Ti Vo

See http://www.tivo.com if you want to learn what TiVo is all about...

Has some BigBrother aspects, hopefully LiVid? will be better.

Of course, in their privacy policy it say that your viewing habits will never be transferred from the unit. Since I own one, I have to say that it is extremely useful especially for watching CNN and traffic reports.

My favorite feature of TiVo, besides the time-shifting, is the "Suggestions" feature. Based upon your recording choices, TiVo will automatically select and record similar programs whenever it is idle. There are thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons on the remote you can use to rate these programs, giving TiVo clues for selecting future programming. When it automatically recorded "The Burns & Allen Show" for me, which I had no idea was being aired, I was very happy. Of course, it also records "Saved By the Bell", "The Nanny", and other stuff that does not match my tastes, but that's a small price to pay for the occasional gem that pops up.

You can also set it up to automatically search for and record shows/movies with specific actors or directors, or other keywords. So, for example, if you want to automatically record every Kubrick film ever aired, you can do that.

I'm very impressed with the "TiVo experience"--it's a sophisticated technological product that is very easy to use. UI designers may want to walk through its setup program and other features for examples of how easy it can be for average people to set up a modem (hint: the word "modem" is never used) and to configure other features. On the inside, a TiVo is basically a personal computer with IDE drives, running Linux, but all of that is hidden very well. (By the way, if you do want to hack into your TiVo, check out http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/)

One feature I'd like to see added is an Ethernet port and a communications interface allowing an external PC to monitor and control TiVo. The built-in UI is nice, but is limited to menu selections and a display that only allows a dozen or so lines of text at one time--setting up and reviewing recording schedules would be easier with PC-based software. It would also be nice to be able to transfer the recorded video to another PC, so that I could watch recorded programs on my laptop while traveling.

-- KrisJohnson