If Content is Portable, Where You Consume It Doesn't Matter

My good friend and colleague +Adam Singer lit a thought bubble with his latest rant against the dumb pipe of television, saying the formulaic, reality show centric content there is no longer palatable to generations growing up with many more choices - dominated by the on demand, everything's available alternative of the Internet. The summary, he says... is that who actually watches TV is "the old", backed by data from the Washington Post echoing the same.

The argument that the Internet is supplanting TV is one that can't be denied outright, but I believe it's the wrong discussion. What's happening is that the consumers wield incredible power in terms of deciding what they want to watch, when they want to watch it, and where they want to consume it - thanks to dramatic developments in on demand libraries like Netflix, YouTube and others, content destinations, including the smartphone, tablet, and PC, in addition to the TV, and, yes, the humble DVR, which extended the first volley from the VCR (remember those?) and timeshifted our entertainment to take place whenever we wanted it, not when it first aired.

I agree 100% with Adam that a good chunk of the content that fills TV's many channels is low quality stuff that has no redeeming educational value. Then again, the same could be said for much of the Internet and the many social networks we all participate in. Humans love turning their minds off and being entertained. I prefer to not watch reality shows and soap operas, but I do watch TV for live events, and have a list of serial dramas that I watch with my wife - in addition to late night fare like The Daily Show and Conan O'Brien.

One taking a pro-Internet vs TV stance could say, wait. You can watch The Daily Show or Conan online after they air, just like you watch them on your DVR. Sure. You could also, assuming Major League Baseball lets you, watch streaming games live on your tablet through their app. And you can now watch many of those comedies or dramas the same day or later through various network-led outlets online, or on Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, iTunes or some other place.

And at that point, I think the conversation changes. If you're watching The Daily Show online instead of on TV, you've just changed the destination screen, but are still watching the same content. If you're watching a movie on your tablet instead of on your TV, again, you're watching the same content - and the content producers are still bringing you value, whether you're watching on a 5 inch screen or a 50 inch screen.

As an individual, what I've observed in the last decade or so is that as traditional network television has taken fewer risks with their content, and tapped into a soft pudding of reality shows and 24 hour gab events, the premium cable networks are the ones that have delivered an overwhelming amount of perceived high quality content. From Breaking Bad to Dexter, Homeland, The Killing, Ray Donovan, and others, I'm spending a lot more time watching content on AMC, HBO and Showtime than I do on the stalwarts of ABC, CBS and NBC. And I'm paying them money for the privilege.

The success of shows like Breaking Bad on AMC has seemed to lead quickly to top-notch shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black skipping the TV route altogether and debuting on Netflix. Netflix marries the quality of premium channels with Internet delivery and on demand, which the new generation likes - leading to binge watching instead of scheduled consumption.

But my enjoying those shows instead of reality tripe on network TV doesn't mean the Internet has won. After all, if House of Cards were to be the exact same, only on CBS, I'd still watch it. When I'm making a decision on what to watch, I'm not selecting the show due to any loyalty to a network, a medium or a device. I'm watching it because I want to be informed or entertained. If the only way I can get live sporting events is on my television, that's where I will go. If the only way I can get House of Cards is on Netflix, that's where I will go.

I never bet against the Internet. I have long been a huge advocate of migrating from analog to digital, and bringing content on demand - all of it - to be available any time anywhere. But it's not a contest to consume on one screen instead of another - even if it makes me seem like an old fuddy duddy.

Disclosures: I work at Google, which loves the Internet, and owns YouTube.

TV Tattle Goes Dark After 13 Years

In the fall of 1998, a friend of mine at the Daily Californian student newspaper in Berkeley said he was in a real fix. With housing scarce at Cal, and both of us set to start our senior year, somehow he ended up "between places" and needed somewhere to crash. While I was already crammed into a one bedroom, one bathroom place with another roommate, I told the friend, Norman Weiss, he could crash on my couch. But I was no saint. I charged him $20 a night, figuring I'd make a $100 for the week while he looked for a place. After all, I needed money too. A month later, I was up $600, Norman found a place, and my real roommate, who wasn't in on the "cash for couch" deal, was ready to stop sharing the bathroom.

Norman by most standards was a pretty quirky guy. His social awkwardness was exceeded only by his intensity for finding a story. He was a good journalist, was voracious about hoovering up information, and was always up on the latest gossip at the university, and politics. Our evenings were spent talking about news, rumors and the Web. Shortly after he left my place, he showed me the early stages of his new idea - a website dedicated to links about TV. He was so excited about it and begged for my feedback on the name of the site and first graphics. I don't remember my exact words, but I seem to remember being pretty dismissive. After all, this was before real blogs had taken off, and I didn't care all that much about TV. But he did.

