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TiVo Moves to Bypass Cable
Thomas Hawk writes "TiVo is throwing in the towel on cable. According to CEO Mike Ramsay, 'offering service through one of the primary cable platforms is not the best way to grow our business at this time, because the economics are not very attractive, instead, we have decided to embrace the PC as our friend.'
This may add to the complexity of an already convoluted message that TiVo has been criticized for being unable to articulate to the masses. In the same article TiVo says it plans to introduce a new line of recorders that will accept CableCards. The company has declined to say when new machines will be introduced or how much they will cost. Most significantly, there is still no elaboration as to whether this new standalone box will be able to record cable or satellite HDTV."
I predict that the 2005 ces devices introduced will beat tivo at its own game.
Dvd recorders with hard disks cost $399 now (excluding the buggy $250 ILO one at Wal-Mart). By the end of the 2005, they should cost $225.
It is like the 5mp name brand (canon, nikon, etc) digital cameras. They cost $400 just before Christmas 2003 and then dropped $100 or more by Christmas 2004.
How are they doing this without reverse engineering the cable companies card info? Are they working together with them?
http://www.immigrantornot.com/
Actually, the DirecTV DVR with TiVo isn't the horse TiVo should be placing its bets on because DirecTV's building their own...
What TiVo's planning on is forgetting about partnering with the cable systems. The cable systems are affraid of letting content be streammed to PCs and won't include that feature in their DVRs, but TiVo will be able to build a CableCard-enabled box and then be able to do what they want with the digital video stream without having to please the system owners.
If I were Tivo, I'd try to set up deals where shows can be distributed over the Internet via a BitTorrent-like protocol. IMO, this is one of the easiest ways in which they'd be able to maintain a viable business strategy. There are several advantages to doing this: 1. Low maintenance costs. Aside from hosting the tracker and a high-speed seeder, the bandwidth required would be extremely low. Also, since the torrents would be distributed only to Tivos, they wouldn't have the MPAA or anyone like that worrying about PC users getting a hold of them. 2. Tivo Series2 models (the standalone units) already have all of the hardware required. In case you don't know, Tivos can be networked via a USB slot in the back. Though the hardware is actually USB 2.0, the drivers are 1.0. They'd simply need to change this. Also, a software update would be necessary, but Tivo already does this on a regular basis. 3. Money, money, money. As mentioned by someone already, small networks would jump on the chance to have this type of distribution. In fact, this opportunity would even turn Tivo into a cable-like provider, maybe even putting them into the black again. Time after time again, I've seen posts on Slashdot where many pine for such a television distribution medium. I just hope Tivo sees the golden opportunity that its new strategy affords.
I have a Tivo. I like Tivo, but it's nothing more than a souped up VCR. It's an incremental step, not a quantum leap. Any idiot who sat down and thought about it could make it better. Start by adding in IMDB integration. Just put a little link in the listing info. Half the time I watch a movie, I'm looking something up on IMDB using my laptop anyway. You don't need to bloat the thing, but stuff like that seems like such a natural fit. If you're willing to pay for a Tivo, you probably have broadband of some sort, why not make good use of it?
They were so busy allowing 'content' providers to decide what features to include they forgot to keep an eye on the market. The law about timeshifting was on there side so have the balls to put on the features that will keep at the head of the pack.
They could have been selling branded TiVos to cable companies, just like the DirecTV TiVo. The should have encouraged the hackable TiVo. Since anyone can make a pvr they should have made it more open so they would be the M$ of pvrs. Now it seems they are moving to put TiVo on the PC, something that people had been wanting for years.
I knew it was a bad sign when Series 2 DID NOT come with an ethernet port, my god; just so they could sell licenses to TiVo certified USB ethernet cards.
Plus the company seems to have moved away from the geeky silicon valley feel, if it was ever there to the greedy dumbass business types who want as much control as possible but forgot what made them successful.
You cannot even set up a TiVo without a phone line or internet connection to connect to them. Something as simple as switching from cable source to antenna source has become a pain.
On the Series 1 you could do manual recordings without a subscription. My nephew got Series 2 and you cannot do anything but switch channels without a subscription. That kind of crap annoys the hell out of me. They want absolute control of everything and still want their hand in your pocket after you buy the device.
It was fun while it lasted
Hopefully some company will make a device that did what the TiVo didn't, or maybe they'll just hack the Xbox 2.
Euphemism, what is that a euphemism for something.
Peace
What I'm hoping for is a TV capture card (i.e., the kind that sits in your PC or Mac) that is digital cable ready (which would mean that it accepts a Cable Card).
Of course, I'm really hoping one of these gets released before the middle of this year, when the FCC pretends it's Congress and mandates broadcast flag recognition.
I've read several times that TiVo has a "boat anchor" plan in place in case the company goes out of business. The plan is to release all the specs so that users may reconfigure the system to use another guide service.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I'm in the UK. I've got two TiVos and love them, however I can't get another, because TiVo have already pulled out of of the UK. The only manufacturer making boxes discontinued them a few years ago, we never had series 2 boxes, and even though a US box will work, sort of, with a few software hacks, we can't sign one up for service.
What killed off TiVo in the UK was the mainly terrible marketing which focussed soley on the pause-live-tv aspect.. and who wanted to spend £400 ($700) for that, plus £10 ($17) a month service charge?? I hardly ever watch live tv! There is too much crap on there; I let the tivo pick out the very few good programs that are scattered about, so I can watch them when I want to! And to skip the adverts, of course. I also appreciate the suggestions!
Now, the monopoly satelite broadcaster Sky have their own integrated box which they virtually give away free (if you are on their top packages) but has many less features, not being a TiVo. There is no way TiVo Inc. could come back in now and capture any market share again, even with a generic box that would work with cable, digital terrestrial, etc. Nobody will pay for anything they can get for "free" from somewhere else.
What a Geek Wants:
1. A PVR that will grab your shows and is useful as an appliance for day2day usage. Include a DVD burner for mom and dad to archive their own stuff without using a computer and network. Include HD abilities.
2. A way to transfer the recorded data to a server in a format that I can use and convert. Preferably, without using TiVo's proprietary software. This will probably be sniffed and hacked a few months after TiVoToGo is available to many users.
3. Some way to organize all that video onto a Serial ATA RAID SAN where I can archive a ton of data. Have the ability to burn DVD's or convert to DiVX, etc. Edit the content to strip commercials, etc. Or more likely a TiVo box with 4-5 hot swap drive bays on the front.
4. Support for Linux, BSD, and OS X...
5. Bypass cable content providers by using BitTorrent built into a TiVo! Just do the same thing a cable company does but instead of needing a cable infrastructure or Satellites stream it over the Internet using BitTorrent as the transfer mechanism and an XML TiVo program guide. Imagine your TiVo uploading bits and pieces of your recorded shows to those people who didn't record it or watch it live. (increase the buffer on live TV from 30min upto 2 hours and store it until it's overwritten by an actual recorded show or when space is low - BitTorrent upload it's bits to other TiVo users) Whatever's popular will stream over the Internet at faster and faster speeds). Increase the standard disk space on the TiVo with a couple of those new 500GB hard disks. Encourage people to not delete shows on their TiVo as it will help the community to share the data via BitTorrent.
This whole BitTorrent concept is about to peak, there are VC companies just looking for the right company to back with an Internet delivery mechanism. TiVo could blow away the competition and probably get sued but it's coming. I would pay TiVo for television content if they can do it effectively.