Why Doesn't E* Just Partner with Tivo?

[gwynnebaer]

After waiting for months and months for new software updates to the 721 (see the threads), and looking recently at the string of DirecTV/Tivo announcements (HDTV units, etc.), it occurred to me to pose the question:

why doesn't EchoStar partner with Tivo (or arguably a competitor were there one) and drop the headache that seems to be created by the 721/921 etc? Is it the niche market mentality, what is it?

Do any of you talented minds have a favorite conspiracy theory as to why we continue to see E* do their own thing (with rather mixed results) rather than a "known quantity"?

I'm not looking for a flame war about Tivo vs. 721 feature sets, unless you seem to think the features are what make E* go their own way. I like my 721, but I also know it could be better. Way better.

[Randy_B]

My guess, licensing fees. Charlie is notoriously tight fisted.

[Maniacal1]

I think Charlie's experience with Microsoft and the Dishplayer is probably reason enough for him to want to go it alone.

I'd kill for a Dish Network TiVo.

[Cyclone]

Better than killing, you can get a Standard Tivo that will work with Dish. Sure it won't record directly from the Sat bitstream. But you'll avoid murder charges.

[gcutler]

But it will cost you $300 for a lifetime sub, prevented me from getting a 2nd TiVo. DTiVo only charging $5/month or ignoring fee if sub high enough package also has its benefit.

[Kagato]

At the moment Dish isn't under a lot of presure to go Tivo. Last I heard they sell as many, if not more, PVRs than TIVO. What dish should have done is bid for Replay. They could have easily outbid Denon, and the IP alone was worth it.

[gcutler]

At the moment Dish isn't under a lot of presure to go Tivo. Last I heard they sell as many, if not more, PVRs than TIVO. What dish should have done is bid for Replay. They could have easily outbid Denon, and the IP alone was worth it.

I think that Dish may have felt that whatever they were doing with the 50x or 721 was good enough (as the sales are doing pretty good) that to spend 1 extra cent on Replay was probably not beneficial.

Those who want to stick with Dish and want a PVR have probably gone that way (envious of the DirectTiVo or not). And those who were unhappy have pretty much jumped ship (except for a few DP stragglers).

Now if they were able to convert the 50x or 721 to Replay SW based, I think everyone would be much happier, but would it lead to increased sales. I think the only people left who have not gone PVR (or multiple PVRs in the house) are those who would probably somehow get a 508 and think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread (not knowing or caring about the enhancments of Replay or TiVo or even the 721 to some extent) I think even now a days, those buying DirectTiVo for the first time are not buying them for the superiority of the TiVo sw, but it is the only PVR being pushed by D*. Just so happens that the D* sub being forced to DTiVo (as entry level PVR) is probably better off than the E* sub being forced to the 508 (as entry level PVR), dosen't mean they actually are aware of it :D

[Randy_B]

Last numbers I saw (I believe it was in a fiscal report to SEC) indicated Dish had sold more PVRs than Tivo, Replay and UTV combined. That was near the end of last year, haven't seen any kind of estimates since.

Lots of us were hoping Dish would bid on Replay when it was on the block. Still holding out hope that Dish will approach D&M to partner. Doubt there is much chance. I don't think Dish has ever had a successful partnership.

[Inaba]

Last numbers I saw (I believe it was in a fiscal report to SEC) indicated Dish had sold more PVRs than Tivo, Replay and UTV combined. That was near the end of last year, haven't seen any kind of estimates since.

I would love to see something to back this up... this sounds like total FUD put out by Dish. There's no way I can believe this statement without some shred of credible proof.

Regardless, the best move E* could make right now in relation to their PVR line is to open up the U/I and feature set to everyone. Let the customers do the work for them. There is absolutely *NO* reason for E* not to do this, since they don't charge a monthly fee for the 721... people with the 721 get the PVR features whether they want them or not... and opening up the development process to hundreds or thousands of users would enrich the 721 beyond any measure... and cost E* almost nothing.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - As a software developer who gets paid for writing code, I will happily donate code to the 721 project for *free*. I have no problem working on a project that will allow me to get what I want, and also benefit other people... and then giving it away for free.

From many years of experience, U/I feature sets are one of the easiest thing to manipulate ... it's just shuffling around data. The hard part of the 721 codebase has *already been done* - which is why I just don't understand the lack of features on the 721. The hard parts done folks... the easy stuff is the stuff that's missing. What gives?

