# TiVo loses 314,000 subscribers in October '09 Quarter



## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

TiVo had it's worst quarter on record with a loss of 314,000 subscribers in the 3 month period from August to October 2009 and now has less than 3 million subscribers worldwide (the numbers also include subscribers in countries other than the U.S.).

This isn't good news for TiVo. TiVo needs to take advantage of its partnerships with Comcast, Cox, DirectTV, etc to bring those numbers back up.


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## dsb411 (Sep 29, 2004)

**** and I just bought 2 lifetime subs for my tivo HD's. Is that lifetime of the box or the company?


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## fatlard (Jun 30, 2003)

Tivo really needs to hit a home run in their next release...


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## dave13077 (Jan 11, 2009)

This is the reason I would never get a lifetime sub. Too much of a gamble and risk of a company going out of business ( I.E. Sunrocket) and taking your money with them.


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

depending on when you bought it, you only need the lifetime sub to last you 23 months to make it worth it. I have 3 LT subs, and two of them have been in force for way longer than 23 months. (In fact, the 3rd by now might also be over 23 months by now.)

Also, even if TiVo were to go out of business, that doesn't mean the subscription will stop working. They could get absorbed by some new company that would still honor the subs.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

I'll mention that while this isn't good news, TiVo actually beat out revenue estimates. Though that was mainly do to the money TiVo got from the EchoStar law suit. 

TiVo is actually in fairly good shape as they have a lot of partnerships with large companies, the latest one being with Google. The problem is actually getting their boxes out to customers and keeping them as subscribers. Also of note, I believe that lifetime subscribers count as a lost subscriber after 3 or 4 years, but I'm not 100&#37; sure about that.

Also remember there's the upcoming DirecTV HD TiVo coming out sometime soon as well as Comcast (stalled) deployment of TiVo software.


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## fatlard (Jun 30, 2003)

I do not think it is going to get any easier for Tivo.

-My people who have a cable co. DVR think they have a Tivo, so instead of shelling out extra money for a Tivo, they will continue to shell out ~$15-20 to the cable company for use of their "Tivo".

-Moxi HD is becoming a real competitor for Tivo. I have been a Tivo user since their Series 1 but I am moving to the Moxi HD $999 3 room model.

-Windows 7 and HTPC will have cable card support and supposedly really easy to setup.


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## Sapphire (Sep 10, 2002)

fatlard said:


> I do not think it is going to get any easier for Tivo.
> 
> -My people who have a cable co. DVR think they have a Tivo, so instead of shelling out extra money for a Tivo, they will continue to shell out ~$15-20 to the cable company for use of their "Tivo".


One guy I know has a FiOS DVR and calls it a TiVo. He doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that it's not a TiVo branded DVR.



> -Windows 7 and HTPC will have cable card support and supposedly really easy to setup.


That's the route I'm going. It will get me all of the existing functionality of my Series 3 and some extras like Hulu desktop and some of the basics that TiVo missed out like PiP.


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## gnordy (Aug 8, 2006)

I keep my Tivo for 2 reasons 1) Love the interface and ease of use 2) The biggest advantage... Tivo To Go. I love my TTG. I save so much money transferring shows to my iPhone rather than buying them at $2 a pop. In my mind the price I paid for TIVO is a bargain. Not enough people know about this.


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## pilotbob (Nov 8, 2007)

gnordy said:


> I keep my Tivo for 2 reasons 1) Love the interface and ease of use 2) The biggest advantage... Tivo To Go. I love my TTG. I save so much money transferring shows to my iPhone rather than buying them at $2 a pop. In my mind the price I paid for TIVO is a bargain. Not enough people know about this.


Of course you could d/l most of those shows from the internet for free also.

BOb


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

fatlard said:


> I do not think it is going to get any easier for Tivo.
> 
> -My people who have a cable co. DVR think they have a Tivo, so instead of shelling out extra money for a Tivo, they will continue to shell out ~$15-20 to the cable company for use of their "Tivo".
> 
> ...


- TiVo will be getting a lot of new subscribers when they go back to Directv.

- Moxi isn't much of a competitor at this point. They basically have no retail presence. And time and time again has shown that a premium DVR with a premium price only appeals to hardcore tv enthusiasts. The Moxi will never be a mainstream product the way it is marketed.

- Windows poses very little threat as the average consumer isn't likely to put a desktop computer beside their entertainment center.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

morac said:


> TiVo had it's worst quarter on record with a loss of 314,000 subscribers in the 3 month period from August to October 2009 and now has less than 3 million subscribers worldwide (the numbers also include subscribers in countries other than the U.S.).
> 
> This isn't good news for TiVo. TiVo needs to take advantage of its partnerships with Comcast, Cox, DirectTV, etc to bring those numbers back up.


The report is wrong (or at least incomplete). 146,000 of the sub losses occurred in previous quarters but DirecTV blew their accounting. 
If you check TiVo's press release:


> Revenue, Adjusted EBITDA, and net income were each lower by $1.8 million this quarter due to a one time catch-up reduction in service revenues associated with a subscription over-reporting error for the past 18 months (predominately in prior quarters) by DIRECTV. In accordance with TiVo's accounting policies, TiVo recorded a one-time reduction of $1.8 million in MSO Service Revenues this quarter based on our agreed upon resolution of the discrepancy.





> MSOs/Broadcasters Subscription Net Additions/(Losses) in the third quarter ended October 31, 2009 would have been a loss of (123,000) subscriptions, excluding a one time reduction of (146,000) subscriptions associated with a subscription over-reporting error by DIRECTV.


Still not a good quarter, but it brings the sub drop back into the expected range. Subs won't go up, now that TiVo has cut back on stand-alone promotion, until the cable and DirecTV deals start to come into play.


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## gnordy (Aug 8, 2006)

I do get some off the internet if I miss recording them, but I try to limit doing that... TTG keeps my conscience a bit clearer.


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## MediaLivingRoom (Dec 10, 2002)

I told you TiVo is treating it's user bad, I love the technology but HATE the top level managers at TiVo for f-ing up the company. They need to have a clear plan, they seem to change from year to year.

1. Remove the "early termination fee", who are you going to use the TiVo box with, it's not like you can go to another company with that box.

2. Remove the limit of "Multi-Service Discount", TiVo already lost "314,000" users I would rather get $6.95 per user than nothing from the lost of 314,000

3. Bring back the "TiVo Rewards program", this helpful in have a small number of hard core TiVo fan sing the praises of TiVo and help themselves too. Who was the dumb manager that removed this.

4. Rewrite the whole TiVo application, I am sick and tired of having the TiVo UI jump from one UI to another. It's like the wrote parts in C++, then some stupid person said lets try JAVA or DOT Net whatever, then they added the TiVo API, who is running the freaking software department. Let's not even talk about LiquidTV, who signed off on that idea to Nero.....

5. OMG, I bet $1 mil bucks that TiVo will show or announce something at CES 2010, but will not even deliver 50&#37; of all the features until Aug 2010. Dude, talk about something and then release it within 30 freaking days!!! Who is your PR person at TiVo!!!


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

MediaLivingRoom said:


> I told you TiVo is treating it's user bad, I love the technology but HATE the top level managers at TiVo for f-ing up the company. They need to have a clear plan, they seem to change from year to year.


Actually, TiVo has held steady the last few quarters. They have buttoned down the hatches expecting a loss in subscribers. They have slowed down marketing and focussed on their core technology. There hasn't been any major partnerships, but they have forged a lot of smaller partnerships that makes TiVo a more viable company for years to come. Right now, TiVo is refusing to dig a huge hole in attempting to get more subscribers. My guess is they are hoping that the deals with cable companies and Directv are going to pay off in 2010.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

86% of the drop was in "MSO" DVR's which translates to DirectTV TiVo users AFAIK. Whether TiVo will be successful in the stand-alone market is a question since the Series 3 line is not doing so well. Prospective buyers who have the foresight to check these forums see considerable talk of very aggravating problems being encountered due to Tuninig Adapters, CableCARD(s), copy protection, and pixelation that affects TiVo's but not cable co. receivers. Are some of them delaying purchase to see what the new DirecTiVo looks like? Or just going to Moxie or Cable Co. DVRs?

To compete in the standalone market (as a premium DVR -- their niche) TiVo must not only bring out a product that is tru2way (using CableCARD and no separate TA box) but also which interoperates with the current cable systems with the same tuning reliability and lack of pixelation as the cable co. DVR's that are equipped with CableCARD. MRV that isn't killed by CCI=0x02 is also a requirement.


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## MediaLivingRoom (Dec 10, 2002)

rainwater said:


> Actually, TiVo has held steady the last few quarters. They have buttoned down the hatches expecting a loss in subscribers. They have slowed down marketing and focussed on their core technology. There hasn't been any major partnerships, but they have forged a lot of smaller partnerships that makes TiVo a more viable company for years to come. Right now, TiVo is refusing to dig a huge hole in attempting to get more subscribers. My guess is they are hoping that the deals with cable companies and Directv are going to pay off in 2010.


Yes, I have been venting since 2005 or 2006.  They partner with so many companies and it only work like 50% of the time. Who is running the company.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

dlfl said:


> 86% of the drop was in "MSO" DVR's which translates to DirectTV TiVo users AFAIK. Whether TiVo will be successful in the stand-alone market is a question since the Series 3 line is not doing so well. Prospective buyers who have the foresight to check these forums see considerable talk of very aggravating problems being encountered due to Tuninig Adapters, CableCARD(s), copy protection, and pixelation that affects TiVo's but not cable co. receivers. Are some of them delaying purchase to see what the new DirecTiVo looks like? Or just going to Moxie or Cable Co. DVRs?
> 
> To compete in the standalone market (as a premium DVR -- their niche) TiVo must not only bring out a product that is tru2way (using CableCARD and no separate TA box) but also which interoperates with the current cable systems with the same tuning reliability and lack of pixelation as the cable co. DVR's that are equipped with CableCARD. MRV that isn't killed by CCI=0x02 is also a requirement.


I'm not surprised either. TiVo's S3 and HD devices are buggy in some markets.

Multi-room viewing issues

Tuning Adapter issues

Copy Protection issues
Yeah yeah, maybe not TiVo's fault, but if you can't transfer a show or take it with you there's little reason to have the TiVo.

I'd like to see a list of where these users came from and which cable service they were using. Probably TWC.

edit: I didn't mention cable card issues since it appears that once you go through the hassle of getting them working they seem to work well.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> The report is wrong (or at least incomplete). 146,000 of the sub losses occurred in previous quarters but DirecTV blew their accounting. .........


Why did it take 3 mos. for TiVo to discover this? Do they just accept DirecTV's numbers without question? Didn't they notice the reduced subscription revenue? Must not be paying their accountants enough.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

morac said:


> ...Also of note, I believe that lifetime subscribers count as a lost subscriber after 3 or 4 years, but I'm not 100% sure about that.


From earnings report:



> We count product lifetime subscriptions in our subscription base until both of the following conditions are met: (i) the period we use to recognize product lifetime subscription revenues ends; and (ii) the related DVR has not made contact to the TiVo service within the prior six month period. Product lifetime subscriptions past this period which have not called into the TiVo service for six months are not counted in this total. Effective November 1, 2008, we extended the period we use to recognize product lifetime subscription revenues from 54 months to 60 months for all product lifetime subscriptions acquired on or before October 31, 2007. We now amortize all product lifetime subscriptions over a 60 month period.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

MediaLivingRoom said:


> I told you TiVo is treating it's user bad, I love the technology but HATE the top level managers at TiVo for f-ing up the company. They need to have a clear plan, they seem to change from year to year.
> 
> 1. Remove the "early termination fee", who are you going to use the TiVo box with, it's not like you can go to another company with that box.


Only makes sense if tivo is going to stop subsidizing hardware. A subscriber that wants to cancel in the first year probably isn't' a subscriber worth having.


> 2. Remove the limit of "Multi-Service Discount", TiVo already lost "314,000" users I would rather get $6.95 per user than nothing from the lost of 314,000


 Many of the lost subscribers were DTivo subscribers. People who are price sensitive are going to go with a cablco DVR.


> 3. Bring back the "TiVo Rewards program", this helpful in have a small number of hard core TiVo fan sing the praises of TiVo and help themselves too. Who was the dumb manager that removed this.


 Blame people who abused the program.


> 4. Rewrite the whole TiVo application, I am sick and tired of having the TiVo UI jump from one UI to another. It's like the wrote parts in C++, then some stupid person said lets try JAVA or DOT Net whatever, then they added the TiVo API, who is running the freaking software department. Let's not even talk about LiquidTV, who signed off on that idea to Nero.....


Makes some sense but tivo has to decide if it makes sense to have a different UI for the newer S3 models then the older models.


> 5. OMG, I bet $1 mil bucks that TiVo will show or announce something at CES 2010, but will not even deliver 50% of all the features until Aug 2010. Dude, talk about something and then release it within 30 freaking days!!! Who is your PR person at TiVo!!!


I agree it's time for a new model. Wasn't the TivoHD available for sale shortly after it was announced? Same with the HD XL.


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## simsbotv (Sep 25, 2003)

I was a member for 6 years and just dropped it because Comcast has adequate DVR setup for less than I was paying TIVO....sad to see end of TIVO...


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

simsbotv said:


> I was a member for 6 years and just dropped it because Comcast has adequate DVR setup for less than I was paying TIVO....sad to see end of TIVO...


I actually went the other way - the problems I had with the Comcast DVR (most notably, it wouldn't react to the remote control for up to a minute, after which it would react to all of your remote button presses pretty much at once) eventually outweighed the one thing I had to give up (you need some sort of cable box to access PPV and OnDemand).

I assume you have one of the newer cable DVRs - how many shows can you record at once, and can you watch another show (whether "live" or one of your previous recordings) while you are recording?

-- Don


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## magnumis (Jan 6, 2005)

fatlard said:


> Tivo really needs to hit a home run in their next release...


Isn't the ball game already over?


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

CrispyCritter said:


> The report is wrong (or at least incomplete). 146,000 of the sub losses occurred in previous quarters but DirecTV blew their accounting.
> If you check TiVo's press release:


It still amounts to a *third of a million* fewer subscribers regardless of when the losses were reported....


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

rainwater said:


> - TiVo will be getting a lot of new subscribers when they go back to Directv.


I seriously doubt that. DirecTV HR20X is so good that TiVo would have to pull a minor miracle to come up with something that will be better. Of course there will be some die hard TiVo fans that will get new DirecTivo, but a lot of new subscribers is most likely a stretch.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

RoyK said:


> It still amounts to a *third of a million* fewer subscribers regardless of when the losses were reported....


Most troubling is loss of TiVo owned subs. Although numbers are smaller, churn rate of 1.7% is huge and TiVo sells only about 10K units a month. They sold more series 1 TiVos in 2000, first full year in business!
DirecTV subs loss is just a natural attrition. Hard drives die, HR10 is obsolete and can only receive 4 HD channels out of more than a hundred and people with SD DirecTivo are migrating to HDTV.


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## fasTLane (Nov 25, 2005)

The new 2010 DirecTivo is in my new year's resolution. May old distractions be forgot.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

The biggest drops on the chart by far are MSO numbers. Yes, Tivo has been bleeding subs since the DirecTV thing fell through years ago.

But they're going back to DirecTV next year. They're also going to be on RCN, Comcast, and Best Buy boxes.

So I'm not exactly worried.

They've been bleeding standalone subs since early 2008, but at a slower pace. It'd be nice if they would finally do something about that.

Fun fact, about half of Tivo's 1.5m subs (800K) are broadband enabled. The other half are still dialing in.


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## jrm01 (Oct 17, 2003)

dave13077 said:


> This is the reason I would never get a lifetime sub. Too much of a gamble and risk of a company going out of business ( I.E. Sunrocket) and taking your money with them.


That is the reason I didn't get lifetime on my S2 seven years ago, or my Series 3 four years ago, or my HD XL this year. I was wrong on the first two, and probably wrong on the XL also.


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## SpiritualPoet (Jan 14, 2007)

I believe TiVo must offer (and continue to do so) a 3-month plan to attract new first-time customers. This will give newbees a chance to experience the best DVR (and in particular the genius that makes it function) in the industry. If folks aren't happy within 90 days, they are under no obligation to continue the service (albeit they are stuck with a non-refundable but sellable machine). The 3-month plan would renew every 90 days unless cancelled. Of course, the 3-month plan would be based on the equivalent price of the monthly plan price x 3 and the monthly plan which has a 1 year commitment would be discontinued.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

There is no reason to believe that there is any profitable business case for TiVo. While their number of subscribers fall, they can, however, still find a profitable path outside the stand-alone DVR business.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> The biggest drops on the chart by far are MSO numbers. Yes, Tivo has been bleeding subs since the DirecTV thing fell through years ago.
> 
> But they're going back to DirecTV next year. They're also going to be on RCN, Comcast, and Best Buy boxes.
> 
> ...


Don't forget about their renewed presence in the UK, as well as their presence in AU and NZ. I'm not too worried either.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

orangeboy said:


> Don't forget about their renewed presence in the UK, as well as their presence in AU and NZ. I'm not too worried either.


AU has total population of 21 million, NZ has 4 million, Virgin media has 3 million subscribers. Hardly enough to offset TiVo subscriber loses in US.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

samo said:


> AU has total population of 21 million, NZ has 4 million, Virgin media has 3 million subscribers. Hardly enough to offset TiVo subscriber loses in US.


Should I change my mind and be worried then?


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## marksman (Mar 4, 2002)

I used to know a lot of people with TiVos.

I don't know of a single person now that has one.

I gave up on them a long time ago, and nothing I have heard in the last couple of years has made me feel the least bit bad about it.

Their only hope are obviously deals with infrastructure providers. Only a tiny percentage of people want a stand-alone solution apart from what their satellite or cable company offer.

TiVo really should have stuck with being a software provider oh so many years ago, and things would be much different for them today.

The deal with DirecTV is interesting to me, but they would have to be spectacular to get me to switch from my HR boxes which I have used for many years now and participated in the public testing program on. They are good solid boxes and work well for me.

I am not going to pay extra just for a box that says it is a TiVo. Not any more.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

marksman said:


> Their only hope are obviously deals with infrastructure providers. Only a tiny percentage of people want a stand-alone solution apart from what their satellite or cable company offer.


I don't have satellite or cable TV, so I don't have their DVR options. What would I do? The closest alternative would be the DTVPal DVR, and that doesn't appear to have the features I want.


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## TolloNodre (Nov 3, 2007)

marksman said:


> I gave up on them a long time ago, and nothing I have heard in the last couple of years has made me feel the least bit bad about it.


Funny how three quarters of the 'doom and gloom' posters are people who don't use TiVo (or claim not to use TiVo) yet still bother to post in a TiVo forum.


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## LADYBUGBLUE2002 (Sep 7, 2003)

samo said:


> AU has total population of 21 million, NZ has 4 million, Virgin media has 3 million subscribers. Hardly enough to offset TiVo subscriber loses in US.


Funny Canada has over 35 million, and all we got was a Tivo Series 2 for our troubles. I have been hoping for a Tivo HD that will work in Canada but no luck.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

orangeboy said:


> Should I change my mind and be worried then?


No, unless you are TiVo stockholder. There is nothing to worry about for TiVo users. It is not like your TiVo will go dark in a next year or two. With churn rate at 20% per year TiVo can last for a while.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

TolloNodre said:


> Funny how three quarters of the 'doom and gloom' posters are people who don't use TiVo (or claim not to use TiVo) yet still bother to post in a TiVo forum.


Perhaps because marksman has been member of this forum 5 years longer than you are?


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## net114 (Dec 29, 2000)

fatlard said:


> I do not think it is going to get any easier for Tivo.
> 
> -My people who have a cable co. DVR think they have a Tivo, so instead of shelling out extra money for a Tivo, they will continue to shell out ~$15-20 to the cable company for use of their "Tivo".


Tivo is obviously aware of this, but I don't think their audience is the person who can barely use a cell phone let alone install their own DVR. Their are some people who will never get a Tivo because it's more "hassle" than having the cable guy do it. (Of course their not realizing the long term hassle, but that's not the point).



> -Moxi HD is becoming a real competitor for Tivo. I have been a Tivo user since their Series 1 but I am moving to the Moxi HD $999 3 room model.


If a real problem is that people won't shell out $149 for a Tivo, then I don't think those cable $15 a month people are going to shell out 1000 bucks for Moxi, which is vastly under proven compared to Tivo.



> -Windows 7 and HTPC will have cable card support and supposedly really easy to setup.


LOL. Sorry, but when has ANYTHING with ANY version of Windows been easy to set up? I use Windows 7 on all four machines at home, but the cable guy was confused enough when I wanted cable cards in "that Tivo thing", I can only imagine pointing to the back of my computer and saying "insert here" to him!!

Look - The economy SUCKS. The jobless rate is 17% or higher in some places, its not surprising people would cut subscriptions to save money. Tivo won't be left out of the mess, but as someone else said, they beat their estimates which is not a bad sign. How many times do we have to have the "death of Tivo" threads and misinformed posts about "I don't want a lifetime subscription because the company might be out of business!"?!

Tivo is weathering things pretty well, IMO. From all appearances, it looks like they've worked hard over the last couple of years to get those licensing deals for exactly this sort of situation. That's not a company that's sitting around hoping their subscribers won't leave.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

The problem with the TiVo as a device is that it has a lot of competition, not just from cable companies, but from other devices as well.

TiVo saw that people were choosing cable company DVRs over TiVo DVRs so they added additional functionality like Music & Photos, Amazon, Netflix, etc. This was all well and good, but the problem is features like that are becoming common place in consumer electronics. TVs, game consoles, Blu-ray players, etc that can stream Netflix and Amazon, interface with Twitter and Facebook and display photos, music and movies are becoming the norm. I can go out today and buy a PS3 for $299 and get all the functionality that TiVo provides save the DVR functionality, for less money and with no subscription fee. In addition, in almost all instances the PS3 will outperform the TiVo hardware and software and be more stable.

At the moment the only thing TiVo has over those other devices is it's DVR functionality which, despite new competition and annoying DRM issues, is still the DVR to beat in the marketplace. One has to wonder though if that will be enough in the long run. At the current rate of subscriber loss, assuming no new additions, TiVo will run out of subscribers in about 3.5 years and run out of subscriber revenue sources before then since a number of subscribers (1/7) currently aren't paying monthly fees.

TiVo has expanded the functionality of their boxes, but TiVo needs to innovate further. There are some signs it is planning to do so such as with announcement that they are developing a keyboard remote plus their recently announced partnerships.

Personally I think that TiVo needs to change it's long term goals to generate most of it's revenues from it's partners. This would allow them to lower subscription fees and hardware prices. TiVo could learn a thing or two from their new partner Google in this regard.



SpiritualPoet said:


> I believe TiVo must offer (and continue to do so) a 3-month plan to attract new first-time customers.


TiVo already offers a 30 day money back guarantee. That apparently doesn't help them much.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

dlfl said:


> Why did it take 3 mos. for TiVo to discover this? Do they just accept DirecTV's numbers without question? Didn't they notice the reduced subscription revenue? Must not be paying their accountants enough.


There wasn't any reduced subscription revenue. DirecTV reported extra subscribers and paid for them. That's why TiVo took a $1.8M charge this quarter to correct the overpayment.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

They'd sell more if the HD boxes came with TiVo basic and no sub. Millions of people would go for a box that didn't nickel and dime them to death.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

LADYBUGBLUE2002 said:


> Funny Canada has over 35 million, and all we got was a Tivo Series 2 for our troubles. I have been hoping for a Tivo HD that will work in Canada but no luck.


Isn't the killer for that deal the lack of a Canadian CableCARD standard?
The US had some very unique scenarios of ATSC and the analog phase out and CableCARD being available, those didn't translate over the boarder 100%.(if I'm wrong, please correct me)


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

Stormspace said:


> They'd sell more if the HD boxes came with TiVo basic and no sub. Millions of people would go for a box that didn't nickel and dime them to death.


So they could continue to sell hardware at a loss AND have no ongoing revenue stream? that sounds like fiscal suicide..


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> They'd sell more if the HD boxes came with TiVo basic and no sub. Millions of people would go for a box that didn't nickel and dime them to death.


How can you say it is nickel and dime? It is a consistent monthly/yearly rate. There are no increased costs to your plan over time.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

pilotbob said:


> Of course you could d/l most of those shows from the internet for free also.
> 
> BOb


"Of course" you realize that is illegal (and at least to many of us, immoral).


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

morac said:


> TiVo already offers a 30 day money back guarantee. That apparently doesn't help them much.


It's still a lot of money to plunk down on a TiVo and have a more costly monthly fee. We're talking 12.95 per month plus 5.00 per month for cable cards, vs the 10.00 cable DVR. In my area at least many of the value add functions like MRV don't work, so what benefit does TiVo offer over the cable DVR? Not a lot...

edit: It is actually about 3 dollars less per month and is hackable, which is why I haven't switched, still though feature for feature the TiVo HD doesn't currently have anything I'm using that isn't available on the cable DVR.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

orangeboy said:


> How can you say it is nickel and dime? It is a consistent monthly/yearly rate. There are no increased costs to your plan over time.


I was referring to the cable company DVR. 10.00 for the DVR, another 10 if you want digital and "Free" HD.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

MediaLivingRoom said:


> 2. Remove the limit of "Multi-Service Discount", TiVo already lost "314,000" users I would rather get $6.95 per user than nothing from the lost of 314,000


What does this mean? (The "limit" I think of is that the other Tivo(s) be in the same household, and there is a limit of 7 or something like that per household.. Not much of a 'limit' if you ask me, and the first one isn't even enforced..)



marksman said:


> Only a tiny percentage of people want a stand-alone solution apart from what their satellite or cable company offer.
> 
> TiVo really should have stuck with being a software provider oh so many years ago, and things would be much different for them today.


Umm, isn't that because other companies didn't *WANT* to use Tivo's software?

Also, they don't "want" a stand-alone solution, because they don't know about the benefits (e.g. to different people, TivoToGo, lifetime subscriptions, BETTER UI, more RELIABLE RECORDING, doesn't erase all of your programs when a new version of the software comes out, etc. etc. etc..)


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

dianebrat said:


> So they could continue to sell hardware at a loss AND have no ongoing revenue stream? that sounds like fiscal suicide..


The components in a TiVo are arguably less costly than that in a 300.00 laptop. TiVo could make money by pricing the box at that level and not charge for a sub for basic functionality like manual repeating recordings and On Demand.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

marksman said:


> Their only hope are obviously deals with infrastructure providers. Only a tiny percentage of people want a stand-alone solution apart from what their satellite or cable company offer.
> 
> TiVo really should have stuck with being a software provider oh so many years ago, and things would be much different for them today.


Yes, things would be different - they would gone completely out of business by 2003!

TiVo has never, ever wanted to be in the hardware business. They have wanted to get out of the hardware business ever since getting in it. They have said so on multiple occasions. But the only way to survive back then was to build and sell their own S2 hardware, and they came very close to bankruptcy before they got it out. All their S1 hardware partners bailed on them when DVRs didn't fulfill their original promise.

TiVo gave the stand-alone market a good shot, but even giving away free TiVos wasn't enough to grow substantially. The market just isn't big enough. So I agree that TiVos change of direction back to the cable and satellite providers is their only long term growth market.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

jrm01 said:


> That is the reason I didn't get lifetime on my S2 seven years ago, or my Series 3 four years ago, or my HD XL this year. I was wrong on the first two, and probably wrong on the XL also.


Yep. TiVo is in no danger of going under. They've lost money pretty much continuously for over 10 years now, and they still have absolutely no long-term debt and enough in the bank to last losing money for another 7 years even if they don't get more patent money awarded. The wonders of the modern stock market!


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> It's still a lot of money to plunk down on a TiVo and have a more costly monthly fee. We're talking 12.95 per month plus 5.00 per month for cable cards, vs the 10.00 cable DVR. In my area at least many of the value add functions like MRV don't work, so what benefit does TiVo offer over the cable DVR? Not a lot...


For me, I'm paying $1.50 a month for two S-Cards for my S3 and the cable company DVR is $15.95 a month for the first one and $20.90 a month for each addition DVR (as of April 2009). With that alone for a single TiVo box it would be an extra $14.45 a month if I went with the cable DVR, but I'm also getting a $3.65 a month cable box rental credit per card ($7.30 total). So I'm actually saving $21.75 a month by using TiVo over the cable company DVR which is a no brainer.

I've had my S3 for about 2 years so I've saved about $522 which is about what I paid for the S3 minus the $199 lifetime transfer fee which I'll make up in 9 more months. I've actually saved more than that since originally I wasn't paying anything for the cards and was receiving a $8.40 a month credit.

Even without the money difference, there's more features on the S3 as compared to the cable DVR, ToGo being one of them.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> The components in a TiVo are arguably less costly than that in a 300.00 laptop. TiVo could make money by pricing the box at that level and not charge for a sub for basic functionality like manual repeating recordings and On Demand.


You're assuming that the TiVo boxes magically appear in stores. There's research, development and testing costs involved. Also there's fees paid to Tribune, real estate costs, salaries, business taxes, etc. So yes, if TiVo had no costs, then they could make money selling TiVo boxes with no subscription. In the real world, that's not possible unless TiVo can get additional revenue sources. Partnerships with companies like Google and the like is a good step, but I doubt the revenue that comes in from TiVo's partners is greater than TiVo's costs. If TiVo can hit that level, then they could afford to give away the boxes.


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## icehole (Nov 26, 2009)

The loss's suffered from DirecTV are not just natural atrician.. In many area's DirecTV is now requiring Mpeg-4 Recievers to do locals at all (here in boise for example).. So not only are the failing tivo's being replaced, But the good Series 2 DirecTivo's are being replaced in favor of r16's (or whatever it is now) to get the local channels at all.. I Can also tell you as a former employee of DirecTV that I think they lost alot more then 316k customers over the change from Tivo DVR's to the DirecTV plus units.. There are also alot of customers (probably well over a million in the us alone) that are just waiting for DirecTV to bring back the tivo's.. 
Also I Dont remember if it was squashed or not, but there was a rumor of tivo software being upgraded upon current DirecTV DVR's (hr series).. That could essentially give another million+ tivo subs overnight if that were to take place with very very little out of pocket.. Granted a DirecTV sub isnt worth as much.. 
I Think the biggest thing that needs to be done is the pricing of the service. It will take me over 2 years per DVR to = the same cost as my local cable op (cable one) before I start to see a financial gain over the cable company's DVR (figured using lifetime service & 2 box's. But does not include the 6 bucks per tivo I am spending a month on cable cards).. If they were to cut the sub cost it would make the payoff ALOT faster & people would see it as a more viable alternative since modern electronics dont normally last 24 months before there inferior due to either technology advancement or hardware failure.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> The components in a TiVo are arguably less costly than that in a 300.00 laptop. TiVo could make money by pricing the box at that level and not charge for a sub for basic functionality like manual repeating recordings and On Demand.


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## fasTLane (Nov 25, 2005)

TolloNodre said:


> Funny how three quarters of the 'doom and gloom' posters are people who don't use TiVo (or claim not to use TiVo) yet still bother to post in a TiVo forum.


*LOL * Hard not to notice. 
Like wading through "investor" comments on an equity message board.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

bicker said:


>


Try rebooting your TiVo do get rid of that strange pixelation in the lower center of your video.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Stormspace said:


> It's still a lot of money to plunk down on a TiVo and have a more costly monthly fee. We're talking 12.95 per month plus 5.00 per month for cable cards, vs the 10.00 cable DVR. In my area at least many of the value add functions like MRV don't work, so what benefit does TiVo offer over the cable DVR? Not a lot...
> 
> edit: It is actually about 3 dollars less per month and is hackable, which is why I haven't switched, still though feature for feature the TiVo HD doesn't currently have anything I'm using that isn't available on the cable DVR.


This is really going to vary depending on the cable company and the local franchise pricing. Does your edit mean the TiVo is $3.00 less or the cable companies DVR is $3.00 less?

For our local Comcast franchise the costs for their DVR are $8.95 rental plus $6.95 for DVR service on the primary outlet for a total of $15.90 per month. There is no charge for the 1st cablecard so all the TiVoHD owners (like my brother) only have the TiVo service to pay. I have an original S3 so I have to pay an extra $1.75 per month for the second cablecard.

I've always purchased lifetime service (since 2000) and my brother did the same at the beginning of the year. Even if you don't opt for the lifetime service, I don't see why someone would do monthly over the 1 year service and save another $2.00 per month to bring the cost down to $10.75 which at least for our area would make the TiVo cheaper by $5.00 per month and which would eventually pay for the extra hardware costs.

For us, the extra benefits are the ability to upgrade disk space, TTG to move broadcast shows to the PC and NetFlix/Amazon access. The primary reason for using TiVo for the last 9+ years though is that for us it has consistently done what we need which is record shows to allow us to watch them on our schedule. Having had a TiVo for so long, we don't need a flashy interface to record and watch shows but I'm certainly not going to complain if they need to change it to attract new customers as long as it still performs its basic function correctly.

Scott


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## Sapphire (Sep 10, 2002)

MediaLivingRoom said:


> I told you TiVo is treating it's user bad, I love the technology but HATE the top level managers at TiVo for f-ing up the company. They need to have a clear plan, they seem to change from year to year.
> 
> 1. Remove the "early termination fee", who are you going to use the TiVo box with, it's not like you can go to another company with that box.
> 
> ...


Add to that - offer a cheap upgrade path to lifetime for people who purchased multiyear subscriptions. Some of the recent subscriber churn may have been people who bought multiyear subs only to not renew and take an alternate DVR like the cable company DVR. They really screwed it up a few years ago when they completely dropped the lifetime subs, only to bring them back.

Personally, a $100 or even $150 upgrade to lifetime would keep me (and others) as a TiVo subscriber, and I would be more inclined to recommend the box to other people. If I have lifetime on the box, why would I even think of migrating away from TiVo? As it is, the expiring subscription and looming monthly fee or having to essentially pay double for lifetime is giving me incentive to explore my options. Elsewhere.

I agree about the semi-vaporware and not continuously releasing upgraded hardware. The series 3 platform is how old now? 3 years? And in that time they introduced the TiVo HD which was essentially a stripped down version for the masses, and the HD XL which was basically the same as the HD with an overpriced bigger hard drive. On the S2 front they released the S2DT which runs on analog cable (obsolete in some areas). Nothing exciting at all.