I first highlighted some of this story back in February of 2006, as Norman didn't take my being critical as a reason to stop working on what eventually became TV Tattle. Starting in 2000, and for nearly every weekday the last 13 years, casual television watchers and industry hobnobbers alike have turned to Norman's curated links to get the daily dish on the boob tube. Which is why when he put up a quick text note this week saying he was calling it quits, this move even hit The Hollywood Reporter, who seemingly is shocked by their outing of the quiet, but not truly anonymous, kingpin behind the site.

TV Tattle wasn't the most flashy site by any stretch of the imagination. It was largely text heavy, and images were small, if included at all. RSS was lacking, and social media integration was invisible. It remained a testament to a simpler time of the Web where one guy sitting at his computer, wherever that was, could keep people interested and entertained on a specific topic, due to being more diligent and consistent than anybody else.

Colleagues of mine from the Daily Californian went through a lot in the few years we all shared there. Some stayed in journalism and worked at places like the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Wired, and the Arizona Republic. Others of us found the magnet of Silicon Valley too much to ignore, and work hard on the tech side of things. But while Norman remained much of an enigma, my every visit to his site was a small link away from those formative days when we had no money, when three guys shared a one bedroom apartment, and gossip on Berkeley's always amusing City Council members was the topic du jour.

When looking to take some time off from the world of tech, I've never stopped being a regular reader of TV Tattle, but now it looks like that choice is being made for me. Good luck, Norman. I hope we haven't heard the last from you.

Web Video's Challenge of Inventory, Portability

 

Last month, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings set off a tech media firestorm with the announcement of a split between the company's streaming business, which would bear the original Netflix name, and its DVD by mail business, now known as Qwikster. Much of the discussion centered around two parts - the first being Netflix's price increases announced this summer, and the second, focus on the name of the new business, which sounded way too much like Amway's sub-brand, Quixtar. But both flareups circumvented the real trajectory of Netflix making a choice to decrease its attention on the physical media world, one I publicly said I walked away from this Spring. With a smart combination of online video properties, including Netflix, YouTube, iTunes and Hulu, you can have your entertainment needs satiated practically any time. However, there remain gaps of content and availability from site to site, thanks to exclusivity deals with entertainment owners, copyright and who knows what else.

Apple's initial foray into renting movies (and later television shows) online, combined with the release of Apple TV units, made it easy for me and my family to select movies on demand, and watch them almost instantly. After some buffering, the selected title would be in our living room and could play that evening. Back in 2007, when Netflix was not streaming, the opportunity was available, in my opinion, for Apple to seize the market, through introducing a subscription service. (See: How Apple Could Crush Netflix Now) But it didn't happen. Apple didn't go the subscription route, Netflix evolved, and no doubt Hollywood studios were afraid of Steve Jobs having as much power over their titles' success as he did in the music business. In time, Netflix figured out streaming, kept the subscription model intact, and presented another choice for online video. Even better, Netflix did something that Apple chose not to do - embracing the Web by allowing for in-browser movie plays, and releasing mobile apps for practically every phone and tablet. (See: Netflix Edges Closer to Making the Perfect Web Video Site)

While Apple did a great job of bringing films and TV into my living room or laptop, Netflix did a better job of making them portable. In addition to box office wins, I've seen full seasons of shows like Dexter and Mad Men through Netflix, available on any laptop and through most connected TV devices, such as Google TV, TiVo and the Nintendo Wii. Netflix gets the Web, and is so simple to use that my 3 year old twins spend a lot of time running the Netflix app on our iPads. I'm often amused to see the recommendations that come my way from Netflix after Matthew or Sarah have spent an hour with Nickelodeon and Sprout shows for toddlers.

Similarly, YouTube's tie-in with the Android Market has also embraced the cloud for streaming video. As I wrote in June, you can rent films on the Android Market, and watch them on YouTube from any computer. That too is very convenient, and there's no entrance fee requiring subscription. Meanwhile, Hulu has access to some shows (like my personal favorite, Peep Show) that you can't get anywhere else - and there's the catch. Much like in the old days of instant messaging, where services were splintered without standards for interoperability, consumers are left to have multiple accounts from multiple places and remember which shows and titles are where. An evening's entertainment can come down to which device you have in which room, which services are supported and which titles are available for which place. It's easier to deal with for the cloud-backed properties, like Netflix and YouTube, but less great for the others. Nobody's yet got it 100% nailed.

