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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?"
I loved the way the hard-drive based Sonic players connected to your PC without the need for special drivers. Your PC just saw the Sonic device as another hard drive.
That said, I could not buy one of their players because they would not support WMA files. Over 5gb of my collection is in that format.
I was forced to go the Creative Labs route with their Nomad Jukebox 3 (Which I got with a 40gb hard drive,,,,,, smooooooooooooth).
Much like Google. Even if it's not in everyone's homes yet, most people know what it is. ReplayTV was just their unsuccesful competitor.
I think a lot of people stayed away from purchasing ReplayTV units due to the company's financial situation. Consumers don't want to fork over $400 for a PVR when there questions as to whether the company will exist in a few months time. I think they also overestimated the market for people looking for broadband enabled PVR's. A year ago, ReplayTV's were ridiculously expensive, not many people are willing pay $1000 for a PVR. Trying to dump them on the market as a last ditch effort to get new customers just increases the speculation as to the viability of the company.
All the do-it-for-me type features can surely be replicated in open source
People have been saying that for years, and so far, nothing. There's something to be said for doing one thing, and doing it well, and that's what the TiVo does. Add to that the fact most people prefer to watch TV on TV, and that's why TiVo is better.
I say this as an owner of an All-In-Wonder which tries (keyword: tries) to replicate some of the TiVo features. Some things work, some things sorta work, and some things don't work at all. And this is with a relatively powerful computer. The only real advantage the computer has it the ability to transfer media, and if MPAA, etc ever let them without a fight, I'm sure TiVo will work to add this.
There have been a few posts along the line of "is my ReplayTV worthless without the service" ... but the article doesn't actually say that the service is going away, just that the assets have been sold to D&M. It's early days yet, but has anyone seen anything about their intensions? It's possible (maybe not likely, though) that the service and development will continue under the new owners.
These people have looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
Ideally the box would compress MPEG-2 or 4, and allow you to interface it to a PC for archiving of old shows onto a SVCD or VCD format / MPEG-2 / DivX.
Wait... what am I saying? Why not just buy a PC with an ATI All-in-wonder card?
PVR will only work if there's enough take up. Sky, in the UK, as well as Canal+ in France, are setting up their next generation to go PVR, as *part* of the regular satellite subscription service. This will work. Sadly, the cable companies were not in on the deal with SonicBlue. If they had been, and could have charged $10 extra per month for it or something, and made a deal on hardware, then it would be workable. You cannot beat the giants, they will be right behind with their products.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
You really do need to go ahead and get one. It probably sounds cliche to say, "It will change your TV viewing experience," but, "It WILL change your TV viewing experience." :)
Mods: -1 Redundant! Thpbpbpbbt.
I had a sucky sig.
I can see why a lot of people would think it would be a good match, but Sony is too big in a bad way, in that the DRM would get cumbersome and we'd end up with commercials we couldn't fast forward through, and DivX-like restrictions on movies we want to record.
I had a sucky sig.
I have one friend that has a ReplayTV machine and another who has a Tivo, so I have looked at both of them. Personally, I like the Tivo better.
The problem with both of them for me is that they are bundled with a service that you are charged monthly for. I'll admit the service is a good one, but I think people for the most part don't like the idea of paying each month for something they can do manually with a VCR. Tivo and Replay have some nice features, but after all, recording a show is still the primary function and most people don't want to pay for that.
If Tivo and Replay would operate just like a VCR and allow you to use their service if you want to, or just use the system as a regular VCR if you didn't want to pay the monthly fees, then I think both systems would probably catch on a lot more than they have.
Maybe, but you know that if Sony buys TiVo you can kiss TiVo's cool hackableness goodbye.
Sony would replace that little picket security fence that the TiVo developers put up with a big-ass "GET THE FUCK OUT" sign. And the recordings will surely be smothered in DRM.
People still want a black box that's one stereo rack unit, like the DVD/VCR/CD player/et al, and a user interface easily compatible with a remote control.
The PC based solutions are nowhere near that level of functionality yet.
