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Has TiVo's Fate Been Sealed?
ChipGuy writes "Things are getting bleak for TiVo, reports the New York Times, and adds that TiVo blew a major opportunity to team up with Comcast. And that might have cost CEO Michael Ramsey the job. Om Malik writes that 'The fate of TiVo also highlights the dilemma facing a lot of "exploding TV" start-ups. The technology does not necessarily translate into profits and a business,' and breaks down the financials -- over half a billion dollars in losses so far. PVRBlog adds that 'When the story of TiVo is written, this Comcast negotiation could be the point when the company's outcome was decided.' More reactions here."
It is official; Netcraft confirms: Tivo is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Tivo community when IDC confirmed that Tivo market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Tivo has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Tivo is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict Tivo's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Tivo faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Tivo because Tivo is dying. Things are looking very bad for Tivo. As many of us are already aware, Tivo continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeTivo is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeTivo developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeTivo is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenTivo leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenTivo. How many users of NetTivo are there? Let's see. The number of OpenTivo versus NetTivo posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetTivo users. Tivo/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetTivo posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Tivo/OS. A recent article put FreeTivo at about 80 percent of the Tivo market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeTivo users. This is consistent with the number of FreeTivo Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeTivo went out of business and was taken over by TivoI who sell another troubled OS. Now TivoI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Tivo has steadily declined in market share. Tivo is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Tivo is to survive at all it will be among DVR dilettante dabblers. Tivo continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Tivo is dead.
Fact: Tivo is dying
Eh TiVo will probably die, they have the entire TV industry against them. As long as I can easily buy a clone or make my own (with no restrictions) why should I care?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I hear it confirmed by Netcraft will I believe it...
RoseColor red={0, 0xffff, 0x0000, 0x0000};VioletColour blue={0, 0x0000, 0x0000, 0xffff};find / -name *mybase*|chown you
this sucks. The product was good, service was good but the rest of the business world (mainly M$) did not want them around, and it looks like they will get their way. another good one bites the dust ;(
damn not quite - maybe next time. anyway back on topic - tivo's problem is they need to expand to more countries/networks. Why can't i get it in australia? and if i can why don't i know?
Where's my OpenCable Moxi?
(Translation: Does it matter if TiVo dies as long as something better comes along?)
'The fate of TiVo also highlights the dilemma facing a lot of "exploding TV" start-ups.',
ok, I admit I'm not real familiar with the latest in television technology, but exploding TV's? what could possibly be the upside of that? faced with that sort of danger you'd definately want a TV-b-Gone. I'd say if their TV's are exploding TiVo's fate has definately been sealed.
air and light and time and space
I am constantly amazed by the absolutely shocking decisions made in relation to the TiVo. It is an outstanding product that could have made an absolute fortune, but has been totally hobbled by a insane business model and pathetic marketing. Shame.
First, I have to take issue with the claim that such technology, concepts, and products are not enough for a successful business. I think their success to this point is evidence enough of the power of this kind of product.
On the other hand, I have to agree that Comcast has the power to propel TiVo into a different level of play. With that kind of support, they'd have a huge step up on all this exploding competition. That competition is finding ways to improve upon what TiVo already has - free listings, better storage, better interface, etc. Why compete directly when you could stand on the shoulders of Comcast?
Okay, so if I can pick up a TiVo for a couple of hundred bucks, how much is a MythTV box? You need a fast pentium box with a large HD, right? Plus a video encoder. What's the cheapest MythTV box that I could put together that competes with a base TiVo?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Tivo is toast. It's a great product without question. The issue is that all the major cable companies (Comcast, Cox, etc.) are building those capabilities into the set top box.
Over Christmas, my grandfather asked about Tivo because his brother had recently gotten one. He really didn't know quite what it was, but he wanted one. So, we went to all the consumer electronics shops and looked into it. It was going to be $100.00 bucks after a rebate, twelve bucks a month, and then he had to get some kind of phone line across the room to the back of the TV. They suggested a wireless phone jack, which was an extra $85 dollars or so.
Instead of messing with all that, I stopped by the Cox office and they gave us a new cable box for free and the extra DVR functionality for an extra ten dollars a month over what he had already been paying. He's not going to notice a big difference between that and Tivo, so it's definitely "good enough".
I like Tivo's announcement about Internet-oriented content, but I just don't think they have a chance. EVERYONE and his mother is going after the set top box "center of the digital living room lifestyle". This includes at least Sony, Cisco, Microsoft, Apple, Nintendo, all the set top box manufacturers and cable providers, as well as many other upstarts. People will want as few boxes as possible (hopefully one), so products like Tivo that don't have the depth of stickiness, that aren't the anchor of critical functionality (cable TV vs. VCR, if you absolutely had to choose which one would it be). As such, Tivo is in big, big, big trouble.
All those bumper stickers that say "Kill your TV": Someone must have misunderstood and killed TiVo by mistake. Just another case of anything that is well designed, useful, tastes good or has some intrinsic value in this world disappearing, while all the junk sticks around endlessly.
First, TechTV and now TiVo? Damn you, Comcast!
In order for Tivo to survive against the snarly market forces of TV they would have had to promise even more invasive advertising to replace the ads we skip over. In two years Tivo would (will?) end up looking like a cheesy free web page with banner ads and annoying pop-ups. I'd rather live in the moment and go to the bathroom during ad breaks.
The coolest invention to hit TV since the VCR and it's not even going to make it to Australia before it dies in the ass. I have been waiting for TiVo to hit down here for the past year and now it looks like that will be never be.
Ditch the service.
Open the box, screw this DRM'ed TivoToGo crap. Just open an SMB service, or ftp, or some such.
Sell the box at a profit. I'd pay up to 500 bucks for one, that just worked - always, regardless of whether TiVo is still in business. It's still cheaper than rolling my own with MythTV, and a whole lot less of a hassle.
Since that's not what they're going to do, since TivoToGo turned out to be useless - need a custom app to burn to DVD? And it's not out yet? And I'm supposed to buy what is basically the same Prassi/Stomp/Veritas software that I already have three copies of again for another 50 bucks?
