TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator and a leader in advertising solutions and television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky has purchased a subscription to the TiVo Stop||Watch ratings service. CP+B is one of the industry’s most influential agencies with an impressive roster of global clients and popular ad campaigns including Burger King and Volkswagen.

Using the TiVo Stop||Watch ratings service, a comprehensive second-by-second program and commercial ratings research product, CP+B now has the means to access a broad database on audience viewing behavior, and a unique ability to track specific commercial viewership, in both Live and Timeshifted viewing context.

“In this highly competitive industry, it is imperative that we are able to identify new trends and recognize which commercials pique viewer interest, in which programming, and at what point in the programming,” said Jim Poh, Crispin Porter + Bogusky. “TiVo Stop||Watch ratings service provides invaluable information that enables us to better understand DVR viewing behavior, timeshifting, and fast-forwarding and how they impact commercial ratings. Having the ability to gauge what viewers are watching, or not watching, on a second-by-second basis is invaluable in a changing media landscape. This service will undoubtedly provide insight into the future of TV viewing and give us a better way to track our schedules with more immediacy, ultimately, delivering better results for our clients.” Mr. Poh noted that nearly 20 percent of all homes already have DVRs and if an agency is unable to understand viewers watching television this way they are going to be left behind by the competition.

More in the complete press release.

Sports Business Journal is reporting that Sling Media and the NFL are close to a deal to include NFL content in the upcoming Clip+Sling service - at least “according to well-placed industry sources”. Sling and the NFL refused to comment. If the deal is true it would be similar to the earlier deal announced with the NFL.

Man, TiVo is on a roll. Director of TiVoCast Operations, E. Stephen Mack, just announced another addition to TiVoCast: JETSET. JETSET is about Internet pop culture, targeting young adults.

Subscribe on your TiVo under TiVo Central -> Find Programs -> Download TV & Movies or sign up via the TiVoCast website.

I checked out the most recent episode on their site. Not really my thing, maybe I’m just too old. But it did make me wonder - is there any video blog from the past week or so that is not being sponsored by the Jet Li / Jason Statham movie War? I swear every TiVoCast I’ve watched lately has been sponsored by that movie. (Which I saw on Sunday - not great, but not bad. Standard action movie fare. I also saw Stardust on Sunday - and that I highly recommend. The closest thing I can compare it to is The Princess Bride - but not quite. I saw it mainly because Neil Gaiman wrote it, but I’m glad I did. OK, that’s a tangent…)

Well, the September 1 shut down of Zap2it Labs is almost here, ending the availability of free guide data for users of MythTV, GB-PVR, and other software.

As posted previously, Schedules Direct is stepping in with a subscription service to fill the on Saturday, the 25th, Schedules Direct went ‘live’ with their data service. You can sign up now for their service. Pricing is $15 for 3 months of data. They expect to lower prices based on subscription levels once the initial period is up, so there is no ongoing subscription option yet. There is a list of Approved Applications that can use data from Schedules Direct. Schedules Direct is a non-profit group run by members of the Open Source community.

Also, on Friday, August 24th, a small update to MythTV, 0.20.2, was released. One of the changes in this update was the addition of native support for Schedules Direct as a data provider.

As a competitor to Schedules Direct, CTpvr, a commercial DVR software provider, is offering CT TV Listings. Introductory pricing is $3.50/month or $30 pre-paid for a year ($2.50/month). They currently have beta software available (up to beta version 6 right now) but it is only for Windows. So if you were running the Linux-based MythTV you’d need a Windows box to run their software, download the data, save it out as XML, then import it on Linux.

Frankly I think Schedules Direct is the more elegant solution, and they do plan to lower prices once they have a feel for subscribers. Remember, they have to license the data from Tribune Media Services, so they need to collect enough from subscribers to cover the licensing costs. The more subscribers, the less they need to change per-subscriber. And they have said that just how much the fees drop after the first three month period will depend on how many people subscribe during that time. CTpvr has the advantage of having a commercial product out on the market and they’re already licensing the data, so they don’t need to cover all of the costs just from this service.

I think there is a good chance that SD could end up in the same price ballpark once they get up and running and have enough subscribers, maybe even lower since they are non-profit.

This isn’t the kind of thing I normally post about, but it was just too cool to pass by. TechCrunch posted this video of a demonstration of ‘image re-targeting’ by Dr. Ariel Shamir and Dr. Shai Avidan. Re-targeting is basically scaling an image to better fit the medium, display, etc - that could be making it shorter, taller, wider, or narrower - or any combination of those. As opposed to standard cropping and direct resizing. This method uses some fairly clever techniques to add or remove pixels from the image to produce some impressive results. You’d be hard pressed to tell the images had been manipulated. The examples toward the end of the video are especially impressive.

