Comments on: Amazon Makes Your Tivo Much, Much Better

By: Michael Buckbee

Michael Buckbee — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think your link to Amazon has been typo’d into error.

(Editor’s Note: Thanks… I think it’s fixed now.)

By: Don

Don — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

48 hours is worthless to me. 24 not a chance. I’ll often take a week or two to watch a movie. Oh well, it isn’t for me just yet. I just finished watching the Pistons beat the Sonics last night … was that a couple of days ago? I’m still waiting to find out how they do in the following game and perhaps tomorrow or Sunday I’ll watch tonights game.

My concept of on demand is when I want to watch something I’ll push play and just like a book I’ll pick up where I left off. I do it with sports and movies, so the Amazon plan won’t work.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

My Comcast DVR is the worst TV component on my shelf. I shudder at the fact I pay $10/mo for this hunk of crap. $3hunj for Tivo? Can you get HD on that sucker?

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Surprisingly, Microsoft has beaten Apple to the punch as well — via xBox Live you can rent movies (no purchases available) for about the same prices, and they offer HD versions of some downloads.

I enjoy buying and owning DVDs, and I buy a lot of music via iTunes, but I’m not jazzed about the idea purchasing dowloaded movies. Perhaps when I get around to building/installing a media center PC (a mac mini probably) that will change, but I don’t know — it would cost thousands of dollaars to be able to store my DVDs digitally.

Currently they are stored on a $100 bookshelf.

By: Dave Metcalf

Dave Metcalf — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m unwilling to shell out the money for Tivo S3. Aside from the obscene hardware cost (which, instead, goes to the monthly diaper bill for two kids), I still have to keep Comcast and all the services necessary to enable Tivo HD: digital package, HD service, and box rental. At best I can save about $9 getting rid of Comcast’s DVR (while I actually do like it, it is getting increasingly unreliable and buggy) but those savings go out the window with cable card rental and Tivo subscription.
The Amazon service looks tempting, though. Netflix works for us, but it’s tough to get around to watching movies in a week sometimes, let alone the next 24 hours.

I’m just holding my breath for FiOS. When I see the installation truck rolling down my street I’m going to run out with a blank check in one hand and a shovel in the other.

In the meantime, I live in Comcast’s backyard, so I’m expecting my area to be among the first to get the Comcast Tivo.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Don: One important detail is that you can actually keep the movie for a month. The 24 hour timer only starts when you begin watching it. Sounds like that might not work for you either though. I would think (and could be wrong) that most movies rented through Blockbuster or Netflix are watching within a 48 period (and probably usually just straight through in the normal 1-3 hours).

Mark: Yep, the Series 3 Tivo does HD better than any other box I’ve seen.

Tim: Yep, I would never “buy” a downloaded movie. I don’t even buy downloaded music. I always get the CD and then burn it.

Dave: Yeah, the initial price of hardware is really the only problem with the S3 Tivo now. I imagine they should be $200-$300 before too long though. I’ve seen previews of the ComcastTivo and while it looks 1000x better than the current Comcast box, it still runs on the same hardware, so who knows. Cross your fingers.

By: Ruben

Ruben — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I tried this out last week and I LOVED it. I watched The Departed for 15 bucks. The quality was very good.

Still, the one thing was sorely missing with the purchase…bonus features. After the credits rolled I instinctively hit the menu button to see what else was on the DVD…whoops.

BEWARE…not all Unbox movies support TiVo. (I found this out the hard way.) That is my only complaint of the Unbox site…it’s difficult to immediately tell which movies are TiVo-compatible. You have to look for the TiVo icon on the detail screen or limit your keyword search to TiVo. It should really be a store within a store, but whatever.

All in all I was thrilled with the service. It’s what Apple TV should have been…no middleman between the web and your set top.

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hey Mike

I tried it to, and overall liked it. I think the download should last longer, and hope this changes in the future.

I can’t tell the quality. I downloaded some ridiculous cheap movie — and it wasl ike some guy made it in his backyard. (Really.) I won’t say what it was called, but the source material was crap, so I can’t blame anything on Amazon.

But, I loved having the movie delivered to me — it felt really cool. FInally, a good, couch-worthy “over the top” / cable-bypass experience. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

– Kimberly

By: Marc Rullo

Marc Rullo — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

So, setting aside the purchase option, for $3.99 you can select a movie from a list and have it show up in your TiVo? Aside from the expanded selection of titles, for the most part, this is not much different from purchasing a pay-per-view and having it recorded to TiVo. For average DirecTiVo users, that’s a single click, no broadband connection required, immediate availability, no time limit, same if not better quality, etc. This has been around for years.

If you happen to have Netflix or Blockbuster and want to supplement that enormous selection, superior quality and bonus features, and mitigate the two day delay with some recently released rentals (and you had to have a TiVo) a simple DirecTiVo or some similar cable/TiVo setup would be the better, no?

Don’t get me wrong. I get the download idea, and I wouldn’t touch a generic DVR over a TiVo even if it were free. But I’m not sure I could be excited by this service. Not until the price-per-rental and selection can compete will something like this succeed.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Marc: I had a DirecTivo for a few years and I totally loved it. Great machine. The problem with satellite though is that its not real on-demand either. As I remember it, there are a handful of PPV channels you can subscribe to at any given time and a new movie starts every hour or so, so you can watch/record it when it starts. The delay of that doesn’t bother me, but at least a year or two ago, there were only like 10-20 legitimate PPV channels. Now, granted, 50-100 PPV channels would be enough to showcase pretty much every major new release, but the promise of true VOD (whether through cable or through Amazon) is thousands and thousands of titles available 24/7. You just can’t do that with satellite.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Gotta love new technology. Apple better hurry up and think of something else ingenious.

By: Eddie

Eddie — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Does anyone know if the movie can be transfered to you PC via the TiVo Desktop app?

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Been thinking about grabbing Tivo for a very long time now, perhaps this is the push I needed. Thanks for the info Mike!

By: Jigsaw hc

Jigsaw hc — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I really like the Unbox service for use with my TiVo. The site is a pain to just browse through, but if you have a specific movie in line it works fine.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wait till ATT launches its Uverse(lightspeed) servioe in full swing later this year. Seems lilke they have deployed it at some places already in Texas region. http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=5838