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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.'"
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.
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.
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."
I don't know about that, but here's the /. article on the lawsuit. The link might have been useful enough to be included in the summary, IMO, but didn't .. naturally.
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.
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!
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?
Not really. The concept of simultaneously reading and writing a computer file that happens to be video data was patented back in 1993 by somebody else. It's a very broad patent, and is not easily worked around like most of the patents that TiVo actually filed.
Now TiVo owns the rights to that patent, but it's because they bought it out a couple of years ago. (And they were probably infringing that patent prior to that point. IOW, TiVo probably built its empire by violating others' intellectual property.) Basically, TiVo got their most valuable and dangerous IP the same way that any other patent troll company does: not with innovation, but with a cash payout.
You're missing a feature that I find completely invaluable--the TiVo will go out and record other shows that it might think you like based on your recording and rating history. That is, if you like a show, you give it 2 or 3 thumbs up. After it's built up a "profile" of the shows you rate highly, it will go out and record other shows when you're not watching it. I've found quite a few shows I wouldn't otherwise have watched due to this.
This guy's the limit!