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News on TiVo, "God's Machine"
Brace for incoming TiVo news!
rtphokie pointed out that FCC chair Michael Powell got a TiVo for Christmas and calls it
"God's machine."
Powell also said he wanted to share TV shows with his sister -- but he might have to violate the DMCA to do it: TiVo wants to
join the home network
(thanks Insomniac), but parr pointed us to
TiVo's Thursday press release
in which they assure us that "every TiVo Series2 DVR contains a unique public/private key pair," so only "designated" units within your home can share programs, you "cannot send content outside the home," and transfers over your home network will be encrypted (no sniffing!). Meanwhile, on the WB (part of AOL-TW), everything old is new again, as producers and advertisers work to create a live variety show with
built-in commercials (free reg. req.) (thanks eternal_software).
And if you missed our earlier TiVoesque stories, check 'em out:
TiVo-radio wanted,
HDTV TiVo,
and
TiVo Rendezvous. Whew!
I'm sure there are many of us on Slashdot who have been kinda thinking about getting one of these PVRs, but don't know which is better: TiVo, ReplayTV, or the others.
Can a good Slashdot nerd who's researched the pros and cons of each give the rest of us a good intelligent recommendation? (Or at least point to a good URL you've found elsewhere?)
Thanks!
"Built-in commercials" worked in the days of old because there was no such thing as syndication. A program aired once (usually live) and that was it. So you had sponsors paying for that airtime, and they got their advertising in.
Not so today.
When a program is recorded, space is left for the commercials. They usually don't even know who the sponsors are yet. Then the commercials are added later. A season or two later, if it's a popular program, it's all picked up for syndication (a wild process involving conventions and stations and networks and lots of wheeling-and-dealing). The station or network airing the program in syndication will be putting in a completely different set of commercials.
See the problem here? If the commercials are irrevocably embedded into the program, they can't be removed and replaced during syndication. That means it won't syndicate at all, because the cable networks and superstations of the world won't be able to put in their own commercials. They won't be able to make back the money they paid for the programming. So, they'll either choose other programming, or if this style of programming becomes dominant, the smaller stations and networks may go away entirely.
It's kind of like forcing people to take a web browser or media player with an operating system, whether they want it or not. It puts people's eyeballs where you want them in the short term, but it screws up the flexibility for pretty much everyone else in the universe.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
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Putting adds in the content, or having the content members plug stuff is not new. Soap operas are called "soap operas" because they were shows pormoted exclusivley for a single advertiser. Some shows required the story to involve laundry scenes where the "whiteness of your whites" could be commented upon. Ed sullivan, groucho marx, and all the rest used to plug the products right in the show, reading the ads.
I imagine they went to the "modern" format of distinct ads becaause they were deemed more effective at catching viewer attention. Now the pendulum swings back.
A freind told me that in some european country, italy perhaps, there are certain shows or channels that only have ads at the begining and ends. The response of the adveritsers is to make comercials so good that you really want to watch. Which of course is sort odd segwaying back into making whole shows again with embedded comercials.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Sharing TV shows non-commercially would not have violated the original 1790 law, which covered only "vending" of protected works.
The trick with cartoons isn't to bury the advertisement in the cartoon itself. The trick is to make the advertisement indistinguishable from the main show, which is brutally effective. Huckleberry Hound started his career shilling Kellogg's Corn Flakes, and most of the other H-B shows from the early 60s worked this way, too. Of course, this can lead to embarrassing situations if you overextend yourself, like the (in)famous ads of Fred and Barney taking a Winston break.
The other option is to build a show around a product line. Anybody who grew up in the 1980s knows how that works with toys, but Hanna-Barberra actually had a cartoon starring Sugar Bear (of Post Sugar Crisp fame) and other Post cereal mascots.
Both of these practices were outlawed by the FCC until the 1980s, when the gloves came off and bare-knuckled fighting for kid money clogged the airwaves again.
--DocL
---
If it wasn't for half of the people in this country, the other half would be all of them -- Col. Stoopnagle
From News Factor this morning.....
The DVR (digital video recorder) pioneer is offering software that enables customers to share the content delivered to their TiVo recording hardware throughout the home. The service uses Wi-Fi (802.11b) wireless technology to turn the DVR into a networked entertainment center.
Remote Recording
TiVo's home networking software will be rolled out this spring, at a cost of US$99 to subscribers with Series2 DVR units. Activation of additional units within the home will cost $49 per DVR. The software will be downloadable via broadband or phone line to any TiVo Series2 box.
Following activation, the DVR will connect over a Wi-Fi or wired network with Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL - news) or Windows PCs. All required applications will be available at the company Web site.
In addition to streaming entertainment throughout the home, subscribers will be able to access their DVR remotely and schedule it to record from virtually any location, much like they currently do at home.
Hi, welcome to Canada, the land where Tivo doesn't want to sell machines, and so blocks their use. Thanks but no thanks.