Author: Michael

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WeaKnees News

New Configurator for the DirecTV TiVo Units

As we transition from our almost-depleted stock of new DirecTV R10 TiVo DVRs, we’re starting in on our stock of refurbished units. Largely, these are old customer returns for non-defective reasons (meaning customers didn’t want them). They’ve been tested, and our internal testing is showing them to be rock-solid.

So these units present us a bunch of challenges. Do people want them bare, or with drives? Are they replacing old units that already have a card, or do the customers need access cards? Does the customer have a remote from an older unit?

To make these units work for everyone, we’ve redesigned our DirecTV TiVo page. Now you can choose what you want exactly, and only pay for what you need. So far, customers seem to be extremely happy with the flexibility.

One final note: as our R10 stock depletes, so does our HR10 stock. If you’re looking for an HR10, get one soon! We won’t have them much longer.

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Wild Capacity Variations on the TiVo Series3?

If you’re reading the blog, you surely know that at WeaKnees, we’re all about TiVo capacity. So we keep a close eye on the amounts of space in the units that we come across.

Therefore, we were a little surprised to see what was coming through on each new delivery of TiVo Series3 units here.

We expected this, and we got it:

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Then we saw some of these:

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Then, looking back at the older ones we found these, with stickers:

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Peel the sticker back and get this:

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(OK – so I’m no Thomas Hawk with the pictures.)

Anyway, despite the crazy numbers, of course these all have the same Western Digital 250 GB drive in them. Not adequate at all, as far as we’re concerned. A Seagate 750 GB drive is a much better choice . . .

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Not Exactly News: TiVo Loses Money

You’ve probably seen reports of TiVo’s call yesterday – they lost money again, and expect to lose more. Not too surprising at this point.

A few days before, they reported that they will begin appending commercials to the end of recorded shows, charging the advertisers. So at least they’re focused on getting more revenue in.

They did say that they have increased monthly receipts per customer, and they are increasing the numbers of standalone users (their most profitable), so there are some bright points. But how long can they sustain the losses?

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Info on the Forums

Two new pages full of info over on the WeaKnees TiVo Forums:

TiVo Power Supply Problems FAQ

TiVo Season Pass tips: Any problems with your Season Passes? Fix them with this info.

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TiVo News

TiVo’s Press Releases

TiVo has two new press releases out today.

The first is here. It basically means that more types of video from the internet can now be converted and sent to broadband TiVos from a PC so that you can watch internet video on your TiVo instead of your computer. Definitely a step forward- but really a pretty small one.

The next press release regards sharing your own home videos, and this one is here. This is a bit of Web 2.0 in your TiVo – content sharing. You create your own “channel” of slides or video and then give the code to others, and others can share them. So your parents can see your kids home movies on their TiVo. Frankly, it’s a lot like posting a video to the web, and then giving someone the web page address, but it happens, on the viewer side, on the TV. Seems incremental, but, to me, this is the big change.

TiVo has needed to harness the “network effect” for years, and this second feature is one of the first signs of it. The network effect is the idea that hardware or software becomes important to have because others have it, and people need compatibility essentially. Windows as a network effect – if applications exist only on Windows, then people need to get Windows machines. Once upon a time, files weren’t easily translatable to other OSes, so in the business world, if you wanted to communicate, you needed Windows. So here the idea is, you have these super-cute grandkids out there, across the country. They have a TiVo. Wanna see them? Gotta get a TiVo. It gives people a reason to get a TiVo – the reason being compatibility.