# Where did all of TIVO Engineering go to?



## scott blair (Apr 14, 2003)

Just happened to notice in one of the Tivo newsletters there was a careers link in it. I thought I'd go check out their openings as Engineering job openings can tell you a lot about where a company is going in the future.

What shocked me is that it appears there is an enormous vacuum at the management and senior developer level.

Was just curious what was going on at Tivo? 

Is this part of a huge expansion? (I'd guess probably not).

Did a huge group all go off together to do something new? (fairly common).

These are just the Senior positions I saw..

Director of Program and Account Management 
Director, Software Engineering
Engineering Program Manager
Engineering Manager, Data Warehouse 
Manager, Software Tools Engineering 
Manager, Media Architecture 
Manager, Software Engineering 
Senior Software Engineer 
Senior Software Systems Engineer 
Senior Technical Product Manager, Data Warehouse 
Senior Director of International Development 
Senior Quality Engineer 
Senior Software Engineer 
Server Architect 
Software Engineer, Server Applications 
Technical Program Manager - SPD 
Technical Producer 
Technical Architect, Data Warehouse


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

Another interpretation is that we're hiring.

TiVo has the lowest turnover of any company I've worked for. There is no mass exodus.

Most of the people I work with have been at TiVo for 2+ years, and many folks, like Pony and Jerry and me, are in the 5+ group.


----------



## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Do all employees work at the headquarters or can people work remotely ?


----------



## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Do all employees work at the headquarters or can people work remotely ?


Sorry bud, the teleworking blogger position is mine.


----------



## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

Heck, I'd sweep floors at Tivo if I could just figure out a way to persuade them to move their HQ near my childrens' schools.

Pioneering spirit, revolutionary romance, fighting the good fight- hard technical problems to conquer- That's the kind of frontier that draw the best of the best.

I was drawn to such work in the 80's and I can say that it was a real blast- there is nothing like the rush, and the satisfaction. It is not for everyone- it requires rare kinds of engineers with peculiar talents, but it is very very rewarding. Seriously, I would have paid money to work where I did, and during the times I did. It was history in the making. A lot of fun.

No question if I was doing it over again, I'd be camped out at Alviso. Although I could have given a crap about such matters at the time, my bet is that such a move would be just as lucrative too.


----------



## Y-ASK (Aug 17, 2001)

Deleted as requested...

Y-ASK

And maybe it's best if we leave it at that... :down:


----------



## scott blair (Apr 14, 2003)

TiVoStephen said:


> Another interpretation is that we're hiring.
> 
> TiVo has the lowest turnover of any company I've worked for. There is no mass exodus.
> 
> Most of the people I work with have been at TiVo for 2+ years, and many folks, like Pony and Jerry and me, are in the 5+ group.


Stephen, that's great news then.

But given the number of Management positions vs. worker bee positions that were listed it certainly gives the impression that it isn't just natural growth as there would have to have been people filling most of those Director and Manager roles long before now.

Scott


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

Well, I'm not sure how to prove to you that you're wrong, but you're wrong.

It's always easier to hire individual contributor positions than management and director positions, so that's perhaps why you see the latter stay open longer. Our standards for managers and directors are very high.


----------



## Justin Thyme (Mar 29, 2005)

scott blair said:


> But given the number of Management positions vs. worker bee positions that were listed it certainly gives the impression that it isn't just natural growth as there would have to have been people filling most of those Director and Manager roles long before now.


I have seen a ton of exoduses in my time. This doesn't smell like one. I understand your interpretation but hey, it fails even preliminary sniff tests. EG- if there was an exodus, why aren't we hearing bitter insider stories that could only be written by grumpy soon to be or recently departed employees?

It's pretty obvious they are opening up a new sizable project. You seed the new project with seasoned dudes from existing projects, but you have to fill in the ranks of the existing structures if you want to do that.

Let the speculations begin on what the project is:

Tivo4 project is ramping up, will have an intel Duo, 1GB of ram and wifi mesh network and telephony support. Finally, the Tivo will do Ashu's clothes washing for him.

[Google/FIOS/Cisco] commissioned a Tivo box.

Malone wants the HD Direct Tivo sofware updated pronto, with new hardware planned with support for MPEG4.

Sony/Microsoft is paying big bucks for a Tivo port to PS3/Vista.

SciAtl box porting project has been moved up because some other hoitey toitey Cableco wants the same sort of thing as the Comcast Moto box.

Tivo is beginning work on Tivo Mobile.


----------



## scott blair (Apr 14, 2003)

Seriously, I'm glad to hear there wasn't an exodus then. 

I wasn't saying it I thought it was fact. It was just my observation that it seemed odd to have that many top slots open and made me curious if there had been some type of major change.

Hopefully there are big things around the corner for Tivo. Personally I'm going to hope that it's project #3 from Justin's list


----------



## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

TiVoStephen said:


> Well, I'm not sure how to prove to you that you're wrong, but you're wrong.
> 
> It's always easier to hire individual contributor positions than management and director positions, so that's perhaps why you see the latter stay open longer. Our standards for managers and directors are very high.


So TiVo finally got to the point that they don't promote from within? Congratulations! You are now a real American corporation.


----------



## ChuckyBox (Oct 3, 2005)

Justin Thyme said:


> Let the speculations begin on what the project is:
> 
> Tivo4 project is ramping up, will have an intel Duo, 1GB of ram and wifi mesh network and telephony support. Finally, the Tivo will do Ashu's clothes washing for him.
> 
> ...


Stephen said "we're hiring" not "we've started hiring." I've checked TiVo's job postings occasionally for a couple of years now, and the number right now is not particularly large. If you look at the 10-Q filings, the company has be adding to the headcount steadily for some time, as well, so between ordinary growth and ordinary turnover, there isn't much to tell from the number of these postings.

Most of the items you suggest would leave some kind of evidence: either TiVo would have to file an 8-K announcing a "material agreement," or there would be an increase in technology revenue that would need to be explained.

Most likely it is just ongoing R&D, as will as the work with Comcast and now Cox.


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Do all employees work at the headquarters or can people work remotely ?


We have very few remote employees. New hires are expected to work in either our Alviso HQ or our NY sales office.