Anyways. I like the TiVo interface. Good riddance to the rest of it.
I've been playing with MythTV. As soon as I get it working to my liking, my series 2 TiVo goes up on eBay. I'm getting there, it's nothing but time and effort.
I already know it'll blow TiVo away, it'll stream recorded content and live TV via VideoLan, which I can watch on satellite boxes, which I plan to be no more than some hacked XBoxes. It'll have (at least) two tuners. It'll record to DVD-R without jumping through hoops. It'll grab content from the 'net.
So on an offtopic note, anyone have an idea how support for the Hauppage PVR150MCE and 500MCE is going under ivtv? I got an itch to order the 500MCE (mmm two tuners, two encoders.. all for roughly the price of the 250), becuase it looks like it will be supported soon.. But I don't want to be stuck with a dud.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
and why I would never buy any piece of hardware that relies on a subscription. All the more if they offer a "lifetime" subscription where you pay up front. People have fallen into this trap with health clubs as well - what is the chance that the company behind the hardware will outlive me?
My rights don't need management.
The law of the bottom dollar says that if people can provide a service for themselves for free, they will. Most of them anyway. HTPCs increasingly become easier to build and cheaper to buy. Its always irked me that TiVo would charge you to use a device that you purchased legally. It'd be like Microsoft trying to charge me per megabyte to use my own hard drive. (I probably shouldn't even SAY that...) Ask yourself: how many people in the world still have milk delivered to their front doors? How many people still have their gas pumped by an attendant? How many people in the world will continue to pay for TiVo?
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
They started something, something big that will/is forcing the content providers to change, if a bit forcefully. They just couldn't keep up.
Even if it does, they still would have the problem of selling it in any meaningful volume. They'd basically have the same problems marketing something with the cable tuner thrown in as they have now without it.
Oh well, back to getting a MythTV box together.
Since they're screwed anyway, I wonder if they'll just say fuggit and let you move whatever you want to onto and off of the Tivo box while they're in their death throws. It'd be a nice way for them to say goodbye to their loyal customer base while giving the content guys the bird on the way down.
If you never make mistakes, it's probably because you're not doing anything.
With a company like Microsoft getting involved it might not be the last nail in the coffin. M$ has a history of running concept stocks and products. Anyone remember the tablet pc? http://www.tivo.com/5.3.1.1.asp?article=233
I stopped watching TV regularly years ago and don't have a need for a TiVo like device. Unfortunately, this was a high profile linux device and I wouldn't be surprised if the cable monopolies teamed up with MSFT to create their new set tops. Yet another reason to avoid TV.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
TiVo really has only two things going for it:
* the program guide
* the interface
The program guide is really great, and the interface is incredibly easy to use.
The problem seems to be TiVo spends a lot of its money on the boxes. Hardware costs for the TiVo boxes totalled $68,056,000 for the last nine months of the last fiscal year. That's a lot of hardware.
They're also selling that hardware at a loss. HW Revenues were $60,823,000, with $29,508,000 in rebates. Ouch.
There's not a lot that TiVo can do, financially.
The TiVo service only cost $25,069,000 to run for those 9 months, while TiVo pulled in $81,311,000 in revenue. That means if they stopped selling TiVo boxes, they'd make money (though it's unclear from the revenue numbers if the tech revenues include partner hardware).
That won't expand their customer base, though.
Maybe they could spin off their guide business and license it to other box manufacturers? I'm sure TV Guide would love to buy it from them. It would free the guide to provide services to all the manufacturers, though they obviously have someone doing it already (who knows?).
Maybe they could contract to get the hardware built more cheaply?
The hardware is really killing them. Sure, they can't do a Microsoft (not at less than $1/subscriber/month for licensees). But they don't have to have high-end hardware either.
Even if they go bankrupt, look at replaytv...they were a startup and they went broke (people were buying tivo instead because of the much lower price because replaytv baked their lifetime price into the cost of the device)... sonicblue bought them and changed the model to match tivo but went bankrupt due to all the lawsuits over auto-commercial skip ... dnna bought the replay division from bankruptcy and is doing everything right: not investing too much in new features until the market makes it worthwhile while capitalizing on the slowly increasing market...
the only reason tivo didn't go sooner was due to large corporate backing and partnering with directv... even if they go, they'll survive in some form because this industry is gonna happen one way or the other (the other being cable/satellite boxes, etc)
I bought one for my parents for christmas and another for myself after playing with theirs. I love it and do not mind the monthly fee at all. I even networked my own TiVo to prepare for tivotogo. If tivo dies after I finally broke down and bought one, well, that would just suck the petrified shit out of a dead man's ass!
- Sound dies if you process the power button on the remote accident. You have to unplug the unit.
- Program audio can get into "skipping", where it'll play a frame, then skip a frame, play a frame, skip a frame. Only way to fix is to change channels. Reweind/FF/Pause doesn't change anything.
- Locks up in the middle programs for no reason. Changing channels somtimes fixes it. When watching programs, you have to start over most of the time.
- Disk drive is noisy (lots of clicking), no sound insulation here like Tivo has.
- Channel changing is slow. No write cache. Pure raw disk IO it sounds like for all programs.
- Multiple tuner support is clunky and broken. It will tell you that you are recording on the current one when you change channels, but, are really recoding on the other tuner. It gets confused easilly.
- TiVo must have a patent on the "predictive response" when you press play. I can always nail that start of my programs with Tivo, but, on the Comcast I overshoot everything.
- The FF/RW functions don't have a way to decrease the speed. (IE, I KNOW this is the last commercial, don't go in 32x fast forward, go slower to 4x FF).
I have to say, I would have loved if TiVo was the Comcast PVR of choice. It's by far a better PVR system. But, re the post, I have to agree it's the nail in the coffin for them. I think the other nail is the intrusive advertising that they plan to do.You know, if the deal the CEO walked away from actually turned out to be the correct one, we'd all be saying how brilliant and gutsy this guy was.
