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It's Not TV, It's MythTV
ChipGuy writes "The New York Times looks at MythTV (an open source PVR technology), Bit Torrent and Videora and how they are disrupting the television business, especially the lucrative business of selling TV DVDs. Unlike the music industry, television folks are trying to get ahead of the curve and offer TV downloads in a legal and easy to use manner."
An entertainment industry which realizes that if it treats it own customers like criminals, they won't exactly be creating good will...
The reason TV ratings are plummetting is because TV is full of idiotic shows that make women look perfect and men look like a bunch of retards. If TV people want their ratings to improve maybe they should consider making some shows that dont suck ass.
Videora, like TiVo for Torrents
:-)
A few days ago, I wrote about Videora, a BitTorrent+RSS client which makes it easy for folks to find and download torrent files from the web. The post, picked up by others generated mostly positive responses to the software. Think of Videora as TiVo-for-torrent, using RSS feeds. In an effort to shed more light to the product, I did an e-interview (via email) with Sajeeth Cherian, a Canadian student, who has hacked together this wonderful product. Here are excerpts from an e-interview.
OM: Tell me a little bit about yourself?
SC: I am a student attending Carleton University, which is located Ottawa, Canada's Capital. I am in my final year, perusing a degree in Communication Engineering and let me tell you, engineering is as hard as everyone says it is. Lately I've been interning at a couple high tech firms around the Ottawa region to get some real world experience and finish up the work experience requirement for my degree.
OM: What prompted you to write Videora?
SC: My roommate likes to watch anime and constantly scours the web looking for his favorite anime to download. (Anime is the Japanese term for Japanese animation, cartoons that are broadcast in Japan and which are then subtitled into English by groups of volunteers or commercial companies). About once a week he would complain to me how he was wasting all this time searching for these shows. I think he was wishing that these shows would just somehow download themselves. Well after a few weeks I got sick of hearing his complaints so I decide to look for a solution to his problem.
OM: Now aren't you a good roommate? mine just finished my cup-a-noodles and never replenished the pantry. Still, RSS? SC: After searching some of his favorite anime BitTorrent sites, I came across one site which offered an RSS feed. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a simple format that is used by web sites to send article headlines, summaries and links back to full-text articles on the web. Anyways, this RSS feed was special, instead of linking to articles on the internet, it linked directly to the very BitTorrent files that these sites linked to on their web pages. By simply scanning the RSS feed and downloading the desired BitTorrent files it linked to, I concluded that he could download his anime automatically without ever having to surf to an anime BitTorrent website again.
After discovering this RSS feed I began to envision a product. Some thing simple, which allows users to find shows easily and a couple clicks later (after the shows are added to their 'season tickets') would automatically download these shows to their hard drives in the background. With this, users wouldn't have to look for certain video to download, because the video they want would already be on their hard drive. Thus giving them free time to do more interesting things, rather than scour the same old websites. This seemed like a killer idea with more potential than just quieting my roommate so I began to develop this idea into computer software. Along the way, I added a few other features including the ability to aggregate video files into 'want lists' which allows users to easily manually download videos of interest. Needless to say, my roommate doesn't complain to me anymore.
OM: I have seen that most of the cutting edge work on peer-to-peer and torrent type programs is happening outside of the US? Does being in Canada make it easier to work on such P2P products? SC: I don't think being in Canada makes it any easier than being in the United States to work on peer to peer products. Anyone, from any country can work on a peer to peer program without any trouble, all you need is a little computer programming know how. I read recently about a professor at Princeton who wrote a P2P product in 15 lines of code. I don't think he had any trouble producing it.
OM: What do you think is the impact of BitTorrent, RSS and other such technologies is going to be on the media - both d
This is not the greatest
A MythTV PVR isnt so hard to make for the slightly above average user and is a great excuse to try linux.
Bottles.
"We have to try as an industry to get ahead of this and give the audience an attractive model before the illegal file-sharer providers meet their needs," said David F. Poltrack, CBS Television's executive vice president for research and planning.
Unfortunately, the "illegal file-sharer providers" kind of already meet my needs. I've no need for 90% of the TV channels currently available, or the commercials that are on nearly all of them. All I need are the few shows that I follow. Click, click, BitTorrent away!
Of course, none of these files give me super-high-quality video and audio. For that, I will buy the DVDs.
The coolest voice ever.
Not surprisingly, the repercussions - particularly the rapidly growing number of shows available for the plucking online - terrify industry executives, who remember only too well what Napster and other file-sharing programs did to the music industry. They fret that if unchecked, rampant trading of files will threaten the riches of the relatively new and surprisingly lucrative television DVD business. It could endanger sales of television shows to international markets and into syndication.
Then why don't they fucking sell their shit online in a convenient, reliable format? Or don't they want to learn from the music industry, instead ignoring the solutions and only imagining the problems?
And it could further endanger what for the past 50 years has been television's economic linchpin: the 30-second commercial.
