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TiVo OS Update Adds Content Protection
generic-man writes "According to PVRBlog, TiVo's new operating system update enables content protection flags on a per-show basis. On some programs, notably syndicated shows, a red flag appears to indicate that the copyright holder has requested that TiVo devices not save a program past a certain date and that the program may not be copied to a PC using TiVo to Go. TiVo users were told to expect this style of flag only on pay-per-view and video on demand programming, and as such are upset that TiVo has restricted the capabilities of the receivers they bought and subscribed to use. The TiVo Community boards have some screen shots and firsthand accounts."
Just one more good reason to bite the bullet, sit down, and build yourself a MythTV box.
There's a good walkthrough on building a MythTV box over on O'Reilly Digital Media, and another on the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
For some reason I remember reading that Tivo struggles to stay out of the red and that they are really not even that profitable. So why then would they add in a feature to restrict the functionality of their product and piss people off?
There has to be something else here, this just doesnt make buisness sense.
There's something wrong about selling a device to do something, and later limiting the ability of the device to do what it was designed to do.
This is a bug on behalf of the Tivo software...
c opy_protection.html
See
http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2005/09/
Update: Jim Denney, director of product marketing for TiVo, said the instances of standard TV shows being affected by new copy protection restrictions likely are "false positives."
Denney said the copy protection is trigged by a flag in the video signal. The reports appearing on the Web appear to be cases where TiVo misinterprets noise in the signal as a copy protection flag, and imposes the restrictions.
"During the test process, we came across people who had false positives because of noisy analog signals," he said. "We actually delayed development (of the new TiVo software) to address those false positives."
Apparently they still didnt fix the issues.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
...it's another example to use when explaining to people exactly why they should be opposed to DRM and the Broadcast Flag. It's good that it will spread awareness of the issue, so that we have a better chance of stopping it before it becomes mandatory by law.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
But the age-old argument holds: this won't work for (just an example) my parents.
In the past, Tivo employees have been very helpful in helping users work around these types of issues - they don't really care if you record the show, install larger hard drives, pull video off to your computer, as long as they get their subscription fee.
Hopefully a workaround comes out and makes it to the forums.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Is there someplace I can buy a MythTv box, so I don't have to muddle through it myself? I don't mind learning, but I'd rather have a working box while I do so.
Read: http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2005/09/tivo_72_os_adds .html
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Quoted from one of the posters: This is a BUG!
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.p
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.p
TiVo recognizes the Macrovision flag but there have been NO cases of a network or studio actually utilizing it.
Even HBO whose websites says OnDemand stuff can't be DVR'ed... well, I could TiVo my OnDemand stuff just fine. I did all the time. That was before 7.2 and I don't have HBO any longer but it did work.
Again - this is a BUG. Neither the local station or FOX intended for this syndicated rerun to be flagged like this.
Are bug bad? Sure. But it's not worth getting all up in arms at TiVo about.
People will continue to plunk down cash for these products and services, because most people don't care about DRM. Even this won't really affect them, why do you think you can buy the Superbowl on DVD, or the World Series on DVD? People shell out $$ for seasons and seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc. So they DRM the shows on your Tivo after a month.. by then people have either wiped it, or bought the damn thing on DVD.
Then there is the minority, who are not media consumers, who remain unaffected by this.
Before the tinfoil hatters come out, and blame the ??AA or the Government, think: when was the last time you watched one of those old Star Trek episodes you taped 15 years ago "in case you ever wanted to watch them again"?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
... you'll see that this was a bug found by someone using their TiVo over antennae, not cable, which could have distorted the signal.
The whole macrovision flag is for PPV shows, not regular shows.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Viewership of cable and over-the-air television dropped dramatically when people realized there wasn't anything worth recording on to begin with.
TIVO has attempted to suggest the flags are a bug. While TIVO admits to making the technology available and active, not a single content provider is using it. That said: I do think it's a bad idea.
As a TIVO owner, I have to insist that TIVO needs to remove this technology because content flags that require a time frame within which to watch the show defeats the purpose of my purchasing a TIVO in the first place. I'm their customer because I could timeshift on my terms. NOT theirs. Not Fox's. Not NBC's.
I also want the ability to transfer it to another medium. If I lose that, TIVO loses me as a customer and no amount of lifetime memberships and HDTV versions of TIVO at a discounted rate will prevent me from leaving.
