Clones Are Overwhelming TiVo 402
jfruhlinger writes "The first line from this CRN/Associated Press story says it all: 'Debra Baker tells people she has TiVo. But she really doesn't.' As cable companies offer their own DVR boxes to customers for no upfront cost and a lower monthly fee than the original, people are using TiVo as a verb but are frequently not using using the product or service itself in real life. The article notes that the cable company's DVRs don't have some of the archtypical TiVo features, such as the ability to guess what you'd like recorded based on your viewing habits."
Privacy concerns (Score:2, Interesting)
Such as selling your personal viewing habits to advertisers? I'm no tinfoil-hatter, but this is one of the main reasons I chose ReplayTV. I understand TiVo's data collection is aggregate, but the thought that someone keeps a record of everything I watch (or re-watch), and uses it for profit is a bit off-putting.
Kudos to the newcomers!
Re:Privacy concerns (Score:5, Informative)
Me... I kinda like the fact that it reports what I watch. I've always wanted to actually count in the ratings...
Re:Are you really that dumb? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Privacy concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
You are an idiot. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Privacy concerns (Score:2, Interesting)
I also wonder, if the ones that report back get into enough homes, would the Nielsen ratings people sue because their business model of statisical sampling is being threatened by another method with larger sample sizes?
Re:Privacy concerns (Score:5, Informative)
Comcast is more likely to use their DVR to spy on their subscribers to make sure people aren't "stealing" extra channels that they aren't signed up for. To my knowledge, Comcast is not offering viewer information to advertisers, although it would be an easy way for them to increase revenue or use it in negotiations when Viacom or Disney start demanding fee increases for channels that Joe Public doesn't care to watch yet is forced into the programming bundle.
Either way, Comcast's DVR does not offer the functionality that TiVo does. It is a shame that Comcast won't roll out actual set-top boxes with TiVo built in considering Comcast is a shareholder in TiVo. The same goes for Cox and Time Warner Cable. Yet none of them are deploying TiVo boxes. I think most of them believe that if they hold stock in TiVo, TiVo won't turn around and sue them over IP violations like TiVo did with Dish Network (Echostar) over the DishPlayer PVR.
However, Joe Public will have a remedy come July 2004 when FCC rules take effect that allows us all to buy our own digital set-top boxes instead of being at the mercy to rent whatever cable box is best to the cable company financials. That means we might actually see TiVo-branded digital cable set top boxes for sale at Best Buy.
The only area of concern I have for this digital jump is the lack of support for recording digital audio. I had an indepth conversation with a TiVo tech last week and he basically said the reason why existing TiVos do not offer SPDIF ports is that TiVo is afraid of being sued over DMCA violations because it would mean that the TiVo is making an exact copy of a digital audio signal from a program and archived on the customer's DVR. Perhaps they have their hands full fighting behind-the-scenes the "broadcast flag" requirements the FCC is trying to hoist on the whole industry while fighting the IP lawsuit against Echostar...
Re:Privacy concerns (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Privacy concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Kudos to the newcomers!"
Why do you care? TiVo hopes to use the information they can sell to increase their profitability and hopefully lower the subscription costs for their customers. How is that bad? Its not like they are going to tell advertisers and the government that "Joe Average" at 123 Average Way watches Cinemax (aka "Skinamax") every single evening. It is aggregate. And speaking as a TiVo enthusiast, I am happy they will be reporting viewing habits to advertisers. I want advertisers to know that they shouldn't advertise feminine hygene products during action programs and the like. I want to encourage advertisers to actually make decent commercials. And most importantly, I'm tired of 6,000 Nielsen homes dictating what is shown on television. There are over 1 million TiVo subscribers vs. 6,000 Nielsen homes. I want our numbers to count for something because I'm tired of seeing shows that I like (such as "Angel") getting cancelled. The other DVR/PVRs on the market, such as your ReplayTV (which has bankrupted two corporate owners and is now on its third and still has yet to get over 100,000 subscribers), do not have the power to save favorite television programs from cancellation. So in my book, TiVo's aggregate viewer data collection is a reason to sign up.
