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Cable Companies Despise PVRs
My position that I expressed in my speech and that was inaccurately portrayed: PVR functionality should be provisioned from the headend for the following reasons (which ultimately will benefit consumers):
-
VOD servers cost much less
- If video servers @ $350/stream (Soon Component cost declining 40%/year
- @ 10% simultaneous use, costs $35/sub.
- PVRs cost >10X more
- When simultaneous use = 50%, server costs will have declined >5X
- Disk noise wakes my wife
- Replay box hot enough to fry an egg -- Is that a feature?
- Disk size limitations mean obsolescence, esp. with HDTV
- Available on every set-top in house Average of 1.7 PVRs/PVR household
- No pro-activity/anticipation required
- Records multiple concurrent shows
- NW storage could always have max. res.
- Uses existing deployed base
- Moving parts break more often
- Box complexity means more crashes & customer support costs
My basic thesis is that PVRs + Satellite will eat cable's lunch, and since it's unambiguous that cable needs to get the copyright clearances to offer programming from the head-end, they should start now. It is the case that I suggested that if a Supreme Court case was brought on the legality of each feature of PVRs were brought, some would lose. I also suggested an alternative business model to make everybody happy to avoid the all-or-nothing result that has been occurring in the RIAA vs. Napster wars.
I suggested that consumers pay 1 cent per commercial skipped (which is about the same as what advertisers pay). That would be equivalent to $10/thousand commercials skipped. I think that's reasonable. I also suggested that targeted advertising could be a win-win for all involved by delivering ads in areas that are of greater interest to the viewer so that there would be less incentive to skip and fewer ads would have to be delivered due to the higher prices paid for the targeted group. I also predicted that this dynamic combined with competition between satellite and cable would ultimately make both services free."
If cable companies despise PVRs, why does AT&T sell Tivo, branded under their cable service?
So what about the fact that AT&T Broadband is selling their own branded TiVos? This kind of makes it difficult to say that they hate them.
I love the two-faced approach of the cable industry. A while back AT&T partnered with ReplayTV to provide OEM'd ReplayTV boxes to some their cable customers.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
PVRs are in no way like Napster, in the past, present or future. PVRs are like tape decks, VCRs, etc.
PVRs make the TV viewer happier, so that they WATCH MORE TV.
What do the cable companies and advertisers want you to do? WATCH MORE TV!
They need to get their heads out of their asses and realize just like how they were wrong about VCRs destroying the movie industry, they're wrong about this now.
It's amazing how these companies stay in business... One might think their monopolies had something to do with it.
is to go dish!
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
Charter Communications is distributing these to thier customers, and they're linux based to boot, so get your facts right before you slam an entire industry.
Carpe Deez
The words of one CEO shouldn't always reflect the opinion of the industry. AT&T has sent me a few offers to buy a TiVo directly through them.
What I don't understand is if I pay for cable programming, why the hell am I double-taxed by having to watch ads?!!!
They've been ripping me off for years, even before PVRs existed!
BASTARDS!
Hey, I'm only applying the same specious reasiong the media companies use to call me a pirate, a criminal and an ingrate!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The real reason for cable woes is that they reduce their service and increase their prices.
Instead of doing the obvious thing like actually try to provide a better product, they instead encourage frivolous lawsuits against the competition.
(A case of lack of improvement: the new downgrade of digital cable. Sorry, cable companies, I like to channel surf. And a machine that requires an extra remote and takes 6 seconds to switch between channels is a No Go!)
(It's a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 I think.)
I much prefer my Tivo, but the cable box/PVR is nice too (mostly because it's the cable box as well, and can record two things at once. And it has an 80GB drive, larger than the 20GB my Tivo came with (it has 60GB now.))
Still, I'm planning on switching to DTV soon -- I want two of the Tivos that go with DTV (they're sweet -- they record the mpeg stream directly, so the quality is exactly the same. And of course they can record two things at once, which the SAE 8000 can, but my Tivo cannot.) Anybody know of a good DTV deal that includes two or three DTV Tivos at a good price if I sign up for a year or so?
how these people throw around with words like napster and copyright infridgement. first they put them out of context with their media influence and now they use them spread fud and secure their business.
Man, cable companies really have their heads planted firmly up their ass. From the day that I got my TiVo I saw the potential of the PVR tailored for their market that would allow all kinds of value adding services. For instance, build a cable box where some of the storage capacity is used to store PPV moives. Instead of tying up cable channels with a limited set of monthly PPV moives you instead pipe down any movie they have in a catalogue down the TCP/IP data pipe and store it on the PVR. Thus, folks can stop, FF, RW pause a movie (just like a VCR/DVD), watch it multiple times over the course of a few days (or however long you allow them to view the movie) and allow subscribers to download any number of movies, not just the new releases. And it frees up cable channels to boot. If I ran a cable company I'd LOVE PVRs, and would be working with SonicBlue, TiVo, or Moto. design me a box and a back end post haste.
I remember when the great thing about cable was the absence of commericals, movies running their entire length etc. (At least, that was the rumor -- my household didn't get cable until far later).
...)
But it's like buying the Sunday paper -- the ads subsidize the (fairly low) cover price. Cable TV would cost more (or very well could) if they didn't also get funding from ads. (And Premium channels that *do* run uninterrupted movies are one example
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I can understand why cable companies are openly against PVRs with commercial skip and commercial removal capabilities, but why wasn't there this much of an outcry over VHS devices with the same commercial avoidance features?
The bottom line here is FairUse and the unfortunate news for them is once that signal enters your home (provided you haven't used any illegal methods for decoding it) its yours to do whatever you personally want to do with it (i.e. not rebroadcasting).
See subject. PVR companies should sue this guy for libel and slander.
They really are getting more ridiculous every day... dangerously ridiculous.
If you love your PVR, the cable industry is not your friend.
/rant
I don't have a PVR, but I can't recall a time when the cable industry has ever been my friend. $45 for exteneded basic cable services, and what do you get? 70 channels of ads. I can't stand watching TV! Slowly but surely commercial length is increasing while show time is decreasing. 1/3 of a 30 minute segment is commercials. Sure the PVR would fix that but even before this article everyone knew that someone was going to cry foul. The cable industry is just like the rest of the content industries, as soon as the content control is in our hands they bring in the lawsuits because they don't want to change.
Screw it! I'm about to move and I've already decided that I'm not going to pay the money every month to have junk piped to my home.
The Anti-Blog
In Central New York (upstate, not the city), Time Warner Cable is offering a combination Digital Reciever/PVR.
I don't know much about the units, other than hearing they hold 40 hours, and integrate with the digital cable TV Guide type thing.
They must have the if you can't beat them, join them attitude when it comes to PVR's. The devices cost about $10 a month, on top of digital cable. All in all, that does not sound like a bad price to me , when your consider that is what the service alone costs for most third party PVR's like TiVo.
Does anyone know more about this unit? Is the software crap? Is it smart like Tivo, recording things you might like?
Anyway, they don't ALL hate EVERYTHING about PVR's.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Is it just me or have other people also been noticing a lot of anti-TiVo news stories lately like this? I feel like there has been a big uptick in the number of "TiVo is Big Brother" articles lately. Since many publishing and news agencies are in bed with cable companies, I wonder if they are trying to use the media to promote a negative image for PVRs.
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
If cable companies would just learn to work WITH PVR's, they would actually make MORE money with their pay-per-view/VOD offerings. It's simple. The advertisement for it would go like this: "Order SuperBowl ZZZZ now on pay-per-view, and we will program your TiVo/ReplayTV to record it for you automatically!" They could then extend that to say "you can now order your cable TV BY THE SHOW instead of by the channel. The cost is $XX.XX per season, or $X.XX per show." Then they wouldn't have to worry about commercials as much since they have people only paying for what they want to watch. But then again, cable companies are too lazy to be creative, being too interested in maintaining current business models and not finding new ones.
Sounds like the small boys are the ones who are getting mad. Too bad the big boys are already enbracing it.
Lauder slammed his Replay box, 'it's too hot,' 'my wife doesn't know how to use it,' and he even tried to fry an egg on his PVR.
So, he doesn't like them. He thinks they are for copyright violation. He thinks cable companies should sue the PVR manufacturers. So, why does he own one and why is he pissed that his wife can't operate it.
Hey Gary, can she set the clock on your old VCR?
Especially the words of a CEO whose company (Comcast) is starting to roll out their video on demand service. The basket in which they've put most of their eggs, as it were...
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
I don't think every cable company hates PVRs. In fact, Time Warner Cable is rolling out their own PVR, called iControl. It has basic PVR functionality, but it's main purpose for the cable company is pushing on-demand movings that you can pause, etc. as if you rented it.
Ironic that Time Warner Cable would do this, as it's part of the much larger AOL Time Warner which seems torn between the content provider and the content producer mode - the company owns lots of record companies and movie studios. Yet AOL and Time Warner Cable seem to be doing things the content part of the company doesn't like. It's like watching Sony make mp3 players and yet be distributing copy-restricted CDs.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
In my area, Cable Modem speeds blow away DSL (epically when you look at the price/performance factors). So, to get a $10/month discount on my cable internet, I'm going to keep the $9.95 basic local channel option on my cable TV bill.
It strikes me very odd that Cable has the best potential tap into mass market broadband, and they are wasting any time worried about Satellite TV or PVR's. Satellite is not threat in the broadband department. And, if we ever do get to mass sharing of TV broadcast ala Napster like stuff, we will need broadband more than ever (even if the shows come from satellite). Even thought I am one of the people switching, I'm still keeping my broadband with the cable company.
In the UK, Sky ( a major cable provider ) actually sells this as a service...
Score:-1, Funny
A good consumer will WATCH MORE ADS !
Sorry guys, but that just has no value to me. Watching TV shows does have some value to me, such that I will pay for cable, and (maybe) watch ads. But the whole point of the broadcast system is to get people to buy stuff.
[important]
(Of course, the FCC grants licenses to broadcasters with the understanding that they will serve the public good. Hey, kind of like how copyright law gives someone a grant on a public domain with the view that it will serve the public good. And just like copyright, these companies have forgotten (or ignored) that they're being a special dispensation with the understanding that they will give something back in return.)
[/important]
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If you love your PVR, the cable industry is not your friend.
LOL. I don't have a PVR and don't love it, but I have very strong doubts the cable industry is my friend, anyway.
But is anyone surprised by cable industry's attitude? They (and the most of content industry) really want to sell you "views" -- opportunity to watch (or hear) something once and once only. Want to watch or hear it again? Pay again.
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Sounds like I need to build my own and hook it up to my cable connection QUICK!
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
At least it's not a perfectly clear-cut issue of right and wrong.
Back in the early days of broadcasting, there was quite a bit of debate as to how broadcasters should pay their expenses. Right or wrong, the system that emerged had broadcasters selling air time to advertisers. Thus, consumers get the content "free" on the assumption that they will hear/see the ads and go spend money.
The television delivery system has now evolved to the point where most people pay a third party (cable company, satellite company) to deliver a high-quality signal straight into their home, negating the need for an actual broadcast signal. So now consumers pay the third party, the third party has a financial arrangement with the "broadcasters", and the "broadcasters" still sell ad time.
The question is now, what do the consumers owe the broadcasters? Are all the monthly cable bills enough to cover the expenses of the cable companies and content providers? If so, there's no need for ads. If not, would you pay a higher cable bill to have ad-free content?
In the beginning, broadcasters sold ads to pay for content. Now, broadcasters work on content to sell ads. Personally, I figure once the signal I've paid for is in my home, it's mine to do with as I please, so long as the use is strictly personal.
Too fucking bad. We're the consumers, it's what we want, deal with it.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The cable monopolies are just like any other service provider monopolies - terrified of change, and totally freaked out when people don't buy %100 into their latest revenue generation scheme.
I find particularly funny the latest "don't get a satellite dish!" ads (even though IMO dishes offer much better service) There's one in particular playing here in Boston (On broadcast TV mind you) where these two parents say how "they have 5 kids and going 5 minutes without TV would be worse than cancer"
Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
Millennium Crisis Line: 0890 900 2000 [calls cost 50p/min]
Unless you're a high paid executive in the industry or a congressman receiving extreme donations, the cable industry is not your friend!
-Rob
One of my coworkers got VOD around the same time I got TiVo. I LOVE my TiVo but my coworker ended up dumping his VOD service because of the lousy selection of shows. Yes, the service was "on demand", but the movies never changed from month to month. He probably would have kept it if the selection was actually good.
Once again, maybe cable companies should consider taking a look at improving their own products instead of trying to shut down technology they don't like. Other industries actually have to produce a better product to ensure they get customers' money. I hate that the entertainment industry is taking the approach that it is better to just shut down any technology that threatens their desired business model than to react to the market and improve their product. How anti-capitalist.
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
Than oligopolies are not your friend. Any time you have a cartel that makes their money by controlling a means of distribution, they will fight tooth and nail against anything that threatens to make the distribution DIFFERENT in any way (except in exact ways of their choosing, of course). Just different - they hate open-ness, too, but it's change that they hate. Why?
Because they derive their profits by gaming the system. Any change in the rules by which the system works is a threat to them - the fact that their sector, whatever it may be, might expand overall is irrelevant. They're on top now because they're perfectly situated to control things as they stand. Now that an oligopoly is in place, and everything is arranged to their liking, they don't want to rock the boat.
In IT you notice it particularly, but it is also true in energy, in agriculture, in real eastate and even in manufacturing.
My personal belief is that if this goes unchecked it will be the death of western civilization (assuming our contempt for our own environment doesn't get us first, except that is really part and parcel of the same phenomenon.)
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
You should be aware that DirecTV is now rebranding it's TiVo units/service...they've changed a few of the menus but all the functionality and usability is still there...plus you can avoid the monthly TiVo service fee, if you get the more expensive packages.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
now that both of the major Dish based companies use PVRs, and market them, they have another avenue to attack them.
Just like their other attack ads about 'get the whole story' they can add that the set top box that gives you freedom to record multiple shows at once fries an egg on top of it! Oh now, why ever shall I keep this device.
As a dual tuner DirecTV user, I can finally say FORK the broadcast companies that move good TV shows 'against' each other in competition to force me to pick one over the other.
not with my TiVo they don't.
I have a dual tuner DirecTV and a regular TiVo, I can record 3 shows at once if needed.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
All of these new, consumer-enabling devices pissing off old economy thinking. I love it! Napster may be dead but I love how old economy thinkers use it in their FUD speeches. Everything that threatens them is named "The Napster of..."
Why the cable companies aren't upset over a VCR. If the only reason is the commercial skip then that's unfounded. Alot of the newer VCR's are coming out with this. My Sony VCR is broke and I was shopping for a new one this past weekend in Best Buy and only the low end ones don't come with this feature.
I would think that cable companies would like this technology. For the longest time I wouldn't get satellite (I live too far out to get cable) because I would miss a lot of the shows I would get the satellite for in the first place. But I finally got a Tivo and now I don't mind paying the satellite fee since I don't miss the shows. Same thing with cable, if it was available in my area I wouldn't have got it until I could watch what I wanted.
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
The fact of the matter is that watching more TV doesn't actually help the cable companies. If you never turn your TV on but send a $60 check to the cable company every month, they are pretty ecstatic. The advertisers might be happier except that, along with the PVR, comes commercial skipping, which means that their marketing may be adversely impacted even though more people are watching.
It might benefit cable companies if the usefulness of the PVR increases the desire of viewers to upgrade their subscriptions. If by getting Tivo, HBO suddenly becomes very valuable for me, then that's a big bonus for my local cable company. I'd be curious to see if the statistics support that conclusion. My thinking would be that a Tivo would allow somebody to make more effecitve use of less channels. Why get the premium channels when you can keep your TV schedule filled with all of the obscure programs from non-premium channels that you didn't know were on before.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Thanks for keeping me honest.
Yes, I am aware that although I do pay the cable company, the broadcasters get their money from their ads. (That still doesn't quite justify cable only channels having ads.) And that the ads subsidize the cost of programming.
Cable is a even murkier battleground for the media wars in that you have a mix of broadcasters (given a grant of the public airwaves by the FCC with the agreement that they will serve the public good) and pure cable-only channels.
I've been trying to make the point lately that both broadcast licenses and copyright are government grants of publicly owned resources given with the understanding that the PUBLIC gains some benefit in return.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
So enjoy it while you can. I do. I watch (some) commercial TV and I don't watch the ads. Many execs would have you believe that this is some sort of theft. But as Robert Heinlein said:
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statue or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
After reading and hearing so much about PVR's, I decided the time was right to try one out. The main problem was that I only had a cell phone so it looked like the replaytv was my only option. After doing some digging, I found that the Tivo series 2 works with a few USB network adapters. I decided to go with Tivo since I preferred the interface, plus it is the stronger of the two companies.
I received my Tivo a week ago today, and I can not stop watching television. The amount of TV I watch has doubled because with the Tivo. I can find interesting programs to watch, where before I would only have a small chance of stumbling on the program accidentally. I FF through probably 1/2 the commercials , but there are plenty of times when I don't.
My potential exposure to advertisers has doubled since purchasing my Tivo. I'm watching programs I normally wouldn't see because of the time-slot. With the scheduling features, I'm catching many live programs that I would not watch if the Tivo guide wasn't available plus I can't FF the commercials. The short sidedness of established industries to recognize the value of disruptive technologies has been well documented, and the cable industry's aversion towards the PVR is a classic example. The companies that are first to embrace the PVR will succeed.
I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way, but I would say in the next 3-5 years, maybe a bit sooner, maybe a bit later, there is going to be a showdown of sorts between the media industry (music and video) and the public masses.
Unless the record companies, the cable companies, and all the rest of these multi-billion dollar industries can figure out a way to keep their revenue streams at current levels or at least something they're happy with without trying to hold back technology or control how it is used, something will happen. Technology - better said 'invention' - is just like nature: you can't hold it back. Once something is available, the public, and not a select group of high-riding jerks, control it. The only way to keep technology from taking on a life of it's own is to keep a lid on it in the first place, and that option never existed/is already past.
What the showdown will be, or what will happen is beyond me. How the unthinking masses (those who listen to N'Sync; those who could care less how much control Microsoft has over what they do with their own computer and the things they create with it; those who don't mind watching hours upon hours of crappy commercials - and they're not all bad commercials, just most - during their days/weeks/months/years) will affect this, I don't know either. But even they will eventually see the light.
And just like technology and nature and all the rest, there's no stopping public opinion/demand.
Ack!
And if so... do they REALLY think we're that stupid?
I happen to have worked in the cable industry. Video on Demand, or VOD, is a sort of "instant" Pay Per View (PPV), or more accurately DVD rental without having to go to the store.
Rather than calling the cable company and telling them you want to watch Movie X when it comes on at 12:00pm, you press a button your cable remote and the movie is streamed instantly to your cable box. You can pause, stop, rewind, or fast-forward, and you get a certain time window (48hrs or something) within which you can watch your selection as many times as you want.
The cable office has racks of servers packed full of disk space and bandwidth that can singlecast video streams to hundreds of subscribers. Companies are currently working on getting all the DVD functions like different audio streams and camera angles as well as special features into the VOD package, and the eventual goal is to make Blockbuster obsolete.
So it's more than PPV rebranded, but I'd guess they still think you're pretty stupid.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
But now that Comcast has acquired AT&T Broadband, they may well kill this offer.
sulli
RTFJ.
I doubt there are any cable execs reading /., but if there were, the first thing I would say to them is: Rather than blow all that energy hating something that's never going to go away, why not find a way to work with it instead?
... wow! ... Watch More TV! No-brainer, right?
Others have pointed out that the Big Thing with cable and satellite companies alike is to get people to
So... USE that energy and funding, that would otherwise be spent fighting what consumers have been doing since the Betamax was invented, to develop programs that have good writing, good stories, and that will be INTERESTING for people to watch AND that they will want to record. Duh!
Even if they do record it, they may opt to go out and buy a DVD of the program anyway. I know that's what we did in the case of Hallmark's 'Dinotopia' movie (the later series sucks pterodactyl eggs, 'cause they changed the whole cast, but that's another story).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
part of the business model is to license the content once and play it into the (*&(*&@ ground? With a PVR, you record desired content once, and then the other 538 times they play Mr. Deeds is of no value to you. I mean really, now that the Sopranos is off for the next year, what do you have HBO for? Why don't you rent or pay per view? Band of Brothers kicked ass, but there's nothing like that on the horizon.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
What might be interesting is if TiVo were to do something like rent a late-nite channel to broadcase some encrypted movies that would get downloaded onto al TiVo systems and you could then call up TiVo to get the key to play the show after you paid for it. Not much new technology needed to be deployed, and pretty much the same VOD experience. Of course there would have to be some sort of controls to make sure the TiVo didn't record over something that the owner wanted, but they already have this type of protection implemented in their "maybe you will like this also" recording feature.
>>what they fail to realise is that i only go to the bathroom/kitchen/whatever during the commercials to begin with!
Damn good point. Even the commercials I do watch don't influence me. Often, I don't even know what they're advertising. Not as though I'm paying attention or anything.
OT: it's not just TV advertising either, in a typical day, I do the following, without even giving it a thought:
- delete all spam email
- throw away those cards in magazines
- close pop-up ads
- hang up on telemarketers
- send away door-to-door solicitors
- do what I can to ignore billboards etc.
- turn off radio when the ads start
- flip through channels during commercials
The amount of advertising is so overwhelming, I don't see how anybody can do anything except ignore it all.
Let him keep his stubborn, pig-headed attitude... and let him fail with it.
Who ever said that in business, you are guaranteed to make money forever doing the same old shit? It takes innovation to keep alive, and those people who give the customer new, interesting things, without trying to extort them for every last cent, will be the ones to succeed.
So I say let him go on despising Tivo and all these technologies we like. It will only make better companies stand out more.
It strange that they say that using a PVR is stealing. If you want to access premium stuff you must PAY for it.
I saw many comment about advertisement... Cable cie don't make any money with advertisement with the channels they provide. They charge the channel provider and you to make money. The advertisment money goes only to the channel provider.
As for the video on demand, if the satelite cie can use a PVR to help get video on demand, then the cable cie can do the same thing!
I don't understand why they are complaining. Probably only because the satelite cie are moving faster than they are. That not very surprising... Cable cie were never very customer oriented.
AT&T Broadband was acquired by Comcast in what was essentially a hostile takeover. AT&T had been considering spinning of the Broadband division, but decided not to. Comcast put together an offer that the AT&T board, under pressure from shareholders, felt they could not afford to refuse. Comcast as a result become by far the largest cable co, with a near monopoly on the East Coast (aside from NYC). Much of AT&T Broadband's staff is about to be fired, btw. Comcast wanted the customers, not the employees. They have no reason to embrace AT&T's attitude towards PVR; they'll be happy to scuttle it.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I mean, duh. How does owning a TiVo enable me to do P2P filesharing?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
If the cable industry was my friend I wouldn't have to pay $115 a month for cable internet + digital cable..
Times are changing..
Given than most Americans have cable, you'll save money every month. You'll be cutting support for the media companies that depend on your mindless patronage. You'll find yourself with a whole lot of time to try all sorts of new hobbies that will end up being a lot more rewarding than sitting back with a remote control ever did.
It's always surprising to me how many people waste so much of their lives watching stuff they acknowledge is not worth their time.
Aren't they going to create a bandwidth crunch with 90% of the video being "demanded" in prime time?
Why wouldn't it be very much more to their advantage to have "offpeak pricing" for customers with PVR's that were willing to record content at times convenient for the cable company? And have the PVR owner pay for the storage facility?
Seems to me that if video-on-demand takes off cable companies will be faced with either expensive infrastructure costs... OR ticked-off customers trying to explain to their kids why they can't watch "Lilo and Stitch" tonight.
Or are the cable companies planning to build special you-don't-control-it-we-do PVR's? In which case you'd think they wouldn't want to make the PVR companies angry, unless the cable companies want to do all their own R&D...
Or are the cable companies just planless and clueless?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
This article reminded me of the classic "History Today" sketch from the British comedy show "The Mary Whitehouse Experience".
RN: See those cable companies?
DB: I am aware of them...
RN: They're like, your best friends, they are.
I guess I've had too much coffee today.
Script here:
http://www.micaelita.com/historytoday/mwe1
People think Microsoft is the answer. Microsoft is just the question, "No" is the answer.
I'm surprised that no-one's gone this way with it:
make a PVR. All the cool functionality, but VERY limited fastforward/rewind. Make it so you can't skip commercials if you're watching the show. Then, put 2-3 tuners in it, and advertise the hell out of it. Charge people $5 a month for it. More TV watched, and more ads watched. I'm surprised the networks haven't done this - yes, it ends prime time and nielsens, but you can easily watch anything on the big 4 ("they still call Fox a network?") at anytime, making it easier than cable.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
iControl is not a PVR - it's an S(erver)VR. You can do all kinds of neat tricks on the video stream, but only the ones they want to send (sell) you. TW is running a free trial in our area, with about a dozen channels, 5-20 shows per channel. They also have dozens of pay movies. However, you can't get just any show they've sent you.
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
It's often said that satellite services benefit and cable services suffer from PVR. It's never been clear why this is the case other than the idea that satellite services have embraced PVR while cable services have shunned it. Maybe the satellite services require users to own equipment while cable services lease equipment. Leasing equipment isn't profitable because cable companies go out of business every 10 seconds. Maybe by association with user liability, the PVR is more profitable. It's sure not a technological issue.
It not has gotten to the point where I actually tune out commercials. I might watch the commercial, but the rentention of the commercial is ZERO.... Now I am even in the habit of doing something else during the commercial, since they take so long. It is really interesting to see.
If I see the commercial again I will remember it, but if not in the context of the commercial I do not even remember it. Does it influence me to buy the product? Absolutely not. In the grocery store or shopping mall I do compartive shopping and ask the store help. At that point I will make a decision. And if I like the product then I will buy it again.
I think the problem with the big cable companies is that advertising in the current model DOES NOT WORK anymore. People get so much advertising that they have taught themselves to tune out...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Turns out I despise my cable company too! :) AT&T Broadband (now Comcast) has been nothing but a pain in the ass to deal with. Not only did their CR sales staff blatantly lie through their teeth about HDTV availability through digital cable by claiming that HBO, Showtime, and the major networks had no HDTV service (I get it over the air, bitch. And Both Dish and DirecTV sell HBO and Showtime HD right now!). And when I caught her on it she simply repeated the same line as if reading from a talking points memo instead of responding to my question. To add insult to injurty, they're upping the cable rates way above inflation. Fuck that. I recently installed DirecTV, have ordered Earthlink DSL with a static IP, and will cancel my cable subscription as soon as DSL is installed. I can't tell you what a relief it was to see Linux listed as an accepted OS on Earthlink's ordering page. God forbid I might want to run something other than Windows on my computer. I've had it with cable, they're not getting my money any more.
--Maynard
I guess he's never used a Motorola DCT-2000 (AT&T Broadband)... i've nearly burned myself on the fucking thing. Oh, and by the way, they have a faulty power plug which can cause electric shock. No, i'm not kidding.
Oh yeah, and he hates PVR's enough to even OWN one I suppose. Heh
"I am willing to bet that most people don't like their cable company..."
Personally, I rather like my cable company.
For a nice low fee they provide me with telephone (at the cheapest rates in the country), my choice from their selection of TV channels, and a damned good broadband internet access (24/7).
They fulfil their part of the contract nicely.
Nope, I have no problems with my cable company's service or pricing, thanks.
I dunno, maybe we just have a better quality of company over here in the UK or something? *shrug*
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
The cable Industry hates just about everyone, which is why so many people hate them (back)! First off:, they hate the consumer. They think that the consumer should be married to them and pay whatever they want to charge. The fact is that basic cable now costs close to 40 bucks a month these days, almost three times what it did five years ago. Why? because of consolidation in the industry where these clowns now pay close to $4000 bucks PER subscriber when they buy a cable system. Second: They hate the satellite industry because they give the consumer an alternative choice, usually at a better price. When my friend cancelled his cable for DirecTv the cable rep groused: WE have to charge more because we have to pay a franchise fee to the town. My friend said: Ask me if I care? In reality, the franchise fees average about 5% of their net revenue. Third: They hate DTV, because they have to provide all this extra channel space to it. Fourth: They hate the antenna industry because they help the satellite industry break their lock on local TV carriage. Besides, these days a person with a half decent outdoor antenna might well find that he picks up more over the air stations then his cable system carries. Fifth: The hate Congress for giving parity to the satellite industry. Sixth: They hate the DSL industry, the RBOC's, the ISP's and everyone else connected with it, because they provide a viable alternative to their (now) overpriced, capped, unreliable Internet service. I'm sure that I could come up with another dozen examples upon a few minutes reflection. Hmm..maybe they should change theitr name to the MIKEY industry? After all they do seem to hate everything!
He also openly called on the cable companies and Hollywood to sue the PVR companies for copyright infringement.
1. Most of the content is not the copyright property of the cable companies.
2. It will be transparent that the suit is intended not to protect copyrights but to protect the VOD business model, which (since VCRs are NOT illegal) is a stupid business model anyway.
3. Despite this, you can expect Fritz Hollings to introduce a bill banning the PVR some time next week.
4. IANAL.
iControl is not a PVR. Some Time Warner outlets (like Time Warner Austin) are deploying the new Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 box, which comes with a (nominal) 80 gigabyte hard drive, and can function as an honest PVR.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Initially they weren't sure how to pay for it, and this solution evolved.
Now after many decades, and lots of profit things are changing, they will find a way.
Paid placements (Truman Show type adds), Sponsored programs (No Boundaries (Ford)), ads in the corner, a little box (like the 24 hour news channel).
And well if they can't make big profits, they'll leave and someone else will pick it up.
If all the big broadcasters give up a local community group may do educational or informational programming, or promote local talent.
The resource will remain available, and someone will find a use for it, probaly a better use.
I have an easy answer for all of you lamers. Throw away your television. Pick the damned thing up right now, carry it out to the curb, and drop it hard enough to shatter the tube.
If everyone did that, at least 25% of the gloom-and-doom articles here on slashdot would immediately become irrelevant.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
If you love your PVR, the cable industry is not your friend.
