Slashdot Mirror
Calling Out TiVo
ephraim writes "Forbes has an article by John C. Dvorak which summarizes the TiVo and similar devices as follows: "It's a way to steal programming." He justifies this remark by claiming that the main purpose of a TiVo is to "skip commercials" that pay for TV content. He also seems upset that people can use these devices to record content onto a hard drive without paying royalties to the content companies. Never mind the fact that the article has numerous factual errors (Dvorak claims that TiVo systems cost $500 and implies that the systems are difficult to use; he also makes a ridiculous comparison between MP3 file-sharing and TiVo). This guy seems to never have heard of the Betamax court case which legitimized time-shifting. "
Who gives a shit about TiVo seriously? Come on now, really if this was "Beergut: News for Couch Potatoes" maybe this would be on topic.
I paid for my TV. I pay a monthly fee to receive cable. At no time did I sign an agreement promising that I would watch the commercials that are on during my show. So where does it say I have an obligation of any kind? Get it through your head: I do not exist solely to watch your commercials and buy your products. If you want me to buy something, make a quality product and don't try to rape your customers for it.
If you read the court decisions or the Constitution, you'll see that U. S. copyrights and patents are not granted as a recognition of any form of property rights in works. They are simply a utilitarian incentive to encourage the production of more works for the benefit of the public.
Either:
a) everyone will get tivo, and that will be the end of free broadcast television as we know it.
b) tivo will cut a deal and the money will go to the broadcasters who pay for the shows. i.e., pay extra for no ads, or pay nothing & watch ads.
There is no other alternative. Those of you who buy Tivo thinking you're gonna stick it to the networks and still be able to watch your Lone Gunmen episodes or whatever shit it is you like watching for free are dreaming.
Personally I'd love to see the ads disappear and have people pay for each show they watch. Then the advertisers wouldn't have so much control over your minds. You might actually think about what you're watching. Or you might even do something instead of watching TV, like [shudder] read a book.
The comparison of a PVR to mp3 file sharing is completely invalid. PVRs do not offer any method for obtaining content illicitly. They also do not offer a method to distribute the saved content to others, with the exception of "save to VCR", which even the MPAA would agree is legal.
He seems to think that the only feature of a PVR is 'commercial skip'. Obviously he doesn't have a PVR, or if he does, he hasn't had it for very long. PVRs offer a convenient way to regularly record favorite programming. Your favorite shows are recorded, whether you're there or not, thus allowing the PVR owner to enjoy the original, unedited content, which they already subscribe to, at their leisure.
Dvorak isn't too good with money, apparently. He insists that TiVo costs $10 a month. Anybody who has half a brain will instead opt for the $200 lifetime subscription, which is to cover the cost of the guide data, and software upgrades for their PVR. He should also consider shopping at a different electronics store, as his 'average' price of $500/unit is about $100-150 higher than the average price I've seen for 30 hour units.
One valid point that Dvorak makes is that adding a TiVo to the system adds complexity. It seems like it "should" be complicated, but in reality it's not. Toss the TiVo between your signal source (cable box, or DTV reciever) and your receiver or TV. Done. Pretty difficult, eh? As for the complexity of the remote control, it actually simplifies things nicely. I actually prefer the TiVo interface to the interface presented to me by my DTV receiver. The only awkwardness is in recording pay-per-view events, which TiVo doesn't have guide data for, and can't do an on-screen purchase for.
Dvorak describes the fact that a PVR requires access to a phone line to be "a hassle in itself". The fact that after setup, the phone is used only when you're not using it (usually late at night), and for short periods of time is ignored. He also rants about a bug in one PVR implementation as a reason to ignore the technology. If a single problem is reason to ignore a technology, then I'll assert that a single column is reason to ignore a pundit.
Perhaps the most amusing show of Dvorak's ignorance is his implication that PVR technology only exists because broadcasters are unaware of it. Either CBS, AOL-Time Warner, Discovery, Showtime, Disney and NBC aren't broadcasters, or he's just dead wrong. They aforementioned companies are all equity investors in TiVo, Inc.
In the second to last paragraph, Dvorak accidentally let's slip his real motivation for his rant. He had trouble getting a ReplayTV unit to work.
Apparently this article is what happens when Dvorak has an electronics malfunction and an article due simultaneously.
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
I can find lots of references to it, including one in a book, but no solid record that he wrote this.
Dvorak makes a reference to it here, so it's probably safe to assume it's genuine.
-dair
I soon plan on discontinuing my Verizon service. And, I would like to buy a TiVO, but I realize that it requires a phone connection. So.. is there any way to get a TiVo that can make use of Ethernet, such as from my DSL? I mean, it's not like I don't have 'net access -- it's just not via the local monopoly.
Through Google, I did run across a TiVo Ethernet project, but I'd like some way to get those results without hacking up my TiVo -- I just want it to work!
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Find a new way to advertise.
Dvorak's a whiner.
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
John Dvorak has always paid other people to write the articles that appear under his name. Why did he once sound like he knew one and of an Amiga from the other? Because he hired someone who knew what they were talking about to write the article.
Dvorak is a brand; he's obviously whoring that brand to use factual innacuracies on behalf of the highest bidder is more profitable than trying to provide useful information for the average person.
yea.. sometimes I stop fast-forwarding on my tivo just to see a commercial. like the IBM guys in the space suits, they rock.
A simply alternative is merely to stop making commercials that people DREAD. The decline of the American commercial can best be percieved through the "Retromercials" on TVLand. Many of them point out how just plain HOSTILE to the customer many modern commercials are.
Do annoying commercials REALLY benefit the people paying for their air time.
OTOH, certain commercials may get watched regardless. Those would be the ones that were not percieved to be a total waste of my time before TiVo.
This isn't even getting into how cable companies pre-empt network commercials. They are the real thieves here. Cox has a nasty habit of pre-empting network commercials and replacing them with grossly inappropriate ones. They also have a nasty habit of pre-empting bits like the "Gavelsons" on TVLand. Occassionally, they will even take a bite out of the shows themselves.
If someone wants to rant about signal theft, they should be complaining about that instead.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I make it a point to start watching shows 20 min late much of the time so I can fast forward the ads. But I almost always end up rewinding and watching an ad or two for something that looks interesting. If it is another show that I might watch or a movie that I might want to see or whatever. Ok I skip all the ads for things that I don't want to buy but I wasn't going to buy that stuff anyhow.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
My box (DishPlayer) has a "feature" (a new one, downloaded with the latest automatic software update) where if I press the mute button during commercials, subtitles appear. (the same is not true for programming).
How convenient is that?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
DishPlayer
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
okay, but you should realize and face facts:
Targeted advertising means, all of your commercials will be for:
Computers,
Games,
Joysticks,
Monitors,
Porn.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I hope that soon somebody comes out with a Tivo-like device which skips all the program downloading crap and just gives us what we want: commercial skipping.
I guess for now all we are left with are VCR's that can edit out commercials.
--
I'd heard that there are similar numbers of minutes of commercial airtime per hour between the US and UK. In my experience, the US commercial breaks are shorter, more frequent and loaded towards the end of the programme/show when things are getting more interesting. By making the breaks shorter, it is harder for people to get up and do something during them as there is insufficient time.
It was nice watching Start Trek on BBC 2 in under 45 uninterrupted minutes! I'd pay a license fee for that... I waste less time. And, as you point out, the license fee was considerably lower than the cable bill. We pay nearly CDN$50/mo. for 70 channels of cable and there is no more to watch than when I was England with 4 channels. The license fee is a bargain! I think that the quality of the Beeb also increases the quality of the commercial TV stations too due to competition (a nice side effect for the viewers).
When I came over to Canada in 1994, I was told it was similar. I guess it's got worse recently, but my viewing has decreased in that time.
n /cult/other.htm#tv/a
I didn't find anything that stated how many minutes per hour ITV spends on commercials, but you might find the followng of interest
http://www.netreach.net/~kaufman/ratingsAds.html
http://freespace.virgin.net/john.cletheroe/usa_ca
Well maybe the TV companies need to find a better way of raising money. I'm sick of the constant barrage of crap, ignorant advertising. Either they think I'm very stupid, or the majority that they are targetting is very stupid... I'm hoping it's the former. If it's the latter, then the standard of advertising is a very worrying statement about society. Whatever, I don't watch "normal" television anymore, and part of that is due to the barrage of commercial shit.
In recent years I've lived in Britain, Canada and the US. The highest quality television in these countries was on channels that raised their money via other means.
Perhaps in the long run that's how we'll justify skipping commercials...if we want to see the show "as it is being broadcast", then the price we pay is commercials. If we choose to wait some period of time, then we get to skip them.
Ok, but with a TiVo, the required timeshift is five or ten minutes, instead of having to wait until the show is over....
(Not that I think that this is "stealing".)
There IS a DirecTV + Tivo combo box. It's been out for months. Check out either or both companies' web sites for info.
The only problem with the unit is that it doesn't contain an RF tuner in it, so you either bypass the "directivo" to watch local cable or broadcast tv live, or you get your locals through directv.
The big advantage is that the recording capaicity for this unit is at the highest possible, dtv-quality picture, because it just records the DTV signal to the hard drive, with no mpeg decompression/recompression like the stand-alone units have to do.
It's only US $10.00! That is not a lot of money...
It's not vaporware...You can buy it. But it does have bugs and it does lose recording time...
Since a Tivo is just a StrongARM Linux box you could probably hack an ethernet port into it. Indeed, the Tivo people have said that if they go out of business they would release information about how to do this sort of thing. The TV people might even view this as an indirect threat...
Because TV content is payed for by ads doesn't mean it's free, it means you're paying for it with everything else you buy.
Is it fair that people who never watch TV (like me for example) have to pay for others' TV shows?
I very much welcome the introduction of devices like TiVo. Sneaking in hidden fees, and giving the illusion of getting TV for free, when it never really was, has been unethical from the beginning.
Ideally if enough people used these devices, we would see TV move to a pay-per-view model for new shows, and old shows for free. This means TV could become some kind of real entertainment instead of a means of getting people to watch commercials.
only on Network 23...
Below is the full text of a letter I sent to fortune magazine, expressing my opinion of this idiocy.:
To Whom it May Concern,
Mr. Dvorak's column is largely erronious in both fact and interpretation. On points of fact, the TiVo device does not necessarily cost $500, but is available for $300. It is also not difficult to use.
Of greater significance are the errors of interpretation. Mr. Dvorak evidently believes that it is only lawful to watch television in the manner and at the time intended by the broadcasters. The courts have repeatedly held that this is not the case. One need only look at Sony vs. Universal (1983) for an example. The humble VCR does all of the things which Dvorak finds objectionable: It allows the viewer to record shows, watch them at the time and place of their choosing and watch as much or as little of the show as they wanted, including the ability to easily not watch commercials. It even allows shows to be watched repeatedly, and video tapes can be given away or sold, albeit illegally.
The only difference with the TiVo is that it does these things electronically (which seems to be inherently scary), and that one can watch a show at the same time one is recording it, so that the time-delay is reduced.
Mr. Dvorak appears to believe that because media producers include advertisements with their programming, the viewer is legally or morally obliged to watch them. This is clearly not so. Such stalwart mechanisms as newspapers and magazines have allowed readers to "turn the page" and thereby avoid advertizements. Even so, these are often distributed at no charge, despite having a much higher per-recipient cost than television. For that matter, viewers have always had the legal right to turn off or ignore their televisions during commercials.
There seems to be a belief among many intelectual property commentators, including Mr. Dvorak, that the law ought to guarantee the continued profitability of any business model that is currently succesfull. If the technological or social environment reduces the profitability of a given industry, that industry is not necessarily a victim deserving of reparations. Imagine the world today if the Horsbreeders Association of America had succesfully sued automobile manufacturers for damages and gained an injunction against their manufacure?
--
The above opinions are my own, and not those of my employer
nor any other reasonable individual.
Eric Anderson
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Carleton College, Northfield MN
eric@ericanderson.org
anderser@carleton.edu
And thanks, Toby, for reminding me that it's been a long while since I've seen Reservoir Dogs.
Heh heh heh. I see you weren't reading MacUser for a good stretch there in the late 80's and early 90's. Dvorak used to do the column in the back, and he is (or was until recently - I don't read him any more) a Mac user. He even did some promotional stuff with Apple around 92-93 when they started putting materials onto humorously named CDs. I still remember his column about computer theme parks, and the Steve Jobs Ride.
Really, I suspect he doesn't care much about any side. What he's interested in is stirring up trouble so that people read his columns and talk about them, and he can keep raking in money. Rather like PT Barnum, who didn't care if people praised him or pissed on him, as long as they spelled his name right.
I sincerely doubt that he dislikes the Tivo. Really, he's almost certainly counting on people generally loving the Tivo. This means that by griping (and not even having to do a good job of it b/c that would require too much effort) that he will remain a popular columnist and be able to make money from magazines who don't care if you agree with him, just as long as you saw their ads. (ironically enough)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Why is it fair?
Wouldn't this mean that the first person (and his heirs) to develop the concept of fairness should be entitled to royalties for your use of their concept?
Information just doesn't work like that. It's practically as though God designed it to flow trivially to others. We have constructed a rickety artifice of copyright, patents, etc. (generally collectively known as Intellectual Property, though it is not actually property) around it, but that doesn't mean that they're particularly useful or fair or desirable.
I think that if we are extremely careful we can tolerate minor limitations as an aid, but it should always be viewed as a tool and the purpose never forgotten. Both seem no longer to be the case, as evidenced by your comment. Modern copyright laws (which are the case here) are generally bunk. They may be repairable, but they're doing a pretty lousy job at the moment.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Thank God Einstein did not assert IP over his equations
I think God might have a pretty sound prior art claim.
-sjf
This slashdot handle for sale.
Technically true, but you'll get tons of "You should subscribe" messages that pretty much make it unusable as a pure Digital VCR.
Personally, $10/month for what TiVo provides is fine by me.
Various cable companies have been talking about something along these lines for years. It used to be called "video on demand." The technology to do this has been around for a while. The show stopper has been convincing consumers and producers (TV networks) that it is a good idea. Both groups want features the other group specifically dosen't want. "Time shifting" would be one of these examples. The producer's business model is going to change (hello RIAA). If the TV networks were smart they would change their business model on their own terms. Some TV networks are smart.
The more I listen to TV insider types the more I am convinced that small specialty tv stations are the way of the future. In my area there is no way that a traditional TV station specializing in Chinese programming could survive. There just aren't enough viewers. However a small station could survive with just a few hours of programming a day, distributed on a subscribtion basis as "video on demand."
Well, maybe for the Superbowl....
The point is, just becuase advertisers sink money into an ad slot (and into the ad itself) does not entitle them to any actual viewership at all.
Sure, there's a really good chance that the spot will be seen by some (or heck even a lot of) people. But if nobody happens to have the TV turned on or tuned in to that particular channel at that particular time, it's like money down the tubes.
In short, advertising is a gamble.
Time-shifting, and commercial editing happen NOW with VCR's. As I said, the advertisers are NOT entitled to force their commercials on you no matter what. The gripe from Dvorak isn't even really that commercial editing is happening. It's that the set-top boxes make it EASIER than sitting there and watching it to do the editing.
B
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0
H
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In short, it's my time. I'll spend it how I want. Also, it's my choice of what to view. If you want to start FORCING programming on me, I'll simply stop watching PERIOD.
This is one of the reasons I have stopped buying DVDs. All these idiotic previews that you cannot fast forward through.
Also, as someone else pointed out, nobody's going to record one or two shows on a $300-500 set-top box like TiVo and then start swapping TiVos. It ain't gonna happen. So basically, piracy isn't an issue either.
I remember a time, not all that long ago (but ages ago in Internet Time), when John Dvorak actually made worthwhile contributions to the sum of human knowledge in the sphere of computing.
It's a shame that he's become this bloated, bitter shill who lives only for ratings now.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Most decent TV doesn't have ads in when it's first broadcast here in the UK anyway, that's what we pay a licence fee for....
--
rant
One that could read TV Guide would be cool...
...I mean, like, where else is it going to get the listings from?
Tell me how TV stations are losing money.
a) Compared to TVs in the nation, there aren't that many TiVo's at all.
b) The advertisement will STILL play on that station at the specified time regardless of if you have TIVO. Having the TiVo just means you won't have to sit through it.
c) Doesnt dumbass Dvorak know that there have been VCRs with this technology around for years, before the advent of the hard drive. And you can simply put this on your PC using any VCR and VideoIN on your VCR.
Maybe he thinks we should pay for our television.. wait a minute, most of us ALREADY DO (pay too much). Anyone that has Cable or Satellite is paying for their TV usage (albiet going to DirecTV or your local cable provider, they could kick some profit over too the stations.
I'm sorry but in my personal opinion, Mr. Dvorak i an old fart with old ideas. He says stuff that will piss people off just so people will actually read his boring column.
Move on Dvorak, you stupid old fart, move on..
-
aphex
I Steal Music!
Subject: Wild overstatement, courtesy of Mr. Dvorak...
Mr. Dvorak, in his column, "Commercial-Free Conundrum",
He appears to be suggesting that being able to skip overdescribes a new, easier to program VCR as a "a way to
steal programming".
commercials makes my existing vcr a way of stealing
programming, and that the new ones are worse because
they make it easier to do so.
Firstly, this is a solved problem for the advertisers: they've
long since learned to make their commercials sufficiently
interesting that I'm tempted to watch them, often to see
what's so funny. And yes, I do remember the vendors from
my favorite commercials (Molson Canadian's "The Rant").
Secondly, it isn't theft: ignoring bad commercials isn't
Finally, I do know that the U.S. courts have specificallya criminal offense in Canada. As far as I know, it's not
in the U.S., either.
stated that recording devices like my VCR or the new
improved ones are legal, and criticized those who had sued Sony
for their "unprecedented attempt to impose copyright liability
upon the distributors of copying equipment".
The same point might be made to Mr. Dvorak.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Of all the people who deserve to be given
the squeeze in this economy, television
networks have got to rank in the top.
Of course more money != more quality. "Full House" couldn't cater lunch on "Monty Python's" entire budget (even adjusted for inflation). ;-)
but John C. Dvorak has consitantly been a poop-head. But of course that's just my informed opinion of his uninforming opinions.
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
I just spent 20 minutes trying to find evidence that he ever actually said this, but I can't find it. I can find lots of references to it, including one in a book, but no solid record that he wrote this.
Is this a Mac urban legend, or is it the real deal?