[gcutler]

Regardless, the best move E* could make right now in relation to their PVR line is to open up the U/I and feature set to everyone. Let the customers do the work for them. There is absolutely *NO* reason for E* not to do this, since they don't charge a monthly fee for the 721... people with the 721 get the PVR features whether they want them or not... and opening up the development process to hundreds or thousands of users would enrich the 721 beyond any measure... and cost E* almost nothing

Dish is probably incapable of supporting any customized code, and don't want to take the heat if people program themselves into a corner. And again, how will that make Dish more money. Remember Charlie is not of the same mindset of the people who came up GNU liscensing (or anything OPEN), charlie and most CEOs find no value in doing ANYTHING unless there is money to be earned. Because E* never allowed "Clone" makers to make recievers, E* has a history of propietary. If anyone has a history, you should be asking D* for this.

[Inaba]

Dish is probably incapable of supporting any customized code, and don't want to take the heat if people program themselves into a corner. And again, how will that make Dish more money. Remember Charlie is not of the same mindset of the people who came up GNU liscensing (or anything OPEN), charlie and most CEOs find no value in doing ANYTHING unless there is money to be earned. Because E* never allowed "Clone" makers to make recievers, E* has a history of propietary. If anyone has a history, you should be asking D* for this.

I suspect you're right, for sure. However, I'm not necessarily advocating it be published under the GNU license, or any open license for that matter. I'm perfectly comfortable, in this instance, with a very strict license for the code that gives Dish soverign right over it. I'm not saying this should be an open source project (athough that would be excellent) - I'm just saying that there should be, at the very least, an API allowing extensibility and modification of the User Interface.

As for money to be earned... there *IS* - that's the point. It would drive sales of Dish PVRs through the roof, simply because it would have the most robust feature set, be constantly updated/upgraded and allow Dish to position itself as the only logical choice for a quality Sattelite PVR.

The bottom line, moneywise, is if they put some effort into this, they could have programmers working for *free* on their software. You can't beat free labor, no matter how hard you try. So they get their development for free, and turn around and sell the units for $500 each... they just provide the hardware.

If their programmers are paid anything like the coders I know, they are paying at a bare minimum of probably half a million bucks a year, in salary alone. I suspect it's probably at least 3 times that, but I'm being generous. You could easily cut that in half (sorry guys, it'd put some of ya out of a job) and at the same time, add features to the product that would possibly never get there for lack of time (or creativity).

There's lots of money to be made in the public development market, someone just needs to hit on the right set of circumstances, and I think E* may be in that position to take advantage of it with the proper shepparding. Tivo got it's big start by being open source... that's why it because so popular. If they had been as closed as E* is, they would have failed as a company. But because they were so open, they developed a legion of hackers and programmers who worked for free to fix the product and provide features that were meaningful and useful.

[Neil Derryberry]

I don't think open source would be the way to go for E* by any means. if they published their code, security would absolutely be broken, and nobody with a PVR would have to pay for service if they didn't want to.

I have owned a 501, went to D* and owned a UTV, then switched back to E* and bought a 721... I far prefer the 721 to my UTV, and especially to the service I receive from E*.

[Inaba]

I don't think open source would be the way to go for E* by any means. if they published their code, security would absolutely be broken, and nobody with a PVR would have to pay for service if they didn't want to.

Nobody with a 721 has to pay for a PVR service anyway ... so where is the problem? E* doesn't charge for the PVR service on the 721 (not sure about other units) -- so your security theory is invalid. You can't use the 721 to record OTA streams, only Dish streams... so you're paying for a Dish subscription to use the PVR no matter what... otherwise it's a useless unit w/o a Dish subscription. I would think that if you have a 721, you'd have noticed that you don't get charged for it's PVR functions, unless there is some legacy 721 owners that get charged a PVR fee now adays?

I will admit, that there is the potential for unit hacking to allow free sattelite service, however, I believe this could be overcome with proper planning, and a strict API for the U/I (having been decoupled from the authorization portion of the code base).

[dswallow]

All Dish need do is make a little brick receiver that connects via a FireWire port to something/anything and can be controlled by it and deliver the decoded bitstream to it. Then it'd be so trivial to have any number of interesting 3rd party devices, but Dish would still retain complete control over the Dish receiver portion.

[gcutler]

All Dish need do is make a little brick receiver that connects via a FireWire port to something/anything and can be controlled by it and deliver the decoded bitstream to it. Then it'd be so trivial to have any number of interesting 3rd party devices, but Dish would still retain complete control over the Dish receiver portion.

But then Dish is now supporting NON-DISH devices like any firewire device that happens to be connected. Dish will blame Maxtor, Maxtor will blame Dish, you might have to call two different support lines and they both blame each other. Returning faulty equipment becomes alot harder for the dish subscriber. They don't train their tech support like HP or Dell to have understanding of 3rd party devices, and if they did that would cost more money than the minimal training given.

