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Sony DVR Useless After Rovi Stops TV Guide OnScreen
New submitter speedlaw writes "Rovi has just announced that they are stopping the TV Guide OnScreen service as of April 13th, 2013. This was announced via the service itself. This is an on-air listing service that provides listings over the air, as part of an OTA TV signal. Many devices, notably the Sony HDD 250 and 500 Digital Video Recorders, will no longer function without the clock-set data this stream provides. When other companies decide to stop supporting something, they don't make older systems useless. Worse, Sony never came out with another DVR in the U.S. market. Why do we have to rent them? How do we get Sony or Rovi to provide at least a software patch to set the clock so the DVR can at least retain 1980s VCR functionality? Sony admits there is no fix. A thread on AVS forums has a bunch of information on TV Guide OnScreen. The TV stations who broadcast the data have been ordered by Rovi to disconnect the data inserters and ship them back. I have a TiVo, and yes, I know all about HTPC, but this data stream was 'lifetime listings' like TiVo has 'lifetime listings' — now that Rovi is looking to cut service, my two DVR units are about to become useless."
One more reason to buy the Sunday Times !!
Why don't the channels just broadcast the programme data alongside the actual programming? That's how they do it here, in the DVB-T streams. A full week's worth of programming and programme descriptions, transmitted over the air.
Hello...it's Sony. You should be surprised that it worked this long.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Yes, practically all hardware you own get's practically useless. I mean, you don't live in socialism, so ditch your cheap crappy hardware and go looking for alternative.
This is why proprietary software is a bad thing and we should avoid products like this.
probably better off anyway, don't you know TV rots your brain?
There should be a mandate that if you want to be a dick and no longer choose to support the software of an obsolete product you sold to maintain core functionality, you should forfeit the source code. At the very least, make it legal to reverse engineer and distribute fixes/functionality without fear of retribution. This is going to become much more common in the future unless someone does something.
on TV?
This is why you buy COTS hardware instead of embedded solutions, guys. You can always upgrade the software on your own if you have to, but if you can't get to the firmware, then there's no telling if there's some dependancy or requirement to an outside source that you've overlooked. People have been building their own PVRs for years now, and many open source solutions like XMBC have matured to the point where they offer multiple service providers on a wide variety of cheap hardware.
And here's another reason people pirate: I know that I'll always have my video files on my harddrive. They're in a video container format that's been industry standard for years. There are no commercials, no external dependancies, and will play on almost any computer. I can't get that with Netflix -- once, I was halfway through watching a series on 'instant play' when they yanked the entire series. It's no longer available because of some obscure licensing issue that I wasn't informed of until after it was gone. When you rely on "legal" solutions, you're conceding that they have the right and ability to terminate your access at any time. That's also why I don't watch cable TV: It's encrypted and I can't record it. I can't go back and watch it again, and it may never be available again. With pirated content, I know exactly when it'll be available once I have it: Forever.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Cant you just sue them?
Whenever you buy a hardware device that relies on online services to perform vital functions YOU must take into consideration what will happen when those services dissapear. It's childish to assume a company will just provide this kind of services to old customers from whom it collects no payments anymore or towards whom it made no written promises.
its the lifetime of the product, you buy something and its taken off the market an hour later ... u be fucked
ps Santa Clause is not real either, please get a clue
Can't dvrs be progrmmed manually, like video cassette recorder owners used to do? Sure, the convienence is gone, but recordings can still be made, can't they?. Buying "Lifetime service" does you no good when companies seem to be able to change it's service at any time. Sometimes, companies lie, and misrepresent their products to get us to buy them. Color me shocked!
Why don't the channels just broadcast the programme data alongside the actual programming?
Well, that's a legitimate question. You could also ask why the hardware doesn't support alternative operating systems. Either way, you're asking either one (or several) large television network(s) to suddenly make a change to the way things are broadcast, or you're asking a large (multinational) company to provide open access to their closed system.
I hope the programming community comes up with an alternative - or modified - firmware. Unfortunately, unlike the android/xda/cyanogenmod community, DVR software isn't easily available, accessible or standardized across players. Maybe it is as simple as making a DVD drive region free - but even then, does the average consumer have access to the (relatively cheap) tools to flip a few 0s and 1s and "update" the hardware? And the likelyhood of it being that simple is pretty low...
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
Is this meant to be another bash SONY because they are "evil" "article"?
Before you head down that line, note that:
- Rovi (corporation) used to be called Macrovision.
- This is for a (free?) Over The Air service.
- No link to the Rovi announcement or their reasoning.
- Affects any device and service relying on Rovi and their data.
It seems to me this is just another move to get people onto cable where media companies can exert more control over content (and the people watching) and rake in more money.
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Hello...it's Sony. You should be surprised that it worked this long.
Sometimes it's a good thing when Sony products die. It means they stop spying on you.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
Under the terms of the lifetime service agreement all TiVo Guide OnScreen users must now report for termination.
You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle.
Sorry. While I own multiple Tivo's I can't feel sorry for you, as the DVR's were released in 2004, by digital recording standards, that's old and outdated. I'm actually surprised they still work. Good that they lasted this long. You should check out the new Premiere's. Yeah, it's a monthly fee, but I find it well worth it, and it allows me access to the Xfinity app, that i have only been able to use on my iPad until recently.
From what I read, Sony decided to save pennies by not having a rtc, and relying on the ota signals. So no ota clock signals, no clock, no work.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Dude, Sony discontinued this product 7 years ago. I'm sure you've gotten your money's worth out of it.
Think about it this way: If it died of hardware failure instead, would you be so upset? Likely not.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
People still watch cable television?
I bought a Sony DVR/DVD player about four years ago. It booted up with a choice of EPGs - a plain one, and one with additional functionality and adverts. Yes, half the screen was occupied by ads. After getting annoyed with that after about two microseconds I switched to the plain one.
After a couple of years it started misbehaving, as these things do, telling me that the only thing on TV was 'No Channel Information'. So I thought I'd switch back and see how bad the ad-ridden one was. So I found the setting deep in the unexplored regions of the menu system and flipped.
Same old ad-ridden screen, except this time the ads were blank placeholders. I reckon nobody wanted to advertise there, since nobody was using the annoying EPG...
I did an upgrade from a new OS via a DVD from the Sony web site and it fixed most of the EPG blankness, but the thing has been pretty flakey from day one. I think the initial flakeyness is controlled to be just enough that you don't know if its your own fault for not reading the instructions or if it is genuine faults. Products are always released when the cost in fixing the bugs is more than the cost of handling support calls, right?
Anyway, no more Sony for me.
You have a brick now. Just look at ps3 with OtherOS feature being removed.
Rovi uses patents to make money of stuff like DVRs, EPGs and copy protection. I guess they could be called a 'patent troll'. More DVRs sold equals more money for Rovi.
Rovi was born as Macrovision, the VCR copy protect signal. That was compulsory on video cards. So if you have a computer with composite of S-VHS out you probably paid Rovi half a dollar for that.
You knew damm well when you got it that it was a SONY product. And you knew damm well what that ment.
And NOW you complain when it was you that got screwed.... Well.. i'll tell ya.. nope. it's been far too long. if you're still dealing with sony products after this much time... you're a moron.
sony sucks. stay away from them. that's been the lesson for quite some time.
some are slow learners it seems.
Everyone could always use another paperweight.
Why do you so readily accept electronic end of life as being normal?
My SEGA Mastersystem still works.
My SNES still works (and you can still buy controllers for them too).
My sound system is much older than 10 years.
I still have a working CRT TV, and a working VCR.
Incidentally my grandma has several working pieces of electronic equipment from World War 2.
Why are you so quick to accept that electronics need an end of life, and especially one so short? This is not the death of the medium which the DVR uses like say the move from analogue to digital TV was. This is a piece of gear with a really poor design flaw that for some reason depended on a proprietary 3rd party signal to work. Why would you accept that this 3rd party should decide when you can no longer use your electronics?
