Tivo To Also Offer Ads Your Way

FangVT writes "InfoWorld is reporting that in mid-2006 Tivo will begin allowing subscribers use keyword searches to look for information on specific products or services. The article does not contain much information but ultimately says 'Throwing in lots of hedge words to soften the idea of advertising once again mingling with TV content, TiVo described the service as non-intrusive, relevant, interactive advertising on an opt-in basis.' Tivo's own press release says, 'For the first time, advertisers will have the ability to deliver television advertising, on demand and targeted to consumers, without the limitations of traditional television media placement.'"

Comments

odd

[ajdowntown]

i is funny, the company that first taught us there is life without advertising is the one trying to bring it back full tilt...

Re:odd

[/ASCII]

I love it. It puts the power over the consumers eyeballs even more firmly in the hands of the consumer.

That said, I doubt very many consumers will use this very often.

Re:odd

[Bastian227]

Oddly enough for me, I have seen more commercials now that I have TiVo. Before TiVo, I watched about 2-3 hours (Buffy, Angel, misc) of TV a week because 1) I had to know about a show and its time slot and 2) I had to be willing to adjust my schedule to see it.

With TiVo, I can pick shows and pick when I want to watch them. The result is that I watch more TV, perhaps about 10 hours a week. (It's somewhat lower because both Buffy and Angel are off the air now.)

So, while watching about 5 times more TV, I see 5 times more commercials. Though I fast-forward through them, I still see several frames of each commercial, and that's all the brain needs to see what product they are advertising.

Re:odd

[timeOday]

That said, I doubt very many consumers will use this very often.

And why would consumers watch ads on TiVo, unless the consumers get paid?

Perhaps TiVo should let customers work off their subscription fee by watching some ads and taking a survey each month (all through their remote control). That would be a pretty cheap feedback channel for advertisers.

I am going to opt in

[hsmith]

I want ads! Oh wait

Re:I am going to opt in

[DickBreath]

There is an easy way to opt in. Just get a season pass to "Paid Programming".

Re:I am going to opt in

[HTH NE1]

I prefer the unconventional comedy stylings of "Bars & Tone".

Opt In Choices

[LiquidCoooled]

Tivo Popup

                    [Program] is about to start!

    [Watch it now with adverts] [Do Not Watch it now]

Re:Opt In Choices

[Aaryn]

Just get the adblock extension and you're all set

Re:Opt In Choices

[lukewarmfusion]

So that's why they call it "time-shifting."

Great more features!

[Bruzer]

Great my Tivo gets another "feature".

I like my Tivo the way it is now. Does anyone know if there is a way to not get any more software updates from the Tivo service?

'Silence is Golden, but Duct tape is Silver' - Stolen sig.

Re:Great more features!

[HTH NE1]

Own a pre-Series2 unit. No-updates comes standard with its service these days.

Re:Great more features!

[DDLKermit007]

You just need to "hack" the Tivo and change a key for software updates to 0. Figure if your going to hack your Tivo for the ability to make it do more you NEED to block updates so they don't break your changes when an update comes out. I think I'll be doing this shortly on my Series 2 soon since I'm allready irritated over the adds that pop up on the main screen and don't want anymore.

Undermining their business model?

[indros13]

TiVo should be wary of this decision, for three reasons:

1) The ad service will be opt-in, but how much do they plan on nagging customers to do so? And who wants to be nagged about having ads, anyway, especially if you bought the thing to avoid them?

2) Targeted ads are certainly more effective, as Google has shown, but it's still advertising in a space buyers have come to expect no ads or ad-skipping.

3) TiVo built the entire model of PVR around the ability to skip ads and record shows more simply than on a VCR. They could do serious damage to their brand image if they embrace advertising after professing to help people avoid it.

While I'm glad they plan to make it opt-in and targeted, I'm still skeptical that they'll find profit at the end of the advertising rainbow by alienating their customers.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[DickBreath]

Another very important reason I love my TiVo is: TO SAVE TIME.

Watching ads, of any kind, does not further that goal.

Not only can I can watch Queer Eye at my convenience, but equally importantly, in only 37 minutes.

Towards this end, may I suggest a new TiVo feature: The ability to play back a program at a higher speed, with the audio pitch remaining unchanged. Hey, Kaffeine (in KDE) does it for me all the time, which I find very useful when watching non-pr0n, such as a physics lecture where the speaker talks v e r y - s l o w l y.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Shakrai]

3) TiVo built the entire model of PVR around the ability to skip ads and record shows more simply than on a VCR. They could do serious damage to their brand image if they embrace advertising after professing to help people avoid it.

They could even more serious damage if they incurred the anger of *AAs by openly attacking the ad based model of TV as you are doing now. I don't think they built the PVR around the ability to skip ads. It was built around the ability to time shift and learn your preferences and automatically record them. Hell, TiVo's big patent (as I understand it) is on the whole thumbs up/down thing. The skipping ads part is a wink and a nudge rather then an advertised ability though. Especially the 30 second skip easter egg.

Mind you, I'm not saying that I didn't buy a TiVo to skip ads. Just that I can appreciate the tight rope they have to walk. If an opt-in service can make them more money AND give the *AAs the impression that they aren't anti-advertisement, then what's the problem?

Re:Undermining their business model?

[the_rev_matt]

Everyone I know that has a TiVO bought it for one reason: time shifting. The ability skip ads is a nice to have, but not a have to have. The ability to watch a show when I have time to instead of having to choose between watching it when it is on or not watching it at all is why I bought a tivo.

I don't get people who seem to find advertising on television and in magazines to be morally reprehensible and an affront to their constitutional rights.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[TheGax]

Everytime Tivo comes up we have to go over this again.
Tivo is not there for skipping ads. It is a byproduct of the device's capabilities. Tivos are no more about skipping ads than VCRs ever were. You can just do it faster.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[StereoPC]

Bottom line - Tivo needs revenue - If they don't mold their business model to be able to tweak some cash out of advertisers none of us will have a Tivo. They are still struggling to even nail down a business model that shows a profit. Personally, I view all content they throw on the machine no matter how painful because I know they know I watched it which allows them to show the advertisers - Hey, see how many people watched this other companies ad! Some of it is good - it has shown me stuff I wouldn't have gone looking for and I ended up watching regularly (Nip/Tuck). I will gladly opt-in for targeted adds (keyword searching for an ad is a cool concept too) to be able to keep my Tivo for years to come. I have used the cable providers version of Tivo and they are extremely painful to use ... they just don't compare. I believe Tivo didn't make this decision lightly and will approach this with respect for their customers as they have always done in the past.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Glsai]

Okay quick question here since you brought up the 30 second easter egg skip and people seem to complain that they are making it harder to skip commercials. I use a DVR (non-TIVO) at home and a TIVO brand DirecTV receiver at my brother's house. Neither has a 30 second skip ability, but when commercials pop up you simply fast forward right past them. In my opinion that is all the commercial skipping I need, but is there a better commercial skipping ability in past TIVO boxes that I'm not aware of? Are they going to stop the ability to fast forward?

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Shakrai]

If they stopped the ability to fast forward they would have a riot on their hands and would lose a lot of customers. I highly doubt they would slay that goose laying the golden egg.

I find the 30 second skip invaluable. With five or six presses I can jump past the commercials -- it takes about two seconds to completely bypass them. If I try to fast forward it then not only will it take more time, but TiVo has that really annoying feature where it backtracks a few seconds after you come out of fast forwarding/rewinding. I've never quite got the hang of the timing on that and if I try to use FF or RW I usually wind up watching the last 10 seconds of a commercial.

It's been my experience that most commercial breaks mesh very well with the 30 second skip button. You get a feel for the channel and show you are watching and can usually predict how many 30 second skips you'll need. The few times that you go past your show you can get back to it with the 8 second replay feature.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Quevar]

One way to get close to what you want is to turn on the subtitles. At the first fast-forward speed (I think it's double live speed), the subtitles are still there so you can read what is going on. This works really well for news and sports, but it's a little harder when it's a TV show.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[HTH NE1]

Unfortunately I've found that TVs tend to not be able to handle closed captioning at 3x speed. It tends to overrun their buffer. (So, when will the first buffer overflow exploit for closed-caption-capable TVs come out to defeat DRM?)

It works better with the tivovbi patch applied outputting text, and you could even feed it into a text-to-speech program set to read it fast enough to nearly keep up. (I still wish it included timecodes for remastering for DVD as subtitles and/or line21 data.)

Some cable boxes can be set to open closed captions which will be recorded with the video signal. Then they'll be visible at any speed as long as it isn't so fast as to skip them entirely.

I was told that TiVo tried to support audio during fast play, but that it came out unacceptably "bursty".

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Moofie]

I have exactly the opposite experience. I use the fast forward, and I can hit the beginning of the show pretty darn accurately. With 30 second skip, I always had to ff or rew to get where I wanted to go. If I'm doing that, why bother with the skip?