Currently dish has to take ownership of the entire box (even if the drive goes bad because they put the drive in the box). And look at all they did to marry the recievers to the drives, on the 50x and 721. Right or wrong, That is just going against the path that dish is walking...And probably not going to happen soon.

[Inaba]

That would be the beauty of allowing outside individuals to develop the U/I... Dish would only have to support the "official" U/I they release... and if users upgrade/change their U/I on their own, then it's their business when it breaks.

In the meantime, they can pick and choose the choicest cuts of code to impliment in the "official" U/I they are going to support... and it's all done for free!

[Jacob S]

With Dish doing so much better than the competition they would not see the need to change something that is already selling so much better. A lot of people that do buy the Dish PVR's do not know about the features they are missing not having the Tivo and other PTV's/PVR's.

[gcutler]

That would be the beauty of allowing outside individuals to develop the U/I... Dish would only have to support the "official" U/I they release... and if users upgrade/change their U/I on their own, then it's their business when it breaks.

And then they get plastered all over the internet for leaving people hanging because they won't support them. This is a damned if they do, damned if they don't. They have less problems if they don't. How many people were complaining about lack of support when Dish would not support the upgraded DPs.

[Scott Greczkowski]

On February 7th, 2003 I posted details about Alpha Software I received(Click HERE to see this post) (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=12191) at that time the software was to be the L1.10 upgrade.

As time has passed I have tested many Alphas and Betas and watched this software grow and mature.

The date today is July 9th, 5 months since I started testing this version of the software, and I must say I am IMPRESSED with the way Dan Minnick and his staff at Echostar have run this beta program.

We have tested things that I would have never thought of doing with my 721, I have been through many software updates with a least 1 sometimes two software updates a week. At this point I am VERY impressed with the softwae.

The software which started out being L1.10 will probably be L1.13 or L1.14 (Although I say they should call it L1.15 because of the improvements they have made)

With over 5 months of testing you can really see the labor that has gone into this software, and with the tests I did I can tell you how much they put into the quality of this software. There were times that I saw "oddities" and reported them and the 721 team worked hard to see if anyone else saw that problem and recreate the problem, the degree they went through to make sure the oddities I saw never happened again amazed me.

And while I do not know of any release plans for the new softwae I can tell you I am VERY happy with the software now and have not had a single hickup in a long long time.

So while many of you may thing that Echostar just writes new software and releases it with no or limited testing I can say that is not true (at least for the 721) the 721 team has worked really hard to make a quality piece of software. My hats off to Dan, Dave, Wendell, Renee and the rest of the 721 team who have worked to make the 721 a quality product.

I just hope and pray that once the software is public you enjoy it and have as bug free operation as I have been having with mine.

[Jacob S]

Perhaps they are taking a different approach this time and the higher end models gets most if not all the goodies and new ideas/new software first before the lower end ones so the 721 would be first and maybe the 501/508 would follow. Have they been doing similar alpha and beta testing with the 501/508 receivers?

[Randy_B]

I would love to see something to back this up... this sounds like total FUD put out by Dish. There's no way I can believe this statement without some shred of credible proof.

OK inaba, here we go. From doing a Google search on PVR subscribers you get this article from Business 2.0 from the end of 2002

"Need a jolt to wake you? How about this: The world's leading seller of personal video recorders (PVRs), those nifty set-top boxes that allow users to pause live TV and record shows on a hard drive, isn't TiVo (TIVO), the brand that's synonymous with the technology. In fact, it's EchoStar's Dish Network, a satellite television provider. . . "

From Parks Associates Research Group report from this spring: ". . . EchoStar has shipped more than 500,000 PVR-enabled satellite receivers, and aggressive promotions have resulted in a real boost in subscriber numbers. 40% of new subscribers are taking PVR; at its current rate of adding about 1.25 million new DBS subs per year, EchoStar will add approximately half a million new PVR subscribers per year."

Extracting numbers from a Carmel Group white paper on the DVR market (by the way this is a great WP to read on the whole market and the players)
Indicates as of the end of 2002
575,000 subscribers for E* (hard to say but this number doesn't seem to include Dishplayers owners, seems to be # of OpenTV PVRs)
400,000 Tivos
140,000 UltimateTV (the way it reads, some of the DP maybe buried in here, because it also refers to WebTV PVRs)
120,000 Replays

(humorous aside here, in the interviews with the CEOs, the guy from OpenTV predicts that hard drive makers will begin to produce HDs specifically for PVRs, and that PVRs will stop at the 100GB mark because "60 hrs is a LOT of video . . ." Ha! Like the big cheese from IBM that years ago predicated the worldwide market for PCs would be 5. "Who would want one of these?"

