Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

For months and months and months I've been posting that Tivo was
doomed without a viable HD cable product.

Ramsay supposedly backs out of a Comcast deal at the last minute
and pig headedly insists Tivo doesn't need cable.

All you Tivo Rumpswabs in this group parroted the Ramsey line that
Tivo was so wonderful it didn't need cable.

After the cable deal fell though I predicted that TIVO would not
exists in it's current form within 6 months of the NDS product hitting
the market.

Apparently Ramsay read my posts and got scared shitless. After a lame
quarterly "earnings" call where he was shown for the boob that he is
by investors everywhere the cable deal is mysteriously back on the
table.

And with my favorite cable company no less. One that I've been saying
for months has been on the cutting edge of technology and doing an
excellent job providing service.

You dillweeds scoffed at Comcast. I'm sure now you'll be singing a
different tune.

Welcome to the club.

Pretty much all the things I've been saying for months needed to
happen have happened. Ramsey blinked and cut a deal with Comcast,
the best cable company out there.

Good for him.

As Clint Eastwood once said a man's got to know his limitations.
Ramsey now knows that he could not run a succesfull company
on his own (just as I've been saying) and he's now worshiping at the
altar of Comcast.

I'll have another post soon asking for predictions from all you
geniuses. Feel free to not participate, I'll understand your need
to not get embarrased again with your wrongheaded and stupid
analysis.

Sean

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

LOLOLOLOL

Now THAT'S a Squirm!!

Sean wrote:

>For months and months and months I've been posting that Tivo was
>doomed without a viable HD cable product.
>
>Ramsay supposedly backs out of a Comcast deal at the last minute
>and pig headedly insists Tivo doesn't need cable.
>
>All you Tivo Rumpswabs in this group parroted the Ramsey line that
>Tivo was so wonderful it didn't need cable.
>
>
>

--
Ric Seyler

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"Sean" <none> wrote in message
news:6c9e31pvavnhb6hsgoifnfq4eefcqe261i@4ax.com...
> For months and months and months I've been posting that Tivo was
> doomed without a viable HD cable product.
>

Just be glad you get some real software on your dvr now. If only Cox would
ditch the shitty SA software and go with Tivo I might consider getting their
dvr.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

> Just be glad you get some real software on your dvr now. If only Cox would
> ditch the shitty SA software and go with Tivo I might consider getting their
> dvr.

WORD!!!!

Can we mass forward this comment to cox please!?

Randy S.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

> And with my favorite cable company no less. One that I've been saying
> for months has been on the cutting edge of technology and doing an
> excellent job providing service.

Oh, I just can't resist this . . .

Sean, you've been saying for months now that your beloved Comcast's DVR
is better than Tivo's DVR offerings, and that both the hardware and
software are an improvement to that of Tivo's DVRs. If this is true,
then why does Comcast want to make a deal with Tivo? Don't they already
have a better product themselves?

There are only 2 possible responses here:

- Yes, Comcast's software is better and Comcast is pissing away money
and isn't as brilliant as I say they are.

- No, Comcast's software isn't better (note: I will fully grant, and
always have, that their hardware is more advanced), and I was a complete
idiot for insisting all along that it was.

Randy S.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Sean <none> shaped the electrons to say:
>For months and months and months I've been posting that Tivo was
>doomed without a viable HD cable product.

And, if the announced timelines hold, they'll still have their own HD
cable box out before the Comcast software release.

>All you Tivo Rumpswabs in this group parroted the Ramsey line that
>Tivo was so wonderful it didn't need cable.

And I say that's still true. As I just said in another post 'nice to
have' or 'good for business' != 'need'.

This deal certainly changes the balance, and probably the direction of
the company to a degree, but that doesn't mean it was the only viable
path.

>And with my favorite cable company no less. One that I've been saying
>for months has been on the cutting edge of technology and doing an
>excellent job providing service.

Doing such an excellent job, and with such magnificent software, that
they're willing to pay to replace it with TiVo's software and service.

Sean, do we really need to dig up your countless posts where you say
TiVo's software is old and out of date and dead? Nice of you to duck
the whole issue of your favorite cable company doing a deal with a
'Dead Company Walking' and talking about how great their software is
and how it will be a gain for their customers to have TiVo.

You look like a complete ass... as usual.

>You dillweeds scoffed at Comcast. I'm sure now you'll be singing a
>different tune.

Who scoffed at Comcast? Several of us have scoffed at te software
used on most cable company DVRs. I guess we were right, Comcast seems
to agree with us.

I knew you'd try to pretend you never slammed TiVos software and
service, kind of embarassing for your 'favorite cable company' to
shove your words back down your throat, eh Sean?

