# My 25 cents on the DirecTivo/DTV DVR Debate



## ClubrhythmEnt (Apr 2, 2003)

I love how almost every thread in the DTV HDTV Powered DVR section degrades into a bunch of posts about which DVR (DirecTV's or TiVo's) is "better" regardless of what the original post was about. 

It's clear that there are a lot of strong opinions and/or emotion on both sides of the issue. I guess I will take the opportunity to weigh in with my opinion too...

As a CEO I love whichever DVR the customer is pleased with. Be it TiVo or DirecTV. If the unit meets the needs of the customer then that is the best one for them. If they return to retail outlets singing the praises of DTV service and all the great things their DVR does for them then it is smiles all around. 

Just as with TCF my customers are all over the map about which DVR is best. Unlike TCF they tend to be more resolute in their opinions; they always love one and hate, and I mean hate, the other. I'm sorry to say that for every TiVo DVR complaint at the retail level we get it is matched by 15 about the DirecTV DVR. Now, in fairness, there are far more DirecTV DVR active subs now than DirecTivo subs but the ratio of complaints has remained rather steady over the years. I can't recall near the number of problems with even the first TiVo boxes that rolled out so long ago. 

Since we know that DTV sub-contracts the production of their DVR hardware to multiple companies (8 at my last count) the only conclusion I can come to is that the issues (technical complaints) are related to the software rather than the hardware. 

What do we know about DTV's DVR software package? Little or nothing about development because most of that has been kept hush hush. What is known is that it was rushed into production when the decision was made to sever the TiVo partnership. Little or no consumer beta testing was done and as a result the product released to the customer was itself, at best, a beta piece of software. It was so bad that for many people it felt like they had climbed into a time machine and gone back to the days of "The Cable Computer". (Those of you have been in the entertainment industry for a long time will know what I'm talking about. Remember Cable Data and this buggy little box? For those that don't know it was like an Atari 2600 that you could watch cable TV on, lol).

The TiVo DVR is a very different story. And by-the-way it&#8217;s more than a GUI. It's incorrect terminology to keep calling the TiVo/DTV DVR debate just a GUI preference because a TiVo box consists of both proprietary TiVo hardware (back end) and software (front end), but I digress.

When Jim Barton and Michael Ramsey founded TiVo in 1999 they had both just come from a background of working in 3D graphics and hardware at Silicon Graphics. (This company was chosen by Time-Warner to be the installation manager for the consumer technology study called the "Full-Service Network Project".) 

Barton and Ramsey took what they had learned about hardware and software design at Silicon Graphics as well as consumer behavior and desires and set-out to design a box that served as a hard-drived interface between the broadcast signal and the TV. It was the first time you could digitally record programs without a computer and immediately created buzz in the entertainment industry. Before contracting with Sony and Philips to manufacture the units they spent quite some time perfecting the software. To this day new TiVo releases are predated with extensive beta testing before release to the viewing public.

With all this being said I must say that DTV is not TiVo. Their primary business is not writing software for DVRs. They sub-contract manufacturing out to the lowest bidder and the end result is a product that cannot match the engineering and history of TiVo. DTV has pushed their developers to respond to consumer feedback and implement fixes as quickly as possible. This has resulted in numerous technical issues being resolved and a dramatic improvement in the stability of the HR20/21 but it still is no TiVo, in my humble opinion. It may be a "contender for TiVo&#8217;s crown", as another poster wrote in another thread, but not quite yet.

Please don't misunderstand me: I'm all for seeing some enterprising young company take the bar TiVo has set and raise it yet one step higher. At the same time I'm excited about the renewed relationship between DTV and TiVo and can't wait to see what the next generation DirecTivos have to offer.


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

ClubrhythmEnt said:


> With all this being said I must say that DTV is not TiVo. Their primary business is not writing software for DVRs. They sub-contract that out to the lowest bidder and the end result is a product that cannot match the engineering and history of TiVo.


The DTV software is not subcontracted out. It is all written in house by the DTV staff engineers.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

Thanks for sharing. 

As a user of both Tivo-based and non-Tivo DirecTV DVRs, I think that the DirecTV software is more than "ready for prime time". The DirecTV DVRs now offer significant advantages over the older Tivo-based DVRs, although that may change when the new DirecTV/Tivo DVRs are launched in a year or so. I think it will be great for all of us to have a choice, although I suspect the debates will continue.


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## ClubrhythmEnt (Apr 2, 2003)

HiDefGator said:


> The DTV software is not subcontracted out. It is all written in house by the DTV staff engineers.


:up: You're correct. I meant to refer to the hardware side of things only, not the software. I stand by my statment however that DTV's _primary_ business is not DVR software nor hardware engineering. When I look at the 2009 manufacturer list for the DTV DVR boxes it is quite surprising to me who some of the contracts went to...


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## ClubrhythmEnt (Apr 2, 2003)

litzdog911 said:


> Thanks for sharing.
> 
> As a user of both Tivo-based and non-Tivo DirecTV DVRs, I think that the DirecTV software is more than "ready for prime time". The DirecTV DVRs now offer significant advantages over the older Tivo-based DVRs, although that may change when the new DirecTV/Tivo DVRs are launched in a year or so. I think it will be great for all of us to have a choice, although I suspect the debates will continue.


Oh, I am sure the debates will never be over.  I completely respect those who prefer the updated DTV DVR over TiVo and I agree with you that it is a win-win for all of us when the consumer has more choices.


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

ClubrhythmEnt said:


> When I look at the 2009 manufacturer list for the DTV DVR boxes it is quite surprising to me who some of the contracts went to...


Oh? And whom do you think manufactures the TiVo boxes? Hint - it isn't elves in Alvisio.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

ClubrhythmEnt said:


> ...DTV's _primary_ business is not DVR software nor hardware engineering...


True, but the resources they have devoted to in-house DVR software may be much larger than those ever devoted to DVRs by Tivo. Tivo is a small software-only company, essentially, who basically outsources the hardware. A boutique company. DTV is a huge conglomerate with millions more customers than Tivo will ever have.

I agree that Tivo programmers have historically been the best and most talented, and that Tivo is the gold standard. I would never belittle the huge contributions they have made to this industry. Sadly, they have never been able to market themselves out of the red, however. Having a truly great product that you can't figure out how to sell must be frustrating.

When Tivo began shipping their first product in 1998, the reviews were not particularly good. "Not ready for prime time" was the general view. I first owned one beginning in October, 1999. While I was blown away by the concept, execution was lacking. It wasn't long before Replay appeared with what might have been a more solid approach. There were flashes of unique brilliance from other products, such as DishPlayer and UTV.

But Tivo became solid with v3 software and the addition of SPs and WLs, about the time HDDs became large enough for PVRs to be come practical. And the bitbucket DirecTivo, which married the IRD to the DVR, was unmatched. The HR10-250, the HD version of that which integrated OTA, was possibly the most elegant and advanced piece of home theater gear in history, and had great reliability and expansion capability for its day.

But Tivo stumbled badly with v6 software, which lowered their reliability to the level of many contemporary DVRs, even though the GUI reigned supreme (my HR2xs are much more reliable than my HR10's at this point).

Until the HR2x, the pattern in the industry was DVRs that were either great and got better (Tivo and Replay) or bad and never improved (DISH comes to mind). Once the others dropped out, Tivo was the only reliable and friendly DVR available, and their best product was the DTivo.

But the HR2x broke that pattern. It began as a woefully-bad DVR (possibly due to it being rushed to market as you point out), but steadily improved into arguably the best platform available. There are a number of things it does that it does in a much more clever fashion than Tivo ever dreamed of. If it continues to improve at this rate, Tivo will be hard-pressed to put out the "premium" DTivo DVR later this year (or next year), especially since DTV has beefed up their team with the Replay coders and bought other significant assets in this area.

Tivo seems to be hampered by being closed-minded and overly-confident that they know what might be best for the customer. There's a ton of talent there and a lot of good ideas, and they have introduced a lot of leadership in the industry. But their arrogance is their downfall. The HR2x developed quickly because of their active program to seek feedback and beta testers, along with good documentation and forum contributions.

Once Tivo is back in the fold, they can take advantage of that environment. I hope they do. Regardless, it's win-win for DTV customers.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

TyroneShoes said:


> If it continues to improve at this rate, Tivo will be hard-pressed to put out the "premium" DTivo DVR later this year (or next year), especially since DTV has beefed up their team with the Replay coders and bought other significant assets in this area.


I think that's a view among DirecTV devotees that is not widely held among consumers in general. Consumer reviews of the DirecTV DVR platform continue to be generally very poor.



> Tivo seems to be hampered by being closed-minded and overly-confident that they know what might be best for the customer. There's a ton of talent there and a lot of good ideas, and they have introduced a lot of leadership in the industry. But their arrogance is their downfall. The HR2x developed quickly because of their active program to seek feedback and beta testers, along with good documentation and forum contributions.
> 
> Once Tivo is back in the fold, they can take advantage of that environment. I hope they do. Regardless, it's win-win for DTV customers.


TiVo was really a pioneer in leveraging forums like this for the benefit of their product. While their betas have not been open, they've always been accessible and TiVo continues to gather feedback and provide assistance through this site.

Unfortunately TiVo's agreement with DirecTV has always limited how open they can be in that process. DirecTV is contracting the development of this DVR software so TiVo has to go by the rules of that agreement. TiVo has always deferred to DirecTV in communicating with the public about their TiVo product and that will probably have to continue.


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## Cudahy (Mar 21, 2001)

What's more likely to come first: An announcement about the upcoming box or reports of beta testing?


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

DirecTV seems to do a good job of keeping new products under wraps until the end of beta tests. Hard to say what will happen with this one, though.

I've never beta tested TiVo hardware, just software a LONG time ago. I have beta tested DirecTV hardware and software and find that the communication is great.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

nrc said:


> I think that's a view among DirecTV devotees that is not widely held among consumers in general. Consumer reviews of the DirecTV DVR platform continue to be generally very poor...


I consider myself more of a passive impartial observer than a devotee, and an opinion that is not widely held can be just as valid or even more valid than one that is not, as most opinions are built on limited points of view. Consumer reviews are notoriously flawed. CNET still thinks the VIP622 is better than Tivo, but an afternoon with one will definitely prove that to be a most-definitely flawed opinion. It also shows that possession of a bully pulpit is no guarantee of accuracy.

You think? Or you know? And can you prove? Consumer reviews from where? I think we need more evidence to accept your premise, and reviews more than 9 months old are obsolete to the point of insignificance. Consumers on the DBSTalk website currently seem to be pretty happy with the HR2x, possibly not as happy as they were with the HR10-250 (a very hard act to follow at one time), but certainly happier than consumers condemned to DISH and cable DVRs. There are still some "I really hate this POS" posts, but fewer and fewer as time goes by, as folks learn the interface, and as the box improves, which it has done at a significant pace.



nrc said:


> ...TiVo's agreement with DirecTV has always limited how open they can be in that process...


True, but even before the DirecTivo they rarely released up revs and added features, until they released v6.x and then tried a flurry of shotgun measures to minimize the damage they had wrought. Even standalone Tivos did not show anywhere near the quick improvement that the HR2x has seen over the last two years, although much of the reason for that was there was much less room for improvement to begin with.

That is not to say that frequent up revs in and of themselves are always a good thing, DISH seems to cling to a policy of undertesting and then shooting from the hip, and then frantically trying numerous up revs to fix the resultant damamage, much like the situation Tivo found themselves in with v6. The up revs for the HR2x have been frequent, but only one or two times were they a frantic attempt at damage control. And when they were, they were historically more successful in remedying the damage than DISH or Tivo has ever been.

Tivo is great, but the brain trust behind it is arrogant, which limits the effectiveness of any feedback, since they don't seem to view it as credible or warmly incorporate it into the process. A perfect example is their staunch reluctance to put a space gauge on Tivo, which is possibly the most-requested feature, and so is still glaringly lacking although virtually every customer would gladly appreciate its inclusion. They take the "don't worry your pretty head about that" attitude quite often.

I would like to think that I got good at what I do because I was willing to not pretend that I already knew everything. I asked questions, I reviewed and questioned my own approach on occasion, and I was willing to listen to other peoples' takes on things. That is IMHO advice that Tivo should heed, because they also do not already know everything. So far they have proven two things:

1) they know how to design and build the world's best DVRs, in spite of their arrogance

2) they have no idea how to market such a wonderful revolutionary product to a point where they can stay out of the red.

This makes them both design gods as well as financial incompetents, ironically enough. Their original partnership with DTV is what kept them afloat, they had no idea how to react when their golden goose got killed, and they may only eventually survive by going to that well a second time.


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

> Originally Posted by *nrc*
> I think that's a view among DirecTV devotees that is not widely held among consumers in general. Consumer reviews of the DirecTV DVR platform continue to be generally very poor...





TyroneShoes said:


> I consider myself more of a passive impartial observer than a devotee, and an opinion that is not widely held can be just as valid or even more valid than one that is not, as most opinions are built on limited points of view. Consumer reviews are notoriously flawed. CNET still thinks the VIP622 is better than Tivo, but an afternoon with one will definitely prove that to be a most-definitely flawed opinion. It also shows that possession of a bully pulpit is no guarantee of accuracy.


Yep. And to be honest the only truth that matters is the numbers and the facts. DirecTV DVR uptake is growing by leaps and bounds. Over 30% of all DirecTV subs have an HD/DVR now, pushing 6 million. That doesn't count the SD DVRs (this taken from the last conference call). Over 50% of all new subs take a DVR. Churn is still very low and DirecTV keeps growing while nearly everyone else shrinks or is flat. All the while not offering Tivo for nearly 4 years now. The initial HR20 people have been off 2 year contract for a couple quarters now. Yet no great exodus of subs.

In other words, no matter what the reviews say, no matter what customer reviews say on CNET and the like, the general public is happy enough with the DVR. If bad reviews would keep people away then I guess nobody uses a cable DVR. 

People here keep forgetting the one fact: To the general public, the 98% of the unwashed masses, think all DVRs are Tivo. All they care about is something that is a digital VCR, nothing more. By no means does this say Tivo isn't better or the best. But the general public doesn't care about that (or frankly just doesn't know) and think they already have a Tivo. Of course haven't we been down this road before in many other posts?


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

TyroneShoes said:


> You think? Or you know? And can you prove? Consumer reviews from where? I think we need more evidence to accept your premise, and reviews more than 9 months old are obsolete to the point of insignificance.


You stated your views and I stated mine. If you want to contract a scientific survey to establish fact then feel free. I'm happy to state my views, support them with observations, and let others decide for themselves.

Here are some examples of consumer ratings from various sites. In all cases I've included DTV DVR reviews only from the last 9 months. HR10 and TiVo reviews include all ratings. If you were to do a similar culling of ratings to benefit TiVo the difference would likely be even greater.

Site Model: rating/scale

Amazon HR21: 1/5
Amazon HR21 Pro: 2/5
Amazon HR22-100: 1.5/5
Amazon HR10: 3.5/5
Amazon TiVo HD: 4/5
Amazon TiVo HD XL: 4.5/5

CNET HR20: 1.5/5
CNET HR10: 2.5/5
CNET TiVo S3: 3/5
CNET TiVo HD: 3/5
CNET TiVO HD XL: 4.5/5

Best Buy HR22: 3.4/5
Best Buy TiVo HD: 4.4/5
Best Buy TiVo HD XL: 4.7/5

It doesn't appear that most consumers agree with your assessment of DirecTV's progress. In fact, if you go through the HR20's ratings on CNET there really doesn't appear to have been much change over time.



> Consumers on the DBSTalk website currently seem to be pretty happy with the HR2x, possibly not as happy as they were with the HR10-250 (a very hard act to follow at one time), but certainly happier than consumers condemned to DISH and cable DVRs.


I don't consider members at DBSTalk to represent the average consumer any more than users here. DBSTalk is populated mainly by satellite TV enthusiasts in the same way that this site is populated by TiVo enthusiasts.



> Tivo is great, but the brain trust behind it is arrogant, which limits the effectiveness of any feedback, since they don't seem to view it as credible or warmly incorporate it into the process. A perfect example is their staunch reluctance to put a space gauge on Tivo, which is possibly the most-requested feature, and so is still glaringly lacking although virtually every customer would gladly appreciate its inclusion. They take the "don't worry your pretty head about that" attitude quite often.


As opposed to something like dual live buffers and more than 50 "series links"? I'm not sure what you're saying is relevant. You may consider TiVo arrogant, but if most consumers consider the end result to be a better product, is it arrogance or just understanding what's right for the product?


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

shibby191 said:


> Yep. And to be honest the only truth that matters is the numbers and the facts. DirecTV DVR uptake is growing by leaps and bounds. Over 30% of all DirecTV subs have an HD/DVR now, pushing 6 million. That doesn't count the SD DVRs (this taken from the last conference call). Over 50% of all new subs take a DVR. Churn is still very low and DirecTV keeps growing while nearly everyone else shrinks or is flat. All the while not offering Tivo for nearly 4 years now. The initial HR20 people have been off 2 year contract for a couple quarters now. Yet no great exodus of subs.


DirecTV stopped offering TiVo in the midst of a big HD expansion and an effort to reduce churn by eliminating high risk subscribers. It's impossible to judge how dropping TiVo would have impacted churn in the absence of those factors.

Interesting though that HR20 contracts are ending and DirecTV's churn went up in the third quarter. The same quarter DirecTV renewed its contract with TiVo.



> In other words, no matter what the reviews say, no matter what customer reviews say on CNET and the like, the general public is happy enough with the DVR. If bad reviews would keep people away then I guess nobody uses a cable DVR.


Most people are willing to take what they get because most people have limited choices right now. That is changing and will continue to change. If everything is just peachy for DTV and nobody cares about the quality of their DVR, why has DTV chosen to pay TiVo to develop a new DirecTV DVR with TiVo?



> People here keep forgetting the one fact: To the general public, the 98% of the unwashed masses, think all DVRs are Tivo.


You have a habit of making stuff up and stating it as fact.

TiVo peaked at over 4 million subscriptions. There are 115 million TV households in the US. So over 3% of TV households have owned TiVo. By your accounting over a million of them didn't even know what they were paying for.

I won't hazard a guess as to how many people actually know that TiVo is something different than what they get from their cable or satellite company, but that number will be increasing soon since DirecTV will be promoting that fact.


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

I would take the Amazon ratings with a carton of salt. Look what happened to the Spore video game when a bunch of people decided to "punish" the maker for including DRM they didn't like. They flooded Amazon with negative ratings. It would not astonish me to learn that a similar thing happened with the DirecTV DVRs from those who thought they were doing TiVo a favor.


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

nrc said:


> Interesting though that HR20 contracts are ending and DirecTV's churn went up in the third quarter. The same quarter DirecTV renewed its contract with TiVo.
> 
> Most people are willing to take what they get because most people have limited choices right now. That is changing and will continue to change. If everything is just peachy for DTV and nobody cares about the quality of their DVR, why has DTV chosen to pay TiVo to develop a new DirecTV DVR with TiVo?


If I had to guess I would be willing to bet the economy had more to do with churn going up then anything else. Churn isn't broken down by type of subscriber. So one might guess that as current SD users transition to HD they are more likely to try the cable offering during that transition.

Tivo is certainly suffering from increased churn as well. So making the leap that DTV renewed its relationship with Tivo to reduce churn is hard to swallow.

I suspect the reason Directv renewed its contract with Tivo is because there are still over a million active SD DirecTivo's. As long as there are that many active, they need an active contract with Tivo to support them.

The new contract is certainly not that great for Tivo since it only offers Tivo as an upgrade which has already proven a hard sell at Comcast.


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

stevel said:


> I would take the Amazon ratings with a carton of salt. Look what happened to the Spore video game when a bunch of people decided to "punish" the maker for including DRM they didn't like. They flooded Amazon with negative ratings. It would not astonish me to learn that a similar thing happened with the DirecTV DVRs from those who thought they were doing TiVo a favor.


You guys are a hoot!! I'm impressed with how many ways you can dispute the facts


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

HiDefGator said:


> If I had to guess I would be willing to bet the economy had more to do with churn going up then anything else. Churn isn't broken down by type of subscriber. So one might guess that as current SD users transition to HD they are more likely to try the cable offering during that transition.


I've been reading that the phone companies seem to be taking the lions share of the subscribers these days. I'm sure a large part of it is technology, but I've no doubt that many people left D* because of their pitiful excuse of a dvr and because of the blasted 2-yr contract.

I would gladly switch to Fios if it were available here. The higher speed options offered by them along with the uncompressed signals and growth potential means a lot.

The real competitor of all of these services will be the internet. I've read that many people are pulling the plug on cable/sat subscription TV and instead spending their money on getting the service directly from the internet. I recently went back to Netflix and was amazed at how easy it was to find a large array of flicks for my Tivo for real streaming - all at no additional cost. I couldn't believe how easy it was to connect my Tivos into the Netflix service. I think the real paradigm shift will be to the internet as more and more of these services become available. The nice thing about the Tivo is that they are offering several of these services now, and I'm sure it's bound to expand, which could cause a renewed growth for s/a Tivos.

I read the silly comments about Tivos arrogance and thought to myself how many new services I've seen from Tivo and the elegance with which they implement them compared to all of issues that people are still reporting with the competition. I'm still as excited about my Tivo HDs as I was a year ago when I first installed them. It's clear to me that Tivo offers the best prospect at the moment for combining traditional TV with the internet.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

nrc said:


> ...Site Model: rating/scale
> 
> Amazon HR21: 1/5
> Amazon HR21 Pro: 2/5
> ...


Not impressed. I find nothing in these numbers that mean anything significant. It's totally apples and oranges, even if it were relevant. You are comparing a DVR that is basically subsidized and given away virtually free quite often, to a DVR that costs a lot of money to buy, and a lot of money for the subscription. Folks are driven to respond by more than what they really believe.

There is the validation factor, for instance. IOW, if I spent hundreds for a DVR when I could have had a different one shipped to me for free, I'm probably going to convince myself that I made a valid purchase that was worth the cost. I might even dis everybody else's choice, were I as shallow as most of these respondents probably are. We've all seen that behavior regularly, and right here on this forum as well.

People universally fool themselves to make themselves feel better 24/7/365. I might like my Tag Heuer watch more than a Timex, but what it really comes down to is that they both do the very same job effectively, which is to tell time. But then I have to validate that 12 grand somehow, and Tag Heuer seems to stay in business selling a device that does what a $9 Timex does, year after year. Wine connoiseurs always rate the high-dollar wine over the low-dollar wine, that is until comparing in a blind study. They even rate the same wine completely different in taste when rated twice only weeks apart, again that is if they can't see the label or know the price.

This is the way humans make peace with their lot in life, and it is not all that different than stockholm syndrome. I put very little stock in people's perceptions, which are malleable to the point of being fickle.

What IS valid is trends, and the trends show fewer and fewer complaints about the HR2x platform although there are more and more boxes out there all the time. They also prove without question that DTV has hit a home run with MPEG-4, Ka, and the HR2x, and will survive just fine with or without Tivo's help. Tivo has not had a trend upward, but slightly downward, due to real competition and their OS woes. And there are fewer and fewer of them, comparitively, all the time, so certainly there are going to be fewer people commenting on them, and more commenting on the HR2x.

And remember, I'm a Tivo guy. I still think they are the best, if by a small margin. Also, DBSTalk may be sat heads while TC may be Tivo heads, but from what I've seen they surprisingly seem to have very similar points of view regarding the HR2x as well as Tivo, so I'm not sure that distinction holds any water.

My statement about Tivo being arrogant should not be taken as a knock against them. They make the best DVRs _in spite _of their arrogance. But if they took the more inclusive approach that the HR2x developers are taking, they could probably put even more distance between them and their competitors, IMHO. No DVR design is perfect. Tivo has its problems as do others, and Tivo has problems some others don't have. I really like having both in my media room.

You don't have to agree with me, but you also don't have to make it seem as if my point of view is somehow less valid than yours. Looking down your nose will only hurt you. "I disagree" is not an automatic insult, is it? "I think we need to see more evidence" should not be either. But then saying essentially that someone has no idea what they're talking about is most definitely an insult, and I should be expected to take it as such, even though I will cut you a break this one time regarding that, in the spirit of healthy discussion. I find it ironic that RS4, of all people, seems both less antagonistic as well as more on base here than you have seemed lately, but in my mind you are still entitled to your opinion, and just because I might not agree with it does not mean I am disrespecting it. That's the whole idea of a forum, isn't it, to express what might be unique points of view to give others something to chew on as they form their own views?

Peace and love, baby.


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## sjberra (May 16, 2005)

interesting point made by RS4 about the combination of a DVR and the internet.

Main thing that is going to throw a major stumbling block in this is the caps that are starting to be imposed by the major providers of internet bandwidth. My current provider has imposed a 100 GB cap on my current internet server per month - between Netflix and the video feeds from the various other provides this 100 GB gets chewed up in the first week or so of the month. This is going to be a huge stumbling block, it is already got me thinking of dropping netflix and switching to Blockbuster for movies, at loeast they have a store down the street if I want something different.

All of the other video on demand services have been blocked at my router now and need a password to be able to access them - not fair to the rest of the familty, but I am not going to pay overage charges again to my internet provider without a very good reason.

Internet usage capping is becoming a standard, it is going to affect all of us and going to hurt all the providers - the only possible exception to this is the cable providers for both ISP and content - they would be able to exclude thier VOD from the bandwidth usage statistics


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

nrc said:


> Interesting though that HR20 contracts are ending and DirecTV's churn went up in the third quarter. The same quarter DirecTV renewed its contract with TiVo.


Funny how that was a 1 quarter blip.
4th quarter results: http://dtv.client.shareholder.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=364395



> * DIRECTV U.S. Adds 301,000 Net Subscribers - The Most in Over 3 Years
> * Higher Full Year Gross Additions Combined with 9 Year Low Monthly Churn Rate of 1.47% drives Net Additions of 861,000 in 2008


Lowest churn for the year in over 9 years. Adding 300K+ in a bad economy. Sounds like they are doing pretty good, eh? Didn't I already point that out?  



> You have a habit of making stuff up and stating it as fact.
> 
> TiVo peaked at over 4 million subscriptions. There are 115 million TV households in the US. So over 3% of TV households have owned TiVo. By your accounting over a million of them didn't even know what they were paying for.
> 
> I won't hazard a guess as to how many people actually know that TiVo is something different than what they get from their cable or satellite company, but that number will be increasing soon since DirecTV will be promoting that fact.


Well, you want to ignore all the studies and survey's that point out that "Tivo" is the generic word for DVR now. Just like Kleenex or Xerox. I know dozens of people with a DVR. They *all* say they have a Tivo. Many have had a real Tivo in the past. A few know that they aren't actually a Tivo but still refer to it as a Tivo. Many DirecTV subs say they have the "new Tivo" now with an HR20. They don't know the difference. This view is held up with many studies on the matter.

Fact is that people just don't care and they never will if there is an extra cost. Heck, many of the people I know with DVRs don't even record anything on them. They are simply a way to pause a program in progress if the phone rings or they have to go to the bathroom. I gave up long ago trying to explain the advantage to recording things and using season passes when I'd just get statements like "why would I want to watch CSI or American Idol tomorrow or next week? It's on tonight!"

When you can't even get most people to use a DVR to record things it's pretty hard to convince them that a premium price for Tivo is worth it. And the sub numbers across the board all support it. But hey, believe what you want in your world, no problem!


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

Even though I know I shouldn't use the word Tivo as a verb, I still do it. It's just easier to say I "tivo'd it" then to say " I dvr'd it" or "I HR20'd it". I also find it easy to refer to the HR20 as a Tivo when talking to friends, etc. because they are far more likely to know what I'm talking about if I call it a Tivo. Outside of this board everyone seems to think Tivo just means a DVR. Which may be because most of them have never owned a real Tivo.


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

shibby191 said:


> Funny how that was a 1 quarter blip.
> 4th quarter results: http://dtv.client.shareholder.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=364395
> 
> Lowest churn for the year in over 9 years. Adding 300K+ in a bad economy. Sounds like they are doing pretty good, eh? Didn't I already point that out?


My my, you certainly have a way of making those numbers shine - I guess they are teaching you well Of course, they also lost 3.1 million customers, and of course the phone companies are growing at a more rapid rate, and oh yeah, they lost the customer satisfaction lead in some areas, but yeah, keep on touting those numbers. Course that fact that digital tv is coming and 17% of the US households may be looking at other options over their rooftop antenna probably have nothing to do with this growth. Nah, I'm sure folks are piling on board because of the outstanding... err great... err mediocre press that D* is getting for their homespun dvr.

I'm always amazed at how much time you spend here apologizing for what a lot of people seem to be mediocrity - in fact you brag about, while at the same time having nothing to offer the Tivo forum crowd. Yeah, I would say well coached They seem to be following MS - growing in spite of themselves.

When's the next coaching session?


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

RS4 said:


> My my, you certainly have a way of making those numbers shine - I guess they are teaching you well Of course, they also lost 3.1 million customers, and of course the phone companies are growing at a more rapid rate, and oh yeah, they lost the customer satisfaction lead in some areas, but yeah, keep on touting those numbers. Course that fact that digital tv is coming and 17% of the US households may be looking at other options over their rooftop antenna probably have nothing to do with this growth. Nah, I'm sure folks are piling on board because of the outstanding... err great... err mediocre press that D* is getting for their homespun dvr.
> 
> I'm always amazed at how much time you spend here apologizing for what a lot of people seem to be mediocrity - in fact you brag about, while at the same time having nothing to offer the Tivo forum crowd. Yeah, I would say well coached They seem to be following MS - growing in spite of themselves.
> 
> When's the next coaching session?


LOL. You're awesome when you come out of the woodwork once a quarter to take pots shots. Hmmm, the only number that matters is that they gained more subs then they lost. Better then virtually everyone out there. ALL multichannel providers lose hundreds of thousands to millions of subs every year. What counts is churn (which for DirecTV is at a 9 year low) and how many more they gained (which again is up). So DirecTV is losing less customers then they have in 9 years and signing up a ton of new subs. I don't see how that is anything but positive. But tell us like it really is RS4, it's always entertaining.


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## sjberra (May 16, 2005)

notice that they are posting NET increases in subscribers, not generic increases.

Got verifiable docs on the lost of subscribers (3.1 million)? was that a net loss or a loss of sd subscribers that upgraded to HD subscribers - underlined statement removed, error pointed out sjb 02/10/09:02:11?


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

sjberra said:


> notice that they are posting NET increases in subscribers, not generic increases.
> 
> Got verifiable docs on the lost of subscribers (3.1 million)? was that a net loss or a loss of sd subscribers that upgraded to HD subscribers?


If a customer just switches from SD to HD then it wouldn't be counted as churn. They had an open account the entire time.


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## sjberra (May 16, 2005)

HiDefGator said:


> If a customer just switches from SD to HD then it wouldn't be counted as churn. They had an open account the entire time.


would that also be true if it is a drop of a sd directivo unit replaced by a HR2x series box? Considering Tivo is losing income because of the upgrade.


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

sjberra said:


> would that also be true if it is a drop of a sd directivo unit replaced by a HR2x series box? Considering Tivo is losing income because of the upgrade.


that would cause Tivo to lose a subscriber but no change for Directv. Unless someone closes an account they are not counted as churn.


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## argicida (Feb 17, 2009)

litzdog911 said:


> Thanks for sharing.
> 
> As a user of both Tivo-based and non-Tivo DirecTV DVRs, I think that the DirecTV software is more than "ready for prime time".


I'm surprised people would view it as either/or - I keep a mix they both have advantages but the B-Band features of DTV software boxes are (for me) squeezing the Tivo boxes out even though I like the Tivo software better.


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## tucsonbill (Aug 11, 2004)

ClubrhythmEnt said:


> I.
> 
> As a CEO I love whichever DVR the customer is pleased with. .


A CEO? That's good enough for me!


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## justapixel (Sep 27, 2001)

ClubrhythmEnt said:


> I love how almost every thread in the DTV HDTV Powered DVR section degrades into a bunch of posts about which DVR (DirecTV's or TiVo's) is "better" regardless of what the original post was about.




Me? I'm just waiting for TiVo to come back to Direct TV. It should happen right around the time my contract expires. If it doesn't, I will take a long, hard look at switching to cable. Comcast sucks but not as much as the HR/x's.

In my opinion, of course.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

justapixel said:


> Me? I'm just waiting for TiVo to come back to Direct TV. It should happen right around the time my contract expires. If it doesn't, I will take a long, hard look at switching to cable. Comcast sucks but not as much as the HR/x's.
> 
> In my opinion, of course.


I gather from the timing that you actually HAVE anecdotal negative experience with a HR2x?

How unfortunate. The great majority of folks have no trouble at all. Many prefer the HR2x, which has a number of features that Tivo never even thought of.


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