Time on "Pirates of Primetime"

binarydreams writes "Time has a pretty decent article on the capturing and trading of television shows on the Internet. The author gives a very good description of the capturing process, the people who enjoy the results, the future of PVR (focusing on the Replay 4000) and why the TV and movie industries are scared." This is just more of the TV industry coming to grips with what happened to the music industry. But it's important that the mainstream learns about it.

Comments

Re:TV is dying

[Thing 1]

I have a TiVO box and think it's great, but still watch ordinary TV because otherwise how would I ever find out what's new in the world?

I have a ReplayTV (a couple years old, model 2020), and I almost never watch live TV (I watched CNN live for a couple months, but "the war" is mostly over now, at least until we invade Iraq).

However, I've been catching new shows that I like, such as "24" and "Smallville" (damn them for scheduling those at the same time, I had to dust off my VCR!).

How? The former through advertising -- I use the 30-second skip button for commercials, but networks have gotten smart enough to put commercials for their upcoming shows in the advertising slot immediately before the show comes back on, and I generally rewind to see those ads. (They're also smart enough to put movie commercials first rather than, say, food or cleaning products which I would skip over. I almost never go to the movies, but it's nice to know what titles will be available to rent in a couple months.)

Smallville I had heard about, but a friend's recommendation started me watching. Back when "24" was broadcast Tuesday nights, then re-broadcast on Friday, I would record it on Friday and get Smallville on Tuesday.

So for a couple years it hadn't been an issue, but it's now looking like dual tuners must be in the next ReplayTV-type device I purchase. (Friends and Family Guy is a tough battle for Fox; perhaps they want to kill FG by putting it up against Friends? In my view Friends has been going downhill, so I don't both to VCR it.)

This got a little long, but I'm just showing through my own anecdotal life that the problem you describe is easily solvable without resorting to watching live TV.

Oh, and I wouldn't have thought to watch The Tick except that I saw it mentioned and discussed here.