Rumors… TiVo to be bought by Apple computer?
 

In the short time I've had a Tivo it has completely changed the way and what on the little TV that I do watch. I really like my Tivo a lot. I've been reading a lot that the company Tivo isn't doing too good. Without Tivo a DVR isn't much more then a VCR but Tivo the company isn't turning a profit.

DirecTV has been talking about dropping Tivo and replacing it with their own but I can't imagine it would be as good as Tivo.

Now rumors of Apple buying them.

http://reuters.com/financeQuoteCompa...3627852_newsml

one day, when I get some free time, I'm going to build either

http://www.mythtv.org/

or

http://www.freevo.org/

A while back, Apple's stock price was worth less than the amount of cash they had in the bank -- I figured it was a safe bet at the time. I have been pleased, yet, I still don't use Apple, but, they sure did things right.

I don't think they should buy Tivo, but, it would be a good inroads into the home entertainment segment.

I've also been thinking about something like that but using a Mac mini and EyeTV

But without Tivo it seems like it wouldn't be as good.

I thought Tivo was just pause/replay & DVR -- are there added features?

MythTV allows that if you have a fast enough CPU, and you can install gmane (the game emulator) and play old arcade games, old atari games, etc. Scummvm also runs so you can play the activision games.

Tivo is the most wonderful interface that I have used.

Without having to learn anything, think about what you are doing, or anything other then watching TV and hitting record it offers to record what you are watching or what is on the TV guild that you are looking at. It also let you hit options at this time where it will find all the showings of whatever it is that you asked it to record and doesn't record repeats unless you ask it to. It then finds your shows even if the show changes times or channels. You don't have to tell Tivo when or what channel or what show.

Also while you are flipping channels you can rate stuff with the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons. Tivo then goes out and find things to your tastes based on past recording habits and the ratings that you give stuff and then serves up suggestions.

Basically I would be more then happy to pay for Tivo's service with eyeTV or MythTV or whatever.

The DirecTV's DVR has two tuners and is always recording whatever channel you are watching while at the same time being able to record something else. Nothing to do with Tivo but it is a nice DVR.

MythTV will run on the Mac Mini :)

The ratings thing is cool, but, I watch so little TV. There are only 3-4 programs a week that I watch -- and the rest is filler between those shows because I'm too lazy to get up out of the sofa.

RE "you can install gmane (the game emulator) and play old arcade games, old atari games, etc. Scummvm also runs so you can play the activision games." This is, of course, illegal. But I won't tell on you if you don't tell them about my "M.A.M.E." downloads.

Yes MythTV will but you still need a way to get the video in and EyeTV is a hardware software solution.

Tivo is just such a nice service. I didn't get what Tivo really was until I got it with the DVR that I got from DirecTV. I don't think most people get it and this is why Tivo seems to be going broke. My neighbor has these really expensive DVRs that don't have Tivo and they end up going unused because it is a pain to set them to record something.

I also watch very little TV but it is nice to be able to actually have something that I do like when I do want to sit down and watch something.

I could see turning Tivo into a content delivery system. I'm already using it to catch PPV movies instead of going out and renting a DVD. I could see Apple doing for movies what they did for music.

some of us still have a 2600 console (and a colecovision and an original pong) Not that I have had the time to play them in 15+ years

:)

I owned the very first Pong, first on our block to get it, I was only about 13 or 14 I think.

My younger brother had one of those computers that you loaded stuff from a cassette and I had absolutely no interest in computers. I didn't really like computers until they had icons to click on. MacPaint was the first app that did something that I wanted to use a computer for since I was a photographer at the time. I instantly got hooked on Photoshop when it came out.

I like Tivo for the same reason that I like using a Mac. It just does what you ask it to do without the hardware or software getting in your way.

the Apple Mini supports PCI (I think)

Therefore, you should have no problem putting in almost any mpeg decoder card. The Hauppage PVR-350 is the one that I was looking at. I don't have an HDTV set, but, there is a new HDTV card that is supposedly supported with the DVB protocol.

I've not worked much with it, but, from what I was just reading, that seems to be about what they are expecting. The Tivoesque features of course are not in freevo or mythtv

Did you have the pong that required you to put that static plastic 'tennis' court on the TV screen? :)

No PCI buss on the Mac mini.

One RAM slot, one special slot for the Apple Airport/Bluetooth card, nothing else.
http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html
It does have SVideo out with the Apple DIV to SVideo adapter.

EyeTV uses FireWire to get the info in.

Yes I did. :D

I think I played with it for about two days and then forgot about it.

That was about the last video game that I ever really played. LOL

I guess it was another Mac that had PCI. Even still, if they do buy Tivo, I would bet it will become quite easy to get those features on a Mac very quickly.

I just reinstalled DirecTV two days ago because cable was charging twice as much for the same channels. Not even digital. I desperately wanted to get DirecTV's DVR, but it only works with a Tivo subscription and my wife has a serious dislike for Tivo- the company, not the service. She used to work for Tribune Media/TV Data and handled Tivo's listings account. Now I'm going to have to go and buy a stand alone DVR which won't give me half the features, but at least I won't have to mess with that antique VCR.

build the mythtv box :)

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15728
Hauppage PVR-350 (comes with a remote)
Whatever hard drive you want

the PVR-350 doesn't require much CPU on the main machine, so, you should be good to go.

And you get the thrill of putting it together yourself. :)

My nephew will be building mine this summer if I can separate him from his XBox

RE - "My nephew will be building mine this summer" - Then you will not "get the thrill of putting it together yourself" !

I love TiVo - we have 4 of them in the house - but how can they be loosing money? You buy the unit & then pay a monthly or lifetime fee for programming info so TiVo know what's on & what time & etc.

You'd think the fees would cover the cost of the box calling them & downloading the channel lineup, which seems to be the only expense TiVo has once you bought the machine.

Oh yeah - I'd like them a lot more if they came out with a HD DVR :D

I didn't understand a word of what you guys just said.. guess we're a little behind on TV technology out here :)

Coming to Tivo, your remote now has one button and has been renamed to iVo.

Tivo is going broke because someone goes to Best Buy and sees a VCR for $39.95 with no monthly fees or a Tivo for $300 with $12 per month fee.

Another problem is cable companies & people like Jim using their DVR's - which suck ass compared to TiVo. The only benefit is the HD recording (which TiVo is working on) and the ability to record 2 programs at once from the cable box. If they could find a way to do those 2 things, I'd be buying 4 new ones :D

...and I'm doing my part - aside from the 4 we have, I bought my dad one, my mom one & Yell's family got one a while back as well :)

Once they figure out how to record 2 programs

Our DVR does everything a tivo does and more. You mentioned the things that the DVR does and tivo doesn't but...what does tivo do that a DVR won't? I keep seeing hot swappable drives on commercials but we don't have them yet.

Until you use a DVR with the TiVo service you will not get what is so special about TiVo, kind of like those who have not spent some time using a Mac.

I have the two tuner DVR with TiVo from DirecTV and it is so great that I'll probably get another one for my bedroom. The only problem with the ones from DirecTV is they have the USB ports disabled for some odd reason.

Cleo
I had a tivo until our cable company came out with dvrs. Just the ability to record 2 things at once made me give the tivo with the lifetime subscription away :)

My DVR with TiVo records two shows at one.

Here you go.
http://www.tivo.com/1.0.asp
The season pass function is my favorite feature.

Cleo, that was just the start a few years ago. Do you still have to make sure you leave your cable box on? Our cable boxes shut themselves off at night after a while of inactivity. Probably just to screw with tivo :)

Jim -

How many days of programming do you have on the DVR? 7? TiVo has 17 :)

Say you want to record NYPD Blue but don't know what time it's on or what channel. How would you search for it? Oh, that's right, you can't :)

Can you set your DVR to record any & all Brad Pitt movies? Didn't think so :)

If you recorded & watched The Simpsons episode titled "Homer The Smithers" yesterday & the other channel that airs The Simpsons plays it next week, will it be recorded again? Of course it will. But not with TiVo, as TiVo knows that you've just seen it :)

And don't start rambling on about the On Demand stuff - that's a cable company option & has nothing to do with TiVo :D

I don't have cable unless you count the basic that I pay $1 per month for that I keep around for backup that came with my cable modem.

I have DirecTV which puts cable to shame.

My DVR with TiVo is my tuner so there is no box that I have to remember to leave on. Also since it actually has two tuners in it I can record two shows at once or watch one show while it is recording another. Also I only pay $4.99 per month for my TiVo since they have a special deal with DirecTV.
http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/imagine/TIVO.dsp

As far as I know, that's only the cable DVR box that does that, and if you have a TiVo hooked up to another DVR box you've got problems :D

I think we have 14 days. And, I can search by title just as you can with your cable box...I think.

I still want to know if you have to make sure you leave the cable box on. Oh, and here is the very best part. Mine broke this morning. I am taking it back in a few minutes when I will pick up the newest model, for nothing.

ondemand is sweet :)

The only cable box that I have that shuts itself off is the DVR - and like I said, you'd have to be nuts to hook 2 DVR's up together. We had to get a new regular box last month for one of the TV's & it's on 24/7 :)

You tell me when you find out how to search for a title or actor or director that has a show on March 8th :D

Yeah the search by actor, genre, name, time, title, thing is sweet.

Luna and I watched the movie about the life of the Hogan's Heros star. She wanted to she an episode of Hogan's Heros afterwards so I keyed in Hogan's Heros and the next day I had it recorded without me having to know what time it was on or what channel it was on.

Everyone knows I'm a huge Nirvana fan, so I have "Cobain" as one of my keywords - anytime his name shows up, TiVo records it for me. TiVo's wonderful :D

The deciding factor for me between TiVo or HDDVR was based solely on price. There where two deals going on when I got mine. DirectTV had one with the TiVo monthy fee's of 4.95 and at Best Buy when buy the TiVo box, the monthly fee is 12.95. In both cases you have to buy the service agreement. The get it price is high.

The cable companies HDDVR doesnt have all the features that TiVo has, thats true. And except for being able to pause while your watching a show, the cable companies HDDVR is nothing more than a super duper VCR.

But, for the price of 10.00 dollars a month per HDDVR box, I get HD programming, DVR, free warranty, free software upgrades and the cable company comes to the house to fix it. Dollar for dollar, the cable companies HDDVR is a greater value than TiVo.

Caveat: The cable companies HDDVR only has 40 hours it can save. But geez, how much television can a person watch?

On a different subject, what about HD widescreen televisions? Has anyone purchased a wide screen HD with a regular picture tube? The cost is a lot less than LCD, projection and plasma. They leave a large footprint, but from what I am hearing, they will last longer?

Anyone have an experience with them?

New technology is supposed to be an improvement, not a slide backwards. So how come when I read this thread your DVR and TiVo are still behind my best VCR -

"How many days of programming do you have on the DVR? 7? TiVo has 17" My VCR gives me a month

"Say you want to record NYPD Blue but don't know what time it's on or what channel. How would you search for it? Oh, that's right, you can't" VideoPlus been doing that at least ten years, probably more (and also doing the "find the correct start/finish time of programs if they are rescheduled after you program the video" thing).

"Can you set your DVR to record any & all Brad Pitt movies?" If any of my equipment starts to record all Brad Pitt movies it goes out of the window instantly.