigJimOutlaw]

Your comparison to the iPod and iPhone is completely false. Currently Tivos have much more of a feature advantage over its competition than those products ever did. Also note that one thing that made those products successful were their online services, which Tivo already has a pretty good offering of (well arguably the best of any DVR). The real reason why those products made it was marketing, as they typically could do less and cost more than their rivals.

You're either taking the comparison too literally, or missing it. Can't tell which. But marketing alone didn't disrupt those industries. That's just silly.

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Ocean-Strategy-Uncontested-Competition/dp/1591396190/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267363055&sr=8-1

As long as the cable DVRs are considered good enough by the vast majority of... well, everybody, it doesn't matter. Tivo is drowned out. So they'd need another big idea, like they did by having the first DVR on the market, if they want to rise above the noise again.

[davezatz]

According to Engadget via Best Buy's system, the Premiere and Premiere XL will be 45 and 150 hours, respectively. (~320GB and ~1TB) The price tags will also be $299 and $499 with an ETA of March 27.

I can neither confirm, deny, or elaborate on any of the above. BUT speaking of Best Buy, I have what looks like a leaked memo from Best Buy corporate to store managers. I don't know the source and can't vouch for the accuracy, but merely pass it along for review. Consider this a TCF exclusive, as I'm not blogging it (http://www.zatznotfunny.com/) given those caveats. :)

You Think You Know TiVo? You Haven't Seen Anything Yet.

Inventing the DVR was just a warm up for TiVo. Some exciting things are now in the works over at TiVo, and Best Buy is along for the ride. TiVo is currently working on something major that will literally transform the way people watch TV, and Best Buy will be the only national retailer offering this unsurpassed entertainment experience. In fact, Best Buy and TiVo are taking their partnership to new levels in FY ’11, with Best Buy investing more than $20 million in marketing TiVo.

As you know, when we sell TiVo, our customers get a superior entertainment experience, with easy access to the world’s largest on-demand library. Selling this offering also creates amazing incremental margin opportunities for our stores. TiVo therefore represents a perfect example of a product that meets our goal of getting our customers connected and our goal of driving incremental margin, both which are a focus of this upcoming fiscal year.

On March 2, TiVo’s game-changing plans will be revealed, so stay tuned. You’ll want your sales associates to know all about this exciting news, so make sure they check out TiVo’s new eLearning on Learning Lounge, starting on March 3.

[BigJimOutlaw]

Thanks Dave! :up: :)

Hopefully the memo is real, and that the "game-changing" talk isn't just marketing speak, but a "real" and big idea.

[chicagobrownblue]

The 45 hours of HD for $299 will probably get me to pull the trigger right around day 1. If Tivo throws in a few other bells and whistles, that would be icing on the cake. This will give me back dual tuner functionality that I lost when my cable co went digital and give me HD output. I like Tivo and I hope this gives them a big up in sales.

[innocentfreak]

Assuming the memo is true...

Based off the memo, I wonder if Amazon will even carry the new box or if Best Buy is referring to being the exclusive B&M store only.

[davezatz]

Assuming the memo is true... Based off the memo, I wonder if Amazon will even carry the new box or if Best Buy is referring to being the exclusive B&M store only.

I can't imagine TiVo would drop Amazon or even themselves as a sales outlet, so my initial thought was national brick & mortar. Which is not a huge deal, since they were probably the top B&M sales channels all along. People only seem to buy at Sears and Costco when they do those closeout deals. ;)

[socrplyr]

If the memo is true, Best Buy's backing of Tivo is quite interesting. Someone high up must like Tivo. In reality Best Buy may want Tivo to be successful so that they can eventually take a large share of the cable box market that is currently mostly closed to them. Now if we could only get DirecTV to stop their leasing nonsense and outright sell the box. As long as there are local retailers and online retailers selling the Tivo, I see no issues with Best Buy being the only national one. There really aren't many other retailers all that interested in the Tivo that are national now that Circuit City is gone. (Walmart, Sears, Target, etc are now the biggest electronics retailers and haven't shown great interest in selling Tivos.) I don't know what this means for a place like Fry's, but there are none around here so that doesn't bother me.

[innocentfreak]

I can't imagine TiVo would drop Amazon or even themselves as a sales outlet, so my initial thought was national brick & mortar. Which is not a huge deal, since they were probably the top B&M sales channels all along. People only seem to buy at Sears and Costco when they do those closeout deals. ;)

Yeah don't you hate those guys who only buy clearance TiVos lol. It just makes me want to punch them in the face 4 or 5 times.

I figure Amazon is probably considered an E-tailer so it probably won't apply, and it is the normal company spin. It is also interesting to note they mention FY 11 when originally the Best Buy TiVo was supposed to be out in 2010. Anyone know when BB's 2011 starts?

I guess we will know March 2nd if anything major is truly announced that will change the way we watch TV.

[gweempose]

Assuming the memo is true...

Based off the memo, I wonder if Amazon will even carry the new box or if Best Buy is referring to being the exclusive B&M store only.It's got to be B&M only. As big as Best Buy is, it seems like it would be suicide for TiVo to limit themselves to a single online retailer.

[gweempose]

I guess we will know March 2nd if anything major is truly announced that will change the way we watch TV.Perhaps the new TiVo will beam the shows directly into our brain. Now that would be game changing! :)

[wmcbrine]

There appears to be nothing new in the memo, unless it's the $20 million figure.

[dylanemcgregor]

Anyone know when BB's 2011 starts?

March 1st

[ZeoTiVo]

I can neither confirm, deny, or elaborate on any of the above. BUT speaking of Best Buy, I have what looks like a leaked memo from Best Buy corporate to store managers. I don't know the source and can't vouch for the accuracy, but merely pass it along for review. Consider this a TCF exclusive, as I'm not blogging it (http://www.zatznotfunny.com/) given those caveats. :)

crud - they wont even tell lower level Best Buy folks what is coming until March 2nd.

[ZeoTiVo]

Assuming the memo is true...

Based off the memo, I wonder if Amazon will even carry the new box or if Best Buy is referring to being the exclusive B&M store only.

Best Buy may be exclusive for content - not the hardware

[wublet]

Based on the other threads about Premiere box characteristics, I'm guessing Premiere will include a radically new over-the-internet service component. Either the ability to view first run (still in theaters) movies on-demand/PPV, and/or an over-the-internet cableco service, giving the end user a way to finally ditch Comcast etc. whom they hate.

A BestBuy/TiVo branded over-the-internet cableco replacement service would make a lot of sense for customers (who hate cablecos but already have an ISP link and a subscription relationship with TiVo), for BestBuy (who currently sell for cablecos and TiVo but only participate in the initial sale, not recurring cable subscription revenue), and for TiVo (who would like to pick up both a share of recurring cable subscription revenue and a strong retail presence). Put that together with a hi-band ISP rollout like Google's (and/or the US government's national broadband initiative) and you're talking a compelling story for many, many millions of customers -- a customer base big enough for cable channels to be willing to sell programming to, even though it's sure to piss off the incumbent cablecos.

Interesting possibilities abound here.

[lessd]

Based on the other threads about Premiere box characteristics, I'm guessing Premiere will include a radically new over-the-internet service component. Either the ability to view first run (still in theaters) movies on-demand/PPV, and/or an over-the-internet cableco service, giving the end user a way to finally ditch Comcast etc. whom they hate.

A BestBuy/TiVo branded over-the-internet cableco replacement service would make a lot of sense for customers (who hate cablecos but already have an ISP link and a subscription relationship with TiVo), for BestBuy (who currently sell for cablecos and TiVo but only participate in the initial sale, not recurring cable subscription revenue), and for TiVo (who would like to pick up both a share of recurring cable subscription revenue and a strong retail presence). Put that together with a hi-band ISP rollout like Google's (and/or the US government's national broadband initiative) and you're talking a compelling story for many, many millions of customers -- a customer base big enough for cable channels to be willing to sell programming to, even though it's sure to piss off the incumbent cablecos.

Interesting possibilities abound here.

With IPTV bandwidth limits that can be set by the cable co that supply the Internet to many customers (triple play and all that) how far could this get if many people went to it.

[davezatz]

There appears to be nothing new in the memo, unless it's the $20 million figure.

$20 mil and exclusive retail (presumably B&M). Again, assuming it's legit and accurate. Neither of which I know. But it gives us something additional to talk about until 3/2.

For perspective on that rumored $20 mil from Best Buy, my blogging buddy Davis Freeberg writes (http://davisfreeberg.com/2010/02/28/best-buy-bankrolls-tivos-marketing/) that TiVo spent $4.7 million on marketing the last 12 months. So, if accurate, it's a pretty significant investment from a third party. What do they get out of it besides a cut of box sales?

