Has the "Q" totally given up the ghost?

[adam1991]

what foxwood said.

[KFish]

When I bought an HD HomeRun Prime, I did it solely because of the "macroblocking" issue. But even though it didn't solve that issue, it was soooo much better in several other ways.

I don't want to gainsay what Barnabas is saying about his experience, but for anyone else who is reading, I was an early InfiniTV customer (August 2010), and have never had any problems with my card (except for the $400 price tag, but I've gotten over that ). It probably helped that I use FiOS, and don't have to deal with SDV.

Unlikely the Echo, the response from early users of the InfiniTV (once they finally got their hands on one) was largely positive.

I agree. I to was one of the first to get the InfinTV and have been very happy with it. The echo is still evolving but as a basic user I have not had any major issues as some others have. I just use it to watch movies or TV shows that I have recorded on my HTPC. The apps have been working great on both my wife's IPhone and my WP8. My only wish is that Ceton will make up their mind soon on whether to release the Q or the InfinTV6 tuner itself.

[slowbiscuit]

Tivo does not 'charge more and deliver less' - I have a 4-tuner Elite that runs rings around anything Comcast has, and even if I paid monthly (I don't) would be at least $5/month cheaper than their craptacular 2-tuner DVR.

While there are certain things that TiVo's boxes can do better than a standard cable box, there's one thing TiVo can't do: Access the cable company's 2-way services (such as VOD). So it doesn't matter how the boxes compare in other areas, TiVo's boxes simply do less than the cable box.

As for pricing, I realize a customer can buy a TiVo lifetime subscription and it will be cheaper in the long run. However, TiVo has historically buried that option and focused their marketing on the options that involve paying a monthly fee. That monthly fee today is $14.99, and you still have to pay the CableCARD fee on top of that. I'll agree with you that the potential for cost savings varies from market to market. In my market, opting for TiVo over the cable company's DVR only saves me $1 per month:

Tivo service ($14.99) + CableCARD ($1.99) = $16.98
HD DVR (includes CableCARD; $7.99) + DVR service ($9.99) = $17.98

Untrue for Comcast - they have been rolling out VOD on Tivo for a year or so now (and taking forever to get all the markets onboard).

In my area the break-even vs. renting for a lifetime sub box, factoring in resale value, is less than 6 months. (Tivo Premiere w/lifetime sub was recently $550 on sale, and current resale is around $450, so your cost over 2 years is about $50 per year using your 2-year max timeframe). Renting will cost you $18/month here.

And first Cablecard is included with service on Comcast. We agree that these numbers are YMMV per provider but you can't make a blanket statement and say that Tivo costs more and delivers less, because that is untrue on the biggest cableCo in the USA.

[richard1980]

Untrue for Comcast - they have been rolling out VOD on Tivo for a year or so now (and taking forever to get all the markets onboard).

I don't consider something that just started 9 months ago and is only available to a small percentage of the pay TV market to be relevant. Even though Comcast is the largest cable company in the US, they still only have about 20-25% of the total market, and the rollout of Xfinity support does not cover 100% of Comcast market areas. The Xfinity integration doesn't change the fact that TiVo's pricing is and has been substantially similar to traditional cable TV offerings and is not sufficiently priced to draw customers away from the cable box. It also doesn't change the fact that for 90+% of the market, TiVo still delivers less than the traditional cable box.

In my area the break-even vs. renting for a lifetime sub box, factoring in resale value, is less than 6 months. (Tivo Premiere w/lifetime sub was recently $550 on sale, and current resale is around $450, so your cost over 2 years is about $50 per year using your 2-year max timeframe). Renting will cost you $18/month here.

First, if that box was sold by TiVo to NEW customers, then your $550 quote is valid. Otherwise, it's not a valid quote. I suspect the deal was either for the basic TiVo Premiere (I can't imagine TiVo selling the Premiere 4 or the Premiere XL for $100), it was an upgrade offer for existing TiVo customers (in which case the quote is invalid), or it was sold through a 3rd party (again, this would be an invalid quote).

Second, you need to consider the fact that a $450 selling price today does not mean the selling price will still be $450 in 2 years.