Waldo
Tivo is making it harder to skip commercials and is inserting some of their own. Replay has a "skip ahead 30 seconds", while TiVo does not
uhm, you got that flipped around. replaytv inserted their own ads over pause screens (but has since stopped doing that), TiVo has never (and says they will never). and TiVo 1.2 and 1.3 software does have a 30 second skip functionality (changes the 'skip to live' button, check out the forums at www.tivocommunity.com for how to activate it) and 2.0 probably does also, just nobody's figured out how to activate it. the article you mention is misleading (very much like the privacy foundation report about tivo) in that it simplies implies that TiVo could be doing this in the future, without any evidence to back that they will (like saying "if you go outside, and run across the street, lightning will hit you, a plane will crash on you, and then a poodle will pee on your remains", it COULD happen, but the likelyhood is so insignificant....). not that anybody would believe it, but the president of TiVo has stated numerous times that the company will NEVER have any 'in your face' advertising. food for thought.
Ol' John sure is a riot:
Other roadblocks to PVRs might save the day for networks and advertisers. For example, people are beginning to reevaluate spending high annual fees for unimportant services. Do you want to spend $120 a year to operate a TiVo unit just to skip a few commercials?
The value of my time varies depending on what I do, but the top end is $120 / hour when I'm doing consulting work.
With TiVo, I can skip the 15 minutes of commercials in a typical 1 hour program. If watching commercials is as onerous as consulting work, then I've recouped my investment in just 4 hours of use.
Check out that cost-benefit ratio Mr. PC Expert Dvorak.
Dvorhack has shown himself to be ill-informed and inaccurate.
Oh, crap...
That was -supposed- to read:
"Using 'intellectual' and 'TV' in the same sentence without them being mutually exclusive!!"
I -did- preview, just didn't parse for content.
E. All of the above.
Mebbe Dvorak thinks that its unfair to broadcasters because he believes the TIVO allows a user to watch a broadcast live, and when commercials come up, they can fast forward right through them!
I think TIVO would have a number of Cosmologists and their lawyers at their door and not just Dvorak!
"Lisa! In this house WE OBEY THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS!"
They were thin-clients and AIX workstations.
Dvorak caught a glimpse of something and misunderstood what it was. That shouldn't surprise anybody.
-
Cause TiVo isn't charging you for the video recording you can do that without getting an account. Its charging you for compiling all the programming guide information and letting you dial up and download it every day. I don't have satellite or digital cable yet, so to not have to sit through the TV guide channel waiting, its definitely worth $10, and then to have it auto-record all my shows...thats worth alot more than the $300 I paid for my TiVo (with $200 in rebates) a far cry from $500!!
One of the best purchases I've ever made.
Geez, I've been reading Dvorak since he had a column in one of the early PC magazines. Even back then folks were slamming him. I used to give him the benefit of the doubt since it seemed his column usually had at least one sensible idea (OK. So it was sort of like one grain of wheat in the bushel of chaff, but...). Recently, however, I've given up on him and am beginning to suspect that I was wrong all this time and that everything that people were saying about Dvorak all these years was true after all.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Dvorak has been such a loud-mouthed moron making wildly wrong predictions in the industry for so long you'd think that people would start to realize that he is just a loud-mouthed moron and doesn't understand IT at all.
But they don't.
The sheeple like to have loud, extravagant people leading them. They simply don't care that such people are rarely capable of rubbing neurons together.
I think "free TV", in it's current form, is in a slow death spiral. About 85% of the population gets their TV via cable and/or DBS. The ratings for network programming have been declining for many years. Ad revenues haven't dropped at the same rate as the ratings, but I don't think that is going to last forever. The quality of network programming will continue to decline as they will have less money to spend on programming due to declining ad revenues. Why do you think "reality TV" is so hot? It's cheaper to produce than sitcoms or dramatic series. They have to compete with cable channels, which can outbid them for the rights to movies and have a more robust business model. Look at what has happened to AM radio over the last 50 years. The ratings and advertising revenues have declined to the point that it is a near-dead industry. With cable and DBS, the networks don't need their affiliates anymore. Instead of the networks paying the affiliates to carry the network feed, the networks will charge the affiliates a fee for access to the network feed. They may eventually drop the affiliates altogether and become cable channels.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
This pisses me off to no end, a journalistic hack finds someway to show corporate America that he is on their side. 'lest he should have individual thoughts for himself, this guy like many others has deemed technology bad, as it deprives money from corporations who have a hard time spending the money they already have, and the fact that it is complex. It'd be different if he outlined the pros and cons, but who needs to enlighten the people when you can whip them into a frenzy.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
People really do like entertaining ads. Not these sickening Taco Bell "zesty" ads. *cringe*
People will actually put off their bathroom break if an ad is entertaining. They will even spend their time and bandwidth watching ads if they're entertaining enough...as is shown by AdCritic.com. I think more advertisers need to look at the "Top 10" ads on AdCritic and realize that people don't mind ads much...if the ads are as entertaining as the show they're interrupting.
Well do Panasonic et al charge you a monthly recurring fee for the use of their devices which you've purchased off a store's shelf? No. Why should TIVO etc be any different in that regard? Pure greed... worse than any of the networks, being that they've never charged me a single dime to watch a show...
Hmmmmm... maybe you're onto something? If we all (say, 100 million US citizens, just for the sake of math) ditch the networks and go with Tivo, they'ed stand to earn:
$120,000,000,000 a year... I don't think the entire entertainment industry brings (music, TV, film, sports) in that much per year, let alone TV by itself.
Somehow the math doesn't work that they can sell a little box with a hard drive in it, and charge $10 a month for the priveldge of it's use... looking at the size of their potential audience, etc... they need to completely forget the monthly fees, and just figure on a continuous upgrade cycle in sync with whatever one of those laws permits hard drive capacity to quintuple year after year....
I loved pointcast! So did my boss and everyone else at work at the time - what was it? 1997 or so? maybe 98?... anyways, we killed our network traffic and had to abandon it. Too bad, these days with cable modems and stuff, it'd be a great product for the home office... (i doubt corporates will ever let that beast near their networks again. at least not until 1000Base-T is the norm)
When cable came along, one of the advantages was "no commercials", since the service was funded by the bill you pay each month.
What? Which universe are you living in? The only cable channels that never had commercials were individual pay channels, like HBO, Showtime, etc... which still don't (except for commercials for upcoming shows). Local channels on cable always had commercials. I don't remember for sure, but maybe Discover and others like that didn't have commercials at first either.. but I think they did.
The advantages of cable were always:
More channels (from different cities too), and Better reception.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
I never said we don't pay for cable. The post I responded to (and the part I quoted) said that the original advantage of cable was the "no commercials" angle. As far as I can remember, TBS, MTV, etc.. _always_ had commercials. As did any "local" stations (including stations that were local to another city, but offered to you via cable).
Hmm.. I don't remember for sure if MTV always had commercials or not, but I do remember the day it went online.. my sister couldn't wait. I think I was only 10 or 11 at the time though. Anyone remember what year that was?
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
D: Trying to stir up page-hits.
Hey, a troll made it to the frontpage! Wait a minute...
No, he's quite intelligent. He's a master troll, and he's bringing in the ad impressions. Now, if A - C were about him not being a moron but about him being a jackass, well, that's a different situation.
Personally, I don't mind a bit if the broadcast TV model goes belly-up. Quite frankly, I think it provides very little that's positive to society. Television is basically a narcotic, and I don't see any reason why it should be subsidized with free radio spectrum. I don't think it should be illegal, but let it pay it's own way via cable and DSS subscription fees. None of the networks are even close to holding up their end of the "public service" agreement with society. Even with their huge public subsidy in the form of free spectrum, their business model is going to collapse. Bunch of losers, let the market eat them.
I could be mistaken here....but I know I pay nearly $40 a month for my cable service (I know others pay much more in some areas), and at least a small part of that goes back to the channels that broadcast the programming, and some part of that goes back to the networks that air them. Therefore, whether or not you are watching commercials is largely irrelevent, because the networks are still getting their funds.
And let's not forget that it's the advertisers that pay the networks. No matter what, a superbowl commercial will still cost $1million for 30seconds, because they know people will watch them. People will always be watching events live, even if it isn't quite as often as it always has been, and as they do so, they'll be watching the commercials with them.
-Julius X
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
If skipping the commercials is equivalent to stealing the broadcast, from whom was it stolen? Was it stolen from the advertiser who paid for the commercial time? Was it stolen from the broadcaster who based the advertising rates on the number of viewers watching the show? Who gets the money?
Let me pose another question. There are a few Tivo-type devices on the market that only record from DirecTV broadcasts. Consider this (admittedly narrowly focused) situation:
I've paid DirecTV an extra amount so that I can watch my local channels on the satellite dish. In other words, I'm paying a premium for a service that others get for free. Should I then be allowed to skip the commercials because I'm already paying extra?
Let me also suggest that Dvorak is making a mountain out of a molehill...or maybe even out of nothing. Tivo is a dying company, as far as I can tell, and the number of people who use the systems are very small and growing at a very sluggish rate. I suspect that given the slow rate of growth and the cost (while less than Dvorak's quoted $500, still a little spendy), other technologies will overtake Tivo before enough of them are purchased to really worry anybody.
-h-
John Dvorak typically writes his pieces for people who think that they're "digerati" when, in fact, they're really just the same sort of folks who, a few years ago, would buy a component stereo system from Radio Shack and call themselves "audiophiles".
Nothing against those people, though, but I think that Dvorak does them a disservice by trying to make news instead of commenting on it.
I don't see much of a difference between using a Tivo device to eliminate commercials and using a VCR to do the same thing. Both involve some sort of time shifting. In order to miss the commercials, you give up some degree of timliness in your viewing habits.
Perhaps in the long run that's how we'll justify skipping commercials...if we want to see the show "as it is being broadcast", then the price we pay is commercials. If we choose to wait some period of time, then we get to skip them.
I think, though, that Dvorak's claims of theft fall apart when you realize that a Tivo fits the idea of "personal use" even better than a video tape...you can always give a video tape of a program to somebody else, thus potentially opening a can of copyright worms, but who's going to record a few episodes of Survivor and then turn over their (much less than $500) Tivo? That's what I thought.
-h-
Dvorak is obviously wrong, as he seems to have forgotten the ubiquity of VCRs, and obviously there is nothing immoral about not watching adverts. But why do so many /. readers jump to the defence of TiVo?
As I understand it, TiVo is not a drop in replacement for a VCR. It only lets you watch what you have recorded once, and it doesn't let you back up to another device for later repeat viewing. I'll keep my VCR thankyou. Further, you can only continue to use the device that you have paid serious money for if you continue to pay a subscription fee to TiVo, and leave the thing connected to the 'phone line so that it can report in all your viewing and time shifting habits to TiVo to do what they want with. How is that an advantage to me?
It seems to me that between DVD and TiVo, the US television and film producers have got the future all sewn up, in a 1984 kind of way.
One more thing. I am British, so perhaps all this advertising stuff doesn't mean so much to me. Get this: On British television, you only get one advertising break (about 4 minutes long) during each half-hour of content. Also, the highest quality shows are all on the BBC, which is advertiser-free. The commercial channels have just as much opportunity to produce quality content, they just don't bother.
Furthermore, Dvorak writes a lot of stuff for ZD and here on ZD is an article going on about how both ReplyTV and Tivo have received large investments from the various media.
Most people watch TV vea cable or digital sat.
Today TV stations can be "must carry" or "must pay". If it's worth watching it's "must pay"...
When you pay your cable bill you are paying the TV stations to let the cable company carry the signal.
So you people who don't pay for cable are stealing?
No...
TV ads are a convent relationship... you are under no obligation to watch.
The TV industry is having problems and none are the fault of TiVo...
More and more people are getting content and entertainment from the Internet... They don't watch TV or read newspapers anymore.
Advertisers are cutting back. TV is having a hard time finding advertisers where as they'd have no problems in the past.
Internet is having the same problems.. amplifyed by the fact that many are just fearful of banner ads.
So TV is seeking to blame TiVO...
But the ability to zap past TV ads is nothing new.
TV cards give your home PC most of the abilitys of a TiVo... They have existed for 10 years...
(I use mine for a web cam)
VCR.. The TV industry has long complained about the ability to zap past TV ads using a VCR. Is this theft? Have we stolen from TV for nearly 30 years now?
I think not...
The TV industry adapts. TV ads have become amusing. We continue to watch.
The trick is to make people WANT to watch TV ads.
Accually.. the trick is to make people want to watch TV... TiVo or no....
TiVo is a solution...
Internet content is without scedual. You can watch it anytime. TiVo gives TV that advantage.... admittedly so dose a VCR but TiVo is a lot easyer to use.
I don't actually exist.
I don't think JCD had a VHS video recorder at all, did he? Waaay back in about 1987 or so, there was a (can't remember the brand - AKAI? Sharp?) video recorder that would detect the volume change between regular programme and advertisments, and pause the recording. Then it would detect the 1/2 second blackout between the last ad and the regular programme, and start recording again.
It worked great, except for movies which had quiet bits (suspense builders) followed by really loud bits (big bass and lots of girly screaming).
I don't mind ads at all. I usually turn the volume down and my friends and I do our own version of the voice-overs:
"Hi, I'm a sexy big-busted blonde. My physique has nothing to do with the really cheap car that we're advertising, but the marketing guys realise that you'll drool over me long enough to get the name of the vehicle hammered into your subconscious because we present it in 5 different fonts and colours."
Or even:
"See these beautiful sunsets over crystal blue waters? Well, they're nowhere near our holiday resort. We know that you're only coming here to entertain the fantasy of having a real holiday sometime. But even though the holiday is all in your mind, rest assured the bill is 100% geniuine :)"
Ads can be as entertaining as the main show. That's why there's shows about the World's worst/best advertisments. I regularly have the pleasure of ticking the "TV Advertising" box on feedback forms to tell companies that I found out/was reminded about them through the ads they put on TV. I want my free-to-air TV dammit! Even if it is just for Buffy and Beyond 2000.
If a supermarket says, "Snapple: $7.99 a case (one per customer)", why do they have that little clause at the end? Because they LOSE MONEY on the deal. The only reason they can offer the coupon is because people come in and often buy other stuff. So if you just buy the Snapple, are you stealing?
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Read my lips: I never agreed to it. In fact, i strongly disagree with it, in this day and age. The status quo sucks.
And if you demand payment for the time you spend observing commercial filmlets, you will be charged to watch the rest of the programming.
Fantastic! Where do i sign up? I would love to be able to pay 25 cents and watch The Simpsons without commercial interruption.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
As people have said, what if i watch the commercials but don't run out and buy the products? Am i stealing? After all, i'm leeching off the guy down the block who zips out and buys the Jif peanut butter he saw being advertised. Without people like him, there could be no content, after all!
So, um, if it's the right of content producers to force viewers to do stuff that gets them money, and anyone who doesn't do that is stealing, i have this to say:
Send me $10!
There. I rely on people like you to send me ten bucks -- without which, i would not be able to continue publishing content on Slashdot. If you don't like it, don't read my comments. But if you read my comments without sending me money, you're no more than a common criminal.
And anyone who skips over my comments either manually or through technology is like a Tivo user skipping commercials. In other words, uh, a criminal. It seems.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
> I wonder if Panasonic (maker of my VCR) and the
> makers of my no-name VCR tapes send cheques to
> NBC and FOX?
Panasonic doesn't, but several cents on the dollar of every blank video tape you buy go to the movie industry and (presumably) broadcasters. It's the same way with blank audio casettes: a small percentage goes to the music industry.
This is part of the reason "content providers" are pissed about the wave of digital recording devices coming out (video and audio). They're used to getting paid for the inevitable "fair use" copying, but they aren't being paid based on the amount of blank digital media in circulation.
I'd be pissed, too.
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
Perhaps a less emotionally laden phrase would be cherry picking? TV production is a very very long chain of events from the script writerrs to the actors to the distribution. Basically baby-boomer execs are trying to guess at shows that will appeal from kids to granniess (of course their kids and grannies). Naturally, this means that you get the odd dud or million (if you think US is bad look at C grades in 3rd world countries). Now being the pragmatic capitalists the studios are, they like to pass off the sunk costs of failures onto the consumer (shock, horror, you don't expect their shareholders to take the risk do you?) so that means that when they offer a good show, they suggest (OK arm-twist) the distributor to also take some crappy failure. Now given finite bandwidth and cable connections, you have to squeeze as much ad revenue out of the system as possible which means that Tivo which puts the slection back onto the consumer bypasses the crud. Hence by picking the killer-franchises, the cross-subsidies become rather glaringly obvious. Problem, quality costs which is why cheap reality-TV is being pushed. A small niche outfit can make a killing by being better targetted which means the biggies have to take it out to avoid losing a captive audience.
I think mainstream media is reaching the point of diminishing returns which is usually indicated by a wave of mergers and acqusitions. What I expect to see now is virtual actors replacing overpaid celluoid celebrities, more reliance on the public to provide their own material (which the studies kindly grant you a spotlight of 15 minutes fame), and more onerous licensing terms as they try to improve their return on footage by flogging anything and everything (cough*Planet Hollywood*cough) starting with reputation (cough*WWF*cough) and morals (though some might claim that was lost long ago).
Stealing is a bit harsh but the reality is that people don't (or more accurately) can't pay $1K to watch a hour of quality production. Street theatre, OK but there's not the same variety of choice unless you live in a big big city.
LL
I love Dvorak's comment that networks haven't gotten mad yet simply because they haven't taken notice of TiVo yet.
Gee, well, let's look at the list of equity investors in TiVo, inc: CBS, AOL-Time Warner, Comcast, Liberty Media, Discovery communications, Showtime Networks, Disney, and NBC. So, gee, guess Dvorak believes either (a) NBC, CBS and friends don't count as "major networks", or (b) they invested in TiVo without having even a vague clue as to what the company would produce.
Good research, Dvorak! And you get paid for this crap?
--JRZ
The only problem with this argument is that it doesn't explain reverse engineering. If I wrote the same story as Gibson but changed all the names and words, I would be considered at best a hack. At worst I would be a plagiarist. IP would deny me the right to write about jacking in to a neural network if Gibson had established IP rights to it. If I totally reverse-engineer the Intel chip, and don't pay royalties, I get sued. It's the concept, as in the genome project, that people are suing for. Thank God Einstein did not assert IP over his equations.
In the end it takes considerable effort to transfer from a Tivo on to another device and the average Tivo user (read home user) will not be doing this. Dvorak is like Jessie Berst. He writes about whatever will generate a column and move on. When he changes his mind he will claim he never had a contrary opinion.
Myxx
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Twisted Little Gnome - The Podcasting Network http://www.twistedlittlegnome.com
Trust a philosophy student to make broad sweeping, and ultimately empty statements.
There is no such thing as 'universal morals', that would require a god. Perhaps celibacy or suicide would be bad if practiced by a whole race - for that race. But the universe would continue on.
The *only* principles people use are self interest, hopefully enlightened self interest. People help the poor because it makes them happy, or because they want to avoid class warfare. If it makes them happy it's because of conditioning, not universal morality. That's the reason 'we' eat cow and not cat.
