# Where is TiVo going?



## kbaybob

It has been apparent for some time that TiVo is having problems in general. The mere fact that they are discounting Edges so heavily leads me to believe that they are trying to get rid of stock on hand before completely shutting down their operation. Here are other reasons I think that is going to happen.
1. The guide has definitely become less accurate. New vendor, I hear.
2. The TiVo Edge only comes with the new TiVo Experience user interface, which is terrible compared to the previous one.
A. Guide is nearly unreadable in comparison.
B. Floating ad for one or another random program is always in the way.
C. Impossible when at top of page to go up one channel to adjust what span of channels is displayed. It simply pages up. On the previous UI, one could page up and down OR go up and down one line at a time over many pages.
D. Buttons were gratuitously assigned different functions for no apparent reason, complicating navigation, especially when using different TiVos with old UI and trying to remember which is which.
3. Tech support is essentially dead. No real support is provided.
4. RF remotes from previous TiVos will NOT work with the Edge, even though TiVo insists they will.
5. The discounting of lifetime subscription with the Edge indicates to me that they don't plan on having to support the guide and system much longer.

Those are just some of the reasons that I think TiVo is having financial issues and is cutting costs by changing vendors and cutting support staff. When that happens it usually indicates that the company is about to go under. That happened with the Replay DVRs. Remember them? Soon we will be saying the same about TiVo, I fear.
Please reassure me.


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## slowbiscuit

Folks have been predicting the imminent demise of Tivo for years, you're just the latest prophet.


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## thewebgal

So - probably not the time to buy a couple of new TIVOs with lifetime subscriptions then? 




kbaybob said:


> It has been apparent for some time that TiVo is having problems in general. The mere fact that they are discounting Edges so heavily leads me to believe that they are trying to get rid of stock on hand before completely shutting down their operation. Here are other reasons I think that is going to happen.
> 1. The guide has definitely become less accurate. New vendor, I hear.
> 2. The TiVo Edge only comes with the new TiVo Experience user interface, which is terrible compared to the previous one.
> A. Guide is nearly unreadable in comparison.
> B. Floating ad for one or another random program is always in the way.
> C. Impossible when at top of page to go up one channel to adjust what span of channels is displayed. It simply pages up. On the previous UI, one could page up and down OR go up and down one line at a time over many pages.
> D. Buttons were gratuitously assigned different functions for no apparent reason, complicating navigation, especially when using different TiVos with old UI and trying to remember which is which.
> 3. Tech support is essentially dead. No real support is provided.
> 4. RF remotes from previous TiVos will NOT work with the Edge, even though TiVo insists they will.
> 5. The discounting of lifetime subscription with the Edge indicates to me that they don't plan on having to support the guide and system much longer.
> 
> Those are just some of the reasons that I think TiVo is having financial issues and is cutting costs by changing vendors and cutting support staff. When that happens it usually indicates that the company is about to go under. That happened with the Replay DVRs. Remember them? Soon we will be saying the same about TiVo, I fear.
> Please reassure me.


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## Wil

slowbiscuit said:


> Folks have been predicting the imminent demise of Tivo for years


... and they were all correct. It was clear after the first few years that Tivo was NOT going to develop into the potential it promised. I am not one who blames that failure on the intellectual property theft or the incompetence of the second wave (and subsequent waves) of Tivo management: the _original_ principals themselves displayed zero business sense. Tivo was dead by the time DirecTV dropped them. The fact that dead shell continued as viable as it was was due to the inspiration of the original vision and the absolute lack of creativity coming from anywhere else.


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## cwoody222

So you think TiVo is going under because they have occasional sales, have offshore tech support that some people dislike and you personally dislike UX and UI choices in their current software?

Yea no, none of your points amount to much evidence, sorry.


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## cwoody222

Wil said:


> ... and they were all correct. It was clear after the first few years that Tivo was NOT going to develop into the potential it promised. I am not one who blames that failure on the intellectual property theft or the incompetence of the second wave (and subsequent waves) of Tivo management: the _original_ principals themselves displayed zero business sense. Tivo was dead by the time DirecTV dropped them. The fact that dead shell continued as viable as it was was due to the inspiration of the original vision and the absolute lack of creativity coming from anywhere else.


