Recent Comments:
Ask Engadget HD: To TiVo, or not to TiVo? {Engadget HD}
Aug 27th 2008 1:33PM TiVo is simply a better DVR - the core functionality is superior with Season Passes and WishLists. TiVo's ability to find and schedule recordings, and the ease of searching for content and handling conflicts, is just superior. And that's the heart of a DVR. Most cable DVRs don't have anything at all like WishLists, and most don't even match Season Passes. Try searching for programs by title on a cable DVR - many of them only allow you to enter the first letter, then you have to scroll through a list. TiVo allows you to enter the title letter by letter and narrows the search as you go. TiVo's WishLists allow you to search by title, keyword, actor, director, and/or category. The Season Pass manager gives a clear way to manage priorities, and the To Do List gives you one place to see upcoming recordings.
And you don't often hear about TiVo's just deciding to delete all their recordings, or all of their scheduled recordings, or losing all their guide data, etc - you do with cable DVRs. Sure, TiVos are hardware and hardware fails from time to time, that's life. But they're much less glitchy and much more reliable than the cable DVRs. And TiVo's UI is just so much better than a cable box UI that it is hard to describe. It is like going from a 40 column Apple II green screen to a modern graphical UI. Once you use TiVo for a while trying to use a cable DVR becomes a maddening experience.
And then you get beyond the core DVR functionality, which would be enough for me. With Networking you have TiVoCast content downloads, TiVo Web Video subscriptions to podcasts and such, Amazon Unbox purchases and rentals, YouTube access, TiVoToGo transfers of video to and from your PC/Mac (and from there to portable devices), music videos from Music Choice, sharing home movies on One True Media, access to music from Rhapsody and Live365, photos from Photobucket and Picasa, Yahoo! Traffic and Weather, movie listings and tickets from Fandango, and playback of audio podcasts.
You can also stream music from servers on your LAN and view your photos across the network as well. And transfer your own videos to the TiVo for viewing on your TV. And TiVo has a 3rd party application API, Home Media Engine, which allows developers to create new applications for TiVo like Galleon.tv, and hosted apps like Apps.tv and PlayTeeVee.com. And there is an active developer/hacker community that reverse engineers their protocols and implements more cool features, going above and beyond the provider software. For example, TiVo recently added YouTube streaming access. The developer community figured out how to co-opt that support to handle streaming of *any* MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 video to a TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD, and now new applications are being developed to do so.
There may be some cable boxes that offer one or two of these features (I think FiOS is offering access to YouTube for example), but none that offer so much.
TiVo has other content deals in the pipeline such as movies from Jaman.com and CinemaNow.com, and I'm sure there are more yet to be announced.
If you're a parent, TiVo KidZone is fantastic. It goes well beyond the standard V-chip/parental controls crap cable boxes have. You can fine tune the permissions, and add specific programs individually to a 'sandbox' for the kids. And they can't mess with anything from within their sandbox.
TiVo is just a better experience - easier to use, *nicer* to use, more powerful, more flexible, more reliable. It just blows away other DVRs.
It costs more, sure, but a good filet mignon costs more than a Big Mac too. They're both beef, both food, but one is better than the other.
And if you don't like monthly fees, TiVo offers lifetime subscriptions as well as an annual plan. (I always go with lifetime, it holds resale value.)
Ask Engadget HD: To TiVo, or not to TiVo? {Engadget HD}
Aug 27th 2008 1:10PM TiVo started offering lifetime again a while back.
The editor-in-chief giveaway: Win Ryan Block's gadgets {Engadget}
Aug 27th 2008 3:27AM This is my comment.
The editor-in-chief giveaway: Win Ryan Block's swag {Engadget}
Aug 27th 2008 3:26AM This is my comment.
The editor-in-chief giveaway: Win Ryan Block's video games {Engadget}
Aug 24th 2008 1:45PM Well, I'd likely keep the PS3 games as I have one. Any XBox 360 stuff I'd either give to friends or give away on my own blog (GizmoLovers.com), as I don't own a 360 and don't plan to. The PSP stuff depends - I don't have one now, but I've been thinking of getting one.
I'm sorry to see Ryan is leaving, but happy that he'll still be involved in some way. His blogging is one of the things that inspired me to do it myself.
SlingPlayer 2.0 enters public beta -- without Clip+Sling {Engadget}
Aug 8th 2008 4:34AM Just to note in case anyone gets the wrong idea, the Slingbox PRO does NOT have an HDMI connection. It has a proprietary connector for the HD Connect dongle, which accepts component input. That connector looks somewhat like an HDMI connector, but it is NOT compatible - not physically not electrically. It is just a compact form factor connector to attach the dongle. The first unit that can actually stream HD, the PRO-HD, is slated for release later this year.
SlingPlayer 2.0 enters public beta -- without Clip+Sling {Engadget}
Aug 8th 2008 4:31AM I'm not sure what you're on about. One feature, Clip+Sling, was postponed until a later update for business reasons. And from that you extrapolate doom?
SlingPlayer 2.0 enters public beta -- without Clip+Sling {Engadget}
Aug 8th 2008 4:29AM Try just over 7 months - it was announced at CES in January of this year. And it is coming, currently planned for later this year. We're working with RIM and bringing SPM to Blackberry is non-trivial. We've uncovered a number of issues that had to be resolved to provide a satisfactory product. (Yes, the 'We' means I work for Sling.)
TiVo quietly removes Series3 from its webstore {Engadget}
Jul 31st 2008 5:27AM Wrong on nearly all counts.
1. It has been known for a while that they were phasing out Series3 production in favor of the new TiVo HD. I posted about it back in January: http://www.gizmolovers.com/2008/01/31/tivo-discontinues-the-series3-tcd648250b/
2. The TiVo HD is not being phased out, and it has the same issues as the S3. So that would be illogical anyway.
3. The solution to SDV is the Tuning Adapter. TiVo just released the 9.4 software update for the S3 and HD which supports the TA, and Motorola and Cisco both just had their TA's approved by CableLabs. They should be available from cable MSOs later this year.
The one thing you did get right is that TiVo is known to be working on a new box, which users have been calling the 'Series4', which will have native tru2way support. It has been mentioned on their financial calls, I'd guess that we'll see it at CES in January and it'll be released sometime in 2009.
TiVo quietly removes Series3 from its webstore {Engadget}
Jul 31st 2008 5:22AM The Australian unit is based on the TiVo HD platform and it is special hardware for Australia, not the US units - it has DVB-T tuners, which is their broadcast system, not NTSC & ATSC as in the US.