The reason I can say that the *only* principle used is self interest is because there are no other principles. 'Morality' is just an open-ended social contract that people enter into out of self interest.
On other topics, which type of programming, Fraiser or WWF gets the most expensive ads? WWF, by far. And the superbowl (not very intellectual) tops that.
Maybe an ad on fraiser slightly influences someone to buy a lexus, maybe a twice a lifetime purchase, for a very small group of people. The value to the company is the % of people who wouldn't have bought, but now would, multiplied by the profit on that item. Very small numbers of people multiplied by a fairly high profit. The problem (for Lexus) is that they aren't an impulse purchase, people who buy $50k cars tend to do a little research, or buy what everyone else is buying. Either way, they aren't going to be very swayed by a commercial. The commercials are more of a break-even thing.
Then consider the WWF, or superbowl. Millions, hundreds of millions of viewers. Many of the products pitched are VERY impulsive buys. Soft-drinks, razors, etc. They also pitch them with very emotional means, comedy or endorsements by the stars. It's unlikely someone will buy a $50k car because Tiger Woods has one, but they may buy a $2 razor because he uses it, especially when they're all essentially the same anyways. Do the math for that, $1 profit (tiny plastic items are nearly all mark-up) times fifty million, or so.
That's why superbowl airtime goes for upwards of a million dollars per minute. Advertisement during pan-flute recitals, if these even made it to TV, would be dirt cheap.
The networks do not pay TV guide for the listings. BTW TV Guide is one of the highest circulation publications in the country. Only Readers Digest and Modern Maturity have more readers.
Finally being a media planner pays off!
Pete
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
I remember back when that was true, but as I recall, there was as many misses as hits. I first heard about DVD, MP3 and nickel-hydride batteries from his columns years before they became widely known, but if I recall correctly he also thought that push technology was going to become the next big thing. (anyone remember pointcast?)
I like it too, even with my dialup connection. The only problem was the most of the channels I subscribed to only included a few paragraphs of a story and a link to the full story on their web site, which defeated the whole purpose.
Sorry, I guess I misremembered. That was a bad example. I know that there good ones around, but it's been so long that I've forgotten them.
from networksolutions.com....
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guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Here's the text of a response I sent to letters@forbes.net:
I just read the John C Dvorak article "Commercial free Conundrum" after
reading about it on slashdot. It's clear he never took the time to actually
use the device, and worse, his entire premise is wrong. The main point of
these devices is not to avoid commercials --- its that it makes time-shifting
easy. Tapes, recording at the barely watchable quality as it is, only hold
2 hours, and even if you put up with the 6 hour mode to get some barely
useful capacity, are still a royal pain to manage. With PVRs, you select
the program you want and say "record this". That's it. It's made it possible
to watch several shows I wouldn't otherwise be able to keep up with, as I
can watch them on my schedule and not bend my life to theirs.
As for the commercial free aspect, Tivo specifically left *out* the 30-second
skip feature for fear of ticking off the TV industry. While it's true that
that's one of many reasons I prefer the Replay unit over the Tivo, even on
the Replay you still get a glimpse of the commercials. And for the ones that
look entertaining, or have something of interest to me, I can back up and
watch them (and do). For the ones that don't, they've lost nothing except
my ill will, as I wouldn't buy their products anyway, having no interest in
them. And for the commercials for products that I am interested in, but the
commercials are so annoying I avoid the product anyway, it's likely a win for
the company. I only wish Replay had been around when the Tasters choice
commercial serial was airing --- I missed most of them because I rarely
watched the shows they advertised on, but I would have used the Replay to
catch them anyway (and I don't like coffee)...
Personally,
I'm going to cancel my subscription to Forbes, and when they ask why (magazines usually do), I'm going to say that it was because of this particular article. The non-factual nonsense with no semblence to reality shows they don't care about fact-checking stories. If their authors aren't fact checking the one story I can verify, then I can no longer trust the magazine as a whole to be anything other than so many pages of drivel.
I suggest people who are truly incensed about this also, to cancel their subscriptions (if you have them) or else pass along their lack of quality control to those you know who do.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
TiVo should try to develop their technology (maybe use Linux in their boxes instead of Micro$oft?
What are you talking about? Tivo already uses Linux. You can even get the source for it. A little research goes a long way.
On the subject TV-commercials there is a product I would like to see - The TV with an in built sound normalizer.
/Patrik
In Sweden and probably everywhere else in the world, all channels seem to have their own prefered sound output level which is very annoying when zapping. You have to adjust the volume constantly.
Then whe have the commercials which plays at about 150% of the program sound volume, so if you doze off when watching Babylon 5 in the afternoon you get a rude awakening when the commercials kicks in.
WHY have'nt the TV-set manufacturers done something about this? Is it becuse mr Dvorak thinks a it's theft. Probably grand theft if you sleep your way through the commercials.
Do you know any TV-sets with a normalize function, or even better a Surround/DTS receiver? Please enlighten me!
Cheers
History has certainly proven Mr. Dvorak wrong about Macs. Seventeen years have passed since the Macs were introduced and today they have as much as seven percent of the personal computer market. There are dozens of software titles available for them and almost that many peripherals. You can find a whole shelf of mac software in most computer stores. Some places like Fry's might have even two or three shelves.
Macs are historically important because they opened up the world of computers to those who were not willing to learn how to use a regular computer of the day. Before Macs came along computer users were actually expected to know and understand a little of how their system worked. The Mac proved that a person could be utterly ignorant of the system they were using and yet still be able to make it do something. Today that philosophy has permeated the industry and the computer illiterate everywhere are able to stay illiterate. Its too bad that no one has been able to apply the Mac philosophy to books. Imagine how great out world would be if no one had to learn how to read or write?
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
...sent to letters@forbes.com:
l
I am looking at your story:
Commercial-Free Conundrum
John C. Dvorak, Forbes.com, 04.16.01, 2:30 PM ET
...posted here:
http://www.forbes.com/2001/04/16/0416dvorak.htm
...and would like to ask you to please get a real columnist to write for your publication. I've known Dvorak's work on the tech trades for many years now, and I've always known he's a blowhard, but this latest column is ridiculous. For instance:
In many ways the device is similar to MP3 technology: It's a way to steal programming. This has gone unnoticed because PVRs haven't caught on, yet.
Dvorak might as well say that VCR's steal programming. VCR's have had commercial skipping functions for some time now, and so do some televisions, which allow you to flip channels for exactly 30 seconds, and at the end of that 30 seconds, it automatically changes the channel back to the original program, thus "skipping" the commercial. PVR's are not devices used to steal programming.
These devices cost around $500, which is not a mass-market price.
I paid $350 for my UltimateTV AND RCA dual tuner satellite dish system. He is flat wrong about the up front pricing.
And let's not ignore the complexity of these systems. The remote control for PVRs has more buttons than a TV control room.
Huh? Electronic remote controls have come a long way since "channel up, channel down, power on/off, volume". You'd think that since Dvorak is a technology writer, that he wouldn't have such a hard time figuring out how to use it. Add that to the fact that PVR's are soooo much easier to program than VCR's. All one has to do to record a show with a PVR is point it to the show on the program guide, and press "record".
Apparently, 30 hours of available storage slowly shrinks to nil after a while, making the unit relatively useless.
Okay, lets examine this statement. This is just flat out wrong. I've read the discussion groups he is referencing. Some people have lost recording time because of a software bug that Microsoft has acknowledged and is fixing, but I have heard of no one with a "useless" UltimateTV system. Either Dvorak is lying or too lazy to do real research.
This guy (Dvorak) is obviously trying to get by on his name alone, because responsible journalism seems to be a foreign concept to the man.
Mr. Dvorak's talent has always been more in the line of entertainment than accuracy, I believe. This sounds more like flamebait than reportage. Give it a laugh and go on with your lives; nothing to see here, folks, move along...
Says the gent who's never watched The Simpsons. That's what you get for watching Friend> and Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place.
That is in essence how "free" TV channels pay for content, but we, the viewers, are not active participants in that contract. If we choose not to watch commercials that is not our problem. Perhaps in the long run it means that the show's producers will need to find a new business model,
This is the same kind of mentality as came up with The Iopener and Cuecat. Maybe someone can come up with a cool name for the idea that customers/end users should somehow be morally obliged to support the business model of some supplier or other.
It's almost the opposite of a "free market".
Ha!!
Respected? I've never heard anyone accuse Dvorak of knowing what he was talking about. Even so I usually watch/read his stuff once in a while just for laughs.
#6495ED - cornflower blue
This guy seems to never have heard of the Betamax court case which legitimized time-shifting.
Unfortunately, neither did the Ninth Circuit in the Napster opinion. . . .
I must agree! I've been without a real-life live television[1] for the last 3 years, and I don't have any regrets. Sure, when someone says, "Have you seen that new foobar commercial," I have to admit that I have no idea what a foobar is nor did I see the commercial. But, it's much better that way. After all, I've found that the time I've saved has allowed me to say to my friends, "Do you know what it is like to camp in the mountains during winter?" Of course most of them don't. Personally, I'd rather know the what nature is like than knowing that Micky Mouse endorsed FooBars [2]!
;)
As an off-topic statement, losing the TV has done wonders for me. Not only do I get sleep at night now, but I also have times for the stuff that really is important to me, like spending time in - get this - the "real world". This is probably the only reason I wouldn't get a TiVo - I'd be tempted to sit on my butt in front of a TV much too often since I wouldn't have to watch the multitude of programs designed for the "Average Consumer". I'd never bore of the many Star Treks, Simpsons, and King of the Hills.
Maybe I better get a TV antenna, though, since Dvorak seems to think that since radio waves containing commercial programs pass through my residence with the expectation that I'll buy some of their products.
[1] I do have a DVD player and VCR, as well as a friend who gives me a recorded Star Trek the Next Generation episode each week in exchange for me buying him a VCR. Oh, I can't say that. I might get busted for pirating Star Trek! (And, yes, I use the "Commercial Skip" button on my remote to shorten Star Trek to 40 minutes.) I guess I have a Human TiVo.
[2] When is someone going to make a candy/energy bar for geeks called the FooBar? Think Geek (hint, hint) could market it on the net... You could make a TV commercial for it that had a geek sitting in front of a computer working in a hex editor, reaching for a now-empty pizza box. Rather than dieing on your TV, he would grab break the glass on the front of a red metal emergency food box and grab this FooBar. If anyone does anything like this, remember me and send me one or two!
and the cost of advertising is not passed along to the consumer?
War is necrophilia.
Yea you already stated your theory. You seem to be under the impression that the actual cost of advertised is NOT in the product being sold.
If the advertising fails or succeeds the monies spent on it have to be recouped somehow and it's in the product. As for your "stronger brand" theory I don't buy it. Both Coke and Pepsi spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising and to what result? Here let me spell it out for you.
"Hi I'd like a burger and a coke please"
"sorry we only have pepsi"
"yea fine whatever"
Like it makes a freakin difference!. If the advertising caused me to walk out of the joint or demand to talk to the owner that would be one thing but to 99% of the people in the world it's just sugar water.
War is necrophilia.
because it only has one sylable and it's a generic term. Notice that I actually did not drink coke. All that advertising and I still did not buy their product. Neither did I refuse to do business with the establishment. I also did not tell the manager that I wanted a coke. That is because I did not really care weather it was coke or pepsi. Advertising is supposed to make want the product and their advertising did not.
Who says "I would like a carbonated beverage" or "I would like a cola" they say coke when they mean any carbonated beverage dark in color and sweet" but it's easier to say coke. Actually I ususally say "pop" because most places only carry one brand.
War is necrophilia.
This man is simply a worn-out business manager has-been wind bag who no longer has the skills necessary to perform a normal job. He has retreated to the world of journalism. We see this happen with programmers relatively frequently, where they retreat to colleges to teach.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
From this argument, celibacy is immoral, because universal celibacy means no humans.
With these devices, advertising revenue WILL drop (less people watching, etc.).
Non sequitur. Advertisers would simply find it necessary to create ads that people actually want to watch (because they provide useful information, or are entertaining in their own right).
This will lessen the quantity of quality programming provided by the networks.
Nah... too easy.
Watch your favorite high-brow show (Frasier?) and look at the advertisements. Then watch the XFL or Wrestling, look at the advertisements.
If your argument were correct, the latter would already be unable to attract advertisers. The fact that it does indicates that, even in a world where everybody from middle class on up routinely zaps out commercials, a niche for advertising-supported programming will remain.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
If you perceive this as a problem, you should be thrilled at the advent of a system that effectively requires advertisers to create ads that people will voluntarily watch.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
IIRC there is one. May not be out yet, tho. Also, the Ultimate TV box from Our Favorite Proprietary Software House may have that capability.
Best Slashdot Co
I summarize Dvorak: "He's an idiot."
Having taken the trouble to read some of his recent columns, I will say this: his accuracy has improved a lot. That's because he's gone from wild-ass, obviously incorrect guesses, to predicting things that have already happened.
Here's a highly insightful column, written two years after the iMac debut, that opines "design is going to be BIG!".
He talks about the imminent demise of the "beige box" with childlike excitement. I wonder how intrigued he'd be to learn that big chain computer stores haven't sold square beige boxes for four years.
The one actual prediciton he makes (that battery life is not important in portables) is, of course, wild-assed and obviously incorrect.
Moving on, here's another gem which covers in painful, book-report-like detail Dvorak's latest epiphany: a high-end 3D gaming machine is faster than a midrange business machine(!!!)
Then he drops the twin bombshells: A. the non-gamer isn't benefitting from gaming-driven advances (of course, $80 Durons, effective CPU fans, jumperless motherboards, and GeForce2Go don't count); and B. this widening chasm will get wider, unless of course something changes, in which case it will not get wider.
Spare me. This imbecile barely rates a geocities page, much less mention in a Slashdot headline.
cheers,
mike
It's a funny thing. Most of what TiVo does, I can do by carefully programming my VCR.
In fact, I suspect that it is easier for me to dub a copy of a program off of a videotape than it is to copy and distribute one from a TiVo hard drive.
Of the television I watch, I watch practically none of it live. I read the TV listings, set my VCR to record and then watch whatever it was when it's convenient to me. And (aren't I terrible) I fast forward through all of the commercials. When I dub things for my friends, I edit out the commercials entirely.
My car radio has a 30-second mute button, which exists for no other reason than to kill commercials. As far as I know, that's legal.
I have a feeling that certain kinds of shows will encourage people to watch them "real time" (Survivor, for example, so people can gossip immediately about the results), which will require waiting through commercials. Sports programming should also be able to keep it's commercial breaks, not to mention the billboards everywhere. The PTB will find a way to keep commercials in there, one way or another.
-- I'm not evil, I'm
(I probably should've just flagged his article @ Forbes in my mind as -1, Troll, just like his other stuff...but it's sometimes fun to mess with the trolls. For a little while, anyway. :-) )
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
When you own content of some kind (be it text, audio or video), then you own it. That's all.
If you want to make money from it, you have to come up with a business model for that. You have to figure out a way to attract money for your content without losing control of that content. There is no guarentee that such a model exists. There is no guarentee that you will think of one or implement it well if there is a way.
But mostly, there is no guarentee that once you come up with a business model that works, that some future technicological shift won't change that business model. This does not equal theft. This just means the business landscape is changing and you have to change with it.
It is the responsibility of the IP owner to come up with a business model that is profitibal and controlable. If you just throw your content out there and expect money to just flow back in, you're an idiot. If the business landscape changes and a model that was once profitable is no longer profitable, then you either change your business model or you're an idiot.
Advertising timesharing paid content has worked for a long time because there wasn't much choice for the consumer for dealing with the time slots. With Remote controls, VCRs, and now TIVO, timeslicing is not as usefull because the consumer now has more control over timespans. This has nothing to do with the content. It has only to do with the business model.
As long as companies want to pay to place commercials on broadcast TV, then the TV station is getting their money whether anyone watches that commercial or not. Nothing is being stolen. Hell, no money is even being lost. Tivo might make the advertiser want to pay less money to place the add, but that is up to the contract negotiation between advertiser and broadcaster. That is a negotiaotion problem, not a theft problem. Once the contract is signed and the add run, nobody is losing any money.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
I am unfortunately used to journalists writing about technical subjects they
obviously know nothing about, but Mr John Dvorak has few excuses for this highly
subjective and incorrect article on personal video recorders.
1) I paid $200 for my Tivo, not $500 as claimed in the article (you could pay
$400 if you prepay the $10/m service charge, but the article mentions that
charge too, so it implies that you can expect to pay $500 +$10/month for a Tivo)
By the way, the $10/m covers automatic upgrades of my Tivo, which with a
VCR would require throwing it away, and buying a new one. My Dvorak also
conveniently fails to mention the work Tivo does to put the TV guides together
in a way that I can use them on my Tivo
2) The article repeatetly tries to blame Tivo for stealing TV stations by
allowing viewers to skip commercials
Never mind objectivism, Tivo is actually the one to not help users to skip
commercials (ReplayTV has a commercial skip button, Tivo only has a fast
forward, just like my VCR, and they refuse to support an automatic commercial
advance feature like my VCR does).
Furthermore, Tivo is actually the one company who's working with TV stations to
advertise their shows and make recording easier, so it's not in their interest
to tick them off
3) Ever heard of a VCR? We probably need to outlaw those too since they allow
unscrupulous watchers to, god forbid, not watch commercials
4) The attempted comparison with MP3s is beyond lame. PVRs have nothing to
do with MP3s, piracy or trading. That Mr Dvorak even tried to compare them
thankfully makes him look completely clueless and hopefully makes the whole
article look like something not very trustworthy.
5) My god, PVRs require a phone line. I guess we must stop using Pay per view
and satellite too then. Ok, UltimateTV apparently has a storage bug, well what
do you expect?
1) It comes from microsoft. 'Nuf said...
2) they tried to design and sell this device in a really short time in order to
give some competition to Tivo and ReplayTV/Sonicblue, and obviously, they didn't
get it right the first time.
If you're so desperate for content that you have to publish such rubish, I pity
you, I thought Forbes was a serious publication.
In the Spring of 1995 when memory costs had drifted down to $25/meg. IIRC; Ol' John wrote in PC Mag about an Intel conspiracy to drive the price *way* up. "Buy your memory now!" Glad I didn't have the money then for 16 megs.
Mandrake 7.2 and KDE 2 for me? for free?
1000 SlashDot sigs
What I think is going to be more interesting is how television advertising will be effected as devices like the tivo and replaytv catch on. My bet is advertising will start to be displayed on the television at all times, much like the banner ads at the top of the websites. Or as TVs become more "interactive" you will see popups on TV that will bypass recorders. The bottom line is when the advertisers see that people are not watching thier adverts, they will find new, and more invasive ways to advertise.
