Time Warner Cable Patents Method For Disabling Fast-Forward Function On DVRs

antdude writes in with a story about a patent that won't have DVR users skipping for joy. "Time Warner Cable has won a U.S. patent for a method for disabling fast-forward and other trick mode functions on digital video recorders. The patent, which lists Time Warner Cable principal architect Charles Hasek as the inventor, details how the nation's second largest cable MSO may be able prevent viewers from skipping TV commercials contained in programs stored on physical DVRs it deploys in subscriber homes, network-based DVRs and even recording devices subscribers purchase at retail outlets."

Comments

Patent good in this case

[DNS-and-BIND]

At least the damage will be restricted to one company, albeit a major one.

Re:Patent good in this case

[zonky]

Here's the actual patent: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8180200.PN.&OS=PN/8180200&RS=PN/8180200

Re:Patent good in this case

[durrr]

For those who don't want to read technical details it can be summarized like this: Time Warner patents yet another "Method to create disincentives to honest buyers and drive people into piracy"

I'm sure it will be a great sucess and useful as yet another argument why pirates kill their business.

Re:Patent good in this case

[Zuriel]

You're overlooking the other major upside to this patent: technical details will be available to MythTV's developers and added to the commercial skipper.

Re:Patent good in this case

[Anonymous Coward]

In case anyone's allergic to the word "substantially" and can therefore not read the patent, here's the gist: The patented method is to leave out seekable frames ("I-frames") and send sequences completely as frames which depend on previous frames.

This is, of course, completely pointless, since a DVR can simply start with a black frame and apply dependent frame information to that. As soon as the whole picture changes, particuarly at the end of the ads, the differences will encode the full following picture and remove any artifacts (VLC used to seek like that). If any DVR is fooled by the lack of I-frames, I'm sure a solution is just a quick software upgrade away. I suspect that sending overly long sequences of dependent frames is also going to piss off zappers and may be a violation of the compression standard.

Re:Patent good in this case

[Charliemopps]

lol... no... they'll just license it to all of the other cable companies.

Re:Patent good in this case

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Is this just an unbelievably bad idea, or do I not understand it properly?

It would seem that, to function as a video playback device, The cable box/DVR would have to have enough data to reconstruct every frame in the program, at or before the time it needs to be displayed. Whether you only need a few frames in order to compute frame N, because of fairly frequent i-frames, or whether you need every frame before N to compute N, the DVR can still compute each frame, and so skip anywhere it wants(unless, of course, it was physically unplugged/off/not getting a usable signal, I'm sure customers with flaky reception are going to love having minutes of artifacts after every dip...

Re:Patent good in this case

[History's Coming To]

In this case, it's "patent good". You want the money from this idea? Sure, write it all down here please. It's public, by the way. Cheers.

Re:Patent good in this case

[Denogh]

At least the damage will be restricted to one company, albeit a major one.

No, this just means one company will make bank licensing the method to other companies.

Re:Patent good in this case

[PKFC]

Can't this be a good thing? Because implementing the same system in other TV service would need licensing which would be money which would be skippable then. Time Warner customers are boned, but hey, better for the rest of us

Re:Patent good in this case

[nurb432]

You really think so? You are sadly mistaken, as others will license it too. Its not like it comes out of their pocket, they just pass the cost along down to your bill.

Re:Patent good in this case

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so nobody patents this idea, here's how I would do it for DVRs running my software--I would encrypt the video, but change the keying after each commercial break. The software would not unlock the key for the subsequent program material from either an online (via 'net) or local (offline storage on the DVR) until the users had viewed the commercials at normal speed... One would use any method to detect the start of the commercial block--or heck, commercials could be unencrypted.. the method of determining when in the program keys change could be used for the commercial start/stop detection too... One could even inject streaming live/updated ads (that allows them to be changed if the user views the program later and get up-to-date ads... there, now they can't patent THAT idea either) and the streaming server could unlock or send key updates which would permit even more data gathering possibiliites... WHeee this idea thing is easy!

Re:Patent good in this case

[skine]

Their business is showing advertisements to as many people as possible.

Entertainment is only the method they use.

Re:Patent good in this case

[catmistake]

Quick! Someone come up with a patent for disabling Time-Warner's method for disabling fast-forward function on DVRs!

Re:Patent good in this case

[Idbar]

On the bright side: Dish can now say they don't want to pay royalties for this, and therefore, allow their customers to bypass it (which is what they were offering).

Furthermore, now we'll be expecting a patent of a method for overriding fast-forward disabling methods. I guess there's a new loop-hole on the patent system. The multiple negation method.

Re:Patent good in this case

[tompaulco]

Their business is showing advertisements to as many people as possible. Entertainment is only the method they use.
The networks business model is showing advertisements to customers. The cable companies business model is providing content to customers. We pay them to give us content without commercials, otherwise we could just get an antenna.

Re:Patent good in this case

[sound vision]

Well no, their business isn't solely ads. They also collect subscription fees, so some of the money actually does come from people paying for entertainment.
That being said ... it'd be interesting to find out what proportion of their money comes from subscribers, and what comes from advertisers.

Re:Patent good in this case

[jedidiah]

Once you have the commercial cut point markers, you can program the player to do anything you want. You can either skip the commercial upon seeing the initial cutpoint or disable navigation controls entirely.

Yet another patent on the obvious with plenty of prior art.

Re:Patent good in this case

[jedidiah]

It's not like I needed another reason to avoid their land line monopoly in favor of satellite providers. This is yet another confirmation that I made the right choice in that regard.

I pity the fool that bought their cable service.

Re:Patent good in this case

[LordKronos]

On the other hand, it's Time Warner...possibly the absolute WORST cable company for a mythtv user since they have a corporate wide policy of marking every channel copy one or copy never instead of copy free. That means they system is absolutely useless with a cablecard, so your only option in myth is to get mutliple HDPVRs and multiple cable boxes. Expensive, inelegant, and a PITA. No thanks.

Re:Patent good in this case

[blind biker]

For those who don't want to read technical details it can be summarized like this: Time Warner patents yet another "Method to create disincentives to honest buyers and drive people into piracy"

I'm sure it will be a great sucess and useful as yet another argument why pirates kill their business.

Piracy is copying copyrighted content with the intent of making a profit. If one copies such content for their own pleasure but not profit, then it's just... copying. There is such a nice word for it, why not use it? Let me repeat: copying.

Re:Patent good in this case

[ormico]

I can't help thinking this is beating a dead horse. Isn't it fair to say that the market is moving away from DVRs and towards streaming on demand.

I used to have a Tivo. And then when I had Dish for a year, I had their DVR, but that was years ago. We dropped Cable TV and kept Cabled Internet. We watch everything we care about on Netflix or Amazon over our XBox or one one of our laptops.

I know not everyone does that, but it seems to be the way things are headed.

Making DVRs less useful is just going to drive that trend quicker.

Re:Patent good in this case

[Anonymous Coward]

Piracy is copying copyrighted content with the intent of making a profit

No it bloody isn't! Piracy is having a wooden leg, eye patch and parrot and stealing boats, people and treasure on the high seas.

I'm pretty certain the terms you are looking are along the lines of 'copyright infringement' and 'counterfeiting'.

Re:Patent good in this case

[MachineShedFred]

The first commercial break I can't fast forward through, will be the commercial break I use to call Time Warner and inform them that they are fired, and that they need to come pack up their shitty DVR and GTFO.

Seriously, their DVR is practically unusable as it is. This new "feature" will completely defeat the purpose of using it versus using some antique like a VCR.

Re:Patent good in this case

[abhisri]

Really? If that is their business, why are we, the *subscribers* paying them?
.

Lots of subscribers don't want to see advts. And the sponsors would like as much advts to be shown. If you FORCE advts to be shown, while still charging the subscribers, they will just flock to whatever is more convenient. In all likelihood, pirated shows. For someone who claims to really HATE piracy and equates it to actual terrorism(blowing people up), media companies sure seem to go out of their way to provide all sorts of incentives for pirating stuff.

Re:Patent good in this case

[kurkosdr]

"Because implementing the same system in other TV service would need licensing which would be money which would be skippable then. Time Warner customers are boned, but hey, better for the rest of us" Tee hee... This is where the DMCA comes to play: Are you a company that makes DVRs/DVD recorders, and want your DVRs/DVD recorders to be able to work with Time Warner cable cards? We have a little contract you must sign. If you go ahead and provide compatibility with Time Warner cable cards without Time Warner's permission, it will be considered "circumvention" and the wrath of the US "justice system" will be onto you. See how the DVD Forum mandates CGMS-A detection in DVD recorders, and region lock, UOPs and CGMS-A+Macrovision output on DVD players for more info. Unless some company/startup gets the balls and releases a libdvdcss DVD player in the US, so that a precedent of using "circumvention" for at least the purpose of viewing is enstablished, the landscape will be divided between the "free world" that has to pirate and the "stupid restrictions world" that has authorized access to media. What surprises me is how little mention the EFF, Wikipedia and other organizations that supposedly care about user freedoms make about this. They 'll bang on about censorship and net neutrality, but when it comes to the fact you have to tolerate weird restrictions on legally purchased material, utter silence or very few mentions.

Re:Patent good in this case

[omnichad]

Except it's not quite working. Have you noticed how many new shows are getting cancelled without getting a real chance? It's probably in part because the target audience has already planned to wait and see if it makes it to a full season or gets renewed for a second season before planning to watch it on Netflix in 2 years.

Re:Patent good in this case

[crazyjj]

Actually, I imagine it will create an incentive for people to leave Time Warner. And the best part is that, since Time Warner has patented it, you can be guaranteed fast-forward everywhere else.

Re:Patent good in this case

[BlackSnake112]

Unless Time Warner licenses this tech to other providers for really cheap or free. If that is done many more are screwed.

I wonder if they will stop people from having their own DVR? Many people got the DVR for free from their provider. People may go out and get their own DVR if this happens or will the new DVR have to accept this no FF rule by default?

Re:Patent good in this case

[AwesomeMcgee]

So the big networks need to get the effing picture on this one, honestly- hulu/netflix are the new distribution channels. The networks are going to partner up or die. It comes down to one simple motivator: Time. People are too busy to carve out slots in their week dictated by the networks schedules, and netflix/hulu allows them to enjoy the content they want without them having to work their schedules around some national networks designs. Simple as that, hulu/netflix/etc all provide a service network broadcasts will simply never be able to do, and valuable enough to consumers that they will all eventually move on to this. Short of the networks providing the DVRs to everyone's home.

I would even argue that consumers by and large could give 2 shits about commercials, hulu has them and they're rolling in the dough. People are happy to sit through commercials, they get the DVR's to watch when they want, the commercial skipping garb is just bonus.

The cable providers are going about this in completely the wrong way, they think improving their internet infrastructure to allow everyone to be their customers for access to hulu/netflix/etc is so expensive compared to improving their tv infrastructure, so they're actively working to lock people into the tv infrastructure. It's a higher profit margin part of their business, but they're ignorant of the fact that no matter how much they try to lock people in, the majority of people will be using internet streaming services for their entertainment in 10 years time.

They're fighting it because it's not the most profitable portion of their business, they should be actively working to do what they can to make it a higher margin part because they can't stop consumers from choosing the clearly better products hulu/netflix/etc provide. In the same vein the networks need to start making their alliances with streaming providers immediately or else they'll be making crappy shows for pennies in 10 years while someone else will fill the void of producing quality content for the streaming providers.

Re:Patent good in this case

[Rakarra]

But can you record high-def encrypted cable streams that require a cable-card? I switched to a Tivo because the open-source solutions no longer have any access to the content.

Back when I tried it, over the air recording was a losing proposition (too many errors in the stream) and MythTV had a very poor HD playback interface (it would desync when a stream had even a minor error on one frame) but there's no way it could be as bad now as it was then.

And I can't see Tivo going for this at all.

Re:Patent good in this case

[Rakarra]

The networks business model is showing advertisements to customers. The cable companies business model is providing content to customers. We pay them to give us content without commercials, otherwise we could just get an antenna.

As Netflix has found, the middle-men (Netflix, Time Warner, Cox, DirectTV) are not the ones who hold the cards and can dictate terms. It's the content owners.

There is a general "war on advertising" going on now -- no one wants to watch advertising. Everyone hates it. They hate the flashing banner ads on websites. They hate the unskipable commercials on Youtube and Hulu. But they want to watch things for free. But the content requires advertising to pay for it. You think your cable bill pays the costs of shows to be made?

Re:Patent good in this case

[Immerman]

Hear, hear. And this coming from someone that passionately dislikes commercials, but understands their necessity. What I'd like to see is for advertisers to start embracing the new distribution methods more. For example I almost always choose the " single long-form" commercial when Hulu offers it to me, and most of the time I actually watch it, which I rarely do for the short-forms. The long forms just tend to be more entertaining, more informative, and less of a raw jolt of "Sex! Violence! Insecurity! Buy this!" As long as they're doing short-forms though what I would like to see though is "episodic" commercials - advertisers could be building interest in their product over the course of a show, hooking viewers with "what happens next?" rather than annoying potential customers with the same $#@! commercial six times in a row. I'd also love to see a "This commercial pisses me off" button that would prevent that particular ad from being shown again - nobody benefits from repeatedly showing me an ad that pisses me off, and I guarantee if you force me to watch it a dozen times in the course of an hour I'll be boycotting your product until I forget about it entirely.

I don't think there's much future in partnerships between Hulu/netflix/etc and networks though. Basically there are three niches in the "broadcast" media industry: Creation (writers, actors, etc), Production/funding (networks, syndicates, production houses), and Distribution (networks, Hulu, etc.) You'll note that Networks straddle two of the three, and generally milk the first as hard as possible. For them to partner with Hulu in the long term would mean surrendering their hold on the distribution channel and it's associated profits to become just another (large) production house. Basically they need to *become* Hulu to compete as they are. At that point collaboration becomes possible via cross-licensing of content - basically letting us watch any network's content though any partnered network's interface, with the profit redistribution going on behind the scenes.

Now perhaps the Network as a combined production/distribution entity is doomed, I certainly wouldn't grieve, it seemed like there was a wider, more interesting selection of shows available before they became so heavily consolidated. Expecting them to willingly hand over half their business model to an outsider though is naive. I suspect the only reason we're seeing it at all right now is because they haven't yet gotten a good handle on online distribution and would rather make some profit from Hulu than lose all of it to the illegitimate competitors. Probably a poor long-term decision though, since they're strengthening one of their primary competitors who already has a first-mover advantage in the field. I suppose they figure they can just pull the plug when the time comes, and/or are simply blinded by short-term profits just like most other industries. I'll be interested to see how that plays out.

Re:Patent good in this case

[LordKronos]

No, that's not 70% false. I said all the channel are copy once or copy never rather than copy free. If every channel copy once, then what I said is true. I personally don't give a shit about the distinction between once and never, because for using mythtv (which was the subject of the post) the two are indistinguishable....neither can be used at all.

2nd, I guarantee you there are copy never channels. I've heard from a number of users about copy never channels. For instance, here's a thread about Comedy Central being marked copy never:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=481464

This is a great patent...

[__Paul__]

...and I'll make sure to avoid any device that lists it in its manual.

Re:This is a great patent...

[Dahamma]

Unless you are buying cable headend equipment, don't expect to see it listed in anything you buy.

Re:This is a great patent...

[cpu6502]

Side note: My Antenna TV is free. :-)

Buying devices w/o TW's feature won't help to defeat it. If the patent works as well as it claims, it operates similar to Macrovision by deliberately introducing video errors. With Macrovision the errors prevented analog copying, and with TW's new patent the errors prevent playback at any speed faster than 1.

Of course these digital errors won't harm my Super VHS at all.
Being analog it ignores all digital trickery/flags.

Re:This is a great patent...

[TheGratefulNet]

how I'd approach this: use their data of when commercials appear as hints for me to pause (literally or just marker id's in a file) and resume recording.

of course all your branded dvr's that do work digitally can be mucked with, but anything we have on our own (myth) can actually benefit from your 'a commercial or must-watch thing comes..... NOW' markers.

bring them on. anything that helps us delimit commercials is welcome!

cheers

Re:This is a great patent...

[jaymemaurice]

I have a Sony Digital 8/DVCAM DVR you insensitive clod. Oh it won't be affected either, it has analog inputs.

Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Disabling the fast-forward function on a DVR would likely spark a backlash from subscribers, and make it more difficult for Time Warner Cable to compete with DirecTV (Nasdaq: DTV), Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and other multichannel providers that distribute DVRs that allow subscribers to skip commercials.

So... You're ROCKSTAR PR department lets THIS part slip but... I'm lost.

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[Eponymous Hero]

the only appropriate response to time warner cable is FUCK YOU. some of us will be saying it with our money, but it would be nice to see someone get this point across in some tangible way.

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

My thinking was "Time Warner Patents Method Of Quickly Losing Cable Subscribers."

But I think we're on the same idea

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[Dahamma]

Yeah, this is one DVR patent I can't imagine Dish Network won't be shamelessly stealing, given they are currently being sued for *adding* a smart commercial skip feature to their DVRs...

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[GIL_Dude]

But then again, maybe they will steal it - or license it. Can you just imagine a cable ad sales rep talking to a marketing person who is looking to place advertising? We can give you the standard service for $x. But, customers can skip those - and our studies show that your target market mostly skips them. For $2x, we can give you an unskippable ad that your target market will be forced to show. No skipping on those premium ads.

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

If enough people got on-board, tweeting about it might help. Time Warner pays attention to it and, frankly, they do NOT want to be a trend.

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[Dahamma]

I wouldn't put it past Dish. Charlie Ergen is a devious bastard.

It's sort of like AT&T's fee for being listed in the phone book.

$0.35 / month for basic phone book listing.
$.0.50 / month for an unlisted number.

Just try convincing a customer support rep you don't want either of those services...

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[Cylix]

Backlash?

They have been doing this with the dct dvr's they lease to subscribers for quite a while. The motorola dct 34xx and 64xx are quite capable of 30 second skip and it was an awesome feature that just wasn't. However, it wasn't exactly clever since they simply unmapped the button from the remote.

Since the remote itself is just a universal rebadge it's quite easy to restore the functionality.

The real sham was disabling the firewall port on their units. My MythTV unit was perfectly happy to ingest and control my the cable dvr once upon a time, but some others were not quite so lucky. I suppose you could say that 30 second skip functionality was really what made really want to do a lot more.

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[BlueStrat]

Disabling the fast-forward function on a DVR would likely spark a backlash from subscribers, and make it more difficult for Time Warner Cable to compete with DirecTV (Nasdaq: DTV), Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and other multichannel providers that distribute DVRs that allow subscribers to skip commercials.

So... You're ROCKSTAR PR department lets THIS part slip but... I'm lost.

You're lost because the other shoe hasn't dropped yet.

What do you bet that, after a time, a way will be found to have the government enforce it's inclusion in any DVR produced or distributed domestically or imported into the US? After the next round of spectrum auctions or the ones after that kills OTA TV, that's it. Game over. At least for most folks.

They've learned to do this crap in steps so as not to boil the frog too quickly, and alarm it into escaping the pot.

Strat

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[jaymemaurice]

Oh, sir, you must mean you want the $1.00/month service that gets your last name spelled incorrectly?

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[pixr99]

Let's get Torvalds to do it!

Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh?

[MarkGriz]

the only appropriate response to time warner cable is FUCK YOU.

Hey Linus, here's another one.

Next

[GrahamCox]

Next they'll be patenting eye clamps so you can't shut your eyes and a tongue strap so you can't go "la la la la la" during the commercials.

Peole.Do.Not.Want.To.Watch.Ads.

Find another way to make money, you morons.

Re:Next

[PNutts]

Find another way to make money, you morons.

OK. They just doubled your rate and moved everything except goverment / religious to premium tiers.

Re:Next

[Ichijo]

Peole.Do.Not.Want.To.Watch.Ads.

While that's mostly true (with the possible exception of the Superbowl commercials), some people consider watching ads to be preferable to the alternatives, such as paying for premium channels, or spending money on a DVR, or getting off the couch and walking out of the room when an ad comes on, or simply not watching television at all. If people disliked ads so much that they never watched them, then ad-supported television would quickly cease to exist.

So "people do not want to watch ads" doesn't tell the complete story.

Re:Next

[sexconker]

Find another way to make money, you morons.

OK. They just doubled your rate and moved everything except goverment / religious to premium tiers.

Good! Advertising is a disgusting, sleazy thing in all forms.

Re:Next

[TheGratefulNet]

already they have doubled rates (at some point, they were half, right?) and yet we still have crap on the networks.

so, your theory is BS. no matter how much we'd pay, they would STILL want to dip further into ad money. movies were once ad-free and pay-tv was once ad-free. none of that is, anymore.

I have zero hope in people Doing The Right Thing(tm) when it comes to us paying and getting ad-free services. so, I pirate, you pirate we all pirate. its what they have forced us to do. their fault. fully their fault for the war on eyeballs and eardrums.

they want war? they'll have it. and they'll lose.

btw, someone said there was a DEC logo here. I didn't see it, as it turned out I had many images blocked. I went to an 'unblocked' browser and was amazed at how BAD slash was when unfiltered. running firefox with noscript and adlock and a hefty filter list, I had totally forgotton how BAD the raw internet had become. and so, there is yet another proof that if there is an opp. the farking bastards will seize any free space and try to put an ad up there.

no more commercial tv, no more dvd's that have not been ripped and edited, no more unfiltered ad-laden internet. they WILL NOT GET MY EYEBALLS. fuckers!