Additionally, what all of these services miss is the opportunity to satisfy the home viewer who wants to see movies currently playing in theaters. I've been begging for this for more than three years now. (See: Think Apple Would Dare To Take On the Movie Theaters?) As a parent of three kids three and under, planning for a babysitter to cover the hours when my wife and I would attend a movie is a challenge, one that will no doubt cost much more than the face value of the tickets. So most of the time, the theater experience is unavailable. Meanwhile, most families' home theater systems are getting even better. I would have to bet the availability of in-theater titles to play at home would have real value and I know I would pay a premium for it. I would have seen Moneyball this weekend, if it was available, but being homebound means either we have to wait, or we have to seek out illegal downloading alternatives - which aren't ever a good option.

Spotify delivered the reality of a near-infinite music library on demand. Practically any title in the world (or so it seems) in high quality with no downloads or delays. The movie equivalent is still missing. No doubt this is a harder quest, but it's one worth conquering. Any time you see knowledgeable people debating Netflix's streaming movie inventory online, you hear concerns about its library. The company is closing deals to make that better, but they're quite expensive. Apple hasn't budged on a subscription model. YouTube remains best known for amateur videos, while that's expected to improve. And who knows what's happening with Hulu? Not me.

As broadband becomes more ubiquitous, and traditional entertainment leaders get innovative on their own about reaching customers, partnering with all services, I expect the portable cloud model to win, as it always does. Things are much better now than they were two or three years ago, but there's much more room to go. I hope in two or three more years in the future, we'll be laughing about how hard it was to get the titles we wanted anywhere.

Disclosures: I work at Google, of course, and you can decide if that impacts how I discuss Google TV, Android, YouTube or any of Google's perceived partners or competitors. :)

Apple TV, Google TV, TiVo: Crowded Theater, All Good

      
There is no one perfect home entertainment gadget. No single gadget manages to record all your favorite shows on demand, has access to the deepest online library for new and older titles, syncs perfectly with services like Netflix and finds all the Web's video at once. Devices ranging from set top boxes like Apple TV, TiVo, Google TV, Roku, and Boxxee, and game centers including the Nintendo Wii, XBox 360 and Sony Playstation, and single-purpose devices like the Slingbox have been working hard to make our entertainment consumption world ideal, but each has its strengths and holes. In our home, we've tried to fill all the holes, and this requires multiple devices, each one finding a perfect niche that can't be replaced by an alternative.

We moved beyond the traditional VCR/DVD world in 2003 with the arrival of our first TiVo DVR -a series one. Since then, we added two newer boxes, the TiVo HD device and the TiVo XL, the bigger brother of the HD, with a terabyte of storage. While the Premiere line of TiVos emerged last year, it wasn't compelling enough an upgrade to make the move, but we're very happy with the pair we have.

In 2007, with Apple's release of the first generation Apple TV, we snapped up a 40 gigabyte model, which is in use today. Last year, I also picked up the newest model Apple TV, which is stream centric. Meanwhile, last month, after some delay, I added Google TV to the mix with a Logitech Revue. Having seen it panned by much of the tech press, and the multiple demos I'd received falling short, it took some hands-on testing at a local Best Buy to push me to bring it home.

So with all these boxes and companion remotes, how do I choose what to use? Like I mentioned last May with mobile phones, you have to look to the core of each device to find their specialty.

Each Product Has Its Own Core Focus

For the Apple TV, the product's strength is its tie to the iTunes store, specifically, the vast video library which contains more new releases for rent or purchase than alternatives. Google and TiVo have close links to the Amazon video store, but the experience has never matched that of iTunes. When we want to rent a movie for an evening, or purchase a video for my kids to watch (like Toy Story or Cars), it's on the Apple TV.

For TiVo, the product's strength has always been around its ability to time shift videos and record my favorites. A companion benefit is its show guide and search, to find future shows and set them to record. The TiVos upstairs and downstairs run our scheduled programming, and having tried crappy DVRs from Comcast, Dish and others, there's simply no parallel to what TiVo offers.

For Google TV, the device is Web centric, much like Android, of course, and most things Google touches. There's something fun about browsing the Twitter app on the full screen, browsing Web sites, and enjoying YouTube on a screen much larger than a laptop. Tired of my kids running into videos on YouTube with the iPad that weren't exactly my favorite, browsing YouTube myself with them in the room puts me back in control and reduces their digital ADD.

Another much-overlooked feature of Google TV is the ability to browse what's on, automatically sorted by genre. Like most of you with kids, being stuck with baskets of laundry is made much easier when watching something entertaining. Yesterday, owning this task, I checked what movies were on, found Knocked Up just started and amused myself through three baskets of whites and colored laundry. It's similarly very good for finding out what sports are playing anywhere on the TV dial.