Thinkgeek TiVo
The more I'm exposed to Dvorak, the more he reminds me of Andy Rooney.
"...Ever wonder why Tivo doesn't force you to watch the comercials?"
What if they actually started embedding signals to demarcate the beginning and end of commercials, and the TiVo inserted targeted advertising from another source (downloaded in background) rather than playing "live" commercials?
But then they would probably make it so you can't skip over them, a la DVD commericals.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Then we'd be stuck with low budget tripe like Kids in the Hall, or SCTV instead of quality TV like Survivor, or Survivor 2. Thanks for dispelling that myth.
Cheers
Hey! Watch what you say about Jon Katz!
No need to imagine. Times Square on the eve of Y2K. It's already been done.
And I believe it's regularly being done at baseball games and other sporting events.
That's the often predicted trend; powerful realtime 3d graphics processing will offer generic product placement. So when archie bunker drinks a "beer" each market will be able to replace that in real time with whoever is sponsoring the local rebroadcast.
I guess the product placement people could then sign exclusivity agreements for even more money so that their "placed" products were never overlaid.
Sports have been doing this for a while, using blue-screening technology to replace billboards on televised soccer games.
you pay for most channels on cable. certain channels like M2 (MTV2) were free, now pay.
:) i like tivo, my roommate has the sony reciever with it. you can bet i'm getting one as soon as i move out.
cable companies get their feeds from various sats, they pay per set. so channels like HBO cost around $1, but channels like TBS cost like $.25. the do deals where if you get 4 turner channels you get the 5th free. when i worked for a cable company our average bill per set was around $7.50.
most cable channels are paid for, if they are not thats what the adverts are for. often times local stations will insert their own commercials (those cheap cheesey produced ones like the old dirt devil commercials).
John Devorak is a fossil...he is only dating himself by saying stupid shit like this. TiVo isn't stupid, pretty soon they'll figure out, if they haven't already, how to insert commercials when you turn on your reciever or the TV, etc. and whats to keep the people from doing the same thing with a VCR, this is just cleaner
JediLuke
JediLuke
-Do or Do Not, There is no Try
This is just another example of how ignorant the media has become. Dvorak is obviously just another clueless journalist that's trashing something without really knowing anything about it. Hmm, sounds a lot like Microsoft's statements about Linux. This is why I try to avoid computer related stories in the general media; they're riddled with illogical assumptions, half-truths, and blatant lies. It's an insult to me and everyone else who knows anything about computers. Dvorak is a fool and shouldn't be allowed to write about technology ever again.
Do you really think, that "more money"="more quality"? Maybe the licenses to broadcast a movie will stop to rake in ridicoulous amounts of money for the MPAA, fine by me. Ow, now they're bound to make worse movies. Sorry, but what i appreciate most about a good film is the story. Then a good director who avoids messing the story up. Then actors (and i think there are enough good actors out there, no need to pay millions for someone who is good at acting) and locations. Then special effects start to become interesting. I mean, hey, they made good movies 20 years ago, it was possible, so why has at least half the budget of a movie to be allocated to special effects?
When i see movies announced as being "the most expensive movie of all times" i ask myself why that should say anything about the quality of a movie. Especially if so much of the money is assigned to special effects which take a few minutes to view altogether. Then there's a huge advertising campaign which doesn't make that movie one bit better. Maybe they waste all that money to get the label "most expensive movie of all times".
But then i didn't go watch "Titanic" either.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Dvorak's thing has long been to get attention by making outrageous statements that makes a lot of people upset. I don't think he believes the stuff himself. He can't be that stupid.
This is just one more example and people are still falling for it.
Commercials don't have to be implemented the way it is. If you check out a soccer game TV broadcast, you'd see the programming and commercials going on at the same time. So is your NBA, NFL games.
The only reason commercials are the way they are today is because of its effectiveness. Let's assume that everyone has a Tivo at home today and all are skipping commercials. The TV exec only need to find a way to insert commercials during program. There are a million ways to do that.
One nifty way: last summer I talked to someone who was working in MIT Media lab. She described a project they were working on. The TV has a mouse-like pointing device. Let's say when I watch the "Frasier" show today and saw this real cool sofa during the show. I can pause it; use my pointing device to point at the sofa and click! there is the vendor information along with a price, the order page link and so on.
Of course this Dvorak guy isn't sharp at technologies; I'm sure no important people takes him seriously. After all, he is a tad late to discover Tivo, wouldn't you say?
...the airwaves belong to american public, not to the corporations.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Why do people continue to pay any attention to this troll. All he does is write articles to pull in traffic. /. should know better.
Sample previous articles:
Linux is no good cause it's free!
Why are nerds such crooks?
Microsoft is just doing good clean business.
Please just ignore him people.
- I like pudding.
Let's ... assume that we *want* network television to continue to be free.
... by watching some commercials targeted at me specifically than paying [money]
I do not accept this premise because it is not true. Network TV is not free. It simply has no cost at the point of delivery. Which, as anyone who has just done their taxes will tell you, is not the same as free.
I'd prefer to skip commercials altogether, but the economic realities mean someone has to pay... I'd much rather pay
You do pay real money for ad-supported TV. You pay through the increased prices of goods and services that are advertised. When you buy a box of soap poweder in the supermarket a large part of the money you hand over goes to pay for all that crap on Fox. The money that pays for ad-supported TV does not magic itself out of thin air - it comes out of your pocket ultimately.
ncf
don't worry the RIAA will be along for thier cut
I'd vote for Katz if only because he takes more space to say something stupid.
Ads may pay for "free" television, but this cost is ultimately billed to the consumer in the form of more expensive products.
Ok so paying Tivo for the service once you buy the gizmo sucks. Who will be the first to slap together some off the shelf hardware (TV tuner cards, TV out video card, removeable hard disk, DVDRW drive etc) and write some 'Tevo' software for Linux? Lets have an open source version posted on SourceForge. Oh and slash dot it too.
How do you think advertising is funded? In the end from the profit of the company, thus the shareholder and the consumer who buys the product pays. They pay for something that is necessary because of competition (the competitor advertises too, creating an advertising "arms race") but that essentially is a waste of time and money; advertisement doesn't produce anything useful, it doesn't add value or information (at least by far not as much as an objective product review).
Pay-TV is a better alternative. No more waste of time, no more expensive advertisement budgets thus the products can be cheaper, the dividents can be bigger and the salaries of people doing something useful too. The extra money that is not wasted, people can spend directly to subscribe to quality television without advertisements.
Actually advertising is like communism: You don't get your own choice, but instead you have to pay an advertisement tax on all products you buy, and in return you get something you didn't ask for (ads that waste your time and don't offer valuable objective information, but try to brainwash you instead). Socialist/communist regimes always put a very heavy emphasis on brainwashing the people and constant propaganda, and advertising is no different.
I AM A RACIST!
Kill All Those Dirty Fucking Humans!!!!
Lameness filter: i want to use all caps!! I want to yell sometimes!
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
We pay the same tax in the USA, have for years...
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
I'm still wondering what happened to the thousands of black PowerPC machines that Dvorak claimed that IBM had stored in a big warehouse a few years ago. Supposedly IBM was going to flood the market with cheap, pc-compatible RISC machines and the entire industry was in for a blood bath.
Does this
I remember back when that was true, but as I recall, there was as many misses as hits. I first heard about DVD, MP3 and nickel-hydride batteries from his columns years before they became widely known, but if I recall correctly he also thought that push technology was going to become the next big thing. (anyone remember pointcast?)
Dvorak hated push technology largely because he thought that it was just a big scam to shove a lot more advertising down our throats. It's kind of ironic that he now condemns TiVo and its PVR brethren because they allow us to have less advertising shoved down our throats.
Some pundits just don't age well.
Does this
He should team up with Jesse Berst and make babies!
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
Dvorak is nuts -
He hates new technologies -
Someone smack him please.
What a bunch of BS... why not just make it illegal for me to leave the couch when a commercial comes on - because since I'm not watching the commercials, I must be stealing the programming.
Whatever.
This article suprised me. It's below your usual standards.
I've personally not seen any advertisement from ReplayTV or TiVo promoting the ability to skip commercials.
"ReplayTV has plans to somehow add its own commercials to the system" - For a short time ReplayTV would show product information when the system was paused. This would be similar to having your screen saver display a commercial.
"Is it any different to steal programming by skipping the commercials (which paid for the programs) than it is to download a song?" Absolutely. And I have two arguments here. First, I have cable and the majority of the channels I pay for. Second, is it wrong for me to record a song of the radio? Once they broadcast it into my house I should be able to do what I want with it. If I get up to go to the bathroom during a commercial am I stealing their broadcasts? How about if I make a sandwich?
I still watch commercials on my Replay. I just watch the good commercials. And I rewind the great ones and I watch them again. And again. And when a broadcaster plays me the same commercial for the fifth time in a show I skip it. When a broadcaster shows a commercial that isn't appropriate for me (such as allergy medication) I skip it. When a broadcaster shows me a commercial for something I'm interested in I usually watch it. Sometimes more than once.
"and the TV folk seem strangely oblivious to the threat". Wrong again John. The major TV companies (ABC, NBC, CBS) are all investors in TiVo or ReplayTV. 60 Minutes recently did a special on this and covered this angle much better.
"And let's not ignore the complexity of these systems. The remote control for PVRs has more buttons than a TV control room. While the on-screen programming is supposed to be simplified, it will be too much work for people who can't set the clock on the VCR." The remote does have extra buttons. I also has buttons I'd never seen before such as skip forward and skip back. That's because it has features that have never been available before. The on screen programming is amazingly simple. You scroll through the guide until you find the show you want and click on the record button. A simple menu allows you to set record options. I don't even recall setting the date or time on my ReplayTV. I think it did this automatically. These devices are more complex than a toaster but they provide so much more functionality. They are certainly much less complex than any computer I've ever used.
"Finally, do PVRs work as advertised? These devices require a phone line and telecommunications access--a hassle in itself." How else do you expect to bring the program guide down? I'd agree a broadband connection would be better but phone lines are still the most common. Many satellite can cable TV subscribers have managed to have a phone line setup near their TV without complaint. Why is it so hard now?
"I personally had trouble getting a ReplayTV unit to work because a computer server was down someplace. Online discussion groups are complaining about the "shrinking disk" phenomenon with the newer UltimateTV system. Apparently, 30 hours of available storage slowly shrinks to nil after a while, making the unit relatively useless. Microsoft says it has heard of the problem and is 'looking into it.'" A bug? In software? Tell me it isn't so. This just isn't a fair comment. My ReplayTV has worked flawlessly for over a year. MS released a buggy new product. That's hardly news and certainly shouldn't suprise you.
I've been reading your columns for years and I've always enjoyed them. This column is an exception. Your usual insight is lacking here as well as accuracy and fact checking.
I find your arguments typical of people that have just begun using one of devices. Wait about 3-4 weeks and see if you can live without it. They are amazing devices and will change the way we watch television.
SQLTeam.com - For SQL Server developers and Administrators
Nothing to do with Dvorack, but intellectual property is not bunk. If I think of or invent something, I deserve to have the rights to it. It's only fair.
Honestly, I don't see how it's any different than copyright, trademark, or even trade dress.
Okay, I know I deserved that, but you're taking my argument just a little too far. But I guess that is also the point. Take a William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, for example. Obviously, just because Gibson coined 'cyberpunk' and wrote Necromancer, doesn't mean that Stephenson shouldn't be able to write Snow Crash. It does mean that Stephenson can't take the words Gibson used, rearrange them in the same order that Gibson did, and sell that as his own.
A better example would be codecs. I don't like the fact that Sorenson is only available on a few select platforms. The fact that engineers sat down, thought of something that worked, created it, and decided to hang on to it, however, is fine with me. If you think of something that works better, good for you. If you want to sell, even better. If not, so be it.
Mind you, this is all in principle. I'm rooting for the Vorbis crew because they have a free codec, but I wouldn't hold it against them if they charged for it. It's their product after all.
To the person who brought up the point about the Constitution, thanks for the enlightenment. Wouldn't it also be useful to use IP for the influx of new ideas then?
Ok, I pay around 30 bucks a month for DirecTV (which I'm starting to see as a rip off),and then I pay again by having to watch mindless commercials that are suppossed to pay for the programming.
The way I see it I've already paid for the programming. I know there will be those that will make a distinction between paying for service and paying for programming but this only serves my point. We shouldn't have to pay twice for the same thing.
I think it's time that we did something away with commercials and demand at least the same level of service as we recieve now only without commercials.
In the early days of TV commercials had their place, TV was free so there had to be some way to finance it. Today TV is no longer free but we still have commercials??? -Mark
What I REALLY fear is the networks using the invisible logo technology (Like Fox does, that little Fox logo in the bottom right corner) or some such to do advertisements directly IN the program. If I only had access to cable...
Imagine for a minute where a studios make programming with blue-screened areas for individual networks to put advertising, IN PROGRAM. Each affiliate gets to put its own unique advertising for its region, the studios get paid, and viewers get familiarity.
Kinda scary, because this would necessarily transition to cable, unless there were TWO versions of the programming, commercial, and commercial free.
Then again, what is to stop a studio from embedding their own commercials (done now routinely with movies, slightly less blatantly with TV..
Ah well.
-Chris
Cool, so if you live in canada, feel free to copy as many CDs as you want, since you paid for that right.
For personal use, yes.
I love this country.
Has the Internet muckraking solvent hit these people so hard they have to sell article slants to barely controlling interests?
Are news sites going to be subsidized by porn moguls? Dear god I hope so. They're last bastions of sanity and free speech.
Heck the porn industry gives a ton away and they keep making more money.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I mean c'mon are you going to buy that New "Who could ask for anything more" Toyota from 1985 while watching a Delorean travel through time?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
There's a lot more to it than just pausing live TV. I agree, it's currently a bit too expensive for the masses to embrace it, but hard drive prices are dropping. TiVo recently announced that they are planning on developing a new model that will cost less to produce (and therefore cost consumers less). TiVo is one of those devices that you have to spend a few minutes with to truly appreciate it. You can't describe all of the features in just a few minutes. Sure, it's not for everyone, but there's more to it than just pausing live TV.
What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
... or am I getting taller?
Based on reading the article, here's what we know:
Dvorak has no idea that NBC, CBS, and AOL (among others) are investors in TiVo. Maybe they know something that he doesn't? I know, it's hard to get your head around that concept, but let's just pretend for now. Maybe advertising as we know it is about to change? TiVo doesn't have a 30 second skip button, mainly to appease it's investors who provide content (NBC, CBS, etc). You can fast-forward through commercials quickly, but you can easily go back and watch something if it catches your eye.
Here's a scenario that might keep all of us TiVo owners out of the pokey and help John C. sleep at night:
I'm watching TV and I fast-forward through a group of commercials. I notice and ad for that new SUV that I'm thinking about buying. I go back and watch the 30 second spot. During the commercial, a TiVo IPreview icon pops up (currently used by NBC and a couple of other networks to allow me to record a show with one button press). I click the thumbs-up button and continue on to my show. That night, my TiVo downloads a 3 minute infomercial about that SUV.
Yes, that download of a 3 minute infomercial wouldn't really be feasible using the current TiVo's modem, but we're talking about future plans and we're also in the hypothetical realm here (see reference to Dvorak possibly being unaware of some aspect related to this issue).
I'm happy because I get more info on a product that I'm interested in. SUV's-R-Us is happy because they have just sent info to someone they KNOW is interested in their product, vs. a mass mailing or buying more commercial time.
NBC is happy because the SUV company still pays for the production of more episodes of "Fightin' Fitzgeralds". NBC's gotta be happy about something. Never mind that they are the only ones who are happy about it.
John C. Dvorak is happy because no laws are being broken (thank you St. Dvorak) so he can move on to another clueless diatribe. Maybe he can even invest some time and figure out how these oh-so-complicated devices work.
C'mon, if he can't figure out a TiVo, do you really think you should trust his opinion on all things technical? Of course, you don't, it's the Forbes readers that I worry about.
What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
TiVo's solution is better. You can fast forward at three different speeds. When you hit play, it jumps back a few seconds. Why? Because it expects you to be fast forwarding through commercials, and once you see the show is back on, you press play. TiVo makes it easier for you by rewinding a bit. This makes it MUCH easier and faster to skip commercials than some stupid 30-second skip feature.
--
Lord Nimon
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
John Dvorak has been infected! We must put him down and burn the remains before he infects other computer industry critics.
Of course, this can be abused. But just as /. readers want the movie and record companies to adapt to the Internet, so should television networks adapt to having zero commercials.
------
James Hromadka
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
Sorry to inform you,but the TiVo does run Linux on it. Perhaps you missed all of the stuff on Slashdot about hacking the TiVo etc?
You can even look on TiVo's site about it. They have the source posted of their modifications to the Linux kernel, per the GPLs requirements...
And he forgot that less advanced devices, like VCR, can skip ads. Mine does so automatically so where's the difference?
Dvoraks article was so ignorant that I actually wrote and sent a letter to Forbes in response. Ok, so maybe it won't have any effect, but at least I can share it with you. Some of the ideas in the letter came from reading posts on Slashdot, so this letter is almost Open Source in a way:
Dear Forbes Magazine,
In regards to the recent commentary by John C. Dvorak "Commercial-Free Conundrum" (Dvorak Article). Until I read this article, I thought that Forbes was a professional magazine that would stay away from crass tactics to draw readership. Yet, this appears to be exactly what is happening with Mr. Dvorak's article. To summarize the claims that Dvorak seems to be making in his article:
1. Making a personal copy of a TV show and time shifting it is inherently wrong.
"In many ways the device is similar to MP3 technology: It's a way to steal programming."
2. As a TV viewer, I am required to watch advertisements to watch the programming being broadcast.
"Is it any different to steal programming by skipping the commercials (which paid for the programs) than it is to download a song?"
3. "Someday, though, all the barriers may be resolved and every TV just might have these capabilities built in. Perhaps that's when someone will notice the looming issue over intellectual property that has been largely ignored until now."
Without drawing this out into a full blown debate, I would like a chance to respond to each of these points:
1. Since the Betamax decision, TV viewers everywhere have been copying and time shifting TV broadcast for personal use. The fact that PVR is a new technology doesn't change the nature of this use. In fact, using a Tivo it is impossible to make additional copies and give them to other people, something which VHS permits quite easily.
2. There is nothing requiring anyone to watch TV advertisements. I can mute an advertisement for a show, change the channel, or turn off the TV. If I am recording on VCR, I can hit pause until the commercial is over and resume recording when the show restarts.
