Cox May replace its own DVRs with TiVos

Controlio writes "According to a posting by user BrettStah on the TiVo Community Forums, Cox Cable is currently circulating a survey to gauge customer's interest in TiVo services. From the survey, 'While Cox currently offers its own DVR service, the Cox DVR may soon be powered by TiVo, and include the features that TiVo owners have come to expect. If Cox were to offer digital cable service with a TiVo branded DVR for about the same price as you are currently paying for satellite service each month, how likely would you be to switch from satellite TV to Cox cable that featured this TiVo branded DVR service?'"

Comments

Other interesting, Cox related news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi folks. Alan Cox here again, this time to address a serious issue that's come up recently in the Linux world.

Frankly, Linux development has become impossible of late -- I spend far too much of my time and energy playing catch-up with Linus and his Lord-of-the-Flies approach to patching the Linux kernel. His criteria are based on what's shiny and novel rather than what's stable and needed. He's worse than a five-year-old in front of an Xbox. Such reckless practices threaten not only kernel stability and security but Linux mindshare as well. If we wanted to use unchecked code, we'd all be booting Windows.

For instance, just last week Linus and I both received a patch for SMP from Eric Raymond. My inclination was to fire up Pico and read through the code, gleaning what I could from comments and code-tracing, and then apply the patch to my test system and run stability tests. Eric isn't known for his programming prowess (though he'd have you think otherwise) and I'm not one to toy with such low-level chunks of the kernel. But while I was putting the new code through its paces, Linus had other ideas.

Before I could email Linus my first impression of Eric's patch, I received an instant message in ALL CAPS shouting about how he'd just committed the new code. I was incredulous, to say the least. There was no way he had time to manually parse through 384k of spaghetti code. Eric had no doubt been at the Jäger again and had made a grievous typo, having typed man(love) instead of main(). Had Linus taken the proper steps for integrating new kernel code, he would have caught that glaring error.

I am sick of cleaning up after Eric, but with Linus there is just no excuse.

Things weren't always like this. Linus used to take his time working on Linux, but when Linux started getting a lot of press coverage, he started getting sloppy. I understand the hectic schedule he had to endure with the interviews and press. But he let the fame go to his head at the expense of Linux kernel health. Going to work for TransMeta didn't help and moving up and down the West Coast only worsened the situation. Ironically, things haven't improved since he went to work for OSDL either.

After studying the GPL, conferencing with Linux vendors, and much soul-searching, I feel there's only one way improve this situation. Therefore, as of today, I am forking the Linux kernel. I will call it simply Cox, keeping with the x nomenclature common to Unix. And to ensure that hackers all over the world can have a stable operating system, I will be the head of Cox. I hope you, gentle reader, will support me in this ambitious new project to get Cox into users' hands as soon as possible.

The primary focus of Cox will be stability. Compared to Linux, Cox will be rock-hard. Another goal is security, and to that end Cox will fill as many holes as possible, and any bugs or viruses in Cox will be dealt with swiftly. Cox will also not leak nearly as badly as Linux does with its memory. Cox will also strain to avoid the hairy mess of incompatibilities Linux is infamous for. The net result of these improvements is that users will reach for Cox just as robust as when it first went up. Cox will have longer uptimes than Linux.

In all honesty, Cox will likely split the Linux community in half. But the sacrifice will be worth it. Users will wonder what they ever did before they went with Cox. Linus will one day come face-to-face with Cox and realize what he has been missing all these years. After speaking with Richard Stallman, another huge fan of Cox, I agreed to keep the kernel under the GPL. He assured me that the GPL was the best way to disseminate Cox. Richard seemed quite eager to install Cox in his back-end!

I hope the latent interest in Cox among Linux developers will soon become a driving obsession.

Thank you.

I would switch.

[yagu]

It's not entirely fair to offer an opinion, I have never seen or used the Cox PVR. My experience has been there are few pretenders to the throne that even come close to Tivo's quality of service.

Tivo pioneered the user experience for PVR viewing, and from their first offering (which I purchased and actually returned -- it was not quite ready for prime time then) which was very good they have steadily improved their already leading product.

For those who may care, here is one of my earlier posts on tivo features vs Comcast.

