And that was before the Collections service bundle promotions were offered, which kicked off with the current quarter. Virgin Media really seems to be the ideal TiVo would hope all of their MSO deals could be.

Here’s the new ad:

They also put out a shorter version of the previously released ‘Jellyfish’ ad, so I may as well share that while I’m at it:

I’d love to see this integrated into the US units. As in the UK, keep the back-dated guide data going back a week or so. While we don’t have the dedicated catch up services like they have in the UK, we do have Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, and MSO On Demand services where supported. So the guide could link directly to the available service(s).

The UK originally planned to purchase the F-35B and they ordered two aircraft from LRIP (Low-Rate Initial Production) – BK-1 & BK-2. They later decided to switch to the F-35C CV (Carrier Variant) and the third LRIP aircraft was switched to that model, and dubbed CK-1. Though now it looks like the UK may be switching back to the F-35B. That all aside, this is the first flight of an F-35 produced for an international partner.

Virgin Media is offering three different Collections featuring TiVo:

Essential Collection:

• 500GB TiVo
• TV: M+ 75 channels including six HD
• 30Mbps broadband
• 3000 hours of TV on demand
• NO additional HD box included
• Talk Weekends unlimited phone calls (Unlimited weekend calls to landlines starting 01, 02 03, plus 0870 numbers and Virgin Mobile phones.)
• £25 per month

Premiere Collection:

• 500GB TiVo
• TV: XL 175 channels including 23 HD
• 60Mbps broadband
• 7000 hours of TV on demand
• Free additional V HD box included for another room
• Talk Weekends unlimited phone calls (Unlimited weekend calls to landlines starting 01, 02 03, plus 0870 numbers and Virgin Mobile phones.)
• Included Extras: 3 months of Spotify, access to ESPN/ESPN HD
• £45 per month

VIP Collection:

• 1TB TiVo
• TV: XL 175 channels including 36 HD (counting 13 HD channels for Sky Premiums) as well as Sky Sports 1-4, Sky Sports F1 and Sky Movies
• 100Mbps broadband (increasing to 120Mbps soon)
• 7000 hours of TV on demand
• Free additional V HD box included for another room
• Talk Anytime unlimited phone calls (unlimited evening and weekend calls. Cheaper mobile and international calls)
• Included Extras: 3 months of Spotify, access to ESPN/ESPN HD, Sky Sports & Movies collection, HD fee for Sky Premiums, Talk Plan extras (Mobile/ International/08)
• £90 per month

Of course, there is fine print:

All prices are when taken with a Virgin Home Phone line at £13.90 per month, e-billing and with payment via Direct Debit. All Virgin Home Phone services include unlimited calls to UK voice landlines, 0870 numbers and Virgin Mobiles during inclusive talk periods. All Virgin Broadband services come complete with SuperHub dual-band wireless ‘n’ router and a free security suite featuring Parental Controls for the lifetime of a customer’s broadband subscription. All Virgin TV services come with access to Catch Up TV (featuring BBC iPlayer, ITV Net Player, 4OD, Demand Five and Sky Anytime on Virgin Media), Virgin TV on Demand, and basic HD at no extra cost (£7 fee payable for Sky Premiums in HD). Installation fee of £49.95 applies. Standard contract terms 12m for new or existing customers. 6m Half Price offer only available to new customers taking a Collection on an 18m contract. Subject to change.

To promote these new Collections Virgin Media is creating new ads featuring VM CEO, and Bond-villain-in-waiting, Richard Branson and star of stage and screen David Tennant. David is best known as the Tenth Doctor, the 10th regeneration of the titular character in the BBC’s Doctor Who. That actually caused a bit of a spat in the UK between the BBC and Virgin Media. See, the BBC has some strict rules about any of their properties, such as Doctor Who, being used in marketing from any outside vendors. And the first ad created for Virgin Media featuring David Tennant had a time travel joke and a direct reference to David’s star turn in Doctor Who. That video was posted, then yanked, re-posted in an edited form, and has now apparently been yanked from Virgin’s YouTube Channels again. However, the Internet being the Internet, there are numerous copies of the original version of the video posted by other users – such as this one:

Two additional ads have since been released:

There is also a behind the scenes ‘making of’ video:

There is a video embedding in the Virgin Media Collections page, but for some reason they’ve decided to region restrict it so it isn’t playing for me here in the US. I don’t get that, it is a promotional video for their own products, why lock it down? But, of course, it has been ripped and uploaded to YouTube multiple times:

No official word on Spotify coming to US TiVos, yet, but it seems likely. Now that the work has been done to create a UK app it can be leveraged to create a US version. And back in July TiVo probed the user base for interest in Spotify in the US. It seems like it would be a no-brainer to bring it to the US as well. It would be Premiere units only, of course.

