The TiVo Paradox

Grok Headline matches for The TiVo Paradox

The age of paradox

The age of paradox 06/05/2005 10:50 PM

I noticed a trend in the books I've read lately (Everything Bad Is Good for You, Blink, and Freakonomics) is to point out things in our culture that should seem one way, but turn out to be another way entirely.

This is just a datapoint, but I couldn't help but wonder all last summer about the never ending run of Napoleon Dynamite at the local art house theater. We have this single screen, old art deco place that usually plays a very small independent movie or two each week, and then it is gone. But for a solid month they ran Dynamite, then after swapping a few others, brought it back for another few weeks of steady business. What I also found baffling was this dusty old theater was usually filled with 40 to 60 year olds watching low budget character pieces, and it was constantly packed with teens and college-aged film viewers.

Napoleon Dynamite seems like one giant paradox of entertainment to me, one that I figured had no chance of success for several reasons:

- The film has a thin plot and moves incredibly slowly. There's a joke, then twenty minutes of dead slow story, then another payoff.

The movie felt like it was four hours long to me, and I'm used to watching thin plots with lots of dead time. But the paradox is that it's a slow cooker of a film, and it's a hit with young people. That doesn't make sense, if you've read about how "kids today all have ADD" and "the jump cuts of MTV and fast pace of video games are killing their attention span." The conventional wisdom is that if you want to reach an audience of 17 year olds, make a movie like Charlie's Angels with explosions, hot women, and an easy to grasp story.

- To call the main character Napoleon Dynamite a nerd is a disservice to nerds. He goes way beyond your average geek and almost comes off as a depressed aspergers sufferer. Why on earth would every kid from the local college and high school identify with him? If you've seen the Merchants of Cool, conventional wisdom is that popular, photogenic people will always be cool and what kids will hope to attain. Are we in some sort of dystopia where most kids identify with Napoleon Dynamite because they share his experiences and not that of the "cool" folks? Is it just the Rudy-esque triumph over the jocks that his dancing reveals at the end?

That's all I have for now, but something struck me as a parallel between recent books challenging the notions we've always held as true, and the strange, wild popularity of a small, geeky, outside-of-hollywood film that met with great success, but by all measures, probably should have been a flop.

"the Python Paradox"

"the Python Paradox" 08/13/2004 03:28 AM

It is a paradox [Flickr]

It is a paradox [Flickr] 12/24/2004 01:01 PM

mathowie posted a photo:

It is a paradox

The Loser's Paradox

The Loser's Paradox 08/18/2004 02:52 AM
Economists who study government (public choice theorists) have since the 1970s been interested in the "Loser's Paradox." Can it help explain the content of our copyright and telecommunications laws?...

The Marlboro Paradox

The Marlboro Paradox 07/20/2004 12:51 PM
Despite a decent second quarter, investors look down on Altria.

The Performance Paradox

The Performance Paradox 04/11/2005 06:11 AM
If you deliver, you only qualify to deliver more. So how can we possibly get off the treadmill?

The storage paradox

The storage paradox 09/14/2004 07:33 AM
CNET Asia Sep 14 2004 11:46AM GMT

The Monty Hall Paradox

The Monty Hall Paradox 04/26/2004 06:50 PM

math.ucsd.edu/~crypto/Monty/montybg.html
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Canon's China paradox

Canon's China paradox 04/12/2004 04:53 AM
CNET Asia Apr 12 2004 8:54AM GMT

The Python Paradox, by Paul Graham

The Python Paradox, by Paul Graham 08/12/2004 03:26 PM

TiVo Tying TV To The Net Looking to tie
television to the Internet, digital
video recording makers TiVo on Jun

TiVo Tying TV To The Net Looking to tie
television to the Internet, digital
video recording makers TiVo on Jun 06/10/2004 10:28 PM
AVN Online Jun 11 2004 2:45AM GMT

Friends finale and NBC Tivo-b0rking --
TiVo Strikes Back

Friends finale and NBC Tivo-b0rking --
TiVo Strikes Back 05/07/2004 10:49 AM
Following up on yesterday's post about NBC's apparent attempts to b0rk potential TiVoers of the Friends finale, BoingBoing reader Douglas Clark says,

I am a loyal Tivo user and Tivo did send out a message alert to users about the Friends episode. It was more along the lines of "if you manually extend the time of a recording, you may miss the beginning of the friends final episode." I find that Tivo is pretty good about catching unusual start times and other wonky tricks the networks play. The previous comment about HUT and ratings was right on the money...

