# Oh Crap - Rovi buys TiVo?



## JoeKustra

It was just reported on CNBC that the NYT has reported that Rovi plans to buy TiVo. Cramer might act crazy a lot, but this is strange. Anybody confirm?

Rovi's stock has been rising for a while. TiVo not so much but rising 17% this morning. Now up 20%!

Update: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/b...aid-to-be-in-merger-talks-with-rovi.html?_r=0
http://www.streetinsider.com/Hot+M+and+A/TiVo+(TIVO),+Rovi+(ROVI)+Said+in+Merger+Talks/11446585.html


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## moyekj

Wow. That is big news if true. If it does happen does that mean guide data will be switching to Rovi source instead of Tribune? For ReplayTV once it started being shopped around it spelled the beginning of the end for that company unfortunately...


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## JoeKustra

moyekj said:


> Wow. That is big news if true. If it does happen does that mean guide data will be switching to Rovi source instead of Tribune?


Nobody is talking.


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## skypros

Maybe this is the spark to light the fire..... Someone needs to buy Tivo.

Maybe Rovi buys Tivo..... then repackages it and puts it up for sale (or the whole company)

Maybe...... Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, DirecTV, Echostar..... or a host of other companies finally may want to bid on Tivo.

I have already lost a little bit of $ buying Tivo stock (I purchased it last year when they announced the Roamio OTA w/Lifetime for $300).... So I am really gun shy about buying Tivo stock again.


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## zubinh

This is disconcerting. I was hoping for a Bolt Pro this year but now that doesn't seem likely.


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## bradleys

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/b...aid-to-be-in-merger-talks-with-rovi.html?_r=0



> TiVo, the digital video recorder company that popularized the DVR and revolutionized time shifting and fast-forwarding through advertising, is in advanced negotiations to be sold to Rovi, according to people briefed on the talks.
> 
> The deal would merge TiVo and Rovi, which is one of the largest owners of patents for digital entertainment devices. Shareholders of TiVo would receive a combination of cash and stock, these people said, though the exact price was still being negotiated. After the deal, shareholders of TiVo, which has a market value of $750 million, would probably own about 30 percent of the combined company, these people said. Rovis market value is about $1.7 billion.
> 
> The transaction would end the independence of TiVo, a perennial takeover target that included a raft of speculated suitors: Apple, Google and Microsoft among them.
> 
> Rovi, a lesser-known company, may win the prize that is TiVo as a result of an activist investor. Glenn W. Welling of Engaged Capital successfully won two seats on the board of Rovi last year. Since then, he aggressively pushed the company to revaluate its strategy and pressed it to seek a merger with TiVo, these people said.
> 
> A spokesman for TiVo declined to comment; a spokeswoman for Rovi did not respond to a request seeking comment after business hours. Mr. Wellings spokesman said he was unavailable.
> 
> People briefed on the talks warned that the negotiations were at a sensitive stage and it is still possible a deal could falter.
> 
> Rovi was formed after Macrovision acquired Gemstar, which made interactive program guides that help consumers navigate shows on television, and renamed the company in 2009. Those guides, which are used by about 18 million TV subscribers worldwide, made up slightly less than half of Rovis $526 million in revenue last year, with the rest derived from licensing intellectual property. Rovi had traditionally counted TiVo as a top competitor.
> 
> Together, the two companies have more than 6,000 issued or pending patents, which have become a critical defense for them against larger tech and media giants.
> 
> TiVo is suing Samsung for patent infringement of its DVRs. To date, TiVo has received cash and future revenue of about $1.6 billion from this type of litigation, the company said in a filing this week.
> 
> Rovi, on the other hand, lost to Netflix in a highly public lawsuit over five patents related to over-the-top video, which sent the stock plummeting last July.
> 
> Rovis shares have soared more recently after the company renewed several large licensing deals, but TiVos has gone in the other direction. TiVo is trading at half the level it was in August, largely because of investor concerns about competition.
> 
> TiVo is in the process of searching for a new chief executive, which appears to have been a catalyst for Mr. Welling and Rovi to pursue the deal. Tivos 11-year chief executive, Thomas S. Rogers, stepped down from the post in November while remaining as nonexecutive chairman. The companys chief financial officer, Naveen Chopra, is acting as the companys chief executive on an interim basis.
> 
> Mr. Welling had started Engaged in 2012 after working under Ralph V. Whitworth at Relational Investors, until that fund was wound down earlier in the year. Rovi caught Mr. Wellings eye shortly after he founded Engaged, building up his stake and then starting a proxy fight a year ago for director seats and strategic changes. He now owns a 2.7 percent of Rovi, or 2.25 million shares, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.
> 
> Engaged focuses on medium-size companies with market valuations below $8 billion, and has focused on a range of companies, including the smoothie retailer Jamba and Outerwall, which owns RedBox, an inexpensive DVD rental provider.


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## bonscott87

Wow. Had I known this I would have not just bought a Bolt 3 months ago. Ugggggg. I hate Rovi, their guide has to be the worst crap there is on the planet. Always out of date, new channels never added, no way to actually contact them to get channels added. They basically helped hasten the death of Windows Media Center.

I may look to sell my Tivo sooner then later and just go full on streaming and VOD if this happens and they switch to the Rovi guide.


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## mdavej

You guys may not realize, but Windows Media Center switched to Rovi for guide data several months ago, and it has been a total disaster. It's complete garbage compared to Tribune. If they are for sale, anybody BUT Rovi would be a thousand times better. I hope this falls through.

EDIT: I see bonscott beat me to it. My Tivo days would also come to an end if Rovi were in charge.


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## bradleys

I was hoping TiVo would align with somebody who can deliver and integrate their hardware and services more economically. I am not sure what real value Rovi brings to TiVo.

What would be the core product of this new company? Hardware, software, services? Or just a patent library....


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## MeInDallas

bonscott87 said:


> They basically helped hasten the death of Windows Media Center.


This is one of the main reasons I stopped using WMC, because the guide was always horribly incorrect in my area.


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## lew

bradleys said:


> r just a patent library....


+1


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## bonscott87

MeInDallas said:


> This is one of the main reasons I stopped using WMC, because the guide was always horribly incorrect in my area.


Same for me, plus it's not in Windows 10 so should I ever upgrade the media PC I've be out of luck. I happily bought a Tivo but if they replaced the guide with Rovi (and why wouldn't they)...everyone is in for a world of hurt. In my local area we've gotten over half a dozen new subchannels in the past 6 months. Tribune has them added to the Tivo guide most of the time before even launch date. Rovi....still doesn't have a single one of them. And one of our stations is on two different frequencies in the market to cover the whole market as there is interferrence with a neighboring market on the edge. Well Rovi decided it seems that it must be in error that there would be two frequencies for the same station so they only have one of them...the one I can't tune to without problems of course. Tivo? Both are listed and I just removed the weak one from my channel list. Can't do that with Rovi and no way you can get them to actually fix it. With Tribune you can at least email Zap2It and get things corrected.

Anyway...just a gut punch to feel I wasted $400 down the drain. Then again even if Rovi were to buy Tivo it would be a couple/three years at least before anything would really happen and by then I'm probably ready to move on anyway.


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## ajwees41

moyekj said:


> Wow. That is big news if true. If it does happen does that mean guide data will be switching to Rovi source instead of Tribune? For ReplayTV once it started being shopped around it spelled the beginning of the end for that company unfortunately...


I believe cox has Rovi for ipg's and tribune for guide data.


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## Dan203

I hope this isn't true.


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## Space

There are a few ways to contact Rovi to get things corrected, I do it all the time, but I agree that the data they provide leaves much to be desired.

Many WMC users are switching to use epg123 in combination with Schedules Direct to get Gracenote data back in WMC, and it is much better than ever (but comes with a $25 Schedules Direct yearly fee, whereas the Rovi data provided by Microsoft is free).


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## mdavej

Space said:


> Many WMC users are switching to use epg123 in combination with Schedules Direct to get Gracenote data back in WMC, and it is much better than ever (but comes with a $25 Schedules Direct yearly fee, whereas the Rovi data provided by Microsoft is free).


Between epg123 and the Win 10 WMC hack, at least WMC is a viable option again. Only drawback with Win 10 (and Win 8.1) is that non-Xbox extenders don't work. So I'd have to buy several Xboxes if I had to go back to WMC.

I was just about to put my last Ceton tuner on ebay. Now I'm glad I didn't.


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## rainwater

I'm not sure why people are worried about the guide. Of all things to worry about with this possible acquisition, the guide seems least important. Surely TiVo has a contract with Tribune. Even if they got out of it, switching to a different guide provider would take an insane amount of time engineering and development.


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## Space

True, but once that contract is over, there is no way they would stick with Gracenote (Tribune) when they have their own competing service.

Besides, they are just in talks about this merger, it hasn't even happened (yet?). So, yeah, a long time before any changes (if any).


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## gbshuler

TiVo recently brought in a new CEO. Nice guy layed off 50 TiVo employees soon after. Article I read mentioned CEO said TiVo would be moving the tuner hardware/software in a different direction (leaving the crown jewel user interface alone I presume). I think it was similar to the Cisco Worldbox's (which use an all new technology freeing the cable companies from the "cable card headaches" - based on legislation passed in 2015). This merge now makes perfect sense. This CEO answers only to the shareholders.


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## Space

Since Rovi owns the patent to using a grid-style program guide, it is possible it could be implemented on TiVo if there is a merger, but who knows what's going to happen...


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## waynomo

Well you don't buy a company to kill it out its main technology, do you?


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## Marc01564

I hope they will honor my lifetime service contract.


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## gbshuler

waynomo said:


> Well you don't buy a company to kill it out its main technology, do you?


Absolutely . The new TiVo CEO was likely elected on a promise to improve the bottom line. Selling TiVo's Crown Jewels (patents) will put a lot of $$$ in the old market cap of Rovi. My new BOLT and Roamio Pro are on their way from Amazon. Yippee! Just read on Variety that TiVo stock is up 20% this morning. That's great for CEO Naveen Chopra!

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## BobCamp1

Space said:


> True, but once that contract is over, there is no way they would stick with Gracenote (Tribune) when they have their own competing service.
> 
> Besides, they are just in talks about this merger, it hasn't even happened (yet?). So, yeah, a long time before any changes (if any).


They're in "advanced talks" which means unless something unexpected and extraordinary happens it's a done deal.

You're right in that changes may not appear immediately. Or they may. It didn't take AT&T long to change the DirecTV logo and start offering cell phone/DirecTV bundles.


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## Dan203

Space said:


> Since Rovi owns the patent to using a grid-style program guide, it is possible it could be implemented on TiVo if there is a merger, but who knows what's going to happen...


TiVo has had a grid style guide since the S2. You just have to change the option to show it.


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## BobCamp1

waynomo said:


> Well you don't buy a company to kill it out its main technology, do you?


http://fortune.com/2016/02/08/a-huge-company-bought-your-favorite-app/


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## mdavej

waynomo said:


> Well you don't buy a company to kill it out its main technology, do you?


Not usually on purpose. But that's exactly what Google did to Sage. And some end up killing it by ignorance and incompetence or to eliminate competition with it's own main product. Rovi is most certainly incompetent when it comes to their own main technology.

As far as Rovi responding to customer feedback, where's the data for genres in WMC or correct thumbnails, now 9 months later? No progress whatsoever.


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## Dan203

We've delt with Rovi a little. They bought MainConcept, a supplier we use for codecs, and then sold it again like a year later. In the scheme of things I know we're small potatoes to them, but under Rovi they basically ignored us. Before the merger they were pleasant to work with. I hope the same doesn't happen with TiVo.


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## keenanSR

bradleys said:


> Or just a patent library....


Yes, this would be my guess, Rovi is buying TiVo for its IP, it's patent library. I can't believe they'd be interested in TiVo's hardware products, it's more profitable to just license that patent technology to others and let them build the devices rather than build, market and customer service them yourself. We could presently have in our homes the very last or next to the last of the TiVo-branded DVRs.


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## SullyND

Aren't some of TiVo's main patents due to expire in 2-3 years?


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## Jed1

Rovi just wants the UI so they can make money by leasing it to MSOs just like they do with Gemstar software, I Guide, PassPort Echo, and Total Guide that is used with Comcast's X1.
They will ditch the hardware as they are not in that business.

Basically this is the end of the line for TiVo DVRs if this goes through. They will support the retail units for a while and then start phasing it out. They did this with retail devices that was using Gemstar's TVGOS, TV Guide On Screen. 

I used to know people that worked in the listings department for Gemstar but they basically all got axed when the TVGOS shutdown happened. Rovi sold the rights to the TV Guide website to Paramount who in turn sold it to CBS Corp. Getting any guide updates for retail is now impossible. My lineup is still the same from 2012 when I submitted the last lineup change for TVGOS. It has not been updated since then.


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## Hercules67

ITwas done for one reason and one reason only.

TiVo and Rovi together become that most hated thing in the Electronics/Hi-tech arena:

PATENT-TROLLS.

Apparently, the two CEO together saw only one way to make money fo their holdings. Sue people over the use of their patents.

Sad day in TiVo Land.


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## Chuck_IV

Jed1 said:


> Rovi just wants the UI so they can make money by leasing it to MSOs just like they do with Gemstar software, I Guide, PassPort Echo, and Total Guide that is used with Comcast's X1.
> They will ditch the hardware as they are not in that business.
> 
> Basically this is the end of the line for TiVo DVRs if this goes through. They will support the retail units for a while and then start phasing it out. They did this with retail devices that was using Gemstar's TVGOS, TV Guide On Screen.
> 
> I used to know people that worked in the listings department for Gemstar but they basically all got axed when the TVGOS shutdown happened. Rovi sold the rights to the TV Guide website to Paramount who in turn sold it to CBS Corp. Getting any guide updates for retail is now impossible. My lineup is still the same from 2012 when I submitted the last lineup change for TVGOS. It has not been updated since then.


This is my guess as well. If this goes through(which I suspect it will), Tivo(at least the retail business) is done. As mentioned, support will last for a while, but dwindle.

This is NOT the company you want to buy Tivo, if you had any hope of a continuing retail business.



Hercules67 said:


> ITwas done for one reason and one reason only.
> 
> TiVo and Rovi together become that most hated thing in the Electronics/Hi-tech arena:
> 
> PATENT-TROLLS.
> 
> Apparently, the two CEO together saw only one way to make money fo their holdings. Sue people over the use of their patents.
> 
> Sad day in TiVo Land.


The critical patents expire in less than 2 years. So I doubt that's what they had in mind. Besides, Tivo has sued just about everyone already.


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## gbshuler

Naveen Chopra probably was elected CEO by the TiVo board this year solely to liquidate the company. His tombstone: He ran TiVo into the ground and got a fat bonus.


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## NashGuy

Among the parts of TiVo that I can see Rovi holding onto are Digitalsmiths (and whatever other data/analytics efforts that TiVo has) plus the TiVo IP/patent library. I could see Rovi continuing to partner with MSOs to use the suite of Rovi + TiVo offerings to power the set-tops they offer their customers, although all actual hardware design and construction would be handled by various third parties. Rovi+TiVo would only offer software, data, analytics, etc. Meanwhile, they will continue to milk those aging patents for all they're worth.

As for retail, TiVo has already signaled that they're backing away from, if not abandoning, that business line. An acquisition by Rovi could well be the death knell for direct-to-consumer TiVo-branded hardware. I'm trying to think of some way that Rovi could make money by licensing the TiVo brand and software to third-party hardware makers -- maybe someone like Silicon Dust would pay to brand their tuner hardware with the TiVo name and offer TiVo-branded apps for Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku, Xbox, etc. as the front-end UI? It seems to me that, if the TiVo brand has any value in the public consciousness, it's purely as "the original DVR" company.


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## waynomo

I hope this isn't the first death throe.


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## RUBiK

Ugh, just bought a Roamio Pro and 2 Minis the other day (being delivered today) and was super excited to go back to Tivo (last used Tivo receivers were the S2 DTV units back in the day)...

You're all making the merger/acquisition sound so bad, it's making me nervous. Hah!

Guess we have no choice but to wait and see but hopefully, if it does go through, it won't be as doom and gloom as the majority of you are fearing? /shrug


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## bradleys

RUBiK said:


> Ugh, just bought a Roamio Pro and 2 Minis the other day (being delivered today) and was super excited to go back to Tivo (last used Tivo receivers were the S2 DTV units back in the day)...
> 
> You're all making the merger/acquisition sound so bad, it's making me nervous. Hah!
> 
> Guess we have no choice but to wait and see but hopefully, if it does go through, it won't be as doom and gloom as the majority of you are fearing? /shrug


Rubik, we have no idea what the future will hold in a merged organization. A change like this tends to make people consider the worst possible outcomes and scenarios - that is fine, but frankly, we do not know what the impact of this merger will be.

Really, the worst possible outcome for you will be the TiVo's you have purchsed will be supported through the lifetime of the product with the functionality it has today.

Service fees and lifetime owners are not only an asset on the balance sheet, but also a liability. Your box will be supported... We just do not know if a Bolt Pro or any other hardware refresh is in the future state strategy for this newly merged company.


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## RUBiK

bradleys said:


> Rubik, we have no idea what the future will hold in a merged organization. A change like this tends to make people consider the worst possible outcomes and scenarios - that is fine, but frankly, we do not know what the impact of this merger will be.
> 
> Really, the worst possible outcome for you will be the TiVo's you have purchsed will be supported through the lifetime of the product with the functionality it has today.
> 
> Service fees and lifetime owners are not only an asset on the balance sheet, but also a liability. Your box will be supported... We just do not know if a Bolt Pro or any other hardware refresh is in the future state strategy for this newly merged company.


Yup, understood, thanks.

Makes sense; no need to panic, will sit tight and see what actually goes down (if anything) this time around and where it goes from there.


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## waynomo

RUBiK said:


> Yup, understood, thanks.
> 
> Makes sense; no need to panic, will sit tight and see what actually goes down (if anything) this time around and where it goes from there.


Make sure you have your towel.


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## Space

mdavej said:


> ...
> As far as Rovi responding to customer feedback, where's the data for genres in WMC or correct thumbnails, now 9 months later? No progress whatsoever.


Pretty sure this is Microsoft's problem, not Rovi. Rovi just supplies the data, it is up to Microsoft to take that data and properly populate it in to WMC format. So while Rovi can take a lot of the blame for the poor data quality, I don't think they are to blame for those things.

The feedback I am talking about are adding channels to a lineup, incorrect data for individual programs, etc. These are things that they control.

For example, WMC no longer has year of release info for movies. Rovi supplies this information, it is not their fault that it is missing from WMC, it is Microsoft that has dropped the ball by not properly populating the data in WMC.


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## davefred99

The writing has been on the wall for months. This comes as no surprise to me as I have said for awhile now that Tivo as we know it now in the retail market is an End of line Product.
My guess is it will continue in its present form for a few more years and they will honor the lifetime commitments for the time being but only time will tell if there is any new retail product development going forward.
Personally I have already started to move away from Tivo Possibly getting a Tablo and using Roku & FireTv boxes for most my TV viewing.


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## filovirus

Doesn't Tablo and ChannelMaster use Rovi data?


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## Scooter Scott

This really is a bummer  

Think positive
Think positive
Think positive


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## jlb

We just use our tivo/cable with locals. I guess between the NBC/ABC/FOX apps on apple TV, and then the CBS app, I could reasonably get everything we currently get for the most part.....


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## mumpower

[email protected] said:


> Absolutely . The new TiVo CEO was likely elected on a promise to improve the bottom line. Selling TiVo's Crown Jewels (patents) will put a lot of $$$ in the old market cap of Rovi. My new BOLT and Roamio Pro are on their way from Amazon. Yippee! Just read on Variety that TiVo stock is up 20% this morning. That's great for CEO Naveen Chopra!


He's only the temp CEO anyway. As a former CFO for the company, his expertise is in the financial end. It's a member of Rovi's board that is pushing for this, and he's actually someone focused on innovation as much as survival.

Having said that, I'm not a fan of Rovi. If this merger transpired, it would feel like the beginning of the end for TiVo.


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## bonscott87

I almost wish I had gotten my Roku before the Tivo. Between Hulu and CBS All Access I wouldn't even need a Tivo for OTA since it would all be there streaming. Then again Hulu could come crashing down at any minute if Time Warner has it's way.


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## mattyro7878

I don't know what it means but Rovi stock is down 14 minutes before market ckose


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## Dan203

bonscott87 said:


> I almost wish I had gotten my Roku before the Tivo. Between Hulu and CBS All Access I wouldn't even need a Tivo for OTA since it would all be there streaming. Then again Hulu could come crashing down at any minute if Time Warner has it's way.


I'm starting to think the same thing. I didn't realize that Hulu had so much stuff. I might be able to cut the cord myself.


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## lessd

Marc01564 said:


> I hope they will honor my lifetime service contract.


What !! you only care about your Lifetime, what about my Lifetime TiVos


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## NashGuy

bonscott87 said:


> I almost wish I had gotten my Roku before the Tivo. Between Hulu and CBS All Access I wouldn't even need a Tivo for OTA since it would all be there streaming. Then again Hulu could come crashing down at any minute if Time Warner has it's way.


Keep in mind that you can install the *FREE* CBS channel plug-in on Plex Media Server and then access the last five eps of virtually all CBS shows (commercial-free in HD) using the Plex app on your Roku.


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## ncted

So, it is a race to see if retail box support gets dropped before the FCC ruins OTA broadcasts then.


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## NashGuy

Dan203 said:


> I'm starting to think the same thing. I didn't realize that Hulu had so much stuff. I might be able to cut the cord myself.


There are a few specific things I would miss if I were to move away from my Roamio OTA to a pure streaming set-up -- mainly being able to watch that day's national newscast and that Sunday morning's news shows later in the same day. With Hulu, that stuff isn't available until the following day (I think) and the point of news is that you want it same-day.

And trick play is certainly better on TiVo recordings than with streaming, although I've yet to try out a Fire TV and I think it may be pretty good there (especially with Amazon's own content).

But yeah, once you get used to having Hulu plus one or two other streaming services, it does kinda of make you see how, for a lot of non-cable subscribers, there's not *that* much appeal to an OTA DVR. (And many existing cable subscribers who aren't hard-core TV fans would find themselves pretty satisfied with a combination of Sling TV and Hulu on their streaming box of choice as opposed to their current big cable TV package plus cable-co DVR.)


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## Dan203

If TiVo goes under due to this merger I think I'll be OK with streaming. I might even try out PlayStation Vue. If the choice is between the crappy cable DVR and streaming I think streaming would win.


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## TonyD79

Dan203 said:


> If TiVo goes under due to this merger I think I'll be OK with streaming. I might even try out PlayStation Vue. If the choice is between the crappy cable DVR and streaming I think streaming would win.


I will go back to the fios box if necssary. It is not good but it is useable.


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## JoeKustra

mattyro7878 said:


> I don't know what it means but Rovi stock is down 14 minutes before market ckose


Rovi down 1.3%
TiVo up 23%

Still not as high as it was in 2015. Volume was even on Rovi too.


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## Gunnyman

And I recently bought a Bolt with Lifetime to escape Charter's horrible DVR. Am I screwed?


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## davefred99

I dont care much who does the guide data because I mostly only use OTA to watch local news and record a few odd shows not available via streaming like Judge Judy for my wife or the Dog Wisperer.
Other than that I stream on Demand or use Watch ESPN for sports occasionally Having a DVR is a minor part of my TV watching and honestly the TIvo Streaming apps are pretty bad or limited accept for Netflix so I use Roku or Firetv most of the time now a days.


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## gbshuler

Gunnyman said:


> And I recently bought a Bolt with Lifetime to escape Charter's horrible DVR. Am I screwed?


Walk back up this thread. What appears to be aTiVo employee asserts that TiVo is legally bound to fulfill its obligations. Of course they could just buy you out.

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## eherberg

rainwater said:


> I'm not sure why people are worried about the guide. Of all things to worry about with this possible acquisition, the guide seems least important. Surely TiVo has a contract with Tribune. Even if they got out of it, switching to a different guide provider would take an insane amount of time engineering and development.


It would hardly be difficult to change guide providers. The TiVo connects to the TiVo server the same as it always does. They would just have to change it at one point at the source.


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## tatergator1

[email protected] said:


> Walk back up this thread. What appears to be aTiVo employee asserts that TiVo is legally bound to fulfill its obligations. Of course they could just buy you out.


Huh? I don't see any Tivo employees posting in this thread. If you're talking about Dan203, he's a forum moderator and this forum has no affiliation with Tivo Inc.


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## mdavej

eherberg said:


> It would hardly be difficult to change guide providers. The TiVo connects to the TiVo server the same as it always does. They would just have to change it at one point at the source.


It's not just a matter of pointing to a different source. It's a matter of getting all the database fields mapped properly, something the geniuses at Microsoft worked on for months and still couldn't get right with WMC. Even after they eventually got it partially right, the Rovi data itself was woefully incomplete and very inaccurate. Just check out any of the thousands of posts at thegreenbutton. Rovi has been a nightmare. It's the reason I have Tivo today instead of WMC.

In any case, the guide will be the least of our problems. Rovi will destroy Tivo like they destroyed WMC.


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## lpwcomp

eherberg said:


> It would hardly be difficult to change guide providers. The TiVo connects to the TiVo server the same as it always does. They would just have to change it at one point at the source.


 Not as easy as you intimate. TMS assigns the series and program IDs.


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## gbshuler

Look for a post by "bradleys" about 3 hours ago. Well written post. With 3,500 posts on this board they probably don't work for TiVo. Pretty good work in any case.


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## Space

lpwcomp said:


> Not as easy as you intimate. TMS assigns the series and program IDs.


Yeah, with WMC, Microsoft did a half-assed job of mapping the Rovi IDs to the TMSids. Some "season passes" continued to work, but many did not and had to be recreated. I'm not sure that any of the individual episode IDs were mapped at all.


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## schatham

Those who stated this is the beginning of the end are correct. They will gut Tivo and sell the good stuff (Patents, customer list etc) eliminating a competitor in the process. 

If your Tivo works and you were thinking of buying a new one, I would not. I would not pay anything but monthly at this point. I am on yearly ending in May and just switched to monthly.


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## dadrepus

Well, others may be happy with streaming replacing DVR content but not my wife and I. We DVR almost everything we watch so we don't have to watch those damn commercials + we get done in 2/3 the time. It is my understanding that no streaming service allows you to record a show. So, even if you have the entire season at your disposal, you are stuck watching the commercials. Am I wrong?


----------



## randian

dadrepus said:


> Well, others may be happy with streaming replacing DVR content but not my wife and I. We DVR almost everything we watch so we don't have to watch those damn commercials + we get done in 2/3 the time. It is my understanding that no streaming service allows you to record a show. So, even if you have the entire season at your disposal, you are stuck watching the commercials. Am I wrong?


Watching the commercials, awful as that is, would be tolerable if you could time shift, which you generally can't do with streaming services. That's the reason I dropped Sling TV: you can only watch live.


----------



## Dan203

Hulu has a commercial free option now. ($12/mo) Amazon and Netflix are both commercial free. The CBS service has forced commercials though and no commercial free option. (someone posted up thread that the CBS channel for Plex is commercial free though)


----------



## ncted

dadrepus said:


> Well, others may be happy with streaming replacing DVR content but not my wife and I. We DVR almost everything we watch so we don't have to watch those damn commercials + we get done in 2/3 the time. It is my understanding that no streaming service allows you to record a show. So, even if you have the entire season at your disposal, you are stuck watching the commercials. Am I wrong?


Playstation Vue does. It is a cloud DVR.


----------



## Dan203

randian said:


> Watching the commercials, awful as that is, would be tolerable if you could time shift, which you generally can't do with streaming services. That's the reason I dropped Sling TV: you can only watch live.


SlingTV is the exception, not the rule. Playstation Vue has a "DVR" that allows you to store shows for up to 28 days. Hulu retains the last 3-5 episodes of first run shows. And Netflix and Amazon have entire seasons.


----------



## randian

ncted said:


> Playstation Vue does. It is a cloud DVR.


I signed up for the service before I realized that this streaming "service" requires a substantial hardware investment. I don't want to spend hundreds buying a playstation box just to stream when I have a perfectly good TiVo and an iMac.


----------



## Dan203

You can get PS Vue on an Amazon Fire TV. They're less then $50


----------



## randian

Dan203 said:


> SlingTV is the exception, not the rule. Playstation Vue has a "DVR" that allows you to store shows for up to 28 days. Hulu retains the last 3-5 episodes of first run shows. And Netflix and Amazon have entire seasons.


It was somewhat iffy as to whether Hulu had reruns of shows when I trialed it, and many channels aren't available for streaming at all on the major services. I couldn't see any way to reasonably replicate my cable tv sub with streaming, and streaming certainly wasn't cheaper. Plus streaming counted against my download cap (darn you Comcast!).


----------



## ncted

randian said:


> I signed up for the service before I realized that this streaming "service" requires a substantial hardware investment. I don't want to spend hundreds buying a playstation box just to stream when I have a perfectly good TiVo and an iMac.


I wasn't commenting on the economic feasibility of that particular product, just that it had the functionality. FWIW: It only saves recordings for a max of 28 days IIRC.

For me, if Tivo service starts to suck, the only question for me is whether to go with DirecTV (and get unlimited data from AT&T wireless) or Dish and get an awesome STB in the Hopper3.

I haven't seen another OTA DVR which compared to my Roamio, and the OTA reception is likely to degrade in the coming years anyway.


----------



## Space

I like the flexibility of recording a show/series and watching it at my leisure, months or even years afterwards. No streaming service can offer that.

I'll admit that I record way more TV than I can probably ever watch, but I also have hundreds of options, including full seasons of dozens of shows. Netflix has this flexibility to some extent, but it is limited in what series it has and there is no guarantee that any particular series won't vanish from the service.


----------



## unknownpa

Jed1 said:


> Rovi just wants the UI so they can make money by leasing it to MSOs just like they do with Gemstar software, I Guide, PassPort Echo, and Total Guide that is used with Comcast's X1.
> They will ditch the hardware as they are not in that business.
> 
> Basically this is the end of the line for TiVo DVRs if this goes through. They will support the retail units for a while and then start phasing it out. They did this with retail devices that was using Gemstar's TVGOS, TV Guide On Screen.
> 
> I used to know people that worked in the listings department for Gemstar but they basically all got axed when the TVGOS shutdown happened. Rovi sold the rights to the TV Guide website to Paramount who in turn sold it to CBS Corp. Getting any guide updates for retail is now impossible. My lineup is still the same from 2012 when I submitted the last lineup change for TVGOS. It has not been updated since then.


I doubt they would just get rid of the hardware business because look at all the cable providers that currently have TiVos rolled out to hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

My local cable provider, which happens to be the 11th largest in the US, recently rolled out TiVos in my area.


----------



## aaronwt

unknownpa said:


> I doubt they would just get rid of the hardware business because look at all the cable providers that currently have TiVos rolled out to hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
> 
> My local cable provider, which happens to be the 11th largest in the US, recently rolled out TiVos in my area.


Cable providers have TiVos rolled out to millions customers. Hundreds of thousands is the retail market.


----------



## SolomonJ

I hate thinking that I spent over $1000 4 months ago that could be money down the toilet. They haven't kept their promise for Bolt OOH streaming so far. I suspect they could now break many other things I've paid in advance for!!!


----------



## Dan203

SolomonJ said:


> I hate thinking that I spent over $1000 4 months ago that could be money down the toilet. They haven't kept their promise for Bolt OOH streaming so far. I suspect they could now break many other things I've paid in advance for!!!


Hopefully this doesn't happen, but it's possible. I hope they continue to develop the software at least until the deal is done and Rovi takes over.


----------



## shelbel

Space said:


> I like the flexibility of recording a show/series and watching it at my leisure, months or even years afterwards. No streaming service can offer that.


Same here. My home wifi is less than perfect (and this even after a combination of routers/repeaters/ethernet to maximize signal coverage), I don't want to be dependent on streaming anything, when my cable signal comes through the TiVo just fine and the whole setup _just works_. I'm having flashbacks to when NBC/Uni bought out televisionwithoutpity.com, destroyed it, then promised to leave the site up as an archive, then quietly broke it completely.


----------



## waynomo

I'm very dependent on archiving shows from my TiVo to my PC. If the worst comes to fruition (which personally I don't think it will for years) what other options are there?


----------



## Dan203

Streaming isn't my first choice either. I just think I might prefer it to my cable company's 10 year old DVRs.

In fact if this does come to pass I might consider just switching to DirecTV and UVerse. In my area Uverse has faster internet anyway (45Mbps vs 30Mbps) and I hear mostly good things about the Genie.


----------



## Dan203

waynomo said:


> I'm very dependent on archiving shows from my TiVo to my PC. If the worst comes to fruition (which personally I don't think it will for years) what other options are there?


Not much. Silicone Dust is working on a PC DVR and uses standard TS file format, so that might be an option but it's beta right now. Not sure what Ceton is working on, but I assume with the death of MCE they're doing something as well. Beyond that you're looking at some sort of reatime capture like Hauppauge.


----------



## ajwees41

has anyone even tried posting on twitter or facebook about the takeover yet?


----------



## Dan203

I can't imagine the people that post there are authorized to comment on this.


----------



## wizwor

I think you guys are losing your minds prematurely. Frankly, I do not thing this information is more troubling than ATSC 3 or the shuffling of the spectrum -- for OTA'ers, anyway. This is just another unwelcome wrinkle in the unsettled world of television which began with the arrival of digital television and has endured encryption and the loss of Clear QAM.

I don't expect TiVo to go away for a very long time. Some people are simply cashing out. I think TiVo is very mature. Rovi will trim development and focus on support with diminishing returns on service.

I would not be switching from annual to monthly at this point and people shopping for a TiVo should not pass on a lifetime bundle at the right price.

The Bolt seems like a device with broad appeal and a long shelf life. Now that it is finished and launched, stop development and let the product fade into the sunset -- however many years that fade may last.

I do expect Rovi to implement their guide -- they are already good to go on the transition. That will further reduce operating costs.


----------



## jkovach

Well, looks like this is the year I switch to DirecTV and their Genie DVR platform. Have had multiple Tivos used on Cox for the past 17years, with very little trouble and huge satisfaction. I totally agree that this sounds like a deal where they are throwing in the towel on the original vision for Tivo and simply trying to monetize the assets. The Bolt was the final attempt to produce something that would sell in high volume, and failed to achieve that goal. The CEO basically retired and the only people left see $ signs instead of the desire to keep trying to grow the business. They are cashing in their chips.


----------



## series5orpremier

[email protected] said:


> Of course they could just buy you out.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


They would use ridiculous accounting assumptions that heavily favor them. Don't use our $5 Visa Gift Cards all in one place.

As long as they're sending some data regardless of how bad it is I'd just retrench to OTA only and try to ride the wave til it dies. How badly could they mess up 14 channels of data, only half of which are important to me?


----------



## RUBiK

jkovach said:


> Well, looks like this is the year I switch to DirecTV and their Genie DVR platform. Have had multiple Tivos used on Cox for the past 17years, with very little trouble and huge satisfaction. I totally agree that this sounds like a deal where they are throwing in the towel on the original vision for Tivo and simply trying to monetize the assets. The Bolt was the final attempt to produce something that would sell in high volume, and failed to achieve that goal. The CEO basically retired and the only people left see $ signs instead of the desire to keep trying to grow the business. They are cashing in their chips.


At the risk of going too much OT, it's not all rosy with DTV/Genie either. I've just ordered a Roamio Pro and 2 Minis that I'll set up this weekend to replace my DTV service, saving me about $100/mo in the process. I've had DTV for almost 20 years but the hardware/BS-ey fees add up really quick, to the point where it got ridiculous lately, so FIOS+Tivo just made too much sense.

As for the Genie, unless you get a newer model, the older ones (i.e. mine) have basically started to lag something fierce, making for a very frustrating experience with even basic things like switching channels taking a few seconds, etc. From reading through DTV forums everywhere, it's been an issue for a long time with no resolution... other than playing truck roll refurb-roulette and hoping for a new model Genie replacement.


----------



## tenthplanet

Activist investor over at Rovi is pushing for this merger, activist investors have a record as job killers. But let him, I don't think Rovi has much place in a Microsoft, Google, and Apple world. Tech giants have the resources to call the shots. When my last Tivo dies, Rovi will be history.


----------



## Johncv

Dan203 said:


> You can get PS Vue on an Amazon Fire TV. They're less then $50


Yes, but beware that the picture quietly is not good as a Playstation or Fire TV, this came from a Cnet review. If all want to do is use Vue than buy a used PS3.


----------



## miadlor

I tested VUE on my PS3, picture was great.


----------



## gbshuler

unknownpa said:


> I doubt they would just get rid of the hardware business because look at all the cable providers that currently have TiVos rolled out to hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
> 
> My local cable provider, which happens to be the 11th largest in the US, recently rolled out TiVos in my area.


I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best hardware (DVR, Remote, interactivity)

I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best user interface.

TiVo pretty much invented both. That's how "TiVo" became a verb.

Now imagine you are in the Rovi offices looking at a PowerPoint presentation. Trying to decide whether to keep TiVo around or not. There's a pie chart showing market share of all players in the market. One slice, so small you don't even see it, is TiVo (NY Times said in today's article that TiVo holds a 2% share of the market). Would you want to pour money into a tiny slice of the pie (chart)? How did they go from 100% of the pie, to 2%?

I just don't understand it. Why isn't there a TiVo box in at least half the homes in America? TiVo should be the "Google" of set top boxes for petes sake.


----------



## Johncv

[email protected] said:


> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best hardware (DVR, Remote, interactivity)
> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best user interface.
> 
> TiVo pretty much invented both. That's how "TiVo" became a verb.
> 
> Now imagine you are in the Rovi offices looking at a white board. Trying to decide whether to keep TiVo around or not. There's a pie chart showing market share of all players in the market. One slice, so small you don't even see it, is TiVo (NY Times said in today's article that TiVo holds a 2% share of the market). Would you want to pour money into a tiny slice of the pie (chart)? How did they go from 100% of the pie, to 2%?
> 
> I just don't understand it. Why isn't there a TiVo box in at least half the homes in America? TiVo should be the "Google" of set top boxes for petes sake.


Cabecards + Turning adapter = Bulls**t.


----------



## rainwater

mdavej said:


> Not usually on purpose. But that's exactly what Google did to Sage.


Google has used Sage and their developers to build the Google Fiber interface so I wouldn't say they killed it.


----------



## rainwater

Dan203 said:


> We've delt with Rovi a little. They bought MainConcept, a supplier we use for codecs, and then sold it again like a year later. In the scheme of things I know we're small potatoes to them, but under Rovi they basically ignored us. Before the merger they were pleasant to work with. I hope the same doesn't happen with TiVo.


The difference is TiVo seems to be getting a 30% controlling interest if the deal goes through.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs

I've always thought that TiVo ought to be a service, not a box.

Unfortunately, their attempts to achieve this have never had much success. I'm not sure whether TiVo, the cable companies, or both are to blame for that...


----------



## Jed1

If Rovi starts using their lineups instead of Tribunes then here is how bad things will be.
http://www.tvguide.com/listings/
Click on change and put in your zip code and select your provider. These are the listing for retail users and not the listings used by your cable provider.

As I said earlier my listings are from October of 2012 and this is the same listing I get if I fire up WMC. Rovi dumped most of the employees who used to work for Gemstar who took care of the TVGOS system. 
Rovi bought Gemstar just to get the TVGuide data base and the TVGuide Ui's used in cable boxes. They dumped the TVGuide magazine, TVGuide website, and the TVGuide channel.
In this case the retail hardware will go as they are not in that type of business. Everybody has to remember that we all agreed to arbitration a few years ago so I believe Rovi will take advantage of that.
https://www.tivo.com/legal/terms

As for the MSO hardware I believe they will handle that differently as Rovi already does business with most of the MSOs.


----------



## bonscott87

randian said:


> It was somewhat iffy as to whether Hulu had reruns of shows when I trialed it, and many channels aren't available for streaming at all on the major services. I couldn't see any way to reasonably replicate my cable tv sub with streaming, and streaming certainly wasn't cheaper. Plus streaming counted against my download cap (darn you Comcast!).


Hulu is a pretty good replacement for the OTA channels.
ABC, Fox, NBC and CW have pretty much all their shows on Hulu. I stream in full HD quality and DD 5.1 with no issues. Hard wired Roku 3. I've found watching more of my shows just on Hulu vs. what I have recorded on the Tivo which is a bit strange.
CBS is the big hole as they have their own service.

Cable networks on Hulu will be hit or miss and a lot more restrictions, usually requiring a cable authentication login to view. Right now you're looking at Sling TV or Playstation Vue for actual cable channels, live as well. More competitors coming very soon.

For us the only issue with streaming only is that Hulu will only go back 3-5 episodes while I could DVR a lot more then that on the Tivo and watch whenever. At least right now Hulu has that limitation if you don't keep up with it. Same thing for PVue with their cloud DVR which goes back 28 days so about 4 episodes.

On the issue in general, I have calmed down a bit on it, knowing how slow these things actually are in terms of buyouts and mergers and I'd say worst case a Bolt will still be going strong 3-4 years from now. 5+ yrs all bets are off though.


----------



## Dan203

Johncv said:


> Cabecards + Turning adapter = Bulls**t.


Cable companies have used their position to squeeze TiVo out of the market. CableCARDs and TAs, lack of VOD, excessive use of the "copy once" byte, etc... They've done everything they're allowed to do to make TiVo as unattractive as possible. Comcast is sort of the exception, except they've only recently started to show TiVo some favor in an attempt to stave off additional regulation by pretending to cooperate with a 3rd party device. They still have their fair share of issues even with their relatively tight integration with TiVo.


----------



## rainwater

eherberg said:


> It would hardly be difficult to change guide providers. The TiVo connects to the TiVo server the same as it always does. They would just have to change it at one point at the source.


That certainly isn't true. Every single show and episode ever created in the Tribune database would have to be converted to the associated Rovi data point. Plus, TiVo's OnePass system that matches Tribune data with streaming services would have to be completely updated as well.


----------



## morac

rainwater said:


> The difference is TiVo seems to be getting a 30% controlling interest if the deal goes through.


Which means Rovi gets 70% controlling interest. In other words, what Rovi says goes.

I'm not sure what the point of the acquisition would be. TiVo's patents are only good for 2.75 more years after which TiVo's patent assets become worthless and all that remains is TiVo's user base, which isn't that big.

The only reason I can think of to do this is to get a back door into cable companies since TiVo is the provider for a number of them.


----------



## Jed1

[email protected] said:


> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best hardware (DVR, Remote, interactivity)
> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best user interface.
> 
> TiVo pretty much invented both. That's how "TiVo" became a verb.
> 
> Now imagine you are in the Rovi offices looking at a white board. Trying to decide whether to keep TiVo around or not. There's a pie chart showing market share of all players in the market. One slice, so small you don't even see it, is TiVo (NY Times said in today's article that TiVo holds a 2% share of the market). Would you want to pour money into a tiny slice of the pie (chart)? How did they go from 100% of the pie, to 2%?
> 
> *I just don't understand it. Why isn't there a TiVo box in at least half the homes in America?* TiVo should be the "Google" of set top boxes for petes sake.


Price. Most of the average Americans can not afford to purchase one. Also the biggest reason is most Americans do not know that TiVo even exists. It has nothing to do with CableCards or tuning adaptors as most average Americans do not know what those devices are either.
With cable/sat, the provider comes in and does the install for free and they also get some type of teaser rate for signing up. Once that expires they move onto the next provider and they get another free install and a teaser rate for signing up. It is then just wash, rinse, and repeat over and over again.
If there is a problem they just call and what ever the problem it is repaired at no expense to the user. No fuss no muss.


----------



## rainwater

morac said:


> Which means Rovi gets 70% controlling interest. In other words, what Rovi says goes.


Sure. But TiVo will have some say it what happens. Obviously Rovi has final say.



morac said:


> I'm not sure what the point of the acquisition would be. TiVo's patents are only good for 2.75 more years after which TiVo's patent assets become worthless and all that remains is TiVo's user base, which isn't that big.


TiVo has plenty of patents beyond their holy grail patents. They have been amassing them for quite some time now. However, none of them have been shown to be profitable in a court of law yet. So it is hard to say if they are worth anything or not..


----------



## JoeKustra

morac said:


> Which means Rovi gets 70% controlling interest. In other words, what Rovi says goes.


That's a scary point of view if you extend it. Rovi doesn't sell hardware, so we all move to Best Buy (like Sony). Rovi doesn't do such a good job with an end user experience (like Comcast). The guide could evaporate, like TVGOS. Things don't look good.

Or nothing happens. It's a three day weekend for stocks. That's good timing.


----------



## aaronwt

Jed1 said:


> If Rovi starts using their lineups instead of Tribunes then here is how bad things will be.
> http://www.tvguide.com/listings/
> Click on change and put in your zip code and select your provider. These are the listing for retail users and not the listings used by your cable provider.
> 
> .............


It looks fine here. The listings look the same as what shows up on my TiVo. At least from doing a quick check.

It shows listings for FiOS in my area and for Comcast in my area. And it shows listings for OTA in my area.


----------



## wizwor

[email protected] said:


> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best hardware (DVR, Remote, interactivity)


It's the best, but not 'by far'.



[email protected] said:


> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best user interface.


