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SONICblue Hits the Auction Block
turkeywrap writes "Looks like there's no hope for SONICblue, makers of ReplayTV and Rio MP3 players. An agreement with D&M holdings (parent company of audio equipment makers Denon) fell through, so now a bankruptcy court will hold an auction for both of the main business units, ReplayTV and Rio, on April 15. Glad I bought my tivo."
Of course not, Echostar would smack it down.
I used to think Peter Shipley was cool. Then I aged past 16.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Not being the U.S I have no idea, but does ReplayTV not operate on the same basis as Tivo E.g. you pay a subscription to recieve the programme data? If that's the case, what will happen to all the ReplayTV users? Would there be anyway to recieve data from an alternative source, or are they all S.O.L?
As much as people speculate that TiVo is going under (about as much as the rumors that Apple will fail as well) they seem to be a company with well-defined goals and a good marketing plan.
TiVo's now just as recognizable as "Xeroxing" a document, or buying some "Kleenex". Now that they've entered the lexicon for a large part of the world I think they will have tremendous staying power.
Also, they've treaded lightly in regard to their new "Home media option," which allows people to share TV shows across a home network, and play pictures and music on their TiVo's. A careful use of copyright protection has, so far, kept them out of the legal wranglings that SonicBlue had to face the minute that every major media company in the world sued them after the ReplayTV product announcement.
What if it was the other way around, and TiVO was going under? Obviously you wouldn't be too happy (of course), but the bigger question is: will SONICBlue release the specs of their service, so that others can now provide it ? Would TiVo release these specs if they were going under? Or will the bankruptcy court treat these as trade secrets, worth some monetary value to the creditors, and prevent the release?
I'm just wondering what the future holds for such fee-based services, where the fees are taken upfront. Will the people who forked over the $300 (or whatever) for "lifetime service" be considered creditors too? Shouldn't they be?
What're your thoughts on why it REALLY went down? Price point for Replay? Difficult to hack? SONICblue's legal bills? People asking "What is a SONICblue??"
Does Tivo now have any reason to compete? I see no reason to.
Depends on if TiVo wants to continue existing or not.
Both Scientific American and Motorola are developing PVRs for cable set top box's. And these two companies have huge existing relationships with the cable companies (as in - they sell virtually everything the cable companies need to do business). If you have a cable STB right now take a look at it - it's almost certainly made by one of these two companies (General Instruments are OEM'd Motorola boxes).
AOL is also working on the Mystero box or whatever crappy name it has. Dish Network has their own PVR.
None of these are comparable to TiVo on a feature basis, and often they're missing really big features, but to a lot of people all that matters is price -- and all of them beat TiVo on that because the companies can afford to give the hardware away for free and charge an additional monthly service charge to pay it back as well as pay for providing service.
So yeah, TiVo does have reason to compete. Lots of them.
Which business units are affected? all? SonicBlue makes pretty good mp3 CD players (not to mention the rest), so it's a bit of a shame if that goes down... though now I've got my iRiver iMP400 I can hardly complain :-)))
Daniel
Carpe Diem
With Sonic Blue down, TIVO is next in the sights. Expect legal proceedings to begin within the next year.
The major player in PVR land is DirectTV followed by EchoStar. These satellite providers bundle the PVR function into their receivers if you want. Makes great sense since there's a kluge with an IR Blaster you need to do with Tivo and ReplayTV to control the other box. Also cable companies like Comca$t have an "OnDemand" service with their digital cable service that also does PVR functions like Tivo.
Tivo really needs to compete since PVR functionality is being wrapped up in other services like satellite and digital cable. Why pay extra for Tivo when your media provider can just roll it up for you. They become another grease spot on the "Al Gore Memorial Information Super Highway".
>> Practice Safe Hex
I've got 5 Rio products -- 4 Rio Receivers and one Rio Riot. I love 'em all. They've still got the best features I've seen (the Riot's interface is still far beyond that of the iPod or any other HD portable I've seen). And the Receivers are finally selling at what I think is the ideal price point ($75-100, on eBay).