Anyhow. Both options are available, and YMMV.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Shakrai]

I have exactly the opposite experience. I use the fast forward, and I can hit the beginning of the show pretty darn accurately. With 30 second skip, I always had to ff or rew to get where I wanted to go. If I'm doing that, why bother with the skip?

Hey, like you said YMMV. Even my girlfriend has gotten good enough with the 30 second skip button that she can get close enough to the show that it only requires watching 5 seconds of commericals or using the instant replay button once. Now if only she'd use her powers for good (history channel, west wing, etc) instead of evil (Young and the Restless) ;)

Re:Undermining their business model?

[GrumpyOldMan]

Mythtv already has this feature. It is called time stretch and has been around since 0.17, nearly 1 year. I can generally watch a "1 hour" show in a little over 30 minutes with Timestretch set to 1.1, and using commercial skipping.

From the 0.17 release notes at http://www.mythtv.org/:
# "Timestretch". Though, it's really 'time-compression'. This allows the user to adjust the playback speed slightly, but keeps the audio at the same pitch. If you're recording a lot of shows, timestretch lets you get through them faster. =)

Re:Undermining their business model?

[timeOday]

They could even more serious damage if they incurred the anger of *AAs by openly attacking the ad based model of TV as you are doing now.

The *AAs are not TiVo's meal ticket, so far as I know. The customer is.

Remember what happened with mp3 players?

The second DAP was the Rio PMP300 from Diamond Multimedia, introduced in September 1998. The Rio was a big success during the Christmas 1998 season as sales significantly exceeded expectations, spurring interest and investment in digital music. The Recording Industry Association of America soon filed a lawsuit alleging that the device abetted illegal copying of music, but Diamond won a legal victory on the shoulders of Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios and digital audio players were ruled legal devices.

Diamond stood up to the lawsuit and won. Now even the RIAA is cashing in on that market through iTunes and similar services.

It might be risky for TiVo to be customer oriented, but how risky is the alternative?

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Shakrai]

The customer is their meal ticket. Without customers they can't sell advertisments. But I still don't think that means they should do something that will encourge the *AA's of the World to pick a legal fight with them. Even if TiVo won such a fought (they probably would) how much money would it cost them?

TiVo has always had a wink and a nudge policy towards things like the 30 second skip. They've also usually been supportive of hackers in the community growing their product. I'm not really fond of the forced automatic updates -- but overall I think TiVo is trying to strike a reasonable balance.

In any event I'd rather see TiVo be successful then to see them fail and have to pick between the cable companies crappy DVR product or going to the hassle of building my own. Back in the day I would have loved nothing more then to sit down with something like MythTV and some old hard drives and build a DVR for myself. But I find that the more I work with PCs for a living the less I want to play with them when I get home.

TiVo just works. And it works really well for me.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ability to skip ads IS a "have to have" for me. I bought my Tivo to timeshift AND watch an hour long program in 40 minutes.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[tchuladdiass]

Just out of curiosity, can't they follow the same business model that VCR and DVD manufactures follow? I.e., make a good product, and sell it for a profit.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[hmccabe]

Not only can I can watch Queer Eye at my convenience, but equally importantly, in only 37 minutes.

I remember when I first got my Tivo, I learned that you can watch a half hour episode of Blind Date in 12.5 minutes.
Commercials aren't all that bad though. I recently found myself watching ads for xbox 360 and nintendo DS games to see how they looked, but I still fast forward through commercials for vagina medicine, luxury cars or anything else I'm not going to be buying.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Phroggy]

QuickTime 7 does this too. Go to Window, Show A/V Controls, there's a slider in the bottom right corner to adjust the playback speed. Not the best UI (that slider is awfully small!), but it works extremely well.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[instarx]

I don't get people who seem to find advertising on television and in magazines to be morally reprehensible and an affront to their constitutional rights.

It is the same people who fnd it morally reprehensible and an affront to their constitutional rights to have to pay for someone else's work product, such as music or software.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[instarx]

Just out of curiosity, can't they follow the same business model that VCR and DVD manufactures follow? I.e., make a good product, and sell it for a profit.

Because the service IS their product. It would be like asking Willie Nelson why he doesn't follow Apple's business model and make iPODS.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[pornking]

Towards this end, may I suggest a new TiVo feature: The ability to play back a program at a higher speed, with the audio pitch remaining unchanged. Hey, Kaffeine (in KDE) does it for me all the time, which I find very useful when watching non-pr0n, such as a physics lecture where the speaker talks v e r y - s l o w l y.

MythTV can do this. It also does a pretty good job of finding and skipping commercials. You can adjust the speed from 0.5x to 2.0x in increments of 0.05x. I do this when I'm watching documentaries. A 1 hour program takes about 25 minutes.

Of course, getting the silly thing to work was an incredible PITA.

Wait, this is news?

[LostCluster]

TiVo has always had the Showcases menu which was mostly supplied with paid-for content from broadcasters and sponsors, and could even contain video clips that were sent over a Discovery Channel late-night infomercial. The only thing here is that a search is being added, as if there's going to be more content than makes sense for a menu now.

Re:Wait, this is news?

[HTH NE1]

TiVo has always had the Showcases menu

Actually, it has vanished from some of my TiVos' menus at times. It also becomes inaccessible without service (I have an unsubscribed 20-hour unit in my guest room).

Lately it has been trying to record its "Teleworld Paid Programming" content from ISATE (i (Independent TV) Satellite Feed East), but when I've seen it do it, other PAX programming is there instead.

Searchable ads on Tivo?

[smooth wombat]

Maybe I'm missing something but isn't the whole purpose of Tivo to allow people to skip ads on tv? What would make someone who subscribes to such a service want to search for ads? Wouldn't it just be easier and cheaper to not subscribe to Tivo and use a vcr to record shows?

As I said in a reply to a posting yesterday I don't watch commercials or listen to adverstisements. Anywhere at any time. When a show goes to commercial I'll either go to another channel or if nothing else is on hit the mute button, walk away and go do something else for 2+ minutes. I fast forward through commercials on recorded shows. I turn the volume down when there are commercials on the radio. I don't even see billboards on the road anymore my mind has blocked them out.

If I'm going out of my way to avoid advertisements and commercials what would make these folks think I would want to search for commercials?

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[Moby Cock]

Sometimes people want to see ads to assess what is available in a given marketplace. Targeted and seachable advertising could be very useful. Imagine you want to buy a new drill but are unsure of the current state of the drill market. So you un a search of drill related ads, have a browse and then head out to the store (or online). seems to be a viable service to me. Occasionally I find ads to be useful, although I concede being unendingly bombarded with them is quite distastful.

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[HTH NE1]

What would make someone who subscribes to such a service want to search for ads?

Search

Category: Advertisements
Keyword: "Super Bowl"

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[gallen1234]

I think maybe you did miss something. The purpose of Tivo is to put viewers back in control of their televisions. If the viewer doesn't want to see adds, Tivo supports that. If the viewer does want to see adds, Tivo supports that too.

This new functionality, being opt-in, is completely consistent with that philosophy.

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[voice_of_all_reason]

I'll direct you to this helpful timeline for capitalism:

Step 1 - Free, no ads
Step 2 - Free, with ads
Step 3 - Pay, no ads
Step 4 - Pay, with ads

Tivo is between steps 3 and 4 right now. As with every other service, it will soon be at step 4.

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[Znork]

"If I'm going out of my way to avoid advertisements and commercials what would make these folks think I would want to search for commercials?"

Greed? Losing contact with their customer base? With reality?

The current idea of marketing is going to get more or less wiped out by context marketing ranging from google to price-checking sites, simply because marketing to consumers who are actually shopping for a that specific product is vastly more efficient.

While TiVo may have understood that, they unfortunately do not have a relevant delivery system. People watching TV are usually interested in watching TV, not in shopping, therefore advertizing in such a medium would by its nature fall among the less efficient forms of ads. Especially among TiVo owners who are probably even less likely to have an interest in the ads.

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[gallen1234]

Interesting but not universally valid. In fact, it isn't valid for our specific case. Neither Tivo nor television itself were ever in the "Free, no adds" category. If you want a specific example, Ipana toothpaste was one of the first television advertisers.

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Maybe I'm missing something but isn't the whole purpose of Tivo to allow people to skip ads on tv?

Uh, no. The main purpose was tape-free digital recording, recodring based on the show listing in an onscreen guide (no more "ok, start the recording at 8:30 on Monday...") and then being presented with a list of titles of things recorded. No tape rewinding. No "which of the 19 unmarked tapes has last week's Lost". No muss no fuss. The most annoying parts of VCR usage have been automated and digitized away.

The skipping commercials was an artifact of the whole thing being digital and in a random access format. There's a 30 second forward skip and 8 second back skip. There is no "commercial skip". That's just what it gets used for.

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Maybe I'm missing something but isn't the whole purpose of Tivo to allow people to skip ads on tv?

