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TiVo to Let Users Record Shows Via Cellphone 172

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the instant-gratification-generation dept.
Carl Bialik writes "Verizon Wireless plans to offer a new service called TiVo Mobile that will allow its customers who also have TiVos in their homes to schedule TV shows for recording when they are on the go, the Wall Street Journal reports. ' A customer might use the service to impulsively schedule a sitcom for recording after the show is recommended by a friend at a party,' says the WSJ, adding, 'Verizon Wireless executives said the service, to begin this summer, is expected to cost less than $5 a month, in addition to normal cellphone-service charges and TiVo subscriber fees, which are $12.95 a month.'"
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TiVo to Let Users Record Shows Via Cellphone More

TiVo to Let Users Record Shows Via Cellphone

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  • will let you do it free..

    yea, I read engadget too.....

    • Re:and orb (Score:5, Interesting)

      by krisp ( 59093 ) * on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:50PM (#14871076) Homepage
      and beyondtv and sagetv and any other pvr software with a web server. all you have to do is point your mobile web broser at it and schedule for free.

      not to mention all of these packages get guide data for free rather than forcing you to lock in to a monthly plan.

      personally i built an htpc and use beyondtv as a replacement to my series 2 tivo because

      a) i want high resolution output
      b) i don't want to pay monthly fees

    • Re:and orb (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Romancer ( 19668 ) <romancer AT deathsdoor DOT com> on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @08:21PM (#14871300) Journal
      I recently scheduled the oscars to record from a web enabled phone by going to online tivo scheduling.

      WTFITBD?

      The hell I'm going to pay for a specialized app on a phone that has internet access already.

      Standards are there for a reason, if a phone can access normal web pages it can do hundreds of things, if it has a bunch of nickle and dime apps that raises your bill it's a POS and your provider is screwing you.

      If your phone can only view "mobile pages" there are scripts that you can run on your own webserver that'll strip everything but the actual info and serve you that.
      • Aha dude, I have been wondering about something like that for looking up stuff on yell.com on my P910i without being screwed on GPRS charges. Can you elborate please? I think it's fairly ontopic.

  • A bit obsessive (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RedHatLinux ( 453603 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:39PM (#14870965) Homepage
    Seriously, are there TV shows that important one needs this service to ensure they don't miss them

    • Re:A bit obsessive (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Oh come on. With your line of thinking, how many people even actually need cell phones?

      Some scenarios where this feature might come in handy:

      1. You are out with friends and they mention a new show to you.
      2. You are out and realize you forgot that your show is on a new night this week - and tonight is the night.
      3. You are out and see an advertisement for a new show. You can write it down and hope you don't forget to enter it in later, or you can just enter it in right now.
      4. You are out with friends and one

  • Yawn (Score:3, Informative)

    by yotaku ( 26455 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:41PM (#14870977) Homepage
    Media Center, and I'm sure the linux htpcs too, have been able to this for ages. And we dont have to pay a monthly fee.
    • Gosh, I was just about to ask where you where... then I refreshed. There's always one who has to point out that what their using already has this feature. Oh yeah, MythTV and mythweb are working fine for me.

    • Re:Yawn (Score:3, Informative)

      by Locutus ( 9039 )
      this has been something Tivo hackers have had for quite some time with the webserver access hack. I guess now, Tivo finally feels this is something they should provide as part of the "Tivo Service".

      Obviously, this isn't really news to techies and/or hackers but the general public is clueless as to what's available to them. Heck, I've told friends who great the Tivo DVR is but only til they get one with some new service, do they then tell me that they'd not want to be without a DVR... I guess that is why mar

  • Where's the advantage? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by magicsquid ( 85985 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:41PM (#14870984) Homepage
    Why should I pay $5 more a month for a service that I already have for free? Why not just go to the Tivo web site on a web-enabled phone and do your remote scheduling there?

    • Re:Where's the advantage? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:44PM (#14871011)
      > Why should I pay $5 more a month for a service that I already have for free? Why not just go to the Tivo web site on a web-enabled phone and do your remote scheduling there?

      Because if you do it that way, Verizon doesn't get $5/month out of you! (Alternate: Because when you signed up for Verizon, they disabled the web-enabled part of your phone when they installed their ugly red user interface and branding onto it, but will re-enable it for $5/month.)

