Category: TiVo News

Here’s one that seems to be a bit out of left field: Earthlink will bundle TiVo services with its DSL lines. If you opt for the package, you’ll get access to Amazon Unbox. I assume the monthly pricing for the two services will be discounted from the cost of purchasing each independently.

I’m a little surprised. Certainly partnerships are generally a good thing, but TiVo is partnering with a company that largely sells DSL and dial-up internet access. The biggest competitors to Earthlink are other DSL providers, and cable companies selling broadband access via cable lines. I would personally think that TiVo has much more to gain by working the other side of the ISP market: the cable companies. Their partnership with Comcast should bear fruit soon and we’re all hoping they’ll re-ignite talks with DirecTV now that Liberty is in charge over there.

The press release is here.

The news of the day is that TiVo and Amazon have partnered to provide movie downloads directly to networked standalone TiVo boxes. This of course gave TiVo’s stock a boost, but more importantly, it creates yet another reason to add capacity to your TiVo.

If you had any doubt, check out this article from Rick Aristotle Munarriz of The Motley Fool, which proclaims:

“The large installed base of TiVo users are already open to paying a premium for televised entertainment. They have the disposable income to pay for TiVo’s monthly service. If anything, the only limitation is the relatively small size of the TiVo hard drives on entry-level machines.”

Rick! Come on. This is not a limitation. We can take a 40-hour “entry-level” TiVo and turn it into an 1,800 hour monster. Amazing.

As you may know, TiVo has a great deal that allows you to purchase a new Series3 TiVo and transfer lifetime service from another TiVo to your Series3. For $199, TiVo will transfer lifetime service from any TiVo (standalone or DIRECTV DVR with TiVo) and they’ll give you a year of service on the box you’re transfering from (if it’s a standalone).

The offer technically requires you to purchase your Series3 by 12/31/06 and to call TiVo to perform the transfer before 1/31/07. However, based on a few unofficial conversations with TiVo reps, we suspect that Series3 purchases made in January WILL qualify for the service offer, provided you call TiVo to complete the transfer by 1/31/07.

For the time being, we cannot guarantee that 2007 purchases of our Series3 boxes will be eligible for the transfer, however, we will give you a no-risk way of trying. Here’s how:

If you purchase a Series3 TiVo from weaKnees in January, 2007, upon request we will provide you with your TiVo service number IN ADVANCE, so that you can transfer service. We will also put your order on a 48-HOUR hold, giving you the chance to cancel with no penalty if you are unable to transfer service. We will release your order for immediate shipping once we hear from you, or if we don’t hear from you, we’ll ship 48 hours after purchase. If you choose to cancel within that 48-hour period, your credit card will not be charged.

To request your TiVo service number, simply place your order online or by phone (888-932-5633). Then email us with the subject “Series3 TSN Request” and in the body of your email, include your order number. We will email back your TiVo service number. Then call the TiVo transfer line at (866) 424-8486 to complete the transfer.

If we hear about any official change in policy, we will post it on the Blog.

The Series3 TiVo, according to TiVo,
is the world’s quietest DVR.

We are now thrilled to announce that you don’t have to sacrifice tranquility
for capacity. WeaKnees is the only company in the world shipping the Seagate
750GB DB35 SATA drive, specially manufactured for use in DVRs. Our DB35s
are specially tuned to reduce noise and temperature, without any impact on performance.

If you aren’t already aware, the DB35 is Seagate’s line of drives
made for DVRs. weaKnees has been using DVR-specific drives (first Maxtor QuickView
and now Seagate DB35) for four+ years, because DVR drives are quieter and cooler,
and provide better DVR performance, versus standard desktop drives. DVR manufacturers
worldwide (TiVo, DIRECTV, Samsung, Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, ReplayTV) use
only DVR drives, and they use them for good reason.

If you are one of our early 750GB SATA purchasers and have not already sent
your drives back, please contact us so that we can help you reduce excessive
noise in your Series3 DVR.

If you want a bare (unformatted) 750GB
DB35 SATA drive, we’ve got those, too.

Don’t forget: For a limited time, you can get $20
off any $30 order by using Google Checkout.

TiVo has two new press releases out today.

The first is here. It basically means that more types of video from the internet can now be converted and sent to broadband TiVos from a PC so that you can watch internet video on your TiVo instead of your computer. Definitely a step forward- but really a pretty small one.

The next press release regards sharing your own home videos, and this one is here. This is a bit of Web 2.0 in your TiVo – content sharing. You create your own “channel” of slides or video and then give the code to others, and others can share them. So your parents can see your kids home movies on their TiVo. Frankly, it’s a lot like posting a video to the web, and then giving someone the web page address, but it happens, on the viewer side, on the TV. Seems incremental, but, to me, this is the big change.

TiVo has needed to harness the “network effect” for years, and this second feature is one of the first signs of it. The network effect is the idea that hardware or software becomes important to have because others have it, and people need compatibility essentially. Windows as a network effect – if applications exist only on Windows, then people need to get Windows machines. Once upon a time, files weren’t easily translatable to other OSes, so in the business world, if you wanted to communicate, you needed Windows. So here the idea is, you have these super-cute grandkids out there, across the country. They have a TiVo. Wanna see them? Gotta get a TiVo. It gives people a reason to get a TiVo – the reason being compatibility.