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ABC, CBS, and NBC Block Google TV
markjhood2003 writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that 'ABC, CBS and NBC are blocking TV programming on their websites from being viewable on Google Inc.'s new Web-TV service. ... Spokespeople for the three networks confirmed that they are blocking the episodes on their websites from playing on Google TV, although both ABC and NBC allow promotional clips to work using the service.' Google has responded, 'Google TV enables access to all the Web content you already get today on your phone and PC, but it is ultimately the content owners' choice to restrict their fans from accessing their content on the platform.'"
nah there is a general problem.... how can i get cable without a isp?
Sickbeard makes one hell of a DVR program. (When paired with sabnzbd or a torrent program).
$25 for a 180GB block from Astraweb has lasted me since August and I haven't even burned through 1/2 of it yet. (I used to have the $10/month unlimited until I realized how much I really didn't use it). Programs available within a few minutes of the show ending. 30 minute TV shows take 2-3 minutes. Hour long never take longer than 10. (Heck when I saturate my cable I can have a movie in 8 minutes).
XBMC makes one hell of a nice front end. I come home from school or work and just browse to the 'latest episodes' and watch something.
That is a lot of crappy television shows I have to boycott now.
I was just thinking that all the t.v. shows on right now suck because of the writers strike a while back.
It turns out the executives are just insane.
google tv is a solution in search of a problem. A half-assed solution at that.
Nope. A problem exists. My DVR's software is extremely clunky to the point of unusability. If you could replace that crap with a google interface that allows me to search for shows and times and allow me to use it to program the DVR, I would gladly pay for it. I understand that Dish Network is thinking about integrating it into their set top boxes. So, I might be gladly paying for it.
Add to that the fact that you can use the web on the dang thing is an absolute bonus.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Seems like this would be easily worked around by changing some useragent strings. Not sure why Google wouldn't do that themselves, but I guess they probably care more about their relationship with media companies than I do.
It baffles me that the networks' left and right hands don't know what the other are doing. With one hand they gleefully provide online versions of the shows and with the other, they smack down anyone (Boxee, Google) that tries to make the consumption of those products easier.
People that choose to watch the shows over the internet are actively choosing to not make regular network TV a part of their day. They aren't willing to sit down at 8 pm, 7 central to watch Chuck; they want to watch it at 6:00 am before work. 10 years ago, they would have been lost viewers. All that advertising revenue would have vanished with their choice. Today, the networks have an option to recapture some of that lost revenue via internet viewers. Granted, they don't show as many adverts, and that ad space (for the moment) is worth less than TV ad time, but they still get money.
Why are they getting upset when google/boxee/whoever drives MORE users to their product? Or are they just afraid that people will choose to eschew network TV in favor of internet TV? If that's the case, they've already lost the battle by offering shows on the internet. Some networks have come up with reasonable solutions though: Fox shows House a week late on the internet for example. Why not offer extra content on TV to encourage TV watching over internet watching. Or, resolve cliff-hangers on the air and make internet viewers sweat it out for an extra two weeks.
What other reasons can /. think of for the networks behavior? Why are they so afraid of internet content aggregators?
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
The traditional TV networks, recording companies, movie producers, etc. are *never* going to give up their business model. EVER. They are dinosaurs and simply will not change. It's futile to think that they will. The only option is for them to go out of business. They will, of course, but it's going to be a long wait, unfortunately. They will continue to fight us at every turn, but eventually, they will be gone. Until then, our job is to hang in there, continue to support independent projects, use torrents so that they lose advertising revenue, and teach as many people as we know to do the same.
Everyone seems to think that the networks don't know what they're doing. They're banning Google TV, when anyone with half a brain knows this sort of thing is the wave of the future. I'm willing to bet that the network execs do, in fact, have at least one half of a brain between them.
It makes perfect sense if you think, well, maybe they don't really want to ban Google TV. More likely, they want to make a deal with Google, whereby Google pays them for the privilege of using their content.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
There is one solution that's legal. You could get a dual C band dish or a C and K band, or a K and Ku band with a non-branded digital receiver and pay a satellite channel clearinghouse for channels rather than a satellite service with integrated packages of receiver and set station lists.
