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Microsoft Takes on TiVo
CatsCradle writes "The Seattle Times has an article about Microsoft's Foundation and their new partnership with Comcast to provide a TiVo-like service."
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Is there anyone who can offer genuine non-zealous commentary on Microsoft's MCE2005?
I'm currently running SageTV (http://www.sage.tv) for my PVR needs. Before that I was running MythTV which I really liked, however it was really flakey.
I wonder how MCE2005 compares to either or both of the two.
TIA
"Control and customize your viewers' experience.
With Microsoft TV Foundation Edition's new UI Customizer tool, you can make changes to the viewer's user interface, preview the changes, and then almost instantaneously publish them to the viewer's set-top box."
Gee, thanks Redmond, I was looking for an outside corporation to control my "experience" (there's that damned word again from the dot-com era). I like how they'll just have the vendor just make bulk changes then push them to my set-top box without asking me if I want an update or not. I suppose that's part of the agreement, though. Looks like another MS service I'll be ignoring.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Everyone who has a DVR (that I know) calls it TiVo, or says they'll "TiVo it" even though it's not a TiVo. They don't care where the product comes from, and that's Microsoft's entry point. They can take a loss on their product and beat out the competitors.
Wow, now there's a losing combination. Here in Chicago Comcast is long running corporate joke. Very poor service both in their TV and Cable modem divisions and a broadband network they can't seem to keep up for very long.
I switched to DirecTV w/ Tivo long ago and will probably give that up eventually as more shows become available on bitorrent. Considering I only watch perhaps three shows regularly, its overkill. Also, Rupert-Owned DirecTV with DirecTivo does have its downsides.
Then again, never underestimate the power of bundling services.
Not that I worry much about Microsoft. I worry more about Comcast. They control more of my life, in the format in which I receive my home internet connection and cable television, than any other entity right now.
What if, in their infinite wisdom, that Comcast requires that you use a Windows box to take advantage of "special features" of their device that MS creates propriatarily? In simpler language, I am used to Microsoft making things that don't fully integrate with my Mac OS arrangement (and generally, I usually don't care since I have plenty of alternatives with my platform). However, Comcast loves to charge its customers for things they don't or can't use, and it's hard enough to know exactly how they are sticking it to me as it is.
On the plus side, they may be a company that I worry about, but my cable internet from Comcast is 2.5MBits and whomps my office connection easily.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
With a deal with Comcast that places their box directly into homes without the specter of competition, MS is a shoe in for a large percentage of homes if this is exclusive. If people have to pay extra for it, MS may not "win". Comcast does already have a DVR offering at the moment, after all.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Microsoft was responsible for the software that runs on the Dish Network Dishplayer (7200-series). And they sucked at it too. The thing crashed constantly. At least now that Dish is responsible for the software directly, it works a little better, but they're still dealing with the horrible base that MS laid.
I don't think TiVO has a thing to worry about.
-Todd
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Perhaps the 900lb gorilla can force the "entertainment industry" into allowing such features as commercial-skip or other previously frowned upon features to become standard fare for Tivo-like devices?
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
I haven't seen a BSOD on a TV either (although I have some pictures of some, at airports no less) but I have seen the prevue guide (when they were self-owned) meditate, as in a Guru Meditation. To think, if they had just bought (or warezed) GOMF they could have bypassed that problem entirely, one way or another. Having prevue guide crashed for several hours, blinking a rectangle at you, is kind of surreal, especially when you're practically the last Amigan in your town.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
People are missing the point here. Now with comcast you can get an affordable HDTV DVR (as opposed to the $1000 diretivo model).
s p
Check it out:
http://broadband.motorola.com/dvr/dct6412.a
That's pretty good for $10/month.
Timeshifting won't be an issue within a couple of years because everything will be going toward a Video-on-demand model where you can pay a small amount for a rental, or pay a little more to keep the content forever.
You'll also be able to transfer the content to other devices throughout your home and to portable devices.
There is one obvious drawback: we'll all be locked into Microsoft's solution.
But if it's a good solution, I'm not sure most of us will mind. I don't mind being locked into my Powerbook G4.
Putting Microsoft between you and your content seems like a mistake... even if the hardware is cheap. You have 233 day and counting to get your broadcast flag free capture cards.
TiVo needs to position themselves as the Google of DVRs and adopt the "Do No Evil" policy.
This is Microsoft's second attempt to crack this market. The first one, Ultimate TV went nowhere. But the reports I've heard from Ultimate TV owners have been pretty positive. So Microsoft isn't exactly going into this from scratch.
Come to Mexico City and watch Cablevision for a while, you can see the BSOD on their programming guide instead of the previews. This happens often, since they switched to "microsoft tv" and are starting to switch from everything they had to all-Microsoft for their infrastructure.
The satellite TV service Sky is about to do the same thing next year (it's owned by basically the same people). And DirecTV is closing shop in Mexico, so once again there is a monopoly here, this time on satellite TV. And Microsoft is in on it.
Go hug some trees.
I have actually been a long time owner of both the Microsoft Ultimate TV boxes and the Tivo DirecTV DVR combo units.
To be honest the Microsoft Ultimate TV product (from 1+ year ago) was hands down better than even the current Tivo DirecTV units as far as included standard features and ease of use go.
The MS Ultimate TV supported 2 DirecTV tuners way before the Tivo, supports Picture in Picture to watch two DirecTV channels at once (Tivo still doesn't do this), Would group recorded programs into "folders" of the same show from different air dates (Tivo is finally doing this on their Stand Alone boxes, but still doesn't support it on their DirecTV boxes). Ultimate TV would show you % of Disk Space used (Tivo Doesn't).
These are just a few I can think of off the top of my head, and I haven't used my Ultimate TV for about 7 months.
So why did the MS Ultimate TV fail if it was a better product?
1. No real hack/tweakability other than the ability to add larger storage
2. Microsoft combined it with their Doomed "MSN TV/ WebTv" product which was sure to make people cringe
3. It costs 10 a month for the Ultimate TV service through DirecTV, but only 5 a month for Tivo (thats why im no longer using it)
4. No Standalone units ever created (required DirecTV service for usage)
Why pay a monthly fee if you don't have to? Their business model is what will kill TiVo, not just Microsoft.
I'll tell you what the 'effect' is! It's pissing me off!
I love my standalone series 2 Tivo. I like the menu system, the ability to add additional storage, and the overall functionality. Sadly, Tivo will fall behind because it has committed too much time and too many resources to DirecTV. DirecTV will undoutably chew them up and spit them out at some point in favor of their own in-house developed DVR. DirecTV has no loyalties, including to its own customer base, with its record of extortion and threats for those customers who have shown interest in smartcard development. I wish very much that Tivo could survive without DirecTV, and focus its efforts elsewhere. Sadly, it doesn't look like Tivo is moving this direction.
First and foremost, Tivo has made no commitment to their customer base to offer a standalone or CableCard HD recorder. This is discouraging, at least... and it spells out the beginning of the end for this well-meaning company.
Secondly, when considering current digital cable content, the stream is sourced digitally, decoded to analog, and reencoded by Tivo. This result is less-than-optimal video quality. In fact, it's quite poor, even at the highest quality setting. I want higher quality recordings, even without consideration of HD.
So, I cannot record HD, do not have dual tuner support, and cannot access VOD content directly through Tivo. Even if Tivo WERE to develop an HD standlone record with CableCard support, it would be unable to access VOD and PPV content, based on CableCard specification.
Perhaps this isn't Tivo's fault. Maybe they did try to partner with cable providers and were beat out by a better MS offer. I want to give Tivo the benefit of the doubt here, but they are failing first on several other fronts which are only problems of Tivo itself.
i swear my userid used to be lower.
Microsoft is an investor in Comcast. Comcast has been promising Tivo-like boxes for a very long time now. The thing is, Comcast sucks. It's pretty sad that I can get better quality and more HDTV programming via Bittorrent than I can through Comcast (I use the eyeHome from El Gato to go from my Mac via my home network to my HDTV). And of course Microsoft sucks. Nobody wants them to do this...except for Comcast...and did I mention they suck? I'm torn because on the one hand, there's no way these two dunderheads could produce anything in the ballpark of Tivo. On the other hand there are probably a lot of people who haven't come out of their y2k bunkers who at some point will *not* check the box saying they don't want to receive the MS unit for only $10 a month. Remind me, what has Microsoft produced for consumers since 2001?
The problem is the cable companies are bitches about this. They don't want to share profits with anybody - neither does Microsoft, really, for that matter. Tivo apparently tried to negotiate deals with cable companies to bundle Tivo systems built into cable boxes, but Tivo wanted too much money for software that the cablecos figured they could get Scientific Atlanta and the other shitty settop cable box manufacturers to clone for much cheaper.
Of course the result of such cheapness is that the packaged cable DVR systems are pure ass and nobody I know uses they for such (a lot of people seem to use the VOD features, on the other hand). People who want to record shows and timeshift seem to still by and large go with Tivo, ReplayTV or similar boxes.
It would really make me cry to see Microsoft underprice Tivo into this market, but unlike Tivo, Microsoft can afford to give their base software away at cost, assuming they get something out of the deal. The problem is that Microsoft wants to commoditize the cable company itself, and make their OS the source of on demand media. MS doesn't want to sell software TO the cable companies, they want to BE the cable company (well, they don't want to run lines to your home, they just want to control the content pipe so they get a cut of everything).
I heard a rumor that ms can't stand the fact that cable and satelitte have a strong hold on the market so there gonna create their own entertainment service to compete with the likes of cablevision and direct tv. There also gonna create their own amusement park..MS LAND!!!!!! And then they'll be MS farms and MS whole grain cereal and MS "efficient" light bulbs, and MS thong for the mrs. Seriously when it end for M$???????
if XP recovers from an error so quckly and reliably that the user is never aware of a problem, the fix is good enough
yeah... so like if it recovered in 10 milliseconds that would be good enought for most people.