Is Google TV Any Good? I Say Absolutely.

As the Google TV is the newest gadget for us, and I've covered Apple TV and TiVo many times before, it's worth saying how good the experience has been. Reading scads of reviews that slammed its utility, or the keyboard remote, I was very surprised how easy it was to setup and how immediate its benefits were. I was most concerned that putting the Logitech box between the TiVo and TV would somehow impact the TiVo's ability to schedule recordings. This turned out not to be a problem at all. The keyboard remote was as simple as any other laptop keyboard, and the Home key always puts me to home base, the center of applications, what's on TV, and is the conduit to browsing the Web.

Even more futuristic is the ability to use any Android device as the remote control with the Google TV app. There's some fun to using the Galaxy Tab as the remote control, with part of the app's screen space devoted to playing the role of trackpad. If you haven't done it, surfing the Web from the tablet to the big screen is pretty cool.

Obviously, each experience could improve some. The Apple TV doesn't know anything about live TV and doesn't have Safari running on it like Chrome does for Google. Google TV makes no attempt to record shows, even though it knows they're on. Meanwhile, the TiVo doesn't really know the real Web exists, despite tie-ins on Premiere with Web widgets and third parties like Netflix, Amazon and Blockbuster. But in our home, if we have an entertainment need to fill, we have a box to do the job.

PR around the Google TV has been pretty light since its initial launch, and one could guess that maybe we'll hear more about the product at Google I/O in May, the one year anniversary of its introduction. Maybe new hardware and TVs will be announced, or new content partnerships, after months of hearing that sites (like Hulu) want to keep Google out of their kitchen. TiVo is due for a big upgrade that maybe makes me update the older boxes. And Apple TV only really gets talked about when you hear rumors that Apple could go the true television route and release an HDTV line. They've certainly got the relationships with suppliers, and the best UI team on the planet. But if you know what you want out of TV, Google TV, Apple TV and TiVo all have a fit and each one brings value. So don't get caught up the tech news grumpiness you find elsewhere. Considering how inexpensive each device is, you just might get all three.

While Apple Slept On Their Hobby, Google Executed

After noting Apple practically being a zero in terms of mentions in yesterday's keynote at Google I/O, today saw the gloves come off as Google came out swinging against its competitor - and it had to be noted, even from this longtime Mac customer - that many of the punches landed, again and again. Most damning? Google actually took TV seriously - instead of teasing customers with a streamlined device, like the Apple TV, which looked great, and functioned well, but was often dismissed as not being a central focus. The result, despite the occasional bumps in the morning's demo, is the latest and most credible offering yet that could unify the worlds of Web and television in one place - on the biggest screen in the house. (See the official Google TV site)

Back in 2007, I had high hopes for the Apple TV. I openly questioned those naysayers on the device, celebrated its small feature updates, such as adding YouTube support, and postulated how it could compete and defeat other businesses, such as Netflix. But it seemed Apple had other ideas for the device - pretty much ignoring it, even as the company saw tremendous focus in other places - first with the iPhone, and now with the iPad.

Yes, the Apple TV still works. Yes, it can still show photos and YouTube and my music and pull down films from iTunes. But it's a siloed dinosaur.

Google made its antiquity especially clear today, as instead of using Apple's divide and conquer mentality, with Apple TV being completely separate from your TV, the company promises to bring the Web to the TV, complete with a search box that finds content, no matter where the source. The reason this has a much better chance to succeed than Apple TV ever could? Commitment. Commitment from the company's leadership, from partners, and to the word they keep smacking us with - openness.


Rishi Chandra, product manager for Google TV, says the company's new offering is about "taking the best of what TV has to offer today and what the Web has to offer today and give a seamless experience", which should result in the ability to find playable content - no matter where it is and bring it to the big screen.

Built following a history of unsuccessful challengers, such as Web TV, Google's massive potential comes from several points - including the immediate leverage of the Android platform, including the application marketplace and command from any Android mobile device, the full-fledged Google Chrome browser, the obvious support of YouTube, and alliances with Adobe for Flash and teaming with leading industry partners like Sony, Logitech, Best Buy and Intel to make the entire ecosystem do its thing.

As an Apple user, and as a TiVo customer, I have grown used to those two companies playing a significant role in my TV entertainment experience. Those two companies are exceptional when it comes to getting user experience right and making things feel smooth. Google hasn't managed to replicate that feeling of seamless integration yet, but their ability to display bookmarks on TV, to download apps from a PC and have them hit the TV, and manage the TV from multiple devices at once all look like they are getting so many features into this thing that there is really no way somebody like Apple can compete, even if they were to buckle down and try for real this time.

