TiVo switches off UK sales

SmackCrackAndPot writes "On the TiVo Community forum, there is an announcement that TiVo will be switching off UK sales. This was previously reported in November at BizTech Library. It's probably not too surprising, after the BBC spammed TiVo owners with a new comedy show."

Comments

interesting.

[xao gypsie]

i find it funny *pun intended* that it took british comedy, of which i am a big fan, to remove tivo, when seemingly no amount of litigation and pointless court hearings can do it anywhere else.

at least thats my take on things.
xao

Re:interesting.

[leviramsey]

The least they could do is make the TiVOs record Coupling. If the BBC wants to force me to watch Kate Isitt for hours on end, who am I to complain?

Re:interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

>The four pillars of the male heterosexual psyche:
>naked women, lingerie, lesbians, and James Bond.

And showering with other naked men after high-physical-contact sports such as rugby. Actually no, that's gay men. No it's not, its straight men! Wait a minute...

Re:interesting.

[cayenne8]

They described the show that was recorded (spammed) as some kind of 'post-watershed' show. What exactly is this?? Never heard the term before...

Re:interesting.

[Blue Stone]

The "Watershed" is an English euphemysm for toilet. Here in the UK, we are culturally obliged to defecate only after the Queen has done so. Our ruler takes her dump at 8:45pm, and therefore, allowing for blockages, we may only partake of the pinching of the loaf, at 9pm.
Post-watershed, therefore means, "after the Queen has pooped," or "after 9pm," when we can at last excrete; emit our waste; send the chocolate canoe down the porcaline rapids, etc.

In later years it has also come to mean the time when they put all the more "adult" stuff on the telly. :)

Spamming?

[hobbesmaster]

Uh-oh, I hope none of the US companies figure that trick out...

couldnt delete?

[Pharmboy]

the story of the spamming refered to some people claiming they could not delete the "post watershed" program (whatever the hell that is).

I would like any follow ups anyone has on that point. did they have to send a signal to allow deleting or what?

Re:couldnt delete?

[wcbarksdale]

In most of Europe, the broadcasting laws allow only child-friendly programming during the day, but pretty much anything (sometimes porn) at night. I assume that's what they're referring to when they say "watershed".

Re:couldnt delete?

[Malc]

Yes, it's something like. In the UK I think broadcasters restrict more mature content to after 9pm. I don't know whether they are laws, or just industry standards. It certainly helps parents a lot.

I was shocked when I first moved to the US: the first time I watched TV there after arriving I saw Predator on the box at 10am Sunday morning. Being accustomed to the watershed, I didn't think it very appropriate, especially considering that is prime time for children.

The flip side to the watershed is that the content is often more mature, more risque, and less cut than what appears on US TV (which surprises most people as they expect the British to be particularly uptight and pridish.) It's nothing by continental European standards though ;)

Re:couldnt delete?

[Thing 1]

I assume that's what they're referring to when they say "watershed".

I went to Dictionary.com , and looked it up: watershed .

It appears the third definition fits best:

A critical point that marks a division or a change of course; a turning point: "a watershed in modern American history, a time that... forever changed American social attitudes" (Robert Reinhold).

So it's a critical turning point in broadcasting maturity levels. The other definitions are about the land mass that separates two bodies of water (or water flows, like rivers).

Re:couldnt delete?

[robb0995]

It wasn't recorded like a regular program.

TiVo has the ability to record supplemental content like movie previews, behind-the-scenes footage, and "see this for more info" kind of advertising.

This content is generally accessible from a showcase section that you might browse to see what different networks are promoting, and I think they envisioned things like short broadcast ads that pop-up an on-screen TiVo icon to click for additional information. They also cycle some of this content through a listing on your main menu to promote it independently.

In the UK, the BBC purchased one of these main menu ads to record an entire episode of a new program.

Viewers in the UK were livid about 2 things. First, they felt that recording an entire program during prime time was going too far in exercising corporate control over their equipment. Secondly, they were upset that the program was adult content (post-watershed means it was rated such that it isn't suitable to air during "family hours.") that parents could not block with parental controls or delete from the main menu.

TiVo absolutely learned a lot from that incident (they had inadvertly overlooked the parental control issues) and they will approach new advertising sales opportunities very differently in the future.

Now, having said that, the real reason that they are shutting down UK sales is that the manufacturer of the TiVo box in the UK stopped making it. TiVo doesn't have the capital to invest in the UK market and have shifted to an approach of merely supporting the existing users, but nobody new. In that scenario, no need to run a sales office. Lay them off and spend the money getting new US subscribers.

Re:couldnt delete?

[Anonymous Coward]

The official watershed is 9, but that's just for stuff like swearing, nudity and severe violence. Some programs (like BtVS) are shown cut early in the evening, then uncut late at night.

The really severe violence (movies like First Blood) usually isn't on till around 11. And there's no hardcore porn on UK TV at all, unless you get cable/satellite and PPV, of course.

Re:couldnt delete?

[ErroneousBee]

I don't know whether they are laws, or just industry standards.

They are conditions on the broadcasting licence. The TV broadcaster can be fined, or even lose their licence if they disregard the licence conditions. Theres loads of info at the Broadcasting Standards Commision website where they, oh gosh, say they are a statutory body for 'Tandards and Fairness in Broadcasting'.

How about Canada?

[miguel_at_menino.com]

What's the reason for pulling the plug in the UK? Just not economically feasible?

This doesn't look good for the future of a Canadian version of the TiVo.

Re:How about Canada?

[BrainInAJar]

Naw, we watch american TV. No-one watches the CBC anymore, ever since they yanked Degrassi Jr. High, so our prospects are the same as yours.

Re:How about Canada?

[stratjakt]

Ah

Remember when Joey was pretending to sell Degrassi grass?

Good times.

Everybody wants something
they take your money
and never give up

The Zit Remedy ROCK!

Re:How about Canada?

[mark2003]

The main reason was lack of sales - mainly due to appalling marketing by Tivo.

I would love to have bought one but the only advertising I had seen was for one that supported satellite TV - I have cable and didn't realise it would have worked with that. I imagine that this lack of understanding of it's compatibility with both broadcast and cable put many people off.

Re:How about Canada?

[Goth Biker Babe]

Tivo faces respectable competition over here (UK). Something like 1 in 4 households have digital television of some kind which comes with EPGs. The digital satelite, cable and DSL providers have video on demand which reduces the need for PVRs. Also many channels have time shifted versions so that if you're late or get interrupted you can catch the program an hour later.
Finally the PVR functionality is being incorporated in to the set top boxes. Sky already have one, the Sky+ box, and there are digital terestrial combined STBs and PVRs on the horizon. Why convert to analogue then back to digital when you can record the digital direct?

Re:How about Canada?

[class_A]

The digital satelite, cable and DSL providers have video on demand which reduces the need for PVRs.

Sky (Sat), NTL and Telewest (Cable) do not offer "video on demand"

Re:How about Canada?

[paulc]

Sky have "nearly on demand" with their Pay Per View movies but here in Vancouver Shaw (the local cable provider) have recently launched true video on demand. You pick a movie from your browser, they send a magic signal to change your cable box to an otherwise unselectable channel, and your chosen movie begins. You can fast forward, pause, rewind etc from a remote control window in your browser or using your digital cable terminal remote control if you've had the software upgrade.

Check out http://www.shawondemand.ca/ for more info and a demo.

They did NOT spam

[sakusha]

What a bunch of crap. TiVo units have a certain amount of memory set aside for "enhanced content" (that means infomercials). If you don't look in the menus, you'd never know it was there, unless you happened to be watching at 4AM when it was captured. In NO way can TiVo be said to be spamming. Someone bought a paid placement. Hey, I hated it when TiVo recorded a bunch of crappy Eminem interviews, but I just didn't watch it, and I certainly didn't whine about it.

Remember TiVo makes ZERO dollars from hardware sales, they are solely supported by subscription revenues, ad placements, and selling marketing data.

Re:They did NOT spam

[phrogeeb]

This is absolutely a case of spamming.

I consider someone buying a "paid placement" on a search engine to be spam, and that's a FREE service. Not something that people are paying money for, billed as a way to "cut around commercials, watch only the content they want to see, when they want to see it", etc.

Television channels are generally supported by subscription revenue, ad placement, selling marketing data, etc. However, that doesn't mean that when MTV changes it's format to a {5 minutes of programming : 5 minutes of advertisement} format that it's an acceptible usage of their service.

This sort of thing is called "selling out", and it's what our government has done over and over to pro-Spam lobbyists and (in many places, still) pro-Telemarketer lobbyists.

Re:They did NOT spam

[sakusha]

That's a pretty good lather you worked yourself into, too bad it has no basis in reality. You're not paying for the enhanced content, the advertiser bears the costs, and it actually reduces the cost of your TiVo subscription in the process. If I have to be "spammed" with content I never see and it pays for part of my subscription, I'm fine with it. The big flap over "spamming" was because people got irate over the CONTENT of the show. Nobody whined about enhanced content for MONTHS, until they saw the one program they disliked, and then suddenly it's spam. Sorry, it isn't.

Re:They did NOT spam

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it hard to believe that Tivo makes *no money* on their hardware sales. The things cost an arm and a leg before subscription. I should know, I've bought three (one for me and two gifts). Does it really cost $400 for what amounts to a logic board and a relatively small hard drive? Tivo is never going to make it until the Tivo is priced at a *loss* like the X-box. If Tivos were $50 a piece, everyone would have one, and Tivo really would make money off the subscription services. Just ask the inkjet printer manufacturers.

Re:They did NOT spam

[nrc]

Whether people want to consider what TiVo did SPAM or not doesn't make much difference. It had absolutely nothing to do with TiVo's decision. Suggesting that it did makes the original poster, and slashdot look like idiots to any informed observer - which is to say, pretty much "status quo."

TiVo simply hasn't found a manufacturer who wants to build and sell TiVo equipment for the U.K. without a subsidy. Given TiVo's need to pare expenses to reach break even before they run out of cash, there really is no other option than to pull the plug.

As for the "SPAM" issue. I enjoy about 75% of the promotional content that TiVo records automatically. Some folks complain about the extra menu item that becomes available when you've got SPAM, but it doesn't bother me in the least. I can just ignore it. It doesn't use my space and it will go away on it's own after a while.

Yes, you are welcome to consider it SPAM and decline to buy a TiVo because of it.

Re:They did NOT spam

[pyrrho]

spam is unsolicited advertising... are you trying to say this is solicited advertising?

I'm not really trying to convince you otherwise, I'm wondering what your defintion of "actual" spam is.

Re:They did NOT spam

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of crap. Computers have a certain amount of memory set aside for "enhanced content" (that means pop-ups and spam). If you don't open your email or the web browser, you'd never know it was there, unless you happened to buy your computer to use email and a web browser. In NO way can Microsoft be said to be evil. Someone bought the right to own your soul. I hated it when Microsoft nuked Novell and Netscape by giving away their software, and now that their "IN"...they can just extort what ever cash out of you that they can.

Remember Microsoft makes zero dollars when they start the monopoly, they are soley supported by "crack dealer" methods when the return on investment comes down the road from subscription revenues, ad placements and selling your marketing data.

Re:They did NOT spam

[ibbey]

spam is unsolicited advertising... are you trying to say this is solicited advertising?

Actually, it is solicited. When you sign up for Tivo, you agree to let them send these ads. And you can easily opt out-- just cancel your subscription.

I really don't see the big deal. The ads do not come out of the thirty (or whatever) hours that were advertised when you bought your system. True you might get an extra thirty minutes-- maybe even an hour-- if the space wasn't allocated, but as has previously been pointed out, the ads help subsidize the subscription, and every once in a while, contain something of interest.

Re:They did NOT spam

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the original poster, however I can tell you that TiVo recording something that may be of interest to me, 15 mins worth perhaps, that I can only display if I go to the main menu and select it, is NOT spam. Spam are the 10 emails I get every fucking day wanting me to buy viagra, refinance my debt, hookup with this hot chick, purchase life insurance, get a credit card. NEVER have I ever received one of these emails and was grateful for it. Many times I have watched and enjoyed what the promotional material was about. Be it Lord of the Rings or otherwise.

Re:They did NOT spam

[Twirlip of the Mists]

spam is unsolicited advertising

That's an absurd definition. All advertising is unsolicited. Those commercials I sat through when I watched CSI tonight? Unsolicited. The ads I see when I read my newspaper every morning? Unsolicited. The (gasp!) ads (gasp!) on Slashdot (gasp) that I don't see because I use a filtering proxy (yay)? Unsolicited.

You should come up with a better definition of spam, methinks.

Re:They did NOT spam

[pyrrho]

I used a minimal definition leaving open a more particular definition. But I think so far I stick by the simple definition. As far as I know those types of advertising you mention are all spam.

