Slashdot Mirror
AOL will launch TiVo-like Mystro service
Jason1729 writes "According to this article on Yahoo, AOL is launching its on version of a PVR service. The content will be stored at the cable provider and not in the local hardware. That seems to be a huge disadvantage because it will use a lot more cable bandwidth transfering the content for a single viewer. It sounds like they're doing it that way so they can restrict which shows you can use the service with (like lock out new episodes of network shows)."
Will it have remote control, or artificial intellingence? Is there a development kit available? If not, then I hardly think your story is worthy of slashdot, do you?
Seriously, other than the waste of bandwidth, how is this better than a Tivo?
i realize that disk space is cheap, but this could be interesting! if a user (viewer?) is allowed 6 hours (i say six because you have 6hr miniseries) and this takes (a guess!) 10G and you have 10,000 viewers.... thats's 100TB! damn.
it seems like the tivo model is a wonderful example of distributed computing here!
eric
That seems to be a huge disadvantage because it will use a lot more cable bandwidth transfering the content for a single viewer.
There certainly is a disadvantage in terms of bandwidth, but there is an advantage in terms of storage -- by storing everything centrally, they only need to keep one copy of each program instead of having millions of copies spread around the network. (Ok, they'd actually have more than one copy, but it would still be far less than the millions otherwise needed.)
This also means that people wouldn't need to program in advance what they wanted to record, since AOL could proactively store everything.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
The reason that all the equipment is going to be at the cable provider is because of the fact that with this new service, you will not be able to skip commercials like you are able to with tivo. Most of the same features are there, pausing live tv, skipping shows, etc. But, from what I have heard, you will not be able to skip commercials, and there will be commercial pop-ups when the tivo is in a freeze frame. Companies that advertise don't like tivo for the fact that nobody sees their ads anymore.
Alcohol & calculus don't mix. Never drink & derive.
Giving the public more control over content delivery is what makes a successful product. MP3, Tivo, internet, etc. Restricting content delivery is doomed to failure (Divx (not the codec, the DVD replacement)).
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
When a perfectly usable product is crippled and destroyed, and then remarketed as new and improved, don't you?
The only stuff I would want to record is new episodes of network shows. And they expect to sell a service that doesn't do what the consumer wants? These guys haven't finished Economics 101. Send em back to college.
Seriously, why would AOL care anyway? They don't own NBC, CBS or ABC do they? Whatever happened to laisse faire?
What you forgot is that AOL is really AOL-Time Warner, and they own most of the content providers! What are they going to do, blackmail themselves? Well, I guess there is disney, but it's only a matter of time until AOL buys Disney...
They're not putting it at the head-end so they can restrict content, nor is it a bandwidth problem - just the opposite. They're putting it at the head-end so that cable networks can make it a revenue source.
Cable companies are spending their biggest fortunes at the moment installing Video-on-Demand systems, many of which already have PVR functionality built in. Bandwidth is no more of an issue with stopping, starting, and feeding a PVR stream than with a VOD stream. The only difference is disk space and where it gets its content from.
A much more core issue (and one that would be much for fun to stir up /. with, IMO) is that of content rights. Selling a box that allows consumers to record and play shows at home is one thing, but getting large cable companies into the business of caching broadcast content and then essentially 'reselling' that cached content without complex revenue-sharing agreements is a can of worms indeed.
They seem to adress this here:
"For example, if Mystro TV is successfully developed and the appropriate rights secured from owners of video programming, a subscriber could use the Mystro TV service to watch a program that aired the previous day, or to begin watching from the beginning a show already in progress," AOL said.
So to me this sounds like a VOD product that gets its content from broadcast television. iN DEMAND has made a decent business aggregating Hollywood studio content for distribution over VOD and taking a cut. Looks like AOL wants to make a niche out of re-distributing older (or very slightly older) television content. Pretty much what the networks are doing now with things like the re-broadcast of "Late Night w/ Conan O'Brian" on Comedy Central, except they get $x per play over VOD.
Not a bad niche - just might work.
------
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
Storing each TV show on a Tivo for each user who wants to watch it is very inefficient in terms of total storage space used over all the Tivos in the region. By storing each show once, and piping it to users from a central server on demand, the total storage requirement is vastly reduced, and the bandwidth requirement grows possibly linearly with the number of users. Unfortunately this is exactly the opposite of what the world needs right now.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
So let me get this straight...
AOL is planning on sweeping into a market with an obviously inferior product that gives consumers less control than products that are already on the market, they'll probably charge more for it (wild guess there), and they seriously expect this to be a profit-making venture.
AOL is dumber than Enron.
Yeah, it just might work. But you don't want it to. Here's why.
Today, if you want to watch a TV series, or a movie, over and over at your leisure then you can buy the DVD. When you buy the DVD, the publisher makes some money. If we're talking about a $20 movie, then the studio might make $5-$10 from the sale, once the retail markup, distribution, production, royalties, marketing and other costs are considered.
But once you've bought the DVD, the publisher will make no more money out of you for that particular title. Yes, if you've got more money than sense (or if you really, really want it) then they might manage to sell you a director's cut, special edition or whatever but the bottom line is that the publisher will only make a fixed amount from you no matter how often you watch the product.
However, if they could keep the movie, but sell you access to it, at $3 per viewing, then pretty soon they'll have recouped the same amount of money if not more from you. Let's face it, any movie that you like enough to go out and buy on DVD is one that you'll happily sit down and watch at least two or three times, and at $3 a time that's $6-9 already. Then you get your Star Wars devotees and Titanic nuts who'll watch their favourite movie at least once a week. Now your talking about at least $150 per year from just one movie.
