TiVo may have invented time-shifting, but the past few years
haven't been kind to this company unsure how to cut a profit. Then, someone
inside TiVo HQ must have realized, oh right, INNOVATION! That's the ticket!
What You Need to Know
• The TiVo Premiere
(320GB, $300) and Premiere XL (1TB, THX certified, $500) are the new Series 4 TiVos
• They have completely new widescreen HD software built on Flash
• This software will not come to Series 3 models (or earlier)
• The Premiere is less a DVR than a completely integrated video machine
• Available in early April
Why I'm Excited
The TiVo Premiere is the smallest TiVo yet, a thin and diminutive box that
holds only one CableCard and still lacks Wi-Fi (a $90 802.11n adapter will be
available this May, plus you can pick up a $30 TiVo powerline adapter). It
hides a multicore processor inside that drives a new, HD UI that previews your
program at all times. That's right—no more going into Now Playing only to lose
the stream of your show.
Despite the redesign, you'll find the experience is remarkably familiar. The
basic fonts and menus are unchanged, with a few key differences. Most
importantly, instead of seeing one page at a time (like being in Now Playing,
then clicking to a new screen with a particular show), you see two pages at a
time—a logical design update to the widescreen format that speeds up navigation
enormously.
Plus there are little touches that anyone can appreciate: A disk space
meter. Show titles change colors once watched. The 30-second commercial skip?
That's been programmed into a dedicated "scan" button that flashes half a
minute by in just a handful of frames (to keep advertisers happy). Plus, I have
it in good faith that TiVo won't be eliminating the classic 30-second skip,
either.
Of course, you've already noticed the top bar filled with show icons. That's
basically a list of suggestions that shift dynamically depending on what you're
watching at the time. I have a feeling TiVo is finding a way to make money off
that thing, but you know what? That's OK if they're offering content to me
based upon what I like.
Which brings us to the big, key difference about the Series 4.
It's the Internet
Even though the Series 4 still makes you pay for a Wi-Fi dongle (ridiculous,
right?), it's truly an internet machine.
Imagine if TiVo and IMDB made a baby. That's exactly what you get.
Swivel Search, which allowed you to search for programs by criteria like
actor and keyword, has been built in to the very core of Series 4, and it's got
internet access.
So say you're watching 30 Rock and you decide, that Jack Donaghy is
an interesting guy. I want to see more of his work! A few clicks takes you to
Alec Baldwin. A few more? You can access pretty much anything Alec Baldwin's
been in—but not just within your cable subscription.
You'll see Netflix streaming options. Amazon Video on Demand. Blockbuster on
Demand. YouTube clips, even. Or you can find an Alec Baldwin movie that will be
in the theaters in several months. Then? You can program your TiVo, right then,
to record that movie whenever it's finally on cable.
And I should add, none of this advanced search is forced upon you. Much like
IMDB, the information is just there if you choose to dig deeper.
For Flash, There's Not Much Flash
If we have one criticism regarding the Series 4 (other than the lack of
integrated Wi-Fi, yes, I'm gonna hammer that point home), it's that there's
nothing all that flashy about it.
Yes, this point is a quibble, but an important quibble all the same. Those
accustomed to flipping through their Netflix queue on a modern, powerful
machine like the Xbox 360, those accustomed to the seemingly endless media
oomph of the PS3's animated XMB previews and photo collages, may be
disappointed in the Premiere's general lack of flare.
I'd love to see a few more UI treats—tiny, tactile animations that
smartphone programmers are so wickedly good at designing—built in to the core
UI.
There's no doubt, the Series 4 is a smart machine. I just want to make sure
that TiVo doesn't become an old maid, but rather a naughty librarian with a
sense of adventure. I'm not sure whether or not, just by glancing at it, the
Premiere will be enough to woo the average consumer again. And that's something
that TiVo very much needs to do.
Oh, and TiVo, Wi-Fi dongles shouldn't cost $90 anymore. Who are you taking
lessons from, Microsoft? (OK, OK, I'm done with the Wi-Fi complaints...for
now.)
While my impressions were from a meeting long ago, John Herrman just got a
second hands on. Here is the sum of his experience:
TiVo's Series 4 box is superficially, well, just another TiVo box, but
that's not the point—all set-top boxes are boxes, and if they were anything
else, they wouldn't be set-top boxes. It's what's inside that counts,
and that's where the Premiere's
newness is.
The new TiVo interface is recognizably TiVo-y (and almost exactly like what was
previewed
back in 2008), and just as recognizably fresher—there are fewer tacky shine
effects, and more soft gradients. It's kind of a natural progression for the
original interface, which was designed with SDTVs in mind, to a more HD-ready
take on the same concept. It's based on Flash, and while you can't really tell
now, Tivo's said that the platform is extensible with some kind of app
store-type platform, from which you can download Flash Lite-based apps, very
little of which TiVo has made specific commitments about, but which is
coming, in one way or another. This could be what makes the Premiere a
gamechanger, whenever it happens.
