TiVo swivels its way closer to convergence
In March we reviewed the service from TiVo and Amazon that let you buy or rent TV shows and movies and download them on demand. One of the limitations was that you had to use a web browser (typically on a PC) to log onto Amazon.com and search for what you want. At that time I wrote:
Hopefully one day they'll hook up an interface through a Java-based TiVo HME program (under Music, Pictures, and More) so then even the browser will be optional.
Well, that day has arrived, except they did a much better job of it than expected. TiVo unveiled a new service this week called "Universal Swivel Search". At first I was confused by the name - why call a download service a swivel search? Then I saw the demos, and... wow. I'll try to explain what it does in words but to really get a feel check out the demo flash videos.
If you use Microsoft Excel (trust me I'm going somewhere with this) you may be familiar with what they call a "pivot table". Rather than a simple row/column spreadsheet, a pivot table lets you see the structure within different dimensions of your data. For example you can put Time and Gender across the top, and on the rows you put Products and Geography. A pivot table lets you drill down to see selected subsets that you find interesting (for example Video games), and change around your rows and columns on the fly (for example you could drag Gender over to rows, and get rid of Geography, to see if women are buying more games this year compared to last year).
Tivo's Swivel search is basically the same thing but without the geekiness. Here's an example. Let's say you've recorded an episode of "Grey's Anatomy". From the episode menu you bring up Swivel search and you see a lot of information about the show such as a description, upcoming shows, similar shows, and a list of actors. If you select one of the actors, say Justin Chambers, the search drills down into his info and lets you see other shows he stars in. Pick one of those shows, and explore more or schedule it to record.
TiVo's database is not limited to recent episodes. It knows about a) all the shows that are playing on all your channels for the next couple of weeks, and b) all the shows that are in the Amazon Unbox collection. Say you're watching "24" but missed last week's episode so you have no idea what's going on. No problem, just go into Swivel search, select Available Downloads, and browse through Amazon's catalog until you find the episode you want. A few minutes later (up to an hour) you can be watching it.
A broadband connection is required and there's a small fee for each show ($1.99 for TV episodes, $1.99 and up for movie rentals and purchases). And if you just want to play around with it for free, they'll start you out with a $15 credit. Programs can be stored on the Amazon servers to save space on your TiVo box and downloaded again when necessary.
The new TiVo Swivel Search has been described as "IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base) for your TV". While the database is nowhere as extensive as IMDB (so far they just have a few thousand titles), it's bound to expand in the future. IMDB, after all, is owned by Amazon. A few clicks with your remote is far more convenient than a trip to the video rental store, and for catching up on your favorite TV episodes, there's nothing else like it.