Link to previous BoingBoing post.

Tech maven Meg Hourihan adds, "Even weirder is that I got a message on my Tivo warning me that the finale of Friends would have abnormal times. The message warned that if I wasn't just using the automatic "start on time" and "end on time" settings (i.e. I manually set the start time as 8 PM) that I might miss some. What makes things weirder and worse is that Tivo still didn't record the whole show! I made sure my settings were what the message instructed, and happened to watch the show live. Tivo kicked in to record at 8:59 PM (which is what it listed the start time as) but stopped at 9:59! According to the time on my digital cable box, the program didn't end until 10:03 PM. So if I hadn't watched it live, I would have missed the last four minutes. Seems like a major screw-up on Tivo's part, especially after sending out that message!"

Hawking cracks black hole paradox

Hawking cracks black hole paradox 07/15/2004 08:20 AM

Gaza Paradox: Israeli Army Moves In So
It Can Pull Out

Gaza Paradox: Israeli Army Moves In So
It Can Pull Out 05/22/2004 02:25 AM
Now in its fourth day, the Israeli incursion helps explain the seeming paradox that a proposal to withdraw could lead to bloodshed.

TIVO Bug Shuts Out Many Series 1 TiVo
Owners?

TIVO Bug Shuts Out Many Series 1 TiVo
Owners? 07/26/2004 05:24 PM

TiVo users not happy TiVo is spying on
them

TiVo users not happy TiVo is spying on
them 02/10/2004 02:44 AM
Well TiVo's boosting that it Janet Jacksons Garment malfunction was the single highest re-watched event has many TiVo users asking...

TiVo.com | TiVo Press Releases

TiVo.com | TiVo Press Releases 01/09/2004 10:10 PM
bang for the buck .. extension .. TivoToGo

tivo.com/5.3.1.1.asp?article=196
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Intel and Tivo Team Up on Tivo-to-Go
(But How?)

Intel and Tivo Team Up on Tivo-to-Go
(But How?) 06/06/2005 12:09 AM

Reuters is running a story about Intel that is chocked full of goo info, including information that their 'Manitoba' mobile chipset has finally found a customer in mmO2 Pic (the Manitoba came out two years ago, to little fanfare, let alone actual adoption by phone manufacturers). But the big news is that Intel will be working with Tivo to provide Tivo-to-Go functionality in future laptop chipsets, like their popular Centrino.

What that is, though, is unclear. Is it just a branding initiative? Tivo-to-Go already works on laptops (that's half the point), so will it be some sort of native support that makes it easier to move the Tivo content around? We don't know—the article is very vague—but at least Tivo is getting some name dropping love from a mega-vendor (considering it was unlikely they were going to get much help from Microsoft, considering they sell a competing product to Windows XP Media Center). (Thanks, Pat!)

UPDATE 1-Intel's cell communications chip finds a customer [Reuters]

MP3 Request: "Tivo, My Tivo"

MP3 Request: "Tivo, My Tivo" 06/08/2004 09:07 AM

Does anyone have an MP3 of the song "Tivo, My Tivo" from the off-Broadway [hit | miss] The Gayest Straight Man Alive? Because I'd really like to hear it. Also, could someone explain what "surprisingly straight" means? Is that, like, no dicks at all? Not even your own? (Thanks, Peter, for the "tip.")
Read [NYTheatre]

Update: While I'm exploiting the good humor of our readers, do any of you 1) live in Canberra, Australia, and 2) take PayPal? I need to get a few cases of VB delivered to some game developers and am having a surprisingly hard time of it.

Who doesn't like TiVo?

