Tivo/ReplayTV Are To TV What Napster Is To Music? 199
ContinuousPark writes: "We've talked about hacking the Tivo and, more recently, about ReplayTV boxes being controlled over the Web. Now, the New York Times is taking it a bit further. The interesting point is that while everyone is raving about the new gadgets or complaining about how useless these devices are, the reality is that they are eventually going to disturb the TV industry just as Napster is doing with the music industry. It's just that ReplayTV and Tivo have been very discreet about this, even playing along with the networks. But it will happen and it's going to be a major disruption. I can't wait. Read why." Tivo changed the way I handle TV, but its relatively steep price prevents it from becoming as common as Napster, which is, well, free. Both will alter their industries (and then the industries will converge, but that's another story ;)
Embedded Advertising (Score:1)
We can only skip commercials because they are a seperate chunk from the main program. Significant product placement already goes on, but I think "The Truman Show" with its constant barrage of background characters selling products (because it has "no commercials") gives the most accurate taste of what is to come.
Why is it we don't like ads? Is it because they are intrusive? Like blaring used car commericals and telemarketers or because we don't like to feel like we're being manipulated.
If ads can be smuggled in with legitimate programming, is that a bad thing because it is even more subliminal or is it a good thing because it removes interruptions?
Advertising -The Truman Show Way (Score:1)
Here's why (Score:1)
I can provide a couple of answers off the top of my head:
1) They'd be afraid that they'd lose out on revenue from the reruns. Besides the reruns of the networks themselves (complete with new commercials), the shows are sold to individual TV stations, who run their own commercials with them. If people had them available thru other means, that market could be hurt.
2) A digital copy makes commercial skipping even easier than with digital tape. Just hit the 'jump ahead 1 minute' and you're instantly at that spot. Keep doing it until you're past the commercial. I actually had an RCA VCR that would do this automatically. After it had recorded a show, it went back over it and marked the commercials (detected by totally black screen which preceeds a commercial, a screen condition that almost never occurs in a show itself. Watch for it sometime and you'll see what I mean.), then would automatically fast-forward through the commercial on playback. It broke my heart when it pulled up lame and I had to shoot it. It wouldn't surprise me to see this provision put into a Tivo-type unit. With that, you'd not even be bothered with the fast-forward; it would be like the commercial had never existed.
They should change the way they broadcast (Score:1)
Also, all the local channels still turn off around midnight. Why? Keep them on and put all those sindicated shows you already own on... Why not use the airtime for something useful. SOMEONE out there will want to see a show and it no longer matters when it is on, right?
The biggest thing i see with the TIVO concept is that it takes time out of the equation. It no longer matters WHEN a show is broadcast, only that it is. When the integrated DSS version comes out, i could even see the ability to record multiple channels at once become a possibility.
Another thing i think they need to integrate is network data storage ability. I mean, it is based on linux! Lets network it!! forget adding the second drive, how about using the RAID storage on the home network! you can buy a 60 gig HD for next to nothing nowdays! Or CDR ability. then we can REALLY throw away the VCR!
Enough dreaming....
Re:Will advertising die, or get stealthy? (Score:1)
I really don't mind most ads, but I hate having my show interrupted every 5 minutes. There are also those ads that are so idiotic that I will literally stop what I'm doing in whatever part of the house and dive for the remote to mute them. I will be soooo glad to never see that DiGiorno ad about the girl in the blindfold again...
Re:Media-centric view (Score:1)
Re:World ends. Film at 11 (Score:3)
-B
Why is there no outrage? (Score:4)
As I read the article I saw all the same arguments that people make about banner ads: No one reads them, 99% of them are ignored, if people block them then advertising will work its way into content in a subtle but insidious way, etc. Banner-blocking proponents like to argue that internet advertising is not like TV advertising. Well, it sounds like TV advertising is going to evolve to be exactly like banner ads.
The article crowed about how TiVO could precisely target people based on their likes, lifestyles, and medical conditions. Sending a Preparation H commercial to someone who has hemorrhoids sounds like an incredible invasion of privacy, much more than anything that any banner network is contemplating. Why is there no reaction to this?.
It says that the price that people will pay to watch TV in the future will be that they have to give up information about themselves to the networks who will sell this to advertisers.M
This is far worse than what ad networks are doing -- ad networks are using aggregated information to send users advertising that they may be interested in. And people are so freaked out by this that they are writing banner-blocking software, calling for legislation, etc.
If anyone should be complaining about these TV devices, it should be the privacy advocates. Are you guys out there? Where's the outrage?
Ralph
Sharing TiVo files... (Score:2)
For instance, you do a search on TiVo for shows about "Computer Programming" and you get a listing of everyone who has shows that fit that description currently on their hard drives. Then you either stream it, or copy it in-bulk to your box. After watching it, you decide that it was so good that you want your friend to see it...so you email the link over to their TiVo box...etc..etc..
This would undoubtly cause some real weirdness in the TV industry because distribution would then be *totally* outside their control. How do you advertise when you don't control the distribution? (Besides product placement). This is essentially the same problem that the RIAA has with Napster.
Re:TiVo/ReplayTV *NOT* the same as Napster... (Score:1)
I'd like to disagree. I don't like to listen to Brittney, but I sure as hell like to watch her
Advertisement Skipping/Stretching on Both Sides (Score:1)
There has also been talk of devices that will cut out commercials, and such devices have actually prompted networks to examine alternatives (essentially pay-TV) to avoid lost advertising.
I am not completely sure how I feel on the issue being that it is so new, but at the same time I think corporations are going to have to begin realizing that with the advent of all of these new technologies (like TiVo, Napster, etc.) they are not going to be able to simply treat people as mere consumers to be manipulated. It adds quite an element of hypocrisy for the same media to denounce something that improves the watcher's experience by removing commercials but to then support the opposite for profit's sake. Consumers do have rights too.
