Apple To Buy TiVo?

[Cooknn]

The TiVo rumor was designed to cover the real deal. More after the market closes.

Have some insider information do we? 😉

The rumor is all over the place today. I can't wait to hear what really went down. I hope you're wrong about Sirius, although that would be quite interesting as well...

 

[mac n cheese]

$5-$10 a month more isn't free you've contradicted yourself there. While no HD is a downside that is currently being worked on and an HD unit will be available by the end of the year. Not to mention all of the features the comcast unit does lack like season pass, wish list etc. If you want HD than right now comcast is the better option for you but if you want more features then Tivo is the way to go. I also have a simulated dual tuner setup on some of my sets by using a splitter sending one cable to the TV and the other to the Tivo. That way I can watch one program while I record another. Not the best solution but it works well. So the only thing I really miss out on over the comcast solution is recording HD.

The comcast box is $3 a month more (here at least, seems to vary by market) and theres not much on HD that I really care to record right now anyhow. So for the $3/mo extra the comcast box costs me thats $144 a year. I bought 4 tivo series 2 units for $200 total by buying refurb boxes (which carry the EXACT same warranty as a brand new unit) So for the lack of content that HD has right now I'm saving money by sticking with tivo over comcast and have more features to boot.

So what it boils down to is that if you want to record HD for now comcast is the way to go otherwise tivo is a better option.

Btw, if you call tivo and tell them that $13 a month is too expensive and you are considering switching to comcast pvr theyll drop your first units price to $7/mo same as an additional unit on the account would cost.

I thought I made it clear that the box is FREE and I pay $5/mo for the service. Maybe not.

You are right, I should have known someone out there could figure a way to patch together a "comparable" system using a fleet of used Tivos, some used car parts, a hairball of cables and splitters, and a flux-capacitor.

I can envision you with 4 remotes attached into a cube, "turret style", changing channels with both hands, or kick it back to just one remote, and have your cousin Jeb with 3 arms cover the IR sensors on the 3 Tivos you don't want to control at that moment. It's cool though, Jeb works for beer.

Not to mention, they have your picture on the wall at Tivo with a caption that notes that you have twice as many Tivo subscriptions as their #2 man who only has 2.

If that's what you have to do to make Tivo feel like a good deal (BTW, what does that cost you a month? $28-$52?) , then go for it.

I'm going to stick with the dual tuner HDTV box (singular) that Comcast gave me for FREE (no cost up front), and live with the $5 a month.

But hey, all is not lost, you are the record holder.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Guys, if they buy Tivo they're not buying the business model, they are buying the technology first, and the customer base to a lesser extent.

They will not buy Tivo in order to come out with a white Tivo box with Aquafied Tivo interface.

They are buying the technology and will end up incorporating it into many of their product lines, least of which is a standalone set top box. They could do the R&D themselves, but it would cost money and mainly TIME. Also, this buyout does not impact their profitablity (and thus stock price) since they are exchanging one asset (cash or stock) for another (the Tivo company), while a lot of increased R&D does.

I am most intrigued by the possibility of Tivo on iPod, which I mentioned on like page 3 but I guess I'm the only one. The problem with the current portable video players is that they use the same 'library' model that is used for music, and that is just plain wrong. You listen to an album a lot of times over and over, but typically watch most video content only once.

They key to people actually wanting to buy and use a portable video player is how you refresh the content. Imagine if everything you Tivo'd was automatically accessible on your iPod. Only a gadget nerd wants to rip SpiderMan 2 to Divx to watch on their Creative video player (most people will watch it on their TV.) Heck, I don't think even gadget nerds want to watch SpiderMan 2 on their Creative video player, they just want to be able to do it because it's kind of cool. But sitcoms, news, last night's SportCenter? That's the sort of content people would watch on a video iPod. (and of course, we will have video podcasting too...)

If this buyout occurs, I am sure they will bring Tivo in this way to the iPod. Microsoft, Creative, Napster, and the rest will all be choking in Apple's dust. Apple will always have a basic music-only iPod, but will continually expand the higher models with features like this.

 

[BigMacIain]

Hell, if they buy TiVo, maybe it will finally go on sale up here.

Something else not to hold my breath over...

 

[SWC]

I thought I made it clear that the box is FREE and I pay $5/mo for the service. Maybe not.

