? I'm not sure why you don't think their uses overlap when you pointed out a few. Ordering movies via Unbox is the same type of feature as ordering movies via iTunes.
I'll give you that, that is indeed quite similar.
And you're wrong that Tivo can't play video files located on your Mac. It can. They just have to be converted to .tivo format with a program like Visual Hub. You can start watching them a minute or two after the Tivo starts downloading the file.
How incredibly lame...as someone else pointed out, just because they share a few features does not mean they're pretty much the same. The process here is vastly different. If you read my post, I never said the TiVo couldn't play files from my Mac -- I said it couldn't play files from my
server, which runs Linux. I have 1.5TB of movies in standard formats like MPEG and DiVX -- you really think converting them to .tivo is practical? Or desirable? I want to sit down on the couch and be able to watch anything I want from my collection, right away. The ATV gives me that capability. The TiVo was not designed for that. It was designed to play back files that it or other TiVos recorded. My wife certainly isn't going to know how to convert videos, even if I do. So for that reason, you can barely consider the TiVo a device to stream locally stored content.
The fact that Tivo records TV really is just a different means of getting to the same end as purchasing TV shows from iTunes is.
No way. The selection from my 300 or so cable channels is a hell of a lot more than what's available on iTunes, and most importantly the TiVo allows us to discover new shows by recommending things based on what we watch, and it allows us to watch sporting events, news, and tons of stuff not available on iTunes. Not to mention that the TiVo lets me watch HD content, while the stuff from the iTunes store is not. So in the end you're watching something, yes, but just because you're seeing content on the screen you consider them the "same"? So when you put a tape in a VCR, you're also watching something. You want to say a crusty old VCR is the same thing as the Apple TV? No. Totally different delivery systems.
So saying their uses don't overlap is pretty much dead wrong. Although I will say if you don't want to watch TV shows anytime you want then, I agree, don't get a Tivo. You can watch movies tho too although often edited for content and time.
For the most part, their uses don't overlap. The TiVo is designed for watching, recording, and managing broadcast TV. Trying to use it for your own media is kind of painful, and limited. But clearly it's all in how you've decided to use it, so I suppose for the determined user there could be some overlap. But I'm not "dead wrong", that was pretty rude given how much you're generalizing both devices. It's at least as much about the experience as the actual functionality, and when you consider the *experience* then they're quite different.
tv and Tivo are quite different.