Re:Next

[cluedweasel]

That's pretty much how our local cable operator works. Basic is pretty much the 4 networks, religious and shopping channels. That's it for $20 per month. Want anything more and it's $48.99 per month for ESPN, HGTV, USA, A&E, TNT, etc. Of course, boxes, DVR's and the like are extra on top, to the tune of $15 or so each per month for a DVR. Personally, I'd love to have channels delivered a la carte. I don't need, or want, ESPN which apparently costs $4.69 per month per subscriber according to various sources. Looking though my $48.99 per month list of channels, I probably watch 8 or 9 of them at best. There's another 5 I''d watch if I could pay for them individually, but buggered if I'm going to pay $14.99 for an "entertainment" package, $14.99 for a "sports" package and $16.99 for an HBO package in order to watch Fox Soccer, BBC America and HBO. As for ads, they suck. I record to an HTPC and auto removed the things.

Re:Next

[GrahamCox]

None of those reasons you give add up to people wanting to watch ads. They add up to people being too lazy or whatever to NOT watch ads. That's different.

If ads were creative and amusing, even occasionally, they might be worth watching, but I am sick of being shouted at for the ten millionth time to go to the perpetual sale at the nearest furniture and electronics good emporium. Give it a rest.

I would actually prefer to pay-per-view at a rate that reflected the true cost or value of the delivered content as long as it were ad free. I recognise that it costs money to make programming and that the companies involved in its production and delivery have a right to make a reasonable profit. I just despise the way they do it by being subsidised by advertising. It's intrusive and aggressive, and frankly, I do not want it force-fed into my own home where otherwise a little bit of relief from the relentless commercialism of our age can be found.

Once apps come to Apple TV and similar devices, channels will be just another app, and this whole model will come tumbling down.

Re:Next

[cpu6502]

>>>already they have doubled rates (at some point, they were half, right?) and yet we still have crap on the networks.

In the 90s cable was cheap (25-to-30 dollars) because channels were just airing reruns of broadcast television. Once they started producing original shows like Sliders, Stargate, Haven, Deadliest Catch, La Femme Nikita, The Closer (et cetera), they needed more money, and so the channels increased their per-home subscriber fee.

The average used to be 30 cents and now it's about 70 cents. Naturally those costs were passed to the customer by raising rates to 65-70 dollars. The subscriber fees doubled, and so too did the monthly fee. All to produce new shows.

Re:Next

[cpu6502]

>>>[Basic is] $20 per month. Want anything more and it's $48.99 per month for ESPN, HGTV, USA, A&E, TNT, etc.

I wish cable operated more like Dish. They have multiple tiers, rather than suddenly jump a huge amount in price. (BTW $49 is cheap. Comcast charges my area $60 for just one TV! nuts.)

$15 - basic
$25 - family
$35 - America's Top100 (150 if you include both East and West feeds)
and so on.
You get to decide how much you want to spend, and save some money.

Re:Next

[cruff]

Next they'll be patenting eye clamps so you can't shut your eyes and a tongue strap so you can't go "la la la la la" during the commercials.

Sounds like the aversion therapy used in Clockwork Orange to me.

Re:Next

[LordLucless]

That's also because they force a whole three channel's worth of programming down your throat, when all I want is a couple of shows. Say I want to watch two hours of television per week; that's 1/36 of the programming the BBC offers ( 3 channels x 24 hours), so that's ~$7/year. Yeah, I could live with that. Maybe they shouldn't go with an antiquated model where they need to fill up every hour of every day with unique content, most of which is rubbish and unwatched, and just let people watch what they want, when they want. There is no longer any compelling technological reason for time-slot television.

Re:Next

[GrahamCox]

Sounds like the aversion therapy used in Clockwork Orange to me.

Yes. Thank god there's "prior art" so that they can't patent it.

Re:Next

[cpu6502]

>>> ~$7/year

$7 for 104 hours? That's equivalent to eight seasons of Doctor Who..... which costs about 3 million dollars to produce just one episode. The Season Set DVDs would be $400 alone...... WAY higher than your unrealistic $7 estimate.

Re:Next

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually subscribe to your ideal TV service for about $25 a month. Commercial free and in HD. No time slots. I watch what I want, when I want.

$15 Netflix
$10 Usenet
$0 PirateBay

$50 uncapped 18 Mbps internet is multipurpose, so I don't include it.

Re:Next

[theArtificial]

In addition to increasing prices there is also inflation which helps prop up the numbers. In fact between 1990 and 2012 American currency has nearly halved in purchasing power due to inflation. $16 in 1990 is $30 in 2012 dollars.

Re:Next

[reboot246]

TV would be more affordable if nearly everybody involved in making the content were not paid a king's ransom.

Talk about the 1%'ers!

Re:Next

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'd pay double the rate for no commercials.

Re:Next

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. I've been "paid a king's ransom" for the past 30 years. Too bad I never noticed.

Re:Next

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think most people mind a few ads. Its just that the sheer quantity of ads has been increasing dramatically. Back in 1966, Star Trek (TOS) had approximately 8 minutes of commercials per hour. In 2004, episodes of Star Trek Enterprise had jumped to over 22 minutes of commercials per hour. That's almost tripled in less than 40 years. www.waynesthisandthat.com/commerciallength.htm

If you take into account in show product placement this inflates to 43+ minutes per hour for some shows (Hell's Kitchen). www.marketingcharts.com/television/primetime-tv-hour-includes-41-commercials-9434/

Re:Next

[CodeBuster]

You forgot to mention the automatic restraint which prevents you from getting up and going to the bathroom or into the kitchen to get a snack while the ads are being shown.

Re:Next

[tompaulco]

Find another way to make money, you morons.
OK. They just doubled your rate and moved everything except goverment / religious to premium tiers.
Why do they need to double my rate? They seemed to do okay back when they charged $20/month. How come they are suffering so bad now that they are charging $120 a month?

Re:Next

[AlamedaStone]

The $7 wasn't an estimate. It was the ratio of hours of television watched to hours of television available to watch in a year multiplied by total yearly cost. For the amount of television the OP watches, ie 1/36 of the available amount of television, OP's paying about $7 a year for the shows OP watches and about $143 a year for television gone unwatched. Why should OP be required to pay for television gone unwatched? Are you required to pay for electricity you don't use? Water you don't consume? No, these things are metered and you pay for what you use. Why should television be any different?

Because, as Dr Krugman so eloquently put it, "Goo goo ga ga, debasement. Theft!"

Re:Next

[smellotron]

Multiply that by a 70 channel basic package...

Maybe you wouldn't have 70 channels of mostly crap if content were priced for the public without hidden advertising subsidies. Many niche channels and programs survive now only because of bundling practices; they would either die or move to Internet-only distribution.

Re:Next

[jedidiah]

I think Jim Parsons took your share.

Re:Next

[smellotron]

There is no longer any compelling technological reason for time-slot television.

Yes there is. Bandwidth and storage (caching) capacity can be sized according to the source, regardless of the number of consumers. If all content is on-demand, then either redundant data needs to flow from the source, substantial caching infrastructure needs to be set up, or consumers must plan ahead for material to be available (i.e. starting content in 10-minute timeslices). All are feasible plans, but none is a free lunch.

Re:Next

[tompaulco]

I already pay five times the rate that it used to be when there was no commercials and now they also have commercials.

Re:Next

[tompaulco]

Why don't YOU tell them a better way to advertise new products? Hm? Not everyone reads the interwebs for purchasing advice on window cleaner, shampoo, etc.... Right now, ads on tv are the most effective way to spread news about new products.
I haven't seen an advertisement for a new product that I would consider buying since...well ever. I would say that the best way to advertise their products is free advertising. Make a product so good that people want to use it. Then they will tell their friends.

Re:Next

[blackraven14250]

You're neglecting that the people who sell you the TV service are the people who sell you internet service.

Re:Next

[chrismcb]

Next they'll be patenting eye clamps so you can't shut your eyes and a tongue strap so you can't go "la la la la la" during the commercials. Peole.Do.Not.Want.To.Watch.Ads. Find another way to make money, you morons.

If they can't make money from ads, then you have to pay for it out of your pocket. Ohhh wait, no one wants to do that either.
Ok, so then more product placement...
No thanks. I'd rather have ads.

Re:Next

[chrismcb]

I would actually prefer to pay-per-view at a rate that reflected the true cost or value of the delivered content as long as it were ad free.

I would prefer ad driven tv, than to pay the true cost. I don't think I (nor anyone else) can afford the true cost.

Re:Next

[TranquilVoid]

You are not really paying for everything as they know you will only watch a handful of what's available, and all the shows still have to be produced (but see below), so in a user-pays model you will be paying the same (if you are an average viewer).

If you watch quality dramas, you can expect to pay more. If you are one of the masses watching cheap reality TV you will pay a whole lot less. Maybe that's fair.

What would actually happen is that producing a show would become riskier so we would either see fewer, higher quality shows produced, or fewer, safer and more lowest-common-denominator ones.

There is no longer any compelling technological reason for time-slot television.

I disagree! Two that I can think of are complete lack of bandwidth (1080 digital TV streams run at 1GB per half hour) and simplicity - there is no on-demand broadcast or streaming standard, it's fragmented between various physical devices and online services that require a PC. This puts it beyond the abilities and hassle-horizon of many people, especially the elderly.

Re:Next

[LordLucless]

Ok, let's switch goalpoasts. We'll now consider the cost of Doctor Who, instead of BBC's overall offerings and costs.

Doctor Who is watched by, conservatively, 7 million Britons (more for premiers, finales and specials). It's also redistributed to 50 other countries. The US viewership peaked at around 1 million, and Australia was achieving about the same viewership in 2005, so let's be again conservative and say that those 50 other countries add about half of Britains viewership, bringing the worldwide total to around 10 million viewers. At that rate, it costs $0.30 an episode per viewer, or about $4 a season. Your $400 is off by 2 orders of magnitude. Even if we double that, and give the BBC a nice, chunky profit, you're off by a factor of 50. Note that my estimates are conservative; I wouldn't be surprised if the worldwide viewership for Doctor Who was closer to 15 - 20 million.

Re:Next

[LordLucless]

What would actually happen is that producing a show would become riskier so we would either see fewer, higher quality shows produced, or fewer, safer and more lowest-common-denominator ones.

Maybe. But every other entertainment media in the world - music, books, movies, computer games - uses that model, and if civilization's collapsed because of it, I haven't noticed.

I disagree! Two that I can think of are complete lack of bandwidth (1080 digital TV streams run at 1GB per half hour) and simplicity

And optical fibre rans at, what, 1GB a second? Substitute current antenna and repeater infrastructure with geographically-local caches that hold a whole year's worth of video, and you'll never even hit the backbone. I know we don't have ubiquitous domestic fibre connections yet, but it's scarcely a technological bottleneck.

there is no on-demand broadcast or streaming standard, it's fragmented between various physical devices and online service.

