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."

Comments

Lost

[confusion]

First, I am a huge Tivo fan. I've got 2 of em, and I would be lost without them.

Tivo's recent actions have left me pretty convinced that they're lost. They don't seem to have a cohesive business plan on how they are going to fend off all the "generic" pvr/dvr's that come free with cable or satellite service, or for the onslaught of PC based solutions.

Tivo certainly has refinement and ease of use in its court, but I can see that eroding quickly. They are having to keep adding new features under the same pricing model just to stay competetive.

Long live Tivo...

Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/

Re:Lost

[Hollins]

I'm also a TiVo subscriber and huge fan.

The rub for me is that most competing PVR services are owned by companies that are also content creators or which have close ties with content providers. Look at the contractual relationship between Comcast and Viacom, for instance, or even DirectTV and the NFL. So I'm very suspicious of Comcast offering PVR service with my cable package while Viacom is lobbying congress for extensions to the broadcast flag.

I think it comes down to a question longevity. If TiVo dies, then I expect these other providers will begin crippling PVR features. However, after the broadcast flag becomes effective, Viacom may start pressuring Comcast to deploy DRM restrictions, at which point TiVo becomes the hero, and shores up market share.

Regardless, things don't look good for TiVo in the long term. Their hardware is a loss-leader that is entering the commodity realm, free software implementations of the same features are improving rapidly, and we seem to be converging on effective web services that can serve the data I currently pay a subscription fee for.

Re:Lost

[Merle Corey]

However, after the broadcast flag becomes effective, Viacom may start pressuring Comcast to deploy DRM restrictions, at which point TiVo becomes the hero, and shores up market share.

Ah, but you've forgotten about this.

TiVo has already demonstrated that they're perfectly willing to hop into bed with content providers so as to not make waves.

I'm a TiVo fan too, had my series one boxes for years now. Trusting that TiVo will do the right thing just because they're not part of a media conglomerate is a mistake.

MC

How about this

[yorkpaddy]

I doubt this is what Tivo will do. but, how would this work. Tivo could act like a cable provider, but use the internet as the transfer medium instead of coaxial cable. Networks could offer tivo shows which they could offer to their users. The users could watch the shows at any time based on their choosing. The super small cable channels (Outdoor life network, knitting central...) would love this. ? ... profit

Re:huh

[plilja]

A cable card is a hardware card, issued by your cable provider, that allows the decoding of cable channels that are broadcast with encryption. I don't believe any of the large cable companies are currently issuing cable cards, but they are supposed to start issuing them by the end of 2006. Cable cards are required for any third party hardware to decode encrypted channels on third party hardware. Pretty much all extra content (HBO, Pay-Per-View, etc.) is encrypted, and most of the cable companies are concidering, or already have, started to encrypt non-extra content as well (that is any content above "basic-cable" level).

Translation from exec talk to geek

[the angry liberal]

'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.'

Translation: Guys, we have not posted a profit yet and our doors have been open almost 8 years. We have got to do something FAST! Drop the cable, push the DirecTV DVR and extend functionality to the PC fast. Otherwise we are going to lose more investors.

I like my Tivo, but I wish these cats would figure out some way to make a profit.

Re:Translation from exec talk to geek

[LostCluster]

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.

What is it about suicide

[grasshoppa]

that is so attractive to companies?

Boss: "Hey! Wow, everyone sure did love feature x and y."

Engineer, proudly thumbing suspenders: "Yes sir, we really hit the nail on the head!"

Boss, now turning to glare at the engineer: "Pack your bags johnson. If we don't tolerate your kind here"

Killer App

[itoleck]

What TIVO needs is a new box with a midget inside that does all of my work, so I have time to watch TV!

Re:No offense to everyone here

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I watching the wrong channels?

No, you're just making the common mistake of believing your cherished childhood entertainment was somehow better than what is available now. The shows you reminisce about are essentially trash. Just take the rosy glasses off of your hindeyes.

Don't be offended by this comment - everyone does it, me included.

I think Tivo is going to die soon...

[doormat]

Last year, Tivo announced TivoToGo at CES 2004. They annouced availablity this past Monday (Jan 3, 2005), and a very few people have got the new 7.1 software required for TivoToGo at the moment (check out the Tivo Community).

Tivo showed a demo of a CableCard 1.0 demo at CES today. They plan to offer a CC HD Tivo in 2006. They needed to get this cable card Tivo out in APRIL 2005, not 2006!!! CableCard is an open standard anyone can implement, Tivo or anyone else doesnt need permission from the cable companies.

There is only one caveat with their 2006 annoucement - there are a few limitations that Tivo might be waiting for CC 2.0 to come about for. The first big thing is that now CableCard 1.0 is unidirectional (from the cable co to your box). CC 1.0 is also limited to one tuner (analog or digital channel) per physical cable card. CableCard 2.0 is bidirection (so the Tivo box can talk to the cable company, allows PPV-on-demand, interactive guide data, etc), and CC2.0 provides up to 5 tuners per physical cable card.

