Slashdot Mirror
AOL's Mystro TV vs Tivo?
admiral2001 writes "Here is is a NYTimes story about AOL-Time-Warner's plans for a TiVo-killing 'Mystro TV' (nytimes annoying free registration required). They plan to begin rolling this out sometime in the next two years. Their major features are the simple pause, rewind, and fast forward that all PVRs have. However, they've taken the obvious stance to "let[s] networks set the parameters, dictating which shows users can reschedule, and it also creates ways for networks to insert commercials." The article even mentions how they could get an advantage in pushing their product because "viewers could try out Mystro TV by pushing a button on their remote"."
I think not. The whole point of TiVo is that it lets users reschedule shows and skip commercials to their ***own*** liking.
I don't think this will be a successful product anytime soon, unless AOL bundles the appliance with its 1e6 hours free cds.
nytimes annoying free registration not required here.
Just like DivX was supposed to be the DVD-killer, right? I'm as likely to buy this as I was to buy into DivX--which is to say, not happenin'.
Industry seems to think it can lead consumers around by the nose, telling them, "We know what's best for you." Sometimes it succeeds; but when an obviously-good idea like Tivo beats drek like this to the punch, it's no contest.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Is it just me, or is the grammar in Slashdot postings getting worse over time?
Not a surprise-- major corporation takes great idea and releases their inferior spin on it, hoping that their marketing will let it triumph.
One reason that it's good to be Second to Market (not First) is that you can pick-and-choose on which features to compete with, and don't have to do as much work informing people.
First to Market: teach people what it is, and sell them on buying it
Second to Market: convince people to buy yours, not theirs.
A.
AOL Is Planning a Fast-Forward Answer to TiVo
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Personal video recorders like TiVo mock everything a television network is about. The devices let viewers thumb their noses at program schedules and, even worse, fast-forward past commercials. To many at the networks and studios, it is a cruel joke that could drive them out of business.
AOL Time Warner, however, is trying to beat TiVo Inc. at its own game.
A secretive team of AOL Time Warner executives has begun talking with other major cable operators and media companies about speeding up and co-opting the potential revolution that TiVo kicked off. The company's system, called Mystro TV, is AOL Time Warner's gambit in an imminent battle over the future of the television business. Satellite services, cable systems and television manufacturers are all racing to promote their versions of the TiVo-like technologies that threaten to wreak havoc on networks and studios, and AOL Time Warner wants to put its own stamp on the evolution of the medium.
Advertisement
Its plans will turn in part on whether the company can end two years of internal discord following AOL's acquisition of Time Warner. If the company's often antagonistic divisions can cooperate, their collective arms reach to all sides of the television business. The company's Turner Broadcasting and WB are the largest collection of networks. Warner Brothers is the largest television studio. And Time Warner Cable is the most technologically advanced and second-largest cable operator.
AOL Time Warner already has a track record of directing the technological course of the entertainment business, most recently by single-handledly forcing Hollywood to adopt the low-priced sale of DVD's. Now it has dedicated significant financial and personnel resources to Mystro TV. Two years ago, the company transferred Time Warner Cable's top executive, Joseph J. Collins, and top engineer, James A. Chiddix, to the secretive project full time. Meanwhile, the cable division has already implemented some elements of the technology. Viewers in New York and elsewhere can subscribe to an HBO on-demand channel, enabling them to watch "The Sopranos" and other offerings on their own schedule with fast-forward and rewind. Viewers in Hawaii can watch the nightly news and other programs whenever they want, and the cable system is testing new forms of targeted advertising there as well.
But as the company rushes to stay ahead of competing services from satellite and electronics companies, AOL Time Warner must also overcome questions about its technology. At the same time, Mystro TV needs to win the cooperation of networks, studios and the creators of shows. So far, most industry executives -- even some at AOL Time Warner's networks and studios -- say they are dubious about the feasibility of the idea.
The essence of AOL Time Warner's Mystro TV is a technology that uses a cable system itself to provide viewers capabilities similar to computerized personal video recorders like TiVo: watching programs on their own schedules, with fast-forward and rewind. But it also lets networks set the parameters, dictating which shows users can reschedule, and it also creates ways for networks to insert commercials.
Two senior AOL Time Warner executives said the company was hoping to begin rolling out service within two years. They said the company planned to sell the Mystro TV service to other competing cable operators, just as it sold HBO, potentially giving Mystro a central role as a gateway between television networks and viewers around the country.
For now, senior AOL Time Warner executives said the company is trying to keep its efforts under wraps, partly because details may still change. The company was also stung by excessive publicity surrounding a disappointing test of interactive TV technology in Orlando, Fla., in the mid-1990's. A spokeswoman for Mystro TV declined to comment.
A confidential CD-ROM demonstrating a prototype of the service depicts a viewer arriving home in the middle of "Friends," (produced by Warner Brothers and shown on NBC) and restarting it from the beginning. Another viewer pauses a broadcast of "Charmed" (produced by Warner Brothers and shown on WB). "Go ahead, answer the phone," the demo suggests, "Mystro TV allows you to pause what you are watching."
As with the current HBO on-demand service, viewers can scroll through an on-screen programming schedule to look backward and forward at available shows. They can watch "Sex and the City" while "The Sopranos" is on, or preview next week's episode of either. "Want to watch a show that aired last night or a few hours ago?" the demonstration asks, "Simply go backward in the guide and press `Play.' No advanced planning required."
Advertisement
Those capabilities frighten many at the networks, studios and Hollywood talent agencies, all of whom control crucial rights to the use of their shows. Letting viewers reshuffle the TV schedule cripples the network's ability to build audiences for new shows by putting them on after hits. More troublesome, the easy fast-forwarding promises to deprive networks of revenue by decimating the audience for commercials.
But the demonstration also stresses that the Mystro TV system offers networks and studios considerable advantages over in-home personal video recorders such as TiVo or ReplayTV, which is made by Sonicblue. Not only can networks determine the availability of their shows, but Mystro TV prevents consumers from making, storing or sharing copies (something ReplayTV allows). Mystro also does not automatically skip commercials or even include a fast-forward button that leaps past one 30-second commercial at a time (another feature of ReplayTV.)
While a program is paused or rewinding, networks can insert new commercials during the process or display them around the periphery of the screen. On the CD-ROM demo, for example, a viewer pausing "Charmed" might see a commercial for Special K or Pizza Hut.
The demonstration also promises advertisers new ways to target viewers. A viewer watching a car commercial might be able to select an additional view of the interior or safety features. Or one household might see a commercial for a luxury car while another sees a pitch for an economy model. "Increase the effectiveness of advertising by sending different ads to different homes," the demonstration promises.
Unlike TiVo or other set-top appliances, the demonstration notes, viewers could try out Mystro TV by pushing a button on their remote, an enormous advantage to wooing customers. (Consumers would presumably pay a monthly fee for Mystro service.)
But the thrust of AOL Time Warner's pitch to networks and studios is an implicit threat that the personal video recorder technology is coming, with or without their permission. So far, only about 700,000 of the most avid television mavens have bought TiVo devices, which are cumbersome to install and cost $200 to $400 in addition to a monthly fee. But two major satellite TV companies, EchoStar Communications and the DirectTV business of the Hughes Electronics unit of General Motors, have recently begun promoting TiVo-like set-top boxes as part of their services. In the fall, Toshiba is expected to begin selling a television with a similar device already installed. Time Warner Cable itself is hedging its bets by investing in TiVo-style cable boxes. It included similar functions in about 60,000 of the set-top boxes it has already installed, with 200,000 more expected to be delivered by next year.