You'll pay more. It won't be as convenient. You'll have a positioning delay as your dish tracks to the different distribution satellites instead of a dedicated customer feed satellite like with Dish Network or Direct TV. You'll have to pay for installation and support on a consulting basis because you won't have the dedicated support staff of a subscriber-based company like Dish Network or Direct TV. You'll have increasingly uncommon equipment to keep maintained at your own expense.
On the bright side, you can get a few free satellite channels. You'll also be able to get free audio distribution channels for syndicated shows in extra audio channels of the video channels sometimes. You won't have to do business with someone also wanting to sell you Internet access. You'll just have a lot of cons to get the few pros.
Yeah, that's the *other* problem... the networks have so far treated Internet streaming of shows as an oddity that they need to get involved in to be relevant. But now that they think people may actually use it as their *primary* source of content, they are confused and terrified.
As for integrating into DVRs - that would be interesting. But the DVR industry is basically made up of 2 camps today - the innovative, struggling companies (Tivo, Moxi, etc) relying on govt regulations like CableCard to survive at all. And the big, bloated cable hardware suppliers (General Instruments aka Motorola, and Scientific Atlanta aka Cisco) that have no concept of user interface or quality control, but have enough influence to dominate the OEM cable box market.
In the end, though, content availability is all about the providers/owners feeling comfortable with the (revenue from the) distribution model. Can they make a profit with free online content with ads? Do they get enough share from an iTunes transaction? Will they get enough of a cut from a monthly fee in a subscription service? It's going to be an interesting battle...
Indeed, saying there is no need for an accessible software platform for set-tops is like saying there's no need for one on smartphones. 6 years ago you might have had some credibility in saying that about phones -- today, with iOS & Android out, you'd just sound like an idiot.
The manufacturers of TV accessory equipment haven't progressed much more software-wise than did the old-era dumbphone lineups -- they even intentionally cripple devices in the same way. It's wonderful when the entire fucking industry engages in planned obsolescence.
We have passed the Iron Age, the electronic Age, and entered the information Age. We will look back upon this time as the turning point of entertainment distribution. Will Cable companies become Internet on-ramp companies or will they wither and die. I use UseNet for all my needs. A GBPVR system gives me all that, free radio, and a bag of chips. Will new networks arise? American Internet Corporation? National Broadcast Internet? What will it take to change the cash flow from broadcast advertising to the Internet Google HD Streaming Network? What if Conan left TBS and did an Internet only show? Oprah? Will infomercials and house flipping shows become relics? Will adverts cease if we pay (Netflix)? How will the cable companies keep ripping off consumers when more and more of their programming becomes available online?
If I, personally, was given the choice between being called a dinosaur by morons and working thanklessly for them for free, I would rather be called a dinosaur. I'm not sure I could afford anything different.
Cable companies are now supplying DVRs, and, like I said, providing free versions of their shows online. I can't think of a format shifting example, but then again, I can't think of anyone who expects to be able to format-shift their TV. Bitch all you want, but cable companies are adapting, and you whiny pirates are revealing yourselves to be the greedy, inflexible ones in all of this. Whodathunkit?
Citation needed. Why on earth would I want anything like that?
What I do want is sustainable practices when it comes to art. I don't mind if we do away with copyright, only if we have a working, implemented, and already used system that replaces all of copyrights functions. I'm sceptical that we can find one that embraces the self-justifying pirate's sense of self-entitlement and abject greed, but like any good sceptic, I'm open to the possibilities.
Have you spouted this same crap before to me? I'm sorry if I don't remember you; you sound just like all the other self-entitled pricks I've argued with: rhetorically empty, with arguments pasted together purely out of insults.
As for the $300mil blockbuster, I think the market should decide. Nobody is forcing you, or anyone else, to see them.
Let's get this straight. You took a half-truth like "eyeballs are the product" (advertising is only a portion of their revenue), you used that to create a laughably bad analogy, and then concluded something from it about something that was only tangentially related to thing you created the analogy about? That is seriously the worst argument I have heard in at least a month or three.
I certainly agree with that. Supporting alternatives is what will get us off our dependence on Big Media. Not just downloading more from them.
