We've had TiVo
firmly on deathwatch since 2005, and although the company's shares have recently surged with the
launch of the TiVo Premiere and another
legal victory over Echostar, things are still looking somewhat bleak: the Q4 numbers are in, and everyone's favorite DVR company just posted a $10.2m loss. Why? For the same reason that's plagued the company for five damn years now: it's hard to sign up new subscribers when the cable company offers a similar good-enough product for less money, especially when TiVo
can't access cable VOD. And let's be brutally honest here: we love TiVo and we're more than excited to get our Premiere review units, but we don't think a
revised interface is going to stem the tide -- almost every feature of the Premiere is available on the TiVo HD, after all. We've
offered up our suggestions on how to re-energize the company in the past -- that new QWERTY remote is a great start -- but until TiVo stops playing ball with the same cable companies that actively try and cut it off at the knees and starts going for the jugular with features and pricing, we don't think things are going to get any better.
posted Mar 8th 2010 10:13PM
i love that remote.
@skyblaze
Id peffer the Boxee Box remote, it looks soo much more nice, simple, and elegant
...but you gotta agree to Vaio's comment, The spaceship look is IN again..ahh the good old days
[=
@skyblaze
personally, i dont like my remotes to look like maxipads. but thats just me.
@skyblaze
Maybe the next one will be red instead of black. The colour of debt.
Bye TiVo.
Hello Moto DVR boxes with Android.
Hey, that's the tech world.
Innovate or die.
What keeps Tivo around with loses like that?
..Magic Beans?
@IcerC
They have no debt and a good chunk of money in the bank, along with multiple lawsuits leaning towards their favor. I feel like they just kinda went in hibernation during this recession and right as the economy booms back they will pull out all the stops and bring the TiVo back in full force.
@IcerC
Federal Bailouts
lol
@abedinthehouse
Not funny.
@shorties Remember when TiVo was like "Why are you suing us. People love us! We are the future!" and we were all behind them.
Now they are bringing the lawsuits and arn't doing anything important.
If TiVo reads this: I would have loved to buy one of your boxes to get off of cable. But your box is $300.. That's expensive but I MIGHT MIGHT buy one.. but I would really have to push myself for that. But you also want $13 a month! or $130/yr! Come on! I want to stop paying monthly for stuff that's largely OTA. I would love to ditch cable but you're not making it cost effective for me.
@PyRo1509
No I totally agree, I love my TiVo, just like I love TV, and that means its way overpriced just like cable. TiVo was getting sued because they disrupted a marketplace, they are now suing because everyone copied them afterwards. The thing is TiVo is sooooo good for the future of TV, and if I was in charge of the company I would do it a little differently. But the fact is they help people find TV shows and Internet shows that they would of never found otherwise and centralizes them on one box. (If you have ever used a TiVo you will know how many small little features like suggestions or wish lists, completely changes the way you watch TV, and fixes the problem of standard DVRs in which you only watch the shows you watch and never branch out). So I completely agree that their business model seems flawed, it will only make sense if they get cable companies to sell the box as an option, but I don't see that happening. But as I said in the previous post, they have a lot of money in the bank, my hope is now that once hardware costs drop, the current TiVo Premiere will go to $99, (Or maybe even free with commitment) the TiVo XL will be $300, and a new TiVo with 4 tuners and 2TB drive will be $500. They really need to worry about getting a TiVo in everyone's home rather than making money off the hardware. And I agree they should offer OTA TiVo service for free, (Or maybe like $99 lifetime option, because apparently they are selling the boxes at a loss, and make it up with subscriptions).
R.I.P. Tivo...Game over. I hacked my Comcast remote and it does the 30 second skip.. for $9.99 and has On-Demand. Why get Tivo?
@Mrwirez:
Because your comcast DVR sucks a big one. You pay ten dollars a month. If you just bought a TiVo with a lifetime subscription, in only 2.5 years it will have paid for itself. I think it's safe to assume that if you have DVR you plan on keeping it. 2.5 years isn't that long of a time, TiVo practically pays for itself compared to cable company DVR. Not to mention how much faster, more responsive, easier, and better looking it is...
@Jordan:
My mistake, 5 years. Still 5 years isn't that long.