I realize that is 575K for E* and 690K for all others combined, but the location of DPs makes these numbers squishy.

Forrester provides the following numbers as of early 2003

600,000 for E*
510,000 for Tivo
100,00 for Replay
no mention of UTV

Again, the location of E* DPs in the count is unknown, so the figure may be low. E* has never given real numbers on the DP.

:wave:

[Curtis0620]

This article shows TiVo with over 700,000 subs as of April 2003.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?source=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&guid=%7B681260EB%2D8DE7%2D4ABE%2D9B86%2D3A60CE3DDC 31%7D

[Inaba]

I did the search you mentioned, couldn't find the article you're quoting (will keep looking) - but I did find some other stuff...

From the The Street:

For TiVo to be successful in its effort to license its technology to cable television operators, says Swann, TiVo will have to demonstrate that its brand will help attract consumers. Otherwise, says Swann, operators may choose unbranded alternatives. They would then be following in the path of EchoStar Communications (DISH:Nasdaq - news - commentary - research - analysis), which says it has shipped 500,000 PVR-equipped boxes to consumers and retailers. EchoStar's Dish Network home satellite service doesn't charge subscribers extra for the PVR service.

Sounds like they've "Shipped" 500,000 units in 2002, but it doesn't necessarily say they've moved that many units. I suspect many retailers were sitting on some of them, bringing the numbers down. In addition to that, I also suspect that the "PVR-equipped boxes" are including boxes over the course of the lifetime of E*... things like the DVHS, etc... The article is unclear on whether or not the 500,000 number includes just 2002, or all of E*'s history.

Either way, I'm not trying to bust your balls or anything. If they've shipped 600,000 units to consumers, great! There's nothing wrong with that... I just take corporate numbers with a grain of salt. The reason I question those numbers as being accurate (in spirit, if not technically) is that none of my friends or co-workers even know Dish has a PVR... but every one of them, including my parents know what a Tivo is, some of them know what ReplayTV is... a only a couple know what UTV is. Heck, I didn't know much about Dish PVRs until the last few months. When I explain what I have to people, I just say "It's a Tivo." Because they won't know what I'm talking about if I say "PVR."

While it's entirely possible that Dish has more consumer used PVRs than Tivo, it seems counterintuitive because of brand recognition. Stranger things have happened though. Dish's saving grace is they don't charge a fee for the PVR, whereas some cable companies do, DTV does, and so does Tivo. Big plus to a lot of people.

[Randy_B]

. . . says Swann Hehe! If that is THE Swann, Scott can (will?) give you an earful on his reliability. Maybe this is another guy with the same name.

that none of my friends or co-workers even know Dish has a PVR... but every one of them, including my parents know what a Tivo is, some of them know what ReplayTV is... a only a couple know what UTV is.

That is clearly one of the underlying points of the Business 2.0 article. One article I read called Tivo " . . . the kleenex of the PVR business." Absolutely no question that in name, Tivo has become synonomous to the PVR/DVR. That is clear when you read most general articles on PVRs in the press. They talk Tivo and Replay. It is only when you read the research and focused reports that E* ever comes into the picture. I had never heard of Digeo until I read the Carmel Group WP.

I am not participating in a "sword" fight either. My point was to counter the assertions inthis thread and the other, that 1) E* PVRs are so deficient in functionality and design, 2) That Tivo is superior in all aspects. The only true assertion is that they are somewhat different in some functional features. If Tivo was truly superior, the sales numbers would reflect that. The numbers demonstrate they are about par.

This article shows TiVo with over 700,000 subs as of April 2003 Your link doesn't work. Says the page cannot be found. Anyway, I said the figures were stated be as of late 02/beginning 03. Extrapolate E* sales/shipments and E* is probably between 750K and 800K 721 and 50x today. It will be interesting to see who busts 1M first.

[gcutler]

Either way, I'm not trying to bust your balls or anything. If they've shipped 600,000 units to consumers, great! There's nothing wrong with that... I just take corporate numbers with a grain of salt. The reason I question those numbers as being accurate (in spirit, if not technically) is that none of my friends or co-workers even know Dish has a PVR... but every one of them, including my parents know what a Tivo is, some of them know what ReplayTV is... a only a couple know what UTV is. Heck, I didn't know much about Dish PVRs until the last few months. When I explain what I have to people, I just say "It's a Tivo." Because they won't know what I'm talking about if I say "PVR."

