Posts Tagged ‘Tivo’
My reaction to Apple’s announcements
Thomas Hawk’s commentary on Apple’s announcement’s (watch) Tuesday mirrors my own. I got a kick out of reading his recent post on the subject today.
Someone Check Steve Job’s Pipe, I Don’t Think That’s Tobacco He’s Smoking in There
Apple is obviously continuing their push into the livingroom but IMO they’re a bit late to the game. iTV feels like too little too late and it isn’t even available yet. On the other hand, Apple wasn’t the 1st one on the MP3 player seen either – but they delivered a better mouse trap and it paid off, in a big way, the same thing could happen in the livingroom. For me, for now – NetFlix, Tivo, and my flatpanel Sony Wega TV are working just fine. I don’t even have HDTV yet. There is a real problem in the livingroom that needs to be solved. What’s that? Too many wires, too much complexity, too many choices – people just want to watch and listen. Maybe Apple can solve that problem.
Transferring Personal Video from PC to TiVo DVR
You can transfer video (MPEG-2) from your PC to your Tivo, assuming it’s connected to your home network. Cool – did it just the other night for an episode of Lost I recorded on my cable-enabled Sony Vaio.
My “Wired” Series 2 Tivo
I’ve had a Tivo for over two years (1st post) now and I have to say it’s still one of my favorite gadgets. It’s one of the few gadgets my wife and I both see eye-to-eye on – the Tivo saves us (busy parents) precious minutes everyday. This week I finally managed to "Wire" my Tivo – it’s now connected to my home network and the Internet.
Until recently, I just didn’t have a reason to justify the expense or the effort required to run wire to the closet where my Tivo lives – it was connected to my analog phone line (to retrieve the TV schedule) and that was good enough. TiVoToGo, Tivo multimedia features, on-line scheduling, and other features supported by the Series 2 Tivo weren’t enough to motivate me to "wire" my Tivo.
Tivo recently announced that the Tivo Desktop (software that lets you transfer stuff to and from your Tivo over your home network) will soon support video transfer to the Apple Ipod – this feature announcement was my motivation for wiring my Tivo.
Wiring my Tivo took about as much money and effort as I thought it would. After doing some research, and making a failed trip to Best Buy (poor inventory AKA Worst Buy), I settled on and purchased a D-Link USB 2.0 Fast Ethernet Adapter – I ordered it on-line because Best Buy doesn’t have any inventory. Did I mention that Best Buy doesn’t have any inventory. The Ethernet Adapter was required to connect my Tivo to my home network – for some reason the Tivo doesn’t sport an Ethernet port, instead it has two USB ports. Connecting the Tivo to my network and the Internet was as easy as plugging in the adapter, connecting it to an Ethernet cable (which is connected to a router, etc. etc.), and adjusting a setting within the Tivo Setup. My Tivo is now more powerful than ever and I’m anxiously awaiting the new version of Tivo Desktop which should make it easy for me to transfer video content to my sexy little Apple Ipod.
By the way, I don’t regret my decision to put this off for two years – I haven’t used any of the existing features yet – I just want to transfer video content to my Apple Ipod.
Slingbox
Switched On: Let Freedom Sling – Engadget – www.engadget.com Ross Rubin (Engadget contributor) wrote a nice piece on the Slingbox for Engadget.
Last month, Sling Media provided a sweet-tasting update to the software that provides the window into that its flagship product — the $250 Chunky-bar-inspired Slingbox. The product was conceived when founders Blake and Jason Krikorian became frustrated that they couldn’t catch live sporting events when they were traveling.
I’ve had my eye on one of these for a while – might just be time to click the Buy Now button.
About palmIT
palmIT is authored by Cale Bruckner [LinkedIn]
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Tivo and Amazon.com Unbox Partner
0 CommentsWednesday • February 7, 2007 • by Cale
Tivo’s new partnership with Amazon.com Unbox is going to be good for Tivo – I’ll use the service to download and watch movies. Actually, I might use it for TV shows I don’t have access to as well. Smart deal.