Pathetic. Even with this now TVtogo thing they put out, it STILL restricts what you can do with it. Since when do device makers have to be the broadcasters bitches?
I have Adelphia Digital Cable, and for a while I was tempted to get a TiVo. The cost was a little high, but I work odd hours and miss some of my favorite shows. I was tempted to get a TiVo until Adelphia offered a nice little DVR box for 9.99/mo with no up front payment.
Adelphia isn't alone in offering these nice little DVRs, either. TiVo had a great idea, and now that everybody and their aunt Jan can offer a DVR for a low low price, I just can't see TiVo moving millions of units.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
TiVo lovers (I used to be one myself) think this product is terminally cool because, when a TiVo box works correctly, it makes TV watching 100 times more enjoyable. But that, by itself, is not "success". Tivo lovers, though fanatical, are few and far between. TiVo has simply made too many mistakes. The platform is too klugy, so there's always been reliability issues. And if it does break, you have to send it back to the factory, for fees that approach the original purchase price. Even if nothing ever went wrong, most consumers just don't see such an expensive gadget as being worthwhile for what it does. This company is circling the drain.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but good "technology, concepts, and products" is not a guarantee of success. There are other factors: marketing, management, timing, access to markets, and just plain luck. The few techies that get rich making some amazing breakthrough get all the press -- but most innovative tech companies fail.
Which is true of all business. You can get very, very rich, but not without taking very, very big risks.
I was at CES. DirecTV is dropping TiVo for their own new custom-built upcoming DVRs. From what I understand DirecTV currently provides some life support for TiVo in the form of a rather inexpensive licensing/subscription fee for each user--but that will go away.
The interface is incredible; the remote is the best I've ever used for anything; the programming guide is extremely good... but anyone and their Mom can hack together a DVR at this point (not that it'll be as good as TiVo).
Umm, hard drive = lots of clicking.. sounds like your problem there, duh. ever think your box has a bad hard drive. Geez.
It'd be nice for them to play by the spirit of the OS on which they attempted to build their empire - and release all the code that's on the TiVo box, so we can hack them to get listings from XMLTV, or whatever, and keep using them.
Or roll our own, or roll the code into Myth, or whatever. There's some good stuff there (well besides the DRM)
Instead, they'll go bankrupt, and I'll have a nice combination nightlight and paperweight.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
SA should buy out Tivo and incorporate their technology into their cable boxes. Tivo would then live on and SA would then actually have the ability to make a good box.
/FCC/Fritz septfecta succeeded/will succeed in killing Tivo.
Anything beyond the control of the cable and media cartels will be killed at any cost. We have the FCC killing any dsl beyond the baby bells, by allowing the baby bells to let their copper die through neglect (which has been paid for by consumers many times over through tax deductions on infrastructure during and after deregulation) while they install fiber through the same consumer paid-for-through-tax-deductions infrastructure, while preventing resellers from accessing/sharing the fiber at reasonable costs. My dsl reseller currently pays more for my connection than I would if I purchased directly from my baby bell. On top of that, add cost of reseller isp dns servers, mail servers, other servers, add costs of support, all the other costs, and the baby bells are getting away with murder.
And at the same time, Powell and the FCC do nothing to ensure that end users are allowed to run servers, are allowed to use their dsl (or cable) connections for various purposes (ssh is considered running a server, vpn is considered business class, no mail server, no web server, p2p is considered running a server, so are many other uses). If I'm stuck with 2 sellers, baby bell and cable monopolies, at the very least, Powell and the FCC have to mandate that the common carriers are really common carriers, they have no control over what ports of the internet an end user uses, the entire internet is available to every user.
What good is pushing for an internet infrastructure like Korea has, with 100 mbps connections, when the local monopolies get to control what you can do, with such simple things as vpn, ssh, and similar vital services. Should we all use telnet?
If it is left to Powell, we'll end up with what others have already predicted, an entertainment device controlled by the entertainment cartel. Computing will be dead. Once the baby bells succeed in their single-minded mission of fiber everywhere so they don't have to share their lines with anyone, any guess as to which way prices will go? Choices on what you can or can't do with your connection? Speeds? Really believe you'll get the same speeds with fiber now than you will when the line-sharing competition is out of business? Really believe you'll get upload speeds equal to download? How about a 20 mbps download with a 128 Kbps upload, due to newly discovered "problems" or bandwidth "hogs".
Tivo is just a small subset of the overall problem.
As an aside, how do you use a tivo box that doesn't come from the cable company, if you have cable with a cable set-top box? Is it possible? What functionality does one lose?
I don't want/have a need for digital cable or satellite so I don't have a built in box. Building my own would be a more expensive pain in the ass procedure.
I want a commercially available one pre-built. There are not a lot of options in that market.
Windows has lower TCO than Linux and Tivo combined!!!
Tivo is DYING.
Our plan is working -- GET THE FACTS!
Good thing I didnt purchase the lifetime sub.
I dont think Tivo will die. They will probably suck for a while, they need to get their cablecard system out this summer instead of next year. It really frustrates me that they annouce a product like TivoToGo and then take a year to deploy it because the FCC wont stand up for fair use and tell the MPAA to fuck off.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
What makesTiVo really great isn't the box, or the interface, or any of the generic PVR features, it's the TiVo service that makes it great and you lose that with everything else. It's the service that's worth it for me and what I don't mind paying for it. All these other PVRs are just hard-drive based VCRs with a GUI. Even a TiVo box is just a hard-drive VCR with a GUI without the TiVo service.
Sure you can get other PVR solutions to download TV-listings and they probably have something like TiVo's season pass where it can follow shows you have season passes to and tape them whenever they air (even if they are pre-empted). The one thing I don't know if anyone else has is the TiVo suggestions. I have my TiVo so well trained I don't have to use the TV listings anymore. My TiVo picks out most of what I watch for me. It's like hiring a personal secretary who knows your tastes.
