TiVo Desktop 2.6.1 has been released - and anyone running 2.6 will want to grab it. TiVoPony announced the release on TiVoCommunity:

It has improved recovery from interrupted transfers between the PC and DVR, but it also provides an updated Windows Certificate for TiVo Desktop. The certificate used in prior versions of TiVo Desktop is about to expire, so you’ll want to get 2.6.1. Without this certificate update it will not be possible to manually transfer programs from your PC to your TiVo DVR (all other Desktop functionality should continue to work fine however).

I’m glad to hear about the improved recovery, because this has been a major issue for me with TiVo Desktop 2.6 and it was one of the major issues I had with 2.6 while writing my review (which I will finish and post soon, I promise!). Hopefully 2.6.1 will eliminate at least this one issue.

You can download TiVo Desktop 2.6.1 here.

Now, if you’re running an older version of TiVo Desktop and you can’t, or won’t, upgrade to 2.6.1, you still need to update the certificate. There is a certificate updater under the first step on this page.

DVRupgrade is giving away a VUDU box at TiVoCommunity. Anyone can enter, see the details in DVRupgrade’s latest newsletter and at TiVoCommunity. Any one can enter, but you must do so by April 13, 2008.

Back in February Bright House cable decided to pull HD channels from their CableCARD customers. This, understandably, created a backlash of complaints from users, as there wasn’t a good reason for the loss of the channels. Bright House did it to ‘prepare’ for deployment of SDV, but that isn’t happening until late in the year. By that time the Tuning Resolver should be available for TiVo users.

This time it looks like the complaints paid off, not only is Bright House restoring the HD channels they took away, but they’re also giving CableCARD customers access to the new HD channels added on February 1st, as well as the digital SD History and Biography channels. Bright House has started emailing those who complained:

Dear [Customer],

Thank you for getting in touch with us regarding our cable programming services. This letter is to advise you that Bright House Networks will activate for your cable service the following channels on an interim basis at no additional charge:

TBS HD Discovery HD
History HD Animal Planet HD
Food HD National Geographic HD
HGTV HD History International (SD)
Biography (SD)

When interactive Switched Digital Video (SDV), or other interactive advanced delivery technologies are deployed, Bright House Networks may need to reclaim these and other channels to create those platforms We expect the first of these new technologies, interactive Switched Digital Video to be available in our service area later this year. You will be notified thirty days in advance of this change.

If you have TiVo equipment, Bright House Networks fully supports the cable industry and TiVo initiative to design an external adapter to support Interactive Switched Digital Video. This external adapter will enable TiVo digital video recorders that use CableCards to access digital cable channels without using a set top box. Based on our understanding, the external adapter will be designed to attach to TiVo Series 3 HD DVRs. Once the external adapter is designed and made available, customers with this equipment will be able to directly access digital channels offered by Bright House Networks.

Thank you for being a Bright House Networks customer; we appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

Sherrie Wrenchey
Customer Care Quality Manager
Bright House Networks Central Florida

I give Bright House credit for listening to their customers and reversing their decision to benefit their CableCARD customers until they really need the bandwidth and need to deploy SDV, by which time the Tuning Resolver should offer a more permanent solution for users.

Picked up from EngadgetHD.

As I reported earlier, TiVo is ending the TiVo Rewards program. I first signed up for TiVo Rewards in November, 2004, but I didn’t really make a big deal out of it. I didn’t yet have the site. I was very active in many TiVo lists, groups, communities, etc, but I didn’t really put my referral address out there much. So by September 2006 I’d only accumulated seven referrals, or 35,000 points, and I redeemed them for product lifetime on a new TiVo at that time. (Yes, the good old days when lifetime was available and just 35,000 points.) That month also happened to be the month the TiVo Series3 shipped, and my review of the same came out. To provide a home for the review I created the first real version of the site, and I included my referral address. That’s when I really started using the referral program.

For the past year and a half I have received many referrals from readers, for which I am very grateful. I don’t recommend TiVo for the rewards, but I’d be lying to say it isn’t nice to get something by way of thanks. I’ve been recommending TiVo since early 2002, when I got my first box, long before there was a TiVo Rewards program. And the termination of the program won’t change that either. I recommend TiVo because I genuinely feel it is a good product and worthy of my recommendation. TiVo Rewards was nice while it lasted, but I always viewed it as a fringe benefit. I’ll miss it, but I’m grateful for the time it was available and there are no hard feelings on my part.

