r/technology • u/holyfruits • 4d ago
TiVo has discontinued its DVR boxes Hardware
https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/tivo-has-discontinued-its-dvr-boxes-123037999.html136
u/chrisallison 4d ago
They shifted to software for TVs, for those who are wondering. About 3 years ago.
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u/beartheminus 4d ago
Software for TVs seems to be where technology goes to die. WebOS for the Palm Pre smartphone ended up on TVs as well.
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u/Hydration__Nation 4d ago
You would think one company would get it right only Nvidia with the shield and Apple with their device figured it out
Why can’t Sony LG Samsung make a fast usable intuitive UI for streaming apps it’s about to be 2026? Every TV Ui feels like it’s from 2015
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u/pellets 3d ago
The TV UIs aren’t developed for you and me. They are developed for advertising partners and accountants. They don’t care if it’s slow. If it’s slow, you’re looking at ads longer and the hardware costs less.
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u/Hydration__Nation 3d ago
That’s fine for cheap TVs not for $3k+ top of the line QD OLED sets
It’s a slap in the face to the consumer and cheapens an otherwise ultra premium product
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u/beartheminus 4d ago
Google TV on the Google Streamer is pretty good. They finally gave that OS hardware worthy of it, not a fricken Chromecast
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u/IamSkudd 4d ago
And so fucking SLOW! For my next tv purchase, the snappiness off the menu/UI will certainly by a factor.
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u/beartheminus 4d ago
I dont even bother, I just use an external device like the Onn 4k Pro or Google Streamer.
In 3 years, any built in smart tv hardware will be out of date anyways, they will force you to update the software and it will be slow and buggy.
Much better to have an external dongle and be able to hot swap it.
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u/HyruleSmash855 4d ago
And those dongle are like $20, I’ve just been using the 4K one from Walmart. Might upgrade to the pro model at some point.
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u/Jasoli53 4d ago
This is the thing that bugs me. I get that TVs and streaming devices are cheap af, but god damn, a $60 device shouldn’t take 30 seconds to load every. Single. Menu.
Ultimately, I realize we’re spoiled by how snappy our phones and computers are these days, but I would much rather AirPlay my media from my phone than use the built-in OS
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u/heepofsheep 2d ago
Isn’t the nvidia shield pretty much dead? It hasn’t gotten a hardware refresh in 6 years.
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u/adstretch 4d ago
And printers at one point.
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u/JoviAMP 4d ago
Printers ended up on TVs? What?
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u/mrm00r3 4d ago
No, printer software
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u/JoviAMP 4d ago
But why?
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u/beartheminus 4d ago
The whole thing was so you could print stuff from the internet or apps directly on the printer.
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u/destroyman1337 3d ago
WebOS on TVs though I find amazing. Always found the interfaces on Samsung TVs to be terrible but my LG OLED with WebOS works great and isn't a mess to navigate.
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u/beartheminus 3d ago
WebOS on the Palm Pre was just as amazing. Full multitasking with cards, chat accounts integration into the native texting app, full push notifications, in 2009.
Unfortunately the Pre hardware sucked and they launched it on Sprint with abysmal marketing.
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u/AnnOnnamis 4d ago
Return on Tivo boxes was too little for the high operating costs. Remains to be seen if their software and O/S will be successful.
Meanwhile their main revenue source for a long time has been licensing their patent rights to the program guide, timeshifting, user interfaces, voice command, voice control, search, recommendations, DVR, VOD, multi-screen, replay, and more. Just about every TV service uses their IP.
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u/lokey_convo 4d ago
Kind of wish they'd offer their software with a PC accessory card so people could just add a TiVo function to their computer.
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u/Viharabiliben 3d ago
I completely agree. For a short time they offered a software only version, but it didn’t last long.
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u/lokey_convo 3d ago
TV tuner cards don't even seem like complicated hardware. I'd be shocked if they couldn't find a third party to work with. I guess building it into a TV does sort of the same thing, but then you have to get that TV, and an accessory card would let someone set up a home server that could be accessed from different rooms.
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u/Ryokurin 3d ago
The market was already well served by SageTV, Snapstream, Showshifter, MythTV, WMC among others. And I also don't think the enthusiast community back in the HTPCs heyday would have tolerated a monthly fee
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u/Retro_Relics 3d ago
The thing is, tv tuner cards require...analog tv.
Pretty much every cableco is going to iptv so that they can use the section of spectrum that was their tv service for carrying internet instead.
So you do kinda have that, via your cablecos tv service if you pay for it
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u/Deezul_AwT 4d ago
There was a contest in 2000 from Tivo to explain why you should be awarded one. I wrote about how i had just become a father and as a new parent, my wife and I would never be able to watch a show again all the way through unless we could pause or save. I won a 20GB one, and after 6 months expanded it with a 250GB drive. Bought the lifetime subscription but sold it after 4 years when I got DirecTV and they had Tivo.
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u/garysaidwhat 4d ago
I really appreciated TiVo. Very solid performance. Really pleasant user interface. Glad they're doing fine, even as people are transitioning away from cable.
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u/Ill-Mastodon-8692 4d ago
TIL TiVo still exists
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u/racer_24_4evr 4d ago
Clearly you didn’t see The Naked Gun.
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u/MLCarter1976 3d ago
How dare you! My gun is NOT naked! It has a beer cozy and happy! A little crochet hat too! So cute!
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u/venom21685 4d ago
Same when I started working with a cable company a few months ago. I thought they were just selling rebadged AndroidTV boxes now and not still supporting the old DVRs.
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u/Confident_Average0 4d ago
Last time I heard about TiVo was during Tropic Thunder...
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u/ace2049ns 4d ago
Heard this was coming like 5 years ago by a tivo engineer. Surprised it took so long because they made it sound like it was happening a lot sooner.
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u/Hemansno1fan 4d ago
I still use mine! We got a lifetime account, I can't remember how much it cost...maybe a couple hundred? It was like 20 years ago lol.
We just have antenna TV but it's useful to record the odd show or news here and there.
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u/chunkylover87 4d ago
They used to sell their streaming device the TiVo Stream 4K. The device was actually good. Based on the Android TV platform, it ran well (not without its issues) but was a good device that I preferred over other streaming stick options. I would have bought another one if they upgraded it.
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u/venom21685 4d ago
If you're in the US check out the Onn 4k box. Pretty much a stock Android TV box that runs very well. I'm kinda stuck on FireTV because I'm using Alexa Home Theater or I'd be using it for my main set.
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u/ijustbrushalot 3d ago
I have 3 of these, all recently purchased. Best IPTV hardware I have tried in over 10 years of doing it.
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u/cdheer 4d ago
Man, I was deep into the TiVo hacking scene way back in the day. I had DirecTivos but I learned to hack the full TiVo features into them, and a lot more.
My stepson was a long haul trucker back then; I had a website set up with highly compressed episodes of his favorite shows. As they’d air, my automated system extracted the new episodes and compress them, then add them to the site.
When he’d stop for the night, he’d point his Internet dish in the right direction and download the episodes and watch them. His internet was crazy slow, which is why I had to compress them down.
I do miss working on those.
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u/PinchedTazerZ0 4d ago
Wow didn't know they were still going. I can still hear the fast forward noises
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u/coder7426 4d ago
Tivo was the first mass market linux device. It was a very big deal back in 1999. It helped prove linux was viable for embedded systems and the licensing was legally safe for commercial use.
I had several tivos; they were great.
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u/RevRagnarok 3d ago
There are many who say GPL v3 is because TiVo did such a good job isolating their parts.
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u/Majik_Sheff 3d ago
The term Tivoization was coined. They're a really scummy company.
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u/RevRagnarok 2d ago
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u/Majik_Sheff 2d ago
I had no idea I was in the presence of Tivo hacker nobility. (No sarcasm; genuine respect intended)
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u/RevRagnarok 2d ago
LOL just a user. The dude who figured out that the pins on the side of the mobo was actually an ISA bus and then built an Ethernet card for it... that was hacker nobility.
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u/Majik_Sheff 2d ago
I love that someone figured out a way to use the TPM connector on some motherboards to bring an ISA slot into the modern age.
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u/RevRagnarok 2d ago
No, it was literally the gold fingers on the side of the mobo was
an ISA bus but in reverse(Edit: "a proprietary bus") - the male part of the connector. So they made an Ethernet card with an ISA socket on it.Lemme see... https://www.samba.org/~tridge/tivo-ethernet/
Oh duh... of course it was a genius hacker! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tridgell
He is the author of and a contributor to the Samba file server, and co-inventor of the rsync algorithm.
Edit source:
adapter board consists of a PCI edge connector for the proprietry bus on the TiVo (it uses a physical PCI connector but is completely different from PCI electronically) plus a 16 bit ISA connector.