Having owned 3 SonicBlue products (RioCAR, RIO digital audio reciever, and a portable RIO player) i'm glad they're gone. I bought these products because they were cutting edge devices that, at the time, no one else had. Sadly, all of these items ,at release, had limited software support....and six months later had none.
A company must support its products for longer than six months if it's going to survive. Sure, most of these products have 3rd party support now, but to expect that at the corporate level seems like passing the buck.
-ted
They won't, because making the code open source will hugely reduce its value. It would actually be illegal to do this.
As for "wresting control from HBO"
If you don't like HBO's prices, don't pay for the service. You have no right to the content for free just because you own a TV.
Another product/service of mine bites the dust; I really hope someone keeps the service up.
Oh well, being an early adopter sucks sometimes.
Now, will someone finally go and buy up Kozmo's IP and get that idea going again? I need a DVD, some bagels and a bottle of milk. Thanks.
Did TiVo force SonicBlue out of business? Did TiVo engage in anti-competitive practices to drive SonicBlue to bankrupcy? On both counts, No.
TiVo is not preventing anyone from selling a PVR device. Too bad that there was such a high saturation in the nitch market of PVRs that SonicBlue couldn't stay profitable.
I remember when i bought my first ever 3D accelerator, an S3 Savage3D. It was faster than any other card i'd ever used up until then (but then again, it WAS my first 3d card), and i remember Quake 2 running sooo smoothly in all its hardware-rendered glory.
Over the next few months i started looking around for tweaks that i could perform on the card. I ended up using one program (whose name escapes my memory) that allows you set normally hidden values in the registry to change the Savage3D's core and memory clock speeds, sidebanding, etc. Needless to say i got hooked again on my Savage. Being a regular visitor to S3's website back then, i learned of their next generation chip coming out, the Savage2000, and i thought, this is going to be one helluva chip when it comes out.
Still i wasn't content with the speed i was getting out of my card, and i was still into reading hardware reviews and stuff. I wrote an email to the creator of the hack program i was using, asking him about other tweaks that he knew of. Sadly, he told me that the Savage3D had a hardware flaw right from the start, a very deep-seated bug that essentially crippled the chip, and all future generations of it, starting with the Savage4, and, i realized moments later, the Savage2000 which i had looked forward to. The programmer told me a few details of the flaw, which i can't recall right now, but basically it was a flaw that reduced the (advertised) triangle rate. For example, the Savage3d was touted to be capable of doing 5 million polys/second, but the flaw caused it to do only a quarter of that figure, around 1.25 million polys/sec. In short, a very serious flaw.
It was only a matter of time before the actual Savage2000 chip came out, and floundered miserably against competition from Nvidia, the Geforce 256. Thus began my fascination with Nvidia, and soon after i got my first ever card based on an Nvidia chip.
I think S3 would have been a great graphics chip company if they got the hardware designs down right from the start. Previously, i would insist on using only S3 cards like the Trio32 and the Virge. IMHO they were great cards.
They didn't really target the audience right.
The product cost too much, wasn't easily upgradable, and required a service contract (built into the price) to get the guide even if you didn't want the guide.
Offer me a freakin' digital recorder without a guide, don't push me to buy a service, and don't charge me an arm and a leg, and I'd jump at it.
That's the problem with tivo too. You don't *have* to get the service, but it keeps prompting you to. Even more annoying, you have to buy the service for EACH UNIT. If you have two or more units in your house, they can't share one guide. Yes, you get a discount on service for additional units, but you're already paying for it on the first unit. In fact, I think the discount only applies if you get the dish units anyway.
True, each unit requires a phone call. But the units could be networked to share the one guide. Since tivo stopped offering toll free calls for the guide, it's even worse.
I don't want to have to keep buying blades after I've bought the razor, to steal a phrase. That's why I bought an electric razor.
I don't understand what that has to do with Sonic Blue. They don't make Motorola phones or Chia Pets. They do make the ReplayTV, and I don't think they overhyped or overmarketed it. And I definitely don't think it was underdeveloped, though it does have room for improvement.
On the hype side, they couldn't hype this thing enough. I bought one of the first generation units, and was hooked. I can't watch TV without it anymore. I no longer have to schedule anything around TV shows. Everyone I know who has a ReplayTV (or Tivo) thinks it is the best thing ever. If you haven't used one or don't watch TV, it does sound ridiculous. But if you got one for a week or so, you'd realize how great it is.
