TiVo Tests Running Pre-Roll Ads Before DVR Recordings (theverge.com) 46
As noted by Zatz Not Funny, TiVo is testing pre-roll video ads that start playing when customers view one of their recordings. The Verge reports: The ad spots are noticeably low-res and worse quality than the DVR'd content that starts playing afterward, according to one TiVo owner who has been served spots for Amazon, Keurig, and Toyota. It sounds like the users can fast-forward through the ads, but doing so is "not that seamless."
There are several potential reasons for TiVo ramping up advertising. Maybe the company plans to offer an ad-supported subscription with lower (or no) monthly fees compared to what regular customers are paying (similar to Amazon's Kindle devices with ads). No one who has paid for a lifetime subscription or even a monthly plan will be pleased to see pre-roll ads. TiVo also handles DVR functionality for many midsized and international cable providers. Squeezing in ads wherever possible could be something that those companies are pushing for as more of their customers spend increased time streaming shows and movies elsewhere.
There are several potential reasons for TiVo ramping up advertising. Maybe the company plans to offer an ad-supported subscription with lower (or no) monthly fees compared to what regular customers are paying (similar to Amazon's Kindle devices with ads). No one who has paid for a lifetime subscription or even a monthly plan will be pleased to see pre-roll ads. TiVo also handles DVR functionality for many midsized and international cable providers. Squeezing in ads wherever possible could be something that those companies are pushing for as more of their customers spend increased time streaming shows and movies elsewhere.
Because hating people who bought your product (Score:5, Insightful)
Is a great way to get repeat business
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Especially as TiVo's essential patents on a time-shifting DVR start to expire.
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I was big into the tivo hacking scene back in the day before they locked it down, but IMO, tivo stopped being relevant about 8 years ago when while streaming boxes became mainstream. At that time, it decided to permanently marry its fate to cable television rather than expand harder into lightweight/nimble streaming boxes, it wanted to continue with its bloated, convoluted, slow POS software, where Roku and Amazon totally owned them, which means tivo is going to sink right along with the cable ship. Of cour
Re:Because hating people who bought your product (Score:5, Insightful)
They're a publicly traded company.
Unfortunately, that means they aren't allowed to just make money by making things that people will buy for a reasonable profit.
No - instead, they have to estimate that they will make MORE money each year, and then suitably match or beat those 'expectations' or else suffer greatly, from having embarrassed board members.
It's a truly stupid way of doing business - but it is how our system works - always pushing towards the same corruption that will destroy every company that doesn't find a way to manipulate the market itself to provide a fitting illusion of growth across time.
Companies start out with good ideas that customers like... then always are twisted after going public, to nickel and dime every aspect of their product - even if it doesn't make them money from making the product horrible, it makes board members happy to imagine it will multiply profit.
Ryan Fenton
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Unfortunately, that means they aren't allowed to just make money by making things that people will buy for a reasonable profit.
If that's true, then grocery stores wouldn't ever be publicly traded. That entire industry makes razor thin margins. So do companies that make TVs. Some products that grocery stores sell, like bread, are sold at a loss, and it's not exactly a loss leader either, it's the kind of thing that if they don't carry, then it's hard to get foot traffic.
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Re:Because hating people who bought your product (Score:4, Informative)
People who get lifetime subscriptions are seen as leeches at this point. Why not annoy them enough to abandon the platform? They've already paid their money, so if they go away, it's all gravy. No support, no bandwidth, no complaints.
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They materially changed the nature of the product, so you're going to see lawsuits from people seeking a refund of their lifetime membership fee. Even if they fall it will cost TiVo money.
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I'm sure they have some legal argument why they've already earned that money, such as "$99 would have bought you three years, you got three years, there is nothing left to refund". "Lifetime" is pure marketing speak. Failing that, they could make the scummy move of "replacing" the service with a slightly different one, then deprecating the original and ending its "lifetime".
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If they already paid for a lifetime subscription to Tivo, then that business was not going to repeat anyway.
Or so was probably the reasoning of the Tivo execs.
Re: Because hating people who bought your product (Score:1)
Woohoo, still on a series 2! (Score:3)
There was a period when I had cable, and it'd turn to random channels in the middle of the night and record ads to try to show me, but I'm using it for over the air now (with a D2A box).