Re:Program Guide (Score:5, Informative)
It's also worth mentioning that the guide info provided by TiVo is quite a bit more detailed than what you're likely to get for free. I have an upgraded TiVo (a Philips HDR112 with 200 GB of disk (it shipped with 14), 32 MB of RAM (it shipped with 16), and a TurboNet), and I've recently started fooling around with MythTV. While it's much easier to rip video from a MythTV system (export the video files with Samba), I've noticed that the program info it provides isn't nearly as comprehensive as what TiVo provides. TiVo provides a more thorough description of most programs. It also lists the major actors in a show, which is how you can tell it to record everything with your favorite actors (whoever those are) whenever it comes up. A wishlist entry for William Shatner, for instance, would dig up stuff like his Twilight Zone episode(s) and Incubus. (It'd also pull in Rescue 911 and T.J. Hooker...whether that's a Good Thing is an exercise for the reader.)
The TiVo interface is also a fair bit easier to get around. In fairness to MythTV, it's not been around nearly as long, yet it's reasonably useful. It'll get more refined as time moves along.
You'd think it would go the other way. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You'd think it would go the other way. (Score:5, Funny)
Yoda Style (Score:3, Funny)
they also lack the ability to (Score:5, Informative)
as it is now, they record all showings.
Re:they also lack the ability to (Score:5, Informative)
The other thing I like about the TW DVR is the ability to record two shows at once. You can even record two shows at the same time while watching a third recorded show. I haven't heard if the for-real Tivo's can do that.
Re:they also lack the ability to (Score:5, Informative)
The Directv ones definitely can... I don't believe that any of the standalone ones have two tuners though.
Re:they also lack the ability to (Score:3, Informative)
1. Lag -- changing channels or bringing up the guide takes way too long.
2. Buggy software -- it will crash on rare occasions, or get screwy and need to be rebooted. Every once in a while when I'm watching something recorded, it cuts away to live TV.
3. There's no way to quickly skip ahead say, an hour. You have to just fast forward for awhile, and it's not fast enough. Also, a 30 second skip ahead would be
Re:they also lack the ability to (Score:3, Informative)
Re:they also lack the ability to (Score:3, Funny)
Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:5, Interesting)
Because that's what's really locking TiVo out of the digital cable biz. They can't directly operate on a digital cable wire, and the companies such as Scientific Atlanta are not releasing their decoding specs so that TiVo can make a box compatible with cable systems that run their backend equpiment.
Analog CATV is standardized, cable channel 27 in one town is on the same frequencies as cable channel 27 in another. OpenCable will basically do the same for digital. It should be noted however that OpenCable is leaving decryption and conditional access for others to handle... they're just defining a slot in which the system provider's choice of smart card that that will handle that stuff goes into.
Slashdot has written before that this isn't quite the same as Open Source in the way that it's usually thought of here, this is a hardware spec that pretty much gives up a single-channel digital bitstream to the device's wishes once the access card lets it go.
In the future, this could lead to "digital cable ready" TVs and devices, including TiVo that won't need the assitance of a settop box. But, of course, the present digital cable system makers don't want to give up their cash cow. That's why the current digital cable device makers can eat TiVo's lunch right now...
Mod This Up (Score:5, Interesting)
Not correct (Score:5, Interesting)
Murdock wants TiVo (Score:4, Informative)
He could also dictate the direction of TiVo, optimizing them towards DirecTV support even more so than currently. HDTV makes no sense outside of Satellite, so I would expect Murdoct to have the first availible direct-digital integrated HDTV DVR.
Then suppose they add a digital out connector to a computer for archiving, which would work with ATI Video boards? Cable companies would become the low-end prole option overnight.
Re:Mod This Up (Score:3, Informative)
These analog channels need to be MPEG encoded before being saved onto disk and before you can enjoy your DVR functionality. Not only do cable DVR's need an MPEG encoder, but they also need full blown tuner which is expensive. So I wouldn't say that cable has any unfa
Re:Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do I care?
