Has the ice melted?

Started by mattg, September 02, 2006, 12:16:06 PM

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mattg

Wow, this forum has gone dead. Is everybody happy with their current pimp or has everyone given up?

Is there any news on what is happening with a new Pimp client? ???

JPP

Quote from: mattg on September 02, 2006, 12:16:06 PM
Wow, this forum has gone dead. Is everybody happy with their current pimp or has everyone given up?

Is there any news on what is happening with a new Pimp client? ???
I think you're right. I get the feeling that ICE have lost heart. Very little interaction with the Toppy crowd and certainly an apparent unwillingness to have the Toppy gurus help them to get PIMP going on the Toppies. As I've said before in earlier posts, a PIMP service initiated from the Toppy, akin to the EPG daily update we have now and used in conjunction with Tony's EPG Uploader, would give us at least a limited PIMP service. What's more, getting the Toppy gurus involved would take a great deal of burden of their shoulders and speed up the program development. Can't for the life of me see why they are so reluctant to accept outside help.

Phil.
Phil.
Beyonwiz T2, DVDO Duo Video Processor

peteru

Perhaps the people at ice are kind of busy with preparing for the courtroom dance with channel Nine?

It usually takes quite a lot of effort to prepare all the possible evidence you may need for a court appearance. You need to have truckloads of substantiated evidence ready at the drop of a hat. It's not like you can stand in front of the judge and say "I don't know, I'll get back to you next week on that."

pvogel

PeterU is correct, we are very busiy preparing for the hearing starting on 14th October.  We also have some problems to solve regarding how we can release the PIMP protocol to the community without it being utilised to facilitate use with free scraped guides. This is what happened with the TF5000, we spend a lot of time and money getting the EPG functionality built into the TAP environment which has been used mainly for scraped guides not the subscription service we provide.

While I can understand the attraction of circumventing a subscription fee, we have mouths to feed and need a large subscriber base to fund development. 

We released the WiFi router firmware as open-source for the developer community however qas far as I know no-one has made any use of this, and thetyoe of development being considered now for Topfield PIMP would ideally be done on the router.

So as I said the business case for IceTV is a bit uncertain.  The door is certainly still open, but we are wary of releasing proprietary code that might be used mainly to enhance the free epg solutions.

Peter Vogel
CTO IceTV

tick007

Quote from: pvogel on September 04, 2006, 11:23:01 AM
So as I said the business case for IceTV is a bit uncertain.  The door is certainly still open, but we are wary of releasing proprietary code that might be used mainly to enhance the free epg solutions.

Peter, I'll offer you another point of view from a long-time subscriber.  Your value-add is not the software that makes ICE work (in all it's forms), it's:


  • hassle free setup
  • reliable service
  • friendly, helpful support if required
  • and most importantly, the content that you assemble and keep current yourself

The software is just an enabler for your service, and the service is what people pay for.  You could release all your proprietary code (on the client side), the free EPG solutions could totally rip it off, and I don't think it's going to affect your sales that much at all.  There will always be people who will spend inordinate amounts of time (and hidden money) trying to get "free" solutions working, and they would never subscribe to your service whether the current free EPG solutions work as slick as yours or not.  They will just wait, or go through other machinations to get their "free" solution working.  Denying them does not increase your sales.

However, what you do risk doing is missing all the sales from people who would pay the very fair fees you currently charge for your service, but won't currently because it doesn't work the way they want, or not reliably, or because they think they're missing out on functionality (I'm thinking about this thread here and the lack of a PIMP solution for the Toppy).  I've been waiting on an end-to-end solution for a Mac controlling a Toppy and using ICE for over a year now, and still no nirvana... if you produced this (and all the components are there and it's probably less than a week's development time), you would have me locked up as a life-time subscriber.  As it stands, if someone else comes along and serves my need (free or not), I will likely jump ship.

Leveraging off the very talented existing Toppy development community can only be a good thing for ICE.  Get as much software out there in all it's forms, and let people then decide what they want in a service.  I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of your subscribers would tell you that they would be quite happy to keep paying for ICE even if they were all using free, open-source, solutions.

But that's just a guess... hopefully other subscribers will follow this post up and let you know their thoughts as well. :)

JPP

#5
Tick007, I couldn't have put it better myself. Exposure is what will bring it to people's attention. The subscription rate is NOT an issue. I've recently taken out a subscription for the next 12 months and was surprised that when I did some 2 weeks after the half price offer for the first 500 was issued, I was still able to get it at half price. That says something doesn't it? Get ICE and PIMP out there and let people who want to help you do so. Several have asked for your input/info re PIMP on the Toppy, but you appear to be ignoring their emails. I think you are at the crossroad of keeping ICE alive, regardless of the channel 9 outcome.

Phil.
Phil.
Beyonwiz T2, DVDO Duo Video Processor

pvogel

Thanks for the comments - be assured this forum and the emails have not been ignored, as I said the problem is that it's not a simple matter and we have to weigh up the effort/return carefully. We have only a small development team and everything must be appropriately prioritised.

We are discussing options and will keep you informed via this frum.

The suggestions/discussion are most appreciated.

Peter

MitchellO

I have to agree completely. IceTV is so simple to use, and takes minutes to setup, and its that what you are paying for. I was one who used the FreeXMLTV solution, which worked great....when it worked. It had to be updated fairly regularly to fix problems that the data sources caused, and it was simply a pain. When it finally died, both my dad and I decided to take up the very generous offer extended to XPMCE Forum users for double the subscription for free.

No regrets at all. Well done guys for providing a reliable service that should have been included in the first place. Your solution is as integrated as it can be.

Marc

Thanks MitchellO.

Please spread the word if you can! The more people on board, the better we can make the service.

MitchellO

I recommend Media Center to everyone who wants to upgrade their lounge room setup, and if they go with Media Center, the recommendation of IceTV comes right after it :D

Marc

Thanks very much for doing that :)

deangelj

tick007 is right on the money - for me, the value proposition for ICE is saving me the time and energy in getting a guide to my toppy. As for the scrapers, that source is dying away - it's ironic that ninemsn are making it harder for the scrapers and in doing so pushing people to source their EPG from ICE!

cheers,
John