:(
Unfortunately, SonicBlue never really supported any of these products. They bought a fantastic HD-based car MP3 player (empeg), and promptly killed it off -- even as major manufacturers were starting to integrate MP3 playback into cd players (and now, finally, cd-changers).
They started selling the Rio Receiver, but at too high a price point, and they never updated the software. And now, there are at least three other commercial MP3 receivers from "big companies" (onkyo, phillips, and motorola), but all of 'em are (get this) even MORE expensive than the Rio Reciever was. SonicBlue could have undercut the competition, released some software upgrades (there's a great open source movement on that front that they could have tapped into), and kicked major ass.
All in all, it's been a disappointing ride for customers like me. I'm really glad that the Receiver is so open (people have re-written just about every part of it except the HomePNA kernel module). At this point, I think the best thing that could happen would be for the original empeg/receiver engineers to buy the car and home receivers back and open-source the hardware. Get a flourescent screen, better CPU (for high-rate Ogg decoding), and even cooler open-source client/server software.
But probably some other company will buy the rights and bury them.
Scientific American is a magazine. Did you mean Scientific Atlanta?
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Xerox. They filed chapter 11.
Comcast On Demand doesn't do any recording at all. It functions more like a PVR that can only play, pause, rewind, and fast forward. So, I don't currently see any competition from Digital Cable providers at the moment. Your point is valid about DirectTV and EchoStar though.
---- "It is never too late to give up our prejudices." --Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862)
Er... yeah.
Particularly bad brain fart given that I live in Atlanta.
ReplayTVs with lifetime subscriptions are still selling on ebay right now for $200+. Should I feel sorry for the people who don't know the news?
Can ReplayTVs be programmed like a VCR to record like TIVO does? I guess it's not a total loss. On ebay however, they're being advertised as LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTION!
I think the company and the courts would realize that the service specs are by far the most valuable asset of the company. There is no release of an asset in to the public domain when a company is in bankruptcy, it doesn't make any sense. When a company hits chapter 7 (Chapter 7 not 11), they enter a state of liquidation, from my understanding of liquidation the idea is to distribute the proceeds from the sale of assets fairly amongst the creditors who are owed money. I'm sure those creditors are not interested in giving away assets to charity while they loose millions.
TiVo's now just as recognizable as "Xeroxing" a document
Yeah, right. 'cause my parents have heard of a TiVo.
TiVo is absolutely nowhere *near* as recognizable as Xerox, which is probably still even less recognizable than Kleenex.
Maybe, concievably, amongst 18-25 yo middle & upper class males you have 50% recognition of that term. Amongst the same group I bet you have 80% for Xerox and 90% for Kleenex.
Admittedly I pulled those numbers out of the air, but you've got a twisted sense of reality if you think TiVo is as recognizable of a brand as Xerox and Kleenex.
-Rob
-Rob Ewaschuk
Lifetime = Life of the company = April 15 - April 2 = 13 days.
Woohoo!
If I had something intelligent to say, I would have said it.
With the pending bankruptcy, this product might have been vaporware used to stoke investor interest. But man, do I wanna buy one:
GoVideo® D2730 Networked DVD - World's First Networked DVD Player!
"The GoVideo Networked DVD Player is a high end, slim-line Progressive Scan DVD player, and is the first player of its kind to be able to stream video files through a wireless network to a consumer electronics component. The Networked DVD Player works with either a wired PCMCIA Ethernet Adapter (included) or an optional PCMCIA 802.11b Wireless Network Card. The D2730 can also stream MP3 and WMA audio files and JPEG image files, as well as MPEG1 and MPEG2 video files."
Yes, I can roll my own (even stylishly, with a Shuttle XPC. Yes, I can do so with a cool Linux distro (can't remember the couple I've examined off the top of my head - anyone? Bueller?). But I sure as hell can't do it for $250, which was the SRP for this unit.
RW
I thought Replay was going to install some sort
of involutary Neilsen system in their units.
They also were an odd bunch as well.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
They're just changing the world differently now, by their absense.