TiVo should do like Apple and keep releasing refreshes every 6 months or so, with major improvements to keep us drinking the kool-aid.


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## fareal (Feb 16, 2004)

I'm here at Tivo Community today because I have a Tivo Series 3 with a 3 year plan that is going to expire in a few months. Researching before I make my next move. Bought when they didn't have the lifetime service available. I too wish they offered a less expensive upgrade to lifetime for currently multi-year customers.


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## substance12 (Feb 6, 2008)

most people I know are very turned off by having to pay for the tivo and having a monthly subscription. if they can get past that then they have to pay for cable card rental. if the tivo managers think they can continue with this model they will die a slow death.

IMO:

- fix the pricing model. subscription or 1 time purchase... not both. or at least make the box cheaper. like $149.99. with many competing streamer boxes like boxee, wd tv, roku coming out at the low $100s.... tivo is competing with the ondemand crowd as well as the cable dvr crowd.

- make pytivo or stream baby stream native to the device and get rid of tivo desktop software. it's quite inferior. or at least improve the software used to back up shows. and advertise to the public that tivo can do this... others can't. it's not a selling point that tivo can do this if i have to explain to my mom, for example, what FFDshow is.

- integrate a BD/dvd drive. or make it optional. the last thing any of us want is another box to add to our media centers.

- make the hdd 1G by default. if you can advertise that tivo has way more storage than what the competition has... that's a major selling point.

- rework the UI. this doesn't even need explaining. or how about being able to see the to do list as a widget?

- add hulu, crunchyroll, azn v, and all other web streaming services.

- be more integrated with the tivo community. tivo should have dedicated people on these forums posting every single day. yes i know there is tivo jerry and others but they are not dedicated to answering all our questions. tivo has the most rabid fans out there... yet this company doesn't talk enough to them. the way the next generation businesses are doing it now is with community building.


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## richk2 (Jun 24, 2003)

I am going to reflect what I think is a big minority opinion, but the problem with tivo isn't the features even though most people on these forums are obsessed with the features. Sure, some of the features are great and there are always more features that would be desirable, but the main issue with why tivo doesn't get more popular support despite how basically great it is and how superior it is to the cable dvr's, is the "doubt' factor. If you are not familiar with it and not especially a techy, you don't really know if you are going to get it to work, especially if you read all the comments on the internet about the uncertainy of the process, depending on your cable company. Who wants to spend 2 -300 dollars for something that might be easy to install or might be a major nightmare. You simply can not buy a tivo, plug it in and experience how great it is. You have to buy, find time to schedule an install with the cable company and hope it works. In the meantime if it doesn't work right away, there is the "wife" factor about spending money on something that wasn't really that much better than the cable. There is also the doubt factor on what it costs. No cable company seems to make it entirely clear what they will charge for the cable cards or the "digital access fee" so you can't be sure what you will be paying until you actually do it. (i kinda want a second tivo hd but keep hesitating because I am really unsure how much extra a month comcast will charge for another cable card and whether they will add an access fee to the charge).
Tivos should be sold by the cable companies under circumstances where you know exactly how much it will cost and that the cable company will make it work. Tivo, no matter how many features it adds, will only be a niche product unless that happens. In the meantime, I love my tivo no matter how many other features I wish it had, because tivo at its worst is miles above the comcast dvr. I hope the money from echostar will keep tivo around a long time but it will never be popular unless comcast and other cable companies sell it.


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## willv28 (Nov 18, 2009)

As a customer of Charter Communications in the new england region. My decision to get a TiVo was made very easy. They don't provide the Moxi boxes they do in some markets to our system. They provide the SA box. It was absolutely terrible and far buggier than anyone might think a TiVo is and had a terrible interface/menu system and it was ugly. Not to mention you couldn't record two shows and watch a recording at the same time.

For the cost of the unit ($200 in my case), I was able to get a TiVO and pay less in subscription costs over the cable company DVR. ($12.95 tivo sub + $2.00 cablecard) vs ($6.75 DVR rental + $10.00 sub) from cable company.

TiVo definitely does need to change their software. They do a great job but need to be more an even better provider and get in that game to survive the best. Perhaps they will make the menus better, etc. But it still kicks the butt out of what the cable co. provides.

Like many have said there is the up front cost and non-instant gratification factor. Quality isn't that important to most. Just getting it quickly from the cable co. is what's important. TiVo won't go away, but if it can manage to be able to focus more on the software, it will shine as it will become integrated with provider's boxes. That's all I ask is I get a nice looking, quality, functional box. Not a unresponsive, ugly box with terrible features.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

richk2 said:


> Tivos should be sold by the cable companies under circumstances where you know exactly how much it will cost and that the cable company will make it work. Tivo, no matter how many features it adds, will only be a niche product unless that happens. In the meantime, I love my tivo no matter how many other features I wish it had, because tivo at its worst is miles above the comcast dvr. I hope the money from echostar will keep tivo around a long time but it will never be popular unless comcast and other cable companies sell it.


I think that is TiVo's ultimate goal to one degree or another, they want to eliminate (a strong word) the standalone box part of their business, and have providers license and support their technology.

That said, if the cable companies do get that opportunity, the features counter to their business interest will get spayed out of the device. And they won't sell it, only rent.

Buying the box from channels not related to the provider allows the equipment to have all those whiz-bang features that the provider would remove if the issued the box/service.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

classicsat said:


> I think that is TiVo's ultimate goal to one degree or another, they want to eliminate (a strong word) the standalone box part of their business, and have providers license and support their technology


TiVo would like to maintain a healthy number of TiVo owned subscriptions because that's where they do their media, audience measurement, and advertising work and development. They understand that in the current competitive landscape they can't afford to grow that space.

A couple of years ago TiVo accepted that and set about cutting costs to make that business more sustainable. They knew that they'd bleed some owned subscriptions in the process but has been an acceptable loss until this quarter. I think the 1.7% churn on owned subs came in higher than they really want and that's why we've seen some price movement.

TiVo is hoping that marketing deals like those with Best Buy and Blockbuster selling as a convergence box will eventually return some growth to the owned segment.

The problem in the MSO space isn't that they're losing DTV subscribers, that's inevitable right now. The problem is that none of their other MSO deals show signs of slowing that trend.

2010 is a critical year for TiVo. They're going to need to show some clear wins on these efforts. Wins that impact their bottom line. Otherwise investors are going to lose patience. Pressure will grow for TiVo to either spend and acquire or be acquired themselves.


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## SpiritualPoet (Jan 14, 2007)

If a cable operator ever aquires TiVo, my loyalty will vanish. Likewise, if DirecTV or Dish Network does.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Then it isn't really "loyalty".


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

bicker said:


> Then it isn't really "loyalty".


That's a ridiculous statement. How do you define loyalty?


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

It doesn't matter how I define loyalty. I'm a meaningless entity in the grand scheme of things. What matters is how loyalty is defined by the entity that you're implying should perceive, acknowledge and consider your professed "loyalty".


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

bicker said:


> It doesn't matter how I define loyalty. I'm a meaningless entity in the grand scheme of things. What matters is how loyalty is defined by the entity that you're implying should perceive, acknowledge and consider your professed "loyalty".


If that entity should change hands, one might not consider it the same entity. Yes?


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

I think you should ask the TiVo employees, who of course would still be doing their jobs, whether they would suddenly become different people if their employer was acquired by another company.

There are loads of reasons to not be loyal to TiVo; just call it what it is.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

bicker said:


> I think you should ask the TiVo employees, who of course would still be doing their jobs, whether they would suddenly become different people if their employer was acquired by another company.
> 
> There are loads of reasons to not be loyal to TiVo; just call it what it is.


That is if the TiVo employees were retained. I guess it would depend on who acquired TiVo. A big business that wanted to diversify and didn't have a similar business unit would probably retain a majority of the employees and processes, and everyone would be happy. A competitor that would have parallel products and processes after acquiring TiVo would want to remove redundancies, resulting in many employees being let go, and potentially product lines going away.

I would have to re-assess my loyalty if something should happen to TiVo, Inc.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

orangeboy said:


> That is if the TiVo employees were retained.


So now you're qualifying the earlier statement. Okay, thanks for that.



orangeboy said:


> I guess it would depend on who acquired TiVo. A big business that wanted to diversify and didn't have a similar business unit would probably retain a majority of the employees and processes, and everyone would be happy. A competitor that would have parallel products and processes after acquiring TiVo would want to remove redundancies, resulting in many employees being let go, and potentially product lines going away.


In the first case, figure a company like Comcast, looking to deepen their vertical integration. It could be great for Comcast, great for TiVo's employees, and great for TiVo subscribers. In the second case, I'll mention my wife's company (a software development firm) was recently acquired by one of the largest in the industry, and not only kept practically everyone, but my wife got me a car with the retention bonuses she received over two years.



orangeboy said:


> I would have to re-assess my loyalty if something should happen to TiVo, Inc.


How about you reassess your loyalty *if* the service you receive gets worse?

Just a suggestion.


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## TivoCentral (Jul 23, 2006)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Fun fact, about half of Tivo's 1.5m subs (800K) are broadband enabled. The other half are still dialing in.


LOL... my mom uses dial-up on her TiVo HD!


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

bicker said:


> How about you reassess your loyalty *if* the service you receive gets worse?
> 
> Just a suggestion.


That's what would trigger the reassessment 
If things stay status quo, they (whoever they may be) retain my loyalty for continuing to provide great service and great products.

And yes, true loyalty would be to stick with the entity no matter how bad it got...


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

orangeboy said:


> And yes, true loyalty would be to stick with the entity no matter how bad it got...


That was the point.

What consumers wish was considered loyalty is often nothing like what is actually considered loyalty.


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## magnumis (Jan 6, 2005)

orangeboy said:


> That's what would trigger the reassessment
> If things stay status quo, they (whoever they may be) retain my loyalty for continuing to provide great service and great products.
> 
> And yes, true loyalty would be to stick with the entity no matter how bad it got...


And true loyalty is defending every Tivo decision on this forum


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

MediaLivingRoom said:


> I told you TiVo is treating it's user bad, I love the technology but HATE the top level managers at TiVo for f-ing up the company. They need to have a clear plan, they seem to change from year to year.


yeah, I mean with the economy going gang busters and all it must be TiVo inc. that is just not getting people to stay with the subscription versus extras like eating and making the mortgage. 

The new business model is the deals TiVo is making - the standalone business will be us diehards that like the product enough to keep on getting new features so that TiVo can then sell them to partners for their products. Time to face the new reality that standalone is not the priority part of the business model and TiVo makes standalone decisions to make money now, not to make more customers.
So we live in that in-between world of TiVo inc. is not going to bend over backwards for the standalone customer. Features are not going to be introduced solely to get more customers and TiVo is not going to fret over subscription numbers as long as they feel in control of the number by meeting expectations.
So all of your subscriptions while intuitive from a customer perspective are counter intuitive from the TiVo inc. business model


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

rainwater said:


> - Windows poses very little threat as the average consumer isn't likely to put a desktop computer beside their entertainment center.


I used to agree... not sure anymore. With the advent of HDMI and LCD screens, it is no different to connect a PC to a TV anymore. It used to be quite a hassle to get the right hardware, cabling etc, but these days many if not most low mid-price PCs come with HDMI, and all you need is a wireless keyboard and mouse and an HDMI cable (literally one cable) and you're good to go.

So while I think that most consumers are still reluctant to go this route, I believe the number who ARE willing is increasing rather rapidly.

Oh, and this is written on my PC that is hooked up to my 42" TV. 

I should add that I have a Series 2 that only has lifeline cable, and a Series 3 that I receive OTA programming on. I recently added the PC to this so I could watch Hulu etc on the bigger screen at home, instead of on the computer monitor. I have no intention of actually RECORDING onto the PC. I wonder how many of the people who end up connecting a PC to their TV are interested in recording on it. I would almost guarantee that most people will not. In this respect, I don't think a HTPC is a direct competitor to TiVo.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

MickeS said:


> I used to agree... not sure anymore. With the advent of HDMI and LCD screens, it is no different to connect a PC to a TV anymore. It used to be quite a hassle to get the right hardware, cabling etc, but these days many if not most low mid-price PCs come with HDMI, and all you need is a wireless keyboard and mouse and an HDMI cable (literally one cable) and you're good to go.
> 
> So while I think that most consumers are still reluctant to go this route, I believe the number who ARE willing is increasing rather rapidly.
> 
> ...


I record on my HTPC (dual tuner Hauppage card) and it works EXTREMELY well using Windows 7 Media Center. And it was simple to map clear QAM channels to the guide.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

RoyK said:


> I record on my HTPC (dual tuner Hauppage card) and it works EXTREMELY well using Windows 7 Media Center. And it was simple to map clear QAM channels to the guide.


I have no doubt that some will, I just doubt that the number of people doing so is enough that it will make a dent in the DVR market. If someone was reluctant to go to a dedicated stand-alone DVR, I doubt they are seriously considering using a Windows PC to record TV.

But I am probably wrong in what I wrote in my previous post about it not being a direct competitor to TiVo. As I wrote the paragraph above, it made me realize that a HTPC with recording capability probably it IS a direct competitor to TiVo, but hardly a competitor to cable DVRs. I do not think however that the PC competition has much impact.


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## qz3fwd (Jul 6, 2007)

I could be part of this number if Tivo keeps polluting my tivo screen space with.
Theres a saying: Dont crap where you eat & Tivo left a steamin dung pile on my Tivo!


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

qz3fwd said:


> I could be part of this number if Tivo keeps polluting my tivo screen space with.
> Theres a saying: Dont crap where you eat & Tivo left a steamin dung pile on my Tivo!


oh dear. We would really miss you here at the forum as well.


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## emp (Feb 11, 2005)

Stormspace said:


> It's still a lot of money to plunk down on a TiVo and have a more costly monthly fee. We're talking 12.95 per month plus 5.00 per month for cable cards, vs the 10.00 cable DVR...


I think (at least Cablevision) charges $10 a month DVR fee on top of ~ $8 a month cable box fee. I think they charge $4 for a CableCard but I could be wrong. When you add it all up its almost identical cost for both. The only factor now is the initial purchase price of the Tivo, and the responsibility of repair/replacing it when it breaks.

I didn't begin to add the discount monthly rates for prepaying for 1+ years or adding lifetime which will pay for itself in 23 months as people pointed out (which is why I bought it for my S2 6 years ago). With this factored in, Tivo is definitely the cheaper one and even pays for the hardware + lifetime in 32 - 43 months (based on the Tivo box costing $150 - $300) so as long as your committed, you will come out on top with Tivo.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

emp said:


> ..and the responsibility of repair/replacing it when it breaks..../QUOTE]
> 
> And even then TiVo sometimes gives you a discount on replacing it (depending on the problem). And often it's just in need of a hard drive replacement.


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## DrMark (May 16, 2007)

The *only *reason why I haven't bought a TivoHD (I have an old series 1 with lifetime) is that my cable co (Time Warner) is doing everything in their power to make the TivoHD not work with their cable system. I *HATE* the SA box they have stuck me with so much that I actually use my standard definition series 1 analog Tivo more than the high-definition SA POS they stuck me with. 

--Mark


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

DrMark said:


> The *only *reason why I haven't bought a TivoHD (I have an old series 1 with lifetime) is that my cable co (Time Warner) is doing everything in their power to make the TivoHD not work with their cable system.


The TiVo HD works great with TW. In my experience, they tend to have better support for cablecards that most cable companies.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

rainwater said:


> The TiVo HD works great with TW. In my experience, they tend to have better support for cablecards that most cable companies.


I guess it depends on your region then. Issues associated with TW in my area are:

No MRV of standard digital recordings. - TW says the content providers are making them set the CCI byte to prevent this.

NPL Blanking Preventing any MRV from the HD TiVo. - TiVo has been working on this for about a year, I've been experiencing it ever since my Tuning Adapter was installed.

I have had my Tuning Adapter replaced once, and it took 4 visits to get the cable cards working. Both have been working fine since.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Stormspace said:


> No MRV of standard digital recordings. - TW says the content providers are making them set the CCI byte to prevent this.


No, they don't make that claim (since it is blatantly false in most cases). They make the claim that some contracts make them set the CCI byte (ie, with the movie channels), but that all the other content providers do not forbid them to set the byte, and so they set it.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

rainwater said:


> The TiVo HD works great with TW. In my experience, they tend to have better support for cablecards that most cable companies.


Your first sentence is a general statement that I have to question based on my own experience and that of numerous posters in several active threads on the TiVo Series 3 HD forum. Tuning Adapter problems are most prominent although CableCARD problems are a close second. If TWC support for CableCARDs is better than most cable cos. then the others must be pretty dismal.


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## ciucca (Jun 29, 2004)

Tivo is an OLD technology, and is not worth the price. My FIOS DVR has much better features than TIVO. Also taking 2 years to fix the same problem they had with DTV Tivos, where a strong signal was causing pixelation is pathetic.
Remember the FIOS issue they just fixed? It was the same setting of the tuner parameter backwards, they had as I mentioned with DTV. 

This company has 12-18 months left. Any non TIVO zombies who still read this board, due yourself a favor and do not invest in a TIVO. You will surely be pissed when the inevitable chapter 11 happens. There is no value for anyone to merge or buy them. Every provider has there own DVR software so why buy TIVO? The GUI hasn't been updated in over 10 years and is behind the times.

Let me be the first to predict the end! 18 months and byebye!


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Even if they go chapter 11, how can you say there is no value to merge or buy? Put the price low enough, and somebody will buy them. The net worth of the company is not negative.

Therefore, I should think that we lifetime subbers will continue to get our guide data from whomever buys them out.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

CrispyCritter said:


> No, they don't make that claim (since it is blatantly false in most cases). They make the claim that some contracts make them set the CCI byte (ie, with the movie channels), but that all the other content providers do not forbid them to set the byte, and so they set it.


I know you read the thread but here it is for those that didn't



> Thank you for writing. I apologize for the delay for communication regarding the content protection settings (also referred to as "CCI bits"). Time Warner Cable, like other distributors of multichannel video programming, negotiates the distribution rights for the content it carries independently with individual rights holders. These bilateral commercial negotiations take into consideration many different factors, including the content protection and digital rights management requirements of the rights holder; applicable law, license and regulations; and the interests of subscribers. Each of these commercial negotiations, and the terms of the agreements that result, are unique to the specific distributor and programmer involved. Accordingly, Time Warner Cable cannot comment on the rights and obligations of other distributors under their separately negotiated agreements. With respect to Time Warner Cables content protection settings, however, they are established in accordance with applicable law and its own agreements with programmers.
> 
> Consistent with those settings, content delivered by Time Warner Cable that has been flagged copy one generation (0x02) can only be copied once. Therefore, and as described on TiVos website (http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/...d/100041/sno/1), TiVos multi-room viewing and TiVoToGo features only permit content that has been flagged as copy freely (0x00) to be transferred to a second TiVo DVR or a PC. That is because both of these features make a second-generation copy on the downstream device. Certain content delivered by Time Warner Cable, including local broadcast television stations digital (SD and HD) signals, is flagged copy freely (0x00) and can be transferred to other TiVo DVRs and PCs.
> 
> ...


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

Just so you know. When I had an S2 connected to digital cable box I was able to transfer digital shows to other rooms in the house. So as long as I had enough tuners free on that box I could record any digital show and watch it anywhere without purchasing a second or third cable box. I returned the cable box when I got the HD thinking I would have the same ability, however with the HD, digital channels are blocked from being transfered. So, outside of the issues with the TA for me to record and watch digital channels in this manner I have to record these shows in each room of the house with a cable card device. So I have to walk into another room now to watch the digital shows. A minor inconvenience unless I'm being a night owl and don't want to disturb anyone or I'm working from home and want to have a show going in the computer room. 

TW has thus removed functionality I had before in the name of preventing copyright infringement when all I see is a tactic to make more money on STB's.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Stormspace said:


> I know you read the thread but here it is for those that didn't


I believe the key sentence for this discussion is this:


> *With respect to Time Warner Cable's content protection settings, however, they are established in accordance with applicable law and its own agreements with programmers*.


The law allows them to set copy-one-generation on anything but OTA local broadcast stations, unless they are constrained by their agreement with the distributor or programmer to set it otherwise.

They say nothing to the effect that their actual agreements *are requiring *them to set copy protection -- they state *nothing *about what specific agreements require. They just say specific agreements *might* constrain settings.

I thought we had this all clarified in the thread you pulled that quote from but apparently not......


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

dlfl said:


> I believe the key sentence for this discussion is this:
> 
> The law allows them to set copy-one-generation on anything but OTA local broadcast stations, unless they are constrained by their agreement with the distributor or programmer to set it otherwise.
> 
> ...


They totally blame others for the settings they impose and by their wording are trying to shift blame. I agree they have a throwaway line in there saying that even if others aren't to blame TW is not breaking the law. BTW, I don't believe for a minute that any of the stations TW rebroadcasts cares about MRV one way or another. Most probably don't even know what it is.


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## fatlard (Jun 30, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> They totally blame others for the settings they impose and by their wording are trying to shift blame. I agree they have a throwaway line in there saying that even if others aren't to blame TW is not breaking the law. BTW, I don't believe for a minute that any of the stations TW rebroadcasts cares about MRV one way or another. Most probably don't even know what it is.


Moxi and the Moxi Mate does not have this problem with Time Warner since their transmission is DTCP-IP approved.


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## jstrazz (Jan 21, 2007)

My biggest beef with TiVo is the restriction on picture resolution when you edit a program that you transferred to your computer. I would like to be able to archive my programs without the commercials but when I do, the picture resolution is reduced to somthing below standard definition quality.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Stormspace said:


> They totally blame others for the settings they impose and by their wording are trying to shift blame.


They do not claim, and never have claimed, that their agreements are the reason they turn on the CCI byte for all the channels they do. Their wording does not imply that. I agree they do not take responsibility themselves (like they should), but they also do not blame others if you actually read what they say.


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## Rooster (Oct 21, 2002)

I was 1 of those 314k subscribers they lost and they lost me mostly because of the signaling I took from the progressively more intrusive ads on a premium product. I know that subject has been beaten to death, so I won't argue that point anymore but I think TiVo is in a bit of trouble if they don't change something soon. 

The equation doesn't make sense to the people that don't know the benefits of a TiVo vs. a random generic DVR (up front costs, responsibility for hardware maintenance, similar per-month costs as a Cable Co. DVR, contracts, etc.). That's all to say nothing of the fact that a Cable Co. DVR "just works" and I don't say that in a slanderous way about TiVo reliability or anything, but if you buy a TiVo HD you've got to work with cable cards, possibly get the he said she said routine from your provider and there's much more complexity for the average user. Heck, I'm not an average user and I knew the answer, but when I called up Brighthouse (Time Warner) and asked if I could use TiVo with them they said no, I pushed further and said "You don't supply cable cards for TiVo HD?" and the CSR still said no. I know that to be false, because a friend of mine uses one with Brighthouse, but with your cable co CSR saying that stuff, what non-techie is going to trust it? I also know in my case that a significant investment in TiVo all but locked me into 1 provider locally since the stand alone boxes won't work with most IPTV/Satellite providers without a lot of extra quirky solutions that non-techies (or techies that don't want to constantly tinker) won't deal with. All that aside, I think TiVo's interface (minus the ads) is hands down the best and is worth a significant premium, but to someone who hasn't seen and experienced it, it's a rough sell and the generic ones are slowly getting better and better. There is no time like now for TiVo to make that big move and I think the window for that move is running out unless they have a game changing innovation hiding up their sleeve. 

It's time to stop treating TiVo like a company who just needs the market to mature to explode and start treating them like a company whose time is running out if they don't finally find a way to capitalize on their superior product. TiVo's been around longer than most of the generics and they have a better product, why aren't they dominating the DVR market? We can all guess, but TiVo's executives are the ones that need to figure it out and make something happen. The licensing moves they've been making seem positive, but they're going to need more.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

jstrazz said:


> My biggest beef with TiVo is the restriction on picture resolution when you edit a program that you transferred to your computer. I would like to be able to archive my programs without the commercials but when I do, the picture resolution is reduced to somthing below standard definition quality.


I'd say you are using the wrong software!


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Stormspace said:


> They totally blame others for the settings they impose and by their wording are trying to shift blame. .......


I know that's the way you feel but that is an incorrect conclusion, not supported by the TWC statement you quoted.

They state (correctly) that their CCI settings *can* be constrained by agreements with distributors. At no point do they state they *are actually *setting copy protection as required by content providers. Thus to say they "totally blame others" is wrong.

You (and I) dislike what they do, but that doesn't justify misconstruing their statements.


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## OldClient (Dec 2, 2009)

I have been with TIVO for more than 10years and there is no decent consideration for -OLD - cuastomers. I want to upgrade my box BUT if I buy the box then I won't be able to buy the lifetime policy! It's as if TIVO has said - WE HAVE YOUR MONEY ALREADY SO? - $399 is a bit steep! Especially now, in these economic times. Of course, I complained and the operator told me that the only thing that he could do is - RECITE THE UPGRADE POLICY - again!!! SHAME on these guys!!!


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## atlynch (Jan 7, 2005)

timckelley said:


> depending on when you bought it, you only need the lifetime sub to last you 23 months to make it worth it. I have 3 LT subs, and two of them have been in force for way longer than 23 months. (In fact, the 3rd by now might also be over 23 months by now.)
> 
> Also, even if TiVo were to go out of business, that doesn't mean the subscription will stop working. They could get absorbed by some new company that would still honor the subs.


I assume 23 months is as compared to paying monthly. It is more than 36 months if you compare to paying annually. 23 months sounds good. 36, not so much.

-Drew


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Rooster said:


> All that aside, I think TiVo's interface (minus the ads) is hands down the best and is worth a significant premium


In my case, if I take a weighted total of my 3 TiVos, which are lifetimed, factoring in purchase costs, lifetime subs, and repair costs I've incurred, I figure I've been paying an average monthly cost so far of less than $11 per month per TiVo. If all 3 keep working trouble free, then in another year, that average monthly cost over all the years I've owned TiVos will drop to less than $9 per month. (I'm currently paying $0 per month.) So maybe I'm not really paying this premium over what Time Warner DVRs would run me. Plus, I don't think Time Warner even had DVRs back when I first started using TiVo, and being able to expand the memory on them has been very valuable to me and my wife.


Rooster said:


> TiVo's been around longer than most of the generics and they have a better product, why aren't they dominating the DVR market?


Maybe their big disadvantage is that they aren't a TV provider, like cable or satellite is, so they probably aren't the first place people look when shopping for a DVR.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

dlfl said:


> I know that's the way you feel but that is an incorrect conclusion, not supported by the TWC statement you quoted.
> 
> They state (correctly) that their CCI settings *can* be constrained by agreements with distributors. At no point do they state they *are actually *setting copy protection as required by content providers. Thus to say they "totally blame others" is wrong.
> 
> You (and I) dislike what they do, but that doesn't justify misconstruing their statements.





> Time Warner Cable, like other distributors of multichannel video programming, negotiates the distribution rights for the content it carries independently with individual rights holders.


I agree that they are dancing around the subject, but this portion suggests to me that they are attempting to shift blame. It's like you said though, we've done this conversation. Presently I'm considering my next move.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

ciucca said:


> This company has 12-18 months left. Any non TIVO zombies who still read this board, due yourself a favor and do not invest in a TIVO. You will surely be pissed when the inevitable chapter 11 happens. There is no value for anyone to merge or buy them. Every provider has there own DVR software so why buy TIVO? The GUI hasn't been updated in over 10 years and is behind the times.
> 
> Let me be the first to predict the end! 18 months and byebye!


TiVo has no long term debt and is sitting on enough money to cover expenses for 5 years. You are no where near the first to predict the end and the first one to say within 2 years was like 5 years ago 

So perhaps you are the zombie saying things you do not really understand


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> TiVo has no long term debt and is sitting on enough money to cover expenses for 5 years. You are no where near the first to predict the end and the first one to say within 2 years was like 5 years ago
> 
> So perhaps you are the zombie saying things you do not really understand


Zeo is right. Many people have predicted the end of TiVo in the short term, including myself, and been wrong. What's sustaining TiVo at the moment though isn't their product, but their success in court.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> Zeo is right. Many people have predicted the end of TiVo in the short term, including myself, and been wrong. What's sustaining TiVo at the moment though isn't their product, but their success in court.


well they have like 3 years of money from R&D deals they cut with Comcast and others and 2 years from court money (though I am not sure they can count that yet)


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## Rooster (Oct 21, 2002)

timckelley said:


> In my case, if I take a weighted total of my 3 TiVos, which are lifetimed, factoring in purchase costs, lifetime subs, and repair costs I've incurred, I figure I've been paying an average monthly cost so far of less than $11 per month per TiVo.


The part of my post you quoted was just me saying that I think the benefits of TiVo are enough to command a premium (I don't quantify how much, just that I think TiVo is worth a premium). I do suggest elsewhere in the post that a premium exists today for new users and I'd stand by that statement. You made a calculated decision and it's paid off handsomely. I don't know if the prices you paid are still available for today's new user and, in any case, you took on risks regarding the hardware. I'm not saying TiVo is a bad deal by any stretch, but the equation for today's new customers involves more risk, complexity and cash outlay for TiVo than for provider's DVRs.



timckelley said:


> Maybe their big disadvantage is that they aren't a TV provider, like cable or satellite is, so they probably aren't the first place people look when shopping for a DVR.


I'm sure they tried, but if they would've had a similar licenses with Time Warner and Comcast sized cable companies when they had the Directv deal, I think they'd be in a lot different position today. I'd guess they would have a Microsoft-like domination of the DVR market. Why didn't they get those? Lack of trying? That'd surprise me if it were the case. Asking too much in licensing? I can't speak to that. Strategic focus based on standalone models instead of licensing? Again, don't know. Cable companies demanding too much control of the interface? You know the drill, I have no inside information. I can say, though, that I believe they were leaps and bounds ahead of the competition when cable companies started the DVR push (similar to how the iPhone was leaps and bounds better than any other smartphone on the market when they launched) and what was once a huge competitive advantage is dwindling with each day as other DVRs go from abysmal to ok-if-you-have-to to useable and eventually on to comparable. TiVo hasn't capitalized on a huge advantage they had and the longer they fail to capitalize on it, the tougher it becomes to capitalize on; that's my only point. I'm not suggesting I'm a guru that knows how to fix everything.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

OldClient said:


> I have been with TIVO for more than 10years and there is no decent consideration for -OLD - cuastomers. I want to upgrade my box BUT if I buy the box then I won't be able to buy the lifetime policy! It's as if TIVO has said - WE HAVE YOUR MONEY ALREADY SO? - $399 is a bit steep! Especially now, in these economic times. Of course, I complained and the operator told me that the only thing that he could do is - RECITE THE UPGRADE POLICY - again!!! SHAME on these guys!!!


It's not clear to me if you're responding to a particular comment. But you're confused about one thing. If you're an existing customer (DirecTV doesn't count) then you can purchase lifetime for a TiVo HD for $299 and not $399.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

MediaLivingRoom said:


> 4. Rewrite the whole TiVo application, I am sick and tired of having the TiVo UI jump from one UI to another. It's like the wrote parts in C++, then some stupid person said lets try JAVA or DOT Net


Without more details from you, I'm not entirely certain of what it is you speak, but I suspect the things of which you speak are indeed written on multiple softwarer platforms and are not written by TiVo at all. Third party applications (like Amazon VOD, Netflix, pyTivo, Galleon, etc) are written by third party developers on whatever platform they like, including Java, python, and others. All of the TiVo core software (mostly tivoapp) is written in C, and many of the utilities are written in tcl.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> They'd sell more if the HD boxes came with TiVo basic and no sub. Millions of people would go for a box that didn't nickel and dime them to death.


In that case, they would be attempting to sell at a loss and make up for it in volume. It's the surest recipe I know for going bankrupt. Since they are subsidizing the cost of producing the box with subscription fees, the last thing in the world they want is more unsubbed boxes. They would have to be idiots to follow this strategy.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> It's still a lot of money to plunk down on a TiVo and have a more costly monthly fee. We're talking 12.95 per month plus 5.00 per month for cable cards, vs the 10.00 cable DVR.


There is a lot of variability in leased DVR fees, but few CATV companies offer DVRs that cheaply. Even at the $19.95 DVR lease fee from TWC San Antonio, TWC is losing a little money long term on their DVR rentals, the fact the POS isn't worth a plugged nickel notwithstanding. Of course they more than make that up in IPPV and extended tier fees, but I am paying $14.94 a month for CableCards plus $6.95 a month for TiVo service on 3 TiVos, or $21.89 a month total. If I were so incredibly insane as to go with leased DVRs, it would cost me $39.85.



Stormspace said:


> In my area at least many of the value add functions like MRV don't work


That is an extremely misleading (not to mention inflammatory) statement. MRV works very well. According to the other thead in which you participated, you are having trouble transferring from your S3 to your S2 TiVos. If all your TiVos were S3 or all S2, then you wouldn't be having the problem. While certainly not the most desirable situation, the number of people who have both S2 and S3 tivos is quite small.

While I am at it, I wish you would change your tagline. It's annoying. At least make it accurate by saying you are havineg problems with MRV *from* the S3 to the S2, so people don't think there is a problem whihc in fact does not exist. Frankly, I'm not sure why you are recording very much on the S3 that could be transferred via MRV to an S2 in the first place. I record almost nothing but HD content on my TiVos, and HD content can't be transferred to an S2 via MRV in any case.



Stormspace said:


> so what benefit does TiVo offer over the cable DVR? Not a lot...


Easily 98% of the all the features I use on the TiVo are not even close to being available on any leased DVR. Easily 40% of them are complete deal breakers each by themselves.



Stormspace said:


> edit: It is actually about 3 dollars less per month and is hackable, which is why I haven't switched, still though feature for feature the TiVo HD doesn't currently have anything I'm using that isn't available on the cable DVR.


OK, so you don't really use your DVR. I do, and almost none of the features I use on a continuous basis are available on a leased DVR.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

morac said:


> So I'm actually saving $21.75 a month by using TiVo over the cable company DVR which is a no brainer.


Exactly. Then add to that the fact that when you are ready to upgrade your TiVo, you can probably sell it and recoup at least $75 or so of your original investment. 'More if it has lifetime service on it.



morac said:


> Even without the money difference, there's more features on the S3 as compared to the cable DVR, ToGo being one of them.


And all the great apps offered by Galleon.
And the terrific functionality of pyTivo.
And the powerful automated capabilities of Suggestions
And the absolutely phenomenal power of Wishlists
...


