The Trouble With TiVo

BobCratchit writes "Multichannel News has an interesting take on TiVo: The DVR company has incredible mindshare but is totally dependent on cable providers to survive. Cable does not have many good reasons to let TiVo thrive. As a result, TiVo is destined to fade away unless it can carve out a niche as the cool kids' DVR (a la Macintosh) with products like the $299 HD DVR it just announced. From the article: 'TiVo has long been a darling of consumer-tech reviewers -- check out, for example, these happy hosannas from BusinessWeek, New York Times and Wall Street Journal. These guys are constantly befuddled that TiVo hasn't been more successful. Yes, TiVos make cute little popping noises when you click the remote. And they definitely provide cool features, like suggesting shows you might be interested in. But the cognoscenti enamored with TiVo's whizziness ignore a certain reality. It's easier to get a DVR from your cable company. And most people prefer to rent, not own, a set-top.'"

Comments

DVR

[Nishal]

Tivo..or..Dvr its all the same to me, as long as i can fastfoward commercials

Re:DVR

[jeffmeden]

MythTV or... MythTV. It's all the same to me as long as the commercials are deleted before I watch the show.

Re:DVR

[utopianfiat]

I have serious issues with MythTV- especially the fact that I have to drop an arm, leg, and half a genital on a machine fast enough to record 480i...
Although I suppose it's even worse now that I have to compile it to parallel-process on a couple of Opterons just to be able to do 1080p. Once my setup upgrades start costing less than $2000, I'll upgrade to HDTV :/

Re:DVR

[jnaujok]

Yes, and nothing like losing a minute of the show because of a false positive... I'll take a 30 second fast-skip button any day.

Re:DVR

[Reverend528]

Yes, and nothing like losing a minute of the show because of a false positive...

Mythtv doesn't actually delete the commercials, it merely flags them so that they may be automagically skipped. In the event of a false positive, it's quite easy to go back and see what was skipped.

Re:DVR

[ben there...]

I hope the cable cos do eat TiVo's lunch. As it stands, a TiVo is just a DVR "done right," according to people that own them. If regular DVRs become that good/decent/whatever, it will force TiVo to come up with something better.

Like the equivalent of a pre-built MythTV box. Or a Media Center-ish small form factor PC for the living room. Or like an AppleTV, with a service to download stuff. The kind of thing that's powerful, but that grandma could use.

And cheap program data, cheap hard drive upgrades, DVD burning, the whole works. Not the expensive, limited, single-purpose box it is now. Until then, I'll be happy with my own custom box. But I won't recommend it for grandma.

Re:DVR

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

I have serious issues with MythTV- especially the fact that I have to drop an arm, leg, and half a genital on a machine fast enough to record 480i...

That's what Hauppauge cards are for: Hardware MPEG-2.

Re:DVR

[WED Fan]

Tivo..or..Dvr its all the same to me, as long as i can fastfoward commercials

It's that feature alone that keeps me with Tivo. Problem is, the private DVR's don't necessarily have that feature. DirecTV wants me to drop my Tivo (I only dropped my UTV for the Tivo when the system ultimately died, and when I could get a dual tuner Tivo) and get their DTV branded DVR. I have heard that the new DVR includeds the features to allow broadcasters the ability to control what you can skip and what you can record. Tivo, as distributed by DTV, is limited, but there are hacks available to enable many of the DTV blocked features. Hell, there are hacks that let you turn on the network and sharing functions. I doubt the private labeled DVR's will let me do that.

Not all DVR's have the same features. The move by the cable and sat companies to switch to their own units is a way for them to control what you can do with the box. I'm not trying to hack my service, I just want to keep my ability to use the Tivo.

Re:DVR

[HTH NE1]

I think they're calling it a DMR now: Digital Media Recorder.

Re:DVR

[glindsey]

And MythTV's recording stability is going to be seriously negatively impacted by Zap2It Labs shutting down. Yes, MythTV's dev team has stated they can go back to website scraping, but that will break every single time the website's format is slightly altered.

Don't get me wrong, I really like MythTV, but when it loses its only source of reliable guide data, I anticipate some serious problems.

Re:DVR

[amuro98]

The problem - and strength - with Tivo is in its single-mindedness and simplicity.

Yes, it only does one thing, but it does it really really well.

We just switched from cable to Dish, reluctantly leaving our loyal series 1 Tivo behind.

While the receiver we has a DVR in it, it's by far no where as easy to use as the Tivo. I've already encountered several minor bugs and inconsistancies, to say nothing of the fact that the DVR's menu system just isn't as well thought out as Tivo's.

This seems awfully bizarre to me, since Tivo has been praised since day one for its UI layout. Why haven't the other DVR makers taken the hint and started shamelessly copying it?

Re:DVR

[jargoone]

Sigh. Every time a TiVo article gets posted, I have to do this. Here we go.

Have you looked at any of TiVo's features in the last, oh, 7 years? TiVo can do a large subset of what you can do with a MythTV box, "Media Center-ish" PC (whatever that means), and has a service to download stuff. With a TiVo, you can use it as a DVR, transfer recordings to your PC, play your own music, play music on the internet, play purchased movies that are downloaded to your TiVo, check traffic, check weather, check movie listings, buy movie tickets, and that's just using their out-of-the-box supported features. They have an open API for application development that makes the possibilities nearly endless.

And as a bonus, since it's "done right", people like me can watch TV without worrying about my guide data provider vanishing, or my wife calling me because the damn front-end needs restarting.

Based on every cable company's DVR I've seen, they better be looking elsewhere for lunch.

Re:DVR

[jeffmeden]

It's simple, MythTV is never wrong. Seriously. In over a year of extensive recording with the new commercial detect engine, it has only erred toward caution, and an extra commercial creeps into the playback. Trust me, it beats the hell out of fast forwarding.

Plus, they aren't really 'gone' like the other poster said.

Re:DVR

[twistedsymphony]

yeah, IMO this is the problem with TiVo... well that and subscription fees.

My local cable company offers a DVR for a $5 a month rental, if I order the HD Cable package I get one for free. Where is my incentive to buy a Tivo? Not only will have to pay $X hundred up front for the device but I STILL have to pay a subscription fee. Not only that but the HD models aren't compatible with my cable providers HD service.

If I'm going to spend a few hundred dollars I'd rather build myself a SageTV or MythTV box and forget about the subscription fees. At least then I can use the hardware for whatever I want instead of just TV recording duties.

With the options available I simply can't justify buying a TiVo, it's the most expansive, least upgradeable, and least compatible of all the options. And while you could say the same for some wildly popular Apple products, those products sell themselves on style and ease of use... which is something that TiVo doesn't have either, considering it's interface is only marginally better than the alternatives, and style wise I (and probably most people) find it rather ugly. At least with a homebuilt box I can pick the case that best matches my media room.

Re:DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience is completely different.

I have two TiVos and a Comcast DVR. While waiting for the Series 3, the Comcast DVR was the primary one I used for months due to HDTV support. Many painful, frustrating months.

There is no comparison in terms of ease of use. Basic functionality that you just assume exists in a DVR you have in TiVo, but is missing in Comcasts box. More frustrating, the Comcast box frequently locks up, doesn't respond to commands, or suddenly plays a long buffered list of commands. It's a wretched, wretched device.

If all that matters to you is fastforwarding commercials, just clean up your old VHS system. Use that for a day. And then you'll realize that what has revolutionized watching television isn't just recording it and playing it later, it's how the user experience creates a whole new relationship between you and your television programing.

Re:DVR

[calibanDNS]

The MythTV devs, along with devs from other projects, have started the Schedules Direct project to address this issue.

Re:DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

Incase you are not aware the mythtv, xmltv and other projects are starting their own organization which will offer the same data as you get now from zap2it. The site is a little light on details right now though.

http://www.schedulesdirect.org/

Re:DVR

[mrbooze]

My local cable company offers a DVR for a $5 a month rental, if I order the HD Cable package I get one for free. Where is my incentive to buy a Tivo?

I can get $LESSER_QUALITY THING for less money than $HIGHER_QUALITY_THING. What's my incentive to buy $HIGHER_QUALITY_THING?

It's the age-old question. Why buy any car but a used Yugo? Why buy a bigger house if a smaller house is cheaper? Why buy real food from a grocery store when you can get a burrito from Taco Bell for less than a buck?

Not only that but the HD models aren't compatible with my cable providers HD service.

Seriously? Isn't that illegal now? I thought all US cable providers were required to provide CableCards now to allow 3rd party set-top boxes like Tivo full access to all their non-interactive services.

Re:DVR

[evilviper]

Yes, MythTV's dev team has stated they can go back to website scraping, but that will break every single time the website's format is slightly altered.

First, Zap2it.com regularly changed their format and broke XMLTV a number of times. Just my luck, they did that right as I was trying to set-up MythTV my first time... D'oh.

Second, you haven't been to XMLTV's website lately. They have plans to start their own listings website. http://schedulesdirect.org/ Two of the MythTV developers are involved.

Re:DVR

[Canthros]

Amazon Unbox can now be accessed directly from your TiVo.
With the right (TiVo-provided) software, you can tell your TiVo where on the local network it may find your MP3s and photographs, which you may then play or browse at you leisure. (That feature is at least three years old.) Dunno about video on your local network. However, I can check that out this evening.

In the mean time, if the cable companies "eat TiVo's lunch", we won't get a better TiVo. TiVo will be gone, and we'll be stuck with mediocre, cable company DVRs and over-priced HTPCs. And AppleTV, which isn't the same thing at all. Well, and ReplayTV, but I can't recall the last time I actually saw one of those in a store.

You can crack open your TiVo and upgrade its hard drive right now. Takes some know-how, but not that much more than doing the same thing to a PC, from what I recall. There have been versions which included built-in DVD burners (they were $$$, so didn't sell so great, IIRC, ca 2004, when DVD recorders were $$$). And it's easy to use. It may not be a general computer, but there's really no good excuse for making it one, either.

Re:DVR

[cens0r]

The problem arises though when the $LESSER_QUALITY_THING actually has more features than the $HIGHER_QUALITY_THING. I agree both TiVo and MythTV are higher quality than my cable box. However, my cable box allows me to record HD seamlessly on two different stations and access On Demand programing.

MythTV can't do that unless I rent two cable boxes. TiVo requires me to rent CableCards. Unfortunately for TiVo, renting a cable card still doesn't give me On Demand, and the cost of renting the cable box is just about equal to renting a CableCard. So I loose features and increase the cost (+hardware$, +Subscription$) by going with the $HIGHER_QUALITY_THING.

Re:DVR

[BinaryMelody]

My local cable company (Comcast) also offers a DVR, with HD compatibility no less. And it's free. So after moving recently, I temporarily shelved my Tivo and tried it. In a word, it sucked. Compared to TiVo, compared to live TV, compared to smashing my thumb with a hammer, it just sucked. The "menu system" was devoid of all but the most basic of functionality - minimal search and scheduling. The fast-forward and pause were useless - multi-second delays between button press and STB response, so skipping commercials was an exercise in profanity, which was a charming introduction to my new neighbors. And the list goes on and on. For three days I tried to make the best of it, and in the end plunked down $600 for a new Series3 Tivo. No regrets. The value of Tivo is in it's ease of use. More than easy, it's pleasant to do just about everything. And it just works, and works extremely well. True, it is not very upgradeable, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than building a decent box for MythTV(plus no configuration headaches), I haven't heard much in the way of incompatibilities, and in my opinion it looks quite stylish.

Re:DVR

[jsdcnet]

I hope the cable cos do eat TiVo's lunch. As it stands, a TiVo is just a DVR "done right," according to people that own them. If regular DVRs become that good/decent/whatever, it will force TiVo to come up with something better. I owned a TiVo (direcTV version) for 4 years and I've been using the Comcast supplied Motorola DVR for a year now. The difference is night and day. Comcast is a clunky, unreliable POS and TiVo was a brilliantly designed totally reliable joy to use. If the cable cos do "eat TiVo's lunch" I expect that just means we'll all be stuck using clunky unreliable POS's forever, since the cableco's will have no incentive to improve their product.

Re:DVR

[ben there...]

And as a bonus, since it's "done right", people like me can watch TV without worrying about my guide data provider vanishing, or my wife calling me because the damn front-end needs restarting. *shrug* I use SageTV so I paid for my listings already--*Once*. The front end is just a Java app. Not so hard.

They have an open API for application development that makes the possibilities nearly endless. Endless would be a PC. I guess nearly endless fits.

I didn't realize all the stuff it includes. I'd still rather burn DVDs and have at least a 1.5 TB RAID for storage, but I'm not grandma.

Re:DVR

[twistedsymphony]

You're assuming that $LESSER_QUALITY_THINK is actually lesser quality than $HIGHER_QUALITY_THING. I don't know about most providers but having used TiVo and both my Cable providers DVRs (it's a local cable provider not a national chain) the Cable Companies box actually looked to have better recording quality and aside from a couple of trivial features the interface was nearly identical and just as fast.

I don't own a TiVo or the Cable provider's DVR but my parents owned a TiVo and after trying the cable company's DVR for a few weeks they decided they actually liked it better. Just because you're paying less for one doesn't actually make it a "lesser quality thing" purchase price does not equal quality.

Even assuming that TiVo is a better product, what encourages people to go out an drop several hundred dollars one to even see if it's better than what the cable company offers? If you're looking to get a DVR and you're faced with free vs $X hundred + subscription What would encourage joe consumer to even try out TiVo instead of just calling and requesting that the cable company sent them a box?

Re:DVR

[0100010001010011]

Bittorrent or... EZTV. It's all the same to me as long as the commercials aren't even in the file.

Re:DVR

[ichimunki]

I have had constant false positives while watching Law & Order. Leaving it on for that makes the show unwatchable. But with all other shows it's really good.

Re:DVR

[Paulrothrock]

If you don't need the features of $HIGHER_QUALITY_THING, or you don't use the item enough to justify the extra expense, why not go with $LESSER_QUALITY_THING.

By your model, people should all be living in the largest house they can afford, driving the most luxurious, most capable vehicle they can buy, and upgrading all of their electronics yearly to make sure they've got the highest quality things.

I live six miles from work, so why should I buy a super-expensive car when I don't spend that much time in it. It's just me and my wife in our house, why do I need more than 1200 square feet? I don't watch a ton of TV, why should I get the 42" plasma HDTV? All I want to do is record a few shows I might miss, why should I spend the extra money to get a TiVo?

Different people put value on different things. You might think it's weird that I buy high quality pans and knives when I can get them at the dollar store for a buck, but it makes a difference to me.

Re:DVR

[dramaley]

it's the most expansive, least upgradeable That sounds contradictory. Perhaps you meant expensive.

Re:DVR

[TooMuchToDo]

Exactly. Your not Grandma. Most consumers out there want something that works out of the box. I could build a MythTV box, but why would I waste my time dealing with the hassle when I could get 2 Series2 Tivos, or 1 Series3 Tivos and just pay $20/month?

Time is money. Why waste your time on half-ass solutions?

Re:DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused. Are you all talking about TiVo, SageTV, or MythTV?

People who use TiVo have more money than brains.

Re:DVR

[Almonday]

Agreed. In fact, we just swapped out a brand new DirecTV DVR Plus for our 2-year-old DirecTV Tivo because we were so sick of the unresponsive interface, counterintuitive navigational structure and flaky-as-hell prioritizer of the new DVR, among other complaints. We also tried one of Comcast's Motorola DVRs for about 6 months and were similarly unimpressed. I'm not sure what we'll do once our old Tivo bites the dust, but my guess is that we'll end up sucking it up and subscribing to some version of the "real" Tivo service...the alternatives just aren't cutting it.

Re:DVR

[Spyrus]

All fair points, but have you really looked at On Demand programming? When I got FIOS TV, I thought this would be a great feature, to the point of removing my lovely Linux-based router and putting a clunky, limited Actiontec router in its place. The reality was not nearly as compelling as the fantasy: On Demand sucks. The picture quality, the selection, and the overall noise of the offerings -- covered in advertising -- is gone from my house now. I have a clean Series 3 Tivo, a pair of cable cards, and a SINGLE REMOTE that my wife can use. Life is better with Tivo, and for me, it's worth a few extra bucks a month.

Re:DVR

[glindsey]

Second, you haven't been to XMLTV's website lately. They have plans to start their own listings website. http://schedulesdirect.org/ Two of the MythTV developers are involved.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Mods, please mod that parent up.

Now I just hope somebody writes a MediaPortal plugin that can support it...

Re:DVR

[cens0r]

I use On Demand all the time. I watched the entire Soprano's season in HD On Demand. It allowed me to watch in 3 hour chunks without using up the space on my DVR. I don't look at most of the On Demand section, but I do look through the HD On Demand section, and very often find a movie or two I want to watch. I'd rather watch a movie in HD than the DVD, it simply looks better.

Re:DVR

[putzin]

Yeup. My RCN Motorola box with the POS SW on it is the worst way to watch TV. Locks up 2x a week. FF/RW are not smooth or easy to use. No real feedback as to how much room you have left for recordings. Menu is clunky, searching is worse HD is jittery, and it's soooooo slow as to be mind numbing. I'm actually using TV guide online to look at the listings now and just entering the channel I want. However, RCN doesn't have the option to let me use Tivo with HD right now, so I'm somewhat stuck. Vendor lock in blows and should be against the law. If they have the option of providing me something to enable a service, it should be open in such a way that anyone else can provide that same service. I think this is what Cable card does for me, but I don't think I can get one from RCN. Everyone should just quit cable and use OTA in protest. I'm sure I could organize that sort of walkout. Everyone is with me, right?

Re:DVR

[Spyrus]

Ahhh ... there's a difference. Verizon FIOS's On Demand isn't in HD -- so as a result, torrents off the internet have better picture quality than their video tap. Maybe that will change someday, but I guess I won't see it because I'll be using my Tivo. :-)

Re:DVR

[slimjim8094]

LOL... Arm, leg, and half a genital???

I just (re)built a Myth box that I bought originally for $150. The CPU's ~700MHz PIII (spare tower) and most of the money was the Hauppauge! PVR-350. The rest was an 80GB drive. Works better than the TiVo and no complaints (same as with the TiVo we also have).

Re:DVR

[mrbooze]

I challenge you to point out where I demanded that everyone always buy $HIGHER_QUALITY_THING.

I merely pointed out that it is the age-old question. And it's why there is more than one model of car. It doesn't make the people who buy a Yarus wrong, and neither does it make the people who buy a Lamborghini or Ford F-350 wrong.

Personally, I have expensive pans and knives, I have a Tivo, I have a Macbook Pro. I have a modest small house. I have a modest boring car (Subaru Forester). I've probably spent less than $200 on clothes in the last 5 years, while spending probably 5 times that on going to see live music.

We all value things differently, if someone can be happy with the piece of shit cable company box that I tried and could not stand, good for them. If someone cares about hi-def, good for them. Personally, I don't care about it that much. If I had to choose between non-HD DirecTivo and the HD DirecTV DVR, I would take the DirecTivo every time. But that's just me.

Re:DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

People who use TiVo have more money than brains.

But they have both in higher quantity that you. Poetic, that.

Re:DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

However, RCN doesn't have the option to let me use Tivo with HD right now, so I'm somewhat stuck.

What are you talking about? Cable companies are LEGALLY REQUIRED by the FCC to give you CableCards to use with your Tivo. (Plus, you only need CableCards if you want to use encrypted channels... or you can use a pre-series 3 Tivo to hokily control a cable box via an IR blaster or sometimes serial control.)

Re:DVR

[pipingguy]

What I've always wondered about with PVRs is disk usage. Since it's always recording (otherwise you wouldn't be able to rewind "live" TV) isn't that hard on the disk drive?

Re:DVR

[pipingguy]

my wife calling me because the damn front-end needs restarting

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

Re:DVR

[jsight]

My local cable company offers a DVR for a $5 a month rental, if I order the HD Cable package I get one for free. Where is my incentive to buy a Tivo? Not only will have to pay $X hundred up front for the device but I STILL have to pay a subscription fee.

This is exactly the problem!

The one year contract for tivo is 16.95 a month! On top of that, they have shown a remarkable willingness to increase the price at a rate far higher than inflation.

If you sign up for 3 years, it is still 12.95, which is certainly not cheap.

I can't justify doing that.

Re:DVR

[Rich0]

I've had my tivo die a few times - took reimaging to get it working again.

That is one of the biggest reasons I went with Myth - I wanted some control over my data. Now I can make my video partition as big as I want, or shrink it at any time I feel like it. I can RAID-5 my storage and not worry about losing 250 hours of TV when a hard drive crashes (a matter of when and not if). I can skip commercials with one click 95% of the time, and jump arbitrary numbers of minutes when that doesn't work. The files are mostly just standard mpg files so I can do what I want with them easily enough (ok - minor rant - what possessed them to write their own player instead of just using an established one as the core? It is WAY to finicky about input file formats...).

Sure, it isn't perfect, but it beats a green screen of death with no easy way to recover and resorting to all kinds of shifty websites to download images.

Re:DVR

[geminidomino]

Not exactly.

The XBox was expansive, but not upgradable. ;)

Re:DVR

[ChrisMaple]

Alas, DirecTiVo has none of the nice features you mention. Record is from satellite only. No recording from XM. No commercial skip of any sort whatsoever. No warning is issued when disk space is about to run out, and there is no way to check how much is left. As a result, I have to go through all the recordings I want to keep and set them to "never erase" or risk having them mysteriously disappear.

If it weren't for automatic scheduling, I'd be much better off with 2 conventional DirecTV boxes and a MythTV with IR blaster.

Re:DVR

[KermitJunior]

Nice sig, but Morality is knowing the right thing. Ethics is knowing why its the right thing. Discipline/self-control is doing the right thing when no one is looking. Integrity is being the same person in every aspect of life (integer - whole). Off topic, but anyways...

Re:DVR

[pipingguy]

I prefer ethics over morality. Integrity is part of it all.

To me, morality implies adherence to a predescribed code of conduct. Things that you "should do".

Everyone has their own code of do/do not do. I'd hesitate to enforce my morals on you, but ethically you and I are already bound by the unspoken code of human conduct. For example: I'd not hesitate to help someone in dire need based upon their beliefs, I'd just act (and have done so in the past) without considering if it was the moral thing to do.

Probably I'm explaining things poorly.

Re:DVR

[goldfndr]

No warning is issued when disk space is about to run out, and there is no way to check how much is left.

I'm sure you've been informed endlessly that Suggestions are a half-decent way to track available space for those models that don't have the Recently Deleted folder, but perhaps you have a fear of them.

well it seems like the obvious thing....

[catbutt]

is for tivo to sell/rent their dvr's through the cable company. Its not like the cable company makes their own dvr's currently

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[asphaltjesus]

Ahhh yes... The quick and dirty reasons why Tivo is the bane of cable companies existence.

1. Not invented here. Cable companies didn't think of it so it's bad. Period. No logic. Just bad.
2. Negatively affects ratings. Since most "cable companies" are subsidiaries of the entertainment conglomerates, you bet the word comes from the mountain top that pvr's are bad. Dings ratings, failure to fully monetize their content.
3. Most consumers believe renting the box is a benefit. This is a dead end for consumers for a million reasons. None of which have to do with convenience.

Tivo apparently has great PR to get reviews by all of those media outlets. Too bad the media conglomerates are one of their biggest advertisers. The good reviews will come to an end for no good reason other than the media conglomerates want tivo dead.

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[tlhIngan]

Ahhh yes... The quick and dirty reasons why Tivo is the bane of cable companies existence.
[list of reasons clipped]

You missed a big one. CONTROL.

Cable companies control the entire DVR user experience when you rent/buy their boxes. (If you buy a box off eBay, the cable company will "update" its firmware).

TiVo doesn't let them do that. Instead of ads plastered everywhere (mine - if you scroll the guide (which only shows 5 channels because the full-screen guide has the top half used) using the up/down buttons, they stick an ad at the bottom of the list, reducing the guide to only 4 channels long, but the ad is a "hotspot" now, so it takes 5 button pushes) - TiVo only lets them have one at the bottom of the main menu (rotates) with the rest hidden under a "Showcase" menu.

It's also not like TiVo can't support stuff like Video On Demand or Pay Per View (I don't use it, I don't care, my "bonus" coupons from the cable company haven't been touched) - they did PPV stuff just fine with DirecTV.

Also, I suspect they know once people go TiVo, they're not going back. There are a lot of unhappy DirecTV customers since the DirecTiVo was discontinued (and I'm sure, many ex-DirecTV customers from those who left when it was revealed that the replacement DVRs are crap, much like the cable DVR). So the Cable company really doesn't want to be beholden to people who get used to TiVo, and who'll leave their cable service behind when they decide to abandon TiVo. They want a nice audience who'll sit infront of the TV, without considering alternative TV providers.

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[pragma_x]

2. Negatively affects ratings. Since most "cable companies" are subsidiaries of the entertainment conglomerates...

The real WTF here is that this particular problem should've gone away a long time ago, unless I've misunderstood the present situation.

With millions of cable boxes between Comcast, COX and whoever else is out there, why haven't they supplemented, or outright replaced the Nielsen ratings system yet? They obviously have the infrastructure, and could easily send out questionnaires to allow people to 'opt-in' for ratings participation (Brochure: "Hey, wanna keep your favorite shows on the air?"). As it is, the cable-co's existing DVR deployments are causing the same "dings" in statistics, even though they have 100% control of the game.

