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TiVo Will Die
Espectr0 writes "Yahoo! News has a PC Magazine-reprinted story about why they think the TiVo will die because of rising competition. From the article: 'It's always hard to write an obituary, especially when the subject is still alive. It's especially hard for me, because I love the little guy like a brother. But, alas, TiVo will die. I was one of the first reviewers to get my hands on an early TiVo box. I compared TiVo with ReplayTV, and although I really wanted to like ReplayTV, TiVo won my heart over.'"
Long live my VCR!!!!!
the fat digital bits from the satellite go right onto the hard drive and aren't converted to analog until they squirt into your TV.
now THAT's some realistic pr0n.
TiVo is dying!
So, when did it become fashionable to predict the deaths of everything from consumer eletronics to companies? There's already two links on the front page to death knell articles, I can't swing a stick on a news site without clubbing a few more. Are article writers making up for bad karma they accrued during the hypehypehype days of the dotcom boom?
And why "death"? I understand exaggeration makes for good entertainment, nobody wants to read an article titled "Man goes to work, has uneventful day, returns safely home". But even though he brings up several good points.. why? Is it impossible to consider that the market might not jump as anticipated, or the company/product can adapt to a new environment?
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
It's always hard to write an obituary, especially when the subject is still alive.
;)
Really?
What's Tivo?
-- SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER.
now tivo? i wonder how many times tivo will die in 28 years..
Let me guess, they will die because they are partnered with Apple.
They will take my Tivo when they pry the remote from my cold, dead hand!
Interociter
-=What do I want? I'm an American. I want more.
Tivo is painfully expensive for the actual service. They offer it for $400 for the "lifetime" of the device. If the thing dies 1 day after the warranty, you paid $33 a month for an overhyped VCR, plus the $220 to get it. I own one, and enjoy it finding me shows.. but really, what in the hell are you going to do with 40 hours of MacGyver?
That the MPAA was gathering a list of all TIVO owners in an effort to sue them for copyright infringement.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Considering the partnerships that Tivo has made with DirecTV and Time Warner Cable, I don't see them going any anytime soon. Not to say never, but I believe that this announcement is a little premature.
Now, if you are talking about stand-alone Tivo units, yeah they will probably go away, but I am willing to accept that to have one component on my AV rack instead of two.
They can have my TiVo when they pry... umm... it out of... umm... when they pry ME out of... umm...
oh crap...
-
The present "street price" of a "DirecTV DVR with TiVo Serivce" is only $99, with only a $4.95 per household DVR service fee that is waived for subscribers to DirecTV's highest programming plan and is not charged multiple times if there is more than one DirecTiVo in the same household. There is of course a one year committment required to avoid a $300 early cancelation fee, but that's standard for all new DirecTV units.
So, let's not compare apples to oranges. The standalone TiVo risks getting priced out of the market, and the HD TiVo is not yet ready for mass distribution, but the DirecTV model is flying off the shelves. The Moxi product isn't available to consumers outside of limited testing markets yet, and News Corp's yet to release a US-aimed PVR or even say they're going to do so so all that product has is speculation by pundits. When your biggest competitors are pure vaporware, I'd say your company is doing pretty good.
Oh well, I hope it doesn't die too soon :) :)
I bought a refurb 40 hour from tivo.com for $99 after rebate. It's coming today. I have a nice 120 gig drive ready to upgrade too
The wifey fell in love with tivo over at a friends house...then I got tivo envy.
-chuck
Seeing as we're on a roll today...
Researchers believe Sun will die in 5 billion years
I hate to say it, but I agree. I just converted a box at my house to a Media Center PC for the fun of it. It can do everything a Tivo can do, everything a regular DVD player can do, everything a regular stereo can do, and everything a WinXP Pro machine can do. If the HD PVR tivo is going to be $1000, I don't think they're going to get very far. I think that HD PVR cards for PC's will quickly sprout up that will be far cheaper, and much easier to archive and store recorded programs on.
Celebrate Steak and a Blowjob Day!
Indie music geeks have attained the level of zen ennui where they deem bands passe before the last flyer reading "2 GUITARISTS SEEK DRUMMER" is done printing at Kinko's.
Now computer geeks are achieving the same thing by declaring every new technology dead before it's even managed to hit its stride. It does not make you a geekier person, or a better one, or a smarter one, to say this crap.
I guess the reference is to Janet's Breast
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
He's got his numbers all screwed up.
I just got a DirecTv w/Tivo box and it cost $99 and the service is $4.95 per month.
I like microcars
Is today Slashdot Obituary day?
Cheer up, people! It's friday!
Who will die first?
Or will Duke Nukem Forever release before any of them die?
Clearly, they should've just written the article this way:
It is official; Netcraft confirms: TiVo is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered TiVo community when IDC confirmed that TiVo market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent TiVocraft survey which plainly states that TiVo has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. TiVo is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent television viewer comprehensive recording test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict TiVo's future. The hand writing is on the wall: TiVo faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for TiVo because TiVo is dying. Things are looking very bad for TiVo. As many of us are already aware, TiVo continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeTiVo is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeTiVo developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeTiVo is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenTiVo leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenTiVo. How many users of NetTiVo are there? Let's see. The number of OpenTiVo versus NetTiVo posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetTiVo users. TiVo posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetTiVo posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/PVR. A recent article put FreeTiVo at about 80 percent of the TiVo market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeTiVo users. This is consistent with the number of FreeTiVo Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of TiVo, abysmal sales and so on, FreeTiVo went out of business and was taken over by TiVo who sell another troubled PVR. Now TiVo is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that TiVo has steadily declined in market share. TiVo is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If TiVo is to survive at all it will be among PVR dilettante dbblers. TiVo continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, TiVo is dead.
Fact: TiVo is dying
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
TiVO has a new product called TiVoToGo. It should be a Media Center killer, since it will give you the added flexibility you need without having to have yet another crashing Windows box in your house. Here's the press release: "from TiVO. I think this new product will give users what they really want, which is more flexibility for managing their content, and having a 'library' capability that doesn't fall short at the size of the TiVO box. Rich
AOL is dying
Apple is dying
Civilization on Mars is dying
Shouldn't this story be in the *BSD section?
sulli
RTFJ.
As long as they don't stop offering service before I can afford a replacement... :-P
I love my TiVo, but not enough for brand loyalty. i'll go with what ever is best.
"It takes a very long time to count to 2 in binary." ~'Fourlegged'
TiVo dying? Please, no. My sweetie just bought one on Tuesday this week. She's been lusting after one for a few years now, and finally had the means. I even went out and bought a USB-Ethernet adapter so it can live on my LAN and pull updates.
Already the thing has proved its value; it's automatically grabbing episodes of shows we would otherwise miss via its Season Pass feature. Oh, and did you know there's a secret 30-second skip feature you can activate? Makes advertising essentially go away.
So, no, please don't kill it yet. We've only just begun to love it.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Look. TiVo won't die. So the reviewer says he likes ReplayTV better and that TiVo won't dominate the market in years to come.
But that's ok.
Consider the home PVR market. By all accounts, it's a growing market. In years to come, let's say that it's a $10B market. Even with just 10% market share, that's $1B. Not chump change.
Honestly it's like saying AOL will die. Fading into obscurity, being obsolete, etc are not equivalent to dying. Last time I checked, AOL still had 24.3 million subscribers. All joking aside, let's assume 20m actually pay. That is still $400m/MONTH which is a CASH stream that I dare not to cough at.
Personally I think the death of TiVo will come when the public finds out about non-subscription encombered PVRs. =
and with some models, basic 3 day service is included
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
It's been fashionale to:
Predict the future
Rattle on about spifty new things that'll be out RSN
Contemplate the next acquisistion of Microsoft
Contemplate the next anti-trust action against Microsoft
Poke fun at Duke Nukem 4ever (RSN)
Write in glowing terms about the next generation of electronics (MP3 players, cell phones, PDA's, Ditigal Cameras, combos of all four)
How could it be out of character to lay some of these things to rest, when their time comes?
Personally, I've got a video card which allows me to record to HD whatever, whenever I want without any fees. When I can do that, why should I buy a Tivo, or even Replay? And wasn't someone b!tching a while back about Tivo or someone collecting viewer habits?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
However
Most people won't try it because of the price. There is no good reason for this overcharging other than trying to recoup the hardware cost. Therefore I give this suggestion to Tivo - ditch the hardware and make yourself into a pure play service provider.
There are loads of PVR, DVR and other players looking to get into the market. Ride on that by providing the software and service for, say, $10 per YEAR + upgrades.
It worked for Microsoft.
Which will pull through? Which won't? Who's going to be next? Place your bets!
Seriously, though, I think that licensing to DirecTV et al will help out TiVo in a pretty substantial way.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
You insensitive clod!
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Why is it with every cool new (dare I say it) innovation it never fails that the so called "analysts" write all their articles about how product X will die?
