I got in a mild argument with a friend while watching the Super Bowl a couple weeks back about the incredibly useful, but decidedly deceiving Tivo DVR system.
Joe's argument: "I love the Tiiiivvvo!"
My argument: "I cannot believe that Tivo is getting away with charging a for their devices as if they were providing a monthly service... for what is basically a glorified harddrive!"
Tivo: "You had me in your home another month, give me more money. *cough* [Shut up, Bjorn] *cough*"
What services are we charged for monthly? Telephones/Cell phones, cable/dish, Internet... And why do these services require periodic charges? Because they all stream their users information. These services, as overly-expensive as they can be, are still at least services. We pay for bandwidth, satellites, towers, maintenance, etc. every month, and sometimes nothing for the hardware.
Tivo knowingly has it backwards, somehow they've fooled everybody, and they must be making a killing. I bet Steve Jobs is wishing that he included a monthly service charge on all iPods for the, uh, service of storing TV shows, movies and music, just like the Tivo...
Here's the kicker. You can make your own DVR! Make Magazine has an article explaining how to do it here.
Unfortunately making your own DVR isn't exactly easy, or cheap. You actually have to be pretty resourceful mod an old PC to work like a Tivo. So whereas, NO, I don't think that people are stupid for just buying a Tivo over making their own; YES, I do think it sucks that Tivo has set this standard for DVR technology so that no competitor (who would easily have the resources to cheaply put together the described components in the Make article and mass market them) would ever come out with a piece of DVR hardware that required no monthly charge... In fact, I'm still shocked that this hasn't happened already, so I assume that there's some kind of bullshit licencing on DVR technology.
Anyone have an PC they want to get rid of?
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