TiVo Wins Appeal On Patents For Pause, Ffwd, Rwd

Lorien_the_first_one writes "After years of wrangling, TiVo has won its day in court against Dish Network, formerly known as the EchoStar, when the Supreme Court declined to take up Dish Network's appeal, forcing the satellite television company to pay $104 million in damages. According to the article, 'TiVo originally won a patent infringement case in 2004 against Dish, which was then named EchoStar Communications. It charged that Dish illegally copied its technology, which allows people to pause, rewind, and record live television on digital video recorders.' Despite an injunction, Dish continued distributing its set-top boxes in the belief that the work-around they had implemented avoided infringing TiVo's patents. Now the case goes back to the lower court for review to determine if they did indeed steer clear of those patents."

Comments

STOP WITH STORY TAG

[Arimus]

For $DEITY sake stop tagging stories with story tag or the gets it!

To tag a story with story once is misfortune, to tag a story with story twice is annoying, to do it three its enemy action!

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[Gewalt]

For $DEITY sake stop tagging stories with story tag or the gets it!

To tag a story with story once is misfortune, to tag a story with story twice is annoying, to do it three its enemy action!

You're right. Obviously, they should tag stories with the "comment" tag and vice versa. Fucking ingenious!

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[stinerman]

Or at least fix the damn options to turn tags off. I turned them off when they first came on the scene but now they return even though I haven't changed any options.

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[complete loony]

If you are looking at the front page, which only shows stories. There's no point displaying the story tag. Similarly if you are filtering submissions on the firehose by any other specific tag.

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[EL_mal0]

I'll second that. I went in and turned them off again yesterday, to no avail. I think it has to do with tags being out of beta.

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[morgan_greywolf]

Story tagged comment.

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[Anonymous Coward]

For $DEITY sake stop tagging stories with story tag or the gets it!

Well I accidentally a whole coke bottle! I accidentally the whole thing!

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[lloydchristmas759]

In Soviet Russia, stories tag YOU!

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[X0563511]

The 'story' is a type tag, it's not user supplied.

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[stinerman]

Its a known bug.

At least Jamie is looking at it, but who knows when it'll be fixed.

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[EL_mal0]

Thanks for the info; I'm glad to see it will, in theory, be addressed at some point.

Re:STOP WITH STORY TAG

[complete loony]

I know, but if the page you are looking at has a tag filter (eg story on the front page), what's the point of showing that tag?

Go TiVo

[m0s3m8n]

As someone who still owns two Tivo's (not being used presently), this is a good day for them. At least they will get a bit of cash. Unfortunately my move to DirecTV, and TiVo's change of focus to Cable and OTA only, I have been forced to use the DirecTV DVRs. While adequate, other DVRs are in NO WAY as feature complete.

Re:Go TiVo

[OhPlz]

I'm sure it's difficult for other brands to be feature complete when TiVo has patented those obvious features.

Re:Go TiVo

[lowlymarine]

While adequate, other DVRs are in NO WAY as feature complete.

How can they be? If you include such radical features as a "pause" button, TiVo will sue you!

Re:Go TiVo

[zeoslap]

Tivo invented the DVR, period, and Dish infringing on their patents almost put them under. This is the whole reason we have patents, to let the guy that came up with the idea profit from it without being put under by big pocketed copycats. I'm really glad TiVo won this case.

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this? I still have both DirecTV and TiVO. It's a 3-year old TiVO, is that the issue? You can't get new ones?

Re:Go TiVo

[onecheapgeek]

And yet when anyone else patents a PAINFULLY OBVIOUS feature they are evil. But because it's TiVo they get a pass? I had thought about getting one. I'm passing now. TiVo = geek-friendly patent troll.

Re:Go TiVo

[BLKMGK]

Much of this DVR technology is "obvious" now but when TIVO first began building these boxes there was no one out there doing it. some of what they do isn't really obvious either - like if you are running FFWD and hit play it will rewind just a bit to take care of overshoot. Not an obvious feature but a VERY nice one and I'm pretty sure patented.

Whenever this story is talked about, and this has been a long running battle, everyone says the patents are "obvious" but honestly I do not think they simply patented something so obvious as the buttons found on a VCR. Instead they patented their circular buffer, the ability to watch while recording and pause without losing anything including audio\video synch. I mean really, if it was so obvious and simple why is it that every other damned commercial DVR out there sucks ass? DISH, FIOS, Direct, and all of the cable DVRs BLOW compared to the TIVO. Why is that if this is all so darned easy and obvious?

TIVO ain't perfect but they pioneered much of this and it's pretty good software. Time they got paid by all those companies that simply copied (poorly) what they did.

P.S. Yeah, I owned one of the competitor boxes that had auto-commercial skip too. A shame THAT got creamed :-(

Re:Go TiVo

[OhPlz]

Invented? It's a solid state VCR. VCRs have always had fast forward and rewind. This sure sounds like an "obvious" feature to me, and not something that merits a patent. Fast forward and rewind existed long before TiVo. Enabling it on a different box isn't really inventing something.

Re:Go TiVo

[zeoslap]

Not at all, but the DVR was not an obvious invention.

Re:Go TiVo

[zeoslap]

They didn't patent rewind/fast forward, and if you think that's what this is about perhaps you should actually read the patent.

Re:Go TiVo

[onecheapgeek]

They didn't sue because they made a DVR. They sued over Pause, Rewind, and Fast Forward. Once you have a recording device, those aspects ARE obvious. In fact, they existed on another recording device. So yeah, that's pretty trollish.

Re:Go TiVo

[DigDuality]

Software patents = fail. If the Dish copied some copyrighted code or something, fine. Sue them. But they didn't. They infringed on an idea. Whoopee shit.

Re:Go TiVo

[jank1887]

you = fail. they were specific circuit implementations. i.e., hardware patents. It wasn't just patenting 'a vague method of recording and replaying live video'.

Re:Go TiVo

[jank1887]

no, it was a circuit implementation to enable realtime record/replay. read the claims before you make invalid ones.

Re:Go TiVo

[EzInKy]

like if you are running FFWD and hit play it will rewind just a bit to take care of overshoot. Not an obvious feature but a VERY nice one and I'm pretty sure patented.

Actually it has been obvious for a few decades now:

$man rewind

int fseek(FILE *stream, long offset, int whence);
long ftell(FILE *stream);
void rewind(FILE *stream);
int fgetpos(FILE *stream, fpos_t *pos);
int fsetpos(FILE *stream, fpos_t *pos);

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm...maybe because Tivo has patents on those features and the others aren't allowed to implement the obvious?

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

DVR is not an obvious invention?!?!? You have to be kidding. It's basically just a MiniDV VCR, but instead of digital tape, they use a digital hard drive. That is a frakking obvious application, and I have no doubt that someone, somewhere already had a 1980s-era Amiga recording live television to their HDD.

>>>Tivo allows people to pause, rewind, and record live television

I'm sorry but I don't see how this is any different than a DVD-recorder. It too has pause buttons, rewind buttons, and fast-forward buttons.

Re:Go TiVo

[shock1970]

DISH, FIOS, Direct, and all of the cable DVRs BLOW compared to the TIVO. Why is that if this is all so darned easy and obvious?

Maybe they blow because they didn't use TIVO's patented technology?

Re:Go TiVo

[thedonger]

It's not solid state; it's a hard drive.

I always assumed the pause/rewind/etc. stuff was a software layer (apparently it is not). I attributed Direct TVs lack of the few second jump back when pressing "play" from fast-forwarding as part a patent issue. I wonder...

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, TiVo wasn't the first one out there doing this. ReplayTV was. I worked for them long before TiVo was on the market. And yes, it is a shame that commercial skip got creamed. Ah well.

Re:Go TiVo

[onecheapgeek]

And that existed long before TiVo came into existence in 97. My college roommate had a tuner in his Mac in 96 that could pause live tv. TiVo simply patented the already-in-existence. Tivo = troll.

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

"In 1985, while working at Honeywell's Physical Sciences Center, David Rafner first described a drive-based DVR designed for home TV recording, time-slipping, and skipping commercials. U.S. Patent 4,972,396 focused on a multi-channel design to allow simultaneous independent recording and playback." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_recorder

Looks like Tivo was just copying somebody else's idea.
- They can not claim it to be their own.

Also of note: ReplayTV was released the same year as Tivo, and it too can pause or rewind live television via "independent record and playback". Once again, Tivo can not claim first implementation.

Re:Go TiVo

[Overzeetop]

Hey, I loved my TiVos too (and prefer them to the DirecTV injustice I have to endure).