3. When "every" TV has this feature built in, it will be no different than the situation today with TV/VCR combo units. Every TV built won't have this feature because it is an added cost, but I do think combo units will appear. Mr. Dvorak, you seem to imply that I am stealing something by not watching the advertisements for a particular show. I find this insulting and counter by asking you: Do you watch the advertisements when you watch TV? Or do you perhaps get up for a snack or a trip to the bathroom?
The PVR is clearly a slightly enhanced VCR with the added advantage from the point of view of the publishers that there is no media associated with it which can easily be traded (like a VHS cassette tape). The current PVR could just as easily been implemented using VHS and there are enhanced VCR devices with features similar to PVR devices.
I hope the above points make clear to you my frustration with this article. If Dvorak were addressing the potential issue that will arise when video of all types is easily traded over the internet (not the case with any of the devices he mentioned) then perhaps he would have an editorial with some ground to stand on. As it stands, his current article only serves to incite and draw the readership of people who are offended by his statements. This is why I am disturbed that his article appeared in Forbes. I did not previously believe that Forbes is the type of magazine that would print pure sensationalism for the purpose of drawing readership.
You claim that your company is "among the most trusted resources for the world's business and investment leaders." Please do something to reassure me that Forbes is the professional magazine I once believed it to be.
*** Personal Info Deleted ***
John C. Dvorak is the technology version of Jerry Springer. Show the people something outrageous and people will watch your show.
One thing I've noticed the last couple years is that the commercials have become, themselves, a form of entertainment. When the sponsors make them visually appealing (i.e., the Target ads), people will watch them even when they don't have to.
I wish it wasn't true, but in Canada the makers of many kinds of blank media (cds/tapes, not sure about vhs) do charge a levy that supposedly goes to compensate for piracy.. Not sure who actually gets it though or how they know what one pirates..
Did it ever occur to anyone that Dvorak and Forbes approve of this type response to his rants?
One thing I've noticed over the years of Dvorak rants is that they seem to be geared towards turning people's heads.
He used to troll for Mac-heads by bashing Macs. Now most Mac users ignore him, so he has to think of a new group to target in order to garner readership/hits. AFAIR, years ago John Dvorak was one of the editors of, get this, _MacUser_.
So he's moved onto opensource, EFF, and copyleft topics to troll. Clue in boyos, it's not about what he says, but how many people read it.
He put his email address. Use Pay Pal.
-no broken link
John C. Dvorak and the Dvorak keyboard are of no relation.
"Don't let school interfere with your education." -Mark Twain
HAND - Have A Nice Day ???????
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
Apparently, of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
Ok, so if you don't watch and listen to every single commercial while tuned into realtime broadcasts is that stealing? Following Dvorak's logic it would seem so. If I record a show and watch a particularly entertaining commercial multiple times do I build up credit for skipping commercials later in the recording?
Even if you aren't watching the commercial the broadcasters have already been paid for it. Did VCRs kill the advertiser based revenue stream for televisions? Of course it didn't. Most people want to watch their television in realtime and don't want to hassle with recording it. As Dvorak overstates in his article, it does require effort to use a recording device.
This is the exact same mentality of studios who forcefeed you commercials at the start of a DVD with no way to skip them.
As the consumer, I don't care or have to care wether CBS gets a cut of that 50$ ...
I think the fact is that Networks have existed in the coincidence that people *were willing to watch commercials* ... that coincidence is coming to an end -- just like the banner add revenue crisis :) ... At best television is a loss-leader revenue model, give away something for free, hope people make it worth your while ... remind you of anything else thats failed latley ? ...
I believe the add-banner and commercial problems are coming from a complete advertising overload ... EVERYWHERE you look theres advertising ... after awhile it just blends into the background ... and who pays attention to the background?
What I'd like to see is a DirecTV + TIVO device that downloads the shows *I* want to see via sattelite onto its hard drive as well as providing a few realtime channels (news, etc...) ... I'd pay 1$ a month to download *new* simpsons episodes without commercials, which is more money then fox has ever gotten from me so far!
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
BS.
You don't pay air tv because it's funded by advertising. When cable came along, one of the advantages was "no commercials", since the service was funded by the bill you pay each month. Now there's advertising even on cable channels (and sometimes a *lot*)... could you tell me why?? I already pay for the service. it hasn't got any better, and it isn't cheap. So what's the excuse for ads on cable?
Can I use tivo to skip cable ads? cool. I don't like to pay for watching ads.
cHALiTO
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
I don't know how it was in the us, but here in Argentina, that was _one_ (just one, and not the most appealing) benefit of cable: no commercials. IIRC, Mtv didn't have any commercials, nor had any other channel, except for ads about other channels owned by the same company or some minutes to advertise about next month's films.
You didn't have a coke or nike commercial on any cable channels, for example (i mean those channels that came only with cable, not air channels)
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
Mod That Up! :-)
Dvorak is an Old-School Troll. He's been trolling the likes of us since we were in diapers.
He Trolls because then his readers write his editor and bitch. His publishers know he's popular because he gets 10x the email of any of their other writers.
He Trolls for a Living!
-pmb
Stepping out of the TiVo box for a moment -- if I record on my very own VHS (sorry, Beta fans...) VCR some television nonsense -- a sporting event that I had to work during, perchance -- and when I watch it later -- as I fast-forward through the commercials, am I being evil and anti-capitalistic and generally a menace to society by ignoring/avoiding/etc those wonderful advertisements that pay for the programming?
If I record a few hours of my favorite radio station for those long car rides out-of-town and no decent stations (everywhere in America has mainstream pop. Everywhere in America has mainstream country. Repeat for rock, jazz, whatever. Crap, is what it is, for the most part), and go over the tape to remove commercials, announcer ads, et al... when I listen to that tape, is the recording device at fault? Should it be banned, because I can avoid the ads?
If I configure Squid or whatnot to not accept anything coming from ads.doubleclick.whateverthehell, and equivalent places... ban all firewall software immediately! It can be used to (horror of horrors) filter unwanted pseudo-content. Dear Lord help us all.
--Chuck
Look ma, I'm a
All you can do with Tivo to not watch commercials is fast-forward through them. There is no 30 second skip button. ReplayTV, I believe does have a 30 second skip feature.
--
PaxTech
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Here in the UK Hitachi sell a VCR which can be set to automatically skip commercials on replay. It works by detecting the signals used by the networked channels when they go to regional advertising. It's a neat trick but not useful enough for me to buy it. :-(
It only works on two terrestrial channels - we have five and 2 have no ads and the 5th doesn't have regional ads. Of course it won't work on satellite or cable either.
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Here is a list of BS articles from the last year of so. ZDnet was nice enough to inclued a description of each. "Stop the Insanity! If an OS could rest in place for five years, computing would vastly improve." Is an amusing one.
There's more but I'd rather go look at a radioactive contaminated area right now.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The man makes a few good points, even if he doesn't realize it. There is a real problem with TiVo/ReplayTV devices.
Before y'all go off on your high horse about your right to everything, realize that there actually IS more to this world than your rights.
I used to study Philosophy. One of Kant's concepts (the Categorical Imperative, I believe was an undefined universal truth that he couldn't define, but he knew some criteria, such as this one) was some universality.
For an event to be moral, it must be able to be universally applied. In otherwords, if everyone did it, things would be okay. From this arguement, suicide is immoral, because universal suicide means no humans. I won't dispute your "right" to use these devices. It's a stupid arguement. Anyone citing Betamax is EXTREMELY foolish. Your RIGHTS aren't determined by Supreme Court rulings, they are endowed by the Creator, the SCOTUS just bitch-slaps the President and Congress when they overstep their bounds and figures out whose side the law favors when Congress and the White House actually behaved. If you have a "right" to do this, it is because you are exercizing your Rights to Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness without harming the rights of another, NOT because of Betamax.
However, there is a more important question. What happens if everyone who currently owns a VCR (95% of homes with televisions I believe) gets one of these devices. While a VCR CAN record the programs and skip commercials, most people don't do this. I program computers for a living and find setting up my VCR to record a show automatically a REAL pain in the ass. I'll hit the record button, but dealing with the VCR is rarely worth it.
However, what happens if everyone adopts these. Right now, most programming is paid for entirely from advertising revenue. With these devices, advertising revenue WILL drop (lett people watching, etc.). This will lessen the quantity of quality programming provided by the networks.
Of course the advertising companies and television studios will need to adapt to stay in business. Y'all haven't impressed us as business experts by stating that companies need to figure out how to make money to be in business.
The point is, the networks have a product that in the status quo provides entertainment at a very low price point. As someone who went a few months without cable when finances were tight, I appreciated the fact that I could get a few decent shows from the networks.
Keep in mind that these devices will always be tilted towards the well-to-do. You guys with $3000 gaming computers, digital cable/satellite systems, every gaming console, a DVD player and surround sound system, etc., may have millions of options for entertainment.
However, for a working class family of four surviving on $40,000/yr (slightly OVER the median income), a $30 night out to see a movie with a family isn't always an option, and buying hundreds of channels may not be.
Either television as we know it will die from these devices or what's left will be much lower quality because of less revenue. Now television may have near zero artisitic value, be corrupting the movie studios, and allowing parents to neglect their children, but it is also an affordable form of entertainment. For the blue-collar worker that is now priced out of going to see his home-town football team, he can still see the game. The low price point of television means that even the poorest Americans can afford a set.
What, you say, then television will remain for them? Don't be so sure. Pull the big money people out of watching ads with Tivo, and Lexus and Mercedes STOP running ads. This lowers the demand for advertising. As you move down the income brackets and allow them to avoid commercials with Tivo, there are fewer companies desiring ads. Keep in mind, there isn't a desire to reach the poorest individuals with ads, they are looking for middle-to-upper income individuals.
Don't believe me? Watch your favorite high-brow show (Frasier?) and look at the advertisements.
Then watch the XFL or Wrestling, look at the advertisements.
Which show gets a more expensive product advertising? Which one likely gets more for it's ad space. As a result, which one gets the expensive to produce ads.
There are social consequences to your actions. Screaming and yelling about your right to do anything you want doesn't change that. Yes, fundamentally, you should have a right to take any signal delivered to you and do what you want (cable descramblers, satellite "piracy", etc.). However, there is a social cost. Yes, the technically proficient and the dedicated can still get descramblers with no problem. But without the laws against them, EVERYONE would have gotten them and premier cable would have either died or required VERY expensive technical solutions.
Yes, a few people skimming off the pot (taking television without commericials, premieum cable without paying, etc.) doesn't make a difference, but large scale would.
Yes, I want a Tivo, but I also acknowledge that while I'm within my rights, there ARE social consequences.
In reality, people should have a fundamental right to do whatever they want with their signal. However, you have to realize, that there is more at stake than this.
Why?
Your fair use rights are meaningless without content.
Take away the revenue stream, and you won't get ANY content that you can "fairly use."
Copyright is a compromise.
While people might create artistic works without compensation, television production is expensive, and can't be done without a revenue source.
Oh well, I guess NBC will have to expect to provide programming without any revenue from it directly and try to sell T-shirts.
Alex
I hope we see Mr. Dvorak as an entry in the Darwin Awards someday...the sad thing is, there are people in the world (and a lot of them) who actually believe everything they see in print, even drivel from this jackass. Pete
Who gets this money??
Does anyone know??
I have a friend who owns some copyrigth and while he occasionaly get payments from MTV etc. he has yet to see a check for his percentage of blank tapes etc...
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Besides that, sending money to the networks or programmers would be akin to making TV Guide pay to show their listings in their magazines... Or do they?
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
First, you can't skip commercials, only fast-forward through them.
Second, because of this, I've actually found myself *going back* and watching odd commercials if they look interesting.
Third, because of *that* Dvorak misses the key datum, namely, that you're sitting there fast-forwarding through the commercials, paying strict attention so that you can hit the "Play" button again. You're ACTUALLY SEEING the commercials sped-up, recognizing the ones you've already seen, and (at least for me) checking out the ones that stand out.
So, in effect, the ads have just as much sticking power as they would already have, and you're NOT out of the room as you might be with a known 3-minute gap where you can grab a snack or go to the bathroom. The advertisers might have their 30 seconds compressed into 5, but you can be sure that they mostly get their branding across because the audience is paying closer attention, even if it's only to watch for the end.
We get several ad agency related rags at work and they are fully aware of the issue. The video ad agencies (we're print and interactive so I have no 1st hand experience) all seem to be fully ready to exploit other methods. The most obvious of which is to place ads when the machine is paused, you go take a leak, pause the recorder, and a coke ad comes up while the video is not playing. Believe you me, the TV ad model is not a particular favorite of agencies and they are more than willing to look at other methods of getting their message across.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
I attended a TOOLS conference (sponsored by Interactive Software Engineering, the originators of the Eiffel programming language) a couple of years ago, and John Dvorak was one of the keynote speakers. While his talk was entertaining, one thing that he ranted and raved about was how ridiculous the DVD was in general, and how useless it was in a computer. He made a big deal out of how it was going to die quickly and disappear forever, that it was way too hard to use (huh?) and was useless because you couldn't write to it. So much insight!
Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
--
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
For what it's worth, i've found the tivo fast forward and correction backtracking to be more effective for skipping commercials than a 30s skip. It's something you need to try for yourself, but I'm sure that most people will get better results from the FF w/correction.
He can be a slave to the networks, but the rest of us don't have to be.
So the matador waves around a red cape, bull gets angry and charges. Wheee! Watch the matador lead the bull around...
Every once in a while Dvorak or Moody write an article to bait the thousands of Slashdot readers. I won't even bother clicking the link because this is exactly what these people are hoping for.
Actually, advertisers don't care. They rather have people who do like to watch ads, see them. Take the online ad system for example. Advertisers don't care if you use junkbuster, you were not going to click through anyway. They might even be happy for this because you get less pissed and annoyed on commercials at a whole.
It's a sort of self-regulating targeted-advertisement process.
So by skipping ads on your tivo, it's a win-win situation for both you and the advertisers.
Ivo (thanking Philips for their multi-million ad campaign to teach folks how to pronounce his name correctly :)
<grub> Reading
John was a smart guy back in 81-83 ish, then his ego got the best of him and he has been lost in that exact time frame since.
I get tired of hearing him say "Oh why do we need these new fangled 286s for anyhow?
I don't watch his spin show just because he has no mind left.
He is a tv star now, not a computer guy, so he is not going to like anything which could possibly cut into his paycheck.
Just three more hours seapeople and you can finally take me away from this crappy God Damned planet full of hippies
Re: John Dvorak's 4.16.01 article:
John Dvorak's blanket statement that Personal Video Recorders are "...a way to steal programming" lacks understanding of the technology, laws and court presidents that have prevailed in the country for two decades. Personal Video Recorders makers state very clearly that these are "time shifting devices." This is an important term to use. Technically speaking all VCRs and PVRs violate the letter of the law when it comes to recording shows. However, courts have consistently found that individuals are indemnified from liability for personal use recording because consumer rights outweigh studio content control. I suggest John does some research into the Sony Betamax cases.
So, that leaves the commercial skipping feature for him to berate. First off, it's not like the PVRs skip commercials automatically. The viewer has to do it. This is where I get confused. At one point John makes the operation seem incredibly, the viewer "...can skip commercials by pushing a button." However, later in the article he goes on to berate the remote control. Now it appears there is a degree of "complexity" and "the remote control for PVRs has more buttons than a TV control room." Well, which is it?
Furthermore, for someone who's apparently interacted with PVRs he just doesn't seem to get that if you're watching live TV you can't skip ahead of the commercials. This isn't a time travel device. If you want to skip the commercials you'll have to start watching after the program has started. For a hour long program that's 20 minutes into it.
The John talks about how the major networks are poised to put the smack down on PVRs. I don't know where he gets this. TIVO for instance get contributions for it's on box magazine from many broadcast networks. NBC actually encodes special TIVO data into their program commercials so that people can simply press the "Thumbs Up" button to record ER, West Wing, Ed, etc. The networks have accepted VCRs and PVRs and are looking at ways of increasing marketing.
Finally, just to show how little research John does for a given article he insinuates that PVRs may have "bootlegging issues." This brings up two points of logic that seem to have escapes him. One, PVRs do not use removable media. It's a hard drive. It's a property format. If you want to show your programs at someone else's house you have to bring the whole thing over, or record the content on videotape. Both of which are perfectly legal. Two, who the hell bootlegs over the air broadcasts. And why wouldn't they just use a VCR?
Sincerely,
Tom Harty
Golden Valley, MN
Looking back to the last time Slashdot covered Tivo, a few weeks back, the big complaint was that Tivo is making it harder to skip commercials and is inserting some of their own. Replay has a "skip ahead 30 seconds", while Tivo does not. A good analysis of the issue is here.
Of course, what you really want is an open-sourced box with automatic commercial recognition and deletion. A JunkBuster for TV.
Aren't people just missing the point of what adds are all about? I for one do not understand Dvorak's argument. It pre-supposes that a private company (let it be Mc Donald's or Marlboro) can pay another company (the TV stations) to FORCE people to watch their adds.
This is completely different then what happens in the printed media. After all, no-body forces anyone to actually read the adds in order to read the articles in the New York Time. And there is NO contract between me and the TV station that says that I can only watch their programming IF AND ONLY IF I watch the commercials. The reason why we have not had to sign such a contract is because
the concept that the adds MUST be forced onto people in order to be effective is rediculous. People who are forced to watch an add are not more likely to buy a product than if they had ignored/zapped past it.
Does dvorak really read every single printed add in Forbes magazine since those are what provided the bulk of the money for him to write his column in that magazine?
As an aside, the obnoxious add on the article's page led me to install adzapper on my machine... Maybe the ardvertisers should think about that before going over the top. Of course, one alternative is to start building browsers that cannot avoid downloading adds.... How many years do you think it will be before people think about that (been done actually, I know...).
It sometimes seems that common sense, and basic civil liberties, are conveniently ignored by people like Dvorak.
and be nice. Remember, flaming rarely persuades anyone of anything other than the fact that you're an immature asshole. Persuasive, well-reasoned arguments might get you a whole lot further.
Gentoo Linux http://gentoo.org/
Let's also assume that we *want* network television to continue to be free.
In that case, TiVo, et al is a good thing for advertisors. We've all heard about how TiVo tracks our viewing habits -- how long before they inject some sort of targeted advertising based on those viewing preferences? (ignore the privacy issue -- that's a whole separate argument)
When used appropriately, I like targeted advertising. I only have to watch commercials that are applicable to me. That means no douche, tampon or Pampers commercials. Hell, I'd pay extra for that. Yes, I'd prefer to skip commercials altogether, but the economic realities mean someone has to pay for y'all to watch the contestants on Survivor eat their young. I'd much rather pay for that by watching some commercials targeted at me specifically than paying triple/quadruple my DirecTV bill.
PVRs are the easiest and quickest way to deliver targeted advertising capabilities. If John could see outside his grossly over-inflated ego, maybe he'd realize this.
Gentoo Linux http://gentoo.org/
Its kind of funny really, when you take it all in perspective. My Grandfather told me when he was working for Magnavox that there was quite the to do about the fact their remote controls were going to have MUTE buttons. Yep there were threats of law suit and all manner of huffing and puffing... it never really hit the press back then though because most people didn't care. And really nothing really came of it and nobody got into any big fight about it, and nobody lost anything from it. Same story, different inovation.
Dvorak is just like all defenders of established technology. He treats the arbitrary rules of the game---"programming is paid for by ads"---as gospel.
If you buy any of the basic concepts behind capitalism---and even if you don't, the players in the TV industry do---you know that competition is not a zero-sum game where the pie is sliced up and a bigger piece for me means a smaller piece for you. Instead, new factors like technology enables pieces of the pie to shrink and grow.
There's nothing wrong with Tivo et al. rewriting the rules of the game, and clearly the rewriting is relatively minor. As other posters have pointed out, a lot of TV is watched on a subscription basis anyway. But the rules are going to evolve, and someone will always be behind the curve (and losing money as a result).
One direction we could go is a tiered system where set-top boxes provide commercial-free programming to those who pay a premium for it, and commercials to those who don't.
In any case, consumers have shown an extraordinary willingness to pay for TV. I'm pretty shocked that I'll pay $50 a month for the few shows I watch. But I do. The only changes that really break the rules are forcing consumers to pay when they don't want to.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
If I totally reverse-engineer the Intel chip, and don't pay royalties, I get sued.
No. Where do you think the PC clones came from? The IBM BIOS was clean-room reverse engineered. When IBM sued, they lost in the Supreme Court. This is the reason that software licenses now say that you aren't purchasing an actual copy of the software. If you actually own the copy, then you can do anything you want with it. Since you only have a license to use the software is certain ways, they prohibit you from reverse engineering, and put financial penalties in the license for violating the reverse engineering parts.
"Bite me, it's fun!" - Crowe T. Robot
John Dvorak must still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
I threw away my television. Am I ripping someone off? Who should I send the check to?
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
...I stole some TV last night. But, Your Honor - in all fairness, I REALLY had to pee...
I must admit, I would hardly call myself a fan of your work. However, in your recent "Commercial-Free Conundrum" article concerning the new wave of PVRs (such as the Tivo and Replay) you really missed the boat.
First, I will qualify my response by stating for the record that I am a Tivo user. Now, allow me to explain how you missed the boat.
You write, "Is it any different to steal programming by skipping the commercials (which paid for the programs) than it is to download a song?"
I would counter that using the Tivo is not stealing programming. First, the Tivo does not allow you to skip commercials. It allows you to fast-forward through them, but you still see the commercial's inane marketing message in full visual splendor. This is absolutely no different than if I were to record my favorite episode of "Whatever" on my VCR and then used it to fast-forward through the commercials. Do you also consider using a VCR to time-shift programming stealing? If you do, the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't agree with you. (See Sony Corp. vs. Universal City Studios if you really care.)
Next, you assert that "On top of that, both UltimateTV and TiVo charge customers $10 a month to use the device. None of that money goes to the networks or programmers whose material is being re-recorded and saved to the hard disk." A quick review of Tivo equity investors would refute this claim. Tivo equity holders include: AOL/Time Warner, CBS, NBC, Comcast, Showtime Networks, Discovery Communications and Walt Disney Company to name a few. Yes, maybe they are not getting a 'direct deposit' from the $10 monthly fee, but when Tivo earns, they reap the rewards as well. And ask yourself would so many broadcasters be investing in a company which was stealing from them??
Now, you claim that "These devices cost around $500, which is not a mass-market price." Interesting. I paid $199 for my Philips brand Tivo at Sears. That isn't mass market enough for you? What part isn't mass-market? The fact that it's a Philips Brand? Or is Sears just a niche store?
You also claim "people are beginning to reevaluate spending high annual fees for unimportant services. Do you want to spend $120 a year to operate a TiVo unit just to skip a few commercials?"
First, I only pay $99 a year for my Tivo subscription. Did you do any research at all??? Second, I don't pay for the service in order to skip advertisements. I pay for the service because my Tivo automatically grabs "Good Eats" on the Food Network, even if I'm not home, and then I can watch it whenever I want to, at a time convenient for me, not for the network. And get this, unlike my VCR, the Tivo (because of that "worthless" service) knows if the episode is a rerun or not, so I don't waste my time or space recording shows I've already seen. Oh, and my Tivo grabs every episode of the Simpsons, because I'm a big fan. And best of all, I told my Tivo a few weeks ago that I wanted it to watch for shows directed by John Sayles. Know what? Without me telling it too (explicitly) this week it recorded "Baby, It's You" a John Sayles movie that I didn't even know was on. I come home at night, I want to relax, and I can choose from a menu of The Simpsons, Charlie Rose, Frontline, Johnny Bravo, or a host of other shows my Tivo knows I like. Is all of that worth $10 a month? You bet it is!!
You also ask "With a VCR and DVD player already, where does this thing go?"
It goes in the rack with my other components.
"And how does it interact with the conventional devices?"
Quite well, actually. I have my DVD player hooked up along with my stereo and they all work together just fine. And the remote was quite simple to figure out. Granted, I don't have a problem programming my VCR either, but I would hardly call the Tivo complicated to use: my mother figured it out over the Easter visit with no problems at all, and she's a good bit older than you.
"I personally had trouble getting a ReplayTV unit to work because a computer server was down someplace."
I can't speak to this one, because I've never used a Replay... but did you try and Ultimate TV? Did you try the Tivo? Based on the statements in your column, I don't think you did. You obviously didn't even bother to check the street prices on the units, or you wouldn't have quoted a $500 price tag... even the Sony Tivo unit can be had at Circuit City for $399, and it's one of the more expensive.
You know, I would have expected that for an article in Forbes, you would have tested all of the products you are writing about. I would think you owed your readers that. But you failed to even do any basic research on the pricing of the units and the service, let alone digging deeper and finding out how people actually use them. You jumped to the conclusion that everyone uses PVRs to "steal" programming by skipping commercials. Personally, I would be embarrassed to have my name on a column so lacking in facts, and so incorrect in the statements you do make. But then again, I don't get paid good money to talk out of my ass.
Sincerely,
David Gulbransen
The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun, with Coca-cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun.
Im sorry but this guy totaly crosses the line, considering that if you wanted to skip commercials you can do the same thing with a regular vcr. Why doesnt he just go after every TV recording device?
When watching live tv with tivo you cant skip commercials unless you change the channel which actually if you think about it helps the network. People will actually start watching full programs and wont channel surf, i guess this means networks have to start adding more clever means of advertising, weather its banner ads on the top of the screen or jennifer love hewit eating a bens kosher pickle (which i would love to see). Please, its people like this that stifle technology instead of protecting it!
"Think, It aint illegal.....yet" - George Clinton
--
during commercials is theft!
Shame on all of you ip thieves out there, depriving all those hard working sponsors of their right to blast you with intelligence insulting propaganda.
Have you no shame?
KFG
I'm going to have to change my keymapping now, until someone swats him with a cluestick.
What about TSN(/ESPN) then? They accept advertising AND collect money from cable/satellite providers which has come from subscribers paying for the channel(s). Are ALL cable tv stations that carry advertising and have a subscription fee, whether individual or in a tier package, going overboard?
Dvorak is an idiot.
I remember back in the Dark Days of the Mac World (tm) when he was one of the better-known "Apple is dying" columnists. He was particularly distinguished by the fact that virtually everything he said turned out wrong, to the point that when he finally flipflopped sometime around Steve's Coup I found myself wondering whether him suddenly liking Apple's chances was going to be something of a jinx for a company on its way out of the sewer. Then MacUser faded into the sunset, and Dvorak eventually wound up exiled to the back reaches of the ZD lineup (Computer Shopper? Geez...)
He's like a pompous version of Dave Winer, IMHO...
/Brian
Dvorak has been spouting nonsense for years.
When I see anything involving Dvorak, I skip it.
I advise all to do the same.
billc
Tivo is the best thing to come out for the TV in a great while. And the funny thing is that the less TV you watch, the more valuable the Tivo is worth. And yes, I paid my $200 up front to Tivo. Dvorak is an idiot. Don't you people realize what he is doing? I remember reading an article by Andy Inthanko (sp?) in MacWorld about the response that Dvorak's columns would get and how he hoped his columns would get the same. Dvorak simply does it for flame bait. He makes stupid statements, meant to enflame mac users, or early adopters JUST SO YOU WILL VISIT THE PAGE AND SEND HIM/PUBLISHER EMAIL. ALL HE CARES ABOUT ARE PAGE COUNTERS PEOPLE! And when everyone reads the story and sends tens of thousands of emails to him and the publishre, Dvorak can tell the publisher "Look how many people I bring to the site with each article. This is why you pay me" We need to learn how to ignore the MS/Intel/Mainstream mouthpiece. Maybe if we ignore him a bit.......
I think many years ago Mr. Dvorak was the wise voice of the computer industry, but over the past few years he seems to be spewing stupidity. I used to have alot of respect for him, now I don't put much stock in his opinions at all.
_______
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
Ive read several articles by him and Ive come to the conslusion that he is either
A: A moron:
B: Mentaly retarded
C: He was dropped on his head as a young child and suffers brain damage.
Yes there is. I use a hauppauge card for capture, and avifile & vcr ( both can be found on Freshmeat ). I make a small script like this
#!/bin/sh
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
export PATH
DATE=`date +%m%d%y`
FILENAME=/path/to/myshow-6pm-$DATE.avi
v4lctl setstation 3
vcr -t 60m $FILENAME
An call it from 'cron' or 'at'. Works very good, and the files are DivX;-) avi's so they are fairly small. Linux VCR-HOWTO
A few hours grace before the madness begins again.
It was nice watching Start Trek on BBC 2 in under 45 uninterrupted minutes! I'd pay a license fee for that...
Get a ReplayTV or a Tivo. Consider the $200-500 you pay a license fee. (I suggest ReplayTV just because I have one, my Tivo friends love thir units though.) Watch *all* your shows delayed, and skip the commercials. Suddenly you are getting 45 minute Star Trek.
People who have PVRs gush about them, and you won't understand why until you try one... but in about 30 seconds you'll be a convert. They really are THAT cool.
... self appointed, column writer/TechTV host is turning into a tired old characteture of himself ... but to be fair here, Dvorak is pretty cranky and pessimistic concerning just about everything in the computer biz - well, except for his wish for a PDA phone ...
The Silicon Spin TV show is actually pretty good, well it was before it was transformed into this new "TechLive" Paul Allen redoux format ... less of him and more of the guests is a good thing - one bothersome thing is that most of the "experts" that participate in the "panel of pundits" are all usually pretty clueless too - CEOs of web startups like well you know, those morphed prefixes onto business terms like epinions.com, idrive.com, emhotep.com, etc. ... Once, I watched all 5 pundits stammer incessantly when trying to define what "peer-to-peer" actually meant in technical means ... Crossfire for wanna-be geeks ... you can check out some shows at www.siliconspin.com if you don't get it on your cable as I think the channel is only on the dish and a handful of cable systems (I think they still stream them) ...
He's all over the web, giving his viewpoints on M$, HTML, Palms, the web, Apple, Tech Stocks ... I don't think he really knows what he's talking about anymore - at one time he did, but he's just a two trick pony know trotting for the bleachers ...
AZspot
If someone else hears about it and can implement it better than you then isn't it their idea too now?
All ideas flow from others
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Absolutely...
If someone wants me to watch a commercial, they better make it entertaining and/or interesting. And that's not impossible, it's just difficult.
The added bonus is that if an advert entertains me it will make me more likely to buy their product.
And to think I used to think his articles were pretty good...
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
I am troubled by the argument that "x pays for y, therefore if you take advantage of y, you are legally obligated to do x." I am told, for instance, that snack sales are what actually make movie theaters profitable. Does that mean that I'm legally obligated to buy the popcorn that subsidizes the movie? Sony, I'm told, loses money on each PS2, but makes it up on license fees for games. If I buy a PS2 to watch DVDs, as many people in Japan have, does that mean I'm legally obligated to buy games?
Advertising works on a similar finger-crossing principle. Just as people who go to theaters generally buy popcorn, and people who buy PS2 consoles generally buy games, people who watch TV shows generally sit through many of the commercials. If the second half of each of these equations falls through, that doesn't mean that the law should be invoked to hold people to an unwritten contract. It just means that the companies in question need to re-think their business models.
If you don't want my koalas, baby, don't shake my eucalyptus tree.
Personally, I think this pales in comparison to the practice of "mind-shifting," or memorizing plots, funny bits, and catch phrases from television shows in order to experience them -- or worse yet, share them with others -- without having to watch the commercials or pay the copyright holders.
I'm petitioning congress to outlaw quoting television shows to your friends without also quoting at least one ad from that show. For instance, "EX-cellent, Smithers! The Joy of Cola!"
If you don't want my koalas, baby, don't shake my eucalyptus tree.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Insert Dramatic Pause
He still drives a lexsus, while a lot of
His how full of shit he seems, how ridiculous his arguements and how much we hate his guts...
Insert Dramatic Pause
He still drives a lexsus, while a lot of
I digress.
Fact is, his whoring for the "Intellectual property is sacrosant" community has done wonders for his career.
It doesn't matter to people like George W. Bush or Al Gore (who I view as a little better, but nowhere near the level of intelligence needed to run a country effectively / be a leader) or their buddies in congress that dictate the law of the land (i.e. TIVO can't block commercials, consumers must watch them, but are free to fast forward boring parts of shows).
I'm sure some stuff will be written under some law in the future.
Tivo better start putting some of the $10 montly fees to lobbying the government.
Oh one last thing; nobody (+2) has seemed to make the correlation between the tivo and a good old american tradition - changing the channel and / or radio station when a commercial comes on.
I hate it when I get in at the end of a good subject.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
5-6 years ago I stopped subscribing to PC Magazine - mainly because of Dvorak. He used to hit the nail on the head. Then, he started writing crap like this. I wonder how much stock he has in advertising companies?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
I suspect that Dvorak gleaned his article from this one at BBC News. Summarized, it says that TiVo hasn't caught on in the UK because of its £400 (US$600) price tag and £10 monthly fee, and because its main function is recording television, which you can do with a video (VCR) for £100.
e ch /2000/dot_life/newsid_1268000/1268526.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/sci_t
Sometimes it pays to read the foreign press. BBC news reports that Cadbury has called for an end to child slavery... Does that mean I hafta free my Oompa-Loompas?
OK - so how many of us actually sit and watch TV commercials anyways? With the advent of digital cable and satellite, there are tens, if not hundreds of other stations through which to surf while waiting out a commercial break. To Me, this is no different than using a TiVo or whatever.
Oh yeah, and the other thing was his point that they are difficult to use. Dvorak's point is that the necessary phone line is a pain in the ass, and I couldn't agree more. I'm waiting for a TiVo-type device that I can just use.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Those of us who have cable (and therefore are the only ones for which TiVo makes sense -- or does it work with plain old antenna TV too?) ALREADY pay for TV. Channels should get their revenue from that only.
Some movie channels already don't show commercials in the middle of movies (only between them). They don't seem to be going broke because of that. TiVo won't damage those more than VCRs do.
Or better yet, turn an ordinary PC with a video capture card into a TiVo-like machine with entirely open source software. Is there anybody working on something even remotely similar to this?
Instead of talking about commercial skipping, a complete red herring, a much better story would have been to talk about how Tivo is the death of the "prime time" convention. That's the real story with Tivo and its siblings. However the New York Times already covered that a few months ago so I guess that would have been too tame for Dvorak.
The TiVO works whether you pay the $10 a month ($100 a year, $200 lifetime) or not-
If you don't pay for the service, you have a digital VCR. No less, and not much more (prettier interface for scheduling the recording of shows?)
If you pay the fee, you get the program listings for your area, and software updates, such as the one that bumped TiVO up to version 2.01 last night.
You aren't required to pay the $10 service, but it makes the device easier to use.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Yesturday I was mentally somewhere else when they started showing a commercial for the Monty Pyton DVD set. Boy, I never, never, laughed so hard watching TV since I moved to the USA.
Why not have the Tivo remove the programming and allow us to see the commercials uninterrupted?
-- look, cheese ahoy!
As a quick aside, a potential problem to this would be the fact that you're replacing network X's advertising (which is what pays for network X programming) in order to show TiVo's advertising. The obvious solution is to have TiVo partner up with TV networks (and they've already got some existing business relationships with various networks) so that you're only replacing network X ads with other targetted ads that still help support network X (with TiVo getting a cut to cover some of the added value they provide by making it targetted coupled with bandwidth costs and so on).
But my main point I wanted to make is that not only do I like targetted advertising, but I also manually simulate the practice when using my TiVo. Normally when I fastforward through a commercial break, I do it at the 2x speed -- it takes about 8-10 seconds to go through. However, I'm more than willing to actually stop and watch a commercial that catches my interest. In the rare cases of particularly funny commercials (such as the flipside.com window washers playing tic-tac-toe), I've been known to wander into the other part of the house, drag someone back to the TV, and play the commercial for them. I've also found that annoying commercials no longer bother me -- when Chili's was running those commercials with that painfully repetitive "Baby back ribs" song, I vehemently refused to eat there. I suppose the painfully bad karaoke in the current run of Levi's ads would be the same thing -- but I've only seen each one once or twice and so I've completely failed to develop a hatred of Levi's that's directly proportional to my TV viewing. However, the commercials are distinctive enough that I always notice them while fast-forwarding past. Ditto for the current run of GAP and Old Navy commercials. Finally, I'll tend to watch movie trailers that I haven't seen before. That also tends to be where a lot of my consumer activity is focused, anyway.
Overall, I've found that when I'm only watching a commercial because I've decided to watch it, it suddenly has a lot more impact. I think most advertisers would drool over the possibility to get their commercial seen by someone who only watches a dozen or less commercials a week. In addition, a properly constructed commercial can still accomplish branding, even when viewed at fast forward speeds (Random amusing thought: Just wait until advertisers start building commercials that're customized to the fast-forward framerate of most PTRs, such that they become subliminal when you're only viewing every Nth frame).
Im sorry - but considering the usual 'Group Think' that goes on here at
Were almost all paranoid, delusional raving morons - incapable of understanding whats *REALLY* going on'
Dvork and everyone else in the media are morons, pawns and liars - incapable of understanding whats *REALLY* going on'.
Im really finding all this hard to believe - I know Im not the only one who believes that IP laws are out of control. I see the ever tightening control of IP as a very serious threat to the future, its offensive to a free people - is Dvork an idiot or a tool?