3. Most consumers believe renting the box is a benefit.

It's a benefit if you don't have a digital tuner, or even a cable-ready TV (old NTSC sets last forever) and don't plan on upgrading to either over the short term. Also you get free replacement in case the thing fails, which is kind of nice - even if the cable guy barges in with dirty shoes.

Otherwise, I agree. The mere fact that I can't back up saved shows stored on my cable-co DVR is frustrating enough. Also the program browser software Comcast pushes is complete crap.

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[HTH NE1]

It's not like the cable companies make their own DVRs currently You're obviously not in one of Time Warner Cable's beta-testing communities.

OK, so they're not making their own hardware (still running on Scientific Atlanta hardware), but they are making their own software, calling it Mystro Digital Navigator, or Mystro for short, to replace Passport.

Mystro is riddled with bugs, in both DVR and non-DVR configurations. Due to problems with updates of its on-screen display of guide data for upcoming shows, I can't use my TiVo's Suggestions feature lest the box crash. Only padding recordings by a minute start-and-end avoids the problem, but Suggestions cannot be padded, and the padding can trigger the bug in cases where shows start late or end early by a minute. (It is the guide data in the cable box for the channel you're leaving rolling over to the next program while the TiVo is simultaneously trying to change channels that triggers the bug.)

Locally, only the DVR configuration bugs are getting press.

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[Rolgar]

Under what conditions do they update your hardware? I have basic non-digital cable without a box that I can plug straight into my Toshiba DVR/DVD Recorder. I got the DVR refurbished for about half price off eBay, and except for the TV Guide feature not working which forces me to check Zap2It and manually programming it to record, it works perfectly. For the most part, I can edit and record the programs I want to DVD for archiving. An in the future, I can even move my recordings back to the recorder when I don't want my kids handling the disks. My only concern is how this will work with the digital to analog converter box I'll have to buy in two years, but maybe at that point, I might decide to stop watching TV if they won't let me watch it in a way that I enjoy.

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[HTH NE1]

Followup, here is a story about the problems where me Warner spokeswoman Ann Shrewsbury said "I think the software is stable now. We're ready to move on." (Jun 22, 2007) Today, problems with their "OCAP Digital Navigator" are still ongoing. I can try to test it again (there was another update last night turning off all three cable boxes) but I have no confidence that the TiVo-defeating bugs have been addressed.

My only relief is that installing CableCARDs in a Series3 TiVo have apparently avoids the problematic software, at least for now.

Locations subjected to the unannounced "beta test" (PDF) are New York City; Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wisconsin; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Waco, Texas.

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[dgatwood]

The thing is, most consumers have been brainwashed by the cable companies to believe that renting makes more sense because otherwise "Oh, noes! If teh cable box breaks, I'll pave to pay to r3place it!!!!!!1!!!10" They've gotten into this state in large part because of Microsoft's buggy OS convincing them that their computer needs to be replaced every two years, so obviously computers only last two years, so why should I trued my cable box to last longer? Yeah. That's the typical consumer mentality about electronics, and it's really sad.

The reality, of course, is that cable boxes (DVR hard drive failures notwithstanding) last nearly forever. Even DVRs will last several years before anything fails (though you may want a bigger hard drive after a smaller number of years)... but they've gotten people brainwashed into thinking that they should lease or rent the equipment at a cost that pays for the gear in typically a little over a year, two tops, beyond which it is pure profit for the cable company. And, of course, there's no risk to the cable company, rare hardware failures notwithstanding, because if you cancel service, they reclaim the box, wipe it, and send it out to somebody else. What, you didn't think you were necessarily getting a new DVR, did you?

The unfortunate truth, though, is that the reason cable companies install so many DVRs is mainly because they come out to your house and hook it up for you. Your average consumer is scared to try to hook up a cable box him/herself. They have this perception that somehow it will be less hassle if the cable company delivers it, hooks it up, and replaces it when (not if, at least in their minds) it fails than it would be to drive to the store and buy one and hook it up themselves. The smartest thing TiVo could do is to partner with Best Buy, Circuit City, and a few other companies to provide installation services. Buy a TiVo, get it "professionally installed" for no extra charge. Also, they should provide a quick repair program through the stores---you bring the dead box in, five minutes later you walk out with a refurbished unit with your drive in it. (If the drive is what doesn't work, you'd walk out with your old box with a replaced hard drive.)

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[Lost Engineer]

Even now that there is a reasonably priced HD TiVo (300 bucks), it would still take 30 months of DVR rental to compensate. This is discounting the fact that the cable company DVR *actually costs less* to operate, because they are allowed to charge you for two cable cards. Yes, it blows nuts, and yes I'm thinking of upgrading now that there is a reasonably priced HD Tivo.

My Series 1 with lifetime sub is still operating though :)

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[Anonymous Coward]

In my opinion, Tivo has intentionally subverted it's own potential in one big area, just to "play nice" with the cable operators that distribute 99% of Tivo content today: free and open IP TV and video podcasting

If the majority of Tivo's installed user base could pick what programs are "pushed" to their "Now Playing" inventories by simply typing in a URL into a Season Pass, I believe you'd see an immediate and aggressive response from a large cross-section of current programming and distribution incumbents.

Current Tivo feature implementations seem to indicate that the one little bit of code this pushed IP-TV would require is sitting on a shelf, close at hand, for strategic/partnering reasons, and not technical ones. I would guess that video codec support may be one stumbling point.

I guess a powerful question that would need to be answered within the walls of Tivo, before this would roll out: What is the monetary upside?

Re:well it seems like the obvious thing....

[dgatwood]

You can get a DVR from your cable company for $10/month? I was calculating based on a more typical $15, which puts it at 20 months, or a little over a year and a half.

TiVo Over Cable

[LordSkippy]

I have a lifetime subscription, but if I didn't and was torn between paying the cable or TiVo bill, I'd dump cable first. TiVo can pull programming off an antenna, and reception willing, would still be able to time shift a lot of shows to my schedule. So, I don't agree that TiVo is dependent on cable. Better with cable, yes. But not dependent on it.

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[gh0ul]

Yea, but doesn't your lifetime subscription only apply to the box you have right now? If you were to upgrade to a Series3 for example, it would go away?

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[tlhIngan]

Yea, but doesn't your lifetime subscription only apply to the box you have right now? If you were to upgrade to a Series3 for example, it would go away?

Except for the few-times-a-year offer where you can get a Series 3, and transfer the lifetime sub to it. Everyone knew about the one that ended Jan 1, 2007, but since then, I have seen at least 2 more (one that ended last week, too!).

Basically, if you have a Series 2 with lifetime, they will for $200 let you transfer it to a Series 3. Bonus - the old Series 2 gets 3 years of prepaid service (nominally $300). So your old TiVo still gets service, and lifetime is moved to your shiny new Series 3.

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[bit trollent]

Tivo's subscrition ($12.95 - $16.95 per month) costs as much as my rental DVR from the cable company.

Tivo's DVR may be better, but I refuse to pay $12.95 per month for tv listings I can find for free on the internet. I could live with $3.00 a month, and I'll bet Tivo could too.

Sorry, Tivo, you have priced yourself out of the market.

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[imadork]

There's been other offers besides the first one? Where can we find out about these?

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[wfeick]

If you have more than one box, they knock $6 off the monthly fee for the additional boxes bringing it down to $6.95 per month. It's not $3, but still not bad. When you consider the rental charge on the cable company's box, the difference for a Tivo is really just the up front $300. That's not so bad, in my view, considering you end up with a much better experience.

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[jedidiah]

The part that really annoys me is a rental fee for each unit.

If there are multiple units in a household, one should be the master and do all of the talking with the mothership. Any data or updates that any other boxes need should go through the master system. Tivo shoul d only need to see the one box.

TivoTerminals should be cheap enough that most people would be comfortable buying one to put next to every TV & computer in the house.

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[E 99]

Tivo's subscrition ($12.95 - $16.95 per month) costs as much as my rental DVR from the cable company.

Tivo's DVR may be better, but I refuse to pay $12.95 per month for tv listings I can find for free on the internet. I could live with $3.00 a month, and I'll bet Tivo could too.

Sorry, Tivo, you have priced yourself out of the market.

This is why I went with ReplayTV instead of TIVO. Originally, ReplayTV included the listing service for free with the purchase of the box. They subsequently switched to the TIVO model of charging for the subscription (either lifetime or monthly). But as an early adopter, I lucked out. Plus there are lots of hacks on the internet for ReplayTV, and I've subsequently upgraded the hard drive twice.

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[Jtheletter]

Basically, if you have a Series 2 with lifetime, they will for $200 let you transfer it to a Series 3

Really, they let you transfer it for only $200? Wow! What a steal. Didn't the lifetime service already cost you $300 on top of the Tivo unit cost?
I'm not trolling here, I'm a Tivo owner myself, but I got a rediculous deal on the last Toshiba model that came with *free* Basic Service (3 day program listings, no auto-suggest shows). Having tried the full Tivo subscription with a 60 day free trial, I still couldn't justify the monthly subscription or the lifetime subscription when I got almost all the same functionality for free. The fact that Tivo charges you 2/3rds of the original lifetime subscription fee to "move" it to another Tivo sounds to me more like they're reselling you the same old donut again and again.
I also own a small amount of Tivo stock because I thought they'd be doing great by now, but as the article says, they've got great mindshare but not much else. :( Tivo needs to figure out how to make money off it's customers while staying competitive price-wise. If I hadn't gotten my tivo with basic service so cheap I'd be using the cable company's DVR too.

And as a final rant I'm pretty ticked off that Tivo changes the terms of the deal on the fly by "upgrading" my Tivo with such "useful" features as disabling the 30 second skip. If I were under contract with them via a monthly or lifetime fee then it might make sense but since I don't pay them I'd say it's effectively (if not legally unfortunately) a bait-and-switch for them to change the functionality of the device I purchased and own. Yes, I understand I still connect to their network for scheduling, I'll gladly trade that right in exchange for them to stop mucking with my features in a negative way!

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[Spyrus]

It's not cost-effective to transfer your lifetime subscription from a Series 2 to a Series 3. If you have multiple Tivo boxes (and you do if you have a "lifetime" S2 and a new S3), the monthly rate for the 2nd subscription is only $6.95 a month. It would take over two years to make that deal pay off, and you would lose the lifetime subscription on the S2 after a year, rendering it useless. By the time the transfer fee was paid off, some other shiny new object will catch your eye. If not, what's $7/month for something you use and like (especially compared to cable programming fees)? I did the math and found a better purpose for my lifetime Series 2 Tivo with an additional internal disk for more storage (easy as pie if you can work a screwdriver and burn a Knoppix CD). My parents have it now, and they're THRILLED with its ease of use. That's worth a hell of a lot more than $200 to us.

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[Dutch Gun]

Really, they let you transfer it for only $200? Wow! What a steal. Didn't the lifetime service already cost you $300 on top of the Tivo unit cost? TiVo made it very clear that the lifetime subscription was tied to the box, not the purchaser. But the fact of the matter is that I'm already ahead of those paying a monthly fee by purchasing the lifetime subscription over three years ago. Why would I balk at paying another $200? In a few years, I'll once again be ahead of those paying a monthly fee.

Scoff if you like, but I enjoy my full service TiVo, and I'm willing to pay a slightly premium price for it. If you're happy with the basic service, more power to you. It's nice they offer that option for those that don't want the extra expense.

And as a final rant I'm pretty ticked off that Tivo changes the terms of the deal on the fly by "upgrading" my Tivo with such "useful" features as disabling the 30 second skip. BTW, I can't recall the 30-second skip - I'm guessing I either never used it or I got my TiVo after they had already removed the feature. That is slightly annoying if you were used to using it. Was it removed to placate advertisers, or was there some other reason?

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[dashZD]

My ReplayTV is alive and kicking...skipping commercials just like the day it was born. And yes, I paid the lifetime subscription.

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[r_jensen11]

Bonus - the old Series 2 gets 3 years of prepaid service (nominally $300). So your old TiVo still gets service, and lifetime is moved to your shiny new Series 3.

And when is the analog cutoff? Once all signals are in 720p or 1080, then the Series 2 will be next to worthless, unless you can sync it up with a box that converts hd streams into sd streams.

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[Jtheletter]

I will admit that Tivo is at least upfront about the meaning of "lifetime service". But to me it seems rather... greedy for them to charge you again for the *same* amount of service but on a different machine, even if you physcially destroy the first box after the transfer. After all, what additional service are they really giving you for that extra $200? Ideally it should be a nominal service fee for the transfer, like $20 or $50 to cover CSR time, but if wishes were horses....

The free basic service is actually no longer even offered on new Tivos AFAIK, it was discontinued at the same time as the lifetime service contract option. The 30 second skip feature was 'hidden' and could be enabled by a specific button combination that programmed it to the ->| button. It was never an advertised feature to placate networks/advertisers, but apparently even this was not enough for those companies and they somehow pressured Tivo to remove it via a software update.
That's what really bugs me. The free service provides very minimal functionality and isn't even an option anymore, and yet they still hold my box hostage and can and will change functionality on the fly. What happens if Tivo is forced out of business and they just brick all their customers' boxes as a final goodbye?

Re:TiVo Over Cable

[Phantom Gremlin]

You're totally wrong about 30 second skip. It is STILL in the software to this day. The only problem is you must enter the magic code every time the box reboots (ie after software updates and power failures).

Here's how to do it.

Play back a pre-recorded program and then push:
Select
play
select
3
0
select

I just bought one of the new TiVo HD units and this works even on that box.

VCR

[atanamar]

I still enjoy my VCR, thank you very much...

Re:VCR

[belly917]

How's pausing live TV working for you?

Re:VCR

[spun]

You kids and your newfangled electronics. I point my Kodak Super-8 at the TV and develop the film in my own darkroom.

Re:VCR

[atanamar]

I wait for the commercials, walk away, and then come back, and magically the show picks up at the same point where I left.

Re:VCR

[belly917]

I admit, I was instigating a little with my grandparent post. Although, my mother has a knack for calling during the middle of my favorite shows. Pausing live TV is very useful. If I was using a VCR, I'd have to wait until the show was finished recording before I could resume.

Even with my mythbox, I still watch shows live if I'm home. And when I do, I employ the same method of getting up and walking around (get a drink, use bathroom, etc.) during commercial breaks.

Re:VCR

[AndersOSU]

Pfft, my entertainment comes entirely from the sock-puppet theater I write direct and produce.

Sorry, I've got to go clean my gun...

Re:VCR

[Anonymous Coward]

A typical Kodak fanboi touting their elitist "Super" 8. There was never anything wrong with plain old 8mm, and I'm sticking with it for my TV recordings. I for one am not going to get suckered into this blatant example of planned obsolescence just so I can walk around bragging about how supposedly "Super" my film is.

Re:VCR

[drooling-dog]

You kids and your newfangled electronics. I point my Kodak Super-8 at the TV and develop the film in my own darkroom. You whippersnappers with your Super-8s! In my day, we sketched stuff on pads of paper and flipped through it whenever we wanted to watch something. But of course that takes too much talent and effort for you techno-weenies...

Re:VCR

[HTH NE1]

Although, my mother has a knack for calling during the middle of my favorite shows. There's a very simple explanation for that knack: she knows your favorite shows and chooses those times to call, knowing you'll be home.

Re:VCR

[ucla74]

You forgot to mention it's a Betamax.

Re:VCR

[the1rob]

What the hell is a Super-8?

What the hell is a 'darkroom'?

Re:VCR

[Anonymous Coward]

Luxury. You have paper? We sit around a campfire and tell stories pass down from one generation to the next for entertainment.

Re:VCR

[spun]

The Super-8 are a group of mutants with various super powers. One of them has an eidetic memory, another one is a telepath who reads his memory and beams the images into your head. The darkroom is where I keep them when I'm not using them. Supporting a whole team of mutant supers just to watch TV without commercials might seem extravagant, but as an evil overlord, I had already captured them. You know the rules, we evil overlords can't just off our super powered foes, we have to keep them in captivity so they have a chance to escape. Hey, I know its stupid but I didn't write the rules. So anyway, I have them around, I may as well use them. You should see what Mr. Flame does for a barbecue!

Re:VCR

[dwandy]

but does it run linux?

Re:VCR

[edwardpickman]

Wow, you're uptown. I'm still using tracing paper and make giant flip books of my favorite shows.

Re:VCR

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, if my VCR hadn't died I'd never have picked up a TiVo myself. VCR did everything I needed it to do; record a show and let me watch it at a later date.

Now, with the ability to record two shows at once while watching a third, I've started recording shows I never would have been able to and watching more TV than ever before, which is probably a bad thing >.>

Re:VCR

[JazzLad]

You had fire growing up? Youngster.

Re:VCR

[ChrisMaple]

Gee, I wish I'd thought of that. I hired a bunch of portrait painters to watch my TV.

Renting == Future Model

[Anonymous Coward]

No suprise people like renting, as it's quickly becoming the 'new' model for everything.

You don't own a cellphone, you rent it.
You don't own the DVR, you rent it.
You don't own that DVD, you license it.

Pretty soon, you will not 'own' your 'Personal' Computer, you will rent it.
You already effectivly rent the software, it works for the MMORPG, it can work for Microsoft Word.

It's a way to ensure a 100% foolproof revenue stream.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[Lumpy]

Dude you already RENT a Tivo. if you do not pay for the lifetime subscription after purchase you are in essence RENTING it.

Yeah,yeah, you can call it subscribing to the guide service, but then why does it completely stop working when I stop paying? it should work as a VCR and let me access everything I recorded when on the service.

I know that some of the wierder DVD recorders have a "tivo basic" that does just that, but the older Tivo's and the new HD units dont.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[tlhIngan]

Dude you already RENT a Tivo. if you do not pay for the lifetime subscription after purchase you are in essence RENTING it.

Except you own the hardware, and can do anything you want with it. By your definition, you "rent" cellphones, too, since if you stop paying, it doesn't work (well, emergency calls do, but TiVo works as a nice TV tuner with a 1/2 hour trick play buffer, too).

Try that with your cablebox DVR - open it up, pop out the hard drive. Then return it. You'll find that you'll be charged some huge fee because the cablebox "doesn't work - user tampering". With TiVo, you own the hardware. Even if you buy one brand new from the store, you can drop it out of a plane to look at the crater it makes. You can't return it, but hey. If you stop paying your Cable company, they'll want the box back and charge you some huge fee because it's broken.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[amigabill]

I don't get why people would like this. I hate renting. I want to buy it and be done with it, not be on the hook to continually pay and pay and pay forever even after the purchase price has been met multiple times over. I hate cable co boxes. I currently do not have any of them. I dont want one. I'll be stuck with one soon when I get FIOS, but I'd rather own it. I may buy this Tivo HD to replace it, especially since it's a lot cheaper than the Series 3. I own my cell phone. I need to buy a new one because it sucks and I can't use it at home, but it's mine. I would never lease a car, and don't understand why anyone does. I think it's rediculous. I just bought a new car a month ago. It's financed, so it'll take a few years to truely be "mine", but there ain't no lease manager telling me what I can and cannot do with the car. It's my car, I do what I wish with it, drilling holes, swapping interior, adding soundproofing (lotsa road noise), add an aftermarket nav system (Wasn't available from manufacturer with one), it's mine.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[jrumney]

Except you own the hardware, and can do anything you want with it.

What rock have you been sleeping under for the last few years?

Re:Renting == Future Model

[drooling-dog]

When product cycles are short and the stuff you "own" is obsolete a couple of years after you buy it, there really isn't any difference between owning and renting (except for paying up-front when you own)...

Re:Renting == Future Model

[hackstraw]

I don't get why people would like this. I hate renting. I want to buy it and be done with it, not be on the hook to continually pay and pay and pay forever even after the purchase price has been met multiple times over.

I'm actually the opposite. I rent my DVR. I did w/o TV for a while, so I returned the DVR and didn't have to pay for it or cable, no big deal. Then I went back with the service, and I got an upgraded DVR (HDMI output and larger harddrive) w/o having to dispose of or buy a new item.

I consider all electronics purchases as renting. They are disposable, and they can be replaced for a fraction of the cost at a later date. To me, owning and renting is basically the same, but with renting I have an easy way out and don't have to dispose of the item or sell it which is often a waste of time because a new one is better and cheaper.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[Canthros]

Lots of people lease cars, too. (People lease cellphones? That's a new one on me.) The major benefit being that, at the end of the lease, you get a new lease on a new car. As a result, you never really have to deal with most of the major maintenance problems that go with long-term car ownership. On the downside, it costs more over the long term (I assume it must be less expensive over the short term, but I'm not sure), and, yeah, it's never really yours.

Personally, I don't even like subscription fees if I can avoid them. It's one of the few things keeping me on a Series 2 TiVo: I have me a lifetime subscription, and I don't wish to lose it (or pay for it again, so I can transfer it to a new unit). It'll happen eventually, though. Given the option, I prefer to pay for things up front, most of the time. However, it does make a lot of sense with items that have a short life cycle and which become useless when that cycle is over. Cable modems are, as I understand it, in roughly this category (so, ironically, I had to buy mine from the local cable company). Most things aren't, though, and I really don't care for the rent-to-never-own pricing model.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[evilviper]

Except you own the hardware, and can do anything you want with it.

Yet you don't own the software, which is highly integrated with the hardware, so any attempts to modify the Tivo to do what you want (scheduled recording... grabbing listings elsewhere, etc.), are likely to render it a useless hunk of hardware.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[jkiol]

This is a preferable model for most people as things become far too complicated to fix or damage easily for the normal person. Your myth box needs software updated... Sure I update my myth box, but I don't expect my dad to know what to do with it, he can barely figure out how to use it. Most people change their cell phone pretty much every year to two, new features new services and most cell phone companies provide you with a free alternative to owning your own. This works well for low end electronics that people have been using as disposable. In fact if someone offered a computer to rent, it would be preferable for my parents, for whom currently I have to go reload their OS (windows) usually once a year (spy-ware/viruses/ad-ware/junk-ware infestation). Time = money, and it would be a lot cheaper to spend $10-15 a month on a computer you replace once a year, than my time spent fixing the one they have. And you could have them manage your licenses for software you want on your computer.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[Sparks23]

You own the software to an extent. You can download the source code for several parts (albeit, not all) of the TiVo system directly from TiVo, including many of their tools (and their modified PowerPC Linux kernel, obviously, to be fully GPL compliant). And there are plenty of user-provided modifications out there to do things like make a TiVo pull from xmltv (so that a TiVo can work in places where TiVo listings are not available) and so on.

Here is a decent list of TiVo hacking resources. Sure, you invalidate your warranty, but if you rip apart something and rebuild it, it's not really rational to expect the company -- who have no way of knowing what you have done, how you have done it, and so on -- to still provide support for it or a replacement.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[Aetuneo]

Yes, there is a difference. If you own something, when it becomes "obsolete" you can continue to use it, and realize that it is not, in fact, obsolete. When you are renting something, they can force you to upgrade, even if you don't need to. Oh, and they can hold you liable for damage. Personally, I think that obsolete electronics is a myth, at least for computers made in the last 7 years or so. An old computer that won't play shiny new games will still run a word processor, a browser, and maybe a few games. Failing that, you can set it up as a small server, to keep track of notes or similar things, that you can access anywhere in the world. If you have enough old computers, you can stick them in a beowulf cluster, and have them run a useful application. Use is only limited by ingenuity. If you're good enough at re-purposing electronics, they never become obsolete. Until they just stop working, that is.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[Lost Engineer]

Leasing's not a bad deal compared to buying with interest on the loan. I'm waiting for them to get desperate and offer 0% again.

Some things are just more durable than others. Cars could go either way. If you must have a new one every 3-5 years, then they're totally disposable. If you're not into cars, it might make more sense to get the free maintenance with a lease.

Long term it depends on how good you are at selling your car. If you take dealer trade in prices, you were probably better off leasing. If you keep it in mint condition and are a good used car salesman you can probably sell it yourself for more.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[Anonymous Coward]

The same rock you have. Being able to do whatever you want with it includes hardware hacks that bypass the hardware locks; yes, it is doable and has been done. Just because they don't have an Easy button on the inside doesn't mean that it can't be done; you just have to take a little effort to do it.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

When you sign software as a service model, you will be renting the software too. And *IAA claims you dont own the cd or DVD you are only renting it.

It is the Goblin logic. George Weasley clearly tells Harry, "The Goblins dont believe they sell anything to the wizards. They believe it belongs to the maker and you are only renting it. Once you die, the object should be returned to the Goblin manufacturer. They dont like the idea of the Wizards passing goblin made objects from person to person without them getting paid." Was JKR talking about *IAA there?

Re:Renting == Future Model

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Do any of the DVRs that the cable and satellite providers rent out to their customers allow you to download recordings to a PC? Last time I checked, the answer was "no", and I seriously doubt it'll ever be the case.

I'm on the fringes of television viewing already; there's very little of value to me on any channel, broadcast or not. TiVo at least makes what little there is bearable and accesible for me. If TiVo went away, I think I'd cancel my cable service and just rent DVDs instead -- or watch downloaded video from the internet.

..or better yet, a choice that would really stick in their throats: I'll just go back to reading books all the time for entertainment.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? then why will I be slapped with a DMCA violation if I create a whole new TiVO OS tht bypasses all tivo services and uses xmlTV and does the same thing?

