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The Next Generation of PVR has no Hard Drive
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jun 13, 2001 09:26 AM
from the its-only-a-matter-of-time dept.
from the its-only-a-matter-of-time dept.
William Kucharski sent us a story about the next generation of PVR (Tivo) device. This time there will be no hard drives. Instead the content will be stored at your cable company and streamed in real time to the reader. The upside is that this effectively removes many of the limitations of existing PVRs and could make all media available on demand all the time... eliminating the concept of "Channels" entirely. The main downside is that control is moved out of your home, returning PVR users to the dark ages where they had to watch commercials.
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The Next Generation of PVR has no Hard Drive
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Re:not fair (Score:3)
The biggest issue you'd have to overcome to provide your own service would be the hardware. You could probably use a UK TiVo without to much problem (has the right voltage and TV standard), but you've have to get the guide data from somewhere. I spoke to people at LinuxWorld in New York back in January who were using TiVo boxes in Australia, and had hacked up the box enough that they could get the guide data from a local web site with local TV listings. I'm not sure if they've released that software, or if it crosses the line regarding the community support of TiVo, meaning that the hacking community will not try to undermine the TiVo service, which would cause financial damage to TiVo - the company. If the software to get guide data in Australia existed, it wouldn't be hard to write similiar software for the US and UK, meaning that people could get full functionality without paying
Why not both? (Score:3)
disk approaching $2 a GB (Score:3)
some 70-80 GB disks had fallen below $200.
One gig holds a 30-60 minutes of compressed video.
The early PVR systems were pricey at $15 / GB,
but there are hack web sites that tell you how to
add your own disk cheap.
I would not be surprised in the near future you
could get a hundred hours of video storage for
a hundred bucks. Then why rent the remote disk?
Bad Investment (Score:5)
I suspect this will be a commercial failure.
I think the days of money-making PVRs are seriously numbered, because this is one of the few areas where either a Free Software or Open Source alternative will eventually kick all the commercial products asses from a usability standpoint. Instead of just being an abstract political thing, it will be a concrete user interface and feature issue.
With certain types of applications, such as word processors, closed software isn't really at any significant disadvantage to Free Software, because there isn't any commercial pressure to make the product suck. In fact, a commercial developer wants (and is encouraged to) make the product as good as possible.
But as soon as you get to media-reading-related products, the developers start to be pressured by outside influences to compromise the quality of the product. We have already seen this with web browsers, with the recent story about MSIE's "Smart Tags" being a good (but not the only) example of that sort of thing.
You can also see the problem with DVD players. The hardware appliance DVD players don't have Firewire ports, the software players can't capture still frames, etc. Some users expect these features because they are natural things that someone would want to do. Eventually, unlicensed players (which, due to bad legislation, will tend to be developed by decentralized teams, and that encourages open source) will be so more feature-rich than DVDCCA-licensed players, that users will have a significant incentive to use them.
And you can see the problem with the most popular existing PVR, Tivo. Tivo is a fine product IMHO, but it also has some flaws that aren't caused by bad programmers or lack of vision, but rather, they are caused by Tivo's desire to have a good relationship with its partners. For example, there's no "30 Second Skip" and there never will be, and the fast forward intentionally over-corrects to encourage the user to watch the end of a commercial. There are also rumors that future Tivo releases are going to have new disadvantages that the existing software doesn't have. (Something is going to eat up some additional disk space, but we don't know what that is yet. But you can bet your ass that it's going to be something that users aren't asking for, and that it's related to Tivo's partners.)
A PVR that is developed free of commercial interests, will have none of these disadvantages. Right now, the components for building one on Linux are (allegedly) very primitive (I haven't even gotten it all working yet, but that's my fault), but they'll get better. Eventually they'll cross a quality threshold that the commercial PVRs are not allowed to cross, and will be so much easier to use and more capable, that users will prefer the open/free ones.
So if you're going to bet the farm on a commercial PVR and you don't have any good means to suppress open development (DMCA combined with Hague is your best bet right now), then you're not going to be a farmboy for very long.
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Back to the Future(tm) (used without permission) (Score:5)
By reintroducing all of the limitations and annoyances of existing cable TV (commercials, network outages, etc.).
the Linux VCR Howto (Score:5)
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/VCR-HOWTO.html [linuxdoc.org]
All you need is a cheapo $50 winTV card and the patience to get it all set up.
Other alternatives include using bttv-grab and mpeg2encode, rather than vcr and avifle+divx as outlined in the howto. I have yet to get it all working quite the way I want it to, but I expect it will be done in a week or two.
Get your hands off me you damn, dirty Ads! (Score:3)
VCRs are tolerated by the Television industry because their impact on ad-aversion is thought to be minimal. Face it, most people don't know how to use the timer-record features of their VCRs - the vast majority of television people watch is live-broadcast. Thus, ad-watching remains a huge part of television viewing.
Tivo and similar PVRs can change this - through integrated electronic programme guides, they make it easy for people to record shows regardless of their air-time. Large built-in storage make them even more attractive. Your average Joe Remote can now actually negotiate the smorgasboard of TV in their own time, and therefore easily skip ads. Once these devices become as ubiquitous as the VCR free-to-air networks are in real trouble.
Unless... well, you work it out.
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No more Blockbuster? (Score:4)
I never watch pay-per-view movies (and I don't know anybody who does), because I like being able to watch a movie at a time that's convinient for me, pause it to go to the bathroom, etc. These outweighs the disadvantages of actually having to go to the rental store.
But, with video on demand, these disadvantages are gone. Bye bye, Blockbuster?