Third, your resell idea only works if you don't buy a new TiVo box to replace the one you sold. Yeah, if you just walk away and don't replace the box, you'll end up with a loss equal to the purchase price minus the selling price, but that's the only scenario in which that will be true. If you buy a new box to replace the old one, you lose more money than if you just keep the old box (unless of course you can buy a new box for less than you sold the old box, which isn't likely). Assume you buy the first box for $550. At that point, you have lost $550. If you sell the box for $450, you get $450 back, for a net loss of $550 - $450 = $100. If you buy a new box for $550, your net loss increases to $100 + $550 = $650. Basically, all you've done is pay an extra $100 to upgrade boxes (assuming you actually purchase an upgraded box, and not the same box you already had).

So basically, the resell aspect of your argument is BS. The true break-even point of a $550 box saving $18 per month is 30.56 months, not less than 6 months as you claimed. 30.56 months is reasonable IMO, but not for the base Premiere. 30.56 months would be more appropriate for the Premiere 4 or Premiere XL.

[fiteclub]

When I bought an HD HomeRun Prime, I did it solely because of the "macroblocking" issue. But even though it didn't solve that issue, it was soooo much better in several other ways. Tuning speed was the first thing I noticed, even on SDV channels. The next thing was the lack of error/warning messages in Media Center that I used to receive with the InfiniTV. Then, I realized that I no longer had to wait after my HTPC woke from sleep. There was no longer a "spinning circle" when I tried to tune a channel after waking the PC. I found that the HDHRP tuner can be up and running for months at a time with no problems. The latest drivers/firmware at the time I purchased my HDHRP were dated some time in April 2012. They just recently released new ones to add the DLNA/DTCP-IP stuff. I'm not even sure if I want to load them after my experience with endless updates from Ceton. I don't want to take a chance at breaking my setup!

My experience with the InfiniTV has been nothing like yours. I have had virtually no trouble with my setup and the channels tune just as quickly on it as the do on my HDHomerun; I also have SDV and that works fine as well. I don't doubt that you have had troubles with the Infinitv but that does not mean it is an inferior device to the HDHRP, just that it works better in your particular setup. I have been to the HDHR forums and there are plenty of folks with issues using the Prime as well. I was an early adopter with the original HDHR and believe me it had its growing pains as well, requiring several fw updates before it was stable. My guess is that SD had an advantage over Ceton since SD already had a head start with their ATSC/QAM tuner.

Edit: cleaned up the quote.

[foxwood]

My guess is that SD had an advantage over Ceton since SD already had a head start with their ATSC/QAM tuner.

Ceton weren't complete newbies - they just weren't working in the retail field. Before the InfiniTV, Ceton produced TV distribution systems for hotels. They probably knew more about Cable Card systems than SD did.

[fiteclub]

My guess is that SD had an advantage over Ceton since SD already had a head start with their ATSC/QAM tuner.

Ceton weren't complete newbies - they just weren't working in the retail field. Before the InfiniTV, Ceton produced TV distribution systems for hotels. They probably knew more about Cable Card systems than SD did.

Never implied SD knew more about cablecard. (though I don't see how tv distributions systems in hotels necessarily equates to cablecard expertise)

[slowbiscuit]

Untrue for Comcast - they have been rolling out VOD on Tivo for a year or so now (and taking forever to get all the markets onboard).

I don't consider something that just started 9 months ago and is only available to a small percentage of the pay TV market to be relevant. Even though Comcast is the largest cable company in the US, they still only have about 20-25% of the total market, and the rollout of Xfinity support does not cover 100% of Comcast market areas. The Xfinity integration doesn't change the fact that TiVo's pricing is and has been substantially similar to traditional cable TV offerings and is not sufficiently priced to draw customers away from the cable box. It also doesn't change the fact that for 90+% of the market, TiVo still delivers less than the traditional cable box.

So basically, the resell aspect of your argument is BS. The true break-even point of a $550 box saving $18 per month is 30.56 months, not less than 6 months as you claimed. 30.56 months is reasonable IMO, but not for the base Premiere. 30.56 months would be more appropriate for the Premiere 4 or Premiere XL.