Seriously, though, the reason TiVo did it first is because back when they did it, 10GB of hard drive space was both huge and expensive. They happened to implement these features _on a hard drive_ first. VCRs could do everything a TiVo could do except during live TV. It's not for lack of want or idea, but the simple fact that they area sequential access medium. One might say that the 7 second tape delay used in radio stations was a precursor to just about anything TiVo did.

They may, indeed, have unique items in their patent portfolio, but I'm not sure FF, pause, and Rew "on a hard drive" makes it to the level of patent protection.

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you stupid?

Re:Go TiVo

[MightyYar]

I'm sorry but I don't see how this is any different than a DVD-recorder. It too has pause buttons, rewind buttons, and fast-forward buttons.

But you can't use them while recording, thus the patent.

Re:Go TiVo

[pnewhook]

Much of this DVR technology is "obvious" now but when TIVO first began building these boxes there was no one out there doing it.

It was called a VCR - it's been around for years

like if you are running FFWD and hit play it will rewind just a bit to take care of overshoot. Not an obvious feature but a VERY nice one and I'm pretty sure patented.

Again, VCRs did this for years. The intent was to rewind past the point where you hit the button, and the tape that kept going due to the spinning reel inertia.

NOTHING in that patent is new or novel. Changing from analog tape to digial media is an obvious enhancement to the VCR and should never have been granted as a patent.

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

>>>if you are running FFWD and hit play it will rewind just a bit to take care of overshoot.

That's not a Tivo "feature" but an MPEG2 bug. Since MPEG2 only captures a full frame every few seconds (on low-bitrate EP mode), the Tivo can not start playing immediately. Instead it must travel backwards along the bitstream until it finds a full frame. This is what causes that slight rewind motion.

My Panasonic ReplayTV does exactly the same thing. Ditto my DVD recorder. Ditto my D-VHS tape, albeit in a different direction (it moves forward until it finds a full frame).

It's a limitation of MPEG encoding.

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever this story is talked about, and this has been a long running battle, everyone says the patents are "obvious" ...

Gee. I wonder why?

Fanboyism is never pretty to see up close.

Re:Go TiVo

[Dun Malg]

nfortunately my move to DirecTV, and TiVo's change of focus to Cable and OTA only, I have been forced to use the DirecTV DVRs.

That's DirecTV's doing, not Tivo's. Rupert Murdoch shut them out because he thought they could do better in house. Now that Murdoch's gone, they can admit defeat, and are actually working with Tivo to make an DTV HD Tivo, to be released next year.

Re:Go TiVo

[TimSSG]

IIRC, TiVo invented the PVR; DVR with schedule set by show name, not by time. Tim S

Re:Go TiVo

[stedlj]

They did?

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=4,972,396

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo,_Inc.

Looks to me they were almost 10 years too late!

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

P.S.

This is slightly offtopic, but still related: If you use your TiVo or other DVR to record off-the-air television, they will stop working on February 18, 2009. You either need to upgrade to a new ATSC-compatible recorder ($$$$), or buy a digital-to-analog converter box (~$20), or subscribe to cable (ouch).

Thanks Congress.

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you get modded insightful?

They patented buffering, how is this NOT obvious, especially considering the application time frame? They convert incoming data to mpeg and then patent the ability to pause and not lose synchronization on mpeg streams? What the hell? Oh wait, they use _circular buffers_ to store data. How novel. I don't know how anyone could consider this patent worthy.

Even at the time, there were whole librairies and APIs (the Windows multimedia API for example) designed specifically to let people build what TIVO claims to have "invented" in their patent.

Manipulating digital audio & video programmatically is not patent worthy, even for 1998.

Re:Go TiVo

[I'm not really here]

Yes, but who invented the VCR? The Tivo's pause, rewind, and fast forward features are simply a completely obvious feature. The ability to time shift was available (in a limited rudimentary way) with VCRs that had the ability to have their record functionality scheduled.

Honestly, the only "new" functionality in the Tivo was the "guide", and I'm not sure, but was Tivo really the first to offer a digital guide to channels?

From my point of view, everything about the Tivo was obvious and simply a migration from Tape and one recording channel to Hard Drive, two recording channels, and an electronic version of the TV Guide.

Nothing new here... why did they get a patent on this concept?

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

The ReplayTV could pause or rewind live television, and it arrived on the scene the same time as Tivo.

Tivo can not claim exclusivity over the idea.

Re:Go TiVo

[mzs]

If it is the same tuner that was offered in the 5500/6500 yes it could pause but when you unpaused it went right to where the TV show was at that moment. It was like the still button on a TV, there was no recording to the HD and then playing back from where you were. The only way you could record put-up a big window where the image no longer moved and the sound cut out. Then when you stopped the recording or ran out of memory (which was measured in minutes) the window would show each frame of what you recorded as it saved it to a quicktime file with cinepak encoding for the video. This was only slightly faster than real time. Then you could open that file in Quick Time and play it back. If you had VM enabled while you were recording you would notice all the times that pageouts occurred as dropped video and audio. It was crap.

Re:Go TiVo

[Toll_Free]

Send me your TiVo units.

I'll hack them to work on everything. :)

No, seriously.

--Toll_Free

Re:Go TiVo

[Toll_Free]

WinTV cards had DVR functionality at least a year before TiVo.

TiVo just mass marketed the device to the consumer.

Congrats to them on patenting common sense.

--Toll_Free

Re:Go TiVo

[residieu]

They don't have to, they could still go back, find the last full frame and then reconstruct the requested frame and go from there. And if they're fastforwarding and showing the video as it goes (just faster), they're still building the frames from the previous full frame, so they should have everything they need to keep going if they want to.

Re:Go TiVo

[Azghoul]

No it's not. Every other DVR I've used just stops for a moment when you hit play, and starts from that point - It's physically impossible to get the Time Warner DVR to stop when a show starts back up coming out of commercial.

The process ends up looking like this: FF->FF-> wait a few seconds, oops, it started, hit Play->Rew until you get back to the black interstitial, then Play again.

On the Tivo, when your brain registers "Okay the show's back on", you hit play, and it snaps back about 5 seconds before starting to play, which is almost always right.

It has nothing to do with MPEG encoding and everything to do with a fantastic user experience.

Re:Go TiVo

[knorthern knight]

> Instead they patented their circular buffer

    Which was used by 90% of IO-interrupt-driven modem protocols ever since the early days of dialup modems

> the ability to watch while recording

    At the command line of any decent linux distro or unix implementation, enter the command "man tee", without the quotes. It'll mention...
"tee - read from standard input and write to standard output and files"

> pause without losing anything including audio\video synch

    ever heard the word "stateful" in reference to computing?

Re:Go TiVo

[MightyYar]

ReplayTV actually beat Tivo to market. But the patent in question was applied for about a year before that. And the patent itself references the IDEA being conceived by another party in 1994.

Tivo and Replay TV each had patents on various parts of the DVR and IIRC they sued one another early on, but ended up settling with a cross-licensing agreement.

The patent is just for one method of implementing this IDEA. In fact, it suggests that another implementation could be pulled off by using 3 VCRs - though it would suck.

Re:Go TiVo

[Satanicolas]

no i had a tvtuner in 1995 and I was able to pause live tv for about 30 min (2Gbyte hd at the time) and resume it where I was.....

Re:Go TiVo

[tepples]

Actually it has been obvious for a few decades now: [list of ANSI C <stdio.h> seeking functions]

TiVo's inventive step was to apply this sort of seeking to video frames rather than to a raw byte stream.

Re:Go TiVo

[ArhcAngel]

I'm allergic to reading you insensitive clod!

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

"why is it that every other damned commercial DVR out there sucks ass? DISH, FIOS, Direct, and all of the cable DVRs BLOW compared to the TIVO. Why is that if this is all so darned easy and obvious?"

Just to hazard a guess perhaps it is because TIVO went and patented the obvious features and sued everybody else who then tried to do this thus stopping them from getting a great product.

You may say that this is only obvious with hindsight but they basically copied previous ideas and worked out how to implement it. I can't see why this should be so hard. Once you have worked out how to make the input independent of the output it is trivial. You basically record to something and then play off the recording. This allows you all of the features trivially.

Re:Go TiVo

[gonzo67]

TiVo and other DVRs will NOT cease to work. You will simply need to use a converter of some type for the signal in. I currently use my TiVo with DirecTV...DTV box to TiVo. The TiVo controls the DTV box....I will see no difference on Feb 19, 2009 to the service I get today.

Re:Go TiVo

[asc99c]

Because the ideas *are* obvious and the difficulty is in the implementation. Which is why people get so annoyed with the IP holding companies holding real innovators to ransom.

