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Time Warner Cable NYC Begins DVR Distribution
MikeTRose writes "Today's NYT Circuits section has an article about the proliferation of digital television choices for cable and satellite customers. They mention that Time Warner Cable will be starting to offer DVR cable boxes to New York City subscribers in September 2003. Apparently the time-shifting features of the new Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 (flash demo) set-tops are unusually powerful, as I got mine in Brooklyn this past Tuesday. 80 GB drive, which equals an estimated 50 hours of digital cable programming (no quality controls a la TiVo or ReplayTV, everything is as-broadcast). Programming interface is integrated completely into the slightly-updated channel guide, and you hit one big ol' record button to save a show. The tuner can handle two channels at once, so you can watch one/record one, or record two programs while watching a prerecorded show (similar to the DirecTV TiVo units if I recall correctly). Works great so far, and there's no quality problem with recompressing the digital cable as there is with standalone DVRs, nor is there the annoying 2-3 second channel change lag while it caches video. At less than $10 a month -- no cost to the subscriber for the box -- that money we were saving for a TiVo is up for grabs."
Time Warner and other cable companies need to spend less time thinking of more features they can charge for and instead find ways to bring better service for lower prices. Once they figure that out, then they should move on to more features. I know in Boston cable can be 60 bucks a month for basic service.
www.freshlymixed.com
"The whole category has been about the customer being able to get control"
Really, who has control here? Given the fact that it's the cable companies themselves that are distributing the boxes and the software, it's pretty safe to assume that they have complete access to information regarding what shows you've watched, what you're recording, etc. This is just the next step towards the uber-specific TV commercial placement of the future. Buy, my pretties, buy!
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
A year ago the TV people were crying that Tivos and other DVR devices would spell certain doom for free/commercial TV.
Then cable companies started talking seriously about pushing out there own DVR units.
Seemed pretty obvious to me that it had something to do with locking down certain features on the DVR's that the free/commercial TV people didn't like.
Has anyone found a downside yet?
The one reviewer seemed pretty pleased with the fast forward button. I thought for sure that would be one thing. I thought that they would restrict the speed so you were forced to watch commercials. Tivo's FF speed is pretty fast.
How about the ability for the cable companies to keep you from recording a program?
I am almost certain there is a programming flag that they can turn on to keep you from recording programs. It is supposed to be used for pay per view and the like, but tell me it isn't screaming for abuse.
Has anyone found any programs (or entire channels even) that they cannot record or time shift?
With my Tivo I have digital cable, and I have yet to be told I cannot time shift someone. I Tivo HBO all the time.
I'm not sure I believe there's no recompression done to the cable signal. Are you really telling me that this is taking the digital signal, leaving it digital, and simply storing an MPEG-2 stream (or whatever it is) as it comes in through the cable on the hard drive? If so, I would like to read more in-depth about this box (not just a Flash demo) - anybody got a better link?
Knowing how ass-backwards Time Warner usually is and how technology like this is often trailing-edge rather than leading-edge, I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market. The fact that it looks so good could be for any number of reasons - a higher bit-rate or better compression algorithm (MPEG-4?) or whatever. If not, this is really a revolutionary device.
Does anyone have any more information on this? And what sort of record times do you get with it? With highest quality on TiVo you get about 20 hours on an 80GB hard drive; that's MPEG-2 decoding (you'd get more if it was MPEG-4).
I would order more Pay Per View movies if:
a) Our cable company offered PPV movies in at least Letterbox (anamorphic would be nice, though)
b) They showed the movies in True Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.
I've called Shaw about both points, and:
a) They said they used to, but people complained about not seeing the "whole movie" (qv)
b) They were rather ignorant about the sound issue, but try explaining the difference between a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal and a Digital Dolby Stereo signal to a Customer Service chimp and that it's not "my equipment is not set up right"
PS. My receiver automatically sets itself up for Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS or Prologic 2 just like most modern ones do, I assume.
