Slashdot Mirror
Blog Torrent and TiVo for the Internet
Chris Holland writes "On the heels of the recent launch of the preview release of Downhill Battle's Blog Torrent, Nicholas Reville further articulates his vision of a "TiVo for the Internet" in an interview by James Enck for The Broadband Daily. Nicholas touches on the P2P promise, various players, revenue models, and the healthy challenges coming Big Media's way."
It's called ReplayTV + Poopli
. asp
ReplayTV DVR: http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/replaytv/default
Poopli Recordings Free Swapping Service: http://www.poopli.com
Your cache?
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
... this little rant of mine was also kinda directed at them.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
mirror here
I keep getting 503 errors.
- refridgerator for the Internet
- shoehorn for the Internet
- cable box for the Internet
- "Pure Funk" cd for the Internet
A Tivo for the Internet is about as useful as the above. Use your browser cache, IM history, email storage options, etc.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
You should see what Micah Beck is doing with IBP. Can anyone say "Distributed PVR?"
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
I'm continually suprised at how many people are jumping on the .torrent and eMule bandwagon. Over Thanksgiving, my mother (not a techno-elite) told me that she had a secret... and was pirating Audio Books off the internet using such tools. It completely blew my mind that my mom though of herself as a "hacker" and loved the idea.
What ever happened to the days when my family couldn't even understand the basics of web pages? I guess that when the tools are so incredibly useful, and so easy to install/operate, it quickly becomes a prevalent technology.
-Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned for
I can't get to the linked article.
P2P IPTV is an Idea who's time has really come. I write about this on my site here
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
I find archive.org is Tivo for the internet, its great to find drivers from old companies that have gone out of business.
Its just a shame they dont combine google+archive, now that would rock!
looking at the title, doesn't it dawn on everyone that TV episodes are already widely available via torrents?
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
IF only Slashdot would link to coral or host the file they link to locally, we could avoid the Slashdot Effect and all of the damage it does to society, like annoying me and proving how ridiculous computers act when they are run by humans.
Although it seems like even Coral didn't get it.
Here's a link anyway: on Coral
read more rants: thunt.net
FTA: We ultimately want to see internet TV Channels that download video in the background and let you watch at your convenience (a TiVo for the internet).
Why do you need internet channels when there's a perfectly legimate tv network already in place? I use Azureus as my Bittorrent client with a plugin to import any torrents from an RSS feed that match my criteria. Although I've never actually used TiVo I think the basic premise is the same, record the shows you want automatically and watch them whenever you have time.
Site is slashdotted, so I'm not sure what he's talking about, but here's my ramble. . .
The closest thing I can think of to TiVO for the Internet is something that lets you save content so you can view it when it's no longer available (which is what TiVO does for TV, really). This can be your own personal Wayback Machine, or just saving pages for later when you have no internet connection.
Either way, isn't this exactly what tools like wget and Plucker do?
The site seems to be slashdotted. you can still read the article here.
This mirrordot.org site seems to be doing the trick really well. Is this sanctioned by Slashdot? Anybody know if slashdotted sites are okay with this. Just wondering as I haven't seen a discussion on this service yet.
No google cache of this one - whoese browser cache can we use as a tivo for this web page?
So a TiVo for the Internet would be ... a buffer? That's it?
OK, so you could "go back in time" and see how a web page changes over time. To do that for every web page is going to take quite a bit of storage. And I think the folks at The Wayback Machine do a pretty good job.
You could also schedule web pages to be "recorded" so you won't miss them when you're out? Huh? I suppose if you wanted to read yesterday's edition of the online New York Times it might be handy, but online periodicals already have online archives.
TiVo makes sense for TV since it's a streamed medium. We don't need TiVo for blogs, webpages, Usenet, and so forth. (A TiVo plugin for iTunes would be nice, though!)
Relavent quote about tivo for the internet "We ultimately want to see internet TV Channels that download video in the background and let you watch at your convenience (a TiVo for the internet). All the basic technology is there, it just hasnt been packaged intuitively yet. But its going to happen soon and I think people will be very, very surprised at the quality and diversity and popularity of whats going to sprout."
bad analogy, downloading shows and watching them is nothing like tivo at all. but, the concept is pretty lame anyways since you have to wait for your show to download, it is about as convenient as waiting for your show to come on tv and watching it.. streaming is the way to go.
I like the fact that they are trying to make p2p easier for content creators. Once this has been done and a quality filtering process has been established...look out TV. I agree that something like this could make a dent in TV. Not overnight, of course, but the impact will be felt over the next few years.
Have you seen Ironstayn vs Supergovernment yet?
Tivo for the internet was just a bad way to phrase it - it is more of "tivo on demand via internet" type of thing. They are talking about being able to download and watch what you choose rather than record it from tv. It *should* be the furture, but we are talking bypassing channels, distribution chains, advertizing, cable/satellite providers, etc. So too many people stand to loose too much money to allow this to happend. So I am not holding my breath. That being said, I would be willing to pay $1 per episode for shows I watch if I get the show without commercials on my terms (a.k.a. Tivo-esque interface, ability to store for future playback, etc)
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Wow, this must be from the same people who developed Evidence Eliminator. This company has reached an alltime low.
