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An Offer Tivo Owners Can't Refuse
An anonymous reader pointed us to this little tidbit. The BBC paid Tivo (company slogan: "TV Your Way") to force owners' boxes to record some new program they wanted to push, which looks incredibly exciting. UK Tivo owners seem a little upset.
Does it force you to play them?
And what's stopping stations from turning off the commercial-skipping feature through similar bribery?
This has happened a couple of times here, when they put an interview with Francis Ford Coppola on my unit and it was impossible to delete it. It went away after 8-10 days. Now I have some Sheryl Crow video living at the bottom of my Tivo main menu. But it has never recorded any regular content or shows yet.
The article doesn't say that any of the responses were positive (though I can't imagine many were), but rather, how negative the overall response was. TiVo is "paying attention," but is going to do the same thing again soon. Great that they care about their customers, huh? Although it looks like now, the networks are their customers. Kinda like viewers vs. network TV vs. advertisers.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
I think a million Tivo subscribers returning their boxes would be a fine educational example for Tivo, BBC, and any marketroids who read about this and thought "oooh...now that's a way to increase our market share".
Really. It's a piece of electronic equipment with a power switch. Turn it off and send it back.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
But wasn't April Fools Day nearly two months ago?
-- What? This isn't a joke. Oh. Well, I guess it's joining War, Famine and the rest of those zany horsemen of the Apololypse. See you guys during Armageddon!
Hell, they'd be doing me a favor - the actor who plays "Joe" was in a GREAT movie called "The Castle"
Rent it today!
The "little upset" link wasn't; it just explained that the program "does not take up any of your recording capacity - it is stored in a seperate reserved space."
If it doesn't take up space, and will lower the overall cost of the unit by allowing another revenue stream for Tivo, and you don't have to watch it, and it doesn't interfere with the rest of your programming, why is this news? Am I missing something?
It does not take up any of your recording capacity - it is stored in a seperate reserved space.
Looks to me like Tivo has been planning this from the beginning. Why else would they allocate seperate 'reserved space'?
I stopped watching TV because the ads enraged me. Ditto radio. I've been keeping an eye on the Tivo on the off chance television ever becomes economical (eg- I can get sci fi without having to get 37 other channels I never watch). And now they're essentially spamming their userbase- what next? A hard drive full of Golden Girls and The O'Reily factor?
:P
Fuck that- if I want unrequested, unwanted bullshit in my space, I'll go check my hotmail account. The fact that Tivo is doing this violates the basic concept behind why the boxes are selling at all.
If TV were actually configurable, it would be a simple matter of dropping the offending network from your selection of channels. But it's not- users have the illusion of choice. Much like cokeheads- you can have it cut with ephedrine or vitamin b. Or asprin. But you can't have it pure.
Screw these guys, I'm going home.
Et tu, Tivo?
I fail to see what the big hoopla is about, or why this is even posted to Slashdot. After all, this isn't even the first time that this has happened.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
Makes me wish we had a satellite dish PVR instead. At least then we wouldn't be dependent on phone calls to keep our PVR working.
I love it when all I need to do to stand up for what's right is just keep my money in my pocket.
314-15-9265
I've been thinking about picking up one of these new recorders, but hadn't decided which yet. I do NOT like that TiVo think's it's ok to grab that kind of control over MY property.
I think I just made up my mind, unless anyone has any strong pro-TiVo or anti-ReplayTV information?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Because this is the truth of the matter. Like the Ocsars thing, and various other TiVo promos that happen from time to time, this takes up none of the user space on tivo. The user isn't forced to watch it. What's the big deal?
As a TiVo owner, I'm amazed at what I get for $12 a month. I'd never give it up. If TiVo can generate more revenue by doing something that has no negative impact on the users (and in this case possibly a positive impact), why not?
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Apparently, tivo notes that from day one there was a reserved section of the harddrive for this "feature." So that this recording won't take up any of your 40MB available for recording shows. It also states you are never forced to watch this promo, and that if you had something else scheduled, or were watching tv at the time (it will prompt a viewer and the viewer can say yes or no, in which after a minute goes by it assumes yes, but can be still stopped later) It won't record the show. Obviously this is a form of money making from TiVo? But I don't see where the downfall is?
Really, it appears that the Tivo unit goes out of its way to NOT cause a problem. As the summary post stated, it doesn't use your own storage space, it doesn't pre-empt your own desired recordings, and it asks to change the channel if you are currently watching something.
The last one seems to be the only annoyance, if you were in the can, you may come back to find it on a new channel, but I think Tivo did a decent job of trying to make this a painless "grab" of promo items which aren't even forced on you - just automatically made available to you. The only way it really could be made any more painless is multiple channel tuners, so it could grab the show off the 'backup' no matter what you're doing in the first place.
Those TiVo guys sound a little familiar;
"Most of you probably don't know me yet. I'm Bob Pony. I work for TiVo in product marketing.
I was one of the first people at TiVo to take note of this thread (back when it was just a few pages long).
As it turns out, I discovered the thread yesterday when I stopped into the UK forum to properly introduce myself. You see, I've just picked up responsibility for the forums last week, after Richard Bullwinkle left TiVo.
... a TiVo like device that is open source and/or uses open protocols to download TV listings and data from my choice of modem or ethernet.
This way I am not tied to a service, should the service provider go out of business. I am not subject to this type of thing because as soon as a content provider "recommends" programming for me that I feel is inappropriate, I just change a configuration file and download program info. from someone else. I could even write a script to serve my own.
Imagine, communities of TiVo users starting a watching preferences Database. tivo.slashdot.org users find that people who like Evolution on PBS also liked Such-and-such program on Discovery.
etc, etc, etc. When you open the protocol, you get much more exciting features than you could have programmed yourself.
I would *definately* pay more up front for this type of hardware. (hint, hint) (No, really.) (... Anyone listening?)
You're absolutely right -- it's a little clip that goes and lives in TiVo central (usually "Showcases" or someplace similar).
It won't be recorded if you're watching live TV or already recording something else. It doesn't eat into your storage space, as it's stored in the TiVo's reserved space.
What this is is another fine example of Slashdot posting articles mindlessly and submitters submitting articles mindlessly.
isn't that all this amounts to?
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
It does not take up any of your recording capacity - it is stored in a seperate reserved space. You still have 40 hours of recording capacity on a standard TiVo.
Big Deal. Lots of companies do crappy little things like this. Your Tivo hasn't changed, functionally. Complain when you come home some day and find your kids watching pr0n you didn't ask to recorde...
-Sean
What you said. The hardware's available for peanuts. (A cheap-azz Duron or P3 or P4-Northwood box, plus an older ATI-Rage-128-based capture card is all that's really needed here.)
The only thing missing from the open alternatives today is the software. (If I were a good enough designer/coder, I'd do it myself. Sadly, I've gotta wait 'till others, with madder sk1llz than I, get around to it.)
Any of you coder-d00dz wanna brew up an "embedded" Linux distro? Ideally, this could even be a turnkey solution -- "Buy hard drive. Buy supported video card. Boot from floppy. Insert CD-ROM with disk image. Reboot. Done."
If I buy a box, the hard drive is mine, not the advertiser's.
(I'd be very interested in knowing, from Tivo owners, if the advertiser-mandated download pushed off any content you were archiving. I'm disgusted by, but could tolerate, a Tivo recording stuff without my knowledge or consent, so long as programs I wanted to keep were preserved. If I owned a Tivo, I would never tolerate an advertiser overwriting a show I'd recorded on my Tivo's hard drive in favor of its own content.)
And since Tivo execs are reading this -- if your advertising (which is what "records a show when the show's owners pay you enough" really means) does overwrite user-saved content, I'll never purchase your product, for any reason whatsoever.
The recording is of the lowest priority, that is, it will only record if nothing else is scheduled to record. It doesn't show up in your Now Playing list, it shows up as an option on your Tivo Central Menu. Check the thread for all the details/complaints.
Following the link posted in the article about TiVo users being upset has a list of 'known facts' about TiVo Enhanced Content.
> If you have another programme scheduled at the time the promo airs, then TiVo will record your scheduled programme and will not record the promo. Your own scheduled recordings always take priority.
