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TiVo, ReplayTV Agree to Limits
Grump writes "This story reports that 'The makers of TiVo and ReplayTV digital video recorders have agreed to limit how long consumers can keep pay-for-view movies stored on future versions of the VCR-like devices.' Is this fair, or erosion of more fair-use rights?"
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DVD Ripping, Divx, VCD, SVCD under Linux
Or in my case, we recorded "24" on our ReplayTV and didn't start watching the second season until we had the whole season. We've had other shows on there over a year because we just hadn't gotten around to watching them. Time limits defeat the whole purpose of a PVR.
Never fear, every episode of Max Headroom but one (and it's coming) is available for download from the Digital Archive Project.
I think perhaps television companies are failing to see the true positives and negatives of these systems. Their true problem is not that people will turn their TIVO into a movie library (hence filling it to the point where they won't have any more space), but that they will skip commercials. The most likely response to this, besides desperate legislation, is to build more and more advertising into the shows themselves. Whether this is a good or bad scenerio, I don't know. It means less time wasted with commercials, but content becoming much more controlled.
The positives of these systems is there is no longer a 'prime time'. Once these systems are wide spread, you can schedule shows at any time, including the middle of the night, and people who want to watch them can.
As for Tivo and Replays "solution" here, well, not being able to keep pay-per-view stuff forever isn't so bad, though I'll stick with my MythTV box which I have total control over. The bad part of this is that this isn't likely to be the only restriction but the start of many restrictions which will further erode the usefulness of these systems, and even worse, the coming of new laws that would likely have made systems like Tivo illegal in the first place if they came a little earlier.
You mean like Knoppmyth?
Never confuse volume with power.
from the grandparent...
These two competitors have agreed on a completely arbitrary limit for recording PPV shows. Why? Think about it: the PVR market is growing. Rather than focusing on new features for the consumer (ie:...) they've come to an agreement that is good for no one but themselves. There's no way in hell that they just decided to do this, the entire agreement has the fetid stink of collusion.
Get a clue, this "feature" is good for no one but the movie industry. My Tivo already keeps PPV movies as long as a choose to, as does a ReplayTV. It sure as heck isn't good for Tivo/ReplayTV.
They now have to differentiate and tag PPV content vs other content
They have to deal with more support calls ("My show is gone, even though I set Save until I delete")
They get put in a situation where old code/hardware is percieved as "better" than new code/hardware
This isn't collusion, this is concession. And it sucks, because if I use a VCR to record my PPV movies, I face no such restrictions. Fortunately, I don't ever buy PPV movies, but this begins a long slide where soon all content will be forcibly expired off my Tivo because Seinfeld's owners don't want me to watch the "Soup Nazi" episode at will. Which is foolish because the trick of Tivo is that I watch MORE TV now that I can always find something I want to watch, and I'm more likely to fast forward through a show than the commercials, because these days I'm amazed at the amount of crap that fills the "program" time; title segments, recaps, slow pans to establish location, end credits, watching guests walk accross stage and waiting for applause to die down, etc, etc.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Note: You'll still need to edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 to change the refresh rate or you CAN destroy your TV.
I'd say it still needs a little work before releasing it to the unwashed masses...
Have you read my blog lately?