# Are ****y cable companies hurting TiVo's retail business?



## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Before I discuss the title of the thread, yes I know, TiVo has more wholesale units than retail units now. I'm only addressing the retail side of the business.

My answer would be yes. I've looked at the different cable operators, and even systems of the operators within my state (CT), as well as heard of stories from other states, and I have come to the conclusion that terrible cable companies are hurting TiVo.

Here's my logic. TiVo attracts the most technologically advanced folks, and the avid TV watchers. The tech enthusiasts put a big value on picture quality, while the avid TV watchers want tons of content. Sports fans kind of go in parallel with avid TV watchers, but with a different set of channels. DirecTV better serves both of these markets, so both of these markets are likely to either give up TiVo for DirecTV today, or have never considered TiVo if they got DirecTV in the post HR10-250 era. When I look at people's setups on AVS Forum, I notice more DirecTV than anything else, although some have cable or U-Verse, or nothing because they love movies on a 200" screen with awesome surround sound and don't care about TV.

The issues that I think hurt TiVo among these groups are as follows:

1. Poor channel selection, or lack of HD channels. A lot of cable companies are missing channels, or missing HD versions of channels. DirecTV has more HD than ever, and carries channels like AXS TV or Al Jazeera America that some cable providers don't. They also have more HD channels, where some cable systems are only at 70 HDs, whereas DirecTV has many more.

2. Poor sports selections, or lack of HD for out of market sports.

3. Video quality. DirecTV is generally considered to have better video quality than everything except arguably FIOS, although this is up for debate depending on provider and market, especially with HD LiLs.

4. SDV implementation. While SDV actually could solve 1. and 2., the cable providers seem to botch it and make it suck. SDV *should* be a great technology, but they just can't seem to make it work properly for third-party equipment.

5. Copy protection. Sure, you can't extract video from DirecTV, but that is a selling point that TiVo loses on many cable providers, like TWC/BHN, who severely abuse the copy flag system in ways not required by the content providers.

Thoughts?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

You forgot one.... The nightmare that some have to go through to get their CableCARD paired correctly. In some cases it can take multiple tech visits and dozens of phone calls to get it working. That sort of experience causes some to just say f*ck it and return their TiVos.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I would put the cc as #1. More than one extra call to a cable co and the customers who get frustrated don't even realize they let the bad guy win.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

True. CableCards suck, but once you get them paired, they (usually) are all set. Poor programming selection, poorly implemented TAs, and poor picture quality are continuous problems.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

My answer to the thread title is: NO. The cable company is not to blame for hurting TiVo. A cable company comes to your house. They do the wiring. They explain how to use the remote. They work with people to make things work. There is no TA, no cable card. They just send a bill and the people pay it. If the user is over 50, they are happy to watch the channels they like and could care less if it's 1080i or 480i. They have a big remote that will be confusing. So they call the cable company's office and get an answer in five minutes.

I love TiVo and I'm not your typical user. I've had a cable box. I've used clear QAM. I've run CAT5 and RG-6. But I know without me my sister probably couldn't even get her dish to work. I know should could never get a Blu-ray to work. Most people don't have a "me" to call.

People don't buy an Oppo because they found it by random selection. They go to Walmart and look at price tags first. TiVo is going to have a problem with their new pricing without product changes. I hope someone gets fired and they get their act together. Sooner than later. Or we will all have problems.

My humble opinion.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

JoeKustra said:


> My answer to the thread title is: NO. The cable company is not to blame for hurting TiVo. A cable company comes to your house. They do the wiring. They explain how to use the remote. They work with people to make things work. There is no TA, no cable card. They just send a bill and the people pay it. If the user is over 50, they are happy to watch the channels they like and could care less if it's 1080i or 480i. They have a big remote that will be confusing. So they call the cable company's office and get an answer in five minutes.
> 
> I love TiVo and I'm not your typical user. I've had a cable box. I've used clear QAM. I've run CAT5 and RG-6. But I know without me my sister probably couldn't even get her dish to work. I know should could never get a Blu-ray to work. Most people don't have a "me" to call.
> 
> ...


I think you're right if you're looking at the mass market. In fact, overall, I believe that DirecTV is in trouble because of the bundling efforts of the cable companies, and the deep discounts that make cable good enough for the vast majority of people at a price far lower than DirecTV's.

But my thesis here is that TiVo's retail numbers could be on the order of magnitude of 2 million, not 1 million, if they could tap into the other part of the enthusiast market. The market with five miles of CAT cable in their house. The market with a home theater rack and a 150" projection screen. Or a 4k TV. Or that is a strong supporter of Android. Or even the iPhone/Apple power user. You get the picture. I think a lot of this market is over on DirecTV, because of the content, the picture quality, the sports, whatever the case may be. I think that part of the market, the market who knows their H.264 from their MPEG-2, but has DirecTV is a market that TiVo has lost, or never got in the first place, and would be willing and able TiVo customers if they could be.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

As soon as the S3 was released Tivo wasn't plug and play for cable tv anymore and retail subscriptions dropped like a rock. That's the reason.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Not sure if it fits your framing but the fact that TiVo has to support the lowest common denominator means that they'll have to continue supporting MPEG2 for some time to come, and will, therefore, likely not be able to offer wireless TV clients like satellite companies now can.

Another ease of installation issue, I'm thinking.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

shwru980r said:


> As soon as the S3 was released Tivo wasn't plug and play for cable tv anymore and retail subscriptions dropped like a rock. That's the reason.


Actually the S3 was plug and play, as long as you still used analog cable the way you did with your S1s and S2s.

It's the cable companies going digital (and scrambled/encrypted) that made things not plug and play anymore.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

My sister has DirecTV, and I was shocked recently to realize how many channels they only have in SD (albeit 16:9), that Fios has in HD. (The PQ wasn't that great, either, but that could be down to the equipment or the way it's set up.)

Cable companies generally _want_ to hurt (retail) TiVo, because they'd rather rent you a whole DVR than a CableCard. But that's mostly a different issue than what you're talking about here.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wmcbrine said:


> My sister has DirecTV, and I was shocked recently to realize how many channels they only have in SD (albeit 16:9), that Fios has in HD. (The PQ wasn't that great, either, but that could be down to the equipment or the way it's set up.)


My sister has Dish. The picture sucks in good weather. In bad weather there may not even be a signal. But why does she put up with it even though my brother-in-law does know what a good picture looks like?

Dish is "portable". She has two complete sets of hardware. One here, next door, in PA. One in her RV in FL where she spends the winter. She does have to call them twice a year to switch satellites. But no way that can happen with cable and no cable company offers reasonable monthly service. Perhaps in the future when everything is IP based this will change. But for now, Dish offers a service that TiVo ignores. When someone with DirecTV or Dish posts a question here, they are told to go away: we can't help. That's sad.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

shwru980r said:


> As soon as the S3 was released Tivo wasn't plug and play for cable tv anymore and retail subscriptions dropped like a rock. That's the reason.


The S3 was way too expensive, and the HD was too expensive considering how cheap it was. Tivo's lack of innovation over the last 8 years has done them in. Their current "innovation" is to change the color and bend it while providing two fewer tuners than most MSO DVRs, while forcing people to both pay an up-front cost and still make a monthly payment to somebody.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

I don't know if I'm a typical consumer, but I never considered Tivo in the past mainly because of cost. I also was never sure exactly what the true cost would be.

When first researching costs, it's not clear what cable fees will actually go away when you switch to Tivo, like DVR fees, additional outlet fees, HD fees, etc., and it's difficult to get answers from the cable company.

Once you get a handle on the fees, then you have to decide if the cost difference is even worthwhile. A few years ago, my cable company's and my satellite company's DVR fees were pretty much on par with Tivo. Only in the past few years have they surpassed Tivo. But just as Tivo had the cost advantage thanks to lifetime, they nearly doubled lifetime fees, erasing those gains.

Others won't consider Tivo because they lose On Demand capability. Only a few cable companies offer On Demand compatible with Tivo.

Some hate the idea of paying more than one bill for TV.

Lastly, ignorance and apathy are also at play. Many are unaware that Tivo exists or that it is significantly better than cable DVRs. Others simply don't care how terrible their DVR is. These are the same people that probably have their HD cable box connected via composite cables.

I think Tivo needs to address all of these in TV and online ad campaigns, and make sure they are the lowest price. Make clear what the cost savings will be, and the superior capabilities of Tivo versus cable DVRs. A simple side-by-side demo in a commercial should make it clear to anyone.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

Bigg said:


> My answer would be yes. I've looked at the different cable operators, and even systems of the operators within my state (CT), as well as heard of stories from other states, and I have come to the conclusion that terrible cable companies are hurting TiVo.
> 
> 1. Poor channel selection, or lack of HD channels. A lot of cable companies are missing channels, or missing HD versions of channels. DirecTV has more HD than ever, and carries channels like AXS TV or Al Jazeera America that some cable providers don't. They also have more HD channels, where some cable systems are only at 70 HDs, whereas DirecTV has many more.


At my parent's Florida house, they used to have horrible cable service at their subdivision as you describe above. But it was negotiated by the HOA and was part of the HOA fee. So if you went to DirecTV you still had to pay for the cable service you weren't using. Old people don't like to do that out of principle. The lineup was also negotiated and was unique to their subdivision, but thankfully another Tivo owner had called it in because the lineup was available. My parents just used a DVD recorder as the cable company didn't even offer a DVR. Since most of the channels were either analog or local HD, no CableCard was needed although they were provided.

Then a new company negotiated with the HOA to run fiber to each house in the subdivision. It comes with a free DVR in the bundle. I don't know if that's the MSO's bundle or the HOA's bundle. So they're not going to buy a Tivo.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Just having no access to the 33 million customers on satellite hurts Tivo.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

> they nearly doubled lifetime fees, erasing those gains.


$400 to $600 (worst case) is a 50% increase, not a doubling.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> My sister has DirecTV, and I was shocked recently to realize how many channels they only have in SD (albeit 16:9), that Fios has in HD. (The PQ wasn't that great, either, but that could be down to the equipment or the way it's set up.).


Does anyone know of a website that helps illustrate what channels are available, and in SD vs HD, for a given provider and region? It sure would be handy if some crowd-sourced site would allow quick comparisons between channels provided, # in HD, etc. (Bonus points if the website had an API that allowed utilities such as KMTTG to auto-upload channel lists and observed bitrates.)


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

*Are ****y cable companies hurting TiVo's retail business?*

Yes.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

JoeKustra said:


> But for now, Dish offers a service that TiVo ignores.


It's not that TiVo ignores it; it's that it's a closed system. The cable companies are required to conform to standards, including CableCard, that allow third-party equipment makers to compete. The satellite companies aren't. To make a TiVo that worked with Dish the way TiVos work with cable, they'd have to make a deal with Dish, on whatever terms Dish would agree to. And we saw how that went with DirecTV.

