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Sonicblue files for Chap 11
An anonymous reader writes "ReplayTV and Rio maker Sonicblue is a goner, filing for bankruptcy and selling their assets to D&M, the Japanese parent company of Denon and Marantz.
No word what will happen to all those Replay users out there -- that $140 deal on Amazon isn't looking so hot now, is it?"
Well, now that SonicBlue seems to be out of the picture, now the only major retailer of PVR technology is TiVO. Unless you count UltimateTV, which I guess is still being sold, but I haven't seen ads or any indication of Microsoft pushing it for a long time.
Tivo COULD do well by this, since if support for ReplayTV drops dead, users of ReplayTV will still want SOME kind of PVR (and I'm not talking about those who are willing to waste days and weeks hacking the box, here)...or, could make it harder on them, since the MPAA and their relatives now only have one big company to focus on.
The next business quarter will probably be a turning point for PVR technology. TiVO has a better chance of surviving if those that are orphaned by ReplayTV move over to it. If they don't, TiVO instead will be 'hanging on' for some time, and its fate (and ability to manage lawsuits like the one ReplayTV got, DMCA-wise) will be a lot more uncertain.
In the good ole US of A, chapter 11 is reorganization. This gives a the company protection from creditors to get its house in order. Companies often come out of chapter 11.
Chapter 7 is liquidation. This company, as they say, is no more. This is for companies that are looking for an organized sell-off of assets.
More info at 411bankruptcy.com.
So SonicBlue is not necessarily gone for good. However, if they are selling off their major product lines, I wonder how they plan to achieve profitability.
It's going to take a while; because of the massive investment in "infrastructure" set up for TiVo with regard to its database of programming information, from which the guide gets its data and from which season passes, wish lists, thumbs up/down and autonomous recordings flow.
The roll-your-own crowd seems to think a free replacement for TiVo is as simple as putting together some inexpensive hardware and throwing one's luck to the wind in hopes that guide data can be pulled from the net. However, after using one for a few months now, I can say that the value added by the TiVo service is not something that can be inexpensively provided by goodwill alone.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Doesn't look to me like TiVo needs a savior.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Certainly Tivo already does this - don't know about Replay as I've never seen or used one. Tivo will allow you to manually set time and channel and record however.
The thing is, there's no value in that to me. The whole value of Tivo is in the data it provides, not the hardware and not even the software (although I like the interface). Without the data, nicely categorised with descriptions etc., the Tivo isn't much better than a VCR to me. With the data however, it has proved a god-send.
That's the real service - the provision of accurate and categorised data. That's why you pay your subscription.
Cheers,
Ian
I cannot speak for the ReplayTV but the Rio500 didn't hold up anywhere near as well as I had hoped. If I shake my Rio500 a little, it loses an internal connection and reboots. Furthermore, the customer service for the Rio500 is god-awful. I went looking for drivers one day after I reformatted my machine. That day, they had 'temporarily disabled' access to the drivers, not even posting the old ones on their site. They didn't correct this for almost a week, during which my Rio was useless.
Also, there was always a hassle getting the Rio Audio Manager (the _worst_ designed user-interface for managing large collections of MP3s I have ever seen) to reenable the MP3-ripping functionality I should have had. In the end, I went out and bought a copy of another piece of software to rip MP3s and to transfer to the Rio (I forget its name at the moment, it's the popular Windows one).
Still, I suppose I still use my Rio500. I use it to listen to audible.com audio content and it does a great job of that. For my MP3s, though, I have since upgraded to the Creative Nomad Jukebox 3. I cannot get it to hook up to Linux yet but apart from that, it is great.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
To answer your question specifically, NO. The current version of the ReplayTV software requires service connection. If there is no guide information, you CANNOT record anything. For newer boxes, if you paid for the lifetime service, you can use it to manually record, but if you are paying month-to-month, then you are outa luck. As for older models, you need the guide information to record.
Also, and this is critical, service connection is required to set the clock.
I have three ReplayTV boxes ("upgraded" 2001, stock 2020, and new 5040), and if the service gets cut, I am screwed.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Here in Austin TimeWarner is trying out a PVR with 80GB of disk space and just about all the features of Tivo (a little dumber and doesn't have commerical skip). It's the same deal as the cable box--you only pay $9.95 a month to lease the hardware.
There is no way that Tivo can compete with that. Even though it has a better product the cable company just has it beat here from a price and marketing perspective. It's almost sad...
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