But, since the announcement, I’ve seen posts from upset people at TiVoCommunity, like this winner:

Is TiVo offering us anything in compensation for removing this program? I assume not and hope to find a lawyer who would like a class action suit. It is very disgusting how a place offers something, gets you hooked, and then says you’re loosing that feature with nothing in return.

Words fail me. Other than to say this kind of attitude exemplifies the things wrong with our society. I’d say it lowers my opinion of humanity, but I’ve been online since 1989, so that’s no longer so easy to do. I’d almost be disappointed if some dimwit didn’t whip out the ‘class action’ call over this. I’m waiting for someone to compare TiVo to the Nazis. Still, it gets a deep sigh and a shake of the head.

And there there are articles such as “TiVo shuttering Rewards program, screwing its best customers” at Engadget. It contains the following:

This won’t matter to the vast majority of TiVo customers, no no, this decision only screws the company’s staunchest word-of-mouth advocates. You know the kind, the alpha geeks obsessed enough with the company’s products to others spend their time zealously recommending it to friends and family in the hopes of spreading the premium DVR experience (and earning some points while they’re at it).

You know, I kind of vaguely resemble that remark. OK, not so vaguely, I pretty much define “alpha geeks obsessed enough with the company’s products to others spend their time zealously recommending it to friends and family in the hopes of spreading the premium DVR experience”. Yet I feel distinctly unscrewed. Why should I feel screwed? I got points for something I was doing anyway, recommending TiVo. And I should feel screwed because now I can’t earn points, just like it was before they introduced TiVo Rewards? Why? Oh noes, TiVo isn’t giving me free stuff anymore! Those bastards! I bet they killed Kenny too!

There is a word for someone who recommends products only for a reward - shill. And while I have been accused of being a shill, more than once, I kindly disagree. I’ve gotten TiVo a bit upset with me more than once due to things I’ve posted. If I think TiVo got something wrong, I say so. When I disagree with TiVo’s approach or implementation, I say so. TiVo is definitely not perfect, I just think they’re the best DVR on the market today. And I’d even qualify that to say TiVo is not the best choice for everyone, and for some users one of the alternatives will be the best choice. I speak my mind, whether or not what I say is what TiVo would like to hear. I think that’s important - no one ever improves if they’re only surrounded by yes-men.

Bluntly, I question the sincerity of anyone who would say they’d stop recommending TiVo because TiVo Rewards is terminating. That sounds like the only reason they were recommending TiVo was to earn rewards, and that’s the wrong reason to recommend anything. If it isn’t worth of your recommendation without compensation, then recommending it for compensation shows a lack of integrity. It also means you’ve recommended something to others that you don’t actually believe in, which is dishonest. You’ve lied to those you recommended the product to by making them believe you support the product when you were in it for the rewards. In short, you’re a shill. If you genuinely believed in the product you wouldn’t stop recommending it just because you stopped earning rewards.

The fact is, the termination of TiVo Rewards doesn’t change the product. If it was worth recommending before, then it is still worth recommending. And if it wasn’t, then it isn’t now. Whether or not you recommend something should depend on your opinion of the product, not on how many rewards you can earn by pitching it. (I treat affiliate programs for the site the same way. I get pitches for a number of programs, but I only use those for sites, software, etc, I personally use or would recommend. If I wouldn’t shop there I’m not going to send others there just because they give me a cut.)

This is all just business. I talked to TiVoPony by phone on Friday and confirmed that TiVo is developing a new loyalty program, which will launch later this year. As part of the switch they are terminating their relationship with their current rewards program administrator. That requires closing out the program, which is why everyone needs to redeem their points before the program officially closes out. There isn’t any malicious intent or conspiracy, just changes in the business. There has been some crazy speculation on why TiVo is doing this, a lot of it giving TiVo far too little credit for intelligence. TiVo certainly knows how the program has performed, and what their return has been. As they’re switching to a new loyalty program (and no, I still haven’t been able to pry details out of TiVo), they must feel the new program will provide them with better results. They’re not throwing out the entire concept of a loyalty program, they’re going to try something different.