With today's technology, TiVo might be able to build an HD-capable box that worked with Dish the way a Series 2 works with a cable box. Which... would pretty much suck, actually. One tuner, slow, less reliable, and you'd still have to rent an STB.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wmcbrine said:


> It's not that TiVo ignores it; it's that it's a closed system. The cable companies are required to conform to standards, including CableCard, that allow third-party equipment makers to compete. The satellite companies aren't. To make a TiVo that worked with Dish the way TiVos work with cable, they'd have to make a deal with Dish, on whatever terms Dish would agree to. And we saw how that went with DirecTV.
> 
> With today's technology, TiVo might be able to build an HD-capable box that worked with Dish the way a Series 2 works with a cable box. Which... would pretty much suck, actually. One tuner, slow, less reliable, and you'd still have to rent an STB.


With my very limited dish experience I was bound to make a stupid assumption. Thanks for pointing out my error. I never thought it through.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

mdavej said:


> I think Tivo needs to address all of these in TV and online ad campaigns, and make sure they are the lowest price. Make clear what the cost savings will be, and the superior capabilities of Tivo versus cable DVRs. A simple side-by-side demo in a commercial should make it clear to anyone.


That is a ridiculous statement, the best product doesn't have to be the cheapest and the cheapest doesn't have to be the best.

Regardless of what you and others would like to believe TiVo's problems are not pricing.

TiVos problems are that the FCC has not found a way for the pay TV STB/DVR market to be open and competitive.

Dish Network, Direct TV, & AT&T Uverse have been allowed to close their systems and not allow any STB/DVR alternatives to their own equipment. Cable companies have been allowed to make the use of cable cards/tuning adapters be so unacceptable that the masses will not consider alternatives that use them. Add to that, that all the pay TV providers are allowed to hide some or all of the cost of their STB/DVRs and installation in the cost of programming and that pretty much grantees that it will be impossible for any consumer electronic manufacture to competitively offer alternatives to pay TV STB/DVRs. Which is why there are non doing so or even trying to except TiVo.

We all know what the FCC would have to do for there to actually be completely open and competitive pay TV STB/DVR market and I have a zero belief it is possible for the FCC to do it.

The best we can really hope for is that the FCC requires an open system that works better than cable cards do and that they require all pay TV providers to use it.


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## tvmaster2 (Sep 9, 2006)

is it true that Canadian cable companies DONT have to make cable cards available to customers? TiVo is essentially pointless there, if that's the case.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

krkaufman said:


> Not sure if it fits your framing but the fact that TiVo has to support the lowest common denominator means that they'll have to continue supporting MPEG2 for some time to come, and will, therefore, likely not be able to offer wireless TV clients like satellite companies now can.
> 
> Another ease of installation issue, I'm thinking.


Well, it is another interesting thing for the mass market. However, I believe TiVo could develop a wireless box if they wanted to, using Wireless AC, even with MPEG-2 bandwidth requirements. However, they just don't want to support it.

That being said, I don't think that matters to the audience I'm talking about. I'm talking about a high-end, highly technical audience that is the other half of the existing TiVo audience. The half that has DirecTV.



wmcbrine said:


> My sister has DirecTV, and I was shocked recently to realize how many channels they only have in SD (albeit 16:9), that Fios has in HD. (The PQ wasn't that great, either, but that could be down to the equipment or the way it's set up.)


Like what? They have added some new HD channels. Everything I looked up was in HD, other than some obscure channels. To me, D* looks amazing, but I don't get to see FIOS often. I do have some friends in RI, and go out occasionally out there in places that have FIOS.



JoeKustra said:


> My sister has Dish. The picture sucks in good weather. In bad weather there may not even be a signal. But why does she put up with it even though my brother-in-law does know what a good picture looks like?


DISH is garbage. It's a low-end, low-priced service. Their PQ is garbage. I will admit, I am very biased against DISH since they don't compete in the NYC area or CT area (they can technically install a dish here, but no one has them because they don't carry any of our RSNs). But still, they are DISH. The people in the know have DirecTV or cable.



mdavej said:


> When first researching costs, it's not clear what cable fees will actually go away when you switch to Tivo, like DVR fees, additional outlet fees, HD fees, etc., and it's difficult to get answers from the cable company.


Well obviously DVR fees don't apply if you don't have a DVR on your account. So that's not in question.

For Comcast, the issue about how the HD fee is set up, i.e. whether it is an equipment fee or a programming fee is the only thing that's difficult to figure out, as it varies by market. Sure, that's $10/mo, so it could tip the balance, although it's not that much in the whole scheme of things. The outlet fees are uniformly first free and $10/mo for each additional, with each cable card, including the first at a $2.50/mo discount. I don't think any other cable company charges as much per CableCard as Comcast, but on their better systems, they do a pretty good job supporting TiVo, so I can't complain that much.



> Once you get a handle on the fees, then you have to decide if the cost difference is even worthwhile. A few years ago, my cable company's and my satellite company's DVR fees were pretty much on par with Tivo. Only in the past few years have they surpassed Tivo. But just as Tivo had the cost advantage thanks to lifetime, they nearly doubled lifetime fees, erasing those gains.


TiVo is usually substantially cheaper, when you factor in multiple rooms.



> Some hate the idea of paying more than one bill for TV.


Up until recently, Lifetime was the only thing that made sense, so that wasn't an issue. And the current Lifetime Premiere 4 and Roamio units will be around for another few years.

The other issues you bring up are all issues of mass adoption. They're all quite valid issues of mass adoption. But I don't think any of them are relevant to my argument about the tech-savvy market and how much of that market is on DirecTV. If cost was their primary driver, they wouldn't be paying out the nose for DirecTV service, they'd have a TiVo on cable/FIOS. My thesis is that it's the poor quality of many cable services that screws TiVo over, as that crowd is on DirecTV.



BobCamp1 said:


> At my parent's Florida house, they used to have horrible cable service at their subdivision as you describe above. But it was negotiated by the HOA and was part of the HOA fee. So if you went to DirecTV you still had to pay for the cable service you weren't using. Old people don't like to do that out of principle. The lineup was also negotiated and was unique to their subdivision, but thankfully another Tivo owner had called it in because the lineup was available. My parents just used a DVD recorder as the cable company didn't even offer a DVR. Since most of the channels were either analog or local HD, no CableCard was needed although they were provided.
> 
> Then a new company negotiated with the HOA to run fiber to each house in the subdivision. It comes with a free DVR in the bundle. I don't know if that's the MSO's bundle or the HOA's bundle. So they're not going to buy a Tivo.


That's sort of a unique situation, although many MDUs have negotiated deals. Many of those couldn't get DirecTV anyway. Was the lineup actually different, or did it just have a couple of extra community channels in it? My grandparents live in a large senior community, and they have BHN. BHN has a couple of channels blocked out that the senior community, like surrounding HOAs, has their own local channels for. Everything else is the same as everyone else on that system gets.



wmcbrine said:


> It's not that TiVo ignores it; it's that it's a closed system. The cable companies are required to conform to standards, including CableCard, that allow third-party equipment makers to compete. The satellite companies aren't. To make a TiVo that worked with Dish the way TiVos work with cable, they'd have to make a deal with Dish, on whatever terms Dish would agree to. And we saw how that went with DirecTV.
> 
> With today's technology, TiVo might be able to build an HD-capable box that worked with Dish the way a Series 2 works with a cable box. Which... would pretty much suck, actually. One tuner, slow, less reliable, and you'd still have to rent an STB.


That's an interesting discussion. I have heard two sides of the story. One is that DirecTV made a bad deal with TiVo just to get the patents and then ****ed TiVo over when it came to actually making the box to make TiVo as lame as possible (no one can argue that they didn't succeed in making the lamest TiVo in years, if not ever). The other says that TiVo delayed the software over and over, and delivered years late with bugs, so that DirecTV was forced to write their own system. Which is true?

I've also heard that TiVo was limited to 2 tuners, among other things. But I wonder if they could update the THR22 to the Haxe UI and at least give it a separate multi-room streaming/downloading system between multiple THR22s?


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## dmurphy (Jan 17, 2002)

wmcbrine said:


> Cable companies generally _want_ to hurt (retail) TiVo, because they'd rather rent you a whole DVR than a CableCard. But that's mostly a different issue than what you're talking about here.


At least in the FiOS case, I'm not sure about that ...

What do you think they pay per unit for cable cards? $5/ea? $10?

At $4.99/mo, that's a very hefty profit margin for a component that needs no upgrades, has no moving parts, and generally stays in the field for years at a time without any intervention whatsoever. Once initial setup is complete, there is no customer support for it really.

I'd guess (and yes, it's JUST a guess!) that the CableCARDs are probably more profitable as a whole than a generic STB.

Now, bringing the FiOS On Demand/PPV products to TiVo -- well, that's just plain profit too. Can't tell you how many shows/movies my family has rented via FiOS when we had their STB. That revenue stream now goes to Amazon, Hulu et al. It'd go back to FiOS in a heartbeat if they were available on TiVo.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Bigg said:


> ........ My thesis is that it's the poor quality of many cable services that screws TiVo over, as that crowd is on DirecTV. ........


You hit the nail on the head with that one! I just installed a Sony 4K projector in my demo room, to sell tricked out ISF'd high end Sony 4K projectors on the cheap, and I have both TWC and DirecTV's Genie. DirecTV smokes the doors off of my crappy cable and is making it very hard to justify keeping my TiVo system......IF it still has to be used with TWC.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

dmurphy said:


> At least in the FiOS case, I'm not sure about that ...


Oh dude, I absolutely guarantee that's the case with Fios. Because if they wanted to rent you CableCards, they'd make it possible to order them from their freaking web site, like they do with the STBs. Now, if you want to argue that they rationally _should_ want to rent you a CableCard, that's a different thing...

Of course, they see their STBs/DVRs as providing multiple (potential) revenue streams, beyond just the exorbitant monthly fee. Also of course, they could bring much of that to the TiVo with just an app... but hey, that'd be work.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> Regardless of what you and others would like to believe TiVo's problems are not pricing.


It is a large part of the problem regardless of what you personally believe. All you have to do is look at a lot of the comments posted in response to Tivo reviews at basically any site you want (i.e., people hate monthly fees), not to mention plenty at sites like AVS where people should be better informed as to overall value for the money.

On top of that you have the cableCos catering to the lowest denominator mass market (as I think Bigg alludes when talking about channel selection etc.) and you can see why Tivo struggles to penetrate mindshare. A LOT of people don't care enough about it to do anything other than pay the cable man his money and/or they don't understand that there is a much better option. I've posted plenty of times at AVS showing how Tivo pays for itself vs. renting (before the latest insane lifetime pricing it was a lot easier to show) but there's a significant number of folks that simply don't care enough to do the math. All they see is the large upfront cost or the monthly fee then they ***** about it.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

unitron said:


> Actually the S3 was plug and play, as long as you still used analog cable the way you did with your S1s and S2s.
> 
> It's the cable companies going digital (and scrambled/encrypted) that made things not plug and play anymore.


