Peter Sinclair: Television, but not as we know it ...

By PETER SINCLAIR

TiVo or not TiVo? That is the question for increasing numbers of viewers in Europe and America as digitisation turns the television world inside out and yesterday's analogue signal is converted into tomorrow's stream of 0s and 1s — the process so decisively rejected by Government for our national television system.

TiVo is television, but not as we know it. At a stroke it turns a passive old medium, the couch potato's delight, into a dynamic, interactive experience which gives viewers total control over what they watch and when. It also gives professional TV programmers the long-term viability of the dodo.

Its programmability brings to television the on-demand convenience of a VCR without the hassles (even after all these years, does anyone really know how to programme one of those wilful appliances?), plus the power and obedience of the computer. It's called convergence.

For TiVo is actually a computer on steroids. Running the open-source Linux operating system, it employs a 20Gb hard drive to record the signal from your TV aerial and then digitise it on demand. This makes it amazingly sensitive to personal viewing needs.

Want to record every episode of your favourite show? TiVo's Season Pass will do it for you — even if the timeslot changes.

Need to answer the phone/visit the loo/raid the fridge? Just press the Pause button on your remote during any TV show, including live ones, and later pick up exactly where you left off.

Instant replays? Hit another button to savour that decisive moment as many times as you want.

Nothing to watch? Leave it to TiVo, which has borrowed a trick from web search-engines: a "more like this" function to learn your tastes (you give it a few hints by pressing a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down button on the remote). It will then auto-record shows to match them.

As well as customisation, packaged digital television also allows new high-end services — interactive features like TiVo's Network Showcase, the pick of the shows across all networks; TiVolution, a daily on-screen digest highlighting don't-miss series and specials; "ifilm of the week", the television premiere of an original short film; TiVomatic, which lets you record shows on impulse while watching their previews; and NowPlaying, an on-screen, on-demand listing of what you've got stashed away on your drive.

Too good to be true? Not a bit — check out the full user experience at online PC magazine arstechnica http://arstechnica.com.

But TiVo doesn't have the field to itself; there's a major stoush shaping up with rival RePlayTV.

"I do not TiVo, I RePlay," says Al Brown, a "semi-retired TV camera person" in Kingston, New York. "Better quality and no [$US9.95] dial-up charge; it is also more user-friendly to use and set up."

"I RePlay instead of TiVo for two reasons: the commercial skip button, and free TV-listing service," proffers Salt Lake City engineer John Snow.

The RePlay unit also has a major advantage for the technophobe: it can be programmed directly from the web. Time Warner is already trialling the system.

Someday, somehow, Helen Clark notwithstanding, let's hope we'll be able to enjoy one or both these systems, or something like them, here in New Zealand. Suddenly, TV might be worth watching again.

Links:

TiVo

iFilm

ARS Technica

RePlay


E-mail: petersinclair@email.com