Heh... that just gave me a whole new reason to consider buying a PVR. Previously, I just thought they were just interesting; now they're cool.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Yet Another Broken Business Model?
Hey... wait a second. We used to get TV for *nothing*. Yep, just pulled it right out of thin air. They always told us this worked because the advertisers paid for the commercials we saw. You know, "Plop-plop Fizz-fizz, oh what a relief it is" and so on and so forth.
Then, these guys come along and show stuff without commercials through a cable, but only in wierd places where you can't get TV out of the air. Then, people start to realize that paying for TV to avoid the commercials and get a clean picture is a good business and around 1985 or so they started selling it here in my 'burb.
Now, by the time we got the cable a lot of the channels on it were showing commercials. Icing on the cake, you know. There were 3 different "tiers" of cable and for a while we had the one with HBO and some other premium channel. We eventually decided that premium stuff wasn't worth the extra dough, so now most of the stuff we see on cable has commercials.
Not only that, some of them have annoying little flash demos during the show, right on top of the screen. Speedy was a nice guy, he understood how things work. He never would have stepped on top of the show. Speedy must be fizzing in his grave.
So, what's the point? Well, I liked the idea of paying for cable so we didn't have to get commercials. Whatever happened to that? If they want to make us pay for the cable and still watch ads, maybe we'll just start pulling TV out of the air again. There's still some TV in the air. Really, with FOX, the big 3, PBS and AM talk radio that's probably more media exposure than we really need anyway. You've got all your political perspective there, and some pretty good mind-rotting tripe for when you just don't feel like thinking.
Too bad the cable companies couldn't make the "pay more for better signal and no commercials" business model work. Must be YABBM.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
we have companies complaining because their businesses are suffering due to their lack of vision. Since they can't figure out how to make money with new technology, they slam everyone else who provides the services they are perfectly capable of providing.
Why a PVR is nothing like Napster, the issue is more or less the same. The RIAA and associated companies have completely failed to provide online music at a reasonable price and distribution format, so they bitch about people using whatever they can find.
Personally I have no sympathy for any of them. The movie companies had teh same complaint when VCRs came out. They talked about how piracy was going to kill the movie industry. Then the rental market became a huge source of revenue. If they'd spend even a perecentage of what they spend on complaining and sueing, and put that towards figuring out where the markets are, and capitalizing on it, they could actually make more money. Unfortunately, they have knee-jerk reactions and commit themselves to that reaction.
Yet another example of how cable companies continnue to provide less-than-cutting-edge technology with ever increasing prices and subscription fees. Why would they ever want to replace the Zenith box from 1973 with a new PVR? They would have to change everything on the backend and replace everyone's boxes. DirecTV/DISH had it right all along - let the consumer choose their receiver. If they want the bargain RCA brand, then they get it, if they want the UltimateTV receiver, then they get it. HDTV? Get the HDTV receiver. You have dozens to choose from, TiVo/UltimateTV/HDTV/DolbyDigital/etc. made by dozens of different companies. If the cable companies would adopt this type of mentality, perhaps I wouldn't hate them so much.
Portions of large companies do nto always work in concert. It is very possible for a large conglomerate to own companies or have divisons that are on opposite sides of a technology or social issue.
I recall Bill Gates mentioning a service exactly like this in his book he wrote a few years ago. I wonder if he still supports this technology or if other interests have influenced his thinking?
What?
...but themselves.
If you own a PVR the cable companies aren't your friend?
Until the advent of satellite TV cable companies were usually a monopoly in any given area, free to offer crappy service with grainy, fuzzy and/or snowy pictures and raise prices apparently with impunity (I'm sure there was some legislation in place, but it never seemed to help). No matter how much you hated the service, they were the only game in town if you wanted more than the local broadcasts.
Now that they are competing on merits (I'm sure they have bought and are buying legislators, too) against the likes of DirecTV, which is a completely new generation of TV, a quantum leap ahead of cable, IMO, they are complaining and whining to anyone who will listen.
Once the Feds relaxed that screw-the-consumer law regarding satellite companies not being allowed to deliver local channels (an issue for Simpsons fan like me!), there was no reason at all for me to keep cable. Satellite has broadcast-quality, even DVD quality picture, much less outage time (when cable goes out, it's often out for a day or more till they can dig up and repair the problem), in 3 years I've only seen DirecTV off for much more than hour once. In each case satellite outages was caused by a big thunderstorm, and the reception problems seldom last more than 30-60 minutes.
I know many people have issues with DirecTV and their ilk, but cable companies are like horse and buggy manufacturers in the early 1900's. They'd better adapt fast* rather than sitting around griping about PVR's (which are here to stay in one form or another DMCA be damned), or they will die out quickly and no one but they will be crying.
* Ever see "Body by Fisher" in a car? Fisher started out in the buggy business.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
WRONG!
The cable company has no interest in the amount of TV you watch. They only care about the advertisments.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
Betamax is the wave of the future! The entire industry is moving to Betamax!
Uh...but sir, the consumers don't like Betamax. VHS is cheaper, longer playing, and more readily available.
Push content is the wave of the future! The entire industry will someday be based upon Pushing content!
Uh, sir, the consumers don't like Push content. They'd rather have some control over their own bandwidth and processor time. And flashing porn ads to little Timmy didn't win you any friends.
Video On Demand is the wave of the future! The entire industry must gear ourselves for Video On Demand!
Uh, sir, the consumers don't care about Video on Demand. They'd prefer 'video whenever', and just record the programs they want with PVRs, which also allow them to fast forward and replay, which you can't do with VOD.
Fucking consumers, always ruining marketer's plans with their intelligence and common sense.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
After testing PVRs in 2000, Comcast found that downloading programming to a hard drive in a consumer's home via a PVR such as TiVo, which satellite leader DirecTV uses, threatens the lifeblood of TV entertainment, Roberts said.
After reading this, one might walk away thinking that that Comcast invented TV entertainment. While nothing could be further from the truth, it's precisely this kind of arrogance that will lead to the demise of companies who, rather than seeking to understand what consumers value, work to shackle them with tight controls over how, when, and for how much various shows can be viewed.
Is it any mystery that consumers will attempt to minimize the level of harrassment by commercial entities attempting to sell them the latest and greatest of everything from the latest super-steam-powered convection oven to tampons? The reason that cable owners are concerned is that they assumed that they would be able burn the candle at both ends, charging for both content and ads, ad infinitum. PVRs enter the market, and now PVR owners, who maximize their enjoyment by skipping the cruft, are being branded criminals.
What can be learned here? For starters, there is no comparison between Napster users and PVR owners. Perhaps most important, though, is that there's a real honest-to-goodness clue here with respect to consumer interests. The issue is not that people are using PVRs, but whether or not the cable industry will have the foresight to adapt their business model, rather than force feed its 'content' - replete with all of the ad-gak - to its customers.
So cable companies despise PVRs. I expect theater owners in the '40's and '50's despised television, horse tack manufacturers despised automobiles, RIAA despises MP3s, etc, etc.
They can hate it and sue manufacturers all they want. In the end it won't stop anything. It's been said a million times on Slashdot, so here's one more: spend your time developing new markets instead of hating them.
First of all, I think just about EVERYONE who owns a PVR can say that the device has INCREASED their TV viewing. Speaking for my wife and I, we watch about 3x more TV than we used to (not necessarily a good thing ;) ). Not only that, we we are able to follow a weekly series better because we can "catch up" because of the TiVo.
When in the past I would TAPE a show, I would zip ahead about 2 minutes & watch the show.. only seeing about 20 seconds worth of commercials per break because when you record at the slow speed you can't really "view" anything when you FF. W/TiVo I FF but can see the gist of the commercial. Sometimes I will go back & watch the commercial if it or the product interests me. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, several of my friends agree. SO ACTUALLY... TiVo causes me to WATCH MORE COMMERCIALS THAN I USED TO. When I used to watch LIVE TV, those were 2 minute bathroom or kitchen breaks, so I didn't watch commercials then either. If the companies got smart they would take advantage of the 2-way communication available with this technology & target their ads better!
But they won't because they are idiots & would rather I went back to my old ways of not watching any commercials at all.
AS for VOD from cable... yeah right!! They get enough of my money every month, no way I'm gonna pay per view a movie that I already rented from BlockBuster 3 months ago! The PPV is always WAY WAY behind the video release.. That's why they dont get MY money. Anyone else agree?
It's a (sorta) win-win situation.
- No ads to annoy viewers.
- Viewers cannot avoid being exposed to marketing.
I haven't heard any reviews in the media noting this, but I suspect that this was a deliberate experiment to find out whether this will solve the PVR problem.the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
...unless you're hawking a GM piece of garbage car. BMW films is brilliant because that type of advert appeals to the types of people who enjoy that kind of thing, i.e. film and directing.
I think the Ads are brilliant, and I had seriously considered buying a BMW, it prolly won't happen cuz I like the Audis, but anyhoo, I digress.
Even regular 30 second spots for BMW and Mercedes are not geared to get you to go out and buy a car tomorrow. Ford and GM ads certainly are ("SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAYYYYY!"), but Audi, Mercedes, BMW...those companies are selling user experience, not cars. They want you to see their car climbing switchbacks in the Alps. They want you to see their car flying over railroad tracks and speeding through the streets of San Francisco, London, Berlin, et al.
Also, it's not like those 8 minute films cost $20 million to shoot. I'd almost bet that those fancy Brittney Spears Pepsi ads, with all those elaborate sets and dozens of extras are much more complicated and expensive. A good crew could knock out one of those BMW films in two weeks...mebbe less.
And, distribution of the spot is mainly through word-of-mouth. They'd have been smart to wedge one of those in with the movie trailers, but most of the distribution is done on the Internet. Very cheap. I am pleased that they started playing the shorts, several of them at once in 30 minute blocks, on DirecTV. I enjoy watching them much more on a 32" TV than a 21" computer monitor.
Sounds like a great idea. I never watch 75% of the channels I subscribe to today. (DirectTV)
Exactly! Why DOES he own one? I come across the same paradigm in my work where we build transmitters for HDTV for broadcast television. People get all wrapped up about certain issues and then I ask them how THEY watch tv at home. The answer is invariable cable. Aside from satellites, how many people actually just suck this stuff out of the sky with a rotor antenna on their roof anymore? Not very many. And the consumer will go where the the best cost/convenience/time ratio is. VOD is cool, but it better be cheaper than Blockbuster and take less time to order than it takes to make it to the fridge and back with your soda or people won't use it.
