There’s never enough time in the day…

• TiVo HD receives first software update (TiVoLovers)
• DirecTV TiVo owners to get update in early ‘08 (engadget)

Do you think it’s possible that we’ll see another DirecTiVo type device?

NEW YORK, June 4 (Reuters) - TiVo Inc. (TIVO.O: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Monday it expects its relationship with DirecTV Group Inc. (DTV.N: Quote, Profile , Research) to improve after the satellite television provider is taken over by John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. (LCAPA.O: Quote, Profile , Research).

…..

“Liberty is a company that has no ownership interests, now or after the DirecTV closes, in a competing DVR, and that probably changes things,” Rogers told a Deutsche Bank investor conference.

Rogers said people he knew at Liberty were fans of TiVo DVRs.

“I look at that as a positive in terms of a change of ownership though that deal hasn’t closed yet,” he added.

Control of DirecTV will be passed to Liberty as part of an $11 billion exchange of cash and assets with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Over 3 million DirecTV customers are also TiVo users.

This email was so sad that I decided to share it with everybody. Can somebody help? I don’t have a lot of experience with hooking a TiVo up to a DirecTV receiver.

Can’t get my Series 2 TIVO IR to change the channels on my new Directv D11 receiver.Have verified w/ Directv the receiver is IR and not RF. I have spent 2-3 hrs on the phone w/ Tivo techs who can’t get it to work. It seems I’m being forced to drop Tivo and switch to Directv DVR. Any comments or solutions?

This is an amazing setup!  The author of this post has four DirecTV TiVos and a Slingbox in their shed.  I thought I was addicted to TiVo :).

Just today I received the following email. Since I’m not a DirecTV user I thought it would be a good idea for me to post the question here in order to see what other people who have DirecTV think.

I am writing with what may be an easy question to answer, but I am not current on my Tivo knowledge. I know that you do not run a “Q&A” service, but I’ve seen your blog, and I thought you might be able to point me in the right direction.

A few years ago, I got Tivo and DirecTV for the first time. I got one Sony SAT-T60 DIRECTV Satellite receiver (35 hour TiVo) for the living room, plus I got non-Tivo Hughes receivers for the other rooms. My wife and I fell in love with Tivo. We love it. But we never upgraded or anything. Aside from having not enough storage capacity, we loved our Sony T60 and thought it worked seamlessly with DirecTV.

Fast-forward to today. My wife says she wants one and only one thing for her birthday: Tivo in the bedroom, to go along with the Tivo in the living room. So I call DirecTV and ask. They are sly. They do not immediately tell me that what they are selling me their own dvr, not Tivo, but I ask them directly and finally they admit it. But they also tell me their dvr “works just like Tivo.”

They install it.

Two weeks later, my wife and I are so disappointed in the product. It basically has many of the same functions as Tivo, but it is so user-unfriendly. We hate it.

So what are our options? We really think the way to go is a unified Tivo/satellite receiver, but it seems that no one makes them anymore (we assume because DirecTV is the 800-pound gorilla that caused this). We understand that DirecTV still supports old Tivo machines, like our living room one, but that we are not permitted to hook up a new one.

Should I ditch DirecTV? Should I buy a used DirecTV/Tivo machine and try to get DirecTV to provide service (somehow I doubt that would work)? Please point me in the right direction.

Mike

It looks like the relationship between DirecTV and TiVo isn’t as shaky as I once reported. Just today DirecTV announced that they would extend their service and support agreement with TiVo for another three years! The agreement also has several provisions which are supposed to prevent TiVo from bringing DirecTV to court over a patent dispute if TiVo wins against EchoStar. TiVo stock went up 8.12% on the news while DirecTV’s stock pretty much remained unchanged.

In my opinion, this is a win-win for all parties involved. TiVo wins because the agreement removes the threat of TiVo losing 3 million customers. DirecTV wins because they no longer have to worry about potential patent lawsuits. DirecTV users win because they can continue to use their TiVo and take advantage of future software/hardware updates. This news is yet another reason why TiVo’s future looks promising!

Thanks to everybody who sent me this story. I saw it earlier in the day however; I was unable to comment on it since I was at work….

In case you haven’t heard, DirecTV has said that they will no longer market TiVo DVRs. Instead, they plan on pushing their own DVR.

If you follow TiVo news like I do, you probably already know that this really isn’t news. After all, DirecTV hinted at this back in November or even September of 2004. That being said, I’m a little surprised by how the stock market has reacted. It’s almost as if Wall Street has a memory span of a one year old. Why has Wall Street reacted so dramatically to this news when the actual news occurred almost a year ago?

Am I the only person who thinks TiVo can survive without DirecTV? Yes, DirecTV provides a lot of subscribers however; lets not forget the fact that TiVo recently established an agreement with Comcast and the National Cable Television Cooperative.

Is this another case of Wall Street overreacting or am I just being too optimistic?