TiVo gets official with Desktop Plus 2.6, enables web video viewing
TiVo Gives Consumers an Easy Way to Download Internet Video Automatically to Their Television Sets
First announced at CES, Season Pass™ functionality applied to web video now available
ALVISO, Calif. – March 18, 2008 -- TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced TiVo® subscribers can now watch video content from the Web directly on their television sets. Through an updated version of TiVo's Desktop Plus PC software, users can now discover and enjoy a broad range of Web entertainment available directly from their TV. The simple application, which uses the popular Season Pass™ functionality, continues to deliver on TiVo's pledge to offer consumers an easy way to search, discover and enjoy the broad range of entertainment no matter what the source.
Starting today, TiVo users can subscribe to and watch a broad range of video content available through Real Simple Syndication ("RSS") feeds, including everything from network nightly newscasts and The Sesame Street Podcast to Daily Headlines from MTV News and College Humor from CHTV. The application also gives consumers access to niche interest and hobbyist videos covering areas far more specialized than cable and satellite channels.
The availability of the Web video comes on the heels of last week's announcement that TiVo subscribers will be able to access YouTube™ videos directly on the TV via a TiVo DVR later this year. Upon launch of the TiVo-YouTube service, TiVo users will be able to search, browse and watch these videos directly on their television sets.
"TiVo users will have the best video from the Web easily available on their television sets from user generated as well as brand named sites," said Tara Maitra, Vice President and General Manager of Content Services at TiVo.
The new Web video capability requires TiVo Desktop Plus 2.6, an update to the Windows application which also converts TV shows recorded on a TiVo DVR for viewing on portable devices including iPod and Sony PlayStation™ Portable. TiVo Desktop Plus 2.6 is available for a one-time fee of $24.95, and is a free upgrade to earlier versions. "TiVo continues to work with Roxio on delivering equivalent functionality on the Mac platform."
With this new feature, users can choose web videos downloaded on the home PC using web browsers, RSS video clients such as iTunes podcasts, or other video download software to automatically copy to their TiVo DVR's Now Playing List alongside recorded broadcast and cable TV shows. TiVo is also providing an on-screen guide of select Web video sources for users to browse and select as individual episodes or get a Season Pass™. Subscribers can even use the TiVo service's Season Pass functionality to get their own personal video folders on their PC, where they save their home movies and other video downloads. High Definition television enthusiasts will appreciate that TiVo preserves the original quality of high-resolution web videos, up to 720p, when delivered to TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD DVRs.
Maitra added, "Through the addition of new applications such as web video, we continue to build towards our goal of making TiVo the one stop shop for content, through one box and one integrated user interface. With our combination of premium content available through Amazon Unbox, millions of songs via Rhapsody and music videos, and soon YouTube videos, we feel like we're connecting consumers to entertainment in a way no one else can."
For more information on TiVo or to download TiVo Desktop Plus visit www.tivo.com/desktop.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
FrankTheCrank @ Mar 18th 2008 9:01AM
You know...I appreciate the effort on TiVo's behalf, but why don't they just build the ability to download RSS streams directly to the TiVo itself?
It's already wired to the internet. Why do I need to have my computer download the video and then upload it to the TiVo...sounds like a complete waste of time and energy.
I can already subscribe to DL.TV and Cranky Geeks through my TiVo.
MegaZone @ Mar 18th 2008 2:30PM
Codec support. The Series2 can only decode MPEG-2. How many vidcasts do you know of that are distributed as MPEG-2? The vidcasts available via TiVoCast from partners are specially encoded as MPEG-2 just for TiVo. But that's why the selection in TiVoCast is so limited - it takes special effort to support TiVo. So what they're doing here is using the PC to transcode from H.264, WMV, QuickTime, etc, into MPEG-2.
At some point the Series3 & TiVo HD will be able to support other codecs - H.264 support is STRONGLY implied by the YouTube announcement. Both of those have decoding hardware which can handle MPEG-4/H.264 & WMV/VC-1, but the software currently does not enable those decoders. Once they support the additional codecs it would make sense to enable direct downloads to the box for the supported codecs, relying on the PC only for others.
Pipper @ Mar 18th 2008 9:48AM
Yeah, I'm not really sure how many people really need, or want this feature. It's a pain to have anything connected to the PC at this point, and on top of that they're charging for it.
It would make more sense to just integrate it all into the Tivos themselves, cut out the PC entirely, and make it free for everyone.
I know they want to make money, but this is just a weird direction to be spending your resources. How about making the GUI faster, adding in more options, customization, etc?
Maybe they just have a bunch of bored Windows programmers sitting around. Who knows. If you want to expand your install base, you'll need to offer stuff for free as the carrot.
MegaZone @ Mar 18th 2008 2:31PM
It's a pain to have the PC and TiVo on the LAN? Really? This works over the network, no direct connection.
As for doing it on the box - see my above comment about why they didn't do that.
h0mi @ Mar 18th 2008 12:33PM
Well an update to the tivo software is coming. That could very well be a feature that's coming. We'll have to see.
Frank Furter @ Mar 18th 2008 1:05PM
As a TiVo fanatic since the first S1, let me say - here's hoping that the rumored Apple-DVR is on its way. I've preached TiVo to everyone that would stand still long enough to listen, but lack of Mac support, coupled with silly, poorly-designed/poorly-working 'features' like this and Crapsody, I've had enough. I'll gladly send my $16 a month to Mr. Jobs.
Personally I think the coolness of downloading web content (podcasts, clips, etc, NOT full length movies/shows) is overrated and has ran its course. As usual, TiVo is about a year behind the trends. Good thing their interface is still the best, or I woulda went back to DirecTV or Dish months ago.
BluesK1d @ Mar 19th 2008 10:12PM
Just installed this...
5 running processes with over 50MB of combined memory usage when idle. If you attempt to set the startup executables/service to not start automatically, the application ceases to work even when said services are started.
If you turn off the "Server" portion (share images/music/vids from your PC) via the UI, the CLIENT portion of this app will no longer talk to your TiVo to transfer recordings. Ugh...
I really wanted this to be good.