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 For $99, plus the cost of a home network adapter, you can enjoy music and photos from your computer in your home theater. Schedule TV recordings from the web, too. |
Still don't know what TiVo is?
For a growing legion of devoted fans, TiVo is a noun that describes a machine — a sort of VCR on steroids that records TV shows onto a hard disk drive. Actually, TiVo is a service that makes a hard disk video recorder unbelievably uncomplicated — much easier to live with than a VCR. No more flashing 12:00. No more piles of unlabeled tapes. And no more convoluted timer menus. You can find and record shows by title, actor, team or keyword. You can even pause or rewind live TV.
The original TiVo radically changed the way people watch TV. The new Series2 TiVo also offers a new way to enjoy the digital photos and music files stored on your computer. If you already have a home network, you just add TiVo's $99 Home Media Option and a network adapter. You purchase HMO online at tivo.com. It's a simple process, much like activating or upgrading your TiVo account.
Jacked into your home network, a Series2 TiVo machine grabs files from the computers in your home network and makes them available in your living room. Imagine how much better those MP3 files will sound through your home audio system. And how about those shots of the Grand Canyon on your giant-screen TV?
But that's not all. With the Home Media Option, you can schedule your TV recordings from any Web-connected computer. Suppose you get to the office and someone reminds you that Julia Roberts is appearing on Oprah this afternoon. All you have to do is go online. A few clicks later, you're all set to record the woman with the Mona Lisa Smile.
Intrigued? So was I. But I wondered how well TiVo's user-friendly formula would hold up when mingled into the sometimes confounding PC environment. How difficult would it be to connect TiVo to a home network? Would the Home Media Option turn out to be something only a geek could love? To find out, I took it for a test drive.
Hooking TiVo up to the home network
I recently upgraded from dial-up Internet to the high-speed service offered by my cable TV provider. They supply one modem per account, and there are two computers in my household. So the next thing I did was install a Netgear wireless network, which was an easier undertaking than I expected.
 The Linksys wireless network adapter simply plugs into the USB port on the back of the TiVo recorder. It comes with an extension cord, so you can place it elsewhere, if you like. |
With the WiFi network in place, the only extra gadget I needed for the Home Media Option was a network adapter. TiVo recommends a couple of Linksys models. I chose the $70 Linksys WUSB12, a pocket-sized unit designed for use with laptop computers.
I plugged the adapter into the TiVo's USB jack and turned on my TiVo and TV. I was greeted with a screen that said, "Wireless firmware update required." I was warned that the adapter may no longer work with my personal computer after the firmware update. Fortunately, I wasn't planning on using the adapter with my laptop, so I launched the update.
Up next came the Wireless Checklist screen which tells you that you need to know the name of the network and all of the password details. If you set up your own network, you should be familiar with this stuff. If someone else set up your network, you may need help with this installation, too.
The next step in the setup process is network selection. Netgear was listed right there in the menu, and the Link light on the adapter was blinking. It appeared that TiVo had picked up the signal. But it wouldn't connect with my network.
I gave the Troubleshooting option a try. One of the suggestions was to simply unplug the adapter and the TiVo, and then plug them back in. That did the trick!
The network connection process took about 15 minutes. By my standards, it was easy. One little problem was deftly handled by the built-in troubleshooting tip.
Making music and photo files available to the network
Now that I was connected to my network, I needed to make some of the music files and digital photos on my desktop PC available to the TiVo.
 The TiVo Desktop software is simple to install and use. |
I had already downloaded the TiVo Desktop software from the TiVo website. It lets you browse your hard drive for the tunes and pictures you want to hear or view in the living room. Drag the files into the "publish" area, and you're set. That's all there is to it. It won't let you publish files your TiVo can't display or play back.
Playing music files and viewing photos
When I returned to the den for the acid test, my wife and two of my sons were there, so I seized the remote and took us all on a tour of the Home Media Option.
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| Sequence of steps, from left to right, needed to play a single music file. Of course, you don't have to drill down to the song level each time. You can select a folder, hit the play button and hear all of the songs, either sequentially or in random play mode. | ||||
I pressed the TiVo button on the remote control. A Music and Photos option appeared on the main TiVo Central menu, along with the other major options, such as Select Programs to Record and Now Playing List.
I drilled down through the menu to select the tunes and pictures and found the steps easy to follow. You are given some flexibility to sort the folders and files in different ways, though you can't create special song mixes using your TiVo remote. In other words, you can't move files from one folder to another or create a new folder. That must be done on your computer, prior to publishing your songs to TiVo. You can publish existing playlists that you've saved in M3U, B4S, PLS, or ASX formats. With Windows, you can't sort by genre or artist, but with Macintosh you can, since TiVo works through iTunes.
On the photo side, you can watch slide shows or view images one at a time. You can rotate photos, if necessary. Unfortunately, you can't play music and watch a slide show at the same time.
How about sound and image quality? The photos of my sons' soccer games and Boy Scout adventures displayed beautifully on the 27-inch screen. The punk music cuts my teenage son had downloaded played savagely through the home theater speakers.
Demo concluded, I turned to my wife and boys, ages 8 and 11. "So, what do you think?"
Boys, in unison: "AWESOME!"
My wife, who's not fond of anything having to do with computers, just raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders.
Technical caveats
TiVo does not store your image and music files on its own hard drive, so they will not take up space used for recording TV shows. To view photos or play your digital tunes through TiVo, your computer must be on, and the TiVo Desktop software must be open (the software can be set to open automatically when you boot up your computer).
TiVo's HMO is not immune to freeze-ups and error messages. If your computer freezes up, your HMO will, too. And network setup might be a bear for a total novice. But you can't blame these pitfalls on TiVo. They've done a good job of keeping things simple. In its role as a home network "node," TiVo's user-friendly personality remains intact.
Power users may find the TiVo's idiot-proof interface slow or clumsy for navigating large numbers of music or image files. They will surely find the file format limitations frustrating. TiVo will play MP3, M3U, PLS and ASX files, but not WAV, WMA, AIFF or AAC (iTunes store) files. It does not stream Internet radio. On the photo side, it will display JPG, GIF, BMP, DIB and PNG files. It won't play any sort of movie files, yet. That seems like an obvious target for future generations of the HMO.
 The Toshiba SD-H400 is a DVD player with an 80GB TiVo? Series2? hard disk recorder built in. |
How does Home Media Option stack up?
Since more than a third of U.S. households now have audio and photo content on their PCs, makers of computers and home audio/video gear are racing to market with gizmos designed to bridge the divide. You'll find a variety of media adapters, as well as receivers and DVD players that come with network jacks and software.
At the high end of this new product genre, you'll see Media Center PCs that excel in audio/visual applications (including TV recording). These new PCs usually come with a remote control, and easily connect to your home theater system.
If you have no desire to put a computer in your living room, then TiVo's Home Media Option makes sense, given its relatively low cost. If you already have a network and a Series2 TiVo machine, it will cost you well under $200 to give HMO a whirl. Compared with some of the other "media receivers" on the market, that's price-competitive. Some of the other products do more, at this stage. But TiVo has been known to periodically upgrade its software. Only time will tell whether TiVo's solution is a big winner in this exciting new category.
System Requirements for TiVo's Home Media Option
You'll need a TiVo Series2 machine connected to a wired or wireless network, the TiVo Home Media Option, and a computer that meets the following requirements:
A PC with:
- Microsoft? Windows? 98, ME, 2000, or XP
- 233 megahertz Pentium? II class processor or better
- at least 64 MB RAM
- at least 25 MB free disk space
- Mac OS X v10.2 or later
- iTunes 3.0.1 or later required for music
- iPhotos 2 or later required for photos
- 400MHz G3 processor or better recommended
- 256MB RAM or more recommended
If your network is connected to the Internet, TiVo does its TV program updates through the Internet, and you do not have to connect it to a phone line.
If you have two networked Series2 TiVo machines, you can transfer shows from one to the other.