I think you might be missing something. If there is a "whole purpose" to Tivo its to easily record shows you want to see at another time; skipping ads is a great feature, but not the "whole purpose".

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent was probably talking about TV in general. It was free, with ads prior to Tivo. Tivo initially made it pay, no ads for a short time when you could easily skip commercials. Tivo is now trying to make it pay, with ads.

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

The internet is a much more efficient way to search for product information than a tivo could ever be. I can't imagine that there are that many people that have the resources to pay for tivo service and not have the internet. Maybe they are helping fuel couchpotatoism by making it more convenient, but unless they attach a mouse to the tive, I can't see that process being anythng but arduous.

Hmm.... drills....
[menu]
down down -> adverts -> [select]
down down -> tools -> [select]
down left down down left left -> [select]
I have 2 (DirecTV)Tivos. 1 HD one SD. The only way I can see a use for this is if the Tivo cut/splice the ad OUT of the show (so I dont have to fast forward) and then throw them in a menu somewhere so I can ignore them and flush occasionally.

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither Tivo nor television itself were ever in the "Free, no adds" category.

PBS? Public Access TV? Government Access TV?

And it is "ads" as in "advertisements", not "adds" as in "additions". I normally wouldn't mention it, but you've used it repeatedly in the face of people using it correctly.

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[gallen1234]

Okay, you managed to find a few counterexamples which happen to further invalidate the gp's model. PBS and its "free, no ads" approach, which I believe is the earliest of the examples you cited, was founded in 1968, well after the introduction of television with its "free, with ads" model.

Eh?

[Donniedarkness]

I thought one of the biggest selling points of TiVo was to NOT have to see ads... at least, that's one of the main points that people have made about buying one.

More reason to switch to a do it yourself DVR

[Saint37]

While the fact that the user will be able to "opt in" may make this seem mostly benign, one could argue that this is a precursor to the inevitable. As a company grows and becomes less efficient it needs to find new revenue sources.

I see this all the more reason to run a do it yourself DVR such as myth TV, Sage TV, or meadia portal.

http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/

MythTv in my future...

[dslauson]

Opt-in targeted advertising is better than being held as a captive audience, but I'm not sure I'm crazy about them using my bandwidth and precious hard drive space to store their ads that I may never watch. I think it's getting close to time for me to try out MythTv. Hmm.

Does this mean ...

[TallMatthew]

... if I have a season pass to Judging Amy, douche ads are going to pop up all over the place?

Um, opt out.

TiVo, the good and the bad

[PlayfullyClever]

I've had my TiVo for over 4 years now. I love it to death. I think that TiVo did a hell of a lot of things right. Some quick examples:

1. Unlike, say, Microsoft, they never discouraged their users from hacking their boxes. As a result, a huge community of TiVo hackers emerged (see http://www.tivocommunity.com/). I upgraded my TiVo's 30 gig hard drive to two 120's, and installed a cachecard/network card combo from 9th Tee, which means I can do fun tricks like scheduling shows and season passes from the road, or watching shows in my bedroom on my XBOX.

2. Really great support. I've only had to call TiVo a couple of times, both for channel lineup issues, but they were always extremely friendly and helpful over the phone. For example, after I moved into my new house, I realized that Adelphia had just upgraded the cable in my area, and TiVo didn't have the lineup yet. So I called support, and the next day, TiVo called me back to tell me that my lineup was added. Simply awesome.

3. Choosing Linux. When I telnet into my TiVo, I get a bash shell. I've installed an ftp server, web server (TiVoWeb), and even installed cron. How cool is that? Plus, this excellent decision has led to new software being developed exclusively for the TiVo (such as a caller id display that uses the TiVo's built-in modem, so you can see who's calling without getting up off the couch). Simply brilliant.

4. The interface. They obviously put a ton of work into it, and it really shows. It just kicks so much ass.

Now obviously, they dropped the ball in a couple of areas. The Comcast merger was just a more recent one. I think these are the two biggies:

1. I think that their biggest problem has always been slow adoption; as long as I've had the thing, I've been seeing ads pop up on TiVo Central giving me hot deals on new TiVo units, which I'm supposed to share with my friends and family. Great, I can save Dad $50 on his new unit. But if they really expect me to convince Dad that he can't live without a season pass on those Seinfeld reruns he loves so much, then they should be giving me the 50 smackers. I'd probably have 10 people signed up under me right now if I got some sort of compensation for it. (By the way, click here [freeminimacs.com] to get a free Mini Mac!):-)

2. Too expensive. The hardware and service together really do cost too much, unless you got in early like I did (back when lifetime service was $200). They should do what my damn cell phone company does: Knock the hardware down to like $99, and make me pay a very affordable $9.95 a month. If I try to cancel before 2 years are up, hit me with some obscene early termination fee. Yes, I hate it when cell phone companies do this, but that's how they stay in business. Besides, it's not like I'd be foolish enough to cancel my TiVo service anyway. TiVo is heroin. So far, I've paid $499 for TiVo and lifetime service, so TiVo won't make any more money off of me. If they were using my above plan, I would have paid in $589 so far, with more coming in every month.

I would really hate to see TiVo go. I hope they don't. But I suspect that even if the service dies, thanks to the openness of their hardware platform, someone (maybe me) will figure out how to write a script to pull show data off of Yahoo! TV or something. And with Microsoft and MythTV and several others entering the PVR market, there's no question that TiVo's invention is here to stay.

It is really great that TiVo is going to offer ads our way, thats the way it should work, and ultimately, lead to better advertising.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[petgiraffe]

They should do what my damn cell phone company does: Knock the hardware down to like $99, and make me pay a very affordable $9.95 a month. If I try to cancel before 2 years are up, hit me with some obscene early termination fee.

They have started doing exactly that. And it will ruin them! I gave my brother an old TiVo I had lying around and when he tried to register it he was informed that he had to agree to 1 year of service with a $150 "early termination" penalty.

So he built a Myth box instead.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[TallMatthew]

2. Too expensive. The hardware and service together really do cost too much, unless you got in early like I did (back when lifetime service was $200). They should do what my damn cell phone company does: Knock the hardware down to like $99, and make me pay a very affordable $9.95 a month. If I try to cancel before 2 years are up, hit me with some obscene early termination fee. Yes, I hate it when cell phone companies do this, but that's how they stay in business. Besides, it's not like I'd be foolish enough to cancel my TiVo service anyway. TiVo is heroin. So far, I've paid $499 for TiVo and lifetime service, so TiVo won't make any more money off of me. If they were using my above plan, I would have paid in $589 so far, with more coming in every month.

Expensive? Ten dollars a month is nothing. I bought my Tivo three years ago when they were offering that lifetime service you mention. I opted not to, because I didn't feel like shelling out that much cash. Three years of service at $10 a month isn't $360, it's $10 a month 36 times. And $10 a month is nothing. $200 on the other hand, I would have felt that.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[Eccles]

Three years of service at $10 a month isn't $360, it's $10 a month 36 times. And $10 a month is nothing. $200 on the other hand, I would have felt that.

Would you like to borrow $200?

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[MarkGriz]

I'm all for the DIY spirit of Myth/Freevo etc, but I can't quite wrap my brain around people claiming Tivo is too expensive, and then building a Myth box instead.

You can get the Tivo box for $50 after rebate, and $299 for lifetime service. Circuit City recently even had the Tivo free after rebate if you ordered it online (with free shipping too).

So basically, it's $350 worst case. How cheaply can you build a Myth box?

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[RobGTX]

Too expensive??? Right now you can get a factory renewed 40-hour TiVo WITH 12 months of service for a total of $185. If you are already a subscriber (personally I have the lifetime subscription) you get this same deal, only it's 23 months of service. This is an "instant rebate" deal, nothign to send in http://www.tivo.com/2.0.1.asp. ...and no I do not work for TiVo, I just love the technology! Sure it's "factory renewed", but when you consider that you are really paying $30 plus $150 for 1 year subscription, its a sweet deal. As compared to the so-called "free" alternatives (Freevo or MythTV), the way I justify it is as follows: Cheepest PC I could find (excluding home-built from scraps around the house), about $299 after rebates. Assuming a similar configuration (low-end processor and 40 GB hard drive). Software: Free Linux + MythTV or Freevo Specialized hardware: Hauppauge WinTV TV capture board ($40-ish) Service: Nada Time: Assuming proficiency with computers, 2 hours, lets assume that you are woth $50/hr, call it $100 total. Total investment: $439 By comparison: Tivo $185, including 1 year of service Additional year of service: $155 Time for setup: Negligible Total investment: $340 Now the real difference is that your wife will actually understand how to use TiVo, whereas the open source alternatives might actually cost you a marriage not to mention the divorce lawyer, legal fees.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[__aayurq3262]

thanks to the openness of their hardware platform, someone (maybe me) will figure out how to write a script to pull show data off of Yahoo! TV or something.

