Lunch with TiVo's E. Stephen Mack

Thomas Hawk writes "On Monday I had lunch with one of TiVo's earliest employees, Director of Service Operations, E. Stephen Mack. We talked about where TiVo is going, where they are today and where they have been -- CableCARD, HME, why TiVo is not interested in being bought out, their deal with Netflix and more."

Comments

Tivo, I'll miss you when you're gone

[PaulModz]

I loved my old Tivo more than any audio-video component I've ever owned. That said, I just don't see Tivo turning into the brains at the center of your home theater. I kinda tried for a while, but decided it would be easier and cheaper (in the long run, plus time == money) to just use a PC.

M$ and Sony are trying to replace Tivo from one side (the new XBox and PlayStation are both stealthy attempts to put a CPU in the center of your home theater). On the other side, DVRs are becoming a ubiquitous commodity on set-tops boxes, and it doesn't seem like Tivo can really offer them anything besides the name Tivo, which is probably the most valuable thing Tivo owns (witness the on-again off-again nature of their deal with Comcast).

Imagine if the VCR as we know it had been invented by one company back in the late 70's. Now imagine how long that company would have survived if the only product it ever sold was a VCR with a monthly service fee (while other companies were giving away VCRs, to boot).

My current thinking is that people who care will buy something that better suits their needs, and people who don't will take the free stuff offered by Cable and Satellite providers.

Re:Tivo, I'll miss you when you're gone

[tdemark]

On the other side, DVRs are becoming a ubiquitous commodity on set-tops boxes, and it doesn't seem like Tivo can really offer them anything besides the name Tivo, which is probably the most valuable thing Tivo owns (witness the on-again off-again nature of their deal with Comcast).

Have you ever used a STB DVR? Their interface redefines the word "sucks".

I have a DCT-6412 Phase II from Comcast (Dual Tuner HDTV DVR) and a Series 1 Tivo. The DVR portion of the STB goes mostly unused - I pick up a few shows each week that are HD on it. Everything else gets picked up by the Tivo. Yes, the interface is that bad.

When I first got the STB, I tried to completely replace the Tivo, but couldn't. The interface is sllllooooooowwwwwww. During normal operation, button presses are delayed anywhere from .5 to 3 seconds. Occasionally, the unit won't respond for 10 or 15 seconds, but it will queue all your remote presses... so when it comes back alive, it freaks out by executing all the commands you sent it when you thought it wasn't getting your keypresses.

Unless you select from the Guide, picking shows to record is a chore. First, to select by title, they give you a five character 1983 video game high score selector: A A A A A . You go to each letter, press up or down to find the appropriate character, press right to continue on. Combine this with the molasses-like interface and it is downright painful.

The system is buggy, too. For example, let's say you don't want you kids to see that "Hot, Naked Coeds" is playing on Channel 199 (VOD). You can't hide the channel in the guide, but you can set the system to replace adult titles with "Adult Programming". This works well until you go to pick a program to record. Adult titles in this list appear where they would if the "Adult Programming" title was not in effect (eg - "Hot, Naked Coeds" would, appropriately, be filed under "HO"). However, if you scan down the list of titles, the system will eventually get tripped up on "Adult Programming" appearing in the list and reset you back to the "AD" titles. This makes it impossible to scan down the title list. My theory is that when "Adult Programming" appeared at a specific location on the list (eg - first or last), the system got confused and assumed you were still in the "A"s.

The only two things that the STB has going for it are: (1) Dual tuners and (2) HDTV recording. The Tivo Series 3 is going to fix that, though. My hope is that Comcast will make a smart choice and offer Tivo Series 3 as an option next year sometime as their DVR offering. Because their current offering, when compared with Tivo, just plain sucks.

- Tony

Re:Tivo, I'll miss you when you're gone

[hawkbug]

"They don't even have dual tuners in them so you're stuck watching pre-recorded content while it's recording something unless you put in a splitter to watch live TV."

I have a dual tuner Tivo right now and I love it. It's a DirecTivo of course, the Sony SAT-T60. It doesn't do HD obviously, but the minute they come out with the series 3 HD dual tuner ones, I'm all over it. That means I'll have to drop DirecTV, but since they dissed Tivo, I have no problem with that.

cheaper and offering more

[stevea1210]

I personally went with the DVR from Comcast. IMHO it was a better offering than tivo (pains me to say Comcast offered a better deal). No upfront fee for the box, cheaper per month, can record hi-def, complete integration with my cable box. So Comcast offered me something that was A)cheaper (upfront and per month), B)able to do things Tivo can't (hi-def and integration) It wasn't a hard choice for me on which to go with.

Re:cheaper and offering more

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I personally went with the DVR from Comcast. IMHO it was a better offering than tivo (pains me to say Comcast offered a better deal).

I don't trust Tivo as a company anymore and went with a smaller company with a less restricted product when I decided on a PVR. That said, it is not fair to compare Tivo to Comcast on price. Comcast just raises everyone's subscription fees to cover the difference (seeing as they have a monopoly in most areas they are available). Ditto on integration with a Cable box. The truth of the matter is, Tivo has pretty much sold out to the cable companies and given the cable companies' leverage a lot more people are choosing like you. It is too bad too, since the cable companies are motivated to remove as much of the ability to store video long-term and skip commercials as possible. They will kill the 30 second skip as much as possible. They will try to ad more advertisements using the PVR. They are motivated to make it hard and/or expensive for you to archive video, since then you would be less tied to them and since they are owned largely by the same corps as content producers who want to sell you that archived copy on DVD.

You may have made a wise choice in the short term, but the long term consequences are going to suck.

Meanwhile, I'll be using the built in editor on my PVR to remove commercials for my favorite shows/movies before I burn them to DVD or VCD. I'll also be exporting recent episodes of shows to mpeg-4 so I can watch them on my laptop while flying/commuting. It even uses less battery than a DVD would and I can catch up on those shows I haven't gotten to before I delete those not worth archiving. Also note, I pay no monthly fee for my PVR and can pick my choice of independent scheduling providers instead of being tied to one particular service.

I'm firmly convinced all this functionality should be in every PVR, except of course those being made by corporation with a vested interest in them being less functional and those companies who have signed huge sales contracts with those companies. Oh well, hopefully IPTV will take off and fundamentally change the market, separating content from other content and from being tied to delivery mechanism.