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."

Comments

Re:Tivo couldn't keep up

[stratjakt]

They are not hack-friendly. The TivoToGo content is locked down via DRM. To burn to DVD-R you have to buy another burning app (essentially a kludged version of the same prassi RecordNow burning software everybody rebrands as their own).

The new 40 hour Series 2.5's (the nightlight models) are locked down so the kernel is cryptographically signed, so you can't do anything with it.

No commercial skip. No nothing.

They're as far from hack-friendly as you can get.