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AdAge Predicts Tivo will Fail
geddes writes "Under the obnoxious headline
More U.S. Homes have Outhouses then TiVos, Advertising Age has published an article with a few good points: 1) Tivo/ReplayTV/UltimateTV aren't making any money and their growth is declining. 2) Cable and Satellite TV services are slowly rolling out PVR on thier own boxes. So 3) PVR will become a standard feature for most television users but become as unbranded as programmable VCRs."
tivo über alles
Shouldn't that be "More US Households have Outhouses than TiVOs!"?
True, there will soon be as many Tivo brands as you care to name.
But people will still call them "Tivo"s.
It's like in the UK, every vacumn cleaner is usually referred to as a "hoover". Or in the US "Xerox".
You cannot buy that brand recognition. Assuming Tivo themselves don't screw up, they will have a healthy share of the PVR industry for a decade or more.
PVRs will obviously be subsumed into the TV unit itself...TiVo can only hope to save itself through a superior UI and programming service that it maybe can sell to cable providers.
Another news site has just found that more outhouses have tivos than homes!
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
It's a fairly simple technology progression, once households have progressed to outhouses, indoor plumbing, electricity, cable TV and TiVOs aren't far behind.
A. Rightmann
Except for the fact that AT&T broadband and DirectTV are already rebranding Tivo for their set top boxes. There aren't any real competitors yet aside from ReplayTV.
Ooh...but I like the list of related articles:
"Without advertising, we will damage this country"
"72.3% of Tivo viewers skip commercials"
Then again, this is like MSFT reporting that Linux is pretty much dead.
"The stock of TiVo, meanwhile, is down 95% from 2000; its star has faded on Wall Street even as it's risen on Madison Avenue"
Give me one tech stock that's near what it was in 2000. I notice the article doesn't say a thing about whether Tivo has actually made money or is making money right now. As it is, they're getting $12/month from me and I'm looking to add another Tivo soon.
-- "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" -Optimus Prime
The public at large doesn't understand or know about it! The techies 'get it' but most people view it as a hideously expensive VCR without understanding how much better it is!
While I like Tivo, if they fail or not is really not a big thing. Companies fail all the time, even ones we think (or we thought) would be really cool. Think transmeta, or Segway.
The problem is who controls the content? Will cable companies remove features, like the ability to skip ahead 30 which they feels gives users the ability to skip commercials? Probably. Given the choice between pleasing consumers, or pleasing advertisers and shareholders (which they're leagally bound to do!) the companies always stay with the advertisers.
Cire
The advertising industry is reasonably upset about the technology that will allow consumers to not see advertisements. I can sympathize, to be honest. This article just predicts the end of the company TiVo- they're just scapegoating the TiVo company so they don't lose revenue from advertisers. Whether it's called TiVo or whatever, it's still going to be around in some form.
Username taken, please choose another one.
When I read about 'em I thought it was a great idea - trap the shows you want to watch, batch them, sit down and watch the whole lot of them when I felt like it. Then reality set it. I despise television. I don't even own one. So having a TiVo would do me no good.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Everything useful eventually becomes brand-less.
Take PC's , they used to be called IBM compatibles. But now they're just so DAMNED handy and ubiquitous that now nobody REALLY cares what the brand is.
The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
I'm sure that Slashdot predicts that one day Microsoft will fail, too.
Umm.. Isn't that a little weird, comparing a little cramped place to take a squat in to a thing to record TV shows on? Sure, there may be more homes with outhouses, but do they really want the outhouse? Probably not. Everyone would LOVE to have a bathroom from MTV Cribs in their house, but they can't. More people probably want a Tivo, but maybe can't afford it, (I don't know the price, so let me be.. ;). Besides, I would think Tivo, or something like it, could be around for a while. Not everyone can be at home to watch their favorite TV shows, and want a way to record them other then low quality VHS tapes.
Ah am not a crook! (\(-__-)/)
More Slashdot Editors and Users have Tivos than know how to write a grammatically correct sentence.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
When you have to pay $13 a month to receive the channel listing through TiVo when you already get them through your cable box it is not worth it. Replay TV has a free monthly service but you pay outragous prices to get it.
I would much rather get it from my cable company for $10 extra a month and no upfront costs. Even if the features aren't as good as TiVos.
Another week, another article proclaiming the death of TiVo. Notice how it's posted by a magazine focused on advertising? Of course they want TiVo to fail, it provides the means for skipping all their boring advertisements.
Will TiVo fail? Possibly. Will it become useless? No. Due to their open architecture, people can and already have hacked the TV guide info, and if/when the day comes they go under, hackers will be able to take up the call and keep the service going.
I hope that day doesn't come, since this well designed hardware and software.
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
Prevent exposure! Cover your TiVo with a Maple Leaf. Wait, TiVo not available in Canada? Oh well. Guess I can't buy it then. They'll continue to decline. And I'll have to use a fig leaf instead.
But not for the reasons they are pointing out.
Quite frankly since the PC is a commodity and and priced at very low levels so anyone with any technical saavy can build their own TiVo with a copy of Gnu/RedHat, some Radio Shack cabling and some common open source software tools. I've personally built prototypes of these units for a large client who shall remain nameless and I was able to come in under $200. Plus it's all open and non-propretary and thus I can charge my client to go back and make any mods they want as they go forward to the next level in the future.
I'm generally not a big fan of open source and anit-capitalist solutions but this is the perfect one where "The Shoe Fits" as it were.
Warmest regards,
--Jack
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
I am a proud Tivo owner and it is fabulous. For what is offers the price isn't bad. I have turned several people on to Tivo. Most of them did not realize what it did exactly.
I would imagine that if they were to shift their marketing strategy to reflect a "go to the store and play with it" attitude they will do a bit better.
If they were able to get the press-here-to-record-during-commercials feature to work better AND let the general public know about it.
I, for one, am not quite sure at what point the following capabilities will be included with all standard cable television subscriptions.
- Auto recording of your shows while you're away, allowing you to watch TV at your convenience (just tell Tivo you like TechTV and it'll archive every episode automagically)
- Ability to pause live TV and play them back time-delayed when you return (great for bathroom and junk food breaks whenever you need one)
Yes, maybe a decade or so down the road these will be commonplace, but for the next 7 years, I wouldn't ditch my Tivo
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Despite the relatively low market penetration, I am a bit suspicious as to the motives behind this story. Doesn't AdAge have a vested interest in seeing devices such as TiVo fail? This article has a decent analysis of the financial aspect behind the subscription model, but nary a word about the impact on advertisers from the loss of revenue due to skipping commercials? Poor jornalism, this should be filed under op-ed for ad-execs and the major networks.
TiVO uses Linux on a custom PowerPC chip fabricated by IBM that includes MPEG-2 encode/decode on the chip and the source is available from TiVO website. When the cable/satellite companies start building PVRs into their boxes, what OS do you think they will use - Windows Embedded? Perhaps QNX but most certainly Linux. More Linux jobs, hooray for Open Source!
Too bad that TiVO may not be able to recover their investment or may have to morph into a PVR system software developer/consultant. But their name will live forever has the few OpenSource ventures that 'changed the world'. And that ain't so bad.
Oh do you really think that if Democrats held some/all of the power that everything in the world would be find and dandy. World hunger would disappear. Terrorism would vanish. Cable companies would magically offer 10,000 different stations all in 10Megabit/sec clarity using 10.8 Digital SuperOctaQuadraphoic surround sound for 2.99 a year?
No matter who is in office you are going to have the same problems. The democrats bow down to big business just as much as any other party. If they were in power, the cable companies would just "pressure" them the exact same way they do now. Power corrupts. Don't make this into a political pissing match when it has noting to do with politics.
I don't know about others, but DirectTV is not rolling out "their own", they are partnering with... Tivo.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Does anyone know where I can get the specifications for "Advanced Program Guide" (Directtv's tradename for the guide data they spit out the serial port.)
I want to support the format, but I need the specifications. (For a PVR device.)
The article was written by AdAge. They hate such PVR devices. It's bad for the advertising business.
TiVo allows you to fast forward over ads, although legal pressure prevented TiVo from skipping ads altogether.
Okay, so they're saying people shouldn't buy Tivo because people are going to stop buying Tivo. Aren't they causing people to stop buying Tivo by telling people Tivo will fail because people aren't going to buy it?
Anybody can make anything sound bad by lining up the negatives.
I'm assuming Tivo doesn't own a patent on their TV recording technology. This will be good for us in the long run but bad for them because as soon as something becomes a commodity, it's hard to make a buck off it. If they were smarter, I think they would have patented the thing (or bought the patent from whoever owns it) and licensed it out for zero to little cash until a large market for such devices arises. Then charge a reasonable rate for a proven/valuable technology.
Blender And Linux Fan
I loved my Amiga....
hated AOL...
I should hire out as a consultant :)
If you consider
- the source of the story and
- that many TiVo users enjoy skipping through advertisements and
- that advertising forms the bread and butter livelihood of the readers of that particular periodical,
then the bent of that story is fairly predictable."Provided by the management for your protection."
I have a DirecTivo, and love it. I couldn't imagine life without it. Recently, I got a letter from DirecTV that from now on, my DirecTivo service was going to be referred to as "DirecTV PVR" and the monthly charge was going to be cut in half.
OK. The service hasn't changed. It's still Tivo software and interface. The monthly cost is half of what it was. The only down side is it records more "Special Preview" nonsense from DirecTV. Tivo still gets paid, and DirecTV has more reason to sell this great technology. What's the problem supposed to be?
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
I'm not sure how PVRs can become commodities, given that they require regular connections to a server in order to know what's on and when.
Regardless of this one company's fate, PVR is a technology that is here to stay if only for the adopters so far. I have a replayTV and I am never going back to normal tv. This is now a market and the people who fill it are mostly fanatics by now.
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence. Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1845
They're using declining sales and stock prices as the primary data to come to these conclusions. Have they not noticed that our economy is (pardom me) in the outhouse?
I'm not getting a steady paycheck right now, and I've cancelled my cell phone and stopped buying any non-essential household item. That means no computers, no stereo equipment, and certainly no PVRs. When this country has a bit more disposable income to throw around, then you can more accurately predict this sort of thing.
Money I owe, money-iy-ay
has anybody noticed that the website is a news site about advertisements? I would imagine that they would honestly not support something that would REMOVE advertisements, which is something that their market relies on.
honestly though, I have to wonder how long the ad-zapping will be around, or if perhaps in the future some ads won't be able to be zapped... who knows... I do think that PVR is here to stay however, even if it is just a 'digital video recorder'...
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
And in other news buggy whip manufacturers predict a strong comeback in
2003.
Of course adworld hates the Tivo, it is the best way to circumvent their revenue model.
There are probably less Bentley automobiles and Lear Jets than outhouses too... is anyone
predicting their imminent doom?
Tivos are a luxury item that threaten the status quo, what's funny is adworld feels the need to
denounce them now when market penetration is so
light... methinks they doth protest too much.
TiVo is an example where word-of-mouth should be working. Whenever we have friends over they're curious about the TiVo, but they don't really understand why it's good. We let them test drive it, and invariably they go away impressed; sometimes it's pausing live TV when the phone rings, sometimes it's looking at "Now Showing" and seeing your favorite shows waiting for you to watch, sometimes it's looking through the Season Pass Manager or the search for programs features or the suggestions or the interactive program guide. Regardless, TiVo presents an impressive package and our friends go away impressed.
We have DirecTV with TiVo integrated; the integrated package really is nice and simple. My wife is anti-TV and anti-technology, but she loves TiVo because it makes the small amount of TV she does watch simpler and more flexible. We find the service easily worth $10/month (and the price recently went down).
People at TiVo must be scratching their heads since they have such a great product and people just don't get it; word-of-mouth and trying it out seem to be the only ways people get it.
that this was written by the industry who stands to lose bigtime from PVR usage...
The general concept of the Tivo reminds me a lot of the Guide Plus that many manufacturers put into their VCRs a lot more advanced. I can see where in the near future the service part of Tivo will be something that is just integrated into Cable and Satellites broadcast. That might lead to the end of Tivo, but for now I only see them gaining ground in the market.
Advertising Age published this article. Tivo et al allow people to stop watching stupid advertisements. If advertisements become irrelevant, than Advertising Age becomes irrelevant. Therefore it is in AA's best interest to try to convince people that technologies such as Tivo are failing so that fewer people will buy them. It's market manipulation plain and simple.
======
Belief is beyond reason. I believe because it is absurd.
So, if I buy a digital cable terminal with built-in PVR, and I switch to satellite TV, can I use the PVR from my digital cable box? Or, do I have to get a Satellite TV box with it's own PVR?
BTW, do these standalone devices like TiVo have their own digital decoder, or can they only record the channel that the digital cable box has selected? It's annoying not being able to watch something different to what's being recorded.
Here's their revenue stream * Licensing to DirecTV and others of a very smooth technology and a very nice layout of their remote (could use a few more buttons for when I use my DVD, etc.) * Quick bux from lifetime subscribers, but that's killing the golden goose * Slow bux from monthly subscribers (can DirecTiVos even get a lifetime sub?) * Paid downloaded commercials -- wouldn't be so bad if I could wipe 'em from the main window once I'd seen 'em * Fees from "Click here to record" on commercials -- rarely seen these days. I think only NBC uses it. Given that some VCRs have 30-sec skip, some TV's have 'mute for 30 sec' mode, the adsellers should have little to complain about TiVo specifically. And since I TiVo many programs without commercials (Rough Science to Sopranos), it doesn't apply at all! Advertisers should learn one thing: grab me quick in the first few seconds, and I might watch the whole commercial, or display really really cool stuff in the last few seconds and I might back up. ABC has had advertising in the margins during the "Next Week On" segments for years. And if you TiVo users out there don't know already: Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select for 30-sec skip mode on the SkipToEnd button. Every software upgrade nukes that setting, so it's good to memorize.
Design for Use, not Construction!
can't be true, 'else how could we have wound up as one of the "Top 10 Companies of 2002"(tm) , on fuddle's search thingy? what a bre\ak for US? we're # 2 on there, in case you can't guess.
there's just no escaping the good gnus i guess.
In the UK BSKYB have licensed the TiVo technology to make their Sky+ boxes. So TiVo are alive an well as long as BSKYB is alive and well, and seeing as BSKYB is the dominant satellite television network in the UK, I'd say that in the medium to long term, TiVo is pretty save as a company, if not a consumer unit.
Thad
...outhouses have been around longer!
...when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
More people wipe with Advertising Age than read it!!!
More people have sex with animals than read "Advertising Age". What this means for ad-copy writers has not yet been determined.
#1 Make a Tivo that has a wireless card built it.
#2 TCP/IP Support (No more phone line use)
#3 Built in Apache with web based admin for scheduling and downloading shows for archive
Tivo was the first to market, if they just kept up with the trends they will be fine. I know there are legal ramifications for some of these, but we know the technology is there. It will happen, so why not be first? (All of these are already availible as aftermarket mods)
If the VCR is being replaced by DVD as ABC said on the news last night, then a "Tivo" becomes the obvious thing to have once there's no more VCR in cluttering your space. Half the point of a VCR - playing rentals - has gone away now that half the households have DVD. The other half is better filled by Tivo than VCR, especially since the DVD has us spoiled for digital "quality."
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
So TiVo has a technology that all cable resellers will need in order to compete?
Why not license it to the resellers? They can keep adding features and stay ahead of the pack.
Personally, I essentially stopped watching TV 2 years ago. So, why would I need a PVR device at all? TiVo or generic PVR, it doesn't really make a difference because there's nothing I want to watch anyway!
The only thing Microsoft could make that wouldnt suck would be a vacuum clearner. It would blow.
siri
Bankruptcy 1995
it predicts the next few years under republican rule!
So why the hell is Tivo not going into that business???
They have the oppertunity to to use their business and skills to be 'the' standard for PVR.
Here again, Linux is a killer TTM tool..
SO GET GOING!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, nothing makes somebody look cool like correcting grammar on a message board. Those are the guys who ALWAYS get the ladies.
Or is there something in the DVD agreement that prohibits this?
There are probably less Bentley automobiles and Lear Jets than outhouses too... is anyone
predicting their imminent doom?
Read the article.
The point is, people buy Tivo for its functionality, not for its name brand. Tivo does not have enough market penetration to compete with upcoming alternatives which will be rolled out on a very wide scale and will provide the same functionality.
Well two working, and one for parts, and I have to agree that Tivo (the company) is the walking dead.
I declined to buy lifetime subscriptions to their service since I didn't expect them to be around that long, and it was the lifetime of the individual TiVo box. There is a reason I have a TiVo that is just for parts.
Both of the working ones have web access, network cards, and two huge drives. I plan to add the 4 drive adapter in the near future.
It was a cool idea. But with several open source projects to build a PVR out of commodity parts, and the potential to tie several homebuilt ones together in a PVR cluster, I really don't see what TiVo has to offer to the people that are most likely to buy a TiVo. Especially since you can get TV guide information with any of the ATI TV tuner cards.
It is a shame that TiVo (the company) got to spend all of that money showing people what could be done, only to be trampled by all of the cable box and satellite decoder manufacturers running out to implement the "TiVo" idea.
Such is life.
HOORAY FOR REPUBLICANS!!!
Maybe the magazine/author had an axe to grind but the fact is, Tivo and ReplayTV has never had a very large market penetration. In fact, I don't personally know of any one who owns either one.
I think the reason is simply price. I would love to be able to use the features of these 2 products, pause live tv, skip commericals on playback, very easy recording of tv shows. But the truth is, this type of convenience is not worth the $400, $500, $600, or more that they charge for the unit. That's in addition to the monthly fee.
For approximately the same amount of money, I can take my whole family camping every weekend thru the summer and have a lot more fun!
Also, I don't think it helped ReplayTV when their units began requiring broadband access in order to download the program guide and software updates. Most people in the country still don't have broadband access.
Enjoy your life, it's the only one you've got!
Or...
People want money.
People invent scams to defraud other people of their money.
People bribe legislators to legalize and entrench these scams, making even more money.
The desire to make money drives fraud.
Fraud needs no "push" from government, but it sure doesn't hurt...
