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TiVo-Like Service Coming To Australia
rosy writes with good news for Australian television watchers: "CNET.com.au is reporting that a TiVo-like service will be available in November this year. Dubbed ICE ("Intelligent Content Engine") and developed by Peter Vogel, the technology will be built into set top boxes and personal video recorders to skip ads or lower the volume, view electronic program guides, etc. The article states that the service will cost $2-3 per week with the service launching initially in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong."
Perhaps, Australia being upside down, Tivo make work the opposite and actually put decent programming onto the TV rather than take it off.
Dubbed ICE ("Intelligent Content Engine") and developed by Peter Vogel, the technology will be built into set top boxes and personal video recorders to skip ads or lower the volume, view electronic program guides, etc.
When did pr0n start having ads in the middle of the show, and why would you want to lower the volume?
While Vogel didn't reveal much of the technical detail behind how the ICE system works, he did state that it was backed up by live monitoring -- so presumably he'll be looking to hire people to watch solitary TV stations 24/7 -- to enable the system to react automatically to ad changes, or late running TV programs.
If spams are anything like ads, maybe it's time someone looks into doing something similar (live monitoring) for spams.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
It's almost enough to make me wish that I watched TV.
almost.
Will the boxes be black?
The addition of volume-leveling and ad-skipping features seems to imply that this service is going to be closer to the original ReplayTV units rather than TiVo units... ReplayTV of course at one point in time was a sister company of the Rio brand of MP3 players and always has had a reputation of being the "screw the system" DVR as opposed to TiVo who co-operates with advertisers and broadcasters.
Only problem is that the very narrow 'fair dealing' defence in the copyright act might not even allow the sort of home copying allowed in the US under Betamax.
If that's the case, this thing could have an unfortunately short life... :(
I'd pay that just to have advertisements taken out of my daily TV...infact it's one of the main reasons I like the ReplayTV 4000-series, you can just have it skip the ads all-together.
And for those of you who enjoy commercial breaks so you can run and get more chips or ice cream...remember, you can always just pause it!
Personally, I'd love a feature to automatically lower the volume on ads, to save me doing it manually.
I have noticed a disturbing trend on British cable TV channels where adverts are considerably louder than the main programmes, presumably to try and grab your attention. In reality, it's just annoying.
I normally channel surf or watch five minutes of a rolling news channel anyway, although now a lot of channels seem to have syncronised their ad breaks to try and stop you doing that. I expect such a feature would come under a lot of fire here (and probably in Aus too) from the very people who make it necessary.
One question though: how does it detect adverts?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The article implies that the ICE system will somehow be getting either real-time or post-broadcast metadata that current DVRs do not... basically allowing the units to compensate for things like sports runovers and news preemptions that cause a network to not follow its pre-broadcast schedule, and therefore getting the accurate start time and end time of the shows, not accidently recording program A under program B's heading, in addition to knowing which timecodes to jump past to avoid the commericals...
Of course, Austrailia has many fewer total over the air TV stations than the USA does thanks in part to its smaller geographic size, so this service is much more practical there than it is here.
With some old leftover hardware and a $150 TV card, it was ridiculously easy to set up, even though a little Linux experience did help. Sure, the commercial detection is "programmed" and prone to miss commercials or (on occasion) think that the program itself is the commercial, but when it's free and includes most, if not all of what these PVR boxes will, having that "up-to-the-second" information isn't really all that vital.
I thought tivo was just a box that recorded stuff so you could re-watch it later?
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
I ask myself if TiVO will ever come to Europe - The german tool Fernsehfee http://www.telecontrol.de/produkte/fernsehfee.html (TV Ferry) is of questionable legality - and everything it does is blank out the commercials...
(The last court said TV Ferry was legal - see http://www.nzz.ch/2004/07/02/em/page-article9P8G4. html )
Spelling mistakes: My is english spoken not tongue of mother.
I'm in Australia, and to be honest, we dont really have that much free to air television. We have 5 main stations. One of them is the ABC (government funded), SBS a more multicultural tv station (partly gov funded I think) and three fully commercial stations. The ads we have are mostly on the commercial stations.
I dont think Australians are real heavy tv watchers, as pay-tv here is no where as popular as it is in other parts of the world. And if people dont want ads, they buy pay-tv services. I wouldn't pay a few dollars a week to record/filter ads from free to air tv. I mainly just turn it off.
So even thought I could see that this would have a market, I don't think it will be as big as Tivo in the American market.
Live in your skin. Keep changing the scenery.
If it's anything like the US Tivo then it's crap.