After I come home for work and eat dinner, I usually have enough shows on my TiVo that TiVo picked for me to keep me entertained until I go to bed a couple of hours later. I don't have to surf channels, I don't even have to look at any listing to see if it's something I might like to watch and tell my PVR to tape it. It's gotten to the point where sometimes I don't even know what's on TV anymore and I don't care because I have more than enough shows I like to watch waiting for me each evening. I don't have to spend 20 minutes each day scrolling through a program listing of 500 channels to find the one program I might like to watch tomorrow and tell my PVR to tape it. For me I don't mind paying $12.95 a month if it means saving me 20 minutes a day in front of a computer or on a TV menu doing "prep-work" for my evening's TV watching. I will sorely miss this if TiVo were to go away.
... is some halfway decent PVR software that does what TiVo does. Price it at, say, fiddy bux. Modern hardware's good enough to work it on the fly- all it has to do is be smart enough to recognize various sources of audio and video input, basic tuning faccilities, etc. and be EASY. TO. USE. None of this homebrew shit that causes your mom to lose interest.
:|
Oh, and make the software cross platform. From the number of people spunking their pants over OMFG MAC MINI SET TOP BAWX!!!!!!!!!11111 SQUIRT!, fuck- it would go like hotcakes.
Especially considering how much of a pain in the ass the bittorrent scene has insisted on making itself over the past few weeks/months.
1) you can get it in australia
c 2c off=1&q=tivo+australia&spell=1
2) you're just not that bright?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&
I've never had a problem with the Tivo hardware. I really like it. I've almost bought one a few times.... But, as with a lot of the other people posting here, I had a problem with paying $12/month (I think that's it) for the electronic equiv. of TV Guide. This has always kept me from getting one. Well, that and one more thing....
What REALLY burned me though, was the stories of overnight "downgrades" and the EULA with crap about how "Company reserves the right to alter the user experience at will..blah..blah..." I think everyone remembers hearing something about TIVO caving into industry demands to remove features that Hollywood didn't like....
Now that Comcast has signed their warrant, it's time for Tivo to strike back and destroy a few other control based business models that come from Hollywood....
1) How about FREE programming guides, paid for by advertising in the corners. I get that crap currently in the corner of my Comcast menu, and I PAY for that service.
2) How about putting in/back ALL of the features that users want!
3) How about offering up the source for Tivo units to the community as GPL and allowing anyone who wants to, to hack their unit with all the best possible free tools? I know that someone will point me to some of the sites on the web, I've seen them. I also know that they exist at the pleasure of Tivo, and by reading the boards, nobody really wants to do anything that would piss the overlords off too much. When I say access, I mean the whole shebam, with no lurking around bb's looking for clues as to how to activate the commercial skip feature or whatever.
Tivo could strike back here, it's not too late to save the platform if they act now. Comcast doesn't want to play? They think that they can homebrew an answer and keep all the money? Fine! How about we let EVERYONE know how this sucker works and turn the dogs out on you.
I think that quick action, in the vein of Mozilla organization/license for the platform would make the Tivo platform IMPOSSIBLE to stop. If they wait too long, their platform will be marginalized and will be worthless. Now's the time to move. If they do, they could still save a tidy business in selling specialty hardware and would get additional revenue from ads on the guides. Of course, it wouldn't be the same fat cut they took before, but it would keep them alive. AND by keeping it open, they would deny the monopoly lock for others.
If Tivo were to do something like that.... i.e. free feeds based on advertising and an open platform with the features I want, I'd go buy one tommorrow. Hell, I'd buy three, one for really watching and two for experiments.
The GPL is radioactive to companies that get their market share based upon control and healthy food for companies that offer service and quality. I think it's time to start throwing the nukes around just to show big media who's in charge....The customer! This could happen just in time to clear the "broadcast flag" crap scheduled for hardware this July! Scorched earth for big media!
Sell a quiet, stylish set-top computer with TV and stereo out, remote control, and wireless. This could be sort of like the MiniMac with Myth front end or a modded xBox, but this model should have lots of CPU and RAM. Build in DVD writer. Rather than emphasizing the recording TV side (this could be a Firewire add-on), emphasize the ability to easily play any format, however acquired. Quiet, cute external hard-drives could be added and daisy-chained.
... just add dumb terminals, up to 10 or 20.
Also sell cheap, stylish dumb terminals with bootable network card, and set-top box ready to serve. These could look like the new iMac, nice monitor, nice keyboard, nice mouse, but with low CPU, no HD, little RAM, etc. This way you can get away with charging a lot for the set-top, as much as or more than a good computer: it doubles as your server
This is the winning combo of 2005. The MiniMac and Xbox2 are light on power, skimpy on playable formats, and not ready to serve as dumb-terminals. They discourage bigger drives, don't burn CDs/DVDs, and don't come with wireless.
... there won't be the loyalty to prevent people from hacking the authentication source, and we'll see ebay flooded with 2nd hand Tivos... and people will modify them like they do leftover internet appliances.
;)
And I'll see my purchase go the way of the 1st generation DVD players: Given away to my neighbor in exchange for his kid mowing my lawn
I pay $5 a month for the Tivo software and get my listings from DirecTV as usual.
I get all the normal TiVo functionality plus dual tuner support (all the good TV is on at the same time, it's called competition) and it's all without all the encoding, decoding and reincoding with standalone TiVos.
I'm guessing DirecTV's replacement for TiVo isn't going to have the same functinality. It will probably be worse.
It seems like we get a Tivo doomsday article every 3-4 months.
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=tivo
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is there anyone out there who honestly believes that these non-networked (or barely network-capable) digital PVR's are the end-game anyway?
Don't get me wrong, I love my TiVo (although HD would be nice), but don't we all really want access to what's on everyone *else's* TiVo -- streamed instantly across a P2P network.
Just wait until broadcasters join the chorus of RIAA whiners...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Hard drives do die after all. How much longer will some of the older TiVo's out there last? True, this could be a wonderful opportunity for TiVo, but given their track record on taking advange of wonderful opportunities...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
It's not just that these companies will ship their own boxes. It's that they will be able to leverage the channel encryption in their favor to make their boxes work better. You don't really need to hastle with encoding the streams or multiple tuners and whatnot. The digital cable stream is already an MPEG and all you have to do is decode it or save it directly to the hard drive with the encryption key. This greatly simplifies your hardware requirements and gives you a better result because you're not recompressing an already compressed image. Tivo will die shortly after the providers bundle a good enough version of the features with their boxes (that you need to have anyway to use their service).