Google and its partners promised that the first television sets, set top boxes and input devices will all start hitting shelves by Fall of this year - in time for the holiday shopping season. It will remain to be seen how customers take to a new platform with devices coming from different sources, but it looks like it is Google that is "Thinking Different" about the TV and trying to open it up as a platform for its many developers to leverage - all while Cupertino pretends its Apple TV doesn't exist. As an Apple TV owner, I am disappointed in the lack of attention paid to this product, and think often my loyalty may have been taken for granted. But Google is executing so well in so many areas, it is obvious we have an alternative, one that, if the UI is excellent, could change the game.

Best Buy CEO Bryan Dunn, speaking with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, referred to the new Google TV platform as "not just a new aisle but a new category". Rishi Chandra echoed his comments saying, "Our goal is to have the same impact on the TV experience as the smart phone did with the mobile experience."

The TV looks like it finally may get smart. I just want to know why Cupertino played dumb for so long.

TiVo Launches Premiere DVRs, Keyboard Remote, Web Ties

After changing the way many people watch television, by pioneering time shifting, season passes and the ability to pause live TV, TiVo has become synonymous with scheduled television recording, even under intense competitive pressures from cable provider clones. In recent years, TiVo's standard-bearer hardware boxes have evolved to include ever-larger hard disks, integration with wireless networking, avoiding pokey phone line schedule updates, and more additions to the machines' playlist - adding on music, photos and on demand videos from partners. Today, the company introduced a new top of the line product family with its Premiere and Premiere XL boxes, aiming to make the DVR the central entertainment box for your living room - including not just cable TV, but movies, Web content and music as well. Alongside the announcement, the company also introduced a new take on their trademark remote - with an integrated keyboard, as well as new partnerships with Pandora and FrameChannel.

TiVo's aggressive marketing materials call the new Premiere and Premiere XL DVRs "the one box to rule them all". The reason for the new messaging? A focus on integrating all these entertainment sources into one package, with improved discovery. As important to TiVo as the new boxes' 320 gigabytes of space for Premiere or a full terabyte for the XL model is a revamped search functionality that lets viewers find content from many sources at once - be they on cable, the Web or from partners.

The New TiVo Premiere DVR

For the last few months, TiVo has been running a search beta for its customers, and it looks like they have been watching the activity, as the new search shows the highly graphical interface, previously only accessible through their beta trial, including poster-like images for related programs, and hooks to BlockBuster, Amazon and Netflix. Searching the new Premiere line becomes even faster when one has access to the new remote control, which, when turned sideways, slides out to reveal a QWERTY keyboard, greatly easing the ability to type onto the screen.

TiVo's New Remote With a Slide-Out QWERTY Keyboard

Beyond basic search, TiVo is talking up its directory of programming and artists - saying you can now view actors' entertainment resumes and show's cast lists, much like an on-demand IMDB. TiVo also promised you wouldn't need to be constantly changing screens from menu to menu, moving to a more simplified UI, with double and even triple columns, built for today's larger HD sets.

The New TiVo Browsing Experience

TiVo Central With Built-in Search With Partners

Also announced today was a tie-in with Pandora, the popular music streaming service, letting you listen to your personalized radio stations through your TV set. This news not only is available to the Premiere line, but also to existing Series 3 and HD line customers, which means our home could tap into our music on the HD and XL boxes we have. While announced today, Pandora doesn't go live for a few months.

Interestingly, also debuting today is a relationship with FrameChannel, which promises to "bring the best of the Web directly to the TV, offering users access to nearly 1,000 content widgets of personal and commercial content, ranging from Tweets, photos and status updates to news, weather, sports scores and stock quotes." The FrameChannel tie-in is highlighted as your own personalized channel, much like a browser start page or PointCast from the late 1990s, but on your TV.

The new Premiere line carries on the TiVo tradition of getting ever thinner and more sleek from generation to generation, despite increased hard drive capacities. Also new to Premiere is an on-screen disk space meter to show how many more shows you can record, and a built-in 30 second scan, which no doubt makes it even easier to skip commercials.

The new TiVo lineup is available in a month's time - debuting in early April. The standard Premiere model is $299 and the XL is $499.

Wanted: A Magical TiVo With Sub-Program Alerts

If you own a TiVo, you can't fathom using a television without one. The ability to have your DVR record multiple channels at once so you never miss a program, pause live programming, skip commercials, and have it constantly searching for new shows to recommend or show you when your favorite actors or directors are starring in a program, is without equal. But as Web search queries and alert capabilities become ever stronger, I've been thinking of the potential for a future TiVo product to pinpoint programming down to levels much more granular than an individual episode.

