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Television Needs To Be Reinvented, Says Apple SVP (businessinsider.com)
Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Service at Apple, isn't happy with the current state of how people watch TV. He said we currently live with a "glorified VCR," the interface of our current TV is the problem and we need to reinvent it. Cue pointed out a number of other issues he has with today's TV:"It's really hard to use [a cable box or satellite TV]. Setting something to record, if you didn't watch something last night, if you didn't set it to record, it's hard to find, it may not be available. There may be some rights issues," Cue said. "It's great to be able to tell your device, 'I wanna watch the Duke basketball game, I don't care what channel it's on.' I just want to watch the Duke basketball game. Today you got to bring in the TV, go through the guide, find which sports programs or whatever -- it's just hard to do."
Unless they're buying out TiVo, they're already second to market... I haven't cared in a LONG time what channel or time my show is coming on, I just use the TiVo app on my phone to search for what I want and magically it appears on my screen. Want to watch a series? Not a problem! My TiVo will assemble all the episodes of that series on the DVR from any source it can get it from including recording it from air, netflix, amazon prime, hulu, etc. Full disclaimer: I have no affiliation with TiVo in the slightest... except I own one and it obviates the problem described above.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
The problem with I see with how they described it is a big one... "I don't care what channel it's on, I just want to watch xyz". However, over the years, whether I had DirecTV, UVerse, or cable, is that the same show is duplicated on a variety of channels, some of which are in the "Guide" but that a user might not get. For instance, with DirecTV, if you wanted to watch Big Bang Theory as an example, the show would be populated on half a dozen channels in the Guide and different times.
For instance, it would show up on West Coast local channel (which I would get) standard definition, it would also show up on Central Local channel (which I don't get due to regional restrictions), and same for East Coast Local channel... Then all 3 of those same channels are duplicated as HD channels in the Guide as well. All 6 of these would be the current latest episode, and all 6 were at different local times due to time zone differences, however only 2 of those are a channel I get, and I prefer recording in HD when avail, so only 1 is the 'correct' channel/time. If the DVR recorded the wrong one, I would be greeted with a blank recording. That's why I think most DVR systems make you select the show and channel you want to watch, and it will stick with that.
Another issue, is when you add in the complexity of syndication for shows that have current episodes on major networks, and older syndicated episodes on various other extended channels (sometimes playing more than one episode per day for those syndicated episodes), and what you would end up is the DVR trying to 'guess' which is the correct version of the show you want to record out of a possible 6-12 different possibilities on various channels, time-slots, resolutions, and new episode/re-run episodes.
The cable companies don't make it easy, and neither do the channel networks. Depending on the DVR/Set-Top-Box you use, sometimes the guide is customizable to eliminate channels, but this takes hours to go through and setup on each receiver. Some, like ATT UVerse, won't let your customized list be used as the default, so it takes like 3-6 button presses to get to your customized guide list instead of the "All channels we serve from all packages" monolithic channel guide, which is horrible. Why cable companies still serve you SD channels when you subscribe to HD package is something I've never been able to figure out, other than it makes it LOOK like you are getting twice as many channels as you really do. All of this is frustrating from a human perspective, DVR's can only make it so easy before they start guessing at what you want.
Maybe the example given is easy to do, when you are talking about live sports games (all though, those get blacked out locally many times as well) that don't get reruns, are usually broadcast on single channels who have the contracts... But I don't think a DVR can know what you're intentions are by just saying, "I want you to record Big Bang Theory" are, just as another person wouldn't understand your intentions either without a bit more specific information, like SD/HD, what is your current channel package, new episode or rerun, it's playing in an hour, but you have another recording already scheduled, which show is more important to you? etc...
The recording industry has had a broad royalty scheme for a long time where any radio station can pay fees into the system and then play pretty much any recording ever made. The TV and Movie industries need to adopt a similar scheme to enable the next giant leap in home entertainment. You pay a fee to an aggregator and then freely choose from any entertainment product ever recorded.
That's what they said about iTunes, and Apple found a way. So I wouldn't count them out here...
Only because the music industry was totally oblivious to what would happen when they let Apple control the DRM, the same way IBM let Microsoft control the OS. They had to drop DRM because they were being buttfucked by Apple who used their market power to sell cheap music and expensive iPods and all their customers were locked in since FairPlay protected music wouldn't play anywhere else.
The motion picture studios have never been that stupid, even long before iTunes they controlled CSS on DVDs, they control AACS/BD+ on BluRays and AACS 2.0 on UHD BluRay and they have no reason to drop DRM. At worst even if it's broken they can still try using the DMCA and EUCD to make decryption tools illegal. And unlike the iPod that filled a need for a device people didn't have there's already tons of ways to play movies and series.
It's of course possible that Apple could find their Achilles heel but I don't think it's very likely, with or without Jobs. The industry would most certainly smell a trap, even if they couldn't figure out what it was. As much as I'd like them to just give up and have the convenience of a torrent site I think it's just very wishful thinking. That said, there are a lot of cable cutters so maybe...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings