# What Did You Think of Ira Bahr's Responses in the Community Chat Thread



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

David Bott asked that we not reply or comment on any of Ira Bahr's answers in the "Community Quick Chat with TiVo's CMO Ira Bahr - Ask anything about TiVo!" thread. I created this thread in hopes of getting feedback on his comments from the TCF community in general.

Let it go. Tell us what you thought of his comments. Did you feel there where any omissions? Best/worst parts of the thread? Any comment is welcome.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

He skipped my question about when the HDUI would finally be finished.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Overall I thought the quality of IB's replies where excellent. I think there was one question where he didn't understand what was being asked, but overall I would give his posts a strong A.

I enjoyed his discussions of the reality of TiVo's business. Why aren't there 10 million TiVos in homes? While he does appreciate the TiVo loyalists that most of us represent, he acknowledges the reality of today's market and the direction TiVo needs to head in to stay a viable, profitable company.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> He skipped my question about when the HDUI would finally be finished.


But he did answer at least one of your questions so you've got that.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Glad to hear that Fire TV app will land next week. And a little disappointing to hear that the Bolt Pro isn't slated for release until next Summer/Fall. (3 year cycle compared to Roamio)


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

I was disappointed but not surprised about the lack of a Windows 10 app. I really want a TiVo Desktop replacement, but if they actually give support to PyTiVo and KMTTG I can at least have that.

I am assuming he is still answering though since he should have a couple hours left.



Dan203 said:


> Glad to hear that Fire TV app will land next week. And a little disappointing to hear that the Bolt Pro isn't slated for release until next Summer/Fall. (3 year cycle compared to Roamio)


I am definitely curious to see what they announce next year. I don't know that it will stop me from replacing my Premieres with a Roamio with the current deals.

I am also curious to see how the Fire TV app will work especially if I can play content remotely on a TV over the internet.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

I very much appreciated his candor. There were some tough questions that I thought he might just ignore or evade, but he pretty much tackled most of them head on. I give him a lot of credit for that.


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## dmurphy (Jan 17, 2002)

If only other companies would be as open and candid as Ira's been, we'd be a much better society.

Thanks for everything - makes my decision to come "back home" to TiVo feel that much smarter.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Communication has always been a motivator in the TCF, and I think he provided the best direct answers he could. It was great.

I hope we can do this again sometime, perhaps a Q&A with Margret on Design. I wouldn't mind picking Todd Kulick's brain a little bit on software too.

It was fair give and take. He conceded the Bolt OTA and Pro, but was quiet on a Mini.  I'll take it.

Edit: Spoke too soon. 4K Mini next year. 

And alas, they are "working on" wifi-to-moca bridging.


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## csell (Apr 16, 2007)

The question regarding an app coming out for the Roku was not directly answered. He pointed out there was an app for Fire TV coming out next week, but skipped the part of Roku. That is something I'd really like to know.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

He mentioned that they were looking at an app for the new Apple TV as an expansion of their iOS app. I assume the FireTV app is simply an expansion of their Android app. But Roku is it's own OS and would require a special app. Considering it took them 2 years just to release an Android app I wouldn't hold my breath for a Roku app any time soon. (unless the new Roku switches over to running Android)


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

waynomo said:


> I think there was one question where he didn't understand what was being asked


He answered the same question as posted by another user...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10651436#post10651436


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## Bytez (Sep 11, 2004)

He answered my question about the streaming proxy, doesn't seem like we'll have an option to disable it. He didn't answer the question about availability of OOH streaming at online.tivo.com

Overall, I'll give him an A. Hope we could have more of these AMA again.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Would one of you guys familiar with the lingo translate his reply to me? I was asking what he could tell us about the Bolt's ability to record 4K when the standards are not settled:

"At launch the BOLT supports 4K OTT streams. While trends indicate that VOD libraries will also be IP rather than QAM feeds we do not anticipate a short term 4K linear channel. However, BOLT is prepared to record that if and when it makes its way to market."

Is he saying that if a cable provider decides to shove 4K in to a QAM channel, that they'll make sure Bolt will be able to record it, decode it, show it, etc?

At this point, I'd be worried that they'd decided they needed to tweak the cable card design somehow in a manner that would make it incompatible.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

This is probably the most exciting thing the community has done outside of pytivo, kmttg and jmfs. Cannot wait to read through the rest of the responses once I get home tonight. TiVo and the community should be proud of how this went. Great stuff.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

jonw747 said:


> Is he saying that if a cable provider decides to shove 4K in to a QAM channel, that they'll make sure Bolt will be able to record it, decode it, show it, etc?
> 
> At this point, I'd be worried that they'd decided they needed to tweak the cable card design somehow in a manner that would make it incompatible.


In a nutshell, he's saying it'll record 4K if it's actually delivered over QAM like regular cable channels, but it is unknown when such a channel will actually exist.

I reckon he's confident that the tuners and CPU are agnostic enough that it will work. The cableco's can't unilaterally alter the cablecard spec, and likely wouldn't bother at this point. They'll have to stay to that standard.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

He mentions BLE as something the Bolt has the hardware to do. Anyone know what this is? It sounds like it is related to voice commands based off what he is replying to.


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## El Maestro (Nov 19, 2013)

I was extremely impressed that a company would have that level of interaction with their customers. Margret's been here and has been pretty good about providing information, but I can't get over the level of candor and openness that's in the thread. I can't think of another company that would do something like this. 

It was interesting to see that there are definitely plans to have a product in the "pro" space, so I was happy about that. 

Finally, I was happy/proud of the community for handling this well and being kind, welcoming, and respectful. It might make future visits more likely.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

I am amazed that we only so far have a had few posters who can't bother to read the thread where it says not to post.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> I am amazed that we only so far have a had few posters who can't bother to read the thread where it says not to post.


Eh, moderators can clean it up.

Anyhow, I really, really appreciated his frank contributions. Would have preferred learning some of this prior to launch to assuage us hard core in a more timely fashion, but then you know his minions and I would have to be on speaking terms and do the embargo thing (at midnight, no less), etc.

No disrespect meant, but he went real deep with some of the technical questions. Wonder if he had an assist? I'd be more impressed if he didn't know these answers but had folks in the room or on Lync on the schedule today for this event.


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## reneg (Jun 19, 2002)

I liked it and appreciate him taking time to go through the questions. Invite him back in the future.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

jonw747 said:


> Is he saying that if a cable provider decides to shove 4K in to a QAM channel, that they'll make sure Bolt will be able to record it, decode it, show it, etc?


Yes.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

It was informative. I am glad they made the time to answer that many questions.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

It was fun. Good to hear the 6+ tuner Tivo solution along with a new Mini is coming next year. Bolt is ready to record 4k linear channels although sounding like no 4k linear channels coming soon and they all could end up IP based. 

Personally I didn't know there was a Netgear network storage device with Tivo server built-in. 

Disappointing to hear no solution in the works to give us back the ability to separately apply Keep at Most settings to both new and repeat episodes of the same show.

Tivo's solution next year, from the sound of it, may very well have more than 6 tuners or even the ability to expand the tuner count. Also possibly some kind of cloud solution to storage issues. And some personalization features. I wouldn't be surprised if the Tivo Mega evolves into more an enthusiast solution instead of super hi-end professional solution.


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## caughey (May 26, 2007)

I thought it was great that he decided to to this. I've seen some individual TiVo employees post here (lately only TiVo Marget), but I've never seen a "conversation" of this type. It seemed like his answers were reasonable, thoughtful, and honest. I'm looking forward to what they do next--certainly more so than Monday.



> One thing - may I ask this group if it might change its logos to conform with our new identity? We're evolving from the older TiVo guy to what we think is a more modern, masculine, and streamlined look. The new ID is what we call "Blankman" and it's what we want TiVo to look like going forward. We're going to send David a file for all to use.


*But you can pry old TiVo guy from my cold, dead hands!*

I wonder if that's why you can't buy TiVo plushies, slippers, and stuff online anymore. They were there a week or so ago.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

He ignored my questions about migration to new hardware. The problem is so much more than copying recordings and OnePasses.


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## David Bott (Jan 1, 1999)

waynomo said:


> David Bott asked that we not reply or comment on any of Ira Bahr's answers in the "Community Quick Chat with TiVo's CMO Ira Bahr - Ask anything about TiVo!" thread. I created this thread in hopes of getting feedback on his comments from the TCF community in general.
> 
> Let it go. Tell us what you thought of his comments. Did you feel there where any omissions? Best/worst parts of the thread? Any comment is welcome.


Just wanted to say thanks for starting this thread as I just had come to do this after I finished clean up.


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## keenanSR (Oct 13, 2004)

innocentfreak said:


> He mentions BLE as something the Bolt has the hardware to do. Anyone know what this is? It sounds like it is related to voice commands based off what he is replying to.


Bluetooth Low Energy, it's a transport protocol for some voice control systems; how the TiVo remote will transmit your voice command to the unit for example.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

randian said:


> He ignored my questions about migration to new hardware. The problem is so much more than copying recordings and OnePasses.


If they just exposed a few more APIs in the mind interface then one of us could write a migration tool for the PC. (or iOS or Android) All the bits needed to do it are there, they just need to expose them to the API so we can access them from 3rd party software.

Or maybe they could just add it to their own apps and/or website.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

waynomo said:


> Overall I thought the quality of IB's replies where excellent. I think there was one question where he didn't understand what was being asked, but overall I would give his posts a strong A.
> 
> I enjoyed his discussions of the reality of TiVo's business. Why aren't there 10 million TiVos in homes? While he does appreciate the TiVo loyalists that most of us represent, he acknowledges the reality of today's market and the direction TiVo needs to head in to stay a viable, profitable company.


Agreed.

I recall a couple replies where he didn't seem to understand the technical question being asked -- and I do recall 2 replies making reference to earlier replies/answers that I hadn't recalled seeing (below) -- but I thought nearly all the answers were great and probably as forthcoming as he could be. (Even if a few of my questions were skipped or not answered as thoroughly as I'd have liked.)

-----

I couldn't find the earlier answer, referenced in the following post; and per the thread search feature, this post was Ira's first actual mention of OnePass.


Ira Bahr said:


> I'm sure you know that TiVo lets you choose whether you want to see just the new episodes or both new and repeats. One of the things I do when I want to watch something again is select the "Keep Until" option, which lets you select a date, or just keep it until you manually remove it. My hard drives have more than a few shows that have taken up permanent residence. OnePass also allows you to manage these. *Please refer to the other answer where I note OnePass and how to switch between "My Episodes" view and "All recordings" view.*


And I also couldn't find where the following question regarding sporting events was answered, either. I'll give it another look, though.


Ira Bahr said:


> trip1eX said:
> 
> 
> > What are Tivo's plans to ensure sporting events are recorded even when they are rain delayed?
> ...


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

randian said:


> He ignored my questions about migration to new hardware. The problem is so much more than copying recordings and OnePasses.


When did you ask the question? If it wasn't posed prior to the noon Pacific deadline, it wasn't in the queue to be answered -- and I think I recall that question popping-up late in his answer session.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

I'm not sure a few APIs are enough. There are dozens of settings a user can access, starting with the very first "what's your cable system" question.


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## caughey (May 26, 2007)

krkaufman said:


> I couldn't find the earlier answer, referenced in the following post; and per the thread search feature, this post was Ira's first actual mention of OnePass.
> 
> And I also couldn't find where the following question regarding sporting events was answered, either. I'll give it another look, though.


I did see him answer both of those. The one before the rain delay one I think he was replying to a different post than he quoted.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Some questions that interested me, but that I believe went unanswered...



Dan203 said:


> When will the HDUI finally be 100% finished?





trip1eX said:


> IN what ways, if any, does the Bolt improve the Mini experience?
> 
> For example, are audio/video still dropped if you return to the menus?





krkaufman said:


> The TiVo needs to be capable of slicing-up and splicing a single tuner's stream to provide the specified pre-/post-padding for back-to-back recordings on a single channel. This functionality would provide a nice effective increase in the number of tuners for those who are pad-happy.





innocentfreak said:


> Plex has finally made it to TiVo, but without integration into OnePass. Since Plex already supports various forms of metadata to recognize your local content, will we ever see support for integration of Plex content with OnePass?





innocentfreak said:


> TiVo currently offers no way to the user to track what they have actually watched and seen. This makes it difficult to keep track of episodes seen across multiple services. As a result those of us who want to keep track have to rely on other services like Trakt.TV. Unfortunately TiVo doesn't offer an integrated plugin solution or even a way to output our viewing data directly to other services via an API or other solution. Is this something we should ever hope TiVo might offer?





krkaufman said:


> With the inclusion of Wireless-AC in the just-released BOLT series, can you reveal whether TiVo is working towards a whole home DVR/Mini solution that will allow for wireless Mini clients, rather than requiring wired Ethernet or MoCA connectivity?





krkaufman said:


> Is TiVo considering adding any cloud capabilities that would facilitate configuration and personalization of the whole home TiVo experience?
> 
> As an example, in a (our!) home w/ 2 Roamio DVRs and 8 Minis, we have to configure the identical preferences and separate streaming app credentials individually on each device, rather than having the ability to synchronize to a cloud-based account that retains these settings.
> 
> And god forbid we ever *do* get viewer-specific preferences. (please!!!; see above) Ideally, TiVo would have cloud-based user accounts similar to what Xbox LIVE has, and each user's preferences, history, etc could all be saved in and globally accessible from the cloud, across devices and platforms.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

caughey said:


> The one before the rain delay one I think he was replying to a different post than he quoted.


Yeah, he was replying to a Hulu question, but quoted the wrong question (though from the same TCF user). (link; unless you're referring to a different reply)


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

caughey said:


> I did see him answer both of those. The one before the rain delay one I think he was replying to a different post than he quoted.


If you can find them in the thread, I'm all eyes.

To get things started...

Thread search for "episodes"
Thread search for OnePass

----------------
For reference...


krkaufman said:


> I couldn't find the earlier answer, referenced in the following post; and per the thread search feature, this post was Ira's first actual mention of OnePass.
> 
> 
> Ira Bahr said:
> ...


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## moonscape (Jul 3, 2004)

It was amazing to read the exchange, and candor within understandable limits. Was also reassuring after being stunned by the Bolt - so much so that I got another Roamio w/ the loyalty deal to be covered if Bolt/HD/price/color/shape/tuners was really the new direction. After this, I could almost refuse shipment (won't) and wait for next year, because I don't actually need another Tivo right now. 

All in all a near A+ after feeling so much in the dark as to what Tivo is up to.

Huge thanks! (and come back again!)


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

randian said:


> I'm not sure a few APIs are enough. There are dozens of settings a user can access, starting with the very first "what's your cable system" question.


All TiVos require you to go through Guided Setup before they will even function, so I wouldn't expect a full migration in that regard.

However if they could move things like channels you receive, thumb ratings, recordings, OnePasses, and maybe a handful of key settings like default 1P settings and video providers. I think that would be enough for most people to be happy.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

I think it is best to stay focused on Ira's opening statement.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10651152#post10651152
Especially this part:


> Second, there just aren't enough of you to sustain the companys retail business alone. If there were, I assure you wed have a way different approach. *TiVo is simply unable to build its business on the backs of its ever diminishing group of loyalists.* We did 150,000 activations in our last fiscal year. Compare that to the millions of streamers out there, and the tens of millions of DVRS out there and you see that weve got a lot of ground to make up. In order to win for the company, and for YOU, we need to expand our market. *If we fail to do this, were not going to be able to do much of anything*, We think weve got a plan for both the mass market AND for enthusiasts.


Take note of the sentences I bolded. It is obvious that TiVo is in trouble so I would not get my hopes up. The first and foremost thing right now is TiVo has to meet it goal of attracting new subscribers. If they don't then there appears to be no future for TiVo.
I am wondering what the time frame is for them to meet this goal.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

davezatz said:


> No disrespect meant, but he went real deep with some of the technical questions. *Wonder if he had an assist?* I'd be more impressed if he didn't know these answers but had folks in the room or on Lync on the schedule today for this event.


I felt that he might, given the way in which a few questions were answered out of order, or took a bit longer to answer.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

I wish I knew this was happening. I would love to have asked him if he would considered a pricing option to remove ads ABSOLUTELY FOR ALL TIME.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

Dan203 said:


> All TiVos require you to go through Guided Setup before they will even function, so I wouldn't expect a full migration in that regard.


Why shouldn't Guided Setup include discovery of other TiVos and ask if you want to copy their setup and/or recordings? That's basically how a new Android phone works.


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## celtic pride (Nov 8, 2005)

by any chance did anyone ask WHY tivo bolt is white instead of black? it looks to me like they want tivo to resemble APPLE!


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## caughey (May 26, 2007)

krkaufman said:


> If you can find them in the thread, I'm all eyes.


No luck. I do remember reading the one you quoted thinking he hadn't really answered it in the post he referred to either.



celtic pride said:


> by any chance did anyone ask WHY tivo bolt is white instead of black? it looks to me like they want tivo to resemble APPLE!


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10651162#post10651162


> If TiVo wants to be noticed (and we do) my view is that we have to look different. Fact is if you were to stack all 10 or so TiVo models and stand back a bit you would have a hard time seeing any difference. We thought it was about time to begin exploring more than just a front bezel treatment on a square metal chassis. This, as well as the updated branding is also a nod to a new and refreshed direction for the consumer part of our company. Design is a difficult thing and can be polarizing. Hopefully our Pro version will appeal to those who don't love Sal Dali.


A few weeks ago someone posted a pic of a Roamio on a shelf in the background of a TV show. If it had been the white boomerang, it would have taken much less pausing, scanning, and zooming to know it was a TiVo.


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## David Bott (Jan 1, 1999)

Hey all...Few things...They did have a few answers posted to the wrong questions. They were opening windows for the replies by right clicking on QUOTE. So some got messed up. They will send me over his answers to the ones you all found to fix it as soon as they can. (It is already after hours.)

Remember, CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, he surely does not know all the techy things and I am guessing there was a team involved. (As there should be.) Thus the mixed up answers to questions with the open windows.

All and all, I think this was great. Now I can only hope it gets picked up by some other communities and linked to. If part of other tech communities or know people on other news sites etc, please be so kind to share the Q&A. I think this was very good for TiVo to do.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

randian said:


> Why shouldn't Guided Setup include discovery of other TiVos and ask if you want to copy their setup and/or recordings? That's basically how a new Android phone works.


Right. The initial setup would simply be networking and activation, followed by however many software updates are needed, and then once the OS is all up-to-date, asking if you're looking at setting up a new TiVo or replacing an old one.

New... continue w/ traditional Guided Setup and manual customization (though this should really be facilitated using cloud-based account settings, where possible)

Replace... pick the old TiVo and verify the selection (with the typical 3 Thumbs Down + Enter), and all settings are nearly instantly migrated, after which you can select old recordings for migration (and deletion from old unit).​
Some third piece of hardware/software shouldn't be needed (until cloud-based account settings become a thing).


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

randian said:


> Why shouldn't Guided Setup include discovery of other TiVos and ask if you want to copy their setup and/or recordings? That's basically how a new Android phone works.


I'm sure they could, but that's a major UI change and they seem a bit strapped for resources. If they just added a way for the mind interface to get/set a few key settings, and initiate a TiVo to TiVo transfer, then we could develop a community app that makes it a million times easier then it is today. Queuing up the video transfers, ones at a time, is a miserable experience. If there was a way to just automate that part it would make buying a new TiVo a lot less daunting.


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## caughey (May 26, 2007)

David Bott said:


> Hey all...Few things...They did have a few answers posted to the wrong questions. They were opening windows for the replies by right clicking on QUOTE. So some got messed up. They will send me over his answers to the ones you all found to fix it as soon as they can. (It is already after hours.)
> 
> Remember, CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, he surely does not know all the techy things and I am guessing there was a team involved. (As there should be.) Thus the mixed up answers to questions with the open windows.
> 
> All and all, I think this was great. Now I can only hope it gets picked up by some other communities and linked to.  If part of other tech communities or know people on other news sites etc, please be so kind to share the Q&A. I think this was very good for TiVo to do.


It was great, and I would be surprised if they weren't preparing answers to some of these questions since Wednesday.

If only we had some sort of professional blogger in our midst 
http://zatznotfunny.com/2015-10/tivo-cmo-ira-bahr-speaks-and-you-should-listen/

and http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/02/tivo-exec-explains-light-on-tuners-bolt/


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Ira Bahr said:


> ajwees41 said:
> 
> 
> > does the all in one plan have any perks or just a new name and higher price for product lifetime service?
> ...


Did anyone focus group that name, "All In," to ensure it doesn't communicate to potential customers that going TiVo is a gamble?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Given the human interaction involved in marking Skip Mode content, can you foresee a feature where the TiVo could employ a similar process to automatically adjust, in near real-time, recording stop and start times to adjust for broadcast overruns? 

And, yes, I'm specifically talking about Thursday Night Football's weekly bumping of Colbert's Late Show by some random number of minutes. (Though the feature might be more generally useful.)


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

krkaufman said:


> Given the human interaction involved in marking Skip Mode content, can you foresee a feature where the TiVo could employ a similar process to automatically adjust, in near real-time, recording stop and start times to adjust for broadcast overruns?
> 
> And, yes, I'm specifically talking about Thursday Night Football's weekly bumping of Colbert's Late Show by some random number of minutes. (Though the feature might be more generally useful.)


The issue with this is you have to be able to force the TiVo to call home in time to update.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

These two separate statements seem in direct conflict with each other.

Also, the Premieres received the new Roamio UI, it just seems logical to unify the UI look across all currently supported platforms. There was a period of time when the Mini had the old Premiere UI and the Roamio the newer UI, But at some point the Mini UI will need to match the new Bolt UI for the "Unified" look and feel.



> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10651252#post10651252
> 
> We do not plan to make the BOLT-specific changes to the Roamio line--namely the flat icons, changed highlight color, and other subtle cues. You will, however, be getting the new channel logos in the guide--a deficiency that was there too long.





> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10651571#post10651571
> 
> One thing - may I ask this group if it might change its logos to conform with our new identity? We're evolving from the older TiVo guy to what we think is a more modern, masculine, and streamlined look. The new ID is what we call "Blankman" and it's what we want TiVo to look like going forward. We're going to send David a file for all to use.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

krkaufman said:


> Did anyone focus group that name, "All In," to ensure it doesn't communicate to potential customers that going TiVo is a gamble?


All In is a huge gamble and I would not recommend anybody takes it based on Ira's opening statement.


> In order to win for the company, and for YOU, we need to expand our market. If we fail to do this, were not going to be able to do much of anything


.

If the Bolt fails to attract new subscribers it looks like it is over at least for the retail unit. I am seriously thinking of dumping my lifetime Premieres now and getting out while the getting is good. It feels like we are on a sinking Titanic.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10651152#post10651152


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Jed1 said:


> If the Bolt fails to attract new subscribers it looks like it is over at least for the retail unit. I am seriously thinking of dumping my lifetime Premieres now and getting out while the getting is good. It feels like we are on a sinking Titanic.


And go where exactly? Windows Media Center? Channel Master DVR+? Tablo?


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## Blakeintosh (Sep 8, 2014)

I was incredibly impressed with his candor and knowledge. There were a few questions that he said he'd need to follow back and answer. Hopefully he is able to do that.

I really think this is a new approach for TiVo that we are seeing. There have been times recently when TCF users have expressed real frustration with TiVo's lack of communication with software changes, and user suggestions & feedback. I hope that Ira or other TiVo employees will engage more often with the TCF. It would be great to see these AMA-style events happen a few times a year.

I agree with what was said earlier about Ira's opening statement regarding TiVo's retail business. I think all of us in the TCF community need to help with this effort by talking to friends & family about how superior the TiVo experience is, compared to the crappy DVR products that cable companies offer. 6 months ago, I talked my neighbor into getting a Roamio Plus and he is absolutely loving it. My sister is getting ready to move to a new house and I'm going to try and convince her to get a Roamio or Bolt, instead of taking TWC's DVR.

If we don't want TiVo to turn into just another MSO supplier (like Arris and Pace), doomed to make cheap stripped-down boxes to meet the MSO's target unit price. TiVo is taking steps to introduce new and compelling products, and trying different pricing models. We need to help them rebuild the retail market by explaining what makes the TiVo experience better to others.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Ira Bahr said:


> Amazon is a great partner. We continue talk about developing great customer experiences and how to leverage both of our platforms to the benefit of customers. *We will definitely bring this up with them.*


Something else to bring up with Amazon next time you chat...

An article on Variety, yesterday (Oct 1), reporting on Amazon's dropping AppleTV and Chromecast from their online store included the following statement from Amazon:

_Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime. Its important that the *streaming media players we sell* interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion. *Roku, XBOX, PlayStation and Fire TV are excellent choices.*_

http://variety.com/2015/digital/new...-stop-selling-apple-tv-chromecast-1201607490/​
What's a marketer gotta do to get a little recognition? Do you have any plans to rap the knuckles of anyone at Amazon for the snubbage of TiVo in their statement, or to perhaps enlighten them to the TiVo's streaming capabilities?


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

tarheelblue32 said:


> And go where exactly? Windows Media Center? Channel Master DVR+? Tablo?


No where. It will be over. These are for profit companies and are in business to make a profit. They are not here to provide a specialized DVR to a small group of people. Ira pointed this out in his opening statement.
That is the biggest bombshell he dropped and it appears you guys missed it.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Jed1 said:


> No where. It will be over. These are for profit companies and are in business to make a profit. They are not here to provide a specialized DVR to a small group of people. Ira pointed this out in his opening statement.
> That is the biggest bombshell he dropped and it appears you guys missed it.


Actually, I think what he said was that the Bolts were designed to appeal to a mass audience so that TiVo could make a profit and that a more "specialized DVR" for the smaller number of enthusiasts would be available sometime next year.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

innocentfreak said:


> The issue with this is you have to be able to force the TiVo to call home in time to update.


I would think it would be a more streamlined mothership communication, separate from the typical service connection. More like the OnePass lookups, but asynchronous... perhaps with periodic polling of the mothership for timing updates only for tagged recordings as their scheduled end times approach.


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## caughey (May 26, 2007)

The only things surprising about what Ira said is that he said it out loud and that some people are surprised by what he said.

TiVo has been "in trouble" and "sinking like the Titanic" and "on the verge of bankruptcy" since I bought my series 2.

The Bolt is a pretty big risk by TiVo standards, and I'm impressed they took it.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

caughey said:


> The only things surprising about what Ira said is that he said it out loud and that some people are surprised by what he said.
> 
> TiVo has been "in trouble" and "sinking like the Titanic" and "on the verge of bankruptcy" since I bought my series 2.
> 
> The Bolt is a pretty big risk by TiVo standards, and I'm impressed they took it.


Well, with the patent revenue drying up in 2018, they obviously had to do something different. As lukewarm as my initial reaction to the Bolts were, I have to say that after thinking about it more and listening to what Ira had to say, I think they are moving in the right direction from a business standpoint.


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## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

Quote:
Originally Posted by reneg View Post
With Comcast's migration from MPEG2 to MPEG4 essentially rendering Tivo HD's useless, will Tivo provide any incentives to long time Tivo HD customers to migrate to a newer Tivo platform?
Yes. We've been doing this in all Comcast upgrade markets. Sometimes it's hard for you to see our offers because a lot of customers have not updated their email address. Update those addresses, we make lots of interesting offers. Give us a call, and if you're in a Comcast MP4 market, we think we have some solid offers for you.


First: Comcast will only be converting the Atlanta Area in October from MP2 to MP4.
Second: Comcast will convert all areas from MP2 to MP4 to upgrade video.
Third: Comcast and TiVo had already had discussions and The higher end Roamios and Bolt, TiVo Series 5 Roamio Plus, The TiVo Series 5 Roamio Pro and the TiVo Series 6 Bolt are able to handle both video formats, MP2 and MP4, with no problem.
Fourth: The Lower end Roamios, the TiVo Series 5 Roamio Basic and the TiVo Series 5 Roamio OTA however, will not be able to handle the MP4 format and these users will have to contact TiVo. It may be just a SW upgrade or require a new box.
Fifty: Remember TiVo has said that the Roamio Pro will continue to be supported until BOLT has at least a 6 tuner and a 3TB DVR available.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

caughey said:


> ... and http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/02/tivo-exec-explains-light-on-tuners-bolt/
> 
> 
> 
> > Acknowledging TiVo's lack of individual profiles or ability to setup and save app logins under one user ID, he said the company is looking at ways to address that.


wooHOO! Keep the pressure up.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

tarheelblue32 said:


> Um, I think what he actually said was that the Bolts were designed to appeal to a mass audience so that TiVo could make a profit and that a more "specialized DVR" for the smaller number of enthusiasts would be available sometime next year.


The problem is you are assuming that the Bolt is going to do this. What happens if it doesn't? Do you think TiVo is going back to trying to serve an ever diminishing loyal base?

According to Ira they released this version a year early in order to try to improve their subscriber numbers. If this plan fails there might not be a DVR for enthusiasts.


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## caughey (May 26, 2007)

tarheelblue32 said:


> Well, with the patent revenue drying up in 2018, they obviously had to do something different. As lukewarm as my initial reaction to the Bolts were, I have to say that after thinking about it more and listening to what Ira had to say, I think they are moving in the right direction.


Yeah, when he admitted "we didn't design the Bolt for you" I realized they hadn't totally lost it. Pretty ballsy move. I like it. (But I'm not buying one, so a bunch of other people better.)

I just hope Dish doesn't have a patent on commercial skipping. The irony.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Jed1 said:


> The problem is you are assuming that the Bolt is going to do this. What happens if it doesn't? Do you think TiVo is going back to trying to serve an ever diminishing loyal base?
> 
> According to Ira they released this version a year early in order to try to improve their subscriber numbers. If this plan fails there might not be a DVR for enthusiasts.


Sure, the wheels could come completely off, but that obviously isn't going to happen until after 2018 when the patent revenue dries up. And there are no signs of their MSO business slowing down anytime soon, which helps. But your point is fair that they do need the retail side to pick up, and I think they are on the right track.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

zerdian1 said:


> Fourth: The Lower end Roamios, the TiVo Series 5 Roamio Basic and the TiVo Series 5 Roamio OTA however will not be able to handle the MP4 format.


Pretty sure this is incorrect information.


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## hummingbird_206 (Aug 23, 2007)

David Bott said:


> Hey all...Few things...They did have a few answers posted to the wrong questions. They were opening windows for the replies by right clicking on QUOTE. So some got messed up. They will send me over his answers to the ones you all found to fix it as soon as they can. (It is already after hours.)
> 
> Remember, CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, he surely does not know all the techy things and I am guessing there was a team involved. (As there should be.) Thus the mixed up answers to questions with the open windows.
> 
> All and all, I think this was great. Now I can only hope it gets picked up by some other communities and linked to. If part of other tech communities or know people on other news sites etc, please be so kind to share the Q&A. I think this was very good for TiVo to do.


Wow, I didn't even see the post about the Q&A here. I saw the mention of TCF in an engadget article!http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/02/tivo-exec-explains-light-on-tuners-bolt/


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

caughey said:


> Yeah, when he admitted "we didn't design the Bolt for you" I realized they hadn't totally lost it. Pretty ballsy move. I like it. (But I'm not buying one, so a bunch of other people better.)


I'm not going to be buying one either, but I can think of a few people that the Bolt would be perfect for, and I will probably be recommending it to them.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Ira Bahr said:


> One thing  may I ask this group if it might change its logos to conform with our new identity? Were evolving from the older TiVo guy to what we think is a more modern, masculine, and streamlined look. The new ID is what we call Blankman and its what we want TiVo to look like going forward. Were going to send David a file for all to use.


I'm going to miss TiVo Guy. I hope TiVo is around long enough so they can bring TiVo Guy back in the form of a cool retro look.

They should send all their leftover unsold TiVo Guy logo stuff to us.


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## caughey (May 26, 2007)

zerdian1 said:


> Fourth: The Lower end Roamios, the TiVo Series 5 Roamio Basic and the TiVo Series 5 Roamio OTA however will not be able to handle the MP4 format.


Huh? Where is that coming from? Even the venerable TiVo HD hardware can support MP4/h.264.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=497018



tarheelblue32 said:


> I'm not going to be buying one either, but I can think of a few people that the Bolt would be perfect for, and I will probably be recommending it to them.


Yeah, if you already have a Roamio Pro with Lifetime, you probably don't need a Bolt, but for your first TiVo, or even an upgrade from an old one, it's probably the best deal.



waynomo said:


> I'm going to miss TiVo Guy. I hope TiVo is around long enough so they can bring TiVo Guy back in the form of a cool retro look.
> 
> They should send all their leftover unsold TiVo Guy logo stuff to us.


I see people posting TiVo customer service is giving them away in lieu of discounts, etc. I was going to give some away this Christmas.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

tarheelblue32 said:


> Actually, I think what he said was that the Bolts were designed to appeal to a mass audience so that TiVo could make a profit and that a more "specialized DVR" for the smaller number of enthusiasts would be available sometime next year.


Jed likes FUD, don't feed the bear.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

caughey said:


> The Bolt is a pretty big risk by TiVo standards, and I'm impressed they took it.


Arguably, with the major streaming set-top devices rolling out 4K products, not rolling-out the BOLT was likely the bigger risk. I definitely understand their doing so, even with many expected features yet TBD.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

tarheelblue32 said:


> Sure, the wheels could come completely off, but that obviously isn't going to happen until after 2018 when the patent revenue dries up. And there are no signs of their MSO business slowing down anytime soon, which helps. But your point is fair that they do need the retail side to pick up, and I think they are on the right track.


