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.
Irony (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Irony - parent is obligatory post (Score:5, Funny)
Responding to a coincidence that responds to a post using the word "ironic" is ironic, and responding to an ironic response to a coincidence that is a response to a post using the word "ironic" is, in itself, idiotic.
Therefore I am an idiot for replying to you.
Self-awareness of idiocy therefore makes me not an idiot and the only conclusion can be that none of my parent posters exist.
Re:Irony - parent is obligatory post (Score:3, Funny)
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Hmmm... (Score:4, Funny)
MythTV, Freevo etc.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Has taken me a good week and a half just to get a DVB card functioning in Linux. Had to play with bios settings like PCI delays to get the card to function. When it works 100% it will be great, but it's not friendly enough for most people yet (it's been ruining my sleep and i'm relatively good with Linux).
Glad I have myth (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:2)
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 i
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 tha
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:2, Informative)
should do the trick
(myth supports both)
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope (Score:5, Informative)
DVB-C is for cable, and is Europe-only. US cable uses QAM modulation also, but the coding scheme and other minor details about the signal differ, so DVB-C cards do not work with U.S. cable.
There ARE QAM-capable tuner cards for US cable on the market now, but since almost all U.S. cable channels are encrypted, they're not very useful.
PC-based DVB-S receivers won't work in the U.S. except for getting Dish Network's preview channel, as Dish's encryption scheme is modified enough from standard Nagravision that the Nagra access cards compatible with PC-based DVB-S receivers won't work with Dish.
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:2)
Re:Glad I have Dish PVR (Score:4, Interesting)
Best thing about it is that it was free 8^)
Glad I have Snapstream (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Glad I have Snapstream (Score:3, Informative)
1. install fedora 2. install atrpms apt 3. apt-get install mythtv-suite.
I guess for the Debian smart-asses it's only 2
Myth has been doing multiple tuners for quite a while now. If you do want to upgrade to Myth but the install and set up seems daunting first check out the website called "Fedora Mythology". If you still need help, feel free to contact me personally and I'll give any assistance I can.
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:5, Informative)
The IR blaster will be controlled by your mythbox... the ir blaster will simulate your digital cable boxes remote control presses to change teh channel at the appropriate times to record the shows you want... you just pipe the output via svideo or composite into your capture/tuner card =)
e.
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:5, Informative)
1) Back- and front-end architecture. I have one backend that records, and two front-end lightweight machines that can view content.
2) Free (not counting computer hardware costs, however).
3) Can use external channel changer like TiVo (I have a satellite box, so I need an IR transmitter to change channels on it).
4) More than just TV! I have my entire music collection on there, along with DVDs, games, weather, images...
5) Need more recording space? Just stick in another hard drive (I know you can do this with TiVO, but your warranty is then void). I currently can record up to 160 hours on my box.
6) Different themes available.
7) Auto commercial detection.
8) Can edit and cut out parts of a video recording so you can burn to DVD without commercials, etc.
The list goes on... I've used it for well over a year and just love it. The WAF is also quite high (skipping commercials is huge).
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Glad I have myth (Score:3, Informative)
Should read (Score:5, Insightful)
-phixxr
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.
Re:Should read (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That seals the deal for me..... (Score:5, Informative)
MythTv [mythtv.org]
PVR Hardware Database [goldfish.org]
RedHat install guide [wilsonet.com]
Gentoo Install Guide [comcast.net](I went this route)
Knoppix Myth [mysettopbox.tv]
TiVo Shoots Self in Foot (Score:4, Insightful)
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: Less useful everyday (Score:5, Funny)
Knew it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Knew it (Score:3, Insightful)
PPV doesn't preceed DVD/Video, because otherwise the purchase and rental markets would suffer.
The movie industry is all about milking the customers completely before going on to the next field of cows.
PPV (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand the problem. With Pay Per View, you are QUITE SPECIFICALLY buying a license to watch a movie once. You are PAYing PER VIEW.
There's no ambiguity about buying physical media vs the content, about buying a license, and so on. You're paying to have a movie playing to your sat/cable box at a specific time and date. Done.
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.
Re:PPV (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, more likely, they're doing it to stave off possible legal challenges from the purveyors of PPV movies and NFL football. Said purveyors may have already made an issue of it behind the scenes.
Victimhood (Score:5, Insightful)
[Wish I could offer you a job, but (a) we're not hiring and (b) we're not in Ohio. But integrity and understanding right and wrong are high on my list for qualifying applicants. And getting harder to find.]
Re:Victimhood (Score:5, Funny)
Will someone mod this motherfucker up? PLEASE?
No other person in this thread has correctly identified that
And oh man! in so few words! What a guy, this. A true skewerer. "This whole 'Information wants to be free' thing has gotten out of hand" in one fell swoop condemning pile upon pile of hippie thought to obvious absurdity, and then reproving us, the degenerates, for our foolishness.
Re:Victimhood (Score:3, Funny)
[Wish I could offer you a job, but... we're not in Ohio...
FYI: Ontario!=Ohio. The original post's sig was "Anyone looking for a sysadmin in Southern Ontario", not Ohio.
I know you Yanks wish Canada was the 51st state, but that doesn't mean you can claim our provinces as your own just yet. That's reserved for Bush's second term
Re:PPV (Score:5, Insightful)
That may be what the provider intends, but unless there is law backing that up, I am entitled record it and view it later as I please.
Standard copyright case law allows me to timeshift, and I didn't sign any contract with the cable company that said I specifically couldn't record a PPV show.
There's no ambiguity about buying physical media vs the content, about buying a license, and so on. You're paying to have a movie playing to your sat/cable box at a specific time and date. Done.
As I just pointed out, you're just plain wrong. I don't need a license as an end user because standard copyright law allows me to timeshift the show without one. There is no license. I payed to have the movie play on my box, and I'm entitled to save it for later viewing.
Re:PPV (Score:4, Informative)
Since then, there are a number of factors that have improved to ours, the consumers, advantage. No quality loss (digital copies), easy commercial skips but the base non-infringing use has been the same - time-shifting.
If you take away the time-shifting argument by making content available at any time (on-demand) or close to (say, every hour), that argument is withering. You may argue that you want the movie to start at exactly 19.43, but it would be a much weaker argument.
Should the specific case of a tool only capable of time-shifting PPV content ever reach the Supreme court, don't be too surprised if the verdict is against you. As for a common TiVo box, the non-infringing use would be all the standard fixed broadcasts, the PPV use merely collateral.
That being said, there is a much more important case being brought before the Supreme court now, that of P2P applications and their liability for copyright infringement. It is far more fundamental than the Betamax case, because it will shape the future of all digital devices and software, as a sequence of 0s and 1s can be copyrighted. Digital PVRs would be just one small subset of devices whose fate depend on that outcome.
Kjella
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:3, Informative)
In the U.S. they can, as long as they give a minimum 24 hour notice.
Re:PPV (Score:5, Insightful)
So quite why your post is rated 'Insightful' is beyond me.
Re:PPV (Score:4, Insightful)
If you aren't going to watch it again, then why do you need to keep it?
Re:PPV (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a copyright violation, not a depriving-me-of-income violation.
-ec
Re:PPV (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PPV (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's a perfectly good and valid argument: if someone looks at my house, considers buying it, but then decides to build a copy instead, I have no right to demand they pay me money.
No, it isnt a perfectly good and valid arguement, and that analogy is just plain laughable.
The simple fact is that 'intellectual property' is an attempt to artificially create scarcity in an environment where there is none: at best it's a moronic abuse of government power, at worst it will prevent a truly information-based economy from arising. It's nothing more than the modern equivalent of buggy-whip manufacturers conspiring with the government to keep those new-fangled automobiles off the road.
