Home Theaters

While many things are happening in the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray, some companies are working to give the customer other choices to make, and ways to enjoy the many forms of entertainment available to the home theater enthusiast. The problem that many see with the shiny little discs that many are fighting about is avoided entirely by some who say that the next thing to come along will be transmission of content, and media will be disk drive or solid state devices.

TiVo is making efforts to be one of those forward thinking companies. Already supporting Live 365 internet radio, and Rhapsody support added earlier this year, the company is now adding on-demand music videos from content purveyor Music Choice.

TiVo is an item that is universally loved, as it, like Nokia cell phones, got the interface right the first time!

TivoCast, the company’s on-demand delivery system, adds enough choices for content to almost qualify as a limited service network. Things like ‘Quilters TV’, ‘Ultra Kawaii’ - dedicated to cute pets, and ‘Pulp Secret’ - dedicated to comic books, give choices otherwise not available to many.

Series 3 TiVos are becoming a fixture in many home theater environments.

Music Choice will give TiVo users easy access to thousands of music videos, by hundreds of musicians, in almost every genre. Also available is MC Exclusive, which allows a glimpse into the lives of the musicians, in a manner not usually shared with the public. This will be available nowhere else, and promises to be a feature that will push the service into many users lives.

Soon more menu options will be coming to this fantastic little dream box.

TiVo is a world-wide phenomenon, which means that content from other countries is only a short distance off - if the public wants it.

With so many features being added to the system, and the interface a continuing bright light, the only thing keeping TiVo from universal adoption is the unwilling behavior of the satellite and cable companies to allow the full capabilities of the units. The standalone units have so many great features, but integration with cable and satellite boxes is problematic. Also, the unwilling nature disallows some really cool things that could make everyone’s life better. Imagine downloading a concert, ordering a Music Choice interview of the musician, and putting the two together on your computer to burn an ultimate DVD (never mind what format) of performance and background of a performer - yours forever!

Now if the efforts could start to get these little bumps out of the road. In the mean time, one can enjoy the features as they are presented.

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