Will New Apps Keep TiVo Afloat?

Dave Zatz writes "Tivo, struggling to keep customers and inch towards profitability as execs step down, has continued to shift focus from pure PVR functionality towards digital convergence. Tivo's recently released Home Media Engine SDK extends Tivo's capabilities as developers churn early Java apps out, including the eBay-developed BuyItNow and the independent Airport Express AirTunes remote control. The recently released Tivo To Go allows PC users to transfer shows to their computers for viewing, editing, and burning shows. Mac users aren't entirely forgotten - a hidden feature in the OSX Tivo Desktop 1.9 provides AAC music playback through the television."

Tivo To Go brings more harm?

[fembots]

Legality aside, is TTG another thing that media publishers have to worry about in the future? First it was MP3 downloads, then came the movie downloads, now this TV downloads?

It reminds me of Futurama, since it was usually scheduled to be interrupted or pre-empted by the football, fans have to resort to downloading from the internet, and Fox was sending C&D letters left right and centre.

Now that people can pre-record these TV shows, edit out advertisement and "potentially" share them illegally over the internet on P2P network (there you go, I have used all "keywords" in one sentence), I'm sure companies will starting complaining about lost sales in DVDs/Ad placements.

Re:Tivo To Go brings more harm?

[Anonymous Coward]

As somebody whose used Tivo2Go, I can tell you that you can't just share the file out. You need to enter a password each time you view the file, and you can't use it on more than 10 PC's. So, filesharing's not really an option, though you could share with a few select friends.

What makes Tivo2Go really suck though is transfer time. Over a 100BaseTx network, it takes ~45 minutes to transfer a one hour show. Now, if it takes me that long to transfer the file, what is the point of taking it with me? I could have watched it in that time!

Heh, cute

[Anonymous Coward]

This may just be my perceptions. But this is what the progression of things has looked like to me.

1. Tivo sells PVRs.
   
2. Microsoft, afraid that Tivo could someday use its position as a PVR vendor to push upward into areas of functionality traditionally the sole domain of the PC, starts trying to muscle into the PVR market so as to eventually make PVR sales impossible to profit from, at least for Tivo.
   
3. Tivo, beginning to realize that soon PVR sales will be impossible to profit from, begins to push upward into areas of functionality traditionally the sole domain of the PC in order to retain health.

And I laugh.

Re:See: WebTV

[ifreakshow]

I think the point is that they don't need to make the apps themselves. Paypal/Ebay did the development. This just enhances there service. What if Jeopardy did one that allowed you to play along at home somehow? or they made an instant blog module where you could populate a blog entry with a screen shot and information about the show your watching.

ugh, Common sense

[NanoGator]

What really bugs me about the attempts to stop TV from being shared on the web is the lack of thought about cause and effect.

Here's a question: Why would anybody download a show off the internet?

Here's a few answers:

1.) Because I or my TiVo missed it.
2.) I didn't know about the show until after it had aired.
3.) Everybody's telling me about this show, but I want to see the original episode first.
4.) I want to have a copy I can watch over and over again.
5.) The picture quality of the downloaded version is better. (Believe it or not, I really have run into this.)
6.) I can't get that show, I don't have the right channel nor can I get it.

I doubt that an answer like "I'm sick of commercials" would be a widely used one. Who'd want to spend > 1 hour downloading a show to save 12 minutes in commercials? Not a lot.

Imagine what would happen if all of these reasons were addressed. Who would want to acquire unauthorized copies then? What if it became standard for the first episode of any series to be available for download on the show's website? What if DVD releases of TV shows happened closer to when they were originally aired? What if I could pay a couple of bucks to buy download of an episode I missed? Who'd even bother with transferring files over the net then?

Lots of business opportunities here. *Sigh*

To Save TiVo

[brandonY]

Tivo's a great product, but they keep trying to let the users do everything they want....so long as it doesn't make any large companies sad. Here's what they need to do: 1.) Open the system fully. The Tivo started as a very hackable device, but they've been moving to a more and more closed environment. There should be guides on their own website explaining how to add hard drives. There's no reason we can't plug in a USB mouse and keyboard and run X on the thing. 2.) Open exports and imports. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to download an mpg file from my Tivo or load a new one into it. As much as I understand that they don't want to piss off corporations, TV my way is TV where I can send shows I like to my friends and archive my favorites on a permanent medium for myself. It ain't any less legal than a VCR. 3.) Offer a warranty. The TiVo is covered in stickers warning that doing anything except plugging it in will void your warranty, but the "warranty" is an offer to replace it for a small discount if it breaks. It it breaks, and I didn't touch it, and it's been less than a year or so, I want a new one, and I don't intend to pay them. 4.) Put in ad skipping. Sure, it won't endear you to anyone, but they don't like you anyway. Remember, the customer of the cable company is the advertiser. You are not a cable company. Your customer is the person who buys a TiVo. That's important. I'll repeat it. Your customers are not advertisers. They are not cable companies. They are not producers, movie-makers, or any of them. Your job is to appeal to consumers and only consumers. The advertisers will pay you for popups and the like, but if people don't buy TiVo's, you're out of business.

Re:Tivo To Go brings more harm?

[the unbeliever]

You realize that's because the tivo still uses USB 1.1, which has max speed of say, 1.5mbps, rather like thinnet.

I am sick...

[MaestroSartori]

...of hearing about this wonderful device / service combination which I am unable to buy. Tivo stopped selling hardware in the UK years ago now, and show no signs of selling any more.

I want to buy it, but don't want a possibly dodgy second-hand premodified one from some person on ebay. I want a new, unchanged, virgin Tivo box to put under my telly. I am entirely aware that there are alternatives, but all either need more time or money (or both, MythTV I'm looking at you here), or are harder to use.

I HAVE MONEY WAITING FOR YOU MISTER TIVO! LET ME KNOW WHEN I CAN GIVE IT TO YOU! :(

Putting Tivo on hold

[93 Escort Wagon]

Last year I bought a refurbished series 1 Tivo. I love it, but more importantly my wife and daughter really like it as well. When they made the home media option for series 2 free, and dropped the price for subscribing a second Tivo, I almost bought two new ones right there. But as I'm watching the moves this company makes, I've become less and less likely to invest more money in their products. It seems like they keep giving away bits and pieces of the core functionality that make up the very reason I love my Tivo! Then they team up with Microsoft, which makes me think there'll be no Tivo-To-Go for my Mac anytime soon; plus I am wondering if MS is going to start forcing them toward their typical "look at what the customer really wants and find a way to shoehorn it into a full-blown Windows box so it doesn't conflict with our corporate goals" mode of operation.

I'd really like to see Tivo succeed; but I haven't seen any evidence that leads me to think that's at all likely. So for now, I'll just keep using my old Series 1 box, and keep that VCR going out in the family room...

Re:Too Late

[JQuick]

A friend of mine just got a Dish network DVR. I must say, that compared to Tivo, it truly sucks. It's not even like comparing Mac to windows for usability. it's more like comparing Mac to a graphical DOS app.

The remote control has far too many buttons, and some common functions on buttons that are poorly placed.

If you are watching a show, and either accidentally or deliberately go into the menus, the video buffer of what you were watching gets immediately flushed.

The layout of the menus, the UI, the inability to record shows based on name, etc. show a shoddy inattention to detail. Basically, you can search by program name, but only record by time of day.

I was shocked by how poor the interface was, and how unpleasant the system was to use.

Re:No, it won't help -- Apple Should Buy TiVo!

[bushidocoder]

Tivo has somehow managed to pick up almost 5bil in debt. NO ONE is going to buy them. Everyone is waiting for Tivo to go under and then buy up everyone's support contract after the fact and take over from there.

Tivo 2 Go works fine for me

[rasper99]

I saw a few negative comments about Tivo to Go so I wanted to share my positive experience. I have been working on making DVDs not viewing on the computer.

Slow transfers:
I have installed the approved Linksys M200 USB wired network adapter. Transferring shows takes about 2/3 of the time of the show's length when recorded at high quality. My hub says it's at 100mbits. Bored during transfers? Go watch the Tivo! You can start a bunch of stuff transferring and go got bed.

This is what I do that produces pretty good results by going with the flow a bit:

Stop being a cheap ass and buy the dang Sonic software. The $50 version works just fine. You will spend that much on blank DVDs and Tivo service in no time. It's not the best DVD authoring software but once you set up the project it goes all by itself in one long, slow step (about 1.5 times show length on my Barton 2600) without user intervention. No screwing around with 27 painful steps to remove DRM, etc. With Sonic you can easily hack out the commercials in minutes. You can always leave commercials in and fast forward the DVD.

Record on the Tivo at high or best quality.

When making the DVD don't try to put more than an hour on a 4.7G DVD. Use the "fit to DVD" or High quality option. If you want to do a movie make two DVDs until dual layer media gets reasonable. There is an encoding quality option you need to turn up in the Sonic software that takes more time and increases quality.

Even if you record something on the Tivo at basic quality and it isn't repeated so you can turn up the quality if you follow the above one hour per DVD rule it's still kicks butt over dump to even slow play VHS tape.

The end result is not as good as a store bought DVD but then again the current season of the Simpsons isn't due out on DVD anytime soon.

For our friends who like to share:
Once it's on a DVD there isn't any DVD copy protection. You can make copies of the DVD. I haven't tried it but you should be able to make an ISO or Nero image and have your fun.

Call me weird.. but

[bigjnsa500]

this was exactly the reason I choose to purchase a used Series1 Tivo off eBay. I didn't want the DRM crap and the sucky transfer speeds. I hope you know why its that slow is because series2 is USB 1. You'll be lucky if you get 500kb/s. It maybe harder and more expensive to upgrade, but the troubles you guys are having transferring isn't true.

I purchased a TurboNet [9thtee.com] card for the inside expansion slot. This gives me true 100mbit access. 900mb in 30 minutes... right.. try 10 minutes with this sucker.

Upgraded the image to 3.0 with the Instant Cake [9thtee.com] imaging CD. This also includes all the cool tools like tivoweb, tivoftp, etc..

All that remains is to extract the MPEGs to my computer. And that is handled with TyStudio [sourceforge.net]. Its a client/server operation and works very well.

Now see? That wasn't so bad. Oh, on eBay my Series1 was $56 including shipping!

new Comcast boxes give Tivo serious competition

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using tivo for over a year and recently hacked my series 2 to have all the advantages of tivo2go and then some.

I recently got the Comcast cable box with integrated DVR and have been running it side-by-side with the tivo. I gotta tell ya, it's not bad. It only adds $10/month to the cable bill with no equipment to buy. And, it has the advantage of being able to record two programs simultaneously while watching a recorded program, which my standalone Tivo cannot do (yes, I know that DirectTivos can do this). It has series programming and you can tell it whether or not to record only first-run shows.

And once I found out about the 30-second-skip hack for the Comcast box, that was one less advantage that the tivo had. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=0e 5989c1d025b758ed6399bf9730be7a&threadid=449214&per page=20&pagenumber=2/ [avsforum.com]

Some people have been able to transfer shows off the Comcast box using the integrated firewire interface. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?post id=3818890#post3818890/ [avsforum.com]

IMHO, tivo is in trouble. Yes, tivo has a better interface and useful stuff like wishlists. But $13/month plus having to buy your own box is just too much compared to the cable company's DVR. And the cable company's DVR will be enough for most people.