TiVo will smack me down hard if I try that.

Also look at the EULA. it states that you do NOT own the hardware.

Re:Renting == Future Model

[Dun Malg]

Really? then why will I be slapped with a DMCA violation if I create a whole new TiVO OS tht bypasses all tivo services and uses xmlTV and does the same thing? First, Tivo has never invoked the DMCA for anything. Second, if you wiped all Tivo's "intellectual property" from the hardware, where's the DMCA violation? No wonder you posted AC. You're an ignorant fucktard.

TiVo will smack me down hard if I try that.
Really? Like they've "smacked down" all these folks?

Also look at the EULA. it states that you do NOT own the hardware.
Shut your pie-hole, moron, it says no such thing. Furthermore, even if it did, the doctrine of First Sale would invalidate any such statement.

Get what you pay for

[Applekid]

It's easier to get a DVR from your cable company. It's also easier to buy fast food than cook some yourself.

Anyone I've let play with my Tivo for a while thinks it's cool, but to really appreciate getting cherry-picked recommendations, automatic deletions, season tickets, video podcasts, and other features it's gotta be in your home.

It's too bad TiVo isn't in such great financial shape because all they'd really have to do is give away a bunch of boxes for free and let people play with them for a month. They have it now, pure leased boxes where you just pay your subscription. But it's pricey.

I wonder if they could get puchased by a company with more financial backing.

Re:Get what you pay for

[whoever57]

It's too bad TiVo isn't in such great financial shape because all they'd really have to do is give away a bunch of boxes for free and let people play with them for a month.

Errr.... they did. They gave away thousands at their HQ a couple of years back. You did not even have to commit to buy their subscription.

I am surprised that no-one has mentioned the HME interface that Tivo has -- there are applications written by third parties that run on PCs and display on the Tivo. You can use it as a media player, you can also download the shows from the Tivo and play them on your PC.

Re:Get what you pay for

[Anonymous Coward]

It's too bad TiVo isn't in such great financial shape because all they'd really have to do is give away a bunch of boxes for free and let people play with them for a month. They have it now, pure leased boxes where you just pay your subscription. But it's pricey.

They tried this...well sorta. I got a Series 2 ($199 value 3 years ago) after $150 rebate, it only costs $49 but required a 3 month subscription. Well I got hooked and its been with me ever since. And yes, hacked after 4 months to a larger HD.

It worked for me, so I dont know why they dont do this kind of "almost free" promo anymore.

Renting instead of owning?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But the cognoscenti enamored with TiVo's whizziness ignore a certain reality. It's easier to get a DVR from your cable company. And most people prefer to rent, not own, a set-top."

Well, look on the bright side. With the never-ending monthly service charges of TiVo, it's just like never actually owning it ...

Two notes

[Red Flayer]

One: FTA:

TiVo also gets its Trojan horse in the door as a rival TV-related service provider,

That's a really unfortunate turn-of-phrase. Is the writer aware of what Trojan horses are in the tech world?

Two: this is where Wall Street has a darling busted by DRM. It's really too much to hope for, but since TiVo is a household name, maybe finally a few legislators may become personally aware of how over-restrictive media controls really interfere with the consumer's best interests.

Re:Two notes

[0x15e]

Two: this is where Wall Street has a darling busted by DRM. It's really too much to hope for, but since TiVo is a household name, maybe finally a few legislators may become personally aware of how over-restrictive media controls really interfere with the consumer's best interests.

Could you elaborate on that? I looked through the article and didn't see any mention of DRM causing problems.

Aside from a few bugs last year, I can't recall DRM being a problem for the TiVo. I personally have been able to do pretty much whatever I want with the content on the TiVo (copying it to a computer, using it on other devices, burning to DVDs, you name it). I also have no problems with transferring whatever video I want off the computer onto the TiVo. Both of my TiVos are completely unmodified and I'm only using readily-available software either provided by TiVo or otherwise readily available and linked from their own forums.

So how exactly is DRM causing problems for TiVo? Or are you saying that it's their lack of overly-restrictive DRM is what's causing the problem?

Re:Two notes

[Red Flayer]

Could you elaborate on that? I looked through the article and didn't see any mention of DRM causing problems.

Sure. It's not causing problems now -- but what happens if the cable companies get really pissed by TiVo, since TiVo is entering the movie distribution space? How will the cable companies move to prevent TiVo from taking a large segment of their business? They'll use DRM to lock down content, as HBO experimented with last year. It's coming.

What happens when Cablevision or Comcast start charging a fee to TiVo users for access to their content, over and above sub fees?

Re:Two notes

[UdoKeir]

That's a really unfortunate turn-of-phrase. Is the writer aware of what Trojan horses are in the tech world?

I wonder if he's aware of what Trojan Horses are in the real world.

There I am sitting down to watch my TiVoed episodes of Dr Who, and aarrrggh! Greeks!

Re:Two notes

[poetmatt]

I will step in to try to assist a little here :)
  This article about DRM limiting storage is one example of one of Tivo's problems....basically the device can store anything for as long as you want but due to restrictive DRM you can be limited on if you can store what you have stored, indefinitely (remember fair use issues).

Sorry thats all I can find without taking forever to research, also perhaps Tivo preventing skipping (drm lock) would also be relevant. Oh and I found the original limiting storage article
  Personally I'm all for Tivo but in reality spending 50$ on a HD tuner card and 150$ on a 500gig+ hard drive to use in a PC seems better for recording/control/etc. However I hope this shows some problems with Tivo that are DRM related, including the bugs last year that you mentioned.

Re:Two notes

[jedidiah]

You need to get a special gadget from your cable company to recieve HD signals.

You can't just plug a standard non-encrypted wired interface to your Tivo and have access to all of your paid programming (like you can with SD content).

You need to have separate hardware to deal with the OTA stuff since the OTA stuff and the cable stuff don't share the same interface anymore.

This encryption will lock Tivo out of Dish and DirecTV.

I can use a Tivo with SD DirecTV. Can I say the same for HD?

Re:Two notes

[Red Flayer]

This thread may be of some interest to you.

Sorry for referencing a thread I participated in.

Re:Two notes

[amuro98]

Well, you could still connect the video out from your satellite receiver into your Tivo, instead of into your TV. However you then face the problem of having your Tivo being able to talk to your receiver to change the channel when it wants to record something.

While this isn't impossible, it's not always fool-proof.

In addition, Dish offers a dual-tuner, HD-capable DVR for $6/mo. on top of your normal programming fees.

Going with a Series 3 Tivo instead would cost you just over $600 (includes the Tivo + 3 years of prepaid service.) Dish's DVR, on the other hand, will cost 1/3 that much. Also, since you don't own the DVR it's easier to upgrade or discontinue service since you won't have to worry what to do with this old, probably obsolete box.

I really like Tivo's interface and software a lot better, but between their higher cost of hardware, and the fact that both cable and satellite offer their own integrated DVRs for HD and digital channels, it's awfully hard to justify nowadays.

Re:Two notes

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

That's a really unfortunate turn-of-phrase. Is the writer aware of what Trojan horses are in the tech world? I think most writers (and people in general) would rather that we didn't outlaw the former meanings of words that get stuffed into the massive insatiable maw of computer jargon.

Re:Two notes

[Red Flayer]

Vocabulary used should be targeted to your intended audience. I don't think the writer of TFA was writing for a tech audience, but as it ended up on a tech aggregator...

Besides, even with the original usage of Trojan horse, it doesn't quite fit. It's not like TiVo is a gift to the cable companies that hides the source of their downfall.

Re:Two notes

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

Vocabulary used should be targeted to your intended audience. I don't think the writer of TFA was writing for a tech audience, but as it ended up on a tech aggregator... So writers are supposed to predict this happening now, and cull from their work usages that Slashdot readers might find objectionable?

Besides, even with the original usage of Trojan horse, it doesn't quite fit. It's not like TiVo is a gift to the cable companies that hides the source of their downfall. Actually, it does. The phrase 'Trojan horse' was never used quite so literally just to refer to an actual object freely given -- generally it refers to a 'friendly' overture that is a disguise for attack or competition. Millions of modern users of this phrase carry far more weight than the slightlty more specific original reference. Merriam-Webster agrees: "Trojan horse: someone or something intended to defeat or subvert from within usually by deceptive means". And this does seem to describe quite well the new TiVo strategy as interpreted by this columnist elsewhere in the article.

Re:Two notes

[Red Flayer]

So writers are supposed to predict this happening now, and cull from their work usages that Slashdot readers might find objectionable?

No. But it does mean that the wording is unfortunate to those of us who are most familiar with the tech usage. Having fun putting words in my mouth?

generally it refers to a 'friendly' overture that is a disguise for attack or competition.

Out of curiousity, how do you interpret TiVo as an overture to the cable companies in any way, shape, or form? Please, explain. The cable companies are ancillary to the parties TiVo is reaching out to (the viewers).

Re:Two notes

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

So writers are supposed to predict this happening now, and cull from their work usages that Slashdot readers might find objectionable? No. But it does mean that the wording is unfortunate to those of us who are most familiar with the tech usage. Having fun putting words in my mouth? Well, I have no intention of getting ugly about it, but you criticised the author's word choice. For not predicting that it would be on Slashdot. If you were to apply this ethic to everyone, you get exactly the situation I just described.

generally it refers to a 'friendly' overture that is a disguise for attack or competition. Out of curiousity, how do you interpret TiVo as an overture to the cable companies in any way, shape, or form? Please, explain. The cable companies are ancillary to the parties TiVo is reaching out to (the viewers). *I* don't interpret it that way. But *my* interpretation was not the one to which I just referred, was it? From the second sentence of TFA: "This week, the company that has amassed such powerful brand equity that it has become a verb ("Did you TiVo The Sopranos finale?") announced that it is working hard to convince the cable industry that it's a friend, not a foe." So clearly, this is exactly the way the author interprets it, and in fact that is the premise of the whole article. You can certainly argue with that premise, and I wouldn't really disagree with you, but you can't argue that the word choice dooesn't fit the argument being made. Anyway, don't know how I got sucked into this pointlessly trivial debate, and you're getting a little snarky, which is a strong sign that a whole lot more time is about to be wasted. It's not really important, obviously. If you really feel you must save face here, then have at thee. I won't be mounting another defence.

Re:Two notes

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

Second paragraph I meant. Bye!

Rent vs. Own

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people haven't been given the option of owning a set-top box that works with their digital cable/PPV/subscription services. CableCard may make this an option going forward, but it's not fair to say people chose to rent when they had no choice.

Tivo JUST WORKS. Period.

[aaronhaley]

I know this sounds like the same old line, but use both a Tivo and the CC's DVR and you'll be sold. The Tivo WORKS, and well at that. But the CC's DVR's stink for the most part. Cisco should just buy Tivo and bundle it into Scientific Atlanta's boxes, there you go, the killer cable box.

Re:Tivo JUST WORKS. Period.

[Nom du Keyboard]

But the CC's DVR's stink for the most part.

That is absolutely true for my Comcast supplied Motorola DCT 6412-III.

However,

Prior to that, my non-branded Dish Network DVR worked great for 3 years. So I'm waiting for a Comcast provided TiVo box to see if they can hold onto my business.

Re:Tivo JUST WORKS. Period.

[durdur]

Mine didn't just work. If the cable channel lineup ever changed it was a pain to sync Tivo to it (one of the disadvantages of not having a tighter cable provider/DVR link). And the Tivo box would spontaneously reboot once in a while, for no discernable reason. Finally the hard disk died, I replaced it, then it was even flakier. I decided I could live without it.

Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[LibertineR]

Ya dumb bastards!

But for a greedy CEO, TIVO would have accepted DirecTV's offer, they would continued to provide viewers with the best experience, with the best equipment, and EVERYONE would have been happy.

Now, DTV users are stuck with horrible hardware, TIVO cant make any money and NOBODY is happy.

Tivo, I love your stuff, but FUCK YOU!

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[xantho]

If Tivo were bought by DirecTV, do you think that anyone who doesn't subscribe to DirecTV would be able to get one? Look at what DirecTV tried to do with Major League Baseball. They signed a deal to be the exclusive carrier of Extra Innings (which is the package with all the out of town games on the extra channels), and didn't want to let go of it until there was a giant uproar, John Effing Kerry got involved, and the cable companies started trying to throw their weight around.

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[southpolesammy]

Yet another in a long line of examples of when management understands neither the product nor the competition. Ignorance of this sort is almost guaranteed to end badly.

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[mark0]

You say that like it was TiVo's choice. DirecTV is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch also owns a company that manufactures DVRs. You do the math.

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[LibertineR]

Do the math yourself. Murdock WANTED TIVO. He made the offer. He went elsewhere when Tivo's nutty CEO determined that the price offered would not allow him to retire at the level of wealth he longed for.

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[LibertineR]

Who gives a shit?

Can you buy an iPhone from Microsoft?

Its called competition. DirecTV has every right to try to lockup programming if they are willing to pay the price. That is the future. Look at DirecTV's football package; most subscribers would still pay for it if the price was double, its that good. I have no problem with providers buying up product. If you want it, PAY for it. If not, your choice.

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[LibertineR]

Yep.

And now, even with HDTV, most folks like me with a DirecTivo or two, or three, are holding onto them like grim death. I've got the HR20 HDTV DVR; the worst piece of consumer electronics hardware ever devised, just for watching NFL Sunday in HiDef this fall. My 4 year old DirecTivo's blow it out of the water. If DirecTV and Tivo could work out their differences, and I believe this is true for almost all DTV subscribers, they could NAME THEIR PRICE for an MPEG4, twin tuner HDTV DirecTIVO. It will never happen, and I HATE Tivo for it.

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[Shakrai]

Can you buy an iPhone from Microsoft?

That's a stupid example. Come back to me when Apple tries to use the weight of iTunes to keep your favorite band from being released on CD or doing live shows because they signed a deal with them.

Its called competition. DirecTV has every right to try to lockup programming if they are willing to pay the price. That is the future. Look at DirecTV's football package; most subscribers would still pay for it if the price was double, its that good. I have no problem with providers buying up product.

Bullshit. If I want to watch MLB, Law & Order, or the NFL I shouldn't have to subscribe to DirecTV. The owner of the pipe shouldn't get to dictate what the other pipes can carry. That's called a monopoly, not competition.

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[tji]

That's the first I heard that theory of why it failed.. Do you have any references to support that?

Everything I have read said that once News Corp / Murdoch came into the picture, they were either going to lowball Tivo's cut of the subscription fees or move to the DVR product that News Corp owned (thus keeping all the $$ for themselves). Considering the fact that Tivo never made a profit during that time, and have only briefly been in the black, I tend to think it was more of an attempt to keep his business running than greed.

Another plausible theory expressed at the time was that News Corp tried to take a larger stake in Tivo (they already owned 10%) and were denied, because Tivo feared it would eliminate their possibility of working with cable companies.

Now that News Corp is selling off (has sold?) their stake in DirecTV, there are rumors of renewing the Tivo relationship:
http://www.tvpredictions.com/tivo060507.htm That clearly points to it being a News Corp issue.

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[alexhmit01]

1. Satellite is competing with entrenched monopolies... exclusive content (previously the hundreds of digital channels not available until digital cable came out) is HOW they compete.
2. DirecTV CREATED the out-of-market option to buy the games, because they were a nationwide distributor that needs to use expensive satellites and receivers to compete with a city granted monopoly. These packages were created exclusively for them, but when the contracts ran out, they only renewed one exclusively, because everyone else wanted a fortune for the exclusive deal.
3. You CAN buy Sunday Ticket (the NFL Package) from DirecTV WITHOUT getting DirecTV, you only pay for Sunday Ticket... I assume that it how the NFL agreed to let it stay exclusive. During the football run-up, they often offer 3-4 months of free service if you get Sunday Ticket... that way, nobody thinks to get Sunday Ticket only, and DirecTV gets the subscribers.
4. Without differentiation, the companies are perfectly competitive and prices plummet... good for consumers, not good for investors putting up the money for expensive satellites. Companies need a way to differentiate themselves.
5. The owner of the pipes isn't dictating, they are paying content providers. The content providers find out if they can make more money selling to everyone, or selling exclusively through one source.

Now, when the local television station, the team owner, and the local cable monopoly are the same, you can show an example of a monopoly... They are using one monopoly (the only legal MLB team in the market) to protect another market (cable subscribers) by exclusive deals for the television channel... that's arguably a trust problem, but DirecTV and the NFL, that is an arm's length transaction, settled in the marketplace.

Re:Shouda stayed with DirecTV

[Detritus]

DirecTV has every right to try to lockup programming if they are willing to pay the price. Not when sports club owners receive large public gifts and subsidies to build/operate new stadiums and associated infrastructure. I wouldn't have given them a dime, but many of my fellow citizens disagreed with me. I was forced to pay for a new football stadium, even though there is no chance that I will ever be able to buy a ticket to see a game.

Tivo would be a cool thing if the cable co did...

[Joe The Dragon]

more for people with cable cards as people with them can't use VOD, PPV and the guide data from the cable co and they don't even work that well. Right Now in a SVD system they will not work.
Also the cable co. DVR can download it's updates over the cable line with needing a cat5 cable, wifi link, or phone line hooked up to it. We need a open cable card system that can send 2 data ways, give you a guide and the cards need to free or have a very low cost as some times you pay just much as you for box for them and at least with a cable co box they must replace it when it brakes.

Great Things for TiVo

[tarsi210]

TiVo has some great things going for it. Whether or not it can beat the marketing and packaging deals of the cable and sat companies, I don't know, but there's some aspects that just beat out other offerings, including Mythboxen:

It works. All the time, every time, with minor exceptions. I have a wife who loves certain TV programs and will easily strangle anything that doesn't work and record them like they should.

It doesn't require a degree to run Sure, it might lack some more complex features that some people like. It might make annoying, "to-TOINK!", noises when you move around. But an idiot with a blindfold could sort it out, and that makes it easy on me. Not that my wife's an idiot; far from it. But I don't need to be explaining to her how to run the damned TV.

I can screw with it Because I own the box, it's mine. I can hack it, fiddle with it, change out hard drives, use them for something else, add to it, paint it, whatever I want. I might void my warranty, but whoop-de-do. I can because I own it.

Re:Great Things for TiVo

[Dachannien]

Because I own the box, it's mine.

Note that, in general, this is becoming less and less true.

Re:Great Things for TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

TiVo is the iPod of DVRs.

It does the things you're most likely to want, it does them well, and it does them easily and reliably.

I also run BeyondTV on a PC, which can remove commercials, but it doesn't do it perfectly, so I'd rather use TiVo and skip manually. I haven't used any other DVRs but I hear about them crashing, failing to record, and so on.

Re:Great Things for TiVo

[tarsi210]

Sadly, I can't argue against this. But for now, I can dream, right? Right? Bueller?

Re:Great Things for TiVo

[Nom du Keyboard]

I have a wife who loves certain TV programs and will easily strangle anything that doesn't work and record them like they should.

I never knew that we were married to the same person.

Re:Great Things for TiVo

[VorlonFog]

This is one of those posts where I wish mod points didn't expire. I'd save 'em for posts like this, with which I completely and totally agree. I have a similar wife. She can't deal with the thermostat in the hallway, but she can use Tivo. And that's a fsck'ing amazing testament to the usability of their interface. Ownership rules, idiots lease until the next so-called "great" thing comes out and they just gotta have it.

Re:Great Things for TiVo

[tarsi210]

That explains all those uncomfortable moments when I feel another foot touching mine in bed and my wife is in the bathroom...

Re:Great Things for TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a wife who loves certain TV programs

Just out of interest, how many wives do you have?

I can screw with it Because I own the box, it's mine. I can hack it, fiddle with it, change out hard drives, use them for something else, add to it, paint it, whatever I want. I might void my warranty, but whoop-de-do. I can because I own it.

I will happily concede your first two points, but just how does this 'beat out' a mythbox?

Re:Great Things for TiVo

[tarsi210]

It beats out a mythbox because the first two points are more important than the third. If it doesn't work reliably most of the time without fiddling and my wife can't run it without swearing, it's no good. Myth is a great product, don't get me wrong, but it requires some know-how to get up, running, and good hardware to be stable and productive. The interface tends to be a bit more cryptic, too. It takes me all of an hour, max, to get another Tivo dropped into my network and online and set up, and my wife can use it immediately. The hackability factor only comes along after those primary requirements.

Re:Great Things for TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of those posts where I wish mod points didn't expire. I'd save 'em for posts like this, with which I completely and totally agree.

Fortunately, "+1, I agree" is not one of the moderation options. And if you have to agree with an opinion before you'll mark it insightful or interesting then you're not doing it right.

what TiVo needs to do is:

[FudRucker]

obfuscate what identifies what it is when connected to a Cable System, fix it so it looks like an ordinary television, as a cable subscriber i know cable companies can identify what is connected to their systems, TVs, cable modems (mac address) & etc... i don't know exactly how they do this but they do it somehow...

Re:what TiVo needs to do is:

[Canthros]

I'm not sure I quite believe you.

Unless you're talking about RF modulation (which identifies nothing, it just tends to muck up video being piped through multiple devices), I don't think they can identify any analogue device hooked up to the cable TV. (Modems would be different, and possibly, but probably not, HD sets. Cable boxes, again, are a bit different.)

The problem with the cable DVR

[jdcope]

I had a DVR from my cable company (Comcast), but when I turned back to "basic" cable from "digital" cable, they made me give the DVR back. So if you want a DVR with basic cable, you have to buy a Tivo or build your own. As for recording off an antenna....I have been looking into a Tivo, and their website says that "over the air" recording is not supported with the newer boxes.

Re:The problem with the cable DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

OTA HDTV recording is available on the recently announced TiVo HD.

Re:The problem with the cable DVR

[Doctor Faustus]

when I turned back to "basic" cable from "digital" cable, they made me give the DVR back
You realize the DVR wouldn't have worked with analog cable, right? They don't have an analog-to-digital converter, just digital-to-analog.

Re:The problem with the cable DVR

[Anonymous Coward]

We just upgraded our lifetime sub to a Series 2 DT, and no, "over the air" is not supported - but it's totally possible. Because the basic cable and broadcast channels are the same, we just use the cable line-up for our 8-or-so channels. Voila.

Re:The problem with the cable DVR

[jdcope]

No, I didnt know that. But you would think the people there would explain it that way. All they said is that I could only have the DVR if I subscribed to digital cable. I asked why, and all I got was babble about "packages."

Just like an OEM

[weston]

A PC manufacturer can choose the default installations and settings on your machine, and thus dramatically influence adoption.

The question arises, however -- do manufacturers end up having reasons for defaults/settings that may not have much to do with choice and benefits to the consumer?

Makes sense to me

[friedman101]

Given the tremendous rate of depreciation of electronics renting seems like a pretty good alternative to purchasing.

Re:Makes sense to me

[xantho]

Do you buy electronics as a means of storing your wealth? Personally, if I want something to put my money in that will stay valuable, I put it in mutual funds, or invest in some awesome company that I think is going to do well. Or I put it in the stupid 5% checking account if I don't feel like making any effort to grow it more than that. I certainly don't go out and buy a Nintendo DS as an investment strategy or anything.

Re:Makes sense to me

[cmoney]

Yeah the way he wrote it would make you think that's what he was talking about. But I think he was going more for the obsolesence argument. In otherwords, because electronics go obsolete so quickly, it makes sense to rent instead of buy. How useful will those Series 2 TiVos be when everything goes HD?

If I rent my DVR from the cable company, I know I can just swap out for a new unit when new tech comes out. (Though admittedly, it's far less often when dealing with cable company tech. Not that Tivo is on the cutting edge either mind you.)

Personally I switched from TiVo to nothing and finally to my Time Warner DVR. TiVo is nice and all but recommended shows was the first feature I turned off. And my current DVR does exactly what I need it to, record the 5 or 6 TV shows I like and that's it. And it does it in HD, a long time before TiVo started saying, "Give me $800 and $17/month and I can do the same thing but easier."

Ignoring Tivos biggest userbase?

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as Tivo continues to use the same simple remote and same simple interface, they will always have a huge following in my wife and mother-in-law. My wife now compares every piece of technology to her tivo. We just looked at cell phones and she picked the one with the simplest menu and tivo-like "bla-bloop" sounds.

Tivo is doing something right.

The reason that Tivo is better than they think.

[xantho]

Tivo is not beholden to cable companies. Cable companies are required by law to give you a cable card to use their service if you want it. Tivo has a cable card reader in their device to get all that video data. There's nothing legal that the cable company can do about it.

Program data? Tive has a warehouse full of monkeys that contact the networks directly and enter in all the data, or they contract with someone who does, or they have an agreement with the networks to pass xml files back and forth. This is not an issue.

Cable company DVR boxes? These things are pieces of shit. They consistently disable and fail to provide features that people want, and who's to say that cable companies won't just delete your programs remotely if they feel like it, by which I mean, if Fox nicely asks them to delete your episodes of 24 right before the DVD comes out or something.

Sure, Tivo is about to license their software interface to Comcast for their DVR boxes, but it's going to take a serious about face on the part of cable companies if their DVRs are ever going to be what people actually want and not some weirdo solution that tries to please content providers, cable company stiffs, and lastly consumers, and fails to please any of them.

