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Digital VCRs end Tape Tyranny
Rick writes
"Several companies now market digital VCR-like devices
ReplayTV and TiVo).
Articles on such were featured in this weeks
Newsweek
and the
Wall Street Journal.
These offer 10-14 hours of archivial TV,
computer recording setup,
random access playback, and easy commercial skipping.
These free you from fumbling with tapes or arranging your evening
around a TV schedule. A bit pricey now- $699/$499-
but as with all new technology, should decline. "
20 hours to set it up/order/write software, at $20 an hour (my time is worth at least that, hell, i'm too lazy to log in) equals another 400 dollars. Doesn't look so good anymore.
The TV industry should get a clue and realize a lot of stuff would be ignored if we couldn't time-shift it. It also lets them put on fringe stuff at odd hours, and choice is good.
Will DVD-RW or DVD-RAM be fast enough to record in real time? CDs can be read at something like 40x150kbps, but CD-R burners faster than 4x150kbps are still hideously expensive.
They've already chosen a series of high-definition formats here in the US (and required broadcast use by 2004 or so) - is EU going with different ones?
That's a pretty cool idea. Is there any freely or resonably cheap software available for linux to do video mpeg compression?
If I recall, it taps into a programming database so you can tell it (for example) "record every movie with Clint Eastwood on the cast" and... there you go.
What a grst Phreak! We could all start watching our shows seventeen minutes in, we'd get almost real-time viewing, and get back seventeen minutes every hour. Another cool thing to do would be to start a Seventeen Minutes cable network that had interesting non-mainstream content for the 17 minutes leading each hour.
V4L is the output part, the input part is trickier. I think you need dedicated hardware, or some serious horsepower, to do on-the-fly compression. There is a NTSC in / MPG out box (dazzle) for sale for around $200, though, but not sure about the quality. Hm....
ATI All-in-Wonder 128 can record TV shows and allows the user to save the shows to VCR tapes or CD-R, etc. It's also a less expensive solution for the PC owner.
There is a MPEG-1 encoder here:
http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/frame/research/mpeg/
It claims MPEG-1 is VHS quality, while MPEG-2 is more like SVHS quality.
You don't understand advertising because you have a brain
Many VCR's have a 1 minute skip button on the remote for playback. Commerical breaks are typically two or more minutes, so when a break starts, push the button twice, put up with an average of 15 seconds of ad time, then you are on to the show. You don't need any stinkin' all-digital device to do this.
The BookTree TV chips can take composite and S-video inputs of NTSC and PAL formats. I'm not sure about SECAM... If you want one source standard, you may be waiting for HDTV, but then there are several formats within the HDTV standard
Jeff DeMaagd
It's not a consumer item -- it costs more than a decent new car -- but it's really cool.
See http://www.electrosys.com/omdr.htm
The scariest thing in the TiVo FAQ is where it says it calls up the service "to identify and record both shows that you have specifically asked for and other shows that may be of interest to you."
Combined with the tracking they'll undoubtedly be doing, this this sure looks like targetted ads ("infomercials"?).
Ooh-- evil thought. If it makes note of what commercials you zip over, and which ones you watch, they could make a bundle selling that info back to the commercial makers..
1:Buy Win 98.
2:Buy an ATI All-in-Wonder.
You now have a computer that can easily record video.
I remember looking up on Linux jobs a few months back and some startup was looking for some Linux programmers to work on such a device using Linux as the OS. They looked to be a serious operation.
This type of real-time multiple video streaming is a job for BeOS not Linux. In this type of activity you don't want to loose a single frame. BeOS is better than Linux at video (and audio), and I think the new release (4.5) has a realtime software MPEG encoder.
If you are interested in making a Linux-based digital VCR, you should check out the work going into Linux video editing (it's basically the same thing, except you're capturing from TV instead of a camcorder) at http://millennium.diads.com/bdirks/v4l2 .htm
Larry Lemm
Associate Editor
Videomaker Magazine
I wonder when we're going to get new-tech solutions to new-tech problems. What I'm waiting and willing to spend over $500 on is a HDTV card for my PC (Linux-supported/Open Source!) with a recording device implemented in software.
Why do you automatically ASSUME that information is being collected? Only TiVo collects information. Replay does not. If you've seen any of their public appearances, they make a big deal of saying that they do NOT collect user info.
Well, you MIGHT be able to do recording with a DVD -RAM, but you won't have any of the software features for scheduling records, doing searches on programming info, and Live TV control. I would like to see some sort of a reuse buffer scheme on a DVD-RAM. That would be funny until it caught on fire.