Unfortunately the MSO's are all losing subs quarter to quarter and have been for years. A lot of those subs are moving to low cost satellite deals. My cable operator is now down to 53% of households for video subs. And the main reason is the ever increasing rate hikes for programming. I got a $6/month hike in 2012, a $9/month hike in 2013, a $13/month hike in 2014 and a $16/month hike in 2015. My current bill is $230.90/month and I own both of my CableCards and TiVos.
I don't think TiVo is waiting until 2018 as it seems this has to happen in the upcoming year as this is the reason they pushed the Bolt out a year early. I do not see J6P running out to buy a Bolt so I honestly don't think TiVo is going to make it.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

Did he really blame, the $500 Lifetime price as a reason TiVo does not have 10M subs? So increasing that to $600 (actually $750) is going to entice more subscribers?

I agree that including 1 Year of Service at point-of-sale is a great idea, but the majority of TiVo opposition has always been the pricing of recurring fees, much more than the Lifetime price. The very vocal opponents always completely ignored to even acknowledge the Lifetime option anyway.



> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10651303#post10651303
> Agree. New name and a higher price. In all seriousness though, my view is that both the fact of this pricing option and its name was killing TiVo. *Tivo should have ten million cusomters today. IMO, one reason we don't is because of the way we've priced it. "Lifetime" was already way more than most people wanted to pay,* AND actually reduced the value ascribed to our monthly product. Does Verizon offer a Lifetime plan? But even with the price hike, you gotta admit; our products last a LONG time. We should do a poll here on TiVo product ages, and I think we'd all be very impressed.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

bradleys said:


> Jed likes FUD, don't feed the bear.


Theres no FUD here as these are Ira's words.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10651152#post10651152



> So this leads to "why the hell did you NOT design for the TiVo enthusiast?" First, we already have a roadmap plan to bring you something you'll like way better in 2016 (more on this shortly). This product is on the already established 3 year product cycle which you're used to. Second, there just aren't enough of you to sustain the company's retail business alone. If there were, I assure you we'd have a way different approach. TiVo is simply unable to build its business on the backs of its ever diminishing group of loyalists. We did 150,000 activations in our last fiscal year. Compare that to the millions of streamers out there, and the tens of millions of DVRS out there and you see that we've got a lot of ground to make up. In order to win for the the company, and for YOU, we need to expand our market. If we fail to do this, we're not going to be able to do much of anything, We think we've got a plan for both the mass market AND for enthusiasts. So snuggle up with a warm multi-meter, walk through the answers and we'll try to talk more when you're done.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

zerdian1 said:


> Fifty: Remember TiVo has said that the Roamio Pro will continue to be supported until BOLT has at least a 6 tuner and a 3TB DVR available.


^This^ one of these is not like the others. The other bullets, even with the 4th being erroneous, are related to the Comcast MPEG4 migration.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

waynomo said:


> I'm going to miss TiVo Guy. I hope TiVo is around long enough so they can bring TiVo Guy back in the form of a cool retro look.
> 
> They should send all their leftover unsold TiVo Guy logo stuff to us.


Hmmm... maybe this is why they snuffed the boot-up video.


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## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

celtic pride said:


> by any chance did anyone ask WHY tivo bolt is white instead of black? it looks to me like they want tivo to resemble APPLE!


I think you are catching on.
the Apple model sells a lot of devices every year.
TiVo needs to get to a lot more people with new devices each year or so.

Too many of us have DVRs from year one.
The only reason I am not using my 3 ReplayTVs with lifetime and my 3 Series 1 and 2 TiVos is that they were all SD. I now have 3 Series 5 TiVos for HDTV.

As TiVo said there are 10's of millions of DVRs, but TiVo is only selling 150,000 last year.
They need to sell Millions per year sold each year for them to succeed.
Otherwise, in a few years we will be using some other companies DVRs or worse yet, the cable companies.

It is in our own interest for TiVo to remain viable.
We have to do what we can to help TiVo succeed.
I have activated 5 TiVos in the last 12 months.
I will probably buy a TiVo Series 6 Bolt for the 4K video, SKIPmode and QUICKmode features.
Next year we will have the new Bolt Mini that will also stream 4K.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Jed1 said:


> Unfortunately the MSO's are all losing subs quarter to quarter and have been for years. A lot of those subs are moving to low cost satellite deals. My cable operator is now down to 53% of households for video subs. And the main reason is the ever increasing rate hikes for programming. I got a $6/month hike in 2012, a $9/month hike in 2013, a $13/month hike in 2014 and a $16/month hike in 2015. My current bill is $230.90/month and I own both of my CableCards and TiVos.


It's funny, I actually know a couple of people who just switched back to Time Warner Cable from DirecTV and DISH because the satellite companies kept raising their rates higher and higher and TWC offered them an intro deal they couldn't refuse.



Jed1 said:


> I don't think TiVo is waiting until 2018 as it seems this has to happen in the upcoming year as this is the reason they pushed the Bolt out a year early. I do not see J6P running out to buy a Bolt so I honestly don't think TiVo is going to make it.


I'm guessing you're a "glass-half-empty" kinda guy.

You really think TiVo is just going to give up and turn out the lights next year if Bolt sales aren't off the charts? Even when they have hundreds of millions of dollars in patent money still rolling in over the next 3 years? I don't think so.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

tarheelblue32 said:


> And go where exactly? Windows Media Center? Channel Master DVR+? Tablo?


Maybe the HDHomeRun DVR will end up being decent. But as you imply, there aren't a lot of choices out there for non-MSO-supplied DVRs.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1275320038/hdhomerun-dvr-the-dvr-re-imagined/posts/1369023


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

NashGuy said:


> Maybe the HDHomeRun DVR will end up being decent. But as you imply, there aren't a lot of choices out there for non-MSO-supplied DVRs.
> 
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1275320038/hdhomerun-dvr-the-dvr-re-imagined/posts/1369023


If he's too worried about TiVo going bankrupt to buy a new TiVo, then he should be far too worried to buy from a company that has to raise money on kickstarter.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

It was interesting to read, but a lot of the answered were wishy-washy non-committal corporate speak, but that's what you expect with these sorts of things, as there are a lot of things they can't directly divulge.

He also missed the point of a bunch of the questions. I clearly understood what they were asking.

The user profile thing is interesting, that could be a huge differentiator for TiVo.



randian said:


> He ignored my questions about migration to new hardware. The problem is so much more than copying recordings and OnePasses.


He addressed migration. It seems like this should be a relatively simple thing to handle overnight over a network.



zerdian1 said:


> Fourth: The Lower end Roamios, the TiVo Series 5 Roamio Basic and the TiVo Series 5 Roamio OTA however, will not be able to handle the MP4 format and these users will have to contact TiVo. It may be just a SW upgrade or require a new box.


No. All Premieres and Roamios support MPEG-4. The OTA would support it if anyone broadcast MPEG-4 over OTA, but they don't, and it obviously can't use a CableCard.



Jed1 said:


> Unfortunately the MSO's are all losing subs quarter to quarter and have been for years. A lot of those subs are moving to low cost satellite deals.


HUH? Low cost satellite deals? Satellite is insanely expensive, and even more so when you account for the loss of bundling discounts that you get on cable. Satellite is in a bad market position in every way except changing demographics that are more diverse and want programming in languages other than english, which is a traditional stronghold of satellite.

DirecTV is still the ultimate, but it's $$$. I wish they would work with TiVo to make a true DirecTiVo.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

CoxInPHX said:


> These two separate statements seem in direct conflict with each other.
> 
> Also, the Premieres received the new Roamio UI, it just seems logical to unify the UI look across all currently supported platforms. There was a period of time when the Mini had the old Premiere UI and the Roamio the newer UI, But at some point the Mini UI will need to match the new Bolt UI for the "Unified" look and feel.


Yeah, I thought about that too: if Series 4 and 5 units don't get the new flatter UI that the Bolt sports, will their UIs at least have the old-style TiVo guy icon switched out for the new "blank man" TiVo icon? Either way, not a huge deal. I actually like little TiVo guy and was sad to see his cute little boot up video go away.

I'm certainly glad to hear that we'll be getting network logos in the program guide though!


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

tarheelblue32 said:


> If he's too worried about TiVo going bankrupt to buy a new TiVo, then he should be far too worried to buy from a company that has to raise money on kickstarter.


Ha! Maybe so. That said, SiliconDust has been around since 2007. I'm keeping an eye on them, just to see what they come up with...


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## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

TiVo answered a lot of questions, 
Gave us a lot of information that we did not have before.
As a long time TiVo DVR customer, I greatly appreciate it.

We now know that a TiVo Series 6 BOLT PRO with at least 6 tuners and at least 3TB storage will probably happen in about a year or two.
Until that time, TiVo Series 5 Roamio PRO will be sold, fully supported and updated.
The TiVo Series 6 Bolt Mini that supports 4K viewing will be available in a year.
I am expecting it to be white and have some design queues from Bolt.

We also know that there will be a high capacity TiVo Series 6 Bolt Mega with 4K video. I would not expect the price to drop much from he previous $5K price as very few ill be sold. And they have to recoup their R&D.


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## Blakeintosh (Sep 8, 2014)

NashGuy said:


> Maybe the HDHomeRun DVR will end up being decent. But as you imply, there aren't a lot of choices out there for non-MSO-supplied DVRs.
> 
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1275320038/hdhomerun-dvr-the-dvr-re-imagined/posts/1369023


I'm a backer of the HDHomeRun project and SiliconDust is learning in realtime just how difficult it is to create a DVR platform from scratch. They just announced that they are 8 weeks behind schedule. Granted, they are taking a much different approach than TiVo, basically trying to build their DVR system to run on nearly any brand/flavor of modern hardware (NAS/Linux, PC, Mac, FreeBSD), and an equally dizzying array of platforms to view the content. There is also going to be an endless number of hardware/platform specific bugs that they are going to be constantly fighting. It's like choosing to build your own PC, and spending lots of time troubleshooting for hardware/driver issues, verses just buying a stock PC/Mac with limited preconfigured options that have been tested hardware/driver conflicts. It's fun for us tech enthusiasts to build our own PC, but I would never suggest that option to a non-techy friend or family member. TiVo is the brand for the masses, if you can convince them to spend the money to get it.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

zerdian1 said:


> We now know that a TiVo Series 6 BOLT PRO with at least 6 tuners and at least 3TB storage will probably happen* in about a year or two*.


Not sure where the "two" came from, there; Ira specifically said to look for something on their "normal 3 year cycle," so that's July-Aug 2016, 3 years after the release of the Roamio line, and less than a year off from now. (link)



zerdian1 said:


> We also know that there will be a high capacity TiVo Series 6 Bolt Mega with 4K video.


We don't know that at all. The only thing we know is that they did not "kill" the Mega; it is "in a pause. Stay tuned." (link)


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

celtic pride said:


> by any chance did anyone ask WHY tivo bolt is white instead of black? it looks to me like they want tivo to resemble APPLE!


 Apple Tv's are black.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

celtic pride said:


> by any chance did anyone ask WHY tivo bolt is white instead of black? it looks to me like they want tivo to resemble APPLE!


Maybe TiVo can have designer color shells for the Bolt, so that you could get one in any color you want. A Bolt in rose gold might be a hot seller.


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## andyw715 (Jul 31, 2007)

What they need to do is put a tuner and a 1 stream capability into the minis and just have the TiVo unit as storage/scheduler. 

I don't know the tech aspects of the cable card / tuner relationship but maybe the TiVo unit could have 2-3 slots to support 12-18 minis. 

Or maybe that's one too many pints talking


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Bigg said:


> The user profile thing is interesting, that could be a huge differentiator for TiVo.


w00t!/agreed. (more, etc)



Bigg said:


> Satellite is in a bad market position in every way except ...


... NFL Sunday Ticket, and quantity of HD channels relative to local cable provider (depending on market).


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

krkaufman said:


> ... NFL Sunday Ticket, and quantity of HD channels relative to local cable provider (depending on market).


I honestly wonder what percentage of DirecTV subscribers watch NFL games on Sunday Ticket or can even tell the difference between good quality HD and over-compressed HD. I'm guessing it's less than a third.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

CoxInPHX said:


> Also, the Premieres received the new Roamio UI, it just seems logical to unify the UI look across all currently supported platforms. There was a period of time when the Mini had the old Premiere UI and the Roamio the newer UI, But at some point the Mini UI will need to match the new Bolt UI for the "Unified" look and feel.


That will get especially odd for those households with both BOLT and Roamio DVRs, with Minis that can switch between the hosts. Will the Mini's UI switch as it switches between hosts, or will the Mini have a different UI than the host to which it connects, in one case or the other?

Maybe TiVo needs to provide an incentive to buying a BOLT... in that they'll only update Roamios with the new features if they're on the same account as an active BOLT sub.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

trip1eX said:


> Personally I didn't know there was a Netgear network storage device with Tivo server built-in.


They really need to shout that from the rooftops more often, I just bought a ReadyNAS over the summer to act as a Tivo backup archive for my 3 units.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Ha! Maybe so. That said, SiliconDust has been around since 2007. I'm keeping an eye on them, just to see what they come up with...


And I'm periodically checking-in on the SageTV Open Source effort, to see if anything comes of that.


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## Sixto (Sep 16, 2005)

Was really impressed. He actually answered the questions directly. Very cool CMO. Looking forward to 2016, and sure hope the Bolt does well to enable further investment.


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## agent009 (Oct 14, 2010)

Blakeintosh said:


> ...We need to help them rebuild the retail market by explaining what makes the TiVo experience better to others.


"Better to others" in what way? How would you go about selling someone on the upfront cost of the hardware and the monthly fee that even surpasses the Comcast's? I keep one Comcast DVR on hand and I'm paying $15.95 a month for it.

In B School, they teach you that in order to get market penetration, your product needs to undercut the competitors or present a value prop that will make people willing to spend the money on the perceived higher quality. Do you honestly feel the TiVo experience is worth twice the cost of the MSO's DVR (factoring in hardware costs + monthly subscriptions).


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

agent009 said:


> "Better to others" in what way? How would you go about selling someone on the upfront cost of the hardware and the monthly fee that even surpasses the Comcast's? I keep one Comcast DVR on hand and I'm paying $15.95 a month for it.
> 
> In B School, they teach you that in order to get market penetration, your product needs to undercut the competitors or present a value prop that will make people willing to spend the money on the perceived higher quality. Do you honestly feel the TiVo experience is worth twice the cost of the MSO's DVR (factoring in hardware costs + monthly subscriptions).


Well, Comcast might not be the best example, since they seem to underprice their DVR service compared to say TWC. But let's look at Comcast as an example and do a little math.

So you say you pay $16 for the Comcast DVR. You have to factor in that if you bring your own DVR, you get a $2.50 credit from Comcast, plus the first CableCard from Comcast is free. So, you're actually saving $18.50/month if you buy a $300 Bolt. That's about $222/year. So over 2 years you would save $444 off your Comcast bill. The first year of service on the Bolt is included and the second year you would pay $150 for service, meaning the cost of owning a Bolt for 2 years is $450. So in 2 years you are about at break even, and every month after that you are $3.50/month or $42/year better off that going with a Comcast DVR, plus the Bolt is definitely a superior DVR to the X1. And if you throw in a Mini or 2, you can save on Comcast extra outlet and cable box fees, leading to even bigger savings over time. So yes, I'd say the value in owning a Bolt is certainly there compared to the Comcast alternative.

Now, Time Warner Cable, on the other hand, in my area charges $31.75 for their whole-home DVR, but you do have to pay $2.50 for the first CableCard. So you save $29.24/month or about $350/year going with the Bolt over TWC's DVR service, so the Bolt pays for itself on TWC in about 10 months. They also charge about $12/month for a crappy cable box, so a Mini will pay for itself on TWC in about 10 months also (if you buy it on Amazon).

So, to review, on Comcast you would break even going with a Bolt over the X1 in about 2 years, and on TWC you would break even over going with their whole-home DVR in about 10 months. Are you starting to see the value proposition yet?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

agent009 said:


> Do you honestly feel the TiVo experience is worth twice the cost of the MSO's DVR (factoring in hardware costs + monthly subscriptions).


Where is the "twice the cost" coming from, and over what period of time are you allowing for comparison?

However it's calc'd, TiVo is a tough sell to a single screen household, especially if the DVR is being discounted or provided free as part of a bundle. The TiVo value grows as you look to connect more screens, and as you look to make key streaming services available to these screens.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

agent009 said:


> "Better to others" in what way? How would you go about selling someone on the upfront cost of the hardware and the monthly fee that even surpasses the Comcast's? I keep one Comcast DVR on hand and I'm paying $15.95 a month for it.
> 
> In B School, they teach you that in order to get market penetration, your product needs to undercut the competitors or present a value prop that will make people willing to spend the money on the perceived higher quality. Do you honestly feel the TiVo experience is worth twice the cost of the MSO's DVR (factoring in hardware costs + monthly subscriptions).


Even though it doesn't help TiVo, I'd have to ask why you don't buy a used Premiere with lifetime to replace that Comcast DVR.

Apparently not mainstream, but the ability to transfer TV shows and movies to and from it makes it better than others and is a key feature for us. Also the integrated Netflix and Pandora capabilities on our ancient S3's. I've not had to buy yet another device for my TV as a result (and yes they are cheap but you would have to subtract that from your cost comparison).

How are you amortizing the hardware costs to come up with $32 a month for the TiVo (that would be $17 for the hardware with $15 for the service)?

Scott


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## agent009 (Oct 14, 2010)

tarheelblue32 said:


> ...So, to review, on Comcast you would break even going with a Bolt over the X1 in about 2 years, and on TWC you would break even over going with their whole-home DVR in about 10 months. Are you starting to see the value proposition yet?


Great comparison, but you're also forgetting the issue of time-value of money. Most households out there also can't afford the initial outlay for the TiVo hardware. I think we all need to take a closer look at Ira's comments in his AMA here and realize that the majority of subscribers to an MSO with a DVR don't have multiple units in their residence. TiVo's survival relies on getting the everyday-man to subscribe to their service instead of the MSO's. That should be the focus of the value-prop--not the high-end users like us.



HerronScott said:


> Even though it doesn't help TiVo, I'd have to ask why you don't buy a used Premiere with lifetime to replace that Comcast DVR.


I own one lifetime'd Premiere, one lifetime'd Premiere XL4, and one month-to-month Roamio Plus. I keep the Comcast DVR around because it was free. Yes, free. I took it into the Comcast retail office to verify and the rep and the manager on site said it was included with my HD cable subscription and printed out my itemized bill to prove it. I have this Comcast DVR hooked up to a Slingbox in a closet and not connected to a TV whatsoever.

As far as transferring TV shows to/from a TiVo and mobile devices, a growing segment of consumers out there (ie the millenials) prefer to just download/stream from Netflix/Amazon Prime/HBO Go/etc. They have nearly zero need to transfer a recording off their DVR to a mobile device. Let's remember again that the undertones on the AMA done by Ira today are that TiVo realizes it needs to market to this new crowd and not to us legacy TiVo subs.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

agent009 said:


> I own one lifetime'd Premiere, one lifetime'd Premiere XL4, and one month-to-month Roamio Plus. I keep the Comcast DVR around because it was free. Yes, free. I took it into the Comcast retail office to verify and the rep and the manager on site said it was included with my HD cable subscription and printed out my itemized bill to prove it. I have this Comcast DVR hooked up to a Slingbox in a closet and not connected to a TV whatsoever.


What are you paying Comcast for your Premiere, Premiere XL4 and Roamio Pro?


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## agent009 (Oct 14, 2010)

krkaufman said:


> What are you paying Comcast for your Premiere, Premiere XL4 and Roamio Pro?


Zero of course.

I'm paying the $20/mo on the Roamio Plus to TiVo once I'm billed for next month and MSD goes away.

If Google Fiber ever comes to this area, looks like I'd have to offload these TiVos as well.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

agent009 said:


> Zero of course.
> 
> I'm paying the $20/mo on the Roamio Plus to TiVo once I'm billed for next month and MSD goes away.


So you have 4 devices with CableCARDs and Comcast is not charging you any outlet fees for any of them?


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

agent009 said:


> Great comparison, but you're also forgetting the issue of time-value of money. Most households out there also can't afford the initial outlay for the TiVo hardware. I think we all need to take a closer look at Ira's comments in his AMA here and realize that the majority of subscribers to an MSO with a DVR don't have multiple units in their residence. TiVo's survival relies on getting the everyday-man to subscribe to their service instead of the MSO's. That should be the focus of the value-prop--not the high-end users like us.


Time value of money isn't really that much of a factor over a 10 month to 2 year time scale. If people can afford to buy a $600 iPhone, a $200/month cell phone bill, and a $200/month cable and broadband bill, I think they can afford a $300 Bolt. Heck, in my TWC example, you would probably still wind up saving money in the long run by just putting the $300 Bolt on a credit card. TiVo's biggest problem is that the average person sucks at doing math and doesn't realize that they can spend extra money up front to save more money in the long run.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

randian said:


> Why shouldn't Guided Setup include discovery of other TiVos and ask if you want to copy their setup and/or recordings? That's basically how a new Android phone works.


they could it by accounts to via websigte or login with email and password via tivo menu.


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## agent009 (Oct 14, 2010)

krkaufman said:


> So you have 4 devices with CableCARDs and Comcast is not charging you any outlet fees for any of them?


I have 3 CableCard devices (the two Premieres and one Roamio). I also have the Comcast DVR sitting in a closet with my Slingbox so I can access it if I need to on my phone/tablet/laptop.

I just pulled up the PDF of my bill on Comcast's website. I am being charged the following:
(1) "Hd Technology Fee" -- $9.95 recurring
(3) "TiVo Cablecard Qty 3 @ $1.50 each" -- $4.50 recurring

The manager at the location said that the "Hd Technology Fee" is so I can have HD service instead of just regular SD service. This is consistent with what I know from my ex-girlfriend's bill that didn't have the HD fee since she only had SD.

At the bottom of my bill, under the "Other Charges & Credits" heading, I have:
(1) "Customer Owned Equipment - Adjustment" -- $2.50 (credited to me per month).

So yes, I have three TiVos, one Comcast Motorola DVR, and pay $128.65 (before taxes) for "Digital Premier w/ Sports Package with HBO/Showtime/STARz/Cinemax/OnDemand" a month.

I do not have any sort of bundled Internet or Telephone either. Although, one of my coworkers switched to Comcast from U-Verse and told me their DVR was free from Comcast as well.

How can TiVo's value prop line up with that for the average household?



tarheelblue32 said:


> ...the average person sucks at doing math and doesn't realize that they can spend extra money up front to save more money in the long run.


The "average person" is what TiVo is trying to (and needs to) target here in order to survive as a company. A large percentage of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, yet still have iPhones, internet, cable TV, etc. This is just the reality of the public at large or else places like Check Cashing Services and Rent-A-Center wouldn't exist. A boutique DVR isn't something that the majority of Americans see as a faux status symbol worth flaunting.

How is TiVo going to save money for the guy on the $40/month HD Basic plan with comcast that comes with a digital cable box (no DVR functionality), but downloads/streams all their shows when desired? You'd be surprised just how many of those people are out there.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

agent009 said:


> How is TiVo going to save money for the guy on the $40/month HD Basic plan with comcast that comes with a digital cable box (no DVR functionality), but downloads/streams all their shows when desired? You'd be surprised just how many of those people are out there.


And here again, this is another difference between TWC and Comcast. TWC doesn't give you even the first basic cable box for free. It's $12/month to rent it. But even so, you tell him to just cut the cord and get a Bolt OTA when it comes out later this year. Why pay $40/month for broadcast channels when you can get them for free? And with the built-in streaming apps, he won't have to pay an extra $100 for another streaming box either.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

It was nice of Ira to stop by and answer some questions and concerns the Bolt raised, but it's hard to get past his comments that basically said "we don't count".

Maybe we're a PR concern because people shopping for TiVo and see us blasting the Bolt looks really bad compared to all the favorable reviews they've seeded so far, but he made it pretty clear that while we're part of the market they want to address, we're the gravy on the pot-roast - and without the pot-roast - there is no TiVo.

The problem here is sometimes a niche company is just meant to be a niche company. Some damage control was definitely in order, but maybe TiVo should just play to their strengths. They're not going to make the Aereo market happy with a $300 device and a $150/year subscription fee. If they can't control their cost structure enough to compete in the low-margin/high-volume world ... why are they trying?

If you can't hit the mark ... don't try ... don't make a "Fire Phone".


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

jonw747 said:


> It was nice of Ira to stop by and answer some questions and concerns the Bolt raised, but it's hard to get past his comments that basically said "we don't count".


He didn't say that.



jonw747 said:


> Maybe we're a PR concern because people shopping for TiVo and see us blasting the Bolt looks really bad compared to all the favorable reviews they've seeded so far, but he made it pretty clear that while we're part of the market they want to address, we're the gravy on the pot-roast - and without the pot-roast - there is no TiVo.


Which is true, isn't it?



jonw747 said:


> The problem here is sometimes a niche company is just meant to be a niche company. Some damage control was definitely in order, but maybe TiVo should just play to their strengths. They're not going to make the Aereo market happy with a $300 device and a $150/year subscription fee. If they can't control their cost structure enough to compete in the low-margin/high-volume world ... why are they trying?
> 
> If you can't hit the mark ... don't try ... don't make a "Fire Phone".


Jesus H. Christ, I don't even know where to begin with this one. First of all, we don't really know how well the Bolt sales will do yet. It might sell well, or it might not. Only time will tell.

Secondly, you just want them to give up without even trying? What the heck kind of attitude is that? If things are tough and you're not sure if you will be able to succeed or not, do you just give up and not even try? If so, then you probably aren't going to accomplish very much in this world. There is always a risk of failure in almost anything wrong doing, but you still have to try. And even if you do wind up failing, you can learn something through the failure and try again until you hopefully get it right. Apple was, by many measures, a commercial failure in the 90s and heading towards bankruptcy. Should they have just given up?


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

agent009 said:


> The "average person" is what TiVo is trying to (and needs to) target here in order to survive as a company. A large percentage of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, yet still have iPhones, internet, cable TV, etc. This is just the reality of the public at large or else places like Check Cashing Services and Rent-A-Center wouldn't exist. A boutique DVR isn't something that the majority of Americans see as a faux status symbol worth flaunting.


There are all sorts in the low-end of the market. There are those who will bounce from provider to provider to keep getting the latest introductory offer. Sadly TiVo doesn't support satellite.

And of course there are the cord cutters who can get what they need out of a $30 streaming stick and a Hulu subscription (if they want to pay a monthly fee) or Kodi with addons if they'd rather steal their content.

Good luck with that, TiVo.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

tarheelblue32 said:


> He didn't say that.


Yeah, what he actually said was much worse. He split us off as a fringe element "enthusiasts" and declared that TiVo could not be profitable with just our business, so they have to concentrate on the "mass market".

As-if there was a "market" that prefers a 500GB disk to a 6TB drive? or a 4-tuner solution to a 6-tuner solution?

lol

Of course there's not, but that would be fine if they were hitting really competitive price points by leaving those features out, but they're not.

Nobody understands why they should pay $150/mon for "TiVo service", and as long as they keep propping up a model that doesn't make sense to most people, all they've got is that "fringe" that's able to figure it out or deal with it (aka PLS).



tarheelblue32 said:


> Secondly, you just want them to give up without even trying?


I never said they should give up, but if they shoot for the mass market and miss it entirely because they can't deal with the far tighter price/cost structure of that market, they're going to blow themselves up.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

jonw747 said:


> I never said they should give up


Well maybe you didn't mean to, but that's what it sounded like to me.



jonw747 said:


> why are they trying? If you can't hit the mark ... don't try


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Blakeintosh said:


> TiVo is the brand for the masses, . . .


Apparently not according to the chat. They only did 150K activations vs millions for the various stick options vs countless people who use the stock MSO supplied DVR. They want to be the brand for the masses, but they aren't.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

tarheelblue32 said:


> Well maybe you didn't mean to, but that's what it sounded like to me.


That's because you're buying his explanation that this is a binary decision ... grab the mass market or die.

There are plenty of other ways to grow a business, and building on their strengths is a pretty conservative means of going about it.

We saw with the Summer sale that there is demand for TiVo products at a much more aggressive price point. Alas, the Bolt with All-In is 3X the price of a Summer Sale Roamio with Lifetime.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

I think his answer to my "rain delay" question was referencing his answer to the previous question which was my "tick mark" question.

His answer was.....

_"The reality is that creating a product and a service like TiVo has complexities. Mistakes certainly happen when dealing with hundreds of cable operators and a multitude of shows in a given week. We're doing everthing we can to continually reduce the error rate and we're making progress."
_
AT least that's how I saw it.

I'm not sure he understood the tick mark question.

But I figured it was sort of a non-answer of we're trying but things are complex.


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## Jrr6415sun (Mar 31, 2006)

innocentfreak said:


> He mentions BLE as something the Bolt has the hardware to do. Anyone know what this is? It sounds like it is related to voice commands based off what he is replying to.


bluetooth connectivity. I know some reviews of the bolt I read said they could make a new controller that added voice in the future because of bluetooth feature.


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## Jrr6415sun (Mar 31, 2006)

trip1eX said:


> Disappointing to hear no solution in the works to give us back the ability to separately apply Keep at Most settings to both new and repeat episodes of the same show.


I am also really disappointed that they're not even thinking of a way to fix new/repeat episode conflicts. It's not that hard to add the ability, it won't be that confusing, and it is a big deal to a lot of customers.



trip1eX said:


> Tivo's solution next year, from the sound of it, may very well have more than 6 tuners or even the ability to expand the tuner count. Also possibly some kind of cloud solution to storage issues. And some personalization features. I wouldn't be surprised if the Tivo Mega evolves into more an enthusiast solution instead of super hi-end professional solution.


I wouldn't be so optimistic on all of those features. Sounds more like a we might look into that eventually rather than a we are going to do that soon.


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## Blakeintosh (Sep 8, 2014)

waynomo said:


> Apparently not according to the chat. They only did 150K activations vs millions for the various stick options vs countless people who use the stock MSO supplied DVR. They want to be the brand for the masses, but they aren't.


My quote was based on the discussion regarding retail alternatives to TiVo, specifically the upcoming HDHomeRun service that requires you to basically build your own DVR. You are correct that MSO-supplied DVRs are currently the brand for the masses. It's the "free phone" philosophy of our Society that has given MSO's such a huge marketshare. Make it just barely good enough that it get's the job done at the lowest unit price.

Let's remember that being a supplier for MSO's has become TiVo's bread and butter business now. The majority of those MSO's market their TiVo offering as a premium DVR and whole home solution. I have no doubt that TiVo would have the direct relationship of a retail customer, than having the MSO as a gateway to that relationship with the customer.


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## Jrr6415sun (Mar 31, 2006)

Jed1 said:


> No where. It will be over. These are for profit companies and are in business to make a profit. They are not here to provide a specialized DVR to a small group of people. Ira pointed this out in his opening statement.
> That is the biggest bombshell he dropped and it appears you guys missed it.


no one missed it, we got it clear that it is not sustainable as a business to provide a DVR to a small group of people. There is nothing wrong with trying to appeal to the mass market AND provide a specialized DVR at the same time. TiVo can not exist with just a few small core users all on lifetime subscriptions.



Jed1 said:


> The problem is you are assuming that the Bolt is going to do this. What happens if it doesn't? Do you think TiVo is going back to trying to serve an ever diminishing loyal base?
> 
> According to Ira they released this version a year early in order to try to improve their subscriber numbers. If this plan fails there might not be a DVR for enthusiasts.


What makes you assume the plan will fail? Having a box with the first year included for free is a huge step in the right direction.

Yes if it fails there might not be a DVR for enthusiasts, but if they never release it there wouldn't be a DVR for enthusiasts either. It's better to try and fail then not try and fail anyway.

Also by "year early" he does not mean they rushed it out the door before it was supposed to be released. He means they usually have a 3-year cycle and this one they decided to release in 2 years instead.



CoxInPHX said:


> Did he really blame, the $500 Lifetime price as a reason TiVo does not have 10M subs? So increasing that to $600 (actually $750) is going to entice more subscribers?


The point is that they don't make money on lifetime, they don't and never have used lifetime as a way to entice more subscribers.



jonw747 said:


> Yeah, what he actually said was much worse. He split us off as a fringe element "enthusiasts" and declared that TiVo could not be profitable with just our business, so they have to concentrate on the "mass market".
> 
> As-if there was a "market" that prefers a 500GB disk to a 6TB drive? or a 4-tuner solution to a 6-tuner solution?
> 
> ...


how is telling the truth that Tivo can not survive on a low amount of subscribers bad? Did you really think that your lifetime service was helping keep tivo alive? Are you that full of yourself that you think that you're special to a company and you should be the only focus? I saw nothing wrong with what he said. He said that they appreciate us but ofcourse can not survive without a bigger market. I have no problem with them servicing to the mass population if that means they are around longer and can have the funds to make better DVRs that are specialized for us in the future.

I would say the mass market does only need 500GB and 4 tuners. Who records more than 4 things at once? The only reason I would ever want more than 4 is because of the tivo minis, but that's not the mass market. Most DVRs you get from a cable provider isn't even close to 500GB and most don't have 4 tuners. $150 for the box and then $150 for the annual subscription *is* competitive pricing. Why should they release a 6 tuner 3TB box that is $200 more that the mass market will never have the need for? That makes no sense. A cheaper box that appeals to the mass user makes a lot more business sense. They can add the upgraded DVR later but it makes no sense to make that their core focus.

