If Sage needed to charge a small monthly EPG fee, would you pay it.

[insomniac]

And how dare you bring anything like this up :P

[falchulk]

"Philips, Sony, Thomson, and Hughes manufactured series 1 TiVo hardware units, and they make their money selling the hardware. They are responsible for hardware problems and repairs, upgrades to the hard drive, etc. Series 2 TiVos have been manufactured directly under the TiVo brand name as well as Sony. Hughes and TiVo co-developed the series 2 DirecTiVo.

TiVo makes its money from the subscriptions to the TiVo service. It makes no money from the sale of TiVo hardware units. Therefore, TiVo has no interest in selling units without the TiVo service.

TiVo does not generate its own program schedule information. It currently gets that from a company called Tribune. Future products will use other sources. If anything is wrong with the schedule data, TiVo has to get Tribune to make the corrections (hence Marcel's job). Tribune's current schedule and lineup data is reflected at http://www.zap2it.com"

http://www.tivofaq.com/index.html?ht.../Hardware.html

Take it for what its worth.

[sudipto]

I would agree with the many that my PRIMARY (till date) reason for choosing SageTV was the free guide data. I do have many other reasons for moving into a PC based PVR solution, but not having to pay a fee every month (however little that is) was the biggest benefit to me.

If the unfortunate really happens, I will have to jump ship and embrace Myth

[mbrown3]

Originally posted by falchulk
"Philips, Sony, Thomson, and Hughes manufactured series 1 TiVo hardware units, and they make their money selling the hardware. They are responsible for hardware problems and repairs, upgrades to the hard drive, etc. Series 2 TiVos have been manufactured directly under the TiVo brand name as well as Sony. Hughes and TiVo co-developed the series 2 DirecTiVo.

TiVo makes its money from the subscriptions to the TiVo service. It makes no money from the sale of TiVo hardware units. Therefore, TiVo has no interest in selling units without the TiVo service.

TiVo does not generate its own program schedule information. It currently gets that from a company called Tribune. Future products will use other sources. If anything is wrong with the schedule data, TiVo has to get Tribune to make the corrections (hence Marcel's job). Tribune's current schedule and lineup data is reflected at http://www.zap2it.com"

http://www.tivofaq.com/index.html?<a...dware.html</a>

Take it for what its worth.

??? Exactly. TiVo does not make money on the hardware, so they have to make up for the cost in highly inflated software costs. That's how they cover the far more expensive hardware, by really overcharging on the EPG subscriptions. Not sure what/who you're arguing against, but your copy from TiVo's site seems to speak against what you've been saying... Maybe I'm misunderstanding you?

[falchulk]

huh? No what I have been saying is that the monthly fee is for the guide data and whatever profit tivo makes. They do not charge extra money in the monthly fee to subsidize the hardware. The hardware is made and sold by other companies. THATS WHAT MY POINT IS. Read again guy.

[mbrown3]

No, that's exactly what their website says (and YOU quote)...they have to charge way more for the subscriptions than they cost to make a profit since they don't make any money on the hardware.

The hardware is NOT made and sold by other companies...it used to be, but now it's being made by them (co-developed with Hughes), it's just that they don't make any money off of them (because they wouldn't be able to sell just the hardware without the service, so they sell the hardware cheap...cheaper than it costs them to make it). Hence, "TiVo makes its money from the subscriptions to the TiVo service. It makes no money from the sale of TiVo hardware units. Therefore, TiVo has no interest in selling units without the TiVo service."

[ranger]

I actually think a model for Sage, and its competitors to evaluate is an annual fee model in which each year software improvements and updates are made. This provides them a constant revenue stream and provides us as end users ongoing upgrades. I know this is pretty much the same model M$ is using, but here we would actually GET SOMETHING for the annual fee -> EPG data, upgrades, and some confidence that Sage had revenue to continue providing the software and services.

[mbrown3]

Originally posted by ranger
I actually think a model for Sage, and its competitors to evaluate is an annual fee model in which each year software improvements and updates are made. This provides them a constant revenue stream and provides us as end users ongoing upgrades. I know this is pretty much the same model M$ is using, but here we would actually GET SOMETHING for the annual fee -> EPG data, upgrades, and some confidence that Sage had revenue to continue providing the software and services.

It seems that Frey is doing OK as it is though, no?

[falchulk]

I still think you are misunderstanding me. I am not saying they are profiting from the hardware. In that monthly fee they must make a profit as well as pay for guide data. Really, how much do you think a tivo cost to make?? If the hardware was so much of a drain how do they only get by with the fee they charge? Theystill have the guide, salaries and the standard cost of buisness to make up for with that fee. Going by your logic it would take years to recoup these costs at the rate of the fee before they see any profit at all!! I just realized that I dont care anymore. I guess that all the developers are just lieing when they say they get raped? I guess they all just want us to feel sorry for them. I am glad they only fooled me. Thanks for making me understand.

[DFranch]

Actually, I believe TiVo have used rebates on the purchase of the hardware for a long time. So to say that they subsidized the hardware is an accurate statement. they did it for the series 1, and to a lesser degree the series 2. They don't do it as much as they used to.