Let's start with the required elements that are already in place.

1. We already know that TiVo can pop up an alert for you when you are watching a channel if something else you have told it to record is going to possibly preempt your programming.
   
2. We know that there are many many other TiVo users who are watching TV, so there is a high probability that somebody out there on the service is watching one of the stations at any given time, and if not, TiVo has the capability to tap into that channel's feed.
   
3. We know that automated close captioning and transcription tools are gaining incredible improvements over time, practically matching natural speech.
   
4. We know services like TV Eyes are constantly searching for content within TV shows.

On the Web, I have the ability to get alerted in near real-time if the brand I am watching (or my personal name) is mentioned online, be it in a blog comment (via BackType), in a blog post itself (via Blog Search), or on a social network like Twitter (via TweetBeep) or FriendFeed. Weather programs can alert me if there is an advisory in my area, or if a temperature reaches a certain level. Stock trading sites, like eTrade, can send me an alert if a watched stock reaches a pricepoint, and if lucky, I can even have it trade on my behalf if I have sufficient funds and an order in place. Each of these is an example of what I think could be the next generation of programming discovery and recording for TiVo or other DVR services - especially if users could utilize something like natural language to specify what they are looking for. Think about the possibilities that could be obtained with an intelligent next-gen recorder.

1. Post a visible alert when the channel I was previously watching live returns from commercial.
   
   This way, if a program I was watching cut to commercial, and I switched to another channel, I would know to return back to my original show.
   
   
2. Post a visible alert for specified occasions in a sporting event.
   
   I could program my TiVo to alert me when my favorite baseball team returns to bat, or if my favorite football team had recovered possession of the ball. Similarly, I could set an alert to highlight me when a specific batter came to the plate, or if the game's score differential had decreased to a specified amount. (Example Alerts: The 49ers are within 7 of the Bills, trailing 21-14 or Albert Pujols is batting.)
   
   
3. Post an alert when a specific stock is being mentioned on a business channel.
   
   If I hold Google or Apple stock in my portfolio, I could set an alert with TiVo that would pop up if Jim Cramer mentioned the companies on CNBC.
   
   
4. The TiVo could record subsegments of a show, not the entire program.
   
   What if I could tell the TiVo to record Conan O'Brien's monologue and skits, but to skip over the interviews? That's mostly what I do anyway, by hand. Similarly, can we record Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but never have to see the guests?
   
   
5. The TiVo could learn my "preferred" news network and watch for coverage of topics.
   
   If I told TiVo I preferred MSNBC, CNN or Fox News, and asked the unit to watch for mentions of individuals, like the Clintons, or topics, like the War in Afghanistan, TiVo would watch the live broadcasts for me, and pick up the relevant clips for recording.
   
   
6. TiVo could integrate with network news' or ESPN's Special Report interruptions.
   
   While the concept of "Breaking News" has been watered down a great deal with the advent and growth of 24 hour cable news, the networks still can get your attention through Special Reports that interrupt regular viewing. But if I am on a cable channel watching something else, or am watching a recorded show on TiVo, I would want an alert that NBC had broken away to cover a critical live event.

Over the years, TiVo has become much more than just a recording vault for my favorite shows. The service now lets you search by show's descriptions to say, record every show with the phrase "Silicon Valley" in it, or every movie starring Johnny Depp. But I want more. The Web has spoiled me in terms of delivering real-time alerts and getting my attention right away. In contrast, TiVo's old-school episode by episode, show by show, hour by hour chunkitude almost seems wheezy. Even if we can't get to all my requests right away, I can't help but wonder how soon it will be before we can start getting alerts and recordings that are in smaller selections than the rules we have today.

If you could tell your TiVo to crawl shows you watch, or even those you don't, how would you customize this magical TiVo of the future?

TiVo and Netflix Hook Up for Instant Video Gratification

It was once expected that the fight for video and Internet content in the living room would feature major players like Microsoft, Apple, TiVo, Netflix, Amazon, DirectTV and others vying for a share, each with their own proprietary formats and devices. But as time has progressed, we have seen vendors partner and collaborate with one another so nearly all content, with some major exceptions, is available on each device. YouTube is on both the AppleTV and TiVo, for instance. Amazon can be found on TiVo. And now, after much anticipation, TiVo users can now link in to their Netflix accounts and stream videos from their queue instantly.