SB
Re:Basic premise is wrong. (no it isn't) (Score:1)
This is almost as irritating as the first week UPN was on the air, and their logo was literally 1/4 the width of the screen and 1/4 the height. It took them a week to realize things on a TV screen look bigger than on a computer screen mockup.
Kevin Fox
Premium Networks & Universal PPV (Score:2)
It seems likely that most of the major networks might find this an ideal way to maintain their income: rather than broadcasting to everyone, they would sell their broadcasting to the major TV-Recording companies (TiVo, Replay). If a network's show becomes incredibly popular for some reason, the network could increase the amount they charge for TiVo or Replay to have a 'subscription' to that network.
One impact of this is that a high enough 'subscription' fee might require TiVo/Replay to raise their customers' rates, possibly resulting at some point in something akin to a pay-per-view model for the consumer; if you watch the popular (and thus more expensive shows) you have to pay more. It wouldn't be a prohibitive increase, but enough that it would give networks incentive to make better quality shows.
Obviously this sort of dramatic change in revenue sources would require a large majority of the TV-watching public to own such black boxes, as 'closed' networks (the ones who 'sell' their broadcasting to TiVo/Replay) would lose nearly all advertising revenues from their former unlimited broadcast. However, it seems a distinct possibility for the future.
Just my $.02.
Re:Embedded Advertising (Score:1)
Why is it we don't like ads? Is it because they are intrusive? Like blaring used car commericals and telemarketers or because we don't like to feel like we're being manipulated.
If ads can be smuggled in with legitimate programming, is that a bad thing because it is even more subliminal or is it a good thing because it removes interruptions?
Good question. I think the main reason I personally dislike ads is the intrusiveness. Last year I spent a fair amount of time living in an apartment where someone else was paying for HBO. I got to really like all of their original shows, and a big part of the reason was the fact that I could sit down and be absorbed for an hour, without being smacked in the face with noisy flashy ads for deodorant every 5-10 minutes. After a while, I found that I couldn't really enjoy conventional ad-interrupted television any longer.
So I have mixed feelings about the product placement type of advertising. One one hand, I like the fact that there's no overt interruption of my experience. On the other hand, I worry that what starts out as superficial product placement could develop into advertisers having increasing clout over deeper aspects, like the plot of a narrative. Actually, I'd say that we already see this sort of influence on current ad-supported television - ad supported programming will want to try to make the watcher more receptive to advertising, and that can't help but influence its creative content. But without explicit commercials, the needs of advertisers will probably come to play a much more overt role in all aspects of production.
Re:I can see where this is going... (Score:1)
Good point. The questions to ask then, who controls TiVO? The government or corporations. As long as the power isn't centralized, then all is not lost. Additionally, would it be possible to watch TV without TiVo?
Personally, I am waiting to buy a TiVO until they can allow me to record MTV programs without the censorship blur. When they can do that, I'll pull out my credit card.
Modify these system(s) to support micropayments... (Score:3)
I could envision a sort of parallel system. For those who are unwilling to put up with crap and for those who can afford it, simply modify these TIVO/replay devices to pay the parties that provide the content. They would work directly with the industry to filter out 100% of the ads and create relatively contiguous programming. Just stagger the "show times" such that the TIVO viewing is offset by ~30 minutes... It would not achieve my second goal (atleast not instantly), but it would allow and encourage the producers of these shows to support a new system without having to entirely ditch the old. In time, and with luck, the new system would phase out the old....good riddance
Re:World ends. Film at 11 (Score:1)
Re:Will advertising die, or get stealthy? (Score:1)
Re:Will advertising die, or get stealthy? (Score:1)
With Apple products, it doesn't matter if you cover the logo; the cases are so distinct that you don't need it. Same thing with the red and white coke can.
I wish I remembered where I read that, though. It might have been TheStandard or Salon.com.
Re:Will advertising die, or get stealthy? (Score:1)
Re:unattributed sig quote (Score:1)
--
Re:I can see where this is going... (Score:2)
If you use an ATI All-in-wonder card, watch MTV a bit. a little icon in the upper right appears, you click on it and your web browser pops up, and voila! your at Warner records ready to buy the CD!
this technology is here, we just don't know where to look.
Re:bzzzzzt.... close, but no cigar (Score:1)
My VCR edits out commercials. It's manufactured by General Electric and has VG4267 on the front which I assume is the model number. After it records a show (commercials and all), it goes back and marks the beginning and end of commercials, then when you're watching the show and it hits a commercial start, it shows a blue screen for a couple of seconds while it's fast forwarding through the commercials. I'd say it's about 99% accurate, false positives probably occur twice as much as false negatives. The false positives are particularly annoying since you have to rewind to before it showed the blue screen and then fast forward to a point just after it so that it won't hit the start point again, but this is similar to the inconvenience you faced when you fast forward through commercials manually and wind up fast forwarding through a few seconds of show so you then have to rewind back to before the show starts.
Opensource TiVo/ReplayTV Service (Score:4)
What makes Tivo special though is the software and the tv listing service that you need to subscribe to. I'm sure the software on the end-user side wouldn't be too hard to do, and might even be done better than Tivo or ReplayTV's.
The sticking point is the giant database of TV listings that these devices access in order to know what channel to record, when and for how long. I've thought about using exisiting free services such as TV Guide's or Zap2It's program listings and then using regexp's to convert them into a database but I'm sure that if thousands of geeks started accessing their servers everyday for listings that sooner or later lawsuits would start flying. Is there anyway of obtaining this data legally for free?