Their model makes complete sense to me, $150/year for tivo service is cheaper than paying that or more to your cable provider.



agent009 said:


> "Better to others" in what way? How would you go about selling someone on the upfront cost of the hardware and the monthly fee that even surpasses the Comcast's? I keep one Comcast DVR on hand and I'm paying $15.95 a month for it.
> 
> In B School, they teach you that in order to get market penetration, your product needs to undercut the competitors or present a value prop that will make people willing to spend the money on the perceived higher quality. Do you honestly feel the TiVo experience is worth twice the cost of the MSO's DVR (factoring in hardware costs + monthly subscriptions).


I think educating consumers on the tivo + tivo mini savings is a great way to start selling someone on upgrading to a tivo. I had no idea what a mini was or even the benefits of having one until I got an email from tivo offering me the 10 year loyalty discount and I decided to give it a try.

Before I upgraded to the Roamio I was paying $30 a month just to rent 2 cable boxes. Now i'm paying only $2.50 a month for the cable card and I have 6 tivo minis in all the rooms of my house. If you use a cable provider to do all of that it would cost $50-$100+ a month just to rent the boxes and it's only $15 a month with tivo (or lifetime)

In the long run tivo is cheaper and so much better than a cable DVR, but most people out there know nothing about it. Tivo would have a ton more than 150K activations in a year if more people knew the advantages and cost savings.


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## Jrr6415sun (Mar 31, 2006)

Bigg said:


> It was interesting to read, but a lot of the answered were wishy-washy non-committal corporate speak,


he actually gave a lot more information then I thought he was going to, especially regarding the future of products and even saying features that they had no plan to implement. When I was going through some of the questions I thought a lot of them were bad because there would be no way to get a truthful answer out of it, but he surprisingly answered a lot of them I thought he was going to skip.



tarheelblue32 said:


> Maybe TiVo can have designer color shells for the Bolt, so that you could get one in any color you want. A Bolt in rose gold might be a hot seller.


I think a better idea would be some type of box you can put the tivo in or an accessory to make it flat.


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## agent009 (Oct 14, 2010)

tarheelblue32 said:


> And here again, this is another difference between TWC and Comcast. TWC doesn't give you even the first basic cable box for free. It's $12/month to rent it. But even so, you tell him to just cut the cord and get a Bolt OTA when it comes out later this year. Why pay $40/month for broadcast channels when you can get them for free? And with the built-in streaming apps, he won't have to pay an extra $100 for another streaming box either.


How do you propose they watch live sports on ESPN? Why would they need another streaming box when "Smart TVs" have been around for over 5 years now? Heck, a large percentage millennials run a $10 HDMI cable between their laptops and their TV to watch their streamed stuff.

Assuming the Bolt OTA is the same outlay as the Roamio OTA, you're still asking someone to put up $400 up front. What percentage of households do you think have $400 to spend on a luxury electronic device?

TiVo needs to figure out how to get prices down in order to gain mass market appeal again. On a sidenote, TiVo made a tragic mistake when they didn't file for injunctions against MSOs using DVRs. That really killed the uniqueness of a TiVo. After coming to a settlement/licensing agreement for MSOs to use their patent, most seasoned MBA types would have advised TiVo to drop out of the consumer electronics business altogether.


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

agent009 said:


> Assuming the Bolt OTA is the same outlay as the Roamio OTA, you're still asking someone to put up $400 up front. What percentage of households do you think have $400 to spend on a luxury electronic device?


Why would you assume that? At most it'll be the same $300 as the current cheaper Bolt, but probably less.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

agent009 said:


> ... asking someone to put up $400 up front. What percentage of households do you think have $400 to spend on a luxury electronic device? ...


Right like Apple just didn't just sell several million $700+ iphones in a few minutes. There are literally 10s of millions of household that could easily afford $400 or $800 or $20+/mo for a DVR. TiVo just has to provide a product that they want and are willing to pony up the money for. I am pretty sure the Bolt isn't that product, but if Tivo sold just 1/2 million of these over the next 12 months Tivo would be ecstatic.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

agent009 said:


> TiVo needs to figure out how to get prices down in order to gain mass market appeal again. On a sidenote, TiVo made a tragic mistake when they didn't file for injunctions against MSOs using DVRs. That really killed the uniqueness of a TiVo. After coming to a settlement/licensing agreement for MSOs to use their patent, most seasoned MBA types would have advised TiVo to drop out of the consumer electronics business altogether.


Looks like you stepped on Superman's cape. I hate to back up your opinions, but TiVo's approach to marketing seems to have been learned at the USPS school of stupidity.

Every week I get big colored junk mail from Dish and DirectTV with a large $19.95 that, of course, is a sucker bet. And they usually give you the basic hardware and installation for free.

Another problem: portability. The dish world is not tied to one location. You only pay for the service and if you live in two locations, it's just a phone call to move the service from a to b.

Service. Yes, you get the box from TiVo, but now you need service. I guess there are a lot of people who don't have an OTA option. They may not even have a HSI option without caps. Add that problem, one outside of TiVo's control, and you get unhappy people.

I love my TiVos. I love my cable company. I love my ISP. I love TV. But as the man said, we are not a great profit center from users on TCF.

Next year if TiVo has a basic Bolt as good as my basic Roamio, I'll be a buyer. I hope it comes in colors, like some phones. That would be progress.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Yeah he did basically say lifetime was making monthly look bad so we're raising the price of lifetime in order to make paying by the month look better.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> Right like Apple just didn't just sell several million $700+ iphones in a few minutes. There are literally 10s of millions of household that could easily afford $400 or $800 or $20+/mo for a DVR. TiVo just has to provide a product that they want and are willing to pony up the money for. I am pretty sure the Bolt isn't that product, but if Tivo sold just 1/2 million of these over the next 12 months Tivo would be ecstatic.


Couldn't agree more. And they'll spend even more once the new series of iPads drop.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

JoeKustra said:


> Looks like you stepped on Superman's cape. I hate to back up your opinions, but TiVo's approach to marketing seems to have been learned at the USPS school of stupidity.
> 
> Every week I get big colored junk mail from Dish and DirectTV with a large $19.95 that, of course, is a sucker bet. And they usually give you the basic hardware and installation for free.
> 
> ...


Ya teaser deals from Cable with "Free" DVRs and the inability to work with Dish, Direct, or AT&T Uverse are all problems for TiVo that they can not control and basically can do nothing about. Also the issue with having to deal with cable cards & tuning adapters is another problem for TiVo that they really cann't do much about. All of which are reasons for lower TiVo sales.

Hoewever I don't think TiVos pricing is the big problem people like to make out. While TiVos pricing has always required people to know how to do simple basic math to determine how it compares to it to renting a cable DVR, there are still millions of households where TiVo pricing is comparable or better than what they are paying their cable company. In my area it is TWC, for a crappy 2 tuner DVR you pay $22/mo and something north of $30/mo if you have a STB on a second TV. Which the last time I looked comes to $720+ for 2 years. Now lets look at a Bolt & Mini $300 +$150 up front plus $150 second year service a few $s/mo for a cable card or $650+/- which a more for less. After that the Bolt costs 1/2 has much each year. In many other cases where people get teaser type deals the numbers work against TiVo and you have to believe the TiVo is just worth paying more for. The reality is that TiVos Bolt pricing is in line with cable DVR pricing and if someone is claiming TiVos cost too much then they just don't want a DVR - which is fine.

Regarding the Bolt versus Roamio. The Bolt is already better than the Roamio in all ways except size of user increase storage abilities and a temporary loss of Hulu. That said with current pricing I would not upgrade a Roamio to a Bolt, unless the Roamio was on a $15/mo plan. Also if someone can get the $400 all in Roamio deal I would take that over the Bolt also. But I still think the $300 deal for current new to TiVo cable people is good and something many should do.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

jonw747 said:


> Yeah, what he actually said was much worse. He split us off as a fringe element "enthusiasts" and declared that TiVo could not be profitable with just our business, so they have to concentrate on the "mass market".
> 
> As-if there was a "market" that prefers a 500GB disk to a 6TB drive? or a 4-tuner solution to a 6-tuner solution?
> 
> lol


Hurts not to be the desirable market segment doesn't it? 
He's right and honest, WE haven't been their target market for years, the MSOs are. It's clear from the numbers that WE can't support Tivo with our income and they need to cater to a more mainstream market to pay the bills what's wrong with them trying?

At *NO* point did he ever disrespect the Tivo faithful, if anything he was very clear that we helped keep them going, but we need to go out and spread the gospel of Tivo to help get NEW subscribers, that's what they need to survive.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

dianebrat said:


> Hurts not to be the desirable market segment doesn't it?
> He's right and honest, WE haven't been their target market for years, the MSOs are. It's clear from the numbers that WE can't support Tivo with our income and they need to cater to a more mainstream market to pay the bills what's wrong with them trying?
> 
> At *NO* point did he ever disrespect the Tivo faithful, if anything he was very clear that we helped keep them going, but we need to go out and spread the gospel of Tivo to help get NEW subscribers, that's what they need to survive.


We need to help them sell boxes we can't use? we don't like? that don't fit in our systems?

He did disrespect us by segregating us. He put a label on us than tried to justify willfully going in directions many of us don't like and then wrapped it around the excuse of saving TiVo for us.

I'll admit it was a nice tact and he handled that chat very well overall, but there's a reason they sent a marketing representative.

If the Bolt made sense, many of us could justify adding it to our systems.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

jonw747 said:


> We need to help them sell boxes we can't use? we don't like? that don't fit in our systems?
> 
> He did disrespect us by segregating us. He put a label on us than tried to justify willfully going in directions many of us don't like and then wrapped it around the excuse of saving TiVo for us.
> 
> ...


Right so a Chevy Corvette owners should be pissed at GM for making the Chevy Sonic?  The Bolt is the replacement for the Roamio, nothing more & nothing less.

If one should help promote TiVos is another question. However lets be clear if TiVo shuts down all our equipment stops working and is worthless. It would not be like back when replay went down, our units need allot more than guide data to function. So yes we all have a vested interest in TiVo being successful.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Ha! Maybe so. That said, SiliconDust has been around since 2007. I'm keeping an eye on them, just to see what they come up with...


Yeah, they are really the only other credible non-MSO DVR system out there. Actually, they are the only one, since MCE has a real death date now, and there aren't any other systems out there that fully support CableCard.



Blakeintosh said:


> I'm a backer of the HDHomeRun project and SiliconDust is learning in realtime just how difficult it is to create a DVR platform from scratch.


In some ways, HDHomeRun has way more challenges than TiVo with multiple platforms and such. But in the same way, they don't have to worry about designing and building hardware, except for the CableCard tuner, which they already have. I think they should make a 6-tuner CableCard tuner, but that's relatively easy compared to building a whole DVR.



krkaufman said:


> ... NFL Sunday Ticket, and quantity of HD channels relative to local cable provider (depending on market).


True, but Sunday Ticket has a pretty specialized target market, and most people can't tell the difference quality wise, or don't know that DirecTV is leading the industry in PQ.



tarheelblue32 said:


> So you say you pay $16 for the Comcast DVR. You have to factor in that if you bring your own DVR, you get a $2.50 credit from Comcast, plus the first CableCard from Comcast is free.


The problem for TiVo is that Comcast is bundling their DVRs in their X1 Triple Play packages, so they cost nothing for the first DVR. It's tough to compete with "free" when that bundle is cheaper than getting individual packages for each service and adding a TiVo on top of that.



Jrr6415sun said:


> he actually gave a lot more information then I thought he was going to, especially regarding the future of products and even saying features that they had no plan to implement. When I was going through some of the questions I thought a lot of them were bad because there would be no way to get a truthful answer out of it, but he surprisingly answered a lot of them I thought he was going to skip.


It still sounded like corporate speak to me. He certainly could have done a lot worse though.



Jrr6415sun said:


> Most DVRs you get from a cable provider isn't even close to 500GB and most don't have 4 tuners. $150 for the box and then $150 for the annual subscription *is* competitive pricing.


Comcast X1 has 6 tuners and 500GB, although I'm not sure how they are allocated. DirecTV is 5 tuners and 1TB, which is equivalent to 1.5-2TB on cable, although most people are too stupid to figure that out.



> In the long run tivo is cheaper and so much better than a cable DVR, but most people out there know nothing about it. Tivo would have a ton more than 150K activations in a year if more people knew the advantages and cost savings.


That's exactly the problem. They are dealing with a dumb, ignorant American consumer who just takes whatever garbage their service provider shoves down their throat. They need to advertise more to get the word out there about TiVo. Commercial skipping advertises well, and I think user profiles that were accessible anywhere in the house would market well too.


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## Anotherpyr (May 6, 2015)

celtic pride said:


> by any chance did anyone ask WHY tivo bolt is white instead of black? it looks to me like they want tivo to resemble APPLE!


You mean old Apple. If they were copying Apple everything would be made from brushed aluminum.


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

I wish I saw the kmttg question and reply earlier it's not that there are third party apps, but the fact the rely on tivo desktop security key or something to access the tivo files we just need an all in one solution to transfer then the tivo files to pc and strip the protection that doesn't need updated every time tivo changes something and breaks kmttg.


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## Anotherpyr (May 6, 2015)

Bigg said:


> ...
> HUH? Low cost satellite deals? Satellite is insanely expensive, and even more so when you account for the loss of bundling discounts that you get on cable. Satellite is in a bad market position in every way except changing demographics that are more diverse and want programming in languages other than english, which is a traditional stronghold of satellite.
> 
> DirecTV is still the ultimate, but it's $$$. I wish they would work with TiVo to make a true DirecTiVo.


Remember satellite tv has a captive audience. While they typically don't get much revenue in areas where cable or fios is available, they are the only option for rural areas for content beyond OTA.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

atmuscarella said:


> Right so a Chevy Corvette owners should be pissed at GM for making the Chevy Sonic?  The Bolt is the replacement for the Roamio, nothing more & nothing less.


I'm not suggesting anybody should be pissed at anything, but personally I own 3 cars just as many TiVo customers own multiple DVRs.



atmuscarella said:


> If one should help promote TiVos is another question. However lets be clear if TiVo shuts down all our equipment stops working and is worthless. It would not be like back when replay went down, our units need allot more than guide data to function. So yes we all have a vested interest in TiVo being successful.


Can't say that worries me. I suspect the last thing to get shuttered even after going through bankruptcy court would be the subscription based guide service we rely on.

You know we're allowed to have an opinion. Some of us like the Bolt, some of us think it's a great new addition to the TiVo lineup, and others of us ... not so much.

But we'll see how it goes? If the market isn't quite as excited about the Bolt as some of us suspect, then TiVo will have no choice but to get more aggressive about the pricing ... and there *is* a price point where many of us would suck it up and add that ugly wavy thing to our systems.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

I've been one of the biggest bashers of Tivo's relative lack of participation here so all I'll say is that this Q&A thread was a welcome and refreshing change. I thought his answers were as honest and direct as they could be (coming from a CMO) and it is clear that while some may not like the answers this effort should be applauded. Ira admitted upfront that he's been a long-time lurker and what we say here has a large impact on what they think about doing new stuff, so it's good to see them respond.

Thanks Ira and David for getting this done, I hope to see more (Margret??) in future.


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## dmurphy (Jan 17, 2002)

The BOLT passes the family-member test. 

It would be perfect for my parents, and at a price point they could accept. 

I fully expect my Dad to have one before the year is out. Especially once he uses my Roamio and sees how far TiVo has come. He was also a DirecTiVo customer many years ago, and still says it was the best dvr he ever had.

So, I say, long live the BOLT! May it bring millions to the fold.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

andyw715 said:


> ... but maybe the TiVo unit could have 2-3 slots to support 12-18 minis.
> 
> Or maybe that's *one too many pints talking*


:cheers: :up:


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Bigg said:


> Commercial skipping advertises well, and I think *user profiles that were accessible anywhere in the house* would market well too.


Me, too.

But I really think they'd blow the market up if they were to take what they're doing with SkipMode and translate it to managing stop/start times, in real-time, for live events (e.g. football, awards shows). Now that they require a live Internet connection for basic TiVo functionality, they've removed the biggest roadblock to such a feature.

edit: p.s. Though I think they'd need to be able to bring back the single-tuner back-to-back recordings with padding feature Dan203 was referencing during the Ira chat to really make this feature useful.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

I say this with love, I love Tivo, but:

All I heard was a bunch of buttered up corporate BS.

Market segments, "the enthusiast", market share blah blah blah. Take your corporate pie charts and research and shove it.

Face it, the Bolt looks like something you want to take a rubber mallet to and flatten it.

Its as stupid as the Boxee Box and will take Tivo nowhere.

My suggestion, put the darned thing back into a regular black box, and lower the "all in with Chris Hayes" pricing to where it was.

Really "all in" ? what stupid corporate idiot came up with that?

Its not too late.


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## Anotherpyr (May 6, 2015)

It was nice to learn that he lurks in the forum from time to time. I think the lifetime price hike means I probably won't be buying any bolts. When everyone was talking about what they wanted in the new bolt all I could think of was an integrated TiVo, roku, Apple TV would be nice maybe throw in some plex server like capability and 4K. I think long term the broadcast model is probably dead and streaming will replace it. But there still needs to be a download capability as the US does not have cheap high speed internet available everywhere.

I bought my first TiVo because the scientific Atlanta dvr that Comcast provided had a horrible interface and the cost of TiVo lifetime paid for itself in a couple of years vs the ridiculous monthly fee for a tv schedule service. I've since changed over to fios and upgraded to a roamio pro and added a TiVo mini.

The first year of service included is a good idea as it might get more customers. But ultimately it boils down to a question of how many units do they need to move a year to be solvent? I worry that the entry cost vs a cable dvr is what hurts them. Maybe a pure rental model for the cable space might be the answer if they can match or undercut the competition. At least to get the customer to try TiVo. I'm in the once you go TiVo you never go back camp.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

tarheelblue32 said:


> Well, Comcast might not be the best example, since they seem to underprice their DVR service compared to say TWC. But let's look at Comcast as an example and do a little math.
> 
> So you say you pay $16 for the Comcast DVR. You have to factor in that if you bring your own DVR, you get a $2.50 credit from Comcast, plus the first CableCard from Comcast is free. So, you're actually saving $18.50/month if you buy a $300 Bolt. That's about $222/year. So over 2 years you would save $444 off your Comcast bill. The first year of service on the Bolt is included and the second year you would pay $150 for service, meaning the cost of owning a Bolt for 2 years is $450. So in 2 years you are about at break even, and every month after that you are $3.50/month or $42/year better off that going with a Comcast DVR, plus the Bolt is definitely a superior DVR to the X1. And if you throw in a Mini or 2, you can save on Comcast extra outlet and cable box fees, leading to even bigger savings over time. So yes, I'd say the value in owning a Bolt is certainly there compared to the Comcast alternative.
> 
> ...


Many Comcast triple play plans include a DVR (my plan does) so in my case I do get the first cable card free and the $2.50/month credit, so my 1st TiVo only saves me only $2.50/month over getting the Comcast DVR, so looking at this from just a money point of view it cost me a lot to use TiVo, so a $500 lifetime Roamio Plus TiVo would (in my case ) take over 16 years to make up the extra cost, and if I used the Comcast DVR I get in home service forever. That why it is hard for TiVo to win big in the retail market.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

jonw747 said:


> ... You know we're allowed to have an opinion. ...


Certainly you and all of us are. If you feel we were "disrespected" by Ira/Tivo for believing people posting concerns on this forum are TiVo enthusiast & for Ira/TiVo believing that for financially reasons, in order to build higher end products that meet the needs of TiVo loyalists, they also need to build lessor products for the masses. You are certainly entitled to that opinion, I just happen to completely disagree with you. Oh about not being pissed - when someone tells me they feel disrespected I equate that to being pissed. If you don't, sorry. In regards to the merits of the Bolt in general I am hot and cold. It is over priced for me to consider an upgrade from my Roamio, but I don't think it is general over priced for new customers coming from a rented cable DVR. If it meet someones needs or not is certainly a personal thing.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

jonw747 said:


> We need to help them sell boxes we can't use? we don't like? that don't fit in our systems?
> He did disrespect us by segregating us. He put a label on us than tried to justify willfully going in directions many of us don't like and then wrapped it around the excuse of saving TiVo for us.
> I'll admit it was a nice tact and he handled that chat very well overall, but there's a reason they sent a marketing representative.
> If the Bolt made sense, many of us could justify adding it to our systems.


I just don't get your viewpoint, you're treating it like we got dis'd, we didn't, he gave us respect and honesty about where we are on the marketplace. Folks complaining about the Bolt not being aimed at the higher end niche enthusiasts are just missing that to offer items to us they have to sell more base models to new customers. Face it, most TCF'ers are smart enough to be on Lifetime, Tivo makes no monthly income on us after 3 years, we're parasites on the system, Tivo NEEDS monthly subscribers to pay the bills and they built the Bolt to cater to that market and they did a darn good job, status quo was NOT selling new units and getting enough new subscriptions, they have to shake that up and IMNSHO they did a great job.

He was also up front and honest that there IS something in the pipeline for us next year and they do respect our rag tag gang of Tivo junkies.

I'm just floored at folks that don't see this as a series of positives that will help keep Tivo afloat and alive for us.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

I don't consider myself as an "enthusiast". But it almost appears that word is used from the prospective of an elitist to categorize and label a group of people and devalue their opinions. 

Really sad.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Anotherpyr said:


> I worry that the entry cost vs a cable dvr is what hurts them. Maybe a pure rental model for the cable space might be the answer if they can match or undercut the competition. At least to get the customer to try TiVo.


I was thinking the same thing, this morning. Why not also offer a $0 down option, to compete with the $0 up-front costs customers see with a provider DVR? TiVo would have to figure out an acceptable per-month rate and required term duration, and manage the early termination issue, but it could certainly put them closer to the same starting point as the provider solution.

TiVo's already doing this for their "military" special, though the $0 up-front only applies to the base Roamio; the Plus & Pro are deeply discounted. (Curiously, the OTA isn't listed.)


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

dianebrat said:


> I just don't get your viewpoint, you're treating it like we got dis'd, we didn't, he gave us respect and honesty about where we are on the marketplace. Folks complaining about the Bolt not being aimed at the higher end niche enthusiasts are just missing that to offer items to us they have to sell more base models to new customers. Face it, most TCF'ers are smart enough to be on Lifetime, Tivo makes no monthly income on us after 3 years, we're parasites on the system, Tivo NEEDS monthly subscribers to pay the bills and they built the Bolt to cater to that market and they did a darn good job, status quo was NOT selling new units and getting enough new subscriptions, they have to shake that up and IMNSHO they did a great job.
> 
> He was also up front and honest that there IS something in the pipeline for us next year and they do respect our rag tag gang of Tivo junkies.
> 
> I'm just floored at folks that don't see this as a series of positives that will help keep Tivo afloat and alive for us.


Please.

Go find out how much serving guide data to a single customer costs them, then go see how much money they lose to customers who cancel their subscription, or worse buy a DVR for spare parts. After you've got that covered, look in to the time value of receiving $500 up front .vs. receiving it over time, and be sure to factor in the expected lifetime of the unit. Oh, and don't forget income earned from out of warranty repairs. Ahh, and then there's the advertisements they've added.

Do all that and come back and call us "parasites" ... 

But hey, TiVo is free to earn a buck however they want. Will the Bolt do that when much of their core customer base is not happy with the direction they're taking? It would take a lot of hubris to write us off and declare otherwise ... and that's basically the line you bought.

What's their new mantra?

The customer is always right except for when it's our best and most loyal customers? lol

TiVo didn't become a niche product because they were lacking an ugly case, 4K, and crappy pricing. :up:


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

krkaufman said:


> I was thinking the same thing, this morning. Why not also offer a $0 down option, to compete with the $0 up-front costs customers see with a provider DVR? TiVo would have to figure out an acceptable per-month rate and required term duration, and manage the early termination issue, but it could certainly put them closer to the same starting point as the provider solution.
> 
> TiVo's already doing this for their "military" special, though the $0 up-front only applies to the base Roamio; the Plus & Pro are deeply discounted. (Curiously, the OTA isn't listed.)


TiVo has offered the $0 down $20/mo (2yr commitment) several times including on the Premiere. So they must have data on how that drove sales and how it worked out for them financially. I kind of expected to see that as an option to the $300 with one year of services which generates $450 over 2 yrs. versus $480 at $20/mo. Would have been a good question for Ira.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

agent009 said:


> I have 3 CableCard devices (the two Premieres and one Roamio). I also have the Comcast DVR sitting in a closet with my Slingbox so I can access it if I need to on my phone/tablet/laptop.
> 
> I just pulled up the PDF of my bill on Comcast's website. I am being charged the following:
> (1) "Hd Technology Fee" -- $9.95 recurring
> ...


I expect they'd start by understanding that your billing isn't "average," it's an exception.

Comcast isn't billing you according to their normal practice, which would be $9.95 per each additional outlet (you have 3) w/ a $2.50 customer-owned equipment credit for each of those TiVo outlets (but only if you work to get it). So the average household's Comcast monthly rate on those 3 outlets would be *$29.85*, $22.35 with an informed, persistent house manager using the same equipment as you. However, the rate for a customer with an X1 DVR as their primary device would be as much as an *additional $10/month*.

Compare that to a TiVo whole home solution where Comcast's monthly rate for 4 screens would be *-$2.50*... That is, no equipment fees, only the customer-owned equipment credit for the main TiVo DVR, which replaces the free set-top included with your service package. That's a *$32.35/month cost diff* for 4 screens for the average household, $24.85/mo for a household replacing your equipment (being billed according to Comcast's standard rates), and up to *$42.35/month difference* for a customer replacing a Comcast X1 DVR solution.

The HD Technology Fee remains as a wildcard, since many TiVo owners have that stripped and continue to enjoy beautiful HD service, so I'm leaving that out.

Barring discounts on the X1 DVR, *a 4-screen BOLT whole home solution on an annual service plan would pay for itself in about 1 1/2 years*, well inside the typical 2-year agreement term on recent Comcast package bundles. The ROI is shorter if you have more screens, or longer if your X1 DVR is discounted or you have fewer screens.

The main roadblock that remains is the up-front cost (investment!) required to net these gains.

edit: p.s. To be clear, TiVo will have a rough time marketing to single screen Comcast households, since the monthly rate for TiVo's annual service plan minus the Comcast customer-owned equipment credit comes to the same cost as the Xfinity X1 DVR, sans discounts, $10. TiVo needs to emphasize the freedom of their whole home solution, putting screens where you want without increasing tributes to Comcast. (edit2: Or introduce and promote features that make TiVo a compelling, to the point of embarrassingly obvious, choice. Inclusion of streaming apps, with universal search and OnePass integration, along with the latest SkipMode/QuickMode, are moves on the feature front, but TiVo definitely needs to up their app game to get to the "obvious" choice mark.)


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> TiVo has offered the $0 down $20/mo (2yr commitment) several times including on the Premiere. So they must have data on how that drove sales and how it worked out for them financially. I kind of expected to see that as an option to the $300 with one year of services which generates $450 over 2 yrs. versus $480 at $20/mo. *Would have been a good question for Ira.*


Yes, a perfect question for TiVo's head marketing guy -- and realized only 24 hours too late.

Though I'd perhaps have asked him how they might offer such "$0 down" bundles as whole home solutions, adjusting the monthly rate based on the number of screens to be serviced -- keeping the DVR on an annual or bi-annual service plan, but effectively putting however many Minis on a lease-to-own contract. With the Minis now offered with up-front Lifetime service, TiVo would need to revert to some other scheme to bring the true whole home up-front cost down to what customers face with their TV providers, $0.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

Jrr6415sun said:


> Tivo would have a ton more than 150K activations in a year if more people knew the advantages and cost savings.


Word of mouth from us is great, but unfortunately TiVo has come to mean a generic term for DVR (much like Xerox and Kleenex morphed from trademarked names into generic terms) so most people don't know TiVo is really a brand because I've never seen any kind of advertising from TiVo. Where are the commercials telling us how great TiVo is?


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

Bigg said:


> Comcast X1 has 6 tuners and 500GB, although I'm not sure how they are allocated.


Yeah, but the X1's software is horrible. Navigating anywhere takes too many steps, the box is slow as hell to respond to the remote, and some actions seem impossible to do (like remove or list all your season passes). The remote itself is poorly designed, though it looks slick and is nice to hold. That disk is absurdly small for 6 tuners, with no room to ever get behind on shows. My Roamio is so much more pleasurable to use and with a 2 TB drive has more space than I'll ever need because I tend to get behind and then binge watch rather than watch everything daily.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

randian said:


> Word of mouth from us is great, but unfortunately TiVo has come to mean a generic term for DVR (much like Xerox and Kleenex morphed from trademarked names into generic terms) so most people don't know TiVo is really a brand because I've never seen any kind of advertising from TiVo. Where are the commercials telling us how great TiVo is?


Yeah, if only TiVo had come out with OnePass sooner, then weekends barreling through past seasons of a show on streaming services and the latest season stored on the DVR might have been described as "I OnePass'd my way through Modern Family," rather than the generic "binge-watched." 

(edit: Or maybe TiVo should have just called it "BingePass™"!)


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> TiVo has offered the $0 down $20/mo (2yr commitment) several times including on the Premiere. So they must have data on how that drove sales and how it worked out for them financially.


It's hard to do that through retail channels like Best Buy and Amazon. Offering different plans in store vs TiVo online could also add to confusion.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

jonw747 said:


> Please.
> 
> Go find out how much serving guide data to a single customer costs them, then go see how much money they lose to customers who cancel their subscription, or worse buy a DVR for spare parts. After you've got that covered, look in to the time value of receiving $500 up front .vs. receiving it over time, and be sure to factor in the expected lifetime of the unit. Oh, and don't forget income earned from out of warranty repairs. Ahh, and then there's the advertisements they've added.
> 
> ...


The Tivo finance numbers have been around TCF for years, that includes how after 3 years we're no longer income generating. You keep going on as if we've been slammed when we haven't, you seem to have this issue with Tivo and the fact we're not their prime market anymore that you don't want to let go of. When one is a minority in an environment the rules are different than if one is a majority. Tivo has said we WILL get a higher end "Bolt Pro" but they need to seel some more profitable hardware to new customers first, I have no issues waiting with my Roamio's until that happens.

It's been discussed for years here at TCF that after 3 years the most loyal lifetime customers are not the most profitable for Tivo, plain and simple we do NOT make them money, sometimes what's best to keep Tivo in business is not what a group of higher end Tivo niche buyers want, sorry that that's the harsh truth that you seem to want to deny.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

dianebrat said:


> The Tivo finance numbers have been around TCF for years, that includes how after 3 years we're no longer income generating. You keep going on as if we've been slammed when we haven't, you seem to have this issue with Tivo and the fact we're not their prime market anymore that you don't want to let go of. When one is a minority in an environment the rules are different than if one is a majority. Tivo has said we WILL get a higher end "Bolt Pro" but they need to seel some more profitable hardware to new customers first, I have no issues waiting with my Roamio's until that happens.
> 
> It's been discussed for years here at TCF that after 3 years the most loyal lifetime customers are not the most profitable for Tivo, plain and simple we do NOT make them money, sometimes what's best to keep Tivo in business is not what a group of higher end Tivo niche buyers want, sorry that that's the harsh truth that you seem to want to deny.


Well if you believe what you've read represents the whole picture then feel free to call yourself a parasite. Just leave the rest of us out of it. My SlingPlayer provides me guide data for the one time fee of $30 I paid for their app. Nobody has ever called me a parasite before for using it.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> My SlingPlayer provides me guide data for the one time fee of $30 I paid for their app.


Hasn't Sling modified their service from previous behavior and now injects advertising into a previously ad-free solution? Or has your experience w/ SlingPlayer been consistent since day one with the product, when you paid the one-time fee?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

randian said:


> Yeah, but the X1's software is horrible. Navigating anywhere takes too many steps, the box is slow as hell to respond to the remote, and some actions seem impossible to do (like remove or list all your season passes). The remote itself is poorly designed, though it looks slick and is nice to hold. That disk is absurdly small for 6 tuners, with no room to ever get behind on shows. My Roamio is so much more pleasurable to use and with a 2 TB drive has more space than I'll ever need because I tend to get behind and then binge watch rather than watch everything daily.


They have the cloud storage around here for the X1. I think it adds 1TB of additional storage to each box.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

aaronwt said:


> They have the cloud storage around here for the X1. I think it adds 1TB of additional storage to each box.


Is it full quality? Are you talking about VOD? I've tried that with shows that failed to record and I hate it because there's no fast forward or ability to skip commercials.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

randian said:


> Is it full quality? Are you talking about VOD? I've tried that with shows that failed to record and I hate it because there's no fast forward or ability to skip commercials.


It's the same quality. I didn't see a way to distinguish what was local and what was in the cloud. I just noticed that my parents X1 box suddenly had a lot more available space when it is typically close to full for the same amount of shows. A coworker, that lives in Maryland, has had access to the cloud storage with their X1 boxes for much longer.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

agent009 said:


> Assuming the Bolt OTA is the same outlay as the Roamio OTA, you're still asking someone to put up $400 up front.





cherry ghost said:


> Why would you assume that? At most it'll be the same $300 as the current cheaper Bolt, but probably less.


Yeah, the Bolt OTA will unquestionably be cheaper than the base model Bolt (which can do both cable and OTA but not simultaneously). The standard pricing on the Roamio OTA is $50 up front with a 12-month commitment of $15 per month service, which comes out to a total of $230 for hardware and first year of service. Given that the base Bolt with first year of service at $300 is about 14% less than the standard price for the base Roamio with one year of service ($200 + 150), I expect we'll see the Bolt OTA with first year of service come in at about $199, maybe a little less if they're really aggressive about tapping into the cord cutter market.