[steinbch]

TiVo spent $4.7 million on marketing the last 12 months.

Hopefully that doesn't equate to just 4 times as many web ads showing up on the websites I frequent. Seriously, does anyone else see nothing but TiVo ads show up when online?

[MichaelK]

I was thinking for a second that maybe "premiere" had something to do with movie premieres. There's articles here and there on the net about first run movies being availible for PPV really early for a premium. And I was thinking maybe tivo tapped into that somehow. But the BestBuy memo- "TiVo is currently working on something major that will literally transform the way people watch TV" - doesn't sound like it has to do with movies. And I'd guess if that was involved they would at least hint about it.

BTW-

what are the "incremental" sales in the BB memo? Is that like selling people surronud sound or monster cables and the like? or Does that mean bestbuy is likely to get a cut of PPV/VOD or something like that?

[BigJimOutlaw]

What do they get out of it besides a cut of box sales?

We know BB's VOD is coming. But that can't be worth 20 big ones, unless there's something fantabulous about it.

Maybe they bought up all of the new UI's advertising space for a year. :D

[RichB]

I agree. I think the only think that would live up to the hype is a viable IPTV option to use in conjunction with or bypass the cableco's.

- Rich

[MichaelK]

We know BB's VOD is coming. But that can't be worth 20 big ones, unless there's something fantabulous about it.

....


hmmm- maybe BB has a deal with studios to get movies early before anyone else?

[innocentfreak]

BTW-

what are the "incremental" sales in the BB memo? Is that like selling people surronud sound or monster cables and the like? or Does that mean bestbuy is likely to get a cut of PPV/VOD or something like that?

I would guess it is things like monster cables, extended warranties, and installs. Anything BB sells where they have a huge markup.

It will be curious to see also for those that know like Zatz, if they know everything now or if TiVo even held stuff back from them.

Also I wonder if we will see an actual TiVo employee post anything here since it has been a long time since any of them did.

[ZeoTiVo]

$20 mil and exclusive retail (presumably B&M). Again, assuming it's legit and accurate. Neither of which I know. But it gives us something additional to talk about until 3/2.

For perspective on that rumored $20 mil from Best Buy, my blogging buddy Davis Freeberg writes (http://davisfreeberg.com/2010/02/28/best-buy-bankrolls-tivos-marketing/) that TiVo spent $4.7 million on marketing the last 12 months. So, if accurate, it's a pretty significant investment from a third party. What do they get out of it besides a cut of box sales?


well they wont just be ads about TiVo only. Picture an Ad where we see the latest HDTV with a TiVo premiere hooked up and on the screen we see a Best Buy VOD service being used and marketed and we keep hearing how it is available via the TiVo box - so come on down to best Buy and pick up a package deal, etc...
Aside from good margin sales like TVs lets not forget the cables and geek squad stuff* they hope to advertise and sell along with this. Best Buy likely spends WAAAAY more than 20 million on advertising in a year.

* warning best not used in Canada ;)

[innocentfreak]

Also it could include advertising the Insignia TV now with TiVo features built in assuming they announce those as they previously mentioned when the BB deal was announced.

I doubt it would be a full TiVo, but I could see it including trickplay and possibly just a live buffer.

[innocentfreak]

hmmm- maybe BB has a deal with studios to get movies early before anyone else?

The only thing with this is it wouldn't address the possible BB memo comment about changing the way you watch TV. At least to me this comment is about TV shows versus watching content on the TV but then who knows.

Maybe it will be some type of service that has access to every show ever produced including overseas so you can truly watch anything. Of course it would have to be limited to shows no longer airing or possibly in syndication depending on how the rights to rebroadcast are worded. Still it would present a nice back catalog. Or maybe not at all lol.

[BigJimOutlaw]

Speaking of which, didn't Tivo also make an agreement in the past year with a Tribune-like company that had a ginormous database of basically every tv show/movie/song?

Doesn't have anything directly to do with Best Buy, but this could finally show up in the UI, as part of their "google of all media" effort.

[innocentfreak]

Yeah they did according to what I remember from on here, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you the name and my google-fu is failing me.

[Davis Freeberg]

what are the "incremental" sales in the BB memo? Is that like selling people surronud sound or monster cables and the like? or Does that mean bestbuy is likely to get a cut of PPV/VOD or something like that?

Incremental sales likely refers to some kind of ongoing cut that Best Buy gets after the device is sold. This probably means that they'll either get a cut of the advertising commissions, the VOD commissions or their own VOD service will be included and they can sell content to customers after they've left the store. It would be a direct attack on Vudu/Walmart, but obviously they've been planning it longer than the recent merger.

On the Best Buy product page that was leaked, it mentioned VOD access, so I'm thinking that Best Buy could have some kind of TVEverywhere program up their sleeve or TiVo will finally be able to tap into cable's VOD system. I think that it's also notable that the Western Digital hard drives have been sold out for a number of months now. It may be unrelated to the 3/2 announcement, but it seems odd that TiVo wouldn't be replenishing this unless they were planning some kind of TiVo in the cloud that would do away with storage limits. With over $500 million of Dish's money in their bank accounts, it wouldn't surprise me to see TiVo make a bold (albeit risky) move and put some of that to work.

[dswallow]

"exclusive national retailer"...

...like there's really that many NATIONAL retailers left. :)

[BigJimOutlaw]

After re-reading the original BB/Tivo press release, they're using a lot of same "hot" buzzwords.

http://pr.tivo.com/easyir/prssrel.do?easyirid=EB4AD36B5107EF0A&version=live&prid=566000&releasejsp=release_134

right in the title: "Transform the Home Entertainment Experience"

# TiVo and Best Buy plan to investigate development of user interface features for TiVo DVRs sold by Best Buy that will provide a means of ongoing dialogue with consumers and enable easy access to Best Buy's growing assortment of digital services.

# Best Buy will have access to TiVo's full suite of interface solutions including consistent presence in the TiVo Showcase area of the TiVo platform, providing it with a powerful communication tool for marketing innovative products to the TiVo subscriber base.

# TiVo intends to work with Best Buy's Exclusive Brands group (e.g., Insignia, Dynex, etc.) to explore integration of its user interface, search, and other TiVo benefits to help further grow that consumer electronics line.

# Best Buy and TiVo will investigate development of a series of consumer tips and insights that can be easily accessed for all kinds of digital home experiences, and Best Buy expects to explore opportunities with TiVo to provide unique Best Buy solutions that enable viewers to take greater advantage of transactional opportunities through the television set.

# Best Buy expects to explore opportunities with TiVo to develop new features and offerings to ensure that the TiVo-Best Buy platform is at the forefront of new digital home entertainment offerings.

None of the above is altogether exciting for us, unless you happen to also be a Best Buy junkie, but I guess it's a win for them.

[innocentfreak]

On the Best Buy product page that was leaked, it mentioned VOD access, so I'm thinking that Best Buy could have some kind of TVEverywhere program up their sleeve or TiVo will finally be able to tap into cable's VOD system. I think that it's also notable that the Western Digital hard drives have been sold out for a number of months now. It may be unrelated to the 3/2 announcement, but it seems odd that TiVo wouldn't be replenishing this unless they were planning some kind of TiVo in the cloud that would do away with storage limits. With over $500 million of Dish's money in their bank accounts, it wouldn't surprise me to see TiVo make a bold (albeit risky) move and put some of that to work.

They could be replenishing them assuming that the new TiVo works with the new WD drives which many older systems even including WHS don't.

They could also do some type of service similar to Mozy where they allow you to backup your recordings online. Of course there would be an additional charge for that.

I don't see them doing cloud recording because they wouldn't be able to use the argument and setup Cablevision has. Since Cablevision is the one supplying the content to the home, they have the ability to record the local version of the show which TiVo wouldn't have access to. I believe this is how Cablevision got around the complaints since it recorded a copy for every DVR that requested it. I also believe if you tried to add a recording in the middle of the show it wouldn't count almost like trying to schedule a recording from TiVo.com for a show about to air.

[wublet]

With IPTV bandwidth limits that can be set by the cable co that supply the Internet to many customers (triple play and all that) how far could this get if many people went to it.

Fortunately cablecos are not the only available ISPs, so that can be got around. Telcos are also ISPs (not using crappy cable modem technology, incidentally), and there are also pure-play ISPs. Sure, some folks will stick with triple play packages, but TiVo/BB doesn't need to get everyone in the world to switch in order to come out ahead here. And don't underestimate the hatred of customers for their cablecos, they're looking for a reason to switch, almost any reason will do.

Not sure what the "how far could this get if many people went to it" part means...? Obviously, the more folks switch, the better off TiVo/BB is, and if the TiVo/BB net-cable service delivers the same of better user experience (as compared to cableco or a TiVo on cableco service) then what problem are you seeing?

