JB Hi-Fi CEO Richard Uechtritz had repeatedly stated that he wasn’t sure if his stores would pick up the Australian TiVo or not once the Harvey Norman exclusivity period had lapsed. But it seems that he’s decided it is worth carrying as they head into the holiday shopping season.

“Australian consumers today are quite savvy and willing to invest in digital devices that will stay relevant over time as well as bring ongoing services and benefits,” said Uechtritz. “We believe the TiVo media device will achieve this.”

The article in Current also mentions that “Clive Anthony’s store will also stock TiVo.” So now that’s Harvey Norman, Dick Smith, Clive Anthony’s, and JB Hi Fi. (And, seriously, what’s up with the men’s names for electronics stores?)

Smarthouse reports that Seven Network is ready to begin offering the 500GB eSATA add-on drive for the Australian TiVo. The description given in their report seems to imply that it may be more locked down than in the US:

“The storage device will be exclusive to the TiVo and will record HD Television. Consumers will not be able to attach the device to other computers or recorders. The TiVo software will automatically see the device and record to it when the storage built into the device is full”.

In the US, of course, it is a standard Western Digital 500GB eSATA My DVR Expander, and the same drive works with Scientific Atlanta cable DVRs as well as with any PC that supports eSATA. Now, this could simply be the ‘Seven Media insider’ who was talking to Smarthouse not knowing that they were talking about. It is true that once you attach a drive to the TiVo it is formatted for the TiVo and you cannot them connect it to another device without reformatting it. But eSATA is eSATA and the drive can be reformatted and reused. I tend to suspect that will actually be the case in Australia too.

Smarthouse also says Seven is set to roll out the TiVo to other retailers, now that Harvey Norman’s three month exclusive is up, including retailer Dick Smith. (What is it with Australian retailers and guys names?) Retailer JB Hi Fi CEO Richard Uechtritz says they still haven’t decided if they will stock TiVo.

Interestingly this story comes just one day after Smarthouse posted a rumor mongering story entitled “Is Seven Media Set To Dump Tivo?” In that story they claimed that ‘Seven Media insiders’ told them that sales through Harvey Norman failed to hit targets and that they were now ‘reviewing their options’. They also said it was “slammed by reviewers.” And pulled this bit from the Australian PC Magazine:

PC Magazine wrote “unlike its US counterpart, the Aussie TiVo is a crippled box. Shipping with a 160GB HD, the TiVo allows you to record up to a pathetic 32 hours of HD or 62 of SD television.

Having personally read a lot of reviews of the Australian TiVo, I have to wonder about the agenda behind this particular Smarthouse article. The reviews of the Australian TiVo have been overwhelmingly positive. Yes, there are issues, and probably the primary one is the hard drive size. But APC was also off base saying it was ‘crippled’ compared to the US box - it has the same 160GB drive. It has lacked the option for eSATA expansion available in the US, but, as above, that’s coming. And calling 32 hours of HD ‘pathetic’? A wee bit of hyperbole. That’s more recording time than the original TiVo models had at all. And more than the TiVo HD has in the US (we tend to have higher bitrates, apparently.) And most users are happy with it. I remember reading that APC ‘review’ when it first appeared, particularly because it was probably the single harshest review of the lot and the only one that I recall being wholly negative. It seemed like the author started out looking for reasons to slam the TiVo. It read more like a rant than a review.

Smarthouse goes on to say “A key problem for Seven Media is content and the emergence of IPTV which will allow consumers to download movies and other content to a HD TV screen.” Yet the author doesn’t say why this is a problem. This is odd, especially since Seven Network has stated that this is specifically not a problem, quite the opposite, since the TiVo will also server as their IPTV gateway into the home. It struck me as very strange that the author would lay this out as a problem with nothing to support the argument when Seven’s stated plans for TiVo include broadband content delivery and IPTV features.