If there wasnt an artificial scarcity on hard to produce, easy to copy items then really how many films would we be enjoying now? How many authors would be producing best sellers? How many musicians would be producing works? How many computer/console games would be being released? I will tell you now, not many at all. When it comes down to it, the majority of items produced for this 'artificial scarcity' are produced for money, not love, and without the artificial scarcity we would have rather less entertainment.
Like it or not, Hollywood is a huge industry which employs a massive amount of people. Those people arent doing it for love, they are doing it to eat. Would they be there if their wages were on a charity basis? Hell no. They are there for the same reason you are at work, money. There may be a very few at the top end that are doing it for love.
If we had to rely on amateur works to fill the void this industry would leave behind, then the world would be a dull place. Sure, youd get some gems (like Linux) but then you would get tonnes and tonnes of drivel (majority of sourceforge). Tell me when the last popular free book written in modern times came. Tell me when the last popular free 3d FPS was released. Tell me when the last amateur film made it big, got shown in cinemas world wide. You cant. For the most part, a lot of people dont have the resources to produce Doom3 or Titanic in their spare time (for that is what they will be doing, they have to earn money to eat as well).
Next time you claim the artificial scarcity is an abuse of power, just think of the diversity and entertainment value that that scarcity has produced. Unless theres money involved, chances are it wouldnt happen otherwise as people dont have the resources. Software is an exception, because resources required are small for entry into this field.
Re:PPV (Score:4, Insightful)
Each of those occurrences similarly highlighted the same thing: people are willing to pay for content, particularly if it is made convenient and useful to them.
Similarly, plenty of music, art and literature was created prior to the institionalization of modern copyright. Modern technology lowers the barriers to entry into the content-creation world; even without imposing artificial scarcity, if content was created absent such protection while it was harder to make, by what rationale is it predicted that less will be made when it's easier to make, even without that protection?
Re:PPV (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, yes I can.
Books: "Free Culture", "Down and out in the Magic Kingdom"
Film: Blair Witch
FPS: Don't game much, but I'm quite sure others could fill the gap here and point out some amazing stuff done by amateurs without profit in mind.
Sure, lots of amateur stuff is shlock, but lots isn't
Re: Artists make art for the sake of art (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PPV (Score:3, Insightful)
"We've been selling media for years and nobody has had the equipment to make perfect copies (because it was too expensive or completely unavailable), so that now the technology has made the equipment widely available, it should be banned".
Re:PPV (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh?
Party 1: Give me legal ownership of your house or equivlent money and I will let you watch/own this movie.
Party 2: Agreed.
Ok, the Party 2 might be dumb or smart depending on the worth of his house or if he gains rights to something he believes is worth the house.
But how does Party 2 knowing all his rights makes the agreement invalid?
Re:PPV (Score:3, Insightful)
There are alot of assumption you are making.
Suppose my house is a cardboard box?
Suppose you gain ownership of Gone With the Wind or Citizen Kane?
In any case, I would find it hard to believe that any serious judge would hear the case just based on single, sole fact that one party feels they paid too much, with no other factors involved.
If that was true, the courts would be jammed and you would
Build your own... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Build your own... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Build your own... (Score:5, Informative)
I went down that road, I built a mythbox and a freevo. I fought with them monthly. Then the service provider in the US dries up and forces you to register with them every 3 months with looming promises of having to pay for the right to access it.
I gave up, sold all the equipment and bought a refurbed ReplayTV for $100.00 and have not looked back cince. I can easily get shows off the replay to a computer for burning to DVD or simply having a media server with lots of content. It always works and is worth the $12.95 a month to keep me from fighting with another change in XMLTV packages or other failure,change or waiting for the listing provider to change their mind again.
for 99% of the people out there making your own PVR is not an option. hell for most techno-geeks
it still is not an option.
Re: "cince" (Score:3, Funny)
Today, a small part of the English language died.
Potential Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Screen Scrapers are counter to revenue models so at a certain level you can expect an arms race.
If Zap2It offered a reliable data feed for $3/mo, how could you argue with that? A good service costs money to operate. Heck, I pay $7/mo to listen to a radio show online, but that's alot more bandwidth.
If you figure
Fair use (Score:2)
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 music
They just lost 3 sales. (Score:2)
Re:They just lost 3 sales. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Were you planning on building a huge library of PPV movies and blacked out NFL games?
Because you can't trust them. (Score:3, Insightful)
Too Many KneeJerk Responses (Score:5, Insightful)
No, what will kill TiVo is all of television, TV, and sporting leagues suing the pants off of them for providing something that the can prove is illegal (like viewing NFL games outside the specified market area). This is a setup to allow people to share shows amongst TiVos, but making sure they have a legal basis to not get sued.
TiVo has already been hacked (and TiVo doesn't punish for it), so how long do you think it'll be between when TiVo allows program sharing and someone hacks it so you can avoid these new rules?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Too Many KneeJerk Responses (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too Many KneeJerk Responses (Score:4, Insightful)
For the past decade or so, blackouts were prevented by the city purchasing all the unsold tickets-- every home game was a sell out, courtesy of the taxpayers. This year, the clause was killed and so non-sold out home games (which is every home game) is blacked out. By the NFL's logic, therefore, you'd expect higher attendance at the game, right?
So far, with three home games this season, average attendance is DOWN 14% [canoe.ca]! It looks like even the perennial biggest seller of the year, the Raiders game this weekend, won't sell out and so will be blacked out. The net result of the blackout? NOBODY CARES. The chargers are having a pretty decent season (4-3 so far, usually we're 1-6 at this point) and NOBODY CARES. When you take the games off the TV, the audience doesn't take it upon themselves to spend $100 each to go to the game, they just find something else to do Sunday. Lost ticket revenue, lost TV revenue, lost fans. Idiots.
Doesn't matter much... (Score:2)
And I'm a real nerd so I don't watch NFL. That's like sports or something.
probably due to new tivos with dvd-r (Score:5, Insightful)
like this one tivo / burner from pioneer [pioneerburner.com]
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)
Jesus, don't blame Tivo. (Score:3, Insightful)
Who can blame TiVo? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who can blame TiVo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, even my rednecked father has stop using this particular turn of phrase ...
Re:Who can blame TiVo? (Score:3, Funny)
NAZI!!
Where's Godwin when you need him?
Not a big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
All the NFL is asking TiVo to do is not make recorded programs available for transfer while that program is still being aired. Once the game is finished, feel free to shoot it over. Of course, that would take hours of bandwidth at current speeds, so it's not really an issue anyway.
I'd rather have companies like TiVo work with the content providers to reach agreements rather than have companies sue each other over supposed 'copyright' violations.
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:accelerating their own death (Score:5, Informative)
I hope that is not the case. Since my experience with the cable service DVR is extremely poor. Even though the Cable one can record HD channels and has Dual Tuners, its user interface is down right awful to the point of being almost unuseable. It is slow to react, trying to FF through commericals is almost more painful than watching the commercials. Its conflict management is just plain dumb. If one episode of a show you have as a favorite conflicts with a movie you want to watch you tell it to record the movie and not the favorite show, well it stops recording ALL future shows of that favorite TOO.
If you start watching a recorded show that is not done recording it starts you at LIVE time, not the beginning of the show. If you rewind to the beginning which is what you have to do, and the show finishes recording before you finish watching the show it JUMPS you forward to LIVE TV. And it does not remember where you were in the show when you go back to watch it.
Trying to find something to record is damn near impossible. The only search ability is by Title FIRST LETTER, so for say Simpson you have to weed through all of the shows that begin with "S". It has Genre search but is equally useless.
And for recorded duplicate shows, even if you tell only get first runs, it records every airing of a show. This also make the poor conflict management even worse since it wants to records shows that have repeat showings in a week too.
I will be dropping this POS, as soon as I get my money together to build a HTPC.
