Among the financial details (net loss of $4.1 million, yawn) of today's earnings call, TiVo had big news about its Comcast TiVo product, announcing that
remote scheduling will be available this summer in the New England area, the planned Chicago launch is "
close," that the cable company will soon offer customers in areas switching to all digital the option of a TiVo HD retail box instead of a
digital terminal adapter and in one yet-to-be-named tru2way market, will make TiVo its primary DVR option. That's the word from CEO Tom Rogers, who also said Comcast is going to aggressively roll TiVo out, while its still looking for the "best path" of distribution. Non-Comcast interesting developments? The
SeaChange partnership has lead to one independent cable operator, Comporium, offering its service, while the Stop||Watch ratings service is expanding to 300,000 subscribers, 75 times the size of Nielsen's DVR sample. Check the read link for the (.PDF) press release or listen in on TiVo's website for all the info, we're busy pondering a
bleep & bloop enabled future for our boring old cable DVR boxes.
Update: The transcript of the call is available on
Seeking Alpha [Via
Davis Freeberg]
posted May 27th 2009 9:32PM
Re: Comcast/Tivo outside of New England - I'll believe it when I see it.
It's like trying to build a BMW for only $10,000. You can try all you want, but you won't reach the quality of using the actual BMW parts...
I'd like to think that I'd be included in the Chicago TiVo rollout, but I'm afraid I am too far south to be even close to being considered a suburb.
The last I heard about this it was simply Tivo software loaded ontop of the already bloated weak software of the Comcast boxes and didnt work worth a crap.
Now if I can buy a new Tivo Series 4 or something that will play nice with Comcast, or rather that Comcast will play nice with, then we can do business.
I am in New England and tried it on 2 sets (the dual tuner HD Tivo versions) for a few months and although I liked the features (very un-responsive though) I had quite a few issues and boxes that had to keep getting swapped out. Comcast finally told me to go back to their regular dual tuner DVR's because of all the issues they continue to have with the Tivo DVR's (this was just a couple of months ago).
Woo Who
The ComcastTivo boxes are not as bad as everyone says they are, however, they still can't come close to a real TivoHD -- both in terms of speed and in terms of use. The Moto boxes simply are underpowered and slow. I get a lag every time a recording starts as well as just from general use. For now, I'm keeping my ComcastTivo on my bedroom TV with a real TivoHD in my living room. As soon as I have a tru2way Tivo option, I'll dump the ComcastTivo.
The ComcastTivo, while buggy and not nearly as good as a real Tivo is still more functional than the default iGuide software that Comcast provides. Wishlist recordings alone make it worthwhile.
OK, but apparently these would only roll out to Comcast areas that use the Motorola boxes right? Those of us on Comcast systems that use the Scientific Atlantic garbage are still stuck with the crappy software that's on them.
Has anyone considered the possibility that Comcast is intentionally trying to make Tivo look bad by making it run in their already bad DVRs? I have the regular TivoHD boxes and I have no complain at all. I have Comcast as well, but I'm not using their CableCards either. So, I'm pulling their analog signal. Antenna picks up my HD off the air. Again, not a single complain regarding Tivo using TivoHD boxes. Companies know that Tivo has become a verb, just like Google. So, why not make the company look bad so tv providers' customer can say "I tried Tivo and it was terrible, I'd stick with my provider's DVR instead."
Why would Comcast want to make Tivo look bad? From what I hear they are charging more more for having Tivo run on their DVR's.
Yeah, let's make a business partner look bad. Let's charge more for the product. Then, let's SPEND that money helping the customer when he calls into tech support. Then, let's SPEND even more money sending a tech to the house to swap said box. Then let's SPEND even more money sending back to a warehouse to see what's wrong with it...
Yeah, let's strategically make Tivo look bad... you're an idiot..
I wouldn't put it past comcast.. after all that are crapcastic!
Mo
I don't think Comcast really plans on releasing TIVO DVRs to most of their customers.
They have been talking about this for years. It's a stalling tactic so you will use their crappy Motorola DVRs for a long long time.
I hate Comcast, I wish I could get FIOS it's all around my area just not my apartment complex.