TiVo upgrade makes networking sense
By Mike Langberg
Mercury News
bayarea.com
I've finally found a home entertainment networking product that makes sense: the Home Media Option from TiVo, a $99 software upgrade to the San Jose company's wildly popular line of digital video recorders.
Home entertainment networking is emerging as the newest mania in the rapidly colliding worlds of personal computers and consumer electronics.
Manufacturers are convinced we're ready to start moving digital music, pictures and video around the house -- from PC to TV, from PC to stereo and directly from the Internet to TVs and stereos.
So everyone in the industry is rushing out home entertainment networking products this year. I did some research last week and discovered 17 such products, listed in the chart on Page 1E.
Most are doomed to fail. They're too complicated, too expensive or don't do enough; including the Hewlett-Packard Digital Media Receiver, which I reviewed in early March.
I've developed an unshakable opinion from all this research: Home entertainment networking won't happen through separate devices, but by adding network connections to the household electronics we already use -- DVD players, radios, TV sets, etc.
TiVo's Home Media Option (www. tivo.com), launched April 8, is the first example.
For the uninitiated, DVRs are the greatest thing to happen to TV watching in a generation. Using a hard disk to record television programs, today's DVRs can hold 40 hours or more. They can also pause live TV, and need only be instructed once to record a weekly show for an entire season.
To me, there are only two kinds of TV viewers: Those who already own a DVR, and those who don't yet understand why they should buy one.
TiVo is the best-known name in DVRs, through standalone units sold under its own name as well as under license to Sony, and through DirecTV satellite receivers with built-in TiVo service. The other big competitor is the Dish Network satellite service, which sells its own line of DVRs.
Last year, TiVo introduced upgraded Series 2 models. The 40-hour Series 2 now sells for $249 and the 80-hour for $349; Sony makes an 80-hour model called the SVR-3000 for $399. There's also a subscription fee of $12.95 a month, or $299 for the unit's lifetime.
Home Media Option works only with these Series 2 models, and the required software is downloaded automatically through the once-a-night phone calls that all TiVo units make to get updated TV schedules.
The Series 2 DVRs have a USB port for connecting a network adapter, either for wired Ethernet cable or wireless WiFi. TiVo recommends Ethernet or WiFi adapters from Linksys that each cost about $50.
The Home Media Option has four features:
• Digital Music. The Series 2 will play MP3 songs stored in one or more of the computers on your home network. Using the TiVo remote, you navigate through the music folders on your PC's hard drive and select a song or playlist.
To make this work, you must first install a program called TiVo Desktop on your Windows or Macintosh computer, available free from TiVo's Web site, which lets you designate which folders will be accessible to the Series 2. Of course, your computer must be running whenever you want to hear music through the Home Media Option.
• Digital Photos. In much the same way as music, digital photos in the JPEG, GIF and BMP formats can be pulled from the PC onto the TV. You can select groups of photos for slide shows, controlling how long each picture stays on the screen.
• Remote scheduling. If your home network is connected to the Internet through an always-on broadband service, such as a cable modem or DSL phone line, you can visit TiVo's Web site to select programs to record. Your request is then transmitted to your TiVo DVR; the only limitation is that you can't record anything starting in less than an hour.
This creates a whole new way to waste time at work or school -- browsing through TV listings, looking for shows to record.
• Multi-Room Viewing. If you own two or more Series 2 units, and connect each of them to your home network, you can transfer recorded shows from one unit to another. You'll need to buy the Home Media Option software for each unit, but TiVo only charges $49 for the second copy.
If you've started watching a recorded movie late at night in the family room, this feature allows you to finish watching in the bedroom. Or you can transfer a cartoon show to the TiVo in your child's bedroom, so you can watch a prime-time show in the living room.
I borrowed a pair of Series 2 DVRs from TiVo and, after several hours setting everything up, found Home Media Option mostly worked as advertised through my home WiFi network.
There are a few rough edges. You can't listen to music while watching a slide show, for example, and Home Media Option won't play songs in Microsoft's WMA format. The WiFi network also moves data too slowly for real-time video transfer; you have to wait 15 minutes to start watching a half-hour show or the picture will freeze while the unit waits for more video to arrive.
But there is also much to like. The Home Media Option is intuitively obvious to use, working in the same way TiVo does for recording and playing TV shows. There's no extra box to squeeze in your home, and you don't need yet another remote control.
Home Media Option by itself isn't a reason to buy a TiVo Series 2 DVR, but it's a worthwhile and relatively inexpensive upgrade for anyone who wants to move music or pictures from the PC to the TV, or play around with remote scheduling and multi-room viewing.
While TiVo is the first to add home entertainment networking to an existing product, other manufacturers are lining up to do the same thing. Go Video (www.govideo.com) and Polaroid Electronics (www.polaroidelectronics.com) are both promising DVD players later this year for under $350 that will connect to a home network. Onkyo USA (www.onkyo.com) is building a network connection into some of its stereo receivers.
Where this is all heading is clear: Almost every device in the home that uses electricity -- from clock radios to air conditioners to high-definition televisions -- will someday include a network connection for sharing entertainment and information within the home as well as through the Internet. You may never want to reset the timer on your coffee maker while on vacation in Australia, but I'm convinced it will be possible before too long.
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Contact Mike Langberg at mike@langberg.com or (408) 920-5084. Past columns may be read at www.langberg.com. |