> If you are watching Live TV at the time TiVo will ask permission to change channels to record the Promo. Note if you are not around to say no TiVo will go ahead. I *think* the buffer up to the time of the channel change will still be available.
As a TiVo user, this really doesn't bother me. It is a possible alternate source of revenue for TiVo, which is always good. I've noticed them before (as other US TiVO users) and I've watched a few.
As long as it's available as an option only on the front menu, doesn't take up my recording space (they use some 'reserved space'), it doesn't force me to watch it, and it doesn't otherwise restrain my usual TiVo use, I really don't think it's a problem at all.
The TiVo is a tool that changes your TV watching habits in such a way that you may not be exposed to new shows as a normal commercial-watching viewer. While it (on principle) bothers me that it ignores parental controls, especially for a show with bad language, this is a tolerable way of letting you know about new shows.
According to the Tivo Community forum, there was some bad language in the show recorded, but the promo is bypassing the parental filters, meaning that even if you have it set up to only record the most boring pointless dribble for your kids, it will still record something R rated if Tivo gets enough money. I have never even looked at the parental controls on my Tivo, but i really find this completly unaceptable.
You may want to check out xm radio in response to your hatred for radio commercials. I have found it to be AMAZINGLY good, and at only $9.95 a month, with a constant variety of music with no commercials, it's well worth it. Downside is that receivers are in the $200 to $300 range which you must buy upfront.
Sadly, TiVo seems to have become the whore of the PVR industry. SonicBlue seems to understand that by being pro-consumer they will win market share.
The big investors (media companies) of TiVo are no doubt the reason behind this bogosity.
Does this show have priority over all other shows running at the same time? So if it ran at the same time as farscape, would I have a copy of this show, or of farscape?
(I don't own a tivo, and I'm basing this question on the assumption that it can monitor one channel at a time)
There's no "control" issue here.
You're not forced to watch it, and if you're recording something or watching live TV, it won't be recorded. It's also not using up any available disk space, because the space it's stored in is restricted to TiVo software and brand content.
You paid for it, it's yours, and you do have the control. You're not giving any up, because it doesn't magically usurp your recordings or TV viewing.
It seems that they were probably planning on doing this all along, having set aside some space on the disk above and beyond the advertised capacity of the tivo thang. According to tivo the forced recording doesn't take up any of the user's storage space and if they had another recording scheduled, their tivo would record both.
This being the case, not interfering with any of their plans or enjoyment of their media, the only problem people could have with this is that they have to look at a program listed on their menu. Is that so horrible?
Invasion of privacy probably not. However unless they were very careful in the wording of their contracts and people didn't read very will it might well constitute a criminal offence under the computer misuse act. It may also be possible to take civil action against them if as reported it recorded material intended for adults and let children play it ignoring the parental controls.
This is disgusting behavior by both companies. What gives them the right to decide what everyone will watch? What if Penthouse paid Tivo to force everyone to record porn all night? And what's up with the show not being able to be deleted the file for a week?
Is there a warning on the box that says it'll do this?
Travis
If you have another programme scheduled at the time the promo airs, then TiVo will record your scheduled programme and will not record the promo. Your own scheduled recordings always take priority.
and
It does not take up any of your recording capacity - it is stored in a seperate reserved space. You still have 40 hours of recording capacity on a standard TiVo.
and it's not forcing me to watch it....hmmm...why is anyone upset? Heck from the description of the show it sounds like BBC's other show 'one foot in the grave' which I liked....if it forces me to record shows that I probably would be interested in, I've got even less to complain about...
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
It lets the networks choose what we watch. If it happened in America we'd have to watch such garbage as "SpyTV", "Watching Ellie" and "Three Sisters".
Networks MUST be stopped!
I would be interested to know where this space comes from, and if it is hackable to add to the 40 hours.
The Dossa & Jo promo contains some bad language and is unsuitable for younger viewers. Parental controls are not effective so be careful.
Doesn't this interfere with my choices as a parent? If I don't want my kids to watch this, am I SOL? Sounds like a recipe for pissing off lots of people. Really fast.
BTW IANAP (I AM NOT A PARENT)
"Reaction varies from mild surprise to outright rage, with TiVo representatives saying that they're taking note of everyone's reaction, but the company has also said that it will be doing the same thing again soon."
Great, so no matter how loud the complaints are, TiVo plans to record more shows without permission. This sounds like a scary way to boost network ratings. Apparently your vote is now for sale to the highest bidder, whether you were watching the show or not.
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed... Oh wait, he does.
"To Initiate Viewer Outrage?" Is this what they hope to inspire by this maneuver? I hope they learn fast that people get TIVO, not to watch what the broadcaster wants but what they wanted. If TIVO continues down this path I think they may be in trouble.
tivo has downloaded a car commercial and most recently a sheryl crowe video/advertisement. the only difference between this and uk stuff is that uk is actually recording a broadcast show, whereas the US ones were downloaded through the phoneline during the nightly update. it shows up on the main menu as another option, but does not clutter up your now playing menu. also, the uk discussion group states that tivo will not override any existing show recordings to record these specials. i presume it will override your thumbs up preferences though.
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
Mine got some Mariah Carey video on it. I can't delete it, because it's on the main menu screen. Thank god I'm not forced to watch it. This is the kind of BS I always knew would eventually happen.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
While not exactly the same as this, I noticed recently that at around 2:30am, my Tivo asked if it could change the channel to record "data which was part of the Tivo service".
Curious, I agreed. TiVo tuned in to the Discovery channel, where a rapidly-changing full-screen barcode was being broadcast with a small text box in the center that said the broadcast was part of the TiVo service.
After Tivo was done a few minutes later, I noticed Sheryl Crow's new music video was prominently displayed in "Now Showing".
- James
I think that Tivo users as well as users of other PVRs are going to have to get used to this type of thing. If the information supplied on this page is correct, then this perceived intrusion is not much of an intrusion at all. As long as user-specified recordings aren't overridden, the user isn't forced to view the content, and device capacity isn't affected, I'm not sure what the problem is. Now, if Tivo et al. decide to limit the ability of users to skip ads, that may be an issue - but I'm not sure the community should be up-in-arms about this particular issue. Tivo needs to make money in order to fight the networks in the inevitable lawsuits to come. If they demonstrate a limited willingness to work with the networks, then judges are going to be much less likely to take the side of the 'content' providers.
I think the networks are currently in a tough position with the PVR issue and anything to take them off-balance is a good thing.
If I paid for it, it's mine. And it's control belongs only to me.
You paid for the hardware, but you also subscribed to the TiVo service. In doing so, you gave up some control to the owner of that service.
I paid for my DSL modem, but I certainly don't have complete control over my DSL service. This really isn't much different.
I got my TiVo for $100 on a promotion for the summer olympics in Australia, and then I added a 40 or 60GB drive (I can't remember). So I have been using a TiVo for some time now, and I can't imagine watching TV without it. I am pretty sure the last time I watched live TV was in September.
Additionally, my life is as ad free as I can make it. Banner ads are filtered out, or at a minimum the animation is disabled, so all I see is the first, usually nonsensical, frame. Now that I have a CD player in my car, I don't listen to FM radio, and even when I did, I would change the channel or turn it off when an ad came on. So of course, I use the TiVo to skip all of the commercials that come on.
Those two things being said, I am not entirely opposed to TiVo using the reserved space on the recorder (space that doesn't count against how many hours the recorder came with, or how many shows I can record) to record promotional items. Assuming, as was the case this time, the TiVo isn't recording anything else, I don't really care if it decides to grab some show because the BBC, or whoever, paid them.What I am opposed to, of course, is having the TiVo force me to watch it, or even be in my face about telling me it is there. TiVo used to have a thing where an ad would come up on the screen the first time the TiVo button was pushed, after the ad was recorded. People complained this was annoying, so now TiVo just seems to put an extra line on the main menu, saying Sheryl Crow video, or whatever.