Who doesn't like TiVo? 04/09/2004 04:11 PM
The NY Times ran another of those fawning TiVo articles yesterday about how everyone who has one loves it like a member of the family. An excerpt: Mr. Smith has since replaced his older TiVo model with three ReplayTV units. The new units allow him to stream programs from one to the other. After recording a program in his darkened home theater room, he transfers it to his brighter living... (with comments)

RSS and TiVo

RSS and TiVo 04/09/2004 03:56 PM
Yesterday's item provoked a flurry of responses. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, who wrote the Washington Post story I dissected, points out that the nature of his assignment precluded broader coverage, and that he'd otherwise gladly have included bloglines. There's been lots of chatter about bloglines lately -- Chad Dickerson mentions it today -- so I was interested to hear from Martin Thornell about another web-based product, Rocket RSS reader. Doubtless there are others too. An implementation of one of these licensed for behind-the-firewall use, as Chad suggests, would be handy. As a matter of fact, that's how I use Radio UserLand's reader. It's nominally a desktop product, but I run it as a server and authenticate to it over SSL. ...

How TiVo May Help The Web

How TiVo May Help The Web 04/26/2004 04:07 PM
Web advertising is making a big comeback just as TV advertising may be losing steam. These two things may not be a coincidence, as a new study suggests that advertisers are looking to move their advertising dollars to the web, as they fear the impact of TiVo-like devices on their television commercial spots. Of course, if advertisers (as they're likely to do) insist on creating more annoying and intrusive ads online this plan will backfire. However, they should look on this as an opportunity. Smart advertising (not intrusive, not annoying) that actually gives people something they want will be a lot more cost effective than blind TV advertising where you hope people are paying attention.

TiVo And The Mac

TiVo And The Mac 08/30/2004 11:58 AM
For some things, the Mac doesn't "just work". Windows might be buggy malware-infested crapware that is impossible for me to depend on for a living, but when it comes to things that make the RIAA and MPAA twitch reflexively, buggy and filled with an infinite number of teenage monkey hackers beats stale and used by crusty old farts like myself. By Nathan Torkington, O'Reilly Network (via MyAppleMenu)

TiVo Is On the Go

TiVo Is On the Go 01/03/2005 02:06 PM
Can TiVo stomp the competition?

Men Want TiVo™ More

Men Want TiVo™ More 08/09/2004 02:38 AM
Male heads-of-household are more likely than their female counterparts to buy a personal video recorder (PVR) over the next year, according to the upcoming report Video-on-Demand and PVR: Analysis and Forecast from Parks Associates. In a recent survey, 21% of male heads-of household said they are likely to purchase a PVR in the next 12 months, compared with just 16% of female heads-of-household. [PRWEB Aug 9, 2004]

TiVo Here, There - TiVo Everywhere

TiVo Here, There - TiVo Everywhere 01/27/2004 08:39 PM
Los Angeles Times Jan 28 2004 1:03AM GMT

Pop-up TiVo

Pop-up TiVo 03/29/2005 03:08 PM
One of the joys of TiVo ownership is skipping commercials. Will the DVR company's new attempt to cater to advertisers fly with its fans?

The Little TiVo That Could

The Little TiVo That Could 06/10/2004 09:27 AM
Despite the unpleasant questions, TiVo keeps chugging along.

Saving TiVo

Saving TiVo 08/30/2004 12:15 PM

I'm quoted in this Kin Girard article in this mnth's issue of Business 2.0. Only problem is - you can't see the entire article unless your subscribe.

Oh well.

Anyway - here's the opener to the article.

It's been written off by the experts. But thanks to a Silicon Valley software legend, the company that invented digital video recording says it's about to change the way we watch TV -- again.

By Kim Girard, September 01, 2004

Obituaries for the nearly departed TiVo Inc. (TIVO) have been written up for months now, all ready to go when the sad day comes.

