TiVo is finally coming to Australia.
But a decade too late, with TV digital recorders and internet downloading.
For those who have American friends, or follow a lot of American shows, the word TiVo is nothing new. In fact, it is such a commonly used word in America, it is used like 'google' is used these days (a noun that is now also used as a verb). The first time I heard it used at a BotCon, I asked what is 'TiVo', and the response was like, how could you not know what it is?
Anyway, for those who don't know what Tivo is, it is a digital recorder for TV shows. Not really advanced technology now, but ten years ago when it was launched in Nth America, it was, and still is a leading form of AV medium recording device there.
Here though, with the government (or at least their financial backers pulling the strings) preventing the legal usage of these sort of recording devices (recordings are okay if for private use, but this sort of technology makes it easy to redistribute copyright material more publically), we have only recently seen a similar device by Foxtel introduced to this country.
The TiVo recording device is quite interactive these days, and offers a lot of features for recording different shows, but is probably a bit wasted here if you just have free-to-air channels. And if you have all the channels of Foxtel, you probably use their device. Or if you have Broadband internet access, you already download all your shows and music through that.
But Network 7 have been trying to get it approved (since 2007) for usage in Australia for the Olympics (after their failed attempt at setting up a pay-TV sporting network, I guess this is plan B), and the recording device should be available from Harvey Norman (only at this stage) in time for the games.
Okay, big deal, but it's one of those Americanisms that I have been familiar with through all those trips to the US, and thought it worth describing here now that it will be something Australians will probably be buying in the lead up to Christmas. It is priced at $700, but no subscription fees (that may change later though).
TiVo's release in Oz:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/st...014108,00.html
The device appears to use program codes, like the g-codes that tv-guides used to have (still have?), but now can upload them directly from the internet automatically.
TiVo on wiki.com:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo
Interesting to see in the wiki article that the TiVo was launched in the UK in 2000, but abandoned within 2 years, because the UK pay-TV network had their own digital recorder that was more useful and thus popular. So by the sounds of it, if Foxtel already have a digital recorder available here (Foxtel IQ), I can see TiVo failing here as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxtel#Available_Models
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUSTAR#...gital_Recorder
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Originally Posted by Burn