Via The Virgin Media TiVo Blog.

I’ve posted about software available for US units before, here and here, and on TiVo’s blog, and these apps work with the VM TiVo; but now there is a 3rd party remote control app for Windows .Net specifically for the VM TiVo: VM TiVo Net Remote. It is much more feature-rich than the Python-based TiVoRemote that’s been out for US machines for a while.

I can confirm that it does work with US units, I connected to the Premiere Elite I have for review and it worked as expected. Except for the TV guide, nothing displayed when I selected ‘Show TV Guide’. The window expanded, but it was blank. This is probably hard coded for the UK devices. There is also a default channel list, but that’s stored as a text file that you can edit to match your lineup.

What’s really nice is that anything you type while in the remote window is sent to the TiVo. It makes text entry a breeze. There are also shortcut keys to navigate with:
Following Shortcut keys provide the following functions
CTRL+H - Home
CTRL+T - TV
CTRL+G - TV Guide
CTRL+P - Play
CTRL+S - Stop
CTRL+M - My Shows
CTRL+V - Pause
CTRL+R - Record
CTRL+L - Last Channel
CTRL+I - Info
CTRL+U - Thumbs Up
CTRL+D - Thumbs Down
CTRL+F - Skip
CTRL+B - Skip Back
CTRL+X - Slow
CTRL+LEFT - Rewind
CTRL+RIGHT - Fast Forward
ARROW KEYS - Left/Right/Up/Down
ENTER - OK
DELETE - Clear
+ - Channel Up
- - Channel Down
1 to 9 - Send corresponding Number
A to Z - Send corresponding Key when in a text search (Search TV, YouTube search etc.)

You can click on the image of the TiVo remote in the app to send commands as well, very much like using a Slingbox. The image of the remote is the UK version, but it is close enough that US users shouldn’t have any trouble.

Perhaps some US-based developer could contact the creator, Andy Wheeler, and work with him to create a localized version for the US. What’d really be nice is to see some of the features from the Android TiVo Commander app brought to other platforms. But that’s not to denigrate the work Andy has done. This is a brand new app – version 0.3 was just released on Sunday – and he’s been improving it quickly. He has a thread at TiVoCommunity.com for feedback.

Via the Virgin Media High Definition & TiVo Services blog.

You know, speaking of the Verizon version that I’m waiting for, we also got the official details on the differences between the LTE & HSPA+ variants. The LTE model is slightly thicker and heavier, with a tad more battery capacity. While the official specs list storage as 16GB, and it seems all the phones available currently are 16GB, it has been widely reported that a 32GB model is in the works. The official site used to say 16/32GB, though it now says just 16GB. Perhaps the 32GB version is still up in the air, or won’t be available at launch so they want to narrow the message. Given my history with my OG Droid, and how much of my content is in the cloud anyway, I could probably live with 16GB. But I’d still like to have 32GB, just in case.

Samsung has rather more detailed information on the HSPA+ version of the phone on sale in the UK. The US version of the page isn’t up yet since the phone hasn’t launched.

Roku is expanding its open platform to support region-specific channels. Publishers of video, music, games and other Internet-delivered content can now reach their customers’ TVs directly through Roku. Content can be free, ad supported or paid. Those interested in developing for Roku should contact partners@roku.com

No word yet on which model(s) of Roku will launch in each country, or the pricing. But since they mention gaming it is safe to presume they’ll be similar to the Roku 2 products recently launched in the US.

Via Engadget.

Via Broadcast Engineering.

If you order additional units at the same time they remain at the £49.95/£99.95 activation pricing. There is a £3 per month TiVo charge on each account, and additional boxes add £6.50 a month on most service plans.

Virgin is further pushing TiVo by removing online availability of the previous generation V+ HD box. The older DVR is no longer available from Virgin Media’s website.

Via The Virgin Media TiVo Blog.

The first post listed:

Fixes:

• Improved 1080i up scaling so improving the picture quality.
• HDMI connection reliability fixed
• Info button now provides programme information in guide and mini guide
• SCART aspect ratio corrected

And the second post listed:

Functionality:

• Express Series Link – You can set your series links in a flash
• Padding – Automatic padding around the start and finish of new recordings and series links (doesn’t change existing series links)
• Multi-tap text entry – You can now search using the number buttons on your remote, just like texting on your mobile phone
• More flexible parental control – If you don’t want to be asked for your PIN when you’re playing a recording from My Shows, you can now switch it off!
• Skippable playlists – Full skipping functionality for Music On Demand playlists will be available
• Live Events – Great news! You can now buy a live event on your TiVo box
• BBC iPlayer – Full integration of all the content from the BBC iPlayer is now available in the TV Guide, the Catch Up & On Demand menus and in TiVo Search and Browse
• PIN access on Apps – You can now control access to Apps and Games
• YouTube app – The YouTube app has been given a whole new look with more videos than ever and now supports HD quality video
• TiVo Buddy App – Just after we launch the new code you’ll be able to download this great new tool from the Apple App Store. If you connect your wireless router to the TiVo box with a cable you’ll be able to control many features from your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. Watch this space for more info!

These sound interesting, and I wonder if we’ll see some of these come to the US in the expected fall software update. Maybe around the time the TiVo Premiere Elite lands?

The Express Series Link sounds interesting, I wonder how it works. Multi-tap text entry is something people have been asking for in the US for ages now, pretty much since the TiVo launched. We now have the TiVo Slide remote, but that’s still an add-on sold separately. I could see TiVo not releasing this feature in the US as it could cut into sales of the Slide, but personally I love my Slide and multi-tap is no comparison. Which does beg the question – why not add support for the TiVo Slide to the UK units? Something Virgin doesn’t want for some reason?

The YouTube app being new sounds interesting. The YouTube app on the US units is getting very long in the tooth, and it seems that some of the features have stopped working correctly as YouTube has changed their site and interface. So we could really do with a new app as well. The TiVo Buddy App sounds like it is just the Virgin Media version of the TiVo iPad App, announced a couple of weeks ago.

But most interesting to me is the default padding. This feature was confirmed by a forum team member on the official Virgin Media support forums:

Automatic padding? will be available later this year. It defaults at 1 min before and 4 mins after for all recordings, which seems to be the best way to avoid recordings cutting off early. You will still be able to change this on individual recordings.

Based on the subsequent discussion it sounds like what they’re doing is defaulting the padding to 1 minute before and 4 minutes after, instead of 0 as it is today. I really hope that’s wrong, because that sounds like it would SUCK! The only way I’d find that acceptable is if it is soft padding, something that’s been requested for years in the US. The idea with soft padding is that you could set padding that is used only if there is no conflict with another recording. Basically “Record an extra X minutes, unless doing so will cause you to be unable to record something else.” So you won’t have any problems with back-to-back recordings, or having to play games with clipping, priority order, etc. If they’ve just set the defaults for the normal hard padding across the board, so you have to make a special effort to not have padding, that sounds like the cure being worse than the disease. And that seems to be the gist of the reaction on the forums too.

I think the way to do it right is to:

• Allow users to set global default padding values for start and end.
• Make these default values soft padding.
• Allow hard padding settings on individual recordings, SPs, etc. which will override the global soft padding.

If I could use soft padding and record just an extra minute or two on the end of all of my recordings, except when the tuner is needed for another show, I would use it in a heart beat. But I’d absolutely hate having default hard padding I had to fight with every time I setup a recording to avoid worrying about artificial conflicts due to padding collisions.

This is a case where I really hope the discussions are incorrect and the actual implementation is not what everyone thinks it is. If it turns out to be soft padding I’ll be thrilled and hope it comes to the US. If it is default hard padding as believed I’ll feel sorry for UK users and hope fervently it never happens here.

But that one issue aside, this sounds like a good update for UK TiVo users and I hope we see at least some of these features in the US as well.

Just not default hard padding.

Via The Virgin Media TiVo Blog.

Oh, right. So Virgin Media had a bit of a problem with their TiVo service. It seems that TiVo subscribers who tried to watch the pay-per-view WBC welterweight title fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Victor Ortiz – couldn’t. Virgin Media is investigating the issue to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

OK, in all fairness, stuff happens, to put it politely. I’m sure they tested the PPV system before deploying TiVo in the wild, but this isn’t the first time something that worked well in the lab or beta didn’t work in wide deployment. The big wide world is a tricky place and you can’t anticipate every possible condition. Or maybe someone just flipped the wrong bit. Who knows. I’ve certainly had issues with Charter doing things like randomly disabling my tuning adapter.

Virgin is reimbursing customers who were unable to watch the PPV event, of course.

Via Cable.

The deal with Samsung is additive, they’re a second source for Virgin as they ramp up their TiVo deployments and acquire more boxes. As Everth Flores, Cisco’s Director & GM, Service Provider Video EMEA, blogged:

The facts: Per a long-standing agreement, we manufacture and supply TiVo-based digital set-top boxes to Virgin, as well as to Ono in Spain. To date, we’ve been the sole supplier of those devices — with the certain understanding that Virgin, like any sensibly minded operator, would at some point introduce a second source.

