TiVoCast Struck During Strike

During the writer’s strike, I was, like many, desperately seeking some kind of television programming to watch. I found TiVoCast, a service that TiVo offers to its subscribers who have a broadband internet connection hooked up to their TiVo unit. With TiVoCast, your DVR downloads very short episodes of ultra-low-budget series that you select.

Thanks to TiVoCast, you and your friends can produce your own television series and distribute it to TiVo customers who would never watch video content on their computers. Or at least I think you can. TiVo doesn’t provide any details about what it takes to become a “partner,” but the bar seems to be set low enough that Hollywood-outsiders and enthusiastic amateurs are welcome – so long as they have something worth watching. I’m also surmising that TiVo wants to take care to deal only with people who don’t flake out on making deliveries.

The result is glorious. Although the big networks deliver better television overall, the TiVoCast fare makes up for its shortcomings with cleverness, earnestness, and extremely short episode durations – commonly two minutes or less.

One of my favorite series is Indy Mogul, a how-to skein that offers tips on nano-budget filmmaking. After spinning the “Wheel of Prosperity,” the Indy Mogul hosts learn how much money they have to spend ($10 is common) for a special-effects sequence, such as building a space fighter.

Also good are ThreadBanger, a sewing show with attitude, and Viral on Veoh, a show reporting on its selfsame genre.

These nanomedia productions share the TiVoCast pipeline with bigger-name fare from The New York Times, CBS Sports, The Onion, and The Weather Channel.

TiVoCast is a great example of the rising democratization of entertainment media distribution. I wonder how many people, like me, found TiVoCast – or other avenues of alternative fare – during the WGA strike. That’s just one lingering question for me about the possible counterproductive effects of the strike. (See also my prior post, Was Jon Stewart Better Without Writers?.)

Comments

[Erik Beck]

Thanks for the kind words Eric!!!