TVSquad

Sure, it's been over a month since we started hearing reports that Boston area Comcast customers have been able to sign up for TiVo software on their Motorola set top boxes. But now TiVo and Comcast have gone and made the whole thing official-like by issuing a press release (not yet available on either company's web site) and getting the news in the papers.

The advantage of getting TiVo service from your cable provider is that you get the TiVo program guide and services like Season Pass, WishList, and search while hanging onto services from your cable provider like video on demand. Comcast currently offers 10,000 On Demand titles, including 1300 movies.

On the other hand, you don't get some of the features that make standalone boxes like the TiVo Series2 or Series3 attractive like TiVoToGo or online media.

Comcast will bill customers $2.95 per month on top of their regular DVR and cable fees. The service is currently available only to customers in the greater Boston area, but is expected to roll out in other parts of the country soon.

Want to capture high definition television on your home theater PC, but don't feel like shelling out $1000 or more on CableCard tuners that only work with Windows Vista? Hauppauge is preparing to launch a $250 box that will capture 1080p video from a cable or satellite box and automatically transcode it to H.264 video for storing on your PC.

The Hauppauge HD PVR connects to your set top box's component or "YPrPb" output, so what you're capturing is an analog signal. You'll need to use an IR blaster to let the USB TV tuner change channels.

When you combine the analog source with the fact that your video will be compressed, it's safe to say that you won't get the same kind of video quality with the HD PVR as you would with a true CableCard tuner. On the other hand, the HD PVR is going to be a lot cheaper than the competition. And while CableCard tuners only work with Windows Vista Media Center, Hauppauge has a good track record of putting out TV tuner cards that work with everything from BeyondTV and SageTV for Windows to MythTV for Linux.

[via Brent Evans]

(S02E12) So, was it good for you too? I've read all of your gripes about the season, in particular the past few episodes, and I see where you were coming from. However, there's something about this show that makes me more quick to suspend disbelief and allow a few things to slide so I can enjoy other aspects of the show.

TiVo released their quarterly earnings yesterday and while the company lost about $8 million dollars, that's nothing new. What is new is a tiny little nugget buried in CEO Tom Rogers' remarks that indicate the company is working out the details for a set top box that supports 2-way communication with a cable provider.

In plain English, that means support for video on demand, because in order for VOD to work, you need to be able to send a signal upstream to your service provider and not just receive a signal sent to your box.

Right now you can only get VOD and TiVo service if you either have two set top boxes or a Comcast box with TiVo software. If the next TiVo box (we'll all it the Series4, even though TiVo may have done away with that naming scheme with the release of the TiVo HD), could work as a complete replacement for your cable company box.

[via Zatz Not Funny]

TiVo and cable industry officials have announced plans to develop an adapter that will let TiVo users watch and record switched digital video channels without a set top box. Even though you'll need an external adapter to play, this technology will only work on TiVo units with CableCard support, which effectively means that Series2 TiVo owners need not apply.

Switched Digital Video is basically a new method for delivering digital video channels to your home. Because you're probably only watching one channel at a time (or recording one or two channels while watching another), there's no real reason for a cable operator to transmit all 300 channels to your house at the same time. But since there was previously no way for cable companies to know which channel you wanted to watch at any given time, they simply transmitted all the channels at the same time.

Switched video enables two-way communication. If you want to watch C-SPAN, your box will send a signal upstream telling the cable operator to start sending the channel your way. The upshot is that cable companies can offer more channels using the same bandwidth.

You should be able to pick up a shiny new switched digital video adapter for your TiVo HD or Series3 TiVo from your cable company during the second quarter of 2008.

(S02E09) It wasn't a big surprise to me that Doakes would be brought in as the prime suspect in the BHB case. All the elements were there last week, from Doakes taking the slides to the overly-obvious mention of Doakes' father being a butcher. I was, however, taken by surprise in a huge way when Doakes showed up on the dock at the end of the episode. Holy. Crap.

First let's get to some of the rest of the episode ...

(S02E02) Last time we left Dexter, things were looking both good and bad for our favorite serial killer -- the Bay Harbor Butcher. Please... as though he's nothing more than a mere butcher.

Keith Carradine makes his first appearance for the season as the head of the task force investigating the new stack of body bags found at the bottom of the bay, and he's a fantastic presence.

These days there are only a few shows I consider must-watch for me. Showtime's Dexter is one of those shows. In fact, I liked the first season so much that I recently listened to the first book the series is based on, Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Sadly (or, actually, thankfully) the television show is much better. More on that later.

