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The Challenges of A DVR Service
ChelleChelle writes "'The two burdens that are probably most annoying to the user are a complex and difficult control interface and lack of reliability.' So says TiVo cofounder Jim Burton as he describes the challenges of designing and delivering an easy-to-use yet highly effective and reliable DVR service. The article is quite broad in focus, providing information on the design aspects of TiVo (hardware, security, source code, etc) yet also taking into consideration the human element, with a large section devoted to service design principles. Overall, a good read for anyone interested in purpose-built systems." Update: 04/21 18:54 GMT by Z : Tim Burton no longer cofounding Tivo.
From the blurb: "So says TiVo cofounder Tim Burton" From the article: "by Jim Barton, TiVo". Jim Barton is not the director of Batman .
The biggest burdon we'll face with DVRs is DRM. Solve that problem and you have a seller.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You'll get my TiVo boxen when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. Just sayin'.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
I love my DVR... when it is working. I have learned the controls (they are byzantine) but I haven't learned on what days I need to sacrifice a chicken to avoid a crash. If it was a Windows Media Center, at least I would understand why it crashes so often, but it is silver box that sits there, pretending to record shows.
I am willing to work around its quirks because of all the upside (it doesn't crash *that* often), but I suspect a less geeky user would simply drop kick the thing out the door. Reliability needs to be the number one concern when creating a device that works in the background like DVRs do. It is very annoying to find the programs you thought you recorded missing because it locked up Wednesday night...
Automatically detecting when my cable company reassings the stations would be nice too.
Sig under construction since 1998.
We have both tivos and a Comcast HD PVR (I believe made by Magnavox), and I can attest to the interface being the hardest thing to get right, but maybe the most important. And, by far Tivo has come closest to the transcendental interface over any competitors (I've also sampled the offering of some of the others).
Here are some of the "wows" about Tivo, many of which I'd discovered over time:
This barely covers the features, but Tivo has done an AMAZING job in ergonomics!
The Comcast box, on the other hand, is abysmal. It is almost unusable, but for now is the only available option to record HD shows. Here are a few of the annoyances:
Concerning subscriptions. To read the article, one would think that the only way you could ever purchase a Tivo would be with a recurring subscription fee. The reality is that *many* of us bought series one Tivo's with a lifetime fee. The lifetime fee was, by far, the best value for the consumer and is no longer offered.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
...its hard to build an HDTV unit as well. Meanwhile, back in the rest of the world, us poor cable customers have to suffer with our crappy Scientific Atlanta and Motorola HDTV DVRs that have crappy interfaces, terrible support, and an even worse reliability record.
:-/
I had Tivo for 4 years and Tivo was relevant to me up to about 1 year ago. And, unfortunately for them and me, that window closed (because I upgraded to HDTV) and they just aren't anymore since I would have to "turn back time" to go back to them. The lack of HDTV support was, in simple terms, a deal-breaker.
Maybe that new Series3 will change things. When is it shipping again?
No, no. I think you misunderstood me. I didn't say "announce" or "pass tests". I said shipping.
...is that a DVR is a product, not a service. If TiVo could figure that out, they'd be a sucess.
It's not that Tim Burton is no longer cofounding TiVo...it's that I somehow managed to get "Tim Burton" out of "Jim Barton" when submitting the article...how did this happen? No idea, I apologize. Although I was entertained by your comment ("Hi, Son. I am no longer your daddy. I unprocreated you") But to make things clear--Jim Barton did cofound TiVo. Tim Burton is apparently involved in movies.
It's been "corrected", and it's STILL wrong. Jim Barton, not Burton.
Way to go, Zonk.
*slow clap*
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Uh, my Tivo does this already.
Unless you happen to be watching something at 4am (actually I thought it first tries at 2am), you don't know that the TiVo is doing that. If you have something scheduled to record the TiVo grabs a later airing of that material. Eventually it either manages to record it and turns it into a showcase or menu entry (ad), or it failed to record it and skips that item.
But the user either sees all of the video played off the hard disk, or non of it. The TiVo isn't attempting to stream the video over a network while the user is watching it.
I don't think you've tried enough DVRs. Tivo's buffer may be a measly 30 minutes, but if you hit "record," it copies everything in the buffer back in time to the beginning of the show you are watching.
There are still some gripes with the Tivo buffering system, but this isn't one of them. Gripes:
1. It's only 30 minutes
2. If you wait too long to hit record (ie, into the start of another show) you'll only get the airing show, not the buffered one. It should ask which one you want.
3. It clears the buffer on every channel change. (Annoying to some, beneficial to others-- perhaps a setting we could switch depending on preference?)
Soon Zonk will not be confounding Slashdot with sentences like:
Tim Burton no longer cofounding Tivo.
Founding is something that is completed in the past. Pluperfect for grammar enthusiasts or those that have learned more structured languages than English is structured.
Nobody can no longer found or cofound something.
MythTV (0.19+) does this too. Since the Live TV "recordings" are basically the same as a regular recording but with a short lifespan, you can hit "record" at any point during a show of any length and it'll flag it as a recording and automatically save the rest of the show, even if you back out of LiveTV. I do this all the time, and its great.
>it isn't possible to build a MythTV HD-DVR without getting Un-encrypted HD signals via COAX
It is possible to get HD content into myth-TV if you have the DirectTV Tivo. I have done this by hand, with a hacked tivo, and the usb-Eithernet adapter, then used mencoder to put it into a divx format and mythTV to re-stream it.
I have seen plugins designed to automate Tivo -> mythTV, but since my PC wasn't doing a very strong job of sending HD content reliably through mythTV, mythTV is shelved at my house, until I have more time to waste on it anyway.
Tivo is the perfect example of everything I hate about DRM, the "IP economy", etc.
Jim says, in no uncertain terms, that although you might have paid $500 for the hardware, they want to secure it enough that you can't use any 3rd-party software to update the listings. That's exactly like the RIAA, MPAA, Cable TV, etc.
You bought the product, yet you don't really own it... They don't quite want to make it a product, and don't quite want to make it a service. They want to get the best of both for themselves, and screw their customers every which-way they can.
Every day I'm more and more glad I spent ~$400 on a new system with a capture card, and invested a couple weeks to set everything up, about 4 years ago... My DVR is fast enough to playback HDTV, and already has a DVI output. For the cost of a cable, and perhaps an HDTV capture card, I'm ready for the next 100 years of broadcast television. Plus I can re-encode and edit out commercials, master and record to CD, DVD (Blu-ray?) etc. right on the same old DVR.
Meanwhile, Tivo owners have to go through extensive hacks to upgrade their hard drives, transfer their recordings to their PCs to re-encode, edit, burn to DVD, etc. Have to pay monthly fees for life, or put their old series 1 Tivos on life-support, to try and keep them going forever.
My DVR may not have an interface as pretty as a Tivo (mainly just a slightly modified file-manager, a few scripts, and MPlayer, operated through an IR remote), but it's stupid-simple to use, incredibly responsive, and it will work with anything you can throw at it.
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