Help with research (your opinions) for my class??!??!

[c_hall]

Ok, so I am new (very new) the this forum, but would love to get a little help from any and all of you!
I am a senior in college (my last semester!) and in one of my classes we have cases each week that we must research and perform SWOT anaylsis and study their financial records and strengths of the company, and so on and so forth :) . This week I am doing TiVo and would like to ask you all a few things. If you could answer any or all of these it would help me out so much. As I am in college (on campus) I don't have access to TiVo and I would love opinions of those of you that have it.

(these questions are created from me, not the professor, I am really just looking for a few things to help support my case, so no worries on doing my work for me I must need others opinions, thanks)

[list]
What makes TiVo better and different from others on the market now?

What makes TiVo better than an ordinary DVR from Direct TV?

What are some specific things you like about TiVo?

What are some specific things you dislike about TiVo?

What are some changes you think could help to improve TiVo?

How do you think they re-created the television industry?

Do you think the price you pay is a fair price?

I think that is it for now, thank you from helping me out, it means so much!!!
I'll check back often (very often ;) ) and may have a few more questions!

Thanks again!

[steve614]

What makes TiVo better and different from others on the market now?
For me, its the ability to transfer TV shows to my computer and archive them. :up:


What makes TiVo better than an ordinary DVR from Direct TV?
Don't know. Never had DTV.


What are some specific things you like about TiVo?
Along with the xfering, the GUI, the HME applications, and its ability to be upgraded.


What are some specific things you dislike about TiVo?
The occasional buggy software updates. :mad:


What are some changes you think could help to improve TiVo?
More knowledgeable customer service reps. :rolleyes:


How do you think they re-created the television industry?
By making TV recording digital. (?) :confused:


Do you think the price you pay is a fair price?
Personally, I think I paid a fair price (recieved Tivo for Xmas '05 and paid for the lifetime service). :D


I think that is it for now, thank you from helping me out, it means so much!!!
I'll check back often (very often ;) ) and may have a few more questions!

Thanks again!

No Problem.

[sushikitten]

I seem to remember doing research in college... This whole board is full of opinions! ;)

[c_hall]

Thanks Steve614! It's all very helpful, I really appreciate it!

jenhudson, you are so right boards are very helpful, I just thought (with my basic knowlege of TiVo) it would be helpful to just post my own simple questions since it is a minor part of my presentation. I just want a users perspective on the topic. Thanks for the viewing, if you have any remarks to the questions I'd love to hear them, thanks!

[gastrof]

What makes TiVo better and different from others on the market now?

Have limited experience with other machines. One thing I don't like with my other machine is that it doesn't allow me to rewind a recording while it's still being made and begin watching before the recording is finished. The TiVo does that.

What makes TiVo better than an ordinary DVR from Direct TV?

Have no idea. Don't have DirecTV and never did.

What are some specific things you like about TiVo?

Being able to record TV with a picture so clear, the replay is essentially the live broadcast, delayed. Even making video tapes or DVDs off the TiVo produces results you could have obtained from a live broadcast.

What are some specific things you dislike about TiVo?

That pretty much only the older machines work without a subscription. I can live without the fancy features. Give me the option of subscribing or not. Don't make my machine unable to work without service.

What are some changes you think could help to improve TiVo?

See above

How do you think they re-created the television industry?

Not really. This is the VCR all over again, with some improvements, as you'd expect would happen as time goes on.

Do you think the price you pay is a fair price?

Yep. Unsubscribed machines. I paid for them at the time of purchase, and not a penny more since then (except for the cost of electricity).

[c_hall]

Thanks a lot gastrof! That really helped!

[cooper243]

What makes TiVo better and different from others on the market now?
It is much more user friendly than a cable dvr. Plus, transferring items to a pc is very cool. You can enter an actor/title/anything, and Tivo will record it if that person/title shows up in the listings.

What makes TiVo better than an ordinary DVR from Direct TV?
I do not know.

What are some specific things you like about TiVo?
I like how they try to create new products, like Kid Zone. I have no clue what it is, but they are still working on their product.

What are some specific things you dislike about TiVo?
Customer service is poor, specifically tech support.

What are some changes you think could help to improve TiVo?
They could have better self-help on the web. Also, the pricing structure is confusing based on new/existing customers. Or, customers that received a free unit, but are not considered existing customers for the price discounts.

How do you think they re-created the television industry?
Commercials are a lot less effective as we can now avoid them. We also don't have to worry about resetting the vcr to record weekly shows when the power goes out.

Do you think the price you pay is a fair price?
Yes

[Stormspace]

What makes TiVo better and different from others on the market now?

If you believe the hype the TiVo interface is better than any of the others. From my own point of view it is easy enough that my wife and children picked it up rather quickly. Some of the competing cable products use all sorts of weird buttons and key combinations to do things.

What makes TiVo better than an ordinary DVR from Direct TV?
Depends. For a number of years TiVo was the DVR offered by DTV. Past and Present TiVo has more features than DTV units. TiVo to Go, TiVo to Come Back, Multiroom viewing, and HME just to name a few.

What are some specific things you like about TiVo?
My biggest like about TiVo is it's reliabililty. It does what we want when we want it to happen and when it doesn't there's a message in the to do list telling us why it didn't happen. Almost always it's our fault and not the TiVo's and while that may not feel good for the one responsible at least no one can point to the machine and say it was the culprit.

What are some specific things you dislike about TiVo?
Like others I think the new pricing structure is confusing. I also dislike the bugs that seem to be introduced into the system with each new software upgrade.

What are some changes you think could help to improve TiVo?
Customer service is ok. Technical support is really bad. Even if I had to wait longer for help I do it if it meant getting someone with a clue. I'd also add in e-mail support and online chat.

How do you think they re-created the television industry?
Unlike with the VCR, TiVo with it's ability to track schedule changes, recover from power outtages, and record from every channel you recieve gives us the ability to use out cable service to it's full potential and watch shows on our schedule. We have more free time to do other things and still watch our favorite shows when we want to.

Do you think the price you pay is a fair price?
Price is my only gripe about TiVo. I am all for the bundled deals they've been offering, but on my past TiVo's paying $200-300 for the box and then having to pay for a sub is too much. They've helped a little by adding MSD pricing but this latest trend to require a 3-year commit to get the best pricing is a little over the top. Especially for users that purchased non subsidized equipment.

[hyachts]

What makes TiVo better and different from others on the market now?
The ability to archive and burn to DVD is a big point for me. The "open source" philosophy Tivo has (mostly) espoused and operated under gives me hope that Tivo can maintain an edge, too. I like the ability to serve all my digital content to my entertainment center through the Tivo box and interface. Finally, I personally prefer to "spread out" my entertainment dollars, rather than giving all my money to Comcast (they get enough from me already).

What makes TiVo better than an ordinary DVR from Direct TV?
Never had one, and the only DirecTV DVR I have any experience with is a Tivo unit. The advantage is still, I guess, about the ability to archive and other HME functions.

What are some specific things you like about TiVo?
See above.

What are some specific things you dislike about TiVo?
They've bungled a few service updates pretty badly. My biggest complaint is that I can't unsubscribe and continue to use the box as a VCR/media extender. Since Tivo is selling the boxes at a loss I think they could easily implement a policy where you either have a minimum subscription length or an early termination fee after which your box is considered paid for and you could choose to quit recieving the service but retain the hardware and software function.

What are some changes you think could help to improve TiVo?
See above.

How do you think they re-created the television industry?
I don't think they recreated anything, but they pioneered making time and place shifting TV almost effortless. It remains to be seen how the TV business model will be effected as fewer people watch TV live.

Do you think the price you pay is a fair price?
Yes. For the amount of entertainment my Tivos "allow" me to realize, the price is very reasonable.

[kels83]

I'm an MBA student and I've followed Tivo as a company and owned their product for a long time. From a business perspective, it seems to me that your questions are all related to customer satisfaction. While this is obviously important, you should probably consider other big-picture issues for a SWOT analysis. For example, I think Tivo's legal battle with their time-shifting pattent is a HUGE threat. You should probably also look into opportunities for growth, and the Tivo forum is not the best avenue for that because we are already customers! Lastly, it's important to distinguish Tivo the company from the product (Tivo service and set-top boxes). The company has traditionally been great (strength) at product development and poor (weakness) at advertising- it cannot get the masses to buy the Tivo service even when it gives the boxes away for free.

Unfortunately, the Tivo forums are not the place to get most of the information you will need to complete a good SWOT analysis. There are many issues besides customer satisfaction that play into the success of the company. Try googling "Motley Fools"- that's the name of a group of writers that have published a lot of advice on Tivo.

[ah30k]

For me, the biggest thing is that TiVo has to compete for my approval. In a sense, TiVo is looking out for my interests or I won't choose them or refer them. The MSO provided DVRs are looking out for the MSOs best interests. For instance, my Comcast provided DVR will not allow me to turn off channels in the guide. I scrolled through the guide and found a show to watch/record only to notice later that it was on a premium channel that I don't subscribe to. Comcast wants me to accidentally go there in the hope that I'll choose to subscribe. TiVo allows me to remove it from the guide so I don't make that mistake again.

[c_hall]

You all are awesome! Thank you so much for all the replies, it is helping me so much.

Kels83, you had some great advice too. I am actually doing a lot more research outside of the forum, this was just what you said, to get the customer satisfaction side. As for the analysis, I am looking at many other places, I just thought that this would be a great place to talk with actual customers. Thanks for your suggestions, I will be sure to look into them all!
Thanks again everyone!

[jklipa]

I just upgraded my Directv service over the weekend... 2/3/07... We moved our existing non-HD tivo unit from the HD tv in the living room to the bedroom. And we got a new 5 LNB dish installed on the roof. Installation was free... I bought the HR-20 DVR from Best Buy for $299.99.

I have to say that I am very disappointed in the Directv DVR HR-20 that I purchased. Not so much in the picture quality or the sound quality, but in the features...

With the TiVo unit you could control which tuner you were watching, press pause on one tuner to allow one show to "build-up" and with the press of one button, switch to the second tuner and watch something else (live or off the list) while keeping the other tuner paused...

With the new HD DVR from Directv that capability is now lost... You can no longer pause a live show, switch to something else (alt. tuner or play list) and return to the paused location of the live show you were trying to "build-up"...

This REALLY SUCKS... If I want to be able to pause a show and return to that paused location I actually have to record it... The whole notion of being able to pause "LIVE TV" was huge with TiVo and is now gone for us in the living room. This makes it much more difficult for us to avoid seeing ads when just casually watching live tv... We have to record it and watch it off the play list. I really hate Directv for this change in design.

The other thing that really sucks with the new DVR from Directv is the fact that I can no longer record my shows onto VCR or DVD recorder...! There is no selection to record a show from the play list to VCR. My wife really likes to save her craft shows onto DVD for archival purposes and now we cannot do that... That REALLY SUCKS, too...

I'll have to move the DVD recorder to the bedroom to rejoin with the TiVo unit so she can have that option again...

[wolflord11]

What makes TiVo better and different from others on the market now?

Tivo has more features, icluding Home Networking.

What makes TiVo better than an ordinary DVR from Direct TV?

The Directv DVR's do not have the USB Ports enabled, so no Home Networking. Directv keeps saying its on the way, but as yet nothing.

What are some specific things you like about TiVo?

Home Networking, Transferring from different DVR's or Computers.

What are some specific things you dislike about TiVo?

There is no way to contact Tivo via Email.

What are some changes you think could help to improve TiVo?

Email Contact. Getting rid of the 2 USB Ports and instead just having an Ethernet Port (or Two) I know the Series 2 DT and Series 3 have both, but as the Ethernet Port has been added, why keep the USb Ports?

How do you think they re-created the television industry?

With Tivo, or in fact any DVR, the older VCR is going out the Door.

Do you think the price you pay is a fair price?

I am happy, but the whole pricing structure needs improving. There is Monthly, depending on term: 1, 2 or 3 Years, Prepaid Yearly. Then the Lifetime Plans. Tivo needs to get this issue organised!

Hope this helps!

[c_hall]

Thanks everyone! I have just finished my work and my presentation is tomorrow, I really appreciate your comments.


Thanks again!!!