SonicBlue invented many nifty products, including, obviously, the MP3 player (invented under its former name, Diamond), the audio set top box (they made the chipset in DELL's box), and many other innovations. They'll be missed.
Karma: Excellent (fuck, even in the future moderation doesn't work!)
They sued Sonic Blue, and not too much later the company has to declare bankruptcy. Think expensive legal costs might have pushed them over the edge? Seems likely to me.
I say we all go smack Jack Valenti.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Small note: read a little more carefully next time around, it's for "instructions on getting any electronic free" and BTW the picture shows a Rio MP3 player...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Oregon is full. Demonstrating this: SONICblue, based out of the Portland-metro area city of Tigard, was a sizable employer here. If you're in Oregon and not born there, I'll take this opportunity to remind you that it's generally polite to leave when you're finished visiting out-of-state.
Help us build a better map!
I have to disagree. There's a fairly clear delination between the features that got Sonic Blue in trouble (automatic commercial skip; sharing shows with people over the internet) and the features that TiVo supports. Furthermore, TiVo's been fairly careful about both partnering with networks (through such features as the TiVo Showcase, which allows networks to advertise specific special shows) and limiting the ability of people to pull TV recordings off the device (as it's enough of a hassle that you're probably better off just using a separate TV capture card in your PC).
The most important thing is that what the TiVo does is generally no different (or even less powerful) than that of a VCR -- at least from the perspective of avoiding advertising and sharing shows. A VCR lets you timeshift programs and then fast-forward through the advertisements. Ditto for a TiVo. In contrast, ReplayTV let you make the commercials automatically disappear. A VCR lets you record a program and then pass that single copy on to friends. A TiVo doesn't even let you do that, though you can view that copy from anywhere in the house. In contrast, ReplayTV let you send out up to ~15(?) separate copies of the show while retaining the original.
So overall, I think you fears are unfounded. TiVo just doesn't have the risky exposure that Sonic Blue had with the Replay units. Even the suit against Sonic Blue was on shaky legal ground, so TiVo should be sitting high and dry.
(As a minor aside, I'd like to clarify my comparison between TiVo and a VCR above. Generally, when people refer to TiVo as a better version of a VCR, I have to correct them. TiVo is better than having a VCR, a couple dozen scrap tapes, a copy of TV Guide, and a trained monkey who knows how to change the tapes and record shows. It blows the entire VCR paradigm out of the water. However, with respect to the issues at hand -- avoiding commercials in television shows supported by advertising and the sharing shows with friends -- the VCR analogy is still fairly applicable.)
I want to replace my ReplayTV with an HD Tivo when they ship. I have one of the Panasonic Showstoppers. The thing that is a killer... with the hard drive update, my box would sell for $400 on eBay. However, if the service is discontinued... :( Oh well, price of technology... I don't know what I'll do if Replay cuts service before HD DirecTivo ships, I don't want to buy two DirecTivos... :(
Now if DirecTV committed to HMO, maybe I would, so I could move the DirecTivo Series 2 to the bedroom when HD Tivo ships...
A nervous customer...
Alex
No because I would never by any of these products to begin with. On TV I simply watch what ever is on at the time then move to my computer for commercials thus eliminating the need for a PVR. I would also never by an mp3 player as the cards are far too expensive when I can by an mp3/cdrw player than can store over a hundred songs on a single disk. IMHO.
Checking out my form of escapism.
Its sad to see yet another company goto the wall. I recently got my first PVR in the form of Sky+ and it has changed my viewing habits. i.e. I watch what I want when I want. The difference is that I'm basically having to pay a reoccuring fee to the TV provider rather than a 3rd party.
This in itself does make me think that its the best solution as it does intergrate with Sky but I do pay for that privilige. For example TiVo's are no longer being solded in the UK so its a one horse race. What it does mean however that I don't think Sky will be disappearing any time soon.