As for marketing, I have seen a few ads in magazines for Tivo and Replay. I think I may have seen a Tivo commercial on TV. That is a far cry from overmarketed.
Perhaps if they had been able to market better, there would have been more success. People see PVRs as "fancy VCRs", and in that respect can't justify the price tag. VCRs are in teh $100 range, so why spend $500+ for the "same thing".
And as for "underdeveloped", I disagree. This was a totally new type of device. Yes, it is the digital evolution of the VCR, but it went WAY beyond that. When I tried out the DishPVR (long after I was a replay convert), it was basically a digital VCR. All recordings were time+channel based (thursday 8:00-8:30 ch 5). The DishPVR simply replaced a VHS tape with a hard drive.
ReplayTV and Tivo, on the other hand, took advantage of the hard drive and the fact that the device was a computer and did much more. You could record every episode of Friends just by setting up a show-based recording. It could catch the prime-time episode and all reruns on any station. If a show changes time slots, the replaytv follows it (South Park is a good example). Tivo can even reccommend shows for you based on what you choose to record, though I've never used that feature (i watch enough TV as it is.. I don't need my TV telling me to watch more).
Neither device ever seemed like beta quality to me, or like it was released too soon. There are occasional glitches, but they are few and far between (far less than on some popular computer operation systems). I think both companies knew they were breaking new ground, and knew that they couldn't survive with a half-assed product.
I think this is another case of a product that was ahead of its time. As I said above, most people don't get it. Its one of those things you have to try in order to understand what it really does for you. The TV industry was against it because it changed their model, and just like the RIAA says, change is bad.
While this may be "another fine US electronics company bit[ing] the dust", its surely not for the reasons you suggest.
blog
My two 1980s-era non-DRM'd VCRs are still ticking happily along. I don't even remember what company made them, and I couldn't care less. (smile)
I have yet to see a value proposition for a PVR or for a DVD cripple-ware device (aka a DVD "player", give me a break, why would anyone buy a "player", crippled at the outset by not being a recorder?) which would lead me to upgrade my VCRs. Give me as a purchaser what I want, make it a hardware device independent of DRM and "software as a service" and downloaded monthly-fee "program guides", in other words, make it just as easy as my two VCRs, and maybe, just maybe, I'll switch.
I feel sorry for all you young'uns who don't remember when consumer products were manufactured with an interest towards serving the customer rather than some company. One sale - DONE! Relationship with company complete, and ended. Cold hard cash in company's hands, and cold hard product in my hands I could do anything I want with. Man, oh man, I remember when I actually used to buy stuff, when consumer products were actually worth the money...
Oh, yeh, and in other news, the economy is still sluggish, not enough people are buying the new consumer schlock. Hmmm, go figure...
As a former employee that went through the transition from Diamond Multimedia to S3 and eventually to SonicBlue, and being layed off when they decided to close the communications division, I saw this happening two years ago.
Working in the Rio / Comm Division QA labs, I saw that the place to be taking these products was to converge the digital media devices you make with home networking solutions that you also make. There were a few products that made it out the doors that did this (the Dell Digital Audio Receiver and Rio Receiver), and they worked quite well; but soon after, the communications division was to be shut.
In that reorganization, I saw some incredibly talented engineers (who had been around since before Diamond had bought Supra, and were responsible for the incredible SupraFAXModem and SupraSonic lines) laid off and get instantly hired by other companies in the SW Washington / NW Oregon area, such as Sharp Labs, Logitech, and Intel. These people still work there, creating great products.
Now that the age of wireless-in-the-home and broadband networking are upon us, SonicBlue has to buy home networking equipment that they once engineered to incorporate into devices that they once had on the engineering roadmap. Due to incredible mismanagement, along with exorborant costs of moving offices, and newfound competition from the digital audio core market (thanks, Apple!) the strain was too much to bear.
Now I will finally get some form of profit from the Employee Stock Purchase Program, in the form of a failed-investment tax writeoff...
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