The forced message was bad, because they say, you only see it once, and it only shows up sometimes, but how soon is it until I have to flip through 5 pages of banner ads before I can get to the menu? And then what, forced 30 second commercial spots before I can watch a show? I currently don't mind paying $12/month for the TiVo service, but that type of forced behavior will cause me and many others to investigate other means of loading scheduling information onto the TiVo. Very simple, abuse your customers, lose your customers.
Now, in the case of this BBC show, I think it would have been more reasonable for TiVo to have everybody record the show as one of TiVo's recomendations. Hopefully it would still be stored in reserved space, as it wasn't a true recomendation. Then people would see it on there list of shows, and watch or not, and like it or not, based on the shows merit.
You can view the endings to all of your favorite shows on the Slashdot home page! It's free, it's quick, and you get the information before the show even airs on the West Coast.
As the moderator posts on the TiVo boards point out, the recording is made to a reserved part of the system, so no space is lost, and does not interrupt any other recording the users may have been doing. So, in that respect, it's not actually as offensive as it sounds.
What does strike me as dubious is, "The Dossa & Jo promo contains some bad language and is unsuitable for younger viewers. Parental controls are not effective so be careful." (quoted from Gary Sargent, a moderator at TiVo).
What they are saying is, "Regardless of how you try to protect your children's viewing habits, we will disable your controls and make whatever content we feel like accessible to anyone who uses the box - and this may well be your children who are in from school before you." Not only do they disable the parental controls, due to the nature of the TiVo unit, they also make [potentially] adult material available outside of the carefully regulated UK "watershed".
So, how long before a TV channel wants to get viewing figures up on some late night porn dressed up as a documentary and a nation comes home the next day to find their kids happily watching away at 5pm?
You are paying for a service, and you have to accept the service at the terms of the service provider. Bell Canada forced me to look at advertisements for their services on the display on my telephone, and no matter how many times I called to have the ads removed, they kept coming back within a week. I just lived with it, even though I owned the telephone in question.
The only thing that tivo is expecting people to do as a *minimum* is to put up with a line of text showing a program that's recorded that they can watch.
All of this nonsense people are spouting out about having their privacy and rights violated really bothers me sometimes. Seriously, we're at the mercy of the big companies. If we want a service, we have to take what goes along with it. What a surprise...companies want money? Companies advertise and market their products/services? Never heard of that before!
It's business, and this decision didn't hurt anyone, it just made it possible for you to watch a new show at any time you chose, or chose not to, because the BBC wanted you to. TiVo made some money, and the BBC got some more exposure for their show. The user of the TiVo still had the choice of whether or not to watch the show--and if they chose to watch it, they could do it at any time they wanted. You gain potential convenience, and lose nothing. To me this isn't nearly as bad as having to watch commercials--something we all put up with and rarely say anything about anyway.
Relax people. When your rights are really being violated, you'll know for sure, without having to make mountains out of molehills. Sure, I'm sure the next argument would be that the more of this kind of thing that we let companies do, the worse it will get. Again, you'll know when it's really time to complain. There's also laws in place to stop things from getting that bad.
People, please. Read the link to the UK TiVo community before posting in this thread. You're all asking the same questions over and over again. But since none of you will, since people on the web seem averse to actually reading...
1. It doesn't take up space, all TiVo's have reserved space on their drives for this kind of thing that you would never have been able to record on anyway. You're not getting any less space than you paid for.
2. It will NEVER delete anything you had to record this.
3. You DON'T have to watch it.
4. It will NEVER record this instead of something you wanted it to record.
I have a TiVo. This program is on my menu. Who the hell cares? I ignore it, and in a couple of days it'll disappear.
Actually I would hihgly recomend just using any AGP card, and a standalone bt8x8 Windows 2k/XP dropped support for most of them but linux has good support as do previous windows OS's (and with some work 2k/XP as well), but people are dumping them on the market, and good deals can be had by all.
Parts of the software is there. the big thing is the lack of a Program guide.
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
From the TiVo FAQ:" In 2.5, there is a unofficial, undocumented way to turn on 30 second skip. This will turn the "skip to end" (->|) button into 30 second skip. However, this means you will lose the current functionality of that button, including skip to tickmark while in RW/FF. To try it, enter the following sequence of buttons: Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select. The code will toggle 30 second skip off/on so enter it again to switch back if you don't like it. Also, after any reboot, the button will revert to original standard functionality." This seems to work best if you do it when a prerecorded program is being played...
Ha Ha Ha... The Young Ones. I loved that show.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
First of all, while this incident happened only in the UK, TiVo has been doing this sort of thing in the US for some time now. Just a couple of days ago I had some Sheryl Crow thing on my TiVo. I didn't watch it, so I couldn't say what it was. After a few days, it disappeared by itself.
That's kind of the point, really. You're not required to watch this content. It's recorded for you only if you're not already recording or watching something else. And it goes away by itself if you ignore it. Why all the uproar? What less intrusive or obnoxious form of advertising can you imagine?
Are you gonna make be break out the Simpsons quotes on you?
To stop those monsters 1-2-3
Here's a fresh new way that's trouble free
It's got Paul Anka's guarantee...
Guarantee void in Tennessee!
Just don't look!
Just don't look!
Just don't look!
Just don't look!
I can't believe some of you suckers falling for
TiVo's line that "it doesn't use your storage
space at all, it uses some *different* space!"
Uh, huh, and which space on the box *I* bought
with *my* money is "not my space?"
It's just hilarious how gullable people are. Just
by phrasing things oddly or renaming things, people
can be convinced of anything.
The only thing that might bother me about this is if I were a parent. My guess is that a lot of the people that are up at arms about this are people that don't know all the details. This is less of an invasion of privacy than popup or popunder ads!
Since your programs get precedence, their program is listed at the bottom, their program is not in your 40 hour buffer, and their program does not require you to watch it, I can't really find another problem besides the lack of parental control over their program.
Why would TiVo care? The poster of the parent is operating on the false information the story establishes.
That's like me going to bitch at the car dealership because my neighbor swears they're going to come make their logo four feet wide on the side door while I'm asleep if I buy their car. It's not true, and they'll laugh me out of their building.
Why do TV stations pay to attract "commercial skippers" to their shows?
quite simply, it is video spam
It looks like I'm going to take some major flack from everyone and their dog that I was telling to buy these things.
I expect things to get much worse. Not only will you have the programs that TiVo will push to you, but it's only a matter of time until mass spammers exploit this for their own evil plots... to take over the world.
No it doesn't force you to play it. It doesn't even force you to *record* it. It will only record it if it's doing nothing else. It does not take up any recording space allocated to the user. In fact the only intrusion is that you get an extra choice in your menu of recorded programmes
Now, this is a scheme for them to make money with minimal intrusion. I honestly can't see anything wrong with this as it is not intrusive in the slightest
Again, read the article
File under "High-tech product obeys manufacturer over owner."
You laugh now, but wait until your flying car automatically lands at a McDonalds every hour during any long trip. A feature they didn't tell you about when you bought it. In fact, one that didn't exist when you bought it...
Thank you, I'll take the product that you can't reprogram remotely. The one that works for me.
So much for buying a tivo. I will not tolerate pushed content on any device I'm paying for.
Pity, tivo seemed so clueful at the outset.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Apparently "must see" has taken on a new meaning. What's next? Armed thugs coming to your house to keep you from changing away from NBC on Thursday nights?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Argument 1: "It's coming from reserved space, so it doesn't affect your existing programs."
What if I have a 15 or 30 hour box (at basic), and some event (vacation) means I'm having trouble juggling just a few things I wanted -- in the meantime, space is "reserved" that could have been provided for my use (remember me, the one who bought the product for usability's sake).
In that sense, the reserved space affects my regular space, and that of anybody who purchases the box, because only so much "space" fits in a given box. If it's about making for both happy users and a healthy company, the money from people who prefer the "extra" space rather than reserved space may outweigh the (payoffs from networks minus lost subscriptions from angry users).
Argument 2: It doesn't pre-empt live television.
Mostly wrong, though it doesn't seem to pre-empt scheduled recordings. I often pause a baseball game and leave the room to take a phone call, for example, or leave it playing knowing that I can go back 20 minutes or so to catch Barry Bonds' record-tying home run.