[wublet]

I don't see them doing cloud recording because they wouldn't be able to use the argument and setup Cablevision has. Since Cablevision is the one supplying the content to the home, they have the ability to record the local version of the show which TiVo wouldn't have access to. I believe this is how Cablevision got around the complaints since it recorded a copy for every DVR that requested it. I also believe if you tried to add a recording in the middle of the show it wouldn't count almost like trying to schedule a recording from TiVo.com for a show about to air.

Ah, but you're still thinking of an incumbent cableco sitting between the customer and the cable channels. IIRC the Cablevision issue alleged copyright infringement for the server-side recordings made by the cableco without the authorization of the cable channels.

See, if the TiVo/BB service were its own cableco (which happens to connect directly with the customer's TiVo box over the internet rather than over a local cable system), then TiVo/BB would have negotiated its own nation-wide deals with the cable programming providers/channels, obviously allowing users to do TiVo-style stuff with the programs. So in that context, copyright infringement charges would never arise. The copies would be authorized by contract, including any incidental copies on the TiVo/BB servers.

Would that extra goodie necessarily make the TiVo/BB service more expensive? Well, not necessarily, since the total number of subscribers could get a lot bigger than many/most local cable systems. That means negotiating power for TiVo/BB when they go to the cable channels to buy the programming.

So although devil's in the details and all that, not necessarily a problem.

[innocentfreak]

Except then you have a similar issue to what is going on with Hulu unless they are going to offer your actual local affiliate.

From what I understand most of the local affiliates pay for exclusive rights to broadcast a show on television in that market except for the occasional syndication deal. This is how Hulu positioned itself to stream those same shows by claiming they never sold them the rights to online broadcast. This is also why Hulu shuts down any device short of a PC that is connected to a TV so they don't have to deal with licensing issues from the local affiliates saying they are violating the exclusive agreements.

Now maybe there is a way around it that will work, but with my limited knowledge on the subject I don't see it.

The other big issue with this would be bandwidth especially as more and more companies introduce caps and throttling. How do you handle multiple people wanting to watch different HD live shows at once?

[Phantom Gremlin]

The other big issue with this would be bandwidth especially as more and more companies introduce caps and throttling. How do you handle multiple people wanting to watch different HD live shows at once?

Just as lessd alluded to above, I think this is the elephant in the room that not many people want to face head on. E.g. wublet said: "Fortunately cablecos are not the only available ISPs, so that can be got around." There's some truth in that, but IMO also some wishful thinking. For many people bandwidth is very much capped and throttling is very much in place.

Here's some HD math:

Assume some sort of MPEG-4 technology so "HD" is about 8 mbit/s (which is about twice as efficient as the 16+ mbit/s rate of high quality OTA HD). So that's 1 MByte/s per HD stream. Which works out to 1 * 60 * 60 = 3600 MByte/hr = 3.6 GBytes/hr per stream.

In many households the TV is on for many hours a day, whether anyone is watching or not. But let's be conservative and assume 2 streams * 4 hrs each stream. That's 3.6 * 2 * 4 = 28.8 GBytes/day.

That's 864 GBbyte/month.

Comcast, we have a problem!

I'm limited to 250 GByte/month by Comcast, and there have been many reports of other ISPs limiting people to much much less, i.e. between 10 and 25 GByte/month.

The ISPs will have to be brought into this process (and given their cut) before streaming HD can become commonplace. And, of course, once they see the inevitability, the ISPs will do everything they can to make sure you're only streaming from them, from their servers, paying their fees.

[jmpage2]

Phantom, you are exactly right.

Many here were having this exact discussion about two years ago with snarky comments all around about how stupid people are who believe that the Internet can "run out of bandwidth".

Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Well, not so funny now that we are seeing the impacts of not only throttling but over saturation in many parts of the Internet becoming routine.

It costs many millions of dollars to upgrade just a single long haul internet connection so that the speed is doubled (swapping out GBIC or fiber modules in a single connection for example) but the problem is that consumption is going up much faster than they can keep up with currently.

Look at it this way. If 100 households in your node (and you have one of those whether you are DSL OR Cable) are all pulling 20mbps of real time video over the internet then you are looking at 2 gigabits per second for ONE NODE. Now look at 10 nodes that go into a back haul (a large trunk taking you out of your immediate area), now you're looking at 20 gigabits per second. Now look at 100 back haul connections in a large residential area. You get the idea. The problems extend beyond bandwidth into areas such as caching servers, load balancing, etc. That's why your huge baseband digital CATV signal is STILL getting saturated with the number of HD channels being pushed and carriers are being forced to resort to SDV to compensate.

There are a lot of strategies out there to try to keep up with demand but make no bones about it, if 10% of high speed users all turned to streaming as their primary means of viewing television there would be massive outages even on the fastest, newest networks.

Eventually we will all get our programming via streaming or direct delivery but it's going to take another 5-10 years before this is mainstream enough that even a solid minority of users will be able to do this.

SNL had a nice joke Saturday night about this with Youtube and how the funny video was taking forever to load and once started was "buffering" every few seconds.

[MickeS]

Phantom, you are exactly right.

Many here were having this exact discussion about two years ago with snarky comments all around about how stupid people are who believe that the Internet can "run out of bandwidth".

Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Well, not so funny now that we are seeing the impacts of not only throttling but over saturation in many parts of the Internet becoming routine.

It costs many millions of dollars to upgrade just a single long haul internet connection so that the speed is doubled (swapping out GBIC or fiber modules in a single connection for example) but the problem is that consumption is going up much faster than they can keep up with currently.

Do you have any references to back up the bolded assertions?

[davezatz]

It will be curious to see also for those that know like Zatz, if they know everything now or if TiVo even held stuff back from them.

I called one of my official contacts Friday and asked exactly that question (while contemplating a trip to NYC and percolating on the matter for coverage). There's only one minor bit I wasn't briefed on officially, but had already learned elsewhere. So I got a pretty good handle on the situation. Some of it will probably have to be addressed in the form of a Q&A because I won't remember everything at the time of writing or won't be able to gracefully fit it in. Assuming I start writing soon. ;) Maybe after work today. And I also have a few open questions of my own, but I'll get to them in due time.

EDIT: I should add that my area of interest is primarily product/service. I'm less interested in co-marketing deals, financy stuff, and which people appear on stage.

[innocentfreak]

I guess my next question then is when will we know all the details? Since Tuesday at 6:00 PM is invites only, is that when the NDA is removed or could it possibly be later with TiVo wanting to officially release an announcement first?

I just would hate to get hyped to hear news on Tuesday only to find we won't know for a couple days. Oh and get writing if you haven't already lol.

[ZeoTiVo]

I guess my next question then is when will we know all the details? Since Tuesday at 6:00 PM is invites only, is that when the NDA is removed or could it possibly be later with TiVo wanting to officially release an announcement first?

I just would hate to get hyped to hear news on Tuesday only to find we won't know for a couple days. Oh and get writing if you haven't already lol.

Dave does not sound overly excited, hmmmm....

I am sure TiVo has been writing their press release already.
We will know Tuesday evening, someone will send it down the tubes to the interwebs. :D

[innocentfreak]

Yeah I was trying to ignore that and attribute it to the fact he just hasn't started writing yet. Then again maybe part of it is knowing everything and not being able to say anything. Or at least I hope there is some other reason he doesn't seem excited to the unveiling of something that will show the DVR was just a warm-up.

[davezatz]

I guess my next question then is when will we know all the details? Since Tuesday at 6:00 PM is invites only, is that when the NDA is removed or could it possibly be later with TiVo wanting to officially release an announcement first?

Just got word my embargo lifts at 7PM tomorrow. Although, I imagine some mainstream outlets (who can't be trusted ;) ) will break something early and I'll need to be ready.

Dave does not sound overly excited, hmmmm.... I am sure TiVo has been writing their press release already.

I wouldn't take my procrastination as a sign of anything other than procrastination. I blog as a hobby... and it's decidedly less fun when I have deadlines and/or embargos to worry about. And those broken embargos we fear. I also prefer short-form writing, and these kinds of events can't be covered in four sentences. Although, it's true - it's hard to impress me. Unless it's a UFO (http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2010-01/ufo-the-coolest-thing-at-ces/).

Somewhat related? I saw the TiVo HD XL on clearance at Best Buy last night:
http://www.zatznotfunny.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/tivo-best-buy.jpg

[dig_duggler]

Just got word my embargo lifts at 7PM tomorrow.

Color me confused, but wouldn't that be after the event?

[ZeoTiVo]

Although, it's true - it's hard to impress me. Unless it's a UFO (http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2010-01/ufo-the-coolest-thing-at-ces/).
you were just happy to find something other than making calls to do with your iPhone :D

[davezatz]

Color me confused, but wouldn't that be after the event?

