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Tivo/ReplayTV Are To TV What Napster Is To Music?
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 ;)
If journalists wrote articles with headlines like "Cool new toy released, things will be pretty much the same as they always have" they wouldn't be employed very long.
-B
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
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.
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.
It would be great if this device could be modified to support a system of micropayments (since it is already periodically networked). I would be all too happy to pay in cash more than whatever my eyeballs' advertising contribution is to the networks. First, it would allow me to skip ads. This feature alone would be more than worthwhile to me, since I value my time more than the relatively nominal money that my usage raises. Second, I could see it having the ultimate effect of promoting the quality of television. One of the greatest ailments of television is the way in which is generates revenues through advertising dollars. In my view, they target the lowest common denominator and try to keep them in their seats as long as possible by seperating "good" stuff and filling junk in its place. This leads to a sort of corrupting cycle, as is seen in professional football, both in the duration of half time and other breaks, and in the excessive presense of marketing.
;)
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
as for the "...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"
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.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
I've wondered for a while about the possibility of creating an opensource Tivo type of system. After all, it isn't so much the hardware here, any old fast Pentium system with Linux, a video card that has composite or SVHS output and a big HD would be sufficient.
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?
Ok, first of all I own a TiVo and really like it. I'm a hardcore geek and never had problems programming my VCR. The difference between the VCR and the TiVo is that it's much easier. No tapes, single button record, pausing live tv, etc. Even my grandma could figure out how to tape with this thing.
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.
The shows on your local access channel are not substantially different to the normal sanitized rubbish common to all licenced TV but often lack even the minimal saving grace of reasonable production values.
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.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I don't think that it's the TV industry that needs to be the most worried about this. It's the film industry. Once the bandwidth and storage get cheap enough, especially recordable DVD drives, a Napster-like service could pop up to trade the latest video releases. I think that was the original intent of the question about Tivo and Napster. Tivo could be used to record movies and then traded just like MP3s.
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.
Do this don't do that Can't you redesign.
In Rochester, NY, there's an even more insidious form of advertising on TV. In light of this NYTimes article, I'm scared that it could catch on.
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...
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.
...do you have any conception of how Orwellian that is?
DNA just wants to be free...
I miss being able to access iCraveTV, but the ability to pick and choose anything from my local cable provider would be even better!
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
I fully support the convergence of existing media outlets into digital media rental, so that I can pick what I want, when I want, and may pay more or less if it comes with ads or doesn't. So I can still watch "friends" with all the commercials for free, or pay $0.50 and not see the commercials. Or whatever (insert 28-comment-long nitpicking about proposed system here).
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!
---- ----
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Or Real Player/Encoder. The basic Real Producer & Real Server software is free to download and use. You'd need a fairly speedy box to run them both on though (Even for Audio, CPU & RAM usage is high), but it can do HTTP tunneling broadcasts if you happen to be behind a nasty firewall at work :)
Syllable : It's an Operating System
both these devicse are basically digital VCRs, and unless i'm wrong, they record the commercials along with the program? which means that you take the (freely distributed) content right along with the commercials (spam) that pay for it..... and watch it later. how is this the same as music, where you _pay_ for the music you get, unless you download it for free? i mean, how many people are posting "every episode of Ally Mcbeal with comercials edited out" on their websites for download?
Sitting Walrus Blog
Of course, with a decent video capture card you can really do this sort of thing anyway.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
TiVo has stated time and time again in their privacy policy that NO DATA EVER LEAVES YOUR DEVICE. [snip] Perhaps it's time for me to pull out the data analyzer and check out what it's sending to the "man."
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.
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.
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.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
You're forgetting, mp3's themselves are not illegal. Napster can be said to be a file-sharing program for legal mp3's. If the people that use Napster use it for illegal purposes, that can hardly be blamed on Napster itself. Hypothetically speaking, if someone uses a cutco knife to stab somebody, should cutco be held responsible? I don't know what the RIAA is complaining about anyways. From 1998-1999, when Napster really took off in popularity, the RIAA sold 10.8% more CD's, and they even increased the price of the average CD by 12.3%. What this says is that Napster makes it possible for people to "test out" different bands without having to pay $18 for a CD before they know if they'll like it. So in general, people's music tastes are expanding due to Napster. How is that unethical? Is it immoral to open people up to different kinds of music then they normally listen to?
When ABC/ESPN started showing World Cup Soccer, they ran into the problem that soccer is continuous without timeouts and breaks like football/basketball/hockey. They found away around by rotating "banners" in the corner of the screen for a certain time period with the various advertisers. I can see this happening with all programming when its time shifted. They'll probably end up adding audio and animation to them as well too.
--
Chaosnetwork
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.")
I'm not sure whether or not "purchased" product placement is allowed on TV. But there is a reason these placements work better with movies than TV ... syndincation. When a show is sold into syndication, the person buying wants to sell ad time all over again, that's their revenue stream. They don't want to be stuck with the ads already "baked in" with no room for their own ads time. Sure, people finance shows in hopes making money on ads, but REALLY big money is made by selling into syndication. Think about how much of the TV day is taken up by shows that already ran, but this time with new ads in them. When TV first started, shows were "brought to you by Geritol". The entire show. The current ad model, with syndication slapped on for good measure is enormously more profitable the same investment in an episode of Friends (regardless of how much the actors get paid per show) can leveraged against selling the ad time again, and again, and again.
In any case, the article states that on a Tivo unit 88% of the commercials go unwatched.
