No, you don't have to be a Telecom customer: a TiVo Q&A

TiVo 320 Media Device - Vital statistics
Launch date: November 6

Cost: $920 (or $200 down then $30 a month on Telecom Broadband), including wi-fi Home Networking Packing until January next year - after which it will cost $129; no monthly fees but some on-demand content is pay-per-view

Specs: 320GB hard drive (enough for 120 hours of high definition digital recording, or 250 hours of standard definition), twin FreeviewHD tuners, wi-fi for EPG, pay-per-view broadband content. 1 terabyte (1024GB) external hard drive available as an optional extra for $369.

More: mytivo.co.nz
 

This morning I dropped by TiVo’s Auckland headquarters (which doubles as Freeview’s building, immediately adjacent to TVNZ).

I met with Robbee Minicola, chief executive of Hybrid TV, the Australasian licensee for TiVo, and Telecom Broadband boss Ralph Brayham. TVNZ bought a one-third share of Hybrid earlier this year for $A8 million. Australia’s Seven Media owns the balance.

TiVo launches here on November 6, retailed exclusively through Telecom (though contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be a Telecom Broadband customer; keep reading).

I saw a brief preview of a working unit, and it could perform all the neat tricks you’re probably already broadly familiar with if you’ve ever watched Miranda on Sex and the City; TiVo has become a pop culture mainstay since it was first released in the US a decade ago.

They include unique features like Wishlist, which lets you set your TiVo to record any show featuring a particular actor or director, or in a given category, such as kids TV.

There’s also TiVo Suggestions, which records shows it thinks you’ll like based on your previous recording choices.

The Now Playing on TV screen is a very accessible way to access your library of recordings, and boasts features like the ability to play separate recorded episodes of any particular show one after the other (some parents - close your eyes, Families Commissioner - are going to love that). If you're worried about what your littlies might accidently see, their content can be coralled into a KidZone section.

There’s also TiVo Genie, which lets you set a recording via an iPhone or other WAP-enabled cellphone, or share content between a laptop and PS3 and a TiVo, or vice versa.

And also Caspa - on-demand, broadband-delivered content, which will mark TVNZ’s first-ever foray into pay TV. Plus weather, horoscopes, a world clock, and basic games like Sudoku.

Other features are shared with MySkyHDi and most MyFreeview HD recorders, but implemented in TiVo’s trademark user-friendly fashion.

You can record shows, or an entire series, with a click of your remote using the onscreen 14-day programming guide (EPG).

A TiVo box’s dual tuners automatically cache the last 30 minutes of the channel you’re watching to its 320GB hard drive (there’s also an optional 1 terabyte add-on drive), and the previous channel you were watching. That means if you miss anything on live broadcast TV, you can simply hit rewind to watch it again.

It’s undeniably impressive, come November 6, will become the most user-friendly digital TV recorder on the block, bar none, with many un-matched features.

But if only life were that simple. There’s also a bunch of messy political issues that come into play and a few technical questions many are likely to have. To wit, here’s a quick Q&A. Both the questions and answers are mine.
 

Q: Sky TV is not providing TiVo with listings for Prime (Maori TV is also boycotting TiVo’s EPG). Can I still record Prime using a TiVo?

A: Yes, but only via a manual time and date recording. You lose all of TiVo’s beloved one-click functionality.

Q: So I can watch and record Prime via TiVo?

A: Yup. TiVo’s broadcast TV feed is taken from FreeviewHD, and its channels are the same as those on Freeview HD: TV1, TV2, TV3, C4, Prime, TVNZ6, TVNZ7, Maori TV, Parliament TV and TV3 Plus 1 (TV3 on a one-hour delay; a budget way for MediaWorks to fulfill it's obligation to provide another Freeview channel). It’s just that, on the onscreen programming guide, Prime and Maori TV are represented by blank gaps.
 

Q: Is the onscreen electronic programming guide (EPG) delivered via broadband?

A: Yes it is. Unlike Sky TV HDi, which delivers its EPG as part of its broadcast signal, TiVo’s guide is delivered via the internet.

Q: Does that mean I need a DSL jack in my living room?

A: No, the EPG is delivered via wi-fi. Any species of wi-fi is fine, but the latest, fastest spec (802.11n) is preferred. In my preview, the onscreen guide was as snappy as any I’ve seen. A wi-fi extender (pictured) that Aussies have to pay $199 for is free for Kiwis. Better, you can use wi-fi to transfer photos, video and music to view or listen to on your TV, via your TiVo. Or, to download TiVo content to your computer, PS3 or mobile.

Q: If the programming guide is delivered via wi-fi, does that mean I need to keep my PC on all the time to watch TV?