Re:The reason that Tivo is better than they think.

[bastion_xx]

Tivo is not beholden to cable companies. Cable companies are required by law to give you a cable card to use their service if you want it. Tivo has a cable card reader in their device to get all that video data. There's nothing legal that the cable company can do about it.

Except have one or two installers "certified" for CC installations and 40-80 for normal installations. That's my belief after calling Comcast to install two CC's in my new HD Tivo. Earliest install date? September 7th.

Can I pick up the cable cards and install myself? No, this is a truck-roll only offering.

Anyway, after calling back a couple times a day, I was able to snag a canceled installation for next Thursday. And I'm *happy* for a 6 day turn-around.

I agree with the rest of your post and I really hope that Comcast does well with the Tivo software. I just dread the commercialization of the bloody thing....

Loved ours but...

[jeillah]

We bought a DirectTV Tivo several years ago and fell in love with it. We would still be using it except that all of a sudden we couldn't connect to the service any longer and kept getting messages saying we needed to fix it. We tried and tried, called customer support, tried again and again. Nothing we did worked to fix the problem. What was happening was when it dialed out it would connect to the service then drop the connection. Oh we could still use Tivo, we got the program guide updates and all that but we kept getting the error messages. We were determined to find out why. Finally after many hours of plodding through customer service hell, both DirecTV and Tivo, we found out that because Tivo and DirectTV had a falling out, they no longer support each other and there was no way it was ever gonna get resolved. We could keep going the way we were for a while but eventually bad things were gonna happen. We looked into it and found out that we could get the DirecTV DVR for less than we paid for monthly Tivo service. And we didn't have to buy the box. We don't like the new one as much as we did Tivo but I guess we'll get used to it. And what's better is if they decide to obsolete this box, we get another one for free. Not like the Tivo doorstop that we have now...

How can Tivo hope to stay around if they are going to treat loyal customers like this? They won't easily get anymore business from us because of this, no matter how much we liked them...

Anyone have any ideas as to what I can do with my old Tivo hardware?

Re:Loved ours but...

[jnaujok]

Funny, I still have two DirecTivo boxes and they both work fine. If they told you that the don't support each other any more, then they're lying. In fact, I was able to pull a "new" DirecTivo off of Ebay and install it and they still activated it without any problems or questions.

Re:Loved ours but...

[jeillah]

Ours still worked and I think the only thing that was missing was the upload of information from our box to the Tivo service. This makes even less sense that they stopped supporting our hardware (we had the original DirectTV box), because that is information that they sell back to the networks, marketing services, etc.

It seems that we started having the 'dial-in' issues after they did an upgrade at the one and only place that we could dial in to without having additional phone charges. Maybe you have newer hardware or they have not gotten around to updating the sites in your area. And like I said, ours still functioned as a Tivo but they told us that we would stop getting software updates which would someday make it stop working. Also, eventually, all that info that is being stored about our viewing habits would fill up the harddrive and cause trouble that way.

Glad to hear they haven't screwed all of their customers. We'd still be one if they hadn't forced us to look elsewhere.

Still looking for suggestions for what to do with the old hardware...

Re:Loved ours but...

[gazil]

What to do with your old tivo -- you could sell it to me... cheap !

Re:Loved ours but...

[totallydude]

Sell it to me. What is it Series 2?

Re: Tivo would be a cool thing if the cable co did

[hal9000(jr)]

The biggest problem with Tivo is that the cable guys won't install into it. I just had Time Warner come out and I guess he had some time to kill and we diddled around with the Tivo and got it working for non-digital cable, but when he left, I had nothing above channel 100. I had to go get the manual from Tivo and figure that out. It wasn't hard, just an extra step. I know my wife wouldn't have done it.

Cable companies, phone companies, they only work with thier shit and if you are not even marginally tech savvy, your are screwed. It's simply easier to use the companies gear.

TiVo Lite versus DIY

[Nom du Keyboard]

With a $299 price point including remote + monthly subscription fees (yet a reliable subscription service), how does the new TiVo Lite stack up against DIY? Chopping a rough 60% off the price of the current HD model does change the equation.

Is there any Series III hack yet to avoid the TiVo subscription in favor of an open source solution?

Re:TiVo Lite versus DIY

[hal9000(jr)]

I am sure there are better models out there, but I was looking into Tivo or DiY with MythTV, I priced out harware for two tuners and a dedicated PC (I have been using laptops exclusively for years) at about $600 or so. That doesn't include time or maintenance.

I bought a Tivo Series two with a 3 year contract for $400 or so. That's a much better deal in my book.

Re:TiVo Lite versus DIY

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no hacks to avoid the subscription fee. The reason for this is that Tivo is very tolerant of the hacker community. There is an unwritten agreement that the hackers won't circumvent the subscription process and Tivo won't actively disable hacks like adding network connectivity, adding a hard disk, etc.

Re:TiVo Lite versus DIY

[amuro98]

Tivo used to have a deal where you could get 3 years of service for about $300 or so. I don't know if they still have that deal or if the price has gone up, but let's use this as a baseline.

So, a Series 3 Tivo + 3 years of service is $600.

Dish offers a DVR with their programming packages for an extra $6/mo.

I'm pretty sure a MythTV box will cost more than $600 to build, but then again, I'm pretty sure you'll be putting in 2 or more tuners, and a very large drive array. Problem is, MythTV can't record the encrypted HD channels off cable (eg. Discovery HD)

Re:TiVo Lite versus DIY

[evilviper]

Is there any Series III hack yet to avoid the TiVo subscription in favor of an open source solution?

Even if there was a hack, there is no open source solution for TV listings anymore. zap2it is discontinuing their free service, so XMLTV doesn't have a read source of listings any longer.

People need to start figuring out how to grab the listings off of the satellite or cable companies' streams, like their own DVRs do. CableCard standardization is supposed to prevent this vendor lock-in, and should make this simple. Then Tivo could sell their boxes with no subscription, or rent them out for $10/mo like the low-end rip offs.

Re:TiVo Lite versus DIY

[Abcd1234]

Even if there was a hack, there is no open source solution for TV listings anymore. zap2it is discontinuing their free service, so XMLTV doesn't have a read source of listings any longer.

Ugh, I'm so sick of hearing about this.

1) XMLTV was scraping listings long before Zap2It Labs opened up. They can always go back to doing that.

2) There is an effort under way, spearheaded by members of various projects affected by this change, to find a solution to the problem (I believe they're actually working with Zap2It).

3) The cutoff is still a month and a half away, more than enough time to find a solution.

Honestly, what is with all this "the sky is falling!" BS?

Re:TiVo Lite versus DIY

[geminidomino]

3) The cutoff is still a month and a half away, more than enough time to find a solution. A month and 4 days, actually... and nothing showing yet. They're cutting it awful close...

Tivo needs to license out software now...

[HerculesMO]

Create a USB plugin for PCs that runs the software, and a CableCard as well as the tuner. Say it's $300 (just like the set). This turns ANY PC into a HTPC unit. You can pick it up and use it elsewhere (usb).

There's no way I will pay $300 PLUS $15 a month in order to record television. I have a HTPC in my room running Windows Media Center and I really love it, although it has its shortcomings. I was hoping the AppleTV would do something like my Windows box, but so far that hasn't been the case.

Windows Media Center gets better and better over time, and it will be one of the many possibilities and avenues of the death of Tivo. The cost is just too much for what you are getting, even though the hardware and service technically justifies what you pay... nobody wants to pay monthly to record TV, when you can pay $10 a month for a DVR from your cable company.

Either that... or start making cable boxes for cable companies. I would gladly pay $15 a month to have a Tivo box that works as my cable tv tuner as well as HDTV recorder :)

Re:Tivo needs to license out software now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm...that's exactly what a Series 3 box does. You put two cable cards in it, and it becomes a Tivo that replaces your cable box and records HD.

Media Center!

[ThinkDifferently]

Far be it from me to advocate a Microsoft product, but I'm a big believer in Windows Media Center Edition (MCE). It's a full DVR, records to hard drive (even a RAID, if you get the right PC), you can copy to other PCs, share video libraries to multiple MCEs, etc. Hell, you can even play your recorded shows on any PC that has Windows Media Player 11. It also handles pictures, homemade videos, music (your entire MP3 library), and online content. What does TiVo have that MCE doesn't? A fancy GUI?

Compare this to your TiVo: I have 2 MCE PCs. Each has 2 analog NTSC tuners and 2 HDTV ATSC tuners. I have 2 NTSC tuners connected to basic cable (no cable box or cable card or anything) and it tunes in and records everything great. I have my other 2 NTSC tuners on antenna, as well as all 4 HDTV tuners. You can also get MCEs with Cable Card tuners, and you can even make the regular tuners work with a Cable or Satellite box by using an IR Blaster. Plus, MCE has no subscription. You sign up to receive a guide, but it's free.

Again, how is TiVo better? For that matter, why would you even go with your Cable company's DVR? It's probably limited and full of crap that prevents you from doing what you really want.

With an MCE PC, you can choose all of the hardware, the OS gets to be XP MCE, Vista Premium or Vista Ultimate. You can also use the thing as a server, your desktop PC, whatever. I've even heard of people buying laptops with MCE on it, and you can even my thumbdrive-sized tuners now that make it VERY portable. In my case, I chose my latest MCE to have 2 RAID1 volumes, using 4 SATAII drives. An 80GB volume for the OS and a 320GB volume to store all Recorded TV. In the future, I can add on a Firewire (IEEE-1394), USB, or eSATA RAID device for more storage, probably a half or 1 TeraByte. Hell, I could probably find a multi-terabyte unit, although for thousands of dollars. I could go on and on about this, but let's discuss the one downside for a sec...

Afterall, this is Microsoft. You have to deal with compatibility issues. TiVo has one thing that MCE does not...absolute user friendliness. The unit will always function for what it was designed to do. Every now and then, an MCE PC might suffer from PC problems, patch updates, crashed programs, etc. Still, the only problems I've had are (a) one failed hard drive after 1.5 years of use (have RAID1, so replacement was a breeze and didn't lose a thing), (b) sharing Recorded TV is not so easy, but it is doable, and (c) I once tried to build an MCE PC myself and failed miserably. I really much prefer to have someone else build them. Also (d) even if you have the unit in your media cabinet, only connected to a TV for a display, at some point, you will have to interact with the unit in a PC way with a keyboard, a mouse, and hopefully a monitor (if your TV doesn't have great resolution--if your TV is DVI or HDMI then no prob). Still, I solve this by doing a dual display. I have KVM on the DVI port and my TV on the TV Out port. That splits the desktop area into 2 areas. The desktop with all the icons, taskbar and such appear on the monitor, while Media Center appears only on the TV.

Re:Media Center!

[Sgt_Jake]

While it's not as easy to set up as they make it appear (don't get me wrong, it's not actually that hard either - it's just not quite plug and play), Linux MCE makes Windows MCE look like Windows 3.1. I don't even have a proper capture card (thank you bit torrent until I can afford one!), but I haven't stopped playing with it all week. Home movies, music, ripping my dvd collection, organizing it, games - awesome. sgt_jake

Re:Media Center!

[ThinkDifferently]

Sure. Six to one, half a dozen to another. If Linux MCE works better for you than Win MCE, I say go for it!

The biggest advantage Win MCE has over me is the familiarity. I was doing Windows back in the v2.0 days, and have stuck with it ever since. However, I have 14 years of Solaris experience under my belt to earn a living, but none of that knowledge really translated over to MCE decisions. I just never made the leap to Linux, because no job I've had ever wanted it. Plus, with a Win MCE, you can buy a pre-loaded PC or even get a custom job where all of the Windows stuff and the MCE setup is already done for you. In fact, that is what I insisted on. My latest PC was through Puget Custom Computer. The point is, I didn't have to install anything to get it working. Just like TiVo, right out the box, all I had to do was cable it up to my TV, go through the MCE setup screen to tell it how I wanted to receive TV, what zip I'm in for the Guide, etc. and I was off and running.

I say the biggest advantage any MCE PC has is the ability to add options and to multi-task. You can use an MCE to run programs, operate as a server, surf the web, and oh by the way it also records and plays TV. That and you can get a 4 tuner option (2 NTSC + 2 ATSC). You can add your own storage, make it RAID for redundancy to minimize hardware failures, and you can take your recordings anywhere (although if it's Broadcast Flagged, it'll only play on the one PC you recorded it on--*raspberry* AMC). Oh, and you never have to pay a monthly fee to rent it or subscribe to anything. Yeah, there is a much larger up front cost to purchase a good PC to do all these things, but then, what I'm describing is the Cadillac of MCE's. TiVo's have, what?, 1 tuner, maybe 2? I have 4 tuners, all of which can record simultaneously, while I also watch a recorded show (yes, I do that a lot). I've seen some pretty good 2-tuner MCE PCs in Mini AT cases even for about $600-$800. Once you start adding options like RAID, extra storage, more tuners, Vista, more RAM just to run Vista, and in my case a super great graphics card that can handle FULL HDTV (1920x1080p) as well as full HD monitor support(1920x1200p) and DVI &/or HDMI with full HDCP compliance, then the prices start jumping. But, what options can you add to TiVo or your Cable company's DVR?

Re:Media Center!

[djrogers]

You're missing one major item here - CableCard. In order to get an MCE box with CableCard support, you need to pay enormous amounts of cash to buy a pre-built box. And don't go screwing with the hardware too much, or your $2k box will stop working with that fancy CableCard until you get a new one from your cable co.

Re:Media Center!

[Anonymous Coward]

Compare this to your TiVo: I have 2 MCE PCs. Each has 2 analog NTSC tuners and 2 HDTV ATSC tuners. I have 2 NTSC tuners connected to basic cable (no cable box or cable card or anything) and it tunes in and records everything great. I have my other 2 NTSC tuners on antenna, as well as all 4 HDTV tuners. You can also get MCEs with Cable Card tuners, and you can even make the regular tuners work with a Cable or Satellite box by using an IR Blaster. Plus, MCE has no subscription. You sign up to receive a guide, but it's free.

Again, how is TiVo better?

My 77 year old father can operate a Tivo, not your setup.

$10/month from the cable company and you're done

[llZENll]

Why on earth would you buy a Tivo when you can rent a HD DVR for $10 from your cable company which is cheaper than the required Tivo subscription! Not to mention you have to buy a $300 - $600 box from Tivo. Until they have free subscriptions they aren't going to get any market share. Sure their software and hardware are both better, but the cable company DVR works just fine.

I wish someone would provide a list of...

[Foolicious]

...the differences between using Tivo and using a cable company's DVR. Like can I transfer shows off of either? Or are my shows always locked up on the box for either one anyways? Stuff like that.

And yes, I am too lazy (or is it busy?) to look for myself.

Easy Solution

[Paulrothrock]

Just be so broke you can't afford a cable box or a TiVo. Then you don't have to worry about it.

Dealbreaker: Changing Channels

[geekboybt]

Perhaps it's just me, but the biggest dealbreaker that really put me off of TiVo vs. $cable_co_dvr is something as simple as changing channels. I wasn't able to get a cable box with the ability to be controlled by a serial port, so I had to use the IR blaster. Thumbing through channels in that manner is INCREDIBLY slow and annoying. Now, if there was a choice between Moxie and an integrated TiVo device, like DirecTV did, I'd jump on it.

Re:Dealbreaker: Changing Channels

[Wordplay]

That's not going to be an issue with an HD Tivo; they rely on CableCard rather than using any sort of external cable box.

Re:Dealbreaker: Changing Channels

[geekboybt]

Yes, and hopefully that will help them grow further. However, from when they were founded 10 years ago until the HD TiVo is available, they've had to deal with that problem. Here's to hoping that TiVo can regain some ground in the DVR market - I know I would love it.

Enough with the homebrew!

[maggard]

Guys (and it's usually guys), we luff ya, but get over it.

It's wicked kewl thyat you can take a spare PC, install some clever software on it, find a source for TV listings, and make it do amazing tricks. Really. Wow. Awesome. Yay you!

But many of the rest of us aren't interested in doing that ourselves. For us, an appliance, like a TiVo, is the way to go. A black box, paying for a service contract, IT JUST WORKS.

I diddle with enough technology, I don't want to with my DVR. I just want it to have a great interface and a steady supply of programming that engages me. Everything else is gravy (and yes, the Tivo has some gravy too.)

So please, whenever you hear the name "TiVo" don't go into a pavlovian MythTV-MythTV-MythTV chant.

We get it. We got it. We're getting annoyed over it. We're getting to the point you're not getting invited to the fun parties because you can't restrain yourselves. Soon you'll be in pushed into the holy roller corner with the Operalytes (poor souls).

Some folks can't understand why anyone would watch TV. Some can't understand why anyone would pay for it. Some can't see a need for a DVR. Some can't see the need for paying a bit more for a TiVo DVR. Some can't understand whyeveryone doesn't just whittle their own DVR out of pine. Please, live and let live and let us hold a discussion without your pulling your homebrew out and wagging at us. It's big, that's nice, now let us talk about the conumer product we're interested in.

Re:Enough with the homebrew!

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Please, live and let live and let us hold a discussion without your pulling your homebrew out and wagging at us. It's big, that's nice, now let us talk about the conumer product we're interested in.
You do realize that without competition from the homebrewers the only thing you get to discuss about your consumer product is "Now it comes in Pink!!!"

Re:Enough with the homebrew!

[kent_eh]

It seems like I post this in every DVR thread.
From the TIVO website:

The TiVo service is currently not supported in Mexico or U.S. territories other than Puerto Rico. However, please continue to check the TiVo website for updates on service in other countries.
Note: At this time, TiVo does not sell DVR boxes in Canada.
Tivo ain't better or easier than homebrew If I can't buy one here

Re:Enough with the homebrew!

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? I see no MythTV posts in this thread.... but I'm browsing with highest scores first, dunno about you.

Quit whining

[tacokill]

Back in my day, we didn't even have color!. You kids and your fancy new gadgets...

DishDVR

[Port1080]

I've used Tivo, a Verizon FiOSTV provided Motorolla DVR, and now I've got a Dish Network DVR. Of the three, the Tivo was probably the best (and the Motorolla clearly the worst), but the Dish DVR is cheap (monthly fee was waived due to signing up under a package deal), supports two televisions, and has a nice, large capacity (not sure if it does HD, however, as I only have SD). Overall, I'm very happy with it, and I can't see spending however much up front and then another $10 a month just for the few extra perks that a Tivo gives.

renting preferred over buying equipment??

[amigabill]

And most people prefer to rent, not own, a set-top.

Why is this? The HD DVR box from FIOS is $20/month. Tivo's new HD DVR is $300. That's 15 months of renting. After 15 months, the renter buys the box again. The Tivo guy is done. OK, it's hard to say how any guide fees compare or if the cable co rally even has such a fee or if it's just part of the digital cable system to see what's on with any set-top unit from the cable co, DVR or not. Either way, in 15 months, I'd rather be paying $12 or $14 or whatever the Tivo guide fee is than $20 to continue buying the same cable co box again and again. Cheaper is cheaper, even with a $3 cablecard for that tivo. Maybe not by much, but it's a small savings.

Is there actually research that says people would rather rent this equipment than buy it? If so, are the reasons for that available from surveys?

Re:renting preferred over buying equipment??

[Steve525]

The HD DVR box from FIOS is $20/month.

I just checked the pricing, and it's $12 a month. Also, most people are going to need a box anyway which is $5 for standard and $10 for HD. Since the DVR includes the HD tuner, the real cost for most people is $7/month for standard or $2/month for HD. Unless the FIOS DVR sucks, how the hell is TiVo going to compete with $2 a month?

I should know. I have homebrew DVR which works rather well. I just got FIOS. Rather than trying to figure out how to get the homebrew DVR to read the channels, I've ditched it and I am using FIOS's DVR. It's too soon to know how happy I'm going to be with it, but it seems to do everything I want it to, except for the ability to burn to DVD.

Of course this brings up TiVo's second problem (the first one being cost). Now that everything's gone digital it's very challenging to get the programming into the TiVo. Hacks such as IR blasters are unacceptable to most people, and I'm not sure CableCard is enough of a solution.

Re:renting preferred over buying equipment??

[lorddarthpaul]

If you can buy with a fixed cost, that's nice, but TiVo is also (effectively) renting, since the box is useless without their service. I have a TiVo Series II (with one of the last "lifetime subscriptions") which I love. It's on an old 20" CRT TV in a little room off the kitchen. It cost me $60 for the DVR and something ($200?) for the subscription, but this gives me a fixed capital cost. TiVo's monthly subscription is really not much different than the cable company, plus they charge extra for the unit, which the cable company does not. In the family room, we have a Motorola 6416 DVR (pitifully small 160GB HD, but that's the best they have right now) from RCN on an HP 50" HDTV (via HDMI and it looks awesome). It was the only HDTV DVR solution that didn't set me back even slightly financially. It's also a cable box providing all my premium channels. Sadly, the TiVo Series II sees only the analog channels, although I can adjust the time used by recordings by adjusting the quality level -- something you can't do with most of the digital boxes! If an HDTV show is 19Mbps, it has to save it at that rate. So, our Motorola DVR is filled up with DiscoveryHD Planet Earth episodes. I'll watch them eventually and get space back to record a few other things! The DVR would usually cost about $14/mo, but after getting RCN to knock many $/mo. off my subscription (did I mention that there is now a competitive market that includes Comcast and Verizon FiOS?), it's effectively free (until sometime next year when the rates go back up -- and I'll worry about it then). Neither the Motorola DVR nor the TiVo is completely satisfactory, but the TiVo is far more useful on a daily basis. None of the HD TiVo solutions seems satisfactory to me (the new one just having the same miserably small 160GB HD). Verizon FiOS has a version of the Motorola 6416 that can play out to a Verizon (non-DVR) set top box as well. That's pretty nice, but with my nice bundled rate (TV, Phone, Internet) I'm sticking with RCN for the time being.

Re:renting preferred over buying equipment??

[Spyrus]

> Unless the FIOS DVR sucks, how the hell is TiVo going to compete with $2 a month? You answered your own question. The FIOS DVR sucks. It sucks out loud. In THX Surround Sound. Except it only has RCA audio outputs, so you can't hear the full magnitude of its suckitude.

basic vs features

[not_anne]

Cable DVRs are like getting a basic no-frills econobox car. Inexpensive, no whiz bang features, just a car that gets you where you need to go. Tivo is like getting a top of the line car, with all the features you'd ever want, and gets you where you want to go in style. Most people choose the former, but want the latter.

Re:basic vs features

[demon]

No, the cableco DVRs are the unreliable jalopies - no features, unreliable, leaving you stranded when you really want to be somewhere else. TiVo is more expensive, but it's *reliable* - the cableco DVRs are anything but, and the cable companies know it. They don't care.

Re:basic vs features

[not_anne]

It sounds like you're really upset at your local cable company. I haven't had any issues with my DVR, but YMMV. I wish I could help. I do care, which is why I tend to post about cable stuff, and I do also work for a [large cable company].

Just an FYI, it's up to your local city government what company is allowed to operate cable in your town. Your city gives out the licenses and permits and contracts. If you want your local cable company to bite the dust (which it sounds like you do), then talk to your local government, and ask them consider other companies rather than the one you don't like. Go to your local city council meeting and give them your opinion about your cable company's DVR service. Heck, tell your local BBB too!

Re:basic vs features

[Dun Malg]

Just an FYI, it's up to your local city government what company is allowed to operate cable in your town. Your city gives out the licenses and permits and contracts. If you want your local cable company to bite the dust (which it sounds like you do), then talk to your local government, and ask them consider other companies rather than the one you don't like. Go to your local city council meeting and give them your opinion about your cable company's DVR service. Heck, tell your local BBB too! Please. There's no more chance of getting a municipality to switch to a different cable company than there is of getting a different local phone company. Cable companies sign franchise agreements which give them access to public rights-of-way to lay cable. The city doesn't own the actual cable lines, so it has little power over them. The minimum threshold of service is so low that they really only need to throw a length of coax down the street to be in compliance with the franchise agreement. The only way cable companies change is when they are bought out by other companies. Adelphia cable consistently had consumer satisfaction ratings in the low 40th percentile, and cities who had awarded them the franchise generally told citizens "we have no power to make them provide better service; you have to complain to Adelphia". And complaining to the BBB? What's the point? You have no other alternative for cable TV. The BBB is only good where there's competition and an open market allowing one to avoid companies with bad BBB ratings.

Re:basic vs features

[not_anne]

There's no more chance of getting a municipality to switch to a different cable company than there is of getting a different local phone company. Change can only happen if you make it happen. A small city south of here got so many complaints about their cable company that when the franchise agreement was up, they opened bidding to any other company interested in the market. The city council was so frustrated by all the complaints that they had public meetings on which cable company the public wanted. The public chose the company I work for, which is why I know this story. We didn't even have the highest bid, yet we got the franchise anyway.

You have no other alternative for cable TV. I live in one of the most most competitive TV/Internet/Phone markets in the USA, so I concede your point. There are over a dozen different companies (cable/fibre/satellite/phone line/etc.) here offering TV/Internet/Phone. Competition here is crazy, and folks are always looking for a bargain. Some people switch TV companies from year to year, not caring who gives them their TV as long as they get it for less than their neighbors. It's funny how people will spend $300 in installation fees just to save $6 a month ($72/year).