The event starts at 6PM. The presentation will probably be efficient, but lingering (eating, drinking) may take a couple hours. I assume the timing is so folks on hand will have time to summarize. However, if they're live blogging I am at a disadvantage. Perhaps we need to change the time. ;)

Update: Event starts at 6, presentation a bit later. So it's all good. And like I said, I expect some mainstream media web master will spill the beans early. Either way, I'll do my best to answer questions (if I'm awake) and when cleared to communicate.

[socrplyr]

Dave does not sound overly excited, hmmmm....


I disagree. The fact that he is here actively spending time looking at speculation says to me that there is at least some interest/excitement. That is just how I read it, but just over 24 hours till we find out.

[innocentfreak]

So I guess we won't get any predictions from you then even about whether TiVo overhyped the event until after.

[socrplyr]

So I guess we won't get any predictions from you then even about whether TiVo overhyped the event until after.

I don't think Tivo over-hyped the event. Maybe they over-exaggerated their claim, but they have yet to really hype the event. For me to see a product as over-hyped they would need to be actively and repetitively tout the claim. They haven't even actively touted it. They sent invitations to the news journalists and it stopped there. I have not seen anything from Tivo directed at the public. I think people are trying to read too much into the single statement. Here on the forums I think many are ready for a revolutionary product and they have been thinking about all the new features that could be in there for a long time, so expectations are too high. In the end I am guessing this box will wind up being a significant change (even if it is really only a newer faster HD UI with a few new bells and whistles) for those average users, but not for those on here that want the box to be the be all product. Personally, I think a larger hard drive, tru2way, and a slightly faster UI would be enough to make me happy. It most certainly would work for the average user as well as it significantly simplifies setups.

[RichB]

So I guess we won't get any predictions from you then even about whether TiVo over hyped the event until after.

I think it is fair to say that they over hyped the event.
They could supply MOCA, DLNA, Satellite boxes, and some kind of limited IPTV and it would still be overhyped since all of these things already exist.

That said, I will probably buy one.

- Rich

[Southcross]

sweeeeeet!

question for the HD recording challenged.... 320gb would be: 45 hours HD, 320ish hours of Standard Deff (Basic Quality), and how many hours of non-HD "Digital" cable/TV?? something like 150 hours??

[ZeoTiVo]

I disagree. The fact that he is here actively spending time looking at speculation says to me that there is at least some interest/excitement. That is just how I read it, but just over 24 hours till we find out.

and Dave backs you up with his reply.
So what is so exciting dave :confused: :D

[ZeoTiVo]

I think people are trying to read too much into the single statement. Here on the forums I think many are ready for a revolutionary product and they have been thinking about all the new features that could be in there for a long time, so expectations are too high.

good point

[Stormspace]

Baloney. Anybody who's been around that long knows that you were complaining strongly about TiVo's approach during those early years, a quick example (http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=980758#post980758). I'm afraid your comparison has no credibility at all.

He was right. And history proved that when TiVo discovered that to remain competitive the HMO features he was complaining were too high and that they would have to include them in the subscription price.

As far as I'm concerned you have a right to complain about things that are wrong. And as for this particular item, I refused to by TiVo until HMO was included, and now I have three. :)

[Maniac1140]

I wonder if Tivo is going to annouce support for CinamaNow (best buy streaming service) and tout that it is the only stb with netflix and cinamaNow support.

[innocentfreak]

Except for the fact according to Zatz's blog (http://www.zatznotfunny.com/) CinemaNow headed to Moxi (http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2010-02/cinemanow-vod-headed-to-the-moxi-hd-dvr/).

[ZeoTiVo]

Except for the fact according to Zatz's blog (http://www.zatznotfunny.com/) CinemaNow headed to Moxi (http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2010-02/cinemanow-vod-headed-to-the-moxi-hd-dvr/).

yeah but technically Moxi does not have Netflix directly on it ;)

[convergent]

I guess we'll know the answers to all of this by tomorrow, but is it possible that Tivo is going to take their "beta" search that they've had available for months and make it production, and call that a change in the way people watch TV? For anyone that uses it regularly, it does change the way you do things. You can search on something and are presented with all the options for watching it... network, recorded and available, netflix, amazon, etc.. It has occurred to me if they were able to record all programs and store them on a server in the sky somewhere, then make them available at this point of entry... that would be a game changer. The beauty of that plan is that it also records all the commercials and such that are in it so the networks shouldn't (in theory) have any complaints. They'd probably have to partner with all the providers though since the stations available are going to vary by provider/market. This could also potentially avoid the whole cable card thing down the road.

[dave13077]

If nothing else it has creating some excitment that has been lacking here for some time.

[MickeS]

If nothing else it has creating some excitment that has been lacking here for some time.

That's mainly the reason I care at all. :D I just built a PC for the TV for streaming and downloaded material, and I can't imagine that the recording abilities of this new TiVo are so much better than what I already have and use on my Series 3.

Of course, if it has better SDV handling I might be tempted to get it and go back to cable... ;)

[davezatz]

I wonder if Tivo is going to annouce support for CinamaNow (best buy streaming service) and tout that it is the only stb with netflix and cinamaNow support.

TiVo used to offer CinemaNow - that's where the Disney flicks came from. (I first blogged the announcement 5/08 it looks like.) In fact, I thought they still did. But I noticed JUST NOW TiVo's webpage has been removed. Here's the Google cache:
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:fHJcIfQYE7QJ:www.tivo.com/whatistivo/on-demand/disney-movies/index.html+disney+cinemanow+tivo&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

I can say with all honesty and without breaking an embargo that I have no idea what it means/foreshadows. Hm.

Regarding CinemaNow on the Moxi, I've learned that web page went up in December and since we haven't see anything lately, development could be tabled or transitioned. (CinemaNow supposedly introduced a new HD API.) My contact there was non-committal, said she'd give me any details when the time was right. Which obviously isn't this week. Maybe never. Who knows.

[mfogarty5]

I'm sticking to my guns. This is what I wrote 3 weeks ago.

I thought the TiVo Premier was going to be a Best Buy exclusive and that TiVo was getting out of the retail business. From what I read on these forums TiVo should have gotten out of the direct to consumer business years ago.

If there is no Best Buy near you, then you can order it from their website.

I also figured that TiVo and BestBuy would use Geek Squad to install the CableCards into the TiVo Premiers.

It's a win for TiVo because they get out of the retail business and can focus on software(ads and tracking viewing habits. :p). Its a win for BestBuy because they get exclusive rights to the product and get work for their Geek Squad group. Its a win for cable companies who get to reduce truck rolls related to installers incapable of implementing CableCards. Its a win for consumers because Geek Squad employees trained on CableCards are less frustrating than cable company employees who aren't.

It makes sense too much sense which means that it will never happen.

[wublet]

Except then you have a similar issue to what is going on with Hulu unless they are going to offer your actual local affiliate.

From what I understand most of the local affiliates pay for exclusive rights to broadcast a show on television in that market except for the occasional syndication deal. This is how Hulu positioned itself to stream those same shows by claiming they never sold them the rights to online broadcast. This is also why Hulu shuts down any device short of a PC that is connected to a TV so they don't have to deal with licensing issues from the local affiliates saying they are violating the exclusive agreements.

Now maybe there is a way around it that will work, but with my limited knowledge on the subject I don't see it.


Hadn't thought about the local affiliates, but (a) you could subscribe to your local cableco's absolute lowest service tier and get 'em that way if you want 'em -- after all there is a CableCARD, or else (b) BB/TiVo could strike deals with all the local affiliates and make it available over the net. Maybe attack it collectively at the network level rather than a million individual deals. If you told an affiliate they could lose the X% of their audience that likes TiVo, and therefore Y% their ad revenue, then I think they'd likely be quite willing to make a deal to keep the audience.

[mattack]

question for the HD recording challenged.... 320gb would be: 45 hours HD, 320ish hours of Standard Deff (Basic Quality), and how many hours of non-HD "Digital" cable/TV?? something like 150 hours??

Wait, where are you getting these numbers?

I think the "320ish hours" IS referring to "digital" cable TV. (Since there are fewer analog channels available to most people.)

But IIRC, the lowest digital channels take about twice what tivo basic takes.

[wublet]

Just as lessd alluded to above, I think this is the elephant in the room that not many people want to face head on. E.g. wublet said: "Fortunately cablecos are not the only available ISPs, so that can be got around." There's some truth in that, but IMO also some wishful thinking. For many people bandwidth is very much capped and throttling is very much in place.

Here's some HD math:

Assume some sort of MPEG-4 technology so "HD" is about 8 mbit/s (which is about twice as efficient as the 16+ mbit/s rate of high quality OTA HD). So that's 1 MByte/s per HD stream. Which works out to 1 * 60 * 60 = 3600 MByte/hr = 3.6 GBytes/hr per stream.