The last DirecTivo came out in 2005 so I guess TiVos just been lumbering along as a dead husk for going on 17 years?


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## ncbill

Replay tried that (shutting down guide service)...they got so many legal threats that guide service continued (and monthly units became lifetime) for at least another 3 years, IIRC, until whomever owned them at that time literally ran out of money & filed for bankruptcy.

By that time, the Replay had opened up its ecosystem enough that users were able to setup a Windows server and buy guide data for it for $25/year from Schedules Direct...so IMHO TIvo could be forced to do the same if they ever do decide to stop providing guide data to their retail boxes...but as with Replay it would probably just be cheaper & easier to continue to provide guide data.


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## Wil

cwoody222 said:


> lumbering along as a dead husk


"lumbering" is charitable way to put it. "Floating downstream" maybe. I don't think they made a dime of profit as a consumer DVR (lawsuits have kept the dead husk afloat somewhat) and any innovation has been gilding the lily at best. Faster processors: that's creative.

Tivos are imbedded in my household and will never leave until pried from dead, cold hands. Family loves the interface, which is still the best after 23 years of other stealing and copying. Though I have tried to wean the family onto other delivery systems it hasn't happened.

The HR10-250 was a nearly perfect DVR for its time and the hacked Tivo HD is still the single most useful cable DVR in existence (as well as perfectly integrating cable and OTA, as did the HR10-250 except for a mediocre tuner). The various Roamios are still good boxes.

But Tivo, as an enterprise aggressively advancing its original brilliant vision, has been dead for nearly two decades.


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## cwoody222

Are you saying all they’ve done since 2005 is faster processors?

Cable Card integration
Up to 6 tuners
Cable & OTA integration
Steaming apps
Series 3 thru the Edge
TiVo mini
Vox control
Skip mode
Quick mode
App control
In and out of home streaming
Modern UI (TE4)

That’s just off the top of my head.

The TiVo in 2005 - when DTV went their own way - was a dual tuner SD model that required an IR blaster to record premium cable channels. I would say we’re well beyond that now.


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## Wil

cwoody222 said:


> Steaming apps


Yeah, they've got those. Piles.
That was the certainly the promise of Tivo: to eventually give us a third rate Roku.


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## mdavej

kbaybob said:


> It has been apparent for some time that TiVo is having problems in general. The mere fact that they are discounting Edges so heavily leads me to believe that they are trying to get rid of stock on hand before completely shutting down their operation. Here are other reasons I think that is going to happen.


... or they're about to release a new model.


> 1. The guide has definitely become less accurate. New vendor, I hear.


Guide vendor changed years ago to the company that bought Tivo. So they purposely chose a terrible guide in order to save money and placate their overlords.


> 2. The TiVo Edge only comes with the new TiVo Experience user interface, which is terrible compared to the previous one.


Matter of opinion


> A. Guide is nearly unreadable in comparison.


It's actually more readable to me.


> B. Floating ad for one or another random program is always in the way.


Ads make money, and you can opt out if you don't like them.


> C. Impossible when at top of page to go up one channel to adjust what span of channels is displayed. It simply pages up. On the previous UI, one could page up and down OR go up and down one line at a time over many pages.


Works the same as before, so I don't know what you're talking about - one line or one page at a time on both the old and new UI.


> D. Buttons were gratuitously assigned different functions for no apparent reason, complicating navigation, especially when using different TiVos with old UI and trying to remember which is which.


Back makes more logical sense than Left in the new UI. It was either repurpose the old buttons or obsolete the old remotes. I'm glad they chose to repurpose.


> 3. Tech support is essentially dead. No real support is provided.


Same story for every company on earth.


> 4. RF remotes from previous TiVos will NOT work with the Edge, even though TiVo insists they will.


Technology changes. Get a new remote.


