GearBits

Admittedly, I have done ZERO research on this because I'm a very happy DirecTV customer, but isn't the CABLE CARD standard supposed to handle this? Wasn't this a mandate to the cable companies and consumer electronics manufacturers to include integrated cable tuners into HDTV monitors? If that's the case, then TiVo should be right on that same bandwagon and be able to leverage their superior UI and brand name to spank the competition. You don't hear Carrie and Miranda discussing their super groovy Scientific Atlanta DVR on Sex & the City. The problem is SA, Motorola, and the other competitors are putting out cheaper versions and could commoditize the market so fast TiVo never profits from their innovations.

I could envision a world where TiVo comes out with a 2 tuner STB with CABLE CARD integrated with the world-famous TiVo interface. The beauty of that implementation is that you standalone people out there would also finally get the benefit of simply encoding the digital stream from the source. You wouldn't have to deal with quality settings and crap like that, and Lord knows you haven't lived until you've had 2 tuners goin at once. The bummer is that the broadcast flag rulings force TiVo to put "reasonable" controls against "hacking" because TiVo (or TiVo hackers) would be happy to spin up a little webserver on that unit and let you stream TV from the TiVo to any display on your network, but that's a whole other discussion! ;-)

-Joe

Yes. I believe that OpenCable will be a requirement beginning July 1 of this year. In theory this means that you should be able to buy a non-cable company box and your cable guys will be required to give you the card.

After hearing how horrific the 6208 is, I pray nightly that this all works out and that TiVo goes into that market.

We'll see if this happens though.

Joe, you're right -- that's why I said "with new initiatives like OpenCable on the way" TiVo would be silly to release something immediately. CableCard is a good opportunity to open up cable tuning for competition. If TiVo can get a CableCard-based DVR out by, say, the end of the year, that'll be great. And even if this initiative only serves to force SA and Moto and others to make their interfaces better, then all we consumers win. So, I expect things to get better, but I do hope that TiVo is rewarded for being the innovator and not squashed due to a lack of size and muscle.

I think it comes down to the fact that Tivo is going to have to radically change it's business model and become more of a software provider. They can probably keep providing reference hardware designs as well.

The issue it that, long term, they can't support monthly user fees. They also can't own the customer - the cable companies won't allow this to happen. Given that Scientific-Atlanta is will to provide this functionality and this business model, Tivo will have to change or die - or get bought by News Corp - all are possible.

The reality is that DVR is commodity - actually - it's a feature, not a product. I own both a TiVO and a Scientific-Atlanta 8000 unit - the TiVO definitely has a better interface, but not by so much that they won't be able to copy it and get to, say 95% of the features.

Just my two cents,

Damian

Seems to me that people who love the 8000 unit havent' ever had any experience with a Tivo. Well, I have a standalone 20 hour unit (an old unit, mind you) and then we decided to get a TW 8000 unit for a 2nd room.

It sucks.

It has all the problems mentioned: losing programming, not recording the right things, resetting...

It's really, really, terrible. I use Time Warner cable in Austin. If I hadn't ever used a Tivo I would think the 8000 is great and would deal with any weirdness just to have the dual tuners, but once compared with the ease of use of a real Tivo unit, I could never use one of these again. I sent it back in. It was much less painful to not have to deal with the damn thing having all the problems, when we have a working Tivo in the house.

Damian, I agree 100% with ya.

The only reason I've found worth putting up with the poor quality of the interface and stability of the 8000 unit is the video and audio quality. This shows the distinct advantage of a device that is able to receive the digital cable signal and record it directly. It preserves the 5.1 audio when available and so on that I was losing with my TiVo. I'm sorely tempted to switch to satellite for this reason alone, the cable companies are really missing out not having a better device available. OpenCable can't get here soon enough.

Although, the newly announced HD Tivo will in fact record ATSC programming. It has two ATSC tuners and two DirecTV tuners (although you can only choose two of any of the four tuners to be active at a time). Not really your point, but just thought I'd mention it.

Have you considered that Cable Companies like Ads and in fact make money off Ads? As such they aren't really motivated to make a product which allows consumers to skip over them? I could imagine a PVR/STB that allows you to record content, but doesn't make it very convenient to skip over ads maybe. Or just a love/hate relationship with the DVR that results in a less than spectacular product.

By xmas you will be able to buy cablecard tv's with a 1394 connection so you can add a hard drive to record content and pause tv (These already exist in Japan, but with Japanese satellite tuners instead of ATSC & Cablecard)

For what it's worth, the HD/Standalone was being displayed at TiVo's booth at CES. This was the same prototype that was displayed in 2003. Not sure how reliable the information was, but according to the TiVo person with whom we spoke, TiVo is looking for a manufacturing partner to make and sell the box. As you suggest, given the competition from cable providers, this may be a tougher sell than the HD DirecTV/TiVo, which obviously has a much larger possible audience.

Craig, you may want to check this one out... They make hints about TiVo Series 3 and provide a little analysis of the Strangeberry purchase.

http://gigaom.com/archives/2004/01/tivo_the_digital_hub_powered_by_strangeberry.html#004644

Joe, yeah, I read about the Strangeberry acquisition, but I don't think it helps much getting cable or satellite content into a TiVo-powered DVR, let alone HD content, so I didn't bother to mention it.

Is the "media hub" strategy a sound one for TiVo? I don't know -- it's not clear to me the value of these media-aggregation tools yet. After all, the only stuff I really have worth watching is either coming in from my cable provider or is stored on DVDs and VHS tapes. Digital music I can listen to via my stereo without involving my TV at all, so I'm not sure I'm clear on the benefits to the media hub. However, would I like to try one out to see if it's useful? You betcha.

The info that I have seen about the HD Tivo unit is that it will have 2 sat tuners as well as 2 OTA tuners. This will allow for any antenna user to still pick up their OTA HD signal and tivo it, the same way that if you have a direct tv HD tuner now you can, as I do, solely use it to pick up OTA terrestrial HD signals.

I have a black box analog cable box. I want to add either a TIVO with lifetime sub or build a Media PC. Which would be better in the long run?