SONICblue Hits the Auction Block

turkeywrap writes "Looks like there's no hope for SONICblue, makers of ReplayTV and Rio MP3 players. An agreement with D&M holdings (parent company of audio equipment makers Denon) fell through, so now a bankruptcy court will hold an auction for both of the main business units, ReplayTV and Rio, on April 15. Glad I bought my tivo."

TiVo

[mrpuffypants]

As much as people speculate that TiVo is going under (about as much as the rumors that Apple will fail as well) they seem to be a company with well-defined goals and a good marketing plan.

TiVo's now just as recognizable as "Xeroxing" a document, or buying some "Kleenex". Now that they've entered the lexicon for a large part of the world I think they will have tremendous staying power.

Also, they've treaded lightly in regard to their new "Home media option," which allows people to share TV shows across a home network, and play pictures and music on their TiVo's. A careful use of copyright protection has, so far, kept them out of the legal wranglings that SonicBlue had to face the minute that every major media company in the world sued them after the ReplayTV product announcement.

Re:What if...

[Zathrus]

the bigger question is: will SONICBlue release the specs of their service, so that others can now provide it ? Would TiVo release these specs if they were going under? Or will the bankruptcy court treat these as trade secrets, worth some monetary value to the creditors, and prevent the release?

TiVo stated once upon a time that they'd do this. Fat chance. A judge will certainly rule that this is information of value and prohibit any official release of information.

That said, there are TiVo hackers that have figured it all out already, at least for Series1 boxes. The S2 boxes are locked down more tightly (although it's being cracked very, very slowly), so dunno about that yet. DirecTiVo's aren't even under the perview of TiVo anymore, so unless DirecTV went tits up you'd still have service on them.

Will the people who forked over the $300 (or whatever) for "lifetime service" be considered creditors too? Shouldn't they be?

They are considered creditors. Of the lowest class (which is pretty much where creditors are anyway in bankruptcy court). Most creditors are lucky to see ten cents on the dollar after bankruptcy court, so it may be that you'd get a few more months or weeks of service and that'd be it. Depends on how the judge rules... with the obvious issue that pissing off your customers is not a good way to get out of bankruptcy. Based on that I'd be surprised if any judge would invalidate the lifetime service option.

Oh, you mean what happens if the company went really and truely bankrupt? And nobody bought the assets? Well, then you're still being treated like a creditor. And you're getting the same thing any other creditor in your situation would get - absolutely nothing. The various bits of IP may be sold off, but that doesn't mean you'll get access to any of it - including things like how to download scheduling data.

I suggest you look into what happened to any one of the failed "Internet PC" companies to see what would happen to your hardware. Unless you hack it, you're going to wind up with a large doorstop.

Re:What about the ReplayTV users?

[RobotRunAmok]

There are a number of billing services (e.g., CableData) in the US who routinely prepare various flavors of program schedule downloads and attendant metadata for the purpose of populating cable TV on-screen displays, billing systems, etc. The DBS providers (DirecTV et.al.) do their own collation. I gotta think this is a great opportunity for one of these shops to expand subscriber base substantially without adding much work.

These companies have already whipped the toughest part -- establishing a regular system wherein the networks provide you with the info in a form you can manipulate -- so the rest should be gravy.

Re:TiVo

[sylvester]

TiVo's now just as recognizable as "Xeroxing" a document

Yeah, right. 'cause my parents have heard of a TiVo.

TiVo is absolutely nowhere *near* as recognizable as Xerox, which is probably still even less recognizable than Kleenex.

Maybe, concievably, amongst 18-25 yo middle & upper class males you have 50% recognition of that term. Amongst the same group I bet you have 80% for Xerox and 90% for Kleenex.

Admittedly I pulled those numbers out of the air, but you've got a twisted sense of reality if you think TiVo is as recognizable of a brand as Xerox and Kleenex.

-Rob

ReplayTV not worthless

[mik]

It is highly likely (IMHO) that Replay will end up being purchased by D&M or a competitor - after all, there is both a significant installed base of users and a non-trivial revenue stream from subscriptions in addition to the IP of the DVR hardware. Heck, maybe even TIVO will bid.

IANAL, but I would think that any purchaser of the replay business unit would be responsible for honoring existing service contracts, including those lifetime subscriptions. If the contracts are breached by replay (e.g. by the buyer or even by replay simply folding), then the owners of the abandoned subscriptions would be due damages and/or part of the auction proceeds.

If the service is abandoned for any reason, it is pretty clear that the replay hacker community will no longer need to restrain themselves - people have been *very* supportive of replay and have tended to come down pretty hard on anyone looking to steal services. If we owners are abandoned, we'll be moving into reverse engineering mode bigtime!

