TiVO won't go out of business. Worst case they get bought by a Sony or Blockbuster or Microsoft. This is the future of television. If you ever experience it you won't doubt that for an instant. DiVX was a consumer choice thing. This will be a consumer demand thing.
Don't confuse PTV with DVR functionality. I have a dishplayer (with 40GB drive in it)and it works great for recording stuff, but it is not personal television. I cannot customize it and it does not learn my preferences. Also, I really cannot conceive of anyway of filling up my 40GBs without archiving shows to it. DirecTV will be offering a true TiVo box later this year with the best of both worlds. As for your recording concerns, that seems to be just a matter of programming. I am sure their coders will figure it out.
Umm the service provider is AOL's phone network. make you own call on whether or not that network is going down anytime soon. But if you decide it is going down, maybe someone should tell their 20 billion customers.
You can hook it up to your VCR for archiving. in fact, you can archive a VHS to TiVo and never again have to play the tape. no wear and tear on your kids tape even after 100 viewings of Winnie the Pooh. I would imagine within 18 months we will see a DVD TiVO combo box. I don't need anything more than that.
Those of you doubting this product or technology, you should really give it a try. It has changed the way I watch television forever. I could not imagine going back to the way it was before.
To Address some points and concerns of posters
1) Feature Problems - The author rightly notes that TiVo doesn't currently deal very well with the issue of repeats and syndicated programming being duplicated on multiple channels. You just need to have patience on this one. Tivo is currently on release 1.3, and more features will be added over time. The box is run on Linux and the company wants the OS to be stable first and foremost, so features are being added gradually.
2) Price - Already the 30 hour units are dropping to $399. You can expect this trend to continue for the near future. Remember we are in the pioneer/early adopter phases of this technology. This is when the prices are at their highest. For those saying $10 a month is too much, I don't know your finances, but I can tell you that this will change the way you watch tv. Is that worth $10/month? that is up to you.
3) Phone Line access - No way around this. TiVo has to use your phone every night to dial in for the Channel Guide.
4) Hard Drive Size - Yes the initial versions have smallish hard drives in them. Obviously larger ones are in the future.
5) Picture Quality - Picture Quality on the best setting is incredible. Even on a big screen TV it looks very nice.
Finally I just want to make a few comments on the Future of TiVo. This company has agreements with DirecTV, Sony, Blockbuster, and AOL. Sometime this year you will be able to buy a TiVo that incorporates both TiVO and your DirecTV tuner. Thus the bitstream will be recorded to disk directly from the satellite and the image will be replayed in the same quality as if viewed live. Sony will be releasing a 30hr TiVo in April. Blockbuster has signed a deal with TiVo to offer real Video on demand services via TiVo (most likely requireing some type of broadband service). And lastly, we may not like AOL, but interactive TV and convergence is the way of the future.
Yes, commericials are now an endangered species, but TiVO offers so much more than that. As a final example of something you can do with TiVo, listen to this:
It is 8pm and you ready to watch some tv, ER is coming on, but you have TiVO set to 'TiVo' that, while you watch another show (star trek) you recorded earlier in the week. At 8:45 you finish watching star trek and flip over to ER and start watching it from the beginning (while it is still being broadcast live). At 9:30 you finish watching ER.
The pause and rewind functionality are also very easy to underestimate, but I will leave it at that.
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TiVO won't go out of business. Worst case they get bought by a Sony or Blockbuster or Microsoft. This is the future of television. If you ever experience it you won't doubt that for an instant. DiVX was a consumer choice thing. This will be a consumer demand thing.
Don't confuse PTV with DVR functionality. I have a dishplayer (with 40GB drive in it)and it works great for recording stuff, but it is not personal television. I cannot customize it and it does not learn my preferences. Also, I really cannot conceive of anyway of filling up my 40GBs without archiving shows to it. DirecTV will be offering a true TiVo box later this year with the best of both worlds. As for your recording concerns, that seems to be just a matter of programming. I am sure their coders will figure it out.
Should be cool
Umm the service provider is AOL's phone network. make you own call on whether or not that network is going down anytime soon. But if you decide it is going down, maybe someone should tell their 20 billion customers.
You can hook it up to your VCR for archiving. in fact, you can archive a VHS to TiVo and never again have to play the tape. no wear and tear on your kids tape even after 100 viewings of Winnie the Pooh. I would imagine within 18 months we will see a DVD TiVO combo box. I don't need anything more than that.
Those of you doubting this product or technology, you should really give it a try. It has changed the way I watch television forever. I could not imagine going back to the way it was before.
To Address some points and concerns of posters
1) Feature Problems - The author rightly notes that TiVo doesn't currently deal very well with the issue of repeats and syndicated programming being duplicated on multiple channels. You just need to have patience on this one. Tivo is currently on release 1.3, and more features will be added over time. The box is run on Linux and the company wants the OS to be stable first and foremost, so features are being added gradually.
2) Price - Already the 30 hour units are dropping to $399. You can expect this trend to continue for the near future. Remember we are in the pioneer/early adopter phases of this technology. This is when the prices are at their highest. For those saying $10 a month is too much, I don't know your finances, but I can tell you that this will change the way you watch tv. Is that worth $10/month? that is up to you.
3) Phone Line access - No way around this. TiVo has to use your phone every night to dial in for the Channel Guide.
4) Hard Drive Size - Yes the initial versions have smallish hard drives in them. Obviously larger ones are in the future.
5) Picture Quality - Picture Quality on the best setting is incredible. Even on a big screen TV it looks very nice.
Finally I just want to make a few comments on the Future of TiVo. This company has agreements with DirecTV, Sony, Blockbuster, and AOL. Sometime this year you will be able to buy a TiVo that incorporates both TiVO and your DirecTV tuner. Thus the bitstream will be recorded to disk directly from the satellite and the image will be replayed in the same quality as if viewed live. Sony will be releasing a 30hr TiVo in April. Blockbuster has signed a deal with TiVo to offer real Video on demand services via TiVo (most likely requireing some type of broadband service). And lastly, we may not like AOL, but interactive TV and convergence is the way of the future.
Yes, commericials are now an endangered species, but TiVO offers so much more than that. As a final example of something you can do with TiVo, listen to this:
It is 8pm and you ready to watch some tv, ER is coming on, but you have TiVO set to 'TiVo' that, while you watch another show (star trek) you recorded earlier in the week. At 8:45 you finish watching star trek and flip over to ER and start watching it from the beginning (while it is still being broadcast live). At 9:30 you finish watching ER.
The pause and rewind functionality are also very easy to underestimate, but I will leave it at that.