AOL will launch TiVo-like Mystro service

Jason1729 writes "According to this article on Yahoo, AOL is launching its on version of a PVR service. The content will be stored at the cable provider and not in the local hardware. That seems to be a huge disadvantage because it will use a lot more cable bandwidth transfering the content for a single viewer. It sounds like they're doing it that way so they can restrict which shows you can use the service with (like lock out new episodes of network shows)."

TiVo comes full circle.

[matthew.thompson]

It's interesting to note that this is where TiVo started out - the original project the TiVo pioneers worked on was the HSN cable network which offered exactly these features.

Meanwhile over in the UK we were promised similar features years ago but because our cable providers are cash strapped at the moment they've not yet appeared.

Why server-side?

[Zayin]

It sounds like they're doing it that way so they can restrict which shows you can use the service with (like lock out new episodes of network shows).

From the article:

The New York Times, which was the first to report the details of AOL's Mystro project, said it would allow networks to determine which shows could be rescheduled and to insert commercials into replays.

There's your answer. They don't want people skipping commercials, and they want full control over rescheduling.

Such a non-story

[funkman]

Comcast already has this too [comcast.com]. AOL is playing catchup.

the downside

[bendsley]

The reason that all the equipment is going to be at the cable provider is because of the fact that with this new service, you will not be able to skip commercials like you are able to with tivo. Most of the same features are there, pausing live tv, skipping shows, etc. But, from what I have heard, you will not be able to skip commercials, and there will be commercial pop-ups when the tivo is in a freeze frame. Companies that advertise don't like tivo for the fact that nobody sees their ads anymore.

Re:other limitations....

[bLanark]

i realize that disk space is cheap, but this could be interesting! if a user (viewer?) is allowed 6 hours (i say six because you have 6hr miniseries) and this takes (a guess!) 10G and you have 10,000 viewers.... thats's 100TB! damn.

Wait a minute, they don't need to store each episode for everyone, they just keep one copy of it until everyone has removed it from their favourites, then it gets deleted.

AOL/TW seems to have noticed...

[mr. methane]

... that tivo and others are getting popular. In my area they are pushing their PPV-on-demand services -- as well as HBO/Showtime on demand -- very heavily. I did order a movie using the service and found that I could, indeed, pause it, fast-forward, rewind, etc.. but seeing as I already have those features on Tivo, it's not as much of a draw for me as it might be for a brand-new subscriber.

Re:Bah, bandwidth...

[Roofus]

Thanks to digital boxes (which take 1/100th of the spectrum that a broadcast channel does)

Holy crap! I wish that were true. 1/100th isn't the case. A regular broadcast channel takes up a 6MHz slot. At most, you can fit in 10-12 digital channels in that same slot using a statistical multiplexer. Of course, the images look like shit (especially if the mpeg has a moving background). You may be able to fit in 10 channels of CSPAN though. You're more likely to fit in 6-8 digital channels in place of one analog channel.

Re:Build your own Tivo Device www.mythtv.org

[Darth Maul]

I have a little Shuttle PC as my MythTV box in the living room. It's wonderful! But it's a lot more than just TiVo functionality. On top of the TV recording/live pause/etc of TiVo you also get game emulators, image galleries, weather, and music library. It's the ultimate "media convergence box". I highly recommend it.

And Viacom as well

[yerricde]

What you forgot is that AOL is really AOL-Time Warner, and they own most of the content providers!

Time Warner owns The WB, CNN, CNN Headline News, TBS, TNT, TCM, Cartoon Network, but not much else that I surf past on basic cable. Time Warner does not own CBS, UPN, MTV, Nickelodeon (all Viacom), or ABC, ABC Family, ESPN, Disney, Toon Disney (all Disney). None of them owns NBC, MSNBC (Gen Elec Co), A&E, The History Channel, The Biography Channel (A&E TV Nets), Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet (Discovery Comms), BET (BET Nets), E!, style. (E! Ent Nets), Fox, Fox News (News Corp),

Re:Best thing ever for TiVo

[Darth Maul]

Check out MythTV. It's what's running on *my* homebrew and it sure isn't just an awkward VCR.

http://www.mythtv.org/

It's only at a 0.8 release and is quite impressive.

