I don't think anybody has mentioned it but ReplayTV can be programmed over the internet. You can be in Japan and program it to tape the Simpsons. Pretty cool and has worked as advertised for me. The site is www.myreplaytv.com

quote:<HR>Originally posted by tachon:
Oh great, here come the hacks from AVS forum.<HR>

Attacking the messenger?

quote:<HR>Lets hype tivo.<HR>

Why not? It's the most amazing piece of personal electronics I've bought in a long time.

quote:<HR>Lets pretend that AOL is really really stupid and going to let tivo make all this money that they are able to make themselves instead.<HR>

What are you suggesting, that AOL isn't going to use Tivo services even though they've contracted to do just that? That AOL bought 10% of the company for nothing?

How about instead we pretend that AOL can develop it's own PVR features from scratch. How long do you figure that will take? MS had Dishplayer to start from and they still don't have a product on the market.

By your logic big companies would never partner with anyone. Tivo has a two year head start on PVR technology and the best product on the market bar none. Frankly I think they're the only thing that's going to save AOL TV.

Most people don't care about the interenet on their TV, the only way to sell that is to package it with something more attractive. AOL can pay Tivo and become a player now or they can seed the set-top market to Microsoft and play catch-up later on.

quote:<HR> I love you avs guys. Me personally, I'm encoumbered by reality.<HR>

You're encumbered by fear, uncertainty and doubt and if you watch any TV you're a slave to it's schedule. I've been free of all that for over a year now and if Tivo service becomes unavailable tomorrow my Tivo will have been worth every penny.

is replay tv "upgradeable"?

quote:<HR>Originally posted by tachon:
Also I wanted to say that last quarter they lost a total of 64 million just to bring in a total revenue of 1 million. There is no conceivable way for them to turn this around.<HR>

Interesting numbers. I assume that by "last quarter" you mean the quarter ending in September of 2000, since I can find no obviously pertinent SEC filings for the quarter ending December 2000. With the number of units sold in December, I'll be interested to see what the earnings for Q4 look like.

Yes, I am referring to the last reported quarter. I am interested in the new results as well. One reason the reports comes out so late with tivo is because they want to add as many new subs as they can in the next quarter and then include those figures in some sound-bites in an unethical attempt to fool investors into thinking tivo is doing better than they really are.

Here is an example:

say it is presently q3 (the third quarter), then they are reporting on q2 results.

q2 25,000 subs
q3 5,000 subs so far

Now they like to say things like, we have brought in 30,000 since the end of the first quarter. They add the extra 5,000 subs in when it looks good, but leave them out at other times, whatever makes them look better.

Tivo is an unethical company, I am glad they are near broke, without any prospects of a profit.



[This message has been edited by tachon (edited January 14, 2001).]

quote:<HR>Originally posted by tachon:
One reason the reports comes out so late with tivo....<HR>

Comparing dates of earnings announcements from TiVo with those of other companies, it looks to me like TiVo are fairly typical. Here is a short list:

code:<HR><pre>
Q4 Q3 Q2
TIVO 10/19/00 7/25/00 4/19/00
MSFT 10/18/00 7/18/00 4/20/00
KO 10/20/00 7/19/00
T 10/25/00 7/25/00 5/2/00
IBM 10/17/00 7/19/00 4/18/00
AMZN 10/24/00 7/27/00 4/26/00
[/code]

I chose those stocks basically at random. If you have others that present a different picture, I'd be happy to see them.

Interesting stocks you picked. Lets compare the price to sales ratios because I think it will illustrate how outrageously overvalued tivo is. Tivo has a P/S ratio of an outrageous 102.

MSFT 12
KO 7
T 1
IBM 2
AMZN 2

Tivo’s price to sales ratio is between 10-100 times these companies. We have got a lot of the overvaluation out of the nasdaq, but there are still some that need to really come down. Hope you don’t own any tivo stock!!!

I would recommend in the future you do not pick companies at random. When you do that, you may ignore important issues. Here you have chosen companies that have very complicated finances they have to bring together. Tivo is a one trick pony. They sell one service (the manufacturers sell the boxes). Tivo should be reporting significant;y before the companies that you have randomly chosen. Sometimes it is better to be thoughtful than random.


[This message has been edited by tachon (edited January 15, 2001).]

quote:<HR>Originally posted by tachon:
I would recommend in the future you do not pick companies at random. When you do that, you may ignore important issues. Here you have chosen companies that have very complicated finances they have to bring together. Tivo is a one trick pony. They sell one service (the manufacturers sell the boxes). Tivo should be reporting significant;y before the companies that you have randomly chosen. Sometimes it is better to be thoughtful than random<HR>

You are right: with something like this it is better to be thoughtful than random. I regret choosing that word to characterize those choices. I chose them because they were established companies with decent reputations so that it would be hard to argue that they were trying to hide something in their finances. (Well, certainly no more so than TiVo, anyway.) It would have been better to select companies doing well that are closer in size to TiVo. It's hard to find any company of that size that's doing well in the current market, so here are some that are at least similarly sized (100M-400M market cap, 100-400 employees, total assets <500M, 0.1M-1M net sales):

code:<HR><pre>
Total Cur.
Mkt Cap #Empl Asset Liab. Sales Income Q4 Q3 Q2
TIVO 291 198 152.84 18.45 0.22 -66.57 10/19 7/25 4/19
ARDI 165 228 45.17 4.07 0.91 -13.49 10/19 ** **
IBEM 134 189 44.74 5.96 0.15 -29.97 10/24 7/25 **
RSTA 350 104 34.61 4.25 0.98 -19.82 10/26 9/14 **
STMP 135 216 410.44 8.41 0.36 -56.49 10/31 7/13 4/10
TLCT 176 256 140.07 20.27 0.19 -43.42 10/19 7/21 4/20
WAVX 260 144 16.53 6.82 0.19 -28.05 11/08 8/10 5/11

** privately held
[/code]

I'd characterize all of those companies as one trick ponies. TiVo appears to be announcing ahead of most of them. Basically, I'm comfortable with this particular aspect of TiVo's behavior. I don't think their earnings reports lag any more than anyone else's.

If you know of any companies that consistently report earlier than TiVo, I'd be happy to hear about it. The only company that I've listed that beat them out of the gate for Q3 was IBM on 10/17. Most of the others reported on 10/19 or later.

This is not to say that I'm completely happy with TiVo's performance, nor do I necessarily think they are a good investment right now. I just don't think the timing of their earnings announcements is relevant.


[This message has been edited by APDent (edited January 15, 2001).]

I know I read an article lately about Replay TV switching over to only licensing the software. The thing that I didn't like was that they are going to concentrate on the DirectTv market. That's great for those with DirectTv but I have my cable TV and cable internet service bundled and am pretty happy with it.

Here is a page with with a little info on the change. I will post a more comprehensive article if I can find it.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-3886861.html

Time seems to be verifying my contention. Tivo is now set to report on the 30th. They just keep putting it off so they can spin subs for the current quarter into sound bites they use for the last quarter they are reporting on.

TiVo's current financials suck. They have a long term plan, some big time investors, big time consumer electronics partners (don't foreget Hughes Electronics and RCA too) and a stack of cash. If the current climate for Tech companies continue they may be in trouble and join a bunch of others on the other hand things may go well.

Another player is Replay. They never made it to IPO, recently changed course on their financial plans, and don't have to put out any numbers.

The strongest player is Micosoft with Ultimate TV for DirecTV. They are not likely to go under any time soon, though will they support their product after the next rev comes out in a couple of years?