Tivo's business outlook.

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I"m sure cost was a factor, but I suspect it's more about control. Comcast would prefer to have a bad UI they control than a good UI they don't. Control of UI gives control over many other revenue streams including for example content discovery, which has real value. Comcast doesn't want to just be an app; they want to be the operating system

 

Yeah, you would think that they would be doing both a plug-in for Roku TVs and a separate box for people with Roku streaming boxes. OTA is the missing part of what Roku is doing.

Entirely true. These MSOs are pretty arrogant, and think that their brands are what they should put front and center. Atlantic Broadband is smart- they put TiVo front a center in giant letters in their ads, and at the bottom, you see a smaller logo for Atlantic Broadband. They know that TiVo is their biggest asset.

I agree. I think control is the first thing, branding is the second, and cost was probably not a huge factor, as Comcast is large enough that they could have beaten TiVo down on the cost, especially if Comcast handled buying the hardware end of things. In an ironic turn of events, TiVo's software runs on the XG1 which Comcast developed for X1, and is now used by other MSOs, some using X1, and at least one using TiVo. I think data is also part of the picture, as the XG1 is cloud integrated and has it's own internal modem, and sends data back continuously on what the user is doing. Granted, an MSO the size of Comcast could have gotten TiVo's software to do the exact same thing, but they have more control over the data collection at the software level when they write it.

Comcast experimented with the now ill-fated ComcasTiVo, but then they floundered around with crappy iGuide boxes until they finally decided to re-invent the wheel many years after TiVo has already invented it. Comcast wants to control the UX and create more of a traditional digital cable type of model, with DVR, XoD, and Live TV all on equal footing, while TiVo's UX is a DVR first, and everything else second. Comcast's old iGuide DVRs were a cable box first and a DVR second. Comcast is huge into selling On Demand to people who don't understand how to properly use a DVR, and pushing Live TV as well, while sophisticated TiVo users use little to no XoD, and only watch sports or news live.

 

List of multiple-system operators - Wikipedia

 

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I remember the Amazon phones. Not their brightest moment.

Amazon's DVR needs to stand the test of time. I rarely buy version 1 of a product because Version 2 is usally so much better. So, I will continue to get by rather well with my Roamio OTA units for a few more years. When the new TV broadcast standard is functional, I will consider a new DVR unit and look at Tivo, Tablo, Amazon and others.

 

The fees would never be too big for Comcast to pay, maybe more than they felt it was worth. Around here almost everyone has an X1 and they love it. So, poor is just how someone perceives it. Comcast has full control now and can innovate their IPTV, On Demand and their cloud storage without worrying about any other company's software so maybe it's worth it to them. My wife loves the X1 over our TiVo and every other thing she has tried. To me it wasn't as good as TiVo but a very close 2nd. I'm not using either now and I'm happy.

 

Tivo is dead. They were already hurt by the cable dvr. But now streaming makes a dvr obsolete.

So I don't see a future for Tivo although it doesn't mean they don't hang around for many years yet like Sears or Kmart have.

I guess with OTA a dvr makes sense for the customer although probably not for the OTA network affiliate business.

A dvr makes sense for the satellite customer that can't get broadband internet.

I don't think the answer is copy and pasting cable or satellite onto a streaming service either. I think the answer is doing what Netflix is doing and doing it better.

 

Like Tablo. It's a headless box that acts as a server for recorded content. Yes, it would have to have a tuner in order to record.

It's not about the money, Comcast could have beaten TiVo up on the pricing, they are huge, and X1 wasn't cheap. People like X1 because they've never used TiVo, so it's like going from a Geo Metro to a Honda Civic, which is great in comparison, they just don't know what a Rolls Royce is like. Not sure what's up with your wife, I have used both side by side, and TiVo's UX is WAY ahead of X1. X1 is certainly an improvement over iGuide in many ways, but at the end of the day, it's a crappy, poorly implemented rip-off of TiVo.

For Comcast, it's all about the branding and control aspects of it. If they wanted TiVo, they would have gotten TiVo at a price that was acceptable to them.

It's not great for the broadcasters, but it's not like they have a choice. If they want to broadcast, people will record it. The legality of time shifting was established many years ago.

I agree- the sticking points are news and sports, which is where YouTube TV fills in the gaps. Netflix and other OTT SVOD services have completely re-invented what TV is in a way that retail DVRs never could do at scale.

 

Yep and they don't have a choice if revenue doesn't come in via advertisers either.

Yep and even sports and news may go streaming. John Skipper, the old ESPN president is Chairman of some new sports streaming service that is bidding for sports rights. He said unlike most of the world, american sport leagues have long tv contracts so the rights to lots of the sports in the US don't come up for bid for a number of years yet. So they have to wait to bid for rights of major sports. So for now they are going after whatever is in reach. Their biggest score is Camilo Avarez, arguably the biggest boxing star of today. The streaming service is DAZN.

ESPN also has ESPN+. It basically carries sports and then some games not found its channels.

News is something anyone can watch clips of on the internets.

 

Live events. Football. News.

Exactly. That's why vMVPDs are doing as well as they are.

Some people like to watch cable news channels, but yes, there is a lot of free news out there, and even live streaming channels like CBSN.

Look at the obvious. TiVos aren't headless. Nor is the Channelmaster DVR.

They are not yet able to stream out to devices like Roku and FireTV (although for a while there was a FireTV app). The Bolt will be able to soon. Of course, it could be used as a headless box by simply unplugging the HDMI cable, but the point of going to a headless server model is ultimately to provide something cheaper and easier to set up. You still would need to plug the Bolt into a TV with HDMI to set it up unless they made some significant software updates to the setup process.

That's a niche use case all considering. They also have Unlimited storage, multiple profiles, etc, so there are pluses and minuses.

That can be an issue if you're right on the edge of a 1TB data cap, but for most people, live TV is only one small portion of their streaming, so they'd either be way over and have to pay the extortion money to their ISP to not have an arbitrary and capricious data cap, or they'd be nowhere close to the cap anyway.

That's what I said, yes. I didn't think that a few years ago, but at this point, going the route of a cheaper headless server makes sense. Tablo has a 2-tuner, a 2-tuner with 64GB of onboard storage, and a 4-tuner model that cost $290, $320, and $370 with Lifetime service, respectively. If TiVo could hit the same price points with a headless OTA DVR, I think it would be quite successful.

They need to support FireTV, Roku, Android TV, Chromecast, Apple TV, iOS, Android, FireOS, Windows, and Mac at a minimum.

 

In addition the major MSOs are no different than other electronics makers (Apple, Samsung, LG) who want as much control of their hardware and software as possible. It allows for the best performance, the ability to integrate into their proprietary networks and backend servers including account billing systems. And it allows them to innovate.

Look at DISH (I’ve never owned a DISH) for innovations they had LONG before anyone else. 2009 DISH Anywhere, outside the home viewing. Hopper/Joey whole-home DVR in 2012, a design TIVO used in 2013 with Roamio/Mini. 2013 wireless Joey a feature TiVO still does not offer in the latest Mini VOX.

It’s very costly to develop in-house, with software developers making $100k+, but with Comcast pulling in over a billion dollars yearly in STB box rental fees somehow they manage.

 

I didn't mind the X1. It's not as pretty as TiVo but ours worked perfectly. No lag and never missed a recording. The voice control was absolutely perfect for us. You could pretty much get to anything with just saying it. Word recognition never failed. My wife almost exclusively used it by voice. Not to mention you could watch live TV, On Demand or recordings from any device anywhere.

 

To be fair to DISH, they have done some cool stuff. DISH was not the first with the client/server boxes, I don't know if it was Moxi or Microsoft, but they definitely existed pre-DISH. However, they did do a bunch of innovative things. They had the DVRs with RF out for the second TV for a long time, then with they did PTAT with their satellite system to use one tuner to record four channels at once, then they did Hopper with 16 tuners, 4k, Alexa, etc, etc.

That being said, Comcast and DirecTV have done nothing innovative with their platforms, with possibly the singular exception of using T9-esque text input on the X1 remote that actually works fairly well. Nothing else in their systems is ahead of what TiVo has, and most of it is way behind. It's all about control and their branding, not having the ultimate/best UX. If they had wanted the best UX that they could get, they would have licensed TiVo.

 

You must have the new XG1v4, the previous iterations of the box were horribly laggy at times, and would often fall behind the button presses. The UX just isn't as good as TiVo, stuff doesn't make as much sense, the remote is decent, but it's no peanut, that's for sure. You can still do live TV and on demand anywhere without X1, and you can stream shows from some of the newer TiVo Roamio and Bolt models.

 

Yeah and what's your point? That streaming sports have not overtaken cable overnight? Don't disagree.

 

Yes, we had the 4K box. I don't have a 4K Tv so I never saw any shows like that but it was a pretty darn good box for a cable co DVR.

 

The SoC in the XG1v4 is much faster, so that would take care of the lagginess issue, but it doesn't fix X1's medicore interface that is not nearly as logical as TiVo's.