If you would stop making blanket statements such as 'Tivo can't access VOD' I wouldn't need to respond. I see that you don't even acknowledge what you said and just poo-poo my refutation of your claim.

Resell is not BS - the effective amount you pay to 'rent' a Tivo is less than $100 a year factoring in resale. That's far less than what cable charges and you get a MUCH better DVR. Yes, you do have to make an initial investment, but in return you can continually upgrade to the latest Tivo when it comes out at a much lower cost by using the proceeds from your old one to offset much of the cost.

The problem here is that you're thinking short-term, but there's many people that have done this long-term (including myself) and it does save them money. I'll accept that it may take 2-3 years to recover that initial investment but after that it's a no-brainer. And more importantly to me and many others, you don't have to put up with a crap DVR from your cableCo.

[richard1980]

If it will make you happy, I'll rephrase my statement: For 90+% of the market, TiVo's boxes can't access 2-way services such as VOD.

Perhaps you should review the following table. Maybe it will help you see the error in your ways:

Your resell concept is fundamentally no different than leasing a cable box direct from the cable company, the only difference being the lease price. When you consider a single iteration of your scenario, you are correct that the break-even point is less than 6 months. However, you failed to take into account the long-term buildup of losses as a result of repeating this process. As you can see from the table, the long-term losses continue to increase the longer this process is allowed to continue, and as a result, the number of months required to break even increases as well.

Clearly one of us is thinking short-term, and it certainly isn't me.

[slowbiscuit]

Perhaps I'm not being clear, or your iterations are way too short - mine is around 3 years.

Let's say I buy one today for $550 and keep it for 3 years before I sell it to buy the latest model (a reasonable assumption even if they last way longer than that). It's already paid for itself vs. renting a cable DVR at $18/mo., and I'm actually ~$100 to the good over 36 months ($18 x 36 = $648 vs. the $550 I paid). Everything after that is a very fast payback after I sell the box for $450 before I buy another one - if it costs me $100 net to get a new one and it lasts another 3 years, I'm only paying for 6 months of 'leasing' as you say every 3 years - the other 2 1/2 years I'll save $18 a month. Even if it costs $200 net because of depreciation, new box inflation etc. I'm still only paying for 1 year out of 3 vs. renting.

Rinse and repeat.

[richard1980]

Perhaps I'm not being clear, or your iterations are way too short - mine is around 3 years.

Wait...when did I define how long it takes to complete a single iteration? Oh yeah, I didn't...that was all you, and you defined it as 2 years (and now you're changing it to 3 years). And yes, you are being very clear. Your argument is that trading boxes every 2-3 years will somehow equate to a lower break-even point than buying one box and keeping it for many years. I'm sorry, but you are wrong.

To help explain this, let's look REALLY long term. Let's say 99 years. Yeah, I know, it's not a reasonable amount of time, but this will go to show just how much more money you spend trading boxes every few years. You are going to buy a box for $550, and every 3 years you'll sell it for $450 and spend another $550 buying a new box, for a net increase in costs of $100 every 3 years, or $3300 over 99 years. Adding in the cost of the original purchase, your total cost comes to $3850. I, on the other hand, will buy a single box for $550 and I will keep it for 99 years, for a total cost of $550.

Clearly your cost ($3850) is much more than my cost ($550). The break-even point for $3850 at $18 per month is ~213.89 months. The break-even point for $550 at $18 per month is still 30.56 months.

And that's why you are wrong.

[foxwood]

He never said that upgrading a Tivo every two or 3 years was cheaper than not upgrading it, he said it was cheaper than paying for a Cable companie's DVR, even if he decided to upgrade every 2 or 3 years.

[richard1980]

He actually said, "In my area the break-even vs. renting for a lifetime sub box, factoring in resale value, is less than 6 months." That is true for each individual iteration, but the total break-even point for n iterations is n * 5.56 months (assuming the $550 purchase price, $450 sell price, and $18 saved per month), not a flat 5.56 months. That's my whole point.