      Oh, wait, you're looking at it from the customer's perspective. Never mind.

      • Well, if I were a Verizon shareholder, I'd be wondering why management can't see it from the customer's perspective. They went and invested in all that data network technology without any clear idea how they were going to make any money off it. Their schemes for getting people to pay for services that send data back and forth are getting more and more lame — or should I say desperate?
        • What makes Verizon any different than any other communications company? Remember, the reason these guys are all still around is because they are all customer-hating, overcharging pricks, and the shareholders just love it.

          • Re:Where's the advantage? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by fm6 ( 162816 )
            It's not enought for the shareholders that management consists of overcharging pricks. Those pricks have to be able to con people into actually paying those excessive charges.
            • Well yes, the root of the problem is that consumers really do put up with the crap instead of having the balls to go "take your stupid cell phone and shove it up your ass."

              Instead they come to places like /. and moan about evil telcos and the vile shareholders that...

              Oh wait!
              • The only reason crappy carriers like Verizon still exist is because they have better coverage in all the places people need to use a cellphone.

                If a company can produce a network that has the coverage of verizon without all the crap, they will make a mint with all the verizon customers switching to them (thank god for mobile number portability)
                • they have better coverage in all the places people need to use a cellphone.


                  You believe those ads?????? The dude from Weezer knows nothing about mobile technology.

                • "If a company can produce a network that has the coverage of verizon without all the crap"

                  This is one of the fundamental reasons why you are sometimes better off with public infrastructure. Instead of five networks covering the dense areas and barely one covering less dense areas you just pay once for building the entire network and then let the service providers battle it out on services.

                  Having the service providers own the infrastructure is like having oil companies provide the roads and cars. Imagine hav
              • The "take this and shove it up your ass" strategy only works with stuff you can do without. Fine, you don't need a cell. Some of us do.
          • Hehehe.... We (.au) may be treated like second-class citizens by your media companies, but lordy these discussions amaze me at the lousy service you guys get from your cell carriers. When Telstra messes with your phone before you buy it, they just put a faggy logo somewhere, add some sms-based services like sports score requests, and point the homepage to their wap server. You can download ringtones and games from anywhere you like, you just pay by the kb. Of course you've gotta buy games if you don't wanna
    • I'm sure someone could easily write a script to handle incoming SMS (or e-mail) and submit the updates to the Tivo website.

      Personally I just record stuff by the season. Anything else that I "miss" won't be a big loss.
    • I've had Tivo since 2000 and from Day One I thought this would be a great feature that I was always surprised didn't exist. Tivo has a phone jack, so it seems reasonable from a consumer's point of view to call the Tivo and schedule a recording. When they brought out web scheduling I thought it was a step in the right direction, but it's still far from perfect (mainly because it's not instant, Tivo doesn't get it's instructions until the next time it calls in). So this should be a good thing, except that
    • Even better, just call someone that can connect to Tivo's website using a PC. You know, like a parent, spouse, girlfriend, regular friend, kid, etc.

      Why pay to have a cell phone do yet one more thing.

      Later,
      -Slashdot Junky
    • I have an even better solution, but not as simple. I can control my ReplayTV and Tivo over WAP access through my cell phone. The WAP is provided by my FreeBSD box via Kannel. I then wrote a webapp that generates mobile pages from the already existing open source webapps: Personal ReplayGuide and Tivoweb. I have been able to schedule recordings via my cell phone for over a year now.
    • If TiVo and cell phones were built on a truly open architecture, this service would be free... someone would write a couple of 100-line apps, one on the phone and one on the TiVo, and they'd be open source.

      Just as we'd have had caller ID in 1970 if POTS was an open network architecture.
    • Why not just go to the Tivo web site on a web-enabled phone and do your remote scheduling there?

      Exactly. Yet another example of the kind of "innovation" that gave us NTP vs RIM.

      Email, IM, PC, phone, TV, tivo, mp3, web, P2P - Pick two buzzwords, write a press release.

      The real question is: why do journalists (and bloggers) propagate this clueless marketing, instead of debunking it ?

      AC

    • >Why should I pay $5 more a month for a service that I already have for free?

      Why do you hate America?

