DirectTV DVR vs. TiVo

One of the most interesting things I saw at the show was the new DirectTV DVR's. I think TiVo is going to have a pretty hard time fighting these. Right now over half of the TiVo subscribers are DirectTiVo users. DirectTV looks poised to release a family of DVR's that don't use the TiVo platform. I've owned both a ReplayTV and a TiVo over the years and have come to expect a fair bit of polish from these kind of products. To this point everything I'd seen from the satellite and cable folks was a pretty terrible approximation of the name-brand solutions. I can't say that's the case any longer. These DirectTV DVR's seem every bit as polished as the TiVo solution. DirectTV is even offering a version ("Home Media Center") with four tuners, HD support, and seamless in-home content sharing.

It's a shame to see a future where a great company like TiVo -- who, along with ReplayTV, defined this product space -- might not be able to survive, let along thrive. Timing is everything in technology; you just can't afford to have the market give your competitors time to build a copy of your product before mass adoption begins.