Slashdot Mirror
TiVo User's Fears Explored
elrous0 writes "In spite of TiVo's continuing insistence that recent appearances of 'red flag' recordings are mere "glitches," the AP is reporting that customers are beginning to get nervous about the new content-blocking feature added in a recent TiVo upgrade. The story quotes Matt Haughey, of PVRblog.com, as saying 'TiVo would be of limited utility in the future if the studios were allowed to do this with regular broadcast content ... This is like cell-phone jammers. What if you couldn't talk on your cell phone? If customers can't do something with their TiVo that they could in the past, they will stop using it.'" We've touched on this topic in the past.
ArsTechnica's Ken "Caesar" Fisher has written a rather insightful article about just this issue. Well worth the read.
As "Caesar" stresses in his article, DRM on TiVo is nothing new. There's really no point in getting steamed at TiVo about this...they're victims of DRM just as much as their customers.
If we're going to fix this problem, we need to do it at this level...not at TiVo's level.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
This is related to a previous article to which I posted my intent were tivo/"the industry" to begin to rein in my ability to:
I would pretty much dump my tivo... since those are the features of tivo that make television palatable. Since that related article, I've informally caucused friends and family with the possible changes in tivo services/features. Every single one of them agreed they'd not have use for tivo either. (And, they were all very concerned that this could happen -- especially after I verified with each one they were actually on the release of tivo that had these new "features".)
From what I've read, and my correspondence, tivo has resisted as well as they could for as long as they could. I wonder how it must feel at tivo these days when these fucktards start imposing their questionable (unethical) "standards" unilaterally. Sheesh.
Kind of reminds me of and old, old, old Peanuts cartoon... Lucy sees Linus playing with her toys, and in rage takes them all away. Linus is crestfallen, and Lucy taking pity as she walks away tosses him a rubber band, "Here, you can play with this". The next few frames show Linus becoming increasingly fascinated and entertained by and with the rubber band until finally Linus is totally in rapture. Lucy comes back, angrily rips that rubber band from Linus and says, "I didn't mean for you to have that much fun with it!".
They are of no use to me anymore. A slightly better interface than the rest just doesn't cut it.
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
To build your own PVR with MythTV or BeyondTV. It's more work, but you have more control.
noise tripping this flag seems unlikely Other commentary on O'reilly blog
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
The growing concern by broadcasters and Hollywood puts TiVo in a spot. However, I think standing by their customers and taking this challenge head-on is a good approach. Their customers want the features they have grown accustomed to. I think it's in their best interest to fight for their customers here. Like digital music, TV is at the crossroads of a new way of viewing movies and shows. We can hope they stand at this juncture and say, "Look, Guys, this is not 1975. It's time to move into the new age here."
It's only a matter of days before a hack will surface on how to bypass any anti-recording-flag. The underground TiVo community is huge and need not worry die hard TiVo fans. Will it prevent casual TV recording? Maybe. Will it hurt the TiVo company? Probably. Can we still record what ever we want? Sure! Jason
TiVo has caved into the content producers, and handed over control of the DRM process to them. The recent accidental flagging of content in this way proves it is out of TiVo's hands, and within the realm of control of the broadcaster. That makes it only a matter of time before broadcasters will begin to use this feature. If TiVo wants to retain loyal customers, they need to take back control: they should require digital authorization codes for DRM features and DRM the DRM so that only TiVo can authorize DRM restrictions on content. Unfortunatley, even then TiVo users will have to worry about whether TiVo will allow DRM on content only in reasonable situations, or if TiVo will cave into monetary or legal pressures and allow it on anything the broadcasters want.
The end of TiVo's usefullness is approaching quickly. Probably time to get some more developers working on the open source alternatives.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Exactly why is TiVo adding this functionality? I cannot for the life of me figure it out. Is there a law somewhere that says they must? Or are they just afraid of the cost of a legal battle with the **AAs? Are the media companies so powerful now that they can impose thier will with just the treat of a lawsuit?
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
Tivo is great, and a few days of using it is the reason why I've been unable to watch TV without a PVR since. But for my own use, it's all about MythTV, and this story is exactly the reason. Pick whatever free PVR you want if you don't like Myth.
And if you don't like any free PVR, and are going to say something like "Free PVR X is too difficult to set up" or "X has a crappy interface compared to Tivo", I'm going to agree. But consider that in five years your Tivo is going to have the same usability and fewer features, while the free PVR will get easier to set up and use, will have more features, and above all will still be Free.
Tivo was all about taking control of your TV experience. The industry doesn't like that, and they are slowly going to take that control back. The Free PVRs, much like Free Software itself, is a way for you to keep that control.