In many households the TV is on for many hours a day, whether anyone is watching or not. But let's be conservative and assume 2 streams * 4 hrs each stream. That's 3.6 * 2 * 4 = 28.8 GBytes/day.

That's 864 GBbyte/month.

Comcast, we have a problem!

I'm limited to 250 GByte/month by Comcast, and there have been many reports of other ISPs limiting people to much much less, i.e. between 10 and 25 GByte/month.

The ISPs will have to be brought into this process (and given their cut) before streaming HD can become commonplace. And, of course, once they see the inevitability, the ISPs will do everything they can to make sure you're only streaming from them, from their servers, paying their fees.

There are two parts here, the caps and the service provisioning. Let's take 'em separately.

First, let's get the raw numbers down. I poked around and found cableco compressed 1080i described as 8-10 GB/hour, so that'd make it more like 40 GB/day or about 1.2 TB/month.

Caps: You're describing a Comcast policy which users hate, and Comcast has no interest in seeing the BB/TiVo service succeed, so they're never going to help you out, so let's forget about them. Yes, there are non-cableco ISPs with capping policies, and users hate those too. But ISPs generally offer a range of service levels, not just one level, and if there are any caps, those caps are higher for the higher service levels. So, all this means is that the customer may have to go to a higher service tier with the ISP if they want to stream TV over the internet connection -- fair enough, wouldn't you say? Especially if the difference in ISP price levels is a lot less than what you're paying the cableco now? (Yes yes, the BB/TiVo subscription has to be added into the calculation too.) If BB/TiVo does their groundwork correctly in terms of socializing the idea with the ISPs, I would expect ISPs everywhere to jump at the chance to acquire these customers from the cablecos -- especially since it'll be at the higher service levels. In fact, watch for new service packages from the ISPs specifically tailored for use with IPTV services (BB/TiVo's unlikely to be the last one).

Service Provisioning: 10 GB/hour is 2.8 MB/sec. My ISP's $35/month ADSL package goes up to 6.0MB/sec, a $55 plan goes up to 12 MB/sec. No monthly caps. They have thousands of customers. It works just fine. This is what they do 24/7. As far as upstream bandwidth, remember Google is aggressively shopping massive quantities of dark long-haul fiber, and the US government has a huge broadband buildout program going. This is not a problem, not because the internet is magic (it isn't), but because the backbone has received constant development and national-scale investment over decades, all on a scale that local cablecos can only dream of.

Frankly, cable is a dying technology and business model in the long run. The best that cablecos can hope for is to become general-purpose IP plumbers to the customer premises in some local markets, and they're in a race with the telcos and utility cos for even that. Once one IP wire (or radio signal) going into a building gets fast enough, ya only need one of 'em. And once it's all IP going in, anybody can aggregate and deliver the programming. 'Cause there's nothing magic about being a cableco either.

[lessd]

First, let's get the raw numbers down. I poked around and found cableco compressed 1080i described as 8-10 GB/hour, so that'd make it more like 40 GB/day or about 1.2 TB/month.
.

And your comment is that Phantom Gremlin said 0.864Tb per month and you say its 1.2Tb per month, not such a big difference as the Comcast cap is 0.25 Tb per month.

[wublet]

And your comment is that Phantom Gremlin said 0.864Tb per month and you say its 1.2Tb per month, not such a big difference as the Comcast cap is 0.25 Tb per month.

Actually, no. My comment is that Comcast isn't ever going to increase their cap because that would help you get off their TV service, so fire Comcast, get a real ISP, pay them for a service level that has decent bandwidth, buy this hypothetical BB/TiVo box, and subscribe to this hypothetical BB/TiVo service.

Shorter: A Comcast-imposed cap can't be used as a reason to prove why a non-Comcast solution can't work.

[lessd]

Actually, no. My comment is that Comcast isn't ever going to increase their cap because that would help you get off their TV service, so fire Comcast, get a real ISP, pay them for a service level that has decent bandwidth, buy this hypothetical BB/TiVo box, and subscribe to this hypothetical BB/TiVo service.

Shorter: A Comcast-imposed cap can't be used as a reason to prove why a non-Comcast solution can't work.

If I ran a business you may be correct, but for the price i pay Comcast I get all the TV I (and my family) want, a super fast Internet (>20Mb/sec) and add that to a movie rental service I use (Blockbuster) I get all the movies I want. The one thing TiVo or any other service can't give us is more than 24 hours in a day. The total cost for all these services + land line tel is $162/month and that includes 4 TiVos with cable cards and one non HD cable box as my wife likes for some of the free VOD at night + HBO and one other movie service and more digital cable channels than i can ever use. Now if the new TiVo would cook dinner for my family....

[wublet]

What you're saying is that you're not a strong candidate customer for the product That's fine. Millions of other folks will be, and from the BB/TiVo perspective that's enough to justify doing it. They don't need every existing customer to switch over.

But that's not a reason why the product can't or won't fly.

[davezatz]

Millions of other folks will be, and from the BB/TiVo perspective that's enough to justify doing it. They don't need every existing customer to switch over.

Based on data from October, TiVo has a little over 1.5 million stand-alone TiVo subs (still counting as revenue). I assume many are multiple unit households. And this represents a fraction of all deployed DVRs. So millionS could be a stretch. Upfront fees and CableCARD mastery definitely limit adoption compared to the provider-based competition. Wish we had a Freeview movement in the US, as TiVo would absolutely own the space.

[dylanemcgregor]

Actually, no. My comment is that Comcast isn't ever going to increase their cap because that would help you get off their TV service, so fire Comcast, get a real ISP, pay them for a service level that has decent bandwidth, buy this hypothetical BB/TiVo box, and subscribe to this hypothetical BB/TiVo service.

Shorter: A Comcast-imposed cap can't be used as a reason to prove why a non-Comcast solution can't work.

What I think you're missing is the other ISPs might not have a hard cap that is stated, but you can bet their "unlimited" isn't really unlimited, and my guess is that unless you are using FIOS most providers will cut you off at less than 250GB a month. I know Frontier was imposing 5GB (!) a month caps for ALL residential customers, and this is combined upload and download.

On the other hand, I think both the amount of TV watched and the quality demanded are high for at least some customers. An hour show on bit torrent (minus the ads of course) seems to clock in at 350MB for a 720p file. I haven't downloaded very often, but the files I have seen seem to be of great quality. If they could do a similar size file that would put probably put most users in the 1 - 2 GB per day category which should be OK on most ISPs (minus of course Frontier)

[StuffOfInterest]

For large scale streaming TV two key components would be multicast and local buffering. The TiVo platform may be ideally suited for this.

For those not familiar, let me first start with multicast. One thing that IP supports is the ability to have one sender with multiple receivers. This is not the same as broadcast where the transmission goes to every receiver. It only ends up going to those subscribing to the feed. The advantage here is that even if there are 10 subscribers at the end of a trunk only one copy of the transmission goes down a particular trunk. With this, if two people on a node are watching a show then the backhall trunk only has one stream of traffic present.

Next up is local buffering. With streming, although several people may be watching a show they won't all start at the same time. If a second user starts watching a stream then they can record the existing stream while a new stream starts from the beginning for their viewing. Once the new stream catches up to the point where the original stream started recording the new stream can terminate and the user switches to viewing the recorded stream.

The carriers will need to make their infrastruture support end to end IP multicast for this to work, but if they do then streaming IP TV does not have to eat up every bit of available bandwidth on the Internet. TiVo with its hard disk and existing IP abilities is well positioned as a platform to support this concept. I'd love to see something like this in the Premier, but I think we are still a few years away.

[orangeboy]

...An hour show on bit torrent (minus the ads of course) seems to clock in at 350MB for a 720p file...

Perhaps converted to Xvid or some other more lossy (lossier?) codec. I see ~42 minute mkv/mp4 files weighing in at over 1GB, and a BIG difference in PQ. I steer clear of torrents though.

[wublet]

Based on data from October, TiVo has a little over 1.5 million stand-alone TiVo subs (still counting as revenue). I assume many are multiple unit households. And this represents a fraction of all deployed DVRs. So millionS could be a stretch. Upfront fees and CableCARD mastery definitely limit adoption compared to the provider-based competition. Wish we had a Freeview movement in the US, as TiVo would absolutely own the space.

Sorry, I must have been unclear about that part. The millions doesn't come from the existing TiVo customers, it comes from everyone who hates their cableco and would love to switch if only they could. Currently most of them have no alternative, and unlike a TiVo owner, if their DVR is cableco-provided then they have no investment to protect. So this hypothetical BB/TiVo offering would for the first time give them their chance to fire their cableco. That sure sounds like millions to me. How many cable subscribers in the US today?

[wublet]

What I think you're missing is the other ISPs might not have a hard cap that is stated, but you can bet their "unlimited" isn't really unlimited, and my guess is that unless you are using FIOS most providers will cut you off at less than 250GB a month. I know Frontier was imposing 5GB (!) a month caps for ALL residential customers, and this is combined upload and download.

On the other hand, I think both the amount of TV watched and the quality demanded are high for at least some customers. An hour show on bit torrent (minus the ads of course) seems to clock in at 350MB for a 720p file. I haven't downloaded very often, but the files I have seen seem to be of great quality. If they could do a similar size file that would put probably put most users in the 1 - 2 GB per day category which should be OK on most ISPs (minus of course Frontier)

Cite please on the bolded assertions?

As to your second paragraph, it's not necessary for the product to work well for all possible customers. It just has to work for enough to make the business work. To assess that, it would be more instructive to consider more typical customers and analyze their usage patterns. Even the analysis above that gives 1.2TB/month is based on an assumption of 8 1080i hours per day, which seems a little on the high side for city people, which is where the bulk of the population lives.

[wublet]

Another IP traffic mitigation measure they could take would be load balancing over time. If you're recording on a TiVo to view later instead of watching in real-time, then the data can take longer to arrive than it takes to play, and there can be long to very very long gaps in between the IP packets. That would let the BB/TiVo back end schedule the IP traffic to take advantage of peaks and valleys in the streaming usage, thus averaging out the traffic over time and avoiding severe peaks. Practically speaking, this would mean a lot of program downloads overnight and in off-peak viewing hours, and a loss of "Watch Live TV" while recording.

[dylanemcgregor]

Cite please on the bolded assertions?

Well I did say this was my "guess" that they would cut you off at that amount, at least if you did it more regularly. This is an old article, so you are certainly free to discount it as much as you want, but it discusses people getting warning letters for using too much bandwidth...but were not able to get clarity on what "too much" meant.

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7940

Over the years I've had two friends who used to be pretty heavy users tell me they got warning letters like this, but the last one was probably two or three years ago (I think they had TWC as their ISP).

And my second paragraph was actually trying to agree with you and saying that it would be possible for many people to download all their content needs via the internet (heck, I do this now). I just don't think it is realistic to have it all be the highest quality HD for multiple hours a day just yet, maybe in a few more years.

[Bai Shen]

Cite please on the bolded assertions?


Here's Cox's list of bandwith restrictions.

http://ww2.cox.com/aboutus/policies/limitations.cox

[wublet]

Thanks dylanemcgregor and Bai Shen for the links. But both of those "ISPs" are cable companies. Caps do make more sense in a cable modem environment where many customers share a single zero-sum bandwidth pool, and as mentioned above cablecos have an incentive not to offer more because then they'll lose customers to IPTV things like the hypothetical BB/TiVo offering. In the scenario we're talking about, it'd be a non-cableco ISP, so I guess cites on caps for those kinds of ISPs is what we're really after.

Then again, if it's true that ISPs are motivated to pick up ex-cable customers, they'll have to design that service level so as not to cut your service off on the 29th of the month. Caps are all about network management procedures vs. pricing -- business decisions, so they're flexible.

[MickeS]

Here's Cox's list of bandwith restrictions.

http://ww2.cox.com/aboutus/policies/limitations.cox

Interesting, I didn't know they had a set cap (200GB for my subscription type). I wonder how much I use. I watch about 3-4 hours of Hulu every day, plus regular Internet usage. I would imagine that doesn't get close to the limit.

[Bai Shen]

Thanks dylanemcgregor and Bai Shen for the links. But both of those "ISPs" are cable companies. Caps do make more sense in a cable modem environment where many customers share a single zero-sum bandwidth pool, and as mentioned above cablecos have an incentive not to offer more because then they'll lose customers to IPTV things like the hypothetical BB/TiVo offering. In the scenario we're talking about, it'd be a non-cableco ISP, so I guess cites on caps for those kinds of ISPs is what we're really after.

Then again, if it's true that ISPs are motivated to pick up ex-cable customers, they'll have to design that service level so as not to cut your service off on the 29th of the month. Caps are all about network management procedures vs. pricing -- business decisions, so they're flexible.

All ISPs have caps. Some are just better at publicizing them than others.

Interesting, I didn't know they had a set cap (200GB for my subscription type). I wonder how much I use. I watch about 3-4 hours of Hulu every day, plus regular Internet usage. I would imagine that doesn't get close to the limit.

Yup. They've had caps for all of the tiers for quite some time. PITA to find the info, though. I forget where exactly I got that link. Prolly dslreports.

[dylanemcgregor]

In the scenario we're talking about, it'd be a non-cableco ISP, so I guess cites on caps for those kinds of ISPs is what we're really after.

The aforementioned Frontier is DSL provider, they had served mostly rural areas, but recently bought out a bunch of Verizon lines in various parts of the country including the area I used to live in a suburb of Seattle. The options in that area now would be Comcast or Frontier. Here is the Acceptable Use Policy (http://www.frontier.com/policies/residential_aup/)

Frontier may suspend, terminate or apply additional charges to the Service if such usage exceeds a reasonable amount of usage. A reasonable amount of usage is defined as 5GB combined upload and download consumption during the course of a 30-day billing period. The Company has made no decision about potential charges for monthly usage in excess of 5GB.

Other DSL providers like Verizon and AT*T haven't set caps AFAIK, but I'm pretty sure I've seen them expressing support for either some type of caps or consumption based pricing in the past.

[MickeS]

5 GB is insanely low. Isn't that only like 6-7 hours of streaming video at 2 Mbps...?

[socrplyr]

5 GB is insanely low. Isn't that only like 6-7 hours of streaming video at 2 Mbps...?

An hour at 2Mbps is 900MB, so that would make right around 5.5 hours.

[wublet]

That just means that customers on that system aren't likely customers for IPTV replacements for cable services. There are other systems and other ISPs whose systems and service tiers make customers in their regions more likely candidates.

[adessmith]

Last month I used 12GB with my cell phone data plan (and I dont remember doing anything that data intensive)
I cant imagine having a 5GB cap at home!

[Bai Shen]

And don't forget that the ISP's services don't count towards their cap.

[Bai Shen]

Last month I used 12GB with my cell phone data plan (and I dont remember doing anything that data intensive)
I cant imagine having a 5GB cap at home!

What the heck were you doing to use 12GB?!? :eek:

[shady]

Service Provisioning: 10 GB/hour is 2.8 MB/sec. My ISP's $35/month ADSL package goes up to 6.0MB/sec, a $55 plan goes up to 12 MB/sec. No monthly caps.

Are you sure your DSL is that fast? I didn't realize the DSL tech had improved that much. Are you getting your Bytes and Bits mixed?

[turbobozz]

hmm ISPs normally advertise in bits per sec.
FiOS for example advertises all rates in Mbps or Kbps (bits per sec not Bytes per sec).

[MickeS]

Last month I used 12GB with my cell phone data plan (and I dont remember doing anything that data intensive)
I cant imagine having a 5GB cap at home!

If you can't remember doing anything that data intensive, then you didn't use 12GB... maybe it was 12MB?

[dylanemcgregor]

That just means that customers on that system aren't likely customers for IPTV replacements for cable services. There are other systems and other ISPs whose systems and service tiers make customers in their regions more likely candidates.

Do you have any particular ISP in mind? We've ruled out cable companies and DSL I think for most people is still too slow at either 1.5 Mbps or 3.0Mbps (and some of these have caps). AT&T and Verizon both sell TV services now to households that get their high speed fiber services, so for practical purposes I think we should lump them in with cable. Satellite...I don't think I need to even type this one. So who is left, third party ISPs that lease DSL? Are there many of these left outside of Speakeasy?* Wireless providers like Clearwire?

*Ok actually did just have a thought when I wrote that out. Best Buy did buy Speakeasy a couple of years back, so maybe they could be tying in services to that somehow. That might be one of the incremental revenue opportunities they were talking about. Pretty far fetched IMO, but maybe possible.

[adessmith]

Are you sure your DSL is that fast? I didn't realize the DSL tech had improved that much. Are you getting your Bytes and Bits mixed?

