TV Networks Sue ReplayTV

Robert Wilde writes: "Three major television networks have sued Sonicblue over the ReplayTV 4000 and asked the court to grant an injunction to prevent the sale of the device." Here's another blurb about the lawsuit. All you readers that predicted that Replay would get sued over this device, give yourselves a pat on the back.

Comments

Re:That first link you have to sign up/register

[brunes69]

No-reg Link to article:

http://archive.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Ne tworks-ReplayTV.html

Re:This is total BS

[Tyger]

That part of the lawsuit has nothing to do with the 30 second skip button. The new ReplayTV 4000 box actually has an option to completely skip commercials, automatically. Similar to those VCRs with commercial auto-skip, except you just don't see the commercial. One minute, it is a break, and the next moment, the break is over. If you are not paying attention, you may not even realize the commercial was there. You don't even get the fleeting glimpse of the product like you do with fast-forward or a skip button. THAT is what they are worried about.

But that is also not the strongest part of this, IMO. I suspect the bigger part will be the ability to share recorded shows.

Article also at news.com

[A Commentor]

For those without nytimes account: news.com

Re:Why is everyone lawsuit happy in the US?

[Phil Wherry]

The Tivo unit is evil, it is yet another of those clueless dotcom scams where you buy something and then have to pay a monthly fee to make it work. Like AOL the designers look for sneaky opportunities to bombard you with ads.

I'm not sure where this is coming from. TiVo's model isn't that different from that of Replay. Replay chooses to bundle the service fee with the price of the unit. You can either pay $10/month with TiVo or $250 on a one-time basis. Both Replay and TiVo have actively looked for opportunities for advertising dollars, but neither one is bombarding people with advertisements. In TiVo's case, this takes the form of some sponsored content that you have to go looking for; while they're definitely attempting to make it convenient to find material from their partners, it's NOT pushed on you in an AOL-like manner. I've got a really low tolerance for gratuituous spam, and TiVo doesn't even show up on my radar screen of annoyances. It's a good product (as is Replay) and was clearly designed with the consumer's interests first and foremost.

Re:How is this different?

[fossa]

Can you back this up please (though I can't back up any of my claims I do know that I watch plenty of ads, and I am of the opinion that I watch less TV than most)? I am seriously curious. I for one believe that TV ads are extremely effective. Why do companies spend so much on advertising? Why are all the stops pulled for the Super Bowl ads? Do you think companies haven't done research on the effectivines of TV advertising?

Yeah, you might go to the bathroom or flip around during commercials, but you'll probably catch at least the first or last commercial in the set. While flipping around you're bound to come across some commercials.

I know as a child I saw certain toys on TV and then wanted them dearly. I know as an adult I am subtly influenced to believe that products advertised on TV are somehow higher quality than generic products.

I don't think anyone's arguing about the effectiveness of ads that are watched though, only if they are watched at all. I believe plenty of ads are watched. One doesn't have to devote full attention to an ad to get its message anyway, the purpose of many ads being repetition for product recognition.

Re:How is this different?

[ncc74656]

It's still just a matter of convenience/ efficiency. If they were serious, and were on solid legal ground, they should outlaw VCRs. Or at least, make them so that you can't hook up machines to make duplicate tapes.

...not to mention the dual-deck VCRs that have been produced over the years. (Hell, there's even a unit now from Go Video that combines a DVD player and a VCR. It won't dub DVDs to tape, though, so what's the point? I'll stick with my Apex AD600A with region-free/Macrovision-free ROM, thankyouverymuch...and if I didn't have that, I still have a Macrovision scrubber floating around somewhere...arrrrr, me mateys...)

Re:How is this different?

[godscent]

The latest version of TiVo allows you to hit a +30 second button. It's sort of a hack/easter egg thing, but it's there.

Re:Doesnt TiVo have commercial skip?

[stevel]

No, TiVo does not have the Thomson/RCA-licensed "Commercial Advance" feature that the Replay 4000 does. Commercial Advance attempts to detect ads, flags them after recording, and then on playback, the player skips the ads. This is the same feature as in many RCA (and some other brand) VCRs.

TiVo has an undocumented "skip 30 seconds" feature, which I find rather pointless - using the second or third fast-forward speeds zips me through ads almost instantly. (And if you enable the 30-sec skip, you lose the "skip to end" feature that I use more.)

Steve

Re:How is this different?

[Spam Bandito]

According to their website, it automatically detects and skips commercials, in addition to having a 30-second skip button. Also, with a VCR you still have to see the commercials, while with the ReplayTV it's (most likely) instaneous.

Re:TiVo has the same feature

[rbird]

TiVo boxes have the same 30-second skip feature (at least the new ones do). It's an undocumented feature, and you have to have a bit of technical savvy to enable it. I would expect that most /. readers could enable this feature, though

Technical savvy? Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select on the remote is all it takes.

Bob