You are right, I should have known someone out there could figure a way to patch together a "comparable" system using a fleet of used Tivos, some used car parts, a hairball of cables and splitters, and a flux-capacitor.

I can envision you with 4 remotes attached into a cube, "turret style", changing channels with both hands, or kick it back to just one remote, and have your cousin Jeb with 3 arms cover the IR sensors on the 3 Tivos you don't want to control at that moment. It's cool though, Jeb works for beer.

Not to mention, they have your picture on the wall at Tivo with a caption that notes that you have twice as many Tivo subscriptions as their #2 man who only has 2.

If that's what you have to do to make Tivo feel like a good deal (BTW, what does that cost you a month? $28-$52?) , then go for it.

I'm going to stick with the dual tuner HDTV box (singular) that Comcast gave me for FREE (no cost up front), and live with the $5 a month.

But hey, all is not lost, you are the record holder.

It's got nothing to do with records. Tivos are all in different rooms.
No IR blasters needed, they use rs232 cables which controls anything just as well as the internal tuner comcast uses. $28 a month vs $40 a month from comcast for all the boxes we have. Comcast isnt charging a hardware fee but they are charging more per month than I am paying for more features with tivo plain and simple.

But fact of the matter is I can just do more. Can you stream music from your computer to your comcast box? NO Can you stream pictures from your computer to your comcast box? NO. Can you transfer programs from your comcast box to your computer legally? NO. Can you share programs between different comcast boxes? NO. It's great to be able to record a program in the living room watch part of it go into the bedroom and finish watching it. That alone is worth the higher....oh wait, I forgot is costs less per month than comcast.

Like I said before the comcast box is great if you want to record HD content which there is almost none of. But to get "dual tuner" capabilities for your tivo all you need is a cheap $5 splitter and 1 Tivo box not some redneck setup which you seem to think is the case.

So if you feel better paying more per month for less than go for it.


EDIT: Can't forget the ad's that comcast puts all over their menus you are forced to look at. Tivo has ads on the main menu only and its 1 line of text at the very bottom which is easily ignorable vs two large ads on the left side of the screen. A big part of the DVR is the skip commericals not look at them while flipping through menus.

 

[dicklacara]

I think this will happen.

I suspect that one of the reasons for Apple's recent stock split was to provide shares that can be used for purchases such as this.

The more I read about strangeberry, the more I think that Apple is the only company that can take in this software/concept/people, nurture it, fund it, redirect it (slightly) and release sensational products with wide appeal.

Then, spin it out to (first) a separate division, then (second) a separate company.

The TiVo costomer base, near-term hardware, and subscription model are just icing on the cake... they help offset the purchase cost. Apple can replace/upgrade/enhance/discontinue any of these as it makes sense.

It is the software and expertise they are after.

If Apple doesn't buy TiVo, someone else will... and make a botch of it.

 

[nightowl]

Like I said before the comcast box is great if you want to record HD content which there is almost none of. But to get "dual tuner" capabilities for your tivo all you need is a cheap $5 splitter and 1 Tivo box not some redneck setup which you seem to think is the case.

So if you feel better paying more per month for less than go for it.

Almost no HD content? There are about 10-15 HDTV channels in most areas of the country on Comcast. I've got a hard drive full of content, and a decent library archived to DVHS, also. Would I like to see more HD content? Of course. But there is much, much more than "almost none".

As a side note, in the interest of keeping the TV listing content subscription-based, I could see Apple including the TV listings service in .Mac, which would add more value to that service.

 

[hanumang]

Hell is freezin' over!

As a loyal TiVo owner, I can understand how some might see the company as a sinking ship. Or, at very best, a ship that's lost it's engines. But...

I'm absolutely dumbfounded that some posters here don't see the benefit of the TiVo experience. IMNSHO, for people to think that their $5/mo cable company DVR is on par with TiVo is literally like saying that Windows XP is on par with OS X. And for those of you who cry about TiVo being more expensive, that's the utmost in hypocrisy: anti-Mac folks have always used that argument to belittle Macs.

Hey, everyone is entitled to their opinoin, I just figured Mac users would get TiVo's innovations (in that a DVR should be more than just 'a VCR without tapes'). Oh well. 🙂

 

[Cooknn]

Almost no HD content? There are about 110-15 HDTV channels in most areas of the country on Comcast.

