ReplayTV May Drop "Commercial Advance"

An anonymous reader writes "Wired News is reporting that the new owners of ReplayTV are considering dropping the Commercial Advance and Send Show options features." I had bad luck with that function chopping out bits of show anyway. Between that and the 30 second skip function, I'm surprised ReplayTV has lasted this long!

Comments

Before the flames begin.

[Mononoke]

You do know that advertising is what pays for TV programming, broadcasting, etc., in the USofA, don't you?

Would you rather have cat^H^H^HTV detector vans running around?

Re:Before the flames begin.

[kwerle]

Funny how capitalism works. If enough folks skipped ads (not bloody likely), shows/networks would find another way to get funding. Or they would die. Either way is just fine.

Re:Before the flames begin.

[thatguywhoiam]

You do know that advertising is what pays for TV programming, broadcasting, etc., in the USofA, don't you? Would you rather have cat^H^H^HTV detector vans running around?

Not really, but I don't think that's necessary. Look at HBO's model, or any other specialzied subscription-based channel.

I've been dying to select exactly the cable channels I want for years. It seems vastly preferable - to me, anyways - to pay $40/month for 8-12 channels that I actually like, through and through. Of course the media giants are all-too aware of this; after all, they watch TV too. You can't shovel your pap in with the good stuff if people have the power to only receive the good stuff, and filter out the pap.

As for Replay... these companies have got to stop with the fucking bait-and-switch routine. This is the precise reason I'll never consider a subscription-based PVR. It was too easy to see it coming. It's also too easy to just buy the parts for the computer that I need to make it happen there. (Where it belongs, IMHO.)

Look, I sympathize a bit with the broadcasters, they have some tough questions and sitations to answer. But that's the extent: a bit. I don't care a lot, nor should you. TV will not 'go away' any more than music will. The presupposition that without this one specific economic model for media dissemination, we'll all be without any art whatsoever, is ludicrous.

Re:Another crippled product

[mac123]

I must be a bit confused. Which features has Tivo removed from my system?

I can't think of one.

MythTV and Freevo

[jared_hanson]

Software solutions such as MythTV and Freevo (both run on Linux) require fairly hefty hardware to do the encoding of TV to MPEG-2, MPEG-4, etc. Then they need to decode it to play it to the screen. Both encoding and decoding is necessary in order to do the time shift.

However, MythTV is leading the charge to offload this processing to the WinTV PVR cards, freeing up the system CPU for other stuff, or just allowing the user to scrape by with minimum requirements. So the feasability is improving quite rapidly right now.

MythTV has also been doing some impressive work on their GUI (check out the screenshots). This was one area I previously thought Freevo had a leg up on, but that advantage is going away.

Links:
MythTV
Freevo

This is why you roll your own PVR.

[IpSo_]

I believe there was a Ask Slashdot a few weeks ago regarding building your own PVR. The majority of the comments seemed say "Why bother, just buy a TIVO/Replay TV, its already done for."

Well, this is why you roll your own. Yes, its a little more work, the cost is pretty much the same, but there is no monthly fee, and features don't get yanked out from under you.

MythTV is absolutely amazing, and its evolving incredibly fast. If your lookinng for a PVR, I recommend giving it a shot.

Re:This is why you roll your own PVR.

[Musashi Miyamoto]

A little more work? Installing a TIVO is absolutely brain dead. Think of this in terms of a non-computer person you know... Maybe your parents.

Tivo has:
- No install of Linux, software, libraries.
- no install of cards
- Customer support if you cant figure out how to plug it into your TV (the truely braindead)
- Comes with all the cables

Some of us are Unix admins at work and can write their own Myth TV if they wanted, but DON'T WANT TO. TV is supposed to be a relaxing veg-your-brain "activity". Most people don't want to have to think about it.

Have you seen the FAQ on Myth TV?
Compare these questions and nswers to the "plug it in" install of Tivo:

I get an error when compiling about 'mkspecs'?
You need to set QTDIR. On Debian, it should be /usr/share/qt. On Mandrake, it should be /usr/lib/qt3

I can't change the channel when watching TV?
Something's wrong with your program database. Did filldata run with no major errors?

When is the last time Tech Support over at Tivo asked a user "Did you make sure that /usr/local/lib is in /etc/ld.so.conf and then re-run ldconfig?"

Re:This is why you roll your own PVR.

[nbvb]

Bless your heart, Sir.

You Get It (tm).