That *particular* business model is dying, and legislation should not protect it, just as "horseless carriages" shouldn't be required to carry horse whips to keep horse whip manufacturers in business. Note I didn't say *advertizing* or commercialism is dying, because it isn't. Merchants have managed to get information about their products to people, and subsequently have them purchased, over the years and through changing technology. Tomorrow will be no different. It's just that the volume of revenue from "forced" advertising, supporting $1M/show paychecks for actors, might not still be there.
And what a tragedy that would be...
From TFA:
Mr. Poltrack of CBS said that according to his network's research, a large number of viewers would welcome the chance to pay $1 to watch each television show, if they could do it on their own schedule and with the ability to skip commercials. With commercials, they'd be willing to pay 50 cents. And because the average viewer sees only half of a show's episodes, he said, this on-demand viewing won't hurt the regular showing.
Hey, somebody's on the right track! I pay $1 for a commercial/DRM/BS-free copy of insert-name-of-TV-show-here and I can do what I want with it. $0.50 wouldn't be bad at all with commercials, either. If the quality didn't suck, and I could watch it an unlimited number of times, that'd be perfect. The only thing I wouldn't ask to be able to do would be to share it with the world, but I should be able to at least burn it to a CD/DVD and whatever else I should normally be able to do within fair use.
But will it ever happen?
How is BT slow and obnoxious? Perhaps you're confusing the screwed up message board sites with the actual protocol.
BitTorrent=Free. Slow and obnoxious, but free.
TV Downloads official=Not free.
But if Offical downloads are fast and less obnoxious and easily available to everyone regardless of where in the world they live, then the TCD (Total cost of downloading) for Offical downloads approaches and perhaps even beats unoffical downloads.
At that point, the only people who will still download all their TV shows illegally are those who either can't afford the legal option or object to paying to watch TV that they want to see, for whatever twisted reasons they want to come up with.
"It could endanger sales of television shows to international markets and into syndication."
Region encoding sucks. Downloaded shows don't suffer from stupid region encoding. I see syndicated shows that also have DVD box sets, so where's the issue there? The DVDs still sell.
"from video-on-demand offerings that could let viewers order up an episode of "CSI" any time they like to a device that allows viewers who tune into the middle of a live TV broadcast to restart the program instantly"
Comcast has ads for that all over this area but I don't know of one single person that actually has the VOD feature available to them, and isn't it more costly as well? You have to have digital cable (iirc) which can run your cable bill well over $100/mo (more if you have a cable modem too) - that's a lot of dough.
Are the VOD shows commercial free, too? That would be nice to know..
Of course they're going to blame the PVR as well. There are a few things that media execs seem to overlook:
* People are SICK AND TIRED of advertising.
* People have busy schedules and would LIKE to watch TV shows, but cannot always watch them right when they're aired. Hence, the popularity of DVR units.
(I'm not even going to get into the "but you don't have a right to steal the content" crap, because I sure as hell don't think that downloading a TV show is "stealing content" when my Tivo does the exact same thing.)
And last but not least, the "Broadcast Flag" is going to be a total and complete failure.. just like the "V-Chip."
Unlike the music industry, television folks are trying to get ahead of the curve and offer TV downloads in a legal and easy to use manner.
If the television networks or maybe the producers want to allow me to download their shows w/out ads, the same day they're aired at a fast download speed for a reasonable rate, then I'd probably bite. I sure as hell won't buy a DVD set of a single season of any TV show for fifty bucks. Maybe a subscription service for 20-30 bucks a month that lets me download the shows I want might be worth it to me.
Of course what I just described is a pipe dream, so for the moment I'll remain content with the hdtv rips available.
This is the important point. Available to everyone in the world at the same time. If it's a choice between getting a TV show via BitTorrent now, or watching it on TV (or via a legal download service) next year, guess which one people are going to choose? I would be more than happy to pay directly for the TV shows I watch (very few at the moment) for the convenience watching them when I choose, for not being forced to watch adverts, and for the pleasure of knowing that the money was going to those who made TV shows I want to watch, and none of it was going to reality TV producers.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I would pay for individual shows. At the moment I watch about a hour a week of television - most programs insult the intelligence of the average viewer, the adverts that fill 15 minutes of the hour are crass and bombastic. If there is a good quality show then I watch it through NetFlix. On my schedule, and without the adverts (although the "previews" on DVDs that you cannot skip are starting to annoy the hell out of me).
However, what would make my life more convenient is if there was something like iTunes (iTV?) where for a small fee (50 cents a show, possibly a dollar) I could download and burn the show of my choice.
Admittedly I could use P2P to find the show for free, but I would rather have the convenience of a sophisticated search interface and quick downloads.
I wonder how the US networks will react when the BBC finally posts it's huge archive of shows on the web.
I think more because of a natural human tendency to polaraize, exaggerate and simplify than because this is the true situation, the worlds of "pro-" and "anti-" when it comes to this sort of thing are often drawn as two completely incompatible world views, no overlap, nothin'. Either you're an Evil Pirate (arr!) in the eyes of the benevolent and morally impregnable Copyright Holders, or a regressive Copyright Tyrant in the eyes of the Splendid Kids.
