TiVo PC Could Be a Game-Changer

An anonymous reader sends in an article by Andrew Keen (author of "The Cult of the Amateur") about TiVo's new TiVo PC, which he believes could seal the fate of advertising on online videos. Just as TiVo let viewers zap commercials on broadcast TV, TiVo PC — a TV tuner that can be plugged into a PC — will let Net viewers of the likes of Hulu.com and ABC.com skip commercials in the nascent medium of online video. Keen believes that TiVo's business model involves (besides selling lots of $199 boxes) mining and selling the far richer stream of user behavioral data that TiVo PC will enable.

Comments

Wait a second

[Orleron]

If they mine data for behavior statistics, and they kill advertising.... what will they use the behavioral statistics for?
*scratches head*

Re:Wait a second

[eln]

If they mine data for behavior statistics, and they kill advertising.... what will they use the behavioral statistics for?

Online dating. Everyone always assumed TiVo wanted to collect all this data for marketing purposes, but actually they're just really, really lonely.

Re:Wait a second

[mfh]

Direct Snail Mail and corporate-sponsored drive-bys.

Re:Wait a second

[Enry]

Product placement, advertising in other media (print, radio, internet), and more targeted advertising.

Re:Wait a second

[mcgrew]

It won't kill advertising. My snailmailbox continually gets ads, some people look. It just means that advertisers are going to have to be less banal and annoying and more entertaining in their own right.

Nobody minds the Budweiser frog ads, or the Geico duck ads. hell, when one of those Budweiser ads comes on I'll wait until that ad is over before I go to get another Killian. The people making that "head on" commercials are in deep trouble with this, though.

Re:Wait a second

[Ethanol-fueled]

Heh, it dosen't take marketing statistics to show that


PEOPLE DON'T WANT ADS SHOVED IN THEIR FACES!

Re:Wait a second

[Anonymous Coward]

Apply directly to the forehead!
Apply directly to the forehead!
Apply directly to the forehead!

Re:Wait a second

[An ominous Cow art]

It's sad, but some do. A co-worker uses IE, and her home page is MSN.com. It makes me physically ill to watch her start up her browser. I always make a big (semi-joking) deal about averting my eyes. She claims to like ads because they keep her "informed". Sigh...

Re:Wait a second

[squiggleslash]

or the Geico duck ads

Somewhere in the world, at two difference advertising agencies, two overpaid campaign managers are explaining to their bosses how ads for car insurance and for supplementary health insurance could have been confused like that.

Thank you.

Re:Wait a second

[SensitiveMale]

The people making that "head on" commercials are in deep trouble with this, though.

But you remembered the "head on" ad so it worked. :)

Re:Wait a second

[gEvil (beta)]

hell, when one of those Budweiser ads comes on I'll wait until that ad is over before I go to get another Killian.

Good to see that the Budweiser ads are working you...

Re:Wait a second

[mcgrew]

I didn't buy the product so it didn't.

Re:Wait a second

[sorak]

If they mine data for behavior statistics, and they kill advertising.... what will they use the behavioral statistics for?

*scratches head*

To determine which address to send the DMCA threats to...

Re:Wait a second

[bilturner]

Geico has the Gecko. Aflac has the Goose. There Is No Duck!

Re:Wait a second

[yukk]

Great. She's that near mythical 0.5% that keeps email spammers in business.

Re:Wait a second

[Chyeld]

It's true I don't want ads shoved in my face, but on the other side of the coin, I often visit the Apple trailers site and watch odd or funny ads on YouTube and their ilk.

It's not the ads that I mind as much as their presentation. The last time I visited my folks we watched a PAY PER VIEW movie on dish. Every 5-10 minutes the show was interupted for the same effing, stupid, Bounty commerical.

It made me want to go home and research Bounty and it's parent companies simply to ensure I never bought anything of theirs again.

Re:Wait a second

[An ominous Cow art]

Well, she's not that bad. She does hate spam.

Re:Wait a second

[rs79]

She claims to like ads because they keep her "informed"

They do. When you stop seeing ads for luxury goods, it means something. Ads are a reflection of the culture at the moment.

I don't like them and even wish they'd go away but I can understand how poeple
would be interested in reading them. I do enjoy reading ads from, say 100 years
ago; some peoples thresholds are different - they like newer ads too for some
definition of newer.

Re:Wait a second

[olyar]

This struck me as funny because Killians is made by Coors

Not sure if you intended the irony or not.

My impression was that you were implying that the advertising from the big guys doesn't affect you because you just go get your "non-big guy" beer.

Re:Wait a second

[Laebshade]

*ahem*

It's a duck, not a goose.

Re:Wait a second

[Anonymous Coward]

But you remembered the "head on" ad so it worked. :)

Really? I kinda thought they wanted to sell stuff and make money. But if the goal was only to have people remember stuff, then maybe it did work....

Re:Wait a second

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but if you ever decide to buy a topical headache reliever, you'll likely pick HeadOn over SomeProductIveNeverHeardOfBefore.

Re:Wait a second

[mcgrew]

I doubt I ever will buy a topical headache reliever, but if I do I'll more than likely buy generic. I can't see paying six bucks for a bottle of Aleive when I can get as much Naproxin Sodium of the same strength for two. It's the same drug, after all!

Re:Wait a second

[Anonymous Coward]

Since AB owns Killian's I doubt they mind. ;)

Re:Wait a second

[robonasty]

But you remembered the "head on" ad so it worked. :)

Really? I kinda thought they wanted to sell stuff and make money. But if the goal was only to have people remember stuff, then maybe it did work....

The idea is that people choose the familiar over the unknown. If they can make a memorable ad, people will tend to choose their brand over others.

They're not coercing people to buy stuff they don't need, they're just creating a preference among people who buy the stuff anyway ;)

Re:Wait a second

[mcgrew]

Not sure if you intended the irony or not.

You're the second one that mentioned that, I thought it was obvious. Actually I usually drink Busch, but if I'd said "Busch" the irony wouldn't have been there. I do actually prefer Killian but I can't afford to drink much of it; it costs about twice as much as Busch. Linda (my new tenant/roommate) drinks that nasty Steel Reserve lager, which is about half as expensive as Bush but I just can't stomach it.

Re:Wait a second

[acedotcom]

They do. When you stop seeing ads for luxury goods, it means something. Ads are a reflection of the culture at the moment.

If that's the case, then with the economy the way it is we will be seeing ads for toilet paper and suicide pills shortly.

Re:Wait a second

[tm2b]

"Why a duck?"

Re:Wait a second

[hal9000(jr)]

PEOPLE DON'T WANT ADS SHOVED IN THEIR FACES!

While I agree with the sentiment, the fact is that TV is a "free" medium once you buy the set. You can use over the air signals. Paying for cable just gets you more channels.

I don't like commercials, but I wouldn't mind being interrupted every once in a while to see a commercial or two during a show that I get for free. The writers do a good job of making the break sensible. I am willing to pay for the entertainment with my time as long as it is reasonable. What I hate is 13 minutes of commercials for 14 minutes of show. The time it takes to watch a show is dwindling while to time to watch commercials grows. So I bought Tivo so I can skip through commercials. Screw them. I am taking my time back. If there was perhaps 10% of the show dedicated to commercials, I, and many others, might not pay for a PVR.

I think the last show I watched on-line was Burn Notice. It was broken into 4 segments with a 30 second or 1 minute commercial between shows. I didn't mind that at all.

Re:Wait a second

[Xiaran]

Wow. You just gave me flashbacks to that accountant character in Ghostbusters. :)

Re:Wait a second

[roguetrick]

Just turn on the tap and stick your head under it, if you want generic HeadOn. Its just homeopathic garbage.

Re:Wait a second

[TrevorB]

I just saw an eTrade commercial on MSNBC. The one with all the kids surrounding the dad shouting "Do it! Do it!" as he purchases his first stock.

Some commercials seem to have a lag time on reflecting society.

Unfortunately I was watching LiveTV and MythTV wasn't able to fast forward through the commercial... ;)

Re:Wait a second

[lysergic.acid]

the day you actually need to convince people to buy toilet paper (normally an inelastic demand) we'll have much bigger things to worry about than the economy.

Re:Wait a second

[lysergic.acid]

consumerism really has changed our society (for the worse IMO). economics has always been an essential, though not the dominant, component of anthropological studies. when we study the ancient greeks, romans, egyptians, etc. we learn about their culture through art, cultural literature, historic records, etc. and we learn about their lifestyle mostly through artifacts like pottery, statues, wall carvings, etc. but if future anthropologists want to learn about our society, they'll mostly just find advertisements. unless future archaeologists happen to come across the MOCA or Getty, the only culture they're going to find will have been produced by marketing/advertising agencies.

and this isn't just an issue of how we're going to look to future civilizations who are studying us. if most of the "culture" individuals are exposed to are advertisements and marketing campaigns to encourage consumption, then that's surely going to have a detrimental effect on our society. we're living in an age of advertising as culture. even the tv shows or films we watch for entertainment are filled with product placement. there's no longer such a thing as pure culture that wasn't created to manipulate people into buying a product.

