Macopinion

Tivo versus DirecTV HDDVR, Part 7

by Marc Zeedar macopinion@designwrite.com

Extra Features
This is a short category as the DTV HDDVR does not have any extra features (at least at this time, it doesn't). Tivo has free software you can install on your home computers (Mac or Windows) to allow your photos and music (MP3 only) to stream to your networked Tivo. It's pretty cool, especially since your TV is most likely connected to a sound system.

[Update: I later saw on DirecTV's website that they do support networked music and photos, but only on computers with Intel Vii technology. That means no Macs and not even all PCs. Useless.]

Tivo also has other networked features like moving shows between Tivos, support of free online photo websites (oddly, flickr is omitted), a few networked games, movie listings, weather info, a podcast listener, and more. Unfortunately, the quality of these is all over the place, and the features are often so limited as to be useless. For example, the podcast listener doesn't remember where you left off, so you can't listen to partial podcasts. The movie listing widget sounds great: but I'm in a rural with only one local theatre and the widget won't list any other theaters for my Zip code. If I want theaters closer to Portland (where I often go to see movies), I have to put in separate Zip codes for each city. At least with online movie listing sites I can specify the range of the theaters in miles or customize my listing with certain theaters I frequent.

Tivo's extras are like Dashboard widgets: small network applications like games and utilities.

Tivo also offers something called "Tivo2Go," which is supposed to be a way for you to pull shows off your Tivo and onto your computer. I have not had much experience with this, however, because for years it was Windows-only. Now there is a way to do it on the Mac, but it requires Roxio's DVD-burning Toast software, which costs $99. Even then I believe there are severe limitations as to what you can do with the shows (you cannot put them on iPods, for example). The process is also slow and buggy. There are some open source (i.e., hacks) solutions for doing this for free, but I've had much luck getting them to work. (It should be said I have not been particularly motivated -- if I want a show on my Mac or iPhone, I just burn it to DVD with my Tivo DVD burner and rip the DVD on my computer.)

Tivo recently added support for the Rhapsody music service: this is a subscription-based service so you don't actually own any of the music but can listen to as much as you'd like. People don't seem to like these services and want to own their music, so I doubt Rhapsody will survive, but we'll see.

Despite some problems with these extras, DirecTV cannot compete at all since it offers none of them.

Winner: Tivo

Digital Downloads
Both boxes offer some shows you can download off the Internet. Tivo has a selection of Internet TV shows like the daily Rocketboom vidcast you can subscribe to and which are automatically downloaded as published. That's very cool: I watch a lot more of that stuff because it's preferable to watch video on my TV instead of my computer.

Tivo calls their Internet videos "TivoCasts."

Tivo also offers paid video rentals and purchase via a partnership with Amazon Unbox. This is a pretty good deal for Mac users, since Unbox is not Mac compatible, but with Tivo you can browse titles and rent/purchase them with your Tivo's remote control with a simple secret PIN (the charges go to the credit card linked on your Amazon account). It's pretty cool and convenient, especially when Amazon has 99-cent movie rental specials.

Tivo works with Amazon's Unbox service to let you rent or purchase digital content. Unbox is not compatible with Macs, so this is a great way to get Unbox content (though without a PC, it's stuck on your Tivo).

Unfortunately the shows don't download immediately -- most take several hours -- and you can't start watching the show until it's fully downloaded. Worse, there's no indication on the Tivo that show's scheduled to be downloaded until the downloading process has started. Several times I've had to contact Amazon tech support with problems. Once some things I rented took days before I received them.

Rentals have similar terms as Apple TV -- you can keep them for 30 days but once you start watching, the movie will expire in 24 hours. The quality is decent and the process is convenient: you can even order movies via Amazon's website and have them sent to your Tivo (do it on your lunch hour and have fresh movies waiting for you when you get home).

Another problem is that you can't tell from the movie listing page if a movie is available for rent or purchase, nor can you see the price. You have to select the show to view its details, which really slows down browsing. (If you're only interested in renting, it's annoying to have $15.99 movie purchases show up next to $2.99 rentals.)

DirecTV takes a different approach (they call their offering Video On Demand). They have the Pay-per-View movies you'd expect, but they also have free digital downloads of movies and TV shows on their other channels, which is a neat way to catch an episode of a series you missed. The downloads start immediately and are quick (within a couple minutes a half-hour sitcom was 30% downloaded).

DirecTV's "On Demand" service offers selected shows as digital downloads. Unfortunately you are only allowed to download shows for the channels you subscribe to -- so why does it show me Showtime shows when I can't actually download them? Lame!

However -- and this is one big however -- this only works for channels you receive. If you try to download a show from Showtime, for instance, and you're not a subscriber, you'll get a message encouraging you to subscribe to the channel.

Stupidly DirecTV lists all these shows together, so you're offered hundreds of choices and if you don't pay for premiums (like me), 95% of those don't apply to you!

Now this feature is marked as being in Beta, so it may change. I'd like to see an option that would only list the channels I receive or channels on my current favorites list. Right now I can't imagine I would ever bother to use VOD. There's very little non-premium content and it's just not worth the hassle. Tivo wins this round on the ability to subscribe to Internet vidcasts.

Winner: Tivo

Next Time: Shortcuts and Advertising

macopinion@designwrite.com