Now let's consider how else those customers could be milked/revenue streams maximised. Well, for one thing you could charge different customers different prices. Charge Titanic nuts who'll pay $4 per view that amount while charging those that'll only pay the basic $3 "only" $3. Charge a premium for watching Disney movies on Sunday afternoons, or whatever else you want.
Charging different customers different amounts for the same product is nothing new and it's certainly not something that companies are embarrassed about - Amazon does it, and so do mobile (cell) phone providers. So you can bet that AOL (or whoever) would do it too given the chance.
This isn't going to happen tomorrow, or next year, or in five years but it is coming. It's just to attractive for the publishers and broadcasters to ignore forever.
So, while a broadcast/cable provider-end storage solution Tivo might not sound like a big deal on its own, it does sound like a pretty big when you take it to its obvious conclusion.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Two reasons as I see it:
1. If they let you pipe their video feed into IP and onto your home network, it increases the likelyhood that you will then hack it, capture it, post it on Kazaa, or otherwise liberate their content to the real world. They control their cable boxes and the like it that way.
2. You talk about accessing it outside your home over high speed cable from your hotel room. That might be fine for your hotel room connection, but now your local cable company suddenly needs high-speed IP connections out of that server in addition to just the link to their proprietary coax. Not sure you'd want to pay for a whole new fat pipe just to access your own PVR on the road.
Besides, your hotel room would probably have this service from a local system anyway.
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
There is an easier way for networks to prevent commercial skipping - the ad crawl. You already see those animated cars promoting some show roaming across the bottom of the screen, or the little show "window" surrounded by sports or stock info. I have no doubt that it will become the standard method of advertising, with 1/4 (or more) of the screen dedicated to advertising constantly. Commercial breaks will disappear. A law could be passed to prevent automated blockage of that part of the screen, and the ads will rotate from the bottom to the top and sides to prevent someone from just taping a piece of cardboard to the bottom of the screen.
Sorry to be so negative, but if I were in charge of a network it would have already been done. And as soon as one does it, the rest will rapidly follow.
Myth 1: Viewers always skip the commercials when watching a record program. This isn't true and anyone with a DVR/PVR can verify this fact. You watch commercials that interest you or perhaps even just plain forget to forward through.
Myth 2: Advertisers automatically hate DVRs/PVRs because of Myth 1. As recently reported on Slashdot, there is at least one study to show that retention levels are just as high for viewers who fast forward through commercials than those who watch them at normal speed. Of course, everyone's gut reaction is that DVRs/PVRs are bad for advertisers because they have the capability to fast forward.
Myth 3: Hot women are great in bed. I'm not suggesting you start sleeping with ugly women, but don't assume anything.
Myth 4: Media companies are smart. Ok, that's not a myth but it is a point I want to make. ReplayTV was sued because it allowed users to email shows and had a "instant" commercial skip function. Besides the fact that emailing the show is no different than recording it on a VCR and giving the tape to a friend (which is completely legal under the fair use doctrine), the media companies just want to treat anything in digital form different because it lets them fight a battle that they already lost 20 years ago. Their argument is essentially that any device which COULD be used for illegal purpose is inherently illegal. Their goal is to continue their business model of reselling content. Take a movie. Pay to see it in a theater. Buy the video or DVD. Purchase it on PPV. This is because they truly feel that the content is licensed and not owned (in a limited fashion) by the consumer. As long as they can resell it, the economics make sense because they get multiple returns for the production. DVRs/PVRs and the change in behavior are one step in the process for destroying that model. Record a digital version of a movie on PPV and then burn it to a consumer DVD burning device. Then loan the copy to a friend. Each step is removing a revenue stream from the media company. And they don't know how to stop this.
I have a TiVo as well..
...
I watch *more* television shows/programs in *less* time than I watched before.
By skipping commercials, I can watch 2 "1-hour" shows in 1.5 hours. Watching 10 "hours" of TV programming can be done in 6.5 hours with Tivo. I do a lot of things that interest me with an "extra" 2.5 hours of time!
If I want to go out to dinner, go to a movie, or go out of town, I don't have to worry about taping and/or missing any of the shows I *really* want to watch - this is especially handy on weekend nights.
Yes.. I skip commercials.. BUT, I would say that I have absolutely no interest in > 90% of the commercials being shown:
-I'm not looking to buy a new car
-I'm not looking to buy a new PC - "Dude! I'm NOT getting a Dell!
-I don't eat fast food
-I'm a guy and don't need make-up, feminine hygiene products, nor do I want to have an "organic experience" when washing my hair
-I am not looking to refinance a house
-I don't watch Oprah, Dr. Phil, or any of those other mindless talk shows.
-I don't care about commercials for other shows tha I have absolutely no interest in - I don't care what time they come on nor do I want to see whatever stupid teaser you're going to put in the commercial
-I'm 33 years old - I don't need senior citizen "supplemental insurance" and/or home delivery of drugs, etc.
Have I left anything out?
It's not my fault that the delivery model for television advertising is lagging behind the technology. Why should I waste my time watching commercials that do not apply to me or that I have no interest in seeing? Now.. there are a few commercials that I will watch - even on the Tivo -- Commercials for TV shows that I am interested in, funny commercials, commercials for other sci-fi shows, commercials for motorcycle stuff, some commercials for home remodeling/etc.
What I would like to see is more targeted advertising that gives me information that I really want to see. Have the commercials downloaded to the Tivo and insert them dynamically into the program at the commercial breaks. Maybe embed a signal in the broadcast that would indicate the start of the commercial break and how long it is to run.. Let me "rate" the commercials like I can "rate" programs on the Tivo - 1,2, or 3 thumbs-up or thumbs down and give me 85% of the commercials that I have said I want to receive and 15% of commercials that you think I would want to receive based on the ratings of my tv programs and commericals.
Just like with the TV shows, give me something tha I want to watch and I will watch it.