TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO) was once the leader in the digital video recorders for TVs business. The cable companies have most of that market now and TiVo struggles to find a place in the consumer electronics world. In 2004, its shares traded above $12. They have never gotten back there and now change hands around $7.
So to give itself a legitimate place in the world, TiVo keeps coming up with new services. The latest one may be more useless than most. According to The Wall Street Journal, "TiVo Inc. and Nero AG of Germany are expected to announce Monday that they will be launching a package that turns a Windows PC into a TV recorder, just like a TiVo set-top box."
That would be the same PC that can get movies and TV shows from illegal file-sharing services. It would be the same PC that can download video from services like Hulu, and the same PC that allows consumers to get movies over IP from NetFlix (NASDAQ: NFLX).
The market for getting movies and TV shows onto PCs and portable devices is so crowded that even some of the largest content providers and consumer electronics firms may be pushed out of it.
TiVo is too small and too late to the game to have anything to offer.
Douglas A McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-29-2008 @ 10:06AM
andyg8180 said...
Well it puts competition on the All-In-Wonder/Media Center combo... With people seeing they can have a couple terrabytes as their DVR, instead of the smaller Tivo boxes, i dont understand how this can be bad...
Yeah the market is flooded, but people are always looking for more alternatives... Only problem i see is that subscription fee hasnt changed when Media Center can pull show times for free...
10-01-2008 @ 11:57AM
rich said...
Comparing TiVo to a cableco/sat DVR is like comparing a Yugo to a Lexus.
$99 for a complete TiVo HD DVR experience including a 1 year subscription ($199 if you need a PCTV tuner card.) and the ability to create a media server with almost unlimited recording space? What's not to like?
10-13-2008 @ 11:10AM
Matthew Thompson said...
This is quite a surprising statement - TiVo on PC expands TiVo's possible footprint from the US, Canada, Mexico and the smattering of ancient boxes in the UK to a possible worldwide offering.
The whole reason this is being launched has to be to expand the TiVo ofering outside the US and to grow the market.