Can TiVo be Saved? 604
ChipGuy writes "TiVo's death watch has begun. The company is having a tough time finding traction in the marketplace, as more and more competitors rush into the market, most of them deep pocketed satellite and cable companies. But is all lost? What if the company went private and became the anti-cable, letting us download, store, organize, and serve media from both cable and -- this is the important part -- the internet.
Others believe that TiVo should get into the content aggregation business."
don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
I figure that the Cable companies are going to move very quickly in this arena. My own (Comcast) offers "On Demand" programming right now for free. I can view programs, store and play later as if it were a movie/DVD. It sounds like the next step is to watch what ever you want, when you want as long as you pay what they want.
I can wait for it all to come together, I know how to program my VCR.
About TiVo (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe me, it can be very disheartening to work for an innovator in a marketplace where large established companies have such control over the distribution channels.
Cable companies and satellite companies already have a "lock" to a large extent on their customers and for them to sell an additional service such as a DVR requires so much less capital investment in marketing, and let's face it, making a good product, than it takes for a company like TiVo.
And those companies already have much deeper pockets than a small company like TiVo with which to absorb the losses associated with pushing this rather expensive technology out to users.
It's kind of funny to me that people will pay $80 cable bills without a whimper but will cry foul at the concept of paying $13 a month to TiVo to make the cable service so much more worthwhile.
Cable DVRs suck. Most people would be much happier with a TiVo and would find the extra expense to be justified. I know I'm biased but I honestly believe that.
My comments are my own and I do not speak for my employer.
Proof (Score:4, Insightful)
You either have to roll over completley or get ready for a long hard battle that you will win. TIVO wimped out and tried to make everyone happy, in the process making very few people happy. They'll get bought by someone. I'd like it to be Apple, but I'm skeptical.
Re:Bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Damn those greedy customers, expecting more and more for what they will surely be willing to pay for.
Re:About TiVo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About TiVo (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but...
* I want a DVI+SPDIF/HDMI input and HD recording capability
* I want faster menus and wishlist processing
* I want nobody to ever mess with 30 second skip. DO NOT FUCK WITH 30 SECOND SKIP.
* I want to be able to watch my TiVo recordings on my P800 fone and/or a video iPod
* weather, stock, headline, etc. applets would be nice.
Cable DVRs do suck, but they also do digital sound and hi-def. They don't handle DVD burning though, and I _may_ upgrade to a DVD-capable DVR in the next few months, remains to be seen whether it's a TiVo unit or some kind of HTPC Linux box..
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
But, since we've been told to start sharing our unininformed opinions:
1) I don't see where turning TiVo into an Internet storage device is a huge win. Yeah, maybe it's a good idea and they should do it, but that will be just as easy for others to duplicate as the PVR business.
2) I'm not sure whether Jarvis is hinting that they should become a warez enabler, but if he is, that's a dead-end business plan. As surely as piracy will continue to exist, that surely will it remain impossible to run a major business on that model in developed countries.
Ala-carte viewing (Score:4, Insightful)
Long Live Tivo (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About TiVo (Score:2, Insightful)
Part of my problem with TiVo is that it requires an upfront cost followed by a subscription cost. I know you can do the 300$ lifetime subscription, but thats TiVo's lifetime and currently things don't look that great. So I buy this box and a year later some new tech comes out (enter HDTV) and my box is no good. With the cable companies subscription plan, they absorb the cost of purchasing the new box. How can TiVo compete with that? Further, with the ever dropping price of home HTPC's how can TiVo compete? It seems that TiVo is just currently over-priced (not by choice) in the market.
Re:About TiVo (Score:5, Insightful)
But I agree with your fundamental point that it's the subsidy that they can give to their customers in the monthly fee area and hardware that is most significant.
TiVo will fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reasons are simple:
1. The cable companies are rolling their own DVRs. TiVo failed to get traction here, and it will kill them.
2. TiVo has hobbled itself. There were features out there that could have helped them (essentially value adds above and beyond the cable company DVRs), but they were too slow to market, and too restrictive in their implementation. Examples: TiVo to Go. Network-able TiVos. Commercial skip. Good features, but TiVo hobbled them (or implemented them late) either through proprietary standards or by not officially advertising them to Joe Sixpack.
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you actually used on Demand? You only get what Comcast decides to store; you don't get to choose what programs you can time-shift. and, of course, you're not "storing" anything -- you're getting whatever programs are held centrally.
The "VCR-style" buttons are a joke -- there's a 4-5 second delay between your remote control button press and the response (good luck trying to stop a program at a given location!).
And, it may "seem" that the next step is full on-demand access to programming, but that's quite naive. keep in mind -- this "on demand" functionality only appeared as a response to DVR feature sets; if DVR competition were to disappear from the marketplace, and their chokehold on content distribution restored, do you really expect them to expand this functionality?!?!
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
This puzzles me....are there really THAT many people out there that pay the monthly fee, rather than the one time lifetime sub. fee? I figure the one time chunk of money into the whole price.
Maybe its me...I hate paying monthly on something if I can get it all out of the way once and for all...
Re:About TiVo (Score:5, Insightful)
We'll see how this plays out. Either the technical superiority of TiVo will win out or the lower-cost, lower-quality options that the cable companies can offer will win out.
As an Apple watcher for 20 years, I would say this: pack up your desk. Cheaper almost always wins in the marketplace; US consumers are trained to evaluate on price first, features second. The feature has to be really visible--visible in the Best Buy or WalMart floor space where the consumer makes their purchasing decision--for it to trump price. And your features aren't; you only see the value after use. That means either taking the plunge because you didn't know alternatives exist, or were pointed to it by a friend. Compared to the free advertising ComCast has on their own channels, good luck with that.
While your product is stellar, and I'm a fanatic user myself, I think it takes too long for folks to appreciate the advantages of the TiVo. And, "too long", in this case, means >10 minutes. How do you market the advantages, without saying simply "easier to use"?
I'm really hoping that the NetFlix deal can save your asses. I'm guessing it won't; it's too far away before release, it'll take too long to download stuff, and/or not enough stuff will be available. TivoToGo, while maybe nice (I dunno, I'm a Mac user), doesn't seem to be the killer feature, either: too long to transfer.
I might suggest that you have some chance if you declare war on ComCast, since they didn't play ball with the distribution deal: allow for unrestricted copying/transfer/ad skip/archiving without ads, and only stop it if they come back to the table. That's pretty chancy, but it might the the only shot y'all have.
Good luck--really. But if it all falls apart, please consider releasing enough info to keep the current boxes useful.
Re:Free TiVo? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's funny!
Indeed, everything should always be free. We should all get paid for doing our work, but should be able to get all of the stuff and services we want for free. That would be perfect! And then, cool new free companies would have all sorts of incentives to hire lots of people to invent even cooler new things that they'd give away for free! Excellent! Everyone would just have all sorts of money, and all sorts of cool things, too! Fantastic!
Re:About TiVo (Score:5, Insightful)
A $100 price point and that "works out of the box" experience.
Household Name Syndrome. (Score:2, Insightful)
Today we xerox on a Canon. It's probably a bit previous-generation, but every refrigerator was a Frigidaire, even when Frigidaire's market share had dwindled. In lots of places, every soft drink is a "coke". I've heard different convenience stores being referred to as "the 7-Eleven". And so on.
Tivo might have lasted just long enough to spawn this effect. "I missed the show but I Tivo'd it."
Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
I got the Charter DVR service from Charter Communications as a test, which is a Motorola BMC9012 running Digeo's MOXI software.
When first set up, the skip button was a 30 second skip, and replay was a 7 second reverse jump.
After the box downloaded its first software update, the skip button stopped working. It became a 15 minute skip. What the fuck purpose is a 15 minute skip?
I called Charter to inquire about this. I asked what the purpose of the 15 minute skip button was; they responded that it was to jump quickly into a program (WTF?). I asked them why it was no longer a 30 second skip. The person I was talking to responded that it was "illegal" to have a 30 second skip.