My Sky+ box can do record and play simultaneously but it makes mistakes. Once or twice I have been watching a few minutes behind the live broadcast, accidentally hit the Sky button (which returns to the live broadcast), and been unable to rewind back to where I was.

Logically it sounds simple, but once you get into all the different buttons the user can press, and how you undo things when the operator accidentally sits on the remote, it gets complicated very quickly.

Re:Go TiVo

[PuckSR]

I think you missed the point.

Tivo has some very unique and "non-obvious" patents. Tivo also has some VERY OBVIOUS patents.
Tivo does not hold the patent on "time-shifting" or digital "time shifting"(the ability to record and watch a slightly delayed version or 'pause' live-tv.
Tivo sued Dish Network over a patent involving DVR and the use of an on-screen guide.
The problem?
Dish Network's use of the on-screen guide predates Tivo.
So, if DVRs are an existing technology and the onscreen guide is an existing technology...combining the two is OBVIOUS

Tivo makes a great product with many unique features, but they shouldn't hold a patent on the digital video recorder.
Think of any other piece of consumer electronics.....
We didn't give a patent to Compaq for the concept of a "portable computer" for making a computer that was portable
We didn't give a patent Fujitsu for making a "plasma television" for combining a plasma display with a television
We didn't give a patent to IBM for the CPU

We don't grant patents for ideas that anyone could have thought up in 5 minutes. We give patents for specific implementations of an idea. Tivo is claiming that they have a blanket patent on the entire concept of a DVR, or at least they have a patent on anything beyond simply storing digital media on a hard drive.

Satellite vs. Tivo is different than Cable vs. Tivo.
Tivo has a legitimate claims that they developed the idea of converting analog signals to timeshift on digital media.
Satellite is already digital. They simply buffer the streaming signal.

Re:Go TiVo

[delt0r]

Much of this DVR technology is "obvious" now but when TIVO first began building these boxes there was no one out there doing it.

This does not make it non-obvious. In fact it was and still is obvious. Circular buffers are obvious and guess what, have been used in broadcasting since the magnetic tape.

Re:Go TiVo

[EzInKy]

Something like seeking the picture in flip book or spinnng a zoetrope to find the right page?. Seriously now, how else would you pull meaningful information out a pipe if the data wasn't "framed" in a structure of some sort. Televisions have been deinterlacing video signals for more than half a century now.

There is nothing new or non-obvious in TiVo's "invention" as far as handling of the stream. Sucking data in and putting it temporary storage so that it can be used more effeciently has been around forever. Hell, you could even compare it a resovoir or a granary.

Re:Go TiVo

[delt0r]

Not sure why this is modded funny. Since this is the point, it should be informative or something. The joke is that some folk think this stuff is somehow inventive. The functions are very obvious.

Re:Go TiVo

[jedidiah]

The DVR is the very definition of an obvious invention:

      Give the specification to any apprentice practitioner
and see how quickly they whip up a clone of the device
without even seeing anything more than a basic superficial
description.

        Patents aren't supposed to give you a MONOPOLY on
the idea of a mousetrap. They are supposed to give you
a monopoly on the necessary details required to build
a mousetrap.

        Patents are meant to encourage people to disclose the
details of difficult problems, not to interfere with the
solution of trivial ones.

Re:Go TiVo

[jedidiah]

Much of this DVR technology is "obvious" now but when TIVO first began building these boxes there was no one out there doing it.

It was obvious when they applied for the patent.

HELL, it was probably implemented with some other form of multi-media when they applied for the patent.

This is the problem with trying (and gaining) a patent on what is essentially a basic feature of modern operating systems.

Once you have the necessary hardware (bttv or ivtv) then the rest can be prototyped with shell scripts.

Re:Go TiVo

[BLKMGK]

And I'm pretty sure, despite the crap summary, that those are NOT the functions that they patented.

Re:Go TiVo

[kimvette]

Amigas, SGI Workstations, etc. with VIVO?
ATI TV?
Pinnacle capture cards?

They all predate Tivo.

Re:Go TiVo

[jedidiah]

> the ability to watch while recording

        At the command line of any decent linux distro or unix implementation, enter the command "man tee", without the quotes. It'll mention...
"tee - read from standard input and write to standard output and files"

...or even better:

        cat /dev/dsp > /tmp/audio.out &
        sox /tmp/audio.out ...or

        cat /dev/video0 > /tmp/directv.out &
        mplayer /tmp/directv.out

Re:Go TiVo

[IronChef]

I mean really, if it was so obvious and simple why is it that every other damned commercial DVR out there sucks ass?

The problem with crappy DVRs is crappy GUI designers, or crappy executives who tie their hands and push crap out the door into the helpless, captive market.

There is nothing TECHNICALLY preventing my Dish HD DVR from being pretty good, as far as I can tell. It was just designed by a sadist with ADD and a head injury.

The hardware under the awful GUI can record 3 HD streams (1 OTA + 2 sat) while playing back 1 HD and 1 SD recording, and do it without getting laggy. That ain't bad. (Did they steal that technology from Tivo? I don't know.)

You have to go CHOOSE a Tivo and pay for it, when you probably already have a "free" cable box at home. Under those circumstances, polish and ease of use are critical. I don't think Dish/Comcast/etc. have the same standards for what they push on their customers. (I am surprised that Dish's DVR is as good as it is; it's actually usable, barely.)

PS I miss ReplayTV too!

Re:Go TiVo

[jedidiah]

Nope. That's Tivo's doing.

They would rather be part of the DRM cabal than give it's
end users free access to their content. This includes poor
support for alternative OSes, trying to obscure the content
you've bought and paid for and refusing to support the open
HD wire protocols out there.

Yes, it's Tivo's fault that they can't suport DirecTV HD.

I'm recording off of an HD DirecTV reciever RIGHT NOW.

Split hairs. Make excuses if you like.

I'm enjoying full access to my directv content now.

Re:Go TiVo

[BLKMGK]

Strangely, despite multiple passes through the court system and who knows what else through the patent system these things are holding. Now I KNOW our patent system has issues but do you REALLY think that something that is so "obvious" and found "everywhere" wouldn't have been appealed by the army of lawyers and millions of dollars being thrown at this case and the previous ones? Really? Seriously? Like just maybe TIVO really did do something that no one managed previously? They did crosslicense with Replay for some things apparently but all in all their stuff has held up well enough to stick Dish with some hefty damages. You'd think that if this was so darned obvious that a hundred mill give or take would've been incentive enough to prove it and remove the patent. Yet it still stands....

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you're posting as Black Magic, I suppose you're not a newb to the broadcasting industry...

So with that in mind, let me explain MPEG2 briefly to everyone else - this is what your TV comes through the cables on. It also has a standard format that all these DVR guys have to follow.ISO 13818-1 PDF. If you bother to click, just skip down to page 37

From where I'm sitting, it looks like TIVO patented the ability to follow ISO standandars.

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

"DISH, FIOS, Direct, and all of the cable DVRs BLOW compared to the TIVO."

You don't have other 3rd party DVRs on the market except TiVo? Open standards (DVB-*) rule.

Re:Go TiVo

[mr_death]

Looks like Tivo was just copying somebody else's idea.
- They can not claim it to be their own.

A herd of patent lawyers and a judge have ruled otherwise. Hint: a random engineer isn't usually qualified to make judgments like this.

Also of note: ReplayTV was released the same year as Tivo, and it too can pause or rewind live television via "independent record and playback". Once again, Tivo can not claim first implementation.

The standard (then) is "first to invent", not first to market. These issues have been hashed out in court; Tivo won.

Re:Go TiVo

[shentino]

But microsoft patented page up and page down!

Can you say "slippery slope"?

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

Are these the same lawyers that gave several million dollars to a McDonalds' customer who rather stupidly put a hot cup of coffee between his legs (while driving)??? ;-)

I think Thomas Jefferson said it best: "These men are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps..... to consider them the final arbiters is a dangerous doctrine indeed." In other words, just because a bunch of lawyers made a decision, does not mean the rest of us have to agree with their wrong conclusion. Their decision does not automatically censor all other opinions.

I don't consider the idea of taking a miniDV VCR, replacing the digital tape with a digital hard drive, and labeling it "Tivo" something worthy of patent. I have no objections to patenting a particular mechanism, but to patent such a blatantly-obvious IDEA as "pause live tv" such that nobody else can ever use said idea.... is not correct. Said patent should be revoked.

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

>>>TiVo and other DVRs will NOT cease to work.

Well no, not technically. If you are an over-the-air viewer (like me), you can always just record the white static of non-existent analog signals come March 2009, but why would you want to do that?