For example, the iPod. It's going to die. Run for the hills!
Why is there all this fear-mongering? Can't we just enjoy a product and not anylyze it to death, literally?
I almost get the feeling that write-ups like these are actually motivated by trying to make it die. For example, you spread a rumor that bank Y is failing. Everyone takes their money out of bank Y. Then the bank Y fails, seemingly fulfilling the prediction.
--- witty signature
The article makes the point that Tivo's software is much better than the competitors. Even if the standalone box business dies (and it probably will), the company will do well as a supplier of software to integrated cable/satelite boxes.
I recently read that this was the original idea of the company: the standalone boxes were supposed to tide the company over until the emergence of the all-in-one set-top box market.
They have something like 3.5 million subscribers who are loyal and will stick around for awhile. At $12.95 a month, that is some real cash-flow to keep the software improvements coming.
I don't tape things anymore, I 'Tivo' them. The phrase 'to Tivo' has become pretty ubiquitous in the past few years and is synonymous with PVR recording.
With that sort of name recognition, they're not going away any time soon. They may get bought, but the name will be around for quite some time.
Most cable/dish systems require a special tuner, and unless TiVo gets bundled/built-in, it's difficult to make things work easily (for the average home user). HDTV's no-copy flag could also spell disaster for home recording.
While it can have some cap card driver and configuration issues, MythTV is just amazing, considering it's Free Software.
Charging 20 bucks for TV listings per month. The Box is alright for say 100-200. But the service is too expensive
You can build your on PVR with spare PC parts and a TV video card (any ATI card with TV in). Go to http://freevo.sourceforge.net and get the paid TV listing technology for free.
Article failed to mention SnapStream, and that's probably a huge possible TiVo killer. As a Dish Network customer, I find the Dish 500 suitable enough to take care of recording the shows I program it to, and with the option of recording them on one of my PC's using SnapStream, so I can take it with me on a laptop if I chose? Unreal. I highly doubt the "death of TiVo" is approaching, and perhaps with some better PR they'll climb out of whatever dark hole other companies are trying to put them in, but there are tons more options these days. ...and Moore's law is no excuse for the death of any technology, only the explanation by which that technology should progress beyond levels of doubt and bad publicity.
I just saw a commercial late last night on my cable box from Adelphia (my cable provider) that stated that there is either available now, or coming soon, a PVR (TIVO-like device) for my digital cable.
Although I will hate giving my cable company another $10 a month to rent this thing, if I were a betting man I'd say it a lock.
*Can't wait to waste more of my life watching the TV shows I can't stay awake to see*
Adult Swim, Monty Python episodes, and all the Comedy Central shows I can handle!!! WOO!
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
yet...
The article assumes Tivo will never release another version/improvement or will never implement HDTV or tap into digital cable boxes "digital" stream...
I love my tivo (I'm still building my own home brew one though because it's fun )... I kinda wish I had gotten replayTV (networking features mainly), but after their boneheaded near bait and switch PR blunder I feel better not supporting them with my purchase.
*shrug* The article was right about the dangers of the cable companies offering built in PVR's into their digital cable boxes (as a matter of conveience not necessarily signal quality/degredation concerns)
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Shaped like a dog bone, it was simple to use, easy to understand, and a pleasure to hold.
If you didn't read the article, you may not know what the author means when another poster quotes the article! :)
They have built a brand name. Every satelite (SP - fuck it!) owner I know, compares their disk storage to TIVO. They have a brand. They are the market leaders. Maybe they'll lose it, but now they're the Cadillac in terms of programming disk storage.
For you youger people: Cadillac is a luxury car that old people think is the best in the world. Like Mercedes, only American made (whatever that means these days) and not as reliable.
Does he think that TiVo doesn't know the exact things he's talking about? TiVo doesn't need to sell boxes, they license the software and sell the service. Most people won't notice the difference between current "analog" TiVo and digital TiVo, unless they have a really good TV, in which case, they would probably shell out for the HDTiVo anyway. That $1000 price point will drop, too- the product is still clearly in the early adopter phase. Eventually, sales will pick up, components will be cheaper, and they'll be able to drop the price. TiVo happens to be really, really good at what it does.
Like others here, I'll be building a media box, so I can play FLAC and Vorbis files on my stereo, games on the big screen, etc., but I have no doubt it will be far more expensive (in time and money) than TiVo, and it won't be as easy to use.
Does no one know about this:
7 00 611-CI700297,00.html?
0 ,, CI700334,00.html
http://www.rca.com/product/viewdetail/0,2588,PI
Or this??
http://www.rca.com/product/viewproductcategory/
It's so fashionable these days for to have articles like this one declaring the 'end' of stuff like the iPod.
I'll believe it when I see it. Seems these "journalists" have been taking tips from the various trolls.
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
My brother has a TiVo. I readily admit that the search software on the TiVo is much better, but it doesn't have two tuners (the SA from my cable company does). We were stuck watching some stupid show his wife had set to record. From looking at their web site, it seems that TiVo doesn't offer any models with two tuners.
No 'reports of my death have been greatly exaggeratred' comments?
All I want is a VCR like, standalone, personal video recorder with no monthly fee that costs under $250.
I don't really care about all the fancy features, just give me play, stop, fast forward, and the ability to transfer recorded video files off the machine.
Is there such a thing out there with assembly not required? I just can't stand the idea of paying a monthly fee for a relatively simple device masquerading as a service.
"Shaped like a dog bone, it was simple to use, easy to understand, and a pleasure to hold."
That's the secret to getting people to love your product. A few things in life just never seem to get old.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
There are too many fanatical owners with lifetime memberships, like myself. My TiVo is hacked to hell and I love it. Even if the service got cut off I'm sure enough people would get together and create some kind of volunteer listing service. Maybe in the style of CDDB, before they sold their soul to the devil. At the very least you'd still have a network connected VCR.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
First apple, and now Tivo! It's a monumental cascade of unstoppable chaos and death! It's the end of the world!
What will the world come to when You can't replay the super bowl half time over and over, to see a music star's breast.
It'll be interesting to see if it widely enters the vernacular, and if it does, it'll be interesting to see if Tivo defends its copyright. 'Kleenex', 'Elevator', 'Cornflakes', and 'Aspirin' certainly lost their battles.
Moore's Law - Just because you can put an MPEG2 stream onto a hard drive without converting to analog, doesn't mean a TiVo isn't a better way to do it than a clunky piece of crap set-top box from your local spam^H^H^H^Hcable company. TiVo wins marketshare because of its UI, not because it's doing anything technologically revolutionary. Moore's law merely means that the cost of silicon will continue to drop -- but the cost of building a TiVo is about the same as the cost of building anything else. TiVo's strength - its usability - is a function of good design, not the cost of silicon.
HDTV - And next week, IPv6 to take over the world! Enough said.
Murdoch / DirecTV - Then he'll buy TiVo outright, which will also be good for TiVo. Why oust it in favor of something less useful but cheaper, when Moore's Law says both the clunky and the useful products are going to be the same price?
The article's an unwarranted slam against TiVo and only towards the end do we find the real motivation:
So that's the real reason for this poorly-thought-out slam: The author used to get serviced to orgasm from the company whenever he flashed his press credentials. But today, he gets the same customer service as the rest of us get... from every company we do business with. It's phone support. It's going to suck Deal with it.
What's next? Netcraft author denied photo-op with cute daemon-suited ch1x0rz at LinuxWorld, and writes a report that confirms FreeBSD is dying?
Just to keep things in perspective, this article is written by PC Magazine's editor. What, if anyone knows, is ZD's ability to see the future? Seems to me this publication a long time ago became a Microsoft ad channel.
I have no experience with Tivo, nor HDTV, nor cable. I watch TV from a Radio Shack antenna mounted on my roof. So, in TV terms I'm pretty much Fred Flintstone. At the same time, I'm not exactly sure what my incentive is to upgrade to the products that are listed as being the killers for Tivo -- and the thought of Tivo is pretty appealing to someone like me that still uses their VCR.
The article claims that "2004 is the year of HDTV". What does this mean? HDTV penetration becomes 50% of households? This doesn't seem possible with the current penetration being 1-2% (last I checked). Admittedly, Tivo has a need to change its products and strategy over the next few years, but I think the same could be said for any technology based product.
Sleep is for the Weak
If you read the article, the author states that they stopped returning his calls. Maybe Tivo got tired of hand-holding reviewers, especially when the press isn't needed... or maybe it's as simple as EVERY reviewer wants a story on Tivo, and he's not as important anymore..Who cares if he was an "ambassador" like 50 other reviewers, I'm sure.
So what. It's not a reason to slam Tivo. Maybe Tivo was right.. look at his childish reaction.
Under the sustained assault of the on-line community, "X Is Dying" stories are taking a serious beating and are likely to decrease over the next few months.