It's been done several times. The Canadians have the most sophisticated system with at least three programs that will pull data with XMLTV from zap2it.com. They all work fine in the U.S. (with the exception of Simplicity that needs to defeat the Canada-IP check). The Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and a few others have active Tivo groups that use similar or identical software.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[newend]

I personally don't have a TiVo, but I have to say I'd be more intersted in buying one for a fixed lifetime cost than having to pay $10/mo for the rest of my life. If you can pick up a lifetime membership for $200, then you would pay that off in less than 2 years at $10/mo. If you can't save up $200 over a couple months in order to pay for it outright you probably have bigger financial problems and buying a TiVo shouldn't be a priority. ...granted those are probably the same people who would say I can't afford $200, but I can pay $10 every month.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's $299 lifetime service now, and it's not on a subscriber basis, it's on a per-unit basis. When your Tivo dies, so does the lifetime service. Also if you upgrade to, say, a shiny new HDTivo with dual tuners later, you can't transfer your lifetime subscription from the other one.

Not that it doesn't pay for itself eventually, but still...

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[Trixter]

I upgraded my TiVo's 30 gig hard drive to two 120's, and installed a cachecard/network card combo from 9th Tee, which means I can do fun tricks like scheduling shows and season passes from the road, or watching shows in my bedroom on my XBOX.

Sheesh, I've been doing that on my ReplayTV 50x0 unit for 4 years now, and the only thing I had to touch was the new hard drive I put in. I honestly don't understand why ReplayTV units haven't dominated the planet by now. Poor marketing, maybe?

Is there a way to hack Tivo so that it produces standard D1 MPEG-2? (720x480) Because until it does, I won't buy one (transferring educational shows to DVD for my kids is something I do every month and I'm not going to re-encode Tivo's wacko resolution at a loss in quality)

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[Kurt Granroth]

They should do what my damn cell phone company does: Knock the hardware down to like $99, and make me pay a very affordable $9.95 a month.

I just bought a TiVo yesterday (my third). It was $50 (not $99) for the hardware (40hr). I pay $6.95 (not $9.95) a month for service.

Now it's not quite as good of a deal if you don't already have a TiVo since the one-TiVo rate is $12.95/mo. In my case, I paid for the service up-front since I hate mail-in rebates so this TiVo is usable for at least 23 months... which comes out to just under $9 a month for everything. Not a bad deal considering it's better than your "less expensive" proposal :-)

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[Anonymous Coward]

But do they make you estimate the number of hours you'll want to use it, and then charge you absurdly high overage fees if you guess too low?

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel exactly the opposite way, once you start looking at all the crap you pay every month. $10 for this, $15 for that $40 for your phone bill, etc. If I have a single up front cost, I don't even think about it. $200? sure no problem.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[HTH NE1]

I honestly don't understand why ReplayTV units haven't dominated the planet by now. Poor marketing, maybe?

Maybe because they were sued into someone else's hands.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[newend]

That just sounds like another reason for me to not bother getting a TiVo =D If I really decide I need to move from BitTorrent I'll build a MythTV box. ...or I'll just stop watching.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[timeOday]

You really cannnot compare the two. TiVo is a special-purpose, locked down consumer device. A livingroom PC can do that, plus serve music to your stereo, play games, web surf (with wireless mouse/keyboard), fileserve, and whatever else gets dreamed up next month (mine is also a webserver, email server, and network gateway with QoS so VOIP works fine no matter what).

So maybe I am agreeing with you that TiVo is better if you don't have a castoff computer handy and don't want your PVR to do anything else. But serving up music and playing games seem like very mainstream applications to me. What are most of you doing, manually loading and unloading CDs?

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[The Lynxpro]

"Sheesh, I've been doing that on my ReplayTV 50x0 unit for 4 years now, and the only thing I had to touch was the new hard drive I put in. I honestly don't understand why ReplayTV units haven't dominated the planet by now. Poor marketing, maybe?"

Not as good of a "Season Pass". The GUI is not as good as TiVo's. Being sued into oblivion twice already (bankrupting the original ReplayTV company, and then SonicBlue). No word-of-mouth except for "I own a ReplayTV" postings on any website with news about TiVo. No marketing campaign to speak of. No deals for ReplayTV being used by a cableco or satellite company (unlike the old DirecTV partnership or the upcoming partnership with Comcast - and the licensing agreement with Scientific Atlanta does not count). No Linux loving. No partnership with Intel or Microsoft. Etc.

If you want to transfer shows using a TiVo, might I suggest doing a Google Search for "DirectShow Dump"?

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[deacon]

You are comparing apples to aardvarks. Tivo functionality can be changed at will by the folks at Tivo. The feature you love today may be replaced by the feature you hate tomorrow.

A Myth box is yours, and no one from the outside will mess with it.

So, yes, in $ terms the Tivo is cheaper if you have to go out and buy all the Myth parts from scratch (but most of us have parts lying around we could use) but you are getting something over which you have complete control, whereas the Tivo is controlled by Tivo.

Ob. Disclaimer: I stopped watching broadcast TV about 10 years ago. I did borrow the firefly DVD set from the library, though, but I will wave my hands and claim that does not count. ;)

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[MarkGriz]

You really cannnot compare the two. TiVo is a special-purpose, locked down consumer device. A livingroom PC can do that, plus serve music to your stereo, play games, web surf (with wireless mouse/keyboard), fileserve, and whatever else gets dreamed up next month (mine is also a webserver, email server, and network gateway with QoS so VOIP works fine no matter what)

Granted MythTV etc may offer more features from the get go, but the Tivo is *hardly* "locked down". Tons of hacks exist for it (and yes, it runs Linux). There are entire communities dedicated to hacking it (Tivocommunity.com for noobs and dealdatabase.com for the hardcore)

Tivo out of the box (unless you have the DirecTV version) already supports playing MP3s, sharing photos, networking with other Tivos for sharing shows, etc.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[MarkGriz]

You are comparing apples to aardvarks. Tivo functionality can be changed at will by the folks at Tivo. The feature you love today may be replaced by the feature you hate tomorrow.

A Myth box is yours, and no one from the outside will mess with it.

So, yes, in $ terms the Tivo is cheaper if you have to go out and buy all the Myth parts from scratch (but most of us have parts lying around we could use) but you are getting something over which you have complete control, whereas the Tivo is controlled by Tivo.

If you have the inclination to build a myth box, then you can just as easily hack a Tivo to add functionality, and prevent anyone from messing with it (software updates can be blocked)

According to MythTV website, you need a PIII, 800MHz with 512 MB of RAM to do software MPEG encoding/decoding, but you can get away with less if you want to put and MPEG card in there. I didn't realize most people had this stuff just lying around, but maybe that's just me. Of course, you might want it to like a nice piece of A/V equipment rather than just an ugly beige box crappy PC case, so you'd presumably want to spend some money on that too.

Have you actually built a Myth box? Would anyone who has care to respond with what equipment they owned already/had to buy, so we can get a legitimate cost comparison?

Ob. Disclaimer: I stopped watching broadcast TV about 10 years ago. I did borrow the firefly DVD set from the library, though, but I will wave my hands and claim that does not count. ;)

Oh, I think I read about you in The Onion a while ago ;)

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[norton_I]

I looked seriously at replacing my TiVo (series 1) with a MythTV box. It was going to cost about $900-$1000. You could do it cheaper, maybe for $700, but I wanted a nice looking AV form factor case with a VFD on the front panel. Any less than that and you are looking at a loud computer in an ugly tower case with limited storage.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[digitallife]

I built a MythTV box.

Basically the only thing I bought was a TV tuner card (you can get a 350 now for about $150 I think). I used a Celeron 2.4 I had sitting around (I had bought a bunch at an auction from a company that went out of business for dirt cheap). It only has 256MB RAM, and a 60GB HD.

I'll be honest, I thought it would be nice to have a MythTV, but I never dreamed how deeply it would affect my life. I literally cannot watch normal tv anymore. I only ever watch shows that I actually want to watch, and only when I want to watch them. And I can stop watching in the middle and come back later. And it automatically skips the ads.

Suffice to say, I think it's hard to imagine until you've actually done it.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[digitallife]

Oh and I stuck the computer in a cupboard that closes near the TV so I don't see or hear it (the back of the cupboard allows ventilation). The IR receiver is on a wire that sits near the TV (remote and receiver on wire came with tuner). In the end it didn't change the look or sound of my living room at all.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[timeOday]

I see. I was thrown off by the OReilly book Tivo Hacks which states:

Note: Not all TiVos are the same. The original TiVo, the Series 1, is the most hackable TiVo out there; it's a box thrown together with commodity parts and the TiVo code is running on open hardware. The Series 2 TiVo, the most commonly sold TiVo today, is not open. You won't see hacks in this book that involve modifying Series 2 software.

Perhaps it is more open than OReilly claims?

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[MarkGriz]

I see. I was thrown off by the OReilly book Tivo Hacks which states

No, you're just reading it wrong.

