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Tivo going out on their own???

4K views 17 replies 12 participants last post by  wmcbrine 
Rumors are that the rumored "divorce" between tivo and Directv was way to premature. I think its because the DirecTV insiders have seen the NDS recorder and its crap compared Tivo. DirecTV NEEDS Tivo just as much as Tivo needs DirecTV. So while News corp. would love DirecTV to start shipping NDS PVRS (and DirecTV probably will just to satisify the owners) they can't ignore real money.

DirecTV needs a MRV feature to be competitive with cable and dish. And Tivo can give them that this year. NDS can't. Let's wait and see what we hear about this week at CES.

DirecTV and Tivo will be happy together for a while. It will need NDS at least 2 years to match Tivo's functionality.
 
They can't disable the use of the Tivo service without some sort of replacement. That could be construed by many as a breach of contract.

But DirecTV is really interested in one thing: money.

I think that here is a fight going WITHIN DirecTV about NDS vs. Tivo. News Corp (the giant corporate owners from afar) want DirecTV to move to NDS. It keeps more money in the family. I think the DirecTV employees (especially those who have been around prior to the takeover) are focused on increasing subscribers and increasing DTV revenue.

The DirecTV guys know that the Tivo is a better product. I would guess that a large number of higher up executives have protoptype DTivos and prototype NDS boxes running in their offices and homes. They know which ones are better. And my guess is that customers will notice also.

But again, Tivo and NDS, are simply a means to an end for DirecTV. They have used multiple suppliers of boxes before, and I think they will continue to do so. Even if all the boxes are sold under one company name, they will still use multiple designers and manufactures for many of those boxes.

So I would predict, that DirecTV will sell both boxes. Customer's will pick one box or the other. I would guess that DTV will still charge NDS customers the $4.99 a month for the NDS boxes. Since that will create more revenue. But the DTV insiders know which box is going to create more customer loyalty, and therefore more revenue. They are not going to shoot themselves in the foot. If the NDS box is a better overall value, then people will pick that one.

I think that in the short term, Tivo doesn't have much to fear. In the long term (2-3 years out) they may, which is why so much emphasis on non DTivo products from Tivo.
 
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