Can we take this as anything but a sign that the "X is dying" genre of story is, itself, ironically, dying? (Although isn't irony dead, itself having been killed by "Irony Is Dead" stories post-9/11, immediately following the "The World Trade Center Is Dead" which at least had the virtue of being true.)
Sure, they're still being written, but the important criterion for an "X Is Dying" story has been met, namely some schmoe with an opinion and the ability to publish to some degree or other (in this case, Jerf) thinks that "X Is Dying". What more evidence do you really need? History? Thought? Intelligence? All extraneous and unnecessary. "Intelligent Thought is Dying."
You know, the posting of this sort of meta-meta-message is really a sign that Slashdot is dying, don't you think? Once upon a time it was the home of something that was somehow nebulously better then what we have now, but now we have what, 1,000 comments per story and like three times the stories per day we used to have? Surely this growth somehow implies Slashdot Is Dying and should be considered "beleagured".
Best of all, the author doesn't believe a word of this: "Jerf's Belief In His Postings Is Dying." We're just seeing the beginning of this sort of writing, as the fashion of writing "X Is Dying" is just really getting going lately. Seems everything is dying; the economy, the Republican party, the Democrat party, hope for the future, etc. For as many things as are dying, things seem to be going pretty OK, if not great. Good news just can't compete with bad news. "Good News Stories Are Dying"; the trend is pretty clear.
I'm pretty certain it's already dead in the UK, killed by Sky+, the Sky TV combined digibox/PVR (although I think it was probably on the way out before then, partly down to high prices at launch).
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered TiVo community when IDC confirmed that TiVo market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that TiVo has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. TiVo is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict TiVo's future. The hand writing is on the wall: TiVo faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for TiVo because TiVo is dying. Things are looking very bad for TiVo. As many of us are already aware, TiVo continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the TiVo market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that TiVo has steadily declined in market share. TiVo is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If TiVo is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dbblers. TiVo continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, TiVo is dead.
Fact: TiVo is dying
Scheduled to die are...
The language C
Video games
TiVo
Tune in next week when we add another victim to the list.
Okay, so according to Slashdot this morning:
-Apple is dead
-Tivo is dead
Where's the BSD story?
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
TiVo came with the world's best remote control ever...Shaped like a dog bone, it was simple to use, easy to understand, and a pleasure to hold.
I think maybe the reviewer was thinking of another "dog bone" shaped object.
one of many problems: "The next fatal problem for TiVo is high-definition TV signals. 2004 will be the year America embraces HDTV. The Super Bowl looked tremendous in HD, movies are amazing, and in May, when ESPN begins broadcasting SportsCenter in HD, the contest will be over."
OK, so HDTV has been coming Real Soon Now (tm) for, what, a decade? And this yahoo (no pun intended) thinks SportsCenter is going to propel it to the massses? In the next 8 1/2 months? No one ever said HDTV wasn't good. It's just expensive (capable TV, plus tuner, plus whatever) and supported channels are few and far between. Yet somehow, at today's prices, everyone in America is going to buy a new, big, expensive TV and related gear this year? Uh-huh.
In any case, he seems to think TiVo is unable to change. Yeah, TiVo is absolutely unflexible and will be totally unable to adapt to *any* changes in the market. They're going to stubbornly make one product and go under when there's no more demand for it. This article is such non-news I don't even know what to say about it.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The idea of charging $13/mo for a programming schedule will die. I forsee that there will be so much competition for DVR's and PVR's that the service fee will keep dropping down to free.
Then, they will have a simple box to type ANY phone number or IP Address (if a network interface is present) to download from, and cable/satellite providers will give you free access to a scheduling server of some sort, and there will be a standard for these schedules.
Hypocrisy is the 8th deadly sin.
The author's argument would be akin to saying that the iPod is going to die because of increased competition. I like the Tivo for the same reason I like the iPod, ease of use and a clean user interface. Why hasn't the iPod or the Tivo drastically dropped in price even with increasing competition? Easy, there may be more competition, but that doesn't mean the competition is good enough to dethrone the current consumer favorite.
I have digital cable right now, and I hate the UI for the channel guide, so much so that I almost never use it. On the other hand, my Dad has the DirectTV / Tivo combo unit, and the UI makes it really easy to check out whats on, and still watch TV at the same time.
I really have yet to find anything out there that matches the UI of Tivo. The transparent channel guide that shows so much information at once and it's appealing to me that I can still have an idea of what's going on with the current channel I'm watching, and effectively channel surf all 500 channels in a matter of seconds at the same time.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
I just converted a box at my house to a Media Center PC for the fun of it. It can do everything a Tivo can do, everything a regular DVD player can do, everything a regular stereo can do, and everything a WinXP Pro machine can do.
When normal people want toast, they buy a toaster. They don't take a previously-existing, alternate kitchen appliance, tear it open, and make it capable of producing toast.
The key to making a name for TiVo was impressing the geeks, as they were most likely to be the early adopters. The key to selling TiVo is to convince the regular people that it's easy-to-use, provides a valuable service, and that it's priced within reason. Seeing as every person I know who has used my TiVo for a few minutes has purchased one, geek or not, I believe it has adequately met those criteria.
Grousing about a $1000 TiVo/DirecTV cost is silly when the dam HD TV and associated stuff is in the same price range.
HD adoption is slow, and you know people have been saying the dish companies, cable companies, and Microsoft's Media Center PC would kill off TiVo for about 3 years now, and TiVo continues to grow and defy them.
Really, TiVo is outstanding. My TiVo and my PowerBook are the only electronics items I have an actual affection for. DirecTiVo is so much better than analog cable I'm beside myself with the difference. It's changed my life where TV is concerned, and it'll take a helluva long time for me to even look at any alternatives. TiVo service is "free" for me because with my DirecTV package they pay the TiVo service charge (I'm aware the charge is buried in there, but single billing is compelling).
I'm one of those annoying folks that preaches to my friends about it, too. Probably sold 5 or 6 of 'em so far.
TiVo won't die because they have patents on the whole DVR idea.
This is one case where patents are good. TiVo, and DVRs in general, aren't really that obvious - VCRs and such aren't really prior art.
Now that everyone and their brothers are making DVRs, well, TiVo owns the IP behind all of it. They can go off and sue/license the technology to anyone, and they'll be hard to stop. Plus they learned from Apple's mistakes and filed the right kinds of patents.
There you go - patents aren't all bad.
The article calls TiVo a "beleaguered" PVR vendor which means that TiVo joins the ranks of companies like Apple, which has been dying since the 70's.
I thought they chose linux over *BSD for the exact purpose of not dying.
Please discuss.
This totally neglects TiVo's patent portfolio. They're far from sunk. As it is they don't make hardware...
and the thoughts of young male geeks everywhere turn to.....DEATH!
Apple's dying!
TiVO's dying!
We're ALL Dying!
But how many people have truely lived? - Mel Gibson
FREEEEEEEDOM!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Beavis : "Are you threatening it? Tivo will never DIE!"
YES, Tivo is dead.
My prescient mind, armed with my incredible understanding of market economics (from my hours in high school econ, and the occasional Wall Street Journal articles) predicts the downfall of this device... and here's why:
It works too well, has real value, and makes watching television easy in a glut of channels, all the while searching for programs you like.
That just sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Nobody ever became rich giving the public what they wanted... people became rich selling patches, add-ons, and ancillary crap to something that hardly worked, suckering in the customer with the hope that THIS WAS THE THING THAT WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO WORK WELL THIS TIME.
Tivo needs to get Ron Popeil on the phone, and let him break it down for them.
See? Get with the new economics! You don't make millions anymore giving the customers what they want! You have to release a crappy, non-transparent technology and then CHARGE THEM FOR UPDATES! Please. You need to think like Gates to survive these days. The money is not in giving them what they want. The money is in giving them something that doesn't work that they think will work, and then charging them huge bucks to GET IT TO WORK RIGHT AFTER ten generations later.
Tivo should die for getting it right the first time. This is America people. Our economy would collapse if we produced products that actually worked, where would all of the tech support workers be? All of the patch engineers? More importantly, where are all the freaking extra charges that make you a Fortune 500 company when you innovate and give the public what they want in a good product?
Face it. It is just like health care. The money ain't in the cure, the money is in the medicine.
Tivo screwed up. They deserve to die for NOT screwing their customers.
TiVo Killer
iPod Killer
BSD Killer
Apple Killer
Hell. Next thing they'll be prophesing the end of the Earth...or even worse... Betamax.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
c'mon slashdotters. get the facts right. Yahoo just republishes news from lots of other vendors. This piece is by a PC Magazine writer, and I'm sure he'd like to get the credit.
Among the people I know, only a few that are my age (late 20's, early 30's)even watch TV any more. Most are like myself: we have a TV for watching DVD's and games. If there's a TV show worth watching, it'll come out on DVD. I literally haven't watched TV outside of one that's blaring in a bar or restaurant for several years. I don't miss it. My TV is usually on with a movie or game, but no crap TV or the commercials that go along with them. As far as I'm concerned, Tivo can live or die... I don't really care.
TiVo will die. Apple will die. Geez-o-pete, will these irritating predictions of cool stuff dying never die?
unless Netcraft confirms it.
The Tivo service is still available and while you can't buy a new one, they sell on ebay for more than they cost new!!!
So dead I don't think so, but not as alive as I'd like them to be.
on the upside maybe some company that doesn't track every click you make will sell a better product. Hell maybe not all companies are interested in targetted advertising revenue.
:(){
First story today...Apple is losing market share, the iPod isn't driving Mac sales, and the Apple branded stores are a failure.
Second story...Microsoft is in talks to purchase the AOL division from Time Warner. Idiot. A simpleton would understand that there are far too many antitrust issues involved to allow such an acquisition.
And now we have the "TiVo dying" story. The author even gives valuable word space to mention Replay even though that product is for all tense and purposes, finished. The author goes into great detail about how smart the cable company offerings are and digital-to-analog arugments without even mentioning the fact that the majority of cable television subscribers are analog customers.
The author also failed to mention that the chairman of TiVo also sits on the board of directors at NetFlix. Imagine the possibilities there.
And just because Microsoft throws in basic PVR functions in WindowsXP Media Center does not mean that will wipe out stand-alone PVRs. Including DVD drives in computers failed to wipe out the market for stand-alone DVD players.
What about the TiVo units now being shipped in DVD and DVD burner units? The author strikes out in that area as well. What about TiVo-2-Go? Oh, he failed to research that as well.
Good job!
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
This was on the Howard Stern show this morning, or a brief mention, apparently Tivo is discontinuing the Analog service boxes. DirecTV will still carry Tivo, and Tivo will be upgrading there DirecTV links to include HDTV soon.
Mod +5 Drunk
Past is prologue. VHS killed Beta. Apple still has a miniscule market share compared to WinTel... ...and XP Media Edition will find a way to invade most home entertainment centers within the next three years.
(Chumming the water is a valuable public service.)
Please don't let the attitudes of a few reviewers lead you to conclude that all computer geeks like to predict the death of computer technology.
Remember, the "Death of Apple" has been predicted for so long that it's become a standard joke, so I hardly think it counts. If nothing else. Microsoft has a vested interest in Apple staying alive. They need competitors to fend off the world's Monopoly laws, and Apple is a better competitor to have than Linux. Why? Because Apple isn't trying to take over the world and doesn't have masses of developers and users out for blood. Apple has a bottom line to worry about, and while Linux companies have to worry about money, Linux itself does not.
Computer journalists love to predict the impending death of a technology, because it gets more readers. It's more sensational to say something is dying than to say it is facing challenges from a shifting market.
The only person who speaks for me is me, and I haven't heard or read all that many people predicting the death of technology.
Besides, the articles listed today are hardly "New technology" whose death is being predicted "before it's even managed to hit its stride." Both Apple and TiVo have been around the block and had high points as well as low.
As a side note, I'd like to caution everyone against confusing being critical of a new technology with predicting it's death. Lots of new technologies are being awaited with baited breath, and others are declared DOA because they're either obvious vapor ware like the Phantom Game Consol, not mature enough to take to market just yet (Nintendo Virtual Boy) or a technology looking for a market (Remember those Smell Cards they were developing?)
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
You insensitive clod !!!!
why they pry it from my dead cold fingers.
I only paid $200 for a lifetime subscription over 4 years ago and haven't paid a penny since.
Look. TiVo won't die. So the reviewer says he likes ReplayTV better and that TiVo won't dominate the market in years to come.
First off, the article states explicitly that the author prefers TiVo to Replay and all of its alternatives.
Secondly, he states that as much as he loves TiVo, he thinks they're doomed. As much as I love TiVo, I can't bury my head in the sand and assume they won't die just because I don't want them to.
The PVR market is already changing, and TiVo needs to get ahead of the trends in order to stay competitive. Standalone boxes will most likely go away in the next 3-5 years. TVs will come equipped with PVR functionality and have built-in cable tuners, thanks to the cable card specification.
TiVo has done a brilliant job with its UI and it's light-years ahead of other manufacturers in terms of partnerships with consumer electronics manufacturers, and its deal with DirecTV is heavily driving growth in its customer base, but the future is about building PVR functionality into TVs or cable boxes, and TiVo has no cable-box partnerships and hasn't shown any signs of being able to penetrate that market.
Now, on to my criticisms of the article. Louderback assumes that the HD-capable DirecTV TiVo receiver will stay at $1000 for any length of time. He's clearly wrong on that. The price will come down quickly once DirecTV determines that HD TiVo ownership drives subscriptions to HD content. The manufacturing costs will decline as volume increases and the prices of 250GB HDs falls, which will encourage DirecTV to eventually subsidize the price of the receiver to drive sales of HD packages.
And likewise, the cable set-top box market might dry up and blow away entirely once cable card-enabled TVs start to hit the market. And TiVo will be able to sell standalone TiVos that could replace cable set-top boxes for customers who have older TVs. Yes, TiVo suffers a price disadvantage compared to the offerings of the cable companies, who are looking to "lock in" subscribers, but the advent of cable card will negate some of the lock-in advantage anyway.
At any rate, it's difficult to predict the future. I think Louderback's column was more intended as a shot across TiVo's bow than a true prediction of their death. I think he wants them to sit up and take notice of the threats that surround them so that they can devise adequate solutions to their problems, and I think he'd desperately like for them to return his calls or emails.
It's true! I used Google to prove it!
beleaguered+tivo = 890 hits
beleaguered+zdnet = 3040 hits
And just for an extra comparison, I used the author's name:
beleaguered+jim = 27900 hits
Wow! I guess Jim's on his way out!
GM, too, will die. Chrysler would be dead now if not for a tax-funded bailout. Mother Theresa is currently dead, and one day (sad but true, the world is unfair) so will be Lucy Liu *and* Portia de Rossi. Me, too. Also, the Universe will eventually suffer its famous upcoming heat death.
:)
... next month, because the predictor knows inside dirt on the company, or that Chile will be nationalizing all the Tivonium mines? ... next year, because suddenly PCs will be cheap enough and friendly enough to match the stand-alone devices? ... next decade, because a markedly superior product will eventually displace TiVo as a recording device? ... sometime next century, as holographic pornography gradually takes up more of the average entertainment schedule?
So what?
Predictions that certain businesses or specific consumer electronics items "will die" are pretty boring without specifics, the closer the better. Will die:
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Morality and Ethics are dying
Nah, they were just a fiction in the first place.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Flashback, Anyone?
I hear that the IBM "PC" is going to be the end of Apple.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Slate Predicts end of Tivo
Jim should have stayed at TechTV.
Lets face it tivo owners, the suits are turning the product into shit. Remember the dawn, great little box that you could hack, run own stream extracting ftp server, hack in OSD of caller ID, hack in remote scheduleing.. just about anything you can think of. Then the suits came out with Series 2.. ugh, no hacking (save bios hack, 2card monty), and then came Home Media Option, or as I like to call it, an over priced package of all the cool hacks we stole from the community and impleneted like shit. Fast forward to today, the hacker community is giving up on tivo, the real PVR hacks are coming out for things like MythTV, Freevo.. etc.. and Tivo has yet to pull out any new features.. wait.. the did add TVGuide ads on everything what a great day that was. Tivo will die mostly becouse the product development has been ignored. There are a few things Tivo could do to save its self. First come out with an HD tivo that supports caputre via firewire, as we are all know FCC has told cable providers they need to add firewire out by april 1, btw the few providers that already support firwire have a great side effect, no OSD from the cable box so the OSD stacking problem is SOLVED. Second slash the price of the Unit to just above costs, if it cost $400~ a unit then they have production chain problems. They should be able to get the unit cost down below $100, do direct sales of $150, but allow retail to carry it at what ever they want. Finally, bring back hacking, put the protectvie seal, add the warnings about voiding wartnee.. yada yada.. but let the community back in to hacking, thats where all the good ideas came from anyways
It will go the way of Unix.. Oh, wait a sec...
(Disclaimer: I am a DirecTV subscriber who is quite happy with his DirecTivo receiver.)
Moore's Law: A complete non-sequitur. Tivo's value was never in the MPEG encoder. That merely provides compatibility with analog sources. It's the software, stupid. That's where Tivo still maintains the lead. Louderback has a good point that Tivo should have pursued a deal with Echostar more aggressively, instead of waiting until it was too late and whipping out the patent hammer, but getting to that point was a long, irrelevant trip. I guess he needed to fill a few column-inches.
HDTV: Again, the hardware is not where Tivo makes the money. Ensuring sufficient storage and throughput for multiple HD streams must have cost some R&D bucks, but everything related to decoding HD is expensive right now. Yes, the HD DirecTivo costs a whopping US$1000. But there's no such thing as a cheap HD STB, unless you go rummaging on eBay. Until something forces the STB prices down in proportion to screen prices, $1000 will be what the market bears. Maybe that's why the Moxi is still vapor...
Howlin' Mad Murdoch: Finally, a good point. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that Rupert Murdoch is going to ruin what is, smart card paranoia aside, a Good Thing. DirecTivo manages to hit the sweet spot between power and usability. I'd hope that, once he gets some Tivo-knowlegable people in his organization, he'll stick with Tivo when DirecTV becomes Sky America.
This sig intentionally left blank.
I bought a replaytv about 4 months ago, and am damn glad that I did. I'm actually looking at a second one now. There are already people that have a way to add your own XMLtv listings to it if you're somewhere that replaytv doesn't provide listings for, so, if the ReplayTV service got shut down, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take too much to rig it to not even need the replaytv "mothership" at all. I'm pretty sure some of the people over at planetreplay already know how to make it do this, but aren't sharing because they thing people ought to pay ReplayTV for the service, since they're still around (and for the record, I agree)
'TiVo' is definitely now a verb. Which is a little annoying since I have a ReplayTv, and not a TiVo. It's just easier to say in conversation than to explain the difference.
I'm a 2000 man.
Death of "Mod Parent Up" posts predicted - film at 11:00.
It isn't even limited to electronic media. Dead tree versions used to publish the same crap. Check the newspapers and magazines in the supermarket check-out line. Many of those don't even limit themselves to some insignificant item, either. They'll edit the photos to make them fit the story.
It's all about generating chatter. Whether on-line or at the water cooler.
But now, on-line means page hits which equates to popularity / ratings which means advertising dollars.
First, PVRs aren't going to die, does anyone really care if they are getting their service from TiVo, ReplayTV, DirecTV, Dish, comcast, or whomever might decide to put the box together and package it with software? Assuming the software is good and the box works correctly it doesn't matter to me at all.
Second, as to whether or not the cable companies squeeze out TiVo, it will be interesting, but TiVo would survive easily on just the DirecTV customers. They probably wouldn't be as big, but the company wouldn't die. They also may end up cutting deals with cable companies in the future as well.
Third, HDTV ruining the game? This is purely ridiculous. If the DirecTV HD Tivo box costs $1000 than most of the price has to be in the components used to supply HDTV or temporary inflation because someone wants gigantic profit margins. The only thing different about the TiVo is that it will require a bigger HD, but you can get a 200 gig drive now for near $100, so there's no reason that the price should inflate that dramatically based on the TiVos requirements. If the cost of the HD equipment is that much more it will hinder HD not the TiVo, and the expense will be more for anyone switching to HD, since the TiVo cost of it only needs to be about $100 (at most) than a non TiVo HD player. Also, the idea that HDTV is going to rule 2004 seems pretty ridiculous to me. Sorry, I think I'm going to need more than about 5% of my channels to broadcast in HD before I could claim HD rules TV. While higher quality HD TV has it's benefits, and it will eventually take over, there are relatively few things that I care enough to spend big money on products to watch in HD. Most TV (news, sitcoms, tv dramas etc) plays out fine in non HDTV. If there's a high premium to buy an HD decoder box (for cable or DTV) I'm not going to buy one regardless of whether or not it has TiVo in it. I also think I'm the only one left who detests the widescreen format. (who here has a TV in their house that's bounded by horizontal space more so than vertical space? You get the extra height for free because you run out of width, so you might as well get the 4-3). Also, if I see one more idiot with a widescreen TV who stretches out the picture and tells me how good it looks I'm going to kill them. You just took a non HD broadcast, stretched the picture to make everyone look fat, and then brag about how great your TV is. Brilliant. (sorry for the rant)
Finally, I will agree that TiVo will be in big trouble if it can't keep it's deal with DirecTV. The points above are only worth mentioning if it has the deal with DTV in place. I do think that integrated PVRs are going to be the future. No one wants extra boxes, and there is no advantage to having your box and your PVR seperate, so getting into contracts with places to do digital is the way to go.
Did anyone notice that the end made no sense with respect to the rest of the article? He goes through this whole argument about why TiVo will die, mostly centered around lower-priced competition coming in, but then his analysis is that the company is arrogant and unresponsive. Huh? Where did that come from? How did we get from Point A to Point B here? It sounds more like he feels snubbed, his poor journalistic pride got hurt, and so he decided to write an article on why this company is going down. Not that I think he's totally wrong, it's just that I think his motives are suspect and he's missing this thing called "logic" in his conclusion.
With over 30 million subscribers you might assume that AOL is doing ok. Actually, AOL loses over 75% of its members EVERY year. They are able to get a large portion of those users back by massive CD campaigns.
I am NOT making these figures up, and I do have access to this kind of information.
Eventually the CD campaigns will stop working and AOL will be a dead company, unless they can find a new way of generating revenue or provide additional services.
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
Ask Slashdot: Broadband Access Leading to Internet Breakdown?
Why pay $10 damn dollars a month for TiVo. My VCR doesn't cost anything per month and it does the same thing. I would love to own a TiVo but I don't want to pay $10 per month!
The amount of information about your personal preferences that can be directly connected to you would qualify it as putting a little brother in every house. To spy and figure out if you're a enemy combatant or if you like coca cola products.
No one really cares. If TiVo dies because of competition, how does that matter to anyone except the employees and heads of TiVo? OBviously, the rest of the world will have moved on to Bigger and Better Things. Every company dies eventually and TiVo will be no exception.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
And uses BSD to run it? When did that happen?
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
FORTY (?) hours of macgyver?
!
The key to selling TiVo is to convince the regular people that it's easy-to-use, provides a valuable service, and that it's priced within reason. Seeing as every person I know who has used my TiVo for a few minutes has purchased one, geek or not, I believe it has adequately met those criteria.
Absolutely right.
The critical sticking point for TiVo IMHO has been making the case to regular people. It's not exactly like anything they've had before.
They love it only after they get to know what it can do for them.
I hate to admit it, but what they need more than anything else is someone with marketing smarts.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I cannot tell you how many times over the last few years I've read an article claiming that TiVo will die. I read 'em before I bought my first TiVo, and I still read 'em now -- and meanwhile TiVo continues to exist.
Meanwhile, more of my friends have TiVo than ever before. At a recent marketing study of men in my age range with home theater equipment, ALL but ONE of the study subjects had a TiVo (the exception had ReplayTV).
It reminds me of all the stores over the year claiming Apple was on the brink of extinction. Historically, I have not been an Apple fan, but I must admit that I now understand why so many Apple fans are rabid -- because I LOVE my TiVo, and every time I read a story predicting TiVo's demise, it makes me want to evalgelize the company's products to a few more acquaintances. Of course, I'm already evangelizing, because I really do think their products are fabulous.
Eventually, Apple will die. So will TiVo. And Microsoft. And IBM. And RedHat. And so on. I'll just keep using the products I like, and when they finally go under, I'll be there at the going out of business sale.
its ruling your life.. you will be surprised how much more enjoyable life is without the blithering trash tube gobbling up your time.
tstf!
Rumors of my death have been largely exaggerated.
/
-- Tivo
\
[ ]
_|_
The year 2004 will be THE year for HDTV! Hahahaaha. Great premise. Do you work part time at Best Buy?
My favorite is that the final 'nail' in Tivo's coffin will be when ESPN starts airing some sportcrap in HDTV. Oh no, the end!
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
I think you have created a new troll. Post to all "dying" stories forthwith. (Your Karma will, um, die, but who cares about Karma?)
sulli
RTFJ.
Enough with the crying "Wolf!" already. First, the difficulty of explaining a PVR was going to kill TiVo, then copyright zealots were going to kill TiVo (remember when Dvorack said using TiVo was "theft"?), then Microsoft's UltimateTV was going to kill TiVo, then Replay's ability to file swap was going to kill TiVo, then negative press was going to kill TiVo (such as when Advertising Age Magazine published an article claiming that more U.S. households had outhouses then had TiVos), then new competition from settop boxes was going to kill TiVo. When TiVo was a smaller company people said that its small size would kill it, and then when it grew larger they said that its larger size would kill it.
Since TiVo gets press everytime somebody thinks up a new reason for it to die, that must mean that a lot of people love it and care to read news and rumors relating to it, and based on that I'll make my prediction. I predict that TiVo will die when people stop wondering about when it will die.
But is it confrimed by Netcraft?
In related news:
Sad news, Author of TiVo death at 54 while watching Natalie Portman naked and petrified (with hot grits) - TRINITY DIES in Matrix 2 !!11one, the ones that are offended should GET SOME PRIORITIES!