Re:Wait a second

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "worked" you mean ensured that I'll never buy the product, then yes, it worked :) :) :0) quite well

Re:Wait a second

[MrDERP]

LMAO - I know the feeling (researching parent companies and boycotting them because of annoying ads) Especially here in Coastal GA, some of the cheesiest ads played , often times back to back , the same damn advert! (Krystal fast food restaurant comes to mind) -Jeff

Re:Wait a second

[MrDERP]

Or the burger king ads, only buff manly men eat whopper's, apparently.

Re:Wait a second

[Anonymous Coward]

>there's no longer such a thing as pure culture that wasn't created to manipulate people into buying a product.

Who would have thought that /. would be the place that broke the news that art is dead?

Re:Wait a second

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

or the Geico duck ads

Somewhere in the world, at two difference advertising agencies, two overpaid campaign managers are explaining to their bosses how ads for car insurance and for supplementary health insurance could have been confused like that.

Thank you.

I thought that too, and was about to make a +5 insightful comment about how all the advertisements are getting us to remember them through the amusing stories they tell... how we remember the ads, but not the products anymore.

Then I saved myself from looking silly by finding this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC0k8iJ-ZOg

Re:Wait a second

[Anonymous Coward]

We only see what the ancients (and the cultures that came after them) wanted to preserve for posterity. Considering culture to only involve the artifacts created for and preserved by the top tier of society is an elitist and incomplete view.

I'm not an expert, but to pose an example, the artifacts found at Pompeii showed that the Romans where a bunch of raunchy brothel-going, pun-using, doggerel-writing people, and the graffiti they wrote back in those days would fit right into today's bathroom stalls (if you ignore the fact that they were in Latin).

Re:Wait a second

[PincusJr]

Which spam? ;)

Re:Wait a second

[dangitman]

Have you got some kind of grudge against bidets?

Re:Wait a second

[SyncNine]

Do you think that using a bidet removes the necessity of toilet paper? I hope I don't ever fly next to you.

Re:Wait a second

[SyncNine]

You're using the minority and claiming it's the majority. Over the air signals comprise approximately 25-30 channels in low signal areas and 45 to 50 channels in areas where you have good signal reception. Those are the "free" entertainment you're referencing.

Out of a group of 400 or 500 channels, 25-30 or 45-50 doesn't represent the majority. The remaining 375 or 475 are channels that I have paid money to be watching -- and they're jamming 10 to 13 minutes of advertising into every 30 minute show these days.

Lastly, your "free" TV will be substantially LESS free come February 2009 when you'll need a converter box (e.g., need to purchase one, as in spend money, not free) to ensure your antenna's over-the-air reception translates into a format that is readable by your TV. While some newer sets will deal with this automatically, the people in general who rely on free, over-the-air television are likely the same people who will not have a brand new, HD set in their living room.

That said, I hate almost all commercials. Some of the more recent ones have at least been bearable, but frankly, if I'm spending >$100/mo on cable (Thanks, Comcast), I shouldn't be forced to spend 25 minutes of every hour watching craptacular advertisements for penis enlargement pills and viagra.

Please Tell Us All

[mfh]

Few things here:

1. Does it blend?
2. Could this technology remove advertising from any potential web content, or just a key sector of the internet to focus users in only one direction?
3. When TiVO has slaughtered "the advertising golden goose that has enriched the broadcasting industry for the last 50 years," who is invited to the table for Golden Goose Liver Pate TM?

Re:Please Tell Us All

[Brian Gordon]

I seriously doubt that it will be able to skip commercials on hulu. What, are you going to hit play, walk away for an hour while it records, and come back and replay it? And how does it capture the video stream and convert it on-the-fly to something other than flv? It would be easier just to watch the 15 second ads..

Re:Please Tell Us All

[Naturalis Philosopho]

Bingo. Hulu has hit that sweet spot for me in the balance between advertising and content. I get my content for the price of my internet connection and a few 15 second ads, completely legally. The ads are worth that last bit. I don't want to sit through a ton of commercials, but I also don't want to record for an hour and come back later. On network TV I find that I flip the channel at the first commercial break and never go back to the show I was watching. Hulu keeps there for the whole thing, and their advertisers actually get what they paid for: my eyes on their commercial 'cause I know it'll be over in 3, 2, 1...

This isn't sustainable

[bendodge]

Game changer? More like a game-trasher. I purposely do not block text or image ads (only flash) on websites because I know why they are there. Ads exist in video and websites to fund the content. If everyone blocks ads in video sites, the video sites will simply go away. TiVo does not have a sustainable business model here.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Hatta]

The existence of adblock hasn't caused the collapse of the web yet. If anything, giving the viewer power to view or not will encourage advertisers to make ads people want to see. I can only see this as an improvement.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[WamBam]

I like Hulu enough to sit through 30 seconds of advertising which I think is a fair trade for the programming they offer. I just can't think of a reason why I should spend $199 for a device that will eliminate 2 minutes of commercials.

TIVO was a great replacement for a VCR and no doubt had a hand in pushing 'on demand' content on to the web as well as through our cable boxes, game systems and so forth. But now that they created a market that they no longer have exclusivity over, it seems that this new device is some sort of half-assed effort to get back into the game.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Babbster]

I like Hulu enough to sit through 30 seconds of advertising which I think is a fair trade for the programming they offer.

Seriously. How commercial-intolerant would one have to be in order to get annoyed with Hulu's commercials? If network TV had that level of advertising, I'd never skip a comercial again, even with convenient 15/30-second skip buttons. I'll go further, in fact. For a 40- to 50-minute program, I'll take a full five minutes of commercials, perhaps one minute for every ten minutes of content. Sponsors willing to participate in that could expect me to give them significant consideration when I'm making purchasing decisions.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Profane MuthaFucka]

At 50 bucks an hour, you'd have to eliminate almost 4 hours of commercials to come out ahead in terms of opportunity cost for your time. 240 minutes of commercials.

If the device eliminates 2 minutes of commercials, it would have to do that just 120 times to pay for itself. Why would you NOT buy the TiVo device.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[ShieldW0lf]

Game changer? More like a game-trasher. I purposely do not block text or image ads (only flash) on websites because I know why they are there. Ads exist in video and websites to fund the content. If everyone blocks ads in video sites, the video sites will simply go away. TiVo does not have a sustainable business model here.

They sell hardware for 200 a pop. Sounds pretty sustainable to me.

If professional movie makers go away, there will be no reason to maintain an arbitrarily crippled set of tools to sell consumers so the professional tools don't get undercut. Same thing goes for music and photography.

As it stands now, the good tools are marked WAY up, such that they can only be purchased by those who are making a business out of them, while the reasonably priced tools are intentionally crippled. When there is no way to make a business out of these tools, no one will be able to afford the ridiculous markup, so they will have to drop their prices and compete fairly. After that happens, the public at large will be able to buy good tools, and create good things with those tools driven by a desire to communicate and share something that comes from within, rather than using market research to create lowest common denominator schlock and earn a buck letting propagandists weave their message into it.

I expect there will be more and better creative works available when that happens. Life will improve.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree. I had never watched anything on Hulu until just last night (for reals). I missed the most recent Family Guy and everyone at work said it was hilarious. So I watched it.

Funny thing is, the commercials were so few and far between (I think there were four 30 second commercials total) that I wasn't bothered by them at all and I actually WATCHED THEM (I never watch commercials except during the Super Bowl).

Re:This isn't sustainable

[MMC Monster]

absolutely.

The big question is, when is hulu coming out with an iPhone application?

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with Babbster, I can stand some commercials, but not 3 minutes worth of loud annoying crap. It seems 15-30 seconds of ads on online tv is fine with me. I would rather the short ad-break then to not have a legal alternative to broadcast tv.
yes I use adblock and every other form of ad blocking software because online ads are very annoying and I pay for bandwidth. I'm not paying for over the air tv (technically) so I understand their business model.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Kintanon]

Same here, when I watch shows on the CBS or NBC websites they generally have 4-5 thirty second commercials. Usually for the same product every time. It's certainly not worth 200$ for me to avoid having to watch that. I can't imagine anyone for whom that would be a reasonable purchase unless you just venomously hate advertising for some philosophical reason.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[MooseMuffin]

Hulu is one thing because its a free service, but I don't see why I should be willing to sit through any TV commercials when I pay out the ass for cable.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[jedidiah]

Put me in the category of people who don't want to sit through
the commercials AND don't want to be restricted to viewing
content on a desktop PC. Seeing stuff on Hulu tends to inspire
me to buy the relevant DVDs.

