# Tivo to separate into two companies



## alarson83 (Oct 27, 2009)

TiVo Plans to Separate into Two Independent Companies

Product and IP licensing to split.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Well, interesting ... but I just don't get why it's better for the two business components to be separated. The rationales given in the linked document just seem like wishful thinking corporate speak to me. I would like to see specific examples of the touted advantages.

I don't see any objection or disadvantages to the separation. It just seems the two business components should be able to function equally well whether separate or together -- with good management, so why bother separating them? Is there some obvious way that separating them will result in better management of both?


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

There can be legal reasons to separate out a company's IP to a related company--the owning entity can be situated in a low-tax country (think Ireland or Caribbean countries), and I imagine that an IP license fee that may have to be paid to the owning company would be charged as a company operational expense, thereby lowering profits and taxes. But I have no idea if that forms any part of the considerations here, and I also wonder about it as @dlfl discusses.

Happenings like that here seem not uncommonly to be employed in the business world, and I always wonder about the cost efficiency and benefits.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

I was hoping they were just going to undo the Rovi merger...


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## lafos (Nov 8, 2004)

The article reads as R&D stays on the product side, such that IP filings would stay there until issue, at which point it would be transferred to the licensing business? Sounds like a solution the lawyers will love.


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

I thought this sounded familiar.. from two months ago..
TiVo prepares to split its business into two as it pursues sale - TechCrunch


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

Current management is wild about one side of the business and sees the other side as a boat anchor. Once they split, the side they were wild about will wither and die and the boat anchor will keep plugging along, not growing much, but not dying either. (At least that's the way it usually works).


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

My thought is that the IP licensing side is a risky bet right now because of uncertainty about how the ongoing patent lawsuits will go against Comcast, plus the possibility (?) that certain longstanding key TiVo patents may be expiring soon. Hard to assign a market value to the TiVo patent library right now given the near-term uncertainty. So it makes sense that TiVo is seeking to separate that part of the business out into a separate entity. (Well, actually, it's the other way around: they're going to spin off the product side into a new separate company.)

Meanwhile, the product side stands alone as more of a normal business offering various platform solutions for small-to-medium-sized MVPDs.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

Product revenues were down 22% over prior year/same reporting period. The had a good quarter but still have a ways to go.

The good news (to me at least) is that the product business may well have a sudden spurt of innovation and leadership changes that could lead to the type of quality products we're accustomed to buying from Tivo. They haven't been able to sell the product business so now the name of the game will be to isolate it from the core Rovi business - presumably sans the Tivo IP portfolio - and hope to install leadership that can get that product business whipped into a viable business that can be sold off.


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## hapster85 (Sep 7, 2016)

'By splitting the company into two, TiVo may be able to "facilitate strategic transactions," with interested parties, [CEO] Rau said.' Translation: We can't make our current business model perform the way we think it should, so we're going to cannibalize it and see what happens. In two years time, they'll either be saying the same thing about why it's a good idea to merge the two previously separated companies, or they'll be filling for bankruptcy. Or both.

Yeah, I'm pretty cynical about it, but it's hard not to be, when all they can do is spout buzzwords.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

Just listened to the entire earnings call. I'd love to know what others think about this call if you listened in. My take aways:

1. They could not sell either business unit. Now they are trying to "maximize" shareholder value by splitting them and seeing if they can sell one or both that way.
2. The product business cannot compete with cheap IPTV hardware, hence their "excitement" about TE4 and the platform being able to attach to the ginormous install bases of Apple, Roku, etc.
3. The Rovi and Tivo patents remain with IP company. The NOL (net operating losses) of $1B also will remain with the IP (parent) company. 
4. Guidance provided upward of $85m in losses next quarter.
5. No significant uplift in customers converting from TE3 to TE4 (no increase in ARPU - annual revenue per user). However, they claim that TE4 positions their customers to increase ARPU.

The call was worth the listen and had some good questions. Lots of spin (like most earnings calls) but I found it revealing. I encourage all to have a listen though.

As a long time customer I'm excited about the prospects of a spinoff. However, there are so many questions unanswered and to me it is hard not to be cynical. Will the Tivo brand remain with the IP company or go with products? Without that brand, the product business is stillborn IMO. Who will run the product business? Who will build products for the spinoff business? Does the software that runs on Apple, Roku, etc. go with the product business and considered a "product" or will that remain with the IP business?


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

exdishguy said:


> Just listened to the entire earnings call. I'd love to know what others think about this call if you listened in. My take aways:
> 
> 1. They could not sell either business unit. Now they are trying to "maximize" shareholder value by splitting them and seeing if they can sell one or both that way.
> 2. The product business cannot compete with cheap IPTV hardware, hence their "excitement" about TE4 and the platform being able to attach to the ginormous install bases of Apple, Roku, etc.
> ...


Not that I know that I would use it  , but is there a link for the earnings call, and how long is the call?

I'm a bit confused by what the 2 business units are. Are they the old TiVo on the one hand minus its IP rights, and the old Rovi on the other hand with the old TiVo's IP? The linked written announcement above (in the first post) seems to indicate that. Where does the Rovi programming work go--I guess that is part of the product/service line. (Sorry for my confusion and answering of my own questions--it's starting to sink in (kind of).)

What is the endgame here (apart from, making $)? To sell one or both business units? And then, if successful, what is the "remaining" TiVo, apart from a holder of $ and whatever is leftover? And what, then, was the purpose of Rovi's purchase of TiVo 3 years ago? Was it a genuine intent to continue the old TiVo forward that just hasn't worked (or worked as well) as desired; was it an intent just to acquire IP rights for future exploitation; ? (including, did Rovi know what it was doing)? The concern is that this becomes a Microsoft-like acquisition where a beloved acquired company goes to waste.

The written announcement sounds a bit different from the earnings call. The former doesn't mention an intent to sell one or both of the business lines (or, at least, an emphasis on that). Rather, to me, much of the written announcement makes it sound as if the product half of the company and the IP half of the company sometimes have been at odds--i.e., it's hard to sell your product and services to someone whom you're simultaneously threatening to sue and force into a license.*

* edit: And/or, current TiVo management (composed mostly of the old Rovi) doesn't know how to work both halves of the business.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

With IPTV (apparently) being so cheap it seems it would put TiVo compatible systems at a disadvantage. One more notch in the coffin? 

I love TiVo. If nothing better comes along I don't know what I would do if TiVo dvrs went away.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

exdishguy said:


> As a long time customer I'm excited about the prospects of a spinoff. However, there are so many questions unanswered and to me it is hard not to be cynical. Will the Tivo brand remain with the IP company or go with products? Without that brand, the product business is stillborn IMO.


It's likely that both companies will still be able to use the TiVo brand. Just like how when Rolls-Royce split up the aerospace and automobile divisions into separate companies, each company continued to be able to use the Rolls-Royce branding. Or how when Time Warner Cable was spun off into a separate company from Time Warner, they both continued to use the "Time Warner" branding. If the whole point of this is to maximize shareholder value as they say, then you would want both companies to be able to still use the valuable TiVo brand after the divorce.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

waynomo said:


> With IPTV (apparently) being so cheap it seems it would put TiVo compatible systems at a disadvantage. One more notch in the coffin?


TiVo has always been a niche product. Most of my life, a TiVo with Lifetime has been about $850. I paid $200 for my last two. I just bought a Recast and five 4K Fire TV Sticks for $380. I like the Amazon option better. TiVo was magic, but expensive for a long time. Now it's just expensive. They will sell the IP and exit the hardware business -- maybe putting the name and logo on some inexpensive android device.


waynomo said:


> I love TiVo. If nothing better comes along I don't know what I would do if TiVo dvrs want away.


I felt this way about the DTVPal. The DVR+ came along. When the DVR+ was discontinued, I moved on to TiVo. All of these look a little dated when compared to Amazon's product. You'll be fine.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

wizwor said:


> I felt this way about the DTVPal. The DVR+ came along. When the DVR+ was discontinued, I moved on to TiVo. All of these look a little dated when compared to Amazon's product. You'll be fine.


You're doing OTA:


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## Darrell Patton (Jul 19, 2018)

alarson83 said:


> TiVo Plans to Separate into Two Independent Companies
> 
> Product and IP licensing to split.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

Mikeguy said:


> Not that I know that I would use it  , but is there a link for the earnings call, and how long is the call?
> 
> I'm a bit confused by what the 2 business units are. Are they the old TiVo on the one hand minus its IP rights, and the old Rovi on the other hand with the old TiVo's IP? The linked written announcement above (in the first post) seems to indicate that. Where does the Rovi programming work go--I guess that is part of the product/service line. (Sorry for my confusion and answering of my own questions--it's starting to sink in (kind of).)
> 
> ...


https://edge.media-server.com/m6/p/77xvqmp5

Listen carefully to the questions at the end from investors. In reviewing again, I think "core products" are the software and hardware business components. The IP are the patents/patents pending that they license. Still unclear who owns certain IP developed as software features are created by newco product business? If the product business will have to license the same IP any other company would from the Tivo IP company then it will be a box-business trying to compete with Apple and Roku but will no longer have control over their own destiny. I can't see that ending well.

Lots and lots of questions. I'm hoping for a fun ride that ends with my Tivo boxes all still being useful for life.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

tarheelblue32 said:


> It's likely that both companies will still be able to use the TiVo brand. Just like how when Rolls-Royce split up the aerospace and automobile divisions into separate companies, each company continued to be able to use the Rolls-Royce branding. Or how when Time Warner Cable was spun off into a separate company from Time Warner, they both continued to use the "Time Warner" branding. If the whole point of this is to maximize shareholder value as they say, then you would want both companies to be able to still use the valuable TiVo brand after the divorce.


Possibly. Maybe the product business will be a newco name that is "powered by Tivo" or an "Intel Inside" play to leverage the brand equity. However, that implies that lots of different competing manufacturers could also be "powered by Tivo" which leaves the product business trying to gut it out in the world of commoditized IPTV hardware.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

exdishguy said:


> https://edge.media-server.com/m6/p/77xvqmp5
> 
> Listen carefully to the questions at the end from investors. In reviewing again, I think "core products" are the software and hardware business components. The IP are the patents/patents pending that they license. Still unclear who owns certain IP developed as software features are created by newco product business? If the product business will have to license the same IP any other company would from the Tivo IP company then it will be a box-business trying to compete with Apple and Roku but will no longer have control over their own destiny. I can't see that ending well.
> 
> Lots and lots of questions. I'm hoping for a fun ride that ends with my Tivo boxes all still being useful for life.


This answers some questions - from SeekingAlpha:

_"It will pursue a tax-free spin-out of the product business to shareholders; it consists of the Platform Solutions and Software and Services businesses. The product segment generated $401M in revenue for 2018, with a large component of recurring revenue.

The IP licensing business covers an expansive portfolio of some 5,500 Rovi and TiVo patents and pending applications. Revenue was $295M for 2018, with a high percentage of recurring revenue."_


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

May 9 (Reuters) - TiVo Corp said on Thursday its board approved a plan to split its product division from its intellectual property licensing unit, as the set-top box maker looks to attract buyers for its businesses.

The company has been exploring options for its business for over a year, considering everything from an outright sale to going private.

"Throughout the separation process, the Board of Directors will continue to be open to strategic transactions for each business ... and is actively engaged in discussions with parties interested in each of the businesses, the company said in a statement.

TiVo's product division includes digital video recorders, streaming devices and software services.

The company said it expects to complete the spinoff on a tax-free basis in the first half of 2020.

The IP licensing business raked in $295 million in revenue in 2018, while its product unit had $401 million in sales. (Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

The Dilbert in post #17 pretty well covers it IMHO:
Tivo to separate into two companies

Rearranging the deck chairs is what the C-suite does. In a few lucky cases they actually manage to improve things -- mostly not.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

So now they would pay themselves licensing fees and write off the cost while keeping the money? Typical corporate shell game in order to dodge taxes?


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

mdavej said:


> So now they would pay themselves licensing fees and write off the cost while keeping the money? Typical corporate shell game in order to dodge taxes?


My guess is, that's part of it (corporate attorneys routinely will work on business restructuring for these purposes). But the more I think on it, the more I come back to thoughts on this that I had yesterday:


Mikeguy said:


> (. . . [In acquiring TiVo,] did Rovi know what it was doing)





> And/or, current TiVo management (composed mostly of the old Rovi) doesn't know how to work both halves of the business.


I get the impression of (and fear) a continuing lack of true needed expertise behind the curtain, and flailing at concepts until something sticks, without the regard that some of us might want for the "real TiVo" as vs. simple profiteering and dealing for dollars (with results that some of us might fear). But hey, that's not uncommon in companies--and sometimes with the sad results that one might expect from that.*

* With the TiVo users being the ones to feel the real pain. I am depressed at this.


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## OrangeCrush (Feb 18, 2016)

exdishguy said:


> 2. The product business cannot compete with cheap IPTV hardware


I really wonder why that is.

What are the cheap IPTV manufacturers doing that TiVo can't do to get costs & prices in line?


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## Joe3 (Dec 12, 2006)

Offer free TiVo support for cheap IPTV and the IRS services, weaponized, they'll beg forgiveness and for TiVo to take its support back for anything TiVo wants.


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

OrangeCrush said:


> I really wonder why that is.
> 
> What are the cheap IPTV manufacturers doing that TiVo can't do to get costs & prices in line?


None of them include hardware for tuning either QAM or OTA. Also they don't include remotes that can control various AV equipment or hard drives. A streaming device is much cheaper to build. There is also various licensing that is probably at play for some of the cost as well.


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## OrangeCrush (Feb 18, 2016)

smark said:


> None of them include hardware for tuning either QAM or OTA. Also they don't include remotes that can control various AV equipment or hard drives. A streaming device is much cheaper to build. There is also various licensing that is probably at play for some of the cost as well.


I thought they were referring to the IPTV boxes cable companies are rolling out to subscribers as they migrate away from QAM and blended transitional networks, not retail streaming devices like Chromecasts, Rokus. etc. I don't see why an Arris-made IPTV box running TiVo's software stack wouldn't be cost competitive with whatever garbage boxes Comcast, Spectrum & Cox saddle their customers with for absurd rental fees.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

exdishguy said:


> Will the Tivo brand remain with the IP company or go with products? Without that brand, the product business is stillborn IMO. Who will run the product business? Who will build products for the spinoff business? Does the software that runs on Apple, Roku, etc. go with the product business and considered a "product" or will that remain with the IP business?


Some folks in the Twittersphere yesterday were speculating that the products business would retain the TiVo name (which seems 100% likely to me) while the IP business might revert to the Rovi name (which seems plausible, given that Rovi was always a B2B brand, and a lot of the joint patent library came from the old Rovi anyhow).

I guess, generally speaking, that the products business would include licensing the TiVo Hydra UI, feature set, and remote control designs to use with a customer's cable/IPTV/retail boxes. That would include the apps for Apple TV, Roku, etc. It would also include the larger systems solutions that TiVo now offers operators to deploy an IPTV service (complete with network DVR, VOD, etc.). It would also include Rovi guide data and metadata licensing to operators who don't use the actual TiVo UI on their boxes. And lastly, it would include service to retail TiVo DVRs.

As far as I know, TiVo still has an agreement in place to use Arris (just bought by CommScope) as the hardware manufacturer for their products. So I guess that arrangement would stay in place with the spun-off products business.

The IP business would simply collect money from third parties (including the spun-off TiVo products business) to employ features in their products and services that are covered by TiVo/Rovi patents. AT&T, for instance, wouldn't do any business with the spun-off TiVo product business (since they don't use the TiVo UI or data on their STBs) but they would still pay licensing fees to the IP business to keep from getting sued.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

smark said:


> None of them include hardware for tuning either QAM or OTA. Also they don't include remotes that can control various AV equipment or hard drives. A streaming device is much cheaper to build. There is also various licensing that is probably at play for some of the cost as well.


Agreed. The bill of materials (BOM) on a Tivo box is apples v oranges. However, the cablecos boxes have QAM and yet can build a box cheaper than Tivo simply because of the volumes and economies of scale. So perhaps I should have been more clear - the oceans are very bloody in both IPTV and cableco boxes.

I don't have to tell you that many of these cableco boxes have improved considerably. So in a world of table stakes features like grid guides, tiled based streaming apps, and basic DVR features, how will Tivo standout?

Here is where I'm optimistic. Back in the day when Tivo was really innovating (or maybe catering to us geeks is better said?) they probably used things like FPGAs to put their new code into action without having to spin up a chip (which is expensive). While the new product business will need compelling differentiators and/or unfair advantages if they are to survive in the "app economy" they may also come out with premium priced, cutting edge products again and use these products as pathfinders. Sort of like luxury car features tend to trickle down into the mainstream cars eventually. Fingers crossed.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Tivo could get a chance to be Tivo again (Tivo 3.0?). The downside is it no longer has the benefit of patent licensing to coast on, so Tivo 3.0 will need to make their business sustainable and relevant.

Sink or swim time.

Still think we're getting a retail Android streamer this year, whether or not there's an IPTV service to accompany it (either Tivo-made or a partner). They want (and now, NEED) to monetize Hydra and the way to maximize that potential is to expand their reach with a cheap, desirable product. Selling OTT channels is a part of the plan.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

krkaufman said:


> You're doing OTA:


That's true. Probably more difficult to get a set top box replacement if you are locked into a proprietary service.

I would consider alternatives to the provider. One of the things I discovered diving into the Amazon Prime Ecosystem is that it integrates Sony's Vue and Philo into the Recast Live Channel Guide very nicely. For $50/month, you can add five streams of locals, sports, and cable channels into the guide. If you do not need sports and cable news, Philo gives you 54 channels and three concurrent streams for $20/month. Check this out...

Amazon Prime: Something for Everyone


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

exdishguy said:


> Just listened to the entire earnings call. I'd love to know what others think about this call if you listened in. My take aways:
> 
> 1. They could not sell either business unit.
> 2. The product business cannot compete....
> ...


(Yes, I edited your summary to remove the fluff.)

So to summarize your summary, the company is hemorrhaging money so badly that nobody in their right mind wants to buy it. And their only previous solution for this failed miserably.

So the new solution is to split the company into two parts, one of which is losing less money than the other one.

When the end is near, will there be a warning or was that it?


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## MassMan (Mar 19, 2019)

This might make it harder for me to get All in for my old Roamio for $99.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

BobCamp1 said:


> (Yes, I edited your summary to remove the fluff.)
> 
> So to summarize your summary, the company is hemorrhaging money so badly that nobody in their right mind wants to buy it. And their only previous solution for this failed miserably.
> 
> ...