Its only saving grace is price. However that is big for alot of people and means we will soon see more crappy PVRs in the future.
accelerating their own death (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent is right about this one. Tivo's real fear should be all of the cable/satellite PVRs that are on the market. The true tivo "fans" will quickly turn when unremovable restrictions are enforced. Let's face it, the guy who's hacking a tivo could just as easily build a mythtv box or a windows equivalent.
This whole issue illustrates a point I've been pointing out on /. for quite some time: It is impossible for movie/music companies to stifle the free flow of information. So tivo's going to be controlled now, oh well, time for any capable geek to move on to another technology which circumvents these measures. More importantly, time for the inept masses to look to the geek for their solutions as well.
Something that the majority of people don't understand, even our president doesn't understand, that, is that you cannot rule a mass of intelligent motivated people with mandate. Look at the comparisons, prohibition, the war on drugs, the "war" on music "piracy", all failing, and rather miserably. Why? Because the motivation of the people and the means to accomplish these goals is far superior to that of the government trying to prevent them.
So sure, let tivo slit their own throats an inch at a time, I'll still watch my ripped movies and I'm sure NFL fans will find a workaround as well.
Not a big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus, TiVos are indeed pretty hackable. In contrast to other manufacturers (eg. Microsoft put in a lot of effort to make sure the XBox was "unhackable"), TiVo doesn't really seem to mind people modifying their hardware all that much. And there are a lot of people who have "modded" their TiVos, even if it's just to swap out the harddrive for a bigger one. If you really want to permanently record a show, there's really nothing they can do to stop you. All they can do, is make it harder.
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.
Business vs. Business (Score:5, Insightful)
Where I can see this being used is the sports bar market (for example). You get a bunch of sports bars nationwide which agree to stream each other the games from each market. Now the major cable/dish networks lose the revenue from each of those bars buying a premium sports package. Multiply this by tens of thousands of interested businesses, and it adds up to a significant amount. It seems to me that this is the real issue at hand.
Well, I've owned a Tivo for (Score:5, Insightful)
These debates always boil down to those who are willing to pirate and those who aren't, but we can mask it as a "Fair Use" or "Consumer Rights" issue to keep the post count rolling. As far as Tivo goes, I watch a show, I delete it, I don't need to archive it for historical purposes and I have no right to do anything else with it. If it's really great I'll buy it on DVD and if it's like most shows I won't care. I'll bet I am in the majority of Tivo owners on this usage pattern yet people act like this policy somehow infringes on my right to use the device and it's content as described.
I know it's hard for some of you to accept, but not everyone purchases consumer electronics to discover exploits and alternative uses, and most people are willing to accept some limitations for the added convenince that Tivo brings. Most people aren't pirating off ST:DS9 and editing out the commercials for their personal archive or for uploading to usenet. It's hardly a stretch to imagine your downloaded copy of Gigli is time limited and you have no friends, so stop playing that hacked version of Counter Strike Source with the aimbot you just found and watch your damn rental.
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.
a counterpoint to the Tivo will die threads (Score:5, Insightful)
So next we'll see (Score:4, Funny)
Who uses TiVo to "keep" things? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not much to see (Score:3, Insightful)
The PPV one is a little more disconcerting. Don't really like the idea. Not that I ever get PPV movies, but I don't like auto-deletion like that.
But let's be real: does anyone think TiVo WANTS to do any of this?? This is TiVo making small concessions to help hold back the onslaught.
Re:Not much to see (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe so, but does blacking out the TV actually increase ticket sales? Our city is doing the experiment, and as far as I can tell (they're not releasing numbers as far as I've heard) bringing the blackout back doesn't seem to be upping attendance.
I live in San Diego, where we didn't have black-outs the last few seasons, courtesy of an a$$-raping contract between the Chargers and our crooked-as-a-twisty-straw city council that guarenteed them the revenue of a sell-out for every game-- the city would pay them full ticket price for every unsold seat. After much wrangling and public outcry, that clause has been terminated, and every non-sellout home game (which is every game excapt the Raiders) is now blacked out.
Know what? I don't know a single person who's gone to more games because of it. My group of friends averaged one or two games a year, and we're going to one this year. They lost the TV revenue, and it doesn't look like they're upping seat sales-- the blackout just makes people not care as much. I used to watch pretty much every home game, and the Chargers got the TV revenue from it. This year, I don't even know what their record is, haven't made the effort to watch the away games in a while, just don't care anymore. That is not good marketing.
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.
if anything (Score:3, Insightful)
I Would/Will be Furious - Bait & Switch! (Score:5, Insightful)
To reduce functionality after you've bought a unit sounds like fraud. Bait & switch. Like buying a fast sports car, and then having them download a patch into your engine computer that speed limits it to 85MPH so that the car company won't be sued for selling fast cars. I'd be looking for a class action lawyer to sue the pants off of TiVo if my box suddenly stopped doing something it used to do -- regardless of any license agreement that may have come with it.
And it's such a great way to advertise to new customers. Buy the new TiVo. It does less than the old model!
Now my question is: will this apply to my Dish Network PVR?
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.
Tivo, here is what needs to happen (and some tech) (Score:3, Insightful)
People laugh about the Xbox, Linux, and Microsoft loosing money since the thing is supposidly sold as a loss leader. But Tivo, Nooo can't touch that.
I called Tivo to inquire about how to add one of those "Press thumbs up to record" to a commercial. They wouldn't talk, they referred me to buy a $30,000 system that inserts the "push thumbs up to record" into the program signal. A EEG Line 21 encoder/decoder in raw mode and a commercial on VHS later I figured out how it was stored but haven't continued to research. They weren't nice, they weren't overflowing with joy. MY opinion is they took Replay's business, kind of like a Microsoft if you will.
So how does the Tivo work? Is there a software framebuffer rendering the menus to MPEG2 then pushing it to the decoder hardware? My roomate got a new Tivo and upgraded for someone, and I got the chance to peek inside. The new Tivos are using Broadcom KFIR-II chips for MPEG2 encoding (and probably decoding?). These chips are already usable under linux via the Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe USB unit. They use the exact same MPEG2 chipset, I put one of my PCTV boards next to the tivo, and the chips are identical in revision, size and everything else.
It is my guess that people could make an open source OS replacement for the Tivo hardware platform that would introduce all of the features that Tivo is taking away. Hell, might even be able to make it run on a BSD varient, NetBSD powered Tivo... bring it ON!
I'm really curious how the Tivo renders the menus... outside of this, I can't think of any really difficult obstacles, unless the architecture is very very proprietary (MIPS core on the new boxes, PPC on the old..).
Who needs a TIVO anyway? (Score:4, Funny)
Get about 10 VHS tapes and 2 VCRs. Set the VCRs to record all of your shows. Then, when your VCRs are done recording, take the tapes out and put sticky tabs on them noting what shows are recorded on each tape. Then put the tapes in a big stack and put two new tapes in the VCRs.
Using this method I've only lost about a dozen shows due to lazyness in sticky tab notation and misplacement of tapes (and occasionally the baby will rearrange them for me).
Anyway, who needs a TIVO when you can follow these simple steps and keep your shows until the sticky tab falls off.
Re:Stupid. (Score:2)
Because they don't. They charge you for a device That allows you to record the programming, and they sell you a service that provides you with accurate program listings. You know, unlike the ones on the TV Guide channel.
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:Stupid. (Score:3, Informative)
*shrug* FWIW there are other "off the shelf" commercial (and free) 3rd party PVR/htpc software solutions out there... although they are on the *gasp* windows platform *ducks*... I liked SageTV... BeyondTV has been getting good reviews... and GBPVR [gbpvr.com] is very full featured, FREE as in beer (not source), and is pretty cool overall. There's a lesser known
Re:obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
"MythGF" is probably closer to truth than you think. Spending so much time trying to make MythTV do anything resembling usablity, "RealGF" is getting cranky.
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Interesting)