DirecTV Prepares TiVo Killer That Might Actually Kill TiVo
from the whoops dept
The death of TiVo has been reported many times over, but the news today clearly is extremely bad news for TiVo. Despite efforts to expand TiVo distribution with other partners, the majority of TiVo subscribers are DirecTV customers. TiVo and DirecTV have worked together for quite some time, and, in the last quarter, nearly 75% of new TiVo subscribers came via DirecTV. That's an awfully important distribution channel, and it looks like it may go away. DirecTV should be ready to launch their own branded PVR device sometime early next year, which they claim will have all the features of TiVo plus more. The only thing it will be missing, they say, is the ability to do commercial skip -- but even that's a hidden feature on TiVo. So, while TiVo keeps trying to innovate beyond the space, and most people find its interface better than competitors, losing such a channel is going to be very difficult to overcome. Of course, TiVo isn't doing itself any favors with new "features" that are seen as consumer unfriendly.
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Complete with AdSkip buttons and an 80 GB Hard drive.
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This past week my in-laws had a new Dish 510 system installed and it drives me nuts trying to schedule recording on it. The speed of the unit is great, but if it can't do the most basic thing that it should be able to, then it's useless.
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