I would sure want a VOOM TiVO DVR and would hope TiVO would offer one. However, a rental DVR would be a great savings and I would go for that instead of spending $1,000 or more that I had done in the past, for HD receivers & a TiVO. Like the direction of VOOM. All this competition is good for everyone with Satellite or Cable. Drives prices down and the rental of receivers and DVRs from Cable, and now VOOM, will influence E* and D* to offer this type of plan too. WE ALL WIN !(for a change)
What would you pay for VOOM DVR?
- Thread starter Ken F
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Once again, review the costs for some of the parts above, as announced by these companies in press releases for 10,000 unit quantities. There aren't many options in on the market to handle dual tuner HD PVR hardware; Broadcom is the only game in town. There aren't many chips on the market that integrate QPSK and 8PSK.
The HDTV Tivo was just released at $999. The Dish 921 PVR is $999.
Forget abou the cost of what actually goes into the box. You also have to amortize the cost of R&D and marketing into each box sold. They have been working on these HD DVRs for a couple of years. Thats a lot of equipment and man hours that have to be paid for.
Because its toted as a new technology which it isn't.
Edited post by moderator...
Your theories are also flawed in cost estimates. Since the DVR won't be relased until the 3rd quarter.
rexoverbey said:
rex,
I would say that you "kinda know" not much about what you are talking about, and it has nothing to do with your certificates from Microsoft. Your arguments are weak and Ken's arguments are convincing.
C'ommon guys!
This is a good topic and I hate to shut it down because we can't keep personal comments out of the topic. I will go through the thread and erase personal comments and if it continues I will be forced to close the thread.
This is a good topic and I hate to shut it down because we can't keep personal comments out of the topic. I will go through the thread and erase personal comments and if it continues I will be forced to close the thread.
I wrote a huge post in response but accidently replied to the wrong topic 
The costs are too high for it to be viable to mass market. The costs at the start are high because the units sold are low. This is how most of the high tech electronics go, with the exception of video consoles which are usually sold at a loss.
They are sucking every dime out of "must have" adopters. Look at high end video cards for computers as a perfect example, 399-499 when released, MUST HAVE's buy them.
3 months later, 180 dollars or less....
This is all well and good, not to mention free market and all that good stuff. But they are selling to a small market, their customers. No way am I going to drop 1k on a box that just records in HD.
An HD HTPC can do the same, might not be as easy to use but for 1K it does alot more for me than just record video.
You can say not everyone will want to go through the trouble to do this or has the expertise and your right. But at 1K your not going to find many people to buy a Voom DVR either...and those that could are probably savvy enough to think they can do it better on their own for the same money.
Its been shown over and over that a certain technology doesn't get mass market adaption before it comes down 50-75 percent of its original costs before it becomes obsolete.
I don't have a marketing degree, business degree or anything else, but I do know how people I know spend their money and its just simple common sense. At those kinds of costs no one will buy one, at least not in any significant number to matter to the bottom line.
CD players, DVD Players, VCR's, all of them had to drop to 1/10th their original costs to become a force in the consumer market, VCR's took the most time, CD Players took less and DVD's took even less...on the other hand they had a standards commitee that drove them...DVR's do not have that and they need to be cheap to work.
OTA HD recievers for 600-800 dollars was insane, the costs of those boxes was no where near that. Now they are going for 99 dollars on clearance, even at the time I bought mine as a shelf model I paid 1/2 the cost new and electronic super stores don't give things away, that gave me enough indication of its real costs.
I think the market is getting tired of this trend, people are getting smarter, they know it will come down in price. People also get iritated over the fact that things are artificially high in costs.
Voom is the perfect example. I just bought my new 60" GW LCD and Voom sounded like a great thing. $749.00 plus monthly charges, thought they were out of their minds and wouldn't sell enough to stay in business.
I *knew* in order for them to survive they had to lower their costs and get the product in people's homes...so I waited a whole 2 months and got it for free and 10 bux a month.
The story has been the same in almost every new electronic toy the only difference is the time between high dollar introduction and consumer acceptable costs is getting shorter and shorter. Eventually it will be short enough that even the early adopters will wait the few months.
I won't buy a DVD Recorder either, same deal, costs alot less than the high dollar they are charging for them.
The integration of computer technology into HT will drive costs down. Look at a Lite On 2001 DVD player, 1080i scaling over a component connection, good quality, not too bad a price for what it does...take it apart its all standard PC parts and runs Linux...Samsung comes out with the same thing over DVI and charges twice the cost of the LO or its replacement Norcent that does it over DVI also.
The costs are too high for it to be viable to mass market. The costs at the start are high because the units sold are low. This is how most of the high tech electronics go, with the exception of video consoles which are usually sold at a loss.
