TiVo HD DVR > Please explain

reply to TheOtherPete

Re: Please explain

reply to wmcbrine
Sell the updates. Simple. A quick $20 update should suffice. However, if the updates are do to error, then the consumer really is being screwed. Why should anyone pay them to "get it right".... ?
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-serving, the lazy, and I’m told it’s a woman’s prerogative..."

reply to fiberguy

I'm sorry, I'm just a businessman. I didn't know that.

I didn't know you were talking about an HD Tivo, as you clearly now are.

The Tivo service was out FAR before the HD box was and not much is changing. Still, to answer your question, I can, from parts still build a machine that can do two HD streams, as you said, and still be under $1,000 dollars for it. I can do that for about $800.

Now, let's mass produce those on an assembly line and make them only do the one function, and yes, I can get that price down.

I'm sorry, but I don't think you quite understand business as you are attempting to. It doesn't matter if the item is a computer or a widget, if you focus any production to a single point, or not a wide variety of items, the costs are cheaper. Why do you think South West Airlines only flys the Boeing 737, and Frontier is not all Airbus 319/320 as is Jet Blue? It's easier to maintain and cheaper.

Now, back to your PC that can record TV HD Streams... it's not hard dude. That same $400 PC can still handle the two streams.. it's the cost of a card. So yes, the price still goes up. How much is the regular HD (non-lite) DVR? Price isn't that much. However, for a one trick pony, the Tivo is still costly.

The SD Tivo is STILL way out of line on it's price. And, if Tivo is a "service" then they should lease the box and service together and charge a $100 activation fee and be honest to the consumer.

All I know is when I first got Tivo and found out I HAD to pay their monthly service just to use the basic function of the box, that was insane.

Further, they added insult to injury buy adding that industry standard $200 contract break out fee to boot.

If congress was ever to do one thing right, they'd ban those contract break outs or only allow the way they used to be which was prorated.

Sorry.. try as you want, you will not sway me or make me change my mind on this one.

Tivo is not a good or valid business model and even showing me their P&L will only prove me correct.
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-serving, the lazy, and I’m told it’s a woman’s prerogative..."

reply to BF69
It records shows without my input beyond telling it to record the show one time. It does it without me having to feed it DVDs or tapes. It handles schedule changes gracefully (usually). I don't have to think about it. If I tell it I want to watch The Simpsons, it gets me The Simpsons, whenever it comes on, and optionally, on whatever channel it comes on.

reply to fiberguy
That $400 PC can't record anything but broadcast HD. No TNT, A&E, National Geographic, Discovery, HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz, HDnet..the list goes on.

That $400 PC can't record digital cable, either.

A several thousand dollar PC with a CableCARD slot can, sure, but you go ahead and spend four grand on that. I'll be laughing all the way to the bank while I enjoy my nearly silent box that just works.

Also, that $400 PC probably can't play back HD video, although it should store it on the hard drive just fine. There's a reason why specialized chips are needed.

You also forget that when the first TiVos were released, you were hot shit if you had a Pentium 2. MPEG encoders cost a hundred bucks or more apiece, to say nothing about the decoder.

I agree that life was better before the contracts, though! Of course, it was better when the fee was only $9.95 a box and lifetime cost $150. Of course the boxes were nearly a grand, so I'd still rather have what we have today.

1) Reread my message before you insert what a $400 PC can and can't do.

2) I'm guessing you don't, nor have you ever, owned a MCE Machine, have you?
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-serving, the lazy, and I’m told it’s a woman’s prerogative..."

reply to wierdo

Firstly, the content owners will not be allowing unprotected HD content, so you're never going to be able to build your own HTPC box and throw in whatever CableCARD hardware you desire. I wish that weren't true..I'd have MRV and TTG if they weren't such bastards about it.

No, playing SD MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 is easy. Even my Xbox can do it. Hell, half resolution HD works fine on it, too, since they offload much of the work onto the GPU. HD is much harder, meaning you need a more expensive CPU that needs louder cooling.

Um, no, when TiVo first came out (not when I first got my TiVo), most PCs couldn't play MPEG-2, and they damn sure couldn't even think about encoding it in real time. You may be thinking about the release of the Series 2, by which time high end PCs were indeed capable of real time MPEG-2 encoding and decoding, at least if you spent a whole lot of money..more than the TiVo cost, anyway.

Really, whether or not you approve, lots of people are fine with TiVo's pricing model, as am I. HTPCs just don't compare. Have you even used an HD TiVo?

There you go again.

Almost nobody pays $17 a month. I don't need a scientific study to prove that people are OK with TiVo's pricing, all I need are subscriber counts.

Unlike Comcast, TiVo is not essentially the only option for such functionality. Many do use cable DVRs, yes, but TiVo had 1.7 million direct subscribers (and 2.7 million DirecTV subscribers, which contribute little to the bottom line). Despite significant losses of DirecTV subscribers thanks to the ending of their relationship and the Comcast and Cox deals still not being rolled out, TiVo's total subscriber count has been going up.

Obviously 1.7 million folks are OK with the pricing model. If you take out the DirecTV losses, in the last quarter of 2006, 100,000 people disagreed with you in that quarter alone. Perhaps some others would be enticed by lower prices, but that's not something TiVo can do. As you previously noted, TiVo is not (usually) cash flow positive. In fact, they've come closer to that goal since they raised prices. Apparently they were under-pricing the market at $9.95 a month and at $12.95 a month.