Not demo-republicans, real democrats. Those of us who still believe that the individual is more important than any corporation. That monopolies actually need to be regulated, and that (many/most) people running (larger) corporations really can't be trusted to look beyond the latest stock price
That was one of the best advertising campaigns ever... i.e. shopper goes into a store and asks to see the range of 'Hoovers' on offer rather than 'Vacuum Cleaners'.
Ever since Mr. Dyson got rejected (when designing the Dyson) by Hoover, and then when he was successful (Hoover and other companies 'magically' come up with thier own cyclone system) with the Dyson, he bans anyone using the term 'Hoovering' in his presense... who can blame him!
Although I've tried changing the term Hoovering to Dysoning when I help my parents when cleaning the Pub, which hasn't caught on too well... but we've had ours for four years and it is still going strong, the replacement parts we needed were the handle and the bumper (which got too many bumps). When they sent us a warranty renewal form, they still grant us the ability to get a new one if our one needs replacing!
Wow, to think this thread started off on the TiVO subject. I wouldn't have thought us geeks could be so interested in vacuum cleaners... but we need to reiterate just how strong the suction is on these modern cleaners, just in case any cheap thrill ideas (think Austin Powers and his 'personal' collection) turn out to become below waist lipo(and sausage) suction jobs! Careful now!
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
I never thought the numbers would be so high! Imagine, 27.7% of tivo users only record movies!
but things like patents and copyrights discourage competition. The name of the game is to gain as much market share as possible and then do whatever is cheapest to keep that share.
If you really believe that (let's say AOL just to avoid flaming) AOL has innovated as much as it would have in the face of real competition, you just kidding yourself and have a limited imagination. It's only now that other providers are starting to eat into AOL share that they are getting back on the innovation wagon. And it's only because the other provider has deep pockets that they can afford to toss money at the issue (If quality matter, they would have been gone a lonnnng time ago).
It's than, not then.
Luckily, after checking the actual article, I am indeed gratified to find out that the author of the article DID go to grade school afterall.
1. It wasn't a message. It was an article posting.
2. I'm married so I already got the lady.
3. Profit!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
You're forgetting that the desire to make money doesn't drive innovation. Innovation only occurs when there's competition, and competition tends to die when large companies have too much say in government, which is what happens when Republicans are in charge. Look at big business' contributions to each party to see which party they think will benefit them the most. Big business contributed $60M to the recent Republican US election runs, four to five times the amount received by Democrats. The bigger the business the less they'll be interested in innovation since they'll be more eager to maintain control of their market. It's easier to control your market by shutting out competition than by innovating.
As an example look at the phone company. Before the Bell breakup they made plenty of money and produced probably nothing innovative, at least nothing that benefited the consumer. Innovation requires a push from government in the form of anti-monopolistic policies.
May I ask how ?
I was under the impression that I would need
- a case $50
- a motherboard $50
- a processor $50
- a hard drive $100
Ok, I'm already over $200. I may be quoting high prices, but under $200, I don't know how you do it. I still need memory, a capture card. And how can I build something that is fairly silent, and that I can control with a remote?
But the question we really want answered is "How many outhouses have Tivos?"
The only way Tivo will "lose" is if PVRs become illegal, or no one uses them. Neither of which will happen.
...when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.
It was the Tivo UI that really made my decision between Tivo and ReplayTV. I saw a new
More people have outhouses than subscribe to AdAge magazine.
Analyst's predict AdAge will be out of business by the end of the year, citing a report that shows giving away a magazine filled with advertising, and who's content IS ADVERTISING, just wasn't a profitable business model.
One unnamed AdAge manager had this to say, "We thought we had a winner, a magazine ABOUT advertising. We could charge for the ads, and for the stories. But then our polling showed no one likes ads...damn"
As the cable providers try to introduce their own PVRs, they will have to pay Tivo directly to do it. Like MicroSoft and their Ultimate TV, they will have to license it all from Tivo.
OK, hear me out. I'm just not getting the whole "TiVo is da bomb and if you're still using VCRs then you're human refuse" tone. It's not just from these posts but in general.
:)
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a limit to the amount of space you can store programs on a TiVo. What happens if I want to see an episode of Alias I recorded three weeks ago, or the Laverne & Shirley christmas episode I caught on Nick at Nite last year, or "All You Need is Cash" I happened to catch five years ago?** I'm pretty much stuck.
While the commercial skip feature is nice, it's not so much better than the fast forward button to warrant an additional expense. (Plus as an added bonus you can pop in an old tape from several years back. Commercials make fun nostalgia.)
Plus with a VCR, I can tell my friend, "Hey I missed Buffy last night, did you tape it?". Again, I could be wrong, but I don't know if TiVo offers such a feature.
And one argument I've seen in like half-a-dozen posts is how "bulky" VCRs are. Is 3 square feet of shelf space really that precious?
Now I'm not saying Tivos are bad. I'm just stating VCRs are good too.
** Feel free to make fun of my recording choices
- And...
- Roller Blades (in-line skates)
- Chap Stick (lip balm)
- Excel (speadsheet)
- Walkman (portable tape player)
- Discman (portable CD player)
It sure is fun when there is some rule that says walkmen and discmen are not allowed, and you swear up and down that the device in your posession is not a Sony product.TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
All the good shows are generally on at bizarre hours when people dont have the time to watch them, or are at work, or just are too busy in general. Tivo has made TV worthwhile again, with it, you weed out those shows you "dispise" .. You'll NEVER see them again! EVER ! How cool is that? To me it sounds like TIVO is your holy grail. I had basic cable because when I watched TV nothing was on. It was all crap. A friend got a Tivo and I liked how it grabbed Sienfeld at the odd hours .. I got my own, and now I have full DIGITAL cable, with 6 HBOs, and my Tivo is OVERFLOWING with documentries, great comedy skits, and some really fantastic movies on Independent Film Channel! TV *rocks*, but only with a TIVO.
1) Gee, an advertising magazine saying that a product that allows skipping advertising is going to fail. There's a surprise.
2) If you don't own Tivo, you don't understand. I have a DirectTv/Tivo system. I can record two things at once, program wish lists, record something after it starts (I'm watching it, decide the wife would like it, so tell it to record the whole program). it records stuff in free space, based on what I watch, some of which I actually watch.
Why do you think every PVR device (DirectTV, UltimateTV, Replay, etc etc) all PAY Tivo for use of their patents?
"3) PVR will become a standard feature for most television users but become as unbranded as programmable VCRs." Even on that case You will still need a central company that creates and broadcasts the service and indexing to all the PVR's enabled systems... That company will be most likely TiVo: Since tivo: Only makes money fro the service not from the hardware, unlike other PVR's. Rememver TiVo is a service provider that can modify it's target market if the environment changes.
BSD licensed software can't be stolen....
Their low end unit, including installation of a _third_ dish (to get the sat that'll carry the bulk of thier HDTV programming) cost me $200.
That's for the 501 model...(up to 30 hour recording capacity), but there AREN'T ANY 501's anymore. They give you the 508 which has a 80gb drive good for about 60 hours of recording.
I don't have a thumbsup/thunmbs down button, but that MAY not be a bad thing. We're watching more TV now than we did before getting the PVR AND it's stuff we want to watch.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Not only do you STILL see parts of the Ads. I'm finding that I still watch the commercials I want to. (mmmmm 4 disk Lord of the Rings DVD - November 12th) Further, it's easy to forget you're watching something pre-recorded and you end up watching the commercials anyway.
It doesn't dull that crack-whore-rapid-fire hitting of the +30 seconds button when you're watchin live T.V. though.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
The assumption that TiVo as it is known now will go away is quite possibly true if my case is indicative. I do believe that the name "TiVo" will stick for awhile, and perhaps the company will make some money from selling it, but otherwise ...
... we moved to a small community not long ago that is serviced by an independent cable retailer. Most of the TiVo listings were off by 3 hours (pacific network schedules versus eastern network schedules).
;)
I bought a TiVo about 6 months ago. I'd known about them for a long time, but just didn't feel the features I wanted (HDTV/component signal primarily) were there so I kept waiting. I finally found a display model at Sears for $60 with 20 hour capacity and picked it up and hacked in a bigger drive.
I chose not to do a lifetime activation because I wasn't 100% sure I would keep this unit for long enough for it to be economical.
Turns out I was probably right
I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but TiVo only lets you get 3 channels adjusted at a time due to a limitation in their ticketing system. It's been 2+ months and I still have 2 channels left with bad schedules. Without a decent schedule, TiVo is almost worthless.
I investigated the satellite options and have decided to wait another 6-12 months. At that time it looks pretty solid that the satellite companies will have an HDTV PVR option. It might even be an option sooner but I'm not banking on it. At that point I will gladly give up my TiVo.
It's just not worth the bad quality recordings (which are more the fault of the local cable company, but suck nonetheless), missed programs (TiVo and the cable company are equally at fault here) and the inability to use my HDTV (again, equally both are at fault).
Once I have a PVR that is scheduled by the same company (satellite) that actually programs the broadcasts, I doubt I will have programming issues, either. Plus, it sounds like the satellite PVRs record the data stream directly meaning a virtually perfect recording.