      Nah, you're right, it's a stupid model. By their own example, it'll be an impulse decision. Why would I pay up front in anticipation of that?

  • or... don't waste $5 a month (Score:5, Informative)

    by loraksus ( 171574 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:43PM (#14871004) Homepage
    And use the tv.yahoo's tivo scheduling.
    Wow... $5 a month?

  • Expensive (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is too expensive even after I give them the benefit of doubt and assume it can be managed online as well (unless being able to view the tivo'd or bought shows is possible).

    Anyway, my point is they'll try this service .. few will buy in .. and then they'll say it failed "The market doesnt want such a thing"

    Then someone else (Apple?) will do it for free successfully and Tivo/Verizon will run around claiming they were first. No they wasn't. They did it all wrong.

    This is what happens when you charge an exo

  • MythWeb... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kebes ( 861706 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:46PM (#14871042) Journal
    I don't want to turn this into a "TiVo versus MythTV" argument, but I think it's worth noting that the MythWeb plugin that comes with MythTV allows you to schedule shows from any browser, anywhere. Because MythTV runs on a Linux box, you get a webserver and fileserver and all that out-of-the-box. So you can log into your Myth from anywhere that has internet, and schedule a show to record, on an impulse. You can even remotely (via SSH) transcode a show, and download it to your local computer for easy viewing.

    There's no reason why you couldn't access your MythTV from any laptop or PDA that has some basic web access. I often, as the summary suggest, record a show on an impulse, when someone mentions it to me. This is an awesome feature that I'm sure TiVo users would love to have. However even at 5$/month it seems overpriced to me. This should be included for free as a "value added" that would encourage people to buy TiVo and and sign up for Verizon.
    • You can schedule programming from anywhere with TiVo too. Even from a phone if it's webenabled. This is just a way for Verizon to get paid for something that was already possible.

    • Re:MythWeb... (Score:3, Informative)

      by pivo ( 11957 )
      TiVo also runs on a Linux box. And as others have pointed out, you can scheduule TiVo via a web browser.
    • As somebody that had a Myth setup and Tivo's, you can do the same thing to any tivo that has been hacked (no harder than a mythtv setup). You can also do all the transcoding you would like, play your avi's etc via the tivo. Tivo's are realy good at watching things, myth has mame and thus piles of games and does a good job of recording things.

      For me the quality loss of myth isn't aceptable (hr10-250 HD tivo's) and that is not going to change untill firewire recording from digital cable becomes possible. M

      • Re:MythWeb... (Score:2, Informative)

        by ydrol ( 626558 )
        For me the quality loss of myth isn't aceptable (hr10-250 HD tivo's) and that is not going to change untill firewire recording from digital cable becomes possible.

        Being in the UK I'm not fully clued up on the US situation, but I understand you guys can get direct Digital feed into the PC via ATSC cards and (I think) Cable Cards , thus no quality loss and no encoding overhead. Here in UK we can use DVB-T cards, and Satellite cards. We cant get a direct cable feed into the PC without going via analogue th

        • Nope we can get OTA digital straight into the PC but direct TV does not provide any digital outs. There is a hack to get firewire out of there HD receivers but it's a lot more expensive than just buying HD Tivo's. It should be possible to script a connector to have myth control the rocording on an HD tivo and automate the transfer over to a proper myth backend and vice vera since there is a web interface for sceduling recordings and CLI for moving content (not sure if it can stream a currently recording s
    • the MythWeb plugin that comes with MythTV allows you to schedule shows from any browser, anywhere

      That's cool. Sounds like DVArchive [wikipedia.org] on ReplayTV [wikipedia.org].
    • Yeah, GB-PVR too. I use the web interface to cruise the listings and resolve recording conflicts while eating lunch at work.

      I tried to get Myth going but after 2 days of screwing around trying to all the hardware drivers working to the point where I could even start to install Myth, I gave up. So restored my Windows install to the machine, and had GB-PVR up in 10 minutes. It works very well.
  • A customer might use the service to impulsively schedule a sitcom for recording after the show is recommended by a friend at a party.

    ... for "less than" $5/month? USD? I dunno... I can't think of a TV show so great (that I haven't already heard of) that I'd need to pay a monthly fee to remotely record it before I got home. Maybe a small fee per use or something, for those times you are away for an extended period or something...

