I have run up against a brick wall. And it’s in the form of the last nine episodes of this year’s recently concluded season of Carnivale.

For those unfamiliar with Carnivale… Like David Lynch’s seminal “Twin Peaks,” Carnivale creates a metaphorical universe of a road carnival in the 1930s that’s almost nightmarishly dense in symbolism and clues. TiVo is made for stuff like this, as it allows quick jumping back and forth between episodes, as well as a higher resoultion way to click frame by frame through the visions, dreams and other visitations the shows characters have inflicted upon them. Was that a crescent moon reflected in the wolf’s eyes as he stared down the evil preacher on a remote road? Back it up three frames and call your friends to discuss.

Here’s the rub. By recording at Best Quality, I’ve eaten up about 3/4 of my 40gig box, making it damn difficult to record anything else of length.

At some point, I may hack my box and add another hard drive, but a bigger issue is in play here.

When am I really going to re-view these episodes? I’ve seen them. My wife, mother, brother and I have discussed them at length. Short of having the cable go down for a month straight, I will never watch these eps again.

I should delete them. Alas, I cannot.

So, TiVoverse, how do you handle the shows you TiVo? Watch and toss? Record over to digital tape and then burn to DVD? Fill one machine up and move it to the A/V closet and get another?

Tell us.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your TiVo could display caller id information so that when the phone rings, you know whether it’s worth getting up and interrupting 24 or the Daily Show?

It’s possible. There are two basic approaches:

1. Here’s how I got caller id on my TiVo using a Windows caller id program called YAC (you must have a caller-id capable modem in your Windows machine). There are “listeners” available for TiVo Series 1 and 2, so that your TiVo(s) get notified about calls over TCP/IP over your network.
2. Alternatively if you want to do the caller id with the TiVo modem instead of using a YAC (Windows) server, check out Elseed.

Personally, I took approach #1, because I also wanted to be able to see caller id on all of my various PC’s and YAC’s listener model is flexible enough to handle that (you can configure up to 10 listeners on your network).

I’m a developer, I like TiVo and I like a challenge so, it only seems fit that I enter the TiVo Developer Challenge. Ultimately I’d like to come up with a set of cool new apps that leverage the TiVo HME framework.

The problem is that the May 1st deadline is quickly approaching and I haven’t decided what to do.

Since I work at Yahoo, something Yahoo-related seemed a natural choice perhaps, but what? I thought of doing something with Flickr since Yahoo recently bought Flickr, but alas, somebody has already written a very nice Flickr TiVo app.

So what would everybody like to see? Yahoo Mail? My Yahoo! RSS feeds? A Tetris game?

Updated 06/19/2005: I recently posted part 2 & 3 of this post.

Ever since the birth of my son, I thought it would be neat for me to create a collection of Thomas The Tank shows. In my area, Thomas the Tank is only aired twice a week. Therefore, I thought it would be nice to have a collection so that we can pop the show in whenever WE want him to watch it. I emphasized we because I don’t want you to think that I just plan on planting my son in front of the TV.

That being said, I’ve setup a season pass for Thomas & Friends. Now that I have four shows recorded and transferred to my PC using TiVoToGo, I went ahead and purchased a copy of Sonic MyDVD. The software only cost $49.99, which I consider a fair price.

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My initial experience with MyDVD was rather shaky at best. The installation of MyDVD as well as the TiVo plugin went well. The problem occurred when I tried to burn my first DVD. Upon right clicking on a TiVo recording and selecting “Burn to DVD”, I received the following error:

Could not make a thumbnail. Make sure you have the appropriate decoder installed. -47010

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My first thought was to hit the Sonic KnowledgeBase and see if this problem had been reported. Within a couple of minutes, I found the exact same error message (search for “47010″). Unfortunately, the “resolutions” that were listed were of no help to me. I was able to play the TiVo recordings in Windows Media Player 10 so I was of the opinion that the TiVo recordings were not corrupted. After performing a bunch of Google searches and discussing it on TiVoCommunity, I decided that something just wasn’t “right”.

Any experienced Windows user knows that whenever they get the feeling that something isn’t right, the next steps to take is stop what you are doing and uninstall, reboot and reinstall. Sure enough, that’s what I did and everything just started to work :o. Don’t ask me why, I’m just happy that it works now. I hope that I won’t run into the same problem in the future. If I were a betting man, I would bet that it will happen again however; for the time being I don’t want to think about it :). I’ve been around computers long enough to know that sometimes you just say “screw it” and accept the fact that you don’t know why something didn’t work. This is definitely a case where I am going to throw in the towel and hope that it doesn’t happen again.

Ok, now that I have everything working I might as well talk about what I do like in MyDVD. Once I imported my TiVo files I was rather impressed by how MyDVD automagically generates a menu with each show as a thumbnail. I’ve some what customized the menu to include my own text including a better description of each show. As of right now, I haven’t gotten much farther then that. I was about to try and edit the actual scenes in the DVD however; my son started to cry. I hope to actual finish editing the DVD and eventually burn it to disc in the near future. I’ve read on a number of sites that transcoding the DVD takes a long time. I’m sure that it will be especially slow on my 800mhz pc.

Check back in the near future for my complete review of MyDVD including my analysis of the editing process. Hopefully I will have something up in the near future!

