The Programmer Who Could Save Tivo

Damon Darlin from Business 2.0 writes "We just posted a story on Arthur Van Hoff, the programming legend who now works at TiVo. He was one of the Java geniuses at Sun (has almost as many patents as Bill Joy) and started Strangeberry, which Tivo bought in January. the story tells how his Strangeberry software will be given away to developers of web content. The next generation Tivos will then be able to recognize web content and direct it to the appropriate home device. This could be the stuff that saves tivo because none of the set top boxes will have this ability.

Comments

Nice Feature, but..

[Klar]

The next generation Tivos will then be able to recognize web content and direct it to the appropriate home device. This could be the stuff that saves tivo because none of the set top boxes will have this ability.

While this is a cool feature, I'm not sure if it alone will be able to save Tivo. There are so many cheaper alternatives, and I'm sure they will be able to add a similar feature in too. Personally when I'm watching TV(which I almost never have time for as of late), I don't wanna be reading stuff online, I just want to relax and watch a movie or show.

Re:Nice Feature, but..

[garcia]

While this is a cool feature, I'm not sure if it alone will be able to save Tivo. There are so many cheaper alternatives, and I'm sure they will be able to add a similar feature in too. Personally when I'm watching TV(which I almost never have time for as of late), I don't wanna be reading stuff online, I just want to relax and watch a movie or show.

What would save Tivo would be cheaper hardware, cheaper lifetime subcriptions or no subscriptions at all, and the ability for third party add-ons (hardware or software).

You don't want to surf and watch TV at the same time but others do. Some people want a MP3/Video collection manager on their TV. Let them do it.

Enough of this "we want more, more, more, money" shit and more of "we want more, more, more, customers" shit :)

Re:Nice Feature, but..

[MarsDefenseMinister]

TiVo is $99 now. There's no reason for a geek not to have one. I paid $400 for mine, and it is worth every penny.

Re:Nice Feature, but..

[Aardpig]

You don't want to surf and watch TV at the same time but others do. Some people want a MP3/Video collection manager on their TV. Let them do it.

I already access my videos and MP3s (actually, OGGs) via MythTV . On top of that, I check the weather, get news headlines, and play games. I can also schedule programs from halfway around the world, via the web interface.

On top of all this, MythTV is free free. I'm not sure what would ever convince me to switch to TiVO or a similarly-limited product.

Re:Nice Feature, but..

[jargoone]

Of the things you list MythTV can do, the only thing I can't do on my TiVo(s) is play games (and that is if you ignore the lame tic-tac-toe that comes with JavaHMO).

On top of all this, MythTV is free free. I'm not sure what would ever convince me to switch to TiVO or a similarly-limited product.

A house? A wife? Kids? Things that take up time you can spend on hacking to get the thing to work?

I'm not saying the above do not apply to you, but they do for some.

My TiVo just works. I have three of them, and have for several years, and it's never crashed ONCE. I screw around with computers enough at work; when I want to watch TV, I just want to watch TV.

patents != genius

[Anonymous Coward]

come on now, don't we know better than to gauge the intellectual capacity of someone by how many patents they hold?

Tivo and patents

[GGardner]

We all know about all the stupid patents out there. But isn't Tivo an example of a company that can/should have been saved by the patent system? Tivo had a great idea, were the first to market (I think?), but now are being killed by copy-cats.

Isn't the fact that Tivo can't (or didn't) get patent protection for its business just as strong an indictment of the patent system as all the lame patents we complain about?

Re:Tivo and patents

[stratjakt]

TiVo has a shitload of patents on it's interface and phone-home methods and whatnot.

You cant patent "device for recording TV digitally", since those devices have existed since the 50s. You can only patent the method. Someone else can come up with a different method (different looking interface and remote, maybe even a less invasive phone-home spying scheme).

Why not publish a SDK

[ron_ivi]

If they'd publish a SDK and you'll have *millions* of programmers saving Tivo, instead of just one.

How about this generation

[teamhasnoi]

of Tivos knowing when it's on a channel that is showing nothing or one I'm not subscribed for, *And Not Recording It*?

And an easy way of deleting channels - with a thumbnail that shows what's on it?

And the prevention of third parties removing all sorts of useful features like home media option, networking, ect. (DirectTV, you dirty SOBs).

Admittedly, these are the big 3 things that annoy me about my Tivo - I don't know if they are common to standalones, but IMHO DirectTV has really wrecked something good

Re:To *really* fix tivo...

[Siniset]

Direct TV is slow just on it's own. My parents had direct TV (got it after I went off to college, the bastards!) and the guide was always slow. So my guess is it's not the TIVO software, but the direct TV software. It probably has something to do with the fact that it's through a satellite uplink rather than cable. Perhaps everytime you try to access the guide, it tries to download it, rather than updating the guide periodically? My parents now have digital cable, and the guide functions work a hell of a lot faster now.

Re:Stupid question...

[Morgahastu]

Except they are all terrible. I have a Scientific Atlanta PVR and it hurts me to have to use it.

Tivo already has a great device, they just need to convince cable companies to bundle them instead of crappy knock-offs.

Re:Stupid question...

[Fnkmaster]

Business school case study #1: shitty clone products use existing market penetration and/or low price point to destroy premium product offering from market first mover.

Didnt know it needed saving???

[Anonymous Coward]

TiVo's tenacious market position and profit margins has been a frontpage business story for months now. Great product, yes, but they are in an awkward crossroads businesswise.

I am very concerned that moving forward TiVO and HD will be largely incompatible.

The movement of video enthusiasts to HDTV is a massive looming problem, as Tivo has little possibility of distribution of HDTV without a carrier deal, and their only existing one (DirectTV) is a tenuous one at best.

It has already been regulated that HD signals will be flagged for copyright and all hardware manufacturers will be required by the FCC to honor it by not recording HD flagged with it, which could cast a long shadow over OTA HD recording.

Cable companies are moving forward with making money off their own (likely lameass) HD cable box PVR solutions, and seemingly have no intention of opening their HD boxes to TiVo access.

Strangeberry is a solution i search of a problem.

The problem is HDTV. IMHO, PVR is more important than HDTV, but I sure am tired of watching TiVo programming on my 16:9 42" HDTV - its not pretty, even in Extreme Fine Quality mode.

I got moderated into oblivion for saying this last

[tgd]

tivo story, but its still as true now as a week ago.

MythTV is a nightmare to set up, and there's no company out there that I can buy a pre-configured one from. KnoppMyth may work if you have a certain set of hardware, but my time is far too valuable to spend a week researching the right hardware, buying $500 or $1000 worth of computing equipment and a case suitable for going in my living room, and blowing a day setting it all up.

If I could buy a decent looking unit that I plugged in and works, then I'd buy one. Until then, I've outgrown the need to blow days at a time playing with that sort of stuff. I enjoy it sometimes, but I'm just plain too busy.

At $100 for a Tivo, thats maybe an hour or two worth of my time. Hard to compete with that.