After I recovered myself from this egregiously wrong statement, I informed him there was no state of federal law prohibiting a 30 second skip on a PVR, and further informed him of other PVRs that do just that. He insisted there was "a law". I asked to speak to his supervisor, who again told me it was "against the law" to have a 30 second skip, and that Charter had to "obey they law". I again informed him there was no such law, and asked him to cite any such law. The conversation essentially went nowhere. I tried the next day with the same result.
While pondering the absurdity of it all, I got a call back from a manager at Charter who had apparently become aware of my call. He apologized for the phone representatives saying that it was "illegal"...he said, essentially, that they shouldn't have said it was "illegal" or "against the law", but that Charter had "legal concerns" with its content providers and advertisers. I pointed out that Charter's corporate "legal concerns" are a lot different than something being "illegal", and that the phone agents might not want to tell people that.
But ultimately, how many people will get DVR services like this and never know there was such a thing as a 30-second skip? They'll be tickled that they can record 40 hours of video (not knowing they could record 400 by just adding a drive, which of course is disabled on this box) and fast forward through commercials like a VCR, and that they can pay Charter an extra monthly fee to watch the recorded content on another TV in their own home (not knowing that it's technically possible to also watch it on their laptop, PDA, portable media player, or anywhere else they should be able to watch it). And the ones who do know about the 30-second skip will probably swallow Charter's "we can't do it because it's illegal" copout.
And when July rolls around, those same people won't wonder how we're unable to do things we could do 30 years ago with the VCR when their DVR box tells them they're not allowed to record ER in HD (and that they must watch it live), and a call to Charter only elicits the blameless "Well, we have to follow what the TV networks make us do - it's not our fault..."
The cable and satellite providers might be in the best position to provide DVR services that can tune all of the subscribed channels on their networks directly, without having to have some kind of convoluted IR Blaster setup or multiple settops, but they're also in the best position to severely restrict the featuresets and functionality of those boxes as well...
Apple's Tivo Videocasting Service or iTunes+Video (Score:3, Insightful)
Build a content sales and distribution network to feed you hardware business.
Apple uses iTunes to promote iPods. Tivo should build an internet version of a cable specialty channel, and distribute content. Bittorrent does it now, Tivo can do it for the Tivoted.
Apple are you listening? A repackaged Mac Mini (Mac PVR) with TV tuner, more storage, a dedicated remote control and a bittorrent flavoured version of iTunes. And while you are at it buy Tivo. And remember, do it with STYLE
You mean just like ReaplyTV? (Score:3, Insightful)
And they could include networking hardware for free, and networking software for free, and share TV over the Internet, and share it to the PC using free open source software, and then they could change their name to ReplayTV since they have been doing all of that for years?
Yes, sharing and auto-commercial-skipping is disabled in the new ones, but who buys the new ones.
But seriously, if Tivo copied everything my Replay does (and maybe call it "innovating" like they did with Tivo To Go) and let me **store** and play my MP3s from the Tivo, I would covert in a heartbeat. I have yet to see a stereo component that lets me store my MP3s - I either have to use my portable, or spend $300 for a fancy LCD that needs my computer running 24/7.
Re:ChipGuy (Score:2, Insightful)
Either that or it's just somebody with a chip on his shoulder.
Actually, Tivo can come back with HDTV (Score:3, Insightful)
I think *because* of HDTV that Tivo will come back.
Cable/Satelite $65 per month with DVR functionality
Over the Air HDTV $14 per month with Tivo service
I'll save the extra $50 a day gladly.
Re:About TiVo (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to live in the UK (where Tivo have to all intents and purposes closed down) and was one of the few die hard Tivo'ers. I had my box, hacked in a bigger HD, added the network card, TivoWeb, etc etc. When Sky+ came along I defended Tivo to the hilt - it _was_ better. The menus were better, the season passes worked better, it was much more friendly to non-techs.
So anyway, now I live in the US. I have cable TV (satellite isn't available in my building) and a cable PVR. Why don't I have a Tivo? Bunch of reasons:
No HD
No 5.1
Single tuner
Upfront cost is ~$200 vs $0
Monthly cost is $13 vs $10 (not a biggy)
Now I fully understand the technical reasons Tivo can't support HD, or multiple tuners (though digital audio seems easy). But as a user it's really hard to justify paying more for a box which doesn't do as much. Yes Tivo still wins out on interface, reliability, etc - but that isn't enough.
