« FCC Adopts Hollywood Tech Mandate | Main | TiVo w/ DVD recorder review »

Note to Rupert: don't kill DirecTiVo, please

In an investor's call yesterday, News Corp (and DirecTV) owner Rupert Murdoch was asked directly whether his other satellite company (that has a free DVR) and DirecTiVo would continue to co-exist and he gave a cautious non-answer:

"We're looking at it very closely," he said, indicating that News Corp. is still torn between the PVRs developed by its own NDS Group PLC and TiVo, which has a partnership with Hughes' DirecTV unit. "Maybe we'll be offering both," Murdoch said. "There's been no decision taken on that."

This news comes at a particularly bad time for me personally, I just ordered a brand-new Phillips DSR7000, a Triple LNB dish, and DirecTV to install at my new home (note: I'll be selling my SuperTiVo project box on eBay -- stay tuned for info on that if you're in the market for a new standalone TiVo).

by Matt Haughey November 6, 2003 in News

Comments

Why did this news come at a bad time??? and why is it bad for the new tivo box you got ??? that makes little sense- look, what did you expect murdoch to say??? "we love tivo oh yes we do!" ??? or "we hate tivo!" ?? look he gave a non committal answer- as he should- he does not own direct tv yet- and when he does he may wish to negotiate with tivo- he does not , and will not , want to show his cards yet- period ! in fact, he also said that he "admires" both tivo and nds- and his son just resigned from the nds board- hmmm???? will he jettison nds ???? he just might ! will he buy tivo ??? he may try - will he jettison tivo-? maybe- but why ?? why did direct tv just pour upwards of 15 million dollars in an ad campaign that has helped BRAND their dvrs as TIVOS - do you not think newscorp was aware of this???? and why would a business man like murdoch ignore a 0.5% churn rate and an extra $15 / month in revenue and exploding growth ???? he would not- just to develop a whole other dvr box that would take awhile to get out there ??? does not make alot of sense to me- so who knows ???? but I seriously doubt this was a "bad" time to get that philips tivo box !!!! peace !!!!!!!!

Posted by: kevin at Nov 6, 2003 3:15:47 PM

Good lord that's a lot of punctuation.

I'm looking forward to the auction Matt.

Posted by: Catherine at Nov 6, 2003 4:44:12 PM

I have a headache now.

Posted by: Mark at Nov 7, 2003 5:04:39 AM

Me too but he's right. I just got DirecTivo myself - it rocks. No reason to think our boxes won't be functional for the foreseeable future even if Murdoch goes in another direction. I'm about to sell my ancient (2000) Showstopper which I've upgraded to 80 hours. Amazing what you can get for units that have a lifetime subscription. Easily the only piece of technology I've ever owned that has appreciated in value.

Posted by: brett at Nov 7, 2003 9:16:10 AM

hey it is I "punctuation boy" !!!!
no seriously, sorry about all the punctuations, but my message is what is important. And to make you all feel even more secure with your tivos here is a piece of that quote above from murdoch himself that was left out- when asked if he has any plans of "abandoning or orphaning" tivo - answer " NO "- then he went on to say how he admires both tivo and nds- and as you can see that he said they may offer both- semms to me it is more likely that he abandons nds here in the U.S. see ya !

Posted by: kevin at Nov 7, 2003 9:51:04 AM

I love my DirecTiVo almost as much as Kevin loves punctuation.

Posted by: Derek at Nov 9, 2003 9:18:35 AM

hi, i'm a clueless neophytye here to clog up and bog down the blog. Firdt of all i don't even understand what DirecTivo is - is it more than having the tivo online listing for all the directTV channels?

second i want to get a big fat, lots o' ram, lots o' hard drive pc with windows media center edition and an ati radeon 9800 xt 256 mg graphics card (tv in, record, etc) Isn't this all I need to do my own digital video recording up the yin yang for life, with no ties to the whim of rupert murdoch, etc?

if i'm clueless and should have read a FAQ, sorry in advance.

Posted by: Eric at Nov 10, 2003 1:31:07 PM

DirecTiVo is DireTV + a TiVo integrated in one box. The sole reason for doing this is so that shows can be recorded directly in mpeg format, straight from the satellite. Shows taped on a regular tivo sometimes have visual artifacts not unlike viewing jpg files on the web vs. real photograph prints, wheras most DirecTiVo shows look more like a DVD.

A windows media center PC should do fine, though be careful with the video capture card you choose. There are only a handful that the OS supports, which by the way you will need to find a (mostly illegal) copy of, since they don't sell the OS alone.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Nov 10, 2003 1:37:42 PM

Direct TV OWNS TIVO...that is a good readon for Direct TV to promote TIVO...don't you think??

Posted by: Harry at Dec 16, 2003 11:16:21 AM

No it doesn't Harry, DirecTV simply has a satellite licensing deal with TiVo. They are two quite separate companies.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Dec 16, 2003 11:19:34 AM

I have the Radeon ATI 9700 Pro and a stand alone Tivo. The ati is less than half the machine that the Tivo is, ati can claims to be able to play back and record at the same time but seems to require large amoutnts of resources, the ati is no better than a vcr in that it can only record based on time and channel, the card has no way of checking that the program you want to record will actually be broadcast at the indicated time. Tivo is far and away the better product.

Posted by: Bruce Germann at Dec 17, 2003 10:12:29 AM

TrackBack: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/459/242357

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Note to Rupert: don't kill DirecTiVo, please: