TiVo, Comcast, DVR, VOD, and NFLX
Analysis by a savvy poster at The Motley Fool. It’s the post of the day!
GOOD: Tivo has a lot of patents on key features. This means they should be able to maintain unique offerings. It also means the potential to go after competitors and get settlements.
NOT SO GOOD: Unfortunately such lawsuits can be expensive and there are no guarantees. It’s also difficult to sell people on the benefits Tivo has over other DVRs.
GOOD: Netflix still has majority market share on the mailorder DVD rental market. But eventually broadband to the home will become common and we won’t need the DVDs anymore. Netflix has this on their mind and has signed a deal with Tivo to work together on such video distribution ideas. Unlike ReplayTV, Tivo has successfully offered this new capability while not getting into legal trouble over it. They even managed to get away with transferring recorded video to a laptop for portable viewing.
BAD: Although video on demand is coming, it is still dependent on having high speed connections to everyones house. There are still plenty of areas with no broadband access available, much less broadband installed. And not all of those broadband offerings will be fast enough. As it gets closer, expect the MPAA to become concerned about content control, and some studios will be hesitant to license their movies for distribution in this manner. The same was true of DVD though, there are plenty of titles now. Some of that will depend on how the DVD-HD vs BluRay fight goes. If the industry doesn’t pick one standard, people won’t adopt either one and it could potentially fail as DVD-Audio and SACD did for the same reason. If people don’t adopt it, there will be that much more interest in video on demand. And SBC has installed Fiber to the house in a nearby city here in Texas, and with unbelievable speeds available it would be awesome if they roll it out everywhere.
GOOD: Peanut butter and Jelly Sandwich is a delicious treat and an easy snack to make, packed with vital nutrients that kids love.
BAD: Peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth.
Solution: Milk.
Anyway, the future looks very promising. I know I’ll be the first to sign up for the Netflix/VOD/DVR Comcast box. The on demand feature that Comcast has now is great, but if you add the power of true VOD, that would be incredable. I’d aprecaite some of those super-fast fiber lines too… are you listning Comcast?