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Tivo: Revolution, Interrupted

"Three years after their introduction, the TiVo brand digital video recorder (DVR) and its rivals are in only about 1 percent of American homes, fewer than, a recent headline said, have outhouses...

Theories on what's taking so long will follow. But a hint comes from Syracuse's ever quotable Thompson: 'We're a society obsessed with new technology, but we're also a society that's completely unwilling to read an instruction book....'

I cannot imagine television life without one of these devices. People in the industry like to cite a survey in which users say they would rather give up their microwave ovens than their digital video recorders. I would throw in the toaster oven, both waffle makers and even, if pressed, my beloved surround-sound speaker system.

The essential attraction is that watching television becomes much more precise, much more efficient, much less inchoate. It's the end of channel surfing and its frustrations. With a DVR, you've got the things you think are good -- the latest 'Sopranos,' a 'Scrubs,' the steamy Animal Planet study of koala mating habits -- stored on the hard disk, ready to be summoned up. Give Bruce Springsteen a TiVo and his song about 57 channels becomes a celebration of them....

'The best summary of TiVo I've heard was from a young woman who said, `Oh, I really love it now, but it was in the box for most of the time' after being purchased,' says Thompson.

Then her boyfriend hooked it up.

'If TiVo in its current form is going to become the revolution, it's going to have to put a boyfriend in every box,' Thompson says....'

The second, and probably biggest, factor is price. Even if you can conjure up the benefits of better TV management, the cheapest early editions of the machines were $400 or $500 plus the monthly fee for the necessary listings service.

Now, Nikhil Balram, vice president of connected home products for SonicBlue, which makes ReplayTV, says hopefully, people say, ' 'OK, this is $249. I pay $9.95 monthly. What's the harm in trying it?' In the past, when it was $700, the consumer says, `I don't even want to like it because I can't afford it....' '

'The balance of power is shifting right now from networks and studio content providers and towards consumers. This probably does mean the most significant change in TV ever, and that can be both scary and inspiring.' " [Chicago Tribune (free registration required), via JD's New Media Musings]

As one of the DVR fanatics described in this article, I just want to note the price drops on ReplayTVs, augmented by a $50 rebate good for the two lower-end Replays if bought before January 1). The low end 40-hour version still needs to drop another $100 to gain some mainstream momentum, but it's currently at $300. The higher the model number, though, the bigger the price drop.

The 80-hour version is going for $400 (down from $550, plus you can get the $50 rebate bringing it to $500), the 160-hour version is at $600 (down from $1000), and in a pretty stunning freefall from earlier this year, the 320-hour version (with ethernet port and commercial skip) is just $999 (down from $1300 last month and down from $2000 when it was introduced a little over a year ago). And they are once again available through retail outlets like Best Buy. All of which would help if the economy was better.

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