The overall TiVo / One True Media user experience is good. While there are some things about the service which could change to make it even better, as it stands, the service does what it says it does and does it well enough.

I created a video montage using still photographs from my iPhoto library. I published my montage out to my TiVo channel last night. I was hoping for instant gratification-that I would be able to instantly go to my TiVo and view the slide show. However, after submitting it the One True Media site informed me that the slide show might take up to twenty four hours to be available.

This morning, I clicked over to my TiVo Now Showing page, and the payload had arrived. The item in my TiVo list was right in the mix with my other programs, named consistently with the personal channel I had created.

The quality of the montage was surprising (if you go to the One True Media homepage, the slide shows they are showing on their home page are decidedly NOT impressive)-it was of the same caliber as the slide shows that iPhoto pushes out. The playback was smooth, and had the Ken Burns Effect as well as an audio track.

The good:

• The process of creating the slide show was straightforward as was creating and publishing to my personal channel.
• The quality of the slide show was better than I had expected.
• I’m using the service for free right now.

The not-so-good:

• The slide show creation process did leave me scratching my head here and there. I’m certain I did not check the audio track option, but my montage had one.
• The twenty four hour turnaround was likely less than twelve hours. However, within and hour or two would be more acceptable.
• While the slide show creation process was easy enough to get through, the user interface could use some work to get it up to snuff with today’s standards.
• The cost. After the Beta, the service looks like it would cost $3.99 per month, or, $39 for a year subscription. Personally, I don’t think I would pay that, in part because not enough of my family members have a TiVo Series 2 or 3 that is connected via broadband.

Many of the services that One True Media provides are available at no cost. None of those services wowed me that much. It seems like, from my perspective, the push to TiVo channel functionality is the site’s killer app at this point, and could be a lead-in to additional revenue. What other models might work? Micropayments might be one consideration; charging a small amount to publish a montage to a TiVo channel each time a montage is created (as opposed to paying an ongoing fee for a service that is likely only used sporadically). The service could also just be flat out free, but only allow a certain number of montages to be published each month. The idea would be to use the service as a lead-in to One True Media’s more expensive single-hit products such as a book or calendar which could be ordered from the TiVo interface.

Competition? I’d imagine we’ll see similar services like this from Apple, linking iLife to Apple TV. Apple has the infrastructure in place already, and it seems to me that Apple TV is going to need more than the ability to stream purchased iTunes media to the big screen to get people excited about it. We could also see this in Windows Vista Media Center (created by Microsoft or a third party).

Tags: Apple TV, iLife, iTunes, Micropayments, PVR, Television, TiVo, User Experience, Video, Windows Media Center Edition

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