Right, but the S3 cost $700 when it was first released. I doubt many customers were paying that much money to watch analog SD content when they could have used a dual tuner S2 for much lower cost. Plus you couldn't even purchase lifetime service on the S3, initially.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

BobCamp1 said:


> The S3 was way too expensive, and the HD was too expensive considering how cheap it was. Tivo's lack of innovation over the last 8 years has done them in. Their current "innovation" is to change the color and bend it while providing two fewer tuners than most MSO DVRs, while forcing people to both pay an up-front cost and still make a monthly payment to somebody.


They came out with a less expensive Tivo HD and that didn't stop the bleeding. Plus they were one of the first set top boxes to offer Netflix streaming.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

JoeKustra said:


> My sister has Dish. The picture sucks in good weather. In bad weather there may not even be a signal. But why does she put up with it even though my brother-in-law does know what a good picture looks like?
> 
> Dish is "portable". She has two complete sets of hardware. One here, next door, in PA. One in her RV in FL where she spends the winter. She does have to call them twice a year to switch satellites. But no way that can happen with cable and no cable company offers reasonable monthly service. Perhaps in the future when everything is IP based this will change. But for now, Dish offers a service that TiVo ignores. When someone with DirecTV or Dish posts a question here, they are told to go away: we can't help. That's sad.


Tivo has out of home streaming now on the Roamio and lower models on the on the non restricted channels and a slingbox would allow remote viewing on all channels, but she would need internet service. This might be less cumbersome than maintaining the satellite hardware in an RV.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

wmcbrine said:


> It's not that TiVo ignores it; it's that it's a closed system.


It's a closed system because the FCC granted a waiver. The same FCC that people expect to be completely fair and impartial when it comes to regulating the internet. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dmurphy said:


> Now, bringing the FiOS On Demand/PPV products to TiVo -- well, that's just plain profit too. Can't tell you how many shows/movies my family has rented via FiOS when we had their STB. That revenue stream now goes to Amazon, Hulu et al. It'd go back to FiOS in a heartbeat if they were available on TiVo.


Comcast figured this out, and now they have their VOD available on TiVo. I think they also view their market-leading VOD system as part of the stickiness of people to cable versus FIOS or satellite. Comcast, however, is really the only retail TiVo-friendly cable provider that I know of. They seem strangely friendly to TiVo, I'm not sure if it's because they are trying to compete for the tech-savvy users, or if it is due to their previous dealings with trying to make the long since failed ComcasTiVo, or if there is some technology or people that Comcast bought/hired from TiVo for X1.



HarperVision said:


> You hit the nail on the head with that one! I just installed a Sony 4K projector in my demo room, to sell tricked out ISF'd high end Sony 4K projectors on the cheap, and I have both TWC and DirecTV's Genie. DirecTV smokes the doors off of my crappy cable and is making it very hard to justify keeping my TiVo system......IF it still has to be used with TWC.


That's really interesting to hear. I didn't realize TWC was that bad. I thought SDV would allow them to not compress the snot out of channels like Comcast. Since you're obviously ahead of the curve even amongst the technology enthusiasts, and have the ability to discern quality differences amongst sources, that says something.

How is the Genie DVR compared to TiVo?


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

atmuscarella said:


> TiVos problems are that the FCC has not found a way for the pay TV STB/DVR market to be open and competitive.


The FCC could force the cable companies to transmit all the channels over clear QAM using the actual channel numbers in the guide. This would create the level playing field that the law mandates.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

It's great that you guys can counter all my arguments. I can counter them too after the fact. I'm just telling you the reasons, right or wrong, the I never got TiVo - cost, confusion, value. If I'm confused even after lots of research, then the general public probably is too.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

mdavej said:


> It's great that you guys can counter all my arguments. I can counter them too after the fact. I'm just telling you the reasons, right or wrong, the I never got TiVo - cost, confusion, value. If I'm confused even after lots of research, then the general public probably is too.


It isn't so much countering your arguments as outlining why things are the way they are. Cost and complexity are certainly reasons why people don't buy TiVo DVRs and why TiVo is likely to remain a niche product.

That said cost is only an issue because people compare it to what cable/satellite companies show they are paying for hardware/installation not what they are actually paying via hidden costs in their subscription bills. If people had to pay 100% of the cost of cable equipment & installation outside of their subscription costs, TiVos could be cost competitive. A good example of this is how Dish Network operates. My patients have been subs for years, this fall I finally convinced them to upgrade to HD receivers. The cost for installation of a new dish, several hundred feet of coax, & 2 HD receivers was $0.00. The cost shown on their bill for hardware is $7/mo for the second receiver. I can assure you it didn't cost Dish $0 for that install and additional $7/mo will not pay for the equipment for years, if ever. The major cost of equipment & installs is built into the program subscription costs, which is why even if the FCC forced Dish to allow third party equipment the cost could never be competitive.

Complexity, confuse or difficulty of installation, of TiVos is intentional and caused by cable companies via cable card/tuning adapters. The FCC could do more to over come this, with a good starting place being that they require the cable companies to install third party equipment for the same cost they install their own equipment and for third party equipment certified by cable labs make the cable company responsible for making it work correctly on their networks. Which of course will never happen.

In my opinion not much is going to change anytime soon. Cable companies will do just enough to keep the FCC off their backs, & stand alone TiVos will remain a niche product purchased by people willing to pay for them and deal with the additional hassles of cable cards/tuning adapters.

I don't know how many stand alone subs TiVo needs to continue selling stand alone equipment but I hope they get enough to do so as I really like having TiVo DVRs.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Bigg said:


> .......... That's really interesting to hear. I didn't realize TWC was that bad. I thought SDV would allow them to not compress the snot out of channels like Comcast. Since you're obviously ahead of the curve even amongst the technology enthusiasts, and have the ability to discern quality differences amongst sources, that says something. How is the Genie DVR compared to TiVo?


TWC may only be that bad in my area because we still have analog channels for all the old local folks living in grass huts and single wall homes. I keep hearing they're going to be going all digital, but it hasn't happened yet, although we did just get upgraded to the Maxx internet speeds that can go up to 300Mbps.

It's also not so much as TWC being that bad, it's DirecTV being that good! After hooking it up to the 4K Sony projector and watching some football I was ........"whaaaaaaaa....."!!!!!!  SO GOOD it was literally like I was on the field being one of those photographers or parabolic sound guys on some close up shots. DirecTV is able to send some amazing images and more of them with h.264. I'm utterly torn and wish to God that TiVo and DTV would get back together again.

I like the Genie, but it's no TiVo that's for sure. It's basically just a good DVR whereas TiVo is that plus a great consolidator of other entertainment sources and just has that "Fahrvergnügen" to coin an old VW phrase. I do really like the PiP/PoP feature on Sundays for game day though. Main game in the big window and DirecTV NFL Redzone in the small one next to it. On my 137" 2.35:1 screen it makes two images in the 80" and 60" range or so.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

shwru980r said:


> The FCC could force the cable companies to transmit all the channels over clear QAM using the actual channel numbers in the guide. This would create the level playing field that the law mandates.


That would never work. The cable systems would lose capacity because they would have to use traps like in the bad old days, and really, who wants to have their channels all mushed together in a nonsensical order, plus with .1, .2, .3, etc. It would be confusing as all hell. At least CableCard takes care of the channel numbering issue. Clear QAM does absolutely nothing that CableCard can't. It still can't handle SDV (which makes real channel numbers fundamentally impossible) or VOD.



HarperVision said:


> TWC may only be that bad in my area because we still have analog channels for all the old local folks living in grass huts and single wall homes. I keep hearing they're going to be going all digital, but it hasn't happened yet, although we did just get upgraded to the Maxx internet speeds that can go up to 300Mbps.


Hah. It's amazing that people have to be forced off of analog in this day and age. I feel like I'm behind the times because I only have a 1080p TV, not a 2160p set, although I'm eyeing that Samsung SUH 8500 65" TV, which looks amazing. Someday, when I have a house and room for an HT setup, I will invest in a 4k projector with at least 7.2.4 Atmos and the appropriate equipment to drive it.



> It's also not so much as TWC being that bad, it's DirecTV being that good! After hooking it up to the 4K Sony projector and watching some football I was ........"whaaaaaaaa....."!!!!!!  SO GOOD it was literally like I was on the field being one of those photographers or parabolic sound guys on some close up shots. DirecTV is able to send some amazing images and more of them with h.264. I'm utterly torn and wish to God that TiVo and DTV would get back together again.


That's interesting. I didn't realize that is was that good! Maybe they've improved now that they have more satellites and bandwidth up there, so they have shifted some things around and thrown more bitrate at the channels? I know when I see it in a restaurant, it does POP in a way that cable HD just doesn't. I think there are some inherent advantages to the subjective quality of H.264 too, as it fails much more gracefully than MPEG-2.



> I like the Genie, but it's no TiVo that's for sure. It's basically just a good DVR whereas TiVo is that plus a great consolidator of other entertainment sources and just has that "Fahrvergnügen" to coin an old VW phrase. I do really like the PiP/PoP feature on Sundays for game day though. Main game in the big window and DirecTV NFL Redzone in the small one next to it. On my 137" 2.35:1 screen it makes two images in the 80" and 60" range or so.


What about just as a DVR, excluding the other stuff that you can just as easily switch inputs to a Roku/FireTV/whatever for? How is the feel of zapping commercials, and how are the remotes? How is the experience? That could definitely be useful for March Madness as well when they are double-, triple-, or quadruple-stacking some of the early rounds. Sorry, not an eggball fan here.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Bigg said:


> That would never work. The cable systems would lose capacity because they would have to use traps like in the bad old days, and really, who wants to have their channels all mushed together in a nonsensical order, plus with .1, .2, .3, etc. It would be confusing as all hell. At least CableCard takes care of the channel numbering issue. Clear QAM does absolutely nothing that CableCard can't. It still can't handle SDV (which makes real channel numbers fundamentally impossible) or VOD.
> 
> Hah. It's amazing that people have to be forced off of analog in this day and age. I feel like I'm behind the times because I only have a 1080p TV, not a 2160p set, although I'm eyeing that Samsung SUH 8500 65" TV, which looks amazing. Someday, when I have a house and room for an HT setup, I will invest in a 4k projector with at least 7.2.4 Atmos and the appropriate equipment to drive it.
> 
> ...


I think cable "can" look better, as long as they don't compress the snot out of it, which mine does to squeeze in those pesky analog channels. An example of a good station on there is ESPN and the networks, but mainly because they aren't SDV and at least as far as ESPN is concerned, i believe they have a minimum bandwidth that they allow MSO to broadcast at to uphold their quality. Their 720p signal blows away almost ALL of my other stations, even their 1080i ones. Their NFL Network station is absolutely HORRENDOUS  and is 99% of the reason I decided to go OTA with the Bolt (but then TWC won me back afterwards with a basic cable deal that included internet, for cheaper than internet alone) and my "cable type" channels and NFL stuff through DirecTV. NFL network would pixelate like hell as soon as there was the slightest bit of motion in the image, so needless to say for football games this was completely unacceptable. On DirecTV it is utterly amazing to see now on my 4K ISF'd projector. Almost too good as I can see every fault on Rich Eisen's bald cranium! 