@Jordan
Hulu isn't even 3 yet. In 5 years, I expect to be watching TV via direct-mind link or something.
@patches66 Hulu is losing content not gaining. If hulu actually becomes one inch of a threat to content providers profits you will see everything yanked. Don't count on hulu to cut the cord.
@Jordan Most cable providers still charge for a cable card. And you don't have to buy their DVR. Granted.... of course TiVo kicks my Time Warner dvr's sorry ass, but it's always a "it's good enough for now" story. Which is where I think most cable/dish customers are. It's a perpetual cycle.
I do love TiVo though... just not enough to put down the cash.
@nsfw
allow me to make my point more clearly. i mean to say that the pace of technological change is so fast, amortizing a "lifetime" subscription over 5 years seems like an unacceptable gamble to me. as others have pointed out, it's tivo's lifetime we're talking about, not mine. in 5 years, tivo and hulu are both likely to be yesterday's news. in the meantime, i have better things to spend money on. i'm not the only person who thinks this way, obviously.
@nsfw
(if this double posts, i apologize)
i was a bit vague, but what i meant is that 5 years seems like an unacceptably long time to gamble on tivo. the pace of change seems to be accelerating. as others have pointed out, it's tivo's lifetime we're talking about, not mine. i don't expect tivo or hulu to last another 5 years, honestly. in the meantime, i have better things to spend money on.
@Mrwirez Still has better recording and scheduling abilities, connected online for mobile scheduling, VOD with Netflix, and generally a much better TV experience.
Problem is they haven't kept up with offering Hulu, mobile video access that competes with Slingbox, getting a FASTER interface up (the new Flash one is way too slow), and making UI improvements such as favorites, bookmarks, etc.
@Jordan But 5 years is an eternity if you're buying hardware from a company that has been teetering on the brink of insolvency. I went through all the math 4-5 years ago when I finally got cable. There were two main reasons why I wound up choosing the cable company's craptastic Motorola DVR:
1) I figured it would take at least 4 years for the Tivo lifetime membership to be cheaper than the monthly DVR rental. Would Tivo be around in 4 years?
2) There were lots of rumors about cable companies changing to switched digital networks and at the time Tivo had no ETA for supporting them. Would my cable company switch over before Tivo supported it? And if Tivo *did* eventually support it, would I be required to buy a new box and pay a hefty fee to transfer my lifetime subscription?
In the end, there was too much uncertainty in the Tivo solution so I chose to rent. The Motorola 6416 really is a lousy DVR but I'm not sure I'd choose differently if given the choice again.
@arcasinky:
Looks like you made the wrong choice. Now you've spent the same exact amount of money, have had 4 years of a shitty experience with a crappy DVR, and have nothing to show for it. Here we are, TiVo is still kicking, and cable networks have done nothing. I could have told you back that that would have happened.
@arcasinky You really missed out. I paid for TWC's crappy DVR box for almost a year before making the switch to TiVo and never looked back. Using other DVR boxes infuriates me now because the hardware and interface are all so vastly inferior.
@Jordan
Jordan you are correct. People do their math incorrectly.
Your cable box, DVR capability and Remote add up to 16$ probably if not more. You pay around 10$ for DVR option, probably 3$ for Cable Box option and 3$ for Remote, yes Cable Companies charge you for your stupid remote.
That adds up to $16 times 12 = $192 a year.
New TIVO $299 + Lifetime $399 = $698
Will take around 3.6 years to have it free. And this is just simples option, but you can do better than that on eBay they sell lifetime subscriptions, TIVO also offers sometimes $100 off from lifetime subscription. That alone brings it down below 3 years to pay for itself. People that have TIVO already know it and did their homework, everyone else is just complaining. There is no better deal out there, sure you get VOD nothing else.
Meh. Never have, and never will, pay for a DVR service. Good riddance.
@kevout:
I really hope you don't have DVR from your cable company then. But I'm assuming you're using WMC
@Jordan
I'm not paying for TV, either. OTA into WMC.
@kevout why not pay for it when its such a great product?
So much for that lifetime subscription some people paid for.
http://www.sadtrombone.com
"similar good-enough product for less money"
Hardly. If people only knew how much they are paying for their POS cable company DVR that they don't even own! TiVo is such a much better experience as well. Faster, more responsive, much easier to navigate, much better to look at. TiVo is absolutely the way to go. I hate going to people's houses and using their POS cable company DVRs. They just suck.
@Jordan
I know exactly what I'm paying. $15.95.
The second one is the same cost, PLUS an additional outlet fee of around $9 IIRC.
They're terrible, you're write.
TiVo's failure is their business model. It's $400 for a 'lifetime' subscription for the first box. $300 for the second. That's not even including hardware cost.
Or you can buy the boxes up front, AND pay monthly subscription fees for each one.
TiVo has completely priced themselves out of the market by charging as much or damn near as much per month as the cable company for a service that costs almost nothing to provide.
TiVo's failures have been of their own doing.
remot is the best and lok at det remot
Work From Home India
What's Tivo?
Why doesn't Tivo just read Engadget? Then they would see what we all want, build it, and then get some more units sold! Until it can access Comcast VOD, it's a no go in this household.
@cypherx http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/29/tivos-jim-denney-responds-to-engadget/
So what happens to my Tivo life subscription if the company tanks???
@BrownSound You count your losses, which is why I have never bought into Tivo's lifetime deal or anything of the sort.
What the hell does TiVo lose money on? They essentially provide a service that is the distribution of a text file and charge money for it.
It must be all the lawyers they have to chase down patent violators.
There was this thing a few years back that recorded TV on some magical black ribbon... I don't recall what it was called...
How does TiVo get patents for stuff that already existed? Remember VCR+ codes?
@gittenlucky:
That's like asking how does Apple get patents for touching a screen to unlock it. Or the one they just applied for that is how to position ports on a computer to allow proper cooling.
@gittenlucky
Patent Office loves that money.
I don't watch enough TV to give a crap about any of this stuff, but I must say that that remote is absolutely killer.
.... if the DVR industry totally tanks, maybe TiVo can get into the cell phone hardware business - they might be able to teach a think or two to the current crop of Android phone makers about physical buttons and curvy consumer devices that fit well in someone's hand.
It's the Monthly service cost that's killing them. When we already pay for TV, Internet, Phone among others every month, it's kinda hard to pay money up front AND another monthly service on top of that. But yeah, not being able to access VOD is a huge problem.
If Tivo and Hulu got together, then that could help.
Now, where's our DirecTiVo HD 2010 edition coming?
@Meekermoloko I would like to know the same thing. We've heard rumors of TiVo and DTV making up for years now.
DirecTV's boxes, ever since they dropped TiVo have absolutely *sucked*. My parents actually just sent a box back to DTV and purchased an Series 2 HD DTiVo on ebay because they're so bad. They're primitive and slow and just....shitty.
@Meekermoloko The monthly service cost is everything bad about TIVO. Pricewise, TIVO + Lifetime service + 802.11n = MacMini + Tuner. That's math for ya'.
Maybe the should by Palm... hahaha
OK, death watch?, I don't buy it. Yea, they loose 10M but a lot is in hardware investment with future revenue built in. Note both revenue and losses grew. More revenue is good since that means they are selling something. They have $245M in cash and no debt according to Yahoo. They just signed a deal for Europe that could bring in a bindle of growth. They have a patent portfolio to die for. maybe that's why its a death watch? If they win the Echostar suit and collect they will add $200M-$400 to the cash on hand. Series 3 and 4 are probably really cheap to build now and development costs have shrunk in the process.
I don't work for Tivo and have no vested interest in them, but this is hardly grim.
@kene Yeah, "deathwatch" essentially lost its meaning on Engadget. Do they understand that TiVo is among the most secure tech companies on the planet for the next 10 years? Even if they burn $10 million every quarter, it will take 10 years to use up all the Echostar proceeds.
Methinks that deathwatch doesn't mean what engadget thinks it means.
what happened to that little ad they had were they were like
"inventing the DVR was only the beginning"
or something like that?
I don't think it's the crappy boxes sold by cable companies, VOD, or the monthly charge... its the internet. You can find pretty much any show you want, minutes after it's aired, streaming. The cable companies and Tivo are in the same sinking boat... the cable companies are just on a higher deck.