There’s an interesting discussion in the comments on a recent PVRblog post. Matt of PVRBlog noticed a comment in a New York Times profile of Jon Stewart and posted it:

The day begins with a morning meeting where material harvested from 15 TiVos and even more newspapers, magazines and Web sites is reviewed.

That sparked discussion and speculation that Jon was using ‘TiVo’ as a generic reference to some other DVR setup, but no, a former researcher on the show posted a comment and confirmed their setup.

Nope, it’s literally 15 rack-mounted TiVos of various models, many from the pre-Series 2 era. Some Philips boxes, some Sonys. And because there’s a limited number of remote codes, when a staffer operates one, he has to hold the remote directly against that box’s IR receiver so that the beam doesn’t hit any of the other boxes (i.e., so he’s not inadvertently controlling multiple boxes at once). No joke! It’s pretty primitive.

There’s a lot more in the comment, an interesting look behind the scenes of The Daily Show. Since they’re using old Series1 units, how do they get the clips on air?

When TiVo footage is needed for TDS that day (i.e., every day), the clips are dubbed off to Beta tape and brought to an editing bay. Yup, sneakernet. Sounds like a lot of work, right? It is. I wouldn’t be surprised if the show upgrades to a networked PVR system — especially with an imminent move to HD — but I don’t know what their plans are.

So the rack of TiVos may not be in place for long. It sounds like an opportunity for TiVo to supply them with a new HD-capable setup, based on the TiVo HD. I wonder if there is enough business to make it worthwhile for them to develop a customized version of the software with features designed to make it easier for commercial users.

The Daily Show isn’t the only major program using TiVo. An intern for Late Night with Conan O’Brien posted a comment at Boing Boing stating that they use three TiVos content.

I intern at Late Night with Conan O’Brien and am privileged enough to realize how a set-up like The Daily Shows is so mind-boggling. At Late Night we have three TiVo’s that are set-up to record every other late night talk show, several morning to afternoon shows and a few special events that happen now and again. Every morning we burn DVD copies of the previous day’s shows, a process that takes less then 2 hours, depending on the temperament of the recorders.

I picked that one up from CNET’s Crave.

At the end of May I mentioned that CNET’s Matthew Elliott had started using the Comcast TiVo software, and at the time he was having some issues with it. Well, he’s posted again in CNET’s Crave blog and he hasn’t been having a good experience. Comcast and TiVo still haven’t released the promised update for the poor performance. On top of that, Matthew suffered from a major recording gaffe which seems to be a bug in the software. And he’s experiencing frozen screens and other glitches. He’s starting to think about just going back to the standard Comcast DVR software and I can’t blame him based on what he’s experiencing. (Though I think he’d be better of just getting a TiVo HD.) TiVo and Comcast really need to get a fix out soon, they’ve been promising it for a long time now.

Ever since the Apple iPhone hit the market, people have been asking for a version of SlingPlayer Mobile for the platform. To date Sling has only expressed their desire to support the platform when it is possible to do so. But with the Apple WWDC kicking off this week, they’ve been showing off a bit of what they’ve been up to, and a number of blogs have coverage:
Engadget (video)
Gizmodo (video)
Zatz Not Funny (video)
PVR Wire @ TV Squad
Ars Technica
Macworld
NewTeeVee
Electronista
jkOnTheRun
The Mobile Gadgeteer
Crave
CrunchGear
AppleInsider
Mobility Today
Gizmos for Geeks
9 to 5 Mac
I4U News
Gear Diary
Download Squad
Unwired View
GottaBeMobile
Nerd Beach
Brighthand
Geek.com
SlingCommunity

And I’m sure there others that I haven’t spotted.

Dave Zatz posted this video to YouTube:

Note that this is a proof of concept, a technology demonstrator, and not the SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone that will eventually be released. This was an engineering project written for jail-broken iPhones to characterize the performance of the platform and ensure that Sling could deliver a high quality customer experience on the iPhone & iPod Touch platforms. This allowed Sling to gain experience with the platform while waiting for the SDK to be released. The official SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone will be written using the SDK and sold through the iTunes App store like other official iPhone/iPod Touch applications. At least that is currently the intent.

If you’re attending the Apple WWDC this week you can get a look at the proof of concept application first hand. Sling Media Product Manager Vicky Shum will be at the Starbucks at 120 4th Street, San Francisco (across from the Metreon) between 10:00 and 16:00 (10am and 4pm) on Monday, June 9th running demos.

Disclaimer: I am currently employed by Sling Media.