Sure there is. h.264 over bittorrent is pretty ubiquitous. Oh, you mean all those commercial providers haven't got their butts into gear, and are still trying to lock people in to proprietary DRMed solutions? Not a compelling technological reason in my book.

that require a PC

I don't know about you, but my country has just about got finished forcing everyone to add a digital decoder box to plonk on top of their TV. Not to mention, most TVs sold today have pretty decent processing capabilities of their own.

Re:Next

[mjwx]

Ok, let's switch goalpoasts. We'll now consider the cost of Doctor Who, instead of BBC's overall offerings and costs.

Doctor Who is watched by, conservatively, 7 million Britons (more for premiers, finales and specials). It's also redistributed to 50 other countries. The US viewership peaked at around 1 million, and Australia was achieving about the same viewership in 2005, so let's be again conservative and say that those 50 other countries add about half of Britains viewership, bringing the worldwide total to around 10 million viewers. At that rate, it costs $0.30 an episode per viewer, or about $4 a season. Your $400 is off by 2 orders of magnitude. Even if we double that, and give the BBC a nice, chunky profit, you're off by a factor of 50. Note that my estimates are conservative; I wouldn't be surprised if the worldwide viewership for Doctor Who was closer to 15 - 20 million.

You're treating the BBC like its a private corporation... stop that.

The Beeb is a public broadcaster that operates under a Royal Charter, basically they can do whatever they want as long as they fulfill that charter (which is, in case you haven't been paying attention is to be a public broadcaster). They dont have to make a profit, in fact they probably dont even have to break even. But they are probably making a mint from Doctor Who. Not only do other networks pay the BBC for rights, but there's DVD sales, toys and merchandise, books and what not. When the BBC does make a profit, that money is funnelled into other productions (news, web services, other shows) Doctor Who probably pays for a bunch of BBC shows.

Re:Next

[LordLucless]

You're treating the BBC like its a private corporation... stop that.

That's because the OP used them as an example of why TV was expensive. I took his numbers and ran with them. If you want to argue his case, and have the financials for a private production company that we can use, feel free to present them.

When the BBC does make a profit, that money is funnelled into other productions (news, web services, other shows) Doctor Who probably pays for a bunch of BBC shows.

So, basically what private production companies do with the profits from their successful shows then.

Re:Next

[KermodeBear]

I think the best way to deal with this issue is to tie ads directly into the show - very much like they used to with older shows. Character A comes home, opens the refrigerator, pulls out a bottle of Coke and takes a long drink. "Crisp and refreshing!" It's part of the show, can't really skip it, and producers / advertisers can find all kinds of clever ways to get their product into the show.

There's a couple problems with this model though. Once the show is produced you can't change the advertising - you'd have to record the show over again and change the script. Over time, some of the ads will become less and less relevant (some new car or the latest cool tech device). It's also harder to slip into content that takes place in an older time period.

Still, I think creativity, and careful product selection, can minimize these issues. If it's done well (it wouldn't be, but if it is) then it won't even be too annoying to the viewers.

Re:Next

[AtomicBison]

Realistically, we should be able to subscribe to cable channels in a modular fashion. Then your bill [in perfect theorycraft] shouldn't be all that large unless you wanted to subscribe to all those channels. Do I want sports, mass news, reality, talk show, or 99% of the channels I have? No! But I pay for them anyways because the two channels I do want to watch require I pay for them. It's time to redesign the system in my opinion. I know it can't go completely modular, but the current system is FUBAR.

Re:Next

[operagost]

And in addition to THAT, there is the introduction of new technology as "features" that don't ever become mainstream. They'll tell you that cable is $X per month, but since it's all digital, in order to actually watch your premium channels at more than one TV you'll need to buy another box (their revenge for not being able to change 'port' fees for just installing a splitter anymore) and to actually see the HD signal that every broadcaster has used for years now, you have to pay extra for an HD box.

Re:Next

[cpu6502]

>>> At that rate, it costs $0.30 an episode per viewer, or about $4 a season. Your $400 is off by 2 orders of magnitude.

I have a pet peeve. Know what it is? People who can't read. I said $400 for *8* seasons (104 hours worth of entertainment per the person I was replying to). Not just one. And we don't have to guess at the cost or involve complicated math:
AMAZON.COM
Doctor Who Season Set
~$50.
BBC
Your 4 dollar estimate is ridiculous, especially when you can see the pricetag right in front of you.

Re:Next

[operagost]

Not to mention that you need their box to view anything other than basic in HD; and they seem to make it as difficult as possible to watch the basic channels by scattering them all over the DTV band.

Re:Next

[Leggman]

I went outside yesterday to escape the ads and a plane flew over my house towing a geico banner. WTF?

Re:Next

[cpu6502]

I guess you taint heard the news. Netflix and Hulu will soon start blocking people who don't have cable. So it's $15 for streaming the latest TV episodes + 60-70 for cable.

Re:Next

[lamber45]

Counterexample: my wife found a box of DVDs of "1000 classic commercials" (mostly from the 1950s or earlier, many of them black-and-white) and bought it, I don't know where. Our 8-year-old son watches them sometimes for fun; it's a lot safer than what would be on a random TV channel. The ones that talk about products that don't exist, or make outlandish claims, are especially funny.

Re:Next

[Rakarra]

Devil's advocate time!

no more commercial tv, no more dvd's that have not been ripped and edited, no more unfiltered ad-laden internet. they WILL NOT GET MY EYEBALLS. fuckers!

Just curious, why then do you feel you are entitled to their content if you will not watch their ads? One goes with the other -- they can't produce content without money.

No problems on the ripping and editing part though, as the dvd price fully pays for the content. Not so much with your cable bill.

And last devil's advocate question: would you be willing to pay a much higher cable price if it meant no stations had any commercials?

Re:Next

[LordLucless]

You know what my pet peeve is? People who don't even read what they've posted, then complain about others not reading it.

The Season Set DVDs would be $400 alone

At no point do you mention you're talking about the sets for then entire series. In fact, if did mean that, you should have pluralized "Season". Maybe learn how to communicate before attempting to next time.

Besides that, the pricetag of the DVD season box set has absolutely no relevance to the cost of producing the series. It's only relevance is to how much people are willing to pay. Economics 101.

Re:Next

[smellotron]

Yes there is. Bandwidth caps imposed by cable providers make it artificially expensive to download on demand content, while they continue to chew up what bandwidth they do have with shows that few people watch because of "packages".

FTFY

No, that's not what I mean. Bandwidth for broadcast material can be sized without regard to downstream behavior. When they send so many channels to your cable box, the less popular channels get heavier compression, but they know exactly what throughput they need to provision. With on-demand content, they have to guess. And if they guess wrong, latency shoots through the roof and everyone gets a big fat "buffering" screen instead of their program at peak hours. It's not about artificial costs due to bandwidth caps*, it's about a real and unavoidable difference in the data-stream. Grind your axe somewhere else, AC.

* Artificial scarcity for reasonable-latency bandwidth is indeed a bad thing for the 'net and content distribution in general. But it has nothing to do with my argument that bandwidth or storage requirements are fundamentally higher for an on-demand system than they are for a broadcast system.

Re:Next

[smellotron]

And then there's bittorrent...

I'll admit that I hadn't thought of building bittorrent into the client; mainly because most residential-grade connections have relatively terrible upstream bandwidth. I can see this working for recent material in metropolitan areas where peers are nearby and upstream bandwidth is plentiful. I don't think it would be effective out in the boonies, and I could see the lack of peers being problematic for less-popular content. But it would definitely be worth a shot for someone like Netflix to try!

Re:Next

[cpu6502]

>>>At no point do you mention you're talking about the sets for then entire series.

QUOTING THE GUY I WAS TALKING TO AND MYSELF. Do you see where I said 8 seasons? I'll bold it for you:

>>>Say I want to watch two hours of television per week..... that's ~$7/year.
>>
>>$7 for 104 hours? That's equivalent to eight seasons of Doctor Who..... The Season Set DVDs would be $400 alone......

they missed a patent

[fish waffle]

They forgot to patent "driving legitimate users to bittorrent through adding techniques designed to irritate paying customers".

But I suppose there's lots of prior art there.

Re:they missed a patent

[Phrogman]

Yeah, every move they make in this industry just seems to point out that a bittorrented version of whatever it is you are watching is preferable to the commercial product.
When the industry gets it right - say with Netflix (or the new BBC app my wife is using on her iPad), people are perfectly willing to pay for the service. When they get it wrong with crap like this, people will not be willing to just bend over and take it.

Great idea douchebags!

[vivek7006]

Another reason why either HTPC based DVR or Bittorrent is the way to go. FU

Re:Great idea douchebags!

[cpu6502]

QUOTE: "By utilizing, for example, digital embedded cue-tones for advertisement insertion, a device in the network ⦠could use these points (i.e., the cue-tones) to selectively remove I-Frames/IDR-Frames to prevent trick modes during ads (or other portions) but not from the program being watched. Thus, consumers can be substantially prevented from skipping, fast forwarding and rewinding through video that the provider would like the consumer to view, such as advertisements, specific carriage agreement requirements, etc.," Time Warner Cable wrote in the patent.

Sounds like it would prevent ANY digital device from fast-forwarding, due to the deliverate introduction of errors.
If that's accurate the only device which would not be bothered by MPEG Iframe errors is on analog Super VHS VCR. (Not HD but neither's my tv, so I don't really care.)

Re:Great idea douchebags!

[sjames]

Any transcoder can put them back. If you can display a complete frame to the user, you can encode it into an I frame.

Re:Great idea douchebags!

[rsun]

What's humorous is that this would probably also enable a super advanced commerical skip. Most of the time, in order to support random channel access, there are i-frames every couple of seconds at most. With i-frames removed to prevent skipping, commercial skip just has to look for periods of really long iframe gaps and dump all that content (e.g., 2 seconds after last iframe to next iframe gets dropped). Won't work on clear-QAM (e.g., locals), but would work anywhere they implemented this "feature"

Re:Great idea douchebags!

[jaymemaurice]

This is actually quite interesting point because it would be quite difficult to send the key frames when a subscriber joins an already in-progress multicast stream... but I suppose new set top box firmware could overcome this by joining you onto solid "commercial only" stream while the STB is waiting for the key frames of the stream you wish to watch. Can you imagine channel surfing and all the channels which would be playing commercials are instead playing the SAME commercials in PERFECT SYNCHRONIZATION!

Re:Great idea douchebags!

[nabsltd]

What's humorous is that this would probably also enable a super advanced commerical skip.

