Conversation with Tivo product manager at digital life

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Conversation with Tivo product manager at digital life

ADM over at thousandrobots.com got to have a lengthy conversation with some TiVo employees at the Digital Life convention last week. Lots of news and questions get answered. It looks like mac support is on the way for Tivo ToGo and HD TiVos are around the corner. Here's an excerpt of what they sent in:

Here is an account of my conversation

Basically he told me support for TivoToGo on the Mac is coming probably in Q1 of 2006. He told me why it doesn't work now. I told him that Tivo Desktop works on Mac OS X 10.4.2 without modification, contrary to what their website says. He said he'd update the website. We also talked about cable card support (forthcoming) and the DRM/Macrovision flag thing that caused the big outcry.

by Matt Haughey October 16, 2005 in TiVo

Comments

I'll believe ToGo support for the Mac when I see it. They've had going on 10 months. That's pitiful.

Posted by: chris at Oct 17, 2005 1:58:11 PM

"She said she understood how I felt, and that Tivo's lawyers were working all the time to give me as many features as possible."

Tivo's lawyers are working to give me as many features as possible. Tivo's lawyers. The mind boggles.

Posted by: Susan Carley Oliver at Oct 17, 2005 2:55:48 PM

Carley,

Why does your mind boggle? It makes perfect sense to me.

The entertainment industry has been against innovation and 'disruptive technologies' for years. They fought tooth and nail against the VCR. They're still fighting to find a way to get the broadcast flag mandated, trying to sneak it in the backdoor on other legislation now. They resisted any form of digital content delivery, and still haven't worked around to really embracing it.

Everything TiVo does, they risk getting jumped on by packs of lawyers working for the content providers. Remember they fought TiVo's application for TiVoToGo, and they sued ReplayTV/SonicBlue into bankruptcy over Internet Video Sharing.

There is a lot TiVo could do, some of it easily, technologically. But it is more than just what is possible, or even what would be popular, it has to be done in a why that isn't going to jeapordize the company. So they take small steps. Add a feature, let the industry adjust to it and realize it isn't the end of the world, then take the next step. Do too much, too fast, and you spook the industry into sending their lawyers after you.

Dealing with the entertainment industry is like dealing with a paranoid schizophrenic.

Posted by: MegaZone at Oct 17, 2005 4:30:00 PM

Oops, sorry, somehow I missed the 'Susan', didn't mean to address you by your middle name.
---

Chris,

It is priorities. Honestly, the Mac isn't the hottest platform for them. They get more back for their buck with Windows. They've always intended to support the Mac, and I've talked to people there all along, but if Apple isn't interested in working with them, they have other things for their own engineers to get done too. That's life in any engineering department. And now that Apple has an iPod that does video, it may boost the priority.

Posted by: MegaZone at Oct 17, 2005 4:38:02 PM

Yeah, definitely it'd be nice if Apple and TiVo could make nice now that the iPod Video is out. Tivo ToGo -> iPod would certainly be a great feature for both selling more iPods from Apple and getting more people onto TiVos.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Oct 17, 2005 5:36:54 PM

I am curious if Apple will be launching their own PVR in the next month. We know that SOMETHING will be launched by them. This is my guess. Why? For starters, it ties in nicely with the iPod. They could probably do a nicer job of the interface (no offense, TiVo... I do still love you!). And it would be an awesome Mac platform.

I believe they probably did entertain buying TiVo earlier on this year as rumored, but that they decided there was no reason they couldn't just do it themselves.

Needless to say, if I'm right, my darned TiVo stock will be worth pennies.

Posted by: Jamie at Oct 17, 2005 9:16:52 PM

Matt, I agree it would be great if Apple and Tivo finally started supporting each other's products, but the fact that the guy I spoke to from Tivo couldn't even get Apple to talk to him for the entire 10 months prior to the iPod video launch makes me think that Apple just isn't taking Tivo seriously, and doesn't plan to. I wish it were otherwise.

Posted by: adm at Oct 17, 2005 11:11:20 PM

Apple should buy them.

Seriously. Not in the meaning of swallow :D

But for safety reasons excaclty of hat nature the previous commenters have brought up.

This is also much much bigger in theory than it appears: Successfully suing them, would further limit the customers freedom.

The mechanism of people stopping to buy things that are too limited does work, but its getting the grip too late, too slow as to counterfight the studios

Theres a lot of reverse engineering to be done regarding the dvd successor, HDMI and so on.... *sigh*

Posted by: Anunnaki at Oct 18, 2005 3:15:32 AM

Conversation with Tivo product manager at digital life

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