The Brisbane Times is reporting that Seven Media Group has overhauled senior management responsibilities in preparation for the launch of TiVo within the next eight weeks. As they report:

TiVo is on track to launch before the end of March, with user trials under way and set-top boxes likely to be stocked by chains such as Harvey Norman, Dick Smith and retailers that have existing reseller relationships with Unwired and Engin. Unwired is likely to become the operator running TiVo’s customer billing and service functions.

That’s not far off at all. I’d love to hear from anyone who is current in the Australia trials about how it is going and what you think of the service, and just which features are enabled, or missing. You can contact me directly if you’d like, or leave a comment.

According to High-Def Digest, National Geographic is abandoning their neutral stance, dropping HD DVD, and going Blu-ray exclusive for future releases in the ‘National Geographic Presents’ line. This isn’t too surprising, as National Geographic Presents is distributed by Warner, which is going Blu-ray exclusive. The move leaves BBC Home Video as the only Warner-distributed imprint to remain format neutral. Nat Geo’s first BD exclusive title will be Sharkwater, due to drop in April.

A press released from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) landed in my inbox today. It claims that, according to a new survey commissioned by NAB in January 2008, 79% of consumers are now aware of the looming Digital Television transition. Awareness is even higher amongst households that rely exclusively on OTA sources, with 83% awareness. These results reflect more than double the awareness of a January 2007 survey, which showed only 38% awareness of the DTV transition.

The complete release is below:
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Just last night I posted about Blu-ray.com reporting that, based on ‘inside sources’, Sonic would be dropping HD DVD from their Scenarist professional authoring tools to focus on Blu-ray. Well, this morning Sonic dropped a press release which makes it official. They will “conclude sales of its Scenarist® HD DVD authoring product line” to focus on Blu-ray authoring, including BD-Live content, as well as authoring content for digital distribution (read: downloads). Sonic will offer Scenarist HD DVD customers a special promotion to exchange them for the Scenarist BD version of the tools. For now there is no impact on their consumer authoring tools, such as Roxio.

A market leading company like Sonic walking away from the format certainly isn’t good news for HD DVD, especially on top of all the other hits they’ve been taking. This basically means Sonic doesn’t feel they’d be able to achieve a high enough return on investment to continue developing their HD DVD tools and they see more return from Blu-ray, so they’re shifting their resources appropriately.

The full press release is below:
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One of the downsides to the TiVo OCAP software being deployed by Comcast has been the lack of 30-second skip functionality. Standalone TiVos have the SPS30S back door, while the non-TiVo Comcast Motorola units also had a back door to enable skipping. But neither code worked with the TiVo OCAP software, and users were reduced to using fast forward.

Until now, that is. User ‘Chunky Monkey’ at AVS Forum posted the TiVo OCAP back door code:

Go to TiVo Recordings list and play back a recording.

Enter the following key sequence on the remote control:
Rewind
Slow
Fast Forward
Play
3
0
Advance

(The Advance key (aka skip-to-tick key) is the key that looks like ( ->| ) .)

The user will hear a chime sound to indicate that the 30-sec skip backdoor has been successfully enabled. The user can enter the same key sequence again to turn off the 30-sec skip backdoor.

Considering the obtuse nature of this code, and the fact that this is Chunky Monkey’s first, and so far only, post to AVS Forum, I suspect this is an insider leak. But, in any case, it is most welcome.

Chunky Monkey, whomever you are, I’m sure you have the gratitude of many Comcast TiVo users.

Thank you for the TiVo Rewards Referral, John.