It basically requires an e-mail address within UT's CS department. But since all undergrad and grad CS department students keep their accounts forever, just impose upon the lowest paid code monkey in your shop. :-)
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
What's really confusing is that Nicholas envisions peer-to-peer video authoring and sharing -- like video blogs, but not shared on the web (because that would require too much server bandwidth) but rather shared as a Torrent. The word "TiVo" does not capture the aspect of independent authoring -- "TiVo" implies time-shifting Big Media.
So, Nicholas, the appropriate elevator soundbit would be, "P2P video blogs".
"I hate those Poopli kids so much!"
anybody have a working link? I keep getting "Error establishing a database connection!"
- Comedian and Writer See the latest blog thoughts at http://www.goodcrimethink.com
I'm about to cancel my service on my series 1 standalone TiVO and would love to completely replace the OS. I bought an old RS/6000 a year ago just to have a dev platform. I'm assuming the vidcap drivers are proprietary, however. Anyway, instead of ripping off TiVO and stealing their service, I'd have a grand old time turning the unit into some kind of outlet for experimental video blogs and watching tv shows or movies pulled down via bt.
Intelligent Life on Earth
... already does this as well. This idea would have been news 7 years ago and an obvious idea 3 years ago.
move along.
Ok, so the idea of a blog torrent may not be completely well founded, because of the "how many relatives are -really- going to be downloading your home movies" factor.
But what about HTTP content over some torrent-like system? Might work by basically streaming content out of other people's caches. Flags could be set for certain secure and frequently updated pages (Meta tags already do things such as this) so you don't stream someone else's credit card number from them.
Large sites could benefit from this heavily, I think. Even just sites that have small amounts of content, but large numbers of hits would probably gain performance. -even if the only thing being "torrented" were items like static images, flash objects, etc.
Sure the overall internet load wouldn't go down, but it would distribute it over a larger area for a possible performance gain. A lot of research would have to go into this though, to see if its really plausible..
Common people, Google Cache Torrent!
bad analogy, downloading shows and watching them is nothing like tivo at all. but, the concept is pretty lame anyways since you have to wait for your show to download, it is about as convenient as waiting for your show to come on tv and watching it.. streaming is the way to go.
Just have a look at both www.tealeaf.com and www.xaffire.com they are "tivo-ing" websites. At this point you can't point the technology at any particular site but you can run it on your own site and produce a interactive record of activity.
There's an interesting article on engadget on using a combination of bittorrent and RSS to get a tivo-like system on your pc that will download shows automatically for you.
To do the right thing, it's really simple for you
The copyright law, it will tell you what to do
Buy one, for every computer you use
Anything else is like going to the store
Taking the disk, and walking out the door
It's called thievin', stealin', taking what's not yours
Is that really where you want your life to go?
Think about it, I don't think so.
Don't copy! Don't copy that floppy!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
First up, 2005 is the year Big Media comes to terms with P2P? If I "tivo" enough, can I find him saying the same thing about 2004? Anyway, All I see him doing is trying to steal brad's thunder for the creation of BitTorrent...Did this guy go to the Bill Gates scool of embrace, extend, extinguish?
Heh, it's funny you should say that, because this actually WAS an Evidence Eliminator spam. I got it a few years back and thought it was so hilariously exagerated, I saved a copy. Then a few months back when I was trying to think up some stupid troll to use for FP, and I remembered the spam, and used it as a template. The only thing I changed was the company name (and the links obviously).
Sorta weird to say that if they try to sell shows to people they won't make any money. I mean HBO cost $12 a month, and HBO gets like 8 dollars of that and they seem to be doing really well, yet the Have the most expensive shows..
Recipe for 4 Layer Buzz Cake.
1. Preheat your keyboard.
2. Add your first buzz word Internet to the mix.
2. Mix in a Tivo.
3. Stir carefully.
4. Fold in a bit of Torrent.
5. If you think you can handle the ultimate buzz, add a dash of Blog.
6. Finally, post on Slashdot and watch as your buzz word delight gets talked about by thousands.
A subject containing the words "blog", "torrent", "TiVo", and "Internet"?!
This has to be good!
IANAEconomics person, but I've noticed that $1 per song for a $12 song album than buying a $15 - 20 physical CD, but it still seems to be working, at least for iTunes. I realize that there are things that aren't the same between the two markets, but they are similar in some ways.
Making shows downloadable doesn't mean that people won't still watch them on TV. If there's a song I have on a CD, I'll still listen to it on the radio if it comes on, if it's a good song. Even if I had a copy of my favorite Seinfeld episode (Bizzarro Jerry) I'd still watch it on TBS or Fox if I see it's on, because I like the show. It's not like the broadcast TV market is necessarily going to lose out. After all, there's so many series that are coming out on DVDs, this is just a new, iTunes-style way to distribute the video.
It's really not that different, IMHO, from the relationship between radio, CDs and iTMS.