To Tivo: I wish you all the best, I would buy a Tivo in a heartbeat if it fixed the HD, audio and multiple tuner problems, but until then I can't see much of a future.
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Lifetime subscriptions, as yours is about to attest, are really min(my lifetime, company lifetime).
People go through this with every new fad and new technology/service. Health clubs used to all have "lifetime memberships", but at least in my area that became highly regulated many years ago because so many people thought it was a much better deal than paying per month, but then got burned when the companies went out of business 2 months later.
I don't like subscriptions either, but "lifetime" subscriptions are not the best (for the consumer) alternative. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Re:About TiVo (Score:2, Insightful)
I couldn't agree more. The days of "Don't release till it works 100% with full feature set," are, unforunately, gone. The world simply works too fast now. 15 minutes of fame has become 15 seconds. Do something big, but get the basic feature set working. Make sure the hardware can do what you plan on doing. Make sure you hype it. Then sell it, with a promised free upgrade in 6 months.
This is what happened to me with Apple - too late. Back in 2000, we had to make a decision on a non-linear editing platform system-wide. 13 stations, with about 3-7 edit systems required per station. We decided to go with the industry standard AVID... On the PC platform. OSX simply wasn't there yet. I'd saw off my left foot to switch now. AVID works on Mac. It STARTED on Mac. But a decision had to be made. Too late.
I hate this new reality. I'd rather see solid, tested, products. But people have become GIMMEITNOW, and therefore first to market with a reasonably stable product wins. Oh well.
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
You've missed out on having a really useful appliance for over five years. I understand being pragmatic, but that's like saying "I didn't get a computer, console, etc..) because I knew the successor would be out about a half decade later."
Re:About TiVo (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me download an MPEG2 file which I can burn with any DVD burning program
Not that DRM-protected file you give me, and not something I can only legally use Sonic MyDVD 6.1 on. Something I can feed to Nero without dancing through illegal hoops on.
Let's be honest - no one gives a crap about spending two hours to download a one hour show. We want to burn them to DVD. Period. And we don't want to futz with MythTV, we want to do it with a piece of hardware we can get at Best Buy.
Please, say to hell with the companies that would be offended by this. If you have millions of customers you would have the money to do a court battle.
Over half are directv, and directv ditched tivo. (Score:3, Insightful)
They're probably still raking in customers, but the majority of them are still DirecTV folks. And those will start to disappear as DirecTV drops support and people start upgrading in a few years. I believe the contract is through 2007. With DirecTV's impending move to MPEG4, the existing tivo units won't even work once the transition is complete. The HD-Tivo owners will get screwed first, as HD locals will be the first to move to mpeg4, followed by non-local HD, and finally by all the SD channels.
I'm hoping tivo succeeds, though-- I've really liked the two tivos I've had, despite the sluggishness of the directv models. I'm hoping that the upcoming dual-tuner cablecard unit (buy it and use it on any cable system) will finally do what i want. Dual tuner, fully digital recording, all the SA tivo features, and the ability to move from network to network.
I'm not a 'hater' (Score:2, Insightful)
This is not a nonsense excuse, it's a real reason not to pay for television.
I've watched television since my parents got their first set in 1964. I was watching eight hours a day in the early 1970's.
But no more. Television is an extremely limited medium. there are only five things:
1: Sentimental pseudo-dramas with endless close-up shots of actors overacting under heavy lights and heavy make-up.
2: Canned laughter situation-comedies that are rarely if ever actually funny.
3. Talking heads going on endlessly; saying nothing.
4. The Game. Televising 'da game, man' hasn't changed much in fifty years. Turn on a TV and within a half-second you know if you have on 'the game'. It never stops; it never changes. You either like it or not.
5. Commercials. They used to be 60 seconds, now they are all 30 or 15 seconds. Some people consider them to be a unique American art form; some people consider pissing on a electric wire to be an art form. Nearly everyone thinks commercials suck and trys to avoid them.
That's it. That's all television is. And, it is all that it will ever be. Because of its institutional structure and technical limitations, it is all television can ever be.
Myself, I would rather watch DVDs, ride bicycle, write code, dance, make love, or eat pizza than watch television.
Nothing that the television industry can do could make me go back to watching television. It's not hatred or contempt. It's just that television is simply too limited for me anymore. I've seen everything that it can possibly do. I've just gone beyond it. It doesn't matter any more how cheap that it is or what format it is.
5.
Re:About TiVo (Score:5, Insightful)
The best feature of Tivo, the one the makes it worth the (rather high) cost is its ability to find shows for you. I'd come home saying, "I want to watch a nature documentary" and find that Tivo had already recorded a half dozen, including a couple I didn't even know were on. Judging from what I've heard from other Tivo owners, this is a universally popular feature. Yet they never advertised it at all.
Tivo Not in Danger (Score:2, Insightful)
Granted, stand-alone DVRs may not survive. Instead, your DVR will probably be integrated into your paid-TV pipe as more and more of those pipes go digital. I have a DirecTiVo and it rocks. If it stopped working, I'd drop my whole satellite subscription entirely and stop watching regular TV entirely. It wouldn't be much of a sacrifice as before my DirectTiVo, I didn't have regular TV, I just watched DVDs. I only got regular TV after 9/11, and since then I've found that the regular news coverage is so bad that you're better informed if you DON'T watch TV. Bottom line for me is that TV is only worth watching with a DVR.
So I see that TiVO could easily survive simply by being the standard "operating system" for set-top boxes and satellite recievers. The subscription fee can then be rolled into the fee for the monthly service, or subsidized like mine is. (DirectTV only charges $5/month for the TiVO part). Assuming its even necessary as my DirectTiVO gets all its program information from the satellite anyways.
However, at 3 million subscribers, that's easily enough to keep the company afloat no matter what happens.
So TiVO as separate box you buy at Circuit City? Probably not going to last. TiVo as a "feature" of your cable/satellite box? Inevitable.
Re:About TiVo (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. I remember Apple. Pity they went out of business
More seriously, if they spend as long going out of business as Apple has, he can pack *very* slowly.
hawk
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:2, Insightful)
I went with the monthly subscription. At $12.95 a month, it would take 23 months to break even.
Considering that you are dealing with an always on hard drive, I just wasn't sure that the unit would last 23 months before requiring an upgrade or repair.
Add to that I have Dish Network. I don't do cable. I believe that in the not so distant future, both Dish Network and DirecTV will be offering a set-top box AND DVR as a combined package as standard equipment, and at a rate that is comparable to Dish alone and TiVo, with an acceptable maintenance package that would render the issue of hard drive reliability moot.
Re:About TiVo (Score:3, Insightful)
I cancelled my Tivo service about a month ago. I was an early adopter -- I had a unit within a month or so of their release, and by my best estimates somewhere around 40 people have Tivos right now because of firsthand contact with seeing mine. Who knows how many people got them by seeing those people's Tivos.
Why did I cancel? Tivo is inexcusably late to the market with an HD box, and inexcusably late to the market with a CableCard unit, even ignoring the one-tuner problem. They missed the adoption curve with HD by two years, and they've lost as a result. Dime late, dollar short as they say. I have two HD sets, a cable company that provides HD content, and a half dozen OTA HD channels I can get, and its all a waste with the Tivo. That issue was such a big factor for me, I gave up my Tivo for a Motorola PVR that rarely goes for more than a day without hanging, causing me to lose stuff. I have much higher hopes they'll fix their software than I do Tivo actually making it to market with an HD CableCard unit.
Here's what I see Tivo's problem is: they forgot about their core market -- the early adopters. We're the people who are going to spend our money on new technology, and demonstrate that to everyone else. We're the ones who needed hardware to track the rest of our technology, not lag it by years. Tivo clearly thought the mass market was more important, and clearly targeted their feature development at that (nearly useless things like Music and Photo sharing which seemed cool to everyone for a few weeks, never to be used again, even ignoring them screwing the early adopters again who paid for it, only to have it given away weeks later). Tivo didn't realize the risk to the mass market that cable companies represent. That mass market doesn't care in the slightest about the "tivo" features... they want to record stuff, pause stuff and play it back. Wishlists, suggestions, all of that means nothing to them.
