TiVo CFO says Mac integration unlikely

TiVo chief financial officer David Courtney recently told theDaily Pennsylvanian that although TiVo and Mac enthusiasts have a lot in common, the overlap of users of Apple and TiVo has not been enough to strike any chemistry between the two companies. He admitted to being "obsessed with TiVo because it's one of the cult atmospheres like Mac, that once you use it there's nothing like it." But Courtney said the reasons behind a lack of Mac integration are financial. "We haven't committed to any plans to because of the cost" he said; adding that being able to watch media on Macs using TiVo seems unlikely "unless we find a way to record it under the current platform, and I don't think that will happen in the next few years." In February, shares of TiVo rose sharply amid speculation that Apple was considering a takeover bid for the company.

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12 Comments

hmurchison

said about 19 years ago

Doesn't really matter. I only really gave Tivo a fighting chance provided they were acquired by a larger company. Apple will undoubtedly enter this space as even Jobs called DVR functions a "commodity"

Plus when you consider that CableCARDS will obviate the need for Cable Boxes unless you require On-Demand or PPV I don't see Apple having too many issues with.

A. Creating a DVR
B. Making it far more useful in a multimedia environment.
C. Integrating nicely with your local Cable operators network thank to CableCARD.

I want more than just a DVR that has advertisements popping up at every turn. I want a multimedia device that plays my iTunes tracks, video files and photos. I trust Apple to do this right when the time comes. I don't trust Tivo to offer the same with the level of polish I like.

squirrel_monkey

said about 19 years ago

Apple would be best to leave TiVo to whither on the vine on its own. I'll hold onto my TiVo until either TiVo shuts its doors or Apple offers something better, whichever is earlier. An Apple-branded DVR or integrated application seem to be the next logical step in Apple's plan to turn the home computer into the ultimate flexible entertainment appliance.

My Spider-Sense tells me that Apple might happen to release such a DVR after HDTV commands a respectable part of the market. Why bother developing a DVR for both HD and pre-HD systems? They should leapfrog to the bleeding-edge standard that will be the standard in the next few years.

macslut

said about 19 years ago

I have 6 TiVos. 3 of them I actively use at my home (the rest I use elsewhere). One of those TiVos is connected to my main Mac via TV tuner/input card. It works fantastically. The main advantage of this is that the TiVo interface/service is better than any other stand alone or computer based PVR. Another really big advantage is that I'm not using any of my Mac's resources (just a tiny cpu/ram hit for the input software). Since TiVo has home network functionality, I can also transfer shows from the other TiVos to the one for the Mac, and also program it to record from anywhere that I can get an Internet connection.

The only thing that's really missing is the ability to utilize TiVo To Go. That's not *such* a big deal as it kinda sucks on PCs anyway. On my Mac I'd just record the stream in real-time off the TiVo. It's really only a slight disadvantage that is more than made up for by the way TiVo integrates with iTunes and iPhoto on the Mac.

pismox

said about 19 years ago

ReplayTV kicks Tivo's butt any day. They supported built-in Ethernet long before Tivo AND they did not let anyone talk them out of Commercial Advance nor let anyone talk them into filling the screen with ADWARE.

sunilraman

said about 19 years ago

Quote:

Originally posted by Squirrel_Monkey
Apple would be best to leave TiVo to whither on the vine on its own. I'll hold onto my TiVo until either TiVo shuts its doors or Apple offers something better, whichever is earlier. An Apple-branded DVR or integrated application seem to be the next logical step in Apple's plan to turn the home computer into the ultimate flexible entertainment appliance.

My Spider-Sense tells me that Apple might happen to release such a DVR after HDTV commands a respectable part of the market. Why bother developing a DVR for both HD and pre-HD systems? They should leapfrog to the bleeding-edge standard that will be the standard in the next few years.

apple would possibly also need to integrate a h.264 encoder-decoder chip to leverage HDTV and such bleeding-edge standards while still delivering a G4 or single G5 - based DVR-home-entertainment system to crunch that HDTV input/output**... definitely in skunkworks at cupertino, using some of that RandD money set aside... hard to make any predictions till maybe much later in the year

**because even if you could cleanly pull the Mpeg-2 hDTV off the cable straight into your DVR, it would take up heaps of space. re-encoding in *realtime* into h.264 would save space (and be ready to burn to blu-ray straight away) ...even better when cable/satellite operators in US and around the world switch over to h.264 encoded HDTV broadcasts.

edit: so yeah i am agreeing with your spider-sense that apple would/should jump straight to h.264 720 or 1080 hdtv and forget about the rest. that way it could still play in the cutting edge/ trendy/ upmarket arena without worrying about the commodity standard-definition DVR game. if it pulls of another iPod runaway success in this area, then they could breach the standard-definition DVR market with trendiness and ease-of-use and affordability ala iPod Shuffle...

quicktime 7+ and h.264 is the key. all elements are in place, just a bit of a waiting game for them to see if it is worth it.