I have a TiVo fed by a settop. My settop is included in my cable package. I'm fine with that; it doesn't matter to me that the TiVo can't decode directly. Why do I care about OpenCable?
Re:Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:2)
This is how the DirecTV Tivo's work. They actually lack an encoder completely and just record the DirecTV stream directly. The advantage is that recorded shows have exactly the same quality as live TV unlike a regular Tivo where there is some quality loss.
Re:Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:2)
Re:Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:3, Informative)
- Faster response to changes. If there's a last-minute change by the TV networks due to something like a presidential speech, the signal providers are usually good about updating their guide data as soon as they know about it. However, if you don't have a "daily call" between the change and the event, you're going to record the wrong programs because you don't get word of the change.
- Another data source. It'd be g
Re:Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:2, Informative)
While that's true for broadcast it's not uniformly true for CATV - though HRC and IRC are now mostly losing the battle - check out http://www.jneuhaus.com/fccindex/cablech.html [jneuhaus.com] for a list of freqs
Channel Bingo (Score:2)
Not entirely. It is quite common for systems that even require an analog cable box to remap one or two channels to another channel number. E.g. the public access channel here is on channel 80 when you have one of the cable company's boxes, but on channel 99 for everyone else. Most often such things are done for scrambled channels like Spice so kids can't easily find them and listen in to
Re:Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:4, Insightful)
It reminds me of when I was young and my parents had to lease a phone from The Phone Company. What is amazing is that the same thing that was going on ~30 years ago is going on today.
If the F.C.C cared about competition in the broadcast/broadband arena they would force open-spec cable/sat networks where any player could pay to have their unit approved by a testing body. Then the consumer would get to choose their AV gear based on best-fit, not because their sole cable provider has locked everyone out and made a deal with a single provider.
If this were to happen you would see some amazing convergence applications - true home entertainment systems - that worked together seamlessly, in short order. The economies of scale would be there and the competition would drive product development.
Re:Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:5, Informative)
July 2004 is when FCC rules go into effect that you and I can go to our local Best Buy and buy a digital cable set top box. Call up Comcast Customer Service. They will confirm it. I know I did after they installed a crummy General Instrument digital set top box that had a hole in the place of an S-Video port, had a covered up SPDIF port, and didn't offer a serial port for a separate device (like my TiVo) to change the channels. If you are upgrading to digital cable before the July 2004 timeframe and you are with Comcast, specifically request that they install the Motorola set-top box. That has all of those ports. Its too bad it doesn't have component outputs though...
Similar (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Similar (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, It's kind of like when you say, "I just took a shit and wiped my ass with kleenex." In reality, you didn't actually take the shit anywhere.
Re:Similar (Score:2, Insightful)
As in, "I mistook my Tivo for a Kleenex box, and Bushed it all up!"
Why "TiVo" is (nearly) the accepted generic term: (Score:5, Insightful)
We already have too many TLAs -- DVD, VCR, ATM, SUV. All because no one can come up with a decent name for a new class of objects, only too-verbose phrases. "Automatic Teller Machine" is clearly too much to say, so the lazy thing to do is acronymify it, and you get "aee tee em". T'would be better to come up with an easy, catchy, single-word, pronouncable term for it (as in some European countries -- "autobank" or "bankomat" do nicely).
But here we sit, saddled with "dee vee are". "Yuck. 'Teevoh'? Hey, neat!"
So TiVo it is.
Re:Why "TiVo" is (nearly) the accepted generic ter (Score:3, Informative)
"A word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as WAC or Women's Army Corps".
DVD - Digital Versiatile (or video) Disk
VCR - Video Cassette Recorder
ATM - Automatic Teller Machine
SUV - No idea don't have them in this country
They are not abbreviations.