Solicited advertising: T-shirts with a logo you paid for, free t-shirts with a logo, all the junk you get on the floor of a convention center, the pages one reads if one goes to a companies site, like apple.com.

But from what I hear, the Tivo adverts may be more like a free t-shirt than spam, and the difference would have to be, spam is interstitial, it interrupts content you actually want. (?)

Re:They did NOT spam

[Christopher Bibbs]

This is getting way off topic, but I have to bite. Using your definition, how can a t-shirt with a logo not be spam? I didn't ask to see it, and yet, I'm being subjected to the message when you were the shirt.

Re:They did NOT spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time you're going to troll about TiVo, get a TiVo first so you'll know your ass from a hole in the ground.

The 'spamming' would be equivalent to making it so IE has an additional option on the rightmost position of the icon bar saying 'click here for an advertisement'. Only an anal retentive fuckwit could find it upsetting.

Re:They did NOT spam

[Gordonjcp]

The point is, this TV programme was unsuitable for children, could not be removed from the main menu, and could not be blocked by the content restrictions. Nor could it be deleted.

Re:They did NOT spam

[DonFinch]

give away the razors and we'll sell the hell out of blades, right? Why not ask Microsoft how that's working out. For MS to break even I think every xbox owner has to buy somthing like 25 games.

Re:They did NOT spam

[Tony Hoyle]

It wasn't 4AM it was 7pm.

It changed channels without asking (I'd actually changed channels to watch the News and lost the first few minutes because of it). The only obvious way to stop it recording was to reboot the Tivo.

Amusingly, because the TV schedules are basically fiction over hear the programme ran late and missed half of it anyway :-)

btw. I don't think this is why Thomson (*not* Tivo.. I do wish the news monkeys would get something accurate for once) stopped producing Tivos... it was just plain lack of sales, plus the fact that the best advertising slogan that Tivo themselves could come up with is 'It pauses live TV!' (well whoopee doo... That's sure worth £400 of my money...)

Re:They did NOT spam

[Anonymous Coward]

member TiVo makes ZERO dollars from hardware sales, they are solely supported by subscription revenues, ad placements, and selling marketing data.

That doesn't make it ok.

But you are wrong about not knowing it's there unless you are awake when it records.

The spam shows up on the list above your regular programs. Even worse, there have been instances of people watching a program, and tivo switching away from what they were watching so it could record the spam (during prime time, and not just 4am!). Yes, it offers the user a cancel feature, but if the user happened to be away from the tv for the few seconds the prompt was up, it would assume the user wanted it.

Re:They did NOT spam

[pyrrho]

yike! good point. I was thinking only of the guy wearing the shirt.

For you the innocent victim... I guess it would be spam by that definition.

Re:They did NOT spam

[jandrese]

That doesn't seem to make much sense. I've never seen the Tivo change channels without asking first. And Tivo Inc never buys prime time slots for it's promotional content for obvious reasons ($$$). Changing to a different channel ALWAYS works too, you don't have to reboot.

Re:They did NOT spam

[arwel]

The big flap over "spamming" was because people got irate over the CONTENT of the show. Nobody whined about enhanced content for MONTHS, until they saw the one program they disliked, and then suddenly it's spam. Sorry, it isn't.

Err, no, you're wrong. The big flap about "spamming" was because that was the first (and so far only) time that this forced recording feature was used on UK Tivos -- we had no idea such a feature existed. If Tivo had warned us in advance what was going to happen and that it used reserved space on the disc, then there wouldn't have been much of a reaction; as it was, it came out of the blue and upset everyone. Apart from the fact that we couldn't get rid of the damn thing from the top menu of our Tivo (without going through back doors), the whole thing was pointless because the BBC's timekeeping is such that the last 3 minutes of the programme was cut off, anyway!

Re:They did NOT spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ask the inkjet printer manufacturers.

You mean the ones that made the printer I buy $5 third-party cartridges for? :)

Re:They did NOT spam

[Anonymous Coward]

"that the best advertising slogan that Tivo themselves could come up with is 'It pauses live TV!' (well whoopee doo... That's sure worth £400 of my money...)"

Yeah, seems odd that people get so excited about it. "You mean i don't need to keep that spare tape laying around to just shove in and press record, and watch the show a maximum of 3 hours later rather then immediately?"! For sure that's a killer app!

YHBT

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the reply comments on that forum. Now read the same hoax going back over the last few months.

Now HAND.

Re:YHBT

[ibbey]

Actually, it's not a hoax. The article is 100% accurate. The article states that no more Tivo's will be manufactured for sale in the UK in the immediate future, but they will continue to be supported. That is absolutely true. If you read the FAQ that is mentioned in the reply ("New members read this"), you'll see a question "I just read TiVo is going to pull out of the UK - is this true?" which basically repeats what was said in the article.

Re:YHBT

[Huge Pi Removal]

No, not a hoax. Try here: http://www.tivofaq.co.uk/tivosfuture.htm

Thompson really have stopped manufacturing hardware. The Tivo servive will continue, but buying new boxes is going to become impossible pretty soon.

Re:YHBT

[rcs1000]

This is ridiculous. Thomson stopped manufacturing TiVos in the middle of last year. This is not news.

It has been all but impossible to buy a TiVo in the UK for the last few months. This is not news.

Equally, the idea that TiVo will pull the plug on the UK market is ridiculous.

They have 35,000 subscribers paying £10 ($15) per month, and just two employees. So... £350,000 revenues a month, two staff, a couple of servers, a few phone calls. They must have some pretty expensive offices for the UK operation not to be profitable.

My forecast: when TiVo the company (ticker: TIVO) becomes profitable in the back half of '03, then management will again turn their eyes to other markets: Canada, Australia, UK, etc.

Anyone care to bet I'm wrong?

Re:YHBT

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since tivo stopped offering a toll-free number for the phone calls here in the US, they must be spending their money somewhere else.

Re:YHBT

[alastairm]

I won't bet you're wrong, but your sums don't add up!

How many of those 35,000 subscribers have lifetime subscriptions? I don't (cause I expect technology to be substantially better in 2 years, so I opt to pay monthly) but reading the TiVo forums it would seem that I am quite unusual.

Second TiVo don't get all of that £10 anyway. They buy their listings data in from Tribune. I wouldn't like to hazzard a guess at how much that costs, but it sure aint free!

Although at the end of the day I think your premise is right. Since TiVo stopped subsising Thomson, they decided it wasn't worth being in the market. With the PVR/PDR market starting to blossom, and the potential for free schedule data (see www.tvanytime.org) I expect some manufacturer to see the value in TiVo's software (and don't forget the patents). At that time new "TiVo"'s will start to appear in the UK (and probably elsewhere in Europe).

Re:YHBT

[rcs1000]

FYI: 35,000 is the number with monthly subs. There are 44,000 total subs, of which 9,000 have lifetime.

does this mean we might get TiVo's in Australia?

[netnerd.caffinated]

I'd like to buy one so i can mod/hack it!

The poor children heard urinal cake humor.

[$$$$$exyGal]

Some with families were angry that a post-watershed show had been automatically recorded and could be accessed by children.

For crying out loud, those people are just looking for something to complain about (which I'm sure you /. folks will understand ;-)). It's not like the show is filled with porn, it looks like the show is like any other brain-dead sitcom. I can just imagine the 10 year old boys waking early on Saturday morning and finding this illicit show on their Tivo. As they watched the tittilating comedy with jokes about urinal cakes, their eyebrows twitched nervously, and they repeatedly looked over their shoulder to see if Mom or Dad were walking in.

Jeesh.

--naked

Re:The poor children heard urinal cake humor.

[NineNine]

I always understood that the whole point of a Tivo was not to have to watch crap in the first place. This doesn't sound a hell of a lot better than broadcast TV, complete with commercials and garbage TV.

Re:The poor children heard urinal cake humor.

[raygundan]

You don't have to watch the promo shows it records. You would actually have to navigate to the show and play it to be "forced" to watch it. On my (US) tivo, they are easily distinguishable. It doesn't take any of your recording time away. I fail to see how this is "not any better than broadcast TV."

Re:The poor children heard urinal cake humor.

[ksdd]

Mmmmm...urinal cakes...

Re:The poor children heard urinal cake humor.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't take any of your recording time away.

Of course it does - it's just already set aside when you buy it. That's actually worse than putting it into regular recording space, because the space is wasted even when there's nothing on it.

I know the average consumer is going to swallow a line like that, but I'd expect on slashdot people would have more clue. If it's record on the disk, it takes up space, period. The only difference is you never get a choice about it.

Re:The poor children heard urinal cake humor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, when you go out and buy a TiVo, you look and say 'would I like this 80 hour TiVo, or that 30 hour TiVo?' and that's exactly what they are. The fact that they could be 80.5 hour TiVos or 30.5 hour TiVos is pretty damned negligable. You'd have to be a pedantic jackass to care.

Progess...

[Eese]

When moustache Pete bigwigs stand in the way of technological progress, they have invariably been trampled throughout history.

"Post-watershed"

[c.emmertfoster]

The article uses the term "post-watershed" which apparently refers to programs broadcast after 9pm in the UK.
This is a page with relevant legal regulations that are implicated...
Hope that clears up any confusion.

Re:"Post-watershed"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, because we wouldn't want kids below the age of 18 or 16 knowing anything about condoms. Or "female sanitary protection" products. Their parents might have to talk to them about those icky subjects. Much better they be shocked when they start to menstruate in the locker room - or fail to.

Re:"Post-watershed"

[Anonymous Coward]

Better off all those limey tykes learn that nasty sex stuff from mature respected adults.

Like Pete Townshend.

Re:"Post-watershed"

[Malc]

Doesn't the ITC only regulate commercial TV channels? This story is of course about the BBC.

Re:"Post-watershed"

[dotgod]

So where exactly does the term "watershed" come from?

Re:"Post-watershed"

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, if we now expect our children to be learning about this stuff from commercials, how fucked-up have we become?
I'm not saying it's not true - just expressing some rue.

Re:"Post-watershed"

[dazed-n-confused]

Your link is to an entirely irrelevant page about advertising on commercial channels, which mentions the 9pm watershed only in passing.

This is a link to a relevant page about the BBC's policy on family viewing and the 9pm "watershed," while this is the equivalent from the ITC.

Re:"Post-watershed"

[easyfrag]

The article uses the term "post-watershed" which apparently refers to programs broadcast after 9pm in the UK.

What is this "article" you speak of? Isn't this just a thread about how Tivo rocks/sucks?

Re:"Post-watershed"

[StressedEd]

2 : a crucial dividing point, line, or factor

In the UK and in the context of TV it is used to describe the time after which you can broadcast "mature material" (read violent films, and other stuff that would normally require a 15 certificate or higher).

Re:"Post-watershed"

[91degrees]

Ummm. Most 16 year olds that I know are allowed to stay up after the Watershed.

Re:"Post-watershed"

[c.emmertfoster]

Yes, but my post got moderated (Score:5, Informative) and yours didn't.

Humperdumperdido! I can change blood into wine!

Re:"Post-watershed"

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post got moderated Overrated and Redundant, you mean.

Insane...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

...before you know it one day major internet providers will start cutting t

Re:Insane...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would now like to note the fact that this joke is No Longer Funny. It's gone the way of the dodo. Dead. Kaput. Finito. Gesterben.

The Other Tivo

[frankthechicken]

In the UK, there is a huge push from sky to sell its Sky + service, which is the main competetion for Tivo here. Haven't actually tried the Tivo, but Sky + is an extremely competent package.

Re:The Other Tivo

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that Sky+ used Tivo's technology? Sky are the distributer for Tivo in the UK after all...

ehh... BBC = no commercials?

[Vincman]

How's TIVO a threat to BBC anyway since there are no commercials to filter out?

Re:ehh... BBC = no commercials?

[stratjakt]

Who buys a TiVo in a country with like 2 TV channels?

Whats the selling hook? Pause live cricket matches? They're so boring they're self-pausing.

Re:ehh... BBC = no commercials?

[madhippy]

Most people can receive 5 channels via aerial, approx. 30 using a freeview digital decoder. Sky via satellite delivers more channels than I care to remember and my cable service delivers practically the same only by cable (with cable modem :) )

Re:ehh... BBC = no commercials?

[91degrees]

Who buys a TiVo in a country with like 2 TV channels?

Nobody. Obviously. What's your point?

Re:ehh... BBC = no commercials?

[sql*kitten]

How's TIVO a threat to BBC anyway since there are no commercials to filter out?

There are commercials on the BBC, but they only advertise BBC products and services.

Re:ehh... BBC = no commercials?