TV on DVD can be dirt cheap. Transcode it to h264 and it makes
great fodder for a virtual jukebox.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[jedidiah]

They sell hardware for 200 a pop. Sounds pretty sustainable to me.

They sell a hardware software bundle that is not unlike what
Hauppauge was doing with it's Brooktree based cards 10 years
ago. This is nothing to get excited about. It's the same thing
that everyone else is already doing.

Put a random USB ATSC tuner in a bag with SageTV or VistaMCE
and you've got the same thing as this bundle.

What Tivo is selling is not a complete solution. It's just
something to install in a "desktop PC". It's not even clear
that it would work well in a slim frontend configuration
(like MythTV on an AppleTV).

The $1000 question is why you would want to use this rather
than any other PVR software and how this will integegrate
with other Tivos?

SageTV with their cheap HD extender is the thing to beat.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Thelasko]

There is no way this will work on Hulu. Hulu notices you are using Ad-Block and locks you out. If TiVo can figure it out, why isn't there a Firefox extension that does it?

Re:This isn't sustainable

[HTH NE1]

How commercial-intolerant would one have to be in order to get annoyed with Hulu's commercials?

How much variety is there in Hulu's commercials? Will I see a repeated commercial in one hour of viewing? In three hours?

And will I see commercials I haven't been exposed to dozens of times in the last week on regular television?

Do they advertise Hulu on Hulu?

Re:This isn't sustainable

[mishehu]

What, you don't want to see annoying, strobing "punch the monkey" banner ads????

Re:This isn't sustainable

[twosmokes]

It doesn't lock you out. Or not me anyway. I get a message that says to disable my adblocking software, but the program shows up normally after 30 seconds.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[everyday17]

What, you don't want to see annoying, strobing "punch the monkey" banner ads????

Those are impossible! Every time I punch the monkey he just gets back up and starts running again.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[mattack2]

I haven't actually used Hulu or any of the other sites to watch a full length program (I have on a few rare occasions caught a bit that was clipped off due to a show being delayed slightly or if I didn't pad a show enough).. but if I used Hulu regularly, I probably *would* record it to my non-Tivo hard drive recorder so I could skip the ads. If Hulu only has a commercial at the beginning, I wouldn't, but I presume it has commercials in the middle, just like other sites.

If I could get Jeopardy online, I would watch at least some of the ads.. My local station has been preempting a lot of episodes lately.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[everyday17]

As soon as Apple stops rejecting it for competing with their YouTube app.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[mattack2]

1) because you get the Tivo interface
2) reviews have said that you can transfer the recordings to other Tivos, so it integrates just like any other standalone Tivo.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Thelasko]

It doesn't lock you out. Or not me anyway. I get a message that says to disable my adblocking software, but the program shows up normally after 30 seconds.

I've had it lock me out, and I've also seen it shows a blank screen for 30 seconds (It does this on Windows). Either way, it penalizes you for using an ad-blocker. In fact, the commercials are shorter than the 30 seconds it penalizes you for using Ad-Block, making Ad-Block completely pointless on that site.

So I return to my point. How can TiVo get around these commercials and no one has made a Firefox Extension that can do the same thing?

Re:This isn't sustainable

[prockcore]

you're paying for the delivery system, not the content.

That's like saying there shouldn't be ads on the internet because you pay for broadband.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Desprez]

If there is a social contract that says I'm obligated to watch ads to support content. Then they have a social contract to not make the ads overly annoying.

I can live with 2-3 30 second spots in a show. Probably even 60 second spots if it means less frequent breaks.

Hulu has been pushing it lately.
It seems to vary between between shows. Some shows have two 30 sec spots per half hour, some have four. I once saw an hour program with 13 breaks. That's just too much.

Also, they have begun using those annoying pop-up ads superimposed over clips. The ones with the terribly small 'x' box to close it.

But the biggest problem is that I get the impression that they are selling themselves to studios on the premise that putting limited content will drive people to watch shows on TV. And that just seems backwards to me.

If content owners refuse to release whole, up to date seasons, and if hulu continues to add more and more adds, the whole effort is going to implode as they push people to illicit sites - sites that get better every day now.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[nasor]

Are you planning to bill someone for the time that you would have spent watching the commercials?

Re:This isn't sustainable

[wastedlife]

If you value your time spent watching online videos at 50 dollars an hour, then yes this TiVo device is well worth the cost.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Anonymous Coward]

you're paying for the delivery system, not the content.

That's like saying there shouldn't be ads on the internet because you pay for broadband.

if that is the case, then why are there more than 1 package for cable. You can't tell me that they are not making money from ads. Just watch cable and see that the cable company has ads just telling people to place an ad on their cable system. If I am really paying for delivery then why do I have to pay more for extra content? Your statement just does not add up.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Anonymous Coward]

Dish, DirecTV, Comcast, etc pay for most of the content including the ad-supported sights. So it costs them to give FX to a given household, even if bundled into a package. FX also gets money from ads. The broadcast channels do not get money from cable or dish. It is somewhat dirty in that it is hard for a consumer to know what is or is not 'ad supported'. Technically, a DVD with unskippable content should be labeled CLEARLY as such so there is no confusion when you pay money for it.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[yoasif]

I think 30 seconds of nothing is better than 15 seconds of being advertised to, personally.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[BruceCage]

If everyone blocks ads in video sites, the video sites will simply go away.

I don't agree with your conclusion. Advertising certainly isn't the only method to provide funding to sustain an activity. I can only say that I'd be quite contend with having the traditional and certainly the most visible and annoying method of advertising, that of commercial interruptions, disappear. Oh and don't forget about web banners and sorts.

Even though one could argue that commercials are perhaps one of the more "honest" forms of advertising, since content is relatively clearly seperated from advertisement compared to for example product placement, or perhaps user tracking/analysis (a la Google or your local supermarket chain).

Re:This isn't sustainable

[apathy maybe]

It locks you out even if you download the content still? (And just don't view it?)

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides which, I am COMPLETELY unwilling to give them my data in return for the "privilege" of skipping ads that didn't bother me that much in the first place. Television programming is paid for by advertising. It seems reasonable to me to sit through 2:30 of commercials in return for watching a fifty-minute show.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[n00854180t]

Wait, the black screen that says "Please go here for more info on advertising with Hulu" is *NOT* the normal form of advertising on Hulu? I honestly didn't even realize that adblock was affecting it.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[celery stalk]

I take it you haven't been watching the season premiers this fall. A lot of them have been shown with "limited commercial interruptions thanks to [promoted product]." It's actually been quite nice, the commercials are between 30 and 90 seconds in length, and are different in each break, even though it's about the same product. The only drawback with that method is there isn't one long enough to get a good snack or bathroom break in.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Anonymous Coward]

How much variety is there in Hulu's commercials? Will I see a repeated commercial in one hour of viewing?

Depends. Most of the time, there's then a mix of commercials from various places. Sometimes, though, you'll get ads from just one vendor. (Hulu's programs start with a "This program is brought to you with limited commercial interruption by ...", and sometimes, but not always, that's taken to heart.) Often these are different ads, or a "series" of ads. (Sort of like the Dodge Ram series run during Monday's over-the-air Terminator:tSCC). Some cheap sponsors, though, only will have one ad that's repeated throughout the show. I've gotten sick and tired of the Army Reserve spot, and the Hungry Man spot.

But on Hulu each ad break is only one ad, and they don't have additional breaks as compared to broadcast. You'll only see three to five 15-45 second spots per hour show. The redundancy in advertisements isn't anything that viewers of prime-time programming aren't used to. (Fewer advertisers, but fewer commercials, too, so it about equals out.)

will I see commercials I haven't been exposed to dozens of times in the last week on regular television?

In general, yes. Might be my viewing habits, but I usually see commercials on Hulu before they make it to regular TV.

Do they advertise Hulu on Hulu?

Not as such, but occasionally they replace the "sponsored by ..." announcement by a "Hulu users are proud to support [insert charity here]"

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Chyeld]

It can't. The article author is a moron who is trying to drum up scares. The Tivo product he is refering to is not "Tivo for Hulu" despite how he describes it. It's just a normal TV tuner (i.e. a card that lets you watch normal TV on the PC) with Tivo software to allow you to do the same things you could have done with a stand alone DVR.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps people are prepared to spend $199 because the adverts are manipulative, devious, insincere, anoying if not outright insulting and an affront to ones intelligence.

Also some are prepared to spend $199 because the marketing industry is run by inhuman shits. I write this because ads and commercials have long been researched, developed and crafted to influence you with out your involvement.

So $199 is a bargain for not having to listen/watch disingenous assholes.

Shame TiVo is collecting the metadata, but then again, I was born in 1990, am Female and from Afganistan so who knows.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[jedidiah]

1) The Tivo interface is overhyped.
2) "transfers" are crude and inferior when compared to
      every other PVR solution where all content is visible
      to all devices.

What Tivo brings to the table is a robust ready made appliance.
Take that way by making it something that you add to a random
collection of spare parts put together by the end user and
suddenly the Tivo advantage evaporates.

Tivo only looks great if you selectively compare it to the
worst of it's competitors. Most people are content to use
whatever their cable company provides. That's why Tivo
resorted to suing Dish. They can't cope otherwise.

Also, Tivo is a generic brand name like Xerox at this point.

This "brand awareness" doesn't mean what you think it does.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

"Yet" is the operative word. The commercial internet is currently working without subscriptions only because relatively people are using adblock. The fact that the internet hasn't collapsed yet is in accordance with Professor Farnsworth's idea of good news (everybody).

Re:This isn't sustainable

[LingNoi]

For the same reason ISPs want you to pay a premium package and kill network neutrality.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[ErikZ]

I agree.

A full half hour of commercials for a 1.5 hour movie is ridiculous, and is one of the main reasons I left TV.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

The existence of adblock hasn't caused the collapse of the web yet. If anything, giving the viewer power to view or not will encourage advertisers to make ads people want to see. I can only see this as an improvement.

On the other hand, it's only a very small minority of people who are using adblock and similar products.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[TTURabble]

All cable companies can, and do, inject advertising into the streams of its channels. This is not a new thing, in fact you probably never noticed it before.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[mattack2]

Tivo only looks great if you selectively compare it to the worst of it's competitors. Most people are content to use whatever their cable company provides. That's why Tivo resorted to suing Dish. They can't cope otherwise.

That is absolutely ridiculous. Regardless of what you think about patents, Tivo has patents, and DISH violated them, so they sued, and won.

You think Tivo's interface is overhyped. Great, then don't use it. (I have a standalone hard drive/DVD recorder that I use _along_ with my Tivos.. because I too thought there were some features missing in the Tivo/DVD recorder combinations.) But for what they do, Tivos do them very well.. Can you get your cable DVR without a monthly fee? (Yes, Tivo got rid of the lifetime option for a while, but thankfully, it's back.)

There are lots of things that I would *add* to Tivo's interface, but other DVRs don't have the features I want either. Heck, I had a free cable DVR for a year (though they goofed up and I had to complain to get the mistaken billing removed from my bill)... and after a week or two, I unplugged it, and returned it a few months later. Even free, the cable DVR was crap. (The *biggest* problem is that you can't even remove channels you don't receive, like Tivos, and essentially every VCR has had for decades).

Re:This isn't sustainable

[default luser]

All cable companies can, and do, inject advertising into the streams of its channels. This is not a new thing, in fact you probably never noticed it before

I seriously doubt that. You'd have to be blind not to notice the huge difference in production values between the national ads and the local ads they sandwich-in. It doesn't help that most of the local ads are still delivered to the affiliates on VHS.

Or do you really think that these Chilltrol commercials have the look and feel of a national ad campaign? At least the local commercials are so bad, they're funny!

Re:This isn't sustainable

[TTURabble]

Pinpoint Your Geography & Increase Efficiency
Local cable television geo-targets your message so it reaches only the consumers most likely to visit your retail locations. Zoning strategy eliminates waste, making your buy more cost-efficient.

http://www.cablemediasales.com/pages/prdsv/?cp=prdsv

--------

cable's flexibility allows you to reach an area as large as an entire market area or as small as a single zip code. This has been the benefit of "spot" or local cable television, for the last 20 years.

Advertising in a single market
Comcast Spotlight can help you advertise on cable in over 90 of the country's 210 DMAs or Designated Market Areas. A DMA is a unique geographic area defined by Nielsen Media Research.

http://www.comcastspotlight.com/SITES/Default.aspx?&siteid=62&pageid=9774&subnav=1

--------

such as MTV®, ESPN, and many more. For years cable television advertising has been delivering targeted advertising solutions to businesses just like yours. Along with the most recognized cable television networks, you are given the opportunity to advertise either in a single zone or geographic area that corresponds to where the majority of your customers live and shop or you can advertise in the entire market to reach a much broader demographic base. We offer you with the option of targeting your customers geographically or demographically.

http://www.chartermedia.com/Products.aspx

--------

How can they possibly place different advertising in different areas at the same time?
You've seen a geographically placed advertisement on your Comedy Central or ESPN or MTV or any other cable channel, you've just never noticed it because Joe Blow crap TV ad isn't going to have the cash to advertise on cable, while a company with a little more capital and an advertising agency will pull off a professional advertisement that fits seamlessly in with the cable stream.

And in case you were wondering how they squeezed in an extra 30 second spot without messing up the program run-time, well they either ran the ad over another 30 second (or however long they want) spot that was direct from the station, or (and this is more for cable specific channels) they actually have set up 30 second spots of dead air specifically for your cable company to overlay their ads.

Re:This isn't sustainable

[GWBasic]

I like Hulu enough to sit through 30 seconds of advertising which I think is a fair trade for the programming they offer. I just can't think of a reason why I should spend $199 for a device that will eliminate 2 minutes of commercials.

...I can think of a reason: When Tivo buys all the ads and fills up the 30 seconds with some guy sraping his nails on a chalk board saying "If you bought a Tivo you could skip this torture."

No answers.

[Aladrin]

TFA asks a lot of questions but provides no answers whatsoever.

Personally, I doubt Hulu is going to let Tivo access their service and then skip the commercials unless Tivo is paying them every time a user does that. It would be suicide for Hulu.

ABC, NBC, etc etc are all in the same boat, except that it's not suicide and merely stupid for them.

I also doubt that user viewing preferences matters at all in an environment that can skip commercials. Unless they are looking for the demographic that won't watch the commercials no matter what... I can't imagine what use that data is.

Re:No answers.

[LMacG]

As I understood TFA, he's just saying that being able to record shows on your PC with TiVo's device will eliminate the need for people to watch those shows via Hulu. Other than that, it was mostly blah blah blah TiVo blah blah.

Re:No answers.

[speroni]

I doubt Hulu is going to have a say in the matter. I imagine a system where you set TiVo to record the video from your PC instead of from your cable box, then allows you to fast forward at your leisure.

Something where the output is recorded not so much downloaded onto the tivo.

Re:No answers.

[Chyeld]

This is a FUD article from someone with a vested interest against TiVo and who either has not a clue what he's talking about or is intentionally confusing two things.

This is a PC based DVR, not a DVR for online video. You aren't going to be recording Hulu off this, just your standard TV.

Re:No answers.

[jedidiah]

As I understood TFA, he's just saying that being able to record shows on your PC with TiVo's device will eliminate the need for people to watch those shows via Hulu. Other than that, it was mostly blah blah blah TiVo blah blah.

Yeah... but you can already do that with real Tivo and that's
a "complete" solution. You can also do this with a cableco
provided PVR. You can also do this with the various Linux,
Mac or Windows PVR software options.

I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

An anonymous reader writes sends in an article...

Is this ungrammatical phrase just a mistake by kdawson, or did the submitter try to prank it by using the submission name "An anonymous reader writes"?

If it's the latter case: isn't pranking Slashdot's grammar redundant?

Re:I wonder...

[mcgrew]

It's a mistake by kdawson. The editors here do actually edit, often to the detriment of the submitted text =P. Many stories I've submitted bear little resemblance to what I actually wrote when they get posted.

"An anonymous reader writes sends in an article" is the kind of mistake I've made in my (usually NSFW but the latest isn't) journals.

If it was pranking, it would read A submitter named "An anonymous reader writes" sends in an article...

(NKB and NSB boxes checked)

Why?

[neokushan]

TV tuners are by no means anything new, the only difference this really has is that it has the TiVo name. I dare say that most people who want to plug a tuner into their PC already know this and can probably install software that does everything this does, except for free.
I can't see it changing anything, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a teribly big market for TV tuners (there's a market all right, but it's nowhere near as big as say graphics cards or even sound cards, I'd bet - most people simply don't like being hunched over their monitor to watch TV and those that want to watch it on their actual TV would be better off with a standard TiVo box, or similar, anyway).

Re:Why?