Earlier this week, and echoing an arrangement publicly disclosed earlier this year, that second source supplier was named as Samsung Electronics, which announced an apparent commitment for TiVo-based digital set-tops.

No one was ejected, no one was axed, no contracts expired. As un-sexy as it may sound, this was quite simply a second source supply decision, wholly anticipated by everyone involved.

He also added a short and sweet message to Cisco’s competition:“Bring it.”

I just wanted to set the record straight.

Via Vision2Mobile.

From the press release the app sounds like a clone of the US app with a few tweaks to reflect the unique aspects of Virgin Media’s service. The images below are from the release.

It seems a domain name squatter had grabbed tivo.co.uk before TiVo got it. Ted was in charge of the product launch and really wanted the domain name, but the squatter was asking $15,000 for it. TiVo was unwilling to pay such extortion, so Ted decided to try something a bit tricky to get the better of the squatter. He had TiVo’s web team create uk.tivo.com and told the squatter TiVo was no longer interested. Because of the high price TiVo would just go with uk.tivo.com and the squatter was welcome to keep tivo.co.uk.

Suddenly the squatter goes from seeing easy money to holding a nearly worthless domain. If TiVo wasn’t interested in paying him for it, who else was going to pay him big money? No one else was likely to start a company named ‘TiVo’ in the UK, after all.

That’s where Ted really got tricky. Behind the scenes he recruited Gary, one of TiVo’s early customer advocates, to approach the squatter as a user who was interested in launching a TiVo fan site for UK TiVo owners. Since Gary was already known as a vocal member of the TiVo community it was certainly a plausible story. Seeing a chance to salvage something from the blown deal, the squatter agreed to sell the domain to Gary for £500. He originally wanted more, but Gary explained he was starting a non-profit fan site and simply couldn’t afford to pay more, so the squatter took what he thought he could get. It was a far cry from the $15,000 he wanted from TiVo. In exchange TiVo gave Gary a free TiVo DVR with lifetime service.

Gary ran a fan site at the domain for a couple of months to complete the ruse and avoid abuse from the squatter, as he wouldn’t know he’d been had. To complete the process Gary told the squatter TiVo’s lawyers had come after him and he was being forced to turn over the domain to TiVo, making him look like the victim. Gary turned over the domain, which TiVo then used for their product launch as they wanted to all along. And the domain squatter probably thought he’d gotten away with making £500 off of a domain that he would’ve been forced to turn over if he’d still held it when the lawyers got involved, that he’d taken Gary for the money for a domain he couldn’t hold. In reality he sold the domain for less than he probably could’ve made if he’d asked for a more reasonable amount up front, TiVo saved money and potential legal fees, and Gary got a TiVo and lifetime service, which was worth more than £500 at the time.

I really can’t stand domain name squatters, so I think this whole escapade is just awesome. I’m really glad Ted and Gary shared this story, it isn’t the kind of thing you often hear about in corporate histories.

I wonder if the domain name squatter will read this and realize he was had over a decade ago. I kind of hope he does.

You can read the story in their own words at Facebook.

The app is available on Virgin Media TiVo units in the UK, as well as Samsung and Panasonic connected TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, and home theater systems.

Via New Media Age.

Virgin Media is really turning into quite the partner for TiVo. They seem very pleased with their TiVo roll out in the UK, and they continue to rapidly improve their service. They already had some features we don’t have yet in the US, like three tuners (we’re waiting on the Premiere Elite) and a handful of apps (expected to hit the US Premiere at some point), and they keep getting more.

While TiVo has just released a new app for iOS and we’re still waiting for an Android app, the opposite is true in the UK. Virgin Media appears to have launched an Android App for UK Android users that supports their TiVo. I can’t access the link to the Android Market, perhaps because I’m in the US, but it should be here. To quote the Unofficial Virgin Media TiVo Blog:

See what’s on telly when and set recordings with Virgin Media TV powered by TiVo

Lets you know what’s on when. It’s even easier to find what you want to watch faster, too. Just choose your Virgin TV region and package (M, L or XL) and see what’s on the channels you have.

However, if you have a TiVo you may find the app useful because:

You can set your box to record a show whether you’re at home or on the move. Remote Record lets you set up recordings online or through your mobile.