YHBT
YHL
FOAD and HAND
From the article:
Give a TiVo to your friends for a month and you'll have to pry the remote out of their cold, dead hands.
Umm... thanks buddy, but if it has that effect on people, you can keep it!
Mod Parent Up!
Isn't predicting the death of technology just a really easy thing to do? Errr . . . I mean . . . THIS JUST IN! Pixels, cell phones, and wheelbarrows will be replaced by a newer, more better-er thing.
Monster Zero is the reason we cannot live on the surface, but must live forever live underground like this.
...not every company really lives.
Emporer Gates "Come and join the Dark Side ...Paul"
Jedi Paul "Never...never, as long as my Linux based Tivo is active the Tivo Jedi will defend the rights of the consumer to record!"
DarkAllen...Jedi Pauls father... "Listen to him, you will understand why you cannot resist him Paul!"
Jedi Paul...."NEVER"....!
Emporer Gates "Then you will die!! Now witness the power of this fully operational DRM enabled Windows Longhorn based entertainment centre!!"
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Of course TiVo is dying. The silly thing is based on BSD. Oh, wait...
-- Alastair
lately it has been scrwing up. It will suddenly decide channel 48 doesn't exist until I reboot it, causing it to go crazy when it's supposed to record the Daily Show, and randomly not resolve conflicts.
I still think it was a far better value, but I fear what tech support is going to tell me. I can't live without it if I have to send it in for repairs...
Can't get them anymore we tried to get one for my father for his birthday recently. Only to be told by the store assistant that they are no longer available in the UK.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Kiss off Louderbeck. When the hell have you EVER gotten anything right? I dont know how you even keep your job. Goddamn, how I hate these articles that pop up when the writer cant think of anything and needs to appear profound and knowledgeble. I own 3 DirecTivo's after getting the service FOR NOTHING with my Premier subscription with DirecTV. DirecTV will only sell you ONE per year, but they will let you register as many as you can find elsewhere. If anything is going to happen to TiVo, it will be that Murdock buys them outright. He is already on the record saying that he wants EVERY DirecTV reciever to be a DVR. Anyone who thinks the price of HDTiVO wont drop in half in the first year is an idiot, when you can pick up an DVD Burner today for 50 dollars. I know people who bought the ATI All in Wonder boards to do what TiVo does on their computer, but you are still dealing with ATI and their fucked-up drivers. Who wants to bet a season of TNG on ATI drivers? All I know is that my wife who cant use a computer to save her life, learned (and took over) our first DirecTiVo in a day. TiVo is going nowhere, but I think time is short for idiot tech writers trying to appear too smart for the rest of us.
Damn, Pubert- it's a freaking electronic gadget. There's nothing wrong with watching some TV and recording some shows, but you need to get up off the couch, put away the bag of cheetos, wash the orange mess off your hands, and get a life.
Sure markets are changing, products are changing, pricing changes everything changes. The secret of a successful company is that it will adapt: develop new products, make them cheaper, have new services, partner with other companies. The author implies that TIVO will stay mostly as it is now and the world is changing. If Ford would still build the T-Model, well...
TIVO is in a favourable position. They have a lot of know how (also in the way of providing services, which is important), their brand is strong (almost used as synonym for PVR) and may have asignificantinstalled base (not sure about this). As every start-up pioneering a new market they have now to keep up with the fact that there will be competition from established players, change in distribution models etc. That's quite normal, it's a challenge. But it's by no means a sure death. (Of course, it might be more profitable to sell to another player, but this is not a death!)
But sure, I bet many people were convinced of "Microsoft will die because IBM is going to do PC operating systems now (OS2)" too.
TV is dead for me as well. The fight over the broadcast spectrum is going to be moot, when technology allows infinite channels.
The bulk of money to make programs comes from advertisers. The production costs are going down, way down, but the shows still need money to be made. Excpect to see more product placement.
Personally I prefer plays, but product placements are cropping up there, too.
Skimed the press release, and it sounds a lot like DvArchive - except no additional fees and no DRM. I use DVArchive with my RePlay 5060. Doesn't look like it works on TiVo. It's written in Java, so it will run on Mac as well as windows, and it doesn't have any messy DRM. It basically creates a virtual PVR that you can record shows onto your PC with and play shows off of over the network. Run it and it will show all the RePlays on your network and let you download or play shows off of them.
I have blog like everyone else
I thought BSD was going to die. Oh wait that was Apple. Or was it Sun? Wait, gaming is going to die. What were we talking about? Oh yeah Tivo.
Why are there so many ppl trying to predict the death of stuff? And why do their predictions get so much attention?
Has anyone tried Snapstream's PC Tivo like software? I believe this is as close as you can get to no subscription right?
I am pretty much a noob in Tivo world. Pardon the stupid questions.
I own a RePlayTV. So I never know what to say when I record something on it. I can't say I Tivo'd it, because I didn't, because I don't have a Tivo. If I say that I RePlay'ed it, nobody knows what I mean, and they think I mean that I've "played it again" as opposed to "recorded it on my RePlay TV device". I guess I could just say "recorded" but that to me implies to use of videotape.
I have blog like everyone else
Tivo isn't available in Canada... but if it is or isn't dying, I couldn't overly care, since the technology in general is excellent and more competition should give us better prices and more choices. I bet you'll be able to buy a PVR with a 400+ GB hard disk and DVD player/burner in 2-3 years for like 200 bucks. They will become immensely popular.
"Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey
No one will ever put Tivo out of business so long as the US Patent Office is standing. And that, is the end of it.
Long live DVRs(Tivo) forever!
If we had used a device like TiVO, my wife would only need to punch in a season pass for the show and all the new episodes would've been recorded regardless of when they ran or how they were pre-empted.
Not to mention, with a TiVO one can set the box to record, start watching the show 20 minutes later and blip through all the commercials to watch an hour show in forty minutes as it is being broadcast.
Then there is the ability to 'pause' live TV.
And, the TiVOs that are hooked up to digital cable and/or satellite can usually record two shows simultaneously while a third is being played back. Try that with your VCR!
The subject say it all.
Seriously. They stop because of a lack of innovation, and what is left after said innovation stops is what diehards will continue. OS/2, anybody?
This sig no verb.
TiVo (the box) could die - but not because of other PVRs. Ultimately services like the new "OnDemand" service where you can choose from thousands of programs and have them delivered directly to your cablebox will negate the need for TiVo altogether.
The reasoning the guy provides is flawed--the fact that there is not yet an HD TiVo isn't going to kill it. What is this guy on?
I suspect in five years or so, when direct-demand programming is rampantly available from everywhere, TiVo will simply reinvent itself as a company that provides the servers/end units/APIs/interfaces/programming that delivers & decodes that content. Hard drives are just a temporary stop-gap measure for "buffering" program so you can massage it later. The need for them will be eliminated if the cable company/satellite company can deliver tivo-like programming directly to you.
TiVo's death is an obvious one. It doesn't come with a three-button mouse.
I personally know 3 people who have switched from cable to DirecTV with a TIVO receiver in the last month. I am one of them.
Perhaps, but some day people may share their toast, and we may all have pneumatic tubes big enough to allow for said toast to rapidly arrive in front of our tea. Alternately, people might share what they've recorded so TV/Cable/Movie makers/deliverers will have to get tough &/or creative in a big hurry.
Doesn't it just seem like having a TV with what programming that you'd like to see is really, really expensive? I mean if you factor in a TV, DVD, Tivo-like thingy, Tivo service, Cable/Satellite/whatnot how much is it? Like $400+ to start out, and $100-$200 a month? Doesn't that seem insane?
... that if someone comes up with a brilliant new tech in thier 'garage' ... someone will destroy them, steal thier tech, and assimilate them into the monopolist market place.
He also seems to be unaware that the first HDTV tivos (DirecTV and OTA) are already preordered and ship out to people at the end of march.
Whether HDTV will be a huge success or not, Tivo is already covering that base.
I love my Tivo -- when it's working. But it mostly doesn't because it's really a nasty piece of engineering. You take a basic PC chassis, you change to a PowerPC CPU, you kludge in a lot of DSP hardware, and you hack linux to give the whole thing a consumer-friendly front end. The result is a device that can't quite decide whether its a hacker toy, or a turnkey consumer device, and doesn't really work well as either.
Problems like this get solved when a lot of companies are competing to solve it. But Tivo doesn't have any real competition -- UltimateTV is history, and ReplayTV soon will be. What would be ideal is a bunch of companies competing to implement the Tivo platform, with Tivo just selling them technology licenses, and selling consumers access to the listings database.
*BSD is dying
Apple is dying
now FACT:Tivo is dying
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
At least Comcast in my area. The recorder is built into the cable box, and even records HiDef. Of course you pay the monthly service for the digital cable. With my internet acces + cable + HiDef (in two rooms) it comes to $120 a month. Of course that's just basic digital cable, but who needs HBO, etc, when they release everything on DVD's that you can rent from Netflix.