And that is my fear, as I go through manic depression in reading of the events and the above takes on them. Part of me wonders if I would purchase a TiVo box, and especially with a separate Lifetime subscription for it, at this point. A sadly macabre selling point for a TiVo month-to-month subscription. And a perception that a standalone TiVo unit will have to deal with.

3 years ago, when Rovi purchased TiVo, some people here were making predictions of the type ~being discussed here: Rovi purchasing TiVo for its IP and letting the product side dwindle away, in a robber baron sort of way. There has been a 3-year run where that hasn't occurred. I only hope, as a TiVo fan, that it isn't occurring now, one way or another (including by the planned TiVo standalone product unit managing to become a financial success).*

I guess, I have a substantial Amazon gift card balance that could fund the purchase of a Recast ecosystem. But I really don't want to have to go there. Too bad that Jeff hadn't just purchased TiVo, Inc. rather than developing his own. Back to the depression side.

* I think that it was in the course of the discussions here 3 years ago that I raised the possibility of Rovi legal liability if TiVo box Lifetime subscriptions no longer were provided with the contracted-for Lifetime service. That master-company exposure potentially disappears if a legitimately spun-off TiVo division is the one that fails: you can't get blood from a turnip in bankruptcy court.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

NashGuy said:


> Some folks in the Twittersphere yesterday were speculating that the ... IP business might revert to the Rovi name ...


It would be the ultimate irony if the moronic half of the business (Rovi) ends up with the "Intellectual" Property side.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

MassMan said:


> This might make it harder for me to get All in for my old Roamio for $99.


Or, easier, depending on how much a standalone unit wants/needs to get money in the door.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

mdavej said:


> It would be the ultimate irony if the moronic half of the business (Rovi) ends up with the "Intellectual" Property side.


A prediction here 3 years ago, on TiVo's purchase by Rovi--a soul-less corporate grab the value and run, customers and company be damned.


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## BosTV (Aug 6, 2003)

Mikeguy said:


> * I think that it was in the course of the discussions here 3 years ago that I raised the possibility of Rovi legal liability if TiVo box Lifetime subscriptions no longer were provided with the contracted-for Lifetime service. That master-company exposure potentially disappears if a legitimately spun-off TiVo division is the one that fails: you can't get blood from a turnip in bankruptcy court.


Ruh-roh for use lifetimers


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

BosTV said:


> Ruh-roh for use lifetimers


I've gotten my money's worth, but I want my TiVo, dangit. I have been ruined by QuickMode and TiVo's well-oiled interface (of course, the Guide data needs fixing, Rovi--have we heard _that _one before?).


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

BobCamp1 said:


> (Yes, I edited your summary to remove the fluff.)
> 
> So to summarize your summary, the company is hemorrhaging money so badly that nobody in their right mind wants to buy it. And their only previous solution for this failed miserably.
> 
> ...


Thanks for that. I hope I didn't give the impression that the net operating losses (NOLs) were occurred in a year. My understanding of NOLs are that they are carryforward losses that can be applied to lower pre-tax income year after year. I'm no accountant so I don't profess to know the rules other than they can be leveraged to essentially pay less (or zero) income taxes for several years. The fact that the parent company will retain them when the product business spins off isn't necessarily a good thing to me. Albeit, it may be that the parent company has no choice but to keep the NOLs on their books once they spin out the product business (I don't know the IRS rules). Similar to the IP they acquired when Rovi bought Tivo, the NOLs were likely an added bonus. And just like the IP, Rovi intends to keep them.

Also, they don't say outright that they couldn't sell either business. But when you hear companies talking about hiring investment banking firms to review any and all strategic options, that is code for "we or part of us are for sale." The analyst on the call yesterday flat out asked if they were still entertaining "strategic options" and my recollection was that the CEO said that they were...but that he was happy the board supported splitting the company. Meaning, there were no takers so we're spinning this thing out to see if we can do better. If they could have sold any of it I would have thought they'd do it by now. Whatever offers (if any) they received must not have been viewed as viable by the banks (or their lenders).

Anyway, it doesn't look good but I'm sure there is a lot behind the scenes we don't know. Or at least I sure as heck don't know. For those of us with thousands invested in Tivo gear and LT subscriptions this may not end well for us. It will take a while though before they are door stoppers and maybe someone will come along and buy the Tivo customer base (and brand if it gets spun back out). So I'm not panicking yet. The end isn't near yet.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Mikeguy said:


> And that is my fear, as I go through manic depression in reading of the events and the above takes on them. Part of me wonders if I would purchase a TiVo box, and especially with a separate Lifetime subscription for it, at this point. A sadly macabre selling point for a TiVo month-to-month subscription. And a perception that a standalone TiVo unit will have to deal with.


TiVo, at this point, strikes me as a company without any great options. The world of TV and technology is rapidly changing -- from cable TV channels plus a VCR/DVR (1980s - now) to streaming video accessed via apps (now and the future) -- and TiVo didn't pivot fast enough.

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but it seems to me their big chance would have been to acquire Roku right after they launched their first Netflix TV-connected player in 2008. Or even beaten Roku to the punch by getting Netflix to work with them rather than Roku. (I'm not sure of the initial connection between Netflix and Roku. Was Roku spun out of or seeded by Netflix somehow? Or maybe a key dev left Netflix to help launch Roku?)

At any rate, it seems clear to me that the "spiritual successors" to TiVo in the 2020s will be Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and maybe Google Android TV. Those will be the retail devices we'll easily use (look Ma, no CableCARD!) to access and aggregate our various pay TV sources on our big screens.

Yes, perhaps next year TiVo (or a hardware partner) releases a retail box that uses a customized version of Android TV with the TiVo Hydra UI as the home screen -- a box that would integrate ATSC 3.0 OTA DVR with Android TV apps. But I'm not sure if OTA DVRs will ever be mainstream. And if they do gain popularity, Roku and Apple TV could quickly follow Amazon's lead and release their own OTA DVR accessories and integrate that content into their native UIs on their own streaming boxes.

At the end of the day, all TiVo really has, from a consumer perspective, is their Hydra UI. It's nice, I suppose, but I can't see it pulling significant market share away from Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV in the retail marketplace. Entering a crowded market late against major established competitors doesn't usually work out too well.

P.S. Acceptance is the fifth and final stage of grief.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

exdishguy said:


> For those of us with thousands invested in Tivo gear and LT subscriptions this may not end well for us. It will take a while though before they are door stoppers and maybe someone will come along and buy the Tivo customer base (and brand if it gets spun back out). So I'm not panicking yet. The end isn't near yet.


I just don't think this is something folks should worry about. I don't think lifetime service on your retail TiVo is going to cease ANY time soon.

Consider this and feel better: the Moxi DVR hit retail in 2008 and was pulled from the market in Nov. 2011. Like TiVo, they also supplied DVRs and service to cable TV providers, although Moxi never reached anywhere near the penetration in either market that TiVo has.

Moxi didn't stop offering hardware and software support for their retail DVRs until Aug. 2016, nearly 5 years after they left the market. And they won't cease offering service (guide data) for them until later this month, on May 24, 2019, 7.5 years after they stopped being sold.

Moxi End of Life Statement | ARRIS
Moxi - Wikipedia


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Great. One of the companies will be a true patent troll. At least TiVo was only troll-like under the old structure, since they actually shipped a working product.



NashGuy said:


> Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but it seems to me their big chance would have been to acquire Roku right after they launched their first Netflix TV-connected player in 2008. Or even beaten Roku to the punch by getting Netflix to work with them rather than Roku. (I'm not sure of the initial connection between Netflix and Roku. Was Roku spun out of or seeded by Netflix somehow? Or maybe a key dev left Netflix to help launch Roku?)


They probably would have managed to totally screw it up though.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

NashGuy said:


> At the end of the day, all TiVo really has, from a consumer perspective, is their Hydra UI. It's nice, I suppose, but I can't see it pulling significant market share away from Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV in the retail marketplace. Entering a crowded market late against major established competitors doesn't usually work out too well.
> 
> P.S. Acceptance is the fifth and final stage of grief.


It also has its trickplay and its slickness (I don't have the other systems to know if they are as sleek and slick)--much of which a user may not miss if not really knowing about them to begin with. Perhaps I'm an outlier, but QuickMode can save me hours of life a day (the 2-hour morning news show gets down to just a little bit over an hour, after using QuickMode and skipping commercials)--this has _real_ value. And this is a reason why I also have mentioned the TiVo Live Guide a few times before and bemoaned its absence from TE4 (and have been ragged for that): it is sleek and efficient for online guide use, and a pleasure over a jumble. My impression is that coming from TiVo,* my future uses will feel hobbled and a step, or two, backwards.

* Which I hope never to face. lol. TiVo has been the infamous invalid that has just managed to keep on going.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> They probably would have managed to totally screw it up though.


Shh. Let's choose to remember Grandpa back when he was in his prime.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> Shh. Let's choose to remember Grandpa back when he was in his prime.
> 
> View attachment 40939


LOL


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

BosTV said:


> Ruh-roh for use lifetimers


I have five Roamio/OTAs with Lifetime and a pair of Minis. If TiVo went away tomorrow, I would not feel bad about my 'Lifetimes' as my cost per set per month is less than $6. BUT, we are not at the end of the TiVo service. They will sell of the IP and distribute the proceeds as a special dividend to the long suffering shareholders. They will wind down the hardware business. They will operate the Rovi/guide service indefinitely after trimming any costs that cannot be passed on to the subscribers.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

wizwor said:


> I have five Roamio/OTAs with Lifetime and a pair of Minis. If TiVo went away tomorrow, I would not feel bad about my 'Lifetimes' as my cost per set per month is less than $6. BUT, we are not at the end of the TiVo service. They will sell of the IP and distribute the proceeds as a special dividend to the long suffering shareholders. They will wind down the hardware business. They will operate the Rovi/guide service indefinitely after trimming any costs that cannot be passed on to the subscribers.


I guess your thought is, Rovi is providing the guide service to others, and so providing it to TiVo users isn't that big a deal (and even money in the bank, for monthly and annual subscriptions)?

It just all feels so cannibalistic tho, doesn't it. And not what one thinks of when thinking of the original idea of TiVo.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> They will operate the Rovi/guide service indefinitely after trimming any costs that cannot be passed on to the subscribers.


Yeah, as long as *some* company has acquired the TiVo product/service business (and with it, their contractual obligation to provide ongoing service to Lifetime/All-in-One retail units) and as long as they're still pumping that guide data out for *some* client (e.g. cable company), then they'll have to keep providing it to retail units too, I think. I mean, if the whole business eventually just gets run into the ground and dies, well, yeah, you're screwed, I guess. But IF that ever happens, it's years away.

Here again, I think the Moxi story is instructive. Moxi DVRs only ever had the hardware to support MPEG2 decoding. So as various cable systems such as Comcast converted their HD channels over to MPEG4, the Moxi ceased to work with those providers (or, at least work with their HD channels).

Likewise, retail CableCARD TiVos only work with QAM-based cable TV. As cable providers shift some or all of their channels over from QAM to IPTV, a TiVo will cease to work with them. Just as the shift from MPEG2 to MPEG4 was the nearer-term threat to the usefulness of Moxi retail DVRs, so too is the shift from QAM to IPTV the nearer-term threat to the usefulness of retail TiVos. That's what you need to focus on, not the prospect that TiVo will shut off guide service in the next few years.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

NashGuy said:


> I just don't think this is something folks should worry about. I don't think lifetime service on your retail TiVo is going to cease ANY time soon.
> 
> Consider this and feel better: the Moxi DVR hit retail in 2008 and was pulled from the market in Nov. 2011. Like TiVo, they also supplied DVRs and service to cable TV providers, although Moxi never reached anywhere near the penetration in either market that TiVo has.
> 
> ...


Thanks, I needed that--really.*

* I even have been wondering if I should buy the whopping $20 external fan that I have been considering for my Bolt, that sits in my Amazon cart.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wizwor said:


> They will operate the Rovi/guide service indefinitely after trimming any costs that cannot be passed on to the subscribers.


I know you remember the Sony DHG. BTW, providing a guide is not the same as having it integrated with the 1P manager. There are guides out there ( I searched) that provide a title and time slot. Event the OTA users need TiVo for a guide since TiVo never learned PSIP. Yes, Rovi provided a guide, but they found out quickly that wasn't all a TiVo needs.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

Providing a balance (lol): TiVo's earlier showcasing of (possibly external) adapter technology, to avoid a TiVo box's being made obsolete by upcoming technology. Positive and non-fatalistic movement/development.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

Mikeguy said:


> I guess your thought is, Rovi is providing the guide service to others, and so providing it to TiVo users isn't that big a deal (and even money in the bank, for monthly and annual subscriptions)?


Right. 


Mikeguy said:


> It just all feels so cannibalistic tho, doesn't it. And not what one thinks of when thinking of the original idea of TiVo.


It's a business. The guys who run TiVo now are not the guys who had the original idea.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

wizwor said:


> It's a business. The guys who run TiVo now are not the guys who had the original idea.


Yep--I'm more an Steve Jobs Apple type (with all due apologies to him), with pride of authorship/device.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

JoeKustra said:


> Event the OTA users need TiVo for a guide since TiVo never learned PSIP. Yes, Rovi provided a guide, but they found out quickly that wasn't all a TiVo needs.


I know. Lack of PSIP support is one of the big drawbacks to TiVo, IMHO. That said, I have already had my TiVos longer than the PSIP DTVPals lasted. The DVR+s seem like they will last forever. Right now I am being drawn into the Bezos vortex. There is so much going on. People like us, who like to play, are being treated to a lot of options. A la carte has arrived. I just started the second year of my DirecTV promotion. The price just jumped from 19.99 per month to 29.99 per month! LOL. With HBO! Good times.


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## bam1220 (Feb 17, 2016)

Sorry guys. But I was an early adopter of Replay TV. Seeing what happened to Replay TV and how fast my 2 boxes became door stops I can't help but feel that this is the beginning of the end for Tivo as we know it. I honestly feel that one day soon I will wake up and my now working Tivo Roamio OTA will be worthless and in the closet next to my Replay TV units. A lot of hope was also in the Replay TV forums towards the end. This does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

Kind of apples and oranges. Replay TV filed for bankruptcy protection, changed their product to blunt lawsuits, and never achieved any kind of market share. Rovi/TiVo will control its swoon.


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## jaselzer (Sep 10, 2018)

Well, I have been a Tivo user for approximately 1000 years and have owned a ton of them. I have 2 now on cablecards with Fios. To be absolutely honest, I find myself for the first time entertaining the idea of doing away with the Tivo's and moving on. I just feel that Tivo are trying hard to fit a legacy product in to a rapidly changing and advancing environment. I mean, even having to have cablecards is a a "solution" to a problem rather than real fix. I just do not know, it is difficult for me. I still have several shows that I have Season Passes with on the Tivos and I certainly like that feature. But that is about the only feature holding me back from moving on. I am the sort of guy that gets into the latest technology and like to keep upgrading tbh. The Tivos might change somewhat over time, but they never feel like a real "upgrade" in tech.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

jaselzer said:


> I find myself for the first time entertaining the idea of doing away with the Tivo's and moving on.


What alternatives are you considering? How seriously are you considering each? Is FiOS an anchor for you?


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

jaselzer said:


> Well, I have been a Tivo user for approximately 1000 years and have owned a ton of them. I have 2 now on cablecards with Fios. To be absolutely honest, I find myself for the first time entertaining the idea of doing away with the Tivo's and moving on. I just feel that Tivo are trying hard to fit a legacy product in to a rapidly changing and advancing environment. I mean, even having to have cablecards is a a "solution" to a problem rather than real fix. I just do not know, it is difficult for me. I still have several shows that I have Season Passes with on the Tivos and I certainly like that feature. But that is about the only feature holding me back from moving on. I am the sort of guy that gets into the latest technology and like to keep upgrading tbh. The Tivos might change somewhat over time, but they never feel like a real "upgrade" in tech.


Well I hope you enjoy watching commercials.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

JoeKustra said:


> I know you remember the Sony DHG. BTW, providing a guide is not the same as having it integrated with the 1P manager. There are guides out there ( I searched) that provide a title and time slot. Event the OTA users need TiVo for a guide since TiVo never learned PSIP. Yes, Rovi provided a guide, but they found out quickly that wasn't all a TiVo needs.


Ah, so you're making the distinction between guide data for linear cable/broadcast channels and the data for content from streaming apps, all of which are combined in the OnePass feature? OK, fair enough, although given the increasing importance of streaming, it's hard to imagine TiVo/Rovi/future owner continuing to crank out linear channel guide data but not streaming program data, isn't it? I would think that as long as one continues to be produced and provided, so will the other.

But making a distinction between channel-based and app-based content does raise another issue in my mind: the possibility that streaming services will abandon their apps on the TiVo platform. Services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, HBO Go, etc. maintain apps on a huge array of devices running on different operating systems with different hardware, with different codebases. They often have slightly (sometimes significantly) different UIs, feature sets, and support protocols. It's understandable that those services now and then leave behind certain older devices/OSes and remove their app.

For instance, did the Roamio ever get an updated Hulu app with the new UI? If not, it wouldn't surprise me if Hulu just pulled the plug on that device and yanked their app completely in the coming months.

TiVo's Next-Gen IPTV platform, which rides atop Google Android TV, would be immune from that problem, so long as app developers continued to support Android TV, which probably has a much greater installed user base than the traditional TiVo OS used on Premiere, Roamio and Bolt.

But if you're looking for something to worry about, I can imagine a scenario in which TiVo continues to slowly decline and at some point in the early 2020s, Premieres no longer have any functioning apps while Netflix is the only thing running on Roamios. Bolts might still have Netflix and Prime Video but Hulu and HBO Go have gone. I'm not saying that _will_ happen but, hey, if you're looking for something to worry about...


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## jaselzer (Sep 10, 2018)

Fios is not an anchor, but the issue for me is that I am not ready to "cut the cord". I still admire and prefer cable tv. I am not yet seriously considering, but having some thoughts. One of my major gripes regarding Tivo is that I constantly have handshake issues with 4K. It is hit and miss on a seemingly random basis. And it is only with the Tivos that there is an issue. Yes, watching commercials is an issue. It is a question I am coming to terms with, to stay or move on. I am not sure yet.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

tarheelblue32 said:


> Well I hope you enjoy watching commercials.


Lots of commercial free options.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

NashGuy said:


> I'm not saying that _will_ happen but, hey, if you're looking for something to worry about...


More likely that app support will trail off with updates few and far between (if Netflix makes a change that puts all TiVo users at risk, then they will update the TiVo app to retain subscribers, for instance).


