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Engadget Interviews TiVo CEO
r-blo writes "We've got an interview of Mike Ramsay, CEO of TiVo, by Engadget correspondent J.D. Lasica. He's rather candid in his thoughts on Hollywood, Netflix, the FCC, the INDUCE act, their competition, and their latest technology, TiVo ToGo, which lets you take your TiVo-recorded shows with you on your laptop (or PC, as it were)."
My favourite part -
;)
We developed a security mechanism around that, submitted it to the FCC under the broadcast flag initiative, and the Motion Picture Association and the NFL went ballistic and lobbied incredibly hard. But guess what? It got approved. The FCC supported our technology.
Should the FCC be in the business of regulating new technologies like this one?
Definitely not. It's scary when you feel that you have to go to the FCC for permission to do something. So we're not very comfortable with that. I think the broadcast flag stuff is less onerous than some other things, like the INDUCE Act. That we're much more concerned with because that could lead to prosecution of individuals who induce copyright infringement. That just opens up a whole can of worms. If you upset consumers enough, they'll become pirates, and that law has the potential to do that.
You'll notice that everything on the table in Washington being pushed by the media companies doesn't target regular television. It's targeted at things like ripping DVDs, how long you can keep movies pay-per-view movies, and so on.
Yay! I'm glad that atleast there are _some_ companies out there who feel this way.
Yes, if you upset the consumers enough, we'll all become pirates -- and what do you do when every one out there is a pirate by the **AA's definition?
It's about bloody time that the rest of the media companies out there realize this -- what're they going to do, arrest everyone? Stupidity.
I'm surprised at the resistance that the corporate world is showing in this regard -- they seem to be simply unwilling to adapt to new technologies and new media, and those that do (such as TiVo) actually do well.
I've always liked TiVo, but after the way TiVo handled the recent DRM troubles, I've really begun to respect them a real lot.
Way to go, guys. Goodluck, and may you continue kicking ass
The story summary didn't have any editorial comments... I need Slashdot to help me decide if TiVo (or Mr. Ramsay) is an evil company (tm) or a good company.
Seriously, though - I'm not a TiVo customer, I don't know anyone with a TiVo, and all I know about them is from the media (mostly Slashdot). I've thought about getting this kind of product/service - but with free software alternatives that I can put on my own hardware, here are my questions:
Is TiVo a company that I should support with my dollars? When I decide to plunk down some coin for a PVR, should I pay for it? If I should pay for it, is TiVo the best choice?
Well, today one of the exciting things is the marriage of DVD recorders and TiVo.
Without asking about copyright, digital rights, copy protection, etc. It's a very big and contentious issue. It would have been great to hear his answer.
http://www.busyweather.com/
From the interview...
How are you negotiating your relationship with Hollywood after they essentially put your main competitor out of business?
Our role is to create a great experience for people who want to watch television. ReplayTV crossed a line, and they kind of asked for it, and they were put out of business.
The Hollywood industry never really liked the Betamax VCR, so they certainly must be scared of DVRs. The features that got ReplayTV into trouble was "Show sharing" accross the Internet, and a semi-automatic skipping of commercials it could detect.
TiVo of course has never offered such features, and TiVo-to-Go will be based on a USB dongle to tie recordings to the user who recorded them and try to stand in the way of user-to-user sharing.
It's a strange world they live in... loved by consumers, but being careful to keep the Hollywood megacorps from crushing them.
High definition will become more commonplace. Five years from now, you'll be able to get television content over broadband, whether it's over satellite or cable, and it will be the start of some new and interesting sources of content which has not been available to people to date. And five years from now, the idea of electronic delivery of video rentals will be real. Blockbuster will still be in business, but the idea of getting your video rental over broadband will have started to happen.
this is an interesting and very realistic view on the future. Very often the demise of video rental is predicted within the next five years, as is the death of traditional tv. Ramsay seems to understand this won't happen overnight. As he says, it will begin to happen, but won't be as sudden as is often predicted by media outlets searching for flashy stories.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Suppose you download a video from the future TiVo/Netflix service and it takes the best part of a day. What if your local copy has been corrupted along the way? They'd better make sure and get their technology right and make it possible to download the screwed-up part alone -- I'd be a bit pissed if I had to retry a whole download from scratch if it took that long.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
- Judging Amy
- Gillmore Girls
- Everybody Loves Raymond
With this new gadget, I could consign her to watching these terrible shows on her Mac, preferably with headphones on and a small tent around her desk.Damn, who am I kidding? I'll be the one in the tent watching 12 hours of LoTR
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Replay got beaten into submission by lawsuits over their ability to share shows over the Internet and their automatic commercial skipping. They eventually removed both features from their products, even the ones already sold, via a software update. Both of those features are things TiVo never had.
As a result, they're now a total also-ran being dwarfed by TiVo's market share. They still exists... but you might as well be compatible with the rest of the world and get a TiVo. ReplayTV just lacks any features that makes them stand out since they got thrown off the anti-Hollywood wagon.
This is the first I've seen it and it's already annoying. Please never do that again.
~ Aero
A probably unoriginal analogy for the INDUCE Act: what if GM and Ford got sued because their vehicles can go faster than the speed limit?
sigs, as if you care.