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Re:probably flamebait but.... (Score:3)
Content on demand is the future... (Score:3)
Historically we've seen many examples of the dominant players in the marketplace holding back technology in order to maintain their stranglehold on the market. (most recently in the U.S. the cellphone and bankcard industries) I doubt this will be any different.
Too optimistic (Score:4)
The bandwidth of current cable infrastructures is often limited to the broadcast of about 25 - 40 video channels at the last mile. In the near future I seriously doubt if this sort of infrastructure is capable of competing on cost and service with a $299 Tivo box. Besides Tivo, if you provide users with a 1 Mbps Internet connection it is possible to stream video in real-time, in my opinion users would go for this option.
Who want's inserted adds or other stuff inserted in their video stream? If a company offers hassle free Internet capable of video streaming, a subsription based video server could be more cost effective.
What do users want?
Just my 5 Eurocents Johan.
nCube and streaming media (Score:3)
It's not clear what problem this architecture solves. It's one of those wierd architectural ideas that got run over by faster conventional machines.
Oracle owned nCube for a while, but, I think, sold it off. Larry Ellison was making big streaming media noises about 10 years ago, and nCube was involved in that. In fact, nCube demonstrated something like this about 10 years ago.
The problem with streaming media isn't the servers. It's the "last mile", as usual. This is one of those technologies stuck waiting for high-data-rate consumer broadband. You need about 3 to 5 Mb/s to the home to deliver decent video. It's tough to do that unless you're wiring something new, like a hotel or a condo complex. Juniper Networks was working on faster DSL over existing copper, but they just had a big layoff.
So this isn't going to be deployed in volume for a while.
Pay-per-view TV, and what about premiums? (Score:3)
So, what happens when the TV-on-demand thing hits? Fees will easily double if it's unlimited viewing. If the entire country went to this model, "Must See TV" could occur at 2am so as to not trip over anything else. Moving new programs to Friday night wouldn't mark their death. Moving NYPD Blue to Wednesdays directly opposite Law & Order for fall 2001 wouldn't cause people like me to hate ABC, because they could put Blue after Letterman instead and I'd watch it the next day... you get my point. Suddenly the words "Prime time" lose their luster.
They'd be smarter with having a few dedicated pay-per-view channels, and charging someone to watch a tape-delayed show. Watching it in real time incurs no extra charge, but there's a $1 dollar charge to watch the newest Friends on Friday night... or something like that.
But you know what? I still like my TiVo. Now if they could just enable that second tuner so I could record Blue as well as L&O on Wednesdays this fall...
The more things change... (Score:3)
Step 2. Hope the broadcasters dont try to sue us out of existance because people suddenly dont HAVE TO watch said commercials.
Step 3. Start working with the cable companies to find a way to take control away from the users again. After all, we the cable broadcasters know what is best for our viewers. Now we can say "hey, if you want to watch teletubbies at 4:17am all you have to do is ask. Oh and we're going to keep track of everything you watch so we can pump in the commercials most likely to suck the money right out of your wallet."
I have to admit, I like the idea of "on-demand" television, the ability to select and view whatever show I want at any time is very appealing (especially since it means I wont miss a show because I forgot to set my VCR before I went out for the night), but the fact that they think they're "helping" by keeping track of what each user watches so they can insert the "right" commercials is REALLY annoying.
Now all I need is a TV that will show me pro-M$ advertising while in the background it can fight with the AOL commercial trying to install "the all-new AOL 27". Why spam your mailbox when we can take over your TV and send it directly into your eyeballs?
Not tivo (Score:3)
This article deserves some sort of award: (Score:3)
The worst error of all: for this to work at all like Tivo, the cable company would have to dedicate one channel to each subscriber. That means cable loops with less than 100 subscribers on each, which will usually require running fiber further into neighborhoods and installing more fiber-to-cable units. Also the fiber-to-cable units have to be upgraded to select the channels instead of just dumping everything they get to the cable, the fiber bandwidth has to be increased to carry thousands of subscriber channels, and the central office needs lots of high-powered servers.
I do expect all those hardware upgrades to happen in about 10 years, but it's not going to happen just for timeshifting -- it will happen because the hardware is necessary for (1) good high-speed internet service to homes, and (2) to enable the cable companies to sell video rentals. It's going to take a long time to work out the details (mainly how the servers and the content providers split up the money), but on-line video rentals are going to be _big_ someday.
As far as scheduled programming goes, everything the article claimed as a reason for consumers to buy the service looks to me like a reason to avoid it: give me targeted advertisements embedded in the program or with fast-forward locked-out, and I'll spend a lot more time reading books!
Finally, "I can scale it, depending on how popular the service is. It's all under my roof. And I don't have to send a truck out to every customer who wants it. It presents great efficiencies for cable operators." WTF? No one had to send out a truck to put in my VCR or my DVD player. No one has to send out a truck to install Tivo boxes with the hard drive. But if they do implement the proposed scheme, they'll have to send out lots of trucks to do the network upgrades.
It's simple... (Score:5)
I can see it now... (Score:3)
One of three scenarios:
[1] The network sucks
"Honey, let's watch that episode of the Sopranos we taped last night"
"Ok! Wait a second...you sure you taped the Sopranos?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Nothing, its just been saying 'buffering' for the past twenty minutes!"
[2]All your rights are belong to us
"Honey, let's watch that movie we taped last night off HBO."
"Ok! Wait a second...you sure you taped that movie?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Nothing, its just saying that we're violating section 1201(a) of the DMCA, and the authorities are on their way..."
[3]Streaming media...er...SUCKS
"Honey? Why does Regis look like a bunch of pixels?"