On 60 seconds notice, a forced program changes the channel and loses the previous program buffer. Goodbye, user option to review what they might have missed, all because they weren't on guard with the remote to respond "yessir" or "nosir" to the equipment they own. Remember that is one of the prime selling points of the product, at the moment.
For you non-Euro-resident readers, the BBC already collects a gigantic toll from the population at large ('the license fee'; currently UKP112 for a colour TV ) for its budget, in exchange for what is generally regarded as among the best programming anywhere. While I have supported the BBC strongly in the past, this kind of activity essentially is extremely unethical for a number of reasons:
The BBC, through its joint ventures in the UK (particularly publishing and radio), North America and elsewhere, is already blurring the distinction between public monies (the license fee) and private finance to an unhealthy level. With this latest effort they lose a little more of their hard-earned reputation of objectivity in pursuit of coin, and more importantly, give the British public less of a reason in future to pay the fees.
Regardless of however small the payment was in the grand scheme of things, this was wrong. To think of it another way, 100% of the British television public paid for only a small subset of viewers (less than 1%?) to receive something that they probably didn't want. How is that acceptable?
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Amen, brother. That's why I don't own a PVR. I want one that doesn't need to phone home, and can get its programming info from the guide channel or something. Am I reduced to the Linux PVR project? I'd rather not build my own.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
I'd be very interested in knowing, from Tivo owners, if the advertiser-mandated download pushed off any content you were archiving.
RTFA. Tivo reps have said, in various postings on the web, that this feature-- or whatever you want to call it; don't get semantic on me-- stores its data in a reserved partition. Because you could never have recorded user content on it in the first place, putting promo content on it has zero effect on your programs.
This is clearly spelled out in the third link off the post.
The reserved space doesn't come out of your record space.
When the box says it's a 15 or 30 hour box, it's a 15 or 30 hour box. You are guaranteed 15 or 30 hours for recording -- the reserve is always reserved, and is not figured into that number. There's no wool being pulled over your eyes, and it was never promised for your use.
Argument two, I can't respond to as I haven't ever had anything paused when something was scheduled. However, it would seem the TiVo's common sense would dictate if you've got the buffer paused, it shouldn't touch the channel.
You can get just the Sci-Fi channel (or any of about 50 other channels) without getting any other channels bundled in.
It requires a C-Band satellite dish. You know, the Big Ugly (Useful) Dish.
It also requires an analog satellite receiver with a VideoCipher II card.
Sci-Fi channel subscriptions are about $10/year, and you can choose which programming broker you deal with.
Added bonus: The picture and audio quality are great. This is the same signal that is fed to cable companies and cable-on-a-stick (DirecTV, Dish).
Downside: It's not much help if you live in an apartment building or have a local zoning restriction forbidding dishes > 1 meter in diameter (5 feet is about the practical minimum size for a C-Band dish, depending on your location).
TiVo has been toying around with this ever since the 2.5 software came out in the US. TiVo uses these recordings for good as well as evil.
In the 3.0 software, TiVos will now download a large chunk of their data from these special programs. TiVo does this by buying a late-night paid programming slot on the Discovery Channel. The actual show looks like a screen full of CC data, and there is a major upside to receiving these datacasts. They significantly shorten the length of daily phone calls. Bonus. (Not to mention that the 3.0 software on Series 2 units unofficially supports update-over-internet...)
As has been stated over and over, the special recordings don't take up usable space. A portion of the MFS filesystem is flagged as Reserved, and this is where the data goes. TiVo downloads a promo, it runs its course, and disappears. It also will never switch to record the show if you have something else set to record in the same time slot, so it's not even very intrusive. And in the US (not sure about the UK), the time slot is early in the AM when you're not likely to have programs scheduled to record anyways.
Regardless, the promos aren't that intrusive, don't take up recording space, and don't interfere with your recordings. Plus, Embeem has created a script to remove the ads, which has been around for quite a while, so you can remove the ads yourself if you're horribly offended.
So long story short, this is not a crisis situation. You're not forced to watch the ads, and its easy to ignore them. Hell, you can even remove them yourself with a little trickery. What's the big deal?
If an extra menu item in TiVo Central with an icon next to it is enough to make you refuse to buy or even return your TiVo, ESPECIALLY since Embeem offers you a script to remove the menu item yourself, feel free to take your TiVo back to its point of sale. It just means less complaint postings in the TiVo Forums for the rest of us to wade through.
but this is another reason to use open source.
The only way you will know for sure that your metworked devices will obey you and noone else, is to get ones that are user programmable and put your own, or open sourced software on them.
What's strange is that if TiVo had already set aside space for these promos, then why does the moderator of the TiVo message board (on behalf of the company)say this:
Typically we try to pre-announce these kinds of things to the forum before launching so that they aren't a surprise to people. I'm sorry we didn't get out ahead of this one.
So either they had other plans for the extra space (maybe just an upgrade for extra storage), or they wanted to surprise users and observe the response. It seems like they expected the negativity and aren't taking it as seriously as some would wish.
The next time a commercial comes on, time the seconds between shifts from one scene to the next. The average I've been able to determine is 1.5 seconds. Now perhaps I'm a bit slow, but I generally can't follow the speed of the ads coming through the television.
All I see during the commercial break are streams of beautiful colors, and the high-pitched squealing of desperate advertisements. Sometimes I tend to catch the tail end of long-winded pharmaceutical commercials where the happy middle-aged woman is playing with her kids at a park, while a nice stranger politely informs me of the mild side-effects of said drug "Zenophenobarbitol" which range from stomach cramps, to cancer and heart arrest.
Folks, television is expensive in so many ways. Cable and satellite costs are outrageous, the programming is pathetic, and the news is now entertainment oriented and basically just a tool for propaganda.
Most importantly, this is your life you are wasting in front of the tube. Just turn it off, and give it to GoodWill.
As a Brit, and a TV owner, what I want to know is why the BBC is spending licence-payers money on this sort of thing? What does trying to force people to watch programmes they don't want to to do with quality broadcasting?
And yes, I know they weren't forced to actually watch it - but surely it isn't appropriate for them to be spending this money telling people they were wrong when they looked in the Radio Times and went 'nah, I don't want to watch this'...
They never told you what you can and can't do with your TiVo. You're perfectly welcome to hack on the hardware to your heart's content and install your own OS on it. However, it probably won't be able to run their software anymore.
By the same token, you could argue that Linux is a freedom-taking monster. Who the hell is Linus Torvalds to tell me that I can't overwrite my boot partition with a bunch of zeros?
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
Bzzt, but thanks for playing our game.
A TiVo runs the hard drive 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's recording 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It takes no more electricity to grab a promo than it does for it to sit there on the last channel your watched and waste time.
If you're concerned about electricity loss, then you'd better unplug your PVR when it's not scheduled to be recording something.
First, no one's forcing you to watch the show. It simply appears as an option on the menu. You can ignore it as you wish. It's far less intrusive than the average banner ad; and ads don't stop you from viewing Slashdot. It's even less intrusive than Google text ads!
Second, the extra space on the Tivo was not something that you knew about when you bought it, and it did not affect your purchase of the Tivo in the least. When you buy one, you know that it's a sealed box. If someone wants to make a PVR libre, I'd be glad, but Tivo reserving a very small amount of space is completely normal for a corporation.
Finally, a number of people think it's bad that the program had "bad language" but that it overrode "parental controls". Talk about control. What gives you the right to decide what your children can watch? Tivo has a program downloaded to your box... but it doesn't override your schedule... but it doesn't record if you ask it not to... but it doesn't force you to watch it... but it doesn't take up any space... And you're outraged! But your children are being explicitly denied the right to watch a TV show, solely because it has some "bad language" (which isn't bad - would you rather your kids fist- or gun-fighting than swearing?), is completely fine. Listen to yourselves!
As many of you may or may not know, the BBC is subsidised by the government and consequently a proportion of TV license fees and taxes go towards it.
So now I find that the BBC is using some of my money pushing crap TV onto people's TiVo boxes!? WTF? Firstly, what's the point of a government-owned TV channel pushing it's own content on a private TiVo service? To get other channels to buy it? If it's crap, no-one will syndicate it anyway, but hey - the taxpayers paid for it to be made, so who cares! Secondly, does this alter viewing figures? Viewer ratings seem to be notoriously difficult to estimate/guess/ascertain, so what does a TiVo box do about it, is this going to give the BBC inflated figures?