I've had my TiVo for over 4 years now. I love it to death. I think that TiVo did a hell of a lot of things right. Some quick examples:
:-)
1. Unlike, say, Microsoft, they never discouraged their users from hacking their boxes. As a result, a huge community of TiVo hackers emerged (see http://www.tivocommunity.com/). I upgraded my TiVo's 30 gig hard drive to two 120's, and installed a cachecard/network card combo from 9th Tee, which means I can do fun tricks like scheduling shows and season passes from the road, or watching shows in my bedroom on my XBOX.
2. Really great support. I've only had to call TiVo a couple of times, both for channel lineup issues, but they were always extremely friendly and helpful over the phone. For example, after I moved into my new house, I realized that Adelphia had just upgraded the cable in my area, and TiVo didn't have the lineup yet. So I called support, and the next day, TiVo called me back to tell me that my lineup was added. Simply awesome.
3. Choosing Linux. When I telnet into my TiVo, I get a bash shell. I've installed an ftp server, web server (TiVoWeb), and even installed cron. How cool is that? Plus, this excellent decision has led to new software being developed exclusively for the TiVo (such as a caller id display that uses the TiVo's built-in modem, so you can see who's calling without getting up off the couch). Simply brilliant.
4. The interface. They obviously put a ton of work into it, and it really shows. It just kicks so much ass.
Now obviously, they dropped the ball in a couple of areas. The Comcast merger was just a more recent one. I think these are the two biggies:
1. I think that their biggest problem has always been slow adoption; as long as I've had the thing, I've been seeing ads pop up on TiVo Central giving me hot deals on new TiVo units, which I'm supposed to share with my friends and family. Great, I can save Dad $50 on his new unit. But if they really expect me to convince Dad that he can't live without a season pass on those Seinfeld reruns he loves so much, then they should be giving me the 50 smackers. I'd probably have 10 people signed up under me right now if I got some sort of compensation for it. (By the way, click here to get a free Mini Mac!)
2. Too expensive. The hardware and service together really do cost too much, unless you got in early like I did (back when lifetime service was $200). They should do what my damn cell phone company does: Knock the hardware down to like $99, and make me pay a very affordable $9.95 a month. If I try to cancel before 2 years are up, hit me with some obscene early termination fee. Yes, I hate it when cell phone companies do this, but that's how they stay in business. Besides, it's not like I'd be foolish enough to cancel my TiVo service anyway. TiVo is heroin. So far, I've paid $499 for TiVo and lifetime service, so TiVo won't make any more money off of me. If they were using my above plan, I would have paid in $589 so far, with more coming in every month.
I would really hate to see TiVo go. I hope they don't. But I suspect that even if the service dies, thanks to the openness of their hardware platform, someone (maybe me) will figure out how to write a script to pull show data off of Yahoo! TV or something. And with Microsoft and MythTV and several others entering the PVR market, there's no question that TiVo's invention is here to stay.
bort.
Free, Anonymous surfing: Pagewash.com.
Just out of curiosity I've checked Yahoo! finance and AFAICT TiVo was profitable this year and has almost a 100 million in cash. Can someone explain to me where the "half billion" in net losses is coming from?
The big guys are notorious for setting up deals that spell the end of the little guy. The big guys don't care because they will roll thier own or find someone else to do the work of the now bankrupt firm. It could be that TiVo was not so greedy for immidiate bonuses and saw through to the long term. We really cannot know.
More likely the cable cos probably wanted more strict DRM, and TiVo wants to differentiate it's player by provided cable unfreindly features. The new director may very well cave into the cable interests, and the consumer may lose all fair use rights.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
If you were to RTFA, you'd see that TiVo was going to get less than $1/sub out of Comcast.
If they can get the CableCard unit to market soon, then they're in a much better position. They'll have a better product, for about the same monthly cost, with the same level of integration as the DirecTiVo boxes.
And they'll get 10x the revenue per sub.
I'd guess that the Comcast deal had some non-competes that put a serious crimp in the CableCard boxes' chance of seeing daylight.
So maybe this wasn't the wrong decision after all.
-Z
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
What you're recommending Tivo to do is pretty much what Replay did. And it killed them.
These are dangerous waters.
Tivo needs (needed?) to not view its hardware as a mere commodity to be given away, but instead as a platform for innovation in and of itself. I'd consider buying a new Tivo if they did something else more interesting, such as allow for storage expansion via Firewire, DVD burners via Firewire, fast ethernet connectivity, etc.
That there has been no compelling reason for a geek to buy new Tivo hardware since I bought my standalone S2 in 2002 is pretty shameful (I don't have DirecTV, so HDDirecTivo isn't an option). It's super shameful that they won't have a CableCard HDTivo until 2006.
Dunno if a hardware move would help now, but hurrying along the CableCard-enabled HD Tivo would sure help.
Tivo also needs to keep their software moving forward; why not an IMDB tie-in (and hence, Amazon) to the details of a show on now playing? Leverage IMDB & broadband to provide me more show info. Use Amazon to generate DVD sales and comissions. This might sound too commercial, but it could be done at least as tastefully as the ads on the main menu.
And add a "geek" mode where we can have access to greater preferences and more recorder control (logical and/or searhces, 'don't ever record', on and on...)
Tivo spends too much time BSing around with features not core to the experience (Tivo2Go, HMO).
Besides, it isn't the hardware that makes people loyal TiVo users. I mean, anybody can slap together a digital video recorder. What gets people excited is the clever stuff the software. Not the obvious stuff, like "record every episode of Days of Our Lives" -- that's only slightly more sophisticated than what a VCR does. It's the really clever stuff. Like "they keep watching nature shows, so I'm going to record them without being told, if I have the spare disk space."
