You’re not Apple. Stop trying to be. You haven’t earned 1/10th of the mind-share Apple has earned for creating their simple, easy to use products. So cut the ridiculous hype and earn it the hard way – by providing a simple user experience that still delivers the important features while leaving behind the 10% of features that are used less than 1% of the time.

Hyperbolic invites and talk about how you’re going to change the world when you’re just releasing a new revision of an existing product make you look stupid. If you aren’t even going to bother entering or creating a new product category, you should just frame it in more humble terms (our best X ever!). It looks like the lesson of the Segway has been forgotten or willfully ignored. Even the short-lived hype around the recent Bloom Energy generator should be instructive on how not to unveil products, or at least how to do it in a reasonable manner without promising to change the world and fall short.

The first thing to recognize is that TiVo fixed most of the major gripes with their existing units. Their biggest problem is the cable companies themselves vis-a-vis CableLabs, and while I’ll not address anything having to do with them for now (there is a long list of gripes), I had a long list of things TiVo needed to fix in a draft blog post ready to hit the “Publish” button had they messed up. Lucky for them I’m scrapping that post! (well, recycling it into this post, got to be green!)

Upgraded Hardware. While the device is still limited to two tuners (the Moxi supports three, new cable cards will support up to six), the upgraded Broadcom Chip on the inside is a dual core 400MHz MIPS processor and 512MB of RAM with clustered multi-threading (portions of the core like the execution unit are partitioned to support more than one thread per core). So once they manage to optimize their interface they should be able to take advantage of the hardware, even if the 400MHz speed look rather slow.

New HD Interface. The Series 3 TiVo uses the ancient SD interface, while the new Series 4 models use the new Adobe Flash-based UI. While the old interface is leaps and bounds above the standard cable set-top box (STB), other set top box makers (DirecTV, Dish, etc) are quickly catching up, and non-broadcast STBs like the Boxee Box already provide an experience that is better. TiVo should be the far and away leader given the head start they had, but they haven’t kept up. The new UI still needs some (a lot) of polish (“My Shows” should go back to “Now Playing” considering it can contain non-TV show content) but they seem to have got out of the rut they were in.

Better integration with internet content. Whether its the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory or a new Tekzilla I want them all in one list, organized by show name. I want one screen that shows me all the content I can watch now, whether its recorded TV shows, internet TV shows, plus TV shows, movies, pictures and music from my home network. Everything in one place. While I wont be able to get the stuff from my home network, I’m hoping the UI addresses the centralization issue.

Apps. The new TiVo is supposed to have an API available for developers. Combined with the Bluetooth Remote/Keyboard I can see cool Facebook or Twitter notifications. We’ll see if TiVo opens it up to all comers. If so, they are definitely going to need some sort of App Store. It would be really neat though, to replicate some of the iPhone App Store successes on the TiVo.

What did the get wrong?

No DLNA. I wont mince words, this is a huge mistake. TiVo’s proprietary protocols for sharing recorded content needed to be dropped a long time ago in place of the DLNA standard. Part of this might be restrictions imposed on them in terms of getting video out, but at the very least, I should be allowed to stream audio and video into the TiVo from my Windows Home Server easily, and it would be nice if they supported video formats like MKV (MP4+AC3 or DTS) since its really only a container around codecs supported by the Broadcom decoder chip.

No Built-in Bluetooth. While I can understand selling the awesome slider remote for $80, not including the $10 Bluetooth chip inside the unit seems incredibly weak. If I already have a BT keyboard I could do without one in my remote (especially for $80). Allowing BT keyboards in the first place was a great idea, but allow people who already have the hardware to use it! Also, BT would be useful for talking to a TiVo iPhone/Android application to use my phone as an advanced remote control, again, meaning that I don’t need the remote and BT dongle, rather just the BT capability.