"You won't see hacks in this book that involve modifying Series 2 software"

Translation:

You won't see hacks in *this* book that involve modifying Series 2 software, but you will when you buy our next book, "Tivo Hacks, 2nd edition"

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[timeOday]

Makes sense. It was the statement "The Series 2 TiVo, the most commonly sold TiVo today, is not open" which lead me to believe that the series 2 TiVo is not open.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[Anonymous Coward]

This must be the last guy in America who leases his car.

Two Way Street...

[dada21]

The video broadcast companies are probably going to need to do a more interactive form of advertising, and I believe that Tivo/Viiv/MCE and other PVR companies will be the ones to promote it. I think I have a decent solution to the conundrum of advertising.

First, advertisers will need to pick a more specific market ("target").

Second, shows will have to become more a la carte. This probably means significant DRM, but there is no "right" to television, so I don't see a way around this. If you want to watch the show "real time" you can pay for it now, or you can wait for it to be released on DVD (or public domain download).

How can you pay for the show? One of three ways:

A. You can use advertising points to watch it. Advertising points are "earned" by watching targeted ads that are pre-downloaded to your Tivo/MCE. These are communicated back to the producer. Maybe a small questionnaire at the end will earn you more points.

B. You can pay for the show up front -- a la carte.

C. You can pay for a subscription to the show for the season.

I don't see any other way for advertising to work, other than product placement. If advertisers and content producers think Tivo is bad now, just wait another year when vidcasts replace the news, and amateur shows pick up another level of refinement. I've already heard from local actor's studios regarding making "free" TV shows to release to the web to advertise their abilities. All we need is one or two huge popular shows online for every city and town to have a free actor's studio making interesting television.

Advertising will be more direct -- and bidirectional.

Re:Two Way Street...

[GigsVT]

A. You can use advertising points to watch it. Advertising points are "earned" by watching targeted ads that are pre-downloaded to your Tivo/MCE. These are communicated back to the producer. Maybe a small questionnaire at the end will earn you more points.

People aren't going to play games like that.

"Hey lets go watch some TV. Oh wait I need to watch 10 minutes of ads and answer a quiz, hold on"

People use stuff like Tivo because they don't want to be forced to watch ads. Any scheme to force people to watch ads is going to fail. Make people want to watch ads. I know even though I have a Tivo I still wind up seeing each commercial at least once. I just don't have to watch it 300 times just to watch a single 2 hour movie.

The way it should be done

[Billosaur]

From InfoWorld: The opt-in technology will let TiVo subscribers use keyword searches to look for information on specific products or services.

This is a useful way of doing it. No more being bombarded by hundreds ads for things you don't want or need. Now you can search for the things you're looking for and avoid having to sit through the same repititious crap. This might even get advertisers to put as little more content in their commercials, rather than always going for the cheap laugh or worse, for these esoteric, avant-garde commercials where you're not sure what the product is, let alone why you should care. Mind you there a lot of really funny commercials out there and I'd hate to see that kind of creativity disappear, but when I'm looking specifically for a product, I need information more than laughs.

Re:The way it should be done

[pauljlucas]

This is a useful way of doing it. No more being bombarded by hundreds ads for things you don't want or need. Now you can search for the things you're looking for and avoid having to sit through the same repititious crap.

So this is for only for people who don't know how to use Google? I can find things I'm looking for a lot faster using Google (via a keyboard) than Tivo's remote control.

TiVo Shopping

[le_defaut_tragique]

Here's a thought: why doesn't TiVo offer a shopping service? For example, a point-and-click amazon-esque online store. TiVo takes a lucrative cut of the take and we can consume without having to leave the couch.

Re:TiVo Shopping

[bmac83]

If the box could parse the closed-captioning feed off of the programs, they could use Google Ads and/or Froogle to match product offerings with what is actually being said within the program.

Re:TiVo Shopping

[le_defaut_tragique]

Well the TiVo has a modem link back to TiVo's server for downloading television listings, I don't see why the Tivo can't just store one's credit card/shipping info and generate a shopping menu that the user can navigate the store with the remote.

Let the ranting begin ...

[Monoman]

DISCLAIMER: I own a Tivo .. ok I own a few Tivos.

Here come the Tivo flames.

Try to keep in mind that Tivo is in a very tough spot. They are trying to balance the wishes of their customers while keeping the greedy-money-grabbing content owners happy.

Bash them all you want but it can't be easy. Sadly I think Tivo is going to lose out to the cable and sattelite providers building their own DVRs into their set-top boxes. They will probably be inferior products but you won't have a choice.

For all you Myth fans I paraphrase and old Debian t-shirt.

"MythTV. What your mother would use if it were 20 times easier."

Myth is getting better but it is no Tivo or Replay.

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[w.p.richardson]

FWIW, my 11 year old and 5 year old can use my MythTV box.

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[Monoman]

Yeah but who built it and how long did it take?

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[CPUGuy]

How, exaclty, is TiVo superior?

I happen to have a Series2. It is SLLLOOOOOOW.
I have to buy MyDVD if I want to burn my recorded shows to DVD (or buy thier TiVo with the DVD burner).
If I want to transfer files to my computer it literally brings the TiVo to a halt and I can no longer watch any TV until I restart the system.... which takes at least 5 minutes.

I don't know what cable service provider you have, but down in Florida we have Brightouse (formerly Time-Warner). The DVR system they have is VASTLY superior to my TiVo.... I'm saying this, and I HATE BrightHouse, with a passion.

The only thing I really do like about the TiVo is the suggested shows that it records.

I wish I hadn't pre-paid for a year of service.

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I use MythTV every day and love it to pieces. If it's no where near Tivo (I've only seen TiVo being used once and that was 1st generation), can you tell me what it is I'm missing?

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI my mom does use MythTV and has no problems with it. Granted I did build it for them which took close to no time at all since I passed the learning curve building my own box (which did take a while grant you).

And this new box was a replacement for her ReplayTV (as was mine) which I had already replaced the drive on twice.

Whats sad is we both had lifetime subscriptions with ReplayTV but in the long run I get we get so much more out of MythTV (Comercial skipping, dvd playback/backup, music player, multiple tuners including HD) and no company constantly messing with my setup without my permission.

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[Monoman]

I have not experienced the SLLLOOOOOOOOW issues that you are.

I won't have to go into the pros and cons of Tivo other DVRs only because there will be plenty of it elsewhere in the topic discussion.

Do tell about the BrightHouse DVR. My parents live in a BrightHouse area.

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[CPUGuy]

The biggest reason I like the Brighthouse DVR is because when I click the down arrow, it goes down immediately, not 1/2 second later like it does on my TiVo (hence, the SLOOOOOOW part).

That, and the TiVo interface is really counter-intuitive. You can't be at the bottom of a list click down one more time and be taken to the top (or vice versa, and side to side). I just get a number of irritants with my TiVo overall.

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[vanboy]

I tried my cable vendor's (Insight) DVR solution and I hated it. No Season Pass -esque feature, slow interface, ugly interface, etc. I called Insight to cancel my DVR service on the way to get my Tivo. The only benefit I have heard to the cable provider solution is that you can record in HD, but that doesn't mean much for me because I don't really watch TV shows for the quality of picture. I watch TV for the quality of entertainment or information being presented and I don't care how good the picture is, if the show is useless I wont watch it.

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[newend]

The question is, how much easier would it be to just use bittorrent? I also think that TiVo is providing a service to watchers. Their job isn't to make content providers happy. It has been established that TiVo and other DVR solutions is protected under fair-use (at least I've heard McCain argue it in the senate). The cable/sat companies have to be careful since they are the ones that negotiate with the content providers for shows. I was having this discussion early in the week only more focused on BitTorrent v. Broadcast. I'll post some of the relevant content below. The thought was that you could d/l a show for free and have focused ads at the beginning or middle that you'd have to watch. If you paid $1 then you could watch the show commerical free right after the show finished airing on TV. If you paid $2 then you could watch the show as soon as it started to air on TV without any commercials. The prices are what I'd be willing to pay (I'd just do the $1 method personally). There would also have to be different price structuring for if you wanted to be able to watch the show once, watch it as long as you had a copy on your computer and be able to d/l and rewatch whenever you wanted. Pro/Con of d/l tv shows con - illegal (but low risk) con - takes longer to get content (currently about 5 hours after airing) con - need more knowledge to pull it off (or a friend that knows) con - requires disk space to store shows pro - watch whenever you want pro - commercial free pro - can pause and rewind pro - can watch as many times as you want pro - sticking it to the man If you use P2P for distribution there is a fairly marginal distribution cost. You'd want to have a few license servers that ensure people are authorized to watch a show and the initial seeding systems. I can d/l a TV show in half the time it takes to watch it. Somehow you have to set things up so that people will be seeding while watching and after watching for a while so that most distribution is handled by consumers. This wouldn't work for people who don't have a fast connection, but it's a supplement to the current cable system not a replacement. I think if distribution channels like this got popular you'd start seeing more synchronous Internet connections that can upload faster. What some of the illegal d/l sites do is they allow you to d/l first if you have a share ration > 1.0 or 1.5. What this does is it quickly distributes the show to people who are likely to share it with more people. The TV studios can allow the people with the highest ratios to have access to the show a few hours before it's on the air, and then allow them to start watching as soon as it comes on TV or as soon as it finishes (or somewhere in the middle). That would promote people to keep sharing longer. Also, if you start the distribution early, then more people will share longer (assuming your require them to share from the time the start the d/l until they finish watching the show). Another thing you'd want to do is encode the license of the person viewing the show into the video stream so that if someone were to break the protection that only allows people with a license to watch the show it's easy to track down who it was "owned" that particular episode. Here's my timeline: time T is the time that the show airs. T - 2 hours: allow the show to be downloaded by the people with the highest ratio T - 30 min: allow everyone to start downloading the show T: show starts on TV T + 10 min: allow people who pay added premium (extra $1) to start watching the show T + 30 min: allow everyone to start watching the show T + 40 min: show 60 seconds of commercials to people who don't pay $1 to have them removed T + 50 min: people can choose to stop sharing the show Then have the shows cached on the hard drive for a few days. You'd have to come up with some sort of algorithm that keeps track of what shows to keep on different computers based on the amount they share and popularity of the show. Periodically, you can have the hosts check in with a central server to determine what shows are needed for sharing and who has the shows available. Then the hosts will change what shows it is sharing in order to maximize the use of bandwidth.