With the latest Fall 2008 update, TiVo Series 3, HD and HD XLR DVR owners can use the "Video On Demand" menu option and see Netflix sitting alongside Amazon and YouTube. As NetFlix has tried to reinvent itself from the order by mail company with scads of bright red envelopes, and be instead known for having the widest array of online video available, they rightfully demanded a seat at the table on TiVo's menu, connecting some of the most loyal customers in the entertainment business in the process.


Netflix and TiVo Together at Last
For existing Netflix account owners, adding the service to TiVo is fairly straight forward. First, you either click "Watch Instantly" or "Netflix Account Information". Then, you are presented with an activation code which you need to enter on your computer by way of the Netflix Web site. When the activation code is entered, your DVR recognizes the code, and you get clearance to your account.


Yes! I am a Netflix Customer

Activating Via the Web...

Activation is Successful!
If you already have an instant queue set up from earlier use, it is automatically shown on your TiVo. Otherwise, just go to the Netflix.com site, and add a few items to your queue. The next time you look at the "Watch Instantly" menu item on your TiVo, the movies will be right there.


My Instant Queue Is Ready.
Just last week, I wrote about how I had used my TiVo to watch a pair of films from Amazon.com's UnBox service, and had run into video quality issues. But so far, I've had nothing but good things to say about the quality from Netflix, and wouldn't expect this to be any different. While the catalog of films available from the "Watch Instantly" menu isn't the biggest I've ever seen, even the most stingy of film aficionados should be able to find a movie on demand to their liking.

At this rate, it looks like I'll never see movies in the theater, get the new releases off Apple TV, and the old archival films off Netflix. But between the two boxes, I'm probably covered. It's a great time to be an entertainment technology junkie.

Come On Down, Your iPhone is the Next Contestant!

The Price Is Right on the iPhone - Just Like the Game Show
Given our prior stories on the new UNO and Yahtzee games for the iPhone, it should come as no surprise to you that I've been having a lot of fun checking out the iPhone app for The Price Is Right, a near clone of the television game show, which I watched diligently during my misspent youth. If I remember correctly, it always came on at 10 a.m., as Bob Barker followed up the 9 a.m. Sesame Street.

Like the original game show, The Price Is Right application on the iPhone is divided into four parts.

First, you bid for an item in contestants' row.


Get closest to the price, but don't overbid!
Second, you play a contest to match prices and win prizes.


Remember Cliff Hanger?

Or It's In the Bag?

Punch a Bunch?

And Master Key?

Third, you spin the big wheel!


Getting $1.00 Is SO RANDOM.

Fourth, you have the showcase showdown to win the big prizes!


Just what would I do with a sailboat?

You might even win A NEW CAR!!!


After playing the Price Is Right app for a few days, I have to admit how much harder it is to actually play the game than it always looked on TV. While I admit, I would be "that guy" who always outbids a competitor by a dollar to try and get on stage, it's happened to me on the iPhone. And on one showcase, I bid $31,000 when the actual price was $30,750. Of course, that meant I lost when my opponent underbid by more than $7,000. I swear I was physically in pain. And don't get me started on the Big Wheel. Even if I was on a hot streak, the wheel is flat out random. There is zero skill involved, so you basically have a one in three chance of advancing even if you blew your contest.

I also learned I am horrible at putting for the Hole In One, that I always overbid for small items and underbid for large ones, and I have a tendency to draw the Strike chips out of the bag, or pick the Master Key that is a dud. I was just messing around when I picked the avatar who was losing all his hair, but by the time I win this game, the photo could actually be accurate.

But don't let my complaining stop you. If you're a fan of the game, and you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, go get it, and you could be the next contestant! It is $4.99 from the iTunes Store.

Amazon and TiVo Somehow Make 99 Cent Films Seem Too Expensive

All day today, I was looking forward to two closely-related things: sitting down at home to watch an inexpensive movie with my wife, and then rolling out a post saying Apple had missed out on revenue from the Gray household, as a new expanded relationship with TiVo and Amazon Unbox had us renting two films from that service instead of iTunes. But after two hours of watching substandard video with jagged starts and stops and visual artifacts throughout the film, it just reinforced our decision to go with the brand that represents quality. Despite the fact we only paid $.99 each for two movies, I feel I didn't get my money's wroth.

Sometime over the Thanksgiving holiday, TiVo updated its service, moving a new feature front and center on members' sets - that of "Video on Demand and YouTube."

The offering, which had been less organized previously, highlights "Amazon Video On Demand", saying "Rent or buy over 30,000 TV and movie titles from Amazon Video On Demand, and have them delivered directly to your Now Playing List."