The enemies of Democracy are
I have watched and laughed as Tivo has bent over and taken everything from the industry. I am both a ReplayTV and MythTV owner. I don't understand why or how Tivo does what they do. If I bought a box with functionality X,Y,Z, and later Y is ammended in a way that causes some controversy (in a way I do not like), then I think Tivo has broken a contract.
Throughout it all, my ReplayTV experience has gone un-touched, I still have commercial skipping and the like. The way Replay skirts the issue is that they change model numbers and can then change the feature set. My 4500 has commercial skip where the 5500 does not. How Tivo is legally able to change it on all models is beyond me.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I cancelled my TiVo subscription 4 days ago - I'm now using BeyondTV. I had the original model of the TiVo, and have been paying the monthly on it since TiVo first came out (yeah, I know, in hindsight I should have bought the lifetime subscription). I loved my TiVo - it really changed how I watched TV. But what I wanted in a DVR is something that records TV, keeps it until I tell it to get rid of it, etc.
:)
The TiVo rep argued with me that they had "resolved" the problems with shows getting deleted. I understand that it wasn't intentionally turned on, but the fact is the device now supports and allows broadcasts to muck around with this kind of thing. They offered to knock the monthly down 1/2, but I'm not interested any more.
I don't like the direction the company is heading in, so I've switched. I'm not going back, unless there's a radically change in their direction - and even then I'm no likely to. I like having control over my DVR - dual headed, 1TB storage, DVD burner, can ADD shows to the machine (and get them off), and I can extend and expand that machine as I see fit.
Long live BTV!
-Greg
and later the company takes away some of that capability, do you have some legal basis for claiming false advertising, or reneging on contract, or something like that?
I think this would be more of a question for people who paid for a lifetime subscription, but it also throws into the question the value of any future lifetime subscriptions, because if their contract allows them to start adding restrictions after the fact, is it really of much value?
Perhaps a similar question could have been first pursued back when the company started venturing into adding advertising into the skip features, etc., as well.
Heres some links for good hardware to start with.
2 E16856101111 - I actually use this very one. Comes with some excellent media center software, a remote control, built in stereo Hi-Fi unit (can operate independantly of the rest of the computer). Essentially, you end up with a DVR/Media Center/Hi Fi Stereo unit.2 E16856101233 - Intel-based version of above2 E16814127987 - Reccomended tuner to the above hardware. I use a cheapy ATI TV Wonder that I've had for a few years anyway
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?Item=N8
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
You dont need a high power processor, a ton of RAM, or anything beyond the on-board video, unless you plan on doing things beyond DVRing. I have a bit of experience with this, so drop me a message if you want any furter info.
I agree with the first post: DRM is the issue, not specifically TIVO.
//e (I had a TRS-80 Color Computer before that, but I'm talking about my first usable computer). IIRC, games were $20-$30 a piece. Applewriter //e was $200. Programs were using heavy copy protection. I remember reading a lot of articles about it, and one point was that any disk that could be copy-protected could be broken. Even when IBM became bigger than Apple, for a while copy protection was big. I remember going in and using Don Lancaster's disassembly of Applewriter //e to figure out how to make my own copies of Applewriter //e so I could start modifying it on my own (and leave my precious, licensed copy safe and untouched). I stayed with Apple for a good while because it was fun, because I knew the monitor ROM closely, and because I could not afford to upgrade. Then I got a good deal on an Amiga. By the time I got back into the "mainline" again, Windows 95 was big.
//e and programs like Locksmith were all over the place -- usually as a pirated copy in the basement of a teen uber-geek who had hundreds of copied 5 1/4" disks.
I remember when I got my first real computer, an Apple
At that point almost no programs had copy protection. It had gone out of style because it cost more to keep ahead of the crackers than to just put it out and make what you could on honest customers. I remember in the material I read by Apple crackers, they pointed out that any disk the computer could run, copy protected or not, HAD to be able to be read by the boot loader, so at least the first sector had to be easily readable. From there on, a good cracker could figure it out one way or the other, as long as he took the time.
We know that any form of DRM is breakable, not just through brute force, but by reverse engineering. Yes, there's the DMCA, but tha is not going to stop cracking programs from being easily found, just as pirated software was easy to find in the days of Apple
This is just a new market. Software publishers have gotten used to knowing there are unauthorized copies of their work, in perfect digital form, being traded among the public. This same idea scares the life out of RIAA and MPAA, but eventually they'll realize that it costs more, in the long run, to keep everything protected than to just release it as is and make what you can from the millions of honest customers. They've already started to change their positions on this. When Napster came out, there was no way they wanted ANY online distribution. ITunes changed that. The studio making the Harry Potter movies announced in a press release that large batches of Harry Potter III were released without any copy protection to see how it went, since protection was so expensive to incorporate and license.