If you don't like Adelphia, then don't give them your money. You don't need TV to live.

It's the subscription.

[apachetoolbox]

Tivo wont die because of the cable companies' DVR, Tivo is a much better product. But I could easily see Tivo dieing out because of the mandatory subscription. If anything that is what is going to kill them. I love my Tivo but there's no justifying the high monthly subscription.

Re:It's the subscription.

[thczv]

Sometimes I think like you, that the Tivo subscription is too high. Other times I compare to the other things I spend my money on. My cost for a second Tivo (due to the multi-service discount) is only $6.95 per month. This is is about 75% of the cost of a single movie ticket. Today, I will probably spend around $6.95 on my lunch, and in 20 to 30 hours or so it will be in the sewer. But my Tivo will still be giving. There are very few things that I spend $6.95 on that give me as much as my Tivo. Even if I had to pay full price, it would be worth doing. My stupid comcast DVR sucks compared to my Tivo. I estimate that at least 90% of the people who don't want a Tivo have never used one, and so don't know what they are missing. thczv

Re:It's the subscription.

[teg]

It does cost them some money to provide the service, of course. I'm sure they've run surveys, tests and scenarios on what would happen if they dropped the subscription fee and just used a higher price instead. "I want it to be cheaper" will always be a statement many (potential) customers would support, that doesn't make the change profitable.

Re:It's the subscription.

[Zach978]

I agree...a comparison of TWC vs Tivo:

TWC - Crappy HD PVR, no good features, you have to tell it what to do and how to do it...completely no brain...but WORKS in the end--and works with OnDemmand.
Initial Investment: $0
Monthly: $9.95

Tivo - Nice HD DVR (slow ui), works well. No OnDemmand
Initial Investment: $299
Monthly: $16.95

I think I know what I'm going to get...

Re: Tivo would be a cool thing if the cable co did

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Cablecard and my TV has a TV-Guide based channel listing (it's a Samsung and my cable provider is Comcast). Although I can watch TV with it to my hearts content, the channel listing sucks and I'm not exactly sure who is at fault. My problems with it are as follows:

1. I live in a semi-rural area, but I'm pretty close to 3 good sized towns (I'd call 2 small cities). For some inexplicable reason my channel listing doesn't match up with any of those good sized towns. It turns out that it best syncs up with a city that is roughly the same size as the other 3 that is 34 miles away. This makes no sense to me since all the other areas are within 15 miles or so. Even after selecting the town that had the best listing, I'm still missing about 30% of my channels.
2. Lately all of my listings have been off by 24 hours (I'm a day behind).
3. If you have a Cablecard and call Comcast with any sort of cable problem, you've immediately gone off their troubleshooting flowchart and they have to send someone over. At least once a month my Cablecard seems to unsync with their network, I used to call it in but now I just go through the TV menus and do a Cablecard reset to fix the problem. While this works, every time I reset the card my TV will lose all of my "favorite" channels I set up. Yay!

While not having an accurate channel listing isn't a deal breaker for me, it does make me leery of going out and buying a Tivo since I wonder if I'll just have all the same problems I've been having with the built in TV Guide!

DISH DVR

[Zobeid]

Honestly, I can't understand why I would ever even consider a DVR not integrated into my satellite receiver. How would it get guide listings? How would it turn the receiver on and off, or set the channel? How could it record two shows at once? It just doesn't make sense.

My DISH 942 has been working very well. Tivo has never been a plausible option for me.

My only real complaint is that I can't copy saved shows off the 942 and onto my computer. There have been times when I wanted to grab a snippet of video and show to my friends, but there's no way to do it digitally. I'd have to drag out the digitizer which is a big nuisance.

Re:DISH DVR

[djrogers]

Honestly, I can't understand why I would ever even consider a DVR not integrated into my satellite receiver. How would it get guide listings? How would it turn the receiver on and off, or set the channel? How could it record two shows at once? It just doesn't make sense.

Umm, problem solved 10 years ago with TiVos first shipping product. For 1, it's a phoneline, WiFi adapter, or Ethernet cable. For 2 it's IR Blasters or a serial cable.

Re:DISH DVR

[Doctor Faustus]

My DirecTiVo does all that, and I was able to buy one pre-upgraded to 215 hours. They're getting harder to find now, though, and I'm not sure what I want to do about HD now that I have a new TV.

And you missed the biggest advantage (except maybe the two shows at once part). With a separate box, the digital signal gets converted to analog (whether in your house with digital cable, or somewhere earlier with analog cable), your DVR has to reencode it as digital, and then turn it to analog again to play it. An integrated box skips a round of conversions (by just saving the digital signal from the satellite or cable company directly to disk) which gives you better quality in smaller files.

Re:DISH DVR

[ThinkDifferently]

Some ATSC (HDTV) tuner cards are coming out with Cable & Satellite support, so that you can keep it straight digital. However, that is leading edge right now (not quite bleeding edge, but not quite mainstream, either).

I don't subscribe to digital cable, myself, so I can't tell you. However, I have 4 HDTV tuner cards that record over-the-air from the antenna, and that is of superb quality. It even looks great on an analog, Component Video, TV. I just wish it didn't come with the occassional "No TV Signal" problem when a storm comes through town, but then that's a risk with any antenna setup. Digital Cable on a PC is quite possible very soon. I think recent Cable Card offerings for PC-based DVR setups will support full digital/HDTV. I think the main thing with them, however, is the new HDCP protection. Unless your graphics card and display both support HDCP (and DVI or HDMI by the way), your Cable Card isn't going to be of any use. Doesn't QAM support digital cable? I made sure my newest HDTV tuner cards had QAM support, but I can't try it, because I don't have digital cable.

An european observation about tivo

[sjwest]

Yes Tivo sounds good - somebody i know owns one in europe but I dont see them in consumer places (retail shops) in europe. Conclusion Tivo does not care about the european market ylou probably can buy them but its 'niche'. British Telecom, Rupert Murdoch and Sony do care about it and being found in the big chains.

In England there is a freeview digital system - there are not many times when you need multiple tuners for watching,recording etc. Conclusion european tv companies also dont like dvr's

I dont watch much tv anyhow, so vcr still seems ok.

Main conclusion - tivo is too North America focused. Yes dvr sounds good but if i did do dvr i'd probably myth tv it and not do tivo

The real trouble...

[lusid1]

The real trouble with tivo and the cable co DVR is storage. a 160g drive? I didn't think they still made them that small. What on earth could I possible do with a 20 hour recording capacity? Thats maybe a week of HD shows before it starts deleting things. If I had time to watch them that fast, I wouldn't need a DVR.

Re:The real trouble...

[Rob the Bold]

The real trouble with tivo and the cable co DVR is storage. a 160g drive? I didn't think they still made them that small. What on earth could I possible do with a 20 hour recording capacity? Thats maybe a week of HD shows before it starts deleting things. If I had time to watch them that fast, I wouldn't need a DVR.

I thought that that would be a problem with TiVo. I've got a series 1, and it holds just over 20 hours of NTSC. 20 hours didn't seem like much, but I soon discovered that if I didn't have time this week to watch this week's programs, I wouldn't have time next week to watch last week's shows either, so it would just keep piling up. At first this depressed me, since the oldest stuff would get deleted unseen. Then I realized that even if I had infinite recording capacity, I would still never catch up due to my available time, not capacity of my DVR.

The real solution was provided by the TV networks, who canceled most of my favorite shows, solving storage problems.

Re:The real trouble...

[jedidiah]

This is the cool thing about MythTV and the other PC PVR apps.

You can upgrade your hardware much easier. You can add much more storage to them. You can deploy various forms of thin (or thick) clients to the rest of the household.

SageTV has a cool setup in this regard. WinMCE has respectable looking 3rd party support in this regard too.

Re:The real trouble...

[ThinkDifferently]

Hmm, not really in my case. I have a Windows Media Center Edition PC with a 320GB capacity. It gives me well over 30 hours of HD recording capacity, or hundreds of hours of analog NTSC recording capacity with Fair or Good resolution. I have actually gone through 2 years of use with this thing, and what I did was bank up shows to watch during the off season. I did whatever I could to save shows off somewhere to put back on later. During the peak season, Fall and late Winter, when a lot of shows are new, I watch them same day or within a day or 2 of recording them, then delete them. Meanwhile, I pick 2 or 3 shows for myself, and 2 or 3 for both my wife and I to enjoy later and record those all season long. I've even copied them off the MCE PC onto my desktop PC to save room for more. Once the peak season is over, and everything is in repeats, I copy all of the shows back and watch them. One by one, we pick them off. That's what we've been doing all summer long and the summer before that. Once Fall hits, we'll be out of recorded shows, but then back to new episodes and sweeps weeks.

Also, we use the thing to record cartoons for the kids. Our kids rarely watch live TV. We select about 5 of their favorite cartoons (and ones we approve) and record them at Fair resolution, and keep only the latest 5. That way, if they're not getting watched, they go into a continuous loop of record one, delete one.

Re:The real trouble...

[lusid1]

I ended up on Mythtv myself. 1.5 TB and its still a little cramped. I only have time to keep up on 1 or 2 shows, but I stockpile many shows and binge on them when I get some downtime between projects. I'll go an entire season sometimes without watching an episode, then catch up during the summer lul when theres nothing on. I think 2tb would be about right. It would get me through a season.

Re:The real trouble...

[jedidiah]

I rip lots of DVDs and re-encode the TV ones to DIVX. I transcode some of the cheaper Movies DVD's too.

I have 750G of space for recordings (mostly transcoded to divx) and another 1.5TB just for DVDs.

I am still not sure if my most recent Tivo is even upgradeable.

My backend has 4 hard drives, a DVD burner and room for yet another hard drive. It's only slightly large than an S1.

Re:The real trouble...

[demon]

Get an eSATA drive - it's well documented how to marry the drive to a Series3 TiVo, and it sounds like the same procedure works on the new TiVo HD as well. I got an eSATA 500 GB drive for mine, and it's wonderful.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[Wordplay]

Because the HD DVR my cable company provides kind of sucks.

It's not like you're comparing apples and apples here. Sure, both record HD in the end, but the Tivo does it better, both in the sense of user experience during playback (no UI lag) and in the sense of having better guide data, recording options, and repeat handling for less duplicates recorded.

But they suck

[sdpinpdx]

It's easier to get a DVR from your cable company. Has anyone ever seen a DVR from a cable company that wasn't a piece of crap?

Re:But they suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine is from a SAT company (Dish), but it's great. 100 hours of storage, never had an issue with it, can offload content, finds content just fine, records everything I want when I want it to. And I didn't have to pay for it.

DirecTV and Tivo

[Ken Hall]

I have DirecTV, and two Direct-Tivo boxes, both SD. I'd love to go to HD, but I don't want their DVR. When we moved recently, my wife had a conversation with the CSR about it, and they offered an upgrade to an HD DVR. She turned it down, preferring to stick with her Tivo, and the CSR replied that not only was that the prevailing opinion, but he himself was sticking with his Tivo over their in-house DVR. Several of my friends have tried the DirecTV DVR, and found it to be slower (even slower than the Tivo), and harder to use, with fewer features, and a terrible program guide. I hope they wake up soon. I'm stuck with satellite in my new house, but my new TVs are HD, and it's a shame to waste their capability.

Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[Fallen Kell]

There are three easy changes that TIVO can do that would allow them to dominate, let alone survive.

1. Ethernet Network connectivity to allow access to the web as well as network diskspace

2. Allow the users FULL control of the device (i.e. if you hit that 30sec skip button, do the 30 sec skip....)

3. Allow ability to record shows to physical media such as DVD, BluRay, or HDDVD

There you have it. The big three. The first company to release such a device will dominate the market as this is what the consumer wants, not what Hollywood wants. Remember we are a capitalist society, which means the consumer is in charge of what they want, not the corporations (even though the corporations do not want to admit this, their income is directly tied to the consumers purchasing their products).

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[Minwee]

Actually, the first company to release such a device will get grabbed off the street, wrapped up in lawsuits, and then dropped off a pier while wearing cement overshoes.

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[stickyc]

There are three easy changes that TIVO can do that would allow them to dominate, let alone survive.

1. Ethernet Network connectivity to allow access to the web as well as network diskspace

Say what? Network diskspace? You mean like home media sharing, amazon unbox, or adding external storage? All those are in my Series 3. As for web browsing, I think that would be a losing proposition for TiVo, the cost of beefing up the hardware, customer support and browser security wouldn't be worth the meager additional sales it would generate. Especially considering the competition in that space - Wii, personal web devices (Nokia 770), and cheap laptops.

2. Allow the users FULL control of the device (i.e. if you hit that 30sec skip button, do the 30 sec skip....)

Maybe you could expand on that - The 30 second skip "easter egg" is publicized enough to be common knowledge and AFAIK still works on the most current software.

3. Allow ability to record shows to physical media such as DVD, BluRay, or HDDVD

So the user can violate the copyright/re-broadcast rules by taking the DVD to your friends' house? The broadcasters are the dictators there, not TiVo. How about being able to easily add large amounts of external storage so you dont have to put it on a DVD? Series 3 has an ESATA port on the back that accepts up to 750gb of external storage (I dont know what that finally works out to, but I've added that to my Series 3 and have over 300 SD/HD shows stored and it's not full yet).

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[ThinkDifferently]

So the user can violate the copyright/re-broadcast rules by taking the DVD to your friends' house? The broadcasters are the dictators there, not TiVo.

Not really. Anyone can do this on an MCE PC without legal ramifications. You can even store your recorded shows that have been branded (encrypted) with the nefarious Broadcast Flag, but you're still constrained to only playing it back on the same PC.

Bottom line: If the broadcaster doesn't set their Broadcast Flag to copyright your recording, you're free to copy it anywhere you want, show it to anybody, and play it back on any device you want that can play it. If they do set the flag, yes you can port them to DVD/Blu-Ray/HDDVD or other media, but it won't play back on your friend's PC. So, not really an issue here.

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[orbitor]

The first company to release such a device will dominate the market as this is what the consumer wants, not what Hollywood wants. Remember we are a capitalist society, which means the consumer is in charge of what they want, not the corporations (even though the corporations do not want to admit this, their income is directly tied to the consumers purchasing their products).

Oh, how stupid of us. As a consumer I always get exactly what I want! No rootkits in Sony DVDs. No DMCA. No RIAA. No MPA. No DRM. No FairPlay. Wow. Have you got an extra lawn chair in your garden in Never Never Land? I could sure go for a Lemonade and watching a pretty sunset.

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[Kevinv]

you can do this on Series 2 TiVo's as well. You can even edit out the commercials if you wish. Tivo-To-Go feature allows downloading and burning to DVD. support for other formats is probably possible, but the series 2 doesn't support HD so it's not quite useful yet.

When TTG gets released for the Series 3 we'll see if it's limited.

BTW I believe the MCE limits which shows you can actually burn to DVD based on a broadcast flag.

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth noting: There is already a tivo that can save recorded shows to DVD. It's made by Humax, the box is basically exactly what you said, a tivo that can record dvd's. The dvds that are made have menus on them that look like the tivo menus. As a bonus, the box can also play any regular dvd. I'm using it right now as a pause live tv/dvd player because I don't feel like paying tivo $12 per month. See here for a picture. The humax website is all flash so I can't see any of it, but I would expect you can find them there too.

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[gatzke]

My 30 second easter egg recently disappeared due to a forced update.

And they need a web browser. My Wii is great, I can surf on my cell phone, why not a Tivo.

They need two way Cable cards so I can do on demand.

They need Tivo to go on series 3.

They need extra storage enabled.

The old extras were nice, browsing PC pictures, adding games, browsing online audio channels, etc. More cool stuff like that would be good.

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[tim1724]

My 30 second easter egg recently disappeared due to a forced update.

So? Just enter the damn code again (select-play-select-3-0-select) .. It still works in the latest software. (You just have to reenter the code every time your reboot .. but how often is that?)

And they need a web browser. My Wii is great, I can surf on my cell phone, why not a Tivo.

I never use the browser on my Wii... it sucks to use a web browser w/o a real keyboard. and the tivo remote would be a lot worse for page navigation than the wii remote. I'll just use my Wii (or my laptop) when I want to use the web in my living room.

They need two way Cable cards so I can do on demand.

I'm sure TiVo would love it (although Amazon's Unbox division wouldn't). But CableLabs has been dragging its feet on it (so there's no standard approved yet) and it will be a long time after the standard is complete before you see cable companies actually making cards available. And even then it may not be possible for TiVo to use them, given CableLabs' licensing terms.

They need Tivo to go on series 3.

As part of the TiVo HD announcement they said that they are working on TiVo to Go for Series 3.

They need extra storage enabled.

It already is. There's just no pretty GUI for it. Here's how to do it:

1. Connect an eSATA drive to the TiVo Series 3.
2. Reboot the TiVo.
3. Hold down the Pause button on the remote (be sure to have it pointed at the TiVo)
4. All 4 LEDs (two red, one yellow, one blue) are lit while it boots. At some point they all turn off except yellow. You can let go of the Pause button at this point.
5. Type "62" on the remote
6. The TiVo will now format the drive, and when it's done it will put up a message on the screen saying that the drive is being used.

I've added a 750 GB eSATA drive to my TiVo using this method, and now I have 1 TB of total storage. :-)

The old extras were nice, browsing PC pictures, adding games, browsing online audio channels, etc. More cool stuff like that would be good.

Yep, more stuff would be cool. They need more TiVocasts, and they could use some better games. The podcast player is pretty decent, and the picture/music sharing system works fine. They should get Apple to port iTunes, though. :-) (but their deal with Amazon Unbox might get in the way.)

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the most important feature...

TiVo needs to replace the set-top box from the satellite/cable providers. CableCard is a start, though I've heard it's a bear to get setup correctly. But there is still a large number of people who hate the cable companies, and there is no equivalent way for TiVo to do the decoding of the satellite signal. AFAIK, if you want to use a TiVo with satellite, you're stuck with a dongle (IR or serial) that makes changing the channel slow and annoyingly unreliable.

Without figuring out how to be the set-top box in addition to the DVR, it won't matter how good TiVo is or how many cool features it has.

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead right, except you got that in the future tense.

The company WASReplayTV. Used nonproprietary video format, networked, and had wicked features like Commercial Advance, that predictively skipped commercials.

Grabbed, sued, and killed? Pretty much. My two Replay's still work, but they haven't added a feature in years, and (if memory serves) their last model didn't support Commercial Advance properly.

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[demon]

I'm sure TiVo would love it (although Amazon's Unbox division wouldn't). But CableLabs has been dragging its feet on it (so there's no standard approved yet) and it will be a long time after the standard is complete before you see cable companies actually making cards available. And even then it may not be possible for TiVo to use them, given CableLabs' licensing terms.

Actually, CableCARD already supports two way communication - but CableLabs won't certify anything for it unless it implements OCAP. OCAP is pure evil, totally gutting the purpose of CableCARD, making any third party box just another host for their crappy software - the box vendor can't run their own software directly on their own box. This explains better than I can about the evil, nasty, insidious twisting of the DVB standard that is OCAP - and why no consumer-electronics vendor worth a crap wants anything to do with it.

Re:Three quick easy ways for TIVO to Dominate...

[Crusty Cracker]

I'm sorry but no. That is not what the consumer wants, that's what the nerd wants.

Network diskpace? What are you thinking? 95% of people would have no idea how to set this up or fix a problem if one came up. YouTube access might be nice for the under 35 (or younger) crowd, but the majority of people older than that really just aren't going to give a shit, and it would, as pointed out by others, open Tivo up to (unfounded) lawsuits from big media.

Full control? Seriously, do you think you're talking about the mass consumer here? You're not, your talking about gadget and computer nerds, a small segment of the consumer nation. Most people do not want to hack their boxes, they want something that just works, works simply, works well and (hopefully) works cheap.

They have released DVD burning Tivos and they did not sell well. Granted, they were expensive, but nobody really cared about it either.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[Cameroon]

Because the cable company's version isn't near as good? It doesn't recommend shows, doesn't let you set up a wish list, doesn't automatically record shows that it thinks you might like, doesn't group recordings together by shows, only has 1 week of programming in advance, etc. At least, that's what Comcast in my area provides.

Really, there's a lot of functionality missing from my cable provider's DVR. What it _does_ do is HD recording and it has 2 tuners, which is why I have the cable's DVR box at all. I use it to record HD content and to record something that I happen to flip by and decide I want to watch later.

For people who just want a simple VCR replacement, their cable provider's box is probably just fine. For people who'd like to spend less than a DIY and want more than a simple VCR, it's pretty much just TiVo.

TiVo's biggest mistake

[kithrup]

came early on, when they decided, as a company, that their users were a product, and advertisers were their real customers.

They've got a great box -- it has, literally, changed the way I watch television -- but for everything they do, they first have to ask how well it can sell advertising.

The next question they have to ask is whether any of the content owners will get mad at them for it. And that's a significant problem as well.

TiVo is coming to the end of its life

[simong]

The linear TV recording device is dying. As TV companies are slowly twigging to the idea of TV on demand either over the Internet or over the wire/dish, the EPG driven recorder will become redundant. However, the technology will live on. TiVo should be (and hopefully are) looking at ways of managing video on demand. In the UK Sky have recently added AnytimeTV to their Sky+ service. This uses spare bandwidth on the dish to download and store content asynchronously. Its initial offerings aren't particularly compelling and the process is noisy on the current models so I have turned it off, but it looks to be an inevitability of the future development of TV. BT are rolling out BT Fusion, which combines recordable Freeview digital TV with an on demand service delivered over IP. Virgin Media also have an offering with a disk recorder over cable. The boxes are made by Thomson, Philips and Grundig - TiVo appear to have missed a trick here, although Europe never seems to have been successful for them. I would suggest that the TiVo has make the sidestep to becoming a more universal player as methods of delivering TV change and has to incorporate those hardware hacks such as IP connectivity and ways of introducing other methods of input. Allowing it to play YouTube would be predictable but would be step in the direction that the company is going to have to go to survive.

Re:TiVo is coming to the end of its life

[simong]

Not BT Fusion, BT Vision. Fusion is their combined Mobile/VoIP/POTS phone.

Myth and cablecard

[iceperson]

How's that working out?

Re:Myth and cablecard

[jedidiah]

If it doesn't work for a particular show, I turn it off (menu button) and hit the instant replay button.

OTOH, I don't have to enter a secret code to get my 30-second skip back after a brownout.

Re:Myth and cablecard

[kestasjk]

The Tivo can usually pick up on them if they have mind penetrating artificial voice tones (the quirky female "omg I just discovered tampons" voice, or the deep growling "The New, Extreme, Holdeo Aston Martin. Now. " voice), or if they have closeups of anything that's covered with lots of small water droplets.

Re:Myth and cablecard

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is troll while the GP is insightful? I see the fanboys are out in force...

Re:Myth and cablecard

[NaDrew]

OTOH, I don't have to enter a secret code to get my 30-second skip back after a brownout.

Neither do I. Though I do have to enter S-P-S-9-S to get the onscreen clock.

Re:Myth and cablecard

[jedidiah]

Why "hack" a Tivo? If I am going to "hack" a linux box I might as well go for the jackpot.

Hacks and easter eggs negate the whole point of a consumer console device.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[harshaw]

Why I use a comcast DVR:

• it has two recorders which my mythTV box doesn't support
• DVR's contain parts that can *fail* so the rental model isn't that bad for the consumer given the life of a disk. Also consider that a DVR's disk gets a lot of use.
• The software works well enough for recording shows. Yes, it doesn't work as well as Tivo or Myth but it works *ok*. And for most people at the end of the day that will be enough.
• I already pay for the TV listings with my comcast cable bill
• Wiring my living room for internet access to pull channel listings is non trivial (I used a wireless adapter for my mythTV box but it wasn't perfect and required some care and feeding)
• My Wife can understand the integrated remote (maybe tivo does this well but it is nice that the same remote that does DVR also changes the channels)

Seriously - unless there is a Tivo feature that you can't live without why on earth would you buy one?

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[JPriest]

I had a DVR from my cable company (SA Explorer) but had to switch to TiVo after moving to an area served by a different cable company still in the stone ages. I spent a little more on the TiVo, but the TiVo is more functional. The "season pass" feature for instance is far more functional under TiVo. With the SA DVR if the show in that time frame had the same name, it would be recorded, sometimes missing parts of the show and always recording reruns. With TiVo season pass if the show started early or ended late, it was still recorded. It would also keep track of which shows were first run and which were reruns, so if you want to only record new episodes of the show you may. TiVo also gives you a feature to pull stuff from it to your PC via TiVo to Go and there is lots of info about them online. There is a button sequence on the remote for instance so that you can make the menu at the bottom of the screen go away faster when you are done fast forwarding/rewinding. There are many near little easter eggs in the software and mods available.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[bziman]

Because some of us will happily pay a bit more for a product that does not make me want to gauge my eyes out with a fork. I briefly had Cox's HD DVR and it was so hideous, that I went back to Standard Definition DirecTV with Tivo, just because the Tivo was so much more usable.

I'm sure this is elsewhere, but....

[mckwant]

On features, I'll listen to Myth v. TiVo arguments, but arguing TiVo v. the TimeWarner DVR on that front is pointless. I tried to come up for an analogy of how much better TiVo is, but I can't do it. Maybe a Yugo against a fuel-sipping Jag that never needs repairs. Seriously.