As far as the copyright part goes, in that respect I don't see PVR's as being all that different than VCR's in terms of being a time machine. They are just more flexible time machines. I think the real problem is that 20 years ago, when VCR's were really starting to hit big, cable companies were not in the local advertising business, so they didn't mind when the broadcast channels screamed about VCR's and people fast forwarding through commercials. Now they are in that business in a huge way, and PVR's are an even more adept way for people to avoid viewing commercials.
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
It's the ReplayTV that they hate. Take a look at its feature list, and it is pretty clear that it is designed to aid people spreading copies of programs around.
I wouldn't say that ReplayTV is trying to be the Napster of video, though. Napster did have substantial non-piracy uses, such as independent bands using it to promote their music. It's hard to even pretend that ReplayTV's video sharing features will have any significant non-infringing use.
It's $10/month, where the Tivo is $13/month, and you don't have to buy it. It doesn't have all the Tivo functionality, and at least here there are some minor technical glitches, but it's ok.
I don't know -- never thought of it.I tend to doubt it though -- the standard cable box doesn't, does it? (not yet, anyways. Sounds like it's only a matter of time ...)
See, that's tweny minutes, or thirty-three percent crap. Now, if you look at old episodes of, say, Star Trek (the original series), they average fifty-two to fifty-six minutes per episode. Let's say fifty-four, to make a nice average. That means that television was about ten percent crap.
Conclusion: the amount of commercial-minute per actual TV-minute is now three times what it was in the sixties.
One more time: we are watching three times as many commercials. And they dare to call it an "hour"? Pfah!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
So Cable Companies have decided once again to use their monopoly power to stifle innovation that would benefit the consumer. Big surprise. But my question is:
What can they do to stop PVRs?
As PVR software increases in functionality, anyone will be able to turn an old desktop with a new 80GB hard drive from Best Buy into a PVR. The cable companies can kill Tivo and ReplayTV but they can't stop independent PVR software like Freevo. Admittedly, there isn't software out there yet that is as good as Tivo's, but especially if PVRs come under serious attack, it'll get there.
All I can figure they could do is use something like CSS to scramble the signal and prevent any digital recording. But, we've seen how well scrambling works, so a new DeCSS will just come along and we'll be back in another DMCA debate. This time though we'd have a really sympathetic defendant. Their position would be, "My cable company killed my Tivo, so I just tried to get back the ability I had a few months ago. My VCR was legal, so my PVR should be too." It's a lot easier for Congress and the average person to understand that argument than it is to explain to them Dmitry's Elcomsoft case or what DeCSS is and why they should care...
So, can someone think of something else the Cable Companies can realistically do to stop PVRs? Isn't it another case of trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube?
BC
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
Well, at least in Quebec. The leader in cable TV, Videotron, recently launched a new service to it's users. It's a PVR system which lets you watch one TV show and record two other at the same time. And it's delivered over cable. That's the same company who delivers also digital TV over cable, and now they added PVR to the list of features. It's sooo good to live in Quebec right now.
i only go to the bathroom/kitched/whatever during the commercials to begin with!
True, but that alone doesn't eliminate the value of ads -- do you *always* leave the room during a commercial break?
May we never see th
That whole publicly owned airwaves stuff was only important when there were like 4 channels on the airwaves. In case you hadn't noticed, CABLE WIRES aren't publicly owned resources. They are the resources of the companies who paid to lay the cable. In such a case, there is no "civic" obligation to the public.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Television is life. Life is television. All hail the mighty transfer resistor, the TRANSISTOR! All hail the mighty Cathode Ray Tube! All hail popular culture brought to us via MTV and HBO!
People who do not watch television engage in TERRA and WILL get a visit from Baron Jon von Ashcroft, Lord of the House of DOJ.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
As another user pointed out, the HOA cannot legally prevent any homeowner from putting up a dish. More specifically, a dish smaller than 1 meter in diameter.
s h. html
The FCC regulations are here:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/consumerdi
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
I have a huge collection of DVD's exactly because I don't like to watch movies on someone else's timetable. Unfortunately, however, I'm starting to get so many that it's hard to keep track of them all. I'd sign up for netflix, but the thought of mailing all of those DVD's back and forth sounds like a pain. PVR's provide the perfect solution. Let me have 3 or 5 or 10 movies at any one time, and as soon I delete one from my PVR, the next one on my list gets downloaded automatically. Maybe it takes 8 or 12 hours to download, but that's still better than netflix can do. Hell, I'd even watch a commercial or two at the beginning of the feature, as long as I had to option to skip through an excessive list. Once again, we have to drag the media companies kicking and screaming into the future where they will make more money than ever. You could even set it up so each family member could have thier own listing of shows so that ad's could be targeted perfectly. I don't care how many commercials they force me to watch, I'm just not going to buy any tampons, get over it. Let me skip the commercial. If you want to throw them into my wife's shows, however, be my guest. I'd bet that's true for 80% of the commercials people watch. This technology could give advertisers direct feedback on how to get people to actually watch commercials. What could be a more powerful sales tool than that. Give me a 30 second commercial at the beginning of the show, and another 30 seconds at the end. I'll probably watch them rather than getting up to get a sandwich or take a bathroom break every 15 minutes.
Investing a lot of money does not give anyone any legal right to make any profit. Much less the right to change the law in order to continue to do so.
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
"Lauder slammed his Replay box"
"He also openly called on the cable companies and Hollywood to sue the PVR companies for copyright infringement"
So, he's openly calling for industry to sue, but he owns a PVR himself? That's pretty funny.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
PVR's will definitely cause a decrease in ad watching overall. This is mainly because there are too many ads for the viewer to sit through.
The result should be that ad costs are revisited. I'm sure that there are shows that people tend to watch in person such as live events and news shows. Commercials during these events should cost more and could potentially be more frequent.
Two other factors should also be weighed:
1. There is a point at which commercals are useful to the viewer (e.g. new items on the market, sales at food locations, upcoming shows, etc.)
2. There is a number of commercials per hour that would be non-intrusive enough that viwers would find it unnecessary to skip them. Charge more per commercial and reduce the # of commercials.
Advertisers will pay. They will have no choice.
The other option is legislation. It's easier and insures that current business practices stay practical. That's what I think they will do.
Because from what I've heard is next year is the year of the PVR on the cable box. Companies like ncube ( http://www.ncube.com ) are exploding in growth because cable companies all over the country are demanding their services. Ncube delivers content through the wire to your set top box, which will also have PVR capability.
Perhaps the poster went to some rogue conference where all the meanie cable operators hang out? by 2004 most people will have PVR capability whether they get a cable set top box, or a satellite box, for no extra charges. The competition between sat and cable is really goes to fire up next year.
fslg503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8
Possibly the reason he owns one, is because he wants to "know his enemy"?
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Of course Cable companies hate Tivo. They allow people to avoid those poorly placed ads that cable companies like to replace the national ads with. They even go as far as to replace actual content (like TVland retromercials, or the gavelsons) occasionally even cutting out the first few seconds of a program.
Thank you for reminding me why I should put a dish on top of my new house.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It never ceases to amaze me. The human capacity for hipocrisy and our inability to learn from history.
The same people who scream about keeping big government out of our business scream that we need new laws and regulations to protect our business. But that is mere political hipocrisy and we all suffer from that (I've caught myself holding the odd inconsistent belief).
No, in this case we're talking about price. Sure, there are a handful of people who are totally opposed to any form intellectual property. I think that is a small minority, however.
Basically the 'net has moved the cost of media distribution to nearly zero and the time delay nearly to zero. People want to get music they want and they want it now. CDs cost so much that people are willing to steal the music because the convenience is worth the very small risk that they will be caught and prosecuted. But people would rather be honest, or at least legal, if they could. I think most people would be willing to pay a small subscription or a small fee to download music, so long as they had their traditional "fair use" rights once they have it. To support this argument, I would point at the VCR. The industry fought it tooth and nail. They lost. My old man was an "early adopter." We had a VHS VCR the size of a small electric piano with big clunking mechanical keys and only SP and LP speeds. We used to trade movies taped off of HBO with friends because you couldn't yet buy or rent movies. When you could first buy movies, they were priced too high. By the early 1980's, however, the price had dropped to a reasonable level and I never traded another video. I bought 'em all. Hollywood began to make money on movies both at the initial release and again on video. They forget that they didn't used to get that double payoff. But the VCR was going to DESTROY THE WORLD!
Sure, there is video piracy. But most of us, I think, became legal consumers when the price got reasonable.
They claim digital technology by allowing perfect copies will DESTROY THE WORLD, but all it really means is that people will be slightly more willing to copy things if the price is too high. And it is. I guarantee you that the marginal cost of a DVD is a tiny fraction of the marginal cost of VHS videocassette, and yet DVDs cost more and VHS tapes are selling at half the price they used to. What does that tell you about the profitability of DVDs? It is huge.
The efforts to suppress copying and peer-to-peer and even PVRs is the effort to maintain a price structure that technology has undermined. They want to replace economics with regulation. Protectionism, but not nation to nation: instead producer to consumer.
They don't want to let the market set the price.
How anti-capitalist can you get?
The "theft" of their product would drop to a trivial level if they let market forces set the price. Instead, they build elaborate Rube Goldberg technologies (like the supressed synch copy protection on many DVDs and videotapes -- what's the brand name of that again? -- and CSS, which isn't even copy protection. It is a way to artificially create and maintain separate price markets and to prevent free trade between those markets) to keep the price where they think it needs to be.
The music industry is hurting badly. They say it is the fault of those people copying songs. It is not. It is the fault of the companies that have failed to realize that the market has changed fundamentally. Instead of adapting, they are attempting to get government to put the genie back in the bottle. Not even this liberal Democrat can love this extension of government (and you thought we loved every intrusive government program!) authority.
Consumers need to take action. Consider supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation with your tax deductible contribution. No, I don't work for them, but I sent them what I could.
We need advocates for consumer rights in digital media. Without it, the common culture will become real estate, and culture will be nothing but a commodity. If I may also suggest, take a look at Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig's Web Site and read his books, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace and The Future of Ideas, The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World.
