Dec 02

Ask Engadget: best alternative to a cable company-issued set-top box?

Posted in: AskEngadget, dvr, set-top-box, tivo, Today's Chili

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Ozair, who is no longer down with forking out monthly for a subpar DVR experience. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“With the unveiling of (pricey) Google TV, what are the other, cheaper alternatives to setting up HDTV via a cable box rather than renting out Optimum / Cablevision’s outdated and laggy set-top box? TiVo? Any other standalone DVRs? Something I’m not considering?”

For those of you who’ve purchased a standalone DVR + CableCARD setup (or possibly even an HTPC + CableCARD setup), how are you enjoying it? Let this fellow know your optimal arrangement down in comments below — make it quick, it’s not like he can afford to miss this year’s burning of the Yule Log in HD.

Ask Engadget: best alternative to a cable company-issued set-top box? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 01

Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo is official, coming soon with 1TB HDD, 3 tuners

Posted in: dvr, tivo, Today's Chili, uk

Say hello to the new Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo, a device that while “inspired” by the Premiere is much more than just the same old box with new stickers. Set to debut in the UK in mid-December, it packs a 1TB HDD, but trumps TiVo’s previous efforts by promising a third tuner (to be enabled by a software update in 2011), an internal cable modem for downloading without cutting into your existing broadband speed and ties into catch-up TV just in case you forget to DVR something. While the box itself has a slick new design, the traditional peanut remote hasn’t changed and neither have the menus as seen by these screenshots. Interested parties should squirrel away £199 (plus £40 for installation and £26.50 for the XL TiVo package) and hit the source link to queue for purchase.

Continue reading Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo is official, coming soon with 1TB HDD, 3 tuners

Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo is official, coming soon with 1TB HDD, 3 tuners originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 11:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nov 22

TiVo App for iPad Might Be the Ultimate Remote

Posted in: Home Audio and Video, ipad, netflix, remote, tivo, Today's Chili

TiVo is porting its gorgeous interface for integrated live TV, DVR and internet video services to the iPad.

The company is announcing its new Tivo Premiere iPad app today; it should be available free from the iTunes store in the coming weeks.

There have been other iOS and Android remote applications, but TiVo’s is particularly noteworthy because of the sheer number of services it can control. From the press release, here’s a short list of what it can do:

  • Gesture based control – Take complete control of all recordings, even dragging forward and back through a show with a simple tap or swipe
  • Start watching what you want – Launch a recorded show, live TV or streaming video with the swipe of a finger
  • Program guide – Browse your full-screen TV program guide without interrupting TV viewing
  • Schedule – Schedule one-time recordings and Season Pass recordings from the device at home or on-the-go
  • Get more from your shows and movies – Explore cast and crew and other recommendations of your favorite shows without interrupting the big screen
  • Search – Search for all of your favorite TV shows, movies, actors or directors across both broadcast and broadband from Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and more
  • Share comments with your friends – From within the TiVo Premiere App, comment and share your thoughts to Facebook or Twitter about the show you are currently watching

A TiVo spokesperson confirmed to me that the app will search and launch every service TiVo offers, from on-demand video to streaming music. (And remember, Hulu Plus is still coming.)

This is where TiVo’s ability to push all of its services through one box is particularly powerful: I don’t have to switch inputs or apps to see what’s on live TV or Netflix.

TiVo Premiere To-Do List, Highlighting Amazon + Netflix

About the only thing the app can’t do is stream video from your TiVo to the iPad. I’m sure that will spawn a horde of knee-jerk complaints from people who believe the world owes them everything they can possibly imagine.

From my experience using Comcast’s similar but on-its-face less-awesome Xfinity TV iPad app, browsing television and on-demand video on a tablet is both very different from and obviously superior to using a traditional remote.

It’s almost unfair to call this class of apps “remote controls.” TiVo’s press release calls it a “two-screen experience,” and that’s closer to the truth. It’s more like flipping through a magazine — an oversized, interactive, full-color TV guide — that’s wirelessly linked to your big screen.

We’re separating out reading, browsing and management from the big screen, bringing the text closer to our eyes and putting the objects we’re manipulating directly in our hands. Twenty years from now, we’ll fun of our early-21st-century selves for ever doing it differently.