If TIVO does not remove this feature, I will reconsider remaining a TIVO Customer, and both TIVO and all the content providers lose a "captive" audience member.
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
I use ReplayTV and have never had any problems with content protection. There is even a great open source tool called DVArchive (at sourceforge) that lets one copy shows to/from the ReplayTV units and even stream content directly from the ReplayTV to any machine that supports HTTP streaming.
I highly recommend both of these products for the geek who wants a great DVR and the freedom to DivX content at will.
How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
What happens when people don't read the fine print on service agreements and that all important clause which says TiVo can change the terms of usage at any time without prior notice.
And this is supposed to be so much better than taping? The time shifting abilities of PRV's are great when watching live shows, but really the only people for whom the PVR experience is "revolutionary" are folks too stupid to program their VCR's to begin with.
This and digital cable continue to be examples of consumers choosing wiz-bang technology simply because it's new and not because it's better. Few users have the TV's or proper audio equipment to enjoy "the digital difference" but they all lap it up because of all the stations they can't get otherwise, few of them seem to think about how much more difficult exercising fair use rights becomes because of the converter boxes needed for digital cable.
There are advantages to living in the cracks sometimes. Harry Harrison once wrote that every society has rats, and even an incredibly advanced one would have the equivalent, even if it's a 'stainless steel' rat. By owning a ReplayTV instead of a Tivo, I feel like I'm living in that crawlspace, away from all the media attention that a company like Tivo gets.
Replay got sued for the automatic commercial skip, but once that PVR had been thoroughly surpassed in numbers by Tivo, attention shifted elsewhere and now the only people who know about Replay are the owners.
1. I can pull my shows off my Replay over the network, no broadcast flag.
2. My 5060 (w/ the requisite hard drive upgrade, of course) still automatically skips commercials. They aren't taking away features I bought, and I appreciate it.
3. There's no pop-up advertisements like Tivo has. There just isn't the money in doing stuff like that because the user base is so small (but the development effort doesn't get cheaper as a result).
You can see some of the same stuff happening with Apple. The Macintosh has, lately, demonstrated less enthusiasm about adopting the various DRM flavor of the month technologies that the Windows PC has. This is in part because there isn't the same level of scrutiny, and also because the development effort of adding that stuff doesn't amortize across the user base as well. I'm sure there are other 'do no evil' type considerations and whatnot, but money is the real motive power to be reckoned with.
I sometimes wonder what the implications are for the rest of society. Do I, the middle class anonymous guy have more freedom than the popular, rich people? Probably. There's no media scrutiny of my every move, if I had a T-mobile Sidekick, nobody would bother trying to break into it, I can post diatribes to slashdot without apologizing via a press release, and so on.
Just a thought on the trade offs between being comfortable and caged in the living room above versus being a bit cramped, but living the freedom that only the unknown can claim...
I have two ReplayTVs. I don't have any of the problems you read about with TiVo--and I can skip past commercials, not just fast-forward. I don't understand why TiVo is more popular that ReplayTV. It is certainly is not as good.
What makes TiVo a great product isn't its PVR functionality, it's the thoughtfully designed interface. This is something I don't think people who havn't used TiVo really understand. From the way it rewinds a little after you stop fast forwarding to the schedule tables, TiVo constantly does things that make me happy. It's like TiVo is my friend. This, I think, is the reason that so many people (myself included) are fanaticaly devoted to their TiVo.
I'm not saying MythTV doesn't have its benefits, but it certainly isn't a replacement for my TiVo.
"Re:MythTV Doesn't Do HDTV"
uh yes it does... HD-3000 PCHDTV
And affordability varies on what you want to do... but if you have an existing reasonably spec'd spare PC... a 90 dollar hauppauge wintv pvr 150 hardawre encoding card with remote/ir blaster is pretty reasonable. Especially if you don't have to deal with recurring subscription costs.
although the real reason to build a DIY PVR is NOT to save $$$, it's for freedom/control over your box and content and the flexibility to add functionality without waiting for Tivo to ask permission from content providers/FCC first (e.g. tivo2go). Commercial flagging/deletion, DVD ripping, cool parsing of closed captioning, etc...
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
...if you have no way of knowing what you bought.
