Ready Set TiVo . . . . .

August 31st, 2006 Davis

PVR Wire received some pretty cool photos of what the new TiVo series 3 looks like when you unpack it from the box. The outside of the box is done in Jet black and features the TiVo mascot along with a big HD right in the middle of it. When you open the box it says ready set and then has the TiVo mascot. I imagine that this is exactly what it’s going to be like the minute TiVo officially releases the box. Without knowing how TiVo is going to do the pricing, it’s hard to tell if my plan is to go through their website or to stop into CompUSA on my way home. If they have two different sets of pricing for online vs. retail, I’ll likely order from the internet, but if it’s the same price and I can get the box one day faster, then I’ll be heading over to the retail stores. Of course I’ll need to schedule the Comcast installer to come by, so if there ends up being no difference in timing, then I’ll likely order through the TiVo website, just to try and save TiVo a little bit of money. Still no word on when we can go pick up the box or the pricing, but the photos are certainly exciting to look at.

Posted in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, TiVo | No Comments »

They Like Me, They Really Like Me

August 31st, 2006 Davis




tivo emmy

Originally uploaded by starjewel.

TiVo took home an Emmy from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for Interactive Television this year and Star Jewel (who may only consider herself a recent lowly “System Engineer”, but I love her all the more for leaving Macrovision to work for such a phenomenal company) posted a fabulous photo of herself with the statue to her Flickr account. This was truly an award that belonged not just to TiVo but to every single hard working employee at that company. TiVo has created one of the most revolutionary pieces of software out there and while they deserve every accolade that they’ve received, it’s really the many many passionate hours that each employee put into TiVo that deserves the real recognition. Thanks go out to everyone who helped to create such a wonderful piece of technology and extra thanks goes out to Star Jewel for letting me share her wonderful photo of the event with the rest of the blogosphere.

Posted in Photos, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, TiVo | No Comments »

What A Wonderful Galaxy Far Far Away

August 31st, 2006 Davis

There are a couple of bloggers out there that I think are some of the most underated writers in the blogosphere. Most of the time I come across them after they’ve been linked to a major blog like Boing Boing or Slashdot or have had some big story dugg, but once in a while one my blog search filters catches a blogger who really needs to have a larger RSS base, but for whatever reason the rest of the blogosphere hasn’t caught onto them yet. This was the case when I first stumbled onto Kamikaze Labs. My first exchange with Barry was actually a little tense. He dared to ask the question of who cares about Blockbuster and Netflix and of course being the DVD freak that I am, I went after him with both guns unholstered. Surprisingly, instead of blowing off my criticism or getting into a flame war with me, he instead took the opportunity to engage in a great discussion on VOD and earned a lot of respect as a result. Since then I’ve been constantly amazed with the level of critical thought and analysis that he puts into his posts and while not every post is as in depth as I’d like them to be, when he takes the time to really think and express himself, his thoughts are really amazing.

Of course, like all bloggers, a lot of his links are just fun stuff that can be really entertaining too. Such is the case with the video above featuring Yoda doing his own karaoke version of the Louis Armstrong classic What A Wonderful World. I’m torn as to whether or not it’s better then the classic mashup or Over The Rainbow and What A Wonderful World by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, so I thought that I would post that song below and let me readers tell me which one is their favorite. Now if we could only get Yoda to cover Israel Kamakawiwo’ole the decision would be so much easier.

Posted in VOD, DVDs, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Netflix | 1 Comment »

#4

August 30th, 2006 Davis

#4#4 Hosted on Zooomr

Posted in Photos | No Comments »

TiVo Continues To Fast Forward Advertising Program

August 30th, 2006 Davis

Over the last year and half, Tom Rogers has taken TiVo from being the scourge of the advertising community to it’s new darling in the industry. TiVo’s ability to measure how consumers react not only to programming, but to the ads themselves on a second by second basis in live time has given marketers a powerful communication tool in understand what makes an ad a hit or a flop early on. Despite all that has been written about TiVo ending advertising, they’ve done a pretty good job of forcing it’s evolution. Instead of trying to blast 30 second sound bytes to consumers, they’ve instead enabled consumers to opt into ads and are finding that they are not only watching them, but spending more time with the brands that they want to see.

At the start of the TV sweeps, TiVo’s Davina Kent gave a great podcast on the future of advertising and shortly later TiVo announced that they had signed a multi-million dollar advertising agreement with interpublic group. Following up with the success of this deal, TiVo set up their own audience measurement program to help provide the valuable feedback that marketing agencies so desperately crave. Some don’t like TiVo getting cozy with the advertisers, but I don’t mind as long as TiVo keeps control of the ads in consumer’s hands. When TiVo announced their Interpublic deal, Dave Zatz derided the agreement and worried that we’d see TiVo spam, but I really see these agreements more like banner ads then pop ups. It’s up to the consumer to click on the ad, otherwise you can just mentally block it out like we do other advertising.