[mongoose(!no)]

You're missing the power of the brand. I've got a TV tuner in my PC, and when I record things, the best way to explain it to people is "like a TiVo, but on my computer". It's not terribly simple, especially on a college campus where the TV lineup isn't as straight forward as entering your cable company and zip code.

If TiVo makes the TV tuner work really well, I imagine they could capture a good bit of the market. I imagine people could care less who makes their graphics card, but if they see "TiVo, but for my PC", it might make them think about getting one.

Re:Why?

[neokushan]

I suppose so, it's hard to gauge the importance of the brand because I'm from the UK and TiVo doesn't really have a significant market here that I'm aware of (Our Cable/Satellite TV companies supply their own boxes that do the same sort of thing).

Re:Why?

[jedidiah]

I am always fascinated by this sort of rhetoric.

My computer monitor is bigger than my first TV and has been for a long time.

If you're willing to watch Hulu then watching a PVR recording on the same machine shouldn't be such a big deal.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not even have to install much with Vista. It INCLUDES a very similar service to tivo, Media Center. It would have to be bad ass to get past the 'free' one included on new PCs. I used Media Center with XP and it was 'ok'. It was usable and with the 360 extender it was plugged right into my main TV. Now however I am FREE of TV. It is out of my life. I buy the seasons of whatever I want on DVD and save the 60 bucks a month in fees then watch at my leisure. I can even get on craigslist and trade season X for Season Y.

Oh and you do not even need 'ultimate' to get it.

Re:Why?

[elrous0]

The Tivo interface is nice (and that's basically ALL you're buying here, since Pd-based DVR's like BeyondTV and MythTV have been around for years). But so much on a PC-based DVR is dependent on the right hardware and configuration. You can't just used any old videocard if you want good results, for example. Most videocards don't even have the kinds of inputs and outputs you need for this sort of thing, and almost none of them do hardware video encoding (the way the Hauppauge cards do). So you can't just slap "Tivo PC" onto your standard PC and have it work like a stand-alone Tivo. Not even close.

Re:Why?

[I'm not really here]

My computer monitor is my 42" Plasma TV... sounds like a perfect option to me (though I already have a setup that works for me, so why would I need Tivo's solution?)

Re:Why?

[mattack2]

That's funny, because the UK is the second country in which Tivos were released. I think they may have left the market after a few years, I'm not sure.

Re:Why?

[mattack2]

But do you sit back on your couch to watch your computer screen, and control your TV from across the room with a remote?

Sure, you *can*, but I don't think most people do. Why has the Roku gotten a lot of press? Because it's a relatively cheap way of watching stuff "that you had to previously watch on the computer" on a TV set.

Re:Why?

[neokushan]

I couldn't honestly say if it's taken off in the UK much at all, all I know is that I've yet to see a TiVo box in any of the big electronics stores we have and I don't know a single person that owns one, but I know plenty of people with Sky (Pretty much the ONLY people who do satellite TV in the UK) and Virgin (Pretty much the ONLY people who do Cable TV in the UK) boxes that have recording functionality built in (they're both highly original names, too - Sky has their "Sky+" boxes and Virgin has a "V+" box).
Another good comparison, albeit a highly objective one, is the state of the respective websites. The US TiVo site looks all fancy and modern, what you'd expect these days, but the UK version looks...well...lets just say 10 years ago I made a site in FrontPage 97 that looked about as good.

Re:Why?

[funkdancer]

My self built 4.5tb quad core'd Vista PC in a sleek black Zalman HD160XT case with a BR Rom, dual DVI-B tuner and Vista Media Centre up front does a fantastic job of recording Australian HDTV, playing back 1080/720 h264 mkv files, BluRay and more. "More" would include e.g. browsing stuff on the big screen with missus, watching online video services such as Youtube, act as a temp file / torrent server for my Linux one that bought the farm half a year ago, games.

Oh and it just turned 1 year old....

It's easy enough to explain down here in Australia, but it might help that my friends and colleagues are all pretty smart even if not all as geeky as myself --- and that Tivo isn't what iPod is to a PMP here yet.

It buggers me that I now have to pay money for quality EPG, however IceTV does a good job of getting the data out of the quite paranoid FTA channels who scream bloody murder at the thought of anyone skipping their ads.

Their most effective counter reaction is to run everything off schedule; I'm sure they're claiming that's just how it turns out, but I refuse to believe that if they can run everything so consistently off schedule they couldn't just as well plan it correctly. It's nothing that an "add 15 minutes to every recording" won't fix in most cases.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never seen a TiVo either, and I'm in Canada.

I dunno...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty much comfortable with the level of advertising at Hulu. I dunno why I'd need program to get around it. Television, well that just makes sense. The commercials are intrusive. Hulu though, well for once I think they got it right.

wtf?

[JustinOpinion]

This article seems nonsensical to me.

a TV tuner that can be plugged into a PC -- will let Net viewers of the likes of Hulu.com and ABC.com skip commercials in the nascent medium of online video.

What? Why do I need a TiVo TV Tuner box to watch online videos? Stripping commercials from online streaming video sounds like a software task. And saving the streaming video so that you can jump past the commercials doesn't require any special TiVo magic (whether hardware, subscription, or software). Will we see software and utilities that allow you to skip ads on online video? Probably. But what does this have to do with a TV-Tuner card for your PC?

The article also asks some nonsensical questions:

Does the arrival of the TiVo PC set-top box represent the final convergence of television and Internet video?

No. TV-Tuner cards and online video have existed for awhile. I don't see how a TiVo box changes anything. Yes, it might make "TV on your computer" more accessible to the masses... but that isn't a "final convergence" of anything, really. Sure, the lines are blurring between TV and Internet. And TiVo is part of that inevitable change. But this box isn't a revolution.

What will be the impact of TiVo's new device on the online video economy?

None. It's a TV-Tuner card, isn't it? (People watch Hulu because they don't want to pay for the equivalent cable channels.)

Will TiVo be remembered as the company that helped slaughter the advertising golden goose that has enriched the broadcasting industry for the last 50 years?

Doubtful. TiVo hasn't demolished TV ads yet. Strangely, PVRs in general haven't either. And AdBlock hasn't demolished web ads. These are all part of the arms race which keep ads sufficiently non-annoying that a sizeable fraction of the population doesn't bother avoiding. There will always be people who avoid them. But most people don't bother.

Add to this the fact that part of TiVo's strategy is to deliver ads to customers somehow... I hardly think that this new box changes much for the ad industry.

Re:wtf?

[gEvil (beta)]

Agreed. This guy doesn't understand the difference between using a TV tuner card and watching online videos via a website. By not understanding this distinction, his entire article and all the arguments it makes are nonsensical.

Re:wtf?

[LMacG]

He's barely coherent, but I think what he's saying is that if Joe Consumer, who currently watches shows via Hulu or nbc.com, will stop doing that and start using his brand new Tivo device.

Totally agree that it's all nonsense though. He's apparently pissed that nobody from TiVo called him back.

Re:wtf?

[mcgrew]

Have you ever heard of that web site? Neither have I. Today's /. stories seem a mixture of very good nerd stories ("Two Europeans Indicted In US For 2003 DDOS Attacks", "Next-Gen Mars Rover In Danger of Cancellation:) and anti-nerd, almost jock like crap like "How Mobile Phones Work Behind the Scenes" (we're nerds, we already know how they work) and this one.

Nobody's perfect, I'll cut kdawson and timothy (and the firehose drinkers) some slack.

Re:wtf?

[Duradin]

For once, D(on't)RTFA. Really. If you thought the summary was confusing TFA will make it even worse.

About the only facts in it are: TiVo is releasing a computer peripheral. The peripheral will cost $199. The peripheral uses TiVo's subscription service. Continuing the subscription will cost $99 annually.

Re:wtf?

[moderatorrater]

People watch Hulu because they don't want to pay for the equivalent cable channels

Actually, I'm just the opposite. The content that's on cable channels I can watch pretty easily, although sometimes I'll re-watch it on Hulu. I get my normal channel content through Hulu, because I don't have the time or the energy to keep track of when the next episode of something's going to show. I'll just take the one week wait and watch it on Hulu later.

Optional Commercials

[CopaceticOpus]

It will be easy for Hulu and other sites to block this TiVo from skipping commercials. If it comes down to it they can switch to their own proprietary streaming software, though hopefully it won't become a DRM mess.

What I'd like to see if for commercials to be optional. Say that NBC takes in 25 cents from advertisers when a viewer watches a 30 minute show. Give the user an option to create an account, enter a credit card, and turn commercials off. Every show watched would be added to the account, with the card being charged every so often. If a user doesn't want to pay, they could accept ads. They might turn off ads for their favorite drama, but accept ads for a comedy they are watching while folding laundry.