Let us ignore for a moment that you're obviously completely insane.
TEMPEST is not a 'hacking technique' it is a standard for investigations and studies of compromising emanations (CE) (see Van Eck phreaking)
Are you joking? 7 years and its now end of life? This is what companies are trying to make you think about products, buy them (for some crazy price), then throw them away in a few years. What happened to long lasting? Certainly we still have planes working from 50 years ago (yes with upgrades, but still it shows everything needs maintenance). There are many products (e.g. ovens, cars, music centers, even televisions!) which still work from over a decade ago. I think it is very ingenious of Sony to essentially 'wreck' a product which is still functioning if they would let it be so, and its a continuing trend in what Sony does continuously trying to screw over consumers.
The data is available, and broadcast, alongside ATSC signals via the PSIP system. But this particular box chose to use the proprietary system instead; I believe it provided data much farther out than the PSIP data.
After the root kit fiasco, and the rude manner in which Sony left
all its US Palm device customers high and dry, no intelligent
person should even consider buying anything sold by Sony.
Sony are the lowest of the low, they will screw you
and laugh about it.
I fully expect Sony to be history in the next five years,
but if we all stand together and boycott them it can happen
sooner.
About ten minutes ago: QI.
Yet another reason on a very long list of reasons to not buy Sony products.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
You bought Sony. Even if you are new here you would done a search for "Sony" before investing in any of their products. They are really, really bad news for anyone favoring openness.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
But I don't watch much of TV. All I record is Jay Leno, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, and interesting marahtons on Discovery or History. Pretty soon I am going to ditch the whole damned cable tv and switch purely to net and streaming.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I understand that the OP already purchased the devices, but it seems to me the simpler and more reliable solution is to simply rent the devices where possible from your cable or satellite provider. When the device goes bad, they swap it out for a new one. If they decide to stop supporting a device, you don't pay for it any longer. No headaches and at around $10 - $15 per month per DVR it seems to be the better option.
My LG TV has a built in DVR that uses this service. It now displays the message from ROVI saying the service is going away. What can I do? The TV is less than 10 years old.
I had one of those HDD500 DVRs for recording HD OTA for quite some time and finally sold it (for almost as much as I paid for it) about 4-5 years ago after building my MythTV system.
While it generally was a pretty good recorder, and pretty much the only retail unit of it's kind, I grew to HATE that TV Guide OnScreen. That TV Guide system had essentially it's own firmware within the recorders firmware that was self updating...that is it would automatically update itself totally beyond your control from the OTA signal...and this didn't always go well. When the guide didn't work, the unit was essentially a paper weight for the very reason described in TFA...the assholes decided to give you NO way at all to manually set the fucking clock....a feature available in every fucking VCR made since the 80s, in a unit that retailed for over $1000...seriously??
Good riddance...gotta love MythTV and Schedules Direct!!
Face it. "Companies are selfish." Meaning, the mores under which they operate ensures that those who make the decisions are going to do that which is best for the company/officers/share holders, not their customers. (Once upon a time, being responsive to your customers was good business. Not by today's MBAs.) Buying a company's product does not seem to constitute a binding contract (and probably wouldn't be enforced even if it was) so as soon as it is no longer in the company's interest to support a product they will stop in spite of any (misleading/false/lying) pronouncements when they sold the products. Sony is only a more pathological example of nearly all company's behavior.
That is why I will not buy products in which there are proprietary components that I cannot replace if I choose to do so. That is why I refuse to be sucked into the walled garden approach companies are taking. I don't care if all the cool kids are doing it. Hyping cool is just a company's way of exploiting human behavior to get you to buy something that is not in your interest but in theirs. And your only leverage as a customer is to take your money elsewhere. Don't buy it if it isn't completely open. You'll only regret it in the end.
Notice to companies: I am NOT a consumer. I am a customer. And as soon as you pull any stunts like this, I become an ex-customer... for life! And I will not stand silently by when others contemplate purchasing your defective-by-design products. (Yes, you can change, except I will be very suspicious even if you genuinely repent of your anti-customer behavior.)