A good reason to buy Linux based appliances

[smartin]

I love my Tivo and am happy to pay the Tivo company for my listings and updates, but if they go out of business i'm not to worried because the Tivo is an open system. My investment is resonably safe because there is a development/hacking community built up around the box and it will continue to work and be supported by the community. This illustrates an important reason to buy Linux based products from a consumers point of view. Many of these new devices are great but aren't guaranteed to survive. If you buy a device based on a closed technology, it will probably be useless if the vendor goes out of business, if you buy one based on an open technology, you at least have a chance of it still being useful. Cases in point are the Audrey and Rio Receiver.

Re:What went wrong?

[deanj]

I've owned one from the beginning, and lived through the SonicBlue buyout of the original ReplayTV company. Their biggest problem was that they didn't go for a subscription for these things from the beginning. The "lifetime" subscription was built into the cost of the unit. This made the price point much higher than TiVo, and given the choice between the initial cost of a ReplayTV and a TiVo, people picked the TiVO. Nevermind that a lifetime subscription buyout for TiVo made it the same price as a ReplayTV... People didn't look at it that way.

After they fixed that, the biggest problem was that they never got "mind share" (did I really use that phrase....shoot me now!) for the product the way TiVo did. Tell anyone about a ReplayTV, and they're more than likely to say "Oh, like a TiVo".
I don't think I've ever seen a ReplayTV commercial in all the time I've owned one.

They had been trying to OEM these things to other companies that do set-top boxes, but I think in the end, the companies decided to do it for themselves, rather than partner with SonicBlue.

It's a great device....and fun while it lasted.

Mindset

[tgibbs]

Maybe I'm just of the mindset that if I want to record something, I will. I would rather not have the Tivo make an educated guess at my tastes.

I'm of the mindset that likes to have a choice. So if I want my TiVo to do this, I'll turn the feature on. If I don't want it to do it, I'll switch it off.

Re:Greg Ballard Strikes Again

[egarland]

Wow! 3DFx was an impressive company with really good technology. I was a NVidia man my self but up until the end I debated the wisdom of my choice. 3DFx had sound technology, loyal customers, and some really powerful IP (their multi-chip rendering was by far the best.) It takes a real moron to run that strong of a company into the ground. It would seem from the outside that they could have backed off, sured things up and lived to see another day. I can't believe someone else hired him! What the hell are these people thinking?

I chose ReplayTV over Tivo a long time ago. I'm a big Linux fan but I just couldn't get over the 10/100 ethernet port and all the cool options it represented. They used http for interaction with the box which is wonderfully flexible. It was a nice modular architecture with lots of expantion possibilities. And months went by and nothing happened. And more months and more nothing. I haven't had a software update on the box for almost a year and there are issues that need to be fixed. The company has been complietely impotent.

In my experience, there is a type of person who loves to be in charge and should never be allowed to do so because they suck at it. They see most successes as their's and most failures as someone else's. To them, every prolem has an easy solution and it's the best one. I have been blessed to work with some great people who know how to encourage, lead by example, trust in the wisdom of the people who know what they are talking about, and stick to what they do best.

You can blame these things on bad engineers, small budgets and other logistical issues but let's face it: A good leader *makes* things happen. An average leader *let's* things happen. It takes a bad leader to stop things from happening and I get the feeling that's the type of leader Greg Ballard is.

Re:A good reason to buy Linux based appliances

[Mr. Slippery]

I love my Tivo and am happy to pay the Tivo company for my listings and updates, but if they go out of business i'm not to worried because the Tivo is an open system.

Actually, the Replay has been pretty well reverse-engineered. I think that even if the company goes belly up, enough is understood about the protocol for something to be hacked up to keep mine running

Quit bashing TiVo...

[The Lynxpro]

TiVo was smart enough to make themselves synonamous with PVR technology. They were smarter in the subscription based model from the get-go and that caused them to leapfrom ReplayTV. By the time SonicBlue purchased Replay, the game was already up. Did it make me mad that when TiVo launched Series2 they did not bundle it out of the box with USB 2.0, Firewire, or a built-in ethernet port? Yes. But I went ahead and purchased it because I enjoyed my old Series1 and I had a gut feeling Replay would tank. Sure, if you want broadband on a TiVo, you have to buy a USB-to-ethernet dongle (if you are going wired) and you also have to pay $99 for the Home Media Option if you want to stream MP3s or photos, program via the net, or share programs with other TiVo units in your home. Does that bite? Sure, but it is causing TiVo to become profitable and that adds extra to the value of the user experience since the company isn't going under. As a matter of fact, that counts for a whole lot.

As a long-time ReplayTV user...

[jbarr]

...this is very disturbing and disappointing. I own a modified model 2001, a stock 2020, and a new 5040, and these have been indespensible.

Problem is that there is no way to set the clock or do manual recordings without Guide Data (unless you bought a Lifetime subscription on the 5000 series.) If the dial-up and Internet connections get shut down, these become bricks.

I guess I could always get TiVo units, but ReplayTV has always been my system of choice.