So, thanks BBC. Instead of using my money to make cool documentaries, you force shit onto people's TiVos, pissing everyone off in the process.
... that it's porn what they forced me to record.
ENOUGH Tivo!!
Stop with your LIES!!
"Yes, NBC representative, we at Abercrombie & Fitch will take your 'Clockwork Orange' package for this week's 'Scrubs' ... yes, the standard fee, $5 million for 100,000 'Alexes' ... standard waivers of liability."
Here's a little tidbit for those of you with the same kinds of gripes about Sheryl Crow.e bruary/001372.html
http://darwin.codefab.com/pipermail/random/2002-F
That link provides a list of TiVo Backdoor Codes.
To remove the clips from a TiVo 2.5 unit, first enable Backdoors by entering "B D 2 5" (one space between each character) into the 'Search By Title' and pressing ThumbsUp.
After enabling Backdoors, enter the following code from the ToDo List:
- Thumbs Down, Thumbs Down, Thumbs Up, Instant Replay
This will put all those little clips from TeleWorld into the ToDo List and will allow you to delete them.
Granted, this doesn't free up any space for you, but it at least deletes the entries for BestBuy and Sheryl Crow from the Showcases. Maybe even from the main menu (I don't know because mine is already gone).
Just a bit of info for those fellow TiVo users.
This is sick. People don't realise that when they by a Tivo (and whatever anyone says, i still think they are just another evil company) you are signing a contract that says "we control this box". People must understand this, otherwise it is deceptive advertising. It should be put clearly on the front of the cardboard box or the advert or whatever "we control this box". I will never buy one of those stupid things anyway, not when i could build my own that wasn't controlled by someone else, didn't restrict what you could do, and would allow me to burn some cds too. I'm still looking for decent PVR software projects, and btw i just started playing with BeOS, what does anyone think about using it for a PVR? - it has some good hardware support (pitty about the abandoning of it) and seems pretty stable, plus it loads in seconds. I managed to get my tuner working in about 10 mins.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
So when every device in my kitchen is online,
will Safeway pay Kelvinator to force my fridge
to order their milk?
Will my net aware Ford drive itself to Shell?
Is this the promised end? Or image of that horror? KING LEAR
How many of you screamed when it came out that Kazaa was going to use your computer's bandwidth and storage for their purposes?
How is this issue different from that one?
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
In case you did not look at main menu, Tivo in US has video clips and other stuff from **** (major store). Before it was commercials about cars. :)
I only wonder if they actually record it from on-the-air paid presentation or download via modem (I bet it's the latter as content is branded "Exclusive"). Modem download of ~15-20 minutes of video is ok. But if it gets to one hour of commercial downloading I am going to sell this pesky little box and use software-only solution
p.s. exclusive content to my oppinion is quite crappy. they should have known I don't like it as they have my preferences lined up...
Hyperom.com
When TiVo was pushing its Series2 a few months ago, they added a menu option to plug the new models, including a two-minute commercial you could play for friends who don't understand the PVR concept, outtakes from the Joe Montana/Ronnie Lott commercial they ran last year, and a five-minute infomercial on the new boxes. More recently (in fact, it left my TiVo today), they offered a Sheryl Crow video as part of a promotional tie-in.
None of this interrupted my regular viewing (in fact, I'm fairly sure it got downloaded to my TiVo during its daily call to update TV listings and look for new software). For the most part, it's been unobtrusive. OK, fine - there's an added menu item. Big deal!
Those of you crying foul probably don't own a TiVo anyway, so don't let this talk sway you.
Thanks, I forgot that.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
I'll pay TiVo to force-broadcast "Tampa Tushy Fest 1" to all worldwide subsribers. A little pr0n never hurt and it can't be bad as they said they would force other programming...I figure Seymore Butts can use the help!
Haha, here in the UK the parental control on the Sky+ PVR system is hopelessly flawed. When I used to set it to record MASH at about 4am in the morning or something it would usually record the end of some real-life antics of strippers show, yet, because the program information is based on the time and not some signal sent when the program starts, the last 5 minutes of the dodgy show plus the ads plus MASH plus more ads were counted as "MASH", so presumably if you set the parental filter to stop your kids watching anything dodgy they would still have been able to catch the naughty naughty "cuss words" and full-on full-frontal female nudity at the start of the recording...
The whole way that programme scheduling works on Sky+ pisses me off anyway- I've frequently had the start or end of a program missed because the thing starts recording at the time the program guide says the program is on, yet Sky don't start the program at the correct time...
graspee
The PVR itself is easy to use, and allows you to record any show you want! Unlike Tivo's poor hardware model, I have designed a system with unlimited storage, in the form of inexpensive 'cartridges'. Unlike Tivo's cold digital picture, Steve-O's warm analog signal gives every character a healthy, ruddy glow! Buffy never looked so good!
Steve-O's excellent service is unrivaled in the industry! Find out what's playing anytime, day or night by calling the Programming Line: Steve Ballmer at 1-888-Vel-0P3R. He will be happy to answer any questions you may have, as well as offer program selections! (MSNBC is always a favorite!)
Steve-O's start at just $299! That includes a lifetime subscription to the Steve-O service and three empty cartridges! Call now!
Why does someone *always* have to mention litigation when /. runs stories like this? Any legal council would laugh at you if you told them that you wanted to sue Tivo for recording a show that you didn't specifically request.
If you don't like the way a company does business, don't do business with them. It's that simple -- that's how a Free Market works.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Unless the agreement I assume UK Tivo owners have to agree to for service covers this, isn't this some form of invasion of privacy?
Oh wait. I forgot, that's all gone in the UK.
Yeah, troll away. Be an ignorant fool all your life. Take the easy option.
For your information, the British do have some legally enshrined rights to privacy, some granted by British law, others granted by European Union law.
Included in these is Britain's Data Protection Act. Basically, the DPA governs every detail of how companies treat all the computer-held data that they have on their customers, employees, etc.
One nice benefit of the DPA is that I can demand a company disclose all the information that they have on me. They can charge a nominal fee for this (£10 ~ US$15) but they must comply within a set time limit. And, obviously, if their information is incorrect or harmful in any way they can be made to correct it (and I have the right to take appropriate legal action if I want to).
Now, I can demand that of my credit card provider, my bank, my doctor, my employer, my accountant, my gym, my golf club or anyone else who holds information about me. Try asking that of similar institutions in the US and elsewhere and see how far you get.
Yes, our laws are different. Yes, you have some rights that you'd cut off your right arm than give up (gun ownership anyone?) but, remember, we have some that you'd cut off the other one too to have.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You may want to reword that. It absolutely is intrusive when a corporation can remotely activate and control a device in millions of households. Doesn't matter if the unit was being used or not, the fact that they've left their "fingerprints" behind is clear evidence of intrusion.
You may also want to take notice that in many cases this action was taken against the users wishes. This is evidenced by the fact that many of these users have complained quite loudly.
I don't know much about how the tivo works but I'm willing to bet that it has a low power standby mode and that by powering up to record a show it is therefore costing the consumer a small increase in their energy bill. Multiply that by millions of tivo units to see the overall energy cost. If my assumption is correct then this is another example of intrusion.
To say that this is "not intrusive in the slightest" is not correct.
One thing that I'd be wary about is the quality of the TV out signal from the video card. I have never, ever seen a decent quality video output on any card. Including a Voodoo 3 with a bt8x8 chipset on it. It all looks like absolute crap. Flickering, and the screen has black borders around it.
Does anyone know of any high quality video out solutions that they've seen personally? Not professional oriented because those cost some serious $$$. I'm talking about something less than $100.
So the Tivo people are lying? Do you have any numbers or figures showing this? I'm sure lots of people would like to expose this easily provable lie if so.
I'm going out a limb here and assuming that the tivo has a low power standby mode. If so then when the unit powers up to record a show it is costing the consumer a small increase in their energy bill. The cost may be small but the point is that the energy purchase is involuntary. Also when you multiply the energy cost by millions of tivo units, it starts to look a lot less innocuous.