We just upgraded our lifetime series 1 TiVos to series 2s. We didn't care much, but wanted to get rid of the phone line and use our wireless network for TiVo upgrades. The dual tuners were nice, but frankly, there isn't that much we care about on TV anyway, and the number of shows lost to conflicts was extremely low.

The new software:

- shares between our DVRs (copies files over the wireless network, so I can watch my wife's stuff on my TiVo and vice versa).
- has Yahoo and Live365 clients, so I can get traffic updates and stream net radio over my TV.
- MUCH faster processing for updates with the new hardware
- We've had ZERO slowdowns or reboots since installation, which wasn't the case with the DVR we had briefly.
- folder based navigation (If I have five episodes of MythBusters, I get a folder labelled "Mythbusters (5)", rather than having to dig through the entire list
- Personal Picture and video sharing
- I could, if I had a mind to, download programs to a Windows box, and/or use that Windows box as a networked MP3 station for my TiVos. No Linux compatibility (dammit, uses some Win32 .NET thing that doesn't go in Wine, IIRC).

I'm not about to argue that TiVo is in an enviable spot. Not being able to buy a new lifetime subscription is a BIG problem. TiVos are more expensive. A lot of people (including my parents) think the way the parent post does. From a marketing standpoint, TiVo is always going to be climbing uphill.

OTOH, do NOT try to tell me that TiVo and the TW DVR are comparable. Maybe the comparison is now vs. before everybody got a TCP stack on their PC. Hey, it worked just fine, too.

Re:I'm sure this is elsewhere, but....

[GeckoX]

One problem I see with your attempted analogy...there is no such thing as a 'fuel-sipping Jag that never needs repairs' ;)

Jags are notoriously repair-prone, to say the least. And last I checked, they weren't exactly near the top of the barrel for fuel economy either.

But I do get your point :)

Re:I'm sure this is elsewhere, but....

[mckwant]

Yeah, let's just say I was hard pressed. I'm not a car guy (I have a Civic that runs so long as you put gas and oil in it every so often, which suits me just fine), but nothing else sprung to mind. I actually think the BBS v. TCP stack is pretty close, but the set of people who have actually used a BBS is pretty small at this point.

(old guy voice) Plus, they won't stay off my lawn. (/old guy voice)

Same trouble as with everything else

[TheWoozle]

First you pay for the hardware, then you rent the software, and you still get advertisements.

No, thank you.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[pete.com]

I used to think the same thing. I had a Comcast DVR and thought why the hell would I ever pay more for a TiVo? Then I talked with my 65 year old mother

So first off I looked around to see if Bizzaro-Superman was standing there because I had obviously fallen into Bizzaro world. A quick pinch of the skin and an exhaustive look around for large green pods I had to come to the conclusion this was reality

After seeing what she was doing with her TiVo; I went home, ordered a Series 2, and called Comcast. I told them to come pick up this Motorola pices of shit DVR, and I've lived happily ever since. I now own 3 TiVo boxes (2) series 2's and a series 3.

More monthly costs!?!

[tji]

I think the main problem Tivo has is getting people to go for more recurring monthly costs..

Their previous HD units were VERY expensive ($1,000 for the initial HD DirecTivo, $800 for Series3 Tivo, some decreases & rebates after that). I think a lot of people are not willing to pay several hundred dollars for a product, then keep paying significant monthly fees.

With a one year agreement, the monthly fee is $17. $15 for 2 years, and $13 for 3 years. That adds up quickly.

It's even more distressing when you see all the kickbacks and advertisements Tivo throws in to the service you're paying $17/month for

- Click Thumbs up for more info on this commercial
- Click thumbs up to record the program being advertised
- Here's an item in your main menu -- click here to view a commercial for our partner's product
- Check out these programs we think you'll like -- Fox payed us a lot to make sure we reccomended their new shows
- We kept track of all your viewing habits - commercials watched/skipped - and we're selling that info.. Thanks!

I realize they haven't made a profit, and they need to increase revenue. But, this junk is going about it in the wrong way.

The only way their service will be palatable is to work with Cable/Satellite providers and include the service price into the monthly service bill. A $5 monthly surcharge is manageable.. $60-80+ per month for cable or satellite, plus $17/month for Tivo guide data is not.

Re:More monthly costs!?!

[Control-Z]

I agree, the monthly cost is what keeps people from adopting Tivo. People are stepping up from VCRs, which SUCK SUCK SUCK but at least they didn't have a monthly usage fee.

Tivo either has to lower the monthly costs or figure out a way to make money on hardware alone without the monthly cost. They could also team up with cable/satellite companies like they did with DirecTV.

TiVo's future: a content provider of their own?

[glindsey]

No, it doesn't, if you have Comcast and no other options for cable. The firmware on their Motorola boxes is hideously buggy, and people just accept the fact that it will randomly crash, freeze up, miss recordings, et cetera. (Much like people accepting the BSoD back in Win3.1/95/98 days.) But you're right: some folks in other cable markets have noted their DVRs work just fine, and in those markets TiVo really has to something that sets it apart from these others.

I think that what TiVo needs is greater TV/Net integration. So far, TiVo partners with Unbox to deliver movies over the Net, and you can use Home Network Applications to do things like browse Flickr, listen to podcasts, et cetera. This is neat (except that HNA is awfully slow on S2 units), but it is mostly a nifty but unessential toy. Nobody says, "Hey, I've gotten have a TiVo so I can run the Hot or Not Browser HNA application!"

Like many other TiVo owners, I find that I rarely, if ever, watch live television. What TiVo ought to be doing is direct competition with On-Demand offerings, by partnering directly with NBC, ABC, Fox, et cetera. These networks already offer their shows to be streamed over the Internet -- why not allow a TiVo to download shows directly? Then the ability to integrate other Web features seamlessly becomes really cool.

For example, right now you can already set up Wishlists by actor or director. But with Internet On-Demand, they could take it a step further: say you're watching an episode of Law and Order, and there's this guest star that you know you've seen before, but just can't place, and it's driving you nuts. You pause the show, bring up the show information which lists the cast, move the cursor to that actor's name, click, and you get something like an IMDB biography including other things the actor has done. And if those other things are available as downloads, you can choose to get them and watch them. Or perhaps you're watching an old rerun of Leave It To Beaver on TVLand? They could serve up interesting trivia about the show (maybe via "Pop-Up Trivia" that can be enabled or disabled at will by the viewer), or link to a documentary about it.

Networks worried about DVR customers skipping commercials? Change the way advertising is done, perhaps by providing a list of products seen on the show with links to further information about them. (Anything but making ads unskippable, which would basically be a poison pill for consumer acceptance.)

Now, make standard TV downloads free of charge (the way On-Demand usually is) and recoup the costs through a higher subscription cost. Make subscription costs per household, not per unit, and make show transfers between units trivial or transparent. They can still charge for On-Demand PPV offerings, which would probably be used more often since people could say "Hey, I liked Christopher Walken in this movie -- hey, the TiVo says he's in this other one, so I think I'll purchase that movie too!"

There are plenty of other things they could do too. They need to take a page from Apple's book: the goal is not just to provide neat services, but to make those services as easy to understand and use as possible. They could set up "TiVo Addresses" for subscribers that let them pass home videos and photos between each other as simply as possible (i.e. "Grandma-friendly interface"). Since customers won't be watching live television anymore, they could partner with the National Weather Service (or The Weather Channel, or Intellicast, or whomever) to provide on-screen weather alerts, or even CNN/MSNBC/etc. for big news alerts if people so chose. (Consider: a "Press Thumbs Up for more" that took you to a radar screen, or a short video clip about a news event, and then let you seamlessly return to what you were watching when you're done.)

This is what I'd love to see TiVo evolve into. This sort of thing could turn TiVo into a cable, satellite, or hell, IPTV killer, by making them the sole delivery mech

Re:TiVo's future: a content provider of their own?

[TooMuchToDo]

Do you have a publication (such as a newsletter perhaps) that I could subscribe to?

Seriously though, this is the end game of content distribution. Why is someone going to pay Comcast $55/month for basic cable, when they only want to watch Battlestar Galactica, Law and Order, and Adult Swim on Cartoon Network (I'm using myself as an example here). If my Tivo can grab all that stuff over the net, and I can pay for just those things I watch, why do I need Comcast? I just need fast pipe to my house, and a Tivo in every room.

Re:TiVo's future: a content provider of their own?

[glindsey]

You don't even technically need a fast pipe, if you have plenty of local storage and don't mind queuing things to download in the background. Even a relatively slow DSL connection could grab plenty while you're asleep.

That's why Comcast, RCN, DirecTV, Dish, and anybody else responsible for television distribution would fight this tooth and nail. If TiVo actually even proposed something similar to what I've outlined, I can envision those other companies banding together and creating a cartel similar to the RIAA or MPAA -- maybe the Electronic Media Distributors Association of America, or something of that sort.

In any case, something similar can be accomplished with MediaPortal (or MythTV, or any other media gateway program you desire), Azureus (or another BT client), and ted, the torrent episode downloader. Problem is, that method, while free, is basically illegal right now. If a paid subscription service could let people do it legally, would people pay a monthly fee? I know I would, if I was guaranteed excellent encodes and a huge selection of media. Would everybody pay? Of course not, because some folks will always freeload even if there's a convenient and reasonable alternative. But I think enough people would see the usefulness of the service to pony up the dough.

The trick would be for TiVo to convince the networks that it is in their best interest to partner with them, which means the networks would have to get revenue comparable to the advertising fees and kickbacks from the cable/satellite companies that carry them. That means TiVo would have to pass those costs on to their subscribers, which means they would need enough subscribers to make the per-household cost feasible. Chicken-and-egg scenario... TiVo would need some sort of VC funding or loan to get such a project off the ground, and the way the markets seem to be headed I doubt that's very likely in the near future.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[stickyc]

Why on earth would you buy a Tivo when you can rent a HD DVR for $10 from your cable company which is cheaper than the required Tivo subscription! Not to mention you have to buy a $300 - $600 box from Tivo. Until they have free subscriptions they aren't going to get any market share. Sure their software and hardware are both better, but the cable company DVR works just fine.

"works just fine" is entirely subjective. I'm guessing you've not actually used a TiVo for any length of time and then, say, a Comcast DVR. Sure, the Comcast DVR can record shows, but there's several dozen small differences in the way you do that that and pretty much anything else - change channels, find shows, expand the hardware, share media that are much more poorly (or not at all) implemented on the Comcast box that frustrate me to the point where it's no longer a pleasant experience. And lets face it, what we're talking about is a "pleasant experience", not curing cancer or making sure the train's on time. For me it was worth $400 to not have that frustration every time they sit on front of the TV.

Of my friends who have moved from DirecTV w/TiVo to cable, half purchased a new TiVo within weeks of using the cable box. The other half complain incessantly about how miserable the cable box is, but choose to spend their money elsewhere. With the introduction of this new, cheaper, HD box, they may take the plunge as well.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[rhizome]

Why on earth would you buy a Tivo when you can rent a HD DVR for $10 from your cable company which is cheaper than the required Tivo subscription!

Because the cable co's DVR sucks. If you have low standards this may not mean much to you, but a lot of people think having a quality product is a reason for a company to survive.

Re:Media Center! + Cygwin + Remote Desktop

[ThinkDifferently]

...and oh by the way, my MCE PC also runs Cygwin with SSH, and through an SSH tunnel from work (or wherever I have PC with PuTTY on it), I can do Remote Desktop to it...which is how I'm typing this message right now. Let's see your TiVo do that!

Screw TiVo

[Bobb Sledd]

I say let them fade away, I know I certainly won't be sorry. This may not be a popular opinion, but let me tell ya... I gave TiVo an chance way back in the day. At the time, a life-time subscription was tied to the box, and was not transferrable. I don't know how it is now.

So we bought a TiVo, life-time subscription. It was great. Then the telephone modem died. They did replace the unit, but then I had to buy *another* subscription? HuH? OK whatever.

Second TiVo developed a problem with the harddrive. Again, under warranty, but I had to buy *another* subscription.

When the third one died, I said "fuck it." Now I'm with the cable company, and it's just part of my package. If the unit dies, I just get a new one.

Yeah, the features aren't as great as what the TiVo had, but it meets my needs and I don't feel like I'm getting ripped off quite as much.

Just my $.02, YMMV. IANAL. Other limitations apply. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. Not valid in any state or country. Beware of EGRESS.

Re:Screw TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Either you got screwed by an unscrupulous/ignorant consumer rep, or you're full of bullshit.

The TiVo lifetime subscription is for the lifetime of the box, yes. But repairing the box doesn't invalidate lifetime; neither does switching it under warranty (with proof of warranty replacement). If you replace it out of warranty (i.e. a new box), then no, lifetime doesn't transfer (with a few exceptions). But replacing a dead hard drive doesn't remove lifetime, paying TiVo to repair the part on the box doesn't remove lifetime (although it may be more cost-effective to give it up), and taking it back to the Costco you bought it from (who offer a lifetime return policy on anything you sell) doesn't invalidate lifetime either, since it was replaced under vendor warranty.

So yeah. You got screwed.

What tivo needs to survive

[theatrecade]

Remember the days of AVR (analog video recording) set your timer record your show.. pop out a VHS tape? If tivo integrated just one thing (the pop out of media) it would skyrocket TiVo. I have a PC setup at home with DVR software and once a week I copy all shows to dvd. There are about 10 shows that i watch mainly all anime or cartoons. I also have my digital cable box with DVR built-in but I only use it for channel changing because I want to have a record of the shows I watch last beyond "the drive is full" erasure.

Re:What tivo needs to survive

[muellerr1]

I have a Humax Tivo Series II which includes a DVD-RW. As a bonus, it will create a play menu of the shows you burn to look like the tivo interface. We use it to copy the kids' favorite cartoons to dvd for car trips. Another bonus is that you can watch dvds without needing a separate box.

You're actually lauding that "feature"...?

[Telephone Sanitizer]

You pay hundreds of dollars to own the DVR and hundreds more for the mandatory subscription and you're *GLAD* that it "only" pushes ads on you on some screens, taking up "only" a portion of the screen?

Dude, grow som 'nads.

When you pay for the product, it shouldn't push ads on you at all.

TiVO blows chunks. They treat customers like chattel. I have no respect for TiVidiots. They are suckers who can't recognize their value as citizens and the value of their dollars as consumers.

You encourage companies to treat customers like sh!t. You are responsible for the decline in QOS and quality manufacturing in this world. You accept what you're given and thank your corporate masters.

Fools settle for TiVo.

Go ahead and mod this down if you feel the need. Some people can't handle the truth.

Re:You're actually lauding that "feature"...?

[mrsteveman1]

You gimme a good way I can setup a dual tuner, ALL DIGITAL (no encoders, anywhere), DirecTV (or digital cable) box, and I would be happy to drop this DTivo. Till then your an idiot.

By the way, I haven't ever seen an advertisement outside of that stupid showcase, which never gets visited.

Re:You're actually lauding that "feature"...?

[Lost Engineer]

I haven't used DirecTV in a while (no clear sky), but last I checked they were selling their own, inferior DVRs. My cable company offers a dual tuner DC box right off the shelf for about 2.50 a month if you also get HD service. Now that the equivalent TiVo is 300 bucks instead of 800, I'm considering switching back. I gave my lifetime subscription series 1 to my sister when I got HDTV.

I dunno what the GPs deal is; trolling I guess.

Re:You're actually lauding that "feature"...?

[Telephone Sanitizer]

> You gimme a good way I can setup a dual tuner, ALL
> DIGITAL (no encoders, anywhere), DirecTV (or digital
> cable) box, and I would be happy to drop this DTivo.

First of all, you're lame.

I criticized the TiVidiots for passively accepting push-ads on a product they've paid good money for.

You've provided a completely non-sequitur response and you're playing it like that somehow moots my criticism.

Totally lame.

But lets look at your new argument anyway. First of all, TiVos can't record from both digital sources simultaneously, so having two digital tuners is less valuable than they would have you believe. But then again, if you're a TiVidiot, you don't care because they've told you it's great.

Second, satellite DVRs (from DirecTV, for example) do come with two digital tuners and can simultaneously record from both. Look it up.

Re:You're actually lauding that "feature"...?

[Dun Malg]

I criticized the TiVidiots for passively accepting push-ads on a product they've paid good money for.
Please. The "push-ad" consists of a single plain-text menu item at the bottom of the main menu screen. Hardly even relevant.

But lets look at your new argument anyway. First of all, TiVos can't record from both digital sources simultaneously, so having two digital tuners is less valuable than they would have you believe. WTF are you talking about? Two channels, record two channels at once. Go ahead, produce a link to any tivo spec that shows "two tuners, record from only one or the other". The MPEG encoding is the least complicated/expensive part of the process. Once you have the second tuner, there's no logical reason not to encode it.

But then again, if you're a TiVidiot, you don't care because they've told you it's great. And if you're a regular idiot like you, you think it's terrible based upon a fiction in your mind only loosly based on reality.

Second, satellite DVRs (from DirecTV, for example) do come with two digital tuners and can simultaneously record from both. Look it up. Funny, my 3 year old DirecTivo does just that.

Re:You're actually lauding that "feature"...?

[Telephone Sanitizer]

> > Second, satellite DVRs (from DirecTV, for example) do come with two digital tuners and can
> > simultaneously record from both. Look it up.
>
> Funny, my 3 year old DirecTivo does just that.

Okay. Thanks for agreeing with me.

> > But lets look at your new argument anyway. First of all, TiVos can't record from both digital
> > sources simultaneously, so having two digital tuners is less valuable than they would have you
> > believe.
>
> WTF are you talking about? Two channels, record two channels at once. Go ahead, produce a link to
> any tivo spec that shows "two tuners, record from only one or the other". The MPEG encoding is
> the least complicated/expensive part of the process. Once you have the second tuner, there's no
> logical reason not to encode it.

I never said that it couldn't record two channels at once. The TiVo HD can't record from 2 digital sources simultaneously. It's either 2 analog sources or 1 digital source and 1 analog source. The flaw is noted in many reviews. Maybe it will be fixed with a software update later.

To recap, the TiVidiot said, "You gimme a good way I can setup a dual tuner, ALL DIGITAL (no encoders, anywhere), DirecTV (or digital cable) box, and I would be happy to drop this DTivo."

I gave him such a way.

And once again, the (redundant) response to my post is non-sequitur. More straw man arguments.

Criticizing a TiVo is like criticizing Apple. So many people freak when they hear that their favorite product is less than perfect.

I wonder what would happen if Steve Jobs criticized TiVo. Would your heads explode?

I think TiVo's problem is marketing

[dont_run]

In the month that everybody and their mothers are talking about the iPhone, TiVo and Verizon decide to announce a service (yep, $2 a month to use it) that allows you to... drum rolls please... schedule recordings from your cell phone! Wow! It's not like everybody could do that already from their web-capable cell phones, is it? Wait. They can!? And for free! Now, the one good marketing move would be to release the online scheduling site optimized for the iPhone, which is something their developers could do overnight. The reason for doing that? Well, lots of free PR, what else? Everybody was already talking about the iPhone, so why not get that crowd to talk about TiVo as well?

And they also launched a new service where you can upload a home movie to a web site and your friends and family members can watch it on their TiVos. Wait. Wouldn't it be simpler to just upload your home movie to YouTube and send them an e-mail with the link? Yes it would. And it would be free too. Now if TiVo supported YouTube just like AppleTV, now that would be something...

Then there's the whole TiVo Series3 thing: it was released without TiVoToGo because the HD content owners would sue TiVo. But wait... couldn't TiVo just allow transfers of standard definition shows and block HD content? Yes, they could. But it took them months to figure that out. If you traded up from a Series 2, you suddenly couldn't copy your shows to your PC anymore. You actually *lost* functionality when you upgraded. Phew!

Amazon Unbox was also a miss. It makes no sense to me to buy a movie from them. It may make sense to rent one though, but Unbox rentals are expensive and expire in 24 hours. Tell me, what's the point of having a DVR if you can't spread your viewing across multiple nights? Honestly, if you can't finish the movie you just rented tonight, too bad. Tomorrow night it won't even be in your TiVo anymore. And for $4? Give me a break. Netflix rules!

Finally, last but not least, the TiVoCast, where you can get just a fraction of the hundreds of video podcasts you can already get for free on the Internet. Why they chose to limit their offerings is beyond me. Maybe they want to help AppleTV sales.

TiVo, get smart. And quickly, please. Just fire your entire marketing team and start over, please.

Re:DISH DVR - Doable with a DVR

[ThinkDifferently]

You can do all of that with a Media Center Edition (MCE) PC. You get maybe a $600 PC with 2 tuner cards. Just like you would set up 2 different rooms to receive Dish TV, you get 2 Satellite boxes. Each tuner connects to a Satellite box. Through IR Blasters you can then control each Satellite box for each tuner.

The Guide is a piece of cake. All MCE PCs come with a built-in Guide feature that downloads all of the information from a free, centralized server, once every 2 weeks, or you can update as needed.

Guide info is not hidden. There are several web sites in fact that carry guide info for all of the major carriers and even local TV stations. TitanTV is perhaps the best known one. Since I'm using a Windows MCE, I use http://tv.msn.com/ That's also the source that is automatically downloaded for free to use in the MCE interface.

Yes, you can copy the recorded shows anywhere you like, and as I point out in my earlier post, you can even play them on any PC with Windows Media Player 11 on it.

TiVo Features

[CopaceticOpus]

Here's how TiVo could be more appealing to me:

Remove the monthly fee or drop it to something small. I don't understand what that fee is for - TV listings? Yahoo can list those online for free, so they can't be that pricey.

Record shows to nice, unencumbered xvid or divx files. Let me move them back and forth from my Tivo drive to local Windows/Samba shares, and play divx files directly off my computer. Give me a nice easy way to edit the files as I watch them and permanently remove the commercials from the files, so that I can then archive a high quality commercial free version of the show I recorded.

TiVo can win by letting customers do what they like with their recordings, rather than dealing with the restrictions of cable company provided DVRs.

Re:TiVo Features

[cdrguru]

Yahoo shows you ads with the listings. The ads pay for the listings. Would you want ads popping up on your Tivo? No? Well, that's why you are paying.

If the owner of the content believed you wouldn't redistribute their content in ways they do not sanction, they might allow Tivo to record it to such an unencumbered format. Problem is, the content owners know for a fact that while you personally may not redistribute people in general will.

How much would you sell your commercial-free archive for? Wouldn't this tend to diminish (if not eliminate) the value of the boxed DVD set the content owner wants to sell? Oh yeah, since they broadcast it they have no rights to the material after that, right? Why should the content owner help in creating a competitor?

Re:TiVo Features

[CopaceticOpus]

Yes, Yahoo shows ads with their listings. Are they making $10-$15 per month per person viewing those ads? Not so likely. $3-$5 per month ought to easily cover TiVo's listing fees.

What say does the content owner have in how TiVo records their content? MythTV will record in an unencumbered format and cut out commercials, and it seems to still be legal. Content owners might not like it, but that's not really TiVo's problem. Some people would redistribute their archives illegally, but that's also not TiVo's problem.

Recording shows to your VCR and keeping a personal archive is proven to be legal. TiVo would be doing the same thing, just in a way that is higher quality and more convenient. The litmus test for the legality of the VCR is that it provides a significant legal use. TiVo should be able to provide the features I want and still pass the same test.

Re:TiVo Features

[tohoward]

I own a Tivo (Series 1 no less) with lifetime, but I have to agree that the price of a "no ads listing" is overvalued at $13 a month. A subscription to "TV Guide" runs about $2.50 a month (if I did the math right). I'd certainly be willing to pay Tivo $3 a month for ad-enabled guide data, if that's really what's driving up the cost, over the current option of $13 a month.

Maybe that's what Tivo needs: a "cheaper" level of service that is supported with ad content.

I dunno, but I have FIOS cable with verizon, and the Motorola DVR they "rent" me for $20 a month is probably gonna hit the bricks this Christmas when I replace it with a Tivo HD. At the reduced $10 per month rate (Tivo fees+cable card fees) versus the $20 I pay verizon, it'll pay for itself in 2.5 years.

Re:TiVo Features

[demon]

Yes, Yahoo shows ads with their listings. Are they making $10-$15 per month per person viewing those ads? Not so likely. $3-$5 per month ought to easily cover TiVo's listing fees.

And Yahoo doesn't need to maintain banks of dial-in modems for the people who are still not using Ethernet (as gawd intended) to connect their TiVo to get its listings. TiVo's service also includes the suggestions stuff - amassing and analyzing viewership to generate recording suggestions for your TiVo based on your preferences. I don't feel bad paying TiVo $14 a month - better than paying the cableco for their craptastic box every month that you have to give back.

Re:TiVo Features

[CopaceticOpus]

No, 14 bucks a month is pretty insane. It's great for keeping TiVo's business afloat, and they get away with it because they have a great product and little competition. But I'd bet their profit on those subscriptions is in the "monster cable" 500-1000% range.

At Netflix I pay $17 per month for a 3-DVD plan. It includes an ad-free website full of listings and recommendations, plus the cost of mailing discs back and forth, plus the cost of maintaining their huge network of shipping facilities. TiVo, which deals with no physical product and only has to maintain those modem banks, must have but a tiny fraction of Netflix's expenses.

