Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
Dish Network lost its appeal of a lawsuit filed by Tivo for infringement. The appeals court upheld an earlier decision awarding Tivo $92 million from Dish Network, which infringed on Tivo’s DVR time shifting technology. In addition to the large monetary judgment, Dish Network will also have to turn off the DVR software used by most of its customers. That’s probably going to lead to even more problem for Dish Network, which will likely face defecting users along with some who will ask for refunds.
Slashdot | TiVo Patent Victory Over Dish Network Upheld
There are several choices to make when purchasing or building a DVR system. The top two are Tivo Series3, a pre-built, ready-to-use system; and mythTV, an open source homebrew setup that runs on Mac OS X or Linux. (see the trackback link now for the full comparison)
I think the conclusion reached from this comparison is that you do not need to shell out lots of money to get a decent DVR setup. Tivo Series3 is great for people with HDTV and a lot of money to burn on the perfect user experience. mythTV is great for computer geeks who have experience with Linux and who don’t mind having to come up with some solutions on their own. It is also better as a complete entertainment center, as the software makes it easier to share recorded broadcasts without DRM.
The year is not quite over, so the list is not official yet, but Tivo has released the Top Ten Tivo’ed Moments of 2006. Tops on the list is Katie Couric’s last day on “Today”. Other memorable moments include Oprah lambasting author James Frey and Connie Chung serenading her husband, Maury Povich.
The complete list is available at the trackbacked URL.
TiVo will be selling ads at the end of recorded shows, as a way to milk more profit off their device and appease advertisers, who are kind of upset about the TiVo owner’s ability to skip through commercials.
TiVo started a small controversy when they started displaying pop-up ads while users skipped commercials. Advertisers have also inserted messages in their ads that can only be seen by those skipping the ad with a TiVo or similar DVR device.
Technorati Tags: tivo, ads, advertising
Tivo has announced a new broadband peer-to-peer video service for Tivo subscribers. For an extra $4 a month, users will be able to upload videos to their Tivo and then share them with friends via their own private channel. It will be available during the first quarter of next year.
Perhaps by Christmas 2007, you’ll be able to skip your annual trip to grandma’s house and just send her a video instead.
Ok, so I’m referencing an article that uses some of the fuzziest math and logic I’ve ever seen in a news article, but I think the underlying fact is true: the Tivo Series3 is not doing so well.
Tivo has seen a dip in stock price over the past 2 months, even though the Series3 is one of the most wanted electronic devices on the market. The reason? Try the $800 price tag for the best model. That’s well out of the range of the casual TV watcher. New subscriber rates seem to be holding steady, but the cost of acquiring those new subscribers has gone way up, although the article does not explain how.
So what is Tivo to do about this dilemna? Well, do what everyone else is doing. That’s right, they’re going to sell advertising! But I thought the point of buying a DVR was to be able to avoid seeing ads, right? Well, apparently not any more. Now it’s about services and quality recordings. They’ll find the shows you like, and make a recording that can be clearer than you’d get from a DVD for some broadcasts.
It seems like the target audience is beginning to slip from the general TV-viewing public to the TV aficianados, the people who live and die with each episode of CSI, and use that time when others sleep to view the great shows they missed the first time around but their Tivo recorded for them.
A tech-tinkerer over at the Tivocommunity forum has come up with a way to upgrade the Series3 to 1TB using an external RAID setup. This is a big upgrade over the standard 250GB that the Series3 comes with out of the box, especially when we’re talking about recording HDTV, which can use up a hard drive rather quickly.
LINK: Tivo S3 Upgraded to 1TB via RAID
Alright, so you’ve already paid $69.99 for your Series2 Tivo, assuming you took the time to mail in the $150 rebate. Now you’re paying $19.99 each month for a subscription to Tivo’s service. If you’ve got the high-definition box, change that $69.99 figure to $800. What kind of extras is Tivo offering you for all that money? Well, pretty crappy ones in my opinion.
For years marketers have dreamed of the day when people could buy a movie ticket through their computer, and many people now do. Not many thought a person’s TV could, or should, do the same job. With Tivo’s extras, you can also find the nearest car dealer who sells your favorite brand of car, as long as you don’t drive one of those terrible Russian brands. When would you use this? Probably never, but I’m sure some hot-shots at Tivo thought it would be a huge hit with advertisers who would pay them hundreds of millions of dollars a year to be featured on Tivo’s extra services. Oh heck, I know what hot-shot “idea men” are like, they probably even used the b word. Yeah, billions a year from spamvertising! We’re all rich, let’s take off our suits and roll around in the money!
Tivo Inc. is a company barely able to survive. They have very little proprietary technnology, and a lot of companies with a lot more money are trying to move in on their turf, and doing it quite successfully. Tivo needs to offer many extras in their service, but what they have right now are not extras. They’re just more ways to squeeze money out of their product. People are not as stupid as Tivo thinks. They know the difference between an advertisement and something of actual value.
Tivo’s future can go in two directions: breakthrough innovation or death.
This past weekend didn’t just feature two great fight cards competing for the same viewers at the same time, it may trigger an increase in sales of the Tivo recording device among boxing fans.
I’m sure many boxing fans realized for the first time this Saturday that trying to watch two fights at the same time is much more annoying than you could imagine. Showtime and HBO both featured fights at the same time. Both are premium channels, but not pay-per-view. That meant anyone with a Tivo could watch one and then watch the other one afterwards. They could also record both and pause one to watch the other.
Unlike other uses of the Tivo, such as recording TV shows and movies that are destined to be shown again many times, boxing matches will only be shown once, and nobody really wants to watch a fight that is more than a day old. Once they’ve read about it in the newspaper, what’s the point of watching the whole thing just to make sure the paper was accurate?
I predict much higher Tivo sales among sports fans in coming years, as people try to find ways to fit a 2-3 hour event into their busy schedule.
- April 2008 (1)
- February 2007 (1)
- December 2006 (1)
- November 2006 (2)
- October 2006 (5)
- September 2006 (1)
