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TiVo Plans More Functionality Reductions
TiVo has been in the news recently with a couple of plans to make their service less useful than it could be: first, TiVos will now auto-delete pay-per-view and video-on-demand movies, and second, TiVo is making sure that you can't use a TiVo to view NFL games outside the specified market area. TiVo's lawyer explains.
I'm just glad I have mythTV. Sure I might have a problem if I have to switch to digital cable, but I dont have to worry about people deleting my videos before i'm done with them.
-phixxr
ungggghhhh
I can see how they would do this to reduce their legal costs, but it has to be costing them subscribers.
"The reason that TiVo has to auto-delete a PPV movie is because it will be available for sale on DVD later on. " Saw this whole thing coming...of course some gigantic shows that make alot of money off advertising (NFL), and big movie productions were eventually going to start complaining to TiVo...I knew it wouldn't last!!!
I don't understand the problem. With Pay Per View, you are QUITE SPECIFICALLY buying a license to watch a movie once. You are PAYing PER VIEW.
There's no ambiguity about buying physical media vs the content, about buying a license, and so on. You're paying to have a movie playing to your sat/cable box at a specific time and date. Done.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I'm reading too many "Well I'm glad I don't get TiVo" or "This will KILL TiVo."
No, what will kill TiVo is all of television, TV, and sporting leagues suing the pants off of them for providing something that the can prove is illegal (like viewing NFL games outside the specified market area). This is a setup to allow people to share shows amongst TiVos, but making sure they have a legal basis to not get sued.
TiVo has already been hacked (and TiVo doesn't punish for it), so how long do you think it'll be between when TiVo allows program sharing and someone hacks it so you can avoid these new rules?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The new Tivos have a dvd-r. It would cut down on selling of sports dvds if you can just "burn your own" so content makers are going to freak. It still doesn't seem to restrictive since I don't watch pay per view or the NFL.
like this one tivo / burner from pioneer
Blame the NFL, content providers, etc. Do you expect Tivo to say "FUCK YOU WORLD, WE'Z DOING IT OUR WAY!" They'd be sued out of existance.
You just know that if TiVo hadn't implemented these restrictions that they'd have trouble with lawyers representing the NFL and the movie industry. It may make it less useful, but it's better than nothing. The real problem is the greed that dominates the entertainment industries and their attempts to jew every last dollar out of the hands of ordinary people. This move sucks, but don't blame TiVo.
All the NFL is asking TiVo to do is not make recorded programs available for transfer while that program is still being aired. Once the game is finished, feel free to shoot it over. Of course, that would take hours of bandwidth at current speeds, so it's not really an issue anyway.
I'd rather have companies like TiVo work with the content providers to reach agreements rather than have companies sue each other over supposed 'copyright' violations.
Plus, TiVos are indeed pretty hackable. In contrast to other manufacturers (eg. Microsoft put in a lot of effort to make sure the XBox was "unhackable"), TiVo doesn't really seem to mind people modifying their hardware all that much. And there are a lot of people who have "modded" their TiVos, even if it's just to swap out the harddrive for a bigger one. If you really want to permanently record a show, there's really nothing they can do to stop you. All they can do, is make it harder.
You know, it's funny how this looks like a blow to consumers, when actually it's a blow against other businesses. How much revenue does TiVo and the NFL really think they are going to lose with this technology? This technology, in the consumer space, competes only with those "all games nationwide in a sport" package like DirectTV's NBA League Pass. How many consumers will both a) want to buy that package and b) be technically proficient and financially liquid enough to set up TiVo's around the country to stream all the games to their house? Not too many, entirely too much effort to get around paying ~$200/season.
Where I can see this being used is the sports bar market (for example). You get a bunch of sports bars nationwide which agree to stream each other the games from each market. Now the major cable/dish networks lose the revenue from each of those bars buying a premium sports package. Multiply this by tens of thousands of interested businesses, and it adds up to a significant amount. It seems to me that this is the real issue at hand.
These debates always boil down to those who are willing to pirate and those who aren't, but we can mask it as a "Fair Use" or "Consumer Rights" issue to keep the post count rolling. As far as Tivo goes, I watch a show, I delete it, I don't need to archive it for historical purposes and I have no right to do anything else with it. If it's really great I'll buy it on DVD and if it's like most shows I won't care. I'll bet I am in the majority of Tivo owners on this usage pattern yet people act like this policy somehow infringes on my right to use the device and it's content as described.