So now Tivo has two markets -- one that doesn't care about the things that differentiate their product, and one who can't use their product with their newer equipment.
If people at Tivo think most people would be much happier with a Tivo, thats precisely why Tivo will not last. Thats such an incorrect reading of the situation, it amazes me your product management staff could actually believe that.
To reiterate: People do not care in the slightest about the features Tivo brings to the table. Those of us who do, wish we could have them, but being able to actually watch HD programming, and record it is more important to us. Thankfully for us, its going to be easier for Motorola to address the things we don't like than it will be for a struggling Tivo to get to market with a box we can use.
When I cancelled, the support representative told me she hoped I'd come back again in 18-24 months when the new CableCard units are available. Thats a LONG time for Comcast and the rest of the cable card companies to leapfrog you all again.
Its a shame, I loved my Tivo.
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm not a 'hater' (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to think the same thing; I quit television 5 years ago, when I realized I didn't get nearly enough out of it to warrant the time I spent in fron of it. My roommate had a tube, but I only ever used it for DVDs and video games. Then, less than a year ago, he got a TiVo. I watch TV again, now. Not a ton -- less than an hour on an average day. But I get a lot more pleasure out of it than when I was watching two or three hours a day.
There are good things on television -- your list really isn't complete. It's just that it's not usually worth the effort to watch them if you have to synchronize your personal schedule with that of the broadcasters and when 25% of your viewing time is wasted on commercials. TiVo lets you sit down any time you want and get through a "hour long" show in 45 minutes, and that changes the cost/benefit analysis a lot.
Re:I'm not a 'hater' (Score:2, Insightful)
Fast Followers and Disruptive Technology (Score:4, Insightful)
If you haven't already it sounds like you need to read The Innovator's Dilemma [amazon.com] by Clayton Christensen. The DVRs the cable companies put out don't have to be better to put TiVo out of business. They just have to be good enough, cheaper and easy to get. Being a technology leader is only valuable if three things are true. First, that you can stay a technology leader and protect that position. (through futher innovation, patents, etc) Second, that your technology leadership either lets you be the low cost provider OR that customers value your technology such that it lets you charge a premium for your services. Third, that you have economicly viable access to the right distribution channels. TiVo is arguably the technology leader in the DVR industry but I think it is failing on the maybe the second and definitely the third conditions.
Let me give you an example. Most of us criticize (rightly IMO) Microsoft for a lack of innovation. But being the leader isn't always the best business strategy. Economists call Microsoft a fast follower. They don't innovate. They don't know how to. And if they tried, they'd fail. But what they do very successfully is watch the leaders in the market and then copy their innovations while leveraging their strengths in marketing, distribution. OS/2 challeged Windows NT a few years back. Result? Windows 95. It wasn't better than OS/2 technologically but it was good enough and Microsoft controled the distribution channels. (plus IBM shot themselves in the foot repeatedly) They can learn from the innovations and mistakes of the innovators and come out with a good enough product that most customers will buy. Sure, it's not a glamorous strategy but being a fast follower can be very, very effective.
The downside of being a fast follower? You might not be able to catch the market leader if you aren't quick enough. Microsoft hasn't been able to catch Intuit with their Microsoft Money product despite years of trying. They got caught on the wrong side of an installed base. Being a successful fast follower requires lots of resources and an acute ear for what the market is telling you. But it also means that if there is a fundamental shift in the market or if you misread the market, you're screwed. Microsoft may have be screwed because Open Source could be one of those tectonic shifts ("disruptive technologies" in my Christensen's terminologies) that fundamentally alters the market place such that their own organizational structure no longer permits them to compete effectively. Whether this is actually the case remains the be seen.
