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".

Comments

Failure ahead for Replay...

[pir8garth]

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...

Re:Failure ahead for Replay...

[mh_tang]

Go read their service agreement. It says that anyone who buys the service agrees that features may be added or removed at any time. And of course, buying the box without service gets you nothing more than a doorstop.

If Replay drops these features in the 5500 series, it will just create a very hot secondary/used market for the older 5000 models that still have Commercial Advance & Send Show features.

So in my opinion, there's the possibility that they not only remove these features from new units, but also retroactively from the older 4000 and 5000 series also. Potentially very bad news for people who have shelled out $250 for a lifetime subscription recently...

Re:Failure ahead for Replay...

[Zathrus]

Tivo doesn't have these features to start with, and is doing extremely well...

I'm a TiVo advocate, but honestly, I wouldn't say they're doing "extremely well". They're yet to turn a profit, although the quarterly losses are dropping at a nice rate and their subscriber base continues to increase.

That said, TiVo does have these features... kind of. There's a secret code to turn 30-second skip on (Stop Play Stop 3 0 on the main TiVo menu IIRC). It's not quite as extensive as the newer automatic commercial Skip Replay gave you, but it's the same as their skip button on the remote.

As for show sharing, with HMO (yes, an additional cost) you can share between any TiVos that are on the same TiVo account and subnet. It's considerably more restrictive than Replay's offering, but it's also going to keep TiVo from being sued into bankruptcy. Twice. And it works quite well for what it is -- my wife and I use it all the time between our TiVos and it's great. Most of the TiVo users in the know are still hoping for collaborative scheduling between TiVos, but that's a ways off.

The issue for D&M is, what are they going to offer instead? Their pricing isn't cheaper (you can now get a brand new 80 hour TiVo for $299, or a refurb for $249), they don't have as many features (especially if you get HMO for an additional $99 or $49), and their software is buggier. I guess we'll see.

In related news:

[RyanFenton]

MythTV v.0.9 was released yesterday

Works great on the 500mhz system I found in the trash a couple of months ago.

Freevo also works quite nicely.

Ryan Fenton

Re:In related news:

[Pedersen]

FAQ Question @ MythTV

And, while I'm at it, I've got a script that'll chop out commercials, and make a divx for you, at this site. I'm going to be doing an update, because not all mythtv nuppelvideo files can be encoded directly by mythtv, but that is now fixable.

Slogan

[Zathrus]

Or maybe their new slogan should be "Trying Not To Go Bankrupt a Third Time!".

Those features got them sued into oblivion. They'll get anyone sued into oblivion frankly, because the media companies won't abide it, and you're going to have a hard time convincing a judge that it's not a copyright violation to share shows.

Removing the commercial skip bit is lame, since there are VCRs that do this already and they've never been attacked. But D&M is obviously hoping to get friendlier with the media companies, and this is another thing they hate.

That said, as best I can tell they just removed the two features that made Replay preferable to TiVo... and the rest of their software is inferior. So I don't quite get where they hope to position the brand at.

Re:Slogan

[aborchers]

and you're going to have a hard time convincing a judge that it's not a copyright violation to share shows

Because in most cases it is, perhaps?

I am an avowed enemy of the copyright cartel because of their heavy-handed tactics and their meddling with public policy and the tech industry. Nonetheless, if it weren't for people infringing their coprights, they wouldn't be wasting their time and money in these pursuits.

Every time I think about the fact that I don't have a legal DVD player for Linux or can't play my last (as in "most recent" as well as "final") major label CD purchase on my notebook computer, I want to pitch an entertainment industry copyright lawyer in the east river weighed down with the corpse of a "sharer"...

Hacking potential?

[SailFly]

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/

In other news...

[illumin8]

In other news... Ebay prices of the older 4000 series Replay units skyrocketd...

MythTV, anyone?

[Vengeance]

I've been assembling a set of PVR boxes which I'm planning to use for distributed recording/playback around the house. I never *did* get a Tivo or ReplayTV, though I came close, and now the stars are aligning in another direction. Combine the slow withdrawal of features from the commercial boxes, with the new features becoming available in a package like MythTV, and for a true geek, the answer is obvious.

In a year or two, possibly sooner, one could expect a CDROM-based distribution of Linux that makes a dedicated MythTV box out of any PC with capture and video-out.

Lemme get this straight

[Brento]

They couldn't beat Tivo in the DVR game with more features and a lower price.

Now, Tivo's got the awesome Home Media Option out that lets you play MP3's on your Tivo, which Replay never had.

So now, best case scenario, they offer less features as Tivo at the same price? Or maybe a little lower?

What's the business model here again?

But the advertisers...

[Andorion]

However much I'd love to skip commercials, I can definitely see why advertisers and more importantly the networks are concerned (and you should be able to, too.) If fewer people watch the ads, the ads are worth less money - money which goes to producing shows. I'd be the first in line to sign a "Ray Romano gets paid too much" petition, but that's besides the point - without income from advertising (or with reduced income) I predict we'll either see show quality decline or cable costs go up. All it'll take is a few more years, when DVR comes built in every TV (or nearly everyone has a box.)

