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SBC Builds A TiVo Rival
ChipGuy writes "With all the hoopla around Tivo To Go, SBC Communications has launched its own PVR-plus-set-top box which integrates SBC DSL with its satellite service. From the looks of it, this could be the trend where phone operators offer their one set-top box/ home media servers. This is not good news for TiVo or Microsoft which harbors living room ambitions. 2Wire might be the dark horse in set-top box sweepstakes."
Personally, I am amazed, AMAZED at how many new services SBC has started offering in the last few years. My telephone, sat. dish, cell phone, and yellow pages ad are all on the same bill as it is. Strangely enough their customer service hasn't gotten any better... does anybody here think SBC might be getting too big for our own good?
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
With so many users still forced into dial-up access, it makes you wonder where the priorities are. For these companies to already be talking about FTTH while my parents still chug along at 56k seems as if the two are living in different worlds. So many peripherals are arriving to take advantage of services that are still largely unavailable to the common man. Lay down the framework first, then build upon that. The company that extends itself into getting more users off the narrowband will be reaping the spoils of a large and loyal piece of the marketshare.
Oh...was I snoring?
I'm sorry. I've seen this one before. It's the one where the snotnose brat says he'll be the biggets on the block then disappears when he finds out there's work involved.
Wake me when something new comes on.
I'm not surprised by this. Time Warner is offering Digital Phone service and also has cellphone service planned too.
The days of dedicated services are over. It's all about the network. If you have fiber/copper in the ground, you will be expected to offer phone, TV, Internet, Home security services...etc if you want to survive the market place.
Life is not for the lazy.
All this talk about the various telephone, satellite and cable companies coming out with "Tivo-killers" is just talk. Anyone who actually owns a TiVo knows that it's not the hardware, it's the software. They can make all the boxes they want, but without the TiVo software, and the concepts behind it, they'll never reach the same level of functionality. I use a TiVo at home and a ReplayTV when visiting my brother's house. Each has features I desire in the other, but in general, the TiVo has a usability that the Replay can't touch. The Replay has better playback features (like the wonderful commercial skip), but the TiVo blows it away in terms of actually getting the programs in the first place (wishlists, etc).
As the TiVo and ReplayTV were introduced at the same time, at the same Consumer Electronics Show, they've had a lot of time to place catch-up with each other and to come up with a lot of great ideas. I have yet to read about one of these new boxes from one of the giant media companies that had features that got users raving about them. It's possible, but unlikely at this point, that some new box is going to be anything other than a "me-too". They all seem like wishful thinking from entities that wish nothing more than for TiVo and Replay to have never been invented...that they will somehow be able to drive both of them out of business and then to start limiting features more and more to help "maintain control of copyright".
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
TiVo was here in the UK before Sky+ and was in fact recommended by Sky for a time. I bought my TiVo in the first week that they were available and love it. My sister has Sky+ and it isn't a patch on TiVo. Sky+ doesn't have the full season pass feature, it has series link which only works on some channels, it doesn't learn what you like so it only records what you tell it rather than recording stuff it thinks you might like based on your viewing preferences like TiVo does. Granted the Sky+ box has two tuners and as it records the digital bitstream directly the picture quality of Sky+ is identical to the original broadcast. However, TiVo can be upgraded to huge capacity and fitted with ethernet to allow all sorts of neat features like programming it over the web or extracting programs it has recorded.
While you can no longer buy a UK spec TiVo brand new you can still pick them up on ebay and TiVo continues to support their UK subscribers. I don't know how I would survive without mine. Sky+ is certainly a poor substitute.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
I'm sad to say that I can't think of what I'd use fibre to the home for over and above what I've already got. My whole city's got fibre to the curb, cat 5 to the stb and computer - 2mb/s for home users (plus additional bandwidth set aside for the cable TV and re-broadcast free to air TV channels they provide and video on demand), or up to 10mb/s for business. Now only wish that the provider would build some functionality like SBC's into the set top box.
As the TelCo's start rolling out TV service it's no real surprise to me that they want to get into the PVR game too. And not because they think it's going to earn them money directly, no rather it's once again about control.
PVR boxes like TiVo, as I'm sure we all know, can be hacked up to all sorts of neat things that have been driving the content providers nuts. So it's only logical that Cable/TelCo providers start offering their own PVR boxes that are firmly locked down to prevent those nasty hackers from doing anything that they don't want with them.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Pricing means something. I can get an HD DVR from Time-Warner for something like $10 a month -- HD, multiple-channel recording, total digital cable integration (no IR blaster hackery), and NO CASH INVESTMENT UP FRONT.
To many people this means something, and it should -- a Tivo + Lifetime will take YEARS to return its investment relative to the cable DVR, and that's IF it doesn't break. A cable DVR when it breaks or becomes out-dated goes back to the cable company for free replacement the same day. A Tivo box when it breaks goes back to god knows where for a $99 repair, for about two weeks.
To the vast majority of households the cable provided DVR is "perfect" -- easy to install, HD compatible if you want it, and not a financial commitment. They could give a shit about software and other Tivo advantages (what you've never had, you don't miss).
Speaking as a 2.5 year Series 2 Tivo owner, Tivo needs to get on the stick and KEEP their software AND hardware ahead of the game. CableCard (digital cable on private devices) has been out for months, where's the HD CableCard capable Tivo? Why does Tivo insist on wading into the PC space with HMO and Tivo2Go when there's a ton of features that would improve Tivo they're not adding? Where are other hardware advancements?
My overall concern is that Tivo is wasting too much effort trying to expand outside their area of expertise at the expense of improving it, while cable is quickly honing their products to match Tivo with the only "missing" element being the investment and lame "extras" like HMO.
Well, I don't see them competing really. I mean, I watch TV for passive entertainment at the end of the day and weekend. The computer is used at work, and at home if I actively want to look up something or email. Two different forms of entertainment. I'd say most houses have the internet connection in an office (with or without a tv), and the tv in the mail living area...
Me? I've got wireless...I often find myself with the laptop on a tv tray in the living room, playing with it WHILE the tv is on. The tv is on in my house pretty much anytime I'm in the house...so, no, I don't see TV being killed off...especially not just due to broadband. Until they start broadcasting tv comparable shows on the broadband, it isn't what I consider a competitor.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually, I was referring to non-GSM cell phones (AFAIK, only 1 carrier supports GSM in the US, though I could be wrong. Pretty much cancels out the provider-switching capabilities).
The current "trick" is that cell phone prices are seriously, obscenely, horrendously inflated ($300 for a cell phone worth, at most, $50) so that you have to be loaded in order to buy the phone outright. But...! Here come the providers to save the day (*stroke stroke*) by knocking off 50-90% (sometimes 100% for the REALLY crap phones) of the cell phone price as long as you sign up for a 2 year contract... If you paid $400 (AFTER 2-year contract rebate. WTF?!) for a fancy treo, if it's a non-GSM phone, after that contract is up and you realize that your provider sucks, you can just throw the phone away, since you can't bring it to your new provider. Since you're not likely to do that, you stay with the sucky provider.
Yeah, I see the providers just crawling all over themselves trying to do away with this. At this point I think it's safe to say cell providers are one of the top 3 scummiest industries, alongside "Law" and "Insurance"