They're poignant, these eulogies. There's the part about how feisty little TiVo created a beloved and revolutionary product -- the digital video recorder -- on a shoestring. The word TiVo, like Google and Xerox (XRX) and only a handful of other product names, went on to be used to describe what the gadget does -- in this case, learning what you like to watch, recording similar stuff for later viewing, and allowing you to pause or otherwise time-shift live action. TiVo promised to transform television, advertising -- hell, the culture itself, not least by sparing humanity from having to sit through commercials. Alas, it burned through $567 million between 1999 and mid-2004, and was run down by huge and ruthless competitors that mimicked its technology. But take heart, the eulogists conclude: TiVo will always be with us -- as a verb, if not a company.

There's at least one problem with that scenario, however. His name is Arthur van Hoff. He's an obscure but revered high priest of software coding. And he thinks he's devised a way to pull TiVo back from death's door.

[Business 2.0]

Here's my quote:

" 'Strangeberry works and it's totally cool', says Marc Canter, co- founder of Web media tool maker Macromedia, who was given an early view of the technology."

It does. I am. Here comes TiVO - again.

The only question remains - is it pronounced TeeeeeeVOH or TehVoh. Inquiring minds wanna know.

Netflix + Tivo = Yum

Netflix + Tivo = Yum 09/06/2004 10:04 PM
it's an obvious combination, but at least they finally had the sense to pull it off

Tivo as digital hub?

Tivo as digital hub? 02/10/2004 02:47 AM
Om Malik thinks Tivo's purchase of a startup called Strangeberry signals its intention to become a hub for digital home entertainment.  Makes sense.  Strangeberry is apparently made up of ex-Sun people, and the idea of universal zero-configuration networking was a big element of Sun co-founder Bill Joy's Jini vision. 

Of course, all the major consumer PC vendors, most notably Gateway, Sony, and HP, have similar dreams, as do Apple, Microsoft, and your cable company.  This probably makes Tivo interesting acquisiton bait.  But for whom?  Tivo is built on Linux, so it probably isn't a fit for any of the Windows-centric companies.  Or for Apple, which has its own Rendezvous networking technology.

The TiVo Olympics

The TiVo Olympics 09/06/2004 11:54 PM

Every fourth summer, IT trade pubs write about the technology that powers the Olympic Games. It's always an interesting topic, but apart from an enhanced focus on security, the Athens 2004 stories were little changed from their Sydney 2000 counterparts. And yet, this Olympics was utterly transformed, for me and for a few million other viewers, by TiVo.

Thanks to this cheap, Linux-based appliance, I was able to compress all of the events that interested me into a fraction of the time it would otherwise have taken to watch them. I'll always remember the Athens games as the first TiVo Olympics. Now I'm thinking about ways to make the next one even better.
...
In our world -- where blogs, Wi-Fi, and computer-attached video cameras are the norm -- we've begun to redefine the art of event coverage. If you want to see how the Beijing Olympics should be covered in 2008, visit a tech conference next year. [Full story at InfoWorld.com]

...

Netflix + TiVo: Done

Netflix + TiVo: Done 09/07/2004 03:08 AM
Back in January, we had discussed that coming convergence of TV and movies in the video-on-demand space and discussed the somewhat obvious connection of TiVo + Netflix. It appears that the management of both of those companies has figured it out as well, as Newsweek has the "high level sources" rumor mill spinning about TiVo and Netflix teaming up to offer a combined movies-on-demand service. While the details aren't there, this does make a lot of sense for both companies, who each need to differentiate themselves from the growing competition within their space. Both have built up great brand names, and extraordinarily loyal followings, but are now facing strong competition from more established players with huge wallets. A combined solution that let users download movies directly to their TiVo (and, even better, take them "on the go" with TiVoToGo) has tremendous potential and would keep them a step ahead of the competition for now. Still, it remains to be seen exactly how they implement this solution. If it's not done well, it could be damaging to the reputation of both companies, while taking attention away from their existing solutions. It's also unclear if there will be exclusivity in this relationship, or if both players will be able to team up with others as well.