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> More likely that app support will trail off with updates few and far between (if Netflix makes a change that puts all TiVo users at risk, then they will update the TiVo app to retain subscribers, for instance).


Yeah, older/less popular platforms seem to see fewer, more sporadic updates until, at some point, the app just gets pulled completely. Netflix is an outlier in terms of their app support because they're SO big and put so many resources into supporting a huge array of devices.

I'm not sure that app developers look at TiVo as a single platform because there are significant hardware differences between each generation -- Series 4 (Premiere), 5 (Roamio) and 6 (Bolt). Just because an app gets updated on one generation doesn't necessarily mean it will on the prior generation. (You see this on Roku as well, with the oldest models no longer supported by various apps.)

It's not hard to imagine a service finding that only, say, 0.7% of their subscribers used their app on a TiVo Roamio in the past 60 days and, among those, about one-third had also used their app on another TV-connected device such as a Fire TV. So pulling the plug on the Roamio app would really only possibly risk losing less than 0.5% (1 in 200) subscribers. Meanwhile, it would save them the trouble of trying to update the app to make it more secure, less crash-prone, and generally more satisfying for the customer to use.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> But if you're looking for something to worry about, I can imagine a scenario in which TiVo continues to slowly decline and at some point in the early 2020s, Premieres no longer have any functioning apps while Netflix is the only thing running on Roamios. Bolts might still have Netflix and Prime Video but Hulu and HBO Go have gone. I'm not saying that _will_ happen but, hey, if you're looking for something to worry about...


I'm more worried about TiVo not making the transition to ATSC 3.0 if ATSC 3.0 actually happens. However, it's not that big of a deal, as someone else will make a DVR for 3.0 if TiVo doesn't. I'd just miss my TiVo. Until then, I couldn't care less about the stupid apps, I use Roku for streaming anyway. As long as my Roamio keeps getting guide data, and 3.0 doesn't come along, it should keep chugging along.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

Bigg said:


> I'm more worried about TiVo not making the transition to ATSC 3.0 if ATSC 3.0 actually happens. However, it's not that big of a deal, as someone else will make a DVR for 3.0 if TiVo doesn't. I'd just miss my TiVo. Until then, I couldn't care less about the stupid apps, I use Roku for streaming anyway. As long as my Roamio keeps getting guide data, and 3.0 doesn't come along, it should keep chugging along.


I'm not at all worried about that. Chances are ATSC 3.0 will be streamed from a box to devices attached to televisions. Kind of like the Tablo TV DVR or Amazon's Recast. TiVo could make a box like that or write an app for their set top boxes or just sit on the sidelines. If they choose the latter, I expect all the streaming devices to help out.


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## Phil T (Oct 29, 2003)

wizwor said:


> Lots of commercial free options.


Where is a commercial free option for the NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX or basic cable channels? The only streaming commercial free options I know of are for premium channels.


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## lparsons21 (Feb 17, 2015)

Phil T said:


> Where is a commercial free option for the NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX or basic cable channels? The only streaming commercial free options I know of are for premium channels.


Both CBS All Access and Hulu have commercial free options. Won't fully cover all channels, but quite a few.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Phil T said:


> Where is a commercial free option for the NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX or basic cable channels? The only streaming commercial free options I know of are for premium channels.


for ABC, Fox and NBC shows: Hulu ad-free, $11.99/mo
for CBS shows: CBS All Access ad-free, $9.99/mo

As for content from basic cable channels, it'll be interesting to see where that goes over the coming year. Already, we see shows from Freeform, a Disney-owned basic cable channel, showing up next-day on Hulu, same as Disney-owned ABC shows. Will they do the same with shows from FX and FXX, which are now also owned by Disney? Disney has stated that they see FX being an important content contributor to Hulu going forward.

Will shows on the Disney Channel, Disney Jr., Disney XD, Nat Geo, and Nat Geo Wild basic cable channels show up next-day on the upcoming ad-free Disney+ service? We know Disney+ will feature a lot of those networks' past seasons but it isn't clear if it will also feature their current-season episodes.

WarnerMedia this fall will unveil a broader streaming service centered on HBO but that will also include content from the Turner channels TBS, TNT and TruTV (along with a lot of other stuff). My guess is that most of the stuff that you can stream right now in the apps for those channels with a valid cable subscription login will be included in this upcoming service, except you won't need a separate cable subscription. As it is now, when a new episode of a Turner original show, like The Last O.G., airs on TBS, it becomes available to stream in the TBS app. I expect the same to be true in the upcoming WarnerMedia service. While HBO content will definitely remain ad-free in this service, we don't know about other stuff, like the Turner content. My guess is that it will contains ads but you'll be able to pay extra to remove them.

Next year, NBCUniversal will debut their own streaming service. Like the new WarnerMedia service, it'll have their classic stuff from the past, plus some new originals, and I expect it'll also feature current season shows from the networks owned by NBCU: NBC, USA, SyFy, Bravo, and E! Comcast (which owns NBCU) will reportedly offer this service, with ads, for free to Comcast cable subscribers. Ads can be removed for a fee. They'll also sell the service to non-Comcast customers.

Lastly, Discovery Networks (which includes the former Scripps networks like HGTV, Food, Travel, etc.) is going to launch their own service next year in partnership with the BBC, which will supply nature documentaries. It's going to be priced at $5. No word whether it'll contain ads. (I assume it will have ads on at least some content, although the trend is to let users pay more to remove them.) It will definitely have on-demand content. Don't know yet if it'll include live streams of Discovery's cable channels. Maybe it's mainly just past seasons of shows, plus some exclusive new originals, but I'd bet that it also has current-season episodes from their cable channels. Discovery has already shown a willingness to break up the cable bundle by partnering in the launch of Philo at just $16. And the Discovery CEO has talked for awhile now about offering just their own channels for $5 or so per month.

This is how the cable channel bundle unravels.


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## bam1220 (Feb 17, 2016)

wizwor said:


> Kind of apples and oranges. Replay TV filed for bankruptcy protection, changed their product to blunt lawsuits, and never achieved any kind of market share. Rovi/TiVo will control its swoon.


Well I was stating an opinion. And I still feel my Tivo DVR's will one day soon become door stops. I hope not. But once these two companies move onto something more modern or whatever the suits have up their sleeves our boxes will go without a guide and will be useless. And in its prime Replay TV was good competition for Tivo. No matter what you say. In my opinion Replay TV had a much better product at the time.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

bam1220 said:


> Well I was stating an opinion. And I still feel my Tivo DVR's will one day soon become door stops. I hope not. But once these two companies move onto something more modern or whatever the suits have up their sleeves our boxes will go without a guide and will be useless. And in its prime Replay TV was good competition for Tivo. No matter what you say. In my opinion Replay TV had a much better product at the time.


Here you go!

https://www.amazon.com/ReplayTV-RTV5504-40-Hour-Digital-Recorder/dp/B0000BYRIN


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

NashGuy said:


> for ABC, Fox and NBC shows: Hulu ad-free, $11.99/mo
> for CBS shows: CBS All Access ad-free, $9.99/mo


Thank you very much, I'll take my Lifetimed TiVo box plus SkipMode and skip the monthly payments.


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## ashipkowski (Oct 8, 2008)

I have not had the time to review the actual sources for this, but I'm surprised that thinking in some comments above is that the TiVo Software would go with the products side of the business; I'd expect, that as IP they're looking to license out, it would be in the same bucket with the patents and guide data -- at least TE4 and Android TV support. The products company would then be licensing their software from the other half, and getting the hardware from Arris. (I suppose this might be why the thinking is that products will keep the software, what will they have otherwise?) Hmmm.*

I do expect our Lifetime, err, All-In service obligation to be handed off to the products company.

*This resembles some things I've gone through at a previous employer, and I imagine somewhere someone is pointing out that the IP -- including licensing pre-existing software to third parties -- has fatter profit margins than anything that touches hardware.


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

Mikeguy said:


> Thank you very much, I'll take my Lifetimed TiVo box plus SkipMode and skip the monthly payments.


Nothing wrong with a TiVo but those services from Hulu and CBS All Access have FAR more content than can be recorded on a TiVo and all you have to do is search for it for a few seconds.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Consider this and feel better: the Moxi DVR hit retail in 2008 and was pulled from the market in Nov. 2011





NashGuy said:


> Here again, I think the Moxi story is instructive. Moxi DVRs only ever had the hardware to support MPEG2 decoding. So as various cable systems such as Comcast converted their HD channels over to MPEG4, the Moxi ceased to work with those providers (or, at least work with their HD channels).


Are you sure the Moxi's didn't have the hardware to support MPEG4 decoding given when it was released? Even the original S3 OLED released on 2006 had the hardware to decode MPEG4 but never had the software support to record it from cable. The HD model released in 2007 of course also had MPEG4 decoding as well and TiVo finally ported the code from their Australian version to support recording MPEG4 cable channels.

I'm assuming Moxi used very similar Broadcom chipsets so would be surprised if it did not support MPEG4 and this may just be a similar issue as with the original S3 OLED that the software to record MPEG4 channels was never implemented although both could actually support it (and did allow playback as this article seemed to indicate).

Review: Moxi HD DVR - TechCrunch

Scott


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but it seems to me their big chance would have been to acquire Roku right after they launched their first Netflix TV-connected player in 2008. Or even beaten Roku to the punch by getting Netflix to work with them rather than Roku. (I'm not sure of the initial connection between Netflix and Roku. Was Roku spun out of or seeded by Netflix somehow? Or maybe a key dev left Netflix to help launch Roku?)


Tivo must have been working with Netflix around the same time since they added Netflix support in December 2008 to the S3 OLED/HD model. Roku's player was released earlier that year in May I think from my searches.

Scott


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

NashGuy said:


> Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but it seems to me their big chance would have been to acquire Roku right after they launched their first Netflix TV-connected player in 2008. Or even beaten Roku to the punch by getting Netflix to work with them rather than Roku. (I'm not sure of the initial connection between Netflix and Roku. Was Roku spun out of or seeded by Netflix somehow? Or maybe a key dev left Netflix to help launch Roku?)


Given the history of the three companies (Anthony Wood was the founder of Replay TV before founding Roku then becoming a VP at Netflix), such a marriage was probably not in the cards. In 2015, I had a number of conversations with Joe Bingochea (Executive Vice President Channel Master). It was right after I bought my second $300 all-in Roamio/OTA. I urged him to partner with Roku to improve streaming services on the DVR+ (both are linux devices). At that point, they had already decided to go the android route. I was thinking about that browsing my FTV Live Channels Guide after adding Vue. Then I was thinking it would be pretty cool if TiVo could go the FTV route with service integration (including Prime Channels). I suspect that Bezos has exclusive deals with Philo and Vue, at least.


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## TKnight206 (Oct 20, 2016)

exdishguy said:


> Anyway, it doesn't look good but I'm sure there is a lot behind the scenes we don't know. Or at least I sure as heck don't know. For those of us with thousands invested in Tivo gear and LT subscriptions this may not end well for us. It will take a while though before they are door stoppers and maybe someone will come along and buy the Tivo customer base (and brand if it gets spun back out). So I'm not panicking yet. The end isn't near yet.


Came on to check to see if anyone else was complaining about the poor guide data. Show descriptions being mixed up. Then I saw this thread.

That is something I'm worried about. The high cost of DVR rentals from the cable company is what pushed me to get a TiVo in the first place.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

TKnight206 said:


> Came on to check to see if anyone else was complaining about the poor guide data. Show descriptions being mixed up. Then I saw this thread.


Based on what I've seen with the guide data lately, namely wrong descriptions matched up with the wrong series, I feel that Tivo likely got of the people in charge of guide data and has some kind of automated software do it as a cost cutting measure. Some of the mismatched descriptions make "sense" if they are being matched by keywords.

Currently these can be fixed by filing an issue report and then someone will eventually manually fix them. I worry by splitting into 2 companies, that that won't be the case anymore if the guide data goes with one company and the hardware and tivo service with the other.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

mschnebly said:


> Nothing wrong with a TiVo but those services from Hulu and CBS All Access have FAR more content than can be recorded on a TiVo and all you have to do is search for it for a few seconds.


Absolutely--but is it the content one wants. Oh, and then there's that pesky monthly charge, x 2 or 3 or 4 or 5.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

TKnight206 said:


> Came on to check to see if anyone else was complaining about the poor guide data. Show descriptions being mixed up. Then I saw this thread.
> 
> That is something I'm worried about. The high cost of DVR rentals from the cable company is what pushed me to get a TiVo in the first place.


My premium channel guide data is completely jacked. For instance, 3 of my HBO channels all show the same listing, for the same movie, in the same time slot....AND ITS NOT EVEN WHAT IS PLAYING when I tune to any of the three.

So yea, Rovi guide data sucks ass. Thankfully they have all of Tivo's patents now that their business model seems to be shifting to be much more overt patent troll whores.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

HerronScott said:


> Are you sure the Moxi's didn't have the hardware to support MPEG4 decoding given when it was released? Even the original S3 OLED released on 2006 had the hardware to decode MPEG4 but never had the software support to record it from cable. The HD model released in 2007 of course also had MPEG4 decoding as well and TiVo finally ported the code from their Australian version to support recording MPEG4 cable channels.
> 
> I'm assuming Moxi used very similar Broadcom chipsets so would be surprised if it did not support MPEG4 and this may just be a similar issue as with the original S3 OLED that the software to record MPEG4 channels was never implemented although both could actually support it (and did allow playback as this article seemed to indicate).
> 
> ...


Ah, OK. I wrote what I did about Moxi's incompatibility with MPEG4 cable channels based on my recollection of a user's reports with Comcast. I could be wrong, although the comments on this page over at AVS Forum seems to support that the Moxi HD DVR (the only model they ever released to retail, I think) can't access MPEG4 channels. But, as you point out, Moxi's stated specs do include MPEG4, which is weird. I suspect you're correct that it's a software issue (lack of licensing). And by the time that Comcast and maybe other cable companies were converting to MPEG4, the Moxi HD DVR had basically been orphaned by Arris. They weren't going to spend additional money licensing a codec for a dead product. That's my guess, anyhow.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> Given the history of the three companies (Anthony Wood was the founder of Replay TV before founding Roku then becoming a VP at Netflix), such a marriage was probably not in the cards.


Yeah, probably not. Maybe TiVo could have bought Roku shortly after they launched. Or aggressively moved to copy them by launching their own low-cost (non-DVR) streamer that built on aspects of the TiVo UI and feature set.

My original point is that TiVo missed their window of opportunity a few years back to pivot to streaming and thereby position themselves to be where Roku is today. It's very telling that TiVo has essentially admitted defeat in the streaming realm by just making themselves into an app that runs on the streaming platforms operated by Google, Roku, Apple, and Amazon.


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## CloudAtlas (Oct 29, 2013)

mschnebly said:


> Nothing wrong with a TiVo but those services from Hulu and CBS All Access have FAR more content than can be recorded on a TiVo and all you have to do is search for it for a few seconds.


I see Hulu as a compliment to TiVO/Cable just like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. I subscribe to Hulu and like it just like I subscribe and like Netflix and a full cable package including all movie channels (included in bundle.)

Nothing wrong with Hulu but it doesn't have all network shows nor does it have the latest episodes for all the shows it does have. And even the Hulu commercial free option HAS beginning and ending commercials on some shows and most movies.

Hulu's Future:

Disney, which now owns 70% of Hulu up from 30%, is in the process of buying the remaining minority stake from Comcast. At which point Disney will operate two streaming services! As expected, Disney's upcoming streaming service Disney+ will host the company's family-friendly entertainment, while adult-oriented content lands on Hulu.

Hulu lost $1.5 billion in 2018 and is not expected to be profitable until at least 2024. So Disney will have to raise Hulu's monthly prices as well as cut down on licensed content as it adds more original content. And with Disney owning competing networks ABC and Fox - networks NBC and CBS as well as others may no longer license content to Hulu.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

CloudAtlas said:


> I see Hulu as a compliment to TiVO/Cable just like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. I subscribe to Hulu and like it just like I subscribe and like Netflix and a full cable package including all movie channels (included in bundle.)


Hulu has always been different from Netflix and Prime Video in that it was launched and co-owned by established media powers (ABC, NBC and Fox) as opposed to new media/tech companies. From a content perspective, Hulu's differentiating factor has (IMO) always been that it offers near-immediate access to new episodes of series from traditional TV channels. (Netflix and Prime Video, on the other hand, only get such content after an entire season has concluded its initial run on its TV network.) When a fresh episode premieres on certain broadcast and cable channels, it's available for streaming on-demand from Hulu a few hours later. But that's only true for a few channels, although it should be pointed out that NBC, ABC and Fox (which all put their non-sports content on Hulu) ranked as the 1st, 3rd and 4th most-watched networks on the cable dial last year. So a lot of the current primetime content that Americans watch lives on Hulu too.

But you're right that Hulu offers a lot of other stuff too (as Netflix and Prime Video do) that makes it a complement to the traditional cable channel package. So I'd say that Hulu has always been partially a substitute for and partially a complement to traditional TV channels.

As more and more traditional media players -- WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Discovery -- roll out their own streaming services, I think they'll follow Hulu's path, which is to include some or all of the content that currently airs on their cable networks, plus additional content (past seasons of their series, new exclusive originals, content licensed from third-party sources). In this way, their streaming services will be both a substitute for their cable channels AND a complement to them.

On the one hand, as more and more consumers cut the cord on cable TV, traditional media companies realize that they need to meet them where they are, in the world of on-demand streaming. On the other hand, they're hoping that a lot of consumers who still pay to subscribe to their channels as part of a cable TV package will pay them a second time for their streaming service -- sure, it'll have some overlap with their cable channels but it will also contain lots of additional stuff. Just like Hulu.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

wizwor said:


> I'm not at all worried about that. Chances are ATSC 3.0 will be streamed from a box to devices attached to televisions. Kind of like the Tablo TV DVR or Amazon's Recast. TiVo could make a box like that or write an app for their set top boxes or just sit on the sidelines. If they choose the latter, I expect all the streaming devices to help out.


Quite possible, but I'd much rather have a local DVR like TiVo. We'll see where it goes. If I have to get a network DVR, then I get a network DVR. I'm just concerned that TiVo won't make the jump to ATSC 3.0 at all.



NashGuy said:


> This is how the cable channel bundle unravels.


When do you think the current post-2000ish digital cable bundle will come crumbling completely down? My guess is that by 2022-2024, the current digital cable bundle won't exist in it's current form. What will be on linear pay TV, I'm not sure. I think by then, cable will pretty much just be a skinny bundle for sports and news.



CloudAtlas said:


> Hulu lost $1.5 billion in 2018 and is not expected to be profitable until at least 2024. So Disney will have to raise Hulu's monthly prices as well as cut down on licensed content as it adds more original content. And with Disney owning competing networks ABC and Fox - networks NBC and CBS as well as others may no longer license content to Hulu.


If you look at the way Hulu is position itself, basically giving away the version with ads, I would guess that almost their entire value is based on targeted advertising. I'm not sure what the means for profitability, but they may have more upside than services that are ad-free and charge a monthly fee for their service. With two tiers, Hulu can jack the rates way up on the ad-free version without risking their mainstream customers on the regular service with ads.


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

CloudAtlas said:


> I see Hulu as a compliment to TiVO/Cable just like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. I subscribe to Hulu and like it just like I subscribe and like Netflix and a full cable package including all movie channels (included in bundle.)
> 
> Nothing wrong with Hulu but it doesn't have all network shows nor does it have the latest episodes for all the shows it does have. And even the Hulu commercial free option HAS beginning and ending commercials on some shows and most movies.
> 
> ...


Disney doesn't own the FOX network. That wasn't in the sale.


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

Mikeguy said:


> Absolutely--but is it the content one wants. Oh, and then there's that pesky monthly charge, x 2 or 3 or 4 or 5.


That pesky monthly charge is for the massive amount of content. Compare it to the price of cable and it's pretty darn good.


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## abovethesink (Aug 26, 2013)

I still think there is a market for a Roku/Apple TV/Fire TV style streaming box revisiting the original OnePass vision. The market certainly isn't most people on this forum, but many of us are stuck in increasingly outdated modes of media consumption. Whoever replicates the traditional DVR experience to aggregate the vast and overall disorganized content of the streaming services will have a big leg up. I don't mean the same trick play options or physical recording, but just a simple "add this show to my list" section that works across all the most popular streaming services accurately and quickly. I don't think I need to describe this here as it was what OnePass was trying to do at first before they just kind of gave up on ever making the data reliable.

BUT there is a second step to this too. Not only does there need to be a reliable and quickly updated "My Shows" equivalent, but there also needs to be a strong curation and recommendation element too. There are many ways to do this and the best approach would be multifaceted. It could include a folder that drops a link to the first episode of literally every new show that appears in the database for abroad approach that just lets people know when new content exists. But there also needs to be detailed genre sections and human curation, maybe Youtube style 10 minute video reviews of new shows as they drop integrated into the system that could be accessed in the same area that a user would go to access a show. I am sure many other people could come up with other suggestions for how this could be done too.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

mschnebly said:


> That pesky monthly charge is for the massive amount of content. Compare it to the price of cable and it's pretty darn good.


Absolutely, at least as to the former point (as to the latter, the jury may still be out: as people have noted, the fees have a sneaky way of mounting up, once all is said and done). Of course, it's all more than free OTA, the amount of content from which has gone up dramatically at least in my area in the past 5 years (but without the likes of HBO, Showtime, etc.).


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

CloudAtlas said:


> I see Hulu as a compliment to TiVO/Cable just like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. I subscribe to Hulu and like it just like I subscribe and like Netflix and a full cable package including all movie channels (included in bundle.)
> 
> Nothing wrong with Hulu but it doesn't have all network shows nor does it have the latest episodes for all the shows it does have. And even the Hulu commercial free option HAS beginning and ending commercials on some shows and most movies.


OK, but YouTube TV probably has all your local channels (including CBS) and an infinite cloud DVR. And on demand content too. No rental hardware. $50/month for service.

And as far as commercials go, I don't know anybody who can't watch an occasional commercial in order to save $60/month on their bill.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

abovethesink said:


> I still think there is a market for a Roku/Apple TV/Fire TV style streaming box revisiting the original OnePass vision. The market certainly isn't most people on this forum, but many of us are stuck in increasingly outdated modes of media consumption. Whoever replicates the traditional DVR experience to aggregate the vast and overall disorganized content of the streaming services will have a big leg up. I don't mean the same trick play options or physical recording, but just a simple "add this show to my list" section that works across all the most popular streaming services accurately and quickly. I don't think I need to describe this here as it was what OnePass was trying to do at first before they just kind of gave up on ever making the data reliable.
> 
> BUT there is a second step to this too. Not only does there need to be a reliable and quickly updated "My Shows" equivalent, but there also needs to be a strong curation and recommendation element too. There are many ways to do this and the best approach would be multifaceted. It could include a folder that drops a link to the first episode of literally every new show that appears in the database for abroad approach that just lets people know when new content exists. But there also needs to be detailed genre sections and human curation, maybe Youtube style 10 minute video reviews of new shows as they drop integrated into the system that could be accessed in the same area that a user would go to access a show. I am sure many other people could come up with other suggestions for how this could be done too.


I completely agree that streaming TV platforms need some kind of overarching, unified UI that pulls together content from all the underlying apps in a convenient way. If you only use one or two streaming apps, I guess there's not a great need for that. But if you stream video from more than a couple of different sources, I think most people would find a unified UI to be very handy. (Imagine on a traditional cable box if you had to click into a separate screen to check the program schedule for each individual channel rather than having a single unified grid guide for all channels!)

The best stab at that I've seen so far is the Apple TV app, which serves as my "home base" for appointment television viewing. It's about to get updated any day with a refreshed design.

Apple TV App


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

NashGuy said:


> I completely agree that streaming TV platforms need some kind of overarching, unified UI that pulls together content from all the underlying apps in a convenient way...best stab at that I've seen so far is the Apple TV app, which serves as my "home base" for appointment television viewing.


Amazon has done this for you (for a lot less than Apple)...


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

waynomo said:


> With IPTV (apparently) being so cheap it seems it would put TiVo compatible systems at a disadvantage. One more notch in the coffin?
> 
> I love TiVo. If nothing better comes along I don't know what I would do if TiVo dvrs went away.


I used to think that. But the poor video quality from FiOS had me switch to streaming services. Now I typically use my TiVos for just news. While I watch scripted shows from streaming with better video quality than FiOS has now. And since there are either no commercials or I can quickly scan past them, surprisingly I have been fine with not using my TiVos much.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> Amazon has done this for you (for a lot less than Apple)...


I do like the way that Fire TV has created a grid-based schedule for live streaming channels that come from a variety of sources (Fire TV Recast OTA + Prime Video Channels + PS Vue + Philo, etc.).

But that's simply not the same thing that the Apple TV app has done, which integrates on-demand content (plus live sports and news) from various sources (basically, everything but Netflix). The old grid-based channel guide was (and is) great for linear channels but linear channels are not the norm in the world of streaming. On-demand is.

And, unless something has changed, Fire TV doesn't give you a unified watchlist across a bunch of different on-demand sources that you can manage, the way Apple's Up Next watchlist does, tracking your progress through the series you watch. Fire TV doesn't have an on-device (not cloud-based) algorithm to suggest new content based on what you've watched so far. It doesn't have human-curated lists of suggested and trending series and movies in different genres. IMO, the Fire TV home screen is a confusing hodge-podge of apps and content titles. Amazon said they were readying a revamped UI a year or so ago. Not sure what's happened to that...


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

NashGuy said:


> I do like the way that Fire TV has created a grid-based schedule for live streaming channels that come from a variety of sources (Fire TV Recast OTA + Prime Video Channels + PS Vue + Philo, etc.).
> 
> But that's simply not the same thing that the Apple TV app has done, which integrates on-demand content (plus live sports and news) from various sources (basically, everything but Netflix). The old grid-based channel guide was (and is) great for linear channels but linear channels are not the norm in the world of streaming. On-demand is.
> 
> And, unless something has changed, Fire TV doesn't give you a unified watchlist across a bunch of different on-demand sources that you can manage, the way Apple's Up Next watchlist does, tracking your progress through the series you watch. Fire TV doesn't have an on-device (not cloud-based) algorithm to suggest new content based on what you've watched so far. It doesn't have human-curated lists of suggested and trending series and movies in different genres. IMO, the Fire TV home screen is a confusing hodge-podge of apps and content titles. Amazon said they were readying a revamped UI a year or so ago. Not sure what's happened to that...


Right. LOL. It just lets me watch and record what I want. Sounds like Apple TV has a customer in you.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Phil T said:


> Where is a commercial free option for the NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX or basic cable channels? The only streaming commercial free options I know of are for premium channels.


I use ad free Hulu, CBS AA, Philio, and some shows I buy outright. So I either never see commercials or I am able to watch quickly FF past them.

Sent from my Galaxy S10


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Mikeguy said:


> Thank you very much, I'll take my Lifetimed TiVo box plus SkipMode and skip the monthly payments.


I used to be the same way until FiOS video quality started getting close to the lousy Comcast video quality. It forced me to switch o streaming services. And as a plus I pay less now than I did when I only used FiOS for watching my shows

Sent from my Galaxy S10


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> When do you think the current post-2000ish digital cable bundle will come crumbling completely down? My guess is that by 2022-2024, the current digital cable bundle won't exist in it's current form. What will be on linear pay TV, I'm not sure. I think by then, cable will pretty much just be a skinny bundle for sports and news.


I do think that it will be the norm for MVPDs and vMVPDs (whichever ones survive) to offer competitively priced* skinny channel bundles of sports + news (+ locals too, probably) by that 2022-24 time frame. And I think a lot of consumers will opt for those and complement them with various SVODs. In the meantime, consumers who don't care that much about sports will continue to abandon the cable channel bundle and just use SVODs, often complemented by free OTA TV and various free streaming sources. (And while sports will _mostly_ remain wedded to linear channels, we'll see a bit more sports content become available through a la carte streaming sources such as ESPN+, etc. I'll be interested to see if Sinclair offers their new RSNs as standalone streaming options.)

That said, I don't think cable channels outside of locals+sports+news are just going to fall away soon. Even in 2024 (which is only 5 years from now), there will still be lots of folks (particularly older viewers) who prefer to get as much of their content as possible through linear channels. Yes, I expect we'll see an increasing number of small, niche-y cable channels disappear. But I don't think TBS, HGTV, Discovery, USA or FX will cease to exist in the next few years. But perhaps we'll increasingly see most linear cable channels as merely extensions of brands that primarily reside in the SVODs offered by those channels' owners.

(*Right now, Comcast lets their broadband customers add just locals for an extra $20 per month including all fees. And then, if you want, you can add a Sports & News channel pack on top of that for an extra $30, although I'm pretty sure there's still the $8.25 RSN fee on top of that. So that's $58.25 for just locals, sports and news in HD. Want cloud DVR? That's an extra $10 on top, so a total of $68.25 on top of your broadband bill. That's clearly not competitive with the entire package of channels on YouTube TV, now priced at $50.)



Bigg said:


> If you look at the way Hulu is position itself, basically giving away the version with ads, I would guess that almost their entire value is based on targeted advertising. I'm not sure what the means for profitability, but they may have more upside than services that are ad-free and charge a monthly fee for their service. With two tiers, Hulu can jack the rates way up on the ad-free version without risking their mainstream customers on the regular service with ads.


Hulu reported makes over $9/mo per subscriber through selling targeted ads to those on the basic $6/mo plan. Hopefully this doesn't mean that my $12/mo ad-free plan goes up to $15, although that would make sense if those figures are true.

Hulu's price cut and Spotify tie-in suddenly make more sense


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> Right. LOL. It just lets me watch and record what I want. Sounds like Apple TV has a customer in you.


I'm not really interested in the paradigm of "recording" TV any more. It's just seems anachronistic. I laugh to myself when I visit my parents and watch Mom scrolling through the channel guide to see what's airing over the next several days to see if there's anything she wants to set up to record. And then there's always the management of storage space -- they have to delete watched shows to free up space, unless it's something they plan to watch again later. Sometimes they run into tuner conflicts because you can only record/watch so many live channels at once. And then there's the bother of skipping or FF'ing through the ads in recorded shows. Oops, went too far! Let me rewind back so we don't miss any of the show.

Once you've gotten used to watching everything you actually care about via on-demand streaming sources, the old way of TV just feels silly, like a lot of needless work.


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## Charles R (Nov 9, 2000)

BobCamp1 said:


> And as far as commercials go, I don't know anybody who can't watch an occasional commercial in order to save $60/month on their bill.


Having skipped commercials since 2000 there is virtually no content I'll watch if commercials are included. Sure I might zone out in front of the TV for an hour or so on a rare occasion and a few commercials might air however I'll switch what I'm going to watch before sitting through commercials. Nothing is that exciting that I'm willing to give up a third of my (viewing) life watching commercials.

Let's look as some rough numbers... 20 (years) x 365 (days) x 4 (viewing hours) = 29,200 hours. Average hour show is around 40 minutes nowadays so commercials are roughly 1/3 of the 29,200 hours. A whopping 9,636 hours you'll never get back! Sure one's numbers might be less or more but regardless it's far too many hours wasted in one's life.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

NashGuy said:


> I'm not really interested in the paradigm of "recording" TV any more. It's just seems anachronistic. I laugh to myself when I visit my parents and watch Mom scrolling through the channel guide to see what's airing over the next several days to see if there's anything she wants to set up to record. And then there's always the management of storage space -- they have to delete watched shows to free up space, unless it's something they plan to watch again later. Sometimes they run into tuner conflicts because you can only record/watch so many live channels at once. And then there's the bother of skipping or FF'ing through the ads in recorded shows. Oops, went too far! Let me rewind back so we don't miss any of the show.
> 
> Once you've gotten used to watching everything you actually care about via on-demand streaming sources, the old way of TV just feels silly, like a lot of needless work.


On-demand streaming is appealing. But then, it has its $ cost, as vs. free OTA. And as long as the streaming service has what one wants and doesn't suddenly stop offering it (a fear that I always would have--I prefer not relying on a company). And as long as one's Internet service supports the amount of streaming that one would do.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

Charles R said:


> Having skipped commercials since 2000 there is virtually no content I'll watch if commercials are included. Sure I might zone out in front of the TV for an hour or so on a rare occasion and a few commercials might air however I'll switch what I'm going to watch before sitting through commercials. Nothing is that exciting that I'm willing to give up a third of my (viewing) life watching commercials.
> 
> Let's look as some rough numbers... 20 (years) x 365 (days) x 4 (viewing hours) = 29,200 hours. Average hour show is around 40 minutes nowadays so commercials are roughly 1/3 of the 29,200 hours. A whopping 9,636 hours you'll never get back! Sure one's numbers might be less or more but regardless it's far too many hours wasted in one's life.


And that's why one has a TiVo box and skips over commercials. (Or otherwise uses the odd commercial break for the time-held tradition of going to the bathroom or getting some food from the kitchen, or multitasking online.)


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

wizwor said:


> Amazon has done this for you (for a lot less than Apple)...





NashGuy said:


> I do like the way that Fire TV has created a grid-based schedule for live streaming channels that come from a variety of sources (Fire TV Recast OTA + Prime Video Channels + PS Vue + Philo, etc.).
> 
> But that's simply not the same thing that the Apple TV app has done, which integrates on-demand content (plus live sports and news) from various sources (basically, everything but Netflix). The old grid-based channel guide was (and is) great for linear channels but linear channels are not the norm in the world of streaming. On-demand is.
> 
> And, unless something has changed, Fire TV doesn't give you a unified watchlist across a bunch of different on-demand sources that you can manage, the way Apple's Up Next watchlist does, tracking your progress through the series you watch. Fire TV doesn't have an on-device (not cloud-based) algorithm to suggest new content based on what you've watched so far. It doesn't have human-curated lists of suggested and trending series and movies in different genres. IMO, the Fire TV home screen is a confusing hodge-podge of apps and content titles. Amazon said they were readying a revamped UI a year or so ago. Not sure what's happened to that...


I don't do much streaming and get most content OTA, but from the above, the Amazon integrated system (from what I'm gathering, integrating both OTA and streaming services onto the same schedule grid--please correct me if I'm wrong there) looks very nice. I'm a bit confused, though: does Apple do that as well, and what, exactly, is it doing with the on-demand content? (Certainly it can't be listing the specific on-demand content that is available, along with the time-based content.)

For those using streaming services as vs. (or in addition to) cable, I can see the attraction of the Amazon system (as I understand it) over the TiVo guide, which seems cemented into the OTA and cable system paradigms. Would TiVo, including in its intended future, ever add to that as Amazon has done?


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

Mikeguy said:


> I don't do much streaming and get most content OTA, but from the above, the Amazon integrated system (from what I'm gathering, integrating both OTA and streaming services onto the same schedule grid--please correct me if I'm wrong there) looks very nice. I'm a bit confused, though: does Apple do that as well, and what, exactly, is it doing with the on-demand content? (Certainly it can't be listing the specific on-demand content that is available, along with the time-based content.)
> 
> For those using streaming services as vs. (or in addition to) cable, I can see the attraction of the Amazon system (as I understand it) over the TiVo guide, which seems cemented into the OTA and cable system paradigms. Would TiVo, including in its intended future, ever add to that as Amazon has done?


Apple does not do that with OTA content as they don't have an OTA tuner on the market. Amazon's grid up there includes using their Recast tuner/DVR.


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

NashGuy said:


> I do like the way that Fire TV has created a grid-based schedule for live streaming channels that come from a variety of sources (Fire TV Recast OTA + Prime Video Channels + PS Vue + Philo, etc.).
> 
> But that's simply not the same thing that the Apple TV app has done, which integrates on-demand content (plus live sports and news) from various sources (basically, everything but Netflix). The old grid-based channel guide was (and is) great for linear channels but linear channels are not the norm in the world of streaming. On-demand is.
> 
> And, unless something has changed, Fire TV doesn't give you a unified watchlist across a bunch of different on-demand sources that you can manage, the way Apple's Up Next watchlist does, tracking your progress through the series you watch. Fire TV doesn't have an on-device (not cloud-based) algorithm to suggest new content based on what you've watched so far. It doesn't have human-curated lists of suggested and trending series and movies in different genres. IMO, the Fire TV home screen is a confusing hodge-podge of apps and content titles. Amazon said they were readying a revamped UI a year or so ago. Not sure what's happened to that...


I rely on that with my APTV too. It works great.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

NashGuy said:


> I'm not really interested in the paradigm of "recording" TV any more. It's just seems anachronistic. I laugh to myself when I visit my parents and watch Mom scrolling through the channel guide to see what's airing over the next several days to see if there's anything she wants to set up to record. And then there's always the management of storage space -- they have to delete watched shows to free up space, unless it's something they plan to watch again later. Sometimes they run into tuner conflicts because you can only record/watch so many live channels at once. And then there's the bother of skipping or FF'ing through the ads in recorded shows. Oops, went too far! Let me rewind back so we don't miss any of the show.


I've mastered the collecting of programming. For shows I will watch more than once, I buy the box set and move to my Plex server. For shows I like to watch, I direct a TiVo to collect. I plan to migrate from this to a 9T Recast solution. 


NashGuy said:


> Once you've gotten used to watching everything you actually care about via on-demand streaming sources, the old way of TV just feels silly, like a lot of needless work.


Maybe, if I could find everything I want to watch on one streaming service. My library includes stuff on Prime and Netflix plus stuff I bought and stuff I collect OTA. To each his own, right?

I think I could be totally satisfied with Recast (OTA) + Vue Core + HBO (Prime Channel) + Plex. That would cost me $125 per month and surpass any Cable package I have ever had.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

BobCamp1 said:


> OK, but YouTube TV probably has all your local channels (including CBS) and an infinite cloud DVR. And on demand content too. No rental hardware. $50/month for service.
> 
> And as far as commercials go, I don't know anybody who can't watch an occasional commercial in order to save $60/month on their bill.


I do not want to watch commercials. Even if they paid me $100 a month I wouldnt do it. The reason I couldn't go with a regular iptv service to entirely replace cable, was because you couldn't avoid all the commercials.

So I went with ad free hulu, philo, CBS aa, plus news from FiOS cable. And then some shows I buy outright. I get better video quality, avoid commercials, and still pay less than when I got everything from cable.

I've been time shifting my TV watching since 1984. So I am very adverse to watching commercials.

Sent from my Galaxy S10


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> I do not want to watch commercials. Even if they paid me $100 a month I wouldnt do it. The reason I couldn't go with a regular iptv service to entirely replace cable, was because you couldn't avoid all the commercials.
> 
> So I went with ad free hulu, philo, CBS aa, plus news from FiOS cable. And then some shows I buy outright. I get better video quality, avoid commercials, and still pay less than when I got everything from cable.
> 
> ...


OK, I haven't tried Hulu in years and when I did I hated the ads, and mostly, the picture quality sucked a$$. aaronwt, are you seeing pretty good PQ with Hulu add free? FiOS used to be fantastic (and it is still good overall) but I swear they're compressing more the past few years. If the PQ is the same or better on Hulu I may be willing to give it a go again.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> I do think that it will be the norm for MVPDs and vMVPDs (whichever ones survive) to offer competitively priced* skinny channel bundles of sports + news (+ locals too, probably) by that 2022-24 time frame.


That's an interesting take, but I just wonder how the MVPDs expect to remain competitive and actually make money off of them, other than just using broadband to promote them and push up their subscriber numbers for Wall Street. The MVPDs are notoriously slow and uninnvovative compared to Google, Sony, DISH, or Hulu, all of whom have various live TV options.



> That said, I don't think cable channels outside of locals+sports+news are just going to fall away soon. Even in 2024 (which is only 5 years from now), there will still be lots of folks (particularly older viewers) who prefer to get as much of their content as possible through linear channels. Yes, I expect we'll see an increasing number of small, niche-y cable channels disappear. But I don't think TBS, HGTV, Discovery, USA or FX will cease to exist in the next few years. But perhaps we'll increasingly see most linear cable channels as merely extensions of brands that primarily reside in the SVODs offered by those channels' owners.


I like the idea of channels as brands, which I think is very essential to understanding this whole shift, and you've talked quite a bit about that before. However, I have to think that a lot of cable channels are going to fail as MVPDs look to trim costs. The age of "channel tonnage" seems to be over in the sense that no one really cares about having 400 channels of garbage anymore, so I have to wonder if the combination of MVPDs trimming costs and skinny bundles, either by MVPDs or vMVPDs, will cause a cleaning out of those smaller, less watched channels. I agree that the big channels aren't going to be gone completely in 5 years, but what will they look like with millions fewer subscribers, and thus a lot less revenue to work with? That's the question across the industry, as channels have variable revenue, but relatively fixed costs, so they are going to have to cut those costs to match revenue, and the quality of their content will drop as a result, causing more people to cut the cord and so forth and so on. I don't see any happy ending for most of the traditional channels, other than a few that have a cult-like following like HGTV. I don't know where TBS or USA end up when the good shows are getting gobbled up by Netflix and Amazon, driving content costs up at the same time that their revenue is dropping like a rock.



> (*Right now, Comcast lets their broadband customers add just locals for an extra $20 per month including all fees. And then, if you want, you can add a Sports & News channel pack on top of that for an extra $30, although I'm pretty sure there's still the $8.25 RSN fee on top of that. So that's $58.25 for just locals, sports and news in HD. Want cloud DVR? That's an extra $10 on top, so a total of $68.25 on top of your broadband bill. That's clearly not competitive with the entire package of channels on YouTube TV, now priced at $50.)


That's basically just re-building part of the classic Expanded Basic lineup, minus a bunch of channels for about the same price. It makes no sense, and that kind of crap is what makes people want to cut the cord that much more.



> Hulu reported makes over $9/mo per subscriber through selling targeted ads to those on the basic $6/mo plan. Hopefully this doesn't mean that my $12/mo ad-free plan goes up to $15, although that would make sense if those figures are true.


I think it could go to $15/mo, if not more. The no ads version will generate less money over time if it were to stay at the same price, due to inflation and increased content costs, while the value of the subscriber with ads goes up significantly due to better targeting and monetization.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> Maybe, if I could find everything I want to watch on one streaming service.


We'll eventually get to a point where all the new/current content that shows up on linear broadcast/cable channels is also immediately available through at least one SVOD too, but it's going to take a little while to get there. (Well, for sports and certain news shows, it may take a long time.)

At any rate, there are some trade-offs any way you go, and the only way to get *everything* is to subscribe to the entire cable channel bundle PLUS all of the various SVODs too. But very, very few people really want everything. They just want a good variety of content that includes all or nearly all of the series that they already watch.

As you say, to each his own. And right now, each of us has more options than ever to put together our own custom bundles of content sources.



exdishguy said:


> OK, I haven't tried Hulu in years and when I did I hated the ads, and mostly, the picture quality sucked a$$. aaronwt, are you seeing pretty good PQ with Hulu add free? FiOS used to be fantastic (and it is still good overall) but I swear they're compressing more the past few years. If the PQ is the same or better on Hulu I may be willing to give it a go again.


The HD PQ on Hulu is pretty good, IMO. But don't just take my word for it, read this new article:

One Thing We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Cord-Cutting

Key quote from the reviewer, comparing Hulu vs. NBC on Dish: "_now that I've adjusted to just how much better the AV experience is via on-demand streaming, even for maudlin (but addicting) fluff like This Is Us, I feel a little ashamed for subjecting my reference-quality home theater system to the garbage quality of satellite for as long as I did._"


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Hulu's price cut and Spotify tie-in suddenly make more sense


The Hulu and Spotify tie-up is genius for both of them, as it makes the subscription stickier, while bringing a lot of new people into both, particularly Hulu. They've probably got a great demographic overlap too.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

exdishguy said:


> OK, I haven't tried Hulu in years and when I did I hated the ads, and mostly, the picture quality sucked a$$. aaronwt, are you seeing pretty good PQ with Hulu add free? FiOS used to be fantastic (and it is still good overall) but I swear they're compressing more the past few years. If the PQ is the same or better on Hulu I may be willing to give it a go again.


Yes the quality is good. FiOS quality used to be better. But over the last three years or so FiOS video quality has really taken a nose dive. I tried out most, if not all, of the streaming services last fall. And they all had better video quality than what my TiVo recordings from FiOS showed.

I was completely shocked how much better it was. Since that did not used to be the case.


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## CTLesq (Jan 19, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> I'm not really interested in the paradigm of "recording" TV any more. It's just seems anachronistic. I laugh to myself when I visit my parents and watch Mom scrolling through the channel guide to see what's airing over the next several days to see if there's anything she wants to set up to record. And then there's always the management of storage space -- they have to delete watched shows to free up space, unless it's something they plan to watch again later. Sometimes they run into tuner conflicts because you can only record/watch so many live channels at once. And then there's the bother of skipping or FF'ing through the ads in recorded shows. Oops, went too far! Let me rewind back so we don't miss any of the show.
> 
> Once you've gotten used to watching everything you actually care about via on-demand streaming sources, the old way of TV just feels silly, like a lot of needless work.


How do you address finding all that on demand content in one place? Meaning, I have season passes for what I enjoy watching and I don't have to think, oh show X airs today and show Y airs tomorrow because they appear in my shows and I watch them when I want.

With on demand don't you have the additional issue of knowing when something aired, figuring out which app to go into (say on an AppleTV).

I would very much like to understand how it works for you - thanks!


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> I was completely shocked how much better it was. Since that did not used to be the case.


FiOS got worse, and streaming got better. They had to cross over at some point. Some streaming services, especially Amazon, just look amazing. It probably doesn't hurt to have all that AWS bandwidth lying around.



CTLesq said:


> How do you address finding all that on demand content in one place? Meaning, I have season passes for what I enjoy watching and I don't have to think, oh show X airs today and show Y airs tomorrow because they appear in my shows and I watch them when I want.


You were asking NashGuy, but I'll answer how I do it and see how we compare. For me, almost all the weekly stuff except a couple of HBO shows are OTA, so I record those on TiVo, i.e. BBT, 60 Minutes, SNL, about 6 PBS series, etc. I just see what shows up there. For HBO, I have to remember to check, and occasionally I get a few episodes behind on something and have a mini-binge. Everything else is either individual movies/documentaries/miniseries, or long series that drop all at once and I can binge them as I see fit, i.e. Netflix, Amazon, etc.


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## Series3Sub (Mar 14, 2010)

NashGuy said:


> I'm not really interested in the paradigm of "recording" TV any more. It's just seems anachronistic. I laugh to myself when I visit my parents and watch Mom scrolling through the channel guide to see what's airing over the next several days to see if there's anything she wants to set up to record. And then there's always the management of storage space -- they have to delete watched shows to free up space, unless it's something they plan to watch again later. Sometimes they run into tuner conflicts because you can only record/watch so many live channels at once. And then there's the bother of skipping or FF'ing through the ads in recorded shows. Oops, went too far! Let me rewind back so we don't miss any of the show.
> 
> Once you've gotten used to watching everything you actually care about via on-demand streaming sources, the old way of TV just feels silly, like a lot of needless work.


There are a great many things I actually care to watch that are NOT available On Demand or via Streaming Services (at the right bundle or channels not offered at all. Further, I watch quite a bit of content months after it airs or even save it to watch again, such as science shows that require a good viewing more than once, so the streaming service DVR limits of only saved for a month or so does not cut it, nor does it work when programming has been pulled from On Demand access from places like Netflix--I have MULTIPLE examples of such experiences and it really annoying, but I can keep my content on my local DVR for as LONG AS I LIKE and be in no rush to watch it, and having a 16 tuner DVR means never having tuner conflicts. I jumped into the whole On demand services and even tried the VMVPD's (live, linear streaming services), and they all fall short in MORE ways than one and inability to skip commercials (Dish AutoHop or TiVo Auto Skip or even the 30 second skip is quick and easy to get past the commercials while some OTT services force you to watch commercials) is a HUGE time waster while watching content with NO CONTROL. Also, the audio and even video quality can be hit and miss on OTT and VMVPD's don't offer DD5.1 and OTT's offer the inferior DD+. But the interesting Irony is that when such services either don't offer all the channels important to me or even channels that I watch on occasion--and I don't want to wait a year for content I want to watch today to be available on Netflix or Hulu, but also how LIMITING the channels or library of VOD is because there is a lot of content I want to watch that is airing NOW, and I am not interested in viewing OLD shows I had already seen or lack relevance to the here and now. In time the services that now are inexpensive will get as expensive as cable and satellite, and by then the consumer will have to consider all the options all over again and they will probably go back to cable or satellite, especially since NONE of the VMPVD's are making any money and won't for many years (cable and sat still make money) and even Netflix and Amazon don't even pay dividends because they have to put ALL the money back into the over budgeted content that cost billions because they don't make enough money to have any left over for dividends, and this practice has gone on for years, and even decades in some cases such as Amazon, except for one quarter during the last economic recession. I am glad the sloppy internet services are for you, but not for me nor a great many people.


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

Series3Sub said:


> There are a great many things I actually care to watch that are NOT available On Demand or via Streaming Services (at the right bundle or channels not offered at all. Further, I watch quite a bit of content months after it airs or even save it to watch again, such as science shows that require a good viewing more than once, so the streaming service DVR limits of only saved for a month or so does not cut it, nor does it work when programming has been pulled from On Demand access from places like Netflix--I have MULTIPLE examples of such experiences and it really annoying, but I can keep my content on my local DVR for as LONG AS I LIKE and be in no rush to watch it, and having a 16 tuner DVR means never having tuner conflicts. I jumped into the whole On demand services and even tried the VMVPD's (live, linear streaming services), and they all fall short in MORE ways than one and inability to skip commercials (Dish AutoHop or TiVo Auto Skip or even the 30 second skip is quick and easy to get past the commercials while some OTT services force you to watch commercials) is a HUGE time waster while watching content with NO CONTROL. Also, the audio and even video quality can be hit and miss on OTT and VMVPD's don't offer DD5.1 and OTT's offer the inferior DD+. But the interesting Irony is that when such services either don't offer all the channels important to me or even channels that I watch on occasion--and I don't want to wait a year for content I want to watch today to be available on Netflix or Hulu, but also how LIMITING the channels or library of VOD is because there is a lot of content I want to watch that is airing NOW, and I am not interested in viewing OLD shows I had already seen or lack relevance to the here and now. In time the services that now are inexpensive will get as expensive as cable and satellite, and by then the consumer will have to consider all the options all over again and they will probably go back to cable or satellite, especially since NONE of the VMPVD's are making any money and won't for many years (cable and sat still make money) and even Netflix and Amazon don't even pay dividends because they have to put ALL the money back into the over budgeted content that cost billions because they don't make enough money to have any left over for dividends, and this practice has gone on for years, and even decades in some cases such as Amazon, except for one quarter during the last economic recession. I am glad the sloppy internet services are for you, but not for me nor a great many people.


That's what's great about choice. For you, you can set things up as you want it and keep shows as long as you want. For most, at least the folks I know, they really don't care if every show is 5.1 and besides keeping track of a few series they just sit down and see what's on. Netflix has so much new original stuff that you couldn't watch it all if you sat in front of the tube 24/7. Add in Amazon and for $15-$30 you are all set. Kids around here are YouTube addicts and watch on their phones or tablets. Movie night just pull up Vudu or iTunes Movies and see what's newly released to rent with very good sound and PQ.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Key quote from the reviewer, comparing Hulu vs. NBC on Dish: "_now that I've adjusted to just how much better the AV experience is via on-demand streaming, even for maudlin (but addicting) fluff like This Is Us, I feel a little ashamed for subjecting my reference-quality home theater system to the garbage quality of satellite for as long as I did._"


That's a huge problem for Tivo. They offer a high end DVR, but those high-end people have noticed the video quality sucks so now they're mainly streaming and don't really need a fancy DVR anymore.

For the masses, the Tivo is way too expensive. Especially when you add the Minis to it. The cable TV subscription is also expensive. They can live with something cheap even if it means watching the occasional commercial. So they maybe buy a cheaper OTA DVR and/or just stream everything as well.

So the market for high-end and low-end DVRs is shrinking, the low end has lots of competition, and that impacts both the Tivo product and the money coming in from the IP. Which is why nobody wants to buy the company(ies).


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

Bigg said:


> FiOS got worse, and streaming got better. They had to cross over at some point. Some streaming services, especially Amazon, just look amazing. It probably doesn't hurt to have all that AWS bandwidth lying around.


Not an advertisement for FiOS, but here in the NY Metro market it seems that AV quality is improving again. They have dropped a bunch a channels, and converted more QAMs to MPEG4. They just did a 2160p broadcast last week that, by all reports, looked great.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

On the original topic of the thread - I just hope that the TiVo software and Rovi guide data end up in different companies...at least then we'd have a chance of switching EPG data providers.


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

Diana Collins said:


> On the original topic of the thread - I just hope that the TiVo software and Rovi guide data end up in different companies...at least then we'd have a chance of switching EPG data providers.


LOL. They will split with a contract to use Rovi for "x" years.


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## OrangeCrush (Feb 18, 2016)

NashGuy said:


> I completely agree that streaming TV platforms need some kind of overarching, unified UI that pulls together content from all the underlying apps in a convenient way.


We need a UI that cohesively blends on-demand content like Netflix with linear channels from multiple sources (Cable, OTA, OTT, etc.). Google, Apple, Amazon, Roku, Plex, TiVo, etc. have all been working on this. I don't think anybody's quite nailed it yet, but there's been a lot of progress & innovation. Pretty much everybody has a good enough (voice) search feature to answer "I want to watch [specific show], where is it?" but I think there's still a lot of room to improve handing "what can I watch right now?" or browsing/content suggestions and discoverability. And part of it is just going to be consumers un-learning their reliance on grid guides and the absurd number of linear channels showing 80% reruns of old shows. In another 10 years I wouldn't be surprised if linear TV stopped airing scripted TV entirely and stuck to producing things that actually matter live (sports, news, etc.)



Diana Collins said:


> On the original topic of the thread - I just hope that the TiVo software and Rovi guide data end up in different companies...at least then we'd have a chance of switching EPG data providers.


I would love to go back to the more accurate & complete gracenote data. Hopefully they've preserved whatever software groundwork needs to be in place to switch it back.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

CTLesq said:


> How do you address finding all that on demand content in one place? Meaning, I have season passes for what I enjoy watching and I don't have to think, oh show X airs today and show Y airs tomorrow because they appear in my shows and I watch them when I want.
> 
> With on demand don't you have the additional issue of knowing when something aired, figuring out which app to go into (say on an AppleTV).
> 
> I would very much like to understand how it works for you - thanks!


On my Apple TV, I use the Apple TV app as the main (but not only) place to keep track of what I'm watching and what's available. It offers an Apple-curated list of "What to Watch" and "New & Noteworthy" plus lists of trending/popular TV shows and movies. It now also offers personalized automated recommendations based on past shows I've watched. I can also drill down into specific genres of movies and TV shows for longer lists. It pulls the featured shows and movies from across lots of different apps/services -- basically everything except Netflix -- including some I don't subscribe to. It's a simple unified place to browse for new ideas of what to watch.

Clicking on any show shown in the app -- or doing a Siri voice search for any show or movie -- will take me to its info page, which lets me know the available ways to watch it, gives more info, a trailer (for movies), Rotten Tomatoes score (for movies), a list of all the seasons and individual episodes (for shows), etc. From there I can either add it to my Up Next universal watchlist or click through to watch it in whichever app I choose to watch it in. (It will default to using an app that I have installed and currently subscribe to, if available.) If I purchase or rent it from Apple, then it just play right inside the Apple TV app. Same is true if I subscribe to HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax, Epix, or certain other services directly in the Apple TV app. Otherwise, clicking to watch bounces me out to another app (e.g. Hulu, Prime Video, PBS, HBO Now, PS Vue, etc.) where I'll be taken right to the content.

The Up Next watchlist is the thing I use the most in this app. It's right at the top of the front tab. It keeps track of all the stuff I've saved to watch later and that I've already begun watching. It communicates back and forth with all those different apps (everything except Netflix), so it knows how far I've progressed in watching a series or movie and always shows me the next available episode ready to watch. When I've finished a movie, it disappears automatically from the Up Next list. When I've watched all the available episodes of a series, it will disappear from the list too but then automatically reappear when a new episode(s) becomes available. So when season 2 of Barry on HBO debuted a few weeks back, that series simply reappeared in my Up Next list. I didn't have to know it had come back on HBO. In fact, I didn't even have an HBO subscription at the time. But it popped back to let me know a new episode was ready to watch. (You can always manually remove any title from Up Next if you decide you're no longer interested in it, though.)

Aside from the Apple TV app, I do still spend amount of time browsing around inside of individual apps too. If I find something new to watch inside, say, Hulu and then start watching it there, that show will automatically get added to the Up Next list in the Apple TV app, so I don't have to manually add it there too. I think there are 75 or more apps that communicate in both directions like this with the Apple TV app. (Although, if I just add a show/movie to Hulu's "My Stuff" watchlist inside of the Hulu app, rather than start watching it there, it does not also get added to the Up Next list.)

About Netflix: their content is included in universal Siri voice searches and have their own Apple-generated info pages, just like anything else. And you can click from that page to go straight to the episode or movie inside the Netflix app. But content that is exclusive to Netflix cannot be added to the Up Next watchlist because the Netflix app won't communicate back to it to let it know what you've actually watched inside Netflix. (This is a Netflix business decision.) So, for me, Netflix is kind of its own separate viewing system walled off inside their little app. So when I subscribe to it (I don't currently), I spend a fair bit of time browsing inside the Netflix app for stuff to watch there and I maintain a separate watchlist in that app just for Netflix content.

Beyond the Apple TV app, and browsing through content in individual apps, I also find out about things to watch by reading things online (reviews, etc.), seeing advertisement, and getting recommendations from friends. I don't ever feel like it's hard to find stuff to watch.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Series3Sub said:


> In time the services that now are inexpensive will get as expensive as cable and satellite, and by then the consumer will have to consider all the options all over again and they will probably go back to cable or satellite, especially since NONE of the VMPVD's are making any money and won't for many years (cable and sat still make money) and even Netflix and Amazon don't even pay dividends because they have to put ALL the money back into the over budgeted content that cost billions because they don't make enough money to have any left over for dividends, and this practice has gone on for years, and even decades in some cases such as Amazon, except for one quarter during the last economic recession. I am glad the sloppy internet services are for you, but not for me nor a great many people.


You seem to be lumping streaming cable services (vMVPDs) like YouTube TV and PS Vue in with streaming on-demand services (SVODs) like Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Now, etc. I know both kinds of services are delivered via the internet (OTT) but they're really two different things. vMVPDs are just an extension of the traditional cable/satellite system that offers bundles of linear channels. That whole system is shrinking and will continue to do so as the new SVOD system grows, gaining an increasing share of content offered and consumers' time and money spent.

I tend to doubt that vMVPDs will see huge growth in the future and ever really rival traditional MVPDs in terms of total number of subscribers. For a variety of reasons, I expect that the vast majority of folks in the 2020s who want a traditional package of cable channels will opt to get that service from the same company that provides their broadband (e.g Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, Altice, Cox, etc.).

As for your objections to streaming, sure, I don't pretend that they're aren't trade-offs or that SVODs can currently serve as a full substitute for what's on MVPDs' cable channels. But then, at the same time, MVPDs' cable channels aren't a substitute for what's on SVODs like Netflix, Prime Video, etc. which have a lot of their own exclusive original content.

But watch what happens in the next few years: we'll see more and more of the content available on cable channels ALSO become available through an SVOD at the same time. Just yesterday, WarnerMedia announced that their upcoming SVOD -- tentatively named "HBO Max" (I've been predicting the name "HBO+") -- will stream certain Turner originals BEFORE they air on their TBS, TNT or TruTV cable channels.

full story (requires email for free trial): WarnerMedia to Put Some Shows on Streaming Service First
recap story: WarnerMedia may stream show debuts before they reach TV

But we'll also see more and more new content that's exclusive to SVODs and not available on any cable channel. There will be originals on Disney+, Apple TV+ and the upcoming SVODs from HBO/Warner, NBCU, and probably Discovery/BBC that don't air on any cable channels. Over time, the only stuff that will be exclusive to cable channels will be sports and certain news/opinion shows.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

Maybe Weaknees should purchase the TiVo product division.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

Mikeguy said:


> Maybe Weaknees should purchase the TiVo product division.


What an awesome idea! Maybe we should start a Kickstarter campaign to help them buy it (and demand some equity)?


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

exdishguy said:


> What an awesome idea! Maybe we should start a Kickstarter campaign to help them buy it (and demand some equity)?


Coincidentally, I've been following a Kickstarter campaign that started today, for a luxury art item. I believe that it reached its $50K campaign goal in 8 [sic] minutes, and currently is at more than 7x that amount, with 29 days to go.

Stranger things have happened.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Diana Collins said:


> On the original topic of the thread - I just hope that the TiVo software and Rovi guide data end up in different companies...at least then we'd have a chance of switching EPG data providers.


Even if they were separated, I'm sure there would be a provision in the divorce documents stating that the product company would get free access to the Rovi guide data in perpetuity. We aren't getting Gracenote guide data back under any circumstances.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

so it's official? Last conference call they said they were pretty much doing this but I guess there was still some chance they didn't do it.


Sounds like Rovi just wanted the IP. And weren't been able to sell off the product division so they are spinning it off.


IF someone does buy it who would? Comcast? Amazon? Tv manufacturer? Overseas company?


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## MassMan (Mar 19, 2019)

Huawei will buy them, add malware to the dvr's and sell them to us.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

MassMan said:


> Huawei will buy them, add malware to the dvr's and sell them to us.


Not to me. I've bought my last ATSC 1.0 hardware. Those $199.99 sales were too good not to hoard.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

trip1eX said:


> Sounds like Rovi just wanted the IP. And weren't been able to sell off the product division so they are spinning it off.
> 
> IF someone does buy it who would? Comcast? Amazon? Tv manufacturer? Overseas company?


Well, the main thing that the product division does now is sell IPTV solutions to small-to-mid-sized MSOs (both telcos as well as cablecos transitioning to IPTV), plus of course provide ongoing service (guide data, software updates) to the existing client base of cablecos that use various models of CableCARD-equipped TiVo boxes.

The most likely acquirer of an entire business is typically a direct competitor or a company selling related complementary products. So who else is selling IPTV solutions for those tier 2 and 3 MSOs? This article over at LightReading suggests MobiTV, Minerva Networks, Evolution Digital, Espial (now part of Enghouse) and MediaKind.


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

NashGuy said:


> Well, the main thing that the product division does now is sell IPTV solutions to small-to-mid-sized MSOs (both telcos as well as cablecos transitioning to IPTV), plus of course provide ongoing service (guide data, software updates) to the existing client base of cablecos that use various models of CableCARD-equipped TiVo boxes.
> 
> The most likely acquirer of an entire business is typically a direct competitor or a company selling related complementary products. So who else is selling IPTV solutions for those tier 2 and 3 MSOs? This article over at LightReading suggests MobiTV, Minerva Networks, Evolution Digital, Espial (now part of Enghouse) and MediaKind.


Great article. Looks like Amazon and Google are really serious in taking a big chunk of business. They are working hard to get some deals going. Both have an awful lot going on in video distribution and see this as a way to build up on it.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mschnebly said:


> Great article. Looks like Amazon and Google are really serious in taking a big chunk of business. They are working hard to get some deals going. Both have an awful lot going on in video distribution and see this as a way to build up on it.


Yeah. And Apple has gotten a few MVPDs (Charter here in the US) to use the Apple TV as a kinda/sorta cable box (albeit with the standard tvOS UI, not a customized UI like Google and apparently now Amazon are offering to MVPDs).

Looking ahead a few years, it's just hard to see anyone left standing in the world of TV-connected devices beyond Comcast X1, Roku, Amazon, Google and Apple. Pretty much everyone else will just be an app riding atop those platforms.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

NashGuy said:


> Looking ahead a few years, it's just hard to see anyone left standing in the world of TV-connected devices beyond Comcast X1, Roku, Amazon, Google and Apple. Pretty much everyone else will just be an app riding atop those platforms.


Besides TiVo, who else is left standing right now?


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

OrangeCrush said:


> Hopefully they've preserved whatever software groundwork needs to be in place to switch it back.


It's on the shelf next to the Live Guide, Thumbs up/down and Transfer Recordings software groundwork collecting dust.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> Besides TiVo, who else is left standing right now?


No one in the retail world but there are various first-party and third-party STB platforms in place by MSOs other than X1 -- Charter WorldBox, FiOS TV, AlticeOne, plus the various solutions sold to smaller MSOs by TiVo's competitors which I referenced above.

It's probably an exaggeration to say that ALL those are going away but surely some of them will die or at least be deprecated over the next several years.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

NashGuy said:


> No one in the retail world but there are various first-party and third-party STB platforms in place by MSOs other than X1 -- Charter WorldBox, FiOS TV, AlticeOne, plus the various solutions sold to smaller MSOs by TiVo's competitors which I referenced above.
> 
> It's probably an exaggeration to say that ALL those are going away but surely some of them will die or at least be deprecated over the next several years.


I think you are right about Big Cable getting out of the set top box business. Those boxes require service and inventory and only make sense when the monthly fee is very high. TiVo never really attacked the cable companies on price. You always had to measure the payback in years. With a Roku or Fire TV stick, payback comes in months.

























I'm not even sure Apple and Google will have meaningful market share in 'a few years'. Is Android TV Google or 'everyone else'? If you are going to build a smart TV, Android TV is free. Google seems to be fighting for customers who are going away -- the cable companies and televisions which are not Roku or FireTV. In the growing streamer segment, Apple and Google have fallen from half to a third. In 2015, Macworld boasted that Apple TV ousts Amazon and Roku to become the leading set-top box...



Macworld said:


> According to data from Adobe Digita Index (ADI), in 2015 Apple TV doubled its share of paid TV streaming, surpassing longtime leader Roku and popular gaming consoles like Xbox and PlayStation. And that was even before the launch of the newest generation. As the Apple TV continues to gain steam, we can expect more developers to jump aboard.
> 
> "When TV broadcasters build an app they focus on Apple first," said ADI principal analyst Tamara Gaffney. "It's very hard to build a streaming video app for every platform [Android, Roku], so going with Apple is a natural consolidation."


'Other' is simple fading away. The last chart is installed base, btw. Amazon was late to the game and has been quietly eating away at the installed base of Roku which has been around since 2007 and was THE Netflix streamer for nearly a decade. Now, Amazon is practically giving away their consumer devices, has added a DVR, and has integrated OTT and OTA. 2019 numbers may be eye opening.

So, I think you are correct that the MVPDs will get out of the set top business. I'm just not sure where they end up. I think we can all agree that I think TiVo is over. Hard to count Apple out, but they have been on the verge of 'Insanely Great' for years. Insanely Great is expensive. Roku positions itself as content agnostic. Their TVOS is terrific. Maybe they get out of the hardware business and focus on licensing the OS? That leaves, brace yourself, for Google and Amazon to fight over the rest. Google is a very dark force in the universe.

I would like to offer Walmart up as a potential player. Walmart competes with Amazon in a very broad sense and in very specific spaces. Walmart has Vudu, free delivery, and a relationship with Apple. It would not surprise me to learn that Walmart is working on a Loyalty Program similar to Prime.

It would all be very overwhelming if it mattered at all to a guy with a TiVo and an antenna.


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

NashGuy said:


> Yeah. And Apple has gotten a few MVPDs (Charter here in the US) to use the Apple TV as a kinda/sorta cable box (albeit with the standard tvOS UI, not a customized UI like Google and apparently now Amazon are offering to MVPDs).
> 
> Looking ahead a few years, it's just hard to see anyone left standing in the world of TV-connected devices beyond Comcast X1, Roku, Amazon, Google and Apple. Pretty much everyone else will just be an app riding atop those platforms.


Amazon, Apple and Google have VERY deep pockets and can pretty much do whatever they decide to do. Plus they aren't afraid to go for it.


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

wizwor said:


> I think you are right about Big Cable getting out of the set top box business. Those boxes require service and inventory and only make sense when the monthly fee is very high. TiVo never really attacked the cable companies on price. You always had to measure the payback in years. With a Roku or Fire TV stick, payback comes in months.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Roku, Fire Stick and Chromecast are almost as cheap as dirt. $25-$45 retail so it's reaching the point of razors. Give away the streamer and charge for the content.
It might matter to that TiVo guy if TiVo goes under and that box gets hit by a power surge or something that takes it out. They don't last forever.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

mschnebly said:


> Roku, Fire Stick and Chromecast are almost as cheap as dirt. $25-$45 retail so it's reaching the point of razors. Give away the streamer and charge for the content.
> It might matter to that TiVo guy if TiVo goes under and that box gets hit by a power surge or something that takes it out. They don't last forever.


I meant me ;-) With kids leaving and wife gone, five Roamios ought to last as long as I need.

The thing with the razor blade analogy is that one of the top players doesn't sell content (per se). If Roku were still a private company, I would have suggested Walmart could be a buyer. Now, I think they simply fade away.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> The thing with the razor blade analogy is that one of the top players doesn't sell content (per se). If Roku were still a private company, I would have suggested Walmart could be a buyer. Now, I think they simply fade away.


I think Roku has established way too big an installed user base to just fade away. If their numbers cool off a little, then so will the stock price, and I could definitely see Walmart swooping in to buy it. Walmart has a history of scooping up tech/net companies (e.g. Vudu, Jet.com) to gain an instant presence there. Walmart, of course, owns Vudu and they're going to soon debut a small slate of their own original content. Vudu is morphing from being mainly TVOD (rentals & sales) to also being AVOD (ad-supported free content). The ads on the upcoming original series will be tied to Walmart's online shopping cart, in fact. And of course Roku is mainly about selling ads. Meanwhile, why wouldn't Walmart want their own answer to the Fire TV Stick? It all makes a ton of sense for Walmart to own Roku, assuming they could acquire it at the right price.

As for Google's Android TV, I don't know if it ever breaks out in terms of retail sales (e.g. Nvidia Shield TV, Mi Box) and reaches an installed user base close to Apple TV. But where it is succeeding is as a near-turnkey platform for MVPD-provided boxes. We're seeing more and more operators around the world offer their customers inexpensive Android TV boxes. They can go to market with them in just a couple months if the don't customize them (other than maybe slapping their logo on the home screen) or they can take a bit longer to customize the UI, essentially integrating their app into the home screen. This is what TiVo is doing with their Next-Gen Platform for IPTV operators. It's just Google Android TV with a TiVo-customized home screen. AT&T is adopting Android TV with a custom UI for their next-gen platform that will (if all goes according to plan) gradually replace their satellite and Uverse TV services.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> No one in the retail world but there are various first-party and third-party STB platforms in place by MSOs other than X1 -- Charter WorldBox, FiOS TV, AlticeOne, plus the various solutions sold to smaller MSOs by TiVo's competitors which I referenced above.
> 
> It's probably an exaggeration to say that ALL those are going away but surely some of them will die or at least be deprecated over the next several years.


As long as MSOs want to re-invent the wheel, they will re-invent the wheel. It's too hard to get another consumer streaming platform out there with support for hundreds of apps, but when they only need a couple of key apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, and maybe 1 or 2 other ones, and they have a decent number of semi-captive customers, they will keep at it.

Plus, these MSOs still move at a fairly glacial speed, so I think that the pay TV market will be mostly gone by the time that they seriously look at abandoning their own platforms. At that point, maybe they just become apps on Roku, Apple TV, FireTV, and Android TV. Or maybe they all converge on X1 and Android-based platforms in a purely IPTV world with super cheap hardware.



wizwor said:


> If Roku were still a private company, I would have suggested Walmart could be a buyer. Now, I think they simply fade away.


Why would Roku fade away? That makes no sense. They have the biggest marketshare of them all (except Chromecast which is almost it's own category), and the most apps. They provide the OS to a lot of TVs and have a TON of boxes out there. Roku isn't going anywhere. Neither are Apple, Amazon, or Google (in one form or another).



NashGuy said:


> Vudu is morphing from being mainly TVOD (rentals & sales) to also being AVOD (ad-supported free content).


I don't see a huge growth market in the free ad-supported content. I think they could grind out some profits from it, it seems like a bunch of low-quality junk that's free just isn't even going to be terribly profitable unless they've got something more than just ads, like an upsell.



> It all makes a ton of sense for Walmart to own Roku, assuming they could acquire it at the right price.


That I could see. Roku would fit well with the Wal-Mart brand, the only awkward part would be putting Wal-Mart devices in other stores like Best Buy and Target, which Roku needs to reach as wide an audience as possible.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

Bigg said:


> Why would Roku fade away? That makes no sense. They have the biggest marketshare of them all (except Chromecast which is almost it's own category), and the most apps. They provide the OS to a lot of TVs and have a TON of boxes out there. Roku isn't going anywhere. Neither are Apple, Amazon, or Google (in one form or another).


It's the razor blade paradigm. Amazon is selling their 4k sticks for $30-35. Roku cannot make money competing on price. Amazon makes their money on Prime and associated sales. Amazon just released an easy to own and use OTA DVR which integrates with cable content like Philo and Vue. If you looked at the charts I posted earlier, you can see Amazon is catching up to Roku on installed base. Given Roku's early entry and dominance, it's clear Amazon is selling more streamers than Roku at this time.


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## exdishguy (May 1, 2004)

wizwor said:


> Besides TiVo, who else is left standing right now?


Nobody sizable enough to do much.


wizwor said:


> I think you are right about Big Cable getting out of the set top box business. Those boxes require service and inventory and only make sense when the monthly fee is very high. TiVo never really attacked the cable companies on price. You always had to measure the payback in years. With a Roku or Fire TV stick, payback comes in months.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Great post. Overwhelming and depressing. 

So is there any room for niche players in this ecosystem? It's probably too late for Tivo (for many reasons, the least in which being their IP will remain with Rovi/IP company) but I do wonder if a Silicon Dust or someone like them could capture a bigger slice of that leading-edge niche as competitors like Tivo exit?

I know I know...wishful thinking.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

I have supported a number of 'niche players' and I am not sure they will be missed. DTVPal, Simple TV, DVR+, and TiVo took a lot of my money and still failed. This new model which features standardized platforms [reluctantly] supporting lots of apps is probably better for the consumer. (I paid less for a Recast and five Sticks than it would cost for an All-In OTA Bolt.) Call it the Keurig model. Buy a coffee maker and choose from a wide variety of compatible k-cups.

It's clear Amazon will be one of the winners. I just bought a Recast and five 4k Sticks. Not really good for Amazon. I paid $230 for the DVR and $30 each for the sticks, but not really what they were hoping. I subscribed to Prime. Not really good for Amazon since I am only paying the student price of $50/year ($4/month) after six months free. I could drop Prime and get along with an ISP and my Amazon hardware. Or, I might add Philo or Vue (which likely pay tribute to the king) and I might add a couple Prime Channels which will keep me in the Prime club (now $10 a month since my kid is HOPEFULLY out of college). I'll strongly lean towards Amazon in my purchasing decisions due to the benefits of Prime.

There will be Ambianos. Maybe Walmart + Vudu + Roku or Walmart + Vudu + Apple TV. Maybe some Chinese company that builds a PSIP box (which I will need at least one of). There will be enough barbarians at the gates to keep Amazon honest. There's not much of a moat around the Amazon ecosystem, so they have to compete on price, mostly, even if there are not many competitors. Between you and me, we overpay for the niche products out of fear of being chained to a world run by someone like Jeff Bezos. The fear is probably unsubstantiated unless that world is run by Tim Cook.

We are simply moving from the age of premium providers to an era in which entertainment is a commodity -- where hardware is cheap and software is plentiful. Buy some hardware, add some services, and stir -- a la carte entertainment! Enjoy it.


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## WhenenRome (Nov 13, 2010)

wizwor said:


> Roku cannot make money competing on price. Amazon makes their money on Prime and associated sales. Amazon just released an easy to own and use OTA DVR which integrates with cable content like Philo and Vue. If you looked at the charts I posted earlier, you can see Amazon is catching up to Roku on installed base. Given Roku's early entry and dominance, it's clear Amazon is selling more streamers than Roku at this time.


Recent Fire TV sales are ahead of ROKU, at a thin margin. But that is no indication of ROKU going to "fade away." Roku isn't trying to make money competing on price, because the bulk of their revenue comes from advertising and licensing deals.

And Amazon's DVR isn't and wasn't introduced to be a game-changer (for obvious reasons). The platform fulfills a current need, but for a segment of the market. It's not where the industry is heading, and it won't make or break the future of either brand.



Bigg said:


> Roku isn't going anywhere. Neither are Apple, Amazon, or Google (in one form or another).


Right. There's virtually nothing to indicate otherwise.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

WhenenRome said:


> Recent Fire TV sales are ahead of ROKU, at a thin margin. But that is no indication of ROKU going to "fade away." Roku isn't trying to make money competing on price, because the bulk of their revenue comes from advertising and licensing deals.
> 
> And Amazon's DVR isn't and wasn't introduced to be a game-changer (for obvious reasons). The platform fulfills a current need, but for a segment of the market. It's not where the industry is heading, and it won't make or break the future of either brand.
> 
> Right. There's virtually nothing to indicate otherwise.


Keep the faith, brutha.


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## WhenenRome (Nov 13, 2010)

wizwor said:


> Keep the faith, brutha.


Oh. Okay. I'm just here drinking Kool-Aid and crossing my eyes, while to _rational_ thinking-people, Roku is clearly doomed. Got it.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

NashGuy said:


> I think Roku has established way too big an installed user base to just fade away. If their numbers cool off a little, then so will the stock price, and I could definitely see Walmart swooping in to buy it. Walmart has a history of scooping up tech/net companies (e.g. Vudu, Jet.com) to gain an instant presence there. Walmart, of course, owns Vudu and they're going to soon debut a small slate of their own original content. Vudu is morphing from being mainly TVOD (rentals & sales) to also being AVOD (ad-supported free content). The ads on the upcoming original series will be tied to Walmart's online shopping cart, in fact. And of course Roku is mainly about selling ads. Meanwhile, why wouldn't Walmart want their own answer to the Fire TV Stick? It all makes a ton of sense for Walmart to own Roku, assuming they could acquire it at the right price.


Their installed base includes the five Rokus I just recycled. Had not been used for five years. It includes three TCL Roku TVs I bought. None of these televisions has ever run a Roku app. I have looked at the Roku Channel, but don't watch it.



NashGuy said:


> As for Google's Android TV, I don't know if it ever breaks out in terms of retail sales (e.g. Nvidia Shield TV, Mi Box) and reaches an installed user base close to Apple TV. But where it is succeeding is as a near-turnkey platform for MVPD-provided boxes. We're seeing more and more operators around the world offer their customers inexpensive Android TV boxes. They can go to market with them in just a couple months if the don't customize them (other than maybe slapping their logo on the home screen) or they can take a bit longer to customize the UI, essentially integrating their app into the home screen. This is what TiVo is doing with their Next-Gen Platform for IPTV operators. It's just Google Android TV with a TiVo-customized home screen. AT&T is adopting Android TV with a custom UI for their next-gen platform that will (if all goes according to plan) gradually replace their satellite and Uverse TV services.


I just think the MVPDs are not long for this world. Why would someone pay for Comcast when an ISP plus Philo is $70 per month with no committment?


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

WhenenRome said:


> Oh. Okay. I'm just here drinking Kool-Aid and crossing my eyes, while to _rational_ thinking-people, Roku is clearly doomed. Got it.


Crossing your fingers. TiVo and Roku have serious problems. Anthony Woods got paid when Roku went public. It's time for him to move on to his seventh company. Roku is selling razors while Amazon is giving them away. It IS rational to be concerned for Roku or at least temper one's enthusiasm. Ditto on TiVo. When the cost of a TiVo drops from $850 to $199, there's a problem.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

mschnebly said:


> Amazon, Apple and Google have VERY deep pockets and can pretty much do whatever they decide to do. Plus they aren't afraid to go for it.


They can do whatever they want, but people need to buy in. Apple's first priority is its shareholders. They will not stoop to Amazon/Google[/Walmart] levels to compete in the entertainment business.


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## WhenenRome (Nov 13, 2010)

wizwor said:


> Crossing your fingers. TiVo and Roku have serious problems. Anthony Woods got paid when Roku went public. It's time for him to move on to his seventh company. Roku is selling razors while Amazon is giving them away. It IS rational to be concerned for Roku or at least temper one's enthusiasm. Ditto on TiVo. When the cost of a TiVo drops from $850 to $199, there's a problem.


Totally acknowledge your shows of love for that razor analogy. Now...

I don't agree that Roku has serious problems, because the facts I'm aware of don't support that suggestion - not because I'm "crossing my fingers." I also don't believe that Tivo's current circumstances are parallel to theirs. But I respect that you may have some sources, or a gut feeling - something - that makes you conclude otherwise.

Because someone has a different perspective than you, doesn't mean they are clouded by "enthusiasm." I'm sure you wouldn't want people to brush off your statements to being some kind of "enthusiastic dislike" for Roku.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

Please share your facts. I do have an enthusiastic dislike for Roku (though I LOVE the TCL Roku TVs), but the facts that I base my opinion on are...

1. Roku is losing market share to Amazon
2. Amazon is selling higher quality streamers for less than Roku
3. Amazon is integrating OTA, OTT, and premium channels


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

wizwor said:


> They can do whatever they want, but people need to buy in. Apple's first priority is its shareholders. They will not stoop to Amazon/Google[/Walmart] levels to compete in the entertainment business.


Apple is all about the entertainment business. That's a very big part of what they do. iTunes and Apple TV are 100% entertainment. They have already stooped there and are planning much more.
Apple Planning Global Rollout of Streaming TV Service in 2019 | Digital Trends


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

the rest of the story...

An abridged history of Apple's TV efforts over the years

_Apple has been trying to do something big with TV for more than a decade, dating all the way back to when it first previewed the "iTV" streaming box in 2006. Years later, Apple is still trying to break into the TV industry with its biggest push yet: a streaming service expected to be announced at the company's upcoming "It's show time" event on March 25th, complete with original Apple-produced TV shows and movies that will be exclusive to the service.
_​I'm going to pop a bowl of popcorn and see what comes of this...

On March 21st, _Recode_ reported that Apple's primary focus out of the gate will be simplifying subscriptions to services like HBO and Starz.

On March 22nd, _The New York Times_ confirmed that HBO and CBS have agreed to be part of Apple's new video push.

CNBC says Hulu has opted out - and Netflix has already confirmed it's not taking part.
CNBC noted that even some of Apple's partners do not yet know how the company plans to package and present the new service.

The other new service is an all-in-one subscription news / magazine service that could change the way many iPhone owners keep up with current events and their favorite publications.
Not sure you can improve upon Prime Channels which can be added and deleted at will with no penalty. CBS all access? This looks more like something to entertain people on a train than in the living room.


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## chiguy50 (Nov 9, 2009)

NashGuy said:


> Vudu is morphing from being mainly TVOD (rentals & sales) to also being AVOD (ad-supported free content). The ads on the upcoming original series will be tied to Walmart's online shopping cart, in fact.





Bigg said:


> I don't see a huge growth market in the free ad-supported content. I think they could grind out some profits from it, it seems like a bunch of low-quality junk that's free just isn't even going to be terribly profitable unless they've got something more than just ads, like an upsell.


This week I noticed that Vudu had the exceptional Coen Bros. movie _True Grit_ (2010) available for free streaming with ads. I had been wanting to rewatch it but can not stomach forced ad interruptions. I decided to try it out anyway and the ads were actually very minimal--maybe a total of four breaks of about two minutes or less apiece (I can't comment on the nature of the ads because I didn't pay attention to them). I don't know about the rest of their offerings, but this is an example of high-caliber content IMO.

Disclaimer: Although I maintain a Vudu account, I will not give them or their parent company a penny of my money because I oppose Walmart's corporate policies.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

wizwor said:


> It's the razor blade paradigm. Amazon is selling their 4k sticks for $30-35. Roku cannot make money competing on price. Amazon makes their money on Prime and associated sales. Amazon just released an easy to own and use OTA DVR which integrates with cable content like Philo and Vue. If you looked at the charts I posted earlier, you can see Amazon is catching up to Roku on installed base. Given Roku's early entry and dominance, it's clear Amazon is selling more streamers than Roku at this time.


Their business isn't hardware anymore, it's advertising. They offer such a massive platform that they attract a lot of advertising revenue. There is always competition. Whoever comes in first will usually lose some marketshare to others who come in later and make a splash. I don't think Amazon means the end of Roku.



wizwor said:


> Their installed base includes the five Rokus I just recycled. Had not been used for five years. It includes three TCL Roku TVs I bought. None of these televisions has ever run a Roku app. I have looked at the Roku Channel, but don't watch it.


Great anecdote, brah. My FireTV is rotting away in a box somewhere and I use my Roku everyday. My friend just bought a new TCL Roku TV that he intends to use as a Roku TV. See, I have just as useless of an anecdote as you do.



> I just think the MVPDs are not long for this world. Why would someone pay for Comcast when an ISP plus Philo is $70 per month with no committment?


That's actually true. At some point, they just implode on themselves. The largest MSOs (Comcast, Charter, AT&T) will hold on a lot longer though, due to their size and ability to negotiate content and force-bundle it with broadband. Once they decide it's not worth it anymore, the whole ecosystem as we know it today is toast.



wizwor said:


> 1. Roku is losing market share to Amazon


So what? They're still selling Rokus and Roku TVs like crazy. Tesla is taking marketshare from Ford. Therefore, Ford must be about to go bankrupt. What?



> 2. Amazon is selling higher quality streamers for less than Roku


Disagree. FireTV feels like a cheaper experience to me due to the huge amount of Amazon-centric advertising.



> 3. Amazon is integrating OTA, OTT, and premium channels


Although it doesn't integrate OTA and vMVPDs, I use Amazon Prime on my Roku, and can add Premium channels when I want them.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> Not sure you can improve upon Prime Channels which can be added and deleted at will with no penalty. CBS all access? This looks more like something to entertain people on a train than in the living room.


Here's a way to improve on Prime Channels: don't make customers first subscribe to a $119/yr service (Amazon Prime) in order to add subscriptions for HBO, Showtime, etc. But, of course, for Amazon, removing that prerequisite mostly defeats the purpose of Prime Channels.

Meanwhile, Apple TV Channels don't require you to have any prerequisite subscription.

Everything that Amazon does is about funneling consumers into Prime subscriptions and locking them into their retail ecosystem as much as possible. If Amazon continues growing as they have been doing, there will eventually be a reckoning. It won't just be politicians like Warren calling for their break-up. It'll become a mainstream opinion.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> As long as MSOs want to re-invent the wheel, they will re-invent the wheel. It's too hard to get another consumer streaming platform out there with support for hundreds of apps, but when they only need a couple of key apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, and maybe 1 or 2 other ones, and they have a decent number of semi-captive customers, they will keep at it.


They don't just need a couple apps any more. Beyond the three you listed, they'll need Hulu, Disney+, HBO+, and the upcoming one from NBCU. At least. Look at X1, which is adding free AVOD apps like Tubi. Comcast has stated that they want X1 to support a huge number of apps, essentially rivaling Roku. This is why I see X1 as the only MSO-native platform that will successfully transition into the hybrid OTT/MVPD world.



Bigg said:


> At that point, maybe they just become apps on Roku, Apple TV, FireTV, and Android TV. Or maybe they all converge on X1 and Android-based platforms in a purely IPTV world with super cheap hardware.


These things are already happening now. It'll be a long-term trend and is by no means complete yet but it's happening.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Here's a way to improve on Prime Channels: don't make customers first subscribe to a $119/yr service (Amazon Prime) in order to add subscriptions for HBO, Showtime, etc. But, of course, for Amazon, removing that prerequisite mostly defeats the purpose of Prime Channels.


But Amazon Prime is pretty much a given at this point anyway, so Prime Video and all of that are basically just freebies.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> They don't just need a couple apps any more. Beyond the three you listed, they'll need Hulu, Disney+, HBO+, and the upcoming one from NBCU. At least. Look at X1, which is adding free AVOD apps like Tubi. Comcast has stated that they want X1 to support a huge number of apps, essentially rivaling Roku. This is why I see X1 as the only MSO-native platform that will successfully transition into the hybrid OTT/MVPD world.


An MSO probably isn't going to have HBO+, depending on what that ends up being. Or there will be some equivalent offered directly through the MSO and their VOD system. Hulu has a few originals, but isn't a great fit otherwise for an MSO.

I have to wonder if Comcast will get much traction beyond Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube. Maybe they will, but I just can't imagine that marketing to unsophisticated users is going to drive a lot of traffic to niche content.



> These things are already happening now. It'll be a long-term trend and is by no means complete yet but it's happening.


The pay TV market isn't gone... yet. It still had at least a few more years of inertia before it really implodes. There are several barriers that the industry has put up that are slowing down it's demise, so it really depends on when the Comcast of the world decide that water flows downhill, and decide to open up the dam and let it all go.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

NashGuy said:


> Here's a way to improve on Prime Channels: don't make customers first subscribe to a $119/yr service (Amazon Prime) in order to add subscriptions for HBO, Showtime, etc. But, of course, for Amazon, removing that prerequisite mostly defeats the purpose of Prime Channels.
> 
> Meanwhile, Apple TV Channels don't require you to have any prerequisite subscription.
> 
> Everything that Amazon does is about funneling consumers into Prime subscriptions and locking them into their retail ecosystem as much as possible. If Amazon continues growing as they have been doing, there will eventually be a reckoning. It won't just be politicians like Warren calling for their break-up. It'll become a mainstream opinion.


You are 100% correct, but Apple is not a charity.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> An MSO probably isn't going to have HBO+, depending on what that ends up being. Or there will be some equivalent offered directly through the MSO and their VOD system.


AT&T has stated that MVPDs will be an important distribution channel for the upcoming SVOD. But, yes, all of the content may just get absorbed into VOD platforms the way that existing HBO content now does (meaning that the cable box won't specifically need the new HBO+ app).



Bigg said:


> Hulu has a few originals, but isn't a great fit otherwise for an MSO.


Comcast is going to add Hulu to X1 soon, it was just announced. I can certainly see why an MSO might not want a full-fledged Hulu app with live TV (i.e. vMVPD) features but the on-demand library is important. Hulu is now growing faster in the US than Netflix and with the full power of Disney behind it, I don't see that stopping. They're going to aggressively invest in more Hulu originals, with many of them produced by the FX team. That's more stuff that will be exclusive to the Hulu app. In a couple years, Hulu will be table stakes for a decent cable STB, just as Netflix is now. Same will be true of Disney+.



Bigg said:


> I have to wonder if Comcast will get much traction beyond Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube. Maybe they will, but I just can't imagine that marketing to unsophisticated users is going to drive a lot of traffic to niche content.


Comcast wants to have top 100 connected TV apps on X1



Bigg said:


> The pay TV market isn't gone... yet. It still had at least a few more years of inertia before it really implodes. There are several barriers that the industry has put up that are slowing down it's demise, so it really depends on when the Comcast of the world decide that water flows downhill, and decide to open up the dam and let it all go.


You're conflating two things. You're right that the pay TV (MVPD) market isn't gone yet. In fact, I think it's going to easily outlast your predictions due to consumer inertia, the amount of live sports that remains exclusive to linear cable channels, the packaging of local plus national content on the broadcast network affiliates, and the fact that high-demand live events (e.g. sports) don't scale well through purely OTT unicast streams (e.g. ESPN+ or YouTube TV), meaning that industry forces may work to keep them primarily distributed through MSO's own multicast-delivered first-party video subscriptions.

But what I am saying is that MVPDs are merging their platforms with the OTT world of apps (because so much content and viewing is shifting there) and that cablecos are either shifting to managed IPTV and/or to packaging their service as OTT apps and/or to simply reselling third-party vMVPDs (e.g. Verizon and YouTube TV). And all of those developments are playing into decisions to forego reinventing their own wheel with a new next-gen STB that they develop in house (too expensive, takes too long, too little future payoff) and instead just rely on hardware and software platforms that already exist, maybe with some UI customization. And who operates those platforms? Comcast, Google, Apple, Roku and Amazon.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> But Amazon Prime is pretty much a given at this point anyway, so Prime Video and all of that are basically just freebies.


If you subscribe to Amazon Prime. I don't shop from them enough to justify the year-round price.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> You are 100% correct, but Apple is not a charity.


Ha, no Apple is by no means a charity. But, for now anyway, they're OK with just taking a rumored 30% of the subscription price for Apple TV Channels, with that business being its own stand-along profit center rather than an extension of something much larger like Amazon Prime.

But it won't surprise if at some point we see Apple offer an "Apple Prime" subscription that delivers a suite of services including, perhaps, a trade in every year for the latest iPhone, plus Apple Music, AppleCare, iCloud, Apple News+ and AppleTV+. Easily financed on your AppleCard!


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Comcast is going to add Hulu to X1 soon, it was just announced. I can certainly see why an MSO might not want a full-fledged Hulu app with live TV (i.e. vMVPD) features but the on-demand library is important. Hulu is now growing faster in the US than Netflix and with the full power of Disney behind it, I don't see that stopping. They're going to aggressively invest in more Hulu originals, with many of them produced by the FX team. That's more stuff that will be exclusive to the Hulu app. In a couple years, Hulu will be table stakes for a decent cable STB, just as Netflix is now. Same will be true of Disney+.


If Hulu starts to make more originals, then it starts to make more sense. I just have to wonder if offering all of this stuff will cause more cord cutting, not less, as people see what's out there on streaming apps, and realize that they don't need Comcast anymore. Of course, the opposite is a risk too if they didn't have apps on X1, and just ended up using Roku all the time, it would be easy to forget about the Comcast box and easier to cut the cord. I still wonder how much traction those apps will actually get with a relatively unsophisticated and older user base.



> You're conflating two things. You're right that the pay TV (MVPD) market isn't gone yet. In fact, I think it's going to easily outlast your predictions due to consumer inertia, the amount of live sports that remains exclusive to linear cable channels, the packaging of local plus national content on the broadcast network affiliates, and the fact that high-demand live events (e.g. sports) don't scale well through purely OTT unicast streams (e.g. ESPN+ or YouTube TV), meaning that industry forces may work to keep them primarily distributed through MSO's own multicast-delivered first-party video subscriptions.
> 
> But what I am saying is that MVPDs are merging their platforms with the OTT world of apps (because so much content and viewing is shifting there) and that cablecos are either shifting to managed IPTV and/or to packaging their service as OTT apps and/or to simply reselling third-party vMVPDs (e.g. Verizon and YouTube TV). And all of those developments are playing into decisions to forego reinventing their own wheel with a new next-gen STB that they develop in house (too expensive, takes too long, too little future payoff) and instead just rely on hardware and software platforms that already exist, maybe with some UI customization. And who operates those platforms? Comcast, Google, Apple, Roku and Amazon.


I don't think live TV is going away entirely, but I think that the bundles as we know them today are on their deathbed. They have a few years of inertia left, but another 10 million subscribers down, the existing business model of bloated messes of packages just doesn't work. A lot of channels have to disappear at some point, as they have relatively fixed costs and variable revenue. Great in a up market, bad in a down market.

Sure, but I'm not sure that's all the relevant given the pace of cord cutting, as that business is dying. The only reason another 10 million people haven't cut the cord is Comcast and a few others are using aggressive bundling tactics to prop up their media businesses and keep subscriber numbers up even though those video subscribers are at best marginally profitable compared to to monetizing fewer customers. AT&T seems to have finally realized this, and is getting rid of a lot of their really good teaser deals and retention offers and just letting low-ARPU customers walk.



NashGuy said:


> If you subscribe to Amazon Prime. I don't shop from them enough to justify the year-round price.


I don't order from them that often, but they have enough items that are either impossible to find locally, or you'd chew up a lot of gas getting them that it's pretty much indispensable at this point. Therefore, I don't count the cost of Amazon Prime when talking about the video offering. If you want to talk about a business model though, it's genius, as they have made it much stickier by making it many things, not just free shipping.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> But it won't surprise if at some point we see Apple offer an "Apple Prime" subscription that delivers a suite of services including, perhaps, a trade in every year for the latest iPhone, plus Apple Music, AppleCare, iCloud, Apple News+ and AppleTV+. Easily financed on your AppleCard!


Apple seems to be utterly oblivious to bundling. Their whole services area is a branding mess with a bunch of different subscriptions. They absolutely need a bundle to increase stickiness, maybe with 2 or 3 tiers to support one with the latest iPhone, and one for people who purchase their iPhone or finance it through a carrier.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Apple seems to be utterly oblivious to bundling. Their whole services area is a branding mess with a bunch of different subscriptions. They absolutely need a bundle to increase stickiness, maybe with 2 or 3 tiers to support one with the latest iPhone, and one for people who purchase their iPhone or finance it through a carrier.


Yeah, I generally agree. But Apple is increasingly signaling a shift from hardware to services as the company's future, so I think they'll smarten up pretty quickly on that front.


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## TKnight206 (Oct 20, 2016)

morac said:


> Based on what I've seen with the guide data lately, namely wrong descriptions matched up with the wrong series, I feel that Tivo likely got of the people in charge of guide data and has some kind of automated software do it as a cost cutting measure. Some of the mismatched descriptions make "sense" if they are being matched by keywords.
> 
> Currently these can be fixed by filing an issue report and then someone will eventually manually fix them. I worry by splitting into 2 companies, that that won't be the case anymore if the guide data goes with one company and the hardware and tivo service with the other.


Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (a cartoon on Disney XD) has Guardians of the Glades as the image for the show. So, yeah, I think you're right about the automated software.

I feel like I'm doing their work for them by reporting these mistakes. This makes me miss Gracenote.


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

Bigg said:


> If Hulu starts to make more originals, then it starts to make more sense. I just have to wonder if offering all of this stuff will cause more cord cutting, not less, as people see what's out there on streaming apps, and realize that they don't need Comcast anymore. Of course, the opposite is a risk too if they didn't have apps on X1, and just ended up using Roku all the time, it would be easy to forget about the Comcast box and easier to cut the cord. I still wonder how much traction those apps will actually get with a relatively unsophisticated and older user base.
> 
> I don't think live TV is going away entirely, but I think that the bundles as we know them today are on their deathbed. They have a few years of inertia left, but another 10 million subscribers down, the existing business model of bloated messes of packages just doesn't work. A lot of channels have to disappear at some point, as they have relatively fixed costs and variable revenue. Great in a up market, bad in a down market.
> 
> ...


At some point the Cable companies might just slim down to say 100 or so channels and start selling "Pick your own 20-40 channels" bundles and head-on compete with YTTV, DTV Now, etc. via IPTV streaming. Their lock on broadband would give them an advantage with those kinds of bundles.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

mschnebly said:


> At some point the Cable companies might just slim down to say 100 or so channels and start selling "Pick your own 20-40 channels" bundles and head-on compete with YTTV, DTV Now, etc. via IPTV streaming. Their lock on broadband would give them an advantage with those kinds of bundles.


Yes, and cant wait for that to happen, then let all this streaming crap forced to watch commercials and pay for it die off!


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

mschnebly said:


> At some point the Cable companies might just slim down to say 100 or so channels and start selling "Pick your own 20-40 channels" bundles and head-on compete with YTTV, DTV Now, etc. via IPTV streaming. Their lock on broadband would give them an advantage with those kinds of bundles.


Until 5G. It's been a decade since Verizon installed fiber in my home. The guy who did the install said Verizon planned to sell off its broadband infrastructure and focus on wireless. Still waiting, but...


FierceWireless said:


> Verizon currently promises that customers of its 5G Home service will receive download speeds of around 300 Mbps. However, the carrier has said that speeds can range up to 1 Gbps depending on customers' location in relation to the towers for the service. The carrier currently charges customers $70 per month for 5G Home services, or $50 per month for customers who also subscribe to the carrier's mobile services.
> 
> The service can transmit 1 Gbps speeds up to 3,000 feet.
> The millimeter-wave service works in conditions including rain, snow and non-line-of-sight scenarios. Indeed, Stone said some transmissions work better in non-line-of-sight scenarios than when customers are within sight of the tower, due to the fact that millimeter-wave transmissions can reflect off various objects in order to reach their intended destination.
> ...


I think the future will be very complex with turn key and roll your options.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mschnebly said:


> At some point the Cable companies might just slim down to say 100 or so channels and start selling "Pick your own 20-40 channels" bundles and head-on compete with YTTV, DTV Now, etc. via IPTV streaming. Their lock on broadband would give them an advantage with those kinds of bundles.


I think people would still rather have more options than not. I'm sure some sort of bundle would get some traction, but people are distrustful of the MSOs and generally hate them, so they'll shop around if they can.



foghorn2 said:


> Yes, and cant wait for that to happen, then let all this streaming crap forced to watch commercials and pay for it die off!


Huh? What "streaming crap"?


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

foghorn2 said:


> Yes, and cant wait for that to happen, then let all this streaming crap forced to watch commercials and pay for it die off!


I stream over 95% of my content now. I don't have any forced commercials except for a handful of shows on the hulu ad-free plan. Which force a 15 second commercial prior to the show.(the vast majority have no commercials) Otherwise all the streaming services I use for broadcast content either don't have commercials or allow me to scan past them in a few seconds..


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> I stream over 95% of my content now. I don't have any forced commercials except for a handful of shows on the hulu ad-free plan. Which force a 15 second commercial prior to the show.(the vast majority have no commercials) Otherwise all the streaming services I use for broadcast content either don't have commercials or allow me to scan past them in a few seconds..


I have a feeling that this will go away except for an extra charge like Hulu. Then as you add the streaming services up, the pricing will become an issue to watch ad free.


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> Here's a way to improve on Prime Channels: don't make customers first subscribe to a $119/yr service (Amazon Prime) in order to add subscriptions for HBO, Showtime, etc. But, of course, for Amazon, removing that prerequisite mostly defeats the purpose of Prime Channels.
> 
> Meanwhile, Apple TV Channels don't require you to have any prerequisite subscription.
> 
> Everything that Amazon does is about funneling consumers into Prime subscriptions and locking them into their retail ecosystem as much as possible. If Amazon continues growing as they have been doing, there will eventually be a reckoning. It won't just be politicians like Warren calling for their break-up. It'll become a mainstream opinion.


Well...to use Apple TV Channels you have to have paid Apple for an AppleTV unit. I would submit that once you calculate the price of an AppleTV (~ $129) versus the price of a Roku (~ $49), the $119 seems a lot less onerous, plus it gets you free 2 day shipping on most anything you do buy on Amazon plus all the Amazon Prime content.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Diana Collins said:


> Well...to use Apple TV Channels you have to have paid Apple for an AppleTV unit. I would submit that once you calculate the price of an AppleTV (~ $129) versus the price of a Roku (~ $49), the $119 seems a lot less onerous, plus it gets you free 2 day shipping on most anything you do buy on Amazon plus all the Amazon Prime content.


Yeah, Apple TVs aren't cheap, but then you pay a premium if you want a UI that isn't full of ads (hello Roku and Fire TV).

That said, you won't actually have to have an Apple TV box to use the new Apple TV app and access Apple TV Channels subscriptions inside of it. Apple has already brought the app to Samsung smart TVs and in the coming months it will debut on the Roku, Fire TV, LG webOS, and Sony Android TV platforms too. Now, my guess is that if you want to _initiate_ a subscription to Apple TV Channels, then you'll need to do that inside the Apple TV app on an actual Apple device or maybe inside a web browser on the Apple site. But then once you're subscribed, you'll be able to stream those Apple TV Channels inside the Apple TV app on any device. (The same holds true today for subscribing to and viewing Prime Video Channels inside the Prime Video app. Apple is not at all creating a new model here, they're just copying what Amazon has already done, except in Apple's case you don't need a base-level prerequisite subscription to subscribe to Channels.)


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

smark said:


> I have a feeling that this will go away except for an extra charge like Hulu. Then as you add the streaming services up, the pricing will become an issue to watch ad free.


Bundle and/or rotate and binge.



NashGuy said:


> That said, you won't actually have to have an Apple TV box to use the new Apple TV app and access Apple TV Channels subscriptions inside of it.


I'm interested to see what the video quality looks like. Amazon's VQ is far better than HBO Go or many other services for the exact same content. I believe I read somewhere that Apple is hosting the content subscribed to through Apple TV Channels on their own CDN? Presumably that means they are encoding it themselves as well?


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> I'm interested to see what the video quality looks like. Amazon's VQ is far better than HBO Go or many other services for the exact same content. I believe I read somewhere that Apple is hosting the content subscribed to through Apple TV Channels on their own CDN? Presumably that means they are encoding it themselves as well?


Yes, Apple is encoding the content for Apple TV Channels and streaming it from their own servers. At least one report I've read so far says that Apple is using a similar bitrate for HBO on ATV Channels as Amazon uses for it on Prime Video Channels:

post_: Bit rate for an episode of Deadwood is ~10.5Mb/s. It had some sustained peaks of ~14Mb/s. HBO Now seems to run at ~6.5Mb/s._
reply_: Nice, so it's about on par with what's been reported about the Prime Video channel streams._​
Unfortunately, the poster quoted above didn't tell us whether Apple was encoding in MPEG-4 or HEVC.

IIRC, one person somewhere posted that the Apple version looked better to their eye than the Amazon version (although I guess that one subjective data point is basically worthless).

I've yet to subscribe to anything via ATV Channels but anticipate doing so at the end of June when Showtime premieres _The Loudest Voice_, their limited series about Fox News and Roger Ailes. After _Escape from Dannemora_ and _Patrick Melrose_ last year, they're on a roll with great limited series.


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

NashGuy said:


> Yes, Apple is encoding the content for Apple TV Channels and streaming it from their own servers. At least one report I've read so far says that Apple is using a similar bitrate for HBO on ATV Channels as Amazon uses for it on Prime Video Channels:
> 
> post_: Bit rate for an episode of Deadwood is ~10.5Mb/s. It had some sustained peaks of ~14Mb/s. HBO Now seems to run at ~6.5Mb/s._
> reply_: Nice, so it's about on par with what's been reported about the Prime Video channel streams._​
> ...


If I already subscribe to HBO and I want to change and subscribe through the Channels will it just cancel one and start the other? I think it's $5 cheaper through ATV Channels.
Edit: OK, it looks like you have to cancel one and subscribe to the other.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mschnebly said:


> If I already subscribe to HBO and I want to change and subscribe through the Channels will it just cancel one and start the other? I think it's $5 cheaper through ATV Channels.
> Edit: OK, it looks like you have to cancel one and subscribe to the other.


Right. If you want to switch, you should go into your current HBO account (with Amazon, Roku or whomever) and cancel there. Since you prepaid for the current month, you'll still get service until the end of those 30 days, but cancelling now will keep your credit card from getting auto-charged on the first day of the next 30-day period. At that point, you can start a different HBO subscription through Apple TV Channels (first 7 days are free).

BTW, if you have iTunes gift card money on your Apple account, it should use that as payment before charging your credit card on file. Every so often you'll see those iTunes gift cards (electronic ones with online delivery) on sale for 15-20% off. I bought $100 worth last Christmas for $80.


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## d_anders (Oct 12, 2000)

NashGuy said:


> except in Apple's case you don't need a base-level prerequisite subscription to subscribe to Channels.)


Providing you subscribe to the channel via an Apple TV or other Apple Device.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

d_anders said:


> Providing you subscribe to the channel via an Apple TV or other Apple Device.


This surprises me a bit but it looks like the new Apple TV app on Samsung smart TVs allows users to initiate subscriptions to Apple TV Channels there.

Apple TV app arrives on Samsung Smart TVs as Apple expands its services push

So at least in that case, no Apple device is needed. However, I'll still be surprised if you can do that in the forthcoming Apple TV apps for Roku and Amazon Fire TV because both of those platforms already have similar "channels" initiatives that directly compete with Apple.

It's possible that once Apple rolls out the app on those platforms, they let Roku and Fire TV users sign up for Apple TV Channels somewhere on Apple.com (the same way that I can add Prime Video Channels to my Prime subscription at Amazon.com and then stream that content inside the Prime Video app on my Apple TV, even though I can't do the sign up inside that app). We'll see...


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## d_anders (Oct 12, 2000)

NashGuy said:


> This surprises me a bit but it looks like the new Apple TV app on Samsung smart TVs allows users to initiate subscriptions...


Yep, it appears so.

This video shows it right in hand....





That's good news for Apple. They must have been able to leverage their $1B settlement and also set this as a standard with the other tv manufacturers.

Having Apple Play 2 support is the big one. With that, one wouldn't need to bother with adding an actual Apple TV device unless they want to use other apps or games.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> IIRC, one person somewhere posted that the Apple version looked better to their eye than the Amazon version (although I guess that one subjective data point is basically worthless).


Yeah, we'll have to see. It's hard to imagine something better than Amazon, as their video looks really nice subjectively to me, but again, it's subjective. Hopefully someone at AVSForum will do an extensive side-by-side comparison. Apparently Apple has a pretty robust CDN. I know Amazon has a really good CDN position with ISPs, since half the internet runs on AWS.



> After _Escape from Dannemora_ and _Patrick Melrose_ last year, they're on a roll with great limited series.


Yeah, Showtime is doing a lot of the miniseries and documentaries that HBO isn't doing much of these days. HBO is in trouble with Veep and GoT ending, and not much going on anywhere else in their lineup.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Yeah, Showtime is doing a lot of the miniseries and documentaries that HBO isn't doing much of these days. HBO is in trouble with Veep and GoT ending, and not much going on anywhere else in their lineup.


I'm the one weirdo who didn't watch GoT but will pick up HBO soon to watch the new season of Big Little Lies, ha! Also can't wait to catch season 2 of Barry plus the current miniseries Chernobyl. Their new trailer for this fall's The Watchmen looks pretty great...


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## mschnebly (Feb 21, 2011)

NashGuy said:


> I'm the one weirdo who didn't watch GoT but will pick up HBO soon to watch the new season of Big Little Lies, ha! Also can't wait to catch season 2 of Barry plus the current miniseries Chernobyl. Their new trailer for this fall's The Watchmen looks pretty great...


Chernobyl is really good.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> I'm the one weirdo who didn't watch GoT but will pick up HBO soon to watch the new season of Big Little Lies, ha! Also can't wait to catch season 2 of Barry plus the current miniseries Chernobyl. Their new trailer for this fall's The Watchmen looks pretty great...


I didn't watch GoT, but I watch John Oliver religiously. That was a smart move, they'd be in far worse shape without him. I want to watch that Chernobyl miniseries too.


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