Instead, there's a much finer gradation in the real world. I have some music that I've found on the net (most of it in almost certain violation of copyright, but most of it music either not widely available, such as small-run remixes or out-of-print recordings), and I've watched some episodes of TV shows like the Simpsons that my dad's taped over the years. (Before I bought him a boxed set of a couple of seasons, that is.) Some of it's pretty ambiguous -- some laws are a hindrance to perfectly reasonable day-to-day actions, and the law is of necessity always playing catch-up. (And I wouldn't want it *not* to be playing catch-up; the alternative is far scarier.) For instance, I like to listen to old radio shows; many of them are now in the public domain, some of them are of ambiguous copyright, and usually listed (I think quite sincerely) on the websites of collectors with earnest invitations to report if a particular episode thought free and clear is not. I've never been able to work up much moral indignation with myself for listening to widely available audio material that I'd never otherwise encounter.
(And moderate, curious downloading, no matter what the copyright issues, seems qualitatively different to me than proudly downloading current popular music by the bucketload just to fill up Ye Olde iPodde, to "stick it to the Man" or whatever. High-end grocery stores I've been in don't mind customers sampling a grape or two; they know it increases sales either directly or through generated goodwill. That doesn't mean that carting out a case of oranges is the same thing. There are slipper slopes going both ways, I realize, but there are some slippery slopes worth venturing around the upper stretches of, or something.)
Appropriate moderation also applies to the whole concept of copyright. I'm not opposed to copyright (in fact, as societal constructs go, I think it's high on the Good list), but [even / especially] as a rabid free marketeer, I know that copyright is an extended rather than a natural right; the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, by contrast, are inalienable. Copyright is different -- it's a societal convention codified in law, to grant certain privileges (temporary monopoly) in exchange for certain later transfers (into the public domain). It shouldn't mean people can't remember and repeat lyrics, and (let me whack an obvious mole), it shouldn't mean that superficial cultural aspects like the words to Happy Birthday are forever off limits to TV characters. Copyright law is perhaps not as broken as patent law, but it needs some overhauling. Specifically, I'd like to see the temporary monopoly bit be clarified as applying specifically to wide-scale copying likely to affect commerical endeavors of the copyright holder. This still leaves messy edges, but ones I think easier to deal with the current system's mess.
With TV, back to the Simpsons box set: I'd not see much moral problem with anything I do (record, re-watch, commerical skip, dub with voices of my relatives, use as the inspiration for a novel) with television shows unless I've explicitly and with full knowledge promised not to do those things. But for certain shows (glad to see Northern Exposure's box sets, and Monk's) I'd *like* to get liner notes, extra features, snippets, outtakes, etc, and paying for them seems fair. [On the other hand, when DVDs are available from the library, is there moral harm in recording them for later watching, before handing them back to the library? For private, non-commerical use, is the maker actually likely to lose revenue fr
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
can't afford the legal option
Since this demographic cannot afford the legal option, they never were a possible customer.
Obviously, you can't claim a loss to someone who can't afford your product*, but I'm betting the distributors will anyway.
*That is unless it is an item that decreases the amount of items that can be sold to other customers. Since downloads are limitless, it applies here.
"Mr. Poltrack of CBS said that according to his network's research, a large number of viewers would welcome the chance to pay $1 to watch each television show, if they could do it on their own schedule and with the ability to skip commercials. With commercials, they'd be willing to pay 50 cents. And because the average viewer sees only half of a show's episodes, he said, this on-demand viewing won't hurt the regular showing."
Pretty much sums it up right there. Viewers want to watch it when THEY have time, and WITHOUT advertising.
People are SICK TO DEATH of advertising. Anyone seen the Caltrain cars on the SF peninsula that are "wrapped" with a Target Stores advertisement? They make Caltrain $25,000/month. Riders *HATE* them. The recent Caltrain newsletter actually has comments from riders saying that they hate them, but Caltrain goes with them because of the cash flow.
Corporations love ads. People hate them. Corporations have more money than people. People want less ads on TV, corporations want more. People try to skip ads with ReplayTV, corporations bitch to the courts. I hate how it all works.
Well, I think TV downloads would work, because, unlike movies and music, TV is offered free of charge to start with (with the exception of commericial-free stations). Also, TV is a one-shot deal (except for PVRs), so I, for one, wouldn't be as opposed to DRM. Also, I could stand a "free" download of a show, where you get it with commericals, and a "premium" commerical-free option. It's not like I can't stand any commericals; it's just stupid ones, or when they get shown twice in a row. Perhaps you could block certain commericals, and the commericals would be custom-added to each show (or several different commerical themes, so men don't have to watch Tampax commericals and the like).
...and still nothing on.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Unlike the music industry, television folks are trying to get ahead of the curve and offer TV downloads in a legal and easy to use manner."
Unfortunately probably not an affordable one. Have you priced TV DVDs lately? Something like Law and Order is like... 40 bucks a season or something. And there's like nine seasons. That's insane, and I don't think it's the cost of the media that's setting this price. I think it's that they're setting that price because they're expecting you'll pay it, and I think they can just as reasonably expect they can set comparable prices on internet media and you'll still pay it. Well, I for one won't pay it. And I don't think we're going to see TV downloads reasonably priced enough that the cost is less of an imposition than the bother of me paying money to see Aqua Teen Hunger Force on my computer instead of waiting until Adult Swim time, going downstairs to my neighbor's apartment who has cable, and saying "hey can I watch your tv for a little bit?"
Look-- there's this place in New York. It's called the Museum of Television History or something and it's just this little nondescript place on the bottom couple floors of some skyscraper. They've got the entire last 60 years of television on tape. Not quite all of it, but all of it that's been preserved by anyone. That's what they do. They preserve television history. And if you go in and pay them... I don't know, It was like $8 or $12 or something rediculously cheap, they'll let you cram in as many people as you can fit into these little nicely furnished viewing booths and watch in comfort three television programs of your choice out of everything ever recorded. Now that's a nice offer.
That's not what we're going to get. By the time the dust settles and these services are up, we're going to get like.. select from this wide variety of random television programs, some of which are the ones you might actually want to watch, and we'll let you watch them once with periodic graphical glitches, hunched over in your cramped little computer chair with the tinny sound, after a 10-minute buffering session. You can watch that TV show you've forgotten from the 80s with the kid who can stop time because her dad is an alien for just a dollar an episode! Oh, what, you'd rather watch Law and Order? Well, that costs a lot more. You'd rather watch Sliders? Well, we have about six unlabeled episodes from different seasons, so good luck following the plot. But, hey, you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer? You can watch the show's entire run for just the equivalent price of a new XBox and two RPGs which cumulatively take 120 hours to finish! You like Sifl and Olly? Oh, sorry. Go watch the show from the 80s with the alien kid instead. But isn't our service great? Aren't you grateful that we're offering you on aribtrary terms and at relatively steep prices the same uneven entertainment that we offered at one time for free, and that you could continue legally to watch for free indefinitely if you or someone you know had just been forward-thinking enough to turn on their VCRs the first time they were broadcast? Man, those people who still download tv shows over bittorrent must just be so greedy.
It's bullshit. Much as it pains me to say Russia got something right, we really need to copy their compulsory copyright licensing program.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
That may be. Personally, I would be glad to pay more than $1 to keep some of my favorite shows in production (Coupling, ST: Enterprise, Futurama, etc.).
The way to get people to pay that can is to open the books to the public for any particular show.
Exec: "See folks, we can't afford to bring you another season of Popular Show #15 because not enough people are paying for it. Sorry, but if some of you non-payers paid, we might be able to bring back Popular Show #15 for another season."
If the books are not open, the people can always cry out that the non-paying downloaders are being used as scapegoats to cancel a program that isn't the most profitable, but still enjoys a relatively good following.
The women look like a bunch of retards too.
Interestig how they mix MythTV in with commentary about people sharing TV shows on the internet. I have a MythTV box, which occasionally actually works (gentoo emerge updates often mangle something in there and breaks the machine, I'm currently trying to recover from such a mangling now), but I have no filesharing programs for Linux. I haven't got Samba worknig right to my Windows box either, but I can't remember the last time I used one there.
Turned out a waste of time, I tried downloading episodes of shows I missed that week, such as the first episode of Alias this season when I did not know they moved to Wed. night instead of their old Sunday timeslot. I never get a complete file, so I quit trying...
But really, how is downloading the episode of a show I missed last night stealing? It ain't for sale on DVD yet, or I'd buy it like I already got the first three seasons of Alias. As for commercial DVDs vs MythTV recordings, I'd rather have the DVDs. I've got a PVR-250 TV card, but the quality isn't nearly as good as DVDs. The quality often is rather disappointing on my recordings.
I had for a while kept recordings of Futurama reruns, but ended up getting DVDs because they look so much better on my TV, and that's a freakin' cartoon that shouldn't be affected by quality as bad as live actors and stuff should.
I dont' often even bother to skip commercials. It still gives me a place to visit the kitchen or restroom. And while I have seen the quote from some TV executive that those things qualify as stealing TV, sorry dude, but when nature calls, that's more important than watching another instance of some ad I've already seen way too many times.
Are you behind a router? Do you have port forwarding enabled?
It sounds to me like you are behind a router/firewall and the packets aren't being routed properly.
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
If there was a way to legally download all the fresh shows that I want to see, I'd pay a few bucks per episode. But that isn't going to happen because of market segmentation politics. See, I live in Germany, where shows only come up on TV a few years after they aired in the States, which really sucks.
By downloading them off the net, I can get them now, without the sucky translation - but it's also illegal. It's lose-lose all the way. I have given up hope of enjoying the shows just like a normal viewer in the USA can, long ago. DRM is going to make us pay very thoroughly. And by paying I don't only mean money but also the freedom to choose content you want in a format you want.