Re:You've got re-runs!

[ePhil_One]

The one advantage I could see to doing this server side is to allow me to time shift shows "post-mortem"; after they have aired (or begun airing). With a Tivo/VCR, you generally have to tell the box in advance "record this show/event" (Tivo will sometimes successfully guess, but thats a crap shoot) Tivo's "Season Pass" helps a lot here, I don't have to know when 24 is going to air (I really have no idea!) but when it does its in my now playing list, wee! But some stuff, like the Emmy's, (I won't mind watching Emmy commercials, but PLEASE let me skip parts of the show :^) comes out of left field for me. I found it was on 30 minutes till the "end", so I didn't bother.

Actually, thats the one feature I'd like to see added to my Tivo, a "Water Cooler" filter, to automatically record shows that are likely to be the subject of Water Cooler talk at the office.

But anyway, the idea is that while I didn't record the Emmy's, someone did, let me access the recording and watch it. Or the Final Four, or the Coca-Cola 400, or BattleBots Blooper Show (Tivo rely's on exact matches, so it misses stuff like that)

Bandwidth is a non-issue.

[drinkypoo]

DOCSIS cable modems allow downstream speeds of ~45 Mbps, with speeds of 10Mbps regularly seen in the real world. This is more than enough bandwidth to handle your MPEG2 video on demand (or MPEG4 or whatever, depends on the STB now don't it) and still handle the usual 1.5 Mbps capped bandwidth for your cable modem. On top of that, the STB will likely have its own DOCSIS modem, and each device has its own downstream channel which means it won't affect you anyway.

In other words, claiming bandwidth will hold you back is pure fud. You can put 10,000 people on a single line card and get speeds of over 5Mbps per subscriber if you feed that head end with a wide enough pipe. (Multiple GigE interfaces?)

I've been saying that they should throttle at their internet border for a long time (they being cable companies) and give you some more bandwidth to internal content, like NNTP. That would doubtless distract people from using the internet at large quite so much. It would also allow more traffic between subscribers.

Re:The 800 pound gorilla...

[EditorType]

Yeah, it's not the same thing, and we take control of your viewing habits (forced commercials, can't record certain shows, we keep a record of the crap you're watching and sell it, etc) but come on, it's cheap and easy. This is most of it, but I think the slant on this perspective is just slightly skewed. "Taking control of your viewer habits" isn't the end, it's a means. Despite our concerns, the cable companies (and most other business') prime motivation is pretty clear: they want to make money. We want a way around commercials, but ad revenue makes the whole game worthwhile for these guys. Without it, we won't get the same content, or we'll pay a lot more for it -- which some folks would prefer, but likely not enough to generatre a critical mass that would deliver quality shows. We'd see more Fear Factor, less Six Feet Under.

As Fritz Benwalla points out above, cable companies are bumming over PVRs because consumers prefer their ease and are leaving digital cable to buy TiVo. The cable companies would counter with simple on-demand, but the networks won't give them good shows to watch if they (the networks) believe all of us viewers are going to skip through the ads. The advertisers would find out, (darn it!) and they would pay less to run their ads. A likely compromise is a couple of commercials up front (as at the movies) -- and ads that are so compelling you don't want to miss them (see Budweiser for reference).

One more interesting thing in all this: when we first began hearing about video-on-demand 10 or 15 years ago, we thought it was going to be about movies. It turns out that TV series are looking like much better fodder, especially since the movie studios are still pretty squirrely about offering up their movies to media where the consumer has a lot of control to store (and distribute). Cable & the networks love offering shows over VOD, because they find that folks are more likely to get into a series if they can go back and pick up the episodes they may have missed.