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TiVo and Nintendo's Wii U

26K views 94 replies 32 participants last post by  caryrae73  
#1 ·
Apparently the new Wii U is going to have some built in support for TiVo.

The press conference is going on live now, but I wonder if this means we will be able to use it as an extender.

http://live.theverge.com/nintendo-wii-u-live-blog/

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http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57512103-235/nintendo-turns-on-tvii-for-wii-u/
It also integrates with TiVo DVRs. Upon clicking a channel listing on the GamePad, users can also watch it directly through their televisions. The GamePad acts as the center of the entire Nintendo TVii featureset. Users can choose a show, decide to favorite it, record it on the TiVo, share the listing with friends, and others.
 
#2 ·
http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/13/nintendo-unveils-nintendo-tvii-for-wii-u

Nintendo showed off some of the Wii U's new television functionality during its New York City press event -- first unveiled during E3 2012 -- including a built-in DVR powered by TiVO, and search across several content providers (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, and cable television). Nintendo's director of strategic partnership Zach Fountain's calling the service a "personalized program guide" and he showed off how you'll be able to interact with content -- movies and television shows can be searched via text entry, or explored in a general category sense (movies, tv, sports, etc.). If QWERTY text isn't your kind of thing, a rotary entry in the lower right corner offers another way to seek out content.

The service is only for US and Canadian Wii U owners for now, but Fils-Aime said the company's exploring an expansion into other parts of the Americas. Nintendo TVii is free with the purchase of a console this November.
interesting. engadget has pics of some kind of tivo integration.
 
#6 ·
Use your WiiU tablet controller to find stuff to watch on your DVR. Set recordings from your DVR.

Wonder if it is streaming to Wii U. If so awesome. I do know the WiiU controller has IR so it can turn on the tv. So maybe it will just switch tv inputs and act as a remote for the Tivo directly.

A bit strange though is that Nintendo's TVii initiative does what Tivo said they wanted to do. Be a one-stop shop content aggregator. You search through Amazon, Netflix and Tivo.

Nintendo has some interesting additions though. Profiles for instance. The stuff you want to watch is stored under your Mii.

So if your kid wants cartoons he sees cartoons under his Mii. IF you like to watch Madmen you'll see Madmen.

And the second screen lets you mess around without affecting what is on the TV. SEe other scores. Look up actors etc. Type in stuff. ...

Definitely overlap with Tivo and iPads and iPHones here, but interesting.

If it turns out to be an extender for Tivo I think that is a big breakthrough for Tivo and Nintendo although have to remind myself that Tivo's install base is fairly small.
 
#7 ·
Is it the DVR built in or does it work like an extender? It looks more like it might just support streaming from a Premiere rather than including it.

From one of the comments on engadget it sounds like an extender model where the Wii U schedules the recording.
This picture makes it look like it will stream from the Premiere. My guess is that the Wii U can somehow stream from the Premiere and then send the video to it's controller.
 
#14 ·
I'm willing to bet money that it requires a TiVo Stream.
I don't see why it would. The Wii U can already stream video to it's controller, so it must have it's own transcoding capabilities (be it to H.264 or whatever the controller supports). The only thing the Wii U would need to be able to do is decode MPEG-2 video, which even the Wii could do.

The only thing special about TiVo streaming video is the encryption. If Nintendo licenses the decryption algorithm from TiVo, then Nintendo can in effect build in TiVo mini functionality into the Wii U.

The Wii U specs indicate it is certainly powerful enough to do all this.
 
#16 ·
I don't see why it would. The Wii U can already stream video to it's controller, so it must have it's own transcoding capabilities (be it to H.264 or whatever the controller supports). The only thing the Wii U would need to be able to do is decode MPEG-2 video, which even the Wii could do.

The only thing special about TiVo streaming video is the encryption. If Nintendo licenses the decryption algorithm from TiVo, then Nintendo can in effect build in TiVo mini functionality into the Wii U.

The Wii U specs indicate it is certainly powerful enough to do all this.
Plus who wants to stream video to the controller as much as wants to use the WiiU as an extender? My kid already watches his cartoons on his iPad.

But knowing Nintendo and Tivo and marketing I now expect the worst. Won't act as an extender. Will require Tivo STream to stream to controller. And some other catches as well. It can only get better from there.
 
#17 ·
Plus who wants to stream video to the controller as much as wants to use the WiiU as an extender? My kid already watches his cartoons on his iPad.

But knowing Nintendo and Tivo and marketing I now expect the worst. Won't act as an extender. Will require Tivo STream to stream to controller. And some other catches as well. It can only get better from there.
One point of the controller is so you can play the Wii U games on the controller while someone watches something else on the TV guessing not via the Wii U.

From the various blogs, it sounds like you can either watch on the TV or on the controller. When watching on the TV you will be able to use the Wii U controller to act like the TiVo iPad app.
 
#18 ·
#21 ·
#25 ·
This just looks to me like the Tablet App for the WiiU. I don't see any reason to think it streams from the TiVo. Those sports screens could just be ESPN, like on the XBox.
It looks like Nintendo partnered with a bunch of different providers, including TiVo. So in essence it can stream from the TiVo and also access shows directly from the provider. So you can use the Wii U to watch "live TV" or schedule recordings on your TiVo and then watch them later.

Also remember, the Wii U isn't it's gamepad. The gamepad is simply a second screen. The Wii U can output video to a TV, the controller or both.

If it streamed from the TiVo, wouldn't they be screaming about that everywhere? Unless it requires the streaming box etc.
Because it was only announced at Nintendo's press conference a few hours ago. I expect we'll hear more about it in the next 24 hours.

Here's Nintendo's video on it: http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/features/

Here's a few news reports:

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/13/nintendo-wii-u-expandable-memory-tivo-integration-explained/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409681,00.asp