It’s simple – just log in, pick a show and press record. You can record a single episode or save the whole series

But that’s not all. Just in time for the final Harry Potter movie to hit theaters, Virgin Media has added a Harry Potter App to their TiVo. The app really seems similar to one of the Showcases on a US TiVo, and is primarily for marketing. But it is a bit like having DVD bonus content for the theatrical release – trailers, interviews, photos, a Twitter feed, etc. A lot more modern and interactive than the old Showcases, as fits the new platform.

One area where the VM TiVo is lacking in comparison to the US TiVo is in the availability of over-the-top (OTT) services. In the US was have a slew – Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, Blockbuster, Music Choice, Pandora, Live365, Rhapsody, Last.fm, etc. There aren’t quite as many options in the UK. But they are improving, Virgin Media just made an agreement to bring the popular music service Spotify to the TiVo platform.

And to top it all off, they’ve slashed prices. Previously subscribers of the Virgin Media M+ & L tiers would pay £8/month while XL tier subs paid £3 – now everyone pays £3. And acquisitions costs dropped as well. The old £40 installation fee – gone. The 500GB model is now £49.95. The 1TB model used to be £150 for existing and £199 for new customers, now it is £99.95 for everyone. And the 1TB model used to be available only to XL tier subs – now anyone can get it.

But Virgin Media is going one better. They’re actually refunding £50 to the early adopters of the 1TB model who paid the higher rates. Now that’s customer service!

It seems like things are going pretty well for TiVo in the UK.

This appears to be linked to a changed in the format of the guide data, according to a post by TiVoPony over at TiVoCommunity. Apparently the data format ran out of room for new program IDs and TMS had to expand the format. The suggestions feature in the old 2.5 software is tied to the native TMS data format, and the change in the DB format has broken the feature. It would take a software update to fix, and according to TiVoPony“an update for those boxes is not in the cards.” So it sounds like this is a permanent loss.

Hopefully the rumors of TiVo re-launching in the UL with DVB-T hardware are true and the TiVo faithful will have another option soon. (It would be nice of TiVo to offer some kind of upgrade incentive discount for those who’ve stuck with the Series1 unit all this time.) And with Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC launching in Europe in 2009, that may be another option for the TiVo faithful in the UK.

Picked up from BLORGE.

And after a failed debut in 2000-3, TiVo is talking about relaunching in the UK.

There has certainly been speculation about TiVo relaunching in the UK, and I’ve said I personally expect them to do so, but I don’t think TiVo has been talking about doing so. If they have I’d love to know just what they’ve said. I don’t think they’d mentioned any specific plans to relaunch in the UK. I suppose I’ll put this down to the writer being perhaps overzealous in his phrasing, but it sure caught my eye. Maybe he knows something?

First, to step back and cover a few things I didn’t go over in my previous posts from the show. TiVo didn’t really have a lot new this year. Their only big announcement was TiVo Desktop 2.6 with web video support. And while that’s not a minor thing, it isn’t really major news like the Series3 at CES 2006 or showing off the cable software at CES 2007.

For me the web video announcement is exciting because of the infrastructure changes it is bringing more than the web video feature itself. While the web video support will be useful, the changes under the covers should have even further reaching impact on the TiVo service offering. The utilization of XMPP will likely have far reaching effects on many aspects of the system, for the better. More on that below.

They were also showing off the international DVB units for Australia and New Zealand, and almost certainly beyond, but that was more low-key, in the same way they’ve shown the Mexican S2DT and the TGC box for Taiwan and China for the past couple of years. Being low-key certainly doesn’t mean unimportant though. The DVB platform, combined with the internationalized software, may be the most important development for TiVo in years. It will give them a platform to launch TiVo in territories around the world as DVB is the dominant digital broadcast platform for most of the globe.

One thing about the DVB platform. I’d noticed recently that some of the press articles on the Australian TiVo have started referring to ‘Australia and New Zealand’. Since all of the official announcements have only mentioned Australia, I was curious about that. Well, the launch will be in Australia. But Seven Network also operates in New Zealand and they’re looking to expand, so it is expected that they will deploy TiVo in New Zealand following the Australian deployment. The the Kiwis should be getting their taste of TiVo as well.

Also, to point out the obvious, TiVo still has a service infrastructure in the UK to support the Series1 units that were sold there. Everything is in place to support new TiVo units in the UK market. The UK is one of the territories that uses DVB. TiVo is developing an international DVB platform. Put two and two together. TiVo would not confirm any plans to re-enter the UK market with the new platform when I asked, but they did say it certainly seems to make sense given the facts. I think we will probably see new DVB TiVo’s available in the UK once the Australian deployment is launched and the platform is ready.