The most insidious thing about DRM-enabled devices is their ability to change the deal long after you've made your purchase decision.
No doubt there is a legal fiction that you agreed to some fine print somewhere that says, in effect, "I know I'm buying a pig in a poke."
We need a "truth-in-DRM" law. If there were a conspicuous sticker saying "Warning: this device may not actually record the programs you want to record. There is no way for you to know in advance which programs you can or can't record. The fact that you can record your favorite programs now does not mean you will be able to record them in the future," then purchasers would know what they were buying and the free marker could operate.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
TiVo website blame macrovision and even go so far as to say "Please do not contact TiVo Customer Support regarding copy protection related issues" is a total cop-out.
I think every TiVo owner should precisely be contacting Customer Support about this. Jam up the telephone lines. How else is the company every going to know how their customers truly feel.
Old saying: If you don't take care of the customer, someone else will.
update: I just wanted to reiterate that yes, this was the result of a mistake on the part of the station providing syndicated shows.
Don't consider this an update -- consider a warning! Your local stations already have this switch in place, and all they need to do is flip it now!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Well, I have been a longtime Tivo user. I hacked my series 1 box to add more space, and I bought a series 2 box pre hacked.
This initial incident seems to have been caused by a big that has highlighted a legitimate feature, but the cat is out of the bag now.
Here is my problem with this.
Tivo changed the way I watch TV, but perhaps it changed it more than they thought it would. I have no problem recording a show and not watching it for a few weeks, then sitting down on night and catching up on a months worth of new episodes. If the show gets dumped after 5 days, well, then I'm not going to see it.
So now, depending on the network's whims, my Tivo box may have just become much less usefull. I can tell you 2 things that I will NOT be doing.
1) Changing my TV viewing habits back to where I work around the shows schedule. There are precious few shows that I;m now going to rearrange my schedule around.
2) Buy another Tivo. I was considering replacing my lifetime service series 1 with a lifetime service hacked series 2 (waiting for HDTV), however, it looks like this will be much less useful than what I am used to having.
Sorry Tivo. It was a good run, but the other options are looking better and better all the time.
Eschew Obfuscation
He's not saying the problem is that they are selling boxes that then you have to buy service for.
He's saying that they are selling boxes and then expect you cannot modify the boxes in any way you see fit.
It's like cell-phone companies (to use your example) locking a phone to one service - users have figured out how to unlock many phones, or activate features the carriers do not want you do have.
In the case of a cable modem, you bought it and can modfy how it does routing as you see fit. Yes you have to pay a monthly service to get a connection through it, but you can still modify the box.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So if you purchase your cable modem from your cable provider, you shouldn't have to pay for monthly cable service? It is, after all, your cable modem. You should not have to pay to keep using something that you already own.
You're muddying the waters here. There are two items being sold a Tivo and a subscription, just like a cable modem and a subscription to cable internet. Your analogy breaks, however, because if I buy a cable modem I can do whatever I want to it, and the cable company cannot. They can't come over and fill the USB port with glue and they can't remotely turn that USB port off.
The problem is, in addition to changing their service, they are remotely disabling features in the hardware box they sold you. They are stopping you from using a specialty computer you bought by remotely turning off functionality. That is called hacking most of the time.
The second problem is that if you sell a service, especially when you sell a lifetime subscription to that service, it is unethical and probably illegal to remove parts of that service from customers who have already paid.
Of course as soon as Tivo started to introduce this DRM crap and tech-savvy user should have known this crap was coming. When a company starts introducing anti-features that make things harder for their customers (because they want to get an account with big cable company and sell bulk) then they have sold you out. That is one of the main reasons I did not buy a Tivo. The interface was nicer and the guide was easier to use than the EyeTV unit/old computer solution I did go with, but I can still record, store on my hard drive, burn to DVD, or transfer over the network anything I want. I archive my favorite shows to DVD, just like I used to save some on VCR tapes. I bought my hardware and while software updates from the vendor may be useful, I won't install any that remove functionality.
As for a subscription, I get my guide information from TitanTV. It is free (banner ad supported) and if I ever need to I can go with a competing service.
you can use Tivo without the guide.
The question is not whether you can use the Tivo without the guide. The question is can you use the Tivo without the guide and store any program you record indefinitely or will it automatically delete via this DRM software they just loaded onto your bought and paid for machine, without your consent?