[belroth]

And it's really annoying when the advert (commercial), which the BBC calls a 'trail' is for the NEXT PROGRAM coming on as soon as the trails have finished, I mean, what is the point of showing excerpts from a program which is on in 60 seconds except to waste money and wind people up??

You may have guessed that this is something which I find quite irritating.

any know the tech of how the BBC did this?

[netnerd.caffinated]

can anyone explain to me how the BBC managed to make everyone's TiVo record this show?
I know it has something to do the tivo recording shows you MIGHT like to watch..

Anyone???

Re:any know the tech of how the BBC did this?

[empee]

BBC paid tivo, and tivo placed it on there. It was NOT spam. The wording in this article is HORRIBLE.

Re:any know the tech of how the BBC did this?

[Kevinv]

tivo can record shows it "thinks" you'll like, if you have space and if it does not conflict with a show you've said you do want.

You can turn off this feature.

Any UK tivo that either had the feature turned off, or had another show recording at the time this comedy came on did NOT get this show. But the BBC did pay to have all "available" units record the show, that comes pretty close to spam IMO.

Under the normal sorting of the recorded list these shows are at the very bottom of the listing and have a different icon than shows you've requested. I sort my list alphabetically so the "you might like" shows are mixed in with the other shows, but they still have a different icon.

This recording of "shows you might like" is the source of the "My Tivo thinks I'm gay" and "my tivo thinks i'm a fascist" stories. The algorithym used to decide what should be recorded for you may look at past recordings and decide you like gay themed shows (or cowboy themed shows or science fiction or so on). You can tweak the choices by rating shows with the thumbs up or thumbs down buttons.

Re:any know the tech of how the BBC did this?

[nmg196]

The TIVO units have a facility for manadory recordings. It's not a hack - it's a feature :) The TIVO people can update the boxes at the time they download the new programme information with instructions to record one or more shows (unless the user is wants to record another show at the same time).

The BBC probably paid TIVO to cause this to happen as a promotion for the comedy programme concerned. So it's not a hack or anything - they're just exploiting the services TIVO provides anyway.

What's odd is the BBC channels aren't supposed to contain any advertising (all UK people who own a device capabile of recieving the terrestrial signals must buy a TV licence, which covers the cost of the BBC channels) but this move strikes me as an advert in it's own right.

Nick...

Re:any know the tech of how the BBC did this?

[nickclarke]

What's odd is the BBC channels aren't supposed to contain any advertising (all UK people who own a device capabile of recieving the terrestrial signals must buy a TV licence, which covers the cost of the BBC channels) but this move strikes me as an advert in it's own right.
I would have thought this would count as a trailer rather than an advert - the BBC have frequent trailers (2 or 3 between each programme)

Re:any know the tech of how the BBC did this?

[nmg196]

Possibly... but the trailers on BBC don't normally jump on to your video without you asking... It's something you're getting given without having asked for it - like a junk mail though the door or a telephone sales call (obviously less instrusive than either of these which is why it doesn't really bother me).

Nick...

Dossa and Joe

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's no wonder why it's Britain's longest running sitcom and today we're showing all 7 episodes"

Worst Episode Ever...

Tivo not necessarily pulling out of UK

[Edball]

According to this article:

http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID= 13703

Thompson, Tivo's manufacturer is the one that pulled out - Tivo is still looking for new manufacturers.

Re:Tivo not necessarily pulling out of UK

[sakusha]

It is imporant to note that Thompson pulled out, not TiVo. TiVo licenses their technology for FREE, they get no royalties for hardware sales whatsoever, they survive on subscription revenues only.

Re:Tivo not necessarily pulling out of UK

[mikerich]

IIRC a number of companies have licenced TiVo technology for their own PVRs - Sony and Toshiba spring to mind.

Anyone know if they are planning on releasing machines here in the UK?

Thanks,
Mike.

Re:Tivo not necessarily pulling out of UK

[alastairm]

Geez man, RTFA. Sony have licenced the technology exclusively for use in Japan. Toshiba have only licenced the ability to embed TiVo technology in their chipsets. They have made no announcement about releasing boxes and as yet wouldn't have the rights.

Re:Tivo not necessarily pulling out of UK

[mikerich]

Toshiba have only licenced the ability to embed TiVo technology in their chipsets. They have made no announcement about releasing boxes and as yet wouldn't have the rights.

So this little black box at CES is what exactly?

You can see the little TiVo logo just below the DVD tray.

Best wishes,
Mike.

the gilette phenomenon

[peatbakke]

.. also known as the loss leader, seems to be a defining practice in interactive home entertainment these days. That basically means that the company makes no money off the initial sale, but reaps high margins from subsequent purchases necessary to keep that initial device functional.

It worked extremely well for Sony -- selling the playstation at zero (sometimes negative) margins, then making money by being the sole licenser of games (that they didn't spend money developing) for the platform.

I think the xbox is taking financially because Microsoft went out and bought a substantial number of good game development companies who haven't been able to release a seriously block-busting game .. but that's another issue.

TiVo is a completely different story. They're selling the consoles at or below cost .. then trying to make profits by selling mandatory advertising spots to media companies. Unfortunately, there aren't enough TiVo users to convince media companies to pay big bucks for the spots.

The population of TiVo users has to grow -- and that means they need to lower the cost of their consoles. Dramatically. Even if it means reducing the functionality of the box. When TiVo costs $50, and you can buy it at Wallgreens, that's when advertising and media companies are going to sit up and thing "Holy crap, that's a huge captive audience."

Re:the gilette phenomenon

[tunah]

... they need to lower the cost of their consoles. Dramatically. Even if it means reducing the functionality of the box. When TiVo costs $50, and you can buy it at Wallgreens ...

Um, unless you expect them to sell them for $50 and eat another $50 on each box, this can't be done. The things *need* hard drives, reduced functionality or no.

Re:the gilette phenomenon

[Zathrus]

They're selling the consoles at or below cost

TiVo isn't selling the consoles at all. They license out the hardware to companies to produce, and it's up to the companies to make a profit, which is doable. In the past TiVo had to pay the companies to produce the systems, which is a practice they're getting out of. The hardware isn't that expensive to make anymore.

there aren't enough TiVo users to convince media companies to pay big bucks for the spots

Hrm, I'd say 500,000 active subscribers is a pretty decent captive audience. And, better yet, it's advertising that you can get exact numbers for the number of eyeballs -- at least in terms of households. TiVo knows when you watch the ads.

But, you're right... not enough advertisers. I guess that's why I nearly always have something recorded from TiVo. Currently it's Daredevil trailers. Next will be Matrix, Hulk, and other Time Warner movies (I don't recall the entire list). There may be some other stuff in between if time allows, I have no idea.

The population of TiVo users has to grow

You're right, and it is. From their last 10-Q:

Our subscriber base increased 82% over the third quarter of fiscal year 2002, from 280,000 to 510,000 subscribers due to increased consumer demand.

Re:the gilette phenomenon

[Twirlip of the Mists]

This isn't strictly on-topic, but it's amusing nonetheless. King Gillette (that was his name, not his title; he was not a monarch) was a lifelong socialist who despised the idea of personal wealth. In the late 1800's, shaving was a pretty serious chore. Most men had to go to barbershops where they were given a shave with a straight razor. In 1895, Gillette invented the safety razor with the intent of freeing the common man from the burden of having to buy a professionally administered shave.

The US Army immediately ordered thousands upon thousands of safety razors for their troops. Gillette's invention was a monumental success.

Almost immediately, Gillette, lifelong socialist and despiser of wealth, found himself one of the richest men in the country.

Ah, sweet irony. ;-)

Re:the gilette phenomenon

[hagardtroll]

Is that real irony? or the Alanis Morisette kind?
I get all confused about that now.

Re:the gilette phenomenon

[Steve525]

One of the issues that I see with TiVo is that they are subsidizing hardware with both advertising and the need to buy a TV listing suscription. (According to you, this isn't necessarily true, but it still feels that way, for reasons I'll mention below). As far as advertising goes, people generally accept advertising as a way to pay for content. (I'll give you my eyeballs for 10 minutes if you entertain them for 20). However, I don't think people have shown such willingness to accept advertisement in exchange for other goods.

As far as the need to buy services, that brings us back to the "Gillette" business model. I really don't like this model, except maybe in rare circumstances, and I think most people agree. The problem with it is, in order for the company to make money, you must be trapped into continuing to use their products. People like freedom, and this goes against that.

What I'd want (and I suspect most agree) is legitimate pricing on each thing I'm buying. Charge me more for the hardware (and the software built into the unit), if that's what it costs to make it. (The price will come down in time, just like it does with everything else electronic). Charge me less for the subscription, and more importantly, allow competitors to provide alternative subscriptions. (There's nothing wrong with making your subscription more attractive by integrating it well with the hardware, but don't lock competitors out).

Now, if TiVo wants to subsidize the suscription with advertising, that may work. The TV listing information is content, so people may be willing to trade advertisements for it. However, right now they are charging (and charging a lot) for the TV listings. This makes does not make the TV listings feel like they are being subsidized. Instead, it feels like the TV lisitings suscriptions are subsidizing everything else.

Re:the gilette phenomenon

[Anonymous Coward]

You can buy a lifetime subscription for the device that will provide the service. Or you can choose to pay the fee each month. Really, its just part of the price of the device you just aren't required to pay it up front.

Re:the gilette phenomenon

[Steve525]

> You can buy a lifetime subscription for the device that will provide the service. Or you can choose to pay the fee each month. Really, its just part of the price of the device you just aren't required to pay it up front.

It's true, that buying the "package deal", may offer me a discount, but I still have no option to just buy the unit at its true cost. I don't know what the real price of the system would be if it was uncoupled from the subscription. (If what you say is true, then the price of the device is currently pretty damn high).

Re:the gilette phenomenon

[Zathrus]

me more for the hardware (and the software built into the unit), if that's what it costs to make it. (The price will come down in time, just like it does with everything else electronic).

The problem with that business model is that the price for the initial hardware and software is so stratospheric that it'll die in its infancy. The price won't come down, because it won't be around long enough to do so.

As far as the subscription goes - if you don't like the Gillette model, there's an option out. Buy lifetime. Then you get all the razor blades for free, at least until the razor itself breaks. Even at the new price of $300 (effective March 3 or 4), it's a deal.

And while everyone keeps complaining about the TiVo guide data being overpriced, it's really quite a bit more than guide data. You're also paying for continual software updates (yes, I know, that's another annoyance for some people) and new features. I bought my first TiVo nearly 3 years ago and have gone from v1.2 of the software to v3.0. The added features have been significant - wishlists, season pass sorting, additional recording features, program quality improvements, unofficial broadband support, UI improvements, etc. It looks like it may be the end of the line on significant software upgrades for Series1 hardware though, and that does annoy me. We will see.

The problem with allowing alternate subscription services is that you've now cut TiVo out of the money entirely. They don't produce the hardware, and you're not giving them any revenue from the service... you say "well, charge enough for the hardware", but that's not the business they're in. And if they charged enough, up front, for the hardware to cover a profit then the TiVos would probably be in the $2k range. And as much as I love my TiVo, it's not worth that much to me.

Re:the gilette phenomenon

[Steve525]

Sorry it's taken so long to reply...

I already responded about the lifetime suscription to the other person who replied. Thanks for the pricing info. Is $300 the additional amount for the lifetime subscription, or is it the price for both the unit and the subscription? If it's the price for both, then bravo, that's a good deal, and I have no complaints with it.

Perhaps the first units might of cost nearly $2K to make, but it's always expensive for the early adoptor. (From your comments you were an early adoptor, so naturally you are happy. You made out like a bandit because the price was made artificially low in the beginning). That's something that every new technology faces, and there's really no way around it. You've either got to sell at that price and see if it flys, or you have to subsidize. However, you can only subsidize so much. Think about it this way, if TiVo was losing about $1.5K on each unit, they've got to somehow extract that money back from the customer. That's a lot to make back, whether in advertising, subscriptions, or by simply betting on future revenue from sales. (Clearly from the lifetime subscription pricing, they aren't expecting to get that much there). If they are losing that much subsidizing the hardware, then they were dead from the start.

Right now there's no reason TiVo's can't be made and sold for somewhere between $300 and $400 with a profit on just the unit. That's a price that would be sufficient to grow the market. It might not give the explosive growth TiVo wants, but it should be enough to keep them profitable.

As far as TiVo being cut out of the equation because they don't make the hardware, that's not the consumer's problem. They need to make money selling whatever it is they do make. Do they make the software? Then they need to sell the software to the people who make the hardware. Do they make the design? Fine, license the design to the hardware maker. Do they provide the TV listings, and software updates. Fine, sell these directly to the consumer.

You mention that the TiVo subscription gives more than just TV listings. That's true, it also provides upgrades. But as you also point out, this is both a plus and a minus. I generally don't think people like being forced to pay for upgrades. Hiding the cost in the subscription service helps, but then we get back to the question of how much the subscription service should really cost. It's really hard to know what this service is worth without competitors.