Still, rolling out Mystro TV will not be as easy as an engineer pushing a button, mainly because of the elaborate telecommunications capacity required. TiVo and similar other devices store recorded programs in a hard drive on top of the set; the Mystro TV system would store the programming in hubs of cable networks. For the cable company, each additional user would mean squeezing another stream of video content through its cables. Then the system requires software to play digital traffic cop, managing the flow of so many distinct transmissions at once.
Michael Ramsay, the chief executive of TiVo, said he doubted AOL Time Warner could handle the capacity. "We have never been able to figure how you could do that economically," he said. But for their part, Time Warner Cable engineers have told industry audiences that they have been building their capacity toward this goal for years, so they think they are ready to tackle the logistics.
The requisite deals are even more tangled. Unlike recording on a personal hard drive, storing programming at a central location entails reaching licensing agreements with the owners of the shows -- studios, networks, producers, and others.
Executives at the major networks declined to comment. Privately, many acknowledge that they fear the spread of personal video recorders could do to their business what Napster did to music. They also worry that letting viewers watch shows like "Friends" at any time might sap the lucrative demand for reruns in syndication. For now, some senior network executives say they are putting their faith in the couch potato factor: many consumers apparently prefer to sit in front of whatever happens to be on, including commercials.
For now, said Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research, the fear of personal video recorders is not potent enough to drive Hollywood into the arms of Mystro TV. But, he said, the idea behind Mystro TV was "the holy grail" of television -- a vast library of programming at the viewer's finger tips.
"If you could get the license to everything that was ever broadcast on television, could you create a tremendous video-on-demand service?," he said. "Oh yeah, then all the technical problems would be worth it. But its getting the licenses that is the problem."
Whats the point if i cant skip commercials? If the network decides what i can watch? I mean, hasnt the network already shown it at the wrong time, thats why im recording it!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Why? I just use my linux box as a PVR.
cheap commadity(sp?) hardware versus a 300$ device?
I stick w/ my box.
Life is like a jar of jalapeños, what you do today may burn your ass tomorrow.
NY Times Technology (no reg req): AOL Is Planning a Fast-Forward Answer to TiVo
CNN Money: AOL eyes TiVo-like offering
Getting the legions of Tivo owners to give up the system they have become so rabidly fond of. It's not just a product, it's a culture.
Getting an industry behind you won't help that much either. You could probably get bunches of AOL people who are on the fence about a Tivo purchase but anyone who owns a Tivo probably wouldn't jump at the chance to start receiving commercials.
Mystro TV is a complex multimedia system that will require vast legal agreements between consumers, networks and other multinational corporations. Additionally, it will serve two masters (consumers and networks) rather than one.
TIVO is a hard drive with multimedia software.
Guess who wins?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
This benefits consumers how? Why would anyone buy this product.
This is what they call useful, puh-lease...
What can it offer over tivo being so crippled...
The whole appeal of Tivo is that the watcher can take back control of watching TV. That is what makes Tivo a "killer app."
This reigns back in that control. That being the case, it is not the "killer app" TWC hopes it will be.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
People will buy the gadget with better functionality built into it (ie. TIVO/Replay) given the choice and the knowledge.
They can hope that people will be stupid enough to shell out money for crippled hardware, but DivX (the original crippled DVD competitor) shows how well that works.
Control is everything in this market. If the networks can control what I watch (like they did pre-Tivo) then the device is of little use to me. Tivo is user hackable and I can choose when and what I record. This should work even on top of AOLs system through the "analog loophole". The trick is that TiVo has to have the business savy to let consumers know what they are missing by having networks control what they watch. Personally I don't see what the big deal is anyway with the commercials. The Tivo can't skip them, I get the point of all of them even though I fast-forward through them. I watch the last Michael Jordan commercial many times. The user must have control. The user must be taught that he must have control. Only then will the market drive the best product to success. These are the same problems Open Source faces.
There's another interesting write up about this over at Tubgirl tech archive
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
TiVo, et al. will eat their lunch. Why would the other broadcasters play to help out AOL's business model? "You've got Junk-TV."
'ta
as it dosnt say "welcome to AOL" every time its switched on fine.. otherwise shoot me, shoot me now.
moo
Is this Steve's parting shot on the clueless Time-Warner Board for giving him the boot?
I believe that the cable companies have lost the real opportunity to gain total control over what we watch, and how we watch it. People will often go for subscription services, but if they have to watch the advertisments anyway (I suppose they can still mute them), then why go with this option. With stand alone devices like TiVo, the owner of the device (read:end user) is in total control of what they record, how long they can store it, when they can watch it, and when they can re-schedule a recording.
The cable companies want to take that away from people, and it may have worked, if TiVo had not been so popular. I think the only VoD services that are going to fly will have to give the customer _Total_ control over what they want. I predict that this technology will be limited to VoD for pay-per-view movies, not regular television.
I used to hate computers, but then a server went down on me.
Personal video recorders like TiVo mock everything a television network is about. The devices let viewers thumb their noses at program schedules and, even worse, fast-forward past commercials. To many at the networks and studios, it is a cruel joke that could drive them out of business.
I think the cruel joke is the horrible load of advertising I'm put through to watch generally tasteless, unorginal, mediocre programming. If the TV networks can't adapt to the new style of TV, then they deserve to go out of business.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Why does evreything have to be a "insert current dominant player"-killer? Is Microsoft's business model doing that so pervasive that we don't see any other option? If the market will only support one company's product, is it really worth spending the time and effort to get into an existing market?
But I think that Tivo has two big appeals: no commercials, and "watch what you want, when you want". And it seems to me that the AOL device could deliver on that in spades. I am not really sure I care as much about commercials as I do about when I get to watch. I might even be willing to have the commercials in if it means I don't have to pay extra for a subscription network (like the HBO channel mentioned in the article).
What I am getting at is this: if there is a choice between paying $25/month for cable, plus $25 for the AOL service (commercial content in), or $25 for cable, plus $50 for a service that lets me skip commercials, I think a lot of households (perhaps even mine if my wife saw the bill!) would choose the former.
So either this is going to be another failed attempt at "video on demand" that probably wouldn't get off the ground anyway due to licensing...
Or it is going to be a product that has *less* functionality than the ones currently on the market. And people would buy this why exactly?
The real market for TiVo is in licensing their technology to cable operators. If my digital cable came with TiVo capability I would be very happy!!!
This sounds like iControl from Time Warner Cable on steroids. I have most of those features, but not with live programming. It's pretty neat in its current form, but, of course, the playlists are updated and rotated every so often, so you don't get to "save" a show if the network decides to give you a new episode.
Michael C. Hollinger
but Mystro TV prevents consumers from making, storing or sharing copies
If it comes in a cable through the wall, someone can descramble, store, compress, and distribute it. What in the world would keep me from attaching my TiVo to this thing (which may just be my cable box with Mystro-enabling chips) and TiVo-ing channel 3?
Besides, this thing will never fly, because it would require every TV show to give licensing agreements to AOL/Time Warner. Then, A/TW will have to have a central server that talks to every cable provider in the US. Uh huh...good thing I can TiVo past this on CNN tonight.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
The essence of AOL Time Warner's Mystro TV is a technology that uses a cable system itself to provide viewers capabilities similar to computerized personal video recorders like TiVo: watching programs on their own schedules, with fast-forward and rewind. But it also lets networks set the parameters, dictating which shows users can reschedule, and it also creates ways for networks to insert commercials.
Sounds more like "Mystro TV Suicide" or "crippled TiVO" to me. This won't be anything near a TiVO Killer: It goes against what TiVO stands for: use of the product (TV content) on YOUR terms. I don't want the networks dictating to me what I can and cannot record; after all, they don't control my work schedule, so they can't possibly know when I can watch what.
I don't see it going anywhere.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
This is good for ReplayTV and TiVo. Very few people will avoid buying one of their units because the new service is available. Just the opposite--more consumers will be exposed to just how much more control they can have over their TV viewing. And once people see how much better it can be, they'll be more receptive to getting a ReplayTV or TiVo, because they'll understand why they want one (because the restricitions on the AOL service will be annoying).
Given the investment that would be required, and the current state of the economy, I can't see this happening. There are only marginal differences between this and a Tivo, hardly enough to justify such a huge undertaking.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I've seen the cable on demand functionality of "Cablevisions - Digital IO" service and it blew me away. You could watch whatever whenever. I think that this AOL-TW product will be dwarfed by on demand broadcasting. I'm waiting for the day when television will shift from broadcasting on a set schedule, to allowing the viewers freedom to choose what to watch, and when.
Imagine sitting down at 4AM and throwing on the news. It of course would not be live, but who cares. If you can watch it then, then great.
I do own a Tivo, and my TV watching has changed drastically. Unfortunately though, if its 7:30PM on a Sunday and I want to watch the new Simpsons episode at 8:00, I still have to wait. Imagine a system like this:
The channel decides which shows will "air" in a given week, and the viewer has access to ALL of them, at any time. If it's Monday and I want to watch something that typically airs on Friday, no problem. The only caveat with this, is live television. And you know what, if the live broadcast is that good, people will tune in at that time too.
From the article Or one household might see a commercial for a luxury car while another sees a pitch for an economy model. "Increase the effectiveness of advertising by sending different ads to different homes," the demonstration promises.
This cannot be achieved till the networks collect personal information, spending habits, viewing habits and the like. We all loathed realplayer and windows media player for calling up home about the clips we watch. This is far bigger and more ugly.
...that I switched from TW to WOW recently. About half the cost, and no b$ like this.
From the article: Mystro TV is a technology that uses a cable system itself to provide viewers capabilities similar to computerized personal video recorders like TiVo.
So, does this mean that there is no extra machine to install, and a minumum service cost?
This may be a good thing actually. If you are able to select exactly the content you want to receive and when over the cable, then it's great, as long as the subscription price to cable remains the same. There used to be some widgets to automatically remove advertisements in VCRs. I think it worked by recognizing some special signal that happens when you switch from a program to an ad (among other thinks, the volume is louder). So with this AOL thingy you theoretically can attach a machine that removes the ads, and presto.
In other words (to summarize), I think AOL is aiming to stop people from buying Tivos by offering a cheaper service, and not to replace Tivos.
The ENIAC Demo Competition
Those capabilities frighten many at the networks, studios and Hollywood talent agencies.... Letting viewers reshuffle the TV schedule cripples the network's ability to build audiences for new shows by putting them on after hits. More troublesome, the easy fast-forwarding promises to deprive networks of revenue by decimating the audience for commercials.
One more example of an entertainment industry that doesn't understand point-to-point and can't break the ingrained habits of centralized, "broadcast" control. This is what they're supposedly worried about? That scheduling flexibility offered to the audience will prevent people from having new shows scheduled down their throats? A generation of network schedulers is quaking in their boots -- but c'mon, you can't think of any better ways to promote a program? Movies become big hits, almost always, without any such scheduling "in." (The ones that get heavy TV ad time are usually crap: "Master of Disguise," anyone?) And what about the full half of the glass: the people who DO get to watch it who couldn't otherwise? Huh?
And note to TV execs: anything that actually reports, legitimately, the rate of viewing is going to "decimate" your revenues from commercials. We go to the bathroom. The same people who watch commercials for Bud Light and laugh now aren't going to stop. The rest of us hit "mute."
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I do see some reasons why I will still keep my Tivo:
"Or one household might see a commercial for a luxury car while another sees a pitch for an economy model. 'Increase the effectiveness of advertising by sending different ads to different homes,' the demonstration promises."
For those of you wearing tin foil hats that don't want to register go here
If this technology makes it's way into the standard cable network, then it's a sales feature for cable vs. satellite. TiVo becomes, in effect, the "premium option" for consumers, much as it is now.
If the cable companies want to charge more for it, though, then it may steal some sales from TiVo, but it's more likely that folks will avoid it entirely. I actually think that if some form of digital VCR/on demand technology makes it into the cable network by default, it'll be a bonus for TiVo.
Think about it. Right now, one of the toughest things for TiVo is just explaining it to people. If some TiVo-like capabilities become available by default to everyone, then TiVo actually has something to relate their product to. They can say, in essense, "Mystro isn't bad. But when you want the real thing, try TiVo". That has some potential.
By the way, I explain TiVo to folks by saying "I don't watch any particular network anymore. I watch the TiVo channel, and it knows what I want and shows it to me when I want it, automatically". It seems to work as an explanation.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
one response....Yawn...Just what I need a device that has less features than a VHS/DVD recorder. Who thinks of this crap?
That's just what's always annoyed me about our VCR: it lets me skip ads and watch things when I want to. At last, a recorder that really recreates that "just watching normal TV" feel.
What a pack of dickheads.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
People aren't really "taking back" anything with Tivo (or any PVR) when they use it to skip comercials. They are using it to circumvent part of the revenue stream that networks and broadcasters use to make TV/cable more affordable. Once PVRs make commercials an invalid form of generating revenue, I would expect most standard channels to become more like premium channels...no commercials, but they cost more. Granted, PVRs also enable viewers to watch shows on their own schedule...that's just an issue of infrastructure and scalability. Until recently, "video on demand" hasn't really been feasible for networks, and it still has all sorts of scalability issues that Tivo solves nicely. So I don't think it's valid to have a "taking back our God-given TV rights" attitude about PVRs, but that doesn't make PVR's bad.
Tivo lets consumers do what they want with a program. consumers will always pay for the product that gives them the most freedom....besides, this will all be moot when that suplimental bill to the DMCA passes and it guarontees our rights in Digital will be the same as our current rights in analog.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The future of movies and television seems to be changing towards one that is advert-free but sponsored by product placement. Given that content is becoming plastic - copied and manipulated as wanted - this seems the only way to pay for films that people want to watch.
A recent film made in Africa - where copying is rife and people are poor anyhow - demonstrates this wonderfully. Critical Assignment, paid for by Guiness, is a kind of African James Bond action film with sexy women and a cheesy plot. The hero is Michael Power, already famous as the kung-fu kicking hero of Guiness adverts across Nigeria and other countries. I've driven past a huge poster of him in Lagos many times.
While businesses like AOL and Sony are worrying about how to (a) keep their customers and (b) make money from movies and (c) prevent piracy, other more pragmatic businesses are thinking: "piracy is inevitable, so let's use that to our advantage".
To be honest, films like Critical Assignment (which I've not seen, just read about) are probably really bad, but then many commercial efforts are as well. And as competition for viewers heats up (when Guiness's competitors, like South African Breweries and Heineken make their own action movies), quality will go up (or down, if you like).
I think the US/Japanese/Western content industry is too old and inflexible to understand how to use the new digital economy usefully. Expect the next Hollywoods to be in South Africa, Bombay, and Hong Kong, catering for audiences that number in the billion range.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
This is likely to provoke more TV warez piracy or just make average users learn how to clip the chemercials out of their own TV shows.
It is just gonna piss people off and cause more problems.
This is the last thing I need. I like Tivo bacause it allows me to skip commercials and record what I want, when I want. Take those things away, and it's just more media whoreishness.
Nanite
God is real unless declared integer.
So it is your birthright not only to watch TV, but to watch good TV, and to watch it without advertising?