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
Kevin Fox
This is already starting to happen. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago about a new show on WB called "Young Americans" (IIRC). Coca Cola dropped 6 million bucks to be a "named sponsor" of the show, meaning that every time the show is mentioned it is always called "Young Amerians, brought to you by Coca Cola" and of course given many many regular commercial slots during the show. What made the arrangement newsworthy, was that the product placement was going to be heavy to the point of being shocking. From what the article made it out to be, every moment these photogenic teenagers were concious, they would be holding a refreshing Coca Cola product, label facing out. It may seem disgusting to have a show that's 60% Dawson's Creek and 40% Coke commercial, but if the show gets good ratings and kids 15-21 buy more Coke, the executives don't really care (nor should they). I havn't seen the show, but if anyone has, chime in and say just how heavy the placement is.
-B
I love the subhead: It will also spy on you, destroy prime time and shatter the power of the mass market. Is it just impossible for people to accept a new paradigm without thinking that all that preceded it will be destroyed? Movies didn't kill theatrical performances, TV didn't kill movies, the VCR didn't kill broadcast TV, yada yada yada. Or maybe this is just the same mentality that thinks the public is unbelievably stupid, so that after a story that taking an aspirin a day may be good for you, they must warn us that we shouldn't go out and take a hundred.
I'm amazed each time I watch a sports event on TV (pretty rare occurence mind you) at the number of 'appropriate' adverts surrounding the players.
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?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
My father and I used to work for the same company. We both got a 'magazine' relevant to our 401k plan. It was the same magazine, right?
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)!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Sure radio, itself, didn't disappear, but radio drama was a huge part of radio content. TV kicked its' ass all the way to pluto. Tech change is almost always destructive AND creative. That's what science fiction is about.
And you're right about the tendency of the media to sensationalize. Good news doesn't sell papers.
Tivo can, and does, remove comercials.
Really? Tell me how I can make my TiVo remove commercials. I'm tired of fast forwarding and overshooting the return of the show.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Quick question, I've got a two yearold in my lap, so forgive the typos.
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
Well, I suppose you couldn't expect better from a Journo, but the whole piece was absurdly old-media-centric.
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
(caveat: This is something I remember reading, but I'd love more info either way)
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
Kevin Fox
What are you? On crack? There was a whole lawsuit against Sony for releasing a Cassette player, and then a cassette recorder (both video). Sony almost lost due to the MPAA claiming that it would reduce revenues for the theatres. TV stations shouldn't really care due to the presence of commercials (except cable channels - HBO perhaps). However, this kind of storage and copying method was flawed due to it's analog nature which causes the quality to degrade with each copying, and degrade by itself with time. Now, with digital methods like the Tivo and Replay copying and storage has the potential to become to TV what mp3's and napster became to music. But, with all this speak and propaganda, one still has to realize: most TV is free anyway, and as long as you keep the original commercials, why do the companies really care??? It's giving them more eyes in order to sell ads (granted they can't tell how many, but they couldn't really do that with antenna watchers either).
"Lazyness is the first step towards efficiency." -Patrick Bennett
They're free to block direct access of course ... and to suffer the consequences, namely loss of page hits from those that don't want to be led by the nose.
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.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
People have been recording VHS tapes for a long time and watching it.
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?)
Eh...
TV broadcasters have much more to worry about than mere retransmission of their material over the Internet. You see, unlike the case with the RIAA, the TV broadcasters may find that their own product gets relegated to minority status, simply because of its regulated and sanitized nature.
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.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
At least not at this point.
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
There are some similarities and differences between TiVo/Replay and Napster, but what we really need instead of Napster is some version of TiVo/Replay for radio. Although there are none (to my knowledge) in my area, I understand that some radio stations broadcast song/artist names that can be read by receivers-- so most of the infrastructure needed is already in place. Your radio simply has to scan the airwaves for artist/songnames that you like, and record them to a hard disk. Perfectly legal timeshifting, just like recording radio broadcasts always has been.
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 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.
It makes the assertion that if 88% of commercials are never viewed by Tivo viewers, then commercial tv will cease to exist. bzzzzt.
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.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I want a do-it-your-damn-self TiVo sort of thing. All one would really need is a good video capture card and the ability to tell it when and what to record. It would be trivial to make it as good as an internet-controllable VCR, but getting a database to pull from for better info would be more difficult. It might be possible to use the GuidePlus+ signal from Gemstar that televisions are starting to support-- someone with better signal analysis equipment than me will have to decode their signal, though.
TVs are getting ever smarter.. The TiVO monitors what you watch, constantly records shows that it thinks you might like. It adapts to you, the viewer.. and everyone rejoices.
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..
Unlike music the brodcast TV industry makes it's money from a viewer count.
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.
I don't actually exist.
No one has mentioned the best part of the article, this sidebar
mmm.. exploding tvs... gooood...
People viewing habits change with Tivo. Tivo is really a time shifter that lets you watch TV on your schedule rather than the networks - it's a different concept from a VCR. Many people with Tivo's NEVER watch live TV, because it's much more convenient to use Tivo to start watching a show, say 30 min, later than the network time, then you can fast forward thru all the commercials.
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...
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.
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.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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
Do domain names matter?
The main reason the TV industry isn't worried about TiVo is that because TV is quite a different beast from music. The ways in which they make money are very different, while the music industry makes money from you buying CDs, the TV industry makes money by having you watch commercials. Because of this, the methods of distribution are very different. Music is duplicated on many CDs and people buy the CDs, TV is sent normally once at the same time to everyone. Also, music is resued (you listen to a song over and over again) much more than TV programs (do you watch the same episode of Simpsons many times in the same day?) which are typically watched once.
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.
The RIAA doesn't like Napster because it interferes with the revenue stream. Music studios get money when people buy new CDs and don't when they're distributed via Napster.
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
Kevin Fox
channel.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.
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
Also, where is the mouse wheel on notebooks. Still waiting for the obvious there.