TiVo Desktop support for IPTV/torrents

[hfwarner3]

TiVo is sitting at the base of a mountain of opportunity. IPTV is catching on and growing fast. Shows like DiggNation have real sponsors now. ABC and CBS are putting content online. The direction of video is clear.

TiVo already has boxes in homes today. They already have software running on PCs networked to those TiVos in the home. TiVo, it is time to make it happen!

First, you need a new version of TiVo desktop. It needs to be able to handle reading RSS feeds and have bittorrent functionality. If you are worried about people downloading copy protected content illegally, make the software so that it only talks to Trackers that TiVo controls.

When people want to be able to push content down to TiVos (think RocketBoom today or see how people watch DiggNation on their TiVo through Bittorrent, VLC Player, and Galleon for a better idea), they register the content with TiVo. TiVo takes the torrent file and hosts the tracker. TiVo would use the HMO functionality to pull a list of shows off the server. This RSS file would give a description of the show and have all the download details for each episode. TiVo Desktop would parse this file into a pretty page to display to the user on the TiVo. If the user subscribed to the show, TiVo desktop would grab the torrent file for each episode of the show and start downloading. Since it is bittorrent, the users share the bandwidth to get the show downloaded. TiVo would not have a large traffic charge. The more popular a show became, the more copies there would be already downloaded (seeds, in the bittorrent terminology) for others to download quickly.

Today, we are stuck with MPEG2 and its massive file size. With TiVo 3, the new codecs make these even more feasible.

This would all be step one - a free service to get new, original content to the viewers through TiVo and TiVo alone. TiVo would be hailed as a champion by the independent video and film arena.

For step two, the business plan kicks in. Once TiVo has proven the technology and worked out the bugs with the free content, the next step is a subscription model where people buy a subscription to the show. This fee would be added to their monthly fee and thus give TiVo increased cash flow. Since there would be little technology cost on the front-end and no significant increase in network bandwidth costs once it is running, this money hits TiVo pockets first. In a monthly or quarterly deal, Tivo could cut checks to the content providers.

For step three, I would find a way to allow TiVo customers to opt-in to ad-supported options for the subscriptions. The customer gives demographics about themselves on the TiVo website. Advertisers provide content based on the demographics, likes/dislikes, keywords, etc. These commercials would be downloaded and take up maybe 15 - 30 minutes of drive space on the TiVo. As the user watched a show they subscribed to, TiVo would insert commercials from the hard drive at the prescribed breaks. If the user pressed thumbs down, the commercial would be deleted. There would have to be a limit on thumbs down to keep them from rejecting every single commercial.

On the other hand, if they pressed thumbs up, TiVo could email them more information and a URL to the advertisers website.

If TiVo could get step one in place by the end of this year, I would expect to see the stock prive double as the ads start hitting the streets talking about TiVo as the ultimate source for video.

[megazone]

You can already do some of this with 3rd party software like Galleon. Any video you can get to the PC, with any tools, and then convert to MPEG2, you can publish to a TiVo with TiVoToComeBack (the reverse of TiVoToGo).

As for the rest - keep in mind TiVo's target is not geeks and net video users, it is J. Average User out there on analog cable. That's the main target. TiVo is slowly introducing video download content - but on the TiVo itself. No PC required. Everything is gated through TiVo, controlled through the remote, and shows up automatically. That keeps it simple.

If you wanted to you could create software to do all the PC-side subscriptions, downloads, transcoding, etc, and publish it to a TiVo. Even create an HME front end for it to allow users to manage it from their TiVo remote. They've deliberately setup the system to be open to 3rd parties.

None of what you've suggested is really new or revolutionary, a good bit of it TiVo has already talked about themselves. It isn't a high priority since the users for this kind of technology aren't the users TiVo is trying to attract.

[hfwarner3]

First, I am doing a lot of these things today, but the technology is not mature yet. I download vblogs with Galleon, convert it with VLC player, and watch it on the TiVo. This USUALLY works, but there are consistently issues with things that require human intervention.

Second, my wife is not a technical person yet she understands this enough to use it from the TiVo (when it works). She is frustrated, however, with the inconsistency of the experience - there are often "burps" in the re-encode back to MPEG2 from certain formats.

Third, if done properly, this would not be a "geek thing". That is my point. All this technology already exists today, but it has not been pulled together into a nice, neat package. If TiVo did it with TiVo Desktop and their own internal bittorrent tracker servers, they would have control front to back and could thus provide a higher level of consistency in experience.

The part that is missing is the business aspect. There is no easy method today to provide a subscription IPTV business model to the TiVo and a custom ad solution would rest entirely in TiVo's hands.

If run right, the costs of giving this a try would not be significant. TiVo already has a very active and dedicated open source developer pool to draw from. If TiVo put the rudimentary pieces together as an open source project and asked for volunteers to fill in the gaps, I think it could happen. Your costs to go for step one would be one developer (perhaps only part-time), one server, and the slight network traffic bump of hosting the tracker.

Finally, you somewhat made my point for me with the comment about the target user being joe analog cable. Going this direction would increase the target audience and thus have a good potential of increasing customer base. It would also, if marketed correctly, give Joe analog cable a new option for getting into the digital media world. Why pay high digital cable prices when you can get it from TiVo a la carte!

If implemented in the way I have described, you would have most of the labor contributed for free, most of the bandwidth costs off-loaded to the users, all of the content costs (and thus content risk) off-loaded to the content providers, and all the phase one bugs worked out by your hardcore geek fans who are willing to accept the growing pains.

Low cost, low risk with high potential return on investment. If I presented a financial product equivelent project like this to my employer (a conservative bank), I would give it a 90% chance of being approved. You are talking about a less than 1 year commitment with well under a $250k investment with the potential payout of billions.

That's just my 2 cents. With my lowly few shares of TiVo stock, I don't think I have enough shareholder weight to push it through. :-)

[hfwarner3]

The one other thing I forgot to add was HOW the conversion of subscription content could work. Each video would be encrypted using a standard algorithm like Blowfish or AES. The password to decrypt the show would be included in the subscription.

The TiVo Desktop software would take the downloaded file, decrypt it using the password, and convert into a .tivo file protected by the MAK.

[classicsat]

A PC-Less way would be to use a gateway transverter box, which would go between the TiVo and the network, which woul download content, and on-the-fly convert to TiVo compatible MPEG2.

[megazone]

TiVo + Brightcove