# Tivo going under?



## rustybutt (Jul 29, 2010)

Now that Tivo has lost its lawsuit with Dish/Echostar, they seem to be in a precarious financial position from what I hear. If Tivo were to go under, what would become of the Tivo service that provides program information?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

trolling worksa lot better if you could at least get one thing right in the post  You scored - 0


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

rustybutt said:


> Now that Tivo has lost its lawsuit with Dish/Echostar...


[citation needed]*

*thank you wikipedia!


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## rustybutt (Jul 29, 2010)

Seriously. I'm not trolling. I *LOVE* my Tivo, but it's a Series 1, Sony SVR-2000, for which I bought the lifetime subscription. Got my money's worth!

My wife has _finally_ opened up to the idea of a flat panel set, and if I'm to upgrade to an HD Tivo, I want to know that shelling out for a new lifetime subscription isn't throwing my money away in case Tivo goes under.

I've worked in Silicon Valley for 20 years and have seen the biggest companies go big and then go bust, the latest of which was Sun Microsystems where I worked a couple of different times. So trust me, I'm not trolling here.


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## nirisahn (Nov 19, 2005)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EchoStar

From above link:

"On 8 June 2010, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a Final Office Action maintaining its rejection of the software claims of TiVo's patent. These software claims are the same claims that EchoStar was found to have infringed in the contempt ruling now pending for en banc review by the Federal Circuit. In the Final Office Action, three examiners of the PTO considered TiVo's response and, in a detailed 32-page decision, finally concluded that the software claims were unpatentable in view of two prior art references. [1]"

Boy, am I behind on the news. I had no idea this had happened.


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## Krandor (Jun 10, 2004)

rustybutt said:


> Seriously. I'm not trolling. I *LOVE* my Tivo, but it's a Series 1, Sony SVR-2000, for which I bought the lifetime subscription. Got my money's worth!
> 
> My wife has _finally_ opened up to the idea of a flat panel set, and if I'm to upgrade to an HD Tivo, I want to know that shelling out for a new lifetime subscription isn't throwing my money away in case Tivo goes under.
> 
> I've worked in Silicon Valley for 20 years and have seen the biggest companies go big and then go bust, the latest of which was Sun Microsystems where I worked a couple of different times. So trust me, I'm not trolling here.


If Tivo ever went under I would not expect the tivo guide service to continue so it would likely just become an expensive VCR. As of now there is no indication if tivo is going to go under or not so it is all speculation and guesswork on if or when it will happen. Your TiVo wil likely still work, but just won't have any guide data and features that need authentication like MRV and TTG will possibly not work either.

The bottom line is that nobody knows.


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## ewilts (Feb 26, 2002)

"the PTO proceeding is separate and apart from the ongoing litigation against EchoStar and does not impact the current United States Court of Appeals en banc review of the district court's finding of contempt against EchoStar and the related injunction." "

http://pr.tivo.com/easyir/customrel...ersion=live&prid=629402&releasejsp=custom_150


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

nirisahn said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EchoStar
> 
> From above link:
> 
> "On 8 June 2010, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a Final Office Action maintaining its rejection of the software claims of TiVo's patent. These software claims are the same claims that EchoStar was found to have infringed in the contempt ruling now pending for en banc review by the Federal Circuit. In the Final Office Action, three examiners of the PTO considered TiVo's response and, in a detailed 32-page decision, finally concluded that the software claims were unpatentable in view of two prior art references. [1]"


This action can be appealed. The first time Dish got TiVo's patent rejected in a "final office action" it was completely reversed on appeal and TiVo's patent was not even changed. This is Dish's second attempt and it may not go any better for them than the first did. We should know in about a year.


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## sieglinde (Aug 11, 2002)

I am not certain the Tivo would work with out a subscription (lifetime or regular) without the Tivo service unless the company sent out a software update as a last kindness that would make the Tivo work like anyother DVR or VCR.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

rustybutt said:


> Now that Tivo has lost its lawsuit with Dish/Echostar,


Not lost, but on appeal by Dish. The result of the appeal should be known next spring. The delay is not good for TiVo, but it certainly isn't a loss.



> they seem to be in a precarious financial position from what I hear.


Hmm, $200 million in the bank, losses lower than in previous years due to cost cutting, new deals with cable companies like RCN coming on line, international deals announced with Virgin and Ono; nope, you heard very wrongly. Their financial position needs to improve, but it won't be precarious for at least a couple of years and then only if all the new deals fail and the lawsuits go south.



> If Tivo were to go under, what would become of the Tivo service that provides program information?


Someone would take it over. There is money to be collected from customers that won't be left on the table.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

Maybe my memory is fuzzy I thought heard once that they said if they were to go under they would open up the tivo service to open source or was that a bad dream.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

zalusky said:


> Maybe my memory is fuzzy I thought heard once that they said if they were to go under they would open up the tivo service to open source or was that a bad dream.


well first off like I said the OP was just completely wrong and TiVo could go 5 years without collecting sub fees. Assuming the plan to keep collecting the fees instead  and they have a long time to go before actually being in a finacially precarious place.

That said
The software changes to open the TiVo are trivial - both Canada and Australia had groups doing this in an open source way before TiVo was legitimately available there.

The harder part is the soldered on PROM chip on most S2 and all S3 and premiere models that does checksums on the TiVo software at startup that would need to be disabled or changed.

The real gotcha however is would cable companies have to keep supplying cable cards if TiVo the company was not around.

I agree with others that there would be value in supplying the guide data and keeping the cable labs certifications so some company would pick that up.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

rustybutt said:


> Seriously. I'm not trolling. I *LOVE* my Tivo, but it's a Series 1, Sony SVR-2000, for which I bought the lifetime subscription. Got my money's worth!
> 
> My wife has _finally_ opened up to the idea of a flat panel set, and if I'm to upgrade to an HD Tivo, I want to know that shelling out for a new lifetime subscription isn't throwing my money away in case Tivo goes under.
> 
> I've worked in Silicon Valley for 20 years and have seen the biggest companies go big and then go bust, the latest of which was Sun Microsystems where I worked a couple of different times. So trust me, I'm not trolling here.


This should have been your first post versus stating things as if fact that you simply did not have all the info on.


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## ewilts (Feb 26, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> The real gotcha however is would cable companies have to keep supplying cable cards if TiVo the company was not around.


TiVo is not the only consumer of CableCARDs. Ceton, SiliconDust, and TVs all use them.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

ewilts said:


> TiVo is not the only consumer of CableCARDs. Ceton, SiliconDust, and TVs all use them.


not the supply - every cable box uses them as well - but without TiVo the company - what happens to cable labs certification of TiVo DVRs?

My guess is some other company could buy the guide support and cable card cert maintenance(whatever that is)


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## Johncv (Jun 11, 2002)

rustybutt said:


> Seriously. I'm not trolling. I *LOVE* my Tivo, but it's a Series 1, Sony SVR-2000, for which I bought the lifetime subscription. Got my money's worth!
> 
> My wife has _finally_ opened up to the idea of a flat panel set, and if I'm to upgrade to an HD Tivo, I want to know that shelling out for a new lifetime subscription isn't throwing my money away in case Tivo goes under.
> 
> I've worked in Silicon Valley for 20 years and have seen the biggest companies go big and then go bust, the latest of which was Sun Microsystems where I worked a couple of different times. So trust me, I'm not trolling here.


How long ago did you buy this Sony TiVo? You could be "grandfather", if so you can transfer your lifetime to a new TiVo with no charge.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

zalusky said:


> Maybe my memory is fuzzy I thought heard once that they said if they were to go under they would open up the tivo service to open source or was that a bad dream.


I think you're misremembering. I suspect you're thinking of a statement, possibly long ago that it was by Bullwinkle (before TivoPony), that IIRC, Tivo would make their systems keep working as a subscriptionless recorder, before they went under.

i.e. it wouldn't become a doorstop without a service to connect to.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

I have a feeling that if TiVo ever did go under, their subscriptions would be an asset that somebody would find worth buying and maintaining.


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## docshu (Sep 14, 2002)

TIVO will be taken over by Google or Apple, both companies are loaded with cash. I wouldn't be surprised if that happened even if TIVO was making money.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Johncv said:


> How long ago did you buy this Sony TiVo? You could be "grandfather", if so you can transfer your lifetime to a new TiVo with no charge.


Not with a Sony. They were sold only after the policy change, which made Product Lifetime for the box,not the account.

FWIW, i don't think Apple or Google will buy TiVo. If anythin, somebody already in the DVR business will, and will do so to absorb the TiVo patents into their product, and no longer continue development of Standalone TiVos.


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## WizarDru (Jan 18, 2005)

ReplayTV went out of business years ago, was bought by DirecTV and STILL supports old customers. Even if TiVo were to go out of business tomorrow, someone would pick up their subscribers.

And if they did not, then enterprising hackers would crack the TiVo open to provide the data from somewhere like zap2it using an HME program or something similar. The chance that TiVo would be useless would be relatively low.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> The harder part is the soldered on PROM chip on most S2 and all S3 and premiere models that does checksums on the TiVo software at startup that would need to be disabled or changed.


If all hope was lost with no chance of selling off the subscribers to another company, TiVo could always release the private key used to sign their executables. That would work around the PROM checksum problem since then anyone could sign the checksum data. So it's trivial to get around if TiVo wanted to, well at least until the signature expired.

There's virtually 0% chance of that ever happening though as like others have said, it will never come to that.


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## RickStrobel (Jan 19, 2000)

WizarDru said:


> And if they did not, then enterprising hackers would crack the TiVo open to provide the data from somewhere like zap2it using an HME program or something similar. The chance that TiVo would be useless would be relatively low.


Plus, I believe this would be totally legal too. A recent ruling by the Library of Congress in it's three-year review of the DMCA added permission to crack dongles for software you legally owned but could not use because the manufacturer was out of business.

TiVos have been available for about 10 years now. The question comes up a lot. I'm sure there are people who didn't buy a lifetime sub in 2005 because they thought TiVo wouldn't make it that long. They would have gotten more than their money's worth by now. You really only need about three years of service to break-even on what a cable-co DVR rental would cost.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

The old DIVX DVD players manufactured by Circuit City ceased to play the DIVX discs when Circuit City cut off the service. The DIVX discs became coasters and the encryption was never cracked. There is precedent for the TIVO to become a brick if the company shuts off the service.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

shwru980r said:


> The old DIVX DVD players manufactured by Circuit City ceased to play the DIVX discs when Circuit City cut off the service. The DIVX discs became coasters and the encryption was never cracked. There is precedent for the TIVO to become a brick if the company shuts off the service.


There likely wasn't much incentive to crack those discs since one of the reasons the DIVX discs failed is because no one used them.

TiVo is much more popular. Also TiVo technically has already been cracked, it's just a complicated one that the average user can't do.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I have a feeling that if TiVo ever did go under, their subscriptions would be an asset that somebody would find worth buying and maintaining.


Lifetime?



rustybutt said:


> Seriously. I'm not trolling. I *LOVE* my Tivo, but it's a Series 1, Sony SVR-2000, for which I bought the *lifetime subscription.* Got my money's worth!


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

shwru980r said:


> The old DIVX DVD players manufactured by Circuit City ceased to play the DIVX discs when Circuit City cut off the service. The DIVX discs became coasters and the encryption was never cracked. There is precedent for the TIVO to become a brick if the company shuts off the service.


the TiVo has already been cracked. Few people want to do theft of service though
DIVX was not worth cracking


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## rustybutt (Jul 29, 2010)

Adam1115 said:


> Lifetime?


I bought my Sony SVR-2000 in 2001 I think. Maybe earlier. It's my understanding that the subscription is for the lifetime of the unit and is not transferable. I got my money's worth. It's still running too.

I modded it years ago. It now has a 250 gig drive and a wired ethernet interface. Works fine, but it's standard def and doesn't work with digital signals. I'd rather not get into screwing around with a converter box, so it makes sense to go with a current rev Tivo and a new lifetime subscription for it if I'm going to get into a new flat panel set.

I just wanted some assurance that the service wouldn't go poof in case Tivo did.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

rustybutt said:


> I just wanted some assurance that the service wouldn't go poof in case Tivo did.


You think anybody on this form (or for that matter anybody in the world) has that information. We can all speculate, its fun but has no meaning in the real world.
Compared to driving you car I think Lifetime Service on a TiVo is safer bet, but a earthquake could put TiVo and a lot of CA into the ocean at any time in the next 10,000 years, than you might have an interruption in your TiVo service.
You could hedge your Lifetime bet by shorting 35 Sh of TiVo stock, than if TiVo went away you would get your Lifetime cost back.
When you compare this Lifetime investment to say $400,000 home purchased in say 2006 that has had 50% of its value disappear, well you get the idea.


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## ldimond2000 (Feb 10, 2009)

When I bought my VCR, the software required to make it record and playback was a part of the unit and I never had to pay a fee to the manufacturer to keep that software active so that the unit would continue working because it would not be a VCR without those capabilities. And I was not required to buy blank or pre-recorded tapes manufactured only by that manufacturer if they were available from other companies.

When I bought my PCs and laptops, the software required to make it work was on the hard drive and was part of the unit and I never had to pay a fee to the manufacturer to keep that software active because it would not be a PC without it. Of course, if I wanted services that required constant and current updating (stock market prices, for example) I would expect to pay for that. But I was not required to purchase those services only from the manufacturer if they were available from other companies.

When I bought my PDA, the software required for me to listen to my music mp3s, make a spreadsheet, or jot notes to myself was a part of the unit and I never had to pay a fee to the manufacturer to keep that software active so that the unit would continue working because it would not be a PDA without those capabilites.

When I bought my cell phone, the software required to make it ring or vibrate when a call came in, or connect when I pressed a button or disconnect when I pressed another button was part of the unit and I never had to pay a fee to the manufacturer to keep that software active because it would not be a cell phone without those capabilities. Of course, if I wanted to make and receive phone calls, I would expect to pay for that, but once again I always had the option to go with another company for those services once my initial contract period was up, if in fact, I even had a contract.

When I bought my DVD player/recorder, the software required to make it play and record DVDs was a part of the unit and I never had to pay a fee to the manufacturer to keep that software active so that the unit would continue working because it would not be a DVD player/recorder without those capabilities. But I was not required to buy blank or pre-recorded DVDs manufactured only by that manufacturer if they were available from other companies.

And the list goes on.

But when I buy a Tivo DVR, the software required to make it record and playback is a part of the unit. And if I am willing to go on Comcast and make a list of which channels I want to watch on what dates and at what times and then go to my TiVo and enter all of that information, I can do that because that capability is built-into the DVR. This is evidenced by the fact that I can continue doing just that until I log onto TiVo after not renewing or after cancelling my subscription. At that time TiVo does something proactive and goes onto MY DVR and deactivates literally all of the basic functions. Is it legal? That is a question for the courts to determine. But is it moral? My answer is not by a long shot. The TiVo provides a lot of nice fancy services for those who want it. But for people like me, those services offer nothing and I should not be forced to pay for services that I will never use.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

ldimond2000 said:


> The TiVo provides a lot of nice fancy services for those who want it. But for people like me, those services offer nothing and I should not be forced to pay for services that I will never use.


Oh, you poor thing! Somebody forced you to buy a TiVo!

That MONSTER!!


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

ldimond2000, you do not simply get TiVo's business/software model. Their buisness is to license the software for ongoing monthly fees, yearly fees, or one time Product Lifetime.

While the software comes on the box, you have to abide by their TOS/EULA, the same with any other software. Part of that TOS/EULA, is that you subscribe to the TiVo service to licence the TiVo software.

You were using the greace period of a new TiVo. What TiVo did was perfectly legal, as explained in their TOS. You need to subscribe to the TiVo service to use just about all the features on the box, including pretty fundamental feature of manually recording.

If you do not like that TOS, you got the wrong DVR.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

ldimond2000 said:


> But when I buy a Tivo DVR, the software required to make it record and playback is a part of the unit. And if I am willing to go on Comcast and make a list of which channels I want to watch on what dates and at what times and then go to my TiVo and enter all of that information, I can do that because that capability is built-into the DVR. This is evidenced by the fact that I can continue doing just that until I log onto TiVo after not renewing or after cancelling my subscription. At that time TiVo does something proactive and goes onto MY DVR and deactivates literally all of the basic functions. Is it legal? That is a question for the courts to determine. But is it moral? My answer is not by a long shot. The TiVo provides a lot of nice fancy services for those who want it. But for people like me, those services offer nothing and I should not be forced to pay for services that I will never use.


And I am upset because I want a type of cell phone that requires a data package for $29.99/month that i don't need or want, so I can take Verizon to court or solve the problem and not purchase a phone that requires a data package. TiVo, on the packing box, tells you one needs a sub to use this product, any co. can put together a business plan and if they don't try to fool you, before purchase, as to what your getting morals would never be the question.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

ldimond2000 said:


> When I bought my cell phone, the software required to make it ring or vibrate when a call came in, or connect when I pressed a button or disconnect when I pressed another button was part of the unit and I never had to pay a fee to the manufacturer to keep that software active because it would not be a cell phone without those capabilities. Of course, if I wanted to make and receive phone calls, I would expect to pay for that, but once again I always had the option to go with another company for those services once my initial contract period was up, if in fact, I even had a contract.


Every cell phone I've ever had is locked down to my provider. I've never heard my cell phone ring without service.

Also, my directv and dish boxes don't work without service either. My cable modem doesn't work without service.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

rustybutt said:


> Now that Tivo has lost its lawsuit with Dish/Echostar, they seem to be in a precarious financial position from what I hear.


You are confused. TiVo won the initial suit and banked $110 million from DISH/Echo. And at their last quarterly call, TiVo said they're sitting on over $225 million with no debt. Which doesn't sound very precarious to me.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

ldimond2000 said:


> But for people like me, those services offer nothing and I should not be forced to pay for services that I will never use.


ummm, you are aware that USA has a free market right? That means you can actually make that statement ahead of actually buying one and do something different.

Furthermore you can buy a TiVo with lifetime for like 500$ and not pay anything more for the life of the DVR. IF that does not offer the value you want then do not buy it.

Given the above facts, frankly I completely question your motives in posting.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

ldimond2000 said:


> But for people like me, those services offer nothing and I should not be forced to pay for services that I will never use.


Then you should buy a subscription-less recorder. They work BETTER than a Tivo in most regards. Tivos work _poorly_ subscriptionless, because they're not designed to be used that way..

I speak as someone who originally intended to buy a S1 subscriptionless (I wanted a "VCR with a hard drive"). I ended up getting/liking the subscription (lifetime only -- I wouldn't get a new one if it had only a pay-per-month option), but ALSO use a non-Tivo hard drive/DVD recorder because the Tivo/DVD recorders didn't have anywhere near the functionality I wanted.

So I largely agree with you.. I just think you're essentially putting a square peg in a round hole. Get a round peg and you'll enjoy it a lot more.

(BTW, the one regard where I think a Tivo, even subscriptionless, works better is reliability -- at least they don't regularly hose the disk if they lose power, including during recording. But a UPS can greatly reduce the likelihood of that happening for another recorder.)


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## estacionsj (Feb 8, 2010)

go go tivio go


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