Despite all this stuff like MythTV, thinks aren't exactly looking so bright on the consumer front.
1. I'm not advocating stealing the content, copyright infringement, or anything along those lines, so your entire post and the locking doors analogy is invalid.
2. Well, why *don't* they move into a new medium? Or are you saying they should have just stuck with OTA delivery, instead of cable and satellite? Or maybe VHS? Or perhaps film? Or maybe hand-drawn flipbooks? The internet and various media formats are just another delivery mechanism which they should be JUMPING at, AND making a lot of money doing, to boot! This isn't about anyone stealing, this is about content providers responding to the marketplace.
This could be a win for everybody. The best part of tvtorrents isn't so much that they're free but they're amazingly convienient. No adverts, watch them when you want, hdtv quality -- they're just fantastic value, even at $1.
And if a portion of the money goes directly back to the show's production instead of subsidizing some reality tv crap, then all the better.
Although, I'll hold judgement until we actually see an iShows.com that offers all that they promise.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
Teachers are almost infinitely more useful than actors. But I pay lot more for tuition than going to the movies. Now, if we had superstar teachers whose lectures were all over the media and people paid to watch, they'd be millionaires too. I'm sure there are at least a few making good money doing lecture tours already.
English is easier said than done.
The number of people giving up TV altogether because of insane advert times. Inane advert content. Repetitive inane advert content is going up. The reason TV DVD's are so suprisingly popular is that people can watch them on their terms. Their are no adverts. There are no inane repetitive adverts. Right now it is a geek thing. Tommorrow it will be like the iPod.
The 30 second spot is dieing. Studies already show that people are so immune to commercials it takes an insane number of repetitions in order to have any kind of chance to be rememebered. Instead the Web is leading the way with largely opt-in advertisement with paid for placement.
If Google can make money providing free search and massive bandwidth, a great deal of R&D for new content all through on demand ads autogenerated based on peoples request. I have a sneaking suspiscion that a network that offered its content for free and had targeted paid for advertising around the process could do the same.
Imagine a FOX websight that works like Google. Go search for a show, or go to the shows site. Paid for adverts are to the side like every freaking web page in existence now. Some click through some don't. Download the show with a streaming advert delivering method aimed at the users login which lasts ONLY while the content selected is loading.
Of course to do this you have to completely revamp Nielson or out right replace it. Turn the marketing industry upside down. And set up massive delivery infrastructure and reorganzie the way your basic TV station works.
no biggie.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
1. The shows must not have DRM limitations, and must be of decent quality.
2. They must be available for download before they are shown on television anywhere.
3. They must be reasonably priced.
If these three rules are followed, I look forward to kissing bittorrent goodbye for my weekly 24 episode download, and paying a bit of money for them. I'd prefer to transfer a chunk of money to the service and then have credit stored on there for a few weeks worth of television shows.
It's perfectly legeal in the USA to buy a cable descrambler. You can't use it to access content you don't have the legal right to access already (like HBO, if you aren't paying for HBO) but it's been legeal for many years.
I've had folks ask what legitimate use anyone could possibly have for a cable descrambler -- I've had one for a few years.
My TiVo has a lifetime subscription (which is for the lifetime of the box) but the antenna connection is busted, so i can't just plug it into the cable line. I bought a cable box off eBay for $25 and use it to give me an SVideo feed into my TiVo -- problem solved. Yeah, i could pay TiVo $50 to fix my box, and be without it for 4-6 weeks. Or I could "rent" a cable box from my cable company for $5-15 a month. My solution works and is exactly the kind of situation the US Congress was thinking about when they eliminated the monopoly on cable boxes.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
There is a price to everything, including your own time.
You are writing that BT is slow and obnoxious. People have to pay for bandwidth and their own time. Few people want to spend their Sundays downloading music or TV show from weird places. They just want it quickly and painlessly.
That means not too expensive, but it can carry a price and people will still buy it.
Check your firewall settings. If you don't have (IIRC) 6880-6899 or so open, you'll get awfully slow speeds on bittorrent. It'll still work, but be very slow.
That is "woefully inadequate to describe why millions of people steal," said Mr. Garland of Big Champagne, the online media measurement company.
Copyright infringement is not theft, but we see the industry repeat this lie repeatedly. Why, oh why, do people fall for this crap?
As well, please keep in mind that originally, copyright protected only the author and only for a limited time. In fact, most of the so called "copyrighted" material no longer even belongs to the original creator. Indeed, most of copyrighted material would now be in the public domain.
Jeez people, face facts, the overly affluent have corrupted the law and are using it to exploit you.
It simply amazes me just how many Americans love to talk about freedom and responsibility but then are silent in the obvious presence of tyranny and exploitation.
Words to men, as air to birds.
Look at what you're buying in the supermarket. Everything there is more expensive because of advertising. That money is used to pay for these television shows. People would still be buying toilet paper, cookies, and soda even if Britney Spears wasn't singing about it. However, she makes millions off it. So the whole system is horribly unbalanced when actors and "singers" are making millions by pursuading us regular folk to buy the products their pitching.