There is a cultural, political, and economic battle going on in our republic, and the media side has vast resources. The consumer side could use some. That means you.
VOD is like DVD rental without going to the store? You have got be kidding me.
With DVD I get:
480P excellent picture quality
Widescreen (or whatever the OAR is)
Superb sound quality with DD or DTS
Extra features about the making of the movie, etc.
With VOD from my cable company:
480i CRAPPY picture quality
Pan-and-Scan (MAR)
Ultra-crap sounding pro-logic
no extra features
hmmmm.... which do you think is more appealing to me? In fact I am pretty much fed up with my cable in general. I get horrible sound and picture quality and all the movies are in a modified aspect ratio!
Because in his ideal future, everything, every program, every show time and episode, is pay-per-view.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
The cable companies are not your friend PERIOD. As a matter of fact, most large companies despite the fact that they dump millions and millions into trying to convince you otherwise, dont give a flying fsck about you or anyone.
Just another reason to dump that attbi broadband internet.
They have a right to make money. They have a right to lose it too. Powerful companies have this nasty tendency to forget this though, and become infatuated with the notion that we exist only to give them money, regardless of our satisfaction with their service or product. If they can choose not to care about restricting my freedom, I can choose not to care about their profit margin.
Dyolf Knip
So, he doesn't like them. He thinks they are for copyright violation. He thinks cable companies should sue the PVR manufacturers. So, why does he own one and why is he pissed that his wife can't operate it.
Hey Gary, can she set the clock on your old VCR?
Of course she can't. She's paid by the hour, and it isn't in her job description.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hmm, sounds just like the cable companies here in the USA.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
..then antenna and C-band satellite are your friends. Free television programming.. Imagine that! -- not having to pay for TV that was already paid for by advertisements! And if you want specialty channels, you can pay about $0.25-0.50/ea. per month and pick and choose the handful that you'd actually watch. Not that there's anything that great anyways.. and all the popular shows are on the free networks anyways.
It's absolutely amazing that so many people have suckered into paying exorbitant prices for cable and directTV.
Folks, go stick a Yagi up on your roof and stop paying these profiteering hollywood assholes who take away our rights at every opportunity.
I may not agree with their perception of PVRs and I may not even cooperate with them, but I do recognize that they have the right to take the offensive against things of this nature and that your argument is false.
Lauder obviously has a vested interest in pushing video on demand. He claims it costs less, and he's right! The actual cost per seat is lower. Unfortunately, the cable company will charge you a fucking mint for that service, for the forseeable future. Also, once something is broadcast to us once, we have the right to tape it and store it on whatever medium we like, and VOD just adds another step there - recording to PC or PVR and making a DivX, VCD or SVCD (or DVD, these days, I guess) out of it. Plus, the recording phase has to be done in realtime; any interruptions and you lose part of the stream.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
How about we get rid of ads and just let me buy the programs I want? Oh yeah -- the television economy would bottom out if people actually paid for the programming they wanted to watch, 'cause there isn't very much of it. $0.01 per commercial skipped? Bullshit. How about I just pay $1 for each program I want to watch, without any commercials in it.
If Lauder is at all sincere in suggesting that advertisers provide actual worthwhile information (which is, ultimately, the only way to save the advertiser sponsorship model), then he wouldn't even bring up the silly notion of extracting payment for not watching the ads.
The proposed charge does not seem very reasonable to me, either practically (a half-dozen ads per break, four times an hour, for four hours a day comes to $28.80/month -- a fairly hefty addition to the typical cable bill) or philosophically (if a given advertisment is so ineffective that people choose to bypass it, then the loss should be borne by the people who created and presented it).
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I have Time Warner Cable (yes, I'm sorry too) I was forced to subscribe when trees grew up through my DishNetwork line of sight (that and my TV addiction, never forget, TV is not a necessity!)
Anyway. Time Warner has started offering iControl, which has a huge potential IMO. It's real VOD with pause, play, FF, RW. We've seen the occational bug, but it's mostly stable. The real potential is the increasing library of movies.
I watched Michael J. Fox in "The Frightners" the other night. I missed the movie when it came out many years ago and I always seem to find it in the middle when it shows up on a super-station. So the other night I wasn't interested in any of the new releases for $4.00 (less than BBuster) but I saw "The Frightners". It was priced at $1.75! That is totally cool! An old movie, cheap, no driving, right now. They had "African Queen", "Singing in the Rain" and a bunch of other oldies, all for $1.75.
Now I hear that they are going to include iControl stuff from DIY, FoodTV, HGTV... for NO CHARGE. This is what VOD is all about. Now if the networks/sci-fi/original movie crowd would jump on the band wagon, I could watch whatever I wanted when I wanted.
So, Time Warner still sucks, but at least they have a product I can enjoy...
Later
=MikeT
I am sort of shocked that the cable companies feel this way. Personally, I never had cable until I got a Tivo. I grew up without a TV, and even though I would sometimes want to watch ST:TNG or something on SciFi, I just never developed the ability of being in front of the TV at a certain time. I just rented DVDs.
As soon as Tivo came out, I got one and subscribed to cable that that I could get all the channels. Now I watch more TV than ever before (about 6 hours / week). With Tivo + basic cable, my TV bill comes to about $40, which seems like a pretty good deal.
Much is made of the ability to skip commercials. Personally I think the Tivo strikes a good balance here. You can't skip them outright, but you can view the video stream at three levels of fast forward. Only the first two are useful for bypassing commercials. At this speed, you can still see what the commercial is, so I get the "exposure". If I am interested in the product advertised, I will often stop and watch the commercial. Personally I really like the "pay for skipping commercials" feature - it gives the user choice, and is fair.
The cable industry should embrace PVRs instead of vilifying them. The killer application for the cable companies would be to provide Tivo Napster themselves, instead of worrying about users doing it. They just need to record about a week's worth of content on their severs. Then they could use the existing VOD technology for delivery. Often I will talk to someone at work who will tell me about a great program from the night before. Unfortunately, this is too late. I would happily pay the cable company some small fee to have that thing appear on my Tivo. Rates could be something like $0.25/hour for a channel I subscribe to, and $1.50/hour for premium channels.
If you love your PVR, the cable industry is not your friend.
If you have cable, the cable industry is not your friend. Duh.
Head-end based PVR/VOD will work if *everything* is reliably available, and by reliably, I mean past the introduction period when they're accepting losses to suck people in. I don't ever see that being cost effective, but you never know...
I'd be more than happy to pay 1 penny for skipped ads...if they never appeared in the first place so I got to watch the show uninterrupted. Except I can see it now: this popular show would have had 1000 ads but this other show would only have had 100. Still, if the price wasn't prohibitive, I'd pay to subscribe to say Farscape.
No, cable companies don't hate PVRs. To my knowledge every major MSO (Multiple System Operator) is in some stage of developing a PVR service. Why haven't they launched such a service yet?
1. Lack of consumer demand. In the US, more people still use out-houses than PVRs. That's not to say it's not a cool technology -- 'cause it is -- but it's not yet mainstream. Won't be for a while. Note that TiVo and SONICblue aren't yet raking in the dough.
2. High cost. While Series 1 TiVos can be purchased for $150, most decent PVRs are still ~$300, with a ~$10/month subscription fee. Sure, you can build your own PC-based PVR and get TitanTV.com for free, but this solution doesn't appeal to the majority of consumers.
3. Unattractive business model. Consumers are conditioned to lease their digital set-top box (STB) from their cable company, which means the MSO must purchase the STB from the manufacturer and keep the capital cost of equipment on its books. Most MSOs are limiting captial expenditures as they move toward free cash flow, so new services that require heavy capital spending are scrutinized. Especially new services with limited (albeit growing) appeal (see #1 above).
Product development is simple:
1. What do customers want?
2. How much will they pay?
3. Can we make money charging that?
For a more detailed look at Product Development 101, see this post.
Changing gears for a moment, let's talk about rising cable rates. <soapbox> Why do MSOs raise their rates? Mostly because of increased programming costs. You see, MSOs have to pay the content providers for some of the most popular channels. It's been published (so I'm not giving away any secrets here) that ESPN raises the price it charges MSOs by ~20% per year, and won't let MSOs move the channel(s) onto a premium tier. Gotta stay in basic, as that's accessible to all viewers.
Ah, so we blame ESPN! Not so fast. *Their* costs are rising, too. The money to pay for Alex Rodriguez's $252 million contract isn't coming from ticket and beer sales. It's TV money. The Yankees can afford the highest payroll in baseball in part because of their TV contract. Follow the money: players' salaries skyrocket, which dramatically increase broadcast rights fees, so video networks (such as ESPN) charge more for their content, and cable companies are forced to increase their rates. Salaries, broadcast rights, and carriage fees increase much more than the typical 5% cable rate boost. </soapbox>
Thanks for reading. Bring on the flames!
-Ray
In summary, this is nothing like, say, a manufacturer of horse whips asking for government protection from the advent of cars; cars made horses irrelevant while the cable companies and the production industry is still very essential.
Please explain to me what is "essential" about cable television. Lots of people in America live without cable television, and if millions of people decided to cancel their cable service en masse, it would be news, but it wouldn't be cause for the government to step in and pass a law requiring citizens to pay for cable.
People could live without cable if they wanted. Some would switch to satellite. Some would subscribe to Netflix or just rent from the local video store. Others would find a local sports bar to watch the games they wanted to see. Some would read more books or listen to more music or use their computers instead. Cable television is essential to people employed by cable companies and some networks, but we could live without it, so I would say Heinlein's argument stands.
Now, broadband, on the other hand... =^)
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
This is just another of the continuing business model problems in the commercial world today. If your business model relies on forcing consumers to do something they don't want to do and aren't compelled to do, you're going to have problems. You may succeed in ramming it down their throats (credit card arbitration agreements, for example), but to be blunt, persuading your customers that you're a collection of greedy, controlling asses is not a good business plan in the long term. It leaves a big opening for someone to come along, fill the need, NOT be a greedy, controlling ass, and eat your lunch.
Now if you're being honest and you genuinely believe you offer a superior service, fine. Speeches about it are not necessary. Let the best product win in the marketplace.