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> That is an extremely misleading (not to mention inflammatory) statement. MRV works very well. According to the other thead in which you participated, you are having trouble transferring from your S3 to your S2 TiVos. If all your TiVos were S3 or all S2, then you wouldn't be having the problem. While certainly not the most desirable situation, the number of people who have both S2 and S3 tivos is quite small.


FYI, Time Warner and Comcast apply copy protection on all digital channels except OTA locals rendering MRV useless.
Add to that the fact that the TA's are causing additional problems WRT S2 and S3 Tivos.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

substance12 said:


> most people I know are very turned off by having to pay for the tivo and having a monthly subscription.


So isn't it wonderful they don't have to? Anyone turned off by such an option can simply get lifetime service.



substance12 said:


> - fix the pricing model. subscription or 1 time purchase... not both.


Are you utterly daft? How is removing one choice from a menu "fixing" it? With two choices, those who prefer for whatever reasons to pay monthly can do so and those who prefer for whatever other reasons to pay in a lump sum can take their preferred choice. All that removing one choice does is potentially drive away some fraction of the buyers who would have chosen the redacted choice.



substance12 said:


> or at least make the box cheaper.


They are already selling the hardware at a loss. What more do you want?



substance12 said:


> - make pytivo or stream baby stream native to the device and get rid of tivo desktop software.


By definition, none of the mentioned software can ever be native to the box. As to dropping support of TDT, I agree the softwre sucks badly, but it would be imprudent for them to drop support of the product. Why should they? Are you of the absolutely absurd notion that it is better not to have any competing products available?

Fewer purchasing choices are better?
Selling at a greater loss is a better way to make money?
Fewer available software solutions are better?

You've got to be friggin' kidding us...



substance12 said:


> - integrate a BD/dvd drive. or make it optional. the last thing any of us want is another box to add to our media centers.


Well, as ideas go, this one is at least a bit better than the others, but historically boxes with additional hardware like this have not sold well.



substance12 said:


> - make the hdd 1G by default. if you can advertise that tivo has way more storage than what the competition has... that's a major selling point.


I think you mean 1T, not 1G. The THD XL already has this very thing. So what's your beef? That it's a bad idea to have a lower end product for the more budget minded? Are we back to thinking fewer choices are better for the consumer?



substance12 said:


> - rework the UI. this doesn't even need explaining.


It does to me. Very few of the suggestions for a new UI I have seen in this forum are acceptable to me.



substance12 said:


> - be more integrated with the tivo community. tivo should have dedicated people on these forums posting every single day.


Now I know you are living in fantasy land. Any company with a national presence must be extremely careful about public statements made by any official of the company. Admittedly TiVo is a bit more conservative than many in this respect, but not remarkably so, and in this arena it is much better to be safe than sorry.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

RoyK said:


> I record on my HTPC (dual tuner Hauppage card) and it works EXTREMELY well using Windows 7 Media Center. And it was simple to map clear QAM channels to the guide.


Uh-huh. Just out of curiosity, what is the uptime on that puppy?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

DrMark said:


> The *only *reason why I haven't bought a TivoHD (I have an old series 1 with lifetime) is that my cable co (Time Warner) is doing everything in their power to make the TivoHD not work with their cable system.


This is simply false. In fact, TWC has gone to some fairly decent trouble over the last year and a half to mollify TiVo subscribers, and over the last three years to at least not annoy them any more than necessary.



DrMark said:


> I *HATE* the SA box they have stuck me with so much that I actually use my standard definition series 1 analog Tivo more than the high-definition SA POS they stuck me with.


Now that, in contrast, is about as true as a statement can get. After I bought my first HD TV, I leased one of the SA 8300HD units from the cable company, intending to wait about year to 18 months to purchase the upcoming S3 TiVo, allowing a little time for the price to come down. Like you, shortly after getting the abominable POS, I set up my old S1 with an STB right next to the 8300 and used mostly the S1 for recording. The SA 8300HD was *HORRIBLE*. Nine months later, when the S3 came out, I could not have possibly cared less how much it cost ($1000 with lifetime service), I whipped out my credit card faster than Clint Eastwood drawing his pistol and ordered it immediately. There was absolutely no way I was going to put up with that POS another 3 to 9 months.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> I guess it depends on your region then. Issues associated with TW in my area are:
> 
> No MRV of standard digital recordings. - TW says the content providers are making them set the CCI byte to prevent this.


And this is better using a leased DVR how? In addition, AFAIK, no official statement from TWC says any such thing. Setting the CCI byte is entirely their prerogative.



Stormspace said:


> NPL Blanking Preventing any MRV from the HD TiVo. - TiVo has been working on this for about a year, I've been experiencing it ever since my Tuning Adapter was installed.


Once again this is better with a CATV leased DVR how? It doesn't even apply to someone like DrMark, who doesn't own an S2 at all, so why are you mentioning it at all in this context? More to the point, why are you mentioning it in such a completely misleading way? No one who owns exclusively S3 class TiVos is experiencing any problem at all, with or without the TA. The problem only exists *On S2 TIVOS, NOT S3 TIVOS*, and only exists if an S3 in the mix has a TA attached. Once again, since frankly relatively few S3 TiVo owners have both S2 TiVos and S3 TiVos with a TA attached, and since most of the content on the S3 can't be transferred to the S2 in the first place, I fail to understand why you continually harp on this. You already have at least two threads dedicated to it, and it only impacts a small fraction of programs for a very tiny fraction of TiVo subscribers. It certainly doesn't apply to DrMark.



Stormspace said:


> I have had my Tuning Adapter replaced once, and it took 4 visits to get the cable cards working. Both have been working fine since.


After a similar number of visits, they failed to get the CableCard to function fully on my Mitsubishi DLP. So what?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jstrazz said:


> My biggest beef with TiVo is the restriction on picture resolution when you edit a program that you transferred to your computer. I would like to be able to archive my programs without the commercials but when I do, the picture resolution is reduced to somthing below standard definition quality.


There is no such restriction, period. This is almost certainly user error. Other than the encryption and the container, the content is precisely the same after it is transferred to the PC as it was on the TiVo hard drive.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

dlfl said:


> I know that's the way you feel but that is an incorrect conclusion, not supported by the TWC statement you quoted.
> 
> They state (correctly) that their CCI settings *can* be constrained by agreements with distributors. At no point do they state they *are actually *setting copy protection as required by content providers. Thus to say they "totally blame others" is wrong.
> 
> You (and I) dislike what they do, but that doesn't justify misconstruing their statements.


Exactly. Actually, what I dislike most about this treatment is not the slightly slippery wording of the disclaimer. It is the fact it is a brush-off. It's clearly designed to get rid of the plaintiff while taking no responsibility themselves. It doesn't foist the responsibility onto anyone else, it just avoids saying anything of any substance at all.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

ciucca said:


> Tivo is an OLD technology





ZeoTiVo said:


> So perhaps you are the zombie saying things you do not really understand


His very first sentence completely blew my estimation of his credibility. I cannot think of a single consumer product released or updated since the introduction of the Tivo ten years ago which even comes close to comparing favorably with it. Most of the products are just plain crap, and lining them up mentally, the newer, generally the crappier. Some adolescents - arrested or otherwise - seem to think that the fact something is new makes it good. The reverse is most often true. If one wants something that is good, one is usually better served to seek that which is old, because anything which is old *HAS* to be good. If not, it would never have hung around long enough to get to be old. Regardless of how good some new thing might be, pointing out that something is old is never a valid criticism.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

steve614 said:


> FYI, Time Warner and Comcast apply copy protection on all digital channels except OTA locals rendering MRV useless.
> Add to that the fact that the TA's are causing additional problems WRT S2 and S3 Tivos.


I'm well aware. I'm on TWC and I have participated in the threads concerning the S2 MRV issue. What induced you to think otherwise?


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> I'm well aware. I'm on TWC and I have participated in the threads concerning the S2 MRV issue. What induced you to think otherwise?


Your statement here.



lrhorer said:


> That is an extremely misleading (not to mention inflammatory) statement. MRV works very well.


Sure, MRV works very well, as long as you're not a TWC or Comcast subscriber.
Copyright flags prevent MRV period, unless you know of a workaround?
The problem with TA's and S3 to S2 MRV is a separate issue.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> Uh-huh. Just out of curiosity, what is the uptime on that puppy?


100% since I built it the end of September - the only reboots were automatic ones after a couple of Windows Updates.

It has not missed a single recording -- unlike my TiVoHD which missed six recordings in the same period due to gray screens.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

steve614 said:


> FYI, Time Warner and Comcast apply copy protection on all digital channels except OTA locals rendering MRV useless.


Your statement is incorrect. I had Comcast, and used MRV all the time.


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## fasTLane (Nov 25, 2005)

lrhorer said:


> His very first sentence completely blew my estimation of his credibility. I cannot think of a single consumer product released or updated since the introduction of the Tivo ten years ago which even comes close to comparing favorably with it. Most of the products are just plain crap, and lining them up mentally, the newer, generally the crappier. Some adolescents - arrested or otherwise - seem to think that the fact something is new makes it good. The reverse is most often true. If one wants something that is good, one is usually better served to seek that which is old, because anything which is old *HAS* to be good. If not, it would never have hung around long enough to get to be old. Regardless of how good some new thing might be, pointing out that something is old is never a valid criticism.


:up: *Totally in agreement.* :up:


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

fasTLane said:


> > Regardless of how good some new thing might be, pointing out that something is old is never a valid criticism.
> 
> 
> :up: *Totally in agreement.* :up:


I agree as well, and incidentally, pointing out how old something is is never a valid endorsement, either -- I see people do that a lot, as well. Merit is merit. Age is age. There is no correlation between the two.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

bicker said:


> Your statement is incorrect. I had Comcast, and used MRV all the time.


Yes, Comcast in my area only protects the premiums and a few movie channels. TWC is the problem child for MRV, not Comcast. (Well, actually Tivo is the problem child, but we know what the answer is on that - nothing).


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

steve614 said:


> Sure, MRV works very well, as long as you're not a TWC or Comcast subscriber. Copyright flags prevent MRV period, unless you know of a workaround?


I do. In fact a couple of them, but they aren't for discussion here. Getting back to the point, not being ALLOWED to transfer via MRV (or any other protocol) is not the same as being broken. There's absolutely nothing TiVo can do about not being allowed to transfer programs due to CableLabs restrictions outside of creating a different protocol under which the restrictions would not apply. On a Series III TiVo (especially a THD), there are a number of very significant issues with attempting to do so.



steve614 said:


> The problem with TA's and S3 to S2 MRV is a separate issue.


Which was my point. The issue Stormspace keeps raising is related to the S2 issue, unless I misread his intent. Either way, however, the issue does not apply to MrMark (at least not initially) since he doesn't have multiple S2 or S3 TiVos. It could impact his ability to transfer to a PC, but the bottom line is that ability is no more limited on an S3 for copy protected material than it is with a leased DVR, nor than it is currently with his S1 TiVo.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> I agree as well, and incidentally, pointing out how old something is is never a valid endorsement, either


Strictly in and of itself, you're right, it isn't. Certainly something old may be obsolete or worn out. The point is, however, that only something of significant quality in the first place is ever likely to get old. A piece of junk is usually going to be discarded very quickly, either simply because it is junk, or because its poor quality causes it to malfunction or wear out early on. The mere fact something is old strongly suggests it was never a hunk of junk.

A good example is the famous "Gooney Bird", designated C-47 (and a few designated as C-41) in its military duties and DC-3 in its civilian role. It is arguably the finest airframe ever designed, evidenced in no small part by how long large numbers of the craft were in use. In fact, the last I heard there was still one DC-3 in operation on an active cargo run somewhere on the west coast with more than 90,000 hours on its airframe, more than 70 years after the first one rolled off the assembly line. Something like 1000 of them may still be in use with somewhat less time in flight. That is unheard of, especially for an aircraft powered by piston engines. "Venerable" doesn't even begin to describe it.



bicker said:


> -- I see people do that a lot, as well. Merit is merit. Age is age. There is no correlation between the two.


Now that's completely untrue. The statistical correlation between merit and age is easily established for a number of vectors. First of all, for any particular manufacturing output, infant failures are almost always the highest. After a relatively short "burn in" period, the failure rate usually plummets and then remains low and usually slightly decreasing over a significant period of time. At some point, the curve usually gently starts sloping back upwards, gradually increasing in slope until the failure rate eventually comes close to 1. A high quality item can be expected to have very low failure rates throughout its lifespan, and the length of the lifespan, being defined by where the graph starts to rapidly approach 1, expected to be long. A similar metric simply measures what fraction of the production output is still in service after some specified period of time. An item of high merit in this respect will enjoy a very high percentage of units remaining in service while a poor one will suffer from having relatively few, or perhaps none. It have a 1970 pickup truck with over 500,000 miles on it, despite heavy regular use. It was a *VERY* good purchase. When she met my borther, my sister-in-law owned a Vega which fell apart after less than 50,000 miles. It was not such a good purchase. Age definitely correlates with merit.


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## fasTLane (Nov 25, 2005)

bicker said:


> I agree as well, and incidentally, pointing out how old something is is never a valid endorsement, either -- I see people do that a lot, as well. Merit is merit. Age is age. There is no correlation between the two.


Of course.. Merit must be taken in chronological context. Buggy whips, etc.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> If one wants something that is good, one is usually better served to seek that which is old, because anything which is old *HAS* to be good. If not, it would never have hung around long enough to get to be old. Regardless of how good some new thing might be, pointing out that something is old is never a valid criticism.


I will have to print this out for my Wife and I


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> ........ If one wants something that is good, one is usually better served to seek that which is old, because anything which is old *HAS* to be good. If not, it would never have hung around long enough to get to be old. .........


Darwin's law for products, eh? As a senior person I can appreciate that!


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> The point is, however, that only something of significant quality in the first place is ever likely to get old.


Well, my point was that the process of getting old, itself, could -- every moment -- result in the thing no longer being a thing of quality. There is, unfortunately, a pervasive sentimentality in our society, placing undue veneration on anything that is old. That kind of thing is perhaps appropriate when targeted at people: Older folks have accumulated wisdom, though even then, sometimes you have younger folks with more and better wisdom than _some_ older folks. However, with concepts, that kind of sentimentality is utterly inappropriate: Evaluate such things in the moment. Don't give them credit for what they were yesterday, but rather only what they are today.



lrhorer said:


> <snip>


We're talking about ideas, processes, offerings -- not tangible pieces of hardware.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

OldClient said:


> I have been with TIVO for more than 10years and there is no decent consideration for -OLD - cuastomers. I want to upgrade my box BUT if I buy the box then I won't be able to buy the lifetime policy! It's as if TIVO has said - WE HAVE YOUR MONEY ALREADY SO? - $399 is a bit steep! Especially now, in these economic times. Of course, I complained and the operator told me that the only thing that he could do is - RECITE THE UPGRADE POLICY - again!!! SHAME on these guys!!!


Shame on you. How do you expect TiVo to make money off of you? They have to make a profit! They're probably losing $100 off that box you're complaining about, and they have to make that back on the lifetime.

And do you really object to how little use you've already made of your present lifetime? Lifetime for 10 years comes to about $1.50 per month that you've been paying TiVo - you've cost them a lot more money than you've paid them.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

bicker said:


> I had Comcast, and used MRV all the time.


Is there any particular reason you used past tense in this statement?  
I realize that there are some providers that don't apply the copyright flags, but saying ''MRV works well'' without the qualifying ''as long as your provider doesn't apply the copyright protection" is a disservice.


lrhorer said:


> I do. In fact a couple of them, but they aren't for discussion here.


TEASE! 


> Getting back to the point, not being ALLOWED to transfer via MRV (or any other protocol) is not the same as being broken. There's absolutely nothing TiVo can do about not being allowed to transfer programs due to CableLabs restrictions outside of creating a different protocol under which the restrictions would not apply. On a Series III TiVo (especially a THD), there are a number of very significant issues with attempting to do so.


I never said MRV was broken. I said "rendered useless". 
But that doesn't mean anything to the average non-techie Tivo user, if something doesn't work, it might as well be 'broken'.
Maybe Tivo should quit advertising the MRV feature so some folks won't be misled.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

steve614 said:


> I realize that there are some providers that don't apply the copyright flags, but saying ''MRV works well'' without the qualifying ''as long as your provider doesn't apply the copyright protection" is a disservice.


Then don't put Comcast in that boat when you post, because they're the largest MSO and do not cripple us with copy protection, at least so far.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

steve614 said:


> Is there any particular reason you used past tense in this statement?


Yes, I've switched providers.



steve614 said:


> I realize that there are some providers that don't apply the copyright flags,


Then don't mention those providers when you express your complaint.



steve614 said:


> but saying ''MRV works well'' without the qualifying ''as long as your provider doesn't apply the copyright protection" is a disservice.


Not really. It's a bit like saying, "Cell phone YYY is a great phone, _as long as you aren't trying to use it in a place that doesn't provide cellphone service_. Reasonable people wouldn't necessarily expect such a qualification.


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## sathead (Jan 12, 2008)

RoyK said:


> I record on my HTPC (dual tuner Hauppage card) and it works EXTREMELY well using Windows 7 Media Center. And it was simple to map clear QAM channels to the guide.





lrhorer said:


> Uh-huh. Just out of curiosity, what is the uptime on that puppy?


I tried to use my very reliable On-Air GT USB tuner for my- in the clear QAM recordings too.
Well, the PC worked fine, the USB QAM tuner worked great, the recording scheduler worked great. Everything was good till Cablevision decided to start remapping their channel/frequency assignments on a seemingly random basis which caused the "channel not found- recording failed" message on the PC whenever they decided to shuffle the channel assignments around once again. The only way to get reliable recordings from a provider that does this is to do a complete 10 min channel rescan just before you want to record anything via the PC (yes I know, not a realistic option) or have a cable card device that keeps track of the seemingly endless channel reassignments by the cable provider.

More importantly for TiVo- the whole culture of TV viewing & recording has changed since TiVo & ReplayTV hit the scene years ago.
With a average broadband internet connection and a newsgroup account- it takes 7 min to download a one hour network program in full H.264 HD. While maybe it's not legal/moral/etc... people do get programs this way. NO TiVo or cable co rental DVR required at all. I don't think we've even seen the tip of the iceberg here yet either. Most college age "kids" I know simply download all their shows and movies now as SOP and couldn't even be bothered recording anything live. To them, DVR's- TiVo included- are already obsolete.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

sathead said:


> I tried to use my very reliable On-Air GT USB tuner for my- in the clear QAM recordings too.
> Well, the PC worked fine, the USB QAM tuner worked great, the recording scheduler worked great. Everything was good till Cablevision decided to start remapping their channel/frequency assignments on a seemingly random basis which caused the "channel not found- recording failed" message on the PC whenever they decided to shuffle the channel assignments around once again. ...


My provider did this for a while about the time of the OTA digital transition. Since then, however, I've had no problems with channel remapping. Things have stayed put.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

sathead said:


> To them [thieves and legal downloaders], DVR's- TiVo included- are already obsolete.


Yes. I imagine there was fervent debate about the best ways to sell buggy whips in those final years.


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## sathead (Jan 12, 2008)

Wil said:


> Yes. I imagine there was fervent debate about the best ways to sell buggy whips in those final years.


??????????????
Kind of misquoted me there to


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Quoting within square brackets is a common means of indicating a correction on the part of someone quoting material that the person doing the quoting considers erroneous. 

This is not an Internet meme, but rather goes much further back, before all of us were born. I'm shocked at how many people, these days, are unaware of that standard convention.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

sathead said:


> ??????????????
> Kind of misquoted me there to


I think there was supposed to be an analogy in there somewhere. Let's see a buggy whip thief is related to an internet pirate like a ....err... no, not getting it.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

sathead said:


> ??????????????
> Kind of misquoted me there to


I was agreeing with you about "them" seeing the DVR/Tivo as obsolete, and making an analogy. I think we agree on that (?). The words within parens, now changed more appropriately to brackets, were _my_ words, describing "them," not yours. I really don't think there was any confusion about that but hopefully the brackets take care of any there might have been. OK?


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

steve614 said:


> FYI, Time Warner and Comcast apply copy protection on all digital channels except OTA locals rendering MRV useless.
> Add to that the fact that the TA's are causing additional problems WRT S2 and S3 Tivos.


few points-

incorrect about comcast as a whole. My comcast headend flagged all the HD channels except rebroadcast locals since the day the S3 was released. Then they got WORSE and actually flagged all the digital channels- hd, sd, whatever, again except rebroadcast locals. Then in the spring when they moved to convert basic to digital they REMOVED ALL FLAGS except for the HD premium movie channels. So certainly there is no comcast corporate policy to flag everything- more likely there is a corporate policy NOT to flag anything except HD movie premiums. I'm not the only one to report comcast removing flags.

Second- MRV is "worthless" because one can't transfer anything besides re-broadcast locals? NOT AT ALL TRUE for the vast majority of people. Even when I was hosed above and all my HD and then most everything except local and analog was flagged still a large portion of what I watched was MRV'able. I'm not sure it's a majority still but I suspect a large plurality of the TV watched still comes from these broadcast networks which can not be flagged. Then there's the math that someone MRV'ng has more than one box so they can record in the other location so many times the things that get MRV'd are the items that don't get recorded because of conflicts- which more often that not occur because of prime time broadcast network head to head scheduling.

So while my MRV ability and it's value was diminished when I basically only had broadcast to MRV, it was NEVER worthless. And I'd certainly say it had "more than half" it's value even though I was restricted to just the broadcast networks.

Not saying tivo doesn't have an issue and shouldn't get cracking with a solution. I think MOVING content is simple and should have been added as a feature like 2 years ago myself. But there's not reason to exaggerate the issue- it's a pain in the butt when the show I want is flagged and can't get transferred but MRV isn't worthless- even with TiVo's foot dragging.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

bicker said:


> Quoting within square brackets is a common means of indicating a correction on the part of someone quoting material that the person doing the quoting considers erroneous.
> 
> This is not an Internet meme, but rather goes much further back, before all of us were born. I'm shocked at how many people, these days, are unaware of that standard convention.


I'm shocked that you're shocked.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

bicker said:


> square brackets is a common means of indicating a correction


or annotation, explanation, comment, quite a variety of things.

I originally used parentheses instead of the brackets and I apologize for the error. In any case the nature of "they" is not essential. Whoever "they" are, to "them" the DVR is last century, and all this fine-tuning discussion about various DVR technologies/strategies is just so much esoteric and obscure debate among historians about ancient customs.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Wil said:


> ........ and all this fine-tuning discussion about various DVR technologies/strategies is just so much esoteric and obscure debate among historians about ancient customs.


Glad I'm not a historian, since I wouldn't want my posts to be considered esoteric and obscure (except on rare occasions when I intend that). 

I see your point, despite the exaggeration, however.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

slowbiscuit said:


> Then don't put Comcast in that boat when you post, because they're the largest MSO and do not cripple us with copy protection, at least so far.





bicker said:


> Then don't mention those providers when you express your complaint.


Fair enough, I shouldn't lump Comcast and TWC together, my point was geared toward the crippled MRV.



bicker said:


> Not really. It's a bit like saying, "Cell phone YYY is a great phone, _as long as you aren't trying to use it in a place that doesn't provide cellphone service_. Reasonable people wouldn't necessarily expect such a qualification.


That's because the cell phone companies have used this model from the start and people shouldn't expect anything different, therefore a qualifier is not necessary. 
Compared to the MRV and protection issue where one used to be able to MRV anything one might want, and now can't. 


MichaelK said:


> few points-


Taken ... except I don't believe I used the word "worthless".


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

steve614 said:


> That's because the cell phone companies have used this model from the start and people shouldn't expect anything different, therefore a qualifier is not necessary.


A qualifier is not necessary because there was no commitment made -- same as with cable. Your personal decision to make assumptions based on your own past experience is without legitimate foundation.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

I agree with *steve614*. The way cell phones act in weak signal areas is generally well known. There is no such widespread general knowledge about how MRV or TTG are affected by CCI flags. The TiVo web pages are frequently the only knowledge a prospective buyer gets about MRV and TTG. There should be qualifiers. I'm not saying it's something TiVo should be sued about or that they are guilty of false advertising, however.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> Well, my point was that the process of getting old, itself, could -- every moment -- result in the thing no longer being a thing of quality.


Well, let's say, "No longer being useful". One could make the distinction between the quality of a product line and it's usefulness. Someone mentioned buggy whips. A high quality buggy whip is still high quality, even though it is no longer useful. There's also, of course, a distinction between the quality of a product line and the quality of a particular item from that product line. A 2 year old oil filter is no longer very useful no matter what its manufacturing quality, but the fact the filter was designed 40 years ago in no way lessens its quality when new. In this discussion we are talking about the product line, however, not any particular TiVo, and product lines do not suffer from "wear and tear" like individual items do.



bicker said:


> There is, unfortunately, a pervasive sentimentality in our society, placing undue veneration on anything that is old.


While this may sometimes be true, I find it in no way pervasive. Indeed, I find the prevailing attitude to be just the opposite, as exemplified by the post which started this whole sub-thread. America worships youth, not age, both in people and in products.



bicker said:


> That kind of thing is perhaps appropriate when targeted at people:


Some individual items improve with age. Wine, cheese, meat, and yes, humans, improve over time. Once again, however, we are speaking here of a product line, not individual items. Speaking evolutionally, however, product lines also improve with age - if they need to.



bicker said:


> Older folks have accumulated wisdom, though even then, sometimes you have younger folks with more and better wisdom than _some_ older folks.


Yes, some people will remain idiots their entire lives, while others are wise beyond their years. Speaking in general, however, young people are foolish, while older people have learned better judgment, often the hard way. The hard line, however, is drawn by experience. Not only is there no substitute for experience, there is almost no way to beat it. This definitely applies to a well and properly developed product line, like the TiVo. That fact it has been carefully augmented and has stood the test of time says everything. The fact it was first designed 10 years ago says nothing.



bicker said:


> We're talking about ideas, processes, offerings -- not tangible pieces of hardware.


No, we are definitely talking about tangible pieces of hardware, which are of course the embodiment of ideas. We are talking mostly about the product line, however, rather than individual units. Assessment of the product line, of course, requires evaluating individual units.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

dlfl said:


> I agree with *steve614*. The way cell phones act in weak signal areas is generally well known. There is no such widespread general knowledge about how MRV or TTG are affected by CCI flags.


It's true there isn't, but there certainly should be. Copy protection schemes go back to the days of the first commercially available VCRs, long before the invention of the cell phone.



dlfl said:


> The TiVo web pages are frequently the only knowledge a prospective buyer gets about MRV and TTG. There should be qualifiers.


If there "should be" qualifiers on TiVo's web page, then the same should be true of Moxi, Cisco, Pace, Zenith, Motorola, and anyone else who makes a CableLabs approved DVR. Copy protection applies to them all.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Wil said:


> In any case the nature of "they" is not essential.


Except that "they" are young and foolish.



Wil said:


> Whoever "they" are, to "them" the DVR is last century, and all this fine-tuning discussion about various DVR technologies/strategies is just so much esoteric and obscure debate among historians about ancient customs.


On the desk in front of me, just to my right, sits a 20 year old dot matrix printer. Next to it sits a 30 year old telephone. In the room to my right sits a 30 year old NTSC television monitor attached to my TiVoHD. All four of these devices serve their respective intended purposes exceedingly well. Barring a mechanical failure, I don't intend to replace any of these items any time soon. I would have to be an utter idiot to spend money replacing any of them with something that serves their purpose in no way more effectively , but simply because it is newer.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

steve614 said:


> TEASE!


If you, or anyone else are truly interested in work-arounds to the CCI byte flag, then I suggest a visit to "the other" TiVo forum. Note these features are for the hobbyist, not the casual user, and that the forum itself is dedicated to hobbyists, so the reader's hand will not be held when seeking the desired solutions.

Just for the record, I myself have little desire to employ MRV in the first place, so while I know of the work-arounds, I don't employ them personally. I certainly could, but in general I don't have a regular reason to move content from one TiVo directly to the other. I admit there were some times, though, during my recent illness, when it would have been nice.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dlfl said:


> I'm not saying it's something TiVo should be sued about or that they are guilty of false advertising, however.


So essentially you're just saying that you and Steve don't like what they do. Why didn't Steve just say _that_ to start with?


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## tivohaydon (Mar 24, 2001)

bicker said:


> Not really. It's a bit like saying, "Cell phone YYY is a great phone, _as long as you aren't trying to use it in a place that doesn't provide cellphone service_. Reasonable people wouldn't necessarily expect such a qualification.


You're joking right? And you don't think the cell phone industry publishes this qualification? Have you ever seen a coverage map?

They might not be completely accurate but they'll certainly tell you if you're in an area that doesn't have coverage.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

tivohaydon said:


> You're joking right? And you don't think the cell phone industry publishes this qualification? Have you ever seen a coverage map?


Are you serious? The cell phone companies are responsible for their own limitations, while the limitations we're discussing where are also due to second-party (service provider) and third-party (content provider) actions -- and there is discussion of these things on TiVo's website, just not where perhaps you would want them to be, to cause TiVo the most damage.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> well they have like 3 years of money from R&D deals they cut with Comcast and others and 2 years from court money (though I am not sure they can count that yet)


I would argue that this too is not due to their consumer product, but to their software, patents, and the threat of going to court. Not because they have a great consumer product that almost no one uses after 9-10 years.

PS: As of last month TiVo's market share (2.76 million) is now less than 8% of the estimated total 38 million US DVR households.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> No one who owns exclusively S3 class TiVos is experiencing any problem at all, with or without the TA. The problem only exists On S2 TIVOS, NOT S3 TIVOS, and only exists if an S3 in the mix has a TA attached. Once again, since frankly relatively few S3 TiVo owners have both S2 TiVos and S3 TiVos with a TA attached, and since most of the content on the S3 can't be transferred to the S2 in the first place, I fail to understand why you continually harp on this. You already have at least two threads dedicated to it, and it only impacts a small fraction of programs for a very tiny fraction of TiVo subscribers. It certainly doesn't apply to DrMark.


Where are you getting this information? I don't deny it's truth, I'm just curious since I haven't seen anything that indicates NPL blanking happening solely in a mixed environment.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> It's true there isn't, but there certainly should be. Copy protection schemes go back to the days of the first commercially available VCRs, long before the invention of the cell phone.
> 
> If there "should be" qualifiers on TiVo's web page, then the same should be true of Moxi, Cisco, Pace, Zenith, Motorola, and anyone else who makes a CableLabs approved DVR. Copy protection applies to them all.


While copy protection applies to all DVR manufacturers, most are not affected by the sweeping CCI byte deployments by TWC and others because they don't or never allowed any sort of transfer mechanism. MRV is an important differentiator for TiVo and makes TiVo a clear leader in the DVR space. Anytime I tell some one I record on one and watch on another they are amazed. "My cable DVR doesn't do that".

Whether TiVo adds a disclaimer or not, loss of MRV will hurt them regardless of the cause. I really don't see them downplaying a feature this important with disclaimers unless someone decides to force them to.

That forcing, if it were to make the news might be very interesting though as it would bring to light the issues that CCI has caused.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

bicker said:


> So essentially you're just saying that you and Steve don't like what they do. Why didn't Steve just say _that_ to start with?


No, I'm saying it would be better for buyers to have more prominent mention of the MRV and TTG limitations *and* it would be better for TiVo. A TiVo buyer who gets bitten by these limitations is likely to become very unhappy with TiVo. (Poster boy example: *Stormspace*.) I'm assuming TiVo would prefer otherwise, i.e., that they do value customer satisfaction. You seem to be saying they would prefer to sell a few more TiVo's at the expense of making those customers very unhappy. I question that as being in anybody's best interest. What significant damage would TiVo incur by putting a little footnote explaining the limitations on pages that tout MRV and TTG?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> I would argue that this too is not due to their consumer product, but to their software, patents, and the threat of going to court. Not because they have a great consumer product that almost no one uses after 9-10 years.
> 
> PS: As of last month TiVo's market share (2.76 million) is now less than 8% of the estimated total 38 million US DVR households.


Apple has a great consumer product but they have figured out how to get a profit margin on their product.

TiVo has to compete with the broadcasters who start with the unique advantage of already having equipment in the consumer's house along with far easier access to the encrypted content, especially since DBS is in the mix, and can make claims like 10$ a month for DVR. Also cable companies are not exactly hitting massive penetration themselves if only 38 million households have a DVR.

So I think it has long been established that TiVo does not make a profit off their product yet and I think it has little to do with whether it is a great product or not but the DVR market itself.


----------



## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

steve614 said:


> That's because the cell phone companies have used this model from the start and people shouldn't expect anything different, therefore a qualifier is not necessary.
> Compared to the MRV and protection issue where one used to be able to MRV anything one might want, and now can't.


With regard to the cell phone comparison I made, my point was modeled by the fact that you can't use an iPhone w/ Verizon or a Droid phone w/ AT&T.
Interestingly, it seems that the FCC might be looking to change this. I hope they succeed.
http://digg.com/dialogg/Julius_Genachowski_1


Stormspace said:


> Whether TiVo adds a disclaimer or not, loss of MRV will hurt them regardless of the cause. I really don't see them downplaying a feature this important with disclaimers unless someone decides to force them to.
> 
> That forcing, if it were to make the news might be very interesting though as it would bring to light the issues that CCI has caused.


I looked on the Tivo website and found this.



> *Multi-room viewing*
> Having two or more TiVo DVRs connected to your home network gives you two or more times the viewing freedom. Record a show on one TiVo DVR and watch it on another in the house. Start a movie in the living room and finish it in the bedroom!
> 
> Not all programs may be transferred using the multi-room viewing or TiVoToGo features due to the use of copy protection mechanisms assigned by the program provider and permitted under the FCCs encoding rules. These shows usually are marked with a red circle-slash icon. (47 C.F.R. 76.1904)


http://www.tivo.com/whatistivo/tivodvrfeatures/control_tv.html

I'm satisfied that Tivo is at least acknowledging the limitations.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

steve614 said:


> With regard to the cell phone comparison I made, my point was modeled by the fact that you can't use an iPhone w/ Verizon or a Droid phone w/ AT&T.
> Interestingly, it seems that the FCC might be looking to change this. I hope they succeed.
> http://digg.com/dialogg/Julius_Genachowski_1
> 
> ...