Aside from these new items, TiVo was mainly exhibiting their existing product offerings. The OCAP software was on display, both the Comcast and the Cox systems. The Comcast software has starting rolling out in New England, of course. There have been rumors that the Cox deal is stalled, which is not the case. Cox has always planned to deploy the software approximately six months after Comcast, to give Comcast and TiVo time to work out any issues. Since Comcast delayed the launch that has also delayed the Cox launch. They may move it up a bit instead of waiting as long as originally planned, due to the delay, but there weren’t any dates set yet. And Comcast is still focused on the deployment in New England and doesn’t have any dates for deployments to other territories at this time. The OCAP software is currently running on the Motorola 34xx and 64xx platforms, but TiVo is working on getting it running on Cisco (formerly Scientific Atlanta) hardware. We can also expect it to be running on additional Motorola platforms beyond the 34xx/64xx.

There were stations demonstrating the basic features – TiVoCast, HME features like Rhapsody, etc. The advertising demo station was showing off some ‘new’ things which weren’t actually new, like the ‘billboard’ ads that put up the a static image ad when you fast forward through tagged commercials. That’s actually be around for quite a while, though I guess they’re starting to use it more these days. The only new advertising feature I can think of from 2007 is the new look for the TiVo Central Promotions, aka the Gold Star Promotions, with the embossed button look. That’s just a minor visual tweak, not really a new feature.

I did have one advertising related question for TiVo. Lately I’ve noticed that pretty much everything I watch now has a ‘Program Placement’ ad. Those are the banner-style ads that show up on the Delete now / Keep this recording screen. I noticed most of them seem to be promoting TiVoCast content, mainly shows from Next New Networks. So I was curious if NNN had purchased the spots or if it was something TiVo was doing. Turns out it is TiVo’s doing. When they don’t have a buyer for the ad slots they will run ‘internal’ ads to promote lesser used features or new additions. I think that’s a pretty smart move. I’ve run into too many TiVo owners who don’t even known TiVoCast is there, or other features like Amazon Unbox. So using the available advertising platform to self-promote is a bright idea. You’ve got the ad slots, might as well use them if someone isn’t paying for it.

I also asked a few more questions about the new web video implementation with XMPP. After my first visit something didn’t make sense to me. On the TiVo itself there will be a new TiVo Cast interface which allows you to subscribe to the ‘traditional’ TiVoCast content as well as the other web videos. The list has been compiled by TiVo basically scouring the new for video podcast feeds. When you select one of the feeds it creates a subscription which uses TiVo Desktop to transcode the program.

But when I’d looked at TiVo desktop the interface seemed to require pointing the feeds at a folder on the PC and using an external RSS client, such as iTunes. So how could selecting a feed on the TiVo schedule it in your external RSS reader, like iTunes? I couldn’t reconcile those two pieces, so I knew I must be missing something, and indeed I was. It turns out that TiVo Desktop Plus 2.6 has its own built-in RSS scheduler. So when you select one of these feeds on the TiVo it messages the server via XMPP, and the server then messages TiVo Desktop via XMPP to add the feed to its scheduler. It downloads the videos and transcodes them. When they’re ready TiVo Desktop messages the server, which messages the TiVo to tell it to grab the video using TiVoCast.

The desktop interface that I posted is only needed for video blogs not in the list. And this does require an external RSS scheduler. I suggested to TiVo that they simply add an RSS UI to TiVo Desktop. Since it has a scheduler built-in, the only thing missing is a box in the UI to enter the RSS feed instead of a folder to monitor on the machine. You could simply add the feed URL instead of the folder, a minor change to the UI. I’d like to see it since I would use it rather than another RSS scheduler, and it makes sense since all the heavy lifting is already done.

I’ve seen some people wondering about how the servers can send messages ‘in’ to the TiVo or TiVo Desktop. It works just like any IM network. TiVo Desktop and the TiVo sign into the network, so the initialization is outbound. It really is an IM network just like Jabber or Google Talk – just a secure, private version.

I was asked if the use of XMPP eliminates the use of Bonjour, which is how the TiVo and TiVo Desktop find each other today. Well, yes and no. Bonjour is still being used for the existing features such as Music & Photos, as well as TiVoToGo/TiVoToComeBack. But it is not being used for the web video feature. Instead, when TiVo Desktop has a video ready the message it sends to the server includes the PCs local IP information and everything the TiVo needs to make the connection and download the video. One change due to this is that the PC doing the transcoding needn’t be on the same subnet as the TiVo. As long as the IP it provides is reachable from the TiVo it should work.

