# DTV and Tivo going forward



## boleary (Sep 18, 2006)

I love Directv. I love Tivo. Want to keep them both. How should I proceed going forward into the next 2-3 years?


----------



## litzdog911 (Jun 23, 2004)

Keep them both. DirecTivos will continue to be supported for at least 2-3 years, if not longer.


----------



## employee3 (Aug 15, 2006)

My theory is that directv has to pay TiVo a good amount of the $5.99 they charge for the DVR service on those DVR's that use TiVo. So that's why they developed their own - they can keep the entire $5.99.

Just call in a problem with the DirecTivo. They cannot wait to swap it out. I had a problem with a P4 access card and they wanted to swap the entire box. Umm, no.


----------



## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

That good amount of the $5.99 is around $1


----------



## captain_video (Nov 22, 2005)

> That good amount of the $5.99 is around $1


Exactly. However, DTV must be paying a lot of $1 royalties to Tivo or they wouldn't have felt it was cost effective for them to develop their own DVRs and keep it for themselves.

The way it looks it appears that Tivo will have the mpeg2 DVR market cornered with DTV but DTV will take total control over the mpeg4 HD-DVR market. When DTV launches the new sats and more channels switch to HD, more customers will take the plunge and switch over to HD, at least in theory. The mpeg2 stuff will still be around for many years since many customers will never switch to HDTV, but the market share for mpeg2 will continue to shrink as HDTV penetrates more households.


----------



## GADA (Sep 14, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> That good amount of the $5.99 is around $1


While $1 is 20%, and when multiplied by many subscribers becomes alot of money (especially to a corporate bean counter), there must be other reasons for embarking out on their own with DVR's. We had been using an SD DTV TIVO unit for at least three years and just replaced it with the HR20 primarily for HD content and increased storage space. While I do believe that there are some good features in the HR20 that we didn't have before, there is no doubt that the TIVO was much easier to use and more intuitive. I believe DTV had a serious leg up on Dish and Cable by having TIVO and now they just have a their own "me too" DVR's. They went from being a step above everyone else to settling back to the pack, so far as DVR's are concerned.

Just my two cents...

Geoff


----------



## OrlandoJoe (Sep 6, 2006)

GADA said:


> While $1 is 20%, ...
> 
> Geoff


Technically, $1 is only 16.7% of $5.99. At least, that's what my calculator says.


----------



## GADA (Sep 14, 2006)

OrlandoJoe said:


> Technically, $1 is only 16.7% of $5.99. At least, that's what my calculator says.


You're correct. I just wasn't paying attention to the 99 cents.


----------



## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

GADA said:


> While $1 is 20%, and when multiplied by many subscribers becomes alot of money (especially to a corporate bean counter), there must be other reasons for embarking out on their own with DVR's. We had been using an SD DTV TIVO unit for at least three years and just replaced it with the HR20 primarily for HD content and increased storage space. While I do believe that there are some good features in the HR20 that we didn't have before, there is no doubt that the TIVO was much easier to use and more intuitive. I believe DTV had a serious leg up on Dish and Cable by having TIVO and now they just have a their own "me too" DVR's. They went from being a step above everyone else to settling back to the pack, so far as DVR's are concerned.
> 
> Just my two cents...
> 
> Geoff


You are correct... and there are about 4 million TiVo powered subscribers...
But I am not sure of the percentage of how many are grandfathered lifetime or have premier.

So let's put that at 3 million... a month

How much money do you think it took to develop the R15 and the HR20, and the HR20p, and HMC....

Yes... it is a good chunk of change to get back in "their" pockets.... but it is not like it was "cheap" to build their own DVR line.

But there has to be something else to the puzzle... or why is all other providers going with their own (or someone elses) DVR product...
Excluding Cox and Comcast (even though they are not out yet)

Ultimately... it is the same reasons cable-co's are fighting Cable-Cards... each provider wants to control "their" users experience, features, ect... as it is a viable piece of the overal "package" they offer.


----------



## brianr4666 (Aug 19, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> You are correct... and there are about 4 million TiVo powered subscribers...
> But I am not sure of the percentage of how many are grandfathered lifetime or have premier.
> 
> So let's put that at 3 million... a month
> ...


I think it is real easy to understand. Rupert wanted to control the experience. He thought it would be an easy move and the technology could be shared with his SKY TV venture. It's pure business.


----------



## celticpride (Sep 6, 2006)

If you are grandfathered for the tivos lifetime service with D* do they charge you the pvr service fee when you switch to the hr20? and is that a $5.99 fee per box ? or if i have 3 hr20"s will the $5.99 fee cover all 3?


----------



## JLucPicard (Apr 27, 2004)

That's a good question about the lifetime fee. If you are a "lifetime" DVR person, and eventually swap out with no TiVo units left and only D*s, will you wind up paying the $5.99 per month?

As for your second question, the $5.99 DVR fee only shows once per month on your bill no matter how many DVRs you have on your account.


----------



## Reggie3 (Feb 20, 2006)

celticpride said:


> If you are grandfathered for the tivos lifetime service with D* do they charge you the pvr service fee when you switch to the hr20? and is that a $5.99 fee per box ? or if i have 3 hr20"s will the $5.99 fee cover all 3?


I belive if you have the lifetime service - you keep it as it is labled DVR service not TiVo. One only pays for the amount of recievers one owns.


----------



## GADA (Sep 14, 2006)

brianr4666 said:


> I think it is real easy to understand. Rupert wanted to control the experience. He thought it would be an easy move and the technology could be shared with his SKY TV venture. It's pure business.


That is a good point and would have made perfect sense prior to this announcement:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=64238

Now it would seem getting Liberty out of his back pocket is more important than ANY control of DTV or its assets.


----------



## brianr4666 (Aug 19, 2006)

GADA said:


> That is a good point and would have made perfect sense prior to this announcement:
> 
> Now it would seem getting Liberty out of his back pocket is more important than ANY control of DTV or its assets.


Exactly. When they were developing this DVR it was way before the "Turd Bird" comedy. Rupert comunicates to the Directv folks about as well as things get filtered down to the CSR's :lol:


----------



## employee3 (Aug 15, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Ultimately... it is the same reasons cable-co's are fighting Cable-Cards... each provider wants to control "their" users experience, features, ect... as it is a viable piece of the overal "package" they offer.


Earl, I think you are correct on this. I just reread the powerpoint and DirecTv does want the "same" experience on all their boxes. Certainly saves on customer service calls, I guess.

It's a shame they couldn't continue to license TiVo patents to provide this experience.


----------



## TomF (Sep 20, 2006)

Reggie3 said:


> I belive if you have the lifetime service - you keep it as it is labled DVR service not TiVo. One only pays for the amount of recievers one owns.


Not according to DirecTV. I have had a HR10 for about a year now and have 2 SAT-60s going back to about 1999 with a lifetime TiVo subscription. I ordered a HR20 earlier this week and called three times and DirecTV is adamant that the HR20 is not a TiVo and has nothing to do with TiVo, therefore you must pay the $5.99/mo for DVR service for the HR20.


----------

