Tag Archives: TiVo

Amazon VoD & TiVo Working Again

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Back around November or December, an update to TiVo killed the Amazon.com Video on Demand (VoD) service. That really sucked, as I loved being able to download movies and TV shows from Amazon.com to my TiVo boxes. It had been a while, so I figured surely to God they have this thing fixed now. And yesterday evening, I logged into Amazon.com and told it to send me a copy of Supernatural Season 4 Episode 1 to my living room TiVo. I’m happy to report that the service is working once again, though it is a bit slower than I remember… but then, that could very well be my network or something wrong with Comcast.

While I am thrilled that the service is working once again, I must say that I am rather disappointed that I wasn’t notified by Amazon.com or TiVo and informed that the service is working again. A simple email from Amazon, or a notice sent to my TiVo messages should have been extremely easy for them to pull off. Had they notified me, I’d have probably been downloading a lot more moves rather than using the crappy Comcast OnDemand service.

TiVo Update Killed Amazon VoD

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I’ve been using TiVo for about 5 years now, and I absolutely love it. It’s a fantastic service that has forever change the way I watch TV. It’s kind of like broadband internet, I cannot imagine going back to the way things were before.

One of the cool things I’ve enjoyed about my TiVo for the last year or so is the ability to rent movies from Amazon Video on Demand (formerly Amazon Unbox) and have the movies downloaded directly to my TiVo. Not only is it a easy to use service, but the cost of most rentals is around $3.99 a whole buck cheaper than what Comcast charges for their extremely slow OnDemand service. And just to throw it in there, renting movies from Apple via iTunes is about the same cost as TiVo-Amazon. ;)

That Amazon-TiVo service worked great until a few days ago when TiVo issues the Fall 2008 Update. The new update changes some of the menus, adds the ability to order pizza from Domino’s, download video on demand from other providers, and unintentionally bricks the Amazon VoD service.

It took me three days of contacting Amazon (email and phone) before I finally got someone on Sunday that actually identified the problem as the TiVo update. Right now when you rent a video, it’ll start to download, and then just vanish. If you check for an error, you get the extremely vague “an error occurred while downloading the video.”

Yesterday morning when I spoke to a rep, they were estimating it’d be ~20 hours before the service was restored. This afternoon when I spoke to someone, there was “no new information.” So Right now, all I can do is wait.

What if Apple Created a Gaming Console?

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Everyone refers to the Xbox 360, PS3, and to a lesser extent the Nintendo Wii as a “next gen” gaming console. Does that mean the next round of consoles (Xbox 3602, PS4, Wii2) will be third gen, or will they just be the new “next gen”? I know, who cares, right?

A while back Apple announced to investors that there would be a “product transition”. No one is really sure what this is, or when it would be. Some think it was the new iPod Nano, the change to the iPod Touch, or even the new MacBooks. Others think it may be some kind of NetBook or Apple Tablet. Still others think it could be a new networked type TV. And some people think we have yet to se it.

Well, what if Apple were to venture into the realm of console gaming systems… better yet, what if they already had, and you didn’t know it. Perhaps you already have an Apple console in your living room, office, or bedroom. It may not be as big of a stretch as you think. Continue reading →