One of the things that always bothered me was the fact that people with direct TV only had to pay like $5 a month for the EPG data, but I had to pay $12.95. And If I wanted to get a second TiVo it would have been another $12.95 for that TiVo. It was just recently that they began giving a break for people with more than 1 TiVo. I think a second TiVo is $7.95 a month now.

I recently cancelled my TiVo Subscription on my old TiVo series 1. I can still use it to do manual recordings. They disabled manual recordings on the later series 1 and all of the series 2 TiVo's. That brings up another point. If TiVo does not overcharge for the EPG data in order to subsidize the hardware, why did they disable the manual recording option for unsubscribed machines?

[mbrown3]

Originally posted by falchulk
I still think you are misunderstanding me. I am not saying they are profiting from the hardware. In that monthly fee they must make a profit as well as pay for guide data. Really, how much do you think a tivo cost to make?? If the hardware was so much of a drain how do they only get by with the fee they charge? Theystill have the guide, salaries and the standard cost of buisness to make up for with that fee. Going by your logic it would take years to recoup these costs at the rate of the fee before they see any profit at all!! I just realized that I dont care anymore. I guess that all the developers are just lieing when they say they get raped? I guess they all just want us to feel sorry for them. I am glad they only fooled me. Thanks for making me understand.

I don't understand what you're talking about. Say the hardware costs $300 to make. They charge $200 for it but then also charge you $300 for the service (not to mention the profit they make on advertising). The additional cost difference goes to cover subscription costs; salaries, overhead, etc.; recovery of hardware cost; and the rest is profit. It seems pretty clear to me.

[mbrown3]

Originally posted by DFranch
That brings up another point. If TiVo does not overcharge for the EPG data in order to subsidize the hardware, why did they disable the manual recording option for unsubscribed machines?

Exactly. Because they know that no one would buy the box without the service (it doesn't make sense to). They have to recoup hardware costs with subscribtion data income.

[falchulk]

Why in the world would it cost $300? What does it contain? Mpeg2 encoder/decoder, a modem, video output, controlling logic and harddrive. They have been building these long enough o recoup the design costs. The most expensive thing in te box is the harddrive I would wager. And Iam betting that the 40 gig costs $15. I by no means said that they are not profiting from the fee. They have to so they can survive. I am saying that the hardware is cost is not what you think. When I bought my DVD player 7 years ago, it cost $1000, now you can buy a better one for $125. Is that because Sony is losing money on the player to sell movies?

[falchulk]

By the way, ever work on design team that went from prototype to production? I have. I know how the cost drops very quickly.

[mbrown3]

Originally posted by falchulk
Why in the world would it cost $300? What does it contain? Mpeg2 encoder/decoder, a modem, video output, controlling logic and harddrive. They have been building these long enough o recoup the design costs. The most expensive thing in te box is the harddrive I would wager. And Iam betting that the 40 gig costs $15. I by no means said that they are not profiting from the fee. They have to so they can survive. I am saying that the hardware is cost is not what you think. When I bought my DVD player 7 years ago, it cost $1000, now you can buy a better one for $125. Is that because Sony is losing money on the player to sell movies?

Of course costs go down over time...that's not the point. $300 was an example. The idea is that the cost is higher than you think...because these boxes have no use other than for this purpose. It's not like in a computer where there are broad ranges of things you can do with a harddrive. Those particular combination of products aren't good for anything else. That's why they started making their own...to save on costs of hardware because they were getting gauged. And they've cut it down quite a bit, but their hardware costs are still reflected in the subscription costs (call and ask them).

By the way, I'm a happy TiVo user.

[DFranch]

When I bought my DVD player 7 years ago, it cost $1000, now you can buy a better one for $125. Is that because Sony is losing money on the player to sell movies?

falchulk, I think you just made our point for us. TiVo sells the unit at a loss to make money on the subscription, just like in your Sony example.

I love my Tivo too. A couple of years ago I would have happily bought another, but I was not paying $12.95 a month for each unit. Im pretty sure that TiVo lost money on every unit produced prior to the series 2 units, and was only breaking even initially on the series2 units. I'm sure they are probably making a profit on the units by now. Which means that they are just soaking its customers on the EPG data.

[mbrown3]

Originally posted by DFranch
I'm sure they are probably making a profit on the units by now. Which means that they are just soaking its customers on the EPG data.

And recouping the money they have lost on hardware in the past.

[jominor]

Originally posted by falchulk
Not true. Licensing fees for the guide data is expensive.

If you listen to that Leo Porte(?) interview, I believe that Dan says that you do pay for EPG when you purchase Sage. It's just part of the price tag, but Sage's overhead is very low.

[Fluffdaddy]

No...To monthly EPG fees small or large. I would Bail for something else.



I would be happy to pay Frey Technologies for upgrades like SageTv 1.4 to SageTV 2.0. Free upgrades is a Bad idea business wise

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally posted by DFranch

I love my Tivo too. A couple of years ago I would have happily bought another, but I was not paying $12.95 a month for each unit. .

BTW: Tivo is now $6.95 for the 2nd unit on the same account.
Replaytv is still full price for other units on the same account