From what I've seen (Score:3, Flamebait)
~S
Re:From what I've seen (Score:2)
Re:From what I've seen (Score:3, Funny)
[/sarcasim]: to simulate taking a cutting or ironic tone
not to be confused with-
sarchasm: a deep hole or canyon into which one pushes those who give you snotty back-talk
Re:From what I've seen (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, we were just talking about this today, and a co-worker of mine recounted an instance where an individual decided to give up his TiVo because it was too good at finding stuff he liked - he found he didn't have much of a life anymore besides catching up on all these cool TV shows he didn't know existed!
Troy, who finally ordered his TiVo this week.
Re:From what I've seen (Score:2)
And even if the result suck, who cares? So what if Tivo records a bunch of shows you don't actually like? It will never bump recording of a Seasons Pass and it will never delete one of your "real" shows earlier.
"Hate" seems a strong word here, ya know?
It happens all the time. (Score:3, Funny)
God's Machine - "Michael Powell" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God's Machine - "Michael Powell" (Score:5, Funny)
I do love my Tivo, but I turned off the personal viewing feature long ago when I realized it had a twisted personality. It kept recording porn and cartoons...
Don't you mean when it realized you had a twisted personality?
Sorry, but that was just too good to pass up.
Problem Seems to be Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Problem Seems to be Marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Problem Seems to be Marketing (Score:5, Informative)
There's really a "Tale of two TiVos" going on...
The integrated TiVo and DirecTV combo boxes, known officially as a "DirecTV DVR with TiVo" and commonly called a "DirecTiVo", have fallen in price dramatically recently. The units that were first sold for $299 are available for just $99 thanks to major subsidies from DirecTV. The service fee is only $4.99 per month and covers all TiVo units on the same household account.
Meanwhile, the prices of the Series 2 stand-alone TiVo units have not fallen, and in fact their service costs went up to $12.95 per month with no discounts at all for having more than one. Clearly, being able to integrate with service providers is key for TiVo's survival...
Nothing in TiVo's DirecTV contract prevents them from working with cable companies, only other DBS companies like Dish Network and Voom... clearly TiVo would like to have a dual-tuner-integrated box for digital cable, but the hardware makers aren't giving up the specs for that...
Re:Problem Seems to be Marketing (Score:5, Interesting)
They were want, $300 when first released? I bought mine for around $172 after rebate about 5 months ago. Amazon now has them for $129 after rebate. (All prices for 40 hour.)
I think Tivo needs to sell the hardware as cheaply as possible and live off the subscription fees. But the non-directv subscription fees are a little steep ($300 for lifetime).
OTOH Tivo's seem to hold their value really well. I recently ebay'ed a Series 1 Tivo with attached lifetime subscription for $356. Crazy...
Like hoover (Score:2)
Similarly until recently all portable stereos were called 'walkmans'.
Why shoud TIVO be any different - no company can rest on its laurels, it'll just be left behind by its competitors, but the name will live on in consumer's minds. Perhaps its how we're built - we need a 'tag' to describe something.
Re:Like hoover (Score:2)
Re:Like hoover (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Like hoover (Score:3, Interesting)
Trademarks are highly over-rated.
Re:Like hoover (Score:2)
Better than TiVi (Score:5, Interesting)
The centerpiece is a PC running SageTV [www.sage.tv]. It uses a hardware mpeg encoder to capture video from my digital cable box and save it on a 250 GB hard drive. Encoding at the "DVD Standard Play" quality uses about 3 GB per hour of video and the quality is definitely acceptable. Also stored on the monster hard drive is my entire CD collection ripped to very high bitrate MP3. The hardware media card also includes a built-in radio tuner. The machine has a DVD burner in it as well, and SageTV glues it all together.
Now, the really cool part of it is, I can access the mpeg video files and MP3s over my home network. With an mpeg video codec, I can use any of a variety of players to play my recorded television anywhere in my house on a laptop. SageTV also offers a separate piece of client software that allows you to remote-control the PVR from any networked computer and play any of its recorded media -- so, if I'm in the garage with my laptop, I can call up the current TV guide and select a program to record right there without having to directly interact with the media PC.
TiVo runs Linux and is hackable, but still uses a proprietary filesystem for video storage. Plus, the folks at TiVo don't want you accessing the video externally anyway...