The same type of RSS plugin for his product can be added to Azureus and many other BT clients. I've been using Azureus with a RSS plugin to capture several shows that I normally watch. Works really well. Add this to XBMC or other non-capture playback only media players and your really do have a PVR. The RSS plugin can also allow you to save any type of BT file, movie, series, music that you care to configure. Your not limited to just TV.
This guy sums it up for me. I've been running Bit Torrent to get the only 3 TV shows (Simpsons, Daily Show, Chappelle Show) I every watch. I would pay $1 for pulling a hi-res, color and sound corrected copy in a heart beat.
I am billdar, and I approve this message.
The FCC limits, to some extent, what you can view in the U.S. I have DirecTV with the local channels. Would I pay extra to get the raw East and West coast network feeds? You bet. I live on the East coast and sometimes a heavy rainstorm will prevent reception. If I could get the West Coast feed, some things could be picked up when they're broadcast a few hours later on that stream. Same with local channels. The coverage which gives me Charlotte, NC locals also broadcasts DC. Would I pay extra for those? You bet.
The FCC won't allow it. How stupid is that? If I'm already paying for the local stations, I should be able to buy other feeds. It boils down to perceived advertising exposure.
It's not JUST the content providers, the FCC has something to do with it as well.
Now, if Discovery and the BBC would broadcast the same shows on both sides of the pond and if Canada wasn't excluded, boy, that would be nice.
Maybe ... but a broadband connection confers a lot of benefits and advantages that a set-top box does not. So, for that matter, does a mid-line or better PC. I know a lot of people (me, for one) that have no problem shelling out for one luxury each month (the sixty-odd bucks I give to Comcast for my cable modem) but can't justify yet another outlay for a couple hundred channels of TV that I will never watch anyway. But the fact remains that there are a few shows that I would like to see, but those few don't justify the monthly expense of a cable or satellite box. There are a lot of people like me, who are a currently untapped market. Imagine an "official" Web site (call it, say ... iShows) that would let users choose the few shows they really want to see and download them for a buck or two. Hell, I'd sign up this minute. But it will probably never happen: they're too addicted to sucking $50-$100 per month from each subscriber.
Thing is, if they combined that service with a Bit Torrent-like swarming technology, they could sell TV episodes 24/7 without significant bandwidth charges. A lot of people (probably the majority) will still opt for the convenience of a regular cable TV setup, but they would get all those users that won't buy both.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
That matches my experience when I first started using bittorrent.
But then I figured out how to configure my router/NAT box to foward BT ports to my computer.
Battlestar Galactica takes me just over 24 hours to d/l. 350 Mb in size, about 5kb/s download speed.
I'm on a dial-up, so that's about as good as it gets.
I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
I like mythtv. I have a computer in the loungeroom, attached to the TV - it runs 24x7. Our TV is not even tuned to any stations in our region, it has one mode of operation - svideo in.
The PC has an AthlonXP 2000+, 512MB ram, onboard nforce video/TVout/audio,a 802.11b pci card, and a crappy 79AUD PCTV video capture card that came with a remote that works very nicely with MythTV. I have a cvs version of mythtv that I update and build every month or so.
So , how do I use it?
- With the 4 FTA channels that are available to me, I've got it set to record about five regular shows for me and my wife, plus a few movies on occasion. I watch the recorded shows when I come home from work, and possibly browse about 15-20 minutes of "real" tv. I will never go back to "real" tv, more importantly, neither will my wife.
- I use the MythDVD portion of MythTV for ripping rental DVD's. Wait, hold the flames! I use it in this fashion as I work shiftwork, my wife rents DVD's and I normally see them on the table about 1/2 hour before they're due back... rip them to Mythtv, watch them later at my convenience with the MythVideo portion.
*Side note: If anyone's looking for convenience in ripping DVD's , this is it. Insert DVD, pick which title to rip, select bitrate ("Good" on my system equals 750kbps xvid,2 pass,720x576 - works nicely for me) , press go. The DVD is ripped to a file in 15 minutes, and a Xvid encoded version appears in the MythVideo section in about 3 hours (on my Athlon XP2000+).
- I also have about 20 DVD's at home for the kids ripped and watchable in MythVideo. Oh, *cough* and a few movies I got from teh intarweb. First release movies arrive in my small town about 6 months after a good DVD rip comes out, so occasionally I use a fair sized chunk of my 16GB ADSL download allowance to get a few movies. I've also been busy lately downloading Enterprise episodes (have all of them S1-S4 now). Enterprise got canned on Australian TV at the end of series 2, I think.
- I listen to about 5 GB of mp3's/ogg's with the MythMusic portion and my wife is slowly ripping her giant CD collection to it.
- I plug in the USB gamepad and kill time by playing about 500 MAME and Super Nintendo (yay mario!) games with the MythGame plugin.