You license that software to other PVR makers. And you let anybody willing to pay $10/month subscribe to the data stream. Fewer expenses, just as much money. And no stupid cable/satellite companies saying "take out that feature or we won't pay you a pittance to resell your boxes."
I'm betting that's already starting. I get a lot of my TV shows off from bit-torrent, and lately there's been all sorts of problems with sites like tvtorrents.tv (was net), tonight there's a problem with btefnet. Luckily someone is staying ahead of whatever is causing the problems, but it's getting kind of silly having to log into irc to find out what site you need to go to each night for a torrent.
"Om Malik writes..."
Sweet, Jedi have begun infiltrating our newspapers!
http://www.commaecho.com
I have to take issue with the claim that such technology, concepts, and products are not enough for a successful business
/. on our Amiga 10000's?
Exactly. Why else would we all be reading
Having used Dish Network's PVR, it's a POS. PLEASE Tivo, license your software and do what you do best, making a good UI. Don't try to control the game, you've already lost.
Tivo units will continue to function in their current state for years to come
How is your Tivo going to update its program schedule if Tivo corp doesn't answer the phone?
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but is there any technical reason you couldn't port MythTV or Freevo TiVo Series II hardware? It's already Linux based, so shouldn't there at least be binary drivers hardware that would be accessable to a third-party application?
With the comcast deal dead, Tivo seems a perfect acquisition target for AOL. Yeah, popup ads on Tivo!
When Tivo first came out I wanted one, but being a hacker I decided to build my own. I played around with my own stuff (glorified cron), MythTV, etc for three years. Then ReplayTV went TU and I got one cheap with a lifetime subscription. I haven't paid a penny since I bought it. It's the best money I ever spent. The service is awesome, the interface even my parents can figure out. At first it was a bit flaky, but I haven't had it crap out on me in over a year. I don't watch broadcast television anymore, having to sit through a commercial drives me insane, and there is always something good to watch whenever I want. I don't have to rush home or plan my life around when something is on, and I get to watch a lot of good stuff I wouldn't have otherwise because it comes on in the middle of the night. Plus, it is so awesome to be able to pause something when nature calls or the telephone rings. Besides the interface, which is simpler but not quite as powerful as Tivo's, is it's connectivity. It comes with a telephone and LAN connection, and the protocols have been reverse engineered so that it is simple to store, view, or serve video on a networked computer or computers. Both Tivo and ReplayTV allows you to convert to and from thier formats, but unlike Tivo it is an extremely simple, point and click, all commercials removed, burn directly to DVD affair.
So I repeat, ReplayTV soooooo kicks Tivo's ass.
http://james.nontrivial.org
Didn't see anything (though I didn't try very hard) but one or two mailing list postings about if it was done already or not. I saw one speculating it would be difficult, perhaps, due to the low clockspeed ppc CPU Tivo uses and the 16 MB RAM.
I'm wondering if we won't see a lot more work for Myth on ppc in the near future.
The killer thing with Tivo imho is the interface and the remote. The underlying code for the interface would be a great addition to MythTV.
I'd bet you're right though, they'll go bankrupt and someone (Comcast? Microsoft?) will probably buy up their assets for the trademark and shelve it... or worse, put in more DRM and market it under the Tivo trade name. I don't know which would be worse.
If you never make mistakes, it's probably because you're not doing anything.
Of which you can find bucketloads for cheaper.
....from TIVO got real bad anyway. I used to have one, and the service was great for the first few years. Then all the sudden they changed thigs around and their service started to suck. At first their customer support reps were great, the company was really happy to please the customer, and catored to the hacker community. I blew up my own box playing around and they fixed it for free, even told me what I did wrong and why it didn't work. Then about a year ago the modem died, and this time I was met with terrible customer support and terrible service. I sent the box in and payed something like $50, waited a month and a half and got the box back. The modem worked but now the VHF/UHF coax ports were dead. I called them up and told them this, and found out they had lost my records so they couldn't confirm that whoever repaired it busted it because they had no record of me sending it in. I just used the RCA outputs untill the modem died again a month later. Called and found out it would cost me over $300 to have it fixed this time, and got explanation why the price skyrocketed from the last repair. The place I would have sent it to was the same location as the last time and everything, not like they used a different outsourced repair shop or anything. I have hated TIVO ever since.
[DirecTivo subscriber]
My impression has been that the TIVO boxes are rather poorly constructed. I've had intermitten color problems (screen goes to black and white) with all three of my DirecTivo units, and one completely died in the year since I first jumped onto the TIVO bandwagon. I've heard alot about overheating problems and modem issues from other users as well. I imagine if they're selling the boxes at a loss of over $100 each. The service plans run $80 at Best Buy, which is a dumb buy relative to the price of the box. So almost every unit that breaks down means that they eat a fat loss when the customer buys a replacement unit. The dumbest part is that the warranty is only 90 days labor, 1 year parts. The labor is by far the most expensive portion ($90 minimum, plus shipping costs each way), so the customer is disinclined to even try to get the unit repaired after the first 3 months.
It's not the comcast deal that kills them, it's the money spent on replacing shoddy equipment.
This is what I spent. I am only counting what is in there right now, and not things that have since been upgraded:
/.)
Case: $40
CPU/Mobo: $5
120 gig HD: $60 (after rebate, cheaper now)
256 Meg Ram $50 (did not look around hard)
pvr-350 $170
RS 3-1 remote $5
total -------$430
This mobo was a special from tigerdirect that was a via cpu called 1.2 but actually 900 mhz integrated onto a syntax board. It is bargain basement, and one should spend more here. If I had to do it over again, or an upgrade, I will get a better mobo and cpu with integrated spdif out.
But right now, I have full tivo like functionality with over 100 gigs of space to store. I do not pay monthly fees and probably put way too much time in it. If I spend a little more and get a better mobo and chip, I can do a lot more like watch dvds and mpeg-4 plus play the mythgames. There is some stuff I can do right I can't with a stock tivo (web based recordings, music, rss feeds, weather), and if I upgrade it, stuff I couldn't do even with a hacked tivo (play all those other formats). I have a dvd-burner lying around that I will throw in there, and then I can burn off recordings for archival purpose.
