Time Warner Recommends Internet For Some Shows 379
EdIII writes "The dispute between Time Warner and Viacom over fees seems to be without any resolution this year. Time Warner faces the possibility of being without content for almost 20 channels. Alexander Dudley, a spokesperson for Time Warner, is fighting back: 'We will be telling our customers exactly where they can go to see these programs online,' Mr. Dudley said. 'We'll also be telling them how they can hook up their PCs to a television set.' Why pay for digital cable when many content providers are now providing it on demand via the Internet? Not to mention the widespread availability of TV shows in both standard and high definition on public and private torrent tracker sites. It is entirely possible to watch television with no commercials or advertising with only an Internet connection. So getting your content via the Internet is not exactly free, but it certainly isn't contributing to Time Warner or any other cable providers' revenue stream. The real question is why Time Warner would fight back by so clearly showing how increasingly obsolete they are becoming and that cable providers are losing their monopolistic grip on media delivery." If no agreement is reached, those channels are supposed to be dropped just after midnight tonight.
Re:FiOS (Score:5, Informative)
Why pay? (Score:2, Informative)
Because you're sick of buffering everything for 20 minutes before watching and not having an easy way to discover new content that is outside the topic ranges of things you have been watching.
Quick lesson (Score:1, Informative)
"8,000 leechers, 4 seeders"
No problem there.
"your download will complete in 1 day, 17 hours, 49 minutes."
That part has nothing to do with the first part.
Do you not understand how torrents work, or are you just throwing in the "8,000 leechers, 4 seeders" even though it has nothing to do with your download being slow?
And no mods, his post wasn't insightful.
Re:Another thing TWC can tell their customers (Score:4, Informative)
Re:FiOS (Score:5, Informative)
You already force us to take channels we don't want just so we can get the few we do want.
Actually in many cases it's part of the agreement between the content provider and the cable company, the content provider is effectively the one "forcing" you to take channels you don't want.
Re:Tag suggestion. (Score:2, Informative)
TWC runs around a 7% profit margin, yeah that's great but you clearly know very little about the inner workings of the company. Most of those profits are reinvested into the company to cover expansion, maintenance of the vehicle fleet, maintenance of the RF and fiber infrastructure, and so many other projects.
How about Viacom? Well look at this... they run at about a 12% profit margin! Where's your scorn for their greed? Why aren't you pointing out that they could easily take LESS than their current contracted carrier fee and still be profitable?
Hypocrite.
Re:Tag suggestion. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:FiOS (Score:3, Informative)
As I said, consider the amount carefully, as I suspect you'll have lawsuits that follow shortly after the service interruption.
As a customer of Dish Network who lived through the same thing with Viacom a few years ago, I have to say that I consider this very unlikely. They, too, provided a temporary credit for the channels lost. They, too, make me take a lot of channels I don't like for the few I do.
You already force us to take channels we don't want just so we can get the few we do want.
They force us to do so, however, only because they are themselves forced to do so by the content providers. If Time Warner tried to provide you with just Comedy Central and Nickelodeon from Viacom at the basic tier, with all the others pushed to a higher tier where you could chose to not buy them, Time Warner would be sued for contract violation.
The same is true for basically all the other content providers - they don't just provide the channels and say that they must be at the same or relative tiers to each other, they specify exactly which tiers have which channels. Remember all the hubub about BTN (the Big 10 Network) demanding to be put on the basic tier for the entire Midwest?
The way Dish Network ended the impasse was to start lobbying for an end to monopolistic trade practices by the content providers. The argument goes something like this:
1. Each channel provided is, in a way, a monopoly. No one else can provide that channel because copyright law granted the content provider an exclusive right to that content. (This considers a "channel" to be a unique, copyright-protected thing. Ignore if the individual shows are copyright protected or even unique to that channel.)
2. By force a service provider to take and resell a second channel, as a condition for being provided the first channel, content providers are exploiting their monopoly of that first channel. Nickelodeon is a very popular channel. By forcing Time Warner (and Dish Network) to also carry several other lesser-quality channels at the same tier, Viacom could be in violation of the law. (I don't think it's ever been tested in court.)
After Dish Network went down this path, they settled with Viacom rather quickly. Viacom didn't get the rate hikes they wanted (immediately; they were delayed a bit), and Dish Network dropped their suit.
Sadly, when congress actually took this up and considered legislating mandatory a-la-cart pricing, the bill was poisoned with FCC regulation of cable content. As much as I think the Democrat-controlled congress and executive will help the country next year, I very much doubt they'll revisit this without making it just as bad or worse.
Viacom will block free Web video (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Viacom will block free Web video (Score:2, Informative)
Re:FiOS (Score:1, Informative)
Wow. You should find something for your kids to do besides watch TV.
Cheapest babysitter, amirite?
Re:plus help on configuring their firewalls. (Score:2, Informative)
Possibility I: NNTP/FTP/HTTP/Whatever: Each clients gets 1 Mbps of server bandwidth, everybody has the file after a bit more than two hours and 45 minutes. If there were only 100 instead of 1000 downloaders, they all would be done in about a quarter hour, so the distribution speed scales inversely to the number of clients.
Possibility II uses BitTorrent, so instead of a "server", we'll have a "seed" and the clients become "peers". In the same manner as before, 1000 downloads start simultaneously. Now our server ought to recognize he's the only seed and promptly switch to superseed mode (see GGP for details), supplying a different 1.25 MB piece to each client within the first ten seconds. Instead of only getting 1 Mbps from the servers, the peers can now, on average, use their full upload bandwidth distributing pieces amongst each other. Assuming such ideal conditions, the distribution bandwidth has doubled from 1 to 2 Gbps in only 10 seconds and our peers will finish the download in about half the time. Also, the server will only need to supply about half of the bandwidth, lowering his costs significantly. That way, it's even possible to seed something to thousands of people using a standard private DSL line with only a few mbps of upload capacity -- given enough peers willing to redistribute, of course.
The advantage from a users viewpoint tends to be more available content at lower/no cost
Re:FiOS (Score:2, Informative)
There are some "you can't do XXX unless you do YYY" agreements, but never ever ever a
"if you do YYY you must do XXX."
Those two conditions are equivalent. You have just swapped XXX and YYY around (which are just generic names in the first place).
Truth table for "you can't do XXX unless you do YYY":
do XXX, do YYY, In Violation
(False False Not in violation)
(False True Not in violation)
(True False In violation
(True True Not in violation)
Truth table for "if you do XXX you must do YYY."
do XXX, do YYY, In Violation
(False False Not in violation)
(False True Not in violation)
(True False In violation)
(True True Not in violation)
The result of "you can't do XXX unless you do YYY"
Is that to do XXX, you have to do YYY.
If you provide XXX and not YYY and your agreement says "you can't provide XXX unless you provide YYY", then you have violated the agreement.