The Genie remote is actually very nice. It reminds me of TiVo and has a nice tactile feel and slight"click" when you press a button. It's easy to use by feel. It responds fairly quickly,but not quite Bolt quick. Maybe similar to Roamio or somewhere between that and a Premiere with Haxe UI. I would say Bolt though. It has 4 FF speeds instead of the 3 that's on TiVo. No SkipMode or QuickMode of course, but not entirely needed I guess.

The menus are more generic like most other MSO DVRs, but not ugly or unusable and they do the job. I like that when you're in the guide you can just hit the record button on a show and it just automatically sets it to record the show with whatever defaults you have set at the time, then hit record again and it does the same, but as a Season Pass. If you want to change recording parameters you just hit info on the show and then change recording options.

I had the original Genie previously, the HR34, but I hear that's a total dog now once they released a bunch of FW updates that clogged and bogged it down. If you get a Genie now you should insist on at minimum the HR44, HR54 (4K unit) or H44 Genie Lite (which I have with the HDD Kit).

Member Stevel seems to be the resident expert on DirecTV systems here. Maybe he can chime in too.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Bigg said:


> That would never work. The cable systems would lose capacity because they would have to use traps like in the bad old days, and really, who wants to have their channels all mushed together in a nonsensical order, plus with .1, .2, .3, etc. It would be confusing as all hell. At least CableCard takes care of the channel numbering issue. Clear QAM does absolutely nothing that CableCard can't. It still can't handle SDV (which makes real channel numbers fundamentally impossible) or VOD.


With Tivo, I'm looking for show titles, actors, directors or categories. I could care less what the channel number is. The cable company makes the choice to use traps, as a customer, I couldn't care less. The law requires a level playing field. Cable cards prevent a level playing field, because the cable company DVR is plug and play and retail set top boxes are not.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> I think cable "can" look better, as long as they don't compress the snot out of it, which mine does to squeeze in those pesky analog channels. An example of a good station on there is ESPN and the networks, but mainly because they aren't SDV and at least as far as ESPN is concerned, i believe they have a minimum bandwidth that they allow MSO to broadcast at to uphold their quality. Their 720p signal blows away almost ALL of my other stations, even their 1080i ones.


That's correct. Cable could blow DirecTV and everybody else out of the water if they wanted to upgrade their systems and put an emphasis on picture quality. Here, Comcast doesn't have analog, but they won't use SDV, so their <750mhz systems are jam packed and missing channels, the 750mhz systems are jam packed, and the 860mhz rebuilds have roughly the same lineup at the 750mhz systems, so they must have some capacity remaining. They have systems as low as 550mhz, which is pathetic in this day and age. They should rebuild them all to 860mhz, but they got partway through their rebuilding program and then sort of gave up.

You would think that providers with SDV would be sending really good bitrates, as they could use a full half QAM for an HD feed, but they don't. They still are cramming too many channels in too little space. In theory, MPEG-2 is fine for an 860mhz system with SDV and no analog, if SDV is used smartly for all but the few dozen most popular HD channels.

What I'd really like to see is the satellite feeds transmitted straight through to cable, but no provider except Google Fiber is actually doing this. I think the master satellite feed is something like 15mbps MPEG-4, but DirecTV and cable all re-compress it. There may be hope for FIOS if they go to IPTV, as then they could, if they wanted to, send the feeds through with no re-compression or transcoding. The DVRs would shrink quite a bit though.

These guys offer a few channels off of a BUD direct from the source, and they claim they are getting more, but it's not a workable technology for a home user, since you effectively need one BUD per tuner, since it has to re-position for different channels, and they don't have a DVR available, AFAIK.

http://www.shop.rainiersatellite.net/webstore/packages.htm

ESPN does quite well with the bandwidth mandates, and you virtually never see artifacts on it, but using 720p, it's not as sharp as the 1080i channels. I'd love to see what ESPN could do with a 1080i feed and bandwidth mandates, but they refuse to use 1080i, as they believe 720p is better for sports. They are probably right for most users, although I have a video processor that does really good deinterlacing feeding a 60" TV that I can sit 6' from, so I'm rather biased towards the extra resolution that 1080i offers.



> Their NFL Network station is absolutely HORRENDOUS  and is 99% of the reason I decided to go OTA with the Bolt (but then TWC won me back afterwards with a basic cable deal that included internet, for cheaper than internet alone) and my "cable type" channels and NFL stuff through DirecTV. NFL network would pixelate like hell as soon as there was the slightest bit of motion in the image, so needless to say for football games this was completely unacceptable. On DirecTV it is utterly amazing to see now on my 4K ISF'd projector. Almost too good as I can see every fault on Rich Eisen's bald cranium!


Wow, that's quite the difference. Why OTA on a separate DVR? Is the OTA still better than DirecTV's LiL service in your market? Why not just use an AM-21 at that point?



> The Genie remote is actually very nice. It reminds me of TiVo and has a nice tactile feel and slight"click" when you press a button. It's easy to use by feel. It responds fairly quickly,but not quite Bolt quick. Maybe similar to Roamio or somewhere between that and a Premiere with Haxe UI. I would say Bolt though. It has 4 FF speeds instead of the 3 that's on TiVo. No SkipMode or QuickMode of course, but not entirely needed I guess.


What about 30 second skip? Or do you have to actually FF the commercials? It sounds pretty good otherwise. It's interesting that they have gone to RF remotes, it seems like they were ahead of TiVo and cable on that, although now most DVRs have RF remotes. The Premiere with Haxe UI is plenty fast, so that sounds fine for most uses.



> The menus are more generic like most other MSO DVRs, but not ugly or unusable and they do the job. I like that when you're in the guide you can just hit the record button on a show and it just automatically sets it to record the show with whatever defaults you have set at the time, then hit record again and it does the same, but as a Season Pass. If you want to change recording parameters you just hit info on the show and then change recording options.


That's nice. I don't know why TiVo doesn't have default options. It seems like such an obvious thing.



> I had the original Genie previously, the HR34, but I hear that's a total dog now once they released a bunch of FW updates that clogged and bogged it down. If you get a Genie now you should insist on at minimum the HR44, HR54 (4K unit) or H44 Genie Lite (which I have with the HDD Kit).


Is the HR54 actually 4k capable with HDMI2.0/HDCP2.2? I read the review of it, and it seemed that it was ready to stream 4k out to an RVU TV or C61k, rather than on it's own. The SWiM 7 does have to be 4k though, as that's just too weird. I wonder why they didn't go to SWiM 8 with 6 tuners, 2 in 4k instead of SWiM 7, which works out to 5 tuners, 2 in 4k.

The one gaping hole to me in their own system is that they haven't updated the software to allow for two HR54s on a SWiM 16 setup, and they don't have a newer version of the HR24 to add separate DVRs that can stream back and forth with the HR34/44/54. That being said, most users are probably just fine with an HR44/54 and a couple of Genie Minis.



shwru980r said:


> With Tivo, I'm looking for show titles, actors, directors or categories. I could care less what the channel number is. The cable company makes the choice to use traps, as a customer, I couldn't care less. The law requires a level playing field. Cable cards prevent a level playing field, because the cable company DVR is plug and play and retail set top boxes are not.


A lot of people know what the channel numbers are, and want to access channels directly, especially for live sports and events.

Traps are not a choice if the stuff isn't encrypted. A modern digital cable system doesn't work without encryption. CableCard is a level playing field. It has to be activated just like the cable company boxes, it's just that the providers suck at activating compared to their own equipment. You can't just expect the cable companies to go back to the dark ages of everything in the clear (like analog) with all sorts of traps, and the traps constantly getting screwed up. All the traps have been removed on these all-digital systems, such that everything can be provisioned remotely.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Cable does rather suck. There's a reason that when I left DirecTv that I went with FIOS. It's not just about TV either, the internet/phone bundle plays a big role as well.

Of course neither of them are perfect, but let's not forget that DirecTv offers a current TiVo solution, the THR22. If it isn't as up to date as a Roamio or a Bolt, who's fault is that?

At the bottom of the page for the device, DirecTv offers up a comparison chart where the TiVo comes in last among their HD DVR offerings.

Can't say I gave it much thought when it came out. It was just a 2-tuner device, and they charge both a $7 DVR service and then an additional $5 for TiVo service with no whole home capability. 

My last TiVo (the HR10-250) were pretty sluggish and the initial reports on the THR22 were that it was pretty sluggish as well. TiVo should have taken better care of their brand.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> Of course neither of them are perfect, but let's not forget that DirecTv offers a current TiVo solution, the THR22. If it isn't as up to date as a Roamio or a Bolt, who's fault is that?


I'm pretty sure it's DirecTV's fault.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

jonw747 said:


> initial reports on the THR22 were that it was pretty sluggish as well.


The THR22 (Tivo) was snappier than DirecTV's other dvrs at the time; much nicer FF/RW also. I haven't seen either for years so I don't know the current situation.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> Of course neither of them are perfect, but let's not forget that DirecTv offers a current TiVo solution, the THR22. If it isn't as up to date as a Roamio or a Bolt, who's fault is that?


That's what I've been trying to figure out. But either way, it's not a workable solution in it's current form. From a functionality perspective, it's an HR10-250 with MPEG-4 and SWiM. That's fundamentally 10 year old technology. None of the new HD interface, multi-room anything, or anything else. It may as well not exist at this point.



wmcbrine said:


> I'm pretty sure it's DirecTV's fault.


I've seen people saying it was DirecTV's fault for trying to squeeze TiVo out, and others saying that it was TiVo's fault for being years behind on the software development, so DirecTV gave up and made the HR20 series, which eventually morphed into the HR34 series Genie.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

wmcbrine said:


> I'm pretty sure it's DirecTV's fault.


It's TiVo's responsibility to protect their own brand. Maybe they were just happy to have a foot back in that door, but maybe they should have held out for something they had more control over.

I've beaten this drum before regarding the Premiere, but it takes a while to fix a poor perception once it takes root in the marketplace.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Bigg said:


> A lot of people know what the channel numbers are, and want to access channels directly, especially for live sports and events.
> 
> Traps are not a choice if the stuff isn't encrypted. A modern digital cable system doesn't work without encryption. CableCard is a level playing field. It has to be activated just like the cable company boxes, it's just that the providers suck at activating compared to their own equipment. You can't just expect the cable companies to go back to the dark ages of everything in the clear (like analog) with all sorts of traps, and the traps constantly getting screwed up. All the traps have been removed on these all-digital systems, such that everything can be provisioned remotely.


It's not that hard to learn new channel numbers and live TV defeats the purpose of Tivo. Clear QAM works perfectly without encryption, and just needs to be reported to tribune media services to provide the guide information.

The cable company box is activated ahead of time so it's plug and play to the customer. The customer has to get a cable card from the cable company, install the card and then ask the cable company to activate it. That's hardly a level playing field. The dark ages of the 1990's called and they want their laptop modem back.

The law requires a level playing field and there clearly isn't a level playing field. The FCC should enforce the law and the cable company should comply by whatever means necessary. Plenty of other businesses go under because the can't or won't comply with federal law. Why should the cable or satellite companies be an exception?


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

shwru980r said:


> It's not that hard to learn new channel numbers and live TV defeats the purpose of Tivo. Clear QAM works perfectly without encryption, and just needs to be reported to tribune media services to provide the guide information.
> 
> The cable company box is activated ahead of time so it's plug and play to the customer. The customer has to get a cable card from the cable company, install the card and then ask the cable company to activate it. That's hardly a level playing field. The dark ages of the 1990's called and they want their laptop modem back.
> 
> The law requires a level playing field and there clearly isn't a level playing field. The FCC should enforce the law and the cable company should comply by whatever means necessary. Plenty of other businesses go under because the can't or won't comply with federal law. Why should the cable or satellite companies be an exception?


I am sure the MSO have a loss on the Cable card use for the most part when you include the number of service calls they may have to make to pair the cable card, and the few people that have them compared to the MSO DVR.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

lessd said:


> I am sure the MSO have a loss on the Cable card use for the most part when you include the number of service calls they may have to make to pair the cable card, and the few people that have them compared to the MSO DVR.


That's on them and due to their incompetence with Cablecards.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

HarperVision said:


> That's on them and due to their incompetence with Cablecards.


I agree, but Cable Cards are such a miniscule part of their business they just don't care, Comcast seems to be the best of all the MSO for TiVo.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> It's TiVo's responsibility to protect their own brand. Maybe they were just happy to have a foot back in that door, but maybe they should have held out for something they had more control over.
> 
> I've beaten this drum before regarding the Premiere, but it takes a while to fix a poor perception once it takes root in the marketplace.


But I haven't seen anything to definitively tie the death of the DirecTiVo to either DirecTV or TiVo. I've seen various posts blaming back and forth, but nothing definitive. So whose fault was it really? I'd like to blame big, bad DirecTV, but I'm not at all convinced that it's completely their fault, given how the stories of TiVo being years behind on software development fits TiVo's M.O. pretty well.



shwru980r said:


> It's not that hard to learn new channel numbers and live TV defeats the purpose of Tivo. Clear QAM works perfectly without encryption, and just needs to be reported to tribune media services to provide the guide information.


Sports. News. Live events. The notion of using Clear QAM and making people learn channel numbers in a way that they never have before is completely absurd. No one wants to remember that ESPN is 73.2 and some SD channel is 27.11, and nothing makes any sense. With virtual lineups as part of CableCard, they are able to make lineups that sort of make sense. Comcast's current standardized lineup basically makes sense. The 1000 series is locals. 1100 is news. 1200-1500 are cable channels of various genres, 1600 series is sorts.



> The cable company box is activated ahead of time so it's plug and play to the customer. The customer has to get a cable card from the cable company, install the card and then ask the cable company to activate it. That's hardly a level playing field. The dark ages of the 1990's called and they want their laptop modem back.


CableCards suck, but at least they allow third party devices on the network. You are conveniently ignoring the fact that modern digital cable systems couldn't exist in their current form if they were using all Clear QAM. For a while, Comcast did offer a lot of cable channels in Clear QAM, but the premiums and such were encrypted. Even then, it was a mess finding channels on the TV's tuner, as they were scattered all over the place. That was a temporary oversight, and everything is encrypted now.



> The law requires a level playing field and there clearly isn't a level playing field. The FCC should enforce the law and the cable company should comply by whatever means necessary. Plenty of other businesses go under because the can't or won't comply with federal law. Why should the cable or satellite companies be an exception?


They have CableCard. Making federal laws that would fundamentally undermine the ability of the cable company to do business and offer advanced digital services would be horrible governance. Yes, our government is full of bad governance, but at least they don't do stuff like that.



lessd said:


> I agree, but Cable Cards are such a miniscule part of their business they just don't care, Comcast seems to be the best of all the MSO for TiVo.


That's true, and they are horrible, but at least they seem to support TiVo in principle. When it comes to actually making one work, however, they are all over the place. They never managed to comply with federal law and allow me to self-install, their incompetence meant that they had to send a tech out to call a magic number to make mine work. Ridiculous.

I can't imagine how the other MSOs are considering how bad Comcast is.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

unitron said:


> Actually the S3 was plug and play, as long as you still used analog cable the way you did with your S1s and S2s.


Yeah, the lifetime transfer is what got me to get an OLED S3, and for a LONG time, I used it as a 2 tuner analog box.. yes, I know I was "doing it wrong".


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

mattack said:


> Yeah, the lifetime transfer is what got me to get an OLED S3, and for a LONG time, I used it as a 2 tuner analog box.. yes, I know I was "doing it wrong".


Doing it wrong? There's some sort of moral obligation to go digital before absolutely necessary?


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

lessd said:


> I agree, but Cable Cards are such a miniscule part of their business they just don't care, Comcast seems to be the best of all the MSO for TiVo.


That's the goal. They care very deeply about minimizing the use of third party set top boxes.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Bigg said:


> Sports. News. Live events. The notion of using Clear QAM and making people learn channel numbers in a way that they never have before is completely absurd. No one wants to remember that ESPN is 73.2 and some SD channel is 27.11, and nothing makes any sense. With virtual lineups as part of CableCard, they are able to make lineups that sort of make sense. Comcast's current standardized lineup basically makes sense. The 1000 series is locals. 1100 is news. 1200-1500 are cable channels of various genres, 1600 series is sorts.
> 
> CableCards suck, but at least they allow third party devices on the network. You are conveniently ignoring the fact that modern digital cable systems couldn't exist in their current form if they were using all Clear QAM. For a while, Comcast did offer a lot of cable channels in Clear QAM, but the premiums and such were encrypted. Even then, it was a mess finding channels on the TV's tuner, as they were scattered all over the place. That was a temporary oversight, and everything is encrypted now.
> 
> They have CableCard. Making federal laws that would fundamentally undermine the ability of the cable company to do business and offer advanced digital services would be horrible governance. Yes, our government is full of bad governance, but at least they don't do stuff like that.


The cable company could rent the cable card as an extra service for people who are anal retentive about channel numbering. Clear QAM doesn't prevent the use of cable cards. I doubt there would be enough demand to justify offering them.


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## aridon (Aug 31, 2006)

Cost is Tivos biggest enemy and shortly after that is cablecards.

You can rent the X1 from Comcast for $20. When you compare that to Tivo's monthly ongoing cost the X1 isn't so bad. Especially since it is free and if it breaks you get a new one from Comcast. If it doesn't work, if the rep you call pisses you off, whatever reason you can drop it off and not deal with it anymore. 

Sure lifetime can be a better deal if you stick with the same provider for a long time, keep the same box and don't have any issues. Most of America isn't looking to drop $750+ on a Tivo and lifetime with hopes that they will like it, not have issues getting it setup or losing channels occasionally v53 or deal with issues should the damn thing break in month 13 or 25. 

Tivo used to be so superior that people wouldn't hesitate to go for it. Now with the competition having pretty good DVR's (X1, Hopper, Genie etc) Tivo has lost its competitive advantage. Add to that the problems you can run into and the cost of buying and you can see why they are hemorrhaging retail customers.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

Bigg said:


> Making federal laws that would fundamentally undermine the ability of the cable company to do business and offer advanced digital services would be horrible governance. Yes, our government is full of bad governance, but at least they don't do stuff like that.


This highlights the fundamental problem. The FCC is not in charge. The MSOs are. If the FCC repeals CableCards, less than 1% of cable subscribers would care. On the other hand, if all the MSOs simultaneously suspended their services overnight in protest of more restrictive laws, or cable rates went sky high and the MSOs blamed the new laws, there would be an enormous backlash. The FCC would be forced to back off immediately, as any attempt to enforce the new laws would just make things worse.

And when it comes to innovation, private companies will beat any government agency. The FCC should not be saying, "wouldn't it be great if you could buy or rent a device that could...." Putting laws in place that force innovation towards a certain direction means that you're probably stifling it in another direction. It's the last thing the FCC should be doing.

Aside from forcing cable companies to transmit OTA channels without encryption, I have no idea why the FCC is involved in the first place. Government regulations generally exist for the safety of the population. The local OTA channels can be used to convey emergency information, so that's part of safety. But the rest of it is entertainment and should not be regulated. Why does a government care how I find out if Angelina Jolie wore a horrible dress to an awards show? Is that information vital to the well-being of this country?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

BobCamp1 said:


> This highlights the fundamental problem. The FCC is not in charge. The MSOs are. If the FCC repeals CableCards, less than 1% of cable subscribers would care. On the other hand, if all the MSOs simultaneously suspended their services overnight in protest of more restrictive laws, or cable rates went sky high and the MSOs blamed the new laws, there would be an enormous backlash. The FCC would be forced to back off immediately, as any attempt to enforce the new laws would just make things worse.
> 
> And when it comes to innovation, private companies will beat any government agency. The FCC should not be saying, "wouldn't it be great if you could buy or rent a device that could...." Putting laws in place that force innovation towards a certain direction means that you're probably stifling it in another direction. It's the last thing the FCC should be doing.
> 
> Aside from forcing cable companies to transmit OTA channels without encryption, I have no idea why the FCC is involved in the first place. Government regulations generally exist for the safety of the population. The local OTA channels can be used to convey emergency information, so that's part of safety. But the rest of it is entertainment and should not be regulated. Why does a government care how I find out if Angelina Jolie wore a horrible dress to an awards show? Is that information vital to the well-being of this country?


Generally speaking the whole thing is regulated because without the Government allowing cable to put their cable/equipment on private & public property with little or no recourse by the property owner they could not exist. Your belief that cable companies left without FCC oversight would be more innovative is amusing, given how little they appear to be concerned with customer satisfaction. While consumers might not really care about competitive DVRs they certainly do not like having to rent/use STBs and would like a plug and play solution built into their TVs again - which leads to the open standards needed for competitive DVRs.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> Generally speaking the whole thing is regulated because without the Government allowing cable to put their cable/equipment on private & public property with little or no recourse by the property owner they could not exist. Your belief that cable companies left without FCC oversight would be more innovative is amusing, given how little they appear to be concerned with customer satisfaction. While consumers might not really care about competitive DVRs they certainly do not like having to rent/use STBs and would like a plug and play solution built into their TVs again - which leads to the open standards needed for competitive DVRs.


I understand why parts of it are regulated, such as how the signal gets into the home, but still fail to see why the government cares exactly how I view it. The content providers care how I view it, which means the MSOs care how I view it, which is why we have security.

I did not say there would be more innovation without oversight. Instead I would let the market dictate what the next big thing is instead of the FCC. Because the FCC will get it wrong, as it is impossible to predict the future.

I'm sure customers want a plug and play solution built in and no boxes. They also want free service, free TVs, and to be paid money for watching TV. That's not going to happen. Those TVs with built-in solutions will have more up-front cost and probably won't work as well as the MSO-provided boxes. Plus, they'll need a box anyway because the TV is not going to stream to their other devices.

Finally, there will be no competitive DVRs in the near future. It's never been profitable, and today Tivo will sue you the moment you release your product. If you don't like the DVR service, or the billing service, or any other parts of the service you change providers. If you can't change providers, it's your own fault for living where you are. Either move or cut the cord.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

If there was a competitive cable market for TV (and HSI) I'd agree with you, but there is not. Therefore in my view, regulation is required and is sorely lacking in the HSI area in particular.

Telling people to move is absurd and indicative of typical 'capitalism means the market will sort everything out' thinking. Yeah, that worked so well in 2008-09.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

shwru980r said:


> The cable company could rent the cable card as an extra service for people who are anal retentive about channel numbering. Clear QAM doesn't prevent the use of cable cards. I doubt there would be enough demand to justify offering them.


Did you read anything I posted? If you force each tier to have a fixed amount of bandwidth, determined by the trap setups, you severely limit the amount of total bandwidth available to the system, and thus, you wipe out two decades of innovation in digital cable services. Plus, you lose SDV. They could mandate that local channels be in the clear, but beyond that, it is technologically impractical to force everything to be in the clear, and it would be severely detrimental to the operation of the cable system. Further, it is not anal retentiveness. It is practicality. How the hell is anyone going to find anything if ESPN is on 23.2, while ESPN2 is on 14.1, and some SD sports channel is on 62.6, and so forth and so on? It would be a complete mess. No one would be able to find anything.



BobCamp1 said:


> This highlights the fundamental problem. The FCC is not in charge. The MSOs are.


That may be true to a certain extent, but it is entirely unreasonable to require the cable companies to transmit everything in the clear when that would undermine their ability to deliver quality service. I think we all agree that the integration ban was stupid, but mandating CableCards for under-owned devices makes sense.

The FCC has to intervene in terms of CableCard, otherwise there would be no consumer-owned boxes.



BobCamp1 said:


> Instead I would let the market dictate what the next big thing is instead of the FCC. Because the FCC will get it wrong, as it is impossible to predict the future.


That's impossible, because the MSOs will not on their own allow third party devices onto their networks, which stifles innovation. Thus, the FCC has to force access. And they should force access to satellite and IPTV too this time around.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

BobCamp1 said:


> I understand why parts of it are regulated, such as how the signal gets into the home, but still fail to see why the government cares exactly how I view it. The content providers care how I view it, which means the MSOs care how I view it, which is why we have security.


The "Government" isn't some stand alone entity, it is the representation of various interests. As you indicated the content providers have had the Government represent their interests via copy right laws, the MSOs have had the Government represent their interests via theft of service/anti decryption laws and by the cable franchise regulations. The last time I looked most people also believe the Government should also represent their interests. So to answer your question the reason the FCC does or doesn't do anything is because some person/group/company wants the Government to represent their interests in a certain way.



BobCamp1 said:


> I did not say there would be more innovation without oversight. Instead I would let the market dictate what the next big thing is instead of the FCC. Because the FCC will get it wrong, as it is impossible to predict the future.


The market (consumers) can only dictate what they want/what is produced in a openly competitive marketplace. The current pay TV market is not open and competitive enough to drive producers (the cable company) to focus innovation on providing solutions that will win them costumers, instead their innovative focus is on controlling their customers and forcing them to except what they are given. Consumers can either accept that or use Government to do what a truly open and competitive market could have done.



BobCamp1 said:


> I'm sure customers want a plug and play solution built in and no boxes. They also want free service, free TVs, and to be paid money for watching TV. That's not going to happen. Those TVs with built-in solutions will have more up-front cost and probably won't work as well as the MSO-provided boxes. Plus, they'll need a box anyway because the TV is not going to stream to their other devices.


I do not believe there is any technical reason for what you said to be true. There is no reason there couldn't be an all software solution that would easily run on any current smart TV - they already have a built in tuner. That said what you said is likely to be true simple because it serves the cable company and so they will do everything possible to make any solution not work correctly as they have done with cable cards.



BobCamp1 said:


> Finally, there will be no competitive DVRs in the near future. It's never been profitable, and today Tivo will sue you the moment you release your product. If you don't like the DVR service, or the billing service, or any other parts of the service you change providers. If you can't change providers, it's your own fault for living where you are. Either move or cut the cord.


No as citizens if we don't like what the cable companies are doing we can fight to use Government to change the cable companies. If they (the cable companies) don't like it they can go out of business and we through the Government will give their territories to another group that does what we want. Which by the way is exactly how the current cable companies got to be cable companies.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

People complain about how there's no competition. But there is. It's an oligopoly, as all areas have cable, DirecTV, and Dish (or at least the latter two). Some places even have fiber. The main way you compete in an oligopoly is not on price, but on the features and enhancements that make your product stand out from the others. As a result, there is all kinds of innovation happening in the industry. Now it might not be the features YOU want added, but they are the features that the public at-large wants. 

Also keep in mind that these companies aren't in it to keep you happy specifically. They are in it to make money. If they determine a feature would be great but unfeasible or unprofitable, it's not going to get developed. Unless somebody in the industry takes a gamble and develops it -- then it'll be everywhere as competitors are forced to keep up.

All kinds of innovation is happening. Five years ago, the whole home DVR/small client concept didn't exist and now every provider has made that the default installation. The transition to MPEG4 has started, you can stream TV to mobile devices, boxes have misc. apps, and DVRs have 5 or 6 tuners. There are also other features like Start Over and Look Back that I didn't mention. Did the FCC mandate any of that?

Of course, the *****y smaller cable companies may not be innovating as fast, but they'll be the first to complain and get a waiver to delay or avoid whatever the new standard will be. 

Cable TV is not a right or a utility. It's a privilege. I believe the government shouldn't interfere, and if it does it will be doomed to fail anyway.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

Bigg said:


> The FCC has to intervene in terms of CableCard, otherwise there would be no consumer-owned boxes.


So what?

Nobody wants consumer-owned cable boxes for the same reasons companies lease all their PCs. And I think 99.5% of the population qualifies as "nobody". The other 0.5% post here and can't imagine that the other 99.5% don't want their own box. But the 99.5% couldn't care less. If Tivo went out of business tomorrow, it might make the news for a day. But nobody would miss them.

Tivo can only offer you a box. The MSO can offer you a service. A third-party box cannot compete. It's unfair, but life's unfair. And it's only TV.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

BobCamp1 said:


> So what?
> 
> Nobody wants consumer-owned cable boxes for the same reasons companies lease all their PCs. And I think 99.5% of the population qualifies as "nobody". The other 0.5% post here and can't imagine that the other 99.5% don't want their own box. But the 99.5% couldn't care less. If Tivo went out of business tomorrow, it might make the news for a day. But nobody would miss them.
> 
> Tivo can only offer you a box. The MSO can offer you a service. A third-party box cannot compete. It's unfair, but life's unfair. And it's only TV.


When HDTV came out TiVo became a niche product, not TiVos fault, as Apple PCs were a niche product as compared to the IBM type PC, but Apple had a bigger % of the market than TiVo does now, I like TiVo, I can fix most TiVo problems, I can sell my old TiVos on E-Bay, but most people (who don't even know this TCF exists) don't want to bother or can't deal with TiVo as the MSO DVR does the job for them, and with on-sight service to boot. Your correct, it is only TV not say a real problem, like ISIL in Syria.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Bigg said:


> Did you read anything I posted? If you force each tier to have a fixed amount of bandwidth, determined by the trap setups, you severely limit the amount of total bandwidth available to the system, and thus, you wipe out two decades of innovation in digital cable services. Plus, you lose SDV. They could mandate that local channels be in the clear, but beyond that, it is technologically impractical to force everything to be in the clear, and it would be severely detrimental to the operation of the cable system. Further, it is not anal retentiveness. It is practicality. How the hell is anyone going to find anything if ESPN is on 23.2, while ESPN2 is on 14.1, and some SD sports channel is on 62.6, and so forth and so on? It would be a complete mess. No one would be able to find anything.


The tiers, trap and SDV setups would be a choice made by the cable company that might result is a reduction in the number of channels they can offer and isn't a customer issue. You're just making excuses for not complying with the law. The average citizen doesn't have that option. The law requires a level playing field for third party set top boxes and plug and play ability is the only way to make the playing field level.

The clear QAM channel numbering system is numbered the same way a OTA channel numbers and people have to remember those numbers. Many large metropolitan areas have 20-30 channels. It's just a few extra digits and is no different than remembering many telephone numbers which have even more digits.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

BobCamp1 said:


> So what?
> 
> Nobody wants consumer-owned cable boxes for the same reasons companies lease all their PCs. And I think 99.5% of the population qualifies as "nobody". The other 0.5% post here and can't imagine that the other 99.5% don't want their own box. But the 99.5% couldn't care less. If Tivo went out of business tomorrow, it might make the news for a day. But nobody would miss them.
> 
> Tivo can only offer you a box. The MSO can offer you a service. A third-party box cannot compete. It's unfair, but life's unfair. And it's only TV.


This whole premise is faulty.

Most HD TVs have a clear QAM tuner built in. You wouldn't need a cable box to watch live TV. I think most consumers would rather just plug the coax cable into the back of their TV, rather that use an extra cable box and remote.

If you want a DVR you're going to have an extra box anyway, because DVRs aren't built in to TVs.


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

First, Tivo is not for everyone. It's for wonks. All of us. 

Civilians, they don't think a Cisco DVR that has such a primitive guide and primitive recording and fast forward for commercials is a problem. They only know they like a show on Tuesday at 8, so they sit down in front of their TV then. 

I haven't watched live TV since my first UltimateTV. So I am not typical. None of you are typical. 

But what's the problem with TIVO? A big one is the monthly fee. Some excuse it but I have heard a thousand times "$12.99 a month, no thanks" when I suggested someone might be happier with a TIVO. Now, that's even worse. So their market is suppressed. 

If Tivo lowered their first unit monthly fee to $9.99 they would sell 100x what they do. If Tivo lowered their monthly fee for additional units to $5.99 or even $4.99 they would sell 100x what they do. I'd have three more if that were the cost. 

Their ridiculous prices suppress their market. I am not sure there is anything anyone can do, because they either cannot or won't lower their prices enough to make their units a no-brainer for anyone who wants performance. 

But then, lots of people don't know what performance is. ReplayTV, now that was performance.


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

shwru980r said:


> This whole premise is faulty.
> 
> Most HD TVs have a clear QAM tuner built in. You wouldn't need a cable box to watch live TV. I think most consumers would rather just plug the coax cable into the back of their TV, rather that use an extra cable box and remote


But they can't sell you PPV that way! Look, every cable company in the world thinks triple play bundles and PPV are the way to success. Which is why most of us probably think they are a complete ripoff. And they mostly are.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Steevow said:


> First, Tivo is not for everyone. It's for wonks. All of us.
> 
> Civilians, they don't think a Cisco DVR that has such a primitive guide and primitive recording and fast forward for commercials is a problem. They only know they like a show on Tuesday at 8, so they sit down in front of their TV then.
> 
> ...


But here's the thing....the cable co's ALSO charge you that much or MORE for their DVR "service", so I just don't get the gripe about TiVo's charges. Plus if you throw in a couple minis if you need extra outlets, your savings grow because the thieves at the cable co's won't charge you those additional outlet fees and extra box charges.

Sure, when Lifetime was affordable then it made it a better long term purchase since those fees would eventually break even and you'd be in the black with TiVo, but now not so much with $600 Lifetime!  So in that regard I see more of your case now.


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

HarperVision said:


> But here's the thing....the cable co's ALSO charge you that much or MORE for their DVR "service", so I just don't get the gripe about TiVo's charges. Plus if you throw in a couple minis if you need extra outlets, your savings grow because the thieves at the cable co's won't charge you those additional outlet fees and extra box charges.
> 
> Sure, when Lifetime was affordable then it made it a better long term purchase since those fees would eventually break even and you'd be in the black with TiVo, but now not so much with $600 Lifetime!  So in that regard I see more of your case now.


No company, TIVO included can sell anything with lifetime anything. Every company needs a revenue stream to support all the things every company needs to survive.

But if the monthly fee were not so stiff I think more would be interested. As it is, people vote with their wallets.

In any case, what TIVO sells other than the hardware (naturally, hardware costs money) is electrons, and support. Electrons are not that expensive. Support, much more costly to provide.

TIVO is the last general purpose DVR standing, DirecTV is really very good, nearly as good as TIVO. Lots of the cable DVRs are totally poorly thought out junk thrown together so they can say you get one. I had a GF who had the Cisco thing from Charter. As far as I could tell you could watch live tv on it. Not like what I need.

I had ReplayTV, I had UltimateTV, I had DirecTivo, I had DirecTV's regular DVR, and now I have TIVO. Is TIVO the best? No. But admittedly that could be because of the darned CableCard. That SDV is not well thought out, at least on TIVO.

I don't know how it works on a cable company DVR, the only one I have experience with is that Cisco thing. That's a joke. Heavy, though. Hah. The only thing I can say about that is the hefty weight.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

If you're ONLY comparing the DVR portion of the TiVo to the DirecTV Genie DVR, then yes, you're right they are about the same, but TiVo offers so much more (Streaming apps mainly, as well as ways to archive and distribute it's content) that it's ridiculous to compare them directly.

I have had every single TiVo series since they were introduced and I currently have a DirecTV Genie, DirecTiVo THR-22, Bolt 2TB, Roamio Plus 3TB, Roamio OTA, Premiere XL and 5 minis. I know this from direct experience, not hearsay.

I have done HDTV repairs and ISF Calibrations using just about every other cable/sat box and DVR on the market and have also setup and used both Ceton and Silicon Dust Media Center solutions. TiVo is by far the best of them all.

My biggest wish, after using and experiencing all of these options, is that TiVo get back in bed with DirecTV with a real DVR solution like the Roamio or Bolt because TiVo is the absolute best hardware and GUI and DirecTV is the best picture quality, bar none!


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

BobCamp1 said:


> So what?
> 
> Nobody wants consumer-owned cable boxes for the same reasons companies lease all their PCs. And I think 99.5% of the population qualifies as "nobody". The other 0.5% post here and can't imagine that the other 99.5% don't want their own box. But the 99.5% couldn't care less. If Tivo went out of business tomorrow, it might make the news for a day. But nobody would miss them.
> 
> Tivo can only offer you a box. The MSO can offer you a service. A third-party box cannot compete. It's unfair, but life's unfair. And it's only TV.


The government has to at least give access to cable systems. Not doing that would be to let the cable companies completely trample over our rights to an open system. What little rights we have left. And it's not just TiVo, SiliconDust is coming out with the HDHR DVR. And there are still a few people holding on to MCE machines and holding off on the inevitable death of MCE. Sure, that's kind of a pathetic market, but at least there is something out there, if only to push the boundaries of what's possible with a DVR.



shwru980r said:


> The tiers, trap and SDV setups would be a choice made by the cable company that might result is a reduction in the number of channels they can offer and isn't a customer issue. You're just making excuses for not complying with the law. The average citizen doesn't have that option. The law requires a level playing field for third party set top boxes and plug and play ability is the only way to make the playing field level.
> 
> The clear QAM channel numbering system is numbered the same way a OTA channel numbers and people have to remember those numbers. Many large metropolitan areas have 20-30 channels. It's just a few extra digits and is no different than remembering many telephone numbers which have even more digits.


You're making up a ridiculous law that is technologically injurious to cable companies and consumers, and then making excuses as to why cable companies should comply with your law that doesn't exist. Losing tons of channels is a BIG customer issue, and it's also unfair to the cable company, which would effectively be barred from 15 years of technology and pushed back into the dark ages of open analog systems that requires fixed tiers and traps. It's nonsense. Making a better system for decryption and integrating VOD and whatnot actually makes sense, unlike your crazy and unworkable "idea".

Relatively few people use OTA, and most of the ones that do probably have no clue what any of the subchannels are, because they are mostly junk. They just know the .1's. And most people have never even had exposure to that, they have a cable or satellite box with numbers that make some sort of sense (or don't- but at least they don't have x.x numbers). Now start putting real channels that aren't junk on the .2's and .3's, and that's totally absurd. When a channel got moved around or stuff re-muxed, channels would go all over the place, and no one would be able to find them. It's a patently absurd concept.



Steevow said:


> If Tivo lowered their first unit monthly fee to $9.99 they would sell 100x what they do. If Tivo lowered their monthly fee for additional units to $5.99 or even $4.99 they would sell 100x what they do. I'd have three more if that were the cost.


No. Maybe 10-20% more units, which isn't really that much. Maybe.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Steevow said:


> If Tivo lowered their first unit monthly fee to $9.99 they would sell 100x what they do. If Tivo lowered their monthly fee for additional units to $5.99 or even $4.99 they would sell 100x what they do. I'd have three more if that were the cost.
> .


If TiVo had a $4.99 monthly fee it would not make much difference to their market because most people don't know about TiVo as a product to replace the MSO DVR, and the few that do don't want the hassle of setting TiVo up in their cable system, it not the price. TiVo not making any money now so I guess at $4.99 they would make money 

Some on this TCF would pay more money, if needed, to keep our TiVo, many would not, I am one that would, if needed I would pay $600 for lifetime but my 6 tuner Roamio does a very good job for me and I paid much less for the system than a 4 tuner Bolt with Lifetime.


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

lessd said:


> If TiVo had a $4.99 monthly fee it would not make much difference to their market because most people don't know about TiVo as a product to replace the MSO DVR, and the few that do don't want the hassle of setting TiVo up in their cable system, it not the price. TiVo not making any money now so I guess at $4.99 they would make money
> 
> Some on this TCF would pay more money, if needed, to keep our TiVo, many would not, I am one that would, if needed I would pay $600 for lifetime but my 6 tuner Roamio does a very good job for me and I paid much less for the system than a 4 tuner Bolt with Lifetime.


They'd know about it if the prices were not as stiff as they are. I have told many people to buy the $50 OTA Tivo and they balk at the $15. Over and over. I am sure that is suppressing them a lot.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

HarperVision said:


> But here's the thing....the cable co's ALSO charge you that much or MORE for their DVR "service", so I just don't get the gripe about TiVo's charges. Plus if you throw in a couple minis if you need extra outlets, your savings grow because the thieves at the cable co's won't charge you those additional outlet fees and extra box charges.


I also understand why Tivo charges that much. The gripe is that there's both an upfront fee *AND* a monthly fee. It's a ton of money all at once. It's a shock. You're investing (not just buying) in a system that you're not sure if you're even going to like, and you only have 30 days to evaluate it before you're stuck with it for a very long time. It's more like buying a car or a house, and people don't want to spend that much energy worrying about something simple like TV.

Plus, it limits you from switching to DirecTV or Dish. It puts you at the mercy of the cable company. Not just their service, but their sometimes drastic price increases too. Are you really saving money with Tivo then?


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

The price of those Tivo "minis" is outlandish. I have no problem at all not buying any of those. That's insane. The "service" those have "included" isn't worth anything.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

lessd said:


> Some on this TCF would pay more money, if needed, to keep our TiVo, many would not, I am one that would, if needed I would pay $600 for lifetime but my 6 tuner Roamio does a very good job for me and I paid much less for the system than a 4 tuner Bolt with Lifetime.


Probably the only thing that could get me to give up my TiVo at this point is DirecTV, and depending on where I live, and what ****y cable company or companies serve that area, that's a very, very real possibility. If I end up in MA, it would be a really, really hard decision to go with FIOS but some some of my CT sports in SD, but everything else in HD, or give up TiVo and go to DirecTV.



BobCamp1 said:


> Plus, it limits you from switching to DirecTV or Dish. It puts you at the mercy of the cable company. Not just their service, but their sometimes drastic price increases too. Are you really saving money with Tivo then?


True. DirecTV could pull me away from TiVo. OTOH, some areas have 2 or 3 options for TiVo providers, although most don't. Where one of my friends lives, he has Comcast, RCN, and FIOS. Now that's choice.


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## aridon (Aug 31, 2006)

HarperVision said:


> But here's the thing....the cable co's ALSO charge you that much or MORE for their DVR "service", so I just don't get the gripe about TiVo's charges. .


No up front cost and if it breaks you get a new one. They can also drop it off and cancel whenever they want without having to deal with selling the tivi. That is why people go with it over dropping a grand on something that might not be satisfying or paying a similar monthly fee with contract.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

aridon said:


> No up front cost and if it breaks you get a new one. They can also drop it off and cancel whenever they want without having to deal with selling the tivi. That is why people go with it over dropping a grand on something that might not be satisfying or paying a similar monthly fee with contract.


If you're only talking about a single TV, I can (sort of) agree with you. As soon as you start adding in second, third, fourth, etc. outlets the advantage starts to lean heavily into TiVo's favor if you deploy minis and plan to stick with it to recoup and surpass your initial investment.

I'm not sure where you get the $1,000 from (Roamio is ~$150 and Bolt is $299 w/ a free year, adding ~$125 for each mini if needed), unless you mean if you buy and include lifetime service, but then if you do the long term investment is even better with TiVo.

There are MANY threads here discussing the various calculations on break even points and costs vs MSO equipment leasing, so I am not going to beat that dead horse again.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Steevow said:


> The price of those Tivo "minis" is outlandish. I have no problem at all not buying any of those. That's insane. The "service" those have "included" isn't worth anything.


Do you even have a clue of what you're talking about?


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## KimHedrick (Oct 12, 2014)

HarperVision said:


> Do you even have a clue of what you're talking about?


I'm guessing the answer is no.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

Stupidity AND ignorance make a sad combination.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

Bigg said:


> They seem strangely friendly to TiVo, I'm not sure if it's because they are trying to compete for the tech-savvy users, or if it is due to their previous dealings with trying to make the long since failed ComcasTiVo, or if there is some technology or people that Comcast bought/hired from TiVo for X1.