A: No, only your DSL modem, if it’s got built-in wi-fi.

Q: Do I have to be a Telecom customer to use TiVo?

A: No. You can use TiVo’s broadband-delivered programming guide, and access all its broadcast TV tricks (Live Pause, Season Pass, rewinding live TV etc) whether you belong to Telecom or TelstraClear or Orcon or Vodafone or CalPlus or any ISP.

"Essentially it's a FreeviewHD box [until you add Telecom-specific features]," said Mr Bryham. "A Rolls Royce FreeviewHD box," added Ms Minicola.

Q: So why choose the Telecom bundle?

A: One reason is financial. A TiVo set-top box will cost $920 upfront if you want to pay full whack. If you’re a Telecom Broadband customer, you get the option of buying it on tick for $30 a month

But the primary reason is that only Telecom customers will be able to access Caspa (pictured above), TiVo’s unique-to-New Zealand content-on-demand service. (Caspa stands for Content and Services Platform Asia, incidentally.)

Caspa delivers extra TV and movie content via your broadband connection, unmetered by Telecom (that is, none of the data you download will count toward your monthly cap. And that’s no small deal when each movie runs to 1.4GB. Sky TV has taken down its broadband on-demand service, citing the lack of unmetered data plans. In fact, there’s only one - Telecom’s Big Time, which is subject to throttling).

There are no immediate plans to play recent international shows on Caspa ahead of free-to-air TV - something that would definitely constitute a killer app.
 

Q: Does Caspa have a decent range of content?

A: Sorta. Come the November 6 TiVo launch, there will be 25 new release movies, which will cost $6.95 to view, and around 100 library movies, which will cost $4.95. Only a handful of music videos and TV series will be available at launch, but more are promised. For most series - and the first series of The Tudors was used as an example - you can download the first three episodes free, then pay $4.95 per episode. Remember that you can also use TiVo’s bundled home networking kit to tap any content on your PC.

Late November, Sony’s Bandit.fm service will also launch in New Zealand, offering an all-you-can-eat, Spotify-style music download service for $9.95 a month, covering around 1 million tracks from all the major record labels. TiVo users will be able to access a limited (as yet unspecified) amount of Bandit.fm content free

Extra, advertiser-funded content will arrive next year, said Ms Minicola.

Q: Is Caspa content high definition?

A: No, it’s standard definition digital. That is, the quality that most Sky TV subscribers see (bar the 13,000 or so who’re clipping the HD Ticket). With a sample movie, it looked good. Think DVD-like quality.

Q: How long do movies take to download?

A: The first 15 minutes of a movie should download in around 10 minutes. Once that’s downloaded, you can start watching, while the rest downloads in the background.
Number of ISPs.

Q: How do I pay for Caspa content?

A: You use your credit card to put dollars into a TiVo account, via the set-top box, topping it up when you run out.

A: Does it make sense for TiVo to partner exclusively with Telecom? Telecom Broadband holds 57% if the retail broadband market, but that still leaves out a whole bunch of potential TiVo customers.

A: Ms Minicola said it does, because Telecom has a strong retail presence and strong general focus on TiVo, especially in relation to the NZ-specific Caspa. Mr Brayham adds that Telecom has a superior ability to deliver optimise the broadband-delivered content.

Q: Hmmmn. So how many ISP partners does TiVo have in Australia?

A: It started, a year ago, with one (Internode). Now it has four, with a fifth about to be announced next week.

A: What else can TiVo do that Sky can’t?

Q: SkyTV recently added the ability to programme a MySky box via the web. TiVo will offer the same ability (via mytivo.co.nz) but adds a neat wrinkle - the ability to remote programme via your iPhone, or in fact any WAP-enabled mobile. You can’t control all TiVo features from a cellphone, but you can do most, including one-show recording and Season Pass. The mobile programming guide is for seven days, against the TiVo proper's 14.

Q: What's TiVo’s sales target for New Zealand?

A: Ms Minicola said TiVo is aiming for 160,000 customers inside five years. Across the Tasman, it’s aiming for 500,000 over the same period. Rivals merrily claim that TiVo sold a modest 30,000 units during its first year in Australia. Ms Minicola said she won’t comment on immediate sales figures.(Remember that TVNZ bought a one-third share of Hybrid overall rather than taking any kind of licensing arrangement, so it's TiVo fortunes are very much tied up in the platform's success on both sides of the Tasman).

Mr Brayham said he’s set his own sales targets, which he describes as “more aggressive”.

I'll be getting a TiVo box in to test in the next week or so, so stand by for another update soon. And if you've got any extra questions, fire them through.