Picky, picky.

I stand by my previous post.

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

P.S.

>>>I currently use my TiVo with DirecTV...

Hold on a second. Didn't you even both to read my post? (sigh). I specifically said OVER-THE-AIR viewers; i.e. not you.

Re:Go TiVo

[spire3661]

Yes it is..... When I saw a Tivo in action for the first time, I INSTANTLY understood how it worked, and it was very obvious. Its an extension and improvement of the VCR, not much more than using up to date componentry.

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

True.

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Are these the same lawyers that gave several million dollars to a McDonalds' customer who rather stupidly put a hot cup of coffee between his legs (while driving)??? ;-)

obligatory debunk

Re:Go TiVo

[spire3661]

My beyond TV server is MILES ahead of TivO and MS media center in functionality, performance, choice and price.

Re:Go TiVo

[tgibbs]

I've used other PVRs and they don't do this. Moreover, the TiVo "step-back" is different depending upon which of the three fast forward/reverse speeds you are using. At the slowest speed, there is no step-back. At the faster speed there is a step-back, and at the fastest speed there is a larger step-back. The result is that at either of the two faster speeds the stepback generally does a good job of compensating for your reaction time (at the slowest FF speed, the overshoot is rarely enough to matter)

This feature of the TiVo makes a huge contribution to the user-friendliness of the device.

Re:Go TiVo

[HTH NE1]

On the Tivo, when your brain registers "Okay the show's back on", you hit play, and it snaps back about 5 seconds before starting to play, which is almost always right.

It's not 5 seconds. It's more like some measurement in kilobytes or megabytes, which makes it very frustrating to find when a show came back after presenting a perfectly black screen for several minutes. The correction can take you back to the start of the black.

It can also be a problem with short, downloaded-to-TiVo video podcasts.

Re:Go TiVo

[slapout]

"hit play it will rewind just a bit to take care of overshoot"

I moved from a DirecTivo to a Motorola cable DVR and that's one feature that I miss. Tivo's been out a while, but still has features that others haven't caught up with.

Re:Go TiVo

[BLKMGK]

In this case it was something they thought of and patented - this was a feature that DISH or Direct copied at one point, got sued, and pulled back if memory serves and would be why your box doesn't have it. they could perhaps license it but cable DVRs tend to be built by cheap bastards...

Re:Go TiVo

[Cramer]

Tivo may get the credit, but they weren't alone in "inventing" the DVR. As others have already mentioned, Replay actually beat them to market. But the tivo was more popular and ultimately successful -- replay tanked rather quickly, but tivo has survived for a decade despite never having made a dime. Tivo's methods, while not unique, were very much non-obvious ~15 years ago when they started designing these things. Sure, computers have had the ability to record video for longer, but a tivo (and any DVR for that matter) is much more than just a recorder.

Re:Go TiVo

[Cramer]

The obviousness of a thing only applies if it's obvious before you see it, without it being pointed out. Puzzles are easy to solve once you've been shown the answer.

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... what about that mythical 'competitor box that had auto-commercial-skip' got creamed? My two Replays are still churning along merrily.

Admittedly, 5 years without a noticeable change in software is utterly sucky, and I'm not too thrilled that upgrading to 300 hours of drivespace leaves me with a clunky UI and a media pile a few minutes-of-scrolling deep, but they're still the bomb. My kids were in kindergarten before they discovered all the other kids were watching these things called commercials.

Re:Go TiVo

[Cramer]

It's called "overshoot compensation". It's 100% software. And 100% patented. No matter what you think of it today, it was a novel idea back when Tivo, Inc. first did it. (actually, many of us tivo hackers quickly turned it off. I still find it annoying.)

Re:Go TiVo

[Cramer]

It's time based, not size based, but there is a limit to how far back (by byte) in the stream it will look. The problem comes from how the stream was encoded. Playback has to start from an I-Frame, which might take you much further back than expected or nowhere near far enough (as is usually the case with podcasts.)

Re:Go TiVo

[Cramer]

Heh, thanks troll. You're as bad as the lame tv spots making people think they have to buy a new TV before then or their TV will explode -- "stop working" as in "no longer power on".

ATSC recorders are not thousands of dollars. They are a few hundred at most. And the converter boxes are almost universally $49-59 -- go get your $40 FCC rebate cards.

The plain truth... On Feb. 18, 2009, all terrestrial NTSC broadcasts will cease. If that's all you watch, then you'll no longer have any stations to watch without the purchase of a converter box (or new TV -- all TVs on the market today are required by law to have an ATSC tuner in them even if they do not display in HD.) This does not effect pay TV services AT ALL.

Re:Go TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see the TiVo geeks have some mod points. Wouldn't want anyone pointing out the obviousness of their patents. Flamebait, flamebait, make it go away!

Re:Go TiVo

[OhPlz]

You're right, bad choice of words. Maybe I can file a patent for these features on a flash drive based DVR.

I have a DirecTV HR-20 DVR. It did have that jump back after fast forward at one point. They introduced it in a software update, and then a short while later it went away. I had assumed it was because people were annoyed with it. It drove me nuts, I was used to it not doing that.

Re:Go TiVo

[WK2]

Much of this DVR technology is "obvious" now but when TIVO first began building these boxes there was no one out there doing it.

This is one of the worst (most effective and hardest to fight) tactics used by patent trolls. They patent the next obvious step in technology. There is no prior art, but no innovation either. Good for Tivo for being first on the DVR scene, but DVRs were the next step after VCRs, and pausing and rewinding live TV is an obvious part of a DVR.

I mean really, if it was so obvious and simple why is it that every other damned commercial DVR out there sucks ass?

UIs are hard to do right. Tivo got it right. Good for them. But that doesn't mean they should be allowed to patent obvious technology.

My parents had a Scientific Atlanta box that came with their cable, back when they had cable. That box was great. It was only lacking a feature to skip commercials, and to jump forward and backward in a stream by an arbitrary amount, such as 1 minute.

Re:Go TiVo

[rahvin112]

Tivo had features never implimented on DirecTIVO because DirecTV didn't allow Tivo to impliment them. Network connection, sharing between boxes, removing video from the box, all those feature pus many many more DirecTV prevented, not TIVO. Tivo acknowledges DRM, but the real lackeys of DRM are the content providers, and their distributers. DirecTV wouldn't allow moving video off the DVR for fear of people buying pay-per-view and sharing the recorded content, they did this at the behest of the MPAA, not Tivo.

Re:Go TiVo

[electrictroy]

I'm not buying it. When I'm at home I don't put a scalding cup of water between my legs... why would I do it with a McDonalds cup??? It's just stupid. The customer deserves the blame.

Re:Go TiVo

[Viperpete]

Tivo did not invent the DVR, they where in use for military and security long before an inexpensive consumer version arrived to the market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_recorder

From Wiki:

"In 1985, while working at Honeywellâ(TM)s Physical Sciences Center, David Rafner first described a drive-based DVR designed for home TV recording, time-slipping, and skipping commercials. U.S. Patent 4,972,396 focused on a multi-channel design to allow simultaneous independent recording and playback. Broadly anticipating future DVR developments, it describes possible applications such as streaming compression, editing, captioning, multi-channel security monitoring, military sensor platforms, and remotely piloted vehicles."

USPTO Patent 6,233,389

[alexhs]

It's about the TiVo Multimedia time warping system patent.

Tomek Z.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's great nobody patented car turning right yet. Imagine all those left-turn only cars...

Re:Tomek Z.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also known as NASCAR...

Re:Tomek Z.

[LMacG]

They call that NASCAR.

Re:Tomek Z.

[mzs]

I know you are being funny about only left turns in NASCAR but there are typically two to four road courses a season. But you know how every third race or so there is some driver that crashes for inexplicable reasons? He got dizzy ;)

Re:Tomek Z.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa - did you forget that in Rand McNally people wear hats on their shoes and NASCAR turns to the right? In any case most NASCAR fans turns pretty heavily to the right.... woo who!

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[bconway]

But TiVo runs (and contributes to) Linux. And these were defensive patents. That makes them okay, right?

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[91degrees]

They haven't patented fast forward, rewind and record. The result is not what's patented. The method it.

Hang in there!

[BLKMGK]

Direct and TIVO have inked another deal and there will be new HD hardware for Direct from TIVO coming in a year or so. FWIW - I left DISH for Direct to get TIVO and left Direct to FIOS to keep TIVO. Now I'm stuck on COX but I've got my TIVO!

Anyway, hang in there - relief from that POS "DVR" they provided you is coming!

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/03/hell-freezes-over-new-directv-hd-tivo-on-the-way/

Re:Hang in there!