HOWEVER, do not do myth expecting to save money or time, you will do neither. Do myth b/c you want to learn more about linux, b/c you want no restrictions with your dvr, and because you like to create and tinker things like this (which I think applies to most of
DVDs use a special subset of MPEG2. The problem is that nothing else that uses MPEG2 provides that subset by default. So you must transcode the PVR350 MPEG2 stream into a DVD compatible stream. Try avidemux2 or ffmpeg.
Mastering DVDs is a pain. I only do it when I want to give a DVD to someone else. For my own use, or for people with more flexible players, it is far easier to just put the files on a DVD-ROM.
The remote is for watching TV. For everything else, I ssh into the MythTV box from my desktop PC.
Is it possible that TiVo has yet to tap some revenue sources. I don't know the legal side of things, but can't TiVo start selling "commercials" or spot ads or whatever?
They already give "Showcases" which probably cost someone some cash. They also allow commercials to have the "Thumbs Up" popup to easily record a new show.
Once a TiVo box knows your viewing habits, there's no limits to the kinds of adverting it can serve you --- and marketers would be far more interesting in paying TiVo to deliver an ad to a target audience.
I think it's far too early to start writing the epitaph on TiVo's gravestone.
-David
There's another little talked about reason why TiVO is losing users fast: "The VOIP effect".
In a nutshell: TiVO's internal modem doesn't work with most VOIP services.
Recently I switched over to Vonage. About a week after my Vonage service began I started getting messages on my TiVO telling me I needed to make my "daily call" because my program data had not been updated for a while.
I checked on the TiVO forums and sure enough there is a problem using TiVO's internal modem with most VOIP services. There are dozens of supposed workarounds but the success rate for these workarounds is apparently grim.
Series I TiVO users are truly screwed. Series II TiVO users can wire an Ethernet cable to the back of their TiVO to get listings via IP. But even TiVO acknowleges that most TiVO users probably don't have Ethernet cables in their living rooms.
There are also many hardware fixes I'm looking into. (But soldering a modem to my TiVO motherboard hardly seems like a fix that most people are going to want to deal with).
The bottom line is this: As VOIP sweeps the nation, its also sweeping TiVO away.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Oh gentle lightspawn, you are too nice. Comcast's DVR is so unusable it can only have been designed by corporate marketing people.
Comcast's DVR has none of the core "I like this program, automatically record it for me next time" features found in Tivo.
There's no concept of recurring recording of your favorite shows.
The resolution for the graphics on the program guide is so course only a few lines of channel info fit on the screen at once. And a big chunk of the screen is allocated to horribly low quality ads.
Yes Comcast was big and stubborn enough to stick it to Tivo, even if that required sticking it to their own customers.
Can a bunch of us buy Comcast stock and then raise a ruckus at a stockholders meeting?
Ben in DC
PublicMailbox at benslade dot.com
Ben in DC
"It's the mark of an educated mind to be moved by statistics" Oscar Wilde
In fact, I even find some things on the Tivo better than the ReplayTV. (And vice versa, although less of that.)
However, the one thing that bothers them the most is that, after they do the key sequence to convert the "return to live" button to be "skip ahead 30 seconds", it works for a day or so and then resets itself!
This is atrocious. Devices once configured should stay configured, otherwise we should save them from the terrible secret of space and push (shove?) the damn thing down the stairs.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
-shrug-
I recommend them to everyone i know and everyone i recommend it to buys it and likes it. If they can't make money off a product like that they should fire their entire business and marketing departments. It's like a restaurant that opens, is super busy, and closes 6 months later. That's a sign that somebody didn't think through the business plan. Here's a hint: when you're making up scenarios for that big Excel spreadsheet, and you add up the column for "Staggering Success", and the number at the bottom is still negative, it's time to get a new plan or at least a new spreadsheet.
The players tried to take the field. The marching band refused to yield...
Tivo was picked up my bleeding edge gadget people four or five years ago, and pimped to family and friends. Thats what got them where they are today. And the hardware they sell today has marginal capabilities beyond the original stuff.
I'm on my fourth Tivo now, and won't likely buy another. Why? For the same reason MythTV isn't an option -- integration. Because neither solution supports CableCard, or integrates with the cable system, neither Tivo nor MythTV can view the vast majority of my channels without a kludgey solution of using a cable box or two, hopefully with serial control but most likely with clumsy IR blasters. And I still can't use any of the OnDemand services. And most important, no HD.
Tivo acts like they're a cutting edge technology company, but they're not selling technology that bleeding edge gadget geeks want. Hell, they barely sell technology that my parents would want. They have Tivo, and love it, but I know as soon as they find out they can get a PVR from the cable company and actually make use of the 60" HDTV they've got, they'll dump it in a heartbeat.
It's true that they haven't done anything innovative in a while, but I've had a tivo since 1.x, and they have definitely done good things since then. The first tivo I had didn't even have the ability to rank season passes for a good six months.
I'm hoping they last long enough to get that dual-tuner cablecard PVR out the door-- if not, it's looking more and more like all the other PVR companies are going to finally be usable tivo replacements.
When is it cheaper to build a MythTV or whatever other open source setup on pc hardware vs. a $70 Tivo box? $70 for a dedicated box which you couldn't come close to building yourself. For the cost of a PC w/tuner and say mythtv, that would equal a tivo and 2 years worth of subscription to equal out in costs. Not the mention the time to manage that pc with viruses, spyware and whatever else.
I am building a MythTV box from misc parts I have scrapped from various systems. So far my cost is $0. I dont have to manage a PC with spyware, virii, and other malware, MythTV runs on linux. I almost chose to use XP MCE so my kid could run some games on it also, but I found working with WINE would be less of a hassle than reinstalling the OS on a monthly basis.
Blew it with comcast? Maybe Comcast smelled blood in the waters and rather than being swallowed whole on the spot, the wounded fish despirately evaded the snapping jaws.
I thought it was just the Penguins on top that exploded?