I know it's hard for some of you to accept, but not everyone purchases consumer electronics to discover exploits and alternative uses, and most people are willing to accept some limitations for the added convenince that Tivo brings. Most people aren't pirating off ST:DS9 and editing out the commercials for their personal archive or for uploading to usenet. It's hardly a stretch to imagine your downloaded copy of Gigli is time limited and you have no friends, so stop playing that hacked version of Counter Strike Source with the aimbot you just found and watch your damn rental.
TiVo is a victim. They're a victim of doing the right thing. The whole "information wants to be free" thing has gotten insanely out of hand. This is a logical waystation for us to be at, sadly enough, given society today. "If I want it, I should have it, and it doesn't matter that I signed a contract saying something different. Besides, it's not *really* theft, it's just a movie."
[Wish I could offer you a job, but (a) we're not hiring and (b) we're not in Ohio. But integrity and understanding right and wrong are high on my list for qualifying applicants. And getting harder to find.]
I have a Tivo, I quite like my Tivo and deleting PPV movies and NFL doesn't make a spot of difference to me because I don't watch them and I don't care. I suspect that 95% of consumers out there are the same way, so its only 5% of people that are even going to weigh the decision. I don't think PPV is competing heavily against the "watch it many times" market becuase then you'd just buy the DVD or Rent&Rip, hell there are 1$ DVD rentals everywhere... PPV is way overpriced IMHO anyway.
In my TiVo experience, it's just been useful for delaying my viewing for my convenience, not for archiving things. That's what DVD is for.
Was the sensational headline really necessary? It's 'pay per view'... it only makes sense.
Why? Were you planning on building a huge library of PPV movies and blacked out NFL games?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The PPV one is a little more disconcerting. Don't really like the idea. Not that I ever get PPV movies, but I don't like auto-deletion like that.
But let's be real: does anyone think TiVo WANTS to do any of this?? This is TiVo making small concessions to help hold back the onslaught.
Tivo should be looking to expand their functionality at this point in time. With companies such Dish network and comcast rolling out their own pvr services, Tivo needs to do more to make a cost justification for the service. Sorry, downloadable movies and dvd burning aren't going to bring the masses or keep your existing customers. Reducing what they can record will drive people away in droves. Unless, Tivo makes a major paradigm shift towards increase the function of the device instead of increasing revenue through partners by sacrificing user freedom.
Parent is right about this one. Tivo's real fear should be all of the cable/satellite PVRs that are on the market. The true tivo "fans" will quickly turn when unremovable restrictions are enforced. Let's face it, the guy who's hacking a tivo could just as easily build a mythtv box or a windows equivalent.
This whole issue illustrates a point I've been pointing out on /. for quite some time: It is impossible for movie/music companies to stifle the free flow of information. So tivo's going to be controlled now, oh well, time for any capable geek to move on to another technology which circumvents these measures. More importantly, time for the inept masses to look to the geek for their solutions as well.
Something that the majority of people don't understand, even our president doesn't understand, that, is that you cannot rule a mass of intelligent motivated people with mandate. Look at the comparisons, prohibition, the war on drugs, the "war" on music "piracy", all failing, and rather miserably. Why? Because the motivation of the people and the means to accomplish these goals is far superior to that of the government trying to prevent them.
So sure, let tivo slit their own throats an inch at a time, I'll still watch my ripped movies and I'm sure NFL fans will find a workaround as well.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
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Only people who do not own TiVo would say this. It is exactly the smart recording features (such as searching for keywords in description, recording all new showings of a program, record all appearances of an actor, or director, or writer...) that are so valuable. TiVo is definitely NOT just a digital VCR! And those who have ever used a VCR to time shift can attest that it is a pain. Anyway, just a note that only the ignorant would claim the features are not of value. As far as deleting the auto-recorded programs, they get deleted automatically if you run out of space (easily upgraded) and request a show to record. These shows stay happily out of your way until you are bored and want to see if there is anything good on. This just increases your chances that the answer will be yes.