Keerist you have your knickers on backwards. What gives you the right to tell TV producers how to spend their money, what to produce? It's their money. In fact, even that's not right, it's money they get from advertisers in return for enticing people to watch said ads. If you don't like that exchange, don't participate, no one put a gun to your head. Or be proactive instead of reactive or merely whiny, produce your own shows and entice viewers away from the inferior crap you complain so much about.
What a laugh: the horrible load of advertising I'm put through, freaking amazing what pampered people expect.
Infuriate left and right
Sure, you could plug your Tivo into this and use it the same as before. But, many of the Tivo advantages are already there: you can watch the programs you want, when you want (sorta). You gotta watch some ads, especially when you pause. But, hey, those ads are targeted at you anyway. After awhile, you find yourself using the Tivo less and less, since you have to plan ahead to use it. Eventually, the Tivo is reduced to a fancy piece of your stereo equipment that serves only as a status symbol, if that.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
And they wonder why AOL's stock continues to drop. . . . They are missing the whole point of the TIVO system. I record what I want to watch without question. I skip any and all commercials without question. Period. Not even subject to debate. Their box / system wouldn't even be a consideration. About the ONLY thing that I'll consider over Tivo are the new DVD / Hard-drive recorders coming out. Phillips is about to drop one out that doesn't require VideoPlus codes. Just hit the record button and away you go. . . No price yet. Pioneer is dropping one out ( DVR-002H ) this summer that will record to DVD-RW AND has an internal 80-gig hard drive to record to as well. ( It's replacing the DMR-HSS2 unit which has a 40 gig drive ) While a bit pricey ( $1000 US ) there is no subscription fee for it. . . . :)
Is there any hope for AOL in the future? ( Does anyone really care? >:)
Mystro TV? Excuse me? I assume that's supposed to be pronounced like 'Maestro' but when I see that I think of a superhero or something... I guess what TiVo needs is a supervillain to defeat it... :)
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
So far, only about 700,000 of the most avid television mavens have bought TiVo devices, ...
I am one of those 700,000 folks, but I respectfully disagree with the collection ("avid television mavens") I've been dropped into. I bought my TiVO because I'm *NOT* addicted to the TV and don't want to be. I wanted to choose what and when I watched. I wanted to STOP being a slave to the TV clock.
TiVo has 100% changed the way I watch TV (insert beginning of ad-like-comments). I no longer watch programs that I don't care about "to fill up space." I watch ONLY what I want, when I want.
Oh my yes; plugging in two cables is certainly cumbersome :(
I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that they would say such a thing: this is the same company that stated above that by reducing the number of options you have for your PVR (what you can record, when, and what you can skip) they will attrack more customers from the TiVo ranch.
And this is not AOL's doing. This is the Time Warner end of the business. Why not just use TiVo in their set top boxes instead of wasting more money that AOL TW should be using to pay down its debt? This is borderline schitsophrenia (sic) because AOL itself owns 13% of Tivo stock. TiVo is going to be the standard PVR. Replay is bankrupt and still being sued by the whole broadcast industry. Time Warner Cable is idiotic. Why waste thousands of dollars per subscriber to run VOD when a PVR settop box is far more economical? Why would I pay $10 per month to watch the Sopranos any time I want when $14 per month to Tivo allows me to record any show I want to watch and view it at any time? Its just like that lame PVR Time Warner Cable currently offers from Scientific Atlantic. AOL TW should take the development money they are wasting on this and pump it into developing a dual tuner Tivo that is compatible with their cable networks? It makes the most sense and that's why they won't do it. At the same time, AOL is offering a Beta program for AOL subscribers who already own TiVo Series2 units to allow for online scheduling through your AOL account...as well as running AIM on top of network enabled Tivos. Where is the synergy supposed to be? If you ask me, its not AOL that's the problem, its the simpletons at Time Warner. You know, the same lugheads that greenlit "Battlefield Earth" and "Pluto Nash" which combined cost $200 million to make &that's not even factoring in the marketing costs. Way to go you idiots! Now just get it over with and cast Josh Harnett as Superman... Tools...absolute tools.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
I hope AOL Time Warner's out of the box thinking doesn't extend into future enterprises.
I'd hate think of a dystopian future of crappers that flushed at the whim of the water company or desk lamps that displayed laser-show ads when illuminated during peak hours.
There's 2 general audiences when it comes to selling a service: selling to businesses or consumers. What businesses like, consumers probably won't and likewise flipped the other way. The more empowered the consumer is, the less of a hold the business has which weakens the potential for additional sales (or product attention, in this case).
This is a hard balance to find when creating a "middle-ground" product like AOL is attempting. If the industry were to insist on it being moderately crippled, they could make it more appealing to consumers by subsidizing the cost to increase the availability. That approach would probably work, which is also why we won't ever see it tried (they don't want to compromise or out of pocket expense, they want the consumer by the nose and nothing else).
Any spoon would be too big.
So what do you think is going to happen if conventional advertising is no longer feasable on television? Are networks going to charge a monthly subscription fee like cable/sat? Are the network execs going to bead there hair, wear flip flops and togas and decide to give away their services at no cost (along with flowers at the airport) so that society can benefit from watching 5 annoying adults drinking coffee? No, what's going to happen is that commercials are going to merge into regular programming more seemlessly so that it's harder to filter out, become more annoying and more disruptive.
Look at what's been happening online. Ads are becoming more pervasive, too many sites have pop-ups, advertising is cutting into content to make it unreadable.
So the networks get uptight and work on this new type of technology.
So rather than letting Ad agencies fund television, we'll put them out of business because we can't be inconvienienced for a few commercials.
Or maybe we'll get the pleasure of having to explain to the next generation "No, the president doesn't really live in DisneyLand, it's just in-line advertising." :)
Open Source Java DAO Generator
'Cause I have something all of you dont: a 30 second skip button. My commercial breaks sound like this:
"Half Pr.."
"Great Pruh.."
"Mutual of..."
"Sex..."
(7 second instant replay back)
"The earl of sussex wuh....."
"Can you he..."
"And, we're back! Tell me Ann, " (etc).
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Perhaps there's a correlation?
Now, if only I could get Caffienated Diet Mountain Dew in Canada I might be a happier hacker... mutter, mutter, grumble, socialist, grumble, kvetch, communist, mutter, complain, fascist, grumble, mutter, curse... geez, I miss the U.S.A.! War-mongering Dubya, and all!
You could've hired me.
What does somebody stealing other people's stuff have to do with GPL? All my friends who support and push Linux OWN (as in bought) what bit of MS based software that they run. They, like my self, do not have illegal music.
My friends that only run MS are loaded with stolen software and downloaded music.
I have noticed that it is the MS world where all the p2p software for stealing music or getting lots of porn is targeted at. The funny thing is that almost always the ideas for these are developed in OSS for much better uses.
The real question that should be asked is , do the users of certain products simply emulate the companies/people that produced them?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Well...the more restrictions they put...the more I think I should just stick with a VCR..
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
With the advent of Tivo and whatever other PVR you want to throw in the mix you are going to see a lot of product placement in TV shows and/or shows sponsored by a product much like they did in the early days of TV. The commercial is going to be so ingrained in the show the only way not to watch it is to not watch the show.
Network TV is supported by the ads so if most people are skipping the ads then one of two things has to happen:
1) Network TV, at least free network TV, goes away (not likely)
2) Ads change to get around the PVR
The whole idea of time shifting affecting the money making abibility of a show is kinda silly. If a show is good it will be watched whenever.
--
Billwashere
> You reimburse them by watching the advertising.