Who knows of the Project that is working on a Linux based (as TiVo) GPL style PC based TiVo killer?
I imagine that somewhere there is a project being developed, that would turn my tuner-card equipped PC into a commercial skipping, menu driven, time shifting, dream machine. I imagine being able to fire up the TV out on a decent video card, and watch every episode of the Simpsons broadcast (recalled from the HD). This project would gather its TV listings from ?????? (user input to record certain segments). It would have two major items:1) Record New "Time Slots" (or use a pre-configed listing gathered from ????) to gather new programs; 2) Present a menu of stored programs for viewing.
I know this sounds almost exactly like TiVo - but TiVo is not gratis nor libre. The list of investors in another post (CBS, AOL-Time Warner, Comcast, Liberty Media, Discovery communications, Showtime Networks, Disney, and NBC) assures me that TiVo's intention is not to operate on behalf of the desires of the users; its service will always be tempered by the wishes of these investors.
Now - who has the link to this project? I am sure im not the only one to think a Libre/Gratis PC cum TiVo is an excellent liberator.
I don't think the ability to skip ads is new tech. See, when I tape something on my VCR, and watch it later, and an ad break starts, I look to my horribly complex remote control and hit the ultra high-tech "fast-forward" button. The ads fly past in all of ten seconds, and I'm buggered if I know what they were for.
Advertising revenue pays and subsidizes network and cable TV. That's not a pedantic distinction. An advertiser pays so much money for so many seconds for so many projected viewers of a particular program. Once the spot is paid for and broadcast, the transaction's complete. The fact is, we have no idea is people are watching ads, with or without TiVo. Since TV demographics are based on random samples rather than networked feedback (without TiVo, at least), who's to say that people skipping commercials with TiVo exceed the number of viewers who go grab a Heineken during the commercial break? It's pure conjecture.
When these devices become commonplace and nobody is watching TV commercials, that IS a problem...The money is going to have to come from somewhere...If the dot-bomb economy proved anything its that advertisements that nobody pays attention to aren't going to pay the bills. So where does the money come from?
Take a step back and reexamine your presupposition: that a technology that allows viewers to skip commercials is actually exploited enough to impact advertising revenues. I'm not aware of any data to indicate that VCRs have impacted ad rates at all. And the dot-bombs only proved that banner ads won't float economies of scale. Once entrepreneurs grasp the elusive concept that cash in must exceed cash out, they might actually consider scaling up from more modest nucleus, like Slashdot did before Andover.
Will all TV channels be "premium" in the future? Will the networks mix the advertisements & the programming together (ie. even more gratituous product placements..say one every 1.5 minutes?)
Probably, but only to maximize profits, not for survival. Remember when the whole point of cable was that premium programming was commercial-free?
Its easy to dismiss Dvorak as a loon, but there are some tough economic/cultural questions that will need to be answered some day soon
Yes, it is easy to dismiss Dvorak as a loon.
Unlike almost any product you buy you have no say in how much you pay for it. With a movie for example, you have many choices, you can see it in the evening during its first run at 8, 9, or 10 bucks a ticket, you can see it during the day at cheaper rates, you can see it later when it's on the "cheap screens", or you can wait and rent (or buy) it on tape or DVD. And then you have many choices of theaters, rental stores, etc. where to spend your money. All of these represent different levels of quality, ownership, and price. Similarly, for a book, you can choose to buy the hardback or wait for the paperback, or buy it used. You can buy it at the little mom & pop bookstore, or you can buy it at the megastore (like borders), or you can buy it in the supermarket (if they have it), or you can buy it online. In short, there are many different qualities of product that you can purchase from many different outlets. Television is completely different. Firstly, you cannot buy it directly (HBO and suchlike excluded). Second, you cannot "buy" it from different outlets. Third, you cannot buy different versions of it. Perhaps one could say that syndication represents a different product quality, but it's not really applicable in my opinion because syndicated episodes aren't run as "reruns" in the "original quality" product (it would be like a publisher removing the hardback version of a book from sale when the paperback comes out, although in the case of television it's often worse because most syndicated episodes are slightly edited to make room for more commercials). In short we the buyers and consumers of television have essentially no say in the television market. It is not a free market and consequently we are forced to accept whatever products they choose to sell us at whatever "prices" they choose to sell them for. It is a system that has produced healthy profits for commercial television though so they are loath to change the system.
That's the point, you only have partial control. You can watch it or not. Maybe you can write or call in and complain or praise, but that's it. You can't say "that's too much money for that show, but I'd pay half, or that's too little I'd pay twice or three times as much".
In the future the transformation of multimedia "broadcasting" will be even more profound. Right now everything is driven by the need for a substantial market and for a substantial profit margin. In the future there will be much more smaller niches available. Imagine every movie and every episode from every TV show being available for varying costs at your convenience. That is a substantial shift from today. For one, I predict you won't see quite as much crap as you do today. There won't be "channels" in a traditional sense, so media providers won't be forced to either "cut content down" or "add in filler" to make up a 24 hour day. Multimedia content providers and creators will be able to produce as much or as little content as they feel is necessary. Ultimately it will be a good thing for the television industry as well as it's viewers. But in the meantime we have to deal with outdated notions and people resistant to change. Those who resist the flow of change and the wishes of the populace do so at their peril. The future is coming, it's time to accept it and plan for it, not to deny it.
I find it interesting that anyone would describe not viewing the commercials in a TV show as "stealing" television. Nobody ever signed a contract with the television channel stipulating that they would recieve programs in exchange for watching commercials and buying an appropriate amount of the products advertised. That is in essence how "free" TV channels pay for content, but we, the viewers, are not active participants in that contract. If we choose not to watch commercials that is not our problem. Perhaps in the long run it means that the show's producers will need to find a new business model, but it does not mean that we are legally, or morally I would say, obligated to watch commercial advertisements and buy those products advertised. I pay my money to watch HBO, I pay my money to rent and buy DVD movies, I pay my money to buy CDs, I pay my money to buy books, I never signed a contract with NBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, or even the Discovery channel. If I choose to fast forward through commercials on taped programs on those channels, or to "surf" during commercials when watching the broadcast, or to use the bathroom or refil my drink or get a snack, that is my choice, it is up to them to figure out how to deal with it.
Among his reasons why the Mac won't succeed:
From the San Francisco Examiner, Feb. 19th, 1984
The Macintosh has no slots for expansion and is therefore restricted in versatility
Well, Microsoft is currently pushing a legacy free, closed box PC as the new consumer utopia...
The machine uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'
If Dvorak didn't use a GUI based system (my bet is a PC, seeing how he is so viruntly anti-Mac) to write his article, and to do all his work for the past 7 or 8 years (conservative estimate), I will eat my own shorts.
Who out there in the general martketplace even knows what a 'font' is?
I would bet that about 90% of the public knows at this point; and most knew by the early 90s
What businessman knows about point size or typefaces or the value of variable point size?
See the comment above...
The Macintosh uses icons to represent functions as though there was some intuitive knowledge on the part of the user as to what these icons mean.
Did you know what sounds the letters in the alphabet represented before you memorized them? Sever anti-GUI trend here...
Mr. Dvorak is one of the worst 'major' PC columnists in almost all regards (accuracy, predictions, impartiality). I don't have time to list more of his hilarious mistakes, but if you put anything Apple in front of him, he will immediatly say it will fail and is inferior to anything PC.
Arthropoid, the Right Clam for the Job
Why "@forbes.net?" Doesn't Dvorak still work for Ziff Davis? Or did Big Jim Seymour squeeze him out of his slot there?
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Dvorak only writes articles like this one when he's looking to pick up some attention to himself. Watch his show "Big Thinkers" on TechTV sometime. He interviews some industry pioneers on his show - but unfortunately, by the time he finishes asking his question, he's usually already answered it himself, and has moved on to another question! I've got to take a stopwatch to it sometime... I've convinced he spends more time talking than the guest does.
I probably don't need to even point this out, since it is obvious to everyone reading, but what you meant to say was:
I dont see people trading 15Ton locomotives any time soon.
I'm sure it was a typo or something, but please preview your posts before you submit them. I'm glad to have helped.
-grammar nazi
Keeping
Just so I have this straight:
1. VCR's are okay, but
2. Tivo, et al, are not, because they make it "too easy".
Content providers shouldn't be additionally compensated just because I'm saving a video to a hard disk instead of analog tape! They've already been paid by advertisers, or, in the case of public TV, donations.
If TiVo forces advertisers to come out with better, more entertaining, more compelling ads during viewer's favorite shows, then more power to 'em. It's not commercials I hate, it's boring commercials.
May be M$ is -- since they been showing that vaporware box on thier TV spots...
But then you can only hook it up to satilite...
The simple fact is that people want to copy stuff without paying for it. This means that implementing IP requires constantly updated security that often infringes on individual rights. And this security is often ineffective because for every expert that is working on security there are thousands of people that want to crack it.
And if IP is worth something then it can be bought and sold, which perverts the original idea. In most cases it is not the creator that is rewarded for an idea. Corporations use their leverage to acquire ideas from individuals and resell them at a premium.
Actually the viewer has quite a lot of control over television. If people don't watch a show then it gets moved to a less popular time slot, or disappears. And if you disagree with the economics of TV then you can simply stop watching, and then you will no longer be a product or a consumer.
The obvious answer for the networks is to make it as difficult as possible to steal programming. The real answer is to just give up IP and find some other business model, because it's time for a showdown and no network is going to win against millions of dedicated, hardcore IP thieves!
It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called "alternative sexuality," which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.
What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:
Linus Torvalds is an anagram of SLIT ANUS OR VD "L", clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
Richard M Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual "movement" is an anagram of MANS CRAM THRILL AD.
Alan Cox is barely an anagram of ANAL COX which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.
I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, [Buy At Amazon] is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for SECONDARY RIM and CORD IN MY ARSE. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.
As far as Richard "Master" Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following:
And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!
Speaking about "flaming," who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of Corrupting the Innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:
is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, jon??????? and letting the other boys touch it too?
We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as "Slashdot's resident Gasbag." Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux "Sauce Code", a "Gasbag" is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, "piss-pipe"), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering together their postings and publishing them en masse to further his twisted and manipulative journalistic agenda.
Sick, disgusting antichristian perverts, the lot of them.
In addition, many of the Linux distributions (a distribution is the most common way to spread the faggots' wares) are run by faggot groups. The Slackware distro is named after the Slack-wear fags wear to allow easy access to the anus for sexual purposes. Furthermore, Slackware is a close anagram of CLAW ARSE, a reference to the homosexual practise of anal fisting. The Mandrake product is run by a group of French faggot satanists, and is named after the faggot nickname for the vibrator. It was also chosen because it is an anagram for DARK AMEN and RAM NAKED, which is what they do.
Another "distro," (abbrieviated as such because it sounds a bit like "Disco," which is where homosexuals preyed on young boys in the 1970's), is Debian, an anagram of IN A BED, which could be considered innocent enough (after all, a bed is both where we sleep and pray), until we realise what other names Debian uses to describe their foul wares. "Woody" is obvious enough, being a term for the erect male penis, glistening with precum. But far sicker is the phrase "Frozen Potato" that they use. This filthy term, again found in the secret homosexual "Sauce Code," refers to the solo homosexual practice of defecating into a clear polythene bag, shaping the turd into a crude approximation of the male phallus, then leaving it in the freezer overnight until it becomes solid. The practitioner then proceeds to push the frozen "potato" up his own rectum, squeezing it in and out until his tight young balls erupt in a screaming orgasm.
And Red Hat is secret homo slang for the tip of a penis that is soaked in blood from a freshly violated underage ringpiece.
To summarise: Linux is gay. "Slash - Dot" is the graphical description of the space between a young boy's scrotum and anus. And BeOS is for hermaphrodites and disabled "stumpers."
Feedback:
Well, the only reason I know all about this is because I had the misfortune to read the Linux "Sauce code" once. Although publicised as the computer code needed to get Linux up and running on a computer (and haven't you always been worried about the phrase "Monolithic Kernel"?), this foul document is actually a detailed and graphic description of every conceivable degrading perversion known to the human race, as well as a few of the major animal species. It has shocked and disturbed me, to the point of needing to shock and disturb the common man to WARN them of the impending homo-calypse which threatens to engulf our planet.
Doesn't it give you a hard on to imagine your thick strong poker ramming it's way up my most sacred of sphincters? You're beyond help, my friend, as the only thing you can imagine is the foul penetrative violation of another man. Are you sure you're not Eric Raymond? The government, being populated by limp-wristed liberals, could never stem the sickening tide of homosexual child molesting Linux advocacy. Hell, they've given NAMBLA free reign for years!
Thank you for your kind words of support. However, this document shall only ever be posted anonymously. This is because the "Open Sauce" movement is a sham, proposing homoerotic cults of hero worshipping in the name of freedom. I speak for the common man. For any man who prefers the warm, enveloping velvet folds of a woman's vagina to the tight puckered ringpiece of a child. These men, being common, decent folk, don't have a say in the political hypocrisy that is Slashdot culture. I am the unknown liberator.
We shouldn't hate them, we should pity them for the misguided fools they are... Fanatical Linux zeal-outs need to be herded into camps for re-education and subsequent rehabilitation into normal heterosexual society. This re-education shall be achieved by forcing them to watch repeats of "Baywatch" until the very mention of Pamela Anderson causes them to fill their pants with healthy heterosexual jism.
Well, it just goes to show that even the holy Linux "sauce code" is riddled with bugs that need fixing. (The irony of Jon Katz not even being able to inflate his scrotum correctly has not been lost on me.) The Linux pervert elite already acknowledge this, with their queer slogan: "Given enough arms, all rectums are shallow." And anyway, the PS2 sucks major cock and isn't worth the money. Intellivision forever!
For one thing, whilst Linux is a cavalcade of queer propaganda masquerading as the future of computing, NT is used by people who think nothing better of encasing their genitals in quick setting plaster then going to see a really dirty porno film, enjoying the restriction enforced onto them. Remember, a wasted arousal is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic church. Clearly, the only god-fearing Christian operating system in existence is CP/M - The Christian Program Monitor. All computer users should immediately ask their local pastor to install this fine OS onto their systems. It is the only route to salvation.
Secondly, this message is for every man. Computers know no colour. Not only that, but one of the finest websites in the world is maintained by A Black Man. Now fuck off you racist donkey felcher.
Although there is nothing unholy about the fine heterosexual act of ejaculating between a woman's breasts, squirting one's load up towards her neck and chin area, it should be noted that PERL (standing for Pansies Entering Rectums Locally) is also close to "Pearl Monocle", "Pearl Nosering", and the ubiquitous "Pearl Enema".
One scary thing about Perl is that it contains hidden homosexual messages. Take the following code: LWP::Simple - It looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? But look at the line closely. There are two colons next to each other! As Larry "Balls to the" Wall would openly admit in the Perl Documentation, Perl was designed from the ground up to indoctrinate it's programmers into performing unnatural sexual acts - having two colons so closely together is clearly a reference to the perverse sickening act of "colon kissing," whereby two homosexual queers spread their buttocks wide, pressing their filthy torn sphincters together. They then share small round objects like marbles or golfballs by passing them from one rectum to another using muscle contraction alone. This is also referred to in programming circles as "Parameter Passing".
And PHP stands for Perverted Homosexual Penetration. Didn't you know?
Well, I don't know about terraforming Mars, but I DO know that homosexual Linux Advocates have been probing Uranus for years.
*sniff* That brings a tear to my eye. Thank you once more for your kind support. I have taken faith in the knowledge that I am doing the Good Lord's work, but it is encouraging to know that I am helping out the common man here.
However, I should be cautious about revealing your name 'Cerebus' on such a filthy den of depravity as Slashdot. It is a well known fact that the 'Kerberos' documentation from Microsoft is a detailed manual describing, in intimate, exacting detail, how to sexually penetrate a variety of unwilling canine animals; be they domesticated, wild, or mythical. Slashdot posters have taken great pleasure in illegally spreading this documentation far and wide, treating it as an "extension" to the Linux "Sauce Code," for the sake of "interoperability." (The slang term they use for unconsensual intercourse - their favorite kind.)
In fact, sick twisted Linux deviants are known to have LAN parties, (Love of Anal Naughtiness, needless to say.), wherein they entice a stray dog, known as the "Samba Server," into their homes. Up to four of these filth-sodden blasphemers against nature take turns to plunge their erect, throbbing, uncircumcised members, conkers-deep, into the recturm, mouth, and other fleshy orifices of the poor animal. Eventually, the "Samba Server" collapses due to "overload," and needs to be "rebooted." (i.e. Kicked out into the street, and left to fend for itself.) Many Linux users boast about their "uptime" in such situations.
If only indeed. You can help our brave cause by voting this message up as often as possible. I recommend +1 Underrated, as that will protect your precious Karma in Metamoderation. Only then can we break through the glass ceiling of Homosexual Slashdot Culture. Is it any wonder that the new version of Slashcode has been christened Bender???
IMPORTANT: This message needs to be heard (Not HURD, which is an acronym for Huge Unclean Rectal Dilator) across the whole community, so it has been released into the Public Domain. You know, that licence that we all had before those homoerotic crypto-fascists came out with the GPL (Gay Penetration License, according to geekacronyms.org) that is no more than an excuse to see who's got the biggest feces-encrusted cock. I would have put this up on Freshmeat, but that name is KNOWN to be a euphemism for the tight rump of a young boy.
Come to think of it, the whole concept of "Source Control" unnerves me, because it sounds a bit like "Sauce Control," which is a description of the homosexual practice of holding the base of the cock shaft tightly upon the point of ejaculation, thus causing a build up of semenal fluid that is only released upon entry into an incision made into the base of the receiver's scrotum. And "Open Sauce" is the act of ejaculating into another mans face or perhaps a biscuit to be shared later. Obviously, "Closed Sauce" is the only Christian thing to do, as evidenced by the fact that it is what Cathedrals are all about.
Contributors: (although not to the eternal game of "soggy biscuit" that open "sauce" development has become) Anonymous Coward, phee, Anonymous Coward, mighty jebus, double_h, Anonymous Coward, Eimernase, Anonymous Coward, Anonymous Coward, Jon Katz, Anonymous Coward. Further contributions are welcome.
ANUX - A full Linux distribution... UP YOUR ASS!
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
What's funny is that TiVo is actually making it harder to skip commercials... the version 2.0 software they're in the process of rolling out removes a nifty hidden feature from the old software that activated a 30-second commercial skip button.
When I lived in England, we had to pay an annual "license fee" - when I was last there it was approximately $150 per year. This provided 2 channels of commercial-free television. The other two channels had ads, but far, far fewer than any US station.
Now I live in Los Angeles, and pay around $600 per year for the privelege of watching a seemingly non-stop series of commercials. My only consolation (and that which keeps me paying the cable bill) is the occasional Simpsons episode.