As for the actual cost that is another argument totally
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
This is too bad. The Rio Volt is, IMO, by far the best mp3 cd player on the market. I bought one when they first came out and I still haven't seen one I like better. As far as I can remember it was the first one with a fair sized display on the front hat was back-lit. I can't remember any others at the time that did. It had the features that everything does now with ID3 tag display and so on. Since I bought mine they came out with the three different models of them. They were nicely constructed too. I've dropped mine down some stairs a time or two and not even a scratch. I still use it almost every day and works great.
http://www.maximum-cars.com - My little hobbie.
I remeber buying for first Reo when it was made by Diamond Multimedia, along with the S3-Virge card. I loved it and still use it to this day. The interface was simple and worked well. Its sad to see the Reo story end like this
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
It is highly likely (IMHO) that Replay will end up being purchased by D&M or a competitor - after all, there is both a significant installed base of users and a non-trivial revenue stream from subscriptions in addition to the IP of the DVR hardware. Heck, maybe even TIVO will bid.
IANAL, but I would think that any purchaser of the replay business unit would be responsible for honoring existing service contracts, including those lifetime subscriptions. If the contracts are breached by replay (e.g. by the buyer or even by replay simply folding), then the owners of the abandoned subscriptions would be due damages and/or part of the auction proceeds.
If the service is abandoned for any reason, it is pretty clear that the replay hacker community will no longer need to restrain themselves - people have been *very* supportive of replay and have tended to come down pretty hard on anyone looking to steal services. If we owners are abandoned, we'll be moving into reverse engineering mode bigtime!
I just picked up one of these this past Saturday. It's the mp3 player with the best user rating out there. The only issue I might be faced with now is a replacement for the special USB cable that comes with the thing. It's got a funky (and I mean Funky!) connector on the Rio end which I've never seen before! If I ever lose this one or want a second, I might be SOL.
Well let's hope for the best for this innovative company...
-Pete
I have to agree. The parent poster apparently doesn't associate much with non-geeks. The TIVO is still very unknown to the general public. What little marketing there has been hasn't been effective at all. I've even tried mentioning it to people, and they have no clue as to what I'm talking about.
WTF happened with that?
How could a company paired with the mighty Microsoft fail? (Where's my tinfoil hat?...)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I love my Tivo and am happy to pay the Tivo company for my listings and updates, but if they go out of business i'm not to worried because the Tivo is an open system. My investment is resonably safe because there is a development/hacking community built up around the box and it will continue to work and be supported by the community. This illustrates an important reason to buy Linux based products from a consumers point of view. Many of these new devices are great but aren't guaranteed to survive. If you buy a device based on a closed technology, it will probably be useless if the vendor goes out of business, if you buy one based on an open technology, you at least have a chance of it still being useful. Cases in point are the Audrey and Rio Receiver.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Well, I for one think this is very sad. I've had my Rio 500 since December '99 and it has served me very well. When it crashed due to a firmware error, they were very nice about it and sent me a new one cost free from the Netherlands all the way to Norway.
Well, my parents know what TiVo is.
Seriously though, I agree with you.
Hey, what do you know. The same guy who piloted 3dfx down the toilet was at the helm when SonicBlue went tits up.
Look, I understand that CEO is not an easy job, but how much accountability is this guy held to when investors are left holding the bag of his failures?
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
The major player in PVR land is DirectTV followed by EchoStar
Actually you have it backwards. Echostar has far, far more 500-series receivers out there than there are DirecTiVo's.
Makes great sense since there's a kluge with an IR Blaster you need to do with Tivo
Not quite true. TiVo's have a serial port on them that can control DirecTV receivers (and some cable boxes - notably the Motorola DCT-2000 series) if the receiver has a "low speed data port".
Oh... and did you note the "DirecTiVo" bit above? Yup - the PVR capabilites for DirecTV are licensed from TiVo. At one point it the boxes were still controlled by TiVo, but it's flip flopped - all service and billing is now done directly through DirecTV and DTV pays TiVo a licensing fee for the hardware and software.
google hits on "Xerox": 2,980,000
google hits on "TiVo": 451,000
google hits on "Kleenex": 164,000
You lose
because the companies can afford to give the hardware away for free and charge an additional monthly service charge to pay it back as well as pay for providing service.
