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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?"
As I recall in the recent past, a well-known seller tried to limit viewing of movies by introducing the Divx technology whereby, the machine would connect to a server to get a key to view. Now if Replay or Tivo try this then there will be a backlash from the consumer. What would be ironic is if one of these PVR manufactures goes bully up than I suspect that the software community will pickup the fragments and produce code to do whatever the original community want.
On a side note, I watch a video program on my PVR from PBS that was for educational instructional use and it had a disclaimer at the beginning stating that copies could be used up until 2006 or so. I don't have any intent on keeping the program that long but why should I depend on a 3 party source to keep and maintain material. A distributed system where PVR owners share programs is just about to become a rally by certain. This peeves me - the thing that manufactures/groups worry about the most is usually good for them and the consumer.
To sum the two paragraphs together: the video material should be in an inter-dispersed local (PVRs) and not limited because of popularity (Fair use). In fact the material should only survive if it is popular enough to be wanted/distributed from enough people wanting to exchange the information - If no one wants it then it would disappear.
That's crap!
Not that the story is wrong, but the idea is bullshit.
I have a TiVo and I upgraded it with a 140Gb drive, so I get over 100hrs of storage. I use it in exactly the way they should want someone to. I'm not a couch potato, I work for a living. There are shows I like to watch, but I usually don't have time to just sit down at watch when they're on. I usually start watching television around 2am. For years, this meant I watched crap. Now that I have a TiVo, I can watch good shows.
We'll use their example of '6 feet under'. I may not get a chance to watch it til a week later. Should I miss the episode because they decided to set an arbitrary limit to how long I can keep it stored? What if I'm out of town for work for a week? Can't I come home, and catch up on the episodes that I missed. Yes, this has happened more than once, and it's *REALLY* nice that I can do it.
I haven't seen any black market shops selling '6 feet under' episodes recorded with TiVo.
How about PPV movies? My girlfriend has watched movies, and recorded them (on the TiVo). I may sit down a week or two later, and watch that movie. Fair use. The household paid for it. Or more like, *I* paid for it. If we had been home at the same time, we would have watched together. So if this goes through, now she'll see the movie or show, and I'll be out of luck?
They're not afraid of piracy, they're looking at possible revenue that they're missing. They could possibly get an extra PPV viewing fee because I would possibly buy it twice. Well, that's wrong, I wouldn't. I won't pay twice, I just won't watch it til it comes out on HBO and I happen to be sitting there.
As for '6 feet under', I actually was into that show in the first few seasons. I didn't have a TiVo, but my schedule permitted me to be at home to watch it. At the time, I didn't own a TiVo. My work schedule changed, and I missed several episodes, and was lost about the story line when I tried to start watching again. If I had a TiVo then, I could have spent some time catching up on old episodes, and still been interested in the series. Now that's a show I simply don't watch. It's a waste of their broadcasting time, because I don't know what's happened previously.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I haven't seen a single advantage to PPV. The movies that I see available on DirecTV have already been out in the movie store for over a month (ie Starsky and Hutch). I pay less at the video store and I get to keep the movie for 5 days...
So what advantage does a $4.00 movie via PPV (plus additional fees that they might charge) have?
Let me know when I can purchase DVDs over my Tivo and have a tangible piece of media to store it for life that doesn't take up my TV recording space and I'll be interested. Until then it's just another Divx knockoff that's going to die because no one cares.
mythtv-suite
And this is on the precompiled binaries page! How the heck will any non-Linux-geek figure this out?
Someone really needs to compile a MythTV LiveCD (or whatever) that you can just install and run on a PC with suitable video hardware. Having to figure out all this Linux mumbo-jumbo, or worse, compile it yourself, is a recipe for saying "screw it" and going back to TiVo, restrictions or no.
sulli
RTFJ.
These two competitors have agreed on a completely arbitrary limit for recording PPV shows. Why?
Replay took away the ability to automatically skip commercials in their newest units? Why? Because they got their ass sued off over that feature. So they caved and took it out.
It doesn't matter if you are in the right if you can't afford to prove it.
Don't blame TiVo and Replay, blame the broadcasters who are really the ones who want to control what you do.