[mythtv-users] so how does Tivo do it?

Jeff Williams JeffW at rockstargames.com
Tue Aug 5 19:23:28 EDT 2003 

Well part of your claim that S2 quality was lower than S1 was the fact that fewer hard drives were supported, the case wasn't as sturdy and components had been removed from the motherboard (see below).  My point is fewer components, all else being equal, means greater reliability, not less.  No, I'm not vouching for the quality of the capacitors (though that's getting a bit specific - these are 1 cent or less parts in quantity and I would highly doubt that's where they're trying to save money), and I never said S2 models were definitely better or even the same as S1 models.  But I am saying one less hard drive and a more tightly integrated motherboard should, by themselves, increase reliability.  You don't really know anything about anything else in the machine, so there's no real conclusion that can be drawn.

As for the power supply (which you mention in relation to the dual hard drive support), there's no reason for a power supply to support more hardware than what is required.  If I buy a 400 watt PSU for my PC and my PC only ever draws 130 watts, that extra capacity isn't doing anything for me but burning a hole in my pocket.  A 400 watt power supply that's actually supplying 130 watts isn't necessarily going to be any better quality than a 150 watt power supply that's supplying 130 watts.  (To keep somewhat on-topic, this is applicable to Myth PC's too - I know there have been power supply questions around here before.)  There are other things that go into making a good power supply; ripple, consistent voltage, efficiency, etc.  I don't know that having a wattage rating lower than the series 1 TiVo models is indicative of anything but the components requiring less power.  It's about like saying a car with a top speed of 200 is "better" than a car with a top speed of 125.  It may or may not be; you don't know anything about the quality of either car just from that one number, all you know is one is potentially faster if you demand it to be.  But they'll both go 65mph equally well, and the slower car may even be quicker off the line and may break down less too.

So series 2 models could be either better or worse, we don't know, and I don't think it's possible to make a definite assertion one way or another as you did.  I am sure series 2 models do cost less to make than series 1 models, in the same way my 52X CDRW drive no doubt cost less to make (and buy) a month ago than my 4X CDRW did that I bought 3 years ago.  That's just the way technology is; there's no way anything in a TiVo costs any significant amount of money now even if they are using top-quality stuff.  Costing less, using fewer parts and being less reliable are not all the same thing.