I would think that any attempt to trick play a stream with no I-frames would very quickly jump to the next I-frame, which would be after the commercial, exactly as you say.

I'm also wondering how you can just "drop" I-frames and still manage to get anything like a viewable MPEG stream, even at 1x. I think the phrase should be "only encode using P- and B-frames during commercials".

Re:Great idea douchebags!

[gbjbaanb]

Can you imagine channel surfing and all the channels which would be playing commercials are instead playing the SAME commercials in PERFECT SYNCHRONIZATION!

I think an advertising executive just wet his pants.

Re:Great idea douchebags!

[Rakarra]

All of the AM radio stations I listen to have commercials at the exact same time.

I find myself tuned by default to NPR now, just switching over if I need a quick news fix from the all-news station.

Isn't that the whole point of a DVR?

[Anonymous Coward]

Half the time I forget I'm watching recorded TV and forget to fast forward through the commercials anyhow. This is one more reason to cut the cable and look at alternative entertainment solutions.

Re:Isn't that the whole point of a DVR?

[kannibal_klown]

I imagine "to them," the that the whole point of the DVR is to act as an easy-to-use recording device for when you're not available to watch their shows... or if you want to watch 2 shows on at the same time.

It's a semi-valid point. Time Shifting being the major thing, instead of just fast forwarding. BUT... in practice the fast-forward is almost essential. Maybe you only watched the first half and want to skip to the middle. Maybe there's a gross scene and you want to skip. Maybe you don't feel like watching 3 minutes of boring ads.

That being said, it would be a sad day if all DVRs no longer allowed fast-forwarding

Correct me if I am wrong

[DesertBlade]

Doesn't Time Warner control the software on their DVRs? Can't they just disable that feature? It seems impossible to disable FF feature on all the different types of DVRs out there (like MythTV) through some magical embedded code. It must be some feature of the codec.

in lay terms

[mug funky]

this munges up the keyframes (I frames) in a stream when it detects a cue embedded by the network (ADS START HERE!!1!). therefore, if a device is designed to fast-forward by skipping over the predicted (P and B) frames, it cannot do this as it can't find the I frames needed to display anything at all.

this will fail on sane devices because fast-forward is usually implemented as skipping just the B-frames (that are predicted off both I and P frames), while decoding the I frames and P frames.

this will further fail because MPEG-2 decoders are fast enough that they can decode the stream in it's entirety fast enough for a practical fast-forward (my 5 yo computer can do it on CPU only, 1 core only at about 200fps).

this will fail even further because a trivial firmware hack could detect this "cue tone" and skip the ads _entirely_. they're basically implanting a trivially readable signal that usefully tells us what are the ads and what is the show.

Re:in lay terms

[mug funky]

oh, also, prior art out the whazoo. DVDs have PUOs, standardized before 1998. VHS tapes had index marks. all pro tape formats had all manner of cue formats.

Re:in lay terms

[Dahamma]

Prior art just means those methods of signalling the trickplay restricted region aren't patentable - but that's not really the patent, it's about a NDVR protocol design and dynamically reprocessing I frames (in two fairly separate sections, which I find bizarre... seems like this should have been 2 patents since it's achieving a similar goal in two *completely* different implementations...)

Re:in lay terms

[Dahamma]

this will further fail because MPEG-2 decoders are fast enough that they can decode the stream in it's entirety fast enough for a practical fast-forward (my 5 yo computer can do it on CPU only, 1 core only at about 200fps).

But most DVRs out there (which is the way the vast majority watches TV, not on a computer) use SoC's with dedicated HW decoders that only have to be fast enough to do what they were designed to do. I have been able to get a (relatively high end) BRCM SoC to about 2-3x FF using all frames with HD, and even smooth 1x RW for SD (which is a cool thing when you realize what it takes to do, and is kinda fun to watch as well :) And most services have converted to H.264 for all of their HD, anyway.

this will fail even further because a trivial firmware hack could detect this "cue tone" and skip the ads _entirely_. they're basically implanting a trivially readable signal that usefully tells us what are the ads and what is the show.

I'm sure the same headend hardware that messes with the I frames can remove the cue.

What I'm not clean on about the patent, though is:

1) how does this prevent 30 second skip-type function? Skip past the commercials, rewind to the first I frame of the content. The only thing I can think of is that they leave out I frames for the first X seconds of the content, which means you miss that bit if you skip, which would be annoying...

2) why wouldn't a DVR just skip to the first full I frame after the commercials directly (on FF or skip). DVRs all parse the stream and generate an index file of I frames as they record the content off the air - that's how they know where to seek/skip in the first place. As long as that parsing/index generation can tell the I frames are incomplete, it should be able to trivially work around this (effectively would be the same result as your suggestion...) So that goes back to the prevention in #1 I guess - don't provide a full I frame until well into the content after it resumes, and just annoy the hell out of everyone if they do something as seemingly innocuous as skipping back 10 seconds too close to the commercial boundary...

Re:in lay terms

[pipedwho]

As obvious it seems to be able to work around this, it still irks me that somehow this method was considered non-obvious and novel by the patent office and granted patent protection.

The point of patents is theoretically to advance the state of the art. This type of patent is in no way clever, or anything that couldn't have been thought up by anyone working in that field (and by quite a few people not skilled in the field of video compression and transport). Yes, I agree that in detail it may not "have been done before" and thus not subject to prior art, but the "obviousness" clause is meant to protect the patent pool from accumulating with patents that do nothing but hinder progress. ie. If a patent doesn't provide useful non-obvious information (or information that wouldn't naturally be derived with a trivial amount of calculation or tinkering), then allowing it to be used to extort others that come up with a similar or the same concepts can only harm an industry as a whole.

That being said, I'm pretty sure there isn't a single person on Slashdot who wouldn't celebrate any injunctory action taken by the holder of this particular patent. But, IMO, the patent should have never been granted in the first place. (Which is also true for far too many patents that are granted these days.)

Re:in lay terms

[ohnocitizen]

At which point they will declare such hacks violations of terms of service, and upon detection take further action (banning, service charges, etc). Yay arms race!

Re:in lay terms

[jedidiah]

This approach also fails for any commercial skipping aproach that analyzes the entire recording.

Re:in lay terms

[jedidiah]

Clearly you have no clue regarding the purpose or intention of patents in the modern era. They aren't mean to be some sort of virtual land grant or some monopoly granted to the friends of the king.

Patents exist to encourage the disclosure of useful inventions that would otherwise remain trade secrets.

Otherwise they INTERFERE WITH MAKING MONEY.

Re:in lay terms

[chrismcb]

Hasn't there also been work in the past to turn the volume up/down during commercials? Doesn't it rely on the same technology? This patent just strikes me as a not novel patent.

Re:in lay terms

[Theaetetus]

This type of patent is in no way clever, or anything that couldn't have been thought up by anyone working in that field (and by quite a few people not skilled in the field of video compression and transport). Yes, I agree that in detail it may not "have been done before" and thus not subject to prior art, but the "obviousness" clause is meant to protect the patent pool from accumulating with patents that do nothing but hinder progress.

But, patent allowance is a quasi-judicial decision, and as such, requires due process and evidence. Just like a judge in a murder trial cannot say "eh, he looks guilty. Lock him up," a patent examiner cannot say "eh, this looks obvious. Denied." In both cases, there needs to be sufficient evidence presented.

Specifically, the test for obvious is if one or more pieces of prior art, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element of the claims. So if the claims recite A+B+C+D+E, and you've got one piece of prior art that does A+B+C and another that does D+E and they can be combined without breaking everything (which is almost always, in software), then it's obvious. If you're missing E, and you can't find it in any prior art, then it's not, by definition.

This protects against hindsight. Everything looks obvious in hindsight, after seeing how it's done, from magic tricks to internal combustion engines to automatic transmissions... but that's irrelevant to whether the claimed invention was obvious before anyone read the application. That requires prior art and evidence.

Re:in lay terms

[pipedwho]

There has, but it isn't really related to the methods described in the patent. Commercial skipping is more aimed at content detection than the details of the transport or video encodings. Some of those methods including looking for watermarks, video/audio blanking before / after ads, background encoding 'noise' of the movie vs the ads, comparing multiple regional stations with localised ads via differential comparisons, etc.

The patent is about things related to the low level stream. Things that are regularly discussed (or considered) in detail by anyone implementing decoders/encoders in the presence of stream corruption. It basically takes a common discussion and says lets put the bad shit in there as a matter of course and on a level that would overwhelm the typical minimalist decoder. And while we're at it, we'll mark the start point with a cue just for shits and giggles so a DRM friendly frontend won't misbehave if someone presses fast forward during the period of stream 'corruption'. The exact details are unimportant as a large number of equivalent methods are easily derivable from that generic statement.

If a video codec dev was asked to produce "a scheme that would stop user's of third party equipment from fast forwarding a stream", they would come up with a similar (or identical solution). And it would serve them no advantage or purpose to first look at the aforementioned patent for implementation ideas or methods. This is pretty much the definition of 'obvious'. And this solution is as obvious as a bubble sort algorithm is to the first time programmer. Thus my beef with the fact that this patent was granted at all.

This is of course all philosophical, as it really is just a 'negative' concept that no sane developer would implement anyway. However, if the patent can be construed to extend to the reciprocal action of a decoder that could be used to overcome said corruption; then we get a first hand probing with the great rubber glove that is the legal system wielded by corporate greed. And all because the patent office chose to grant protection on a method that is obvious to developers who haven't even read the patent.

Re:in lay terms

[pipedwho]

Mod the parent +5 Informative.

It's a pity the patent examiners don't seem to always have the resources (or skill?) to do a proper analysis. IMO, most ideas are only incremental improvements and even then it's pretty clear when something is a good idea even after you see it in hindsight.

The problem is finding a person skilled in the art that can be considered trustworthy and unbiased in giving their opinion on how novel something really is.

Another option would be to put a bunch of randomly selected engineers into a sealed room with a directive to brainstorm multiple solutions to the generic problem. (Kind of like jury duty for geeks.) And if they come up with the patented solution or describe a clear path to it, then the method as applied for in the patent can be assumed to be either obvious or derivable. Or at least be limited in damage to such specific detail that other similar solutions would not likely infringe on the finally granted patent.

IMO, it is far better for each industry overall that the occasional 'good' patent is rejected, than a 'bad' one get approved.

Re:in lay terms

[Theaetetus]

Mod the parent +5 Informative.

Thank you.

It's a pity the patent examiners don't seem to always have the resources (or skill?) to do a proper analysis.

They are drastically overworked - I think they get about 8 hours to do a full search and response.
Additionally, at least with many of the patents we see in litigation now, they were examined in the mid to late 90s... And at that time, "CS" wasn't considered sufficiently technical enough for a patent examiner, so you had EEs and Computer Engineers trying to examine software. That's changed, but, with a 20 year lifetime, we won't see the effects for another few years.
I can say (I've been a patent attorney for 4 years) that 99% of the patent examiners I've worked with have been quite up on the technology, with the majority having programming backgrounds, so there's hope for the future.