Apple is wearing a black turtleneck with faded blue jeans and old sneakers, listening from the iPod, and flipping through an old issue of Wired magazine.
BSD, looking slightly devlish, says to Apple, "You know we are related right?"
Apple pays no attention while Tivo walks in.
"What are you here for?" Apple asks.
Wiggling its two cute antannaes, Tivo replied, "Don't know really. I am technogically solid, well-liked by most, have a devoted fan base, open(source), simple to use, and most of elegant. Yet, I was pronounced that I will die by some Yahoo! on March 18th, 2004."
"Oh yeah, join the club." says BSD.
Apple takes off the white iPod earphones and says "I have been diagnosed to be dying for the last 20 years or so, you know. They say this can't save me!" (Apple pointsto the iPod.)
"How long have you been here?" Tivo turns to BSD.
BSd says, "You don't want to know. But I am secure, stable, and performs like no other. I will before until Hell freezes over, damn it."
All three looks out the Window...
***********
Ken
Sorry, this is my first post here and I assumed responses would be threaded appropriately considering this forum is run by a hi-tech outfit. I'll try to keep responses to the flow of conversation. First of all, (and besides the blasphemy :) this article is inappropriate considering The TiVo is not dead nor dying yet. It is as inappropriate as Time running a cover on "Why Bush Has Already Lost the Election" or "Why You Need To Dump Your IBM Stock Now".
Yes, TiVo has a difficult fight simply because it is the "early adopter", which generally means that when huge corporations find someone making a profit in a new market, they jump in and take over. We've seen it before. Anyone remember when everyone predicted the death of Amazon.com because all the other publishers jumped into the market? If this was simply the case, Apple would have died off 20 years ago.
The author also goes on to blast TiVo for not having HDTV recording until this year. This is utterly ridiculous when it's clear that trying to push technology the public isn't ready for is the basis for TiVo's problem. DirecTV's new HDTiVo is superior in functionality to anything on the market allowing simultaneous recording of two HDTV programs from satellite and/or off-air programming. Nobody else offers anything close to this.
I have no more a crystal ball than the author of this article. It is very clear that TiVo has and is continuing to come up with new ways to innovate and expand. By adding HomeMedia media option I can hear about a program and go to my Palm and tell my TiVo to record the show no matter where I am. They have already made deals with software publishers to allow TiVo content to be burned to DVD (along with DRM). Whether TiVo survives as a standalone set top unit remains to be seen. TiVo began by diversifying itself with licensing to different manufacturers including DirecTV. Who knows what the future holds with "Strangeberry."
This past Christmas we saw a flood of new technology in PVRs and PVR to DVD recording units. Yet these things function no better than a crappy VCR. Clearly, whatever these companies do, they will be following the development path of TiVo. They can either license TiVo's software or take the time and money to develop the equivalent consumer friendly software and still pay TiVo to license the patents they own.
No matter what, calling a corporation dead when it's not even down is poor and wildly speculative journalism.
Apologies to all, I cut and pasted my response from the PCMag forum and not only forgot to reformat it but also included the opening paragraph re a problem on their forums not /.
:) this article is inappropriate considering The TiVo is not dead nor dying yet. It is as inappropriate as Time running a cover on "Why Bush Has Already Lost the Election" or "Why You Need To Dump Your IBM Stock Now".
Any mods that can delete the previous post?
Anywyay here it is more readable.
First of all, (and besides the blasphemy
Yes, TiVo has a difficult fight simply because it is the "early adopter", which generally means that when huge corporations find someone making a profit in a new market, they jump in and take over. We've seen it before. Anyone remember when everyone predicted the death of Amazon.com because all the other publishers jumped into the market? If this was simply the case, Apple would have died off 20 years ago.
The author also goes on to blast TiVo for not having HDTV recording until this year. This is utterly ridiculous when it's clear that trying to push technology the public isn't ready for is the basis for TiVo's problem. DirecTV's new HDTiVo is superior in functionality to anything on the market allowing simultaneous recording of two HDTV programs from satellite and/or off-air programming. Nobody else offers anything close to this.
I have no more a crystal ball than the author of this article. It is very clear that TiVo has and is continuing to come up with new ways to innovate and expand. By adding HomeMedia media option I can hear about a program and go to my Palm and tell my TiVo to record the show no matter where I am. They have already made deals with software publishers to allow TiVo content to be burned to DVD (along with DRM). Whether TiVo survives as a standalone set top unit remains to be seen. TiVo began by diversifying itself with licensing to different manufacturers including DirecTV. Who knows what the future holds with "Strangeberry."
This past Christmas we saw a flood of new technology in PVRs and PVR to DVD recording units. Yet these things function no better than a crappy VCR. Clearly, whatever these companies do, they will be following the development path of TiVo. They can either license TiVo's software or take the time and money to develop the equivalent consumer friendly software and still pay TiVo to license the patents they own.
No matter what, calling a corporation dead when it's not even down is poor and wildly speculative journalism.
Home Media Option, or as I like to call it, an over priced package of all the cool hacks we stole from the community
Try DVArchive with ReplayTV - you'll like it. All the networking goodies, Java-based, no silly DRM.
Da Blog
Why can't I buy TiVo software to run on my own hardware? My HTPC?
My HTPC has its own capture cards, but also runs DVArchive with ReplayTVs connected on the network. Java-based, no silly DRM, enables remote control of the ReplayTVs. Effectively converts them into loosely coupled capture devices with their own on-board *huge* buffers and streaming.
Da Blog
Tivo is just as interoperable as it ever was.
Doesn't Tivo HMO come with DRM?
My HTPC has its own capture cards, but also runs DVArchive with ReplayTVs connected on the network. Java-based, no silly DRM, enables remote control of the ReplayTVs. Effectively converts them into loosely coupled capture devices with their own on-board *huge* buffers and streaming.
Da Blog
flexibility for managing their content, and having a 'library' capability that doesn't fall short at the size of the TiVO box.
I'll second the DVArchive comment! My HTPC has its own capture cards, but also runs DVArchive with ReplayTVs connected on the network. Java-based, no silly DRM, enables remote control of the ReplayTVs. Effectively converts them into loosely coupled capture devices with their own on-board *huge* buffers and streaming.
In fact, the DVArchive author has remarked on the similarities.
Da Blog
Oh since at least 400 BCE. Plato wrote:
Da Blog
MS has to deal with a daily onslaught from the hackers and virus coders that attempt to vandalize and/or abuse Windows boxes. It isn't because they have an inferior OS. It's because they're a big company, they're all over the place, and they make an appealing target.
When TiVo came out, the company was unknown and the service was a fairly new idea. Hacking allowed the system to grow in popularity with the geeks. Now, they have enough popularity and they've grown fairly well, predominantly through word-of-mouth. Taking away the ability to modify the TiVo helps protects them from eventual theft of service and the host of other problems that comes along with an increase in popularity.
why make another monthly payment to record channels when the vcr will work fine.
Also requiring a phone line makes another payment necessary for those who are totally wireless. Maybe they need to use internet access to do their thing.
This probably the way that TiVo will survive in the future.
What TiVo aggressively needs to do is partner themselves with perhaps the largest cable provider in the USA, Comcast. If they can get TiVo technology into future Comcast digital cable set top boxes this will assure a future for the company for a long time to come.
I *love* my TiVo. But it won't be around forever, at least not as a profitable venture. Competition will kill it. I work with ENGINEERS and they ask me what TiVo is about! How come I've never met another TiVo user in person?
Competition will kill it. Look at Windows vs. Mac OS -- I use the obviously superior system (really, I'm not trolling; I'm expressing an opinion) but yet with the "lowest common denominator" approach, quality doesn't matter, and Windows wins. TiVo is the Mac OS of the DVR world. Too many people will settle for their crappy cable-supplied DVD and not know how special a TiVo truly is. Since there's no demand for the TiVo OS, the masses will conform themselves with "whatever."
For those that say it's expensive, well, I have an original series one, so as an early adopter, yes, it was expensive. They're considerably cheaper now. I do the monthly plan, which at $14 is a bargain. I don't worry about it. It's worth the time savings. TiVo really lets me watch LESS television.
As much as I love my TiVo, I, too, really want a true "convergence device," and would dump TiVo in a second if the replacement were as elegant and had the features of the TiVo. Yeah, myth et al look promising, but they lack proper handling of mindless season pass programming, and don't bother trying to guess my preferences. These, IMHO, make the TiVo perfect. I can always play music from the iPod and connect the PowerBook to the TV (although, truly, if myth supported what I mentioned above I'd have -no- problem replacing TiVo with a Linux box [well, a different Linux box]).
--Jim (me)
The main reason TIVO is going to die is because of a total failure to innovate their product. The TIVO was absolutely awesome 2-3 years ago. I still love my TIVO but I am constantly disgusted by their failure to improve the product.
Some things that should have been implemented AGES ago:
1) The ability to store shows in folders. It would be very convenient to have all your episodes of (Insert Show Here) in a single folder.
2) The ability to sort your programs by ANYTHING other than time/date stamp. Sorting by name sure would be nice.
3) The ability to start recording LATE rather than just early. With shows that start at stupid times like 8:59 now, it would be nice to start recording 1 minute late to avoid overlap.
4) The ability to still record part of a show if there is overlap. Just because something overlaps for 5 minutes doesn't mean the later show should just be abandoned.
5) Sharing shows between multiple TiVOs.
Finally, the recent revelation that TiVO logs EVERYTHING you go: when you pause, what parts of a show you watch more than once, etc. and sells this data really hurt TiVO badly.
I didn't mind them keeping aggregate data on what shows got recorded because that helps me. If the shows I watch are considered "popular" then it is less likely they will be cancelled.
But I definitely don't like them being able to record data on when I pause, when I fast forward, what I watch more than once, etc. That is an invasion of privacy. Furthermore, I suspect this additional logging is the reason why so many TiVO owners I know report far more problems and lags when performing such operations.
The failure to innovate and the implementation of incredibly invasive logging are what will kill TiVO. Those actions make the environment RIPE for a competitor to steal customers.
-Michael
Threshold RPG
But please don't fall into the standard Slashdot fallacy, which goes, "This is my experience with technology X. Any conflicting reports must be bogus."
Isn't that what you're doing tho?
I really wanted to like ReplayTV, TiVo won my heart over.
Yeah, that is what happens when you are a sucker for brand names. The number of people who have made fun of my Ultimate TV unit because of it's name and M$ affiliation freak out when they see the nice GUI, no banners, and extended options their brand-spankin-new tivo does have -- but I have on my 2.5 year old UTV.
I was dying to get a PVR, then maybe a month before I had planned to nab a TiVo, Comcast calls to tell me they were offering a version of my digital cable box that had a PVR built-in. It was nothing stellar, only holds 30 to 50 hours of programming, but it is all-in-one.
Comcast wins.
Plus the monthly fee for the box itself is less than what it would cost to keep TiVo service.
The box is a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 (they also have a model that can take HDTV). Nothing to write home about but it *is* saving me a bundle because I can program my 5-yr old's favorite shows and not have to worry about wear and tear of a VCR and tapes. And now that I am about to take delivery of a Powerbook with DVR burner I might experiment a bit with moving some of that content out of the PVR.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
How did you get it to schedule recording according to the program schedule dynamically? Did you use a pre-existing software?
Everyone's been posting Jim Louderback's premonition of TiVo's death like it's the Gospel, and so I feel compelled to tell you exactly why Jim (a reporter who's been naysaying the TiVo for years) is wrong, and that punchy three-word headlines don't equate to a balanced market analysis.
The simple reason TiVo will live is because TV is intimate. People want ownership of their experience, and they want ownership of the resulting media. This is exactly the opposite of what cable and satellite companies want.
Of course TiVo as a standalone appliance will fade away as Decoder-PVRs become common, but they'll grow into three other markets: The referenced cable/satellite set-top boxes, DVD-R burning hybrids, and as an integrated component of television sets. Two of these hybrids are already on the market (DirecTiVo and two different DVDiVos) and the third, Toshiba and Phillips TVs with integrated free 'tivo lite' will be here by Christmas.
Saying that Cable-PVRs will squash TiVo is like saying that cable squashed the VCR, when in reality it made it much stronger. For all the benefits that a cable PVR has (that it seems cheaper because the cost is built into your monthly charge), there's no content provider in the world who would ship a device that would record to DVD, and no network that would deign to be included in a service that did.
Recording to a DVD isn't as easy as recording to a tape, and this is where an integrated 'export this show to that disc' solution really shines. If you're going to buy a DVD anyhow, the incremental cost of adding PVR functionality is a gimmie. And yes, within the next 4 years it will be an incremental cost.
TiVo is source independent. Cable, satellite, bunny ears or closed-circuit TV, TiVo is your box. As each content provider has their own proprietary system, if you change providers, you have to change systems, a shift as big as switching from Mac to Windows. Oh yeah, and your shows are gone, too. It's content lock-in, and it's one of the big reasons Dish Networks wants you to use their box, so leaving their fold is more painful, even when they suddenly drop CBS, MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon because of a contract dispute.
As long as content providers carry copyrighted material on their networds, they'll be hobbled by the demands of organizations like the MPAA and Viacom who will use all the leverage they have to inhibit the end user's ability to export to any portable digital media. Standalone PVRs and in-TV PVRs are farther outside their control, and as that control is flexed, PVR customers will flock to these options.
TiVo-in-TV, which Sony plans to market later this year, is another gimmie. It will provide a free 3-day window to the future, with an inexpensive up-sell to season pass functionality. The TV-TiVo-DVR box is probably about 24 months away.
Jim's main point is that TiVo will fail because the costs of enteing the market and delivering product are dropping rapidly, but this is likely why they'll succeed. TiVo will never be a Yahoo or other conglomorate, but they will become a platform standard with a steady revenue stream. When prices fall uniformly, users flock to the best solution, not the cheapest. Getting PVRs into peoples hands cheaply, on the backs of other products is exactly why the market will succeed, and when the market succeeds, TiVo will likely be at the top of it, based on product quality.
True, you won't have to buy a $299 box for your parents to bring them the light, but when you see the glow in their eyes, talking about the magic recording TV they bought at Best Buy last month, you can bet it'll have a little guy with two antennae and no arms stickered onto the remote.
Kevin Fox
PC Magazine confirms it - Linux is dying!!!
Linux Will Die
It's always hard to write an obituary, especially when the subject is still alive. It's especially hard for me, because I love the little guy like a brother. But, alas, Linux will die. I was one of the first reviewers to get my hands on an early Linux distro. I compared Linux with Windows, and although I really wanted to like Windows, Linux won my heart over.
It wasn't the cutesy mascot, although that helped. Rather, it was the over complexity and difficulty of use that even the first version evinced. And to top everything off, Linux came with the world's most rabid zealot following ever, even more astounding for such a fiendishly complex OS. Looking at the terminal, it was difficult to use, harder to understand, and a impossible to get installed.
The Wall Street Journal's arbiter of tech--Walt Mossberg--still thinks Windows was better, and we've argued over the brilliance of the desktop. But the acid test, for me, was when I plopped Linux down in front of my computer-averse wife. She spat at me. So much, in fact, that I soon started choking.
But Linux today has a problem--and it's not what you think. Most folks point to Linux's inability to convince consumers just how cool the product is and why they need one. Yes, it's hard to describe why a terminal is better than a GUI--until you use one. Give Linux to your friends for a month and they will hate you. Windows faces the same challenge, but that's not where the real threat lies.
Instead, a convergence of three separate trends is conspiring to kill off Linux.
So there it is
PC Magazine confirms it - LINUX IS DEAD!
"So, when did it become fashionable to predict the deaths of everything"
...
2000 years ago - 2 k years - 2 millienium ago - about, around, or so
A rich well connected Jewish Roman citizen named Saul (renamed Paul) went all over The Empire saying the authorities had killed God (who, being God, promptly undied, and so is still alive).
Ever since, you wanna make a point ya say, "So & so DIED !" or is gonna die or is as well as if dead...
Once the cable carriers can do PVD/DVR from the station downtown and include it in their default digital box, you will have no reason to get TiVO. Unless of course TiVO licenses their stuff to the carriers...
I've never understood what the big deal is with these things.
$150-300 to basically do what a $50 VCR will do - record TV shows. And you don't have to pay $13/month to program your VCR.
Yeah, it can record 140 hours worth of TV - is that something anybody really cares about? I think the amount of TV shows that I've kept recorded for the long run over the last couple of decades amounts to about 6 hours worth.
Not to mention I was able to keep those 6 hours archived on tape - as far as I can tell (could be wrong) there's no way to save video off of the Tivo for the long haul.
TiVo is one of the biggest wastes of money in the world of electronics today.
Are spending your time on Slashdot why?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Rimmer (Future): No, look, I'm you from the future. I've come to warn you in three million years you'll be dead. Rimmer (Past) [Sarcastically]: Will I really!?! Rimmer (Future) : Yes, unless you do somthing about it now. Rimmer (Past) : What do you suggest? Give up white bread, more roughage?
Can't even get -1 Troll HAHAHA!
"Scheduled to ship in March, the DirecTV combination HD receiver and PVR will cost a staggering $1,000. Cable, again, is about to trump TiVo. Motorola and Scientific Atlanta are readying their own HD set-top boxes, which will again be free to use and will cost about $10 a month to rent."
No it's not. If you want to tell me why you think I am, I'll tell you why I think you're wrong. But I'm not going to trade meaningless one-liners with a lurker.