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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.
Boxing Equipment Reviews
...how does TiVo get saved when they're really the only viable PVR in the mass consumer market?
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
come on now, don't we know better than to gauge the intellectual capacity of someone by how many patents they hold?
Yeah, they were doing poorly, but have enough subscribers that they have a decent revenue stream. In fact, on the second page they even explain this. So this guy isn't 'saving TiVo', he's simply trying to make it enormous.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
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?
But competition is coming on strong, with each of the major cable/sattelite providers trying to get in on a market untappedd by tivo (uk) and moving into it's territory (US) i wonder how long Tivo can stay number 1
Business Voyeur
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.
MP3s to your multi-zone a/v system
DVD rips to the closest TV
Spam to skillet in kitchen (yumm!)
And holographic programs to the nearest holodeck..
Recipes for geeks -- no meatloaf, we promise.
Isn't this the same sort of hyperconsumerist thinking that drove :DigitalConvergence into the ditch too? The makers of the :CueCat also had a cable, which connected one's TV audio output to one's soundcard input, and software to recognize "cues" in the audio, which would then pull up the appropriate page on the computer.
People won't flock to a technology because it infests their computer with all the same advertising they see on TV. People will run screaming the other way, but grab the nifty hardware on the way out.
I'm thinking that the idea is to build something that works like the news broadcasts in Babylon 5. You watch your news stream like you do today, but occasional "hot links" will be overlaid to take you to a "more info" website.
Personally, I'm not so sure about the idea. Television works by turning your brain off. The Internet works by turning your brain on (or at least the semblance of a brain that some people seem to carry). As with most situations where things are mixed, I fear you'll end up with the worst of the two instead of the best of the two.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It means dumbass marketroid babble. The summary starts with "Damon Darlin from Business 2.0 writes". That pretty much says it all.
If they'd publish a SDK and you'll have *millions* of programmers saving Tivo, instead of just one.
Media extenders (for XBox or standalone), which is supposed to ship this Christmas season, will allow this in conjuntion with a Windows Media Center.
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
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.
Pressing Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select for 30 second skip on the remote doesn't qualify as "hacking through configuration screens".
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.
This might be a little off topic, but I think its ok since it deals with TIVO's competition. I recently had Comcast digital cable installed and have been playing around with the On Demand feature. So far it seems like a promising feature, but needs much more content. The thing I like about On Demand is, unlike TIVO, is that I can watch something that didn't necessarily air yet (although in reality almost all of the content is previously aired stuff). I think that as soon as networks start to embrace On Demand type services more, it will be a big hit, making boxes like TIVO almost obsolete. I think what they should strive for now is putting up entire old seasons of television shows. I think it would be great to be able to watch any episode of Futurama when I want and for series that are still being run, they could add the new episodes a day after they air. On Demand should shape up to be a great technology, but right now it definetly needs better content. I can't really complain seeing how it comes free with any digital cable package. However, since they do use it as a major selling point I think Comcast should work with the networks to get better grade material on it. Once they do, I will never want to use a TIVO.
SIGFAULT
The death of TiVo is greatly exaggerated. Time Warner offers the DVR in my area. I got it after using TiVo for 3 years. I sent it back within a week. The thing sucks.
TiVo's wealth of advantages are it's software. Season Passes, rating show thumbs up/thumbs down getting other shows based on your ratings, etc. I've used them since 2000. With the recent price reductions in the monthly charge it's well worth it. I've got one on both TVs and use my wireless network to connect for the updates/transfer files between them.
When I wanted to upgrade, I get a new one for $199 - $299 or whatever and keep paying the $12.95 for the first / $6.95 there after makes more sense than the $299 up front because I've yet to keep a TiVo for two years due to upgrades, change in whatever, etc.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Change the channel guide like this:
* Go to your guide,
* Hit the "info" button on your remote,
* Change the style from DirecTV grid to Tivo Live Guide.
The Tivo style guide is better (IMO) and super fast. I'm guessing that they had to include the DirecTV grid for some contractual reason, but really want to folks to use their EPG.
Jonathan
were doing poorly ???
Try ARE doing poorly.
5 year stock price chart
Salient fact about TIVO : TIVO loses money. Decent revenue stream you say? Continual loses for an easy-to-clone product from an aging Silicon Valley company is bad news. A programmer from Strangeberry who invented Java is not going to save TIVO. Did Java save sun ?
Arthur Van Hoff's resume replete with list of patents here.
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."
having a jillion patents means he is pretty aware of the legal system and that he in fact needs to protect is IP, in particular with which industry he is in.
it is not necessarilly a factor in "genius" in my opinion, it is however a factor in "covering of the buttocks" in a hardened and cutthroat television device busines..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
TiVo has the mindshare and still remains the best of breed PVR out there, both in terms of technology and UI. Geeks might not think UI is important but it really is; jJust examine this account of what goes wrong when the technology is there (sort of) but the UI is not.
~jeff
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
An interesting point that the article speaks briefly about is advertising and how advertisers hate Tivo because it can skip adds. The article mentions using Tivo's stat keeping to target a customer more directly and deliever relevant ads. I think this is really the future for advertising, not the static model of current television. For instance, I hate most adds because I'm not interested in what they are selling. I don't care if the newest Maxi pad can absorb a whole pitcher of iced tea, as a male I'm never going to need them. I often find car commercials very, very annoying, but when I was looking for a new car it was uesful to know what companies were having incentives. If ad companies could send me ads about products or television shows that I would be interested in, I think I might actually like to view them. Hopefully services like Tivo will help to bring this about.
SIGFAULT
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.
The DVR that your cable company gives you might not be all it's cracked up to be... witness this rant from boing boing...
I hate this digital video recorder: Scientific-Atlanta Explorer 8000
As much as I like making my own homebrew alternatives to TiVo, and think competition is a good thing... UI-wise TiVo still has the lead (hopefully they won't blow it)
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
We had an Explorer 8000 through Charter Cable. The thing was absolutely worthless.
The first one we had would record shows, but they would record very choppy. The audio and video would play a half second or so, then freeze for 2-3 seconds continually. Nothing recorded was even watchable.
They replaced that one with a new one. The new one would play back shows ok, but it would reboot itself 10-15 times per day. When you've got two kids under the age of 3 wondering why they can't ever watch their shows, that gets real annoying, fast.
They replaced that unit with a third one. It usually worked, but would occasionally forget to record a show, or scheduled recordings would be unscheduled for some reason.
The entire thing seemed really buggy, and was SLOW. It would take a few seconds to change channels, to pause, or do anything. That may not sound bad, but it gets frustrating when you change the channel, and it doesn't respond for a few seconds, so you press the button again, and you end up going past what you wanted.
Since then we dropped Charter (Except for the internet service), and now have Dish Network. Their DVR is better, but it still sucks in my opinion. We're planning on cancelling Dish Network pretty soon, and just getting a Tivo or Replay TV with basic cable.
Does TiVo really need saving? It's the best PVR around... you plug it in, and it just works. TiVo gets it.
I heard someone say recently that TiVo is the Macintosh of PVR's. They were talking about ease of use, not market share. As far as I know, TiVo is pretty much the Microsoft of PVR's in terms of market share. Or at least the Dell.
If TiVo is having financial issues, I don't think it's because of lack of consumer interest or difficulty in selling units. It could well be due to regular, difficult, business issues, like having too many irons in the fire or having to worry about Microsoft's nefarious tactics. I'm sure that the cable companies are trying to horn in on TiVo's market with their various video on demand services, but they tend not to work as well as TiVo anyway.
But really, TiVo is a great device/service that already does exactly what I want it to do. They don't need to turn it into something else.
The DirectTV Tivo has dual tuners. You can watch one live channel and record another, or you can watch a recording and record two live channels. I have had my unit for 3 years, so this really isn't new. FYI, the HTDV TiVo has four tuners.
What you are probably referring to is the TiVo stand-alone unit. The problem here is that TiVo has to encode the analog signal, something that the DirecTV or HDTV units (or your generic digital cable box) don't have to do. Dual tuners in these analog TiVo boxes would likely be prohibitively expensive.
"If I am such a genius, how come that I am drunk and lost in the desert with a bullet in my ass?" --Otto (Malcom ITM)
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.
There's a ton of missing features right now on Tivo -- batch save to VCR, and so on.
Instead of adding a bunch of "intraweb" integration, why not make it much more featureful at what it primarily is *for*?
Most modern TV's have multiple inputs and you can watch one program and record another for about 5 dollars at radio shack.
What I have done with mine is I put a splitter on my cable line before it reaches the Tivo Box. Now I have two coaxial cables that both carry cable for one TV. Run one into your TV's coaxial cable input and run the other into Tivo. Then take your yellow video cable and red and white audio cables that come out of Tivo and plug them into a second input jack on your TV.
Now on your main TV input you have your plain old cable(without movie channels:( ) and on input1 you have Tivo with everything your cable box descrables. I agree it's not the best solution but it's super easy and I use it all the time.
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.
Having looked into this a little bit, it appears that the cheapest decent PVR box constructable with retail components and MythTV is still going to run you around $250 plus labor to assemble and install. Compare this to $270 for an 80-hour Tivo, with a $100 mail-in rebate.
Now, with Tivo there is still the subscription price, but the best bet economically would be to go with Tivo. (or other commercial PVR) Of course, if you have many of the expensive components for a PVR already lying around and assemble PC's all the time (and enjoy doing so), then I guess MythTV could be for you.
Also, if you're willing to hack and fiddle with things to achieve some particular purpose not available with an off-the-shelf Tivo (I don't know - integration with your internet-enabled toaster or something), then the choice is clear. (but if so, then you knew that)
But for everyone else? Tivo. Were I in the market for a PVR, I'd just get a Tivo, and I say that as someone who just a week ago had three computers disassembled all over the office, messing with dd and hexedit to turn a toasted machine (physical read error on the sector with the root directory) back into one which not only boots again, but appears to be in perfect working order. With other people, it might be the time or computer hardware/software fiddling involved; with me, the hardware prices just don't favor building it myself.
And then there's the radical option of simply not watching TV at all...
Just to keep the facts straight, I spent $500, did absolutely zero research, dug up a dusty old Hauppauge WinTV PCI card, and it "just worked" (TM). Only after that did I spend time trying to get it working by hand because I wanted to know how it worked. Nothing about days or weeks spent setting it up. Just boot up, choose the option to reformat and install on the PC, let it install, enter my zip code, choose my cable provider, and I had a PVR in 30 minutes that also had news headlines and a local weather radar loop as a screen saver. So no, its not hard to compete with your TiVO setup time. Not at all.
And after 2 1/2 years, the two will cross each other at cost effectiveness. A LOT sooner if you order the home media option for your TiVO to get half of what Myth offers.
And I do have a tricked out TiVO so I didn't keep Myth. I am planning on going back, though, since I need a content server for my CarPC project. Just saying, don't be so dismissive. KnoppMyth works very, very well and is quite easy to setup.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Last go 'round, I swear.
/. geezers like it or not.
1. Okay, so I got lucky.
2. No, I bought it pre-built. Did you include in your time estimate how long it took Philips or Sony to assemble your box? No. Of course not. I added an ethernet card to my TiVO and a TV card to my Myth experiment. Its a wash.
3. Okay, so you have 1/10th the features that Myth offers.
4. MythTV is not a viable alternative for 99.99% -- I'm *really* not trying to argue, but I sure hate it when people use that figure. As if you're in a position to say.
5. its not a real option for replacing Tivo until I can order a MythTV box for the same price -- Not a real option for you. Granted.
6. If I was in college and had lots of free time to screw with things, I'd be all over it, too. -- Don't know where that one came from. I'm usually the one throwing the "call me when you graduate, kiddo" line. Maybe you thought I had an extra digit on my UID or something (and forgot that UIDs around 500k graduated 3 years ago). I mean, I respect your seniority, but you only predate me by about a year. Sorry, we're both
Thanks for the dialog. I only hope you see things are better than you remember. I experimented with it. It worked out of the box. I bought the PC to be an ESX Server so I had to blow it away and move on. I guess I am a "one in ten thousand" kinda guy.
Intelligent Life on Earth