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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.
He needs to get into the DirecTV DVR code and figure out why it takes 30 seconds to display the guide, a minute to open your "Now Playing" list of shows, and 5+ minutes to sort a 30-entry list of season passes.
A huge fraction of Tivo's subscriber base is through the DirecTV tivos-- and despite my great experience with the standalone unit I had, the DirecTV box is so much slower despite 4x the processor speed that I can't even imagine what sort of horrible code is in there. Optimize the UI, *then* add features. DirecTV may singlehandedly turn millions of people away from tivo after they sign up and have a truly subpar experience with it.
Damon Darlin from Business 2.0 writes "We just posted a story on...
Wow - I guess advertisements no longer need to be camouflaged at all.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
of their own success. Basically, TiVo replaces a standard VCR, only more effectively. It can record shows while playing back, it can let you skip commercials more effectively than a VCR and it's a cool device.
But a "generic TiVo" leased from cable and satellite television companies does the same thing exactly. They all enhance the television viewing experience with high-quality instant playback for "timeshifting." What none of these devices do is allow you to permanently record television in a removable device.
Want to (temporarily) save TiVo? Add a feature that will take a certain segment of the recorded video to an on-board dual-layer DVD recorder. Let the viewer have the option of cutting out the commercials, starting the recording at a certain spot and ending at a certain spot, pick up recording when the actual program restarts, etc. Once you are all done, you have a DVD for your collection.
The reason why this is a temporary save is that the generic models will immediately try to do the same thing. Hey, competition sux sometimes.
I don't use my computer while I'm watching television. I do know that there are some people whose only access to the Internet, e-mail and the Worldwide Web are through devices like "WebTV" but I can't see that (small) market really hustling out there to get a TiVo. Bill Gates is correct; the television viewing experience is really different from that of working on a computer. The only possible likeness is playing games.
Were TiVo able to enhance a game-player's experience, they'd really have something. Perhaps one possible enhancement would be the creation of a shared on-line experience for console games that do not allow networked game play, but that sounds unlikely to me.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Since many are hooked to the internet 24/7, I'd love to see IMDB integration with Tivo -- have the details screen for a program show you an IMDB page (or IMDB data) for the given movie, with the ability to browse around and then pick selections for future wishlists, etc.
Stipe42, you may be right, but I have to wonder sometimes if comments like yours are, for lack of a better word, defensive blogging by marketing people.
You know, someone paid to sit around all day and defend a company's product online in high-profile blogs and review sites like Slashdot, using legitimate user profiles (or in this case, maybe as a marketroid for cable companies looking to slam DirectTV).
Does anyone know if "defensive blogging" happens? I googled for pages on this topic but couldn't find any stories about it, but I'm sure it happens.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
The "TiVo picking things for you" is nice, but the main effect of getting TiVo is that you're no longer tied to times. My wife and I routinely record things during the week, then "catch up" saturday afternoon. If we don't really care about something, it just sorta expires.
Also, if you're a sports fan, TiVo is worth its weight in gold. No commercials, no halftime, you can blitz through "plays under review", and, at least for football, you can even blow through the huddle. I've watched every play of an entire game in about an hour. Basically, TiVo gave me most of my Sunday back.
Oh, and we have two Series 1 TiVos from about 5 years ago, and they still work fine. They're a little small compared to the new ones, but we don't usually fill ours up anyway.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
IBM doesn't own most of the software written for the IBM-PC, yet they still make money from that product line from the early 1980s.
You'd think Tivo would be content to be the IBM of the consumer space.
It is very useful, more so than cable I would say. OTA transmissions give you few choices and less time slots. I'd get a Tivo long before getting cable. When I first moved into my house I just had rabbit ears hooked to my tivo for the first 3 months. I would rather have Broadcast TV/Tivo than Cable TV w/o Tivo. Although Tivo + Cable is a good combination as well. I don't even bother renting movies, hurrying home for a show, or missing out on Friday night Sci-Fi to go out with friends, just pick the from the list during the week and watch them on the weekend when I have 2-3 hours to spend.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.