Therein lies the answer...
kulakovich
Note to DirecTV: I only subscribe to DirecTV FOR TIVO. If you dump Tivo, I'll dump DirecTV. Probably like Best Buy you figured in losing the "small amount" of geek business and you don't care. You should figure in how much business we brought by word of mouth and being tech mentors to our friends (yes, we DO have friends). We'll take THOSE with us, too.
If you subscribe to DirecTV join me and tell DirecTV not to dump TiVo.
If DirecTV screws it up, we'll get into the TiVo saving and Myth TV setup business.
Let's hope the new TiVo CEO sucks in his pride a makes a deal with Comcast and DirecTV to make the "new" DVRs TiVo DVRs.
Otherwise, it won't be the first time that a superior product disappeared due to market, business, and political pressures, - see BetaMax, CP/M 86, Word Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3,
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
Instead, read the press release.
And we love it. Even my wife, who was way too skeptical and thought I'd watch too much TV, can't get enough of it. It really makes our TV viewing more enjoyable, even given teh fact that we can pause something (live), shut the TV off, have a peaceful dinner and they still be able to watch something in its entirety. We can also watch what we want to watch, when we want to watch it. Have some free time when I get home? Three episodes of Overhaulin' is waiting for me. We can watch "24" commercial-free if we want.
It is pretty obvious the CEO is an ego-maniac in the form of the original Steve Jobs. He's making the same mistakes, basically. Thinking they can go it alone is akin to signing a suicide note. This idiot blew it time and time again and now me and thousands of others may end up with a worthless hunk of junk and a wasted $500.
I have a new Comcast Motorola HDTV/DVR and although the specs look nice, the TV Guide interface that it uses is the worst piece of sh** I have ever seen. Awful use of screen real estate, bad look and feel, terrible responsiveness, yuck all around.
/.'ers here who are bagging on TiVo. What the hell is wrong with you people. Don't you SEE? Are you interface-blind, the same way some are color-blind? Figures that you CL jockeys are not really UI types or appreciators, except for the occasional Apple whoring (which would never have even started until Apple included a command line and X11 compatibility in its new OS). Bah...
The TiVo interface, meanwhile, is astonishingly great... When I didn't find a TiVo option anywhere that took advantage of HDTV and worked with Comcast (i.e., "the consumer has lost"), I knew that TiVo had fucked up something on the business side. (Whenever the consumer loses, it seems like it's always some headstrong engineer's fault who doesn't want to negotiate away his precious technology.)
I can't believe all the
I currently subscribe to the Comcast DVR service.
... I don't mind since this is the only way I can record HD/DD5.1 content.
Why?
I never used a TiVo and had no interest in one as I have had 2 VCR's for a long time. Recording programming to a hard drive was a nifty concept but not something I would be willing to sink time or money into.
I signed up for Comcast DVR so I could time shift HD and dolby digital sound encoded programming. Now some people may be in over the air range of network HD stations but I am not. Additionally I have HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and Starz in HD and all of that is only available through my cable box. Since any TiVo type solution will receive the analog video/audio signal from the box that was not an acceptable solution.
This is why (in my opinion anyhow) the Comcast-Tivo thing will be a disaster for Tivo. The Motorolla box I use is OK, but it has some issues. However
They were first to market with the digital PVR, billions of dollars passed through their hands, and they didn't bother to get patents?
All the more if they offer a "lifetime" subscription where you pay up front.
I bought my first TiVo about five years ago. I started out using the "ten day trial" they offered back then. It took me three days to realize you could have my TiVo when you pried it from my cold, dead fingers. I bought the lifetime subscription, which, at that time, was $199. Monthly service at the time cost $10. I figured my ROI would take two years tops, even accounting for the time-value-of-money issue. This was before the monthly service went to $13 a month.
So I've owned a TiVo box for five years, with fully-paid service. By going with the lifetime option, I've saved over $500, because the monthly service went to $13 a month before my original two year ROI period.
Say what you will about the value of a TiVo lifetime subscription if you buy one today, but for us early adopters, lifetime service was a bargain and a half.
All I have to say is I just got TiVo for Christmas and I love it. I'm paying month by month just to try it out, but plan to do a lifetime subscription around March if I'm still using it (which I'm sure I will). It's great fun and I love that I can now watch all the stuff I usually mis due to being asleep like Adult Swim on Cartoon Network or Bob Vila at 5am. I think what will be telling is how TiVo's Christmas was. Their financial year ends Jan 31, so then the truth will be known. Looking at their financials however, they are brining it over 10 million a month from subscription related activities, so that can't be all bad. Also, who has time to putz around making their own DVR when you can go out and buy TiVo and you're done. I have mine hooked up to my wireless network and it's great that I can share music and pictures from my desktop to it. Also, the front lights up. That's just plain cool. Who wants to have some beige box they built themselves next to their stereo. Plus I agree with others I don't think the GUI of TiVo can be beat. -Troy
What percentage of the US is using VOIP now? 0.5%? I can't see this as being a huge problem, at least not compared to the "competition" and "losing money on hardware" problems.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...is all I need them to last. That will be the point at which my most recent "lifetime" (of the product) service activation will have cost less than the continuing $12/month monthly rate. Presumably I can scavange the hard drives of they go completely toes up:-)
Anytime you deal with a consumer product with intent for massive deployment (i.e. DSL modem, Wireless Access Point router, cable [modem|set-top] box), test group's foremost priority is failsafe.
One dead-box or firmware vulnerability incident (impacting MANY MORE end-units) would be considered ultimately unacceptable and have been known to threaten the reputation of that company's entire product line, not to mention that company's reputation and financial bottomline.
Unfortunately, QA is not "the" highly recognized or reverent profession that it should be, ESPECIALLY when consumer product is being used for and by the uninitiated, untrained, and illiterate end-users. As for management not leaning on QA to protect their product line, I defer to Clubber Lang, "I pity the fool.")
Shut up, Fool Buck up. Don't be a crud. Be an engineer that we all espoused to be. Attain the "Right Stuff."
Why bother with second rate?