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 ;)

Comments

Careful...

[Signal 11]

Incase the RIAA and the rest of the world hasn't noticed, electronics in general has gotten very good at most every aspect of signal production and reproduction, as well as transmission.

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.