----------



## Billy66 (Dec 15, 2003)

TiVoStephen said:


> Another interpretation is that we're hiring.





> Well, I'm not sure how to prove to you that you're wrong, but you're wrong.


You could come out and say "We're hiring!' Instead of telling us that it's another interpretation. Not every interpretation is accurate right? A small hole in your words that's all.



ChuckyBox said:


> Stephen said "we're hiring" not "we've started hiring."


Actually he didn't say that directly. He said enough for us to believe it, but he didn't quite say it.

No trying to cause trouble, but everything you write, or don't write gets combed over Stephen.

Happy Holidays!


----------



## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

Some days, no matter what you say or do, you just can't win.

Merry Christmas to you and yours anyway, Stephen!


----------



## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

There have been some recent comments from TiVo folks which have been more heavily obfuscated than seemingly necessary, which perhaps has bred a little bit of extra skepticism by some. One situation that comes to mind was the whole 7.3.1 on 5xx Series 2 boxes fiasco. TiVo folks were still saying things like, "You'll like what's coming soon..." instead of "We understand exactly what's wrong, have fixed it, and am now sending the fix through quality assurance to ensure it doesn't make anything worse" (which, in retrospect, now seems likely to have been the case at the time.) While I completely understand why one might want to be cagy about public statements, there may have been a few too many situations like that recently, causing a predictable backlash.


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

jmoak said:


> Some days, no matter what you say or do, you just can't win.
> 
> Merry Christmas to you and yours anyway, Stephen!


Thanks jmoak!

--S.

P.S. We're hiring!


----------



## boywaja (Sep 30, 2001)

TiVoStephen said:


> We have very few remote employees. New hires are expected to work in either our Alviso HQ or our NY sales office.


I noticed some jobs at the tivo site listed as "midamerica" I hadn't noticed that before. Where are those jobs?

I assume traffic and home prices are just as bad or worse in alviso when compared to the dc area.


----------



## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

TiVoStephen said:


> P.S. We're hiring!


Doesn't really help those of us that would love to work remotely for Tivo, but don't want to move back to California or New York.


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Resurrecting an old thread with new observances: There seem to be quite a few engineering jobs posted on the Jobs site at TiVo.com: http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs...resize=&page=Jobs&jvCategory=Engineering+&+IT


----------



## scott blair (Apr 14, 2003)

Looks like they must be hiring the team to finally start developing the new HD DirecTivo they were supposed to have released a year ago now!


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

scott blair said:


> Looks like they must be hiring the team to finally start developing the new HD DirecTivo they were supposed to have released a year ago now!


I had heard rumors (and I maybe perpetuated said rumors) that TiVo engineering was outsourced. I was kind of hoping the openings indicated that engineering was being brought back in-house.


----------



## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

orangeboy said:


> I had heard rumors (and I maybe perpetuated said rumors) that TiVo engineering was outsourced. I was kind of hoping the openings indicated that engineering was being brought back in-house.


That has happened in general. Years ago, management all jumped on the outsourcing bandwagon, and being slow learners, it took until about now for them to realize that people who work for you might actually understand what you need and work for you to get it, besides which talent is not just an equivalent cell on a spreadsheet.

(This, he says while our boss is showing that he wants have over 50% of his staff overseas in a presentation to his staff that work _here._)


----------



## Sbmocp (Apr 19, 2001)

netringer said:


> That has happened in general. Years ago, management all jumped on the outsourcing bandwagon, and being slow learners, it took until about now for them to realize that people who work for you might actually understand what you need and work for you to get it, besides which talent is not just an equivalent cell on a spreadsheet.
> 
> (This, he says while our boss is showing that he wants have over 50% of his staff overseas in a presentation to his staff that work _here._)


I'd read a couple of comments lately that bemoaned the fact that TiVo wasn't the company it used to be, all the people who cared were gone, et cetera. I didn't bother to keep up with things over the past couple of years, so...I wonder what has happened?


----------



## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

orangeboy said:


> I had heard rumors (and I maybe perpetuated said rumors) that TiVo engineering was outsourced. I was kind of hoping the openings indicated that engineering was being brought back in-house.


I think the reason TiVo engineering got so bad is because top management, aka Tom Rogers the CEO, is a glad-handing media executive who probably doesn't know jack squat about engineering. And in my experience with managers who don't understand in detail what they're managing, they tend to favor the best "bull**** artist" underling, not the most technically competent underling. These same managers also tend to have the mentality that what they don't understand isn't nearly as hard to accomplish as it appears, therefore it's a commodity, therefore why not send it out to some third world country with cheaper labor.

But perhaps TiVo has figured out that Apu in Bangalore, working not for TiVo but for a 3rd party that won the contract by being the low bidder, just isn't as useful an employee as someone actually in Alviso. Apu can't even use a TiVo when he goes home; he's not about to care as much about bugs as someone in California who can potentially use the product every day. And Apu certainly doesn't care as much about TiVo the company as an actual employee.

Apu's company makes the most money when they throw semi-working software over the wall to TiVo. Delivering quality costs much more (in engineering man-hours) than delivering junk. And unless Apu's company is on a "cost plus" contract (which is an entirely different can of worms), the company makes the most money by delivering the lowest quality product that TiVo will accept.

One vocal proponent of engineers using their product is what Microsoft calls "eating their own dog food". In theory that should produce higher quality software. OTOH, maybe that doesn't work as well in practice (e.g. Vista) as it does in theory. On the gripping hand, Vista was probably more a marketing and management cluster**** than an engineering one.

The above is all pure uninformed speculation. I sincerely *hope* that some third world contractor is responsible for the abysmal state of the software on the TiVo Premiere. Because if that was Alviso's abomination, then what does it say about the future of engineering in this country?

Time will tell. Let's see if TiVo alters this boilerplate from their SEC filings:

_We have from time-to-time outsourced engineering work related to the design, development, and manufacturing of our products. We have and expect to in the future work with companies located in jurisdictions outside of the United States, including, but not limited to, Taiwan, India, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Mexico._​


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

orangeboy said:


> Resurrecting an old thread with new observances: There seem to be quite a few engineering jobs posted on the Jobs site at TiVo.com: http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs...resize=&page=Jobs&jvCategory=Engineering+&+IT


Yup, we're hiring!