[sponga]

Cable DVR's are some of the simplest functioning and POS you can get.

The thing which makes me like TIVO is that it automatically skips the commercials, that was the deal breaker right there that made me want to get it. Although I never did and stuck with the DVR, I have no problem having to manually fastforward about 4 times in a show only takes me 3 seconds.

VOD(Video On Demand) is the real TIVO killer for me though, cable has got the advantage on this one and unfortunately Sat users cannot have the 'true VOD'. The VOD library that TWC has for me is huge, the shows begin to show up in the library the very next day with no commercials at all with them. Each month they change the lineup so you get maybe all of Season 1 that month and season 2 next month; newscast are put up there within an hour and many other free VOD channels for all your favorite channels. Seriously VOD killed the hard drive, the music video will be out anytime soon on MTV(errrr Youtube).

Unfortunately they will soon begin to integrate the advertisements into the actual show while you are watching it, fuck give me a break.

don't buy them

[speedtux]

TiVo is evil; just don't buy them.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought ReplayTV came up with this stuff first.

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[intothemiddle]

Surely the competitor was using a similar but not identical method for doing this?

The result is to be able to ffw, rwd and record.. the method is to make that happen in any way possible?
"I don't care how you do it, just get it done"

Patents, teaching us; if it's been done before find a new way to do it. Repeat until fade.

Prior art?

[syousef]

Come on. Every tape record and VHS recorder has had these facilities for donkey's years. So what if you can do it live. GImme a break!!!

Re:Prior art?

[bestinshow]

Show me a VCR that can continue to record live TV and allow you to view, pause, fast forward and rewind it at the same time.

Re:Prior art?

[onecheapgeek]

In 96, almost 3 years before the first tivo, I could have shown you a Mac that could do it.

Re:Prior art?

[bestinshow]

But a Mac isn't a VHS recorder.

You're talking about another issue, not the issue of "rewind, pause, fast forward" as functions in themselves which this patent isn't about, but whether the technology in this patent is actually valid. Which probably goes beyond "pause, rewind, fast forward of live TV", and indeed it specifies how they do it (buffers, etc).

If you can show a system from 1996 that invalidates this patent, then I'm sure that Dish networks would be willing to pay you well for your time to help their case.

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you couldn't.

Re:Prior art?

[spire3661]

You are telling me it would be a giant leap of lateral thinking to add a little memory into a VCR to make a buffer that stores on-the-fly video?

Re:Prior art?

[bestinshow]

We haven't had cheap 1GB memory sticks for 10 years you know! What you call "a little memory" would have been a significant expense back then. What's half an hour of MPEG1 (what you could encode simply back then)? 500MB? So you add in your 500MB, CPU, Chipset, Video Encoder and Decoder ... yeah.

The first TiVo has IIRC a 40GB hard drive and 64MB of RAM. It had to have a mechanism to record and read at the same time reliably from different areas of the hard drive because it didn't have an in-memory cache of the content.

How the hell??

[gstoddart]

How in the hell can you hope to patent this?

Is this really a novel technology, or a slapping together of a bunch of existing things in a fairly obvious manner. I mean, really, the very first applications on the internet that allowed streaming video and audio supported pause, rewind, and fast forward. I distinctly remember pushing pause on things to allow the buffer to fill up over a slow dialup line. Sometimes, the slow dialup line would enforce a pause for you. ;-)

Other than the fact that it's TV, I don't see this as being any different from real player or a bunch of things which predated it.

This patent really should be vacated, I just can't see how "a buffer with forward and backward access" is actually a novel invention. I'm of the opinion that if you can show any application which streamed multimedia ever had pause etc then the whole patent is invalid.

Cheers

Re:How the hell??

[Rick Bentley]

This was FM at the time (Freakin Magic). I'm all against patents, I think they only stifle innovation and erode standards making things worse for everybody. That said, when TiVo and ReplayTV were out at CES showing what a "recorder" could do, the technology was pretty far out there. I remember being in their booth and them having to go over the features several times before I even got it.

It wasn't obvious at the time. There wasn't a computer-based parallel. It was Freakin Magic. I love my TiVo's and I hope the knock offs have to step up and pay homage to TiVo for bringing them the idea in the first place. At least in this case the patent system is doing some good.

Re:How the hell??

[16K Ram Pack]

Quite. I remember seeing early (and nasty) video capture and within seconds realised that you could have a box which could collect all your TV programs allowing instant access and all that without VCR tapes. The only reason that all of us geeks who realised that idea within seconds of seeing the first video capture card was that hard drives were just too damn small to do it properly.

Patents should be rare. They should be a solution that almost no-one would think of when it came to a problem. Most software/interface/computer patents are just dumb. They're like a chef claiming they invented the raspberry sundae because they replaced strawberries.

Re:How the hell??

[jedidiah]

Actually, the fact that you can point to 2 separate companies
coming to market at exactly the same time does show that it
was infact obvious. It wasn't necessarily obvious to Joe
Sixpack. That's not the standard. It was obvious to the
relevant inventors.

Patents are (should be) for someone who is clearly first
past the finish line. There should be no photo finishes
at the patent office.

Re:How the hell??

[spire3661]

THats funny, i completely understood a Tivo the instant i heard about one. Its a Tuner with a hard drive, certainly NOT a leap of genius.

Replaytv??

[Anonymous Coward]

replaytv came up with the idea first didn't they?

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[BLKMGK]

Simple - they didn't. Read the patent http://www.google.com/patents?id=IeoIAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,233,389

Talks about circular buffers for viewing and recording at the same time, maintaining audio synch, running the clock FWD and back while moving through the data. To say that they simply patented being able to pause TV is pretty disingenuous!

I short, summary is trolling crap per usual to get everyone up in arms. Real patent is a bit more complex. Granted much of this seems "obvious" now but back when TIVO first did it it was FAR from really obvious. It was going to get done by someone but back then on the hardware available it was pretty slick!

Fast forward?

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, how does one fast-forward *live* TV anyway? I can fast-forward a live soccer game to see the result before they've finished playing it?

Re:Fast forward?

[LoverOfJoy]

You can't at first. What they are referring to is when you want to pause the game to go to the bathroom or something. When you return, you are watching a slightly delayed game while the live game continues to be recorded. You can then fast forward (a bit) past commercials, for instance, equal to the amount you've paused or rewound in the past (up until you hit live). It is a pretty neat feature. I would think that newscasts that show a slight delay of something live in case something horrible happens that they don't want to show the public (a beheading on prime time TV or something) could be considered prior art although they probably use different technology to do it.

Re:Fast forward?

[SlashBugs]

As everyone has already said, this is a hardware patent.

TiVo found a way to fit a flux capacitor inside their boxes.

Re:Fast forward?

[arielCo]

Think of the Forward button in your browser.

The idea is obvious, but ....

[mlwmohawk]

Sure, the notion of fast forward, pause, and reverse is obvious, but the methodology and working device was, at the time, non-trivial it took some work to get it good, and dish network did "steal" their technique.

Now, are all patents bogus? I tend to think so. There is too much historical account of inventors "rushing to the patent office" to beat their competitor. Now, too me, that seems terribly unfair, one will get the benefit of their research, and another will not.

On the other hand, if you spend a good deal of time and money developing a technology for your business, and a better funded competitor comes along and copies your work and tries to put you out of business, there has to be a way to protect yourself.

Re:The idea is obvious, but ....

[Toll_Free]

there has to be a way to protect yourself.

Funny you bring that up. They call it a patent.

You don't agree with the word, but you think it's necessary evil, right? Just trying to actually figure out what and how you think.

Rape is OK, sex isn't?
Assfucking is ok, asking isn't? :)

I know, I know, it's not the same.

But it is. You can't say that you want to abolish the patent system because YOU don't like it, then say that we have to have a way to protect inventors and innovators.

Wait, they call that a patent (or to a lessor extent, copyright).

--Toll_Free

Re:The idea is obvious, but ....

[Aphoxema]

Or occasionally the better funded business makes up something and then those evil free software lovers come and STEAL the idea of close buttons, scroll bars, and a menu to access the software on a computer in one location. They even stole 'file managers' and 'media players' and 'email clients'.

Damn you GNUheads!

Re:The idea is obvious, but ....

[mlwmohawk]

Funny you bring that up. They call it a patent.

I was indirectly discussing the pros and cons of the patent system, of course it is a patent. Did you even go to high school?

The question is: what should be patentable? What shouldn't? It is not an easy question. Those who are quick to decry patents, sometimes agree with the general principle when presented in a sympathetic example.

Most all patents, IMHO, are bogus. They don't seem to embody any real investment and thus do not really enrich the society or promote innovation. (The purpose of patents, people forget.) However, there are some patents that really do protect valuable work.

Do you eliminate patents because of the unavoidable abuse? One man's hard work an inspiration may be another's common sense.

Re:The idea is obvious, but ....

[BLKMGK]

The trap here is that when someone first comes up with an idea it is new and innovative. However fast forward a few years later when everyone has seen the device and thinks it's pretty obvious and they think that having a patent on it is stupid. I mean look at the light bulb - piece of material suspended in a vac with juice run through it till it glows like mad - obvious right? Sure, now it seems obvious but when it was invented they had to work like heck to get it to last for more than a flash! Same thing with the TIVO, when it was first shown no one had built such a thing other than ReplayTV. Now it's not nearly so hard to build from commodity parts but back then it was pretty spiffy!

Re:The idea is obvious, but ....

[jedidiah]

Sure, the notion of fast forward, pause, and reverse is obvious, but the methodology and working device was, at the time, non-trivial it took some work to get it good, and dish network did "steal" their technique.

As other people have pointed out, they are essentially describing a DVD PLAYER.

That's all that a Tivo ultimately is. It's a DVD player but minus the optical media.

Playing MPEG2 or MPEG1 is pretty simple. There were tons of PC applications to do just this when this patent was filed. Once the TV signal is converted to MPEG2, everything else is trivial.

Infact, you can rip content off of a Tivo and treat
it just like any other video file. You don't even
have to transcode it if you didn't have to deal
with Tivo DRM.

Modern (digital) television is just "DVD" broadcast over the airwaves.

"pull it in off the ether" and you can shove it in your favorite media player.

Re:The idea is obvious, but ....

[jedidiah]

> The trap here is that when someone first comes up with an idea

"Ideas" don't deserve patents, implementations do.

The moment I saw a Tivo, I realized that all I would need
to replicate it is something like a PVR-150 card.

With HDTV I don't even need that now. Any ATSC tuner will
spit out digital video suitable for storage and playback
on a computer.

A patent is not for "that's cool, watch me whip up
something better. Don't bother to tell me how you
did yours".

It's for "gee how could you possibly ever do that". I
can't imagine how you did that. I will need to take a
look at your patent before I build something like that.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[jank1887]

they were specific circuit implementations. i.e., hardware patents. It wasn't just patenting 'a vague method of recording and replaying live video' so yes, they're okay.

It was novel at the time.

[wiredog]

Being able to pause a live video stream on the home TV? Then fast forward to catch up to the live stream? No one else was doing that in the late 90's.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[gstoddart]

Being able to pause a live video stream on the home TV? Then fast forward to catch up to the live stream? No one else was doing that in the late 90's.

If I was doing it with any form of media prior to Tivos patent, the ability to buffer and play an incomplete stream as a concept should be void.

You can't take something that someone is already doing, and add "with TV" to it, and expect that "with TV" is magically different from "with a video file on the internet".

If Tivo truly patented this before anyone demonstrated streaming media, then maybe this is a valid patent. If it had been done before on other forms of media, I fail to see how you can patent it for TV and have it be actually novel. I'm just not convinced we didn't have streaming media and video on the internet before Tivo came along.

Cheers

Re:It was novel at the time.

[Cro Magnon]

As I understand it, if Tivo used a different technique of doing on TV than was used in other media, it's patentable. If Dish used a different technique of doing it on TV than Tivo did, Dish should be okay. But if Dish just copied Tivo's patented technique, then Tivo was right to stomp them.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[gstoddart]

As I understand it, if Tivo used a different technique of doing on TV than was used in other media, it's patentable. If Dish used a different technique of doing it on TV than Tivo did, Dish should be okay. But if Dish just copied Tivo's patented technique, then Tivo was right to stomp them.

Maybe, but without knowing the details, unless it is more than "patent for a circular buffer with random access", then I just don't get it.

Essentially, once the concept of a buffered stream with pause, rewind, fast forward exists .. patenting it for a specific media seems dumb.

It's like those patents which amount to "something done in the real world forever, but now done online" -- it's a commonly applied mechanism, which is only slightly differentiated by being online. IMO, not differentiated enough to be patentable.

Some of the specific technologies they used to do this could, in fact, be patentable. I'm just not 100% clear on what claims this patent is actually covering.

Cheers

Re:It was novel at the time.

[Klaruz]

What's the technique difference?

Realplayer (before tivo): video bits get sucked off the internet (which may be digitized in real time on the other end) and stuck into a ring buffer, pointer streams data off buffer, decodes and displays it. You can move the pointer around the buffer.

Tivo: video bits get sucked off a video digitizer and stuck into a ring buffer, pointer streams data off buffer, decodes and displays it. You can move the pointer around the buffer.

Dish (after tivo): video bits get sucked off a video digitizer and stuck into a ring buffer, pointer streams data off buffer, decodes and displays it. You can move the pointer around the buffer.

Maybe I'm dumb, but I fail to see how using a ring buffer to store video is worthy of a patent.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, no shit, and you know why? Because hard drives weren't big enough for it to be practical. It's not like the technology hadn't existed for the entire decade, it's that hard drives weren't large enough to store decent quality TV streams.

I mean, think about it, DVD players have always had rewind, pause, and fast forward, and they're doing the same damned thing Tivo does: playing back an MPEG movie. The difference between Tivo and a DVD is that the storage device (duh) and that Tivo is potentially recording the stream live. When playing back previously recorded shows, the difference is solely the storage device.

When hard drives finally got large enough to make a DVR practical, we got Tivo. The technology had been possible the entire decade, it just hadn't been practical.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are actually claiming that Dish copied their hardware circuitry which Tivo owns the patents of.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[FlyingBishop]

Home TV? TIVO is a computer, that happens to output to a TV screen, and has a unique input method. Outputting data to a TV is not trivial, but it's not exactly a meaningful distinction what sort of display you're using (though obviously the images will be layed out differently.)

It sounds like the really original stuff is some hardware patents that sound fairly legit. And I'd say TIVO probably deserves the money, getting rammed out of the market the second after becoming a household name.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[PenguiN42]

You can't take something that someone is already doing, and add "with TV" to it, and expect that "with TV" is magically different from "with a video file on the internet".

There definitely were some major differences between streaming video on the internet and on TV at the time that certainly could have technological implications.

Bandwidth, for one thing -- the TV video stream has a lot more data. Also, the TV stream is being captured, digitized, compressed, and put into the buffer all in real time by the receiving end; whereas the internet stream comes already digitized and compressed. These things alone seem like they would require some special techniques (indeed it required special hardware) to get it working in real-time on the hardware of the time.

Patents don't patent the higher level concept, but the low-level (well, medium-level most likely) methods used to implement that concept. If no one had done or written about their particular methods before, and Dish used very similar methods, then this patent claim is valid.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[jedidiah]

Perhaps.

Although if that "invention" was ever valid, I think that
it has already been made obsolete. That's the problem with
subjecting these kinds of devices to patents. You apply a
19th century idea to something that doesn't need centuries
of inventive effort. In the end you cause much more harm
than good.

Intellectual property interferes with future creativity.
That interference may be based on legitimate ideas in
terms of derived work. Or it may not. In the latter
case, patents on the obvious will muddy everything and
interfere with everyone's work and stifle the entire
field.

Patents by design stifle innovation. They should only
be wielded keeping that idea in mind.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rest assured, you're dumb (or you just don't know what you're talking about): see this post.

They received the MPEG2, extracted the video and audio data from it (extremely obvious, its part of an ISO), and then re-broadcast it so that it would comply with the ISO for FFWD, RWD, SLOMO, PAUSE, and other Trick Modes

Re:It was novel at the time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rest assured, you're dumb

Rest assured, you're an asshole.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[Generic Guy]

What's the technique difference?

You managed to filter out the legalistic details. TiVo and ReplayTV got into a rather big legal tussle back in the day, and ultimately both decided fighting would kill both. So, they agreed to cross-patent or somesuch.

Tivo then bolstered by success with DirecTV (satellite TV) decided to approach DiSH/Echostar. DiSH demanded some sample hardware, examined it for quite awhile, lead the TiVo folks on... and then suddenly said NO THANKS, while quickly releasing their own DVR with surprisingly similar specs as Tivo's sample unit.

It's not so much that the techniques are different (they're likely not), its that there were already (mostly) resolved patent issues and Charlie Ergen (DiSH) decided to be a rip-off cheating cheap-ass bastard. This is apparently quite the modus operandi for DiSH/Echostar, and the foot-dragging and general insolence may even trigger treble damages in TiVo's favor.