We don't use more than 20-30 hours of recording unless we are heading out on vacation, so going HDTV should not dent my PVR storage as badly as the folks who archive lots of programs. Plus, more than half of the storage we use is for my wife's ancient Law & Order, ER and Trading Spaces, so maybe I won't mind more strict recording limitations
I love the idea of TiVo, and I don't -wish- them to go away, but in my case brand loyalty is nowhere near as big a force as all the detriments with the current model.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
I don't want a subscription to some service, I want a device that gives me more flexible and powerful recording options than I get from the typical VCR. They also need to be easy to upgrade, e.g. add a bigger HD - in fact they should support at least two at a time.
Personally I think the price premium charged for devices with the bigger drives and hence recording time is completely ridiculous when you consider the cost of HDs.
So come on guys bring us a device that can take the place of my VCR and I'll buy it.
...They will be bought out by Sony Corporation.
It's not a far-fetched idea. After all, Sony makes TiVo boxes, licensed the technology for Sony-branded PVR boxes sold in Japan and Sony has openly supported Linux, the OS behind TiVo.
I think TiVo will really thrive with Sony's powerful engineering and technical resources, especially since Sony is one of the most powerful brand names on this planet, period.
Now people will know what it felt like to have an Amiga all those years ago.
I guess now Tivo can go into the lucrative basement clean room industry, or even the untapped market of the mutant keyboard.
You are paying for the program guide, not the unit. Yes, TiVo makes the majority of its profits off the subscriptions, but it is not losing money on the units themselves.
Now, without the program guide, you lose most of the features that make TiVo great, but it's still a functional PVR, and at about the minimum cost you could make such a device for.
And the program guide has to cost money, because it costs TiVo a lot of money to prepare the information, provide dial-in phone lines, and fend off the Gemstar patent lawsuits.
-Alison
Slightly off topic, they claim that SonicBlue bought up a number of companies including ReplayTV and "Rio", a maker of MP3 players. Do these idiots forget that, in fact, Diamond Multimedia made the Rio, and the TNT Riva and TNT2 Riva line of Video cards? And Monster Sound cards based on the Vortex 2 chip? Bah- I love my TiVo like I'd love a child.
My first experience with TiVo zealotry made me think the zealots were crazy, but I am now converted to a zealot myself. It's even more fun for geeks; you can make hardware changes (more disk and a network adapter) and software changes (telnet, ftp, video extraction, caller ID on the screen, etc.)
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Anyone with a subscribed TiVo will know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't evangelize or even recommend these things due to that thing which I can't remove.
I know you can enable backdoors and delete the hidden recording, but not all of them work that way.
Either they put it somewhere else, give us control over our hardware, or they can wither and die from a lack of support. This, incidentally, is the same kind of geek-driven support that got them so well-known in the first place.
I like the fact that I don't have to know about the latest lowest common denominator crap that's coming down the pipe in terms of movies and music. Having that thing on the main menu means it starts showing up on my radar. Screw that.
For now, I just hit the tivo button twice while turning on the TV, so it's gone before the set warms up. Then I just curse them any time I need to get to the system menu and have to arrow up once to get past that stupid thing.
Other than the reference design, TiVo IS more of a software than a hardware company. All of the TiVo PVRs are made by either Phillips or Sony.
TiVo wouldn't care if someone started giving away TiVo boxes, as long as they were still selling their service, which is their revenue stream.
Most obvious thing wrong with this article: It states that the inclusion of PVR features will be the downfall of TiVo/ReplayTV.
Um, how? DishPVR = rebranded ReplayTV
DirectTV's PVR system used to be known as DirecTiVo - It's no longer called that, but it's still a TiVo system that TiVo is making money off of.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I'm a TiVo fan though, so of course I would never recommend this television to anyone!
The 60-hour Series 2 TiVo is $350 - $50 rebate from Best Buy, and probably any other electronics store. Without the subscription, you can still pause live TV, and record shows if you know the date and time. You lose the option to do season pass, thumbs up/down, suggestions, etc, but you do have better than VCR functionality anyway.
-Alison
Dish Network doesn't have its own home brew PVR.
Dish Network has rebranded ReplayTV.
Which renders the article incorrect, since both Dish (ReplayTV) and DirecTV's (TiVo) offerings are rebrands of the companies the article says will fail because of these satellite PVRs...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Apparently the technology is good technology.... and it will become ubiquitous. There will continue to be people engineering the product to improve it for this or that. The people who developed the product got their payoff and made themselves a lot more valuable. AdAge cares more about branding and marketability than product development. Well, I don't! I'm glad that people won't be able to push a brand over merit.
An advertising journal predicts that a piece of technology that lets you skip ads will fail? Well I'm shocked, deeply shocked I must say... its not as if they have an axe to grind, is it?
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
Outhouses then Tivos. In that order?
I have a tivo in my outhouse. I wonder if that throws things off a bit.
Time Warner is shipping the Scientific-Atlanta Explorer 8000 set top box with built in PVR functions. It is definitely not Tivo based! The software is somewhat buggy but functional.
They charge $10 extra per month. There were no up front costs. From my understanding it is about $3 cheaper per month than if I went out today and bought a Tivo based unit.
It has a dual tuner. You can record two shows while watching a third. This is probably similar to the Direct TV Tivo units.
One interesting note: I called to report some bugs and found out that Time Warner is writing the software. They started with software from Scientific-Atlanta and have been tweaking it. I was a little surprised by it.
While it is not as polished as a Tivo, it works well. My wife is a convert (she didn't understand why I wanted one). She now loves it.
These "I'm too cool for TV" posts couldn't be more draining. No one cares that you're one of the 50 people that choose to NOT have a TV.
Here's Didion Sprague's prediction:
AdAge -- probably run by a majority of old, white men in expensive suits who drive Lexus', who "drop in" the AdAge offices every so often in their pink golf shirts to see what's going on and to tell everybody that they can't really stay long because they have a "ten o'clock" and then a 2:15 tee-time -- will post lower-than-expected quarterly results in the coming months.
Didion Sprague also predicts that many of these silver-haired white guys in expensive suits will (a) cheat on their significant others, (b) buy expensive scotch and pretend to appreciate it, (c) wonder if it's time to retire because they'd like to "watch their grandchildren grow up", and (d) suffer the "old white guy" indignity of having their affairs rumored throughout the office on AIM and MSN Messenger yet will continue to pursue "face time" with young women like Alyssa, the cute young intern on the fourth floor who "has this weird thing" for older men and who -- after her older man decides to quietly call it off over braised salmon one afternoon in a quiet, little, out-of-way place in TriBeCa -- decides to pack it up and call it quits and head back to graduate school because all the (older) guys she dated in Manhattan were such gutless pimps and heartless shits.
Yet at the very moment that young women like Alyssa are on the United flights back to places like Ames, Iowa and Normal, Illinois and Duluth, Minnesota, the old white guys will be back on the golf courses yukking it up and talking about birdies and eagles and wondering if they oughta hire some more interns like that Alyssa on the fourth floor and then laugh about it and then put it out of their heads until they come home, sit down at dinner in their big houses and remind themselves that they really don't like their wives and wonder how in the world they can be old enough to have a son off at Michigan and a daughter about to head to Boston.
Then they'll schedule more tee-times, "drop in" the AdAge offices yet again and talk about their "ten o'clocks" and "two o'clocks" and whisper their stock trades into their StarTacs, all the while oggling the latest intern who just got hired and needs someone to show them around the offices and get them situated on their first day.
Guys like these will volunteer, of course, and then take Britney around to all their guy buddies and ask Britney how's she's holding up what with meeting all these new people and experiencing the rush of business in a place like AdAge where everything is snap, snap, snap and if you can't deal with snap, snap, snap then you'll probably want to head back to Nebraska where life is a little less hectic but, by the way, are you doing anything for lunch because there's this nice little place in TriBeCa where they make wonderful braised salmon, I haven't tried it but I've heard about, would you be interested?
And golden haired Britney, understanding that life on Madison Avenue is pretty cool and exciting just nods and says, yeah, I'd love it, I love salmon. My mom likes salmon, too!
Ok, Michael. For the last time:
It's "than", not "then".
And it's "compatibility", not "compatability".
...but how many have both?
Why do you think every PVR device (DirectTV, UltimateTV, Replay, etc etc) all PAY Tivo for use of their patents?
Could you provide some data/links to prove this? I am not at all sure that it's true.
My Tivo is such a part of my life now, I find myself reaching for the console to rewind live radio streams when I'm driving in the car. I'm always struck by a Homer Simpson "D'Oh!" realizing that my radio hasn't caught up to my TV, but I'm willing to pay for the same concept in a car stereo. Really, the technology is there, why don't they exist?
Didn't get the traffic report?
Didn't understand the words to that song?
Didn't hear where the Beltway Sniper hit his last victim?
Just hit the button on your car radio. It should even be inexpensive, because the scheduling isn't so important. Just pause and rewind... that's all I'm asking for.
All products connected to cable tv broadcasts are at the mercy of the cable company. Right now, the only way to integrate with my digital cable box is via the infared remote receiver. This is an unreliable and feature poor interface. There is no incentive for cable companies to cooperate with PVR vendors. I believe this is an area that needs gov't regulation.
