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TiVo To Support RealNetwork Formats
rtphokie writes: "The flurry of announcements coming form the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas has started with
RealNetworks ' anouncement that it had struck deals to include its technology in an array of microchips and devices, including TiVo PVRs. This is the latest move in an effort to expand from the desktop to consumer devices."
Now when you set up your new RealTiVo and you forget to uncheck ALL the boxes, its going to make it your default toaster and blender too.
Adversive
My cat's breath smells like cat food.
Am I the only one who remembers when RealNetworks was Progressive Networks, and Rob Glazer was helping to support liberal politicsl causes?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Great, now we can watch "BUFFERING" on TV now, and have it solicit your email address for special offers!
I dunno, but even on broadband connections I have never viewed an acceptable video stream based on a RealNetworks codec. I keep giving them a chance, downloading the new required viewer every other month, click 'No, cancel, no, exit' every time their viewer loads and prompts me to register. But their codecs suck.
On the exact same connection I can get near VHS quality streams (BBC online is a great example with their 300 Kbps feed) using windows media. I've tried many different Real feeds that claim the same bandwidth targets, and I've yet to see one that is watchable. I wish Real were better, but it not even in the same ballpark.
I think Real has done more to give streaming video a band name, than any other company out there.
Perhaps TiVO can figure out what's wrong.
-josh
it is "spyware"
it is non-secure: that is, use of it injects data into your system that you don't have the control over to save, copy, or do what you want.
Unless you are careful, it splatters itself all over your desktop
If you are a real idiot, you get spammed if you enter your e-mail address during set-up.
Unless you are careful, it keeps nagging you to upgrade to a version that is less secure and works worse than the previous version.
Yeah, I'll yell. RealNetworks is just plain evil. They make it almost impossible for the average user to find their free player. The last time I looked for someone, it was hidden on 1 line between two great big advertisements for 2 of their non-free players. They make it almost impossible for an average user to stop that *%^# Real Start Center from loading on boot. The warning messages make it sound like the computer won't work if you don't load start center. Plus that start center is the worst piece of software I've ever seen. If I have a user call in whose computer suddenly won't boot, odds are they just upgraded real player.
;)
Now I'm not against proprietary software and companies making money. But jeez, these people are as bad as the X10 ads.
Their software is slow, resource intensive, buggy and ad ware.
But let me tell you how I really feel. . .
> Seems to me that Tivo needs to take a page from SonicBlue's playbook
How about photocopy the whole damn book? Their whole business model sucks, "giving away" the player and "making money" (obviously not) off the guide fee. It only leads to people getting pissed off for being charged for 3+ guides (TiVo, DirecTV, Digital Cable etc.) They might as well give you the player for free and charge $50/mo for the TiVo logo.
It seems they could have a much more lucrative business if they built an entire accessory line around the base device. They should take at serious look at the game console market if they want to know how to make more money after selling the basic box. It's all in the expansion, stupid.
- Put in 1394 ports and sell external expansion hard drives that every moron can install w/o a kernel recompile. Sell a purple TiVo-branded 30GB 1394 HD for $200 or so, and you would actually make money off hardware. Don't limit the number of drives, and you'd be surprised how many drives you'd find in some homes.
I would bet that just offering external storage expansion alone would seriously improve their bottom line. They could easily co-brand an ADS 1394 enclosure, throw in a cheap 30GB HD--all for $60 to them, while selling it for $200 or $250.
- Add an Ethernet port and sell PC (and Mac) software that lets you manage the TiVo over the network: provide a more powerful (and quicker) version of the on-screen menus, save shows to PC for possible burning to CD/DVD, watch streaming video on multiple PCs from the TiVo etc. IOW, sell all the stuff hackers are working on anyway, while actually making money off it.
- Sell a purple TiVo-branded broadband router as a "broadband adapter" or under some other such Joe-Blow-appealing label. Take the opportunity that you're actually providing a killer app for home networking to become a major force in home networking. Become a pioneer in phoneline, powerline and wireless networking appliances.
- Otherwise expand the digital entertainment management idea that the TiVo introduced.
Instead, they're resting on their original laurels with nary any innovation since (save the DirecTiVo, if that's innovation). TiVo could have worked hard and become THE digital media company, but they pretty much paused their vision along with live TV. They remind me a lot of Palm.
-
I can finally watch streaming video on TV!
err. wait. That's what tv is.