SonicBlue (Replay/Rio) Bought By D&M

An anonymous reader writes "Here's the announcement that many have been waiting for all week. Yesterday, the ReplayTV and Rio product lines of now-defunct SonicBlue were auctioned off in a bankruptcy court. Despite earlier negotiations failing to result in a deal, the Japanese holding company D&M, makers of high-end Denon and Marantz stereo gear, bought the product lines for $36.2 million. The big question is what about all of the "lifetime subscriptions" that people bought? No answers as of yet, but we can all be hopeful."

This might hold an answer

[austinij]

Silicon Valley Biz Ink [prnewswire.com] is indicating that all current customers will be retained. Hopefully, it works out that way.

-- I

Doesn't any one RTA? Subscription info...

[splatter]

"D&M Holdings intends to keep all ReplayTV
customers and will design, manufacture and distribute a line of ReplayTV and
Rio products."

Sounds like they plan on continuing as normal. Hopefully D&M won't be buryied like Sonic Blue.

Re:Too bad

[jackalope]

The ReplayTV OS is a modified version of VxWorks from WinRiver.

One shouldn't immediately assume that there are only 2 operating systems in the world. There are a slew more than that, especially in the embedded device arena.

Re:Hi-fi buys lo-fi

[Wyatt Earp]

D&M isn't high end.

It's more of a high-end of the low-end.

Rotel, Krell, Sunfir, Mark Levinson, anything with vaccum tubes and the list goes on are more towards the middle and hugh end of the audiophile spectrum.

You know stuff where each mono-block amp costs more than the most expensive D&M box. Or when your system has a phono cartridge that costs 5-15,000 bucks, that's high-end.

But me, I'm happy with my Denon AVR-3803

Re:This is what scares me about these services....

[Snowspinner]

For what it's worth, TIVO has repeatedly promised that, should they go out of business, they will release ways to continue getting the channel information for free. ReplayTV hasn't made a promise like that, but I'm honestly not terribly worried about them if they're owned by D&M, who I doubt are going anywhere.

Re:Lifetime?

[zsmooth]

I admit I'm not that familiar with the product line, I use a DirecTiVo myself, but I thought ReplayTV's didn't use the subscription model that Tivo uses? I seem to recall folks using that as a reason to get a ReplayTV in place of a Tivo.

When Replays first went on sale, the cost of a lifetime subscription was included with the unit, so they all cost like $500 or $600. Then they realized that Tivo's method was working better since a lot of people didn't want to put down that big a chunk of change all at once.

Re:Hi-fi buys lo-fi

[ePhil_One]

Denon and Marantz are related to the likes of Kenwood, Sony and Pioneer like a ferrari to a volkswagen

More like middle range, say more like a Volkswagen to a Jaguar. What the average joe thinks of as high end, but folks who are really dedicated to it know there's lots of stuff even higher and/or more specialized. Carver would more closely map to Ferrari, perhaps McIntosh to Lamborgini. And there are more out there that map to even more exotic stuff, like McLaren's, Liegnfeter(sp?), Vector, Shelby, Panos, ... (Ok, so I'm more into cars than audio) Probably maps pretty well in terms of volumes, etc.

I'm still cursing my freind for getting me hooked on the idea of getting a Carver Sunfire (http://www.sunfire.com/ [sunfire.com])

BK Court Info - Sonic Blue's sale of Replay &

[slogadget]

Looks like the Bankruptcy case for Sonic Blue will be held in the Northern District of California Bankruptcy court. Judge Marilyn Morgan is hearing the case. Here is a link about the sale of Replay and Rio: Sale of Replay, Tues 15th April 2003 [uscourts.gov] ~Robert

Memo to companies: Don't hire Greg Ballard as CEO

[MarkLR]

SonicBlue is the second company (at least) that Greg Ballard drove into bankrupcy. The first was 3DFX. I sense a trend forming.

Re:Lifetime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of it was people, but mostly it was stores. For the same commitment in shelf-space, the tivo cost them ~33% less to carry because of the reduced inventory costs. You can see that this was the case because ReplayTV went to a direct-sales approach for the 4000 series, keeping the inclusive fee. But when they wanted to get back in the B&M shelves with the 4500 and 5000 boxes, they implemented the subscription model instead, making the boxes at least as attractive as the Tivo to the merchants.

The bonus to the manufacturer for the seperate fee approach is that ~100% goes to the manufacturer rather than getting eaten away at due to the retail chain. The bonus for the consumer of the included fee approach is that when there is sale based on a percentage discount then that discount also applied to the programming fee.

That's why I bought my replaytv, with a 50% off discount (thank you venture capitalists) at 800.com, my "lifetime" subscription was also half-price. The tivo they were offering with the same discount would have cost ~$100 more in the long run.