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Microsoft Acknowledges NBC's Wish is Its Command
theodp writes "Responding to questions about why some users of Windows Vista Media Center were prevented from recording the NBC Universal TV shows 'American Gladiator' and 'Medium,' Microsoft has acknowledged that Windows Media Centers will block users from recording TV shows at the request of a broadcaster. 'Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set forth by the (Federal Communications Commission),' wrote a Microsoft spokeswoman, apparently referring to an FCC proposal that the courts struck down in 2005. 'Microsoft has put the requirements of broadcasters above what consumers want,' said the EFF's Danny O'Brien. 'They've imposed restrictions way beyond what the law requires. Customers need to know who Microsoft is listening to and how that affects their equipment. Right now, the only way customers know what Microsoft has agreed to is when the technology they've bought suddenly stops working. Microsoft needs to come clean and tell its customers what deals it has made.'"
I just want it to work!
shows just who the real "customer" here is... not you... you are the product, delivered to the media conglomerates...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
If Microsoft doesn't disclose what is going on, customers will be angry that they can't do what they thought they paid to be able to do, and in the future, will not give them anymore money If they do disclose upfront, many customers will not give them money in the first place. Damned if you do, damned if you don't when it comes to our friend DRM.
This is great news. Look, Microsoft has a vendor first / user second approach. The more stupid shit like this they do the more the users will catch on that they are simply taken for granted.
Parent is right, it's the commoditization of the consumer.
Caveat Utilitor
I used to think MSNBC meant Must See NBC, as part of their "Must See" advertising. Thank you for unlocking this mysterious tie to Microsoft.
I say let them drag each other into the ground. I can't recall the last time I watched any of the NBC networks. OK, I briefly watched some of the Olympics last time around, but that was about all. Even if there were anything decent to watch when I was away, I always have my VCR.
As for Microsoft, they do make some darn good keyboards and mice.
What is it with Microsoft and the word "technologies"?
Heeding a fucking bit is "technologies"?
[Clicks fingers] Oh, sorry, that's marketdoublespeak to hide the fact that they're selling stuff that takes its orders from someone other than the customer who bought it.
I don't think so. People are not so apathetic as you seem to think. They will take notice as soon as it impacts on their ability and their freedom to do things they have been able to do since they bought their first VCR recorder 25 years ago.
Microsoft has been putting too much faith into its monopoly position. The more people this affects, the more people WILL move to alternative systems, and the more those alternative systems will improve.
DRM will never survive.
Microsoft has never been about the customer. Microsoft will gladly screw over their customers to get a few bucks or gain marketshare.
Here's an old but great example. Back when Win95 was released you could not natively use long file names with 16-bit apps. However, there was a product called "Name-It!" which did allow that function. In other words it was possible and quite easy to enable the function, but Microsoft chose NOT to implement it. Why? Because long file names was a well liked feature among customers and denying it to customers would give incentive to upgrade to new 32-bit programs.
Another great example is Messenger, the chat program not the service. Microsoft originally made it nearly impossible to get rid of. Even if you edited your sysoc.inf file and uninstalled Messenger, it'll suddenly come back. Even if you deleted the subfolder under Program Files, it would mysteriously come back. Obviously Microsoft considered its chat war against AOL more important than ease of use for its customers.
And of course there's product activation. We were told it was to stop piracy, but that was bull-shit. You can easy obtain pirated copies of XP and Vista. Let's face it, if piracy has been decreased, then why is Vista Microsoft's most expensive OS? Why aren't they passing the savings back to us? Clearly product activation is not stopping piracy at all. Once again, the real purpose of product activation is to screw over the paying customer who wants to install the OS he paid for on both of his systems.
And lets not forget how Microsoft's Office products are constantly screwing with file formats to make the later versions incompatible with earlier versions. Once again, this is NOT done to make it easier for paying customers. It's merely leverage to get those customer paying again and again.
It'd be really hard to be passionate for Microsoft's products. It's hard to be passionate for anything that nickel and dimes you at every turn. That treats you like a criminal. And sees you merely as a cash cow to be milked at every chance.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Let's see, how many different competing sources of videos are there today? And NBC thinks it's got the best ones out there and wants to restrict their dissemination with the broadcast flag?
I don't really care if Vista respects the flag or not. NBC, by putting it in the stream, thwarts its use, legitimate or not. In the YouTube/Tube world, they have *so* scratched themselves off the list.
Let's see-- was that good for marketshare, branding, asset value, shareholder value, or compennsation? Hullo?
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
In some parts of the world that's called collusion and when a convicted predatory Monopoly does it, in some countries, they get hanged.
Nice one by MS, but this won't have much of an impact on Windows I think. What else are people going to use?
Huh? That is the absolutely dumbest question I've heard all week (but it's Monday). There are a lot of flavors of Linux, there's Sun, there's Be, there's Apple. or did I misunderastand the question?
Are you a Microsoft employee, did you get to slashdot by mistake somehow. or are you just trolling?
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Actually, Mythtv is pretty easy to set up now, if you use one of the distro versions (knoppmyth, mythdora or mythbuntu).
I add a nice pchdtv video card, which does not detect the broadcast flag, and I have nothing to worry about. Plus, I can burn dvd's of my recordings, and many other things.
Windows media center has a number of problems, and crashes too. However, because it is windows, people ignore it. Myth is just as stable. And can be tested before buying (since mythbuntu at least has a livecd)
They remembered who their customers were perhaps?
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
Has anyone using Tivo ever been able to go back to regular TV? If they took a look at the viewing habits of Tivo-ed users, they would be forced to remove the flag if Tivo had enforced it.
Ever since I got Tivo, I *never* watch programs in real-time. If I can't record it, I am not watching it.
Be? Is this a copy-pasta response from 5 years ago? If someone needs to record American Gladiator, they'll find something else to record it with (or watch it on hulu or nbc.com), not switch to linux.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
As long as there is analog out, I'll be able to record my favorite shows. Just retarded you have to go through all that.
Is it really any surprise MSFT puts business interests ahead of user interests? It's been that way a long time.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Most likely because no Tivo users in the affected broadcast area bothered to complain or have seen this often enough that they're busy pursuing the only effective resolution -- complaining to their cable company and/or local broadcaster.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=390326&highlight=broadcast+flag/
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=385828&highlight=broadcast+flag/
There are too many steps along the broadcast path where a stupid user can accidentally reset the flag and they unfortunately do so far too often.
None of the alarm-ringing "articles" on this have offered reason to believe that NBC-qua-NBC set this flag vs. it having been set by a local affiliate station or local cable provider.
FURTHERMORE, the CNet reporters have failed to understand the distinction between the broadcast flag the FCC was not allowed to impose and the broadcast flag that CableLabs is allowed to impose on anybody making a system capable of using a CableCard (which both Tivo and MS do).
I could see Tivo in the past implementing it as they thought it was inevitable, but probably once it was determined as not inevitable, a company in a competitive marketplace can't afford to screw their customers. The networks probably offered Tivo some money to honor the flag and Tivo may have decided the better business move would be that the money wouldn't be worth the lost sales.
Meanwhile MS is not accustomed to such a situation. To them, the end-users have been a foregone conclusion, MS expects to get that money no matter how crappy they treat those users. So when the networks come to them with an offer, it's a no-brainer. This is what a monopolistic viewpoint does. In the DVR space, you would think they would realize they are not a monopoly and not act this way, but until this incident, they hadn't had their situation tested.
It's an interesting thing showing users the reality of where they stand. They are not customers to NBC, they are a necessary evil for NBC to deal with indirectly to please their customers, advertisers. Advertisers desires trump viewer desires. To MS, the end-users are to an extent customers, but again they are assumed to be guaranteed customers. MS has to pander a bit more to OEMs, but not much. MS therefore views deals with other entities (like studios) for abusing their users as the place where they can grow.
I will say I like how this has played out in general compared to the alternative. The networks tried to get the FCC to enforce it on their behalf and failed. Now, they must pay every DVR vendor and every DVR vendor gets to choose whether or not the lost sales are worth it. Allow the broadcast flag, and specify a standard path for it, but don't mandate enforcement and let capitalism work it out. Of course, I know which way this would go, obeying the broadcast flag is dvr market suicide.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The problem with stuff like MythTV is that it does not appeal to the average DVR user. Most people who use a Media Center PC and can set it up probably have no idea what a SVN is or how to operate something like MythTV.
This is not newbie friendly. It's easy to say "MythTV, MythTV" and espouse the benefits of it, but you're not going to get people to use it if it is not easy to set up.
When you have an installer that you can click on and get the program working without having to mess with Linux and command lines (like WinMyth), THEN it will have a chance in the consumer market. Until then, the average user will put up with it or just hook up the ol' VCR.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I think you misunderstood the question, he meant, "what will they replace it with that is an actual possibility for adoption".
Pretending is fun, but there's only one answer in your list that currently fits that bill.
I once borrowed a few DVD films from a friend of mine and played them on linux. I could skip all the ads and choose to go watch the film straight away. I assumed that they only block you from skipping ads when you play it in a DVD player.
Some time later I tried playing it under windows and was surprised that I couldn't skip the damned ads. More power to linux, I say. If I already bought a DVD, why the hell should I be forced to watch ads?
What do you want? To just not watch blu-ray movies?
No, I think most people here want(ed) MS to fight their battle for them, and got pissed when they didn't. Oddly enough MS weighed up a fight they couldn't have won (there's no way the media industry would have let them off with not implementing copy prevention measures and still enable Windows to play HD content) versus their customer's likely desire to play HD stuff on their PCs, and decided the only way they could have.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Its not the just ads I object to, its also the way they force you to view the copyright notice in 12 languages. Then you're forced to watch the stupid thing comparing copyright infringement with stealing a car/handbag etc.