Smarthouse then goes on to talk about Nero’s LiquidTV and declares it a threat to Seven’s TiVo offering. But while they mention it goes on sale October 15th, they fail to mention that’s only in the US, Canada, and Mexico. And really, those who will opt for an HTPC are mostly a different market from those who will opt for an STB. LiquidTV | TiVo PC is no more a thread to Seven’s TiVo box than it is a threat to standalone TiVos in the US - basically none. And that, of course, hinges on some future launch of a version for Australia. The North American version won’t do any good as you need an EPG feed to use it.

The whole article just seemed like sensationalism without any real evidence to back it up, just rumors and unfounded speculation.

An article in today’s Australian IT which is mainly about high HDTV sales from retailer Harvey Norman and the boost from the Olympics contains a little tidbit about TiVo in Australia which has to put a smile on the faces of TiVo and Seven Network.

[Gerry Harvey] also revealed the TiVo digital recording device brought to Australia by the Seven Network had been a surprise hit.

Seven launched TiVo as a direct free-to-air counter to Foxtel’s IQ device and gave Harvey Norman exclusive rights to sell the product for the first six weeks.

Seven is supporting the TiVo with ads in high rotation during the Olympics.

“We have sold more than three times what I would have expected — and again, I think the Olympics have been a factor.

“I didn’t think TiVo would be a big seller. Sometimes you just never know.”

Selling more than three times that was expected sounds like good news to me. I’m looking forward to seeing some hard sales figures for TiVo in Australia eventually. I’ve seen various mentions in journals and blogs and the general reception from those buying them has been positive. The DVB-T platform seems to be working well, which gives some hope that TiVo will re-enter the UK market (where DVB-T is also used, commonly called Freeview) and also additional world markets where DVB-T is used.

Now that TiVo has officially launched in Australia, The Australian reports that Harvey Norman, the exclusive retailer, is happy with the launch. But the article also reveals something of more interest to their new customers, YouTube support will be added free of charge in early 2009:

But Joshua Danovitz, TiVo’s international general manager, said: “We’re going to make YouTube available free of charge from early next year.”

This is good news, as Seven Network has announced that they will be charging for additional updates, such as enabling TiVoToGo. This announcement indicates they won’t be nickel-and-diming the users for all new capabilities. And this isn’t the only feature coming soon, Danovitz also says that a movie and TV download service, similar to Amazon Unbox in the US, is coming and they’re “pushing very hard” to have it by December 2008.

Well, it is July 29th in Australia, and that means TiVo is official available. Of course, Harvey Norman started selling TiVo two weeks early so it isn’t as big a deal that the official date is here. Unfortunately it seems not all is well. Despite the lengthy development period and later than expected launch, iTWire reports that the online scheduling is not yet available, but that TiVo tells them it will be available by “the end of next week.” It is kind of hard to believe that, given all the time they had, they didn’t have it ready for launch and only need one more week.

While iTWire says of TiVo I think it’s the best choice for Australians who want a PVR that “just works”, they still have some issues with it. And the article counts down their top ten. I’ll take a shot at them.

10. No thumbnails on recordings list

Adam, the article’s author, had been using Windows Media Center so this is something he was used to there. Personally I don’t think it is that useful, the title of a show is more meaningful to me than a random thumbnail image from a recording.

9. Can’t use the onscreen display to flick through EPG

From the description he gives it sounds like PIP, watching one program with a PIP image of what’s on other channels while surfing the guide. I suppose if there is a free tuner and PIP it could be a nice thing to have. But it’d only work if a tuner was free, so it could be confusing for users if it works some of the time but not all of the time.

8. No picture in picture

See #9, I think you’d need this to do it. Since the newer TiVo units have two tuners it seems like it might be possible for TiVo to add PIP. It has certainly been something US users have requested too.

7. No warning against changing the channel when time shifting

While I don’t use Live TV, I fully understand the desire to have this. As long as TiVo flushes the existing buffer when switching channels it would be nice to have some warning if you’re behind in the buffer. One accidental channel change can ruin your day. People have been asking for this since the earliest days of TiVo.

