December 15, 2003

DVR Units in Use Doubles Since Last Year

The number of DVR units in use has doubled to 3 million units from 1.7 million units a year ago, says the AP. I hadn't realized they were still that rare. (I've had my TiVo for just over three years now; I wonder how many were out there when I got it?)

I'm pleased to see the market growing; this is a cool technology that really should be everywhere. But it does seem to be a hard sell. It's not even that old habits die hard--once you get a DVR and start to catch on to what it can do for you, the habits change almost immediately. But the value proposition is a hard one to describe, and people don't seem to "get it" until they've used one for a while. I know I didn't. Here's one technology where I suspect word of mouth advertising is crucial

Posted by David Gaw in Sci-Tech at December 15, 2003 08:22 AM

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Comments

I think TiVo is in a very bad place these days.

Most cable companies are going to start offering DVR built into the settop box starting in a few months. Some companies already offer it. The beauty is that the DVR is part of the settop box so (1) I don't need to hook anything special up and, more importantly, (2) I don't have to buy anything new. It's just part of my cable subscription (there may be a premium on the monthly bill for DVR features, but for most people there's a big difference between an extra $5/month or a several-hundred dollar purchase.

Posted by: Rip Rowan at December 15, 2003 12:24 PM

Could be... depends on how well they are able to execute. Their strategy over the last couple of years has been to license their brand and their software so that its their software you see running in all those settop boxes. I don't know how successful they've been cracking that market. Doing a quick search, I found a press release saying Cablevision of New York is going with TiVo, but I don't think that Time Warner is, for example, and that's a big chunk of the market right there. I'd like to see them succeed; I like the TiVo interface; it's gotten noticably better over the last few years. Plus, you know, the logo is cute.

Posted by: David Gaw at December 15, 2003 01:34 PM