If I had the option and was a Cox subscriber, not only would I ask for the swap for similar pricing, I'd be happy to pay a premium. Tivo is that good, and what I've seen of other offerings is that bad! (I recently visited neighbors who had their new Dish PVR. While I'd wished a Tivo for them, I was happy for their new window into PVR viewing. I tried to walk them through the simplest setups: record one show, pause live TV, etc., but even I found the interface clunky, intrusive, inconsistent, and obfuscated. It bordered on unusable. I was able to figure it out, but it was a RPITA to use. And, before anyone points out I had to "learn" how to use the tivo, too, that really wasn't true. The litmus test for me for entertainment gadgets is that I be able to use it out-of-the-box with no instruction manual reading. Tivo is usable from the get-go.)

If I lived in a region where I had some OTHER cable service, and heard Cox was offering PVR with Tivo, I'd switch.

Good luck, Tivo...

Re:I would switch.

[lucabrasi999]

My experience has been there are few pretenders to the throne that even come close to Tivo's quality of service.

My experience includes both DirecTV's Tivo Box and Dish Network's DVR. And, in the end, it is a tie. Both services are good. Both have nice features (including the ability to skip ahead 30 seconds and the ability to jump ahead in five or ten minute increments). Both record what I want, when I want. The Dish box has a bigger hard drive, but that is probably because it is a new box. And, the Dish box has the ability to add an extra few minutes of recording to a show, if I desire (for those of us that LOVE the ABC show Lost, you know that ABC has a bad habit of extending the show past 10pm ET -- I can't tell you how many times I missed the last two minutes of episodes because my Tivo stopped recording at 10pm).

So, in the end, to me the issue is not whether or not Cox is offering Tivo. The DVR v. Tivo battle is a draw. The issue is do I want to leave Satellite TV heaven and return to cable TV hell? Do I want to pay more for lower levels of customer service? And the answer is a resounding "No!".

Satellite TV is still head and shoulders above cable TV. And, it is cheaper.

Re:I would switch.

[eln]

And, the Dish box has the ability to add an extra few minutes of recording to a show

I have DirecTV's TiVo box, and it has the exact same feature. You can add anywhere from 1 minute to 3 hours on to the end of a show, which is awesome for recording sporting events that may go into overtime.

TiVo is great. The only complaint I have is that the response times are very very slow. The slowness of the channel guide is particularly maddening, although the ability to filter out all the shopping, PPV, and non-subscribed channels is a huge plus for me. I hated having to page through tons of channels I didn't receive on my cable system just to see what was on. But then, my cable company was CableONE, so that was the least of my complaints with them.

Is it TiVo vs. DVR...or cable vs. satellite?

[MaggieL]

Sounds to me like Cox is more interested in getting folks to switch from satellite to cable than they are in replacing their current DVRs with TiVos. Otherwise they'd be surveying their current customer base.

Re:Is it TiVo vs. DVR...or cable vs. satellite?

[Council]

As anyone who watches TV via Cox Cable knows, the cable vs. satellite thing is what's on their minds.

+1 insightful -- You're right, this has nothing to do with Generic DVR vs. TiVO. This is Cox getting a hold of TiVO, and advertising it to prospective customers by means of what is effectively a push poll. Crafty.

Re:Is it TiVo vs. DVR...or cable vs. satellite?

[sammy baby]

A little bit before the new year, I picked up a new HD set. I was pretty excited about it. If I'd known the runaround I was going to get from Comcast, I wouldn't have been.

1. I call Comcast. They tell me that an HD tuner and service is already in my plan, and all I need to do is pick one up at the office. When I show up (It's a 20 minute drive), they tell me that they're out. But they'll call me when they come in.
2. I check in after a couple of weeks. The person at Comcast says, "Oh - no, they're not gonna call you. You have to keep calling us." "Great. Hey - does my office have these HD tuners in yet?" "Yes!" Except when I get there, it turns out they don't, and haven't for days. I pitch a hissy fit, and they give me an "all in one" box (HD + DVR), promising not to charge me for the DVR part. I leave, mollified. The box doesn't work.
3. Guy from Comcast shows up... 8 days later. "Yup, it's broken," he says. He swaps the DVR out with a brand new box. Beautiful high-definition television, complete with DVR functionality! It works! For a few hours, anyway. That evening, the hard drive (or something) on the device starts making a clicking noise. The DVR part no longer works.
4. Guy from Comcast shows up... another TWO WEEKS LATER. He starts to swap out the box, discovers that the new one he has doesn't work at all, and puts the old one back. "It's a real problem," he admits. "All the techs just had a meeting about it. We unplug the units from the network to take them out, something changes in their config, and they have to be taken back to the office." Great. "Call to schedule another appointment in a couple of weeks."
5. I schedule another appointment. I call out from work to be there. Then someone leaves a message on the answering machine saying... they're out of set-top boxes again, and I've stayed home for nothing.

Fuck Comcast, right in their fucking eye.

Two questions

[Dark Paladin]

I haven't read the article yet (it's in my other tab) - but two questions:

1. Is this "crippled" in any way, or is it a real Tivo?
2. Does it plug into the Digital cable, or just the regular analog?

I have a Tivo now, but another one would be useful (since my wife likes the American Idol shows, and I - don't). But if Cox is considering this, especially in wake of the recent Tivo/Echostar (if I remember correctly) lawsuit, Cox could save money on development, say "You know, the control isn't worth the hassle" (which would be called "buying a clue"), and Tivo could get more customers. Everybody wins, even the cable customers.

Which is why I'm looking outside the window for those damn flying pigs.

Re:Two questions

[stevel]

What it is most likely to be is TiVo software running on a Motorola 64xx hardware platform, in use today by Cox and many other cable TV companies. It is well known that TiVo is already developing such a thing and that Comcast plans to offer it later this year.

So you would get the nice TiVo interface and feature set on the Motorola box. You might not get the networking features standalone TiVo users have become accustomed to, nor the "hackability" of older TiVo boxes.

An alternative would be the TiVo Series 3 box, due "second half" of this year. This is a dual-CableCARD HD box specifically designed for cable (no satellite or other external inputs.)

Re:Two questions

[Lumpy]

I'll bet dollars that it's the lame "TiVo Basic" that comes on many DVD recorders now. It's a "free" tivo service that is seriously lacking even in general VCR capabilities and with annoying advertisements on how your live would be better if you simply upgraded to full tivo service.

It bothered me so much I returned the unit and bought a Lite-ON DVD recorder with hard drive instead.

TiVO will not be free without a premium being charged, or COX will simply up your monthly rate by a unnoticable $13.95 a month.

I would switch

[iogan]

I don't even know what any of these things are, but sure, what the hell. I'll switch.

tivo all the stuff automatically?

[192939495969798999]

If they're doing that, why don't they hook up a bunch of Tivo's at the local distribution, and tivo everything? That way, you could watch any program at any time. Of course, some programs would be "too busy", and they'd only have x hours/shows in advance, but that would be completely sweet.

Now way, unless I could purchase it, and it was HD

[The Joe Kewl]

Most likely you would have to rent the Tivo DVR from COX for a month to month fee, and that would make it very limited to what you could do (hack) with the Tivo box.

No thank you, I will keep my current Satellite Tivo, which I own, and can do whatever I want with (like upgrade the hard drive, add web interface, etc..)

Now if I could purchase the Tivo from Cox for X amount of dollars, and the unit supported HD TV recording, I would maybe consider it.

Come to expect what?

[Reality Master 101]

Being someone who has both a Tivo unit and a Cox DVR (the Tivo is in my living room, the other is my hi-def plasma in the game room for the home theatre), I have to say that the Tivo doesn't really do anything the DVR doesn't do. The primary differences are:

1) The Tivo will download "recommendations" (which I have yet to ever use). Advantage: Tivo (I guess)
2) The DVR has a way better guide that has a nice preview screen (Advantage: DVR)
3) The DVR has two-channel capability (watch one show while the other records). Advantage: DVR
4) The Tivo has to use the serial input, which makes channel changing slow, versus the DVR which is integrated with the cable box. Advantage: DVR
5) The DVR can do HDTV. Advantage: DVR (those I suppose these new Tivos might do it)
6) The user interface on the Tivo is way simpler. Advantage: Tivo.

All in all, I'd say my existing DVR is way better than the Tivo, though if they added what's good about the DVR, maybe it would be OK. I suppose my point is that the Tivo isn't so far ahead of the DVR that it's going to make some huge difference.