They are sucking every dime out of "must have" adopters. Look at high end video cards for computers as a perfect example, 399-499 when released, MUST HAVE's buy them.
3 months later, 180 dollars or less....
This is all well and good, not to mention free market and all that good stuff. But they are selling to a small market, their customers. No way am I going to drop 1k on a box that just records in HD.
An HD HTPC can do the same, might not be as easy to use but for 1K it does alot more for me than just record video.
You can say not everyone will want to go through the trouble to do this or has the expertise and your right. But at 1K your not going to find many people to buy a Voom DVR either...and those that could are probably savvy enough to think they can do it better on their own for the same money.
Its been shown over and over that a certain technology doesn't get mass market adaption before it comes down 50-75 percent of its original costs before it becomes obsolete.
I don't have a marketing degree, business degree or anything else, but I do know how people I know spend their money and its just simple common sense. At those kinds of costs no one will buy one, at least not in any significant number to matter to the bottom line.
CD players, DVD Players, VCR's, all of them had to drop to 1/10th their original costs to become a force in the consumer market, VCR's took the most time, CD Players took less and DVD's took even less...on the other hand they had a standards commitee that drove them...DVR's do not have that and they need to be cheap to work.
OTA HD recievers for 600-800 dollars was insane, the costs of those boxes was no where near that. Now they are going for 99 dollars on clearance, even at the time I bought mine as a shelf model I paid 1/2 the cost new and electronic super stores don't give things away, that gave me enough indication of its real costs.
I think the market is getting tired of this trend, people are getting smarter, they know it will come down in price. People also get iritated over the fact that things are artificially high in costs.
Voom is the perfect example. I just bought my new 60" GW LCD and Voom sounded like a great thing. $749.00 plus monthly charges, thought they were out of their minds and wouldn't sell enough to stay in business.
I *knew* in order for them to survive they had to lower their costs and get the product in people's homes...so I waited a whole 2 months and got it for free and 10 bux a month.
The story has been the same in almost every new electronic toy the only difference is the time between high dollar introduction and consumer acceptable costs is getting shorter and shorter. Eventually it will be short enough that even the early adopters will wait the few months.
I won't buy a DVD Recorder either, same deal, costs alot less than the high dollar they are charging for them.
The integration of computer technology into HT will drive costs down. Look at a Lite On 2001 DVD player, 1080i scaling over a component connection, good quality, not too bad a price for what it does...take it apart its all standard PC parts and runs Linux...Samsung comes out with the same thing over DVI and charges twice the cost of the LO or its replacement Norcent that does it over DVI also.
None of the above. Not until Voom can prove to me that the new box won't be as buggy as the current box.
All Voom has "proven" so far is that they launched their service way too early(even though they "had" to to claim sat. space) and that they adopted the WRONG stb for their service.-come on guys-make like RAID and get rid of your buggy stb pronto!andrzej said:
I heard that Dish Network is offering the HD dvr for a low $4.99 fee for signing up for HD programming $9. Then people have to agree to a contract for so long.
Doesn't sound like a bad deal.
Doesn't sound like a bad deal.
Just found this too about a cable hd dvr rental....
HD-DVR Facts vs Myth
HD-DVR will be available to Cox customers on 4/20/04. The final test phases ran a little longer then we expected, but as some of you have mentioned in this forum, that happens sometimes when testing a new product or technology. Our HD-DVR has a 160 gig hard drive, and you’ll be able to record up to 20 hours of HD content and up to 90 hours of digital content. When you mix analog, digital, and HD content together you’ll fall in between 20-80 hours of recording space.
The HD-DVR monthly rate is $18.95 total. (DVR service is $9.95 a month, this is the functionality of DVR. Plus the HD Converter rental of $9.00)
HD-DVR will allow you to record HD programming and play it back off of a recorded list. Quality of the HD play-back is the same as the original broadcast (e.g., 1080i program is captured and played back in 1080i).
HD-DVR Facts vs Myth
HD-DVR will be available to Cox customers on 4/20/04. The final test phases ran a little longer then we expected, but as some of you have mentioned in this forum, that happens sometimes when testing a new product or technology. Our HD-DVR has a 160 gig hard drive, and you’ll be able to record up to 20 hours of HD content and up to 90 hours of digital content. When you mix analog, digital, and HD content together you’ll fall in between 20-80 hours of recording space.
The HD-DVR monthly rate is $18.95 total. (DVR service is $9.95 a month, this is the functionality of DVR. Plus the HD Converter rental of $9.00)
HD-DVR will allow you to record HD programming and play it back off of a recorded list. Quality of the HD play-back is the same as the original broadcast (e.g., 1080i program is captured and played back in 1080i).
That's the monthly DVR fee. You have to pay that after you buy it for $999.