This is why I'm a Sun/HP-UX admin by day, but a DirecTiVo/Mac user at night.

I like things that Just Work (tm).

TV is bad for your life

[doublem]

My Parents:

Watch TV all the time. Requests to turn the damn thing off are met with a confused gaze.

My Apartment:

TV gets turned on when we have friends over for the purpose of watching a movie, or we're too brain drained to do anything but sit and watch pretty colors. Oh, and when I want to play with my PS2.

How does that impact our lives? I spend most of my time with my friends. A night to myself becomes a rare and cherished thing spent reading a book I've been looking forward to or on a game I haven't played in ages.

My GF and I throw dinner parties, have nights out with friends, spend time talking to each other and interacting as adult human beings.

Hell, I didn't have cable for four years and never missed it.

Although I do admit, the Food Chanel is pretty fun. Of course, my GF and I end up trying a lot of the tings we see on the shows there.

My mother can give a run down of the entire life story of all the characters on "Friends" and "Stargate SG1" (The latter watched not for the content, but for MacGyver's presence.) Her social life consists largely of people from Church, and she doesn't see them very often.

I prefer my life, thank you very much.

And to add a slice of irony, I'll quote a character from a very bad sci-fi show: "We stopped watching movies when we realized that our own lives were far more interesting."

Re:TV is bad for your life

[mugnyte]

Kids! Kids! Thats enough. TV or not, people have a right to do what they want with their time. No sense in bragging or taunting.

Remember, for every issue you stand high on, in your moral rightousness, there is another you surely completely fail on.

Consumerism, Fossil Fuels, Recycling, Diet/Weight/Health, Intellectual persuits, Spirituality, World Awareness, Community Participation, Civil Service....on and on

Pick your lifestyle and enjoy it, but certainly don't flaunt it. There are no angels. Claiming the high ground makes one look niave.

mug

ref: "Bowling Alone"

Re:"Respecting the intent of copyright"?

[CastrTroy]

They should do this for the "intent of copyright" with movies. I would love to be able to watch a movie on TV without all the controversial words and scenes cut out of them.

Fast Forward?

[mikeboone]

I have not made the move to a PVR, but we use our 9 year old VCR to tape shows and watch later. And guess what, I use the fast forward button to get through the commercials! Perhaps we should remove that button from all remotes.

Crippled? Barely...

[Ezmate]

The real power of TiVo can be found here: -A list of all your recorded programs (just browse through to see what you want to watch) -Program once, record forever (even if the show changes time slots) -Pausing live TV (great for potty breaks & getting a snack - you don't have to wait for a commercial) -Rewinding live TV (Whoa! Was that a boob I just saw?!) -Beautiful & instant Pause -Insanely speedy fast-forward & rewind (60x play speed by default - can be "hacked" to be faster) -Recommended programs that are automatically recorded I have a TiVo & the 30 second skip button is nice (yes it's an easter egg), but the "super-fast-forward" will generally get you through the commercials in 5 seconds (instead of the 2 seconds that it takes to hit the skip button 8 times), and it starts playing the instant you hit the play button. People who make the decision to buy a TiVo based on the 30-second skip button probably don't understand the product. It does so much more... Since I've had TiVo, I watch more television shows than I used to, but I spend less time doing it (i.e. watching American Idol takes 20 minutes instead of 1 hour, most shows only takes 20 minutes instead of 30, you can get right to Dave Letterman's Top Ten List, etc.)

Why is this controversial?

[rubinson]

I'm a bit confused as to why commercial skip/advance has become so controversial all of a sudden. VCRs have had these features for years: Panasonic, Sony. So why is this a big deal when it comes to PVRs?

Not the end of the world!

[jbarr]

As a long-time ReplayTV owner (have a model 2001, 2020, and a 5040) for me, this really is no big deal at all.

First off, it only affects the 5000 or newer series. So, two of my three ReplayTV boxes will be unaffected.

Second, some have had great success with Commercial Advance, but I never had much luck, so I never use it.

And third, the Internet File Sharing for me is another non-issue. Given the upstream cap on my Internet connection, show sharing is just plain prohibitive.

Dinally, let's not confuse "Internet File Sharing" with in-house program streaming between ReplayTV boxes on the same LAN. This feature is NOT being removed. This is the one feature for me that makes the 5040 worth it--it lets me seamlessly offload shows using the DVArchive app to my PC where storage is cheap and either stream them back to the ReplayTV box or burn them to DVD.