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I was really excited when Tivo showed me an ad for a new feature called Tivo Mobile. What would it be? Would it be like Sling? Would I be able to watch my Tivo recordings on my mobile phone?

No. Tivo Mobile is just a way to schedule recordings from a mobile phone. Only Verizon customers can do it, too. Being a Sprint subscriber, I won’t be able to use it, but Tivo Mobile is exclusive to Verizon for only six months. After that, it will go to other carriers, but there’s no announcements on those deals.

To me Tivo Mobile is unnecessary. Why is Tivo building out features that no one really is asking for, yet is taking a long time to make basic changes to its UI or a lower priced HD box?

It’s not clear from reading Tivo’s website that shows you choose to record via Tivo Mobile will be programmed immediately, and not hours later. After all, if you’re going to program shows on your mobile phone, it probably means you want something recorded very soon. Hopefully, it can schedule shows immediately, or within an hour, at least.

Also, customers need to use phones that support the Tivo application, so if you have an older phone, you may be out of luck anyway. (Verizon has a list of phones that will work with Tivo Mobile.)

Word is that Tivo Mobile will cost Verizon customers $5 a month. That’s on top of the monthly Tivo fee of about $20. I’d love to know how many users actually sign up and download the Tivo phone application when it becomes available.

Tivo Mobile is a big bust. Do we really need to use a mobile phone to schedule a TV recording? Shouldn’t we be able to wait until we get home or are at a computer, where it’s far easier to search and use the newly re-designed online scheduler.

Oh and calling the new service “Tivo Mobile” when all it does is schedule recordings is rather deceptive.

[Via Tivo Website, Engadget]

In response to market and customer demand, Tivo announced a new lower-priced HD DVR TiVo that will sell for $299 rather than the Series 3 which retails for $799.

Along with the lower price, the new HD Tivo comes with a 160GB hard drive which is a lot smaller than the 250GB of the Series 3. The new Tivo HD can store just 20 hours of HD or 180 hours of standard definition TV. Even with 250GB, the Series 3 only can manage 32 hours of HD content. I need more storage!

Twenty hours of content isn’t much. Frankly, that’s still not enough for me to switch to an HD Tivo. I currently own a 180 hour Series 2 dual tuner and don’t own an HD TV set so I’m not in a hurry to switch. But once I switch to HD, I would probably still choose Comcast’s HD DVR over the new HD Tivo. I can’t imagine going from 180 hours to 20 and not affecting my TV viewing and recording experience. I may even decide to pay $799 for the Series 3.

Having just 20 hours of content isn’t a bad trade off however, since you can install a larger hard drive that you buy separately. Sure it means opening and tinkering with your new Tivo, but it’s not too difficult and just a little harder than installing a new hard drive on your PC.

Like the Series 3, the new HD Tivo also has dual tuners, and can do many of the same things as a regular Series 2 or 3 DVRs such as photos, music, TV and movie downloads via Amazon Unbox, TivoCast and more.

The HD Tivo comes with support for CableCARDs, as well as HDMI but it doesn’t come with a nicely brushed metal box, front panel display or a back-lit remote control. It also doesn’t support satellite programming at this time.

A major downside is that TiVoToGo and multi-room viewing are not available on the new TiVo HD although Tivo said that a version will be made available in the future.

Clearly, Tivo is going after the people who are currently opting to go with their cable’s HD DVR and don’t a small hard drive. A Series 3 Tivo is still the dream machine for those serious about HD and getting the full Tivo experience. In fact, Tivo’s FAQ says that Tivo HD is “designed as a universal cable box replacement that works seamlessly with any cable provider…” It’s made for people that have HD and want their Tivo at a lower cost.

Tivo is accepting pre-orders today with boxes shipping in early August. After August, you can find Tivo HD at your local retailer as well.

Update: If 20 hours or even 32 hours of HD content isn’t enough for your Tivo, why not buy a Tivo from Weaknees? They do the hard work of adding a bigger hard drive, so you can choose from a 65 hour Series 3 Tivo for $699, or a 144 hour Tivo for $1,049.

Just a housekeeping item that I neglected to mention.

In May, I was quoted in a Baltimore Sun article about American Idol and the season finale. You may recall, that’s where the final minutes of Idol was cut by Tivo because the live show ran long.

 

You can read the article over there, and read my post here on DVR Bulletin about what happened.

All I can say is, duh! Finally, Amazon and Tivo give us what they should have offered when they first unveiled Amazon Unbox on TiVo: The ability to rent or purchase shows directly from your Tivo rather than having to go to your computer.

In order to activate this, you need to provide a five digit PIN at Amazon.com which you’ll need to enter when you order Unbox video from your Tivo. I haven’t tried this yet,

I did try the old Unbox on Tivo and found it to be working well. But I haven’t rented another movie since I first tried out the service 2 months ago. I’ve chosen NetFlix and On-Demand video from Comcast, my cable provider, when I want to watch movies.

I think my biggest problem with Unbox on Tivo is not remembering it exists. It’s not compelling on its own and  it’s not the first thing I think of when I sit down with my Tivo.

The other problem is content–it’s really hard to find stuff you want to watch. What about the long tail content theory? When will Unbox have more content available?

Because I’m an avid watcher of 24, I didn’t see the entire first season of Heroes. So I tried searching for it on Amazon Unbox and had trouble finding anything useful in the search results. First, it was confusing because I didn’t realize I had to select Unbox Video Downloads in the search drop down. So my search found everything with the word “Heroes” in it. Not very useful.

Next, I typed in “Heroes Unbox” in the search box and got closer. I found TV shows like Spiderman and Greatest American Hero. Oh well. Apparently I can’t get Heroes via Unbox.  Performing a broader search, I discovered that season 1 of Heroes won’t be out on DVD until August 28th.

But why can’t NBC offer it online first? I tried watching the first episode of Heroes on NBC.com, but I really don’t have the patience to go there and watch it while it streams to my computer. Plus I’d rather watch it on my TV.

Unbox seems convenient but it’s pretty complicated to find Unbox content on Tivo. You need to go to TiVo Central then select “Find Programs” and “Download TV & Movies” before you get to the “Amazon Unbox” option. Overall, I found that Unbox on Tivo seems like it’s crudely bandaged into the Tivo interface rather than eloquently integrated.

Maybe they should offer some kind of subscription service, where I can download certain genres, all new releases or movies with certain artists. Having shows ready to watch and appearing in my Now Playing folder, for example, would definitely motivate me to try it out. What do you think?

I’ve been having a problem with my Tivo and cable box that I couldn’t fix.

For about four to five months, my Comcast cable connection was spotty. A few choice channels, like TMC, would have so much pixelation that I couldn’t watch anything on that channel. It was very disappointing when Tivo recorded a classic Turner Classic Movie, and discovered that it didn’t record due to pixelation.

Even worse, the problem affected the On-Demand channels, which meant I couldn’t watch any pay per view events or movies. And as a subscriber to Howard Stern’s TV channel, that meant I was paying $9.99 a month without being able to watch the latest shenanigans by the Stern show. It was a miserable few months.

I tried a number of different things to troubleshoot the problem. I completely disconnected my cable splitter and the Tivo Series 2 box and decided to try just Comcast’s HD DVR cable box.

To my surprise, it worked! All the channels came in perfectly, including On-Demand and Howard TV. Not pixelation. No bad recordings. Unfortunately, my Tivo wasn’t connected, but at least I could use Comcast’s DVR. But it just wasn’t the same. I wanted to use the Tivo.

Initially, I thought the problem was the cable splitter that Tivo Series 2 boxes come with. So I bought a new one, tried it out and realized that the pixelation problem persisted.

I came to the conclusion that there was a problem with the quality of the cable connection. I spent some time calling Comcast tech support and I did the usual things, like resetting the box and having them shoot a new signal. They saw no problems on their end, so I figured it must be on my end. I wasn’t prepared to have Comcast come out and test the signal in my house yet.

Instead I went to Radio Shack. A few things caught my eye. One of them was something called the “Cable TV Amplifier”.

I asked the Radio Shack guy questions and he obviously had no idea how to help me. He just grabbed a few of the packages I looked at, muttered a few things then went off to help someone else.

I decided to buy Radio Shack’s 1 to 4 Bi-Directional Cable TV Amplifier (15-2506) for about $49.99. I was a bit skeptical, but I knew that Radio Shack had a liberal 30-day return policy.

The Amplifier was a step up from a regular cable splitter since it was capable of boosting cable signals by up to 8 dB according to the package. Ok, I had no idea what that meant, but I was hopeful. The Amplifier also came with AC power, which fueled my hope even further.

I took home the Amplifier, left it on a table for about three weeks then decided to connect it one night.

I simply connected the cable in line to the cable in of the Amplifier, then connected the Tivo and the DVR to two of the Amplifier’s out signals. Essentially, I replaced a normal cable splitter with the Amplifier.

And it worked perfectly! The big test was Comcast’s On-Demand titles, so I tried to watch a free movie and it worked perfectly. No pixelation at all.

Next I tried to watch a Howard TV show and saw that there was still some pixelation. But the Amplifier comes with a little knob that I turn to boost the signal strength. So I left the TV on and turned the knob until…viola! Howard TV was coming in perfectly for the first time in months.

I was ecstatic. Radio Shack saved my life! At least in terms of watching TV.

Essentially, I boosted the cable strength enough and reduced signal loss that was coming through, most likely because I had a long cable run. (I also use Comcast cable for my Internet and it stretches into my home office.)

So my suggestion to anyone having problems with their cable or Tivo: Try out these cable TV amplifiers. Odds are, your cable signal strength is low and it can be fixed for about $50.

Please comment and let me know if you have a problem like this and if an amplifier has helped you.

[tags] Radio Shack, Cable TV Amplifier, Cable, Comcast, Tivo, DVR [/tags]