In a yet another new development on the advertising front, TiVo is now selling an advertising life jacking to Omnicom Media Group. In a press release issued this morning Tom Rogers, TiVo’s CEO commented on the agreement.

“As the only truly DVR-based advertising solution available today, TiVo is at the forefront in helping advertisers engage the consumer while allowing subscribers to maintain control of their television entertainment experience . . . The partnership is all about working with the key advertisers within the OMD and PHD business units to embrace the biggest change in television viewing, consumers fast-forwarding through commercials.”

As TiVo’s subscriber base has swelled past 4 million households and with upcoming agreements with now Cox as well as Comcast, advertisers have really begun to take a closer look at partnering with TiVo instead of fighting with them. This benefits consumers because it opens up the possibility for consumers to provide feedback and it changes the economic relationship of advertising on TV. If TiVo gave me the option to thumbs up or down commercials that I see, I would glady not only watch those commercials, but interact with them so that they could then pass that data onto consumers. If marketers know that I want to kill that guy in the Mac ads, maybe they’ll stop producing such rubbish. On the other hand, if I see a commercial for that hot new iPod or Zune and have the option to see a longer demonstration along with the opportunity to buy it using my remote on a TiVo charge account, I would start purchasing goods and services from my couch in a heartbeat. Couch commerce is the way of the future and while TiVo’s advertising initives are still young, this new agreement with Omnicom Media Group is yet another important step for the company.

Posted in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, TiVo | No Comments »

Myth TV And Media MVP In Action

August 30th, 2006 Davis

This is a really neat video of a home theater set up that uses a Myth TV and a Media MVP in order to record television and stream it throughout the home. While watching the Myth in action is certainly impressive, I was actually more impressed with the quality of the video that was being broadcast through their televison projector. It’s certainly not HDTV quality, but considering the size of what’s being presented, it looked like a good option for those who don’t need the high resolution.

The Myth box has gotten a lot of good viral press and there are many people who feel as passionately about it as I do TiVo, but I worry that because of the restrictions put on HDTV content that there won’t be a future for the open source PVR once HDTV becomes the norm. No one really needs HDTV, but it’s a great luxury to have and as the price on HD capable sets continues to fall and as more networks adopt the broadcasting of HDTV content at some point it will replace standard television. Because of the expense necessary to certify a machine as cable card ready, the draconian laws that our legislators seem to love to pass may actually make creating your own HDTV capable myth box illegal. While I think the studios have a right to keep their HDTV content from ending up on the internet, I’m not fully convinced that making companies jump through these types of hoops will really prevent pirated HDTV signals from showing up on the bit torrent sites, especially when an HDTV other the air signal still exists. Instead, I think that consumers will be left at the mercy of cable operators who continue to raise cable prices year after year. In the short term though Myth is still a great solution for those of you who want to tinker around with your own setup and I’ve got to admit that the Media MVP looks pretty sweet.

Posted in Media, TV, TiVo | No Comments »

Davis Freeberg Presents . . .

August 30th, 2006 Davis

For my entire life I’ve fantasized about being a radio DJ. It started when I was just a kid when I would take my FM receiver and from about midnight to 2 AM and I would secretly tune into the local classic rock radio station and listen intently to music that had been created before I had been born. I’m not sure why classic rock appealed to me so much at that time in life, but I do remember that when I would listen to the radio during the day it just didn’t feel the same. The music wasn’t as powerful, the DJs didn’t spend the time to really talk to their audience, life felt more rushed, it was mass market pop whereas my midnight shows always felt like they were being broadcasted directly to me.

For a long time I pursued trying to break into radio and for about a month I actually had a bit part in a morning show in Los Angeles reviewing movies. Later on, I worked as a commercial editor for a station owned by Bob Newhart and as an accountant for a company that not only broadcast the Dr. Laura Show, but also did the Howard Stern show (who ever thought the same company could run two radically different programs?) During my time in radio, it was long enough to figure out that the DJs don’t really control anything and that the playlists were dictated by financial arangements with the studios, but it was brief enough to give me a taste of an industry that when I retire someday I still hope to come back to.

As media has evolved, so has radio. Satellite has taken a big bite out of terrestrial radio and podcasting now threatens to tip the balance of power away from the studios completely. The studios have done their best to defend their monopolies, but there has been little that they could do to actual slow microcasting let alone stop it. Overall, I view these changes as remarkably positive because I believe that the ease of distribution over the net allows independent bands to find niche audiences and it gives new talent an opportunity to make their voice heard. With so many different podcasts, it can produce a lot of noise, but at the same time listeners have been good at figuring out what they like and aggregation services may soon replace the studios in determining who the Howard Sterns of the internet will be. This whole evolution has been remarkably exciting to watch, but I’ve resisted jumping in and realizing my long lost dream of broadcasting my voice to the world largely because the media still controls the rights to many of my favorite songs and to go out and try and get the copyright permissions of independent bands I enjoy is a daunting and unweidly task for an independent publisher.