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
Actually it depends how much TV you watch usually, I find myself in habit of actually watching the show in its entirety, before the DVR i was always scanning channels when commercials were on, then if I found something else to watch then I'd forget about the previous show, so with this system you'll watch show's that you'd usually not watch (just becasue they come on too late, the commercial breaks are too long...) So I'd say you'll watch more TV that matters, you'll cut a show that lasts an hour into one that is 45 minutes (minus the commercials) so i dont know if that qualifies as spending less time in front of the TV. I'd say it broadens your reach in to the programming, letting you watch what you want when you want it, without having to pause for TV. :-)
When i 1st go the box I was reserved as to if I'd like it that much, but I can say that it's here to stay
The fact is, AOLTW is probably going to be a major trendsetter in this arena, simply because they own so many of the companies that could oppose their decisions. I'm staying clear of this whole mess (I use Dish Network's dishplayer, and the TCO is cheaper anyway) because I don't feel like giving this 500lb gorilla any money when there's an easily attainable alternate solution.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
I have some issues with cable companies incorporating digital recorders with their boxes.
For one, lets take the wayback machine to when VCRs first entered the market. They were touted as, and preferred for, the fact that anyone who liked a specific program could record the show of their choice while watching another, or record a show while away from the TV.
Universal/Jack Valenti (of MPAA fame for those who don't know) were steadfast against this, mainly because it suddenly gave the viewers/consumers a choice in what they watched.
Now it's come full circle. Remember the scandal when it was found that Tivo would record programs nobody wanted to (such as deciding some viewers wanted to record gay television shows because they recorded Sex in the City a certain number of times), or even record programs that were promoted heavily, whether or not the viewers wanted it to be recorded?
Now imagine this. One: The media giants paying the cable companies to set up the boxes to automatically record shows that nobody wants to prop up ratings, or two: If there's a particularly controversial bit of footage, like a cop beating up another black motorist, or the president declaring war on England as a gaffe, or what have you. If they can control the DVR, they can tell the DVR to erase anything they don't want you to see.
Remember the whole thing with Max Headroom where it was against the law to turn off the TV? Imagine a world where it's illegal to choose what you record on your VCR/PVR/DVR.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
DishNetwork has been selling and/or leasing what it calls PVR's (personal video recorders) for two years now. The one set-top box integrates the whole record-to-hard-drive-from-the-program-guide since day one, including Pay-Per-View and the movie channels.
There is only one quality mode, and it is indistinguishable from "live" digital satelite TV. I've NEVER encountered a program I couldn't time-shift. Oh, and there's a 30-second commercial skip button that works out of the box on the remote.
So why exactly is this development for cable TV "news"?
Because digital cable didn't have it before. Perhaps DishNetwork had it, but those of us who get better-than-T1 throughput from our cable modems would rather not switch to satellite and lose our Internet.
Even if we could, some of us live in cities where skyscrapers block our southern exposure, making it impossible to get satellite.
Just 'coz you had something cool before, don't begrudge the rest of us for celebrating now that we have it too! :-)
Shame on Google.
I had Time Warner's PVR since a few days after they released it in Austin- and I just took it back. The problems I had:
1) The box is slow- particularly when recording- if you choose to record one channel and watch another- changing channels take a few seconds, though all the keypresses on the remote get queued. Really irritating when surfing around.
2) The box frequently 'forgot' programming, and when I told it to 'record every episode' of a show- it would record some, not others, and it was pretty unpredictable.
3) The 'pause live TV' feature takes a while to actually start up (it doesn't record by default) and for some reason, it stopped working altogether. It would just end up giving me a blank screen.
4) A bunch of the programs I recorded ended up being corrupted.
5) (and final straw) It suddenly stopped with an 'unrecoverable write error'
Considering that I was paying nearly $100/mo for cable service (Digital+HBO+PVR+regular set-top) It just wasn't worth it.
Though they advertize it as $10/mo- not really- my bill dropped by about $18/mo when I swapped the PVR for a normal digital set-top box.
Ok, ok, umount -f /me.
From numerous posts, though, the TW box appears to be decidedly underpowered (see 5-10 second remote reaction, which I also get), and the decompression leaves artifacts over half the screen reasonably often, but more often when it's recording two things at once..
I'm not arguing that SOME timeshifting isn't better than NO time shifting. I'm arguing that TW is doing their development on the fly, and that TiVo is the better engineered system.
The problem is that people are going to get used to the issues presented by the TW DVR, and accept them as normal, when in fact, they're getting an inferior service (IMNSHO).
How's Myth working out, BTW? I was interested, but chickened out. Specifically, how's the UI for spouses, etc?
ceci n'est pas un sig.