From having looked at both products, they seem to have two very different business models, and therefore two different user experiences. ReplayTV charges more for the box, and charges for the service (essentally the program guide). Tivo has a less expensive box and doesn't charge for the service. Tivo makes this up by whoring to the advertisers, though. They don't have a 30/60 sec skip button like ReplayTV, and have no plans to add one. They are also signing deals with advertisers to provide "customized advertising." Furthermore, they are adding special sections in the interface for networks that pay them money. All in all, I would rather pay more money and get a box that wasn't geared toward advertising interests. I watch less than 1 hr./month of TV now because I can't stand the damn commercials. For me, the most compelling feature of ReplayTV is banishment of advertising. Tivo seems to want to make advertising even more intrusive.
>ReplayTV charges more for the box, and charges for the service
Replay does charge more for the box. They DO NOT CHARGE for the service. Their website specifically states that a FREE LIFETIME subscription to the network service is included with the purchse of the box. Where are you getting your information?
> Tivo has a less expensive box and doesn't charge for the service.
Tivo's box is less expensive, yes. Probably because they DO charge for the service. $10/month if I recall. This is also stated on their website in plain english which most english-speaking humans can understand.
Plus a phone connection (optional on replayTV).
Sounds like the DIVX of the Digital VCRs....
I think that I'd be afraid to buy one of these things. What happens if the company goes out of business and you're stuck with the box, but no service?
I know that I could write perl script that goes to yahoo and get's an up to date tv schedule, combine that with a script that searches for "star trek" "simpsons" "futurama" etc...Toss that on a linux box and I have all of my record times set up. All I need is a TV tuner card that linux supports (and has the ability to record...actually I guess recording is probably all software, so I could probably write that too).
So I guess I'm asking what card can do this sort of thing? Are there any?
I can worry about Remote control later, but this would be pretty cool, you could surf the web, play mp3's and record "sea-quest" all at the same time.
But without this being an open source project, who knows if these services are always going to be around? Open source, you can switch from getting your tv schedule at yahoo to tvguide or lycos or....
And finally, create the all simpsons channel.
Well, DSS is a fully shared medium with very rigidly limited bandwidth, and they're already compressing some channels enough to affect quality noticeably. This is also why DirecPC performs so badly (even though I think it has its own satellite in a different position) - should have been blatantly obvious that it couldn't scale.
Both RePlay and Tivo provide TV guide information, with RePlay's being 'free' and Tivo's requiring a monthly service free. So, both require a phone line. My question is, will either of these work without the machine having access to the phone line?
I like the fact that the RePlay uses MPEG2 and an IDE hard drive, so it is very likely that its stored information could be manipulated to create DVDesque archives of shows. Of course, even if it is possible, doing so will not be an affordable option for a couple of years.
duh. and theyre /. readers too. :)
What happens if you disconnect your line
from the box ? does it keep working ?
then can we get the source ? and can we
telnet to it ?
any chance of getting the source ? would be kewl
to have.
There is only one general purpose CPU in the
world that can handle real-time MPEG encoding.
BeOS doesn't run on the Alpha 21264, so there
is no way that BeOS could support that.
BeOS isn't God's own OS. It is just another
closed-source OS that missed the boat.
Ah, this would explain it's absolutely atrocious performance. And being recalled.
TiVo basically sodomizes Linux. Ain't cool.
I've been mulling this over for some time. Would really like to make everything 100% Linux on one bigbut computer, but hard to find drivers/software, plus this thing needs to spread throughout the house, so need multiple nodes.
What I may do is implement a Linux server for file storage, stiping 4 (or so) 20GB IDE hard drives ($1200 for 80GB. Then create "thin" clients that access/record data to the linux server.
Clients will be networked using 100-base-T (wireless schemes are too slow, will have to run the wire (sigh)). OS will be Linux/freebsd if possible, but if I can only find 95/NT/whatever drivers, then I will use 95 for the clients.
Planned "thin" clients for my bulk storage server include:
Digital TV recorder (can't really call replay etc digital video cassette recorders can we?)
MP3 Player/Recorder
Voice Mail (I want my bulk storage server to email me my answering machine messages).
Digital Photo Download/Editing station.
????
There is not a chance in hell of this happening. Not anytime in the near-distant future, anyway.
I don't think you'd want it if you could get it. Do you REALLY think a company that is based on force-feeding you adverts would willingly give out source code? Of course not. You could modify their software to just say NO to adverts. It would destroy their entire business model.
Right. But there are several issues there:
1)legality of doing this
2) most of amerika has cable
To do both cable and sat systems would require 2 hardware implementations anyway. Bad idea. Maybe in the future...
>The TiVo downloads 14 days in advance
This is a lie.
What would be really great is an Audio Tivo that can monitor Icecast streams and slice, dice and save the songs I like.
Now _that_ would make the RIAA really nutz. =)
TiVo has no advertizing in their interface and has more hard drive space for less money, including their "lifetime" service fee.
I did hear that Replay demoed an interface at NAB that had web-like banner ads in the interface.
What I wonder is how long these startups will be around to have a service at all. Where do I get my data when TiVo goes out of business?