It'll take a long while, especially with Microsoft doing the Harold Hill routine (from "The Music Man") where they say, "Hey, all these people will still your stuff. You've got trouble, right here in River City," and, at the same time saying, "But I'll tell you how to fight that trouble. Just pay us tons of money and we'll make sure you don't lose tons of money. We'll protect it all!" Eventually, though, the added expense and work needed for protection and the paranoia of the MPAA and RIAA will start fading and we'll see something much more reasonable, just like we did in the evolution of software marketing.
Add to that the growth of FOSS and people with guts, like the gov. in Mass., who are beginning to see the value in open formats and software that doesn't cost a ton of money, and eventually, after all the fears are shown groundless, we'll see the entire data and content market become commodity markets, just like the expensive long distance and cell phone markets have become.
Copyright law forces them to license functionality from Macrovision, who said they would only license their product to TiVo if they put this functionality in, so to answer your question, copyright law plus contract law says it has to be there. Originally, TiVo said that they would only use it for Video-On-Demand and Pay-Per-View, but a bug popped up last week that put restrictions on some syndicated programming (King of the Hill, Simpsons).
More info here.
This sounds so wrong to me. There is no law mandating that TiVo include these features yet. If there was, then every VCR sold would need them too - and all the satellite boxes already sold would be upgraded with it.
TiVo still is the problem. They're doing more to aid the content creation industry than they are for their paying customers. I have yet to hear of any copyright statute in law that says a copyright holder can regulate your use of content after you've purchased it - or received it for free over the air.
LET TIVO KNOW HOW MUCH THIS ANGERS YOU, or you're in line to lose more than this!
Mentioning it to Congress can't hurt either.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You don't need a few grand to build your own. I started building my own myth box 2 days ago. Got it pretty much fully working last night. I spent $130 on a Hauppauge PVR-350, which has a great quality TV in/out with hardware MPEG encoder/decoder. Since the PVR-350 is doing the tough work, it's a very light load on the CPU. I threw it on an extra P3-450, and live TV (simultaneos record and timeshifted playback) still leaves it about 75-80% idle time.
So you can see the system requirements are very light. If you don't have any old hardware laying around, then even buying some new bottom-of-the-line stuff should do good with this card. Just off the top of my head, $100 each for CPU, motherboard and hard drive, $50 for memory, $30 each for case, CD/DVD drive and a cheap VGA card, plus $130 for the PVR-350, and you are only looking at $570. Actually, if you watch around, you can routinely find 200GB hard drive's for $40-$50 after rebate, so that puts you just over $500....plus your time (whatever you value that at).
That app works awesome on an old laptop I converted into a PVR - BeyondTV choked hard, and MythTV doesn't support my USB2 MPEG encoder.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Silly, silly, lad
What do you think the EULA on 99% of the software says:
a) We promise our software will not damage your system or data in a way.
b) We in no way accept responsibility for damage done to your system or data. Install and use at your own risk.
The user agreements are to protect the company's interests, not the user's. The user agreements are to cover their butts, so if something happens they can say "But you accepted the service agreement that says it's alright." Heck, they probably do more to tie the hands of the users instead of the company.
I gaurantee you somewhere in Tivo's agreement (probably somewhere prominent) they say that they reserve the right to modify their services and update their software whenever and however they feel necessary. Almost all service-based products allow for this.
Because a Tivo generally does what people want it to do. Of all Tivo owners I know, and it's quite a few, I'm the only one who even follows it enough to know about this issue. Tivo still acts as an easy digital VCR with nice software and a generally reliable schedule. That's what most people are after.
I don't know a single one in real life, as opposed to message boards, who give a flip about transfering shows to their PCs. Most don't even bother with PPV movies, which is what the expiration flag is intended for. It's just not that important. If they really, desperately want a season of a show, they buy the box set for $60 rather than spend who knows how long formatting and burning their own DVDs.
That's the thing people who push the "roll your own" solutions forget: the TIME involved. They place no value on their time. I have the skill level to do a MythTV. Heck, I have the skill to WRITE a DVR solution, but I read accounts of installs, and I'd have to be on a steady diet of boilermakers and cheap crack to waste my time like that for something as trical as television.
And if a network activates the flag to prevent recording of their show? Fuck 'em. Who cares? No Tivo owners will watch. The network is just hurting themselves.
We've touched on this topic in the past.
They misspelled "dupe".
The PPV and VOD broadcasts are encrypted by [Macrovision's] technology.
Mavcrovision and CGMS-A are not encryption, thus you can totally ignore them if you want to. (e.g. most video capture cards ignore that stuff)
For that solution I'd recommend going with the semptron getting a barton core athlon XP would have a slight edge in performance, but for a DVR the semptron should be plenty fast, and can be had real cheap :) 512M ram, a 300-320 gig HD, and a DVD-burner and you've got a pretty nice PVR, throw a PSX style controller USB device and you've got a kick ass emulator station too ;) and the total hardware costs should be right around $500.
but really many slashdotters will have a Pc of that generation lying around. all you need is the capture card, and a big HD...
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I have yet to hear of any copyright statute in law that says a copyright holder can regulate your use of content after you've purchased it - or received it for free over the air.
I'm not sure what you mean by this, but that's exactly what copyright is all about. Title 17 of the US Code tells you what you may or may not do with copyrighted content without the owner's permission. Specifcally, 17 USC 106 states:
The owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
Yes, there are stautory and judicial exceptions to that exclusivity, but there you go.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
As soon as there are SAT and Cable decoders that can be put into my home PC turned Myth box that allow me to record premium content the way I can with my hacked DTIVO I'll do it - in a heartbeat. However right now the best thing Myth seems to offer is OTA HD. Or maybe I could buy multiple cable\SAT decoder boxes and lash them to the Myth box with IRDA dongles? Umm, no thanks.
Myth is way cool, I LOVE the idea I really do. However it cannot give me what I *currently* have with the DTIVO being used in my home now. NO, *my* TIVO doesn't have this DRM code and *no* it won't have the code unless I allow it - and I'm not. I also do not see those FFWD commercials. I'm actually 2 revisions back with my DTIVO running software never meant for my box. (lol) I'll move to the 6.x code soon, really I will. But 7.2x can goto hell, I see no reason to run it and lots of reasons not to.
In any case, until I can get what I want out of MythTV I'm not wasting my time building one. OTA broadcast stuff I gave up years ago and I refuse to go back. The day they can decode my digital cable directly or attach to my SAT dish directly (as can be done in other countries apparently) I'll switch but not until then. If my TIVO suddenly stops working because they have blocked my hacks then I'll happily return it and my DIRECT subscription too.
P.S. Yes, I can do extraction, streaming, and other things on my box. http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/ The funny thing is that I'm far from bleeding edge with what I've done on my machine!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Probably not. You need to realize that this is Slashdot where everyone, and myself included, bitch and moan about every event. A lot of people are threatening to get rid of their Tivos and invest 500 bucks, an entire week, and 1/4 of their living room to setup a MythTV box. These people are likely just using empty threats hoping to scare Tivo in to reversing the software update. Most likely, Tivo won't back off, and in a month all of this will be forgotten as long as the flag doesn't come up on regular tv shows for any other people.
We've gone through this process with Tivo users before. The TivoToGo release took too long so there were claims of canceling their service and going to MythTV. Mac users still can't download shows from their tivo and watch them on their mac without going through a PC first, as far as I know. And through it all, the people who bitched and moaned are most likely still using Tivo.
I own a Tivo. I use a mac. I hate DRM. I constantly think about how I should build a MythTV box, which shouldn't be too hard for me since I have a lot of linux experience. But I get home from work, plop on the couch, and tun on my TV to see if any good shows are waiting for me on the Tivo. There needs to be a serious and obvious interruption to my Tivo service to get me off my lazy ass so that I switch to something else.
But as far as IPTV and the such, I think podcasts might do a lot to get people moving in that direction. If you don't believe me, download iTunes (or figure out how to use some other podcast software) and subscribe to Diggnation, Systm, Rocketboom, Dawn and Drew show, and This Week in Tech. People are really starting to make some cool stuff that is totally independent and free of DRM nastiness. The content is surprisingly good. The only real problems are wading through the thousands of crappy podcasts so that you can find the rare good one, and the bandwidth needs of podcasters who get popular. But podcasts have really shown people that anyone can make a show, and some of them might even be good. So now there should be a lot of creative thinkers figuring out how to make it easier to find shows and for shows to handle the bandwidth needs. Of course there will also be a lot of creative thinkers figuring out how they can DRM podcasts in hopes of making money.... sigh.
FiGZ.COM - A waste of perfectly good web space
I use a MythTV box that a friend programmed for me. I love it but it is essentially a black box to me (literally) because I am not a programmer.
I am trying to resolve what seems like a contradiction.
1 - open source software is constantly (on Slashdot) said to be the way to go.
2 - TiVo has an interface that appears to be an order of magnitude better than Myth
This seems like a contradiction in my mind.
If Myth is open source and so many people are improving it and making feature additions then how come the average fairly intelligent person (I am an engineer) can't, with a minimum of fuss, install the software, have it find the installed hardware and configure itself accordingly?
Myth is great because it's independent & free of restrictions. It does not seem up to par on some things you would expect to do easily (watch a DVD, Archive to DVD, program on screen, for which I use the mythweb function almost exclusively). This is my first experience with open source and it seems like it's not yet ready for prime time.