Re:Optional Commercials

[An ominous Cow art]

Great idea. I'd sign up for that in an instant, as long as they stop the #$%^ing blatant 'product placement' as well, as in the most recent Simpsons episode.

Re:Optional Commercials

[mattack2]

What product placement? I'm serious, I must have forgotten it.

I *hate* regular ads(*), but most product placement really doesn't bother me. I'd vote for _more_ product placement, if it actually lowered the amount of ads I had to 30 second skip past.

(*) Except seeing new Jack in the Box ads, once, as well as a few other types of funny commercials.. once.. then I skip them too.

Re:Optional Commercials

[An ominous Cow art]

I hate to help them out by saying what the product was, but... it was 'Pop Tarts' in Sunday night's episode. By a funny coincidence I happened to be eating some right at the moment it happened.

Re:Optional Commercials

[mattack2]

I vaguely remember that. But does anyone have proof it is product placement? Personally, using *real* brands is preferable to using fake brands. It's similar to when MTV fuzzes out brand names of (I presume) competitors of the program sponsors... But that makes me notice/figure out the fuzzed out images/brands way more than the brands they make a big deal about (e.g. the prizes on the Real World/Road Rules competition).

Zap hulu commercials?

[Hoplite3]

No no no, no one needs to zap hulu commercials. I mean it'd be nice, but not $199 nice. Current hulu advertising breaks are quite short an bearable.

What tivo COULD do is provide a couch-based way of using hulu, with an alternate UI that's remote control friendly. Make it work for youtube, and it'd be a good back-up plan at parties, where guests could show "teh internet funnah" to others around on the TV with minimal fuss.

But xbox 360 and that other netflix movie watcher box are going in this direction too. Market is going to be crowded. That's good for me!

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[Sj0]

I was at a party a while ago where the host used his Wii browser to show some cool youtube videos. Sounds like a good idea to me, and a much better use of 199 dollars.

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[Reivec]

I already do this. I simply have a media PC and use the logitech DiNovo keyboard to load hulu on my TV over HDMI. Looks great and allowed me to cancel my cable. :)

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[geminidomino]

I was at a party a while ago where the host used his Wii browser to show some cool youtube videos. Sounds like a good idea to me, and a much better use of 199 dollars.

An even better use of $199: Buy some friends who don't think "dicking around on the net with a Wii" is how you have a party. ;)

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[Sj0]

Speak for yourself. Drinking beer and watching some WFC videos is a good time for most men.

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[geminidomino]

WFC is definitely a matter of taste, but
"A good time" != "A party"

Shit, I'm a neckbeard unix geek, but even I know that sitting around sucking on a beer and staring passively at a screen isn't a party. You need to be SOCIAL.

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[Sj0]

Perhaps it's because you're a neckbeard unix geek that you've never been in a situation where watching a video is an active, social situation.

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[mattack2]

YouTube already works on standalone Tivo boxes (and on AppleTV, btw).

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought my wife a new laptop (less than $500) about 2 months ago with HDMI out, so I can already do that. The resolution isn't what I'd like though, but there's not much you can do on that end.

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[Scott Francis[Mecham]

Only on HD or Series3 boxes, though.

(looking depressingly at the Series2 I just bought last year, and strongly thinking about building an HTPC this year)

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[mattack2]

I don't even have a HDTV, but I transferred (for $200, which is less than the current lifetime price) the lifetime subscriptions from my two S1s to a S3 & Tivo HD when they had special transfer offers.

Re:Zap hulu commercials?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called Apple TV. You should check it out.

Author an Idiot!

[jdc180]

The Tivo Software for the PC is simply a reproduction of the Tivo software in the tivo boxes that works on your Windows PC. It's not going to allow you to skip or record online videos, it will allow you to skip and record TV.

Re:Author an Idiot!

[rakeshagrawal]

I agree with you. The author rode into this story on a unicorn. (and I founded SnapStream, makers of Beyond TV, one of more popular PC DVR programs out there)

Keen Seems to Misunderstand Tivo PC

[OG]

He seems to believe that Tivo PC is a method of accessing online content, but it's not. If you have a TV tuner card in your PC, it lets you use the Tivo software with that card. That's all.

There's nothing you can do with this new product that you can't already do with MythTV or similar products. People who are going to save programs, edit out commercials, and post the final product up on the web are already doing it. This won't facilitate such behavior.

Keen doesn't seem to have a clue as to what this product actually does.

Re:Keen Seems to Misunderstand Tivo PC

[elrous0]

This incoherent garbage should have never been accepted on /., much less on the front page.

"TV Tuner" to skip ads in online video?

[stevenm86]

Wait... what? A TV tuner that skips ads in online video. Someone explain, how does that work, exactly? A TV tuner to skip commercials in broadcast TV, now that I can understand. Myth has a very decent commercial detector. But this thing skips ads in online video... how does it become a tuner? Besides, adblock plus seems to be doing a fantastic job in blocking most youtube ads anyway.

Re:"TV Tuner" to skip ads in online video?

[jedidiah]

Have some sort of robotic downloader "watch the content" and store that.
Once you have this "recording" then you treat it like any other "recording"
that might have come from a PVR150 or an HDHomeRun. Slice it, dice it, or
allow the end user to skip through it in 30 second intervals.

Re:"TV Tuner" to skip ads in online video?

[stevenm86]

Replay Media Catcher (commercial software) sort of already does this. It sticks its grubby little fingers into the TCP layer and grabs up the packets of the flash video streaming to the player. The neat thing is that the video is usually a continuous stream, with the player inserting ads in the middle... so if you were to do something like that, no further processing of the video would be required.

Re:"TV Tuner" to skip ads in online video?

[jedidiah]

What I envision would be a "web recorder" that goes out to the
web and grabs stuff and puts it onto your media player so you
can watch it from the couch. Mebbe have some rules. Treat
sites like channels and apply all the same scheduling logic.

Re:"TV Tuner" to skip ads in online video?

[stevenm86]

That would be awesome, and not entirely infeasible. A bot to open up sites (that it gets from RSS or whatever) and automatically grab up the video using RMC or a similar implementation as described above. Then dump it to a mobile device and it is easy from there. But sadly, I am afraid terms of service and all those pesky laws would never make such a thing legal, since it would extract just the content and not all those (text, banner, or video) ads.

Call me crazy...

[Slartibartfast]

but why would the marketplace buy a TiVo PC? Regardless of commercial-zapping potential. Sure, $200 is decent, but there've been business models along those lines before that haven't gone anywhere (e.g., the ol' buy-a-computer-with-two-years-of-AOL-and-get-it-damn-cheap). I fail to see a true differentiator here -- at least, one that would sway any significant percentage of home computer users.

Two words...

[mweather]

Product Placement.

Stop the damned advertising

[TheMiddleRoad]

I don't want to see ads anymore. If I never see another, my life will be much improved. I'm perfectly happy to pay for good content if that's the way to get it. Of course, I'm happier to get it for free, but ads are not free. Their toll is psychic.

So right now, I block ads. Few if any make it past noscript and adblock plus combined. The rare times I use a different computer, it's like walking into Vegas. How obnoxious.

Re:Stop the damned advertising

[I'm not really here]

I'm just tired of paying for content and then also having to deal with commercials. Thank goodness I timeshift everything and can skip the commercials anyways, but what the heck? I pay for this content... why do I still have to suffer through the ads? Oh, and Tivo is a bad idea on a PC... MythTV indeed does this well, and for free... but I guess I'm not their target market.

Re:Stop the damned advertising

[TheMiddleRoad]

When I go to the gas station, a video plays above the meter. At the grocery store, the floor has ads, and at some, a video plays at checkout. If I buy a DVD, they have ads. If I pay 10 bucks for a movie, I have to watch ads. In a magazine I subscribe to, half the pages are ads, some running several pages in a row. I'm just sick of it. So I avoid the video gas stations, ad laden supermarkets, and so on.

I swear, they make piracy a more attractive option every single day.

Re:Stop the damned advertising

[I'm not really here]

Yes they do, and this is coming from someone who firmly, firmly believes in "thou shalt not steal" - yet I feel like my life is being stolen from me daily by these people. My peace of mind, my quiet outdoors, my personal privacy, my everything. Now, to not "steal", I buy the product (DVD, Cable TV, etc.) and then do whatever it takes to get the content in an ad free manner. They already got my money, so I am not stealing when I pull the stuff from another server or medium (anymore than downloading the Super Mario Brothers ROM is stealing when I have the physical media sitting in the other room... I have a license to play that game.)