Over time XMPP will probably be used for more and more functions. It will first be deployed with the new web video functionality. But the intention is to completely phase out the polling system currently in place and to use XMPP for all the TiVo to server messaging. XMPP will be used for standard TiVoCast and Amazon Unbox, as well as online scheduling requests.

The move to XMPP will allow TiVo to improve some of the current features. For example, online scheduling currently has a delay waiting for the TiVo to poll the server and pull down the request. So there is no ability to handle real-time conflict resolution. XMPP can change that. When you make a request the server can IM the TiVo, which can respond immediately with “OK” or “I have a conflict with X, what should I do?” So the user could decide immediately what they want to record. TiVo wouldn’t state that any of the ideas I mentioned would happen, but did admit that they certainly would make sense giving the architectural changes to the system. I got the impression that some of these changes are already in the works for future updates, or are at least being planned.

TiVo mentioned other possibilities, such as the server monitoring your recording schedule and guide data updates. If there is a change in the guide data that would impact your recordings, the server could message the TiVo to tell it to grab the new data now instead of when it is next scheduled to do so. I’m sure you can think of other situations where instant communication would be helpful.

I did have a suggestion for TiVo now that communication between the TiVo and TiVo Desktop is available via XMPP. Many of the promos that I see on the TiVo have URLs – visit this site for more info, visit this site to sign up, etc. Right now you have to remember that URL and remember to check it when you’re back to your PC. I suggested that the TiVo IM that URL to the server, which IMs it to TiVo Desktop and other opens your default browser with the page loaded, or saves the URL in a ‘TiVo Bookmarks’ tab within TiVo Desktop that collects the URLs in one neat location for checking later. Or just do both and make it used configurable if the browser should be automatically launched. I know I’d use it and check the URLs a lot more often than I do today if it were this easy.

As far as the web videos go, I asked how a site gets on the pre-populated list on the TiVo. As I said above, the current list was compiled by TiVo. Right now there isn’t a mechanism for sites to get themselves added, but TiVo expects to offer something like a URL submission page where video blogs can submit their feed for review to be added to the pre-populated list. There will certainly be some way for new feeds to be added to the defaults, it just isn’t settled on the precise form that will take.

I was also curious about the TiVoCast protocol being used for this. Would be be open to 3rd parties? Say I run a video blog and I’m willing to host the TiVo formatted video myself, can I have my server listed and run TiVoCast so TiVos can suck the video down from my server directly? Right now the answer is no. At this time TiVo isn’t planning to make the infrastructure available for sites to ‘self-publish’ TiVoCast content. Sites that want to do that should contact TiVo about joining the ‘traditional’ TiVoCast sites and being listed like they are today. This may change at some point in the future, but not at this time.

What if you’re an entrepreneur and you want to offer a ‘Transcode in the Sky’ service? You’d aggregate the RSS feeds of the video blogs, trancode them, and serve them to the TiVos so people wouldn’t have to keep their PCs on, as well as for less tech savvy users who are just too confused to deal with it. Same deal. TiVo suggested that someone looking to do that could work with them to become part of the standard TiVoCast service and be listed as an aggregated channel with the other feeds as sub channels. Similar to how PodCastTV or The NY Times work today on TiVoCast. (If you turn that idea into a business, remember me when you’re rich and famous.)

If these policies change, I got the impression it would be after H.264/MPEG-4 is enabled on the Series3 and TiVo HD. As the TiVo person I was speaking with said to me, “Do you want to be serving the MPEG-2?” Since, today, MPEG-2 is the only supported format, downloads will be fairly large and require more bandwidth. Once sites have the option of serving MPEG-4 to the newer units the costs won’t be as high for self-hosting TiVoCast content. My impression is that we’ll probably see the advanced codec support enabled later this year. The web video update already implies HD downloads will be enabled as web video supports HD video transfer to the S3 and TiVo HD. Since it uses TiVoCast, the same system used for Amazon Unbox and traditional TiVoCast, those sources should be able to support HD content as well.

I also had some interesting discussions about HME. Coincidentally, in the weeks immediately before CES, the HME Developers mailing list suddenly came to life with a number of discussions. More traffic than it had seen in months. So that got the pump primed for HME going into CES. TiVo HME development has been very limited, especially since the last stable public SDK from TiVo was 1.4 released on 10/31/2005. There was nothing else released until an experimental SDK, 1.4.1, was released on 10/3/2007. However, that’s just the public SDK. Internally HME has clearly been evolving dramatically, as evidenced by the newer HME-based applications, such as Universal Swivel Search and Rhapsody.

