Thanks to the help of TiVo’s Guru Guides feature, you can now record many of your most favorite Halloween programs with just one click.  Just yesterday, TiVo published the following Guru Guides.  I’m gonna subscribe to the Kids Halloween guide.  How bout you?

Classic Halloween: From Dracula and the Wolfman to Norman Bates and Damien, these classic horror movies make you lock the doors and close the blinds. Schedule time with Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and the Thorn family via this list of classic horror tales.

Kids Halloween: Need something for the little ghouls and goblins to watch while they’re carving pumpkins? This list of Halloween shows is approved for monsters of all ages.

Slasher’s Halloween: What’s scarier: A knife-wielding psychopath sporting a William Shatner mask inside-out or the long, razor-sharp claws of a man who can kill you in your dreams? You’ll meet both and more in this list of slasher flicks to scare you silly this Halloween. Just remember, whatever you do…”Don’t fall asleep!”

Thriller Halloween: Whether you’re running from a convicted killer to the safety of your houseboat or slowly realizing that you’re a superhero, this list of thriller favorites promises to be hair-raising. But if you plan to laugh, please extinguish your cigar first.

Bruce Campbell Halloween: It’s true: we love Bruce Campbell. Whether he’s play “Ash” in the “Evil Dead” movies or the king of rock and roll himself, Bruce Campbell’s everything that’s great about B-movies. Enjoy some of his best work with this list of Campbell classics.

TiVoCommunity recently introduced me to a neat little iPhone app which allows your TiVo to display photos that are stored on your iPhone/iPod touch.  The application is called DVRPics and it is available for 99 cents via the iTunes AppStore (opens in iTunes).

DVRPics doesn’t have a lot of features however, the features that it does have work well.  Basically all you have to do is select a photo on your iPhone that you would like to view on your TiVo.  Once a photo is selected, head on over to your TiVo and access the following menu: Music Photos, Products & More —>Photos on “Your iPhone/iPod Touch”.

Take a look at the following screenshots and let me know what you think about this app.  I think it’s a fun app especially for 99 cents…..

Earlier today I received a letter (page 1, page 2) from my Time Warner letting me know that as of Nov. 13th, several of the channels that I currently receive will begin to be broadcast using SDV (Switched Digital Video).  Along with this information, the letter also mentions that SDV tuning adapters will be made available “later this year”.

Needless to say, this isn’t great news however, I’m at least happy that my local Time Warner has acknowledge that there’s an issue and that SDV tuning adapters will be available before the end of the year.

In case you missed it, there has been a lot of SDV news as of late.  Just today, the FCC announced that they’re going to impose a fine on Time Warner and Cox for deploying SDV prior to there being SDV adapters readily available.  Hopefully this will get Time Warner & Cox to release an SDV adapter before the end of the year…

In case you missed it, I just went ahead and added a couple of new applications to the Windows and Mac TiVo software roundup posts.  I’ve yet to try any of these applications however, I’m most interested in trying out the TiVo Decoder GUI once I get home and have access to a Windows box.

Newly added applications:

Windows:

TiVo Decoder GUI:  TiVo Decoder GUI is a GUI front end (written in Visual Basic .NET 2005) for the TiVo Decoder utility that converts TiVo files into standard mpeg2 files which can then be used to produce a playable DVD.

Mac:

TiVoizer: Interface around FFMPEG for conversion of video files for use on a TiVo.

iTiVo: iTiVo is a Macintosh OSX front-end interface to your Series 2, Series 3, and TiVoHD device. It can be used to download shows from your tivo to your computer. You can then view those shows on your computer when away from home. Furthermore, it will convert those shows to smaller files, compatible with portable devices such as the iPhone, so that you may view your favorite shows on your iPhone.

Well…well…well…ask and you shall receive.  Just two days ago I asked if anybody knew anything about the SDV tuning adapter that I so desperately need.  After the post was published for only ten minutes, I was pleased to find out that Comast in New Jersey had announced that tuning adapters would be available on Oct. 6th (today).  Thankfully, the same commenter (Jesse T. Maloney) stopped by again today to let us know that he has one of the adapters and that it seems to be working! Along with this comment, Jesse has also started a thread on TiVoCommunity.com where he uploaded a couple of images showing the adapter connected to his TiVo (spotted on engadgetHD).

Because of all this news, I went ahead and contacted my local TWC office today however, the person that I spoke with didn’t have any information available.  Hopefully the Comcast rollout means that we’ll start to see other cable providers offer adapters sometime in the near future.  Has anybody else received an SDV dongle or is Jesse the only one?

Earlier today the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review DISH’s long standing patent dispute with TiVo.  As a result, DISH has agreed to pay TiVo $104 million!  Here’s the statement that DISH released earlier today:

As expected, the Supreme Court denied our petition for certiorari today.

The Supreme Court’s decision, however, does not impact our software design-around, which has been placed in DISH DVRs subject to the district court’s injunction, and our customers can continue using their DISH DVRs. We believe that the design-around does not infringe Tivo’s patent and that Tivo’s pending motion for contempt should be denied. We look forward to that ruling in the near future.

Because of the Supreme Court’s decision, we will pay Tivo approximately $104 million (the amount the jury awarded in 2006 plus interest). The money is in an escrow account and will be released to Tivo in the next few days.

Here’s TiVo’s statement:

We are extremely pleased that the United States Supreme Court has denied EchoStar’s petition to review the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimous ruling that upheld the District Court judgment of willful patent infringement, full award of damages, and a permanent injunction against EchoStar’s infringing DVR products. We look forward to the expeditious receipt of damages awarded by the District Court covering the period through September 8, 2006 and remain confident that the District Court will enforce the injunction and award further damages from EchoStar’s continued infringement of our Time Warp patent.

Obviously this is great news for TiVo. I hope this means that the dispute is over and that TiVo can get back to the business of creating great DVR hardware/software….

For quite a while now, SDV has prevented me from enjoying all of the HD channels that my cable provider has to offer.  The last time I counted I was unable to tune something like eight HD channels on my Series 3 and TiVo HD thanks to SDV and Time Warner.

Back in July we heard that both the Cisco and Moto SDV tuning adapters were approved however, to the best of my knowledge we haven’t seen anything since. Has anybody heard anything about when we can expect cable companies to have SDV tuners available? According to this TC thread, Time Warner in Austin, TX will have tuning adapters available no later then November 15th.  If anybody knows something I would appreciate it if you could leave a comment on this post.  I’m obviously very anxious to be able to access all the channels that my cable company has to offer.

Several websites have posted reviews/unboxing images of the recently announced Nero LiquidTV.  Here’s a quick list of two posts which I found interesting.  I’ve yet to receive my review unit however, once I receive it I’ll be sure to post some unboxing images as well as a complete review.

• EngadgetHD: Hands-on and unboxing: Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC
• ars technica: Hands on: Nero’s LiquidTV, TiVo for your PC