Relax, Have a homebrew Manuals are for systmes that are either very complex or broken
To reduce functionality after you've bought a unit sounds like fraud. Bait & switch. Like buying a fast sports car, and then having them download a patch into your engine computer that speed limits it to 85MPH so that the car company won't be sued for selling fast cars. I'd be looking for a class action lawyer to sue the pants off of TiVo if my box suddenly stopped doing something it used to do -- regardless of any license agreement that may have come with it.
And it's such a great way to advertise to new customers. Buy the new TiVo. It does less than the old model!
Now my question is: will this apply to my Dish Network PVR?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
As I have said before, in a global economy all attempts to block custumers to get any product from anywhere globally (by restricting areas where some programs can be seen) should be illegal.
If corporations can invest, produce, sell their goods and services globally in order to take advantage of the lowest costs in different regions, then consumers should have the same right: to buy goods and services globally, in order to get the best price.
Any attempt to block this right should be considered as violation of fundamental consumer's rights and illegal.
Period.
If you want global economy, fine. But global should mean global both for corporations and customers.
Okay, why hasn't anyone created their own Linux for the Tivo hardware platform? For some reason, hacking the Tivo is taboo just because the thing runs linux. Oh it runs linux, and they "let us" "hack" it putting in bigger drives. CLUEBAT SAYS, YOU OWN IT. They can't stop you from upgrading it. CLUEBAT SAYS, if you were to replace the program guide system with something based off of XMLTV or some other open source project, they can't cry foul.
People laugh about the Xbox, Linux, and Microsoft loosing money since the thing is supposidly sold as a loss leader. But Tivo, Nooo can't touch that.
I called Tivo to inquire about how to add one of those "Press thumbs up to record" to a commercial. They wouldn't talk, they referred me to buy a $30,000 system that inserts the "push thumbs up to record" into the program signal. A EEG Line 21 encoder/decoder in raw mode and a commercial on VHS later I figured out how it was stored but haven't continued to research. They weren't nice, they weren't overflowing with joy. MY opinion is they took Replay's business, kind of like a Microsoft if you will.
So how does the Tivo work? Is there a software framebuffer rendering the menus to MPEG2 then pushing it to the decoder hardware? My roomate got a new Tivo and upgraded for someone, and I got the chance to peek inside. The new Tivos are using Broadcom KFIR-II chips for MPEG2 encoding (and probably decoding?). These chips are already usable under linux via the Pinnacle PCTV Deluxe USB unit. They use the exact same MPEG2 chipset, I put one of my PCTV boards next to the tivo, and the chips are identical in revision, size and everything else.
It is my guess that people could make an open source OS replacement for the Tivo hardware platform that would introduce all of the features that Tivo is taking away. Hell, might even be able to make it run on a BSD varient, NetBSD powered Tivo... bring it ON!
I'm really curious how the Tivo renders the menus... outside of this, I can't think of any really difficult obstacles, unless the architecture is very very proprietary (MIPS core on the new boxes, PPC on the old..).
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
If these two systems were easy to install (as easy as installing a Linux firewall distro) then maybe a TiVo or Windows media centre wouldn't seem to attractive.
Has taken me a good week and a half just to get a DVB card functioning in Linux. Had to play with bios settings like PCI delays to get the card to function. When it works 100% it will be great, but it's not friendly enough for most people yet (it's been ruining my sleep and i'm relatively good with Linux).
Anything is an option regardless of who you are if you have enough spare time.
Are you talking about zap2it? They still let you sign up for free. If they ever stop, people in the US will go back to using screen scrapers like people in other countries. Where's the problem?
:)
Screen Scrapers are counter to revenue models so at a certain level you can expect an arms race.
If Zap2It offered a reliable data feed for $3/mo, how could you argue with that? A good service costs money to operate. Heck, I pay $7/mo to listen to a radio show online, but that's alot more bandwidth.
If you figure a 5-person shop could offer a data feed with operating costs of about $350,000 per year you'd need twenty thousand subscribers to make a meager profit. Probably do-able.
If I were Zap2It I'd probably offer the $3/mo feed or a free feed that could be decrypted by authorized players which would agree to show ads.
Someone smarter can work out the crypto on how to do that when you have the source.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Why are you surpirsed that they don't want you to have a permanent copy that you can burn to dvd and share over p2p? You've ruined it for yourselves by supporting p2p with no legal restrictions.
What features will the remove in the future? Very simply I do not trust them and I will not give money to companies I do not trust unless I have to.