But the biggest example of this is the OCAP software for the cable DVRs. HME is Java-based, OCAP is Java-based. TiVo used the SDK toolkit as the basis for their HME software. TiVo told me that everything you see in the OCAP software is HME. The OCAP UI is built using their newest tool kit. That implies that a lot of work has been done, including adding video support within HME (as Comcast has video in the upper-right on the menu screens) which is one of the long standing major requests.

TiVo says some of the updates that were made internally will be released in updates to the public SDK. However, they cannot say just when that might happen or which features will be available in the public SDK. But with TiVo’s renewed focus on network content, and from what I heard at the show – much of which I can’t repeat – I think 2008 could see a re-launch of HME with an updated SDK that has more features.

As part of the discussion on the mailing list before CES I wrote a couple of long posts about how I think TiVo could improve and re-invigorate HME, and I’m planning to turn those into a post for the blog. But I’ll highlight my number one suggestion here: Publicity.

I don’t mean publicizing HME to developers, or even letting users know it is there. I mean making it easy for developers to let users know about their applications! Too many TiVo owners don’t even know about sites like Apps.tv or PlayTeeVee.com. Or major HME applications like Galleon or AudioFaucet. Let alone a lot of the smaller applications that are available.

Blogs, web forums, mailing lists, and newsgroups are not sufficient. They only reach a small percentage of TiVo owners, and usually the most geeky. There needs to be a way for John and Jane Q. Public to find out about these applications. Most HME developers complained about being unable to reach the users, which is very discouraging as a developer. No one wants to pour their energy into a project that will never reach its intended audience. Developers got disheartened and HME development fell off. Sure, it wasn’t the only reason, the stagnation of the SDK was a big part as well, but even the best SDK in the world is worthless if the resulting products can’t reach their audience.

My suggestion to TiVo is to put an Application Showcase on every broadband connected TiVo. One of the ‘permanent’ applications under Music, Photos, Programs & More, and perhaps also linked from with Showcases. Setup some basic criteria for applications to be listed, and put up a submission form on the web. I’d expect TiVo to have some requirements for applications to be listed – no adult content, some UI conventions that must be followed (such as a prominent ‘Help/Support’ link which directs the user to the application’s site and not to TiVo), etc.

When I suggested this, both on the list and at CES, the primary objection was that TiVo doesn’t want to be held responsible for the content of the applications or their support. That if the applications are listed on the TiVo for easy access that users will deluge TiVo with support requests. I say hogwash. Sure, there are always those people beyond help who will call TiVo for anything, but I believe the majority of the issue can be mitigated. The local HME functionality already has an interstitial screen the first time you activate it requiring your to acknowledge the risks and responsibility before you can use it. For the Application Showcase I would give each application some number of static screens to pitch their application to the user, not immediate access to run the application blind. After reviewing the pitch the user is presented with some kind of ‘Add this application to MPP&M’ option. If they select this option, then they get the scary interstitial screen warning them about running 3rd party apps, not giving out their passwords, etc. And that support for the application is the responsibility of the application author and not TiVo. See the aforementioned prominent support link requirement.

TiVo could further reinforce this by adding a sub-category to MPP&M and moving all 3rd party HME applications in there. Call it ‘Non-TiVo Applications’ or whatever you want, to help reinforce that when you go in there and run something the applications in there are not supported by TiVo. You could even design the screen such that that message is always visible in the menu.

To take it a paranoid step further, instead of allowing instant access to the application at the end of the pitch, it could refer the user to the URL of the website to sign up for the application. So they’d have to enter the IP manually just like today. See my above suggestion of using XMPP to pop open a browser, or at least send the URL to the desktop, which would be useful here. But I think that’s making things a little too user-unfriendly and TiVo doesn’t need to go that far. Though the URL trick would be nice for non-hosted applications the user needs to download for themselves anyway – like Galleon.

I’m not suggesting that TiVo hosts all of these applications themselves, endorses them, or anything of the sort. Just that they provide a mechanism whereby HME application creators and hawk their wares to the TiVo user base directly. That would go a long way towards providing incentive for developers to create HME applications. And with the web video addition TiVo sets some precedent. They’re listing scores of video podcasts but that doesn’t mean TiVo endorses them all or provides support if something goes flaky with the feed.

I’ll have more to say on HME once I find time to pull together a post focused on it. But I think HME still has potential to be a big deal for TiVo, especially with their new focus on network content. But TiVo needs to do something to encourage the community to work with them. Giving developers that publicity within the user base is the first, and most important, step they need to take, IMHO.

Well, I think that’s it. At least all that I can remember at the moment. I still have more materials from CES to go through that might jar something else loose regarding TiVo. I do have a couple more posts to make over the next couple of days about other things as well.