If the advertisers would get it together, perhaps they could figure out that we don't like ads, and perhaps they would realize that subtle product placement (and I repeat subtle ) does a better job of advertising than ads do (seeing a mac in use makes more sense, though the mac ads are great!).

Sorry... I'll stop my rant. I just am so disgusted by how far they have bent me, to the point of breaking my own moral code just to get them to get out of my way.

Actually...

[Sj0]

I've been using a lot of these services. Honestly, for the flexibility to watch the shows when I want how I want, I'm more than willing to watch advertisements, especially if they're targetted at my demographic.

I really like having free and legal on-demand streaming television shows available from trustworthy sources. I would like to see these services continue and expand. I wouldn't buy TiVo for the PC, because I want to promote it, make execs think they're really onto something.

not necessarily

[Presto Vivace]

TiVo let viewers zap commercials on broadcast TV, TiVo PC A friend used to transfer his TIVO'd Daily Show recordings onto DVD's for me. You can't FF on a DVD the way you can on tape. So, I saw commercials I otherwise would not have seen. Theoretically he could have edited out the commercials, but there is so much you can ask of a friend. It really is not clear how this all shakes out.

Re:not necessarily

[Duradin]

Try the >> button instead of the >| button.

I've yet to encounter a DVD player that didn't have a x2 x4 x8 fast forward.

It so happens the my ferret pulled off and hid that particular button from my remote but the functionality is still there.

Re:not necessarily

[Presto Vivace]

I'll keep that in mind.

Troll alert

[CSMatt]

For those unaware of who this is, this is the guy who compared user-generated content to communism.

I'm not kidding.

Re:Troll alert

[BruceCage]

Ah yes, the guy who wrote the book titled "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture" or the full subtitle of "How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today's user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values".

Some more great quotes from Andrew Keen in an interview with Paula Newton on CNN.

"I think we've got to learn to read and listen to professionals rather than ourselves, because ultimately they're the ones who are experts, they're the ones who know how to collect the news, they're the ones who know how to make great music and compelling movies not ourselves. "

"The beauty of mainstream media is that you have editors, you have gatekeepers, who are relatively objective, who are professional, who ensure that the majority of the news is unbiased."

Perhaps one of these days I'll actually read into this guy some more under the guise of "Know Thy Enemy", but at the moment I have better things to do with my time.

He's also given a talk at Google by the way.

Re:Troll alert

[BruceCage]

Replying to my own post here.

After watching the entire 60 minute Google Talk I linked above I have to honestly say that he doesn't quite come off as a cook and might even make some interesting points.

However, I still don't think he "Gets It" (TM), where it is the Internet. At times he makes sense, but at others he simply incoherently rants away. Later in this post I'll provide an example of this since I've transcripted some of the interesting parts from the Google Talk.

We'll start of with an interesting statement that to me certainly makes sense.

[25:23] - Andrew Keen: "This Web 2.0 media is indeed compounding media illiteracy. And I think it's media illiteracy that I most care about in this book, because I think that is one of the most fundamental problems in America. It's what got is into the mess in Iraq, it's what corrupts American politics. The idea that people really don't know what's going on. Television doesn't do a good job. I think mainstream newspapers do. I think serious publishing books do. But my sense is that the democratized Internet is increasingly miscellaneous, unreliable, corrupt and trivial."

A good point which I completely agree with came from somebody from the audience:

[26:09] - Person from the audience: "So your argument is reminding me a lot of some research I did my last year in college, which was a year ago. It sounds a lot like the crisis librarians think they're in right now, in that they're increasingly dealing with a population of students -- even at the college level -- who are completely information illiterate. I guess their phrase is "Information Versus Media".

Just in the last couple of days I've been helping some friends who are in college with papers and I've been surprised at the same sort of sense that they don't even know how to start using resources, or make sense of how you can use the Internet to get to credible information.

But it makes me feel like the problem isn't with the Internet itself but with the systems we have in place to educate people about how to discern that information and perhaps we should be focusing on the correct way to do that in our society versus -- I guess -- looking at the problems on the Internet itself."

His response to this statement is precisely what illustrates that he doesn't "Get It".

[27:08] - Andrew Keen: "I think that's a very fair point and I appreciate the fact that your research is really strengthening my case.

Let me explain that my book is not a Luddite's text. It's not anti-technology, I'm as pro technology as anyone. I have my gadgets, I have my computers and my fancy home theater and all the rest of it.

I see the Internet as a mirror. When we look at the Internet we're looking at ourselves. And when we look at Web 2.0, obviously some of the things we see are wonderful. We see energy, excitement, we see a youthful culture.

But when we look at Web 2.0 we're also looking at ourselves. We see an addiction to pornography, we see massive online gambling, we see ubiquitous anonymity. An anonymous culture in which people seem to be perpetually insulting one another.

We see the fragmentation of taste. A fragmentation so dramatic in some respects that what we're seeing is 250 million channels. We see a media which is increasingly defined as an echo chamber, in which the ideal of the Web as a platform for conversation and for the free exchange of information has become a place where we simply go to conform what we already believe."

However, I think another valid point he makes concerns the way Google gathers information or more importantly how they store it (I can't be bothered to look up their data retention policy at the moment to verify). I snipped some sections here and there ([...]) to try and convey his point somewhat better, if you want you can listen to the original.

Re:Troll alert

[Slicebo]

I appreciate your thoughtful comments. I agree that Keen is correct about *some* of the issues that the new media creates.

The difficulty is his proposed solution: we should all agree to defer to the opinions some "elite" group whose education, class and taste make them worthy to tell the rest of us what to like.

I decline.

His solution is worse than offensive. . . it's GOOFY. It can't be done.

It's not really a solution at all. It's just a yearning for how he thinks things used to be, and he's wrong about that, too.

Andrew Keen is a professional crank. . .

[Slicebo]

All you ever need to know about Andrew Keen can determined by reading this post at his blog:

http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/akfiles/eleven.htm

Then read Justin's post, and the accompanying comments, at classicalvalues.com:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2006/04/andrew_keen_sto.html

Re:Andrew Keen is a professional crank. . .

[Chyeld]

Or the blurbs about his book:

Andrew Keen's new book, The Cult of the Amateur is the latest addition to the Newsnight book club. In it, the author expresses his concern for the profligacy of online amateurism, spawned by the digital revolution. This, he feels, has had a destructive impact on our culture, economy and values.

He says, "[They] can use their networked computers to publish everything from uninformed political commentary, to unseemly home videos, to embarrassingly amateurish music, to unreadable poems, reviews, essays, and novels".

He complains that blogs are "collectively corrupting and confusing popular opinion about everything from politics, to commerce, to arts and culture".

He claims that Wikipedia perpetuates a cycle of misinformation and ignorance, and labels YouTube inane and absurd, "showing poor fools dancing, singing, eating, washing, shopping, driving, cleaning, sleeping, or just staring at their computers."

He warns that old media is facing extinction - "say goodbye to experts and cultural gatekeepers - our reporters, news anchors, editors, music companies, and Hollywood movie studios."

TV is linear, online is not; use banners

[hessian]

Advertising within videos shown online is always going to be a failure. Online videos are not linear. We can fast forward, skip around, or go to another page.

TV is linear, at least without TiVo or MythTV. You have to watch what's there, so you mute and leave the room for commercials. (Does anyone like commercials? The witty ones are fun -- the first time of 800 times you'll see them.)

They need to adapt to online reality. Sell banner ads and Google ads, or Amazon referrer links. That's the online reality. TV is for dinosaurs ;)

Over-reaching speculation gets you nowhere

[ProsperoDGC]

TiVo PC is not capable of allowing viewers to skip commercials on Hulu.com and the like. Read the reviews (like this one) for proof. It's a device to enable recording of broadcast/cable TV shows on a Windoze box. That's it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with recording net-streaming video, or anything else that regular TiVos currently can't do. This kind of over-reaching speculation is irritating, distracting, and unhelpful. Andrew Keen is, I think, a little too keen (haha, do you see what I did there?) to create controversy and a little less inclined to check his facts.

Call to Opt-out

[Anonymous Coward]

Just call TiVo to have them remove you from their statistics gathering.

Funny, funny stuff

[93 Escort Wagon]

Guys like the linked blogger are so out of touch - they're so full of themselves. Like with this quote:

"I did contact TiVo to learn more about its intentions, but -- surprise, surprise -- they never got back to me."

The blogger implies that the obvious reason for this is because Tivo is afraid to talk to him. Somehow he doesn't understand that maybe, just maybe, Tivo has no idea who he is and doesn't want to spend all their time answering questions from every blogger on the net?

It's pretty much the same situation as when some nut-job keeps yelling about how the "scientific community is afraid to debate him". No, they just don't see the point in wasting two hours of their lives for no good reason.