The remote reimagined [TiVo]

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Nov 22

TiVo Premiere UI gets a shot in the arm with iPad remote control

Posted in: apple ipad, AppleIpad, dvr, ipad, remote, remote control, RemoteControl, tivo, Today's Chili

TiVo Premiere users won’t have to be jealous of Comcast’s Xfinity TV remote for very long — soon enough, they’ll have an DVR-scheduling, content-searching, program-pushing iPad app of their own. Called the TiVo Premiere App, it’ll feature a full touchscreen TV programming guide, playback controls, and the ability to search Netflix and Amazon on Demand for shows when it arrives “in the coming weeks.” There’s also basic social network sharing via Facebook and Twitter, and if that “Livingroom TiVo” drop-down menu is any indication, the ability to control multiple TiVo boxes from a single tablet. Also, the search box and remote icons in the upper-right hand corner that suggests that TiVo’s integrated the iPad keyboard and some virtual buttons too, so maybe you’ll be able to exercise control over the entire experience without diving into your couch (or your pocketbook) for a TiVo Slide Remote. One can only hope. No word on smartphone versions, though. PR and another shot of the interface right after the break.

Continue reading TiVo Premiere UI gets a shot in the arm with iPad remote control

TiVo Premiere UI gets a shot in the arm with iPad remote control originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nov 14

TiVo Premiere now free on contract for $20 monthly, as TiVo introduces (and enforces) tiered subsidies

Posted in: dvr, price, pricing, set-top-box, tivo, Today's Chili

Well, it seems we finally know why TiVo was waxing poetic about software in recent months — it’s the way the company primarily plans to charge for its DVR hardware from now on. Following a week-long experiment of free-on-contract DVRs conducted last month, TiVo’s opening up subsidized and partially subsidized pricing tiers to the entire US for those willing to chain themselves to a pricier $20 monthly fee. You can now get a TiVo Premiere for $0 on a two-year contract or $100 with a one-year arrangement, or pick up a TiVo Premiere XL for $300 on a one-year deal — the same price the regular old 45-hour TiVo Premiere cost originally. TiVo’s also kept the original $12.95-a-month plans around in case you want to pay full price for your hardware, which would normally make better financial sense after about three years, if not for the fact that there are still lifetime subscriptions available for $400 if you’re truly in it for the long haul.

We’re all for expanding our buying power in this arena, but there’s one group of customers who are liable to get mighty pissed at the new arrangement — the regular Joes and Janes headed to Best Buy right now to pick up a $99 TiVo Premiere “on sale.” You see, retailers apparently didn’t get the memo about the new tiered pricing and are advertising the arrangement as a $200 discount instead, which leaves TiVo’s fine print the unenviable role of explaining that they’re going to pony up $20 a month from now on.

2.1.2 When purchasing a TiVo Premiere box from a third party retailer at $99.99 (includes an instant $200 savings off MSRP) for the TiVo Premiere box or $299.99 (includes an instant $200 savings off MSRP) for the TiVo Premiere XL box, you may only subscribe to the TiVo Service on a monthly basis for $19.99 a month with a one (1) year commitment (renews monthly after one year).

Choices, choices.

[Thanks, Daniel and Chris R.]

TiVo Premiere now free on contract for $20 monthly, as TiVo introduces (and enforces) tiered subsidies originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 26

Western Digital’s TV Live Hub Is the Anti-Apple TV

Posted in: apple tv, Home Audio and Video, tivo, Today's Chili

If you’ve ever complained about a certain set-top box’s dearth of local storage or support of exotic media files, you now have a clear alternative. Western Digital’s TV Live Hub doesn’t actually have much to do with live TV, but it will store and stream the stuffing out of whatever you’ve been keeping on your computer.

You want local storage for your movies, music, pictures and TV shows? How does 1 TB sound? Western Digital makes some of the biggest and best hard drives around, and this one packs a wallop. And for $200, the TV Live Hub only costs $70 more than WD’s entry-level 1-TB external hard drive, the MyBook.

