TIVO coming to Ausi, anyone know if NZ will be getting it?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › TIVO coming to Ausi, anyone know if NZ will be getting it?

timbosan

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#18582 15-Jan-2008 13:07

I just read a very interesting article over at the age (ausi newspaper) about TIVO being offically released in Ausi very soon, and best (worst?) is that they are series 3 units and have dual HD tuners!

I know Ausi and NZ have different HD standards, but does anyone know if there will be an offical NZ release?

freitasm

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#104970 15-Jan-2008 13:27

Wow, this is taking a long time. The release was announced in May 2007. Back then there was a single reference to New Zealand in the press release, but nothing since...

ZollyMonsta

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#104971 15-Jan-2008 13:31

The talk of the Tivo release into the Australia/New Zealand markets has been ongoing for several months now.
Short of this article thats the first I've seen for probably 6 months.

The issue most likely encountered for Tivo coming to this side of the ditch will be EPG data.
All the networks are very protective over EPG data (It is their Intellectual Property). The same issue most likely will
cause problems with the launch in Australia.

I'm surprised there is someone in Australia 'modfying' series 3 units for Australia. Will they be NEW series 3 units equipped direct for the factory for PAL format, or retro-fitted with local mods done for the local market? Who knows.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of any launch in either the Australia or NZ market. It may do well.. it may flop
(It certainly flopped in other countries outside of the USA).

Cheers,
Grant

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

As per the usual std disclaimer.. "All thoughts typed here are my own."

BarTender

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#104978 15-Jan-2008 14:00

After getting my Series 1 Tivo (thanks again for that Grant, you are a DUDE!) being on the Tivo forums it seems that Tivo are asking for Beta Testers.. http://www.mytivo.com.au/testtivo/ however there isn't any NZ in the list of states you could be living in.

From what I have seen on the lists the Aus Tivo will be tied to Channel 7, so what exactly that means for all the other channels who knows.

I doubt the Tivo will be released by the Pay TV Providers over in Aus such as Austar / Foxtel as they have the MySky boxes which continue to tie customers into content provided by the Pay TV Provider only, much like the MySky in NZ.

Because of the above, I am not sure how they will do it, unless the Series 3 have analogue as well as Satellite versions as everything on the Foxtel / MySky platform is all tied up by News Corp and the NDS encryption on the Pace Boxes etc...

So in short, doubt it will come to nz :) Plus the other downside of Tivo coming to Aus is all of the "Tivo Hacks" and running Programming Guilde Emulators etc will become no longer "legitimatly" done there, if Tivo are offering a service in a country, the local community providing the same service for free tend to get shutdown pretty quickly... which has the downside of loosing a great development pool of people across the ditch from us.

ZollyMonsta

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#104987 15-Jan-2008 14:35

Imagine the coup freeview could accomplish if they got involved with Tivo for their Freeview service (since they are talking about launching a Freeview PVR at some stage).

I don't think even the series 3 has a sat reciever built in, but a DTT tuner would be possible.

[edit: Oh, and of course it would need to support mpeg4.. not sure if the series 3 does though]

Tie it in with TVNZ on demand bla bla and freeview could be onto a winner (as would Tivo).

The mere thought of a nice black box all in one, interactive, dual tuners, good quality, good price etc makes me dribble with delight and desire.. still, dreams are free :)

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

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munchkin

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#104993 15-Jan-2008 15:21

Reading the initial press release, Yahoo!7 seems to be the primary company behind the Tivo in Australia, along with ISP/voip partner Engin. I have a sneaky suspicion that Yahoo!Xtra will be involved if it makes it here. Xtra also republish the Sky/TVNZ/MediaWorks guide data and have signalled before that they would like to enter the VOD/TV market.

On a side note, the Series 3 Tivo supports AVC H.264 at the hardware level, but it has yet to be activated within the software.

Edit:

ZollyMonsta:
The issue most likely encountered for Tivo coming to this side of the ditch will be EPG data.
All the networks are very protective over EPG data (It is their Intellectual Property). The same issue most likely will
cause problems with the launch in Australia.

On June 22nd, All the commercial networks agreed to share their guide data. Wish the same would happen here.

Press releases can be found here.

Edit 2:

At the CES Tivo demonstrated a DVB based Series 3 unit.