That is a nice theory, but I don't think it really works that way. Just because a company can get money from a secondary revenue source, don't expect them to decide they should make less money from their primary revenue source. They are going to maximize the total profit however they can. That is the only purpose of their existance. There is no "greed" or "benevolence" involved.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
It's not your space to begin with because you didn't pay for it.
You should just let that clue grenade blow up in your hand. You obviously haven't bought or used a TiVo. If you buy a 40 hour TiVo, you have no footing to complain that it only records 40 hours and not 42 hours.
Joseph Elwell.
> Parts of the software is there. the big thing is the lack of a Program guide.
1 5
Yes, that's why people use All-in-Wonder cards--built-in Program Guide in the form of Guide+ Gold, the same program guide that comes with many newer TVs. ATI has taken the liberty of making a few mods so that the software works more seamlessly with their recording software. Read this:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1609&p=
There's just no substitute for an All-in-Wonder Radeon or above (the All-in-Wonder 128 doesn't come with all the same software, and isn't upgradeable to all the newest versions) if you're building your own PVR. Once I get the money to build a dedicated PVR, the A-i-W will be key. There's simply nothing on the market in the same league.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
If you change the channel, your buffer is gone, because it is being filled with content from the new channel. That's why sometimes when I'm catching up to the front of the buffer, I'll tell Tivo to start recording the show so that if I accidently hit the channel-change button, Tivo gives me a chance to abort, instead of just changing the channel and nuking the buffer.
TiVo has a standby mode, but it isn't a power saving mode - its sole purpose is if you use RF out (instead of the RCA cables), putting the TiVo in standby makes the RF out be a pass-through for the RF in, so you can watch live TV on your TV (or VCR or whatever you have connected downstream of the TiVo). The TiVo will continue to record. The power savings of standby mode is almost zero. (The power LED does turn off, so I guess there's some savings there.)
Insert wit here.
I don't think the capture software is that hard. You could always cobble together a homemade PVR using something like Cinax WinVCR. As you said, CPUs are cheap and fast enough to do real time MPEG encoding. Tivos have a hardware MPEG encoder so it can run the OS on a slower PowerPC processor.
I think the big obstacle is the program guide, which is what make Tivo so useful. Someone could write something to download listings from Yahoo or TVguide.com (there's a few listed on Freshmeat), but it could turn into a real cat and mouse game if the sites start munging their listings to discourage such use.
Your bet would be wrong. The TiVo is constantly recording and there is no low-power mode that it goes into, so that's not an issue.
The fact of the matter is, the space that it got recorded into was reserved for TiVo's use and was never factored into the advertised capacity of the unit so they're not taking any extra resources. Additionally, it only records if it doesn't have anything else scheduled for that time, so I honestly fail to see the problem.
...but the company has also said that it will be doing the same thing again soon.
It really makes you wonder, if part of TiVo's pitch is being able to record what you want, when you want, why they're suddenly "taking bribes" to force you to record what someone else wants you to watch, when they want.
I think, therefore, I'm smarter than our president.
I have a dish network PVR and it did the same thing.
A while back, they finally upgraded the software so it you could search the program guide. When I turned it on, they had recorded a program that was basically a "new features instructional video". It was kind of nice in a way.
However, if they recorded something that was commercial in nature, I would be pretty pissed off. I mean if I wanted to spend time sorting crap out of my inbox, I could just open my mail program.
"Buy hard drive. Buy supported video card. Boot from floppy. Insert CD-ROM with disk image. Reboot. Done."
Boot this. It's a GNU/Linux distribution designed to boot from a CD-ROM disc.
Will I retire or break 10K?
that equates "your way" with driving down the wrong side of the street with a tiger in the passenger's seat?
Your bet would be wrong. The TiVo is constantly recording and there is no low-power mode that it goes into, so that's not an issue.
:)
That's what I thought too, but then I've always wondered what happens when I turn hit the "Power Off" on my Sony Tivo. Does it just turn the green LED off?
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
1 The Windows CD isn't rewriteable.
2. competiton alone does not a free market make.
I've been toying with the idea of buying a Tivo for about a month now, but I've never had a chance to find out if the monthly fee is required or if you can simply use it for it's recording features (which I imagine is all most people want).. can you shed some light on this? Can the monthly fee crap be avoided without a hack?
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
"Now if you want to see the all-important last episode you *MUST* watch it live and you *CAN'T* time-shift it or save it."
What a crock of shit. You obviously don't have a Tivo or you would know that your personal settings would override the recording of special content if there was a conflict.
Dave
first off, thanks for the informative post, i think this is pretty fuggin fascinating - tivo is paying the discovery channel to deliver data services to it's (still rather small) customer base. for this to work i'd imagine the video itself is viewable with your regular cable box, and you post seems to imply this. it'd be intersting to find the specs for this "datacast", especially in respect to the bandwidth it allows. i'd imagine it's a tough job to get data through all the a/d and d/a conversions a typical video broadcast goes through by the time it hits your cable box...
In fact the only intrusion is that you get an extra choice in your menu of recorded programmes
I honestly can't see anything wrong with this as it is not intrusive in the slightest
And tomorrow you will not be able to find what you intended to record between all the 'Tivo enforced' recordings. Nuff said.
Reminds me of a slogan that Bank of America used to print on their transaction reciepts:
"Why not bank your own way? Ask us how."
If all you're looking for is TV out, get yourself a Matrox G400 or G450 dualhead. The TV out is spectacular. DVDs look at least as good coming from my G400 to my TV as they do from my brother's fairly high end standalone Sony DVD player.
You should be able to pick one up for around $100 these days. You can even get the G450 in PCI form and use it as a secondary card if you don't want to sacrifice your 3D performance. Either that, or wait for a Matrox Parhelia-512. Then you'll get your butt-kicking 3D and your dualhead (or triplehead even) in one tidy (expensive) package.
Carpe Cerevisi - Seize the Beer
while the few of us that actually write code know that space can always be delt with.. but time cant. So the box has some space it tucks away that the user cant get to.. it sucks but what can you do. The worse thing is the time. What if you have your tivo setup to record a show.. and then its HIJACKED. So now they are usaing their previously withheld space.. but now you loose the use of your tivo. INAL but Sounds like Trespass by chattels to me.
Try the Dish PVR. Only works with the DishTV satellite system, though. They are cheap if you are a new subscriber to Dish and only do the very basic recording tasks, but they don't phone home.
If Tivo cost, oh... say, ten bucks flat, then your argument would be valid.
Consider:
1. Cost of TV (which I don't own)
2. Cost of cable service.
3. Cost of cable package to get the five channels that I might watch, for which I would have to buy at least four packages which include 70+ channels I will *never* watch.
4. Cost of TIVO.
5. Cost of my time spent in all cases.
6. Cost of time spent watching ads.
My time is money. I *will* - I have in the past, and do presently- pay a very high premium for content I *KNOW* I am going to enjoy. Imported EBM and industrial CDs- 25$-35$ a pop. Back issues of comics and old, out of print albums- five bucks and up. Internet service- DSL, 50$ a month. Hardware upgrades and maintenance (300$+ a year). I buy T-shirts and merch at every industrial or goth show I go to- I fully support the artists I enjoy. Part of the enjoyment is that I get to expience them in their native environment, without advertisements being rammed up my nose. Word of mouth goes further than clearchannel or the cable company- or Tivo- ramming their idea of what's cool up my nose.
There's a marginal amount of content on the idiot box that's enjoyable. Proportionately, it's not worth the time. Tivo- with the cost of the unit, the monthly fees for cable or satellite, etceteras included, would have possibly made the ratio of crap to quality something approaching tolerable. But not now.
Why should I spend my money and time being told how great some item I'm never going to be interested in is?