😕

In my part of the country Comcast offers 11 HD Channels - and that is only if you buy the Premium package that includes all the pay channels ie. HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and Starz.

Last night I went through the IPG for the upcoming week while looking at the HD channels. I could not find anything I wanted to record. Sad 😡

 

[Lynxpro]

I thought I made it clear that the box is FREE and I pay $5/mo for the service. Maybe not.
I'm going to stick with the dual tuner HDTV box (singular) that Comcast gave me for FREE (no cost up front), and live with the $5 a month.But hey, all is not lost, you are the record holder.

Why are you such a Comcast shill? Yes, the Comcast box is cheap, and yes, it'll do HD content, but you don't have any of the features that makes a TiVo a TiVo. The GUI on the Comcast (ahem, Motorola) set-top box is pathetic compared to the TiVo. You don't have "Season Passes;" you don't have "Wish Lists;" you can't remote schedule your DVR to record a program from work using a web browser if you forgot to record something that wasn't on your Season Pass (or Wish List); you can't stream MP3s or photos from your computer to your DVR; you can't out-of-the-box backup your programs to your computer; your viewing habits won't be thrown into an aggregate data pool to counter the Nielsens so programs you might enjoy could still be cancelled; and most importantly, you can't fast forward through certain shows because Comcast is taking money from the various networks to prevent fast-forwarding from happening (Fox has done it with "24" and "American Idol" so far and blamed it on glitches).

And your "Comcast" DVR ISN'T FREE; you pay a monthly fee to Comcast for its use which Comcast will raise in price if they successfully drive TiVo from the market; you know, typical monopolistic practices. I don't have a monthly fee for my service because I bought a lifetime subscription to it. You don't own your machine whereas I do and I can dump a bigger hard drive into mine if I like. And just for the record, the DirecTV TiVo's only cost $5 extra per month on the bill which is also waved if you sign up for a "Total Choice Programming" package. DirecTiVos do not cost $13 per month as you stated.

So before you spout off on the forum about the superiority of your wanna-be TiVo, I suggest you actually become informed on DVRs because you are just a "Johnny Come-Lately." It'll be a whole different ball game when CableCard 2.0 hits the market.

 

[madmaxmedia]

What's a season pass? Does it record every episode of a show?

Just curious. I could do that with the Time Warner DVR (I think that was $10 a month, I no longer have it.) But perhaps not all details are the same.

 

[SWC]

Almost no HD content? There are about 110-15 HDTV channels in most areas of the country on Comcast. I've got a hard drive full of content, and a decent library archived to DVHS, also. Would I like to see more HD content? Of course. But there is much, much more than "almost none".

As a side note, in the interest of keeping the TV listing content subscription-based, I could see Apple including the TV listings service in .Mac, which would add more value to that service.

What market has 110-115 hd channels? But given the benefit of the doubt thinking you meant 10-15 (which is nothing considering theres 400+ channels in their digital package). The largest selection I could find was Philadelphia which actually has 19 (also happens to be my market). Of those 19, 6 are local CBS/Fox etc that are only HD about 2-3 hours a day. Of the remaining 13 we have 8 hbo/show/cinemax/starz! two of each which are identical so 8 is actually 4. We also have comcast sports net and ESPN which show a decent amount of HD programming but still not all HD programming. Then you have two PPV channels and Discovery HD (which I must admit is amazing when they show HD programming which isnt all the time.)

So of all 19 channels we get. There are only 6 that show exclusively HD content. HD is great and when programming is actually broadcast in HD great. HDVHS is an entirely different situation most of the movies available in that format are whats being shown on HBO etc. HD content will really get a kick in the butt when HD-DVD/Blu-Ray start to take market and the studios are transferring content in HD. Sony currently has a library of over 2000 titles transfered in HD ready to go haven't released a lot of them to the networks to broadcast because its basically lost revenue when they go to release the HD discs to market. Once they come to market you'll start seeing the content on these channels grow and gain mor esupport and additonal channels etc. The content exists, It's just not broadcastable.

 

[hanumang]

What's a season pass? Does it record every episode of a show?

Just curious. I could do that with the Time Warner DVR (I think that was $10 a month, I no longer have it.) But perhaps not all details are the same.