I was looking forward to your reaction, just to see how low you'd sink
- and you performed as expected.

-MZ, RHCE #806199299900541, ex-CISSP #3762
--
<URL:mailto:megazoneatmegazone.org> Gweep, Discordian, Author, Engineer, me.
"A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men" 508-755-4098
<URL:http://www.megazone.org/> <URL:http://www.eyrie-productions.com/> Eris

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

> Sean, do we really need to dig up your countless posts where you say
> TiVo's software is old and out of date and dead? Nice of you to duck
> the whole issue of your favorite cable company doing a deal with a
> 'Dead Company Walking' and talking about how great their software is
> and how it will be a gain for their customers to have TiVo.

LOL! Seems we were thinking along the same lines here ;-)

Randy S.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"Randy S." <rswittno@spamgmail.com> shaped the electrons to say:
>LOL! Seems we were thinking along the same lines here ;-)

I know Sean won't admit it - he probably won't even acknowledge it -
he can't do more than try to think of weak insults based off a play on
our names, or calling us 'rumpswabs', as if it were clever.

I find him amusing in the same way I might a trained monkey. You can
make him dance just by winding him up - he's like a toy. That's the
only reason I bother replying to him now and then, just to make him
spit and sputter and to see how much cognitive dissonance he can cram
into one post. :-)

-MZ, RHCE #806199299900541, ex-CISSP #3762
--
<URL:mailto:megazoneatmegazone.org> Gweep, Discordian, Author, Engineer, me.
"A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men" 508-755-4098
<URL:http://www.megazone.org/> <URL:http://www.eyrie-productions.com/> Eris

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Sean <none> wrote in news:5nmg31l35v6mfpinv4vaoufu8s52hdcur8@4ax.com:

> No question the brand is worth something.
>
> And the patents are too.
>
> Not having to deal with potential ankle biting patent lawsuits is
> enough of a reason to toss Tivo a bone.
>
> The brand definitely has value, it's become a verb. Even if the
> reality is that stand alone Tivo's were long ago passed technology
> wise by cable dvrs.

I've seen less squirming from worms on the hook. So we've gone from
'worthless' to 'worth something' eh? Rather than being "Dead Company
Walking", "the brand definitely has value".

This is really just delicious.

Sean - Dead Troll Walking

--
Minister of All Things Digital & Electronic, and Holder of Past Knowledge
stile99@email.com. Cabal# 24601-fnord | Sleep is irrelevant.
I speak for no one but myself, and |Caffeine will be assimilated.
no one else speaks for me. O- | Decaf is futile.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Attention Sean:
Whether you were right or whether you were wrong,who gives a rat's turd?
This circular argument of Tivo's viability is getting a little stale and
lame.....blah,blah,blah.....

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Sean wrote:
>
> And NO I"M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE $1K DIRECTV BOX.
> Cable you dillweeds.

And evidently you're also not talking about the free DirecTV boxes
which do almost everything you listed (except HD).

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Sean wrote:

> Apparently Ramsay read my posts and got scared shitless.

Boy, that *is* funny. Delusions of grandeur, no less.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, MegaZone wrote:

>> Used disk space indicator. According to you Tivo rumpswabs this
>> feature is either
>
> It would be nice to have, and I've said so, but such a minor thing
> isn't going to sway me. In my three years with TiVo it hasn't been
> something I've missed.

My belief is that TiVo did not include this feature, because they don't
want you to use the box that way.

The disk free indicator is something for the user to worry about. What
does the user do when the disk gets near full? Go through and delete the
suggestions, then shows you've already watched, the oldest shows you
haven't watched, and shows that you don't watch (you scheduled a season
pass for Alias but haven't watched it in 3 weeks...) This is what the
software does (more or less). (And shame on you for not watching Jennifer
Garner in all her spy-garb-wearing glory!)

Without the indicator, the TiVo has no limitations. It's a magical little
box that turns a finite disk into infinite capacity. The sleight of hand
is that it secretly rolls the least-desirable content off when it needs
space, but the audience doesn't see that. The point is, it does precisely
what you would do anyways...so why worry about it?

It's part of the experience that the TiVo company wants you to have. You
can drive your car, or be driven. There's no technical reason they
couldn't put some sort of indicator in the interface. The box certainly
knows when the disk is near full, since it pre-emptively deletes things to
make room for up-coming recordings. This missing feature is obviously not
an oversight by the designers - it was a conscious decision. I would bet
that this led to a very long, heated argument between some TiVo staff.
But abstracting the nitty-gritty from the end-user has been successful for
a number of companies.

<flamebait mode="I don't use either">Is TiVo the Mac of the DVR world, and
Concast's DVR is the Windows?</flamebait>

That said, I still think it should be a hidden option - like an S-P-S code
or something to enable it. IMHO, having the option is better than not
having the option. Hell, list it as "1Kb blocks used" in the system
information screen, so joe-user won't know what it is.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

> My belief is that TiVo did not include this feature, because they don't
> want you to use the box that way.

<snip>

I think you're explanation is an excellent one.

>
> <flamebait mode="I don't use either">Is TiVo the Mac of the DVR world,
> and Concast's DVR is the Windows?</flamebait>

As pertains to Tivo being more stable and a bit more expensive, then
perhaps. But it breaks down in other ways, such as Windows is typically
considered more flexible (though OS X has changed that a lot), whereas
Tivo is the more flexible option here. It's a worthwhile comparison though.

> That said, I still think it should be a hidden option - like an S-P-S
> code or something to enable it. IMHO, having the option is better than
> not having the option. Hell, list it as "1Kb blocks used" in the system
> information screen, so joe-user won't know what it is.

Wouldn't hurt, though I think the current hack is pretty simple.

Randy S.

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005, Randy S. wrote:

>> My belief is that TiVo did not include this feature, because they don't
>> want you to use the box that way.
>
> <snip>
>
> I think you're explanation is an excellent one.

Thanks, I was particularly proud of it

>> <flamebait mode="I don't use either">Is TiVo the Mac of the DVR world, and
>> Concast's DVR is the Windows?</flamebait>
>
> As pertains to Tivo being more stable and a bit more expensive, then perhaps.
> But it breaks down in other ways, such as Windows is typically considered
> more flexible (though OS X has changed that a lot), whereas Tivo is the more
> flexible option here. It's a worthwhile comparison though.

I was thinking more in terms of the philosophies of the companies. And
I'm not trying to start a Holy War (remember that I'm not a Mac or Windows
fanatic...) The way it looks to me is that Apple is much more focused on
creating an experience, where as Microsoft is, well, Microsoft. I guess
I'm thinking mostly of the interface - how the user uses the software.

When I think of Apple, I think of:
Consistency across the OS and all applications
(not just look, but buttons, menus, etc)
Expected behavior
Easy on the eyes

These seem to be important to both Apple and TiVo. I'm sure they are
important to MS too, but not important enough to make it into the final
product. When I think about MS, I just picture the Exchange
Administrator. Someone at MS thought that was a Good Idea.

Now to relate this to TiVo - I didn't have to page through the manual to
figure out the controls - I pushed the button that I would assume is the
right one, and more or less it was. And I'm not talking about "duh -
pause must be || and play must be >" But little details, like when I hit
the TiVo button on the remote during a program - if I'm near the end it
asks if I want to delete it or save it, and then returns me to the TiVo
menu. If I'm not near the end, it assumes (correctly) that I'm not done
watching it and doesn't even ask whether I want to delete it. This should
be an example of expected behavior - but I wasn't expecting it, because
we've been so abused by bad interfaces.

Why was there no CLI in MacOS prior to OS X? Because Apple didn't want to
detract from the Macintosh experience by having the user even think about
something as (relatively) complicated and difficult to learn as a DOS-like
CLI. I think this is the same reason TiVo doesn't have a free space
indicator. They don't want you to think *you* have to delete things to
free up space. Let the system handle it so you don't have to think about
it.

Why do the Win admins at work have to go and archive/delete the event logs
from the servers every week? MS' solution to the event logging growth was
to pop-up a little window telling you to do something about it when the
logs got "full". But this is completely contrary to what computers are
for. If the computer knows the logs are full, why make it the user's
problem? Just archive and clear them. 99% of the time this is what the
admin is going to do anyways, and since you're archiving them, it's a
non-destructive operation. For the other 1%, of course the action to take
should be configurable. But the default should be for the majority.

TiVo's job is to make TV watching easy and enjoyable. It's not about
taking control, time-shifting, or watching something multiple times,
transferring shows between devices. Those are features. The PHILOSOPHY
of TiVo is ease and enjoyment. And the TiVo designers knew that putting a
free space indicator in the interface would change the way that people use
the product. And that change wasn't using TiVo for what it is. Ideas
like "set it and forget it" and "self-managed" come to mind.

It's a hard notion to accept. At least, it was hard for me to accept the
first time I came across it in a programming project that I was working
on. The feature takes 5 minutes to write and adds value to the product.
But the value it adds doesn't nearly compensate for the value it takes
away from the self-managed aspect. The user only thinks they want to
manage the disk usage. But in reality, it not only takes away an
important reason for using the product in the first place, it also
highlights a finite resource, and both of these detract from the
experience.

So why do I still think it should be a hidden option,