Best Buy Giving HD DVD Buyers $50 Gift Cards

Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 by MegaZone

According to The New York Times, Best Buy is giving those who purchased HD DVD players from them before February 23rd (the day Toshiba announced the end of the format) a $50 Best Buy gift card. The NYTimes summarizes the program nicely:

The Best Buy cards, which will not expire, will be sent automatically to most customers who purchased HD DVD hardware by February 23, when Toshiba announced that it was abandoning the format. Best Buy’s list includes those who belong to their rewards program, bought extended warranties, or purchased the machine on its Web site. Others need to show proof of purchase to get their cards.

Basically, if Best Buy knows who you are they’ll send you the card automatically. Otherwise you’re going to have to go in and claim it, with proof of purchase. Best Buy sold HD DVD players to over 200,000 customers, so if everyone eligible claims their card this could cost them over $10 million. But it is clearly a solid PR move to help those who might feel burned by picking the loser in the format war take a more favorable view of Best Buy. And, since the card is only good at Best Buy, it will help encourage them to come back in and buy more – perhaps a Blu-ray player.

Posted in Blu-ray/HD DVD | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Thank You David

Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 by MegaZone

David, thank you for the TiVo Rewards Referral.

If you’re activating a new TiVo, you still have until April 28th to donate the referral points. I’ll be using more for giveaways. In fact, I think I’ll do another one today.

Posted in TiVo | Tagged , | 1 Comment

TiVo Releases TiVo Desktop 2.6, Enables Web Video Support

Posted on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 by MegaZone

As I originally reported from CES TiVo Desktop 2.6 adds support for Web Video, if you purchase the TiVo Desktop Plus upgrade. And TiVo is making Desktop 2.6 for Windows available starting today. Since all TiVo units currently only support MPEG-2 video, this works by using TiVo Desktop Plus to transcode web video from whichever format is is distributed in (H..264, Quicktime, etc) into MPEG-2 and then transferring it to the TiVo. There are two ways to do this ‘native’ feeds and folder monitoring.

With the native feeds you can select one of the video feeds pre-selected by TiVo from the new interface on your TiVo. These feeds use the RSS client built into TiVo Desktop to download the videos. Unfortunately, only videos listed by TiVo can use the built-in RSS engine. There is no interface to add your own feeds. For unlisted feeds you need to use another client, such as iTunes. You then have TiVo Desktop monitor the download folder used by that external client. When a new video is downloaded into that folder TiVo Desktop will automatically transcode and transfer it. That does mean you can have TiVo Desktop monitor any folder to transcode and transfer – which could include a BitTorrent folder, etc.

Since this news just broke this morning, I’m working on a more detailed look at the software and hope to have my review up in the next day or two. Note that this functionality does require the purchase of TiVo Desktop Plus for $24.95, since that licenses the codecs needed for transcoding. And this is limited to Windows, while TiVo says:“TiVo continues to work with Roxio on delivering equivalent functionality on the Mac platform.”

There are other improvements in TiVo Desktop 2.6, such as the ability to publish multiple video folders for access from the TiVo. Unfortunately, and very disappointingly, the content of these folders is all lumped into the single group in the TiVo’s Now Playing List, so we’re still lacking folder support for PC content. Very frustrating. If you have a TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD, 2.6 will also provide higher quality transfers. HD content will be transcoded as 720p video. AC3 audio will be preserved. And it has better handling of different aspect ratios. And even SD video gets a higher bit rate.

Certainly welcome additional functionality overall. Still, transcoding through the PC is a stop-gap for the Series3 & TiVo HD until native H.264 and WMV/VC-1 decoding is supported. That will allow those units to download the majority of web videos directly. I’ll have more to say once I’ve had time to do my full write up.

In the mean time, here’s TiVo’s press release for Desktop 2.6:
Continue reading →

Posted in PC, Press Release, TiVo | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Roxio Introduces Toast 9 Titanium

Posted on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 by MegaZone

Roxio has rolled out their latest update to their flagship Mac product, Toast 9 Titanium. This new version will set you back $99.99 for new users, or $79.99 as an upgrade for existing users. Toast 9 offers full support for high-definition video, and the ability to burn Blu-ray Discs, via a $19.99 HD/BD plug-in. But if you purchase Toast 9 through April 13, you get the plug-in for free.

Toast 9 also introduces Roxio Streamer, which allows you to stream your video to any Internet connected PC or Mac, as well as connected devices such as the iPhone or iPod Touch. Kind of like having a Slingbox for your Mac videos. It also offers the ability to capture streaming audio, such as recording Internet radio, with automatic tagging of the recordings.

What remains to be seen is if Toast 9 Titanium resolves the TiVoToGo issues users of Toast 8 have been experiencing. I don’t have a Mac, so I can’t comment on that. But if anyone out there has been having issues with Toast 8 and you decide to upgrade to Toast 9, leave a comment either way. For that matter, anyone who upgrades to Toast 9, let us know what you think. Is it worth it?

Toast 9 Titanium -- Download Now

Roxio’s press release:
Continue reading →

Posted in Apple, Blu-ray/HD DVD, Press Release, TiVo | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Dish Network Asks Appeals Court To Rehear TiVo Patent Case

Posted on Monday, March 17, 2008 by MegaZone

Dish Network has petitioned the federal appeals court to rehear their appeal in the TiVo patent dispute. They’re claiming an expert witness who testified for TiVo contradicted himself, and therefore the software infringement verdict was not“supported by substantial evidence.” This doesn’t mean anything just yet, the court court deny the petition, or they could agree to rehear the case. And, if they do, it doesn’t mean the results will change. The saga just continues to drag out. If TiVo manages to prevail again, it will mean a higher reward from Dish as interest continues to accrue.

Posted in Dish Network, TiVo | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments