TiVo’s Jim Denney Talks To NewTeeVee About YouTube On TiVo

Posted on Sunday, July 20, 2008 by MegaZone

NewTeeVee sat down with TiVo VP Jim Denney for a conversation about TiVo’s new YouTube feature.

Picked up from TiVo Blog.

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This Weekend’s Amazon Unbox Sale

Posted on Saturday, July 19, 2008 by MegaZone

This weekend Amazon Unbox has two deals on offer. First, there is a deal on ‘Classic Flicks’ for $0.99. That deal includes six titles: The Great Escape, In Cold Blood, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Brian’s Song, Lilies of the Field, and The Miracle Worker.

And secondly there is a ‘Rent a Hit for $1.99′ deal with three titles: Jumper, Fool’s Gold, and Rambo.

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TiVoCast Adds Nite Fite

Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008 by MegaZone

TiVo has added yet another channel to TiVoCast. This time it is Nite Fite, a new original animated series by Dan Meth and Mark Vitelli. You may recognize Dan Meth if you subscribe to the Channel Frederator TiVoCast channel, as he did the ‘Meth Minute 39′ series of shorts which recently ended. Nite Fite is also A Frederator Production, and it looks like characters from the Meth Minute may pop up as ‘callers’ into the program.

The format is somewhat of a spoof of political talk shows with ‘Penalty’, the liberal, and ‘Lloyd’, the conservative. As their site says:

Nite Fite! Penalty and Lloyd are unscripted, unrehearsed, and completely uninformed. Join them each week as they press hot-button issues and give America a dose of hard talk.

You can subscribe online or on your TiVo via Find Programs & Downloads -> Download TV, Movies, & Web Video -> Browse Other Videos -> All -> Nite Fite

TiVo is also teasing me (and others I’m sure). When I went unto Download TV, Movies, & Web Video I saw that I now have YouTube as a menu option. But if I select it all I get is:

Coming Soon

YouTube is coming to TiVo! Soon, you will be able to browse, search, and watch YouTube videos on your TiVo DVR. Check back here on August 1st, 2008!

My TiVo still has 9.3a, no 9.4 yet. So it looks like they’ve updated the HME broadband video application but you have to wait for 9.4 to use it.

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TiVo Desktop 2.6.2 Released

Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008 by MegaZone

TiVo has released a minor update for TiVo Desktop on PCs, version 2.6.2. TiVo Desktop still requires the user to manually go into Add/Remove Programs and remove the old version before installing the new one. That’s really unbelievable, IMHO. Modern applications shouldn’t require that kind of user spelunking to update. For that matter, a consumer oriented application like TiVo Desktop really should have an ‘Update’ option within the application itself that would download and install the update – just like Firefox and numerous other applications do. Asking the average consumer to go into Add/Remove Programs is just ridiculous, they could at least include an Uninstall link in the program group menu. It just isn’t very easy and user friendly, which are normally TiVo’s hallmarks. I’m a complete geek and can’t remember the last time an application, other than TiVo Desktop, made me manually remove the old version first. I’m sure it has happened, just not often. (I usually run into it with betas and trial software.)

Anyway, nothing major in this release, it is basically a bug fix and performance release. I’ll have to see if it helps with the issues I’ve been having with 2.6.1. According to a post at TiVoCommunity:

This version has the following improvements in TiVo Desktop:

*Improved Reliability of transfers of large recordings to the DVR.
*Reduced memory usage when transferring recordings from the DVR.

For Plus:
*Improved communications with TiVo when linking to TiVo account and handling web video content.
*Improved handling of web video content when pausing or shutting down TiVo server.

Picked up from TiVo Blog.

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Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 Deluxe Suite Only $48.99 And Popcorn 3 Just $19.99 At Buy.com

Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008 by MegaZone

Roxio Easy Media Creator is only commercial video editing tool for the PC officially listed as compatible with TiVoToGo files. Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 Suite has an MSRP of $99.99, currently $79.99 with a $20 rebate. But Buy.com is selling Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 Deluxe Suite for just $48.99 after a $30 rebate. The Deluxe Suite has an MSRP of $129.99, so that’s over 62% off MSRP! What makes it ‘Deluxe’, and why the higher MSRP? Because the Deluxe Suite is the full standard Suite plus a Dazzle USB video capture device. So you can buy Easy Media Creator 10 Deluxe Suite for $78.99, turn in the $30 rebate, and have it for just $48.99 – less than the standard, non-Deluxe, Suite. Good deal.

And for the Mac users, Roxio Popcorn 3 is one of the two officially endorsed packages for Mac (the other is Roxio Toast 9, of course). The MSRP is $49.99, but Buy.com is selling it for $29.99 with a $10 rebate – just $19.99.

The deals are only good through 7/20.

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