While I still think TiVo needs to strengthen their engineering department to make their product better (DLNA, TTG Mac client, etc), the Series 4 is a step in the right direction. Hopefully they can manage to produce a new box more often than every 3 years to keep up with the rate of change in consumer electronics and can manage to squeeze more out of the Series 4 hardware they’re going to start shipping soon.

Finally, one parting thought on comparing a Tivo to an iPhone.

I think its odd that I have no problem dropping $300 every year on an new iPhone plus $30 a month for data and yet still complaining about AT&T’s poor service. But everyone is griping about the TiVo’s price ($300) and monthly costs ($13 or $400 lifetime) and yet they still love their TiVo. It is incredible to me actually. Why does everyone have such a hard time justifying to themselves a $300 TiVo once every three years and the $12.95/mo. I might get more out of an iPhone, but I would presume more people spend more time in front of the TV than a phone (except for teenagers perhaps). The only possible reason I can think of is because the only people I hate more than my cell phone provider is the cable company for its annual price increases. That and it would cost me an extra $10/mo just to them to add a Series 4 TiVo to my house – $2/mo cable card fee PLUS $8/mo for “additional digital service outlet” which is a, pardon my language, bullshit charge hoisted on us by the cable companies and the hardware vendors.

The first piece of the puzzle is Windows 7, which has an improved Media Center. Instead of going over all the new features, I’ll point to an EngadgetHD review of Windows 7 media center. There are two major feature deficiencies compared to my current TiVo HD – one is that no matter how many tuners you have, it only buffers the channel you’re watching. My TiVo has two separate buffers for the two tuners (so I can switch between two NFL games on Sundays and scan through looking for good plays). The other issue is that you cant record the buffer – so if you start watching something and decide to record it, you’ll only be able to pick up from when you hit the record button. I could live without those features, but its less enjoyable.

Next, new features of Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 can automatically copy over recorded shows nightly into the “Recorded TV” folder on the server and can convert them down to H.264 for mobile device playback. The previous Power Pack enabled a lot of content to go from your WHS box to the Media Center PC. Combined with integration in Windows 7 Libraries, it’ll make those videos available on all your Windows 7 computers. This would allow “archiving” of TV shows to

Finally, the Pièce de résistance is the most recent revelation that CableCard adapters can be installed in home-built (non-OEM) PCs. This means I can go buy my parts of Newegg and then put the HTPC together and stick it under my TV and get full, glorious digital cable and in the form factor, with the options I want (and not paying a premium for a Dell or HP badge on it). One card has already been announced – Centon which will allow up to 2, 4 of 6 tuned channels at the same time (my TiVo HD only does 2) and the 4 tuner card is due out sometime in Q1 2010.

There are a few caveats. First is that the CableCard will still obey the copy protection rules that are sent out with the programming. There are four states – copy freely (0×00), copy no more (0×01), copy once (0×02) and copy never (0×03). Only copy freely will allow you to pull the content off the DVR and then downres it to your iPhone or Zune HD, though the OS will let you copy the other copy protected videos off the computer, you just cant play it back unless its on that computer. Most content on digital cable is copy freely, with the only exceptions being the premium digital channels like HBO and Cinemax.

The next caveat is that CableCard is a dying technology, slowly being replaced by Tru2Way. As Tru2Way displaces CableCards, you wonder about how long cable companies will continue to support them. They are currently required by the FCC to be supported, along with the Switched Digital Video (SDV) switching technology to allow the unidirectional CableCards (and their hosts – a TiVo or PC) to talk back to the cable company to request channels being broadcast using SDV.

After looking over all the features, it looks like a HTPC (with HDMI out and 5.1 audio of course) could certainly replace my TiVo HD unit. Unless TiVo starts adding meaningful features (uPnP support would be one, capable of decoding MP4/H.264+AAC or AC3), I really don’t see why I should continue to pay them $12.95/mo. Its not even the patent issue (I think TiVo is in the right for going after Echostar after the underhanded things they pulled), rather its TiVo’s lack of commitment into turning the TiVo from DVR to home entertainment hub.