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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."
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!
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
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.
Conservative, mod down for violating
It's about the TiVo Multimedia time warping system patent.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
It's great nobody patented car turning right yet. Imagine all those left-turn only cars...
But TiVo runs (and contributes to) Linux. And these were defensive patents. That makes them okay, right?
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
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/
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
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
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
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.
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.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
In 96, almost 3 years before the first tivo, I could have shown you a Mac that could do it.
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?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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.
As everyone has already said, this is a hardware patent.
TiVo found a way to fit a flux capacitor inside their boxes.
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.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
Dish Network is a product. Echostar Satellite LLC is the company. There is no former, only formal.
www.wavefront-av.com
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.
Digitized locally is irrelvant as is where the ring buffer is stored is too, considering patents are METHODS, not specific implementations.
Good-bye