    TFA says that TiVo allowed you to schedule via the web - did you have to pay

  • Japan (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gnovos ( 447128 ) <gnovos@ c h i p p e d . net> on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:48PM (#14871057) Homepage Journal
    Last year in Japan they had a tivo-like device for the cell phone.... Not to record shows at home, though.... To record shows ON the damn phone since they all have sattelite receivers in them now...

    • Re:Japan (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MrWa ( 144753 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @08:22PM (#14871307) Homepage
      While this doesn't have Tivo-like features, it does run Linux: P901iTV [linuxdevices.com] Some people go too far with their Japanese fetishes but, in general, it is pretty sad how far ahead the Japanese consumer product market. Simply go to any shop in Akihabara or Yodabashi camera and there products years ahead of what is considered new in the U.S. Hell, the free phones in Japan are better than $100-200 models in the US!! The US consumer market is way too slow in adopting new technologies - or even having them available for the bleeding-edge, early adopters to play with! When a bloody $5 per month "service" to let you schedule recording on your Tivo is considered news on a tech-centric website, you know something is wrong.
  • So, someone's finally starting to get what we want.

    For some time, I have had a media box set up at home (behind the couch) running Azureus [sourceforge.net]. Combine that with Hamachi [hamachi.cc], Firefox [mozilla.com], the ConQuery [mozdev.org] extension and the WebUI [sourceforge.net] plugin for Azureus, and I am a right click away from downloading any torrent I want whereever my laptop is. Tivo's got me beat though, because I can't do it from my phone (yet...).

    On the other hand, I've got Tivo beat because I can do what I want with the media I get this way.

  • I don't see why this service wouldn't work. I'd love to say "AWW! Forgot to set my TiVo to record 24! Let me call my TiVo."

    Although I can't fancy seeing me paying 5 dollars a month for this functionality. (Disclaimer: I don't have a TiVo)
    I'd be more apt to be able to log into a web interface and do it. ( i don't know if you can do that now )..
    Hopefully one of the OpenSource Guru's has a free way to do this not long from now.
    • mythtv already does, from what i know.
    • The question is, how often would you forget to record something? $5 worth? (Figure $5 is 1/5 of the way to buying most any show season on DVD when it's on sale).

      Especially since TiVo (and other DVRs) have automatic recording of a show. You say "I want to record 24" and TiVo gives you the option of getting a "Season Pass". MythTV has "Record at any time on this channel" or similar option.

      That being said, I did get a call a few months back from a roommate when I was out of town. She had just found out that th

  • $60 a year? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bvwj ( 473084 )
    I have Verizon service. I have TiVO service. I can't imagine how this add-on could be worth $60 a year to me. That's the same price as Verizon web access. The arrogance of these two to just assume people will pay whatever they ask! Can't wait till advancing technology and the free market make both of them a memory.

  • $5 / Month?!?!? (Score:5, Informative)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <[slashdot] [at] [keirstead.org]> on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:57PM (#14871133)
    You can do this for free with MythTV via MythWeb.

    You can also do it for free at tivo.com

    Totally ridiculous.

  • They'll pay $13/month for a "service" that is just letting them use hardware they already bought. Of course they'll pay $5/month to send SMS on a phone they already pay to send SMS on.
    • Any bluetooth-enabled cellphone that isn't protected against people placing malicious calls is therefore not protected against malicious TiVoing.


      "How could TiVo be used maliciously?" Bombard TiVo with enough PPV demands and it could start getting expensive. Fill the hard-drive with enough teleshopping or other pr0n, you've essentially managed a denial-of-download attack. America doesn't have anything similar to Open University, but that would be another potentially vulnerable area.

    • Re:TiVo users are suckers (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      You can actually do without the service if you don't mind entering all your start and top times by hand. But you actually get more for your $13 than easy scheduling. With a schedule feed, the device has to ability to automatically record shows you never heard of, but which are similar to shows you know you like. That one feature probably accounts for most of TiVo's popularity.

      (Back before TV listings became available online for free, people used to spend $3/month for TV Guide just so they'd known what was

      • A couple corrections (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You can actually do without the service if you don't mind entering all your start and top times by hand.
        This hasn't been true for years; in fact, it stopped being true back in the days of the Series 1. Later Series 1 models and nearly all Series 2 models are doorstops without a TiVo service subscription.

        (Back before TV listings became available online for free, people used to spend $3/month for TV Guide just so they'd known what was on. Same idea, only more advanced.)
        $3 a month for TV Guide? Maybe in 1962.
      • (Back before TV listings became available online for free, people used to spend $3/month for TV Guide just so they'd known what was on. Same idea, only more advanced.) So for $3/month you can have TV Guide print out the weeks listings, and mail it right to your door. On top of that, they pay jouranlists to write articles about the shows to help you decide what you'll like and find out behind the scenes stuff. If you don't care about the articles, you can get the listings magazine for free in your weekly
        • Oh the irony...
          Quote One: They'll pay $13/month for a "service" that is just letting them use hardware they already bought.
          Quote Two: I actually don't have cable now and do all my tv watching on DVDs rented from netflix.
          Netflix users are suckers (see your own logic above)

          Qutoe Three: If something like Apples service ever comes along but has decent quality downloads for $2/episode without commercials and available before or at the same time as the broadcast, I'd be happy.
          I've got a service you might
          • Netflix users are suckers (see your own logic above)

            How so? I pay $18/month to have a company buy DVDs and mail them to me. I cycle through 15-20 discs/month so it's amazing that that even covers poastage and those red envelopes muchless buying the discs. 15-20 discs at blockbuster type stores would be $45-60 and there's not even postage involved.

            You pay $13/month so TiVo won't turn off a piece of hardware you've already paid for, and to download a few hundred kb of free data each month.

            I've got a

    • Re:TiVo users are suckers (Score:4, Insightful)

      by horatio ( 127595 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @09:10PM (#14871639)
      I'm a sucker? No. Like I've said in other stories where this inevitably comes up, I pay not to have to deal with the bullshit. I fight with computers every day because it is my job, and because it is a hobby. Yet, I don't want to have to mess with kernels or libraries or dependencies or drivers or modules or the latest bug in mythTV or lousy hardware or whatever other problem there might be with running a typical PC. MythTV has its uses, and some people swear by it. Maybe you like it when your video card craps out on you. Maybe you're the type that walks/swims 8 miles to work instead of paying the bridge toll (haha sucker - I live under my desk!). I have no idea.

      I pay 13$/month because I don't want to screw with my television (+DVR), I just want it to work. TiVo obviously provides me a service for this - the most obvious being the guide data. It is a small price to pay, imho, for the (nearly) worry-free joy that is my TiVo. If the series3 isn't vaporware, I'm all about it.

  • coincidence? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sedyn ( 880034 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @08:01PM (#14871158)
    I just realized that I got to see an ad for Verizon Wireless early because I saw an ad for Verizon Wireless [slashdot.org]...
    • They were the sponsers of a "Free Visitor's Pass" the last time I got it, too... and they were on Slashdot then, also. Although, it definately wasn't good news for them...
  • I can see it now:

    Having your roommate get TiVo $xxx per month. - $xxx.

    Having your roommate get cellphone-enabled TiVo for $5 a month - $5.

    Hacking your roommate's TiVo remotely via an SMS remote hack - Priceless.
  • 5/month - I know a few have mentioned that's a bit steep. Well, to bring in a valid comparison to just how steep this is - it's CHEAPER to buy the show on DVD than to pay for this service that allows you to tivo DRM'ed television.

    On another note, I applaud people who have the audacity to turn off their tv and go out to a party thus living their life, but if the end result is that we're now spending more money to help us make sure we don't miss our tv programming, society has still taken a step backwards.

  • Mo Money! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SaturnTim ( 445813 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @08:10PM (#14871219) Homepage
    $5 a month for something you will probably use a couple times a year (at most)?
    on top of your verizon plan, on top of the tivo monthly fee, on top of the broadband connection...
    (this won't work if your tivo still works on dial-up)

    Never mind (as 50 other posts mentioned) the free alternatives...

    Just doesn't make financial sense.

  • tivoweb? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm an avid Tivo fan, although I'm in the UK where Tivo has unfortunately long since left. My Tivo has been suitably modded, ethernet, 600gig storage. Frankly it is all good! With the open source tivowebplus project sitting comfortably on my little PVR not only can I search, schedule and watch programs using my webbrowser, but I can access the web interface via my WAP phone (HTML rather than WML) and have done for a long time... What is all the fuss about? Surely an broadband connection, dynamic DNS (where

  • Feel the Verizon love (Score:3, Insightful)

    by abes ( 82351 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @08:55PM (#14871529) Homepage
    I am currently a Verizon customer. I am switching phone companies once I am no longer their bitch (contract is up in a year or so). What really pisses me off is how they charge you for every little small thing. Is it not enough that I am a current paying customer? That I paid that much more for a phone that could run a couple of apps? Nope. You have to pay for every single thing you put on your phone. And if something happens to your phone, it's a major hassle. Something happening can include replacing your phone, because their service sucks in your area. Somehow it's impossible for them to copy everything over.

    So it's no surprising at all that they want to charge for this service. As many people have noted it's easily done already. But Verizon can sell it as a 'select' service you can get, to lure you into getting a 10-year contract. They won't mention the cost, until it is too late. They might also leave off needing a TIVO subscription on top of that. Until you get your bill, and realize how stupid it is.

    They do that with their web phones. On some phones (like mine) you can actually change the gateway such that you can surf the net for free, until you realize exactly how painful it is to do with a cell phone, and give up.

    • What really pisses me off is how [Verizon] charge[s] you for every little small thing.

      Really? Like what? I had that feeling about Sprint. Sprint charges (or at least used to charge) a monthy fee for everything, even SMS. Verizon also allows you to pay-as-you-go, e.g., $0.10/send, $0.02/receive for SMS; $0.25/send for picture messasing. Verizon also allows me internet access from my phone to be deducted from my minutes rather than having to buy a "data plan" which is great for me since I only occasio

  • Dear editor (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @09:06PM (#14871609) Journal
    Dear editors.

    Please check who is submitting an article before you post it. In this case the article was submitted by a guy using the e-mail "wsjarticles@wsj.com". When the article says "A customer might use the service to impulsively schedule a sitcom for recording after the show is recommended by a friend at a party,' says the WSJ, it's not exactly difficult to put two and two together.

    Slashdot is being used as free PR for companies. People have started to complain about this and yet no one seems to take a bit of notice.
    • Then Slashdot is becoming more like a "real" news source every day. It's no secret that news sources get sent articles by PR firms all the time. Lazy reporters will write a story about it. The best article I've seen about "submarine PR" is here. [paulgraham.com]

  • Nickel and Dimed... (Score:5, Informative)

    by EMIce ( 30092 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @09:10PM (#14871633) Homepage
    ...for just a few ip packets. Uhh, I hope the way Verizon runs their cellular business is not an indication of how they'll treat us under tiered internet, but who am I kidding?

    Anyone who has compared developing applications for Verizon phones vs. Sprint/Nextel vs. Cingular knows that Verizon is simply not an option unless you have $$$ and enough clout to negotiate access. No feature that Verizon thinks they can get an extra fee for is left unlocked. DRM is built in and all applications are signed so as to grant just the permissions that have been paid for.

    Compare this to Cingular and international gsm providers, who have no DRM and allow access to the phone hardware (bluetooth, gps, ringtones, other content)and the network via java. You own the hardware, you pay for network access, and use it as you will. No getting billed for every single permutation of features like with this Tivo app.

    Verizon considers each application a billable "feature" in and of itself, while more open providers bill for network access and leave applications to open hardware and software.

    The later architecture allows anyone to get in on the game, while the former restricts access to those that pay up. You can bet that development companies who pony up for access will need to make a return asap, and so will be pushed towards making applications that maximize return quickly. This will only lead to fewer experimental ideas attempted, and fewer niche applications being developed.

    If \.'ers want to support more open cell standards I'd suggest looking into Cingular, who at first advertised themselves years ago as "the company the support self expression" - of course no one got it. I hear their network has gotten much wider since the AT&T merger so they are worth a shot.
  • Ok lets say you're 24 years old. Forget the $5 per month and then invested the resulting monthly savings in an investment that earned 7.5% per year, between now and age 65, you would then be able to withdraw $153 from your investment each month...until you croak at 80!Then there is the service fee calculation [blogspot.com] that I did about a month ago.