Me too.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dlfl said:


> No, I'm saying it would be better for buyers to have more prominent mention of the MRV and TTG limitations


Okay well that's okay.


dlfl said:


> *and* it would be better for TiVo. A TiVo buyer who gets bitten by these limitations is likely to become very unhappy with TiVo.


If you don't have proof for those assertions, then you're essentially just blowing smoke. You perhaps want it to be better for TiVo to do as you wish, but that's all you can legitimately say.



dlfl said:


> (Poster boy example: *Stormspace*.)


One poster boy doesn't not prove that the vast majority of people react the same way. I think it is unreasonable to expect for-profit companies to operate the way you personally would prefer them to operate.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

I have to admit the TiVo web page statement referenced by steve614, which contains this note in small print:


> Not all programs may be transferred using the multi-room viewing or TiVoToGo features due to the use of copy protection mechanisms assigned by the program provider and permitted under the FCCs encoding rules. These shows usually are marked with a red circle-slash icon. (47 C.F.R. 76.1904)


goes 50% of the way toward satisfying me. There is a similar note on a page discussing TTG.

What would 100% satisfy me would be adding something like:


> Some digital cable delivery services prevent multi-room viewing for all but local broadcast stations by these mechanisms.


I can't *prove* that TiVo would be better off by doing this but here is an argument for that:

Define the (probably small) set of people who currently buy Series 3 TiVos but who would *not* purchase as a result of seeing this additional wording. By *definition*, this set of people *cares a lot *about MRV and if they are in one of the "bad" cable systems (e.g., TWC), they will be very disappointed. How does it benefit TiVo overall (considering not just current sales but also customer satisfaction) to have sold to those people?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> Where are you getting this information? I don't deny it's truth, I'm just curious since I haven't seen anything that indicates NPL blanking happening solely in a mixed environment.


Well, you are essentially asking me to provide evidence that something (problems in an all Series III environment) doesn't exist, which is a really tall order. Certainly I have seen no reports of any problems anywhere on this forum of the symptoms described in the two threads concerning this problem for any two or more S3 TiVos. All of the reports concern an inability to pull the NPL list from a Series III onto one or more S2 TiVos once a TA has been connected. Certainly there are many people with multiple Series III TiVos who are not complaining of any issue, myself included. I have 2 S3 TiVos and a THD, all with TAs attached, and I have no problems pulling the NPL from any one to any other. I rarely use MRV, but it works (only on non-protected content, of course).


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> I would argue that this too is not due to their consumer product, but to their software, patents, and the threat of going to court. Not because they have a great consumer product that almost no one uses after 9-10 years.


That's specious. It is a somewhat niche product, and by definition a niche product is one "almost no one uses". I also have to gulp a bit at the notion that nearly 3 million users can be said to be "almost no one". A very large chunk of high-tech toys out there are considered to be selling extremely well if they manage 200,000 units sold, let alone more than 2,000,000. I'll bet my wireless phone - a really popular one - has not sold that many units.



Stormspace said:


> PS: As of last month TiVo's market share (2.76 million) is now less than 8% of the estimated total 38 million US DVR households.


And that is misleading. The vast majority of the DVRs in use are not purchased by the user. While it is true leased units do indeed represent economic competition for TiVo, it is not the relative capabilities of the TiVo that produce the indicated penetration. In the context of this discussion, a more appropriate measure would be the percentage of user purchased DVRs which are TiVos. That number is probably over 90%.

I happen to own my DOCSIS modem, a Motorola SBG-900 Wireless gateway. The percentage of DOCSIS modems that are user owned is probably even smaller than that of TiVo's market share in the DVR market, and the SBG-900 is definitely a much smaller fraction of the user owned modem pool than the TiVo is of the user owned DVR pool. That doesn't mean the SBG-900 is a bad modem.

Clearly, getting MSOs like TWC, Comcast, Verizon, etc to start buying TiVos instead of Cisco, Motorola, Pace, etc is going to be a hard sell. So far, efforts to put TiVo software on these platforms has met with limited success. If it ever does happen, TiVo's market share overall will skyrocket, but the fact will have nothing at all to do with how good the TiVo is. Right now, a very large fraction of the market consists of SA 8300HD DVRs running SARA software. I've never run across a worse piece of crap.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> One poster boy doesn't not prove that the vast majority of people react the same way. I think it is unreasonable to expect for-profit companies to operate the way you personally would prefer them to operate.


It's not about a vast majority, it's about a vocal minority. African Americans make up only about 8% of the U.S. population, yet do you really think it would be prudent for a large company to undertake a policy which annoyed or worse angered black Americans? You better believe it wouldn't. Of course, TiVo owners make up an even smaller percentage of Americans, and the policies in question only apply to a subset of that small number, but as I have pointed out before, a company undertakes a risk whenever it annoys any of its buyers, potential or otherwise. If the annoyance is unnecessary, then it is also imprudent. If there are good, solid reasons for it, then the company must try to weigh the risk involved with failing to mollify the gadflies versus the costs of mollifying them. Even losing less than 1% of one's revenue stream can be a very serious matter. If retaining that 1% or .05%, or whatever of one's revenues costs more than profit from the additional revenue, or if retaining it threatens a larger revenue stream, then one must simply bite the bullet and take the loss. Shy of that, however, a company is very well served to pay attention to the gadflies.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

dlfl said:


> What would 100% satisfy me would be adding something like:
> 
> 
> > Some digital cable delivery services prevent multi-room viewing for all but local broadcast stations by these mechanisms.


That almost skirts on being inappropriate, though. It's pointing an official finger at the policies of other businesses, and that's not the best idea in the world.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> That almost skirts on being inappropriate, though. It's pointing an official finger at the policies of other businesses, and that's not the best idea in the world.


It's working well for Adobe.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> Well, you are essentially asking me to provide evidence that something (problems in an all Series III environment) doesn't exist, which is a really tall order. Certainly I have seen no reports of any problems anywhere on this forum of the symptoms described in the two threads concerning this problem for any two or more S3 TiVos. All of the reports concern an inability to pull the NPL list from a Series III onto one or more S2 TiVos once a TA has been connected. Certainly there are many people with multiple Series III TiVos who are not complaining of any issue, myself included. I have 2 S3 TiVos and a THD, all with TAs attached, and I have no problems pulling the NPL from any one to any other. I rarely use MRV, but it works (only on non-protected content, of course).


Ok, so you are drawing an inference based on the information available. That's cool, I thought I had missed something in one of the threads. For me though, I was thinking that multiple S3 penetration wasn't high enough for the issue to present itself. Most people I've seen posting that say they don't have a problem only have one box, or are on a system with no TA/SDV issues.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> That's specious. It is a somewhat niche product, and by definition a niche product is one "almost no one uses". I also have to gulp a bit at the notion that nearly 3 million users can be said to be "almost no one". A very large chunk of high-tech toys out there are considered to be selling extremely well if they manage 200,000 units sold, let alone more than 2,000,000. I'll bet my wireless phone - a really popular one - has not sold that many units.


8% is like asking 100 of your friends with DVR's and only 8 of them have a Tivo, the rest use the cable DVR. Now consider how many people you actually interact with in a day. If only 8 in 100 users with a DVR have a TiVo you may as well say almost no one. Throw everyone else into the mix and the number becomes even smaller, which was my point. I wasn't just including people with DVR's. 

PS: I own my own modem as well.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> 8% is like asking 100 of your friends with DVR's and only 1(or two) of them have a Tivo, the rest use the cable DVR...


Wouldn't 8% be like asking 100 of your friends with DVR's and having *8* of them having a Tivo?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

orangeboy said:


> Wouldn't 8% be like asking 100 of your friends with DVR's and having *8* of them having a Tivo?


Arrgh! Your right. That's what I get for doing the math!


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dlfl said:


> I can't *prove* that TiVo would be better off by doing this but here is an argument for that:


You're ignoring all the other people who will read what you wrote and make their decision to avoid TiVo, without bothering to check whether they'd be affected by that minority experience. How does it benefit TiVo overall to have lost these opportunities to satisfy those people who would have been satisfied?

But thanks for acknowledging that TiVo is providing those warnings. Perhaps you can suggest a minor modification to their FAQs -- have you even tried?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> You're ignoring all the other people who will read what you wrote and make their decision to avoid TiVo, without bothering to check whether they'd be affected by that minority experience. How does it benefit TiVo overall to have lost these opportunities to satisfy those people who would have been satisfied?
> 
> But thanks for acknowledging that TiVo is providing those warnings. Perhaps you can suggest a minor modification to their FAQs -- have you even tried?


Because the issues don't typically reveal themselves until after it's too late to return the TiVo I wouldn't for recommend for anyone that didn't throughly research issues in their area to buy one. When it works, it's the best one. But when it doesn't you are on your own, at least for a significant amount of time. In this case, almost a year. 5 months for me.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> It's not about a vast majority, it's about a vocal minority.


I doubt that the _typical _TiVo buyer will have have heard what the vocal minority you're talking about has been saying, and so the impact of the vocal minority you're talking about is pretty limited.



lrhorer said:


> African Americans make up only about 8% of the U.S. population, yet do you really think it would be prudent for a large company to undertake a policy which annoyed or worse angered black Americans?


And when that these "poster boys" represents the same portion, and the same credibility, as African Americans represent in our society, perhaps that will be as significant.



lrhorer said:


> Of course, TiVo owners make up an even smaller percentage of Americans, and the policies in question only apply to a subset of that small number


But we're not even talking about "TiVo owners" -- we're talking about these "poster boys".



lrhorer said:


> but as I have pointed out before, a company undertakes a risk whenever it annoys any of its buyers, potential or otherwise.


It also takes a risk when it gives too much credence to things that would deflect it from its core mission, and/or when it wastes resources pursuing objectives that preempt their ability to pursue other, more profitable ventures.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> It also takes a risk when it gives too much credence to things that would deflect it from its core mission, and/or when it wastes resources pursuing objectives that preempt their ability to pursue other, more profitable ventures.


Ignoring issues that effect users you are contractually obligated to give service to is illegal. Technically, TiVo is in breach of contract by not providing me with a service I've paid for. If I pushed it I bet I could cancel my service without penalty, but I *want* it to work. I'm just dissatisfied with the length of time it's taking to fix it, with no update on the status. All I've been told is that TiVo is aware of the issue, not that they're doing anything about it. If I had been given an estimated fix date I'd have been happier, but I wasn't, so I'm not.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

bicker said:


> You're ignoring all the other people who will read what you wrote and make their decision to avoid TiVo, without bothering to check whether they'd be affected by that minority experience..........


Do you have facts to support "all the other people...." ? If not, now *you're* just blowing smoke, at least by your own standards in an earlier post. I'm not convinced the number who would fit in your category would be nearly as large as the number who would buy and be disappointed if the added statement was not there.

Let's not forget, I'm just suggesting telling the truth. If there's a better way to word my proposed addition so as to minimize the negative impact you envision (but still get the point across), I'm all for it.

Perhaps I will email my suggestion to Krista Wierzbicki, TiVo's Director of Public Relations.. We will see if I get a more straightforward response than what TWC provides about CCI byte setting.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> That almost skirts on being inappropriate, though. It's pointing an official finger at the policies of other businesses, and that's not the best idea in the world.


It's pointing out a *simple fact* that TiVo can easily document [I will provide an affidavit if needed regarding my provider], and the customers deserve to know it. Inappropriate? Best idea in the world? Depends on your viewpoint I guess. It's possible the suggested wording should allow for some responsibility on TiVo's part also, if that makes it more factual.


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## tivohaydon (Mar 24, 2001)

bicker said:


> Are you serious? The cell phone companies are responsible for their own limitations, while the limitations we're discussing where are also due to second-party (service provider) and third-party (content provider) actions -- and there is discussion of these things on TiVo's website, just not where perhaps you would want them to be, to cause TiVo the most damage.


OK, that's cool. At least you acknowledge that you were wrong when you made your original post and claimed that cell phone companies don't disclose this information.


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## DishIsBetter (Dec 3, 2009)

What unique features does a Tivo offer that you can't get on other electronic devices now?


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> Ignoring issues that effect users you are contractually obligated to give service to is illegal.


That's not what is happening, so your comment is irrelevant.



Stormspace said:


> Technically, TiVo is in breach of contract by not providing me with a service I've paid for.


That's not true, technically or any other way. It is not rational to blame a supplier if one has failed to learn what they had purchased before making the purchase.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dlfl said:


> Do you have facts to support "all the other people...." ?


Have you been reading this forum very long? 



dlfl said:


> If not, now *you're* just blowing smoke, at least by your own standards in an earlier post.


Bull. Not even you can say with a straight face that no one decides against TiVo because of reading anecdotal negative comments. Get a grip.



dlfl said:


> I'm not convinced the number who would fit in your category would be nearly as large as the number who would buy and be disappointed if the added statement was not there.


So stalemate between you and I, because we both think that a different side is larger than the other -- luckily TiVo actually does market research and they actually have real information. So the *best* indication of what the reality is is *what TiVo does*.



dlfl said:


> Let's not forget, I'm just suggesting telling the truth.


No you're not. They are already telling the truth. You're talking about advertising the negatives _prominently_. That's counter to the best practices of mass-market consumer marketing.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

bicker said:


> Have you been reading this forum very long?
> 
> Bull. Not even you can say with a straight face that no one decides against TiVo because of reading anecdotal negative comments. Get a grip.


We weren't talking about "anecdotal negative comments", rather a carefully worded factual statement that I proposed.



bicker said:


> So stalemate between you and I, because we both think that a different side is larger than the other -- luckily TiVo actually does market research and they actually have real information. So the *best* indication of what the reality is is *what TiVo does*.


Wow they must really be perfect.  I'm quite confident they have not done market research on these particular categories we've defined based on my suggested addtional statement. Feel free to prove me wrong, or blow more smoke as you prefer. 


bicker said:


> No you're not. They are already telling the truth. You're talking about advertising the negatives _prominently_. That's counter to the best practices of mass-market consumer marketing.


I believe my statement was truthful, actually quite easy to support. (How long have *you* been reading this forum?) The fact that their existing statement is also truthful doesn't mean mine isn't. Also additional small print at the bottom of one or two web pages doesn't amount to advertising prominently.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> That's not what is happening, so your comment is irrelevant.


You know for a fact they are working on the solution. Talked to someone at TiVo about it? Do tell. I'm waiting, I think we would all like to hear what progress they've made and when it will be deployed/



bicker said:


> That's not true, technically or any other way. It is not rational to blame a supplier if one has failed to learn what they had purchased before making the purchase.


It is true. Part of the agreement you make with TiVo is that for X amount of money they will give you X number of features. If those advertised features don't work, they are in breech of contract. We aren't paying for features that are available whenever TiVo feels like letting us use them. The software as it stands is defective or else it would be working. I don't know about you but I bought a functional device that was advertised to work with Tuning adapters, support MRV, and SDV all at the same time.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

DishIsBetter said:


> What unique features does a Tivo offer that you can't get on other electronic devices now?


For a million bucks, I can get just about anything one can imagine. Many of the relatively unique functions available on a TiVo can be found on some other device, but the combination of features cannot. For example, there are plenty of systems which can transfer video on and off the device over an Ethernet network, but it is a fairly unique capability for a DVR. I know of a number of systems which can play ripped DVDs, but again, TiVo is the only DVR I know that can do this.

As to completely unique solutions, the only ones of which I can think off the top of my head are Suggestions and Wishlists. OTOH, I would never even remotely consider owning a DVR that did not have these two features or close equivalents. Easily 90% of the things recorded on my TiVos are selected by one of these two utilities.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

dlfl said:


> It's pointing out a *simple fact* that TiVo can easily document [I will provide an affidavit if needed regarding my provider], and the customers deserve to know it.


The customers also deserve to know that TWC dropped the services of a provider who was demanding they remove copy protection from his two stations, but it's not TiVo's place to inform them of the fact. At the very least, it is bad business etiquette. In addition, informing one's customers of the limitations of one's own product is one thing, but commenting on the business practices of some other company, particularly a partner of sorts, is something else altogether.



dlfl said:


> Inappropriate? Best idea in the world? Depends on your viewpoint I guess. It's possible the suggested wording should allow for some responsibility on TiVo's part also, if that makes it more factual.


The issue isn't factuality. The issue is making a public statement to the effect that a business partner's practices are liable to interfere with one's own. A statement to the effect, "There are legally imposed limitations of our hardware which may prevent the user from transferring certain content" is perfectly fine in this respect, but the statement "TWC has business practices which interfere with our product" is not. Not being affiliated with either business, you or I are free to make such statements, as is any independent reviewer. TiVo must be much more careful, and although I don't think TWC could quite make a case for libel if TiVo posted the statement you suggested - particularly since your statement did not actually name any names, I surely would not approve of posting such a statement on the TiVo website if I were a V.P. for TiVo public relations.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> I doubt that the _typical _TiVo buyer will have have heard what the vocal minority you're talking about has been saying, and so the impact of the vocal minority you're talking about is pretty limited.


Yes, that occurred to me. I'm really quite unsure how many people who might be considering purchasing a TiVo might search the web and find this forum.



bicker said:


> It also takes a risk when it gives too much credence to things that would deflect it from its core mission, and/or when it wastes resources pursuing objectives that preempt their ability to pursue other, more profitable ventures.


That's absolutely true. Trying to figure out what will and won't make a difference keeps business execs up at night. I know my crystal ball has failed me more than once, and I have the scars to prove it.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

dlfl said:


> I believe my statement was truthful, actually quite easy to support. ... Also additional small print at the bottom of one or two web pages doesn't amount to advertising prominently.


I agree, but because Tivo hopes to be the future software supplier for the cable companies, I don't think they'll want to prematurely bite the hand that one day might feed them.
I'm good with the statement they have now.

ETA: Did I smeek lrhorer?


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## sirfracas (Apr 5, 2006)

ciucca said:


> Tivo is an OLD technology, and is not worth the price. My FIOS DVR has much better features than TIVO. Also taking 2 years to fix the same problem they had with DTV Tivos, where a strong signal was causing pixelation is pathetic.
> Remember the FIOS issue they just fixed? It was the same setting of the tuner parameter backwards, they had as I mentioned with DTV.
> 
> This company has 12-18 months left. Any non TIVO zombies who still read this board, due yourself a favor and do not invest in a TIVO. You will surely be pissed when the inevitable chapter 11 happens. There is no value for anyone to merge or buy them. Every provider has there own DVR software so why buy TIVO? The GUI hasn't been updated in over 10 years and is behind the times.
> ...


Yawn. Rabid haters have been flinging this poo for as long as I've had my Series 1. While I am thinking about it, why do they keep reading this forums?

If people can't recognize the value of the Tivo software, and that is where the value lies, it's their loss.

Get beyond the lifetime subscription fee and quit paying your cable provider the huge fees for leasing their craptastic hardware and software. It really does pay for itself quickly.

In my case, I'd rather have 4 times the storage capability and software that is 50 times better and have it pay for itself in three years.

It's up to you though.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

sirfracas said:


> Yawn. Rabid haters have been flinging this poo for as long as I've had my Series 1.


Actually, *HE* has been saying it for at least 2 1/2 years. See this post from April 2007.



sirfracas said:


> While I am thinking about it, why do they keep reading this forums?


Heaven only knows. The big question really is, "Why do they post in these fora?"


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> You know for a fact they ...


Read what you are replying to, and develop your understanding of what it says from the words there, rather than making stuff up that is easier for you to argue against. If you want to have an argument with yourself, where you get to make up what both sides say, then you don't need the Internet for that. 



Stormspace said:


> I think we would all like to hear what progress they've made and when it will be deployed


Taking this off-hand comment by itself: I would like a new car, and I would like to be 30 years younger. I would like a lot of things. The point I think you're missing is that us liking something doesn't mean it is necessarily coming to us.



Stormspace said:


> It is true.


Not it isn't. You want it to be, but it isn't.



Stormspace said:


> If those advertised features don't work


They work. See above.



Stormspace said:


> The software as it stands is defective


It isn't. See above.



Stormspace said:


> I don't know about you but I bought a functional device


It is functional. See above.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> Trying to figure out what will and won't make a difference keeps business execs up at night. I know my crystal ball has failed me more than once, and I have the scars to prove it.


Why do you think I'm doing something _fun_, now, instead?


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

steve614 said:


> I agree, but because Tivo hopes to be the future software supplier for the cable companies, I don't think they'll want to prematurely bite the hand that one day might feed them. ...........


I suspect what you say is the reality. TWC alone accounts for more than 20% of digital cable subscriptions nationally. The current qualifier not only is in small print but can easily be taken to mean just premium and VOD content by prospective buyers, especially those who are former Series 1 and 2 owners. Thus some significant fraction of Series 3 purchasers get the nasty post-purchase surprise that MRV and TTG are limited to OTA channels only. I guess that's justifiable (to TiVo anyway) as the price (paid by customers, not them) for enhancing their future business opportunities. I understand their position (assuming you have guaged it correctly) but it still stinks.


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## [email protected] (Dec 1, 2007)

dlfl said:


> I suspect what you say is the reality. TWC alone accounts for more than 20% of digital cable subscriptions nationally. The current qualifier not only is in small print but can easily be taken to mean just premium and VOD content by prospective buyers, especially those who are former Series 1 and 2 owners. Thus some significant fraction of Series 3 purchasers get the nasty post-purchase surprise that MRV and TTG are limited to OTA channels only. I guess that's justifiable (to TiVo anyway) as the price (paid by customers, not them) for enhancing their future business opportunities. I understand their position (assuming you have gauged it correctly) but it still stinks.


It might stink when you compare it to TiVos hooked up to FIOS (or even to Comcast, in most places). But generally that isn't an option - the real choice for most customers is between a TiVo or the cable company DVR. Most of those, AFAIK, don't offer anything in the way of MRV, so the customer doesn't lose MRV/TTG functionality by switching to a TiVo.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> Why do you think I'm doing something _fun_, now, instead?


"Now" meaning "this moment participating in this forum," or "a different career"? Scary moments and scars aside, I'm having a ball, and have been for 22 years, ever since I left the CATV biz. The odd sleepless night has been well worth it.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

[email protected] said:


> It might stink when you compare it to TiVos hooked up to FIOS (or even to Comcast, in most places).


I suppose that depends on one's olfactory senses, figuratively speaking. I don't really miss not having MRV because it isn't a big deal to me in the first place, and if it were, I wouldn't be without it, TWC's policies notwithstanding.



[email protected] said:


> But generally that isn't an option - the real choice for most customers is between a TiVo or the cable company DVR. Most of those, AFAIK, don't offer anything in the way of MRV, so the customer doesn't lose MRV/TTG functionality by switching to a TiVo.


That logic seems lost on many people, especially TiVo bashers. Now please take note I don't mean to suggest either Stormspace or dlfl is a TiVo basher - far from it.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> Read what you are replying to, and develop your understanding of what it says from the words there, rather than making stuff up that is easier for you to argue against.


Bicker and Stormspace,

I think you both need to go back and read each other's posts. It's failry evident to me both of you are mis-communicating. You are talking at cross purposes, in part because both of you are being a little too brief and a bit cryptic in your responses. IF bot of you would elaborate, I think it would help.

Bicker,

You are accusing him of employing a straw-man argument, and in my estimation it is not the case at all. He is merely responding to a misunderstood set of responses from you. The former is a form of intellectual dishonestly, and is a despicable practice. The latter is just a mistake, and doesn't merit censure from anyone. Take my advice, or not, but if I were you I would take a breath and clarify myself, rather than risking getting into another shoving match.

Stormspace,

Please don't take this as my being patronizing to you, but I really think you are mistaking bicker's intent. It's one thing to argue with someone's intent, but another to argue with a misinterpretation of someone's intent. Indeed, I think it entirely possible you may also disagree with bicker's actual intent, but right now I think you are responding to something he didn't really say. Of course you are also free to heed my advice, or not.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> "Now" meaning "this moment participating in this forum," or "a different career"?


The latter.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

bicker said:


> lrhorer said:
> 
> 
> > ... a company undertakes a risk whenever it annoys any of its buyers, potential or otherwise.
> ...


The is the core of the issue: That there is often a difference between what is actually part of the agreement between consumer and supplier and what the consumer chooses to expect above and beyond the agreement. When that happens, the fault rests on the shoulders of the consumer for expecting more than what is promised. Suppliers do incur the risk you outlined, i.e., that in failing to provide the excess that the consumer wanted but was not part of the agreement they lose some business from alienated customers, but they also incur the risk I outlined, that they would spend more time, energy and resources satisfying every possible random and deliberate misunderstanding of what they're offering, than doing so would ever make up for in terms of downstream revenues. That would be a disservice to owners who didn't invest for the purpose of charity, but rather to secure their own financial future, saving up for a home, kid's college, or one's own comfortable retirement.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

See this post. Yet another new HD owner about to get the nasty surprise. Some of you may want to console them by preaching how they should have read the fine print, and should have realized it meant more than just premium channels and VOD on their system, and should understand TiVo didn't want to warn them more clearly of this possibility for business reasons.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> ........ Now please take note I don't mean to suggest either Stormspace or dlfl is a TiVo basher - far from it.


Thanks for understanding that about me. Although I've been very critical of the way TiVo handles the MRV/CCI issue in this thread, it's just a matter of principle to me, not a case of demonizing TiVo in general.

I must say I got a chuckle from the posts where you and bicker were talking about business problems and how they keep business people up at night. I could hear the violins playing in the background  People operate businesses by choice and they get many satisfactions from doing so -- otherwise they can and should stop doing it. Don't expect sympathy from others, or to be acclaimed as heros, just because late night worry is part of the job.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> Bicker and Stormspace,
> 
> I think you both need to go back and read each other's posts. It's failry evident to me both of you are mis-communicating. You are talking at cross purposes, in part because both of you are being a little too brief and a bit cryptic in your responses. IF bot of you would elaborate, I think it would help.
> 
> ...


The way I understand Bicker is that he is saying I do not have a problem. The hardware and software are working fine and any issues I'm experiencing are either not TiVo's fault, I'm imagining them, or they shouldn't be held accountable for them.

He is also saying that NPL blanking is not due to a flaw in the software and TiVo doesn't have any contractual obligations to deliver services paid for.

Now, of course if that's not what he was saying then I owe him an apology.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

*Stormspace*,

Is "NPL Blanking" a problem even if no channels are copy protected with CCI Byte = 0x02 ?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

dlfl said:


> *Stormspace*,
> 
> Is "NPL Blanking" a problem even if no channels are copy protected with CCI Byte = 0x02 ?


Exactamundo. You see no shows on the affected TiVo, the list is blank. My HD is running at capacity, but none of the shows are displayed from the other boxes. Occasionally you'll see the list. Speculation is that the first page at that point doesn't include any SDV channels, but there has been no word from TiVo on it. I call them about once a month.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> See this post. Yet another new HD owner about to get the nasty surprise. Some of you may want to console them by preaching how they should have read the fine print, and should have realized it meant more than just premium channels and VOD on their system, and should understand TiVo didn't want to warn them more clearly of this possibility for business reasons.


I thought the cable company was setting the CCI bit?? If it is TiVo setting that bit on the broadcasts then TiVo should indeed warn people.

TiVo has a bug in regards to blanking the now playing list and TA adapter - They should certainly be working on it but I again do not see how or why they should put some warning about it in the box.

Companies simply do not warn about potential hassles with products unless required to do so by law. I think that was in marketing 101 back in my college days. To expect TiVo to be different is idealistic and unrealistic.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Companies simply do not warn about potential hassles with products unless required to do so by law. I think that was in marketing 101 back in my college days. To expect TiVo to be different is idealistic and unrealistic.


I agree, I was surprised that they included as much as they did. They may have some liability however if it is shown that they are hiding important issues that would help the consumer make an informed purchasing decision. Dlfl does have a point in that more information wouldn't hurt, but it would have to be worded carefully so that it didn't look like TiVo pointing fingers at cable companies(even if they deserve it. )


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> ........Companies simply do not warn about potential hassles with products unless required to do so by law. I think that was in marketing 101 back in my college days. To expect TiVo to be different is idealistic and unrealistic.


TiVo makes a product that works in the cable systems as they exist, and that means about 25% of Series 3 purchasers will experience this severe limitation on MRV and TTG. Where do you draw the line where TiVo should warn? 50% ? 75% ? Did Marketing 101 address that topic? As I've said in a previous post, I think this is damaging TiVo as well as customers, but ... no point in re-hashing old arguments.


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## philsexton1 (Sep 23, 2006)

I admit that I have not read this whole thread. So I don't know if this has been discussed. What I am wondering is - can Tivo disable your box and thereby say that your lifetime subscription is no longer valid? As far as you would know, the box just died. It would be interesting to know the life years of a monthly or yearly subscribed Tivo compared with a lifetime subscribed Tivo? Does anyone know?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

philsexton1 said:


> I admit that I have not read this whole thread. So I don't know if this has been discussed. What I am wondering is - can Tivo disable your box and thereby say that your lifetime subscription is no longer valid? As far as you would know, the box just died. It would be interesting to know the life years of a monthly or yearly subscribed Tivo compared with a lifetime subscribed Tivo? Does anyone know?


I haven't read the entire Terms of Service, but your billing status is available from a screen on the TiVo. It tells you if you are on monthly, lifetime, or whatever. So if they did change it you could go there to check. I haven't heard of TiVo ever doing this however, so I'd say no.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dlfl said:


> Where do you draw the line where TiVo should warn?


And some previous posters would answer this by saying that any product that doesn't work exactly they want it to work should say that in big bold letters before any other promotional material. Essentially, they want their own personal considerations to trump all.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> And some previous posters would answer this by saying that any product that doesn't work exactly they want it to work should say that in big bold letters before any other promotional material. Essentially, they want their own personal considerations to trump all.


I think that the issue is that TiVo should work as advertised with any exceptions noted by them on the information pages so that people can make informed decisions.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Stormspace said:


> I think that the issue is that TiVo should work as advertised with any exceptions noted by them on the information pages so that people can make informed decisions.


The existing footnote *does* technically cover the situation. My question is: does it go far enough considering the extent of the problem, severely affecting 25% of buyers?

I wish someone would state how high that percentage would have to get before they would agree a more informative statement is appropriate.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> The existing footnote *does* technically cover the situation. My question is: does it go far enough considering the extent of the problem, severely affecting 25% of buyers?
> 
> I wish someone would state how high that percentage would have to get before they would agree a more informative statement is appropriate.


as to your question - there is no % mark. You market to increase sales, regulations strive to ensure the marketing and sales are legit. So how would you TiVo go about this 'warning"? Talk up the role of the cable companies that TiVo is trying to wrok with on becoming partners with? Or else tell people that a feature that works as designed is not working - or I know "Now with new and improved glitches". Or maybe they could have the voice talk of possible side effects like required in drug commercials.

Bottom line there is no good way for a company to discuss a products shortcomings without downing sales. All Tivo would end up doing is hurting an already rough bottom line or worse yet, alienate the very cable companies that TiVo has worked hard on partnering with to make solutions that eliminate the technical issues that are causing the problems in the first place.

Like I said - a fine idealistic thing to have TiVo add weight to tech issues they will eventually overcome anyway, but not in the least realistic. It is still a buyer beware world and no company is going to whisper of its shortcomings unless required by law.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> as to your question - there is no % mark. ........


There's got to be a limit. Surely they would change that features page if the number approached 100%. But that's very hypothetical .... or is it?


ZeoTiVo said:


> Like I said - a fine idealistic thing to have TiVo add weight to tech issues they will eventually overcome anyway.......


Interesting thought. What are the odds they will overcome this in a way that is simple and cheap to retrofit to Series 3 units? I suspect they will overcome it in a way that requires buying new equipment to replace my HD.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> There's got to be a limit. Surely they would change that features page if the number approached 100%. But that's very hypothetical .... or is it?
> 
> Interesting thought. What are the odds they will overcome this in a way that is simple and cheap to retrofit to Series 3 units? I suspect they will overcome it in a way that requires buying new equipment to replace my HD.


save for some possible TiVo glitch in working with Tuning adapters and some levels of signals the TiVo DVR does work as designed. Those glitches can get ironed out over time. That is in TiVo's court. again no % mark required for TiVo to put on the box - that is what a free press is for.

Should car makers be told to put a notice on cars that have trouble starting on cold mornings? Maybe only in Northern states? How many cars have to have trouble starting on cold mornings before the maker has to put out this notice? The answer is the same - there is no % mark.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> I think that the issue is that TiVo should work as advertised with any exceptions ...


That's an unreasonable expectation. By holding to that perspective, you're effectively setting yourself up for a lifetime of surprise, disappointment and dissatisfaction as a mass-market consumer. I don't wish that on my worst enemy, and you're surely not that, so I hope you find a way to change your perspective.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> save for some possible TiVo glitch in working with Tuning adapters and some levels of signals the TiVo DVR does work as designed. Those glitches can get ironed out over time............


Maybe. Some of us have waited a long time already. But I notice you didn't answer this question:


dlfl said:


> What are the odds they will overcome this in a way that is simple and cheap to retrofit to Series 3 units? I suspect they will overcome it in a way that requires buying new equipment to replace my HD.


(Remembering that "this" refers to the MRV and TTG limitations imposed by CCI=0x02.)


ZeoTiVo said:


> ......Should car makers be told to put a notice on cars that have trouble starting on cold mornings? Maybe only in Northern states? How many cars have to have trouble starting on cold mornings before the maker has to put out this notice? The answer is the same - there is no % mark.


That's a poor analogy. I could probably reply with an analogy (that you would think was poor), but we're just going back and forth here. Maybe we should just agree to disagree? I wonder if TiVo has spent as much time and verbage on that footnote as we have.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> Maybe. Some of us have waited a long time already. But I notice you didn't answer this question:
> 
> (Remembering that "this" refers to the MRV and TTG limitations imposed by CCI=0x02.)


because that works as designed and noted in anything TiVo has EVER communicated about MRV on a TiVo HD or S3. If a cable broadcaster chooses to set CCI 2 on everything they can, even against the wishes of the content owner than what should TiVo put on the box? It falls exactly into what I said about a company is better off just not commenting publicly on something like that. Does it impact TiVo? Surely. You as a subscriber do not have the functionality you want from your DVR and would go elsewhere for it if an option existed. I, in fact, have been in no hurry at all to get cable cards since TWC in my area still broadcasts all I want in analog. I therefor do not get the clearer digital picture.