Re:Come to expect what?

[gEvil (beta)]

I have a DirecTiVo, and with the exception of HD, it does everything on your list. There is also an HD DirecTiVo, but it's being phased out with the switch to MPEG-4.

Re:Come to expect what?

[silas_moeckel]

You have apparently never used a sat tivo.

1) same
2) Subjective
3) tie
4) tie
5) tie
6) same

So the only catagory the DVR might be better at would be the guide interface. As a long time user of Tivo I use the my recordings a lot more than guide and like ther overlayed look. The Direct Tivo's can do a picture in a window similar to your DVR but thats personal preferance though having the option is good. Now for the rest of the features.

Tivo can move recodings off the tivo onto the server.
Tivo can talk to other tivo's in the same house and move recodings around.
Tivo can access content on your pc for playback on your TV. (Think rip all your DVD's and never have to touch them again)
Tivo allows you to access 3rd party applications.
Tivo will stream internet sources and MP3's

Cox DVR SUCKS!

[Radi-0-head]

The Cox DVR is awful. From a usability perspective, TiVo blows it away.

I've been through three. All of them like to spontaneously reboot themselves, especially while in the middle of recording a show (which is subsequently lost as the box spends 5 minutes booting up).

If you start playback of a program that is being recorded, the DVR will stop when the program is finished recording, and throw you right back to the beginning of the program so you have to fast-forward to where you were. Maybe they fixed this since I gave up on the thing a few months ago.

Search functionality is useless. The box isn't smart enough to figure out that programs sometimes move from their original time slot, so it will continue to record as usual, just the wrong stuff.

If the TiVo supported digital cable channels, OnDemand, and multiple tuners, I'd buy one yesterday.

Tivo is the reason I chose DirecTV over cable

[tinrobot]

I love my Tivo and it's one of the main reasons I dumped Adelphia (that and Adelphia's abysmal service.)

If I ever went back to cable, the deal would have to include a Tivo that had the same features as DirecTV's implementation (including the ability to record two streams)...and no, I'm not into a standalone Tivo, mostly because of the subscription and the fact that it needs a separate receiver. Too complex. I like the simplicity of having two tuners built into the Tivo itself. DirecTV has a great solution.

Re:Tivo is the reason I chose DirecTV over cable

[Overzeetop]

Yeah, except that TiVo is already walking toward the gas chamber in the DirecTV world. I will probably drop DTV for, well, I have no idea, after they make me switch in a couple of years. I guess my only hope is a TiVo HD standalone / cablecard version and rabbit ears. (Okay, really a pair of Channelmaster 4221s). God, but I don't want to go back to Adelphia (evil...pure evil).

What I want is SA features on DTVs network. Oh, and world peace. Is that too much to ask?

Err... What about ReplayTV

[Mr.Ziggy]

Why doesn't ReplayTV ever get bundled?

ReplayTV, perviously SonicBlue, has always come with an ethernet port. It doesn't need a phone line to update if you have a broadband connection, and you can watch or backup your shows from your computer on the LAN.

I don't care

[TheKubrix]

I'm a customer of Cox Cable and ordered their DVR as soon as they came out. I love it. It does everything I need and has a great menu, all the options I need and I love the preview window while I browse the menus.

I'll admit that I havn't really played with a tivo, and I'm sure there are many services that it has which I might like, but honestly, I'm very busy and Cox's DVR does everything I want, anything more would add to the indulgence.

What I WOULD like to see from Cox is an improvement to their video on demand. Its flaky at best. The few times that I tried to order a movie from them, the movie died out and no one from their side could figure it out and I've given up from doing that again, which sucks because the convienance is incredible. I don't have time to go to blockbuster/hollywood video (actually I long since gave up on them for many reasons). And I loved using netflix, but now I don't have time to watch as money movies as they send me, so its a waste. I just want to pick a movie every now and then and just pay for it, and video on demand is exacly that.

Before Cox decides on switching Tivo (can't wait for the price to increase, joy), they need to fix what they already have.

Short term good but long term bad for TiVo?

