TiVo Set to Hook Up Asia

By Jason Tan

MANY urbanites claim they are simply too busy and have no time for TV. Even when there are repeated programme telecasts over Astro, they say they just cannot be on time to catch them at home.

This actually presents a good business opportunity for digital video recording (DVR) service players. In the United States, there is TiVo, a service similar to Astro Max in Malaysia whereby the user can record TV programmes digitally onto a hard disk. As such, the user can skip the commercials and pause, rewind or fast forward programmes.

Other services include a TV programme guide, reviews of the latest TV shows, and even automatic recording for an entire season of a series.

TiVo has gained over 4.5 million subscribers since its debut in 1999 in the US. And it has started to make waves in the Greater China region, expanding outside of the US for the first time last December to Taiwan, and will make its debut in Shanghai and the Shandong province this month.

The service will also expand into Hong Kong and Singapore in the future, according to Chien Ta-wei, one of the service’s founders.

Astro Max retails at RM938 for new subscribers and comes with an 80- gigabyte (GB) storage for recording up to 60 hours of shows. TiVo in Taiwan, on the other hand, offers either 80GB or 160GB at T$9,999 (RM1,115) or T$12,900 respectively.

TiVo has been struggling to build its user base in Taiwan since its launch there. To entice more Taiwanese subscribers, the service will come with more attractive features already available in the US in the fourth quarter of this year.

These features are definitely critical as TiVo aims to go beyond DVR and revolutionise people’s TV viewing habits. This is possible thanks to its requirement to connect the box to broadband, making itself a part of the home electronics.

Interesting features include TiVoToGo, TiVoComeBack and Home Media Options.

TiVoToGo enables the user to transfer recorded shows to PCs, portable media players such as Apple Computer’s iPod digital music player and also Sony Corp’s PlayStation Portable game console.

TiVoComeBack allows programme viewing on TV from files stored on the PC while Home Media Options lets the user view his photos and videos or listen to music files on TV from the Internet or PC.

Best of all, if the user has forgotten to pre-set the recorded programmes at home, he can easily do so elsewhere as long as he is connected to the Internet.

These features are the results of constant innovations, and TiVo is now aggressively making its foray into Asia in the hopes of duplicating its success in the US.

The writer is a journalist based in Taipei, Taiwan.

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