No the reason I don't have any of these PVR's is exactly this reason.
Someone release a Sonic Blue kind of device that works 100% without any damned service. I want to be able to enter a record time and a TEXT TAG FOR IT plus have the nice ethernet connection so I can add record events via the web or share the mpeg2 files to my other unit.
I do not want the tivo guide features. I want to be able to set the clock from the remote, set recording times/events from the remote and from the ethernet port.
and I want it to never EVER communicate to the mothercompany.
make this and I'll buy it for $1000.00
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
CostCo just started carrying the ReplayTV a couple weeks ago, which requires a subscription to its service. Wonder how many shoppers are going to get screwed by this one?
In interests of full disclosure, I own a DirecTV PVR (formerly called DirecTiVo).
The anti-suggestions bit is pure FUD. It's a zero-impact feature when on (ie, it _NEVER_ uses tuner or space that would otherwise be used by a program you specifically requested), and it can be turned off. I leave it on expressly because it's zero-impact, even tho I rarely watch suggested programs. Every once in a while I don't want to watch anything in the recorded list, and I'll find a gem in the suggestions (a movie I hadn't seen, or a syndicated rerun of Simpsons).
That said, I _love_ my TiVo. I considered a Replay, but the TiVo was a better choice for me, since I was also getting DirecTV at the same time. I like the Replay procuct, especially all the networking capabilities. It's a shame the company is struggling.
... to get the wireless networking to work properly, and even at that price it would be MORE than worth it for me...
:-)
I have two Series 1 TiVos and both have 802.11b cards inside them. It's awesome, but WiFi is kind of slow and it takes about 3 hours to transfer 1 hour of video to my PC for burning to a VCD/SVCD.
It is not a difficult hack, but it is only compatible with Series 1 TiVos for now.
I'm of the mindset that likes to have a choice. So if I want my TiVo to do this, I'll turn the feature on. If I don't want it to do it, I'll switch it off.
AIUI, the company has said several times that if it fails it will open the TiVo boxes so they can be programmed etc. without the service.
wg
It's the same thing whether you sell for a high price and no further fees or a low price and monthly revenue thereafter. Somebody has to pay for the further service and lets face it, if the service people don't report to the mothercompany, they *are* the mothercompany.
For example purposes a $100 box with $60 yearly service = $1000 with no service fees when you can invest the difference in price at about 7%.
You might as well have a lawyer cutout to pay the monthly fee for you and let *them* get bombarded with the marketing mail.
Of course, the Empeg design team is still working on software projects for Rio. We're all hoping the death of SonicBlue does good things for the Empeg.
In another year or two, we could see another serious attempt at automotive mp3 players.
I also just bought an S10. You'd better make sure you go and download the latest version of the firmware to your S10. I guess this crushes any hopes that they will continue to revise the interface and support future formats. However, while the company still exists, we can get our hands on version 1.8 of the firmware.
Clearly, Kleenex needs some internet forums, stat.
I have a ReplayTV (4580) and paid for one month when I got it to decide if I wanted to keep it (~6 months ago). I was late on paying the next month, and the unit was not usable without the subscription. It kept flashing back to the "your subscription ran out" screen when I tried to access any of the functions, even replaying what it already recorded.
I've always wanted a few extra of their GPUs for keychains. I went nuts when I found out they bought Orchid back in the day.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
TiVo has plenty of reason to compete. Microsoft could buy up Replay's intellectual property and relaunch the patent lawsuits between the companies and run TiVo into the ground. TiVo already is locked out of being bundled in set-top boxes with 2nd string satellite service Dish; AOL Time Warner's Time Warner Cable unit is hellbent upon rolling out the Mystro server based poor-man's DVR; and again, Microsoft is intent upon bundling PVR functions in editions of WinXP and Xbox2... there's plenty of competition left and more reasons to support TiVo...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
If either of these companies wished to build a true PVR, they'd do well to license Tivo software for their boxes. It would bypass a lot of development time, letting them get a box out the door long before their competitor with a polished, well developed UI. With the two way cable networks, they could completely bypass the need for a phone line (you did know those set top boxes could spy on you, right?)