IMO, most ideas are only incremental improvements and even then it's pretty clear when something is a good idea even after you see it in hindsight.

Yeah, but that's what the patent system is set up for. Say you've got a problem that takes you 10 man-hours. Without patents, you may just keep it a trade secret, because publishing a whitepaper or functional specification would be giving away your work. Well, all over the country, similar companies in your industry have to duplicate your efforts... So, with 1000 companies, that's now 10,000 man-hours. But if you applied for a patent, there'd be no harm in publishing that whitepaper... and now those other 999 companies can buy a cheap license (since it was only 10 hours), and we've saved 9,990 hours - hours that can be used to work on the next problem.

And heck, if another company solves the next problem, you may not even sell them a license, but simply trade a cross-license - their solution for yours. Do this with everyone and in 10 hours, you get access to 1000 solutions. That's how patents spur innovation. Not by rewarding someone for a sufficiently clever solution. If your idea is that clever, the market will do that. Patents are really just about encouraging publication of whitepapers and specifications.

The problem is finding a person skilled in the art that can be considered trustworthy and unbiased in giving their opinion on how novel something really is.

Another option would be to put a bunch of randomly selected engineers into a sealed room with a directive to brainstorm multiple solutions to the generic problem. (Kind of like jury duty for geeks.) And if they come up with the patented solution or describe a clear path to it, then the method as applied for in the patent can be assumed to be either obvious or derivable. Or at least be limited in damage to such specific detail that other similar solutions would not likely infringe on the finally granted patent.

Well, if it's a 10 hour problem, that's not too bad... but what if it's a hundred hour problem? We may still think it's obvious, after the fact, but are you really going to force a dozen engineers to sit in a sealed room for three weeks? Plus, if the patent was applied for a year ago, how do you know they didn't hear or read anything about it since then? You need a group of engineers who are constantly a year behind state of the art, no?

That's what the patent examiners are essentially trying to do, in the abstract. Because they have to use prior art references from before the patent application was filed, they're basically looking at the past writings of tons and tons of engineers... which means, want better patents? Publish more specs. :)

IMO, it is far better for each industry overall that the occasional 'good' patent is rejected, than a 'bad' one get approved.

You'll think I'm biased, but I'd disagree. We live in a very short-term, fast-paced industry, but that's not true for all industries. The patent system ha

Re:in lay terms

[Agent0013]

And, wouldn't this fail for MythTV because it records the entire stream to disk and only later analyses it for commercial skip. If it can take it's time finding the commercials then it can analyse the messed up I-frames also and fix them. In fact, my MythTV box has hardware encoders in the TV tuners so it is probably re-encoding all the frames as it receives the video signal anyway. But I'm not watching HDTV either, so maybe it works differently in that case.

This is good news...

[adageable]

Since we know patents stifle true innovation when applied to trivial hardware and software "inventions", this means that this should just slow down the pace of "improvement" by these companies. More power to patents!

obvious next step

[ffflala]

Once again an article from The Onion accurately predicts the future, because this is clearly going to be the next development after Time/Warner successfully eliminates fast-forward: http://www.theonion.com/articles/advertising-firm-unveils-new-muteresistant-commerc,6667/

Re:obvious next step

[trancemission]

Many a true word said in jest.....

Very rarely pay attention to the glowing thing in the corner now, when I lived with a few mates there was a rule if the TV was on and adverts came on - the person nearest the remote/TV had to mute it..........

On topic: As many have mentioned - this could be a good thing, the big media companies business plans tipped a long time ago. The bigger they are - the longer and harder they fall.

This is pretty desperate....all in good time.

That's not what 'digital' is for...

[identity0]

At first I was surprised that there was a new posting with the DEC logo, but then it turns out it's a newbie who doesn't know what the symbol means.

It's summer, it's endless summer...

Let us start a discussion of VAX and Alpha to compensate.

Re:That's not what 'digital' is for...

[White Flame]

It's summer, it's endless summer...

It's September, it's eternal September...

Re:That's not what 'digital' is for...

[cpu6502]

I thought slashdot inserted those logos automatically when you typed digital" as a keyword? And speaking of newbies:

>>>It's summer, it's endless summer...

It's called Endless September not summer. The term "september" refers to the point when a bunch of college kids got internet accounts, and started spamming a bunch of messages to Usenet forums w/o regard to polite netiquette. The summertime used to be a haven from all the college kids (since they were home w/o a connection).

The "eternal" refers to when people started getting internet at home. Then it was as if September never ended... a continuous supply of clueless newbies.

Re:That's not what 'digital' is for...

[identity0]

True enough, that's what the original old-timer lament was when the university was the main source of new internet users.

The 'endless summer' comes from newer generations of net users and forums where the influx is in summer from all the kids on vacation spending their time online instead of school.

Re:That's not what 'digital' is for...

[AlamedaStone]

Not to mention all the newfriends.

Re:That's not what 'digital' is for...

[nabsltd]

The term "september" refers to the point when a bunch of college kids got internet accounts, and started spamming a bunch of messages to Usenet forums w/o regard to polite netiquette. The summertime used to be a haven from all the college kids (since they were home w/o a connection).

September, by itself, referred only to new college students, not all of them, since they were pretty much the vast majority of USENET users. After a semester or so, thing settled down, so January-August weren't bad.

The "eternal" refers to when people started getting internet at home. Then it was as if September never ended... a continuous supply of clueless newbies.

No, eternal September specifically refers to when AOL started bridging their discussion system to USENET groups.

Re:That's not what 'digital' is for...

[barista]

My mother and an uncle did, so that's close enough I guess. I still prefer the original blue digital logo, FWIW.

Re:That's not what 'digital' is for...

[Rakarra]

The "eternal" refers to when people started getting internet at home. Then it was as if September never ended... a continuous supply of clueless newbies.

Specifically, "endless September" or "It's always September" came about when AOL opened up Internet access (Usenet specifically) to their subscribers.

Digital Equipment Corporation?

[Alex Belits]

Why there is a logo of that famous HP-owned company in this article?

Re:Digital Equipment Corporation?

[catmistake]

Why there is a logo of that famous HP-owned company in this article?

They are both IPC members?

DEC?

[cffrost]

What's with the DEC logo?

solution

[jimmyfrank]

sabnzb + sickbeard + giganews = joy

Re:solution

[Spritzer]

Stop copying me!!! That combo is for MY enjoyment. Well, other than using Astraweb.
SO:
sabnzbd + sickbeard + ( giganews OR astraweb ) = JOY!!!!

Re:solution

[jimmyfrank]

That combo is more reliable than any dvr I've ever had too. And you added links. +1.

Re:solution

[Spritzer]

Exactly. And don't get me wrong. I pay for content from a satellite provider. I just choose my method of delivery and viewing.

Re:solution

[jimmyfrank]

I have TWC, a ceton card and run media center but for the stuff I watch, I use the joy combo.

d|i|g|i|t|a|l

[sdo1]

I do not think d|i|g|i|t|a|l means what you think it means...

Time Warner - paving the way to the future.

[Lohrno]

By making disincentives to use DVR and/or Cable/Satellite and use the internet instead.

Wait ... what?

[SuseLover]

Comcast on-demand has been doing to this us for some time (almost a year) now. I know they are describing a DVR here, but how much different is it from disabling commercials on-demand?

It is really annoying and will drive me away from them if it continues. Guess it's back to OTA and DVD's. Oh, wait there's OTH ATSC that can have the broadcast bit set so I can't record and and skip on my own there either. :-(

But, but, but piracy!!!!

[Hamsterdan]

1- no fast-forwarding ads, check
2- no ability to watch recorded stuff on a different terminal, check
3- obnoxious ads *during* the program, check
4- unability to watch the *free* stuff if you're not in the US, check

Half of those I could do with a VCR, and *keep* the shows for repeat viewings.

Next, they'll be wondering why people pirate stuff.

Re:But, but, but piracy!!!!

[cheekyjohnson]

Next, they'll be wondering why people pirate stuff.

No, they'll call it pure evil, claim that they're losing a ridiculous amount of potential profit, and then expect that to deter people from downloading. As if the file sharers care one bit about what they say...

Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR

[Hamsterdan]

I already own an HTPC. But I still have to buy/rent two STBs so it can record channels not available on analog cable (mostly all the interesting ones), and am stuck in SD as my provider won't rent/sell cable cards. Even then , about half the channels carry the do not record or do not copy flag (meaning can't record, or watch on another computer. If the motherboard dies, I'm unable to watch what's recorded or even archived on DVD).

Even if I buy two new HD STBs and remove their cable cards and put them in cablecard tuners, they won't allow the tuner's serial numbers to be added in their DB, Meaning some channels won't work at all (such as those using SDV).

By getting my content on torrent sites, I can do whatever the fuck I want with it (and it's in HD too)

Along the same theme...

[stevenfuzz]

They were also able to patent "Blindly administering ass sex to customers who pay over $150 per month and use their 'DVR', which they have renamed DARI (Digital Ass Rape Interface)". Man I used to hate Comcast, but after having Time Warner for a few years, I would gladly re-consent to the good ole' Comcast fingerbang.

There is nothing on TV you need, keep your money.

[couchslug]

Don't like their business practices? Stop giving them money.

Unintended consiquences

[BradleyUffner]

Doesn't this provide a nice easy signal to detect the start and end of commercial breaks also? Hello automated, accurate commercial skipping.

Alternative Title

[matunos]

"Device to Keep Me From Using a Time-Warner DVR"

Prior art?

[jblb]

From TFA: superglue on the fast forward button

Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR

[scottbomb]

To post to which you're responding was mine. I guess I wasn't logged in.

ANYWAY...

I don't know what an HTPC or STB is but I built my main PC and included a Hauppauge tuner card (readily available at Fry's or anywhere else that sells internal hardware) and Media Center records whatever I want. Never had a problem.

I solved the commercial problem last year.

[The RoboNerd]

I dropped my AT&T Uverse TV subscription and I have not looked back. I don't have to worry about dropped I frames because I don't have a DVR anymore. I don't have to worry about if I can fast forward through commercials or not because there isn't any to fast forward through.

prior art

[technosaurus]

I broke the FF button on our vcr when I was 12. Funny how a noop can be considered a valid patent

put sports / ESPN it is own pack / theme

[Joe_Dragon]

put sports / ESPN it is own pack / theme pack.

The sports channels added to all to get cost at round the HBO level. Also you should be able to get a Sports only pack with out all of the general entertainment channels (ok some like WGN, TBS, TNT, and (NBC does use it's news channels for NHL playoffs and olympics but that is a limited time and not year round)

also on a other note lots channels that few people watch like VH1 Classic, Centric, Cloo, Current TV, WE tv, and so on.