Updated 06/19/2005: I recently posted part 2 & 3 of this post.

According to CNET News, TiVo is in early talks with both Google and Yahoo.  CNET indicates that the talks are still fluid and that they could result in a number of outcomes.  One possible outcome would let Google or Yahoo users search for videos and then watch them on their TiVo.  All sides are obviously refusing to comment.

In my opinion, this would be a great feature to have.  I don’t know how much I would personally use it however; I can see why it would be useful.  I any case, I am interested to see what, if anything, comes out of these talks.  All sides would benefit from some type of partnership.  Yahoo and Google need a way to get their content onto the TV and TiVo would like to improve upon their Internet enabled DVR.  Stay tuned for more news…

When you become use to one-click installers, drag-n-drop application copying and point-and-click networking capabilities, it’s hard not to think that the entire computing world works like this. While Macs and PCs offer functionally equivalent installation and file interaction methods (point, click, double- or right-click, etc.), PC users have always enjoyed a throwback to the bad old days of command line interface in their ability to access the greasy underpinnings of any computing system through the Run command.

For the most part, I, along with most Mac users, have been able to proceed smugly along without the Run command. But for those of us entranced by the tales of weather maps, blogs and web-cam shots piped straight into the TiVo, we find ourselves tripped up (initially at least) when we try to access this Info Nirvana.

In short, I have had to cede to PCs a marked superiority to Macs when it comes to interacting with my TiVo. With the notable exception of a few existing applications wrapped in the familiar installer dressing (Mac TiVo Desktop, IseeiTunes), all the good stuff under development requires me to get comfortable with my inner CLI child. It’s a scary place for me and, I daresay, many of the run-of-the-mill Mac faithful.

I don’t know that’s it is a bad thing, though. When I roll my eyes at having to type in commands in Terminal and inevitably re-type them due to lousy typing, I try to calm the whining by reminding myself that while I might not ever want to know precisely how to repair the engine in my car (or have the skill to know), I still benefit from knowing how to change my own oil and plugs.

I don’t like using the CLI. However, I know that it’s an important skill to have. In the end, it maybe bridges the chasm that theoretically exists between me and my PC brethren and sisteren. Sure, we can get along.

PVRblog is featuring some new TiVo hacks that provide an alternate interface to your TiVo using a web interface with AJAX. Unfortunately, they depend on having a TiVo with HME capability (OS 7.1) which I don’t have, so I haven’t tried them. 

http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2005/04/tivo_ajax.html

According to PVRBlog and Obvious Diversion, it looks as though TiVo isn’t going to release a Mac version of TiVoDesktop anytime in the near future. While I am not a Mac user, I understand the frustration that many Mac users are expressing. On several occasions, TiVo has suggested that a Mac version would be released in the near future. Take for example the following section out of the TiVoToGo faq:

Are TiVoToGo(tm) transfers available for Apple Macintosh computers?
At this time TiVoToGo transfers are not available for Apple Macintosh computers. TiVo is working hard to enable TiVoToGo features available on TiVo Desktop for Mac. We are currently working on ways to enable playback on Apple Macintosh computers. We will let our customers know in our newsletter as soon as this feature is available. If you do not already subscribe to the newsletter, you can go here to do so (TiVoToGo FAQ)

That being said, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. Let’s wait and see what TiVo’s official response is to this news. The article that both PVRBlog and Obvious Diversion cite, has a small section that mentions the lack of a Mac version. I would like to see a more elaborate explanation from TiVo. It seems as though there are conflicting views as to what TiVo is going to support.

Updated 4/15 @ 8:46PM: I’m glad that I didn’t overreact to this news. Looks like David Courtney’s comments weren’t represented correctly. Here’s a post by TiVo Pony on TiVoCommunity.com:

I’ve traded emails with Dave Courtney, and here’s the scoop… His comments were not represented accurately at all in that article. We value Mac enthusiasts who own TiVo DVR’s. And as we’ve previously stated, we’re working towards support that would bring TiVoToGo to the Macintosh platform. We have not yet announced a timeline as to when that service may be available though. Cheers, Pony

I kind of thought something was going on when TiVoPony said that this was news to him. That is why I said we should wait and see TiVo’s official response….

According to MediaDaily News, TiVo has bought a three part blogging “starter kit” from Carat Interactive. The kit will help them monitor blogs in their area of interest, advertise on appropriate blogs, and create a company blog (or blogs.)

TiVo has, of course, monitored the TiVo Community Forum since it’s inception and has always maintained a quasi-official presence there. I think it has helped tremendously in building their brand and smoothing over controversies.

A blog could be another valuable arrow in their communications quiver. I hope they will activate comments, allowing for a direct conversation with their fans and detractors. I think that kind of feedback can only make the company and the product stronger.

Leon just informed me that he has released beta 6 of Galleon.  Here’s what it includes:

1. Fixed ToGo database startup error.
2. Music lyrics.
3. Support dotted directory names.
4. Went back to 1.4 JDK.
5. Artist web images.
6. Removed Winamp player as standalone app (now part of Music app code).
7. Added HME directory for non-Galleon HME apps.
8. Made ToGo a configurable app.
9. Network interface test wizard.
10. Support playing folders.
11. Support M3U and PLS playlists (no streaming stations yet).

Here are some screenshots of the current version:
http://galleon.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/screenshots