... obsolescence....... at the flick of a switch in the hands of another..... Guess you'll just have to buy the next generation of built in obsolescence.
Yeah, for Capitalism at its extreme....
For your continuing work in making sure that users understand that megacorporations are evil and should be abolished.
If it hurts when you do something - STOP doing it.
Live and Learn (or die)... Evolution - amazing stuff...
People who buy Sony products are not their customers. They are a resource to be exploited.
The only "customers" Sony or any corporation has are the stock holders.
Corporations, particularly public corporations in the USA, are required by law to screw-over people who buy their products so they can maximize profits for their customers.
Never, ever forget that.
If you were sold a lifetime product warranty then you are entitled to your money back or for the service to be continued. It matters not why the service is no longer provided for. Read the fine print of your warranty and don't give up! That's what they want you to do. They didn't sign a contract knowing that a big percentage of people would not fight for their rights. They made the decision purely on what it will cost them one way or the other and if you don't stand up for your rights we all lose.
For the IDIOTS that say things like "Reasonably expected" lifetime THEY ARE WRONG! The law is the law. Lifetime is the lifetime of the product unless specified differently. It isn't your lifetime or the lifetime of the manufacturing product, nor the lifetime of the company even. Should the company be bought out you still have a lifetime warranty unless, and not in every case the assets were purchased and not the business. Find a trial lawyer that does class action lawsuits as a last resort. If you have a valid claim they'll take it on for no cost to you but a big percentage of the winnings. But you will have justice if not $$$.
The solution is to never buy a Sony product. I stopped buying Sony products after the rootkit fiasco and my live has been better ever since :)
Why do we have to rent them?
Not sure about other jurisdictions, but here in British Columbia you can most certainly buy a PVR - Here's the IP TV PVR that sits in my entertainment centre:
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/telus-telus-optik-tv-500gb-hd-pvr-receiver-cis430-500-available-in-bc-ab-only-cis430-500/10193848.aspx
My Sony cd/dvd player dvp-s535d still works and I bought it 12 years ago.
Literally just yesterday I finally threw out my Sony DVP-S7000 DVD player http://sites.thestar.com.my/audio/story.asp?file=/1997/5/15tydvd that still worked perfectly. Been using that sucker since 1997 so it was 15 years old and showed no signs of dying.
Of course that was from the days when companies were still willing to build a DVD player that weighed 7kg and sold for $1200.
Dear liar:
Stockholders are owners, not customers. The people who actually run the company (president, CEO, CFO, etc.) are required to act in the best interests of the owners. There are people who think that ruining the reputation of their company by cheating their customers is in their best interest, just as there are people who think that committing armed robbery is in their best interest, but they are not legally required to act in that manner.
Judging by your warped view of things, I bet you voted for Obama.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
So has anyone looked into the potential of reverse engineering the service/protocol and then using any of the standard man-in-the-middle attacks to direct the box to a replacement feed?
Don't Buy Sony.
Not that others haven't done stuff like that as well, but Sony / Nosy does a lot of crap like this and worse.
CAPTCHA: recall
Not sure if it means "remember" that Sony treats its customers like crap?
Or if it means "send back" the non-functional crap for a refund?
The people who actually run the company (president, CEO, CFO, etc.) are required to act in the best interests of the owners.
Please provide a citation for this. I keep hearing this over and over. How are they "required"? Is there a law that says they must act this way or is is simply how the stockholders expect the C*Os to behave?
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Judging by your warped view of things, I bet you voted for Obama.
Judging by your grumpiness I bet you voted Romney.
It's not a obscure law sitting somewhere... it's *the* law for corporations in the USA. Please Google a bit and find the requirements to incorporate and run a corporation. And yes... that law is inadequate according to game theory: the best strategy would be that corporations act in the best interest of their stock holders *and* their community/country/planet. Otherwise, there are scenarios were everybody lose. E.g., sending all the manufacturing and operations to another country: when most of the corporations do that, surprise! Nobody has a job, so nobody can buy the stuff the corporations made abroad!
When any business offers me "lifetime service", I ask whose lifetime is that: mine or yours?
I heard these DVR's ran Linux. Can't someone just sue for GPL infringement and get the source code that way?
How many times do you people have to get screwed by Sony before you stop buying their products. They continue to display a total lack of caring for their customers with every decision they make about a product. They do not deserve your money or support, there are always options out there rather than Sony.
So you need a data stream added into the feed going into the box...one that gives the time and plausible fake data?
It sounds like something I'd get for $23 off ebay.
But when people are convinced that a $1500 home theatre is "high end", because that's the most expensive they see at Best Buy, there's no point in explaining that a *real* high end system will cost more than a luxury car.
"Yes, that $5000 I spent on directional interconnects from my SACD to my amp really made a difference. The Lunarize(R) Silver(TM) molecules vibrate resonantly to expand the warmth of the music, according to AudioSnob.com. Interconnects that you can plug either way you wish simply can't compete with these: forged in the light of a full moon and quenched in the blood of virgins...
What do you mean, 'using lamp cord as speaker wire passes double blind tests'?! If you aren't paying at *least* $150/foot for oxygen-free, unobtanium speaker wire, and laying it in 'S' shaped patterns on elevated insulated stands (to reduce capacitive parasitics from the carpet of the room), then your music will sound hollow and flat, lacking any stage.
Excuse me, I need to go start playing my ultrasonic 'wire burn-in' SACD. The wisdom of the crowd is that these interconnects really don't hit their stride until you've burned them in by playing ultrasonics for at least 128 hours. Either way, this disc was a steal at *only* $256."
Sorry, what were we talking about? Oh, right, you were discussing the moral hazards inherent to unfettered capitalism. Carry on...
Is there any danger of this happening with MythTV? If Schedules Direct shut down, or if their provider (I believe it's Zap2It) ended the service, what would MythTV users do?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Investigating compromising emanations such as from keyboards, mice, screens, etc. most certainly is a hacking technique, just as calling and pretending to be the telephone repairman who needs the numbers printed on the bottom of the router is a hacking technique.
Less TV = Higher Quality Life. There are so many more enriching things to with your life. Just shut the damn thing off.
Sent from my ENIAC
If the listing service was truly marketed by Sony as lifetime, then there is a solution that can be described in three simple words- Class Action Lawsuit. Why not? Everyone else does it, and it's not like owners of these devices have anything to lose by giving this approach a try. And there is certainly no shortage of lawyers willing to go after big corporations for their share of the 'take'
Differences between how you act when some one is watching, and how you act when no one is watching, define who you are
There's a timecode embedded in the broadcast from PBS, why not just get that?
They're using their grammar skills there.
Go Google "fiduciary responsibility"
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
No really, if you're not thrilled with using your PC to operate your DVR, consider spending about $200 or less to build your own DVR / Entertainment center that fits nicely somewhere in your living room. And then if you want to go at it even further, subscribe to hulu plus and a few other things and ditch cable tv all together like I have. If a show is not available online legally, pirate it. It's the only way to get them to stop being exclusively on cable. It seemed to work in the past thanks to supply and demand. Of course, I'm making a lot of sense here so this might be confusing to many.
I'm not even trying to be a ahole this time, but this is exactly what you get for buying Sony products. They are the most consumer unfriendly, greedy fucks on the planet. Other companys will screw you over sometimes as well, but Sony plans on it as a business practice.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Actually, you're doing real well to have Linux support at all - many many printers I've found without any Linux support, including a Lexmark multi function machine I bought which is still in manufacture but Lexmark have 'no plans' to offer Linux support. And the same can be true of Windows too - a new version of Windows means no upgrade or a new printer for many, cos not all units get a driver upgrade.
So just use tivo or any of the other DVR systems that get guide data from an internet connection. It's not as if there were a shortage of such systems. Sux for the people who bought this device but other than that group, I don't see what the big deal is.
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