Yeah, TimeWarner's DVR has come along quite a ways in terms of functionality. I haven't played with it all that much, but it does seem to mirror the TiVo Season Pass fairly well (ie. 'First-Run Only' vs 'First-Run & Repeats', 'Keep At Most [x] episodes,' etc).

What honestly makes TiVo standout to me is that you can query data (ie. Wishlists) so, if you're a nature nut, you can TiVo all documentaries which feature rain forests, for example. You can also wishlist actors & directors (ie. 'Movies & Gable, Clark').

Yes, I know most legit film fans go the DVD route but I'm pulling examples off the TiVo that my mom uses - still the greatest Mother's Day present she ever got 🙂 according to her. (No, I haven't brought her a Mac yet 😉)

 

[Porchland]

I suspect that one of the reasons for Apple's recent stock split was to provide shares that can be used for purchases such as this.

Nothing personal, but that makes no sense at all. That's like saying you traded a hundred dollar bill in for two fifties to get more money out of it. When the shares double, the price halves. Same market cap.

 

[Maestro64]

As a person who worked for the company who designed Directv's Digital Compression system and vary familiar with their operations. I can tell you this much, with Directv you get a much higher quality video. Over 90% of their content is digital start to finish. Because it all digital the data you store on you DVR/Tivo is going to be much better quality then any other system out there.

Most, including Comcasts system digitize the analog video with all its distortions before it hits the hard drive. In the case of Directv system they store the digital stream coming in from the satellite. Only when you play it does it convert it to analog video to display on your TV. The other thing to remember with Comcast most all there content is analog. They take their analog feeds then digitize them and send it to your house. So you paying extra for what they call digital service, thinking you are getting better quality when in fact you are not. They got you to pay extra money to allow them to upgrade equipment so they can send more content down the same cables to your house.

I have both Comcast and Directv, only because Comcast forces you to have at least basic service in order to get internet access for a reasonable price. I can tell you this much, for what I pay for Directv is far less then Comcast for the content and the quality is far better. I have compared the same shows side by side and Directv is far better even better then Comcast Digital which I happen to have due to a screw-up on Comcast part. I moved in last year and the pervious owners had the service and when I got Internet access they gave it to me free trying to get me to buy there entire package for over $100 month. Well over a year later I am still paying for basic and getting it all.

The moral to the story, as we all know the less times you convert a signal from analog to digital and back again the better the quality will be in the end. Directv and its Tivo does exactly that, there content if fully digital until it hits the video out of your set top box or DVR.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Yeah, TimeWarner's DVR has come along quite a ways in terms of functionality. I haven't played with it all that much, but it does seem to mirror the TiVo Season Pass fairly well (ie. 'First-Run Only' vs 'First-Run & Repeats', 'Keep At Most [x] episodes,' etc).

What honestly makes TiVo standout to me is that you can query data (ie. Wishlists) so, if you're a nature nut, you can TiVo all documentaries which feature rain forests, for example. You can also wishlist actors & directors (ie. 'Movies & Gable, Clark').

Yes, I know most legit film fans go the DVD route but I'm pulling examples off the TiVo that my mom uses - still the greatest Mother's Day present she ever got 🙂 according to her. (No, I haven't brought her a Mac yet 😉)

Thanks for the info. The extra search and browsing capability is just the sort of thing that adds value in software, and is better handled on a computer IMO (which apparently you can do with Tivo.) I can see the value of having different favorites (for example, action movies rated 3.5 stars or better, etc.) which makes much more sense than combing the TV Guide (since Tivo and DVRs in general free you from time restrictions.) It's quite torturous to search for movies with a remote control (my new favorite word for describing bad UI or UE. 😉 )

The problem Tivo faces is that to the general consumer, Tivo is the same as any other DVR. Sounds a little familiar to Apple's situation, don't it? 😉

I remember reading about all the various new features and innovations that Tivo is trying to try to increase sales. But absolutely NONE of them strike me as the sort they will save Tivo as an independent company, unfortunately. Not when you're competing against cable and dish companies that heavily subsidize the hardware AND are probably willing to break even on the DVR side to try to keep or maintain suscriber market share. That's the main crux facing Tivo.

I know Tivo doesn't want to sell out, but Apple represents an ideal situation for them. If a direct competitor bought out Tivo, they'd be buying solely for the customer list, and basically liquidate tivo as we know it. Apple would be buying them for the technology, and Tivo could at least continue to innovate from within Apple, as well as possibly having a tremendous impact in Apple's products.

 

[GregA]

By the way, DirecTV has announced that they are moving away from TIVO and developing their own DVR box. They showed it off at CES.

Of course.. News Corp owns DirecTV, so why not use their own (NDS) DVRs? In England that's Sky Plus, in Australia "Foxtel iQ" ( http://www.foxteliq.com.au/ ). Not sure about News Corps Italian pay TV group, I know their NZ satellite stuff doesn't have it yet.

Well, seeing how Apple hates subscriptions (iTMS vs. Napster), I could see Apple cutting the subscription...

Have you considered .Mac?

Personally I can't see the advantage in buying TiVo. Apple & iPod are well known names and Apple has much of the technology already. I want apple in the market, just not sure that going via TiVo is worthwhile.

So what's valuable about TiVo? Is apple going to buy them so they can sue everyone else? (personally I'd be annoyed at that!). For the subscription base? (how many people are lifetime subscribers vs paying monthly?).

I guess it's possible to update the TiVo machines with some new technologies (NOT OSX - that'd be too difficult for the box eh?!) - but maybe better network integration, management from Macs, Quicktime h.264 support, and perhaps Dashboard for existing users. But is that valuable to Apple?

Though I am excited at the idea... I realise I'm excited about an iPod-Home DVR. If Apple wants to do that, I don't see them needing TiVo.

Cable companies are already offering this service in their settop boxes for cheaper than TiVO and I expect they will continue to take over all the market share for it. Just like they are quickly taking over the majority of market share for broadband internet service.

Whilever the PayTV companies can dictate the box, there's little space for Apple (or TiVo).

 

[Porchland]

Patiently (and sceptically) awaiting oscar999's supposed major after-the-bell announcement that the Tivo rumor was planted to distract us from. Ding.

 

[paulsecic]

God, let it be true!
I would eat this up in a heartbeat - I've been resisting TiVos due to my limited channel selection (there's... never anything on at the same time, I have only two local channels and get all my shows from... let's just say "friends on the internet") but if Apple sold this as a living room hub for iTunes, iPhoto, and incorporated a TV-downloading Quicktime video store... wow.
Plus, kicking the design factor of TiVos up definitely wouldn't hurt.
How long would it take Apple to Apple-ize TiVo though?

Why don't you get Dishnetwork? Their cheapest plan is: 60 channels for $33.99.

 

[GregA]

Do phone companies want TV too?

Steve might have big plans for this, maybe something with the movie studios and networks (He has good contacts and reputation from Pixar). After all, it took Steve to get the record labels on board for the iTMS business model.

I'm still trying to find the market Apple could make this work with. There are certainly many political plays happening and various technologies - a thorough understanding would be needed to really know what might work for Apple alone, or Apple with TiVo.

What are the phone companies doing with TV in the US. Do they offer movies down the telephone line? Or other TV channels?

If the phone companies want to offer a PayTV-like service Apple could be a great option for them, and would work anywhere in the world. Essentially Apple could offer a broadband connected iBox using MPEG4 compression and connecting to Apple servers over ADSL or whatever.

When you turn on your box, you get an Apple channel guide like any PayTV service - including your local FTA channels and PayTV channels, AND a new type of download service (with music, movies, TV episodes, etc).

The phone companies may like this, and the model has some options for copyprotection using Fairplay etc. The long promised "customised" advertising would also be possible (or we could pay $1 and skip the ads entirely).

That's my best guess on how Apple could carve itself a chunk. And I'm still not sure whether owning TiVo would be much help - it really depends on what Apple already has on the back burners!

 

[madmaxmedia]

Can the cable and dish companies completely lock out Tivo boxes? By that I mean make it hard or impossible for a Tivo box to properly switch channels for recording? My understanding from a reading a couple of links here is that the whole cablecards thing is designed to prevent this sort of monopoly over your television set. I am wondering because there is all this talk about Tivo having no control.

There are already plenty of inexpensive products that offer basic video streaming and recording to the Mac-

http://www.plextor.com/english/products/TV402UMac.htm
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/509/elgato_introduces_eyetv

Does these products offer the same basic recording functionality that Tivo and the other DVR services offer? (except on the desktop.)

Also, other people have touched upon video on demand. If Apple bought Tivo, surely cable and dish is not the only way that will serve content to Tivo/Mac/iPods. Tivo has been working on some of these things long enough (such as Strangeberry purchase) such that buying Tivo primarily for their technology and expertise would make sense IMO. Apple has long had a history of buying other companies to jumpstart their product development...this would be the equivalent of them buying SoundJam to make iTunes.

You'd think an mp3 playing program would be 100x easier than a digital hub/DVR/meda gateway/kitchen sink technology, yet they still bought another company. You can't design a killer UI/user experience without having plenty of experience in what you're developing.

 

[paulsecic]

I've heard imovie enough by now... first, apple never uses a name we think of, so imovie is out. Second, it wouldn't be parallel. it's not imusic or isongs, but itunes. I predict the iflicks movie store... or iflix, if the tivo buyout brings partnership with netflix

A few months ago Leo LaPorte a computer expert & a big Mac fan said on his weekeend radio show said Apple purchased massive amounts of Terabytes. This could be why.

Leo's show is on http://www.kfi640.com 11AM to 2PM Sat. & Sundays.

 

[d.perel]

If apple buys TiVo, I hope they get something out of it, if not a major discount on the purchase price of $300 million. I doubt that TiVo will be worth that much in 2 years as an asset or a company.

 

[nightowl]

What market has 110-115 hd channels? But given the benefit of the doubt thinking you meant 10-15 (which is nothing considering theres 400+ channels in their digital package).

Sorry, I did mean 10-15, and corrected the post above. What cable system has truly 400+ digital channels? I've got a bunch of PPV (premium), 50 or so premium channels, a large group of international programming, the sports packages (premium), so in reality I've got about 100 watchable channels. Take out the home shopping, etc., and it's 90 or so. (If we're excluding premiums in the count for HD, gotta do it for SD as well).

The largest selection I could find was Philadelphia which actually has 19 (also happens to be my market). Of those 19, 6 are local CBS/Fox etc that are only HD about 2-3 hours a day. Of the remaining 13 we have 8 hbo/show/cinemax/starz! two of each which are identical so 8 is actually 4. We also have comcast sports net and ESPN which show a decent amount of HD programming but still not all HD programming. Then you have two PPV channels and Discovery HD (which I must admit is amazing when they show HD programming which isnt all the time.)

Discovery is all HDTV, all the time. Same with InHD 1 and 2. We don't have east feeds of the premium HD, only west coast (in Sacramento), so a total of 9 actual channels, plus the 4 premiums. With the DVR, I have plenty of material set to record all week, more than enough to fill my TV viewing time (3 or so hours a night). There are several HD channels planned for this year, and I believe that Comcast will be adding several new channels this year (at least I've heard that from their Philly HQ management).

I agree with the general theme that we are on the beginning of the "Year of HDTV", and the options that are here today are just the beginning of something bigger. I'm anxiously waiting for a device that will record HD/digital content, regardless of my provider. I'm don't want to be purchasing a new box because I've switched to Directv or Dish. If this box had an apple logo on it, I'd be in absolute heaven...

 

[rtdunham]

three questions

Questions I don't know the answers to, but that seem pertinent:

1: the article says, ""the DVR market seems to be a commodity whereby all players will eventually have similar hardware and software longer term..."
Q: isn't that the case with mp3 players? apple wasn't first, but it's won--and won big--with a better product even though all mp3 players have similar hardware and software and continue to converge.
Q: how exclusive is apple's click wheel? Do we conclude it is THE best solution for a music player, and also that it cannot be copied? Is IT and it alone THE key to the iPod's success?

2: the article says, "Analysts said that Apple's focus on... iPod ...would probably preclude it from going after money-losing TiVo, whose growth strategy has been questioned due to the rise of cheaper DVRs being deployed by cable TV providers."
Q: hasn't there been a rise of cheaper mp3 players?
Q: what about the rest of the argument--who's the music equivalent of cable tv providers? SONY's a music company and deployed music players. Is there a scenario by which Apple could become a cable TV provider? Or would an iTunes Video Store be a functional equivalent in terms of this argument?

Looking for thoughts, answers....

peace
terry