I'm sure that will comfort me when I am watching yet another Pepsi, Chevy, 1-800-Collect, Volkswagon commecial that I've seen a million times and make me no more or less aware of their product's existence. I am aware that Pepsi is better than Coke and vice versa. I am aware that VW is looking for drivers. I am well aware 1-800-Collect is a retirement home for washed up actors.
One thing confuses me, however: Why is toilet paper always "new and improved"? It seems to work and feel the same as it always did to me. With retzin!
It works the same way your Top Event, or In Demand with today's latest cable boxes ala the Scientific atlanta Explorer 2xxx series. They're just giving it a new name to glaze it over.
You won't be able to purchase a lifetime subscription, you won't have full control over what you can and can't record, they will probally delete things to free up space for you, and the article quoting tivo is right -- Today's cable networks are already pushing the limits of their bandwidth, just exactly what are they going to do now when 500 people (each one second off from each other) decide to watch $SHOW? They can't multicast it. Everybody in the internet business KNOWS multicast over a unicast medium doesn't work, and is expensive as hell.
da w00t. mtfnpy?
You get the super feature of Tivo - 80% of the rescheduling power and not having to know when your show is on to record it. You give up the commercial killing stuff and maybe 20% of the rescheduling power. They can sell it cheaper then Tivo, because they are funded by the networks to keep the commercials.
Will it sell? Depends on price.
If you tell me that for a one time payment of $50 bucks, I can get the rescheduling, then YES it will sell and Tivo will die.
If instead they try to price it as competitive with Tivo and then try to make Tivo Illegal, it will not do well, and hopefull the lawsuit will die.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Rich
...just because you can see that a technology is going to hurt your business doesn't mean you should try and fight it. Throwing millions of dollers twords trying to make your customer's lives worse isn't going to help your business.
PVR's are going to kill the TV industry. We must stop them!
Linux is going to kill Microsoft. We must stop it!
File swapping is going to kill the music industry. Destroy it!
VCR's are going to kill the movie industry.
Video killed the radio star.
When did we go from a country where companies were supposed to compete on merrit to a country full of whining baby companies that don't want to change, inovate, or suffer any losses. Just because you can see that something is going to happen that will hurt your business, doesn't mean it's your job to try and stop it from happeneing. Lay a few people off to prepare for the impending belt tightening, don't hire a fleat of lawers and lobyists and wonder why your profits are down so much.
If you sell water don't sue mother nature expecting to stop the coming rain.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
it is illegal to market tooth-whitening products in England
One would think it were illegal to sell any oral hygene products in England.
Trolling is a art,
You are, we have a whole shelf (30+ products) full of them at work. There may be some kind of restriction on what you can put in them, but they look pretty ruthless to me.
user has no problem losing features as long as it is easy to use so I predict this will find a market amongst the several billion unwashed AOL users. I am not giving up my gener1 TIVO until I am quite DEAD, but I also use my ATI card as a nice PVR so I am not the demographic they are shooting for anyways. The only thing we here at sladhdot can do is tell our families and the people I am sure we all support about it.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Sounds like Mystro TV is not a personal video recorder, it is an on-demand television system. Networks are probably loath to give up schedule driven TV, but AOL might be able to force this one through by scaring networks with fear of personal video recorders and commercial skipping.
If you asked me what I loved most about my TiVO, I would say that it lets me watch what I want when I want to. And then second, I can skip commercials. Don't get me wrong, I hate commercials. But time shifting is much more important to me.
The ability to play back shows whenever I want (freeing me from network scheduling) is a major advantage of the technology. It seems like this is what Myestro TV is trying to do.
I can imagine that some shows will allow time shifting for a few days or a week, while others won't have restrictions. I think it could be more flexible than TiVO.
The problem with TiVO is that you have to know what you want to watch before you want to watch it. And you can only record one thing at a time (unless you have two TiVO's or a DirectTiVO). This causes my wife much fretting when she needs to decide between Buffy and Gilmore Girls. With this system, there is no problem. You can watch them both.
Another problem I have found with TiVO is that all the commercials are stale. When I get around to watching a Junk Yard Wars from last week, if I do happen to see a promo for something I might like, it is too late to record it. With this system, I might be able to find it in the archive, or at least when watching a week old show at least I would get up-to-date promos.
The advantages of TiVO are that you can skip commercials, and that you can store things indefinately. These will still be important to some users, so there will always be a market for a personal video recorder.
A completely on-demand television system creates many interesting things. There would be no more schedules, just when shows were available. Television contracts would be rewritten to pay for the amount of plays, not . You might be able to pay a premium to see an obscure show, but you would be able to see it. Commercials might be more geared to the viewer. Broadcasting standards might be lifted (since parental controls could be built into this).
Anyway, sounds interesting. Not that I would want to give up my TiVO.
To many at the networks and studios, it is a cruel joke that could drive them out of business
cruel joke? What kinda cruel joke is this article? i'm not sure i even wanna read past the first paragraph!
atleast we aint a society of over weight gun ho tossers, with the amount of fucking junk food u fuckers eat its no wonder u have to put bleech in all your oral products; nob shite.
If you can't beat them, join them.
AOL sees the $$$ in the DVR industry, but the big networks will give them the least path of resistance because AOL allows them to still generate revenue from its solution.
oh and to add to your utterly insulting comment, america is full of nothing more than the off-spring of scum that couldnt make it in there home lands.
you can watch the news at 4am from lots of channels live today
cnn, msnbc, fox news, etc.
Your comment about listsings is on the mark, without listings the TiVo is just a glorified VCR.
Regarding the ad skipping arm race you mentioned, I don't know about TiVos in the US, but TiVos in the UK don't take any note of the ads. The ads get recorded as usual.
If you want to skip the ads, you skip them not the TiVo. There is a hidden facility to skip forward 30 seconds each time you press a button on your remote, but there is certainly no automated facility available out of the box.
There are costs involved, there is the processing overhead of analysing the frames as they arrive, rather than just encoding them as usual and dumping them to hard disk. All that extra processing would probably require beefier a processor, and hence a higher cost to you.
It makes sense from TiVo corp's point of view not to try and skip ad recording, if they don't add the facility to skip ads, they don't end up in court explaining the lie in "ad skipping is theft", they may be right, but they would probably still end up going bankrupt in the process.
From a realist's point of view, why waste time and money getting into an arms race and a court case, when the best software for the job is at hand, preloaded into the wetware of the user?
If nature abhors a vacuum, why isn't there more dust in the world?
Creating competition does not mean that every company is out to totally eradicate the competition. Who would AOL-Time-Warner-Trapperkeeper-Netscape purchase if they started running people out of business?
IANAL and whatnot, but surely this would be leveraging a near-monopoly in one (or more...) markets (Multimedia production, distribution and software to organise same) to gain one in another (PVRs).
I think they're banking on the same idea Microsoft had with IE in Windows, i.e, if it's already there (embedded in set-top boxes) and convenient to use (at the press of a button, no less..) then people will use it rather than seeking out a rival product, which may or may not be superior. And i hate to say it, but with advertiser - and thus network - backing, it would be hard to bet against them winning.
But then again, we all remember how DiVX was going to kill DVDs, so who knows....
I think not.
The whole reason I LIKE my tivo(s) is because I have freedom of choice. I watch what *I* like to watch, when I want to watch it. I don't need a 'MAX HEADROOM' network executive dictating to me when I can watch anything-- including those repetitious commercials!!
its MySQL dip shit not mySQL
Won't matter how good it is. I never have, willingly, or ever will use or purchase services from AOL (Asinine On Line). Though I'm sure if this new service caters to the lowest common denominator, the Wal-Mart crowd will eat it up. But like everything else they do it'll be bloated with the typical ad/spy-ware and now will have the network's as well. I wish these companies would realize most people would pay a subscription fee, well at least I would, to be able to download a show that they like, without the commercials, scheduling, and copy-right schemes.