Re:Let the ranting begin ...

[Moofie]

dood.

paragraphs.

use them.

Ad blocker in TiVo

[Capeman]

Then we will need an adblocker for TiVo.

Proof needed...

[nothingbutcoupons]

Tivo will begin allowing subscribers use keyword searches...

/. needs someone to proof their stories before they're released to the masses. The omission of one single word ("to") makes it difficult to read.

What are use keyword searches ?

I demand advertising!

[intmainvoid]

advertising, on demand

Expect this to last about 3 minutes, when they realise that none of their users will be "demanding" advertising.

Re:I demand advertising!

[nothingbutcoupons]

Will the 30-second skip hack still work with this?

Re:I demand advertising!

[Red Flayer]

"Expect this to last about 3 minutes, when they realise that none of their users will be "demanding" advertising."

Yes, that's exactly what happened with Google Adsense.

Re:I demand advertising!

[ivan256]

Yup. Just like they ditched showcases, and the one ad on the main menu.

Seems to me this will just be a menu for ads instead of a link to a single ad... And people do watch them. I even find myself clicking on them now and then when they're something like a movie preview.

To be fair...

[mtrupe]

The TV stations are going to have to do something, and if TIVO can integrate ads the way Google/Yahoo have, maybe it will work. Those shows we love to watch--they aren't free, ya know. Advertisers don't like paying big $$$ for an ad that will just get fast forwarded through.

Re:To be fair...

[Overzeetop]

You mean, like the TV station which is 100 miles from me, but considers me in its market? The one that is trnasmitting digital at reduced effective power (based on distance covered at its digital frequency)? The one that denied me getting a rebroadcast national feed in HD so I could watch MNF, since I get a singnal of about 5 (out of 100, ~50 needed to sync up) with an aligned channelmaster 4221 and a 10dB amplifier?

Yeah, I really feel sorry for them. I feel so sorry, I'm sending them a "love" note, and copying the FCC.

F*cking bastards.

Re:To be fair...

[FunkSoulBrother]

Those shows we love to watch--they aren't free, ya know. Advertisers don't like paying big $$$ for an ad that will just get fast forwarded through.

Maybe they should figure out a way to make do off of the freaking $79.99 that I pay each month for cable service....

Time to build my own Media Center

[Blacklotuz]

I've been a loyal TiVo fan for years. I've got a Series 1 Phillips TiVo unit which I modded with ethernet, a bigger hard drive, TiVoWeb, etc. At first I was willing to pay for the box AND pay the $12.99/month to get updated listings, but recently I've felt like my TiVo is being taken away from me. The showcases and ads in the unit have long anoyed me, I wished I could tell my own TiVo to stop recording ads, but I let it be since it wasnt causing me any harm. Now they add the ability for broadcasters to tell me what I can and can't record and are greatly expanding their advertising, I'm going to cancel my subscription!

The problem is the business model is all wrong. I expect that when I purchase a device AND a subscription to a service that I'm compensating the company for the service which I receive. $12.99/month for TV listings is already a bit steep and I could subscribe to TV Guide cheeper than that, why should I have to pay to be advertised to as well? If they gave away the units and charged a bit for an ad supported service or if they charged for the units but supported the free TV listings with ads I could accept that but I'm feeling more and more like I bought a device that requires me to pay $12.99/month to watch 'custom tailored' ads, but I think I'll be sticking with the ads I get for free.

Re:Time to build my own Media Center

[TheGax]

If it was just listings then I'd be with you on this. But it is an indexed list of (pretty much) every show that is TV in your local area. Not only can you have it record all your favorite "Friends" episodes, but it can also find every Jennifer Anniston movie that is on and record it for you. Or maybe you prefer shows about monkeys, there you go. And on and on.

And no one has ever been forced to watch any ad that was downloaded to a Tivo. The "Showcases" are stored in an area of the disk that we users can't access anyway. And you won't be forced to watch any of these new ads either. And another thing. If you have TivoWeb installed, then just go into the ToDo list and delete the Teleworld (etc) recordings every day. That is where most of the Showcase ads come from.

I know this is Slashdot and Advertising == The Devil, but let's get real folks.

Re:Time to build my own Media Center

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a series 1, they haven't taken anything away from you. Series 1's haven't received new software since 3.x

Re:Time to build my own Media Center

[Blacklotuz]

I understand the point that I don't HAVE to watch these ads, but my point is that bought a device AND pay for a service and in my mind that means I've compensated the company for what they're providingme. If they want to start advertising to me they could at least lower the price of my service. A good example would be internet access. Free websites use ads to generate revenue and pay for hosting; They provide me a service and I, in return, view ads to pay for it. This probably amounts to a few cents per page I view or at most a couple bucks a month for sites I visit frequently. On the other hand, I purchased my cable modem and I pay Comcast every month for the ability to access the internet. Comcast provides me the service and in return I give them cold hard cash, and quite a bit of it too. Now if Comcast decided that in addition to my normal fees, they'd automaticaly launch some pop under windows with ads that I didn't 'have' to view, I'd be pissed. Yes I don't have to see them but there's always something tugging at your periferal vision saying 'Look! I'm an Ad!'. Their service may still be great and I'll certainly miss some aspects of it, but you can't sell devices which are then both Ad supported and Subscription supported beacuse it just feels like you never stop paying.

Re:Time to build my own Media Center

[Blacklotuz]

I'm aware of that which is the reason I am sticking with the series 1 box, but by sticking with the series 1 I'm also paying for features I can't use so it's a double edged sword. I either get a series 2 unit and have access to everything, or accept reduced functionality to avoid ads. A perfectly fine solution if the tivo was entierly ad supported but not when I'm paying $12.99/month

Re:Time to build my own Media Center

[crawling_chaos]

$12.99/month for TV listings is already a bit steep and I could subscribe to TV Guide cheeper than that, why should I have to pay to be advertised to as well?

Have you noticed what half the pages in TV Guide are? Ads. I don't think that you are thinking clearly on this matter.

My 2 scents

[Cro Magnon]

I have no problem with the CONCEPT of ads. However, their execution has usually stunk. A typical TV show has crooked car dealers yelling at you, Viagra ads that look like my inbox, ads that are supposed to be funny but make me barf, and ads so vague that I'm not even sure what the product is. Those ads "pop up" whenever the show has hit an interesting part, and they last 5+ minutes at a time. Then they wonder why everyone wants to skip past them! Hopefully this will be an improvement, but given the total stupidity of the marketeers, I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:My 2 scents

[BushCheney08]

I agree wholeheartedly. I think the future of television advertising should be the pop-under ad. Those I could live with.

Re:My 2 scents

[Quevar]

I don't completely hate commercials. I actually find myself going back and watching a few of them occasionally (since I generally skip them all). I do hate the same commercials being showed several times during one episode. I would actually watch commercials if they had a category for new commercials in various categories. Some of them are quite interesting and even funny once or twice. But, I want to watch them when I want to, not in the middle of a show.

It could actually be fun if TiVo set up a rating system for the commercials (thumbs up/thumbs down) while watching the commercial channel and if they had an option to watch the most popular commercials. This would benefit advertisers and comsumers. The advertisers would find out what commercials people think are interesting and the consumers would get more input and eventually, better commercials.

Re:My 2 scents

[dimension6]

One must consider that the most popular shows are not always the strongest in terms of marketing results. Often, the most annoying commercials instill their message to the masses, and the flashiest or funniest commercials fail to sell products/services. Another major difficulty with immediate response is that often the commercials' real commercial value is delayed (as in when the customer remembers hearing a brand name somewhere and buys the product well after they saw/remembered the commercial). In short, the complexities of human social structure make properly targeted advertising a very difficult thing.