Let's get this straight. Choosing to search for and illegally download from a torrent is not the same as walking down the street, hearing buskers and seeing billboards. To claim otherwise is utterly dishonest.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Here's the deal.
Anybody with a current video card probably has TV out, So basically anything you can squeeze down to 640 * 480 can be streamed to the TV. The trick is to click on the little buttons of each website's player to go full screen. So, a user using this method can port anything to the TV, but clicking that little full screen button is harder than it looks. There's different players, some may be in a browser, some may not, some may be on your hard drive, regardless, pushing that full screen button is the trick, of course being able to pause and rewind and all that is nice to have too.
I would buy a set top box if it can help mitigate these problems. Sounds like Google TV was on it's way in this regard, but abc, cbs, nbc who are dangerous cults don't care about logic, or the truth, so you can bet trying to bend your neck to look backwards and get the mouse to line up with the button is going to be around for awhile.
What is the source of this myth that "computer screens" and "televisions" are different things, having different sizes and used in different rooms?
Until 2006 or so, high definition was for text.
In the mid-1980s, home computers lost the ability to output standard-definition television as a standard feature. One needed a special monitor to display the EDTV signals (480p RGB component) from the new "VGA" video cards; TVs could handle only 480i or 576i depending on the local AC power frequency. PCs of the time were designed to show text, not video, and they added high-definition "XGA" modes to display more text on the screen. There were adapters called "scan converters" to turn 480p, 600p, and eventually 768p into 480i, but few people knew about them, and for this reason, even fewer applications were specifically designed for them. Instead, computer monitors surged toward higher resolutions to show even more text: 864p, 1024p, and 1200p.
The fundamental incompatibility between standard-definition TVs and high-definition computer monitors didn't change until the late 2000s when HDTV took off. By then, there had been two decades of tradition of separation of TVs from computer monitors. Only geeks have both the knowledge of how HDTV actually works and a culture of experimentation (as opposed to a presupposition that if one plugs two things together that aren't traditionally plugged together, it could fry one or both) to break this tradition.
Where did people start to get the idea that turning on a "computer" is different than turning on an enclosure with a CPU and RAM and HDMI-out which just happens to be labeled "cable box" or "DVD player" or "Wii" or "Roku"?
That's because nobody has come up with a national (in the United States) ad campaign for a nettop HTPC.
You know what is gonna FINALLY get the average Joe into using their PC as an HTPC? And the sad part is I think they didn't even realize it themselves, because I sure as hell haven't seen them advertising it: MSFT with the Internet TV in Windows 7 Media center. I have more average folks, I'm talking about the clueless ones that barely know how to get to Facebook, coming to me and asking "Hey, have you heard of this "Internet TV" thingie? Can MY PC do that? How would I do that?". Apparently it is spreading via word of mouth all over the place, probably geeks finding out and passing to relatives who pass it to friends, etc. Even my dad, who is king of clueless and behind the curve, asked me about setting up Internet TV. For everyone that asks I usually just wake up the box at the shop I watch TV on and let them see Internet TV integrated with my local cable, boy does that set them drooling. And frankly the UI is perfect for average folks, it just don't get any simpler than "Choose Internet TV, Choose network, watch shows". Hell they even have Netflix built in for those that have a subscription.
I just wonder if they aren't pushing it for fear of a Google TV style reaction? Because if I was MSFT I'd be pushing the living hell out of it. Just add a TV tuner and Windows Media Center makes a damned good DVR that is butt simple to use, the Internet TV makes catching a show you forgot to tape easy, as well as having whole series of older shows like Twilight Zone and Star Trek TOS, hell the whole setup is just sweeet. But if folks if BF nowhere have heard of it via word of mouth, I'm sure others are spreading it elsewhere. which is cool with me, I've been waiting for HTPCs to become the norm since I was squeezing every once of performance I could out of a PII to get smooth video on an All-In-Wonder in the late 90s.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
There's something sinister about blocking display of content on a platform that otherwise supports the tech needed for viewing. It certainly looks to be anti-competitive behavior worthy of examination by the F.C.C. or whoever.
I wonder what else they're doing.