TVSquad

TiVo's on-again, off-again love affair with lifetime service plans seems to be back on again. Once upon a time, the company let customers pay for service one month at a time, by the year, or shell out a few hundred bucks to get unlimited service for as long as they keep the same set top box.

A while back, the company stopped offering the product lifetime service option, but brought it back as a limited time deal right around the time TiVo launched the Series3 HD recorder. At the time, the company was only allowing customers with existing lifetime service plans transfer their plans to new boxes -- for a fee. But over the past year and a half, the company has occasionally offered new or existing customers a chance to pay for product lifetime services, with the understanding that this was always a special one-time promotion. Act now while the offer's still good!

But now it looks like lifetime service is back for good. Or at least until someone at TiVo changes their mind. But as blogger Dave Zatz has discovered, TiVo has added lifetime subscription pricing to the official payment plan descriptions. That takes the lifetime service plan out of the realm of promotion and into the world of everyday pricing.

So here's the deal. If you're a new TiVo customer, you can shell out $399 to get unlimited service for as long as you keep your set top box. If you're an existing customer, you can get the same deal on a new box for $299. But keep in mind, if TiVo comes out with a new box in 2 years that you really, really want and doesn't offer to let you transfer your lifetime service, you probably would have been better off paying by the month or year.

A little while back, TiVo teamed up with home automation software maker Crestron to allow TiVo users to control their light switches, thermostat, and other information through their Series3 and TiVo HD set top boxes. But it appears that a side effect is that anyone can now connect to their TiVo units via telnet, and blogger Dave Zatz figured out that means you can use simple command line codes to replicate TiVo remote control functions from pretty much any internet connected device. In other words, you can use an iPhone as a TiVo remote control.

The easy part is that all you have to do is figure out your TiVo's IP address, use Port 31339, and you can start entering commands. The complicated part is that you have to type out commands like "ircode pause," and "ircode thumbsup," instead of, you know, using your TiVo remote control and just pressing those buttons.

But now that we know this is possible, it's probably just a matter of time before we see third party developers writing TiVo remote control applications with pretty interfaces for the iPhone, Windows Mobile devices, and other internet connected gizmos.

TiVo appears to be eliminating its TiVo Rewards referral program. TiVo had been giving out points to anyone who could convince friends, colleagues, or complete strangers to sign up for TiVo service.

The program works much the same way as a game of skee ball. If you get a few points, you can trade them in for a lousy toy like a TiVo Christmas ornament or set of coasters. A few more points will get you a remote control, and a whole heck of a lot of points will get you a fancier prize like a Slingbox or a TiVO HD.

While a member of the TiVo Community Forum indicates that the rewards program could shut down as early as February 28th, Dave Zatz spoke with a TiVo representative who said the date would be May 28th. Either way, if you've got some unused points to use, you might want to start checking out the list of available rewards.

Dave Zatz is continuing his investigative reporting on the next generation of Verizon's FiOS TV. A few months back Zatz uncovered some of the basic features included in the update. Now he's back with an in-depth look at Verizon's broadband television service.

First up, Verizon is turning the FiOS TV set top boxes into media extenders. You can already access photos and music from any PC on your home network. The next generation of this technology will let you stream video. And we mean pretty much any video, including MPEG4, DiVX, Flash, and so on. Verizon's software will transcode the video to MPEG2 on the fly for playback on your TV.

Verizon also plans to improve its mobile scheduling service, which lets you set recordings on your cellphone. You can browse a program guide, set recordings, and keep track of upcoming recordings. You can also delete recordings, adjust settings, and use voice search.