Why not just get a DVR?

[digitaldc]

Get one of these: http://www.sjtelecommunications.com/pan-wj-hd316a- 5500.html or more affordable: http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?dpno=53 7524&store=ecost&source=ewbfroogle&adcampaign=emai l,ewbfroogle
and no more ads period?

What is the incentive to use Tivo when they are starting to incorporate ads? Why not just buy a DVR and skip the commercials?

Re:Why not just get a DVR?

[BushCheney08]

Sweet deal on that first one. They're offering it for 33% off! How could you possibly not buy one with a deal like that?!?

Sheesh.

[base3]

Now we can watch for the seemingly endless parade of TiVo apologist talking about how TiVo's still the greatest thing since sliced bread even though they use DRM, force downgrades to remove features, and incorporate ads.

Why you want to watch the ads

[jparker]

I own a Tivo, and like many of you say, I really enjoy skipping the adds. Being able to watch a 30-min show in 23 minutes is a great timesaver, but it does have some downsides. I miss several jokes around the office, because they start with "Oh man, have you seen the new FooCorp add?" I have a very poor idea of what movies are coming out, because I don't see any of the trailers on TV. So, I can see several uses for this service. I'd love to be able to tell my Tivo: "Show me all the movie trailers for movies coming out Friday." Or something similar. I've thought for a while that PVRs should allow ad recording and ad sharing. You know that there are lots of people who would send that really funny ad to all their friends, and it would get the advertiser's off your back a bit. They usually have a set of ads they're featuring on the main page as well. You have to deliberatley select to watch them, but often I do. For LOTR they had behind the scenes interviews and several extended trailers. Ditto for most any other geek-friendly movie. They also showcased the BMW films when those were running. This new system just sounds like a beefed-up version of that, which is no bad thing.

Sure, most commercials are annoying and deserve to be skipped, but some are actually entertaining, interesting, and (rarely) even informative. Can't say I see a problem with providing me another way to get information, as long as it's opt-in.

Re:Why you want to watch the ads

[Hlewagastir]

Sure, most commercials are annoying and deserve to be skipped, but some are actually entertaining, interesting, and (rarely) even informative.

You've hit the nail on the head. Advertisers seem to have this strange belief that we should all have to watch commercials even if they are bad. If commercials were entertaining, interesting, or even -gasp informative, people might actually be willing to watch a few now and again. Instead we have crappy, idiotic advertising that the ad execs are trying their damnedest to force us to watch by whatever means possible. These are people who probably mistook A Clockwork Orange as a creative training film.

There might be something to allowing consumers to go to an advertiser's section on their PVR and select ads to watch, it would at least force advertisers to compete with one another for entertainment value, to get you to watch their ad, rather than that of their competitors. If it were implemented properly, which it won't be, this could be a good thing. Ad's would have to compete for viewership just like the shows themselves. Some people watch the Super Bowl every year just for the commercials, why wouldn't this model work for everyday viewing? Make it entertaining enough, and people will watch. What an ass-backward system that the advertisers get pissy when we don't want to watch their stupid commercials. Perhaps they should take a look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves if it's really the viewers who are to blame.

Re:Why you want to watch the ads

[FangVT]

I'd love to be able to tell my Tivo: "Show me all the movie trailers for movies coming out Friday." Or something similar.

Get a Season Pass to (I think it's called) "Coming Attractions" on "E". You'll need to fast forward through some inane chatter but the show is mostly trailers for current or soon-to-be-current movies.

Press thumbs up during FF over an ad

[DickBreath]

When FF'ing through the annoying ads, I sometimes see an ad that I realize I'm interested in. I can stop FF and see the ad.

Now, if I could push thumbs up (or thumbs down!) on an ad, this could be used to notify the advertiser of my thumbs up/down.

Even better, if I press thumbs up/down on an ad, TiVo should display a menu of options, such as...
(For thumbs up)...

• I would like my TiVo to download more information about your product and send me a message when the info is available
• I liked your ad
• I like your product
• I would like TiVo to send you all of my personal information and give you unlimited permission to charge my account and send me your products

(For thumbs down)...

• I think your ad bites
• I think your product bites
• I think your company bites
• Many of the above

In the end, this is good for me. Advertisers may be encouraged to run good ads, or at least entertaining ones. Advertisers get feedback about their ads, product, and/or company -- or at least my perception of these.

TiVo and advertisers have an opportunity here. It is easy for me the viewer, I can just Thumbs Up/Down on a commercial. Select from a menu.

It is the ultimate opt-in. If I choose not to participate, I do nothing, and nothing changes about how I benefit from using my TiVo.

Re:Press thumbs up during FF over an ad

[YaroKutai]

How about.. I think your ads sucks shit, your sisters a felch-queen whore and all your executives are a bunch of cocksuckers.. ??

Sounds like they are more concerned

[YaroKutai]

with the concerns of advertisers, then the concerns of their client base

Re:Sounds like they are more concerned

[Overzeetop]

No, they're more concerned about how to stay afloat (revenue). Since they can't reasonably raist the monthly fee (again), they don't make squat off of the boxes sold, and their feature set doesn't make them a must have (hint: auto commercial skipping, unencumbered digital transfer of files, simple compilation of program gourps on to DVD, no no-captive integration with non-air service providers), they must look elsewhere to help the bottom line.

Two important words about tivo'd ads:

[Jtheletter]

Victorias Secret.

Free TiVo Service

[cparisi]

I think TiVo should have a free service (no cost) that somehow integrates custom Ads into the video. Perhaps a bar at the top (like web pages). This would lower the barrier to entry even more. To turn off the ads, simply pay for the service....

The "Best of Ads" Channel

[krysith]

I agree that the implementation of the ad concept has sucked. I've always thought it would be interesting to start a cable TV channel that played nothing but ads - but GOOD ads, the ones where people don't change the channel when they come on. We can all think of interesting and cool ads that we have seen and liked. There are plenty of ads that people download because they thought they were neat. Get a few editors to pick the winner ads and your advertisers would give you all the content you would ever need. And they would pay you for it. You could throw in retro ads and stuff as specials to attract veiwers.

In addition, if they were not played over and over again, but rather interspersed with different ads, people would not get sick of them like they do with regular ads. Everyone gets sick of watching the same ad 10 times during the same show. Sure, advertisers like it when there is repetition, but if they are driving watchers away, shouldn't they have to pay for that? Instead, offer them this option, where placing your ad is much cheaper than between episodes of Law and Order or Survivor, but the ads are placed in such a way that viewers don't hate it.

If QVC works, so would this. In addition, if this were highly successful, it might help change the ad industry's view of the best way to do things.

Re:The "Best of Ads" Channel

[HTH NE1]

I know I wish my Usenet feed carried alt.binaries.multimedia.commercials. If there's any content on TV that one should have an unlimited right to redistribute for free in perfect digital lossless reproduction, it's commercials.

Too bad adcritic.com decided to price themselves for the advertiser market. I guess they couldn't afford the bandwidth for their content with a general audience popularity. Though you'd think if they'd adopt bittorrent they could open their library to the public again. (I want the long version of the XBOX 360 ad with the water balloons at at least 720x480. The war-torn setting is surreal.)

I don't trust this...

[TheoGB]

"TiVo described the service as non-intrusive, relevant, interactive advertising on an opt-in basis."

But a girl I'm friends with will get porn recorded to her TiVo by it despite having no interest in such stuff. It just seems to decided to do this every now and again.

I wouldn't be that sure they can target correctly.

Re:I don't trust this...

[Hugh Manatee]

You might want to stop hitting "Thumbs Up" on all the porn you watch while she is away :)

It wouldn't be a horrible thing, if done right.

[ari{Dal}]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind more targetted advertising in the TV world. I'd be willing to submit basic, non-identifiable data & interests in exchange for something worthwhile (like a discount). It'd be worth it to me to avoid all the stupid diaper and formula commercials usually aimed at women, and get ads for nifty tech toys instead.

A really interesting thread

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is one of the most interesting discussions I've seen on SlashDot in a long time.

If there are Slashdotter's from waaay back this is exactly what happened when Google was started, right here, on Slashdot.

All these common people are voicing what they want, what they don't want, and championing the good and the bad of various business models.

I'll bet someone really is listening.. and the next Bill Gates empire will be built from it.

Fundamentally I think its about control and fashion, some people want to move or control the culture and tell you what is fashionable and have you pay them for it.. they aren't really giving you anything so much as forcing you to pay them for producing anything.. other people would call it extorsion.. but that seems the end state of all monopolies.

I mean Microsoft Windows started out as the underdog, and offered features in a better competing product (Apple Mac) at a cheaper price.. then like all monopolies they grew to the point where they felt they should be driving their industry and became a big bad monopoly.

