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Will New Apps Keep TiVo Afloat?
Dave Zatz writes "Tivo, struggling to keep customers and inch towards profitability as execs step down,
has continued to shift focus from pure PVR functionality towards digital convergence. Tivo's recently
released Home Media Engine SDK extends Tivo's capabilities as developers churn early Java apps out, including
the eBay-developed BuyItNow
and the independent Airport Express
AirTunes remote control. The recently released Tivo
To Go allows PC users to transfer shows to their computers for viewing, editing,
and burning shows. Mac users aren't entirely forgotten - a hidden feature in the
OSX Tivo Desktop 1.9 provides AAC
music playback through the television."
Legality aside, is TTG another thing that media publishers have to worry about in the future? First it was MP3 downloads, then came the movie downloads, now this TV downloads?
It reminds me of Futurama, since it was usually scheduled to be interrupted or pre-empted by the football, fans have to resort to downloading from the internet, and Fox was sending C&D letters left right and centre.
Now that people can pre-record these TV shows, edit out advertisement and "potentially" share them illegally over the internet on P2P network (there you go, I have used all "keywords" in one sentence), I'm sure companies will starting complaining about lost sales in DVDs/Ad placements.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Download times vary widely. Most people report shows transferring a little quicker or a little slower than real time, meaning if you have a one hour show it will take about an hour to transfer. Many factors impact your throughput including file size based on recording quality and your network design. For example a show recorded in high quality will take longer to transfer than a show recorded in basic quality.
:)
I finally got my Tivo2Go system upgrade about two weeks ago (it took quite a while to come down to my unit) and I tried it out. I was absolutely dumbfounded at how slow the video file transferred over.
I intended on copying over the entire Tivo contents and then coverting them w/Dr. Divx (quite the task on my slower 2x400 Celeron machine) and then watching them on my Archos. Well, when I saw how slow the damn thing copied in the first place I figured why not just keep using the "Save to VCR" function as I have been doing?
What I would like to see is a "Save to VCR" function that will let me queue up multiple shows and save them all in one shot rather than one at a time. I could set the Archos up and let it record for a couple hours over night. Wake up and be done.
Tivo2Go sounded wonderful until I realized it was in a format that was worthless to go straight to a portable media device, it was slow as hell to bring over from the unit, and then it was slow as hell to convert with Dr. Divx.
Blah. Just do as I asked and change the "Save to VCR" function for me
I think it's too late for Tivo. They should have done this a couple years ago. Now everyone has their own PVR. I have had a "DVR" from DishNetwork for almost 2 years. With DirecTV and Comcast setting their own box out... that's the final 2 nails in the coffin...
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
A company out there, whos had their market influenced by competition and innovation, trying to improve their business by means other than litigation.
I'm not one who watches much TV, therefor a Tivo was never big on my shopping list, but I have to say its refreshing to see a company try to improve their product rather than sue the compition.
Heres to you Tivo, and best of luck.
#include sig.h
- Tivo sells PVRs.
- Microsoft, afraid that Tivo could someday use its position as a PVR vendor to push upward into areas of functionality traditionally the sole domain of the PC, starts trying to muscle into the PVR market so as to eventually make PVR sales impossible to profit from, at least for Tivo.
- Tivo, beginning to realize that soon PVR sales will be impossible to profit from, begins to push upward into areas of functionality traditionally the sole domain of the PC in order to retain health.
And I laugh.I'm a loyal TiVo customer, and I simply don't get what this company is trying to do. They've basically blown it with the cable providers, so their only real hope in making some serious cash just hit the shitter. I kinda feel like the first days of Java when it was thrown out ther to "developers" who created useless applets. I have no desire to look at pictures on my TV. I can do that by plugging in my digital camera. I have no desire to share stuff with my Mac, unless I can download the videos in a normal codec (MPG) and save stuff on my computer.
What else is there to do on this thing that developers are really going to tap into to get my mom, dad, sister and in-laws to buy a TiVo?
I've said this before, but I am dead serious: they need more porn. It's always driven technology and made money. The cable companies are cashing in. The hotel chains are cashing in. The industry is cashing in. Now, that won't mak my family buy it, per se, but people WILL buy it if they see more hooters and camel toe.
This move for a "developers kit" it desperate becaue they can't think of anything else. They need a CEO like Jobs, because a visionary who can execute is the only way this company will be saved.
Fortunately, they are based on a decent OS and, by opening the platform up to the developers, can appeal directly to users.
It will take a long while for cable-companies to offer anything comparable on their proprietary boxes.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I think the point is that they don't need to make the apps themselves. Paypal/Ebay did the development. This just enhances there service. What if Jeopardy did one that allowed you to play along at home somehow? or they made an instant blog module where you could populate a blog entry with a screen shot and information about the show your watching.
Tivo, struggling to keep customers and inch towards profitability as execs step down, has continued to shift focus from pure PVR functionality towards digital convergence.
I'm not sure Digital Convergence is the model Tivo should follow. Although I suppose it'll be alright, eventually, now that their primary product has entered the realm of open-source tinkering.
Oh, you mean the failure to capitalize Digital Convergence wasn't an editorial accident? Oops.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Good idea about Jobs. I think Apple should buy TiVo. It would fit perfectly into their whole home-media-centricity. If Apple bought TiVo it would instantly put them ahead of Microsoft's Media Center and give them a real wedge into the living room. And porting TiVo's application layer to OS X should be pretty straightforward if they want TiVo 3 to be a Mac for the living room.
What really bugs me about the attempts to stop TV from being shared on the web is the lack of thought about cause and effect.
Here's a question: Why would anybody download a show off the internet?
Here's a few answers:
1.) Because I or my TiVo missed it.
2.) I didn't know about the show until after it had aired.
3.) Everybody's telling me about this show, but I want to see the original episode first.
4.) I want to have a copy I can watch over and over again.
5.) The picture quality of the downloaded version is better. (Believe it or not, I really have run into this.)
6.) I can't get that show, I don't have the right channel nor can I get it.
I doubt that an answer like "I'm sick of commercials" would be a widely used one. Who'd want to spend > 1 hour downloading a show to save 12 minutes in commercials? Not a lot.
Imagine what would happen if all of these reasons were addressed. Who would want to acquire unauthorized copies then? What if it became standard for the first episode of any series to be available for download on the show's website? What if DVD releases of TV shows happened closer to when they were originally aired? What if I could pay a couple of bucks to buy download of an episode I missed? Who'd even bother with transferring files over the net then?
Lots of business opportunities here. *Sigh*
"Derp de derp."
Tivo's a great product, but they keep trying to let the users do everything they want....so long as it doesn't make any large companies sad. Here's what they need to do: 1.) Open the system fully. The Tivo started as a very hackable device, but they've been moving to a more and more closed environment. There should be guides on their own website explaining how to add hard drives. There's no reason we can't plug in a USB mouse and keyboard and run X on the thing. 2.) Open exports and imports. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to download an mpg file from my Tivo or load a new one into it. As much as I understand that they don't want to piss off corporations, TV my way is TV where I can send shows I like to my friends and archive my favorites on a permanent medium for myself. It ain't any less legal than a VCR. 3.) Offer a warranty. The TiVo is covered in stickers warning that doing anything except plugging it in will void your warranty, but the "warranty" is an offer to replace it for a small discount if it breaks. It it breaks, and I didn't touch it, and it's been less than a year or so, I want a new one, and I don't intend to pay them. 4.) Put in ad skipping. Sure, it won't endear you to anyone, but they don't like you anyway. Remember, the customer of the cable company is the advertiser. You are not a cable company. Your customer is the person who buys a TiVo. That's important. I'll repeat it. Your customers are not advertisers. They are not cable companies. They are not producers, movie-makers, or any of them. Your job is to appeal to consumers and only consumers. The advertisers will pay you for popups and the like, but if people don't buy TiVo's, you're out of business.
Second, DL times are slow because the TiVO has to wrap the video stream in DRM, and it can only do that so fast.
So, the average user finds themself having to do all sorts of gymnastics to get the benefits that the marketing material promised would come from TTG. And it STILL doesn't allow you to do useful things like put your Home Movies on (or stream them to) your TiVO.
And they wonder why their subscriber base is declining?
----
I talk TiVO and HTPC a bit here too... :-)
As others have noted, the file transfer time is very slow. I guess this may be due to the Tivo's slow processor and the fact that the Tivo is still functioning (recording and playing back etc.) while the transfer is going.
Supposedly the Tivo Series 2 units have USB 2.0 ports and the drivers with the 7.1 upgrade are supposed to enable USB 2.0 - but apparently this hasn't resulted in much of a speed gain. There are some notes on this in the Tivo forums.
The media files you pull over are protected with DRM. They are linked to your Tivo device's media access key and require a password to play. There are a few methods circulating for stripping the DRM such as this one using GraphEdit:
TiVo To Go MPEG2 Decrypting
The files are MPEG2 which means they are pretty darn big. You can expect about 1.2 gigabytes for an hour show at medium quality. Despite the huge file size, the image quality on the shows I have transfered isn't that great. The output seems grainy compared to video caps I've done straight off of a composite video cable. The signal on the TV is clean.The last problem I've had is with playback of the Tivo files on Windows 2000. I have a DVD player installed and can play DVDs fine. I also have the AC3 codec installed so audio works fine (for example on Divx files with AC3 audio). But MPEG2 playback on any sort except standard DVD comes out squished. The horizontal aspect ratio is messed up, so everyone looks anorexic. Does anyone know how to fix this? I have no problems playing back on Windows XP. So while it's nice to finally be able to move stuff off when the Tivo is getting full (and no I don't want to hack it - if I broke the Tivo the girlfriend would kill me) the service certainly has room for improvement. Also the fact that the upcoming software for burning the shows to DVD (Sonic MyDVD) is being sold not included with Tivo service is pretty lame.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Some of these features seem a little silly to me, truth be told, but cheer up! If you've got any of the last three generations of ReplayTVs (5[0135]xx or 4xxx), you can, today, copy shows to your PC (running pretty much your choice of OS -- forget this Windows dependency crap). Not to mention once they're on your PC, you can stream them to your RTV and watch them there.
:)
And you can use drives bigger than 127Gb.
In my humble, 20-20 hindsight opinion TiVo missed a big chance by not sometime earlier beginning to research TV-over-IP, in order to create something where the TiVo becomes a component in an IPTV platform that bandwidth providers-- like DSL companies-- license. This would give Tivo a clear profit model, and do so in a way that directly makes use of their products' intrinsic advantages, rather than like they do now just giving away razors and desperately trying to convince disinterested people that they want to buy blades.
Now it's probably too late for this. All the notable players are beginning to lock themselves into platforms for IPTV, and they're all choosing Microsoft's product. Yeah. Good luck getting THAT to integrate with a Tivo once it gets up and running.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
You can get a TiVo that has TiVo Basic, which gives you VCR like functionality and a bit more, without any monthly fee. I have the Toshiba SD H400 (which is a TiVo and a DVD Player). See http://customersupport.tivo.com/knowbase/root/publ ic/tv1199.htm
I don't think TIVO is going to stay afloat because it's a flawed business design. I read that TIVO is going to be forcing viewers to view pop up ads in March while they're fast forwarding. My girlfriend has Direct TV and TIVO and loves it. I have Dish Network and a PVR and I love it but hate her TIVO. I don't want an interactive recorder. I want a device that lets me record program X at time Y and then play it back at my convenience.
...of hearing about this wonderful device / service combination which I am unable to buy. Tivo stopped selling hardware in the UK years ago now, and show no signs of selling any more.
:(
I want to buy it, but don't want a possibly dodgy second-hand premodified one from some person on ebay. I want a new, unchanged, virgin Tivo box to put under my telly. I am entirely aware that there are alternatives, but all either need more time or money (or both, MythTV I'm looking at you here), or are harder to use.
I HAVE MONEY WAITING FOR YOU MISTER TIVO! LET ME KNOW WHEN I CAN GIVE IT TO YOU!
Game dev and music blog
Last year I bought a refurbished series 1 Tivo. I love it, but more importantly my wife and daughter really like it as well. When they made the home media option for series 2 free, and dropped the price for subscribing a second Tivo, I almost bought two new ones right there. But as I'm watching the moves this company makes, I've become less and less likely to invest more money in their products. It seems like they keep giving away bits and pieces of the core functionality that make up the very reason I love my Tivo! Then they team up with Microsoft, which makes me think there'll be no Tivo-To-Go for my Mac anytime soon; plus I am wondering if MS is going to start forcing them toward their typical "look at what the customer really wants and find a way to shoehorn it into a full-blown Windows box so it doesn't conflict with our corporate goals" mode of operation.
I'd really like to see Tivo succeed; but I haven't seen any evidence that leads me to think that's at all likely. So for now, I'll just keep using my old Series 1 box, and keep that VCR going out in the family room...
#DeleteChrome
I'm a TiVo Series 1 owner for quite a while now (bought the 'lifetime' subscription at the original price.) Don't get me wrong, I still love the Tivo; the interface is the best, the packaging and stability excellent. But, my S1 is starting to show it's age, and it was time to think about replacing it with something with more capability and perhaps allowing some hacking. The Series 2 machine isn't that machine. Propiatary formats, a closed system, low CPU power on the platform, and not-so-great expandibility are all adding up to move me away from Tivo. Plus, I don't want to deal with monthly subscriptions either, so the only way to go is with the lifetime subscription, which is priced too high.
Two weeks ago I put together my first MythTV box, and I must say that it's been very good. Sure, it's not ready for Joe Sixpack yet, but for the crowd that wants to move video around and play around with the machine some more, it's just the ticket. I'm slowing moving recordings from the Tivo to the MythTV... Additionally, the quality of video under Myth is much better than the TiVo, and I can tweak the storage options to my hearts' content.
For Tivo, it might be too little, too late to attract the hacker community, and most of the non-tech crowd only wants to watch sienfield reruns and doesn't care about moving things to their PC. Perhaps they might have captured back some of the tech market by providing open standards and decent access methods, but Tivo still hasn't figured out who their customer is. DRM is toadying to the cable industry, not serving their customers.
}#q NO CARRIER
I think that Apple should get into the media center market, once the CableCard 2.0 standard is available, but I see no point in Apple buying TiVo. What would TiVo bring to the deal?
Name recognition? If anything, Apple's is even better.
Profits? TiVo is losing money.
User interface? Apple doesn't really need TiVo's help in user interface design, and the once-innovative TiVo interface is starting to seem a bit clunky next to things like iTunes. Apple would be better advised to come up with their own from scratch.
You are mistaken. There was a time when TiVo thought that cable companies were TiVo's optimal customers. Had TiVo made more deals like the DirecTV/TiVo deal, many more customers who wanted a particular cable/satellite offering but were PVR-platform-agnostic would have been introduced to TiVo.
TiVo's original marketing plan was to build something that would become the standard for set-top boxes that cable/satellite companies provide their customers.
However, early "buzz" about the very open Series 1 turned TiVo into the darling of techies and tinkerers. Only later did TiVo customers discover that the Series 1 openness was not part of the original business plan, but was merely the convergence of not-yet-mature DRM technology and very mature tinkerers.
This left TiVo with a problem. Its natural and intended market -- cable/satellite companies -- became afraid of TiVo as a device that would steal potential corporate revenues. So TiVo felt greater pressure to make cable/satellite-friendly marketing and feature decisions. Yet it could not make those decisions without destroying its "buzz" among the tech-folks who were its earliest and most vocal supporters.
In summary, TiVo is the victim of a schizophrenic and not-well-considered business plan.
Tivo has somehow managed to pick up almost 5bil in debt. NO ONE is going to buy them. Everyone is waiting for Tivo to go under and then buy up everyone's support contract after the fact and take over from there.
I saw a few negative comments about Tivo to Go so I wanted to share my positive experience. I have been working on making DVDs not viewing on the computer.
Slow transfers:
I have installed the approved Linksys M200 USB wired network adapter. Transferring shows takes about 2/3 of the time of the show's length when recorded at high quality. My hub says it's at 100mbits. Bored during transfers? Go watch the Tivo! You can start a bunch of stuff transferring and go got bed.
This is what I do that produces pretty good results by going with the flow a bit:
Stop being a cheap ass and buy the dang Sonic software. The $50 version works just fine. You will spend that much on blank DVDs and Tivo service in no time. It's not the best DVD authoring software but once you set up the project it goes all by itself in one long, slow step (about 1.5 times show length on my Barton 2600) without user intervention. No screwing around with 27 painful steps to remove DRM, etc. With Sonic you can easily hack out the commercials in minutes. You can always leave commercials in and fast forward the DVD.
Record on the Tivo at high or best quality.
When making the DVD don't try to put more than an hour on a 4.7G DVD. Use the "fit to DVD" or High quality option. If you want to do a movie make two DVDs until dual layer media gets reasonable. There is an encoding quality option you need to turn up in the Sonic software that takes more time and increases quality.
Even if you record something on the Tivo at basic quality and it isn't repeated so you can turn up the quality if you follow the above one hour per DVD rule it's still kicks butt over dump to even slow play VHS tape.
The end result is not as good as a store bought DVD but then again the current season of the Simpsons isn't due out on DVD anytime soon.
For our friends who like to share:
Once it's on a DVD there isn't any DVD copy protection. You can make copies of the DVD. I haven't tried it but you should be able to make an ISO or Nero image and have your fun.
I just bought this damn box. I put a Linksys 10/100TX usb adapter on it - the files (900 MB for 30mins) come to my machine at 400 KB/sec. (yeah thats bytes) We have a 250 gig hard drive in there for good measure. At the moment I've got 49 spongebob episodes and a crapload of other stuff.
o rd:yourmediaaccesskey
...
TIVO 2 GO works great if you dont use the software - or if you do even. Want to do it by hand? Go to:
https://[youttivoipaddr]/
username:tivo
passw
DL all the files you want from your 'now playing list'. As for DRM - well... tmpeg makes a nice VDC of it - and virtualdub has no problem manhandling the files either.
And sorry but I'd disagree with the statement 'everyone has one already'. I know LOTS of folks who just don't - you do too if you'd look outside your geek bubble.
Could I have hacked this together myself? You bet. Am I too damn lazy? Well now
I purchased a TurboNet card for the inside expansion slot. This gives me true 100mbit access. 900mb in 30 minutes... right.. try 10 minutes with this sucker.
Upgraded the image to 3.0 with the Instant Cake imaging CD. This also includes all the cool tools like tivoweb, tivoftp, etc..
All that remains is to extract the MPEGs to my computer. And that is handled with TyStudio. Its a client/server operation and works very well.
Now see? That wasn't so bad. Oh, on eBay my Series1 was $56 including shipping!
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
DirectTV markets a Tivo for $99 and charges only $5 / month for all of your Tivo's. Better yet, it has an integrated dual tuner so you can watch/record two different programs at once. Not a bad deal.
The rub is that it only has Version 3 of the Tivo software, so you can't use the USB connector to hook up a NIC. No plans from DirectTV in the near future for getting the Tivo software up to date. So we can all enjoy these new apps, except for those of us who bought our DVR from DirectTV :-P
I love TiVo. What it can do that no other PVR can is the Wishlist.
Example: I tell it I want anything with "Star Trek" in the subject, and I DON'T get ST episodes that I've seen 100 times, but I do get any show ABOUT Trek that airs. No Cable, Media Center, or Myth PVR can do anything like this, and this is TiVo's strength in a nutshell. Likewise, Season Passes that are smart enough to only get new episodes, or ones that it knows it hasn't gotten before.
Sadly, I agree with the posters here that TiVo is doomed. Why? Terrible (nonexistent) integration with high quality/HD signal and inputs! Sure, there's an HD DirecTiVo for $1000, but I don't use satellite, even if I was willing to spend that much. And the only connection options for the thing are Coax, composite, and S-video. I can understand no DVI, but where the hell are the component inputs?
My beloved TiVo is now the weak link in my otherwise all-digital HDTV stream. With no sign of improvement in sight.
I recently got the Comcast cable box with integrated DVR and have been running it side-by-side with the tivo. I gotta tell ya, it's not bad. It only adds $10/month to the cable bill with no equipment to buy. And, it has the advantage of being able to record two programs simultaneously while watching a recorded program, which my standalone Tivo cannot do (yes, I know that DirectTivos can do this). It has series programming and you can tell it whether or not to record only first-run shows.
And once I found out about the 30-second-skip hack for the Comcast box, that was one less advantage that the tivo had. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=0e 5989c1d025b758ed6399bf9730be7a&threadid=449214&per page=20&pagenumber=2/
Some people have been able to transfer shows off the Comcast box using the integrated firewire interface. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?post id=3818890#post3818890/
IMHO, tivo is in trouble. Yes, tivo has a better interface and useful stuff like wishlists. But $13/month plus having to buy your own box is just too much compared to the cable company's DVR. And the cable company's DVR will be enough for most people.
Tivo are doomed. They were popular because they solved a problem that pisses a lot of people off: advertising. Their customers were those who were the most annoyed by the advertising, enough to pay money to do something about it. Their customers loved the fact that Tivo was "sticking it to the man" for them.
Not the case anymore. Now Tivo is about "compromise" and "innovation" and putting ads back into their customers shows and supporting Macrovision blocking of pay-per-view shows etc.
The thing they don't seem to grasp is that their customer base are made up of those who were not prepared to "compromise". These are people who said "No, I'm not prepared to compromise on this. I will not accept shit in my cornflakes. I don't care if there's less shit and it's harder to taste, I'm not giving you my money unless my cornflakes are shit-free"
Advice to Tivo: Stop looking at ways to "innovate" and get back to "fixing your customers problem"
-1 Uncomfortable Truth