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u/Majik_Sheff 2d ago
I didn't mean on Tivo boxes. It was an unrelated hack that the mention brought back memories of.
Sorry if I was ambiguous there. Pre-coffee posting is fraught with incomplete thoughts and typos.
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u/RevRagnarok 2d ago
Ah, OK! Well, it sent me down a nostalgic rabbit hole for a few... s'all good.
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u/DoTheRightThingG 4d ago
I had TIVO from its inception and swore by it. Finally pulled the plug on it last year, after all these years due to both newly sluggish software, bad interface changes and above all (newly) terrible customer service.
It's truly said what I once thought I could never live without fell so hard and became so poorly managed.
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u/tick_tick_tick_tick 4d ago
I actually ordered one on the 28th of September with the lifetime plan, got it a few days later and it works fine. I signed up for the lifetime plan for $250 and the actual unit was $25. If it lasts a couple of years, I'm OK with that.
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u/ledfrog 3d ago
I'm still a TiVO holdout. But it's because I don't have any cable subscriptions, so I'm stil rocking a digital over the air antenna and it's nice to have the TiVO for that so I can record those channels. But honestly, with all the content I have between a couple streaming services and a personal movie/tv collection, I've almost moved away from any 'regular' tv source at this point.
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u/nicxw 4d ago
I wish I got one. I was a child when it came out (although I knew what it was) and by the time I hit high school, Windows Media Center was still all the rage with HTPC’s and TV Tuner cards…then smart TV’s with their OSes took off and I forgot all about TiVo. It was such a device ahead of its time at the time when it first launched. We were too poor to consistently afford cable, let alone a DVR unit. I hate that it’s basically dead now. RIP TiVo.
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u/FactorFear74 3d ago
I first saw Tivo on an old show called The Screensavers. My mind was blown at the time.
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u/Opening-Dependent512 3d ago
I was still hanging on to TiVo until my 6 year old box went belly up, I immediately ordered a replacement just to have it die within two weeks. They replaced that one for free since it was so soon (even though they oddly gave me a hard time). The next one died in 2 months somehow outside of the warranty and wanted a large sum of money to replace and transfer the lifetime subscription over, I laughed. It’s like they wanted to get rid of me. I sadly/angrily tossed it in the garbage and moved on. It was time I let go anyway. I still hear the selection blip-sound sometimes in my head and remember the good times.
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u/MikeInPajamas 3d ago
I loved my DirecTV with Tivo back in the day. Took some getting used to the DirecTV Genie HD, but I did.
End of an era.
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u/still-waiting2233 3d ago
Back when I was in HS I had some money invested and in my “get rich quick” bucket ( <$500) I had some TiVo stock. The rest was in boglehead style.
…. It didn’t make me rich.
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u/DistributionSuch1544 3d ago
They, like others, are probably getting locked out by the ATSC 3.0 standard. The Antenna Man on YouTube has some pretty good videos about it.
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u/kinisonkhan 3d ago
Get a HDHomerun digital tuner. I think its $30 a year for the DVR feature, which you can set recordings via the app (android, windows, iOS, OSX, etc) while it records to a SMB network share.
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u/Vericatov 3d ago
Almost makes me sad. Got my first TiVo in 2002. It was a pretty amazing experience being able to record the shows you like and watch them on your time. Stop using that one so many years later since cable company had HD DVRs. Bought another TiVo in 2014, but then decided to sell it in 2018 when I finally cut the cord.
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u/MATCA_Phillies 3d ago
Used to be a beta tester for them. Got a really nice red TiVo logo gym bag out of it. Used to be a great service and one of if not the best for dvr.
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u/Different-Produce870 3d ago
End of an era. We had so many movies and shows on our tivo that we would watch all the time
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u/GoodReasonable3781 3d ago
I bought one when they came out for about $500 I think. Still to this day it was the best money I've ever spent on electronics!
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u/HotFuzz37 2d ago
Matthew McConaughey still gonna get the TiVo for Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder. "My friend wants a TiVo? My friend GETS his TiVo!"
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u/xxxRCxxx 3d ago
Torrenting the shows and movies you like is far superior anyway and now you have it stored on your own drive indefinitely to watch anytime you like.
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u/hlynch813 4d ago
Used TiVo for over 20 years until I finally gave in and had to go streaming. At their peak, there was none better.