Tivo does this in the states too. On a Tivo remote there's a button that looks like taht retarded little square tivo thing (I think it's supposed to be an evil mutant TV set) You push that button to get to the main menu. Then you can select "Now Playing", which is the stuff that you have recorded manually (plus the stuff that tivo suggests based on your veiwing profile), and there's a "Showcase" selection, which is where stuff like "This month on HBO" and the Sheryl Crow preview is located. This information is seldom longer than 1/2 hour total length, and is considered part of the 2 gigs of space that tivo has for 'system' stuff. Tivo isn't decieving customers, it's using advertising as an alternate source of revenue, and it's opt-in advertising, for chrissakes. I'm not forced to watch these updates, I usually don't even know that they're on my tivo, and I don't care.
But I've turned into a tivo zealot as of late, so take this with a grain of salt.
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Fact is, even if you have your Tivo set up to drop a bunch of channels you don't like, you're still paying for them. My argument is that I refuse to pay for something I will never use, which is one of the reasons why I do not have cable. I'm not an economics major, so I don't know where the money goes- but I'd rather have my dollar go to HBO or the BBC than QVC or MSNBC. I don't have that choice, so I abstain from spending money that will, inevitably, go to support things that I do not care for.
Claiming Tivo filters channels when you're still paying for them- something another poster mentioned- is sticking your head in the sand. With the web tools available these days, I can simply choose how militant I am about control of the ads I recieve. By default, I disallow pop-ups entirely. Flash is a waste of bandwidth, so those wind up being dropped as well. I honestly don't mind banner ads- some of them are interesting. At least on the sites I go to. I could argue one angle of "these cats need the revenue", but the fact is, some of the sites I visit plug things that I wouldn't have found out about if it wasn't for their banner ads. This is nice, and the potential enjoyment factor is worth the possible hassle.
On the other hand, I have yet to be exposed to a blasting, annoying as hell TV or radio ad that caters to something I'm interested in. I have zero use for cadillacs, depends, preperation H or beer. I could give a shit about the X-fest. It bugs me that I know about these things when I have no need or use for them. But then, I'm the sort of person that actually figures out what I need and then looks for a solution, rather than eagerly being led around by the nose.
The internet advertising environment can be configured by an educated end user on a more or less global level. The television and radio environments cannot- sure, you can flip around, but if you haven't noticed, most networks seem time things so when you flip, you hit another commercial break. You can take or tivo and fast forward or drop commercials, but you're still expending effort to do so. Not an effective solution.
On top of all of that, tv and radio are passive. The net is much more interactive, and I'll take that over the tube any day.
There seems to be a prevailing attitude of "I paid for TIVO, this is mine, blah blah blah" on this subject. Let me clue you in on a fact: companies have to make money. Before you go off on a tangent about the evil corporation selling out the consumer, consider this:
SonicBlue makes models very comparable to TiVO. NO Monthly fee. It's yours. Seriously, do with it as you please. Oh, wait, you don't want to pay $500? Well, here's a TiVO. But they're gonna make their money up somewhere.
PVR manufacturers aren't looking to turn their systems into a razor margin PC; if they want to turn a profit, they have to make it somewhere, and that somewhere all comes down to pay me now or pay me later. I guarantee that if UK users check their EULA, TiVO reserved the right to do this. I don't hear a lot of people complaining about the ~$300 they save when they choose a subscription-based business model TiVO over a pricier, hardware-profit based unit.
Think about it this way: I can pay ~$400 a month and get a Honda Accord (assuming a decent down-payment and decent options), or I can find one of those car wrap companies and get them to pay my note in return for plastering my car with advertisements. Either way, I get a car, but I don't think I have a lot of room to bitch about those gaudy ads on the trunk of my Accord.
For mobile service, I can sign a 1-year contract with Sprint and get X amount of minutes for $Y/month. Or, I can pay $10 additional, and that same plan requires no contract. Pay me now or pay me later.
TiVOs are a great deal, but if you want complete control over your PVR, look somewhere else. Just be prepared to shell out.
It is paid for by a licence fee. The BBC is a separate publically owned independent organisation. They are quite aggressive when there's any hint of government pressure to say any specific thing.
Compar this with the totally independent newspapers. They have no problem at all taking a political stance. Rupert Murdoch owns a large chunk of them, and his position has always been to whoever will give him the lowest taxes.
As someone pointed out, this is just another bit leading the way to having our habits controlled by corporations.
If one continues the current trend, it won't be long before we switch on the tv and have to watch particular shows (whatever the time), as advertisers would rather have that.
Then we get computers where one can only run particular software...
... oh wait...
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There seems to be a prevailing attitude of "I paid for TIVO, this is mine, blah blah blah" on this subject. Let me clue you in on a fact: companies have to make money.
There seems to be a prevailing attitude of "I paid for this car, this is mine, blah blah blah" on this subject. Let me clue you in on a fact: car thief have to make money.
Ok, perhaps it is worth rewording but I'll put into perspective.
It absolutely is intrusive when a corporation can remotely activate and control a device in millions of households
Equivalent to the owners adding another advertisement to the bottom of your Tivo menu... that you don't have to watch. That's no worse than banner ads on webpages except you only get text instead of flashing pictures
You may also want to take notice that in many cases this action was taken against the users wishes
Yep, most users don't want to see ads or even ads of ads. But IMHO, it's a risk worth taking by the company as the level of intrusion is low enough to not turn more user revenues away than bring in revenues
On the energy bill, that's just speculation for now
Intrusive? Sure, it puts a hyperlink to an advert. I can live with that and so will most people. And there are more of those that are happy to live with that and earn more revenue to the company than there are revenue from users that will turn away and that is the key point. Otherwise, the company will have screwed up and will pull the plug on this operation
And tomorrow you will not be able to find what you intended to record between all the 'Tivo enforced' recordings. Nuff said.
No, they aren't gonna be *that* stupid. Can't you give these guys *some* credit for being consumer friendly? Read the article....
Turning the power off does 2 things - switches the LED off, and tells the Tivo that you're not using it anymore, allowing it to freely record any suggestions it may have for you. Normally it will only start recording suggestions after a timeout period.
Doogie. If you can read this, my sig fell off
Don't like what the BBC did? Don't watch BBC. Don't like Sony CD's? Stop buying them. Don't like Tivo's behavior? Sell your Tivo. Don't like what any media corporation does? Stop consuming their product.
The vaunted convergence of PC's and popular media will emasculate both unless consumers organize and start fighting back.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Well I had a problem with it long before they started doing it. Why? Because they took some of the space I paid for away from me. I had a 14 hour unit and upgraded it by adding harddrive space. Then with an upgrade( I think it was 2.0), Tivo reserved some of the disk space I had previously to push their video. At the time there was no explanation, they just took it.
Funny how people forget about them taking the space away in the first place and we get comments like, "it doesn't take up any space allocated to the user". Well it was allocated to me at one point. That's the thanks I get for being a customer, they steal my space and push crap I don't want on me.
I wonder how long it will be before they start disabling old Tivos to force users to get series two machines.
Cat
They stole space from a hard drive I purchased to make the reserved space area. They did this a year ago. This space is reserved out of the box on the newer machines, but they took it from the older ones(mine included). I think I lost about 10 hours.Cat
...until this news came to light.
No way will I get a box with that kind of "fiddle-ability" by the remote powers, enableable and disableable features controlled AFTER my purchase decision is made, and whose data pipe (on which the entire kick-assness of the service depends) exists solely at the discretion of the providers who aren't terribly keen on the whole matter in the first place.
I have a decent hi-fi VCR, works just fine in stereo, has a very, very effective 30 sec. skip button (hit multiple times for longer skips), and for which I have no worries about studios shutting me down remotely or giving me a bunch of shit on my tapes that I never programmed it to tape.
I'll stick with my old analog tech, thank you very much.
For somebody who seems to want his entertainment for free or very little cost, you sure do bitch a lot about commercials. You can't have it both ways, man.
... on my dual 1 GHz P3 system it manages around 8 frames/second encoding, so I typically fire it off in the evening, go out for dinner, come back a couple of hours later and enjoy my program, commercial free, before going to bed, either on my 24" Samsung SyncMaster 240T, or via the video out on my NVidia card on the television itself.
... but in this day and age, if you want to have control over your audio-visual media, you have to use a general purpose computer, as opposed to the already horribly crippled consumer video products out there. Why do you think the cartels are working so hard to neuter your computer?
