Tivo offered to give me a movie this week using my broadband wireless network to set it up. The movie is Red Trousers, a 2003 movie about stunt men. Tivo recently allowed you to transfer recorded shows the other way, to your computer from the Tivo via the wireless link to make recorded shows portable.

What baffles me about Tivo is their strategy. Once anyone tries the service they're hooked. It's the ease of searching out interesting or obscure shows, then programming any show; recording, time shifting, time pausing; oh just about everything really, that makes it indispensable.

But, relatively few people have adopted it. Only 4.5 million use a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) in 2005 out of the hundred of millions who have a TV or subscribe to cable. Sure, projections are for 25 million in 2008. That's still slow because the hardware's been expensive. So cut the cost. Adopt the cellphone strategy. Get the box into homes. Maybe, even give it away. Then, make the money on the service contract and the add ons. Tivo got bound up in making their money back on the box. It stopped people sampling. For some reason they didn't understand the psychology of the the market.

Giving me a movie opens another front for Tivo. Try the download?. Like it? Well, why Blockbuster any more? The first time is always the hardest thing to persuade people is possible.

So offering that  add-on for free is the sort of thing that can be expanded to give me first release movies on the day they go into theaters. It makes the Tivo case much more compelling. It will show up how ill conceived their strategy has been to this point.