In terms of content, TiVo's taken a hard turn online: as Mark put it, it's
as if "TiVo and IMDB made a baby," which is to say any TV show or movie you're
browsing is augmented with context and metadata, pulled from online. A minor
feature which is actually kind of huge is that if you look up a film or show,
the Premiere plants icons for the integrated streaming services—Netflix,
Blockbuster, Amazon, etc—to help see if a download or play option is available.
The integration is smooth, and the concept natural. But groundbreaking? Not so
much.
The optional QWERTY remote will be very familiar to anyone who's used TiVo for
more than five minutes, excepting the giant freakin' keyboard that slides out
of the side. Integrating the keyboard into a peanut shape was risky, and it
didn't really pay off: The keyboard itself isn't overly large, but the fact
that it's flanked by two large endpieces makes reaching the center buttons
tough, even for the large-handed. Anyway, it's more merciful than generous,
since asking users to navigating any amount of text-oriented web content with
the regular ol' peanut is mildy hellish. I suspect a lot of folks will spring
for this one, even if the necessary Bluetooth dongle (not to mention the remote
itself) costs.
What's most striking about TiVo's Next Big Thing is that it doesn't do a
whole lot that other DVRs and set-top boxes couldn't, probably for a lower
price. (The Premiere is $300, and the XL, with a 1TB drive, is $500.) Granted,
a lot of people are going to end up with a Series 4 DVR subsidized by their TV
provider, and then, yeah, it's going to be a nice step up from whatever
terrible TI genero-box they would have had otherwise. But TiVo's breathless
invite to this launch (Inventing the DVR was just a warmup!) doesn't ring true.
Is there's something else on the way? Is everyone missing something? mean, I'm
glad TiVo discovered the internet and all, but this kind of stuff is
baseline nowadays.
TiVo Premiere Box Specifications:
* TiVo Series4™ architecture
* Supports digital cable, high-definition digital cable, antenna (ATSC) and
Verizon FiOS
* Outputs: HDMI, Component video, Composite video, Optical audio, Analog
audio
* Video output modes include: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
* Inputs: CableCARD™ support, Cable coax, Antenna coax, Ethernet
* Ethernet connection, USB 2.0 ports (2), E-SATA support for external
storage
* TiVo Wireless N and G Network Adapter support
* ENERGY STAR® certified
* 320 Gigabytes
* Records up to 45 hours of HD programming or up to 400 hours of
standard-definition
TiVo Premiere XL Box
Specifications (all specs not listed are the same as above unless noted)
* One Terabyte storage
* Records up to 150 hours of HD programming or up to 1350 hours of
standard-definition
* Backlit, programmable, and learning remote
* THX®certified, ensuring optimal audio and video reproduction and enables
seamless integration with other THX components
* TiVo Premiere XL box is the first HD product to feature THX® Optimizer™, a
video calibration tool that lets users fine tune color, black levels and other
settings to improve picture quality. Hailed by critics for its ease-of-use, the
exclusive THX Optimizer for TiVo Premiere XL box is found in the My Shows menu
of the TiVo service. A pair of THX Optimizer Blue Glasses, designed for
adjusting Color and Tint settings, is included with the owner's manual.
TiVo Premiere and TiVo Premiere XL boxes will be available in retail
nationwide in early April. They are also available for pre-order today at
tivo.com for $299.99 and $499.99 respectively.
Motorola has announced software enhancements for its DCX line of
set-top boxes. The company said that while frame compatible 3D content could be
passed through set-tops already in the market, accessing on-screen guides and
user menus had given consumers an often unsettling experience.
Two weeks
ago, on March 28, we posed the question of whether Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar and
Dish operations might buy TiVo, the pesky DVR business that’s given Ergen so
many headaches, and could end up costing his business up to $4 million a month
in penalty payments. Now it seems we are not alone in thinking this is a good
idea.
In other interactive TV applications news: A play-along
application developed by Dublin, Ireland-based interactive TV apps specialist,
emuse, for the Fox8 reality series,
"Australia's Next Top Model," on the OpenTV-powered Foxtel pay-TV platform, has
won the award for "Best Use of Interactive" at a technology awards program that
was held as part of the recent ASTRA (Australian Subscription Television &
Radio Association) conference. According to emuse, the app allowed viewers to
play along with the show by answering a series of questions and taking part in
a series of votes, all of which were synchronized with the show's content.
Results and opinions generated by the app were made available on the
"Australia's Next Top Model" Web and 3G sites, immediately after the show's
broadcast.