Can you grab the TiVo downloads off the net? Then that way, those of us who have their PC's already on a network and already connected to the Internet can just download the info. Plus if someone *REALLY* paranoid then "firewall" comes to mind. :->
- Anonymous Coward
"Say I wanted to tape all Simpsons episodes. On channel 24 (UPN?) in Milwaukee, they air Simpsons episodes at 6PM. However, the show actually starts at 5:57 or 5:58. Likewise, when channel 18 (WB) airs Simpsons at 10PM, it's actually 9:58. How can these devices handle these broadcast time errors?"
:->
I haven't checked the *actual* start times for the Simpsons for Channel 24(UPN) and Channel 18(WB) In Milwaukee, WI, but as far as I know how Channel 24 airs stuff I wouldn't doubt it that their time is off. It seems UPN 24 in Milwaukee, WI can't even decide if they want to carry UPN or no network at all it seems. They can't even decide what they're going to air nightly either. It used to be that "Friends" would come on at 10pm, then at 10:30pm "Frasier" would come on, then at 11pm "ST:TNG" would come on, then at 12 midnight "ST:DS9" would come on, then at 1:00am "All in the family" Would come on. Now they can't keep it straight what they're going to put on, and on which day. Sometimes it doesn't even match the TV Guide. Now it seems sometimes they show Friends, Fraiser, Mad About you, Fraiser. It gets sickening after awhile with this channel. Then they go back into the normal line up like I said earlier. *THEN* on top of it, they'll have a stupid Brewers game on, and they wont air "7 days" *OR* "Star Trek Voyager". Which *REALLY* pisses me off. So I go pick that up on UPN 50 out of Chicago(Thank God for antennas:). *THEN* UPN 24 will air the Voyager and say, "A new eposide you never saw" Well most of us *WOULD* have seen it if the bastards would have air Voyager when they were SUPPOSED to. Besides, who the hell wants to watch the crappy Brewers play anyway?
So needless to say, Mickey *does* have a valid point on, shows starting at wrong times, or even holding up to the TV guide. What if UPN 24 gets even stupider and airs stuff at quater hours instead of every half or on the hour? I guess this is more of a stupidity of the Station than anything else, but still.
But your logic is flawed. BeOS moto is "one processor per person is not enough". Who said you could only use one CPU ? That's the advange of a heavily multithreaded OS :-) . 2 PIII-500 can beat an Alpha anytime at MPEG encoding (provided the codex is SIMD optimised, but it seems BeOS is getting lots of help from Intel to do just that). Beside I was talking about MPEG 1 (crunching quality MPEG 2 realtime is another story)
"Never say never"
Well, the same could be said about conventional VCRs, but as they were less convenient than this new technology, people still watched lots of stuff "live".
I just don't get it. Why do they freak about people having copies of TV shows they *broadcast*?
Please do yourself a favor and go to www.replaytv.com and check out their unit. I saw pictures of the interface in Sound & Vision, and it is very cool (like Program: Star Trek Voyager, Quality: 2Mbps, Number of episodes to keep: 3)
Tivo, IMHO, is crap. There is no 30-second skip button on their machine. The program guide is 1/3 advertising and it costs - something like $10/month. All these hassles to save a couple hundred bucks. (which you end up paying in less than 2 years through the program guide fee).
I will pay a bit more for the replay unit, but I've heard they are looking to build a unit in the future with some kind of long-term storage (lets hope it's DVD-RAM, but it may be D-VHS or some other such media). I am trying to wait for this unit, but I might not be able to.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I guess we have to wait for the next generation of cheap huge drives to come out. Of course, now with non-PC consumer devices to use them, the pressure will be on to provide for it, and perhaps the next generation will be out in six months (as opposed to the usual 12). OK, I guess I'm still excited, but I certainly won't be first on the gadget bus for this particular product.
Wow, that ReplayTV box has a jack for a phone line so the box can interface with their network.. I wonder what kinds of viewing-habit tidbits are getting sent back to them.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
This would make home-based non-linear video editing as easy as desktop publishing.
Posted by The Incredible Mr. Limpett:
Or also if it's pre-empted by a sporting event or the president blabbing about something or another on TV.
I guess that last one can't be helped but we all know like football games always go over like at least half an hour...then they STILL show that damn post game coverage or whatever---another half hour of slo-mo on something you just saw!
Not that missing the Simpsons once will kill me or anything, just wondering if they've thought about these situations. Futurama on the other hand...heheh
Anyways, will it be able to handle that?
Sounds cool but lots of caveats...
Oscar
----
"Wars, conflict, it's all business. One murder makes a
villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify."
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
Heh.....every lamer's ReplayTV is going to be flashing 12:00 over and over.
Hey at least it won't crash at the midnight of Dec 31, 99 will it.