I say have a sports pack (local rsn, espn, nbc sports, big ten (in market) , a main general entertainment pack, a news channel pack, maybe a out of market sports pack or higher level sport pack that can have big ten (out of market) out of market RSN's (no live PRO games read on), Yes (out of market feed), fox college sports.

also have a soccer pack with Fox soccer, Fox soccer plus and GolTV.

other packs as needed.

For out of market pro game you do have NBA LP, MLB EI NHL CI and NFL ST.

we should be able to buy the box like canada

[Joe_Dragon]

we should be able to buy the box like canada with no outlet or mirroring fees no forced to rent a cable card.

Also cable card is a nice idea but the cable co really messed it up and some things just work better with there own boxes then with your own box with a cable card.

Re:There is nothing on TV you need, keep your mone

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Don't like their business practices? Stop giving them money.

Yeah, that's way better than raising holy hell about it now to discourage them from even trying it.

Wrong approach

[gr8_phk]

If people would just get an ANTENNA and drop cable TV we'd have:
1) TV would cost nothing
2) All TV would be HD - there haven't been analog broadcasts for years now.
3) With limited channels there would be competition among shows and mostly good stuff would be on all channels
There is more local programming than you think with sub-channels on DTV. We only need to take this approach in the city to have a positive effect - that's where most the viewers are.

subject

[Legion303]

Funny, my .avi files still fast forward perfectly. Of course, I have no commercials to worry about, but the option's still there.

Go for it

[ichthus]

Assuming this is a signal that's embedded in the content during commercials, monitoring this will make it even easier for software to remove the commercials during/after recording. Thanks guys!

Luckily

[jxander]

Luckily for me, I still have one of those super-high-tech devices that allows me to fast forward, rewind, or whatever else I feel like doing with my recorded programs

It's called a fucking V.C.R.

It's a little pathetic when 1980s tech has better features than "cutting edge" stuff, 30+ years later. (OK, so strictly speaking, VCR is mid-70's tech, but as a child of the 80s, I consider the VCR an integral part of my childhood.)

Prior art for sure.

[Nyder]

Let's see, the DVR they are talking about is software on their computers, and all they are "disabling" is access to that function. something that has been around computers since the OS's went multiuser.

Even if they put it some way to disable Hardware DVR's, all that amounts to is a software switch that disables it or not.

Much like Hollywood regurgitating old movies (and some not that old) into new movies, the Corporations are trying to get new Patents because stuff is done in software now, not hardware.

I think the Patent office should be able to charge Corporations money for false patents, patents with prior art, etc. They are over loading it with too much bullshit. Something good, like 5% of their gross worth. Would make the patent stuff more interesting.

"trick mode" ?

[Skapare]

Why the hell are they calling "fast forward" a "trick mode"?

Re:"trick mode" ?

[nabsltd]

Why the hell are they calling "fast forward" a "trick mode"?

Because there is generally nothing in a MPEG stream that helps the decoder if it needs to render frames faster than real time. In particular, if you need to render faster than the hardware physically can, then you must start dropping frames. How you pick which frames to drop and which frames to show is outside the standard of the codec, so some "trick" must be applied.

Sure, it's just software, but it's still picking and choosing which frames to show, and how to best sync them to the output frame rate (which is more important for slower than realtime modes, but still has some effect on faster playback).

Re:"trick mode" ?

[Skapare]

I still don't see how this is a "trick". Short scale fast forward just jumps frames in the buffer. Nothing tricky there. If it is a stored content, such as Youtube, you can make a new connection and specify a point in the middle. But I think what might really be going on is the added info tells the player what byte the first frame after a commercial is located at. That makes it simple to jump directly. No trick involved.

Multi-frame compression might have to jump to a group-of-pictures. No big deal there.

Why is it...

[Dcnjoe60]

Why is it if I tamper with the workings of my cable box or cable company's DVR that is a violation of the DMCA but if the cable company tampers with mine, it is okay?

Re:Why is it...

[Jason Levine]

Because you don't have lobbying dollars, but they have massive amounts of lobbying dollars. Therefore they get to buy... I mean influence the laws in their favor.

Re:Why is it...

[unr3a1]

Because you don't own the equipment or its software. And per the subscriber agreement you agreed to upon activating service, your provider retains the right to alter their service features and pricing.

Re:Why is it...

[Dcnjoe60]

Because you don't own the equipment or its software. And per the subscriber agreement you agreed to upon activating service, your provider retains the right to alter their service features and pricing.

That would be fine if they are providing the DVR, but the article specifically mentions them doing it to owner provided DVRs. Now, if they want to have a service agreement that bans such devices, that is there prerogative, but unless they do that, it is still technically a violation of the DMCA -- unless corporations are above the law.

Re:Why is it...

[unr3a1]

Well, as a provider, they are not legally allowed to ban customer owned eqipment. By law they are required to let customers use their own equipment. But all the services are still controlled by the provider.

Unfortunately, it's not a violation of DMCA since as a customer, you are allowed to suspend your DVR service. That doesn't require a different box, the provider just eliminates your access to DVR functionality. If that doesn't violate DMCA, why would blocking the ability to FFW through commercials? Sorry to say, it doesn't.

You also should try to keep in mind that a lot of your service functionality is not decided on by the service provider, but instead contracts with the content providers (NBC, CBS, Viacom, etc).

Which is why Dish network put themselves in hot water with the network companies over their Hopper dvr box, which allows customers to skip commercials on recorded programs all together.

That doesn't directly apply in this specific case, but it could also be what is pressuring TWC to do this. Either way, it's not a violation of DMCA.

Source: I work for a major service provider. We suck, I know, but unfortunately everything I said is true.

Driving away customers 101

[kawabago]

No wonder their business model is in trouble. I think I'll patent not letting customers leave the restaurant until they've eaten their vegetables.

Analog is looking nicer and nicer all the time

[davidwr]

My video-recording device has analog-input jacks AND fast-forward.

I think I'm going to keep this device for a long, long time.

Perhaps I should file a patent application.....

[InspectorGadget1964]

A patent to be able to work around Time Warner rubbish. It requires a tin of petrol and a box of matches ;-)

Nuts

[Smiddi]

Are they nuts? They should be putting time and effort into technology that will KEEP their existing customers not investing in technology that will push their customers away. Blame Pirate Bay, torrents, pirates, etc all they want, at the end of the day THEY really are their own worst enemy.

Good! Thank you Time Warner!

[UltraZelda64]

This is excellent news. I would never subscribe to a cable service, so if I were to choose to subscribe to Dish Network or DirectTV, I would be spared of this fast forward-blocking bullshit. Great job... morons! Cable sucks, and I commend Time Warner for taking it to the next level of anti-subscriber/anti-consumer hostility by forcing people off their service through the use of such an "innovative" patent. Ironically, the innovation here seems to be just that--the fact that it will be seen as an unwanted feature, and draw people *away* from their service, and to their competition instead.

Meanwhile, the Internet and cell phone service is good for me. I see no need for broadcast television of any kind--satellite, cable, whatever. But I already preferred satellite television and laugh at Time Warner for all their fuck-ups, so really... this won't persuade me one way or the other. It's just funny.

Re:Whatever.

[mallyn]

Sorry, your toilet and urinal are also equipped with a patented high voltage emitter that will make it quite painful if you try to use it during commericials. American Standard, the largest toilet manufacturers are in bed with the cable outfits.

Yes, but...

[WillyWanker]

Will it also be able to force me to watch the commercials that have been physically removed from the torrents of TV shows I download cause I don't want to sit thru 20 minutes of fucking commercials every hour?

Yeah, thought not.

Re:If you strike me down I shall become more power

[mug funky]

possible. i think those detected a change in the audio metadata IIRC, but you could be right, as the ac3 metadata is never set correctly anyway (the "benefit" of setting it wrong is that you can make the ads EVEN FUCKING LOUDER than they would have been at their correctly mastered level).

DMCA It!

[Zamphatta]

Shouldn't this be a DMCA violation? After all, it's circumventing the technology of a business's copyrighted stuff (DVR FFWD function), and that's illegal according to the DMCA. Tsk tsk tsk TW.

Innumeracy strikes again!

[poemofatic]

The cost of producing a TV show is not proportional to the number of people watching it.

If the cost of producing 3 channels of TV is $250/year/household in the UK, then the cost of producing 3 channels of TV in the U.S. (with 5 times the population) would be $50/year/household. For $250/year, we could get 15 channels.

And those 15 channels would have much more quality than the 50 paid channels in basic cable. Which are mostly extreme cooking shoes, reality television voyeurism, the weather channel, and talk show re-runs.

Analogue hole

[flyingfsck]

Place a second DVR after the unskippable DVR...

Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR

[nabsltd]

I don't know what an HTPC or STB is but I built my main PC and included a Hauppauge tuner card (readily available at Fry's or anywhere else that sells internal hardware) and Media Center records whatever I want.

HTPC = Home Theater PC. STB = Set Top Box (i.e., cable or satellite box).

If you don't have an STB, then you can't record encrypted cable channels (like HBO) using your tuner card.

How is this legal???

[Cutting_Crew]

How can they disable a feature from a DVR that I purchased - for one of the reasons of skipping ads?

What a bunch of fucking assholes Time Warner is

[kheldan]

Seriously, you have my sympathy if that's what you're stuck with. Not that Comcast or anyone else is much better, though. I'm glad I cancelled cable about 5 months ago and put an antenna on the roof, and anything special I want to watch, I can watch online for free or for very little -- and nobody is screwing with my TiVo.
(Yes, I know, TiVo has code that allows them to do the same damned thing, but they haven't been stupid enough to actually enable it).

Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR

[jader3rd]

You can get a CableCARD and have the cable provider "pair" it with their service and you can drop the privledge of renting the STB's from them.

Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR

[Miamicanes]

You also get to enjoy endless grief. My parents have a real TiVO HD with a pair of CableCards & live in an affluent city where they're far from uncommon. It hasn't worked properly ONE SINGLE TIME since they bought the TiVO and had the Cablecards installed. There's ALWAYS two channels that show up as "unsubscribed" at any given time. They call Comcast, file a trouble ticket, and the problem eventually gets fixed... and two OTHER channels go away and become "unsubscribed".

My dad is CONVINCED they actually have some kind of rack with fixed card capacity and a card or port per channel, their rack is maxed out, they have two more channels than available ports/cards, and that they just keep unplugging and swapping around two channels at a time (disabling their reception by everyone with cablecards) hoping they'll eventually find two that nobody cares about so they can avoid spending a few thousand dollars buying another rack just to accommodate two more cards/ports..