You are right about over the air broadcasts owing the public something in exchange for using the public commons. It also does apply to cable systems where governments have granted them a monopoly, as is common in the US. But our so-called representatives have answered that by requiring public access channels, where basically anyone can make up their own announcement or program. AT least that works for cable. For broadcast, I don't know what the exchange is supposed to be.
Infuriate left and right
All AOL/TW has to do is brand it AOL and all of the AOL lusers will flock to it. Kinda like branding something microsoft.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Perhaps it was something on the news about dentists being restricted from using them, or hydrogen peroxide bleaching products, or some such, on teeth, that got me confused.
You could've hired me.
Divx?
This is reminiscent of the DVD player format, not the media format.
CircuitCity and their gaggle of lawyers failed miserably with this because of similar restrictive 'features' in the format/player.
forget the 30sec skip. How about the button that says COMMERCIAL ADVANCE. I don't know how the technology works, but apparently it knows when commercials are coming, because IT JUST SKIPS THEM LIKE THEY WERE NEVER THERE. FUCK YEAH!
I thought that was 'strailia. Oh wait! Thats where all the people who were not wanted in their homelands were sent.
British teeth... American lardasses... Canadian..., er, um, hmm, nothing more offensive than "bumps on logs" comes to mind. It's the quiet ones you have to watch, though, ya know.
You could've hired me.
TiVo's problem has always been getting people to understand just what the hell their product is, and why they would want it. It's a great product. Everyone who gets one invariably says that it completely changes the way they watch TV and that they would never go back to the way thigns were previously. But getting people over that initial "But I already have a VCR" hurdle has been tough for a small company with a smaller advertising budget.
With Time-Warner pushing a copeting product, people will finally understand what a DVR is, because lots of people will be exposed to them. A god portion of those people will like the concept, but will be upset by all the restrictions. They will want a less heavy-handed alternative.
This is where a smartly-run TiVo ad campaign (a la the Earthlink campaigns appealing to AOL customers who had tired of AOL) could be very effective. It will be interesting to see how wisely TiVo plays the hand they are about to be dealt.
goats.com: better than
Don't let the Mysterons take over my T.V. !!!
I'm not clear from this whether only commercial skipping will be forbidden, or whether it'll also be forbidden to "fast forward" through commercials.
;-)
The article makes it seem like the latter is the only thing forbidden (commercial skip or a "30 second forward" button) -- we all know the obvious issues with that, and it's not even enabled in TiVo by default (but of course we all know the code
If you can still use standard VCR-style fast forward than the device probably isn't totally crippled (it's just a more manual process) and it would likely be somewhat suitable. If you're FORCED to sit and watch all commercials then it's less functional than a VCR even... I predict mass suckage if that's the case.
Because some people have been pirating Eminem's latest song, the RIAA wants to add restrictions to my computer.
Because some TV execs are worried about their bottomline being lost by commercial cutters (hint to the execs: more intelligent, interesting shows would help), a friend in the media industry will release a product that may kill off a less industry-slave product. With these kinds of things happening, what have ABC, Fox, NBC, CBS, et ali. done for me? The Simpsons is it.
I wonder why so many consumers (what a word, it's as if we exist to consume what the corporations put in our troughs!) put up with restrictive, inferior products.
--
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
Yes, it reminds me of those accidental new fathers who say condoms are "cumbersome" to use. Cumbersome my ass, the guy is just lazy.
I still can't figure out why Tivo is more popular than ReplayTV. I bought my Replay last weekend and it has soooo many more features than Tivo. My personal favorites are the ability to send shows to other Replay owners and the ability to program it online.
Wow, 3 NYT articles on the front page at once.
How about a new section just for links to NYT articles!!
they are testing the service in Albany NY
here is the link
Every time I hear about Hollywood not liking TiVo, I don't get it. There are so many possibilities at thier disposal with this "technology". If they want to pilot a new program, why take from precious prime-time until you know it works? Schedule it for the cheapest time of day(or night), set the PVR's with viewer's who are likely to want to see it to record it, then go! (Just don't do that BBC thing where the user can't delete it.) Start taking commercial stats. Is a user fast-forwarding all commercials or just some? I know personally I enjoy some commercials (such as the miller one... "A ... walks into a bar"). If I skip through tampon comercials, it means one of four things: 1) I have no need to buy a tampon. 2) I'm already brand sold. 3) I've seen that commercial so many times I want to scream. 4) That commercial grates at me so bad I want to stop watching TV forever (such as the Old Navy commercials).
Now personaly, I really don't want them collecting personal identifiable information, but I know that "Joe Six-pack" doesn't care or even know any better. If the networks can start to make base assumptions like the average person watches 3 hours of TV a night, then they can tailor around that. Give me 3 hours of programming that I can watch when I'm ready. If Joe skips a commercial and gets a different commercial in its place, I don't think Joe is going to care. If the Tivo-like device changes the commercials between the time it was recorded and the time Joe watches it, I don't think Joe is going to care. Maybe the commercials change everytime Joe watches his favorite episode of WWF. Maybe the duration of the commercial breaks changed too, so Joe couldn't leave the room for exactly 3.25 minutes. If the Tivo-like device is rented through the cable company, then maybe they have stats as to the income level or service package the Joe has. With this, they know that Joe doesn't drive a Cadillac and never will. Start adding in purchasing abilities. So if Joe sees an add for Pizza-hut, can press the thumbs-up key and enter a few menu choices, then 30 minutes latter a Pizza is delivered, already charged to his tivo-account. Joe doesn't care that ABC now knows that he is one to advertise Pizza to at 6:30 on Saturday. It just happens that at 6:30 on Saturdays, Pizza hut or Dominos advertise immediately after a Budwiser commercial.
It is only us techno-philes that have any disdain for PIF. The networks should allow Joe to watch Buffy before the 6 O'clock news at 4 in the morning on Sunday. It shouldn't matter to them at all, except that Joe watches Buffy and the 6 O'clock news, and Joe wants to watch it at 4 in the morning on Sunday.
Most of the dicussion here has centered around the obvious comparison to TiVo, even though most TiVo owners are not Joe Sixpack. But lots of Joe Sixpacks have gone down to Wal-Mart and bought their $50 DVD players.
Now, ask Joe Sixpack what he thinks of DVDs that won't let him fast forward over the previews, FBI warning, etc. That's exactly what he'll think of Mystro disabling the FF button during their "chosen just for you" Pabst commercials.
And I really don't want to be there when he finds out that some network stuffshirt has decided that he can't timeshift Wrestling Bitchslap Mayhem so he can watch it after the bar closes, because it's supposed to be a lead-in for Springer's Uncensored Hot-Tub Babes...
The only difference regarding the 30 second skip between Replay and TiVo is that the TiVo function is not included in the documentation.
Activating 30 Second Skip on TiVo (works with 2.5 and later) -- while you are watching a recorded program (can't be Live TV), press the following in order:
Select
Play
Select
3
0
Select
You should hear three 'dings' when successful. This toggles the 'Skip to End' button on the remote from Skip to End to Skip 30 seconds. This is not a permanent switch -- if your machine reboots (power failure, OS update, manual reset), you need to re-toggle again.
I have that sequence stored as a macro on my remote, so I can switch back and forth between the two settings as desired.
A large portion of the populace still thinks AOL is "the Internet".
If AOL spends a billion or two to give everyone a taste of Mystro - thereby convincing the Great Unwashed that PVRs are "like VCRs, but they suck, and have more ads" - and they've pre-empted TiVo from ever gaining traction.
