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

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-skip-for-you dept.

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."

38 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Patent good in this case by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    1. Re:Patent good in this case by zonky · · Score: 4, Informative

      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

    2. Re:Patent good in this case by durrr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Patent good in this case by Zuriel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Patent good in this case by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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...

    5. Re:Patent good in this case by nurb432 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    6. Re:Patent good in this case by skine · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

      Entertainment is only the method they use.

    7. Re:Patent good in this case by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    8. Re:Patent good in this case by sound+vision · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    9. Re:Patent good in this case by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    10. Re:Patent good in this case by blind+biker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    11. Re:Patent good in this case by ormico · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    12. Re:Patent good in this case by MachineShedFred · · Score: 3

      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.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    13. Re:Patent good in this case by kurkosdr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "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.

  2. This is a great patent... by __Paul__ · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    --
    worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
  3. Next by GrahamCox · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Next by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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!

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:Next by GrahamCox · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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/

    4. Re:Next by LordLucless · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    5. Re:Next by mjwx · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  4. they missed a patent by fish+waffle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:they missed a patent by Phrogman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
  5. Isn't that the whole point of a DVR? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. Correct me if I am wrong by DesertBlade · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
  7. in lay terms by mug+funky · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:in lay terms by pipedwho · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.)

  8. Re:Waiiiiit a minute... Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    But I think we're on the same idea

  9. That's not what 'digital' is for... by identity0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:That's not what 'digital' is for... by cpu6502 · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
    2. Re:That's not what 'digital' is for... by nabsltd · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

  10. d|i|g|i|t|a|l by sdo1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    --
    --- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
  11. Re:Great idea douchebags! by cpu6502 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.)

    --
    My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
  12. Re:Nobody needs a stinking DVR by Hamsterdan · · Score: 3, Informative

    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)

    --
    I've got better things to do tonight than die.
  13. There is nothing on TV you need, keep your money. by couchslug · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  14. Wrong approach by gr8_phk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  15. Driving away customers 101 by kawabago · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  16. Re:Great idea douchebags! by jaymemaurice · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!

    --
    120 characters ought to be enough for anyone