- I listen to a number of internet radio stations with the Radio plugin. Gotta love "the 80's channel".
- I have just about every digital photo I've ever taken in the Mythgallery area, which allows me to browse through and start a slideshow of images.
- I get a weather feed with MythWeather, with a 4 day forecast, current conditions and animated satellite imagery.
- I also have MythNews, a RSS browser... but I don't really use it often, as I have one in Thunderbird on my PC.
All up, it cost about 1000AUD to put together+ a few days of cursing to set up initially. It's been running now for about 18 months. The rest of the family's addicted to it now, so I don't think it'll ever be leaving.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I've never understood statements like this. The same "time" argument is used when bashing Gentoo vs. other distros.
"Few people want to spend their Sundays downloading music or TV show from weird places"
You speak of downloading like it's an active process. There's no requirement to keep peddling in order for the file to complete. You click what you want, minimize, and then check back every so often (I usually check my downloads once per day to see what has finished). Whether it takes 30 minutes or a week I'm not going to be spending any more of my actual time downloading it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Ugh. I hate it when industry propaganda gets reprinted by reporters without comment or common sense. OK, let's talk about this sentence. What exactly did happen to the music industry? During the rise of P2P, their business improved. Then a recession hit, and their business slowed. They then attacked their customers, which is bad for business too. Then iTunes and the like came out, and the recession eased, and business went up.
So what exactly went wrong for the music industry?! They certainly moaned about losing business, but check out those bottom lines and you'll see they are still in business and raking in the billions, thank you very much. Bah! Bad, John Markoff! Repeating industry propaganda is not good for a reporter to be taken seriously.
I would complain about $1/ep. I record/watch about 22 shows per week (if they are all first-runs). This pricing model would wreak havoc with my budget/finances. Would you pay $88 per month? Even if the shows were in HD with no commercials and encoded with a great codec and with no DRM?
Now don't get me wrong, I would welcome being able to download TV shows for a reasonable price with the above conditions. I think the FCC should make it mandatory that OTA broadcasts be made available as soon as the episode airs and kept available until a DVD is available that contains that episode.
I also think you made a very good point regarding the accuracy of viewership. The only reason Family Guy is being brought back is due to DVD sales. Downloads and DVD sales should reflect reality far greater than Nielson rating ever could.
>But they have no trouble paying for broadband service and a mid-line or better PC?
/.).
I fit that economic demographic if anyone does. The "mid line" computer I have is an old p3/450 which I bought last year off of a friend for $100, paying $20 over a period of five months. I can afford $50 for cable internet but that's about all. I don't have cable television (can't afford it) and I sure as hell don't subscribe to any online services that have a fee larger than a one-time payment of $5 (hello,
People think that because someone can afford to eat and to have one luxury that means that they can afford and have a BUNCH of luxuries. That's sloppy and innacurrate thinking.
It's entirely possible to only be able to afford one 'perk' and only then with careful budgeting and prioritizing (ie, chosing cable internet over cable television because you cannot have both).
There is a viable business model here for the networks.
Release the shows as they come out, via torrent. Make them as available as possible, perhaps even with *special content* like scenes that got cut to suit the slot, etc. Once this is the norm, the production teams will have lots of stuff to toss in for the web releases.
Include advertisements in the files (sorry guys, they need to pay for it somehow...) While the ads will not be as effective as broadcast because perhaps 80% of viewers will fast-forward, some of the ads will be viewed and that is better than a kick in the nuts any day of the week. This way, the market for independant digitization and broadcast of tv shows online will dry up. Why bother? The files are available on time, in high quality. Problem solved.
This couldn't work the same for the RIAA and MPAA people. But TV has always been an advertisement friendly format. It's ready to go!
There are other marketing advantages to this approach, without making it annoying either. Use your imagination...
It's funny because it's true.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Just an FYI for us American folk, don't download Battlestar online. Baytsp has been tracking it and issuing automatic notices to ISPs. I just got my notice, which basically said just to stop. It's an excellent series, though!
"The members of the MythTV community, who now do not have to pay monthly fees to rent set-top boxes or digital video recorders, have plenty of more mischievous company in trying to outwit the television industry. Millions of viewers are now watching illegal copies of television programs"
I pay the local cable company for access to the programs I want to record with Mythtv.
All of my songs are purchased via iTunes
The simple fact is that I use mythtv as a recorder just like I would use a vcr. I do not steal any content even though the article suggests that I do.
I have 2 cable boxes (which I pay for) connected to my mythtv system. I pay the local cable company for the content I may want to record.
I had some disagreements with the article as well...
... terrify industry executives, who remember only too well what Napster and other file-sharing programs did to the music industry.
... are the scourge of the music industry" doesn't make it true.
... give the audience an attractive model before the illegal file-sharer providers meet their needs ...
... the industry and the government have to move - fast - to establish rules ... Otherwise, television executives say, the very creation of television programming is placed in jeopardy.
... was dangerously excessive.
