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Time Warner to Allow Digital Recording
platypussrex writes "CNN is reporting that some Time Warner cable customers will be offered the ability to use digital recording. The article says they will not have a commercial zapping feature but even the use of digital recording seems a major turn-around from what the entertainment industry has been saying so far. I wonder if this will help TiVo and ReplyTV gain 'legitimacy'?"
I hope they do a box with DVR and HD. I love my High Def cable box, much easier than an antenna, but I miss not being able to use my TiVo with it.
I can't build a box either. No one makes an HDTV PC card with a component INPUT, they are all Antenna input.
Instead of fighting the inevidable, release your own consumer friendly product that does NOT affect your revenue in a negative way. Then, there'd be little room (for the general public, anyway) for products that do offend your profits.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Subject is the message
I have wondered when the day will come that your television will just be another Internet appliance. Same with your radio -- crystal clear over tcp/ip instead of all the interference of FM or AM. The ability then to record, redistribute, share, etc., would be great. I think they have seen the pilot with products like Tivo. People that understand it love it. Those that don't, when shown the power, love it too.
Click here or here.
How long before this becomes a Time Warner targed advertising tool?
The box can easily compile a list of what you're watching, and then pop up advertising based on your viewing demographic.
Soon you'll see targed ads in your schedule gude, on the music channels. And the ultimate: popping up while you're playing back your program.
Why get this when you can just buy a Tivo system? Probably less cost in the long run, and a bigger HD...
I wonder if this announcement will offset the news that they've become one of the latest corporations to come under review for shady accounting practices.
Can I bum a sig?
And when AOL/TW buys the Broadcast Flag from Congress, you may still be able to use their set-top box to record one or two shows a year! Groovy! ;-)
Imagine you just sat down to find your favorite program.
Now imagine you power up your digi-TV-recorder from Time Warner.
You slowly hit the "Guide" button to scan for your favorite program.
All of the sudden, it's there, right in front of you, an AD brought to you by Time Warner!! Sitting right there, next to your channel choices! As you scroll through the list, you can't help but want to run out and buy a Big Mac....large fries.....super-size coke.... They aren't doing this to compete with satellite...they're doing it to integrate advertising into the overlay screens.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Well, in a limited fashion. TWC is rolling out iControl here in Central Florida. It's basically a Video-On-Demand service that allows for pause, rewind, and many other TiVo-like features, but apparently only for Pay-Per-View movies.
I've also noticed an HBO On Demand channel appear in my lineup in the past two weeks, with a "Coming Soon" label on it. The on-screen display for this channel indicates it'll be a repository where HBO subscribers can watch HBO-specific programming On Demand. I'll be interested to see if there's an added premium for this, and how far back they carry the catalog (It would be nice to catch up with the Sopranos or watch the full run of From the Earth to the Moon without having to buy the DVD sets).
At any rate, I had a tech come out to replace my burnt-out cable modem a few weeks ago (plenty of storms here on the Southeast Coast - hence my nickname), and he replaced my cable box with a new model by Scientific Atlanta. He said I'd need this when the iControl went live in the area. I haven't yet, but I guess when I get home I'll bust out the screwdriver and have a look-see what's inside the thing...
Call me paranoid, but if Time Warner begins taking over a significant portion of the PVR market, then wouldn't they have a means to implement whatever copy "protection" schemes they want? If they're manufacturing the hardware, they could very easily make it implement the whole "broadcast flag" idea, assuming they release a similar product for digital television. Just seems to me like this is an attempt to gain a foothold into a market so that they could further control content/copying later.
Bigger drive, no onerous potential DRM issues, can use it with any channel/cable system, not just locked into a single companys. And of course, runs Linux ;-).
To me, the only advantage that these integrated boxes have is the ability to record digital MPEG-2 directly from the cable/satellite, without converting to and converting it back from analog and the loss. But guess what... the quality of the digital video stream is not all that great to begin with in most cases (the source signal is generally analog, passed through a real-time MPEG-2 encoder at the broadcasting facility, so it's not as good as say DVD) So quality loss is sort of negligle, IMO.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
and is already working in NE Wisconsin. Check out their webpage.
It sounds great, but some key factors are missing!
First of all, they will NEVER allow you to make digital copies. Tell them you want to burn copies to DVD or a PC hard-drive and see how warm a response you get....there will be none from them!
They are allowing limited saving of shows. The limits are as big as the device's hard disk or maybe they will have other restrictions.
This is not a major victory. AOL/TW is behind Tivo, so it's no shock that they will over some similar features to cable customers.
This is OK, but don't get carried away with happiness. They still are not allowing people to make digital copies on removable media for personal use. Eventhough they save space and DVDs last longer than VCR tapes. Once DVD Burners become more common, they will probably ad some type of protection to prevent digital copies from being made to DVDs.
I am a TW cable employee (don't throw anything I am just an intern), and will be attending a session (4 hours for some reason) on this really soon.
I will say that they do know what the pricing is, and it will be rolled out in Greensboro, NC soon.
In addition, in case anyone cares. The whole system runs off a full rack of about 10 Sun servers... I can find out more info on those if anyone wants...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Take from tivo.com:
"America Online (AOL), Advance/Newhouse, CBS, Comcast Corporation, Cox Communications, DIRECTV, Discovery Communications, Encore Media Group, Liberty Media subsidiaries, Liberty Digital, NBC, Philips Electronics, Showtime Networks, SONY, TV Guide Interactive and The Walt Disney Company -- leading companies from every facet of both the television and communications industries have embraced TiVo's concept of personal television and made equity investments in the company."
"Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
Sorry, that's been building up in me for some time now. :)
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
> I wonder if this will help TiVo and ReplyTV gain 'legitimacy'?
This idea of a ReplyTV intrigues me. Would it allow me to let those moronic sitcom writers know how I feel about that horrible cliche they just used? Or perhaps I could bitchslap that vapid anchorman the next time he screws up a technology story?
Heck, an invention like this might get me watching TV again!
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I can't help but feel I'm being trolled, but what the heck. ReplayTV is a DVR box pretty much just like Tivo; check out ReplayTV's web site for more info.
No, S-vid doesn't do HD. When I say antenna I mean HD over the air, not normal crappy antenna signal. Most people get HD content via antenna, but Time Warner carries it in some markets via digital cable. It's much easier than dealing with the antenna and I don't need to buy the $500 receiver box to sit between the TV and antenna.
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
Alright, I see...you were making fun of the misspelling of "Replay" as "Reply". Never mind.
Well it puts people in a well defined box so you can't discover new things.
I'm not saying I wouldn't prefer targeted advertisting, but I can see a time in the future when everything is so customized that people don't learn about new things outside their "demographic".
I can find out more info on those if anyone wants...
The following would be truly appreciated:
1. What operating system does it run?
2. What kind of a HD and partition does it use? (Standard or propietary)
3. What other "special" devices are in it?
4. What specifically is propietary and what is standard parts?
5. What DRM management software is in it?
6. Is it automagically updatable?
7. What user usage data does it record?
and any other pertinent info too would be useful, I'm sure.
Actually, if you could just sneak out the information details, and scan them in, or get a monkey to type in, and submit a story to \., that would be truly appreciated.
Of course, I am in no way, shape, or form, encouraging a company IP theft. [Enter further appropriate disclaimer here.]
I've got TW Digital cable in Columbus Ohio, and they've just recently started pitching their iControl system to us. Apparently it is a system that will allow us to pause and resume our PPV programming without missing anything. This is kinda nice in that I often use PPV instead of hitting blockbuster and sometimes have to leave the room during the movie for a minute.
As far as the digital recorder function goes, it sounds neat but I imagine that we will be charged extra for the privilege. In my case, I still have a VCR if there's something that I really want too see that badly, and I don't have any problems recording off of any of the digital TV channels. At any rate, I wouldn't be too concerned about there being a lack of a "Commercial Zapper" button in their digital recording service, so long as you can still manually hold down the Fast Fordward button like you can with an old-school VCR.
Now regarding the digital TV channels, I am not impressed with the quality. I have a relatively new TV that has excellent sharpness and clarity, but the picture when watching the digital channels doesn't look any better than the analog channels do on it. What's worse, I can often catch pixellation in action shots (usually sports), especially with (drum roll please) straight lines that run at a diagonal on the screen. I see this all the time when watching CART races on Speedvision (one of the digital channels) but I never see it when watching CART races on CBS (one of the analog channels).
More importantly, why am I paying for digial cable but only receiving the allegedly "sharper, clearer" digital signal on half of my channels? I know that it sounds odd, but all of the channels that were previously available on my analog cable package work as they had previously. All of the channels that only became available with digital service all have a 2-3 second delay before they are displayed while changing channels (it has to switch data streams with the mothership, I assume). This is annoying. If it weren't for Speedvision (I need my CART and F1 fix) I wouldn't even have bothered with digital service, nor would I recommend it for someone who doesn't need it for a specific channel like I did as TW's implementation is less than impressive.
It comes with Digital Cable.... Been around for a few months. http://www.twcny.com/services/iControl/index.cfm?T hankYou=One
"iCONTROL puts the power of Video on Demand in your Digital Cable box.
No late night visits to the video store...no late fees...no tapes to return...no stress. Order the movie you want...ANYTIME!
ALWAYS IN Movies are always available.
Start a movie when you want.
Pause, Fast Forward & Rewind the movie with your Digital Cable remote control... without using the VCR.
Choose from a digital library featuring a wide selection of new releases and movie favorites.
All from the convenience of your own home.
Coming Summer 2002.
Watch our web site and the mail for official launch dates.
You need to have Digital Cable to get Video on Demand with iCONTROL "
Thorstein
Probably not a NEW idea. The media companies are worried about losing revenue due to fewer people watching commercials. Tell me something, why do people skip through the commercials? Its very simple. THEY DON'T WANT TO WATCH THEM. Yet for some reason, there's a large demographic of people that watch the Superbowl ONLY for the commercials.
What it all rolls down to is this, people watch TV to be entertained. With exception of the Superbowl, commercial breaks are lulls in the entertainment experience. They're a necessary evil, and people are willing to tolerate them as long as they have to, but the second they have an option to skip through them, they don't hesitate.
The secret here, ladies and gentlemen, is to create commercials that are WORTH WATCHING. If your commercial is so entertaining that someone is willing to watch it rather than skip through it, then the entire "PVR commercial theft" issue gets thrown right out the window. If people looked forward to commercials, they would probably also be more interested in the products being advertised.
Seems that this idea might work for other industries as well. Take the music industry for instance. Produce less crap, and more people might buy the music, less money will be wasted on the so called 90% of the content that loses money, and everyone will be happy.
Or maybe I'm just out of my tree.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Wow, that sounds like I'm rationalizing quite a bit, doesn't it? :)
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
With only a little math, and a bit of datamining from the grocery store/general store database, they could target those pantyliner ads to only show once a month for your girlfriend.
... I'll tell you why:
Scientific Atlanta, the company that will be making these PVR's for TW, also makes some of TW's digital cable boxes, including the version I have which decodes the HDTV signals broadcast over their cable network.
I own a TiVo and love it!
However, the thing I am dying for is an integrated TimeWarner digital cable box with TiVo like abilities. Support for HDTV would definitely be a plus, but just having complete integration between my TW digital box and my PVR would be heaven, and the Scientific Atlanta box could make this a reality!
