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Ad to TV industry: Series 3 Coming Soon

Reader Ryan sent me a scan of this ad from TiVo (click for full-sized):

This ad ran in a television/advertising trade magazine that I happen to subscribe to, Television Week (September 4, 2006)

by Matt Haughey September 6, 2006 in News

Comments

See, as a Dish subscriber, I don't feel like I am missing anything. Even if the shutdown happens as bad as it can be, I will stick with Dish as the signal provider, and will now make a /point/ of not buying a TiVo. Screw them. Way to loose out on some customers who were already used to PVRs.

I see a mini, some hardware dongles and some PVR software in my future instead.

Posted by: shoobe01 at Sep 6, 2006 1:32:24 PM

What's the deal with the VOD comment? Are they really suggesting that we'll rent a cablebox after we drop $800 on a Tivo?

I'm seriously considering spending the money just to throw my SA box back at the cable company. Good riddance.

Posted by: CcntMnky at Sep 6, 2006 2:27:36 PM

Man what a bunch of cocky jerks. So now I have to switch to cable to use an HD Tivo? No thanks.

I'll stick with my SD Tivo with Dish Network until Tivo comes to their senses.

Seriously.

Posted by: Mike Frisco at Sep 6, 2006 2:41:07 PM

Yeah, the VOD comment was odd -- I suspect most will just go without it and get rid of their set top box altogether, but this ad was aimed at Cable execs, and they don't want to hear mentions of lost revenue like that.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Sep 6, 2006 3:30:49 PM

Tivo really doesn't have a choice to cater to the satellite customers. Don't you think they would sell there box to as many customers as possible given the chance? Satellite LOCKS all 3rd party DVR's out when it comes to HD, because there is no way to get the HD signal to the tivo box. Personally, I think both Dish and DTV should be held to the same standards the cable industry is. If it wasn't for the FCC reinforcing their stance that the cable companies must supply Cable Cards to their customers, Cable would be locking out tivo too.

Posted by: Matt at Sep 6, 2006 3:34:42 PM

What's with the typo--'and the all the' in the third bullet?

Ha, wait, they want me to get a HD TiVo and keep my DCT6412 POS DVr from Motorolad so I can get VOD?

Oh wait, Comcast has yet to roll out VOD here in Los Gatos, CA, where the medial household income is over $100,000 and their system is still the antiquated 550MHz system.

Posted by: patrick at Sep 6, 2006 4:20:54 PM

Gang,

You all need to step back and look at the audience that this was intended for. This is a Trade Rag for the Cable Industry. It isn't intended for the everyday end user. It's intended to help disarm the Cable providers who might think that TiVo is yet again putting a box out there that lets people easily switch away from Cable if they want and keep the UI they are used to and love and enjoy.

Most people who spend the kind of money we will have to spend to get a HD TiVo box will not be in the mood to get rid of it anytime soon, meaning that the cable company gets to keep the user.

They didn't "forget" the Satalite support, they already have a HD Sat DVR. But all sat boxes need to be tied to the provider. They don't have anything like the Cable Card standard that will let people use the HD TiVo or a box like it on any network.

The CableCard standard isn't something that the cable operators are happy with in general either, it was forced upon them. It generally means they don't get to offer services to their customers due to customers not "needing" STB's to get Digital Cable Service.

TiVo had to do something like this to make sure that A) the Cable Companies were ready with lots of cable cards (or they wont' sell lots of HD TIVO's if it becomes a pain in the arse to get them to work with most providers) and B) Let the Cable provider know that people who have TiVo's today usually also have a STB to go with it, and they can keep that to do other Cable Operator provided services.. thus attempting to mitigate the fear cable providers will see this box presenting.

Look at the Net Neutrality stuff going on. TiVo has a fine line to walk now that it's also allowing content to be delivered over IP. They need to tred lightly in the cable space.. and this is one way to start getting the message out there.

Posted by: Kyle at Sep 6, 2006 7:23:20 PM

Excellent comments, Kyle!

Posted by: Pete at Sep 7, 2006 1:59:05 PM

All I want for X-mas is a broadband capable TiVo that will work with DirecTV and a Mac. It looks more and more like I'm never going to get it. I will never give up my Mac and I am bound to DTV because I will not give up my NFL Sunday Ticket. I'm not giving up my TiVo either, but it looks like I won't be upgrading from my limited functionality Series 2 for DirecTV anytime soon.

Posted by: Marc at Sep 7, 2006 5:42:17 PM

The emphasis on forgetting something is really weird. Then they mention it again at the end. It felt like a threat of some kind. Are they saying to cable "play nice with us or we will 'remember' satellite"? Weird ad, even for a trade ad.

And at $800, I don't think the cable industry is too worried about TiVo. It's hardly a general consumer item at that price.

Posted by: bbock at Sep 7, 2006 11:43:49 PM

I really wish that TiVo or someone else would create an affordable component to record/compress HD video from an analog or digital uncompressed source.. Realtime MPEG2 encoding of HD isn't as expensive as it used to be. I have one such ASIC capable of the task inside my sony HDR-HC1.

Posted by: John Laur at Sep 8, 2006 11:42:16 AM

I'm surprised, Tivo 3 will include cablecard 2.0 tech, which allows customers the ability to receive VOD information to external boxes such as the Tivo 3. Has this information changed? why are they trying to tell companies that the customer will use their old box, when part of its specs are that we won't need to? Also they say CableCard as if they mean CableCard 1.0, when the industry is about to launch 2.0 really soon anyway!

Posted by: Lou at Sep 10, 2006 10:04:21 PM

Well, some one just put in a pre-order for an S3 at best buy, to pick up 9/17.

http://www.hdbeat.com/2006/09/11/best-buy-is-taking-pre-orders-for-the-series-3-pick-up-date-9-1/

Posted by: ryan schroeder at Sep 11, 2006 11:27:41 AM

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