It's the best, but not 'by far'.



[email protected] said:


> TiVo pretty much invented both. That's how "TiVo" became a verb.
> 
> Now imagine you are in the Rovi offices looking at a PowerPoint presentation. Trying to decide whether to keep TiVo around or not. There's a pie chart showing market share of all players in the market. One slice, so small you don't even see it, is TiVo (NY Times said in today's article that TiVo holds a 2% share of the market). Would you want to pour money into a tiny slice of the pie (chart)? How did they go from 100% of the pie, to 2%?


They charged too much. When I was looking at DVRs in 2008ish, a TiVo with Lifetime was $700. For $1k, I bought FIVE DTVPals. When I looked again two years agi, a TiVo with Lifetime was $700. For $500, I bought three DVR+ DVRs. The math is worse if you go month to month. They had a niche who would pay that premium and everyone else got something else.



[email protected] said:


> I just don't understand it. Why isn't there a TiVo box in at least half the homes in America? TiVo should be the "Google" of set top boxes for petes sake.


God no! They have about a million subscribers. How many TiVos do you pay a monthly fee for? TiVo is probably in a half million homes -- about 1/2 of 1% of all US homes with televisions.


----------



## wizwor

Dan203 said:


> Cable companies have used their position to squeeze TiVo out of the market. CableCARDs and TAs, lack of VOD, excessive use of the "copy once" byte, etc... They've done everything they're allowed to do to make TiVo as unattractive as possible. Comcast is sort of the exception, except they've only recently started to show TiVo some favor in an attempt to stave off additional regulation by pretending to cooperate with a 3rd party device. They still have their fair share of issues even with their relatively tight integration with TiVo.


That's capitalism. To be fair, TiVo has used the courts (their position) to make a lot of money and stifle competition.


----------



## Jed1

aaronwt said:


> It looks fine here. The listings look the same as what shows up on my TiVo. At least from doing a quick check.
> 
> It shows listings for FiOS in my area and for Comcast in my area. And it shows listings for OTA in my area.


Mine shows all available options too but the lineup is severely out of date. Once Rovi dumped TVGOS a lot of lineups were not updated. I suspect the lineups for the systems in the big cities are probably correct but the lineups for the smaller systems in the less populated areas have been ignored.


----------



## dadrepus

waynomo said:


> I'm very dependent on archiving shows from my TiVo to my PC. If the worst comes to fruition (which personally I don't think it will for years) what other options are there?


The only other thing you could do is become a Pirate, matie . This will just push some honest people to torrent the shows they want, in frustration.


----------



## ncted

morac said:


> Which means Rovi gets 70% controlling interest. In other words, what Rovi says goes.
> 
> I'm not sure what the point of the acquisition would be. TiVo's patents are only good for 2.75 more years after which TiVo's patent assets become worthless and all that remains is TiVo's user base, which isn't that big.
> 
> The only reason I can think of to do this is to get a back door into cable companies since TiVo is the provider for a number of them.


If the cases are filed before the expiration, the cases could continue indefinitely until resolved as any damages would have occurred prior to expiration. Rovi might be willing to extort...er, go after many more "infringers" than Tivo did. Seems like Tivo just went after the big fish.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

[email protected] said:


> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best hardware (DVR, Remote, interactivity)


No.



[email protected] said:


> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best user interface.


No



[email protected] said:


> TiVo pretty much invented both. That's how "TiVo" became a verb.


Actually, that's why TV shows and society do NOT use TiVo as a verb any longer. That ended late last decade.

Other DVRs got to be just as good - and surpassed TiVo in the DVR category.



[email protected] said:


> I just don't understand it. Why isn't there a TiVo box in at least half the homes in America? TiVo should be the "Google" of set top boxes for petes sake.


Re-read what I posted above.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

rainwater said:


> The difference is TiVo seems to be getting a 30% controlling interest if the deal goes through.


No, TiVo stockholders will hold about 30% of Rovi

We now know the reason the TiVo Acting CEO was not appointed CEO - and no new CFO was named.

Raising the "special" price by $100 4-5 weeks ago.

Cleaning out about 10% of staff.

All to make the numbers look even better for a sale.


----------



## waynomo

dadrepus said:


> The only other thing you could do is become a Pirate, matie . This will just push some honest people to torrent the shows they want, in frustration.


 Too late.


----------



## gbshuler

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> No


Please name a DVR with superior user experience -- category is the wonderful world of live 100+ HD channels.

(The POS DVR from Charter I am returning tomorrow for cable cards for a Romio Pro and BOLT from Amazon Prime actually had a menu button labelled "HD Shows" -- pressing this would show you all the cool shows in HD coming up. The box was 8-10 years out of date.)


----------



## lessd

If Rovi wanted to gut TiVo why would they pay a big price for the buyout, Rovi may start to use TiVos guide service if better than their own as the volume would big by adding TiVo and Rovi guide service together, the real problem is if Rovi could do something about people with Lifetime (All-in) service, one thing that Rovi could do to reduce the number of Lifetime units is stop people from replacing their hard drives, the call home tells the service what type of hard drive you are using, if it is changed you may have to pay Rovi something for extending you product lifetime. Most hard drives will fail within 7 years, and the contract with TiVo has no provision that allows one to replace the hard drive.


----------



## atmuscarella

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> ...
> We now know the reason the TiVo Acting CEO was not appointed CEO - and no new CFO was named.
> ...


We don't actually "know" that we just have a tiny bit of info. And as humans always do we take that tiny bit of info and make more sh** up so that the we have a whole "story" that makes sense in our own minds and then of course we present this "story" that is mostly made up sh** as reality to the world. This whole thread is a great example of this.


----------



## gbshuler

wizwor said:


> It's the best, but not 'by far'.
> 
> It's the best, but not 'by far'.
> 
> They charged too much. When I was looking at DVRs in 2008ish, a TiVo with Lifetime was $700. For $1k, I bought FIVE DTVPals. When I looked again two years agi, a TiVo with Lifetime was $700. For $500, I bought three DVR+ DVRs. The math is worse if you go month to month. They had a niche who would pay that premium and everyone else got something else.
> 
> God no! They have about a million subscribers. How many TiVos do you pay a monthly fee for? TiVo is probably in a half million homes -- about 1/2 of 1% of all US homes with televisions.


Forgot about the killer TiVo monthly fee. You are right. Ten years ago they used to say Apple buyers were like BMW buyers. Market segment was about the same, and quality and feature awareness as well -- justifying a premium price. TiVo is pretty much the same. Comparable to Mercedes (also about 2% U.S. Market Share) except for the whole market cap thingy..


----------



## foghorn2

Yeah the talk about world going dark permanently due to this potential merger is overblown..

Its the Tivo employees that should be the worriers.


----------



## morac

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Actually, that's why TV shows and society do NOT use TiVo as a verb any longer. That ended late last decade.
> 
> Other DVRs got to be just as good - and surpassed TiVo in the DVR category.


First off no, they didn't and second the reason TiVo isn't used as a verb more often (it is still by some people), is that TiVo actively discouraged people from doing.

TiVo didn't want every DVR to be called a TiVo in the same way people call all tissues Kleenex and all copiers Xerox. They were protecting their trademark. That's also partially why they started naming TiVo models.


----------



## BRiT wtfdotcom

[email protected] said:


> Please name a DVR with superior user experience -- category is the wonderful world of live 100+ HD channels.


New dish hd dvr with 16 tuners, pip, pap, sports bar mode, 4k support, and streaming.

Only partial downside is no skipmode, but i can do without if they have 30skip.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

[email protected] said:


> Please name a DVR with superior user experience -- category is the wonderful world of live 100+ HD channels.
> 
> (The POS DVR from Charter I am returning tomorrow for cable cards for a Romio Pro and BOLT from Amazon Prime actually had a menu button labelled "HD Shows" -- pressing this would show you all the cool shows in HD coming up. The box was 8-10 years out of date.)


Hopper has been more advanced than TiVo for years. Ditto Genie.


----------



## 8bitbarbarian

My Roamio's lifetime is hoping for the best.

I found this article about a recent Netflix vs Rovi court case that invalidated some of ROVI's patents for their TV Guide data. Is that a group of patents they would pick up from buying TIVO?

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...orporation-lives-and-dies-by-the-netflix.aspx

*What this decision means to Rovi and Netflix
For Rovi, this case is a big deal. Some 22% of the company's 2014 sales rested on licensing agreements with DIRECTV, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable, and all of these contracts are set to expire either this year or by the middle of 2016. The broadcasters pay Rovi for the right to use its patented TV guide systems, which in turn depend on patents like the ones Netflix called into question.*


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

morac said:


> First off no, they didn't and second the reason TiVo isn't used as a verb more often (it is still by some people), is that TiVo actively discouraged people from doing.
> 
> TiVo didn't want every DVR to be called a TiVo in the same way people call all tissues Kleenex and all copiers Xerox. They were protecting their trademark. That's also partially why they started naming TiVo models.


Clearly you missed marketing 101


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

atmuscarella said:


> We don't actually "know" that we just have a tiny bit of info. And as humans always do we take that tiny bit of info and make more sh** up so that the we have a whole "story" that makes sense in our own minds and then of course we present this "story" that is mostly made up sh** as reality to the world. This whole thread is a great example of this.


No we Have a very strange event in the tech world where someone is named an acting CEO with no announcement from the board of a search committee.

That, though strange, combined with everything else we now know gives 20/20 vision unless your eyes are closed.


----------



## morac

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Clearly you missed marketing 101


Clearly you missed trademarking 101.


----------



## NashGuy

Dan203 said:


> Streaming isn't my first choice either. I just think I might prefer it to my cable company's 10 year old DVRs.
> 
> In fact if this does come to pass I might consider just switching to DirecTV and UVerse. In my area Uverse has faster internet anyway (45Mbps vs 30Mbps) and I hear mostly good things about the Genie.


I had DirecTV with a Genie just before switching to my Roamio OTA. The Genie is a good solid DVR. In fact, there are some aspects of the UI/controls that I prefer to TiVo. But TiVo does give you more granular control about all episodes vs just new episodes, how many episodes to keep, etc. (At least I think so; I'm not all that demanding about such details.) And TiVo integrates with several streaming services, of course, which the Genie does not.

DirecTV does offer very good HD picture quality, better than the average cable company, I'd say.


----------



## Dan203

wizwor said:


> That's capitalism. To be fair, TiVo has used the courts (their position) to make a lot of money and stifle competition.


Capitalism requires competition. These cable companies are given essentially government sanctioned monopolies in most areas. They should be regulated like any other utility, but they're not. (Yet)


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

morac said:


> Clearly you missed trademarking 101.


Tell that to Coke, Kleenex and Xerox.

Hollywood writers do not stop calling a DVR "TiVo" because of a Trademark. They call it what the public calls it.

TiVo lost its synonym with a DVR when TiVo became just another DVR.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

NashGuy said:


> I had DirecTV with a Genie just before switching to my Roamio OTA. The Genie is a good solid DVR. In fact, there are some aspects of the UI/controls that I prefer to TiVo. But TiVo does give you more granular control about all episodes vs just new episodes, how many episodes to keep, etc. (At least I think so; I'm not all that demanding about such details.) And TiVo integrates with several streaming services, of course, which the Genie does not.
> 
> DirecTV does offer very good HD picture quality, better than the average cable company, I'd say.


My DirecTV Genies have much more control than my TiVos.


----------



## jth tv

Well, if they do get out of the DVR business, stop updating the guide, the least they can do is let TiVo's "Set Up a Manual Recording". I don't think, currently, Manual Recordings work without the TiVo service.


----------



## wizwor

Dan203 said:


> Capitalism requires competition. These cable companies are given essentially government sanctioned monopolies in most areas. They should be regulated like any other utility, but they're not. (Yet)


The cable companies were given some protections in exchange for building their infrastructure, including an affordable tier of basic service, and accommodating PEG interests, but broadcast television dominated at that time. By the time the cable infrastructure was complete, satellite tv was available. Now, cable companies compete with FiOS, satellite, broadcast, and OTT.

When television recording first became feasible, it was the content creators, not the premium providers, that sought to outlaw the boxes. The FCC sided with the consumer. That created the opportunity for Replay TV and TiVo.

The patent lawyers killed off competition in TiVo's favor and the company has made a lot of money off lawsuits since. By killing off TiVo's competition, these lawyers allowed the TiVo to continue to sell their products at prices and terms that limited their growth.

TiVo has had, until recently, far less competition than the cable companies. They enjoyed protection from the courts. Like the cable companies, TiVo ignored potential competition, annoying competition, and legitimate competition assuming brand and awesomeness would bouy the company. Last year a lot of awesomeness was added -- streaming, 4k, and commercial skip -- but prices offset the value of the awesomeness to a lot of potential customers. Most excitement was generated by their OTA value bundle. At the same time, commercial skip alienated potential partners.

I suppose I am in a minority in expecting TiVo to survive Rovi, but it will. Rovi will dramatically cut costs and broaden the audience while licensing tech to others. Their win will be replacing the guide provider on TiVos. (Curated commercial skip will not likely survive the quest for value.) Slowing development and operating costs, I suspect Lifetime and monthly fees will drop making the TiVo more attractive. Maybe they sell the Bolt with features disabled as a value box people can add services to? Time will tell.


----------



## Mike_TV

NYT is reporting that merger talks are in the early stages with Rovi looking to aquire TiVo. Rovi (formerly known as Macrovision) is a company that has a collection of DVR based technologies and patents.


----------



## jilter

No. No. No . please no.


----------



## JoeKustra

jth tv said:


> Well, if they do get out of the DVR business, stop updating the guide, the least they can do is let TiVo's "Set Up a Manual Recording". I don't think, currently, Manual Recordings work without the TiVo service.


Does the clock? When Rovi dumped the Sony DHG it killed it because there was no manual clock set ability. Sony never added it.


----------



## LoadStar

Currently being discussed over in TiVo Coffee House:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=539224


----------



## Mike_TV

LoadStar said:


> Currently being discussed over in TiVo Coffee House:
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=539224


Didn't see that one. You can lock this one. Thanks!


----------



## atmuscarella

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> No we Have a very strange event in the tech world where someone is named an acting CEO with no announcement from the board of a search committee.
> 
> That, though strange, combined with everything else we now know gives 20/20 vision unless your eyes are closed.


Thanks for posting a great example of what my post said.

There is a great difference between knowing something and believing something. Regardless of what you or I believe we don't know what you have said because we have no first hand knowledge or verified facts. We have a belief based on assumptions based on a limited amount of info that has not been verified.

So while I actually agree that your belief is very likely the case we do not know it.


----------



## Tanzeri

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Tell that to Coke, Kleenex and Xerox.


Not sure why someone with apparently no understanding of trademark law would continue to push an incorrect point. Trademarks serve to identify a source of origin for goods/services. If the trademark becomes synonymous with the goods/services then anyone can use it to identify the underlying goods/services.

The companies owning the trademarks Coke, Kleenex, and Xerox actively protect against generic use of their trademarks. For Coke see https://books.google.com/books?id=ISTwe1QC4mQC&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=how+does+coke+enforce+its+trademarks&source=bl&ots=LMW88FSQQS&sig=mVjzinvFfhOuadipgleCW_GZRDk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX4P3s5dvLAhVIQCYKHRurBzwQ6AEITjAH#v=onepage&q=how%20does%20coke%20enforce%20its%20trademarks&f=false


----------



## atmuscarella

wizwor said:


> ...The patent lawyers killed off competition in TiVo's favor and the company has made a lot of money off lawsuits since. By killing off TiVo's competition, these lawyers allowed the TiVo to continue to sell their products at prices and terms that limited their growth.


Saying a company that has less than 5% of their products market share killed off their competition is amusing at best. Please name one competitor that TiVo killed off by sewing them. All that TiVo's lawsuits did was make TiVo's competitors effectively pay retroactive licensing fees. The reality is that a great number of TiVo's competitors (Dish, Direct, Uverse) have used patents and copy rights to prevent TiVo from competing with them (locked TiVo out of their systems) and others (all cable companies) forced by law to allowing TiVo to compete with them have used their positions to make TiVo's products not work as well as they should (poor cable card support, no VoD access, etc.) or make TiVos products look to expansive by hiding the cost of their DVRs in programing packages.



wizwor said:


> ...
> TiVo has had, until recently, far less competition than the cable companies. They enjoyed protection from the courts. Like the cable companies, TiVo ignored potential competition, annoying competition, and legitimate competition assuming brand and awesomeness would bouy the company. Last year a lot of awesomeness was added -- streaming, 4k, and commercial skip -- but prices offset the value of the awesomeness to a lot of potential customers. Most excitement was generated by their OTA value bundle. At the same time, commercial skip alienated potential partners.


Again I think you need to go look at reality. The court (or Government) has not protected TiVo at all. There are something like 50 million+ DVRs out there now made by at least half a dozen different manufactures that are not TiVos.


----------



## TonyD79

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Clearly you missed marketing 101


Bingo.

The main reason TiVo is struggling today is bad marketing early on. They had a huge percentage of the market but did not GROW the market while everyone caught up. They never turned toward being a mass market device. No real ad campaign. No attempt to find a price point that would put them over the top. No real innovation beyond their first steps (despite things like commercial skip today, TiVo remained stagnant for over a decade). No attempt to simplify the deployment process or provide better support for it.

Some may blame cable cards and tuning adapters but the fact remains that most cable cards work well and huge cable companies don't require adapters (I'm looking at you, Comcast and fios).

Meanwhile TiVo development died. The first Comcast TiVo withered on the vine. Even when they had a chance to get back in the satellite game with directv, the development took so long it was out dated on arrival.

The plain fact is that TiVo is one of those companies that never managed to get past the step of being a good company with a great idea to the next level because they couldn't game plan their transition.


----------



## TonyD79

morac said:


> Clearly you missed trademarking 101.


Why not play on the trend instead of running from it. Ads that say "you want to TiVo, use the real thing."

Nah. TiVo instead wanted to take its name out of the conversation.


----------



## gonzotek

TonyD79 said:


> Why not play on the trend instead of running from it. Ads that say "you want to TiVo, use the real thing."
> 
> Nah. TiVo instead wanted to take its name out of the conversation.


2006. "It's not TiVo unless it's a TiVo"
http://techcrunch.com/2006/11/15/its-not-tivo-unless-its-a-tivo/
http://www.pvrblog.com/2006/11/zatz_not_funnyb.html


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## SomeRandomIdiot

Tanzeri said:


> Not sure why someone with apparently no understanding of trademark law would continue to push an incorrect point. Trademarks serve to identify a source of origin for goods/services. If the trademark becomes synonymous with the goods/services then anyone can use it to identify the underlying goods/services.
> 
> The companies owning the trademarks Coke, Kleenex, and Xerox actively protect against generic use of their trademarks. For Coke see https://books.google.com/books?id=ISTwe1QC4mQC&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=how+does+coke+enforce+its+trademarks&source=bl&ots=LMW88FSQQS&sig=mVjzinvFfhOuadipgleCW_GZRDk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX4P3s5dvLAhVIQCYKHRurBzwQ6AEITjAH#v=onepage&q=how%20does%20coke%20enforce%20its%20trademarks&f=false


Again, TiVo had no ability to control how the word was used by TV Writers, Comedians, The Press and the Public in everyday conversation.

You fail to grasp that fact along with the First Amendment.

A Company cannot control the use of a word in free speech. It can prevent another Product from calling itself a TiVo.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

Sale to Rovi is all about the Patents

http://www.mediapost.com/publicatio...i-reportedly-talking-about-merging-their.html


----------



## gbshuler

atmuscarella said:


> There is a great difference between knowing something and believing something.


Absolutely. Today's word is 'conjecture'

In the great [cancelled but still great] show Manhattan, a woman/wife sits in Robert Oppenheimer's office to tell him a very important piece of information (gossip). Oppenheimer asks where she got this information. After she hesitates he says "there are 'facts' and there is 'conjecture'. Your story is conjecture. You are fired."

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## gbshuler

BRiT wtfdotcom said:


> New dish hd dvr with 16 tuners, pip, pap, sports bar mode, 4k support, and streaming.
> 
> Only partial downside is no skipmode, but i can do without if they have 30skip.


Specs mean nothing if my wife can't figure out how to use it in 5 minutes. We are soldiers. Everyone else is a civilian. I visited my father-in-law a few months ago and was forced to use his Xfinity DVR. I paused the football game to go get something. He went berserk. He thought I broke his TV (screen frozen). He really did. That's a civilian.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## jkovach

RUBiK said:


> At the risk of going too much OT, it's not all rosy with DTV/Genie either. I've just ordered a Roamio Pro and 2 Minis that I'll set up this weekend to replace my DTV service, saving me about $100/mo in the process. I've had DTV for almost 20 years but the hardware/BS-ey fees add up really quick, to the point where it got ridiculous lately, so FIOS+Tivo just made too much sense.
> 
> As for the Genie, unless you get a newer model, the older ones (i.e. mine) have basically started to lag something fierce, making for a very frustrating experience with even basic things like switching channels taking a few seconds, etc. From reading through DTV forums everywhere, it's been an issue for a long time with no resolution... other than playing truck roll refurb-roulette and hoping for a new model Genie replacement.


Well, fortunately I work for AT&T and will get a very significant discount on the service, saving me money vs. cable. Hopefully I can get them to give me a new Genie STB.


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## jkovach

[email protected] said:


> Why isn't there a TiVo box in at least half the homes in America? TiVo should be the "Google" of set top boxes for petes sake.


Colossal failure out of the gate to find a good way to explain the product and justify the subscription fee.


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## TonyD79

gonzotek said:


> 2006. "It's not TiVo unless it's a TiVo" http://techcrunch.com/2006/11/15/its-not-tivo-unless-its-a-tivo/ http://www.pvrblog.com/2006/11/zatz_not_funnyb.html


Tech crunch is not mass marketing. They did not push it. The direction of that one ad was right but where did they reach the masses? They did not. They remained boutique and it cost them.


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## TonyD79

[email protected] said:


> Specs mean nothing if my wife can't figure out how to use it in 5 minutes. We are soldiers. Everyone else is a civilian. I visited my father-in-law a few months ago and was forced to use his Xfinity DVR. I paused the football game to go get something. He went berserk. He thought I broke his TV (screen frozen). He really did. That's a civilian. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


No. That's extreme. People have been using vcrs, DVDs and dvrs for years.


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## jth tv

JoeKustra said:


> Does the clock? When Rovi dumped the Sony DHG it killed it because there was no manual clock set ability. Sony never added it.


I had forgotten about that and didn't realize it was the same company, Rovi.

Uh-oh.


----------



## TonyD79

jkovach said:


> Colossal failure out of the gate to find a good way to explain the product and justify the subscription fee.


Yep. I was telling people about TiVo 15 years ago and writing commercials in my head that got right to the heart but what was TiVo doing? My friends knew TiVo only from me. And these were the target audience.


----------



## tampa8

morac said:


> First off no, they didn't and second the reason TiVo isn't used as a verb more often (it is still by some people), is that TiVo actively discouraged people from doing.
> 
> TiVo didn't want every DVR to be called a TiVo in the same way people call all tissues Kleenex and all copiers Xerox. They were protecting their trademark. That's also partially why they started naming TiVo models.


Is that some kine of humor I'm not getting? They didn't want everyone saying TIVO, googling TIVO when they want a DVR? Kleenex is upset they are the name of the tissue industry? You can't _buy_ that kind of brand identity.


----------



## morac

tampa8 said:


> Is that some kine of humor I'm not getting? They didn't want everyone saying TIVO, googling TIVO when they want a DVR? Kleenex is upset they are the name of the tissue industry? You can't _buy_ that kind of brand identity.


Again look up trademark laws. Also it diminishes the brand name. If everyone calls any DVR a TiVo then eventually cable companies can legally say they provide TiVos, when in reality they are providing their own crappy DVR.

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks

Here's an example. "Band-Aid" is a trademarked product made by Johnson & Johnson, yet every adhesive bandage is called a band-aid by the general public. That doesn't help Johnson & Johnson sell bandaids when people don't know.


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## lpwcomp

tampa8 said:


> Is that some kine of humor I'm not getting? They didn't want everyone saying TIVO, googling TIVO when they want a DVR? Kleenex is upset they are the name of the tissue industry? You can't _buy_ that kind of brand identity.


That's just it - if every tissue/DVR brand is a Kleenex/TiVo, there is no brand identity associated with the name.


----------



## JoeKustra

jth tv said:


> I had forgotten about that and didn't realize it was the same company, Rovi.
> 
> Uh-oh.


I'm really not all that worried. TiVo could use the mysterious VCM connection to set the clock. Perhaps the GC also, whatever that is. I'm optimistic: the deal could still fail.


----------



## BRiT wtfdotcom

[email protected] said:


> Specs mean nothing if my wife can't figure out how to use it in 5 minutes. We are soldiers. Everyone else is a civilian. I visited my father-in-law a few months ago and was forced to use his Xfinity DVR. I paused the football game to go get something. He went berserk. He thought I broke his TV (screen frozen). He really did. That's a civilian.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


You really think someone can't figure out how to use a new dish dvr? We're not talking about some ****ty cable company dvr, but dishs.


----------



## atmuscarella

I am always amused when people like to say everything is simple and all TiVo needed/needs to do is X. Even more amusing is when people assume the problem is that TiVo is incompetent and isn't making good decisions on data we don't have, like what marketing or development costs them and what results it has provided and is likely to provide in the future. 

The reality I see is we (fans of TiVo and DVRs in general) as a group have very little in common with the majority of the viewing public. That fact blinds use to market realities. I good example of this is saying that cable cards, tuning adapters, & how cable companies support them compared to their own DVRs are not a major problem. The majority of the viewing public doesn't consider spending days or even hours setting up a DVR as acceptable and certainly don't want to have to do anything to support it themselves. They want someone to bring it to their house set it up and hand them a remote and come fix or replace it when it breaks period. TiVo can not do that and no amount of marketing or development on TiVo's part is going to fix that.

In my opinion until their is an actual plug & play software solution mandated by the FCC that all pay TV providers have to use and that actually works well stand alone DVRs will never be more than a niche market. Which is also the reason they cost so much. If we are every going to see excellent low cost stand alone DVRs the market has to be millions (maybe 10s of millions) per year not a few hundred thousand per year.


----------



## wizwor

Just google: percent of tivo revenue from patent suits

TiVo's first profitable year included $105m in patent settlement revenues. Why do you think TiVo sued these people? What impact do you think the suits had on their desire to compete? The 'license' accommodation is no different than the franchise agreements awarded the cable companies. In fact, franchise is defined as...



> the right or license granted by a company to an individual or group to market its products or services in a specific territory.


The only difference is that the cable franchisees entered their agreements willfully and the patent settlements were forced on the DVR makers by actual or threatened court action.



atmuscarella said:


> Saying a company that has less than 5% of their products market share killed off their competition is amusing at best. Please name one competitor that TiVo killed off by sewing them. All that TiVo's lawsuits did was make TiVo's competitors effectively pay retroactive licensing fees. The reality is that a great number of TiVo's competitors (Dish, Direct, Uverse) have used patents and copy rights to prevent TiVo from competing with them (locked TiVo out of their systems) and others (all cable companies) forced by law to allowing TiVo to compete with them have used their positions to make TiVo's products not work as well as they should (poor cable card support, no VoD access, etc.) or make TiVos products look to expansive by hiding the cost of their DVRs in programing packages.
> 
> Again I think you need to go look at reality. The court (or Government) has not protected TiVo at all. There are something like 50 million+ DVRs out there now made by at least half a dozen different manufactures that are not TiVos.


----------



## aaronwt

tampa8 said:


> Is that some kine of humor I'm not getting? They didn't want everyone saying TIVO, googling TIVO when they want a DVR? Kleenex is upset they are the name of the tissue industry? You can't _buy_ that kind of brand identity.


I don't normally buy Kleenex. But like Pepsi, Coke, Xerox etc.. I only call it those things when I'm actually using those products.

I would never call a Comcast or FiOS DVR a TiVo. That would just sound crazy.


----------



## morac

aaronwt said:


> I would never call a Comcast or FiOS DVR a TiVo. That would just sound crazy.


That's because you've actually used a TiVo, so you know they aren't the same.


----------



## randian

The fact that Rovi = Macrovision makes me want to hate them.


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## gbshuler

TonyD79 said:


> No. That's extreme. People have been using vcrs, DVDs and dvrs for years.


Sorry. You are right. The point I am trying to make is that for most people the user experience is far more important than the hardware specs.

I read a Yelp review of a restaurant the other day:

"This restaurant is great! Their portions are Huge!"

Tells me nothing about the quality of food or service that makes me want to go there.

Similar:

"My Hopper 4 is great! It has 128 tuners, 8K, quadruple PIP football mode and more!"

I know nothing about how the user experience is.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## aaronwt

morac said:


> That's because you've actually used a TiVo, so you know they aren't the same.


I know plenty of people that have never owned a TiVo. Yet they would never call their cable company DVR a TiVo either.


----------



## tvmaster2

Dan203 said:


> I hope this isn't true.


CNBC just did a short but on it....


----------



## SullyND

I think people are more likely to use TiVo as a verb than a noun, even when they do not have a TiVo.


----------



## morac

aaronwt said:


> I know plenty of people that have never owned a TiVo. Yet they would never call their cable company DVR a TiVo either.


That's kind of my point. TiVo actively discouraged that and eventually the term PVR and finally DVR came about. Before that every DVR was a TiVo.

As mentioned above, TiVo as a verb still is around.


----------



## aaronwt

morac said:


> That's kind of my point. TiVo actively discouraged that and eventually the term PVR and finally DVR came about. Before that every DVR was a TiVo.
> 
> As mentioned above, TiVo as a verb still is around.


I never understood that either. I record something. I don't DVR it or TiVo it. And I most definitely don't tape it, unless I'm using a VCR.


----------



## atmuscarella

wizwor said:


> Just google: percent of tivo revenue from patent suits
> 
> TiVo's first profitable year included $105m in patent settlement revenues. Why do you think TiVo sued these people? What impact do you think the suits had on their desire to compete? The 'license' accommodation is no different than the franchise agreements awarded the cable companies. In fact, franchise is defined as...
> 
> The only difference is that the cable franchisees entered their agreements willfully and the patent settlements were forced on the DVR makers by actual or threatened court action.


Not sure what you are saying. I didn't disagree that TiVo made money from their patents. Making money is the whole reason you patent something.

Companies have to license copyrighted or patented stuff all the time. The fact that some companies thought they could steal TiVo's Intellectual property is also not that uncommon. That's why we have courts. In the end most of these companies likely did better off than if they had paid TiVo a licensing fee up front.

What I am saying, is that TiVos competition used their own copyrights and patents to prevent TiVo form actually competing with them. Take Dishnetwork. Anyone can put a dish up in their back yard, buy a cheap satellite STB and aim it a Dish's sats and receive all of Dish's channels. Most will be encrypted. What dish refuses to do is license their encryption software and allow access to their network so no one else can make a STB or DVR. That's called preventing competition, the fact that Dish had to pay TiVo to use their intellectual property does not prevent competition and is part of the way innovation is paid for.

With cable, the franchise agreement has nothing to do with encryption or STBs. The FCC forced them to use an open encryption system (cable cards) and allow access to their systems via other manufactures STBs or DVRs. What everyone is licensing is the encryption system.


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## Dan203

wizwor said:


> The cable companies were given some protections in exchange for building their infrastructure, including an affordable tier of basic service, and accommodating PEG interests, but broadcast television dominated at that time. By the time the cable infrastructure was complete, satellite tv was available. Now, cable companies compete with FiOS, satellite, broadcast, and OTT.


DSS was given special exemption from CableCARD rules so from the perspective of a potential TiVo buyer there was really only one option in most areas. Also from the perspective of an internet user there is also only one option. In a few areas FIOS competes with cable and in those areas prices are typically lower and customer support is typically better. But those areas are few and far between.


----------



## ncted

For me, this is about getting out from under the hardware investment I have before it becomes worthless. I've been burned several times before, with DirecTivo HD being the most egregious, so I would rather not go through that again.


----------



## davezatz

gonzotek said:


> 2006. "It's not TiVo unless it's a TiVo"
> http://techcrunch.com/2006/11/15/its-not-tivo-unless-its-a-tivo/
> http://www.pvrblog.com/2006/11/zatz_not_funnyb.html


Dang, my mp3 of the commercial is no longer linked. Wonder if it's in my file structure or backups somewhere.


----------



## aaronwt

ncted said:


> For me, this is about getting out from under the hardware investment I have before it becomes worthless. I've been burned several times before, with DirecTivo HD being the most egregious, so I would rather not go through that again.


I'd be surprised if anything becomes worthless anytime soon. For me I am now going to hold on to my Roamio PRo longer(even though I only actively use my Bolts right now). I was going to sell it but now I will hold on to it to see what happens. And I'll probably still hold on to my last Premiere(but I should have sold it over two years ago)


----------



## mr.unnatural

I skipped right to the end of this thread so forgive me if someone has already mentioned this. A new app has been released over at The Green Button forums that allows WMC users to import guide data from Schedules Direct who, interestingly, get their source from Zap2It. In the past, Schedules Direct would not permit WMC users to use their guide data due to legal considerations. I suppose that since Microsoft has stopped supporting WMC the legal ramifications of using it has changed. SD is now fully supporting the use of their guide for WMC users, which is a huge plus for us. 

For a $25 annual subscription I can now get complete guide data with no worries about it running out every time the clocks change. I no longer have to deal with Microsoft dropping the ball and keeping the data updated. Even better news is that the guide will provide even more info than ever before, such as season and episode info which had been sorely lacking from the WMC guide in the past.

What I find ironic is that a lot of people jumped ship over the past few weeks and flocked to Tivo during the recent impending outage that never took place. It's going to be interesting to see if Rovi can keep Tivo users as happy as they once were when they received their guide from Zap2It.


----------



## ncted

aaronwt said:


> I'd be surprised if anything becomes worthless anytime soon.


That is what I always think, but it always happens faster than I expect. I will wait a little while, but, unless the deal falls through, or Rovi comes out talking about going after the retail market, I will probably not wait around too long.


----------



## Dan203

mr.unnatural said:


> I skipped right to the end of this thread so forgive me if someone has already mentioned this. A new app has been released over at The Green Button forums that allows WMC users to import guide data from Schedules Direct who, interestingly, get their source from Zap2It. In the past, Schedules Direct would not permit WMC users to use their guide data due to legal considerations. I suppose that since Microsoft has stopped supporting WMC the legal ramifications of using it has changed. SD is now fully supporting the use of their guide for WMC users, which is a huge plus for us.
> 
> For a $25 annual subscription I can now get complete guide data with no worries about it running out every time the clocks change. I no longer have to deal with Microsoft dropping the ball and keeping the data updated. Even better news is that the guide will provide even more info than ever before, such as season and episode info which had been sorely lacking from the WMC guide in the past.
> 
> What I find ironic is that a lot of people jumped ship over the past few weeks and flocked to Tivo during the recent impending outage that never took place. It's going to be interesting to see if Rovi can keep Tivo users as happy as they once were when they received their guide from Zap2It.


Even with SD the last version of Windows that officially supports MCE is Windows 8. With MS pushing Win10 hard, and even threatening to automatically update people, I can't imagine MCE is going to be a viable option long term.

I think the MCE people are going to need to hope that Silicone Dust or Ceton comes up with a viable replacement.


----------



## gonzotek

davezatz said:


> Dang, my mp3 of the commercial is no longer linked. Wonder if it's in my file structure or backups somewhere.


Sorry, I should have pinged you about it earlier, I was originally going to link straight to your blog but noticed the file was broken.


----------



## Tanzeri

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Again, TiVo had no ability to control how the word was used by TV Writers, Comedians, The Press and the Public in everyday conversation.
> 
> You fail to grasp that fact along with the First Amendment.
> 
> A Company cannot control the use of a word in free speech. It can prevent another Product from calling itself a TiVo.


The First Amendment prevents the Government from limiting speech and only applies in very limited circumstances to private parties. The First Amendment does not allow you to violate someone else's rights, such as misusing someone else's trademark, libeling someone, etc.

So yes, just like you cannot prevent someone from libeling you (likely because you would not know it will happen until the libel has occurred), Tivo cannot prevent the misuse of its trademark by TV Writers, Comedians, The Present, and the Public.

Tivo can, however, enforce the rights conferred upon it under Federal and State trademark statutes by suing or threatening to sue those misusing its trademarks.


----------



## stevel

Dan203 said:


> I think the MCE people are going to need to hope that Silicone Dust or Ceton comes up with a viable replacement.


Silicon Dust, as you probably know, has developed a replacement. But while it was supposed to be available last September, it's still not ready. (A beta is out but it doesn't do protected content, which is critical.)

Meanwhile, WMC does work on Win10 with protected content.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Dan203 said:


> Even with SD the last version of Windows that officially supports MCE is Windows 8. With MS pushing Win10 hard, and even threatening to automatically update people, I can't imagine MCE is going to be a viable option long term.
> 
> I think the MCE people are going to need to hope that Silicone Dust or Ceton comes up with a viable replacement.


I've used the Silicon Dust DVR app and I can't say that I think much of it. I think you can forget about Ceton having any involvement in development of a DVR app even though it would probably benefit them in the long run. JRiver Media Center had a Kickstart campaign a while ago to make their DVR app work with protected content, but it fell way short of the mark for raising funds. That's a damn shame because JRiver is reportedly a very polished product and works quite well from what I've been told.

Now that Schedules Direct is supporting WMC I see it being around for quite some time. That may be wishful thinking on my part, but as long as the providers aren't changing the format of their content (i.e., switching to some new exotic video format that our current hardware and/or software can't handle), WMC will be viable for as long as there is hardware available. The only real stumbling block that would prevent its longevity was the availability of guide data. With EPG123 and Schedules Direct supporting the use of it, there's no reason why it can't exist well into the next decade.

I'm still on Windows 7 and see no reason to upgrade to anything newer. The SiliconDust DVR app does work in Windows 10 using the backend from WMC


----------



## keenanSR

stevel said:


> Silicon Dust, as you probably know, has developed a replacement. But while it was supposed to be available last September, it's still not ready. (A beta is out but it doesn't do protected content, which is critical.)
> 
> Meanwhile, WMC does work on Win10 with protected content.


And it appears that their(SD) solution is and will be devoid of any kind of grid-style guide. Apparently it was too expensive to license(Rovi).


----------



## TonyD79

[email protected] said:


> Sorry. You are right. The point I am trying to make is that for most people the user experience is far more important than the hardware specs.


Okay. I can buy that. And I agree. Specs are for geeks.


----------



## NashGuy

JoeKustra said:


> Does the clock? When Rovi dumped the Sony DHG it killed it because there was no manual clock set ability. Sony never added it.


I had a Sony DHG. I'm hoping the second DVR I've ever owned, my Roamio, doesn't become my second DVR to fall victim to Rovi neglect.


----------



## JoeKustra

NashGuy said:


> I had a Sony DHG. I'm hoping the second DVR I've ever owned, my Roamio, doesn't become my second DVR to fall victim to Rovi neglect.


Amen.


----------



## NashGuy

stevel said:


> Silicon Dust, as you probably know, has developed a replacement. But while it was supposed to be available last September, it's still not ready. (A beta is out but it doesn't do protected content, which is critical.)
> 
> Meanwhile, WMC does work on Win10 with protected content.


I'd love it if Silicon Dust (or a competitor) developed a polished app for all the popular streaming boxes (Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV) to serve as a front-end for the OTA and CableCard tuners they sell. Add an external hard drive to the tuner if you want DVR functionality. Even without one, you still get live TV (that you can pause and rewind using on-board memory) with guide info, all inside an app on the box you use for streaming pretty much any service you want (Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Showtime, Hulu, etc.) Maybe version 2.0 of the app could include OnePass-style universal search and queuing across the most popular apps too; click on a show title and it would launch the correct app on that box and take you to the title.

Frankly, if TiVo/Rovi (or any company licensing the TiVo brand) were to offer a future retail solution for OTA-users, something like the above would make more sense rather than trying to offer another box that tries to do everything (live OTA + DVR + streaming). If you can't beat Roku, Apple TV and Fire TV (and TiVo can't), then you may as well join 'em.


----------



## TonyD79

Who would want to replace OTA with streaming?


----------



## jkovach

aaronwt said:


> I don't normally buy Kleenex. But like Pepsi, Coke, Xerox etc.. I only call it those things when I'm actually using those products.
> 
> I would never call a Comcast or FiOS DVR a TiVo. That would just sound crazy.


In some parts of the country, they call carbonated beverages 'cokes'.


----------



## JoeKustra

I really hope my tax dollars didn't pay for that survey. By county!?


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

Tanzeri said:


> The First Amendment prevents the Government from limiting speech and only applies in very limited circumstances to private parties. The First Amendment does not allow you to violate someone else's rights, such as misusing someone else's trademark, libeling someone, etc.
> 
> So yes, just like you cannot prevent someone from libeling you (likely because you would not know it will happen until the libel has occurred), Tivo cannot prevent the misuse of its trademark by TV Writers, Comedians, The Present, and the Public.
> 
> Tivo can, however, enforce the rights conferred upon it under Federal and State trademark statutes by suing or threatening to sue those misusing its trademarks.


Exactly what I stated.


----------



## foghorn2

TonyD79 said:


> Who would want to replace OTA with streaming?


Those who who follow the latest trend and think streaming is cool and cheaper.

The same people with $80,000 tanker sized SUV's going through McDonald's drive thru's.


----------



## dianebrat

stevel said:


> Silicon Dust, as you probably know, has developed a replacement. But while it was supposed to be available last September, it's still not ready. (A beta is out but it doesn't do protected content, which is critical.)
> 
> Meanwhile, WMC does work on Win10 with protected content.


This is why I rolled back to Win8.1, the SD replacement wasn't good enough for me, but I have an outlier use and WMC is perfect, I have the Win10 WMC hack files and may try it later.

My issue is that for my desktop PC I don't care about the guide, but I do want protected content since I watch and pause, then skip commercials to catch up, and the SD solution couldn't handle that.


----------



## stevel

My mom uses the WMC hack on Win10 and it works fine for her with protected content.


----------



## NashGuy

TonyD79 said:


> Who would want to replace OTA with streaming?


Are you asking in response to my post just above yours? I wasn't talking about replacing OTA with streaming but rather adding OTA to streaming, much like Tablo does.


----------



## TonyD79

NashGuy said:


> Are you asking in response to my post just above yours? I wasn't talking about replacing OTA with streaming but rather adding OTA to streaming, much like Tablo does.


It wasn't clear. Especially when you were talking about using a streaming device for local channels.


----------



## ncted

TonyD79 said:


> Who would want to replace OTA with streaming?


Well, the FCC and the wireless carriers would like you to. You weren't really using those UHF frequencies now, were you?


----------



## LoveGardenia

Suppose this is good for us as well as the company? Get more exposure for TiVo box/service. We the hardcore customers get a better service with cable companies? No TA's, no hassle with CC's and (for those interested) VOD service? This doesn't have to be gloom and doom for TiVo could help the company expand into more homes. We the customers may not lose service, guide and support. We may or may not get a better deal monthly/yearly or LT. There's a $400 deal LT for current customers going now. If this merger/buyout is bad for company/customers why offer this deal? I'm looking/hoping for a newer TiVo box later this year.


----------



## NashGuy

TonyD79 said:


> It wasn't clear. Especially when you were talking about using a streaming device for local channels.


I'm talking about something like this:
https://www.tablotv.com/how-tablo-works/

Except it would be cool if you could also use it without the USB hard drive if you didn't care about DVR functionality, but simply wanted a way to integrate live OTA TV into your streaming box (Roku, etc.) to avoid switching tv inputs and remotes. Moreover, it would be even better if the accompanying app offered unified search and a unified watchlist for all the major streaming services (which also reside on those streaming boxes as separate apps).

In their last quarterly call, TiVo said they were planning a new type of retail product that isn't a traditional DVR for late 2016. Something like this, which is a modular add-on to popular set-top boxes everyone (especially cord-cutters/shavers) already owns, makes more sense to me than trying to sell another box trying to be a total solution (but which can't be since TiVo is a poor streaming platform). Of course, should the Rovi deal go through, who knows if that new retail product will ever materialize.


----------



## Series3Sub

Rovi would only want TiVo data collection arm and not be interested in TiVo's hardware or retail or even MSO sides of the business. If Rovi manges to get TiVo, look for all our TiVo's to be cut-off. All the other parts of TiVo's business (excepting the data collection arm) make absolutely no sense for Rovi. This would be the end of the end. And I was hoping whatever company did buy TiVo would let the current DVR's keep on hummin. Not so with Rovi.


----------



## Series3Sub

[email protected] said:


> Naveen Chopra probably was elected CEO by the TiVo board this year solely to liquidate the company. His tombstone: He ran TiVo into the ground and got a fat bonus.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


And this is why ol' Tom took his leave when he did. He didn't want to be active as CEO upon the death of TiVo, with only its data collection arm merged with Rovi.


----------



## Series3Sub

filovirus said:


> Doesn't Tablo and ChannelMaster use Rovi data?


Channel Master does, and yet, Channel Master is quite popular.


----------



## Series3Sub

[email protected] said:


> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best hardware (DVR, Remote, interactivity)
> 
> I think we all agree TiVo has BY FAR the best user interface.
> 
> TiVo pretty much invented both. That's how "TiVo" became a verb.
> 
> Now imagine you are in the Rovi offices looking at a PowerPoint presentation. Trying to decide whether to keep TiVo around or not. There's a pie chart showing market share of all players in the market. One slice, so small you don't even see it, is TiVo (NY Times said in today's article that TiVo holds a 2% share of the market). Would you want to pour money into a tiny slice of the pie (chart)? How did they go from 100% of the pie, to 2%?
> 
> I just don't understand it. Why isn't there a TiVo box in at least half the homes in America? TiVo should be the "Google" of set top boxes for petes sake.


Because TiVo wanted all its "partners" (MVPD's to whom TiVo pitched) to pay for virtually ALL the costs for R&D, hardware, contractually obligated expenditures for promotion, and on and on, AND, on top of all that, still pay a royalty fee to TiVo, plus per subscriber fee. After all those costs, the mere fact that the MVPD would be TiVo branded co-product was supposed to be reason enough to throw all that money at TiVo. Of course, just about everybody--except DirecTV in the early years when all they knew how to do do was SPEND money--was simply NOT interested. That's when TiVo became a company for suing others for (fantasy) patent violations.

So, the rest of the world passed TiVo by. TiVo was once a valuable company and they missed their chance to sold for a good price and most likely still in existence as a DVR company for many more years from now, maybe, if not one of the DVR makers, perhaps an MVPD. TiVo was foolish to think all those smart pay-TV and DVR making companies would just swoon over TiVo and gladly hand over piles of money. It was all just too unaccrative and costly for anyone to really partner with TiVo in the long run. Now, time has run out.


----------



## Series3Sub

[email protected] said:


> Please name a DVR with superior user experience -- category is the wonderful world of live 100+ HD channels.
> 
> (The POS DVR from Charter I am returning tomorrow for cable cards for a Romio Pro and BOLT from Amazon Prime actually had a menu button labelled "HD Shows" -- pressing this would show you all the cool shows in HD coming up. The box was 8-10 years out of date.)


Easily the Hopper.


----------



## Series3Sub

What is making us less than optomistic is NOT that TiVo is being sold (true word for "merged") but WHO is buying it. If it were a DVR maker or even an MVPD, that would be good news for TiVo and its retail and MSO users. However, Rovi is a company that clearly sees value in TiVo's data collection arm and not much else. Somehow, we all know that a non-hardware company with no retail is not interested in anything but software for a business to business model.


----------



## Series3Sub

NashGuy said:


> I had DirecTV with a Genie just before switching to my Roamio OTA. The Genie is a good solid DVR. In fact, there are some aspects of the UI/controls that I prefer to TiVo. But TiVo does give you more granular control about all episodes vs just new episodes, how many episodes to keep, etc. (At least I think so; I'm not all that demanding about such details.) And TiVo integrates with several streaming services, of course, which the Genie does not.
> 
> DirecTV does offer very good HD picture quality, better than the average cable company, I'd say.


FWIW, Dish legacy and Hopper DVR's give all the same granualarity with a much better EPG on all Hoppers. TiVo is still an excellent product.


----------



## Series3Sub

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Tell that to Coke, Kleenex and Xerox.
> 
> Hollywood writers do not stop calling a DVR "TiVo" because of a Trademark. They call it what the public calls it.
> 
> TiVo lost its synonym with a DVR when TiVo became just another DVR.


Ironically, TiVo trademarked "PVR" when that was what we called DVR's. After all that, TiVo never used "PVR." What was the point? So, now we call these things DVR's, and even TiVo refers to them as "DVR's" years after trademarking "PVR." Of course TiVo used other names like "Digital Media Recorder; Unified . . . ." you get the picture. Still TiVo NEVER used "PVR" after trademarking it.


----------



## Series3Sub

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Sale to Rovi is all about the Patents
> 
> http://www.mediapost.com/publicatio...i-reportedly-talking-about-merging-their.html


That's just one guys opinion and his is as good as ours. IMHO, its about TiVo's data collection arm


----------



## randian

Series3Sub said:


> That's just one guys opinion and his is as good as ours. IMHO, its about TiVo's data collection arm


If Rovi cancels TiVo's DVRs from where are they supposed to gather said data?


----------



## Series3Sub

LoveGardenia said:


> Suppose this is good for us as well as the company? Get more exposure for TiVo box/service. We the hardcore customers get a better service with cable companies? No TA's, no hassle with CC's and (for those interested) VOD service? This doesn't have to be gloom and doom for TiVo could help the company expand into more homes. We the customers may not lose service, guide and support. We may or may not get a better deal monthly/yearly or LT. There's a $400 deal LT for current customers going now. If this merger/buyout is bad for company/customers why offer this deal? I'm looking/hoping for a newer TiVo box later this year.


It's bad becasuse *Rovi* is buying TiVo. Now if the merge were with a company like Echostar, it might be good as Echostar has been trying to get further into the MSO market.


----------



## Series3Sub

LoveGardenia said:


> Suppose this is good for us as well as the company? Get more exposure for TiVo box/service. We the hardcore customers get a better service with cable companies? No TA's, no hassle with CC's and (for those interested) VOD service? This doesn't have to be gloom and doom for TiVo could help the company expand into more homes. We the customers may not lose service, guide and support. We may or may not get a better deal monthly/yearly or LT. There's a $400 deal LT for current customers going now. If this merger/buyout is bad for company/customers why offer this deal? I'm looking/hoping for a newer TiVo box later this year.


It's bad becasuse *Rovi* is buying TiVo. Now if the merge were with a company like Echostar, it might be good as Echostar has been trying to get it's hardware and software further into the MSO market.


----------



## Series3Sub

randian said:


> If Rovi cancels TiVo's DVRs from where are they supposed to gather said data?


It's the software and patents related to that.


----------



## morac

Series3Sub said:


> That's just one guys opinion and his is as good as ours. IMHO, its about TiVo's data collection arm


Rovi's web site lists "over 5000 patents" as one of their accomplishments. I had to dig to find something about data collection and it was a post on their blog mentioning the Oscars. I'd say it's more about the patents.

http://www.rovicorp.com/ip-and-licensing.html


----------



## morac

Series3Sub said:


> It's bad becasuse *Rovi* is buying TiVo. Now if the merge were with a company like Echostar, it might be good as Echostar has been trying to get it's hardware and software further into the MSO market.


Technically if what's being reported is accurate, it is a merger, it's just the it's a 70/30 merger, not a 50/50 one.


----------



## Wil

Series3Sub said:


> ...If Rovi manges to get TiVo, look for all our TiVo's to be cut-off...This would be the end of the end.


For Tivo hobbyists, all seven that still exist, this will be the beginning. Much of the key code is still a mystery. We can muck around with brute force patches, but without the complete source code it's been mostly shooting in the dark. I believe in the nightmare scenario you suggest, all will be revealed, and perfect home brew DVRs will be at hand; at least for the seven.


----------



## osu1991

Series3Sub said:


> FWIW, Dish legacy and Hopper DVR's give all the same granualarity with a much better EPG on all Hoppers. TiVo is still an excellent product.


As a 15 plus year Dish sub, I can say the Dish guide isn't superior. Just try getting OTA info. It is virtually non existent except for the Big 4 unless Dish carries that local and Dish stopped adding new sub channel guide info 2 years ago. About half the local channels in Tulsa now have no guide info from Dish. The Hopper 1 and 2 software has become so bloated that they are pretty slow. The Hopper 3 being new, is pretty fast but has its own problems including most OTA recordings with the OTA module are unwatchable at the moment and personally I'm not a fan of the new Carbon UI either.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk


----------



## tarheelblue32

This is all very depressing news. I have to believe that one of the first things to go will be SkipMode, as that apparently requires actual human employees to set the commercial markers, and they will probably be the first ones laid off once the merger goes through. I've only had SkipMode about a month or so, and I'm already hooked on it. Very depressing that we will probably lose this feature in the near future.


----------



## waynomo

tarheelblue32 said:


> This is all very depressing news. I have to believe that one of the first things to go will be SkipMode, as that apparently requires actual human employees to set the commercial markers, and they will probably be the first ones laid off once the merger goes through. I've only had SkipMode about a month or so, and I'm already hooked on it. Very depressing that we will probably lose this feature in the near future.


Is there a lawyer in the house?

I suppose legally they could do that, but it's such a big selling point I think it's highly unlikely.


----------



## tarheelblue32

waynomo said:


> Is there a lawyer in the house?
> 
> I suppose legally they could do that, but it's such a big selling point I think it's highly unlikely.


Unless there is something written into the TiVo user agreement that says SkipMode is a specific feature that you are buying when you purchase a TiVo or the TiVo service, it's going to be a hard case to make. You'd basically have to argue some kind of detrimental reliance rather than a straight up breach of contract, and that's very difficult to do in an actual court of law. And since you aren't actually allowed to sue TiVo in a real court anymore, it would be even harder. Every dispute with TiVo now has to go through binding arbitration, and that is pretty much useless.

If/when RoviVo ends retail DVR sales, SkipMode will be the first TiVo feature to disappear.


----------



## waynomo

tarheelblue32 said:


> If/when RoviVo ends retail DVR sales, SkipMode will be the first TiVo feature to disappear.


So not day one, but maybe 3 or 5 years down the road?


----------



## tarheelblue32

waynomo said:


> So not day one, but maybe 3 or 5 years down the road?


Well, that depends on just how quickly Rovi wants TiVo to exit the retail market. I'm sure at a minimum they would want to try to sell off whatever stock of retail DVRs they have lying around before they start shutting down features like Skipmode that are labor intensive and expensive to maintain. I'm not sure exactly how long a strategic exit from retail will take them to accomplish after the merger, but I think that process would be more likely to take months not years.


----------



## dadrepus

Dan203 said:


> SlingTV is the exception, not the rule. Playstation Vue has a "DVR" that allows you to store shows for up to 28 days. Hulu retains the last 3-5 episodes of first run shows. And Netflix and Amazon have entire seasons.


But is it a show currently on your tv or can you record "in advance of the showing" buy using a guide? Not familiar with Sony's offering.


----------



## foghorn2

Tivo will still be Tivo if a merger happens. Tivo must fullfill it obligations to paid service monthly, yearly or Lifetime nonetheless. 

If Rovi wants to come in as a bully and do otherwise, they've got another thing coming!


----------



## randian

foghorn2 said:


> Tivo will still be Tivo if a merger happens. Tivo must fullfill it obligations to paid service monthly, yearly or Lifetime nonetheless.


TiVo's obligation to monthly or yearly subscribers lasts at most to the end of their subscription. I doubt they have any obligation to let you renew. They'd probably give Lifetime subscribers a year and then shut them down too.


----------



## Dan203

dadrepus said:


> But is it a show currently on your tv or can you record "in advance of the showing" buy using a guide? Not familiar with Sony's offering.


I haven't used it myself, but it's my understanding that it's a full feature DVR just cloud based.


----------



## tarheelblue32

randian said:


> TiVo's obligation to monthly or yearly subscribers lasts at most to the end of their subscription. I doubt they have any obligation to let you renew. They'd probably give Lifetime subscribers a year and then shut them down too.


I don't think they would just come in and shut it all down. After all, Rovi is in the business of supplying guide data and charging for it. I think at a minimum they would still be willing to continue supplying their own guide data to the retail and MSO TiVo units already out there. But other aspects of the TiVo service that cost them more to support (such as SkipMode) will be done away with.


----------



## Dan203

tarheelblue32 said:


> If/when RoviVo ends retail DVR sales, SkipMode will be the first TiVo feature to disappear.


I actually agree. If they decide to kill off the retail market I think SkipMode would be the first thing to go. It requires human intervention so getting rid of it is as simple as laying off those employees.


----------



## morac

Dan203 said:


> I actually agree. If they decide to kill off the retail market I think SkipMode would be the first thing to go. It requires human intervention so getting rid of it is as simple as laying off those employees.


Has it been confirmed that SkipMode requires human interaction by TiVo employees. I've seen some really odd things with SkipMode that would make sense if it was being done by a computer, but not so much if it was being done by people.


----------



## Dan203

morac said:


> Has it been confirmed that SkipMode requires human interaction by TiVo employees. I've seen some really odd things with SkipMode that would make sense if it was being done by a computer, but not so much if it was being done by people.


Yes...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10651450#post10651450

It's also been confirmed by job postings on TiVo's website.

Edit: Also we've been designing a new ad scan feature for VideoReDo over the last couple weeks. I can tell you from experience that there is no way to completely automate the system and make it 100% accurate. I've seen recordings where the content fades directly into the commercials, or vice versa, with no black frames or lull in the audio. Even if you use every technology available, audio, video, captions, bug detection, etc... It's still not consistent enough to be 100% accurate.


----------



## toricred

rainwater said:


> Google has used Sage and their developers to build the Google Fiber interface so I wouldn't say they killed it.


Sage is also available Open Source now.


----------



## TonyD79

Is skip mode not being deployed to mso systems? Why wouldn't it be?


----------



## tarheelblue32

TonyD79 said:


> Is skip mode not being deployed to mso systems? Why wouldn't it be?


I'm pretty sure it has not been, probably for legal and corporate relationship reasons. MSOs are in a direct contractual relationship with the channel/content owners who absolutely hate something like SkipMode. If any MSO tried to implement SkipMode on their MSO-owned TiVos, the content owners would probably throw a fit.


----------



## TonyD79

tarheelblue32 said:


> I'm pretty sure it has not been, probably for legal and corporate relationship reasons. MSOs are in a direct contractual relationship with the channel/content owners who absolutely hate something like SkipMode. If any MSO tried to implement SkipMode on their MSO-owned TiVos, the content owners would probably throw a fit.


But precedent is set. Deploy it and maybe delay it. Dish already went over this ground.


----------



## jth tv

tarheelblue32 said:


> I don't think they would just come in and shut it all down. After all, Rovi is in the business of supplying guide data and charging for it.....


Anyone know which DVR's use Rovi guide data ? It looks like ChannelMaster DVR+ does, maybe there are others.


----------



## JoeKustra

jth tv said:


> Anyone know which DVR's use Rovi guide data ? It looks like ChannelMaster DVR+ does, maybe there are others.


That could be hard to figure out. Some variations of the Rovi supplied guide do appear in many boxes. Do you mean retail only, or cable company supplied? Current products, or some that are no longer sold? If you visit the Rovi sites, there are some partners and products listed.


----------



## jth tv

JoeKustra said:


> That could be hard to figure out. Some variations of the Rovi supplied guide do appear in many boxes. Do you mean retail only, or cable company supplied? Current products, or some that are no longer sold? If you visit the Rovi sites, there are some partners and products listed.


I was thinking of currently being sold retail OTA DVR's that use Rovi grid guide scheduling data.


----------



## gweempose

tarheelblue32 said:


> This is all very depressing news. I have to believe that one of the first things to go will be SkipMode, as that apparently requires actual human employees to set the commercial markers, and they will probably be the first ones laid off once the merger goes through.





waynomo said:


> Is there a lawyer in the house?
> 
> I suppose legally they could do that, but it's such a big selling point I think it's highly unlikely.


I agree. Since SkipMode was one of the featured selling points of the Bolt since its launch, I wouldn't think they could simply take away this feature without there being some serious blowback.


----------



## series5orpremier

JoeKustra said:


> That could be hard to figure out. Some variations of the Rovi supplied guide do appear in many boxes. Do you mean retail only, or cable company supplied? Current products, or some that are no longer sold? If you visit the Rovi sites, there are some partners and products listed.


The Magnavox TB560HS due out later this year has a grid guide. Does that mean it has Rovi's fingerprints?

EDIT: It definitely is the Rovi grid guide. A picture of the grid guide in the CNET review says "powered by Rovi".

The stories said they were still early in the purchase talks so you never know - now that it's public information some other company could swoop in with a better offer. Or maybe the purchase by Rovi can be blocked on antitrust grounds.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Following up on my earlier post regarding Schedules Direct and EPG123 for WMC users, I installed the 0.9 Beta version of EPG123 today on my WMC PC and my guide data extends out 21 days with the option to make it 30 days. All of my FIOS and local channels are there, although I did have to manually had two of my locals into the guide. For some weird reason WMC doesn't like to scan channel frequencies that have their physical channel in the VHF band.

One feature that was sorely lacking in the WMC guide was having the season and episode info added to the recording title. EPG123 allows you to do this. The only real downside to making the switch is that you have to set up all of your series recordings (i.e., season passes) from scratch.

Any thoughts I had of switching to the SiliconDust DVR app have evaporated completely after installing EPG123. OTOH, I was really hoping JRiver Media Center would fulfill their Kickstarter campaign.


----------



## rainwater

tarheelblue32 said:


> This is all very depressing news. I have to believe that one of the first things to go will be SkipMode, as that apparently requires actual human employees to set the commercial markers, and they will probably be the first ones laid off once the merger goes through. I've only had SkipMode about a month or so, and I'm already hooked on it. Very depressing that we will probably lose this feature in the near future.


That would be a bit strange the layoff the employees getting the least benefits and costing TiVo way less than most other employees in R&D. If that is how they are going to save money, then it would be a pretty dumb move financially.


----------



## PSU_Sudzi

I bought a couple of Moxi DVRs from Digeo 7 years ago. They were bought by Arris for their software and the retail business was shut down. My mom still has one of them and guide data is still being sent to it to this day. So it's very possible Rovi could continue guide data for years if they end TiVo retail if they buy them.


----------



## tarheelblue32

rainwater said:


> That would be a bit strange the layoff the employees getting the least benefits and costing TiVo way less than most other employees in R&D. If that is how they are going to save money, then it would be a pretty dumb move financially.


Do you know how many employees it takes and how much it costs to keep SkipMode functioning? I'm honestly asking because I really have no idea.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

tarheelblue32 said:


> Do you know how many employees it takes and how much it costs to keep SkipMode functioning? I'm honestly asking because I really have no idea.


Only Accountants and Management at TiVo (and now RoVi - They only need to change 1 Letter) would know the true answer to that.

It could easily be speculated (and they might be contract employees as well).


----------



## jakerome

PSU_Sudzi said:


> I bought a couple of Moxi DVRs from Digeo 7 years ago. They were bought by Arris for their software and the retail business was shut down. My mom still has one of them and guide data is still being sent to it to this day. So it's very possible Rovi could continue guide data for years if they end TiVo retail if they buy them.


That seems far more likely than rovi making overt moves to screw over their entire retail customer base.

Rovi may stop investing in the platform. But i reckon that in five years, TiVos will work at least as well as they do today. Maybe skip mode fades after 3 years, at most. Makes no sense to hobble TiVos in other ways.


----------



## digs0

Jed1 said:


> Price. Most of the average Americans can not afford to purchase one. .


I think it wasn't so much that most people couldn't afford the price as that they couldn't see the value proposition of paying so much up front *plus* a monthly fee roughly equivalent to what the cable company charged.

I wonder what would have happened if TiVo had adopted something like Apple's current iPhone sales model, where you pay nothing down and spread the cost of the hardware over two years (which is essentially the old cellular contract in different clothing). I think they could have made a much stronger case to consumers if the monthly payment was a bit higher than cable without the $500 or so up front.


----------



## realityboy

digs0 said:


> I think it wasn't so much that most people couldn't afford the price as that they couldn't see the value proposition of paying so much up front *plus* a monthly fee roughly equivalent to what the cable company charged.
> 
> I wonder what would have happened if TiVo had adopted something like Apple's current iPhone sales model, where you pay nothing down and spread the cost of the hardware over two years (which is essentially the old cellular contract in different clothing). I think they could have made a much stronger case to consumers if the monthly payment was a bit higher than cable without the $500 or so up front.


TiVo tried that on occasion. I remember the TiVo HD at one point could be bought for no money down, but it had a monthly $19.99 service fee for 3? years. They may have tried it with other models as well, but afaik, it was always a refurbished model or a step down from the top tier.


----------



## HerronScott

randian said:


> TiVo's obligation to monthly or yearly subscribers lasts at most to the end of their subscription. I doubt they have any obligation to let you renew. They'd probably give Lifetime subscribers a year and then shut them down too.


And why would they "shut down" Lifetime retail subscribers? They have 5.5 million MSO subscribers that use the same guide information and infrastructure.

Scott


----------



## aaronwt

jkovach said:


> In some parts of the country, they call carbonated beverages 'cokes'.


I've always called it soda. I would never call a Pepsi a Coke. That makes zero sense. And if you ask for a Coke or a Pepsi, most restaurants around here correct you and say they only have Coke Products or they only have Pepsi products. They won't let you say you want a Coke and give you a Pepsi. Because they don't taste the same and people end up getting pissed off if given a Pepsi instead of a Coke. Or Vice Versa.


----------



## BrettStah

In restaurants I ask, "do you have Diet Coke?"

If they do, I order one. If they don't (because they have Pepsi stuff, usually), I order an unsweetened iced tea.


----------



## aaronwt

BrettStah said:


> In restaurants I ask, "do you have Diet Coke?"
> 
> If they do, I order one. If they don't (because they have Pepsi stuff, usually), I order an unsweetened iced tea.


I personally don't have the problem any more. I stopped drinking ALL carbonated beverages four or five years ago. So I only drink Tea or Lemonade at restaurants now.


----------



## ncted

aaronwt said:


> I've always called it soda. I would never call a Pepsi a Coke. That makes zero sense. And if you ask for a Coke or a Pepsi, most restaurants around here correct you and say they only have Coke Products or they only have Pepsi products. They won't let you say you want a Coke and give you a Pepsi. Because they don't taste the same and people end up getting pissed off if given a Pepsi instead of a Coke. Or Vice Versa.


I moved from upstate NY to coastal SC in the 80s. It was an odd experience for someone to say, "what kind of Coke do you want, we have Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Mtn. Dew, etc.?"


----------



## tarheelblue32

ncted said:


> I moved from upstate NY to coastal SC in the 80s. It was an odd experience for someone to say, "what kind of Coke do you want, we have Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Mtn. Dew, etc.?"


"One of them orange ones would be nice."


----------



## waynomo

I would suspect TiVo or Rovi would need to declare bankruptcy to terminate SkipMode.


----------



## randian

HerronScott said:


> And why would they "shut down" Lifetime retail subscribers? They have 5.5 million MSO subscribers that use the same guide information and infrastructure.


If they're going to cancel monthly or annual subscriptions I figure they'd do the same to Lifetime.


----------



## foghorn2

TIVO better make some announcements fast before all his conjecture goes way out of hand.

16,516 views of this thread already with no factual info.


----------



## randian

foghorn2 said:


> TIVO better make some announcements fast before all his conjecture goes way out of hand.


If the sale is real they probably can't without running afoul of the SEC.


----------



## foghorn2

randian said:


> If the sale is real they probably can't without running afoul of the SEC.


They are not running me around the SEC, believe me.


----------



## HerronScott

randian said:


> If they're going to cancel monthly or annual subscriptions I figure they'd do the same to Lifetime.


Who said they are going to cancel monthly or annual subscriptions (besides wild conjecture here)? 

Scott


----------



## randian

HerronScott said:


> Who said they are going to cancel monthly or annual subscriptions (besides wild conjecture here)?


I was just responding to the conjecture, not verifying it.


----------



## wizwor

aaronwt said:


> I've always called it soda. I would never call a Pepsi a Coke. That makes zero sense. And if you ask for a Coke or a Pepsi, most restaurants around here correct you and say they only have Coke Products or they only have Pepsi products. They won't let you say you want a Coke and give you a Pepsi. Because they don't taste the same and people end up getting pissed off if given a Pepsi instead of a Coke. Or Vice Versa.


I see my people call it soda. Good to know. I remember when I was a kid it was mostly tonic. Some people said tonic was for hair and called it pop. We did have something called Pop Shoppe for a while. I think we called soft drinks pop because of that. I can't say I ever hear anyone talk about soft drinks generically these days. People tend to want what they want. I prefer coffee or a milk shake.

Then again, I never used TiVo as a verb. I still hear people talk about 'taping' something -- an obvious reference to the VCR. Remember the Atari 2600? My brother-in-law referred to the cartridges as tapes. He, of course, grew up with the 8-track tape.

In my house we record things -- even if we do it on a TiVo. Crazy, huh? I need to apply some chapstick, wipe my nose on a kleenex, clean my ears with a Q-tip, and put a bandaid on my finger which I injured googling all of this.


----------



## foghorn2

Which name shall it be?


RoviT

TivoR

??


----------



## pfiagra

foghorn2 said:


> Which name shall it be?
> 
> RoviT
> 
> TivoR
> 
> ??


How about Rovio?
oh wait, that's taken, never mind.


----------



## JoeKustra

foghorn2 said:


> Which name shall it be?
> 
> RoviT
> 
> TivoR
> 
> ??


That would be cool. Spells the same both directions.


----------



## tarheelblue32

waynomo said:


> I would suspect TiVo or Rovi would need to declare bankruptcy to terminate SkipMode.


Actually, all they have to do is flip a switch and it's gone tomorrow. Would there be people who complain? Sure. Would there be people who could successfully sue TiVo over it? Probably not, given the arbitration clause in the TiVo service contract. Would the several hundred TiVo users who are pissed off enough to go through the binding arbitration process be able to get any money out of it? Maybe people who purchased a Bolt could get up to $100 a piece out of it.

So let's estimate that 500 Bolt purchasers manage to go through the entire arbitration process and each get $100. That's only $50,000 TiVo would have to pay to get out of continuing to support SkipMode. I think TiVo can afford that without declaring bankruptcy.


----------



## jakerome

tarheelblue32 said:


> Actually, all they have to do is flip a switch and it's gone tomorrow. Would there be people who complain? Sure. Would there be people who could successfully sue TiVo over it? Probably not, given the arbitration clause in the TiVo service contract. Would the several hundred TiVo users who are pissed off enough to go through the binding arbitration process be able to get any money out of it? Maybe people who purchased a Bolt could get up to $100 a piece out of it.
> 
> So let's estimate that 500 Bolt purchasers manage to go through the entire arbitration process and each get $100. That's only $50,000 TiVo would have to pay to get out of continuing to support SkipMode. I think TiVo can afford that without declaring bankruptcy.


It just wouldn't work. While their arbitration clauses may be water tight and allow TiVo to do anything at anytime for any reason, "unconscionable" contract clauses are void and often make other parts unenforceable. If TiVo is advertising a feature one day as a sales feature and then the next day they voluntarily terminate that feature, the federal trade commission along with state attorneys general would take a keen interest in investigating TiVo. Even if TiVo were to win at the end of the day, the amount of billable hours racked up to defend the suit whilst running their own name through the mud for years would be a terrible strategic decision.

In short, RoTiVo isn't going to shut down the service or arbitrarily terminate widely advertised features simply because it's a horrible business idea.


----------



## Jayboy3

aaronwt said:


> I've always called it soda. I would never call a Pepsi a Coke. That makes zero sense. And if you ask for a Coke or a Pepsi, most restaurants around here correct you and say they only have Coke Products or they only have Pepsi products. They won't let you say you want a Coke and give you a Pepsi. Because they don't taste the same and people end up getting pissed off if given a Pepsi instead of a Coke. Or Vice Versa.


We refer to it generally as "Coke" but not when we're being specific. We refer to "Coke machines" and it's understood the machine sells sody pop. We say "let's stop for a Coke" and it's understood each person will select what they want. We say "In addition to beer at the picnic, there will be a cooler of Cokes" and it's understood that there will be some selection of sody pops.

When it's actually time to refer to the exact drink you are ordering or selecting, we call it by name. Just like you wouldn't order "a soda" if someone needs to know exactly what to bring you. Imagine any sentence where you would just say "soda" and we would tend to say "Coke."


----------



## tarheelblue32

jakerome said:


> It just wouldn't work. While their arbitration clauses may be water tight and allow TiVo to do anything at anytime for any reason, "unconscionable" contract clauses are void and often make other parts unenforceable.


Yeah the California Supreme Court bought that "unconscionable" clause argument, but the U.S. Supreme Court overruled them. The Supremes have been upholding arbitration clauses at pretty much every turn.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20151218-column.html

Under current Supreme Court precedent, corporations with arbitration clauses can do pretty much whatever they want and never have to worry about being sued by customers in an actual court of law.

You could wake up one day and SkipMode could just be gone forever, and there is really nothing that anyone can do about that.


----------



## TonyD79

jakerome said:


> It just wouldn't work. While their arbitration clauses may be water tight and allow TiVo to do anything at anytime for any reason, "unconscionable" contract clauses are void and often make other parts unenforceable. If TiVo is advertising a feature one day as a sales feature and then the next day they voluntarily terminate that feature, the federal trade commission along with state attorneys general would take a keen interest in investigating TiVo. Even if TiVo were to win at the end of the day, the amount of billable hours racked up to defend the suit whilst running their own name through the mud for years would be a terrible strategic decision. In short, RoTiVo isn't going to shut down the service or arbitrarily terminate widely advertised features simply because it's a horrible business idea.


Yeah. They can't advertise something and not deliver it without legal or business repercussions.

Now I will go watch MLB.tv in my Bolt and then go to the library and stream my shows from my Bolt.


----------



## Johncv

foghorn2 said:


> Which name shall it be?
> 
> RoviT
> 
> TivoR
> 
> ??


If I were in charge, I would rebrand everything TiVo and drop Rovi name. Never heard of Rovi till now.


----------



## davezatz

foghorn2 said:


> Which name shall it be?
> 
> RoviT
> 
> TivoR
> 
> ??


Solved that a few days back:

Patent Trollvi


----------



## tvmaster2

digs0 said:


> I think it wasn't so much that most people couldn't afford the price as that they couldn't see the value proposition of paying so much up front *plus* a monthly fee roughly equivalent to what the cable company charged.
> 
> I wonder what would have happened if TiVo had adopted something like Apple's current iPhone sales model, where you pay nothing down and spread the cost of the hardware over two years (which is essentially the old cellular contract in different clothing). I think they could have made a much stronger case to consumers if the monthly payment was a bit higher than cable without the $500 or so up front.


I think I said somewhere else that TiVo started its slide when they stopped being sold at Costco. Apple products, on the other hand, left for a while and then came back. Compare the two companies retail strategies based on that. Middle America (my wife the non-tech included, who bought our first two Tivo's at Costco against my wishes due to price) were buying Tivo's at C. 
And then they couldn't, or wouldn't. Wish I knew why they left...


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

foghorn2 said:


> They are not running me around the SEC, believe me.


Of course they are not running afoul because they have SAID NOTHING.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

waynomo said:


> I would suspect TiVo or Rovi would need to declare bankruptcy to terminate SkipMode.


Tell that to owners of older Series Tivos who have features that do not work any longer.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=537159


----------



## Laughs Brightly

unknownpa said:


> My local cable provider, which happens to be the 11th largest in the US, recently rolled out TiVos in my area.


My local cable company also just signed a deal with Tivo to power their cable boxes.


----------



## waynomo

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Tell that to owners of older Series Tivos who have features that do not work any longer.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=537159


I'm in that group. This doesn't apply to 10 year old technology. Don't start that argument again.


----------



## trip1eX

tvmaster2 said:


> Wish I knew why they left...


They didn't sell any.


----------



## TWinbrook46636

NashGuy said:


> I had a Sony DHG. I'm hoping the second DVR I've ever owned, my Roamio, doesn't become my second DVR to fall victim to Rovi neglect.


Same here. If Rovi buys out/merges with TiVo I will continue using my Roamio Pro until they pull the plug but with Rovi at the helm that time is sooner rather than later. This really is one of the worst possible scenarios for TiVo users but I guess the writing was on the wall for a few months now.


----------



## tvmaster2

trip1eX said:


> They didn't sell any.


why?


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

waynomo said:


> I'm in that group. This doesn't apply to 10 year old technology. Don't start that argument again.


Ok so 10 year old (actually about 8 years since last sold new by TiVo) is ok if features do not work any longer. So what in your mind is the "magic" number after which one should not expect features to work?


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

trip1eX said:


> They didn't sell any.


Considering the Sams and Costco both have a formula where they only keep under 2500 skus in a store at anytime and constantly rotate Special items in and out, what proof do you have to back up your claim?


----------



## jduffy

[email protected] said:


> TiVo recently brought in a new CEO. Nice guy layed off 50 TiVo employees soon after. Article I read mentioned CEO said TiVo would be moving the tuner hardware/software in a different direction (leaving the crown jewel user interface alone I presume). I think it was similar to the Cisco Worldbox's (which use an all new technology freeing the cable companies from the "cable card headaches" - based on legislation passed in 2015). This merge now makes perfect sense. This CEO answers only to the shareholders.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


The CEO really answers to the Board of Directors (BOD). The BOD are elected by the stockholders.


----------



## waynomo

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Ok so 10 year old (actually about 8 years since last sold new by TiVo) is ok if features do not work any longer. So what in your mind is the "magic" number after which one should not expect features to work?


Again, I am not going to rehash all that here. My position/feelings were stated in the thread you linked to. Go read there if you're interested.


----------



## lew

Apple dropped Costco due to issues with COSTCO s pricing policies. Apple bought Beats audio. Apple wanted/needed Costco to sell Beats products. Costco had enough leverage to regain distribution of iproducts.

Costco doesn't carry tons of products. A product has to sell and Costco has to be able to offer value to its members. A lower price or bonus features.


----------



## waynomo

lew said:


> Apple dropped Costco due to issues with COSTCO s pricing policies. Apple bought Beats audio. Apple wanted/needed Costco to sell Beats products. Costco had enough leverage to regain distribution of iproducts.
> 
> Costco doesn't carry tons of products. A product has to sell and Costco has to be able to offer value to its members. A lower price or bonus features.


Funny, I heard it the other way around. Costco refused to carry Apple products because of pricing issues with Apple.

I have no idea if the person who told me really knew what the story was, but that's what I was told.


----------



## stevel

It was sort of both. Costco wanted to discount Apple products, Apple didn't want anyone to discount them (at least as much as Costco wanted to.) Apple declined to sell to Costco (but the two have since made up.) BJ's (another warehouse store chain) continued to carry iPods, but the discount wasn't much.


----------



## rainwater

Are you guys really talking about Costco? In the grand scheme of things, Costco has not had any affect on TiVo's sales either way.


----------



## warrenn

I think the time has passed for a 3rd party cable DVR to gain a lot of market share. The customer has to deal with the headaches of the technical aspect of getting cable cards and TA to work properly. And then once it's working, they may have less capability compared to the cable's DVR. And the special pricing offered for packages often requires the bundling of the DVR rental. The customer who wants to use Tivo has to be really dedicated and committed to Tivo.

In addition, cord cutting is becoming more and more common. Customers are ditching cable for streaming services. So even if it was seamless to use Tivo with cable, that market is shrinking.


----------



## Scooter Scott

warrenn said:


> I think the time has passed for a 3rd party cable DVR to gain a lot of market share. The customer has to deal with the headaches of the technical aspect of getting cable cards and TA to work properly. And then once it's working, they may have less capability compared to the cable's DVR. And the special pricing offered for packages often requires the bundling of the DVR rental. The customer who wants to use Tivo has to be really dedicated and committed to Tivo.
> 
> In addition, cord cutting is becoming more and more common. Customers are ditching cable for streaming services. So even if it was seamless to use Tivo with cable, that market is shrinking.


That is only the headaches for those that still use a provider. There are people like me that want a DVR solution when you are using OTA. Nothing technical to it really...plug it in, setup and go.


----------



## warrenn

Scooter Scott said:


> That is only the headaches for those that still use a provider. There are people like me that want a DVR solution when you are using OTA. Nothing technical to it really...plug it in, setup and go.


I started a thread not long ago saying that Tivo should go after the OTA market for just this reason. Tivo+OTA is awesome. You get the best interface and no proprietary encryption to deal with. But the issue I see with OTA is that $15/mo for guide may be a little high for the value it provides. No doubt Tivo is awesome, but I believe that the OTA viewer is also using streaming services, and therefore their OTA viewing is a smaller percentage of their overall entertainment viewing. That $15/mo could provide more value being put towards a service like Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc.

The OTA market right now is filled with crappy DVRs. Tivo could easily be the 800-pound gorilla and dominate the market. All it would take is a more attractively-priced DVR and a lower monthly fee. Perhaps there could be different tiers of service based on different fees like $5/10/15/mo. This way it would make sense for everyone to have an OTA Tivo regardless of whether you watched 20% or 100% OTA content. But the time to do that is right now. All the other OTA DVR competitors are just on the cusp of becoming viable. If Tivo waits too long, one of those will be the market leader.


----------



## Scooter Scott

warrenn said:


> I started a thread not long ago saying that Tivo should go after the OTA market for just this reason. Tivo+OTA is awesome. You get the best interface and no proprietary encryption to deal with. But the issue I see with OTA is that $15/mo for guide may be a little high for the value it provides. No doubt Tivo is awesome, but I believe that the OTA viewer is also using streaming services, and therefore their OTA viewing is a smaller percentage of their overall entertainment viewing. That $15/mo could provide more value being put towards a service like Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc.
> 
> The OTA market right now is filled with crappy DVRs. Tivo could easily be the 800-pound gorilla and dominate the market. All it would take is a more attractively-priced DVR and a lower monthly fee. Perhaps there could be different tiers of service based on different fees like $5/10/15/mo. This way it would make sense for everyone to have an OTA Tivo regardless of whether you watched 20% or 100% OTA content. But the time to do that is right now. All the other OTA DVR competitors are just on the cusp of becoming viable. If Tivo waits too long, one of those will be the market leader.


I agree that the $15 is steep for what I get but the only way the wife would let me move away from DirecTV is if I had a whole home DVR solution. We like our guide button way too much and not all of my TV's have it. I'm still saving >$80 a month just by having TiVo.

I agree that they should really tap into the OTA market. Everyone I know that has "cut the cord" gets a big grin on their face when they see my TiVo and how it works. Yes I have little bugs here and there but it is exactly what I needed and the cost is minimal compared to the alternative.


----------



## mchinsky

I don't know why Tivo are using human employees for skip mode. They basically could cover far more content for free if they used a model like Waze.

Allow consumers to quickly flag the beginning of a commercial and the end of a commercial. Even during DVR playback. You would then have your data points within minutes.

Use a system that drops 'outliers' such as 5 users that aren't close to eliminate morons who would abuse the system to be 'funny'.


----------



## TonyD79

mchinsky said:


> I don't know why Tivo are using human employees for skip mode. They basically could cover far more content for free if they used a model like Waze. Allow consumers to quickly flag the beginning of a commercial and the end of a commercial. Even during DVR playback. You would then have your data points within minutes. Use a system that drops 'outliers' such as 5 users that aren't close to eliminate morons who would abuse the system to be 'funny'.


Elaborate on how you envision this. People do it out of good nature? When? Live or when watching recordings?

Currently, the data is available within 2 minutes of a show ending.


----------



## tarheelblue32

TonyD79 said:


> Elaborate on how you envision this. People do it out of good nature? When? Live or when watching recordings?
> 
> Currently, the data is available within 2 minutes of a show ending.


The crowdsourcing model might actually work. I don't know if it would be available 2 minutes after, but it could still work.


----------



## ncted

TonyD79 said:


> Elaborate on how you envision this. People do it out of good nature? When? Live or when watching recordings?
> 
> Currently, the data is available within 2 minutes of a show ending.


I suspect they are using CC broadcast flags to detect commercials. The human element may just be for quality control.


----------



## rainwater

mchinsky said:


> I don't know why Tivo are using human employees for skip mode. They basically could cover far more content for free if they used a model like Waze.


They are doing it as a part of their strategy to prevent a lawsuit along with making sure it is accurate. Also, it is clear they aren't manually tagging shows. They have a system that tags them automatically. The humans are basically there to manually verify the tags.


----------



## randian

rainwater said:


> Also, it is clear they aren't manually tagging shows. They have a system that tags them automatically. The humans are basically there to manually verify the tags.


I don't see the point in dropping SkipMode to save trivial amounts of money firing a few $10/hr part-time employees.

The way SkipMode fails makes it obvious your TiVo isn't scanning for codes in real time. If it did it would be able to handle delayed codes, as happens when you have junk like news interruptions at the beginning of the episode.


----------



## ncted

randian said:


> I don't see the point in dropping SkipMode to save trivial amounts of money firing a few $10/hr part-time employees.
> 
> The way SkipMode fails makes it obvious your TiVo isn't scanning for codes in real time. If it did it would be able to handle delayed codes, as happens when you have junk like news interruptions at the beginning of the episode.


Pretty sure it would scan the file after recording is completed. Doing otherwise would be challenging to be sure.


----------



## morac

Went searching for other products acquired by Rovi and found this one:

http://variety.com/2015/digital/new...ime-warner-cable-partnership-over-1201628890/

Apparently Rovi was really "excited" about this streaming based hardware device that could stream TWC, only to kill it a year later and push users to their mobile app.

I hope that doesn't happened to TiVo.


----------



## mdavej

Very interesting. So Rovi could very well be the cable cartel's underhanded way of killing Tivo.

This statement by Rovi is especially telling:
We are not in, and dont want to be in, a business thats dependent upon any relationship with the hardware provider.


----------



## randian

mdavej said:


> This statement by Rovi is especially telling:
> We are not in, and dont want to be in, a business thats dependent upon any relationship with the hardware provider.


But if they buy TiVo they _are_ the hardware provider.


----------



## tazzmission

Until this is official I won't be looking to replace TiVo. But if it does happen I'll be out if I see anything change that I don't like


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## keenanSR

randian said:


> But if they buy TiVo they _are_ the hardware provider.


Not if they discontinue creating hardware and just concentrate on providing UI and DVR software for MVPDs. If I'm not mistaken that's already the larger portion of TiVo's business.


----------



## aaronwt

mchinsky said:


> I don't know why Tivo are using human employees for skip mode. They basically could cover far more content for free if they used a model like Waze.
> 
> Allow consumers to quickly flag the beginning of a commercial and the end of a commercial. Even during DVR playback. You would then have your data points within minutes.
> 
> Use a system that drops 'outliers' such as 5 users that aren't close to eliminate morons who would abuse the system to be 'funny'.


Why the hell would I want to flag commercials? Even if you paid me I wouldn't want to do it. I hate commercials. Which is why I've been time shifting my TV watching for over thirty years.


----------



## NoVa

skypros said:


> Maybe this is the spark to light the fire..... Someone needs to buy Tivo.
> 
> Maybe Rovi buys Tivo..... then repackages it and puts it up for sale (or the whole company)
> 
> Maybe......* Google, Apple, Amazon, * Netflix, DirecTV, Echostar.... or a host of other companies finally may want to bid on Tivo.
> 
> I have already lost a little bit of $ buying Tivo stock (I purchased it last year when they announced the Roamio OTA w/Lifetime for $300).... So I am really gun shy about buying Tivo stock again.


I'm looking at my 3 favorite 21st century companies for a miracle here.
Please help us...you're our only hope.


----------



## aaronwt

morac said:


> Went searching for other products acquired by Rovi and found this one:
> 
> http://variety.com/2015/digital/new...ime-warner-cable-partnership-over-1201628890/
> 
> Apparently Rovi was really "excited" about this streaming based hardware device that could stream TWC, only to kill it a year later and push users to their mobile app.
> 
> I hope that doesn't happened to TiVo.





> In October of 2014, Fan TV got acquired by Rovi for $12 million


That company was only 12 million. They would be merging with TiVo and the value placed on TiVo is many times higher.


----------



## aaronwt

NoVa said:


> I'm looking at my 3 favorite 21st century companies for a miracle here.
> Please help us...you're our only hope.


 nooooooo!! I would hate for Apple to buy them. I've never owned any Apple Hardware and I have no desire to start anytime soon.


----------



## unknownpa

aaronwt said:


> Cable providers have TiVos rolled out to millions customers. Hundreds of thousands is the retail market.


Yes, I understand that. I should have clarified I was referring to my specific market.

Best regards


----------



## tarheelblue32

aaronwt said:


> Why the hell would I want to flag commercials? Even if you paid me I wouldn't want to do it. I hate commercials. Which is why I've been time shifting my TV watching for over thirty years.


Why do people voluntarily write and edit Wikipedia articles? Some percentage of people probably would be willing to do this sort of thing voluntarily. However, they wouldn't necessarily have to do it actively. TiVo could just allow users who are willing to help to sign up to have their FF behavior monitored and then you could use some kind of computer algorithm that looked to see when users hit the FF button to FF through commercials and then when they resume watching. Average out thousands of those and augment the data with other audio/visual cues from the show and you'd probably get very close.


----------



## waynomo

I'm surprised they can't use the technology behind Shazam or SoundHound to recognize commercials and skip them.


----------



## NoVa

aaronwt said:


> nooooooo!! I would hate for Apple to buy them. I've never owned any Apple Hardware and I have no desire to start anytime soon.


Look, I have NO great love for APPL, but at least they won't abandon their loyal customers & have deep pockets to develop their platform.

Heck, the could turn the TiVo into some form of Apple TV that they have been trying to monetize for years now but couldn't.

I will readily admit, I don't understand all the details of why there aren't more comparable alternatives to TiVo beyond the patents but there is money to be had for doing a guided recorder box that charges a subscription fee - even if that fee is hated by many, it's been proven that people are willing to pay for it.


----------



## rainwater

waynomo said:


> I'm surprised they can't use the technology behind Shazam or SoundHound to recognize commercials and skip them.