~Berj

Re:But the advertisers...

[KrispyKringle]

The concern most people have here, though, is not that they have a right not to view the ads; such a right is quite basic, as it goes hand-in-hand with your right not to view TV. This is quite different from a right, however, to view TV without the ads; when you accept an essentially free gift from the networks (however crappy the programming may be) you accept it on their terms; they would be well within their rights to say, "Don't like ads? Don't watch TV." As the ads become more pervasive, this is essentially what they are saying.

Rather, critics are bothered by the impact that a totally seperate industry can have on what sort of consumer electronics are even available to us with what capabilities. Were the TV networks to dislike this, they could force contractual agreements with consumers banning the use of these devices (purely hypothetically, of course). But instead they choose a less direct means of asserting their power, which translates to a means of, from a really sinister viewpoint, pacifying the natives.

Rather than openly tell us who's decision it was, the networks use threats and bribes to induce the hardware manufacturers into denying consumers an otherwise profitable and desirable product. This echos far too similarly to the practice of the RIAA of suing the pants off anyone who manufactures software or hardware that appears to threaten them ("Hey, baby, you don't need to sue me to get my pants off...") regardless of significant legitimate use.

This direction-through-indirection is merely annoying at best, but really a terrifying over-stepping of commercial bounds at worst. The government, who supposedly represents us all, is entrusted with the rights to deny us harmful or dangerous products. We trust that such an action is in our best interest, and that the reasons for such an action are the reasons stated up front--no underhanded manipulation is ever acceptible in a democracy--but we have given no such trust to any corporation. When a corporation who's business is televised entertainment, no less, makes for us a decision on what hardware is good and what is bad, it oversteps its commercial bounds.

Re:But the advertisers...

[Otisserie]

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.

Re:But the advertisers...

[Onan The Librarian]

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...

Don't get so worked up.

[stanmann]

Doesn't automagically skip comercials doesn't mean you can't do a 15/30 second skip or jump forward. Just means that the box won't have the current feature which autodetects and skips commercials. Obviously, a compromise solution, but not earthshattering or skybreaking.

Content providers vs. Media tools providers

[ites]

Companies with content simply can't bring themselves to create decent media tools. Look at Sony, handicapping themselves because they own Columbia records, while Apple do the right thing by the consumer, digitizing every media format they can.

It just goes to show how the "synergy" arguments of the 1990's are actually complete bullshit.

Re:Just wait

[KrispyKringle]

I don't know. People have been predicting the downfall of the mainstream media for a while for the same reasons. My feeling is that people never notice what is bad unless their is an alternative. People don't say "wow, our society could be so much better if...", they say "wow, our society isn't nearly as good as..." or, in this case, "wow, my TiVo doesn't do nearly as much as so-and-so's..."

The reason that peope have largely lashed back at Big Music is because there is a clear alternative which applies not just to consumers' sense of moral wrongitude, but their pocketbooks: Kazaa, Gnutella, or what-have-you. Until people see the alternative that they aren't supposed to know about, just the abstracted idea of not being able to do something that the technology does allow isn't going to catch the public's attention much.

Look at how people seem to feel about Big Music. Reading that ABC News article about the RIT student who settled with the RIAA by paying them $12,000, I was truly surprised at how openly critical of the RIAA the article seemed to be, at least, for another member of Big Media, so to speak. It's not that there's a whole open political movement, but rather that so many people, including, most likely, the ABC News correspondent, simply share music files and the RIAA has made anyone who shares files their enemy, quite publicly. They made the consumers the enemy, not the other way around.

So why will there be no immediate lash back at Big Media for restricting things like the TiVo? Because whats the illegal alternative? What free software are people going to download onto their box-top sets out of self-interest which will essentially make them unwitting enemies of Big Media? There is none; short of complicated and risky hardware-hacking, people won't be exposed to what they are missing.

If one TiVo-type product is available in the store with ad-skipping, and the other without, sure, there'll be a preference. But if people are never presented with the option? Then there will be no complaints. Just don't let them see what they're missing and no one is the wiser.

This Changes Nothing Important

[joel8x]

The internet sharing feature was crappy because it was slow and there was too much work involved to get something that you can get from Bit Torrent faster. The automatic commercial skip was flaky (I turned it off right away anyway) because you always ended up with snippets of show missing. As long as I have my 30 second skip button on my remote than I'm happy.

Re:I will buy a Tivo

[Noksagt]

Fair enough, though Tivo doesn't include either of these features! I guess that means they won't "take them away from you," but perhaps you won't be getting as much as you think you'll get.

Re:Who needs it then?

[chmilar]

The nice thing about ReplayTV and Tivo is that they are "appliances". You buy it, take it home, plug it in, and it just works. It does it's one task very well, and you don't have to worry about it.

The "bonus" has turned out to be the "hack-ability" of both Replay and Tivo. You can easily upgrade to larger hard drives. The networked models allow shows to be copied to a computer.

A PC-based PVR will be even more flexible, but it is not yet a consumer-level "appliance".

Re:Can MythTV or Freevo change channels?

