TiVo Plans More Functionality Reductions 521
TiVo has been in the news recently with a couple of plans to make their service less useful than it could be: first, TiVos will now auto-delete pay-per-view and video-on-demand movies, and second, TiVo is making sure that you can't use a TiVo to view NFL games outside the specified market area. TiVo's lawyer explains.
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:PPV (Score:3, Interesting)
How many times have you personally ordered the SAME pay per view movie more than once? Unless you're lying, the answer is none.
So really, it doesn't matter. They're clearly just doing this to be assholes and try to further put control on what people can record and keep even though the material in question, along with their profits, is completely irrelevant.
They aren't getting their greedy hands... (Score:2, Interesting)
Macrovision (Score:5, Interesting)
They're the ones who did that funny trick with DVDs so the screen brightness would flicker which prevented anyone from running the television signal through any device that adhered to a standard.
They're the asshats who slipped that little "suprise" in with Turbo Tax that one year. Appliance rape, I called it.
TiVo should take the moral high road and at least supply some screwdriver-accessible switch which forces the machine to ignore these things they talk of in the article. The lawyer said they weren't expecting Macrovision to Trojan horse TiVo with this, but I don't think he's ever watched his computer sit in the corner and cry while a baby C_DILLA grows inside of it.
Just Series2 or Series1 also? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
I own a DirecTivo yet am doing what you've suggested and am building a system for my GF and her kids (analog cable only).
MythTV + ASUS Pundit-R + PVR-350 + Fedora FC2
I'm now at about 30 hours of effort and climbing. Not that I care too much as I've learned about about the driver structure for ivtv, lirc, and xorg configs (don't get to play with non-MS GUI's too often). Short of it is, roll-your-own is only for those that have the technical expertise and can understand that apt-get of the pre2-100zz packages don't work with the latest firmware in card XYZ.
When compared to pulling a Tivo out of the box, plugging it in, going through the setup menu and having it work vs the current MythTV more MS MCE crip crap, it's a no brainer. Hopefully HTPC packages will become more refined, both in the OSS environment and off the shelf (I'd love to try MCE but am not willing to pay the cost especially on uncertified hardware).
Caving in to Macrovision and the content providers will be a blow to Tivo in the long run. It's unfortunate that even if there is a huge backlash from users, thier voices will be a pale echo of the majority of PVR users (those being provided by the cable companies, etc).
Sad day for Tivo indeed.
Re:Glad I have Dish PVR (Score:4, Interesting)
Best thing about it is that it was free 8^)
accelerating their own death (Score:4, Interesting)
Then they go removing features and pretty much pissing off their loyal customer base, the only people they have to keep them going financially. I imagine cable companies will have the same issues with auto deleting pay per view, and no out of market sporting events, but if they never give you that in the first place it won't be so bad. In addition their hardware is going to work on their systems a lot better than adding on a Tivo to your existing cable system.
Bye bye Tivo.
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)
This might help. (Score:3, Interesting)
Section 1008 is interesting:
"Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. "
This shouldn't be difficult to get around. (Score:3, Interesting)
There are only so many ways that tivo can add tags to tell the difference between pay per views and on demand items so that it knows what it should or shouldn't delete. One way is through attributes stored in the MFS structure, another way is maybe a hidden flag somewhere in the MFS filesystem itself, and probably the least likely method would be to tag the tystream itself.
No matter which of these methods they use, it would be very easy to identify and remove any tags. What would work even better is to patch the tivoapp binary so that it doesn't add these tags in the first place, which is otherwise a hard thing to accomplish, but several people in the tivo hacking scene have done quite well at things like this.
Glad I have Snapstream (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PPV (Score:3, Interesting)
even if you rent an apartment, your landlord still cannot just come into your place even though they "own" it.
Re:PPV (Score:2, Interesting)
Glad I built instead of bought (Score:4, Interesting)
And since I'm using ATI's latest & greatest software, I'm able to record natively at this resolution in DVD-ready mpeg2 format.
Other solutions, such as ShowShifter, offer a prettier front end, but they're unable to take advantage of ATI's built in codecs, so mpeg recording is a 2 part process, in that you record in full DV, and then re-compress the video to mpeg, or whatever I want.
It's nice to know that while I'm archiving my girlfriends HBO series, that I don't need to worry about the manufacturer of my equipment suddenly changing what my equipment will, or will not do.
Thanks again Tivo! It's moves like this that really make me think I made the right choice by building instead of purchasing your product.
so... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would instead think about getting a TiVo with DVD writer built in so that I could burn it to disc and watch it anywhere outside of TiVo's influence and then they can delete it all they want.
Re:Should read (Score:5, Interesting)
Riiiight.... I'm sure the bulk of Tivo's base is really concerned about live-streaming NFL games to another site. I fail to see how NOT adding that functionality to a new product is going to cause lots of current subscribers to drop their current Tivo service. Tivo markets their product as a way to record shows when you aren't around, and I'm pretty sure their current customers think that is the most important benefit to owning a Tivo.
marketing (Score:2, Interesting)
This is exactly why I think replaytv [replaytv.com] was so much better a product.
Not only did it have great features like commerical skip (until the we practically sued to death and tivo grabbed share). But with lots of extensibility like the great oss dvarchive [dvarchive.org] where you create watch, archive and control your networked replaytv boxes, I always think it is a shame that tivo with the cuter name and better marketing campaign which caught so much of the market share.
I strongly suggest people think about checking out the competition, all the hacker types I know prefer it. But now that tivo has the market, they really don't care what consumers want as long as they sell more units. Tivo has become synonymous with pvr; and utimately we the consumers are really loosing out.
Reasonable balance... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see how this is any real threat to 'fair use'. You can still record the programs, but you have a limited timeline to watch. If you can't watch within that timeline, maybe you didn't really want to watch.
Seems to mean... nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
After detailed discussions with TiVo, the NFL now concurs that TiVo's current technology will not allow real-time transmissions that would be a cause of concern for the NFL.
Or in other words, nothing will change in this regard.
The PPV timeout thing is a real difference, but PPV is not part of the general Tivo service anyway. Don't buy them if you don't like the conditions.
Get a ReplayTV instead (Score:2, Interesting)
The killer app for me is that I can fire up DVArchive on my Mac/Windows/Linux box and copy over a program from the ReplayTV with ease. No need to hack hardware or software like I believe you have to with the Tivo.
About the only feature I would like is the media center. but then, I don't believe I can use it from my Linux server anyways, and that's where all the MP3s are.
About the only thing I can think of that has done to the ReplayTV that is even remotely similar to this is removal/crippling of the auto-skip feature. But that doesn't work much of the time anyways.
Re:Build your own... (Score:2, Interesting)
A - Zap2It has NEVER SAID they intend to go to a pay-service model. In fact, they have repeatedly said they have NO plans to do so - they may be lying, but so are you if you claim "looming promises of having to pay for the right to access it"
B - I don't understand how you can "fight with [a modern linux system] monthly" when so many others have gargantuan uptimes and NO problems - ONCE the initial setup has been taken care of. Now, to be fair, XMLTV - the old method of scraping Zap2It's data did break frequently - about once a month, which often involved rpm -U'ing a new package. Oooo, that's tough.
C - Since going to the DataDirect model, Zap2It hasn't changed anything, and XMLTV is obsolete (in NA, anyway). Yes, every three months you have to sign in to Zap2It's website and answer three questions about what you're using the service for - big deal. It's free.
You are right on one count - for most of the people out there, building their own PVR is not an option. I disagree that it's not an option for "most techno-geeks". I can see why YOU'D think so; you obviously fancy yourself to be one of these said techno-geeks. Unfortunatly, you are only half-right, at best, and only in the classical sense of the word. You, sir, may bite the heads off of chickens for fun and profit, but you certainly aren't a modern geek.
Re:Well, I've owned a Tivo for (Score:4, Interesting)
I know the argument about digital: every copy made is a perfect copy, indistinguisable from the original. In the analog world, I could just keep making copies of my original tape recording and only suffer 1 generational fall-off.
I'm not interested in taping movies off of PPV and then charging other people to show them. But I would like to be able to tape Game 4 of the World Series and send it to my grandmother. I might want to show friends a tape of the playoff game I went to where it was 20 below zero. Is the NFL really hurt by that?
