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TiVo May Be a Buyout Target
Moose writes "Ars Technica has a piece up about the takeover rumors surrounding TiVo, now that it has a lawsuit win to boost its chances in the marketplace. From the article: 'It appears that TiVo is at a major crossroads, with brilliant technology under what now appears to be enforceable patents and a rapidly growing subscriber base, but with larger players in the TV market lurking just out of sight, possibly with pen to checkbook already. The DVR innovator seems to have little control over its own destiny now, and future success may rest in the hands of the legal system. Godspeed, TiVo.'"
What does that have to do with them being a buyout target?
I bought my TiVo series 2 the week it was released. I think it was about $300, plus activation at $250. (Also added a huge, at the time, 100GB second drive) At first, I was amazed at this little box. But as Echostar has shown, there is no pixie dust that can't be duplicated and there have been some missteps by TiVo. I'll list a few - The large popup ads that took up the screen and wouldn't go away - Misplaced copy protection - Routinely taking away the 30 second skip - The double button press in v7.2 that only now seems close to being fixed - The recent removal of lifetime subscription options I like how easy to use the TiVo is, but others are catching up. I've used other PVRs and they're not half bad. The only huge advantage I see w/ my TiVo is I can transfer recordings to my desktop.
...like, 1 or 2 or 5 articles already speculating this?
In the past month?
I am a cablevision subscriber. For $10/month I get their dvr service. Sure, their program guide is terrible. But I can cancel the service at any time. The recorder has dual tuners. I would love to switch to tivo, but it's not worth the extra money and (more importantly) loss of features to do so.
For those of you who haven't tried it, Tivo really changes how you watch TV. I have a difficulty watching "live" tv since getting mine about 6 months ago, and it's mainly due to the fact that during your recordings you can "30-second" skip through the commercials. Also, you can watch shows whenever you want. For instance, I was gone for the last 2 weeks on business. I didn't have time to catch the shows on TV where I was. When I got back, there they were! The other thing, the user interface is amazing! It's simple, intuitive, and works as you expect it to. I've tried MythTV, and for all the work you put into it, it's still just a beta system that will fail you when you least expect it. Some people talk about the Cable provider's DVRs; they can't touch the usability of Tivo. Tivo just works, and it works well. Oh, and for you portable fans out there, there is software to download your tivo shows to your PSP/Palm/Cell/whatever. It works well, doesn't take up a ton of space, and can even be automated. Now that's a cool feature! As for cost, Tivo used to have a $299 lifetime (for the life of the hardware) user fee. I was lucky enough to sign up for this when I bought my box. Unfortunately, that was recently taken away in favor of providing "free" hardware to the consumer. Would I pay 15-18 bucks a month for a Tivo? I'll cross that road when I come to it. Oh, and for you "hax0rs" out there, you can even upgrade your tivos with bigger hard drives and the like. I have a 300gig drive in my 40 hour tivo :).
Tivo will continue to be a wonderful innovation, and hopefully this will allow it's interface to spread into other venues.
Their technology is moot and I hope they get bought out by Walmart or something.
Layoff the entire staff, move the BUs to india and be done with.
I swear to god if I hear "I tivo'ed that episode" one more time I'm gonna be linked to some fairly hefty crimes against humanity.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
By Microsoft:
"Well that's too bad, I sort of liked them before; but now no way. Looks like its time to build my own DVR or switch to Myth TV becuase I could never use Windows Media Center, even if it was better."
By Google:
"Well that's awesome, maybe now ill be able to search through TV shows to find exactly the ones that I want and skip all the ones that aren't worth watching."
By Yahoo:
"Please provide your yahoo username, otherwise please create an account. It will be free until we get up to what Google would have done. And after 2 Gigs of storage you will have to pay again. Sorry for any incontinence."
Does it work kind of like this?
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
Had a Tivo for about two year no problems, great extras. Went HD with comcast DVR, 1 returned box, frezzes, sound cut outs.
I have Rogers' PVR service, and they use Scientific Atlanta units. They are terrible. The interface is ugly. It occassionally "forgets" to record programs you've set up to record. Sometimes it freezes during playback for 5 - 10 seconds, then resumes. If you're recording a program, and you decide to start watching it while it is still recording, and you're only halfway through when the episode ends, the PVR jumps you to the end, and you have to start watching it again from the beginning, and fast-forward back to where you were.
That said, it's only $25/month to rent the unit, and it has 2 tuners, meaning you can record 2 things at once (and watch a pre-recorded third program at the same time, if you want). I'd gladly pay a little extra to have a real Tivo unit.
Why aren't any Canadian companies using Tivo's technology? Has Tivo tried to crack the Canadian market? As I said, Rogers uses Scientific Atlanta. Bell has their own ExpressVu box. I have a co-worker who claims he bought a Tivo on his own, and it works on Rogers' network. So what's holding Tivo back from breaking into the Canadian market? Just curious, because I'm really getting sick of this Scientific Atlanta crap and would gladly upgrade.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Apple really should buy TiVo. I really believe TiVo nicely complements the overall direction and image of Apple's product line. They just need to make slight modifications to the casing to make it match their other products. Also, it really wouldn't be too hard for them to tie it into iTunes service as well, thereby using iTune's success to increase the TiVo user base. If this happened, Apple would corner the home entertainment market. Hopefully someone at Apple has the insight to see this. Of course, there are behind the scenes accounting and finance factors that determine whether or not a large buyout like this would be feasible for a company such as Apple.
I Tivo'd that episode of 24 last night. Did you see it? It was the must-see event of your lifetime.
Their technology is moot and I hope they get bought out by K-Mart or something. Layoff the entire staff, move the BUs to india and be done with. I swear to god if I hear "I xerox'ed that report" one more time I'm gonna be linked to some fairly hefty crimes against humanity.
I love my replayTV, not only does it have the commercial skip but when paired with DVarchive it is just amazing. For those that don't know, DVarchive is software that allows your computer to act like a replaytv on the network, allowing you to download shows from your replaytv to your computer as well as stream them from your computer to your replay, and best of all... it's so easy your parents can use it!
I have a Tivo and I love it. It really has changed the way I watch Television. Yes, there are some short comings, but things are changing.
The new Tivo Series 3 adds HD Recording. It will have the ability to record one show and watch "live" television on another station. Even if both stations are HD.
It also adds the ability to hook up an External SATA hard drive to extend the storage capacity. No more cracking the case to add a hard drive. Finally, there is a RJ45 for standard networking connectivity.
Then, Comcast has agreed to go with Tivo for their customers. As a Comcast customer and a Tivo owner, I am really excited about this.
As for who would be interested in Tivo. I see two companies.
Apple - Tivo is Linux based. They have a lot of *nix experience on their side. It would really be a great Triple Threat for their Video offerings on ITunes. With the strong Tivo brand and the even stronger Apple brand, this would be a huge boost for Tivo.
Cisco - They already purchased Scientific Atlantic. They have their targets set on getting into the Consumer Market and really, really want to put a Cisco device on everyone's Television. Their motiviation is pushing Television over IP. They see it as the next big Networking push. And like Apple, they also have a ton of *nix experience on their staff.
I would be completely shocked if it was not one of these two companies that bought Tivo.
Tivo Is Dead! Long Live Tivo!
RTFG - Read The F#$%ing Google!
I love my tivo, but how can any of you condone this stupid patent? The technology is obvious and should not be patentable. In reality tivo is little more than an advanced VCR, using a disk drive instead of a tape and with a few fancy bells and whistles thrown in. This is just another sign that our patent system is broken. The ones who suffer are the consumers. Now we must pay higher prices and we will suffer from less innovation due to tivo being able to stifle competition in the PVR market.
brilliant technology
Can someone please explain what brilliant technology is in a Tivo? I thought it just records and plays back video in digital form. From what I can gather what's made Tivo big is its usability. Am I missing something technical?
Developers: We can use your help.
Tivo still amazes me for not bringing their technology outside of the US. At first I thought it was because of the copyrights that exist on programguide information, but now that DVD/HD-recorders with program guides appear here in Europe, I can't imagine that to be the major hurdle. Tivo must be doing something really wrong if it can't bring its technology in other markets then North America and the UK.
What amazes me too is how Tivo doesn't seem to be able to license its technology to other players in the market in large quantities. You would expect that with such a great product several of the large consumergoods producers would love to integrate that into their product. But a quick Google doesn't show up alot of products that have "Tivo Inside" (TM).
My third gripe with Tivo is that they don't seem to grasp yet how to use broadband to supply people with programming they want to see. It seems that for the most part they are an all TV player that uses the internet only for a very small part of their business. Why not use it whole?
Oh well, I'm in Europe, what do we know. Just peeved that I read about Tivo for 5 years but still can't buy it in my country. Yes I'm jealous of the US.
Use Adsense for Charity
...and they would be getting a 74 million dollar rebate in the process.
Seriously though, I'm actually surprised that Apple, Sony or DirecTV haven't bought them out yet, but perhaps with this patent case they'll be more attractive..
Oh, and btw, since the last software update I've had to reset my 30-second skip like 10 times now. I assume that this is the prelude to removing 30-second skip.
Warning to Tivo: DO NOT FUCK WITH 30-SECOND SKIP.
Don't give anything away! I Motorola-DCT6412ed that episode too and I haven't watched it.
For more information, click here.
With Cisco buying everything in sight thiese days Tivo would be great acquistion. They have already purchased some other consumer electronics firms. Can't think of who at the moment but it was here on /. that I saw it. Anyways Tivo would be great if it could do half of what my homebuilt dvr does. I run mythtv its friggin awesome and beats the hell out of tivo. I could see Cisco adding some much needed network compatibility to the tivo so you could stream recorded stuff to anywhere on your network. Of course there is always the possibililty MS will buy them and the Xbox III will have much better dvr functions.
WTF?
Pffft. I tried to MediaCenterEdition it, but the damn computer didn't wake from sleep like it was supposed to...
This guy's the limit!
The pause feature is the easist to market. The folders are very nice (my HDtivo doesn't have them, and it sux), but with a stock TiVo, they can fill up fast. Not everybody hacks their box for 150+ hours, though I don't know why not. Heck, for TiVo, it would seem a bonus to offer plug-n-play expandability with PATA or SATA drives - they only sell the service, and the more programming features, the better their position.
For my wife, the best part of the whole thing are the suggestions. It's likely the reason that we will jump from DTV when they pull the plug on TiVo. She doesn't want to surf around for shows to record, she wants to pick and choose from shows that are similar to a few select genres. Her tivo has gotten pretty good after some training, and now she has 20-30 hours of programming that shes interested in when she grabs the remote. I'm not aware of any other DVR box with that functionality.
Of course, TiVo, being cash strapped, can't fling themselves against the litigation wall to put all the really good features into their boxes. Replay tried and died. I just wish TiVo would play quite as nice with the content police.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
With this vastly complicated system (not to mention expensive, I paid almost $3 for that splitter) I am able to record all my regularly scheduled programs, while letting my daughter watch Dora the Explorer live on TV. Granted, she has no Tivo features while watching live TV from the cable running directly (which pisses her off because she sure loves pausing to get some cereal, and coming back and fastforwarding commercials) but she gets to watch what she wants, and I get to record what I want.
Without the splitter, the best you can do as far as I can tell is watch a previously recorded show while Tivo records whatever is on now.
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
If Apple does buy them, will we then get a one button remote? Just curious.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
That's what I do, too. I split the cable before the TV -- the TV's twin tuners can watch whatever they want live (complete with PIP), the ReplayTV records from its own source on and can be watched on INPUT 1, and the DVD player is connected to INPUT 2.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Why would any want to buy TiVo out? All of TiVo's competitors seem to be doing just fine beating TiVo at their own game.
While it's not folders, you can turn on alphabetical sort in the now playing list. Go into Now Playing, and do 'SORT' (Slow, Zero, Record, Thumbs Up) to turn on sorting in Now Playing. Now 1 will sort the old way and 3 will sort alphabetically (2 sorts by expiration date, hasn't been that useful).
With the large amounts of programs we keep on the HD TiVo, and the way we watch (we 'save up' episodes and watch 2 or 3 in a row of some shows), alphabetical sort is great. We use normal sort to find a recent show, hit 3 to go to alphabetical sort, and check just below that show to see if there are other older episodes.
And yes, TiVo suggestions are great - between that and recording on the keyword "pilot" it's how we find out about new shows.
> cat ~/.signature | grep -v bullshit
>
I don't agree. We don't need TiVo to have DVR's. And with the way TiVo is both trying to force their units (patents at least) on all other competitors, and keeps caving into the content industry (automatic deletions, no 30-second commercial skip without a hack that may be closed on any forced update) I foresee a TiVo-based future of ever higher prices for ever less control over one's content.
YMMV.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Oddly enough, I don't have much call for the folders on my HD TiVo. I've hacked it and I download all the shows on a weekly basis and reformat them to mpg for a little MviX box I got a while ago. I only watch about one show a week on the HD box itself, and the occasional classic on HDnet Movies. The main reason I have HD is for football (NFL & NCAA) season.
;-)
I suppose if it had folders I might bea able to convince the wife to let go of her box and we could reduce the costof our monthly sub to DTV, but then she'd be able to train my box to look for the mind numbing programming she enjoys (ghost stuff, archeology, 18th century history, *blech*).
Anyway, your tagging works great, except for the "suggestions" folder, which would just sprinkle the suggestions throught the alphabetical listing.
Good idea about the keyword Pilot. I've never thought of that. That's be worth a mod point in itself (though, of course, I've already posted to this thread, even if I did have mod points, which I don't
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It is really quite simple. TIVO has a better UI than the other recorders out there. However, seeing as they aren't helpful to me at all in upgrading the system to something compatiable with my receiver, I kind of wonder what the point is. I am servicing a phone line for my Tivo 1 unit, which amounts to some $30 a month in this small town. I cancel the line, get the recorder from Dish Network, and save $20 a month, and add several GB's a space. Sounds like a win/win. I do prefer the TIVO though and that is why I haven't made the switch.
I have a Tivo Series 2, and I love it. It works, period. We scrub our lineup a lot, so we don't have disk space issues. I was smart enough to buy the lifetime $250 subscription when I purchased the box, so I have no worries there, until the hardware itself dies.
The issue of Tivo being acquired by someone else could end up very good or very bad, depending on who does the acquisition.
Apple? Good. It would only enhance their product line, and Tivo's viability.
Cisco? Bad. Cisco is of the old school, I-Have-To-Control-Everything culture. Would Cisco support the level of hacking that Tivo has done? I submit that they would not.
I've been looking hard at MythTV. The latest version looks like it runs rings around Tivo if you are Linux-familiar. But I think I'm going to wait until I make the jump to HDTV before I start building a Myth box, unless 1) my Tivo dies, or 2) some broadcast flag legislation ends up being passed.
If something good's going to go tits up, let's see both tits at the same time.
Both companies have been demonstrable examples of using Linux under the hood, and have a certain ongoing dedication to it. Both companies' products have significant (auth/unauth/tacit) community development (i.e. hacks). Google wants to expand into video search and cataloging, TiVo wants to expand into providing access to online content.
And for added bonus, the logo colors are practically identical.
It just seems like such an obvious fit. If only they could see it.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
during your recordings you can "30-second" skip through the commercials.
Hmm. My ReplayTV skips right over commercials, invisibly, silently, and with no fuss, and no silly 30-second button clicking.
Da Blog
if you read the scuttlebutt at motley fool, they bring up a good question. if nobody bought them when they were trading at $4.00 why would they be a better target now at $8.50? It seems that everyone already thought that they would win these patent lawsuits and some were even disappointed at the amount they did receive --$74M that's chump change, NTP received $162M from RIMM. Anyway, here's to them getting bought out at $20.