Still what can TiVo do? 
- Do nothing and deal with some Sub loss.
- Work privately with broadcaster to get them to change
- Start talking publicly about it and piss off a potential partner and customers.

So I did indeed answer the question


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> because that works as designed and noted in anything TiVo has EVER communicated about MRV on a TiVo HD or S3. If a cable broadcaster chooses to set CCI 2 on everything they can, even against the wishes of the content owner than what should TiVo put on the box?
> ...........
> Still what can TiVo do?
> - Do nothing and deal with some Sub loss.
> ...


Sorry, when you said:


ZeoTiVo said:


> ....a fine idealistic thing to have TiVo add weight to tech issues they will eventually overcome anyway.......


I thought you were alluding to technical solutions such as streaming that would allow MRV for copy-protected videos, and I was wondering if you thought that is likely to be available as a retrofit solution for Series 3 units.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> Sorry, when you said:
> 
> I thought you were alluding to technical solutions such as streaming that would allow MRV for copy-protected videos, and I was wondering if you thought that is likely to be available as a retrofit solution for Series 3 units.


Streaming could be retrofitted to the S3 or TiVo HD and indeed I would love to see that come to pass. What none of us know is if those boxes can handle HD streaming or not without yet another glitch. Streaming does seem to be the best way around all the copy flags - does not help much with TiVoToGo though 

but in my earlier post I was referring to actual "does not work as designed" glitches - versus "works as designed" outside hassles


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Streaming could be retrofitted to the S3 or TiVo HD and indeed I would love to see that come to pass. What none of us know is if those boxes can handle HD streaming or not without yet another glitch. Streaming does seem to be the best way around all the copy flags - does not help much with TiVoToGo though
> 
> but in my earlier post I was referring to actual "does not work as designed" glitches - versus "works as designed" outside hassles


Yeah, I remember a recent post by *bkdtv* that cast doubt on whether the processors used in Series 3 boxes could handle the additional workload of streaming. Looks like we have to buy a new box some day if we want to get around the CCI limitations even just for MRV.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> save for some possible TiVo glitch in working with Tuning adapters and some levels of signals the TiVo DVR does work as designed. Those glitches can get ironed out over time. That is in TiVo's court. again no % mark required for TiVo to put on the box - that is what a free press is for.


The % mark is whatever your state's Attorney General feels is necessary. Yes, there are 50 states. Don't like it? Don't do business.

Barring any bugs, any feature that may not work for a significant % of people need the dreaded asterisk next to them. I think Tivo's current statement about MRV is adequate and necessary. MRV and T2G don't work for a lot of people except for maybe 6 out of 150 channels they get.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> That's an unreasonable expectation. By holding to that perspective, you're effectively setting yourself up for a lifetime of surprise, disappointment and dissatisfaction as a mass-market consumer. I don't wish that on my worst enemy, and you're surely not that, so I hope you find a way to change your perspective.


Intersting how you never replied the other post ...

There are laws against untruthful advertising, an while I don't quite think TiVo is there yet, they are working on it.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> Intersting how you never replied the other post ...


The statement you quoted indeed caps off the entire discussion. Since you apparently either failed to read it, or failed to comprehend it, I'll repeat it for you:

You are holding an unreasonable expectation. By holding to that perspective, you're effectively setting yourself up for a lifetime of surprise, disappointment and dissatisfaction as a mass-market consumer. I don't wish that on my worst enemy, and you're surely not that, so I hope you find a way to change your perspective.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

The post I was referring to would be this one. YOU must not be reading.



> The way I understand Bicker is that he is saying I do not have a problem. The hardware and software are working fine and any issues I'm experiencing are either not TiVo's fault, I'm imagining them, or they shouldn't be held accountable for them.
> 
> He is also saying that NPL blanking is not due to a flaw in the software and TiVo doesn't have any contractual obligations to deliver services paid for.
> 
> Now, of course if that's not what he was saying then I owe him an apology.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Perhaps this "I said/you said" conversation would be better contained in PMs?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> The statement you quoted indeed caps off the entire discussion. Since you apparently either failed to read it, or failed to comprehend it, I'll repeat it for you:
> 
> You are holding an unreasonable expectation. By holding to that perspective, you're effectively setting yourself up for a lifetime of surprise, disappointment and dissatisfaction as a mass-market consumer. I don't wish that on my worst enemy, and you're surely not that, so I hope you find a way to change your perspective.


There are plenty of examples of a companies failure to fully disclose the drawbacks of their products coming back to bite them. Cigarette companies come to mind as one example as well as the DRM issues in spore.

There is a strong argument for disclosure of product failings so that people are not surprised after the purchase. DRM is a big one since most people aren't even aware of DRM on cable broadcast television. Disclosing this DRM fully shouldn't be a problem for them, especially since it's not of their doing.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

orangeboy said:


> Perhaps this "I said/you said" conversation would be better contained in PMs?


It's possible you are correct, but he's been on a rant for weeks and this isn't the first time he's told me that issues I'm having don't exist. Frankly I'm tired of him ignoring valid issues that Tivo has with their product. According to him none of us have anything to complain about and are lucky TiVo lets us give them money whether the product works or not.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> The post I was referring to would be this one. YOU must not be reading.


Oh I'm reading, but your feeble attempts to try to insert words into my fingers warrant the reply you were given:

You are holding an unreasonable expectation. By holding to that perspective, you're effectively setting yourself up for a lifetime of surprise, disappointment and dissatisfaction as a mass-market consumer. I don't wish that on my worst enemy, and you're surely not that, so I hope you find a way to change your perspective.

If people want to know what I wrote, the can *read what I wrote*, not what you claim that I wrote.  You have very firmly established that you're an absolutely unreliable source for understanding what it is that I wrote.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

orangeboy said:


> Perhaps this "I said/you said" conversation would be better contained in PMs?


I find it ludicrous that anyone would ever presume to try to distort what someone else said and convince people that that was what the other person actually said... so rather than taking it to PM, he should just drop that silliness.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> I find it ludicrous that anyone would ever presume to try to distort what someone else said and convince people that that was what the other person actually said... so rather than taking it to PM, he should just drop that silliness.


You never denied what I said I thought you were implying/saying so I can only infer from that I was correct. So, why do you pretend no issues exist?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> There are plenty of examples of a companies failure to fully disclose the drawbacks of their products coming back to bite them. Cigarette companies come to mind as one example as well as the DRM issues in spore.


those are both cases of specific damage done to the complainant beyond the typical scope of using the product. Unless TiVo causes health issues or installs root kits on your PC then those cases do not really hold up as failure to disclose drawbacks. Those cases are failure to do reasonable things to warn of potential specific damage the product will likely cause.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> those are both cases of specific damage done to the complainant beyond the typical scope of using the product. Unless TiVo causes health issues or installs root kits on your PC then those cases do not really hold up as failure to disclose drawbacks. Those cases are failure to do reasonable things to warn of potential specific damage the product will likely cause.


My examples weren't intended to be exact, but simply an example of the types of things that can happen when information isn't fully disclosed. In the Spore case I have no idea was the end result was, but enough people didn't appreciate it that it caused the creator heartburn. For the record I believe TiVo's disclaimer is adequate, but INAL. I can see DLFL's point about disclosing more and don't see how it could hurt TiVo if they aren't responsible for the issues.

Changing rules and regulations is affecting the way TiVo works and it takes longer than the return period to discover that for one self in many cases. For me I knew the CCI byte issue could affect me and wasn't surprised. I was surprised that the TA and SDV would prevent me from using MRV on all channels.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Stormspace said:


> It's possible you are correct, but he's been on a rant for weeks and this isn't the first time he's told me that issues I'm having don't exist. Frankly I'm tired of him ignoring valid issues that Tivo has with their product. According to him none of us have anything to complain about and are lucky TiVo lets us give them money whether the product works or not.


Stormspace, you don't read carefully and you don't write carefully. You've shown that in dozens of posts, putting words in people's mouths and jumping to conclusions. No one has denied your issues exist, or that you should be unhappy that they exist. What they deny is your attempt to apportion blame for the problems, and your constant unreasonable demands for action. You have problems with your particular cable system and local franchise, but you choose to complain here rather than find some appropriate place to complain about your local franchise. (I'll apologize if you can point the Time Warner forums where you have been pursuing this as diligently as you have here.)

Venting here occasionally is fine, but you're doing much more. You're campaigning against the wrong party at every opportunity. Warning newcomers about TiVo just because of your local problems (as you have done) is going too far.

Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. You complaining about other people ranting is just ludicrous.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> so I can only infer from that I was correct.


That's your error.



Stormspace said:


> So, why do you pretend no issues exist?


I don't.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

CrispyCritter said:


> Stormspace, you don't read carefully and you don't write carefully. You've shown that in dozens of posts, putting words in people's mouths and jumping to conclusions. No one has denied your issues exist, or that you should be unhappy that they exist. What they deny is your attempt to apportion blame for the problems, and your constant unreasonable demands for action. You have problems with your particular cable system and local franchise, but you choose to complain here rather than find some appropriate place to complain about your local franchise. (I'll apologize if you can point the Time Warner forums where you have been pursuing this as diligently as you have here.)
> 
> Venting here occasionally is fine, but you're doing much more. You're campaigning against the wrong party at every opportunity. Warning newcomers about TiVo just because of your local problems (as you have done) is going too far.
> 
> Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. You complaining about other people ranting is just ludicrous.


+1


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> My examples weren't intended to be exact, but simply an example of the types of things that can happen when information isn't fully disclosed. In the Spore case I have no idea was the end result was, but enough people didn't appreciate it that it caused the creator heartburn. For the record I believe TiVo's disclaimer is adequate, but INAL. I can see DLFL's point about disclosing more and don't see how it could hurt TiVo if they aren't responsible for the issues.


I have several posts here that show why it could hurt TiVo and is outside the realistic bounds of what companies themselves would communicate. You choose to believe what you will but you have provided no solid examples to back it up nor any actual logic to support your view.
I agree with Crispy Critter that you go too far and have dipped over into troll waters.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

CrispyCritter said:


> ......... Warning newcomers about TiVo just because of your local problems (as you have done) is going too far.
> .......


As ZeoTiVo has pointed out **here**, the NPL/TA problem is not just a *local problem *to Stormspace. The MRV/TTG CCI limitations are also *not local* to him but affect some 25% of TiVo digital cable users. And there are lots of posts by folks having other troubles with their TA's.

Thus factual posts on this forum informing prospective Series 3 buyers of these realities are perfectly acceptable, in fact good. (And of course, emotional scare tactics are not.)


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I agree with Crispy Critter that you go too far and have dipped over into troll waters.


And just to be clear -- when that happens, I do tend to simply ignore the poster even if I disagree with what they're saying. I think you can assume that if I'm replying to you, that that is a sign of _respect_ for what you're saying, even if I disagree with it. If what was posted didn't have any credence, I'd either say _that _(and nothing but that), or just totally ignore it.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> As ZeoTiVo has pointed out **here**, the NPL/TA problem is not just a *local problem *to Stormspace. The MRV/TTG CCI limitations are also *not local* to him but affect some 25% of TiVo digital cable users. And there are lots of posts by folks having other troubles with their TA's.


I don't know about the 25% number. No one here has the data for that. And stormspace makes the CCI bit seem like a problem TiVo is not doing anything about - versus it being a problem of the cable company.
The TAs are problems for everyone - windows media Center users also report hassles. So fine to note that there is problems with TAs - but perspective is out of whack here.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I don't know about the 25% number. No one here has the data for that. And stormspace makes the CCI bit seem like a problem TiVo is not doing anything about - versus it being a problem of the cable company.
> The TAs are problems for everyone - windows media Center users also report hassles. So fine to note that there is problems with TAs - but perspective is out of whack here.


To be clear. My issue isn't with the CCI byte. It's with the TA and SDV video causing all channels on my HD to be blocked from MRV.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> To be clear. My issue isn't with the CCI byte. It's with the TA and SDV video causing all channels on my HD to be blocked from MRV.


Correct and not all TAs cause that to happen with TiVo DVRs and systems other than TiVo have problems with TAs. This is more than a just TiVo problem though I completely agree that TiVo should devote resources to finding a fix for the issue.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Correct and not all TAs cause that to happen with TiVo DVRs and systems other than TiVo have problems with TAs. This is more than a just TiVo problem though I completely agree that TiVo should devote resources to finding a fix for the issue.


There's a whole thread devoted to it where people have been calling into TiVo to get it addressed. All we get is a "we are aware of the issue" and nothing else. No one really knows whats causing it, but it's suspected that it has to do with a SDV show appearing in the NPL. The only way to test that theory is to remove the cable cards, the TA, and delete all shows in the NPL recorded from SDV sources. I've had enough issues with my CC's that I'm afraid of causing more problems if I try it.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I don't know about the 25% number. No one here has the data for that. .........


Note I've never given that as an exact number. Here is my data:

From the NCTA Industry Data for September 2009: Total digital subscribers = 42.1 Million

From TWC 2nd Qtr Report: TWC digital subscribers = 8.80 Million,
TWC total video subscribers = 13.05 Million

From NCTA 25 Top MSO Data: BHN Network total subscribers = 2.30 Million

I didn't find a digital subscriber count for BHN so I estimated by assuming their digital/total penetration ratio was the same as TWC's, so:

BHN Digital Subscribers = (roughly) 8.8/13.05 * 2.3 = 1.55 Million

Thus, ignoring Comcast service areas that set copy protection, the estimated percentage of digital subscriptions in TWC and BHN is:

(8.80 + 1.55) / 42.1 * 100% = 24.6%

With a tiny allowance for Comcast you're up to 25%. A further assumption is that Series 3 purchasers are uniformly distributed over all the digital service providers. So it is a rough number -- but I believe good enough for this discussion.


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## jrm01 (Oct 17, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I don't know about the 25% number.


Good story here about the slowing growth of SDV infavor of DTA deployment.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=180537

It also mentions that 25 million households now have SDV in Canada and USA. Given 135 million hoseholds combined that would equate to about 18.5%


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> So it is a rough number -- but I believe good enough for this discussion.


not all digital subscribers are TiVo users - not all TiVo users have more than 1 TiVo or use TTG.

not all areas of those broadcasters set the bit to 2
not all areas had SDV

it is again that only TiVo actually knows how many of their subscribers are affected by this.

so saying this affects 25% of users is simply incorrect use of statistics


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> There's a whole thread devoted to it where people have been calling into TiVo to get it addressed. All we get is a "we are aware of the issue" and nothing else.


and thus the circular conversation around to how TiVo would be foolish to say much else publicly. So TiVo is well aware of the issue and likely needs no more info on it - though of course it would be smart for anyone with the problem to get a case number from TiVo and let them know how many users actually have the issue.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> not all digital subscribers are TiVo users - not all TiVo users have more than 1 TiVo or use TTG.
> 
> not all areas of those broadcasters set the bit to 2
> not all areas had SDV
> ...


OK, maybe a bad choice of word. The limitation *applies* to roughly 25% of users. It *is there *for them, although it may not *affect* them if they don't use MRV or TTG.

My figure is for the CCI Byte thing only, not for SDV/TA problems.

My figures in no way assume that "....all digital subscribers are TiVo users". Where did you get that idea?

Put another way, if you're about to buy a Series 3 and we don't know your digital cable supplier, there is roughly a 25% chance the limitation will apply to you.

Even if you limit it to just TWC, the number is 8.8/42.1 = 20.9% and it is known that at least some Brighthouse and Comcast service areas do this. I thought it was all Brighthouse.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

dlfl said:


> Thanks for understanding that about me. Although I've been very critical of the way TiVo handles the MRV/CCI issue in this thread, it's just a matter of principle to me, not a case of demonizing TiVo in general.


I'm critical of some of the limitations of the TiVo as well, but I recognize when such a limitation is due to some other entity and also recognize the physical limitations under which any particular company must operate. I also realize that rather than ***** about the failings of a particular platform, it is often more productive sometimes easier, and definitely mor fun to just circumvent the issues. If something doesn't work the way I want, I modify it.

As to recognizing your motivatons, I thought they were pretty clear. I just wanted to make sure every one else knew I realized it.



dlfl said:


> I must say I got a chuckle from the posts where you and bicker were talking about business problems and how they keep business people up at night. I could hear the violins playing in the background  People operate businesses by choice and they get many satisfactions from doing so -- otherwise they can and should stop doing it.


Well, yes, but the point is the scary part usually comers with responsibilities I would rather not have. I love motst of what I do, but tacked on to the things I love are legal hassles and accounting stuff I would rather not do atr all. I am not a lawyer or an accountant, and I did not go to school to be either. I went to school to become a scientist, ands ltaer decided to become an engineer, but unfortunately sometimes my job requires me to be an engineer, a lawyer, and an accountant. OTOH, I've gotten fairly good at ducking and running. 



dlfl said:


> Don't expect sympathy from others, or to be acclaimed as heros, just because late night worry is part of the job.


No, but it would be nice if it weren't someone else's job... that I am forced to do.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> The way I understand Bicker is that he is saying I do not have a problem. The hardware and software are working fine and any issues I'm experiencing are either not TiVo's fault, I'm imagining them, or they shouldn't be held accountable for them.


No, and I thnk that's where the conversation got derailed. In his first response to you he said:



bicker said:


> That's not what is happening, so your comment is irrelevant.


in response to your post:



Stormspace said:


> Ignoring issues that effect users you are contractually obligated to give service to is illegal.


In the first place, I think he is saying they are not ignoring the issue, which is quite different than your interpretation, don't you think?

Secondly, as far as legality is concerned, you are mistaken. A purchase is not a legal contract. It sounds silly to say it, but only a contract is a contract. When you purchase an item, it's yours for better or worse. No suitability to any desired useage on hte buyer's part is implied, and any warranty is generally limited to whatever is mandated by applicable local or state laws plus whatever express warranty is delivered along with the product. No one is required to make the purchase work for you, outside the tenets of the warranty and said state or local laws.



Stormspace said:


> He is also saying that NPL blanking is not due to a flaw in the software and TiVo doesn't have any contractual obligations to deliver services paid for.


Again, I don't think he is saying that. Tp paraphrase both of you, you are saying, "It doesn't work", and he is saying, "Yes it does". The thing is, MRV is working. You and others are reporting an issue with MRV, but the fact some fraction of TiVo users are experiencing some issue wiht MRV is not the same as the application not working at all. On the other side of the coin, the fact many people are not having any problem at all is not the same thing as saying no one is having any problems whatsoever.



Stormspace said:


> Now, of course if that's not what he was saying then I owe him an apology.


I think more like just getting the communicatons straight is all that's really warranted from either of you. Of course, again this is all just my opinion and a matter of my own interpretation.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

dlfl said:


> OK, maybe a bad choice of word. The limitation *applies* to roughly 25% of users. It *is there *for them, although it may not *affect* them if they don't use MRV or TTG.


In which case it's moot at best. If your TiVo had a problem receiving content from an unintelligible Chinese child molester with a broken, low resolution black and white camera, would you complain?



dlfl said:


> My figure is for the CCI Byte thing only, not for SDV/TA problems.


The main point is, a problem is only a problem for a particular user if it actually affects them. In this case, it only affects people who meet five criteria simultaneously:

1. They own multiple TiVos or a Tivo and a PC which interacts with the TiVo - maybe, what, 50% or less of Tivo owners?

2. They are on one of the sysytems which reflexively set the CCI byte - about 30% of TiVo owners.

3. They want to transfer one of the affected programs - I don't really know what percentage, but I expect much less than half of programs would ever betransferred by the average user who transfers at all.

4. They do not have a modified Tivo - probably 90% or better.

Now as it happens, the first three all apply to me, but this is not the case for most programs recorded by the average Tivo owner. I never watch OTA channels, and I live in a TWC city, so almost all the content recorded by my TiVos is protected. Since I don't use MRV, however, it's not an issue. Of course for anyone of which all three apply, it is little consolation that they are in a small minority - perhaps less than 5%. TTG isn't an issue becasue #4 doesn't apply to me.



dlfl said:


> Put another way, if you're about to buy a Series 3 and we don't know your digital cable supplier, there is roughly a 25% chance the limitation will apply to you.


No, it's about .25 * .50 or maybe 12% of users for which it will ever apply at all, and then since the OTA channels acccount for more than 80% of market share, on a program by program basis, it applies to perhaps 2% of programs recorded on the TiVo. Of course, for you personally, the liklihood may be much, much higher.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jrm01 said:


> Good story here about the slowing growth of SDV infavor of DTA deployment.
> 
> http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=180537
> 
> It also mentions that 25 million households now have SDV in Canada and USA. Given 135 million hoseholds combined that would equate to about 18.5%


That's not at all surprising, since a DTA is required for SDV, but SDV requires additional investments over and above the DTA. It's low hanging fruit, as it were, but it is strictly limited in its ultimate capacity. At first, simply converting to digital opens up the ability to deliver at least 3 times as many channels (up to 12 times as many for all SD deployments) for a smaller investment. Once accomplished, however, further expansion requires a switched protocol.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> In which case it's moot at best. If your TiVo had a problem receiving content from an unintelligible Chinese child molester with a broken, low resolution black and white camera, would you complain?


Interesting question.  Personally I probably wouldn't care too much about that content!


lrhorer said:


> ..........
> 2. They are on one of the sysytems which reflexively set the CCI byte - about 30% of TiVo owners.


That's what my 25% estimate is! That's all it is. I'll accept 30% if you prefer.  I like your concise wording!


lrhorer said:


> No, it's about .25 * .50 or maybe 12% of users for which it will ever apply at all, and then since the OTA channels acccount for more than 80% of market share, on a program by program basis, it applies to perhaps 2% of programs recorded on the TiVo. Of course, for you personally, the liklihood may be much, much higher.


You've used several percentages to get to this point. I was challenged for just my one number and have supported it. What is your support for what you've assumed?

Our primary issue is the meaning of "applies to" as compared to "affects". I say the CCI/MRV/TTG limitation *applies* to any TiVo owner getting digital cable in one of the systems where CCI is "reflexively" set to 0x02. I have agreed it doesn't *affect* them if they don't use MRV or TTG. Let me give you an analogy (one not involving any Chinese child molestors ) to make my point:

On a highway, speed limits *apply* to all drivers. They may not *affect* the drivers who elect to stay at or below that limit by choice, but they
still apply to them. How do you think a police officer would respond if any driver told them: "the speed limit doesn't apply to me" ?

Even the possibility of MRV and TTG of other than local broadcast channels is limited to either 75% (my figure) or 70% (your figure) of TiVo Series 3 owners. That is not a moot point.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> Put another way, if you're about to buy a Series 3 and we don't know your digital cable supplier, there is roughly a 25% chance the limitation will apply to you.


that is incorrect. 
The statistics are not that simple as they do not cover OTA and those that might use analog or just record locals etc...
or just watch from the one DVR etc... TiVo has a far different number I am sure

Also all areas do not set the bit to 2


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> Secondly, as far as legality is concerned, you are mistaken. A purchase is not a legal contract.


I appreciate your input, but I'm not one of the few with lifetime on my TiVo and I do have a contract with them. I pay monthly for several features, one of which is MRV. Even if I did have lifetime, part of the agreement of lifetime service is that MRV will work along with the others features people on a monthly contract pay. We pay TiVo for the box, and monthly for program data, MRV, TTG and other features, otherwise these items would continue to work if I stopped paying. All of this is included in the 3 year contract I have with them.

If it as you and Bicker say and TiVo owes me nothing for the 12.95 a month I pay them other than presumably program data then I've chosen the wrong device.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

ZeoTiVo said:


> that is incorrect.
> The statistics are not that simple as they do not cover OTA and those that might use analog or just record locals etc...
> or just watch from the one DVR etc... TiVo has a far different number I am sure
> 
> Also all areas do not set the bit to 2


And what difference does it make if number is 25% or as Irhorer said 12% or if it is even 10%? TiVo has 30 day return policy. No company can afford 10% or higher return rate on the products they sell. No company can afford 10% or higher cancellation rate unless new subs far outweigh canceled subs(actually TiVo's churn rate on Tivo owned subs is 20%). No matter what the real number of people with problems is - you can be sure that TiVo is working to fix the problem at highest possible priority level.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Stormspace said:


> If it as you and Bicker say and TiVo owes me nothing for the 12.95 a month I pay them other than presumably program data then I've chosen the wrong device.


And do you claim you don't put words in other people's mouths?????

As I've said, you don't read or write carefully. How do you possibly expect to convince anybody when you aren't willing to try to understand? Why should we make an effort when you don't? Bye.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> that is incorrect.
> The statistics are not that simple as they do not cover OTA and those that might use analog or just record locals etc...
> or just watch from the one DVR etc... TiVo has a far different number I am sure
> 
> Also all areas do not set the bit to 2


Apparently my distinction between a limitation that *applies* and one that is actually experienced (i.e, that *affects*) is lost on you despite my elegant explanation given in response to lrhorer several posts back. 

My number is roughly correct as I have defined it and nothing you say above changes that. Let's just agree to disagree (again).


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

CrispyCritter said:


> And do you claim you don't put words in other people's mouths?????
> 
> As I've said, you don't read or write carefully. How do you possibly expect to convince anybody when you aren't willing to try to understand? Why should we make an effort when you don't? Bye.


Excuse me? I've been consistently saying that my service with TiVo entitles me to certain features. This statement doesn't indicate to you a disagreement with that? Puleese.



> Secondly, as far as legality is concerned, you are mistaken. A purchase is not a legal contract.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Stormspace said:


> Excuse me? I've been consistently saying that my service with TiVo entitles me to certain features. This statement doesn't indicate to you a disagreement with that? Puleese.


As I said, you don't read or write carefully. You're absolutely wrong. Lhorer and Bicker made no claim that


> TiVo owes me nothing for the 12.95 a month I pay them other than presumably program data


. Yet you said that they said that. I made no statement about what you believe you're entitled to.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

samo said:


> And what difference does it make if number is 25% or as Irhorer said 12% or if it is even 10%? TiVo has 30 day return policy. No company can afford 10% or higher return rate on the products they sell. No company can afford 10% or higher cancellation rate unless new subs far outweigh canceled subs(actually TiVo's churn rate on Tivo owned subs is 20%). No matter what the real number of people with problems is - you can be sure that TiVo is working to fix the problem at highest possible priority level.


I like your logic but I doubt it matches reality.

1. As suggested by lrhorer the percentage of TiVo Series 3 owners actually impacted (or affected) by the CCI limitations, and who care strongly enough to return the box because of that, may well be very small, way below 10%. Also, some users don't discover the limitation until after 30 days. For example I ran analog for more than 30 days before going digital, and furthermore I would not return for a refund even now based on just that issue.

2. One must interpret "highest *possible* priority" carefully. It may not mean a high priority at all. TiVo has many things demanding priority, including development to support future business and current support issues that are more important than CCI. As someone (bicker I think) suggested in another thread (or earlier in this thread?), standalone DVR sales and subscription levels may not be of paramount importance to TiVo's business plan at this point. Rather they may just need to sell enough DVR's and keep enough subscriptions to act as a proving ground for technology they wish to sell in future deals, e.g., the DirecTV HD TiVo. In this situation, even a 10% return rate might not be a major concern. The returned units are just refurbished and exchanged for other warranty returns, so the loss isn't that great anyway.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

FYI, in this thread CCI copy protection on all non-OTA channels is reported on two cable systems: Comcast in Morgantown, W. VA and Insight in Columbus OH.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> If it as you and Bicker say and TiVo owes me nothing for the 12.95 a month I pay them other than presumably program data then I've chosen the wrong device.


You're beginning to understand the reality better.

It isn't that all TiVo owes you is program guide data. Indeed, beyond that they also unequivocally provide you software maintenance. For example, lrhorer and I are discussing, separately, a situation whereby TiVo, as delivered, was overly-sensitive to bad signal. Of course, bad signal is not TiVo's fault, but they still enhanced their software so that the device itself better handled bad signal.

However, more to the point you were getting at, TiVo does offer MRV service, according to defined specifications. They never promised it will work in all circumstances, and indeed, as you've been told, they've even outlined some of the limitations on the service. The service does work -- I know, I use it -- and so the extent to which they promise it will work (i.e., subject to limitations) they are indeed satisfying their obligation.

You want it to work, for you, and for the specific programs you care about. Both of those are additional requirements over-and-above what TiVo promises. They are incompatible with the nature of the mass-market. If the limitations of the mass-market are unacceptable for you, then you do indeed, as you suggested, need to avoid purchasing products and services from the mass-market. If you wanted a device that would assuredly satisfy your specific desires, then you really have to contract with someone for that, specifically, assuming you can find anyone willing to offer those specific individual assurances to you. Even in that case, you must be very very specific about the criteria you want achieved, or you'll be back in the same situation, effectively contracting for something and receiving something that satisfies the contract but still fails to satisfy you.

Summing it up: The rule-of-thumb is that if you want something, make sure that it is explicitly promised in writing. If no one is willing to agree to make such an explicit promise, then either take your chances (taking the risk onto yourself) or do without.


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## jrm01 (Oct 17, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> That's not at all surprising, since a DTA is required for SDV,


Since the DTA is a limited function, one-way cablebox I didn't think it would work with SDV. The primary purpose of the DTA is for cable companies that are moving analog to digital instead of using SDV to reclaim bandwidth (Comcast), enabling them to give the DTA away for no charge to analog-only customers.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> However, more to the point you were getting at, TiVo does offer MRV service, according to defined specifications.


I understand and accept this.



bicker said:


> They never promised it will work in all circumstances, and indeed, as you've been told, they've even outlined some of the limitations on the service. The service does work -- I know, I use it -- and so the extent to which they promise it will work (i.e., subject to limitations) they are indeed satisfying their obligation.


I'm aware of the limitations as they pertain to the CCI byte, so while I don't particularly like those limitations I don't hold TiVo responsible for them. I would like it for TiVo to work with lawmakers to have CCI restrictions loosened.



bicker said:


> You want it to work, for you, and for the specific programs you care about. Both of those are additional requirements over-and-above what TiVo promises. They are incompatible with the nature of the mass-market. If the limitations of the mass-market are unacceptable for you, then you do indeed, as you suggested, need to avoid purchasing products and services from the mass-market.


This is where it breaks down. NPL blanking has nothing to do with legal restrictions. It's a bug in the software which prevents MRV from TiVo to TiVo (S3 to S2 in this case) when SDV recording exist in the NPL of the HD or S3 unit. This bug affects all recordings, including those with a CCI bit of 0x00.



bicker said:


> Summing it up: The rule-of-thumb is that if you want something, make sure that it is explicitly promised in writing. If no one is willing to agree to make such an explicit promise, then either take your chances (taking the risk onto yourself) or do without.


I believe MRV is in writing as one of the benefits of having a TiVo subscription and owning multiple TiVo's. Again, this issue is one of software incompatibilty. I suggest you read the MRV confusion thread if you'd like to learn more about this issue. What's clear though is that this is a problem with the TiVo software and how it handles recordings of SDV content.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

samo said:


> And what difference does it make if number is 25% or as Irhorer said 12% or if it is even 10%? TiVo has 30 day return policy. No company can afford 10% or higher return rate on the products they sell. No company can afford 10% or higher cancellation rate unless new subs far outweigh canceled subs(actually TiVo's churn rate on Tivo owned subs is 20%). No matter what the real number of people with problems is - you can be sure that TiVo is working to fix the problem at highest possible priority level.


I would also think TiVo is working on it. The only difference it makes is when someone keeps posting 'impacting 25%' as if it is an authoritative figure. So I post my rebuttal and <edit to get it correct> dlfl can ignore it and just look wrong about it or else take the facts into account</edit to get it correct>

this was the wrong part of the post -
Stormspace has backed off how presents his number some.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> Apparently my distinction between a limitation that *applies* and one that is actually experienced (i.e, that *affects*) is lost on you despite my elegant explanation given in response to lrhorer several posts back.
> 
> My number is roughly correct as I have defined it and nothing you say above changes that. Let's just agree to disagree (again).


still wrong - if I buy a TiVo HD and record locals only I have no impact. If I buy one TiVo HD and do not use TTG then it does *not* apply to me. etc...
Also NOT all areas do the CCI the same so you meta numbers to start with are wrong
You simply are using statistics incorrectly and with very incomplete data.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> So I post my rebuttal and Stormspace has backed off how presents his number some.


Did I post a number? I think you mean DLFL.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> As someone (bicker I think) suggested in another thread (or earlier in this thread?), standalone DVR sales and subscription levels may not be of paramount importance to TiVo's business plan at this point. Rather they may just need to sell enough DVR's and keep enough subscriptions to act as a proving ground for technology they wish to sell in future deals, e.g.,


that was me and I think it still important to keep in mind. 
With the above in mind - 
Streaming on future boxes is likely what is important to TiVo and perhaps cataloging which areas do set CCI=2 in case they want to file a brief with the FCC at some point.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> that was me and I think it still important to keep in mind.
> With the above in mind -
> Streaming on future boxes is likely what is important to TiVo and perhaps cataloging which areas do set CCI=2 in case they want to file a brief with the FCC at some point.


While streaming is one solution to the CCI issue, I don't know if the S2 TiVos have the hardware needed for S3 to S2 transfers.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> While streaming is one solution to the CCI issue, I don't know if the S2 TiVos have the hardware needed for S3 to S2 transfers.


yes, and why we would likely see streaming in a future box and the S2 may well just have to deal with its legacy and never be a good fit in a digital household. I would submit that if TiVo just bit the bullet and deemed all analog legacy stuff that can not be well supported and move to an all digital box then they will have a much better working box, but our S2 will be out in the cold except for possible MRV from them.

PS - sorry about the misquote, got confused


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> I'm aware of the limitations as they pertain to the CCI byte, so while I don't particularly like those limitations I don't hold TiVo responsible for them.


Why not? The CCI "Copy Once" limitation, which I'm talking about in this thread, is specifically the result of a TiVo design decision. No one else is responsible for that.



Stormspace said:


> I would like it for TiVo to work with lawmakers to have CCI restrictions loosened.


That sounds like you want government to take other people's assets away from them, to benefit you. I respect that that isn't the way you see it, but you need to respect that that is the way that the people who's assets are protected by the current protocol see it. They have a right to have their property rights respected, more so than we TiVo owners have any right to exploit _their_ property for _our_ benefit. Essentially, it comes back down to something which society has placed a high value on (property rights) versus something which society has not placed a high value on (affordable entertainment).



Stormspace said:


> NPL blanking has nothing to do with legal restrictions.