ReplayTV already has a "Tivo for the Internet", it's called Poopli. Single client-client, but lets ReplayTV owners transfers shows and clips across the Internet. No DRM, no problems. You can also transfer shows to any Java-enabled machine running DVArchive for viewing, storage, or burning.
Da Blog
A TiVo plugin for iTunes would be nice, though!
There's a Tivo HMO plugin for Media Center. You can even access your SmartLists and radio stations through any connected Tivo. Now, if they could only do one for ReplayTV I'd be a lot happier!
Da Blog
Although I've never actually used TiVo I think the basic premise is the same, record the shows you want automatically and watch them whenever you have time.
It would be except that Tivo is burdened with nasty DRM that prevents Internet-wide show sharing, transfer to non-authorized machines, and so on. Tivo has even recently agreed to implement content-owner usage flags for recorded content - meaning that the content people will be able to delete shows based on their age or number of times viewed.
ReplayTV has done a much better version of "Tivo for the Internet" for years now, it's called Poopli. Single client-client, but lets ReplayTV owners transfers shows and clips across the Internet. No DRM, no problems. You can also transfer shows to any Java-enabled machine running DVArchive for viewing, storage, or burning.
Da Blog
Why didn't Mozilla's text search function work?
Da Blog
No, you've got it wrong. Imagine using your Tivo, except that instead of choosing your favorite TV shows from a list of local TV stations, you are choosing your favorite TV shows off a list of Blogs.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The solution is right under your nose, my friend: More efficiently produced programming. Ditch Hollywood's insane economics for the more creative, more energetic - and better - independent producers who can do the same level of production that Hollywood does for a tenth of the costs.
http://melano.tv/Black_Sun_Video_Segment.avi
If we can do this kind of stuff for nothing, imagine what we can do for a tenth or a twentieth of the Hollywood budgets? We'd be thrilled to bring you the new Farscape for $500k an episode.
Keep an eye on us in 2005.
Plus, unlike alot of indies out there, we are not enthralled with the Hollywood "mystique". If the digital age decimates our current over-priced over-rated distribution system, and we all have to start all over again, so be it. Let the free market rock.
We're up for that challenge. "Hollywood" is the only one crying.
As far as the "stars" go, replace the old spoiled ones with new ones.
live show watched by million of people. think superbowl, the world cup (caution: may contain soccer), all the NxA's games, george w speeches...this stuff would just clog the internet due to the internet's inherintly two-way nature. (does multicast solve this?)
now leave the internet for more interactive stuff: games, movie requests, chats,..ie. what it is currently. (blogs being ok)
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
No question about it - P2P-television would enhance participation in the democratic public sphere. But is the current way of constructing the internet really promoting P2P usage? I think not.
m y.shtml
Read my thoughts about it here:
http://jturn.qem.se/archives/2004/12/dude_wheres_
"But how many models are being used in a show? Can you afford to farm them all out to one person?"
If we have ten models and a team of six animators with lightning fast machines, we're home-free. We wouldn't hire guys who insisted on putting their triplets through college with one episode.
And I suspect that you already know that there's much talent out there that fits this description. i.e., actors, composers, animators, writers, producers, directors, etc., who simply want to make a decent living doing what they love, even if that only means "middle-class" wages.
Obviously, I've already assembled a tiny crew for our objectives, and they have the right attitude for sure.
"What'll stop them from jumping ship to work at another, more conventional studio?"
Excellent question, and I can't claim that I'm absolutely certain about the answer. However, I remain quite confident that the very shallow and politically-critical nature of other "more lucrative" opportunities, as well as a continuously growing roster of new equally-qualified talent, is enough to delay any "mass" exodus.
(And then, there's always "equity")
If I may expland the point: I think the coolest thing about the Internet era is the dramatic change in culture. Young people are generally accustomed to "short attention span" "on demand" "what you want, when you want" programming, and their concept of entertainment is far more encompassing. They don't even think of it as "novelty" - it's just normal.
This represents a portentous reality in my view. The old biz models don't work or fit in "the new world". Now admittedly, powerful oligopolies can force the old models to "work", but only for a limited time.
Frankly, I am convinced that recorded entertainment will be, in our lifetime, widely accepted as a generally free commodity that is used to sell other tangible products. It may not work out quite like that, but however it works out, current "Hollywood" economics would never survive in such an environment.
"But I think we need to be very careful about how we execute our projects, because the "mystique" is actually a large part of what makes something worth buying." This is the part I totally agree with. But for some reason, the Internet's plethora of independently successful websites - not to mention the porn sites - strongly suggest to me a wealth of potential for Web-based indie TV distribution. Slashdot didn't need TechTV. Danni Ashe didn't need Playboy. It's gotta count for something. I'm not sure how many people read slashdot, but I know it's a lot. Corecodec, afterdawn, etc., all attract millions of tech-savvy scifi-loving visitors every month. Especially since half of this audience would LOVE to spite "Hollywood". I repeat, it's gotta be the basis for something real when it comes to indie movie distribution.
But I wholeheartedly agree. Getting over the "mystique" is the tricky part by far.
But it ain't impossible.