While they aren't notably hostile to TiVo, I've had enough problems with my cablecards that I wouldn't call them friendly. Why just yesterday their system removed my cablecard from its inventory. How such an amazing thing could happen was not explained.

If they did hire some people from TiVo for X1 they should fire them because X1's UI is horrible. Slick looking but slow and painful to actually use, not to mention unreliable recording. They'd lose any side by side comparison with a TiVo. Fortunately for Comcast that's hard to arrange.

I'm not sure Comcast actually wanted ComcasTiVo to succeed.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

HarperVision said:


> But here's the thing....the cable co's ALSO charge you that much or MORE for their DVR "service", so I just don't get the gripe about TiVo's charges.


Part of the problem is cablecos hiding the true cost of the DVR in their bundle pricing, plus they charge $20 for the DVR if you buy it ala carte but only give you a $2-3 credit for your TiVo. Most people object to effectively paying for DVR service twice, which hurts TiVo. Also, the deficiencies of an X1 compared to a TiVo aren't obvious in a Comcast showroom.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

randian said:


> Part of the problem is cablecos hiding the true cost of the DVR in their bundle pricing, plus they charge $20 for the DVR if you buy it ala carte but only give you a $2-3 credit for your TiVo. Most people object to effectively paying for DVR service twice, which hurts TiVo. Also, the deficiencies of an X1 compared to a TiVo aren't obvious in a Comcast showroom.


Good explanation !:up:


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

I don't mind the OT chatter, it's TCF, so obviously I wouldn't expect anything less , but relatively few posts wanted to address my original hypothesis. The mass market appeal issues are interesting, but it seems that we don't often address the more advanced and potentially valuable users and the lure of DirecTV, hence this thread. Any more opinions on that?



randian said:


> While they aren't notably hostile to TiVo, I've had enough problems with my cablecards that I wouldn't call them friendly. Why just yesterday their system removed my cablecard from its inventory. How such an amazing thing could happen was not explained.


True. But they did do VOD for TiVo, and they seem more supportive than any other MSO.



> If they did hire some people from TiVo for X1 they should fire them because X1's UI is horrible. Slick looking but slow and painful to actually use, not to mention unreliable recording. They'd lose any side by side comparison with a TiVo. Fortunately for Comcast that's hard to arrange.


Yeah, X1's interface has way too many clicks in it. TiVo can be click-heavy, but X1 is far worse. The remote interface is probably the one really cool thing. I call X1 a decent knock-off of TiVo with a cool remote/search. X1 is also focused equally on Live TV, DVR, and XoD, whereas TiVo is a DVR first, and everything else second, so X1 probably aligns better with the mainstream American Idiot who doesn't fully utilize their DVR.



> I'm not sure Comcast actually wanted ComcasTiVo to succeed.


I think they did, because they didn't have anything else to offer at the time, and knew their DVRs were horrible. Like really, really horrible. That was before they decided to roll their own DVR system.



randian said:


> Part of the problem is cablecos hiding the true cost of the DVR in their bundle pricing, plus they charge $20 for the DVR if you buy it ala carte but only give you a $2-3 credit for your TiVo. Most people object to effectively paying for DVR service twice, which hurts TiVo. Also, the deficiencies of an X1 compared to a TiVo aren't obvious in a Comcast showroom.


I don't think most people make it that far in their comparison.


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

HarperVision said:


> Do you even have a clue of what you're talking about?


I think at $150 I'd rather have a roamio, which I just bought a 4 tuner. And a roku, doesn't that play tivo from you local network?

So why is a tivo mini a good deal at $150?


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Steevow said:


> I think at $150 I'd rather have a roamio, which I just bought a 4 tuner. And a roku, doesn't that play tivo from you local network?
> 
> So why is a tivo mini a good deal at $150?


For people on Cable the Mini is a great deal as you get extra TV outlets for about $100 to $120 with no extra charge from your cable co. You do need at least one 4 tuner TiVo for that to work. (The newest Mini is about $120 at Amazon, the older model can be found for less, a used Mini has almost no downside as the Mini has no moving parts, just have to make sure it does not have the old monthly service on it)


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Steevow said:


> I think at $150 I'd rather have a roamio, which I just bought a 4 tuner. And a roku, doesn't that play tivo from you local network?
> 
> So why is a tivo mini a good deal at $150?


The first thing to understand is the Mini is part of a whole home cable/OTA distribution system. It is not a stand alone streaming device. Most streaming devices (including Roku) can not play MPEG 2 recordings which is what most cable and all OTA recordings are. The Mini gives you the ability to play live/recorded cable shows on a TV without any additional trans-coding or compression. As stated the Streaming only devices can not do that.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Steevow said:


> And a roku, doesn't that play tivo from you local network?


Not with a Roku 3. I don't have the Roku 4.


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

How about the tivo android app, or Idevice app?
There was a beta ROKU app for TIVO too, but it was never released. 
Or my xbox 360 works completely with twc. 

All of those cost less than the tivo mini. 
FWIW I have only seen them at $150, but sure they might be available for less. 

I paid $300 for the roamio I just bought, with lifetime. It's going to replace my $12.x a month two tuner premier. 
So I am having trouble with the mini. It looks like a $39 box to me. 

But my statement remains. I have recommended a tivo to many people with a cable dvr. They always balk at the $15 a month. Always. 
Admittedly they don't post here, and clearly everyone who does is OK with Tivo's pricing at least at some level.

I had 4 replayTVs, none with a monthly bill, so you can see that I am against recurring billing for tv. 
The cable company, the only exception and I do make them be competitive. Very competitive.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

JoeKustra said:


> Not with a Roku 3. I don't have the Roku 4.


No Roku can yet as there isn't an app for it on that platform. FireTV is the only one that does, IIRC. Even if it does have the app, the stream and experience is far from the same as a Mini, which can show live tv and all your recordings in full resolution streaming from your host TiVo. The quality and experience is virtually the same as a full TiVo without having to pay another monthly fee to TiVo and the cable co, and you don't have to rent another cablecard. The apps that stream TiVo are dumbed down resolution starved video streams that look like crap. My Slingbox is far superior in this regard.


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

HarperVision said:


> No Roku can yet as there isn't an app for it on that platform. FireTV is the only one that does, IIRC. Even if it does have the app, the stream and experience is far from the same as a Mini, which can show live tv and all your recordings in full resolution streaming from your host TiVo. The quality and experience is virtually the same as a full TiVo without having to pay another monthly fee to TiVo and the cable co, and you don't have to rent another cablecard. The apps that stream TiVo are dumbed down resolution starved video streams that look like crap. My Slingbox is far superior in this regard.


Yeah, I am going to get a fire tv and try it. 
I still think the tivo mini is a silly idea. 
Not that if I could get one for $39 it might not be OK, it would be. 
But at $150, I'd let them keep them forever. I just don't need it. 
As to live tv, I haven't watched live tv to any significant extent in 15 years.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Steevow said:


> How about the tivo android app, or Idevice app? There was a beta ROKU app for TIVO too, but it was never released. Or my xbox 360 works completely with twc. All of those cost less than the tivo mini. FWIW I have only seen them at $150, but sure they might be available for less. I paid $300 for the roamio I just bought, with lifetime. It's going to replace my $12.x a month two tuner premier. So I am having trouble with the mini. It looks like a $39 box to me. But my statement remains. I have recommended a tivo to many people with a cable dvr. They always balk at the $15 a month. Always. Admittedly they don't post here, and clearly everyone who does is OK with Tivo's pricing at least at some level. I had 4 replayTVs, none with a monthly bill, so you can see that I am against recurring billing for tv. The cable company, the only exception and I do make them be competitive. Very competitive.


As stated, the Mini can be bought for about $120 for the newest version. That's about $10/month for a year, which is about what the cable cos charge for an additional outlet and cablecard rental, so the mini pays for itself in a year.

Not sure where you're getting an xbox 360 new for less than $120?

How about this, give your wife or old parents a FireTV with TiVo app and a mini. Let them use both and the will choose the mini every single time. I have a Roamio plus at my parents on a Slingbox and then they use 3 minis throughout their home with no issues. As far as they know, they're the same as a cable box and treat them as such and they act as such. I could never do that (yet) with one of the streamers you mentioned.


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## Steevow (Nov 18, 2015)

HarperVision said:


> As stated, the Mini can be bought for about $120 for the newest version. That's about $10/month for a year, which is about what the cable cos charge for an additional outlet and cablecard rental, so the mini pays for itself in a year.
> 
> Not sure where you're getting an xbox 360 new for less than $120?


Naturally I didn't buy it to stream from twc.

As to outlets, twc doesn't charge for that, nor for the stupid box they give you which shows you live tv, which I haven't watched in years.


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## schatham (Mar 17, 2007)

Steevow said:


> Yeah, I am going to get a fire tv and try it.
> I still think the tivo mini is a silly idea.
> Not that if I could get one for $39 it might not be OK


To me the mini is the best thing Tivo has done. They go about $120 and include lifetime service.

It would cost $9.99 for a second cable box (not even dvr). It's nice to have a Tivo in the bedroom.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Steevow said:


> The price of those Tivo "minis" is outlandish. I have no problem at all not buying any of those. That's insane. The "service" those have "included" isn't worth anything.


The mini's are pretty easy to justify if you've looked at the price for instance of an HDBaseT solution or the monthly cost of even just a dumb STB rental.

It's the $15/mon for guide data that's the hard sell.

When I was with DirectTv and considered switching to TiVo, the rental cost was the same, but TiVo had that extra $5/mon service fee. I liked some of the features, but I would have also been losing some as well. Paying extra, just wasn't worth it, and I'm only talking a $5 difference.

Of course now that they have ads in the guide, why should we pay anything for the service?

That we can buy a $25 Roamio from Woot and not even be required to activate it is some truly weird economics.

Lifetime service is the only reason I even became interested in TiVo.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

jonw747 said:


> That we can buy a $25 Roamio from Woot and not even be required to activate it is some truly weird economics.


What can one do with a $25 Roamio from Woot without activation ?, except use it for parts. (At $25 it is worth the parts as you get the TiVo RF remote among other things)


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Steevow said:


> Yeah, I am going to get a fire tv and try it.
> I still think the tivo mini is a silly idea.
> Not that if I could get one for $39 it might not be OK, it would be.
> But at $150, I'd let them keep them forever. I just don't need it.
> As to live tv, I haven't watched live tv to any significant extent in 15 years.


Your comparison is completely ridiculous, as has already been pointed out to you several times with nicer words. The TiVo Mini and Roamio compete directly with something like XFinity's X1 system, which is $20/mo for the main DVR, and $10/mo each for the small boxes. Comparing a cable DVR to a streaming stick is completely ridiculous. The TiVo Mini is a really good deal. Before the Mini, most cable providers didn't have something similar either, so you'd have to pay $650 for a Premiere in each room you wanted TiVo in, plus CableCard fees for each one. Now that could add up fast!


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