You want support for every file format you’ve ever dreamed about and video all the way up to 1080p? Here’s the list:

Video – AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9
Photo – JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Audio – MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
Playlist – PLS, M3U, WPL
Subtitle – SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI

I don’t even know what some of those are, but OMG, I am furious at any device that doesn’t support all of them now.

Wait — so far, it sounds like I’m just connecting a big-ass net-connected hard drive to my TV. Can it do anything cool with that internet connection?

Sure. The Live Hub is a fully-fledged media server, WD claims. Once it’s on your network, you can stream its content to pretty much any device with a screen on your network: net-connected TVs, Blu-ray players, Xbox 360, PS3 — even iOS or Android devices using third-party applications. It can also share and sync media folders with PCs or Macs.

And the network isn’t just local: You can also stream content from Netflix, Pandora, Flickr and YouTube, and upload content to Facebook.

The open question here — which I can’t really speak to without getting a chance to try it out — is the quality of the user interface. Unlike Apple or Google, Western Digital isn’t really a software company.

Wired recently reviewed the previous version, the Western Digital TV Live Plus, and found it was riddled with problems: Videos often played without their audio tracks, file-format support was not nearly as complete as the above spec list suggests, and video quality was hit-or-miss.

What it does offer is a different — and I think compelling — model for how you configure your hardware throughout your home network, how you store and share content that ultimately will be displayed primarily on the biggest screen in your house.

Here are the positions each player’s taken on the board so far:

  • TiVo wants to record live TV.
  • Google wants to help you find it and give you apps for it.
  • Apple wants to rent you streaming TV and movies and bounce it between your other Apple devices.
  • WD wants to give you a big hard drive and share it around the house.
  • Everybody wants to let you stream Netflix.
  • Meanwhile, Microsoft wants to do most of those things and play videogames, too.

On the one hand, both Apple and WD are avoiding TiVo’s and Google’s attempts to bring software to bear on live TV. On the other hand, their approaches couldn’t be more different.

Apple’s world is all cloud: a box with a tiny footprint that makes as little noise as possible, offering lightweight, streaming rentals that disappear. If you’re storing a library of data, you’re doing it somewhere else.

WD’s approach might seem more conservative, because it’s still about building and storing a digital library of files in lots of different formats. But you could say it’s actually much more radical.

It suggests that your entertainment media won’t be pumped into your house through a box or live on the computer you use to make spreadsheets. The digital hub isn’t your PC, and it definitely isn’t a server somewhere sitting lonely in your office or basement.

The digital hub is your television — the one screen in your house that always stays in one place. And now, your television can talk to every other screen that comes into your house.

WD TV Live Hub Media Center [WD Press Release]

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Oct 13

TiVo launches online Season Pass Manager

Posted in: dvr, tivo, Today's Chili

All together now: finally. TiVo’s just announced a new online Season Pass Manager, allowing users to manage their season passes from the comfort of a browser — you can add, edit, and delete passes, as well as transfer them between TiVo boxes on your account. (That ought to make upgrading to a new TiVo a million times easier, which has been one of our longstanding complaints.) The best part? Editing the priority list online means you don’t have to sit and wait while your TiVo figures it all out — you can move things around at will in the browser and it’ll all get sorted out before the changes get sent to your box. Nice. Of course, TiVo is still way behind FiOS and Comcast when it comes to remote and mobile DVR management, but it’s nice to see the company address one of the biggest pain points with the device. Now just hit us with a serious Premiere performance update, alright? PR after the break.

Continue reading TiVo launches online Season Pass Manager

TiVo launches online Season Pass Manager originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 06

Our Remote Controls Are Amazing, Yet Nobody’s Happy

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, apple tv, apps, logitech, ps3, remote, sony, tivo, Today's Chili, wii, xbox

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Sony Controller for Google TV


We hate our remotes. Every electronic media device comes with its own remote. We lose them and can’t control our stuff without them. They break. We confuse them with each other. It’s too hard to do simple things. It’s way too hard to do hard things.

We ask too much of them. The batteries die, and they all take different batteries. They’re uncomfortable. They’re unresponsive. What we do with our hands doesn’t match what’s happening on the screen. And the software that’s on the devices that are controlled by the remote is frequently terrible.