Again, comparing TiVo to Comcast is completely disingenuous. One has the only set of wires running into many people's home. The other is a completely optional service that people must actively seek out to purchase a box and subscribe to. It's much easier for people to rent Comcast's box, after all.

As far as HTPC vs. TiVo goes, you can continue to enjoy your MCE machine, while I'll continue to enjoy my Series 3 and my 2 Series 2s. I find them completely worth the $14 a month I pay for them collectively. It's worth $14 a month to me to have something that just works. It's worth the $7 a month to me to have the option of recording digital cable and HD channels without bothering with a box.

Oh, and just for quantification of the number of people who bail, it was 194,000 last year, for a churn rate of about 1%. That's far better than the cell carriers.

Where in the world are you getting all this?

I already countered your sub numbers before you even spouted off.

Tivo is the only stand alone DVR out there. Numbers, in a monopoly, mean squat. Tivo has a true monopoly on the stand alone DVR as no one else is making a DVR appliance you can simply purchase. So again, YOUR NUMBERS MEAN NOTHING.

Yes, you DO need a scientific survey/study if you want to make the claims you are.. until then, it's babble. Further babble is that you claim to know how many people are paying the $17 per month.

You'd make a great politician though. You sure know how to spin them numbers.

If you want to look at numbers - how many people dumped Tivo for CABLE/SAT solutions? And then, for what reason? Was it price? (Many - YES!) for ability of HD or Digital recording? (HD - Yes, digital? not really)

The fact that you want to disassociate the Tivo from the Cable/Sat offering only shows your blinders. Price/Value/Offer all play into consumer satisfaction. If it's much easier to rent Comcast's box (or as I said, Cable/Satellite) then you have your answer.. NO - people are more than likely NOT happy with the tivo pricing.

By the way, not sure where you get your facts, but I've been in the face of WAY more consumers than you have been, I'm sure, and my own ability to process numbers and read a consumer is more reliable than your guesses. Any consumer that has ever converted away from Tivo to a MSO based DVR has been 1) Price 2) Value 3) ease... I've run across a good amount of people that would like and can't wait for the Tivo software to come to cable, but they all, ALL read it!!, ALL stated they are not welcoming the higher DVR cost when Tivo comes.

You're fine to believe what you want. Again, talking to you is like talking to a brick wall. Respond if you want, but I will no longer visit this thread nor reply to someone who knows absolutely NOTHING about what he is saying. You continue to base your posts on your own feelings, as you have been, but you're 100% wrong.
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-serving, the lazy, and I’m told it’s a woman’s prerogative..."

I think your high horse may be getting in the way here. My numbers are perfectly reasonable. People wouldn't subscribe if they found the price too expensive. They may bitch about it, sure. I'd rather it still be $9.99 a month for a single subscription, too, but it's not. Yet sub numbers keep going up.

There is competition, and almost every MSO offers it in one way or another.

Talking to you is indeed like talking to a wall, so I'll also give it up. Let the reader decide, and all that.

reply to wierdo

Yep, you can get one of those ATI CableCARD devices..

if you buy it in a prepackaged box. Cable Labs won't let them sell the CableCARD interface by itself. Perhaps you should at least try to learn about what you speak before trying to make me look stupid. (I do that well enough on my own, thanks)

BTW, a plain Athlon XP won't play back HD MPEG-2 (at least not 1080i, without help from the GPU). I know, because I tried. It does work if you have a GPU that can handle motion compensation and the iDCT transform, though.

FWIW, the absolute cheapest Vista PC that I can find that has one of the ATI CableCARD gadgets is almost $1700. Even if you pay full price for the Series 3 and pay full price for the subscription, the extra cost of the HTPC will take 4 years to pay back. In my case (I pay $6.95 a month for the S3, as I paid TiVo $200 for lifetime service on an S2 back when they were first released and paid $600 for the S3), it would take 13 years to pay back the extra cost of the HTPC with a CableCARD slot. With the new machine, even if you pay full price for the subscription it'll take over 6 years to recoup the extra cost of the PC.

If you could build your own, the economics would be a lot more attractive, but as it is, it just doesn't work out.

An Athlon 64 can do it, sure, but one of the things I like about my TiVo is that it's quiet. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I can't seem to build a one fan PC fast enough to do everything I want.

As I mentioned before, I have the Xbox to do everything that's not related to recording and playing back cable TV.

When TiVo was first released, Athlons didn't exist yet, BTW. I know..I had one a month after release. (An Athlon 700 that my employer paid for)

Also, the TiVo isn't $800. I paid $600 for my Series 3 and the subject of the article is the $300 TiVo HD. If you'd actually used a TiVo, you'd realize that the DVR you can get from your cable company doesn't even compare. I tried to use the one Cox provides here (A Motorola 3416 running Passport Echo) because I didn't want to spend $600 on a Series 3. Between the tiny hard disk that can't be replaced by the user, the missed recordings, the recording every airing of any programs I asked it to record (even duplicate episodes), and id I say missed recordings? I finally threw in the towel and bought the S3.

The economics on the HTPC are awful. I already have a PC for gaming and I already have an Xbox for playing audio and video. I think I'll pass on the HTPC. Call me when you can get one with the CableCARD interface for $600, or even $800.

I can't even get Dell's site to show me an XPS 410 with the ATI digital cable receiver, but maybe I'm just dense.