If I wanted to do talk radio, podcasting would be a real solution, but my dream is to do a midnight to 2 am show featuring some of my favorite off the beaten path artists and songs. Instead of playing the same three songs by an artist I would delve into alternative tracks, b-sides and older albums that never got played becaue they weren’t with a major label. Because the studios have yet to figure out a way to make money by offering their music up to podcasters, it’s prevented me from wanting to start podcasting on my blog, but in the meantime alternatives have been developing.

One of these alternatives has been Pandora. Pandora has been one of my favorite sites for about six months now and while I know that I jumped on the bandwagon a little late, their algorithms continue to impress me as I’ve noticed that night after night after night the quality of what I hear gets more and more customized to my own unique tastes. At first I was a little frustrated because they would only let me skip so many songs an hour, but I’ve now come to the point where 95% of what plays on my personalized playlist sounds like pure gold to me. Since I don’t see the studios coming around and embracing citizen radio in the next few years I’ve decided to do the next best thing and to publish my personal Pandora radio stream so that all of my readers have an opportunity to take a look into my musical tastes and preferences. While you won’t hear me philosophizing about the deep issues that seem to come up between midnight and 2 AM and you won’t get to hear my own take on each song, you will be able to at least catch a glimpse of the sound that drives me. Therefore ladies and gentlemen I present to you, Davis Freeberg’s Midnight Hour. It may not be the same thing as having my own station, but it’s a good alternative and something that will continue to evolve as I use the service. I hope that you enjoy the stream as much as I’ve enjoyed creating it.

Posted in Music | No Comments »

Nothing Soft About Hard Times

August 29th, 2006 Davis

Nothing Soft About Hard TimesNothing Soft About Hard Times Hosted on Zooomr

Posted in Photos | No Comments »

Sports Fans Need TiVo To Help Save Themselves From Too Much Beer

August 29th, 2006 Davis

One of the things that I’ve noticed about TiVo is that if you want to record a sporting event, it takes a pretty serious commitment. Whether it’s the four hours that many games can stretch into or the extra hour to an hour and a half you need to pad for overtime, sporting events take up a big chunk of your PVR space. Early on, TiVo recognized the importance of letting sports fans pad for overtime, but they never gave you the option of telling it to start recording a program later. The reason why I’d like to see this functionality is that I love sports, but only have a limited amount of time to spend watching them. With two tuners and HDTV storage issues, Sunday football has turned into an intense challenge to see all of the games before running out of storage capacity or before passing out from too much consumption of beer 8O While I love football, with six to seven games a week going 3 - 4 hours a piece (not counting DirecTV subscribers), I simply don’t have the time or storage capabilities to see every game, yet each season I want to see as many teams play as possible. In some ways this is a good problem to have, but I hate having to choose each week and if I happen to need to take a day or two off from TV, it’s easy to blow through my other previously saved programming in an attempt to record each game.

If TiVo could create a setting for sports fans like myself who really only want to catch the very end of each game, it would be a welcome improvement to their software. This would be especially helpful during the baseball season when teams play an greedy insane number of games. In the past I’ve set my TiVo Wishlists to record just one Giant’s game at a time and have then skipped to the last three innings. If it’s a close game, I watch it and enjoy the tension that a good contest brings, but if it’s a blowout, I fast forward to the end, check out the highlights and know that I didn’t miss much, but with this feature I could record the last four Giants games and catch up on the results at my own leisure with the same storage capacity that it takes to record one game.

Now I’ve run this idea by some of my sports friends and they think it’s a terrible idea because they seem to feel that I’m “corrupting” the natural beauty of a game by not being die hard and watching it from start to finish. I really see it another way. By being able to effectively tell TiVo that I only want it to record the last 30 minutes of a game (and of course the extra 30 - 60 minute buffer), I’m able to watch more games and see more of the players in a more crucial setting then what the 1st half of a game provides. It may not respect the purity of the game, but if I really care about a team, I’ll take the time to watch the whole thing, but on the other hand, if I have the option to record only the fourth quarter of basketball games, I might actually watch more teams then just the Lakers (Go Lakers!) In the past, I’ve resorted to recording the whole game at basic quality and have then fast forwarded to the end, but with the series 3 coming out and with HDTV changing the experience of sports, I think that this would be a really beneficial feature for TiVo users to have access to. By letting me only record just the last hour, I can in effect watch four games (albeit abbreviated ones) in the same time that it takes me to watch one game now. With the start of the football season, I’m begging you TiVo, please add this feature, my liver will thank you.

Posted in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, TiVo | 7 Comments »

If Hawk Could Fly

August 28th, 2006 Davis

If Hawk Could FlyIf Hawk Could Fly Hosted on Zooomr

Posted in Photos | No Comments »