New TiVo Feature Lets Families Share Videos On TV Via the Web

New TiVo Feature Lets
Families Share Videos
On TV Via the Web
By NICK WINGFIELD
November 14, 2006; Page D1

Watching television and watching Web video have been separate activities, usually occurring in different rooms of the house on different devices. Now the two are starting to blur together in ways that may ultimately make it hard to distinguish between them.

The latest push is by TiVo Inc., the company that pioneered the digital video recorder, or DVR, a device that made it easy to record "The Sopranos" and other programs from cable and other traditional sources of television. The Alviso, Calif., company today unveiled several new features designed to enhance the array of content available to TiVo users to download from the Internet for playback on television sets. The new options include a home movie service, through which users can create an Internet "channel" that automatically broadcasts clips of kids' birthday parties and other movies over the Internet to family and friends with TiVo recorder boxes.

The new TiVo capabilities are another step in the direction of the long ballyhooed convergence between television and the Internet. Cable giant Comcast Corp. recently launched a Web site called Ziddio where it solicits homemade videos, with the intention of putting the most popular on its cable video-on-demand service for television subscribers. Apple Computer Inc. in the first quarter of next year plans to begin selling a product tentatively called iTV that plays movies, TV shows and other content downloaded from the Internet on television sets in living rooms.

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers comments on the new features allowing users to download content from the Web for TV playback.TiVo is seeking to make its product more Internet-savvy as its faces stiff competition from cable and satellite companies in the market for DVRs. TiVo has been steadily losing share in that market to its much larger rivals, but it believes it can stay relevant if it keeps a technological edge on competitors. Helping users tap the huge growth in Internet video is one way it hopes to do that.

TiVo executives say its users over time won't be able to tell whether video recorded on the device has come from conventional TV or off the Internet. "My kids don't know the difference between broadcast and cable channels," says Tom Rogers, chief executive of TiVo.

For now at least, the content available to TiVo users is much thinner than what they can get on the airwaves and cable. TiVo today plans to announce a new batch of partners including CBS Corp., Reuters Group PLC, Forbes magazine and others, which will make news and entertainment programs available for downloading onto TiVos. The partners join New York Times Co., National Basketball Association and a handful of others that joined the company's Internet video downloading service, dubbed TiVoCast, earlier this year. The service doesn't cost users a fee beyond the $12.95 a month that TiVo already charges most customers to get updated television listings and other features.

TiVo has developed software that will let users download video from sites like Google Video for playback on TiVo recorders, though they will first have to download it to their PCs for translation into a video format that is compatible with the devices. The company also has cut a deal with the talent and literary agency International Creative Management through which the agency's roster of actors and directors will recommend films, television shows and Internet videos that users can then easily record onto their devices. TiVo said it wasn't ready yet to announce the names of celebrities that will create "guru guides" for TiVo.

In addition, TiVo is opening up its devices to amateur videos through a relationship with One True Media Inc., an Internet start-up that operates a Web service designed to help users easily edit their raw footage into slick home movies. Starting early next year, users of One True Media, which charges customers $3.99 a month to share their videos with others over the Internet, will be able to create their own online channels to which TiVo members can subscribe.

Anytime the creator of the channel on One True Media adds another video, the clip will be sent over the Internet to all of the subscribers. Mark Moore, chief executive of One True Media, says most of the video shot by its subscribers is high-enough quality to look good on televisions. Televisions, Mr. Moore says, are getting "closer and closer to the Internet."

Still, some analysts doubt Internet video will end up being compelling enough to draw significant numbers of users away from conventional television in the near term. Brian Wieser, director of industry analysis at Magna Global, says conventional television viewing still dwarfs the amount of time people spend watching Web video, and is likely to continue doing so for years even with the growth in content online.