Why do I HAVE TO buy Tivo service to be able to record shows? I can do this with VCR without paying for any special services. That's probably one of the reasons US Tivo is likely to be out of business soon.
It's the name for the box - the TiVo DVR (digital video recorder) - as well as the service that goes along with it. The advantage of the service is that it is automatically able to do things like keep track of the shows you want to record even if the day/time slots change, or automatically record shows with your favorite actors/actresses, for example.
You CAN use the TiVo box without the service, but you will lose all of the "automatic" functionality.
While it would be nice to think that a similar service might be implemented here in New Zealand, the chances are virtually zero for one reason:
Copyright.
The TV broadcasters consider their program listings to be their intellectual property and that they're protected by copyright.
Similar copyright cases (both here and in Australia) have been won by the companies which publish other collections of data such as telephone directories (example)
Anyone who attempts to publish TV program schedules without the permission of the broadcaster (and they charge like wounded bulls for giving such permission) will be set upon by multiple teams of corporate lawyers.
Of course someone intent on providing a scheduling service for a Tivo-like system could always try and buy the rights to publish those listings but I bet you any money you like that those rights would come with the caveat that ad-blocking was forbidden. After all, advertising revenues are the lifeblood of a free-to-air broadcaster so they're not about to allow someone to provide a service that cuts ads are they?
Personally I think someone should fight the broadcasters over their copyright claims -- after all, copyright is supposed to protect the presentation, wording and format of data, not the facts on which that data is based.
If I create listings from scratch and simply include the program title, genre, start and finish times then that information should not be covered by any form of copyright.
But, fighting the corporate sharks costs lots of money so I doubt we'll see a test-case here in NZ anytime soon.
regards,
Sydney.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
I believe the same issue exists here in the UK, and it didn't stop TiVo here. (What eventually stopped TiVo here was partnering with Sky, who screwed them over by releasing their own PVR. I still get my listings downloaded every night, though.)
when there's actually something worth recording with this thing being screened.
I have been thinking about creating a web service that could be used by PVR software to create an open-source version of TIVO-style recommendations.
:-)
The idea would be to collect viewing habits anonymously, and then automatically create "viewers who recorded this also recorded..." listings.
A PVR project could then use this data to automatically record shows, or just mark them as recommendations in the Guide. It would not be tied to a specific PVR project, it could be added as modules to GB-PVR (which I use), MythTV, or any other project.
Some of the challenges include how to identify films and TV series correctly, handle international show titles, and how to make the users contribute to the database hassle-free.
If anyone has heard of a project like this before, please let me know
Start and end times of both programs and ad breaks could be sent over the Internet -- from live monitors (pressing buttons on remotes or keyboards) to those watching or recording programs.
You could actually build a free community-based live monitoring system using (1), aggregation of signals from many monitors (based on their history of accuracy), and (2), a system whereby credits are accrued by sending accurate signals that can be used to receive signals at other times. Would work best with broadband connections.
Could this sort of thing be added to Linux-based PVRs like MythTV?
Why wait? TiVo is already in Australia!! :)
http://minnie.tuhs.org/TiVo
No, that's the problem. I can remember when Slashdot used to have interesting articles now and again. People blowing shit up and making dangerous chemicals in their back yard. Cool hacks that actually involved hacking stuff, not some kiddie stuffing a mini-ITX board into a stuffed penguin. All we have now are endless dupes of SCO stories, rewarmed news to Wired and NYT articles and crap like this. Honestly, who the fuck cares about TiVo services being sold in .au? If you're an Ozzie I'm sure it's great, but it doesn't mean we need a front page article about it. Bah.
A TiVo that records crocodile hunter.. excellent.
Isn't that the best part of TV???
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Yep, its DIY in NZ for at least a few years more.
The current issue of FFWD magazine has a writeup by someone who imported a TiVo and what the options are. I just this minute finished messing around with a PVR-250 in Linux. I'll wrap a SFF system around it and program it with cron.
Sky NZ have been promising to do a PVR for a while. The FFWD article notes that Sky think they'll have one available in 2005. They also note that in 2002, Sky said they'd have one in 2003...
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
Peter Vogel built this awesome instrument (with his business partner Kim Ryrie) called the Fairlight. It was to the best of my knowledge, the first sampler and can be heard on dozens of albums, particularly from the eighties. Even with the advances of audio technology in the last 10-15 years, I still drool over the Series III.
:)
http://www.ghservices.com/gregh/fairligh/
In any case (and back on topic), I hope he has better luck business wise this time. As was typical with great engineers with good ideas at that time (think Clive Sinclair) they never had the acumen to cash in on their great technology. Those MBA graduates do sometimes come in handy
Can it remove the bugs that now appear to be on all the channels?
