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[Kurt Young]

Jim, Matt, and Yaobing,

Please don't take this the wrong way, it's just a bit of editorialism splashed with my personal feelings.  I know that you can't please everyone.


Over the last few builds, there has been a lot of focus on the new features that allow MC9 to work in conjunction with Tivo units.  Obviously, it is important to work all of the bugs out of these features, so I can't say that the volume of posts relating to them has been out of porportion.

However, I would like to humbly submit my opinion on the subject of MC9 interactivity with Tivo:  "Tivo, schmivo."

I don't own a Tivo, nor could I see one anywhere in this year's budget.  I do have a very nice computer, a decent TV tuner card, and MC9.

I have been hoping for quite some time that, by the time it was final, MC9 would be my Tivo.  I've been looking forward to it.  I've honestly been very excited about it... using MC9 to turn my computer into a PVR.  I have been hoping to someday use TV with MC9 to do things that Windows Media Center (part of Windows XP Media Center Edition) can do and more:  

• TV Playback, recording, and timeshifting; pause, rewind, and fast forward live TV
  
• Internet-connected program guides which download automatically and are easy to use and browse; you can even use it to set future recordings with a couple clicks (browse to the show, select record, and that's that)
  
• Capability to add TV stations to your "favorites" list
  
• Configurable recordings based on TV show or series... find a show on the program guide, select "record series" and know that each time that show comes on, MC will record it for me
  
• Library imports for the shows that get recorded, automatically "tagging" them with show name, air time and date, and etc
  
• Optional "play then delete" feature which would automatically delete a recorded show once it has been watched
  
• Ability to trans-encode recorded shows into standard AVI, Divx, Xvid, or WMV9 formats
  
• Easy compatibility with a remote control.  Any "standard" remote control available... I'd go buy the one that I needed to buy, be it ATI, Streamzap, or whatever.  Just so long as MC9 and this remote worked well together and with a minimum of end-user customization. (Read as:  No Girder)
  
• Above all, stability, quality compression and encoding, and quality timeshifting.

So, in the past couple weeks, I feel like PVR features in MC9 have taken a back-seat to feeding music to Tivo units.  I feel that adding this feature shouldn't have taken priority over finishing out the PVR parts of MC9 that are already there, just not polished yet;  especially with the ops-tempo at J River that I have been seeing by proxy via these forums lately.  The program guide was a big one.

I know that most of my wishes for the PVR end of MC9 will not make it into v9, and I am saddened by this.  I will no longer have my "all in one" solution of music, video, iPod, and PVR.  

[JimH]

Hi Kurt,
Thanks for the ideas and emotional plea.  I know it must seem like we're not playing with a full deck sometimes, but we have a plan.  TiVo is a key part of it.

And TV development is still a high priority for the company and for me.   Maybe you could just make a separate list of anything that isn't working right.  We'll take a look at it.  But no new features now, please.

Jim