Phillips Personal TV Channel System

[andyw715]

Wash Post Article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/04/AR2007090400605.html)

Looks like software for existing PCs and DVRs.

If this stuff works, and works well, TiVo might need to get moving in terms of new innovative features.

[ZeoTiVo]

All the Hype for this in the article is exactly what a TiVo does now :)

except for "Philips hopes to make money from the product through its personalized advertising capability."


so it remains to be seen if they can do better than TiVo at aggregating content for the end viewer. Maybe this will spur TiVo to give us the ability to do our own folder work in Now playing area.

[mportuesi]

Agreed. There's nothing in the article claimed for the Philips software that a TiVo can't also do.

Philips is also making the software available for cable set-top boxes. So if this becomes widespread, and the software is robust and easy-to-use, it means cable companines might offer a good TiVo alternative.

[mrdbdigital]

I hope the Philips software works better than their hardware.

[MickeS]

"TiVo offers a similar feature, TiVo Suggestions, but users must tell the system explicitly whether they like a program, and it learns and makes guesses about what else they could like based on that."

Why is it that everytime I know something about a subject covered in a news article, they end up getting it wrong?

Makes me think that they never get anything right.

At least I have not once used the thumbs up or down, and I get plenty of suggestions based on what I record.

I think the user-specific aspects mentioned in the article sound interesting. I and others have proposed many times before that TiVo should do a user-based UI.

[ZeoTiVo]

"TiVo offers a similar feature, TiVo Suggestions, but users must tell the system explicitly whether they like a program, and it learns and makes guesses about what else they could like based on that."

Why is it that everytime I know something about a subject covered in a news article, they end up getting it wrong?

Makes me think that they never get anything right.

At least I have not once used the thumbs up or down, and I get plenty of suggestions based on what I record.

I think the user-specific aspects mentioned in the article sound interesting. I and others have proposed many times before that TiVo should do a user-based UI.
heck just folders we can create on our own (so per user in a sense) and manage would be good

[uspatentideas]

anybody has use it? give us some suggestions, please.

[megazone]

anybody has use it? give us some suggestions, please.Used what? The Philips software hasn't been released yet.

[megazone]

"TiVo offers a similar feature, TiVo Suggestions, but users must tell the system explicitly whether they like a program, and it learns and makes guesses about what else they could like based on that."

Why is it that everytime I know something about a subject covered in a news article, they end up getting it wrong?

Makes me think that they never get anything right.

At least I have not once used the thumbs up or down, and I get plenty of suggestions based on what I record.Yeah, I emailed the author about that the day the article came out and I mentioned it in my post. (http://www.tivolovers.com/2007/09/04/philips-develops-dvr-software/)

[wolflord11]

Philips has been building Directv units for Years, but as opposed to mrdbdigital comments, their Hardware is among some of the best. Many of the Directv/Tivo units hardware were produced by philips and they are still the best of the best out there.

So, philips has now moved onto the Software market, and I for one hope they do well.

Tivo needs some competition, otherwise you all will still be using the same units and software you are using now in 10 years time. Why would any company need to bring out improvements when they have no competition? Think about it.

[RoyK]

I had the pleasure of working on a couple of projects over the years with Philips engineers. I'd rank them among the best.

[ZeoTiVo]

Tivo needs some competition, otherwise you all will still be using the same units and software you are using now in 10 years time. Why would any company need to bring out improvements when they have no competition? Think about it.
if TiVo was making piles of money that may be true. Instead a lot of innovations have come out after ReplayTV folded.

now that being said Philips providing competition would be great since it would help spur sales of 3rd party DVR solutions and be a partner with TiVo in regulatory matters. The fact that TiVo would have to compete with someone that also has a good feature set is the icing on the cake for us end users.

[wolflord11]

if TiVo was making piles of money that may be true. Instead a lot of innovations have come out after ReplayTV folded.

But Tivo also has other Competition from others like the Sat and Cable Companies own DVR's.

now that being said Philips providing competition would be great since it would help spur sales of 3rd party DVR solutions and be a partner with TiVo in regulatory matters. The fact that TiVo would have to compete with someone that also has a good feature set is the icing on the cake for us end users.

I agree. :D

[mrdbdigital]

Philips has been building Directv units for Years, but as opposed to mrdbdigital comments, their Hardware is among some of the best. Many of the Directv/Tivo units hardware were produced by philips and they are still the best of the best out there.

Well, when I was the engineer for the video production department at Philips arena in Atlanta, (yes, Philips was the corporate name sponsor of the arena) I had over 750 Philips television sets in the building. We had a lot of failures. We also went through 3 Philips DVD recorders in the control room, and they were not used that much. Philips does have some really good engineers in their company, and the support on the broadcast equipment they used to sell was topnotch, but I'm not impressed with a lot of their consumer stuff, with the following exception:

The only Philips products that I have not had hardware issues with are the two DirecTV/Tivo DSR-6000's that I have at home. They've been running since they first came out, (and I got mine early through Philips) and I haven't had a single problem with them. I replaced the hard drives in both about a year ago, but only because I wanted to increase the capacity. The original drives were still going strong.

[Jeshimon]

I hope the Philips software works better than their hardware.
+1

I've had nothing but bad luck with philips. They are off my qualified vendor list.

[appleye1]

Hey the Philips Pronto Edit software (for the Pronto remote) is not that bad. They must a few decent software engineers.