I got a look at the first four episodes of the new season, and while things aren't so great for Dexter, for us viewers it's fantastic. Some spoilers follow.

Living without cable can be a real hassle... especially when one's job depends on it. "TV blogger" kind of implies the need for TV. I recently moved into an apartment where there is absolutely no option for cable television and had no choice but to look into alternative methods of getting quick access to TV. Enter Slingbox, about which I have been hearing nothing but glowing reviews. It's been around for a while, sure, but I haven't had any need for it until now.

For those of you who don't know what a Slingbox is, here's the short explanation: It's a box that you hook up to your home's cable and Internet. Once you grant that Slingbox remote access, you can watch your home's cable TV and access TiVo or DVR on your computer, from anywhere in the world. No subscription is required; it's a one-time purchase. The only catch is that if you're watching your home TV with your laptop in a hotel states away, your family back in the house cannot change channels on that home TV. Not too big of a deal, I think, unless you're already an inconsiderate TV hog. Anyway, since my current apartment isn't my permanent residence, I have cable set up in my house in Florida and I'm doing this whole Slingbox thing.

I was originally going to buy the basic tuner from the official website for about $129, but then I checked out Amazon and saw the same thing for $99.99. Just as I was about to buy it, my family in Florida insisted that they look around in stores before I buy anything, to save on shipping and handling. So here's the best part...

School is back in session, the U.S. Open has begun, and another Bush appointee has resigned. You know what that means, don't you? It means that the new fall TV season is fast approaching. With it comes the push by the networks to promote the crap out of their new shows. Okay, so they've been promoting the crap out of them since the end of the last television season, but now it's going to start to get annoying. I'm talking about last-week-advertising-before-elections annoying.

NBC will lead this charge by making the pilots for their upcoming fall shows available on cable and satellite Video On Demand systems (known as VOD henceforth). Partnering with NBC in this venture are cable companies Comcast, Cox, Charter and Time Warner and the satellite services DirectTV and DISH Network. The pilot episodes of Chuck, Bionic Woman, Life and Journeyman, as well as a 30-minute fall preview special, will be available on September 10th.

Not that we knew it was a race, but apparently cable television providers have overtaken satellite companies as the top distributors of personal video recorders in the US.

Cable companies have 52% of the PVR market, compared with 38% for satellite providers. Telephone providers and standalone units like from companies like TiVo account for the rest.

The survey data was collected by the Carmel Group and was gathered from over 4,000 people in 2005 and 2006.

Ever since Don Imus made his little, um, faux pas a while back, viewers have been wondering who will eventually take over his morning slot on MSNBC. Right now they have a rotating group of hosts, including Joe Scarborough, David Gregory, and Jim Cramer, but several execs (including network GM Dan Abrams) have been impressed by Scarborough.

Right now Scarborough hosts a nightly show, Scarborough Country, at 9pm after Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Scarborough will again host the morning program next week, and a decision about a permanent host should be made very soon.

Of course, I should say not all network execs because some of them, some place, somewhere, actually do love television and understand you have to give shows time to develop. This is for the other 93% of them.

The network upfronts this week are showing that network executives are the ultimate politicians, tossing around both praise and excuses and bullshit like they were running for Congress. Sure, the networks want to make money, and "spin" is a part of any business. But take a look at some of the comments we've heard this week:

Lifetime - is it still "television for women?" - has ordered nine more episodes of the Canadian-made horror-romance series Blood Ties. The network will air the last nine episodes of this current order in October (though new episodes continue to air now, Sundays at 10). The big hiatus is so the network can premiere new shows.

How is this show? I watch Entourage at that time, and I always forget to set the TiVo for this. Is it worth it? The premise sounds a bit like Forever Knight, though I know this isn't about a vampire cop but a private eye that gets involved with vampires. Looks more romantic/dramatic than the Geraint Wyn Davies show. Is there action too, and maybe some scares?

[via TV Tattle]

Remember when AMC used to show movies that actually fit into their name, American Movie Classics? And then for some reason they started to show Predator five times a month. Turner Classic Movies has been the network to watch lately.

But starting in October, the cable network will get back to its roots a little bit more with AMC Gold, which, despite sounding like some CD of 70s songs you might buy from an infomercial, is actually a new regular feature showcasing movies that AMC says are "essential viewing." So far the list includes On The Waterfront, Sergeant York, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and Apollo 13.

Apollo 13 is a good movie, but let's hope the network doesn't pull from the list of more recent films too often. There are plenty of older classic gold movies to keep the feature going for a few years.