TiVo Netflix Review: not as flashy as Xbox 360’s implementation
Filed under: Electronics | By: Alan Ng
Posted on: December 8, 2008 | 2 Comments
The Netflix partnership with TiVo is underway now and early impressions indicate that is a very smooth and stable streaming service. Engadget has been testing out the features and has given their views on it.
When comparing it to Netflix’s service on the Xbox 360, they said that it wasn’t ‘as flashy of an experience’ as the Xbox, but it did perform better on TiVo in other areas. It was faster when you start to stream, and the visual interface was a lot brighter than the 360.
TiVo could stream HD 720p video no problem, as they had previously had a few problems when trying the same thing on the 360, but the service was generally all positive and they did not have any main issues to state.
You can read their full comments in the link below. Let us know what you think of the Netflix streaming service on TiVo.
Source: Read
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Download video in any form will never compete with streaming video
Download set top boxes and download portable players ( ie Tivo, Blockbuster, Sling box, XBOX 360, Apple TV, VUDU, Hulu, PS3, Boxee, Silverlight, Joost ) are a thing of the past, only to be replaced by the technology used by service providers such as MyTVPAL ( http://www.mytvpal.com ) and Netflix ( http://www.netflix.com ).
Service providers like MyTVPAL offer 1080p instant blu-ray streaming video on demand and live tv over PC Player, set top box, and I think they will have a portable device out soon.
Keep in mind also that P2P is on the way out because it uses to much bandwidth, both up and down, and is unstable. I’m refering to service providers such as VUDU ( a one trick pony ) and Joost, who latest foray into portable video on demand on the itouch / iphone is frezing, buffering, and providing a horrible user experience even on my 6mbps connection.
Streaming video is a great addition for live tv and video on demand, but at the end of the day only those technology companies like Matrixstream ( http://www.matrixstream.com ) will be able to support the best quality over the best effort public internet when doing a triple play ( set top box, PC Player, and portable device ) because currently where Netflix requires 8mbps for 720p streaming, MyTVPAL can support 720p streaming a 3mbps and 1080p blu-ray streaming at 6mbps.
Keep the above in mind when considering the average person today in the United States and Canada has between 1.5 - 3.0Mbps. So While MyTVPAL can service the majority of broadband users today in the United States and Canada in both 720p and 1080p today it will be years before Netflix can service a fraction of the broadband population in high definition instant video streaming.
At the end of the day, service providers such as Netflix and Blockbuster will have evolve to provide a service like MyTVPAL or suffer the consequences of not providing low bandwidth, instant playing, 1080p blu-ray high definition platform that we?ve come to expect from MyTVPAL ( http://www.mytvpal.com ) on PC Player, set top box, and soon I would imagine, portable player.
Comment Guy
I have Tivo HD and Netflix and recently tried Netflix on demand using my Tivo HD. Sadly I was dissapointed in the service. While it was very easy to setup and find a movie. It is NOT HD!! All the movies I tried are in 4:3 format. Don’t these people get it? I was hazard to guess that 99.99% of the people that own a Tivo HD have an HD TV and want to watch movies in their native aspect ratio. Why would I want to watch a movie in 4:3 format. I placed a call to Netflix to complain. 1st they told me I had a setting wrong on my Tivo. After disagreeing with them, they admitted that they didn’t have any movies in the native aspect ratio available for their on demand service. One other issue is that these movies are only on demand. Why didn’t they set it up where it can be downloaded so that if you have a slow internet connection or cable where your speed is unreliable that you could still watch movies on demand after the movie is downloaded? I would not recomend anyone to rush out and buy Tivo HD and or Netflix to get this service.