Not surprisingly, the repercussions
Yeah, the RIAA kept making record profits each year, despite the recession. Why should the MPAA be afraid after such a "terrifying" example?
Saying that "the file-sharing networks
It's a bit late for that. Look at the download numbers given at the top of the article.
Television isn't in danger. The MPAA's business model is in danger. The government should not pass laws to protect an obsolete business model. If the current television mafia goes away, perhaps more shows will be created for love instead of greed. Wouldn't that be better for everyone?
Playing the same show on different screens around the house seems reasonable, said Mr. Cotton of NBC Universal. But he added that expanding the circle much beyond that
I think Mr. Cotton is missing something important here. Customers have no obligation to him, or to any television company. The issue isn't what he will allow the customers to do, but what the customers will let him get away with.
"You'll make more money and suffer far less from the black market if you simply create the opportunity to access content freely," said Mr. Garland of Big Champagne.
Tell that to the RIAA.
You can get it working with DishNetwork. You'll need to get an IRC blaster and a second customized version of lirc running to control it. This is required with either digital cable or satellite tv. Here are the links:M ythTV_DISH_IR_LED_TX_via_Modified_LIRC.html
http://www.irblaster.info/
http://losdos.dyndns.org:8080/public/mythtv-info/
I currently have my Myth box connected to analog cable and it works fine. I plan on moving down to the living and hooking it up to my dish network receiver pretty soon. The quality of the show is only as good as your input. Good luck!
http://tllts.org - The Linux Link Tech Show
No flamefest, don't worry. I really think this is a tricky subject and deserves a lot of out-loud pondering and examination. Sometimes our notions of what seems reasonable (taping - or TiVo-ing - an episode of Seinfeld for your friend who has to be at work that evening) and not particularly damaging to anyone isn't too far away from what definately is (taping every eposide of Seinfeld, making a DVD image of it, and putting it up on your web site where a million people can have all that material and avoid paying the $25 for the same collection the way that the show's creators have in mind).
Certainly, a network or other content originator/distributor sells their material for broadcast under certain circumstances and with the expectation that it will air with certain commercials (or that, over cable, it will be part of a subscription). Most people disseminating a broadcast show are going to probably wind up chopping out the commercials. That certainly short circuits the network's expectation of potential revenue per viewer. But no question... the over-the-airwaves area is the trickiest. What's a no brainer is when people actually seek to make money off of copying and distributing material - definately a huge no-no.
I will, though, pick on your hot dog analogy. What the street vendor is really selling you (other than mysterious meat-like products) is convenience. He's right there, where you are, when you're hungry. If you have to go home to eat, you're giving up the convenience that is his real value. Sure, if you walk by his stand and think, "nah... I can hold out for another 30 minutes" he is missing out on the sale, but people make those judgements every day - it's part of the risk he's taking when he starts his hot dog empire. Now: if he were standing on the streetcorner playing guitar, and you really liked his music, and he says, "If you really like it so much, I've got DVDs of one of my performances right here - only $20!" But, standing right next to him is a guy that already bought the DVD last month, and is hold a sign that says "information wants to be free!" and has a URL of a web site where you can just download the guy's performance without paying for it... now that's another matter.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"the commercial free BBC"
Well, they do still cover up some cartons, like on the makes on Blue Peter (a kids program where they often make things out of junk).
However, they advertise their own programs (eg on other channels) incessantly. It's almost like watching commercial telly. They also have a strange idea that the [BB] Corporation is a business. Thus they do things like spend half the license fee [a tax on TV owners in favour of the BBC] on Premiership football [ie Soccer] which is a huge advert in itself. When commercial businesses are prepared to be extorted out of customers money more fool them. When a publicly funded body goes round supporting multimillion £ wage cheques I get angry.
Rant over!
"Thus they do things like spend half the license fee [a tax on TV owners in favour of the BBC] on Premiership football [ie Soccer] which is a huge advert in itself."
Bear in mind that the reason why Soccer became so expensive was because of Sky outbidding everyone else in an effort to corner the market; just after the dotcom bubble burst, the prices started to fall, but not within the reach of ITV, so the BBC is essentially the only real bidding entity in what would otherwise be a fairly nasty little monoculture. Sky family pack subscribers subsidise the sports channels to the tune of 50-60%, and while I'm with you on supporting the multimillion wage cheques, it's just how things have played out. Sooner or later a change will come.
"However, they advertise their own programs"
Yeah, that's 'branding'. It's one of the things that they do to increase their viewership figures to stop the government talking about more reforms, because the government hates having an independent body that might be critical of it and they're just looking for an excuse. That was the terrible thing about the Hutton report and it's effect on Greg Dyke.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
MythTV wasn't hard to get running for you due to design deficiencies in MythTV - It was hard for you to get running due to bad hardware. Every problem you describe with MythTV other than the IR blaster issue looked like non-Myth-specific hardware problems to me.
With good hardware, MythTV is easy to get running. The hardest part on my Gentoo box was getting ivtv (drivers for Hauppauge PVR-x50 cards, etc) running on 2.6.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?