Sorry for the tone of this, it came out a bit snippy, and that's not how I intended it. I'm glad you are enjoying your TiVo. It's a great product, and, honestly, I'm a bit jealous.

Re:Could this hinder Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take that bet. The government (even our corrupt American one) is hardly silly enough to intentionally put themselves sqaurely opposed to millions of individuals exercising their freedom to code and share software. That's alienating a very big demographic, (think of all the corporations going OSS to save money-- mine, for example, and we're a real estate firm). Furthermore, it's alienating a very pissed-off demographic with a lot of resources that will put up a big fight.

Most OSS/freedom issues are minor ones that involve particular lawsuits invoking everyone's favorite target, the DMCA, or silly proposed bills to mandate DRM or some such. Imagine, however, that the US Gov't decided to promote Windows usage by changing policy to only award contracts to organizations using M$ software (the only way, really, for them to push such a switch). Can you imagine the outrage from HP and IBM over such a policy? One of those open-source shops would file a project proposal on the spot, and then go immediately straight to the courts to challenge the rejection. And there's no possible way the government would be able to defend such a blanket policy. (There are rules which lay out the criteria on which the federal government can award contracts, etc.)

And don't even get me started on how absurd the suggestion is to use M$ Desktop Sharing for spying. The service doesn't run by default, and has to be set up by the user. And no properly configured would EVER let remote desktop traffic in or out.

So I'll take that bet. What are your terms? Let me know what the timetable is for when I can collect my money, and I'll e-mail you and we can work out the details :)

I could never get it anyway (afaik) but ...

[bfree]

I live in Ireland, a country of around 4 million people compared to the U.K. (our closest neighbour and fellow island just north-west of France, in Europe, about 4000k east of New York) at about 60 million. We were lucky enough to get a half-baked Sky service in Ireland for quite a while, but they never really treated us the same. For example, Tivo's were out, no service :-( They were meant to come in along with a Sky+ box (which is made by pace and which a sky rep told me just before it was being launched had "stolen the bits they needed from Tivo". BTW a quick call to sky's freephone number (yes at 3am) confirmed Sky+ STILL isn't available here and won't be til they launch the interactive services which are coming (and have been for over a year).
Now I had been thinking for a while that an open/distributed tv listings service for Ireland would be great, but that I might find little help in putting it together! But perhaps if Tivo is closing in the U.K. there might be an existing marketplace who were paying £10/month who are looking for an alternative. I can't imagine it would be the most impossible task to fool a present tv into using the free service. You'd have to reverse engineer the format used by the service, and then (to save making people solder) you'd need to deal with the fact the Tivo has a telephone connection and dials it's own number. You could establish some phone numbers to feed the demand and use a simple router to translate all dialed numbers to the new number or you could make a server to run on a PC (with a modem) that answers the calls and feeds it the data (which the server keeps up to date). There is only one response to this (and sky's attempt to take the £10/month for themselves) and that's to take the money away from them!

Re:I could never get it anyway (afaik) but ...

[bfree]

Ooops, talking to myself again, going mad!
I meant to put in a link to pace, so here it is. I hope I don't have half a link in the parent, it looks of here (mozilla could be forgiving me).
Also does anyone know reasonably priced cards with decent drivers providing hardware accelerated TV Capture? What about hardware accelerated Video capture? And btw I mean under Linux and full PAL (preferably all audio formats aswell)? No matter how many times I try to find a card I can feel happy buying, I just can't! How come these guys can build Tivo's so cheap? How come no-one is building PC hardware from the same chips etc or if they are is the code all locked away?

Re:I could never get it anyway (afaik) but ...

[Patik]

I live in Ireland, a country of around 4 million people compared to the U.K. (our closest neighbour and fellow island just north-west of France, in Europe, about 4000k east of New York) at about 60 million.

It's a sad day when a group of English-speaking people need to be told where Ireland is. I wonder how many of my college classmates know; probably not enough.

Re:I could never get it anyway (afaik) but ...

[Smid]

Yeah, but interestingly enough its probably possible get a tivo working in ireland, like most of the areas with sky coverage in europe (germany is a classic example, the alternative is everything in german, including CNN).

If you can get a service, and get hold of the ethernet card and hack it in, then localised dialing is possible. Whoops, Ireland has no broadband... (I lived in Cork for a bit, I know...)

Still, seems possible in the rest of europe though, if you can overcome the obstacle of subscribing. Otherwise its the freeview channels...

Re:I could never get it anyway (afaik) but ...

[TheRaven64]

Now I had been thinking for a while that an open/distributed tv listings service for Ireland would be great, but that I might find little help in putting it together!
While not free, there is Digiguide which has a fairly comprehensive set of TV listings for £6.99/a year (about $10). I don't think that thy publish the protocol used, but I'm fairly sure it's been reverse-engineered, (there was an unofficial palm client floating around a whle back) and I' sure they're not going to complain, as long as you deliver a valid (i.e. paid for) registration key. More clients = more money for them.

Tivo

[ewhenn]

was a bit ahead of its time. Tivo is a great idea in concept. However, it really does not have much of a market share, and probably never will. Us geeks need to get over it. As far as the spamming goes, it seems like a great way to increase market share and try to drive up ratings. Believe me, it works, just like that enlarge your pen** spam did for me too. It seems like this being done is shooting Tivo in the foot. Technically isnt a no-opt out, a backdoor? I would be for opt-in rather than opt out. Alas in the age of spam, htat would never work, after all, marketers have the "right" to market to you, and shove their big advertising d***... well you know where, regardless of your permission or not. just my 2cents.

Re:Tivo

[Anonymous Coward]

ahead of it's time?

try never.

people don't want infomercials, spam, or to schedue their lives around some pitiful form of entertainment.

companies want you to have infomercials, spam and to schedule your pitiful lives around their awesome entertainment.

YOU FAIL IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

would like it in Bermuda

[AssFace]

I'm moving to Bermuda and would enjoy having TiVo there.

I suppose I will just setup my own - whatever they call them - PVR or something.

but if the UK doesn't have them, it doesn't sound like Bermuda is going to.

Re:I wonder if they vomit on toddlers in the UK.

[Anonymous Coward]

British toddler vomiting is a myth long since debunked

(read down to the end to understand how the myth came about).

Oh, come on.

[juuri]

Except the tivo didn't/doesn't force you to watch anything.

It uses space set asside by the OS so it doesn't even lower your capacity*.

* unless you were an early adopter which didn't have a space reserve

Re:Oh, come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh...so when you buy it, you have to pay for space that can only be used to record things you didn't ask for? Oh yes, that's much better.

Re:Oh, come on.

[timeOday]

It uses space set asside by the OS so it doesn't even lower your capacity*.

I cannot for the life of me understand how TiVo owners can buy into that line. I am never going to buy a tivo if they don't even admit my ownership over the hardware.

Their spamming and subscription requirements ARE costing them customers.

Re:Oh, come on.

[ibbey]

I cannot for the life of me understand how TiVo owners can buy into that line.

My Tivo was advertised as having 30 hours of record time. In fact it gives me slightly more then that, even with the reserved space otherwise allocated (Unfortunately, I can't be specific since I have upgraded my hard drive). If they were falsely advertising the systems, I could understand people being upset. Since they aren't, just deal with it.

I am never going to buy a tivo if they don't even admit my ownership over the hardware.

Oh, in that case, I'm sure they will immediately change the policy.

Re:Oh, come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am never going to buy a tivo if they don't even admit my ownership over the hardware.

You own the hardware.

But fuck with it too much and TiVo doesn't need to provide you with service anymore.

Of course, you could actually go see just how much hardware and software hacks are available for the TiVo, but instead you'd rather just whine about shit you don't know anything about.

I have a telnetd, ftpd, and web control of my TiVo. All of which were installed by me. I tripled my storage space, and added ethernet connectivity.

Obviously they're repressing me though... I mean, they sold me something listed for 30 hours when it could've had 31 hours if they would free the space up! Damn them!

Re:Oh, come on.

[timeOday]

I am never going to buy a tivo if they don't even admit my ownership over the hardware.

Oh, in that case, I'm sure they will immediately change the policy.

That would be nice, but I rather suspect they'll just go out of business instead, like in the UK.

$0.02

[spamania]

I know this is a troll, but after seeing so many stories on TIVO on /., I feel compelled to gripe:

<soapbox>

TIVO is not "News for Nerds"; it is "News for the Terminally Couch-Ridden". And TIVO certainly does not constitute "Stuff that Matters".

</soapbox>

Oh, Tivo smells like roses

[dachshund]

What a bunch of crap. TiVo units have a certain amount of memory set aside for "enhanced content" (that means infomercials)

Yeah, I especially loved it when they "set that memory aside"-- out of my perfectly good, usable recording space-- when they kindly released their new OS... (by automatically dumping it onto my system in the dead of night.)

Re:Oh, Tivo smells like roses

[Anonymous Coward]

Your unit still has the advertised number of recording hours on it, right? You bought a 14/30/etc. hour unit, and now you have 14/30/etc. hours. Bitch much?

Re:Oh, Tivo smells like roses

[Anonymous Coward]

That is completely untrue. Your TiVo arrived with specific partitions, one stores your shows, another was always set aside to record promotional material, whether TiVo had any paying customers to provide these ads or not. To suggest that a software upgrade that ate your programming space would be to say that you TiVo erased it's partitions in order to resize them. This is Linux, there is no PartitionMagic for TiVo... Rest assured, what you claim did NOT happen.

Re:Oh, Tivo smells like roses

[dachshund]

Your unit still has the advertised number of recording hours on it, right? You bought a 14/30/etc. hour unit, and now you have 14/30/etc. hours. Bitch much?

Sure, which means they reduced the recording quality levels. Thanks Tivo.

Re:Oh, Tivo smells like roses

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you don't get it.

You bought, say, a 30 hour tivo. However, originally, since it didn't have the reserved space, it could record 33 hours in basic resolution. Now, post-upgrade, it can only record 30 hours in basic resolution. But that's exactly what they advertised when you bought it. It's a 30 hour tivo. They just took away the bonus.

Re:Oh, Tivo smells like roses

[robb0995]

TiVo never took away any hard drive space that it advertised as being available. They shipped the units with larger hard drives than advertised. The extra space holds the software and all non-user content.

What people are referring to is that if they had hacked their units by installing a larger hard drive, TiVo partitioned some of that space out for reserved space.

Since TiVo doesn't support hacked drives, they don't need to write special code to identify and protect them. Behavior of an upgraded machine was a known risk.

Re:Oh, Tivo smells like roses

[Anonymous Coward]

So they accidentally gave you an extra feature, which makes it ok when they take it away...

Re:Oh, Tivo smells like roses

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't an accident. But yes, it's ok.

Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[Arjuna Theban]

While this obviously is a misinterpretation/hoax, the risk of something like this happening is why I never considered buying a TiVo. If the company goes under, who guarantees that they will be able to provide the listing service for as long as you have the box? Even if they make such a claim when you buy it, if they file for bankruptcy they are not bound by it anymore. I just don't like the idea of a $300-400 doorstop. And since Time Warner worked out the bugs in the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000, I love their DVR service.. $5/mo box rental and already built-in guide to digital cable, I just love it!

Re:Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[OneFix]

This shouldn't stop you...because if you know anything about the TiVo, you'ld know that it runs Linux...and the programming is in a standard format...as a matter of fact, there are scripts for the TiVo that pull data from from free listing sites.

There's also the fact that you can use the TiVo like a "Smart VCR" to record shows without any listings...

So, unless you're completely clueless, a working TiVo will never be a "doorstop"...

Re:Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, I've heard those free listing sites (at least in the USA) suck massive goat balls. Although I've had some screw-ups with the 'official' listings as well.

Re:Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[Arjuna Theban]

Thanks for the information, I wasn't aware of the ability to use free listings.

My question now is, since TiVo licenses its technology to hardware manufacturers for free and ONLY makes money from the subscription service, how do they expect to make a money with the possibility of a popular free listing site popping up..?

Re:Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[OneFix]

The TiVo hacking community does not support it to a large degree...it's kind of like the hack to read the video fom the player...TiVo doesn't want it done so their wish is respected because of all of the support they give to the hacking community...

Re:Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to post a link? ;)

Re:Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[Enigma2175]

The TiVo hacking community does not support it to a large degree...it's kind of like the hack to read the video fom the player...TiVo doesn't want it done so their wish is respected because of all of the support they give to the hacking community...

Support?????? Maybe in the past, but not anymore. The Tivo Series 2 boxes are locked down rather heavily. The boot ROM checks for a signed kernel, if it's not signed, it won't run. The kernel checks for modifications to the file system, if any are found it replaces the files and reboots. Although there have been some reports of hardware hacks to replace the ROM, it's not exactly what I would call "all of the support they give to the hacking community".

