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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!
If you're going to do so many stories on it, why not? And while you're adding icons, how about one for Google?
Let's look at this in the abstract. People love TiVo because it gives them the ability to watch entertainment they enjoy free from the distraction of intrusions they do not enjoy, and at a time that is convenient for them. Content owners do not like TiVo for precisely the same reasons. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the shows themselves.
... television shows?
Content owners (TV studios, "Hollywood") probably couldn't care less if people time-shift television. Why? Because for broadcast at least, the TV shows are almost the precise definition of a loss leader. If you time-shift your show, the local station or cable provider that is playing it has still paid the license fee to run the show. There is no change in the net income from the show. The show generates no more or no less revenue than it did before. If the show is a money-losing venture in itself - which most of them probably are - the the show is no MORE of a money-loser because it's been moved out of its time slot.
(Now, there is the possible exception that time-shifting screws up the studios' ability to generate statistics about viewing habits, etc., which could impact relationships with advertisers, but, well, keep reading.)
So, if a television show's movement through time has no impact or minimal impact on its revenue generating capacity for the studio which creates it (please note, the actors don't care because they've already been paid), why are the studios upset?
Advertising moolah.
This is not a revolutionary observation. I'm aware of that. But they're so angry about you time-shifting because you want to get rid of exactly the thing that gives them the profit motive to make the show in the first place. They can try product placement and inline ads as partial replacements for traditional block advertising, but the 30-second ad spot is still the cash cow.
And you're getting in the cash cow's way.
So the studio is upset. But let's take a step back and look at what the combat really means. (This is where this post gets flamable, so if you liked it before, stop reading.) TiVo owners are demanding a right, and spending their hard-earned money, to time-shift
What value are they to anybody? The studios don't care because they don't represent any real revenue. They will only make good shows if they think those shows will attract eyes to see ads crammed into the spaces between show segments.
And do they represent any real value to you? Eh, you might chuckle or cry or gasp or cower when watching, but after the 30 minute sitcom is over, what have you gained? A new skill? Truly reduced stress? Enlightenment? Not likely.
In fact, and paradoxically, the only benefit to the viewer in a usual TV watching session is in the ADS. It's like the old advice on how to pick up women: "Just walk up to one and ask her if she wants to f***. Nine times out of ten you'll get slapped, but that tenth time.. wowee..." That's how the advertisers see you. And with good reason: because 1 time out of 10, you're going to see an ad and think "Hey, that's neat..." And you might go buy it. If you ignore the ad the other 9 times, the advertisers don't really care, because there are 280 million other people out there deciding whether "Can you hear me now?" is going to provoke them to get or keep Verizon phones.
So, you actually derive more tangible benefit from that one time you actually are moved by an ad than you do from all the sitcom watching in the world, except in those instances where the sitcoms are so insidious as to be indistinguishable from the ads themselves.
My solution? No tv. I don't have to pay the cable company $520 a year for television I don't watch. I don't have to pay $400-6,000 dollars to replace my ten-year-old TV when it finally dies. I don't have to spend hours upon hours sitting in front of the brain control box, um, TV soaking up advertising. And I don't have to spend money to fight the advertising by buying a TiVo. I lose some entertainment, sure, but I have books, family, the Internet, and even my own imagination.
I'm not passing judgment on anybody, except the advertisers who attempt to monopolize your mind. But do me a favor, you Slashdot people I don't even know... Try going without TV (and TiVo) for a month. Completely without TV.
See if you really miss it.
It will be interesting to see how the public reacts to this show that is based (in part) around ads for products. I think these genius advertisers are finally getting the hint that people are phasing out traditional commercials (just like how we rarely notice banner ads anymore) and they're scrambling for something else.
There are already plenty of TV shows with ads in them - look at sports, for instance, with ads all over the various stadiums, and even with soccer which goes commercial-free and has an ad of the sponsor under the clock. I figure it's just a matter of time before regular TV programming adopts this form of advertising, with a little logo in the corner, or maybe shrinking the screen down ala MTV to give you some ad along the side and bottom of the screen.
And we'll probably get used to it, just as we've gotten used to the logos for the channel that are always on now..
we spend so much time bitching about stupid pols writing bad laws, but has anyone spent the time to setup the kewl things they are trying to legislate into vaporware????
maybe, we need to start a campaign to give great geekware to legislators and government officials for the sake of winning their hearts (or wherever powell's god lives) to our causes. if we can make enough lawmakers into violators of the DMCA and other heinous laws on the books, or proposed and show them why we feel strongly about this. or even have the EFF donate linux boxen to lawmakers. we will gain an advantage.
at any rate. i propose we start by giving a copy of the Linux Bar Monkey to Ted Kennedy and go from there .. . .