TiVo is already using software to detect commercials. The humans are there to verify the tags before they are released to the public. There is no way they are watching every single minute of each of those networks to set tags. From what we have seen, they push out the skipmode data within about 2 minutes of a program airing so whatever they are using seems to be working just fine.


----------



## Dan203

rainwater said:


> TiVo is already using software to detect commercials. The humans are there to verify the tags before they are released to the public. There is no way they are watching every single minute of each of those networks to set tags. From what we have seen, they push out the skipmode data within about 2 minutes of a program airing so whatever they are using seems to be working just fine.


It's slower on the east coast. Those of us further west get the benefit of the data already being marked for the east coast broadcast so it shows up seconds after the show finishes recording.

Ira already confirmed that they use a combination of humans and machine scans. So It's likely they do an automated scan and then humans verify and adjust the points as needed.


----------



## TonyD79

Dan203 said:


> It's slower on the east coast. Those of us further west get the benefit of the data already being marked for the east coast broadcast.


I always get mine within 2 minutes and I live in Maryland.


----------



## Dan203

TonyD79 said:


> I always get mine within 2 minutes and I live in Maryland.


I realized my point wasn't clear so I edited my post above. On the West coast it's available immediately as soon as the show finished recording. You can even stop the show part way through and skip will show up for the portion you have.


----------



## tvmaster2

rainwater said:


> Are you guys really talking about Costco? In the grand scheme of things, Costco has not had any affect on TiVo's sales either way.


maybe not in the grand scheme, but a lot of women I know go to Costco who don't go to Best Buy or Frys (two places my better half won't be caught dead in). Even if the numbers weren't great, TiVo would have been better off with a visual presence before a wider clientele, and that's Costco and Sams.


----------



## Series3Sub

Let's face it, if anyone else wanted TiVo with all its patents and hardware MSO and retail business, they would have bought, even a small share in, it by now. Even the companies TiVo sued could have bought a percentage or merged with TiVo, but none of the MVPD's nor DVR makers find TiVo of any value to them, just ad revenue Rovi. That's it! No one else.


----------



## ej42137

NoVa said:


> Look, I have NO great love for APPL, but at least they won't abandon their loyal customers & have deep pockets to develop their platform.


If Apple were to buy TiVo, Apple would be strongly motivated to cripple or kill Skip Mode since Apple has relationship with providers for PS Vue.


----------



## tvmaster2

Series3Sub said:


> Let's face it, if anyone else wanted TiVo with all its patents and hardware MSO and retail business, they would have bought, even a small share in, it by now. Even the companies TiVo sued could have bought a percentage or merged with TiVo, but none of the MVPD's nor DVR makers find TiVo of any value to them, just ad revenue Rovi. That's it! No one else.


funny that Google bought SageTV to base Google Fibre on, especially if TiVo was on the block.


----------



## BRiT wtfdotcom

ej42137 said:


> If Apple were to buy TiVo, Apple would be strongly motivated to cripple or kill Skip Mode since Apple has relationship with providers for PS Vue.


PS Vue is Sony, NOT Apple.


----------



## aaronwt

Dan203 said:


> I realized my point wasn't clear so I edited my post above. On the West coast it's available immediately as soon as the show finished recording. You can even stop the show part way through and skip will show up for the portion you have.


 That would be sweet. Right now I wait until the program finishes recording to watch. It would be nice to be able to start watching after only half was recorded and still have access to Skip Mode.


----------



## aaronwt

Series3Sub said:


> Let's face it, if anyone else wanted TiVo with all its patents and hardware MSO and retail business, they would have bought, even a small share in, it by now. Even the companies TiVo sued could have bought a percentage or merged with TiVo, but none of the MVPD's nor DVR makers find TiVo of any value to them, just ad revenue Rovi. That's it! No one else.


I thought TiVo used to have a poison pill to prevent a hostile takeover?


----------



## lpwcomp

One other thing in regards to the merger and skip mode - even if it continues, it makes it far less likely that they will fix the H.264 problem.


----------



## davezatz

aaronwt said:


> I thought TiVo used to have a poison pill to prevent a hostile takeover?


That was back in the days of DISH litigation. These days, TiVo board and execs probably want to cash out. Their prized jewels of the Time Warp patent and the Virgin deal are both in jeopardy with no evidence they can otherwise be profitable.


----------



## Dan203

aaronwt said:


> That would be sweet. Right now I wait until the program finishes recording to watch. It would be nice to be able to start watching after only half was recorded and still have access to Skip Mode.


The recording still has to finish. But you can stop it manually and it will still get skip for the half you recorded.

You can't use skip mode on a recording that's still in process.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

ncted said:


> I suspect they are using CC broadcast flags to detect commercials. The human element may just be for quality control.


Turn on CC and you might be surprised to find many commercials have CC.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

tvmaster2 said:


> maybe not in the grand scheme, but a lot of women I know go to Costco who don't go to Best Buy or Frys (two places my better half won't be caught dead in). Even if the numbers weren't great, TiVo would have been better off with a visual presence before a wider clientele, and that's Costco and Sams.


Hang out in Sams or Costco for an hour and count the percentage of Men to Women who turn and go down the Electronics/TV Aisles vs passing them by as they walk in.

Also, with less than 2500 SKUs at Sams and Costco, there are PLENTY of other products they would rather stock that would move faster.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

davezatz said:


> That was back in the days of DISH litigation. These days, TiVo board and execs probably want to cash out. Their prized jewels of the Time Warp patent and the Virgin deal are both in jeopardy with no evidence they can otherwise be profitable.


Agreed.

Interim CEO wearing dual hat as CFO tells the tale.


----------



## Dan203

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Turn on CC and you might be surprised to find many commercials have CC.


Yeah CCs are not a good indicator of commercial breaks. Most national commercials have CCs. Trust me there is no easy way to detect commercials in American TV. In fact one of our commercial customers actually uses our product to detect commercial breaks in their national feeds when prepping shows for VOD. (they need to insert a flag to disable FF) So it's still a manual process for them to detect the commercials in their own feeds. Automation helps by detecting black frames, audio drops, etc... but it's not perfect so some manual intervention is always required.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

Dan203 said:


> Yeah CCs are not a good indicator of commercial breaks. Most national commercials have CCs. Trust me there is no easy way to detect commercials in American TV. In fact one of our commercial customers actually uses our product to detect commercial breaks in their national feeds when prepping shows for VOD. (they need to insert a flag to disable FF) So it's still a manual process for them to detect the commercials in their own feeds. Automation helps by detecting black frames, audio drops, etc... but it's not perfect so some manual intervention is always required.


Why would the source just not playout the program without the breaks 
(or insert what they need) for VOD?

That is really easy to do considering the master control packages out there.

Seems like a really foolish way to do VOD, but then again, I've seen some stupid stuff on VOD.


----------



## Skybolt

I can't f'n believe this! I just switched from WMC to Tivo because of Rovi. Just bought a Romeo Pro HD and 5 Mini's last month too. I guess there worthless at this point if this does happen ... Let's just hope if it does that the Tivo portion of the merge stays status quot. ...


----------



## aaronwt

Dan203 said:


> The recording still has to finish. But you can stop it manually and it will still get skip for the half you recorded.
> 
> You can't use skip mode on a recording that's still in process.


Whew!!! Now I don't need to move to the West Coast!


----------



## dswallow

Absolutely nothing at TiVo moves quickly. Even if a merger were announced today and consummated tomorrow (which itself isn't something that happens that quickly), it'd be years before technology changes, like a new guide provider, would enter the stream that we could notice or object to.


----------



## tarheelblue32

Skybolt said:


> I can't f'n believe this! I just switched from WMC to Tivo because of Rovi. Just bought a Romeo Pro HD and 5 Mini's last month too. I guess there worthless at this point if this does happen ... Let's just hope if it does that the Tivo portion of the merge stays status quot. ...


Don't be so melodramatic. They aren't "worthless" even if this merger does go through. They will probably continue to function fine for years, and if you want you can always sell them on ebay and recoup most of your purchase price.


----------



## markjrenna

I agree Fine. Maybe it looks even better IMHO.



aaronwt said:


> It looks fine here. The listings look the same as what shows up on my TiVo. At least from doing a quick check.
> 
> It shows listings for FiOS in my area and for Comcast in my area. And it shows listings for OTA in my area.


----------



## tvmaster2

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Hang out in Sams or Costco for an hour and count the percentage of Men to Women who turn and go down the Electronics/TV Aisles vs passing them by as they walk in.
> 
> Also, with less than 2500 SKUs at Sams and Costco, there are PLENTY of other products they would rather stock that would move faster.


I don't disagree with either point. However, if the woman I know the most buys tech, it will most likely be at Costco, or not at all. TiVo should have found a way to keep visible, that's all.


----------



## waynomo

Series3Sub said:


> Let's face it, if anyone else wanted TiVo with all its patents and hardware MSO and retail business, they would have bought, even a small share in, it by now. Even the companies TiVo sued could have bought a percentage or merged with TiVo, but none of the MVPD's nor DVR makers find TiVo of any value to them, just ad revenue Rovi. That's it! No one else.


While you might be right the opposite also sometimes happens. No one is interested in a company and then someone shows an interest and other suitors pop out of the woodwork.


----------



## SullyND

waynomo said:


> While you might be right the opposite also sometimes happens. No one is interested in a company and then someone shows an interest and other suitors pop out of the woodwork.


Didn't TiVo have a poison pill until recently?


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

tvmaster2 said:


> I don't disagree with either point. However, if the woman I know the most buys tech, it will most likely be at Costco, or not at all. TiVo should have found a way to keep visible, that's all.


Millions of SKUs want the same thing and they are growing sales each year.

If TiVo went on a Shark Tank today pitching just the Retail box with 8 years of declining Retail Sales, the Sharks would laugh them off the Program.


----------



## waynomo

SullyND said:


> Didn't TiVo have a poison pill until recently?


Don't know.


----------



## lessd

SullyND said:


> Didn't TiVo have a poison pill until recently?


If the takeover is not hostile, any poison pill is moot.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

lessd said:


> If the takeover is not hostile, any poison pill is moot.


correct


----------



## alleybj

Of course, Tivo's stockholders would have to approve any merger. Voting decisions are usually based on price, but you never know. Just because a merger is announced doesn't mean that it will actually close. Depending on who the acquirer is, there could also be an antitrust review.


----------



## ncted

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Turn on CC and you might be surprised to find many commercials have CC.


I wasn't saying that the absence of CC was the method for detecting the commercial.

These are understood to be the patent applications for Autohop:

http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120057847

http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120057848

The use of CC data (and probably other metadata sources) to detect commercials seems like a likely solution for Skip Mode. Given the patent exchange that went on between the two, it would make sense for Tivo to at least reuse the idea that Dish/Echostar came up with.

Then again, I could be totally wrong. Who knows?


----------



## Chris Gerhard

I am certainly not a psychic, I don't believe the Rovi merger with TiVo will happen but if it does, I agree it could be bad for TiVo users over the long run. It might be fine but Rovi's track record isn't good if you want a quality product and service. How Rovi could screw up TiVo and benefit is a big puzzle to me.


----------



## trip1eX

*This is something Rovi showcased last year:*

_"New Dynamic Metadata, Powered by the Rovi Knowledge Graph Engine

Rovi will introduce new dynamic metadata based on the robust Rovi Knowledge Graph Engine, which contains rich information on more than 100 million entertainment entities. This new dynamic metadata set is mapped to Rovi IDs and provides customers with a deep understanding of entertainment content and an awareness of what is popular or trending in the world at any moment. The Rovi Knowledge Graph Engine provides machine-generated metadata from 100,000 online sources, delivering 20 million additional keyword assignments and metadata on an additional four million people. It will also enable Rovi customers to deliver highly relevant search results and recommendations to accurately understand user intent and anticipate user interests."_

*...along with this:*

_Build Internet Protocol Based Entertainment Experiences with Rovi Cloud Services

Rovi will release Rovi Cloud Services 2.0, which provides developers with easy access to an extensive range of media APIs. This will help service providers quickly build IP-based entertainment experiences on a range of platforms and devices, including next-generation set-top boxes, DTAs, IPTV, cloud, and second screen, or websites, applications and portals.
Additionally, Rovi will launch the new Rovi Developer Portal, which provides a one-stop shop for Rovis entertainment discovery portfolio including metadata, search, recommendations, remote access and conversation services. 
_
*And this:*

_Enhanced User Interface for Rovi Passport Guide

Rovi will unveil its revamped user interface (UI) for Passport Guide Interactive Program Guide (IPG). The enhanced UI features a wide-screen, high-resolution format, modern HD design and streamlined color palette, which better complements the service providers branding. In addition to a refreshed UI, Passport Guide along with Rovi i-Guide will also support the collection of return-path data, which service providers can access through Rovis Operator Insights, a business intelligence portal to gain insights into customer viewing patterns.
_

Rovi sells this stuff to MSOs and box makers etc. It seems like buying Tivo not only means getting ~5 million customers but they can incorporate Tivo's tech into these solutions where it makes sense to enhance their offerings. Tivo would also give them a broader solution to offer hardware and more or better dvr capabilities. Plus they get the Tivo name which maybe still means something.

Also I saw Rovi has a voice search product. That is something that could go into a Tivo. And buying Tivo means Tivo won't take away customers. Tivo has been pretty successful reaching smaller MSOs the past 5 years.


----------



## ajwees41

anyone see this http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=539365


----------



## aaronwt

ajwees41 said:


> anyone see this http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=539365


What does TiVo use Gracenote for?

EDIT:  I didn't realize that Tribune Media Services Inc. was now Gracenote.


----------



## JoeKustra

I noticed the copyright on zap2it has changed to Gracenote. The Roamio still has copyright TMS.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

After thinking about this overnight and the announcement that Foxconn had purchased Sharp for $3.5B USD, Foxconn is the answer as to who should buy the spinoff Hardware Side of Tivo with data licensed from TiVo/RoVi (or TMS if Foxconn so desired).

Foxconn has ability to produce quality products.

MSOs would have no issue buying from them, as opposed to Amazon, Apple, Google etc.

They are the perfect fit for spinning off the Hardware division.


----------



## morac

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> MSOs would have no issue buying from them, as opposed to Amazon, Apple, Google etc.


Somehow I doubt that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

morac said:


> Somehow I doubt that.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides


Well known fact, but that does not stop Apple or others from producing there.

Besides, MSO see Apple, Amazon and Google as competition. They will not support a device built by them.

As all the big firms, they will not pay attention to "how the hotdog is made"


----------



## Dan203

All of the big MSOs want to develop an in house solution so they can retain complete control. They don't want TiVo, or Moxi, or any of the other pre-made brands any more.


----------



## Series3Sub

waynomo said:


> While you might be right the opposite also sometimes happens. No one is interested in a company and then someone shows an interest and other suitors pop out of the woodwork.


That is a tactic used by competitors/interlopers to drive up the price of acquisition to the original bidder. I would not be surprised to hear Tribune/Gracenote is in or had talks with TiVo after being aware of Rovi's interest. But Tribune's/Gracenote's, or any other company's, interest would be insincere and only for the purpose of costing a competitor as much money as possible than would otherwise be the case. TiVo, at this point, is a bargain price for Rovi and the TiVo board certainly don't want to ride their TiVo stock to the financial grave, so it is now or never to finally sell TiVo. TiVo is lucky to find a buyer from so many disinterested parties.

FWIW, it is no coincidence that Ol' Tom Rogers left the CEO position, but still in a position to profit from a sale. The interim CEO's job seems to be the cut TiVo staff, costs, etc. to acceptable levels for sale to Rovi. We really won't know the future of our retail TiVo products we've invested a lot or our money.


----------



## jmpage2

NoVa said:


> I'm looking at my 3 favorite 21st century companies for a miracle here.
> Please help us...you're our only hope.


Zero percent chance of happening. TiVo way of doing things is dying. If they had come out with roamio, mini, bolt a couple of years earlier than they did and introduced the recent software improvement and apps they would have been able to hang on a little longer.

The way forward is IP delivery and it is fully in the interest of providers to control the experience with their own apps or even their own hardware. Actual TiVo owners/users, while very loyal don't see the big picture that TiVo is a pimple on the rear end of the elephant that is the mass media market. No one outside of this little group really cares what happens with them.

All that TiVo has left that people want is the patent portfolio and maybe the business selling software to cable providers.

If stockholders will get a 20-30% valuation bump they will murder each other to approve this deal.

I said a couple of years ago that Roamio is probably last CATV box I own. I expect they will support what is out there for another 3-5 years and by then Apple/Google/Amazon/Roku will control this market.


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

What would Rovi need a new CMO for - especially one with a background at Charter?

Hmmm

http://www.multichannel.com/news/content/ted-schremp-joins-rovi/404017


----------



## Brainiac 5

morac said:


> Somehow I doubt that.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides


That controversy never made sense. The suicide rate among Foxconn employees was (and is) lower than among the general population of China - as noted in the article you linked to. So if anything, the numbers suggest that somehow working at Foxconn made people LESS likely to commit suicide.


----------



## Jrr6415sun

I don't care who buys TiVo as long as my box still works and with lifetime, mini's are still available with no extra monthly fees and skip mode is available. I don't know any other product with these features.

If it misses a show once and awhile to me is not a big deal as long as I have something.. A buy out is easily better than TiVo just going bankrupt.



aaronwt said:


> Why the hell would I want to flag commercials? Even if you paid me I wouldn't want to do it. I hate commercials. Which is why I've been time shifting my TV watching for over thirty years.


by fastforwarding through the commercial you are already flagging them...



NoVa said:


> I'm looking at my 3 favorite 21st century companies for a miracle here.
> Please help us...you're our only hope.


apple would be a disaster.. unless you like $3,000 tivo boxes.


----------



## JoeKustra

Jrr6415sun said:


> apple would be a disaster.. unless you like $3,000 tivo boxes.


But we would get a new version every year.


----------



## aaronwt

Jrr6415sun said:


> I don't care who buys TiVo as long as my box still works and with lifetime, mini's are still available with no extra monthly fees and skip mode is available. I don't know any other product with these features.
> 
> If it misses a show once and awhile to me is not a big deal as long as I have something.. A buy out is easily better than TiVo just going bankrupt.
> 
> by fastforwarding through the commercial you are already flagging them...
> 
> apple would be a disaster.. unless you like $3,000 tivo boxes.


If I scan through a commercial break then I might stop to see something that interests me. That wouldn't be good data for them. When I use SKip mode I only see the tail end of something. SO i'm not likely to view something. Or I might use the 30 second scan button and go way past the commercial break. And walk out of the room and I wouldn't rewind it until I came back. If they were to arbitrarily use my data scanning past commercials they would be in trouble since it would be so inconsistent.


----------



## markjrenna

more on this...

http://www.fiercecable.com/story/ti...ation-and-ip-issues-merger-talks-c/2016-04-15


----------



## aaronwt

markjrenna said:


> more on this...
> 
> http://www.fiercecable.com/story/ti...ation-and-ip-issues-merger-talks-c/2016-04-15


So no deal is imminent yet?



> *TiVo and Rovi reportedly working out valuation and IP issues as merger talks continue*
> 
> TiVo and Rovi Corp. continue to have serious discussions about a merger, Bloomberg reports.
> 
> The two digital entertainment companies are working to resolve differences in regard to valuation and intellectual property, "quibbling" over the long-term value of their respective patents, according to unnamed sources close to the discussions.
> 
> Bloomberg, however, says no deal is imminent between Rovi, which has a market cap of $1.5 billion, and TiVo, which is valued at $902 million.


----------



## mlsnyc

I think it was mentioned in this thread that TiVo wasn't good at marketing. (I'm sure it's been mentioned in other threads as well.)

This is their explanation for why they don't advertise, at least on the big networks for the Bolt:

http://blog.tivo.com/2016/03/no-network-ads-tivo-bolt/?platform=hootsuite

Spoiler: it's because they don't like SkipMode.


----------



## keenanSR

mlsnyc said:


> I think it was mentioned in this thread that TiVo wasn't good at marketing. (I'm sure it's been mentioned in other threads as well.)
> 
> This is their explanation for why they don't advertise, at least on the big networks for the Bolt:
> 
> http://blog.tivo.com/2016/03/no-network-ads-tivo-bolt/?platform=hootsuite
> 
> Spoiler: it's because they don't like SkipMode.


I have doubts as to whether that's even true or not, it makes for great TiVo website fodder to say you tried and were denied than to have aired the ads and have them ignored because they were cheaply or poorly done, or even aired at times when nobody is watching TV because you didn't want to fork out for the high-viewership airtime spots.

On the other hand, if it's true, then let's see the ads.


----------



## miadlor

mlsnyc said:


> I think it was mentioned in this thread that TiVo wasn't good at marketing. (I'm sure it's been mentioned in other threads as well.)
> 
> This is their explanation for why they don't advertise, at least on the big networks for the Bolt:
> 
> http://blog.tivo.com/2016/03/no-network-ads-tivo-bolt/?platform=hootsuite
> 
> Spoiler: it's because they don't like SkipMode.


I call BS on TiVo.


----------



## morac

keenanSR said:


> I have doubts as to whether that's even true or not, it makes for great TiVo website fodder to say you tried and were denied than to have aired the ads and have them ignored because they were cheaply or poorly done, or even aired at times when nobody is watching TV because you didn't want to fork out for the high-viewership airtime spots.
> 
> On the other hand, if it's true, then let's see the ads.


I have some doubts as well, as it doesn't explain why they haven't advertised for the last 16 years. In all that time, I've only ever seen 1 commercial for TiVo on TV


----------



## tarheelblue32

morac said:


> I have some doubts as well, as it doesn't explain why they haven't advertised for the last 16 years. In all that time, I've only ever seen 1 commercial for TiVo on TV


I remember for a while seeing a lot of TV commercials for TiVo with Tim Tebow.


----------



## dadrepus

mlsnyc said:


> I think it was mentioned in this thread that TiVo wasn't good at marketing. (I'm sure it's been mentioned in other threads as well.)
> 
> This is their explanation for why they don't advertise, at least on the big networks for the Bolt:
> 
> http://blog.tivo.com/2016/03/no-network-ads-tivo-bolt/?platform=hootsuite
> 
> Spoiler: it's because they don't like SkipMode.


I think it would be pretty hilarious for Tivo to advertise on TV that they want you to buy a box that can skip advertising. They would then be buying a product (advertising) that they want you to ignore. Priceless!!!


----------



## TonyD79

miadlor said:


> I call BS on TiVo.


I do too as I sit watching a commercial for HBO on NBC. If HBO can get ad time on a major network then so can TiVo.


----------



## nmb333

Tivo could really try to get the Cord Cutter market at a minimum through advertising efforts with their OTA DVRs. 

You would think that if SlingTV is able to advertise then Tivo would be able to create a campaign around minimizing costs.


----------



## lpwcomp

I find it amusing that a bunch of people who presumably routinely skip commercials are complaining that TiVo never advertises. How would they know?


----------



## foghorn2

lpwcomp said:


> I find it amusing that a bunch of people who presumably routinely skip commercials are complaining that TiVo never advertises. How would they know?


The Advertisers and Tivo are like snails that say to each other- "Go F* yourself"

and they do!


----------



## dadrepus

lpwcomp said:


> I find it amusing that a bunch of people who presumably routinely skip commercials are complaining that TiVo never advertises. How would they know?


Funny but true. I, for one, will probably not notice it as I tend to FF through the commercials during prime time viewing/recording. But all the early morning news shows are always watched live. Love me some GMA at 7AM.


----------



## waynomo

tarheelblue32 said:


> I remember for a while seeing a lot of TV commercials for TiVo with Tim Tebow.


Did you see the ads on TV or did you watch the ads via YouTube clicking a link here or something like that?


----------



## tarheelblue32

waynomo said:


> Did you see the ads on TV or did you watch the ads via YouTube clicking a link here or something like that?


On actual television.


----------



## mattack

dadrepus said:


> I think it would be pretty hilarious for Tivo to advertise on TV that they want you to buy a box that can skip advertising.


Tivo already did that, though admittedly more indirectly..

At _least_ one of the early ads, with Joe Montana, had a line similar to "skip what you want".. which I think was clear..


----------



## keenanSR

Starting to look very much like a done deal. Friday morning looks like the day TiVo becomes part of Rovi.

Rovi Said Nearing a Deal to Acquire DVR Pioneer TiVo Inc. 



> April 28, 2016  3:41 PM PDT
> 
> Rovi Corp., which provides on-screen guides for pay-TV listings, is nearing a deal to acquire digital-video recording pioneer TiVo Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said.
> 
> Talks have progressed and Rovi may announce a transaction as soon as Friday, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private negotiations. Rovi will likely pay a premium of about 10 percent for TiVo, said the people, implying a value of about $1 billion.
> 
> Rovi Thursday postponed a scheduled quarterly earnings call until tomorrow morning, without providing a reason. TiVo closed at $9.42 Thursday, giving the San Jose, California-based company a market capitalization of about $922 million. Rovi has a market value of about ... [the rest of the article is at the below link]
> 
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...earing-a-deal-to-acquire-dvr-pioneer-tivo-inc


----------



## Scooter Scott

Hoping for the best


----------



## tvmaster2

Scooter Scott said:


> Hoping for the best


and that would be no deal?


----------



## lessd

tvmaster2 said:


> and that would be no deal?


All good things come to an end


----------



## ncted

Blech


----------



## jth tv

Its all about the commissions.


----------



## convergent

News this morning says deal will be completed during Q3... so will be a while yet. And the new combined company will be called Tivo.


----------



## kucharsk

Announced:



> Rovi is acquiring DVR pioneer TiVo for about $1.1 billion in cash and stock, bringing together two entertainment-technology companies with sizable patent portfolios.
> 
> The company will continue to be led by Rovi CEO Tom Carson, but following the closing of the deal it will adopt TiVo as the new company name.
> 
> The deal brings together TiVo  which has shifted its business to selling software and hardware to pay-TV operators, away from retail sales of DVRs  with Rovi, a supplier of interactive program guides, entertainment metadata and related products to cable and satellite operators, consumer-electronics makers, media and entertainment firms, and Internet companies.
> 
> The combined capabilities of TiVo and Rovi place us in a tremendous position to extend services across platforms and to a customer base that includes traditional, over-the-top and emerging players across the globe, Carson said in a statement. By working together, Rovi and TiVo will revolutionize how consumers experience media and entertainment and at the same time build value for our stockholders.
> 
> This transaction is the culmination of those efforts and the logical next step for TiVo, said Naveen Chopra, interim CEO and CFO of TiVo. In joining forces with Rovi, our customers, employees and stockholders will benefit from being part of a more diversified industry leader with significantly greater market opportunities.
> 
> Variety: TiVo to Be Acquired by Rovi for $1.1 Billion


----------



## JoeKustra

convergent said:


> News this morning says deal will be completed during Q3... so will be a while yet. And the new combined company will be called Tivo.


That's going to cause some heads to explode on the DVR+ thread over on AVSForum.


----------



## jth tv

Don't like that "shifted" part, wonder whose idea it was to mention that.


----------



## DrewTivo

jth tv said:


> Don't like that "shifted" part, wonder whose idea it was to mention that.


Investor relations . . . presumably to show investors that Tivo's past business model of retail, which wasn't that profitable, isn't the company's current direction.


----------



## heywally

I am a newer Tivo (Bolt) user and we recently, "re-corded" back to cable TV because I wasn't finding the various streaming packages to be adequate. But, I know they will get better.

Will just keep my fingers crossed that the Tivo interface and services will stay the same for at least the next year and I will have gotten my money's worth on buying the Tivo box, Vs. the 2 Charter DVR rentals. And who knows, maybe "they" won't screw things up at all.

If the wonderful Tivo interface goes away, we will definitely lean towards dumping the Charter Cable TV again as their DVR's and menu/recording interfaces are completely inadequate.


----------



## TonyD79

jth tv said:


> Don't like that "shifted" part, wonder whose idea it was to mention that.


Me neither. Shifted focus or shifting would make me happier. It makes it sound like they are done with retail. Words in releases like these are chosen carefully.


----------



## dave13077

This was posted by Mari Silbey on Twitter this morning....


"Rovi's John Burke on TiVo's retail business: "It will be a very important part of the business going forward."

I guess time will tell.


----------



## MurrayJimW

Rovi earnings call just said metadata may be switched over as early as next month when Tivo's current contract expires. They also stated hardware and the relationship with end users is very important to them and they plan to continue both FWIW.


----------



## JoeKustra

What's the symbol for chaos? TiVo still has the TMS copyright. I guess Rovi will fix that.


----------



## innocentfreak

MurrayJimW said:


> Rovi earnings call just said metadata may be switched over as early as next month when Tivo's current contract expires. They also stated hardware and the relationship with end users is very important to them and they plan to continue both FWIW.


I guess we could very quickly find out if the Media Center guide data issues are Microsoft's fault or Rovi's fault.


----------



## Jerky

Delete please


----------



## Jerky

Listen, Rovi is not going to shutdown Tivo service. Why would they!?! What digital TV company can get the monthly income like Tivo does (minus cable companies). The answer is none. My understanding is they had 10 million subscribers. Say average monthly payment is 12 dollars (account all in and yearly). That's 120 million dollars a MONTH. What reason would Rovi have to stop 120 million dollars of revenue a month? They also mentioned this is a cost savings move for both companies. The metadata cost goes away for the Tivo end of company and into Rovi systems. It just makes a lost of sense for both companies to be together.

I purchased a Bolt. Because Microsoft dropped WMC support. My next best option was a Tivo. I didn't do an All in plan. I don't believe in that. I would rather pay yearly. I have had a Bolt for a month now and say what you will about some setup glitches. The Tivo experience is one of the best in terms of hardware/software/services. Reminds me of Apple in some respects.


----------



## TonyD79

No. They aren't going to shut it down. The question is how much development do they put into retail going forward.


----------



## aaronwt

Jerky said:


> Listen, Rovi is not going to shutdown Tivo service. Why would they!?! What digital TV company can get the monthly income like Tivo does (minus cable companies). The answer is none. My understanding is they had 10 million subscribers. Say average monthly payment is 12 dollars (account all in and yearly). That's 120 million dollars a MONTH. What reason would Rovi have to stop 120 million dollars of revenue a month? They also mentioned this is a cost savings move for both companies. The metadata cost goes away for the Tivo end of company and into Rovi systems. It just makes a lost of sense for both companies to be together.
> 
> I purchased a Bolt. Because Microsoft dropped WMC support. My next best option was a Tivo. I didn't do an All in plan. I don't believe in that. I would rather pay yearly. I have had a Bolt for a month now and say what you will about some setup glitches. The Tivo experience is one of the best in terms of hardware/software/services. Reminds me of Apple in some respects.


Isn't the average monthly payment off by an order of magnitude? So they get something like $1.20 for each TiVo user? The vast majority of TiVo subscribers are from cable. So TiVo doesn't get the money from them like they get from their less than 1 million retail subscribers.


----------



## Jerky

TonyD79 said:


> No. They aren't going to shut it down. The question is how much development do they put into retail going forward.


What kinda development does it need? More streaming services? Hardware? They need to do that to keep their subscribers. Companies LOVE monthly payments from subscribers. They will want to grow that. It all goes hand and hand. They aren't going to stop development of Tivo because they will lose subscribers. I would not be surprised if they take the money they are saving from metadata and just dump that directly into development.


----------



## Jerky

aaronwt said:


> Isn't the average monthly payment off by an order of magnitude? So they get something like $1.20 for each TiVo user? The vast majority of TiVo subscribers are from cable. So TiVo doesn't get the money from them like they get from their less than 1 million retail subscribers.


I apologize. I was not thinking of cable subscribers. But my statement still stands. They are going to want to add subscribers not stifle them.


----------



## Brad Bishop

TonyD79 said:


> No. They aren't going to shut it down. The question is how much development do they put into retail going forward.


From similar things in the past, my guess is that, first, they'll assure us all that everything is going to be OK going forward and that they have no plans to dump TiVo, etc.

Then they'll start cost cutting, switching the guide data over to their own, which will probably introduce a few bugs, then they'll release a bug fix or two to try to address it and, eventually, just let TiVo die on the vine. It'll become more and more troublesome to use our TiVos and, one by one, we'll just give up and eventually they'll announce that the TiVo line is no longer profitable and that they're shutting down the service and giving those who are left a coupon to buy something "Rovi".

We'll be left wondering what happened to TiVo. Some will argue that it's all Rovi's fault and others will argue that TiVo was faltering long before Rovi.

I know it's doom and gloom, I'm just saying that is how these things usually go down.

For me, when my TiVo becomes a PITA to use I'll just dump it and get a stupid cable box. I like the product but I'm not married to the company or anything.


----------



## Jerky

Brad Bishop said:


> From similar things in the past, my guess is that, first, they'll assure us all that everything is going to be OK going forward and that they have no plans to dump TiVo, etc.
> 
> Then they'll start cost cutting, switching the guide data over to their own, which will probably introduce a few bugs, then they'll release a bug fix or two to try to address it and, eventually, just let TiVo die on the vine. It'll become more and more troublesome to use our TiVos and, one by one, we'll just give up and eventually they'll announce that the TiVo line is no longer profitable and that they're shutting down the service and giving those who are left a coupon to buy something "Rovi".
> 
> We'll be left wondering what happened to TiVo. Some will argue that it's all Rovi's fault and others will argue that TiVo was faltering long before Rovi.
> 
> I know it's doom and gloom, I'm just saying that is how these things usually go down.
> 
> For me, when my TiVo becomes a PITA to use I'll just dump it and get a stupid cable box. I like the product but I'm not married to the company or anything.


Why, what's the purpose of spending 1.1 Billion on a company to kill it? What advantage do they have with doing that? I know Tivo has some good patents. But they aren't going to spend 1.1 Billion dollars just for patents. They need to make they money back. Rovi's financials arent anything to write home about either. They NEED to make money with Tivo or they will be purchased also.


----------



## mdavej

Jerky said:


> Why, what's the purpose of spending 1.1 Billion on a company to kill it? What advantage do they have with doing that? I know Tivo has some good patents. But they aren't going to spend 1.1 Billion dollars just for patents. They need to make they money back. Rovi's financials arent anything to write home about either. They NEED to make money with Tivo or they will be purchased also.


Ever heard of manslaughter? Even if they don't mean to kill it, they will due to their ineptitude.


----------



## Jerky

mdavej said:


> Ever heard of manslaughter? Even if they don't mean to kill it, they will due to their ineptitude.


That's quite an assumption. You assume Tivo isn't inept and the company purchasing them is inept. I don't think you will see much change with the Tivo line anytime soon. It will probably take a year before any meaningful change happens, and hopefully it's for the best. Rovi will let Tivo operate as they have and Rovi will watch and learn for the first 3-6 months. They Rovi will make their changes. Hopefully for the better.


----------



## Bruce24

aaronwt said:


> So TiVo doesn't get the money from them like they get from their less than 1 million retail subscribers.


Tivo have ~7M total subscribers, 1M (tivo-owned) and 6M (MSO). The last quarterly earning report says they receive $20.1M in Service & Software revenues from the Tivo owned boxes and 19.8M in MSOs's-related service revneues.

This works out to $6.67/month on 'Tivo-Owned' aka Retail boxes. Note there are ~150K lifetime subscriptions and a free first year service with the new boxes that works into that average monthly number. For the MSOs aka cable subs it works out to about $1.10/month.


----------



## TonyD79

Jerky said:


> What kinda development does it need? More streaming services? Hardware? They need to do that to keep their subscribers. Companies LOVE monthly payments from subscribers. They will want to grow that. It all goes hand and hand. They aren't going to stop development of Tivo because they will lose subscribers. I would not be surprised if they take the money they are saving from metadata and just dump that directly into development.


If they focus on cable partnerships, then development is very different than retail development. It could be good for customers of specific cable companies and bad for OTA and other cable customers.


----------



## Jerky

Bruce24 said:


> Tivo have ~7M total subscribers, 1M (tivo-owned) and 6M (MSO). The last quarterly earning report says they receive $20.1M in Service & Software revenues from the Tivo owned boxes and 19.8M in MSOs's-related service revneues.
> 
> This works out to $6.67/month on 'Tivo-Owned' aka Retail boxes. Note there are ~150K lifetime subscriptions and a free first year service with the new boxes that works into that average monthly number. For the MSOs aka cable subs it works out to about $1.10/month.


Nice sleuthing. To put that in perspective Rovi's total revenue for the last quarter was 149 million (which was a lot higher then their average). Previous quarter was 114 million. So Rovi would see a 13% increase in revenue just from subscriptions. Is my math right on that?


----------



## mchief

The new merged company is taking the name TIVO, which is a good sign for the future.

The merged firms will be led by Rovi CEO Tom Carson, though it will adopt the TiVo brand as the new company name. The Board of Directors for the combined company will include participation from TiVos current board


----------



## mangochutney

2016 TiVo Pro please still get your ass out to consumers.


----------



## mangochutney

I suggest everyone check the Rovi lineup and start creating support tickets for missing/wrong channels! Better now then during switch-over. It's going to be chaotic.


----------



## Jerky

mangochutney said:


> 2016 TiVo Pro please still get your ass out to consumers.


Wonder if they hold that off until the merger is complete and then they kick off the new company with this release???


----------



## Jerky

mangochutney said:


> I suggest everyone check the Rovi lineup and start creating support tickets for missing/wrong channels! Better now then during switch-over. It's going to be chaotic.


Its just metadata for shows. How complicated could it be? Both Tivo and Rovi deal with it on a day to day basis. Rovi is a company that focuses on metadata. I cant imagine it being a major issue, isn't it just text mapped to channels? Am I being naive?


----------



## mangochutney

Jerky said:


> Its just metadata for shows. How complicated could it be? Both Tivo and Rovi deal with it on a day to day basis. Rovi is a company that focuses on metadata. I cant imagine it being a major issue, isn't it just text mapped to channels? Am I being naive?


Specifically for the correct channels listed for your providers lineup. Looking at thegreenbutton.tv they had many inconsistencies and there was a firestorm when switchover happened. There was no direct channel to 'complain' to. Rovi didn't have one, MS farted around stating people were to log a post on their connect site (yeah right). Many discrepancies took weeks to resolve.


----------



## markjrenna

Transition on May 15.



JoeKustra said:


> What's the symbol for chaos? TiVo still has the TMS copyright. I guess Rovi will fix that.


----------



## jlb

Jerky said:


> Why, what's the purpose of spending 1.1 Billion on a company to kill it? What advantage do they have with doing that? I know Tivo has some good patents. But they aren't going to spend 1.1 Billion dollars just for patents. They need to make they money back. Rovi's financials arent anything to write home about either. They NEED to make money with Tivo or they will be purchased also.


Agreed. It's not like they bought a company that they were worried about competitively.



mangochutney said:


> I suggest everyone check the Rovi lineup and start creating support tickets for missing/wrong channels! Better now then during switch-over. It's going to be chaotic.


This makes me thankful that we only subscribe to locals. So I only have 4 or 5 channels I care about....



Jerky said:


> Its just metadata for shows. How complicated could it be? Both Tivo and Rovi deal with it on a day to day basis. Rovi is a company that focuses on metadata. I cant imagine it being a major issue, isn't it just text mapped to channels? Am I being naive?


Perhaps Rovi will actually focus more on the data than TiVo previously did......


----------



## dtle

Rovi Corp. Set To Acquire TiVo In $1.1B Cash & Stock Deal

Have we forgotten what forum we're on?


----------



## wizwor

JoeKustra said:


> That's going to cause some heads to explode on the DVR+ thread over on AVSForum.


Why do you say that? Just because the DVR+ guide will have a TiVo icon on it and say Powered by TiVo? I have never been thrilled that Rovi provided the DVR+ guide given what they did to DTVPal owners. Otherwise, it seems to be fine. I can't see Rovi/TiVo doing anything disruptive. Even if they thought that was a good idea, Grace Note just lost a bunch of subscribers.


----------



## JoeKustra

wizwor said:


> Why do you say that? Just because the DVR+ guide will have a TiVo icon on it and say Powered by TiVo? I have never been thrilled that Rovi provided the DVR+ guide given what they did to DTVPal owners. Otherwise, it seems to be fine. I can't see Rovi/TiVo doing anything disruptive. Even if they thought that was a good idea, Grace Note just lost a bunch of subscribers.


I've already been told to stop posting about the merger. So I will.

I wonder if the lineup link will change? Rovi never had a place to send feedback when I used it on my Sony DHG or TV.


----------



## murrays

Just saw this. Both stock prices are up so I'm optimistic that it's a good thing.


----------



## Scooter

Does this mean Richard gets a bigger boat? ;-)
Yeah, I know he left TiVo.


----------



## Turtleboy

dtle said:


> Have we forgotten what forum we're on?


No. This is the Non-Tivo area of the forum.

The Tivo area has a very long discussion on it.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=539224


----------



## Ereth

I'm curious what it means for us, here in this forum, though, separately from what it means for the set top box business.


----------



## Dan203

I'm a little concerned. But the fact that they're taking on the TiVo name bodes well for the future of the product. That means the only way "TiVo" dies is if Rovi dies. That's a lot better then if TiVo had been absorbed into Rovi and they kept the Rovi name. 

Although honestly the future of retail DVRs could be doomed anyway. The MSOs are going to drag their feet hard on a CableCARD replacement and with the integration ban ended Moto and Cisco are both expected to stop development of CableCARDs, so supply could eventually become an issue. Retail TiVo devices could be brought down by the industry and not Rovi. They're in a very volatile market which was going to be very difficult to navigate going forward anyway.


----------



## Bruce24

Jerky said:


> Nice sleuthing. To put that in perspective Rovi's total revenue for the last quarter was 149 million (which was a lot higher then their average). Previous quarter was 114 million. So Rovi would see a 13% increase in revenue just from subscriptions. Is my math right on that?


Actually 26% from subscriptions, if you include revenue from both Tivo retail and Cable company boxes. Overall Tivo had $118.4M in revenue, which they split into three categories Havdware ($21.4M), Service Revenue ($47.6M) and Technology Revenue($54.2M).


----------



## markjrenna

The transition had a few minor hiccups for FiOS when they moved from FYI to TMS-Gracenote. It took a few months to work out the differences.



Jerky said:


> Its just metadata for shows. How complicated could it be? Both Tivo and Rovi deal with it on a day to day basis. Rovi is a company that focuses on metadata. I cant imagine it being a major issue, isn't it just text mapped to channels? Am I being naive?


----------



## Dan203

Ereth said:


> I'm curious what it means for us, here in this forum, though, separately from what it means for the set top box business.


Even if TiVo goes away David could always change the name of the forum and keep it open. There are probably enough regulars in the Happy Hour to justify it of need be.


----------



## Chuck_IV

Brad Bishop said:


> From similar things in the past, my guess is that, first, they'll assure us all that everything is going to be OK going forward and that they have no plans to dump TiVo, etc.
> 
> Then they'll start cost cutting, switching the guide data over to their own, which will probably introduce a few bugs, then they'll release a bug fix or two to try to address it and, eventually, just let TiVo die on the vine. It'll become more and more troublesome to use our TiVos and, one by one, we'll just give up and eventually they'll announce that the TiVo line is no longer profitable and that they're shutting down the service and giving those who are left a coupon to buy something "Rovi".
> 
> We'll be left wondering what happened to TiVo. Some will argue that it's all Rovi's fault and others will argue that TiVo was faltering long before Rovi.
> 
> I know it's doom and gloom, I'm just saying that is how these things usually go down.
> 
> For me, when my TiVo becomes a PITA to use I'll just dump it and get a stupid cable box. I like the product but I'm not married to the company or anything.


I absolutely hope this is wrong, BUT my gut feeling is, sadly this may be the way things go.

I just hope by the time the end does come, Charter will finally have a viable DVR to go to.


----------



## Dan203

Chuck_IV said:


> I just hope by the time the end does come, Charter will have a viable DVR to go to.


Don't hold your breath. It took them like 4 years just to update the software on their regular boxes, and it's not that great. Even if they do release a new DVR I don't have high hopes it will be anywhere near the level of TiVo.

If this happens I'll be switching to DirecTV/Uverse.


----------



## Chuck_IV

Dan203 said:


> Don't hold your breath. It took them like 4 years just to update the software on their regular boxes, and it's not that great. Even if they do release a new DVR I don't have high hopes it will be anywhere near the level of TiVo.
> 
> If this happens I'll be switching to DirecTV/Uverse.


I figure with the Charter merger, they will have to come up with some type of unified box, at some point. Of course existing subs would be last on the list.

I did Directv for 16 years prior to Charter. Liked the service but it just got too expensive.


----------



## redbeard25

Google Fiber is planned for my neighborhood.


----------



## Jerky

Bruce24 said:


> Actually 26% from subscriptions, if you include revenue from both Tivo retail and Cable company boxes. Overall Tivo had $118.4M in revenue, which they split into three categories Havdware ($21.4M), Service Revenue ($47.6M) and Technology Revenue($54.2M).


I was just speaking to subscriber fees exclusively. But yeah even more reason to keep subscribers happy.


----------



## DrewTivo

Jerky said:


> What kinda development does it need? More streaming services? Hardware? They need to do that to keep their subscribers. Companies LOVE monthly payments from subscribers. They will want to grow that. It all goes hand and hand. They aren't going to stop development of Tivo because they will lose subscribers. I would not be surprised if they take the money they are saving from metadata and just dump that directly into development.


1) Next gen boxes to handle IPTV instead of QAM
2) Fighting for FCC cable box rule

Both are tied together . . . Tivo won't really compete as another streaming box like Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast etc., even if it can be a platform for some of those.

For it to continue to exist it will need to be able to serve OTA and traditional cable customers but who see their service switched to IP (as FIOS apparently plans to do). The latter will be a fight with the FCC so that Tivo can perform as a DVR on IP-based cable providers, and will need to develop the hardware to do that (I assume that's not a huge engineering feat - but current hardware can't do it.


----------



## ajwees41

dave13077 said:


> This was posted by Mari Silbey on Twitter this morning....
> 
> "Rovi's John Burke on TiVo's retail business: "It will be a very important part of the business going forward."
> 
> I guess time will tell.


sounds like someone a Tivo said Tivo was getting out of the hardware business, but Rovi has said the opposite, so maybe this is is a good deal to keep geting new Tivo hardware.


----------



## rainwater

DrewTivo said:


> Both are tied together . . . Tivo won't really compete as another streaming box like Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast etc., even if it can be a platform for some of those.


TiVo has hinted that they are releasing some type of streaming box this year. So we shall see.


----------



## wco81

Well even if we get 4K programming, we can't depend on Rovi to provide a 4K Tivo.

They're a patent licensing company. No background in hardware development and manufacturing.


----------



## wizwor

JoeKustra said:


> I've already been told to stop posting about the merger. So I will.
> 
> I wonder if the lineup link will change? Rovi never had a place to send feedback when I used it on my Sony DHG or TV.


Well, you DID put that KISS emoji at the bottom of your post 

I suspect the EPG will continue to be Powered by Rovi. I do not think any current partner will see value in changing that to Powered by TiVo. I'm surprised yesterday's 'What Effect Will The TiVo Roamio OTA 1TB Have On CM DVR +?' post was not met with more hostility.

I don't think either topic will be of interest over there.


----------



## wizwor

Brad Bishop said:


> From similar things in the past, my guess is that, first, they'll assure us all that everything is going to be OK going forward and that they have no plans to dump TiVo, etc.
> 
> Then they'll start cost cutting, switching the guide data over to their own, which will probably introduce a few bugs, then they'll release a bug fix or two to try to address it and, eventually, just let TiVo die on the vine. It'll become more and more troublesome to use our TiVos and, one by one, we'll just give up and eventually they'll announce that the TiVo line is no longer profitable and that they're shutting down the service and giving those who are left a coupon to buy something "Rovi".


I doubt it will happen like this. I expect Rovi to sell and support TiVo for a long time. They will simply throttle development and services. We may be looking at the last TiVo product launch until ATSC 3.0 and we may see curated commercial skip go away, but Rovi will make a lot more money collecting TiVo fees and paying nothing to Grace Note.


----------



## NashGuy

TonyD79 said:


> If they focus on cable partnerships, then development is very different than retail development. It could be good for customers of specific cable companies and bad for OTA and other cable customers.


That's particularly true as cable TV transitions away from CableCard and away from QAM. Neither of those things are happening overnight but the signs are there that both changes are underway. As cable systems move away from those technologies, existing TiVos may no longer work with them (unless the cable systems want that to happen and work with TiVo on the ability to receive and record their IPTV streams using some sort of downloadable security). So far Roku has been the preferred retail STB partner for cable systems experimenting with IPTV streaming delivery (TWC, Comcast, etc.). So much is up in the air now, it's hard to know whether TiVo will have a future in the retail business for consumers who subscribe to cable TV. It seems to me that, by far, TiVo's most hopeful path forward is to continue partnering with MSOs (cable TV providers) by offering them a turnkey solution for a unified DVR/streaming platform so that they don't need to develop their own. That said, seems like Dave Zatz recently said their biggest partner, Virgin in the UK, may not renew their soon-to-expire deal with TiVo...


----------



## jcthorne

rainwater said:


> TiVo has hinted that they are releasing some type of streaming box this year. So we shall see.


Its the next gen mini although it could have an entirely different name to suit its new marketing bent. Based on Bolt hardware platform. Will work with or without a Bolt or Roamio also in the household. Without, it simply will not have live tv or locally recorded content. Streaming only but will still have search and one pass for a more integrated view of streaming content than any other streaming box currently provides.

If its priced right, it could do very well. Tivo does need to add a few more streaming sources to the line up though.


----------



## tazzmission

From TV trailblazer to IP afterthought: TiVo bought for $1.1 billion - Ars Technica https://apple.news/AWKbgNKhuTyCZXZ1KuOgfmA

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## bicker

Jerky said:


> The metadata cost goes away for the Tivo end of company and into Rovi systems.


And that revenue gets taken away from a competitor.


----------



## nrc

I never really got the view that some have that this deal was a pre-cursor to the end of retail TiVo. 

Retail makes sense as a way to develop software and platforms for MSOs. The challenge has been the economics of providing the service. The Rovi deal improves those economics. We may even see more reasonably priced products with lifetime service included ala the new Roamio OTA.


----------



## bicker

Turtleboy said:


> No. This is the Non-Tivo area of the forum.


Not anymore.


----------



## NashGuy

jcthorne said:


> Its the next gen mini although it could have an entirely different name to suit its new marketing bent. Based on Bolt hardware platform. Will work with or without a Bolt or Roamio also in the household. Without, it simply will not have live tv or locally recorded content. Streaming only but will still have search and one pass for a more integrated view of streaming content than any other streaming box currently provides.
> 
> If its priced right, it could do very well. Tivo does need to add a few more streaming sources to the line up though.


That's an interesting thought. You could be right.

As I've written on here several times before, if TiVo wishes to offer a competitive product in the streaming STB market they absolutely need to move away from their current app-starved platform (Opera HTML5) and go to another platform where all the popular (as well as niche) apps already exist. There are basically only three: Apple tvOS, Roku, and Android (of which Amazon Fire OS is a derivative).

There's no reason to think TiVo could partner with either Apple or Roku to use their proprietary app platforms. So that means TiVo would need to either license Android TV, with full access to the Google Play store, or take open-source Android and slightly modify it for their own use, like Amazon did in creating Fire OS. I would love to see someone produce an Android TV box that features both the Google Play app store (which includes virtually every app you'd want) AND the Amazon Video app. Amazon, being somewhat prickish, has developed an Android TV version of their app but currently only allows it for use on Android TV-powered Sony smart TVs. They do not allow it for distribution via the Google Play store, so none of the Android TV set-top boxes (e.g. Nexus Player, Nvidia Shield, etc.) can access it. But since TiVo already has a relationship with Amazon, perhaps they could offer it as a pre-installed app on their new streaming box.

Anyhow, in the end, there will be only three TV streaming app ecosystems: Android, Apple, and Roku. Samsung Smart TV will hang around for awhile but in the end they may well throw in the towel and join Android or Roku like pretty much all other smart TVs are doing.


----------



## mangochutney

Delete me


----------



## mdavej

Jerky said:


> That's quite an assumption. You assume Tivo isn't inept and the company purchasing them is inept. I don't think you will see much change with the Tivo line anytime soon. It will probably take a year before any meaningful change happens, and hopefully it's for the best. Rovi will let Tivo operate as they have and Rovi will watch and learn for the first 3-6 months. They Rovi will make their changes. Hopefully for the better.


No assumptions at all. We have mountains of evidence of Rovi's ineptitude. I made no assumptions about Tivo's current ineptitude. At least they have fairly good guide data now. Rovi doesn't by a long shot.

I doubt Rovi will continue to pay a competitor for guide data very long (ok, that's one assumption, but a very likely one).

Expecting Rovi changes to be for the better is a big assumption given their track record so far.

Of course I don't expect big changes over night. But having all lifetime units, I'm in this for the long haul. Even if the destruction takes years, Tivo is still ruined in the end.

EDIT: I detailed exactly how bad Rovi is in another thread a while back:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10840988#post10840988

No speculation, just facts. Issues were experienced first hand by me and tens of thousands of others.


----------



## Joe01880

not good...

Sent from my LG G4 using Tapatalk.


----------



## DancnDude

Optimistically, let's hope that Rovi wanted TiVo to help them improve on their guide data service. They'll have an in-house team (TiVo) that actively works with guide data sent out to end users throughout the country, with the understanding of what issues need to be solved to make great guide data. TiVo knows what quality they are getting currently from Gracenote and will be able to provide that feedback to Rovi on what needs to change to be better. 

And TiVo now has guide data that they can hopefully mold a bit to work with what they need without paying licensing fees for. Maybe even allowing them to offer products at a lower price.

There's really got to be an upside for both companies here. I'm hoping it's not all gloom and doom.


----------



## keenanSR

From The Wrap,



> Below is the synergistic breakdown and explanation for the acquisition, as well as some forward-looking statements. All of the following is in the two companies own words.
> 
> Natural Synergy, Strong Business -
> 
> This transaction brings together the technology and products required to achieve the companys strategic goals and deliver substantial stockholder value.
> 
> TiVos leadership in user experience and content discovery brings together traditional television, OTT and on-demand content into one experience across devices
> 
> Rovis strength in guides, personalization, advertising, analytics and cloud services
> 
> On a pro forma basis, for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016, the combined company is estimated to have more than $800 million in revenue after purchase accounting adjustments
> 
> The combined company is expected to realize at least $100 million in annual cost synergies, with 65 percent of these synergies recognized in the first 12 months
> 
> The expected synergies are in addition to TiVos targeted current year $32 million Adjusted EBITDA increase from restructuring and margin improvements
> The transaction is expected to be accretive to Rovis Non-GAAP EPS within the first 12 months post-close
> 
> Shared Customers, Global Reach -
> 
> Rovi and TiVo serve many of the largest pay-TV operators both in the U.S. and around the world.
> Combined benefits include enhanced global reach, serving nearly 500 service providers across countries, adding more than 10 million TiVo-served households to Rovis current base of approximately 18 million households using Rovi guides worldwide
> 
> Solutions will be integrated to deliver enhanced customer value and to strengthen relationships with top partners
> 
> Unique Company, Further Innovation -
> 
> The transaction will create a company with a large presence in the consumer, consumer electronic, service provider and web-scale marketplaces
> 
> TiVo has played an iconic role in ushering in over a decade of rapid change in how consumers find, select, and watch television. These consumer innovations have also been successfully deployed for the benefit of service providers around the world
> 
> Rovi and TiVo have invested over $1.5 billion in R&D over the past 10 years. Few companies have had a greater impact on the evolution of TV and video.
> 
> This powerful combination of consumer innovation and service provider distribution will continue to be a unique asset of the combined company and will be further enhanced by Rovis prowess in areas like metadata, conversational search, and data analytics
> 
> Strong Intellectual Property Portfolios and Licensing Business -
> 
> Together, Rovi and TiVo have worldwide portfolios of over 6,000 issued patents and pending applications worldwide.
> 
> Both Rovi and TiVo have been successful in monetizing their innovations and intellectual property, with more than $3 billion in combined IP licensing revenues and past damage awards
> 
> TiVos IP assets, combined with Rovis recent OTT partnership with Intellectual Ventures, further strengthens the companys collective position as a leading provider of intellectual property in media and entertainment discovery
> 
> The Most Powerful Analytics in the Industry -
> 
> The combined company will offer the industrys most powerful analytics platform dedicated to media and entertainment, helping service providers and media companies strengthen consumers connections to the content they love.
> 
> Industry leading monetization products for services providers, advertisers and media companies, with access to data from multiple platforms including television, mobile and cloud services
> 
> TiVos unique cross-device viewership data merged with Rovis analytics tools will enable better targeting of media spend, improved advertising inventory yield and the creation of targeted advertising capabilities for service providers, advertisers and media companies
> 
> TiVos cross-device viewership data will enhance Rovis Operator Insights and Subscriber Analytics tools to give service providers more visibility and more precise methods to improve customer retention and manage churn
> 
> Full article at http://www.thewrap.com/rovi-acquires-tivo-1-1-billion-dvr/


----------



## phughes200

I hope that if TiVo bits the dust is that they release a software patch that allows the TiVo to be used as a dumb DVR (allow recording based on time and day of the week). At least that way, some of them can be kept out of the landfills.


----------



## Brad Bishop

Jerky said:


> Why, what's the purpose of spending 1.1 Billion on a company to kill it? What advantage do they have with doing that? I know Tivo has some good patents. But they aren't going to spend 1.1 Billion dollars just for patents. They need to make they money back. Rovi's financials arent anything to write home about either. They NEED to make money with Tivo or they will be purchased also.


I'm not saying it makes sense. I'm saying that is typically what happens.

Recently there was an uproar over Nest buying Revolv (I think that's right) and then laying off the Revolv folks and then 9 months or so later shutting it down. What was the point?

Many years back Yahoo! bought Flickr.. While it's not shut down it's a shell of what it was. It was very popular before. Now it's withering on the vine. What was the point?

For those of you who remember years back: Gemstar (again, this is from memory) had a system called Starsight and they bought Videoguide who had, what many thought, was a superior guide/recording system and they shut them down. What was the point? I may be wrong but I think Gemstar became Rovi.. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Early 2000s (maybe late 1990s) AT&T bought MediaOne (cable company).. They were getting into the cable business and with cable having more capacity than the phone lines, they were going to make it big. I think it was a year later that they sold them off at a fraction of what they paid. What was the point?

If you read this as me mocking you, I'm really not. I'm with you. I see this stuff happen all the time and I just scratch my head, like you, and think, "What was the point?"

My guess is that there's someone who's in charge of acquisitions at these companies who sees a product or technology that they think might fit so that use a lot of phrases like:
- synergy
- increase market share
- acquisition of patents
- folding their technology into ours
- etc.

and there are a few things wrong with these items:
- synergy is just nonsense
- increase market share - yeah, but now you're supporting multiple formats/products/services. You're increasing your costs as well.
- acquisition of patents - this sounds like they're going to do something with them when, in reality, it's mainly future law-suit deal which, oddly , is the most profitable thing that have going on in these deals.
- folding their technology into ours - this is typically an over simplification and, along with maintaining multiple formats/products/services, adds to the cost to try to get the acquired "thing" to work with your stuff and often they only kind-of get it to work and then the costs/trouble to maintain it just aren't worth it. Meanwhile they're losing former loyal customers who are now fed-up and giving up on the product/service. This makes the financials of going forward with the integration even worse.

A few others that enter into the equation are:
- buying a technology instead of developing it - the problem here is often that if it were a good idea that fit your plan, you'd probably have already been developing it. Also, they typically lay off just about everyone from the acquired company so they're losing a huge knowledge base which kind of defeats the original intent.
- killing your competition by buying them out and shutting them down.

These are all generalities. As someone mentioned, they say they'll be taking the TiVo name so I think that's actually a good sign, though not a guarantee.

I hope TiVo keeps chugging along and they keep coming out with improved products and all that. I'm really just saying this as a, "Yeah, this is what typically happens"-sort of thing. I'm not wishing it to happen but just realistically saying, there's a pattern to these sorts of things.

I think acquisitions can work but not in the typical corporate environment. I think there's just too much nonsense, BS, and politics in the corporate environment and that leads to these sort of things having a high rate of failure.


----------



## DevdogAZ

Corporate acquisitions happen all the time. I think if they had a "high rate of failure," investors wouldn't put up with them. But while it's true that there have been some high-profile acquisitions that failed, I think the vast majority end up being a net positive for the acquiring company. If not, Wall Street wouldn't continue to look favorably on such proposed deals.


----------



## aaronwt

Jerky said:


> Why, what's the purpose of spending 1.1 Billion on a company to kill it? What advantage do they have with doing that? I know Tivo has some good patents. But they aren't going to spend 1.1 Billion dollars just for patents. They need to make they money back. Rovi's financials arent anything to write home about either. They NEED to make money with Tivo or they will be purchased also.


It certainly helps when the company(TiVo) has 500 million cash on hand when someone (Rovi) purchases them for 1.1 Billion. Although I guess that means they actually spent only 600 million on the purchase?


----------



## wco81

DancnDude said:


> Optimistically, let's hope that Rovi wanted TiVo to help them improve on their guide data service. They'll have an in-house team (TiVo) that actively works with guide data sent out to end users throughout the country, with the understanding of what issues need to be solved to make great guide data. TiVo knows what quality they are getting currently from Gracenote and will be able to provide that feedback to Rovi on what needs to change to be better.
> 
> And TiVo now has guide data that they can hopefully mold a bit to work with what they need without paying licensing fees for. Maybe even allowing them to offer products at a lower price.
> 
> There's really got to be an upside for both companies here. I'm hoping it's not all gloom and doom.


But it sounds like a big part of the business model of Rovi is to sue or try to get patent licensing revenues, not improve or develop new products.

If Tivo hasn't been making a lot of money, Rovi probably won't try to keep business as usual at Tivo, which is to improve the software, develop new hardware, etc.

Unless those activities would add to the bottom line of the merged company, why would they bother?


----------



## JoeKustra

phughes200 said:


> I hope that if TiVo bits the dust is that they release a software patch that allows the TiVo to be used as a dumb DVR (allow recording based on time and day of the week). At least that way, some of them can be kept out of the landfills.


Something needs to set the clock. Ask any Sony DHG owner.


----------



## aaronwt

Bruce24 said:


> Tivo have ~7M total subscribers, 1M (tivo-owned) and 6M (MSO). The last quarterly earning report says they receive $20.1M in Service & Software revenues from the Tivo owned boxes and 19.8M in MSOs's-related service revneues.
> 
> This works out to $6.67/month on 'Tivo-Owned' aka Retail boxes. Note there are ~150K lifetime subscriptions and a free first year service with the new boxes that works into that average monthly number. For the MSOs aka cable subs it works out to about $1.10/month.


Which I guess averages out to around $1.90 per TiVo subscriber per month? When taking the 6 million $1.10 subscribers along with the $6.67 million subscribers.


----------



## aaronwt

mangochutney said:


> I suggest everyone check the Rovi lineup and start creating support tickets for missing/wrong channels! Better now then during switch-over. It's going to be chaotic.


When I took a quick look at it, things seemed accurate for my area.


----------



## Jed1

Rovis reason to buy TiVo is for the User Interface as the UIs that Rovi currently owns are from the purchase of Gemstar that they purchased in 2007. Those UIs are I Guide and PassPort Echo which is used in a lot of MSO cable boxes. The TVGuide data base was also part of Gemstar.
They can now offer the MSOs the TiVo UI to modernize all those MSO boxes.

TVGOS was a retail version that Gemstar had but once Rovi took over they ended that service and also sold the TVGuide magazine, The TVGuide channel, and the TVGuide website.
Based on this track record I do not see Rovi holding onto the retail side of TiVo. 
Everybody has to remember that TiVo reports the number of units, which includes Minis, on the retail side and not actual customers. If you figure that each customer has at least two to four units in their home, the actual customer base is around 200,000 to 250,000 actual customers in the entire US. The MSO numbers report the number of households that have one or more TiVo powered devices in them. I use powered devices as the Pace MG1 is the most widely used box that is issued to MSO customers.


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## mangochutney

Rovi + TiVo = Leavo


----------



## aaronwt

Turtleboy said:


> No. This is the Non-Tivo area of the forum.
> 
> The Tivo area has a very long discussion on it.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=539224


???? Isn't that the same thread I'm reading right now?


----------



## SullyND

aaronwt said:


> ???? Isn't that the same thread I'm reading right now?


Thread merge.


----------



## JoeKustra

aaronwt said:


> ???? Isn't that the same thread I'm reading right now?


There is a lot of confusion right now. I'm sure it will get worse.

There is a large non-TiVo area. It's how some users get 10k posts and haven't used a TiVo in years. I love the 2016 political stuff.


----------



## DevdogAZ

wco81 said:


> But it sounds like a big part of the business model of Rovi is to sue or try to get patent licensing revenues, not improve or develop new products.


That's where the majority of TiVo's revenue comes from, as well.



Jed1 said:


> Everybody has to remember that TiVo reports the number of units, which includes Minis, on the retail side and not actual customers. *If you figure that each customer has at least two to four units in their home*, the actual customer base is around 200,000 to 250,000 actual customers in the entire US. The MSO numbers report the number of households that have one or more TiVo powered devices in them. I use powered devices as the Pace MG1 is the most widely used box that is issued to MSO customers.


I think that's an extremely flawed assumption. I'll bet the percentage of TiVo households with more than one device is relatively small. I'd bet a lot of money that the average # of TiVo devices per TiVo household is below 1.5.


----------



## Turtleboy

aaronwt said:


> ???? Isn't that the same thread I'm reading right now?


Someone posted it about it in the Happy Hour and they moved/merged it.


----------



## wco81

But Tivo sues to defend its patents.

At least it develops SW and HW, tries to innovate.

Not sure that's ever been true of Rovi.


----------



## Dan203

nrc said:


> I never really got the view that some have that this deal was a pre-cursor to the end of retail TiVo.
> 
> Retail makes sense as a way to develop software and platforms for MSOs. The challenge has been the economics of providing the service. The Rovi deal improves those economics. We may even see more reasonably priced products with lifetime service included ala the new Roamio OTA.


This merger does elemininate two major licensing costs TiVo currently has. They pay Rovi already for the license to the grid guide and they pay Gracenote for guide data. By merging and switching to Rovi data they eliminate both lf those costs which could help reduce their reoccurring costs per subscriber significantly.


----------



## Jerky

Dan203 said:


> This merger does elemininate two major licensing costs TiVo currently has. They pay Rovi already for the license to the grid guide and they pay Gracenote for guide data. By merging and switching to Rovi data they eliminate both lf those costs which could help reduce their reoccurring costs per subscriber significantly.


Yeah my understanding is they are going to save 100 million dollars by combining efforts.


----------



## Dan203

NashGuy said:


> That's an interesting thought. You could be right.
> 
> As I've written on here several times before, if TiVo wishes to offer a competitive product in the streaming STB market they absolutely need to move away from their current app-starved platform (Opera HTML5) and go to another platform where all the popular (as well as niche) apps already exist. There are basically only three: Apple tvOS, Roku, and Android (of which Amazon Fire OS is a derivative).


Roku is actually in the process of transitioning to HTML5 and most smart TVs also use HTML5, so for compatibility I think TiVo has made the right choice. While it would be cool for TiVo to support Android for a bigger pool of apps, the hardware they currently use isn't compatible with Android so it would require a whole new platform. Maybe the next major hardware upgrade could do it, but then they'd have to abandon all existing platforms or try to maintain two platforms which would be a PITA. (they recently eliminated all apps from the S3 platform to avoid this)


----------



## mangochutney

Dan203 said:


> ...which could help reduce their reoccurring costs per subscriber significantly.


Will subscriber fees go down or service levels increase in value for money?

hmmm I wonder......


----------



## wco81

I don't see a great need for apps.

People just want to record and watch programs. Maybe have Netflix, Amazon, Vudu and OnDemand.

What other things would you need?

I have no great desire for web video on there. I've used Youtube but generally prefer to use Youtube on the computer or the iPad, because it's painful to type in searches on the Tivo remote.

Apps are the least of Tivo's problems.


----------



## Jed1

DevdogAZ said:


> That's where the majority of TiVo's revenue comes from, as well.
> I think that's an extremely flawed assumption. I'll bet the percentage of TiVo households with more than one device is relatively small. I'd bet a lot of money that the average # of TiVo devices per TiVo household is below 1.5.


I have two TiVo devices, I believe Joe Kustra has 5 TiVo devices, and according to his signature Arronwt has 8 TiVo devices.
Just between three owners that is a total of 15 devices and when you divide that by three you get 5. You then divide that by appox. 1,000,000 you get 200,000.
Comcast themselves has approx. 22 million subscribers. There is about 80 million homes in the US that have cable service in them. Even if TiVos retail sub base is 250,000 that is basically one third of 1% of the market.
It is way easier for TiVo to sell their UI to cable MSOs then trying to sell actual boxes with the UI in them at retail outlets. So I don't see the retail side lasting much longer.


----------



## tarheelblue32

Dan203 said:


> Roku is actually in the process of transitioning to HTML5


Really? I haven't seen any significant indication that Roku was moving away from BrightScript.


----------



## DevdogAZ

Jed1 said:


> I have two TiVo devices, I believe Joe Kustra has 5 TiVo devices, and according to his signature Arronwt has 8 TiVo devices.
> Just between three owners that is a total of 15 devices and when you divide that by three you get 5. You then divide that by appox. 1,000,000 you get 200,000.


Do I really have to explain to you that the active participants here at TCF are major outliers and do not represent the average TiVo user? Of course there are lots of users with multiple devices. But there are LOTS more users with only one device. As I said, I'll bet the overall average is less than 1.5 devices per TiVo household.


----------



## murrays

Turtleboy said:


> Someone posted it about it in the Happy Hour and they moved/merged it.


A merger of merger discussions?


----------



## Chris Gerhard

If this deal goes through, I sure don't see how it will mean TiVo will be a better product and service will be improved. Worse case I would think TiVo will still be the best OTA DVR.


----------



## JoeKustra

DevdogAZ said:


> Do I really have to explain to you that the active participants here at TCF are major outliers and do not represent the average TiVo user? Of course there are lots of users with multiple devices. But there are LOTS more users with only one device. As I said, I'll bet the overall average is less than 1.5 devices per TiVo household.


True, we know we are not "typical". I started with one used 320GB Premiere, then a used 500GB Premiere. I got a basic Roamio, then a basic Roamio/Mini combo. Finally added two more Mini boxes. It's like eating one potato chip.

I had four Sony DHG boxes and an LG LST3210A until Rovi screwed that.


----------



## Jed1

DevdogAZ said:


> Do I really have to explain to you that the active participants here at TCF are major outliers and do not represent the average TiVo user? Of course there are lots of users with multiple devices. But there are LOTS more users with only one device. As I said, I'll bet the overall average is less than 1.5 devices per TiVo household.


You have to remember that TiVo includes the mini and stream in that quarterly number. And in order for those devices to work they have to be attached to a host DVR.
In my number I am only reporting the total number of households that are currently subscribing to cable TV. There is actually around 135 million homes in the US and even if I use your number of subs it still comes out to less than a quarter of 1% of homes in the US.

It is just easier for Rovi to deal directly with MSOs than it is with retail customers. Rovi can dump the entire TiVo customer support operations as the CSRs at the MSO will answer those questions. Any software issues will be handled by the management of the MSOs and TiVo to hammer out.
In fact the MSO TiVos now have the same software release as we do. TiVo is not using us as beta testers anymore.
Basically right now the TiVo UI can be run on non DVR boxes and their UI can be embedded on any DVR so TiVo does not need to be in the hardware business. So it makes no sense for them to do retail anymore.

Something else I have to add is Rovi is providing listings to Dish and with this deal Rovi can offer to run the TiVo UI on their STBs. So now TiVo can go after the satellite market since they no longer need to make hardware.


----------



## larrs

Brad Bishop said:


> From similar things in the past, my guess is that, first, they'll assure us all that everything is going to be OK going forward and that they have no plans to dump TiVo, etc.
> 
> Then they'll start cost cutting, switching the guide data over to their own, which will probably introduce a few bugs, then they'll release a bug fix or two to try to address it and, eventually, just let TiVo die on the vine. It'll become more and more troublesome to use our TiVos and, one by one, we'll just give up and eventually they'll announce that the TiVo line is no longer profitable and that they're shutting down the service and giving those who are left a coupon to buy something "Rovi".
> 
> We'll be left wondering what happened to TiVo. Some will argue that it's all Rovi's fault and others will argue that TiVo was faltering long before Rovi.
> 
> I know it's doom and gloom, I'm just saying that is how these things usually go down.
> 
> For me, when my TiVo becomes a PITA to use I'll just dump it and get a stupid cable box. I like the product but I'm not married to the company or anything.


I am sorry, but I think you are totally wrong here. I think that had Tivo been bought by a Google or Apple as most people wanted, then your scenario would have been valid as the business wouldn't really need the Tivo revenues. But, as this is a purchase of almost an equal entity, they cannot have done this for any reason other than to make this business better. At least I am sure that is what they'll try to do. I actually feel better than I would have if a "giant" had snapped them up.


----------



## mangochutney

aaronwt said:


> When I took a quick look at it, things seemed accurate for my area.


The added benefit is that WMC users have already cleaned a lot up. Your locale may be one that was either correct to begin with or has been cleaned up in the past.


----------



## larrs

Dan203 said:


> This merger does elemininate two major licensing costs TiVo currently has. They pay Rovi already for the license to the grid guide and they pay Gracenote for guide data. By merging and switching to Rovi data they eliminate both lf those costs which could help reduce their reoccurring costs per subscriber significantly.


And, I think Tivo owns a patent on the Tivo Live Guide (which I prefer), so they could now sell that to customers who license the Grid Guide.


----------



## Jerky

larrs said:


> I am sorry, but I think you are totally wrong here. I think that had Tivo been bought by a Google or Apple as most people wanted, then your scenario would have been valid as the business wouldn't really need the Tivo revenues. But, as this is a purchase of almost an equal entity, they cannot have done this for any reason other than to make this business better. At least I am sure that is what they'll try to do. I actually feel better than I would have if a "giant" had snapped them up.


100% for sure. If Apple or Google purchased them then I would say Tivo is in big trouble. But Rovi is not that big of a company. It is basically a merger with Rovi taking all the risk.


----------



## LoadStar

bicker said:


> I guess they're going to have to change one of their catchphrases...


Perhaps I'm not following conversation properly. What does Roku have to do with Rovi or TiVo?


----------



## morac

LoadStar said:


> Perhaps I'm not following conversation properly. What does Roku have to do with Rovi or TiVo?


I'm guessing it was a mix up. For me, I keep thinking Rovio (creators of Angry Birds) when I see Rovi.


----------



## Dan203

tarheelblue32 said:


> Really? I haven't seen any significant indication that Roku was moving away from BrightScript.


From what I've read there are at least a few "special" apps on Roku that are HTML5 but they haven't opened that up to the wider developer community yet. I assume their ultimate goal is to transition though. But maybe I'm wrong?

Although you'd think that developers would get tired of maintaining multiple versions of their apps for multiple devices. If they can do everything they need in HTML5 why not make that the standard? Why develop and maintain 5 different versions of our app for each device? Android and iOS can run HTML5 apps in a simple wrapper, so those are easy to port to. And the vast majority of smart TVs and BD players use HTML5 apps now to. So that leaves Roku out on an island by itself. I know it's popular, but if that popularity wanes even a little developers could decide it's not worth the effort to develop a special app just for it. It's in their best interest, long term, to convert to an open standard.


----------



## jcthorne

DevdogAZ said:


> That's where the majority of TiVo's revenue comes from, as well.
> 
> I think that's an extremely flawed assumption. I'll bet the percentage of TiVo households with more than one device is relatively small. I'd bet a lot of money that the average # of TiVo devices per TiVo household is below 1.5.


At the minimum, all the minis are paired with another device so if you want to count households, you need to remove ALL the minis from the numbers.


----------



## tarheelblue32

Dan203 said:


> From what I've read there are at least a few "special" apps on Roku that are HTML5 but they haven't opened that up to the wider developer community yet. I assume their ultimate goal is to transition though. But maybe I'm wrong?
> 
> Although you'd think that developers would get tired of maintaining multiple versions of their apps for multiple devices. If they can do everything they need in HTML5 why not make that the standard? Why develop and maintain 5 different versions of our app for each device? Android and iOS can run HTML5 apps in a simple wrapper, so those are easy to port to. And the vast majority of smart TVs and BD players use HTML5 apps now to. So that leaves Roku out on an island by itself. I know it's popular, but if that popularity wanes even a little developers could decide it's not worth the effort to develop a special app just for it. It's in their best interest, long term, to convert to an open standard.


I agree it would be great if everyone would converge on a single, open standard for apps. I just haven't seen much indication that Roku has moved in that direction. I have read rumors that a few Roku apps may be HTML, but I don't think I've ever seen anything concrete proving that is true.


----------



## jcthorne

Chris Gerhard said:


> If this deal goes through, I sure don't see how it will mean TiVo will be a better product and service will be improved. Worse case I would think TiVo will still be the best OTA DVR.


I see one possible outcome that could benefit current customers in the longer term.

Rovi is taking over the Tivo name. Rovi needs to update the UI provided on 18 million MSO boxes...to Tivo. IF this actually works, AND Rovi guide data is 'sufficient' to provide all the Tivo high level integration functions, Tivo could then be deployed on some 30 million boxes. THEN there would be development funds to make the company move forward with real improvements. I also see this as one of the only ways the investors make anything on the deal long term. The IP rights and law suits only go so far.


----------



## rainwater

jcthorne said:


> Its the next gen mini although it could have an entirely different name to suit its new marketing bent. Based on Bolt hardware platform. Will work with or without a Bolt or Roamio also in the household. Without, it simply will not have live tv or locally recorded content. Streaming only but will still have search and one pass for a more integrated view of streaming content than any other streaming box currently provides.
> 
> If its priced right, it could do very well. Tivo does need to add a few more streaming sources to the line up though.


That's strange then as TiVo indicated it would be a new product category for them. Sure it may have the mini features but I think it is much more ambitious than what you are describing. Of course who knows what their roadmap is like now.


----------



## mrizzo80

Will today forever be known as "Black Friday" in TiVo circles? I hope not.


----------



## tampa8

Certainly the question of the day concerning TIVO.


----------



## JoeKustra

mrizzo80 said:


> Will today forever be known as "Black Friday" in TiVo circles? I hope not.


I hope not too. But if you have TiVo or Rovi stock you may be very happy.


----------



## wizwor

wco81 said:


> People just want to record and watch programs. Maybe have Netflix, Amazon, Vudu and OnDemand.
> 
> What other things would you need?


I think this is an area where TiVo dropped the ball. The OTA market is different than the premium provider market. Sling TV and/or Vue would make no sense for the cable crowd but would be great for cord cutters.

If they just had the Bolt, I could understand the mash up. With the OTA only devices, it makes sense to differentiate the software (including PSIP support).


----------



## keenanSR

Given what Rovi is(not much more than a patent troll) and what TiVo is and where most of TiVo's money comes from I'll be very surprised if TiVo hardware is still being produced and sold 3 years from now. That hardware is nothing more than a simple, inexpensive computer, the value of a TiVo is its software/IP and that's where the money is as well. Hardware is a hassle, there's support, parts vendors, storage and shipping costs, assembly costs. If the hardware portion of TiVo is not spun off within two or three years I'll be very surprised. I'm hoping that it doesn't, but it's business, and producing, selling and maintaining hardware is expensive with little return for the effort and expense when compared to software and intellectual property rights, which is what Rovi is all about.


----------



## schatham

Just received an email from Tivo about the merger. I'm sure you all did also.


----------



## JoeKustra

schatham said:


> Just received an email from Tivo about the merger. I'm sure you all did also.


Yes. Short and sweet.

Like a commercial for a drug. The fine print and warnings are longer than the ad.


----------



## MikeekiM

Probably a duplicate post, but I just got this in email from TiVo:

Dear TiVo Customer:

By now, you may have read that TiVo Inc. is combining with Rovi Corporation. The new company will maintain the TiVo brand and be a leading provider of consumer electronics, discovery solutions, recommendations, and more. Additional details can be found here.

Our relationship with you, our customer, is our top priority and we will continue to provide you with the same best-in-class products and services that you have come to expect.

As a TiVo customer, you have played a critical role in our success to date and we look forward to serving you going forward.

Best Regards,
IRA_Sig
Ira Bahr
Chief Marketing Officer
TiVo Inc.


----------



## Emacee

Rovi's main business is copy protection. Look for more restrictions on how you use recordings.
They were also responsible for the first attempt at idiot-proof TV recording. Remember newspaper TV listings? Remember those numbers codes 20 years ago. You entered them into a device that looked like a remove and it would program your VCR to record shows. That was their's. For people too dump to enter time and channel.


----------



## schatham

MikeekiM said:


> Probably a duplicate post, but I just got this in email from TiVo:
> 
> Dear TiVo Customer:
> 
> By now, you may have read that TiVo Inc. is combining with Rovi Corporation. The new company will maintain the TiVo brand and be a leading provider of consumer electronics, discovery solutions, recommendations, and more. Additional details can be found here.
> 
> Our relationship with you, our customer, is our top priority and we will continue to provide you with the same best-in-class products and services that you have come to expect.
> 
> As a TiVo customer, you have played a critical role in our success to date and we look forward to serving you going forward.
> 
> Best Regards,
> IRA_Sig
> Ira Bahr
> Chief Marketing Officer
> TiVo Inc.


You left out the best part.


----------



## kucharsk

Jerky said:


> Why, what's the purpose of spending 1.1 Billion on a company to kill it? What advantage do they have with doing that? I know Tivo has some good patents. But they aren't going to spend 1.1 Billion dollars just for patents. They need to make they money back. Rovi's financials arent anything to write home about either. They NEED to make money with Tivo or they will be purchased also.


Having seen many, many companies purchase others just to kill the cash cow that made the former company worthy of being purchased, it's almost the rule rather than the exception.

Make no mistake, Rovi wanted the patents; they likely could care less about the subscribers.

The next year will tell the tale.


----------



## Puppy76

I got it too...this is terrifying. I can't go back to the bad old days.


----------



## schatham

kucharsk said:


> Having seen many, many companies purchase others just to kill the cash cow that made the former company worthy of being purchased, it's almost the rule rather than the exception.
> 
> Make no mistake, Rovi wanted the patents; they likely could care less about the subscribers.
> 
> The next year will tell the tale.


Correct, Mit Romney made a living with this stuff. They move in, take the best parts and sell it, then fire everyone.


----------



## keenanSR

As has been noted elsewhere previously, Ira Bahr(CMO) is someone who will likely be looking for a new job,

Ted Schremp Joins Rovi -Former SmartHomes Ventures and Charter exec named chief marketing officer


----------



## tomhayes

I just bought a Tivo Bolt (to replace my ding Tivo Roamio Basic) but I'm going to return it to BestBuy because of this. 

Too much uncertainty right now to drop over $600 and be so uncertain of the future.

And I'll see if I can get a replacement for the Roamio from them for $80.


----------



## plazman30

keenanSR said:


> Given what Rovi is(not much more than a patent troll) and what TiVo is and where most of TiVo's money comes from I'll be very surprised if TiVo hardware is still being produced and sold 3 years from now. That hardware is nothing more than a simple, inexpensive computer, the value of a TiVo is its software/IP and that's where the money is as well. Hardware is a hassle, there's support, parts vendors, storage and shipping costs, assembly costs. If the hardware portion of TiVo is not spun off within two or three years I'll be very surprised. I'm hoping that it doesn't, but it's business, and producing, selling and maintaining hardware is expensive with little return for the effort and expense when compared to software and intellectual property rights, which is what Rovi is all about.


If the hardware is spun off, that's the BEST thing that could happen. Then our favorite little DVR can live on. If it's kept in house, it will just languish and die.

There's a bunch of IP lawyers now chomping at the bit to work for Rovi. Unless a bunch of TiVo patents are about to expire, everyone is screwed.


----------



## waterlines

ugh. can't imagine this is going to be a good thing for longtime TiVo customers.


----------



## keenanSR

kucharsk said:


> Having seen many, many companies purchase others just to kill the cash cow that made the former company worthy of being purchased, it's almost the rule rather than the exception.
> 
> Make no mistake, Rovi wanted the patents; they likely could care less about the subscribers.
> 
> The next year will tell the tale.


Agreed, this purchase has always been about the IP, it's what Rovi does and the patents(and software to an extent) are where the money is, hardware is a capital intensive expense and will likely be EOL'ed.


----------



## waterlines

tomhayes said:


> I just bought a Tivo Bolt (to replace my ding Tivo Roamio Basic) but I'm going to return it to BestBuy because of this.
> 
> Too much uncertainty right now to drop over $600 and be so uncertain of the future.
> 
> And I'll see if I can get a replacement for the Roamio from them for $80.


i'm sure this same scenario is playing out time and time again all over the country right now. it gives me the shivers for having upgraded to a Roamio fewer than 6 months ago.


----------



## foghorn2

jcthorne said:


> I see one possible outcome that could benefit current customers in the longer term.
> 
> Rovi is taking over the Tivo name. Rovi needs to update the UI provided on 18 million MSO boxes...to Tivo. IF this actually works, AND Rovi guide data is 'sufficient' to provide all the Tivo high level integration functions, Tivo could then be deployed on some 30 million boxes. THEN there would be development funds to make the company move forward with real improvements. I also see this as one of the only ways the investors make anything on the deal long term. The IP rights and law suits only go so far.


Hopper, Powered by Tivo!


----------



## keenanSR

plazman30 said:


> If the hardware is spun off, that's the BEST thing that could happen. Then our favorite little DVR can live on. If it's kept in house, it will just languish and die.
> 
> There's a bunch of IP lawyers now chomping at the bit to work for Rovi. Unless a bunch of TiVo patents are about to expire, everyone is screwed.


Maybe, but what's a TiVo without the software? And how much will it cost to license that software from Rovi? I'm guessing that it simply won't be worth it to anyone other than a company with deep pockets.

I think if TiVo lives on it will a streaming media player combined with being one of the new devices the FCC is looking to force upon the cablecos after the death of CableCARD. It will probably look like a Roku with cable/OTA DVR software built in with the actual recordings stored/sourced in the cloud with no storage on the local device.


----------



## ourdoc

jcthorne said:


> I see one possible outcome that could benefit current customers in the longer term.
> 
> Rovi is taking over the Tivo name. Rovi needs to update the UI provided on 18 million MSO boxes...to Tivo. IF this actually works, AND Rovi guide data is 'sufficient' to provide all the Tivo high level integration functions, Tivo could then be deployed on some 30 million boxes. THEN there would be development funds to make the company move forward with real improvements. I also see this as one of the only ways the investors make anything on the deal long term. The IP rights and law suits only go so far.


Rovi has the absolute worst guide in the market. EVERYONE hates it! I had 2 that I gave a away just because of it..


----------



## tarheelblue32

ourdoc said:


> Rovi has the absolute worst guide in the market. EVERYONE hates it! I had 2 that I gave a away just because of it..


Maybe TiVo can help them fix that. And actually, if TiVo and Rovi can work together to figure out how to make a successful transition from Gracenote to Rovi, that could be used as evidence that they can help other MSOs that currently use Gracenote transition to Rovi without problems.


----------



## tomhorsley

tarheelblue32 said:


> Maybe TiVo can help them fix that. And actually, if TiVo and Rovi can work together to figure out how to make a successful transition from Gracenote to Rovi, that could be used as evidence that they can help other MSOs that currently use Gracenote transition to Rovi without problems.


To quote Archie Goodwin from a Nero Wolfe novel: "The disease you are suffering from is acute malignant optimism." .


----------



## jeffw_00

keenanSR said:


> .
> 
> I think if TiVo lives on it will a streaming media player combined with being one of the new devices the FCC is looking to force upon the cablecos after the death of CableCARD. It will probably look like a Roku with cable/OTA DVR software built in with the actual recordings stored/sourced in the cloud with no storage on the local device.


I'm glad someone mentioned that - I've read several articles recently about the FCC wanting people to be able to BUY STBs like years ago, they made cable companies let you buy your cable modem (and every time I read one about "making it possible soon to buy an STB", I glance over at my Roamio and scratch my head :-} ). Wouldn't the FCC pressure be GOOD for TiVo's business? I mean, it looks like TiVo can make basic Roamios pretty cheaply now, isn't that (more or less) what the FCC wants to see on sale? Isn't that -good- for the retail business?

or am I missing something...
/j


----------



## bareyb

Anyone have any concrete info on how this merger would affect TiVo users going forward, or is it all conjecture at this point?


----------



## Wil

tomhorsley said:


> To quote Archie Goodwin from a Nero Wolfe novel: "The disease you are suffering from is acute malignant optimism." .


"The scientific name for the disease you've got is acute malignant optimism."


----------



## keenanSR

jeffw_00 said:


> I'm glad someone mentioned that - I've read several articles recently about the FCC wanting people to be able to BUY STBs like years ago, they made cable companies let you buy your cable modem (and every time I read one about "making it possible soon to buy an STB", I glance over at my Roamio and scratch my head :-} ). Wouldn't the FCC pressure be GOOD for TiVo's business? I mean, it looks like TiVo can make basic Roamios pretty cheaply now, isn't that (more or less) what the FCC wants to see on sale? Isn't that -good- for the retail business?
> 
> or am I missing something...
> /j


Yes, see Wheeler: Set-Top Proposal Has 'Gotta Be Done'


----------



## DevdogAZ

bareyb said:


> Anyone have any concrete info on how this merger would affect TiVo users going forward, or is it all conjecture at this point?


First, TiVo will stop using guide data from Gracenote (formerly Tribune Media Services) and start using guide data from Rovi. By all accounts, the Rovi guide data sucks. So we've got that to look forward to.

After that, I don't expect much to change for existing users. The big changes will come with whether they develop and release any new retail products, or if we've seen the last of TiVo offering retail hardware for sale.


----------



## MikeekiM

schatham said:


> You left out the best part.


Hmmm... I copied and pasted the whole email message... Maybe you meant the live link? Yes, I did forget to add that...just fixed that now... 

Or were you referring to something else?


----------



## Jayrcee

mangochutney said:


> I suggest everyone check the Rovi lineup and start creating support tickets for missing/wrong channels! Better now then during switch-over. It's going to be chaotic.


How do you check the lineup?


----------



## HobokenSkier

Dear TiVo Customer:

By now, you may have read that TiVo Inc. is combining with Rovi Corporation. The new company will maintain the TiVo brand and be a leading provider of consumer electronics, discovery solutions, recommendations, and more. Additional details can be found here.

Our relationship with you, our customer, is our top priority and we will continue to provide you with the same best-in-class products and services that you have come to expect. 

As a TiVo customer, you have played a critical role in our success to date and we look forward to serving you going forward.

Best Regards,

Ira Bahr
Chief Marketing Officer
TiVo Inc.


----------



## randian

ajwees41 said:


> sounds like someone a Tivo said Tivo was getting out of the hardware business, but Rovi has said the opposite, so maybe this is is a good deal to keep geting new Tivo hardware.


Just because they won't immediately kill the hardware business doesn't imply they'll be developing and selling new hardware, at least any we can buy. Also, they can say that and still intend to kill the retail hardware business. "Oops, we changed our mind!"


----------



## Jed1

I am going to post the whole email as everybody leaves out the part about Forward Looking Statements. I did leave out about offers and solicitations as there is names and phone numbers.



> Dear TiVo Customer:
> 
> By now, you may have read that TiVo Inc. is combining with Rovi Corporation. The new company will maintain the TiVo brand and be a leading provider of consumer electronics, discovery solutions, recommendations, and more. Additional details can be found here.
> 
> Our relationship with you, our customer, is our top priority and we will continue to provide you with the same best-in-class products and services that you have come to expect.
> 
> As a TiVo customer, you have played a critical role in our success to date and we look forward to serving you going forward.
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> IRA_Sig
> 
> Ira Bahr
> Chief Marketing Officer
> TiVo Inc.
> 
> *Forward-Looking Statements *
> 
> Certain statements made or incorporated by reference herein, including, for example, regarding the proposed transactions among TiVo Inc. (the "Company"), Titan Technologies Corporation ("Parent") and Rovi Corporation ("Rovi"), maintenance of the TiVo brand, future provision of services and any other statements about Company or Rovi management's future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans or prospects, are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. *These forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current expectations, estimates and projections about its business and industry, management's beliefs and certain assumptions made by the Company and Rovi, all of which are subject to change. Statements that include the words "expect," "intend," "plan," "believe," "project," "anticipate," "will," "may," "would" and similar statements of a future or forward-looking nature may be used to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements address matters that involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and are not guarantees of future results.* Accordingly, there are or will be important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in such statements and, therefore, you should not place undue reliance on any such statements and caution must be exercised in relying on forward-looking statements. We believe that these factors include, but are not limited to, the following: 1) uncertainties as to the timing of the consummation of the transactions and the ability of each party to consummate the transactions; 2) uncertainty as to the actual premium that will be realized by Company stockholders in connection with the proposed transactions; 3) failure to realize the anticipated benefits of the proposed transactions, including as a result of delay in completing the transactions or integrating the businesses of the Company and Rovi; 4) uncertainty as to the long-term value of Parent common stock; 5) unpredictability and severity of natural disasters; 6) adequacy of the Company's or Rovi's risk management and loss limitation methods; 7) the resolution of intellectual property claims; 8) seasonal trends that impact consumer electronics sales; 9) Parent's ability to implement its business strategy; 10) adequacy of Parent's, the Company's or Rovi's loss reserves; 11) retention of key executives by the Company and Rovi; 12) intense competition from a number of sources; 13) potential loss of business from one or more major licensees; 14) general economic and market conditions; 15) the integration of businesses Parent may acquire or new business ventures Parent may start; 16) evolving legal, regulatory and tax regimes; 17) the expected amount and timing of cost savings and operating synergies; 18) failure to receive the approval of the stockholders of either the Company or Rovi; 19) litigation related to the transactions; 20) unexpected costs, charges or expenses resulting from the transactions; and 21) other developments in the DVR and advanced television solutions market, as well as management's response to any of the aforementioned factors.
> 
> The foregoing review of important factors should not be construed as exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements that are included herein and elsewhere, including the Risk Factors included in our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and other documents of the Company, Parent and Rovi on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). Our SEC filings are available publicly on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Any forward-looking statements made or incorporated by reference herein are qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements, and there can be no assurance that the actual results or developments anticipated by us will be realized or, even if substantially realized, that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, us or our business or operations. Except to the extent required by applicable law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.


Basically everything that is stated by the out going Interm CEO only covers the now and not anything past tomorrow as anything can change.


----------



## tatergator1

MikeekiM said:


> Hmmm... I copied and pasted the whole email message... Maybe you meant the live link? Yes, I did forget to add that...just fixed that now...
> 
> Or were you referring to something else?


I'm pretty sure that was a sarcastic jab at the endless legalese and disclaimers that were many times longer than the actual email.


----------



## mangochutney

bareyb said:


> Anyone have any concrete info on how this merger would affect TiVo users going forward, or is it all conjecture at this point?


We are all royally you know whatted.


----------



## lessd

Emacee said:


> Rovi's main business is copy protection. Look for more restrictions on how you use recordings.
> They were also responsible for the first attempt at idiot-proof TV recording. Remember newspaper TV listings? Remember those numbers codes 20 years ago. You entered them into a device that looked like a remove and it would program your VCR to record shows. That was their's. For people too dump to enter time and channel.


I was one of those dump (dumb) people, at the time it worked better than any alternative I knew about, we had a program that would create the numbers for any time slot you wanted, you did not have a power failure problems as the time on your VCR did not matter. I had two or three of them.


----------



## Wil

mangochutney said:


> We are all royally you know whatted.


This was basically an accurate statement at the Tivo two year point as the company embarked upon the road to self-destruction. Amazed the process has taken as long as it has and that the product has been useful and rewarding for as long as it has. Found money.


----------



## NJ Webel

Jed1 said:


> I am going to post the whole email as everybody leaves out the part about Forward Looking Statements. I did leave out about offers and solicitations as there is names and phone numbers.
> 
> Basically everything that is stated by the out going Interm CEO only covers the now and not anything past tomorrow as anything can change.


If you want to read the email, they posted it online.

EDIT: Link removed due to personally identifying information.


----------



## pmiranda

redbeard25 said:


> Google Fiber is planned for my neighborhood.


They're digging holes two streets over from me. Do you know if you can play local files on their STB? What other TiVo features might be missing from it?
About half of my TiVo time is spent watching my collection of ripped DVD's (that I bought) through PyTiVo.


----------



## wco81

Of course they have to reassure Tivo customers.

Because they probably have inventory they have to sell.

Otherwise they'd have to write it off if they couldn't sell, because people concluded the new Tivo was not going to be in the DVR business for long.


----------



## windracer

I didn't get the e-mail, but all of my boxes are lifetimed so maybe they're only sending it to the people who are still part of their revenue stream.


----------



## NJ Webel

windracer said:


> I didn't get the e-mail, but all of my boxes are lifetimed so maybe they're only sending it to the people who are still part of their revenue stream.


I got the email, and every TiVo I've ever owned (inc. the current one) has been Lifetimed.


----------



## mangochutney

Jayrcee said:


> How do you check the lineup?


TVGuide.com or TV.com

To let Rovi know about any inconsistencies this address has had success in the past: [email protected]

Also here: http://www.rovicorp.com/company/contact.html

You don't have to let on that you're a TiVo customer, just that you want your lineup to be accurate for web browsing et al...

I'm sure TiVo will sort a system out for this but right now you can jump the queue.
They'll all love me for suggesting this lol. My IP will be mud.


----------



## aaronwt

Emacee said:


> Rovi's main business is copy protection. Look for more restrictions on how you use recordings.
> They were also responsible for the first attempt at idiot-proof TV recording. Remember newspaper TV listings? Remember those numbers codes 20 years ago. You entered them into a device that looked like a remove and it would program your VCR to record shows. That was their's. For people too dump to enter time and channel.


I don't remember a separate device but I remember owning eight or nine VCRs that had this capability built in during the 90's. You just typed the number into the remote and it setup the recording for you. It was actually faster than the normal way of scheduling a recording on a VCR.


----------



## Jed1

mangochutney said:


> TVGuide.com or TV.com
> 
> To let Rovi know about any inconsistencies this address has had success in the past: [email protected]
> 
> Also here: http://www.rovicorp.com/company/contact.html
> 
> You don't have to let on that you're a TiVo customer, just that you want your lineup to be accurate for web browsing et al...
> 
> I'm sure TiVo will sort a system out for this but right now you can jump the queue.
> They'll all love me for suggesting this lol. My IP will be mud.


You can also try this but I have had no success.
http://www.tvguide.com/help/products/website/topics/564955/

Let them know your zip code, service provider, and which channels are missing or incorrect.
[email protected]


----------



## Jed1

aaronwt said:


> I don't remember a separate device but I remember owning eight or nine VCRs that had this capability built in during the 90's. You just typed the number into the remote and it setup the recording for you. It was actually faster than the normal way of scheduling a recording on a VCR.


That was a Gemstar idea called VCR Plus. This also worked with TVs that TVGuide On Screen embedded in them. Of course Rovi bought Gemstar and killed TVGOS. I had the Sony DHG and TVs with this. This is the reason why I got TiVo in 2013.


----------



## mangochutney

Jed1 said:


> You can also try this but I have had no success...


Direct into the mouth of the dragon is so much more satisfying


----------



## mangochutney

For those wishing to see how bad Rovi programming quality has been for Media Center users, taking in to account they have MS guide data servers in the middle of the chain:

Thread on thegreenbutton.tv about Rovi guide data quality


----------



## bareyb

If Rovi discontinues the Hardware side of TiVo, how will they make any money? I would think they are buying TiVo because they want their Hardware to gather their stats and run their software on.


----------



## LoadStar

Jed1 said:


> I am going to post the whole email as everybody leaves out the part about Forward Looking Statements.


That's boilerplate legal text required by the Securities and Exchange Commission. You find that exact same text on quite a lot that a publicly traded company produces. That's why people are leaving it out.

For example, here's Apple's forward looking statements boilerplate from their most recent press release (spoiler tagged for space reasons):


Spoiler



This press release contains forward-looking statements including without limitation those about the Companys estimated revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, other income/(expense), tax rate, and plans for dividends, share repurchases and public debt issuance. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ. Risks and uncertainties include without limitation the effect of competitive and economic factors, and the Companys reaction to those factors, on consumer and business buying decisions with respect to the Companys products; continued competitive pressures in the marketplace; the ability of the Company to deliver to the marketplace and stimulate customer demand for new programs, products, and technological innovations on a timely basis; the effect that product introductions and transitions, changes in product pricing or mix, and/or increases in component costs could have on the Companys gross margin; the inventory risk associated with the Companys need to order or commit to order product components in advance of customer orders; the continued availability on acceptable terms, or at all, of certain components and services essential to the Companys business currently obtained by the Company from sole or limited sources; the effect that the Companys dependency on manufacturing and logistics services provided by third parties may have on the quality, quantity or cost of products manufactured or services rendered; risks associated with the Companys international operations; the Companys reliance on third-party intellectual property and digital content; the potential impact of a finding that the Company has infringed on the intellectual property rights of others; the Companys dependency on the performance of distributors, carriers and other resellers of the Companys products; the effect that product and service quality problems could have on the Companys sales and operating profits; the continued service and availability of key executives and employees; war, terrorism, public health issues, natural disasters, and other circumstances that could disrupt supply, delivery, or demand of products; and unfavorable results of legal proceedings. More information on potential factors that could affect the Companys financial results is included from time to time in the Risk Factors and Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations sections of the Companys public reports filed with the SEC, including the Companys Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 26, 2015, its Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended December 26, 2015, and its Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended March 26, 2016 to be filed with the SEC. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information, which speak as of their respective dates.


----------



## morac

Are they only sending the email out to certain people? I never received the email.

That reminds me that I'm subscribed to the TiVo newsletter emails and I can't remember the last time I got one of those either. Actually I can't remember the last time I got an email from TiVo period, other than the surveys they send out now and then.


----------



## Dan203

bareyb said:


> If Rovi discontinues the Hardware side of TiVo, how will they make any money? I would think they are buying TiVo because they want their Hardware to gather their stats and run their software on.


They wont discontinue hardware, but they could slow down significantly. 85% of their customers are from MSO leased boxes and MSOs don't need, or want, new hardware every 3 years. Nor do they want software updates every couple months. So we could see both hardware and software innovation slow to the MSO pace, even if they decide to continue to sell TiVos at retail.

That being said I'm pretty happy with my Roamio Pros and Minis, so if that were to happen I wouldn't be too broken up about it.


----------



## celtic pride

I just read over at multichannel news that if the deal falls through that rovi could wind up oweing tivo around $36.6 million dollars !


----------



## bareyb

Dan203 said:


> They wont discontinue hardware, but they could slow down significantly. 85% of their customers are from MSO leased boxes and MSOs don't need, or want, new hardware every 3 years. Nor do they want software updates every couple months. So we could see both hardware and software innovation slow to the MSO pace, even if they decide to continue to sell TiVos at retail.
> 
> That being said I'm pretty happy with my Roamio Pros and Minis, so if that were to happen I wouldn't be too broken up about it.


As long as my TiVos keep on working, I'm pretty happy with latest ones too. The main reason I'm with Comcast is because of TiVo. I guess the bright side to all this is, if Rovi does somehow ruin TiVo, I get to go back to DirecTV again. I hear their latest DVR isn't too bad, but I'm not in a hurry to find out.


----------



## Dan203

Yeah if TiVo dies I'm going to jump to DirecTV too. The Charter DVR sucks, no way I'm going that route.


----------



## randian

I'd consider DTV if I wasn't in Florida. The frequent heavy rainstorms play havoc with small-dish satellite service. The pathetically slow 6mb internet AT&T is offering in the latest junk mail I got from them doesn't help their case. They aren't much cheaper than Comcast either.


----------



## bicker

LoadStar said:


> Perhaps I'm not following conversation properly. What does Roku have to do with Rovi or TiVo?


In a confuzzed, too-tired, end-of-the-work-week mind, they do.

Sorry for causing confusion.


----------



## bicker

Maybe I missed it in my fatigued stupor, but is there an online, non-subscription service where we can peruse the Rovi guide data, to compare it to what we have now?


----------



## jcthorne

foghorn2 said:


> Hopper, Powered by Tivo!


This could easily be one of the outcomes.....


----------



## dwarner

I suppose, if the FCC private STB thing goes through, then one of the box makers may decide to license the Tivo UI from Rovio. 

For now, I just hope they are committed to fulfilling the lifetime sub I recently paid for..


Another option: If they did discontinue the HW, I wonder if they could do one last firmware update to give it an open source scheduler interface, so anyone could push program data the remaining Tivo's You could use a community-based solution, or commercial providers could set up subscriptions. (No help for Lifetime subs though)


----------



## jeffw_00

I understand the concerns about the Rovio database, but the details comments seem to say it's either missing entire channels, or has limited metadata. As long as it gets Season/Episode/Time correct, so that no one misses any shows, I suspect the transition will go largely unnoticed. (although reduced metadata won't help sell any more TiVos). If they do screw up the basics, you would expect they would fix quickly as despite what they think of the retail market going forward, they will quickly get addicted to those monthly fees...


----------



## Bighouse

Kinda glad I didn't buy a TiVo Bolt now...


----------



## Dan203

bicker said:


> Maybe I missed it in my fatigued stupor, but is there an online, non-subscription service where we can peruse the Rovi guide data, to compare it to what we have now?


They own tvguide, so I assume that site uses their data.


----------



## lew

Dan203 said:


> They own tvguide, so I assume that site uses their data.


CBS owns tvguide.com I don't know who they use for listings.

Tvguide magazine is owned by NTVG Media. I don't think they are owned by Rovi. I don't know where they get their listings from.


----------



## Dan203

lew said:


> CBS owns tvguide.com I don't know who they use for listings.
> 
> Tvguide magazine is owned by NTVG Media. I don't think they are owned by Rovi. I don't know where they get their listings from.


Oh. I thought Rovi bought Gemstar, and Gemstar use to own TVGuide, so I assumed Rovi owned TVGuide. I guess they must have broke off at some point.


----------



## wco81

Bighouse said:


> Kinda glad I didn't buy a TiVo Bolt now...


Me too.

I want to see a couple of generations of 4K DVRs before I'll consider upgrading.

That should be enough to gauge whether Rovi is serious about the DVR business.


----------



## UCLABB

Dan203 said:


> Yeah if TiVo dies I'm going to jump to DirecTV too. The Charter DVR sucks, no way I'm going that route.


Dan, what is Charter using for a DVR these days? When I went to TiVo they were using the SA8300HD.


----------



## BadCommand

Tivo is dead period (.) Much in the same way cd players and dvd players are dead due to streaming. Data is meant to be streamed. Having all these power sucking, breakdown boxes in everyone's homes replicating the exact same information is EXTREMELY inefficient.

I would pose that the PS Vue service will have more of an impact on this entire segment than anyone thinks right now. PS Vue is already dictating that Sling TV must step up its game- and it has, to a degree. I see vast competition and improvements coming to streaming now that a major player like Sony is in the game- let's see what Apple can come up with as well. 

A fallback to sat or cable will just be an intermediate step until their ultimate demise- they've lost control of the golden keys to the locked kingdom that all started with the unbundling of HBO and ESPN- now all the majors and co. have all been lost.

Your viewing/replicating "box" should be no more than a stick or a puck at this point. Inefficient boxes need to be banished (as well as the ridiculous wired infrastructure).

My whole home Tivo system (roamio, and 6 minis) is going up for sale on ebay.

I have watched this exact same scenario play out in too many markets- time to bail on the past and move to the future.


----------



## TonyD79

Yawn.


----------



## NashGuy

BadCommand said:


> Tivo is dead period (.) Much in the same way cd players and dvd players are dead due to streaming.
> 
> I would pose that the PS Vue service will have more of an impact on this entire segment than anyone thinks right now.
> 
> I have watched this exact same scenario play out in too many markets- time to bail on the past and move to the future.


I suspect you are correct in the long run. But existing TiVos will continue to work for a long time, so if you're happy using your current TiVo set-up with OTA or cable, there's no reason to dump it. That said, given current trends, particularly the uncertainty over the future of CableCard and, on the OTA side, ASTC 1.0/3.0, plus questions about the long-term commitment of TiVo/Rovi to retail products, I wouldn't be looking to invest lots of money in new TiVo equipment at this point.

As for the move toward streaming and the breakdown of traditional cable/sat pay TV, PS Vue and Sling TV are just the cusp. AT&T/DirecTV will launch their own competing OTT streaming service this fall. And it will be interesting to see what (if any) impact that start-ups Umio/Level 3 and Vidgo have on this space this year.


----------



## jeffw_00

BadCommand said:


> Tivo is dead period (.) Much in the same way cd players and dvd players are dead due to streaming.


You're probably right - but it's -many- years out. You're correct that there is a lot of unbundling going on. You can get most pay channels, major networks, even basic cable channels, via stream, but it's all early adopter pricing. My mid-level channel package from Verizon, as priced into a triple play, is like $35/month, and includes, within it's 200-300 channels I don't care about, all of the 2-3 dozen channels that matter to me (and probably, most people). Buying that few dozen all individually today would cost way more (CBS alone wants $6/mo!).

Once streaming bundles (perhaps sold by Cable providers) get better and competitive against traditional cable, then yes, DVRs go away and all you need is a Roku-2. However, depending on the cable companies to believe in "creative destruction" may be a sucker bet for a while :-{.


----------



## ss-stingray

This buyout is the beginning of the end. I had over $1200.00 invested in my Sony DHG'S. First Gemstar was bought By Rovi. Then after while some broadcasters dropped out the guide. One year later my expensive sony's were door stops. The last few years I have bragged to my friends about my love of Tivo. At this point I can no longer recommend to anybody to buy a Tivo. Rovi needs to do much more than send out a letter. However what ever they say it will be hard to believe. I called Rovi and complained but they couldn't care less and blamed it on Gemstar's bad business deals.


----------



## chicagobrownblue

wco81 said:


> Me too.
> 
> I want to see a couple of generations of 4K DVRs before I'll consider upgrading.


I'm not aware of any 4K DVRs. The Bolt streams 4K content but does not store it on the hard drive. Cable companies have not agreed to a 4K standard for coax, so a real coax 4K DVR is not possible and may never happen.


----------



## randian

I don't know why anyone would mention SlingTV in this conversation. They're live-only, useless for a heavy dvr user.

I'm thinking this sale was last moment because TiVo couldn't reup with Tribune for guide data. Sell now or have your business collapse without guide data.


----------



## bwhitney

Here is the link where Tivo announced it was eliminating it's Hardware development staff from 2 years ago: http://www.wired.com/2014/01/tivo-lays-hardware-design-team-gets-ready-exit-hardware/ From their most recent SEC 10-K filing at:

http://investor.tivo.com/mobile.vie...ERVNDPVNFQ1RJT05fUEFHRSZleHA9JnN1YnNpZD01Nw== states:

<Begin Quote>
*Research and Development Expenses*

We decreased research and development spend by 4% in the fiscal year ended January, 31, 2015 as the number of our regular, temporary, and part-time employees engaged in research and development between January 31, 2014 and January 31, 2015 fell. In the fiscal year ending January 31, 2016, we currently expect our research and development expense to decrease from fiscal year 2015 levels as we benefit from a full year of efficiencies gained in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2015 and continue to focus on incremental research and development spend efficiencies, such as opening an offshore development center in Romania.

*Manufacturing and Supply Chain*

We outsource the manufacturing of our products to third-party manufacturers. This outsourcing extends from prototyping to volume manufacturing and includes activities such as material procurement, final assembly, test, quality control, and shipment to distribution centers. Today the majority of our products are assembled in Mexico,

<End Quote>

As you can read, Tivo, at best, has transitioned over the last few years to a software/patent company that outsources most everything, including customer support (as noted in another section of the 10-K filing), so this should be no surprise at this point. As an EE that has worked in the business, the typical evolution will be change nothing for a few months, except in this case start development of transitioning to Rovi schedule data and then start letting the retail customer base die, and I am unsure of their next step as it depends if Tivo wants to be a patent troll with the TV scheduling business. I doubt very strongly Tivo will continue the retail DVR business over time.

Brad


----------



## schatham

randian said:


> I don't know why anyone would mention SlingTV in this conversation. They're live-only, useless for a heavy dvr user.
> 
> .


Not true. Many of the channels operate like a dvr or like Hulu.

Streaming may be the future, but it still does not function as well as live tv or tv with a dvr. Fast forward a streaming channel then stop it to hit play; it's like putting the brakes on a car on the ice. Fast forward to far and get buffering. Fast forward to many times and watch it freeze. Try jumping back and forth between a couple of shows. Etc,etc.


----------



## aaronwt

I've tried Sling TV and it was certainly no replacement for a TiVo.


----------



## Johncv

Jerky said:


> I apologize. I was not thinking of cable subscribers. But my statement still stands. They are going to want to add subscribers not stifle them.


Which now means, now that TiVo has money to back them TiVo will now try to convince (bribe) AT&T, Dish, Cox, Comcast, etc. to now use TiVo.


----------



## Space

bicker said:


> Maybe I missed it in my fatigued stupor, but is there an online, non-subscription service where we can peruse the Rovi guide data, to compare it to what we have now?


tvguide.com and roviguide.com use Rovi data, but you will only be able to compare basic info, the extra metadata that DVRs need (such as unique series/episode identifiers, and OADs) are not visible on these sites.



jeffw_00 said:


> I understand the concerns about the Rovio database, but the details comments seem to say it's either missing entire channels, or has limited metadata. As long as it gets Season/Episode/Time correct, so that no one misses any shows, I suspect the transition will go largely unnoticed. (although reduced metadata won't help sell any more TiVos). If they do screw up the basics, you would expect they would fix quickly as despite what they think of the retail market going forward, they will quickly get addicted to those monthly fees...


It usually does get most things correct, but it often does not, that is what is so frustrating. You need to keep an eye on it daily or else you may miss stuff.

For instance up until last Thursday my WMC machine (uses Rovi data) was set to record the 5/1 episode of "Mike Tyson Mysteries" (11:45pm ET on Cartoon Network). But for some reason Thursday's update to the guide changed that to an episode of "Bar Rescue" (which normally only airs on SPIKE TV and is a 60 minute show, whereas this is only a 15 minute slot).

When mistakes like this happen (which I think could be easily found with a simple automated verification system), they are almost never caught and corrected by Rovi and you will just miss that recording.

I don't remember seeing mistakes this blatantly obvious with Gracenote data.


----------



## keenanSR

lew said:


> CBS owns tvguide.com I don't know who they use for listings.
> 
> Tvguide magazine is owned by NTVG Media. I don't think they are owned by Rovi. I don't know where they get their listings from.





Dan203 said:


> Oh. I thought Rovi bought Gemstar, and Gemstar use to own TVGuide, so I assumed Rovi owned TVGuide. I guess they must have broke off at some point.


If I remember correctly, Rovi bought TVGuide but spun off the name and kept the guide data division. I believe that CBS did buy the TVGuide name, or brand, and I think they made a TV channel using the name but none of it has anything to do with the guide service anymore, that part is Rovi.


----------



## JoeKustra

Space said:


> When mistakes like this happen (which I think could be easily found with a simple automated verification system), they are almost never caught and corrected by Rovi and you will just miss that recording.
> 
> I don't remember seeing mistakes this blatantly obvious with Gracenote data.


Gracenote data does not win any gold stars either. Since a TiVo only checks for data every 26 hours or so, any special event will disrupt things. Those errors are understandable.

Last Friday, TiVo missed some metadata for Blue Bloods. A 1P set for "new" failed. It was bad for over a week and reported to TiVo with plenty of time to fix.

CNN's series "The Eighties" got bumped for coverage of the Prince death. But the metadata for subsequent episodes were never corrected.

I'll stop now. You get the idea.


----------



## gonzotek

​


JoeKustra said:


> ...
> *Last Friday*, TiVo missed some metadata for Blue Bloods. A 1P set for "new" failed. It was bad for over a week and reported to TiVo with plenty of time to fix.
> 
> CNN's series "The Eighties" got bumped for coverage of the Prince death. But the metadata for subsequent episodes were never corrected...


Given the timing, are we sure it was GraceNote data, and not perhaps a trial of the Rovi data?


----------



## wco81

chicagobrownblue said:


> I'm not aware of any 4K DVRs. The Bolt streams 4K content but does not store it on the hard drive. Cable companies have not agreed to a 4K standard for coax, so a real coax 4K DVR is not possible and may never happen.


It's some wishful thinking.

Canada is transmitting 4K content, like Toronto Raptors and Mapleleafs games.

Some European broadcasters are doing some sporting events in 4K.

Direct TV broadcasted the Masters in 4K.

And every year, millions more 4K sets are sold.

If the big networks adopt ATSC 3.0 and start broadcasting major sports, cable companies are going to have to find a way to deliver it.


----------



## JoeKustra

gonzotek said:


> ​Given the timing, are we sure it was GraceNote data, and not perhaps a trial of the Rovi data?


I'll laugh if you promise to not use a capital N. Gracenote, on their website, is either all lower case or all upper case or just a capital G. TiVo, on the other hand, seems to like mixing things up. Their latest registered trademark seems to have only a lower case I: TiVO. Or that's how the TCF displays it.

As conspiracy theories go, yours is pretty good. But I'm not buying it. I blame TiVo (autocorrected), not Gracenote.


----------



## JoeKustra

wco81 said:


> It's some wishful thinking.
> 
> Canada is transmitting 4K content, like Toronto Raptors and Mapleleafs games.
> 
> Some European broadcasters are doing some sporting events in 4K.
> 
> Direct TV broadcasted the Masters in 4K.
> 
> And every year, millions more 4K sets are sold.
> 
> If the big networks adopt ATSC 3.0 and start broadcasting major sports, cable companies are going to have to find a way to deliver it.


If it wasn't for sports TV would still be black and white. I remember the first color TV sets were so expensive they were first used in bars.


----------



## TonyD79

JoeKustra said:


> If it wasn't for sports TV would still be black and white. I remember the first color TV sets were so expensive they were first used in bars.


You old.


----------



## keenanSR

wco81 said:


> It's some wishful thinking.
> 
> Canada is transmitting 4K content, like Toronto Raptors and Mapleleafs games.
> 
> Some European broadcasters are doing some sporting events in 4K.
> 
> Direct TV broadcasted the Masters in 4K.
> 
> And every year, millions more 4K sets are sold.
> 
> If the big networks adopt ATSC 3.0 and start broadcasting major sports, cable companies are going to have to find a way to deliver it.


DirecTV is also doing about 20 MLB games in 4K this season, last night they did the Yankees/Red Sox game.


----------



## gor88

Definitely check your OTA channels. I just saw 1 missing channel in the Jackson, MS market, 2 more channels that have been off air for over a year and a PBS station not even close to the Jackson market (Oxford, MS - Ole Miss)

Will email Rovi with the correct information...here's hoping!


----------



## markjrenna

It isn't Gracenote. It's the STUPIDITY of tivo checking every 22 to 26 hours. The updated data is there on the server. It's just tivo doesn't check for it and possibly recordings are missed. A glaring mistake by tivo management to say this is acceptable. It's not.



JoeKustra said:


> Gracenote data does not win any gold stars either. Since a TiVo only checks for data every 26 hours or so, any special event will disrupt things. Those errors are understandable.
> 
> Last Friday, TiVo missed some metadata for Blue Bloods. A 1P set for "new" failed. It was bad for over a week and reported to TiVo with plenty of time to fix.
> 
> CNN's series "The Eighties" got bumped for coverage of the Prince death. But the metadata for subsequent episodes were never corrected.
> 
> I'll stop now. You get the idea.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Heh, given the proven flakiness of Tivo's servers that interval is probably all they can handle.


----------



## HobokenSkier

gor88 said:


> Definitely check your OTA channels. I just saw 1 missing channel in the Jackson, MS market, 2 more channels that have been off air for over a year and a PBS station not even close to the Jackson market (Oxford, MS - Ole Miss)
> 
> Will email Rovi with the correct information...here's hoping!


Historically a good thing as it tied up your phone line while this happened.

Nowadays some are still bandwidth constrained and data capped. E.g. Someone using ota and Hughes.

Of course these days you would design this as an iterative data stream and send sequential update packages rather than recreate and roll.

Equally that could then be a push service not a Dial in / pull from the TiVo. . 


markjrenna said:


> It isn't Gracenote. It's the STUPIDITY of tivo checking every 22 to 26 hours. The updated data is there on the server. It's just tivo doesn't check for it and possibly recordings are missed. A glaring mistake by tivo management to say this is acceptable. It's not.


----------



## TonyD79

It appears that the TiVo downloads the entire database each time. Maybe an incremental would be better with a full once a week. Standard backup capability.


----------



## HerronScott

TonyD79 said:


> It appears that the TiVo downloads the entire database each time. Maybe an incremental would be better with a full once a week. Standard backup capability.


I'm pretty sure they don't download the entire database each time. Why do you think that?

Scott


----------



## JoeKustra

TonyD79 said:


> It appears that the TiVo downloads the entire database each time. Maybe an incremental would be better with a full once a week. Standard backup capability.


I don't observe that happening. Perhaps we don't agree on the definition of database in this context.

I have two Premiere boxes that I plug in only on Saturday unless I need something stored on their HDD. To get a guide update takes several hours (it's a Premiere). The daily Roamio update takes under five minutes with most of it in the "Loading..." phase. I have a graph of my internet use and there are no peaks unless I watch a movie.

I have used Rovi on two devices. Both did updates at 2am even if there was no new content. TVGOS V8 was via my cable feed and V10 was from the internet. Neither works anymore.


----------



## TonyD79

HerronScott said:


> I'm pretty sure they don't download the entire database each time. Why do you think that? Scott


Because the time it takes to load appears to be the same as the first time I did it.


----------



## dwarner

schatham said:


> Not true. Many of the channels operate like a dvr or like Hulu.
> 
> Streaming may be the future, but it still does not function as well as live tv or tv with a dvr. Fast forward a streaming channel then stop it to hit play; it's like putting the brakes on a car on the ice. Fast forward to far and get buffering. Fast forward to many times and watch it freeze. Try jumping back and forth between a couple of shows. Etc,etc.


One other thing: Slow motion and single frame advance during pause. I use both of these all the time on my Tivo to closely examine stuff. I have not seen these functions on streaming sources, and passed on U-verse because of this.


----------



## morac

TonyD79 said:


> Because the time it takes to load appears to be the same as the first time I did it.


It definitely doesn't download the entire database on each connection. There's a significant time difference between the time it takes if the download happens every day and if the device is unplugged for several days. Not to mention if a connection is done and there's no new data.

This was more noticeable back in the days when downloads were done via modem and via the Teleworld TV broadcast.


----------



## DevdogAZ

TonyD79 said:


> Because the time it takes to load appears to be the same as the first time I did it.


Not a chance. When you first run guided setup and download the guide data, it takes the TiVo several hours to process the info and populate the guide. When you do it on a daily basis, it only takes a few minutes.


----------



## TonyD79

DevdogAZ said:


> Not a chance. When you first run guided setup and download the guide data, it takes the TiVo several hours to process the info and populate the guide. When you do it on a daily basis, it only takes a few minutes.


I am looking at download times not populating. It is possible that populate is delta but download is not.

The daily download time is about the same when I did a clear everything a couple months ago. The population took longer.


----------



## JoeKustra

TonyD79 said:


> I am looking at download times not populating. It is possible that populate is delta but download is not.
> 
> The daily download time is about the same when I did a clear everything a couple months ago. The population took longer.


It might be worth it to watch your next download. You can see the Loading % move. It normally will move quickly, stopping a few times for several seconds. If it spins to 99% all at once, nothing was loaded.


----------



## weaver

TonyD79 said:


> I am looking at download times not populating. It is possible that populate is delta but download is not.
> 
> The daily download time is about the same when I did a clear everything a couple months ago. The population took longer.


The initial download is only a day's worth of data.


----------



## TonyD79

weaver said:


> The initial download is only a day's worth of data.


I disagree. I had a full guide on my first download. It wasn't fully indexed but I could go out over a week. I could not search beyond a day or less.

Both in first install and when I did the clear.


----------



## rtoledo

[email protected] said:


> TiVo recently brought in a new CEO. Nice guy layed off 50 TiVo employees soon after. Article I read mentioned CEO said TiVo would be moving the tuner hardware/software in a different direction (leaving the crown jewel user interface alone I presume). I think it was similar to the Cisco Worldbox's (which use an all new technology freeing the cable companies from the "cable card headaches" - based on legislation passed in 2015). This merge now makes perfect sense. This CEO answers only to the shareholders.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


you just gave me a depression headache. what happens if cable companies dont have to give us cable cards? does this kill the independent device like tivo ?


----------



## Chuck_IV

UCLABB said:


> Dan, what is Charter using for a DVR these days? When I went to TiVo they were using the SA8300HD.


When I went from Directv to Charter last August, I got those same SA8300HDs, so nothing has changed. Hence why I have Tivo now.


----------



## weaver

TonyD79 said:


> I disagree. I had a full guide on my first download. It wasn't fully indexed but I could go out over a week. I could not search beyond a day or less.
> 
> Both in first install and when I did the clear.


https://support.tivo.com/articles/Essential_Summary/TiVo-Software-Version-Information

...

Setting up a new or replacement TiVo device?

If you have a new device, your box will download a software update during Guided Setup and then will reboot to install the software. After the reboot, Guided Setup will resume automatically. It can take from 1-2 hours to complete this initial Guided Setup. If your cable provider is sending a technician to install your CableCARD, please make sure you set up your new TiVo device and complete Guided Setup before the installer arrives.

All other devices will receive the latest software on the second successful connection after completing Guided Setup. *This is because when the device connects to the TiVo service during Guided Setup, only one day of program information is downloaded, to allow you to start using your TiVo device right away.* The first connection after Guided Setup downloads the rest of the program guide data. Depending on the connection schedule, and whether the device is set up to use broadband or a phone line, it may take from one to several days before you see the new software features on your TiVo device.

Once the software is downloaded, the Last Status on the Phone and Network Connection screen will show Pending Restart; this indicates that the box will restart at approximately 2 AM to install the software. To speed up installation, you can restart it manually. For instructions, see How do I restart or powercycle the box?

...


----------



## TonyD79

Won't be the first time a TiVo document is wrong. I know what I saw.


----------



## JoeKustra

TonyD79 said:


> Won't be the first time a TiVo document is wrong. I know what I saw.


If it's not wrong, it's old. Keeping the documentation current is way down on TiVo's priority list. Same with copyrights: still says TMS. Help still has info on wireless.

I agree with what you saw. The clear & delete program info works in two phases. You saw the initial phase of one day. It then schedules another download for about an hour later that gets the rest of the 12 days. I use it all the time. Warning: it may kill your 1P based on streaming content.


----------



## TonyD79

JoeKustra said:


> If it's not wrong, it's old. Keeping the documentation current is way down on TiVo's priority list. Same with copyrights: still says TMS. Help still has info on wireless. I agree with what you saw. The clear & delete program info works in two phases. You saw the initial phase of one day. It then schedules another download for about an hour later that gets the rest of the 12 days. I use it all the time. Warning: it may kill your 1P based on streaming content.


That is NOT what I saw. I saw a single download that took about the same connect time that then took a long time loading after disconnect. Once it was done ALL my scheduled programs were in the to do list for over a week.

I'm saying the local box is doing the data merge and check and the download itself is not incremental. Once the download is on the box, it does the checking to see if data is new or not.


----------



## rainwater

TonyD79 said:


> That is NOT what I saw. I saw a single download that took about the same connect time that then took a long time loading after disconnect. Once it was done ALL my scheduled programs were in the to do list for over a week.
> 
> I'm saying the local box is doing the data merge and check and the download itself is not incremental. Once the download is on the box, it does the checking to see if data is new or not.


It did use to work that way. But I believe it has been a good 5 or 6 years since they changed it to only get a days worth the first connection. Since that change, they have tweaked how fast the second connection starts.


----------



## morac

rainwater said:


> It did use to work that way. But I believe it has been a good 5 or 6 years since they changed it to only get a days worth the first connection. Since that change, they have tweaked how fast the second connection starts.


I'd say longer than that. I'm pretty sure it was changed back in the Series 2 days. I've set up a lot of TiVo DVRs over the years and the way it works now when setting up a new box or after a C&DE is as such:

1. Initial connection to pull down providers and channel listing based on zip code. 
2. If there is a newer major software version (i.e. box is on very old software) it will say it needs to download a software update and install it and reboot and go back to #1. 
3. Box downloads a days worth of data. After this you can use the box.
4. About an hour later in the background, it makes another connection (or you can force it), it downloads the rest of the guide data. 
5. If there is a minor software update, that downloads on the next connection.

#2 and #5 only apply to new boxes.


----------



## pmiranda

BadCommand said:


> Tivo is dead period (.) Much in the same way cd players and dvd players are dead due to streaming. Data is meant to be streamed. Having all these power sucking, breakdown boxes in everyone's homes replicating the exact same information is EXTREMELY inefficient.


My CD and DVD players will play my CD's and DVD's indefinitely without me having to pay a service to send me copies of the music and movies I bought over and over again. I think that's way more efficient.
Until 4K becomes broadcast/streamed, my Blurays have better sound and picture than I get from any network. My CD's have better quality than satellite radio or any streaming music service I've listened to. 
I find it bizarre that people are willing to pay more and get a worse product.


----------



## wco81

Better hope you ISP caps are high enough to stream everything without worrying about going over.

Not to mention reliable it doesn't always buffer.


----------



## aaronwt

pmiranda said:


> My CD and DVD players will play my CD's and DVD's indefinitely without me having to pay a service to send me copies of the music and movies I bought over and over again. I think that's way more efficient.
> Until 4K becomes broadcast/streamed, my Blurays have better sound and picture than I get from any network. My CD's have better quality than satellite radio or any streaming music service I've listened to.
> I find it bizarre that people are willing to pay more and get a worse product.


It's about convenience, not quality.

For me certain content I want to listen/watch at the best quality. And buy it as well.
For other content I'm fine with a streaming version. As well as just renting it.

And then sometimes I'm in the mood to watch something,that I might want in the best quality, but I also want to watch right now. So the convenience factor really comes into play allowing me to watch it right that instant. And then I might still buy the BD/UHD BD later too.

I stopped watching DVDs at the end of 2005. So I'll take an HD stream over a DVD any day. I also stopped purchasing CDs many years ago. Because it's just more convenient to have thousands of songs always at my fingertips from my Amazon cloud music storage. And then even more songs available from what they offer from prime music.

Although I do still have dozens of SACDs, DVD-A, and BD music titles that I will occasionally listen to. But not very often any more.


----------



## Sparky1234

"On April 11, 2012, the U.S. Commerce Department released a comprehensive report, entitled "Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus," which found that intellectual property (IP)-intensive industries support at least 40 million jobs and contribute more than $5 trillion dollars to, or 34.8 percent of, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP)."

Very powerful forces at work here. TiVo may be VHS/Beta, CD, DVD bound... TiVo as we know it will change or die. 

How will Rovi monetize TiVo going forward?


----------



## bicker

wco81 said:


> Better hope you ISP caps are high enough to stream everything without worrying about going over.


Comcast just ameliorated that concern for a very large number of their customers, upping their cap to what is practically 24/7 HD video streaming.


----------



## pmiranda

So far streaming on my Premiere or on a PC is way more inconvenient than watching a ripped DVD. The selection on Netflix streaming is terrible, and the Amazon player on TiVo has crappy FF/RW. 
I guess I'm just spoiled by the native TiVo trickplay interface and everything else is a PITA.

Bluray on the PC has good quality but the interface is painful and slow.

Maybe a PS4 will solve both of these problems?


----------



## aaronwt

pmiranda said:


> So far streaming on my Premiere or on a PC is way more inconvenient than watching a ripped DVD. The selection on Netflix streaming is terrible, and the Amazon player on TiVo has crappy FF/RW.
> I guess I'm just spoiled by the native TiVo trickplay interface and everything else is a PITA.
> 
> Bluray on the PC has good quality but the interface is painful and slow.
> 
> Maybe a PS4 will solve both of these problems?


The PS4 is the worst BD player I've used in recent years. It is also slower than the last seven stand alone BD players I've purchased. And I have a first Gen PS4 which all have noisy Disc transport systems too. Which is another strike against it.


----------



## Chris Gerhard

jcthorne said:


> I see one possible outcome that could benefit current customers in the longer term.
> 
> Rovi is taking over the Tivo name. Rovi needs to update the UI provided on 18 million MSO boxes...to Tivo. IF this actually works, AND Rovi guide data is 'sufficient' to provide all the Tivo high level integration functions, Tivo could then be deployed on some 30 million boxes. THEN there would be development funds to make the company move forward with real improvements. I also see this as one of the only ways the investors make anything on the deal long term. The IP rights and law suits only go so far.


Sounds possible, better than anything I came up with.


----------



## DrewTivo

TonyD79 said:


> You old.


Pretty good chance anyone over 50, and perhaps over 40, started watching TV on at least one B/W TV in their house, and it was probably a 13" or 19" screen.

Although perhaps that only starts a debate over what "old" is.


----------



## DrewTivo

aaronwt said:


> It's about convenience, not quality.
> 
> For me certain content I want to listen/watch at the best quality. And buy it as well.
> For other content I'm fine with a streaming version. As well as just renting it.


Yeah, this.

I can't persuade my wife of the value of a Netflix blu-ray sub. "Why not just stream when we want"? Well, picture quality, price, and expiration within 24-48 hours (for some services).


----------



## JoeKustra

A balanced article:
http://www.investopedia.com/article...llion-rovi-deal-tivo-rovi.asp?partner=YahooSA
It does have two noteworthy things. The deal is supposed to close in the third quarter. That's when prime time comes alive for the 2016-2017 season (not to mention the election). Also the remark about Government approval. I hope that isn't a factor.

Not old, just very experienced.


----------



## jmpage2

Johncv said:


> Which now means, now that TiVo has money to back them TiVo will now try to convince (bribe) AT&T, Dish, Cox, Comcast, etc. to now use TiVo.


I rather doubt that Rovi will be sinking even a plug nickel into TiVo for things like that.

Rovi is primarily interested in TiVo for their patent portfolio I would imagine.

It's possible that Rovi will try to license the TiVo UI since it's pretty good for doing aggregate search of numerous streaming options but that would be about it.

TiVo hardware is pretty much dead at this point, regardless of what they say. As others mention I'm glad I didn't buy a Bolt. The Roamio and Minis I have now should hopefully hold me for a few years and by then I hope there are alternative options available.


----------



## nessie

I noticed Tivo and Rovi stocks were getting pummeled today, so I googled around and this is what I found:

_WAYNE, Pa., May 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ryan & Maniskas, LLP is investigating potential claims against the board of directors of TiVo Inc. ("TiVo" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: TIVO) concerning possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of law related to the Company's efforts to sell the Company to Rovi Corporation in a transaction valued at approximately $1.1 billion.

If you own shares of TiVo and would like to learn more about this class action or if you wish to discuss these matters and have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights, contact Richard A. Maniskas, Esquire toll-free at (877) 316-3218 or to sign up online, visit: www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/tivo. You may also email Mr. Maniskas at [email protected].

Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders of TiVo will receive $10.70 in cash and stock for each share of TiVo they own.

Our investigation concerns possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law by the Board of Directors of TiVo or not acting in the Company's shareholders' best interests in connection with the sale process._


----------



## tarheelblue32

DrewTivo said:


> Pretty good chance anyone over 50, and perhaps over 40, started watching TV on at least one B/W TV in their house, and it was probably a 13" or 19" screen.
> 
> Although perhaps that only starts a debate over what "old" is.


I'm 35 and until I was around 4 or 5 years old the only TV we had in the house was a small black and white TV that got 3 or 4 channels with an antenna. And we were not poor or in a rural area.


----------



## JoeKustra

nessie said:


> I noticed Tivo and Rovi stocks were getting pummeled today, so I googled around and this is what I found:
> 
> Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders of TiVo will receive $10.70 in cash and stock for each share of TiVo they own.


This is the split:

_You are hereby notified that Levi & Korsinsky, LLP has commenced an investigation into the fairness of the sale of TiVo Inc. to Rovi Corporation (ROVI) for $10.70 per share, comprised of $2.75 per share in cash and $7.95 in shares of the new holding company_


----------



## DrewTivo

nessie said:


> I noticed Tivo and Rovi stocks were getting pummeled today, so I googled around and this is what I found:
> 
> _WAYNE, Pa., May 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Ryan & Maniskas, LLP is investigating potential claims against the board of directors of TiVo Inc. ("TiVo" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: TIVO) concerning possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of law related to the Company's efforts to sell the Company to Rovi Corporation in a transaction valued at approximately $1.1 billion.
> 
> If you own shares of TiVo and would like to learn more about this class action or if you wish to discuss these matters and have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights, contact Richard A. Maniskas, Esquire toll-free at (877) 316-3218 or to sign up online, visit: www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/tivo. You may also email Mr. Maniskas at [email protected].
> 
> Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders of TiVo will receive $10.70 in cash and stock for each share of TiVo they own.
> 
> Our investigation concerns possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law by the Board of Directors of TiVo or not acting in the Company's shareholders' best interests in connection with the sale process._


That sounds like a typical investor suit claiming the company sold itself for too little. Rarely successful, and wouldn't be likely to affect share prices in itself.

What's affecting share prices is more likely investors' outlook on what the merged company will do.


----------



## wco81

bicker said:


> Comcast just ameliorated that concern for a very large number of their customers, upping their cap to what is practically 24/7 HD video streaming.


Here is a WSJ article about people who cut the cord and ran against caps. Note the estimate of bandwidth use by the Sling executive:



> Regulators have expressed concern about the lack of competition in the broadband market. *Last year, the Justice Department noted that 70% of all homes in the U.S. have access to only one or no broadband provider that meets the FCCs definition of high-speed service.*
> 
> Sling TV executives say many former customers tell the company they dropped the $20-a-month streaming service because they were being charged so much in extra broadband fees that it was cheaper to simply go back to cable TV. The over-the-top servicemeaning it is delivered over the Internetoffers a slim bundle of pay-TV channels, such as AMC and CNN.
> 
> Broadband companies incentive is to sabotage over-the-top services, and data caps is a primary tool in order to accomplish that, says Jeff Blum, deputy general counsel at Dish Network Corp., which owns Sling TV. Its competing with their bundle.
> 
> Comcast denies its data caps are targeted at stifling online video rivals. We everyday contribute to the use and the growth of the Internet, Mr. Jenckes says. There is absolutely no anticompetitive belief or objective.
> 
> Sling TV Chief Executive Roger Lynch estimates that *if a household watched 5½ hours of high-definition streaming a daythe average time American adults spend watching TV todayit would consume about 375 gigabytes a month. *That is without counting other Internet use like Facebook or email, he notes.
> 
> Some companies like Netflix and Sling TV have options that let people lower the quality of streams to conserve data. But many are pushing for higher quality video, which gobbles up data faster. The Masters golf tournament, for example, streamed the famous Amen Corner in ultrahigh definition to Sony and Samsung smart TVs this year.
> 
> The expectation for over the top has changed, says John Bishop, an executive at Akamai Technologies Inc. who works with media companies to help them distribute their video across the broader Internet. In many cases, people are expecting it to be better than television.
> 
> For sports like the NCAA basketball tournament in March, which Akamai helped stream, you could actually make out individual beads of sweat on the players, Mr. Bishop says. Akamai is working with clients to make their video delivery more efficient, he says.


http://www.wsj.com/articles/broadband-data-caps-pressure-cord-cutters-1461257846

Now with higher bitrates for 4K, even the new 1 TB cap may be insufficient in a couple of years time.

Today, it was reported that Hulu is trying to put together a larger OTT bundle which would include both live and on demand content and perhaps charge $40.


----------



## UCLABB

DrewTivo said:


> That sounds like a typical investor suit claiming the company sold itself for too little. Rarely successful, and wouldn't be likely to affect share prices in itself.
> 
> What's affecting share prices is more likely investors' outlook on what the merged company will do.


Over the past several years I've owned stock in a few companies that have merged or were sold. There's been an investor's suit every time. As part of the class action I usually received some small amount of money. I'm sure the attorneys made out well though.


----------



## NashGuy

wco81 said:


> Now with higher bitrates for 4K, even the new 1 TB cap may be insufficient in a couple of years time.


Maybe, but you'd have to stream a whole lot of 4K video to hit 1TB in a month. Remember, all 4K streaming uses advanced codecs that are more efficient (typically H.265/HEVC). The highest streaming 4K bitrate I've read of so far is Netflix's 15.6 Mbps. So you'd have to stream 149 hours of Netflix 4K (or an average of 4.8 hours per day) to hit 1TB. That's do-able but unlikely. (Of course, if you're doing a lot of huge downloads or online gaming, that will eat into your 1TB data cap too, leaving less room for video streaming.)


----------



## blips

Sparky1234 said:


> TiVo may be VHS/Beta, CD, DVD bound... TiVo as we know it will change or die.


This is about right. Why would Rovi keep Tivo? Tivo has been trying to get out of the hardware business for years because there is no money in it. If the lifeline of the company doesn't depend on the hardware sales they will kill it. Tivo depended on the hardware sales, Rovi will not. Rovi will kill Tivo eventually with the only question is how long before they do. They wanted Tivo for their patents and that is it. This is probably the beginning of the end of Tivo.

I'm out right bummed as I have had Tivo since they began. I only have Comcast for Tivo and when they are gone I will probably be a cord cutter and only stream HGTV for my wife and get the rest get from OTA.


----------



## lpwcomp

Most households consist of multiple people, rarely watching the same things at the same time, so 5.5 hours per household is way low.


----------



## Dan203

tarheelblue32 said:


> I'm 35 and until I was around 4 or 5 years old the only TV we had in the house was a small black and white TV that got 3 or 4 channels with an antenna. And we were not poor or in a rural area.


I'm 37 and I had 13" B&W TV in my bedroom most of my childhood. We had a slightly bigger color TV in the living room but my parents had control over it. I never had cable until I was 17 and moved in with my Father. That was the first time I had ever even seen MTV.


----------



## rtoledo

aaronwt said:


> It's about convenience, not quality.
> 
> For me certain content I want to listen/watch at the best quality. And buy it as well.
> For other content I'm fine with a streaming version. As well as just renting it.
> 
> And then sometimes I'm in the mood to watch something,that I might want in the best quality, but I also want to watch right now. So the convenience factor really comes into play allowing me to watch it right that instant. And then I might still buy the BD/UHD BD later too.
> 
> I stopped watching DVDs at the end of 2005. So I'll take an HD stream over a DVD any day. I also stopped purchasing CDs many years ago. Because it's just more convenient to have thousands of songs always at my fingertips from my Amazon cloud music storage. And then even more songs available from what they offer from prime music.
> 
> Although I do still have dozens of SACDs, DVD-A, and BD music titles that I will occasionally listen to. But not very often any more.


when it comes to music and movies I'm in the same camp as PMIRANDA , when it comes to tv shows like star trek series and house md , I can handle Netflix and Amazon hd.

I have never understood why anyone into music would not buy a CD, rip it into mp3's at their favorite quality (320) and then own the cd for life? I got screwed when a music service I had bought some songs that were hard to acquire locally went bankrupt ( Rhapsody) since then I might have bought 5 tracks from Apple, but all else comes in CD.

I doubt Apple will go BK anytime soon, so I know I can always get those tracks but as PMIRANDA said the quality sucks on them.

the same argument goes to todays generation buying vynil and turn tables LMAO . I grew up with that crap , and compared to a digital recording that is now taken in digital format at the studio and has been since the 80's make no sense, but I love seeing kids say it's sounds so much better, remind me of my quadrophonic days . cause 4 speakers had to be better than 2 right ?


----------



## morac

bicker said:


> Comcast just ameliorated that concern for a very large number of their customers, upping their cap to what is practically 24/7 HD video streaming.


Not that anyone would stream 24/7 HD, but at 5 Mbps (Sony Vue's streaming rate), if one streamed continuously for 24/7 after 31 days the amount of data used would be 1.59 TB, which higher than Comcast's 1 TB cap.

That's not including control packets, which *do* count towards the cap and it also assumes that you don't use the connection for anything else.


----------



## Dan203

rtoledo said:


> I have never understood why anyone into music would not buy a CD, rip it into mp3's at their favorite quality (320) and then own the cd for life? I got screwed when a music service I had bought some songs that were hard to acquire locally went bankrupt ( Rhapsody) since then I might have bought 5 tracks from Apple, but all else comes in CD.


You can buy one song at a time, no need to buy an entire CD. Ripping music takes time, buying it from iTunes is instant. iTunes no longer encrypts music so even if they somehow went under your music would still be playable. They encode at 256Kbps now, which is indistinguishable from a CD for most people.


----------



## aaronwt

wco81 said:


> Here is a WSJ article about people who cut the cord and ran against caps. Note the estimate of bandwidth use by the Sling executive:
> 
> http://www.wsj.com/articles/broadband-data-caps-pressure-cord-cutters-1461257846
> 
> Now with higher bitrates for 4K, even the new 1 TB cap may be insufficient in a couple of years time.
> 
> Today, it was reported that Hulu is trying to put together a larger OTT bundle which would include both live and on demand content and perhaps charge $40.


4K/UHD streams use around 16Mb/s.(Netflix, Amazon, Ultra, etc.) If you streamed them for 13 hours a day, every day, you would use around 3TB a month.


----------



## Dan203

aaronwt said:


> 4K/UHD streams use around 16Mb/s.


Only if the video is 24fps. If it's 60fps, which 4K TV shows will eventually be, it requires more like 30-40Mbps.


----------



## aaronwt

Dan203 said:


> Only if the video is 24fps. If it's 60fps, which 4K TV shows will eventually be, it requires more like 30-40Mbps.


Most 4K content will still be 2160P24, just like most 2K content is 1080P24.


----------



## DevdogAZ

aaronwt said:


> Most 4K content will still be 2160P24, just like most 2K content is 1080P24.


Movies are 24fps, most TV shows are 60fps.


----------



## tampa8

rtoledo said:


> ....
> 
> the same argument goes to todays generation buying vynil and turn tables LMAO . I grew up with that crap , and compared to a digital recording that is now taken in digital format at the studio and has been since the 80's make no sense, but I love seeing kids say it's sounds so much better, remind me of my quadrophonic days . cause 4 speakers had to be better than 2 right ?


Vinyl CAN sound better. Vinyl done right WILL sound better. But if Vinyl is from digital to begin with then no. But if from analog to begin with, and if the groves are the correct depth and width overall it is a hearable difference. So in the real world today's Vinyl may indeed not sound better than CD, though like some say it still has a "Vinyly" sound that some like better.


----------



## pmiranda

Dan203 said:


> You can buy one song at a time, no need to buy an entire CD. Ripping music takes time, buying it from iTunes is instant. iTunes no longer encrypts music so even if they somehow went under your music would still be playable. They encode at 256Kbps now, which is indistinguishable from a CD for most people.


Ripping a CD takes about 10 minutes and it's pretty much automatic. With lossless compression there's no good reason to pay for music compressed at 256Kbps. I wish I didn't hear a difference but I do.


----------



## aaronwt

DevdogAZ said:


> Movies are 24fps, most TV shows are 60fps.


Most TV shows(if not all) I have on BD are 1080P24, 1080i, or 1080p30.

I don't expect the UHD BDs to be much different except for the rare concert or something that might use 2160P60.

With streaming 4K content the vast majority(if not all) will most definitely be 2160P30 and lower. Because of the lower bandwidth requirements.


----------



## aridon

DevdogAZ said:


> most TV shows are 60fps.


What? Heck no.


----------



## tarheelblue32

aridon said:


> What? Heck no.


Yeah they are.


----------



## rainwater

bicker said:


> Comcast just ameliorated that concern for a very large number of their customers, upping their cap to what is practically 24/7 HD video streaming.


And Charter with the TWC merger can not use caps for the next 7 years.


----------



## NashGuy

DevdogAZ said:


> Movies are 24fps, most TV shows are 60fps.


I used to think the same thing, but no. Most scripted TV shows are actually natively shot at 24fps, just like movies. News, reality-type stuff, and sports, however, are done at 30fps (720p30 or 1080i60). Try streaming your favorite drama or comedy series via Hulu or Amazon on a TiVo Roamio. If your set-up allows it, it will probably be in 1080p24.


----------



## rainwater

pmiranda said:


> The selection on Netflix streaming is terrible, and the Amazon player on TiVo has crappy FF/RW.
> I guess I'm just spoiled by the native TiVo trickplay interface and everything else is a PITA.


Are you using trickplay on Netflix very often? I hardly ever do. The only reason I would is if I missed something I might jump back a bit. But it isn't as if you are trying to FF through commercials (since there aren't any). Sure it isn't great, but I rarely have a problem with the thumbnails it shows.


----------



## atmuscarella

DrewTivo said:


> Pretty good chance anyone over 50, and perhaps over 40, started watching TV on at least one B/W TV in their house, and it was probably a 13" or 19" screen.
> 
> Although perhaps that only starts a debate over what "old" is.


Ya Black & white and 4 channels until after college. Old is a floating number that I define as at least 15 years older than me .


----------



## pmiranda

rainwater said:


> Are you using trickplay on Netflix very often?


I try to do it all the time on Netflix, Amazon, and the BD player, then realize it's not doing what I want. 
All I want is for everything to work exactly like TiVo


----------



## bicker

wco81 said:


> Here is a WSJ article about people who cut the cord and ran against caps. Note the estimate of bandwidth use by the Sling executive:


I guess Sling isn't that efficient.



wco81 said:


> Now with higher bitrates for 4K, even the new 1 TB cap may be insufficient in a couple of years time.


I don't think it is fair to hit my elderly neighbor with higher rates because I want to stream HD video 24/7, and I don't think it is fair to hit me with higher rates because my other neighbor is a videophile and wants to stream 4K video 24/7. While I'm glad that Comcast is relaxing its cap, I recognize that it is unfair, and should probably be stopped eventually, by government if necessary, because it is wrong to make everyone subsidize heavy users' excesses.



lpwcomp said:


> Most households consist of multiple people, rarely watching the same things at the same time, so 5.5 hours per household is way low.


And while I'm talking about fairness, it would be fair for multiple people to pay more than a single person.



morac said:


> Not that anyone would stream 24/7 HD, but at 5 Mbps (Sony Vue's streaming rate), if one streamed continuously for 24/7 after 31 days the amount of data used would be 1.59 TB, which higher than Comcast's 1 TB cap.


I guess Sony is inefficient as well. I was using Netflix's typical HD streaming rate.


----------



## TonyD79

atmuscarella said:


> Ya Black & white and 4 channels until after college. Old is a floating number that I define as at least 15 years older than me .


Sounds good. That would make old 73 for me. Or my brother's age. Yes. He is old. Can't take a video on his iPhone without it starting with his foot. Can't figure out which text thread is which. Forgets he has Google at his fingertips. The list goes on.


----------



## TonyD79

bicker said:


> I guess Sling isn't that efficient. I don't think it is fair to hit my elderly neighbor with higher rates because I want to stream HD video 24/7, and I don't think it is fair to hit me with higher rates because my other neighbor is a videophile and wants to stream 4K video 24/7. While I'm glad that Comcast is relaxing its cap, I recognize that it is unfair, and should probably be stopped eventually, by government if necessary, because it is wrong to make everyone subsidize heavy users' excesses. And while I'm talking about fairness, it would be fair for multiple people to pay more than a single person. I guess Sony is inefficient as well. I was using Netflix's typical HD streaming rate.


Why do you figure that you are stealing from your neighbor? Comcast had trained people to think that data costs money. It doesn't. What costs is bandwidth. And they have to have enough bandwidth to serve peak times that may be 4 hours a day. The other 20 hours are basically free to Comcast. They already charge for different bandwidths (they call them speeds) so charging for total data is actually a double charge.

Phone services get away with that all the time.


----------



## bicker

TonyD79 said:


> Why do you figure that you are stealing from your neighbor?


I didn't say stealing. I said that making light users pay the same as heavy users is akin to having the light users subsidize the excessive use of the heavy users. And that's unfair.

Words have meanings.



TonyD79 said:


> Comcast had trained people to think that data costs money. It doesn't.


That's literally foolish. Comcast is _a business_. Businesses charge money _for value offered_. The more data I consume, the more value I derive.

Businesses that charge for discretionary service based on cost are called soon-to-be bankrupt. One market downturn and suddenly people aren't even willing to pay cost anymore.


----------



## tarheelblue32

bicker said:


> That's literally foolish. Comcast is _a business_. Businesses charge money _for value offered_. The more data I consume, the more value I derive.


In a truly competitive environment, when it doesn't cost more to offer an unlimited service to people, it gets offered. Cell phone companies have the capacity to offer unlimited calls and texts to anyone who wants it, and since it doesn't really cost them much to do it they all do it because of competition.


----------



## JoeKustra

In case anyone cares: S&P 500 closed up .78%, Rovi down 9.36%, TiVo down 2.71%. Two more vultures are suing also.


----------



## tarheelblue32

JoeKustra said:


> In case anyone cares: S&P 500 closed up .78%, Rovi down 9.36%, TiVo down 2.71%. Two more vultures are suing also.


Hopefully people around here who own TiVo stock sold it when it popped after the merger was announced.


----------



## wco81

Basically, Comcast knows exactly how much OTT streaming services consume.

You likely won't be able to cut the cord and just get Comcast Internet without hitting that 1 TB cap.

There are suggestions though that Comcast might bundle something like a theoretical Hulu bundle, which would include live streaming as well as on demand.

However, what would be the point? It will either be priced the same as getting a triple or double play bundle when you add Internet and the OTT package.

If it undercuts the pricing of Comcast TV, you can be sure the cap will come into play.


----------



## morac

bicker said:


> I guess Sony is inefficient as well. I was using Netflix's typical HD streaming rate.


Well to be fair Sony is streaming live TV. They don't have the luxury of Netflix's multi-bitrate multipass per-title encoding.


----------



## keenanSR

wco81 said:


> Basically, Comcast knows exactly how much OTT streaming services consume.
> 
> You likely won't be able to cut the cord and just get Comcast Internet without hitting that 1 TB cap.
> 
> There are suggestions though that Comcast might bundle something like a theoretical Hulu bundle, which would include live streaming as well as on demand.
> 
> However, what would be the point? It will either be priced the same as getting a triple or double play bundle when you add Internet and the OTT package.
> 
> If it undercuts the pricing of Comcast TV, you can be sure the cap will come into play.


Or they'll just flat out block the "offending" app.


----------



## bareyb

Most people have no idea what's going to happen to them once Streaming becomes the norm. Streaming is the Cable Co's version of a Trojan Horse. Once it becomes the norm, get ready for 20 minutes per hour of forced commercials that you will not be able to skip.


----------



## Dan203

That's what I'm afraid of. Once they get rid of local DVRs something is going to change in their TOS and all the sudden we'll get stuck with forced commercials. 

If that happens I'll just stop watching TV. I'd be more annoyed by forced commercials then not watching TV at all. There are plenty of other things I can do to entertain myself.


----------



## morac

bareyb said:


> Most people have no idea what's going to happen to them once Streaming becomes the norm. Streaming is the Cable Co's version of a Trojan Horse. Once it becomes the norm, get ready for 20 minutes per hour of forced commercials that you will not be able to skip.


Isn't that the norm now? I've used a few streaming apps and they have enforced commercials, some as long as 2 1/2 minutes (five 30 second commercials).

What's worse is if you drag or fast forward past one of these breaks, it triggers the commercials so of you miss the last few minutes of a show and watch through these apps, you have to sit through like 15 minutes of commercials.


----------



## wco81

Maybe there will be screen recorders which carry the whole streaming session and then playback is under your control.


----------



## TonyD79

bicker said:


> I didn't say stealing. I said that making light users pay the same as heavy users is akin to having the light users subsidize the excessive use of the heavy users.


Ok


bicker said:


> That's literally foolish. Comcast is a business. Businesses charge money for value offered. The more data I consume, the more value I derive. Businesses that charge for discretionary service based on cost are called soon-to-be bankrupt. One market downturn and suddenly people aren't even willing to pay cost anymore.


No. Consumers pay for value. Businesses charge money based upon what people pay.

You are not consuming anything. That's the trick Comcast and others have played and you and others fall for it. There is no consumption beyond peak usage. The rest of the time, the item being "consumed" just evaporates. They don't turn off the power to the systems. They still staff employees. The cost for extra data is zero. And it would just disappear. Therefore you are not consuming anything. They are tricking you into thinking you are.

The value you get and the item you are consuming is bandwidth. That is a real commodity. It requires infrastructure and sets how much they set up. You already pay for bandwidth. Larger bandwidth costs more. That is the value.

Comcast and others have convinced you that you are consuming something by using the bandwidth over time to get data. You are not consuming anything ore than if you had dedicated bandwidth and did absolutely nothing with it.

It is a lie that they use to charge more.


----------



## aaronwt

bareyb said:


> Most people have no idea what's going to happen to them once Streaming becomes the norm. Streaming is the Cable Co's version of a Trojan Horse. Once it becomes the norm, get ready for 20 minutes per hour of forced commercials that you will not be able to skip.


That is when I stop watching TV. I would much rather watch nothing then be forced to watch 20 minutes of commercials for every show I watch.


----------



## zalusky

aaronwt said:


> That is when I stop watching TV. I would much rather watch nothing then be forced to watch 20 minutes of commercials for every show I watch.


Think that might the straw to force me to premium only.


----------



## NashGuy

Dan203 said:


> That's what I'm afraid of. Once they get rid of local DVRs something is going to change in their TOS and all the sudden we'll get stuck with forced commercials.
> 
> If that happens I'll just stop watching TV. I'd be more annoyed by forced commercials then not watching TV at all. There are plenty of other things I can do to entertain myself.


In a lot of ways, I think Hulu (or maybe a cross between Hulu and PS Vue) represents the future of all pay TV (except satellite maybe). Everything will move to IP-based streaming, whether it's live linear channels or on-demand. Local DVRs will be replaced with cloud DVR functionality, which is essentially a type of on-demand streaming. All advertising with become "programmatic," that is, dynamically inserted ads targeted at specific viewers. And all ads will be required viewing during on-demand/cloud DVR playback unless you pay an additional fee for the ad-free service tier, just like Hulu does now.

I wouldn't worry too much that you'll be forced to watch ads (other than while watching live non-premium linear channels). Programmers know that many viewers have gotten used to ad-free viewing, thanks to DVRs, premium channels, Netflix, etc. There will continue to be a demand for ad-free viewing by consumers and the powers that be will provide it, for a price.


----------



## bicker

tarheelblue32 said:


> In a truly competitive environment, when it doesn't cost more to offer an unlimited service to people, it gets offered.


No it doesn't. You just want it to be. In reality, what you want is only offered in a regulated environment.



morac said:


> Well to be fair Sony is streaming live TV.


So, *assuredly *not the most efficient way of distributing that kind of content. (Remarkably: The most efficient way of streaming live television is cable.  )



bareyb said:


> Most people have no idea what's going to happen to them once Streaming becomes the norm. Streaming is the Cable Co's version of a Trojan Horse. Once it becomes the norm, get ready for 20 minutes per hour of forced commercials that you will not be able to skip.


Yup. The industry will adjust and return to deriving from the marketplace the customer perceived value that they've been deriving for decades. There are very few examples of where that didn't happen, and those examples serve as warnings for industries facing technological change today, such that they ensure that they don't make the same mistakes.



wco81 said:


> Maybe there will be screen recorders which carry the whole streaming session and then playback is under your control.


That would be explicitly illegal. Perhaps folks think that copyright law is going to be revoked? Well, if so, be prepared for no high quality high production value content to be generated whatsoever. If you take away the profit motive, entirely, people truly will take their toys and go home. Every dollar invested in a business competes with every other way that dollar could be invested. If an industry becomes less profitable than municipal bonds (for example), then only an idiot would invest in the industry rather than the municipal bonds.



TonyD79 said:


> Businesses charge money for value offered.
> 
> 
> 
> No. Consumers pay for value. Businesses charge money based upon what people pay.
Click to expand...

Wow. How many angels can you get to dance on the head of a pin?

You've said nothing new, in the quote above, and surely nothing that even remotely supported any of the nonsense you posted after the quote above.

You hate "The Man". Message received. 



zalusky said:


> Think that might the straw to force me to premium only.


And thereby the system is restored to equilibrium.



NashGuy said:


> In a lot of ways, I think Hulu (or maybe a cross between Hulu and PS Vue) represents the future of all pay TV (except satellite maybe).




> Hulu is said to be working on a live-streaming service that it would use to provide broadcast and cable TV channels like ESPN and the Fox network.



So we've come full circle. We have Cable. Then Streaming comes to the "rescue". Then Streaming turns into Cable.


----------



## HobokenSkier

lpwcomp said:


> Most households consist of multiple people, rarely watching the same things at the same time, so 5.5 hours per household is way low.


5.5 hours of UHD. As of today there is barely enough content to do that.


----------



## HobokenSkier

rtoledo said:


> when it comes to music and movies I'm in the same camp as PMIRANDA , when it comes to tv shows like star trek series and house md , I can handle Netflix and Amazon hd.
> 
> I have never understood why anyone into music would not buy a CD, rip it into mp3's at their favorite quality (320) and then own the cd for life? I got screwed when a music service I had bought some songs that were hard to acquire locally went bankrupt ( Rhapsody) since then I might have bought 5 tracks from Apple, but all else comes in CD.
> 
> I doubt Apple will go BK anytime soon, so I know I can always get those tracks but as PMIRANDA said the quality sucks on them.
> 
> the same argument goes to todays generation buying vynil and turn tables LMAO . I grew up with that crap , and compared to a digital recording that is now taken in digital format at the studio and has been since the 80's make no sense, but I love seeing kids say it's sounds so much better, remind me of my quadrophonic days . cause 4 speakers had to be better than 2 right ?


4 speakers. I have 8 in my living room. Would love a 9.2.4 setup.


----------



## cncb

wco81 said:


> Maybe there will be screen recorders which carry the whole streaming session and then playback is under your control.


This has been available for a while in PlayOn (used to be called PlayLater).


----------



## DrewTivo

bicker said:


> That would be explicitly illegal. Perhaps folks think that copyright law is going to be revoked?


Wait - recording the IP stream would violate copyright law? No . . . for the same reasons that VCR and DVR time shifting don't.

That said, if the cable cos and content providers get their way, doing so would probably be a DMCA violation because it would potentially require cracking the decryption to record it rather than stream the content.


----------



## L David Matheny

morac said:


> Well to be fair Sony is streaming live TV.





bicker said:


> So, *assuredly *not the most efficient way of distributing that kind of content. (Remarkably: The most efficient way of streaming live television is cable.  )


I could argue that the most efficient way of distributing video content is OTA. Certainly everything else seems to be going wireless these days. And the idea that we should all be streaming live content during primetime hours is insane. Or should some of us expect to do our viewing in the middle of the night to avoid the inevitable network congestion?



wco81 said:


> Maybe there will be screen recorders which carry the whole streaming session and then playback is under your control.





bicker said:


> That would be explicitly illegal. Perhaps folks think that copyright law is going to be revoked?


The whole concept of streaming "linear TV" instead of broadcasting it may indeed be primarily a way for the industry to circumvent court precedents that allow us to record content, which has been determined to _not_ violate copyright laws as long as it's for our private use. I hope the courts will understand and catch up. And even if you don't believe people should have the right to skip commercials, would you allow the simple convenience of QuickMode in your brave new world?



bicker said:


> So we've come full circle. We have Cable. Then Streaming comes to the "rescue". Then Streaming turns into Cable.


No, at that point, the industry would have succeeded in perverting the system. We will have come _full_ circle only when recording of content is again allowed (for private use).


----------



## mangochutney

DevdogAZ said:


> Movies are 24fps, most TV shows are 60fps.


Sorry had to pull this from a few pages ago:

3:2 pulldown on 4K TV yay can't wait!
They most probably will shoot in 24p and the TV will do the conversion.


----------



## aaronwt

mangochutney said:


> Sorry had to pull this from a few pages ago:
> 
> 3:2 pulldown on 4K TV yay can't wait!
> They most probably will shoot in 24p and the TV will do the conversion.


should be 5:5 pulldown with a 120hz TV.


----------



## slowbiscuit

bicker said:


> No it doesn't. You just want it to be. In reality, what you want is only offered in a regulated environment.


That is demonstrably false, both Europe and Asia have competitive HSI markets and unlimited data is the norm. Regulation has nothing to do with it, having a choice of more than 1-2 providers does.

I'm sure you'll now argue that this is because the pipes are run by pipe companies (with mandated open line access) and not vertically integrated behemoths like Comcast, but that's kind of the point.


----------



## Dan203

aaronwt said:


> should be 5:5 pulldown with a 120hz TV.


Depends on how they broadcast it. If they broadcast as 24fps then yes. If they broadcast as 60fps then they will do the 3:2 pull down on their end. Since no 4k broadcast currently exists it's impossible to say for sure what they will do. Sports will be 60fps for sure. Not sure what they'll settle on for regular TV. Most drama shows are shot at 24fps just like movies. (creates the film look we're use to) But sitcoms and soap operas are shot at full 60fps, so it could go either way. I seriously doubt they'll mix them together. In all likelihood they'll broadcast everything at 60fps just because it's easier for their equipment to handle a constant frame rate for ad insertion, etc...


----------



## tarheelblue32

bicker said:


> No it doesn't. You just want it to be. In reality, what you want is only offered in a regulated environment.


What I want is a truly competitive market for broadband service, but apparently we can't have that in most places in this country. So I would rather have a regulated monopoly than an unregulated monopoly any day of the week. If the broadband providers want to charge customers like a metered utility, then its rates should be regulated by the government just like other utilities.


----------



## atmuscarella

bareyb said:


> Most people have no idea what's going to happen to them once Streaming becomes the norm. Streaming is the Cable Co's version of a Trojan Horse. Once it becomes the norm, get ready for 20 minutes per hour of forced commercials that you will not be able to skip.


I am not sure what you mean by "Streaming" or "norm". If you by streaming you mean VoD, I wouldn't worry about it linear broadcasts will exist for an extended period of time. If by streaming you mean IP TV delivery again I wouldn't worry about it the main example we have now (AT&T Uverse) offers a DVR just like any cable company does. Of course without FCC action if cable moves to IP TV delivery they could lock out third part STBs or DVRs.

If any cable company was actually foolish enough to eliminate DVRs or force people to watch commercials on some cloud type DVR, satellite would eat their lunch, they already offer superior DVRs as it is. And of course people could also go OTA.


----------



## atmuscarella

ISPs using DATA caps. Anyone who doesn't understand that data caps are complete Bull Sh** and only exist because of lack of competition and are designed to protect the ISPs own video services either works for an ISP, owns their stock, or has been completely suckered. 

We are paying our ISPs for bandwidth, they should be obligated to provide that bandwidth. If we move data through the bandwidth at any moment in time or not is irrelevant, again we paid the ISP to provide us with bandwidth they should be obligated to have the bandwidth available for our use when ever we want to use it. Selling someone 100Mbps of bandwidth, without any time of day use restrictions and then saying how much data they can move through it, means you really are not selling them 100Mbps of bandwidth. The word fraud comes to mind when someone sells you something then falls to delivery it.


----------



## mangochutney

Dan203 said:


> Depends on how they broadcast it. If they broadcast as 24fps then yes. If they broadcast as 60fps then they will do the 3:2 pull down on their end. Since no 4k broadcast currently exists it's impossible to say for sure what they will do. Sports will be 60fps for sure. Not sure what they'll settle on for regular TV. Most drama shows are shot at 24fps just like movies. (creates the film look we're use to) But sitcoms and soap operas are shot at full 60fps, so it could go either way. I seriously doubt they'll mix them together. In all likelihood they'll broadcast everything at 60fps just because it's easier for their equipment to handle a constant frame rate for ad insertion, etc...


Plus 120Hz TVs are just frame doubling a 60Hz feed (actual 59Hz) . No magic there.


----------



## Dan203

mangochutney said:


> Plus 120Hz TVs are just frame doubling a 60Hz feed (actual 59Hz) . No magic there.


120Hz is needed to display 24fps without a pull down pattern, I think that's what he was referring to. With a 60Hz TV you have to use a 3:2 display pattern for 24fps content, which can create jumpy movement. With a 120Hz TV you can just display each frame for 5 refresh cycles so the movement is smooth.


----------



## JoeKustra

Dan203 said:


> 120Hz is needed to display 24fps without a pull down pattern, I think that's what he was referring to. With a 60Hz TV you have to use a 3:2 display pattern for 24fps content, which can create jumpy movement. With a 120Hz TV you can just display each frame for 5 refresh cycles so the movement is smooth.


True. I think the rule is your refresh rate divided by 24 needs to be a whole number. Amazon's 24fps is not always easy to notice, but the TiVo works with it. I like it.

To see some really bad visual effects, set the TiVo or Mini for 1080/24 (only) and watch how bad a regular 1080i picture looks.


----------



## TonyD79

atmuscarella said:


> ISPs using DATA caps. Anyone who doesn't understand that data caps are complete Bull Sh** and only exist because of lack of competition and are designed to protect the ISPs own video services either works for an ISP, owns their stock, or has been completely suckered.
> 
> We are paying our ISPs for bandwidth, they should be obligated to provide that bandwidth. If we move data through the bandwidth at any moment in time or not is irrelevant, again we paid the ISP to provide us with bandwidth they should be obligated to have the bandwidth available for our use when ever we want to use it. Selling someone 100Mbps of bandwidth, without any time of day use restrictions and then saying how much data they can move through it, means you really are not selling them 100Mbps of bandwidth. The word fraud comes to mind when someone sells you something then falls to delivery it.


Yup. That is my point. They have suckered people into believing they are paying for data AND bandwidth. They are not. They are paying for bandwidth.


----------



## gigaguy

I guess I'm seriously oldskool. I like recording and having complete shows saved to watch. I prefer the playback options/control with a DVR. I don't do much streaming, have no current streaming accounts. I've used my large TV as my mac monitor for years now, always had internet/tv convergence but never streamed much.
Same as why I don't stream music. I converted my old LPs and CDs to hi-res mp3. I like to access my music to do other things with in video projects etc. Cant do that with streaming.
I'm a survivor from the great Sony DHG DVRs that relied on TVGOS for data. Hung onto that til the bitter end then went to Tivo. These have all been great machines. I thought Apple would offer something good but so far just more streaming, no recording or capture.


----------



## aaronwt

JoeKustra said:


> True. I think the rule is your refresh rate divided by 24 needs to be a whole number. Amazon's 24fps is not always easy to notice, but the TiVo works with it. I like it.
> 
> To see some really bad visual effects, set the TiVo or Mini for 1080/24 (only) and watch how bad a regular 1080i picture looks.


The only time the Mini or regular TiVo will ouptut 24P is with pass through. The content will need to be in 24P to output that framerate. You can't just select a resolution with a framerate of 24P. You can only do that in conjunction with a 60P output or a 1080i resolution or lower.


----------



## bicker

DrewTivo said:


> Wait - recording the IP stream would violate copyright law? No . . . for the same reasons that VCR and DVR time shifting don't.


Yes, illegal, since the IP streams are protected specifically to preclude recording.

This isn't just revenue enhancement - it's a legal obligation: Licensing for streaming (recording not permitted) is separate from licensing for broadcast (which can be recorded/time-shifted). You're simply incorrect. The time-shifting provisions you refer to pertain only to broadcast.



DrewTivo said:


> That said, if the cable cos and content providers get their way, doing so would probably be a DMCA violation because it would potentially require cracking the decryption to record it rather than stream the content.


All of what you say here is not only already the case, but has been since 1996.



L David Matheny said:


> I could argue that the most efficient way of distributing video content is OTA.


Except it isn't. Using OTA for terrestrial viewing is, incontrovertibly, wasteful of bandwidth. Indeed, even for serving mobile stations, it would be substantially more efficient to structure service similar to switched digital video, with the mobile station signaling which service it wants to receive, its local cell site placing that service on one of a few frequencies it has available, which could be shared if there happen to be more than one mobile station wanting that service at the same time.



L David Matheny said:


> Certainly everything else seems to be going wireless these days.


Not for efficiency. Specifically for convenience.



L David Matheny said:


> The whole concept of streaming "linear TV" instead of broadcasting it may indeed be primarily a way for the industry to circumvent court precedents that allow us to record content, which has been determined to _not_ violate copyright laws as long as it's for our private use. I hope the courts will understand and catch up.


If you change from broadcast to streaming, you are choosing to switch from the means by which time-shifting is protected to the means by which it is not.

I hope television consumers "will understand and catch up".

I don't have to like it, and more importantly, neither do you. The world doesn't revolve around us as consumers, but is a balancing of the needs of all parties, including consumers and suppliers. You "want it all". Tough. Get over it. Not just because it is the (current) law, but because everything returns to steady state eventually. If the laws change allowing time-shifting of streaming, then guess what: We'll have advertising overlays on-screen at all times, or some other similarly-invasive mechanism - because the people paying for the production of television series, the advertisers, are not going to give over the millions upon millions of dollars they give now, without getting the value from doing so that they get today, that value being the affecting of consumer purchasing behaviors.



L David Matheny said:


> And even if you don't believe people should have the right to skip commercials, would you allow the simple convenience of QuickMode in your brave new world?


Evidently you haven't done much streaming. During many streaming feeds, today, all forms of fast forward are blocked.



L David Matheny said:


> No, at that point, the industry would have succeeded in perverting the system.


Ridiculous. Just because it doesn't kowtow to your demands as a consumer they're evil? What self-ratifying nonsense. The "system" (American consumer markets) is based on charging for products and services based on customer _perceived value_, not how much customers wish they could pay.



slowbiscuit said:


> That is demonstrably false, both Europe and Asia have competitive HSI markets and unlimited data is the norm.


That is demonstrably false, both Europe and Asia have highly regulated HSI markets.



slowbiscuit said:


> Regulation has nothing to do with it


False.

We've had these discussions here and on other television-related fora for several decades. There is always the indignant consumerists insisting that the world is going to change and suddenly service providers are going to sacrifice their profit in the interest of providing a consumerist nirvana. It never happens. Time after time after time, things return to steady state, the offerings and pricing adjusting to environmental changes and then settling back to the industry exacting from consumers compensation based on how much value the consumer derives from the offerings. That's not going to change without a wholesale scuttling of the American economic system.


----------



## JoeKustra

aaronwt said:


> The only time the Mini or regular TiVo will ouptut 24P is with pass through. The content will need to be in 24P to output that framerate. You can't just select a resolution with a framerate of 24P. You can only do that in conjunction with a 60P output or a 1080i resolution or lower.


It looks like this has been fixed. It's now impossible to set pass through only on a Roamio. I'll check the Premiere soon.


----------



## L David Matheny

bicker said:


> Yes, illegal, since the IP streams are protected specifically to preclude recording.
> 
> This isn't just revenue enhancement - it's a legal obligation: Licensing for streaming (recording not permitted) is separate from licensing for broadcast (which can be recorded/time-shifted). You're simply incorrect. The time-shifting provisions you refer to pertain only to broadcast.





bicker said:


> If you change from broadcast to streaming, you are choosing to switch from the means by which time-shifting is protected to the means by which it is not.
> 
> I hope television consumers "will understand and catch up".
> 
> I don't have to like it, and more importantly, neither do you. The world doesn't revolve around us as consumers, but is a balancing of the needs of all parties, including consumers and suppliers. You "want it all". Tough. Get over it. Not just because it is the (current) law, but because everything returns to steady state eventually. If the laws change allowing time-shifting of streaming, then guess what: We'll have advertising overlays on-screen at all times, or some other similarly-invasive mechanism - because the people paying for the production of television series, the advertisers, are not going to give over the millions upon millions of dollars they give now, without getting the value from doing so that they get today, that value being the affecting of consumer purchasing behaviors.


Oh, so the choice of broadcast vs streaming will be left to us? Then I will choose broadcast. But if you're saying that broadcast will be eliminated so that we will have no choice, then legislators and/or the courts need to amend the laws so that longstanding consumer rights are preserved. Laws can be changed, sometimes in the public interest. Corporate interests should not be so heavily favored that they can futilely force us to endure commercials for products we have no interest in buying. Some of us will just stop watching if necessary, but we shouldn't have to do that, and it's not really in the interest of content owners to push consumers to that extreme.



bicker said:


> Ridiculous. Just because it doesn't kowtow to your demands as a consumer they're evil? What self-ratifying nonsense. The "system" (American consumer markets) is based on charging for products and services based on customer _perceived value_, not how much customers wish they could pay.


I didn't use the word "evil". But in the absence of proper regulation business entities will always compete in any ways that can give them an advantage, fair or unfair. It is the job of government to force them to play by the rules and "color within the lines" rather than riding roughshod over consumers just because they have more economic power and lobbying influence. We pay lip-service to "free markets" but those require that consumers be able to price-shop on an item-by-item basis at the time they need a product or service. There are many areas of our economy where those conditions are not even close to being met.

And you didn't address the problem of everybody streaming live content during primetime hours. Recording lets us watch content on our schedule _without causing such a bottleneck_ because it allows network loads to be distributed and balanced properly.


----------



## DrewTivo

bicker said:


> Yes, illegal, since the IP streams are protected specifically to preclude recording.
> 
> This isn't just revenue enhancement - it's a legal obligation: Licensing for streaming (recording not permitted) is separate from licensing for broadcast (which can be recorded/time-shifted). You're simply incorrect. The time-shifting provisions you refer to pertain only to broadcast.


The copy protection scheme used on an IP stream doesn't make a time shifting use less "fair" under the Sony case or the Dish Network ("Hopper") DVR case - I don't see why the distinction would matter from a copyright standpoint, as it would still be fair use.

And, as I acknowledged, if it were necessary to "crack" the encryption of the stream to time shift then that is potentially a DCMA violation. But the DCMA didn't expand the copyright act (i.e., what is copyrightable) - it addressed technical protections of copyright.


----------



## lpwcomp

I would think that the issue is multi-cast vs. individual streams. The latter uses far more bandwidth.


----------



## BobCamp1

gigaguy said:


> I guess I'm seriously oldskool. I like recording and having complete shows saved to watch. I prefer the playback options/control with a DVR. I don't do much streaming, have no current streaming accounts. I've used my large TV as my mac monitor for years now, always had internet/tv convergence but never streamed much.
> Same as why I don't stream music. I converted my old LPs and CDs to hi-res mp3. I like to access my music to do other things with in video projects etc. Cant do that with streaming.
> I'm a survivor from the great Sony DHG DVRs that relied on TVGOS for data. Hung onto that til the bitter end then went to Tivo. These have all been great machines. I thought Apple would offer something good but so far just more streaming, no recording or capture.


We're old school because we're watching TV period. My kids (15 and 10) haven't watched TV at all this year. Not one time. I also have a landline phone, although it's not POTS so I'm not THAT ancient.

The main reason we have cable TV at all is that in the 1980's, there was no other way to watch content other than what the three networks + PBS provided. To watch movies, you went to the movie theater, subscribed to HBO, or watched commercials if they were shown on broadcast TV . The Internet changed all that. In the same way that MTV had to adapt and stop playing music when Youtube was born , Home Box Office is now known for its TV series. They happen to show movies between those shows, but I've seen them all before on Netflix anyway. Also, Blazing Saddles is a great movie, but it's on all the time. How many times can one person watch it?

Cable providers see the writing on the wall. Cable used to be something you had to have, but not anymore. If you had to drop either cable TV or Internet service, which would you choose? If they also weren't the ISPs, they'd be in serious trouble as I'm not sure how they would adapt. Unfortunately companies like Tivo won't be able to adapt, as we already have plenty of devices that stream Internet content, all of which are either cheaper or more flexible than a Tivo.

I think the new Tivo's first order of business is to quietly exit the retail DVR business as soon as possible.


----------



## tvmaster2

BobCamp1 said:


> ....Cable providers see the writing on the wall. Cable used to be something you had to have, but not anymore. If you had to drop either cable TV or Internet service, which would you choose? If they also weren't the ISPs, they'd be in serious trouble as I'm not sure how they would adapt. Unfortunately companies like Tivo won't be able to adapt, as we already have plenty of devices that stream Internet content, all of which are either cheaper or more flexible than a Tivo.
> 
> I think the new Tivo's first order of business is to quietly exit the retail DVR business as soon as possible.


But cable co.'s DID see the writing on the wall - that's why they started buying content providers. And, as you say, we all need an Internet connection to watch TV, no matter which method we use. The cable co.'s aren't going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, just wait until you start receiving bills for your kids bandwidth overages, at 4K no less 

If anything, Tivo's big mistake was NOT getting a foothold into those companies far inferior DVR's (Cox's is nearly awful).

And although streaming is great for some people, if it includes commercials, I'll never stream anything. As long as there's a way to zip thru commercials, that's the method I'll use. So glad I didn't dismantle my SageTV system...


----------



## randian

bicker said:


> Ridiculous. Just because it doesn't kowtow to your demands as a consumer they're evil? What self-ratifying nonsense.


Evil? No, but any time the supplier dictates to the consumer, rather than the other way around, is generally evidence of untoward government meddling in markets.


----------



## DrewTivo

randian said:


> Evil? No, but any time the supplier dictates to the consumer, rather than the other way around, is generally evidence of untoward government meddling in markets.


Huh? If the supplier "dictates" to the consumer, it suggests the supplier has market power and doesn't face strong competition. That doesn't necessarily (in fact rarely does) result from government meddling in the market. On the contrary, that may be an instance where the government should meddle in the market, whether through regulation or antitrust enforcement.


----------



## wco81

How does DVRs which record only cable channels not fall into the broadcast vs. IP streaming distinction?

A lot of cable channels do not have any OTA component and you are capturing bits now, not analog waves.

The thing is, there probably wouldn't be a re-test of the Supreme Court case, because it would take a consumer electronics giant willing to test the case all the way to the highest court.

If anyone does a stream capturing device, or a frame capture software application, it would probably be a startup unwilling to fight against Big Content.


----------



## bicker

L David Matheny said:


> Oh, so the choice of broadcast vs streaming will be left to us? Then I will choose broadcast. But if you're saying that broadcast will be eliminated so that we will have no choice, then legislators and/or the courts need to amend the laws so that longstanding consumer rights are preserved.


The "longstanding consumer rights" you refer to are on broadcast. The rights won't go away even if broadcast does, just like the rights people had vis a vis their horses and buggies didn't go away.

I suspect streaming will become expensive or annoying enough soon enough that broadcast will not go away. However, that's just a guess.



L David Matheny said:


> Laws can be changed, sometimes in the public interest.


However, [a] there is no reason to believe that they will be, and * it wouldn't matter since the industry can just adjust again - see my earlier comments vis a vis advertising overlays, and [c] in the end, every dollar a broadcast invests in their business competes with every other way that dollar can be invested. What happened when LTD insurance become a bad financial deal - people stopped investing in it and invested more in equities and bonds. You cannot force people to spend the money you want them to spend. All you can do is get government to tax consumers to pay for what you want. Good luck with that. I suspect I would personally benefit from your success in that effort.



L David Matheny said:



Corporate interests should not be so heavily favored that they can futilely force us to endure commercials for products we have no interest in buying.

Click to expand...

Because you say so. 



L David Matheny said:



Some of us will just stop watching if necessary, but we shouldn't have to do that, and it's not really in the interest of content owners to push consumers to that extreme.

Click to expand...

Content owners will find another way, for example, Vudu, Amazon Video, etc., i.e., making you pay $3 an hour consumed. If that floats your boat you already have that option, so why bother with broadcast?



L David Matheny said:



I didn't use the word "evil".

Click to expand...

You surely didn't make it sound like you respected the industry's making the best decisions for itself. You sounded downright abusive toward the industry. Evil is fewer letters.



L David Matheny said:



There are many areas of our economy where those conditions are not even close to being met.

Click to expand...

And practically no support among half the nation for changing things to meet your expectations in that regard.



L David Matheny said:



And you didn't address the problem of everybody streaming live content during primetime hours.

Click to expand...

It wasn't pertinent to my point. My comments are large enough without being deflected off onto irrelevant tangents.



randian said:



Evil? No, but any time the supplier dictates to the consumer, rather than the other way around, is generally evidence of untoward government meddling in markets.

Click to expand...

Actually, the opposite is true. Quoting the previous poster:


L David Matheny said:



But in the absence of proper regulation business entities will always compete in any ways that can give them an advantage, fair or unfair. It is the job of government to force them to play by the rules and "color within the lines" rather than riding roughshod over consumers just because they have more economic power and lobbying influence.

Click to expand...

And:

DrewTivo said:



Huh? If the supplier "dictates" to the consumer, it suggests the supplier has market power and doesn't face strong competition. That doesn't necessarily (in fact rarely does) result from government meddling in the market. On the contrary, that may be an instance where the government should meddle in the market, whether through regulation or antitrust enforcement.

Click to expand...

They are both correct about the mechanics. What they're mistaken about is whether society sides with them on where the balance should be. It doesn't, even though that adversely impacts most of us, here, as consumers, and almost assuredly because of a lack of favor for government interfering in this freer marketplace.*


----------



## bicker

DrewTivo said:


> The copy protection scheme used on an IP stream doesn't make a time shifting use less "fair" under the Sony case or the Dish Network ("Hopper") DVR case - I don't see why the distinction would matter from a copyright standpoint, as it would still be fair use.


Go ahead and try that in the SCOTUS. Even with today's 4-4 split I bet you'd lose.



DrewTivo said:


> And, as I acknowledged, if it were necessary to "crack" the encryption of the stream to time shift then that is potentially a DCMA violation. But the DCMA didn't expand the copyright act (i.e., what is copyrightable) - it addressed technical protections of copyright.


A distinction without a difference - the end result is still that it is illegal.


----------



## tarheelblue32

DrewTivo said:


> The copy protection scheme used on an IP stream doesn't make a time shifting use less "fair" under the Sony case or the Dish Network ("Hopper") DVR case - I don't see why the distinction would matter from a copyright standpoint, as it would still be fair use.
> 
> And, as I acknowledged, if it were necessary to "crack" the encryption of the stream to time shift then that is potentially a DCMA violation. But the DCMA didn't expand the copyright act (i.e., what is copyrightable) - it addressed technical protections of copyright.


I think you are correct that it isn't technically a copyright violation as it would still fall under the fair use doctrine. However, as you point out, cracking the encryption could be a DMCA violation, and any technology used to crack the encryption would probably be illegal under federal law. Also, it would be a violation of the terms of service of the streaming provider, and there actually has been some legal cases that have tried to interpret federal law in a way that would make a violation of IP terms of service a criminal act under telecommunications fraud statutes. It's still a very gray area.


----------



## Wil

bicker said:


> The world doesn't revolve around us as consumers


Actually it pretty much does. Demand creates supply very effectively but it's harder to make it work the other way around.

Time shifting is a well-established principle. The DVR will be re-crafted (it already has been with a little hands-on), re-tested by the courts, and equilibrium will be restored. Take your vicarious enjoyment from this interim period while you can.


----------



## atmuscarella

BobCamp1 said:


> We're old school because we're watching TV period. My kids (15 and 10) haven't watched TV at all this year. Not one time. I also have a landline phone, although it's not POTS so I'm not THAT ancient.
> 
> The main reason we have cable TV at all is that in the 1980's, there was no other way to watch content other than what the three networks + PBS provided. To watch movies, you went to the movie theater, subscribed to HBO, or watched commercials if they were shown on broadcast TV . The Internet changed all that. In the same way that MTV had to adapt and stop playing music when Youtube was born , Home Box Office is now known for its TV series. They happen to show movies between those shows, but I've seen them all before on Netflix anyway. Also, Blazing Saddles is a great movie, but it's on all the time. How many times can one person watch it?
> 
> Cable providers see the writing on the wall. Cable used to be something you had to have, but not anymore. If you had to drop either cable TV or Internet service, which would you choose? If they also weren't the ISPs, they'd be in serious trouble as I'm not sure how they would adapt. Unfortunately companies like Tivo won't be able to adapt, as we already have plenty of devices that stream Internet content, all of which are either cheaper or more flexible than a Tivo.
> 
> I think the new Tivo's first order of business is to quietly exit the retail DVR business as soon as possible.


You have been saying pay TV and DVRs are dead for awhile now. Funny thing is over 90 million households still have Pay TV and over 50 million have DVRs.

Streaming/VoD as offered today is fine as a supplement but would suck if it where the only source of video. It is not going to replace linear broadcasts anytime soon and as long as there are linear broadcasts people will want DVRs.

And even if (and that is a big if) the majority of household don't have traditional Pay TV at some point, so what? All that means is that they finally offered something worth replacing it. And that certainly doesn't exist now with what the streaming services are currently offering.

Pay TV was an add on to OTA, then cam video rentals as the next add on, now we have VoD and rental stream services which are just another add on. It is all going to exist together for an extended period of time (my guess is longer than I am going to be around). I understand the media and business world consider things dead that are not growing, but plenty of businesses do just fine in areas that are not growing and that is really what traditional cable companies will have to adjust too.

As an example my local drive in movie theater owner has a successful business in a declining business area that has supposedly been dead nearly my whole life.


----------



## JoeKustra

Why does this thread sound familiar? http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=524569

I remember when it was about Rovi and TiVo and the effects.


----------



## morac

wco81 said:


> If anyone does a stream capturing device, or a frame capture software application, it would probably be a startup unwilling to fight against Big Content.


There have been several of these type of software applications whose companies have been sued out of existence.


----------



## wco81

tarheelblue32 said:


> I think you are correct that it isn't technically a copyright violation as it would still fall under the fair use doctrine. However, as you point out, cracking the encryption could be a DMCA violation, and any technology used to crack the encryption would probably be illegal under federal law. Also, it would be a violation of the terms of service of the streaming provider, and there actually has been some legal cases that have tried to interpret federal law in a way that would make a violation of IP terms of service a criminal act under telecommunications fraud statutes. It's still a very gray area.


But would your really be cracking the encryption?

The Netflix app. would be decrypting and playing the stream and something downstream of it would be capturing the stream.

Hell, it might be a video camera aimed at the screen.

Or it might be taking the component video outputs and connecting to an external device to record it. My Slingbox can play back HBO and Showtime recordings through component video connections. It can't capture them but there could be devices which could capture them.

It would be a clumsy setup. You'd probably have to start and stop recordings manually and it would be in real-time. But when you actually watched it later, you'd have the ability to skip or fast forward through commercials.

So technically, you would not be cracking the encryption.


----------



## tarheelblue32

wco81 said:


> But would your really be cracking the encryption?
> 
> The Netflix app. would be decrypting and playing the stream and something downstream of it would be capturing the stream.
> 
> Hell, it might be a video camera aimed at the screen.
> 
> Or it might be taking the component video outputs and connecting to an external device to record it. My Slingbox can play back HBO and Showtime recordings through component video connections. It can't capture them but there could be devices which could capture them.
> 
> It would be a clumsy setup. You'd probably have to start and stop recordings manually and it would be in real-time. But when you actually watched it later, you'd have the ability to skip or fast forward through commercials.
> 
> So technically, you would not be cracking the encryption.


If you can find a streaming device with component outputs, then yeah it might work. This is why content owners are fighting so hard to eliminate analog video outputs. The only streaming device I know of that has component outputs is a TiVo.

But you still have the terms of service problem. Now, whether or not they can prove you are violating the ToS is another matter, so from a practical standpoint that might not be a huge issue.


----------



## wco81

Well I'm taking the analog outputs from my Roamio. I don't have a Netflix subscription but I've watched Amazon Prime video on it.

And there is this capture device:

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

Of course, streaming boxes like Apple TV and Roku do not have component video outputs.


----------



## warrenn

Some Rokus do have HDMI and component out. I think the Roku XS had HDMI and component output.


----------



## DrewTivo

bicker said:


> Go ahead and try that in the SCOTUS. Even with today's 4-4 split I bet you'd lose.
> 
> A distinction without a difference - the end result is still that it is illegal.


1) We may see in a few years if the Dish/Hopper case gets there, or a few years after that. But as of now courts follow Sony, and the Aereo case doesn't seem to change that for in-home technology.

2) It's an important distinction, with possible practical implications. Technically it violates the DMCA to rip a copy-protected DVD (and presumably would for an encrypted television stream). Yet there's plenty of commercially available software that will allow you to rip DVDs. Wouldn't surprise me to see the same for IP television, although granted it won't be Tivo offering such services.


----------



## atmuscarella

JoeKustra said:


> Why does this thread sound familiar? http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=524569
> 
> I remember when it was about Rovi and TiVo and the effects.


Because some people like to take any opportunity they can to predict the death of traditional Pay TV, DVRs, & TiVo. Which results in others (like me) predicting their predictions aren't going to happen anytime soon.   Or it could be we are all bored.


----------



## JoeKustra

atmuscarella said:


> Because some people like to take any opportunity they can to predict the death of traditional Pay TV, DVRs, & TiVo. Which results in others (like me) predicting their predictions aren't going to happen anytime soon.   Or it could be we are all bored.


I'm on your team. It's always been easier to be negative. It's always nicer to be positive.


----------



## tarheelblue32

warrenn said:


> Some Rokus do have HDMI and component out. I think the Roku XS had HDMI and component output.


None of the modern Rokus have component outputs anymore. Same thing with modern bluray players. They are trying to kill off component to plug the "analog hole" to prevent people from doing the kinds of things we are talking about doing in this thread.


----------



## TonyD79

tarheelblue32 said:


> None of the modern Rokus have component outputs anymore. Same thing with modern bluray players. They are trying to kill off component to plug the "analog hole" to prevent people from doing the kinds of things we are talking about doing in this thread.


Yup. Roku 3 (at least) and up have only power, ethernet and HDMI ports. Roku 2 had an A/V port that required a breakout cable but it is not active at the same time as HDMI.


----------



## Series3Sub

DrewTivo said:


> 1) We may see in a few years if the Dish/Hopper case gets there, or a few years after that. But as of now courts follow Sony, and the Aereo case doesn't seem to change that for in-home technology.
> 
> 2) It's an important distinction, with possible practical implications. Technically it violates the DMCA to rip a copy-protected DVD (and presumably would for an encrypted television stream). Yet there's plenty of commercially available software that will allow you to rip DVDs. Wouldn't surprise me to see the same for IP television, although granted it won't be Tivo offering such services.


I would add that institutions dealing with disability issues are allowed to "crack" video content (meaning DVD's and Blu-rays) using copy protection under DMCA many years ago after on of those bi-yearly meetings to review and approve all sorts of exemptions for many reasons. I forget the board or whatever that reviews the DMCA and grants allowances to DMCA. I'm not sure if educational institutions have been granted the right to crack, but that would put them back to the rights they had BEFORE DMCA when educational institutions were allowed to freely make and distribute copies of _portions_ copyright books so long as they were using them for educational purpose at educational institution and cited the source and copyright year.

There have been a lot of exemptions grated over the years in regards to DMCA, but none really on the things that the content owners really care about which is the consumer being allowed to crack or circumvent copy protection outside of "Fair Use."


----------



## bicker

Wil said:


> Actually it pretty much does. Demand creates supply very effectively but it's harder to make it work the other way around.


Apple is proof that that is not true. The reality is that most of the American consumer economy hinges on the ability to create and manage demand.



Wil said:


> Time shifting is a well-established principle.


Only with regard to broadcast, not streaming.

Even if we don't like it.



Wil said:


> Take your vicarious enjoyment from this interim period while you can.


This much is true: Early adopters of streaming should capitalize on whatever advantage that they can derive now, because after this "interim period" things will return back to the steady state I referred to earlier.



wco81 said:


> Hell, it might be a video camera aimed at the screen.


No one is talking about pointing a video camera aimed at the screen. The matter is recording the video stream itself, not what it projects onto a television.



DrewTivo said:


> 1) We may see in a few years if the Dish/Hopper case gets there, or a few years after that.


Without intending to get political (and that's assured since what I have been projecting will happen conflicts directly with what I hope would happen), the election in November will likely effectively determine how that case will get resolved.


----------



## gonzotek

Series3Sub said:


> I would add that institutions dealing with disability issues are allowed to "crack" video content (meaning DVD's and Blu-rays) using copy protection under DMCA many years ago after on of those bi-yearly meetings to review and approve all sorts of exemptions for many reasons. *I forget the board or whatever that reviews the DMCA and grants allowances to DMCA*. I'm not sure if educational institutions have been granted the right to crack, but that would put them back to the rights they had BEFORE DMCA when educational institutions were allowed to freely make and distribute copies of _portions_ copyright books so long as they were using them for educational purpose at educational institution and cited the source and copyright year.
> 
> There have been a lot of exemptions grated over the years in regards to DMCA, but none really on the things that the content owners really care about which is the consumer being allowed to crack or circumvent copy protection outside of "Fair Use."


Library of Congress. Here's an article about the most recent review:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151027/10131232649/library-congress-releases-dmca-anti-circumvention-exemptions-hot-mess.shtml


----------



## DrewTivo

Series3Sub said:


> I would add that institutions dealing with disability issues are allowed to "crack" video content (meaning DVD's and Blu-rays) using copy protection under DMCA many years ago after on of those bi-yearly meetings to review and approve all sorts of exemptions for many reasons. I forget the board or whatever that reviews the DMCA and grants allowances to DMCA. I'm not sure if educational institutions have been granted the right to crack, but that would put them back to the rights they had BEFORE DMCA when educational institutions were allowed to freely make and distribute copies of _portions_ copyright books so long as they were using them for educational purpose at educational institution and cited the source and copyright year.
> 
> There have been a lot of exemptions grated over the years in regards to DMCA, but none really on the things that the content owners really care about which is the consumer being allowed to crack or circumvent copy protection outside of "Fair Use."


I believe the US copyright office has this authority, but the exemptions are typically narrow. They stirred up a lot of controversy when they created an exemption (or perhaps just issued an opinion) that people could unlock their cell phones (so they're not tied to one carrier). Ultimately Congress passed a law giving people that right.

I imagine any exemption for personal recording would be extremely controversial, so unlikely to be granted. But one never knows.


----------



## L David Matheny

bicker said:


> This much is true: Early adopters of streaming should capitalize on whatever advantage that they can derive now, because after this "interim period" things will return back to the steady state I referred to earlier.


I'm not really much of an optimist, but I would hate to think that the "steady state" always has to involve the big guys screwing the little people. Money has too much influence in our political system, but legislators can sometimes do the right thing. And when they don't, the people can sometimes wake up and elect better legislators. But I must admit that the U.S. electorate's sense of smell doesn't seem to be working very well lately.


----------



## bicker

L David Matheny said:


> I'm not really much of an optimist, but I would hate to think that the "steady state" always has to involve the big guys screwing the little people.


It was for hundreds (thousands?) of years prior to Spinoza's time. Over the three and a half centuries since, it's been uneven and inconsistent, but the overall general trend has been toward less of that sort of thing. Within the United States, we're in a period of regression, which started roughly thirty to forty years ago. Is it ending? Who knows? But what we do know is that year to year we can make changes that will push the trend one way or the other.



L David Matheny said:


> Money has too much influence in our political system, but legislators can sometimes do the right thing.


Generally, legislators that do the right thing pretty much always do the right thing, with regard to specific aspects of society. So what you're saying here is that sometimes legislatures have a majority of people who (in this case) favor consumers, and sometimes legislatures have a majority of people who (again, in this case) favor businesses.



L David Matheny said:


> But I must admit that the U.S. electorate's sense of smell doesn't seem to be working very well lately.


We all have another shot at doing the right thing, whatever we think that may be, in November.

And remember: What I've been saying is how things are, and very clearly, not necessarily how I want things to be.


----------



## atmuscarella

It all comes down to how much people are willing to pay for entertainment and information (news). It wasn't very long ago that we were not willing to pay much for either. Go back 50 years and most people didn't pay for TV and commercials where only 8 minutes out of 60. Additional news was via a low cost newspaper again mostly paid for via adds, live entertainment (sporting events and concerts) were also much lower cost. 

Then these industries successfully got people to pay more and more, Pay TV became a thing, commercials expanded to 18 minutes out of 60, and the cost of live events has increased significantly. With the result being lots of people in the entertainment business became very rich. 

At the same time the working middle class has seen their relative wages stagnate or even drop. So the question becomes does the working middle class and the poor continue to pay what they have or do they look for lower cost alternatives to help maintain their standards of living? And even for those in the professorial working class or above who can easily afford it, will they continue to see enough value to also continue to pay? 

This is what people who keep wishing for or predicting the end of cable are really talking about. They are really asking for the collapse of the current pricing structure for the cost of entertainment. They think the Netflix model can do that, accept that the Netflix model requires the current system to pay for the bulk of the content just like it always has. 

My belief is that the vast majority of people will continue to pay the price that entertainment costs, regardless of where tech goes when it comes to how that entertainment is delivered to our homes. And that those of us who are unwilling to pay will remain a niche group. Which is the only way low cost options (OTA via DVRs, commercial free smorgasbord streaming services, etc.) can exist, so those of us who use them as an alternative to the current higher cost Pay TV systems should be happy that most people don't do what we do. 

If I am wrong and the majority of the people stop paying as much for entertainment as they do now, I am not sure what would happen with the development and production of new entertainment. Would everyone involved be willing to work for significantly less? Or would the amount of new content being produced significantly decline?


----------



## tarheelblue32

atmuscarella said:


> If I am wrong and the majority of the people stop paying as much for entertainment as they do now, I am not sure what would happen with the development and production of new entertainment. Would everyone involved be willing to work for significantly less? Or would the amount of new content being produced significantly decline?


Probably both. What else will everyone in the entertainment industry do besides work in the entertainment industry for less? It's not like they have a lot of other options. And the number of scripted TV shows and TV channels has gotten way too high to be sustainable. There is going to have to be some kind of contraction.


----------



## atmuscarella

bicker said:


> Generally, legislators that do the right thing pretty much always do the right thing, with regard to specific aspects of society. So what you're saying here is that sometimes legislatures have a majority of people who (in this case) favor consumers, and sometimes legislatures have a majority of people who (again, in this case) favor businesses.


Ya the "right thing" is different depending on who is defining it. However legislatures pretty much say what the majority of the people voting in their districts want to hear and then most of the time they do what the people providing the money tell them to do. Which of course is possible because so many people don't vote and/or don't spend any time trying to understand how differing legislative policies would actually work or affect them.



bicker said:


> We all have another shot at doing the right thing, whatever we think that may be, in November.
> 
> And remember: What I've been saying is how things are, and very clearly, not necessarily how I want things to be.


Absolutely agree we all need to vote (even the people who vote for the wrong person )


----------



## atmuscarella

L David Matheny said:


> I'm not really much of an optimist, but I would hate to think that the "steady state" always has to involve the big guys screwing the little people. Money has too much influence in our political system, but legislators can sometimes do the right thing. And when they don't, the people can sometimes wake up and elect better legislators. But I must admit that the U.S. electorate's sense of smell doesn't seem to be working very well lately.


Beyond a persons individual circumstances I think allot of people have a feeling/belief that something isn't working the way is should with our economy and/or Government. I am not talking about the people on the fair left or right who always think everything is a mess. I am talking about the vast majority of people who are center right or left.

I think most people understand that Democracy is messy by its nature. But for Democracy to work people have to participate and there has to be to be away to get reliable data, to make decisions with. We have way to many people who don't vote or pay attention to what is going on and way to many people seem to think facts are something to make up to support their position.

As a result we seem to have a growing number of people not on the far right or left being driven by fear and uncertainty who are no longer concerned with facts & have decided that Democracy is too messy and part of the problem. They seem to want authoritarian solutions to problems they cannot even seem to clearly identify.


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## tarheelblue32

atmuscarella said:


> Beyond a persons individual circumstances I think allot of people have a feeling/belief that something isn't working the way is should with our economy and/or Government. I am not talking about the people on the fair left or right who always think everything is a mess. I am talking about the vast majority of people who are center right or left.
> 
> I think most people understand that Democracy is messy by its nature. But for Democracy to work people have to participate and there has to be to be away to get reliable data, to make decisions with. We have way to many people who don't vote or pay attention to what is going on and way to many people seem to think facts are something to make up to support their position.
> 
> As a result we seem to have a growing number of people not on the far right or left being driven by fear and uncertainty who are no longer concerned with facts & have decided that Democracy is too messy and part of the problem. They seem to want authoritarian solutions to problems they cannot even seem to clearly identify.


Democracy does not work everywhere. It has been tried and failed in a number of places. All you have to do is look around the world for proof of this. In general, democracy works best in homogenous, high-IQ societies and works worst in heterogenous, low-IQ societies. So democracy worked well when introduced to Japan and South Korea because they were high-IQ and relatively homogenous, and it works terribly (if at all) in places like Iraq with relatively low average IQ and disparate factions.

America has been becoming less homogenous culturally, racially, ethnically, religiously, and ideologically for decades. The average IQ has also been dropping for decades. These two trends will most likely continue into the foreseeable future, which will likely destabilize democracy in the country. We're already seeing the early signs of this happening. And I think many people intuitively understand that this is happening. Just look at all the dystopian future books, movies, and TV shows in popular culture today.


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## slowbiscuit

atmuscarella said:


> Ya the "right thing" is different depending on who is defining it. However legislatures pretty much say what the majority of the people voting in their districts want to hear and then most of the time they do what the people providing the money tell them to do. Which of course is possible because so many people don't vote and/or don't spend any time trying to understand how differing legislative policies would actually work or affect them.


And of course those districts are drawn in such a way that the most extreme views tend to dominate, instead of being balanced according to population and not gerrymandering. What we see has all been planned, over and over through the years. Doesn't matter what side you're on.


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## foghorn2

You are all wrong though, there is no Left, there's 2 factions in power, the Demos that are Right of Center which pushed the Repubes to the far Right.

2 front ruuners that the majority hates are the chosen presented to us by the media, if you can call it a choice.

The fact that a so called liberal democrat forced fed, mandated, overpriced insurance and the conservatives that want to even go backwards on that proves this point.

We did not get healh care for all, we got ripoff insurance for all. And the liberals are so stupid they fell for it and thinks its the soulution and all will be well and we all now have healhcare.

Stupid fools...blind!!


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## ajwees41

Johncv said:


> Which now means, now that TiVo has money to back them TiVo will now try to convince (bribe) AT&T, Dish, Cox, Comcast, etc. to now use TiVo.


cox already uses them for the non whole home dvr ipgs Cox has used them since it was pioneer/aptiv macrovison


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## Dan203

tarheelblue32 said:


> The only streaming device I know of that has component outputs is a TiVo.


The Bolt is HDMI only and the Roamio Basic/OTA only has composite (SD) output. So the days of devices having HD component video output are basically over.

That being said there are devices out there that can strip HDCP from HDMI and allow you to capture, so realtime capture is still possible. (even HDCP 2.2 for 4k)


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## tarheelblue32

Dan203 said:


> That being said there are devices out there that can strip HDCP from HDMI and allow you to capture, so realtime capture is still possible. (even HDCP 2.2 for 4k)


True, but then you're right back at the same DMCA issues.

HDCP 2.2 has already been cracked?


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## atmuscarella

slowbiscuit said:


> And of course those districts are drawn in such a way that the most extreme views tend to dominate, instead of being balanced according to population and not gerrymandering. What we see has all been planned, over and over through the years. Doesn't matter what side you're on.


Yes gerrymandering amounts to nothing more than legal ballot stuffing. In fact it maybe worse than outright fraud as I am sure it causes many people to drop out of the process all together. Any politician that claims they support Democracy should be actively fighting to make it illegal.


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## DevdogAZ

atmuscarella said:


> Yes gerrymandering amounts to nothing more than legal *ballet stuffing*. In fact it maybe worse than outright fraud as I am sure it causes many people to drop out of the process all together. Any politician that claims they support Democracy should be actively fighting to make it illegal.


Ballet stuffing? Like this:


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## Dan203

tarheelblue32 said:


> HDCP 2.2 has already been cracked?


Apparently. Someone pointed it out to me in another thread where I was assuming that HDCP 2.2 was uncrackable and would be the new standard for locking down content. Nope! Already cracked with stripper devices already available.


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## tarheelblue32

atmuscarella said:


> Yes gerrymandering amounts to nothing more than legal ballet stuffing. In fact it maybe worse than outright fraud as I am sure it causes many people to drop out of the process all together. Any politician that claims they support Democracy should be actively fighting to make it illegal.


No, it's not worse than actual voter fraud, but it certainly is a problem. However, I'm not sure there really is an equitable way to draw district lines. No matter how you draw them, they will always benefit one side over another.


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## Dan203

atmuscarella said:


> Yes gerrymandering amounts to nothing more than legal ballet stuffing. In fact it maybe worse than outright fraud as I am sure it causes many people to drop out of the process all together. Any politician that claims they support Democracy should be actively fighting to make it illegal.


There are a couple of states which have impartial commissions (non-politicians) who draw the district lines rather then the legislator. There is also a movement to pass a law at the federal level to force all states to adopt the same system.


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## tarheelblue32

Dan203 said:


> Apparently. Someone pointed it out to me in another thread where I was assuming that HDCP 2.2 was uncrackable and would be the new standard for locking down content. Nope! Already cracked with stripper devices already available.


I guess they will start working on HDCP 3.0


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## Dan203

tarheelblue32 said:


> No, it's not worse than actual voter fraud, but it certainly is a problem. However, I'm not sure there really is an equitable way to draw district lines. No matter how you draw them, they will always benefit one side over another.


Who they benefit shouldn't even be a consideration. They should draw them based on population and major dividing boundries like rivers, highways, etc... Having district lines that look like a partially finished jigsaw puzzle so that you can make it red or blue is not the way to go.


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## tatergator1

DevdogAZ said:


> Ballet stuffing? Like this:


[As Rainier Wolfecastle] "My Eyes......"


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## smark

atmuscarella said:


> It all comes down to how much people are willing to pay for entertainment and information (news). It wasn't very long ago that we were not willing to pay much for either. Go back 50 years and most people didn't pay for TV and commercials where only 8 minutes out of 60. Additional news was via a low cost newspaper again mostly paid for via adds, live entertainment (sporting events and concerts) were also much lower cost.
> 
> Then these industries successfully got people to pay more and more, Pay TV became a thing, commercials expanded to 18 minutes out of 60, and the cost of live events has increased significantly. With the result being lots of people in the entertainment business became very rich.
> 
> At the same time the working middle class has seen their relative wages stagnate or even drop. So the question becomes does the working middle class and the poor continue to pay what they have or do they look for lower cost alternatives to help maintain their standards of living? And even for those in the professorial working class or above who can easily afford it, will they continue to see enough value to also continue to pay?
> 
> This is what people who keep wishing for or predicting the end of cable are really talking about. They are really asking for the collapse of the current pricing structure for the cost of entertainment. They think the Netflix model can do that, accept that the Netflix model requires the current system to pay for the bulk of the content just like it always has.
> 
> My belief is that the vast majority of people will continue to pay the price that entertainment costs, regardless of where tech goes when it comes to how that entertainment is delivered to our homes. And that those of us who are unwilling to pay will remain a niche group. Which is the only way low cost options (OTA via DVRs, commercial free smorgasbord streaming services, etc.) can exist, so those of us who use them as an alternative to the current higher cost Pay TV systems should be happy that most people don't do what we do.
> 
> If I am wrong and the majority of the people stop paying as much for entertainment as they do now, I am not sure what would happen with the development and production of new entertainment. Would everyone involved be willing to work for significantly less? Or would the amount of new content being produced significantly decline?


Too bad people don't understand that Netflix just wants to be HBO. Those "channels" that produce original content will be ~$10 per and thus you'll end up paying $50 a month for the fragmented shows.


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## NashGuy

tatergator1 said:


> [As Rainier Wolfecastle] "My Eyes......"


Ha! Reminds me of that scene in the movie Top Secret!


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## bicker

tarheelblue32 said:


> Probably both. What else will everyone in the entertainment industry do besides work in the entertainment industry for less? It's not like they have a lot of other options. And the number of scripted TV shows and TV channels has gotten way too high to be sustainable. There is going to have to be some kind of contraction.


The "give" in the system (with regard to the costs) is not entertainment workers but rather matters that affect production quality. Cheaper sound equipment, cheaper video editing equipment, less qualified staff doing behind the scenes work, with the more qualified people grabbed up by industry to do commercials or internal training videos.

However, again, I think the real "give" in the system is not on the costs side but on the service side: Advertising overlays during the programming, itself, is the last refuge for revenue protection, and the talent who tries to interfere with it contractually will eventually find that their star power isn't enough to overcome the pressure for-profit businesses face to show revenue growth quarter after quarter.



atmuscarella said:


> Ya the "right thing" is different depending on who is defining it. However legislatures pretty much say what the majority of the people voting in their districts want to hear and then most of the time they do what the people providing the money tell them to do.


That's demonstrably untrue, as there is very clear evidence of the impact of big money on governance.



atmuscarella said:


> They seem to want authoritarian solutions to problems they cannot even seem to clearly identify.


Ignore the biased comments regarding Trump... but check out the portions of this relevant article relaying Plato's perspective on democracy versus authoritarianism: 

> This rainbow-flag polity, Plato argues, is, for many people, the fairest of regimes. The freedom in that democracy has to be experienced to be believed  with shame and privilege in particular emerging over time as anathema. But it is inherently unstable.


http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html​


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## atmuscarella

tarheelblue32 said:


> No, it's not worse than actual voter fraud, but it certainly is a problem. However, I'm not sure there really is an equitable way to draw district lines. No matter how you draw them, they will always benefit one side over another.


Yes no matter how you draw lines every district provides one side or the other with more potential voters. That isn't gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is when one side puts as many voters on the other side into a district as possible buy sending the lines through uninhabited places (like down the center of an interstate) and to capture communities that are not geographically next to each other. That will give the other side a few districts they can not loose in but create many more where your side has enough of an advantage so they are easily winnable.

Both sides have done this. When you see a state where one side wins a significant high portion of the congressional districts than the over all vote it is very likely a result of gerrymandering. Ohio is a good current example of this. At the time of the last redistricting the Republicans where in complete control of the process. With the result being they won 55% of the vote in the last election but got 75% of the districts.


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## tarheelblue32

atmuscarella said:


> Yes no matter how you draw lines every district provides one side or the other with more potential voters. That isn't gerrymandering.
> 
> Gerrymandering is when one side puts as many voters on the other side into a district as possible buy sending the lines through uninhabited places (like down the center of an interstate) and to capture communities that are not geographically next to each other. That will give the other side a few districts they can not loose in but create many more where your side has enough of an advantage so they are easily winnable.
> 
> Both sides have done this. When you see a state where one side wins a significant high portion of the congressional districts than the over all vote it is very likely a result of gerrymandering. Ohio is a good current example of this. At the time of the last redistricting the Republicans where in complete control of the process. With the result being they won 55% of the vote in the last election but got 75% of the districts.


Okay so I'll use my state as an example. Prior to the Voting Rights Act, the state legislature was drawing districts to distribute black voters across multiple districts to dilute their voting power. Then the courts said you can't do that, so they started drawing minority majority districts to concentrate black votes in certain districts. Then the courts said you can't do that because by concentrating black voters within certain districts, you dilute their voting power in other districts. So the legislature said "okay, we will draw the districts and not even take race into consideration. But the black advocacy groups sued again saying by doing that you are diluting black voting power too much because now blacks are too spread out across districts, diluting their voting power once again.

So, the courts and black advocacy groups want it so that you are forced to maximize black voting power by not concentrating them too much into districts but also by not diluting them too much across multiple districts. But if you are forcing the maximization of black voting power, by definition you are also forcing the minimization of white voting power. So you are advantaging one racial group over another. This is no more inherently fair than when whites were oppressing blacks pre-1970s.


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## JoeKustra

You kids do know there is a political forum, right?


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## atmuscarella

tarheelblue32 said:


> Okay so I'll use my state as an example. Prior to the Voting Rights Act, the state legislature was drawing districts to distribute black voters across multiple districts to dilute their voting power. Then the courts said you can't do that, so they started drawing minority majority districts to concentrate black votes in certain districts. Then the courts said you can't do that because by concentrating black voters within certain districts, you dilute their voting power in other districts. So, the courts and black advocacy groups want it so that you are forced to maximize black voting power by not concentrating them too much into districts but also by not diluting them too much across multiple districts. But if you are forcing the maximization of black voting power, by definition you are also forcing the minimization of white voting power. So you are advantaging one racial group over another. This is no more inherently fair than when whites were oppressing blacks pre-1970s.


Right when ever you create geographically unnatural districts you are gerrymandering. I don't agree with it for any reason. Districts should be setup geographically without concern for who the people are in them.


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## tarheelblue32

atmuscarella said:


> Right when ever you create geographically unnatural districts you are gerrymandering. I don't agree with it for any reason. Districts should be setup geographically without concern for who the people are in them.


And the black advocacy groups have sued again on districts purely based on geography, compactness, limiting the breaking of county lines, and that don't take race into account at all. The courts haven't ruled yet on whether my state legislature ignoring race altogether to draw district lines is permissible. Stay tuned.


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## atmuscarella

bicker said:


> ...
> 
> 
> atmuscarella said:
> 
> 
> 
> Ya the "right thing" is different depending on who is defining it. However legislatures pretty much say what the majority of the people voting in their districts want to hear and then most of the time they do what the people providing the money tell them to do.
> 
> 
> 
> That's demonstrably untrue, as there is very clear evidence of the impact of big money on governance.
> ...
Click to expand...

What are you saying? That what big money donors want does or doesn't affect the way politicians vote on issues? My view is it does, in fact they out right create legislation they want and provide it directly to politicians via their lobbing efforts.


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## DevdogAZ

JoeKustra said:


> You kids do know there is a political forum, right?


This. Let's keep this thread about TiVo/Rovi and shift the political talk to the politics subforum of Happy Hour. Otherwise, we risk getting this thread locked.


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## atmuscarella

smark said:


> Too bad people don't understand that Netflix just wants to be HBO. Those "channels" that produce original content will be ~$10 per and thus you'll end up paying $50 a month for the fragmented shows.


Actually that is the way I have always look at Netflix and why I call it a cable add on not a cable replacement. It is another channel, it just doesn't broadcast linearly everything is VoD and doesn't require a cable sub. Funny with HBO Go it looks like HBO decided they wanted to be Netflix .


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## JoeKustra

DevdogAZ said:


> This. Let's keep this thread about TiVo/Rovi and shift the political talk to the politics subforum of Happy Hour. Otherwise, we risk getting this thread locked.


That would be the humane thing to do.


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## foghorn2

Nah, speak your minds! This is getting fun, thats why this board is so much better than other boards.


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## foghorn2

tarheelblue32 said:


> Okay so I'll use my state as an example. Prior to the Voting Rights Act, the state legislature was drawing districts to distribute black voters across multiple districts to dilute their voting power. Then the courts said you can't do that, so they started drawing minority majority districts to concentrate black votes in certain districts. Then the courts said you can't do that because by concentrating black voters within certain districts, you dilute their voting power in other districts. So the legislature said "okay, we will draw the districts and not even take race into consideration. But the black advocacy groups sued again saying by doing that you are diluting black voting power too much because now blacks are too spread out across districts, diluting their voting power once again.
> 
> So, the courts and black advocacy groups want it so that you are forced to maximize black voting power by not concentrating them too much into districts but also by not diluting them too much across multiple districts. But if you are forcing the maximization of black voting power, by definition you are also forcing the minimization of white voting power. So you are advantaging one racial group over another. This is no more inherently fair than when whites were oppressing blacks pre-1970s.


Much like the Black Leaders (Democrats) did not like Sanders free public tuition for all because it will hurt the Black Colleges. Hypocrites.

What about the non- blacks that dont have their own colleges?
When I heard ClayBarn  say that -That's the day I stopped supporting Democraps.

Back to TIVOR-ROVIT

By now we should have seen some olive branch comments from them, but why are they all so quiet?


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## JoeKustra

foghorn2 said:


> By now we should have seen some olive branch comments from them, but why are they all so quiet?


Probably busy with the real money makers: lawyers. There was an SEC filing today. Nothing we didn't already know.


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## bicker

atmuscarella said:


> What are you saying? That what big money donors want does or doesn't affect the way politicians vote on issues? My view is it does, in fact they out right create legislation they want and provide it directly to politicians via their lobbing efforts.


What I meant was that legislatures do not necessarily do what the majority of the people voting in their districts want them to. But as pointed out, this discussion is not really relevant in this forum.


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## DevdogAZ

foghorn2 said:


> Nah, speak your minds! This is getting fun, thats why this board is so much better than other boards.




Are you not aware of this forum's rules prohibiting political discussion?


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## schatham

DevdogAZ said:


> This. Let's keep this thread about TiVo/Rovi and shift the political talk to the politics subforum of Happy Hour. Otherwise, we risk getting this thread locked.


This!


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## Dan203

Yeah there is a whole forum dedicated to political discussion, lets keep the redistricting talk over there please.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=77


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## mangochutney

schatham said:


> This!


That and the other.


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## wheadley

tarheelblue32 said:


> And the black advocacy groups have sued again on districts purely based on geography, compactness, limiting the breaking of county lines, and that don't take race into account at all. The courts haven't ruled yet on whether my state legislature ignoring race altogether to draw district lines is permissible. Stay tuned.


Really, you think black voters have undue political power in the USA?

The facts do not support your theory. As a group they are far poorer, have far less representation in Congress as a percentage than their actual population. They have far less household wealth than caucasian families. They have not scored any major policy victories in nearly half a century- in fact the voting rights act was recently allowed to expire and the SCOTUS has gutted voter protections while disenfranchisement schemes have been widely reported across the country since.

There is no evidence the courts are on their side or have a black issues bias. None. There is mountains of socio-economic data that clearly shows that, as a group, they are substantially worse off today than they were ten years ago-- household wealth, life-span, economic mobility-- ALL DOWN.

The truth is that all groups not in the top few percent have lost ground over the last 40+ years. That's in the hard data and long-term trends.

QED.


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## tarheelblue32

wheadley said:


> Really, you think black voters have undue political power in the USA?
> 
> The facts do not support your theory. As a group they are far poorer, have far less representation in Congress as a percentage than their actual population. They have far less household wealth than caucasian families. They have not scored any major policy victories in nearly half a century- in fact the voting rights act was recently allowed to expire and the SCOTUS has gutted voter protections while disenfranchisement schemes have been widely reported across the country since.
> 
> There is no evidence the courts are on their side or have a black issues bias. None. There is mountains of socio-economic data that clearly shows that, as a group, they are substantially worse off today than they were ten years ago-- household wealth, life-span, economic mobility-- ALL DOWN.
> 
> The truth is that all groups not in the top few percent have lost ground over the last 40+ years. That's in the hard data and long-term trends.
> 
> QED.


The fact that blacks have worse socio-economic outcomes on average than whites does not prove a lack of political power. Asians have better socio-economic outcomes on average than whites. Does that prove that Asians have a disproportionate amount of political power?

I'd say blacks are doing very well in terms of their political power in the U.S. considering they are 14% of the population yet have managed to get racial preferences built into the economic system for their benefit. Racial preferences in college admissions and employment are a huge socio-economic advantage.

Oh yeah, and we have a black president, the most powerful political position in the country.


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## rtoledo

Skybolt said:


> I can't f'n believe this! I just switched from WMC to Tivo because of Rovi. Just bought a Romeo Pro HD and 5 Mini's last month too. I guess there worthless at this point if this does happen ... Let's just hope if it does that the Tivo portion of the merge stays status quot. ...


Laughing with you not at you, I just bought 2 bolts and 2 minis , as I switch to Frontier from Fios , and going thru HELL right now trying to get 2 new Cable Cards. and now I read these boxes could be obsolete in 3 years , really sad

I'm really happy with the Tivos and one pass for a lot of content at Netflix and Amazon.

Guess I'll stay tuned as we continue to speculate and talk about soda versus coke


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## foghorn2

tarheelblue32 said:


> The fact that blacks have worse socio-economic outcomes on average than whites does not prove a lack of political power. Asians have better socio-economic outcomes on average than whites. Does that prove that Asians have a disproportionate amount of political power?
> 
> I'd say blacks are doing very well in terms of their political power in the U.S. considering they are 14% of the population yet have managed to get racial preferences built into the economic system for their benefit. Racial preferences in college admissions and employment are a huge socio-economic advantage.
> 
> Oh yeah, and we have a black president, the most powerful political position in the country.


Asians have better tasting food too.

esp
Chicken Fried Lice
Curry Chicken

We need Asian in the White House, plenty to choose from in Silicon Valley


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## Wil

foghorn2 said:


> Asians have better tasting food too.
> 
> esp
> Chicken Fried Lice
> Curry Chicken
> 
> We need Asian in the White House, plenty to choose from in Silicon Valley


But old white American men have us some Trump now, and we're going to start winning!


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## nrc

Dan203 said:


> Yeah there is a whole forum dedicated to political discussion, lets keep the redistricting talk over there please.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=77


As usual, people who talk politics never listen.


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## ej42137

nrc said:


> As usual, people who talk politics never listen.


If this were Reddit, I'd send you gold!


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## bareyb

Yeah. just read my email notifications and thought maybe you guys had gotten lost. I'm like what the???? How the hell did Trump get into this discussion too? I get enough of him on CNN.


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## lessd

bareyb said:


> Yeah. just read my email notifications and thought maybe you guys had gotten lost. I'm like what the???? How the hell did Trump get into this discussion too? I get enough of him on CNN.


Try FOX


----------