Remember the point of the program is not really to reward loyal users, but to drive business growth by rewarding loyal users. Don’t confuse the ends and the means. Maybe they weren’t getting a good return on the current program. Or maybe they feel the new program will simply provide a better return. Either way it would make sense to terminate the current program. There is no reason to be angry, or feel ’screwed’, unless you were using the program for the wrong reasons.

So I’m fine with it, and I’m hopeful that the new loyalty program will be interesting. I look forward to seeing what form the new program takes. I’m going to get my parents a TiVo, as I promised, only now I’ll get them one of the new lifetime TiVo HD bundles. instead of a Series3. I might pick up a TiVo HD for myself, I’m sure I’ll get an HDTV for the bedroom eventually. And I’ll be doing some giveaways on the site for those who leave real comments on the blog. (Hint.)

I don’t mean that figuratively, as in it makes it too tempting to resist or something. I mean it literally. TiVo has long run ads with links to request more information, etc, with just one click. But now it is going one step further. One of the current ads is for Cosmopolitan magazine, and you can subscribe to the magazine with just one click. That’s it, no confirmation require. One click and you’re subscribed. At least you’re invoiced via snail mail, which can give you a chance to cancel the subscription. But it is still a pain to deal with. Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny posted a video of this today:

In the video he mentions how this is risky because someone could accidentally click on it. Or maybe a roommate or a visiting friend could click on it as a joke. Or someone else in the household, like a child, could click on it. The thing is, this is not hypothetical!

Last month I posted about TiVoCast content getting sponsorships, and reader Jenny left a comment on that post about this very issue.

Beware the Gold Star ads! I am still steaming about this… My son had just finished watching a recorded episode of Little House on the Prairie when a gold star advertisement for Cosmopolitan magazine appeared asking to click here to find out Men’s top 10 sexy secrets. Of course, being curious, he clicked on it and was given two options: No, I’m sexy enough, and Yes, I want to know the secrets (or something like that). He clicked Yes and a screen came up saying thank you for subscribing to the magazine!

When I called TiVo, they were kind enough to turn off the gold stars on my system, but could not do anything about the purchase. I am currently dealing with Cosmopolitan about this.

This is just going way too far. I had no idea that TiVo would abuse my credit card information in this way. Let alone the fact that my nine year old was subjected to this adult-themed advertising after a children’s show!

Now, it seems that Jenny may have been in error about the credit card issue, since Dave’s video indicates that you’re invoiced via snail mail. (Or perhaps that has changed in the past month.) But that doesn’t make this any less of an issue. As I said at the time, and have said repeatedly in the past, TiVo needs to put some kind of PIN/Password security on all such features. Period.

Anything that causes you to purchase or subscribe to any goods or services should require a PIN entry for confirmation by default. And it should be set to something by default, even 00000. Personally, I think this should also be included on anything that causes any personal information to be released to any third parties, even without a purchase. Allow owners to disable the PIN entry if they wish to do so, via the configuration menus. But then it is a personal choice to do so, and the user is given the option.

I am all for commerce in the TiVo interface. I’d love to see more of it. You know those History Channel shows with “Now you can buy the DVD of this program” ads? Give me the option to buy it right there from the TiVo UI. Commercials for products? Let me order them online right from the couch. Give the QVC addicts the ability to purchase right from the remote. Go for it, I’m game. But offer some security to the process. Personally I’m not too concerned - I’m single, I live alone, and my friends aren’t jerks who think it is funny to order things in my name. So I’d probably turn the PIN entry off. But I still think it should be there as an option because I know this is an issue for a number of people. I have many TiVo-owning friends with small children. And children love to play with remotes, etc. My mother likes to tell the story of how I managed to dial a local telephone operator when I was quite young. No big deal - except I managed to dial an operator in Hawaii, and we lived in New York. Kids push buttons. That’s some kind of law of nature. And even if they’re old enough to know what they’re doing parents might want to control what the kids, or babysitter, etc, can do from the TiVo - without resorting to KidZone.

As for the targeting, I agree with Jenny. I’m far, far from being any kind of prude, but an ad for Cosmo on Little House? Swing and a miss! The ads should probably be ‘rated’ and paired with TV shows of the same, or higher, rating. There is another discussion at TiVoCommunity about the content of TiVo’s ads. In that case one user was upset by the TiVo Central advertisement for the free Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Show download from Amazon Unbox. The objection is to TiVo advertising ‘prurient’ content. Personally I think that’s way over-stated, but to each his own. The ad itself doesn’t contain prurient content, and at least with Unbox you can’t order without the PIN. (And yes, for the record I have downloaded it. Though I only watched the first bit to see just what it was. I haven’t had time to watch the rest yet.)