I'll let others address your NPL blanking issue. I'm going to continue to focus only on the CCI "Copy Once" issue.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> Why not? The CCI "Copy Once" limitation, which I'm talking about in this thread, is specifically the result of a TiVo design decision. No one else is responsible for that.


Baby steps. I want basic MRV to work first.



bicker said:


> That sounds like you want government to take other people's assets away from them, to benefit you. I respect that that isn't the way you see it, but you need to respect that that is the way that the people who's assets are protected by the current protocol see it. They have a right to have their property rights respected, more so than we TiVo owners have any right to exploit _their_ property for _our_ benefit. Essentially, it comes back down to something which society has placed a high value on (property rights) versus something which society has not placed a high value on (affordable entertainment).


It takes nothing away from anyone if I'm allowed to transfer recordings within my home. I already have the recording, moving it around doesn't seem to me to be that big an issue. Copyright infringement is already illegal, we don't need a device that forces this on us in our own home. But again, baby steps. MRV first.



bicker said:


> I'll let others address your NPL blanking issue. I'm going to continue to focus only on the CCI "Copy Once" issue.


NPL blanking is the foundation for my grief with TiVo and it's contractual obligations to provide MRV and the entire reason we went down this path. I suppose you thought I was referencing CCI the entire time?


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I would also think TiVo is working on it. The only difference it makes is when someone keeps posting 'impacting 25%' as if it is an authoritative figure. So I post my rebuttal and <edit to get it correct> dlfl can ignore it and just look wrong about it or else take the facts into account</edit to get it correct>
> 
> this was the wrong part of the post -
> Stormspace has backed off how presents his number some.


I have *never* used the word "impact" (or "impacting", or "impacts", etc.) in connection with the 25% figure. I originally used "affects" and then corrected that to "applies to". I have carefully explained the distinction between those two terms but you have not accepted that, apparently.

25% is roughly correct as the fraction of Series 3 TiVo's that are in use in cable service areas that apply CCI protection to all but OTA channels, and thus to which the limitation applies. The owners of these TiVo's are precluded from MRV and TTG except for OTA channels. I have openly stated, in agreement with you, that this doesn't mean 25% of users are affected (or impacted if you will), because some don't care about MRV or TTG and some don't use digital cable.

I don't understand why you say I am wrong?

I would note that you have not supported the percentages you used in **this post**. This seems unfair to me while you are attacking my number, for which I provided the data sources and the calculations.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> 25% is roughly correct as the fraction of Series 3 TiVo's that are in use in cable service areas that apply CCI protection to all but OTA channels, and thus to which the limitation applies.


so you know that all the sub areas of those companies do the CCI=2 for all. That is not what I see in this forum. Also you assume uniform use among all cable companies. 
Your 25% is an extremely rough guess using very incomplete data and if you decide to ignore that then readers can make their own decision about your posts. I reply so that readers have something to think about in regards to your number



dlfl said:


> I would note that you have not supported the percentages you used in **this post**. This seems unfair to me while you are attacking my number, for which I provided the data sources and the calculations.


since you link to a post by lhorer I will assume you are confused about that post as well. To answer the question on that data though - he puts in lots of "likely's and probablys" and is merely pointing out how the variables I bring up could have a significant impact on your 25% number. You applied a large meta number and it simply does not hold up.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> It takes nothing away from anyone if I'm allowed to transfer recordings within my home.


So you claim. However, given that that benefits you by taking away rights someone else asserts, you're not an impartial source. Indeed, it obviously does take something away from someone else to let you do what you want; they wouldn't bother incurring the expense of putting these protocols in place, otherwise.



Stormspace said:


> NPL blanking is the foundation for my grief with TiVo and it's contractual obligations to provide MRV and the entire reason we went down this path. I suppose you thought I was referencing CCI the entire time?


Yup, so let's just say that we agree about "Copy Once" -- that it is TiVo's design decision, and that they outline the risk on their website in a manner proportionate with what is reasonable -- and then you can discuss your NPL blanking issue with other folks.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> So you claim. However, given that that benefits you by taking away rights someone else asserts, you're not an impartial source. Indeed, it obviously does take something away from someone else to let you do what you want; they wouldn't bother incurring the expense of putting these protocols in place, otherwise.


The basic flaw in DRM is that it punishes the innocent. Content providers are scared to death someone is going to post their stuff on the internet, so by applying the CCI byte to recordings they hope to prevent that. Guess what, it happens anyway, so DRM ends up being a fail. Yet those people that never wanted to post it to the internet but perhaps use it in their own home pay the price.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> The basic flaw in DRM is that it punishes the innocent.


It isn't flawed. It is a reality of living in a society with others. Lots of important things "punish the innocent", as you put it: Auto inspection fees (because some people won't conscientiously keep their cars in a safe operating condition), child-proof medicine caps (my wife considers this a form of torture imposed on arthritis sufferers), password-protected forum accounts (to preclude spammers), etc.



Stormspace said:


> Guess what, it happens anyway, so DRM ends up being a fail.


That's a faulty measurement stick. If DRM discourages anyone from committing piracy, then it is a success. It isn't intended to be 100% effective, but rather just be a significant disincentive to the casual pirate.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> It isn't flawed. It is a reality of living in a society with others. Lots of important things "punish the innocent", as you put it: Auto inspection fees (because some people won't conscientiously keep their cars in a safe operating condition), child-proof medicine caps (my wife considers this a form of torture imposed on arthritis sufferers), password-protected forum accounts (to preclude spammers), etc.
> 
> That's a faulty measurement stick. If DRM discourages anyone from committing piracy, then it is a success. It isn't intended to be 100% effective, but rather just be a significant disincentive to the casual pirate.


In my state there are no auto inspections. The reason? It was discovered that they didn't work and people still drive bad vehicles. It's an enforcement issue and not something that should be universally applied to everyone because a few will choose to behave badly. DRM is a failed technology and many are coming to see that reality.

DRM is also applied to items that should never have it. Public domain works are being saddled with DRM on both DVD and Television when no harm comes to anyone should these works be copied. I suppose TV broadcasters could claim a copyright on commercials, but I thought the whole idea behind those was to get MORE people to see them.

No, DRM as it is today is a slegehammer when only a ball peen is required.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> since you link to a post by lhorer I will assume you are confused ........


Oops! Sorry about that!


ZeoTiVo said:


> so you know that all the sub areas of those companies do the CCI=2 for all. That is not what I see in this forum. Also you assume uniform use among all cable companies.
> Your 25% is an extremely rough guess using very incomplete data and if you decide to ignore that then readers can make their own decision about your posts. I reply so that readers have something to think about in regards to your number


It is a strong consensus on these forums that all TWC service areas apply CCI protection to all but OTA and I remember seeing at least one post where someone said a TWC employee admitted that it was TWC national policy. *If you or anyone knows of an exception, please post it.* Thus by the referenced data I gave in my earlier post, TWC alone accounts for 20.9% of all digital subscribers. Plus, it is known that some (or all?) Brighthouse and some Comcast, and at least one Insight (Columbus OH) service regions do this.

The uniform use assumption is reasonable for a rough estimate, and I noted this assumption in my first post deriving the 25% estimate. If some undefined distinction between "extremely rough" and "rough" (my description) is important to you, then I won't quibble over it.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

dlfl said:


> Oops! Sorry about that!
> 
> It is a strong consensus on these forums that all TWC service areas apply CCI protection to all but OTA and I remember seeing at least one post where someone said a TWC employee admitted that it was TWC national policy. *If you or anyone knows of an exception, please post it.* Thus by the referenced data I gave in my earlier post, TWC alone accounts for 20.9% of all digital subscribers. Plus, it is known that some (or all?) Brighthouse and some Comcast, and at least one Insight (Columbus OH) service regions do this.
> 
> The uniform use assumption is reasonable for a rough estimate, and I noted this assumption in my first post deriving the 25% estimate. If some undefined distinction between "extremely rough" and "rough" (my description) is important to you, then I won't quibble over it.


In my area, pre Adelphia TWC. Only standard def digital has the CCI set to 0x02. All analogs are 0x00. I don't receive PPV or Premium channels so I don't know about those.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Stormspace said:


> In my area, pre Adelphia TWC. Only standard def digital has the CCI set to 0x02. All analogs are 0x00. I don't receive PPV or Premium channels so I don't know about those.


Thus the HD (digitals) are not copy protected, correct ?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

dlfl said:


> Thus the HD (digitals) are not copy protected, correct ?


HD locals aren't. I haven't bothered to check any others since I have no way to transfer them to any thing other than a PC and I currently reserve that for transfers between my HD and SD TiVo's while I wait on the NPL solution.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> In my state there are no auto inspections.


Uh, I think you missed the point. I was providing examples of cases in our society that were similar to the situation you were complaining about. Even though they don't happen in your state, they are a reality in our society.

Also, I provided three examples, so if you simply don't like one of them, then rely on the others to best understand the point I was making.



Stormspace said:


> DRM is also applied to items that should never have it. Public domain works are being saddled with DRM on both DVD and Television when no harm comes to anyone should these works be copied.


Television? What are you talking about? Are you again talking about your own specific issue, or are you trying to say something general in response to my general comments?



Stormspace said:


> I suppose TV broadcasters could claim a copyright on commercials, but I thought the whole idea behind those was to get MORE people to see them.


What specifically are you talking about? Channel, time, and extent of affect.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> Uh, I think you missed the point. I was providing examples of cases in our society that were similar to the situation you were complaining about. Are you, in replying to that point, trying to assert that there is no such thing as auto inspections, just because they don't exist in your own state anymore? I assure you, they still exist, and as such, my point was that they serve as one of many examples of situations similar to the one you were complaining about. The reality is that often that is the only way to get many people to comply, and is a reasonable and customary manner of doing so, even when most people would comply *anyway*.
> 
> Television? What are you talking about? Are you again talking about your own specific issue, or are you trying to say something general in response to my general comments?
> 
> What specifically are you talking about? Channel, time, and extent of affect.


There are several movies that have lapsed in the public domain, such as "It's a Wonderful Life". DVD's of this movie have DRM applied to them and while I haven't seen this movie on a digital broadcast station that had the 0x02 bit, it's my understanding that this bit is applied universally to the entire channel and not to specific shows so it could happen. I have seen issues reported where public domain items like the Presidents Address were DRMed when that is a public domain item.

My point is that DRM is being applied wholesale to many items that should never have been protected and except for the Video industry companies are moving away from it because no one likes it.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

FWIW, information relevant to the discussion(s) (though perhaps not to the _topic_ of this thread?) found in the "Tivo Service Agreement":



Tivo Service Agreement said:


> *Introduction*
> Welcome to TiVo and the TiVo® service! This agreement explains the terms and conditions that will apply to your use of the TiVo service and constitutes a legally binding agreement between you and TiVo Inc. ("TiVo"). By using the TiVo service, you agree to all the terms and conditions in this agreement ("Agreement").
> ...
> *3. The TiVo Service.* The TiVo service consists of program guide information and the following features: (a) Season Pass-® recording automatically finds and records every episode of a series all season long; (b) WishList® search - finds and records programs that feature your favorite actor, director, team or even topic; (c) Smart Recording - automatically detects program line-up changes for your cable/satellite provider and adjusts recording times so you don't have to worry about the details; (d) TiVo Suggestions - TiVo can be programmed to suggest and auto-record programs that may match your interests; and (e) Parental Controls - lock channels or set ratings limits based on content. Each of these features is part of the "TiVo service." The "TiVo service" means these features and any additional features and functionality of the TiVo DVR that TiVo may, at its discretion and from time to time, offer.
> ...


Highlight/text formatting done by me.
Link


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Stormspace said:


> HD locals aren't. I haven't bothered to check any others since I have no way to transfer them to any thing other than a PC and I currently reserve that for transfers between my HD and SD TiVo's while I wait on the NPL solution.


If you don't mind, could you check the CCI Byte on some HD non-locals? TIA.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

orangeboy said:


> FWIW, information relevant to the discussion(s) (though perhaps not to the _topic_ of this thread?) found in the "Tivo Service Agreement":
> 
> Highlight/text formatting done by me.
> Link


So basically, TiVo doesn't *promise* (or warranty) the TiVo product will do anything. No surprise. Standard boilerplate as on many products, that most people never read. Kind of sad that sales may often depend on buyers having false expectations.

Is the 30 day return policy satisfaction-guaranteed or does the customer have to claim the TiVo isn't working properly?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

dlfl said:


> So basically, TiVo doesn't *promise* (or warranty) the TiVo product will do anything. No surprise. Standard boilerplate as on many products, that most people never read. Kind of sad that sales may often depend on buyers having false expectations.
> 
> Is the 30 day return policy satisfaction-guaranteed or does the customer have to claim the TiVo isn't working properly?


Kinda sux. Could be considered a bait and switch tactic to advertise something the device is no longer able to do in many markets with carefully worded legalese designed to protect them from liability. Based on this the NPL blanking issue may be a lost cause.  If that's the case though they'll get even more bad press.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> There are several movies that have lapsed in the public domain, such as "It's a Wonderful Life". DVD's of this movie have DRM applied to them and while I haven't seen this movie on a digital broadcast station that had the 0x02 bit, it's my understanding that this bit is applied universally to the entire channel and not to specific shows so it could happen. I have seen issues reported where public domain items like the Presidents Address were DRMed when that is a public domain item.


No DRM is permitted on over-the-air broadcast channels, so instances of that would be a mistake.

Having said that, neither a presentation of It's a Wonderful Life presented on TCM, nor presentation of a Presidential address on CNN, are in the public public domain. The presentations are copyrighted.

It's like if a record distributor picked up a recording of a symphony performed in 1910. That recording, itself, is in the public domain. If the distributor puts it onto a DVD, even though its source material is in the public domain, the DVD presentation is not in the public domain. You would have to have, or purchase, your own copy of the 1910 recording, and put it onto DVD yourself, to have rights to it.



Stormspace said:


> My point is that DRM is being applied wholesale to many items that should never have been protected


That's your opinion. It is not consistent with the opinion of the distributors, nor is it supported by the law. See above regarding holding unfounded expectations, setting one's self up for surprise, disappointment, dissatisfaction, etc.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Stormspace said:


> Kinda sux. Could be considered a bait and switch tactic to advertise something the device is no longer able to do in many markets with carefully worded legalese designed to protect them from liability. Based on this the NPL blanking issue may be a lost cause.  If that's the case though they'll get even more bad press.


Absolutely not bait and switch because if you move that very same device to a different market with a different set of services deployed, it works as advertised.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> So basically, TiVo doesn't *promise* (or warranty) the TiVo product will do anything. No surprise. Standard boilerplate as on many products, that most people never read. Kind of sad that sales may often depend on buyers having false expectations.
> 
> Is the 30 day return policy satisfaction-guaranteed or does the customer have to claim the TiVo isn't working properly?


standard boilerplate that TiVo can not control how CCi bits are set and thus their warranty does not cover that. The 30 days return policy is for any reason at all. Yet again you pull some simple stuff into an over the top covers the whole idea that TiVo wants to sell us all an unsatisfying DVR and then cut and run. Clearly that is not a proitable business model for them.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> standard boilerplate that TiVo can not control how CCi bits are set and thus their warranty does not cover that. The 30 days return policy is for any reason at all. *Yet again you pull some simple stuff into an over the top covers the whole idea that TiVo wants to sell us all an unsatisfying DVR and then cut and run.* Clearly that is not a proitable business model for them.


Bold face my markup.
Nonsense, you are warping your interpretation of my post by your own unjustified opinion that I am trying to make TiVo look bad in general. There is nothing in that post, or in my posts on this forum, that demonizes TiVo. Criticizing one small aspect of TiVo's behavior (the wording of their footnote on CCI protection) is not demonization. You should have read my posts more carefully.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

bicker said:


> .......... The presentations are copyrighted.
> 
> It's like if a record distributor picked up a recording of a symphony performed in 1910. That recording, itself, is in the public domain. If the distributor puts it onto a DVD, even though its source material is in the public domain, the DVD presentation is not in the public domain. You would have to have, or purchase, your own copy of the 1910 recording, and put it onto DVD yourself, to have rights to it.
> ..........


If I borrowed a friend's copy of the 1910 recording and put it on DVD, do I still have rights to it?

What about written works, e.g., a book published in 1910 and in the public domain? If I own or borrow a copy and make a xerox copy of it ?

If a publisher creates a new presentation of the book's content, e.g., with different typeface or paper, is that presentation not in the public domain?


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dlfl said:


> If I borrowed a friend's copy of the 1910 recording and put it on DVD, do I still have rights to it?


Yes. But if you bought a copy of a 2009 DVD of the 1910 recording, you wouldn't.



dlfl said:


> What about written works, e.g., a book published in 1910 and in the public domain?


I don't follow the case law regarding print as much as I do regarding audio and video, but I believe that, again, the 1910 work is public domain. A 2009 reprint is not.



dlfl said:


> If a publisher creates a new presentation of the book's content, e.g., with different typeface or paper, is that presentation not in the public domain?


Correct. As a matter of fact, not only is the presentation copyrighted, but the font itself is protected as well.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> Bold face my markup.
> Nonsense, you are warping your interpretation of my post by your own unjustified opinion that I am trying to make TiVo look bad in general. There is nothing in that post, or in my posts on this forum, that demonizes TiVo. Criticizing one small aspect of TiVo's behavior (the wording of their footnote on CCI protection) is not demonization. You should have read my posts more carefully.


ok Take out TiVo and put in some company. I can agree with your point you are not out to demonize TiVo but just expressing your evident frustration in using your TiVo DVR.
However your post did sound to me on first read as how I first posted. The perception is tehre even if you did not consciously intend it.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

ZeoTiVo said:


> ok Take out TiVo and put in some company. I can agree with your point you are not out to demonize TiVo but just expressing your evident frustration in using your TiVo DVR.
> However your post did sound to me on first read as how I first posted. The perception is tehre even if you did not consciously intend it.


Thanks, I can see how it could be taken a different way than I meant. The TTG limitation is disappointing to me but not a major thing. My posts about it are really just a matter of principle. I think it's unfortunate that some buyers get a nasty surprise that they can't TTG or MRV anything but OTA.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

dlfl said:


> If I borrowed a friend's copy of the 1910 recording [Im assuming the original, for discussion] and put it on DVD, do I still have rights to it?


Yes, in fact you now _own_ the rights to that 1910 music, at least as far as your DVD form of it is concerned. No one is allowed to copy it without your permission. Slap on some DRM and you can levy your _own_ fines, or threaten to send people to jail if they copy it.

There are those who believe this is the intent of U.S. copyright law. Read the original language about "limited" and "author" to see how nonsensical the application of the principle has become.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

dlfl said:


> Interesting question.  Personally I probably wouldn't care too much about that content!


That's my point. You couldn't care less whether it applies to you or not, since it doesn't affect you in any way that matters to you. Consequently the fact would not lessen your estimate of the worth of the TiVo.



dlfl said:


> You've used several percentages to get to this point. I was challenged for just my one number and have supported it. What is your support for what you've assumed?


Well, I think you were challenged for the ambiguous way in which the factors were being applied by you. For example, a user with a single unmodified TiVo cannot make use of MRV no matter what. Does a flaw with MRV then apply to him, or not? Even if he is on a system with no CCI bytes at all? It is the combination of several admittedly very common factors that causes problems for some users under certain circumstances.

Other than the estimates I have seen for which MSOs serve what fraction of CATV subscribers, the actual numbers I used are just offhand estimates. They may be off by a fair amount, but I suspect not a factor of two.



dlfl said:


> Our primary issue is the meaning of "applies to" as compared to "affects". I say the CCI/MRV/TTG limitation *applies* to any TiVo owner getting digital cable in one of the systems where CCI is "reflexively" set to 0x02. I have agreed it doesn't *affect* them if they don't use MRV or TTG.


The point is, in sucha case they couldn't care less. This makes the percentage of consumers who might consider themselves ill used much lower that what you suggest. Add to that the fact that the average user records more network content than anything else, and the impact to the (much smaller than you suggest) segment of the TiVo community that does regularly employ MRV or TTG is less widespread than your posts would leave one to believe. I'm not saying that doesn't give you the right to be unhappy with the situation considering your own personal needs. I imagine I would be similarly unhappy if they applied to me. I'm just saying the impact to the TiVo community and potential members of the community is less violent than you suggest.



dlfl said:


> Even the possibility of MRV and TTG of other than local broadcast channels is limited to either 75% (my figure) or 70% (your figure) of TiVo Series 3 owners. That is not a moot point.


It is moot for those who don't care. It is salient only for the fraction that have more than 1 Tivo or a TiVo enabled PC AND that have TWC, Brighthouse, etc, AND that have unmodified TiVos AND even then only for non-OTA channels. If all four apply to you 100% of the time, then it really sux to be you, and I feel for you, but it just is not the case for most TiVo owners, by a long shot.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> I appreciate your input, but I'm not one of the few with lifetime on my TiVo and I do have a contract with them. I pay monthly for several features, one of which is MRV.


That's not really a contract, although it is getting into a gray area, since MRV does indeed require a subscription. Countering that is the fact MRV did not originally work on the S3 at all, even though it already did on the S2.



Stormspace said:


> Even if I did have lifetime, part of the agreement of lifetime service is that MRV will work along with the others features people on a monthly contract pay.


Again, it is a little bit of a gray area. By the way, why are you paying $13 a month if you have multiple TiVos?



Stormspace said:


> If it as you and Bicker say and TiVo owes me nothing for the 12.95 a month I pay them other than presumably program data then I've chosen the wrong device.


No one said they owe you nothing. They are not required to make the TiVo work for any specific purpose you may have. If you bought it to be a toaster, they are under no obligation to help you get it working as such. If you feel that MRV is the only feature of the TiVo for which you are willing to pay anything at all, then you should drop the service. If, OTOH, you find the service to still be worth $13 a month in spite of not being able to transfer programs directly via MRV, then you are getting a reasonable service for your money. That's not to say it would not be a good idea to come up with some other solution to the issue which gets rid of this particular thorn in your side. OTOH, since the issue only impacts S2 TiVos in combination with an S3 TiVo connected to a TA, I can certainly understand TiVo's not being overly enthusiastic about coming up with a fix for the S2 code base. The number of people who have both S2 Tivos and S3 TiVos connected to a TA is very small, indeed. Assuming, that is, there actually is a lack of enthusiasm on TiVo's part. We don't know that there is, but if there is, it isn't surprising.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> So you claim. However, given that that benefits you by taking away rights someone else asserts, you're not an impartial source. Indeed, it obviously does take something away from someone else to let you do what you want; they wouldn't bother incurring the expense of putting these protocols in place, otherwise.


Not true. The fact someone fears something and is willing to invest resources to avert the eventuality in no way guarantees it to be the case there is a danger of the eventuality in the first place. Indeed, even the companies screaming for copy protection don't care in the least if someone moves the content around their home - they have no problem with streaming. What they don't want is for people to copy the content and sell it. Rather than rely on the laws which already make such a practice illegal, they want to implement a situation where people cannot copy the content no matter what. This effectively punishes honest individuals in order to mollify the paranoia of the content publishers while not preventing the dishonest individuals from copying and selling the content at all.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> That's my point. You couldn't care less whether it applies to you or not, since it doesn't affect you in any way that matters to you. Consequently the fact would not lessen your estimate of the worth of the TiVo.
> 
> Well, I think you were challenged for the ambiguous way in which the factors were being applied by you. For example, a user with a single unmodified TiVo cannot make use of MRV no matter what. Does a flaw with MRV then apply to him, or not? Even if he is on a system with no CCI bytes at all? It is the combination of several admittedly very common factors that causes problems for some users under certain circumstances.
> 
> ...


I don't know why you feel the need to repeat arguments over and over again, most of which I have already agreed with. Did you miss my post #272 where I said:


dlfl said:


> As suggested by lrhorer the percentage of TiVo Series 3 owners actually impacted (or affected) by the CCI limitations, and who care strongly enough to return the box because of that, may well be very small, way below 10%


Also, regarding my degree of unhappiness with my situation (and the implication that I am thus prone to exaggerate the CCI problem), you must have missed my post #308, where I said:


dlfl said:


> The TTG limitation is disappointing to me but not a major thing. My posts about it are really just a matter of principle. I think it's unfortunate that some buyers get a nasty surprise that they can't TTG or MRV anything but OTA.


As I have explained in several responses to you, my 25% rough estimate is valid in the sense I have defined it, i.e., as the fraction of Series 3 users who are *subject* to the CCI limitation, in the same sense that all drivers on the roads are *subject* to speed limits -- although not all drivers are *impacted* by the speed limit since some don't want to (or can't) exceed the limit due to other factors. If you can find a post where I try to use this 25% incorrectly to sway a potential TiVo buyer, please point it out.

If you are going to continue ping-ponging posts with me about this please at least consider my previous posts.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> It isn't flawed. It is a reality of living in a society with others.


So are massive amounts of raw sewage. The fact doesn't mean attempts to clean it up are not worthwhile, or that raw sewage is "good".



bicker said:


> child-proof medicine caps (my wife considers this a form of torture imposed on arthritis sufferers)


Good example... refuting your position. Because the elderly and arthritis sufferers do have a hard time opening child-proof containers, after the law was passed requiring them, an amendment was passed requiring vendors to supply non-child-proof containers upon request. Some have reversible lids that are child proof on one side and not the other. It's also an excellent rebuttal to the deeper issue: child-proof containers are not child proof. Once beyond the age of toddler, so called child-proof caps are easier for children to open than adults. It's just another example of a bone headed law which has at best no significant effect on the situation it was supposed to address and at worst makes the situation worse than if there were no law at all.



bicker said:


> That's a faulty measurement stick. If DRM discourages anyone from committing piracy, then it is a success.


1. It doesn't. Circumventing DRM can be done dozens of different ways.

2. Talk about a faulty measurement stick! The DRM proponents won't consider it a success unless it significantly positively impacts their revenue stream.



bicker said:


> It isn't intended to be 100% effective, but rather just be a significant disincentive to the casual pirate.


It isn't even that, and unless it is very nearly 100% effective, it doesn't meet the desires of those asking for DRM. They don't care about selling 10 extra copies. They want to sell millions of extra copies. Just read or listen to their arguments. They don't talk about preventing a few hundred "thefts" . They talk about "losing" billions of dollars.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

dlfl said:


> I don't know why you feel the need to repeat arguments over and over again, most of which I have already agreed with.


Because you turn around and author posts which suggest you don't agree, the former statement notwithstanding.



dlfl said:


> Did you miss my post #272 where I said:


No, but a large number being dissatisfied enough to return the TiVo is a very different thing than a much larger number having issues.



dlfl said:


> Also, regarding my degree of unhappiness with my situation (and the implication that I am thus prone to exaggerate the CCI problem), you must have missed my post #308, where I said:


Yeah, I did, actually, but nonetheless your other posts suggest something different. I'm not saying you are lying, to be sure, as I am sure you are not. Based upon the volume and vehemence of your posts, however, it does seem you are more upset than you think you are. Perhaps part of that perception lies in the fact we have you talking into one of our ears and Stormspace talking into the other on a bewilderingly similar but distinct issue. The stereo effect is a bit overwhelming. 



dlfl said:


> As I have explained in several responses to you, my 25% rough estimate is valid in the sense I have defined it, i.e., as the fraction of Series 3 users who are *subject* to the CCI limitation, in the


You can define whatever you want however you want, and there really is no arguing with a definition. The question is, "How meaningful is that to the TiVo community as a whole?", however. More to the point, how meaningful is it to MRV in general? My point is that MRV is still usable in the vast majority of cases, or else doesn't apply in the first place.



dlfl said:


> If you can find a post where I try to use this 25% incorrectly to sway a potential TiVo buyer, please point it out.


I'm not suggesting it is your intent, just that it may be an unintended consequence. See the difference?


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> ........... Based upon the volume and vehemence of your posts, however, it does seem you are more upset than you think you are. Perhaps part of that perception lies in the fact we have you talking into one of our ears and Stormspace talking into the other on a bewilderingly similar but distinct issue. The stereo effect is a bit overwhelming.


The "volume" of my posts has mainly been in responding to you. As far as "vehemence" goes, take a look in the mirror. Your inability to separate what I say from what Stormspace says and keep track of issues in the thread is not something I am responsible for. Listen to me with both ears, then listen to Stormspace with both ears. 


lrhorer said:


> .......I'm not suggesting it is your intent, just that it may be an unintended consequence. See the difference?


Yes and I'm glad you don't suspect bad intent, but if saying what I believe to be correct, truthful and fair has what you (but not necessarily I) consider to be unintended consequences, so be it. I have to weigh that against the beneficial intended consequences, i.e., exposing a statistic that I believe is useful although, as you point out (over and over ) is not the whole story.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Wil said:


> There are those who believe this is the intent of U.S. copyright law.


Intent is a religious discussion. I think the best place to discuss religion is in church, synagogue, mosque, etc. Online forums are better for discussing the way things are without regard to religious perspective.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> > Indeed, it obviously does take something away from someone else to let you do what you want
> 
> 
> Not true. The fact someone fears something and is willing to invest resources to avert the eventuality in no way guarantees it to be the case there is a danger of the eventuality in the first place.


No one said "guarantee".

Stop arguing against things I have not said.



lrhorer said:


> Indeed, even the companies screaming for copy protection don't care in the least if someone moves the content around their home - they have no problem with streaming. What they don't want is for people to copy the content ...


You've almost effectively agreed with me: Allowing people to move content around in their home without DRM *takes away *content owner's ability to discourage copying the content and giving it away to friends.



lrhorer said:


> Rather than rely on the laws which already make such a practice illegal,


Laws do less to discourage abuse than DRM does.



lrhorer said:


> they want to implement a situation where people cannot copy the content no matter what.


That is their absolute right.

This is one of the most common erroneous assumptions that folks make in threads like this, that they have a right to have what they want. Content is owned, initially, *by the content owner*. It is *their *property... not yours. They make the content available, *if they wish*, *how they wish*. They have protections.

You do not have inherent rights -- they do.

You have only the rights they choose to sell you. There is no inherent right to lack of copy protection (except in specific situations, like OTA broadcast), even for public domain content, regardless of equivocations, conditionals, whining, or bombastic demand. The fact that so many folks in this thread seem to think that they have such rights just shows how incredibly afflicted with Entitlement Mentality the typical American consumer is.



lrhorer said:


> This effectively punishes honest individuals in order to mollify the paranoia of the content publishers while not preventing the dishonest individuals from copying and selling the content at all.


First, you call it paranoia, showing that you refuse to grant others the respect for their perspectives that you yourself demand. That's unconscionable. They have a reasonable expectation that their property will be exploited more if they don't protect it. Until you accept that, you're going to repeatedly commit an inexcusable offense against others that you yourself would be livid if it was committed against you.

Second, being restricted to using something you purchase from someone in the manner in which they offered it to you for sale is not punishment. If you purchase something that says "you can move this around in your home" that's one thing -- that is not what is being sold in the cases we're discussing. What you want to buy is not available for sale in the cases we're discussing. You have no inherent right to be able to get what you want from someone else. You only have the right to get what they offer.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> The fact doesn't mean attempts to clean it up are not worthwhile, or that raw sewage is "good".


Clean it up without taking anything away from anyone else. Taking from other people to get what you want isn't noble, it's selfish.



lrhorer said:


> Good example... refuting your position. Because the elderly and arthritis sufferers do have a hard time opening child-proof containers, after the law was passed requiring them, an amendment was passed requiring vendors to supply non-child-proof containers upon request.


Get the law passed that you want, then you can talk about refuting my position. You want to essentially declare the world is the way you want it to be by fiat, without garnering support for your position, getting the preponderance of people to actually agree with you. Get the law passed, then we can come back and talk about it. Until then, you're comment here is just blowing smoke.

The reality is that there are enough American who care about property rights to keep trivial concerns about entertainment from abridging those property rights.



lrhorer said:


> 1. It doesn't. Circumventing DRM can be done dozens of different ways.


It *does* absolutely reduce the amount abuse. You continually refuse to acknowledge the reality, yet if it was so easy to ignore than you would not bother complaining about it.



lrhorer said:


> 2. Talk about a faulty measurement stick! The DRM proponents won't consider it a success unless it significantly positively impacts their revenue stream.


You again demonstrate an unwillingness to accept that reasonable people can disagree about these matters.... so effectively if people don't agree with you then their perspective is faulty. That perspective is ridiculously self-serving. And it is one of the reasons why your perspective cannot get any traction -- you are again simply trying to get what you want by disrespecting the rights of others, instead of working to find a way to work with them to help everyone get more of what they want. Your perspective is therefore supremely easy to demonize.



lrhorer said:


> It isn't even that, and unless it is very nearly 100% effective, it doesn't meet the desires of those asking for DRM.


Now you're contradicting yourself. It doesn't need to be "very nearly 100% effective" to "significantly positively impacts their revenue stream".


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> You have only the rights they choose to sell you. There is no inherent right to lack of copy protection (except in specific situations, like OTA broadcast), even for public domain content, regardless of equivocations, conditionals, whining, or bombastic demand. The fact that so many folks in this thread seem to think that they have such rights just shows how incredibly afflicted with Entitlement Mentality the typical American consumer is.


Slow down Bicker 
First the right to DRM free OTA is not an inherent right, but one granted by law in exchange for use of public airwaves.
I completely agree that content owners have inherent rights in our culture of private property adn those rights should be encouraged in order to provide incentive for creation of content. (see Peter Jackson getting the entire assets of a company to make LOTR movies).
However what is being discussed here is placement of CCI bits *by the broadcaster* sometimes at the direct contradiction of the intended use of the content (shows for education that have stated they want to be copied freely). This is a result of overly cautious broadcasters not wanting anyone but the broadcaster having access to the content. Even TiVo has had to bow to this paranoia and set there copy once more restrictive in order to ascertain cablelabs certification. Even more annoying to me, TiVo has set copy once themselves on anything that comes via pod/videocast route. Thus something like cnet videocast, which can be freely copied from the cnet website and then copied anywhere else is restricted on the TiVo DVR to just the one DVR that downloaded it. Amazon and Blcokbuster have to set a 24 hour viewing limit on downloaded rented content at the behest of content owners. I agree that is their right but really, will more of the content be pirated in the second 24 hours versus the first 24?

DRM in the broadcast world has moved far beyond content protection into a Paranoid's delusion or a Robber Baron mentality of making people pay for it over and over.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Slow down Bicker
> First the right to DRM free OTA is not an inherent right, but one granted by law in exchange for use of public airwaves.


Heck, I was being generous. I, of course, agree with you, but the poster I was replying to perhaps would be launched onto an irrelevant tangent by that assertion, missing the point I was making -- a point that is only strengthened by what you've said, but a point that stands on its own even without that. But thanks for the assist nonetheless.



ZeoTiVo said:


> However what is being discussed here is placement of CCI bits *by the broadcaster* sometimes at the direct contradiction of the intended use of the content (shows for education that have stated they want to be copied freely).


I disagree that *that *is "what is being discussed here". Very few people have limited their comments to such mistakes. Indeed, whenever those specific mistakes are brought up, everyone posts something along the lines of, "yup mistakes suck when the happen," and there is nothing more to discuss because no one disagrees.

So, instead, "what is being discussed here" includes the application of CCI bits to cable network broadcasts where they are invariably, perfectly appropriate.



ZeoTiVo said:


> Even TiVo has had to bow to this paranoia and set there copy once more restrictive in order to ascertain cablelabs certification.


That is not the way I understand it. There were means by which TiVo could have supported some types of transfers of "Copy Once" content, but doing so would have required a radically different implementation that the implementation that works best for "Copy Freely". Given the need for two separate implementations, clearly the right decision is to effect the implementation that has the most positive impact _first_. The other implementation may not even ever be worthwhile, in that context.



ZeoTiVo said:


> Even more annoying to me, TiVo has set copy once themselves on anything that comes via pod/videocast route.


I'm careful to limit my comments to the "Copy Once" issue. This thread is complicated and contentious enough without adding a fifth or six aspect.



ZeoTiVo said:


> I agree that is their right but ...


Without getting into the details, agreeing that that is their right is really as far as it needs to go. Beyond that, you're just second-guessing someone else. Reasonable people disagree. It isn't reasonable to expect other people who disagree with you to agree with you because it benefits you. They have the capacity judgment. It is their judgment that their interests are better served exercising their rights. You benefit from them not exercising their rights, and you are adversely affected by them exercising their rights, so you are effectively unreliable as a source of insight into the reality.



ZeoTiVo said:


> DRM in the broadcast world has moved far beyond content protection into a Paranoid's delusion or a Robber Baron mentality of making people pay for it over and over.


What makes that assertion anything other than paranoia itself?

If you don't like the way the market offers you service, then do without the service.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> Again, it is a little bit of a gray area. By the way, why are you paying $13 a month if you have multiple TiVos?


TiVo has a nasty habit of making a new box your primary.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> ...Even more annoying to me, TiVo has set copy once themselves on anything that comes via pod/videocast route. Thus something like cnet videocast, which can be freely copied from the cnet website and then copied anywhere else is restricted on the TiVo DVR to just the one DVR that downloaded it...


Perhaps this is the foundation for agreements with other desired online content providers? I'm thinking hulu or any of the other online providers that people have expressed an interest in...


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> I disagree that *that *is "what is being discussed here". Very few people have limited their comments to such mistakes. Indeed, whenever those specific mistakes are brought up, everyone posts something along the lines of, "yup mistakes suck when the happen," and there is nothing more to discuss because no one disagrees.
> 
> So, instead, "what is being discussed here" includes the application of CCI bits to cable network broadcasts where they are invariably, perfectly appropriate.


 not really - we are talking about broadcast companies that set the CCI bit on all the channels they legally can. We have known instances where the content owner does not want the restriction applied and has stated that to the broadcaster but the broadcaster disregards that and continues to set the CCI in a wholesale fashion. This si not mistakes but deliberate attempt to limit use of broadcast content.


> That is not the way I understand it. There were means by which TiVo could have supported some types of transfers of "Copy Once" content, but doing so would have required a radically different implementation that the implementation that works best for "Copy Freely". Given the need for two separate implementations, clearly the right decision is to effect the implementation that has the most positive impact _first_. The other implementation may not even ever be worthwhile, in that context.


 The whole design hassle originated from limitations (seeing the multiple DVRs as safe, since one is safe) cable labs wanted and would not waiver TiVo on. It was either delay the product or agree to what cablelabs required.


> I'm careful to limit my comments to the "Copy Once" issue. This thread is complicated and contentious enough without adding a fifth or six aspect.
> 
> Without getting into the details, agreeing that that is their right is really as far as it needs to go. Beyond that, you're just second-guessing someone else. Reasonable people disagree. It isn't reasonable to expect other people who disagree with you to agree with you because it benefits you. They have the capacity judgment. It is their judgment that their interests are better served exercising their rights. You benefit from them not exercising their rights, and you are adversely affected by them exercising their rights, so you are effectively unreliable as a source of insight into the reality.
> 
> ...


sorry but the part of this that is the direct result of broadcasters insisting on a more restrictive DRM than is needed for their business purposes, is legit to the conversation. These restrictions go further than content owners are seeking and it will indeed drive the cable industry to be either a dumb pipe or else to finally realize they need to shift their resources to a different business model. See Comcast buying NBC for reference.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

orangeboy said:


> Perhaps this is the foundation for agreements with other desired online content providers? I'm thinking hulu or any of the other online providers that people have expressed an interest in...


Hulu was not in the picture at all when this was put in place. It is though indeed an example of TiVo using a blanket DRM that is a more restrictive DRM than some of the content owners are looking for in order to appease other content owners.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> not really - we are talking about broadcast companies that set the CCI bit on all the channels they legally can. We have known instances where the content owner does not want the restriction applied and has stated that to the broadcaster but the broadcaster disregards that and continues to set the CCI in a wholesale fashion.


No no no: Be* explicit*. You claim here that "the content owner does not want the restriction applied..." A content owner that does not want the restriction applied puts that in the contract -- otherwise they're just *snowing* you. The content owner has total control. The only downside for them is that if they include that provision in the contract, they will get less money from some buyers, or some buyers won't even do business with them. That's their choice. Their control. Their responsibility.

And again, we're still not talking about mistakes, where a content owner does put something like that in a contract and a broadcaster doesn't respect that. There are separate provisions for addressing that -- the content owner can sue the broadcaster, can build financial penalties into the contract, can stop offering content for sale to that broadcaster, etc. Again, the content owner has total control. Their choice. Their responsibility.

And in both cases if they simply don't care as much about this as you do, then you have to accept that. It's their content.

So if you don't have evidence that contracts between a content owner and a broadcaster says what you say that *they claim* the contract says, then there is no reason to believe it any more than that you'd have reason to disbelieve a broadcaster who says that the contract says nothing of the sort -- except that you like what one is saying and don't like what the other is saying.



ZeoTiVo said:


> sorry but the part of this that is the direct result of broadcasters insisting on a more restrictive DRM than is needed for their business purposes, is legit to the conversation.


I didn't say that the issue wasn't legit -- I said that the consumer-biased view only proves that a consumer doesn't like the fact that a supplier disagrees with the consumer's assessment of whether or not something serves a business purpose. It is no big surprise that a consumer believes something that benefits a supplier instead of the customer doesn't serve a business purpose. That's actually one of the nasty ramifications of over-the-top consumerism: The belief that anything that doesn't serve the consumer is in some way not reasonable.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

bicker said:


> ........Get the law passed that you want, then you can talk about refuting my position. You want to essentially declare the world is the way you want it to be by fiat, without garnering support for your position, getting the preponderance of people to actually agree with you. Get the law passed, then we can come back and talk about it. Until then, you're comment here is just blowing smoke.
> ...........


Agreed, except from now on consider any complaint I post as part of a campaign to "garner support for my position" rather than "blowing smoke". That's legit, correct? (Except when I am just blowing smoke, that is. )


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dlfl said:


> Agreed, except from now on consider any complaint I post as part of a campaign to "garner support for my position" rather than "blowing smoke". That's legit, correct? (Except when I am just blowing smoke, that is. )


Hehe... okay and from now on consider any reply I post as part of an effort to help clarify for casual readers the reality of the situation that they are most likely to encounter.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> No no no: Be* explicit*. You claim here that "the content owner does not want the restriction applied..." A content owner that does not want the restriction applied puts that in the contract -- otherwise they're just *snowing* you. The content owner has total control. The only downside for them is that if they include that provision in the contract, they will get less money from some buyers, or some buyers won't even do business with them. That's their choice. Their control. Their responsibility.


 and that is just BS* in reality. You know full well that some l;earning channel has no ability to negotiate restrictive terms in their contract and will just deal with the standard boiler plate contract. Ok, that means they indeed just deal with informing the cable company they have no wish for DRM and want people to copy their content to easily get it in the classroom. So what business reason is there for this DRM? Simple desrie by the cable company to lock down all channels as those horrible DVR users are going to steal all the content? Ridiculous.

*Blowing Smoke 


> And again, we're still not talking about mistakes, where a content owner does put something like that in a contract and a broadcaster doesn't respect that. There are separate provisions for addressing that -- the content owner can sue the broadcaster, can build financial penalties into the contract, can stop offering content for sale to that broadcaster, etc. Again, the content owner has total control. Their choice. Their responsibility.


 I am not calling for legal action against cable companies, but I do think the FCC needs to look at DRM use and refine the rules around its wholesale use. Content owners like ABC are now putting content online, they realize that broadcast companies are redundent in the age of the internet. 
The rude awakening to TV subscribers will be the lack of a bundler for one price and the loss of advertising revenue that the audience reach of that bundler provides. I think it a big deal that Comcast bought NBC myself. At that point the bundler becomes the content owner. 
Overall I am not worried though as indeed the market will get the messgae the music industry got - make it simple and make it easy to pay a price that the market will pay. Records/tapes/Cds were not convenient enough and thus they are no longer the cash cow part of the music industry. Shows restricted to a schedule not set by the end user are no longer convenient either and are on the way to being a commodity that has some value to provide but will not be the cash cow. Easy distribution of digital is next. cable companies had better learn from the music example and figure out that restrictive DRM is fine for premium content but will throttle profits on anything mass market or else beginning to look for its market.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> No no no: Be* explicit*.


In a related note and to fully disclose. The "It's a Wonderful Life" example I used earlier appears to have been in error. Apparently a couple of years went by where everyone thought it had lapsed in the public domain. Recently however it was determined that being a derivative work it was protected by the original copyright that is still in force.

As to Zeo's comments about cnet's video podcasts. I've heard the hosts of the show say that these should be copy freely. They want them to be copy freely, yet in this case TiVo sets them to copy once.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> That's a faulty measurement stick. If DRM discourages anyone from committing piracy, then it is a success. It isn't intended to be 100% effective, but rather just be a significant disincentive to the casual pirate


Was thinking about this comment and TiVo already has a mechanism in place for this that prevents the casual pirate. Why then would TiVo be restricted unless cable companies via cable labs don't want the TiVo DVR to compete?

Precedent has been set with the Home Audio Recording Act that allows us to move audio around within our own home and onto devices. Video really shouldn't be any different. Like the music industry before them Video providers are trying to get us to pay for each copy we consume. One for the ipod, one for you computer, another for the DVD player, and a last one for the VCR when we should only have to make the purchase once. The music industry has found that this makes the most sense, the MPAA and the like are just behind the times.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> and that is just BS* in reality. You know full well that some l;earning channel has no ability to negotiate restrictive terms in their contract and will just deal with the standard boiler plate contract.


That's a rationalization. Either this matters to the content owner or it doesn't. Make up your mind. This is business, not a playground.



ZeoTiVo said:


> So what business reason is there for this DRM?


It discourages service abuse. I'm not going to debate that with you. It's a reasonable business perspective that you disagree with. I respect your right to disagree. You don't have any right to assert that someone else, a business let's say, is prohibited from holding a perspective you don't agree with.

You choose to believe what best suits your own preferences. Asserting that *that *is the totality of reality is BS (blowing smoke).



ZeoTiVo said:


> I am not calling for legal action against cable companies, but I do think the FCC needs to look at DRM use and refine the rules around its wholesale use.


How would you know if they've looked or not? Are you asserting that if they don't make any changes that you like then they didn't look? If you're not specific about what they should have done (to demonstrate that they are adequately considering the issue) then you can whine on and on they they aren't "looking at" the issue. That's why I said to be explicit. I suspect, though, that you realize that if you are explicit, then you'll have to put up something tangible -- something more than "smoke" -- which can simply be dismissed as consumer-biased and neglectful of the rights of broadcasters and/or content owners.

The reality is that there are different perspectives here, and despite the fact that we may not like it, the customer perspective does not need to prevail. We often talk about the separable security mandate in these forums. How many times do posters mistakenly presume that it is intended to provide consumers choice? You know the reality, I'm sure -- the mandate itself is very clear that its intent is to open the market to CE manufacturers that want to compete. It is intended to benefit business. The benefit to consumers is secondary. And that's okay. As I said earlier, fostering economic activity has always been a high priority of government, whereas providing affordable entertainment has not been.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> Was thinking about this comment and TiVo already has a mechanism in place for this that prevents the casual pirate. Why then would TiVo be restricted unless cable companies via cable labs don't want the TiVo DVR to compete?


Please explain what you mean. I think you're missing a few words in that paragraph.



Stormspace said:


> Precedent has been set with the Home Audio Recording Act


The Act is limited to audio. The term "precedent" refers to something that is applicable within the same realm. There is no precedent unless you can get a comparable Act passed by Congress pertaining to video. I wish you good luck. Until then, the rights are as I have stated.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> That's a rationalization. Either this matters to the content owner or it doesn't. Make up your mind. This is business, not a playground.
> 
> It discourages service abuse. I'm not going to debate that with you. It's a reasonable business perspective that you disagree with. I respect your right to disagree. You don't have any right to assert that someone else, a business let's say, is prohibited from holding a perspective you don't agree with.


never said they were prohibited from holding the perspective of overuse of DRM to protect their service. Audio showed that to be a lame argument however especially in light of the legit, very profitable download music services that are shedding DRM.
I assert that cable companies simply hurt themselves in the long run with the overuse of DRM. It also flies in the face of the FCC intent of fostering economic activity, see TiVo inc and Digeo for reference.

See also for economic stifling, the companies putting out educational programs that want to get a foothold in market share by supplying freely copyable material but would have to spend precious resources on fighting a ridiculous battle with cable companies to get them to stop adding DRM to their content as broadcast by the cable company.

This to me gives the FCC the reasoning to look at better usage rules for DRM, and maybe they are looking at it or maybe not. My involvement is posting here, not scouring FCC public info to see what they are doing or not.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> Please explain what you mean. I think you're missing a few words in that paragraph.


OK I think the missing part is... .TiVo files are encrypted with DRM to prevent the casual pirate.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> ... very profitable download music services ...


The profitability of the recording industry was effectively decimated by the ability to make your own pure copies. It is ridiculous to assert that music is actually worth $5M less today than ten years ago. That loss is directly attributable to the industry's inability to assert adequate protection over its property.

Please present a similar graph showing how companies are making more money than ten years ago because they're removing asset protection. 



ZeoTiVo said:


> I assert that cable companies simply hurt themselves in the long run with the overuse of DRM.


And I assert that you're wrong, and that instead what we're seeing is market manipulation by those who opposed property rights, which in the end will hurt the industry, and in turn will disincentivize new entrants into the market, thereby reducing the additional competition that would have eventually yielded even greater advantages for consumers than the current level of competition provides.



ZeoTiVo said:


> It also flies in the face of the FCC intent of fostering economic activity, see TiVo inc and Digeo for reference.


It doesn't, actually. You are welcome to present your proof that TiVo and Digeo would generate more economic activity than broadcasters, service providers and content owners would lose if asset protection was castrated in the manner you'd like it to be. I'd love to see your evidence.



ZeoTiVo said:


> See also for economic stifling, the companies putting out educational programs that want to get a foothold in market share by supplying freely copyable material but would have to spend precious resources on fighting a ridiculous battle with cable companies to get them to stop adding DRM to their content as broadcast by the cable company.


Stop making excuses for companies that aren't making those excuses themselves.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> The profitability of the recording industry was effectively decimated by the ability to make your own pure copies. It is ridiculous to assert that music is actually worth $5M less today than ten years ago. That loss is directly attributable to the industry's inability to assert adequate protection over its property.


Part of this difference is a market equalization as a result of over charging for product for a number of years, as well as for price fixing schemes perpetuated by the recording industry in past years. Add to that the bad will that the recording industry has fostered with the public in general and you'll see that people want music on their own terms.

I believe that as video becomes more popular via streaming and download sources people used to moving music around will react to restrictions on video in much the same way.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bicker said:


> No one said "guarantee".


Either I am arguing beyond your comprehension or you are being deliberately obtuse. The point I made is any entity (business or individual) can be plagued by unfounded fears. They can be unfounded simply because good luck is with them and the feared issue never manifests, because the reasons they have for fearing the eventuality are poorly considered, or because the fear is irrational. The fact the fear exists in no way guarantees, warrrantees, proves, establishes, rigorously implies, establishes, or whatever other term you might wish to use to mean a rigid deductive inferrence may made that the feared eventuality is likely.



bicker said:


> Stop arguing against things I have not said.


I am free to argue for or against anything I choose, but in this case, my argument addressed a salient aspect of your statement, to wit: the fact a business sector fears a particular capability on the part of someone in the marketplace will result in diminished revenues does not necessarily mean that in fact it will, or that conversely eliminating that capability will augment revenues.



bicker said:


> You've almost effectively agreed with me: Allowing people to move content around in their home without DRM *takes away *content owner's ability to discourage copying the content and giving it away to friends.


No, it doesn't, and that is the point. The absence of DRM does not make it significantly easier to do so. At most it is only trivially easier to do so.



bicker said:


> Laws do less to discourage abuse than DRM does.


What statistics do you have to back that statement up?



bicker said:


> That is their absolute right.


Actually, I never said it wasn't, but having the right to do something and being smart (or stupid) for exercising that right are not the same thing, however. The fact is, they don't have the right to do it, though. They of course have the right to want to do it. There is absolutely no law preventing a consumer from making backup copies of legally obtained content. There is also no law requirng any manufacturer to comply with DRM settings in digitally delivered content. (The closest is the requirement that all VCRs must employ an AGC. Without an AGC, Macrovision protection can easily be circumvented.) By current law, they do not in fact have any specific right to impose DRM on consumers. It has been imposed not through law (not directly, anyway), but through CableLabs certification requirements. No device not certified by CableLabs is required to honor DRM.



bicker said:


> This is one of the most common erroneous assumptions that folks make in threads like this, that they have a right to have what they want.


If they pay for the right, then they do. It's called Capitalism, in case you hadn't heard of it. Of course, if payment is not accepted, then the other party is not required to deliver, and an owner has the right to set the boundaries on what he is willing to sell and for what price. It also gets complicated when there are more than 2 parties involved in the transaction.



bicker said:


> Content is owned, *initially*, by the content owner.


(Emphasis and de-emphasis mine) I'm certainly not disputing that. Who owns it initially is not the issue.



bicker said:


> It is *their *property... not yours.


Not once they sell it to me (or through an intermediary to me) and I accept delivery, it isn't. Did no one ever explain to you that once someone sells something to someone else, the original owner no longer owns it? Once Dell sells me a computer, they no longer have any say what I do with it for personal use. Their patents prevent me from manufacturing copies of the unit and selling it, but they have absolutely no right to tell me what software I can run on it or what I can do with the machine itself. Of course they are not responsible for any such use, either, so if I use the computer to make a bomb, they are not responsible for any injuries the bomb may cause.



bicker said:


> They make the content available, *if they wish*, *how they wish*.


Or not at all. So what? The seller does not have to sell a product if his desires WRT the distribution of a product are not met. A consumer is not required to purchase a product if the method of distribution is not acceptable to him, either. We are not talking about the situation prior to purchase, however. The owner of a single stick of chewing gum can refuse to sell it until someone coughs up a million bucks for it.



bicker said:


> They have protections.


So does the consumer. If the consumer pays for the product, or enters into a contract agreeing to pay for the product, then the original owner must deliver or potentially face civil and possibly criminal liabilities.



bicker said:


> You do not have inherent rights -- they do.


That utter nonsense. Both parties in a concluded transaction have inherent rights, unless you are suggesting "inherent" means something other than that provided by law. In that case, neither has any rights whatsoever other than those they can personally enforce. Getting back to the subject, though, commercial law has its roots in legal actions going all the way back to the 14th century and even beyond. In all that case law, there is virtually nothing giving any intrinsic rights whatsoever to any vendor or original owner over the disposition of any product once the buyer has taken delivery of the product and the vendor has taken delivery of the payment. Of course any vendor may require contractural obligations to this effect, but contractual obligations are not intrinsic rights.



bicker said:


> You have only the rights they choose to sell you.


They can refuse to sell to consumer unless the consumer agrees to restrictions on the use of the product. The agreement must be specifc, it must be up front (not after the fact), and the original owner has no rights concerning the specific disposition of the product outside the specific tenets of that agreement.



bicker said:


> There is no inherent right to lack of copy protection


There is no inherent right to impose it, either. If congress or the FCC decides to completely eliminate DRM, then poof! It's gone, no matter what the content providers want or fear. It also would make no difference whether the ruling were based upon consumer requests, technical requirements, or an economic assessment that DRM is not effective. In that case, the owner's choices would only be to either allow DRM to be disabled, or not sell the product at all.



bicker said:


> (except in specific situations, like OTA broadcast)


Let's look at that, for a moment. OTA networks have no more intrinsic rights (prior to the FCC ruling) to prevent the application of DRM to their content than any other consumer. So why do they get the exception? Because they are bigger and far more powerful than the content providers and the CATV companies put together, so the desires of the content providers and CATV companies be damned, and so much for their rights.



bicker said:


> First, you call it paranoia, showing that you refuse to grant others the respect for their perspectives that you yourself demand.


Not at all. I am slightly clausterphobic. It is an irrrational fear, which is akin to paranoia. If a business fears something which they need have no need to fear, then it constitutes paranoia. If there is a good reason to fear it, then it does not. It has nothing to do with respect in any fashion.



bicker said:


> They have a reasonable expectation that their property will be exploited more if they don't protect it.


That's highly debatable, and history suggests the opposite may be the case. MPAA executives believed they would be ruined by the widespread deployment of VCRs. The opposite was true. Widespread VCR deployment resulted in skyrocketing revenues for both movie and TV producers. Audio producers feared that first analog reproduction and then later digital reproduction would ruin them. The opposite was true. Wanting to increase revenues, they implemented DRM. For various reasons, it was a dismal failure, and piracy exploded, yet revenues continue to expand almost exponentially.



bicker said:


> Until you accept that, you're going to repeatedly commit an inexcusable offense against others that you yourself would be livid if it was committed against you.


Oh, brother! My skin is nowhere nearly that thin. If yours is, I suggest you seek the services of a therapist. If any businessman's professional skin is that thin, then he needs to get out of bsuiness in a big hurry, because there is absolutely no room for thin skins in business.



bicker said:


> Second, being restricted to using something you purchase from someone in the manner in which they offered it to you for sale is not punishment.


If you want to use some other word, then go ahead. The point is, the fundamental desires of the content providers are *NOT* being met, so they are being "punished" (or whatever word you want to use), the intent of the legislators is not being serviced, so they are being punished (or whatever), and the consumer's reasonable request is not being met, so they are being "punished" (or whatever). The only one not being "punished" (or anything else) is the pirate.

Let me guess, you believe laws against the sale and use of drugs reduce the traffic in drugs, don't you?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> The profitability of the recording industry was effectively decimated by the ability to make your own pure copies. It is ridiculous to assert that music is actually worth $5M less today than ten years ago. That loss is directly attributable to the industry's inability to assert adequate protection over its property.


 yet more BS - the music industry was decimated by spending money going after pirates versus offering a legitimate download service so consumers had a choice. Enter iTunes and the profit was found. Now we have Rhapsody and other services as well and huh, economic diversity and new companies springing up all over the place. Care is given to allowing consumers choices in how to use music in their own way. It can all still be pirated and pirates still exist but the industry is doing just fine and admitting the money has always been in touring anyway. Nothing is free. 



> And I assert that you're wrong, and that instead what we're seeing is market manipulation by those who opposed property rights, which in the end will hurt the industry, and in turn will disincentivize new entrants into the market, thereby reducing the additional competition


 umm, AT&T, Verizon, Hulu, ABC.com. So somehow if cable could only put DRM on premium content, somehow that would hurt these entrants? I would point out that Verizon FIOS uses very little DRM on recorded content and all that is likely speleld out in their contracts to egt the premium content. Sorry, the lack of examples would be for markets kept small by lack of DRM.



> It doesn't, actually. You are welcome to present your proof that TiVo and Digeo would generate more economic activity than broadcasters, service providers and content owners would lose if asset protection was castrated in the manner you'd like it to be. I'd love to see your evidence.
> Stop making excuses for companies that aren't making those excuses themselves.


the mandate to foster economic growth is not simply about short term balance sheets but about fostering new companies as well. TiVo is clearly hurt by TWC DRM and cable companies slip shod handling of cable cards. The FCC clearly wanted to promote more companies making 3rd party CE devices for video broadcast. TWC wholesale DRM is clearly a disincentive (to use your word) to the intent of the FCC mandate for separable security.

There was a thread on TWC DRM and in that thread a TWC user contacted the company putting out the learning programs and they gave a written reply clearly indicating they did not want DRM copy restrictions on their content. He passed that to TWC and they clearly said that did not matter. The learning company is also not being fostered in this heavy handed DRM from TWC.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

I'm seeing some irony (or something) here!

Earlier in this thread both lrhorer and ZeoTiVo, in many posts, criticized me for allegedly exaggerating the impact of CCI protection on TiVo users, with lrhorer actually estimating a number in this post as follows:


lrhorer said:


> ....it applies to perhaps 2% of programs recorded on the TiVo


Pardon me if I got a wrong impression in thinking you were trying to minimize the importance of this impact.

Now many posts are flying back and forth between these two members and bicker, in which they are emphasizing how bad this DRM result is! Gee that 2% must be more important than they originally thought!

Come on guys. It can't be both important and unimportant.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> Either I am arguing beyond your comprehension or you are being deliberately obtuse.


Neither. Perhaps that is "beyond your comprehension" but I disagree with you.



lrhorer said:


> The point I made is any entity (business or individual) can be plagued by unfounded fears. <snip>


So your whole paragraph was predicated on a faulty premise. You claim the fears are unfounded. That's your opinion. They disagree with you. It isn't an unfounded fear -- it is a fear you claim is unfounded, and you're wrong and they're right. Again, they, and I, disagree with you.



lrhorer said:


> I am free to argue for or against anything I choose, but in this case, my argument addressed a salient aspect of your statement, to wit: the fact a business sector fears a particular capability on the part of someone in the marketplace will result in diminished revenues does not necessarily mean that in fact it will, or that conversely eliminating that capability will augment revenues.


Nor does your denial have any weight with regard to your claim to the contrary.



lrhorer said:


> No, it doesn't, and that is the point.


Yes it does, and *that's* the point. Again, you need to understand that you're putting forward an opinion, one with which the industry disagrees. You cannot refute their assertion by denying it.



lrhorer said:


> The absence of DRM does not make it significantly easier to do so. At most it is only trivially easier to do so.


Again, opinions on your part, which you have to accept are a strictly consumerist perspective.



lrhorer said:


> What statistics do you have to back that statement up?


I consider it common knowledge that locking doors does more to prevent burglary than the laws against burglary. I consider your questioning that to be petty and solely a nuisance demand.



lrhorer said:


> Actually, I never said it wasn't, but having the right to do something and being smart (or stupid) for exercising that right are not the same thing, however.


So again your argument hinges on kowtowing to your own, distinctly consumer-biased opinion.



lrhorer said:


> The fact is, they don't have the right to do it, though.


Of course they do.



lrhorer said:


> If they pay for the right, then they do.


However that is not what is being sold to them.



lrhorer said:


> It's called Capitalism, in case you hadn't heard of it.


Don't be exceedingly puerile.



lrhorer said:


> (Emphasis and de-emphasis mine)


And in doing so you've missed the point, and turned the sentence into a deception. Content is owned by the content owner. Then the content owner has the right to sell whatever rights to the content that they wish to sell, as little or as much as they wish.



lrhorer said:


> Not once they sell it to me (or through an intermediary to me) and I accept delivery, it isn't.


Yes it is. You are wrong about that.



lrhorer said:


> Did no one ever explain to you that once someone sells something to someone else, the original owner no longer owns it?


Again, you are wrong. All you are sold are the rights that the content owner offered. You don't get to make up your own laws, nor do you get to make up your own terms and conditions and impose them unilaterally. Again, you are just plain wrong.



lrhorer said:


> Once Dell sells me a computer, they no longer have any say what I do with it for personal use.


And if Dell sells you the right to use the computer under certain conditions, then they do have the right to expect you to comply with those conditions.



lrhorer said:


> Or not at all. So what? The seller does not have to sell a product if his desires WRT the distribution of a product are not met. A consumer is not required to purchase a product if the method of distribution is not acceptable to him, either. We are not talking about the situation prior to purchase, however.


Of course not. The problem is that you're contending that after the purchase, that the buyer has the right to ignore all the terms and conditions of the purchase agreement. You're wrong.



lrhorer said:


> So does the consumer.


That they get what it is they paid for. Again, you're claiming that the consumer is entitled to more than they paid for. You're wrong.



lrhorer said:


> That utter nonsense.


Most of what you've said in response to my message was utter nonsense. If you want to just defecate on the thread and make the replies into a contest who can come up with the nastiest thing about what each other has said, then go ahead. As you can see, I can match you step by step. It doesn't make you any less wrong. I'm not going to bother responding point by point to the rest of your misguided "utter nonsense" though. It is a waste of my time and the forum's bandwidth. Just assume that everything you've said from here on it I've replied to that you're wrong. It's been pretty consistently the case so far in this message.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> yet more BS - the music industry was decimated by spending money going after pirates versus offering a legitimate download service so consumers had a choice.


BS. They music industry was effectively decimated by the ability to make your own pure copies.

You, a consumer, doesn't like DRM. Big surprise -- not.



ZeoTiVo said:


> umm, AT&T, Verizon, Hulu, ABC.com.


All of which will eventually protect content and charge for it, unless the legitimizing of what is effectively piracy decimates this industry as well.



ZeoTiVo said:


> the mandate to foster economic growth is not simply about short term balance sheets but about fostering new companies as well. TiVo is clearly hurt by TWC DRM and cable companies slip shod handling of cable cards.


And if you think that justifies what you're advocating then you don't understand the breadth of the industry. TiVo is less than a speck. There are more significant emerging companies that are innovating in the DRM space, itself.



ZeoTiVo said:


> The FCC clearly wanted to promote more companies making 3rd party CE devices for video broadcast.


Given how much you and lhorer have been wrong about, I had to highlight something you got right. This is true.



ZeoTiVo said:


> TWC wholesale DRM is clearly a disincentive (to use your word) to the intent of the FCC mandate for separable security.


But trivial in comparison to the negative ramifications of the wholesale castration of asset protection that is being advocated by some in this thread. "The sky is falling." -- that's what I hear from the consumerists. Ridiculous.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

dlfl said:


> I'm seeing some irony (or something) here!
> 
> Earlier in this thread both lrhorer and ZeoTiVo, in many posts, criticized me for allegedly exaggerating the impact of CCI protection on TiVo users, with lrhorer actually estimating a number in this post as follows:
> 
> ...


Yes it can be, when their objective is to try to defend what they like, instead of actually traffic in balance and fairness.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

bicker said:


> BS. They music industry was effectively decimated by the ability to make your own pure copies.
> 
> You, a consumer, doesn't like DRM. Big surprise -- not.


Well I'll up the second BS with a third BS.

bicker, you can defend DRM on principle all you want but in the music industry the only thing it has accomplished is costing them money. And who is making pure copies of music? No one using MP3s. Whats going on now is no different than it was 30+ years ago when one person purchased a record and all their friends copied it onto cassettes, heck lots of people I new back then tapped right off the radio. The bottom line is the music industry made a bet that they would make more money by fighting digital music and alienating their customers than by embracing it and giving their customers what they wanted. They were wrong and it cost them big time.

If DRM in the video industry ends up increasing or decreasing profits is yet to be seen.

The one thing that is certain is that no amount of DRM is going to stop professional pirates in the music or video industry.

DRM is only effective at preventing paying costumers from using the product they way they want to. Even what I'll call "casual pirates" (people pirating video for personal use vs those who intend to sell it) can get around it if so inclined. So the real question for the video industry is; at what level of DRM will they maximize their profits. My personal fact-less guess is that the cost of DRM will never be recouped from increased sales.

Thanks,


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

bicker said:


> The profitability of the recording industry was effectively decimated by the ability to make your own pure copies. It is ridiculous to assert that music is actually worth $5M less today than ten years ago. That loss is directly attributable to the industry's inability to assert adequate protection over its property.


No... that loss was due to the curtain coming down on the recording industry's decades old distribution monopoly, and the fear that technology would soon render their longstanding empire of greed and exploitation obsolete.

Well it has happened. But they could have avoided it by simply embracing the technology and innovating new distribution models (oh god, but that would mean they'd have to share). Instead they decided to fight tooth and nail to preserve the crumbling architecture of the status quo.

Big mistake... but clearly not unprecedented considering Jack Valenti's historic rants of the VCR putting the movie industry out of business.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

solutionsetc said:


> Big mistake... but clearly not unprecedented considering Jack Valenti's historic rants of the VCR putting the movie industry out of business.


How about root kits, price fixing, and going back further payola. The music industry is rife with illegal practices that have turned people against them. IN the past few years large music retailers have closed shop as well. No longer can you go to a store and find a rare CD since all you have are big box retailers offering a small yet popular subset of music.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

You people are out of control. 
Step away from the computer for a couple of hours...


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

dlfl said:


> I'm seeing some irony (or something) here!
> 
> Earlier in this thread both lrhorer and ZeoTiVo, in many posts, criticized me for allegedly exaggerating the impact of CCI protection on TiVo users, with lrhorer actually estimating a number in this post as follows:
> 
> ...


I agree with Bicker that the specific hurt for TiVo in the DRM overuse is but a speck. TiVo lost sales but not hundreds of thousands of sales.
The impact I was pointing to is more general in that innovation is stifled by *any* company that sees how cable locks itself down and is not going to let a 3rd party in easily. It is still mainly an FCC fail more than any one elses as the FCC is the one with the mandate to foster more companies in the space.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> BS. They music industry was effectively decimated by the ability to make your own pure copies.


that statement does not help you make a valid argument as it is so laughable as to just make the whole post seem silly. BTW Last I looked the music industry was still in business and the Movie industry has survived all the dire predictions of peril over the VCR and now bit-torrent.