I picked this up from ZatzNotFunny.

I’ve written about Switched Digital Video issues on TiVo before.

Well, it looks like past speculation has been spot on - the proposed solution is a USB 2.0 dongle that would connect to UDCPs (Unidirectional Digital Cable Products) and handle the communication with the cable system for SDV. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association detailed this solution in a comment filed with the FCC on August 24, 2007. (The cover page says *2006*, someone goofed.) There is an early mention on page 5:

(1) “Tuning Resolver:” For those CE manufacturers who believe that all that UDCPs need for success as a “good” product is the ability to receive switched linear cable channels, we are willing to develop and offer a small set-back tuning resolver (described in Part II) which, together with a firmware update in new UDCPs, can deliver two-way switched linear channels to one-way UDCPs.

The pertinent section begins on page 32 under the header “SWITCHED DIGITAL VIDEO MODIFICATIONS”.

II. SWITCHED DIGITAL VIDEO MODIFICATIONS

Switched Digital Video (”SDV”) is a highly efficient bandwidth management technology employed by cable operators to transmit digital channels to customers on an “as-needed” basis. AT&T’s U-Verse video service utilizes SDV to deliver all of its channels throughout its entire footprint. Cable systems traditionally transmitted all channels simultaneously to all customers, requiring the use of bandwidth for all channels even if few — or no — customers were watching a particular channel. By contrast, when a digital customer tunes to an SDV channel, the channel is only sent to those customers that wish to view it. As a result, when an SDV channel is not being viewed, bandwidth is available for other services.

SDV preserves bandwidth so that it can be used for deployment of innovative new services. The recovered bandwidth can be used to deliver more High Definition, Standard Definition and on-demand channels. Indeed, the recovered bandwidth is essential for cable operators to deal with the digital broadcast transition. The bandwidth can also be used to deliver faster “bonded” channels with dramatically improved “wideband” Internet speeds of 100 Mbps; digital voice service; and more interactive two-way services. SDV promotes broadband deployment and adoption and causes less disruption for consumers because SDV, like on-demand service, uses intelligent network management techniques to expand digital capacity without tearing up the streets to install additional fiber.

It is in everyone’s interest for cable operators to use their networks more efficiently, and SDV technology allows the cable operators to do so. Unfortunately, as designed, one-way UDCPs are not capable of accessing SDV channels: SDV channels require two-way device functionality. In order to address this issue, the cable industry has worked with CE companies such as TiVo to arrive at a solution that can provide two-way SDV channels to one-way digital cable products through an external device attachment to the UDCP.

Under this approach — arrived at through private discussions outside of regulatory compulsion — a small “Tuning Resolver” adapter could be made available to the UDCP consumer. With only firmware modifications to new UDCP products, and a USB 2.0 connection, properly equipped UDCPs could receive programming offered on SDV channels. Many currently deployed UDCPs, including TiVo DVRs, have one or more USB 2.0 connectors and might even be upgradeable with firmware for SDV.

Licensing and testing of this optional feature of a UDCP will be provided under the existing DFAST agreement in a manner similar to that submitted to the FCC by various signators (TiVo, Motorola, Digeo, Solekai, Digital Keystone, and ViXS) for the optional M-CARD interface for UDCPs.⁶⁸ That is, execution of a DFAST addendum, one-time verification testing, and self-verification thereafter.⁶⁹

⁶⁸ Nov. 13, 2006 joint submission in this docket by CableLabs, TiVo, Motorola, Solekai, Digeo, Digital Keystone and ViXs to implement Multi-stream CableCARDs for UDCPs.
⁶⁹ Some verification testing is required, but it is likely to be minimal. For SDV to operate properly, the host must operate correctly with the cable headend when an end user has tuned away from a switched channel, or when the channel has remained unchanged with no evidence of user involvement or interaction (i.e., the user leaves the TV on and tuned to the switched channel, but then walks away from the TV for some extended period of time). Here, the host should act in sync with the headend to notify the end user of the pending switch (for example, display “are you still watching?”) before the reclamation of the channel.

No word on when such a thing would be available, but it certainly sounds like a lot of work has been done for the NCTA to publicly discuss the implementation of the actual solution. This solution is focuses solely on SDV, which is an immediate concern as more cable networks roll it out, but theoretically this solution could be extended to other bi-directional services such as VOD and PPV in the future, if the cable industry and consumer electronics industry could agree on a communications standard for those services.

I was tipped off to the FCC filing by an article in Broadcast Newsroom.