Even with 4 TV stations, there was still a greater range of quality programs available than with the 80 or so I have today.
Yes, I know this is more of a rant than a constructive comment about TiVo, but frankly, I feel that I've paid the cable companies enough already.
...your postal address. And who do I make the check out to?
Send me $10!
There. I rely on people like you to send me ten bucks -- without which, i would not be able to continue publishing content on Slashdot.
"And like that
Mr. Dvorak is one of the worst 'major' PC columnists in almost all regards (accuracy, predictions, impartiality).
Plus his keyboard SUCKS.
"And like that
I really dont see what the problem is with skipping commercials, I paid for the right to do that when i paid for the TiVo box, and i really dont see what business it is of Dvorak's to tell us any different, or to take a stance on something that isn't even an issue yet.
Advertisers have a proven track record at being innovative from time to time, hell if it was possible to advertise on the air we breath, they'd find a way to do it.
The primary purpose of tv stations is supposed to be for broadcasting programming and not for broadcasting damn commercials...the tv networks are just going to have to innovate along with everyone else.
The pace of technology moves on and will stop for no man, they will have to do the same.
The shoe on the other foot. So, according to John, if I get up and urinate during a commercial, I'm a thief? What a brain!! What a brain!!!
Dvorak does this to generate traffic, pure and simple. The guy is full of shit. He is guaranteed to be the contrarian just for the sake of being different. His reactionary opinions seldom have any logical basis and he is well known for 180 degree changes in direction. I have been in his presence at several industry gatherings and I can honestly say he is one of the most ego-driven self-obsessed pricks in the business. He treats people he has no use for like shit while kissing ass whenever there's something in it for him. He's a truly pathetic individual and a 99 cent per word bitch ho.
Well do Panasonic et al charge you a monthly recurring fee for the use of their devices which you've purchased off a store's shelf? No. Why should TIVO etc be any different in that regard? Pure greed... worse than any of the networks, being that they've never charged me a single dime to watch a show... No, I pay TiVo ten bucks to send me a program schedule, properly formatted, so that I can have the convenience of selecting programs by name, and so that the TiVo device can point out programs that might be of interest to me. It's well worth it. If I wanted to, I could get rid of the subscription and use the TiVo as a glorified VCR, but where would the fun be in that? Might as well just use the real VCR.
What a silly piece of tripe that artical was; when I record something with my VCR, the chances that I will watch the commercials is almost zero. In fact, after recording, my VCR rewinds and marks the commercials using some complicated algorithm. I only see a brief soothing blue display between segments of my recorded programs. Does that mean my VCR is enabling me to steal programming? I am actually surprised that content holders are not in favor of the TiVo -- after all, when you record a program on a VCR you could give it away to someone (you pirate, you). With the TiVo, you're pretty much stuck with whatever your maximum space is.
-- My cat, Chairman Meow, would like you to join his political party.
As you take away the ability for advertisers to make money under the current model the equilibrium has to shift: Advertisers find the system unprofitable so they stop advertising, TV stations then find programming unprofitable to they either shift to cheaper programming (assumed to mean lower quality) or ways to make the advertising more effective (product placements in shows, "this show is brought to you by...", more and more frequent, unscheduled, harder to predict and avoid, advertising).
We've already seen the effect of this as people have got better at channel surfing. US TV is now a random mess of commercials and program glued together with dozen-product-long "brought to you by" lists.
Yeah, TiVo's the latest great trick to avoid commercials, just like the remote before it, basic channel surfing before that and getting up for a few minutes before that. For a brief while it will allow those with the units to get a more commercial free viewing experience at the expense of those without the units. Then in a couple of years the advertisers will change to a medium that beats TiVo (product placement etc) and the 'next' unit will come out (no doubt an image manipulator from NVidia) that will blank those placements, and in turn that will go.
TiVo's a great victory for those who have it for now. Give it time and that $400 unit will need to be replaced by the next one and the next one and the next one as advertisers get smarter. The only winners will be the makers of the next great thing and those that give up watching altogether.
Dvorak is a bomb-thrower--he makes his living on bold statements. The particular details of each have only passing relevance. For example, his online columns for pc mag often include some wild remark followed by a request for feedback in their online forum. There (unlike /.), viewing a single comment generates a page-view, so the number of comments a particular column can multiply the number of pageviews (and therefore ad-views) the column gets.
He's the Howard Stern of tech journalism. This is not a criticism--I get a chuckle out of what he says sometimes.
The best theft device ever is the remote control - you just skip to another channel during commercails. Awesome technology.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
7-8 years ago, he had some interesting thing to say. Now, he's gotten as grumpy and irrelevant as Andy Rooney. Who can stand to listen to either of them? They've become old farts that yell at children to get out of their yards.
The only certainty is entropy.
Duh, you answered your own question. You must not have been here long.
The only certainty is entropy.
Some of us have much better things to do after work when there are still a few precious hours of light outside to do them, than to sit in front of a television.
Others like the nifty stuff that comes on only late at night, but let's face it, we do have to sleep some time in order to work that job that pays the bills for all of this wonderful entertainment.
Watching things when you want to is what Tivo is about.
That said I haven't bought one. Instead I wrote my own little program that gets called from a cron job and is programmed with a web interface to use Lirc to control the VCR. This has the added benefit that I can jump on from anywhere I have net access (work, visiting parents, whatever) and set the thing up to record a show :) The drawback of course is the length of tape you have to work with.
I've gotten pretty annoyed at most tech journalists these days. It seems that the majority of computer journalists don't have any formal computer education (MCSE doesn't count). Or they don't tell us.
On the other hand, these articles are for the masses. Do you think engineers sit around and get all their news from PC Magazine?
> If the television stations are receiving their funding
> to broadcast through commercials, then why do we have to pay the
> cable companies?
To send you the signal, of course. Unless you get only local channels through your cable, you're paying them to get the signal to you. If you are only getting local channels, I have two words for you: television antenna.
Virg
Buffoon. John Dvorak is usually a wise voice in the world of computing and technology. I don't know why he dropped the ball on this one, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, because he's been right on the money so often before.
Virg
Hey, I know we've all gone to the bathroom during commercials, we've all gone to get a snak, and we've all flipped channels. I say, to make up for it to the poor, pennless advertising companies, we pick one day a week, and watch only the commercials. If a show comes on, flip to another station to watch their commercials, and show the Ad world that we REALLY CARE!</satire>
Television does not pay for it self. Advertising pays for television. And advertisers will only pay for spots if they get results. So why should big money advertisers dish out the dough if everyone is skipping their commercials with a TiVo?
The amount of money that an advertiser will pay for a spot depends on the number of viewers (among other things, but amount of viewers are a big thing). If less people are watching a show because they're recording it on TiVo, then skipping commercials later, it only makes sense for the advertisers to pay les smoney. They're getting fewer exposures, so they give fewer bucks.
And if networks get less money, then they'll be forced to cut back on the budgets of shows, which means more lame/cheap reality shows.
This observation is right on the money: I'm not required to view the ads to get the content. In fact, the advertisers and broadcasters have no confirmation that anyone is watching the programming at all. If I recorded a program, and then rebroadcast or redistributed the recording (especially for profit!), then I'm really breaking copyright protections. Otherwise, PVR's are like any other form of personal recording, and covered by fair use.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
And I guess my paying the cable company for access to that TV content (however crappy that content is) doesn't entitle me to skip the commercials...
AC comments get piped to
I saw an episode of Silicon Spin on TechTV where John C. Dvorak (who hosts the show) made similar claims. Some guy from TiVo was also there, and they were talking about how TV will make money now that TiVo is 'stealing' TV stations profits, and while the TiVo guy tried to explain how TiVo works to him, and how there are advertisements/channels getting put on TiVo preinstalled now, and other such things, John simply seemed to completely ignore him and say that TiVo is illegal and wont last long. It really got me mad personally, as he was someone whom I respected in the mainstream computing world. And especially since TiVo is quite accepting to geeks who want to basically do what they want with the equipment THEY paid for. However since his working with TechTV he has become quite clueless to facts, and more interested in getting ratings. This was all about 2 months ago too...
I personally gave him feedback, but only received an automated response. It really shows where he stands...
Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
James Brents
It's nothing more than another wealth redistribution to get the money from millions into the hands of hundreds.
Will all TV channels be "premium" in the future? Will the networks mix the advertisements & the programming together (ie. even more gratituous product placements..say one every 1.5 minutes?
Do you remember "The Truman Show"? That TV-satiric movie film featuring Jim Carrey? Because they didn't have commercial breaks, all the marketing was implicit in the background and in the acting.,,
Do you remember this Sly Stallone-Sandra Bullock futuristic movie with an Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" style? All the music was just commercial ads with good rythm which made people sing it along just as today's Top 10...
Subsequently, if even Hollywood has some suggestions of what other ads can be placed IN content (not BETWEEN content), Media Companies are already in their way to ideate new ways of marketing revenue. Don't worry Mr. Dvrk... marketing will remain among us, for better or for worse.
Imagine the past, remember the future - Carlos Fuentes
Hey! They could do an entire episode of FRIENDS on Tampon product placement with hilarious results.
Monica: "Joey, what are you doing with my -ALWAYS- tampon?"
Joey: (Does spit take) "Tampon?!? I thought it was a novelty suppository!"
(Laugh track mindlessly chortles on)
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
Technology IS getting to the point where its easy for Joe Sixpack to "zap" the commercials (the fact that VCRs could do this years ago is meaningless considering the average person can't set the clock on a VCR or set it to record a program without some hand-holding VCR+Plus type dealie)... When these devices become commonplace and nobody is watching TV commercials, that IS a problem...The money is going to have to come from somewhere...If the dot-bomb economy proved anything its that advertisements that nobody pays attention to aren't going to pay the bills. So where does the money come from?
Will all TV channels be "premium" in the future? Will the networks mix the advertisements & the programming together (ie. even more gratituous product placements..say one every 1.5 minutes?)
Its easy to dismiss Dvorak as a loon, but there are some tough economic/cultural questions that will need to be answered some day soon...
With this in mind, lets face it: Tivo and its like are creating a service to content providers by enabling viewers to access their programs at different times then they're played. It gives them a broader audience.
Sponsors are always worried about people skipping commercials - hell, I don't need no fancy devices, I just let my mind wander - and the remedy is same as always: make funny, clever commercials that people want to watch, and make commercials that communicate your message at any speed, with or without sound. Advertisers aren't complaining about Tivo, so why is Forbes?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Dear John Dvorak, I write this message in hopes that you will respond with the utmost urgency and direct me to a law enforcement facility where I may immediately turn myself in and have my remote control impounded. For years I have lived in ignorance; breaking the law by changing the channel when commercials appear on my television. I will cooperate in anyway that I can in order to bring myself to justice.
Sincerely, John Q. Public
I wish I had mod points right now. Someone please mod this up, this guy brings up an interesting point.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Dvorak said the TiVo systems cost $500 which isn't completly false. The newest ones with larger hard disks do cost that much, and when you add on the subscription they can be quite expensive and definetly not an impulse buy.
I don't think we should get too upset by what Dvorak has to say, after all he does write for magazines which do have advertising as one of their major sources of income. Do you think he would write a column about how great it is to be able to get by without advertising? No, because a large part of his salary is based on advertising, and without it he wouldn't he would obviously make much less money. True journalism is unbiased, and there is no way this piece can fall into that category.
SET US UP THE TIVO... err BETAMAX... err... WTF
Electro magnetic pulse
360 degrees of Karma
> Those of us who have cable (and therefore are the only ones for which TiVo makes sense -- or does it work with plain old antenna TV too?) ALREADY pay for TV. Channels should get their revenue from that only.
Good point, I could not argue with that.
I guess we will see at the end some real good tv shows. Otherwise the payment back to the broadcaster will be minimal.
Onepoint
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Well I think he has one point, We are seeing and enjoying the content without seeing the advertising. But this might lead to a new problem. When the advertiser can not get his message out, we might get bombed in other areas ( radio, print, and billboard ) or otherwise we will have to pay to watch TV.
I can only imagine what product placement will be like. it's going to be ugly
ONEPOINT
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my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop news
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www.tivo.com/linux provides the source for both the PPC production box and their x86 development boxes. But, as I understand it, Tivo will only provide service to one of their "partners" (Sony, Phillips, etc). It's too bad they won't consider a validation API whereby if you've built your own box, you connect up, they validate and say "ok, we'll allow you to sign up for service" or "no, your unit does not interact correctly - fix it and try again". (Actually we'd probably need a host simulator to debug this.)
Oh, speaking of funny commercials I have to say that TiVO has the most brilliant commercial of all American companies. I'm talking about the "masculine itch" one...
Anywas, my point is that Tivo is a cool device and American commercials are very lame and they themselves are the reason for the commercial success of Tivo.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
I usualy do something during comercials, is that theft? Also it's funny that MS's TiVo thing looses disk space.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
>>In fact, after recording, my VCR rewinds and marks the commercials using some complicated algorithm.
I once found a website that explained how that Commercial Advance works... the VCR basically just looks for black frames about 30 seconds apart. Simple concept, probably more difficult to implement, and damn does work well, huh? I officially gave it the title of "coolest thing ever" when I first saw it working...
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
He also seems upset that people can use these devices to record content onto a hard drive without paying royalties to the content companies. ... This guy seems to never have heard of the Betamax court case which legitimized time-shifting.
I don't think he has ever heard of a VCR, let alone a Betamax.
When will the TV industry come upon the fact that Dvorak doesn't know his shit, and that the man and woman that used to be on PBS know more than he does?
John Dvorack also works for ZDNet and publishes lots of stupid non-sense articles. This guy writes not to inform, but rather, to increase viewership. He exaggerates claims and uses outrageous news headlines in order to sucker you in.
A few years ago this jackass wrote a column and titled it something like "Get rid of evil cookies". Thanks to creeps like him, half the websites out there have to be redesigned to accommodate those paranoid users who cripple their browsers just so some "evil" cookie doesn't get them in the night.
John Dvorack is a baffoon and I wouldn't read another one of his articles even if I was being paid for it.
---------
Did you just fart? Or do you always smell like that?
eTrade SUCKS
Not to point out the obvious here.... but this is John C. Dvorak we are talking about here.
In the anals of computer science history, Dvorak will be synonymous with moron... Anyone remember his statements in the mid-80's about Apple?
IMHO Dvorak's the computer world's equivalent to Larry King... only half as intelligent and twice as annoying..
Is there a fundamental difference between recording to a standard VCR and using TIVO? All his points make no sense...people have been recording shows for years. It's just that now we can record to disk instead of VHS.
---------------------- Women love me, fish fear me ----------------------
I dont see people trading 15GB TV shows any time soon.
Daddy would you like some sausage?
Given that huge amounts of money are paid to stations to place products directly in most pictures, no one is stealing anything. Regardless, I happen to watch mostly public broadcasting. I also donate to it. So last I checked if I were to use this system, I would not be stealing even by this person's bizarre perceptions. I point this out as many new devices and software products have been threatened with the industries new buzzword Contributory Copyright Infringement. This is can be likened to asking the government to take away cars because someone might use them to commit a crime. I hope to remind everyone that at least some people do use these products for unquestionably legal uses.
I've been fighting that pesky mute button for years, and often warned the kids that for every minuted they talked through the commercials, they'd have to leave the room one minute earlier before the end of the show... 'bout time we see some action on this out and out theft!!!
http://www.forbes.com/2000/05/29/dvorak_0529.html - He predicts that the Playstation 2 will rule the whole video game industry (in my opinion, it won't) also he brings some flawed information: "One add-on called the Multi-tap Adapter allows the machine to run eight controllers and players at once." Every "Next-gen" gamer knows that the PSone and PS2's multi-tap makes people only play 4 controllers at one time. "And Sony's recent court losses in its lawsuit against Connectix may actually give the green light for Sega and Nintendo to develop emulators for their individual machines." If I recall, Nintendo is against emulation (even it is not their system) on everything. I know this is an old article because he still has Sega in the "Console Wars": "But Sony has so much momentum as a game console that it may take years of bad decisions to self-destruct. It achieved most of its lead thanks to superior PR and superb in-house promotional efforts at both Sony Computer Entertainment America and its game division, 989 Studios. I have been very impressed with the doggedness of these operations. And when compared to the rather mediocre PR efforts of both Nintendo and Sega, you can see why those two brands continue to fade." Sega and Nintendo fading? Does he remember that Nintendo is still getting cash off of Pokemon/Gameboy and Sega is one of the most respected video game publishers despite they were losing money on the DC? I don't consider 989 Studios having an "superior" PR due to their recent low quality of games and marketing sequels after sequels of their old "good" games i.e. Twisted Metal, Cool Boarders, etc.
Isn't PVR = New Generation VCR? Also, what when we (need to) watch advertisements on pay-channels? As the Dvorak himself says "To accomplish this with current VCR technology you'd have to record a whole show in advance, then manually bypass the commercials", it seems to me that these PVR's do nothing more than current VCR's but only in a better way - not even as easy or convenient. Further, what about watching advertisements on pay-channels? I thought we pay to the channels for the content, but it never reduces advertising. Anyone thought of that? Somebody may point out example of newspaper here, but there we pay very little in comparision of the cost. but in case of pay-channel, how does it cost them more if a few more people watch it? it doesn't.
YHBT. HAND.
John C Dvorak
While I like the Idea of not watching commercials, if it becomes to wide spread and ad income drops the Network execs will have to think of something new. Like Running ads on part of the screen during the show you are trying to watch. Already there is text and little images scrolling around primetime shows next to their network "watermark". I'd rather put up with a few minutes of ads I can ignor then ones that are in the way of what I'm watching.
-Mike
Objecting the coming changes make them attractive. You are giving the free publicity it so badly needs these days (60 Minutes and up...).
Join the change and embrace it as if was your own. This will take the wind of this. Promise to encapsulate hidden commercial and create some vague financial model to go along.
No Doubt.
So... with all this mediating what will hapen to Canada? Will they even be able to watch TV? Poor Canadians~
ever think that maybe he gets payed to support this view point?
http://Lenny.com
4 great justice!
Why is it that the networks (NBC and CBS at least) are partnering up with them? I've seen a few shows (CSI?) on CBS that have little UltimateTV banners at the beginning. Uh, hello? If the network regarded these things as Dvorak does, why would they choose to advertise them?
Also on my Tivo box when I see ads for NBC shows it shows a Tivo icon on the screen that allows me to record the show automatically ... just hit select while the icon is on the screen and that show is added to the to-do list.
Also, there's plenty of pay tv (HBO for example) that isn't supported by advertising $$ ... so does Mr. Dvorak have a problem with me taping the Sopranos to watch after my kids have gone to bed? ... give me a break ...