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
What Powell may not be aware of is that in saying so, he may ultimately have to break the DMCA to do it.
Except for the fact that it has nothing to do with the DMCA. Distributing copies of home recordings is a violation of plain old copyright law, law which has been on the books since 1790.
But making snide remarks about a 200-year-old law makes you look kind of like an anti-establishment wacko, while snide remarks about the DMCA are always socially acceptable.
I write in my journal
You make a good point, but you missed the important part. The value derived from watching tv is the entertainment.
You mention you like to read, as do I. I also happen to prefer to buy my books over borrowing them (although I do borrow some), just because I like having my own little library. So, everytime I, or you, buy a non-reference book, we are essentially paying for entertainment. Reading a book, despite what some think, does not necessarily improve you in any way (you can pick up new skills and reduce stress just as well with tv as with a book), you won't find "enlightenment" (assuming there is such a thing anyway).
Ever go to the movies, a concert, a play? All of these are like tv, in the fact that you are paying for the entertainment. Hell a lot of vacations are really people just paying for entertainment, of course there's a more tangible component to that entertainment.
Fine, if you don't get much enjoyment out of tv, don't watch it. I, however, find some shows rather amusing, and enjoy watching them. The great thing about tv is that it only requires partial attention, I often do something else while watching it. You can't do that with a book.
By the way, I never got into the habit of watching commercials (even long before TiVo). I'll gladly flip or do something else for those minutes, assuming I can't find a "filler show" to use during commercials, before I will sit there and absorb the advertising.
Is it possible that you just haven't found the right things to watch?
Maybe you didn't intend it, but to me your post comes off a bit "holier-than-thou", which is a sense I get from a lot of people who don't watch tv. I have gone a month without tv. I often don't watch it while I'm travelling. Still, I do enjoy it when I'm at home, and not doing anything in particular. You could make a similar case for surfing the web, it's not much better than tv...
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
So, I've started wondering lately. Is the TiVo going to cut down on the TV I do watch?
I got my wife a TiVo for our anniversary last year. She LOVES it.
We spent the first while or three configuring the thing, then selecting all the shows we liked. We told it to record EVERYTHING, first runs and reruns. We spent hours a day watching it. We recently realized how much time we spent watching it. For 2 months, we spent 2-4 hours a weekday watching TV, and more on the weekend. It was entertaining, but there was more to life. Part of it was just getting through it so we would have the hard drive space (on an 80 hour unit) to not miss anything.
So, we pared it down to the TV shows we really enjoy, and first runs of those.
I'll be honest. We fast forward through the commercials. Not all of them, we actually stop, rewind and play ads that catch our eye with a visual joke or breathtaking nature view (or the like). Mostly those are for products, like a cola or a car or other tangible thing. I don't think we've ever stopped to watch a TV ad for a TV program. Which brings me to this observation: If we're not exposed to new shows, how will we decide what new shows to record? Will we just reach the point where the TiVo records a show a week that's requested? What happens when that's cancelled?
We don't watch TiVo's recommendations. They're just WAY off. TiVo may as well get paid to record episodes that the networks want us to see that we haven't specifically "thumbs downed" as far as I'm concerned, they're that relevant most days.
So, now we limit ourselves to an hour of TV a day. We see only the show or two that we really want to see, and nothing else. When the new season stops, will we bother to turn the TV on? I don't know. With Firefly and Birds of Prey going away, we may not bother.
So, here's my real question. If TiVo is going to help us find only shows we want to watch, are we going to get to the point where TiVo hasn't found any first runs that we want to watch? Will we then not turn the TV on every day? If we get to that point, will we eventually just forget that we have a TV?
I did a little write up on epinions to describe the machine shortly after we got it because I didn't see many reviews on the TiVo 2. (If you're not into blatant plugs, don't click the link -- it's my write-up.)
"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!)
I read the "TiVOGuard" portion of the press release. But it leaves me curious about how they determine the bounds of one's 'home'. Is this subnet masking or something that determines what IP addresses are inside my home? What if someone wants to designate their own weekend cottage or parents' home as shareable? Care to speculate?