Not to mention the whole 3.2 backdoor code debacle. After thousands of hours of CPU time, the project had to be abandoned. The conclusion was that Tivo has either used an invalid hash or very long key sequence as the backdoor code in version 3.2, when previously the codes were short and easily hacked. It is just one more example of how hostile Tivo is becoming to hackers.

Tivo is attempting to create an image of greater security (keeping out the dirty hackers) on a software and hardware level in order to market the ability to distribute content with the Tivo as a DRM platform. If you can't hack it, you pretty much have to accept any restrictions they put on content delivered to you. They can deliver PPV events that are deleted after 1 day or not able to be recorded at all.

Fortunately, I have a Series 1 and can do whatever I like with it. I have a backup of every software revision Tivo has put out, so I can revert to an earlier version at any time. I certainly am not going to allow Tivo to send me any more updates, the boot ROM in the S1 is flashable so it's quite possible for Tivo to send down updates that lock me out of my machine.

New Tivo owners are not so lucky. There is no reverting to an earlier version of your brand-new Tivo. I have recommended Tivo to friends in the past but given the disregard for the community that has staunchly supported them (not only by buying subscriptions but by keeping extraction and guide replacement information difficult and obscure and by adding value for other users-free of charge) I don't know if I can still recommend them. I do like the UI but what really got me to buy one was the hack potential. Now that they have no hack potential, the luster is gone and I see the company for what it is: moneygrubbing fools that will alienate their most loyal users for a few quick bucks.

Re:Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[tgibbs]

I'm not worrying about TiVo going under. If that happens, somebody else will be lining up to sell the service to TiVo owners. The one real danger is that TiVo could be bought up by a company that wants to destroy it. This is what happened to the excellent VideoGuide system, which was the best thing of the sort until TiVo came along (it controlled your VCR and got listings via pager). It got bought up by the people who own the crappy TVGuidePlus system and discontinued.

But even then, I expect that hackers would come up with a solution to return TiVo to functionality. I have a Series II, which is not as easily hackable as the Series I, but people have managed to do it by pulling out the drive and hooking it into a separate Linux system.

And frankly, the benefits of TiVo are so great that even if it did tank in a few years, I'd consider it to be worth the cost.

Re:Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[Ciannait]

No hack potential?

I suppose it depends on a given definition of hack.

I have a Series2 DirecTiVo unit, which is happily humming along with a 120-gig hard drive. The original 40-gig is sitting in a closet.

One thing that they have done is make it impossible to install a downloaded version of the OS from another Series2 DirecTiVo. The solution to that is simple - create your own backup and/or save your original hard drive. Personally, I've done both.

No, you can't dig around in the filesystem or change the kernel. Theoretically, the things that got changed in the kernel (TiVoWeb, etc), will be obsolete if the software updates that were promised come through. I don't understand what all your belly-aching is about.

Re:Why I wouldn't buy TiVo..

[Enigma2175]

Theoretically, the things that got changed in the kernel (TiVoWeb, etc), will be obsolete if the software updates that were promised come through

Yeah, giving Tivo money for something I can do myself sounds like a great tradeoff. For example, their new home media package costs an extra $150.00 just to use 2 Tivos. From tivo.com:
Is there a cost associated with Home Media Option?
Yes. The Home Media Option package requires a one-time registration fee of $99 for the first TiVo Series2 DVR. Each additional TiVo Series2 DVR in the home you'd like to add to your home network will be charged a one-time registration fee of $49.

What happens

[isorox]

What happens when tivo records a show at 4AM, when you are watching something else? If I'm watching the A-Team on uk gold on my cable box, I dont want tivo flipping the channel half way though. Does it do this?

Re:What happens

[SamSpectre]

In the US, it gives you an option. A little window pops up that says "Do you want to continue to watch this, or change channel to record the other show". I imagine they all work similarly.

Re:What happens

[Kevinv]

you get a choice. but i've found i pretty much only watch shows already recorded on the tivo (for the commerical skipping) and just let it record what ever it wants from the cable box.

now if i could just get the cat to stop chewing on the IR blaster that controls my cable box.

now with the direct tv satellite version of Tivo you can record one show and watch another, or record 2 shows (this is because it records the already compressed version of the show from satellite so it doesn't waste processor power on the encoding, saving plenty of processor for dual recording)

Re:What happens

[slim]

What happens when tivo records a show at 4AM, when you are watching something else?

Personally I'm in bet at 4am. Call me old if you like... ;)

Anyhow, TiVo records under two circumstances: (1) You've asked it to (2) It's decided you might like it to, based on the thumbs up and thumbs down statistics you've given it.

When TiVo is not in "live TV" mode, i.e. playing back buffered stuff from the last half hour, it will change channel whenever it feels like it -- because it knows you're not watching live TV. The assumption is that you only ever watch TV via TiVo, and this is what you should do.

When you *are* watching live TV, TiVo will not attempt to change channel in order to record category (2) programs. If a category (1) program is coming up, it will pop up a dialogue, "You asked me to record xxxx, press OK to change channel or Cancel to stay on this channel and not record it after all".

Yes, if you're piping output from your cable box around the house, this might cause problems. Not many people are.

Scheduling Question

[Bios_Hakr]

What if a show I want to record is on at the same time as the "promotional material"?

Does the user get the ultimate say?

Re:Scheduling Question

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, they do

Re:Scheduling Question

[Fishstick]

Yes, it will always record your "to do" list first. I often set to record things overnight and I've never had something drop because it conflicted with a "showcase" (that's where these sit when they're not on the main menu with a little star).

In fact, it won't even change the channel on you if you happen to be watching something.

I was up the other night sleepless, flipping channels when TiVo asked if it could change the channel. I was suprised because I didn't remember setting anything up for 3:30 am on the Discovery Channel, but I let it go because I thought maybe my wife had set to record something.

So, it changed the channel (with my permission) and proceeded to start recording some previews for "Daredevil". I decided I'd rather go back to some documentary about Rhinos humping or something I was previously watching, so it let me change the channel without complaining that I was interrupting a scheduled recording or anything.

It went back and picked up the movie previews the next night, I guess because they showed up in a couple days.

I guess I was a little wary that TiVo was recording what amounts to ads at first. But I really don't mind that much now. Some of the stuff like best buy kind of turns me off, a few things like the daredevil previews I liked, and the rest I really don't even care about.

Besides, isn't there a backdoor code or something to keep TiVo from recording these?

Re:Scheduling Question

[mjh]

I've wondered about this sort of thing. If you flip on Discovery Channel on your regular TV, are the previews playing, or is this something that is visable/recordable only to the Tivo? I'm guessing from your account that anyone who happens to stay up could see this, but I don't know. I remember one of the things it downloaded was a short film about some guy who had a meeting with Woody Allen. Anyway, at the beginning of that program it said "brought to you by BestBuy exclusively for TiVo owners". So is it really exclusive or can anyone, who's motivated to get up watch that stuff?

I've not yet been motivated enough to stay up until past 4am to find out.

Re:Scheduling Question

[Fishstick]

Yeah, it seems to be just broadcat, at least in this case.

I had heard that there was something else going on where the content wasn't visible, was broken up across different time slices and re-assembled bu the TiVo, but this doesn't seem likely or even necessary.

Re:Scheduling Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Tivo gets some info on the Discovery Channel, its called Teleworld, it can get soem service updates, etc there too making the nightly phone call shorter.

Re:Scheduling Question

[Fishstick]

don't mind me...

Re:"Post-watershed" term

[dmanny]

Or at least this particular usage of the compound "post-watershed" I was unfamiliar with this compound phrase as well and google provided a fairly low (750) set of matches, most referring to broadcast regulations in the UK, the rest actual watersheds in the sense that I did recogize. I can only speculate but...

A geographic watershed is a region that drains to a single river/lake etc. It is bounded by a line of high ground that differentiates it from the surrounding other watershed areas.

The phrase "watershed event" is used to denote a particular point at which things become easier - i.e. "The advent of peer-to-peer filesharing was a watershed devent for the distribution of music". :-)

So it would seem that this usage of watershed is referring to a point of demarcation -- in this case a time of day.

We are separated by a common language. Sometime I should put my experience on using a Haynes automotive service manual to pull an engine. Language provided an amusing mis-step.

So I conclude, perhaps incorrectly, that is the point after which programming goes downhill.

sad but true?

[djupedal]

'watershed' is defined as 'turning point'...'post' = after, so it seems the marketing arm (ass?) of the BBC claims that program was past being new or in other words, widely accepted by viewers in the UK. "Everyone likes XYZ, let's use it!" - Imagine the meeting conversation where this decision was made. M.P's Flying Circus would have had an easy target with this one. "I'm a spammer and I'm ok...I spams all night and I spams all day.....
I send out spam,
I eat my lunch,
I go to the lavatory...
On Wednesday I go channel surfing
with a no-spam TiVo equipped TV."

TiVo programming, at least at that point in time, allowed content such as trailers, etc. to be loaded onto the boxes without being requested by the end user. These were apparently considered to be ok for marketing purposes, etc. In this case, the BBC took advantage and loaded an entire program to everyone's box, clearly unaware of the public's concept of spam.

I think marketing wonks worldwide have gone down to the same lab, where the brain circuits relating to victimless crime, along with sociopathic attributes common to all spammers, are fused into one synapse that fires automatically when such keywords/phrases as 'customer benefit'; 'unique opportunity'; 'sureness of prospect' and 'special offer' are used in any conversation.

The BBC had no clue that what they were doing was objectional. That's the issue for me...they have their hand on the switch, yet they are out of touch with the tastes, attitudes and wishes of their customers.

Re:sad but true?

[Pharmboy]

thanks for an intellegent reply.

As to whoever modded my sincere question as flamebait, perhaps you should read the articles before you moderate.

CBC News!

[stego]

My new cable in Virginia has a station (News World International) thats mostly Canadian news. It seems so serious and credible compared to CNN/Fox/MSNBC.

Re:CBC News!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we Canucks like our news serious ... because well, it is typically always doom and gloom anyway, isn't it? I recall being on a bus on Saturday, when people were just discovering the Space Shuttle disaster, and a comment made was "now CNN will have something else to go on and on about". Admittedly, I own a US DirecTiVo system... so yeah, I watched some CNN... :)

Re:CBC News!

[paulc]

Have you seen Bowling For Columbine? Interesting segment in there on how US news is all scare mongering "Another brutal murder/stabbing/shooting", "Anthrax everywhere", "Alarms sounded at the nuclear reprocessing plant earlier today" etc then they showed a clip of of Canadian news "Surrey residents are annoyed at not being consulted before the speed bumps were installed".

As an Englishman living in Canada I thought it was kinda interesting to see the comparison being made. Then the other night, I ended up watching Q13 news (out of Seattle) and barring the Anthrax reference, it was exactly as above - alarms HAD gone off at a nuclear facility of some kind, there HAD been a brutal murder in Tacoma.. Usually I switch off cos it's irrelevant but I had the TV on in the background while I was working and found it quite interesting - the whole pace of the show was very fast and urgent, but there was a lot of stirring things up too..

*shrugs* just my £0.02 :-)

Setting up alternative service

[dmanny]

It is not clear to me if you have had any "hands on" time with a Tivo. I have two units. If the programming service becomes unavailable I would suspect that the hacker community will respond rather strongly. I have not yet checked to see if there has been any activity in this area on the forums. As I recall, most forums explicitly did not delve into this type of subject matter. Most want Tivo to survive.....

However it seems very clear that Tivo uses IP to access the schedule (and time) service. By that I mean Internet Protocol, not Intellectual Property although they might like to claim the latter. There are several observations that illuminate the use of IP. Specifically, one can add an ethernet card and successfully download through a shared high speed internet connection. Also the phone number used here in the Kansas City area is one I recognize as an Internet dialup number that I used prior to having high speed service available.

While many would disdain cutting into Tivo revenue stream, any abandonment of customers would definitly change the landscape. Others would help. I would help.

It has been some time since I did the setup on my Tivos but out of the box the unit calls a toll free number after requesting your postal code (ZIP code here in the US). At least I think it was the postal code. Anyway after calling the toll free number, it then presents you with a list of choices for which cable or broadcast channel lineups you might have.

This process could be fairly easily subverted. At most, simply feeding a dial tone into the modem should satisfy its needs prior to dialing. Then manual dialing could be done instead to a different number that starts the whole process from an independent service.

Re:Setting up alternative service

[bfree]

I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for Tivo or any inclination towards not subverting their system! Why? Well to put it simply, if I am paying someone to provide me with a TV signal, I feel it is well within my rights to acquire the TV-Listings (not to acquire reviews, but listings). If I can acquire the listings for all the services I am allowed to access (and even the ones I can't would only be potential teaser material to get me to sign up) then I have the material upon which to base a tivo system. Tivo wanted to go to the Sky's of this world and say "look, we can sell them your Tv-Listings again and make you even more money" and Sky went "sure", but sky now doesn't have a teletext service (that I know of) so instead you need to access their digital service to get tv listings so now they are controlling an extra revenue stream and generating extra revenue that could and should be freely available. That being said, I didn't buy a Tivo from abroad and start hacking because a base standard is required, one that works with any system that manipulates TV-Listings (Tivo, Freevo, ATI stuff, Sky+, anything) and then let the manufacturers run to any local DMCA like laws and test them out when people drop the "services" required to use the free service instead because they can't see any advantage to using the pay service (if they can then we should work harder). I would be (I'm sure) a Tivo hacker if it really existed in my country, instead I want to build my own. If you didn't have Tivo, what would the quality of Free Media devices be, I suspect improved as would be Free Media hackers are hacking Tivos. Oh well, when I figure out what bloody card will do PAL TV to MPEG2 or similar without chewing a machine to pieces under linux I'll leave you all alone to get hacking on something:-)

Re:Setting up alternative service

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is not clear to me if you have had any "hands on" time with a Tivo. I have two units. If the programming service becomes unavailable I would suspect that the hacker community will respond rather strongly. I have not yet checked to see if there has been any activity in this area on the forums. As I recall, most forums explicitly did not delve into this type of subject matter. Most want Tivo to survive....."

I've been using the xmltv grabber to scrape
UK listings data for some months. With a
bit of intermediate code, and Andrew Tridgewell's guidekit, the (xml) listings data is re-written in the "slice" format that the TiVo uses, and then uploaded via an ftpd onto the tivo.

The procedure is not as good as using TiVo's official data, but good enough for me. (I only watch maybe 60 mins of tv a day.. a dose of Paxo dragging the PM through a hedge backwards is all the infotainment I need in my life).

Re:Setting up alternative service

[dmanny]

Thanks for the info. I purchased lifetime subscriptions for both of my units long enough ago that I am past the break-even point compared to their repetive billed approach.

I wouldn't mind trying this type of technique with an additional older unit that I might pick up used. It would serve me well while my current pair could be used my someone else in my family. I will check out the guidekit.

I would not recommend that anyone get the lifetime service agreement at this time.

Re:I wonder if they vomit on toddlers in the UK.

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel certain that disgusting troll text must have been written by a slashdot poster (maybe you), and possibly appeared here first.

All TV is "spammed" -- it's a broadcast!

[Morgaine]

For goodness sake folks, you're suppposed to be techies, don't you understand that all TV programming is "spammed" in the sense that it's broadcast to everybody??? That makes it fairly silly to accuse the BBC of spamming. Yeah, the BBC and all TV stations have been spamming us for half a century, it's what they do.

All TVs, VCRs, and TiVos in the appropriate reception areas received the broadcast, if they were switched on and tuned to the right channel. I've never heard of anyone switching on the telly and shouting in horror, "I'm being spammed!". The TiVos also stored what they were receiving, as that's what they were designed to do with this special content. That really does make this a non-story.

Please reserve the word "spam" for individually addressed delivery systems delivering the same item to multiple recipients. Applying it to broadcast systems makes no sense at all.

Re:All TV is "spammed" -- it's a broadcast!

[Dachannien]

But there is a big difference between going through the TV Guide and seeing listings for everything that's on, and scrolling down through TiVo's list of TV shows and seeing an entry for a show that TiVo thinks you "might want to watch".

You "might need something to make your dick bigger", or you "might want to work from home and make thousands of dollars licking envelopes", or you "might want to see barely-legal teens in provocative poses". That's all spam, because it shows up in your e-mail inbox under the guise of something you "might want". Obviously, most people don't want any of that, and even though it's just a matter of hitting the trash button on those messages, it's still infuriating to receive them in the first place.

With your TiVo, you have a limited resource (hard drive space) being taken up in significant quantities by each show, and TiVo tells you that you "might want to watch this show" even though there is no real heuristic for determining whether this is the case. And no, if(1){record("show")} does not count as a heuristic.

It's also different from broadcasting, because a broadcast program is shown by the TV station and then "goes away" in a sense. A program recorded to your TiVo stays around until you delete it, which makes it far different from a broadcast program. It's solely a marketing ploy to take advantage of that, and people don't like it when marketers invade their home without permission.

On a side note: There is another way to watch your TV.

Re:All TV is "spammed" -- it's a broadcast!

[Anonymous Coward]

You "might need something to make your dick bigger", or you "might want to work from home and make thousands of dollars licking envelopes", or you "might want to see barely-legal teens in provocative poses". That's all spam

No it's not spam, it's objectionable content. It can only be spam if it was addressed and delivered to you personally when you hadn't solicited it. There is no mechanism for addressing any particular receiver personally in TV, as it's a broadcast system. So if you insist on calling it spam, then you must also refer to all TV broadcasting as spam, which would make the term worthless.

With your TiVo, you have a limited resource (hard drive space) being taken up in significant quantities by each show

But not in the case of this "enhanced content", because there is a special area reserved on TiVos for such broadcaster-paid material so that it doesn't eat into your available disk space.

Why jump to this conclusion?

[Abductor]

Why did this thread instantly jump to the conclusion it was over this infomercial issue? Tivo never caught on like wildfire, even though people like me have bought them for their parents and siblings knowing they'd love it like I did. But for whatever reasons it did not become the VCR replacement, and Tivo's stock price has always struggled. Still, to know PVR is to love it. Tivo hasn't gone under, but for example on DirecTV it's no longer called Tivo, it's just part of your DirecTV service. The company did not flourish in one form and so it has taken on other forms. It appears that PVR's are accepted when they are part of a cable or satellite box, i.e., a built-in feature of something else. So I put very little stock in this notion that an informercial brought down Tivo in the UK, when this closure falls right in line with the direction the company has been heading in.

Re:Why jump to this conclusion?

[Zathrus]

Tivo hasn't gone under, but for example on DirecTV it's no longer called Tivo, it's just part of your DirecTV service

Slightly wrong...

It's now called "DirecTV with TiVo". Billing is done through DTV, not TiVo, and guide updates are provided by DTV as well (which means program guide data can be different for DTiVos as compared to standalones).

DirecTV is still using the TiVo service, and paying TiVo a cut of the money.

Not the news you wanna hear..

[Anonvmous Coward]

... when you've purchased a ReplayTV today.

Now I understand what all the fuss is about. You really have to sit down, pause a live broadcast, rewind it a bit, then start playing again to understand why this thing is so cool.

It's a pity that this device that makes me watch more TV is under fire by the TV Industry. Am I going to skip commercials? Yes. Am I going to skip every single commercial? Can't skip commercials while the show is originally airing. I'm using it to catch shows I hadn't seen yet. If the show's good, I'm going to watch it when it airs. The ads are still getting to me, even more so now that I have more shows I want to watch.

Okay, that horse has been beaten to death. It's just sad that these industries are so short sighted. I mean, think about it, the more fun TV is (i.e. trading shows...), the more interest is generated in seeking interesting content.

Okay, I'm not really on-topic anymore. Sorry. Just wanted to vent a bit. Hopefully you can imagine my reaction to the headline the day I bought the machine.

Re:Not the news you wanna hear..

[TheRaven64]

Am I going to skip every single commercial?
I watched Sky One for to hours yesterday. In one hour of television, 15 minutes were adverts. Many of the adverts were repeated. Roughly 40% did not apply to me in any way (I have no wish o by feminine hygiene products, or consolidate my debt, for example). Of the remaining ones, most (okay, all) were so irritating that I made a note of the products concerned, so I wouldn't accidentally purchase any of them. When will advertises learn that irritating their potential customers is not a good idea?

Re:Not the news you wanna hear..

[Anonvmous Coward]

"When will advertises learn that irritating their potential customers is not a good idea?"

Like showing tampon commercials during Star Trek? Heh. That never ceases to amaze me. It's kinda like Microsoft advertising here on Slashdot. Guys HATE tampons!

Re:does this mean we might get TiVo's in Australia

[MrHatken]

Yeah, me too. Is the UK the only place you can buy a PAL Tivo (btw, I know it has been possible to mod an NTSC Tivo to PAL)?

Also, the new Series 2 functions they discuss (playing MP3s and displaying photos from your computer), are these tied to the premium service?

Tivo is no longer needed.

[acidkillUSF]

With OnDemand comming into service from Time Warner Cable, you can watch a lot of shows,
and also news broadcasts that are on tv at any time. You can also watch a ton of movies at any time you would like to.
If the ammount of Tv shows and movies available is expanded to include all tv shows and on for the past week or two,
that would be the pinicle. Then all television content would be OnDemand via remote controle at any time.
I would think that this tis Time Warners gole, if it isnt, it should be. Of course there are licensing issues that have to be delt with,
and i have no idea how that would break this down.

Just my 2 cents.

No surprise there

[TheEnglishPatient]

The Resister had this story in November telling us that Thompson the only manufacturer of UK Tivo's was stopping production so it's no surprise that Tivo has pulled out altogether. Also interesting is the recent rise in price of new and used Tivo's on Ebay (UK) showing there is still some demand. I recon they canned it before most people had even hears of Tivo. Nick

Re:No surprise there

[Tony Hoyle]

*sigh*

There is *no new news*. Tivo have *not* pulled out of the UK. Service is still available. This whole damned article is just a repeat of news from last Semptember.

The Wider View

[Inflatable Hippo]

The withdrawl of tivo from the UK is in part related to the wider mess that is UK terrestrial broadcasting, and there's a bunch of stuff going on that anyone outside the UK wouldn't be expected to know, leave now if you don't care.

There are theoretically 5 analogue terrestrial channels in the UK, and in many places only 4.

There is also no single widely available cable network either and if you do have access, it's typically a local monopoly and it's pretty expensive - typically £20-30/month for a descent package.

The Sky (satellite) service is polular but also expensive.

Several years ago a digital terrestrial service was launched and failed miserably and with much fanfare. This has recently been re-launched as entirely an entirely free-to-view service and looks set to succeed.

Now as you can see, we have a real mess of technologies here and if a company such as Tivo wants to sell a premium recorder product they've got a problem. Their marked is spread across satellite, and a multiplicity of analogue/digital terrestrial and cable formats.

What decoders do they build into their device?

1. Sky which re-transmits all of the (good) free-to-view channels have their own HD based recorder.

2. People with only terrestrial analogue are happy with VCRs

3. The cable market is fragmented technologically.

4. Digital terrestrial is a new but very small market.

So they gave up, and I don't blame them - it's a mess.

B.T.W. Pace have a digital terrestrial HD recorder which might be interesting but it was due before Christmas and there's still no sign.

Wow I'm boring.

Re:The Wider View

[nagora]

You forgot the bit about how, if you deleted all the dross and programming for the mentally handicaped (Kilroy, anything with Andrew Neil etc), it would be hard to fill one channel for any given 24hr period unless you throw in a bunch of films than are already available on video. I don't know what we'll watch after David Attenbourgh snuffs it; at that point I genuinely think I'd be inclined to get rid of the TV altogether.

TWW

Re:The Wider View

[TheRaven64]

There is also no single widely available cable network either and if you do have access, it's typically a local monopoly and it's pretty expensive - typically £20-30/month for a descent package.
Really? I pay £5/month for cable TV, which gives me far more channels than I want. I pay an additional £35/month for a 1Mbit Cable modem down the same wire. Split 4 ways (shared student house) this works out at £10/month each for broadband and cable TV. The TV portion of this is decode MPEG2 to analogue video -> digitise -> encode to MPEG2 which just seems like a horrible solution) I would buy one. Since I can't, I haven't. The digiboxes supplied by my cable supplier (NTl) are standard models made by Pace, based on a standard for digital TV. If you buy your own igibx, all you need to do is move the card which supplies the encryptino key to the new box. The analogue TV that comes down the same cable can b decoded with a standard TV card. I'm not sure what cable companies you have in your area, but in Swansea (S. Wales) we don't have this problem.

Re:The Wider View

[hoofie]

Apparently Alan Titchmarsh is going to step into his shoes.

Doesn't bear thinking about does it ?

I can see it now - Ground Force visits a group of chimps in Africa, and replaces their forest with decking, a pagoda and stone chippings.

Re:The Wider View

[Nexus Seven]

Having been an ntl:home and a Sky Digital subscriber who's moved to the US, I can tell you the quality:price ratio is substantially better in the UK.

I currently subscribe to AT&T digital cable (although more than half of the channels are analog). The quality is like watching MPEG on the internet. For this privilege, I pay $65 per month (£45). The price goes up to $110 if you want the full monty.

TiVo NOT Pulling Out Of UK (Apparently)

[Steve Cox]

According to another thread in the TiVo UK forum, the BBC cocked up. TiVo is NOT pulling our of the UK, just Thompson who make the UK version of the TiVo (though I guess this leaves the UK without a TiVo manufacturer for a while).

According to the thread this is not the first time this mistake has been made.

TiVo died because UK already had better: Sky Plus

[evilandi]

TiVo may have seemed revolutionary in the USA, but in the UK it was just one of many enhanced TV systems.

TiVo's biggest rival, Sky Plus (Sky+) did everything that TiVo did, and more, came pre-packaged with an installation engineer's visit and had the branding and backing of the UK's largest pay-TV provider, Sky (backed by Rupert Murdoch/Fox corp).

Sky already had a shedload of TV toys. For instance, I remember one of my business meetings in Texas two years ago, the CEO of this oil firm was saying something like "In the future, you'll be able to watch a football match and zoom in on individual players".

...and I thought to myself "I can *ALREADY* do that in the UK with Sky. We've been able to do it for years! How backwards are these people?"

Then I glanced down at the predicted coverage map for my GPRS phone in Texas...

Hoax

[nmg196]

God I hate slashdot sometimes.

The posts below the one referenced indicate this is a hoax. If you read the FAQ it contains the following question:

"I just read TiVo is going to pull out of the UK - is this true? Where can I get a new TiVo box from?
TiVo are not pulling out of the UK. Read the real truth here."

I can't believe that story actually made it on to slashdot.

Has it got so bad that now even the admins don't read the article?!

Nick...

Re:Hoax

[Inflatable Hippo]

Fair point - it looks like the service is continuing.

However, it comes to the same thing in the end.

I went to comet to try and buy a Tivo on Sunday. They told me they'd run out and no replacement was expected.

If Tivo arn't getting any new customers then any rate of churn is going to see their subscription income dwindle to zero in short order.

And they'll shut it down.

Re:Hoax

[MartinB]

Sure, TiVo aren't pulling out, just Thompson.

Try actually *buying* one... staff Dixon's Group stores (including Dixons & Currys) claim never to have heard of it.

Our local (Edinburgh) Currys superstore has a total of *one* in stock, which the sales staff seem to be doing their best to not sell (compared to the sky+ boxes).

The Economist has also written about this today.

[chrestomanci]

The Economist have published an article on the subject today. They conclude that while the TiVo company may be struggling, they revolution they started will continue, as the technology is licensed into a broad range of set top boxes and TVs.

They also predict that TV advertising will not be killed in the revolution, just the bad advertisements.

TiVo the wrong product for the UK

[chrisbtoo]

AIUI, the TiVo box works by downloading listings via a dial-up connection, and MPEG-encoding an analogue TV signal.

The thing is, they released it in the UK after digital TV was "widely" available. IMHO, most of the people that would consider buying a TiVo are likely to be people who have digital TV.

DVB has digital, in-band listings information that can be updated in real-time if the line-up changes. Additionally, with something like Sky+ or one of the yet-to-surface digital terrestrial or cable DVR boxes, you don't have to decode the MPEG to analogue and then re-encode it to MPEG before you can record it. That makes for a cheaper box, with higher quality audio/video and better compression (so more stuff can be recorded).

I'm guessing that demand for integrated DVR systems will be much higher than it ever was for TiVo.

Re:TiVo the wrong product for the UK

[FrostedWheat]

with higher quality audio/video and better compression

It's a shame Sky use such a horribly low bitrate that it probably wouldn't make much difference. A properly setup analogue system used to be much better.

Re:TiVo the wrong product for the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US we have Direct TV tivos, they do exactly what you say. I have a standalone tivo along with 2 directivos and the difference is amazing. The SA tivo can't compare to the directivos, plus the directivo records two channels at the same time, which I always wished the SA could do.

Re:TiVo the wrong product for the UK

[Qube]

One of the downsides of Sky+ for me (relative to my TiVo) is that it _doesn't_ re-encode - it just uses whatever bitrate Sky decided on.

TiVo at High or Best is (to my eyes) the same as Sky's not-perfect output, and for stuff that doesn't have quick-moving action (that you get artefacts on) you can go down to medium or even basic and still have very watchable recordings. Saves a load of space, and it's still far better than VHS ever was.

The other big reason I like the separation is that something on the TiVo is controlled by me. If I recorded a pay-per-view show, *I* decide when it gets deleted. If the broadcaster flags "no ad skipping" or "don't record this", it won't care less. All of that stuff is under Sky's control on their own Sky+ system, and I can do without that kind of BS.

TiVo's big draw in the UK is that it works with all of the various TV systems. Analogue terrestrial, free-to-air digital terrestrial, Sky, analogue and digital cable.. all it needs is a way of changing channels, usually with IR wands. New boxes get added pretty quickly, usually by people with Pronto remotes emailing the codes to the right techies at TiVo.

Support for everything means a much better potential market. Sky+ still only has similar numbers of subscribers despite much more aggressive advertising and in-store marketing, mainly because they can only ever sell it to their own customers.

Re:TiVo died because UK already had better: Sky Pl

[radish]

2 points here:

1) Tivo is not pulling out of the UK, Thomson have just stopped making the boxes. Other manufacturers may well step in to start making them.

2) Tivo was launched in the UK around a year earlier than Sky+, so to say it failed because the UK already had something better is obviously wrong.

TiVo's hard to get hold of for some time

[DrTentacle]

I tried to buy a TiVo a few weeks before christmas from one of their listed outlets. Without exception, all of them told me that they would not be receiving any more units, and that the only chance would be to find an outlet that still had some in stock. The TiVo site didn't change to reflect this until recently - Now, they make no mention of actually being able to *buy* their product any more :)

I guess this explains the recent price increases in second hand units.

Firewire outputs

[nmg196]

All current PVR/DVR systems are quite restricted in their capability because they only have analog inputs/outputs.

It's a great shame that people like Sky and NTL (digital satellite and cable operators in the UK) don't put IEEE1394 firewire connectiors (in and out) on all their equipement, so that instead of getting a nice digital signal in MPEG 2 format - converting it to analog, then reencoding it back to MPEG 2 when it would be so easy for the box to just stream out MPEG 2 so that the original source could be recorded unaltered. I can't believe that some enterprising hacker hasn't made an add on board for DVB or digital cable that you can shove inside your box so you can stream the MPEG 2 stream to a PC for digital recording.

One day all video recorders will be firewire only, record digitally, have access to the program guide and have a built in DVD writer for making recorded shows 'portable'. The thing is, due to lack of innovation, it'll probably take 5-10 years, even though all the technology to do this exists now.

Nick...

Re:Firewire outputs

[gbjbaanb]

Well, its mostly here, except the connectivity is via USB not Firewire, and you need a PC to house the HDD and DVD recorder.
Still... for £110 quid it isn;t bad.

http://myahead.com/go/look/product.show_product? v_ id=3425

Re:Firewire outputs

[bagemk]

Sky already offer a box to do this. The Sky+ box records the digital satellite feed directly to hard disk. With it's twin feeds, it can record one channel while you pause/rewind another. And it's ease of use beats any PC ever made. FWIW I rejected Tivo in favour of Sky+ purely due to quality. (I can watch a widescreen movie played back in the original quality with DD5.1 - Tivo cannot come close)

Re:Firewire outputs

[nmg196]

I've not been tempted by Sky+ myself, purely because whenever I've seen it in a shop, the quality looks awful. It always seems to have very visible compression artifacts which I think would annoy me. It looks more like it's come from the Internet than a dedicated satellite feed. The digital stream that comes off my cable box (NTL) seems much higher quality and in the vast majority of cases, there is no visible compression at all. It's pretty much DVD quality on every channel (when not sat 2feet from the screen anyway!).

Nick...

Re:Firewire outputs

[bagemk]

There is no further compression with Sky+ that with the original signal as there is no further processing. However, UK shops are notoriously bad at demonstrating digital TV in any form. Almost without exception, they all use the UHF feed into the TV and then turn all the TVs noise processing (sharpness) controls on, resulting in a diabolical picture. Given that we have had RGB feeds as standard on TVs and standard cables (SCART) for well over ten years, it is appalling.

TiVo might not be discontinued in uk after all

[adamsan]

From a UK TiVO user's page at http://www.garysargent.co.uk/tivo/faq/tivosfuture. htm:

TiVo say: "Nothing is changing for TiVo subscribers in the UK. We'll continue to provide the TiVo service, and we're glad to have you as subscribers. As far as the overhead of supporting the UK, you might remember this summer when I mentioned that we'd significantly improved our throughput in publishing the UK service. We're running quite efficiently. And we're talking with partners, old and new, about what's next in the UK. There's nothing imminent to announce, so don't start the countdown yet. But there are several things that might be interesting."
Source: Bob Pony, TiVo. 19 Nov 2002.

I hope this is true; for Sky (ie Rupert Murdoch) to corner another section of the British media would take us one step further towards being one big Fox franchise.

Sky+ = TiVo-UK

[splateagle]

Sky+ *is* TiVo in the UK, I'm pretty certain that this is why they're pulling the standalone Hardware sales (after all as someone else pointed out, they make no profit from the sale of licenced hardware, the profit is in the subscription service)

The Sky+ on-screen branding is different, and the hardware is integrated into your decoder box but it's exactly the same system, and (afaik) the subscription support is farmed out by Sky to TiVo.

I have a standalone TiVo branded unit hooked into my sky box (which was bought back when we had cable) and whenever we have Sky engineers out they comment that it's the same system, most are interested in how the non-integrated version compares (the answer is that it's very good but occasionally fluffs channel changes which Sky+ doesn't.)

For those of you not in the UK, Sky are the dominant multichannel TV providers (think Microsoft if it helps) with the two cable co.s trailing ever further behind in market share (last time I looked I think they collectively had about something like 20% and falling) Telewest (one of the two cable co.s) actually altered the software in many of their set-top boxes to make it incompatible with ToVo about 18months ago (which is one thing that promted me to switch) so really the only UK TiVo market is Sky customers, who are all still able to upgrade to Sky+ aka integrated-TiVo.

While it does rather worryingly smack of on impending media-monopoly in the UKs PVR sector, TiVo's announcement is most emphatically NOT a sign that they're flagging in the UK - quite the reverse: back-door TiVo sales through Sky+ are healthy and on the increase.

Re:Sky+ = TiVo-UK

[class_A]

Sky+ is most definitely NOT TiVo. Sky Subscriber Services handle the UK billing and technical support for TiVo subscribers in the UK on behalf of TiVo Inc.

British Sky Broadcasting market their own PVR called Sky+ which uses their own software developed from the codebase of the regular Sky Digibox (which is based on WinCE IIRC). Sky Subscriber Services handle the billing and technical support of this device as well, alongside a regular Sky TV subscription.

Re:Sky+ = TiVo-UK

[Gordonjcp]

It's not WinCE, it is based on VxWorks (at least, the Pace ones that I've seen appear to be).

Re:Sky+ = TiVo-UK

[class_A]

Guess I recalled incorrectly (GIRI) :-)

Re:Sky+ = TiVo-UK

[Gossy]

Don't forget Sky+ has [i]two[/i] Sky Digital decoders.

AFAIK, Tivo doesn't have any sky decoders - it can record two terrestrial channels at once, but it's limited to one sky channel, that your decoder is set to.

Sky+ though could record from say, Sky One and UK Gold at the same time.

Re:Sky+ = TiVo-UK

[fyonn]

Don't forget Sky+ has [i]two[/i] Sky Digital decoders.

no it doesn't. just the one decoder. however, it doesn;t need to decode something to record it. it reocrds the encrypted bitstream and decodes it when you want to watch it. I don;t however know what the implications are of recording something on a premium channel, changeing your subscription to not include tha5t channel and then trying to watch the program you've recorded.. does it work?

AFAIK, Tivo doesn't have any sky decoders - it can record two terrestrial channels at once, but it's limited to one sky channel, that your decoder is set to.

nope, it can only record one thing at once

dave

Re:Sky+ = TiVo-UK

[Ben Hutchings]

Don't forget the OpenTV middleware.

Re:TiVo died because UK already had better: Sky Pl

[splateagle]

Sky+ *is* TiVo - the technology in your integrated box is licenced from TiVo, it's not a rival, it's the SAME THING with a different brand.

Bit late, but...

[Yer Mum]

What are you on about, man?

Watershed is 9pm. Pre-watershed (before 9pm) is reserved for programs suitable for any audience (i.e. nothing which will scare the horses or children). Post-watershed means programs can have more swearing or soft porn (usually Channels 4 and 5).