Wrong investment

[Karmashock]

Time Warner should instead be investing in a true total video on demand service. That doesn't mean no ads either. The reality is that if we want zero advertisement entertainment we're going to have to pay a lot more for it. So ads are here to stay. BUT the main problem with ads is that they're for things you don't actually want. Imagine if all the ads were for something you actually might want to buy? It's totally different situation then being bombarded by tampon and denture commercials. Which for a 20 something man is no fun at all. I'm sure everyone has this experience. Ads on tv are 99 percent wrong. One in a hundred ads might be selling something you want to buy. The rest of the time it's crap. Well, a great thing about video on demand is that you can customize commercials. They're commercials on demand as well. Have every viewer fill out a questionare at intervals explaining your age, gender, economic status, marital status, and some of your tastes. Ideally this should be pretty detailed. Give customers a Pandora like function on ads where you can thumbs down four ads consequatively before you have to watch the fifth one and your thumbs down will be remembered so you'll never see that ad again. They can also remember which ads they've shown you so they don't repeat the same ad over and over and over again. And ideally have a thumbs up if you like an ad or it accurately guessed something you might want to watch.

All the above means ads are less scatter shot and advertisers will be more willing to pay for advertising that actually reaches actual customers rather then just anyone. They also get good feed back. What if people that match your target demographics for your product all thumbs down your ad? Well, that means people might like your product but hate your ad. Go back to the ad agency that made the ad and tell them to fix it and then try again.

Skipping ads is a nice feature and I admit to doing it pretty consistently. But that's largely because the ads either disrupt my program or they're for stuff I have no interest in buying. Possibly put ads along the bottom of hte screen with no sound. Possibly have them at the start and end of a program but not in the middle.

Something so people watch the ads, enjoy their program, and the advertiser has the warm glowy feeling that they were able to increase market awareness of their product.

That's all people want. And if you get radically cheaper entertainment for the trivial price of being informed about a product you might want to buy then is that really so bad?

This is how it has to be... Until they're ready to adapt they're just cutting their own throat.

it's pirates, they took my profits!

[Anonymous Coward]

Their business is showing advertisements to as many people as possible.

Entertainment is only the method they use.

Boredom, annoyance and legalese threats kill entertainment - not fun. There are so much better and fun things to do with that time.

Would not use such a crippled box.

[flimflammer]

If my box prevented me from fast forwarding commercials, I would never pay for the DVR service. I can only barely justify it if I'm able to commercial skip.

I remember when...

[Virtucon]

I remember when Cable TV didn't have all the damn commercials, now it's a never ending stream of commercials that IMO are as bad as regular network TV. The infomercials plague early morning Cable TV regardless of carrier. The Cable operators have to pay for the content but all of these companies are raking in billions to put this crap on the air. Sure, the "premium" channels are void of that but most are so full of ads for every known useless product that fast forwarding is the only way to maintain your sanity. I would actually pay good money to get rid of all of those ads. Viacom? Verzion? DirectTV? Are you listening to this? I would pay not to have the commercials.. Just blip past them in your delivery. I could then watch the actual 20 min. of the program in the half hour and spend the other 10 minutes taking a dump.

Sure, marketing people want you to get their message, buy their stuff or ideas but have you also tried to read a magazine, a real print magazine, lately? It's 90% ads, and I'll only buy one when I don't have my tablet or laptop for a flight. The worst offenders are the fashion or women's magazines. Sitting on flights a lot of the time it's always funny for me to see the women do the scratch and sniff ads for perfumes. What? They big sweaty guy next to you doesn't smell nice?

Wrong approach.

[Pi1grim]

And yet, once again company is trying to make a profit by f***ing with the customers instead of giving them what they want. In Estonia, for example, cable provider has taken a completely different approach — for 3$/month they will record any broadcast you'd like to watch and will stream it to you, when _you_ want to see, not just when it's shown on tv. You can even record whole shows and watch them whenever you feel like it, and watch them again should you feel the need to. But Time Warner thinks that if you don't let people do what they want with their hardware — they will as gladly keep paying up and watching commercials, good luck with that.

Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR

[pantaril]

If you don't have an STB, then you can't record encrypted cable channels (like HBO) using your tuner card.

You can, you just need DVB tuner with common interface (CI) slot and Conditional Access Module (CAM) with paired coresponding smart card, which you plug into it. Most cable operators in europe provide CAM modules with smart card, so it's no problem to watch even encypted channels on your PC. Dunno about US though.

The problem with TV advertising is ..

[daq man]

The problem with TV advertising is that it's like firing a shotgun into a crowd. You know you're going to hit someone but whether it's the right someone is, literally, hit and miss. In the good old days (if they ever existed) the products advertised were relevant to a large fraction of the population and the hit to miss ratio was high. Now most of the advertising is for cars that I can't afford, investment banks (you have to have something to invest!), drugs with terrible side effects for diseases that I don't have etc etc. I'd have to view hours of advertising to see the one or two that are relevant to my lifestyle.

Ok, the cable companies make money from advertising, I get that, but forcing me to watch irrelevant advertising is a waste of everyone's time.

Attack from Two Fronts

[Jason Levine]

So Time Warner Cable is looking into setting insanely low caps in a blatant attempt to kill online streaming video. ("Enhance customer experience" in marketing-speak, though I don't know how severely restricting customers = "enhancing" anything for the customers.) On the other hand, they're working to make their DVR boxes less useful. Looks like they basically want people to 1) Cancel and go OTA-only, 2) Cancel and go to Dish or DirecTV, or 3) Cancel and just watch DVDs (purchased, Netflix, local Library, etc). Way to "enhance" your business plan, Time Warner Cable!

DirecTV can already do this.

[DrEnter]

DirecTV already can (and occasionally does) do this with both their own and the TiVo-based DirecTV DVRs. I guess that would be prior art? Anyway, most of the time it seems like it is to prevent you from skipping a DirecTV ad, but I get the feeling they are mostly doing it to either field-test the technology or as a live demonstration of it for a potential customer. Incidentally, while I believe they *can* prevent both fast forwarding and skipping, so far they have only blocked using "30 second skip", not fast forwarding through the commercial.

Why oh why?

[gagol]

Do the cable providers penalize the paying suscribers when downloaders watch commercial free anyway. This will only drive more people towards piracy...

This reminds me of 1984 where you cannot turn the TV off.

Fight fire with patents

[erroneus]

I wouldn't be surprised if someone else has thought of this before... I have long considered the notion myself. I think it would be nice if some enterprising consumer and technology advocacy group were to start filing patents on technologies such as "blocking fast forward through commercials [on the internet]" to prevent both the publishing and the hardware makers from using these stupid ideas against us.

For every complaint the **AA and others might have against the use of technology, there can be any number of patents for a technology which addresses these complaints. I think these ideas are obvious and if they are patented, it can at least serve to slow down or even block products and services which serve to harm the consumer and technology at large.

If you are a member of such an advocacy group, please consider this idea and if it has been decided against, please tell us why. If it is in practice or in the works, I would like to know about that too.

Why do you people still watch TV?

[DaKong]

Really, why do you still do it? Live sports. OK. Um, why not go watch the sports live? Season tickets can't be that much different in price from all the cable fees and DVR fees and fees, fees, fees. Plus there are no commercial interruptions in the games. You even get to be surrounded by other fans who are just as excited and focused as you are (unless you're at a baseball game haha)

Cable TV has become a massive time, money, and energy suck without providing much entertainment, and less and less distraction. Go outside and throw the ball around with your kid. You'll save a lot of time and money and have a better time connecting with your family.

Patent Missing Ingredients?

[FreshlyShornBalls]

Forget the fact that they're pushing customers away, etc.

Who is granting patents for OMISSIONS of inventions. It's like me patenting a PB&J without the peanut butter. I'm a genius!

A lot of hostility....

[unr3a1]

There is a lot of hostility against TWC for this. Let me be the first to say, just because TWC got this patent does NOT mean that they will be utilizing it. If anything, they are doing consumers a favor, because now in order for any other provider to do it, they would have to pay royalties to TWC. There is absolutely no indication that TWC will actually implement disabling fast forwarding on their DVRs.

Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR

[RatherBeAnonymous]

US cable companies are required by the FCC to provide CableCARDs to all customers who ask for them. According to FCC Enforcement Advisory No. 2011-09 dated Aug. 8th 2011, http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-enforcement-advisorycablecards

Cable operators must provide subscribers with CableCARDs upon request.1 Over the years, the Commission has received a variety of complaints from consumers concerning their efforts to obtain and use CableCARDs. The Commission adopted new rules to improve consumers’ experience with retail CableCARD devices.2 The new rules require cable operators to provide accurate information about retail set-top boxes and ensure that consumers are treated similarly, whether they choose to buy a retail device or rent a device from their cable provider. This Enforcement Advisory underscores the Commission’s commitment to “strictly enforce our navigation device rules in order to ensure proper support for CableCARD devices.3 We encourage cable operators to review their policies, procedures, and operations to ensure that they comply with the rules. The Enforcement Bureau will review complaints carefully to determine if cable systems comply with the rules.

The FCC has a couple of web pages where you can get more information and file a complaint.

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cablecard-know-your-rights
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/digital-cable-compatibility-cablecard-ready-devices

The requirement to provide CableCARDs on request existed long before 2011, but cable companies have been notoriously dishonest about it. Apparently dishonest enough that the FCC felt the need to tell them to stop lying about it.

Tivo

[CosaNostra Pizza Inc]

I think it would be awesome of Tivo filed a lawsuit against Time Warner and won.

Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR

[scottbomb]

Makes sense. I have analog cable now but when I had digital, the STB fed an analog signal to the PC's tuner card via RG-59 coaxial cable just like a STB feeds an analog signal to a TV. The tuner card was always set to channel 3 (like a TV). Once that signal is analog, it's recordable. If you subscribe to an encrypted channel, the STB decrypts it and the resulting signal to the TV is just as analog as the Weather Channel.

For their next trick

[toriver]

they will patent a chair that straps you to it during ads so you cannot leave to do something else, and disable the remote so you cannot switch channels.

DVD player

[mattack2]

Yeah, how is the inability(*) to FF on DVD players not prior art? (There's probably even examples prior to that, that's just the one that pops to my mind, and what most people run into.)

(*) Even if you can't FF, even without going to the lengths some of you do (hacked players or rip), you can virtually always do one of the following: chapter forward, MENU button, hit stop then play (which will then skip the previews).

Re:DVD player

[mattack2]

A dvd player =/= dvr

Yeah, but from a patent perspective, does it matter? (I say this as someone who *defends* patents most of the time.) Seems to me, if you can even patent something like this, it should cover all devices from tape players on up.

Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR

[Rakarra]

Weird. I've never had that problem in my HD Tivo, but I can verify from talking to the technicians from Comcast that they don't like Cablecards, they don't like trying to get them to work, getting someone from Comcast who actually knows about them is a real crapshoot, and overall they wish you were using their DVR instead.

It was always a pain getting them to work but once in, they worked great.