MSFT VS TIVO
Interesting thoughts, Darfot.
Personally, I think there will always be a place for a low end DVR (supplied by cable and satellite companies), but at the high end, a dedicated home theater PC makes a very compelling argument. I think TiVo needs to focus on properly segmenting the market or limiting their focus. I think the Comcast deal ensures that they will continue to play in the low end for quite some time, but that doesn't mean one way or another whether they will abandon the high end market.
IMO, there are a couple of major issues with penetration of MCE PCs into the low end DVR market.
* They are expensive. Mediacenter version of the OS isn't free... it's $30 more than XP home. Worse, MS won't sell it direct to consumers, so you can only get it from an computer manufacterer that is selling a certified mediacenter PC. These tend to be higher end computer systems, since the hardware requirements for MCE functionality are relatively stringent.
* They are (currently) big and ugly (for the most part).
* While extenders work fine over 802.11g wireless, they too are very expensive ($300 each). I do believe that the inability to stream broadcast flag content will be resolved in a future firmware update. It IS important to note that even with an extender in each room, you would need multiple tv tuners on the server PC (connected to multiple digital receivers -- cablecard will help greatly in this regard) if you want to watch live tv on multiple TVs (via extenders).
For me, the MCE works just as well as a standalone DVR as my TiVo did, but what really impresses me are the supporting survices that have sprouted around the HTPC concept. In addition to Media Center Extenders, there are MS sponsored products called Portable Media Centers that sync your recorded TV shows (and music/photos/videos) with the touch of a button, so I can watch last nights letterman on my commute (and even use DVR functions like -7s replay and 30s skip). I'm trying out a service called Orb networks that lets me stream live or recorded TV (music/photos/video/webcam) over the internet to any web browser. Plus it is a high end PC that looks great on my HDTV, so i can websurf or work from my couch.
In contrast, the pace of innovation at TiVo has been relatively unimpressive, particularly for owners of series 1 direcTiVo combo boxes, who have not been privy to some of the enhancements offered to the standalone TiVo users (TiVo2go, HMO, etc). In fact, in the 4 years that I've had my box, the only new functionality I would notice if I replaced it with the series 2 counterpart is the ability to organize shows by folders.
FWIW, i think TiVo is great, but it will find more success if it focuses the low end mass market with deals like the comcast one. |
