[mythtv-users] MythTV: Isaac Tivo: > 100 tech guys

Shawn Asmussen shawn.asmussen at gmail.com
Wed Dec 8 18:21:37 UTC 2004


On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 16:09:37 -0800 (PST), Mythtv Mythtv
<almyth at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Is it amamazing that MythTVs just Isaac, a few
> part-time guys, while Tivo has more than 100 full time
> tech guys?  (no offense to Tivo tech guys, I believe
> they are also very bright).
> 
> Sure, Tivo has GUI guys, application guys, system
> engineering guys, QA... But MyMythTV's quality is
> comparable to Tivo  It's ridiculous for Tivo tolose
> money when they have 2 million customers.    Tivo was
> a nice startup,  but now ends up with a company that
> looks like very ininefficient, and clumsy,...
> 
> Any thoughts on this?
> 

To be fair, the majority of Tivo's expenses probably comes from things
other than application development. They have the costs associated
with providing the listings, which includes the fees that they pay to
get the listings in the first place, and all of the infrastructure
that they have to maintain like local phone numbers for everybody to
dial into, and the hardware and people to run the service. If their
only expenses were related to the development of the Tivo software,
they'd be making money hand over fist. Mythtv doesn't provide any
service like this; you have to get your listings on your own. A more
interesting comparison might be between Tivo and Zap2it, where most of
us US people are getting our listings from.

Shawn Asmussen


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