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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."
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?
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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?
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 product was good, service was good but the rest of the business world (mainly M$) did
As rich and powerful as Microsoft is, they just don't have the kind of power you think they do, especially when it comes to markets outside of computer OSes. I can't believe you're sitting here blaming Microsoft for the fact that Tivo is a poorly run company...
The vast majority of business failures people think were somehow caused by Microsoft were really caused by the ineptitude of the company that went under. When Microsoft goes after a market, a well-run company will push them back (see: Quicken vs Microsoft Money). A poorly run company? Well... Darwin's law kicks in. Is that really Microsoft's fault?
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.
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'm not terribly impressed with MCE. I don't care how much they ship, and I don't care if I'm the only guy with a working Myth box. So far I like what I've been able to get out of Myth. No slashbot can accuse me of being a linux zealot, I just like what Myth does so far.
Myth has a long way to go. Out of the box it isn't there. Like I said, I've been working with it a lot, in the code and setup and whatnot. I plan to return anything worthwhile I come up with back to the project, if it's possible.
I'm thinking of a parts list that any dope could go to CompUSA to buy and assemble, and a bootable ISO, that just makes it work. Take all the OS tinkering out of the middle. To me, this is what linux should be, where it belongs - task oriented distros that do what they do, and do it well. Hell, that's what TiVo is.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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".
But only because he's never used a TiVo.
I own a TiVo, and hate hate hate using Cox's DVR, which has horrible usability issues, even apart from the response times (over a second for basic operations).
As a random example - if you view a list and press page-down, you're now at the TOP of the next page. Pressing page-down again brings you to the bottom of the page and another press to the top of the next page.
TiVo practically always does exactly what I expect when I press a button, and the layout is so convenient that I never have to look at the remote.
I would gladly buy TiVo's UI people a round of drinks, but could get violent if I ever met Cox's DVR's developers (it looks like they have no UI people and let the programmers do it).
/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?
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.
IFF (If and Only If) you have hardware encoding on your video/TV tuner card, MythTV will run on a lower end older CPU. www.byopvr.com claims 233MHz if you have hardware MPEG-2 encoding, but that seems fantastically optimistic. Keep in mind that hardware encoding is fairly expensive -- I just bought the USB-2 Hauppauge PVR for $150 at MicroCenter yesterday. (I'm sure they're cheaper on line, but I can afford instant gratification.) A faster CPU (1.8 GHz is adequate according to some people) will allow you to do software encoding, meaning you can get a cheapo video encoder for $50 or less.
The larger the drives, the more content you can save. ReplayTV figures it in the neighborhood of 1GB per hour saved at crappy quality, maybe 3GB/hour for better. They don't need to be fast -- 5400 RPM IDE will do. If you have an old 20GB laying around, it's probably good enough.
RAM, well, you'll need some. A CD-ROM drive is pretty much a minimum, but a DVD drive will let you playback DVDs. An ethernet connection is probably going to be useful. Audio hardware, you may need that too. There are reports that some on-board nVidia nForce 2 chipsets won't work with MythTV, so if that's your audio choice you might need a cheapo SoundBlaster Live! card. On-board video will probably also be adequate.
And you may end up struggling with xmltv; trying to keep a TV listing grid current can be a challenge, depending on what country you live in.
Bottom line: it certainly doesn't require an Athlon64 or a dual Xeon monster to run one of these. Like anything else, if you pay more you'll get more. There are people who have incorporated MAME consoles into their MythTVs, others build monster gaming machines and only use them as TVs when they're not online. Others simply want a fire-and-forget box like a ReplayTV or TiVo.
All in all, your mileage will vary. You need to consider what assembling and maintaining all this will cost you personally in terms of time. Are you willing to put that much effort into a box you could have just picked up at Best Buy for $400 and never looked at again?
John
Yeah, the UI isn't the best. But I've been using mine for almost 2 years and it works okay, and it's slowly getting better (they make software updates to it - early on I was crashing the box on a regular basis).
However, the price difference makes it worthwhile - for $10/month and no setup fee, no purchase, no contract, and two tuners, how can you go wrong? Plus, it's probably simpler than a Tivo in some respects: the Cox box is also your cable tuner, so you don't have to worry about setting two timers (one in Tivo, one in the cable box) and other such hassles.
--RJ
Microsoft shipped 1.6 million MCE units because every Sony machine with a tuner card went out with MCE.
MOST of these are being used as PC's, and if you aren't playing with a tuner card, you'll never know that it has MCE.
Dad bought one (as a PC). He played with the MCE stuff a little before deciding it was totally useless and went back to the TiVo.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
Ask yourself: how many people in the world still have milk delivered to their front doors?
If the service were availabe in my area at a reasonable price, I would.
How many people still have their gas pumped by an attendant?
Everyone getting gas in the state of New Jersey, and me, whenever I am getting gas while dressed well, when it's cold out, etc., etc.
I just don't get your point....HTPC's blow for non-techies in their current state.
Most overlooked points past shitty UIs and complicated setup: you need a remote control....oh yeah, that's right, every one availabe for PCs sucks ass. High quality SVIDEO output still isn't there at a reasonable price. And not-so-expensive PCs tend to be noisy. And hot. And not shaped like the rest of my stereo/tv components.
I deal with IT all day. When I come home and want to watch TV, that's what I want to do. Preiod. Not screw with some HTPC, or ssh into my hacked TiVo because the cron job to grab the listings failed.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
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 $10/month subscribe to the data stream. Fewer expenses, just as much money. And no stupid cable/satellite companies saying "take out that feature or we won't pay you a pittance to resell your boxes."
The only reason Microsoft didn't kill Quicken is because the government wouldn't let them buy Intuit. If they had, Quicken would be dead and we'd all be using M$ Money, no matter how crappy it is.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Tivo is dying because cable companies subsidize the cost of the hardware, market it better, and charge less per month than Tivo does. Cox gives me two DVRs for free with digital cable, and charges me 8 dollars a month combined extra for the service for the two units. The unit itself has about 40 hours storage, is approximate in quality to the Tivo Series 1. Is it worth it for me to go out and spend 2x$199 replacing the hardware, only to then have to spend more than 20 bucks a month in service charges? Absolutely not.
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
However, the price difference makes it worthwhile - for $10/month and no setup fee, no purchase, no contract, and two tuners, how can you go wrong? Plus, it's probably simpler than a Tivo in some respects: the Cox box is also your cable tuner, so you don't have to worry about setting two timers (one in Tivo, one in the cable box) and other such hassles.
I have used both a Satellite (Non-TiVo) DVR and a TiVo (which I own). I was absolutely floored by how primitive the DVR was, and your comment about setting timers makes me wonder if the DVR you are using is also more primitive.
I NEVER set a timer on my TiVo. I have had friends ask me when a show comes on, and I haven't got a clue. The reason is, I tell my TiVo what to record and it manages all of the details. I never have to set a timer on it or on my settop box (since TiVo changes the channels on the settop automatically before it starts recording).
So, for example, I have a wishlist setup that records movies that were made in the 1920's. I have season passes that record specific shows. But I never have to even think about the details behind these recordings. I just turn on my T.V. and look at the list of what shows are waiting for me to watch.
THAT is the beauty of TiVo and until I see another system that can abstract away the details as well as TiVo does I won't even consider switching.
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