You are all forgetting that TiVo has all of the patents relating to PVR technology and all of their competitors are licensing the technology from them. So even if TiVo doesn't sell lots of PVR's, they still get cut of their competitor's sales.
If PVRs become a commodity, as the article predicts, then whither advertising? If the average viewer can't be counted on to actually watch the typical 30-second commercial in the middle of the show, will advertisers stick with them? Or will we see a return of the 1950s model of an advertiser sponsoring an entire show (perhaps with a bug over the credits or the beginning of each act or whatnot)? Will product placements become more important? PVRs may have created an arms race for advertisers, but I rather doubt that the advertisers will just fold up their tents. It will be interesting to see what sorts of creative tactics they use in response. Hopefully, it won't involve lawyers, DMCA-ish provisions, or the like....
Just a quick thanks to those people who've educated me on the Tivo, especially those who explained how it can work in conjunction with the VCR.
:)
I'm probably not going to get one, but at least I'll now look into it.
P.S. Please don't mod this post. I'm not fishing for moderation points here
Fuck that, I'll TiVo it and watch it in the morning.
sulli
RTFJ.
The only reason that I haven't bought Tivo is because of the service fee, and the absurd cost of Tivo if you get an unlimited service that is tied to the box, and not to the customer.
I've got WAY too many bills to pay per month already - phone, cell phone, TV, electricity, water, gas, isp, insurance, gym. I simply will not add another $15/mo just to add extra features to my TV watching abilities.
On top of that Tivo lost me as a potential customer because they have decided not take the leap into the 21st century.
1) If they had added a network interface to the boxes, and used the internet to do the scheduling updates rather than using an expensive phoneline service. That drops the cost of the service to near zero. Also the network capabilities could add a web interface, and backing up of recorded shows.
2) Build a DVD/CD burner into the box, and allow you to burn shows to disc and play them back on a computer etc. DVD burners and media are getting cheaper, so this is feasible.
Until ANY box can do these things for an affordable cost I'm staying away. I dislike being bound and gagged while watching a closed circuit box.
As an example look at the phone company. Before the Bell breakup they made plenty of money and produced probably nothing innovative, at least nothing that benefited the consumer.
Yeah, Bell Labs never invented anything that you use every day
I'm sorry, but I believe that you are wrong. Can you post some proof that the Dish Network has a rebranded ReplayTV?
Everything that I've ever heard about the various instances of the Dish Network PVR (the first Dishplayers, then the 501/508 series, and now the 721 series, which I believe all run different software) said that Dish did the software themselves. Searching on SonicBlue's site (parent company of ReplayTV) shows no hits having anything to do with Dish Network except that their standalone unit works with cable, DirecTV or Dish Networks. You would think that that would be something they would at least mention on their website.
I own TiVo integrated with DirecTV, and the combination is better than standalone for several reasons:
The article might be right that the future is an integrated commoditized TiVo, but from my point of view it's win/win/win for me/DirecTV/TiVo; I get a convenient reliable feature-rich system; DirecTV gets a happy customer; and TiVo gets a solid distribution channel. Sounds like a good outcome.
BTW, Rio is used by Sonic Blue as a brand and not only as a product line.
forget hardware for a moment, It's not all about the hardware. Matter of fact, I have two 800Mhz PC's with WinTV capture cards, Linux, and Freevo. These work in the place of Tivo, and offer me the ability to play with the underlying linux distro without voiding anything. I would never buy a TiVo. I will get the PVR with my satallite system, but for now, I just use my Freevo Boxes... I know that /. has run a story on them... check the hardware lists out. It's easy to build and sweet to run.
Percentage of people that NEED to sh*t: 100
Percentage of people that NEED to record "Friends" without ads: 0
...the business model -- subsidizing manufacturers and relying on subscriptions for profits -- was not viable.
Why not? People view PVR as an applicance, like a DVD player, not as a service, like satellite TV. I don't have one, though I would really like one. The reason? I don't want or need any additional guides, services, or communication with a server. I just want a hard drive that plays back video in real time.
This business model is a dancing bear type of deal...it's amazing that the bear can dance at all, let alone well. Eventually, this stuff will get standardized enough that the price will fall to a profitable level and all of this subscription B.S. will fall to the wayside.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
#2 makes no sense, because as far as I can tell, they're Tivo boxes integrated with recievers ala DirectTivo, etc...
One of Tivo's problems, to me, is that they really don't have any clue how to market themselves. Most people I know have heard of Tivo, but think its just a VCR with a hard disk. Once people see what Tivo can really do, theyre floored. Obviously, Tivo needs to do a better job of showing people what they can do.
They don't need commercials that say "Tivo will change the way you watch TV", they need commercials that show the thing in action.
I just ordered a Tivo-capable DirecTV receiver yesterday. I got the receiver for $197 through DirecTV, and the installation and dual-LNB dish are free.
I think AdAge is off with this article since most "other brand" systems are using one of the original networks (Tivo,UltimateTV,etc)
/. users is do you think that the ReplayTV (which has a lot of advanced features and is definitely more oriented at this crowd) has a fighting chance in the PVR market? Or do you think there will be a Tivo monopoly?
My question to
85% of Americans think this signature sucks
I am not sure that I would buy one now at current prices, but I bought a 20 hour Tivo last summer on clearance at Target for $130. I then spent $120 on a 60 gig harddrive (cheaper now)and just upgraded last spring to the lifetime subscription for $200.
Unfortunately, however, last week my Tivo got sick and doesn't work. I am pretty sure the hard drive bit it, and the folks at Western Digital have a replacement in the mail for me as we speak.
But I tell you, the last week and a half of Tivo-less television is driving me crazy. I keep trying to pause live tv, fast forward through commercials, etc. And I can't believe how much junk I have gotten used to filtering out.
I bought Tivo because I thought it would help me make better use of my time. In reality, however, I realize that I watch more television because Tivo gives me more choices of what/how I want to watch.
Without Tivo, television just doesn't hold my attention any more. I realize now more than ever how much normal television is a waste of my time.
More U.S outhouses have moons on the door than copies of AdAge in them.
that I hope gets answered before someone mods it down:
I have digital cable (cheaper than regular cable since we get the cable internet too). Of course, 2 days before I get the job two hours from home we decide to spend $2 more for the 'whole shebang' - all the extra 'premium' channels and whatnot - which I just got for the anime' on the Action network.
My question is am I going to be able to set this thing up to record those channels (on the scheduler, not just by pressing "record this now!")? I know you can record your PPV if you wire the thing after the digital box and whatnot; but I don't do a lot of A/V stuff so I'm curious. If it's in the PVR's manual; just let me know - it's the only thing I am getting for Christmas this year so I'd like to know what I'm getting into...!
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
You are absolutely right about that. Like the half million posters who have pointed out that the Tivo isn't much better than a VCR, can't save stuff forever, and can't loan shows to your friends-- I didn't think they were worth the price at all, and had no intention of spending money on one.
Then I put my name into a drawing a couple of years ago on a whim and won a 14-hour Tivo, which they promptly shipped to my house.
I didn't even have cable TV.
Two weeks later, I was hooked. I have tried and tried to explain how useful, intuitive, time-saving, choice-expanding, and powerful these things are to people, but it doesn't work. Nobody wants one until they've had a chance to fiddle with mine in person for an hour or so, and then they end up buying one. As an example, at the company I am currently consulting for, everyone with a cubicle adjacent to mine has purchased one since I started here a month back, and it's spreading to the next ones.
Tivo has their marketing work cut out for them. Personally, I think they should have more of these giveaways with their old stock-- I'll bet every one of the old 14-hour units they gave away in that contest has come back 10-fold in new customers.
I realize that no one else is going to believe me either, but I hope that somebody will read this and give one an extended test-drive before they decide they're not worth it. Also worth noting-- Tivos have the highest girlfriend-approval rating of any piece of home-theatre equipment you can acquire. One of the guys in the adjacent cubes didn't think his wife would let him buy one, but he borrowed one to show her, and she then insisted that he buy the largest one available.
The biggest problem with integrating the PVR into TV sets is that you can almost guarantee such devices will include powerful DRM capabilities.
As I pointed out in my daily column, the arrival of totally digital TV will see us relinquishing control of our VCR and television set to broadcasters.
If Fox, CBS, NBC or whoever don't want you to record a program, they'll simply enable and disable that function at will -- the button on your remote simply won't work unless they allow it.
Remember who makes many of the TV sets we buy -- Sony and many others who are also content creators with a vested interest in protecting and limiting your ability to copy their intellectual property.
If the PVR is integral to your TV set then it becomes a much harder task to circumvent or ignore any of the draconian DRM that broadcasters might decide to inflict on us.
Oh sure, there'll eventually be a few mod-chips available to help in this process -- but the stand-alone PVR manufactured by indviduals or "offshore" companies who care more about market share than enforcing DRM will be a more common option.
According to Crain Communication, AdAge has a circulation of 70,900 paid subscribers.
I'd be more worried about the future of AdAge than of TiVo.
In that order, eh? So, they get Outhouses, then get TiVos. I wonder what the correlation there is...
- "That's just the kind of fuzzy-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten."
(I like Sci-Fi, they like Westerns, football, and Elvis).
So...just out of sheer morbid curiosity, has there been a Sci-Fi Western that involved football in some way and starred Elvis?
If there was, would you watch it? Hehe.
I sing the doggie electric!
Now kids which is bigger the north american market or the european + asian markets?
At the same time lots of the TiVo US patents are being contested so its questionable how much thier patent portfolio is worth long term.
In fact, I don't personally know of any one who owns either one.
I know several people that do. So much for anecdotal evidence.
I think the reason is simply price. I would love to be able to use the features of these 2 products, pause live tv, skip commericals on playback, very easy recording of tv shows. But the truth is, this type of convenience is not worth the $400, $500, $600, or more that they charge for the unit. That's in addition to the monthly fee.
First, a 60 hour TiVo unit is $300 at Best Buy (after $50 rebate). Second, for years, VCRs cost more than a TiVo does now and they constantly grew in popularity for time-shifting television shows -- despite being less convenient, less reliable, having a much smaller capacity, and producing video of lower quality.
For approximately the same amount of money, I can take my whole family camping every weekend thru the summer and have a lot more fun!
So why not do both. And when you come home from your camping trips, the shows you enjoy will be waiting for you.
I will never understand how people prioritize things. I remember talking to someone who is a smoker, with a habit that probably costs him around $2,000 per year, and he told me that TiVo was too expensive. I see other people who spend a fortune for large projection televisions and then channel surf for hours desperately looking for something to watch -- rather than just buying a TiVo and watching what they want when they want to. Why would someone sit through ten minutes of commercials in every hour of programming that they see. Isn't their time worth anything to them? And the purpose of TV is to entertain. Commercials and an inability to watch what I want when I want detract from the entertainment value.
In closing, I think that it's a good deal for the money.
I'm on the cusp of buying one, but what's holding me back is the monthly service fee. I know I can buy a box lifetime subscription, but the box has to last at *least* two years for this to be worthwhile.
My biggest worry is the HDD going south. Yes, I know I can replace it, although I'd rather not have to (added cost, complexity, etc).
I'm suspecting that I'd use the Tivo for more of a smart VCR (season pass, wish list) than for the pause-live-tv functions.
Reading something like this makes me want to subscribe to the Tivo service out of spite.
It sounds like people in the advertising industry are just whining about their own obselence. Hey, maybe someone will find out their services are over-priced and mostly produced by posers and cannot be proven to deliver results in any quantitative manner. I think the real reason they hate Tivo is not that it shows consumers skip over commercials, but for once there is pretty hard data about which commercials get skipped over: almost all of them except for some beer ads. This essentially gives advertisements a rating system, something that horrifies 75% or more of the industry because they are all banal, worthless, humorless and ineffective hacks.
This just in from Ad Age: people who don't watch compilation tapes of the best commercials of the year don't know what they are missing!
Page 2: We are in an advertising renaissance and all 4 Tivo users don't know what they are missin'.
I have done some research between the different PVR's out there, and would like to add a word of warning to anyone considering TiVo. The $250 lifetime membership applies only to the unit that you purchase. Which means if you upgrade to the next bigger-and-badder T-Machine when it comes out, you have to drop another $250. Those of us who like to have the newest and greatest gadgets might find our turnover rate makes their lifetime membership makes little fiscal sense.
This is exactly right.
By doing this, they are attempting to take the natural market for VCR's as durable goods, and convert them to a subscription-based market, when the people making up the market really don't want to be converted.
The reason this will not fail with the satellite and cable boxes is that, when the digital video recorder is integrated there, the incremental value can be cost-amortized over an existing subscription model: it's an already tolerant market, and the incremental value of the recorder will end up raising overall costs, as it becomes a feature checkbox item between competing service providers.
A similar problem exists for Hotmail: their "captive audience" for their up-sell attempts consists entirely of "the set of people who will not pay money for web email". I expect Hotmail to stay around for the ulterior motives ("Got a Hotmail login? Then you've got a Microsoft Passport!"), but I don't ever expect it to be a money maker instead of a loss-leader.
Maybe an example more apropo this forum would be the Microsoft attempt to convert OS users to a su
scription model (also doomed to failure, unless they can leverage their monopoly to force the change... and it may -- thankfully -- be to late for that).
-- Terry
Advertising Age goes out of business as all Tivo owners ignore their ads.
Film at, well it's Tivo whenever you want.
First, a 60 hour TiVo unit is $300 at Best Buy (after $50 rebate). Second, for years, VCRs cost more than a TiVo does now and they constantly grew in popularity for time-shifting television shows -- despite being less convenient, less reliable, having a much smaller capacity, and producing video of lower quality.
They grew in popularity when the price dropped. Even at $300, it's still lots more expensive than a vcr. Being able to automatically skip commercials versus pressing a fast forward button is not worth the difference in price to me, and apparently to lots of other people as well (remember, this post was about why Tivo and ReplayTV do not have very much market share).
So why not do both. And when you come home from your camping trips, the shows you enjoy will be waiting for you.
Because it would then cost twice as much! For twice as much, I could take my kids to Disney World. If I asked my kids if they want a fancy vcr or a trip to Disney World, what do you think they would pick?
I will never understand how people prioritize things.
Here's a hint. Most people don't have unlimited funds or time. Most people spend their excess money and time on activites that are fun for them. You seem to be a person that would give TV a high "fun factor" rating and are willing to spend lots of your excess money and time persuing this "hobby". Another person might enjoy TV but not as much as you, prefering to use their excess money and time doing other things.
Enjoy your life, it's the only one you've got!
I have a TiVo but they had three strikes against them:
1) Increased price
This only applies to the monthly service on standalone models. It went up from $10/month to $13/month. The DirecTV models went down from $10/month to $5/month. Also, the Series 2 models (with faster CPUs, more memory and USB ports) cost less than the Series 1 boxes. My Series 1 combo box was $400, the Series 2 boxes list for $200. (I don't think the Series 2 combo box is out yet, but it's due out later this month, I think.)
Anyhow, you should have had the foresight to buy the lifetime service. There was never any promise not to raise the monthly service price, after all. More importantly, it only takes about 2 years to break even on the lifetime service. If you had an extended warranty also, you could ensure making it past that break-even point, in the event of any untoward event happening to your TiVo.
All in all, I don't see much cause for bitching about the price -- for the most part, it's gone down, not up. The only thing that went up is a cost you could have locked in by buying lifetime service in the first place. Half of TiVo's customers had enough sense to do that, why didn't you?
2) At the same time, they added advertising
TiVo has always been quite upfront about their intent to work with network and advertisers to develop creative new marketing tools. As long as I'm not forced to watch advertising (as DVDs sometimes do), I'm okay with that.
After all, the networks do need to pay for all those shows I want to record somehow. I don't feel obligated to watch the boring 30-second commercial spots, but I will watch good commercials if they catch my attention. Meanwhile, if they can come up with a better way to advertise, I'm all for it. Anything's better than the shotgun-style advertising we live with now!
3) They put Eminem content on my TiVo.
Get over it. You don't have to watch it. If you don't like Eminem, ignore it! Wow, that's difficult. You're upset that they're using some of your hard drive space for sometime other than your recordings? Deal with it. TiVo has reserved part of your disk space for their use since day one. Why? To provide content just for TiVo users, and to enable new services including advertising.
If this was so offensive to you, you could have bought a ReplayTV box instead. They don't care about pissing off the advertisers and networks. Of course, they may get sued out of existence for their hostility toward well-funded media interests. TiVo chooses to work with them instead; it's all a question of philosophy.
Once that Eminem crap is off my box, I'm cancelling the sub.
Suit yourself. It's your loss.
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
"Infrastructure" my arse; it's a VCR.
Just because you *can* tie it into a subscription service that forces ads down your throat doesn't mean you *should*.
If they just sell it as "a better VCR", they would be fine.
Yeah, the "TV Guide" feature is nice. But I have lived this long with my analog VCR without that feature, I'm probably going to be able to survive until Thursday.
Most likely, TiVO will die, when DVD-RW replaces VCRs, while TiVO is futzing around trying to generate a revenue stream other than "unit sales".
Remember VOIP? Do you own an IP Telephone? No? But you're a *nerd*! If a *nerd* won't buy one, what chance have you got to sell it to people with lives!?!
Let's try a point of view experiment:
You're a small business; you're in the market for a new PBX, because you've outgrown your old one, or you want a couple of features that your business needs to improve.
Do you buy into IP telephony?
Or would you buy a "digital PBX" instead?
Surprise! They're the same thing, only in the second case, I'm not trying to sell you end-to-end service to endpoints that don't exist yet... I'm just setting you up to sell that later, when they do.
-- Terry
I am almost convinced by all the glowing reviews I have read. Unfortunately, Tivos are not available in Canada! I could probably order one from the US, but how would I get a local program listing? They might get more sales if they actually offer it for sale.
One other thing makes me hesitate. These things are upgradeable at the company's discretion. What recourse do I have if I buy one, and after an upgrade, the fast-forward button is disabled when a commercial is detected? I really don't want to buy a network-connected, upgradeable device without some sort of assurance that it can't be "upgraded" without my permission.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
Okay, repeat after me:
TiVo is to VCRs what microwave ovens are to campfires.
Does your campfire have a "popcorn" button? Does it automatically rotate your food? Does it have adjustable power levels? No? My microwave does.
Well, that's about all I can think of off the top of my head. Maybe somebody else would like to pick up the clue bat and administer some more clue to you.
People are afraid to buy Tivos, because of uncertainty about what they are. All Tivo needs is is one movie with a big star using a Tivo.
Tom Cruise setting a 'season pass' - bingo! - sales would go up by millions!
They grew in popularity when the price dropped. Even at $300, it's still lots more expensive than a vcr.
I maintain a collection of magazines that goes back several decades. I just grabbed the Feb. 1990 issue of Stereo Review and went to the 6th Avenue Electronics ad and looked up a few VCR prices for low to mid-line VCRs:
Panasonic PV-4960: $416
JVC HRD-620U: $316
JVC HRD-840U: $466
Mitusbishi HS-51U: $496
Sony SLV-353: $396
VCRs were damned popular by 1990, so I think that blows your argument about the price being too high out of the water.
Being able to automatically skip commercials versus pressing a fast forward button is not worth the difference in price to me, and apparently to lots of other people as well
It's obvious that you don't understand what TiVo does. Here are some challenges:
1. Go on vacation for a couple of weeks and set up your VCR to record 10 hours or more of video in your absence.
2. Using your VCR, watch live TV, get a phone call, pause the TV, and then continue watching the show after you hang up five minutes later.
3. Set up your VCR so that it only records first run episodes of your favorite shows -- no repeats.
4. Program your VCR so that it will record the next showing of Apollo 13, regardless of the channel, date, or time that it comes on.
5. Program your VCR to record any television program that has the word "NASA" in its description.
Comparing TiVo to a VCR is like comparing a Big Wheel is to a Mercedes.
Because it would then cost twice as much! For twice as much, I could take my kids to Disney World for a weekend. If I asked my kids if they want a fancy vcr or a trip to Disney World, what do you think they would pick?
Your kids might prefer cake to broccoli if given the choice. That's why you don't give them that choice. If I had kids, I would rather that they always have a selection of quality programming from The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, and National Geographic than that they spend a weekend immersed in the crass commercialization of Disney World. I would rather that they be able to skip commercials rather than be a captive audience for Mattel, Toys-R-Us, and every other bottom-feeder that advertises during childrens' programs. As to the "fancy VCR" comment, I think you need to learn a bit more about what TiVo can do.
Most people don't have unlimited funds or time.
$300 is not a lot of money to improve your family's quality of life. I used to spend that much on audio components when I was a kid working retail in the mall 20 years ago. And if your time is so limited, why would you be adverse to something that would save so much of it?
Most people spend their excess money and time on activites that are fun for them. You seem to be a person that would give TV a high "fun factor" rating and are willing to spend lots of your excess money and time persuing this "hobby".
Quite the opposite. I want to spend less time watching TV and, when I do watch, have play-on-demand, quality programming available. I do not want to spend my time "channel surfing", seeing whatever crap might happen to be on. I don't want to waste time watching commercials. Nor do I want to spend hours paging through the TV Guide, programming VCRs, and handling tapes.
And maybe that's the problem TiVo has: It's aimed at an audience that values their time and convenience more than does the average consumer.
Tivo's definately going to fail if they don't bother to try and actually sell units in Canada. Guess they don't need my money.
Finally, I can think of little I would rather not do than camp with your family every weekend for the summer.
What child would not relish the thought of spending every weekend with his/her overly clingy parents in a tent? Think about the popularity he/she will enjoy after regaling the class about the every-weekend family camping trips! Imagine the fun they will have answering questions about "bad touching" when the suspicious social worker, alerted by the teacher, starts asking about the camping trips that were scheduled for every weekend of the summer.
Oh yes, a world of joy awaits these kids.
Slate, the MSN-run news-ish site, ran a piece about the impending demise of TiVo on October 9th. It can be found here. I found it a fine read, with some interesting points.
I have a dual tuner "directivo" with DirecTv and my Tivo has little or nothing to do with the current Tivo service. DT now sends the Tivo its programming schedule through a nightly broadcast instead of my Tivo calling uunet and downloading it. In fact, DT is now collecting the data Tivo would collect on me if I didn't opt-out. Yeah, I need to opt-out again, but that's a minor inconvienence. Not to mentiont I'm paying 5.95 a month for "Tivo" service while everyone else pays 13.95 (12.95?).
As others have pointed out, Tivo is a software company and its good software. As long as they don't price themselves out of this new market then they probably have a long and profitable life ahead of them. I'd pay extra for the TivOS and from what I've seen from the tuner boxes DT sells for its service they couldn't make a good, easy to navigate interface to save their lives.
What part of "a better VCR" didn't you understand?
Yeah, it's a better VCR. So sell it as "a better VCR", instead of trying to pretend it's the next best thing to multilevel marketing for converting a one time sale into a continuing revnue stream (or, less politely, "boning people for money on a monthly basis").
Lets look at your list:
o Items 2,3,4,5,6, and 10 are "TV Guide features".
o Items 1,7,8,9,11 are "Digital VCR features".
So as far as "infrastructure" goes, you have... "a TV Guide web site". I'm sorry, but it just doesn't cost that much to provide a "TV Guide web site". Television stations would probably give you the information for free, just to get you to watch them, if you would only provide them a method (e.g. XML) and a way to use the same data for display purposes on the web site itself. Worst case, cut a deal with TVGuide.com.
TiVO's mistake is that they are trying to (to put it in IBM-ese or Microsoft-ese) "Establish [grunt!] an ongoing [grunt!] customer [grunt!] relationship [grunt!]" (I seem to have dropped my pen; can you bend over and pick it up so you can sign this service contract so you can actually use the hardware you thought you owned outright? Thanks...).
-- Terry
We are now way off topic but...
It's obvious that you don't understand what TiVo does
Actually, I do. I also know what ReplayTV does. I would also be willing to buy either one. Except, that price thing keeps getting in the way...
Comparing TiVo to a VCR is like comparing a Big Wheel is to a Mercedes
Actually, you were the one who began comparing the vcr to the Tivo/ReplayTV units. I just continued with it.
Your kids might prefer cake to broccoli if given the choice. That's why you don't give them that choice. If I had kids, I would rather that they always have a selection of quality programming from The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, and National Geographic than that they spend a weekend immersed in the crass commercialization of Disney World
Even if you had not said you had no kids, it would be very obvious from this comment. I am sure all the other parents in this forums got a lot of amusement from this. Just try making a 7-year-old kid sit thru documentarys on these 3 channnels. Then tell the kid, he/she can never watch cartoons. Next explain to this child why Disney World is an evil empire and he/she will never go there. Good Luck!.
$300 is not a lot of money to improve your family's quality of life
You're right. However, my family's quality of life is not related in any way to the quality of TV viewing we do.
Enjoy your life, it's the only one you've got!
"More U.S. Homes have Outhouses then TiVos"
And I thought the fallacy that you had to have 100% marketshare to be considered successful was an artifact of the personal computer market.
Actually, I do. I also know what ReplayTV does.
Then why do you insist on focusing solely on the ability to skip commercials ("Being able to automatically skip commercials versus pressing a fast forward button is not worth the difference in price to me")?
I would also be willing to buy either one. Except, that price thing keeps getting in the way...
I could better understand that when you thought that TiVos were "$400, $500, $600", but they are $300 for a brand-new 60 hour unit (and a lot less for a used one). As I said before, I used to spend that much for stereo components in 1979 when I was a teenager working in a retail store in a mall for minimum wage.
Actually, you were the one who began comparing the vcr to the Tivo/ReplayTV units. I just continued with it.
I compared prices of VCRs to TiVo units. I refuted your argument that TiVo units are overly expensive by showing that VCRs were significantly more expensive at the time that they soared in popularity -- despite being so much more limited.
Even if you had not said you had no kids, it would be very obvious from this comment. I am sure all the other parents in this forums got a lot of amusement from this.
While it may be obvious to you that I don't have kids, it is even more obvious to me that I'd do a better job raising kids than you do -- despite your sanctimonous attitude of superiority.
Just try making a 7-year-old kid sit thru documentarys[sic] on these 3 channnels. Then tell the kid, he/she can never watch cartoons. Next explain to this child why Disney World is an evil empire and he/ she will never go there. Good Luck!.
You seem to feel that there are two extremes between which a parent must choose:
1. Indulge your child's every whim
2. Refuse to let them ever do anything that they want while forcing them to watch documentaries aimed at adults
Were you even aware that The Discovery Channel produces Discovery Kids aimed at children? Did you know that National Geographic produces educational shows for kids? Did you know that The History Channel has many shows appropriate for children? Or were you at an amusement park stuffing cotton candy into your kid when those shows were on? I never went to Disney World and never wanted to. My parents took me places like The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and Natural History Museum. They bought me books about science. When I was in elementary school, I was excited about the Apollo missions and put together a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about them. I remember the excitement of getting a microscope, telescope, and electronics set -- in addition to the now long-forgotten plastic toys. I was more interested in dinosaurs and rockets than in seeing some adult dressed up as an 8-foot tall mouse. (And I did not claim that children should never watch cartoons. In fact, I pointed out that a TiVo could let them skip the myriad ads aimed at children during such shows.)