6. Can’t limit a Season Pass to episodes screening at a particular time of day

This is something else US users have repeatedly requested. The most common examples are The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, which often have bad guide data and cause TiVo to record all five airings of the same episode. Users have wished for a way to tell TiVo to limit the Season Pass to, say, between 23:00 and 00:00. Sure, you can use manually recordings to work around this, but then you give up many of the advantages of a Season Pass - such as automatically handling conflicts, and doing the right thing when the guide data is correct.

5. Can’t check remaining hard drive space

The Free Space Indicator (FSI) is perhaps the most oft requested TiVo feature in the history of TiVo. Sure, I understand that TiVo’s philosophy of use is supposed to make the FSI unnecessary. But users increasingly expect it as nearly every other DVR on the market has one. And it is a natural thing to look for since legacy recording technologies such as VHS and DVD-R require the user to be aware of the remaining time. And no, there is no technical reason TiVo couldn’t do it. While bit rates can certainly vary, TiVo knows the maximum bitrates. The maximum bitrate is the ‘worst case scenario’, so TiVo can certainly say “There is at least X time remaining”. While I initially didn’t feel the FSI was a big deal, over time I’ve changed my opinion and now I really think TiVo should implement an FSI.

4. No 24 hour skip forward or back in the onscreen EPG

Well, this we know is part of the 9.4 update now rolling out in the US. So hopefully Australia will see this in a future update as well. (Incidentally I still have not received 9.4 on my Series3.)

3. EPG doesn’t indicate which programs are scheduled to be recorded

This is another feature long requested in the US. I don’t understand why TiVo doesn’t do this, it seems like an obvious UI feature. You’d expect to see some indication in the EPG of upcoming recordings, so it is hard to understand why user-friendly TiVo has never implemented this.

2. No ad skipping

He’s basically referring to 30 second skip, which we have in the US as a back door code. It seems the code has been removed from the Australian software, seemingly by Seven Network’s. Since TiVo has included this in all of their US software (even the Comcast software) it seems unlikely that they’d elect to remove it in Australia without Seven requesting it.

1. No streaming content from a computer

The Australian TiVo lacks the networking features found in the US units, such as TiVoToGo (transfers from TiVo), and the associated TiVoToComeBack (transfers to TiVo). The Australian units are expected to receive these features in a firmware update early next year, so this should be resolved then. Though TiVo’s media support is still lacking compared to other media extenders. Hopefully TiVo will expand the native media support to MPEG-4/H.264 and WMV/VC-1 in an update so that everything needn’t be transcoded to MPEG-2. (While 9.4 adds H.264 support for YouTube playback it remains to be seen if they’ll extend it to generic playback support.)

Although slated for retail availability on July 29th, Business Spectator is reporting that TiVo units are now available for purchase in Harvey Norman stores in at least three Australian states. Under the launch plans as announced, Harvey Norman was to start doing in-store TiVo demonstrations on July 17th, but not begin selling the units until July 29th. I think that makes more sense, myself. If you’re doing a demonstration and someone decides they want the product, you’re much more likely to make the sale there and then instead of telling them to come back at a later date. By then they may change their mind, lost interest, or just be distracted by some other shiny object. If they have the units available, it makes sense to strike while the iron is hot. And with the iPhone launch last week driving consumers into stores, it may be an opportunity to put TiVo into the hands of a few gadget freaks. So if you’re in Australia and you’ve been waiting for TiVo, it sounds like you may be able to get one now.

The new Harvey Norman “Your Technology Destination” catalog has several mentions of the Australian TiVo, including right on the cover. It shows up on Page 3, Page 5, Page 7, Page 8, Page 10, Page 11, Page 12, and it has a full page to itself on Page 17. Do you think they’re pushing it enough? They missed a few pages. (Let me know if I missed any.)

TiVo Blog uncovered a 30-second TV spot for TiVo that Harvey Norman is airing in Australia:

I was checking for this repeatedly yesterday, since Australia is across the date line, but the news hadn’t popped before I crashed for the night. Well, it hit while I was asleep and we finally have product, pricing, and availability details for TiVo in Australia.