Top movie rentals, including "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", "Get Smart", and others were marked down to 99 cents on the weekend, down from their usual price of $3.99. We hastily grabbed both titles yesterday, and figured we'd gotten a great deal. But it's a good thing for Amazon we hadn't paid full price, because the result was a mess. In stark contrast to Apple's HD-quality videos from iTunes, which regularly cost $3.99 or $4.99, we were subjected to video that stumbled and jerked, and had square or rectangle flashes at all parts of the screen throughout the film.

At no point during the two hour Indiana Jones movie did things clear up, and considering the movie had already been panned by critics, and my peers, the bad experience did nothing to make me go against their opinion.

As a loyal TiVo user and a loyal Apple TV customer, I was hoping to have the best of both worlds. I was excited to see that Amazon could link up with TiVo and give us a price we couldn't refuse, but if Get Smart is anything like the experience we had with The Crystal Skull, we're not ever going to be trying the service again. Very disappointing.

What's On TV? Browse TV Listings from Your iPhone (Free today!)

In September, we first discussed the debut of i.TV, an iPhone app for local movie and television listings. Since then, new entrants have emerged to further integrate your iPhone with your living room entertainment, with TiVo launching its mobile site, and recently, Joost launching an iPhone application. One competitor, called "What's On TV?" offers a solid app that elegantly helps you browse your TV listings, search for new shows, and see program descriptions. Best of all, it's free on the Apple iTunes store for today only.


What's On TV: Getting Set Up
As with i.TV, the first step to getting What's On? up and running is entering your TV package. Start by saying whether you have Satellite, Cable, or an Antenna, which tier of service you might have (e.g. standard vs. digital), and enter your zip code and provider.


What's On TV: Seeing Your TV Listings
Once your channels have loaded, similar to online TV Guide or portal TV listings, you can uncheck those stations you would prefer not be displayed, and thumb channel by channel through the results to see what's playing. Interestingly, as with Apple's address book or iTunes, you can skip ahead by choosing the group of channels you wish displayed, helpful if you have hundreds to select from.


What's On TV: Searching for "The Hills" and Roseanne
Searching through the What's On? listings is relatively simple as well. Hit the search button at the bottom of the application, and you can search for upcoming shows by title, seeing when they display, on which channels, and can click through to get a description of the episode.

The What's On? application doesn't try to be the end-all be-all of entertainment apps, but what it does, it does well, elegantly, with good color cues, such as green for sports, and purple for movies. And after a "free for Black Friday" special turned out to be more successful than anticipated, the developers behind the application have extended the offer through Sunday. You can download the app here.

TiVo's Mobile Interface Gets Things Recording on the Go

Despite having pioneered the world of set top boxes and time shifting recordings, TiVo hasn't become the dominant business success its many hard-core fans (including me) had hoped it would. While its issues ranged from competing with monopolistic cable companies to rigid payment structures, to being a near zero when it comes to blogs and the social Web, they have eked out the occasional update that has us hoping more is to come. Among them is their new mobile Web site, which launched just last week. (See WebWare and Gizmodo) On the road myself this week, thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday, I can connect with our home TiVo boxes using my iPhone and make sure I don't miss any TV I may have forgotten to tell the units to record before leaving the house.

TiVo's mobile application may not be as ground-breaking as their DVR interface is (or once was), but the offering is simple and just works. If you head to m.tivo.com, you gain the equivalent of their Web site, from daily picks and most popular TV shows, to a search option that lets you search for TV show titles, actors, directors and other show-related items.



TiVo Mobile's Simple Interface
Most importantly, by choosing the "Settings" option, you can choose which DVR is linked to your mobile account, after you have logged in, and you can add shows to the scheduled list of recordings. Either select a show from the daily picks and most popular items, or from your own search results.


Searching for NFL Turns Up a 49er Game
Using the mobile TiVo site via my iPhone, I was able to search on the term "NFL" and find all shows that had the NFL in the title. A few clicks later, and I was able to find the San Francisco 49ers' game at the Buffalo Bills is to be played on Fox this upcoming Sunday at 10 a.m. I could then click to "Record This Episode", determine the recording's priority, quality and whether it would start or stop outside of its scheduled time. Upon completion, I even got an e-mail confirmation to my account to let me know the request had been successful.


Setting the Recording and Getting Confirmation
Some of the characteristics of the mobile site are rather basic, from the links on gray backgrounds to the pull-down menus, but assuming the site is intended for use on a wide variety of mobile phones, and not elite smartphones like the iPhone, that makes sense. Now, if I find myself learning of a new show or one I'd like to record on the go, I can do so just by grabbing the iPhone and heading to m.tivo.com to TiVo's mobile site. Maybe there's hope yet still to keep this tech pioneer alive.