> 5. The discounting of lifetime subscription with the Edge indicates to me that they don't plan on having to support the guide and system much longer.


I welcome discounts. Lots of very healthy companies offer discounts for various reasons.



> Those are just some of the reasons that I think TiVo is having financial issues and is cutting costs by changing vendors and cutting support staff. When that happens it usually indicates that the company is about to go under. That happened with the Replay DVRs. Remember them? Soon we will be saying the same about TiVo, I fear.
> Please reassure me.


While I don't agree with your reasons, it's clear Tivo is in a dying industry and a very tight spot. I agree they probably won't be around in 5 years. I moved on years ago, I suggest you do the same for the sake of your sanity.


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## kbaybob

mdavej said:


> ... or they're about to release a new model.
> Guide vendor changed years ago to the company that bought Tivo. So they purposely chose a terrible guide in order to save money and placate their overlords.
> Matter of opinion
> It's actually more readable to me.
> Great. You can use the new UI and be happy with it. To my wife and me, the old UI guide is MUCH more readable.
> Ads make money, and you can opt out if you don't like them.
> Good to know! How?
> Works the same as before, so I don't know what you're talking about - one line or one page at a time on both the old and new UI.
> I disagree. You can move up or down one line at a time until you get to the end or beginning of the page. At that point the next move does not go up or down one line; it changes to a new page.
> Back makes more logical sense than Left in the new UI. It was either repurpose the old buttons or obsolete the old remotes. I'm glad they chose to repurpose.
> Again, I disagree. Why would it be necessary to obsolete the old remote?
> Same story for every company on earth.
> Technology changes. Get a new remote.
> Tell me of a remote that will operate RF on both a Roamio and an Edge. TiVo says that will work, but it will not.
> I welcome discounts. Lots of very healthy companies offer discounts for various reasons.
> I agree. Only it makes me worry.
> 
> While I don't agree with your reasons, it's clear Tivo is in a dying industry and a very tight spot. I agree they probably won't be around in 5 years. I moved on years ago, I suggest you do the same for the sake of your sanity.
> That is what worries me; that in a few years we will have to rely ONLY on streaming, with no control of ads, no ability to save programs locally (thus being dependent on suppliers to have old programs available), and individual subscription fees for every channel or network. If you think your cableco bills are high now, wait til that becomes the case. You will be paying much more. I do not want to move onto that situation!


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## mdavej

kbaybob said:


> That is what worries me; that in a few years we will have to rely ONLY on streaming, with no control of ads, no ability to save programs locally (thus being dependent on suppliers to have old programs available), and individual subscription fees for every channel or network. If you think your cableco bills are high now, wait til that becomes the case. You will be paying much more. I do not want to move onto that situation!


I agree. Monopolies lead to high prices and less control. Problem, we're already in that situation thanks to the FCC killing the cable card. That was the only thing that made Tivo an option on cable. Plus with streaming, you might have to subscribe to a dozen services to get the dozen channels you want. That's really horrible for the consumer.

Luckily, OTA still exists, and it's still free (for now). Thankfully there are lots of cheap/free ways to DVR OTA, including using Tivo.

Since I still watch some cable content and don't want to spend a fortune, I've had to resort to streaming. At the moment my streaming bill is less than half what I was paying for cable for the same content. I realize that streaming can and probably will get much more expensive when cable goes away. But I think that's still many years away.


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## kbaybob

I did not know about the FCC killing the cable card. I wish they would also ban SDV tuning adapters! The cablecos should be required to have the bandwidth to put all their signals out on QAM channels and find some other way to limit the premium channels. Fallback, of course, is the cableco's DVR, but for those of us with TiVos, it makes our investments in them worthless.


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## tommage1

Wil said:


> the hacked Tivo HD is still the single most useful cable DVR in existence


How so? I still have a couple lifetime HDs. What can you do to it that makes it "the single most useful cable DVR in existence"?

As for Tivo itself, if they were depending on consumer products they'd probably be gone already. I'd bet money they will never make another consumer DVR. A lot has gone downhill since Rovi and now Xperi, BUT I still love my Tivos (mostly on TE3 since TE3 is the "true" Tivo experience, at least to me, TE4 might as well get a cable DVR). The stream 4K has not worked out as a money maker I think, Best Buy and Walmart dropped them. Just have to hope the industrial part of the business keeps them afloat to support all those lifetime subscription Tivos out there. The Edge is REALLY buggy for me, lots of issues and TE4 only, stick with Roamio for a "main"  Guide on either OS not very good anymore IMO.


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## tommage1

kbaybob said:


> It has been apparent for some time that TiVo is having problems in general. The mere fact that they are discounting Edges so heavily leads me to believe that they are trying to get rid of stock on hand before completely shutting down their operation.


If that is true, ie selling expensive DVRs with lifetime service just to clear out before going out of business, the company big wigs better have a good place to hide  Nothing surprises me anymore though, except when really GOOD things happen


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## hapster85

mdavej said:


> Works the same as before, so I don't know what you're talking about - one line or one page at a time on both the old and new UI.


Yes and no. Channel up/down still works as page mode, but the up/down arrows only work for single lines within the current page. If you are on the top line and press up, you don't go up one line, you go to the bottom of the previous page. Same happens at the bottom; down arrow lands you at the top of the next page.

The floating line ads on guide pages can throw off the operation of both page and line mode up/down functions. Seems to happen most often when the ad is at the bottom of the page and you page down; it jumps much farther than expected, requiring you to backtrack.


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## tommiet

I still get email from Tivo trying to sell me an Edge (all-in) for $550.00. 

Remember when the forum would have a ton of post about Tivo sales? It was a big deal in the past. Those days are done and folks know they are cleaning the basement out to close the consumer business.


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## kdmorse

tommiet said:


> I still get email from Tivo trying to sell me an Edge (all-in) for $550.00.
> 
> Remember when the forum would have a ton of post about Tivo sales? It was a big deal in the past. Those days are done and folks know they are cleaning the basement out to close the consumer business.


And the sales just aren't what they used to be. In the past few years' the sales have been more along the line of "Get our cheapest box all in for $550." (normal price of the cheapest box without a sale is $600). 

* Numbers made up to make a point. No fact checking on the current deal was performed.


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## davecochran19

cwoody222 said:


> So you think TiVo is going under because they have occasional sales, have offshore tech support that some people dislike and you personally dislike UX and UI choices in their current software?
> 
> Yea no, none of your points amount to much evidence, sorry.


Maybe not evidence but all are valid concerns


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## tommiet

Anyone who thinks TiVo is growing consumer DVR business, needs to put the alcohol down.

No new hardware and no weekend support.. Just the kind of company thats looking to expand.....  Enter.


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## dianebrat

> Where is Tivo Going?


Nowhere fast 
Seriously, most of us are amazed they're still here after no longer having gobs of money come in via settlements, current ownership has no interest in retail and it shows.


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## Fofer

Not dead yet.


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## Lurker1




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## tommiet

LOL.. True, not dead YET... But on life support.


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## cwoody222

kdmorse said:


> And the sales just aren't what they used to be. In the past few years' the sales have been more along the line of "Get our cheapest box all in for $550." (normal price of the cheapest box without a sale is $600).
> 
> * Numbers made up to make a point. No fact checking on the current deal was performed.


So… they’re trying to make every last cent possible before closing up shop by blowing out their inventory… But they’re also being stingy with the blowouts?

This makes zero logical sense.

”Did you see the TiVo sales? They must be going out of business!”
”Yea, and the sales aren’t even that good!”


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## cwoody222

tommiet said:


> Anyone who thinks TiVo is growing consumer DVR business, needs to put the alcohol down.
> 
> No new hardware and no weekend support.. Just the kind of company thats looking to expand.....  Enter.


I recently dealt with a fairly young digital company (publicly traded, value in hundreds of millions) who absolutely REFUSED to deal with my support concern via phone even though I was reporting criminal activity with my account and had contacted my state AG’s office. Only chat and email.

Guess they’re about to go under because of their support model.


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## tommiet

cwoody222 said:


> I recently dealt with a fairly young digital company (publicly traded, value in hundreds of millions) who absolutely REFUSED to deal with my support concern via phone even though I was reporting criminal activity with my account and had contacted my state AG’s office. Only chat and email.
> 
> Guess they’re about to go under because of their support model.


Not an apples to apples example as the digital company probably never changed their support model. TiVo did and I'm guessing that is just another step as they slow down sales and support of consumer DVR's. As the TiVo DVR market is getting thin, no need to hire and train support folks. This death may be years from now... but I'm 100% sure it will come. Remember Slingbox? Loved that box! 

This is not the end of the world (for most of us) and life will go on without TiVo. Just stating facts.


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## rcr2

Reminds me of "The PC is dead!". "Long live the PC!". "Flip phones are passe." "Did you see the new fold-able flip phone?"

Streaming is annoying everyone and there are already too many, so there won't be more streaming services. Oh look, a new streaming service.

The cable box has supposedly been dead for 5 years. Yet everyone I know complains about renting one. Except the ones that ditched the cable cox for Rokus or Firesticks. Who complain how much each streaming service costs, and now costs more than their old cable.

Such a rehashed topic. I remember when Apple was done as a company (oh, don't get on my case thinking I'm comparing TiVo to Apple.. I'm just making a point that aside from Pets.com, people's predictions of established tech companies just up and going away tend to be less than accurate, especially when they have some good proprietary tech).


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## ncbill

Will be interesting to see if there are any plans to bring out ATSC 3.0 tuners in either existing or new models.


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## Fofer

Will be interesting to see if there are any plans to bring out any new tuner-based devices at all... or if they've pinned all their hopes on devices like the TiVo Stream 4K, which can't even stream recordings from older TiVo hardware.


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## dishrich

I just received this "exclusive offer" email from Tivo:


> Dear xxx,
> In honor of your continued enjoyment of the TiVo experience, we are offering an *exclusive $500 savings* on All-In service with the purchase of TiVo EDGE™ for cable. Our most advanced DVR features up to 300 HD recording hours, records six shows at once, and amazing 4K streaming with the vibrance of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Just use code xxx at checkout by April 30th to take advantage of this incredible offer.


In the T&C's: (I boldfaced the AIP details)


> When you purchase the TiVo EDGE for cable for $399.99 and choose your plan - Annual Service $149.99 per year plus tax, a Monthly Service $14.99 a month with a one-year commitment, or *All-In Plan $49.99 (regularly $549.99) plus tax.* If you select the Annual Service, your credit card will be billed annually by TiVo in the amount of $149.99 plus tax as applicable. If you select the Monthly service your credit card will be billed monthly by TiVo in the amount of $14.99 plus tax as applicable, with an early termination fee of $150 for termination in months 1-12. (Note: Tax will be charged based on ZIP code).


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## pizzacheeks

dishrich said:


> I just received this "exclusive offer" email from Tivo:
> 
> 
> In the T&C's: (I boldfaced the AIP details)


I just got this too but I will not upgrade from my roamio. It works too well to replace. Plus with cable and broadcast not in 4K it is not worth it.


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## alarson83

Got the email as well. When the edge for cable can be bought for $250 on amazon but they're selling the edge on their website for $400 (they were offering it for $250 just a couple weeks ago there too), its not all that much of a deal for me at least.

And yeah, my roamio still basically does the job for DVR usage. Roku picks up everything else i'd need. I'd maybe consider this 'deal' if they weren't raising the price of the edge to offset the decrease in lifetime price.


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## slowbiscuit

That Edge on Amazon is not $250 w/lifetime service, so Tivo now has the best deal on them. Still wouldn't get one since my Roamio w/lifetime is the better box, and these are easy to get on ebay or here (sometimes).