Re:Better than TiVo (Score:3, Insightful)
The DirecTiVo has no value other than as a DirecTV receiver with TiVo. The hardware is subsidized by the one or two year contract with DirecTV you were required to sign. You know, the one that makes you owe them extra money if you drop their service. The only upgrades possible are to the TiVo's hard drive, and all you can do is add a second drive ONCE. And doing that requires you to void your warranty and accomplish feats of hackery.
My system, on the other ha
Scientific Atlanta 8000 from Brighthouse CFL (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't help but wonder if that's the path TiVo themselves will have to take in order to survive. We'll see.
More than likely Tivo is getting 1/2 of that $7. (Score:2)
It's very upsetting to Tivo, they are constantly.. (Score:5, Funny)
What I'd Like (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What I'd Like (Score:2)
You want TiVo Basic (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What I'd Like (Score:3, Interesting)
move to canada TivoCanada.com [tivocanda.com] (no really)! They have info on slicing xmltv stuff and uploading it to your tivo... but only if you are in unsupported region (i.e. tivo won't sell them service in canada). I guess that's a nother thing tivo is missing out on intenational sales, doh!
E.
How is this different then say . . (Score:5, Insightful)
How many of you use the brand Kleenex?
"Man this headache is killer, gimmie a Aspirin"
or
"Aww do you got a boo-boo, let me get you a band-aid"
Are you really using Band-Aid brand bandages?
It's not different, it's exactly the same. (Score:2)
Re:How is this different then say . . (Score:2)
Re:How is this different then say . . (Score:3, Funny)
It's called propriety eponyms (Score:5, Interesting)
And now Tivo. Nothing new here. But it can be temporary too -- Nintendo almost became one in the early nineties but died out later for example.
Re:It's called propriety eponyms (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's called propriety eponyms (Score:5, Informative)
If other people make a better / cheaper product , (Score:3, Interesting)
If my cable company (or some satellite company) wants to bundle a DVR with the service, so what? If you don't want to use it you don't have to - go buy a Tivo or build yourself an HTPC or whatever floats your boat.
I love my ReplayTV 4500 with a 120GB hard drive upgrade and lifetime subscription. It has all the Tivo-esque features I want and some more that it doesn't.
One day I may built a home theater PC as a toy but for now my RPTV fills all my timeshifting and commercial skipping needs.
Re:If other people make a better / cheaper product (Score:5, Insightful)
If my cable company (or some satellite company) wants to bundle a DVR with the service, so what? If you don't want to use it you don't have to - go buy a Tivo or build yourself an HTPC or whatever floats your boat.
If my operating system company (or some really big software company) wants to bundle a Web Browser with the software, so what? If you don't want to use it you don't have to - go buy Netscape or code one for yourself or whatever flots your boat.
Uhm... wait a second.
Clippy, anyone? (Score:2)
From the CRN/Associated Press story [crn.com]:
Does this remind anyone of Clippy? "It appears you are writing a letter....." Does anyone value this feature? Maybe its just me, but I don't like it when machines attempt to guess what my intentions are. I certainly wouldn't pay extra for the "feature."
Re:Clippy, anyone? (Score:2)
Well there is 1 thing Tivo does have... (Score:5, Informative)
TIVO didn't work for me (Score:2, Informative)
When I bot it I thought I could program it like a VCR. Turns out you can, if you pay them.
The idea is great, no more tapes, but TIVO's
version isn't it.
mike
Re:TIVO didn't work for me (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, wrong. Tivo can be operated like a VCR without paying the monthly. (The series 1 units can, anyways.)
And I'm sorry but it sounds to me like you're a bit of an idiot to buy something with a basic understanding of how it works.
