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TiVo Will Die

Posted by michael on from the tivo-is-dying-etc.-etc. dept.

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.'"

20 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. Oh well..... by b12arr0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Long live my VCR!!!!!

  2. Sheesh! by Liselle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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."
    1. Re:Sheesh! by happystink · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not fashionable, it's profitable, and that's why the shitty, shitty, super duper ultra-shitty, PC magazines, etc. that people link to on Slashdot as if they're some actual form of legit press, love predicting stuff like crazy.

      Wannabe pundits don't get ad dollars or further writing assignments by getting the facts straight and admitting they cannot see the future, they get attention by taking a few small things, extrapolating them into way farther into the future than makes any sense at all, and having people on slashdot and their sites' message boards argue about it.

      --

      sig:
      See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.

    2. Re:Sheesh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, when did it become fashionable to predict the deaths of everything...?

      Apparently since the 16th century.

    3. Re:Sheesh! by Golias · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fingering, FTP, Newsgroups, academic web sites, etc. are all still there, all still being used. In fact, I would wager that there are more newsgroup users now than in '85, it's just that it's a slightly bigger fish in a much, much bigger pond. While some pre-HTML stuff has been usurped (Slashdot.org growing from a newsgroup, for example,) the commercial web mostly grew around the old Internet, not in place of it.

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

  3. Trend... by Steamhead · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let me guess, they will die because they are partnered with Apple.

  4. Too expensive... by some2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Too expensive... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you take it to a TiVO repair center, they will transfer your lifetime subscription to a new TiVo.

    2. Re:Too expensive... by alienw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree. Either Tivo needs to turn its product into a subscription model (i.e. you rent a box from them for 10 bucks a month, including the subscription fee), or turn it into a hardware model (buy the box, get free subscription). Otherwise, they WILL die.

      The current model has got to go. Let's see, you buy the locked-down box for the full price ($150 - $300+) and then have to pay obscene amounts of money ($12 a month?) for the privilege to download the TV program schedule (which programs like MythTV do for free). I call that a ripoff, and that's why Tivo is hardly selling any standalone units.

      Also, many people have digital cable and so on, and you can't really use a PVR with it unless you pay extra for multiple cable boxes (and somehow interface the cable box to the tivo). The way I see it, Tivo can survive only by licensing its stuff to cable/satellite box manufacturers. And I'm sure they would much rather do it in-house to save money. So I definitely think the article has a point.

    3. Re:Too expensive... by hoggoth · · Score: 5, Funny

      > The problem there is they have a limit of 10 TiVOs and will not transfer to any more after that repair. Not sure thats any good

      Yeah, I can see that being a problem IF YOU HAVE A PET APE THAT REGULARLY THROWS YOUR TIVO AROUND THE ROOM.
      For the rest of us, I can't think of ANY consumer electronics device I have ever had to repair more than ONCE.

      --
      - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  5. Tivo isn't ready to die yet by jamshid42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    /. - Proof that Sturgeon's Law is true...
  6. The DirecTiVo is the cheapest PVR out there... by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  7. More death in the news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Seeing as we're on a roll today...

    Researchers believe Sun will die in 5 billion years

  8. Death Race 2004 by AvantLegion · · Score: 5, Funny
    Apple vs. C vs. TiVo

    Who will die first?

    Or will Duke Nukem Forever release before any of them die?

  9. TiVOToGO by RGautier · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  10. Oooh! Add it to the list by Erich · · Score: 5, Funny
    Another one to add to the "foo is dying" list:
    • Apple is dying
    • Linux is dying
    • Real is dying
    • *BSD is dying
    • Tivo is dying
    • America is dying
    • Europe is dying
    • Morality and Ethics are dying
    • People who color fabric are dyeing

    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

  11. How can it die when Tivo is now a verb? by tinrobot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  12. Why you should always read the article first by Nynaeve · · Score: 5, Funny
    A snippet from the article:

    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! :)

  13. PC Magazine reports non-PC product will die by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Let's see - a magazine that sells PCs (that can do TiVo-like functionality, at the expsense of usability) - predicts the death of TiVo.

    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:

    In the early years of TiVo, I'd get instant service. TiVo even gave me the name of a special ambassador-a strategy meant to ensure that the company got a fair hearing in the press, on the Web, and in other public forums. Today my inquiries go unanswered-or even worse, I never receive a promised response. Hold times on the help lines are interminable: It took me over half an hour last week to determine why the company had charged me $14.

    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?

  14. Not everyone makes/desires a home-brew alternative by Gruneun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.