Hopefully after that first year, they'll set month-to-month OTA-only service pricing at $10. I don't see cord cutters paying more than that for OnePass-streaming integration plus the ability to record on a few OTA channels; DVRs have somewhat less utility and therefore value for OTA-only people since there are far fewer channels and quality content to record than is the case for cable subscribers. (And you have to keep in mind too that instead of an OTA DVR, folks can just rely on commercial-free Hulu for $12 per month to get current season NBC, ABC, Fox and The CW programs, plus Netflix-like past seasons of cable series and movies.)

I tend to look at TiVo's relatively new venture into OTA-only DVRs sort of the same way TiVo seems to look at their business line supplying DVRs, software and data to MSOs: they're already sinking the necessary R&D cost into the retail cable DVR business and, given the higher margins they make on that business, they may as well re-use that technology in the lower-margin MSO and OTA businesses to gain some incremental income with very little additional cost.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

aaronwt said:


> It's the same quality. I didn't see a way to distinguish what was local and what was in the cloud.


Just looked at my friend's X1 and I couldn't tell if cloud storage was available or not. The UI was as screwed up as I remember. Pretty, but simple things like "go back one menu" didn't seem to have any means of accomplishing.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

krkaufman said:


> Hasn't Sling modified their service from previous behavior and now injects advertising into a previously ad-free solution? Or has your experience w/ SlingPlayer been consistent since day one with the product, when you paid the one-time fee?


Not that I've noticed but I don't use their Web interface. Tivo has certainly added Ads, and if they aren't already they could take a percentage of streaming purchases. Point is its their job to figure out how to make money and my job to figure out if I can tolerate it.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> DVRs have somewhat less utility and therefore value for OTA-only people since there are far fewer channels and quality content to record than is the case for cable subscribers. (And you have to keep in mind too that instead of an OTA DVR, folks can just rely on commercial-free Hulu for $12 per month to get current season NBC, ABC, Fox and The CW programs, plus Netflix-like past seasons of cable series and movies.)


Mostly agree w/ what was posted except the above, unless "less utility" is interpreted as "lesser tuner requirements." Given the typical number of OTA signals, 4 tuners seems to be a good number for OTA; while 6 seems to be the bare minimum I'd accept for cable (though both numbers would stress me less if TiVo could get the single-tuner back-to-back padded recordings thing working). And the facility of accessing content from DVR recordings is far greater than trying to hunt it down via however many streaming apps are needed, and that's *if* the content is available (see: CBS).

To be fair, you're probably right that DVRs *are* of less interest to OTA people, since they've already demonstrated they're OK w/ access to far less content than what could be had via cable or satellite.


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## agent009 (Oct 14, 2010)

atmuscarella said:


> Right like Apple just didn't just sell several million $700+ iphones in a few minutes. There are literally 10s of millions of household that could easily afford $400 or $800 or $20+/mo for a DVR. TiVo just has to provide a product that they want and are willing to pony up the money for. I am pretty sure the Bolt isn't that product, but if Tivo sold just 1/2 million of these over the next 12 months Tivo would be ecstatic.


Do you understand the vast majority of cellphones in the USA are highly subsidized? Hardly anyone pays the full retail price for an iPhone.

Also, I don't know why people want to keep bring up Apple products since they have the cache with consumers that TiVo could only dream of. The public sees iPhones and Macbooks as a status symbol worth splurging for the make them feel better about themselves. So yes, you will see college students splurging for that $800-$2000 Louis Vuitton handbag, but you won't see them proud to show off their DVR.



krkaufman said:


> Barring discounts on the X1 DVR, *a 4-screen BOLT whole home solution on an annual service plan would pay for itself in about 1 1/2 years*, well inside the typical 2-year agreement term on recent Comcast package bundles. The ROI is shorter if you have more screens, or longer if your X1 DVR is discounted or you have fewer screens.


The fact that the savings have to be illustrated in a 4-screen household scenario sums up the issue with TiVo's value prop and market penetration for the average consumer. If you have an innovative product, you do one of two things:
1) Manufacture/sell it yourself
2) License the technology

It's foolhardy to attempt both simultaneously and is what has caused TiVo to continually lose their foothold in this market space. Although Starlite's capabilities were never independently verified, at least Maurice Ward has the business side of his product down.


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## andyw715 (Jul 31, 2007)

randian said:


> Word of mouth from us is great, but unfortunately TiVo has come to mean a generic term for DVR (much like Xerox and Kleenex morphed from trademarked names into generic terms) so most people don't know TiVo is really a brand because I've never seen any kind of advertising from TiVo. Where are the commercials telling us how great TiVo is?


I think they're actually worse off than being a generic term. I think the word TiVo has fallen out of scope.

DVR is the verb now. Other than my wife, everyone I know uses the word DVR'd or just recorded.

TiVo'd used to be the verb. Not anymore. They really need a PR boost.


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## agent009 (Oct 14, 2010)

cherry ghost said:


> Why would you assume that? At most it'll be the same $300 as the current cheaper Bolt, but probably less.


https://www.tivo.com/roamioota2176

You might need to highlight the page because it's messed up, but it clearly says $399.00. It even has it in the title bar for the page.

http://www.cnet.com/news/tivo-tries-again-with-399-pricing-on-roamio-ota-including-service/

The Bolt OTA will be a new product, so it will obviously cost more than the now current $299 Roamio OTA w/ Lifetime deal. I'd expect them to price it at the original pricing of the Roamio OTA, not the current sale pricing.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

andyw715 said:


> I think they're actually worse off than being a generic term. I think the word TiVo has fallen out of scope.
> 
> DVR is the verb now. Other than my wife, everyone I know uses the word DVR'd or just recorded.
> 
> *TiVo'd used to be the verb. Not anymore. *They really need a PR boost.


Untrue.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

davezatz said:


> It's hard to do that through retail channels like Best Buy and Amazon. Offering different plans in store vs TiVo online could also add to confusion.


Not to mention, that puts them in the game of trying to round up devices from people who try to get out of their service plans.


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## Jrr6415sun (Mar 31, 2006)

jonw747 said:


> Not that I've noticed but I don't use their Web interface. Tivo has certainly added Ads, and if they aren't already they could take a percentage of streaming purchases. Point is its their job to figure out how to make money and my job to figure out if I can tolerate it.


if you watch sling on your computer there are ads *while you watch the show* unless you watch in full screen. It is extremely annoying if you are watching in windowed mode.

There are also preroll ads now when you start it up.


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## Anotherpyr (May 6, 2015)

atmuscarella said:


> TiVo has offered the $0 down $20/mo (2yr commitment) several times including on the Premiere. So they must have data on how that drove sales and how it worked out for them financially. I kind of expected to see that as an option to the $300 with one year of services which generates $450 over 2 yrs. versus $480 at $20/mo. Would have been a good question for Ira.


I didn't know they did that. Of course I bought the original premiere with lifetime and wasn't really thinking of buying another unit until I bought the roamio and mini recently. And it was the mini that motivated the purchase as the older premiere is a 2 tuner unit.

If Comcast and Verizon are including the dvr cost in their package plans then that makes it much harder on TiVo to compete.


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## 6tunersorbust (Oct 3, 2015)

> "Lifetime" was already way more than most people wanted to pay, AND actually reduced the value ascribed to our monthly product. Does Verizon offer a Lifetime plan? But even with the price hike, you gotta admit; our products last a LONG time.


Two things. First, Lifetime was already more than most people wanted to pay, so the solution is to raise the price by $200 or so. No, that wasn't the solution.

Earlier in this reply he said that there should be 10M Tivo's in the wild, but their pricing had held it back (paraphrasing). The implication though, was that it was the *Lifetime* pricing that was wrong. I don't think it is. It's the pricing, period. It's too expensive on a monthly basis, and it's therefore too expensive on a Lifetime basis.

The Bolt pricing is too high by far on both fronts, hardware and software. If the hardware was $200 (and had a 2TB drive in it) and the service was $100/yr, I think they would sell a boatload of them, _and_ I think they would make a boatload of profit on them.

Second, depends on what you mean by "last". I have a Series 3 that just passed it's seventh anniversary, but I had to replace the hard drive two years ago. Five years is decent but by no means "LONG".


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Jrr6415sun said:


> if you watch sling on your computer there are ads *while you watch the show* unless you watch in full screen. It is extremely annoying if you are watching in windowed mode.
> 
> There are also preroll ads now when you start it up.


Like I said, I don't use the web app. On the PC, I still use the original desktop App, and that one was free with the device.

Their guide provider is apparently Zap 2 it. That stills works too without Ads.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Anotherpyr said:


> Remember satellite tv has a captive audience. While they typically don't get much revenue in areas where cable or fios is available, they are the only option for rural areas for content beyond OTA.


No. That market is a teeny, tiny, fraction of their overall market. The satellite providers have a combined 34M subs, which is WAY more than the number of households not passed by cable. In order to be profitable, they have to have the majority of their subs in areas that also have cable available.



krkaufman said:


> But I really think they'd blow the market up if they were to take what they're doing with SkipMode and translate it to managing stop/start times, in real-time, for live events (e.g. football, awards shows). Now that they require a live Internet connection for basic TiVo functionality, they've removed the biggest roadblock to such a feature.


Huh? Most people watch sports live, and if they don't, then they can just pad the recordings. I don't see that as a selling point, and it's hard to articulate in advertising.

The profiles would be much easier to articulate, and would be a real differentiator from something like X1. The combination of profiles and commercial skip would be easy to put into an ad and create a value proposition for going out and picking up a TiVo over using whatever crap fell off Larry's truck.



lessd said:


> Many Comcast triple play plans include a DVR (my plan does)...


Yup.



krkaufman said:


> The main roadblock that remains is the up-front cost (investment!) required to net these gains.


You're assuming that people can even figure out how to do the math on these things. That's the problem. People are stupid, and can't figure out what their options are, and how much they cost. It's like the cell phone plans. Virtually no one can actually figure them out!



randian said:


> Yeah, but the X1's software is horrible.


It's not the greatest DVR, but the problem is that most people have never used a real TiVo. Even my parents, who have had TiVo previously, and have seen my TiVo, have X1 because it's what they got from Comcast. X1 is pretty good with XoD, not so much as a DVR. The remote is decent, although I actually liked the old Comcast one better.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

agent009 said:


> The fact that the savings have to be illustrated in a 4-screen household scenario sums up the issue with TiVo's value prop and market penetration for the average consumer.


It doesn't *have* to be a 4-screen household; that number was used because the previous poster was presenting that as the "average household." As the post clearly indicates, savings can be immediate, with a single screen, depending on what a customer is paying for their primary device, but the savings escalate, dropping the ROI period, with each additional screen -- along with the fact that the customer will experience greater value (freedom) in not feeling constrained in how many locations they want TVs with access to their content.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

agent009 said:


> https://www.tivo.com/roamioota2176
> 
> You might need to highlight the page because it's messed up, but it clearly says $399.00. It even has it in the title bar for the page.
> 
> ...


Apples and kumquats. The previous poster merely stated that they expect the BOLT OTA, if/when released, would be at a price-point below that of the CableCARD/OTA BOLT just released. That is, below $300 for a BOLT OTA with included 1st year of service; and given current pricing, +$600 additional for a BOLT OTA w/ an "All In" service plan.

But yeah, given that the current lifetime service plan, "All In," is only available for $600, it is quite likely that a BOLT OTA w/ an All In service plan will cost more than the Roamio OTA w/ Lifetime's low water mark price of $300.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

randian said:


> Just looked at my friend's X1 and I couldn't tell if cloud storage was available or not. The UI was as screwed up as I remember. Pretty, but simple things like "go back one menu" didn't seem to have any means of accomplishing.


I'm no fan of the X1. But it is much better than the old Motorola boxes my parents used to have. But they do pay a lot for the X1. They won't get phone service from Comcast so they pay more by only having TV and Internet. Then on top of that they pay a bunch for just a landline from Verizon. But that is what they want and have no desire to change it. Otherwise I would have tried to push them to TiVo a long time ago.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Bigg said:


> The profiles would be much easier to articulate, and would be a real differentiator from something like X1. The combination of profiles and commercial skip would be easy to put into an ad and create a value proposition for going out and picking up a TiVo over using whatever crap fell off Larry's truck.


You're not gonna get an argument from me that TiVo needs and would benefit from user profiles (let alone making them optionally cloud-based).



Bigg said:


> You're assuming that people can even figure out how to do the math on these things. That's the problem. People are stupid, and can't figure out what their options are, and how much they cost.


No, I'm not assuming that people can figure out the savings themselves, necessarily. Just that the savings need to be made clear (obvious!) to them. Who or how, I don't know, but I hope TiVo figures it out. Maybe TiVo needs to add a savings calculator to their website, to help people figure out how much a TiVo whole home solution will save them over time.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

krkaufman said:


> But yeah, given that the current lifetime service plan, "All In," is only available for $600, it is quite likely that a BOLT OTA w/ an All In service plan will cost more than the Roamio OTA w/ Lifetime's low water mark price of $300.


I'll be really interested to see whether TiVo even offers All-In for the Bolt OTA, given their (understandable) growing antipathy toward lifetime service. On the other hand, I think there are a lot of OTA-only folks who would only be interested in a TiVo if there was a one-time payment with no recurring fees. ("I don't have to pay ongoing fees to use a Roku, why should I have to keep paying to use this box?") I wonder what percentage of Roamio OTAs sold so far have been with versus without lifetime service? I bought mine with lifetime for $300 during that brief "secret sale" TiVo ran back in the spring. Before that, I had my eye on TiVo but wasn't crazy about the perpetual $15 monthly fee. I was planning on just waiting until late this year and seeing what all services and hardware were available before making a decision but I couldn't pass up that $300 sale.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

agent009 said:


> Do you understand the vast majority of cellphones in the USA are highly subsidized? Hardly anyone pays the full retail price for an iPhone.
> 
> Also, I don't know why people want to keep bring up Apple products since they have the cache with consumers that TiVo could only dream of. The public sees iPhones and Macbooks as a status symbol worth splurging for the make them feel better about themselves. So yes, you will see college students splurging for that $800-$2000 Louis Vuitton handbag, but you won't see them proud to show off their DVR. ...


The point wasn't about apple it was about your statement:


> What percentage of households do you think have $400 to spend on a luxury electronic device?"


and the answer is 10 of millions if that's what they want to spend their money on. I could have just as easily subbed in any other high priced optional purchase that millions of people spend money on to make the same point. It isn't the actual dollar cost, it's that TiVo hasn't convinced people they need and want a TiVo DVR. Which is pretty much what you just said.


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## DancnDude (Feb 7, 2001)

What a great Q&A. I was on vacation out of the country so didn't see that this was happening until just today. One of the things I'd like to see TiVo improve is consistent interfaces to their applications. It's confusing that TiVo's menus seem to work differently than the interfaces in apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime. I would love to see some sort of standards that TiVo could set to allow all the apps to work in a more intuitive way.

I do appreciate the answer though that implies a way to set up your accounts online and have them work automatically on all TiVo boxes in your home without needing to log in (painfully) on each box through the remote.


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## SnakeEyes (Dec 26, 2000)

I would like clarification on "WWE launched last month" since it's not on our boxes yet.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

anyone else find it sad they they're retiring the colorful tivo guy?


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

krkaufman said:


> Hasn't Sling modified their service from previous behavior and now injects advertising into a previously ad-free solution? Or has your experience w/ SlingPlayer been consistent since day one with the product, when you paid the one-time fee?


I'm not sure how this is relevant. I get ads on Tivo all the time and I paid my lifetime fees.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

krkaufman said:


> Given the human interaction involved in marking Skip Mode content, can you foresee a feature where the TiVo could employ a similar process to automatically adjust, in near real-time, recording stop and start times to adjust for broadcast overruns?
> 
> And, yes, I'm specifically talking about Thursday Night Football's weekly bumping of Colbert's Late Show by some random number of minutes. (Though the feature might be more generally useful.)


yeah that was awful.


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## TazExprez (May 31, 2014)

b_scott said:


> yeah that was awful.


I am currently giving this show and 60 Minutes an additional 60 minutes of recording time just in case. I was annoyed when the Colbert show was not recorded properly the week before last. I had to stream it from the CBS app on my iPhone.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

krkaufman said:


> No, I'm not assuming that people can figure out the savings themselves, necessarily. Just that the savings need to be made clear (obvious!) to them. Who or how, I don't know, but I hope TiVo figures it out. Maybe TiVo needs to add a savings calculator to their website, to help people figure out how much a TiVo whole home solution will save them over time.


The problem is that people seem too stupid to actually go and figure it out. They just pay their Comcast bill, complain about it being too high, and do nothing about it. Or call Comcast, get some "deal" for 2 years, and then forget about it for a while.

TiVo's issue is getting people to even think about TiVo in the first place. They need ads that show the cost savings, show commercial skipping, and then with the addition of user profiles, show that.



NashGuy said:


> I'll be really interested to see whether TiVo even offers All-In for the Bolt OTA, given their (understandable) growing antipathy toward lifetime service.


Yeah, they have to for the OTA, as that's the crowd that's averse to monthly fees.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Bigg said:


> Yeah, they have to for the OTA, as that's the crowd that's averse to monthly fees.


Not necessarily a safe assumption. They're no longer offering Lifetime on Roamio OTA -- monthly only. Having said that, if our assumptions about Bolt are correct, they'll have to reevaluate.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

TazExprez said:


> I am currently giving this show and 60 Minutes an additional 60 minutes of recording time just in case. I was annoyed when the Colbert show was not recorded properly the week before last. I had to stream it from the CBS app on my iPhone.


Yeah, I've setup a 2nd manual recording for Late Show, for Thursdays only, with sizable pre-/post-padding to make sure it's caught. And I plan on hitting the To Do List, if/when possible, to snuff either the OnePass or manual recording entry for each Thursday, depending on the schedule; and will snuff the manual recording entirely once TNF on CBS has ended.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

DancnDude said:


> What a great Q&A. ...
> 
> I do appreciate the answer though that implies a way to set up your accounts online and have them work automatically on all TiVo boxes in your home without needing to log in (painfully) on each box through the remote.


This Q&A post, specifically, right? Though I still feel they need user profiles to get it right.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

davezatz said:


> Not necessarily a safe assumption. They're no longer offering Lifetime on Roamio OTA -- monthly only. Having said that, if our assumptions about Bolt are correct, they'll have to reevaluate.


I know this has already been mentioned in the "Roamio Deals" thread but just to spread the word, while TiVo is no longer directly offering Lifetime on the Roamio OTA, Amazon is. If you missed the Super Sale that was running in the summer, jump over to Amazon for the R/OTA with lifetime for $300. They arrive pre-activated and apparently you have to contact TiVo to have the lifetime service transferred to your account.

Semi-unrelated thought: I wonder if TiVo has explored some sort of partnership with Amazon that could possibly lower costs on the upcoming Bolt OTA? Sell it exclusively through them, have a new Amazon shopping app installed (pre-activated to your Amazon account), and have ongoing monthly/yearly TiVo service payments be done through Amazon with a discount for Prime members. Maybe it would initially come with three free months of Amazon Prime Instant Video to encourage Prime subscriptions. Just a thought.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Semi-unrelated thought: I wonder if TiVo has explored some sort of partnership with Amazon that could possibly lower costs on the upcoming Bolt OTA? Sell it exclusively through them, have a new Amazon shopping app installed (pre-activated to your Amazon account), and have ongoing monthly/yearly TiVo service payments be done through Amazon with a discount for Prime members. Maybe it would initially come with three free months of Amazon Prime Instant Video to encourage Prime subscriptions. Just a thought.


Heh, Ira needs to chat w/ Amazon and have them embed Thumbs Up icons in the product advertising, or even in-show product placements, similar to what TiVo does now for select TV show previews, where a Thumbs Up will automatically place an order with Amazon.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

davezatz said:


> Not necessarily a safe assumption. They're no longer offering Lifetime on Roamio OTA -- monthly only. Having said that, if our assumptions about Bolt are correct, they'll have to reevaluate.


I think the correct statment is that without special pricing there is no lifetime on the Roamio OTA as several stores now have the Roamio OTA at $300 including lifetime service.

http://www.amazon.com/TiVo-Roamio-P...TF8&qid=1443993599&sr=8-2&keywords=roamio+Ota


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> The problem is that people seem too stupid to actually go and figure it out. They just pay their Comcast bill, complain about it being too high, and do nothing about it. Or call Comcast, get some "deal" for 2 years, and then forget about it for a while.
> 
> TiVo's issue is getting people to even think about TiVo in the first place. They need ads that show the cost savings, show commercial skipping, and then with the addition of user profiles, show that.


The Premiere did not have a good reputation, I suspect that hurt TiVo quite a bit and reputations last well in to the next generation. The up-front costs with TiVo are onerous, the reports of problems with Cable Cards do not help, and the lack of On Demand with certain providers is a significant minus. Also many people like knowing they can call a number and somebody will come out and make their TV work.

It's not as simple as "people are stupid and can't do math".

But hey, I came back to TiVo because the Roamio technology is mature, the extra features are solid (ability to expand the disk, ability to backup recordings, remote viewing/download, 6-tuner support, Mini's) ... and yes, the math works (well, worked).

So maybe it's time for TiVo to push their case? Or maybe it's still just a bit early until they have a complete 4K product line with support for 4K recording with more On Demand support, that's proven, with more streaming support, and more aggressive pricing.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

davezatz said:


> Not necessarily a safe assumption. They're no longer offering Lifetime on Roamio OTA -- monthly only. Having said that, if our assumptions about Bolt are correct, they'll have to reevaluate.


If they want the OTA market, they have to offer a decent Lifetime option for the OTA. Plus, they actually have competition in that market from Tablo and Simple.TV, both of which have lifetime options and are less expensive.

TiVo shouldn't expect to get all that development costs from CableCard back on units that don't have an option to use CableCard. An OTA DVR is a heck of a lot cheaper to make.



jonw747 said:


> The Premiere did not have a good reputation, I suspect that hurt TiVo quite a bit and reputations last well in to the next generation. The up-front costs with TiVo are onerous, the reports of problems with Cable Cards do not help, and the lack of On Demand with certain providers is a significant minus. Also many people like knowing they can call a number and somebody will come out and make their TV work.
> 
> It's not as simple as "people are stupid and can't do math".


Yes and no. I don't think 99% of the market ever gets to the point where they really understand the pros and cons of the decision, they just make an uninformed decision by going with the default.

And what was so bad about the Premiere? My XL4 seems fine. Sure, they used to be slow before the Haxe update, but then TiVo pulled off the impossible, and made one of the few software updates I've seen in history that made an older device faster, not slower. The lack of On Demand could be an issue for some markets, but the adoption rates, which higher in Comcast markets, still are relatively tiny, so that's clearly not the only thing holding it up.



> But hey, I came back to TiVo because the Roamio technology is mature, the extra features are solid (ability to expand the disk, ability to backup recordings, remote viewing/download, 6-tuner support, Mini's) ... and yes, the math works (well, worked).
> 
> So maybe it's time for TiVo to push their case? Or maybe it's still just a bit early until they have a complete 4K product line with support for 4K recording with more On Demand support, that's proven, with more streaming support, and more aggressive pricing.


The Bolt supports 4k recording, but no cable company has anything in 4k to record. On Demand support is a good thing, although there are a large number of total homes passed today by one of their MSO partners or Comcast or Cox.

TiVo needs to educate people about the cost comparison, as well as push a value proposition in terms of commercial skipping, and they need other unique features like profiles that are easy to advertise. They should also advertise the fact that they are "the real thing" and think of some clever ad about knock-offs, of which ever DVR other than TiVo inherently is.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

There really needs to be a Sling like package on the Tivo.

Perhaps cable companies could offer such a thing and bundle with the internet and Tivo.
Flatten and Blacken the Bolt and you will have a true winner.

Heck if the Black Bolt could record the streams and do Skip Mode, thats where it will really take off.


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## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

I was grateful to have a bit of information from the TiVo CMO.
He seemed to know many of the technical details.

I will also be looking at Amazon and WeaKnees lifetime options.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

krkaufman said:


> Heh, Ira needs to chat w/ Amazon and have them embed Thumbs Up icons in the product advertising, or even in-show product placements, similar to what TiVo does now for select TV show previews, where a Thumbs Up will automatically place an order with Amazon.


Ha! Yeah, that crossed my mind too. Amazon is a deep-pocketed giant and TiVo, obviously, is not. Finding ways to partner up with such a company to subsidize your efforts could be a great idea, so long as the core TiVo product/service isn't compromised.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

jonw747 said:


> The Premiere did not have a good reputation, I suspect that hurt TiVo quite a bit and reputations last well in to the next generation. The up-front costs with TiVo are onerous, the reports of problems with Cable Cards do not help, and the lack of On Demand with certain providers is a significant minus. Also many people like knowing they can call a number and somebody will come out and make their TV work.
> 
> It's not as simple as "people are stupid and can't do math".


Thank God somebody else has some common sense.

For me, a Tivo-based Bolt system costs $38/month for the first year and $26/month for years two and three (supports three TVs). The FIOS system it would be replacing does more and only costs me $22/month.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Yes and no. I don't think 99% of the market ever gets to the point where they really understand the pros and cons of the decision, they just make an uninformed decision by going with the default.
> 
> And what was so bad about the Premiere? My XL4 seems fine. Sure, they used to be slow before the Haxe update, but then TiVo pulled off the impossible, and made one of the few software updates I've seen in history that made an older device faster, not slower. The lack of On Demand could be an issue for some markets, but the adoption rates, which higher in Comcast markets, still are relatively tiny, so that's clearly not the only thing holding it up.


I suspect 99% of the market doesn't research what they're buying as much as I do, and I went with FIOS's DVRs rather than TiVo back in 2011 when I was in the market.

The biggest Verizon M-Card at the time was 2 tuner, so I would have needed a pair of TiVo Premiere's. The XL had more storage, the base Premiere less. To go with an XL solution, the cost was going to be $600 up front in addition to $48 per month. If lifetime was an option at the time, I wasn't aware of it.

By comparison, my Verizon DVRs were $36/mon with nothing up front. If something went wrong, I could run over to the Verizon store and swap it out - or I could wait for them to send a truck. It included an eSATA port, that I loaded up with a 2TB drive on each unit. Just attach and go, very simple. It didn't have to be permanently paired.

I noted the TiVo's lack of On Demand as well as the reports that the HD menus were "super slow" and buggy. My HR10-250 was very slow at certain operations as well, and I had little desire to re-visit that.

Even if I missed something in my research, who's fault is that?

TiVo has improved their "value proposition" immensely and I'm witness to that because what didn't make sense in 2011, makes a lot more sense now - and when they offered me $100 lifetime (as a long ago customer), that certainly clinched it.

IMO, they should continue to push those advantages by giving more for less and they'd build some momentum in the market; but given they resell to cable providers, they may be limited in what they can do without risking losing that segment.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

BobCamp1 said:


> For me, a Tivo-based Bolt system costs $38/month for the first year and $26/month for years two and three (supports three TVs). The FIOS system it would be replacing does more and only costs me $22/month.


Here's what I see for FIOS:


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## jamesteixeira (Nov 22, 2014)

Bigg said:


> Huh? Most people watch sports live, and if they don't, then they can just pad the recordings. I don't see that as a selling point, and it's hard to articulate in advertising.


Your missing a big part of this perspective. Yeah it would be good if the DVR knew that a sporting event was going over time and yeah you can pad for it. The problem is the show that is supposed to come on *after* the sporting event, that is now late because of the sporting event. The program timers for this event need to be adjusted.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

trip1eX said:


> Here's what I see for FIOS:


Bob didn't say he was running a VMS system.

Everybody can have their own unique combination of equipment, for instance I used video distribution rather than renting STB's. The one time fee of the Mini with support for Moca was a terrific way to upgrade this aspect of my system.

Plus all the providers will cut you a deal to attract you, or to keep you under contract. For instance, at one point Verizon was offering a free DVR for life to New York customers who signed up. TiVo can't beat that price.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

jamesteixeira said:


> Your missing a big part of this perspective. Yeah it would be good if the DVR knew that a sporting event was going over time and yeah you can pad for it. The problem is the show that is supposed to come on *after* the sporting event, that is now late because of the sporting event. The program timers for this event need to be adjusted.


I don't think this can ever be fixed save for having people manually on site somewhere who can adjust start times of the TV shows after a game ends. Totally unpredictable.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

PSU_Sudzi said:


> I don't think this can ever be fixed save for having people manually on site somewhere who can adjust start times of the TV shows after a game ends. Totally unpredictable.


The networks certainly know what's going on, they could make the information available, but otherwise, it would have to be another manual chore (like marking the commercial cut in points).


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

If I could get FIOS I might consider its DVR. Since Verizon has for all practical purposes abandoned FIOS and it's not available in my area anyway I'm stuck with Comcast. Not nearly as bad as when I had Cox (T/As can die a fiery death) but I digress. The X1 which Comcast provides isn't nearly as bad as the old Motorola units, but it's still pretty unreliable and slow, has tiny storage, and its ease of use is terrible. If they fixed the UI navigation which was designed by an idiot it would be fairly usable.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

foghorn2 said:


> There really needs to be a Sling like package on the Tivo.


You do realize that Sling is streaming and uses a cloud-based DVR right? That's the exact opposite of TiVo. And the cable companies aren't going to magically bundle TiVo with some other package, if they bundle TiVo it would be with regular cable packages.



> The biggest Verizon M-Card at the time was 2 tuner, so I would have needed a pair of TiVo Premiere's.


M-Card support 6 tuners by spec and by law. Not sure if the Premiere 4 or XL4 was out at that point to utilize 4 of the streams.



> Even if I missed something in my research, who's fault is that?


So you decided to put up with Verizon's crappy DVR. Fine. But if everyone in the market did the level of research you did, then a good chunk of them would have TiVos. My point is that 99% of the market doesn't even bother to explore what their options are.



> IMO, they should continue to push those advantages by giving more for less and they'd build some momentum in the market; but given they resell to cable providers, they may be limited in what they can do without risking losing that segment.


They need to advertise and make people aware of their value proposition. The Mini made it far better. I don't think that advertising TiVo over cable company DVRs endangers their relationship with their MSO partners. If anything, it makes it stronger, as I believe their largest partner is RCN, so that only helps RCN out, since they offer TiVos.

A campaign not only showing the value proposition, but also saying "get the real thing" sort of thing would be immensely valuable. I feel like most of the population doesn't even know that everything else out there is just a knock-off of TiVo.



jamesteixeira said:


> Your missing a big part of this perspective. Yeah it would be good if the DVR knew that a sporting event was going over time and yeah you can pad for it. The problem is the show that is supposed to come on *after* the sporting event, that is now late because of the sporting event. The program timers for this event need to be adjusted.


Yeah, that would be nice if you don't realize there is a live event before it. Even just a warning that there is a live event before it so that you'd know to pad would be nice.



randian said:


> If they fixed the UI navigation which was designed by an idiot it would be fairly usable.


I think it was designed by Nokia. It takes 5 million clicks to do anything, just like Nokia phones. At least you don't have to use X1, you could use TiVo, or, presumably, get DirecTV with their Genie.


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## nyjklein (Aug 8, 2002)

I'll post this here but it may deserve a separate thread. In Ira's answers he mentioned there would be some deals for Series 3 owners. He specifically referred to customers in Comcast areas that are being upgraded to MP4 but also seemed to leave the door open for other Series 3 owners. 

So, has anyone gotten any of these offers? If so, does it include Bolt options?

Jeff

P.S. I spoke with TiVo CS today and the CSR I got said he knew of no offers.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Bigg said:


> Yeah, that would be nice if you don't realize there is a live event before it. Even just a warning that there is a live event before it so that you'd know to pad would be nice.


The data should already be there, at least in some case, since TiVo already has a feature to automatically prompt for post-padding for live/sports events.

A first step would be to automatically post-pad all affected shows on the same channel as the live event.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

Bigg said:


> I think it was designed by Nokia. It takes 5 million clicks to do anything, just like Nokia phones. At least you don't have to use X1, you could use TiVo, or, presumably, get DirecTV with their Genie.


That explains why it takes so long to get anything done on an X1. I don't actually use an X1, I have a 2Tb Roamio Basic, but my housemate has a "free" X1 which I have occasionally used when Comcast's random cablecard outages occur.


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## CloudAtlas (Oct 29, 2013)

BobCamp1 said:


> Thank God somebody else has some common sense.
> 
> For me, a Tivo-based Bolt system costs $38/month for the first year and $26/month for years two and three (supports three TVs). The FIOS system it would be replacing does more and only costs me $22/month.


By "FIOS DVR does more" you mean prevent skipping of commericals and no Netflix? 

TiVo is $12.50/mo ($150/yr) for *unlimited TVs*. If you go lifetime ($600) the monthly price is even lower and goes towards $0.00 over time.

*You will be paying FIOS $264+/yr DVR rental fee FOR LIFE ($2,640.00 over 10 years alone!)*

To get the numbers above you added the cost of hardware, took monthly over lifetime, and then show ONLY the first few years cost when obviously the cost of owning will be more initially. Same goes for owning a car or house.

It's classic OWN vs RENTAL. That's just simple math.

But if you factor the cost over the life of the DVR which in TCF is 10+ years TiVo is not only cheaper but it's the best DVR period according to reviewers like Pogue and Mossberg.

*TiVo Bolt $299 + $150 mini + $150 mini + $600 Lifetime = $1200 FOREVER price. *

NOTE: I own a Roamio+lifetime with 5 minis on FIOS and a Premiere.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> M-Card support 6 tuners by spec and by law. Not sure if the Premiere 4 or XL4 was out at that point to utilize 4 of the streams.


Cable card, M-Card ... whatever. The Premiere only supported 2 tuners at the time I was comparing them. It was years later until Verizon brought out their 6-tuner DVR.



Bigg said:


> So you decided to put up with Verizon's crappy DVR. Fine. But if everyone in the market did the level of research you did, then a good chunk of them would have TiVos. My point is that 99% of the market doesn't even bother to explore what their options are.


Crappy? What do you base that on? The 7232 is a fine DVR, albeit a little sluggish when trying to handle the combined play list from 2 DVR's with 2.5TB of storage each.

Like I said, the Premiere created a negative impression on the market, and given the purchasing cycles of 2+ years with these productions, a bad perception takes quite a bit of time to erase; and TiVo refusing to following the PC trend of introducing much more for much less hurts.

I also don't think you got my point about the cable providers that rent/sell TiVo's to their customer's either. If TiVo was to aggressively price and market the Bolt, then those providers would lose out on rentals to TiVo. TiVo needs to sustain their pricing structure if they want to keep selling DVRs to them. Nobody wants to compete directly against the manufacturer of a product.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> I also don't think you got my point about the cable providers that rent/sell TiVo's to their customer's either. If TiVo was to aggressively price and market the Bolt, then those providers would lose out on rentals to TiVo.


Mitigated for some providers by only allowing On Demand integration for rented TiVos.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

krkaufman said:


> Mitigated for some providers by only allowing On Demand integration for rented TiVos.


Sounds like they're just stacking the deck further. It just seems like a conflict of interest, and not one to our benefit except for when tivo can sneak in a closeout summer special or loyalty promo.


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## dmurphy (Jan 17, 2002)

jonw747 said:


> Crappy? What do you base that on? The 7232 is a fine DVR, albeit a little sluggish when trying to handle the combined play list from 2 DVR's with 2.5TB of storage each.


Yeah, crappy. The trickplay features are so imprecise. You press pause, and 3 seconds later it stops somewhere other than where you want it to. Then you try to rewind to watch what you missed, and it jumps all over the place.

It's OK, except when it's not. Not to mention the numerous bugs with program management (i.e. delete a program, it jumps to a different folder altogether?)

Still better than most, but still not a TiVo.

Coming back to TiVo after many years away - between the DirecTV and then FiOS platforms I had, this really IS a homecoming.

The smooth-as-silk playback and management features remind me just what I gave up all those years ago when I moved to the HR20 DirecTV platform.

Why settle for pasta when I can have steak?


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

CloudAtlas said:


> *TiVo Bolt $299 + $150 mini + $150 mini + $600 Lifetime = $1200 FOREVER price. *


No tech is forever. You must realize the Tivo is still just a PC. PC's last for 5 years or so before needing to be upgraded or just trashed.

DVR's are more specialized but they still need content, and content development and software coding advances past what older hardware can handle pretty quickly. At this point I'm not sure Lifetime is smart anymore. And I don't think new customers are going to be looking to buy old Tivos to activate anymore with the current pricing structure.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

jonw747 said:


> Bob didn't say he was running a VMS system.
> 
> Everybody can have their own unique combination of equipment, for instance I used video distribution rather than renting STB's. The one time fee of the Mini with support for Moca was a terrific way to upgrade this aspect of my system.
> 
> Plus all the providers will cut you a deal to attract you, or to keep you under contract. For instance, at one point Verizon was offering a free DVR for life to New York customers who signed up. TiVo can't beat that price.


Terrible logic. People get free TiVos too.

And all kinds of ways for a cable company to hide the cost of hardware in a cable tv bill. And most cable deals are temporary and ymmv.

I am just showing Verizon charges a lot more than $22/mo for a dvr system for 3 tvs. And to throw around much cheaper figures and assume those figures are good for 3 years should be taken with a grain of salt.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

dmurphy said:


> Yeah, crappy. The trickplay features are so imprecise. You press pause, and 3 seconds later it stops somewhere other than where you want it to. Then you try to rewind to watch what you missed, and it jumps all over the place.
> 
> It's OK, except when it's not. Not to mention the numerous bugs with program management (i.e. delete a program, it jumps to a different folder altogether?)
> 
> ...


You must be talking about the controls when streaming a program off of another DVR, because when viewing a program on the DVR that recorded it the controls worked acceptably (not crappy).

The deletion bug you mentioned was annoying, but not as annoying to me as the inability to select the color space to be output on the TiVo, or when the Roamio's RF remote control decides to drop key presses.

The TiVo is certainly a superior whole home DVR compared to the 7232, but that's not surprising given the 7232 wasn't designed for that.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

trip1eX said:


> Terrible logic. People get free TiVos too.
> 
> And all kinds of ways for a cable company to hide the cost of hardware in a cable tv bill. And most cable deals are temporary and ymmv.
> 
> I am just showing Verizon charges a lot more than $22/mo for a dvr system for 3 tvs. And to throw around much cheaper figures and assume those figures are good for 3 years should be taken with a grain of salt.


a) How does a FIOS subscriber get a free TiVo? Did I miss something? 

b) Yes, the cable companies depend on people not looking much further out than the end of their contract because so many people don't. With their deals they eliminate the upfront costs as well. It's not dumb, it's a trade off.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> Crappy? What do you base that on? The 7232 is a fine DVR, albeit a little sluggish when trying to handle the combined play list from 2 DVR's with 2.5TB of storage each.


There is TiVo, DirecTV's Genie, the Hopper, and crappy DVRs. At least in the pay TV realm. Not sure how the other OTA ones are.



> Like I said, the Premiere created a negative impression on the market, and given the purchasing cycles of 2+ years with these productions, a bad perception takes quite a bit of time to erase; and TiVo refusing to following the PC trend of introducing much more for much less hurts.


I disagree, based on my experience. Then again, I bought into the Premiere pretty late in the game, and I knew what I was getting into with the slow UI and such. I was pretty stoked when the Haxe update came out and all of the sudden the Premiere got fast, and things were great. Sure, it doesn't have 6 tuners or 3TB of storage, but other than that, it does everything a TiVo needs to do.



> I also don't think you got my point about the cable providers that rent/sell TiVo's to their customer's either. If TiVo was to aggressively price and market the Bolt, then those providers would lose out on rentals to TiVo. TiVo needs to sustain their pricing structure if they want to keep selling DVRs to them. Nobody wants to compete directly against the manufacturer of a product.


TiVo has nothing to lose advertising against Comcast and TWC and such, as they don't offer TiVo, and don't have any plans of doing so. Those providers could bundle or lower their prices, as they have a much lower cost basis than TiVo, or they could just not. Their MSO partners already sell TiVo, so marketing the features of TiVo is good for them too. Yes, there is a slight bit of awkwardness in the pricing with the MSO partners, but I don't think that is a major sticking point. And those providers could still match TiVo's pricing, as they are getting the boxes as a lower cost basis than what TiVo is selling to retail in the first place. If it really is a problem, TiVo could make ads showing price comparisons against specific large MSOs like Comcast, Cox, Verizon, CableVision, and TWC, and not mention their specific partners.



krkaufman said:


> Mitigated for some providers by only allowing On Demand integration for rented TiVos.


That's one really stupid thing to do. I know RCN does it, which is just... dumb. They should be welcoming TiVo users who have their own TiVos, but nope, they just want to give them to Comcast or Verizon.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Their MSO partners already sell TiVo, so marketing the features of TiVo is good for them too. Yes, there is a slight bit of awkwardness in the pricing with the MSO partners, but I don't think that is a major sticking point. And those providers could still match TiVo's pricing, as they are getting the boxes as a lower cost basis than what TiVo is selling to retail in the first place. If it really is a problem, TiVo could make ads showing price comparisons against specific large MSOs like Comcast, Cox, Verizon, CableVision, and TWC, and not mention their specific partners.


I wasn't talking about marketing the product, I was talking about pricing it much more aggressively. It's very likely the agreements between TiVo and their "MSO partners" limit what TiVo can do price wise (at least in terms of MSRP).

Just because the MSO partners could lower their price, why would they want to?

I don't know if you've ever dealt with Customer Integrators on any A/V forums, but some of them are really nuts about protecting their price structure. The idea that one of their customers might ask them ... "Why should I buy XXXX from you when I can get it from Amazon.com for 1/2 the price?" ... drives them nuts. They want the products they sell to be protected from price competition.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> I wasn't talking about marketing the product, I was talking about pricing it much more aggressively. It's very likely the agreements between TiVo and their "MSO partners" limit what TiVo can do price wise (at least in terms of MSRP).


They already are priced pretty aggressively on multi-room setups, with the exception of the main lifetime subs, which are now absurdly expensive. They need to communicate that to potential customers.



> Just because the MSO partners could lower their price, why would they want to?


If for some crazy reason TiVo was actually taking more than a tiny slice off of their marketshare.



> I don't know if you've ever dealt with Customer Integrators on any A/V forums, but some of them are really nuts about protecting their price structure. The idea that one of their customers might ask them ... "Why should I buy XXXX from you when I can get it from Amazon.com for 1/2 the price?" ... drives them nuts. They want the products they sell to be protected from price competition.


That's a totally different market. They are providing a service that adds cost to the products. They are a custom, luxury, high-end, and low-volume business. RCN is a mass-market, cost-conscious MSO who offers TiVo largely because they don't have the scale to develop their own DVR like XFinity X1. Although Comcast really made a mistake. They should have just licensed TiVo, and it would have offered their subs a much better experience than the X1 mess.


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## Anotherpyr (May 6, 2015)

Bigg said:


> I disagree, based on my experience. Then again, I bought into the Premiere pretty late in the game, and I knew what I was getting into with the slow UI and such. I was pretty stoked when the Haxe update came out and all of the sudden the Premiere got fast, and things were great. Sure, it doesn't have 6 tuners or 3TB of storage, but other than that, it does everything a TiVo needs to do.
> .


My premiere has 3TB of storage. If I could only expand the number of tuners as easily ...


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## andyw715 (Jul 31, 2007)

krkaufman said:


> Untrue.


Oh yeah. He's what, 50? He, Howard stern, and Tim Tebow know about TiVo; and TiVo subscribers. 
That's about it.

DVR is the term. Even autocorrect capitalizes it correctly 

TiVo has a steep hill ahead of them, hopefully the Bolt gives them enough momentum to not slide further down.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

andyw715 said:


> Oh yeah. He's what, 50? He, Howard stern, and Tim Tebow know about TiVo; and TiVo subscribers.
> That's about it.
> 
> *DVR is the term. Even autocorrect capitalizes it correctly*
> ...


Auto correct also fixes when I type "tivo" to the proper "TiVo".


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> Auto correct also fixes when I type "tivo" to the proper "TiVo".


There really *should* be a mic drop emoticon. :micdrop:


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Like this?


HarperVision said:


> Auto correct also fixes when I type "tivo" to the proper "TiVo".


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

CloudAtlas said:


> By "FIOS DVR does more" you mean prevent skipping of commericals and no Netflix?
> 
> TiVo is $12.50/mo ($150/yr) for *unlimited TVs*. If you go lifetime ($600) the monthly price is even lower and goes towards $0.00 over time.
> 
> ...


My DVR has VOD, which we use a lot. My Blu-ray player has all those other apps and does them better. I have an iPad, a Kindle Fire, a notebook, two desktop PCs, and a Nexus 7. I have streaming covered. I think even my toaster can stream Pandora. And my FIOS DVR has honest Season Passes instead of a One Pass so I can actually record sports and syndicated shows exactly the way I want to.

But the best part about renting is that I don't have to provide my own tech. support. I don't have to post a question in a forum, praying that somebody will help me. Somebody will actually come to my house and see the problem for themselves, and replace the DVR right away for free. And Verizon can't point fingers at anybody else and say it's really their problem.

The life of the DVR is 3-4 years tops. If you're a geek, like all of us in this forum are, you can replace the hard drive or solder capacitors if that's the part that failed. But regular people can't do that. I have a Series 1 that I've replaced the hard drive four times over 14 years. That's once every 3.5 years.

I'm not keeping that FIOS DVR for 10 years. Or even three years. I've already replaced it with a newer model once for free. There's already an even newer model that I can get.

A lot of people in this forum hated the Bolt yet are now posting that they bought one. They also post how it's so much faster than the Roamio and how they love the new commercial skip feature. In the past, they tried to justify buying Lifetime even though we knew they weren't going to keep it that long. They said it would increase the selling price on eBay. But only if it's still working. That's a huge risk for the average person to take because they can't repair it themselves. This time around, they're torn because Tivo really jacked up the All In price.

You yourself own a Roamio and a Premiere -- those are new-ish. Did you own any other Tivo before that? Where are your 10-year-old Series 1-3 and HD DVRs? That's OK, I can look at the signatures of everybody else and see the most of them don't own anything older than a Premiere, either. That's fine, they're fan boys, they just can't resist having the latest model Tivo in their house. If not now, then the Bolt Pro will push them over the edge.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

trip1eX said:


> Terrible logic. People get free TiVos too.
> 
> And all kinds of ways for a cable company to hide the cost of hardware in a cable tv bill. And most cable deals are temporary and ymmv.
> 
> ...


I have the Multi-room DVR option for $20/month + tax. It includes one HD DVR and two SD boxes which are free. The SD boxes can either stream from the DVR or use their own tuner. They are connected to SD TVs and one is connected to a Series 1 Tivo although the Tivo doesn't get used that much.

You have to remember that a lot of existing customers are grandfathered in to various cable company deals/bundles/contracts, and if they break that to buy a Tivo system then their price could shoot up dramatically. Also, buying a Tivo means they're stuck with cable and can't switch to satellite when their current contract is up. I believe the CSR knows this by looking at what you're renting (CableCard vs. boxes) when you go to renew, and may not offer you a discount (or a smaller discount) because they know you won't threaten to switch or drop them.

FIOS has two-year price locks. I've already looked at renewing as mine expires early next year and the equipment rental price will be the same. The service price will go up by $15. Then it's price-locked for another two years.

Finally, if cable companies are burying their DVR costs in their service charge, then Tivo owners are paying for something that they're not getting. I also think the FCC would frown on that, so while MSOs might be doing that anyway I don't think they are.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> They already are priced pretty aggressively on multi-room setups, with the exception of the main lifetime subs, which are now absurdly expensive. They need to communicate that to potential customers.


The upfront cost is onerous for such a system. $900 for a lifetime Bolt, and $450 for 3 minis comes up to $1350, which doesn't include installation or service and comes up short in tuners and hard drive space.



Bigg said:


> That's a totally different market. They are providing a service that adds cost to the products. They are a custom, luxury, high-end, and low-volume business. RCN is a mass-market, cost-conscious MSO who offers TiVo largely because they don't have the scale to develop their own DVR like XFinity X1. Although Comcast really made a mistake. They should have just licensed TiVo, and it would have offered their subs a much better experience than the X1 mess.


The difference is that RCN has a lot more clout to dictate terms. The CI's have to whine, complain, and if necessary migrate to OEM's that will structure their pricing so as not to compete directly against them.


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

In response to no more online support of our TiVoHD's, Ira said, "we're not abandoning anyone. We're just marching forward." I think TiVo made a big mistake with that mentality, and they may find themselves in a class action lawsuit as well.

A soldier doesn't want to go into battle with ANYONE who is willing to leave any of their comrades - albeit slow or wounded - behind when the going gets tough. Well, being a long time user of online remote access to my two lifetime TiVoHD's purchased in Jan2008, I'm not taking Ira's words in the way he (TiVo) may have been hoping for.

In my opinion, TiVo DID abandon my trust that when I paid for lifetime service of my units, their side of the agreement was to provide at least the level of service they had at the time of purchase until they died a physical death or TiVo went out of business.

I love how the equipment operates and functions when not crippled by the service provider, but right now I do NOT consider TiVo a company worthy of my family's money. If they are truly struggling financially because of the collapsing economy or bad business decisions, my opinion is that they should have approached the most loyal customer base - like the ones who had gone "All In" with lifetime service on multiple units - with their plight. Prior to this latest autonomous act, I would've happily considered helping them stay afloat to prolong the life of our relationship.

Now I feel they have tried to force my hand rather than asking politely.

But hey, long live the King - right???


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

nyjklein said:


> I'll post this here but it may deserve a separate thread. In Ira's answers he mentioned there would be some deals for Series 3 owners. He specifically referred to customers in Comcast areas that are being upgraded to MP4 but also seemed to leave the door open for other Series 3 owners.
> 
> So, has anyone gotten any of these offers? If so, does it include Bolt options?
> 
> ...


I just got a reply back from their online customer support where I expressed concern about our lifetime TiVoHD's being made defunct by a compression change to mp4 and wanted to know what remedies they had for loyal customers like ourselves. This is the reply I received:


> Hello xxxx,
> 
> Thank you for contacting TiVo Customer Support. I would be glad to help you with upgrades for loyal customers.
> 
> ...


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

BobCamp1 said:


> I have the Multi-room DVR option for $20/month + tax. It includes one HD DVR and two SD boxes which are free. The SD boxes can either stream from the DVR or use their own tuner. They are connected to SD TVs and one is connected to a Series 1 Tivo although the Tivo doesn't get used that much.
> 
> You have to remember that a lot of existing customers are grandfathered in to various cable company deals/bundles/contracts, and if they break that to buy a Tivo system then their price could shoot up dramatically. Also, buying a Tivo means they're stuck with cable and can't switch to satellite when their current contract is up. I believe the CSR knows this by looking at what you're renting (CableCard vs. boxes) when you go to renew, and may not offer you a discount (or a smaller discount) because they know you won't threaten to switch or drop them.
> 
> ...


You're comparing an old hd dvr and 2 sd boxes to the latest and greatest Tivo Bolt and Tivo Minis. That's just another reason to take this all with a grain of salt.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

tluxon said:


> In my opinion, TiVo DID abandon my trust that when I paid for lifetime service of my units, their side of the agreement was to provide at least the level of service they had at the time of purchase until they died a physical death or TiVo went out of business.


I don't understand why you think TiVo is abandoning any Lifetime TiVo of any model, that not what their doing, your Lifetime TiVo will operate just has it has before the changes in TiVo system when the Bolt came on. You can use such TiVo the same way you did before and still sell and xfer the unit to another TiVo account, TiVo just not letting you active a non active Series 1,2,or 3 with a $600* All-in *program, that would not have been a good deal anyway.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> Like this?


Yes, like that.



HarperVision said:


> Auto correct also fixes when I type "tivo" to the proper "TiVo".


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

trip1eX said:


> You're comparing an old hd dvr and 2 sd boxes to the latest and greatest Tivo Bolt and Tivo Minis. That's just another reason to take this all with a grain of salt.


You shouldn't. It's a perfect example of how people will stick with old DVR technology for various reasons - price being one of the most important, or in this case a legacy deal.

Or consider the FIOS customers who got a free DVR "for life". They'll probably run those things in to the ground before considering an upgrade.


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## FLEABttn (Sep 29, 2015)

jonw747 said:


> As-if there was a "market" that prefers a 500GB disk to a 6TB drive?


Yeah I'm way late on this but that's me. I have no need or use for a 6TB drive in a DVR. 500GB is enough for my DVR habits and I have no desire to pay for space I'm not going to come close to touching.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

FLEABttn said:


> Yeah I'm way late on this but that's me. I have no need or use for a 6TB drive in a DVR. 500GB is enough for my DVR habits and I have no desire to pay for space I'm not going to come close to touching.


You missed my point: cost is the issue, not features. You may not need more than 500GB, but would you refuse to buy a Bolt if it came with 3GB standard?

TiVo will certainly miss the mass-market if they can't deliver a product at the right price, but it won't be because they crammed in extra capacity.

And at the right price, even that Bolt with just 500GB and 4 tuners becomes something a customer with a 6-Tuner 6TB Roamio would add to their system if not replace it.

We're all the same market. We all have interest in DVRs that offer a great combination of features and price.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

jonw747 said:


> You shouldn't. It's a perfect example of how people will stick with old DVR technology for various reasons - price being one of the most important, or in this case a legacy deal.
> 
> Or consider the FIOS customers who got a free DVR "for life". They'll probably run those things in to the ground before considering an upgrade.


Yes I should take it with a grain of salt. And so should everyone else.

The guy says he's pay $22/mo for 3 tvs and compares that to the cost of the Bolt and Minis. And it turns out he is talking 2 SD boxes. And an old hd dvr. 

NEvermind that the odds of someone actually being accurate on the internets, about anything on their cable bill, are pretty darn low. Or that anyone else can just call up and get a deal an average anonymous random joe on the internets touts. Or the odds of any deal anyone mentions lasting 3 years.

So it is pointless 5x over.

And, btw, we all know cable dvrs own the market. This doesn't mean we have to accept nonsensical price comparisons.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

trip1eX said:


> Yes I should take it with a grain of salt. And so should everyone else.
> 
> The guy says he's pay $22/mo for 3 tvs and compares that to the cost of the Bolt and Minis. And it turns out he is talking 2 SD boxes. And an old hd dvr.
> 
> ...


It's not pointless. It's an example. If you went through everybody case by case, I imagine you'd find all sorts of reasons besides "I never thought to do the math".

It works the other way too. I was offered the loyalty price on lifetime to encourage me to return to TiVo. That's not something any potential customer can get or even necessarily something every returning customer is offered. A lot of people came on board thanks to the Summer Sale, but that was a short term promotion.

One difference here is TiVo reps aren't banging on my door every week to try to pitch me on their latest special or filling my mailbox with offers to get my business.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> One difference here is TiVo reps aren't banging on my door every week to try to pitch me on their latest special or filling my mailbox with offers to get my business.


Just ask TCFer *tvmaster2*.


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## dmurphy (Jan 17, 2002)

jonw747 said:


> Or consider the FIOS customers who got a free DVR "for life". They'll probably run those things in to the ground before considering an upgrade.


Eh.

I'm on my third "For Life" deal.

First was the DirecTiVo (Hughes GXCEBOT) that I paid $199 for way back when. That worked out splendidly, and in fact, if I reconnected my DirecTV account today, would *still* have lifetime DVR service from them.

Second was the FiOS "Free for life" deal. I had to give that up when I switched to Quantum.... still got my moneys' worth out of the "Free for Life" deal.

Now, I'm on to my TiVo Roamio "Lifetime" deals.

As long as you treat them with some modicum of sanity, the "lifetime" deals do make sense... but if you try to stretch it beyond the boundaries of reality, I can see folks getting all upset about it.


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

lessd said:


> I don't understand why you think TiVo is abandoning any Lifetime TiVo of any model, that not what their doing, your Lifetime TiVo will operate just has it has before the changes in TiVo system when the Bolt came on. You can use such TiVo the same way you did before and still sell and xfer the unit to another TiVo account, TiVo just not letting you active a non active Series 1,2,or 3 with a $600* All-in *program, that would not have been a good deal anyway.


Let me see if I can explain it a little better.

A big part of the value I got out of the service for my lifetime TiVoHD's was that I could view their To Do lists and set up and confirm recordings from remote locations (like at work) using the Tivo.com interface for my account.

For example, I'm a sports junkie, but I just can't set up a season pass for college football, and many times I learn of a game being on that I want to record when I'm away from home. Using online guide and scheduling access I could do that for nearly 8 years and now suddenly I can't without replacing this otherwise working equipment. That's taking away a service that made my TiVoHD's functional for me and went into my purchasing decision.

Perhaps you don't place a high value on that service, but I relied on it heavily and so I did.

Whether it is to anyone else or not, that is a breach of trust with me.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

tluxon said:


> Let me see if I can explain it a little better.
> 
> A big part of the value I got out of the service for my lifetime TiVoHD's was that I could view their To Do lists and set up and confirm recordings from remote locations (like at work) using the Tivo.com interface for my account.
> 
> ...


Sorry, I did not think of that part of the service that was taken from people on the Series 3.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

tluxon said:


> A big part of the value I got out of the service for my lifetime TiVoHD's was that I could view their To Do lists and set up and confirm recordings from remote locations (like at work) using the Tivo.com interface for my account.
> 
> For example, I'm a sports junkie, but I just can't set up a season pass for college football, and many times I learn of a game being on that I want to record when I'm away from home. Using online guide and scheduling access I could do that for nearly 8 years and now suddenly I can't without replacing this otherwise working equipment. That's taking away a service that made my TiVoHD's functional for me and went into my purchasing decision.


Has that been permanently removed as a capability of those models (similar to how S1-3 can no longer be activated for monthly/annual service), or is it something TiVo views as a bug with their TiVo Online update and are working towards a fix?


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

jonw747 said:


> It's not pointless. It's an example. If you went through everybody case by case, I imagine you'd find all sorts of reasons besides "I never thought to do the math".
> 
> It works the other way too. I was offered the loyalty price on lifetime to encourage me to return to TiVo. That's not something any potential customer can get or even necessarily something every returning customer is offered. A lot of people came on board thanks to the Summer Sale, but that was a short term promotion.
> 
> One difference here is TiVo reps aren't banging on my door every week to try to pitch me on their latest special or filling my mailbox with offers to get my business.


As I said why are we comparing the price of the Bolt and Minis to 2 old SD boxes and an old HD dvr? Why not compare the price of a Roamio Basic with lifetime and Minis to that? That would make more sense if you want to really compare costs.

That's why that example was pointless. And why you should take these things with a grain of salt.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Anotherpyr said:


> My premiere has 3TB of storage. If I could only expand the number of tuners as easily ...


Weaknees is amazing! Mine is stock.



jonw747 said:


> The upfront cost is onerous for such a system. $900 for a lifetime Bolt, and $450 for 3 minis comes up to $1350, which doesn't include installation or service and comes up short in tuners and hard drive space.


Again, this type of comment is lack of doing the math out. If you factor in monthly service and a 4 room system, Comcast X1 costs $2400 vs. $1350 for TiVo. The challenge is when the MSOs, like Comcast start bundling the costs of X1, although even with the bundle that gives you a free X1 DVR, it's still $1440 over 4 years for the three extra boxes, and with TiVo you still own the hardware at the end. The Minis would likely be worth something, even though the Bolt won't be worth much.



> The difference is that RCN has a lot more clout to dictate terms. The CI's have to whine, complain, and if necessary migrate to OEM's that will structure their pricing so as not to compete directly against them.


Migrate to who? TiVo makes by far the best DVR on the market, and the only other ones that come anywhere even close are owned by another MSO. The MSOs will likely license to each other as monopoly providers, but not to an overbuilder like RCN.



tluxon said:


> In my opinion, TiVo DID abandon my trust that when I paid for lifetime service of my units, their side of the agreement was to provide at least the level of service they had at the time of purchase until they died a physical death or TiVo went out of business.


They still work as DVRs- it's just the online stuff that doesn't work anymore, which was ancillary to their existence anyway. The MPEG-4 thing is a legitimate gripe though, as they support MPEG-4 in hardware, they just won't update the software to handle it.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Again, this type of comment is lack of doing the math out. If you factor in monthly service and a 4 room system, Comcast X1 costs $2400 vs. $1350 for TiVo.


No, it's about the willingness of people to spend upfront money. Until TiVo has a solution that makes sense for those people, showing them "the math" isn't going to make any difference.

And of course plenty of people don't have 4 room systems. Heck, I didn't. I had a pair of DVR's that I distributed video to other TVs and rooms by various means.

Everybody's different and if you want to find out why TiVo does or doesn't work for them, you'd have to ask them.

That's why TiVo in my opinion needs a much more compelling pitch or find a way to be happy with their niche. It's not a bad niche at all.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> They still work as DVRs- it's just the online stuff that doesn't work anymore, which was ancillary to their existence anyway. The MPEG-4 thing is a legitimate gripe though, as they support MPEG-4 in hardware, they just won't update the software to handle it.


It's still a fair gripe and a slippery slope. I had the impression as well that people who were already activated weren't going to lose anything.

On the flip slide, supporting old units likely costs TiVo money to update and secure their web services. If the units still perform a reasonable function, those customers should be given the option to be reimbursed for some % of the lifetime fee they paid.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

It also doesn't help that people are getting free TiVo Bolts on this forum. I do not see what this will actually accomplish. It will only increase the anger that some older TiVo owners are feeling as the find out that they are losing functionality.
If TiVo is running some type of welfare program I would like to know where I sign up as I would appreciate some new free Bolts.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10658010#post10658010


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Jed1 said:


> It also doesn't help that people are getting free TiVo Bolts on this forum. I do not see what this will actually accomplish. It will only increase the anger that some older TiVo owners are feeling as the find out that they are losing functionality.
> If TiVo is running some type of welfare program I would like to know where I sign up as I would appreciate some new free Bolts.
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10658010#post10658010


Well, Dan has "sold" more TiVos than any salesman or dealer in their history, so I'm sure it's well deserved! :up:


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Jed1 said:


> It also doesn't help that people are getting free TiVo Bolts on this forum.


What people are getting free BOLTS?!?!


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Follow his link. Dan203 did.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

HarperVision said:


> Follow his link. Dan203 did.


Well, yeah, I saw that but I was assuming TiVos must be dropping like rain given the tone and terms used in that post:

_"people are getting free TiVo Bolts on this forum" vs "Dan203, site admin and TiVo application developer, received a single BOLT"_​
So rather than being grateful that a single developer working on VideoReDo was given access to the new BOLT, possibly allowing Dan to decipher SkipMode and bring SkipMode to all VideoReDo-edited content, the post goes... well, where it went.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

krkaufman said:


> Well, yeah, I saw that but I was assuming TiVos must be dropping like rain given the tone and terms used in that post:
> 
> _"people are getting free TiVo Bolts on this forum" vs "Dan203, site admin and TiVo application developer, received a single BOLT"_​
> So rather than being grateful that a single developer working on VideoReDo was given access to the new BOLT, possibly allowing Dan to decipher SkipMode and bring SkipMode to all VideoReDo-edited content, the post goes... well, where it went.


Yeah, one person isn't quite "people".


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

Bigg said:


> They still work as DVRs- it's just the online stuff that doesn't work anymore, which was ancillary to their existence anyway. The MPEG-4 thing is a legitimate gripe though, as they support MPEG-4 in hardware, they just won't update the software to handle it.


Where did you read that online access to TiVoHD's was an "ancillary" service? I haven't found such language in my original contract and I was never informed of that by TiVo. If it's not there, I don't see how that argument would ever hold up as legal standing.

Even if it did, however, there was still a breach of trust when they took it away without informing those affected.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

tluxon said:


> Where did you read that online access to TiVoHD's was an "ancillary" service? I haven't found such language in my original contract and I was never informed of that by TiVo. If it's not there, I don't see how that argument would ever hold up as legal standing.
> 
> Even if it did, however, there was still a breach of trust when they took it away without informing those affected.


Did the original contract state that online access was a primary function and would never be changed?

My question is as ridiculous as your statement that the contract never said it was an ancillary service.

Things change. If you bought a unit last year that quit working, yeah you have a point. A unit bought ten years ago? And it still works!! Just not exactly like you want it to.

I hate to be flippant, but not only would no lawyer take your case ("class action" really?), even breach of trust is pushing it. After ten years, que sera sera. *You are now three generations behind!*


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

tluxon said:


> Where did you read that online access to TiVoHD's was an "ancillary" service? I haven't found such language in my original contract and I was never informed of that by TiVo. If it's not there, I don't see how that argument would ever hold up as legal standing.
> 
> Even if it did, however, there was still a breach of trust when they took it away without informing those affected.


I don't know the answer, but was TiVo on-line running when you purchased your Series 3 . I don't remember when TiVo introduced that on-line feature. The Series 3 came out in Sept of 2006, the TiVo-HD came out about June of 2007.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

BobCamp1 said:


> The life of the DVR is 3-4 years tops. If you're a geek, like all of us in this forum are, you can replace the hard drive or solder capacitors if that's the part that failed. But regular people can't do that. I have a Series 1 that I've replaced the hard drive four times over 14 years. That's once every 3.5 years.
> 
> You yourself own a Roamio and a Premiere -- those are new-ish. Did you own any other Tivo before that? Where are your 10-year-old Series 1-3 and HD DVRs? That's OK, I can look at the signatures of everybody else and see the most of them don't own anything older than a Premiere, either. That's fine, they're fan boys, they just can't resist having the latest model Tivo in their house. If not now, then the Bolt Pro will push them over the edge.


I think the average person can easily order from a site like Weaknees and use their included tools to swap a harddrive. I know my brother can do it and he has zero tech skills.

Guess what signatures don't automatically update and at least for me definitely don't cover what is on my account. It only covers my house.

2 of my 3 TiVo HDs with lifetime went to my mother since she was no longer happy with DirecTV and FiOS was now available in her area. I upgraded to my Premiere XLs and kept one TiVo HD. Then when the Elite came out I bought that since I wanted more tuners and I ended up having a friend say with me who needed a box in his room so he got my TiVo HD. When the Roamio Pro came out, the Elite was perfect for my mother since she rarely watched TV in her bedroom but would occasionally record more than 2 shows. She hated managing two TiVos and never got the hang of MRV. I then replaced the bedroom TiVo HD with a Mini. At that point all three of my TiVo HDs went to my sisters house.

Am I buying a Bolt? nope. Now come a Pro I might consider it, because my sister is starting to bug me about when am I upgrading so she can replace the TiVo HDs after spending a week using the Elite and Mini. They are also starting to have some issues with the TiVo HDs after being moved so many times. I figure it isn't worth throwing any money at them since I have easily gotten my money's worth considering I paid next to nothing for them new, thanks to Sears clearance and I have had them since 06/2009.

Of course I might also just buy 2 Roamio Pros while on sale this month with lifetime and give her one with my two Premieres.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

astrohip said:


> Did the original contract state that online access was a primary function and would never be changed?
> 
> My question is as ridiculous as your statement that the contract never said it was an ancillary service.
> 
> ...


There's always small clams court...


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

jonw747 said:


> There's always small clams court...


I believe class action, small shellfish court and most other legal action is precluded by the arbitration clause in the service agreement, at least for S3 and later.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

ej42137 said:


> I believe class action, small shellfish court and most other legal action is precluded by the arbitration clause in the service agreement, at least for S3 and later.


