USATODAY.com – TiVo to expand program recording to cellphone: I’m going to say I like this and I’m sure it’s going to be convenient. But… I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop and hear that Verizon is going to charge you something like $9 for every show you schedule on your TiVo with one of their phones. Cellphone companies are notorious for picking your pocket.
From the article: “Verizon subscribers will be able to access TiVo Mobile through its “Get It Now” service menu starting in the early summer. Verizon’s pricing for the service will be announced then, TiVo said.”
As with most things I’m sure this will only work with Series 2 (and soon Series 3) and all of us Series 1 and DirecTV TiVo customers will be out of luck.
I’m not a Verizon customer but as it looks like they are going to charge you to do this, personally I’d probably just skip it. But for those of you who like paying your cell phone company $2.49 for a song that you can’t get off your cell phone, this may be just the thing for you.
Dave Zatz has more.
Update: Also worth noting is that you can already schedule your Series 2 TiVo from the internet via Yahoo! TV. Not sure why someone would pay extra if they have a web enabled phone to schedule via a paid Verizon service. Of course Verizon’s service will probably be optimized for cell phone use and may be easier than navigating the web on a cell phone via the current Yahoo!/TiVo scheduling service. Personally though I haven’t done any online scheduling of TiVo because I only own a Series 1 and a DirecTV TiVo, neither of which will work with this or Verizon’s offering.
I’ve been doing this on my MythTV box for over a year, and Verizon can’t charge me for it because all I’m doing is pointing my browser at my machine at home. As far as they know it’s just casual web-browsing. Just this weekend I’d forgotten to schedule the UNC-Duke game so I used my phone to setup the recording from the road.
First they partner with the PTC then they partner with Verizon, I’m almost afraid to find out who the next parnership is with.
Oh and it seems that if your mobile device has a suitably capable browser you should be able to accomplish the same thing using TiVo Central Online or maybe the Yahoo! dealie.