[RyanFenton]

Actually, both use Lirc to let you use a remote control to control many things. It's indirect, but effective. It's a sizeable portion of the FAQ & Documentation in MythTV at least. You'll need some kind of infrared detector on your system. You can either get an independant IR card, or many Hauppauge TV models have it included.

Ryan Fenton

PC Based DVR is alas, not the answer

[btempleton]

Many people have proposed doing DVRs with old standard PCs using ideally, open source software. Sounds great, more flexible, everything wonderful.

Until you look at the power. Check how much more power that always-on PC takes than a standalone box. Here in California, for example, every watt of 24/7 power costs $1.13 per year or more. So a 200 watt PC costs over $200 per year to run, $150 more than say, a 50 watt standalone device. Not to mention the damage to the environment.

In other words, you can pay for the standalone device pretty quickly, even if you had a "free" PC just stting around.

Now you could fix this problem if you could arrange for the PC to go into a sleep mode when it doesn't have anything to do, at the cost of waiting a little longer to come up when you turn it on to watch something with the remote. This requires the PC have in it a sleep mode with a clock which allows you to say, "Wake up in 3 hours". How many have this? How many have coded for it.

The standalone device can also do this easily.

And you lose the "always recording something to spare disk space" feature that people love about the Tivo.

Re:Come on Mikey.

[PhxBlue]

Is that really necessary from a (presumably) unbiased editor?

I know it's been asked before, but I may as well ask again: where have the editors on Slashdot said they're unbiased? Where is it stated as a requirement that Slashdot editors be unbiased? An editor who doesn't have a bias wouldn't be able to pick the good stories from the bad. . . Slashdot's editors are just more vocal about their biases than others. Where editors of larger newspapers have to be discreet, /. can place the bias out on the table for everyone to see - which really is doing its readers a favor, since you don't have to read as critically to find out the editorial spin here as you would on, say, FoxNews.

Think of it as open source bias, if that will help. :)

Re:Grounds for a lawsuit...

[afidel]

And THAT is why I will never own a Tivo or other device like it, I can never be sure that a week after I buy it all the things that made me buy the device will not be removed. With a normal consumer device it has a set featureset, I guess if I want a PVR it will have to be a home rolled one based on open data. Yes I realize how great things like season pass are but I have no assurance that they will be there after I purchase it.

VCR?

[siskbc]

They said that when the VCR came out, that TV would be dead within two years. So in 1986, I stopped watching TV, since the two years had elapsed by then, and figured why wait until the screen faded to black since that would be really sad.

So for the last 17 years, I didn't watch TV until someone told me this year, hey, TV never died, it was there all along. I was really happy, and I watched some really great shows like Jackass, but now you fuckers are telling me this TiVo shit is going to kill TV again! Fuck!

Well, I'm not waiting around for the end. I'm giving up TV. I just think it's shitty that people are always talking about some box killing broadcast TV. I'm gonna break all those fucking boxes.

Re:Skipping Commercials.... Stealing? But...

[Thud457]

Getting up to go to the bathroom is a special dispensation since you're actually giving back the raw material that commercials are made of.

Going to the fridge is right out, though.

Secret code

[Eevee]

And I thought it was Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start.

Re:how does autoskipping commercials work?

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

No, they couldn't. At least not with today's current ad model.

The commercials are not simply put in randomly. There is a very strict heiarchy of what commercials go where in the sequence. Picture a 30 min TV show. Usually, 3 commercial blocks. Just before the show, midway through, and end. The order of the commercials is actually quite important as regards audience retention. i.e. you're more likely to remember a product in a commercial in slot A than slot C. And yes...advertisers DO track that stuff, and are charged accordingly. Better placement = more $$ to air that commercial.

Also, a TV show is built around commercial breaks at specified minutes. Random insertion or different length breaks would destroy the flow of the show.

Finally, not all the commercials come from the same source. During a network show, some come from network HQ (See the new Fords!) and some come from the local broadcaster (Lo lo prices at Fred's Friendly Ford Farm out on Route 8!). No way to sync those two if commercial breaks are not preplanned.

They can have my TIVO series 1,

[Archfeld]

when they pry my gun from my cold dead hands...

If they come for me, you ALL will here about it :)

Re:Feature wanted - "Capture Commercials"

[Torqued]

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.

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 7.5 hours with Tivo. I do a lot of things that interest me with an "extra" 2.5 hours of time! To me, my time is more valuable than whatever some advertiser is paying for their 30-second slot. People that waste my time piss me off!

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?

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. Set aside an "hour" worth of disk space and fill it with 120 30-second commercials that can be inserted dynamically into my shows. 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 80% of the commercials that I have said I want to receive and 20% 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 that I want to watch and I will watch it.

Re:I will buy a Tivo

[Mindwarp]

This was beaten to death with a large stick in the TiVo article, but at the risk of repeating all that...

TiVo's business model always included the (future) sale of viewers watching statistics. They never tried to hide this. There's no identifying information in any of the viewer demographic information supplied to TiVo by your box, and hey if you don't like them selling that information then you just call up their support people and tell them to take you off that list! Again, TiVo have been completely up-front and honest with all of this information.

Sometimes there's no conspiracy, no matter how hard you look.