Re:TiVo Features

[geekoid]

Content owners want you to know what they are playing. There not the problem here.
There is a middle man that compiles and organizes that data and then sells it. If the owners would get together and use a standard format, they could distribute their own data, and Tivo could compile it together in the box.
But the entrenched process still has it's momentum. The DVR industry could really do themselves, and their customers, a whole lot of good by getting rid of this middle man.

Tired Analogy

[stewbacca]

I for one am getting kinda tired of the constant inference that people only use these type of devices to be in the "cool crowd" and the unrelenting analogy to Apple, Macs and iPods. It is simplistic and dismissive to credit Apple's success on being "in", "popular", or "cool", when Apple products should just get credit for what they are: "good". Speaking of obligatory analogies, my analogy would be there are far too many people who think I drive a 3-series BMW to impress THEM, when the only person I drive my car for is me. It is a great car and I could care less what others think about me or my car choice.

Re:Tired Analogy

[cmoney]

Thanks for pointing that out. I have to agree too. When I told people that the car actually drove better, they seemed indredulous, like the only reason people buy BMWs is to impress people.

But you have to remember that we're probably the exceptions to the rule. I'd venture to guess that the overwhelming majority of people get BMWs not because it's a great drive but because of what it says to others. Considering how many people can't even drive a stick, I'd have to say most people just don't care about performance.

Re:Tired Analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Man you BMW owners will take any opportunity to remind us you've got one. I get it already, you're cooler than me.

Re:Tired Analogy

[stewbacca]

Excellent point that MOST people don't even realize that they are buying the Ultimate Driving Machine because they are too busy trying to impress others. My point being, that just because most people buy Bimmers to look good, doesn't mean that I do, and I resent the assumption.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[Azghoul]

I'll tell you why I wouldn't do it: The UI on the cable boxes that I've seen ABSOLUTELY SUCKS HORRIBLE DONKEY BALLS compared to Tivo's.

I try to use any of 'em on Time Warner / ex-Adelphia / Comcast, and they're just horrific. I don't know how anyone puts up with it except that it must work, sort of. There are 400 more buttons on your average crappy cable TV remote and you have to click about 40 specific ones to make shit happen.

I know I'm exaggerating, but Tivo's UI is just so much better it feels like I'm slogging through Win 3.11 for Workgroups when I'm stuck at my parents'....

I loved my TiVo...

[DeckardJK]

I loved my TiVo while I had it. The software was great. I had even just started getting into the hack-ability of it. The problem was it only had a single tuner, if I wanted my digital channels I still needed a cable box (and io blasters). Now maybe new versions support cable card, hdtv, etc... I haven't fully checked into all of the features. But paying for the set top box and then the monthly fees on top of that doesn't sit too well with me. My Scientific Atlanta 8300HD, while clunky, gets the job done. Sure maybe my total cost of ownership will be more but I'm also safe knowing that when a new box hits the cable company I'll be able to trade my current one in. My cable box gets the job done with the main features; I'd love some of TiVo's features but I find that I can live without them. Honestly... now the only way I'd consider another TiVo is if they brought back the lifetime service. I'd love to see TiVo sell their hardware or software to cable, uverse, dish, or directv. I'd strongly debate switching to a provider that committed to TiVo again.

Re:I loved my TiVo...

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast *is* going to have some sort of Tivo software on their cable boxes, for added cost. It is unknown for sure what features they will have.

But you seem to have missed the introduction of the series 3 last fall, and now the newer Tivo HD (I think that's what they're calling it). You put cable cards directly in it, and it acts as the cable box. It also does OTA HD.

I'd buy a Tivo today if...

[Anonymous Coward]

...they canned the subscription fees and either dropped the price by 50%, doubled the capacity for the same price, or supported the user adding their own hard disk.

Until those things happen, not a chance. When you take account of the subscription fees, you can make a dual-tuner homebrew DVR with double to triple the capacity of a Tivo for the same price or significantly less.

Greed is what's killing the Tivo, for me anyway.

Re:I'd buy a Tivo today if...

[Spyrus]

That's quite a list of demands -- remember there's a company on the other end that would like to turn a profit on their venture. Funny, since I had a similar list of demands, and since Tivo met all of them, I've happily upgraded. I bought a Series 3 HD Tivo for $399 (after $200 rebate) recently. That's 60% of the original list price, and 50% off the standard current price. Since I had a Series 2 Tivo with a lifetime subscription (which I gave to my grateful parents), the monthly fee was only $6.95, or 50% of the original list. Tivo neither supports nor discourages you from adding more storage capacity to their equipment. The Series 3 has an external SATA port that will accept just about any external hard disk for additional storage capacity. Personally, I use my Tivo as a buffer, not a vault, so the default capacity (30 hours HD, 100+ hours SD) is plenty for me. The capacity is WAY better than that of the non-upgradeable Motorola-based POS offered by my cable company. It's cheap enough, the storage is good enough -- the "problem" is that everyone wants huge amounts of storage, with good service, for free. You can't have it all.

Re:Done, Done and Done...

[ThinkDifferently]

Yup, already in the market, and it has absolutely nothing to do with TiVo or the Cable companies. Whether it be Windows or Linux, a Media Center Edition PC does all that for you, and you can even buy a Windows one pre-loaded and ready to go out of the box, just like TiVo. They've been doing it all for years, ever since XP MCE came out in 2004 (was it 2003?).

On most MCE's, you can even tweak the settings to do what you want. Want a 40 second skip and a 15 second replay? Tweak it.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[sootman]

Is some of your post missing? There seems to be a chunk missing between talking to her and being amazed at what she did. Or is it...
1) Talk with mother
2) ?
3) Profit! (for TiVo)

TiVO needs to drop non-contract subscription price

[dethl]

I got a TiVO a year ago after starting a CSR job with DirecTV and played with a DVR (albeit their version). I'm long gone from that job but I still have my TiVO and love it. My big problem was when my year contract ($19.95/month) ended and I went on a month-by-month subscription. I was now paying $16.95/month plus an additional $1/month in state tax, putting me near $18/month. I felt like I was being screwed over for going month-to-month. Luckily though TiVO was nice and dropped my monthly subscription price to $10.95/month before tax.

Cable still confuses features with experience

[mmeister]

I tried both TimeWarner and Comcast's DVR options (mainly for the HD options). Both sucked so bad that it was extremely frustrating to watch TV. I didn't think it was possible to make TV more annoying, but these two cable companies with their partners managed to find a way.

Yes, it has all the checkboxed features, but using them is a real pain in the ass. The DVR constantly fell behind and didn't respond to remote actions (instead queuing them up -- which means you spend the next few minutes trying to undo the queued commands mess). It froze up constantly and apparently didn't store listings locally as it took a couple hours for the guide to show listings on all channels after a restart (if I want to constantly restart, I'll run Windows). It has skipped recording shows (with no warning) that were scheduled. And once, it recorded 20 hours worth because it crossed the midnight hour (11pm-1am). Navigating 20 hours of recording to watch the last 3 hours was miserable.

The cable companies couldn't care less about the experience you and I are having. They figure we'll be happy fighting with our cable box because we think everyone does it. Well, not everyone does. Some of us have used Tivo before and can directly compare the miserable experience that is Cable DVR with Tivo.

Recently, Comcast raised its price from $9.95 to $12.95 AND interjected more advertisement. But not just any advertisement, they stuck it in the middle of the guide, so it actually impedes usage. So I was paying even more money for an even crappier experience.

Screw the HD. Screw the PPV, I turned in my Cable DVR and told them it was the buggiest piece of crap I've ever seen with the most miserable user experience ever. The result was absolute indifference, not even a fake apology.

I'm now using a DT Tivo Series-2 in the living room and will likely jump on the Tivo HD when they allow me to move my lifetime box over.

I figure life is too short to pay companies to provide a miserable experiences to you. I enjoy watching TV with my Tivo (something I could *never* say about my Cable DVR).

Re:Media Center! doesn't need Cable Card

[ThinkDifferently]

As I understand it, Cable Card only allows you to have the cable tuner inside the PC. You can still get regular tuner cards and hook them up to a Cable or Satellite box.

Hence AppleTV is promising

[alexhmit01]

Myth on the backend is impressive and wonderful, offers all the media serving goodness that we could want. But as a UI for the family, the front-end blows.

AppleTV is an impressive v1.0 front end for media serving, and iTunes + QuickTime CAN serve up whatever you want. However, limited Codec's on AppleTV's part is a limiting factor.

Fix the codec problem, and get your shows into iTunes, or reverse-engineer the protocol so that MythTV can share out as an iTunes server, and you have a great solution for media serving.

Apple won't solve your problems entirely, they are tied into the media companies. But with Codec's fixed, the ability to record shows OTA or off cable, plus buy the episode or two you miss (or if you get into a show a few weeks in) makes a great option.

Hell, if Apple got the real content deals, I'd ditch Cable/Satellite, record my shows OTA in HD from the networks, and happily spend $50/month with Apple on shows...

I know what the real problem is...

[cmoney]

You guys WATCH TOO MUCH TV! :-) Do you really spend that much time in front of a TV that the better usability of the TiVo makes that much difference in your life?!

Me, my TimeWarner DVR is cheaper (both no upfront cost and lower monthly fee to boot) and records the 5 or 6 TV shows I wanna watch. I set it up with "season passes" sometime last year and totally forgot about it. No usability issues since the only interaction I have with the unit is pushing the LIST button to see what shows were recorded and hitting play. No muss no fuss. I can pause live TV for an hour, I can record two shows at the same time and I can do it all in HD with no hassle from the cable company.

And if something goes wrong with the unit I can either walk it into the cable center or they'll send someone out to replace it. Not that anything's actually gone wrong with it, it's never crashed or required a reboot. Come to think about it, that's exactly like the TiVo I replaced a long time ago.

Re:I know what the real problem is...

[iansmith]

Do you really spend that much time in front of a TV that the better usability of the TiVo makes that much difference in your life?!

I can go days without turning on my TV, and it's because I have a TiVo. To me the TiVO is clearly a superior device than the $10 cable DVR's. But just having a DVR at all is a huge step from a VCR, so it's a hard sell to get anyone to spend extra money for that last bit of quality.

As I have said before, TiVo changed my life. Freed me from being a slave to the TV schedule. But yea, any old DVR will do that. A TiVo just makes the experience even better.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[sootman]

Why on earth would you buy a Tivo when you can rent a HD DVR for $10 from your cable company which is cheaper than the required Tivo subscription?

Because...

• back when I had upgraded from regular cable to TW's "digital" service, (around 1999/2000 or so) channels 2-73 (i.e., all the good ones) were analog, so we switched to DirecTV; DirecTV's picture quality was even better than the actual digital channels, let alone the analog ones
  
• I then bought a DirecTiVo, which existed (3 years? 5 years?) before the local cable company offered DVRs (remember--for a loooong time there was only TiVo and Replay TV; cable-company-supplied DVRs are a pretty new beast)
  
• DirecTiVos have had two tuners since forever, so even a standalone TiVo+cable wouldn't have been as good
  
• plus that would have required two patched-together boxes, instead of an integrated solution
  
• plus with DirecTV, the TiVo doesn't do any encoding--it just saves the ones and zeroes as they are broadcast into the dish, so watching a recording == watching a zero-gen copy (not sure if cable-company-supplied boxes do this, but I'm guessing they do; in any case, this was another feature that DirecTiVo had long before cable-company-supplied DVRs even existed)
  
• because the TiVo works exactly the way you would think it should: season passes can be first-run only or new+reruns, can specify how many to keep, whether to automatically save them forever once recorded, start early/end late, and everything else that should be there is (with rare exception) and you can figure it all out without ever looking at the manual. And, Mac-like, it all just works
  
• because in 5+ years of ownership there have been maaaybe 5 things where I said "I wish my TiVo could..." Basically, if I would have written a list of everything a DVR could do, that's pretty much what the TiVo is.
  
• because it's so easy that everyone in the family can easily use it
  
• because I still have, and am very happy with, a standard-def TV
  
• because with DirecTV, the TiVo subscription is only $5 per box per month.
  
• because TiVo's engineers are SO FUCKING AWESOME. I hacked my TiVo (40 GB -> 120 GB drive upgrade) and forgot to reconnect the fan. I awoke the next morning to a black screen that said "Your TiVo overheated. It has shut itself off to prevent damage." I cracked it open, reconnected the fan, and it has been humming along ever since.
  
• And, to answer your original question: after using a TiVo for so long, going to a friend's house and poking around on their cable DVR is like fingers on a blackboard.
  

That's all I can come up with off the top of my head. There are probably that many more reasons if I would have written down every good TiVo thought I've had over the years.

Until they have free subscriptions they aren't going to get any market share.

Score: -1, factually incorrect. They already have some market share. I admit that it's probably waning in the face of cheap boxes from cable companies, but it's not like they're nonexistent. MythTV has no service charges and look at their market share: maybe 10% of Slashdotters and 0.001% of the real world. I love Myth, but just like with Linux, the last decade has proven that "free" does not automatically equal "winner."

Re:Media Center! Plus and minuses for technophobes

[ThinkDifferently]

My 77 year old father can operate a Tivo, not your setup.

Yes and no. There was a time I would've agreed wholeheartedly with you. It seemed like Win MCE was only a fanboy thing. But, lately, it's gotten much, much better. There are many outlets that sell pre-built MCE PCs, they load the OS, they load and configure the tuners, and most will even pre-setup MCE for you. All you do is take it out of the box, hook it up to whatever TV source you have (antenna, cable, satellite, other), and off you go. In my case, I had to go through MCE's setup myself, which had me specify my zip code, choose my TV source, set the resolution for my TV (HDTV 1080i) and my audio (toslink), but I wanted to do that myself. I could've easily had the tech guys at Puget Custom Computer do that for me. Another company I've used is S1Digital, which specializes in only media centers. There are many, many others that give you out of the box solutions. If they can setup a TiVo, they can setup a Win MCE box.

I'm thinking of getting a cheap $500 unit for my mother when over-the-air NTSC broadcasts discontinue in February 2009. She could easily keep using her antenna for HDTV and record 2 shows simultaneously. The interface for MCE is incredibly simple. It may not have as fancy graphics as TiVo, but it is certainly easy. My mother, wife and kid all know how to use it without any problem. Only occasionally, my kid will ask for help, but that's more because he's still learning to read.

My wife'll tell you stories, but that's only because I try to get this thing to do everything but make coffee (and that's only because I don't like coffee). I also use it as a full fledged PC server, it runs Cygwin with SSH server, and Remote Desktop, and I use it as a workstation occasionally. With all of that, we've had our fair share of headaches. But, when it comes to the basic operation, starting it, resetting it, navigating with the remote, choosing shows and setting up recordings, my wife'll be the first to tell you it's easy and she does it all of the time. My kid gets up at 6am every morning without us to turn it on and watch his cartoons. On weekends, my wife's rule is if he doesn't wake us up, he can watch as many cartoons as he can find on it. Plus, because they're all recorded, he never goes near live TV, easing our concerns.

Re: Tivo would be a cool thing if the cable co did

[amuro98]

That's really nothing new. How many times have you heard people complaining about how the PC makers won't support your computer unless it's running their default load of software on it? Or, about how ISPs wouldn't support Macintosh computers?

It's all about dealing with customer support. Can you imagine the headaches these companies would be in for if they had to try to support EVERYONE's customize setup, containing any one of thousands of different products - which may or may not be intended to be used that way?

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[rizzo420]

because i don't give a crap about HD content or digital cable and i don't have satellite cable.

for the record, my series2DT tivo has 2 tuners, so i can watch and record different channels at the same time, or record 2 channels and watch a third on the cable setting on my tv, having it split to both my tivo and my tv's coax input.

i had a tuner break on my tivo. only one of them had the issue (it was black and white), but the other tuner worked fine. even though i'm out of the original warranty, they replaced it for free (well, they charged me for the new box until they received the old one).

i don't get a guide with my extended basic cable, so i get that with my tivo subscription.

my tivo remote integrated perfectly with my tv and is able to change channels (though i usually change them with the tivo), turn the power on and off, adjust the volume, and switch between the various inputs.

i also happen to like the little sound it makes.

i bought the tivo wireless adapter on sale at amazon and it connected flawlessly to my WPA2 protected, MAC filtered, hidden SSID wireless network without a hitch and has never lost connection. it connects smoothly to my computer to grab music, movie, and image files. my computer easily grabs tivo recordings without issue as well.

since i don't care about having digital cable or HD content, i see no reason to switch.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[Ereth]

I just moved to a new area and so went ahead and got Time Warners DVR to test. It's horrible. I don't want to use it.

Simple things that you take for granted on TiVo are missing. For instance, the installer wanted to show me how simple it was to set up a recording, so he asked for a show and I said "Lost". He replied "ok, when is it on and what channel?" Heck. I don't know. I have a TiVo. I just ask it to record it for me. I haven't paid attention to what time or channel a show is on in years. In a TiVo I go to Find Programs and enter the name, one letter at a time, and the TiVo will let me record it and even follow it if it moves (say, the network moves it from Tuesday to Wednesday, or whatever).

So we didn't know when it was on and since I just moved here I don't even know what channels I get, so we went to search by name. Ok, you can put in "L" but that's it. You can't put in a second letter. You have to scroll through EVERY SHOW THAT STARTS WITH "L"! Eventually you find it and set up the recording.

And, yeah, it records just fine. But the User Experience is frustrating.

TiVo is easier, and better. Part of it is stuff that TiVo patented, so other DVRs can't use it (like auto-correct when you fast forward so that it backs up exactly enough to be where you really wanted to stop fast forwarding), and part of it is that, apparently no cable company can hire a UI designer who knows how to make a User Interface that isn't painful to use.

(Having said that, I also have a BeyondTV box and their UI is superior to the cableco DVR as well. But since Congress made it so I can't buy a Cablecard for a home computer that I built myself, I can't get HDTV into the box, except OTA, and my new house is too far from the antenna farm to get anything OTA without a mast, which my HOA prohibits).

Wireless Spectrum, Google, and TiVo

[martyb]

What DO you get if you put these together?

• Google Set to Bid $4.6 Billion for Airwaves
• FTFA: Let's consider one other option: Could TiVo sell itself, perhaps to Cisco/Scientific Atlanta or Motorola? Not likely. True, the company is affordable. TiVo's market cap was around $550 million as of Thursday. The problem is that TiVo carries baggage -- i.e., its existing business model. Cisco/SA and Motorola wouldn't want to continue to service and support the 4.3 million TiVo subscribers out there, and it would be a rather pricey acquisition just to get the technology. I can't imagine buying TiVo would tickle Comcast's fancy either.(emphasis added)

The author of the article apparently perceives support of 4.3 million fanatic users as a burden!!??!!! I propose that Google would do well to buy TiVo.

Granted, there are additional costs beyond an acquisition: building the wireless infrastructure, merging it all together... but to put this in perspective, I just checked market caps:

• GOOG $158 Billion ($158,390 Million)
• TIVO $.55 Billion ($000,550 Million)

(NB: GOOG's Market Cap went up $190M while I was writing this post.)

Lessee, $4.6B + $0.55B = $5.1B for nation-wide reach, a fanatic user-base (TiVo users), direct access to what customers are watching (more data!), YouTube tie-in capability (they already have a distributed video infrastructure)... what's not to like?

Heck, google could afford to give TiVos away, and have a guaranteed platform on which to sell its ads - nationwide, just for a few $billion more.

Prediction: if Google gets the wireless spectrum it is looking for, I expect to see "GooTiVo" (TM) within a year.

Re:Wireless Spectrum, Google, and TiVo

[corecaptain]

I agree with parent 100%. I own 3 tivo boxes, one has a dvd burner on it
and I think google + tivo would be a great combo. I could see them integrating
youtube video - I put some keywords in and google pumps down youtube video matches
to my box. They could also integrate it with other google properties.

I for one don't want to see tivo fade away - I already have my ISP choices restricted
to a duopoly - ATT,Comcast - I would rather not have the cable companies controlling
my dvr freedom.

I also think that with the right interface you will start seeing people purchasing stuff
from the tivo platform...imagine a home shopping club and/or an auction site app on the
tivo box..

most people prefer to rent, not own, a set-top.

[Orig_Club_Soda]

I cant accept that this is true. Especially since the people have just fought for and achived the right to own the cable box.

cable is the one in trouble

[nbaleva]

Cable is a broadcast technology. Sports and news are the only types of shows that need to be broadcast realtime. Everything else can be downloaded. What happens when Tivo turns into a P2P box ?

Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do people actually use DVRs? This sounds like ancient technology to me, I don't even have a TV anymore. Here in Europe we just download the stuff we want. :)

Tivo = renting

[ad0gg]

The device doesn't work unless you pay $13.95 a month. There's a reason why tivo won't open their system to 3rd party guide providers. Not only are you renting equpment you paid for, your own equipment spies on you and sends what your watching back to tivo so they can make more money off of you.

Re:Tivo = renting

[tim1724]

The device doesn't work unless you pay $13.95 a month.

Well, strictly speaking, you can use it w/o paying the service fees.. you can use it like a VCR ("hey tivo, record channel 7 from 8 to 8:30") but that would defeat the purpose.

I'm happy enough with my TiVo to pay the fee. (and it's only $8.31/month for me.. I did a 3 year pre-paid plan at $299)

so far, all commenters seem to be confused...

[DragonTHC]

1. Tivo is the cool kid's DVR. can you name any other DVRs by cable companies? what's that replayTV? DEAD.
2. Tivo does have pop out media. it's called Tivo to go or TTG, and you can place your tivo content on any portable device or pc.
          there's also a Tivo with a dvd recorder.
3. Tivo has better features than any other DVR on the market.
4. Tivo doesn't require a subscription fee. they only charge for the program data, which they don't get from the cable companies.
5. you can use Tivo with Satellite or Cable or off-air.
6. Tivo now has Amazon unbox service. buy or rent movies or shows over the Tivo.
7. Tivo doesn't rely on any service provider. The service is the program data. (which they get from an independent supplier) Tivo doesn't care where you get your TV from.

how many commentors have a Tivo?

The Tivo has an intuitive interface and useful features.

how many set-top boxes have useful features other than their core features?
I watch the day's NY Times video casts on my Tivo. I can view my home movies on my Tivo.
I can view my vacation pictures on my Tivo.
I can transfer my Tivo programs onto my computer to burn to DVD. I can store an entire season of a show on my Computer or DVD.
I can transfer any video to my Tivo after the Tivo desktop program transcodes it.

I can SKIP COMMERCIALS!

Re:so far, all commenters seem to be confused...

[9Nails]

I still have and use a ReplayTV 5040. It's been upgraded with a new hard drive, but other than that it's worked well enough. This model is one of the few that can automatically skip commercials when you play back a recorded show. It works reasonably well at the automatic skip as well. But it's the shame that they had to drop this feature in their most recent line-up of DVR's. Apparently the broadcaster's still want to get paid for commercials even after they air a show. I also enjoy the internet show sharing features that Poopli has graciously provided. All-in-all this was a great product.

True that ReplayTV has left the set-top DVR market and went for a PC based software market. I'm not sure how that's working for them. But as customer of theirs, I wish them luck.

Re:so far, all commenters seem to be confused...

[Anonymous Coward]

You were okay except for #4. To wit:

The (original) Series 1 units would continue to function without subscription service; you could use them as a glorified VCR ("Record channel 16 every Tuesday from 8pm to 9pm") except without the pain of using tapes. I have an old one that I have let people borrow to demonstrate the concept of the PVR (vs. recording using tapes).

From the Series 2 (and on), a TiVo with no subscription service will:
(a) only play back things that were recorded on it prior to subscription cancellation.
(b) perform "trick play" (pause, rewind, FF) on a current live stream, within the buffer.

So an old Series 1 with no service is functional. A Series 2 or 3 with no service is pretty much a paperweight (won't record new shows or MRV).

Re:so far, all commenters seem to be confused...

[demon]

5. you can use Tivo with Satellite or Cable or off-air.

They're focusing on the new generation of TiVos - the Series3 and the TiVo HD *do not* work with satellite, as they don't have any video inputs like the Series2 units did. You can still get the Series2s, but with HDTV becoming the "it" thing, that's definitely where the future is going.

And multichannel news is sponsored by.....

[Calaban9]

It's a trade publication for the media industry. The very people who don't want you switching commericals. The tivo at 299 is a sweet price point and they don't want it succeededing...

http://www.multichannel.com/affiliate/26617.html

is the first page of a long list of their affiliates.

What...

[rAiNsT0rm]

like other than the anal-rape price of the hardware+subscription? I mean 'cuz otherwise it's the bee's knees.

I can't see many Jane and Joe Sixpacks buying a Tivo, they will most likely go with their cable/satelite provider's DVR option if any at all. Now, make the Tivo a free device (or say $99) and then charge $12.95/mo. and I bet more people would care and buy into it.

Tivo's problem has been their inability to evolve and stay competitive, they easily could do it... they just haven't.

So?

[slapout]

"And most people prefer to rent, not own, a set-top"

Most people don't read "new for nerds" either. But that doesn't mean there's not a market for Slashdot.

As soon as I see the word 'cute' in a post...

[zingbot]

I realize there is a bias. Just saying.

