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ReplayTV DVR to Remove Features
KarlTheGhoul writes "D&M Holdings Inc. on Tuesday said its new ReplayTV digital television recorder will not include controversial features such as automatically skipping commercials and sharing shows via the Internet." This is a confirmation of our earlier story. Their new ad slogan will be "Costs More, Less Useful".
This only effect's their new product line, but the article says that it's older models will be produced with those features still in tact. It sounds like they are just trying to please the networks, and not the customers. If you ask me, they are setting themselves up for a big let-down in the number of sales, but by the same token, Tivo doesn't have these features to start with, and is doing extremely well...
Something clever...
I just bought a ReplayTV 5040 from SonicBlue.com with lifetime subscription w/ those features as selling points. When those features are removed, can I sue for false advertising?
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Love conquers all... except CANCER
I hope there is still as much hacking potential as the original ReplayTV. There are some impressive projects going on out there!
http://rtvpatch.sourceforge.net/
Suncoast Linux - Sarasota, FL
It just goes to show how the "synergy" arguments of the 1990's are actually complete bullshit.
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This is one of the reasons that shows get canned. Farscape for example got canned off SciFi because the shows were costing more to produce than advertising revenue was coming in (at least according to the Nielson ratings for those time slots) and they couldn't come to an agreement. Which sucks. But since Farscape and 24 are the only shows I've watched this past season, that means I can get by with no tv, which is good :)
Regarding case 1, why would the broadcaster do that? Since they are interested in everyone watching the commercials, they would hurt themselves by broadcasting such a signal.
In case 2, the broadcaster could simply circumvent the automatic skipping mechanism by semi-randomly shifting the commercial times, or by varying the length of commercial breaks.
Probably it's case 3, namely the one I didn't think of. Is anyone in the know?
An interesting point to consider with this whole ordeal. For us Slashdotters, we're rambling on about features and cracks. By the time this thing gets out to Circuit City with the stripped features, the common masses will have no idea they've been "robbed". They'll just go with the marketing that they are fed. "As good as TiVo" or "better than your VCR". For us geeks, this is news. For the average consumer (who STILL doesn't get the joys of TiVo), they won't even notice.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Popular opinion (here at least) is that customer pressure will force features back into crippled devices. Can anyone actually find a case where this has happened?
And whatever happened with the commercial skipping features that briefly appeared on VHS units a few years back?
Juggling four languages in your head while typing and trying to be 100% correct and formal in an informal forum = Challenging.
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I own two ReplayTVs - older model 3000 units. These are dinosaurs in the PVR world - they use a 56K modem to dial up for their program listings and only have a 30 second skip button. No auto-skip, and they can't even share with each other.
As far as I can tell, the older units like mine are pretty much at the end of their software cycle -the only updates will be program guide info and new phone numbers at this point.
A friend of mine owns some of the new units (4000's I think) and they're pretty cool - the commercial skip and the sharing/playing from room-to-room are features that I've drooled over more than once. I would have gone out and replaced my current units with some like hers, but she mentioned about how they keep updating the software with "improvements" that only seem to get buggier and buggier as they go. She worries that the next round of "improvements" will turn the commercial skip and sharing off, or might change the way guaranteed vs non-guaranteed recording will be handled.
After (vicariously) going through the ups and downs of buggy updates and worries about what they will break this week, I decided that as nice as all those new features might be, the ReplayTV people are too likely to mess stuff up.
I've decided that I'll do whatever I can to keep my two "dinosaurs" running as long as possible. I love the possibilities the new technology could bring, but the skittishness of the ReplayTV people (this isn't the first time there's been talk about commercial skip being removed) makes me uncomfortable about slapping a large sum of cash down on the counter at my local A/V store.
If I were to upgrade, it would be to get the very features the new management wants to delete. No thanks.
The Digital Sorceress
MythTV has one big drawback for digital sat users there is a whole recompression stage with lassy compression. DirectTivo allows a completely lossless experience. Now granted they have a lot of issues about not supporting new features in the series 2 but when it all comes down to it for me at least quality is the number one concern.
No sir I dont like it.