The price of success (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The price of success (Score:2)
Web encylopedias seem to have plenty of alternate deffinitions, though I cannot recall having seen them used anywhere
"A PVR is also referred to as a hard disk recorder (HDR), digital video recorder (DVR), personal video station (PVS) , or a personal TV receiver (PTR)"
The Scientific Atlanta interface sure isn't TiVo (Score:5, Informative)
I use band-aids (Score:2, Funny)
Sometimes it works in their favor! (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, after a while, the VCR failed her on a couple of separate instances of trying to record Dr. Phil. Now she wasn't so opposed to a TiVo anymore, and thought we could get one! So I started looking around, and was actually leaning toward a ReplayTV, as our house has no land-line and ReplayTV is already set up for broadband access.
But could I convince the wife that a ReplayTV was the same thing (and in some instances better) as a TiVo? Nope. Gotta have a TiVo. TiVo is what I kept telling her we needed, so by golly we'd better get a TiVo, and nothing else!
Ordered it earlier this week.
Troy
I *love* my Tivo (Score:5, Interesting)
And no, this isn't flame-bait, and I don't want to get into a philosophical argument about my choice of metaphor. But... Mac owners that are also TiVo owners that are also x86 owners will truly know exactly what I'm talking about.
Maybe if they advertised effectively. (Score:4, Insightful)
They need a whole series of ads that directly address the cable companies in certain markets. Something like, "Think you've got a TiVo(TM)? Well if it came from your cable company, you don't..."
Satisfied customers' word of mouth is a great way to advertise, but it can't compare to the reach that the cable companies have, unless TiVo does something like hiring a network of their customers to work in Best Buy and Circuit City part time as evangelists-- who else would be better suited to explain exactly what it does?
~Philly
Who is the Customer? (Score:5, Insightful)
kleenex (Score:3, Insightful)
e.
Yeah I have a er, tivo thing (Score:3, Funny)
Them: "What do you think of Tivo?"
Me: "Tivo's are great, I love mine"
Me: "Well, actually I don't have an actual tivo, I built my own, its called SageTV, its pretty much the same as a real Tivo, but I can access my TV from any computer in the house, save stuff on DVD, no monthly fee, etc..."
Them: "you built a Tivo?"
Me: "Uh, well its a thing for your computer"
Them: "Oh..." (blank stare)
Me: "Tivo's kick ass!"
Them: =)
How about UNIX/LINUX (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes it's necessary (Score:3, Interesting)
People aren't all as technically-saavy as the
Personally, I use my All-In-Wonder card and Gemstar Guide+ to do my digital recording. If someone asks me about it, I say something along the lines of having software and hardware that "basically turns my computer into a Tivo."
Sure, I can't advertise a product that uses their trademark as an improper noun, or say that you can record video using their trademark as a verb (e.g. "Tivo it"), but I can sure as hell explain it that way to people on a personal level.
There's nothing you can do to stop me, so Nyaaaaaaaaa!
My Cable DVR Sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've had a Tivo for years. I'm not just a fanboy, I tried to get into my Cable co's pvr, but it's hard to like something that is that hard to use! The ff function barely works smoothly, there is not status bar that tells you where you are in a program, setting up a recording couldn't be any harder, and the guide is cluttered by stinking advertisements! etc etc etc.
I'm so happy that I bought a Tivo and the lifetime sub when I did. I just wish I could use the tivo to record my cable co's HD programming. I'd buy a cable card tivo in no time flat (ok, it would have to cost less that $450 bucks).
Obligatory Mythtv reference (Score:5, Informative)
It is licensed under the GPL.
http://www.mythtv.org/
The interface makes Tivo look like a weak sister in most areas, and has FAR more capabilities.
On well tested hardware and using well tested distributions, it can be set up in less than an hour, including Dling the software and deps/updates. YMMV, severely on poor hardware.
(via KT333/400) There are numerous well written how-tos, and one of the better mailing lists you will ever see.
Sound setup under Linux is typically the headache, as you can imagine.
There is a Knoppix based CD version, knoppmyth, but R4 is bit dated. It CAN be installed and VERY carefully upgraded, as mythtv is available for Debian.
One good, well suported setup---NF2 MB, Athlon XP, OSS audio, GF4 MX400, and FC1. (There are folks using it all dists tho)
I personally found Mandrake Cooker to be just as easy, easier in fact as it is "current" to the point of bleeding continuously, as my "backend" is my "workstation", and that's my comfortable distro of choice. Again, YMMV.
My new frontend is an Xbox, and it works beautifully, excellent TV out, DVD remote works perfectly, fully mapped to run Mythtv properly.
It runs Debian, xbox-mythtv, a tweaked version of Xebian.
Re:Obligatory Mythtv reference (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not a Tivo owner, so I can't speak about how they compare, but I must say that MythTV's interface sucks.
The interface is clunky and inelegant. It's extremely slow to navigate through. Conflict management is extremely complicated. You have to escape out several levels just to get back to the main menu so you can go back to a different branch of sub-menus (imagine if your VCR's menu had sub-menus, with sub-sub-menus, etc.)
And the final straw that got me to uninstall MythTV? It doesn't play anything but recorded TV programs on it's own. You need MPlayer to play you videos/audio, in which case you have an entirely different interface, different key bindings, different reactions to events, etc.
Personally, I just have a shell-script doing the TV-recording, and I playback using a basic filemanager that lists my videos (or playlists) and launches them with mplayer. I can play recorded TV programs, DVDs, Internet Streaming Video/Audio, etc. I never looked back after dropping MythTV.
DEFAULT, DEFAULT, DEFAUT! (Score:3, Interesting)
As an OT....I wouldn't want to be using my cable company's listings for a PVR. The show often do not match what is on and are very often generic(ie The Simpsons episode description is quite often "Matt Groening's subversive animated satire about Springfield's hapless first family"
Thoughts on Tivo (Score:4, Interesting)
I was talking to a friend of mine who has one of the brand X sattellite PVRs and almost every time I talk to him about it, he realizes that his PVR doesn't do everything (or pretty much anything) that my Tivo does. Such as allow him to search and record all shows by name, apparently. Must be a pretty shitty PVR he has...
Sure you could throw together a bunch of open source software and have a digital PVR, but you're paying the Tivo guys for the slick UI and the smooth user experience. Sure you could probably do as good a job as they could given a year or two of development time, but in that time you could have also made enough to buy the service for life AND purchased a share of the company.
So yes, I think the Tivo guys will have to stay on their toes if they want to stay alive, but competition is good after all. I don't see them going out of business anytime soon.
Solvable problem for tivo (Score:3, Insightful)
Then again the cable box dvr has 2 tuners and lets me record 2 shows and watch a recorded one all at the same time. Only way you can do that with a tivo is with an expensive direct tv box. Maybe thats their problem. Their product is too expensive.
Re:Solvable problem for tivo (Score:3, Insightful)
No monthly charges on the premier packages.
And the packages themselves have more channels, with better audio & video quality, for a lower monthly fee than any cable company I've investigated.
Certainly not an unreasonable price.
"Tivo" easier to understand than "DVR" (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just too expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
TW's box was $6.95 per month at my package level (HBO/Cinemax). I have to have my S2 for over 6 years to get ahead of renting from TW, and that presumes I don't blow a HDD or have some other failure that requires me to spend $100 getting mine fixed to retain the lifetime (you can do this). Adding in a repair trip pushes it over 7 years.
I wouldn't trade my Tivo for TW's box, but to a lot of ordinary people they do the same thing and the TW box is *way* cheaper to own. No upfront costs. No repair liability. Dual-tuner capability. I'm not saying the TW box is *better*, just that it has some compelling feartures and a great price point for the masses who can make or break a product.
Personally I think Tivo needs to alter their revenue model and innovate a lot more. Some random ideas:
Free Tivo basic. One sub fee for multiple boxes per household. Free HMO for second (third,
I love Tivo, but I can't help but think its high price vs. cable and absence of innovation in software or hardware will sink it against the cable behemoths.
Re:kinda like... (Score:2)
Sometimes, the trend can go the other way, too. For example, these days "Hoover" is just a brand of vacuum cleaner, and Xerox is a manufacturer of photocopiers.