What these companies are building are "thin client PVR's", where almost all the intelligence is at the head end, where it can't be tampered with. There's plenty of comments out there about how this approach sucks, though potentially there's some advantages to it as well (see my history). Of course, to do it right they'd want a DirecTivo type approach, where the box simply recorded a pre-encoded digial stream (keeps client costs down), but that mean the would need to broadcast a digitized version of analog channels as well, which consumes bandwidth; the best solution would be to reduce the number of analog channels, but then that means TV's w/o a set top box get fewer channels (not a bad thing in cable co's mind likely).
To bad congress/FCC can't legislate a Digital cable standard so TV's could come equiped from the factory.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
I was all set to buy an Empeg, until I saw a posting on their web site (before they were bought) that said the next version due out would have a PCMCIA slot. That meant I could throw an Orinoco card in there. That meant I could hack up some scripts which would let it rsync up to my main server at my house once I pulled into the driveway. That meant I would have paid double what they were asking.
As soon as SonicBlue bought the makers of the Empeg I forgot all about ever owning one. If you ever wanted to see a company that cared about cash, and little else, look to SonicBlue. They just aren't (weren't?) a company I had any faith in. It's sad. The Empeg could have been really big. If SonicBlue had never entered the picture it might have.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
TiVo was smart enough to make themselves synonamous with PVR technology. They were smarter in the subscription based model from the get-go and that caused them to leapfrom ReplayTV. By the time SonicBlue purchased Replay, the game was already up. Did it make me mad that when TiVo launched Series2 they did not bundle it out of the box with USB 2.0, Firewire, or a built-in ethernet port? Yes. But I went ahead and purchased it because I enjoyed my old Series1 and I had a gut feeling Replay would tank. Sure, if you want broadband on a TiVo, you have to buy a USB-to-ethernet dongle (if you are going wired) and you also have to pay $99 for the Home Media Option if you want to stream MP3s or photos, program via the net, or share programs with other TiVo units in your home. Does that bite? Sure, but it is causing TiVo to become profitable and that adds extra to the value of the user experience since the company isn't going under. As a matter of fact, that counts for a whole lot.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The OnDemand system is a streaming video application that lets you watch when you want. This is PVR (...or VCR) without the record part. People will want to watch when they want and then on to the next show. A disk now replaces the tape cartridge.
I have a ReplayTV and it's great not to hear "...Honey, what's on this Tape?". Real Men Don't Use Labels!!! Now it's just check the menu and watch. The OnDemand part gives you one unit to connect and use just like the satellite solutions. The simpler the better.
The issue arises when the content provider controls the playback device. That's what got Replay into trouble. It sided with the consumer in all different ways. From automatic commercial deletion to opening their interfaces. DVarchive is a great example of this on SourceForge. Why hack the Replay system when you can just offload the content to a PC and access it there.
I hope I can continue to use my ReplayTV the way it runs now. If it dies, I still have a 40Gig drive out of it.
>> Practice Safe Hex
...this is very disturbing and disappointing. I own a modified model 2001, a stock 2020, and a new 5040, and these have been indespensible.
Problem is that there is no way to set the clock or do manual recordings without Guide Data (unless you bought a Lifetime subscription on the 5000 series.) If the dial-up and Internet connections get shut down, these become bricks.
I guess I could always get TiVo units, but ReplayTV has always been my system of choice.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
If either of these companies wished to build a true PVR, they'd do well to license Tivo software for their boxes
I'd think so, you'd think so, but they don't think so. Why? I dunno. Licensing from either TiVo or Replay would've saved them years of development time (SciAtl has been having particular nightmares here), as well as remove some legal issues (like the fact that TiVo can probably sue them for patent violations).
What these companies are building are "thin client PVR's", where almost all the intelligence is at the head end, where it can't be tampered with.
Which, of course, is the real reason that neither wants to license from TiVo or Replay. The two models are pretty drastically different (possibly different enough to obviate most of the patents), and it lets SciAtl/Moto sell head end units at obscene markups and the cable companies can give the boxes away for "free".