The fact that Microsoft will do this "to" its customers is proof that there is practically no competition in the market place.
If there were competition, a vendor would be terrified if their product did do what it was supposed to and would not side AGAINST the wishes of their paying customers. If there were laws that limited what their products would do, they would fight those laws to improve their products.
No, Microsoft has illegally protected its monopoly for too long. Almost all these abusive problems we see are a direct result of it. If there were real and thriving competition, none of this could happen because it would be the death of a vendor.
It's not worth it for some. Keeping up on whats what in recording hardware and maintaining a MythTV box are less fun then working on some other geek hobby. Tivo is reasonably priced and works well. Also with Tivo you can get several, one for each member of the family, for less then additional MythTV boxes.
Fair supposition but I think the answer is the same reason many Slashdotters (myself included) have Macs - they have an intuitive UI and for the most part Just Work(TM). I have had a TiVo for six years now and have always found the ease of use in searching programs, setting up "Season Passes" and finding related programs to be better than any other DVR I have tried. My wife also finds it much more usable than the alternatives and we both a have a "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" attitude towards the setup.
It doesn't mean I won't put together a MythTV box someday, but given how little of my time I think TV is worth (and my time is in shorter supply than my money), TiVo works pretty nicely for me. Your mileage, of course, may vary...
"95% of all Slashdot
Actually, it's rather obvious.
That old computer is going to sound just peachy in your living room. Then there's the amount of space one takes up.
MythTV stops being free when I have to buy a completely new rig to make it as compact and quiet as a tivo.
It may be a 4 to 6 hour project, assuming everything works. Which isn't likely if you're making due with whatever is laying around.
For a lot of people, there gets to be a point in their lives where their time is more valuable than money and they have the money to spare to spend on things that will save them time.
I've said this before here on Slashdot, but I think it's worth repeating.
I, for one, don't think Microsoft implemented DRM controls in Vista because Hollywood threatened to attack Redmond with the entire array of Marvel superheroes. Microsoft is already quite well established in the content industry and, I expect, sees future opportunities there as well. I expect Microsoft will continue its ventures in the audiovisual industries, either by buying a studio outright, or entering into some type of joint venture like MSNBC. (Negotiating with Fox to assist in the purchase of Yahoo! might be a harbinger of things to come.)
In the developed world the long-term outlook for profitable commodity software like an OS or office products is clearly on the decline. However the world-wide demand for mainstream audio and video content like the MPAA and RIAA members produce still seems pretty robust, and the profitability of these productions is well-known.
As has been long established, DRM only hurts legitimate users, without the illegal downloaders even noticing its existence.
I had heard about the new (not yet aired) "Bionic Woman" show, and asked my Windows Media Center PVR to record it. A few weeks later I went to watch it, and it wasn't there. It had failed to record "on request of the publisher". (paraphrased)
So, I didn't watch Bionic Woman.
I thought about this...
1) I wanted to watch their show.
2) They want people to watch their show.
But I don't watch "live" TV any more because I have a PVR, and PVRs are awesome.
(I don't even know or care what times/date shows air at. I just watch from my recordings.)
For some reason, this is "bad" and therefore I don't deserve to watch their show?
The demographic of people who own PVRs are the tech-savy, generally well-to-do crowd. That is to say: One of their most desirable demographics.
And yet we're prevented from watching it conveniently?
"Time" is my scarcest resource. The list of shows I watch is very small for this reason. I'm certainly not going to seek out a show I was only vaguely interested in, in the first place.
So "Bionic Woman" didn't get watched.
(Dodged that bullet!)
DRM "triumphs" again.
Welcome to "hotplug" (plus udev etc). Thanks to endless whining from users about "auto-detecting" stuff ("Look Windows does it!") we now too have the Plug-and-Pray subsystem, behaving pretty much like its Windows counterpart, i.e. randomly.
Why, you ask? Simple: various pieces of hardware have (for all practical purposes - randomly) changing times required for them to initialize. Which changes the order of detection depending on if you are warm booting, cold booting, if you turned some unrelated piece of hardware off, etc and so on, which combined with "dynamic" /dev subsystems cause the effects you described.
The UUID hack is an attempt to bring some sanity back into the Plug-and-Pray process, but it is just that, an after-thought hack. Desperate measures really.
Yep, being time-poor seems to be part of being a Dad. I've only got time to post this at 01:47 as I'm waiting for my 5-month old son to drift off back to sleep. I've been coming to the same conclusion about MythTV and have been waiting for the Playstation-based TV to appear in Europe. As for maintenance, my wife was at PC World on Sunday buying a new video card as the old one went flaky and she was on the phone to me whilst I was trying to stop the hot water flowing out the side of the house. I refer myself to previous comments I made to myself - "You have to lower your expectations when you have kids". Ahh, there we go, now I'm happy again.