I guess that's one less reason to update to a modern TiVo. (that and having to give up the DVD burner ... not that I've used it at least a year, but it's been a nice feature to have, and they haven't made them in 10+ years)
Re: Tivo meet TVH (Score:2)
Those were some interesting times. I've still got two prom modded TivoHDs, both with a lifetime sub, sitting in my closet collecting dust. The rubber feet have rotted and cracked off the last time I moved with them. The chances of me using them again are pretty much nill because cable sucks so damn bad, I can't even watch it anymore. I even have a cable subscription still because it actually lowers the total cost of my bill for symmetric gig service with crappy Cox, even though I've literally shut off the m
This is a slippery slope TiVo. (Score:4, Interesting)
If they slide too far I'll have to bite the bullet and go back to DIY and build another MythTV system.
I had a 3-tuner MythTV system for about 7 years, that I built myself, and was very happy with it -- watching live TV on my actual TV, recorded shows in analog SD on the MythTV box (it's just TV) and streaming Amazon Prime via my Blu-ray player -- until TV went digital only. I didn't want to have to deal with upgrading the system and interfacing it with an external SiliconDust/CableCard box, especially as my ISP/cable provider Cox apparently has a reputation for randomly enforcing/ignoring the Copy Control bits within and among different markets. In any case, I probably still won't consider a Cable Co DVR as they're generally crap -- yes, you too Contour.
Currently, I have a 4-tuner, 1TB TiVo Bolt and am pretty happy with it. It streams Amazon well. Haven't "upgraded" the interface to their "New Experience" and don't ever plan to; the current/legacy interface fine.
Tivo is no longer compelling (Score:2)
I actually switched from DirecTV to the horrible evil cable company because I wanted to stay with a tivo--mine had both lost both tuners, and DirecTV was only pushing their own horrific and painful DVRs at the time.
The rep was kind of startled to be given "your DVRs suck" as a reason for leaving after more than ten years, and then tried lying and claiming that their newer model was tivo based . . .
But the interface on the Roamio is just no match for what was so wonderful about the earlier models. Inst
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We never left MythTV. 14 years and counting. Commericial elimination and the ability to watch recordings from anywhere on multiple devices was great.
The only issue is the cable companies. I've had to purchase a TV antenna because following Comcast's lead RCN/Astound encrypted the local TV station QAM multicast channels. Then they turned off Firewire that provided non-degraded digital content to Myth and then claimed they didn't know what Firewire was. So service quality continued to decline to unusable exc
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I have no points today. Mod parent up.
I've been with MythTV for 15 years and also went the OTA route when the local cable company started, needlessly, encrypting everything, even at the lowest tier where it was pointless.
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I've been with MythTV for 15 years and also went the OTA route when the local cable company started, needlessly, encrypting everything, even at the lowest tier where it was pointless.
MythTV should work with an external Silicondust HDHomeRun Prime [mythtv.org] box (w/a CableCard) for channels / broadcasts that are *not* copy protected -- i.e., flagged Copy Freely:
Full support of CableCARD requires that every device and software in the recording chain be certified as enforcing the copy protection mandated by the software. For insurmountable technical reasons, MythTV cannot comply with this. Because of this, the HDHomeRun Prime will only allow MythTV access to those shows that are not copy protected. These copy freely shows may be encrypted and inaccessible to a standard QAM tuner, but will be decrypted and made available through the HDHomeRun Prime. These are the same shows that can presently be accessed through firewire capture from a cable box.
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I subscribed to the lowest tier, which was local channels. Going OTA was ultimately cheaper.
There was no clearly customer-friendly reason to encrypt the local channels - they were available in _every_ tier of service. The only reason that makes sense is lock-in to renting _something_ from the cable company.
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We never left MythTV. 14 years and counting. ... The only issue is the cable companies. I've had to purchase a TV antenna because following Comcast's lead RCN/Astound encrypted the local TV station QAM multicast channels. Then they turned off Firewire that provided non-degraded digital content to Myth and then claimed they didn't know what Firewire was.
MythTV should work with an external Silicondust HDHomeRun Prime [mythtv.org] box (w/a CableCard) for channels / broadcasts that are *not* copy protected -- i.e., flagged Copy Freely:
Full support of CableCARD requires that every device and software in the recording chain be certified as enforcing the copy protection mandated by the software. For insurmountable technical reasons, MythTV cannot comply with this. Because of this, the HDHomeRun Prime will only allow MythTV access to those shows that are not copy protected. These copy freely shows may be encrypted and inaccessible to a standard QAM tuner, but will be decrypted and made available through the HDHomeRun Prime. These are the same shows that can presently be accessed through firewire capture from a cable box.
Today I learned.. (Score:2)
..wait, people still use TiVos?
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We still have them. We bought them outright with the lifetime subscription to eliminate equipment rental fees.
And no, we don't do the streaming. For sports, streaming just doesn't cut it at all.
What part (Score:4, Informative)
What part of "people don't want to see your fucking ads" wasn't clear?
Flamebait? (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong this would piss me off. Inserting commercials into my grandfathered in DVR?
But how many people use TiVo? There might be like 42 dudes out there still holding out.
6.8 million at most.
Anyone here you TiVo? Used in in the last 5 years? Know anyone who has?
"Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest. How do you feel?
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I feel fine, with a Tivo and two satellite minis.
The ironic thing about the whole article is that new TiVO's can automatically fast forward through commercials on most DVR'd programs. I guess this means that TiVO has no objection to commercials; they just want to monetize them for themselves.
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2 Tivos on antenna, 4TB each. One used to watch recordings, stream Netflix and Amazon. Second one is connected to a Sling for travel online watching. Also using both Tivos to stream recordings to PC's, Apple and Android devices (different family members have different devices). If Tivo forces ads, I will dump them in a garbage (no, I don't have the time or patience to worry about suing or whatever crusade - life is too short).
How is TiVo still a thing? (Score:2)
Literally every cable/satellite/IPTV box that your television service provider sells/rents/provides has built-in DVR functionality already. Why the heck would you pay TiVo a monthly subscription fee for something that you're already getting for free from your television service provider? Well, not free, but you need a cable/satellite/IPTV box anyway, unless you've got OTA, in which case you can get DVR functionality for free on a PC with a tuner, or via an HDMI tuner.
Is this just a Canadian thing? Is this n
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With any newer TiVo you get a cablecard and the TiVo box acts as your cable box. Comes out to about the same cost, and we prefer the TiVo interface over the cable company's attempt at ruining our eyes. We will be reviewing our choice if TiVo starts streaming ads.
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We have a TiVo box that I bought outright, and we have no Comcast equipment rental fees. The *only* thing we have from Comcast is the cablecard.
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This is what tivoization brings (Score:1)
Testing me (Score:2)
That's nice, because I've also been testing not having TiVo, and also muting my TV, and looking at my phone or at a wall while thinking about my life until ads are finished.
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I love this game. Let's list alternative things I could do other than the thing I want to do right now.
Yeah. That's gonna work. (Score:3)
Dear ad companies. I know you don't employ humans, but have you never bothered to ponder for a moment what humans are like? If anything, they're impatient. Especially when they know they're about to get something they want. Have you ever seen a kid that is about to be let into the room with the presents on Christmas eve? Have you ever tried to distract such a kid with something? No chance. You could have a puppy jumping out of a chocolate cake that blows fireworks out of its ass and the kid wouldn't even look and keep his eyes glued at the door that separates him from the Christmas presents.
Now ponder how much eyeball the average viewer waiting for his movie to start has for the ad you try to force him to sit through.
Didn't YouTube teach you anything? The only thing the average YouTube user sees during your ad is the lower right corner where the seconds tick down to when he can skip it.
Cat (Score:2)
What do they mean by "tivo runs ads before their recordings"? Your recordings or content they provide?
If before content I record myself, bye.
Speaking as a long-time TiVo user: (Score:2)
If TiVo started doing shit like this, that would be the end of my having and using TiVo.
It would also spell the end of my watching television entirely. I dumped cable a long, long time ago now (more than 10 years), am on an antenna, and I don't do 'streaming' anything, nor would I want to.
Therefore, MEMO TO TiVo: Don't fuck up what's been a great product and service by pulling a Microsof
Fuck TiVo (Score:2)
Glad I never bought their crap. (Score:1)
This is exactly what I worried about happening anytime I considered buying their overpriced crap. That even after shelling out more money than they're worth, and paying a monthly fee...that they'd decide the one feature I cared about (avoiding ads) was too good to give to me.