The old joke is that nobody can figure out how to set the clock on their VCRs. Yet we still can record using VCRs even though some people don't use that functionality.
Want to stop piracy, MPAA, et. al.? Bust people who use mass duplicators and sell bootleg DVD's and CD's on street corners. Or look to your own people. How many people do you figure get to see a movie before its official release?
People who taped movies off of TV still bought commercial tapes and DVD's. The quality was usually better because the transfers were made off of the master copies and the tapes could be sized to accomodate a full standard play version and no more. DVD's can optimize bitrates and provide additional discs. The content producers can also provide extras that you might not get in an OTA broadcast.
Consumers are limited by compression used in broadcast, compression used by the Tivo to store files, and the expense involved to buy enough media or have enough storage to store content in at a desired quality level. Those prices may drop, but video files haven't been getting much smaller, especially with HD-quality video. Consumer writable DVD's and CD's use ink that degrades, as opposed to pressed plastic.
Also consider that the piracy loss numbers that the various associations throw out are frequently exposed as over-blown. Frequently, piracy numbers are followed by a report of record profits. I don't think my making a mix CD for a road trip or ripping DVD's to a portable video player is hurting the content producers all that much.
Accepting degraded functionality only makes it okay for the content distributors to take more capabilities away from you that you used to have. How long until you have to buy the right to Tivo an individual series? Or each episode in a series? Or not be able to timeshift a series at all? And all because you can now get cool sounds out of 6 speakers and can see every pore in Uma Thurman's skin.
Re: Artists make art for the sake of art (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:3, Interesting)
Better to attack the content providers by refusing to purchase PPV movies for recording on your TiVo. On the other hand, I sincerely hope that TiVo will continue to offer boxes WITHOUT TiVo To Go, so that this industry-imposed limitation isn't mandatory for a TiVo purchase.
Think of it like the DivX vs DVD thing from a few years ago -- did we all get angry at the manufacturers who offered DivX boxes? Nope, we just bought non-DivX DVD machines from the same manufacturers, or (at the end of the road) bought the deeply-discounted DivX machines and never, ever purchased a single DivX movie.
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:3, Interesting)
If TiVo is "pressured" from both sides, something will have to give. Either TiVo will cave to the movie companies, causing a significant loss of goodwill and customer base as people choose cheaper alternatives (such as the DVR that comes built into cable modems these days); or TiVo will cancel the software downgrade, retaining their customer base and revenue stream and POTENTIALLY opening themselves up to lawsuits.
Lets just hope that TiVo recognizes an existing revenue stream is worth more than the cost of a potential lawsuit. What's the worst that could happen to them if they're sued, anyway? The court could order them to make exactly this change. Then, the ill-will would at least be focused on the real perpetrators: the movie companies who sued TiVo and forced this change upon their customers. They may still lose revenue stream as people head for the cable-box DVRs, but at least their fan-base won't be pissed off at them.
Re:TiVo Shoots Self in Foot (Score:3, Interesting)
I own 2 TiVo units. Upgraded the disks myself. Bought 2 lifetime subscriptions for program guides.
For a small company trying to grow its subscriber base and earn more revenue, doing the opposite of what customers want seems to be phenomenonally foot wounding for TiVo.
I'll soon upgrade to HDTV. But given the restrictions coming down the pike on digital recording, eg, the broadcast flag in July 2005, I'll probably just build my own MythTV box for my future PVR needs, not buying an HD-TiVo.
Tivo, you're giving me the wrong features. (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure your Tivo Desktop is cool. Sure I would like to download Tivo recorded content to my PC or laptop. The problem is that's not what I bought a Tivo for and now you are starting to cripple the features that sold me on your product to begin with.
I would prefer you keep my Series 2 Tivo restriction free. Let me record whatever I want and keep it, don't delete it based on some other companies idea of how long I should have it.
Then you could create a separate product that does the Tivo Desktop for those that want it and find the content restrictions livable.
I am afraid, Tivo, Inc., you are going to regret this move you have made, because now hundreds or thousands of other content owners are going to rain down on you like hell fire to get you to add restrictions to their productions as well.
*TheDarb