TiVo to Offer SDK

Thomas Hawk writes "TiVo has begun an effort to court third party developers to try and figure out a way to provide additional add on type services to somehow differentiate itself from the satellite and cable providers that are presently nipping at their heels. Initially the company plans to release three add ons: a weather information plug in, an RSS reader and a game. David Pogue of the New York Times is out with some of the features [NYT=Check soul at door] that at present already make TiVo a superior offering to the cable and satellite freebies. "

Comments

We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[richardoz]

I have to say that the Tivo wins the usability contest hands down. Even though the Cox box has the ability to record two channels at once, I prefer my Tivo.

The GUI is intuitive to operate - it took my wife no time to figure it out. As for the Cox box, well we haven't even figured out how to delete a show we are watching without fast forwarding to the end - to get the "special menu".

Re:We have a Tivo and a Cox DVR

[Lumpy]

unfortunately you are in the minority.

Rumor has it that a couple of larger cable companies are looking at starting a "trade-in" program on tivo's.

trade in your tivo and get 2 dual tuner HD dvr boxes for free as well as 3 months of free HD/extended premium tier service.

this will pretty much destroy the TiVo when it happens. I love my Replay box, but the dual tuner motorola DVR box records digital channels far better and easier than Tivo or Replay can ever hope to... The advantage of having the decoding and descrambling hardware in the box is huge. While the "cable card" ready tivo is years away.

Re:I guess someone at TiVo downloaded Mythtv

[FredThompson]

Why stop there?

Direct satellite signal recording
Myth NOPE!!!
TiVo Yes

DirecTV with TiVo receivers store the actual satellite signal, not a captured version of an analog signal. Most of what you credit to Myth is really a PC with a video out card. May as well claim Myth supports RAR, WMP, QT, Flash, etc. ad nauseum.

Re:Wow! Really?

[Naikrovek]

yeah you can have your mythtv do all of that. for no monthly fee yes.

but the initial cost of your mythtv box is at least 10x what the initial cost of a tivo is. that's a large barrier of entry.

computer with dvd burner, large hard disk, tuner cards, video card with tv-out, costs a lot more than a tivo.

very tired of this 'mythtv is better than everything else in the whole wide world, and if you don't use it you are an idiot' business that is going on here.

Tvs

[cparisi]

TiVo should get bundled with TV's. You can get any closer to the target market than that.

Game emulation.

[LWATCDR]

Why not make a deal with who ever owns Atari and Sega to put game emulators on the Tivo. Retro gaming is all the rage these days. Throw in MAME just for fun and you are good to go.

Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.

[crawling_chaos]

Popularity comes from making it easy to use and marketing/brand naming. Microsoft, AOL and others have shown that to the average joe six pack it's not about innovation.

I'm about to do something I never thought I would -- defend AOL. At the time the original AOL was released, it was innovative. Nobody else was packaging a bulletin board system that was as friendly or as feature laden. People started to get on to AOL who found Compuserve or the local BBS scene far too intimidating.

The Internet sort of drove a stake in to that model, and it can be argued that AOL hasn't done any innovation lately (except in the creative marketing and creative accounting fields), but the original product took off because it was something different from what was already out there. Isn't that innovation by definition?

TiVo seems to be in a similar boat. They've brought a technology to the masses that only the truly geeky could have had before. The real question is can TiVo find a way to add a feature that makes owning a TiVo and paying the service contract worthwhile? And before you say that there is nothing out there, remember that many analysts didn't think TiVo would make it this far, as everyone already owned a VCR to tape Friends.

Its a losing battle.

[tgd]

I had Tivo since a few months after it came out. Four total boxes, also gave another four or five as gifts over the years.

I called last week and cancelled my service. (Boy they make that hard to do...)

Why? They're two years behind the ball where technology is concerned. Their vastly superior interface is totally wasted because it can't actually record half the stuff I watch. Its a hack at best to get it to work with a digital cable box, and no HD support at all. They told me all about the new HD box they would have out in 18 months when I cancelled, and I just had to wonder why it wasn't out now? My TV has CableCard. Clearly Sony was able to see it was a needed step to take.

I've seen arguments made my people on /. that Tivo couldn't have been faster to the market because CableCard just became available, forgetting thats to consumers. Clearly the companies have been working on units for ages.

I may hop back into the Tivo fold if their new box lives up to reasonable expectations, but its hard to argue with a $10/month box with dual HD/digital/analog tuners, 160 gig of space and a tolerable UI now that Comcast has rolled out the new TV Guide software.

I think the SDK is a poor attempt to keep the attention of their core market -- early adopters, because early adopters have all adopted other video hardware that makes the Tivo obsolete.

I'm not sure the ability to see an RSS feed or weather on the Tivo will keep someone who just dropped $3k on a HD set interested in Tivo, when they can get a box from their cable company for less money that works with it.