TiVo

Some TiVo systems are integrated with DirecTV receivers. These “DirecTiVo” recorders record the incoming satellite MPEG-2 digital stream directly to hard disk without conversion. Because of this and the fact that they have two tuners, DirecTiVos are able to record two programs at once. In addition, the lack of digital conversion allows recorded video to be of the same quality as live video. DirecTiVos have no MPEG encoder chip, and can only record DirecTV streams.

* CPU: IBM PowerPC 403GCX at 70-80 MHz
* RAM: 32 MB

All standalone TiVo systems have coax/RF-in and an internal cable-ready tuner, analog video input—composite/RCA, and S-Video—for use with an external cable box or satellite receiver. The TiVo unit can use a serial cable or IR blasters to control the external receiver. They have coax/RF, composite/RCA, and S-Video output, and the DVD systems also have component out. Audio is RCA stereo, and the DVD systems also have digital optical out.

* CPU: IBM PowerPC 403GCX at 54 MHz
* RAM: 16 MB

The Series1 (retronym) was the original TiVo digital video recorder.

Series1 TiVo systems are based on PowerPC processors connected to MPEG-2 encoder/decoder chips and IDE/ATA hard drives. Series1 TiVo units used one or two drives of 13–60 GB. Although not supported by TiVo or equipment manufacturers, larger drives can be added.

In 2006, Free Software Foundation (FSF) decided to combat TiVo’s technical system of blocking users from running modified software. This behaviour, which FSF dubs “tivoization”, was to be tackled by a change in the GNU General Public License (GPL) prohibiting this activity. Most of the software included in the TiVo is distributed under the terms of the GPL, and the GPL’s goal is to ensure that all recipients of GPL’d software are free to modify the software, to help themselves. This new license provision was acknowledged by TiVo in its April 2007 SEC filing: “we may be unable to incorporate future enhancements to the GNU/Linux operating system into our software, which could adversely affect our business”.

Media companies are beginning to acknowledge the influence of TiVos and other DVRs and are using old fashioned tactics of live ads in an attempt to circumvent the problem of skipping past commercials

TiVo has been a heavy user of mail-in rebates. According to BusinessWeek, the company recognized $5,000,000 in additional revenue when nearly half of the 100,000 new subscribers to the service failed to successfully apply for a $100 rebate, known as the “shoebox effect” (which marketers typically refer to as breakage). While this rate of compliance is fairly typical in the rebate field, the company’s heavy use of the promotional practice caused a large positive impact on its bottom line.

Also in September 2005, TiVo changed their customer agreement, instituting a one-year service contract for all new activations after September 6, 2005. Customers wishing to cancel the service early are subject to an early cancellation fee of up to $200. TiVo has not commented officially on this change, but with their recent drive to attract new customers, as well as subsidizing new hardware through large mail-in rebates, the company could be looking for ways to discourage users from canceling. Customers have also been discouraged by some of TiVo’s Holiday rate increases.

In September 2005, a TiVo software upgrade added the ability for broadcasters to “flag” programs to be deleted after a certain date. Some customers had recordings deleted, or could not use their flagged recordings (transfer to a computer or burn to DVD), as they could with unflagged material. TiVo has stated this was a bug in the software.In 2004, TiVo entered into an agreement with Macrovision to make TiVo machines copyright-protection flag aware, ostensibly to make it compatible with future pay-per-view and video-on-demand content.

In March 2005, TiVo began testing “pop-up” advertisements to select beta testers, to explore it as an alternative source of revenue. Many of these “beta testers” were simply subscribers who did not know that TiVo had selected them to test software changes and did not sign up for the beta program. The concept is that, as users fast-forward through certain commercials of TiVo advertisers, they will also see a static image ad more suitable and effective than the broken video stream.

At its announcement, the concept of extra advertisements drew heavy criticism from TiVo’s lifetime subscribers. Some were upset that they had already paid for a service based upon their previous ad-free experience, while others argued that they had purchased the service for the specific purpose of dodging advertisements.

Early testers complained that the pop-up detector was glitchy, and would sometimes pop up during unrelated commercials, or even during regular TV programming. They also state that the ads are aesthetically unpleasant, and take up a quarter of the screen, obscuring enough of the image to make fast-forward scanning nearly impossible. TiVo says that they are looking into these issues and will fix all of these problems before the advertising functions are rolled out to the public. It is unclear if these advertisements will be rolled out to TiVo enabled boxes with DirecTV and Comcast or just to their own standalone boxes.

TiVo Inc. has always provided updates of the software that runs TiVo units, usually downloaded along with programming data. These updates have been seen as improvements, offering additional functionality and fixing bugs. Sometimes updates have introduced new bugs or removed features available in the previous versions, which has resulted in criticism from affected TiVo users. TiVo is unable (or unwilling) to roll back software versions.

A small percentage of early TiVo units were marketed without being clearly labeled that a subscription was required for full functionality, and some non-subscribing customers were unhappy when they were unable to use new and improved features that subscribers received. It is believed that early dissatisfied, non-subscribing customers received some form of settlement, probably a money-back offer on the hardware, and TiVo now clearly labels its products with a notation that a subscription is required for full functionality.

Some TiVo hardware can still be used as a normal digital recorder, recording by date, time, and channel, without a subscription: specifically, any Series1 which shipped with software revision 1.3 or earlier, as well as Toshiba and Pioneer standalone units, which include TiVo Basic. Nearly all Series1 units originally shipped with 1.3 or an earlier release, however, late in the life of the Series1 some units did ship with 2.0 and those units require a subscription. All other standalone TiVo systems require a subscription to function. All DirecTiVo units require an active DirecTV subscription to record new content.