TiVoCast; Bringing Broadband Video Content to the TV
TiVo Inc., the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR), recently announced the launch of TiVoCast, a revolutionary new service which will deliver broadband video directly to the television sets of TiVo subscribers. The TiVoCast service turns Web video into television by bringing top broadband content now only available on the PC to the TV set.
Basketball fans and news junkies will be able to use their TV sets to watch Internet video using a service announced by TiVo.
Through the new TiVoCast service, people can download broadband video clips to their TiVo boxes for free from a handful of Internet sites, such as woman-oriented iVillage, technology-focused CNET.com, entertainment-grooved Heavy.com, The New York Times, the National Basketball Association and Women’s National Basketball Association, and news and political video blog site Rocketboom.
Television is still the preferred platform for watching video. The TiVoCast service captures mainstream and specialty-based content on the Web, delivering programming that is not otherwise available through the TV today and providing a wide variety of choice that will be of interest to all segments of the TV audience, said Tara Maitra, TiVo’s Vice President and General Manager, Programming. "The TiVoCast service provides niche networks and broadband content suppliers, for which the economics of television distribution might not make sense, a way to connect with audiences in the living room via their favorite medium for watching video, TV and TiVo."
Although the service is available only to TiVo and cable TV subscribers who own set-top (DVRs) digital video recorders, it marks another step toward the convergence of digital media and entertainment sources scattered throughout the typical home.
TiVo calls its DVR "the focal point of the digital living room," allowing its 400,000 subscribers to play music or view photos on their TV sets.
The move is the latest in TiVo’s strategy to join others in merging the TV in the living room with the Web. While online video in the United States has grown in popularity with the increase in broadband adoption, the medium would not take off as an advertising vehicle until it is delivered on TV screens, and not just computer monitors, analysts say.
The range and quality of broadband video is exploding on the Web, but it’s not TV until it is on the TV, said Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo. "With the TiVoCast service, we are once again transforming the television experience by bringing the rapidly expanding array of video content on the Internet into the living room."
The latest announcement is not TiVo’s first attempt to merge the Web with TV. In December, the Alviso, Calif., company rolled out a host of online services for subscribers that included Web radio from Live365, entertainment content from portal Yahoo Inc. and the ability to access movie reviews and buy tickets from Fandango.
As part of the launch, TiVo announced that it has reached new agreements with leading video content providers including the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), The New York Times, Heavy, iVillage and CNET among others.
The broadband video content will include:
- NBA and WNBA — As the first professional sports leagues to team up with TiVo, fans will have access to NBA and WNBA video showcases during the season that will be available to all TiVo subscribers. During The Finals, which tip off on Thursday, June 8 on ABC, a special "Finals Showcase" video package highlighting the greatest Finals moments in NBA History will be available for fans to view on TiVo.
- The New York Times — The New York Times will offer a selection of original video segments on a variety of topics including A.O. Scott’s signature Movie Minute film reviews, news analysis from the Times’ Washington DC bureau, David Pogue’s technology product reviews and many more.
- Heavy.com — Heavy.com is the Number 1 digital entertainment brand for 18 – 34 year old guys with more than 12 million unique viewers monthly (Nielsen) and a viral reach of 65 million taste-challenged pop culture junkies. Its programming staples include "Behind the Music that Sucks," "American Suck Countdown" and "The Massive Mating Game."
- iVillage — Featuring original video clips from one of the strongest and most widely recognized brands on the Internet for women. Informative and entertaining segments will include real stories and how-to advice covering beauty, parenting, fashion, home & food and relationships, among other topics.
- CNET — The place consumers go to understand and compare consumer electronics, computers, and software to find the right choice and a property of CNET Networks, Inc., will provide viewers buying advice and how-to segments that help them get the most out of their technology products. Content will include video from CNET TV’s popular franchises such as Insider Secrets, Weekend Project, and First Look from the Labs, and feature popular CNET editorial personalities Brian Cooley, Molly Wood, and Tom Merritt.
- Danger Rangers — These animated characters will deliver exciting, action-adventure series that empowers children to make smart safety decisions. Content will be premium, quality entertainment to improve children’s safety awareness, making them less likely to be injured, disabled, or even killed in a preventable accident.
- H2O: HipHop on Demand — Provided content will focus on delivering viewers’ world and television premieres of HipHop/Urban themed programming targeting the large and growing multiracial Urban TV consumer market.
- Union on Demand — USA’s first on demand action sports film network will provide premium Surf, Snow, Skate, BMX and Motocross content to the consumers and enthusiasts.
- Here! — Offers a wide variety of original movies and series appealing to the broad based and diverse gay and lesbian audience.
Just as television content is easy to find and navigate through the TiVo interface, the TiVoCast service makes it easy to enjoy Web-based video content. TiVo subscribers will be able to easily find this content through the Showcases area on TiVo Central, the main menu of the TiVo service. The content will be offered free of charge to subscribers. TiVo and its partners will have the ability to integrate advertising within the content.
Subscribers will be able to access the content through the Showcases area of TiVo Central, using a TiVo Series2 DVR box connected to a broadband connection.
In bringing the Web to the living room, TiVo is beginning to look like a TV service and a potential competitor to the cable operators it has been trying to partner with, The Diffusion Group said in a recent research note.
"TiVo’s evolutionary path is moving it ever onward toward direct competition with the same service operators with which it is looking to partner, a position that puts TiVo in a bit of a pickle," Diffusion senior consultant Colin Dixon said in the report.
Recent deals with cable operator Comcast and satellite TV provider DirecTV do not provide the kind of penetration TiVo needs, given that both companies have only agreed to offer TiVo as a high-end service. Since that is unlikely to significantly boost subscriber growth, TiVo has had little choice but to look to the Web.
TiVo, which was the first to market with a digital video recorder, is struggling to remain relevant as cable operators and telephone companies start delivering similar capabilities in set-top boxes. JupiterResearch expects DVRs incorporated in those devices to dominate the market in a few years, whereas today, standalone DVRs, like TiVo’s, dominate.
Similar Ideas
Many technology firms are chasing that same goal, but so far they have been able to combine only pairs of devices, such as Apple Computer’s iPod that stores music on a PC, or Sony’s digital cameras that display photographs on a TV set.
More inclusive efforts include a plan to share content among many devices through a central PC, using platforms such as Viiv from Intel or Live from Advanced Micro Devices. But those packages require high-end processors and complex chipsets to merge different types of data, so are likely to appeal only to early adopters initially.
The new "TiVoCast" service has a more modest goal, allowing specialized content providers to reach a broader audience through the TV than they could over the Internet alone.
"TiVo has the intellectual property to become a unique force among TV operators," Dixon said.
TiVo began testing broadband video downloads last August, previewing "Greg the Bunny," "Hopeless Pictures" and "The Festival" before they debuted on the Independent Film Channel. That was later followed up in December with Rocketboom videos, which have been ongoing since then.
TiVo and its partners plan to make money by integrating advertising within the content. That could bode well for TiVo, which has been under pressure to differentiate itself amid growing competition from companies offering DVR service to industry titans such as Cisco Systems and Motorola, which are adding digital recording features to their cable set-top boxes.
TiVo’s broadband service comes as greater headway is being made in the development of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). AT&T, for example, is planning a wide deployment this summer of its Project Lightspeed and U-verse TV service, which has been in a pilot phase.
TiVo, meanwhile, has developed software and a user interface that can be used with IPTV. This technology would help subscribers organize and navigate through programming that may be offered via IPTV in the future.
However, TiVo is still figuring out how this technology will be used with the broadband video clips, Maitra said.
While the recent announcement is a start, TiVo will have to go much further in signing up more content providers, such as the Internet’s largest online video site YouTube.