I have had TiVo now for years. I wish the interviewer had asked Mr. TiVo President why they NEVER improve their interface. It always is the same. Many many clicks to get common tasks done, long pauses waiting for poorly implemented algorithms to finish, lack of customizability. As much as I love TiVo, I wish they would make it more configurable and flexible. For example, I wish I could set up arbitrary filters, instead of choosing from their sets. Also, I wish I could use wildcards. And I wish I could set up shortcuts for common operations. And I wish I had a keyboard to make typing easier. Their interface NEVER improves. Did I mention that? :-)
Currently hooked on AMP
I wish there was something in there about plans/dates for release of a NON DirecTV HD Tivo. I just got HD service from my cable company and would like to get a Tivo that can record HD braodcasts...afaik -- there's no such animal from Tivo.
I love the comment about the excitement over HD TiVo, followed by the mention you can only get it with evil DirecTV. Even if DirecTV wasn't evil, there's no way in hell I can hit their satellites from my home (my patio directly abuts the neighboring building, and I have an extremely narrow view of the sky from there).
Right now I use a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000HD (HD DVR provided by my cable company) which has to be the most under-powered (CPU-wise) piece of consumer electronics ever produced. Press a button (wait 3 seconds), press another button. Keypress caching is intermittent and unpredictable, so you get into situations where your device becomes unresponsive for a minute because you accidentally held down a button. Directly entering a channel from the remote can take 5 attempts. It crashes regularly and takes 10 minutes to recover from a crash. It's a complete piece of shit that I pay $10/month to use because for all of the hassle, being able to record in HD is pretty sweet.
So TiVo needs to hurry up and release an HD-capable device for the rest of us so I can tell my cable company where they can stick this stupid box. Can you hear me TiVo? I want to give you money!!!
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
r-blo (ryan block) is the editor of Engadget and also the submitter of this story. I would prefer he disclose this when submitting stories to slashdot in order to hype his own site. Which, by the way, are the only story submissions he makes to Slashdot and he never discloses his connection to Engadget when submitting them..
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
In other words, Replay did exactly what 99.9 percent of Slashdotters claim that they want companies to do - give customers what they want and not kowtow to big businesses - and yet you're slamming them for it and recommending their competitors because of that very fact?
Wow. There's no pleasing some people.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Not media consolidation. Not FCC rules over capping media cross-ownership. But this:
Will the average American (not the typical /.er, but Joe and Jane Public) be given access to Internet media in their living rooms? Or will the corporate giants continue to impose a chokehold over the content coming through those pipes? (Yes, 500 cable channels are nice, until you discover that an entire range of commentary and visual creativity are kept off of all 500 of those channels.)
I like the idea of Tivo, and you have to give them credit for being first to market. But the problem with both Tivo and ReplayTV is that they're greedy.
Here's what I mean. Both Tivo and ReplayTV set-top boxes cost somewhere between $100 and $300. You also have to subscribe $13/month in order to make full use of it. Otherwise it's just a glorified VCR (and not very glorified at that). The other option to bypass the $13/mo charge is to pay a "lifetime of the unit" fee of $300. Then you'll finally get the good stuff like "record all episodes of this show" (called Season Pass by Tivo).
On the other hand, most cable companies offer a DVR service for only $10/mo. I got one from Cox, and it's practically identical to the Tivo, except all those features you don't get unless you pay the subscription for with the Tivo, I get for only $10 with my DVR.
To break it down:
Tivo/Replay
box ~ $250
service = $13/mo
Cable Co
box = $0
service = $10
And, you get all of the worthwhile features. Of course, my cable company doesn't let me program my DVR over the Internet, but I'm not sure that feature is quite worth shelling out several hundred bucks right off the bat and an extra $3/month.
The moral of the story: why the hell would anyone want a Tivo when your cable company gives you a better deal? I posed exactly this question to both Tivo and ReplayTV. Tivo never responded, and ReplayTV apologized and offered me two months free service. I'm not sure they understand English.
Yay! I'm glad that atleast there are _some_ companies out there who feel this way.
Yes, if you upset the consumers enough, we'll all become pirates -- and what do you do when every one out there is a pirate by the **AA's definition?
That hits the nail on the head, but why isn't it obvious to everybody? We live in a _democracy_, and can make any rules we want. That is the theory of how the system is meant to work...
Thus, if the majority of people feel a certain way, about any issue, then the rules should reflect that.
The real question is _why_ most people break the law. If, in the long run, their breaking of the that law isn't harmful to society, then the law is broken. If you determine that that law is required for the long-term sustainability of something valuable, then the legal framework and technologies should be designed so that the average person isn't in the dysfunctional position of supporting a law that makes them a criminal. Anything else indicates a break in the system.
Are rich people gaming the system for their own benefit... and forming a legal framework to support their interests, or do people feel that copyright laws and systems are fair and that they are compulsive infringers.
When you put it that way, it seems that the former is happening and the (democratic) system is broken, and some people are more equal than others. I don't think anybody disputes that (in general), but I'd like to see someone acknowledge that fact, and _then_ frame laws to protect IP content producers. That would give the system credability.
I feel that we can continue to expect the IP cartels to extend their assets and rights - they have the only incentive they need: money.
I welcome our new IP overlords. Please give me a job, I am also chasing money, it's very instinctive.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
There is not that exact feature, but you can get to see if the show is being rebroadcast soon much easier.
If you actually press record, you can select Season Pass and other options. And in the following screen you can select View upcomning episodes. Done!