h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A552179

And here is my second article, posted for your suggestions (very different from the review of my favourite cafe). I think I have the tone of what h2g2 submissions should be like down, though. Or at least, what *my* submissions should be like.

Thanks for your time,
Thes.

I think the title isn't very appropiate. You can use the line as a header within the entry, but it would probably be better off (atleast for the edited guide) as "TiVo".

Otherwise a pretty good article, if a little unbalanced

Actually, I was thinking that myself, on the way to work this morning. More, I was thinking "You know, the article doesn't really explain how the TiVo will change your world, does it?"

I figure I should either edit it to explain how it will change your world, or perhaps retitle it to something else. I was playing with:

TiVo: The Hard Drive for your TV

I'm also trying to decide if I want to mention the current pop-cultureness of it; that David Letterman mentions it in his monologues; comedians on Conan O'Brien do entire routines about it, and that when Buffy the Vampire Slayer announced the move from WB to UPN, Entertainment Weekly announced 'it won't be as simple as just reprogramming your TiVo.'

I wasn't sure about the more balanced perspective. I'm working on an article for TiVo for Adbusters; on the irony of buying something like the TiVo, an incredibly techy, consumer device, and using it to avoid ads, watch tv when I want, etc. I get more done now that a commercial break can last up to half an hour if I want it to; but then, it's still a commercial break, isn't it? But I wasn't sure how to incorporate something that personal and less oriented to the actual product itself (more about the concept and how one person uses it) into this particular article, which is more about the unit and service itself.

It sounds very interesting, I'm sure that it will make its way into the Edited guide easily enough. See my post on the entry page for some other thoughts I had on the device.

Hello,

Interesting article. It's nice that you describe some of the details of what the Tivo is, but I have a few comments, points to make.

1. Does it really take 2 hours to download TV listings for the next few weeks? That seems a bit long.

2. There are actually two different brands of digital recorders out there (TiVo and ReplayTV). These are then licensed by some other manufacturers. TiVo was first, but it's not the only one.

3. While they do allow people to hack the system, mostly by putting a larger disk inside, the company has made it clear they will not tolerate anyone reverse engineering the format used for storing programs on the disk. I think they've even suggested legal action would be used in that case.

4. How well does it work if you don't plug it into a phone line? Sure you can't get listings, but can you still record?

5. While you can skip through advertising, it is worth noting that TiVo makes money by collecting your viewing habits and selling them to people interested in demographics. They claim your anonymity is preserved and they're only selling wider demographic information (similar to the Nielsens), but some people might still be paranoid.

Anyway, just a few thoughts of mine. Carry on the good work.

Yours,
Jake

It takes about 10 minutes to download, about 90 minutes to 2 hours to process (depends on your cable system). This doesn't interfere with the use of your TiVo in any way. I should likely note that.

You can still record if you don't download info; you just can't do it by name, and you don't get the listings. I think that is considered covered by the bit about 'not needing to subscribe to the service' bit, but I'll reread it to see if I can make it clearer.

I'll see if I can add something about the demographic tracking. I believe you can also opt out of that.

The tivo is not that impressive, and is notthat good an implimentation of the basic ideas. The tivo works by having a linux bases computer grabbing that video feed, encoding it into mpeg(2?), exactly the same as on your dvd's, and the whole thing can be done much better with a proper computer with a tv card. the computer can still grab the video feed from your tv card, (if necessary from more than one card at once). it can then buffer it onto hard disc (which computers can expand quicker than tivo's. it can store 20 hours of data onto a 17gb hard disc, like the tivo, but by recording what you watched, it can allow yourto decide to record the film you just saw rather than just the film that is on next. it can get the program info from teletext (you could do that on a bbc micro 15 years ago), and more importantly, you can save your recordings onto cr-rw's, and soon, onto rewritable dvd's. none of which you can do on a tivo. The tivo is nearly unexpandable, can only output the signal as a tv quality analogue feed, is overpriced for getting the programme information, and doesn't pay you for the valuable demographic information that they collect without your permission (as the tivo is set to snoop your viewing unless you opt out).
The idea is good, but the tivo sucks.
I don't know if the other system has the same problems, but i would be surprised if it didn't.

"but by recording what you watched, it can allow yourto decide to record the film you just saw rather than
just the film that is on next."

I'm trying to understand what you mean here. If it's recording, it's recording. Do you mean it allows you to save something you've already recorded to a more permanent media? Are you talking about having a larger buffer size? In other words, 'buh?'

While I understand that you don't like the TiVo ('tivo sucks' is pretty obvious, though likely libellous) you're not communicating quite so clearly what you believe is wrong with it.. Also keep in mind technical levels; what you're discussing is a level for people in the hacker category, not regular people off the street, and doesn't have a lot to do with the 'what TiVo is' premise I outlined at the beginning of the entry. If you'd like to write this out more clearly as an entry on setting up your computer to do TV recording (or if there is one on it, maybe I'm looking under the wrong terms), I'll reference it.

The tivo is marketed as a "primetime anytime" type device. the basic idea is that it watches out for what you watch, and then records it into a buffer, with the oldest stuff getting deleted as the buffer gets full. it has the capacity for sending the recording out to a video recorder, but in a much lower resolution than it records in.
I don't mean the statement that the "tivo sucks" as a libelous statement, only (to use a more common analogy) that if you were showing people how to do it, you wouldn't pick microsoft as an example of programming, or th tivo as an example of how to impliment this basic idea. the basic idea is as revolutionary as the original sound recorder technology, the tivo just chooses to make the worst choice of how to do things at every design choice. combine that with your article sugesting that the tivo is a truly amazing peice of good design, and it is hardly surprising that my reply was something less than complimentary of the tivo.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'The h2g2 Writing Workshop' to 'TiVo: The Hard Drive for Your Television'.

This Conversation has been moved because thias entry has now been recommended by a Scout from Peer Review.