This is a voluntary code which all five terrestrial channels follow, although the definition of what's acceptable pre and post-watershed has shifted over the decades.

rumours from the future

[geoff lane]

of low cost TiVo work-alikes almost ready for the market. TiVo was really nothing more than a Linux PC. If you start from scratch it's possible to build a box with the equivalent functions in a much smaller and cheaper package. Plus, if you pull the TV schedules from teletext rather than via a subscription service it gets even cheaper.

I expect to see a product (packaged as a 6" cube) in the shops by next Christmas.

SKY +

[Anonymous Coward]

Sky (UK's didgital satelite provider, murdoch empire company) has been selling their sky+ boxes for a while now.

These are similar to TiVo but have a sat reciever built in too (record 1 channel, watch/pause another).

Whilst TiVo is probably better AND cheaper than Sky+ the average UK consumer is mentaly retarded and will buy a more expensive/inferior product if told to do so often enough.

Re:TiVo died because UK already had better: Sky Pl

[Anonymous Coward]

Above statement is wrong, please mod down.

Re:SKY + is by far the better system

[bagemk]

Sky+ is by far a better system than Tivo. By recording the original digital satellite feed, it gives much better quality pictures and sound than Tivo. Add in the integration with the Sky Satellite Receivers (Sky+ has 2 receivers) making the system incredibly easy to use and Tivo doesn't really stand a chance. (Beware the FUD surrounding the Sky+ box. It suffers from the corp syndrome, as in anything from Sky must be bad and anything from the little guy -Tivo - must be good. In practice, this is not the case)

Re:Sky+ = TiVo-UK *WRONG*

[Contact]

Sorry, you're totally, utterly, staggeringly wrong. TiVo is an entirely different system to Sky+ (the latter doesn't offer suggestions or wishlists, for example). Different hardware (Sky+ made by Pace, actually) and home grown software, which is nowhere near as mature as TiVo.

Maybe you're confused because TiVo was marketed in the UK by Sky, and TiVo used to have a "supported by Sky" flash on the main menu?

Re:TiVo died because UK already had better: Sky Pl

[Contact]

TiVo's biggest rival, Sky Plus (Sky+) [sky.com] did everything that TiVo did, and more, came pre-packaged with an installation engineer's visit and had the branding and backing of the UK's largest pay-TV provider, Sky (backed by Rupert Murdoch/Fox corp).

Erm, "everything that TiVO did, and more"? Sky+ doesn't support suggestions, it doesn't support wishlists, season passes don't work as reliably (and until a recent patch used to fail extremely regularly), etc. Sky+ is a fairly good product, but it's much younger than TiVo, and it shows.

Except that you're wrong...

[dachshund]

If you bought your Tivo prior to system 2.5.5, it's absolutely true. The upgrade to 2.5.5 "reserved" a portion of what was general space, and set it aside for advertising.

Here's one entry: http://www.garysargent.co.uk/tivo/faq/faqentry.php ?faqid=47

So is this the end of the world? Not really, but I don't see any reason to defend Tivo for reducing the available space on the hard-drive I purchased (which either means less recording time or lower recording quality.)

Oh yeah, but I get those great Counting Crows videos...

Re:TiVo died because UK already had better: Sky Pl

[Tony Hoyle]

bzzt.

Let's put this to bed once and for all shall we?

Stop listening to Dixons salesmen.

Sky+ is *not* repeat *not* a Tivo. Nor is it anything like. It is pitched at the 'digital vcr' market and is doing quite well there. It doesn't have any of the enhanced Tivo funcionality (proper season passes, wishlists, suggestions) but has the advantage that it can record the mpeg stream directly (which AFAIK no Tivo can do).

Re:SKY + is by far the better system

[Anonymous Coward]

They just need to release something close to a DirecTiVo there.

I have a Hughes DirecTiVo for DirecTV, it has two tuners, works really well and kicks the shit out of a normal tivo (and with my package tier I don't pay for tivo service). I have it modded with a larger A drive and the quality is amazing, I only wish the normal tivo could record the same quality as this one can.

I do.

[Anonymous Coward]

I will not buy a tivo because of the spam, and the rip-off monthly fee they want.

If you don't subscribe, it constantly prompts you to subscribe.

I will continue to wait for a pvr that I can use with a free tv guide from the 'net. Since all of the tvguide stuff is available online now for free anyway, what's the point of paying for a subscription? I wouldn't mind paying a flat (low) fee for the software, but $250 is not reasonable.

Bulldroppings.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get a discount on your subscription.

If you paid the $250 lifetime subscription, you won't get a refund just because they sold some spam.

If you pay the $14.95 monthly fee, it won't go down just because they are selling spam.

You seem to think that if they make add'l money somewhere else, this means that they won't have to raise your price. BS. It just means they will make add'l profit.

Re:Bulldroppings.

[Yottabyte84]

The monthly fee is $12.95....

Why I didn't buy TiVo

[ferret4]

I don't know about anywhere else, but here in the UK TiVo charge a 10 pound monthly subscription fee, which put me right off.

All I want to do is record programs without the use of extras (videos and recordable DVDs), so I don't see the need to pay a monthly subscription to do that. I don't need it to predict what I want to watch: I'm perfectly capable of reading through the free weekly TV listings in newspapers, teletext, etc.

Re:Why I didn't buy TiVo

[Qube]

Standalone DVRs are coming soon - think Pace are closest to marketing a unit with a freeview decoder integrated. Or I think there's a Panasonic DVD recorder out now which has a HD too - but it's around the 900ukp mark, 500 more than a regular DVD recorder.

Downside - with no subscription the inital purchase cost has to reflect the hardware, HD, manufacturing/support cost, and the company's profit. And that's before the VAT. Pace's is looking like it won't be much under 400ukp, and that's just for a 20Gb model.

It doesn't cost TiVo anywhere near 10/month to provide the listings data and the freephone number to dial into, the rest helps pay for the subsidised box. Like buying a mobile phone, you don't _have_ to subscribe, but without that subsidy they're very expensive things.

Re:Sky+ = TiVo-UK *WRONG*

[splateagle]

I am indeed confused - but by the fact that Sky engineers refered to the hardware specifically as being that used in Sky+, I should know better than to listen to service engineers! ;)

Re:TiVo died because UK already had better: Sky Pl

[splateagle]

fyi I *never* listen to Dixon's salesmen, the (wrong) impression that Sky+ is TiVo based came from Sky service engineers *shrugs* that'll teach me to a) listen to service engineers and b) post /. on a Friday! ;)

so, new question: is the service side of TiVo in the UK likely to be affected by this in any way? TiVo say no, but then again they would wouldn't they?

Where the hell can I get a Tivo now?

[EnglishTim]

Apart from ebay, is there anywhere in the UK one can purchase a Tivo nowadays?

Rubbish.

[EnglishTim]

Tivos were selling for £150, last time I looked. I think you'd be hard pressed to put something together from scratch that came in for less than £200...

If you were going stay small, you'd need a mini-itx or similar, and one of them plus case plus a video capture card would already put you up to your £150 limit, and that's before you add in memory and a hard drive, not to mention a remote control.

Even after that, you need the software for it, and none of the free projects doing this kind of thing have reached anywhere near Tivo functionality yet.

The only way you'd make it cheaper than a Tivo is if you were using bits of old computers you've got lying around, which sure as hell isn't going to make it small or quiet.

mod parent down please

[Pendant]

Give us a break... broadcast or not, "spam" is *unsolicited* material.

Oh my God...

[vsavatar]

You killed Tivo Community. You bastards! Looks like the Slashdot Effect has struck again!

Text from tivocommunity.com: Due to a current issue with the site, the TiVo Community Forum is currently closed. We will re-open as soon as the issue can be corrected.

We are sorry for this outage but this maybe will give you a chance to do something "analog" for awhile. Or even catch up on some TiVo'ed shows you have been waiting to watch. :)

Thanks

Michael Landon Is My Cousin

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Stop having sex with men you fruit. Check out the Bible. It's a good book and has some helpful pointers on how you should live your life. For instance, you should not have anal sex with your father (with you pitching and him catching, the other way around is okay). To do so is showing disrespect towards him. Furthermore, Jesus generally frowns upon male on male action although hot chick on hot chick is okay with him.

Now, go do the right thing!

you have convinced me.

[twitter]

This incident has convinced me that all computers, even embeded ones, should run free software and be programable by their users. It was spam because it was recorded without your knowledge and without your consent. It used your resources to do it and it's only a line of code or two from forcing you to watch things in order to see the things you are interested in. That kind of thing does not happen in the free software world because the owner has the power to keep it from happening.

One thing is for sure, I'm not going to buy a Tivo or equivalent. I can program my VCR, but I don't because I generally don't watch TV. Tivo had some appeal as beining easier, by orders of magnitude, to use than the VCR. It's just not worth it knowing that it's programers have abused the users this way. All of the appologists, such as yourself, have convinced me that the Tivo people will act worse in the future.

that's an easy question to answer

[twitter]

Why did this thread instantly jump to the conclusion it was over this infomercial issue? ... his closure falls right in line with the direction the company has been heading in.

Well, such abuse of the user base might, just might, have created some bad publicity. Think about it some.

Re:SKY + is by far the better system

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

You missed the part where sky+ only introduced rewind *last week*, and the interface misses 90% of the tivo features.

You are correct thoug, it does record ENCRYPTED digital video.

(lets not even get only the mandatory monthly fee!)

Am I turning into a Luddite in my old age?

[payndz]

That's 'old' as in 'mid-thirties'. :p

Quite a few people at my work have Tivo/Sky+ and are constantly raving on about all the features they have, the things they can do with them, how it's changed their TV viewing habits, blah de blah... and all I'm left thinking is "I can do all that with my VCR and the weekend copy of the Guardian Guide."

Anyone want to try to convince me i) why I should get one of these gizmos other than sheer techno-fetishism, and ii) why I should get one rather than a DVD recorder?

Re:Am I turning into a Luddite in my old age?

[Bleck]

It's really one of those, "how nice and simple would you like it to be?" questions...

Sure, most everything I have my Tivo do, I could do on my own with an old VCR and a copy of TV Guide. But the sheer simplicity of it all, and how much nicer it makes watching television, is worth every penny. A few examples...
- Coming in at 9:15pm on a Wednesday evening, and watching West Wing from the start, without commercials.
- Having watched every single darn episode of The Simpsons that's been on (new or rerun) in the last few years, since the Tivo just grabs them, whenever they happen to be on, whatever channel they happen to be on, etc.
- Watching the news live, and hitting the "8 second skip back" to see/hear exactly something I missed while eating a bite of pizza. ... and there are a billion more. However, it probably won't convince you -- it certainly didn't convince my wife until we actually had one. And that's really it ... if there's any way you can try one out for a while, and then return it if you're not interested, I'd say go for it. If it doesn't rock your world, go back to the VCR ... but I'm betting you'll become as addicted as I am :)

--Bleck

Re:SKY + is by far the better system

[Qube]

Sky's own feed quality isn't anything special - a TiVo on High or Best quality isn't missing anything. Sky+ also doesn't let you choose a lower quality to save space - slower-moving programmes that don't need the bitrate can use significantly less.

Sky can also take away control - they have the capability to prevent recording of certain things, or stop you skipping ads when playing back a show.

And while their interface isn't too bad for a plain digibox, it was a mistake to extend it for their DVR box as well. The software generally is a long way behind what TiVo offers, needing a lot of nannying and checking to make sure things get recorded. I just set a season pass or wishlist and let it get on with the job - only maintenance is checking the TV guide on a sunday for anything new or interesting next week.

The Sky+ hardware is good - dual tuners, optical out for DD5.1, etc - and to anyone who hasn't used a TiVo it's brilliant. To those of us who have, it's very much lacking.

Sky+ box with TiVo software would be pretty much ideal, but I'd still rather not have my recorder under Murdoch's control thanks.

To get in Australia

[BiOFH]

all they'd have to do is show a unit on Neighbours and it'd be all over. They'd sell like beer on a hot day. It's been predicted several times that Australia is the perfect market. I know I miss the hell out of Tivo. I had it when I was in the States and god knows my left thumb itches every time I miss something and want to 'rewind'.

Hurry Tivo! We're ready! ...or I am anyway...

Re:TiVo died because UK already had better: Sky Pl

[arwel]

You're very wise not to pay attention to Dixon's salesdroids! Apart from anything else, I don't see Sky+ being able to record analogue and digital terrestrial broadcasts like Tivo does, in addition to Sky's transmission. Sky+ can only record off Sky - Tivo can record off any platform

I don't see why the service side of Tivo should be affected -- they're still adding support for the new model of Freeview set top boxes - I got the update to handle my Labgear DTT100 SetPal box only a couple of nights ago.

DEAD HORSE BEATS YOU

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up.