I bet the FCC would approve that merger. Screw the FCC
Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Wife: I don't want ANY spam!
Wife: Could you do the egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam then?
Waitress: Shut up! (Vikings stop) Bloody Vikings! You can't have egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam.
I don't wan't ANY ads! I didn't sign any contract obligating me to watch ads. I don't care if they're targeted, this doesn't make me more likely to want to watch them.
An advertiser pays on the basis of the statistical number of eyeballs likely to view a given commercial, thus, Super Bowl commercials are insanely expensive, late night TV spots are much cheaper. However, if any given consumer, or even a small minority of consumers (which is the current base of PVR users) skips the commercials, the statistics are not affected, due to the large sample size. How is this use of PVR's so much worse than what the average consumer does, i.e., hit the channel up/down button as soon as an ad comes on during your program? This behavior is much more likely to reduce the number of individuals seeing a given ad.
In any event, it boils down to Heinlein's idea of not going to the courts to defend an outdated business model. Why should the cable company, who is admittedly scared of the satellite/PVR model, get to dictate who may and and may not time shift, record on whatever device they choose, and skip commercials, any more than the satellite company may dictate the same thing. The advertisers pay on a statistical, not individual basis. If those statistics change, due to technology, then the pricing models should follow it in a supply & demand economy.
I think most people are going to have a hard time swallowing the fact that they somehow are "stealing content" if they don't watch or pay for commecials. I pay almost $50 a month for basic cable and HBO and my basic cable package really isn't very good. Someone mentioned that advertising helps subsidize the cost of newpapers but unlike TV, I don't HAVE to look at the ads in a newspaper to get to the next page. I can see where this may be an issue is large cities or areas where you can pick up several channels via antenna, but if you are going to start telling me that I'M "stealing content", you'd better give me a darn good explanation of what my $50 is paying for.
pay a penny if i skip an ad? do i have to pay a penny if i close my eyes? walk out of the room? change channels?
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
We are out here.
obTopic: I have been looking to purchase a PVR for some time. While I am not a big fan of the monthly fee (to be paid on top of a cable or satellite bill), it does not seem too bad of a deal.
The big problem I have, though, is that I do not watch enough telelvision to really make it worth it. If I were to lose my [provided free] cable now I do not think I would miss it that much. I have a huge collection of movies that I am constantly adding to. I would rather take the money for a PVR and simply use that to buy/rent/see more movies.
So I suppose the tech guy in me likes the idea of a PVR, but the budget-minded side of me wonders why...
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Sarcasm on. Moderate accordingly.
Gary Lauder writes: PVR functionality should be provisioned from the headend for the following reasons (which ultimately will benefit consumers):
* Disk noise wakes my wife
That is your wife's problem, not the industry's. I've been in the same room as a Tivo, and never noticed any significant noise. If I were to say that cable TV prices keep me awake, is that grounds to have my bill reduced?
* Replay box hot enough to fry an egg -- Is that a feature?
I've never seen a Replay box... but I have seen a little thing called a TV. It gets pretty warm too!
* Disk size limitations mean obsolescence, esp. with HDTV
HDTV is making existing VCRs and TVs obsolete. Should we get rid of the whole "TV" concept?
My basic thesis is that PVRs + Satellite will eat cable's lunch, and since it's unambiguous that cable needs to get the copyright clearances to offer programming from the head-end, they should start now.
Translation: I'm a venture capitalist who didn't get into the PVR business when I could. Since PVRs are better than cable, let's ban them so I can make money! [All IMHO, of course.]
I suggested that consumers pay 1 cent per commercial skipped (which is about the same as what advertisers pay). That would be equivalent to $10/thousand commercials skipped.
That's a reasonable solution -- assuming that the TV, cable or satellite feeds, and other equipment are free. If I'm paying for cable, I should be able to handle the incoming data in any way I see fit, as long as I stay within Fair Use of copyright.
Sarcasm off.
I suggested that consumers pay 1 cent per commercial skipped (which is about the same as what advertisers pay). That would be equivalent to $10/thousand commercials skipped. I think that's reasonable.
Huh ? But I don't watch commercials in general. I stand up go to the toilet/kitchen, Clean the dishes/whatever.. I HATE commercials. and I most often change channels.
Pay me 10cents for each commercial I watch and we might have something to talk about ..
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Unfortunately, there's no way to determine whether you're going to get a TCD1 model or a TCD2 model (with USB2.0 instead of 1.1). The only guaranteed way to get a TCD2 model right now appears to be buying an 80-hour unit. There don't appear to be any 60-hour TCD2 units.
fencepost
just a little off
What is with this term PVR?
It stands for "Personal Video Recorder" right?
How is a VCR, a "Video Cassette Recorder" any less personal?
I like the term "DVR", "Digital Video Recorder" because thats what it is. It's a video recorder that records in digital. A VCR doesn't do that.
Gary Lauder's arguments are remarkably full of false assumptions.
... that PVRs + Satellite will eat cable's lunch" should be an argument for cable to add PVRs. At least, that's the obvious conclusion that I see.
Many of his points are a comparison of VOD vs. PVR. The main problem here is that these are two different things. A PVR will let you control everything you watch, while I'm sure VOD will only be used for movies and events. Arguing that you should do one instead of the other is silly, since the consumer would do best to have both.
Lauder comments on PVR noise. My friend recently got a new Dish 508 PVR. When he turned it on, I heard absolutely nothing. Zero. The hard drive was running, and it was dead silent. Credit new hard drive technology.
The 508 also has a fan, but I never heard it running (after it was on for a good while). Just because one box (the Replay he mentions) isn't well-designed for heat output, doesn't mean they all are like that. Again, this is an issue fixed by technology.
Lauder also says "Disk size limitations mean obsolescence, esp. with HDTV". Is there ANY device that's going to handle the transition to HDTV gracefully? The size issue is not really an issue if the disk is "big enough" to begin with. I think that at 40-80GB, we're at "big enough" for most people. In any case, the obsolescence argument applies to VOD servers just as well.
Lauder's only arguments that have any bite are:
- Moving parts break more often
- Box complexity means more crashes & customer support costs
The crashing issue is more a reflection on poor software engineering (and probably that due to poor scheduling) than anything else, however. PVR software could be made bulletproof, in time.
Customer support is always going to be an issue wherever you add new features. So this argument will apply to ANY new features added, not just PVR.
Lauder's "basic thesis
His comment that "if a Supreme Court case was brought on the legality of each feature of PVRs were brought, some would lose" is just a swipe. There's very little that a PVR does that a VCR doesn't let you do already. The only difference is the spontaneity and the time you have to wait before you can watch. The only questionable features are those added by the newest Replay box (trading programs over the net), which are not core PVR features. If lobbyists make politicians make VCRs illegal, then perhaps there may be a case.
Lauder's final comment regarded commercials. It should be pointed out that even with a PVR, you cannot skip commercials while watching live TV. Doing so requires planning head to watch delayed TV. If you're going to sit down and flip channels, you're still limited to watching live TV.
Lauder thinks consumers should pay for commercials skipped. If that makes sense, then what about paying consumers for commercials watched repeatedly? That makes sense too, right?
So he thinks a cent a commercial is a good deal? I'm not so sure - a quick back of the envelope calculation will show why:
;)
An hour long show has around 15 minutes of commercials. At an average of 30 seconds, they are showing about 30 per hour. Watch an hour of tv a day, and you are 'seeing' 30x30=900 ads per month.
Now I would be happy to pay $10/month to watch 2 movies and 3 shows a week (in fact I do, with ads), but imagine having a wife and 3 kids (aged 15, 11 and 7) - the TV might be on 10 or more hours a day. Such a family has to cough up $100/month. And that 15-year-old will know how to remove the ads, believe me. So will the 7-year-old.
But there is an alternative; perhaps Gary Lauder has already figured it out. I can see his point of the cable company being the one to invest in the infrastructure; I have no problems with that. But if the functionality is there for cable to provide the functionality of a PVR, then it is also there to provide the commercials the viewers want to see!
First of all his payment scheme needs a limit. Perhaps different plans, but lets say that you pay $10/month you get the aforementioned hour a day ad-free. Allow the viewer(s) to specify if they prefer frequent short breaks (American-style, I believe), or a few long breaks (in Holland there is often a 6 minute break from 7-13 minutes in the show!!). Have the commercials be lower volume (perhaps 80% instead of 150% as at present - I reach for the mute button to save my ears). And most importantly - let the user 'kill' any ad.
I'd prefer for the killing to be permanent for that particular ad - I'm either not interested or disgusted sufficiently that I will not want to by that product (more info in next para - do not read if squeamish), and also they can obviously profile to show worthwhile ads.
In Holland the situation used to be (long ago) that there were commercials before and after shows, but not during (also, you paid a license fee, although less than for the BBC - they do this via tax now tho). Now though, they are long (15-18 mins per hour) and LOUD. But their content is by far the most obnoxious thing. (You have been warned, leave if squeamish). My gf (American) and I (British) do not want to see: kids pissing in the supermarket [by a rival store which has toilets]; some woman checking her crack in a mirror to see if her sanitary napkins are working; a toddler with what looks like shit all over its face [presumably some kind of tasty chocolote - fortunatly I switch off so quickly I don't even know what brand to avoid]; nor are we interested in breast-feeding.
Finally, once the commercials are on demand, that means that instead of ads having to be targeted to an audience of millions, it can be local. For example, I want to hear if there is a new local computer store, or even what offers are on at one of the three local supermarkets. Anyway, ramble off
Only the folks who use Carrot Top for collect calls are too stupid to PAY FOR THEIR OWN FUCKING PHONE CALL (you hear me out there? you carrot top enjoying morons! ...not you AC).
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the pillar of rock commercials either. They're usually for trucks and jeeps...
I like the new Z commercials. Usually some good trance-like music spliced over the top of a slideshow of black and white stills of the car doing various things...like sitting there...looking way cool...
> My position that I expressed in my speech and
> that was inaccurately portrayed: PVR functionality
> should be provisioned from the headend for the
> following reasons (which ultimately will benefit
> consumers):
Yeah, ok... and when you're not in the major metropolitan area that has actual competition (more than one cable company in a market - aka Boston areas) like, oh, say Maine or West Nowheresville, KS or Hotashell, NV you have to wait for the cable company to get around to supplying you with this ability. Just like cable modems, people won't wait.