As you note, COX plans to offer the dual-tuner Scientific Atlanta HD DVR for what looks to be $18.95/mo, in some markets. Of course, cable also tends to have higher overall programming costs.
Video game consoles are sold at a loss because the manufacturers (Sony, Microsoft, etc) make money off the license fees they receive for every game sold. Satellite STBs are also sold at a loss. Satellite companies make their money off the programming, not the sale of boxes. For example, DirecTV took a loss of $200-250 on every SD Tivo they sold last year. They do this because it makes for loyal customers, reducing churn. Satisfied customers also tend to order more programming.
As you say, volume has a lot to do with cost and pricing. If a STB has $350 or $450 in parts (at 10,000 unit quantities), volume will determine whether that product can be sold at $550 or $1000. All STB PVRs have significant software development and R&D costs that must be accounted for, and when you're dealing with low volumes, that can easily make a $200 difference, without even considering the support and marketing costs.
There's also the issue of the competition, or lack thereof. HD DVRs aren't like computers, where there are choices (competition) for almost every component in the box. Although there is competition between disk vendors that will drive down the cost of storage, there isn't any viable competition to Broadcom when it comes to dual tuner DVRs. They are the only one with the technology, so they can charge whatever they feel will will maximize their profits. Once some competition (currently limited to single tuner solutions) enters the dual tuner market, it should drive DVR costs down further.
Of course, it is your choice to spend $799-$999 on a HD DVR.
Refer to the specifications I listed in the first post. A PC can't do the same thing. There are no consumer HDTV PC boards with support for encrypted satellite signals. There are no HDTV PC boards with dual OTA tuners (although you could always buy two cards). You could buy a $2500 board to encode HDTV signals from component, but this involves some loss of quality, and still only lets you record one program at a time.
It also is probably because no one would buy one without that kind of price hit. There is a psychological aspect to this too...you have X Cable and buy a Tivo...your paying Tivo and paying cable, two totally seperate things in your head. You have DTV and have DirecTivo...it comes down to "I'm paying all this and now have to pay them more'. I bought DirecTV because they offered the 99 dollar Tivo unit, never would have considered at at 399-499.
People are going to associate the box price with their normal bill and many won't pay it.
As far as the computer comparison, yes there are a ton of manufactuers and almost all of them, with regards to video cards, are priced within 20-30 dollars of each other. Nvidia sets the chip costs and all those companies just build 90 percent copy cat of the reference design. Its also easy to spot the difference in those 20-30 dollar price differences, ram speed, manufactuer of the ram, quality of RAMDAC used, etc...the constant and high cost part is the GPU and they all pretty much pay the same price, they make their money in the exta's or settng themselves apart with content or cost. In the end the part that drives down the cost is the GPU, its sold at high dollar to make up for R&D and start up costs and then lowered in price to push it into the mass market.
And again, there is nothing wrong with that, its a free market economy. But the post was titled, "What would you pay" and I won't pay that much and neither will a majority of the people. This is not a mass market item and because of the security its tied to a particular product, the service you get the DVR from.
A product like a DVR will either bring Voom customers or cause them to leave, as soon as a cable company or other sat company has a better offer with HD DVR people will switch. They will need to remain price competitive for the mass market and at the prices people are talking about that will not happen.
Voom has really set themselves up for this with their no commitment, no contract. They really need to be the price leader in the segment, they are new, they are small, they do offer a good/better product as far as HD content is concerned but they also have their fair share of problems. Those problems would sink a company very quickly if their content/programming was on par with the other services but for now they offer something unique and its worth the hassle....to a point...soon DTV and Dish will catch up, OTA will increase, and if they do not have a large enoug customer base to support them it'll all be over.
Eric_C said:
I don't know how you can know what the majority of Voomers would pay for DVR. My guess is that most Voomers would pay $10/month over what they are already paying. My current monthly Voom bill is $93.40, and I think that all the functionality of a DVR is worth the extra $10.
I didn't vote in the poll. I think the correct answer will be "Whatever Voom tells you to pay when the product is rolled out". The probable choice at the time will be purchase, lease, or abstain.
Ken F said:
This is true today, but expect the PC makers, particularly those that offer Windows Media Center Edition, to jump on the bandwagon with products that do exactly that (not the encoded signal, but the component/DVI encoding for "in the clear" content)...HD encoding from component is no different than video card decoding, just a matter of volume and custom silicon...
Actually, I expect the consumer electronics industry (from TiVo to Sony) to develop an HD DVR/DVD Recorder based upon WM9, which allows an HD signal to be compressed to fit on a standard DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW disc...
at $1.00 per disc and dropping fast, -R disks become very cost effective, particularly with M/S focusing like a laser (pun intended) on HD encoding...
