NEW BATTLE OF BRITAIN IS ABOUT SET-TOP BOXES
Competition for PVR maker TiVo in U.K. is about to come from party that warmly endorsed set-top PVR and service just last year. New opponent is News Corp.’s BSkyB satellite service, which has introduced rival Sky+ set-box made by Pace. Besides challenge from Sky, TiVo is facing other difficulties in U.K. market owing to unreliable nature of British programming schedules -- upon which its timer-recording function depends to acquire telecasts and store them on hard disc.
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Sky+ set-top doesn’t have popular user-preference engine that learns what kinds of programs users like and records them automatically, but it does some things that TiVo PVR can’t. These include ability to record one digital channel while watching another. Sky switched off its analog service in Sept., so company’s 5-million-plus viewers now were potential customers for Sky+.
Sky was enthusiastic and vocal endorser for TiVo PVR technology and EPG service at its U.K. rollout in Oct. 2000. Sky still professes support for TiVo, and turned up at company’s one year anniversary briefing to hear TiVo U.K. boss Andrew Cresci say previous year had been “a ripping time and phenomenal success.” Company won’t say how many Thomson-made boxes it has sold in U.K. since start at ?400 plus ?10 monthly subscription, or at new price of ?300 (?1 = $1.46). As of July, TiVo said it had 229,000 subscribers worldwide. It’s spending ?3 million on movie theater ad campaign in U.K.
Crunch time for TiVo is likely to come this winter when Britain’s ITV network goes onto Sky’s digital satellite. Programs of ITV, free, independent commercial terrestrial broadcaster, still will be free, but in signing up for carriage through Sky it will use satellite company’s encrypted copy protection for transmission and recording to Sky+ box. With addition of ITV to its own subscription programming, Sky+ will be able to offer everything viewers want through single dish and set-top.
For ?300 plus ?10 monthly subscription and ?50 to ?100 for installation Sky+ viewers get combined hard disc recorder and satellite receiver with 2 tuners. Sky+ box has only one decoder, so it can display only one program on screen at same time program from 2nd tuner is being recorded onto hard disc. Same thing happens if Sky+ box is used to pause live TV -- picture is decoded only during playback.
Sky+ box records program in raw MPEG code, technique that lets Sky+ record long playing times without loss of quality. MPEG coding is done at transmission end. TiVo PVR has to convert analog input signal meant for TV set or satellite receiver into MPEG video for recording, then reconvert to analog for playback. TiVo’s MPEG coder has to be built down to low price, so it needs more bits per sec. for high-quality recording. For that reason, TiVo box can record for only about 10 hours if picture quality is to match quality that Sky+ box captures automatically.
Because Sky+ records raw MPEG signal in encrypted form, viewer pays for pay-per-view movie it has viewed, not when it’s ordered and recorded. After movie is recalled from recorder and payment registered, movie can be viewed for 24-hour period. If it’s not viewed within 7 days, recording automatically deletes. Macrovision hinders tape dubbing.
Other technical shortcoming for TiVo in U.K. has to do with parts of recordings being lost owing to British programming timetables. Soon after Tivo was introduced in Oct. 2000, customers began to complain about losing ends of recorded programs when schedules changed with little notice. Tivo, American company used to very tight timing of U.S. TV programs, hadn’t built option for users to add safety margin.
Root of problem is frequent changes in program times by British broadcasters. Problem is compounded because program schedules are delivered by phone line once daily from Tribune Co. in U.S. after being gathered in U.K. There’s 2-1/2 day lag before any change in schedules reaches TiVo box. Sky+ isn’t affected by situation. It transmits TV schedules directly from satellite and can update them within 15 min. Sky+ also gives viewers option of adding 2 min. recording leeway at either end of program.
TiVo has yet to find solution to dilemma. At recent birthday briefing in London, company said it was “beta-testing software that will let viewers put up to 10 min. on the start, and 3 hours on the end of a recording.”