I know that the SDSL spec can handle that, but its not typical for residential services.
Our ISP (local telco) offers 1.54 up and 6mbps down to residential, but I can get 10mbps symetric (thats bits, not bytes) in the business class dsl at work. However, the business class symetric gets REALLY REALLY expensive!
the 10mbps SDSL is over $700/month! (they dont allow me that sort of budget, so we are stuck with the 6mbps version which still performs admirably)


And no... I have NO IDEA how I used 12GB on my phone.
Copied and pasted straight from my online statement:
AT&T MEDIA PRO SUMMARY
TOTAL OF DATA USAGE 12588187 KB
(notice the large B)
I did notice for several weeks my battery was dying in the middle of the day... When I saw my bill I knew why, but I still dont know what was going on with my phone to cause so much usage. I have AT&T wireless through my local telco which is an AT&T affiliate; I asked them if this continued would I have any issues with billing, and they said no. They told me unlimited was unlimited. So apparently they dont inforce any sort of cap...

My point is, with a low cap like that, all it takes is some sort of glitch like I had with my phone for them to pull the plug on your connection! That would suck if it happened at the beginning of the billing cycle. Especially if you were relying on that connection for all your TV content...

[adessmith]

When I saw my bill I knew why
I guess I should say "when I saw my statement"...
I have unlimited, so the "bill" didnt change...

[adessmith]

Are you sure your DSL is that fast? I didn't realize the DSL tech had improved that much. Are you getting your Bytes and Bits mixed?

Sorry, I just realized he had MB instead of mb...
I see what you are saying now...
It just gets on my nerves when people assume that all DSL is 1.54mbps.
6mbps downstream is not too common, but possible through DSL, and that speed (although not as fast as some other competing technologies) is actually pretty respectible...

[MickeS]

Even more OT: wow, that is weird that you actually used 12GB without knowing it. Must be a glitch somewhere. Or their billing is messed up.

[alarson83]

Dont think ive seen these posted here yet... pics of the tivo premiere.
http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?st=det&sort=date&id=TiVo&showact=events&prds=10134&intv=3d&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1267558329&pagez=20&cfasstyle=AND&

[StuffOfInterest]

Uhh, whoa. Looks like there are some serious changes to the interface from that middle picture.

[Aero 1]

Dont think ive seen these posted here yet... pics of the tivo premiere.
http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?st=det&sort=date&id=TiVo&showact=events&prds=10134&intv=3d&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1267558329&pagez=20&cfasstyle=AND&

well, you can scratch built in wireless off the spec sheet. would of been a nice differentiator.

[Scyber]

Dont think ive seen these posted here yet... pics of the tivo premiere.
http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?st=det&sort=date&id=TiVo&showact=events&prds=10134&intv=3d&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1267558329&pagez=20&cfasstyle=AND&

Is that a Free Space Indicator I see?

[MickeS]

Uhh, whoa. Looks like there are some serious changes to the interface from that middle picture.

Yeah... :up:!!

[daveak]

Dont think ive seen these posted here yet... pics of the tivo premiere.
http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?st=det&sort=date&id=TiVo&showact=events&prds=10134&intv=3d&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1267558329&pagez=20&cfasstyle=AND&

Cute, but does it work?

[MickeS]

Dont think ive seen these posted here yet... pics of the tivo premiere.
http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?st=det&sort=date&id=TiVo&showact=events&prds=10134&intv=3d&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1267558329&pagez=20&cfasstyle=AND&

Looks like they based it on the TiVo Search UI like I was hoping. And live TV up on the right, for those who wanted that (I didn't, but many did :)).

"A TiVo Premiere box, foreground, is displayed with an HD television, Monday, March 1, 2010 in New York."

Yesterday? I thought it was supposed to be today...

[phredster]

Selling this offering also creates amazing incremental margin opportunities for our stores.

What does this mean? What incremental margin opportunities does selling a Tivo offer BB? Cables? Extra HD (really?) A new TV? I just can't figure out what BB gets out of this exactly.

[kevinwill1]

Dont think ive seen these posted here yet... pics of the tivo premiere.
http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?st=det&sort=date&id=TiVo&showact=events&prds=10134&intv=3d&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1267558329&pagez=20&cfasstyle=AND&

Great find! Thanks for posting.

The UI looks pretty nice based on these pics. The physical machine itself looks great, too. It will match the color of everything else on my entertainment center now!

[MichaelK]

Last month I used 12GB with my cell phone data plan (and I dont remember doing anything that data intensive)
I cant imagine having a 5GB cap at home!


i know verizon PHONE use is unlimited but if you use a wireless modem they cap at 5Gig

[NotVeryWitty]

Dont think ive seen these posted here yet... pics of the tivo premiere.
http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?st=det&sort=date&id=TiVo&showact=events&prds=10134&intv=3d&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1267558329&pagez=20&cfasstyle=AND&
The picture with the "My Shows" display seems to be showing a Free Space Indicator right below it (looks to be at 82%).

After 10 years, they've apparently figured out how to implement it. :cool:

[gweempose]

A lot of people are gonna be pretty psyched about that free space indicator. Do you guys think we will get this new interface on the old boxes?

[alarson83]

I'm hoping the new UI rolls out on existing tivohd's..

Not that i havent been looking into getting a second tivo with the tax return so i can have one in my bedroom, but still.

[MickeS]

The picture with the "My Shows" display seems to be showing a Free Space Indicator right below it (looks to be at 82%).

After 10 years, they've apparently figured out how to implement it. :cool:

It's always been antithetical to their philosophy. I guess they finally caved in and decided to give people what they want, even though it's not very useful IMO... I'm glad they did though, I've said for years they should do it just to leave that silly debate behind them. :)

[adessmith]

Oh, I hope us Tivo HD users dont get screwed out of the HDUI
After all, we are the ones that beta tested it!

[StuffOfInterest]

Oh, I hope us Tivo HD users dont get screwed out of the HDUI
After all, we are the ones that beta tested it!

If will depend on the the horse-power required to run the new interface. It could be that the resource demands are too much for the older platform to handle. The bad thing then is that TiVo is left maintaining two separate UI's, but I guess they are going to be stuck there anyway due to th S2DT (like mine).

[MickeS]

I hope they don't put this UI on the existing boxes. I have a feeling it will just slow things down and introduce new bugs. I also think it would be better for their sales and sub figures to have a new, different product out.

[ZeoTiVo]

Cute, but does it work?

no - it is horrible - sell your TiVo DVRs now :rolleyes:

[larrs]

now it is getting good....

:up:

[janry]

I hope they don't put this UI on the existing boxes. I have a feeling it will just slow things down and introduce new bugs.

Agreed. What I haven't isn't broken and I don't want them fixing it. Unless it means I can now play Pong on my TiVo.

[Riverdome]

Those shots are a nice start but I'm hoping for more. How much "internet video" is accessable from within the Tivo UI?

[Riverdome]

How long has the Tivo Remote been in the iPhone app store? I just noticed it.

[adessmith]

I hope they don't put this UI on the existing boxes. I have a feeling it will just slow things down and introduce new bugs. I also think it would be better for their sales and sub figures to have a new, different product out.

I think that the reason it was so slow in beta is because it was an HME app.
And suprisingly, for me, it ran pretty quick once it was loaded. If the entire UI is desgined this way, and stored on the device itself, it should be snappier (I hope)... especially if the whole UI is reworked from the ground up... So yeah, I guess the question is whether the hardware has the muscle to handle it outside of HME.

The biggest lag I noticed was when I was going from the SD interface to an HD HME app...

Anyway, I'm sure we'll have more information tonight.

[NetJunkie]

How long has the Tivo Remote been in the iPhone app store? I just noticed it.

My friend wrote DVR Remote. Very good.

[kevinwill1]

How long has the Tivo Remote been in the iPhone app store? I just noticed it.

I think it's been in there for a while (several months, maybe 4-6 or longer??). Supposedly, it only works for Series 3 or the HD models. All my TiVos are Series 2s, so I can't use it. It sure would be nice though!

[adessmith]

How long has the Tivo Remote been in the iPhone app store? I just noticed it.

Are you talking about i.TV or something made by Tivo?

[b_scott]

My friend wrote DVR Remote. Very good.

i use that :)

[kevinwill1]

I'm still kind of surprised more details haven't been leaked up to this point in the day. Seeing the pics just makes me want to know more right now!! But then, I've waited this long, so I suppose another 90 minutes-ish won't kill me.

[Riverdome]

The lack of leaks makes me think even more that this is going to be much ado about nothing. Why break your NDA if it isn't anything that exciting to start with?

[larrs]

The lack of leaks makes me think even more that this is going to be much ado about nothing. Why break your NDA if it isn't anything that exciting to start with?

I really hope you are wrong...

[kevinwill1]

The lack of leaks makes me think even more that this is going to be much ado about nothing. Why break your NDA if it isn't anything that exciting to start with?

I am seriously hoping you are wrong, but I have this nagging feeling you may be closer to being right than I would like. I am still trying to think maybe TiVo has had a super strong hold on any and all info because they know this is such a big deal and has been a long time in coming, that they want to try to get it as close to delivering on their "... Just a warmup..." tagline as they could and make us all believe again.