Re:It was novel at the time.

[rahvin112]

Mid 90's. Tivo pioneered the DVR when your average home computer was a shade above 90mhz. What they did at the time no one thought was possible in anything less than $10,000 and the size of a fridge.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[jank1887]

Yes, topposting because the knee-jerk patent-troll comments below are annoying.

The patent: Multimedia time warping system
Talks about circular buffers for viewing and recording at the same time, maintaining audio synch, running the clock FWD and back while moving through the data. (borrowing from BLKMGK's comment below) Combination of software and hardware (circuit implementation) to get the function working.

NO, your VHS/Betamax player did not have this first, unless it could record the show and play it back at the same time, allowing you to watch different segments of the show while it kept recording. IIRC, Tivo was in negotiations with Echostar/Dish before Dish released a DVR. Tivo let them see a demo unit under NDA. Dish suddenly broke off talks with Tivo, and shortly after came out with their own DishDVR hardware. Sure enough, components infringing on the Tivo patent were found in the hardware.

This kind of crap is exactly what the patent system is supposed to prevent, or at least provide recourse for. The system is working correctly in this case. I'm a Dish subscriber, and love using DVR (even though DishDVR is far inferior to Tivo) because the TV service is the least expensive available where I'm at. It'll be interesting to see if prices change when this settles down.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be impossible with a VCR but quiet trivial with a hard drive.

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[Cro Magnon]

Surely the competitor was using a similar but not identical method for doing this?

I don't know. If Dish did just copy Tivo's method, then Tivo is in the right.

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[MORB]

I'm not sure when TiVo first had that feature, but I have a friend who worked as a software engineer on a Sagem DVR that had that feature back in 2000 or 2001, and they believed to be the first to do that at the time.

I don't remember the outcome of it though, I don't think it actually got released to the market.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[Dun Malg]

Did you even read the post you replied to? Their specific implementation is patented, not the concepts in general. Notice how Comcast, DirecTV, et al have not been sued, despite having set top boxes with those features?

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[poetmatt]

MythTV, or just get the thing to take the video feed from cable to your PC and record away (they're like 50$ cards IIRC). Infinite recording, and no monthly fee. Why pay Tivo to do it free?

This is why people make home theatre pc's anyway...and given you are an intelligent slashie I'm sure you know how to do that.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[JasterBobaMereel]

...and was patented by David Rafner of Honeywell, before TiVO existed .... ...or you could get a PC based PVR and pay nothing for a tivo alike with more features no restrictions and nor subscription required?

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[pnewhook]

If the specific implementation is not novel or new, then its not valid. I highly doubt that Tivo invented a completely new non obvious method of recording MPEG video streams.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[locofungus]

NO, your VHS/Betamax player did not have this first, unless it could record the show and play it back at the same time, allowing you to watch different segments of the show while it kept recording.

I wrote software to do this with a couple of Pioneer magneto-optical laser video disk recorders back in about 1996 (I can't remember the exact date but beyond any doubt it was before October 1998).

My implementation actually only allowed a delayed playback (of up to 30 minutes) but it would be trivial to have had the playback non-linear. Also, with the setup I was using there was a limit of playback only over the last 30 minutes of broadcast video.

It wasn't for home use, in 1996 prices the equipment was 50,000GBP per recorder. I also think the recording was analogue rather than digital but I'm not 100% certain on that.

Tim.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[Toll_Free]

Nope.

I guess Sony, et al, better be running for the hills, since Fast Forward on the Betamax and original consortium of VHS players will now have to defend themselves against a company holding a patent for things that where thought of before the company was.

And no, you can't bitch about the patent process, then just because TiVo runs linux, say it's OK, and defensive.

That argument is just, offensive :)

--Toll_Free

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[Toll_Free]

This coming from someone with little to no ideas that need protection from others.

Guess when you have NOTHING to lose, screaming about patent process and law gives you meaning, right?

TiVo, if they did in fact, come up with "something new", deserve the fruits of their efforts.

I call bullshit, myself, since I had a "tivo" device based upon WinTV cards and linux years before TiVo was around.

Still, screaming patent patent patent just because your board (yes, like the piece of wood is stupid. Intelligence levels (pun intended) get lumped (again, pun intended) with like entities.

Don't like it, learn.

--Toll_Free

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[tha_mink]

MythTV, or just get the thing to take the video feed from cable to your PC and record away (they're like 50$ cards IIRC). Infinite recording, and no monthly fee. Why pay Tivo to do it free?

I've got both a sweet MythTV system and Tivo (actually two Tivos) and I have to say, I still like the TiVo better. It's worth the $20 I pay for the two of them. Plus, pretty soon, Myth TV users will be paying *something* per month for listings, which have become harder and harder to come by for free.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[locofungus]

Found a link to the device I was using:

http://www.laserdiscarchive.co.uk/laserdisc_archive/pioneer/pioneer_vdr-v1000/pioneer_vdr-v1000.htm

So it was half the price I remembered.

As well as being able to use both heads in playback mode you could use them in record/playback, playback/erase and erase/record.

My system started with both machines with erased disks. It then started recording on machine 1. Once the disk was full it continued recording on machine 2. Once the second disk was full it returned to machine 1.

Additionally, as recording started on disk2, erasing started on disk1. This cycle uses one head on each machine and can, in theory, continue indefinitely. In order to avoid any dropped frames, I actually started recording on machine 2 a few seconds before machine 1 disk was full so the system could only be run for a finite (but very long) time before needing to stop and erase the disks to start again.

The other head on each machine was then used for playback.

Tim.

Dish is still Echostar

[Phreakiture]

Dish Network is a product. Echostar Satellite LLC is the company. There is no former, only formal.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Your opinion has nothing to do with the legal details of this topic, which you apparently haven't bothered to review in the slightest.

"I think patents are bad and this probably, might not be novel or new" is nonsensical and clearly shows you've not bothered to pay any attention to the actual article. I realize that not bother to RTFA is typical here, but honestly?

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[eison]

TiVo didn't patent just being able to pause TV only because Pause Technologies, Inc. already did.
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATRE36801

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[Anonymous Coward]

They use existing hardware to convert incoming signals to MPEG video and audio streams. Ok, obiously not patent worthy.

The resulting streams are fed to circular buffers. The application is particular about mentionning them, but this is a basic construct you learn in any programming course. Not patentable.

Then they use (then already) well established software libraries for playback on these streams (seek, pause, etc).

How is any of the above, alone or taken together, worth a patent? Nothing was even invented here, and the use of the existing technology is not novel.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[tha_mink]

or you could get a PC based PVR and pay nothing for a tivo alike with more features no restrictions and nor subscription required?

Unless, of course, you need television listings, which you can't get for free anymore. So there goes that idea.

Screw Dish Network

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm glad they lost. They've been bullying people on Ebay who are selling used satellite receivers because they CLAIM that doing so violates their trademark. Read that again. Selling used Dish Network receivers is considered, by Dish Network, to be a violation of their trademark if you don't jump through their hoops. I'm not talking about selling receivers that have been hacked, I'm talking 100 percent legit receivers. That is more heavy-handed than the bullshit that DirecTV pulled 5 or so years ago.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[crabbz]

For the record, mythtv users in the US are paying $20/year for guide info from schedules direct. I suppose some folks are scraping web sites for the info but it's not officially supported.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[_Swank]

yes, the trivial wouldn't even make a sound...

TiVO's patent is baseless...

[GuyverDH]

TiVO's patent is a blatent ripoff of VCR/Beta technology...

The only difference is that they converted the ANALOG signal to digital for storage first.

That's the ONLY difference.

DVD players have had backwards / forwards skip as well as fast forward / rewind since inception.

CD players have had them since the 80s.

So there's nothing new here at all..

If they want to shout digital, then CD players (yes, audio only, but it's still digital signal skipping).

If they want to shout video, then VCR's - as they record analog. Skipping is hard to do on VCR's as the media has to stream, but they do have multi-speed FFWD/RWD which is good as you can get with streaming (tape) media.

Skipping is a digital only function, and was implemented in CD players, then DVD players and is in now way unique or non-obvious.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[pnewhook]

This coming from someone with little to no ideas that need protection from others.

Actually I'm an engineer with my name to several patents, so your supposition as to my intent is completely false.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[pnewhook]

I read the patent - it's groundless, non novel and not unique.

There is no spool.

[HTH NE1]

Do not try to rewind the TiVo. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no spool.

TiVo calls those functions "Fwd" and "Back".

wikipedia entry is wrong!