  • not the typical tivo use case (Score:3, Insightful)

    by farble1670 ( 803356 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @09:22PM (#14871712)

    i am a long time tivo user and advocate. the idea that someone would pay $5 / month for the ability to schedule shows from their verizon phone is absurd. i can say, since i've had access to the web-based equivalent (free) service (about 1.5 years), i've used it probably twice, and once was just to see how it works. it's just not the typical tivo use case.

    this is like every other service offered on cell phones. cell phone companies are trying to build a proprietary internet for cell phones only and nickel and dime us to death with fees. you pay for bandwidth, and you pay again for the content! well, it's not working. proof is the state of the celluar web today. nothing but toy content that you try once and then can't believe you actually paid for it.


    • this is like every other service offered on cell phones. cell phone companies are trying to build a proprietary internet for cell phones only and nickel and dime us to death with fees

      Which is what makes me nervous about the ATT/Bellsouth deal. My experience with Internet access on my phone reflects your statement. A few sites allow free access, but the mobile provider has set up toll gates everywhere in an attempt to get more $$$ from the customers. What really drives me nuts is my the inability of the ha

  • But I thought the point of TiVo was... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by John.P.Jones ( 601028 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @09:38PM (#14871797)
    I thought the entire point of TiVo was that it learned what you liked to watch and automatically pulled content without asking for it. Why would I have to tell a TiVo that I want to watch a show, doesn't it already know?

    I have no TV reception, just a big screen and a stack of DVDs but I always planned on getting HDTVoIP when Verizon rolls its Fiber service to my area as long as I could TiVo it.
    • Why would I have to tell a TiVo that I want to watch a show, doesn't it already know?

      Well, how would it know if you never tell it?

      In this scenario, you're told by someone about a show you didn't know about. If you didn't even know you wanted to see it before that, how could Tivo??

      Tivo is great, but it's not that great.
  • I had Tivo. I liked my Tivo. I had an "upgraded" series 1 and it served me well.

    However, their lack of HDTV support is a tragedy. As far as I know, they only have announcements to show for their effort, not counting the "prototype" that was just displayed at the last CES. Yes, they have forces working against them (its called competition!) -- but they should have put out the HDTV unit long ago. Instead, all I can use is my cable co's weak-ass DVR (Motorola DCT-6412).

    And that is why I don't care a

  • Don't need a Tivo for that (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kbielefe ( 606566 ) * <karl.bielefeldt@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @10:46PM (#14872108)
    I've been doing that for years -- even before I got a DVR. I call home and ask my wife to record the show.
  • I still do not understand why this company ceases to recognize it is losing customers due to its lack of a high definition offering. I would more then happily choose Tivo over comcast, but they do not offer a box through anyone but dish networks. Heck, i'd even purchase the box out of pocket (for about 500 bucks)! Tivo's products are by far superior, plus more consumers are beginning to buy with a conscience, sometimes it's nice to support those who developed a trend setting idea (i.e. netflix vs blockbuste
  • sports fans who want to record the game they're attending. I know a lot of college sports followers that do that. It'd be cool if Verizon could get this up by next college football season if not March Madness time.

  • Your model is busted (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LordSnooty ( 853791 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @03:27AM (#14873103)
    Huh, the idea that I should PAY to schedule recordings on my own box is not going to drag me away from TV via BitTorrent any time soon.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • If anyone is planning on recording the new-to-America *Doctor Who* episodes starting on Friday, March 17, 2006 from 9pm-11pm on the SciFi Channel and plan on making a Season Pass for the show, read this...

    TiVo is "correctly" labeling the show's information with the BBC's original airdates from last year instead of the American premiere dates as being "new". Consequently, if you set the Season Pass to only record "first run" (aka "new") episodes, your TiVo won't record them even when they are first shown he
  • What's really scary is that Verizon seems to want a few dollars a month to allow you access to this "feature". They charge you $.10 per text message. They charge you a couple dollars to download a snippet of a song you already own to use as a ring tone.

    They make tons of money for charging you for each thing you do, rather than just charging you for data access.

    This is where the wired ISPs want to go as well. Rather than just charging you for data access to the internet, they want to figure out how much you'

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