While July 1st was the launch day, units will be available for retail purchase starting July 29th. The units will be sold at retail in Harvey Norman and Domayne stores (both owned by Harvey Norman) for AUD$699 with no monthly fee, as expected. It was previously reported that Harvey Normal will have a three month exclusive on the sale of TiVo in Australia. While consumers will not be able to purchase a unit in stores until July 29th, beginning July 17th Harvey Norman will be conducting in-store demos to prep the market for the retail launch. The TiVo will also feature in the next Harvey Norman catalog which will be landing in Australian mailboxes during the next week.

ISP Unwired, a Seven subsidiary, will provide distribution and support for both retail and online TiVo purchases. TiVo will launch with all of the standard DVR features found in the US - Season Passes, WishLists, KidZone, TiVo Suggestions, etc. The TiVo USB WiFi adapter will also be available for AUD$59 for customers who cannot use the built-in wired Ethernet connection.

What TiVo will not have in Australia, at least at launch, are most of TiVo’s networking features. Photo viewing, music playback, TiVoToGo (including transfers to PMPs like the iPod, etc), and others will be added later. As there is no monthly fee, it looks like Seven Network will be using these features as a revenue source, charging for the upgrade similar to how TiVo first introduced them as the ‘Home Media Option’. Pricing for the update has not been announced, but it has been referred to as ‘tens of dollars’, so it doesn’t sound like it will be that expensive. I think it could be possible that the costs would include TiVo Desktop Plus capabilities, which runs USD$24.95. It does sound like broadband downloads will not come at an additional fee, but since that’s a competitive advantage and a revenue stream in its own right it isn’t too surprising.

According to Seven’s press releases, they’ll begin rolling out the additional features soon after launch, to continue over the next year. Seven will reportedly be spending ‘millions’ during the Olympics, for which they hold the Australian broadcast rights, to promote the new TiVo service. The TiVo sold in Australia is based on the platform used by the TiVo HD in the US, and it supports analog and digital broadcasts. So it is ready for the growing number of digital (DVB-T) broadcasts in Australia. Like the TiVo HD, the Australian TiVo has dual tuners, which handle both standard- and high-definition, and a 160GB hard drive. It also has an eSATA port and Seven will reportedly begin selling a drive to expand the TiVo early next year. We’ll have to see if the port is actually enabled or not once consumers get their hands on the box, perhaps they’ll work with the 500GB Western Digital My DVR Expander drive used in the US.

According to Smarthouse:

“We are currently in discussions with several content providers and we have already built the backend structure that is needed to deliver content such as movies and content from third party providers. Our initial plan is to give consumers a significantly better recording and management experience of free to air TV and then follow this up with addition services”.
James Warburton said “While the service will be advertising free initially, we do plan to run banner advertising inside content going forward. For the consumer they only pay a one off fee of $699 and no ongoing subscription fees”.

Seven’s major competitor is the pay-TV service Foxtel, which offers their Foxtel iQ2 DVR. While the iQ2 is only AUD$200, AUD$500 less than TiVo, there is a monthly fee. The iQ2 costs AUD$10-15 on top of the standard Foxtel subscription (Foxtel is a Pay TV service), which runs AUD$37.95 up to AUD$105.95 a month, depending on the level of service. Since the TiVo records free-to-air broadcasts and has no monthly fee, it rapidly becomes the less expensive option.

Seven took the opportunity at launch to take a swipe at Foxtel. As reported via Smarthouse:

A senior Seven executive said “We will have no churn like Foxtel and we anticipate that from September onwards Foxtel will see massive churn as consumers switch to the free TiVo service”.

They took a number of other shots at Foxtel, getting some early jabs in at what will be their main competitor. Seven called attention to the 70% of the Australian TV marker which has “turned their back on Foxtel” and opted for free-to-air TV. And claiming that the 30% that have opted for Foxtel still spend half of their time watching FTA TV.

Seven Network Press Releases:
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