Cox DVR + eSATA = OK

[UttBuggly]

I have friends with TiVO, DirectTV, cable (Cox in our area) or Dish. Some have built their own MCE boxes, Linux setups, etc. I've dinked around with all of this stuff, but the reality is I have a wife (and 3 sons that drop in at random intervals) that aren't techy in the least.

So, I got a SciAtl 8300HD from Cox, plugged in a Seagate 500GB eSATA drive, and now have 660GB of recording space. In addition, Cox still leaves all the outputs "live" on playback, so I have the S-Video out going to a Panasonic DVD recorder. I can watch, burn, timeshift, etc. all I want or have time for.

Initially, the software was nearly useless. Many updates later, it's almost average. BUT, the family gets it, so I can't bitch too much. They only recently added the ability to watch a show being recorded from the beginning. Basic stuff TiVO, etc. had long ago, but hey it works.

Be aware that a friend got a new Seagate FreeAgent 750GB eSATA drive and it would not initialize to the SciAtl DVR. Same result with a WD MyBook drive. Both have pre-loaded backup software and other trash, which may be the issue. "Older" models of both brands work fine...90 seconds from connection to usable. Earlier this week, Amazon and a few other places had the 500GB Seagate drive (silver case, 500GB capacity with a bundled PCI SATA card) for around $150. With 16MB of cache and 7200RPM, I get zero artifacts and noise during playback, even when other shows are recording.

And the bottom line is, no tech support overhead. I should mention that I have a Harmony Remote that I've done custom programming on (love this thing!), so that definitely makes life easier for the whole Home Theatre system I have. The DVR is basically "invisible" to everyone else at my house. So, while I wish TiVO software would land on the Cox hardware, and soon, this setup isn't bad.

Re:Cox DVR + eSATA = OK

[demon]

Just wait awhile, till it starts forgetting to record shows, or recording random crap you don't want. Or it records something, and won't let you watch it. Or just starts crashing. Or you get more than a few recordings on it, and the GUI becomes unusably slow. I've heard of so many failure modes - and the solution is always "well, we'll give you another box, and see what happens". Guess what - that never solves it, the new one starts doing the same thing before much longer. The GUI is by all accounts wretched, and pretty much universally loathed.

See this, or this, or this, or this, or this for some reviews of the steaming pile that SA calls a DVR. And in two months, let me know how that 8300HD is working for you.

Re:Cox DVR + eSATA = OK

[UttBuggly]

Well, I've had the same unit for 14 months, had a 200GB eSATA drive on it until the Seagate 500GB went on sale.

I routinely have > 100 shows and movies recorded at any one time. My wife has the whole season of Grey's Anatomy, last season's Commander-In-Chief, most of this year's The Unit, Heroes, NUMEROUS poker shows and movies, mostly in HD (my stuff...woo hoo!) I record a ton of stuff from TCM like 20-25 movies from Oscar month a while back.

I do have my HT gear on a Monster Power line conditioner and 4 fans cooling the gear down. I've observed that the 8300HD is a "hot" box and I have a ton of stuff in my system. So, everything is kept cool and fed clean juice. That may be why I've had zero issues while others have been less fortunate.

That said, I HATE the software and overall performance of the thing. Cox supposedly has licensed TiVO software, but I've never heard of or seen it deployed as of yet. That "rumor" was one reason I stuck with this setup...along with zero tech support for the family. If the hardware keeps working and they get TiVO software on it, then I'd stay with it.

Funny...this thread got me thinking about the stuff I have, and I talked with an A.T.&T. "Home Solutions Consultant" (seriously) about U-Verse, their HD/DVR solution on Motorola hardware that replaces their DiSH offering, just yesterday. I got some info and I'll surf for customer comments, but I may move to that and of course, ditch the 8300HD. The demo of U-Verse was kind of neat; the interface certainly looked and behaved better...at least on the demo. I'd like to actually SEE it and play with it in someone's home before I get too excited.

Anyway, I agree the SA stuff is mostly junk, but it's my junk (for $9.99 a month...forever) and it's still ticking, so I'll keep it for a while longer.

Tivo + antenna works fine

[pestie]

I was just checking out Tivo's $299 HD unit yesterday. It absolutely states that it supports over-the-air antenna-based recording.

Re:Tivo + antenna works fine

[jdcope]

Well, I wasnt looking at HD. I was looking at the 80-hour Series 2 Dual Tuner box. From the Tivo website: The TiVo Series2 Dual Tuner (DT) DVR works with any cable (basic or digital cable) or satellite set-up. Note that the Series2 DT not support recording from two digital cable or two satellite channels at once. Recording from over- the-air antenna not supported.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[Jack9]

This is the typical, ignorant, American, consumerist mindset. The Tivo runs under 200$ plus a 15$/mo subscription or a 200$ lifetime subscription. If I move to say, Irvine California where I have to have DishNetwork, I have my DVR. After 3 years, my tivo has literally paid for itself. I am a financially responsible individual and I'm planning to be alive to pay my mortgage for 30 years...why would you choose to throw money away? The idea that people rather rent than buy is simply MISINFORMATION aimed at the large number of people who love to live in debt.

Good riddance

[keraneuology]

They took obvious technology (gee... how long have we been able to timeshift programs? Beta, anyone?), went jury shopping and whored themselved out to the beast that is Patent Land. Goodbye, TiVO - I can only hope that you are put out of my misery quickly. I'm quite content with the Dish DVR for which I pay no additional monthly fee (grandfathered in, you see - sometimes it pays to be an early adopter) and have no use for technology that guesses one's sexual orientation incorrectly.

That and the patent thing. The patent lawsuit really annoyed me.

From TFA:

This week, the company that has amassed such powerful brand equity that it has become a verb ("Did you TiVo The Sopranos finale?") announced that it is working hard to convince the cable industry that it's a friend, not a foe.

When you go jury shopping in your meritless lawsuit, who wants you as a friend?

Tivo vs. MythTV

[pestie]

You know this is Slashdot, right? And, what, you're surprised that a lot of people here are chanting "MythTV!" every time Tivo gets brought up? You think you'll get them to stop by bitching about it? Yeah, good luck with that.

I don't have any ideological axe to grind on this issue. I have DirecTivo, I've been a Tivo user since 2001, and I'm considering the new $299 HD Tivo. But I'm also a fan of open-source/free software, run Linux desktops on all my PC's, and have the necessary hardware and skills to do MythTV. And right now, I'm leaning toward the MythTV solution. But I can totally understand (and I'm even tempted by) the "it-just-works-and-works-well" aspect of Tivo.

But I'm also sick to hell of the trend toward loss of control for the consumer over all hardware and software. Tivo may be Linux-based, but it's still a proprietary system. I'm also sick of the constant encroachment of advertising into our lives, and even the stupid one-line promo options on Tivo's main menu annoy me. There has been talk about Tivo introducing more ad functionality, which I'm quite certain will happen as Tivo-the-company struggles to survive. If anything, more control will be taken away over time, the monthly fee will increase, and eventually Tivo will probably get bought out. Already I've heard that they've outsourced their customer service, and that it's gone completely to shit since. So I'm extra hesitant to get anywhere near a new Tivo at this point.

Yes, MythTV requires some hacking to make it work. But what I get in exchange is freedom and control. I'm fully confident that the loss of zap2it's program guide information will be worked around. Screen-scraping isn't as bad as people make it out to be - I've actually done a lot of it for my day job. As for MythTV not being able to record encrypted HD cable, I don't care about that, either! I'm planning on ditching cable altogether, one way or another. I'm not going to turn into one of those elitist pricks who never misses a chance to tell everyone how he doesn't own a TV. But I am going to cut back on my TV watching, and stop paying corporations I hate for the privilege of being bombarded by their ads and locked into their contracts.

Of course we rent! You can't buy the unit...

[rholland356]

What cable or satellite company sells their HD DVR units? None. They all rent them out.

And thank goodness for that! All the HD DVRs I've rented turned to shit in a few months. Shows stopped recording reliably. Units had to be swapped out. And by leaning on the sales staff, there's not up-front cost for the box--that's the joy of competition.

I like the DVRs from cable or satellite because it's seamless plug and play. No messing around trying to fit a Tivo to the set-top box. So, what does Tivo add to the HD equation?

One improvement I'd request of the DVR makers--can't you shut the box off? That thing runs continually, unless you pull the plug. There is no excuse for spinning the disk all damn day--the box should have enough smarts to wake itself up to record a show, then shut back down.

Maybe TiVO shuts down completely. Or it will soon...

Re:Of course we rent! You can't buy the unit...

[demon]

What cable or satellite company sells their HD DVR units? None. They all rent them out.

Guess you're not familiar with cable in Canada - you either buy a set top box/DVR (for full price - no subsidies for you) or you lease them for $40-$50/mo (a lot more than here).

And thank goodness for that! All the HD DVRs I've rented turned to shit in a few months. Shows stopped recording reliably. Units had to be swapped out. And by leaning on the sales staff, there's not up-front cost for the box--that's the joy of competition.

Yes, the cableco DVRs all suck. Have you ever used a TiVo? I have a Series3 HD unit, and I've not run into the problem where the unit slowly goes apeshit after a couple months. I've heard of this happening with the cableco DVRs many times. Poor bastards using them...

I like the DVRs from cable or satellite because it's seamless plug and play. No messing around trying to fit a Tivo to the set-top box. So, what does Tivo add to the HD equation?

The Series3 HD (and the newly-released TiVo HD) don't have the video input cables, and the IR blaster, and all the other bits that the Series2 units and earlier had - you plug it into the cable line (with CableCARDs, or one MCard now with the TiVo HD - supposedly coming to Series3s everywhere RSN I hope I hope) and watch TV. It's like the cable company's set top, but better - and it looks nicer to boot.

One improvement I'd request of the DVR makers--can't you shut the box off? That thing runs continually, unless you pull the plug. There is no excuse for spinning the disk all damn day--the box should have enough smarts to wake itself up to record a show, then shut back down.

Stopping and starting the disk unnecessarily generates more wear, and the stopping and starting takes more power, in many cases, than just leaving it spinning. Besides, with the TiVo, it's almost always recording a suggestion, or streaming something over my cable internet connection, or something - what's the point? It has no "power off" button, and there's no need. I'm good with that.

Patents

[localman]

I'm not a fan of patents, but isn't this the exact supposed point of patents? That if a company puts in the time and money to come up with a new invention they should get a little monopoly on it? Ironic that one of the few things that seems like it was innovative recently didn't get the protection it needed to survive.

If anything it's just another nail in the zombie coffin of patents: they stifle innovation and they don't even protect legitimate inventions.

Re: Tivo would be a cool thing if the cable co did

[fahrbot-bot]

...more for people with cable cards as people with them can't use VOD, PPV and the guide data from the cable co and they don't even work that well...

This is a limitation of the CableCard itself. Version 1.0 is one-way (downstream) only. Version 2 (coming soon) is suppose to be bi-directional and allow VOD, PPV and Guide usage.

The only problem with TiVo

[Arkham]

I had a Series 1 TiVo for years, and only gave it up when I switched to all HDTV in my house. I was a big fan, as was my non-geek wife.

I now have a Direct TV HD DVR. It's serviceable, but honestly, I hate the interface. It's annoying, poorly designed, and is certainly no TiVo. But (a) I didn't have to buy it and (b) it works seamlessly with my DirectTV service.

It was a huge mistake to let DirectTV get away from them as a reseller of their boxes. I'd much rather be using a TiVo.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would you buy a BMW when a used Honda is so much cheaper? Sure the BMW ergonomics and hardware are both better, but the Honda works just fine.

So, my DVR is half the monthly subscription.

[Shivetya]

and I didn't pay a dime for it. I pay 5.99 a month to have a DVR from my Satellite company. It can play to any two devices in my house too.

Sorry, but TIVO's subscription price is excessive. It should be no more than $4.99 if you buy the hardware. Oh, a second DVR is the same price. So I can have two DVRs for the price on one TIVO subscription. That doesn't include the fact that my TIVO cost me money up front.

Re:So, my DVR is half the monthly subscription.

[Fred Ferrigno]

If it was $4.99/mo there would still be people who would complain that it isn't free. The price of the service isn't determined by how much you wish it costs, but by what brings in the most profit for TiVo. TiVo isn't stupid. They know that they could bring in a few more customers if they lowered the price, but they'd be making less money on every customer. I'm sure someone at TiVo has run the numbers and come to the conclusion that $12.95 is the best balance between attracting customers and making money per customer.

Also, your cable or satellite provider can afford to give you a unit for free and charge less per month because a base equipment cost is already factored into your monthly payment. They only charge you $5.99 more for the DVR, but really you're paying some unknown amount per month to offset the cost of your equipment as part of your normal bill. TiVo doesn't get any of that money, so you have to pay the full cost of the unit.

It's like buying a cellphone. If you get the cheap Nokia, it's "free", except you're really just paying for it with your monthly fees. If you buy a Blackberry from your service provider, they'll charge you more, but still not as much as it really costs. TiVo is like buying the unlocked phone directly from RIM without any service provider discounts.

Re:So, my DVR is half the monthly subscription.

[Fred Ferrigno]

They know that they could bring in a few more customers if they lowered the price, but they'd be making less money on every customer. Heh. Emphasis doesn't make much sense on "customer". It was supposed to be "they'd be making less money on every customer."

Re:So, my DVR is half the monthly subscription.

[sjf]

Kinda sorta true. But, TiVo has pretty much always sold the devices with a rebate on activation. A big rebate. My last TiVo cost me $49 after the discounts were applied. In this the sense, it's exactly like buying a cellphone - it's just that the mechanics of the pricing is different. Best Buy gets its money on the profit margin of the HW, not the service plan.

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[Abcd1234]

it has two recorders which my mythTV box doesn't support

Why doesn't it? I have two inputs, and I might add a third some day (though, two has, so far, been enough). Works great.

DVR's contain parts that can *fail* so the rental model isn't that bad for the consumer given the life of a disk. Also consider that a DVR's disk gets a lot of use.

And then you have to rely on the cable co fixing it, because you *can't*. And, given the quality of cable co support, well... I'll pass (odds are, their "fix" will be to send you a new one, meaning you lose all your recordings, preferences, etc).

The software works well enough for recording shows

Yeah, this comes down to taste. I regularly have weird schedules along the lines of "record this show on all channels except for these two". eg, CSI - Spike, which plays ancient CSI re-runs over and over and over and... that kind of flexibility isn't available in your standard DVR.

I already pay for the TV listings with my comcast cable bill

I don't pay for TV listings at all.

Wiring my living room for internet access to pull channel listings is non trivial

I'll give you this one. Though, I've used 802.11g (watching TV on my laptop) with reasonable success, and that's with two floors between me and the WAP.

My Wife can understand the integrated remote

This I just don't understand... I have a single, el-cheapo programmable remote that controls my myth box and TV, and works perfectly. You're saying this wasn't possible for you?

No, IMHO, the biggest knock on Myth is HD, and the biggest knock for TiVo is the subscription, and the fact the box is, technically speaking, closed (yeah, you can hack it, but I suspect that voids your warrantee).

But cable co DVRs? Good god, no thanks. Limited storage (I have 750GB in my myth setup. Good luck getting that in a rented DVR), crappy, closed software, limited recording capabilities... And given the number of times I hear about rented DVRs crashing, locking up, *erasing all recordings*, and who knows what else, I'll gladly take my Myth setup, which has been running solidly for the last 8 months, 24/7. And if it *does* break, at least I can fix it.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so wrong, it's a dis-service to simply call it wrong...

Re:$10/month from the cable company and you're don

[All Names Have Been]

Heh - you sound like my GF's father. He refused to get Tivo because Consumer Reports gave some Panasonic (IIRC) POS a buy rating because of all the features (DVD recording, no subscription, low purchase price, etc.) that weren't in (and I quote) "the feature poor and overly expensive Tivo." So he got one. The interface SUCKED SO FUCKING BAD. I can't stress how bad. Not Plan-9 From Outer Space Bad, we're talking Gigli or Catwoman bad. He suffered for a week, then gave it up and returned it.

One thing I learned a while ago - usability for the primary purpose trumps loads of crap features that cause brain hemorrhages when used. For examples of the former, see the iPod, Tivo, and the default Google search page; For the latter, see nearly any recent portable DAP or media players, any cable-company set top box (DVR or no), and any number of dead search "portal" sites.

If the cable companies really want to kill Tivo, they really need to improve their product. Or just buy Tivo and bury them.

Tivo vs Cable Companies

[Daxel]

What most people do not realize is that every Comcast/Time Warner/RCN/DirectTV DVR that goes out includes a royalty to Tivo. Tivo won the patent war with Direct TV over their box, and won a significant settlement. The also locked in the patent, which now generates income for them. Tivo will always have a niche in the market. That said, anyone who has just used a cable DVR as opposed to a Tivo does not understand the difference. I am not going to go into the feature set here, but suffice to say, bringing your comcast DVR to a Tivo party is like showing up with a low end dell while everyone else has tricked out Alienware boxes.

I need Tivo to be more than a DVR

[Anthony Baby]

I am actually in the market for a DVR, and I'm very displeased with what the last and current lines of SKUs have to offer. All of them from LG through Samsung, RCA, and Panasonic require you to make major sacrifices: flaky firmware that will cause the machine to spaz out vs superior recording quality, shoddy build quality vs low price, DVD-RAM support vs no fscking tuner (not an issue if you always use a cable receiver), or good quality recording vs slow performance and crap software interface. With the likelihood that after 2009 all the major cable companies will lock down the analog channels so that you must use their receiver to even get CBS over coax, it would be nice to have an alternative way to get these channels through the DVR. What if Tivo evolves into a video provider of its own, streaming channels over broadband into its Tivo deck. That is something I would be interested in. There would be a bandwidth issue I think, especially if you want to stream HD. Not everyone blindly lusts after anything labelled HD though. I have several HD channels that look worse than their analog standard def counterparts because the networks don't get that crap in = crap out. Tivo could become an alternative to DirecTV if it could offer a satellite service, preferably one that didn't require an external dish since many consumers can't mount such things. When I first heard the rumors about an AppleTV, I was ecstatic at what I thought would be an STB which would stream channels from ABC to TechTV/G4 over the Internet and display them on my TV, and then allow me to archive my downloads. I am pretty sure I wasn't alone in hoping for this. I would be willing to pay a fair subscription fee to stream in 480p video with commercials.

Off air recording

[tgibbs]

Here's another one. A big reason why many people get cable is for better quality. But with this new TiVo and an ordinary roof antenna, it is possible in many areas to pull in all of the network channels in full HD quality, and with TiVo, you can watch what you want when you want. So who needs hundreds of channels to flip through when you've got a 12 hour backlog saved on your TiVo? Of course, there are movie channels and cable channel special shows like The Sopranos, but are they really worth paying $50 a month for cable, when pretty much anything that's any good will be available soon on DVD and a basic NetFlix account costs just $5/ month?

The comments are the best part of the article

[John Jorsett]

I like the comments where people are clearly trying to maintain their cool on a touchy subject, but it still comes out. "You're an uneducated boob-head. No judgment implied."

KIDZONE

[Anonymous Coward]

well worth the price I am paying for my tivo (8.30/mo for 1 box).
I don't have to worry about my kids getting up early and running across something objectionable, as tivo will only show them what I specifically tell it to.

AHHH, TIVO. A company after my own heart -- throw out a blanket deny and only allow what I tell it to.

beats the V-chip all to hell, for that matter it beats anything else I have seen short of throwing the TV out the door.

Score 5, Interesting????

[seeks2know]

Perhaps, but 100% wrong!!!

As noted above, the MythTV developers already have a solution that will replace Zap2It Labs service. So no, it will not be negatively impacted.

And yes, I LOVE MY MYTH TV!!!

Re:Score 5, Interesting????

[geminidomino]

I love my MythBox too (my favorite bit was hacking it up to run epsxe) but SchedulesDirect is vaporware right now... It may be our last, best hope for data, but the clock is ticking.

Re:Tivo = renting / AppleTV / MythTV?

[Anonymous Coward]

I too have a TiVo and love it. I bought a lifetime data subscription so I'm out ... $299 + $299 = $600. Eh, for most people TV simply isn't worth that price and I'll not get another TiVo or upgrade to the HD model so long as there is a monthly charge. For what I need, MythTV with an QAM receiver will work just fine.

Don't get me wrong, I tried to create my own TiVo for 4 years, then finally gave up, but that was in the 1990s. Things are different now. Perhaps AppleTV?

Re:Done, Done and Done...

[demon]

Except anything in HD (or SD digital cable) where 5C encryption's applied - unfortunately until ATI, or Microsoft, or whoever fixes that problem, your Windows Media Center DVR box can't use a CableCARD, so those programs are off the menu.

remove commercials on other OSes from other stream

[Quevar]

I know you can flag commercials and skip them from within MythTV, but I was wondering if there is a way to do a similar thing so I can flag a commercial from another video source, like say from a TiVo that I downloaded the show from.

Before someone tells me to just get a MythTV box, let me just say that I bought a lifetime subscription TiVo before MythTV was adequate and I don't have any spare computers lying around or enough money to build a new one for this purpose.

My end goal is to automatically download shows from my TiVo to my Mac, remove the commercials via a MythTV port, and then convert them to play on my iPod. I can get everything to work automatically except for the removing the commercials part.

Re:Media Center! + Cygwin + Remote Desktop

[Sgt_Jake]

um... Linux mce is not tivo, it's a Linux based MCE, with an obscene amount of extensions, way WAY beyond what you can do with a Windows system. For example - can you use your cell phone as a remote control with your Windows MCE box? A remote control that works on your stereo, TV, and home security system? Can your Windows MCE PC recognize your phone when you walk in the door and set the house to your preferences (lights, music, volume, ??)? Will your Windows MCE PC move the movie your watching into your bedroom*, while the movie is running, because you walked _from_ the living room to the bedroom (*I think you need a bluetooth phone for this...)? Can you use it to make phone calls from screen? Using your voip line? Video conferencing? Disclaimer, I haven't set *all* this up (I don't have a home security system, for example), but the stuff I am using works like a charm, wasn't all that hard to get running, and I've only been using it for about 2 weeks. I don't think there's a commercial offering out there that can compete with it, short of a high end total home automation make over - and I can't justify that expense.

TiVo is DOOMED!

[Anonymous Coward]

...but in the end, we're all dead. Here's my advice, TiVo. Get in front of the IPTV bandwagon whenever it really takes off. This may require being a parking lot corporation for a while or perhaps turning into a software company instead, but if there's anything to YouTube and various other video on demand sites, perhaps TiVo really does have the "mindshare" to make inroads into it. Cable companies give people oodles of channels full of 24-7 programming that a large fraction of customers don't want at any given time. If consumers can get high quality programming from anywhere on the internet, perhaps TiVo can create an application that can automate and simplify that task in a way that makes a computer less like a PC and more like a stereo, a television, or a DVD player.

Or on the other hand, maybe TiVo will be bought by Apple. Whatever happens, it's an exciting time.
 
...Assuming that the content providers (actors, production people, money people) and their distributor friends (cable and tv networks, movie studios, merchandizers, assorted middlemen) stop depending on lawsuits and DRM to enforce their cartels and start to embrace new technology.

Google is the new AOL

[r_jensen11]

Maybe not in terms of shittiness, but definately in terms of over-valuation. If I bought stock in Google when it first went public, I would've cashed out long ago. But I'm not too upset, because it's not like I lost money by not investing (Nobody really had a decent expected value of a share of Google.) AOL/Time Warner deal, anybody?

Nice article BUT

[MarsDefenseMinister]

Cable companies have the same future that telegraph companies are currently enjoying. TiVo has the network features, and they're NOT in bed with the cable companies. That's not a bad thing any more than Google failing to make a big deal with Western Union was a bad thing.

IPTV? Already here. Just half-assed.

[nil0lab]

Yeah, you can buy content to be downloaded to your TiVo. From Amazon. But not the stuff I like to watch. And with some serious terms-of-service issues. And insane pricing.

Not enough with the homebrew!

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys, get over it!

It's wicked kewl that you can pay $$$ for a box, plug it in, pay subscription fees, and hope the features you wan't aren't taken away from you by a software update. Yay you!

But many of the rest of us aren't interested in doing that ourselves. For us, an appliance, like a MythTV box, is the way to go. A small form factor PC, not paying for a service contract, not having features pulled at a whim, IT JUST WORKS.

I diddle with enough technology, and I want to with my DVR. I want it to have a great interface and a steady supply of programming that engages me, and not have features pulled in the future or be at the whim of a 3rd party. Everything else is gravy (and yes, the Myth box has some gravy too.)

So please, whenever you hear the name "MythTV", learn to use THREADS instead of bitching about a thread you don't want to read about.

Have a nice day! Oh, yeah, MythTV-MythTV-MythTV-MythTV-MythTV-MythTV-MythTV.

All cable DVRs will be TiVO anyway

[chaoticzen]

Comcast has struck a deal with TiVO to make all their DVRs. Also they will be loaded with a TiVO lite software made for Comcast. TiVO is also in talks with other cable companies to do the same with them. Eventually everything is going to be TiVO so you might as well get use to associating DVR with TiVO.

comcast + tivo

[bagofcrap]

Why didn't a comment saying that Comcast, the cable co, is actually paying Tivo to port their front end to their provided set-top box?
Its older news, and they're certainly taking their time rolling it out, but it does rather negate the article's main argument

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-03-14-tivo- usat_x.htm