There is also a certificate update available for the older desktops to get them working again, but it is easier to just install the current desktop.

I know the codec refund was a rhetorical question, but I’m sure they won’t be.

The auto-folder support is really simple – anyone capable of installing TiVo Desktop is capable of following the wizard to monitor a folder. The hardest part would be knowing where the folders are for tools like iTunes. Users who are so non-technical as to not be able to do it are probably not looking to watch podcasts, I’d think. I don’t think my parents even know what podcasts are.

TiVo is limited in what they can do with the current hardware, so they’re doing what they can for the existing users. There isn’t really much more they can do as a DVR, there are only so many useful features. Adding access to more content is a big deal for non-technical users too.

But what if I already have legitimate codecs on my system? Unable to use them – gotta pay Tivo…

But how about this – is Tivo going to refund my $25 once they enable h.264 in my TivoHD? We all know it’s coming – and the need for that codec support wouldn’t be required for the majority of feeds at that time.

I’m aware of the auto folder support (forgot to mention that) – but this gets GREATLY away from the “Tivo experience”. It’s something that the rest of my family would NEVER be able to setup and use.

With these types of features, they really are trying to compete with AppleTV (which admittedly isn’t a perfect box either). Unfortunately, even with the $25 fee, they still can’t compare to the experience for podcasts or rentals.

Don’t get me wrong – I love my Tivos. And I like my AppleTV. But I’m somewhat tired of the features being developed only for the technical minority, and charging for them at that. Unless they really resume innovating in regards to mass-market features, I’m concerned that they’re never going to make the jump to profitability…

And it isn’t saving anything on TiVo’s bandwidth and storage bills – they don’t host the existing TiVoCast videos either. The partner sites host them, TiVo just includes them in the system. But it requires the partner sites to specially encode their videos in MPEG-2 just for TiVo. Imagine trying to get all webcasters to encode in MPEG-2 – not going to happen.

And I don’t know where you got the idea that you can only use the feeds they decide on, but that’s wrong. You can use the pre-selected feeds listed on the box, or you can point TD2.6 at any folder on your PC and it will automatically transcode and transfer any new videos that appear in those folders. I already have mine grabbing podcasts I subscribe to in iTunes and transferring them to my TiVo – and they’re not listed in TiVo’s default lineup.

And they can’t use open source codecs – the open source codecs are, frankly, illegal. The algorithms are patented – MPEG-2, MPEG-4/AVC, WMV/VC-1, etc, all have required licenses. The open source implementations violate the patents on the algorithms involved. The rights holders can’t do too much about it with the OS movement, but they could sue TiVo if they used them. Which is why you don’t see the OS versions of the codecs being used in commercial products.

Well, technically they could use the OS versions of the codecs – but they’d still have to pay the license fees on the patents anyway, or get sued.

Just because something has been implemented in OS doesn’t mean it is actually legal to use. It may be legal in some countries, where the technology isn’t patented, and not in others, where it is. Back in the day that’s why OS SSL implementations were written outside the US. The RSA algorithm, used in SSL, was patented in the US and usage required paying for a license. But it wasn’t protected in many other countries, so the community did their work there. Individuals could download the code and use it in the US – but technically it wasn’t legal to do so, and commercial products at the time charged for SSL support to cover the license. (For example, at the time Apache did not include SSL because of this – but there were commercial variants, like RavenSSL, which you could buy which did.)

Of course, they argue that the $25 goes to pay for the codecs. Why the heck aren’t they using open source projects for the transcoding instead? It’s not like they aren’t using open source throughout the Tivo software itself….