First Looks: Now Any PC or Laptop Can Be
A "Tivo"

First Looks: Now Any PC or Laptop Can Be
A "Tivo" 06/07/2004 12:17 PM
“AVerMedia has created a pocket-sized device, the AverMe3dia UltraTV USB 300, that can capture video and tune in cable or broadcast TV, as well as enabling virtually any decently powered PC desktop or laptop to time-shift television and capture video from other sources, like DVD players and VCRs. Read our full review of this fabulous $120 device.”

TiVO and Strangeberry

TiVO and Strangeberry 08/13/2004 07:24 AM

Matt Haughey discovers the kick-ass potential of TiVO and Strangeberry.

This new Business 2.0 article (unfortunately, the full text is only available to subscribers or AOL users) describes that while much talk about TiVo has been grim this year, they may be on an upswing, thanks in part to new features developed from their acquisition of the startup Strangeberry.

So far, not much has been said about the Strangeberry-TiVo connection, but this article goes into some of the features the combo will bring to our favorite PVR:

The Wonderful World of Strangeberry

1 Strangeberry software does all the work. It recognizes the format of the content flowing in via TV cable or broadband Internet connection. Designed for easy tweaking, the software will be able to deal with formats that haven't yet been created.

2 The system is TV-centric, rather than PC-centric. A simple graphical interface is displayed on the TV, allowing the user to find what he wants and play it. The huge volume of content can be navigated with a single remote control device.

3 Strangeberry also recognizes where the user wants the content played. It routes the MP3 files to the stereo, but could simultaneously display album covers and music notes on the TV or a laptop.

It sounds great, having a system that builds upon the Home Media Option greatly to turn TiVo into a central entertainment hub that can send stuff from any of your computers to any of your stereo and TVs and vice versa (including sending video to and from your TiVo and PCs!). They also touch on a possible API that will let content companies build apps that can be accessed through TiVo, like voting for American Idol with your remote. If the entertainment companies can put their copyright sledgehammer aside and let TiVo do even half of what they describe, Strangeberry + TiVo could be a whole new revolution in home entertainment. I for one, can't wait to see what they do with it.

The article also paints a pretty rosy financial picture for TiVo, as they near profitability for the first time, which is also good news.

[PVRBlog ]

BoingBoing has an excerpt....

Damon Darlin of Business 2.0 sez: "Silicon Valley programming legend Arthur Van Hoff was a prolific coder at Sun (with almost as many patents as Bill Joy). His "Strangeberry" software will give the TiVo new powers, and it will be given away to anyone who wants to develop content on the Web. Residing on the next generation of TiVo machines, it will recognize incoming programming (JPEG images, video, MP3s, or whatever) and route it to the appropriate device in your living room." Link

Tivo News

Tivo News 06/09/2004 03:45 PM
Tivo has transitioned the former Home Media Option features to the standard service bundle and added a Multi-Service Discount for...

Hey TiVo you create it I will buy it!

Hey TiVo you create it I will buy it! 05/28/2004 10:46 AM

I missed the original call from Endgadget to TiVo recommending that they get their software onto PC's but a follow on thread has me shaking my head up and down saying yes this is a damn good idea. After all I have a bunch of computers at home with a significant amount of storage why should I have to buy a separate box for just such recording activities. I know there are other solutions out there but I really like TiVo's interface and this would be the perfect application to add to my self made media center. The Corante website goes a step further with implementations that make my mouth water. [Corante< /a>] [Engadget]

Beyond TiVo: The Next Generation (Of
Ads)

Beyond TiVo: The Next Generation (Of
Ads) 05/26/2004 01:35 PM
Just as TiVo gets users to (sort of) see more commercials, the next generation of PVRs is planning a new form of advertising and deliver more targeted marketing (and maybe even more ads). Forget about all this skipping 30 seconds stuff, no one will be able to avoid the video-on-demand menus covered in targeted ads. But before the anti-ad folks have a fit, this might actually mean the ads you see are the ads you don't mind seeing.

New TiVo recorders on th

New TiVo recorders on th 07/28/2004 04:51 PM
Techzonez Jul 28 2004 8:13PM GMT
Grok Description matches for The TiVo Paradox
GrokA matches for The TiVo Paradox

The TiVo Paradox