Once upon a time Dave in Boston shaped the electrons to say... > >> I read the news clipping of Netflix downloads coming to Tivo. > >> When is this going to happen? > > According to TiVo's latest newsletter, next month: > > http://www.gizmolovers.com/2008/11/21/wait-dont-go-to-the-movie-theater/ > > Note it is only coming to the Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL. > Oh...crappola. > They are leaving Series 2 people in the dust now, huh?
Technological necessity, just like YouTube. The Series2 & Series2DT have a decoder that handles MPEG-2 (and MPEG-1, but it is best to ignore that). The S3, HD, & HD XL support MPEG-2, but also MPEG-4/H.264 and WMV/VC-1. MPEG-2 is not a good codec for streaming media, H.264 and VC-1 are 2-4x as efficient. That means for the same picture quality you need 1/2 to 1/4 the bandwidth when streaming. Most users just don't have broadband speeds that can support streaming MPEG-2 at sufficient quality. Not to mention those with bandwidth caps and overage charges would run into them 2-4x faster. You can see this with the Amazon, Jaman, and Disney/CinemaNow downloads. They're all MPEG-2, which is why they work on the S2 as well. But many users can't download them in realtime - it takes longer for the movie to download than the movie takes to play. That's because the bitrate of the encoding is higher than the bitrate of their sustained download speed. And it may not be their local pipe - the slowest link between the server and the TiVo is the speed limit for the connection. YouTube uses H.264 for their streaming to TiVo, which is why the YouTube feature is only on the S3, HD, and HD XL. Similarly, Netflix uses VC-1 for all of their streaming, so it will only work on the same models. I'm sure the same will be true for any newer sites that TiVo ads with streaming media, such as if they add Hulu content. Internet media is dominated by H.264, with a niche for VC-1. MPEG-2 is hardly used for online content these days. -MZ -- megazone-at-megazone.org http://www.MegaZone.org/ Gweep, Geek, Human, me. http://www.GizmoLovers.com/ http://www.Eyrie-Productions.com/ -><- Hail Eris "A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men" 508-852-2171
