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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."
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 $300 (or whatever) for "lifetime service" be considered creditors too? Shouldn't they be?
Does Tivo now have any reason to compete? I see no reason to.
Depends on if TiVo wants to continue existing or not.
Both Scientific American and Motorola are developing PVRs for cable set top box's. And these two companies have huge existing relationships with the cable companies (as in - they sell virtually everything the cable companies need to do business). If you have a cable STB right now take a look at it - it's almost certainly made by one of these two companies (General Instruments are OEM'd Motorola boxes).
AOL is also working on the Mystero box or whatever crappy name it has. Dish Network has their own PVR.
None of these are comparable to TiVo on a feature basis, and often they're missing really big features, but to a lot of people all that matters is price -- and all of them beat TiVo on that because the companies can afford to give the hardware away for free and charge an additional monthly service charge to pay it back as well as pay for providing service.
So yeah, TiVo does have reason to compete. Lots of them.
The major player in PVR land is DirectTV followed by EchoStar. These satellite providers bundle the PVR function into their receivers if you want. Makes great sense since there's a kluge with an IR Blaster you need to do with Tivo and ReplayTV to control the other box. Also cable companies like Comca$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.
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)
I wouldn't let this affect your descision too much. The Replay is still a quality piece of hardware that doesn't mess around with all the "user-friendly" features of a Tivo. Maybe I'm just of the mindset that if I want to record something, I will. I would rather not have the Tivo make an educated guess at my tastes.
There's a few companies that are looking into purchasing Replay, one being D&M. All my experiences with them has been fine, and SonicBlue's customer support has always been a black spot on the Replays. The only problem the new owner may run into is the pending lawsuits over Commercial Advance (an awesome feature when it's working), but even if that ability has to be disabled, there's still a 30 second skip button on all the recent models.
So, to make a long post, even longer. If I were you I'd take a hard look at both systems and figure out exactly what out of a PVR. Replay users are not going to lose service, and we tend to be a fanatical bunch. I have three myself.
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
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
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!)
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.)
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.
Maybe I'm just of the mindset that if I want to record something, I will. I would rather not have the Tivo make an educated guess at my tastes.
...
Weird. That's just what I do with my TiVos. It's an old troll to use this against TiVos. If you don't like suggestions, turn them off. But suggestions will *never* waste hard drive space or be recorded instead of something you *chose* to have recorded. Bah.
purchasing Replay, one being D&M
Did you not even read the article synopsis?
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!
The hackability of TiVo is certainly awesome, but I doubt that even 5% of TiVo users hack their system. The price between the two systems has always been comparable, so I doubt that was it either. It probably boils down to marketing and the legal battles.
I'm glad TiVo is playing it safe and not implementing features that piss off the networks (automatic commercial skip, sharing of recorded shows, etc). The ReplayTV had some great features that TiVo lacked, but it got the networks on their bad side.
In any case, I can already rip shows off of my TiVo and burn them easily to VCD or SVCD. The only real problem is my TiVo is WiFi-enabled so a 1 hour show takes like 3 hours to transfer. 100mbit would be better but I haven't run Cat5 all over the place.
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.
I've had a ReplayTV since the very beginning, and I love it. When news of this bankruptcy hit, I bought a TiVo that same day.
:-)
Unfortunately, the D&M deal fell through. It may be that D&M picks up the assets at auction later this month, but until the auction happens things are still up in the air. Until then, we just have the word of ReplayTV that the guides will last until the end of this month. After that, it's completely up in the air.
That is, if we just stick with their service. I haven't done a single bit of hacking on my Replay, but I would imagine we'd be able to get some code written to get SOME sort of guide working.... does anyone have any idea if a project like that is underway?
BTW, the 30 second skip feature has been there since the beginning. Love that feature.
Regarding TiVO, a couple of things:
The TiVo only records on educated guesses using unused space on the device.
It has USB ports for ethernet (and other stuff, I would guess..haven't looked into that too much) so program guides can be set through the net. This was a great thing for me, because I have one of the original ReplayTVs and didn't have an mods for Ethernet.
The new 4.0 software upgrade will support wireless USB ethernet devices. The (cough) $99 HomeMedia option will allow streaming MP3s and pictures to be sent from your PC, and will allow sharing of programs between multiple TiVos in the house. The first upgrade costs $99, the upgrades for additional TiVos are $49 each.
Anyway to the original poster, bottom line, if you can wait, just wait until this Replay thing sorts itself out. It'll only be a couple of more weeks. If ReplayTV survives, find a friend with one and check it out. Find a friend with a TiVo and check that out too.
But whatever happens, get a PVR. These things are freakin' awesome.
I've owned one from the beginning, and lived through the SonicBlue buyout of the original ReplayTV company. Their biggest problem was that they didn't go for a subscription for these things from the beginning. The "lifetime" subscription was built into the cost of the unit. This made the price point much higher than TiVo, and given the choice between the initial cost of a ReplayTV and a TiVo, people picked the TiVO. Nevermind that a lifetime subscription buyout for TiVo made it the same price as a ReplayTV... People didn't look at it that way.
After they fixed that, the biggest problem was that they never got "mind share" (did I really use that phrase....shoot me now!) for the product the way TiVo did. Tell anyone about a ReplayTV, and they're more than likely to say "Oh, like a TiVo".
I don't think I've ever seen a ReplayTV commercial in all the time I've owned one.
They had been trying to OEM these things to other companies that do set-top boxes, but I think in the end, the companies decided to do it for themselves, rather than partner with SonicBlue.
It's a great device....and fun while it lasted.
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
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.
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
Funny thing is, SonicBlue never made any of their own MP3-CD players. The first few (100, 90, 250) were all rebadged Reigncom (the OEM for iRiver) models. The latter ones (150, 350) are made by some Chinese OEM (Starlite maybe?)
Yes, the guide data protocol (RNP) has been reverse-engineered and people have been successful at retrieving guide data and setting the internal clock through some proxy tricks. Check the AVS Forum for more details. One caveat: no one is sure exactly how monthly-subscribed units (vs. lifetime) will end up reacting if/when SB's activation servers go offline. I'm sure someone will figure that out, but it is an open question for now.
External guide data may actually be a boon for Replay users, the existing Replay guide database does not support "big-dish" systems, Canadian cable systems, PPV channels, etc., and it would be really neat to be able to tweak the channel-renumbering scheme. In addition, by running your own "guide server," you'll have infinite control over which channels appear, how the guide data is formatted and truncated for space, filtering, etc.
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.
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!
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
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.
TiVo --> VHS
ReplayTV --> Beta
We now know who won the PVR war.