In a strange and incestuous twist of the space-web-time continuum, a fascinating comment about the mechanism by which The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (previOusly.) records every bit of daily news appeared inside a post on PVRBlog, the red-headed stepchild blog of our selfless benefactor, user 1.
posted on Aug 19, 2008 - View this thread

The 25 most popular television broadcasts, actors and directors based on anonymous, aggregated data from DVR owners, updated weekly.
posted on Feb 23, 2006 - View this thread

TiVo saved? After a grim 4Q04 conference call, focusing on bells and whistles for which there's little evidence of customer demand, it's now reported that TiVo is on the verge of striking a deal with Comcast to integrate TiVo software and services into Comcast's integrated tuner-DVRs. TiVo needs this deal very, very badly...
posted on Mar 15, 2005 - View this thread

Free TiVo. If you are an American consumer and live in the Bay Area, the TiVo company on Friday will give away 40GB Series 2 recorders to Comcast customers who bring their cable bill and a gift for The Family Giving Tree charity to TiVo headquarters in Alviso, Calif. The giveaway will last from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., or until they run out of units, and will be limited to one recorder per household.
posted on Dec 16, 2004 - View this thread

Build your own PVR. Why TiVo when you can freevo? A cool little forum for couch potatoes warriors.
posted on Jul 6, 2004 - View this thread

"Wow! I have a lot of shows to watch... Will I ever catch up?” Reuters reports on TiVo addiction, and it's tonight's #1 story on Keith Olbermann's Countdown, a news show with less viewers than TiVo has owners. When they put up a transcript, it'll be in here. Still, Keith asked one very good question: "Is it just part of the inevitable pattern of technology that everything starts as a luxury, becomes a necessity and finally becomes something for which we need therapy?" (I was able to do my own transcription because... I got it on my TiVo!)
posted on Nov 12, 2003 - View this thread

A Lifestyle Phenomenon An interview with TiVo's Michael Ramsay where he talks about free celebrity promotion, drop in price, competition, and viewing habits (previously discussed). An interesting read on an American phenomenon.
posted on Jul 3, 2003 - View this thread

TiVo to Sell User Viewing Data TiVo executives said they will be gathering information only in aggregate, such as by ZIP code and that the habits of individual users will remain anonymous. However, not everyone agrees that TiVo can't/isn't tracking individual viewing habits. And now advertisers will be able to see exactly how many commercials we're all zipping past.
posted on Jun 2, 2003 - View this thread

Is Tivo a Cult? - The New York Times discusses Tivo owners and their propensity to evangelize. What is it about Tivo that turns us into volunteer salesmen? I feel the devotion myself, you'll take away my Tivo when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers...
posted on Apr 20, 2003 - View this thread

SonicBlue, the folks who bought out ReplayTV (previously discussed here) announced that they are going bankrupt. What does this mean for the DVR "revolution?" What happens with your $250 box and your $250 lifetime subscription fee when you can't get their content any more? SonicBlue tries to allay fears by saying that they are innovating and will continue to work on the project, but I don't see how that can be guaranteed with a buyout or bankruptcy. Does this mean that TiVo is it? Would you still purchase a ReplayTV today? (Apologies for the popup on the last link.)
posted on Mar 24, 2003 - View this thread

My Tivo thinks I'm a gay pregnant man! This article documents the struggles that some people have gone to in order to gear Tivo's programming to their interests. As one man said of himself: " [I] often [order] cooking shows, which softens TiVo's view of [me]. "I don't want it thinking I'm an ax murderer,".
posted on Nov 26, 2002 - View this thread

TiVo, we hardly knew ye. After burning through $200 million in capital since 1997, TiVo has yet to turn a profit. Despite a cult following and 500,000 subscribers, Brendan Koerner concludes that TiVo is destine for the ash heap of history. So what do you think? Will TiVo be the next Apple Newton or Commodore Amiga?
posted on Oct 10, 2002 - View this thread

Calling all techie designers: TiVo is throwing a wallpaper design contest, the winners to get a new second series tivo.
posted on Jul 9, 2002 - View this thread

VHS on its last legs? According to source, Circuit City is already phasing out sales of VHS tapes and players in favor of DVDs. Sure, it's an ancient format, but again, not everyone has a TiVo (yet)...
posted on Jun 21, 2002 - View this thread

TiVo and the BBC force programming on consumers. The BBC apparently paid TiVo to command all its boxes -- without consumers' permission -- to record an episode of a drama the BBC marketing department deemed a must-see. Users can't even delete the recording -- it'll be there until TiVo decides to remove it. Can TiVo users expect to be bombarded with paid advertising after all? (ZDNet article here.)
posted on May 26, 2002 - View this thread

TiVo fanatics will know the name of TiVolutionary (Richard Bulwinkle), the official TiVo evangelist who helped create one of the most enthusiastic (independent) user communities ever at AVS Forums. Well, he's either quit or been fired.
posted on May 13, 2002 - View this thread

The Patriots didn't win; Britney did. TiVo analyzed their viewers behavior during the Superbowl and they came up with some pretty interesting results. How soon till TV programming adapts to viewer behavior?
posted on Feb 5, 2002 - View this thread