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

TiVoStephen said:


> TiVo has the lowest turnover of any company I've worked for. There is no mass exodus.
> 
> Most of the people I work with have been at TiVo for 2+ years, and many folks, like Pony and Jerry and me, are in the 5+ group.


All of this is still true, 5 years later. Except now I can say that Pony, Jerry and me are in the 10+ group.


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

TiVoStephen said:


> Yup, we're hiring!


Hmm wish I had the skills and desire to live near TiVo.

I could see it both being very interesting and frustrating working at TiVo.


----------



## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

innocentfreak said:


> Hmm wish I had the skills and desire to live near TiVo.
> 
> I could see it both being very interesting and frustrating working at TiVo.


They could just have a part time TiVo rep in at least one larger city in every state. (S)He would work directly for TiVo assisting with local questions and issues related to cable and antenna problems and would, for a small fee, be available to help with first installations and initial TiVo setups. Be an easy part time job and you could just get a small fee for each home setup and a small stipend for carrying around a TiVo supplied local help number cell phone. Your local TiVo advocate.


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

daveak said:


> They could just have a part time TiVo rep in at least one larger city in every state. (S)He would work directly for TiVo assisting with local questions and issues related to cable and antenna problems and would, for a small fee, be available to help with first installations and initial TiVo setups. Be an easy part time job and you could just get a small fee for each home setup and a small stipend for carrying around a TiVo supplied local help number cell phone. Your local TiVo advocate.


I would be up for that lol.


----------



## CraigHB (Dec 24, 2003)

RealityCheck said:


> It would be nice if TiVo Engineering would get M-Card M-Mode support working for the TiVo Series3. I'm waiting for an MVPD to point this out next time TiVo complains about compatibility. MVPDs could make the case TiVo refuses to fully support their product with the tools already available. Why go out of the way to implement new features they won't use? I bet this is the reason TiVo wants CableCARD support mandated in cooperation with "AllVid". TiVo Engineering won't have to update the software stack to support "AllVid" on older S3 based platforms.


I believe multi-stream support on older S3 units is a hardware issue. Older S3 units will always require two cards. I'm not aware of any problems with M-Card support from TiVo's end, but I may have missed something. There's certainly a lot of problems with M-Card support from the MVPD end.

As far as AllVid, if the FCC comes up with anything, it won't be for a while. They claim they're trying to do something by 2012, but I'd be surprised if they get something going by 2015. Based on what I've read, all the MVPDs and some of their vendors are fighting it. By the time the FCC gets something going, even the Premier would be a legacy box.

If the AllVid concept happens as proposed and if S3 units are still fully supported at that time, compatability will require quite a bit of software on TiVo's part. If the powers that be go with IP, then yes, TiVo software could use the same stack, but there will be a whole heap of AllVid software on top of it. However, there's no guarantee the FCC will go with something current TiVos can support with a software update or add-on USB device. In that case, even the Premier would become obsolete.


----------



## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

RealityCheck said:


> It would be nice if TiVo Engineering would get M-Card M-Mode support working for the TiVo Series3.


geez, let it go dude.. let it go..


----------



## bigpuma (Aug 12, 2003)

innocentfreak said:


> Hmm wish I had the skills and desire to live near TiVo.


What kind of skills do you need to live near TiVo? Is Alviso a particularly tricky place to live.


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

RealityCheck said:


> I would let it go if TiVo would state for the record exactly what is precluding M-Card M-Mode support in the Series3. Jim Denny was interviewed after the Series3 was on the market for some months. He never stated a hardware issue hindered M-Mode support in the S3. He merely indicated there was no way to certify M-Mode support with CableLabs at the time. Had Mr. Denny stated at the time M-Mode support was impossible; I wouldn't have purchased the S3, especially at that premium. Any rumor of hardware issues being the reason is hogwash until TiVo officially states it as such. TiVo never even submitted the S3 to CableLabs for M-Mode certification, so I don't believe it's purely a hardware issue. The certification costs seems like a primary reason to me.


Wrong thread. This is about TiVo jobs/hiring. Go start your own thread in the Series3 forum.


----------



## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

bigpuma said:


> What kind of skills do you need to live near TiVo? Is Alviso a particularly tricky place to live.


No lol skillset for their jobs since I have no coding knowledge, but San Jose might still be tricky.


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

RealityCheck said:


> It would be nice if TiVo Engineering would get M-Card M-Mode support working for the TiVo Series3.


Impossible! It's a hardware problem. TiVo designed the hardware while the M-Card spec was still under development. They thought they had done everything necessary to support M-Cards once they were available, which is why they originally said they would work. However it turns out that once M-Cards were available, and they did some testing, they discovered a hardware flaw that prevented them from working properly.

That being said you can still use 2 M-Cards, one in each slot, for a S3. So your cable company shouldn't be using the lack of M-Card support in the S3 as an excuse for providing poor service. Tell them to treat it as an S-Card device. They are suppose to provide support for first generation S-Card devices, and the M-Card spec provides backward compatibility just for that purpose.

Dan


----------



## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> That being said you can still use 2 M-Cards, one in each slot, for a S3. So your cable company shouldn't be using the lack of M-Card support in the S3 as an excuse for providing poor service. Tell them to treat it as an S-Card device. They are suppose to provide support for first generation S-Card devices, and the M-Card spec provides backward compatibility just for that purpose.
> 
> Dan


I had an S CableCard fail in one of my S3's recently (stuck in firmware upgrade even though no upgrade had been sent out) and due to some ineptness and lack of knowledge on both the tech and phone support's side, they ended up replacing both cards with M CableCards which are working fine.

I was surprised at the issues getting them correctly authorized though as my original install went well and that was 3+ years ago. It didn't help that the new cards may have been originally authorized for one of their cable boxes as they had a VOD setting enabled which prevented them from working with the TiVo and the original 2 phone support people did not know how to deal with it. I received a call back a few hours later from someone who had no problem fixing the issue and getting them authorized.

Scott


----------



## acvthree (Jan 17, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> Impossible! It's a hardware problem.


Just because it is a problem in the hardware doesn't prevent a software fix. I've written a lot of software to work around hardware problems.