[adessmith]

The lack of leaks makes me think even more that this is going to be much ado about nothing. Why break your NDA if it isn't anything that exciting to start with?

The entirely redesigned HDUI (If it's coming to the HD, and works well) is enough to make me happy. Anything else will be gravy!

If it works on the HD, I do hope that they give you a way to opt out of the HDUI though, not for me, but I'm sure there are people who wont like the change. Also, for people who dont have HDTVs.
I would imagine you could turn HD off in the display menu, where you select the aspect ratio options, and it would revert to the old classic menus without any of the newer features.

[davezatz]

Well, hell! Of course, this is what happens with embargos and mainstream media - can't be trusted. ;)

By the way, in my experience, most embargos are broken by accident. Very few would intentionally burn bridges like that.

Anyway, I'm still writing and as far as I know restricted to 7PM.

[Davis Freeberg]

TiVo's website has a link to an iPhone universal TiVo remote. I'm pretty sure that this is new, but not 100% http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/whatsnew/i-tv.html

[MickeS]

TiVo's website has a link to an iPhone universal TiVo remote. I'm pretty sure that this is new, but not 100% http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/whatsnew/i-tv.html

No, that's the i.TV app. It's been around for a while.

[MichaelK]

If will depend on the the horse-power required to run the new interface. It could be that the resource demands are too much for the older platform to handle. The bad thing then is that TiVo is left maintaining two separate UI's, but I guess they are going to be stuck there anyway due to th S2DT (like mine).

they already have legacy S1, all the S2's have been getting a subset of features for some time now with the S3's having the latest and greatest.

So if they already maintain 3 things- what's the difference for 4?

(but I'm still hoping they can upgrade my original S3's- fingers crossed)

[daveak]

no - it is horrible - sell your TiVo DVRs now :rolleyes:

:p Looks good.

On the free space indicator - since I have suggestions turned on, will it forever show hardly any free space? Or does anyone think suggestions would be ignored for free space indication.

And yes, suggestions do get watched in my house.

(Not that I care, but it will confuse certain relatives... I use the number of shows in my suggestion folder to have a really good guess on the number of new shows I can record - 50 programs in the folder, I must have space for about 50 more shows - how can 82% tell me easily how many more shows I can record. Well it works for the masses ;) )

[innocentfreak]

Hmm not sure if I like the UI from the pictures. It looks similar to the DTV UI which I can't stand.

Also it doesn't look near as easy to get into the new TiVo at first glance to upgrade your hard drive.

[MickeS]

Well, hell! Of course, this is what happens with embargos and mainstream media - can't be trusted. ;)

By the way, in my experience, most embargos are broken by accident. Very few would intentionally burn bridges like that.

Anyway, I'm still writing and as far as I know restricted to 7PM.

http://apimages.ap.org/OneUp.aspx?st=k&kw=tivo&ids=TiVo%20Redo&showact=results&sort=date&intv=3d&cfas=TITLE&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1267567671&dah=-1&pagez=60&cfasstyle=AND&TITLE=%22TiVo%20Redo%22&nextdah=2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X, X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X, X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X, X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X,X&rids=6fe55eac7b1d43e2868c720f2932a88c&dbm=PThirtyDay&page=1&xslt=1&dispname=100302120611,%20TiVo%20Redo

** HOLD FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 7:01 P.M., E.S.T ** A TiVo Premiere box, foreground, is displayed with an HD television, Monday, March 1, 2010, in New York. TiVo Premiere combines access to cable programming, movies, web videos, and music all in one box. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Looks like AP wasn't supposed to release that... :) (The pictures in the link posted earlier are gone now)

[jmpage2]

Dont think ive seen these posted here yet... pics of the tivo premiere.
http://apimages.ap.org/Search.aspx?st=det&sort=date&id=TiVo&showact=events&prds=10134&intv=3d&sh=10&kwstyle=and&adte=1267558329&pagez=20&cfasstyle=AND&

It appears that the images have been pulled. Would be nice if someone got them and can post them up her.

[innocentfreak]

I would say just wait. They were just thumbnails with no real info other than a shot of the UI with the new TiVo and the Wireless N adapter. It is only less than 2 hours away. I am hoping some people release video of it..

[DrewTivo]

The lack of leaks makes me think even more that this is going to be much ado about nothing. Why break your NDA if it isn't anything that exciting to start with?

Or, announcement number 1 is that Apple has purchased Tivo, and Steve Jobs orchestrated the new product release.

[DrewTivo]

It appears that the images have been pulled. Would be nice if someone got them and can post them up her.

If you do a search for Tivo it pulls up two pics--one of the new units with a screenshot and the other of a wireless N adapter. The new box looks nice and sleek at least.

[daveak]

Or, announcement number 1 is that Apple has purchased Tivo, and Steve Jobs orchestrated the new product release.

Everything points to it being the Premier series, not an iTiVo. :D

And if it was an iTiVo, then it could only do one thing at a time - certainly only a single tuner. ;)

[djjuice]

from the picture on the ap site, the UI looks interesting, need to see more. As for the box itself, i'll consider selling my series 3 if the "guts" are decent and they bring back the OLED screen or comparable. I really enjoy knowing whats being recorded rather than a blue and red light with the TivoHD

[b_scott]

from the picture on the ap site, the UI looks interesting, need to see more. As for the box itself, i'll consider selling my series 3 if the "guts" are decent. I really enjoy knowing whats being recorded rather than a blue and red light.

was there a screen on the front of the box? I didn't see one. I turn off the lights anyway, they're annoying.

[djjuice]

was there a screen on the front of the box? I didn't see one. I turn off the lights anyway, they're annoying.

I'm more or less talking about the TivoHD how it just has lights rather than displaying the name of the show being recorded. Thats a feature I really enjoy having. Not sure if this one will show the name as the image just shows the UI. I like how its solid back and thinner though.

[b_scott]

I'm more or less talking about the TivoHD how it just has lights rather than displaying the name of the show being recorded. Thats a feature I really enjoy having. Not sure if this one will show the name as the image just shows the UI. I like how its solid back and thinner though.

ah, gotcha.

yeah i think since most people have their stuff hidden away a lot more often nowadays, they're getting away from that. Plus it's more expensive to make, I'm sure.

I have all my lights off on the front. If I want to see what's recording I just hit my Tivo button twice.

[djjuice]

ah, gotcha.

yeah i think since most people have their stuff hidden away a lot more often nowadays, they're getting away from that. Plus it's more expensive to make, I'm sure.

I have all my lights off on the front. If I want to see what's recording I just hit my Tivo button twice.

thats true, I do that on my blu-ray player, I turn off everything.. odd how I contradict myself. I want to know what i'm recording but I don't want to see anything when playing a movie. If the new device supports SDV i'll have to think really hard about purchasing it as I do miss a lot of the on demand features of comcast, Fearnet was fun.

[b_scott]

http://newshopper.sulekha.com/tivo-redo_photo_1196004.htm

[TerpBE]

It looks like the menu says:

Browse TV & Movies
Top Picks
My Favorites(??)
Collections
Movies
TV
Sports
Available From...
Categories

[b_scott]

thats true, I do that on my blu-ray player, I turn off everything.. odd how I contradict myself. I want to know what i'm recording but I don't want to see anything when playing a movie. If the new device supports SDV i'll have to think really hard about purchasing it as I do miss a lot of the on demand features of comcast, Fearnet was fun.

I want Chiller on Comcast, but alas no :(

[TerpBE]

http://newshopper.sulekha.com/tivo-redo_photo_1196004.htm
Is that picture in the upper right supposed to be a live TV window?

[TerpBE]

Here's a picture of the box without the AP watermark:

http://photos.wsj.net/phis/photo.svc/resizetofit?id=530eb0a849754e57876420ee07a1fdc1&mw=555&mh=353

[jmill]

Is that picture in the upper right supposed to be a live TV window?

yes

[jmill]

I think we get now even closer to what's being released! Some more pictures:

http://nimgs3.sulekha.com/others/original700/tivo-redo-2010-3-2-14-23-34.jpg

http://nimgs3.sulekha.com/others/original700/tivo-redo-2010-3-2-14-21-54.jpg

http://nimgs3.sulekha.com/others/original700/tivo-redo-2010-3-2-14-20-56.jpg

http://nimgs3.sulekha.com/others/original700/tivo-redo-2010-3-2-14-1-55.jpg

[MediaLivingRoom]

Here's a picture of the box without the AP watermark:

http://photos.wsj.net/phis/photo.svc/resizetofit?id=530eb0a849754e57876420ee07a1fdc1&mw=555&mh=353

Nice

[transam9898]

yea, but what is it for ? just CABLE or also satellite ??

[MediaLivingRoom]

Now we need a Leaked press release