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.
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.
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.
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
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.
as it dosnt say "welcome to AOL" every time its switched on fine.. otherwise shoot me, shoot me now.
moo
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)
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
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.
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
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."
Cheap commodity hardware? Says who? I have a Celeron 1.7Ghz/256MB RAM that I specifically put together as a "Media Center" PC, and doing a capture with the ATI TV Wonder PCI at a half decent resolution (I expect minimal degradation from broadcast quality: If it doesn't at least beat a $60 VCR then it hardly seems worthwhile) consumes 60%+ of the CPU. With a 5400RPM 30GB drive, it is IMPOSSIBLE to time shift (watching one part of the show while a later part records) as the machine simply doesn't have the power. In the end the quality is degraded from broadcast and usefulness is limited. I'd take a Tivo in a second if it were available in Canada. There is a Bell PVR that works with their satellite that is supposedly fantastic, however it obviously requires the satellite service, and currently as a cable modem user I don't have it.
Yes, mythTV is your friend. Mix one part MythTV, and one part Shuttle XPC and you have the ultimate Linux PVR.
--- witty signature
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.
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.
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.
...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
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.
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.
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.
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