Bullshit. TV and advertisers will adjust. One, advertisers may start making better commercials that people want to watch. Two, networks can reduce the costs of shows by, for example, paying stars less. The cast of Friends makes $1 million each per episode because NBC is willing to pay it. If no network was willing to pay that price, then you can bet your ass that Matt LeBlanc would take what they offered rather than go back to waiting tables.
The networks are just trying to preserve the status quo at all costs. They are welcome to try, but they shouldn't have any help from Congress or the courts.
Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night; set him on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
I've had a TiVo for some time now, and, like other PVR owners, I've really become a fanatic.
I love fast forwarding during commercials, but I've noticed that I am generally inconsistent in doing so. If the commercial is entertaining enough, I'll forget to fast forward. Inevitably, however, I hit a used car ad or something like that which will remind me that I don't have to watch that tripe. To me, this window of opportunity on the part of advertisers is fair game. If they can make an ad so that it will not annoy me, then they'll get a viewer. (Hell, I've even rewinded particularly cool ads to deliberately look at them) I can see the fairness, therefore, in requiring human decision to fast forward or skip the ad.
Advertisers will have to worry about the quality of their content (hear that, you scum sucking telephone company bastards!?), and they will need to worry about the quality of other ads played nearby in their time slot. If your funny beer ad comes after Crazy Joe's backyard 0% financing pickup truck extravanganza, then you are going to be a high speed blur on my TV set. Repetition will also become meaningless, as I will just zap through the five hundred thousanth iteration of your Windows training CD ad.
If you are an advertiser and this annoys you, remember this. Before TiVo I simply didn't watch TV. I am watching reruns of old shows now because I couldn't deal with ads in realtime. Persuading me not to push the fast-foward button is your only chance of selling me something. It's either that or the power switch.
Well, let's see. Back when TV started, there was about 1 commercial per show. Now, 3/4 of the show is just dozens of commercials. Gee, sounds like ads have been becomming worth less and less money for a long time now.
If you want someone to blame it on, look at the networks, and the makers of the commercials themselves. I'm not about to watch commercials for 10 minutes straight, I'm not going to watch for long if the announcer just keeps repeating "expedia dot com" every 2 seconds, and I'm not going to watch for a second if the volume of the commercials is twice as loud as the show was.
This has gone on for a long time now. It's a perfect example of companies looking for the quick buck, and, in the long run, screwing over themselves, or their entire industry. These days, it's the RIAA and MPAA doing this, so you know where they are headed.
Anyhow, they've made commercials more and more annoying, meaning they've made people NOT want to watch them. I have a hard time understanding why they still continue in this direction. Personally, I'd like to see ad-driven TV off the air, then we can finally pay a few dollars a month for a couple dozen GOOD channels, with no ads. The current networks don't know how to make good content that people will pay for, so they defend their current model tooth and nail. Commercials in TV are an inherent conflict of interest. If we could pay $1/month for each channel, and monthly decide if we want to add or drop a channel, TV would be so much better, as station's only motivation would be to make their shows better, and otherwise just make consumers happy.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I'm still astonished at the number of people who believe that television exists in order to provide programs. Television exists solely for the purpose of providing another advertising medium, for everything from footwear to politicians. The quality of programming is quite secondary to the networks first consideration: advertising dollars. They don't utilize those dollars to create "better TV programs", there's no such thing. The shows exist only to sucker viewers into watching the advertisements, and although you can say, "Oh, I always mute the commercials", the visuals are still effective at capturing attention (often far more so than the programs). It's also worth noting that television advertising works on the same basis as email spam: sure, YOU don't respond to those Nike and Coke ads, but someone sure as hell does, and the take from even a tiny percentage of viewers is significant enough to warrant the continued domination of television by its advertisers. Btw, in his book "Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television" Jerry Mander notes that the more heavily a product is advertised the less there is an actual need for it. So while you never see an advertisement for whole wheat or organic farming you'll see plenty for soft drinks, antiperspirants, and yes, even automobiles and beer. You might like that stuff but you don't really NEED it. That is known up front in the advertising industry, so they must continue to blare their wares, else in a very short time you will forget about their product and discover that you simply don't need it.
As an aside, I was told by a former jingles writer for the J. Walter Thompson Agency that he once conferred with representatives for a major brewing company here in the US. The reps told him they were targeting what they termed the "reparative drinker", i.e., the 30% of American drinkers who consume 60% of their product. These are the people who don't have a babe girlfriend, a fast cool car, or any talent for sports. But the advertisers know that their job is to convince those people that if they just drink their beer then at least they'll FEEL like they got the babe, the car, and the talent. In short, drinking their beer "repaired" those deficincies, and it's the advertiser's work to convince those people to keep drinking, as opposed to actually doing something to improve their real lives.
As a last comment, I've lost track of the number of friends who tell me about their attention-deficit out-of-control kids, and then tell me that "All those kids want to do is watch TV". What those kids will really remember is the ads. Makes me wonder what Hitler might have accomplished with television...
One feature I think would be cool would be a "Capture Commercial" feature, where the box would monitor a channel and capture all commercials over a 24 hour period... so you could collect commercials you really liked. or, you could have it capture commercials with certain words in them (which it would recognize from the CC signal).
I'm actually interested in seeing commercials, just not during a show I'm watching. Let me watch them at my leisure. Perhaps a box could have commercial splitting that would let you skip all commercials for a recording, but then save them separately for the end so you could skip through ones you did not like like chapters on a DVD?
If you don't think there's a market for that, just look at how adcritic.com had to become a pay service.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I bought a 5080 this weekend because of the past article stating that the new ReplayTV hardware would not have the features that I've wanted since I bought my 3030 (most notably ethernet streaming for archiving via DVARchive). That being said, does anyone know of a way to block software updates from ReplayTV? Do they come from the same IP address as the program guides? If anyone's got an IP address (or range) please let me know! My 5080 works as well as I'd want it to right now...no need for them to remove my beloved networking!
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
Convergence, people, convergence. (Closes TV show that he has running in another window.)
All of these boxes are just crippled computers. With the prices on a real computer nosediving - and all signs indicating they will keep doing so - the only thing these devices have going for them is "mindshare" married to consumer apathy or ignorance.
Now, as I close my TV show, I notice that I'm running windows, which goes to show you can go a long way with an overpriced, underpowered product and some mindshare (though I got windows free from school). However, I don't think either of these devices is going to be able to successfully compete with the TV enabled home PC, ten or even five years in the future.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
i got a replaytv for christmas last year. it sucked. the picture quality was horrible, there was interference on several stations (including HBO), and the service was the worst. it was not a cabling problem either...
when you get the unit, you only have a few "free" days before you have to sign up for the service. during those days i could not get anyone from support to help. in fact, when calling support, they had so many calls that i couldn't even get into the queue to have my call answered!
i tried the phone options for a couple days. then i sent them an email to their support group. a week went by with no access to support and no response to my email.
so, it got returned and exchanged for a Sony Clie. about a month or so later, I received an email from replaytv customer support with some suggestions for fixes. A MONTH!
won't buy their products ever again.... and i think you shouldn't as well.
I've had my 5040 for about 6 months now. I positively love the thing, and we purchased over TiVO because of Network compatability (at the time, without purchasing add-on parts).
It seems that my commercial skip function has become less and less effective over time. Replay's fine print says that it's 90% effective, and I presume it's looking for a particular time sequence in blank space or something to that effect. I'm not sure if the networks have caught on to what the Replay is doing, but it seems that lately my commercial skipping is about 30% effective. Certain shows will always be able to skip commercials, while others (those that air on Cartoon Network, for example), are almost guaranteed to be unskippable. It doesn't bother me; a few clicks of the 30-second skip button work just as well, and I occasionally catch glimpses of commercials I want to see (and go back to them).
Also, check out DVArchive on sourceforge. Great multi-platform program that masquerades as another ReplayTV on the network. Grab one of those $300 w/ service included 5040s from Sonicblue, throw some extra drives (I've seen stuff going for $0.75/GB or lower) in a computer, and go to town with your several hundred hour Replay without even voiding a warranty.