- The digital channels would not ever need to be decoded to analog until it's sent to my TV -- leading to better quality recordings. Right now, anything off a digital channel is being decoded, sent to TiVo in analog format S-Video, then re-encoded in MPEG format by TiVo, and later decoded for my TV.
- I would not need two digital boxes (one for TiVo, one to watch live TV).
- The current TimeWarner digital TV navigation blows away TiVo's live TV navigation system. I'd love to be able to use it again with my PVR!
- They could include two decoders, like in the DirecTiVo box, so that I can record two programs at once... after all, most channels are already encoded digitally, the hard work is done.
- They could integrate HDTV! (A killer app, AFAIAC.)
Since AOL owns a percentage of TiVo, I won't be surprised if Scientific Atlanta licenses TiVo technology for the box (one can hope!).
"And like that
Paint me a cynic, but....
What would be the ultimate prize in digital recording? Hint, its already being used in major league baseball, certain New Years broadcasts, and other televised events. Give up? I'm talking about Dynamic Advertising!
Let me put on my Content Distributor Cap... I can already charge advertising dollars for commercial space in the original broadcast... but what if I can REPLACE the advertising space on a recording with NEW advertising based on when the recording was watched?
I can charge prime-time advertising costs to those companies who want their adverts in the "live" version, then I can charge a second rate for the "replay" version... or even tailor the commercials to trigger on time of day. Watching that horror movie at 10PM? Why not throw in a few ice cream commercials...
There are possibilities for people to make a lot of money out there...
It's called DirecTV with a DirecTivo unit.
I can even fast foward through the commercials.
What's the big announcement here again?
The link you gave requires a login. Try this instead:
u b_PVR.htm
http://www.scientificatlanta.com/customers/prod_s
"And like that
Now we have TW's PVR. It's not actually as useful as Tivo or ReplayTV but it comes with your cable service, it'll no doubt be marketted as a nice and cheap add on, so most people'll go with it rather than Tivo or ReplayTV. It also won't actually allow commercial skipping, or file sharing, or anything else Time Warner didn't like before hand.
So, what we're really seeing is them using their market position to force the suppliers of a product that they don't like out of the market. What are the odds that TW's real plan is that, in another five years, TiVo and ReplayTV will have all but pulled out of the market and the Time Warner PVR will force you to keep watching those ads. Even better, as you have to watch your TV through it, they'll be able to stop you channel surfing too.
Forgive me if I don't see this as an amazing U-turn from Time Warner, nor the beginning of their acceptance of PVRs (as we currently know them).
DSS receiver boxes have been sold with TiVo and UltimateTV hardware for quite some time now.
Once again the cable television industry is doing too little, too late to keep from losing yet more customers to digital satellite...
I've tried iControl twice on the free 'preview' programming, but each time the digital cable box crashed (brzaa) just after I selectted 'confirm order'.
I wouldn't want to get ripped off by that happening when I'm ordering something that results in a charge on the bill, so I'm not using it. It's too expensive anyway.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
I have Time Warner, iControl, and HBO On Demand in Austin, TX. The software is really slow and a bit flaky. (When I stop a movie and then resume it, many times it resumes playing from the beginning of the movie, not from where I stopped it.)
But I'm guessing this has nothing to do with the PVR that TW is planning to roll out.
This isn't new. Sky in the UK has been offering this feature for at least 6 months with something called Sky+.
I'm working on the CNN Digital Archive project and I believe that this digital recording technology is being developed to support this project, but I also heard that they are definately planning to lease out as much of this technology to make up for the enormous R&D and equipment costs that I'm seeing dumped into this project.
Please mod the parent (-1, Bollocks). I have a Dish 501 and there is NO EXTRA CHARGE WHATSOEVER for the PVR service. The same is true of their newly-released 721 with two receivers and a larger hard drive. My receiver was only about $50 or so more than a non-PVR receiver, and there is no extra charge for the PVR service. I even had my service cut off one time and still could watch everything I had previously recorded.