TiVo: Cable is strangling our business with switched digital video (SDV)

arstechnica.com

24 pointssoundsop3 comments

I've been a TiVo subscriber for almost 7 years now and hope they're around for a lot longer. As a Cablecard user, I've given up on-demand and PPV in exchange for having my own set top box. The change to SDV will only make things worse. I'd hate to give up my TiVo in exchange for a box from Comcast. My TiVo has a nicer UI, better recording options, and allows me to stream Netflix.

I miss my TiVo. I was an early adopter, buying one in 1999, and buying several more (with lifetime subscriptions) as wedding presents and christmas gifts.

Their idea won, but now I'm saddled with an awful, clunky satellite DVR that doesn't do anything useful with the unused space, and that has an interface that continues to baffle me slightly, despite having used it for a few years now.

With the reunion between TiVo and DirecTV (there's a new product coming in the spring, supposedly, although I've been waiting a year), does this at least give TiVo a safe niche? Perhaps they'll be swallowed by DirecTV?

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