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?

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?

I'm sure companies will starting complaining about lost sales in DVDs/Ad placements

They can still place them there.

When I watch TV, I mute ads, or flip around. This does not stop the ad company from placing the ad. After all, they are not paying ME to see it, they are paying the TV show for placing it. The cost is the same whether I watch it or not.

Heck, I routinely tape (VHS) shows so I can fast-foreward through ads. Or when two shows are on in the same time slot. As far as I am concerned, there IS NO prime time. I tape when it is aired, and watch when I want to, not when some over-paid executive decides I should.

This is known as enpowernment.

All the **AA's hate this of course.....

Re:Tivo To Go brings more harm?

When I watch TV, I mute ads, or flip around. This does not stop the ad company from placing the ad. After all, they are not paying ME to see it, they are paying the TV show for placing it. The cost is the same whether I watch it or not.

That may be true, but the bottom line is that companies pay TV networks to advertise there because you and millions of people like you watch the shows, and will therefore watch the advertisements. If everyone is skipping over the ads, then companies are not getting the visibility they were going for when they bought that ad, and continuing to buy ads in television media is no longer worthwhile.

As more and more people skip over ads, demand for ad space will go down, price will follow, and so will the total revenue of these networks, which operate almost entirely from revenue generated by advertisements. This is why DVR technology sucks so bad for television stations. Widespread use of DVR technology could potentially cut off their primary source of revenue, and unless people are willing to pay far more for television than they do already, TV stations are at a loss as to how to replace that revenue.

That being said, I watch shows exclusively from my DVR now. Even if I'm sitting there with nothing to do while the show is on, I'll record it and watch some other pre-recorded show, then watch the first show later, when I can skip over the ads, so I guess I'm part of the problem.

Re:Tivo To Go brings more harm?

That may be true, but the bottom line is that companies pay TV networks to advertise there because you and millions of people like you watch the shows, and will therefore watch the advertisements. If everyone is skipping over the ads, then companies are not getting the visibility they were going for when they bought that ad, and continuing to buy ads in television media is no longer worthwhile.

As more and more people skip over ads, demand for ad space will go down, price will follow, and so will the total revenue of these networks, which operate almost entirely from revenue generated by advertisements. This is why DVR technology sucks so bad for television stations. Widespread use of DVR technology could potentially cut off their primary source of revenue, and unless people are willing to pay far more for television than they do already, TV stations are at a loss as to how to replace that revenue.

That being said, I watch shows exclusively from my DVR now. Even if I'm sitting there with nothing to do while the show is on, I'll record it and watch some other pre-recorded show, then watch the first show later, when I can skip over the ads, so I guess I'm part of the problem.


Dead on. I believe Darwin called this evolution. TV Networks are becoming obsolete and they are fighting tooth and nail to survive. If they do not find a way to make money, (i.e. outlaw PVRs, pass laws against skipping commercials, find alternate revenue stream, etc.) they will die. It is certainly a bad thing for networks, but is it a bad thing for shows or for the viewer? Right now networks are a middle man with too much control - get rid of them and both the TV producers and viewers will be happy. Sell TV directly to consumer. A few decades back HBO and the like figured out a way to bypass advertizing and networks to sell (almost) directly to consumer - you pay for the channel, they are not hurt a bit by PVRs. Now someone needs to start selling content directly to PVRs over network - bypass cable company, bypass networks, etc. Sell shows, not channels.... here I go off on a rabling rant again....been saying this for at least 5 years, since I got my first Tivo...

-Em

They're doomed

Tivo are doomed. They were popular because they solved a problem that pisses a lot of people off: advertising. Their customers were those who were the most annoyed by the advertising, enough to pay money to do something about it. Their customers loved the fact that Tivo was "sticking it to the man" for them.

Not the case anymore. Now Tivo is about "compromise" and "innovation" and putting ads back into their customers shows and supporting Macrovision blocking of pay-per-view shows etc.

The thing they don't seem to grasp is that their customer base are made up of those who were not prepared to "compromise". These are people who said "No, I'm not prepared to compromise on this. I will not accept shit in my cornflakes. I don't care if there's less shit and it's harder to taste, I'm not giving you my money unless my cornflakes are shit-free"

Advice to Tivo: Stop looking at ways to "innovate" and get back to "fixing your customers problem"

Re:Tivo To Go brings more harm?

There are methods you can use to strip out the DRM from the .tivo files:

TiVo To Go MPEG2 Decrypting [evillabs.net]

This is one method, there are a few others.

Re:Tivo To Go brings more harm?

So what. Maybe 1% of users will figure out how to transcode it to remove the DRM. The instructions are out there, but let me tell you that it isn't exactly easy. You can go the GraphEdit route, which means installing the DirectX9 SDK, installing the correct codecs (which have to be paid for) and figuring out how to configure all the filters (the instructions out there aren't idiot proof). Or you can go the Nero transcoding route, but then youve got the bugs in loading the videos, Nero splitting the output into multiple files, etc. Or you can go the Sonic route, burn it to DVD, the rip it back off. I've found methods that work great for me, but it's too much trouble for the average user to figure out. Maybe one day there will be an application that makes it easy for users to do this, but right now I liken it to the warez scene...most users couldn't figure out how to get past the crap to find the real stuff.

And even before TTG was released, people figured out ways to hack the TiVo and download the video. So now you have the feature available to 100% of users, and maybe 1% will abuse it. Before, the feature was available to 0% of users, and STILL 1% abused it. Which scenario is better for TiVo?

Re:Tivo To Go brings more harm?

Right now Tivo is restricted to 10baseT speeds because it maxes out the USB 1.1.
(WiFi takes a hit too, even though it theoretically is faster than 10baseT).

Many of the Series2 Tivo's have a USB 2.0 capable chipset, I understand the drivers aren't there yet, but they have supposedly added some of the capability into the latest version of the OS, over the next while I expect they will be providing driver updates to support USB 2.0 based ethernet.

This should improve the transfer rates, hopefully they throttled them because of issues with USB 1.1. (or they maxed it out).

Tivo2Go is slow on all fronts...

Download times vary widely. Most people report shows transferring a little quicker or a little slower than real time, meaning if you have a one hour show it will take about an hour to transfer. Many factors impact your throughput including file size based on recording quality and your network design. For example a show recorded in high quality will take longer to transfer than a show recorded in basic quality.

I finally got my Tivo2Go system upgrade about two weeks ago (it took quite a while to come down to my unit) and I tried it out. I was absolutely dumbfounded at how slow the video file transferred over.

I intended on copying over the entire Tivo contents and then coverting them w/Dr. Divx (quite the task on my slower 2x400 Celeron machine) and then watching them on my Archos. Well, when I saw how slow the damn thing copied in the first place I figured why not just keep using the "Save to VCR" function as I have been doing?

What I would like to see is a "Save to VCR" function that will let me queue up multiple shows and save them all in one shot rather than one at a time. I could set the Archos up and let it record for a couple hours over night. Wake up and be done.

Tivo2Go sounded wonderful until I realized it was in a format that was worthless to go straight to a portable media device, it was slow as hell to bring over from the unit, and then it was slow as hell to convert with Dr. Divx.

Blah. Just do as I asked and change the "Save to VCR" function for me :)

One thing is nice to see

A company out there, whos had their market influenced by competition and innovation, trying to improve their business by means other than litigation.

I'm not one who watches much TV, therefor a Tivo was never big on my shopping list, but I have to say its refreshing to see a company try to improve their product rather than sue the compition.

Heres to you Tivo, and best of luck.

Heh, cute

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.

No, it won't help

I'm a loyal TiVo customer, and I simply don't get what this company is trying to do. They've basically blown it with the cable providers, so their only real hope in making some serious cash just hit the shitter. I kinda feel like the first days of Java when it was thrown out ther to "developers" who created useless applets. I have no desire to look at pictures on my TV. I can do that by plugging in my digital camera. I have no desire to share stuff with my Mac, unless I can download the videos in a normal codec (MPG) and save stuff on my computer.
What else is there to do on this thing that developers are really going to tap into to get my mom, dad, sister and in-laws to buy a TiVo?
I've said this before, but I am dead serious: they need more porn. It's always driven technology and made money. The cable companies are cashing in. The hotel chains are cashing in. The industry is cashing in. Now, that won't mak my family buy it, per se, but people WILL buy it if they see more hooters and camel toe.
This move for a "developers kit" it desperate becaue they can't think of anything else. They need a CEO like Jobs, because a visionary who can execute is the only way this company will be saved.

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

Good idea about Jobs. I think Apple should buy TiVo. It would fit perfectly into their whole home-media-centricity. If Apple bought TiVo it would instantly put them ahead of Microsoft's Media Center and give them a real wedge into the living room. And porting TiVo's application layer to OS X should be pretty straightforward if they want TiVo 3 to be a Mac for the living room.

Apple Shouldn't Buy TiVo!

I think that Apple should get into the media center market, once the CableCard 2.0 standard is available, but I see no point in Apple buying TiVo. What would TiVo bring to the deal?

Name recognition? If anything, Apple's is even better.

Profits? TiVo is losing money.

User interface? Apple doesn't really need TiVo's help in user interface design, and the once-innovative TiVo interface is starting to seem a bit clunky next to things like iTunes. Apple would be better advised to come up with their own from scratch.

I'd say, apps are TiVo's major (only?) hope

They don't have partnerships with cable companies and content producers tend to hate them.

Fortunately, they are based on a decent OS and, by opening the platform up to the developers, can appeal directly to users.

It will take a long while for cable-companies to offer anything comparable on their proprietary boxes.

Bad choice of words?

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.

I'm not sure Digital Convergence [digitalconvergence.com] is the model Tivo should follow. Although I suppose it'll be alright, eventually, now that their primary product [digitalconvergence.com] has entered the realm of open-source tinkering [lib.la.us].

Oh, you mean the failure to capitalize Digital Convergence wasn't an editorial accident? Oops.

ugh, Common sense

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

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.

A Couple Points of Clarification

First off, TivoToGo doesn't let you DL and Burn files off your TiVO. It lets you DL them so that you can watch them on your computer. To Burn them to DVD you are supposed to buy seperate software at an additional cost.

Second, DL times are slow because the TiVO has to wrap the video stream in DRM, and it can only do that so fast.

So, the average user finds themself having to do all sorts of gymnastics to get the benefits that the marketing material promised would come from TTG. And it STILL doesn't allow you to do useful things like put your Home Movies on (or stream them to) your TiVO.

And they wonder why their subscriber base is declining?

----

I talk TiVO and HTPC a bit here [blogspot.com] too... :-)

Tivo to Go is a bit well wanky

I just got my upgrade to support the Tivo to Go transfers last week. It took a super long time to get the service upgrade which was annoying. I've also noticed a few lame things about the software. Tivo Desktop installs a server component on the PC (I believe for handling the sharing of pictures and music). By default the resource usage for this server is set to "Medium. Use this if you use your PC for light tasks such as word processing." Well, this medium setting uses a lot of CPU time. So much that it caused my DVD burning software to take twice as long as usual and ran the buffer very close to underrun. Normally I can burn DVDs while running other applications without a problem. Once I shutdown the Tivo server app, everything returned to normal. Considering the computer is a Pentium 4 3.2GHz I was amazed at how the Tivo server screwed up performance - especially considering it was idle (no transfers, no music playing on the tivo).
As others have noted, the file transfer time is very slow. I guess this may be due to the Tivo's slow processor and the fact that the Tivo is still functioning (recording and playing back etc.) while the transfer is going.
Supposedly the Tivo Series 2 units have USB 2.0 ports and the drivers with the 7.1 upgrade are supposed to enable USB 2.0 - but apparently this hasn't resulted in much of a speed gain. There are some notes on this in the Tivo forums [tivo.com].
The media files you pull over are protected with DRM. They are linked to your Tivo device's media access key and require a password to play. There are a few methods circulating for stripping the DRM such as this one using GraphEdit:

TiVo To Go MPEG2 Decrypting [evillabs.net]

The files are MPEG2 which means they are pretty darn big. You can expect about 1.2 gigabytes for an hour show at medium quality. Despite the huge file size, the image quality on the shows I have transfered isn't that great. The output seems grainy compared to video caps I've done straight off of a composite video cable. The signal on the TV is clean.
The last problem I've had is with playback of the Tivo files on Windows 2000. I have a DVD player installed and can play DVDs fine. I also have the AC3 codec installed so audio works fine (for example on Divx files with AC3 audio). But MPEG2 playback on any sort except standard DVD comes out squished. The horizontal aspect ratio is messed up, so everyone looks anorexic. Does anyone know how to fix this? I have no problems playing back on Windows XP. So while it's nice to finally be able to move stuff off when the Tivo is getting full (and no I don't want to hack it - if I broke the Tivo the girlfriend would kill me) the service certainly has room for improvement. Also the fact that the upcoming software for burning the shows to DVD (Sonic MyDVD) is being sold not included with Tivo service is pretty lame.

Putting Tivo on hold

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...

Don't tell me the bus already left...

I just bought this damn box. I put a Linksys 10/100TX usb adapter on it - the files (900 MB for 30mins) come to my machine at 400 KB/sec. (yeah thats bytes) We have a 250 gig hard drive in there for good measure. At the moment I've got 49 spongebob episodes and a crapload of other stuff.

TIVO 2 GO works great if you dont use the software - or if you do even. Want to do it by hand? Go to:

https://[youttivoipaddr]/
username:tivo
passwo rd:yourmediaaccesskey

DL all the files you want from your 'now playing list'. As for DRM - well... tmpeg makes a nice VDC of it - and virtualdub has no problem manhandling the files either.

And sorry but I'd disagree with the statement 'everyone has one already'. I know LOTS of folks who just don't - you do too if you'd look outside your geek bubble.

Could I have hacked this together myself? You bet. Am I too damn lazy? Well now ...

Re:See: WebTV

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.

Re:replaytv

Some of these features seem a little silly to me, truth be told, but cheer up! If you've got any of the last three generations of ReplayTVs (5[0135]xx or 4xxx), you can, today, copy shows to your PC (running pretty much your choice of OS -- forget this Windows dependency crap). Not to mention once they're on your PC, you can stream them to your RTV and watch them there.

And you can use drives bigger than 127Gb. :)

Re:Too Late

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.