I've even written software that worked around a problem where two different hardware vendor interpretted the spec differently so were incompatible with each other. A single software, double hardware "fix".

Now, there may be no software work around possible. I'm just saying that a hardware problem does not always mean impossible to fix in software.

Al


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

So a TiVo employee decides to participate in a discussion, and shortly after a completely irrelevant post about M-CARD support for the Series3 comes up. Do you _purposely_ not want TiVo to participate in the forums by repeatedly doing the same things that drive said employees away? The Series3/M-CARD issue has been discussed ad-nauseum in the Series3 forum, and died probably 3-4 years ago when all but an apparently few accepted the limitation with that model.

It's unfortunate that a _moderator_ perpetuated the off-topic discussion, though I'm sure the intentions were in an effort to explain the deficiencies of that model based on the release date of the DVR and the release date of that type of CableCARD.


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

orangeboy said:


> Wrong thread. This is about TiVo jobs/hiring. Go start your own thread in the Series3 forum.





RealityCheck said:


> With all due respect, the purported issues regarding TiVo's Series3 issue with M-Card M-Mode Support has came from users. TiVo Employees and the company never disclosed exactly what the issue is or why they haven't solved it. Without official word, it's rumor and innuendo. TiVo's official word (TiVoPony) was "Likewise, features such as QAM remapping and M-Card S3 support do not target a significant portion of our subscribers, both are in fact very small numbers of subscribers. That doesn't mean that they automatically get set aside, or that TiVo is ignoring or doesn't care about those customers. But it is a consideration when trading off those features against others (M-Card for S3 is technically possible, but also technically very complex. We've learned that there is a lot of risk inherent in that development).". TiVo stated similar reasoning regarding fixing "Daylight Saving" issues with the Series1. A customer managed to design a solution that TiVo Engineering couldn't. That's sad when a person with no source code access outperforms your engineering staff. By the way, it was Jim Denny, a senior officer of the company that discussed M-Card M-Mode support was waiting on CableLabs's testing suite. I purchased my Series3 after that interview. Mr. Denny did not simply state that in a passing comment on the CES Show Floor.
> 
> I know we won't ever see M-Mode support on the S3. Just like we won't see the revised UI because TiVo chose Flash over a proper C codebase or HTML 5. You can bet TiVo won't support "AllVid" on any Series3 based platforms either. CableCARD Support and Tuning Adapters will remain necessary. I wonder what defense TiVo would take if MVPDs took them to task on this?
> 
> TiVo is lucky the DVR market remains closed. Competition would destroy them if any non-MVPD tied products existed. Patents expire, and you can't milk lawsuits forever. If Apple or Boxee ever add DVR and CableCARD/"AllVid" support, I'd dump my TiVo S3 in a second. My PowerPC G5 receives better support some 5 years later than my TiVo S3.


All of which is still irrelevant to this topic.


----------



## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

RealityCheck,

Seriously, is it that big of a deal that you need two cable cards instead of one?! Do you still have an axe to grind almost four years after the Series 3 launched?

I have an original Series 3 that I still am very happy with. Because I use a front projector, I prefer the OLED display on the Series 3 to the box design on the Tivo HD and Tivo Premiere.

I miss the active participation of Tivo employees on Tivo Community Forum. I would hate to think that a few bad apples would scare off the people who make these products from interacting with their most enthusiastic customers.

Lest anyone think the pot is calling the kettle black, I have been critical of the Tivo Premiere. However, that is due in part to wanting the much more capable hardware in the Tivo Premiere to support a product that eclipses my generally bullet-proof Series 3. I want the Tivo Premiere to be every bit as good as the marketing guys said it would be. I want a revolutionary next generation HD Tivo. The hardware is there, but Tivo needs to get the software up to snuff. Therefore, let's hope the current and future Tivo engineering staff deliver an excellent product.:up:


----------



## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

RealityCheck said:


> Really, so TiVo Engineering has nothing to do with their hardware and software support? The OP wasn't asking about TiVo Employee participation in this thread. Rather, they queried why so many obviously necessary positions were vacant. TiVo's dearth of internal engineers may be the reason their software support is so poor.


Please, you just like to piss and moan at every oppurtunity. Your "logic" and "reasoning" for bringing it here is non existant.

Get over it, or get rid of it.


----------



## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

RealityCheck said:


> It makes little sense to someone with subpar reading comprehension skills. You may not like what I've said here, but nobody is asking you to read or reply to anything I post. Considering the small amount of posts I've made since joining TCF; you're wrong about "moaning" at every opportunity. Based on the OP, my opinion does apply. When you have a miniscule internal engineering staff, it's hard to fix problems.


And nobody is asking you to come in to a POSITIVE thread that a Tivo staffer came into to give POSITIVE posting, and just crap all over it.

You want to know why there is no Tivo presence here anymore? it's people just like you that came in here and pounced on Stephen on a completely unrelated topic. He doesn't deserve it, and you and your selfish shallow agenda that's all about you don't either.

There are people here at TCF that I'm proud to call members of the community, but it's members like you that make me ashamed to be associated with it.

Would stronger moderation be nice? heck yes, but so would members that have some manners.

Diane


----------



## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

RealityCheck said:


> It would be nice if TiVo Engineering would get M-Card M-Mode support working for the TiVo Series3. I'm waiting for an MVPD to point this out next time TiVo complains about compatibility. MVPDs could make the case TiVo refuses to fully support their product with the tools already available. Why go out of the way to implement new features they won't use? I bet this is the reason TiVo wants CableCARD support mandated in cooperation with "AllVid". TiVo Engineering won't have to update the software stack to support "AllVid" on older S3 based platforms.





dianebrat said:


> geez, let it go dude.. let it go..


Really. It's hardware that's *two* generations old. 

Is life so good that this is a problem worth ranting about?


----------



## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

dianebrat said:


> And nobody is asking you to come in to a POSITIVE thread that a Tivo staffer came into to give POSITIVE posting, and just crap all over it.
> 
> You want to know why there is no Tivo presence here anymore? it's people just like you that came in here and pounced on Stephen on a completely unrelated topic. He doesn't deserve it, and you and your selfish shallow agenda that's all about you don't either.
> 
> ...


Very, very well said!

I really miss the Tivo team posting here.


----------



## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

It's kind of rude for a poster with an agenda to hijack someone another posters thread.

I think owners of a S3 have an issue but this isn't the place to make it.

It's kind of obvious full M card support will never be offered for the original S3 units. We don't know if it's not possible or if tivo decided it's not a productive use of resources to attempt the project.



RealityCheck said:


> Manners? Where did I personally insult any employee of TiVo directly? In any of the 55 posts I have ever made? Did you ever think that TiVo's legal department might have decided it best not to respond anywhere outside of TiVo's home page regardless of circumstance (most companies don't want anyone communicating in proxy outside of official channels)? If 3 or 4 posts I've made insult you so badly, well (like you tell me about M-Mode support in the S3) get over it!
> 
> Selfish, shallow agenda? Pfft! So, just asking for an official explanation for I problem I know they have no plans to resolve seems ridiculous to you? If I were the only one who desired at least an official response regarding S3 M-Mode support; your point would be valid. TiVo is lucky to have loyal customers such as yourself. I have the right in the terms of service to express my views in a mature fashion. Taking pot shots at someone you don't even know (versus comments I've made) is truly pathetic.
> 
> ...


----------



## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

RealityCheck said:


> Zealotry in all forms is silly.


You should read that and apply to yourself.


----------



## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

RealityCheck said:


> Manners? Where did I personally insult any employee of TiVo directly? In any of the 55 posts I have ever made? ...
> 
> Show me one post where I personally insulted a TiVo Staff member who posts here. By the way, doesn't TiVoStephen work for TiVo? He still posts here.


A: I never used the word "insult" nor did I insinuate it.
B: You came into an unrelated thread JUST to pounce on a Tivo staffer, that is rude and uncalled for, do you deny it?
C: Your attitude and agenda do not impress me.

there, I'm done..

Diane


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Your posts are NOT related to this thread. Bootstrapping the M-CARD issue because "Engineering" is mentioned does not make it relevant. As I mentioned twice before, go start your own thread (or contribute to an existing thread) in the Series3 forum. At this point you are merely flame-baiting, posting to provoke a reaction from other members which is against TCF rules.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> That being said you can still use 2 M-Cards, one in each slot, for a S3. So your cable company shouldn't be using the lack of M-Card support in the S3 as an excuse for providing poor service.


No, but it also does not prevent them from charging me $6 per month per TiVo rather than $3 per month per TiVo. In my case, with 2 S3s, that's $72 a year more than I would be paying if I had THDs, more than $250 to date. I would say that is significant. I definitely could make good use of that $250.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...


----------



## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

TiVoStephen said:


> All of this is still true, 5 years later. Except now I can say that Pony, Jerry and me are in the 10+ group.


:up:


----------



## scott blair (Apr 14, 2003)

RealityCheck,

Being the O.P. of this thread 4 years ago, I can honestly say "You sir are a troll". Your posts have nothing to do with this thread. I appreciate you have an ax to grind, but go grind it in a relevant thread rather than trolling here in this one.

WTH was this thread even re-opened 4 years later?....it was long since dead and should have remained dead.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

I don't think it was in the least inappropriate for orangeboy to resurrect the thread with new information. That RealityCheck perhaps should not have hijacked it is another matter.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Since we are resurrecting things:



TiVoStephen said:


> Another interpretation is that we're hiring.
> 
> TiVo has the lowest turnover of any company I've worked for. There is no mass exodus.
> 
> Most of the people I work with have been at TiVo for 2+ years, and many folks, like Pony and Jerry and me, are in the 5+ group.


You should try the telecommunications industry. As a company, we're the new kid on the block, only having been in the telecom biz for 25 years. In our local operations department, the average is 17 years. Five of us are at or beyond 30 years (with the company before we started doing telecom). At that, we're still newbies compared to AT&T's tech staff. In the local AT&T office, the "rookie" has been with the company 35 years. A couple of the "old timers" have 45+ years in over there.

Of course, that's operations. In sales, it's a revolving door.


----------



## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

TiVoStephen said:


> All of this is still true, 5 years later. Except now I can say that Pony, Jerry and me are in the 10+ group.


That's great. But here are a few questions that relate to the topic of this thread:


What percentage of *engineers* are with TiVo 10+ years later?


What percentage of TiVo's total *engineering* jobs have moved to Taiwan, India, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Mexico?


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> That's great. But here are a few questions that relate to the topic of this thread:
> 
> 
> What percentage of *engineers* are with TiVo 10+ years later?
> ...


A whole bunch of engineers are in the 10+ group (in fact, the majority of 10+ group is made up of engineers).

And I don't know what percentage is overseas, but it's very low. Proof is at http://www.tivo.com/careers/

TiVo is a great place to work. I recommend it.


----------



## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

ferrumpneuma said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> ...


showing again that you are not working with facts but just plain have an uninformed, cynical view of the topic.


----------



## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> showing again that you are not working with facts but just plain have an uninformed, cynical view of the topic.


It's easy to become cynical when

a) longstanding bugs are allowed to fester for years
and
b) not-ready-for-primetime products like the Premiere are released in "alpha quality" state, many months before they should be

One rational hypothesis is that outsourced engineers are producing crap, because outsourcing business relationships are more conducive to saving money than to producing quality products.

If the sorry state of the Premiere software is due to Alviso engineering incompetence, and not due to management dictums to "ship it", then America deserves to have all its jobs shipped overseas. Obviously we can't do them here!

I would be *embarassed* if I was on the engineering team responsible for the Premiere. Tivo, have you no shame???


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> It's easy to become cynical when
> 
> a) longstanding bugs are allowed to fester for years
> and
> ...


Another rational hypothesis is that there is/was difficulty in porting the C functionality over to Flash/Stagecraft:



bkdtv said:


> *Why is the new HD user interface built in Adobe Flash?*
> 
> In the past, TiVo wrote all of its software in C, and that made updating and improving the interface difficult, especially with all the baggage accrued over the past decade. Developers required extensive knowledge of the code and its various dependencies to make changes. TiVo determined a major rewrite was necessary and plans were put in motion to do that.