One last thought -- TV tuner cards are cheap these days. Why not put three or four in our theoretical opensource Tivo and give the user the option of recording many shows at once? Someone please correct me if I am technologically ignorant on this point.
What does everyone else think about this idea?
View From a User (Score:2)
Second, people keep saying "it's not like the comercials are gone." There are 2 parts to this.
1. The Replay and TiVo have the ability to either jump 30 sec ahead (Replay) or safely fast forward (tivo) through commercials. This is how they got the 88% statistic.
2. TiVo is also trying to make the commercials useful. To appease the advertisers (and make it interesting for users) on some broadcasts they have the ability to do single button recording when watching a commercial. Granted this only applies to commercials for specific shows _now_, but this could be expanded in later models to open a browser to the company's homepage or similiar action later on.
People also have to realize that the taping argument is the same as Tapes vs. MP3 (or wav). While I might not agree with the argument, it is a analog vs digital debate. The 2 systems currently have their own way of storing the video that noone has cracked, but that's probably only a matter of time. I'm not encouraging it, but it will happen.
I hope the article is right in that this will change television more and make it more narrow-casting.
Re:Internet TV - massive takeup owing to prOn (Score:1)
Yeah, everybody will run their own TV stations. Uh-huh. Just like those people that do the shows on the local access channel. I watch those all the time. They are my favorite.
</sarcasm>
Napster is NOT free - toys for rich boys... (Score:1)
Ok, the software itself is, but the required computer capable of sound playback & MP3 decompression, and the fat cable modem or DLS type bandwidth, (or 20'000 dollar college tuition...) to really benifit from it restricts these kinds of toys to the pretty damn rich in any case. I would suspect that there really is only a _very_ small gap between napster users and those in the market for a tvio type toy.
it is frightening, this lack of awareness that these technologies "that are going to change everybodys lives" are, for a while at least, only going to change the lives of those who can really afford it - namely us, slashdotter types.
Sad irony? it is only those who could pretty much already afford to pay for CD's, DVD's, whatnot who are so gung-ho about toppling the greedy monopolistic cartelized industries that pump the garbage out.
let's get out priorities straight:
1. get powerful technology into the hands of everybody -- especially those who need it and can benifit from it.
2. _then_ use those technologies to combat groups of big greedy multinational copyright parasitizing corporations.
adrien
adrien cater
boring.ch [boring.ch]
Re:TiVo/ReplayTV *NOT* the same as Napster... (Score:1)
This fairy tale that Napster is just a file sharing mechanism and they can't help it if people break the law is tiresome. Napster knows they are promoting theft, it says it all over their web site and their advertising.
It's kind of like arguing that the guy in the getaway car isn't responsible for robbing the bank.
On top of that, CD's are not $18, they are generally $13. In rare cases they are more than $15, and that is usually imports or boxed/double sets.
The musicians never asked Napster to help them out "testing out" different bands. Maybe Napster should have asked instead of promoting theft?
Again, how can there be intelligent discourse if people continuously misrepresent the facts.
Re:Internet TV - massive takeup owing to prOn (Score:2)
Yes, we'll get that stuff too, and who can blame us for not being interested. However, the menu is likely to be far more varied:
- Films, including pr0n in huge quantities.
- Music videos, multimedia form of Internet radio.
- Rebroadcasts of the best bits of licenced TV.
- Artists' own "official" multimedia sites.
- Every man and his dogs' full-video webcams.
- The video equivalent of today static websites.
Expect the first and last of these to be especially big, the first because everybody seems to love films and pr0n, and the last because you can bet your bottom dollar that some video killer application will appear as soon as bandwidth allows. And there will be orders of magnitude more of all of this than on licenced TV, which means that despite most of it being rubbish, the majority of people are likely to find a tiny fraction that meets their own particular tastes. And the sons-of-TiVo will make it easy to find too.
Re:Auto-zap commercials (Score:1)
Her e [toshiba.com]s Toshiba's page. If you squint, you can see the two smaller buttons above the primary mouse button.
Re:bzzzzzt.... close, but no cigar (Score:2)
I think that the only use I would have for something like this is for when I look at TV Guide and see a show I wanted to see yesterday and missed it, I could go to this service and find someone who has it stored. With enough Tivos recording things out there, just about everything that's on will still be stored somewhere.
How stupid (Score:1)
Napster is not free (Score:1)
Expensive? I think not. (Score:1)
"Relatively steep price?" The one I snagged last weekend (a Philips HDR112) was $300, but a $100 rebate knocks that down to $200. That's about what you'd pay for a decent HiFi VHS VCR (decent == reputable brands such as JVC, Sharp, Sony, Panasonic, etc., not el-cheapo brands such as Symphonic or Craig). The $10/month for service is about what you'd pay for dial-up Internet access (or you can fork over a $200 lump sum and be done with it).
It only took it a couple of days to figure out what type of stuff I watch. At first, it was a bit frustrating to not be able to put in "season passes" for two different programs that each have a showing on at the same time in some time slot you never knew even existed, but it's done a good job so far of catching stuff to watch all by itself. Sehr gut.
_/_
/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/
Ads *during* the program (Score:2)
Time Warner runs advertisements on the local Fox station *during* the syndicated shows from 6 PM to 8 PM. Just after the credits, the bottom third of the screen gets superimposed with "Road Runner online service! Rochester's fastest Internet! Call now!" for about 15 seconds.
The local ad agency that convinced all involved that this was a good idea calls it a "banner ad." The ad exec got the idea from the Internet: he thought that since Web banner ads worked so well *snort*, might as well put them on TV.
If this catches on, where will it stop? Will we have a CNBC-style "ad ticker" beneath all our programs? Will those annoying station-ID "bugs" (which already are increasingly used to advertise upcoming programs with annoying motion graphics) start morphing into product ads? Will we get ads running in picture-in-picture style?
I'm scared that the "commercial TV" of the future may resemble Bloomberg... one quarter screen of entertainment, surrounded by all sorts of ads.
Maybe it sounds paranoid... but think how commercial TV has changed recently. End credits have given two-thirds of the screen up to program advertisements. Opening sequences for many sitcoms have been severely trimmed to make more ad time. Local stations routinely squeeze in a quick ten second ad before returning to a show, often clipping a few seconds of program. Given all that callous behavior, ads on top of the programs themselves wouldn't surprise me at all...
Careful... (Score:5)
That means, by definition, the tools we create can be used to retransmit information. You cannot remove the ability to retransmit information without also removing the ability to receive it. They are one and the same.
We already have ways to interface audio and video to people - no matter how you encrypt or alter the data, the space between the black box and your head is where it's sent unencoded.. perfect for interception.
The RIAA complains that you can create "digitally perfect" copies of a work. But why does that matter? MP3's are a lossful compression scheme. People used audio tape for years before CDs became available. It's obvious the quality is "good enough" for most consumers - that was the state of technology ten years ago.
Who bloody cares how they encrypt it at this point, or what use it is put toward? We're past the point of controlling the media. If the industry wants to go back to using handwritten scrolls then *maybe* it'll have a chance at control.. but as certain religious texts have leaked out despite the church's enormous grip on the world at the time some scrolls were found.. I have my doubts to even that.
Give it up. Take your ball and go home, you're obsolete. You have been for a thousand years.
Good Lord... (Score:2)
...do you have any conception of how Orwellian that is?
if anything needed an IP address... (Score:2)
I miss being able to access iCraveTV [icravetv.com], but the ability to pick and choose anything from my local cable provider would be even better!
Rental Digital Media Good (Score:3)
Audio and video are just software, at best. Really just data files these days, because there's not any interactivity. So sell it online! I understnad networks' desire to have a "prime time" where they can launch new shows in front of a captive audience, charge more for ads, etc. -- but they will just have to move into the future. I don't think we should let them hold us back.
Choice good! RIAA Bad!
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Haiku (Score:1)
Geeks distriute their mainstay...
Who wants to see pr0n?
Re:Rental Digital Media Good (Score:1)
Re:Rebroadcasting to yourself (slightly OT) (Score:2)
Re:TiVo/ReplayTV *NOT* the same as Napster... (Score:1)
Lewis isn't saying that the two are technologically or ethically similar; he's saying that the effect they have on the marketplace is similar. They're both popular, seemingly legal technologies which grant so much freedom to the consumer as to endanger the continued existence of the producer. Both of the producers in question are more powerful than most countries' governments, though, and will not fade into obselecence gracefully. He points out that we haven't seen shit yet, and I think he's right.
This is why I like Lewis -- although he is intelligent and has a good understanding of geek issues, he is at heart a businessman, and so he offers an extremely fresh point of view. Read "Liar's Poker" and "The New New Thing." You won't regret it.
Re:Basic premise is wrong. (no it isn't) (Score:1)
bzzzzzt.... close, but no cigar (Score:2)
Mmm... (Score:3)
Of course, with a decent video capture card you can really do this sort of thing anyway.
TiVo and Replay are becoming more affordable (Score:1)
Prices are coming down all the time. Recently, some cable companies have started to offer TiVo and Replay on a rental basis (much like you rent a cable box).
The technology is slowly but surely becoming affordable, and will soon be in every household.
Ah, one more (Score:1)
3) If people are watching the shows after passing them around, it gets harder and harder to determine the ratings, so it's difficult to prove to an advertiser how many people are viewing it (and therefore their commercials).
Perhaps the proper way for the content producers to embrace this technology would be for them to arrange for digital signatures to be attached to the content and then relay the information about viewing back to some database. This brings up some privacy issues, but I've given them the idea; implementation is their problem
Re:Mmm... (Score:1)
Haven't you heard how in the computer world, things get faster smaller and cheaper all the time? Yes, right now downloading a DVD would be a daunting task for anyone. Yes, right now, storing it would be a pain as well. And yes, right now, downloading AIFF files would be an incredible chore.
But one day, next year or in five years, those will flow off the web like gif's and jpegs do right now. As for storing this data? What else will we have to do with our 500 GB/1 TB hard drives?
They're just launching pre-emptive strikes before the real damage to them can occur... No one want's to find themselves facing the industry's next "Napster", so every content provider will from now on jump on anyone that tries to do anything that they don't explicitly intend, in all likelyhood...
advertising will change as well... (Score:1)
"oh mel, FUCK ME NOW!""wait a second Cindy, let me pull out some of my Durex Big Gun Ultra Thin condoms, because we both want ultimate feeling, right?"
turning point (Score:1)
Eventually, the same thing will happen to the oil industry.
In twenty/thirty years time we'll look back, smile and wonder what all the fuss was all about.
Rob.
Re:World ends. Film at 11 (Score:2)
You may have meant this in humor, but I think it would be a very good idea. The story talked about how Tivo and ReplayTV would know "to the second" what you were doing. What Letterman joke caused you to change to a different show, what shows you watched on a regular basis, etc. How can they possibly know this without some 'data leaving your device'? One of the benefits touted by Tivo and ReplayTV is that they'd be able to pinpoint the exact demographic of a particular show or even show segment, so that an advertiser would know precisely who was watching it. Without data collection, I don't see where they would get this.
Re:Ah, one more (Score:2)
Perhaps the proper way for the content producers to embrace this technology would be for them to arrange for digital signatures to be attached to the content and then relay the information about viewing back to some database. This brings up some privacy issues, but I've given them the idea; implementation is their problem :-).
Privacy should be easy enough to handle. Just combine a device ID (in ROM) with the date and random numbers. Take a secure hash (such as MD5) and that becomes the unique ID for the box. Every month or so, a new unique ID is made. Ratings are relayed by sending unique ID and program ID pairs back to TiVo. TiVo counts the number of distinct IDs in a month for each program.
Companies that claim they can't gather statistical data without identifiable information about you are lying.
Re:Basic premise is wrong. (Score:2)
Nobody is going to "pass around" a recording made on a TiVo or ReplayTV box, unless someone wants to go to the trouble of dumping it to tape on an external VCR. The files on the hard disk can't be copied by the user.
Re:TiVo/ReplayTV *NOT* the same as Napster... (Score:2)
Re:Opensource TiVo/ReplayTV Service (Score:2)
Also by that point you could use your own system and make the stations responsable for updating. No update, no view...
Find the method and the means will handle itself.
~Hammy
Advertising may go to "soccer" method (Score:2)
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Chaosnetwork [chaosn.com]
Re:How is this not a VCR? (Score:2)
BlipVerts, anyone? (DoubleBlipVerts for the drunk) (Score:4)
If you could compress the standard 30-second adverts by a factor of 10, you get the three-second BlipVerts "invented" by George Stone, Rocky Morton, and Annabel Jnakel. Remember the original idea: "BlipVerts happen so fast, they're over and embedded in viewers' minds before they have a chance to channel-switch."
The updated patent filing would read, "BlipVerts happen so fast, they're over and embedded in viewers' minds before they have a chance to fast-forward past them."
Couple that with the research that has been done on driver reaction-time and you can see that editing out commercials on-the-fly would be virtually impossible; indeed, you would need the electronic equivalent of an A/B Roll Editor to get rid of the pesky things. For those shows with a high beer-drinking quotient (like football games, guy), the BlipVerts could extend to six seconds because the alcohol-sotted viewer would need several seconds to find the button, let alone press it enough to make contact. So says the driver-reaction studies over the past 30 or so years.
The movie Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future (later released to video as Max Headroom, The Original Story) postulated a solution that assumed real-time viewing. Interesting that the same solution would apply to the easy time-shifting that the TiVo and ReplayTV enable.
(To show just how prescient the writers of the original script were, just how soon do you think it will happen that a television network executive will be able to propose this solution to a knotty scheduling war: "We can go porno early.")
Re:What's really going to happen.... (Score:3)
Product placement in TV vs. Movies. (Score:2)
Re:Basic premise is wrong. (no it isn't) (Score:4)
Don't believe everything you read, sparky.
I can't speak for Replay, but TiVo doesn't have a 30 second skip for exactly the reasons you describe. They have a 6-second back, and three fastforward speeds (the fastest is virtually unusable to skip through commercials because you spend more time cuing up to the end of the commercials than if you just used FFW2). The two reasonable fastforward speeds still allow for the impact of the commercial to get through. In fact, as a usability researcher, I can tell you that the average ad has more impact on FFW2 than it does on 'normal' TV because the viewer is intently watching to determine when the show comes back on so they don't overshoot.
I use my TiVo almost exclusively and I can still tell you who all the advertisers are for all my shows, and for 90% of the ads, the brand recognition is more important to the advertiser than the actual patter contained in the commercial.
you're right on one point, though. Widespread TiVo and replayTV use will change the industry, but it's not a disaster. 15 years ago people thought the VCR would mean the end of premium channels like HBO and Showtime. Now everyone has a VCR and yet premium channels still flourish.
The biggest change the VCR had on the industry is the incessant inclusion of tiny station-identification logos in the corner of the screen.
It's not really the end of the world, but with all the press the DeCSS and Napster cases are getting, it's no wonder people are in a hype-happy mood for any sort of digital copying.
Kevin Fox
Re:Will advertising die, or get stealthy? (Score:2)
-B
World ends. Film at 11 (Score:4)
This has been SO done already (Score:2)
Take a hockey game for example. The backboards aroud the rink are always crammed with ads - as are the walls at a NASCAR race, figure skating... These are static images, easy to overlay in real time. If a computer could draw a real-time blur where the hockey puck is, then that same computer can just as easily replace a Coca-Cola logo with a Pepsi ad.
How else could SanFran's 49'er fans see local businesses advertized in the outfield of a game vs the Patriots, while Pat fans see their local businesses advertized in the same place during the same game?
Ad placement in content is one thing - but that's something I can handle just fine. Here's what worries me: Advertising auctions! Consider the possibility of real-time ad placement and the options it opens up. Adverts no longer need to be permanent; they can be time-sliced. Imagine watching a baseball game where, each time a pitch is thrown, there is a different advertisement behind the batter. Imagine companies bidding on ad placement spots and durations in real-time, given Nielsen viewer ratings to drive their advert buying decisions...
Say that a sports event suddenly goes into overtime, or is running real close in a pivotal game... The ability to slip a Budweiser ad into the last few shots would be very attractive to advertisers.
What do you say guys, you want to patent this idea and make a fortune? Or patent it to keep it from becoming reality?
Targetted Advertising, mildly OT (Score:2)
No - the cover on mine featured people my age, hiking, whitewater rafting, skydiving... Included articles on high-risk stock investment, international travel... Ads for sporty sedans.
My father's magazine had older people on the cover, enjoying a sunset, playing with grandchildren, walking along a beach... Included articles on refinancing an IRA, the importance of writing a Will, retirement housing in Florida... Ads for Viagra.
Digital/real-time broadcast media aren't the only ones invading privacy. In fact, those with internal knowledge of your fininces and lifestyle (do you own your home? Do you have dependants?) are able to target you very precisely.
My parents only tend to make long-distance phone calls to Poland. They have family there. They often get ATT/SPRINT/Whatever Corp calling them with "great phone rates to Europe". I never make those calls, I never get those offers.
But hey! It's a Free Country(tm)!
TV did kill radio drama. (Score:2)
And you're right about the tendency of the media to sensationalize. Good news doesn't sell papers.
Re:Tivo (Score:2)
Really? Tell me how I can make my TiVo remove commercials. I'm tired of fast forwarding and overshooting the return of the show.
How do I build my own? (Score:2)
How would I go about building my own one of these things? A digital VCR/editing studio, where I could set up a job to record an MPEG from a specific channel (or VHS or DVD Video out), record to MPEG and edit later with Premiere or some such thing for later... viewing... As well as being able to do the "replay", "delayed view" functions etc that these other players have.
Obviously some sort of hardware device and software required to control this. What such devices exist on the market? How powerful a computer do you need to run it. Can you use it under linux?
Other questions. Can such devices record two channels at once?
I'd love to have command line recording of TV channel -> MPEG
squirming child taking over... Answer if you can...
thanks
Media-centric view (Score:2)
Lets do the arithmetic. Its seems 45 B$ is spent on TV advertising p.a. in the US. Around $450 per household. Thus paying for "commercial" TV (actually: advertising supported TV). Call it $300 p.a. for actual TV content.
Fact: who actually wants to watch ads? Only loonies who enjoy being lied to. Indeed many people (e.g. TiVo buyers) are willing to *pay* and apply personal effort to skip them.
Fact: TiVO and similar technologies make it trivial to skip Ads.
Conclusion: Advertising supported TV is no longer a viable business model in the medium-term future
'cos people will skip them.
Fact: the (compulsorary) shift to digital media will make highly selective subscription TV services viable for the first time.
Fact: networks no longer own the majority of TV bandwidth (medium term even the internet is a delivery medium - especially for time-shifted subscription-based viewing).
Conclusion: the networks expect to shift to a pure subscription based model.
All that "big brother" stuff is pure nonsense. The marketing choice facing the networks is to chase subscription-TV $ or to invest big $ up-front for "free" idiot-boxes that track viewers interests an intersplice Ads every 15 min and then chase Ad $.
For households with the $300 p.a. (max) to avoid the ads and intrusion this *has* to be a no-brainer. The only takers will be low income households (oh the delight of advertisers...) and people who're stripping the ads anyhow (more delighted advertisers).
In short: advertising supported TV is dead it just doesn't know it yet. Buy production company stock now and watch the big networks buy up all the true assets of the TV industry - the shows and the "creatives" who make 'em.
The Ad industry - I'm sure they'll find some dummies someplace to talk nonsense to somehow - but who gives a poop? At last the TV industry will focus on its job - near real-time distribution of audio-visual entertainment and get out from under the wing of marketing.
Andrew
Re:Will advertising die, or get stealthy? (Score:2)
I recall an article talking about Apple product placements in movies and TV, and an interesting tidbit was that sponsors will pay a lot for placement in movies, but that this isn't done in TV. Sure, product placement happens, but it's usually because the company in question donates product (a powerbook here, a truckload of Krispy Kreme doughnuts there), but that there isn't placement for pay on TV.
I wasn't clear whether this is a generally accepted practice, or if it's law. Does anyonehave more info on this?
Kevin Fox
Re:Cassetts (Score:3)
And then their page hits will drop (Score:2)
The Internet is a buyer's market, and sellers that haven't yet learned that lesson by observation are doomed to learn it in more painful ways.
VHS anyone? (Score:2)
Television revenue is made from advertisements placed in programs, and from sales (you are still paying for your cable/satellite, aren't you?)
These technologies don't remove the commercials for you, so what exactly would television execs have to make a stink about that they didn't with VHS? The fact that niether of these provide a mechanism to sell stuff to you with (the way VHS does?)
Internet TV - massive takeup owing to prOn (Score:2)
If we look at how Internet radio has taken off, with literally thousands of one-man "broadcasters" being "on the air" at any given time, it's pretty darn inevitable that when high-rate DSL arrives and as video compression improves, Internet TV will become just as popular.
In fact, it's bound to be vastly more popular than Internet radio because of its potential for showing sex and nudity. Audio-only pr0n doesn't have quite the same impact as the visual variety, so once bandwidth allows, the floodgates of Internet broadcasting will really open.
And then how will the official broadcast material fair, in competition against the easy availability of hardcore in the comfort of one's own home? With 90% of TV content being unmitigated rubbish at the best of times, it's hard to see how official TV broadcasters are going to maintain much of an audience except at family viewing time.
TiVo/ReplayTV *NOT* the same as Napster... (Score:3)
TiVo and ReplayTV are replacements for VCRs. They are designed to time shift the playing of television broadcasting. This process has been supported in courts 20 years ago as fair use. The reason is because you have been granted access to the video, you are simply time shifting your viewing of it.
Napster is a totally different thing, it is music broadcasting, without paying royalties. It's not time-shifting, it's not fair use, it's just plain out and out theft. Napster is a company which preys off the work of other people. If there is any company on this planet which deserves to be called immoral and unethical, it is Napster.
Until people understand the difference, which ain't exactly subtle, I don't see how you can intelligently debate these issues.
Sheesh
We need TiVo for Radio!! (Score:2)
Now, granted, most of the music *I* want to listen to is not available on the radio in this area *ever*, but for people who are interested in more popular music selections, this sort of device would be absolutely awesome. Want the latest Madonna track for free? Set your radio to grab it next time it comes on.
In fact... it seems like it wouldn't take much modification work to get something like the empeg [empeg.com] set up to do exactly this. (I don't know if it supports the song title system, but I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult, and the rest would just be software mods.)
Additionally, there are sources like the categorized all-music digital channels you get from DSS providers, as well as sources like MTV.
Obviously, there are some kinks to work out, but I think it's just as doable as TiVo, and unlike napster, it's legal AND free.
The Article Is Flawed (Score:2)
First, the advertising industry is huge. They won't just shrivel up and go away. They will adapt to the game. They constantly overcome barriers.
Cable tv was supposed to do away with commercials. If we're paying for cable, there's no need to subsidize the programming, right? Well guess what, now we have basic, i.e subsidized and premium cable.
You can't go to the movies or watch a DVD without viewing commercials. They've even gone so far as to disable DVD playback when viewing the commercials.
The article is another fluff piece about how technology is going to change how things are done. The reality is things will change, but we'll still be essentially controlled by the same forces.
Add-on for my PC!!! (Score:3)
I can see where this is going... (Score:3)
Fast-forward to the future (hah). Maybe 5 years down the road. This bidirectional communication between the networks, and the advertisers that pay them, gets even better. Now, the TiVo knows when you are in the room, using motion sensors. It loads up your favorite 20 shows that you missed while you were out walking the dog. Your viewing habits are immediately transmitted to Pepsi-GM-Warner.
2 years down the road. If you can watch TV, why can't it watch you? Mini cameras are installed in each TIVO, so it can figure out where exactly in the room you are, to give you the best "viewing experience". By now, since ads are inserted automatically into each tv show, you can point and click on whatever you want and you immediately buy it (Copywrite (c)2008 Amazon-Ford-Disney), the price of TiVOs drops to all an time low, and you can have one in every room, and viewers rejoice!
Again, a few short years into the future. Face it, the TIVO knows you so well that you don't even have the chance of picking what you want to watch anymore. Police use the installed cameras to reduce "terrorism, kiddie porn, and not watching your shows when the TIVO tells you to."
I can't wait.
Your Anonymous (?) Coward..
Cable/Bcast- TV (Score:2)
Cable provides a service that improves signal quality and draws in more viewers. Any such rebroudcast could improve viewership and help the broudcast TV industry.
However the broudcast TV industry wants instead to use cable to gain an additional proffit. They currently have the ability to CHARG cable for carrying the signal. This is incredably short sited.
Internet TV has a great deal of potental and I think it would be great if someone did set up a cable/TV rebroudcast service. However such a service would run afoul of the current laws that allow TV stations to charg for rebrodcasting of TV signal.
I think the broudcast TV industry is basicly being stupid about this. They should be on the forfront trying to push Internet TV not on the back burnner letting someone else do it.
There is quite a bit to be made. The could send a free signal and make money from comertals.
In fact ZD TV allready dose this. You can get ZD TV signal over the net using RealPlayer. I can and do view ZD TV this way. In fact I don't have cable or any TV at all so this is the only TV I watch.
Hey, how about that exploding TV? (Score:2)
No one has mentioned the best part of the article, this [nytimes.com] sidebar
mmm.. exploding tvs... gooood...
Re:not quite there yet (Score:2)
Tivo's threat to the TV industry is simply about advertizing because of the ability to skip advertisements (or for Tivo to insert their own, which they havn't done - yet). Tivo's competitor Replay has a "30 sec skip" button used for skipping commercials, but Tivo doesn't have one due to pressure from it's network partners...
Re:VHS anyone? (Score:2)
These devices are apparently going to have IP addresses. They also run linux, which makes them somewhat hackable. Now imagine someone replacing the software on there with software that
- edits out commercials (not too hard, just scan the image for the station-logo, which goes away during commercials)
- offers the files for download by anyone (it has an IP addres, remember?)
With bandwidth ever increasing, I don't think it is too far-fetched a scenario. The biggest use would probably be porn recorded from premium channels and distributed accross the internet. This is already done with regular computers and video capture cards right now, but a hacked Tivo could make it much easier.Virtual-Product Placement (Score:4)
From the article:
Either the ads will need to become as entertaining as the programs or the programs will need to contain the ads, so that they cannot be stripped out. If Jennifer Aniston wants to remain a Friend, she may need to don a T-shirt that says "Diet Coke."
Believe it. I worked on a hardware/software project which monitored a camera feed at a "sports venue" where we were doing a live broadcast. It would detect a particular advertising sign along the course, and remap it, in real time, with a selected advertisement, and THAT was what was broadcast to the TV viewers.
So, instead of virtualizing the ENTIRE stage/world with live actors, they could use blue-screen-colored products on the set. Then, the producers could acquire and transmit the coordinates (maybe in the vertical blanking interval?) The images to be placed could have been transmitted during prior VBIs.
The broadcasters would encode a default product placement on the broadcast. The TiVo box, knowing the user's preferences, and having access to the product's coordinates, could generate, in real-time, a virtual product to place there, instead.
So, depending on viewer's preferences, Jennifer Aniston 's t-shirt may say "Diet Coke" OR "Budweiser". That said, I doubt it would take long for a /.'er to create their own image files to be mapped.
No, I just work in the industry (Score:2)
I can fast forward through the commercials now when I record stuff to VHS. It hasn't killed the industry yet.
Ultimately you'll be able to watch what you want to watch when you want to watch it. It's inevitable. Content producers are going to have to get a whole lot more clever about how they make their money.
Re:Virtual-Product Placement (Score:2)
-B
Re:if anything needed an IP address... (Score:2)
For labs that require attention, winamp + icecast works quite well (tunneling is better, especially with VBR mp3s.)
Will advertising die, or get stealthy? (Score:4)
Advertisers' response will be to eventually switch to a model of product placement in the content itself. It's already a very widespread phenomenon, from all the sports wares hawked in Jerry Maguire, to the number of Pottery Barn mentions in a particular episode of Friends ... And that kind of advertising is much, much harder to edit out.
The thing is, you can make distribution and reediting of this stuff practically free, but production of content will still remain (relatively) costly. If every show looked like South Park, then anybody with a decent computer could put out their own, but most shows require a set, actors, costumes, cameras, crew, etc., etc. Information wants to be free, but not when its production depends on so many atoms.
Francis Hwang
not quite there yet (Score:3)
Because TV isn't reused, most people like to watch programs the first time that it airs. Even if everyone had a TiVo, there would still be millions of viewers watching the Superbowl and all the commercials during the game. Why would you want to watch it later and how many times would you rewatch the game? And if you wanted to rewatch the game, wouldn't you use a vcr to make a tape rather than leaving it on your TiVo taking up space?
TiVo doesn't really hurt the TV industry anymore than VCRs do. While I admit that TiVo is much more convenient than a VCR, I don't think that the inconvenience of a VCR has prevented anyone from taping a program they really wanted to see.
Basic premise is wrong. (Score:4)
TV, on the other hand, gets revenue through advertising. Neither ReplayTV nor TiVo chops out commercials, so digitally distributed recordings have the commercials in place. every time it's passed around and watched, the commercials are watched too.
So, all that the TV industry needs to do is find a way to get reasonable metrics on which shows are recorded, and which are being passed around, so they can adjust their estimate of the number of impressions a given show, and consequently the commercials, will be viewed, and incorporate that into the price of advertising for a particular show. In fact, both TiVo and ReplayTV already supply 'number of recordings' metrics to the networks. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that the networks are using these figures to adjust the viewership estimates for many shows like X-Files and South Park.
In Canada, for example, the courts have decided that it's okay to redistribute broadcast TV as long as the commercials remain intact. It's not taking money out of anyone's pocket as long as 'recording viewings' are factored into the original advertising and residuals charges.
This is hardly the same thing as copying and distributing purchased CDs.
Kevin Fox
Read the article without logging in at... (Score:2)
channel.nytimes.com [nytimes.com].
The irony involved in the Times' posting their article on how TV will follow music down the digital gravity well on their registration-required Web site, and our using the back door to read it for free, is tasty.
Re:No, I just work in the industry (Score:2)
Tivo is different from vcrs because it allows realtime recording. It would be a pain in the ass to do the same thing with a VCR that TiVO does with the click of a button.
Pull the hard drives out? That would be a very inefficient method of redistribution of HDTV movies. TV capture cards have been around for years, and could potentially be used in the future for such recordings -- its gonna happen with or without TiVO. Doing it with TiVO makes is actually more difficult. Encryption is useless -- it WILL be decrypted and redistributed. Hell, right now theres a million sites that sell cards to decrypt your satellite's current method of Payperview encryption. And if its not, theres gonna be someway to intercept the signal -- its not encrypted when its displaying on the TV. Hell, right now theres plenty of internet sites that sell cards to decrypt your satellite box's current method of Payperview encryption.
The reason your company is concerned with Internet posting of media is your managers and
(Did Metallica know how Napster worked when they threatened to sue them?, also uninformed).
i agree with that.
Re:not quite there yet (Score:2)
Rupert Murdoch fights back (BskyB) (Score:2)
When I say "he" i of course refer to his company but still that says a lot about how tight the networks' grips are on our tv
i thought the BBC was a rip off! This is like telling you that you cant fast forward on your VCR! hmm...
anyway there is an article in Wired this month about it if you want more info.
here is a link to the online article:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archi ve/8.03/bskyb.html [wired.com]
Re:We need TiVo for Radio!! (Score:2)
Re:Will advertising die, or get stealthy? (Score:2)
This is an awesome site for clips of old advertisements (mostly 50s and 60s). It has my two favorites of all time, Lucy and Desi shilling for Phillip Morris cigarettes at the end of the show, and the totally mutant Flintstones ad for Winstons.
-B
Re:How do I build my own? (Score:2)
I wrote a little shell script to record tv and compress to MPEG using the bttvgrab programs.
I have a dish upstairs wired into my WinTV card, so I don't have control over the channel (although the dish can be programmed to change channels and start the VCR as well).
WinTV cards are pretty cheap-- I bought 2 here in Ottawa, (ON,CAN) for $24/each (used). New they are about $130-$200CAN.
CPU requirements are PII+.
Record 2 channels at once? No, not unless it has 2 tuners or 2 inputs (to be fed by, say to satellite receivers).
I don't have the output to TV though, and am interested in using a card to output under Linux, or even possibly an external VGA->NTSC converter. Does anybody know of any TV output cards that have the TV/composite output ability working under Linux?
Re:bzzzzzt.... close, but no cigar (Score:2)
This reminds me, why doesn't someone come up with a mainstream VCR that automatically edits out commmercials? I think I saw one once that did it on the basis of volume levels, since ads are usually several decibels louder than the actual program, but I haven't seen one since.
It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to create. You could use several criteria, such as volume level, dead space (black screen between shows and commercials), length of time since last commercial. With digital recorders, you could just record everything, and the machine could automatically skip what thought were ads. If it was wrong and skipped part of the real program, you could always go back and view it later.
There is no doubt in my mind that someone else has thought of this. Is the television industry's power so great that it has precluded a device like this from making it to the consumer market?
It would definitely be nice to be able to watch all of my Simpson's episodes commercial free. If I see one more ad for the Bose wave radio, I will puke on myself.
Auto-zap commercials (Score:3)
Also, where is the mouse wheel on notebooks. Still waiting for the obvious there.