Once a monopoly outlives its creators.. or outlives their interest in their creation.. it turns into a cash cow.. and sorta fuedualistic.. it attracts all kinds of cooky people like Rasmusen the Mad monk to Czars and Czarinas.. and hence you get Advertisers..

Don't really worry about TiVO.. its time has come and gone.. it was a great idea.. but I think MythTV and a subscription model of Hollywood which caters to niches is on the horizon.. you'll be voting with your PayPal accounts soon. Then Ads will become a thing of the past.. and we may actually have historians studying them wondering "what were they thinking?"

Ever see that DS9 episode where they went back to 2005 and Dax hooked up with a Bill Gates like character running Internet Channel 47? "Oh.. television? It didn't last much beyond the turn of the century.. people found better things to do with their time." .. it's about time!

Tivo Rewards

[Otto]

But if they really expect me to convince Dad that he can't live without a season pass on those Seinfeld reruns he loves so much, then they should be giving me the 50 smackers. I'd probably have 10 people signed up under me right now if I got some sort of compensation for it. (By the way, click here [freeminimacs.com] to get a free Mini Mac!):-)

They've had that for quite some time now: http://www.tivo.com/rewards

Gist of it is that they give you 5000 points for every referral, and you trade those in for swag. Good swag too, like iPods and DVD Recorders and such.

Let's do a little editing...

[Nom du Keyboard]

For the first time, advertisers will have the ability to deliver television advertising, on demand and targeted to consumers, without the limitations of traditional television media placement.

Let's try a little editing from an Internet perspective:

For the first time, advertisers will have the ability to deliver Internet advertising, on demand and targeted to consumers, without the limitations of traditional web-browsing patterns.

Sounds to me like the very same descriptions used for the Adware/Spyware that we all totally despise!

Re:Let's do a little editing...

[cbbyers]

Rootkits, spyware and adware were created to protect you. I think Tivo also wants to protect us. I'm not sure how I survived all these years without all of this genuine concern for my safety.

I think this is great news. I usually can't think on my own, and I appreciate Tivo helping me. I have always coveted a service that I can pay a monthly subscribtion for and have other people influence how it works. I don't think ad agencies would spend so much time desperately seeking new ways to deliver ads if the ads weren't things that we needed to see.

Deep down, I know I should truly love viagra and cialis, but I don't, and there's obviously something wrong about that. They know the errors of my ways and I need constant reminders to help me on my journey to a better life. One day I am sure I will become the person they strive for me to be.

Re:odd - TiVo Illegal Behavior ??? !!!

[Nom du Keyboard]

Though I fast-forward through them, I still see several frames of each commercial, and that's all the brain needs to see what product they are advertising.

Does this qualify as subliminal advertising, which is highly illegal? Since TiVo has removed the 30 second skip they are forcing you to view commercials in this manner. Has anyone investigated this?

Overall TiVo just keeps giving me more reasons to hate them.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad - Hack This!

[Nom du Keyboard]

1. Unlike, say, Microsoft, they never discouraged their users from hacking their boxes. As a result, a huge community of TiVo hackers emerged (see http://www.tivocommunity.com/). I upgraded my TiVo's 30 gig hard drive to two 120's, and installed a cachecard/network card combo from 9th Tee, which means I can do fun tricks like scheduling shows and season passes from the road, or watching shows in my bedroom on my XBOX.

How about hacking it to put 30 second instant skip back in? Think TiVo favors that? And ditching the floating commercials. Got a hack for that yet? We won't even talk about TiVo to GoTo the DVD burner of your choice so that you can keep from filling up your 240 Gigs with programs you prefer to keep like you used to keep $1 VCR tapes halfway to forever.

Your section on the Bad should have included all the things TiVo has taken away (e.g. 30 second skip), or never provided when they could (e.g. Replay TV style automatic commercial skip) to the benefit of their customer base. I don't see TiVo presenting as rosy a picture as you do.

Re:odd - TiVo Illegal Behavior ??? !!!

[airjrdn]

No 30 second skip removal on my DTivo. Select Play Select 30 Select

So, you trust advertising?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you base your purchasing decisions on what the manufacturers want you to think about their product? Let me guess, you own an Ionic Breeze Quadra, from Sharper Image. Based on what their commercial says, it's the best thing since sliced bread. From other sources though (Consumer Reports), my coffee table collects dust quicker than that piece of shit. Should my coffee table qualify as an air cleaner? The thing creates so much ozone, they had to put a catalytic converter on it to correct the problem. Do you think their marketing department wants you to know that? Do you think they are going to mention that in their commercials? Or were you under the impression that they decided on their own to filter out atmospheric ozone? NO!! They had to put that thing on to help cut down on the ozone the damn thing creates. The latest from Consumer Reports indicates the catalytic converter hardly does shit either.

This is the information age. There are plenty of places to go on-line and do research. I wouldn't trust advertising to give me an accurate picture of the drill market.

Re:odd - TiVo Illegal Behavior ??? !!!

[airjrdn]

Sorry to reply to my own post, but if you don't already know...you have to do that while watching a show you've previously recorded. Steps: ====== Start playing something previously recorded Select Play Select 30 Select

Re:odd - TiVo Illegal Behavior ??? !!!

[Dionysus]

30 sec skips still work at my place (TiVo series 2 with latest software)

Ultimate Time Saver

[snitmo]

Don't watch TV.

Actually, this might be a cool feature

[katcoker]

It will largely depend on how TiVo rolls this out. There are some commercials that I would love to repeat, look up, and play on demand. They can be creative, funny, entertaining, informative, witty... you get the picture. When someone asks me, "hey did you catch the cat hearding commercial?!" If I can look it up on my TiVo as easily as on the internet, I would more likely use it on my TiVo.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad - Hack This!

[HTH NE1]

I've never lost the ability to enable 30-second skip (Select Play Select 3 0 Select), though I have yet to set up my new Humax DVD Recorder with TiVo Service. What model of TiVo were you using?

Dear Tivo

[Morinaga]

Dear Tivo,

I am not brand loyal to your company. I enjoy my Tivo units because of the ease of use and the utility of that service. I'm not enamoured with your interface, the GUI of your guide nor the speed of such interfaces. I am not thrilled with Tivo's inability to dynamically recognize sporting events that go in to OT or the fact that LOST might be running two minutes ahead of schedual. A competitor could easily sway this consumer. One that speeds up and improves the interface and doesn't require computer gymnastics to operrate.

Tivo should do a best ads showcase

[grahamsz]

There are a few (very few) commercials that i like.

Usually whenever i see the Geico logo i pause my tivo, rewind and watch the commercial since they are usually quite entertaining.

If tivo were to let users rate ads (volutarily of course) then they could pull out the best ones and demonstrate to advertisers that good ads really do work and crappy ones just piss off your potential customers.

Re:odd - TiVo Illegal Behavior ??? !!!

[An ominous Cow art]

I actually look aside while fast-forwarding past commercials. Based on timing, and the mix of colors I can see out of the corner of my eye, I can stop at the right spot probably 9 out of 10 times. The most common "false positive" I get is when, for example, there's a commercial for the Simpsons right before the show itself resumes after a break.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad - Hack This!

[The Lynxpro]

"Your section on the Bad should have included all the things TiVo has taken away (e.g. 30 second skip), or never provided when they could (e.g. Replay TV style automatic commercial skip) to the benefit of their customer base. I don't see TiVo presenting as rosy a picture as you do."

I'd say that TiVo keeping itself a float is a benefit they've given their customer base, unlike ReplayTV. ReplayTV has bankrupted two parent companies already by having incurred the wrath of the broadcasters association and the MPAA. Does that slow the pace of innovation on TiVo's part? A little bit. But at least it didn't jeopardize my "lifetime subscription" I bought for my machine three years ago.

And you can still enable the 30 second skip on the TiVo remote. Its just TiVo had enough brains not to place a specific button labelled as "commercial skip" on their remote which saved them expensive litigation fees that ReplayTV spent and bankrupted their parent companies.

omg

[jaimz22]

i watched one episode of will and grace and now tivo thinks i'm gay.

hey i'm glad i got a time warner DVR too, i can just record on that and fast forward through the commercals, with no gay popup ads or what not

not to mention theres still plenty for free PC based tivo style solutions. which gives me a good reason to build yet anouther computer!

Two words: TIVO sucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

just use replayTV and be done with the drama

Google ads FTW!

[supabeast!]

Why would I want to waste my time searching for advertisments that I have to watch, when I can just type a term into Google and view the ads that come up tied to that search term? Or even better, I could just search for something in Google base. Either way I can pull up multiple web sites for products, compare them, and then track down the best price. That's a hell of a lot easier and more efficient than sitting around watching commercials on TV and fast-forwarding through them until I find a good one.

For the umpteenth time, users will have the chance

[Anonymous Coward]

to switch to a different dvr service.

Directv may not be perfect, but it's not going to be beaming you ads Heheheh