Yesterday, PVRBlog and other outlets reported that TiVo and Comcast announced a non-exclusive deal to bring the TiVo experience to Comcast customers.  This sounds very interesting, I'll even say exciting as an early adopter of TiVo but then my, "skeptic chip" kicks in. I have some questions lingering after the announcement.  Excerpted from the press release:

Under the terms of the agreement, Comcast and TiVo will work together to develop a version of the TiVo service that will be made available on Comcast's current primary DVR platform.

Q: Assuming this is the Motorola DVR platform, how will they bring the richness of the TiVo User Experience to a box that appears to have far less video or UI processing horsepower without diminishing the signature TiVo experience?

New software will be developed by TiVo and will be incorporated into Comcast's existing network platforms. The new service will be marketed with the TiVo brand, and is expected to be available on Comcast's DVR products in a majority of Comcast markets in mid-to-late 2006.

Q: Sounds like TiVo found a back-door around what they described as a CableCard "monopoly" issue as exclaimed  in their last analyst call, and the fall-out of their relationship with satellite provider DirecTV. Judging by the time-table it sounds like the engineers are just starting to get spun up on the hardware.  Will consumers have a choice of platforms?  Will the cost be the same?

This long-term, non-exclusive partnership will provide millions of Comcast customers with the opportunity to choose the TiVo service, including TiVo's award-winning user interface and features like Season Pass(TM) and WishList(TM), as an additional option.

Q: Comparable features (season recording in particular) are available on existing boxes, yet TiVo notes these will be available as an additional option.  That means more $$ to Comcast and TiVo on a monthly basis. How much more than we're currently paying? And back to my first point- perhaps there's a new Moto box coming that they'll use as the platform for the user experience but moving from the UI of existing DVR boxes to TiVo is a big leap.

In addition, the service will showcase TiVo's home networking, multimedia, and broadband capabilities.

Q: This is very interesting- I wonder if you will be able to share recorded programs around the home network, the impact that the broadcast flag will have on this, and whether you'll be able to transfer the programs to your Windows XP PC ala TiVo2Go? What about Portable Media Center.  And back to that broadcast flag issue... ;)

[...]

As an extension of the relationship, TiVo and Comcast will make TiVo's interactive advertising platform available across Comcast's customer base without interrupting the award-winning TiVo subscriber experience.

Q: So this is the real carrot for the cable operators IMO. Tens of billions of dollars in ad revenue flow into the TV broadcast market every year. Here's an opportunity to generate more revenue on the front-end (higher and optional subscription charges per month) and the back-end (targeted advertising augmenting Comcast's already owned/leased/sold ad-space.

I'm looking forward to seeing how fully vision becomes reality on this one. I have yet to see if the consumer really wins in the end and if Comcast/TiVo can bring the richness of the experience to the hardware platform. I hope they don't dilute the TiVo experience. What do you think?

As always- all comments are my own and do not represent my employer.

While light on details (or a link to the report or details on methodology), Reuters/CNet posts on iSuppli's new survey that shows that over the next five years, shipments of MP3 music players will expand from 36.8 million in 2004 to 132 million units in 2009.

Consumers may not want a swiss-army product as the report alludes, however I think a product that plays multiple formats and supports multiple music services is still important.

Courtesy of MCESoft.nl:

In what can only be described as a geek event of "Big Bang" proportions, "Lego Star Wars: The Video Game" is coming next week.  Xbox and PC versions and you can play on yourSome folks internally are chattering about it like my wife did when she found out she was pregnant with our son.

I have to admit, I had a major Lego and Star Wars addiction when I was a kid too and look forward to sharing this kind of thing with my son when he's older. Perhaps that's too much sharing though... ;).  I just realized that he'll probably never remember Xbox.  The next-generation Xbox will be his first conscious recollection of home console gaming.  Geez, and my first was PONG.

Cool.  More resources (this time from O'Reilly) on how to build apps for Media Center.

http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/03/08/mce_part1.html

Let's see, FM Tuner, Voice Recording, WMA and MP3 support. This is an improvement, but still no display?  Come on, even CD Players have this folks. The design looks kinda familiar but I can't quite put my finger on it... ;) 

http://www.luxpro-corp.com/e_575d.htm

Many of you have asked when Media Center might come to your country or region.  At CeBIT, it was announced that Windows XP Media Center Edition will be coming to twenty new markets more than doubling the language availability of the platform. Today, more than 90 major manufacturers and over 7,000 system builders are shipping Media Center PCs in 13 countries.  Here's a list of the new locations being added:

MCE Geek Dinner World Tour Anyone?  I can just see the t-shirts now :)
Press Release here.

One word: WOW.  Engadget reports on this Samsung SGH-i300 Windows Mobile Smartphone has a 3GB Hard Drive built in.  Add a 1.3 Megapixel camera, bluetooth, and a scroll wheel to tri-band GSM (but not US-centric) and I just might have found my next phone.  Now please, Sammy bring this to the US market!

eHomeUpgrade.com has a good round up of details on the next-generation Xbox announced at the Game Developer's Conference.

More details including screenshots here.

Podcast and more details at Major Nelson's Blog

Interesting stuff at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC).  Josh Rubin's Cool Hunting spied this cool stamp that embeds personal info into a cameraphone-readable format that can be easily imported into mobile phones.  If IR was just easier, would we really need this?  I don't know but it's still pretty nifty.  Reminds me of those EyeCat? wand-thingies that Radio Shack and others were giving out where the idea was you'd scan an ad in a magazine and visit the website.  Er... nevermind.

Photo courtesy of Josh Rubin's Cool Hunting

Took a short blog vacation but I'm back.

A few of you mentioned you'd like to see a geek dinner in the UK. It just so happens that I'll be in London on May 5th and based on the success of the San Francisco Geek Dinner, why not?  Anyone local wish to help host and recommend a venue?

Waiting to board my plane here at SFO, I decided to get Lost on my Tablet PC with Orb. A lot has been made of Orb's ability to play back video on Windows Mobile Smartphones by streaming it from you, but for me the killer scenario is the DVR experience even when on busines travel. My Media Center PC back at home does all the heavy lifting- all I need is a WiFi connection and I'm catching up on last night's episode of Lost sitting outside Gate 20. The only bummer is I cannot skip commercials.

While Orb is best with a Media Center PC, you can check out the new beta for Windows XP today.

All I can say is wow.  Thanks to everyone who came out to our MCE Geek Dinner in San Fran last night. I've heard a lot of good feedback from others and we had some really cool giveaways from ATI (TV Wonder Elites), Niveus (remote controls), and even MSN Music gave away free downloads. While I don't expect that's a normal thing at Geek Dinners, what a great way to kick off a new Geek Dinner in a new town.  I hope Thomas and others keep it going. Thomas wrote such a good recap it's hard for me to add much more other than to say I'm hooked. We literally shut down the restaurant and then headed up to O'Brien's Pub for a pint with a few folks. Ed Bott  wished he could have been there, but he's in Seattle next week so it looks like another Seattle MCE Geek Dinner is being planned. Details to come shortly.

By the way Ed was Slashdotted today for an article in which he compares his Cable DVR, TiVo, and MCE- cut to the chase, none is perfect but MCE wins in his opinion.

Thanks again everyone who attended and here's to hoping you keep it going. :)

Sitting in the Q&A after the Intel Digital Home Keynote at the Intel Developer Forum.  A few tid-bits:

• Joe Belfiore, GM of Windows eHome Group talked about collaboration and importance of partnership on device interoperability.  Call to action was to participate in the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)
• Dual-Core processors are going to deliver great new scenarios for home entertainment.  Demo'd an Intel-based LRPC with Pentium-D dual core processor and Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 playing back WMV HD video while also processing a 3D game (eg. Doom3), recompressing the video into MPEG-2 and distributing it to another device & TV for play in the home.  Not a hiccup in video performance on either system.
• Disney is getting into the Media Center pool with their MovieBeam service coming to MCE customers.  Previously available only as a set-top box in the US, the service uses datacasting to download (cache) movies over-the-air.  They plan to offer support for Media Center PCs via a discreet plug & play antenna and demo'd new UI for Media Center.  Also noted plans to support High Definition playback in their next version of their platform.
• Intel showed cool new small form-factors that will support dual-core and noted Dell is first to be shipping a P4 Extreme Dual Core system (giving away 4 at the event).
• Optical Drive, low power dual-core procesor. Lots of comments about "smaller than Mac Mini".  There was a crush of people trying to get pictures immediately after. One of my co-horts snagged a pic shown here.

More to come I'm sure on these developments/announcements. Soon.  I'll see if I can scare up some screenshots between meeting

Just a reminder that Thomas Hawk and I are hosting a geek dinner tonight with folks from the Media Center team. We are going to get together at the 110 Natoma Henry Hunan's at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday March 2nd.

The restaurant is very scalable so no need to RSVP unless you want to drop a comment and let us know that you are coming.

If you want a preview on Henry's menu click here and then click on any menu item. This guy has written a review on everything on their menu. If he is not a Henry's fanatic I don't know who is.

Keep in mind that Henry's has four locations. The one we are going to meet at is on Natoma which is kind of in an alley just off of 2nd Street between Mission and Howard. See map.  Remember this is completely casual and not an officially sanctioned event, just good food and good conversation. See you there.

Update: That would be "hosting" not "hosing" :)