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.

Australian tabloid TV program “Today Tonight” ran a segment on TiVo last Friday.

It looks like the Australian press have been getting their TiVo review units, and the reviews are starting to appear – so far, so good. One example is the review from PC Authority which gives it five out of six stars. They also put together a quick FAQ.

CNET Australia also has a review up.

There’s been quite a lot of coverage of the TiVo launch down-under in the Australian press, which is good to see. All of that coverage should certainly help with consumer awareness. And the coverage has exposed few more tidbits of data.

Australian IT reports that Seven Network has imported “at least 20,000″ units for the launch later this month. There is one thing that isn’t clear from the coverage – if broadband is required or not. Some of the coverage implies broadband is required, period. But others make more since to me, such as Australian IT “consumers who buy TiVos must connect it to their broadband internet connection to be able to access the full array of services.” That sounds very much like the US where you can use the TiVo with a modem, but you miss out on all of the network-related features. An Amazon Unbox-like movie download service is also coming for Australia:

At this week’s TiVo launch, [TiVo Australia general manager Mark] Hughes said Seven would soon announce a similar arrangement to the Amazon movie service offered by TiVo in the US. “Before that we’ll be pushing some short-form video of maybe five to 10 minutes to the boxes.

‘But within six months, possibly a little longer, I would expect to be providing a movie download service as well.”

We also learned, through The Sydney Morning Herald, that Harvey Norman’s exclusivity period, earlier widely reported as three months (and as one month by a few sources) is actually six weeks. This was confirmed by Harvey Norman executive director, David Ackery. Harvey Norman is predicting that TiVo will expand the Australian DVR market by 50% within a year.

And they may be on to something. When the competition says TiVo has a good chance at selling at least 50,000 units in the next twelve months, that’s good news. Especially when the break-even point for Seven Network is below 50,000 units sold.

The Digital Products Group, which sells a number of different DVR models under the Beyonwiz brand, has seen its business with Harvey Norman crash in recent weeks because of its exclusive deal with TiVo, but its general manager, Jai Kemp, says he will still sell about 25,000 $800-plus DVRs in the next 12 months. He says a target of 50,000 for TiVo in a year is achievable, although 100,000 is not. Seven’s break-even point on TiVo is below 50,000 units.

“Fifty thousand is quite possible,” says Kemp. “They’ve got a lot of marketing dollars behind them and they can run TV commercials all night.”

And then there is an article from The Courier-Mail, which bucks the trend by being fairly negative on TiVo’s prospects. It is also interesting that the article also cites reports that JB Hi-Fi will not be stocking TiVo, even after Harvey Norman’s exclusivity period ends. That’s interesting because those reports were countermanded by additional comments from JB Hi-Fi before this article came out. And the article compares TiVo’s pricing to Foxtel’s iQ2, but leaves out the cost of the Foxtel subscription. But on closer inspection that isn’t too strange, since they’re owned by News Corp. News Corp. also happens to be part owner of Foxtel, the Australian pay TV service who’s iQ2 DVR will be TiVo’s primary competition. iTWire has done a great job of covering, and rebutting, the points raised in The Courier-Mail article, as well as adding some additional coverage.

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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Australian retailer Harvey Norman has confirmed a July 1st launch for TiVo in Australia, according to Current. It looks like Harvey Norman will have a three month exclusive on TiVo distribution, starting July 1st. The exclusivity arrangement was first broken by The Australian Financial Review, which reported that the release would be ‘mid-July’. However, Harvey Norman executive director, David Ackery, told Current that the launch date would be July 1. The exclusivity agreement will make them the only Australian source of TiVo for the Olympics, for which Seven Network has the Australian broadcast. The price is rumored to be AUD$700, though Ackery declined to confirm the rumors, saying that details will be released with the July 1st launch. The AFR also had some details on the deal between Seven Network and TiVo:

The original agreement required Seven to pay TiVo a fee for each subscriber it signed. Under the new deal, which was finalised in April, TiVo will be paid a royalty based on how many recorders are sold here.

TiVo’s main competition in Australia will be the Foxtel iQ2 DVR, which retails for AUD$200 and carries a monthly AUD$10 subscription fee. If the AUD$700 price and no monthly fee rumors for the TiVo are true, that would mean a 50 month break-even compared to the iQ2. Which the TiVo is being pitched as a premium product it remains to be seen how it will fare in the Australian market. AFR says Foxtel has a subscriber base of 1.4 million, 350,000 of which have picked up the original iQ DVR, and 15,000 which have picked up the newer iQ2.

I guess we’ll see in a week what all of the details are with regard to pricing and features.

EDIT: The Sydney Morning Herald has also picked up the story, and they have a few more details. One thing the AFR didn’t mention, 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. TiVo, on the other hand, will work with the free-to-air programs so there is no additional cost. That does make quite a big different in the break-even point between the two products.

According to the Herald Sun the long-awaited Australian launch of TiVo by Seven Network will come ‘next month’. This isn’t too surprising as Seven as repeatedly said they will launch TiVo service before the Olympics, to which they hold the Australian broadcast rights, and they do need to get the boxes to customers in advance of the broadcasts. On another forum I recently said that if they didn’t launch by mid-July, then it would be time to worry.

The Herald Sun predicts that the TiVo is expected to sell for around AUD$700, which is rather more than the AUD$500 predicted by the Sydney Morning Herald last month. However, both papers predict that there will be no monthly subscription fees. The Sun reports that final pricing and plans will be announced this week,