Again I'm sure I sound like I'm defending my TiVo, but really I'm just trying to point out the fallacy of a generalization... it's the kind of thing I see a lot in relation to a lot of different hardware, not just TiVo.  I mean, some people measure the quality of a piece of hardware by how heavy it is, not even realizing that a lot of hardware makers put lead weights in their products specifically because they know people do this!  (Your mouse probably has one - open it up and see.)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Blomfield [mailto:ScottB at Cavps.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 5:12 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] so how does Tivo do it?
> 
> 
> You can get better or lesser quality components of pretty much any
> electrical component.
> 
> Where you see "three pieces" one of which is a PCB, someone else sees
> hundreds of different transistors, capacitors, etc etc.
> 
> I have not seen you vouch that the quality of the capacitors 
> is the same
> as in the series one tivo. They may be of the same "quality" 
> but with a
> lesser lifetime. Or the whole thing might just plain be 
> better quality.
> Who knows.
> 
> I just wanted to point out that what you consider parts and what other
> people consider parts can and probably are two different things.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Williams [mailto:JeffW at rockstargames.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 3:59 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] so how does Tivo do it?
> 
> Well I think my main point was that a lot of people take reducing size
> and weight to mean a reduction in quality, when just as often the
> opposite is the case.  Having one large hard drive vs. two 
> smaller ones,
> for example, actually *increases* reliability.  As does integrating
> everything onto the motherboard.  Fewer parts means fewer parts to
> potentially fail.
> 
> I haven't played around with a series 1 box but as far as physical
> construction goes, I just didn't see anything in my series 2 
> that could
> really be any better built than it is.  I mean what are you 
> going to do,
> make the motherboard thicker?  Use more screws?  The physical 
> case could
> be made differently, maybe, but it's built pretty much like 
> every other
> home theater component.
> 
> The quality of the TV encoder/decoder and DAC, you could be right for
> all I know.  I do notice a slight degradation in my signal even at
> highest quality.  But it's very slight, and in reading the
> tivocommunity.com forums it seems like some people see it, some people
> don't, and it doesn't really matter if you have a series 1 or 2.  More
> people obviously have series 2 at this point so probably more people
> notice the degradation with these machines.  But I can't say for sure.
> 
> Not that I'm really a TiVo defender.  I'm actually planning 
> on replacing
> mine; I had originally planned on replacing it with my Myth box but as
> I'm having some remote control issues I'll probably just 
> replace it with
> the new Time Warner PVR's that are coming out and use my Myth box for
> things other than watching live TV (archiving TV shows, 
> watching DVD's,
> playing MAME games, etc.).  And one of the reasons I'm replacing it is
> the fact that it recompresses to MPEG-2 (the new Time Warner boxes
> apparently don't recompress digital cable - they just write 
> the digital
> stream to the hard drive).  I think it's the MPEG-2 standard, and the
> fact that it's recompressing what's already been compressed and
> converted to analog once, that causes the image degradation, 
> rather than
> any quality issues with the encoder/decoder.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Max [mailto:max-mythtv-users at lasevich.net]
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 4:40 PM
> > To: Discussion about mythtv
> > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] so how does Tivo do it?
> > 
> > 
> > First of all,don't take it personally, after all "lower" is 
> > only a relative
> > term.
> > 
> > And by components I meant stuff ON the motherboard. Things 
> > like the mpeg
> > encoder/decoder , DACs, etc. - as well as other stuff like 
> > quality of the
> > case (Series 1 cases were much sturdier than S2's),  and 
> > quality of power
> > supply (many S2 power supplies cannot handle 2 harddrives, 
> > where S1's were
> > actually DESIGNED to support 2 drives.) Also some components 
> > present on S1
> > motherboards were removed for S2 - though for my life I 
> > cannot recall right
> > now what they were.If you want more details, do some 
> searches on Tivo
> > Underground forum.
> > 
> > All in all, Series2 units seem to have more issues with video 
> > and audio
> > quality than series1 boxes, and tivo themselves said that 
> part of the
> > redesign goal was to reduce cost of the boxes.
> > 
> > It is still a nice box though and quiet sufficient for task.
> > 
> > -M
> > 
> > > I'm not sure the component quality is really lower.  What 
> > is that based
> > on?  I have a series 2 unit that I've modified with a new 
> > hard drive... all
> > that's in there is a power supply, motherboard with 
> integrated CPU and
> > hardware TV encoder, one fan and one Western Digital 40GB 
> > hard drive (I had
> > a 40 hour model).  I'm not even sure what there is that could 
> > be considered
> > higher or lower quality than what used to be in there - there 
> > are exactly
> > three parts to a TiVo that I was able to see, one of which is 
> > solid state,
> > another of which is from a reputable and respected hard drive 
> > maker.  And I
> > can't imagine they're making units with lower-quality power 
> > supplies now;
> > that'd be an odd place to save money (or rather, it would 
> > have been odd if
> > they were using particularly *good* power supplies in the 
> > first gen models).
> > So I don't know where the lower quality assertion comes from. 
> >  The weight of
> > the unit?  Size?  Looks?
> > >
> > > As for how they do it, the only thing in there that's worth 
> > anything is
> > the hardware TV encoder, which is probably equivalent to a 
> > PVR-250.  A 40GB
> > hard drive can be found for about $40 these days, the slow 
> > CPU's they use
> > are basically worthless, and a cheap, generic motherboard 
> > only costs $15 so
> > I can imagine they're not paying much for their custom PCB's.
> > >
> > > >From their lifetime subscription fees, they're counting on 
> > at least $500
> > per customer over the life of a unit.  I guarantee they're 
> > making a nice
> > profit at that price.  On the other hand, the company itself 
> > is still losing
> > money, but that's more due to company size and overhead vs. 
> > installed base
> > than anything.  If they had enough subscribers, they'd be 
> > making money, and
> > I'm sure they're making money on a per-unit basis.
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Max [mailto:max-mythtv-users at lasevich.net]
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 2:53 PM
> > > > To: Discussion about mythtv
> > > > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] so how does Tivo do it?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Tivo is
> > > >     a: using custom designed, dedicated platform, not generic
> > > > multipurpose
> > > > hardware, so they only have needed hardware
> > > >     b: because of a, they can use a 75Mhz PPC w/ 16MB of ram
> > > > instead of
> > > > 1Ghz+ P3 with 512MB of ram
> > > >         (at least this is Series1 specs, Series 2 is
> > > > different I think)
> > > >     c: Series 1 units were sold BELOW their harware price,
> > > > they tried to
> > > > make up the difference in service fees
> > > >     d: Series 2 units have better spec, but use much 
> > lower quality of
> > > > components as to bring the cost down.
> > > >
> > > > -M
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > > > From: "John Wells" <jb at sourceillustrated.com>
> > > > To: <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 11:45 AM
> > > > Subject: [mythtv-users] so how does Tivo do it?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > So, basically, if I want to create a MythTV box with all
> > > > the features of
> > > > > Tivo, I'm looking at a fairly hefty (at least $600+) 
> price tag.
> > > > >
> > > > > How does Tivo offer their systems at such lower prices?
> > > > I'm aware of
> > > > > economies of scale, but what magic are they working?
> > > > >
> > > > > I suppose the monthly subscription fee covers some of their
> > > > cost, but it
> > > > > can't be a very lucrative profit there...
> > > > >
> > > > > Anyone have some insight?
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks,
> > > > >
> > > > > John
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > mythtv-users mailing list
> > > > > mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > > > > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > mythtv-users mailing list
> > > > mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > > > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > mythtv-users mailing list
> > > mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> > >
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> 
>

More information about the mythtv-users mailing list