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Can TiVo be Saved?
ChipGuy writes "TiVo's death watch has begun. The company is having a tough time finding traction in the marketplace, as more and more competitors rush into the market, most of them deep pocketed satellite and cable companies. But is all lost? What if the company went private and became the anti-cable, letting us download, store, organize, and serve media from both cable and -- this is the important part -- the internet.
Others believe that TiVo should get into the content aggregation business."
I have held off from getting TiVo or the equivalant as I had figured that this would happen. Just like most types of technology things get smaller and cheaper. (then the big boys take over)
I figure that the Cable companies are going to move very quickly in this arena. My own (Comcast) offers "On Demand" programming right now for free. I can view programs, store and play later as if it were a movie/DVD. It sounds like the next step is to watch what ever you want, when you want as long as you pay what they want.
I can wait for it all to come together, I know how to program my VCR.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I work for TiVo.
Believe me, it can be very disheartening to work for an innovator in a marketplace where large established companies have such control over the distribution channels.
Cable companies and satellite companies already have a "lock" to a large extent on their customers and for them to sell an additional service such as a DVR requires so much less capital investment in marketing, and let's face it, making a good product, than it takes for a company like TiVo.
And those companies already have much deeper pockets than a small company like TiVo with which to absorb the losses associated with pushing this rather expensive technology out to users.
It's kind of funny to me that people will pay $80 cable bills without a whimper but will cry foul at the concept of paying $13 a month to TiVo to make the cable service so much more worthwhile.
Cable DVRs suck. Most people would be much happier with a TiVo and would find the extra expense to be justified. I know I'm biased but I honestly believe that.
My comments are my own and I do not speak for my employer.
Tivo's problems are proof that you can not meet the RIAA/MPAA/advertisers halfway. They will screw you.
You either have to roll over completley or get ready for a long hard battle that you will win. TIVO wimped out and tried to make everyone happy, in the process making very few people happy. They'll get bought by someone. I'd like it to be Apple, but I'm skeptical.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
That would be focussing on the consumer. This approach sounds good, but it never works. All you end up with is greedy consumers wanting more and more.
Damn those greedy customers, expecting more and more for what they will surely be willing to pay for.
But, since we've been told to start sharing our unininformed opinions:
1) I don't see where turning TiVo into an Internet storage device is a huge win. Yeah, maybe it's a good idea and they should do it, but that will be just as easy for others to duplicate as the PVR business.
2) I'm not sure whether Jarvis is hinting that they should become a warez enabler, but if he is, that's a dead-end business plan. As surely as piracy will continue to exist, that surely will it remain impossible to run a major business on that model in developed countries.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Would be nice if they could stream the TV shows off the internet so you could buy what channels (or what shows) you wanted ala-carte. I hate paying $40 a month for my cable when I only watch one network (ESPN) that isn't on the basic $10 a month list.
There is no DVR out there better then Tivo. I know some people think their $1000 MythTV box is great but that aint for the masses. Windows Media center def isnt there yet. Tivo rocks and I dont know why everyone has put this death sentence on it. How can Tivo survive, release some new boxes with enhanced features ie. a mass market HD Box w/ Multiple tuners(like the one they have for direct tv already), a regular box with multiple tuners, integrated wired or wireless networking. Add some of those features and heck, I will even buy another one. LONG LIVE TIVO!!
The sad truth is this: TiVo will fail.
The reasons are simple:
1. The cable companies are rolling their own DVRs. TiVo failed to get traction here, and it will kill them.
2. TiVo has hobbled itself. There were features out there that could have helped them (essentially value adds above and beyond the cable company DVRs), but they were too slow to market, and too restrictive in their implementation. Examples: TiVo to Go. Network-able TiVos. Commercial skip. Good features, but TiVo hobbled them (or implemented them late) either through proprietary standards or by not officially advertising them to Joe Sixpack.
-EvilMagnus
Is TiVo free? Last I heard no. In which case expect me to take no part in it. Sorry TiVo, but I like my money in my pocket.
That's funny!
Indeed, everything should always be free. We should all get paid for doing our work, but should be able to get all of the stuff and services we want for free. That would be perfect! And then, cool new free companies would have all sorts of incentives to hire lots of people to invent even cooler new things that they'd give away for free! Excellent! Everyone would just have all sorts of money, and all sorts of cool things, too! Fantastic!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Tivo made a certain kind of impact, the kind where their name has become a verb for recording TV. That does not guarantee long term success of course.
Today we xerox on a Canon. It's probably a bit previous-generation, but every refrigerator was a Frigidaire, even when Frigidaire's market share had dwindled. In lots of places, every soft drink is a "coke". I've heard different convenience stores being referred to as "the 7-Eleven". And so on.
Tivo might have lasted just long enough to spawn this effect. "I missed the show but I Tivo'd it."
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I want nobody to ever mess with 30 second skip. DO NOT FUCK WITH 30 SECOND SKIP.
I got the Charter DVR service from Charter Communications as a test, which is a Motorola BMC9012 running Digeo's MOXI software.
When first set up, the skip button was a 30 second skip, and replay was a 7 second reverse jump.
After the box downloaded its first software update, the skip button stopped working. It became a 15 minute skip. What the fuck purpose is a 15 minute skip?
I called Charter to inquire about this. I asked what the purpose of the 15 minute skip button was; they responded that it was to jump quickly into a program (WTF?). I asked them why it was no longer a 30 second skip. The person I was talking to responded that it was "illegal" to have a 30 second skip.
After I recovered myself from this egregiously wrong statement, I informed him there was no state of federal law prohibiting a 30 second skip on a PVR, and further informed him of other PVRs that do just that. He insisted there was "a law". I asked to speak to his supervisor, who again told me it was "against the law" to have a 30 second skip, and that Charter had to "obey they law". I again informed him there was no such law, and asked him to cite any such law. The conversation essentially went nowhere. I tried the next day with the same result.
While pondering the absurdity of it all, I got a call back from a manager at Charter who had apparently become aware of my call. He apologized for the phone representatives saying that it was "illegal"...he said, essentially, that they shouldn't have said it was "illegal" or "against the law", but that Charter had "legal concerns" with its content providers and advertisers. I pointed out that Charter's corporate "legal concerns" are a lot different than something being "illegal", and that the phone agents might not want to tell people that.
But ultimately, how many people will get DVR services like this and never know there was such a thing as a 30-second skip? They'll be tickled that they can record 40 hours of video (not knowing they could record 400 by just adding a drive, which of course is disabled on this box) and fast forward through commercials like a VCR, and that they can pay Charter an extra monthly fee to watch the recorded content on another TV in their own home (not knowing that it's technically possible to also watch it on their laptop, PDA, portable media player, or anywhere else they should be able to watch it). And the ones who do know about the 30-second skip will probably swallow Charter's "we can't do it because it's illegal" copout.
And when July rolls around, those same people won't wonder how we're unable to do things we could do 30 years ago with the VCR when their DVR box tells them they're not allowed to record ER in HD (and that they must watch it live), and a call to Charter only elicits the blameless "Well, we have to follow what the TV networks make us do - it's not our fault..."
The cable and satellite providers might be in the best position to provide DVR services that can tune all of the subscribed channels on their networks directly, without having to have some kind of convoluted IR Blaster setup or multiple settops, but they're also in the best position to severely restrict the featuresets and functionality of those boxes as well...
Take a page from Apple.
Build a content sales and distribution network to feed you hardware business.
Apple uses iTunes to promote iPods. Tivo should build an internet version of a cable specialty channel, and distribute content. Bittorrent does it now, Tivo can do it for the Tivoted.
Apple are you listening? A repackaged Mac Mini (Mac PVR) with TV tuner, more storage, a dedicated remote control and a bittorrent flavoured version of iTunes. And while you are at it buy Tivo. And remember, do it with STYLE
"What if the company went private and became the anti-cable, letting us download, store, organize, and serve media from both cable and -- this is the important part -- the internet."
And they could include networking hardware for free, and networking software for free, and share TV over the Internet, and share it to the PC using free open source software, and then they could change their name to ReplayTV since they have been doing all of that for years?
Yes, sharing and auto-commercial-skipping is disabled in the new ones, but who buys the new ones.
But seriously, if Tivo copied everything my Replay does (and maybe call it "innovating" like they did with Tivo To Go) and let me **store** and play my MP3s from the Tivo, I would covert in a heartbeat. I have yet to see a stereo component that lets me store my MP3s - I either have to use my portable, or spend $300 for a fancy LCD that needs my computer running 24/7.
Either that or it's just somebody with a chip on his shoulder.
One of the greatest things about HDTV is that it is sent over the air. Why pay for a cable service at all if you can get the shows you want via antenna and get the highest quality available. Not to mention, you can search shows and get a guide of what's on through your Tivo.
I think *because* of HDTV that Tivo will come back.
Cable/Satelite $65 per month with DVR functionality
Over the Air HDTV $14 per month with Tivo service
I'll save the extra $50 a day gladly.
Hard to say. The "oh crap, they're dying" most likely comes from the fact that the majority of their subscribers are through DirecTV, and that DirecTV has chosen both not to renew their contract with Tivo and to pursue their own DVRs.
They're probably still raking in customers, but the majority of them are still DirecTV folks. And those will start to disappear as DirecTV drops support and people start upgrading in a few years. I believe the contract is through 2007. With DirecTV's impending move to MPEG4, the existing tivo units won't even work once the transition is complete. The HD-Tivo owners will get screwed first, as HD locals will be the first to move to mpeg4, followed by non-local HD, and finally by all the SD channels.
I'm hoping tivo succeeds, though-- I've really liked the two tivos I've had, despite the sluggishness of the directv models. I'm hoping that the upcoming dual-tuner cablecard unit (buy it and use it on any cable system) will finally do what i want. Dual tuner, fully digital recording, all the SA tivo features, and the ability to move from network to network.
2. "I don't watch TV, why do I want a TiVo?"
This is not a nonsense excuse, it's a real reason not to pay for television.
I've watched television since my parents got their first set in 1964. I was watching eight hours a day in the early 1970's.
But no more. Television is an extremely limited medium. there are only five things:
1: Sentimental pseudo-dramas with endless close-up shots of actors overacting under heavy lights and heavy make-up.
2: Canned laughter situation-comedies that are rarely if ever actually funny.
3. Talking heads going on endlessly; saying nothing.
4. The Game. Televising 'da game, man' hasn't changed much in fifty years. Turn on a TV and within a half-second you know if you have on 'the game'. It never stops; it never changes. You either like it or not.
5. Commercials. They used to be 60 seconds, now they are all 30 or 15 seconds. Some people consider them to be a unique American art form; some people consider pissing on a electric wire to be an art form. Nearly everyone thinks commercials suck and trys to avoid them.
That's it. That's all television is. And, it is all that it will ever be. Because of its institutional structure and technical limitations, it is all television can ever be.
Myself, I would rather watch DVDs, ride bicycle, write code, dance, make love, or eat pizza than watch television.
Nothing that the television industry can do could make me go back to watching television. It's not hatred or contempt. It's just that television is simply too limited for me anymore. I've seen everything that it can possibly do. I've just gone beyond it. It doesn't matter any more how cheap that it is or what format it is.
5.
DVRs are obviously here to stay no matter what happens. People who own TiVos are addicted to them and the satellite and cable guys are moving to emulate them, not supplant them. So far, most of their offerings are lame from what I've seen so TiVO clearly has an opportunity.
Granted, stand-alone DVRs may not survive. Instead, your DVR will probably be integrated into your paid-TV pipe as more and more of those pipes go digital. I have a DirecTiVo and it rocks. If it stopped working, I'd drop my whole satellite subscription entirely and stop watching regular TV entirely. It wouldn't be much of a sacrifice as before my DirectTiVo, I didn't have regular TV, I just watched DVDs. I only got regular TV after 9/11, and since then I've found that the regular news coverage is so bad that you're better informed if you DON'T watch TV. Bottom line for me is that TV is only worth watching with a DVR.
So I see that TiVO could easily survive simply by being the standard "operating system" for set-top boxes and satellite recievers. The subscription fee can then be rolled into the fee for the monthly service, or subsidized like mine is. (DirectTV only charges $5/month for the TiVO part). Assuming its even necessary as my DirectTiVO gets all its program information from the satellite anyways.
However, at 3 million subscribers, that's easily enough to keep the company afloat no matter what happens.
So TiVO as separate box you buy at Circuit City? Probably not going to last. TiVo as a "feature" of your cable/satellite box? Inevitable.
We'll see how this plays out. Either the technical superiority of TiVo will win out or the lower-cost, lower-quality options that the cable companies can offer will win out. Actually it's likely that both will win and retain some part of the market, the question is, how large a part for each respectively?
If you haven't already it sounds like you need to read The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. The DVRs the cable companies put out don't have to be better to put TiVo out of business. They just have to be good enough, cheaper and easy to get. Being a technology leader is only valuable if three things are true. First, that you can stay a technology leader and protect that position. (through futher innovation, patents, etc) Second, that your technology leadership either lets you be the low cost provider OR that customers value your technology such that it lets you charge a premium for your services. Third, that you have economicly viable access to the right distribution channels. TiVo is arguably the technology leader in the DVR industry but I think it is failing on the maybe the second and definitely the third conditions.
Let me give you an example. Most of us criticize (rightly IMO) Microsoft for a lack of innovation. But being the leader isn't always the best business strategy. Economists call Microsoft a fast follower. They don't innovate. They don't know how to. And if they tried, they'd fail. But what they do very successfully is watch the leaders in the market and then copy their innovations while leveraging their strengths in marketing, distribution. OS/2 challeged Windows NT a few years back. Result? Windows 95. It wasn't better than OS/2 technologically but it was good enough and Microsoft controled the distribution channels. (plus IBM shot themselves in the foot repeatedly) They can learn from the innovations and mistakes of the innovators and come out with a good enough product that most customers will buy. Sure, it's not a glamorous strategy but being a fast follower can be very, very effective.
The downside of being a fast follower? You might not be able to catch the market leader if you aren't quick enough. Microsoft hasn't been able to catch Intuit with their Microsoft Money product despite years of trying. They got caught on the wrong side of an installed base. Being a successful fast follower requires lots of resources and an acute ear for what the market is telling you. But it also means that if there is a fundamental shift in the market or if you misread the market, you're screwed. Microsoft may have be screwed because Open Source could be one of those tectonic shifts ("disruptive technologies" in my Christensen's terminologies) that fundamentally alters the market place such that their own organizational structure no longer permits them to compete effectively. Whether this is actually the case remains the be seen.
The other problem with being a fast follower is that if you are too good, you end up a monopoly with no on to copy from. As a result a successful fast follower either stagnates or has to move into other industries to grow. Microsoft is in this position right now. Their core OS and Office products are stagnant monopolies. Very profitable but unlikely to provide massive growth. So Microsoft is having to branch out into other lines of business. Dell is doing somewhat the same thing. They're so successful in selling PC's they are having to branch into printers, PDAs and other technologies to continue to grow.
The way that both cable and SAT are received into the home is so stupid to begin with anyway. If it were fixed (which would probably take government intervention to make companies do it right), TIVO's fortunes would probably be better.
I have long believed that the providers should only have to install one box in my house in the basement where the cable enters the house. That box should decode all the channels that I have contacted for with my provider. Then those signals should be sent to all of the cable outlets in my house. They used to do something similar to this (I lived in an apartment in Marlborough, MA that did this up until 1999) with the channels effectively de-scrambled at the pole. Only the cable entered the apartment and any TV could watch any channel including the premium ones. Alas that ended in early 2000 when they sent us a letter saying would have to get boxes for continued premium service. (Might I add right after we got the box and all was well for a brief time, we also had to 4 day outage when the screwed the whole transition up, that's another story.)
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.