[foxwood]

He actually said, "In my area the break-even vs. renting for a lifetime sub box, factoring in resale value, is less than 6 months." That is true for each individual iteration, but the total break-even point for n iterations is n * 5.56 months (assuming the $550 purchase price, $450 sell price, and $18 saved per month), not a flat 5.56 months. That's my whole point.

It's 5.56 months ($100 at $18/month) per iteration. As long as he waits at least 5.56 months before upgrading, he will save money over paying for the Cable companies DVR. Even if he upgraded 198 times in 99 years, he'd save money over keeping the Cable companies DVR (a paltry $18 a year, but he'd also get the warm glow of a new shiny-shiny every 6 months!)

While I don't think his $550/$450 figures are realistic, there's nothing wrong with basic contention if you accept those numbers.

[richard1980]

I'm not disputing the fact that his process is cheaper than the cable company's offering. I agree that it is. My problem is with the statement that the break-even point is 5.56 months. It's not. It's 5.56 months per iteration, which makes all the difference in the world.

I also don't disagree that TiVo's lifetime service can save money (although it takes a while). However, I can remember not long ago I looked at TiVo's website to try to find a quote for the lifetime service. I looked all over that website, and I couldn't find it anywhere. It wasn't even on the page where you select what kind of service you want to purchase. I finally found it buried in some fine print. IIRC, that fine print said something along the lines of "If you want to purchase lifetime service, you must call our sales office." (I can only imagine the reason they want you to call in is so you can talk to a member of the sales team and possibly get converted to a monthly plan). I'll agree that TiVo's lifetime service is a good deal, but they have to actually push it for the deal to be effective.

Unfortunately, that's not what TiVo has done over the years. TiVo has historically pushed the plans that involve a monthly fee...and that monthly fee is on par with (and, in some cases, exceeds) the cable company fees, which was the basis for my "charge more" statement. Even if you can save $18 per month on the cable bill, TiVo wants you to give them $15 each month, for a net savings of only $3 per month. That's not even including the cost of purchasing a box, and (if necessary), the cost of the CableCARD rental.

[lucidrenegade]

Wow. Didn't take long for this thread to get derailed.

[STC]

^ It's a difficult thread to split

[slowbiscuit]

Perhaps I'm not being clear, or your iterations are way too short - mine is around 3 years.

Your argument is that trading boxes every 2-3 years will somehow equate to a lower break-even point than buying one box and keeping it for many years.

I never said that, you implied it. That's a ridiculous argument to make. I was simply comparing the overall cost of ownership vs. renting over time, that's all. foxwood got it, you didn't, and yes it's per ownership period (iteration) that you save all this money after your initial investment is recouped. That was my mistake in not making this clear.

I joined this OT discussion only to dispute your blanket statement that 'Tivo costs more and delivers less' vs. a cable DVR - this is clearly untrue in some markets and circumstances such as mine (Comcast in the ATL). I really don't care whether people are smart enough to figure out that lifetime is a way better deal than monthly and can save you money and get you a way better DVR. It just works for me and plenty of others over at TCF.

[richard1980]

If you want to be pedantic, I never said "TiVo costs more and delivers less". I said "TiVo sealed their own fate when they let an idiot establish the prices. Really, who in their right mind expects to compete with the cable companies by charging more and delivering less?" You took my statement to be about the present condition of TiVo, when it was actually about their historic business model and how it has resulted in their minority position in the market. I don't care if they've made progress in the last 9 months. That doesn't change the fact that in the past, they couldn't tap into the cable company's 2 way system, so they were delivering a box that could do less than a typical cable company DVR. Even if we look at things today, they hardly fare any better because they can only tap into the 2-way system in a limited number of cable markets. It doesn't really matter if we are talking about today or 5 years ago, the fact of the matter remains: If you can't do what your competitors can do, you'll lose business to your competitors.