I did indeed give a lot less money to the music industry and then Rhapsody came along and changed that into my sending in a monthly amount of money whether I listened to anything or not. The right business model gets customers.
Oh and Rhapsody does DRM and I am fine with that because it merely ensures I keep paying each month and that I do not just casually hand out songs to all my buddies. However within my family Rhapsody can play on all kinds of devices from DVRs to iPod Touch to PC to MP3 players. A good marriage of DRM and Functional use by me. 
the TWC overuse of DRM on the other hand limits even basic functional use of their content and for no real business concern I have seen yet other than people might steal their service. The DRM is well after the service enters my house.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> bicker, you can defend DRM on principle all you want but in the music industry the only thing it has accomplished is costing them money.


A common consumerist claim. The industry disagrees, and so again we're at a stalemate.

For those who prefer to believe the consumer-biased perspective -- not a big surprise: Most consumers do. 



atmuscarella said:


> If DRM in the video industry ends up increasing or decreasing profits is yet to be seen.


Asset protection will practically always be to the owners' benefit. It is only when transgressive natures and technology applied together trump the law's ability to protect ownership rights that profits are adversely affected.



atmuscarella said:


> The one thing that is certain is that no amount of DRM is going to stop professional pirates in the music or video industry.


Again, the purpose of DRM is to discourage the casual pirate. If DRM had no effect on the casual pirate, then those blinded by consumerism wouldn't be whining about DRM. Many of those folks likely do get around DRM but they're only the most technically inclined. Very likely their trying, by their complaining, to rationalize their behavior -- if more people were violating then their violation wouldn't be socially significant.



atmuscarella said:


> DRM is only effective at preventing paying costumers from using the product they way they want to.


BS. DRM is effective at preventing many potential casual pirates from engaging in transgressive behavior.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

solutionsetc said:


> No... that loss was due to the curtain coming down on the recording industry's decades old distribution monopoly, and the fear that technology would soon render their longstanding empire of greed and exploitation obsolete.


A common consumerist claim. The industry disagrees, and so again we're at a stalemate.

For those who prefer to believe the consumer-biased perspective -- not a big surprise: Most consumers do. 

See above for the rest of the reply.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> that statement does not help you make a valid argument as it is so laughable as to just make the whole post seem silly.


Wow what an incredibly convenient bit of rhetoric. You don't like what I wrote, and so you declare it null by fiat. That is laughable.



ZeoTiVo said:


> BTW Last I looked the music industry was still in business and the Movie industry has survived all the dire predictions of peril over the VCR and now bit-torrent.


The impact of casual piracy on the industry is self-evident. You deny the effect. That serves your consumer-biased perspective, but doesn't reflect reality.



ZeoTiVo said:


> I did indeed give a lot less money to the music industry and then Rhapsody came along and changed that into my sending in a monthly amount of money whether I listened to anything or not.


The real numbers are available... the industry is making substantially less money now than ten years ago, paralleling the rise of digital media. Again, folks blinded by the consumer-biased perspective can deny the reality until their blue in the face but that doesn't change the reality.



ZeoTiVo said:


> The right business model gets customers.


Only if you can protect your assets. If anyone can come into the store and take what they want, then there is no such thing as a business model anymore -- such a store is essentially just setting up a donation box at the front door. That's not a business... it's a charity.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> The real numbers are available... the industry is making substantially less money now than ten years ago, paralleling the rise of digital media.


wow, so automakers are also effected by the availability of digital music copies. Wonder who else we can find in this boat. 
seriously, what you are looking at myopically is that one business should be able to hold all profits forever. to foster economic development means to foster diversity for strength. So some of the music profits went to Apple and other business that started up or entered the music distribution business. Looks like someone should have diversified his portfolio and did not so so


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> And who is making pure copies of music? No one using MP3s. Whats going on now is no different than it was 30+ years ago when one person purchased a record and all their friends copied it onto cassettes, heck lots of people I new back then tapped right off the radio.


Anyone who makes a copy of a CD, to a blank CD-R, is making a "pure copy". People who create a MP3 with a high bitrate are making digital "copies" that have the same audio quality as tunes purchased from places like I-Tunes. The're making a copy, that when heard on I-Pod earbuds, sounds as good as the original.

The cassette copies that were made years ago were done in "real time" and the quality of the cassettes wasn't close to the quality of the original record.

Digital copies and rips are made in less then real time and have the same quality, or nearly the same quality, as the original.

It's hard to make money in an industry where it is easy for consumers to steal your product. It's very hard for an industry to compete with "nearly free". US auto makers have lower sales figures because consumers are purchasing foreign cars and keeping their exiting cars longer. That's completely different then the music industry that's losing business to "pirates"


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

Im pretty much done with Tivo at this point. I have a TivoHD but its sitting under my bed not being used. Ive put it on Craigslist trying to sell it but havent gotten any interest.

When I needed a new Tivo, I called customer service and said "Look, I have analog cable but can get all the locals OTA, which is the best Tivo for me?" Of course they directed me to the TivoHD. Well, for those of you that dont know, there is a problem with the TivoHD losing analog channels. For the first week or so my box worked great then it took a software update and I started coming home to grey screens every day. I'd go out, come home to watch something I recorded only to find Tivo lost the analogs and nothing recorded.

I called Tivo. Their response, "Oh yea, we're aware of this and we're working on a fix but we dont know when or if it will get fixed." Funny how they didnt think about that 3 weeks before when they were telling me to buy this box.

I PM'd one of the Tivo guys here on the forum and basically told him what I posted about and asked if he could give me anysight. I got a snotty response from him. At that point, I thought, "First chance I get, Im done with Tivo."

I dont mind Tivo's outdated UI. Ive had 5 Tivos before buying the TivoHD and Ive been happy with them for the most part. They work well and theyre solid. However, the TivoHD for me is a train wreck and Tivo's attitude about it pretty much ran me off. I bought what they recommended.. I was very clear about how I intended to use it and they still steered me towards the TivoHD when they should have known it wasnt going to work with the analog bug.

So... as soon as Moxi dropped their prices, I bought one. No monthly fee, works great and Im digging having Hulu at my disposal. I thought I wouldnt use Hulu much but every time there is lean times for recordings, I can always find something on Hulu to watch.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

KungFuCow said:


> For the first week or so my box worked great then it took a software update and I started coming home to grey screens every day. I'd go out, come home to watch something I recorded only to find Tivo lost the analogs and nothing recorded.
> 
> I called Tivo. Their response, "Oh yea, we're aware of this and we're working on a fix but we dont know when or if it will get fixed." Funny how they didnt think about that 3 weeks before when they were telling me to buy this box.


Tivo has a 30 day return policy. Unfortuanely issues don't seem to be getting fixed very fast. It probably makes sense to return tivo if it doesn't work.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

lew said:


> Anyone who makes a copy of a CD, to a blank CD-R, is making a "pure copy". People who create a MP3 with a high bitrate are making digital "copies" that have the same audio quality as tunes purchased from places like I-Tunes. The're making a copy, that when heard on I-Pod earbuds, sounds as good as the original.
> 
> The cassette copies that were made years ago were done in "real time" and the quality of the cassettes wasn't close to the quality of the original record.
> 
> ...


Anyone who owns a CD is allowed to duplicate the CD for their own personal use. Media fails due to damage or defect and the customer is entitled to protect their investment.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

shwru980r said:


> Anyone who owns a CD is allowed to duplicate the CD for their own personal use. Media fails due to damage or defect and the customer is entitled to protect their investment.


While the music industry hasn't conceded that ability to us, a recent court decision indicates that moving content around in your own home is a fair use. I believe it was in regard to the lindor case.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

KungFuCow said:


> ........So... as soon as Moxi dropped their prices, I bought one. No monthly fee, works great......


Are you using a Tuning Adapter with your Moxi? On a TWC system? If so how is that working out? (My worst TiVo problems are all TA related, and I strongly suspect would be there also for a Moxi.)

TiVo does get OTA via antenna, which Moxi doesn't.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

bicker said:


> The real numbers are available... the industry is making substantially less money now than ten years ago, paralleling the rise of digital media. Again, folks blinded by the consumer-biased perspective can deny the reality until their blue in the face but that doesn't change the reality.


Up until the year 2000 the music industry was price fixing the cost of CDs so I would expect them to be making more money 10 years ago as compared to today. Also people had to buy entire albums as supposed to being able to buy individual tracks like today.

Also note that music sales have gone *up* after iTunes and Amazon started selling DRM free music. People want to be able to play their music on whatever device they buy. The Music industry has the right to restrict playback, but doing so was obviously alienating customers which isn't the best way to make a profit.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> wow, so automakers are also effected by the availability of digital music copies.


So now you're just being obstinate. You debase the discussion by refusing to acknowledge that music industry sales figures is most salient to the music industry. Get a grip.



ZeoTiVo said:


> seriously, what you are looking at myopically is that one business should be able to hold all profits forever.


No. What I'm saying is that property rights should be protected and if they're not then property owners unfairly suffer. What you are looking at myopically is that people who like music want to get music cheaper.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

shwru980r said:


> Anyone who owns a CD is allowed to duplicate the CD for their own personal use.


No they're not. You are wrong about that. The laws are very explicit. The right to make a single back-up copy for personal use is limited to computer software. This is in a section of the law that has other explicit provisions that pertain to audio recordings and to video recordings, and the provision for making personal back-up copies absolutely makes no reference to audio recordings and to video recordings.



shwru980r said:


> Media fails due to damage or defect and the customer is entitled to protect their investment.


No they are not. You are simply wrong about that.


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

dlfl said:


> Are you using a Tuning Adapter with your Moxi? On a TWC system? If so how is that working out? (My worst TiVo problems are all TA related, and I strongly suspect would be there also for a Moxi.)
> 
> TiVo does get OTA via antenna, which Moxi doesn't.


I had some TA problems after their last TA firmware update but other than that, its been great. That went on for about a week or so and its been solid since. I did discover that if the power glitched at all it would cause the Moxi to "lose" the TA so I put the whole thing on a cheap UPS just to keep it going in the case of a short power outage.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

morac said:


> Up until the year 2000 the music industry was price fixing the cost of CDs so I would expect them to be making more money 10 years ago as compared to today.


Look at the numbers. The amount they've lost exceeds the amount that they were determined to have been overcharging.



morac said:


> Also note that music sales have gone *up*


Number of units sold have gone up, but the money has gone down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://76.74.24.142/81128FFD-028F-282E-1CE5-FDBF16A46388.pdf

12% *increase* in units sold; 12% *decrease* in revenue -- effectively a loss of almost 1/4 of what they would have earned. Even taking into consideration the price-fixing you alluded to, the castration of their property rights by casual and professional pirates has severely damaged them.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> The profitability of the recording industry was effectively decimated by the ability to make your own pure copies. It is ridiculous to assert that music is actually worth $5M less today than ten years ago. That loss is directly attributable to the industry's inability to assert adequate protection over its property.


This is purely music industry propaganda. There is no proof that a copy equals a lost sale. Diminishing returns for the recoding industry is solely due to their inability to get on the digital train soon enough. Instead of moving into the 21st century they've spent 10's of millions of dollars fighting a losing battle.

They've also made some serious blunders in the process that discredit them. Price fixing and root kits are just recent items that have discouraged people from buying disks.

The music industries woes are self created.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> No they are not. You are simply wrong about that.


No. You are wrong. The Home Audio Recording Act provides for the private copying of audio content in a digital form.



> No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium,* or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.*


Emphasis my own.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> This is purely music industry propaganda.


Objections to it is purely consumerist propaganda.

Stalemate again.



Stormspace said:


> There is no proof that a copy equals a lost sale.


There is proof that as digital music became more commonplace, revenues per unit plummeted, and overall revenues declined sharply. Those two facts are indisputable. And your refusal to acknowledge the correlation is again, purely consumerist propaganda.



Stormspace said:


> Diminishing returns for the recoding industry is solely due to their inability to get on the digital train soon enough.


Again, purely consumerist propaganda.



Stormspace said:


> The music industries woes are self created.


The music industry's woes are externally-driven, to a great extent by selfish consumers deliberately ignoring property rights, and working to castrate property rights at a legal level.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Stormspace said:


> The Home Audio Recording Act provides for the private copying of audio content in a digital form.


Only if compliant copy protection was supported on the recording device, and only if the recording device was purpose-made for recording audio. The violations take place on non-compliant devices.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> Only if compliant copy protection was supported on the recording device, and only if the recording device was purpose-made for recording audio. The violations take place on non-compliant devices.


Wrong again, as proven in the RIAA vs. Diamond media decision.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

I'm correct about what the law says.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

bicker said:


> I'm correct about what the law says.


The 9th Circuit disagrees


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

shwru980r said:


> Anyone who owns a CD is allowed to duplicate the CD for their own personal use. Media fails due to damage or defect and the customer is entitled to protect their investment.


Irrelevant, PP are talking about people making copies of CDs for their friends. That's not permitted.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

KungFuCow said:


> I had some TA problems after their last TA firmware update but other than that, its been great. That went on for about a week or so and its been solid since. I did discover that if the power glitched at all it would cause the Moxi to "lose" the TA so I put the whole thing on a cheap UPS just to keep it going in the case of a short power outage.


It looks like you might be in the same TWC system serving Raleigh, where SCSIRAID is working with TWC engineers to track down pixelation problems that occur on SDV channels. Did you see these problems either before with TiVo or now with Moxi?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

KungFuCow said:


> When I needed a new Tivo, I called customer service and said "Look, I have analog cable but can get all the locals OTA, which is the best Tivo for me?" Of course they directed me to the TivoHD. Well, for those of you that dont know, there is a problem with the TivoHD losing analog channels. For the first week or so my box worked great then it took a software update and I started coming home to grey screens every day. I'd go out, come home to watch something I recorded only to find Tivo lost the analogs and nothing recorded.


I have 2 TiVo HD DVRs recording analog and one doing OTA. Both work fine. For your box you could set a daily manual recording of 10 minutes in length on a digital OTA channel and that work around has been effective in stopping the analog tuners from loosing the channel signals.

Did you ask TiVo specifically to RMA your box for a different one? Some people have the gray screen issue and some do not.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> Objections to it is purely consumerist propaganda.
> 
> Stalemate again.
> 
> ...


so people had a choice of buying a 17$ CD for the song they really liked or else buying the 99cent single digitally and with that choice revenue dropped. And until the music industry wised up and realized people wnated to buy individual songs digitally they lost all those 99 cent sales.

The majority of people will not pirate stuff if a legit value is offered and the music industry just has to get over the fact that the days of the cash cow CD for 17$ is gone and the days of iTunes and Rhapsody with a better value proposition for the consumer are here.

Cable companies should look at this and the new faces at the FCC and get on board with the fact that the days of closed off broadcast systems are nearing their end as well.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

KungFuCow said:


> When I needed a new Tivo, I called customer service and said "Look, I have analog cable but can get all the locals OTA, which is the best Tivo for me?" Of course they directed me to the TivoHD. Well, for those of you that dont know, there is a problem with the TivoHD losing analog channels. For the first week or so my box worked great then it took a software update and I started coming home to grey screens every day. I'd go out, come home to watch something I recorded only to find Tivo lost the analogs and nothing recorded.





KungFuCow said:


> I had some TA problems after their last TA firmware update but other than that, its been great. That went on for about a week or so and its been solid since. I did discover that if the power glitched at all it would cause the Moxi to "lose" the TA so I put the whole thing on a cheap UPS just to keep it going in the case of a short power outage.


so are you using a cable card in the Moxi? Because a cable card in the TiVo HD would also remove the analog bug.
Without a cable card is the Moxi just limited to one analog recording at a time via the analog tuner hooked up via USB?


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## tivohaydon (Mar 24, 2001)

I think it's time to rename this thread the 'bicker' thread.


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

dlfl said:


> It looks like you might be in the same TWC system serving Raleigh, where SCSIRAID is working with TWC engineers to track down pixelation problems that occur on SDV channels. Did you see these problems either before with TiVo or now with Moxi?


I had the problem moreso with Tivo but there have been at least one firmware updates to the TA so I cant say for sure Moxi is better than Tivo.


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> so are you using a cable card in the Moxi? Because a cable card in the TiVo HD would also remove the analog bug.
> Without a cable card is the Moxi just limited to one analog recording at a time via the analog tuner hooked up via USB?


I broke down and got a cable card. I know doing so with the Tivo would have solved all my problems however it was a matter of principle.. Every person I have talked to that works for Tivo has had 0 customer service. They didnt care I was having a problem and yes, I did ask for my unit to be RMA'd and they refused and told me to "call back in a month or so if the problem persists and we'll see what we can do."

I was a ReplayTV guy way before I was a Tivo guy and Replay had way better customer service than Tivo. Tivo just doesnt give a crap about their customers. Moxi blows them all away. Live chat to someone who knows the units and isnt reading off cards, email followups for outstanding issues and even callbacks. Tivo could learn something.

I probably would have stuck with Tivo even through all the problems had it not been for my PM exchange with one of Tivo's official people on this forum. If Im going to be talked to like a moron, its not going to be by someone I'm a customer of. I got plenty of other people that can take care of that for me that Im not paying.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Even though *bad* outweighs *good* on an internet forum, because of the horror stories I'm glad I've never had to use Tivo support.

I think Tivo should *at least* offer e-mail support in this day and age.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

tivohaydon said:


> I think it's time to rename this thread the 'bicker' thread.


Because gosh I'm just posting messages without anyone else posting messages in reply.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

steve614 said:


> I think Tivo should *at least* offer e-mail support in this day and age.


It is specifically *this* "day and age" that precludes offering email support. In "days of old" providing email support was a more worthwhile effort. The vast majority of the interactions were (1) significantly more often with technically-inclined customers, and (2) significantly more often directed at the pursuit of knowledge transfer regarding something that the product or service actually does. It is now far more likely for an email inquiry to come from someone who needs far more hand-holding that email can effectively supply, and more importantly, email support is increasingly being polluted by inquiries beyond the practical scope of email support, such as ranting, raving and berating the supplier regarding things that the product or service actually doesn't do, or things that the product or service does do but for which support is not provided. In addition, the transgressive nature of some folks who are unable to control their impulses raises the specter of email support being made the target of frequent DoS attacks. Besides being substantially easier in the email realm, doing something like that in the telephone realm is a federal offense; email is not afforded the same protection or priority in the minds of authorities.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

KungFuCow said:


> I was a ReplayTV guy way before I was a Tivo guy and Replay had way better customer service than Tivo. Tivo just doesnt give a crap about their customers. Moxi blows them all away. Live chat to someone who knows the units and isnt reading off cards, email followups for outstanding issues and even callbacks. Tivo could learn something.


that was the TiVo of old as well and then TiVo sold more boxes than some small integrated CSR group could handle and to control costs TiVo outsourced the CSR role. That does not excuse TiVo for how you individually were treated but it is a reality that whomever owns Moxi also hope one day to face, that of selling more boxes than can be supported by a small knowledgeable staff.

on email support - TiVo folks posting on this board had indeed said their email support was mostly ending in you need to call us to resolve this so they ended it.


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> that was the TiVo of old as well and then TiVo sold more boxes than some small integrated CSR group could handle and to control costs TiVo outsourced the CSR role. That does not excuse TiVo for how you individually were treated but it is a reality that whomever owns Moxi also hope one day to face, that of selling more boxes than can be supported by a small knowledgeable staff.


Well, the straw that broke the camels back for me was the PM exchange I had with a Tivo employee on this forum and Im pretty sure he isnt outsourced.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

KungFuCow said:


> I had the problem moreso with Tivo .........


 I asked about pixelation problems on SDV channels. Reviewing your posts in this thread it appears you never could have received SDV channels (or used a TA) on your TiVo HD, since you didn't have a cable card. (??).

Confirm, however, you do see some pixelation on SDV channels using the Moxi (?).


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

KungFuCow said:


> Well, the straw that broke the camels back for me was the PM exchange I had with a Tivo employee on this forum and Im pretty sure he isnt outsourced.


Like I said "That does not excuse TiVo for how you individually were treated"

just posting the reality that a hungry startup will do more and is still small enough to do it internally


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

bicker said:


> The music industry's woes are externally-driven, to a great extent by selfish consumers deliberately ignoring property rights, and working to castrate property rights at a legal level.


Au contraire. The industry's "woes" were mostly self inflicted, as has been explained to you numerous times. Hmmm, $17 for an album vs $0.99 x 2 for two good songs from it. "Do the math!" Also you conveniently, and repeatedly, ignore the "property rights" that the public at large lost when the industry paid off Congress to extend copyright forever.

It's hard to feel sorry for those lowlifes. They have been "figuratively" screwing the artists for decades. In Tommy Mottola's case they were "literally" screwing the artists. So now they have a little less money to spend on 'hos and blow. Karma's a *****.


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

Not to mention that the $17 CD price came from the RIAA's claims that mastering and duplicating was far more expensive than mastering and stamping vinyl (back then list on records was 6.98 to 8.98). 

But as CDs became mainstream and their production costs came WAY down, did we see the retail prices change? Nope.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> It's hard to feel sorry for those lowlifes. They have been "figuratively" screwing the artists for decades. In Tommy Mottola's case they were "literally" screwing the artists. So now they have a little less money to spend on 'hos and blow. Karma's a *****.


That's the great thing about digital downloads. Now we can pay $.99 for the two good songs on a CD and screw the artist directly. We've cut out the middle man.

The artists are getting shaft even more so than ever. Welcome to the era of the middle class rock star.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

nrc said:


> That's the great thing about digital downloads. Now we can pay $.99 for the two good songs on a CD and screw the artist directly. We've cut out the middle man.
> 
> The artists are getting shaft even more so than ever. Welcome to the era of the middle class rock star.


So you are saying we should pay 17$ for a CD directly to the artist to make sure they can become millionaires and live the high life


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

solutionsetc said:


> Not to mention that the $17 CD price came from the RIAA's claims that mastering and duplicating was far more expensive than mastering and stamping vinyl (back then list on records was 6.98 to 8.98).
> 
> But as CDs became mainstream and their production costs came WAY down, did we see the retail prices change? Nope.


They were lying, plain and simple when they said that. So then they try to pay off retailers by inflating prices and making certain everyone keeps them at that high level so people don't discover their price fixing scam. Oh wait, we did find out.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

nrc said:


> That's the great thing about digital downloads. Now we can pay $.99 for the two good songs on a CD and screw the artist directly. We've cut out the middle man.
> 
> The artists are getting shaft even more so than ever. Welcome to the era of the middle class rock star.


Actually the digital download model works well for artists to sell their music directly to the public without a publisher. This allows the artist to maintain whole ownership over the songs.


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## solutionsetc (Apr 2, 2009)

nrc said:


> The artists are getting shaft even more so than ever. Welcome to the era of the middle class rock star.


Not sure how you are arriving at this conclusion. In the old days, unless you were a mainstream act that could negotiate your own deal, the record companies would sign you to a deal that would give you some cash up front and per sale royalties amounting to only pennies per copy sold; and usually after they subtracted production and marketing costs using inflated accounting practices. And that first contract usually required (at their sole option - i.e. if the first work sold well) the artist to deliver additional volumes of work for only modest additional monies.

Today artists can self record and self publish and keep the lion share of revenues for their work, if they are so inclined. It is a much better time for new talent than the old days where the record companies had them behind the 8-ball from day one.

Sure the over hyped, over marketed, shoved down our throat, pop stars of the Britney Spears mold aren't making all that money anymore, but I don't really see that as a bad thing.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Au contraire. The industry's "woes" were mostly self inflicted, as has been explained to you numerous times.


You're confusing "explain" with "claim". No one has "explained" anything of the sort... all they've done is claim. There is reasonable disagreement with no way for the "explainers" to prove their envious industry-bashing.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> You're confusing "explain" with "claim". No one has "explained" anything of the sort... all they've done is claim. There is reasonable disagreement with no way for the "explainers" to prove their envious industry-bashing.


you seem to have no comment on the 17$ CD and how the industry was caught in price fixing and lies over it.


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## tattoohead (Nov 15, 2009)

With the current CableCard issue


> hxxp://hd.engadget.com/2009/09/30/only-443-000-cablecards-depoyed-into-consumers-equipment/


 Tivo's probably going to be looking at some new technology in a few years.

Also, if everything worked on the Tivo like advertised (i.e. NetFlix) consumers would be more pleased. I ended up getting a Roku HD box and love it. It never fails and with the new channels out this last week makes it even more useful.

TWC here in WI doesn't really play well with Tivo. A lot of HD channels come in only half the time and the other half you're pushing the 'select' button a dozen times only to have the program shut off anyway.

I can't use ANY 'On-Demand' channels, even with a tuner. That kinda sux for when / if you miss an episode of a series that's on a premium channel.

Also, for me - trying to figure out conflicts is a hassle. My cable's DVR used to have a pop-up with selections to make, the Tivo just says something on the order of " go back through season passes and check other showtimes"..


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> you seem to have no comment on the 17$ CD and how the industry was caught in price fixing and lies over it.


Sure I did... you're clearly not reading the messages very carefully.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> Sure I did... you're clearly not reading the messages very carefully.


you can say people just claimed, but I was very aware of CD pricing and how it was artifically inflated.
you can claim it was only pirating that caused the revenue backlash
You can claim that none of this has been explained in a factual way

but he reader can see how this all shakes out since the reader is laos likely very happily buying just the music they want now versus some over priced 17$ CD.

The over 20$ DVD is going the same way, make sure you diversify that portfolio as well


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> you can say people just claimed, but I was very aware of CD pricing and how it was artifically inflated.
> you can claim it was only pirating that caused the revenue backlash
> You can claim that none of this has been explained in a factual way
> 
> ...


I guess he hasn't been following the news where the RIAA got it's hand slapped for price fixing. Or how about the issues with root kits, wasn't that a roaring incentive to buy CD's! They also sought to sue their own customers, dead people, and children.

Regardless we don't *know* what would have prevented the dismal sales figures regardless of who makes which claims. But we do know that the industry hasn't been making any friends of their own customers, they've over charged them, and colluded to maintain these high prices.

Bicker, How would you react if some one was over charging you for product and you found out about it. I'd bet you'd stop spending money on it. Afterall how many times have you told us if we don't like something don't support it. Well Bick, the public has spoken and it's not in the record industries favor.


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## mangocat1 (Mar 1, 2009)

I'm a TiVo convert for life. Picked up a second TiVo HD from Best Buy on black friday...


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

solutionsetc said:


> Not sure how you are arriving at this conclusion.


I've known and worked with a number of artists over the years. That includes independents and grammy winners in the current system and platinum record recording artists from the old system. I'm not currently involved but I keep up on things.



> In the old days, unless you were a mainstream act that could negotiate your own deal, the record companies would sign you to a deal that would give you some cash up front and per sale royalties amounting to only pennies per copy sold; and usually after they subtracted production and marketing costs using inflated accounting practices. And that first contract usually required (at their sole option - i.e. if the first work sold well) the artist to deliver additional volumes of work for only modest additional monies.


I'm aware of all of that. I never said that the old system was fair. The benefit of it was that it covered the considerable up front costs of a recording with high production values and then promoting it nationwide. It was in a sense a form of patronage for those fortunate enough to get a deal.

The good thing was that there was enough money in album/CD sales that a lot of good bands eventually got some kind of deal. The bad news was that those deals only paid off for the artist if they could sustain their value to the record company for long enough to get through the first deal and negotiate a second.



> Today artists can self record and self publish and keep the lion share of revenues for their work, if they are so inclined. It is a much better time for new talent than the old days where the record companies had them behind the 8-ball from day one.


It's a much better time for artists who are content getting by. The chances of real success are smaller than ever these days. Most of the artists doing well in the new system are artists who have had the benefit of building a following under the old system. The others are mostly just running on a treadmill that they'll eventually give up on. There are a lot of easier ways to make that kind of living.



> Sure the over hyped, over marketed, shoved down our throat, pop stars of the Britney Spears mold aren't making all that money anymore, but I don't really see that as a bad thing.


The over hyped, over marketed pop stars are still doing fine. It's everyone else splitting less money that's the problem for artists today.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

ZeoTiVo said:


> So you are saying we should pay 17$ for a CD directly to the artist to make sure they can become millionaires and live the high life


No, you should pay whatever the price is set at, if you feel that it's worth it. That doesn't make it a good deal for the artist.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

bicker said:


> I'm correct about what the law says.


What should someone do who has made copies of CDs that they own for their own personal use? I would like to turn myself in and pay the price for any crime I have committed.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

shwru980r said:


> What should someone do who has made copies of CDs that they own for their own personal use? I would like to turn myself in and pay the price for any crime I have committed.


LOL! You haven't committed a crime. The AHRA specifically excludes copies made with a computer, from computer files. Any CD copy you made would have copied the audio files to the computer before putting them on the blank.


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

dlfl said:


> I asked about pixelation problems on SDV channels. Reviewing your posts in this thread it appears you never could have received SDV channels (or used a TA) on your TiVo HD, since you didn't have a cable card. (??).
> 
> Confirm, however, you do see some pixelation on SDV channels using the Moxi (?).


When I decided to order the Moxi, I went ahead and got a cable card and TA. I used it with the Tivo for a couple of weeks until I ordered the Moxi, got it and had time to switch everything over.

So to answer your question, I saw more pixelation with the Tivo and SDV than I do with the Moxi.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

KungFuCow said:


> When I decided to order the Moxi, I went ahead and got a cable card and TA. I used it with the Tivo for a couple of weeks until I ordered the Moxi, got it and had time to switch everything over.
> 
> So to answer your question, I saw more pixelation with the Tivo and SDV than I do with the Moxi.


If you don't mind, can you describe how bad the pixelation is with the Moxi? I assume it occurs sporadically, i.e., not all the time. Does it occur in bursts? Lasting how long? How much of the picture does it affect? Overall, how badly does it affect the viewability?

Finally, by what overall factor was it worse with the TiVo? TIA


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

shwru980r said:


> What should someone do who has made copies of CDs that they own for their own personal use? I would like to turn myself in and pay the price for any crime I have committed.


I think a full page confession in the NY Times should suffice. 

(Prepare to be committed for insanity shortly thereafter.)


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

nrc said:


> The good thing was that there was enough money in album/CD sales that a lot of good bands eventually got some kind of deal. The bad news was that those deals only paid off for the artist if they could sustain their value to the record company for long enough to get through the first deal and negotiate a second.


Ok, off the top of my head so biased toward the genres I listen to.
Doors, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, Greatful Dead, Janis Joplin, Stevie Wonder, Limp Biskit, Stained, Van Morrison, Santanna, Matchbox 20 etc...

They made their mark via live performance and touring. Becoming a Music Star is hard - hell Frank Sinatra did his boatload of radio shows and concert halls as well before he got to a point he could spell out the contract.

Your remarks in this limited context appear as if the artist needs that big recording deal first versus putting in the hard work it truly takes.

Regardless, the only thing that has really changed is that their is a boatload more music out there today than ever before. I went to warped tour this year and had heard of perhaps 2 of the bands beforehand. Found all the good ones on Rhapsody however and could download them. That means they got some royalties already from me even though I would have maybe, maybe bought 1 or 2 CDs in a store if that was my only choice instead.

PS - for my Daughter who went along I did buy like 4 CDs direct from the hard working band members hawking it at the concert site. They charged like 5 or 10$ depending on the band. Many used video iPods to show off their music. The up and coming musicians seemed to have adapted just fine


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> The over 20$ DVD is going the same way, make sure you diversify that portfolio as well


Those darn pirates at Best Buy. They sold me The Dark Knight for $4 on Black Friday. I think bicker should blame them for the demise of DVD revenue.

But wait, I just read that 2009 will be the US film industry's best year ever. Now I'm so confused. Are they making money or not?


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Those darn pirates at Best Buy. They sold me The Dark Knight for $4 on Black Friday. I think bicker should blame them for the demise of DVD revenue.
> 
> But wait, I just read that 2009 will be the US film industry's best year ever. Now I'm so confused. Are they making money or not?


To be fair, Best Buy probably bought those DVDs for more and is selling them at a loss just to get people in the store. Probably so they can convince them that they should buy $100 cables in order to get the best quality out of those DVDs. 

As for the the film industry, it normally does fairly well. Summer blockbusters make a lot of money and DVDs, which cost studios pennies to press, are nearly pure profit.


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

dlfl said:


> If you don't mind, can you describe how bad the pixelation is with the Moxi? I assume it occurs sporadically, i.e., not all the time. Does it occur in bursts? Lasting how long? How much of the picture does it affect? Overall, how badly does it affect the viewability?
> 
> Finally, by what overall factor was it worse with the TiVo? TIA


The problems I had with the Tivo were in bursts. A few seconds of garbled video and the picture would resume. Ive had none of this with the Moxi. Ive had some very slight pixelation with the picture but nothing to the point that half the screen got garbled on me.

Overall Id say that the Moxi handles the TA better than the Tivo by a considerable margin. Id imagine Moxi will be pushing the fall update sometime in the next few weeks and it may get even better.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

KungFuCow said:


> The problems I had with the Tivo were in bursts. A few seconds of garbled video and the picture would resume. Ive had none of this with the Moxi. Ive had some very slight pixelation with the picture but nothing to the point that half the screen got garbled on me.
> 
> Overall Id say that the Moxi handles the TA better than the Tivo by a considerable margin. Id imagine Moxi will be pushing the fall update sometime in the next few weeks and it may get even better.


Thanks much!

I also should have asked about tuning failures with the Moxi. How often (if ever) does it fail to tune an SDV channel, a well known problem with TiVo/TA systems (at least on TWC systems)?


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

dlfl said:


> Thanks much!
> 
> I also should have asked about tuning failures with the Moxi. How often (if ever) does it fail to tune an SDV channel, a well known problem with TiVo/TA systems (at least on TWC systems)?


It depends. The problem with the Moxi where the TA is concerned is that the Moxi seems to "lose" the TA occasionally. When that happens, all the SDV channels vanish out of the guide. When THAT happens, all the shows you have scheduled on SDV channels just dont record or even try to record.

It SEEMS that the TA problems Ive encountered were caused by power glitches that caused the TA to lose power for a second and when it rebooted, it didnt re-link with the Moxi. I put my Moxi and my TA on a cheap UPS to help with this.

If the TA is linked and working, Ive never had the Moxi not be able to tune to a SDV channel.


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