Think about it - if the average Joe's first impression of a PVR was this thing, would he risk dropping another $299 on a TiVo?
If it costs AOL/TW a billion or two to wipe TiVo off the map, that's money well spent.
With a name like AOL, it's *got* to suck!
--- Ban humanity.
It predicted the rise of "BlipVerts" as advertising, in the use of short ads that flash constantly-moving and -changing images to the viewer because the viewers' attention spans had become so increasingly short.
It predicted the common occurrences of computer viruses, tapeworms, timebombs, and Trojan horses as ways of defeating other programs. In fact, one episode showed Max invading an enemy's computer network with an image of a wooden Trojan horse! Of course, today, these are well-known hackers' (crackers') products. It predicted what is known today as "page-jacking," or the surrepticious taking over of another's Web page, calling it "zipping" (of an online broadcast station's signal) in one episode. In the same "zipping" episode it introduced the idea of on-line shopping. It predicted, in a sense, the clandestine use of Web anonymizers or ways of being online without being tracked, calling the people who can do this "blanks."
It also included features such as televisions functioning as webcams, by remote control with two way feed, televisions which are manufactured without shutoff buttons, in a world where the television show/ network with the most ratings wins an election. And of course, my alltime favourite quote from The Max himself, "Why do you think they call it 'programming?'"
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
Sounds great. Now I'll just need TiVo to upgrade their cable box control software, so that if one show I want to record is in conflict with another, or if I forget to tell it to record a show, it will automatically reschedule that show for recording at a time when the TiVo is free.
Just because the writeup is biased towards broadcasters is no reason to mod it down. Broadcasters have rights too!
Two senior AOL Time Warner executives said the company was hoping to begin rolling out service within two years.
Hmm.. so I figure that means at least two years. By that time, Tivo should be at series III and hopefully selling their PVRs for $100 cheaper. $200 for 80 hours of recording time would blow away whatever AOL/TW charges for their service (since their service would have so many restrictions).
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
My solution is very, very simple: stop watching the d*mned television.
It's all I can do not to curse about this but here it is as I see it: up until the 80's, you could expect an hour long tv show to consist of maybe 7 to ten minutes of commercials, and the rest being the tv show. Many, if not all, the commercials were for local companies and services. Fine.
We all know how commercials have become, so the market for the TiVO was born. In fact, over thanksgiving, at a relative's house, we tried to watch some james bond movie and it was, quite literally, 10 minutes of movie interspaced with 15 minute chevy/coke/dell commercial breaks. A 90 minute movie took THREE HOURS.
Of course, nobody who runs the networks likes that we have the choice to skip commercials or anything we're not interested in, so the odds are there will be no such thing as a TiVO in five years. If it takes technology like in the AOL case here, so be it -- if on the other hand it takes legislation, well then so be it too. My bet is that once the AOL device fails to sell (think DIVX) hollywood will simply make PVRs illegal.
You can see similar things happening in the movie industry; hell the last time I saw a movie I was shown SIX commercials before the previews began. And I had already paid something like 9 dollars just to get in. Think "captive audience" -- e.g., you and me.
I think what we need to start doing, here, is think about wether it's worth it.
Is it better to stay at home & watch TV, or to go out to a local coffee shop and write some code, read a book, or talk to a pretty girl/boy? Is it better to be steeped in advertising, or to go for a walk? (sadly, depending on where you live there isn't always a difference due to proliferation of billboards)
Anyway, what i'd really like to get at here is that once you get past the commercials, TV itself just isn't all that good -- and the world outside is SO MUCH BETTER.
I stopped watching TV four years ago -- with only the occasional late night conan o'brian and/or simpson's rerun. Since I gave up TV I've lost 20 pounds, gotten in great shape, dated much much more... etc etc. In fact, the only thing I'm missing is the internal scheduler I used to have which said "be home by 7 so you can catch ".
And, if you want to tell me "but cable has all these good shows" ask yourself if most cable stations hae commercials. As far as I know all but a few have *plenty* of commercials -- and yet you're PAYING for it. Paying! Bah! it's not worth it. At least normal TV is free.
Now, excuse me while I calm down. We shouldn't be fighting an escalating arms war to skip commercials -- we should simply stop watching altogether.
If you do, you'll thank yourself for it. Trust me.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
I hate AOL and love Apple computers!
I also hate Microsoft and love linux!
Nope, I didn't read the article, but I do have Time Warner Cable.
Time warner has a feature called "I-Control" which is their Video on Demand product. It's nice. You need the Digital Cable box to access it, but you need that for "plus" channels anyway.
Go to the appropriate channel and a list of available movies pops up. Select your movie, and it starts (you have it for 8 hours). Pause, rewind, FF, rewatch. All for $1.50 - $3.99 depending on the movie. As much as I hate Time Warner, its a very nice feature.
If this new thing is Regular TV shows on demand (for a price or free) I'm all for it. They already have this to a limited degree. I can already choose a handfull of shows from DIY, FoodTV, Comedy Central etc... As well as special features like "The Makeing of..." various movies, all at no additional charge.
Now, if they add on top of that the ability to pause/rewind/ff live TV and it's hosted on thier side (no need to change my digitla box) I'm all for it. Expect me to buy a new box like the TIVO without TIVO features? Forget it.
=Shreak
Such as archive
I have proxomitron on my pc do this automatically.
It starts up with "You've got Mystro!".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But these are they guys who fight for our rights (TM) with Mozilla and Winamp! Shit, this one is confusing.
The ability to zap a commercial arguably makes the commercials more valuable. It will take some clever advertising to keep people from hitting the button, but on the upside, we no longer have to watch ads we despise.
Every time I see an Old Navy ad, I make a solemn vow never to set foot in one of their stores. Were I allowed to zap these commercials, I wouldn't loathe their store quite so much.
The fact that the commercials are being skipped could be useful information in and of itself. If such information were collected in an aggregate, private way, maybe advertisers would take the hint and stop running stupid commercials.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
broadcasters will be able to get actual numbers and viewing habits which will allow you to vote with your feet.
Imagine the Oscars where 25 million people tune in and then half of them change the channel when Martin Sheen comes on to present an award.
I just love how content providers now have to live with their choices.
Fairly stupid how the networks/movie studios don't realize that there is lots of money to be made by allowing end users to burn dvd quality DVD's of shows for $0.25 an episode.
What phone line? Seriously, that is my problem with Tivo and its ilk. Ethernet runs through my house, but POTS is simply unavailable. Many of my single friends are in a similar situation. Cell phones and cable modems, but no phone line to speak of.
AOL/TW is going to make this a box that a user rents from them each month, very much in the same way as a cable reciever, or digital cable reciever.
You can get the same sort of thing like directtv or dishnetwork where you can buy or rent their PVR's from them. However, I don't know of too many cable providers that allow someone to use their own digital cable set top box.
The only way then for a user to get full Tivo/Replay TV functionality would be to A: mod it themselves or B: buy a separate unit. I don't think too many people will do either and will likely be happy with whatever functionality their cable provider gives them.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
No doubt "making" users of this device view commercials and somehow tracking who records what material is part of this scheme. What baffles me about products like this is they remove features I want, like namely the ability to FF past commercials in a recording, to record when and what I want without being monitored or tracked. Even if this product was free I wouldn't participate due to the monitoring that no doubt would be done by AOL/Time Warner.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
I want the numbers that show people with DVR are less consumeristic. Who gives a rat's ass if I see the commercial or not? Even if I "skip" it, I'm still subconciously aware of it... which is all most commercials can hope for anyway. Commercials are so homogeonized and similar that the speed by which I see them flicker in front of my eyes is mute. I can get up and walk around the room or get a beer without watching a commercial with frickin' rabbit ears on the top of my set!
