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My TiVo informed me today that NBC has made pilots to four of their upcoming fall shows available for free via the TiVo and Amazon Unbox partnership. I have been looking forward to the new Bionic Woman ever since I heard it was picked up. I took the opportunity to watch the commercial free pilot today via TiVo and Amazon Unbox. It didn’t disappoint.
Tags: TiVo, NBC, Amazon, Unbox, Bionic Woman
After posting my previous entry on the availability of Unbox purchases directly from TiVo, I did get a notice on my TiVo screen announcing that feature. I also have received a message letting me know about the availability of the TiVo Mobile application for Verizon wireless cell phones.
I won’t be checking this out, as I don’t have a Verizon wireless cell phone; I’m part of the Cingular/AT&T camp. I don’t understand why something like mobile TiVo scheduling needs to be a proprietary application. Why not make a slimmed down mobile HTML site so that all wireless users could schedule their programs remotely.
I’ve not tried the TiVo Central site from my Blackberry 8700c, but I suspect that if it works at all the experience will be difficult. My bank recently launched a mobile banking web site that works great. I don’t understand why my bank can provide me financial services without a special application but my TiVo can’t let me schedule recordings the same way.
Tags: TiVo
I didn’t see an announcement on my TiVo about this, but I received an email from Amazon letting me know that I can set up a PIN to purchase Amazon Unbox content directly on my TiVo. I tried this out and it does indeed work. I think this is going to make Amazon Unbox all the more popular. I know it will drive my usage of it. Sometimes I’m watching TiVo and someone references a movie and I think, “Oh I want to watch that.” This will drive impulse purchases of that content if I can pause what I’m watching and grab the movie directly from my TiVo.
Unfortunately the available content for Unbox on TiVo is still pretty limited, but hopefully that will change down the road.
I watched The Departed
The Departed is a classic undercover cop infiltrates organized crime story, with several twists. Instead of taking the usual plot approach of structuring the story around the undercover officer’s attempts at creating a case against the organized crime bosses, The Departed instead focuses on the cat and mouse game between the undercover officer who has infiltrated the crime syndicate and the crime syndicate’s mole inside the police department. They are constantly struggling to learn the other’s identity and provide useful information to their respective organizations without betraying their true identities.
The acting and cast was stellar. Martin Sheen, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio - what’s not to like?
If you enjoy movies along the lines of Donnie Brasco
Tags: The Departed, Movie, Donnie Brasco, LA Confidential
I got an account on the Joost public beta program today. I hadn’t been real aggressive about trying to get one, but I figured I may as well since they’ll launch it soon.
I accidently forgot to pay attention to the EULA as I clicked through it, so I’m not sure if there is some NDA stuff in there. I doubt it. I don’t have much to report in any case, as I have only played with it a little bit.
The idea for Joost is peer-to-peer legal television-quality programs on demand. Unfortunately right now the service is extremely content-starved and it’s clearly much more of a technical beta than anything else. There are some interesting documentaries and music video content, but if you’re looking for prime time US television, it’s not there. Yet.
As far as the technical features and interface goes, it’s not a traditional Windows UI app and that may cause some learning curve. It looks and feels more like a Flash web application. This isn’t necessarily a negative and it does make the interface feel fresh and trendy, but it may create usability issues for some.
The video codec they are using is fairly resource intensive. My computer isn’t the newest on the block (in fact, it’s becoming a bit out dated as evidenced in my recent experimentation with Second Life), but I have found that I need to close other applications and give Joost everything my system has.
As I play with it more, I plan to send them some feedback. So far it seems promising, but this platform will live and die by its content so it’s too early to say what the real prospects are for Joost.
Tags: Joost
Now that my TiVo is finally back online, I’ve been playing around with the home networking features. I’ve used them in the past, but my TiVo has been offline for a few months and I figured I’d check to see if there had been any improvements. Unfortunately it would seem not. Although the pre-release of the new TiVo desktop does apparently support moving non-TiVo video content to the TiVo, if it’s in a supported format, I haven’t been able to get that to actually work. It’s possible that the files I’ve been trying have been unsupported formats; I haven’t spent all that much time messing with it.
What interests me more is the music streaming capability. I keep all of my music on my computer (in iTunes) and sometimes I’d like to listen to it in my bedroom using my TiVo. I could get an Airport Extreme, but why invest the money in that when I already have a device hooked up to my television which should accomplish the same task?
Alright kiddies, I know you may have thought I got over my little celebrity crush on Rose McGowan since I haven’t written about her in a while (prior commentary: 1, 2). But you’d be wrong. Just not much news on the subject.
I read this article earlier and I thought I’d share. Rumor has it that Ms. McGowan will be in both Robert Rodriguez’s as well as Quentin Tarantino’s slasher films. I don’t care for horror movies, typically, but I will be watching these.
I’m smitten. What can be done?
Tags: Rose McGowan
I’m not a big fan of reality television. Or more accurately, I enjoy celebrity reality TV (Hogan Knows Best and the like), but shows like Survivor or Big Brother do nothing for me. Call me high brow, but I like a scripted comedy or dramatic series.
Having said that, I do have an idea for a reality show that I would enjoy watching. So here’s my pitch to the world. Most of these shows are about trying to win the big prize - typically a sizeable amount of money. But what if that were the beginning of the show, not the end?
What if you picked the winner on the first episode, and gave them a couple million dollars, and then followed them around for a few months to see how their lives changed. NBC is doing a similar thing with the dramatic series Windfall - but why not do it for real?
Depending on who you picked to be the “winner”, I think a lot of drama and humor could be found in taking someone to a Ferrari dealership for the first time, or out to a $200/plate restaurant, or to a money manager’s office.
I think a good title for this reality program would be Nouveau Riche and if someone would like to front some sponsorship money I’d be happy to executive produce an online version of it.
So the big news today, aside from Ken Lay passing away, is the departure of Amanda Congdon from Rocketboom. I have nothing to add to the whole gossip angle about what may have really happened. I have no inside information, but I’ve been on the inside of enough deals gone bad over the years to know that what comes out publicly typically has very little resembalance to what actually happened.
I comment because Jason Calacanis posted some advice and also a more general endorsement of the online content industry.
I have mixed feelings. I agree that online content is the future, and there will be big big money to be made. But I don’t know if it’s time yet to set up an online studio. While people will watch short clips on Youtube or Google Video, and even Rocketboom, I don’t think the attention span is there to watch longer-form content on a PC screen. The tech elite will, but not the masses required to bring in ad dollars.
The ultimate solution needs to be a set top box, perhaps a deal with TiVo. In the mean time I stand by my earlier thoughts that maybe DVD is a bridge. But even that seems too complicated for the majority. Maybe if the content is compelling enough. Hard to say.
This is a space where I’d like to throw my hat into the ring. Most likely as a producer or content aggregator. But I don’t know if the timing is right yet. I hope I don’t miss the boat.
Now that I figured out how to embed videos, all bets are off.
Tags: Chelsea Handler, YouTube
