Back in early 2008, DirecTV made an announcement that left many of their customers scratching their heads. They announced, in effect, that they were eliminating the Tivo connection and forcing subscribers to upgrade to DVR. The reason was due to a planned migration to the MPEG4 platform. At the time, this upgrade actually suggested a downgrade to many people. After all, their Tivo devices had four tuners while the DVR devices to which they were being asked to upgrade only had two. What's more, many consumers thought the move was unfair because they had already spent hundreds of dollars on their existing units.
Predictably, there was a mild backlash. Thousands of phone calls were placed, many subscribers canceled their accounts, and Direct TV was left to revisit their decision. Sure enough, by September 2008, the company made a new announcement: by the second half of 2009, they would release a new Tivo product. In this article, we'll take a closer look at the renewed venture and explore the differences between Tivo and DirecTV's DVR product.
A New Partnership
The partnership between the two companies has never been seamless. They formed a joint venture years ago that was designed to be a perfect marriage. DTV needed to provide its subscribers with an effective way to record the shows they wanted to watch later. On the other hand, Tivo had pioneered the technology behind the digital recording of TV programming. However, their market was under attack by lower-priced competitors. They needed a way to outflank their competition on the back of an industry giant. DirecTV was that giant.
Things progressed well for awhile. Not only did both companies enjoyed the benefits from the partnership, subscribers were ecstatic by how well the respective technologies worked together. Then, trouble struck. When the joint venture was originally created, DTV was owned by News Corp. They too, made a digital recording device (through a subsidiary company) that could be used to record television programming. A decision was made to replace their long-time partner's product with their subsidiary's device.
The DVR technology that was used as a replacement is considered by many subscribers to be non-intuitive. Some have even complained about usability issues. It's worth noting that DTV has ironed out many of the original problems that were inherent in early versions of DVR. However, subscribers' complaints have been persistent, which has led the company to choose an alternative path.
As late as April 2009, DirecTV was on schedule to release the new HD Tivo product to their customers. However, in May, it was announced that the digital recording product would not be released until 2010. There is some speculation that a recent ruling which blasted EchoStar, parent company of the Dish Network, has something to do with the pushback. That ruling emphasized a time-shifting patent owned by Tivo. It is plausible that DirecTV may have to pay sizable royalties in order to release a product using technology based on that patent.
So, can the two companies settle their past differences and release the device that DirecTV subscribers are anxious to use? Only time will tell.
Published At: Isnare.com
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