And since the storage is being done at the head end I don't think it's an issue for what the channels are broadcast as - there's usually plenty of bandwidth between the cable heads and the central distribution point - the bandwidth crunch doesn't occur until you start going to cable nodes or individual houses.
To bad congress/FCC can't legislate a Digital cable standard so TV's could come equiped from the factory
There is one now, approved by the FCC even, and created by the cable companies themselves. It was mandated into existence by the FCC. One day we may even see the cable companies comply with it! The CE manufacturers have stated that they expect digital cable ready TVs to hit the market in the Summer of 2004. I guess we'll see what happens then. I'm not real familiar with the standard, so I don't know what (if any) provisions it has for outputs from the TV or DRM.
google hits on "Xerox": 2,980,000
google hits on "TiVo": 451,000
google hits on "Kleenex": 164,000
google hits on "Bread": 5,470,000
google hits on "Internet": 143,000,000
Clearly more people eat internet than know what bread is.
-Rob Ewaschuk
that's not the point. I buy a item I expect that it is my property and it will work 30 years after the company that made it is long dead. TiVo? nope, as soon as they belly-up and the service numbers stop answering the devices are worthless. (wont happen? tell that to iOpener owners and WebSurfer Pro owners or owners of a Divix DVD player)
I dont want any company to have ANY control over my personal property.
That's why I'd pay $$$$ for it. but you cant, and I'm stuck with either the horribly over-complex Myth tv or the much better but still very very early alpha freevo and make my own.
I just want a box that works and doesnt have the un-needed reliance on a master company to control it every 24 hours.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There was always going to be an auction. D&M will be going into it with a different status than if they had closed a deal now, but the auction would still have happened.
Now anyone who wants any of the business units gets to bid on an even playing field, including D&M if they want. There's some very nice IP and infrastructure there for the taking.
-- Freddie Starr ate my empeg
Yeah, right. 'cause my parents have heard of a TiVo.
Mine have, my wife's have, most of my friends parents have (xmas gifts from them), etc. Heck, my dad has TWO Tivo's now.
TiVo has said in public that in the event they stop providing service they will "throw the switch" that would get rid of the nag-screens. Also, the most valuable asset TiVo has is the recurring revenue from providing service to it's installed base. If they went belly up, someone would buy that part of the company, just for the $15 a month in revenue provided. Feature freeze, yes, but I like my TiVo fine.
How about this scenario: Steve Case buys ReplayTV at auction, and simultaneously makes an offer for TiVo. The two development teams are merged.
The combined team very quickly demos a merged procuct, primarily based on tivo s2, but with a few key replayTV features in place- in particular commercial advance, and at least some of the local network features. The unit also adds a few AOL broadband features (e.g. basic AIM client).
Steve uses his influence to get this device adopted by AOL (the unit), with his personal shareholding as a partial shield from attacks from Time Warner; however the product remains separate, and the DirectTV relationship is preserved and deepened.
If the first stages of the plan go ok, and especially if the merged company is listed, the obvious next move is to put in a bid for Scientific Atlanta to get hold of the digital cable and HDTV technologies. The resulting company could own the set top box market.
Simon
[Disclaimer: I own a Replay series 4500 and a DirecTivo - however, at the moment I don't own a roof, so only the replay is in use. Both have complementary stengths and weaknesses. The Tivo is much better on the recording side, but playback's a bitch; the replay is much less pleasant to program, but is a lot nicer when it comes to watching what you managed to record ]
Thats the thing alot of people seem to miss, TiVo is the base for the DirecTiVo series (who knew?). They don't lose anything at all by DTV bundling a PVR in, actually, I'd say they gain more than anything else. The more your company can focus on development, and less on putting hardware together the better off you are. And the wider your userbase is with the least amount of advertising on your part, the better off you are.
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
The ReplayTV and Rio products are what SonicBlue is perhaps more recently known for - but don't forget some of the huge companies of yesteryear that SonicBlue also gobbled up. For starters,
Diamond Multimedia, who was once one of the larger producers of mainstream video cards,
and S3, the unforgettable yet forgettable video chipset.
I own Rio Car, which I purchased few years back and it's great. If it only had Alpine sound quality, it would be even better. Too bad it has to end like this :(
How about a ReplayTV backend OpenSource application that emulates their servers. Even if this goes belly up, all of us that have already invested will still be able to use their units in the future. Any takers? I would be willing to help out for what it's worth. -GG
I wonder how many people actually do the monthly route?? I figured it out...and at $15...you'd be at the lifetime fee in about a year and 4 mos. I paid the lifetime fee...be done with it I say, and save $$'s in the long run....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
But, with this model, the recordings are held by the cable co. Meaning they could regulate what shows you can and cannot timeshift...can keep you from skipping commericials...how long you can keep them. And could pretty much keep you from digitally extracting you videos you want to keep...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Really, I would be interested to know.
Fucking nerds.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
TiVo --> VHS
ReplayTV --> Beta
We now know who won the PVR war.
Check out the rioutil project on SourceForge. I built 1.3.3 on RH8 and it works great with my S10 (except I have to be root, but I probably just need to change the permissions on something.) They've got a mostly working firmware updater last I checked. No actual open-source firmware yet, though, but who knows. Necessity is the mother of invention. Maybe they can make it play oggs....
As has been noted, TiVo's (target) market isn't to compete with other PVR suppliers, it's to license PVR tech to the providers. They already do this with AT&T Broadband/cable and DirecTV. There may be others that I don't know of.
± 29 dB
The parent of this thread just wants a VCR that uses a hard drive instead of tape, and is easily programmable/accessible through the network as well as remote.
As you point out, this type of system is at the mercy of the networks, who love bumping/moving things around - and many of these changes don't even show up on TV Guide's website.
Yes, this means that the box will continue to work no matter what companies come/go. But I'll take the added conviences added in by Tivo.
DirecTiVO is really great... ...except...
I don't have satellite.
I don't want satellite - I get free basic cable.
While I admit stand-alone Tivo's IR blaster feature is quirky at best, I don't need additional hardware for basic cable, which is just fine for me.
Were I to get satellite, I'd probably get Direct TV just so I could specifically get DirecTiVo.
"Home Media Option" is still in the "Coming Soon" phase.
But it's probably going to be released with version 4.0 of their software, which is slated for an early April release
I was at Best Buy the other day and the salesman told me the Tivo rep said the option won't be released until the summer.
he's wrong :)
check www.tivocommunity.com for more info
Ok, will they send one last update and publish that update for free that will allow one VERY IMPORTANT thing..
the ability to set the time and date.
ther eis no menu function in ANY tivo that allows me to set the time or date. and without that small and insignificant feature it makes the TiVO 100% useless without the pay-to-dial-in feature or the nag you to death and remove features at random for free version. or how about a virgin tivo? 100% useless until you let it dial home and update, removing all the nice features that version 1.X had and adding the crap that 2.x added.
they intentionally wont let you never let it dial home. otherwise they would lose control over other people's property.
I am VERY anti-tivo because of this.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Your forgetting that TV execs have been recently getting their panties in a bind over "illegal time shifting" aka recording like we have always done. Plus, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Tivo have a 30 second skip feature? Isn't Tivo going to introduce file sharing soon? Also remember that the TV industries arguements haven't been shot down yet in the courts, so all the same arguements they made against Replay will see the light of day against Tivo. Lastly, Tivo has been tolerent of hacking. Look for that to bite them on the ass.
The 30 second skip is only available by a backdoor. Furthermore, the code to enable backdoors for the latest revision of the TiVo software is unknown -- thus enabling backdoors requires the user to actually login to the TiVo (over the serial port) and change the backdoor code to something that's known (as it's stored as an md5 hash that TiVo hackers were unable to brute-force).
As for the file sharing, I thought I saw something that mentioned it was only within a person's house. That's much more analgous to the VCR/video tape metaphor as opposed to ReplayTV's ability to transmit copies of a show to 15 (or was it 25?) different people over the Internet.