The first official expansion drive for the TiVo has hit the market in Australia, offering you an extra terabyte of storage if you’re prepared to pay something of a market premium.
One of the limitations of using a Tivo as your PVR of choice is that there’s no straightforward way of transferring recordings of shows you want to keep permanently onto an external device. The recently released Home Networking Package makes that possible, but at $199 it’s a fairly pricey solution. Some Tivo owners are arguing that the pricing is unfair, given that when the original Tivo was released Tivo executives suggested the pricing for networking mobility would be much lower (“tens of dollars”) was the phrase used. I somehow doubt that this would constitute grounds for taking Tivo to the ACCC over deceptive behaviour, but the suggestion that early adopters should get a discount on the new gear, which is being floated on mailing lists such as OzTivo, still seems like the right thing to do.
The biggest roadblock to legal movie and TV downloads remains the huge amounts of bandwidth they consume, which can punch a huge hole in your monthly download cap (even without taking HD into consideration). The ideal solution would be cap-free ISP accounts, but since that’s never going to happen deals between ISPs and content providers are the next best thing. Lara Sinclair at The Australian reports that Seven and Internode have done a deal which will see Tivo downloads excluded from the total for customers who sign up for a new Internode/Tivo bundle. No word yet on whether Internode’s existing customers will also get similar benefits if they purchase a Tivo, but that would seem a likely outcome. The nature of the deal (which apparently kicks off in late March) suggests other ISPs aren’t likely to get a bite at the Tivo cherry. But there are other cap-free content options. If you favour iTunes for movies, iiNet remains your best bet, while there are now plenty of cap-free choices for the ABC’s iView, and BigPond Movies for Telstra customers.
Seven leading in race to deliver movie downloads [The Australian]Tivo next week will begin a trial of offering a downloadable movie of the week to subscribers (first title up: The Waterhorse, pictured), but it’s not quite as generous as it seems. The service, being offered in conjunction with Blockbuster and due to hit all Australian Tivo boxes by December 1, is essentially designed to make sure that people don’t get a rude shock on their ISP bill when Tivo’s full downloads service launches in March 2009. Or as the company PR puts it: “The aim is to provide TiVo customers with the ability to road test downloading video content over the internet straight to the lounge room and understand the critical role both internet speed and download quotas play in ensuring the service is a pleasurable one.” We’ve noted before that movie downloads are always risky if you have to pay for the bandwidth, and despite Tivo’s promise to use effective compression, we suspect this is going to prove too costly for a lot of people’s download caps.
The Aussie implementation of Tivo has only just gone on sale, but the developers of the PVR technology are already talking up forthcoming features. Nick Tabakoff at the Australian reports that Tivo should offer free viewing of YouTube clips from early next year, with earlier plans to charge for the feature now apparently dumped. We imagine it’ll only be a matter of time before someone comes up with a hack to allow saving YouTube downloads onto the Tivo. YouTube free on Seven’s Tivo [The Australian]
With the recent launch of the Foxtel IQ2, the imminent (and much-delayed) appearance of Tivo in Australia next month, and Sony promising its own PlayTV personal video recorder (PVR) option before the year is out, there are more big-name PVR choices for Aussies than ever before. Getting your favourite TV programs automatically recorded for playback at a time that suits you is an obviously appealing concept, but despite the arrival of these new entrants, you still have two basic choices: a fairly pricey system that works well but is hard to customise, or a much cheaper and more flexible option that may not deliver on the simplicity and reliability front.
If, like me, you’ve been waiting for a plug and play PVR then our pals at Gizmodo have a lot of interesting news to share. First up, Seven has confirmed that TiVo is definitely launching here, but not until August.(I was turned down for the TiVo beta – first beta I’ve ever been knocked back for! sob!)And if you’re PlayStation inclined, Sony have announced we’ll get its PVR addon for PS3, PlayTV sometime in the 4th quarter.I’ve never been a huge fan of pay TV, but I’ve been enjoying the Foxtel IQ lately.My question to you is, have you found a PC-based PVR that “just works”? I’ve heard good things about MythTV but never tried it. I’ve only used Microsoft’s Media Center to play music. Yes, I’m pretty much a noob.
More devices in your living room have Ethernet ports than ever before, but you can’t plug them into the network if your router’s in the other room. When your Wi-Fi access point is in the home office but your TiVo, Xbox, and media centre are screaming for network love under your TV in the living room, you want a wireless bridge (also known as an Ethernet converter). A wireless bridge catches your home network’s Wi-Fi signal and provides ports where you can plug in wired devices near it. Let’s take a look at how to wire up your living room using a wireless bridge.
Grr I hope the rumour that Seven may dump TiVo before it even reaches the market here is wrong. Nick over at Gizmodo pointed out an SMH report which said Seven may give up on importing the cult American PVR in favour of joining forces with the other free to air stations and their “Freeview” PVR which is being mooted to go up against Foxtel’s IQ. Let the consumers decide, please, not a consortium. :(
Whether you’ve got an original Series1 TiVo or a brand new Series3 model, if you’re a die-hard TV lover you may regularly be bumping up against your storage limits. If so, web site NewReleaseVideo’s in-depth guide to upgrading your TiVo’s hard drive might be just what you’re looking for. The process from start to finish isn’t for the faint of heart, requiring a few special tools and some work in a Linux live CD environment, but if you’re serious about increasing your TiVo’s storage capabilities, the guide is also extremely detailed and beginner-friendly (though unfortunately photo-less). If you’ve ever upgraded your TiVo’s drive, tell us how the process went for you in the comments. If hardware hacking isn’t your thing, check out how to stream any video from your computer to your TiVo or your fellow readers’ favourite TiVo tricks. How-to TiVo upgrade [NewReleaseVideo]