The Aussie TV stations tend to use the cheapest gear they can lay their hands on and that means NTSC/60Hz and that results in some odd issues when you take a video of a cricket ball moving over a field that was recorded at 50Hz/PAL and then converted to 60Hz/NTSC mpeg encoded, moved 1/2 around the world via sat and converted back to 50Hz/PAL. Add in a bug and watching the jitter and it makes me feel like I'm car sick. The result is I don't watch as much TV and I don't watch any thing that is high action thats been converted on any of the channels anymore.
Some enterprising people have already set up sites to modify imported machines, and supply the data.
tivo site for making australian Tivo
Tivo Weeknees
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
There seems to be a trend in Australia lately that some local programs will overrun their scheduled spot. What is scheduled to finish so another show can start at 8:30pm, for example, may actually go on for several more minutes. This makes it difficult to set the VCR timer to record. You end up with some of the show before the one you want to record and miss the end of it. I experienced this on Sunday. Bloody Big Brother!
I have also noticed the commercial networks may occasionally skip ads between programs. One program will flow into another. This may also make it difficult to set the timer.
What will be interesting to see with these PVRs is how good is the program guide they use. Will it be up-to-date? As said before, even the networks can't get their NOW/NEXT on-screen display accurate. How will a third-party do it? I can just imagine them having people watching each channel, pressing buttons which send signals to all the PVRs.
The law is a bit contradictory to this fact sheet, as this clause indicates.. it is legal to make copies of tv broadcasts for private or domestic use..
COPYRIGHT ACT 1968 , SECT 111
Filming or recording broadcasts for private and domestic use
(1) The copyright in a television broadcast in so far as it consists of visual images is not infringed by the making of a cinematograph film of the broadcast, or a copy of such a film, for the private and domestic use of the person by whom it is made.
So, maybe it's only OK to copy a tv show without sound ?
I think it's great. This is big news for me (I live in Newcastle, one of the rollout areas). If you don't like it, don't click on "Read More". I like it being on the front page, since I wouldn't see it if it was elsewhere.
However, maybe Slashdot needs checkboxes for geographical locations (similar to the current topic ones), so that we can choose not to see stories from other areas if we want to. That way, you can choose not to see Australian stories, and we don't have to read your whining.
Why don't they have it in Ayers Rock, Broome and Melbourne too?
:(
Motherfuckers
*(for reference that's like having it in NYC, Florida and that shitty place they bagged in futurama with the coke bottling factory and the air port and that's it)
*at least to my approximate geographical knowledge
I want that "hunt down other things you might like" feature.
I'm FAR from being a TV junkie - I (seriously) watch less than 2 hours a week and this is only due to my g/f having the tube on.
HOWEVER When I do get behind the remote at her place I spot
fantastic things on ABC and SBS (non commercial stations)
I normally feel that using the computer is more rewarding than the TV as it's interactive - I spose the PC is the 1970's TV equivelant for kids (but anyhow I'm getting off track)
What I would like is those great documentaries on SBS and ABC as well as catching Rally highlights (the only motor sport, if not only sport I appreciate) - also anything like the simpsons, southpark, seinfeld and futurama - oh it would be bliss
Of course it would chew up all my time and kill me but damn it would be good.
Without that feature I'm distinctively not interested.
I thought it would be the same in all of Australia's provinces...why is NZ any different?
:)
HAHA
Subject says it all. Cable analog viewers in Canada have no TiVo or TiVo-like service that they can buy.
yup, and the Cnet article doesn't do it justice calling it the "fairlight music synthesizer"
;-)
it was the first digital sampler. and CMI ment computer music instrument. in 1979 - mind you..
and the reprecutions of this invention can be heard to day on almost every music production today. the idea of using a digital representation of sound and playing it back in varing speeds relative to seminotes was totaly revelutionary and had much more of a cultural effect then that video box will ever have..
it's nice to see the guy still comming up with new stuff..
now we just need something worth recording with this
Anyone know if I can use this thing with Pay TV set top boxes - ie Foxtel or Austar? Seems pretty lame if it will only work with the 5 free to air tv stations we have here in Aus...
Yeah, sad but true...
at least tv_grab_nz works great over here!
Daaaaaad, can you get me one of those? could become a thing of the past.
Wooot!
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Pity you cannot get someone out of the country to publish that data.
Preferably someone who can afford to scoff at NZ law.
Hell, even the US with its copyright insanity doesn't allow crap like a phone book or TV listings to be copyrighted.