[MS_leases_my_soul]

I love my TiVo. I had a Series 1 that I hacked to the gills before I sold it and went with the Series 2. Years later, I run a media server with Galleon on it and have everything stable enough to pass the WAF and KSF - Wife Acceptance Factor and Kid Survivability Factor. I gladly pay my monthly subscription for the very factor that I believe in TiVo and want to give them my recurring revenue versus a one-time payment.

I see a possible future for TiVo. I can download vblogs today, re-encode them to MPEG2 using VLC player, and hang them out on a share on the media server. I watch most of the vblogs on my TV now. Thanks to an RSS feed to the cartoons in the internet archive; the kids occasionally download an old superman cartoon and watch it. They didn't think twice about the concept of asking for a show, waiting for it to download, and then having it whenever they want it. This could be the future of TiVo.

Somewhere in a lab, TiVo has to be playing with TiVo Desktop with built-in torrent ability. If TiVo Desktop could do torrents, TiVo could have a new revenue stream by allowing content providers to register their content with TiVo. TiVo would host the tracker and desktop would download and share. Before you could play the video, you would need to download a key from TiVo. Bingo - instant subscription video. If TiVo also added the ability to insert custom commercials into the video, that would be all the better. You don't have to pay for the subscription, but you can't fast forward through the commercials. If the commercials were given to me based on my demographics and I had the ability to thumbs down any commercial I did not like, I would go for that!

TiVo embracing IPTV could change the face of "television". Anyone with a decent camera and a cast could create content with the possibility of a profit. Independent TV would spread as fast as cheap digital cameras have spread independent film! The old 500 channels analogy would become a joke.

But I don't think this will ever happen. Why? Because of the players TiVo is cutting deals with. Hey, I understand why they are doing it -- they have to pay the bills today! But once the deal is done, I don't think Cox and Comcast are going to appreciate TiVo pulling eyeballs away from cable TV to get their video broadband through TiVo. Then again, maybe this is a two-way hedge. Maybe the cable companies are seeing where IPTV *could* go and are putting a backup plan in place where they are still the pipe the video flows through.

All I can say is that the technology is not there today. If everything we are told about the TiVo 3 is true, I think we would only be a bittorrent enabled version of TiVo Desktop away from the start of something huge, but just like DIRECTV would not enable the HMO functionality for the DirecTiVo, I don't see cable companies being too keen on losing viewers (and thus ad revenue) to someone who needs them to survive.

My thoughts on PVC

[Descalzo]

PVC is the way to go. I have been using PVC for irrigation since I was 12, and while aware of the problems (if that purple stuff gets in your clothes it ain't coming out), it's far better than the alternatives. We did some sprinklers for my granny, and we didn't use PVC, and it was a pain. PVC offers superior durability for a reasonable cost, and it is so easy to glue. The only drawbacks are flexibility and it's a pain in the butt to cut.

Re:A Deal that's No Deal

[JQuick]

Besides, isn't TiVo the brand that removed 30-second forward skip, forces you to watch commercials, and auto-deletes programs?

Wow! How do you pack so much misinformation in one sentence?

You can enable 30 second skip on all models they have ever sold.

Tivo has never forced anyone to watch commercials.

If your Tivo is out of disk space it will remove the oldest recording that it is allowed to delete and reuse that space. If all of your recordings are marked "Keep until I delete" it will warn you (in advance) that it might not be able to record a scheduled program unless you delete some things.

Re:No Hacking for new customers

[Professor_UNIX]

welcome to the beginnings a world where you LEASE all of your electronics (or in the case of PCs the software running on them) to keep the corperations in control of every aspect of life...

It's not necessarily a bad thing. Leasing the equipment will always guarantee you free replacement hardware and upgrades in the future. So instead of dropping $500 on a box you spend $5 a month (or whatever)... that's much more cost efficient! It'd take you around 8 years to get a return on your purchase of the equipment over just leasing it! How many of you out there still have working 8 year old TiVos?

Funny != Insightful

[Drogo007]

How the hell does something obviously intended as funny get modded insightful? Even if you missed the whole humorous link to the GP's misuse of PVC (instead of PVR), the post would, at best, be Offtopic...

*sigh* This is the problem of using the general (posting) public for moderation.

To quote George Carlin: "Think of how stupid the average person is and then realize half the people are DUMBER THAN THAT!"