Man am I disgruntled about this. People need to find a new way to make money without insisting I experience something within their parameters.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
If I'm not mistaken, I think AOL licensed TIVO for potential use in future applications. This is probably one of them. TIVO wins either way.
Further, just like DIVIX, I think the consuming public would not be fooled by a device that locked them into limited behaviors and features.
Burried in the article is this little gem:
"For the cable company, each additional user would mean squeezing another stream of video content through its cables."
No kidding! This is more of the same dribble they (cable operators and big media) have been promissing without any chance of delivering. The fundamental problem with Cable-On-Demand is that the cable infrastructure does not have nearly enough bandwidth of processing horsepower to serve out 5,000 simultaneous feds of LOTR (or what have you) on the day it is released. The concept wotks great in limited tests since the scale is relativelly miniscule. But try to extrapolate it and it just won't work.
In the meantime, TIVO and Replay TV are approaching 1,000,000 users who have been watching TV on their own terms for several years. TIVO killer? I don't think so. Sounds more like vaporware from a company desperate to salvage some semblance of relevancy.
> It is a sorry state of affairs when something made to server corperations may defeate the ultimate in TV addons, but how many people in the world still don't own Tivos who could afford them?
I'd say the problem isn't people not having the dough to cough up for these toys. The problem is that TiVo and ReplayTV are cozy the way they are, meaning they're only interested in the US market (and to some extent UK's as well). I've been in contact with both companies, asking for their rollout plan in Europe however, both responded that they are not having any such plans.
This has left us europeans no choice but to create our own HEMCs (home entertainment multimedia centre) mostly based on Linux and OSS components such as MythTV.
This, in and of itself, does not bother the networks. The networks are largely aware that there is a limited subclass of the population that is going to find ways out of their pay schemes.
Their primary interest is not actually to eliminate this subclass. It's to make sure that they remain a subclass, and that their newfangled PVRs and the like don't spill out into the mainstream. It's only when they fail miserably at this (c.f. mp3s) that they will begin cracking down wildly.
No one really pretends that they can get rid of technological innovation like this. Geeks will always be ahead of the curve. The interest of the networks and corporations in general is in making sure that the mass population doesn't catch up with these foul innovations.
That's what MystroTV is about. Getting the mainstream to avoid fancy stuff like TiVos. The handful of us who already have TiVos? We're only of interest to them in that we'll show them the next innovation they have to keep limited to the elite.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
No, this is actualy just Time Warner going back to their pre-Ineternet per-AOL fiasco, Interactive TV. The model is completely unchanged from 1992, content to be stored in distribution hubs and downloaded on demand. The only thing that is interactive is you get to shop while you watch the crap.
These days I am pretty much a post-Tivo TV viewer. I don't rate the tivo features because I simply don't watch network TV - PERIOD. Heck we didn't even get the local network channels for over a year when we first got Dish TV and we never missed them.
The problem is that network TV gets worse and worse as the cost gets higher and higher. The last decent shows on US TV were Seinfeld and the X-Files, both long gone to reruns. Ad skiping technology is superfluous when the shows on offer are Joe Millionaire and the bachelorette.
The only significant feature missing from my dishplayer as far as I am concerned is removable storage. Give me the ability to plug in nice fat 160 Gb drives at a time via serial ATA and I can actually get to record some of my own stuff. At the moment we have 4 hours teletubbies, 16 hours Dora the Explorer, 8 episodes of Blues Clues and some sessamee street. I have one episode of the sopranos. Funny thing is that when I think about it most of the stuff on my dishplayer is actually more intellectually demanding than the average network tv show.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
However, how many times do you actually see marketing that pays attention to what people want and use? More importantly as perhaps the cause of this, is how many times you see advertisement that truthfully extolls its virtues, uniqueness and geneneral comparitive points to the alternatives? IOW, how often is marketing really useful to a willful consumer? Basically, marketing seeks to mimic the power of political propoganda. Instead of "buy this product because we can show how it fits what you need more than others" it is "hey, jump on this emotional bandwagon full of dancing clowns on the box, pretty sounds in our audio ads and sexy models lustilly draped over the product on our video ads. Ok, so seeing half naked chicks is pretty damn nice but like beer commercials that are usually very entertaining I still do not find myself drawn in any way towards that product now.
I enjoy attempting to be a "informed consumer" meaning that I seek out facts about the product and the vendor's merits in order to make the aptly named "informed decision." Ads I just randomly come across are mentally filtered for any content even if that content is only the type of service/product offered. Manytimes during the 80's and 90's the most, it became hard even then to figure out what that artsy or silly ad was even about. They just wasted money unless their sole purpose was to make a film short.
What is definitely not a waste of time is careful analysis of the product or service especially in concert with the analysis of the company and the current market all nicely packaged for me the layman. I don't really give a crap about statistical entry market cluster studies with extra ketchup on the side.
On the note of false advertising and false analysis it is important to note that the "anti" or "fanboy" mentalities (pretty much two sides of the same stupid coin) are worthless as a measure of a product or service's worth and thus are worthless in turn to the manufacturer (unless of course said manufacturer is mostly focusing on bullshit artistry to win over the sheepish masses as opposed to concern over quality). I find it amusing and yet sad how people do not realize the power they have in this. Take for example a review on Amazon for an upcoming video game. You will get a whole heap of dumbass thrown onto the review pile that is simply based on either expectations (positive or negative), hearsay or parroted factoids/rumours, and of course the fanboys and anti-this-game crowd. How is this information usefull except to depress anyone about the sad reality of sheepish stupid behavior in the average human?
I want a TiVo soooo bad. I am in Canada and the bastards won't let us have one. (Built a Linux set top box out of parts ordered from Taiwan but thats neither here nor there). I would rather keep my old VCR and watch commercials then give these assholes a red freakin' cent.
GET BENT CORPORATE SHILLS!
"Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you. Cry, and they still think its funny." - Mr. Boffo
Look at the bigger picture - whose paying for the advertising. The advertised products cost more - the cost saving is a deception as another company has a margin to make it worth their while. That is, unless you think that someone else is picking up the tab. (imho thats not a good thing either). :D
The same logic can (and frequently does) apply to privitising public services, and general brand sponsership - It would be cheaper to pay upfront.
Anyway, North Americans are getting ripped off - the vast majority of your tv is shit.(there are thankfully lots of noticable exeptions). Funny how each hour of 24 lasts 45 minutes on the bbc
700,000 TiVO like devices out there according to the article. It's not like the masses are eating these up like hotcakes. The industry has just managed to scare itself into a hysteria. Instead of focusing on quality programming they'll waste millions(billions?) on trying to outdo the geeks.
Get a life AOL/TW, gimme something good to watch and I'll watch it. Yesh!
-- taking over the world, we are.
Give me a break. I have a bunch of On Demand channels on my Time Warner Digital channels. It's slow. Way slow. Menus take forever to load/change. It's awful.
It doesn't even compare to the wonder that is Tivo. I'll give mine up when it's pried from my cold, dead hands.
We need an NRA type organization for Tivo. Or Tivo owners need to start carrying firearms.
Whichever.
- Dan I.
I really should have known better when the president of Mystro said: "The marketers are talking about taking away the fast forward button."
3 -0 1/MystroSucks.html
http://www.kaosol.net/~mackys/irreg/content/200
Here's hoping them a quick, quiet death in obscurity.
-Ben
So does it automatically generate automations of the guys at the bottom making snide remarks about the shows?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Will it have a "me too" feature to watch what everyone else is watching?
Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one
instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every
program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...