[mveloso]

Actually, the wikipedia entry is wrong. They Honeywell patent is:

Title: Multiple independently positionable recording-reading head disk system

Abstract
------
A multiple independently positionable recording-reading head optical disk system. The system includes at least one optical disk having an arrangement of data elements. A plurality of recording-reading heads read and write data onto the optical disk. An apparatus for transporting the plurality of recording-reading heads over one side of the optical disk enabling each of the recording-reading heads to read data from or write data onto the optical disk independently of the other recording-reading heads.

--

This is not a TiVo. This is how to record onto optical media with multiple independent read/write heads.

This demonstrates why you should actually verify information in WikiPedia instead of quoting it blindly.

Re:wikipedia entry is wrong!

[Tacvek]

This demonstrates why you should actually verify information in WikiPedia instead of quoting it blindly.

Perhaps you should understand that the patent is for a multi-channel drive design which was an essential component to DVRs back then. They operated using laserdisc technology, so the drives spun at exactly the correct speed for reading or writing, but no faster, so multiple heads were required to read and write simultaneously.
Honeywell apparently did not feel the need to patent the system as a whole, since the first patent was essential to the system, so patenting the system as a whole would just be a waste of patenting fees.

Re:wikipedia entry is wrong!

[rahvin112]

Wikipedia wrong? Never! You are a liar if you think an entry that could have been created by anyone with any agenda could somehow be incorrect! Dish fans aren't rabid enough to lie about or manipulate the record so that it appears they are saints.

Dish fans are almost as bad as Faux news watchers.

Sooner or later, someone is going to get sued for

[New_Age_Reform_Act]

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start

It's an obvious thing to do

[Nick Ives]

That functionality is implemented in all streaming media players though. Even something like Youtube, the Flash player will let you seek back, forth and play as you download (record). The live TV signal could be streaming from anywhere, all TiVo have done is build a streaming media player and put it in a nice box.

As soon as hardware got cheap enough for people to be able to build streaming media players with this sort of functionality people started building them. I had a TV card in my PC years before people started doing live pause. I could record TV but it killed both my CPU and HD so watching the video again wouldn't have been possible anyway. As soon as hardware got fast enough for people to be able to both at once, software started to appear with live pause.

The difference being?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck all.

Or does a video frame not come at a certain point in a raw byte stream?

Re:The difference being?

[tepples]

Or does a video frame not come at a certain point in a raw byte stream?

Unlike bytes, which by definition are length 1 in C, MPEG video frames are not fixed in length.

Re:The difference being?

[EzInKy]

Unlike bytes, which by definition are length 1 in C, MPEG video frames are not fixed in length.

struct ured
{
    data in
}c;

if(only);

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[BLKMGK]

When it was patented years ago you might be surprised to learn that apparently it was new and innovative. Certainly Direct and DISH have been surprised to learn such a thing when they have tried and FAILED to challenge the patents.

Surely since you have greater insight than their army of lawyers and experts you should contact them to offer your services. For this I am sure you would be paid quite well when you win this case and have the patents removed from the books.

Good luck in your new career!

MythTV

[seandiggity]

Anyone know how this will effect MythTV?

Re:MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

I think MythTV has already been effected.

Re:MythTV

[Ant P.]

I think he meant to ask how it affects his effects.

Bye Bye Dish DVR? Please say it's so!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean that Dish might actually switch to TIVO? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!
I despise Dish's DVR... it crashes on a whim (usually during shows I'm watching) and has a hard time doing three things at once and sometimes even two. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it didn't take TEN minutes to reboot.

The inventive step vs. RealPlayer

[tepples]

Realplayer (before tivo): video bits get sucked off the internet [...]

Tivo: video bits get sucked off a video digitizer [...]

Maybe I'm dumb, but I fail to see how using a ring buffer to store video is worthy of a patent.

Unlike video in RealPlayer, video on a TiVo DVR is 1. digitized locally and 2. ring-buffered in rotating magnetic media, not solid-state RAM. If I remember correctly, the buffer in RealPlayer was usually small enough to fit in RAM, which is why you usually couldn't buffer more than a minute.

Re:The inventive step vs. RealPlayer

[Klaruz]

Bah, digitizers that streamed to disk were out way before tivo. I remember throwing an old one for a mac in a dumpster around the time tivo came out.

Re:The inventive step vs. RealPlayer

[spire3661]

Digitized locally is irrelvant as is where the ring buffer is stored is too, considering patents are METHODS, not specific implementations.

Re:The inventive step vs. RealPlayer

[badkarmadayaccount]

Throwing out tech, eh? Please submit your geek card on the way out!

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[BLKMGK]

Take a look at the patents in the link provided - they are back in the 1990s....

Where to buy a MythTV in person?

[tepples]

MythTV

A PC is louder and more expensive than a TiVo box, and the guide data still costs money per month. Besides, I've never seen a PC with MythTV in big-box retail stores in the United States.

and given you are an intelligent slashie

The median home user is not.

Re:Where to buy a MythTV in person?

[poetmatt]

fanless setups are louder/more expensive? Considering they are about $200-300, or 500$ up front with no subscription fees?

Of course median home user is not. If they were, Tivo wouldn't be in business. However, this is slashdot.

Re:Where to buy a MythTV in person?

[Cramer]

Not at all... I'm pretty far from "median home user" and have stacks of tivos. They are cheaper than building a PC do it. And it's a lot faster and easier to obtain, setup, and use a tivo. I know a lot of computer savy people, and none of them "waste" their time with homebrew PVRs.

Way vs What

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people seem to be missing that you can patent a novel Way to do something, even if the What is being done is old hat.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

"Tivo let them see a demo unit under NDA. Dish suddenly broke off talks with Tivo, and shortly after came out with their own DishDVR hardware."

If they needed to break a non-disclosure agreement in order to steal this from Tivo, then it should have nothing to do with patents.
Patents, after all, are supposed to disclose.

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[Anonymous Coward]

quit reposting the same shit, jackass

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[dgatwood]

What I don't get is how the videodisc instant replay stuff they used back in the 1970s or early 80s didn't completely kill this patent through prior art. It's not like this is the first time a ring buffer of recordable video media has been used to pause a live video signal and play it back (optionally in slow motion, even). The networks have been doing this literally for decades. The only thing novel about this patent is that the ring buffer is stored digitally and compressed on the spinning platters (and thus it is practical for them to keep 30 minutes of ring buffer instead of 30 seconds).

If they weren't able to challenge it successfully, either their lawyers are inept or the judge is clueless or both. This patent has no more merit than the "on the internet" patents. In fact, it is literally a "do something that has been done for years, but with a computer" patent. How people can get patents on something like that is beyond me. It is a new use of an existing technology---something patents are not supposed to cover. I'm stunned that any competent judge ruled in TiVo's favor, frankly. I'm particularly disappointed that the Supreme Court denied certiorari. This is a pretty clear-cut case of patent abuse, IMHO....

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[spire3661]

Im still getting free listings on my Snapstream Beyond TV server.......

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[pnewhook]

Exactly..

Re:Something, Something, Dark Side...

[X0563511]

quit reposting the same shit, jackass

Nobody has a patent on the DVR

[tgibbs]

TiVo's patents are not on the idea of a DVR, they are on specific user interface features and methods of implementing them in software and hardware.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[Cramer]

I think you need to look at your definition of "nothing". That PC didn't materialize out of thin air. Your time has worth as well.

And any homebrew PVR will either be limited to broadcast TV (OTA or via cable as long as it's not moving around all the time *cough*SDV*cough*) or re-encoded from some other receiver -- digital cable box, DISH or DTV receiver. A homebrew PVR is for tinkerers; when you wanna simply watch tv, you buy a PVR, sit it on a shelf, and forget about it.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[blackest_k]

In America this is true but not in the UK for example where the TV guide is part of the transmission and gives 2 weeks of programming information. It's extremely easy to capture every episode in a series, too easy in fact.

Why can't American Broadcasts carry the same information? Maybe you should ask the FCC.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[Tacvek]

They do (or at least did not to long ago) have this information. The feature name was guide-plus. some televisions were able to decode this information, I owned one, but very few. I believe the system used though may be patented with an unreasonable patent license fee which is why very few devices support it.

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[JasterBobaMereel]

You can in the UK .... it's only in the good ol' US of A that companies can charge for freely available information ...

The only limited systems in the UK are Virgin and Sky .. both are encoded and so you can only use their systems forget listings even the programs cannot be recorded except on their own systems ... but the listings are still free....

Re:Fucking patent trolls

[tha_mink]

You can in the UK .... it's only in the good ol' US of A that companies can charge for freely available information ...

Not the information, only the transfer of the information. Those pesky server and bandwidth costs and all...