Given the long list of open positions for flash programmers in the not too distant past, it seems the hiring requirements would be to not only have working knowledge of that language, but also a good working knowledge of C, so porting the functionality from the SDUI to the HDUI could be possible. If those (newer) flash programmers were not familiar with C, then the task of making the Premiere (with a working HD interface) available in a timely manner would seem to be a daunting effort.


----------



## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

orangeboy said:


> Given the long list of open positions for flash programmers in the not too distant past, it seems the hiring requirements would be to not only have working knowledge of that language, but also a good working knowledge of C,


are there developers that don't know C?


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

HiDefGator said:


> are there developers that don't know C?


I guess you chose to not read the bkdtv quote I included.


----------



## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> One rational hypothesis is that outsourced engineers are producing crap, because outsourcing business relationships are more conducive to saving money than to producing quality products.


when working with a hypothesis it is best for the person to acknowledge that versus just throwing out whatever simply because they are upset about the product.

as for outsourcing - I do system design work for a very large company that has outsourced the development part. Thus I daily work with onshore representatives of the outsourcing. I have found that in fact the outsourced folks are just like other folks, some are really bad, some are really good and most fall in the middle with specific strengths and weaknesses. When most companies outsource they do not just wash their hands of the whole thing but keep the core subject matter experts and design folk as full time employees or contractors if the role has a visible end point of deliverables.
Then the designs are handed off for the work to be done on them.
outsourcing rates are rising so saving money is usually not the main goal any more as it is becoming a small %, the real goal is to be nimble in workforce size so that as the work is done and the product goes into maintenance mode then if the next big thing is not ready the outsourcing component can be downsized without the pain of layoffs in corporate of full time employees. I have gone through downsizing waves at end of year and they are NOT fun at all. Since outsourcing has been utilized in my area those yearly waves are now much smaller and far less painful. Given the economic downturn that is a large blessing where I work


----------



## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

The biggest problem I have seen with outsourcing vs. in house development is that designs are never 100&#37; correct when they are started. The outsourced engineers will produce whatever the paper says no matter how idiotic or broken the design may be. The in house people are far more likely to question the design and suggest that it be changed or improved before months of time and money are wasted on it.


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

ferrumpneuma said:


> If TiVoStephen is still reading this thread I would like to ask a few questions in the most sincere, non cynical, respectful way I can.
> 
> Stephen, do you and/or your family use the TiVo Premier in your private life?
> 
> ...


I'll answer this but I don't want to speak for the Premiere in general or get drawn into a long discussion, because my area is TiVoCast (downloads and streaming).

But, yes, I have two Premiere units, one at home and one at work.

The one at home is not HD-UI enabled, but only because our home TV set is SD. (Someone has to test SD!  )

At home I am usually testing alpha or early beta software, so I do experience an occasional reboot.

For my work box, which is in HD and on production software, I have not had any recent reboots at all.

We have acknowledged some of the issues with performance (please see http://blog.tivo.com/2010/05/whats-next-for-tivo®-premiere/) and are working hard to make sure we fix all the outstanding issues as soon as we can. But overall I find the HD-UI a great improvement and very usable.

Best,
Stephen


----------



## E94Allen (Oct 16, 2005)

TiVoStephen said:


> We have acknowledged some of the issues with performance (please see http://blog.tivo.com/2010/05/whats-next-for-tivo®-premiere/) and are working hard to make sure we fix all the outstanding issues as soon as we can. But overall I find the HD-UI a great improvement and very usable.
> 
> Best,
> Stephen


http://blog.tivo.com/2010/05/whats-next-for-tivo®-premiere/ are bad link Error 404 - Not Found. Can you fix the link?


----------



## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

E94Allen said:


> http://blog.tivo.com/2010/05/whats-next-for-tivo®-premiere/ are bad link Error 404 - Not Found. Can you fix the link?


Use this one: http://blog.tivo.com/category/tivo-premiere/


----------



## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

HiDefGator said:


> The biggest problem I have seen with outsourcing vs. in house development is that designs are never 100% correct when they are started. The outsourced engineers will produce whatever the paper says no matter how idiotic or broken the design may be. The in house people are far more likely to question the design and suggest that it be changed or improved before months of time and money are wasted on it.


thus the reason I speak to the onshore reps for outsourcing daily and create a partnership versus a 'toss it over the wall' approach 
Most people have an outsourced picture in their head that it is an us here and them there approach that would in fact really be bad, even if the"them" are of high caliber.
The picture I have in my head is a 24 hour shop where while I sleep they work on the checklist generated while I was in the office the day before and when I come back in the (my) morning I have fresh new toys to look over. This 24 hour partnership works really well and actually lets me do far more design work/tweaking than would have been possible if we were all in one time zone.


----------



## NotVeryWitty (Oct 3, 2003)

TiVoStephen said:


> I have two Premiere units, one at home and one at work.


I wish I had a job where I could watch TV (on a Tivo). 

Any plans on opening a development site in Massachusetts?


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

orangeboy said:


> Use this one: http://blog.tivo.com/category/tivo-premiere/


Thanks, that works since the post I was trying to link to is the first in that category. The original URL I used has a registered-trademark character in the URL which is a no-no.

Let's see if I can shorten it: http://bit.ly/bBJZfW


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

HiDefGator said:


> The biggest problem I have seen with outsourcing vs. in house development is that designs are never 100% correct when they are started.


I have far more problems than that with the issue.



ZeoTiVo said:


> thus the reason I speak to the onshore reps for outsourcing daily and create a partnership versus a 'toss it over the wall' approach


It's more fundamental than that. First of all, since much of this goes overseas, it means that we are bleeding resources to other nations. When it is a trickle, it's no big deal on a national scale, but it's fast becoming a flood, and that at a time when resources are particularly thin for our own population. To rough approximation, every person hired overseas represents a person not hired (or worse, fired) here in the U.S.



ZeoTiVo said:


> Most people have an outsourced picture in their head that it is an us here and them there approach that would in fact really be bad, even if the"them" are of high caliber.


It does happen. Perhaps it is less prevalent with high level positions such as engineering, programming, and development, but it certainly does happen. Indeed, even with tech support and customer service, I have had some very pleasant experiences with clearly foreign support personel, but it has not been the norm. I've also had severe issues with outsourced engineers, even in cases where the outsource was to a local company. At best, it requires additional layers of management and frail levels of coordination. At worst it becomes a bureaucratic quagmire.

It's also often a phantom solution. Our company decided to outsource our internal tech support for our back-office systems several years ago, concentrating instead on maintaining almost all our tech support staff for our customers. The idea was the support company would fix most of the problerms up front, leaving only the more complex problems to a smaller team of support specialists. In over seven years, I have opened up an average of about 3 support tickets a week. None - *NOT ONE* - has been resolved by the external support group.



ZeoTiVo said:


> The picture I have in my head is a 24 hour shop where while I sleep they work on the checklist generated while I was in the office the day before and when I come back in the (my) morning I have fresh new toys to look over. This 24 hour partnership works really well and actually lets me do far more design work/tweaking than would have been possible if we were all in one time zone.


Although the other issues are significant, and although there are some important exceptions, the issue I have is with the model of team development itself, at least for software. To a high degree of correlation, the finest software out there is that produced by single developers. Most of that produced by teams - especially large teams - sucks. To steal a phrase, an elephant is a mouse designed by a team of programmers.


----------



## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

Let's not get carried away. 

100&#37; of TiVo's customer support is handled in the U.S. That's always been the case. We have no plans to change.

A small amount (a low percentage) of certain engineering operations, a lot of which is separate from our core development (e.g. certain HME applications), is handled through contract engineering, closely supervised by the engineering management team in the U.S. Some but not all of that contract engineering is overseas.

As you can see from our careers page, TiVo is hiring extensively in the U.S. for engineering positions. Key development work has always been done here, and that has not changed.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

HiDefGator said:


> are there developers that don't know C?


There are a lot who don't know S.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

TiVoStephen said:


> Let's not get carried away.
> 
> 100% of TiVo's customer support is handled in the U.S. That's always been the case. We have no plans to change.


Good point. I apologize. I was getting a bit general, I admit. Nonetheless, can you answer this: Are TiVo CSRs evaluated upon a quota or number of calls per shift basis? Worse yet, are they evaluated based upon the number or percentage of calls they show as cleared?



TiVoStephen said:


> As you can see from our careers page, TiVo is hiring extensively in the U.S. for engineering positions. Key development work has always been done here, and that has not changed.


I also admit I do not have all the same issues with TiVo that many people do.


----------



## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> when working with a hypothesis it is best for the person to acknowledge that versus just throwing out whatever simply because they are upset about the product.


It should go without saying that what we're engaging in here is hypothesis, speculation, *****ing, rumor mongering, etc.

If we were TiVo employees "in the know" posting here using pseudonyms, we would doubtlessly be violating employment agreements with TiVo. Depending on the information disclosed we might run afoul of SEC regulations regarding disclosure of material, nonpublic information.

Similarly, if we were employees at TiVo suppliers, we would probably be in breech of NDAs as well as violating employment agreements with those suppliers. Also the SEC would like everyone to believe that the regulations on material, nonpublic information don't just apply to the companies, but also to the companies they do business with. Even if that transitive relationship isn't true, I wouldn't want to expend the time or money to test same in court.

This site isn't called TiVoRumors, but perhaps it should be. As of 22 Jul 2010 03:59:10 UTC, tivorumors.com is available for registration.


----------



## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> As of 22 Jul 2010 03:59:10 UTC, tivorumors.com is available for registration.


Somebody should really scoop that up and publish a site for the three or four people in the world who care any more.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> If we were TiVo employees "in the know" posting here using pseudonyms, we would doubtlessly be violating employment agreements with TiVo. Depending on the information disclosed we might run afoul of SEC regulations regarding disclosure of material, nonpublic information.


Note that as a publicly traded company (they are, arent't they?), there are certain aspects of their operations they are required by law to divulge to the public, but they are not required to divelge them in this forum, nor is just any employee allowed by most companies to divulge such information. Nor, as individual memebers of the forum, are they required to comment at all, even if they are allowed by law and by the company. Any communications by them are a courtesy, or simply a matter of their own personal enjoyment.


----------



## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> It should go without saying that what we're engaging in here is hypothesis, speculation, *****ing, rumor mongering, etc.


Many things that should go without saying are the very things that should be said since so few say them anymore and people forget they are reading speculation but think they get the scoop of 'facts' others do not know. I give you the debacle over that Govt. dept. employee who was improperly fired over an edited video on you tube - You Tube for goodness sake. 
so
10 people post TiVo outsources a lot as if it were so and suddenly people start saying that in other threads as if it were so and suddenly others think it is so and then it becomes 'common knowledge', Despite TiVoStephen setting the record straight.


----------



## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

TiVoStephen said:


> 100% of TiVo's customer support is handled in the U.S. That's always been the case. We have no plans to change.


Just give it time. At one time my company calculated the actual cost per support call was $200 in the US and $20 overseas. The price difference is hard for most mgmt to ignore for too long.


----------



## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

TiVoStephen said:


> (e.g. certain HME applications), is handled through contract engineering, closely supervised by the engineering management team in the U.S. Some but not all of that contract engineering is overseas.


BTW - off track but since you are seeing this - could you tell the right folks that making the scheduling of shows APIs public would let some clever engineers NOT on the TiVo payroll roll out a nice coop scheduling HME app. Big win for TiVo and the users of TiVo DVRs only at the cost of making those APIs public.


----------



## DeWitt (Jun 30, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> Although the other issues are significant, and although there are some important exceptions, the issue I have is with the model of team development itself, at least for software. To a high degree of correlation, the finest software out there is that produced by single developers. Most of that produced by teams - especially large teams - sucks. To steal a phrase, an elephant is a mouse designed by a team of programmers.


Not to start an argument, but in the modern software world almost all software is built by teams. A well run and managed team is much stronger than any of it's individual members.

Doing this takes work however. Simply sharing work across a team is not a good model for team development.

A well structured development process and team allow individuals and sub teams to specialize in their areas of strength.

This is true in software the same as it is any area of engineered development.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

DeWitt said:


> Not to start an argument, but in the modern software world almost all software is built by teams.


Actually, not. Almost all large software packages are built by teams, but there are far more small applications and applets than there are large packages. To be sure, the lion's share of revenue goes to large applications, but for every Excel or Oracle out there, there are hundreds of applications such as TyTool and dar. A significant fraction of Linux applications are developed only by a single individual, and the vast majority are maintained by single individuals who accept input from other developers, but who make every decision independant of anyone else.



DeWitt said:


> A well run and managed team is much stronger than any of it's individual members.


It has nothing to do with strength and everything to do with a single creative vision. What's more, superior creative aptitude does not lend itself well to being part of a team. The fact a team may be stronger than any single member is a less than stellar recommendation if all the team members are merely above average. Genius almost never admits well of teamwork.



DeWitt said:


> Doing this takes work however. Simply sharing work across a team is not a good model for team development.


Yes, but again there is a more fundamental issue at work, here. Few companies - certainly very few large ones - are principally concerned about producing quality software. Most want to produce popular software. Popularity and quality are most usually divergent paradigms. In short, they don't want software that works well, they want software that sells well.



DeWitt said:


> A well structured development process and team allow individuals and sub teams to specialize in their areas of strength.


'Very erudite. Unfortunately it is also specious. A widget kludged together from strong parts is still a kludge. Remember that mouse designed by committee? Few things have stonger parts than an elephant. I would say it is more often the case that a team is no better than its weakest member, and often considerably poorer. A single poor decision on the part of a single team member can significantly impact the functioning of all the otherr parts of the project. The finest engine design on Earth may not work very well if the design of the fuel pump is poor. A memory leak in one module can impact the performance of the whole package, or indeed of even the entire computer. A more subtle but just as pernicious effect is the fact the parts of the system must interact, and the interaction may have little directly in common with the individual parts. Two perfectly designed modules can be completely incapable of working together. This can be true whether the modules are sections of code or a pair of individually talented engineers.



DeWitt said:


> This is true in software the same as it is any area of engineered development.


No team of engineers has ever matched the elegance and vision of single individuals such as Christopher Wren. Remember, I'm a professional engineer myself. Sometimes I am forced to work with a team either by the scope of the project or by the timeline. The quality of the results of these projects never match that of those I handle exclusively by myself. Admittedly, part of the reason has less to do with teamwork, per se, than with the size or time constraints themselves, but a significant part has entirely to do with the fact there are multiple fingers in the pie.


----------



## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> BTW - off track but since you are seeing this - could you tell the right folks that making the scheduling of shows APIs public would let some clever engineers NOT on the TiVo payroll roll out a nice coop scheduling HME app. Big win for TiVo and the users of TiVo DVRs only at the cost of making those APIs public.


This is a very good idea, but I don't think that TiVo management is forward thinking enough to agree.

IMO *much if not most* of Apple's success with the iPhone and iPad is because of all the third party apps that extend the basic functionality of the devices.


----------



## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> This is a very good idea, but I don't think that TiVo management is forward thinking enough to agree.
> 
> IMO *much if not most* of Apple's success with the iPhone and iPad is because of all the third party apps that extend the basic functionality of the devices.


Maybe with Flash we are more likely to see something akin to this?


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> This is a very good idea, but I don't think that TiVo management is forward thinking enough to agree.


That, or perhaps they are busier with other things. TiVo has not been antagonistic to 3rd party developers, but they have not been much more than lukewarm, either. I'm given to understand the SDK kit has languished.



Phantom Gremlin said:


> IMO *much if not most* of Apple's success with the iPhone and iPad is because of all the third party apps that extend the basic functionality of the devices.


It's definitely an important factor. It certainly allows the product supplier to spread a much wider web to catch support from consumers. The 3rd part developer has the resources to develop for as narrow an audience as he chooses for perfectly independant reasons. A large company has trouble spreading their resources that thin. Thus, while the individual strand captures too few "victims" for the 1st party organization to consider, the combined result of all the strands adds up to a great deal of market share, and a guraranteed revenue strream that costs the 1st party almost nothing. In a way, it's a sort of free advertising.


----------



## DeWitt (Jun 30, 2004)

So we can disagree on the power of teams... but you miss my point. I am not talking about putting parts from differrent individuals together. To me the beauty of a well run team development process is that it frees the truly creative developers to excell in what they do best without being bogged down with all the details of other disciplines.

For example, the developer that can craft beautiful functional user interface pieces is a very different beast from the pure theory bit head that develops the low level tools and objects to manage memory etc.

Neither of these developers is likely to have the skill in wriing SQL to produce highly optimized data access.

Put them all together and you get a high quality product with an attractive and useful interface that is stable with a minimal resource footprint that also will perform and scale when the database it connects to grows to millions of rows.


----------



## JimboG (May 27, 2007)

daveak said:


> Maybe with Flash we are more likely to see something akin to this?


Much of the iPhone and Ipad's success can be attributed to an open development platform as well as avoiding the POS resource hog that is Adobe Flash!:down::down::down:

Tivo would be far better served by supporting HME and HMO applications, keeping the Linux GPL disclosures up to date, and avoiding Adobe's resource hogging, inefficient proprietary "standards".


----------



## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

DeWitt said:


> Not to start an argument, but in the modern software world almost all software is built by teams. A well run and managed team is much stronger than any of it's individual members.
> 
> Doing this takes work however. Simply sharing work across a team is not a good model for team development.
> 
> ...


nah - just keep letting him think that LINUX sucks


----------



## kevreh (Jan 30, 2002)

JimboG said:


> Much of the iPhone and Ipad's success can be attributed to an open development platform as well as avoiding the POS resource hog that is Adobe Flash!:down::down::down:


Ha ha, quite a contradiction there. Open development platform :up: but flash :down:??? Apples position that their too good for Flash is purely arrogant. I've heard various rumors why they refuse to support Flash, but the least likely is resource intensive (which it can be, but is relative to the content just like youtube vids). Give me a break....

Kevin


----------



## Zaph32 (May 22, 2000)

It would be really cool if the TiVo GUI were HTML5/webkit based.


----------



## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

TiVoStephen said:


> A whole bunch of engineers are in the 10+ group (in fact, the majority of 10+ group is made up of engineers).
> 
> And I don't know what percentage is overseas, but it's very low. Proof is at http://www.tivo.com/careers/
> 
> TiVo is a great place to work. I recommend it.


That's great to hear Stephen. Unusual in this day and age.


----------

