Monday, January 31, 2005

Tivo Blogging

It's nice to see that Tivo is finally getting smart and opening up their platform for developers. I've never been one who believed in "convergence" - that one day your TV and computer would become the same appliance. Watching TV and doing computer stuff just are not all that similar activities, even though they both have nice shiny screens. But, with wireless technology it's rather obvious that your TV and your computer should be able to talk to each other, and a Tivo-type device is an obvious intermediary.

Hoped for features:

Full access to and control of Tivo's scheduling directly. You can currently schedule things online through Tivo's server, but that's of limited value as your Tivo only checks in once per day. (Apparently it phones home more often than that if you're networked)

Sending video back to your Tivo. Current "Tivo to go" only lets you download recorded shows. Ideally you'd be able to send anything, but at the very least you should send back things you've downloaded.