Next gen TiVo announced. Apparently "by holiday season 2002" we can look forward to broadband, photos, CD storage/playback, streaming audio, VOD, and something called "video party games" on our TiVos. But will my Wishlist ever learn to refresh in under 15 minutes?
posted on Jan 8, 2002 - View this thread

TiVo users really hate ads. I mean REALLY hate them, in any incarnation! What to do when their beloved PVR turns on them, for the sake of an advertising partnership? Why, consider a boycott of course! Thankfully, it looks like TiVo's doing the right thing.
posted on Nov 15, 2001 - View this thread

ReplayTV, the once-bankrupted main competitor of TiVo got bought by SonicBlue (they made the Rio mp3 player) and they've relaunched, poised to blow the fucking roof off digital tv recording. Ethernet port? Sharing recorded episodes with other units in your house? Trading entire episodes with anyone else over the net? Merging internet content with TV content? Commercial-free taping? It's all here baby. Now will TiVo evolve, or will ReplayTV take the market?
posted on Sep 6, 2001 - View this thread

Pity The Poor TV Broadcaster It was obvious that Personal Video Recorders (like Tivo) were going to make it way easy to skip advertising. What I also realized, though, when talking to Lane about how Buffy is moving from the WB to UPN, is that folks who watch Buffy via a PVR could care less what channel it is on--they just tell the machine to "get me Buffy" and it does the rest. This study seems to affirm that, for a significant portion of the audience, this is true.
posted on Jul 31, 2001 - View this thread

Tivo hackers today released the hack that enables you to get MPEG-2 video out of the box and put it on CDs, share it over the net, etc. No details because the AVS Tivo site (registration required) is being slashdotted...but will this precipitate a TiVo crackdown on the hackers?
posted on Jun 7, 2001 - View this thread

ShadowTV is tomorrow's technology today -- its "TiVo on steroids," according to Joachim Kim, a creator of a new technology that enables users (which may at sometime include the public on a subscription model) to pull up video-quality or better streaming footage of any television show that aired or is currently airing, including (or not including) the commercials, all in a handy web application.

The limitations are endless.

Such a technology could prove deadly for the big TV networks (down the road sometime), although ShadowTV seems optimistic to work with content providers. [Thanks to Professor Michael Rosenblum at NYU for introducing our Televison and the Information Explosion class to tomorrow' technology.]

Now, let me begin planning that 7-season Star Trek: Voyager marathon...
posted on Apr 20, 2001 - View this thread

Ok, maybe TiVo isn't sticking it to people (over privacy), even though they can. Their competition, however, is. (Link courtesy this week's RISKS Digest, which also has a piece of mine on Internet voting and it's potential pitfalls :-)
posted on Apr 2, 2001 - View this thread

Well, congratulations; you won your TiVo. So, now, are you wondering what they're doing to you with it?
posted on Mar 26, 2001 - View this thread

Microsoft unleashes their TiVo killer and it looks like it has everything you could ever want in a personal video recorder. Two tuners so you can tape one thing and watch another, DSS, 35 hours of recording time, and webtv/email functionality. Is it too much or will TiVo owners want these increased features?
posted on Jan 8, 2001 - View this thread

DirectTV with built-in TiVO rocks. (Note to self: buy flowers for wife on day that credit card bill for this set-up and $199 lifetime TiVo service arrives.)
posted on Dec 13, 2000 - View this thread

TiVo schadenfreude!
ReplayTV drops 40% of its staff (including a former TV Network Bigwig) and drops out of the retail "box" business. Gee, they're giving up without even asking for a recount of the sales figures from the Palm Beach Best Buy…
Now, if TiVo can just keep Microshaft from squishing it like a bug.
posted on Nov 28, 2000 - View this thread

Tivo is at it again! If you were one of the unfortunate ones who did not win last time, here is your chance to save face. I just wish I could find a link to the new Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott "Stop Itch" commercial.
posted on Nov 16, 2000 - View this thread

Feel like a zombie? - Suck.com's take on Tivo giveaway Okay, so the link's not all that recent, and Dack already made mention of it, but this is just for those who didn't see it before (Plus it's slow today.)

I was a winner, I got my Tivo last week, and love it. It was a 30-hour model, not the 14-hour one advertised. How do all you other winners feel about yours (now that you no longer have to kiss up to Tivo to get them)?
posted on Oct 6, 2000 - View this thread

TiVos are raining from the sky! Jason Kottke won, so I entered. I won, and while my piece was obviously a piece of literary genius, it wasn't *that* good. I think we need to do a scientific study -- who can write the stupidest "Why I Want a TiVo" essay and still win?
posted on Sep 25, 2000 - View this thread

Three good pieces from the Sunday Times: New York as viewed through foreign tourist guidebooks (big surprise, the French books are the ones that spend the most time pointing out American inferiority). Jerry Nachman on journalists' overwhelmingly one-sided ideology and their rapidly-decreasing ability to hide it. And Michael Lewis on how TiVo and Replay are going to destroy television as we know it, eek! (And don't miss the videos showing how they blew up the TVs and Kellogg's boxes to get the photographs that accompany the article.)

I don't think the Nachman link will live beyond 11 pm Eastern on Sunday; I couldn't find a longer-lasting link to it. I guess opinion pieces aren't important to the Times.
posted on Aug 12, 2000 - View this thread