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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."
When I moved we received something similar to this. We have the satellite TV with DVR as well as what appears to be plain DSL. Haven't thrown much at the DVR other than some Nova. The search functions took a little getting used to be the quality seemed well enough. Said it holds 100 hours but I haven't had time to take a closer peek to see more specs on it.
( o ) one could say I'm rather baked
2 Wire actually has a product other than the bandwidth meter?!
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.
Oh, and by "new killer features" I meant something like:
:)
You're on your lunch break at work with a high speed 'net connection and have nothing else to do, so you log into your SBC/2Wire box via a password protected web browser and see, basically, a java version of the PVR's menu. You pick one of your favorite shows and hit Play and the 2Wire box transcodes the video in realtime to a streaming format so you can watch the recorded show (or live tv, even) right there in your browser while you're away from home as it pipes the stream out the integrated SBC 'net connection.
Yeah, I know there's no way they could do that with the quality of most SBC 'net connectivity, but you know...
Seriously, SBC cant get DSL right (PPPoE, WTF?), I have no confidence in their ability to get TV working as well.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
I use to work for SBC back in the day, untill i got fired for hacking the phones and rerouting all my calls back to the call center. When i worked there the mentality was always One stop shopping, They want you to pay them for all services including but limited to..Phone, Cable TV service, Internet, Cell phone, Phone Equipment, Long Distance, web hosting, this would all come on one bill that could be paid monthly to SBC, This is their vision and route they are taking.
Bringing your mosaic ideas to life. Mosaiclegs
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.
Yesterday I had a discussion on set top boxes with a couple of colleagues. It seems to us that the living room of the future will have its own rack full with set top boxes. A set top box for your digital radio, a set top box for digital tv, a set top box for internet/dsl connection, a set top box for video on demand, a set top box for I don't know what else for a kind of DRM protected content.
I can see all these set top boxes actually harming competition. Having to introduce a new set top box for a new service seems like a proper waste of money. The consumer might like a different provider per service but buying a new box just to make it work will be prohibitively expensive
It would be great if we would get systems that are modular, maybe work with a set of chipcards or something along those lines.
Use Adsense for Charity
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
TV is dying, folks. While the symptoms may not be outwardly apparent yet, the insides are rotting away like so much necrotic carcinoma. How much longer can TV keep going while a greater and greater (what is it now, over half?) part of the US (and world) establishes broadband connectivity?
Do you think people can split themselves in two?
TV already shot itself in the foot when it spawned 400-channel versions of itself and divided up the interest by its newfound extra channels. All that's left now is to watch as the shows go to crap, the heads roll and the whole burgeoning monstrosity becomes cannibalized by BigBand.
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!
Ucentric has also been quietly trudging away in this space from the old DEC headquarters in Maynard, MA. (http://www.ucentric.com)
They did trials of their product with Comcast and AT&T (before it was bought by Comcast), and now have a rollout with Voom (the also-ran HD sat company).
It's a good, stable, platform, but never seems to get any press (or customers). Linux based (Debian) with some fancy bits globbed on.
The real sweet spot is in their thin clients and distribution technologies. Imagine having ALL of your PVR's content available simultaneously from every TV (or PC) in the house, from a client a little bigger than a pack of smokes. And, you don't need to run a bunch of Cat5 to get the signal to the other TV's, an old piece of coax will do just fine.
-This sig intentionally left blank