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SonicBlue Going w/ReplayTV 4000 Despite Lawsuit

Posted by Hemos on from the me-wants dept.

Ughhgu writes "Looks like SonicBlue is going to go ahead and start shipping. The Cnet article even has a quote from SonicBlue. It seems they can't understand why the industry would sue them. Sign me up for one!" I'd dearly love to test one of these.

3 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Ever heard of "capitalism"? by Logic+Bomb · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Such devices, the suit contends, deprive the networks of revenue and reduce their incentive to produce new shows.

    Translation: "Our business model is antiquated, and instead of trying to find a new way we're just going to sue anyone who takes advantage of it." Methinks the networks want immunity from the darwinian aspect of capitalism. As I'm sure has been said on /. before, perhaps it's just time to find a better way.

  2. "Pretend" ReplayTV by irregular_hero · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Preface: The way things are posted here is really confusing to me, even though I've been a user for years. Seems to me like I submitted this one a long time ago. Anyway...

    These units have the capability to send shows from one ReplayTV unit to another. There's not a whole lot of detail given about this functionality, but I wonder whether it can be fooled into thinking your PC is a ReplayTV unit. I slobber uncontrollably when I think about a DVR that would let me archive shows to my file server.

    I've been a Tivo owner for almost a couple of years now, and in that time I've modified mine with extra disk space, a web interface, an ethernet port, and a shell prompt on a serial port. :> And there is some work going on right now to play raw video streams from the unit streamed over the network (Andrew Tridgell of Samba fame is the main culprit there), but something like this -- and the stand that SonicBlue is taking on this issue -- makes me sorta want a ReplayTV 4000.

    For those interested, there's very little information on the "Send Show" functionality listed on the ReplayTV web site, but I am curious how a user with multiple ReplayTV units and a broadband hardware firewall would allow people to send video to them. I assume it's a TCP session and let-'er-rip, but the site is annoyingly lacking on details. I'd love to know.

  3. Re:Truth in advertising... by RedX · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If SonicBlue ever sends down an update that takes away functionality that is advertised (printed on the box, mentioned on their website, etc), then they would do this at their own peril. It'd be like shouting, "I hope all of our customers get together and file a class action lawsuit against us!"

    As someone else pointed out in this thread, the legalease on their site states "SONICblue reserves the right to automatically add, modify, or disable any features in the operating software when your ReplayTV 4000 connects to our server."

    What I envision happening at some point is a judge declaring that ReplayTV 4000 can only share programs that the networks allow them to, sort of an opt-in for the networks. So technically Sonicblue wouldn't be guilty of false advertising since you can still share *some* programs. At any rate, the disclaimer above seems to cover them removing features as they please.