Part of TiVo's recognition is its superior product placement, On more than one TV show has the words "My TiVo thinks I'm Gay" been spoken (and actually worked its way into the plotlines). "Sex and the City" is the latest to include a TiVo plotline.

[Randy_B]

For me, an interesting question/trend may be hidden in these numbers. It appears that E* growth is driving their PVR sales (i.e. subscribers want E* and then find out about/get the PVR, main factor is that people do not know that E* even has a PVR until after they contact a dealer). While it may bethe opposite for Tivo and DirecTV (i.e. People go out to buy the Tivo (big name recognition) and then get DirecTV as a result of the PVR purchase). If that is the case, Tivo will build some real leverage with the good folks at DirecTV. There is also the possibility that Rupe will take DirecTV PVR in another direction. His BSkyB has no affinity for Tivo, they have another of their "own".

[Curtis0620]

Let's try this one.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030522/sfth003a_1.html

[Jacob S]

The reason why Dish may be selling so many PVR's even though Tivo may be superior is how they are marketing them and having a head start. It looks like Tivo may have caught up if not surpassed Dish on PVR/PTV sales. With time they may very well surpass Dish if they have not done it already.

[Randy_B]

Let's try this one. Those look like good numbers. I wonder why the increase in projected loss? They cut loss by more than 25% over the previous year, but are heading in the opposite direction this year. More reliance on licensing and less on monthly fees?

Regardless of who is leading, hopefully the industry can get more than 1M new PVRs on line this year. Huge numbers of PVRs in use is the best defense against MPAA lawsuits against them. Wonder how thiose lawsuits are going?

[baloo75]

On February 7th, 2003 I posted details about Alpha Software I received(Click HERE to see this post) (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=12191) at that time the software was to be the L1.10 upgrade.

As time has passed I have tested many Alphas and Betas and watched this software grow and mature.

The date today is July 9th, 5 months since I started testing this version of the software, and I must say I am IMPRESSED with the way Dan Minnick and his staff at Echostar have run this beta program.

We have tested things that I would have never thought of doing with my 721, I have been through many software updates with a least 1 sometimes two software updates a week. At this point I am VERY impressed with the softwae.

The software which started out being L1.10 will probably be L1.13 or L1.14 (Although I say they should call it L1.15 because of the improvements they have made)

With over 5 months of testing you can really see the labor that has gone into this software, and with the tests I did I can tell you how much they put into the quality of this software. There were times that I saw "oddities" and reported them and the 721 team worked hard to see if anyone else saw that problem and recreate the problem, the degree they went through to make sure the oddities I saw never happened again amazed me.

And while I do not know of any release plans for the new softwae I can tell you I am VERY happy with the software now and have not had a single hickup in a long long time.

So while many of you may thing that Echostar just writes new software and releases it with no or limited testing I can say that is not true (at least for the 721) the 721 team has worked really hard to make a quality piece of software. My hats off to Dan, Dave, Wendell, Renee and the rest of the 721 team who have worked to make the 721 a quality product.

I just hope and pray that once the software is public you enjoy it and have as bug free operation as I have been having with mine.

Scott, I am glad you are happy with your release of the Firmware. In all honesty though it doesn't help the rest of us out. I am a little tired of some basic things that my 721 does that my much cheaper, lower tech 501 doesn't do.

1. Stuttering every now and then when playing back something while recording something else. This is not the pixelation/signal loss, just video/audio stuttering.
2. The lag between when you press a button on the remote and the UI responds.
3. The random reboot when two timers fire.
4. Lack of interactive features like the 501.
5. The problem with the AUX input.

Now having said all that I am very happy with my 721, I just know it could be better.

[Jacob S]

I hear about more problems with the 501/508 and 721 than I do of the Dishplayer. I know that there are not as many Dishplayers out there but would this mean that the Dishplayer is less buggy now or have the Dishplayer owners just gotten used to it by now?

[Randy_B]

I removed both of my DPs from my account a couple of years back. Recent threads have said the DP is pretty stable now. Main gripe is from folks that have problems seeing 110 and thus probelms with getting the guide. I have always felt that a great many of the DP plagues were a by-product of a corrupted guide. Maybe swithing the guide has helped some.

My 501 has been terrific. Never missed a beat. The 721 has only had one bad experience. (Probably just jinxed myself :nono: )

[jasonf]

my Friend has had a 501 for well over a year now with never one problem. So, makes me wonder if you are having problems, it maybe time to call E* and get a new one.