The other problem with being a fast follower is that if you are too good, you end up a monopoly with no on to copy from. As a result a successful fast follower either stagnates or has to move into other industries to grow. Microsoft is in this position right now. Their core OS and Office products are stagnant monopolies. Very profitable but unlikely to provide massive growth. So Microsoft is having to branch out into other lines of business. Dell is doing somewhat the same thing. They're so successful in selling PC's they are having to branch into printers, PDAs and other technologies to continue to grow.
Re:Too late (Score:3, Insightful)
For that matter, why don't VCR (and now DVD) players have 2-level sound settings? I've noticed that movies generally have ultra-loud scenes and soft scenes, like battles and conversations; it would be useful to have 2 sound levels set to accomodate these.
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:3, Insightful)
The initial outlay is too risky when you don't know what you're really in for.
Slightly offtopic/ Fix the reception method (Score:3, Insightful)
I have long believed that the providers should only have to install one box in my house in the basement where the cable enters the house. That box should decode all the channels that I have contacted for with my provider. Then those signals should be sent to all of the cable outlets in my house. They used to do something similar to this (I lived in an apartment in Marlborough, MA that did this up until 1999) with the channels effectively de-scrambled at the pole. Only the cable entered the apartment and any TV could watch any channel including the premium ones. Alas that ended in early 2000 when they sent us a letter saying would have to get boxes for continued premium service. (Might I add right after we got the box and all was well for a brief time, we also had to 4 day outage when the screwed the whole transition up, that's another story.)
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really... $300 will buy you approximately two years of programming ($12.95 a month). If Tivo lasts longer than that, you win!
Re:About TiVo (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, maybe I'm in the minority, but I've found that TiVo hasn't killed my interest in live TV. It's just changed the way that I watch live TV. Instead of melting down the remote searching for 2-3 minute snippets of something to watch on other channels while avoiding the commercials on the channel I'm watching, I simply pick out two shows to watch (I have DirecTiVo) and switch back and forth skipping the commercials for both.
If anything, TiVo needs to figure out a way to get 2 tuner support into its regular line of DVRs. People who've never used a DirecTiVo don't understand just how powerful that second tuner really is. Not only that, it's a feature that can be easily sold to customers without even seeing it in action. Just have some husband saying he doesn't miss his favorite show because his wife's show is on. Or some woman saying she can still watch the rose parade despite the fact that her boyfriend's bowl games are on at the same time.
Re:don't have TiVo... Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
That's great that you know how to program your VCR.
Please set up your VCR to record only first-run episodes of Law & Order that come on NBC, and all episodes that come on TNT. Oh, but don't record an episode if you've recorded in the previous 30 days. And please make sure to automatically have your VCR keep up with the scheduling, so that when NBC decides to start adding one extra minute to the show to throw of your VCR, it records the extra minute as well. Oh, and if the Simpsons comes on at the same time as any of those episodes on TNT, please record those instead. And when the network delays the start of Law and Order because the baseball game went long, please make sure to have your VCR pick up on that as well. Oh, and given that I like Law and Order, could you please set up your VCR to record other shows that it feels I might be interested in.
People who make the argument that Tivo is just a smarter VCR completely miss the point. They're akin to the people who assume that any article that begins with 'Bill Gates donated $1B to help immunize people in third world countries' must end with 'in a bid to avoid paying taxes.'
Tivo is not just a smart VCR. It's not missing shows that you want to watch. It's watching your shows in 21 minutes per 30 minutes recorded. It's keeping track of schedule changes. It's coming home late at night and watching *whatever the hell you want to.*
But look on the bright side. Assuming that this (like every other doomsday article to come out about Tivo in the last five years) is correct, you can rest assured that you didn't waste any money on bending TV to your will. Me? I'm glad to have given $500 to a company who makes a great product, and I wish them the greatest success.
Re:About TiVo (Score:3, Insightful)
So don't say, "There's two tuners!" That's just more technonoise.
Why weren't two tuners to begin with? The same reason early Tivos had so much flaky hardware. They cut every corner they could, trying to get the price down. They decided to sacrifice usability and reliability in order to get a price people would pay. Alas, they didn't succeed in that either.