And occasionally, as with Sony’s controller for its upcoming Google TV, the remotes just boggle the mind with their ugliness and complexity.

We’re not alone in disliking remotes. The preceding litany of problems comes from what readers told Consumer Reports in an article titled “Readers Dislike TV Remotes.”

Now we have an emerging class of internet-connected media devices with powerful software designed to make navigating TVs and movies easier. Google TV, Apple TV, TiVo and Roku join game consoles like Sony’s Playstation 3, XBox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii in providing multimedia content on the biggest screens in our house.

But however sophisticated the software, all of these devices still need hardware devices for us to control them. It’s quite likely that some of these devices won’t be dedicated remotes at all, but phones, tablets or other handheld media devices running apps. We might use these apps to control not just our TVs, but our entire house.

That’s one vision of the future of remote control.

Here, we want to examine the other side of the equation: dedicated hardware controllers. From traditional remotes to mini-keyboards, video controllers and devices that combine all three, here are 15 devices that offer you a glimpse of everything that’s good and bad about the current generation of remote controls.

Above:

Sony’s Google TV Controller

WIRED: Offers all the control you could want. Full QWERTY keyboard for text entry, which is essential for search — sure to be a key part of the Google experience. Raised buttons with different feel make it easier to use in the dark. It’s even got tab, control, number and function keys — not dependent on software to get it done.

TIRED: Sheer size of the thing will be a deal-breaker for some. In different shades of gray, it doesn’t look like a device from 2010. Too many buttons could be confusing or intimidating to non-expert users.

Image: ABC News

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Sep 29

More TV Coming to TiVo and Roku This Fall with Hulu Plus

Posted in: apple tv, cable, dvr, Home Audio and Video, hulu, netflix, tivo, Today's Chili

Roku’s streaming media players can shake off the “Netflix box” tag once and for all. TiVo, too, keeps its spot high in the set-top food chain. Both Roku players and TiVo’s Premiere and Premiere XL boxes will be able to stream network shows with Hulu Plus this fall.

Hulu Plus, a $9.99/month subscription service that offers additional premium content in addition to the network TV shows and backlist films offered through the free Hulu web site, is already available for streaming with net-connected Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players, Boxee’s set-top boxes, and Sony’s Playstation 3, with announced support for XBox 360, other Sony devices, and some Vizio TVs and Blu-ray players coming either this fall or in early 2011.

The announcements from TiVo and Roku did not specify dates on which the service would be available on either device. Roku currently offers access to Netflix Watch Instantly, Amazon Streaming Video, Pandora, and other streaming media channels. TiVo offers DVR capability in addition to most of the same services. Apple’s much-anticipated new version of Apple TV offers Netflix access and rentals through iTunes, but not Hulu at this time.

The emerging model for set-top boxes appears to be devices that offer a wide range of streaming services, whether free, for purchase, for rental, or through subscriptions. Either the boxes are inexpensive and dedicated for this purpose, like Roku and the new Apple TV, or relatively expensive but offer additional services like gaming, web browsing, or video recording, like TiVo, PS3, or XBox 360.

The devices have differentiated themselves according to three features: 1) price; 2) some exclusive features, as in the case of game consoles; and 3) the strength and ease-of-use of their interfaces — both the on-screen software and remote control capability.

All can be used in conjunction with traditional cable and satellite TV service, but some users are beginning to find the offerings of internet video rich enough that they can forego cable or satellite altogether. Hulu Plus on TiVo and Roku may be what pushes many of them over the edge.

Image via Hulu.com

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Sep 28

Hulu Plus coming to TiVo Premiere too

Posted in: breaking news, BreakingNews, hulu, streaming, Television, tivo, Today's Chili, TV

It looks like the Hulu overlords have finally seen the light, because Hulu Plus is coming to the living room in a big way — in addition to the cheap’n’easy Roku players, the service will hit TiVo Premiere DVRs sometime “in the coming months.” It’s a little stranger to pay $9.95 a month for streaming TV on your DVR, which is presumably plugged into a cable subscription and a TiVo service subscription, but hey — whatever floats your boat, Captain Moneybags. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Hulu Plus coming to TiVo Premiere too

Hulu Plus coming to TiVo Premiere too originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 14:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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