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## NashGuy

It wouldn't surprise me if TiVo exits the retail DVR business once they sell through their existing inventory, while continuing to provide ongoing service and guide data for in-use retail DVRs for as long as the company does the same for their pay TV partners (i.e. several more years at least).

But if they were _really_ serious about blowing through all those Edge and Mini units still sitting in the warehouse, we might see them do a permanent price reduction on the website, not just a special limited-time offer on lifetime service sent via email to existing customers. And maybe we'd see them shift all sales to automatically include lifetime service with no options for monthly or annual service plans, like what they did in the past with the old TiVo Roamio OTA. There for awhile, that particular model was only available with lifetime for a total price of around $300 or $350, IIRC. So if we saw the Edge for Antenna with All-In marked down to a similar price and the Edge for Cable with All-In selling for maybe $100 more, that would definitely look like a fire sale to me.

EDIT: I see that the Edge for Antenna is also still being sold by Channel Master, with TiVo's webpage for the product linking directly there. And the only version of it that CM has in stock comes with All-In and is "on sale" for $349. TiVo, meanwhile, sells the product with monthly, annual or All-In service and charges a total of $450 to get it with All-In. Weird.


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## ufo4sale

If only TiVo offered exclusive content back in the 90’s they would be worth BILLIONS!!!


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## Hamstring

I barely use the dvr. I’m selling mine when my cable contract is up this year. I don’t think it’s going away for a while I just use tv differently now.


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## Dan203

cwoody222 said:


> So you think TiVo is going under because they have occasional sales, have offshore tech support that some people dislike and you personally dislike UX and UI choices in their current software?
> 
> Yea no, none of your points amount to much evidence, sorry.


TiVo is going under because CableCARD, and cable TV in general, is on the way out and they have no viable replacement. Years ago I talked to Ira Barh about this. I told him cable was going away and that they should work on some sort of skinny bundle offering like Sling. He said it was too expensive and that they couldn’t do it. They should have tried harder! If they had a skinny bundle offering with a TiVo style app/cloud DVR they could be charging people $80/mo like YouTube TV and be a viable contender. Now they’re just fading into oblivion instead.


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## pwsharpe

mdavej said:


> ... or they're about to release a new model.
> Guide vendor changed years ago to the company that bought Tivo. So they purposely chose a terrible guide in order to save money and placate their overlords.
> Matter of opinion
> It's actually more readable to me.
> Ads make money, and you can opt out if you don't like them.
> Works the same as before, so I don't know what you're talking about - one line or one page at a time on both the old and new UI.
> Back makes more logical sense than Left in the new UI. It was either repurpose the old buttons or obsolete the old remotes. I'm glad they chose to repurpose.
> Same story for every company on earth.
> Technology changes. Get a new remote.
> I welcome discounts. Lots of very healthy companies offer discounts for various reasons.
> 
> While I don't agree with your reasons, it's clear Tivo is in a dying industry and a very tight spot. I agree they probably won't be around in 5 years. I moved on years ago, I suggest you do the same for the sake of your sanity.


If you moved on, why are you participating in this forum?


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## Fofer

pwsharpe said:


> If you moved on, why are you participating in this forum?


I know you weren’t asking me, but I’ll respond anyway. I’m pretty sure that Happy Hour / General Chit Chat is the most active forum here on TCF, despite very many participants having moved on from TiVo, over the years.

Occasionally I’ll check out other sub-forums here on TCF. I find the discussion interesting, even though my personal TiVo hardware has been decommissioned.


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## mdavej

pwsharpe said:


> If you moved on, why are you participating in this forum?


I guess since you're new, you haven't noticed that most of the posts around here are not about Tivo or are posted by current Tivo users. If this place was limited to just Tivo subjects, it would be a ghost town.

In any case, if it pleases you, oh great anonymous internet policeman, I'll stop posting.


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## mdavej

pwsharpe said:


> If you moved on, why are you participating in this forum?


You’ll be very happy to hear that I’ve finally sold my last bit of TiVo hardware and will never be posting in any Tivo related threads again.


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