There is more to raising a child than amusing them. Part of a parent's responsibility is to educate their children and nurture interests in science, history, and the arts. There is a balance one must strike between entertaining the child and educating them. If you can't afford a TiVo and a trip to Disney World, then buy the TiVo and take the kid to a local carnival. Your child will benefit much more from year-round access to intelligent, educational kids' shows than from a vacation to Disney World.
You're right. However, my family's quality of life is not related in any way to the quality of TV viewing we do.
That's very sad. With all of the intelligent, high-quality, entertaining, and educational programming available, it's really a shame that you'd sooner take your kids to Disney World. If your attitude is commonplace, it would explain a lot about falling science test scores.
My time is too precious to channel surf through infomercials, soap operas, and Spanish-language game shows. I don't want to waste my time watching commercials. I do not want to have to choose between taking a phone call or watching a program that I want to see. When I take time to watch TV, I want to choose a quality program that the TiVo has recorded rather than see whatever dreck happens to be on at that time. I don't want to waste my time programming VCRs, swapping tapes, labelling them, reading television guides, and all of that other pre-TiVo idiocy. Technology is there to improve my life and save my time and I'm glad to let it do so.
For fuck's sake, it's $300 for a Tivo! If you can't afford that, then you can't afford to raise a kid. I guess your kid is just fucked if they need braces or something that costs real money.
That's just weird. I can see going once or twice, but there is something seriously twisted when you want to go every weekend. Your kid will be telling his friends "My daddy cain't afford no Tivo but he lets me poop in the woods every weekend."
"and she then insisted that he buy the largest one available."
Phh! Typical woman. See, size DOES matter.
IANAL, but I play one on
You seem to be really upset.
My original comment was related to why Tvio and ReplayTV do not have market penetration. My opinion was that the price is too high.
In response, you have attacked me, the way I raise my kids, the way I spend my free time and (in another post) insinuated that the only reason I take my kids camping is for incestious purposes.
Maybe you should take the rest of the day off? Maybe see a counselor and try talking about these hostile feelings you have. It might help.
Remember, God loves you.
Enjoy your life, it's the only one you've got!
You seem to be really upset.
Not really. Just a little annoyed.
My original comment was related to why Tvio and ReplayTV do not have market penetration. My opinion was that the price is too high.
And I said that it was not, showing that VCRs, despite their more limited features, had better market penetration at higher price points. I also pointed out that your estimates of the price for a TiVo unit were between 33% and 100% higher than the actual price. Rather than address that, you elected to make comments about your perceptions of my lifestyle claiming that I "spend lots of [my] excess money and time" watching TV.
In response, you have attacked me, the way I raise my kids, the way I spend my free time
Please. You attacked me with claims that "TV watching" was some all-consuming "hobby" for me. You implied that I was a dolt who did nothing but sit around watching TV all day and that you were somehow morally and intellectually superior because of your wholesome family activities. You then went on to proclaim how laughable it was for me to suggest sitting down with a child and watching an educational program (rather than taking them to Disney World).
You will also note that I became decidedly mor "hostile" after you decided to mark me as a "foe" for daring to disagree with you.
and (in another post) insinuated that the only reason I take my kids camping is for incestious purposes.
That is untrue. In my mean-spirited brand of humor, I suggested that a school counselor might become suspicious of "bad touching" if a family camped together every single weekend. I never once claimed or implied that you were actually engaged in any type of sexual behavior with your child.
Maybe you should take the rest of the day off?
You'll be happy to know that I have nothing at all scheduled for the day. So we can spend quality time together!
Remember, God loves you.
So, you don't think I'm on his Slashdot foe list?
I guess they'll "brilliantly" go bankrupt, then, from selling something that's so much not what people to expect it to be that it have an over 3 month sales cycle (e.g. your wife).
Look; without the umbilical back to them through UUnet dialup, what functionality do you lose?
You're obviously an early adopter, despite needing the purchase approval to buy the thing. Your wife probably "saves" you from a lot of new technology. But as an early adopter, you probably also have an Internet connection and don't need a seperate umbilical.
Your claims are also a little grandiose... in fact, you can't record everything; you are limited in the number of simultaneous channels by the number of tuners you have available.
Rather than positioning the thing as a product they want to sell to consumers, they need to position it as one that consumers want to buy.
Large sales do not come from "push", they come from creating "pull" in the market.
Maybe TiVO should think about hiring Guy Kawasaki as a marketing consultant: his ideas in this area worked for Apple.
-- Terry
You are seriously full of crap. You made out like everyone who owns tivo is some kind of television junkie that does nothing but sit on their ass in a recliner all day watching crap. When the other guy said that educational programs were better for kids than Disney-whatever, you just laughed at him and were insulting with your superior attitude.
Hey buck-o, he was right. If you can't get your 7-year-old to sit through an educational show then get out the Ritalin because the kid probably has ADHD. If that doesn't work then start training him for the special olympics. At 7, my son loved shows about dinosaurs, present day animals, and other science and nature topics. He is 10 now and he is reading far above grade level and getting excellent grades. His teacher has already talked to us about skipping him one grade. I do not think that would be the situation if he spent his childhood in tents and amusement parks.
If you do not want people to be mean to you then quit being insulting and acting superior. Most people on Slashdot do not have a lot of respect for parents who would choose a vacation to Disney-whatever over a tivo that would benefit the kid far more.
Look.
I understand that you are an enthusiatic fan of the company, but that's not going to save them.
The fact that you have a lot of equipment already, and claim you aren't an early adopter, is part of what makes you an early adopter. When you refer to "Wife Acceptance Factor", then you are an early adopter.
"Promise to release a magic code"
This is totally bogus. I'm sorry to be blunt, but it is. The idea that they will be solvent enough to run a server that can be contacted for warehoused units which are sold 3 years down the road, well, that's just not going to happen.
The main problem is that this is teathered technology, and teathered technology sucks: it has value only so long as the company that built it remains actively solvent.
Look at what happened to all the Riccochet users; there's still a repeater near my house, still drawing power from the municipal street-lighting grid, because no one came out to take the thing down. My taxes are paying for it to suck electricit, and not provide any useful service to anyone, because there's an umbilical involved.
I find it incredibly alarming that there is public acceptance of technological artifacts that turn into lumps of junk when their mothership crashes, and which don't even have the decency to rot away soon after they fall into disuse.
I'd have a lot more confidence in "the TiVO answer" to the problem if it automatically went into that mode after a prolonged period of bing unable to contact the mothership, and it took an action by the user to get it to contact the mothership again, later. Instead, it's another "beamed power" device, which quits functioning entirely.
"record anything you're interested in"
This implies at least two tuners, and probably three. Television programming is intentionally adversarial between highly rated shows; first-run episodes of "The Practice" are never scheduled to run against "Carlton Sheets" or "Ron Popeil" infomercials: it just doesn't happen. The shows people want to watch are on in opposition to each other, and so are the shows people *don't* want to watch.
The technology has to be aware of the environment in which it operates; largely, it isn't.
"TiVO has a very compelling message"
A 'very compelling message' is one which you do not have to work to communicate, because your customers will do the work for you.
Your argument in this regard is a "Build it, and they will come" argument. It's the classical bogus technologist argument that thinks if you build something cool, everyone will want it. In reality, they've built something with a high "geek factor", which fails to be a "whole product".
The deficiencies in the product that they've addressed so far in order to *try* to make it into a whole product, are all based on the idea of additional revenue... that they are offering a service, which has value, instead of making up for a deficiency in the product model that makes the product unusable without it.
Then they try to go to a subscription model, in order to turn the pain into a recurring revenue stream, to make their investors happy, instead of trying to make their customers into evangelists.
Here is the proof in the pudding: how many people have purchsed a TiVO due solely to your wife's evangelism of the product? I.e. she did not have an early adopter maniac (e.g. you) propping up her argument to the person.
I'm willing to bet that this number is zero, or that your wife is abnormally tolerant of new things, having been immunized by you.
As far as "they just need to find their market" goes... they've had 5 years to do that, and they haven't done it yet.
The bottom line is that they need to change what they are selling.
I've been in the same boat, working for a company that wasn't willing to change what they were selling, and which then tried to milk a subscription model as a revenue source, and all the while, doing it with an incomplete product. It's hard to watch someone else make the same mistake.
-- Terry
AAAAAHHHH!
I've seen SciFi westerns (Star Trek: Original Series had one call Spectre of the Gun, which was a re-creation of Showdown at OK Corrall.
I've seen Sci-Fi football (Starship Troopers had a football game in it, set about 150 years in the future.)
I've seen SciFi Elvis (Quantum Leap: Sam leapt into Elvis in one of the last few episodes.)
But never one that combined the three. Of course, Quantum Leap touched on each topic at least once (yes, Sam leapt into a football player once, and he played a Doc out on a ranch in the west once)
::giggles:: Thanks for the response. It's a shame that such a thing doesn't exhist, but if Quantum Leap is as close as I can get, then I'll have to live with it. You have to admit, though, such a thing would be rather funny...
I sing the doggie electric!
The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom
their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance.
Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the
battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved
blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves.
Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds?
The answer exists only in the Tao.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
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