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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."
Maybe if TiVo has patents on their system, they can use those to make enough money to stay afloat for a while?
1. Tivo licenses content.
2. Tivo provides nice search interface for Tivo BitTorrent client.
3. Tivo provides centralized Torrent servers and includes content in $12.95.
4. Goodbye cable!
Has anybody tried the new SDK? It's pretty cool...they should have done it from the beginning.
No offense taken.
TiVo can provide technical innovation. Cable companies are generally not known for their ability to innovate technology or to produce compelling products such as set top boxes like TiVo with new and advanced features. They tend to "follow leads" as is obvious now with the crop of second-rate DVRs that they are releasing.
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?
Believe me, no one at TiVo is under any delusions that we don't have to work *very hard* to stay ahead of the pack and retain technical superiority.
I feel that especially on this topic, I have to remind everyone that I speak for myself and not TiVo.
Content aggregation sounds like a great idea, but remember that cable companies have a lot of exisiting ties with the media companies that actually produce the content. Even if Tivo starts doing this, the second they turn profitable the cable companies will play their relationships (I've worked in entertainment... the whole industry is about the relationships) with the media companies to undercut Tivo and get them out. I like the idea of Tivo, but I think the company is fighting an uphill battle.
I say they get bought by Comcast or Time Warner before the end of the decade.
Those boxes work much more like a digital VCR than a true DVR as far as I know, although I have to admit I have never used one and can only go on others' observations here.
Also you are providing evidence for at least some of my points - believe me there is no way that cable companies could push such *very expensive* technology as dual-tuner HD pvrs without the deep pockets that they have to absorb the losses that must be associated with that product. There is just no way that $10/month can support the development of, production of, and distribution of that product.
Not to sound pessimistic, but what happens to all the Tivo boxes if the subscription Tivo relies on goes away? Can they be converted to work with other schedulers? Would they at least maintain a basic 'dumb' disk-based VCR like capability?
I have a Comcast DVR that is dual tuner, so it can record two shows at once, and it records HD. It has other features that Tivo does not, such as a Firewire port to offload content (which I haven't used yet so I can't really vouch for it). Best part: I didn't have to shell out ~$1000 for an HD-capable DVR, and since I don't have good enough line-of-sight for satellite, it's pretty much my only option for recording HD.
It's only a matter of time before your local cable company has similar features.
I also have a Series 2 Tivo, which has been relegated to bedroom duty, and had a Series 1 in the past. I have LOVED Tivo (both the product and the company) since 2001. Tivo's software is *slightly* easier to use than my Comcast DVR, but until they catch up in HD support they will lose ground.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Maybe the best bet for Tivo's survival is to get acquired by DirecTV. The Tivo/DirecTV (or "DirecTivo") integration is excellent. I can't even remember how I watched tv at all before I had my DirecTivo box.
Anyone who has tried Comcast's alternative to Tivo knows that the interface is completely horrible. It actually makes me angry just to think about it.
When I move this summer, I'm planning on continuing with DirecTV service rather than switching to cable strictly because of the tight integration with Tivo. The Tivo partnership is already a huge asset to DirecTV, they might as well add Tivo to their balance sheet and make it official.
Tivo is my favorite robot friend (next is Roomba). Tivo has made TV fun and interesting again. I discovered Battlestar Galactica thanks to Tivo. I think I'd cry if Tivo died... seriously.
I really, really like my 1st-gen Tivo. Streaming the whole world's content is probably not in their cards, because of the enormous legal costs to get that started (and defended).
A good first step would be a CableCard-enabled TiVo, so that it can sit directly on those DRM-laden digital cable nets. But there has to be a significant [b]perceived[/b] improvement over the existing cableco-owned PVR. Multiple tuners, better UI, HD... but it's going to be awfully hard to generate revenue when the cableco's give their boxes away.
Too bad there's no CableCard equivalent for DirecTV, VOOM, and EchoStar.
Design for Use, not Construction!
How exactly are "VOD, Broadband, VoIP, FM radio, other misc data services (ie Alarm monitoring)" innovations of cable companies?
Cable companies were simply in the fortunate position to be able to re-purpose infrastructure that they had already laid down for another purpose (analog TV distribution). And the repurposing that they did took extra investment in digital set top boxes and cable modem hardware, and who knows whatever infrastructure at their head end. No innovation there at all. It's not like they "invented" the internet or any service thereon that by happy coincidence for them have added value to their service.
DirecTV with TiVo DVRs have all of the advantages that you mentioned about the SA boxes, and they're better DVRs to boot.
I speak for me and not TiVo again (obviously).
The verb "tivo" is firmly established in the American lexicon. I'd hardly call that a failure of marketing.
Tivo's financial problems can all be directly traced back to thei strategy of, "sell the unit at a loss, make it up on volume."
TiVo puts nice software on top of their commodity hardware platform, but they haven't done anything significant to put them ahead of the imitators.
i forget