I would bet that if Tivo is waiting until 2006 to release their CableCard HiDef-capable Tivo, it damn well better be CableCard 2.0. Tivo can provide splitters inside the box to allow for anywhere from 2, 3, up to 5 tuners. I doubt most people have a practical need for 5 tuners UNLESS... (this is my wish) Tivo enhances their Home Media Option to allow smart scheduling, so that you can have one SuperTivo and several client Tivos (pass through tuner, no Hard disk) that just stream content from the SuperTivo over a home network.

RIGHT HEADLINE - WRONG CONCLUSION

[pikapp767]

I've researched this issue and the headline of the article is correct. TiVo is moving to bypass cable but not by throwing the whole system away and not allowing you to record cable BUT by integrating a cable card into a standalone TiVo box. This eliminates the need for a cable decoder. Their intent is to differentiate themselves further from the cheap knockoff PVRs that the cable companies are deploying. As an avid TiVo user myself I assure you that TiVo will not be dropping the capability to record cable programming.

Here is an article that better describes what TiVo is doing: http://olympics.reuters.com/audi/newsArticle.jhtml ?type=technologyNews&storyID=7252458/


More information and analysis will most likely be available at my source for TiVo information http://www.tivoblog.com/ tomorrow.

They were too busy to have a plan.

[Dot_Killer]

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.

Cablecard deployment

[AlphaWolf_HK]

All cable companies do it right now, every single one of them. They probably don't advertise it because they'd rather you not use cablecard (they make a killing off of you leasing or buying the digital cable box off of them.) They were federally mandated to carry the cablecards by June 1st 2004. I already know for certain cox is doing it, and they don't advertise it at all. The only way you can find out about it is if you dig around their website.

Re:First Post!

[chrispitude]

Yeah, this is my first post.

Folks seem a bit confused here. Tivo aren't talking about dropping support for recording programs off cable.

Find someone who has digital cable *and* Tivo. The only way to decode digital cable is through the cable company's crappy set-top box. This means you are also stuck with their crappy program guide, poor MPEG decoding, and sub-par signal quality. To make things even more fun, the Tivo must resort to things like IR blasters to change the channel. When you tell Tivo to change the channel, it has to send fake button presses to the digital cable set-top box to change channels.

Go find someone with this setup. Try it. It sucks.

When Tivo talk about breaking their dependence on the cable company, what they mean is to break this dependence on cable company set-top boxes to decode digital cable. The way to do this is with CableCard, which provides all of the decryption needed to decrypt and decode digital cable signals. This *includes* pay channels as well. In other words, you'd be able to use the Tivo *as* your digital cable box, in addition to getting the nice Tivo program guide and DVR capabilities.

It's definitely a very good thing.

Oh yeah, and I got a chuckle out of all those posts saying that the free PC linux/windows DVR programs are going to take over the market. Yeah, I can't wait to see my dad install linux on a PC, install a PVR card and appropriate drivers, and get it all working. In fact, I bet he's thrilled about the idea of having a PC on all the time in the living room. Geez, he can barely find the play button to get a DVD going, folks. If you don't sell my dad and tens of millions like him, you don't get the market.

- Chris

Unannounced new TiVo features

[maggard]

Aside from all of the wailing (what, TiVo has replaced Apple a the new "beleaguered" company?) it turns out TiVo has slipped in some goodies along with the announced feature set of their new v.7.1 software.

Among the goodies folks are finding is an undocumented one: A built in web server.

No, apparently not Apache but something else, what counts is it's there, it works, and it allows download of XML files containing show listings and the shows themselves. To get to it follow these steps:

1. Sign up for an early download of TiVo 7.1. Must have a Series 2, no DVD burner built-in (player is ok), DirecTV models aren't handled by TiVo. Basically TiVo Service Numbers beginning with 110, 130, 140, 230, 240, 264, 540, & 590.

2. While on TiVo's web site note your password and the "Media Access Key" (MAK) for your TiVo. You'll need these later.

3. Wait for 7.1 to be downloaded and installed on your machine. Continually forcing reconnects will not hurry this, indeed the cumulative server load by that sort of thing will only delay the rollout.

4. Once you've got 7.1 (it's downloaded, installed, you've rebooted) point a web browser at https://your.tivo's.ip.address/nowplaying/index.ht ml . For user supply tivo and the password is your "MAK".

5. Go wild.

What, big deal? OK, how about pulling your video off your TiVo, the much-feared video extraction ?

Turns out you need to have TiVo's DirectShow decryption filter installed, and that only comes with their TiVo Desktop v.2 which is, for now, Windows 2K/XP only. You also need a decent mpeg2 codec, which MS doesn't include in Windows. TiVo recommends a couple of commercial ones but there are also free ones out there too. Or, you might have one that came with DVD software.

However, contrary to TiVo's marketing, once a .tivo file is pulled through this it can be edited, saved, even burned to DVD, with nothing more special needed. That's right, no waiting for Sonic's soon-to-be-shipped software, no magic mojo involved, trusty ole TMPGEnc and Nero and all the rest are perfectly fine. Indeed once passed through the magic DirectShow filter (and your password supplied) the .tivo files are free to be rendered into a more normal mpeg2 files.

Sure the $50 "custom" software will probably do more with automation, labeling, and such, but I'm betting nothing that can't be whipped up in a few days by TiVo's customers, likely beating the Sonic software to the punch.

Pretty Kewl, eh?