Ok, funny. I had to read that twice, and was thinking "Did somebody create a new nickname for some level of the court system? How does that even happen?" ... and then I saw the original quote, "small clams court." Chuckle.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

ej42137 said:


> I believe class action, small shellfish court and most other legal action is precluded by the arbitration clause in the service agreement, at least for S3 and later.


Yeah the only option is arbitration. And I think it applies to everyone, since TiVo amended the service agreements for everyone unless you opted out of the amendment, which I'm sure almost nobody did.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

What would really be helpful is if the cablecos would be forced to bill out a retail tivo on the bill. Like where electric/gas delivery companies include the supply bill for third parties. One bill for all TV services is a powerful tool, and would help hide the "included" or "free" themes people don't understand.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

trip1eX said:


> As I said why are we comparing the price of the Bolt and Minis to 2 old SD boxes and an old HD dvr? Why not compare the price of a Roamio Basic with lifetime and Minis to that? That would make more sense if you want to really compare costs.


It's funny. I showed you the math on why I personally don't switch, and you didn't like the answer so you're arguing the established facts. What is this, a CNN forum?  A lot of other people do the math, and Tivo isn't compelling enough for them personally either. If you want people to switch to your product, remember that they won't take into account EVERYTHING your product can possibly do. They only judge it on what they personally want it do to. They're not going to spend extra money on features they already have, don't want, or won't use. And if your product is lacking a necessary feature (like in-home support), it's a deal-breaker.

I have one main HDTV, one SDTV in the guest room that is rarely used, and one in the master bedroom that I only use to watch the morning news. But I also have several tablets, smartphones, and notebooks. The majority of people (including my family) don't watch TV on a TV much anymore. They stream it to their smartphones, tablets, etc. That's why the Bolt looks like a bent iPhone 6 and primarily touts its streaming functionality. So I'm comparing all of those devices to a Bolt system and thinking, "what new feature can the Bolt system provide me that I want but don't already have?" And I'm drawing a blank.

Finally, Ira Bahr said, "TiVo is simply unable to build its business on the backs of its ever diminishing group of loyalists." (THAT is the scariest thing he said.) My question is, where are the loyalists going? If Tivo is such a great product, why are its loyalists leaving? They seem like smart people who can do math, and when they error it's always in Tivo's favor. Yet they are still leaving. If Tivo can't maintain their old customers, how are they going to attract new ones?


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> I think the average person can easily order from a site like Weaknees and use their included tools to swap a harddrive. I know my brother can do it and he has zero tech skills.


Your brother also knows he can call you to fix it if the upgrade doesn't work. I have a brother too, ask me how I know.  For people who don't have the emergency backup tech support, the upgrade/repair task is much more daunting. Plus, that's a $150 repair bill vs. a $0 repair bill. And while he waits for the new hard drive, he can't watch TV.

Your family is also taking advantage of your gifts to them. That's fine, they can't beat a free or steeply-discounted DVR, but you must admit it's not making financial sense for you.

Finally, that's an insane number of DVRs you've bought. People in this forum are the exception and not the rule. Ira said as much.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

BobCamp1 said:


> Finally, Ira Bahr said, "TiVo is simply unable to build its business on the backs of its ever diminishing group of loyalists." (THAT is the scariest thing he said.) My question is, where are the loyalists going? If Tivo is such a great product, why are its loyalists leaving?


You are adding your personal opinion to this, and not reading the words he said. The loyalists are the ones here, but they need to go big (mass market) while keeping us happy. We are not leaving, but we are also not growth.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

BobCamp1 said:


> It's funny. I showed you the math on why I personally don't switch, and you didn't like the answer so you're arguing the established facts. What is this, a CNN forum?  A lot of other people do the math, and Tivo isn't compelling enough for them personally either. If you want people to switch to your product, remember that they won't take into account EVERYTHING your product can possibly do. They only judge it on what they personally want it do to. They're not going to spend extra money on features they already have, don't want, or won't use. And if your product is lacking a necessary feature (like in-home support), it's a deal-breaker.
> 
> I have one main HDTV, one SDTV in the guest room that is rarely used, and one in the master bedroom that I only use to watch the morning news. But I also have several tablets, smartphones, and notebooks. The majority of people (including my family) don't watch TV on a TV much anymore. They stream it to their smartphones, tablets, etc. That's why the Bolt looks like a bent iPhone 6 and primarily touts its streaming functionality. So I'm comparing all of those devices to a Bolt system and thinking, "what new feature can the Bolt system provide me that I want but don't already have?" And I'm drawing a blank.
> 
> Finally, Ira Bahr said, "TiVo is simply unable to build its business on the backs of its ever diminishing group of loyalists." (THAT is the scariest thing he said.) My question is, where are the loyalists going? If Tivo is such a great product, why are its loyalists leaving? They seem like smart people who can do math, and when they error it's always in Tivo's favor. Yet they are still leaving. If Tivo can't maintain their old customers, how are they going to attract new ones?


No I knew your math was bs. And I was right. YOu conveniently didn't mention up front in your pricing post that the equipment you were renting were 2 SD boxes and an old HD DVR. Yet here you are, comparing that cost to Tivo's latest and greatest. And, on top of it, acting like your setup is other worldly. So have to take it with a grain of salt.

No one really cares about what equipment you personally choose. Never about that. I know I don't care.

I just don't care for nonsensical and misleading comparisons.


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

trip1eX said:


> No I knew your math was bs. And I was right. YOu conveniently didn't mention up front in your pricing post that the equipment you were renting were 2 SD boxes and an old HD DVR. Yet here you are, comparing that cost to Tivo's latest and greatest. And, on top of it, acting like your setup is other worldly. So have to take it with a grain of salt.
> 
> No one really cares about what equipment you personally choose. Never about that. I know I don't care.
> 
> I just don't care for nonsensical and misleading comparisons.


I thought his comparison was legit and you didn't. Welcome to the real world. We don't all see things through the eyes of those telling us what we're supposed to see.


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

astrohip said:


> ...breach of trust is pushing it. After ten years, que sera sera. *You are now three generations behind!*


So how many "generations" was the lifetime service contract supposed to be good for? It's not all on me that TiVo offered a lifetime service contract and later decided they couldn't afford to fully support that service beyond a certain point. That's on them for promising something they couldn't deliver and on me for trusting them to be good for it.

Like I said earlier - if they had let their lifetimers know that there was going to be difficulty supporting all their services beyond a certain date/("generation"), this "relationship" would've remained healthier. As it is, if I were to enter another "llifetime" agreement with TiVo, it would not be with as much confidence as I had the first time around. It would be naive and frankly - dumb - to do otherwise. That's the nature of living with and relating to others.

If you're defending them on this point then you've had your vision obscured by their elegant technology and are happy to let any of their indiscretions slide. My words of caution will be nothing more than an annoyance to you. However, if you think about it from the point of view of someone with too much cancer in their family to be enamored by shiny new objects, you may understand that commitments parties make to each other are more meaningful than temporary flashes of brilliant talent.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> No, it's about the willingness of people to spend upfront money. Until TiVo has a solution that makes sense for those people, showing them "the math" isn't going to make any difference.


What matters is TCO, not the upfront cost. If people don't understand that, they are either buying things that they cannot afford, or they suck at math.



> And of course plenty of people don't have 4 room systems. Heck, I didn't. I had a pair of DVR's that I distributed video to other TVs and rooms by various means.


Sure, some people have 1 room, some have 10 rooms. The 4 room system is taken as some typical system.



jonw747 said:


> It's still a fair gripe and a slippery slope. I had the impression as well that people who were already activated weren't going to lose anything.


They still work as DVRs, which is what they were sold as.



> If the units still perform a reasonable function, those customers should be given the option to be reimbursed for some % of the lifetime fee they paid.


The Lifetime units still work as DVRs. TiVo owes them nothing.



tluxon said:


> Where did you read that online access to TiVoHD's was an "ancillary" service?


The TiVoHD is a DVR, not an online service for remote access. So long as it gets guide data, and works as DVR, TiVo is living up to their requirement to provide Lifetime service for it.



> I haven't found such language in my original contract and I was never informed of that by TiVo. If it's not there, I don't see how that argument would ever hold up as legal standing.
> 
> Even if it did, however, there was still a breach of trust when they took it away without informing those affected.


In terms of the legal argument, I'm sure that there is language in the contract to the effect of "TiVo may, in its sole discretion, add, modify, change, or remove features of the service without prior notification."


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

TiVo can put any language they want in a contract, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will hold up in court. If they didn't make it very clear that web services were not part of "lifetime services", the benefit of the doubt should go to the consumer.

Damages would be the price paid for lifetime, and I suspect TiVo would simply write a check for that amount than go to the expense and bother of sending a lawyer out to appear in small claims. 

And finally, no, TCO is not the only thing that matters, and it's not even as straightforward to compute as you make it out to be.


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

Bigg said:


> They still work as DVRs, which is what they were sold as.
> 
> The Lifetime units still work as DVRs. TiVo owes them nothing.
> 
> ...


You lack the ability to comprehend that anyone could have an expectation of a service that differs from what you envision.

Having come from the ReplayTV camp of DVRs years before, I had experienced a degree of online interoperability and DVR functionality that TiVo fanboys could only dream about. Starting and stopping recordings and cruising through the playlist and guide data wasn't as instant as Remote Potato is with Windows Media Center, but I and my ReplayTV friends could always see and manage what was on my 3 DVRs from remote locations. When I moved to TiVoHDs, I gained High Definition, but I moved to a much inferior UI and a much less robust online experience. When I signed up for lifetime service, I never in my wildest dreams imagined they would someday pull the plug on my ability to do what little I could do with my online interface as of January 2008 when I made the purchase.

So you can continue to blather about how TiVo is flawless and could never do anyone wrong, but some of us know better.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

jrtroo said:


> You are adding your personal opinion to this, and not reading the words he said. The loyalists are the ones here, but they need to go big (mass market) while keeping us happy. We are not leaving, but we are also not growth.


In agreement with what you said, I think the Bolt release was exactly on target. TiVo needs to grow its base to survive; it knows it does this at the low end, so it released the basic Bolts first. Releasing the advanced Bolt this year would distract and confuse new buyers, so it makes sense to keep to the three year cycle. Also, advanced Roamio customers would have reason to be a little unhappy if their relatively new machines have been made obsolete early; at least I would, a little.

Next year, if the advanced Bolts are released, some basic Bolt users will be ready to move up, and I personally won't feel any pain that my Roamios didn't pay out the Lifetime before I bought a twelve tuner, dual M-card, 12 TB Bolt with two internal hard drives, simultaneous OTA and the ability to record streaming 4k content.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

jonw747 said:


> TiVo can put any language they want in a contract, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will hold up in court. If they didn't make it very clear that web services were not part of "lifetime services", the benefit of the doubt should go to the consumer.
> 
> Damages would be the price paid for lifetime, and I suspect TiVo would simply write a check for that amount than go to the expense and bother of sending a lawyer out to appear in small claims.


Dream on. The fact that those clauses are generally upheld isn't even relevant; if you've agreed to TiVo's terms of service, which you had to do in order to use TiVo online, you are bound by the arbitration agreement and your claim will be decided by a arbitrator chosen and paid for by TiVo. (Arbitration agreements also being generally upheld by the supremes.) Your small claim judgement would be void and not collectable.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

ej42137 said:


> Dream on. The fact that those clauses are generally upheld isn't even relevant; if you've agreed to TiVo's terms of service, which you had to do in order to use TiVo online, you are bound by the arbitration agreement and your claim will be decided by a arbitrator chosen and paid for by TiVo. (Arbitration agreements also being generally upheld by the supremes.) Your small claim judgement would be void and not collectable.


You're telling me a click-through consumer contract has made to the Supreme court? I'd love to see the case.

I'll stand my opinion that TiVo would refund the fee before they'd waste a lawyer's time responding to a small claims court petition.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

tluxon said:


> So how many "generations" was the lifetime service contract supposed to be good for? It's not all on me that TiVo offered a lifetime service contract and later decided they couldn't afford to fully support that service beyond a certain point. That's on them for promising something they couldn't deliver and on me for trusting them to be good for it.


I think the original assumption was that either the hardware would die or the user would upgrade before lifetime really became a burden. I don't think they foresaw the the second hand market being as big as it is or people just sticking with old hardware for 10+ years. I think they've always assumed the life cycle of a lifetime unit was 3-5 years. Any one that goes beyond that is a dead expense to them. And when people are seeking out old units rather then upgrading to new ones it's really bad for business.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> And when people are seeking out old units rather then upgrading to new ones it's really bad for business.


If those old units keep humming along, TiVo may need to consider only releasing select new features to their newest gear, to spur sales.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

tluxon said:


> So how many "generations" was the lifetime service contract supposed to be good for? It's not all on me that TiVo offered a lifetime service contract and later decided they couldn't afford to fully support that service beyond a certain point.


Lifetime is lifetime. The haven't eliminated your units ability to perform basic TiVo functions for ever (or as long as the hardware lasts).



tluxon said:


> You lack the ability to comprehend that anyone could have an expectation of a service that differs from what you envision.


You might as well argue that new features have come out, and your lifetime unit isn't receiving them. Shouldn't the answer be any feature that comes out should be available on "forever" TiVos?

But that's not the way it works. You don't care to hear that, so we are all arguing in circles. Us logically, you emotionally.

/unsubscribe/


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

jonw747 said:


> You're telling me a click-through consumer contract has made to the Supreme court? I'd love to see the case.
> 
> I'll stand my opinion that TiVo would refund the fee before they'd waste a lawyer's time responding to a small claims court petition.


Arbitration clauses have made it to the Supreme court and been upheld; click-throughs, to my knowledge, have been resolved at the lower levels, such as _Groff v. America Online_. But feel free to hire an attorney. Until you've actually brought suit I will consider your threats idle. Until you actually prevail I will continue to believe that arbitration clauses, although obviously anti-consumer and completely evil, are enforceable.

If you think you'd prevail in small claims, please let me know what happens when you actually try it. Somehow I don't think, whatever your result, that it will bring TiVo Corp. to its knees.


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

astrohip said:


> You might as well argue that new features have come out, and your lifetime unit isn't receiving them. Shouldn't the answer be any feature that comes out should be available on "forever" TiVos?
> 
> But that's not the way it works. You don't care to hear that, so we are all arguing in circles. Us logically, you emotionally.
> 
> /unsubscribe/


First, you lose persuasiveness with someone as soon as you infer that they don't care to hear something. THAT is speaking out of emotion as opposed to reason.

I never held and especially didn't express an expectation of ANY functionality that my units didn't already have the day I first purchased lifetime service. I will concede that a number of things had been improved upon since that day, and I don't discount that at all. However, the ability to browse each unit's TV listings guide and use it to schedule recordings when away at the office or on vacation was there from the beginning of my experience with our TiVoHD's. That was an extremely valuable feature to me as I don't rely on season passes for sporting events, which is primarily what I use them for.

Again, I didn't base my lifetime purchase decision on any features not already present at the time of purchase other than an expectation of trust that TiVo would not REDUCE such functionality without so much as an explanation.

I realize that many of you don't have cases of cancer to deal with in your family that have sucked your retirement savings to the bone, so it may not be such a burden for you to keep up with the latest and greatest in technology. Our family has been fortunate in many ways, but not quite to that degree, especially as we are also in the midst of trying to get two kids through college. I found it offensively callous, judgmental, and insensitive that someone who didn't like my reaction to a reduction of service found it justifiable to taunt me that I was "three generations behind". That's not a defense for TiVo doing wrong to some of us without as much as a poll (to the best of my knowledge).

My TiVoHD's are not 10 years old. They were purchased in January of 2008, which may seem ancient in a world now dominated by the 6-months-to-extinction smart phone filling landfills, but they have survived a couple hard drive upgrades each just fine and continue to work well enough to prefer over many cableco DVRs. They also combine OTA and cable program listings in a unified guide, a desirable feature (to our family, at least) that the newer Roamio and BOLT boxes still lack. And they were paid for.

I recognize that it offends some on here who believe TiVo can do no wrong, and I imagine it irks them even further to have such bias pointed out. That doesn't change the fact that TiVo took some functionality away from some of us, and silence is no better than consent. That's why I wrote to TiVo and expressed my opinion here where it was invited. Perhaps I misjudged this community in believing most would be receptive to comments that fell short of worshiping the ground TiVo walks on.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

tluxon said:


> First, you lose persuasiveness with someone as soon as you *infer* that they don't care to hear something.


Did you mean to say *imply*?

You said: "You lack the ability to comprehend that anyone could have an expectation of a service that differs from what you envision."

By that do you mean that *your* powers of persuasion are impacted because you accused your audience of not caring to hear what you have to say?


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

ej42137 said:


> Arbitration clauses have made it to the Supreme court and been upheld; click-throughs, to my knowledge, have been resolved at the lower levels, such as _Groff v. America Online_. But feel free to hire an attorney. Until you've actually brought suit I will consider your threats idle. Until you actually prevail I will continue to believe that arbitration clauses, although obviously anti-consumer and completely evil, are enforceable.
> 
> If you think you'd prevail in small claims, please let me know what happens when you actually try it. Somehow I don't think, whatever your result, that it will bring TiVo Corp. to its knees.


Let me clear some things up for you:

a) I'm not the person who's lost lifetime;

b) Click-through contracts do not receive the same level of protection as a signed contract between equal parties;

c) Nobody has to hire a lawyer to make a case in small claims court;

d) Nobody is looking to bring TiVo to their "knees", but it's perfectly fair to be asked to be compensated for losing a service that had been provided in the past as part of a pre-paid plan called "Lifetime service"

e) Small claims court exists to settle small civil disputes


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Whatever happened in regards to the new logos Ira was asking us to use?



Ira Bahr said:


> One thing  *may I ask this group if it might change its logos to conform with our new identity? *Were evolving from the older TiVo guy to what we think is a more modern, masculine, and streamlined look. The new ID is what we call Blankman and its what we want TiVo to look like going forward. Were going to send David a file for all to use.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

:down: Its stupid, and we all know it. That's why the good ol Black Tivo is still here. 

Face it, the Bolt is a big flop. They could have added the software features in the Roamios and offered new ones
with Moca 2.0 and UHD.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

krkaufman said:


> Whatever happened in regards to the new logos Ira was asking us to use?


Isn't it the one stamped on the Bolt? www.tivo.com

He looks sad. He's not smiling, he one has one foot, and his antenna are symmetrical.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

It is sad. It reminds me of the old B&W portion of Dorothy in Kansas from Wizard of Oz, where it's dull and dreary and plain and then BAM.....Oz, all full of colors and dancing and singing and fun!!! That's the "old" TiVo to me. Now it's just stuck in boring flannel, flat GUI millennial HELL!

Do people really think the flat 8-bit color of an '80s Nintendo system GUI system they changed to is really better than the Roamio one with its depth, shadows, highlights, color gradients, etc.?

I must be getting old, cuz I just don't get it. Oh, and you kids stay the hell off my lawn!!!


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

krkaufman said:


> Whatever happened in regards to the new logos Ira was asking us to use?


I updated my avatar to match. David will have to update the rest of the site though.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

The old Tivo Man must not have been a US citizen and from Kenya.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> I updated my avatar to match. David will have to update the rest of the site though.


They must've killed that poor lil' guy off for real.....Dan's avatar is the ghost of TiVo Guy!!! 

Is this just a Halloween trick?


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

ej42137 said:


> Did you mean to say *imply*?
> 
> You said: "You lack the ability to comprehend that anyone could have an expectation of a service that differs from what you envision."
> 
> By that do you mean that *your* powers of persuasion are impacted because you accused your audience of not caring to hear what you have to say?


I wrote clearly and said what I intended to say. If I made any accusation, it was only for those critical of me for expressing an opinion they didn't like.

Now for the sake of the integrity of this thread, perhaps we could get back to commenting on Ira's comments rather than on critiquing each others comments.


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

krkaufman said:


> Whatever happened in regards to the new logos Ira was asking us to use?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The prior logo was sure a lot more interesting and creative, but maybe they're looking for monotone simplicity along the lines of the Apple logo.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

tluxon said:


> The prior logo was sure a lot more interesting and creative, but maybe they're looking for monotone simplicity along the lines of the Apple logo.


This is the modern design style... Gone are the cartoon characters of the late 90's and early 00's... If you don't like it, might I suggest you are old and resistant to change!


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

bradleys said:


> ... If you don't like it, might I suggest you are old and resistant to change!


 I resemble that statement


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

tluxon said:


> First, you lose persuasiveness with someone as soon as you infer that they don't care to hear something. THAT is speaking out of emotion as opposed to reason.
> 
> I never held and especially didn't express an expectation of ANY functionality that my units didn't already have the day I first purchased lifetime service. I will concede that a number of things had been improved upon since that day, and I don't discount that at all. However, the ability to browse each unit's TV listings guide and use it to schedule recordings when away at the office or on vacation was there from the beginning of my experience with our TiVoHD's. That was an extremely valuable feature to me as I don't rely on season passes for sporting events, which is primarily what I use them for.
> 
> ...


I sympathize as I previously owned a Moxi DVR and they were acquired by Arris and ended retail sales. But even 6 years later I could still schedule recordings online or through my iPhone. I sold it earlier this year as I wanted a streaming DVR box as the Moxi was dated. Gave my spare one to my mom and it's still running.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

BobCamp1 said:


> It's funny. I showed you the math on why I personally don't switch, and you didn't like the answer so you're arguing the established facts. What is this, a CNN forum?  A lot of other people do the math, and Tivo isn't compelling enough for them personally either. If you want people to switch to your product, remember that they won't take into account EVERYTHING your product can possibly do. They only judge it on what they personally want it do to. They're not going to spend extra money on features they already have, don't want, or won't use. And if your product is lacking a necessary feature (like in-home support), it's a deal-breaker.
> 
> I have one main HDTV, one SDTV in the guest room that is rarely used, and one in the master bedroom that I only use to watch the morning news. But I also have several tablets, smartphones, and notebooks. The majority of people (including my family) don't watch TV on a TV much anymore. They stream it to their smartphones, tablets, etc. That's why the Bolt looks like a bent iPhone 6 and primarily touts its streaming functionality. So I'm comparing all of those devices to a Bolt system and thinking, "what new feature can the Bolt system provide me that I want but don't already have?" And I'm drawing a blank.
> 
> Finally, Ira Bahr said, "TiVo is simply unable to build its business on the backs of its ever diminishing group of loyalists." (THAT is the scariest thing he said.) My question is, where are the loyalists going? If Tivo is such a great product, why are its loyalists leaving? They seem like smart people who can do math, and when they error it's always in Tivo's favor. Yet they are still leaving. If Tivo can't maintain their old customers, how are they going to attract new ones?


I agree. The majority of the population can not be bothered with all this nonsense that is spewed on this forum. The cable/sat companies all do free installs and the customer is constantly looking for the best price with no hassles.
In my case it is cheaper now to use my cable companies whole home set up than using TiVo's.
http://www.secv.com/cdocs/secv_rate_card.pdf

If I compare the Bolt and TiVo's three year product cycle, using two TVs and the triple play package I subscribe to, this is what the difference is.
Bolt $300
Mini $150
Service $300
That is $750/36=$20.83/month for three years.
Add the Triple Play Plus Pack with 50meg Internet $154.90
HD technology fee $13/month
Premium TV 4 Pack $51.95/month
CableCard $3/month
No access to VOD and no caller ID on screen.
That comes to 243.68/month.

Using SECV's Arris Whole Home setup with Moxi UI:
Gateway $13/month
Two Media Players, since Gateway is headless $10
Triple Play Plus Pack with HD DVR and 50meg Internet $164.95
Premium TV 4 Pack $51.95
Full access to VOD and caller ID on screen.
That comes to $239.90/month.
Installation is done by SECV and there is nothing for the customer to worry about. If there is a problem you call them and they will come and fix it.

There is no annoying phone calls to TiVo support who will argue with you for ten minutes that you have Comcast when you don't. This just happened to me.
No figuring out complicated network issues. 
No worrying that you have to purchase more expensive equipment on the upgrade cycle. 
You pay the bill to one source and don't need to have a credit card which a lot of households no longer have since credit bubble burst. 
When teaser rate deals expires customer usually gets another one if they call and complain, with TiVo it is tough luck just buy newer expensive hardware.
No TiVo blaming your cable company and the cable company blaming TiVo.

Right now my sister has Comcast and she is on her second teaser deal and she pays about $30/month less than I do for the same TV package but she has twice the internet speed. She has the DCX 3400 DVR with the I guide and now Comcast is willing to upgrade her for free to the X1 and give her another teaser deal since hers is expiring next month. She will be paying less $40/month than I am if she takes the new deal. She wont get that if she goes with TiVo so to her it is a no brainer.

As for why TiVo is losing the loyalists the answer is life happens. All it takes is one life event like cancer, stroke, heart attack, and their life's assets are wiped out.
Another is career ending job loss and in this economy they can not find a new job as they are to old and to many are with out work in their fields.
This forces them to step down in their standards of living.
The credit bubble blow out. Most people were living above their means and were financing their short falls for years. Credit was getting easier and easier to get since the 1980's so it was easy to buy things that were above their means. That is all gone now and most are now faced with diminishing income, bankruptcy, loss of credit etc.
These are some reasons I see around me everyday so I apologize if I missed some.

One of the obvious things I see why TiVo does not have better sales as most people do not know they exist. The first time I heard of TiVo years ago was on a rerun of Sex in the City when I believe Miranda got one.
If TiVo would advertise on national TV during Prime time and maybe during some Sunday football games they may have better luck. 
They are definitely not going to improve their numbers on these internet sites as that is what they have been doing for years. It is stupid for TiVo to keep doing things that way.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Jed1- 

terrific post, but one area I disagree is I think TiVo could do very well by the internet equivalent of word of mouth advertising, but they need something to draw people in, and typical folks around the internet are very price sensitive.

I mean for instance, TiVo is technically a streaming box, a video capture box, and o an OTA receiver, but it doesn't come up much in discussions with other streaming boxes, capture boxes, and OTA receivers because it's not in the same price range, doesn't really focus on those things specifically, and having to pay for guide data is just weird to most people.

For instance there are still old Google TV customers who bemoan the death of that product and still long for something which can seamlessly stream video, browse the web, on the same input they're using to watch TV.

Of course they want that for $50 to $100, maybe as much as $200 if it's really packed with features.

Alas, TiVo is far more expensive, lacks a browser, and can't be considered even an adequate streaming platform unless you only use the few services it supports.

otoh, there's nothing wrong with selling a high-end product for a high-end price, unless you simply cannot push enough volume to stay afloat.

If they had a product at the right price that appealed to the masses, sure, they should advertise away; but I don't think they're anywhere close to that.


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## moonscape (Jul 3, 2004)

BobCamp1 said:


> Isn't it the one stamped on the Bolt? www.tivo.com


Yeah, this is what confused me about the request. Also his promoting of the new logo as desirably 'masculine' - as a chick, gee thanks 

Why didn't they use the new logo on the Bolt then?


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Jed1 said:


> That is $750/36=$20.83/month for three years.


That's a ridiculous comparison. You did Lifetime, which pays for itself in 5 years now, and squished it into 3 years. Do monthly over 4 years, and the numbers will make a lot more sense.



jonw747 said:


> TiVo can put any language they want in a contract, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will hold up in court. If they didn't make it very clear that web services were not part of "lifetime services", the benefit of the doubt should go to the consumer.


That's ridiculous. They have the right to modify the service at any time. The Lifetime service is for guide data to record shows, not some web service that is ancillary to the product being sold.



> And finally, no, TCO is not the only thing that matters, and it's not even as straightforward to compute as you make it out to be.


For a consumer level purchase, where we are talking about small amounts of money, it's all that matters. When you start talking about buying a house, or business- and government-level stuff, sure, you can start to talk about time value of money and whatnot.



tluxon said:


> You lack the ability to comprehend that anyone could have an expectation of a service that differs from what you envision.


Well they can have whatever expectation they want, it doesn't mean that it meshes with reality.



> So you can continue to blather about how TiVo is flawless and could never do anyone wrong, but some of us know better.


I never said that. I just said that stupid arguments about PLS on an archaic and totally outdated box somehow applying to web services that were ancillary to PLS and the TiVo DVR in the first place is ridiculous.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

moonscape said:


> Why didn't they use the new logo on the Bolt then?


Hmmm... I was going to say that it *IS* the logo on the front of the Bolt, but then looked more closely and the logo on the Bolt doesn't have as much "thigh gap" (i.e. ANY) as compared to the logo Dan's using and the one I found online.

Compare ... Logo ... vs ... Bolt


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I think the main focus of the new logo is to remove the face. There are minor variations in size and shape, just like there were with the old one. 

Although when I was doing Guided Setup on the Bolt the final screen where it tells you to press the TiVo button on the remote shows a picture of the button with the face still on it. So that one slipped through.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> That's ridiculous. They have the right to modify the service at any time.


Claiming a right isn't the same thing as having a right. Click through contracts are typically judged from the view of a consumer with reasonable expectations.



Bigg said:


> The Lifetime service is for guide data to record shows, not some web service that is ancillary to the product being sold.


Not according to TiVo. In their latest terms, they say service consists of the same services they offer to other owners of the device. Now, it's true they took away the web access from ALL owners, so in that sense they haven't violated the letter of their agreement. But have they violated the spirit of the original agreement? A judge might decide they have.

After all, what if they did take away DVR service? By the letter of their agreement, they're perfectly within their rights to do so.

But any sane person would say, dang that's one short "lifetime".


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

jonw747 said:


> Jed1-
> 
> terrific post, but one area I disagree is I think TiVo could do very well by the internet equivalent of word of mouth advertising, but they need something to draw people in, and typical folks around the internet are very price sensitive.
> 
> ...


That is what TiVo has been doing for years. They need to get away from internet sites as the major majority of average consumers will never visit any of these sites. The only way TiVo will reach the masses is they have to advertise on TV during primetime hours.

This is actually the fallacy of them being stuck in the Silicon Valley bubble. Margret showed a billboard for the Bolt on her way to work but I do not see or hear of anywhere else there is a billboard for the TiVo Bolt. So TiVo is still advertising to the same shrinking base of people.

I do not know of anybody who reads CNet, TechCrunch, Dave Zatz, TCF, AVS, or watches podcasts on the internet or even watches CNBC.
What has to be realized is TiVo had their retail DVRs in about 2 to 3 million homes 10 years ago and that has now fallen steadily to about 200,000 homes today. In that time period they did a lot of internet advertising and losing a lot of customers is the end result.

So far TiVo is doing what they have always been doing so this means to me the Bolt will fail to reach their main objective, which is selling TiVo's to new customers. This will not end well for us retail owners as I have been on the receiving end of a half dozen or so CE companies that folded their tents in the past decade.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

Bigg said:


> That's a ridiculous comparison. You did Lifetime, which pays for itself in 5 years now, and squished it into 3 years. Do monthly over 4 years, and the numbers will make a lot more sense.


No I didn't. I did the TiVo Bolt with 3 years of service which includes the first free year. I choose three years as that is the product life cycle for TiVo's according to statements made by Ira.
I also through in a mini as I was making the comparison for two TVs.

The TiVo should come out better as the first year of service is free and the Arris unit is headless, so you have to rent an additional client box at an additional $5/month. 
But the numbers go in favor of the Arris unit because of the increasing amount of discounts my cable company gives for bundling more services.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Jed1 said:


> No I didn't. I did the TiVo Bolt with 3 years of service which includes the first free year. I choose three years as that is the product life cycle for TiVo's according to statements made by Ira.
> I also through in a mini as I was making the comparison for two TVs.


The comparison does seem to discount/disregard access to streaming apps, one of the key selling points TiVo is pushing for their BOLT as a Unified Entertainment System.

If the Moxi doesn't do streaming apps, toss in a Roku for each TV, right? (cost of services being a wash) Not sure you can factor that hassle of switching inputs and dealing with different remotes -- though both sometimes necessitate additional hardware purchases in the form of universal remotes or A/V switches.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

krkaufman said:


> The comparison does seem to discount/disregard access to streaming apps, one of the key selling points TiVo is pushing for their BOLT as a Unified Entertainment System.
> 
> If the Moxi doesn't do streaming apps, toss in a Roku for each TV, right? (cost of services being a wash) Not sure you can factor that hassle of switching inputs and dealing with different remotes -- though both sometimes necessitate additional hardware purchases in the form of universal remotes or A/V switches.


Most HDTVs have the streaming apps built in and also have wireless capability. Vizio is the most popular brand I come across. In fact most TVs sold at Walmart have the major apps built in.
Also most BD players have the apps included and they are less than 100 dollars and also work on wireless.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Jed1 said:


> Most HDTVs have the streaming apps built in and also have wireless capability. Vizio is the most popular brand I come across. In fact most TVs sold at Walmart have the major apps built in.
> Also most BD players have the apps included and they are less than 100 dollars and also work on wireless.


But if you're doing a true cost comparison between the two solutions, you can't just make that assumption and move on, because it tilts the whole thing towards one side. If streaming apps are a requirement, some base additional cost per screen would need to be added to the Moxi solution, either factoring-in the cost of a streaming device or the nominal difference between a dumb and smart TV.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

krkaufman said:


> But if you're doing a true cost comparison between the two solutions, you can't just make that assumption and move on, because it tilts the whole thing towards one side. If streaming apps are a requirement, some base additional cost per screen would need to be added to the Moxi solution, either factoring-in the cost of a streaming device or the nominal difference between a dumb and smart TV.


I am confused. If the customer already owns a TV with the apps why would they need the TiVo to get the same apps?
Besides you would need to own a TV in order to use the Moxi or TiVo so your argument is moot. 
Most of the people in this country use the apps built into the TV's. They also can buy a 50 dollar Blu ray player and get the same thing. Why pay $300 for a TiVo with a monthly fee on top of that for the same thing.

One thing people have to understand is TiVo was never a leader in this industry. Yes they built the first time slipping DVR but after that they have been the laggard in the business. Microsoft started with WMC in 2004 with XP and in a few years they were using client boxes. Sony made the DHG that was released in 2005, which was HD and digital cable ready, and beat the TiVo at that time. Digeo built the three tuner Moxi with mates and had it on the market in 2009. It also had a complete and functional HD menu system.
I had Commercial Skip on a RCA DVD recorder that I bought back in 2005. That unit also had HDMI. Oh Yea I forgot Sling box that came out in 2007.
TiVo has been over charging people for the same thing for almost 15 years and now they wonder why they have no customers. Everything that TiVo has done in the past 4 years is stuff other companies have already done long ago. TiVo is way to little and way to late when it comes to innovation and also to expensive to boot.
When comparing the current TiVo to the Arris Whole Home unit at least the Moxi has a complete and functioning HD menu system and basically works with no issues to the customer.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Jed1 said:


> I am confused. If the customer already owns a TV with the apps why would they need the TiVo to get the same apps?
> Besides you would need to own a TV in order to use the Moxi or TiVo so your argument is moot.
> Most of the people in this country use the apps built into the TV's. They also can buy a 50 dollar Blu ray player and get the same thing.


Ok, there ya go... $50 additional per screen should for the Moxi solution. Done.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

krkaufman said:


> Ok, there ya go... $50 additional per screen should for the Moxi solution. Done.


Not if the TV you hook it up to has the apps built in. Remember in order to use any thing you must have a TV first.

Oh I must add with the Blu ray player you can play Blu rays, DVDs, CDs and most new ones even support DLNA. The TiVo can not do this.


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## tluxon (Feb 28, 2002)

Bigg said:


> That's a ridiculous comparison.
> ...
> That's ridiculous.
> ...
> ...


It's been really enlightening having you in on this discussion, but for some reason my windshield keeps getting found by these seagulls.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

tluxon said:


> It's been really enlightening having you in on this discussion, but for some reason my windshield keeps getting found by these seagulls.


Haha, that seagull has found his way to my beaches too!


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Jed1 said:


> I am confused. If the customer already owns a TV with the apps why would they need the TiVo to get the same apps?
> Besides you would need to own a TV in order to use the Moxi or TiVo so your argument is moot.
> Most of the people in this country use the apps built into the TV's. They also can buy a 50 dollar Blu ray player and get the same thing. Why pay $300 for a TiVo with a monthly fee on top of that for the same thing.
> .


If most of the people are using the apps in their TV's how does Roku or the other streaming devices manage to sell anything? Roku said they had reached 10 millions devices sold last month so I think your statement is unfounded. 

I agree you need to add that cost into your comparison. Also, I would compare lifetime costs as well since most people do not upgrade their TiVo every 3 years and most certainly you won't get an upgrade from your cable company every 3 years!

Scott


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> Claiming a right isn't the same thing as having a right. Click through contracts are typically judged from the view of a consumer with reasonable expectations.


And no one can have a reasonable explanation that somehow the ancillary web services are going to be available forever with PLS on ancient hardware. Guide data and DVR'ing stuff is all that's fair game.



> Not according to TiVo. In their latest terms, they say service consists of the same services they offer to other owners of the device. Now, it's true they took away the web access from ALL owners, so in that sense they haven't violated the letter of their agreement. But have they violated the spirit of the original agreement? A judge might decide they have.
> 
> After all, what if they did take away DVR service? By the letter of their agreement, they're perfectly within their rights to do so.
> 
> But any sane person would say, dang that's one short "lifetime".


They took it away from all users, and the device still works just fine for the purpose it was originally sold for.



Jed1 said:


> No I didn't. I did the TiVo Bolt with 3 years of service which includes the first free year. I choose three years as that is the product life cycle for TiVo's according to statements made by Ira.
> I also through in a mini as I was making the comparison for two TVs.


Your comparison just doesn't make any sense. You used a 3-year span of time with Lifetime. That doesn't make any sense. Also, if cable companies used your accounting system, assuming everything is replaced when anything new comes out, they would all be bankrupt. They have boxes that are a decade old out there, that's how they make money. 4 years is a reasonable life cycle for one of these boxes, although there are lots that are older out there on the forum.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

I just think its very fair for Tivo to offer great deals on Roamios with lifetime after the Bolt release for loyal customers. If you still insist on using old boxes, thats your choice.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

HerronScott said:


> If most of the people are using the apps in their TV's how does Roku or the other streaming devices manage to sell anything? Roku said they had reached 10 millions devices sold last month so I think your statement is unfounded.
> 
> I agree you need to add that cost into your comparison. Also, I would compare lifetime costs as well since most people do not upgrade their TiVo every 3 years and most certainly you won't get an upgrade from your cable company every 3 years!
> 
> Scott


Actually that Roku announcement is from last year.
https://blog.roku.com/blog/2014/09/16/10-million-roku-players-sold/
But lets look at the reality. They are reporting 10 million units sold since they started. That is over a six year period and three different models. This number is total units sold and not the actual number of homes using Roku. If each home upgraded to the new model as they were released then you have to cut that number in 3. There is also no accounting of how many active homes they have which is the real number you have to look at. 
The only business that goes by homes served is the cable and satellite companies. The rest of the CE industry always uses units sold as this is the only way to shine the best light on the companies progress to shareholders. If the CE companies would go by households served they would have poor to little growth.

In my regular dealings with J6P I see the streaming apps used in TVs, game consoles, and Blu ray players. These are the products they use the most. I have seen only one Roku box and that was owned by an elderly lady. She has the first one and takes it with her to Florida every year for the winter. I mentioned that she should by the Roku 3 as it can do HD and her response is there is nothing wrong with the one she has. She will replace it when it breaks.
I just came across a person who has the Fire TV stick last week. She has that as she works two jobs and has no time to watch TV. She just has internet and phone with the cable company.

The one blaring point people here have to understand is J6P will not replace anything until it breaks. In the past 3 to 4 years J6Ps analog TV sets are finally breaking. They are replacing them with TVs from Walmart and the bulk are in 30 to 40 inch range. Most are Vizios and Sonys with a splattering of LGs, Samsungs, Sharps, and the non name brands.. Most have the apps built in.
Most do not subscribe to HD programming as it is to expensive.
When you look at the number of TVs bought in the last 4 years that have the streaming apps built in this correlates to the rise of the streaming services. It also has to be mentioned that a lot of families share their Netflix accounts with other family members.
Those J6Ps that have children will have a game system in the house which will be the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS 3, PS 4, and a smaller number with the Nintendo WII. These devices have streaming apps built in.
Also since their DVD players are breaking most are buying Blu ray players as they are pretty cheap now and most have streaming apps built in.

These three devices is how J6P is accessing the streaming services and I do not see how TiVo will fit into J6Ps needs as it really only offers a DVR recorder which they can get from cable or satellite company they belong to. If their kids can play PS and Xbox games or even spun some shiny discs on a TiVo then it would be possible they would buy one.
Since TVs, game systems, and disc players are something that is demanded and used in their households I would not factor in the streaming costs with TiVos.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

Bigg said:


> Your comparison just doesn't make any sense. You used a 3-year span of time with Lifetime. That doesn't make any sense. Also, if cable companies used your accounting system, assuming everything is replaced when anything new comes out, they would all be bankrupt. They have boxes that are a decade old out there, that's how they make money. 4 years is a reasonable life cycle for one of these boxes, although there are lots that are older out there on the forum.


Again I did not use lifetime service. I used the yearly service plan in which the first year is free. I put the TiVo in the best light as possible. I also selected three years as Ira stated that is the product life cycle of a TiVo.
With the new pricing plan TiVos do not have any favorable numbers until you get beyond 5 years.

In my actual case owning a TiVo gets worse as I have two Premiere 4s with lifetime. If I were to replace them with two Bolts the numbers would heavily fall in favor of my cable companies DVR with the Moxi UI.

The argument that TiVo is saving you money is becoming a thing of the past as the way cable companies are pricing their products is making it more cost effective just to use their equipment. 
Also with their VOD programming getting better every year you will no longer need a DVR as you can just watch any program at your leisure now.

DVRs are quickly becoming dinosaurs and will be extinct in a few more years. With VOD and streaming services there will be no need to record anymore.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> And no one can have a reasonable explanation that somehow the ancillary web services are going to be available forever with PLS on ancient hardware. Guide data and DVR'ing stuff is all that's fair game.


We all understand you feel that way, but I wouldn't presume a judge would, or that it would even get that far. Like I've said, it's not worth anybody's time to pay a Lawyer to deal with anything unless you have them on retainer and the case is being heard locally - and even then you risk bad press that could be completely avoided by just doing something to make the customer happy.


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## dmurphy (Jan 17, 2002)

I can't believe we're seriously talking about judges and lawsuits ....

The average lifespan of consumer electronics is less than 5 years.

I think any judge in the world would find that to be a reasonable benchmark for the merits of a lawsuit, and on that, I'd say TiVo met and exceeded the mark.

http://www.ce.org/Blog/Articles/2014/September/The-Life-Expectancy-of-Electronics

It's not reasonable to expect support for old technology forever. The pace of change is incredibly rapid. That's a fact. Any support over the average age is gravy, in my (not so humble) opinion.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

dmurphy said:


> I can't believe we're seriously talking about judges and lawsuits ....
> 
> The average lifespan of consumer electronics is less than 5 years.
> 
> ...


Lifetime service implies the life of the device, not the expected life of the device. If they want to sell 5-year service then that's what they should call it, otherwise they should be on the hook for any service that they can still reasonably offer - and if they can't? They should recompense because they've failed to provide something they were paid to provide.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Jed1 said:


> Again I did not use lifetime service. I used the yearly service plan in which the first year is free. I put the TiVo in the best light as possible. I also selected three years as Ira stated that is the product life cycle of a TiVo.
> With the new pricing plan TiVos do not have any favorable numbers until you get beyond 5 years.


Well, something is wrong with your comparison. And 4 years is a more appropriate cycle, not 3. A product release cycle and the lifecycle of hardware are two different things. In the case of the iPhone, they release a new one every year, but the expected lifecycle was 2 years, now it's presumably longer since you have to pay for the device yourself without subsidies.



> In my actual case owning a TiVo gets worse as I have two Premiere 4s with lifetime. If I were to replace them with two Bolts the numbers would heavily fall in favor of my cable companies DVR with the Moxi UI.


In that case, you're better off keeping what you have.



> The argument that TiVo is saving you money is becoming a thing of the past as the way cable companies are pricing their products is making it more cost effective just to use their equipment.


Even on Comcast, where the DVRs are now free on many triple plays, TiVo is still marginally cheaper due to the extra room fees.



> Also with their VOD programming getting better every year you will no longer need a DVR as you can just watch any program at your leisure now.


Half the time you can't FF the commercials, the controls suck, VOD is not a replacement for a DVR.



> DVRs are quickly becoming dinosaurs and will be extinct in a few more years. With VOD and streaming services there will be no need to record anymore.


LOL. DVRs will be around as long as linear programming is, which is a very, very long time.



jonw747 said:


> Lifetime service implies the life of the device, not the expected life of the device.


You flew right by the whole point. The point is that the DVR will be fed guide data to be a DVR for it's life. TiVo is continuing to do that. Ancillary web services have nothing to do with the core DVR functionality that the device was bought for.

TiVo refuses to update the S3s for MPEG-4, so various MPEG-4 upgrades will slowly obsolete them, but then again, TiVo never advertised them to work with MPEG-4, so I guess it's not that bad. But if there's anything to be pissed about from TiVo's end, it's the lack of an MPEG-4 update, and not the web services thing.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

I am going to do a cost comparison of TiVo versus using the cable company equipment using two parameters.
1. Using the 3 year product cycle that Ira mentioned.
2. Then using the 5 year recoup of lifetime service according to most TCF members.

This is my cable companies rate card for reference.
http://www.secv.com/cdocs/secv_rate_card.pdf

This is my current bill for 2 TVs using 2 Premiere 4 TiVos with lifetime service. It is important to note that I own both of my CableCards so this saves a little over $6/month.
Triple Play Plus Pack with 50 meg internet and phone: $154.95
Premium TV 4 Pack: $51.95
HD Technology Fee: $13.00
Taxes and Fees: $11.00
Total: $230.90/month

Two Premiere 4s with lifetime service and 3 year extended warranties bought in the summer of 2013.
$650 each for a total of $1300.
Cost/month using 3 year product cycle:
$18.05/month/TiVo for a total of $36.10/month.
Cost/month using 5 year recovery of lifetime:
$10.84/month/TiVo for a total of $21.66/month
Total monthly cost for equipment and cable service:
$267/month for 3 year cycle. $273/month for 2 CableCards.
$252.66/month for 5 year recovery of lifetime. $258.66/month for 2 CableCards.

This would be my current bill if I use my cable companies 6 tuner Arris Whole Home system with Moxi UI.
NOTE: Since Gateway is headless you will need a Media Player for each TV.
Triple Play Plus Pack with HD DVR and 50 meg internet and phone: $160.95
Premium TV 4 Pack: $51.95
Whole Home Gateway: $12.95
Media Player: $4.95
Media Player: $4.95
Taxes and Fees: $11.00
Total monthly cost $246.75

I would have to keep both of my Premiere 4's for a total of 7 years in order to match that monthly price. Also keep in mind that I do not have CableCard fees which would add and additional $6/month to the cost.

If I were to replace my 2 Premieres with 2 Bolts with 3 years of yearly service.
Triple Play Plus Pack with 50meg internet and phone: $154.95
Premium TV 4 Pack: $51.95
HD Technology Fee: $13.00
Taxes and Fees: $11.00
2 Bolts: $600
Yearly service for 3 years: $600
$33.33/month
$264.23/month not including the $6/month CableCard rental.

If I were to replace my 2 Premieres with 2 Bolts with All In and 5 year recovery of service.
Triple Play Plus Pack with 50meg internet and phone: $154.95
Premium TV 4 Pack: $51.95
HD Technology Fee: $13.00
Taxes and Fees: $11.00
2 Bolts: $600
All IN: $1200
$30/month
$260.90/month not including the $6/month CableCard rental.

If I were to replace my 2 Premieres with a Bolt with 3 years of annual service and a Mini.
Triple Play Plus Pack with 50meg internet and phone: $154.95
Premium TV 4 Pack: $51.95
HD Technology Fee: $13.00
Taxes and Fees: $11.00
Bolt: $300
Mini: $150
Yearly service for 3 years: $300
$20.83/month
$251.73/month not including the $3/month CableCard rental.

If I were to replace my 2 Premieres with a Bolt with All In and a Mini and 5 years of lifetime recovery.
Triple Play Plus Pack with 50meg internet and phone: $154.95
Premium TV 4 Pack: $51.95
HD Technology Fee: $13.00
Taxes and Fees: $11.00
Bolt: $300
All IN: $600
Mini: $150
$17.50/month
$248.40/month not including the $3/month CableCard rental

As you can see it is hard to beat renting equipment for the cable company. The only way you can achieve this is keeping your TiVos for 6 to 7 years in order to start saving on your monthly costs over using the cable companies equipment.


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## TazExprez (May 31, 2014)

Jed1 said:


> I am going to do a cost comparison of TiVo versus using the cable company equipment using two parameters.
> 1. Using the 3 year product cycle that Ira mentioned.
> 2. Then using the 5 year recoup of lifetime service according to most TCF members.
> 
> ...


It really depends on your provider. When I had Verizon FiOS, I was paying $92.00 per month for their Quantum TV Premium seven room setup. Once I went with TiVo, I was only paying $10.00 for two CCs ($5.00 each). The Quantum TV Premium setup includes two six tuner Arris DVRs and the rest of your boxes are just small clients for the DVRs.

Now I have Cablevision's Optimum service and pay $6.00 for three CCs ($2.00 each) and a $1.50 additional outlet fee for having more than one CC. If I were to rent their boxes, I would have to pay for seven boxes at a rate of $7.80 per box and $12.95 (free for the first year) for the 15 tuner cloud DVR. I would also have to pay $0.24 in rental fees for the remotes.

I am thinking about switching my three Roamio DVRs (I bought them during the Super Sale for $300.00 with PLs) over to three Bolt DVRs, but the $450.00 in annual fees have caused me to think it over for a bit longer.

I think that your provider has very fair pricing on their equipment, while the service prices are too high. My providers charge too much for their equipment, but the service pricing is decent. Verizon was charging me $140.00, plus taxes and fees, for the Ultimate HD TV (includes all of the premium movie channels), 150/150 Internet, and phone bundle. I was paying about $165.00 after taxes, fees, and two CCs. I switched to Cablevision because Verizon is charging new customers $115.00, the first year, and $125.00, the second year, for the same service I had with them. I am now considered a new Verizon customer and will be switching back in December, when they normally have the best deals of the year. I currently pay Cablevision about $148.00 after taxes, fees, and three CCs. I have their Gold TV (includes all of the premium movie channels), 50/25 Internet, and phone bundle. I like that I have not needed to use tuning adapters with any of my service providers. Verizon does not use them at all, and Cablevision only needs them if you subscribe to some of the international packages or sports packages.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> You flew right by the whole point. The point is that the DVR will be fed guide data to be a DVR for it's life. TiVo is continuing to do that. Ancillary web services have nothing to do with the core DVR functionality that the device was bought for.
> 
> TiVo refuses to update the S3s for MPEG-4, so various MPEG-4 upgrades will slowly obsolete them, but then again, TiVo never advertised them to work with MPEG-4, so I guess it's not that bad. But if there's anything to be pissed about from TiVo's end, it's the lack of an MPEG-4 update, and not the web services thing.


Funny, I was thinking the same of you. After all, TiVo makes it clear in their current TOS that Lifetime Serivice is ALL the services they offer - not just guide data, not just DVR functionality.

And yes, it sucks that the move to MPEG4 is obsoleting certain models. but that's something out of TiVo's control and more in line with the idea of a technological end of life for the product. I understand that if Verizon stops supporting cable card at some point in the future, that my DVR will no longer work with them.

Anyway, maybe we agree on that? Maybe we don't? It doesn't really matter. I just think that tluxon can do more than just complain on this board ... if he wants to, and if it's worth it to him, he can likely convince TiVo to do something about his situation.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Jed1 said:


> This would be my current bill if I use my cable companies 6 tuner Arris Whole Home system with Moxi UI.
> NOTE: Since Gateway is headless you will need a Media Player for each TV.
> Triple Play Plus Pack with HD DVR and 50 meg internet and phone: $160.95
> Premium TV 4 Pack: $51.95
> ...


How about a 6-tuner Roamio Plus with a Mini?

Triple Play Plus Pack with 50meg internet and phone: $154.95
Premium TV 4 Pack: $51.95
HD Technology Fee: $13.00
Taxes and Fees: $11.00
1 Roamio Plus: $350
1 TiVo Mini: $120 (Amazon)
Lifetime: $100 (Special pricing)
$15.84/month
$246.74/month not including the $6/month CableCard rental.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

This comparison only makes sense if the cable company dvr is a good one. Perhaps the Arris is but the Comcast X1 is not and I don't have fios available in my area (and never will since Verizon has abandoned expansion of its footprint).


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

TazExprez said:


> It really depends on your provider.


That's the thing. Jed1's comparison is fundamentally flawed by using a 3-year time period instead of 4, but on top of that, Jed1's MSO is offering equipment for half-price compared to what the industry standards are of about $10/mo for each additional box. It's virtually impossible to compete with those sorts of prices. I wonder why they are so cheap. Maybe competition from satellite? If they buried the equipment costs in the monthly package price, which is the opposite of what most providers do, then they end up acting in an anti-competitive way towards TiVo. Most MSOs recognize that they will probably make 100x more on overpriced equipment fees than they lose to the few users who get TiVo because it ends up being cheaper.



jonw747 said:


> Funny, I was thinking the same of you. After all, TiVo makes it clear in their current TOS that Lifetime Serivice is ALL the services they offer - not just guide data, not just DVR functionality.


Well, you were thinking wrong. I'm actually looking at the reality of it here, not just ignoring what TiVo IS.



> And yes, it sucks that the move to MPEG4 is obsoleting certain models. but that's something out of TiVo's control and more in line with the idea of a technological end of life for the product.


NO. You're 100% wrong on that. The Series 3 has MPEG-4 decoding hardware in it, TiVo is obsoleting the units by refusing to push the software update out that would enable the existing hardware, because they want to force people to upgrade. So it is 100% a TiVo issue and 0% a Comcast issue. Granted, the box was never advertised to work with MPEG-4 in the first place, so you could argue that angle, but from a technical perspective, the ball is solely in TiVo's court.



randian said:


> This comparison only makes sense if the cable company dvr is a good one. Perhaps the Arris is but the Comcast X1 is not and I don't have fios available in my area (and never will since Verizon has abandoned expansion of its footprint).


True. TiVo is clearly a better DVR, but better and cheaper are two different arguments providing two different types of value. There is an argument that maybe TiVo should be more innovative in software, and advertise why TiVo is better, not that they are cheaper. Commercial skip is a good first step, profiles would be another great feature to advertise. Wishlists are fairly easy to advertise too, and TiVo hasn't done a good job at that, since they've had them forever.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> NO. You're 100% wrong on that. The Series 3 has MPEG-4 decoding hardware in it, TiVo is obsoleting the units by refusing to push the software update out that would enable the existing hardware, because they want to force people to upgrade. So it is 100% a TiVo issue and 0% a Comcast issue. Granted, the box was never advertised to work with MPEG-4 in the first place, so you could argue that angle, but from a technical perspective, the ball is solely in TiVo's court.


There's no argument. They're not taking something away, if the box never supported it AND they never promised or implied it would. It doesn't matter if the cost to provide an MPEG-4 solution is millions of dollars or nothing.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

tluxon said:


> I thought his comparison was legit and you didn't. Welcome to the real world. We don't all see things through the eyes of those telling us what we're supposed to see.


Many people can't tell a bad comparison from a good one. YOu're free to be in that camp.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

trip1eX said:


> Many people can't tell a bad comparison from a good one. YOu're free to be in that camp.


Here's the problem. Remember when you said this?

"No one really cares about what equipment you personally choose. Never about that. I know I don't care."

What you're ignoring is that all decisions are personal and the market as a whole is just the collection of all those individual choices.

If people keep coming to the conclusion that TiVo isn't a good deal for them, the solution isn't to tell them they're dumb. lol


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

TazExprez said:


> It really depends on your provider. When I had Verizon FiOS, I was paying $92.00 per month for their Quantum TV Premium seven room setup. Once I went with TiVo, I was only paying $10.00 for two CCs ($5.00 each). The Quantum TV Premium setup includes two six tuner Arris DVRs and the rest of your boxes are just small clients for the DVRs.
> 
> Now I have Cablevision's Optimum service and pay $6.00 for three CCs ($2.00 each) and a $1.50 additional outlet fee for having more than one CC. If I were to rent their boxes, I would have to pay for seven boxes at a rate of $7.80 per box and $12.95 (free for the first year) for the 15 tuner cloud DVR. I would also have to pay $0.24 in rental fees for the remotes.
> 
> ...


First, stick with the discounted Roamios. If I did not have these two Premiere 4s I would have bought two base Roamios at the close out price. If you have no need for 4k Netflix then the Bolt is not necessary in your case.

My cable system is small and they do not get good deals for programming so they have to make their packages more attractive with low cost hardware. This is the area they have more leeway in pricing. They can extend out the number of years to recoup the cost of buying the hardware in order to show lower pricing. 
They also include the monthly guide data cost into the base programming package and not include it in the monthly hardware cost. They also discount the HD program fee if you subscribe to one of their HD DVR packages. These packages also include the DVR service charge and that is not included in the price of the hardware.

If you look at the package I have compared to the same package with the HD DVR included, my package is only $6/month less. The problem is I have to pay an additional $30/month to get HD, where that is included in the HD DVR package. 
That means I have to pay $7/month more just to get HD and use a TiVo. Then when you include in the cost of the TiVo the TiVo becomes a disadvantage.

The bigger systems can discount the programming costs since they have enough subs to defray the cost of the teaser rates. If these providers start moving the guide and DVR service charges off of their monthly hardware costs then TiVo will fall out of advantage with these companies.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

jonw747 said:


> How about a 6-tuner Roamio Plus with a Mini?
> 
> Triple Play Plus Pack with 50meg internet and phone: $154.95
> Premium TV 4 Pack: $51.95
> ...


I only have TiVo for two years so I would not qualify for that deal. Besides I do not want another cable only DVR as I may not be able to afford cable TV much longer.
I should have jumped at the Roamio basic deal but I decided to wait to see what the Bolt would bring. I am kind of sorry that I did as the pricing is not good for me.

I basically did the price comparison for people who would be new to TiVo as TiVo needs new subscribers and not the same old customers buying their products over and over again.
People who are jumping on the Bolt that already own TiVo's is not really helping TiVo to accomplish their goals.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

Bigg said:


> That's the thing. Jed1's comparison is fundamentally flawed by using a 3-year time period instead of 4, but on top of that, Jed1's MSO is offering equipment for half-price compared to what the industry standards are of about $10/mo for each additional box. It's virtually impossible to compete with those sorts of prices. I wonder why they are so cheap. Maybe competition from satellite? If they buried the equipment costs in the monthly package price, which is the opposite of what most providers do, then they end up acting in an anti-competitive way towards TiVo. Most MSOs recognize that they will probably make 100x more on overpriced equipment fees than they lose to the few users who get TiVo because it ends up being cheaper.


I did a five year cost comparison and TiVo lost.

My cable company is small and belongs to the NCTC (National Cable Television Cooperative) and the Coop negotiates the retransmission deals so my cable system has no leverage with the programming prices.
https://www.nctconline.org/index.php/about-us/member-sites
https://www.nctconline.org/

The only leverage they have is through the equipment charges. What they have done is removed the guide data charge and the VOD software charge from the hardware and hid it in the basic TV package.
They also removed the DVR service charge from the DVRs and stuck it inside the HD DVR programming bundle packages. They then discount them packages by cutting the charge for the HD channels. They also use the pricing on the internet packages to help subsidize the package costs.
They also index the cost of buying the box over a 5 year period. Most bigger operators do this over a 3 year period.

So they are not offering the hardware for discounted prices. They are just removing some of the other pricing traditionally included in the price of the hardware and putting it elsewhere.
There is other operators that are starting to move in this general direction so don't be surprised to see some of the bigger operators do this soon.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Jed1 said:


> I only have TiVo for two years so I would not qualify for that deal. Besides I do not want another cable only DVR as I may not be able to afford cable TV much longer.
> I should have jumped at the Roamio basic deal but I decided to wait to see what the Bolt would bring. I am kind of sorry that I did as the pricing is not good for me.
> 
> I basically did the price comparison for people who would be new to TiVo as TiVo needs new subscribers and not the same old customers buying their products over and over again.
> People who are jumping on the Bolt that already own TiVo's is not really helping TiVo to accomplish their goals.


Well, for those who are sure they won't need Cable, the Roamio OTA with Lifetime is still being offered on Amazon for $300. 

Alas, it does lack stream support just like the base Roamio.


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## Jed1 (Jun 18, 2013)

jonw747 said:


> Well, for those who are sure they won't need Cable, the Roamio OTA with Lifetime is still being offered on Amazon for $300.
> 
> Alas, it does lack stream support just like the base Roamio.


I prefer the base as it gives you both options. If I could afford a Bolt it would be the 4 tuner one TiVo is currently selling. The base unit is a far more flexible device and a better value overall.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

jonw747 said:


> Here's the problem. Remember when you said this?
> 
> "No one really cares about what equipment you personally choose. Never about that. I know I don't care."
> 
> ...


 Who said telling someone that they are free to not know the difference between a good and bad comparison was any sort of solution to whatever problem you're talking about?!??!?!


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## Rassilon (Jun 20, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> Well, for those who are sure they won't need Cable, the Roamio OTA with Lifetime is still being offered on Amazon for $300.
> 
> Alas, it does lack stream support just like the base Roamio.


The OTA lacks an internal stream but will still work with the standalone stream (such as is paired w/a Premiere) correct?


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

Jed1 said:


> So they are not offering the hardware for discounted prices. They are just removing some of the other pricing traditionally included in the price of the hardware and putting it elsewhere.


They're just hiding the true cost of the DVRs, just like 2-year mobile phone contracts that let you buy iPhones for $200 hide the true cost of the phone. It has the ancillary effect of making non-DVR and TiVo customers more profitable because both are paying hidden fees for a DVR product they aren't using.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

jonw747 said:


> Well, for those who are sure they won't need Cable, the Roamio OTA with Lifetime is still being offered on Amazon for $300.  Alas, it does lack stream support just like the base Roamio.


Here's an easy solution. Find a used Roamio basic on ebay, etc for cheap. Buy the Amazon Roamio OTA with Lifetime for $300. Take the Cablecard bracket out of the Roamio basic and put it in the ota and voila, a cable/ota lifetime Roamio for about $350, plus you have a backup Roamio basic to use for parts!


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Rassilon said:


> The OTA lacks an internal stream but will still work with the standalone stream (such as is paired w/a Premiere) correct?


Yes.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

3.3 out of 5 Stars on Amazon, some very poor reviews.

What a flop.

These are from the non-enthusiasts Bahr thinks will save Tivo with the Volt.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

foghorn2 said:


> 3.3 out of 5 Stars on Amazon, some very poor reviews.
> 
> What a flop.
> 
> These are from the non-enthusiasts Bahr thinks will save Tivo with the Volt.


To be fair it looks like 3 out of 4 of the negative reviews were from what appears to be existing tivo customers.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> Well, for those who are sure they won't need Cable, the Roamio OTA with Lifetime is still being offered on Amazon for $300.


Heh, just hope you're not in any hurry to get it up-and-running for Fall TV...

Usually ships within 2 to 5 weeks.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

(2am Central/US, 13Oct; link)​


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## Jrr6415sun (Mar 31, 2006)

krkaufman said:


> If those old units keep humming along, TiVo may need to consider only releasing select new features to their newest gear, to spur sales.


You mean like skip mode


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

krkaufman said:


> Heh, just hope you're not in any hurry to get it up-and-running for Fall TV...
> 
> Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
> 
> (2am Central/US, 13Oct; link)​


Heh, thought I almost had a steal when I saw the prices on the model selection buttons. Unfortunately, the labels are just backwards and they still have the correct pricing on each model.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

krkaufman said:


> Heh, thought I almost had a steal when I saw the prices on the model selection buttons. Unfortunately, the labels are just backwards and they still have the correct pricing on each model.


I chatted with a AZ rep and he assured me I will get the Lifetime, its on paper and will hold them to it. 

Screenshots and chat saved.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Jrr6415sun said:


> You mean like skip mode


Ok, I might have been a wee bit petty with that comment, but I expect all the people griping about the BOLT and not having all its features rolled down to older units right-GD-now! had eroded my patience.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

Skip mode on the Roamios would be nice, but for me exercising my thumbs to skip commercials is a good thing. Plus, there are commercials I might want to see.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

foghorn2 said:


> Skip mode on the Roamios would be nice, but for me exercising my thumbs to skip commercials is a good thing. Plus, there are commercials I might want to see.


I might pay TiVo something to be able to automatically skip commercials on my Roamio. You'd think they'd want some more of my money? It's a nice feature but it alone doesn't justify spending $900 to upgrade to a Bolt.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

jonw747 said:


> I might pay TiVo something to be able to automatically skip commercials on my Roamio. You'd think they'd want some more of my money? It's a nice feature but it alone doesn't justify spending $900 to upgrade to a Bolt.


Great point. Plus if you already have a great running system with saved recordings thats a lot of money and loss of recordings and time to migrate.


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## b_scott (Nov 27, 2006)

BobCamp1 said:


> The life of the DVR is 3-4 years tops.


well that's just not true. Both my Premieres are 5.5 years old and running fine.


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## Jrr6415sun (Mar 31, 2006)

foghorn2 said:


> I chatted with a AZ rep and he assured me I will get the Lifetime, its on paper and will hold them to it.
> 
> Screenshots and chat saved.


AZ reps are mindless drones with no real knowledge of the products. They go by what is written on amazons site. If it doesn't come with lifetime the best you will get is a free return label.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> There's no argument. They're not taking something away, if the box never supported it AND they never promised or implied it would. It doesn't matter if the cost to provide an MPEG-4 solution is millions of dollars or nothing.


I agree that they never advertised it to be MPEG-4 compatible, and never promised it to be. Still, it's rotten to not push the software patch when it is such a simple update.



Jed1 said:


> I did a five year cost comparison and TiVo lost





> There is other operators that are starting to move in this general direction so don't be surprised to see some of the bigger operators do this soon.


The big MSOs aren't going to give up the massive revenue from box rentals, while being able to advertise low prices on the monthly packages.

Unfortunately, since your MSO is doing some whacky accounting, TiVo won't be cheaper for you.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

foghorn2 said:


> 3.3 out of 5 Stars on Amazon, some very poor reviews.
> 
> What a flop.
> 
> These are from the non-enthusiasts Bahr thinks will save Tivo with the Volt.


It's 4.5 out of 5 stars for the 1TB version. All 3 to 5 star reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/TiVo-BOLT-Uni...d=1444777066&sr=1-1&keywords=TiVo+BOLT+1000GB


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> I agree that they never advertised it to be MPEG-4 compatible, and never promised it to be. Still, it's rotten to not push the software patch when it is such a simple update.


What makes you say it'd be a simple update?

Holding something they have back to force customers to upgrade would be rotten; but if they don't have it, it's not free or even necessarily possible to develop it.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> What makes you say it'd be a simple update?
> 
> Holding something they have back to force customers to upgrade would be rotten; but if they don't have it, it's not free or even necessarily possible to develop it.


The NZ models have the MPEG-4 software, they chose not to apply the same update to US models. Also, they can stream MPEG-4 video over a network, just not from CableCard, so all of the fundamental pieces are in place.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> The NZ models have the MPEG-4 software, they chose not to apply the same update to US models. Also, they can stream MPEG-4 video over a network, just not from CableCard, so all of the fundamental pieces are in place.


Well then, sucks it is, but it's still not the same as taking something away that used to work.

In both cases, the primary problem is one of perception. As a new TiVo owner, I'd like to think that TiVo will continue to support my purchase for many years to come. Whereas an owner of a TiVoHD may be thinking why should I upgrade to a newer model if they're just going to pull the plug on me again?


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## Series3Sub (Mar 14, 2010)

Jed1 said:


> I did a five year cost comparison and TiVo lost.
> 
> My cable company is small and belongs to the NCTC (National Cable Television Cooperative) and the Coop negotiates the retransmission deals so my cable system has no leverage with the programming prices.
> https://www.nctconline.org/index.php/about-us/member-sites
> ...


I would add that cable and sat provide upgrades because of tech changes FREE OF CHARGE to its subscribers such as change from MPEG 2 to MPEG 4 or modulation schemes, for example. I don't think the TiVo lovers here have ever factored in the number of times and the cost of upgrades that are ALL on them, or how they made a huge investment with the S3 648 to only have it bricked in the coming months and TiVo only offering to take more of their money.

TiVo _MIGHT_ provide an overall better value, but TiVo fans forget that it takes a bucket full of money to walk into and buy stuff at Costco for all its superior value, but most people lack the bankroll and can't afford to come to the Costco party. People are NOT as stupid as the TiVo cheering squad believes. People know they are probably getting a lower value when they pay a monthly charge to have a cable or Sat box (Dish does NOT charge for the first and most expensive box monthly cost) and a DVR fee, but they can AFFORD the small hit each month, and could NEVER scrounge up the, NOW, $600 Lifetime AND the cost for the box. That leaves no money for even a Mini. The result is the cable/sat model has allowed MILLIONS to enjoy a DVR at a cost they can afford--PER MONTH. The alternative would be those millions NEVER having access to a DVR because TiVo's model just isn't economically egalitarian.

The TiVo model probably may not survive for the retail end, and I do hope TiVo survives for OUR sake. Perhaps the MSO and offshore TiVo business could carry them through, but I sure did not get that feeling from Ira Bahr. But economics are what they are.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Uncertainty is another factor in deciding whether to invest in TiVo. While it does work across different cable systems, not everyone has that choice (unless they move). They may want to bounce around between Cable and Satellite to get the best deal, and their cable card TiVo won't work with Satellite.

I got a month to month deal when I signed up with FIOS, and if for any reason I didn't like their service or equipment, I could return it all.

Personally, I'm primarily concerned with my recordings, and the ability to transfer or backup recordings is huge to me. Our backlog of recordings has a lot of inertia, and it's not easy to switch DVRs or services because of it.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> Well then, sucks it is, but it's still not the same as taking something away that used to work.


True. TiVo never promised MPEG-4 decoding, never advertised it, and never offered it. So you could argue that this a non-issue. It's still sort of rotten of TiVo to not just push the darn update out.



> In both cases, the primary problem is one of perception. As a new TiVo owner, I'd like to think that TiVo will continue to support my purchase for many years to come. Whereas an owner of a TiVoHD may be thinking why should I upgrade to a newer model if they're just going to pull the plug on me again?


Yes, this is true, although I doubt that even most of the people affected by it are people who go on this forum and know that the TiVoHD actually has the hardware in it. Even most of the minority who understands what MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 actually are don't know the specifics of the TiVoHD.



Series3Sub said:


> I don't think the TiVo lovers here have ever factored in the number of times and the cost of upgrades that are ALL on them, or how they made a huge investment with the S3 648 to only have it bricked in the coming months and TiVo only offering to take more of their money.


The S3's are not getting bricked, as they will still work with SD, locals, other cable companies, and OTA. Further, if you actually bother to do the math out, then you'd realize that those boxes that are getting squeezed off Comcast have paid for themselves plus some. The last Series 3's were made in 2008 according to TiVopedia, and IIRC, they were $650 with Lifetime. The "equivalent" Comcast box (a DCT or DCH is NOT anything like a TiVo, but they are the "fair" comparison from a hardware perspective) would have been a continuous $15-$20/mo. Even at the low end, the equivalent Comcast box would have cost upwards of $1500 in that same time period.

Even looking at secondary TVs and discounting additional CableCard outlet costs, you're still looking at boxes that _have paid for themselves one and a half times by the most conservative estimates_, without accounting for their current value of $150-$200 on Ebay, presumably people buying them for OTA. I'm not trying to justify what TiVo is doing with them by not updating them to handle MPEG-4, I'm just laying out the economic realities that you refuse to acknowledge.



> People know they are probably getting a lower value when they pay a monthly charge to have a cable or Sat box (Dish does NOT charge for the first and most expensive box monthly cost) and a DVR fee, but they can AFFORD the small hit each month, and could NEVER scrounge up the, NOW, $600 Lifetime AND the cost for the box.


Now you're getting into Americans buying crap they can't afford, which is a whole different problem. Although if people didn't buy crap they couldn't afford, our economy would be a mess because car sales would be significantly lower, as would sales of a lot of other consumer goods and services.



> The TiVo model probably may not survive for the retail end, and I do hope TiVo survives for OUR sake.


The retail TiVo model survives as long as there are MSOs would want similar hardware so that they can spread the development costs around. The Roamio Plus/Pro was built in part for RCN as the T6, but the retail units are lower volume, higher margin, so they probably still make a decent amount of money.



jonw747 said:


> Uncertainty is another factor in deciding whether to invest in TiVo. While it does work across different cable systems, not everyone has that choice (unless they move). They may want to bounce around between Cable and Satellite to get the best deal, and their cable card TiVo won't work with Satellite.
> 
> I got a month to month deal when I signed up with FIOS, and if for any reason I didn't like their service or equipment, I could return it all.


It depends on your situation. Since you're lucky enough to have FIOS, you could switch to cable and keep TiVo. Some people have 3 CableCard providers, but most do not. Some people are basically locked into cable anyways because of bundles, LOS issues, apartments, etc, but others are not. Hopefully the successor to CableCard will address this issue and make devices that are compatible with all types of TV services.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> It depends on your situation. Since you're lucky enough to have FIOS, you could switch to cable and keep TiVo. Some people have 3 CableCard providers, but most do not. Some people are basically locked into cable anyways because of bundles, LOS issues, apartments, etc, but others are not. Hopefully the successor to CableCard will address this issue and make devices that are compatible with all types of TV services.


My other cable provider is Cox. I'm not sure I'd call that lucky. 

More options sure would be nice, and yeah, we may get that if an IP solution manages to move forward.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> My other cable provider is Cox. I'm not sure I'd call that lucky.
> 
> More options sure would be nice, and yeah, we may get that if an IP solution manages to move forward.


We need a gateway type of solution that works with all providers. It will end up being IP, but IP is not the point of it per se.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

jonw747 said:


> Uncertainty is another factor in deciding whether to invest in TiVo. While it does work across different cable systems, not everyone has that choice (unless they move). They may want to bounce around between Cable and Satellite to get the best deal, and their cable card TiVo won't work with Satellite.
> 
> 
> > Unfortunately creating a box that is interoperable between cable and DSS is not currently possible. In fact DSS is currently exempt from the separable security rules, so it's not even possible to make a box that works with DSS at all without their permission and support.
> ...


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Unfortunately creating a box that is interoperable between cable and DSS is not currently possible. In fact DSS is currently exempt from the separable security rules, so it's not even possible to make a box that works with DSS at all without their permission and support.
> 
> That's why I'm so adamantly for a gateway style system replacing CableCARDs. It would push the "tuner" technology off to the gateway device so that a TiVo box would be compatible with ANY linear TV service.


That's just the thing, it's perfectly technologically possible, although it's true that it's not possible for TiVo, since DirecTV won't let them on their system. Nor would it be terribly practical, since it would ex super expensive to make a box with SWiM and CableCard equipment in it.

Yes, we definitely need a universal replacement for CableCard. I like the Gateway idea. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that they are going to end up putting the DVR in the gateway and then basically having smart TVs act as thin clients. In the process, they could offer a basic raw video stream for TiVos and other devices, but in the process require you to effectively rent their DVR, not use it, and just pass the video off to your DVR of choice, making it more expensive for people not using their DVR.

The current unfortunate one is AT&T U-Verse, as current TiVos have the hardware to support it (basically an Ethernet jack), but AT&T won't let TiVo access their systems to authenticate and write software to support it.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> Unfortunately creating a box that is interoperable between cable and DSS is not currently possible. In fact DSS is currently exempt from the separable security rules, so it's not even possible to make a box that works with DSS at all without their permission and support.
> 
> That's why I'm so adamantly for a gateway style system replacing CableCARDs. It would push the "tuner" technology off to the gateway device so that a TiVo box would be compatible with ANY linear TV service.


Yes, that would be great to insure the future viability of standalone devices like the TiVo, but that may not be where the market is going. There's a lot that needs to be shaken out and a lot of vested interests that need to be navigated and there may be no room for additional complexities.

For instance if I want to watch TV on my phone, a gateway box makes no sense.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> For instance if I want to watch TV on my phone, a gateway box makes no sense.


That works fine with current systems, as it's done over the internet anyway, so it doesn't have to interface with CableCard or anything else. We're looking at linear and VOD signals, not apps.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

jonw747 said:


> For instance if I want to watch TV on my phone, a gateway box makes no sense.


Uh yeah it does, if you want to watch recorded TV just like you do on a Tivo. Which means it's under your control, not some random cable app's.

And that means you need the gateway to work with your Tivo (and then to your phone).


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> That works fine with current systems, as it's done over the internet anyway, so it doesn't have to interface with CableCard or anything else. We're looking at linear and VOD signals, not apps.


My point here is that networking and viewing can be achieved many different ways, and requiring a gateway device to watch TV doesn't make sense for all of those methods.

The more I think about it, the more a gateway seems like a really bad idea moving forward. Interoperability can be achieved, but it would best be done at the driver level in the device; not by freezing innovation or requiring unnecessary hardware.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

slowbiscuit said:


> Uh yeah it does, if you want to watch recorded TV just like you do on a Tivo. Which means it's under your control, not some random cable app's.
> 
> And that means you need the gateway to work with your Tivo (and then to your phone).


The idea is in the future it would all be streaming video. We don't need a "gateway" to display Netflix in a 3rd party App, what we need is an open definition or driver for Netflix that can be used by 3rd party Apps. Something that can be updated by Netflix as needed to enhance compression or security.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> My point here is that networking and viewing can be achieved many different ways, and requiring a gateway device to watch TV doesn't make sense for all of those methods.
> 
> The more I think about it, the more a gateway seems like a really bad idea moving forward. Interoperability can be achieved, but it would best be done at the driver level in the device; not by freezing innovation or requiring unnecessary hardware.


The gateway allows any service to work with any third party box. Since cable uses QAM, there has to be a place for the QAM tuners that can easily be swapped out for one with the appropriate equipment for DBS- therefore the gateway. Without the gateway, you don't have any signals, as you have to tune them somewhere.

Maybe at some point way in the future, everything will be IP, and cable won't need a gateway at all- but that point is WAY in the future.



jonw747 said:


> The idea is in the future it would all be streaming video. We don't need a "gateway" to display Netflix in a 3rd party App, what we need is an open definition or driver for Netflix that can be used by 3rd party Apps. Something that can be updated by Netflix as needed to enhance compression or security.


I don't think anyone is realistically thinking that. There is a market and a demand for linear programming moving forward. And as long as there is linear programming, there is the need for a DVR. Hence, the need for a replacement for CableCard.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> The gateway allows any service to work with any third party box. Since cable uses QAM, there has to be a place for the QAM tuners that can easily be swapped out for one with the appropriate equipment for DBS- therefore the gateway. Without the gateway, you don't have any signals, as you have to tune them somewhere.
> 
> Maybe at some point way in the future, everything will be IP, and cable won't need a gateway at all- but that point is WAY in the future.
> 
> I don't think anyone is realistically thinking that. There is a market and a demand for linear programming moving forward. And as long as there is linear programming, there is the need for a DVR. Hence, the need for a replacement for CableCard.


Seems to me it might be easier and cheaper for Cable companies to switch to an all IP solution than invent a box that takes their proprietary feed and converts it to IP or some other standard.

And I'm not sure what would convince the DBS manufacturers to play along with anybody unless forced to by legislation. Same problem with the streaming providers. It would be great if Netflix could be recorded by TiVo, but why would they? And why would their content providers let them?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

jonw747 said:


> ...
> And I'm not sure what would convince the DBS manufacturers to play along with anybody unless forced to by legislation.


 Finally after literally thousands of posts someone stumbles upon the only way TiVo or any other third party STB/DVR provider can be successful in the stand alone cable/sat STB/DVR market. And the answer is:

*GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS*

We and the Government wanted an open and competitive market in the cable/sat STB/DVR market to provide consumer choice and foster innovation. Unfortunately cable & sat companies don't want any competition and successfully paid off enough people to get regulations that don't really provide an open and competitive market. To have actually worked the regulations would have had to do the following:

Mandated truly open standards that *all* pay TV providers would have to follow and use on all their hardware.
Mandated that 100% of the services available on a cable/sat company STB/DVR be available through a 3rd party STB/DVR.
Mandate that all cable/sat company hardware and service costs be separated from programming packages.
Mandate that consumers could choose to use third party hardware and not have to pay in any way for the cost of cable/sat hardware it replaces. 
If the above had been done or got done now the way people look at TiVos would completely change and it is likely that in a few years when TiVos patients start to expire we would have many third party choices.



jonw747 said:


> Same problem with the streaming providers. It would be great if Netflix could be recorded by TiVo, but why would they? And why would their content providers let them?


Netflix is an on demand service and it already provides what a DVR provides for "live" programming. There is no reason to expect (or accept) "live" cable TV that isn't record-able no matter how it is delivered.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> Seems to me it might be easier and cheaper for Cable companies to switch to an all IP solution than invent a box that takes their proprietary feed and converts it to IP or some other standard.
> 
> And I'm not sure what would convince the DBS manufacturers to play along with anybody unless forced to by legislation. Same problem with the streaming providers. It would be great if Netflix could be recorded by TiVo, but why would they? And why would their content providers let them?


No. This would be for a relatively small minority of users, and they are not going to structure their entire system around us TiVo users. Yes, they are moving to IP eventually, but it's going to be a long, slow transition. It's not rocket science to make an MSO-friendly version of a SiliconDust HDHR with 8 tuners that uses some different protocols. They did it years ago, I'm sure Arris is perfectly capable of doing it today and adding a bunch of other stuff on top of that.

The replacement for CableCard is intended to require all MVPDs to support it by federal law. Netflix is streaming. We are talking about linear content. Stop trying to confuse the conversation with irrelevant babblings.

The CableCard replacement isn't done yet, but it will likely somehow involve a gateway type of device, because DBS, cable, and IPTV tuners and "tuners" are all incompatible with each other. I suppose that AT&T U-Verse could be supported purely through software, although from a security standpoint, it may benefit them to have an IP to IP gateway, as silly as that sounds. If this method is pursued, from a hardware perspective, there would be a FIOS/cable (QAM) type of gateway, customized and locked down to each MSO, a gateway for DISH's system, one for DirecTV's system, and likely one for U-Verse and other IPTV providers.

The bigger fight is who controls the UI, and what level of access TiVo gets to it. I wouldn't be all that upset if the gateway ends up having it's own interface, as long as TiVo has a method to bypass it, and get direct access to the video. Who knows if the new system will actually lead to new competitors to TiVo and the MSO DVRs, but we can hope.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> The replacement for CableCard is intended to require all MVPDs to support it by federal law. Netflix is streaming. We are talking about linear content. Stop trying to confuse the conversation with irrelevant babblings.


I have a suggestion. You talk about what you want to talk about, and I'll talk about what I want to talk about ... because clearly we are not having a "conversation".


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

But his point is valid - you want streaming to be the answer to everything but it most certainly is not (and it is a very poor substitute for the full control that we have with recordings today). Therefore, there is still a requirement to replace cards for linear access and the FCC/Congress have mandated that this happen.

You can't expect to say we should all get streams and not be challenged on that assertion, because it's not even technically possible for all providers.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

Bigg said:


> There is a market and a demand for linear programming moving forward. And as long as there is linear programming, there is the need for a DVR.


But that market is slowly shrinking. The younger you are, the less traditional TV you watch. Yes, it's still the dominant market today, but how long will it stay that way?

http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/are-young-people-watching-less-tv-24817/

If you're not watching traditional TV, you don't need a DVR. It's a good thing then that the Bolt isn't a DVR. It's a Unified Entertainment System. It's a marketing term, but Ira's team invented it to emphasize that a Tivo can primarily be used to watch online TV. It's the only way Ira can get a young person to consider buying a Tivo, since 18-24 year-olds are only viewing 91 minutes of time-shifted TV per week (DVR and VoD combined).

As these young people grow old, they're not going to suddenly switch to traditional TV. Those 18-24 year-olds will probably be 23-29 year-olds before the next-gen CableCard solution comes out. And who knows what form of TV their kids will be watching.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

BobCamp1 said:


> But that market is slowly shrinking. The younger you are, the less traditional TV you watch. Yes, it's still the dominant market today, but how long will it stay that way?...


Allot longer than the average TiVo Bolt is going to last.

TiVo's problem isn't the people who don't watch OTA/cable/satellite TV. Its that the 80+ million households that do, have to many cable/satellite roadblocks preventing a 3rd party DVR from being a viable solution. Those road blocks can only be removed by Government mandate.

The bottom line is simple if you want a DVR you get a DVR. If you don't want to pay for a DVR then you don't get one. Streaming to Android/iOS and access to streaming services are value added items on a TiVo, that may or may not help TiVo be a better deal than an alternative DVR. But there is zero reason to buy a TiVo if you don't primarily want a DVR and are willing to pay for a DVR.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

slowbiscuit said:


> But his point is valid - you want streaming to be the answer to everything but it most certainly is not (and it is a very poor substitute for the full control that we have with recordings today). Therefore, there is still a requirement to replace cards for linear access and the FCC/Congress have mandated that this happen.
> 
> You can't expect to say we should all get streams and not be challenged on that assertion, because it's not even technically possible for all providers.


Linear access can be provided with TCP/IP. The only case TCP/IP wouldn't work would be if for some reason the provider still wanted to deliver QAM, and if I've made an assumption here, it's that the whole point of this is to open up new ways to deliver content and not be tied down to restrictive technologies.

A gateway device would just be another boat anchor that costs extra money and restricts innovation. Now if the Cable providers actually wanted this in order to protect their content, that would be one thing, but if they're open to a software solution that can be shared with companies that wish to develop DVRs and other types of interfaces to content, then that's what they should do.

But perhaps TiVo doesn't want it, because without some kind of proprietary device in the middle, the market would fly wide open and DVR capabilities (if allowed) could be built in to just about anything.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> I have a suggestion. You talk about what you want to talk about, and I'll talk about what I want to talk about ... because clearly we are not having a "conversation".


No. You made a nonsensical statement comparing Netflix to the IP delivery of linear content to a DVR. That's just obfuscation and trying to confuse the issues to try and drive home some sort of point.



slowbiscuit said:


> But his point is valid - you want streaming to be the answer to everything but it most certainly is not (and it is a very poor substitute for the full control that we have with recordings today).





BobCamp1 said:


> But that market is slowly shrinking. The younger you are, the less traditional TV you watch.





atmuscarella said:


> TiVo's problem isn't the people who don't watch OTA/cable/satellite TV. Its that the 80+ million households that do, have to many cable/satellite roadblocks preventing a 3rd party DVR from being a viable solution. Those road blocks can only be removed by Government mandate.


All very astute points. Linear TV, and a DVR of some sort is going to be around for quite some time to come. Maybe someday, everything will be VOD, or streaming "events", although I'd bet a good number on this forum hope that day will never come, as we would have to give up local control.



> But there is zero reason to buy a TiVo if you don't primarily want a DVR and are willing to pay for a DVR.


Correct. If you don't want cable or OTA, then you're looking at a Roku or a FireTV or a Chromcast or Apple TV or whatever.



jonw747 said:


> Linear access can be provided with TCP/IP. The only case TCP/IP wouldn't work would be if for some reason the provider still wanted to deliver QAM, and if I've made an assumption here, it's that the whole point of this is to open up new ways to deliver content and not be tied down to restrictive technologies.


Cable providers deliver their signals using QAM. They are going to continue using QAM for quite some time. There is no reason to deliver the same channels via IP that are already delivered via QAM, as it takes, for the same channels at a given time, 1.5x the bandwidth assuming MPEG-2 encoding over QAM and MPEG-4 over IP. They are not going to do this. Therefore, something needs to decode the QAM signals into IP for distribution within the home if IP is going to be how DVRs are made universal. It's quite possible that we will see some hybrid of QAM and IP at first, with sports packages and international channels delivered via IP, and eventually more channels moved over and equipment is upgraded, but migration of current content is a ways down the road.



> A gateway device would just be another boat anchor that costs extra money and restricts innovation.


No. Not at all. A gateway opens up the market. With a gateway, any DVR can now use any content source by acting as a bridge between systems. What would be ridiculously expensive is to start building TiVos that have DirecTV hardware, DISH hardware, QAM hardware, and ATSC-8VSB hardware. And then they would also have obsolescence problems, especially on the satellite side. Move to a gateway, and now you just replace the gateway and keep the DVR if DirecTV changes something, or if you switch from DirecTV to FIOS or cable or OTA or whatever. You could potentially even have multiple gateways for different content sources, i.e. DirecTV and OTA.

Secondly, even if cable and FIOS delivered everything via IP next year (they're not going to be), you still have to deal with physical tuners for DirecTV. It *might* make sense for U-Verse to go directly via IP in software with no gateway, and FIOS to convert to IPTV since they have a huge amount of fiber bandwidth on their GPON systems, but other than that, a gateway is going to be required for tuning signals, and making them available via a network.

Even on IPTV systems, it may be advantageous to have a small gateway device just to handle the encryption, so that the DVRs themselves can "speak" a single, unified language, and not have to deal with a handful of different and basically incompatible encryption schemes. These boxes would likely be more like a TiVo stream, while DirecTV's hardware would have to be significantly bigger to handle 5 or 6 or 8 SWiM tuners plus the encryption and networking gear.



> But perhaps TiVo doesn't want it, because without some kind of proprietary device in the middle, the market would fly wide open and DVR capabilities (if allowed) could be built in to just about anything.


That doesn't even make any sense. Something still has to tune the DBS or QAM or ATSC-8VSB signals for the majority of users.

What I'd like to see is an 8-tuner TiVo that would work with whatever the gateway standard ends up being. That would be nirvana for a lot of folks on this forum!


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> No. You made a nonsensical statement comparing Netflix to the IP delivery of linear content to a DVR. That's just obfuscation and trying to confuse the issues to try and drive home some sort of point.


No, it's a case of you acting like an ass.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> TiVo's problem isn't the people who don't watch OTA/cable/satellite TV. Its that the 80+ million households that do, have to many cable/satellite roadblocks preventing a 3rd party DVR from being a viable solution. Those road blocks can only be removed by Government mandate.


Who else besides Tivo even wants to build a box for a shrinking market where the existing solution has been a failure and your technical and business partners are being dragged in kicking and screaming? And where one of your competitors will immediate sue you for patent infringement?

A third party DVR is not a viable solution because it is simply not profitable. 
A government mandate will remove only one of the many road blocks, and will cause the MSOs to simply erect others in its place.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> No, it's a case of you acting like an ass.


I am not the one making nonsensical comments to try and distract from the conversation. You are.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> I am not the one making nonsensical comments to try and distract from the conversation. You are.


This is pretty simple stuff. If you want to have a conversation with someone don't be a jerk. And if you can't handle that? Ignore them.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

jonw747 said:


> No, it's a case of you acting like an ass.


C'mon man there's no need for this crap. If you want to discuss your view of what will happen then do it, don't attack him because you don't like being challenged. Nothing he said was a personal attack on you, but you're trying to avoid the arguments being made and turn it into one.

You haven't been here long and haven't seen posting histories unless you were lurking. You're making some good points here (even if some disagree) and there's no need to go down this road.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

BobCamp1 said:


> If you're not watching traditional TV, you don't need a DVR. It's a good thing then that the Bolt isn't a DVR. It's a Unified Entertainment System. It's a marketing term, but Ira's team invented it to emphasize that a Tivo can primarily be used to watch online TV. It's the only way Ira can get a young person to consider buying a Tivo, since 18-24 year-olds are only viewing 91 minutes of time-shifted TV per week (DVR and VoD combined).
> 
> As these young people grow old, they're not going to suddenly switch to traditional TV. Those 18-24 year-olds will probably be 23-29 year-olds before the next-gen CableCard solution comes out. And who knows what form of TV their kids will be watching.


But the problem here is that these same youngsters see a Tivo as a DVR no matter how Tivo markets it, then see the monthly fee and go WTF, then go buy the Roku/Android TV/Apple TV or just use their phone and smart TV.

The Bolt is doomed in these markets UNLESS they also want to watch and record OTA. But even then, no one wants the fee.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> But the problem here is that these same youngsters see a Tivo as a DVR no matter how Tivo markets it, then see the monthly fee and go WTF, then go buy the Roku/Android TV/Apple TV or just use their phone and smart TV.
> 
> The Bolt is doomed in these markets UNLESS they also want to watch and record OTA. But even then, no one wants the fee.


You don't need a DVR to watch OTA content. I just watched The Flash on the CW website while waiting in a doctor's office. I have better controls than a Tivo would provide, it is available wherever I am, and it was free. It's funny that a 45-year old like me never thought to this before, but my kids do this all the time.

I think the Bolt line is Tivo's last gasp in the retail market. They're trying to make it look "cool" by making it bent and white, but nobody under the age of 35 really needs it for anything because that's not how they watch TV shows.


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## randian (Jan 15, 2014)

BobCamp1 said:


> You don't need a DVR to watch OTA content.


You do for other networks. You can't even use their websites to view episodes unless you have a cable TV subscription.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

slowbiscuit said:


> But the problem here is that these same youngsters see a Tivo as a DVR no matter how Tivo markets it, then see the monthly fee and go WTF, then go buy the Roku/Android TV/Apple TV or just use their phone and smart TV.
> 
> The Bolt is doomed in these markets UNLESS they also want to watch and record OTA. But even then, no one wants the fee.


Yeah, you're probably right. For a TiVo OTA to be successful with young "cord-nevers," they would probably need to advertise heavily in places those folks are watching (YouTube, Hulu, various free online video sources, etc.) and let them know that there's a lot of free, current, popular HD programs to be had just by putting up a cheap antenna behind their TV and that they can capture all that programming with a TiVo for a monthly fee about the same price as Hulu (assuming TiVo would charge around $10 a month for the ongoing fee -- who knows what pricing will ultimately be for the TiVo Bolt OTA when it rolls out.) There's also the benefit of TiVo integrating and organizing programming from multiple sources (OTA, Netflix, Amazon, etc.) but, honestly, I'm not sure if cord-nevers even care about that given that they're already so used to hunting and pecking around in so many different apps and interfaces for their entertainment.
Admittedly, luring cord-nevers to TiVo versus streaming boxes like Roku and Apple TV is an uphill battle.

I think a TiVo OTA product is a more natural fit for cord-cutters, like me, than for cord-nevers. Cord-cutters are already used to having had a cable DVR that conveniently records and organizes all the shows they want, making time-shifting and ad-avoidance simple. Yes, I decided there was a lot of cable content I no longer wanted to pay for but there was no way I wanted to give up the benefits of a DVR when I cut the cord. And there just aren't many options available in the OTA DVR market. TiVo is easily the best choice for folks leaving cable for a combination of OTA and streaming. Whether that's a big enough group of people to make the upcoming Bolt OTA a success is questionable, but I think that's the group that TiVo has to pitch to.


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

BobCamp1 said:


> You don't need a DVR to watch OTA content. I just watched The Flash on the CW website while waiting in a doctor's office. I have better controls than a Tivo would provide, it is available wherever I am, and it was free. It's funny that a 45-year old like me never thought to this before, but my kids do this all the time.
> 
> I think the Bolt line is Tivo's last gasp in the retail market. They're trying to make it look "cool" by making it bent and white, but nobody under the age of 35 really needs it for anything because that's not how they watch TV shows.


I agree accept that even the networks are not releasing all of the content they play. NBC for example has the DR Phil show which my wife loves but it is not available online even from Hulu as it is a syndicated program. So we have to record it off our local OTA network channel.

I think we will need a DVR solution for some time to come but the DVR will just be one peace of the puzzle. We need to either be able to record online streams like Playon/Playrecord does or have access to VOD streams.

I also see other competitors to Tivo on the horizon. Silicondust is coming out with a DVR solution that uses its network HDHR tuners and could easily be integrated into a home made into an all in one solution using Roku,FireTv most any other Android or PC. They are currently testing it with Kodi but upon release it will have apps/channels for Plex and all the streaming devices.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

slowbiscuit said:


> But his point is valid - you want streaming to be the answer to everything but it most certainly is not (and it is a very poor substitute for the full control that we have with recordings today). Therefore, there is still a requirement to replace cards for linear access and the FCC/Congress have mandated that this happen.


Except I didn't say I wanted streaming to be the answer to everything, I said a software solution is superior to a hardware solution and could incorporate any means of accessing the material.



slowbiscuit said:


> You can't expect to say we should all get streams and not be challenged on that assertion, because it's not even technically possible for all providers.


Not streams ... IP in one form or another.

Now if they want to lose Cablecards, but keep on designing STBs and DVRs that use QAM and install in an all QAM home, then some kind of extra hardware could be offered in lieu of CableCards to convert it to IP ... but that's still where they should be heading.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> This is pretty simple stuff. If you want to have a conversation with someone don't be a jerk. And if you can't handle that? Ignore them.


Then don't try and make nonsense statements to obfuscate from the discussion. I can see right through them.



davefred99 said:


> I also see other competitors to Tivo on the horizon. Silicondust is coming out with a DVR solution that uses its network HDHR tuners and could easily be integrated into a home made into an all in one solution using Roku,FireTv most any other Android or PC. They are currently testing it with Kodi but upon release it will have apps/channels for Plex and all the streaming devices.


HDHR's DVR software could be really cool for enthusiasts. However, it's an uphill battle. It's got to start off being reliable and having a good interface. Let's assume it gets there, where MCE wasn't able to. It still needs some additional hardware to be developed. Roku, FireTV, etc, won't work because they can't decode MPEG-2, and transcoding the video would lead to quality loss.

It would need:
1. A 6-tuner CableCard tuner (for now), eventually support for whatever replaces CableCard. I'm assuming SiliconDust won't support Ceton hardware, as they already make it.
2. A good remote. There are quite literally zero good HTPC remotes on the market. It doesn't have to be as good as TiVo's, but it has to be something.
3. A multi-room box with MPEG-2 decoding. The main room can run off of the HTPC, but something equivalent to Ceton's Echo and the TiVo Mini would be needed, along with that good remote. Add in an RF remote and MoCA, and you'd have a nice product.



jonw747 said:


> Except I didn't say I wanted streaming to be the answer to everything, I said a software solution is superior to a hardware solution and could incorporate any means of accessing the material.


As you have been told by several different people, several different times, *that's not physically possible*. You have to have something to physically tune the DirecTV, DISH Network, QAM, or ATSC-8VSB signals. ATSC-8VSB can be open and doesn't require encryption, but any pay TV requires some sort of hardware. DirecTV and DISH's systems are closed and proprietary. Only DirecTV and DISH can approve equipment to attach to them, so there needs to be an intermediate standard from their gateway types of device to the user's DVR or viewing device. What form that will take, we don't know yet.



> Not streams ... IP in one form or another.


Not possible on DBS. Not matter how the video streams are set up, you still need physical tuning equipment.



> Now if they want to lose Cablecards, but keep on designing STBs and DVRs that use QAM and install in an all QAM home, then some kind of extra hardware could be offered in lieu of CableCards to convert it to IP ... but that's still where they should be heading.


Again, QAM is not going anywhere anytime soon. That's why a gateway is needed. This is not rocket science. It's a matter of business, politics, and what all the players will agree to. The technical concept is not hard to figure out.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Then don't try and make nonsense statements to obfuscate from the discussion. I can see right through them.


You'd have to actually understand my statements to "see right through them", and you'd also have to be a mind-reader to determine if my goal was to "obfuscate from the discussion".

Clearly neither is true.


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## spaldingclan (Aug 22, 2012)

I hate when my two daddies fight


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> You'd have to actually understand my statements to "see right through them", and you'd also have to be a mind-reader to determine if my goal was to "obfuscate from the discussion".
> 
> Clearly neither is true.


Your statement was obfuscating the discussion about linear TV delivery and DVR functionality with some crap about recording Netflix. It's unrelated nonsense intended to distract from the actual conversation at hand, which boils down to some stinky bull****.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Your statement was obfuscating the discussion about linear TV delivery and DVR functionality with some crap about recording Netflix. It's unrelated nonsense intended to distract from the actual conversation at hand, which boils down to some stinky bull****.


Repeating yourself doesn't make you right.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> Repeating yourself doesn't make you right.


Again, distracting and obfuscating. More of your bull****.


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