TiVo needs to improve their ad targeting, but even more important is giving TiVo owners the ability to restrict the ability to order things from the TiVo interface.

Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny earlier today gave me a heads up to one of his posts. A rumor had started on TiVo Community that TiVo was going to terminate their TiVo Rewards program on February 28th, 2008 based on what a customer service rep told the poster, user ‘tivorepo’. And this was confirmed by another rep. The TiVo Platinum MasterCard from Juniper Bank, which allowed you to earn TiVo Rewards points with your card purchases, appears to no longer be available:

Thank you for your interest in a Juniper Bank account.
Unfortunately, this offer has expired.
We apologize for this inconvenience.

Dave called to clarify and was told that April 28th, 2008 will be the last day to earn TiVo Referral Points, and May 28th, 2008 will be the last day to redeem existing points for rewards. Dave pinged his PR contact, and I’ve pinged my contact at TiVo as well. I held off posting all afternoon, but I haven’t heard back from my email or been able to reach my contact via phone as of yet, so I decided to post what we know right now. When I hear back from TiVo, or when Dave posts what he hears, I’ll be sure to post the information. The rumor is that TiVo is killing the program due to ‘abuse’, but it could be as simple as they’re moving to a new program or a new service provider and they can’t, or won’t, ‘port’ the current points to the new system, etc. We’ll just have to wait and see what TiVo says.

EDIT: Confirmed - see my new post.

It seems the TiVoToGo problems reported with Roxio software on the Mac last November still linger. While a patch was issued in November, it seems that it didn’t resolve the issues for all users. Today both Zatz Not Funny and CNET News.com wrote about the troubles. ZNF cited this post at TiVoCommunity made by Roxio rep patatrox yesterday:

We’ve been running a limited beta with a small number of users from the forums to test an update to both Toast 8 Titanium and Popcorn 3 and we’ve had positive results. We’re going to expand the testing for more users who are still having audio/video sync issues, please send me an e-mail to toastfeedback@roxio.com.

We’re going to extend this to about 50 users from TiVoCommunity.com and after a short time if feedback is positive move towards releasing this as an official update. Please keep in mind I will only be contacting users who are accepted for testing.

Please include the following information:
- Name
- Product you own (Toast 8 or Popcorn 3)
- TiVo Service Number (TSN)

If you’re having trouble with Roxio Toast or Popcorn and TiVoToGo on your Mac, you might want to jump on that.

TiVo made a statement to News.com for their article:

“It is important to us that all TiVo subscribers using TiVoToGo receive the same great TiVo experience whether they are utilizing a PC or Mac,” the company said in a statement to News.com. “It has been brought to our attention that a small subset of customers using Toast 8 have experienced a problem when trying to transfer their shows. We have been working with our partner Roxio and currently have a fix in beta.”

Roxio product manager Patrick Nugent said that they’ve been working with TiVo to fix the issues an that it affects “a small number of users.” He also said that it has been difficult to fix because it has been hard to reproduce and it doesn’t happen with ever recording.

Hopefully the code now in testing will be the final fix. Of course, there are other alternatives for Mac users. Such as the TiVo NowPlaying Widget, SeasonPassGetter, TiVoDecode Manager, and others.

TC Club is basically a special club for users of TiVoCommunity.com who donate to support the site. Members of TC Club get some added features and privileges:

• Elimination of all advertisements running on the site
• Full access to the TC Club Members Only Chat Forum, as well as other forums which may be added in the future (make a suggestion!). These forums are lightly moderated, which means that discussing religion, politics, and other off-topic conversation is permitted. Inflammatory or derogatory remarks or disparaging other members is NOT. (”Light moderation” is not the same as “no moderation”.)
• Increased private message space for up to 500 total stored messages … more than TRIPLE the space!
• More space in your signature file … DOUBLED! (unfortunately, images are still not permitted)
• Special discounts from time to time from our site sponsors
• Identification that you are a TC Club member on your public profile and wherever you post on the site
• Subscription auto-renewal
• The joy of knowing that