HybridTV, the company behind the TiVo in Australia, yesterday announced the launch of their new 320GB TiVo device, alongside a new Video on Demand service called Caspa. Not quite a friendly ghost, but it’s certainly a promising development for downloadable entertainment in Australia.
The 320GB TiVo will cost $699, while the current 160GB version will drop down to $599. The two devices are identical in every way bar hard drive size, including the new software offering. Over the Christmas period, the new 320GB TiVo will also be bundled with the home networking software for free, although you’ll still need a copy of Roxio Toast if you want it to work properly with your Mac.
But the more exciting part of the announcement is the Caspa VOD service. From December 1, the Video on Demand icon will be renamed Caspa on Demand. It will offer a selection of movies (both through Caspa and through the current Blockbuster partnership), TV shows and music video content through a partnership with Bandit.FM.
There’s a fair amount of info to digest, so I’ll break it down into the three catagories:
Movies:
Worth mentioning is that this won’t replace the Blockbuster offering that’s currently available for TiVo users. Just like TiVo in the US offers Netflix and Amazon, this is an extra service. You’ll need to setup a Caspa wallet to pay for content (which van be used across all the Caspa services except Blockbuster movies).
All movies follow the standard 7-14 days to start watching and 48 hours to watch after you press play. New movies will cost $5.95, library titles will cost $3.95, and all are standard def (although many have 5.1 audio). HD is something that will come once Aussie bandwidth increases and data limits disappear – in other words, once the NBN is ubiquitous.
TV:
This is where Caspa will shine. HybridTV CEO Robbee Minicola told me that they have either signed, or are planning on signing in the near future, agreements with all the major television studios, both locally and from the US. Episodes will initially be rentals with the same restrictions on watching as movies (7-14 days to start, 48 hours to watch), and be broken down into either premium or favourites (as dictated by the studios). Premium shows will be $2.95 an episode. Favourites, on the other hand, will offer the first three episodes for free, and then charge $1.95 per episode after that. Many programs will combine both favourites and premium – for example, the current season will be premium, while previous seasons will be “favourites”.
But starting April next year, HybridTV plans on introducing an advertising module, which will allow you to download favourite TV shows for free, in return for watching three 30 second ads – one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end of each episode. You’ll be able to choose between paying $1.95 or getting the ep with ads for free. What’s more, the ads will be interactive, allowing you to enter competitions or receive free stuff, depending on the advertiser’s wishes. You don’t have to interact, but you can if you want – it’ll just pause your show while you do.
I don’t know about you, but I’d put up with 90 seconds worth of ads to watch a TV show for free when I wanted to…
Music:
The music feature with Bandit.fm includes free music videos, free interviews with artists and the ability to hire VOD concerts from certain artists. As time goes on, that will probably expand, but it already has content from all the major record labels, which is a promising first step.
At launch on December 1, Caspa will have about 1200 hours of VOD content, including the Blockbuster titles. As time goes on, that’ll grow rapidly. There are also plans to introduce user-generated content to the platform, as well as a services platform. But that’s another post altogether.
What do you guys think? My gut feeling is that this will become the de facto VOD service for most people pretty quickly… Especially considering that Internode, iiNet and Adam all have unmetered downloads for TiVo.
[HybridTV]
Robert
November 26, 2009 at 1:08 PM
320Gb?? come on guys!!!! 160Gb was hideous, if your going to upgrade it, make it at least 500Gb – twin HD tuners and TiVo’s excellent season pass and recommendations features eat that 160 or 320 up in days!!!
I put a 750Gb in my TiVo and its a much happier beast.
Report Permalinkmatt
November 26, 2009 at 1:09 PM
cool, thats a lot of stuff!
hardware seems a bit expensive given $599 for a 250 gig ps3 with play tv, but the on demand services look promising.
Though I’d still rather just go to the local video rental place and rent a new release bluray for $3
Report Permalinkthe Odd one
November 26, 2009 at 1:55 PM
Still considering building a mythbuntu box.
Report PermalinkAlthough Considering I only paid $25 for my PS3… 500GB 2.5″ Hard Drive + Play TV = Win?
Shane
November 26, 2009 at 3:38 PM
I have the 160gb Tivo box and that’s plenty of space if you combine it with the Tivo home networking package. I have 4TB of hard drive on my PC which the Tivo can instantly access so imo get the cheaper one if you already have a large capicity PC. Looking forward to the new Caspa features and hope they still bring out the ability to order takeaway food. Yes I am too lazy to go over the road to IGA.
Report Permalinkmang
November 26, 2009 at 10:03 PM
160GB is fine for me, between my 1TB NAS, PS3 and AppleTV i have all bases covered. TV from iTunes USA rocks.
Report Permalinkgargravarr
November 27, 2009 at 2:56 AM
I got my PS3 free with my TV. Just upgraded the HD to 500 gig and got Play TV yesterday. Recorded some of the cricket, and quality seemed as good as my Panasonic DVD recorder.
Report PermalinkBungeecork
November 29, 2009 at 10:25 AM
“…But starting April next year, HybridTV plans on introducing an advertising module..”
Really? Shh, don’t mention the “buy a Dominos pizza with your TiVo” facility! That was once a “coming someting next year” feature, but that was a long tiome ago.
Can any journo – anywhere – explain why Hybrid will not allow TiVo users in Australia to browse YouTube, like TiVo users in America can?
Report Permalinkryd
December 2, 2009 at 1:19 PM
I’ve been playing with caspa for a few hours now and have to say it’s kinda bad.
I’ve not downloaded any movies or TV shows yet and doubt I will as the music videos I downloaded to test the service have all played back really badly.
The video was choppy and the aspect ratio was wrong, with the TiVo remote’s aspect button allowing me to select between three versions on wrong.
Also, the music videos have a timer of only 10 minutes to start watching and five minutes to finish, once you hit play! I mean, come on, this is just beyond mean. Surely a couple of hours should be the minimum? Music videos are, let’s face it, a PROMOTIONAL TOOL! TiVo already records live to air music video shows for me, containing all the clips available on caspa. Not only can I keep these as long as I choose, they actually play correctly.
Also, the caspa menu is sluggish and glitchy. You have to wait several seconds for it to update each time you press a key on the remote, meaning it’s easy to over-shoot a menu item when you press the button more than once, thinking it hasn’t registered. Worst of all, if you are moving left to the top of the menu, you can over-shoot right back to the TiVo menu and have to reload caspa entirely!
I don’t know if I’ll bother with the other features of the service. So far it’s just not of suitable quality.
I love my TiVo box. As a set-top DVR, I don’t think you can do better, but this caspa service is an embarrassment.
On last frustration: when will the Australian TiVo service open the network remote control feature, allowing us to use any of the iPhone TiVo remote control apps?
Report PermalinkRonnie
December 4, 2009 at 2:44 PM
ryd
Report Permalinkdont be such a doomsdayer! did you have to pay for the music vids? hello they are FREE – i can only guess they lock down the viewing time for copyright – but i reckon its cool to see music vids on the tv…
my fav thing is that i bought my tivo last christmas and it feels like every time i switch it on or get an email from them i get something new added. caspa is hot – dont spoil it for everyone else
Lee
June 17, 2011 at 7:56 PM
All looks good, agree I’d like to see the Hard-drive increased in size. Sure wish Bigpond was part of the network that provided unlimited downloads.
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