If you ask any salesman, they'll tell you the hardest person to sell to is someone that currently uses a competitor's product. If they are using a competitor's product, they are satisfied with that product. Maybe they're not completely satisfied, but at least they are willing to use the product, and depending on the product, they're willing to pay the asking price for that product. To draw the person away from the competitor's product, you have to give them a good reason to switch. An "ok" reason isn't good enough. You need to give them a GOOD reason to switch. One good reason is a superior feature set. You'll attract the high-end customer who feels their current product just isn't getting the job done. But what if you can't offer a superior feature set? You have to at least match their current feature set. The prospective customer already has an expectation of how the product should perform, and if your product falls short of their expectations, then you're already in a bad position. Now you aren't trying to convince somebody to just switch products, you are trying to convince them to give up features they already have. In other words, you're trying to get them to switch to an inferior product. That's a tough battle, and you are going to lose some people because they simply are not willing to give up what they already have. However, if someone is going to consider using an inferior product, you have to be able to tell them WHY they should use the inferior product. There's only one correct answer: It's cheaper. They're going to give up something, and in return, they get to keep more of their money. Saving them 5-10% isn't going to cut it. That's a mediocre savings at best. You need to be saving them enough to really get their attention. 40-80%...those are good numbers. 5-10%, not so much. Following this set of guidelines, you'll not only be able to convert people that are using a competitor's service, but you'll also be able to attract people that are just considering their first purchase.

So if we look at the cable box market, we see the pricing model has been pretty consistent throughout the years, at $10-$20 per month for a DVR and service, and it remains that way today. TiVo's boxes have historically been inferior to the cable boxes, but only WRT lack of 2-way support. In every other way, TiVo's boxes have been superior (at least to my knowledge). The idea of using a TiVo box instead of the traditional cable box looks good to someone that is looking for that superior feature set, but it doesn't look good to the majority of people that like the 2-way services provided by their cable box. So already, TiVo has to fight an uphill battle in the majority of the market. The correct answer is to compensate by offering significant savings over the traditional cable box. And that's where TiVo failed. Yeah, they've had the lifetime subscription available, but they have historically buried that option and instead focused on their monthly and yearly subscription plans, which didn't save people enough money to cause a conversion. TiVo wasn't saving people 40-80%. They were lucky to save people 5-10%, and to make matters worse, in some cases it was actually MORE EXPENSIVE to go with TiVo (consider cable packages that offered things such as a free/discounted DVR and/or DVR service, or bundle discounts that cost less when a cable company box was used). Either way, the TiVo's non-lifetime subscription fees have historically been cost prohibitive, and remain that way today. They simply do not offer enough savings to convert people. So now let's examine the lifetime subscription. The lifetime subscription involves flopping down a big wad of cash upfront, which many people simply can't afford to do. Even if someone can afford it, the potential savings aren't all that great. You don't save anything until you hit the break-even point (in fact, you actually spend more until that time). It's only after you hit the break-even point that you begin to save money. If we consider a $700 box with a savings of $15 per month, the break-even point is 47 months. And that's just how long it takes to get back to $0. And to match the target savings of 40%, you'd had to keep the box for 6.5 years. To match the 80% savings goal, you'd have to keep the box for 15.6 years. That's just too large of a timeframe to actually attract a lot of people.

If TiVo wanted to do things correctly, they would offer a box with lifetime subscription for about $350. Saving $15 per month results in a break-even point of 24 months. The 40% savings goal is achieved at 39 months, and the 80% savings goal is achieved at 117 months. If they want to get into the subscription plan, they should price the monthly plan so that people see an immediate 40% savings on the cable company's fees....so if we assume $15, that's a savings of $6, so TiVo's fee should be no more than $9 per month. I'd shoot for $8.99 per month for 24 months with the purchase of the box for $149 (for a grand total of $364.76), or $7.99 for 36 months with the purchase of a box for $99 (for a total of $386.64). The marketing material should aggressively attack the cable industry and their "DVR tax", and the cost savings that result from choosing TiVo should be plastered everywhere. That's how you get people to realize how much of a better deal the TiVo box is.

And of course, the same logic applies to any other company that is considering entering the STB market.

[adam1991]

what would ACTUALLY happen is that Tivo would sell you the box for $350 lifetime, then sprinkle mandatory ads at the beginning and end of each show--no stopping, no FF, no RW.

So, be careful what you wish for. And also know that the things in life that have true value, are not anywhere near as cheap as you would like them to be.