I think this is a killer app. Maybe some one ought to start a daily ad-filter script site that ofter the commercial time table on every Simpson and Law and Order. You can charge me for 5 dollars a month. Heck, I'd jump ship for 9.99/m.
cy
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
Read an article about this in some 'zine. There will be a thirty second skip button, and with 99.9% of all comercials being 30 seconds... well, the articles example was that if you have your vcr start "taping" ER, and you start watching it 17 minutes into it, you will be able to skip all the comercials and finish watching it within a minute of people who sat down for the whole hour. Still cool, but I'd rather have a dvd-recorder. And a T1. Heck, I'd settle for a voodoo2 so I can play quake. And as a side note, for those who can't play quake, check out interactive fiction, and the fifth year contest, at www.textfire.com
You are absolutely correct. The more I use the net, the less I can tolerate commercial, of any form. Every ad looks like spam to me. It's to the stage that I simply can't watch live show anymore because I can't even watch 240 seconds of ads. Besides, I have dejanews, I don't need TV to tell me what should I buy.
CY
Hmmm. Replay seems a bit US centric... when are they going to do a PAL version? They could increase the quality by missing out the analog rubbish altogether now that we have Digital MPEG II terestrial and satellite TV (in the UK anyway).
Other than that...I want one!!!!(5 years ago)
My friend works at TivO, I got a demo of it at a New Year's Eve party last year (Dec 31 '98), it was super cool.
And it's a Linux box. No kidding. I hope I am not giving away trade secrets or anything but it is essentially a Linux box (PPC architecture, I believe) with a big honking SCSI drive for storing the feed and proprietary video encoding and decoding libraries. Plus UI, scheduling, etc etc.
My friend worked on the filesystem (it uses a custom filesystem that is compressed and formatted in such a way to make streaming digital video feeds very fast); they chose Linux partly because the available source made hacking your own filesystem possible. And no, there are no GPL violations because the filesystem is a self-contained kernel module.
Unfortunately it has been blessed by the Evil Lord Gates.
No. If you have studied state machines, VCR programming is simple.
And you *ACTUALLY* believe them when they say they aren't collecting user info. More fool you. They're most likely calling it something else....
>I think both sites make the point in their FAQs that if you put a VCR >between the box and the TV then you can transfer stuff from memory to tape. If you are going to be using a VCR to record programs from this box to play back later, what's the point of shelling out $500-$700 dollars for this box? There really doesn't to seem to be much of a real-world reason to run out and buy either of these boxes...
Or are DVD standards still not pinned down so it's easier to do something totally diffrent.
So? My vcr has a 30 sec ff button too. Granted, with this it will probably be instantaneous, but its still nothing new...
How about SECAM (the French "standard")?
PAL = Picture Always Lousy
NTSC = Never Twice the Same Colour (Color!)
SECAM = Sedom Ever Compatible!
Though won't there be problems with the 60/50Hz beating with the differing mains supplies? A 10Hz beat could be quite irritating (there again I might not have a clue what I'm talking about)
Well, the problem I see with using 10-inch disks is that they'd be fscking big. One of the advantages of CD's that won them the throne once occupied by vinyl LP's is the size. That's also the reason why laserdiscs weren't very popular (12-inch double sized monsters). Besides being costlier, people prefer smaller thingees.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Well I didn't mean removable discs. I meant the built in hard drive kind of disc. These would take up about as much space as a VCR and if it was attached to a LAN you could stick in a cupboard somewhere.
Torbjörn.
So these new uses for hd's need lots of space cheep and don't really care for acces times. How about making very large(physically) discs. Since the amount of data on the drive is proportional to the square of the radius a 10" disc could hold more than eight times the amount of a 3.5" one, at the same data density. Correct me if I'm wrong but the mechanics of the drive is the expensive part right? So once new fabrication facilitys have been built, the price for a 10" drive wouldn't be much higher than for a 3.5" but it could hold 8 times more!
Quantum used to make a line of 5.25" drives a couple of years ago, when all other hd makers made 3.5" ones. They could hold more data at a comparable price than the 3.5 drives but had slower access times because the heads had to be moved longer. But with these new applications access time isn't that important. So how about it, 60 gig drives for 200$. Such drives could hold about 100 uncompressed CD's or a 1000 hours of mp3! And with gmr heads you could probably start having your entire video collection on hd's.
I see a future where every house or apartment have a central storage box connected to output terminals like TV's, Speakers and computers through a LAN. No more need for CD's, DVD's or video cassets.
Torbjörn
Usually a manual is included with a new VCR. Read yours. VCRs can be as convoluted as PCs but they are still far simpler.
Could it be that your clock is two minutes ahead?
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Can you say "Mega-marketable Linux niche?" One of these days, an OEM will get off its butt and start shipping Linux-based information appliances for a few hundred bucks. If I had a few hundred spare bucks, I'd be building one for myself right now. Why buy a separate receiver, TV, DVD player, MP3 player, and VCR when you could have them all in one nifty little box for so much less money?
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
These boxes are seriously tied up from a political point of view. I asked one of the companies about downloading the files to a computer and they said no way, no how, and that they couldn't say why.
Two words: random access
Two more words: no rewinding
No more cleaning heads that get clogged with magnetic scum or a broken head, no more broken and jammed tapes, complicated loading mechanisms, no worry about magnets...
Life will be good.
Say I wanted to tape all Simpsons episodes. On channel 24 (UPN?) in Milwaukee, they air Simpsons episodes at 6PM. However, the show actually starts at 5:57 or 5:58. Likewise, when channel 18 (WB) airs Simpsons at 10PM, it's actually 9:58. How can these devices handle these broadcast time errors?
There's a few reasons I can't do that. First off, Time Warner sends a time signal through the entire cable system to automatically set converter boxes to the correct time. Secondly, the shows actually do start 2-3 minutes before the hour. On those two networks (WB and UPN), the non-prime-time shows are the only ones that broadcast a few minutes earlier. Prime-time gets broadcast at the correct time. And the TW time signal is, in fact, the correct time, +/- 15 seconds.
It's just darn annoying, and it's been like that for years...
I recently bought a Panasonic VCR (the best VCR rated by Consumer Reports) and after recording a program it will go back and mark the commercials-- then upon playback it automatically fast forwards through them. Works VERY well too!
It also will skip over movie previews on rental tapes as well, but I've seen this fail many times.
-- I speak only for myself.
An open system? Hahahaha! The Powers That Be are already pissed about MP3. Are we going to see FireWire ports on any of these things? Not a CHANCE.
:-
How many years did it take that US company to get a dual-VHS deck on the market. The same Sony that owns makes hardware also makes content, and they and others kept the company in court for YEARS with frivalous lawsuits.
We'll see devices like this, but only as they allow GREATER copy protection. Hollywood (and their overseas owners...) *still* view home taping as piracy - BUT - they are helpless to stop it and the law does not favor them.
Don't think they won't try again with digital... it's their "IP" and they'll wring every dollar they can out of it. This is another reason we need to fight for openness on the computer... because with an open system we an defeat greedy corporations. Rest assured, with closed systems the battle will be lost, unless you want to be driven underground with the real pirates just to tape TV.
Ugh! If the most recent version of Windows you have is 3.1, buying Windows 98 is pricey. Cheaper to buy a VCR.
Actually, I contacted ReplayTV tech support
and they said that without the service you CAN "press record", rewind and pause live television, but CAN NOT record by date and time. This is in
the current version of the software, and they
indicated that an upgrade that does let you record by date and time was possible/likely.
how long till the tv industry lashes out against
this stuff, having taken a cue from riaa?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Intellectual Property != Internet Protocol.
Fuck Slashdot
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
So now that Tivo has done it with a harddrive, why not do it with software and perhaps some video hardware on my computer. What kind of compression are they using?
Then we won't need archaic tapes any longer. Tape your TV shows into the hard drive for viewing (and archiving to computer, perhaps?) and watch features on DVD. Seems like the perfect solution to me.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
No, actually, HDs do NOT do variable speed. The amount of information on the inner sectors is the same as the outer sectors to combat this problem. Some floppies, and CD-Roms, however, are variable-speed.
I think the reason the industry has moved away from larger disks is many-fold. The power demands of larger disks are greater. The seek times are definitely greater, along with the latency. And there is a great advantage to the smaller size with a completely uniform form factor.
I think, however, that big IBM iron still may use special large disks.
I don't know about replaytv but I saw a demo of the TiVo box and it looks good. The UI is slick,
the image quality is OK, comparable to VCR quality. Definatly a order of magnitude improvement over a conventional VCR.
No DVD, 16 MB ram
A while back when the 7100 was announced, it was also announced that Gateway would be selling Destination systems with a PCI Dish Network reciever. Hopefully these cards will be for sale to the public. If not, I still will get one. (Working at Gateway has it's advantages :-)
Count me out on this one. I will not use a service that tracks what I do, no matter how "neat" the technology. Let the sheep use it.
With this new technology you can start viewing a show that is still being recorded: Let's say you are "taping" a program, and arrive at home just about 10 minutes into the two hour movie. Now with a "real" tape you have to wait until the show's over to rewind and watch the tape. With the new technology it's possible to start watching right away. while the rest of the program is still written to disk.
Or even better: You don't want to miss a second of a show, but you run out of beer in the fridge next to your sofa. So you have to get up, go to the kitchen and get a new sixpack. In this situation you just press some buttons on this new device and it starts recording. Once youre back you can jump into the movie right away.
I think this is cool.
okay that thing sucks. What makes it different? People like to have New media with new devices. I think that you should be able to record a show on the internal HD and then if you want to keep it, Burn it to either a CD or a DVD. Now that would be cool.
Or perhaps I should say, the limitations of streaming video.
Apart from bandwidth, which greatly limits quality of both video and audio streams, the biggest problem with streaming video is that, so far, the software guys don't "get it". That is, they don't get why streaming video is a different medium from broadcast video, and exploit that potential. Sure, there's room on the internet for all sorts of niche video-on-demand applications -- such as the Rotary Rocket test article rollout, or an architectural walkthrough on a real estate site -- as well as the TV-to-net shift of stuff like CNN news stories.
But what really would juice the potential of these would be fully controllable video with VCR-like functionality. I don't know how many times I've sat through a Realvideo presentation while talking heads droned on about X when I'm waiting for them to get to Y, or the times I've had a hard time hearing something, or just something neat-o that I'd love to play back again. Real don't have no rewind.
(Another feature that would be terrific is a fast-play feature, like many voicemail systems: twice the replay speed, where the sound isn't mickey-mousey, but engineered to normal tone ranges. Again, a convenience for getting past stuff of little or no interest to you, especially as streaming-video files expand from 3 minutes to 30 or more.)
This box sounds like it has those features, so it's already infinitely more digital in essence than streaming video. Perhaps if people take to it like MP3/Rio momentum, we'll start to see the real on-demand video applications arise.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
So how hard would it be to us the Video For Linux support to create a digital VCR with Linux?
To make use of the larger area of larger drives, they have to spin more slowly when reading the outside of the disk. Also, the manufacturing tollerances are probably tighter.
I'm not a hardware engineer; would someone who knows the technology better care to comment?
(BTW, they still make 5.25" drives--we use them in some of our storage products at EMC.)
Here's my page that discusses the full potential of a Linux entertainment system. Not just a digital VCR, but everything from an MP3 player to a web TV to a game console.
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~crow/media.html
Or just wait a few months for the 7100 to appear, it'll have the same capability as the replay-type units, and a built-in webtv (crud!) unit.
Or hope that they'll actually sell the PCI reciever card as a separate unit....
Blech. Signatures.
Why put it onto a tape at all? It's only a matter of time before someone puts a network interface on one of these things. After that it will be a simple matter to burn the MPEG onto a CD/CDRW/CDRAM/DVD/ZIP/ORB/JAZZ/HOLOCUBE/HYPERMEM/W HATEVER and pass it off to a bud. You could even edit out the comercials.
Heck! this might even be possible through the firewire port on the thing.
Actually, they record viewing habits (so do the new Digital CableBoxes) and transmit that to the central network. Possible uses of it is to be seeing which commercials keep viewers, which ones don't. How often do viewer record and rewatch certain movies, what type, how often. What shows are watched and taped and the like. This is supposed to help the network pinpoint which shows you may be interested in, and for marketing uses. Although they are not saying they will sell the information, they are also not denying it.
Hmmm....
Mage...
Cause you can't get a tan from an amber monitor. If you do, there is something horribly wrong.
I asked the Reply guys about the firewire port and if they would let us access it to pull stuff off. They said that all the hardware was there, but there was nothing in the software to use it yet. ie you'd have to download new software to use it. They're planning on using it for an add on drive to give you more space.
Looking at the specs I'd say Reply over Tivo, even with the cost. The real question is, can you find an MPEG2 encoder for cheaper. They thought the Matrix on the net was a problem, wait till people are swaping episodes of the X-files and Seinfield. Somebody's going to prevent them from letting that export option out. Someone's going to have to leak/hack the update software.
Heck, I paid twice that for my first VCR, back when the Beta/VHS wars were going on. (I chose VHS, the outcome was obvious by then.)
-- Alastair
If I can get 2+ of these to do video editing on.. It would be nice. Since I do recording of bands...
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
PC recorder like this... Get a K7, a fast capture card w/ tv, 512 meg at a max of 6ns.. 4meg cache, Nice 10k RPM scsi drive.. About 6gig.. So you have all the storage there, might be a bit slow, but it would stop glitches there.. At least I think it wouldn't..
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
They have writable 12" laser disk, if I remember correctly. I don't know thier storage ratio, but if they were to apply all the new technology to them, it would be cool, like doing double sided dvd and the blue laser technology that's comming out.. Oh my.. =>
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Yes it could be done.. But I would have to wait till middle of summer to see what comes out. Like the K7, but newer chip sets for video cards are comming out. But summer is the time that all the newest and cooler toys come out on the market becuase it's middle of the year. I figure this summer some one will do their own video verson of ELMP (home based mp3 computer).
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
No DSS internet download.. Just 56k.. That sucks ass..
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
http://www.dishnetwork.com/systems/receivers/jvcdv hs.htm
Record stuff with the same quality.
only $800 bucks.
The search effects the results.
But this gives a near simutanois (i can't spell) broadcast, and the fast forwarding would be painless. Fastforwarding for short amounts of time on a normal VCR is almost not worth it for the speed-up to take effect and all that stuff.
when Push Comes to Shove
Read an article about this in some 'zine. There will be a thirty second skip button, and with 99.9% of all comercials being 30 seconds... well, the articles example was that if you have your vcr start "taping" ER, and you start watching it 17 minutes into it, you will be able to skip all the comercials and finish watching it within a minute of people who sat down for the whole hour. Still cool, but I'd rather have a dvd-recorder. And a T1. Heck, I'd settle for a voodoo2 so I can play quake. And as a side note, for those who can't play quake, check out interactive fiction, and the fifth year contest, at www.textfire.com
Remember infocom?
when Push Comes to Shove
I can program in multiple languages, configure routers and do hardware maintainance, yet I still cannot program the da*m VCR. Anyone else feel the same way?
--- ask me about nihilism, I will have nothing to tell you.
Replay doesn't send anything to the server.
TiVo does collect information, but they claim that anything they release to advertisers will be collective data, i.e. they can't trace it to one specific user. TiVo also plans to use targetted advertising in the future.
ReplayTV really looks like the good guy in this one.
Mike
(Not-so-patiently waiting for the prices to go down.)
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. But for one thing look at MP3, even The Powers That Be haven't been able to stop it (hehehe, or at least not for me, 20 gigs and climbing).
The problem is, is there any way around having an IP? I mean if you are a network there is always a way to tag you. I don't see any way around them being able to take a peek at us.
Working with "some of the nation's largest advertisers", great, just link this to like the home shopping network or tie in an ability to buy via a credit card on TV... give them a month and they'll be able to know everything about us. The more I think about this, the more I realize it is a bad idea.
I've been thinking about building one of these: The cost aren't that bad for a 24+hour unit. All you need is:
$110 Motherboard with K6 266 and sound/video
$25 16MB RAM
$240 17Gig HD
$200 mpeg encoder board
$70 TV tuner
-----
$755
Technically you need 95/98, as I don't think there are any drivers for mpeg encoder boards for linux.
And, if you want to go real cheap.. Use a wireless ethernet card and boot off another computer -- geting dual use of your big fat
hard drive.
if anyone is think about doing this, let me know.. I want to do it so I can keep my video collection digital and watch it anywhere in my house with the press of a button (as well as MP3s!)
Jonathan
-- Virtual Windows Project
why is 10mbit too slow? You can play TV quality mpeg over it just fine (~190K/sec). You shouldn't have trouble with DVD quality even. You could probably stream 6 different movies using wireless. Wireless is nice if you have a big house and don't want to run wires everywhere (or are renting like me). Of course wireless is a little more expensive for the cards and you can usually only have ~10 computers on the same frequency band (not bad for a house).
-- Virtual Windows Project
DVD-RAM? Anybody?
The boxes won't add any macrovision information. They will just pass it along if it's already present. So you can't hook your VCR or DVD to the Replay or TiVo box, save the pre-recorded movie to the HD, then try to record a copy of that movie. The resultant tape copy will be squirrely.
AFAIK, both boxes are US-only right now, i.e. only NTSC. I'm sure they're both working on PAL and SECAM, looking ahead to the various HD formats and thinking about I18N and L10N.
TiVo's box won't work without the service. Period. End of story.
But the big difference here, and the reason that, so far, TiVo is actually the good guy of the two, is that they're disclosing their plans and offering opt out
I corrected your opt-out assertion above; read the privacy policy again.
This new web site ( www.tele-portal.com) has got lots of news and reviews of ReplayTV, TiVo and other digital devices that will help users control when they watch their programs. It's pretty comprehensive.
http://www.replaytv.com/aboutreplaytv.ht ml
Plus both pass macrovision along; they don't create it themselves. So they're not adding to copy protection; just maintaining the status quo. (No judgments here about whether the status quo is bad or good.)
Okay forgive me, but I don't see what the big deal is.
So, they learn what you watch, and use that for targetted advertising. So? I'd rather receive ads for things I may be interested in, than ads for stuff I'll never buy. For example, I'd rather see computer related advertising than ads for makeup.
Targetted advertising can be a good thing. Advertising will be worth more to those providing it, so they'll make money. You'll learn about products you may find useful that you didn't even know about. All those ads for crap you'd never buy will be gone.
Maybe someone could explain to me what all the paranoia is about?
- =^o.o^=
Damn - you make me feel old! ;-) :)
Does no-one remember 14" removable disk packs, or the first 5 (yes, five) MB hard drives, or 8" floppies... For that matter, my first mass storage device was a 300 baud audio casette recorder - that's unless you count punched cards!
I went through both of their web sites because
I thought this product was an incredible idea.
After reading through both web sites I'll be
going with Replay. Why? I'm not crazy about the
TiVO box being connected to a phone line and
TiVO collecting information on my watching habits.
More disturbing is the last answer in their FAQ
where TiVO will work with "some of the nation's largest advertisers" (presumably with the
information they've gathered) "to better target ads so that you are exposed to advertising that is more relevant to you".
I think both sites make the point in their FAQs that if you put a VCR between the box and the TV then you can transfer stuff from memory to tape.
True it's not ideal, and transfer would take as long as the programme's duration, but you're not restricted.
PTDC
I saw an article recently (on Wired, I think, but I can't find it) how somebody had figured a way to transfer whole movies over the modem in an hour or two. You pick the film and it's securely transmitted.
They should get together with the Replay people - the replay box sounds like the ideal device to store and play the movie.
PTDC
Digital VCR sounds interesting, but people do collect episodes of their favourite programmes on large numbers of Video Cassettes. There might be some consumer resistance if they realise they're limited to a cache of 24/48 hours worth of recorded programmes.
;)
:)
Some form of removable "backup" media would be interesting to allow folks to build up their own digital video collections. Tivo + dvdram backup unit?
If you follow negroponte's ideas of the digital future, backups probably wouldn't need to be done on site and we'd have full media on demand. But hey, we're a long way off from having a T1 in everyones house so, for the short term at least, home backup of favourite programs would be useful.
Of course, there are copyright issues involved in keeping collections of recorded TV shows. Perhaps the unit's modem could be used to implement some kind of fair priced pay per re-view instead of counting the average amount of time people stay tuned to the playboy/girl channel... Oops
-ad
Hello all:
... the more things are genericized into bits, the less the price of the format per se matters ... prices on hard drive storage fall nicely, but how much have video cassette prices changed in the last year?
I'm not the only one of course, but a big memory buffer to allow replays, commerical skipping, etc has been on my 'why don't they have' list for at least 5 years
Now, the question is: What hardware / software requirments would there have to be for this to work under Linux / other Free OS?
Here are the ones I see. Please correct my non-techy but sincere self!
Hardware:
- Big, fast hard drive (a given), probably one dedicated to this task
- Video card with appropriate ins (as many formats as possible) and lots of memory
- Firewire input
Software:
MPEG (some other acceptable) compression to turn incoming video into files on the hard drive
MPEG (or whatever) playback to replay said files.
Management software that lets you select time and date to record, or what to playback, or what to edit etc, with a nice graphical interface.
Again, please let me know if what I'm saying is obviously silly (it's happened before), but:
For the cost of the video systems described (around $700), wouldn't it be possible to outfit a PC with the above hardware and software?
Or better, couldn't some smart Linux entrepreneur package appropriate software and hardware (matching what's in those ready-made boxes) for people to install on their linux boxes?
Does Linux have no MPEG compressors right now, or are they not fast enough for this task? (head spins, confused.)
I would pay happily for a dedicated hard drive, CD-ROM full of appropriate software and maybe some games or something, too, and a new video card that was appropriate to the task, if it would let me watch Ally McBeal at my leisure and without interruptions.
If you have the know how to do what I'm saying, your market is out there.
Timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Sony alerdy coming out with one. They were making deals with Quantum and WDC to make HDD for them. I believe Quatum won the deal because their QuickView Drive technology. Just you wait.
Zaw-
> I'd rather see computer related advertising than ads for makeup.
:P
I'd rather see makeup ads! The people are prettier.
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
As Tivo notes:
The part that is still in flux is what the "content protection" system for digital television will be. Whatever it turns out to be, it's a safe bet that recording DTV signals, whether off the air, off of cable, or off of DVD, will be out of the question. You'll have to use a DTV-to-NTSC converter and then record the analog signal.Analog TV has a few more years left in it, but does it have enough for these companies to turn a profit?
TiVo is a Linux box.
-Richard Bullwinkle
TiVo Webmaster
>>The TiVo downloads 14 days in advance
>This is a lie.
Nope, it's not, but I'm putting my name on my posts, so I guess that makes the conversation a little one sided, doesn't it?
It's right here on our website:
http://www.tivo.com/what/faq_sub.html#q12
Look, I'm all for open discussion of this, or any other technology. I only correct misinformation, and answer questions, and I do so honestly.
Any other questions?
Richard Bullwinkle
TiVo Webmaster
webmaster@tivo.com
For recording, TiVo works much like a regular VCR if you disconnect the phone line. You tell it the time, channel, and quality, and it records a show. You will still have all the pause, frame-forward and back, fast-forward and back and slow motion features in live tv.
However, without dialing in, the box won't know what shows are coming on or when, so the shows won't be labeled and you won't have any information on them. And if the networks move the show, the box won't know.
I have heard of customers who plug the phone line in, get the data, and then un-plug for a while. The TiVo downloads 14 days in advance, so the occasional download works well for people with RVs and shortage of phonelines.
Hope this answers your question.
Richard Bullwinkle
TiVo Webmaster
So will this also mean that the machine can automatically convert PAL and NTSC signals?
From living in Europe, I've learned that the prime technology of the future will be something that will push the picture formats to one source. I can't imagine it being very cheap for Sony and Sharp et. al making PAL and NTSC versions of their hardware.
Jesse