Sure, if you want to provision VOD or PVR from the headend, get off your lazy-cable-monopoly-butt and DO IT! PROVE US WRONG! Make it work and prove us nay-sayers wrong. Don't just say 'this is bad - you should do it our way instead' - then not have your way available outside a lab or a tiny test market area.
Face it cable companies, you're behind the times on this one and you've lost the edge you could have had.
Wow,, that's a rant, but what do you expect from someone who owns a domain like Adelphia Sucks.com
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
TimerWarnerAustin cable here in Austin TX is selling PVRs for a very small fee to go with their digital cable.
<grub> Reading
That would mean that I could pay about 20 cents to watch a 30 min show and see it in 20 min. I would save my sanity from the really stupid ads and save time. That is worth 20 cents.
The only problem, is that pay per view costs much more than 20 cents and I am already paying a monthly fee for box. Can I just cut some useless channels instead?
suggested that consumers pay 1 cent per commercial skipped (which is about the same as what advertisers pay). That would be equivalent to $10/thousand commercials skipped
Ummm, how about we're already paying for our cable service (or often, lack thereof). This is one of the reasons I haven't subscribed to cable in the last few years. Ads are increasing, and yet so are my prices... and they keep cutting the good sci-fi shows (although from what I hear of farscape, I would have been into that and it's making a comeback).
This type of mentality is the same as those who call you "thief" for blocking popups, except much worse because we're already paying for the cable subscription.
I am currently trialing Time Warner's VOD service out here in Cincinnati (they've had it for a year now but I didn't jump until it a free trial was available). Although I like the time-shifting features the latency is absolutely awful. Pressing pause/play/ff/rew takes whole seconds to be processed and the set of shows available is not exactly complete (about 20% of the premium channel offerings). Add to that the fact that the stupid thing is entirely unavailable frequently and you can color me unimpressed.
Basically, the cable companies are going to have to give the service away for free before I give it serious thought when PVRs fit my preferences more anyway.
Holy shit. Considering that all of these boxes will eventually "converge" to be one machine, what happens when some asshole makes a virus that makes it look like you're skipping tons of commercials?
Then what, you get a bill for 50000 dollars at the end of the month and have to pay up. This is not likely.
What is more likely is a company that makes commercials and then plants a virus on the computer that sends back "They skipped my commercial" messages to the central server and then makes a huge number of people pay a little tiny bit each month to this company.
Or what about a company that makes a fake commercial for a shitty product that nobody wants and then rakes in the money when people skip past their shitty commercial.
Or what about a company that just shows a blank screen for 30 seconds and then rakes in the money when people skip past it out of boredom?
I realize that the advertising rates will be eating into their profits. but if we get into a world where the cost per view to an advertiser is ever below the cost to a consumer to skip that commercial, expect bullshit, shenanigans and buffoonery to prevail.
Hell, I should patent this business method of making shitty or nonexistent commercials then making my money by getting those retarded ass 1 cent skip fees dorks like the guy here want people to pay for skipping commercials.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
You have it half right: They have the right (free speech) to make their commercial as uninteresting as they want, but you also have the right to not watch the commercial.
Who did what now?
Fat Reducing Set Top Box.
Just like a normal Set Top Box except it's on slant so the fat you use to fry your egg runs off.
Since basically all VOD is is a bunch of fiberchannel storage arrays containing mpeg-encoded movies, the FF complaint is just a limitation of the system. It's not a DVD; there are no built-in chapters. Still, you should have been able to FF at 16x or something close, like a DVD. I could imagine maybe in a freak of statistics 20 people on the same network as you deciding to try watching Jurassic Park at the same time, and the server just not keeping up.
It's up to the cable companies to insure their infrastructure can handle peak loads. Unfortunately they've been slow to invest in VOD hardware, because it's expensive and not many people know about VOD yet. The problem is they're ruining he experience for the early-adopters they're trying to hook.
If you think VOD would be worth your $$ if done properly, let Comcast know, and maybe they'll improve their service.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
I apologize to Gary's wife! She knows how to use their ReplayTV box. At Broadband Plus, Gary played a voicemail from his wife asking how to reboot the ReplayTV after it froze up.
To clarify, Gary is a big fan of PVRs but thinks they should be in the cable-head not in the consumer's house. However, he also thinks we should pay for skipping commercials. That's like buying a copy of Time magazine and having to pay extra for not reading the ads.
In general, Gary is a bright guy and a hilarious presenter. He raised some good points about PVRs quality and ease of use.
In response to other comments, some people have pointed out that AT&T and other cable companies offer PVRs. The cable companies are responding to market pressure from DirecTV and Dish to offer PVR functionality integrated in to the Set Top Box. The cable companies would have preferred that PVR functionality only existing in the network/cable head-end rather than in the consumer's house. Again, this is for two reasons.
1. PVRs allow satellite TV companies to offer additional services like VOD. Cable companies hate satellite companies. Satellite companies can not offer network/head-end based PVR functionally. Therefore, the cable companies hate set-top box PVRs.
2. PVRs may eventually cut in to ad revenue and VOD revenue.
The cable companies are also annoyed that they have to pay a license fee to the content owners to offer network PVR functionality in the cable head-end when the satellite companies don't have to pay a license fee to content owners to put PVR functionality in the set top box.
This debate will mostly like end up in court and we have to make sure that the consumer wins. What does it mean for the consumer to win? The consumer must be able to continue to use their PVR for legitimate time-shifting purposes.
Let your cable companies know that you like your PVR and you want to keep using it. This must not be another Napster-like case where the industry sues the consumer electronics company for providing a product the customer wants.
In their battle against satellite companies, cable companies may end up hurting their customers. We can't let this happen.
As it turns out, while timesharing always seems cheaper from the economic analysis, people tend to pick the PC anyway, under their control.
However, in this case, having the disk at the home makes sense. See my latest essay on this, or what I call Poor Man's Video on Demand
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Well, no offense, but YDKVF (you don't know very far). Tivo fully supports a DirecTV *and* Cable/Rabbit ears integrated lineup. In the setup you tell it you have "Satellite and Cable", give it your zipcode and cable provider (if there is more than 1 choice in your area) and away it goes.
I'm not sure what led you to belive that Tivo won't work with both, but it will. I've even used this setup on my personal Tivo for many years now (ever since Tivo first was introduced, whenever that was...)
-This sig intentionally left blank
the last one was for Metroid Prime, which caused me to buy a Gamecube. But that is only because I don't pay attention to gaming anymore...
Those are the ads that affect me, too - ads that INFORM. For example, during every Malcolm in the Middle episode this season, there's been a promo, not longer than 5 seconds, that says "The first season of Malcolm in the Middle is now on DVD!"
There is nothing in that ad that is going to make a non-fan want to buy the DVD's. And there's nothing in that ad that will change the mind of a fan who doesn't want to buy the DVD's. But what about fans who WOULD buy the DVD's, but don't know the DVD's exist? Their behavior can definitely be changed by this ad.
Any ad that boasts of a product's price falls into this category, too. Company X might be offering a a great deal, but it's only a great deal if you know about it and can take advantage....
grep -ri 'should work'
If it suddenly required multiple attempts to change the channel, TiVo could just send out a software update so the PVR selects channel n three times in a row when it's about to record a program on channel n, to make absolutely sure that the cable box is showing the proper channel.
For reasons unknown to me, my TiVo (Series 1) currently seems to input the channel both before it starts recording and again after the recording stops.
~Philly
The cable companies value revenue more than bandwidth. I don't think they will ever complain that there are too many people willing to pay $3 to watch Lilo and Stitch all at the same time. The alternative is that the money goes to TiVo or DirectTV or for DVD rental or purchase, or one guy records it on his PVR and shares it with 2,000 of his closest friends over a P2P network. A Video-On-Demand service is the best way to get that money to the cable companies instead.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Instead of making me skip commercials at all, how about letting me pay $10 a month to never see another damn commercial again?
Yeah, how about it... uninterrupted programming, no more Snuggle bear, and never EVER having to fast forward past smug news anchors saying things like, "The world may be coming to an end. We'll tell you for sure at 11."
I hate to be treated like just another sales op. I'm human, not a sale, nor a target, nor willing to have loud mouthed a** holes push junk on me.
Great example: Today Blue Cross/Blue Shield sent an ad for their product to my mother-in-law. She's been dead almost 10 years.
Not only do "targeted" adverts turn me off, they are factually incorrect much of the time.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
It is only a matter of time until AOL/TW sues itself.
> VOD servers cost much less
:-)
Perhaps to the VOD provider, but to the end user? Everywhere I've lived there's one and only one cable provider. Monopoly prices won't be as competitive as Replay/TiVo/UltimateTV in competition.
Plus, with ReplayTV I can queue up a pile of movies from HBO, and bring it to the Tahoe cabin for the weekend.
> Disk noise wakes my wife
That's not an intractable problem. In a few years you'll just keep the main ReplayTV in the family room and stream the movie to ultra-quiet and cheaper player units in the other rooms.
> Replay box hot enough to fry an egg -- Is that a feature?
This matters absolutely zero to me, and probably to most people. I want my laptop cooler, not my ReplayTV.
> Disk size limitations mean obsolescence, esp. with HDTV
Disk size limitations? Disk sizes grow exponentially. By the time HDTV is provided to my apartment complex (it's a new and nice apartment but they don't see HDTV on the near horizon), I'm sure 1 Tb disks will be commonplace. 2 Tb maybe.
> Records multiple concurrent shows
TiVo's 2 tuners already do that. Rarely are there more than 2 good shows on. Rarely is there one good show on, which is why I need the ReplayTV to time shift.
> Moving parts break more often
This feels like scraping the bottom of the barrel. Besides, I'd be more worried about my cable company's VOD going down and them not caring. I only have the one provider, remember. What am I gonna do, antenna? Besides, I bought one of the first dozen ReplayTV units and never had a single problem.
There were a few more points. I'll leave those to someone else. I've got TV to watch.
-jh-
P.S. If I must pay 1c for each skipped commercial, do I then get 1c for each commercial I watch twice? It seems only fair, and with some of those Victoria Secret commercials...