Rent a movie has really rolled into our household. It’s less about hard times and more about convenience. The choice of going to Blockbuster and just choosing a movie and pressing a button is easy and obvious. This weekend I also found I had even more choices. So this is a quick comparison between TiVo and AppleTV.
I’ve had an AppleTV for 7 or 8 months. It forced me to get a new TV too as it likes HDMI slots etc. Its number one use has become renting a movie or simply playing one that is on the disk drives somewhere in the house. It works well. When downloading a movie almost always I can watch within a couple of minutes. As a note I added Boxee although now need to reinstall it (and I hope it provides Hulu this time).
The TiVo I’ve had for 2.5 years is definitely a must-have product. I watch very little TV and even less where I have to tolerate commercials. The TiVo gets periodic software updates. This all seems to happen in the background. Last week I also got a note from Amazon saying rent movies on your TiVo. It turns out there is quite a lot of choice there now. Amazon, Disney, Jarman etc.
So on Friday night when I found my first choice TV is not available I decided to watch a movie on TiVo on the old box. Based on my AppleTV experience I was very disappointed. In fact it became too late to watch the movie. Why? Well it seems you can’t play it till it has completed downloading and Amazon definitely wasn’t serving up the movie at the speed Apple does. Moral of the story. You may be quite happy to use your TiVo to buy a movie earlier in the day. However, expecting instant gratification. Forget it.
And that’s what I’ve had with Apple. Instant gratification. Rent and play. Only once have I had to wait 20 minutes. My Tivo is on Ethernet. My AppleTV is on WiFi.
I didn’t spend long to find that first movie. I could have rented it on AppleTV too. However, while TV works, the movie selections come out as sort of dark (maybe my old TV) and they lack obvious things like ratings/what other viewers thought. Maybe it’s just not all that obvious. I know they are on Amazon’s site and yet I shouldn’t have to make decisions first on my PC. Ratings are a key benefit in my case. Separately I also saw that one recommendation was an offer to buy the movie. What’s the good of buying a movie on TiVo? If I buy it can I download it to my PC too? Can I get it whenever I want? It’s not clear to me. However, if you go to Amazon that’s cleared up. Amazon will help you keep your video library.
Net net TiVo with Video on demand is a nice enhancement. Will it drag me away from the AppleTV experience? Not generally. Is TiVo beginning to look a little tired? When my three year contract is up in August what will I do? Not sure is the answer.