There's nothing original about this product

[Anonymous Coward]

TiVo PC is just Windows Media Center Edition from a different company. Why pay for the software when you can get it bundled with the operating system? The real missing piece to almost all PC solutions is the lack of CableCARD. The last time I checked, there were only one or two PC's that CableLabs had certified.

This guy is an idiot!

[vmcolombo]

He obviously does not understand the new TivoPC product at all! It is simply a bundle of a TV Tuner and the TiVo software. It's significant because it's the first time TiVo software has been available outside a TiVo box, but other than that this is nothing new. It does not allow you to skip commercials in online content, and it does not allow you to output online content to your TV. I would really think someone posting an article commenting on a new product, and how said product is going to kill online video sites, would take the time to look into the products features and functions. This is simply irresponsible and angers me greatly!

studentische unternehmensberatungen

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that you should use open source software to record tv shows. If you cannot find the open source software that helps you with this, you can always get it custom made, for example at via-ev.de thats a studentische unternehmensberatung from germany.

Where do the ads go?

[SneakyMishkin]

If Rogers thinks that this is "game over" for ads he is extremely out of touch. The more people remove ads from around the content, the more companies will place ads IN the content. I hate advertising as much as the next guy but I think this will just end up bluring the lines between content and ads. The shift obviously started long ago but it will become more serious if people keep bragging about not watching ads.
To make a reference Slashdot will recognize... think Heroes.
"Oh my god dad! You got me a Rogue!"
"I need to rent a Nissan Versa." "Let's go get the Versa." "Meet me at the Versa."

Re:...but JESUS CHRIST is a LIFE changer

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as scary as being molested by your priest.

Here's why, and how.

[bughunter]

At the current price points and inconvenience factors, the market for PC/mac TV Tuners is probably close to saturated. To sell PC tuners, one has to either a) be satisfied with the meager increase in market as the saturation curve approaches its asymptote, or b) find a new market. Option a) is a loser. So that leaves b).

If Tivo can leverage their trademark familiarity -and- create an easy-to-install product, then they might be able to attract a new market segment and make some real money. Furthermore, it will attract new people to their subscription model, the market for which surely has become indistinguishable from its asymptote for some time now.

One could easily speculate also that Tivo is testing the waters for moving away from set top boxes and towards PC peripherals, or even integrated TV-ready PC/encoder systems.

As for the "TV on computers is unnecessary/threatening/diluting/eye-strainin" arguments, they're hard to support. I put EyeTV on the 24" iMac in our lounge area off the kitchen, and now no one watches anything in the media room on the big 42" TV with surround sound anymore, except the occasional DVD. The 24" display is fine for the size of the room it's in, and time shifting, rewind-and-review, and commercial editing make TV so much more watchable that a TV+Tuner+DVD just doesn't cut it. I haven't watched a commercial in months, except for one or two that caught my eye ("whoa - boobs!") as I was 30-second-skipping past them.

And we watch very very little content produced for the web. Except for a few programs like Democracy Now, it's all major network broadcasts and MPAA DVDs. We use Miro to torrent programs that we fail to record for some reason, or that our cable provider doesn't carry (they've been moving channels from clear QAM analog to digital only, and I *refuse* to lease a set top box). Web video is still far too poor quality to be watchable for long, and we have too little free time to tolerate much amateur content.

I'm gonna go drop $500 on a nice DVD+HD recorder for the media room to make it useful again, until I can afford to upgrade to the 1040p TV + Mac Mini + EyeTV combo. I've seen it done, and it looks great. If Tivo had a competitively-priced product that I could easily add on to a new 1040p TV that gave me complete freedom to shift, edit and skip content, without DRM restrictions, then I'd certainly consider it alongside EyeTV and MythTV.

Hulu's biggest problem

[camperdave]

Sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States

Hulu is committed to making its content available worldwide. To do so, we must work through a number of legal and business issues, including obtaining international streaming rights. Know that we are working to make this happen and will continue to do so. Given the international background of the Hulu team, we have both a professional and personal interest in bringing Hulu to a global audience.

If you'd like, please leave us your email address and the region in which you live, and we will email you when our videos are available in your area.

I'll stick to downloading torrents, I guess.

Re:Hulu's biggest problem

[rcuhljr]

http://www.google.com/search?q=watching+hulu+outside+USA

Re:Hulu's biggest problem

[camperdave]

Thanks for the link. What baffles me though, is that you get the not in the States error message even when attempting to view the "how to use Hulu" video. They can't even stream their own content? Something is definitely screwed up south of the border.

Trailers Are Exactly The Answer

[EgoWumpus]

Movie trailers for a long time have been advertisements that people have sought out. Make your advertisement a narrative, or some other entertainment, and people will actively seek it out - especially if, like trailers, they require a minimal time investment. Then, if the 'trailer' is interesting enough, they might go after the actual product.

Games with demos are in this category as well - and successfully, I might add.

FAIL

[dreamchaser]

Killian's is owned by Coors, not AB. Fail.

Bad Article?

[pcgabe]

A bad article? On slashdot? But it was posted by kdawson...

No, no, no, this doesn't make any sense at all!

Really??

[Manfre]

Are the few 7-30 second commercials really that bad that people are willing to spend that much on a box to avoid watching them? Commercials have and will continue to serve a vital role in TV watching, bathroom breaks. Unlike the several minute commercial breaks, the ones on hulu give you enough time to get to your computer to pause the show.

TiVo... How you did me in.

[colinbg]

I am still mad at Tivo for not honoring my lifetime subscription I bough in 2000 when they first started... I will never buy another product from them even though I loved it.

Re:TiVo... How you did me in.

[cat_jesus]

How did you lose your lifetime sub? I've had mine since 99. Still going strong. In fact I'd love to find a way to do hardware emulation some day so I can keep going.

Re:TiVo... How you did me in.

[colinbg]

My hughes receiver failed (directv) and they would not honor with a new device. they claimed I had to pay a monthly fee and I left TiVo/directv because of it as they defrauded me of that subscription. If you have a suggestion on how you kept it, let me know!

TIVO needs to do something

[wshwe]

TIVO's subscriber base is on the decline. They must do something before they go down the tubes.

Why pay subscription to Tivo?

[kitman420]

Ads automagically don't show up for Safari users.

Tivo PC is from NERO not TIVO

[Collin]

I mentioned this the first time Tivo PC hit the front page.

The author of the article totally missed the point of Tivo PC, but (like most everybody else here) also missed that, from all evidence, Tivo, Inc. has very little to do with the Tivo PC product. I couldn't find any mention of Tivo PC on Tivo.com, but it's on the front page at Nero.com.

It looks like Nero came up with their Liquid TV DVR product and then decided to license the Tivo name and user interface so they could stand out from all the other free/pay DVR products already in the market. So all the strategic concerns about Tivo's intent basically go out the window.

TiVo != Ad Skipping

[Anonymous Coward]

Gah!!! Are people constitutionally incapable of properly representing TiVo's relationship to ads?

Repeat after me: TiVo users don't "skip" commercials, they fast "forward through" commercials.

Semantics, you say? Maybe, but important ones. Skipping commercials means you don't see them at all; fast forwarding through commercials means you have to pay attention to them to know when to resume the show (as opposed to ignoring them or leaving the room for few minutes), and you aren't as annoyed at being subjected to the same damn six commercials for the seventeenth time that night. I argue that the TiVo model actually improves ad recognition, rather than harms it.

This is not a hard distinction. Why does everyone persist in mischaracterizing it?

What a company needs to do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Make a box that allows you to play CD's, DVD's and blue rays on the box, allows you to record tv shows from your cable box, can download content using bit torrent, and can play from streaming media servers either locally or on the internet and from sites like youtube.

It should also allow you to take this content that you are watching and share them with bit torrent.

Movie and music producers, listen up. Your model of limited production has changed. You now distribute your content to all your customers for free, and at no cost to yourself. It happens like magic. Learn to make money in this new market, or go out of business. Stop trying to fight this, you are just pissing off your best customers who liked your stuff until you sue them.

Content providers are going to need to start doing product placement... a lot. They need to start putting some inane dialog about what kind of stuff people like to consume (just like in real life) and why and make it part of the personality of the people on the show, so you like it.

Ugh...

[leppi]

"Game-changer". I have heard that way to much recently... starting to grate on my nerves. It's the 1990's "paradigm shift".

Ad-seeking atom bombs go KA-FROOM.

[Undertone]

Happily using adblock PLUS edition ('cos that makes it better somehow) for a few months now to save bandwidth and nerves alike, So I don't get the damned things anyway... Wish we had TiVo in the UK properly, I'd really like to blitz adverts out of my daily life entirely.