TiVo’s Corporate Blog on TiVo Central Online

Posted on Thursday, March 9, 2006 by MegaZone

TiVo’s corporate blog has an entry that interviews Shannon and Jason from the TCO team.

It is a good entry overall, but being a geek with a huge TiVo RFE list, one thing popped out at me:
When will it get to point when it will show only channels that you get?
SHANNON & JASON: We’re working on it—next release.

Yay! That’s been a complaint with TCO since it first rolled out – that it was never aware of your personal lineup, just the generic lineup for your area. And I’m hoping that this is the gateway to more. I’ve said for years that TiVo should have an opt-in program to have your personal info uploaded, so you can see your Now Playing, To Do, etc, info via the website.

Jason also echoed a point I’ve made a few times:

JASON: One of the other things about TCO, is that developing stuff online incurs less cost than developing software for the DVR. The online team, everyone on the team from project managers to engineers, gets to have a lot of fun. We get to spearhead a lot of technology and we can test features online without the overhead of DVR software development. We are always working on new features and we can afford to take some risks and gambles.

Developing web-based applications isn’t as restricted as developing ‘on DVR’ applications. I used to wish that Teach TiVo would return to the TiVo – but a long time ago I realized that it’d be even better to have that kind of feature implemented on the web interface. Also additional ways to look at your recording schedules – calendar views, highlighting conflicts, etc – could all be done comparatively easily on the web. I’d love to see TiVo do more in this direction. (And I’d love to be on that team, but that’s something else. :-) )

About MegaZone

MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • dbldbl
  • mrmac14

    I wish they would create a “super” tivo desktop that would allow you to program your tivo from your computer, but with more advanced features such as a bar graph that would show what shows are on your to do list and allow you to rearrange recording without having to change season passes or move scheduled recording and season passes from one tivo to another just by click and drag from one list to another. I think it would be cool to also have a tivo “e-mail” system that would allow you to send suggestions and other stuff to other friends with tivos so that if you find a show that you know your friend will like you can send them a message through tivo that would give them information and let them scheduler a recording.

  • mhaithaca

    Once you accomplish that, it’s easy to do what I’ve asked for several times… the ability to transfer (via the web site was one suggestion) season passes and other prefs from one TiVo to another.

  • stile99

    MY list of channels not being available as opposed to my AREA’S list of channels is the one and only reason I do not use TCO. When I want to see a list of movies coming up in the next two weeks, I just simply don’t care about the 50 zillion movies on the 5 different HBOs, 4 different Cinemaxes, 3 different Showtimes, and a melange of other channels I don’t have and couldn’t possibly care less about.

  • dbldbl

    but being a geek with a huge TiVo RFE list

    er, am quite new to the TiVo shorthand terminology… so what’s an RFE list? and is it a good thing for it to be huge?

    *winces at asking a probable dumb question*

  • megazone

    It isn’t a TiVo term so much as an engineering/geek term – RFE is Request For Enhancement (or Request for Feature Enhancement, same thing). Basically lists of features for future releases of a product.

    It isn’t good or bad for it to be huge – just a list of ideas for new features. I started compiling mine back in 2002.