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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.
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)
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
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.
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."
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.
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.