Commercials, through ongoing repetition, indoctrinate. This means that your ability to make conscious decisions, as opposed to reacting to unconscious conditioning is affected, possibly severely if you are a chronic television viewer.
So I too object to commercials, and I have edited them out of my life, without giving up any of the television I pay for each month ($50.00 cable bill). Turner's CEO, Disney's Eisner & other cartel leaders may be trying to modify the already prevelent 'newspeak' into considering commercial-skipping (or, in my case, editing) theft, but not only is that clearly not the case, I am taking back my own self-determination by no longer letting these people condition me for their own petty profits.
How, you ask?
Like so:
I have a $300 firewire A/D converter (you know, like the one the media cartels want to cripple?). However, you could do this with V4L or V4L2 and a video capture board just as well.
I use dvgrab, cronned up to record Max Headroom each Friday, Enterprise each Wednesday, and SG-1 each Saturday. SG1 is nice because no commercial editing is required.
I use kino (a simple NLE for dv video) to quickly snip out the commercials, and This entire process takes about 3 minutes to do. Then I export the result to another directory, again as dv video (but now without the commercials).
At this point I can either record the result onto dv tape via my camcorder, or convert it to the video format of my choice. I typically convert it to high quality xvid format using a smart deinterlacer plugin for transcode, then burn the result to dvd-r or dvd-rw. The exact procedure I use is detailed here.
The files are typically larger than 2 GB, so I use ext2 filesystems rather than UDF or ISO9660 to get around the 2GB filesize limit. Then it goes into a binder with all my B5 divx recorded episodes (which, alas, are much lower quality, but still quite viewable and better than VHS). The newer stuff I'm doing in xvid format is typically broadcast quality and looks fantastic even on my 1080p capable monitor (I actually watch it in 1200p, since my 1920x1200 resolution allows that).
The transcode step is the only step that takes any real time
If you don't require instant gratification, and schedule your time intelligently (do the capture while you're out, do a quick edit and start the export before grabbing a shower, and do the transcode while you're out to dinner or for drinks), your total involvement in doing this is typically 5 minutes / episode, and your result is a very high quality, commercial free, timeshifted program you can watch once and delete, or burn to DVD and put in your personal video library.
The only catch is you have to use your computer to watch it (my videos require GNU/Linux because of the filesizes and filesystem I use, but you can do this all under Windoze too if you're so inclined, though that may require more supervision, and possibly more than just 5 minutes of your time)
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Something that would end such intrusions overnight AND banish subscription fees:
1) figure out the precise file format in which tivo stores its downloaded program guide
2) on a website, supply such a file which is maintained as up-to-date either by an automated parser or by volunteers
3) document a way to get this file onto a tivo
Any reason this wouldn't work? Anything similar been done?
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- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
How do the various PVRs work with a direct broadcast satellite system (DishTV, DirecTV, etc.)?
Are they digital satellite receivers themselves? Do they act as "remotes" for, say, a Phillips or RCA satellite receiver?
Basically, how do the damned things "change the channel" on a satellite TV system?
They stole space from a hard drive I purchased to make the reserved space area.
That's bullshit, and you know it. Having that reserved space is a design feature of the TiVo. The hard drive is yours, yes, so if you prefer, you can just erase it and use it to store your collection of MP3s or whatever.
I can't believe you'd seriously use the word "stole" in this context. That's just nuts.
Given your attitude, if I worked for TiVo, I'd be thrilled that you're not a customer.
As a worthless troll I really shouldn't respond to this, but it amuses me to point out that you are not only quite clearly a person who needs to develop their interpersonal communications skills, but also a person who desperately needs a remedial course in basic reading comprehension:
Perhaps after you've attended that remedial reading course you will attend one in math and gain the necessary skills required to realize that a 5 minute investment in time to cut out 12-18 minutes of commercials results in a net time savings when you actually watch the broadcast, not a net loss. But then, that presupposes that you are more intelligent than the average troll, and we can't really make that assumption, can we?
As for screwed up priorities, if you consider removing undue and unwelcome efforts at influence and repetative conditioning from your life in an effort to insure and protect your own self-determination as a screwed up priority, then I suggest that says a great deal more about you than it does about me.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Tivo raises a whole host of problems for the existing revenue scheme for television of all kinds. Most of the problems (related to ignoring advertising) can be made up for in other ways (i.e. charging money). But the hardest to address is that people who only watch what they've set their Tivo to record aren't catching on to new shows nearly as much!
Which is why the option to record suggested programs on Tivo is actually the most important one. And the one that would be co-opted by people pushing their new shows. As Tivos become more widespread expect to see more of this.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Which is probably why it went away ... "not enough" people were setting a season pass to TiVo Takes.
If a story aired last night is any indication, it's all par for the course. With respect to the radio, the reason you hear the same crap played over and over on every major radio station is due to a loophole in the law originally passed in 1960 that forbids payola. Now large media companies *cough* Sony *cough* have these "indies," or independent promoters, to go around to radio stations and offer to pay them fees for playing certain artists. Once you no longer hear a certain artist being played, it's a good bet that the payments have ceased.
All of this makes it very difficult for new talent to break into the market- since it requires very deep pockets. Lest anyone think that what they hear on the radio (or MTV, for that matter) is any indication of the talent that's actually out there, they're kidding themselves. The whole thing is a superficial, contrived market.
This might give people more justification for copying material, rather than paying for it. But again, the only reason that these media companies can afford this kind of arrogance is because consumers continue to allow it. If they instead keep their money and save their blank CDs, I can't think of a better way to remind the media companies of the reason they're in business in the first place. It's not because of what they choose to do with their product, ultimately, its because of what consumers choose to do with their money.
In Britain the Computer Misuse Act makes it a criminal offence to access a computer without authorization, or to modify data stored on it. (Other countries must have equivalent laws, of course.) If the Tivo boxes belong to their owners then it sounds like the owners might be able to take Tivo to court (assuming they can persuade the Crown to start a criminal prosecution, which sounds unlikely). Still, at least there is trespass to chattels to consider for a possible civil action. IANAL etc etc.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I bought the extra space I installed on my Tivo and Tivo took 12 hours of it away during the 2.0 upgrade.
So you don't like the commercial, proprietary nature of Tivo, and the SonicBlue device is too expensive. I often wonder why there's so little in between - I could do just fine with a simpler feature set that included just basic harddisk recording, preferably PVR for timeshifting, but I require no online program guide and I want no forced online software updates sucking down corporate trojan payloads of questionable value altering the behavior and feature set of "my" device. I'd just as soon build something myself. While researching DIY PVR projects, I stumbled across this patent record which seems to cover the entire PVR field.
http://www.gotuit.com/patents/desc_pause.html
Am I reduced to the Linux PVR project? I'd rather not build my own.
Rest assured, the TV companies would sue you under the DMCA before you could get that far with it.
It may be an extortion racket, but the government DOES NOT PAY THEM. It is not government funded. It is licence fee funded. Unlike taxes, which all go to the treasury, and then get redistributed to the different government services, the licence fee goes straight to the BBC.
There is an important difference here. The government cannot arbitrarily threaten to reduce the funding given to the BBC like they can with government services. For example, they can increase road tax and reduce spending on the roads. If they increase the licence fee, 100% of that will go to the BBC.
No, I added the drive and when they pushed the update for 2.0 they took 12 hours of my new space for "reserved" space. That's theft.
No, I added the drive and when they pushed the update for 2.0 they took 12 hours of my new space for "reserved" space. That's theft.
For the last time, it's not theft. There's no possible interpretation of this situation that could justify the use of the word "theft." During a software upgrade, your TiVo reserved some of your hard drive space for software features. If you're not happy about that, then put yours up on eBay or something! But quit slinging hyperbole in an effort to get attention.
Hey, I just bought a 10 gig drive, but when I formatted it there was only 9 gig available. That Linus stole my disk space, and he's a thief. I want that space back, damnit!
</taking-the-piss>
On my Phillips unit it also functions like the TV/VCR button on a VCR. You can be recording one show on the Tivo, and watching another on TV. I've actually been recording one show on my Tivo, another on my VCR and watching a third...
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra