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AOL will launch TiVo-like Mystro service
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Mar 31, 2003 07:54 AM
from the playing-catch-up dept.
from the playing-catch-up dept.
Jason1729 writes "According to this article on Yahoo, AOL is launching its on version of a PVR service. The content will be stored at the cable provider and not in the local hardware. That seems to be a huge disadvantage because it will use a lot more cable bandwidth transfering the content for a single viewer. It sounds like they're doing it that way so they can restrict which shows you can use the service with (like lock out new episodes of network shows)."
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AOL will launch TiVo-like Mystro service
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Why this could work (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.brentozar.com/)
Re:Why this could work (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday October 17 2006, @02:15PM)
It has that Divx (not the codec) feel to it. Just not quite right.
TiVo comes full circle. (Score:5, Informative)
(Last Journal: Monday March 10 2003, @10:48AM)
Meanwhile over in the UK we were promised similar features years ago but because our cable providers are cash strapped at the moment they've not yet appeared.
You've got re-runs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You've got re-runs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Any way you look at it TiVo is a much better choice. You can record whaterver program you like, you can fast forward through any part of the show,(and commercials) and you can keep your favorite episodes as long as you want.
This service is doomed to failure.
And of course they'll make money... (Score:5, Funny)
And with the # of ma and pa's far outnumbering kiddies and in the know professionals who will avoid this like the plague, they're destined to be a beacon to any large distributor who doesn't want they're movie Tivo'd....err PVR'd.
Distributor: AOL, please don't PVR our show, it's under "special" programming
AOL: That will be 50 Million.
Distributor: That's hiway robbery! Forget it, I'm not paying.
AOL: Fine, we just "automatically" PVR'd it for all our customers and provided live feed for all our Internet Subscribers
Distributor: You Can't do that!
AOL: We can't? Who ya gonna call? SLASHDOT! HAHAHAHAHA!
Distributor: No, they don't have any real power except the occasional network bandwidth block. Here's your money.
AOL: Yeah! We get to show better than expected Earnings!
Bah.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred (AOL FREE) with American Buttering.
Re:And of course they'll make money... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://hoopyfrood.net/)
And Viacom as well (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.anotherbear.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday November 25 2003, @03:29PM)
What you forgot is that AOL is really AOL-Time Warner, and they own most of the content providers!
Time Warner owns The WB, CNN, CNN Headline News, TBS, TNT, TCM, Cartoon Network, but not much else that I surf past on basic cable. Time Warner does not own CBS, UPN, MTV, Nickelodeon (all Viacom), or ABC, ABC Family, ESPN, Disney, Toon Disney (all Disney). None of them owns NBC, MSNBC (Gen Elec Co), A&E, The History Channel, The Biography Channel (A&E TV Nets), Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet (Discovery Comms), BET (BET Nets), E!, style. (E! Ent Nets), Fox, Fox News (News Corp),
other limitations.... (Score:2, Insightful)
it seems like the tivo model is a wonderful example of distributed computing here!
eric
Re:other limitations.... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://blanark.dyndns.org/wordpress/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 20 2004, @04:42PM)
Wait a minute, they don't need to store each episode for everyone, they just keep one copy of it until everyone has removed it from their favourites, then it gets deleted.
10G forever. (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
2) I think this may be doomed. I've said in the past that Free as in Beer trumps a lot of things. But if you can't tape tonight's Friends, what's the point? Then Joe Consumer has to say "well, I can't watch that on the cable box, so I have to tape it? Why am I paying the money?". More confusion will trump Free Beer.
Bandwidth vs storage (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.daemonology.net/)
There certainly is a disadvantage in terms of bandwidth, but there is an advantage in terms of storage -- by storing everything centrally, they only need to keep one copy of each program instead of having millions of copies spread around the network. (Ok, they'd actually have more than one copy, but it would still be far less than the millions otherwise needed.)
This also means that people wouldn't need to program in advance what they wanted to record, since AOL could proactively store everything.
Why server-side? (Score:5, Informative)
It sounds like they're doing it that way so they can restrict which shows you can use the service with (like lock out new episodes of network shows).
From the article:
The New York Times, which was the first to report the details of AOL's Mystro project, said it would allow networks to determine which shows could be rescheduled and to insert commercials into replays.
There's your answer. They don't want people skipping commercials, and they want full control over rescheduling.
Such a non-story (Score:4, Informative)
(http://blogdayafternoon.com/)
As (Score:1, Funny)
(http://lazyadmin.sourceforge.net/)
Aol: Slowly killing itself (Score:2, Funny)
(http://blog.myspace.com/jonathano)
In any case (heh 'Case' get it?) this is not the Holy Grail that will get AOL/TW out of the red, in fact this is more likely to put them in ReplayTV land (read: bankrupcy court).
the downside (Score:1, Informative)
(http://www.floabie.com/)
Build your own Tivo Device www.mythtv.org (Score:5, Interesting)
xmltv! For $0.00!
Check out mythtv.org
Re:Build your own Tivo Device www.mythtv.org (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.stealthboy.com/)
Mysterio? (Score:2)
Yeah, this'll last until... (Score:4, Insightful)
Giving the public more control over content delivery is what makes a successful product. MP3, Tivo, internet, etc. Restricting content delivery is doomed to failure (Divx (not the codec, the DVD replacement)).
I just love it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Useless With Those Exceptions (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, why would AOL care anyway? They don't own NBC, CBS or ABC do they? Whatever happened to laisse faire?
An Answer To Unlit Fiber, But... (Score:4, Interesting)
However, there is the obvious (at least to me) problem of bandwidth to the home. The vast bulk of homes that do have broadband are sharing reasonably limited bandwidth with other homes. Streaming high-quality video to many people at once who are sharing moderate bandwith seems like a no-go. In otherwords, it seems to me that if the service catches on, they're dead; they'll have to strive for mediocrity.
Unless we put fiber into everyone's home. Yeah!
I'll keep my Tivo for now. One of the best things I ever purchased.
No! (Score:2, Funny)
Disagree completely w/the write-up... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not putting it at the head-end so they can restrict content, nor is it a bandwidth problem - just the opposite. They're putting it at the head-end so that cable networks can make it a revenue source.
Cable companies are spending their biggest fortunes at the moment installing Video-on-Demand systems, many of which already have PVR functionality built in. Bandwidth is no more of an issue with stopping, starting, and feeding a PVR stream than with a VOD stream. The only difference is disk space and where it gets its content from.
A much more core issue (and one that would be much for fun to stir up /. with, IMO) is that of content rights. Selling a box that allows consumers to record and play shows at home is one thing, but getting large cable companies into the business of caching broadcast content and then essentially 'reselling' that cached content without complex revenue-sharing agreements is a can of worms indeed.
They seem to adress this here:
"For example, if Mystro TV is successfully developed and the appropriate rights secured from owners of video programming, a subscriber could use the Mystro TV service to watch a program that aired the previous day, or to begin watching from the beginning a show already in progress," AOL said.
So to me this sounds like a VOD product that gets its content from broadcast television. iN DEMAND has made a decent business aggregating Hollywood studio content for distribution over VOD and taking a cut. Looks like AOL wants to make a niche out of re-distributing older (or very slightly older) television content. Pretty much what the networks are doing now with things like the re-broadcast of "Late Night w/ Conan O'Brian" on Comedy Central, except they get $x per play over VOD.
Not a bad niche - just might work.
------
Slippery slope (potentially) (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday September 06 2005, @12:39PM)
Today, if you want to watch a TV series, or a movie, over and over at your leisure then you can buy the DVD. When you buy the DVD, the publisher makes some money. If we're talking about a $20 movie, then the studio might make $5-$10 from the sale, once the retail markup, distribution, production, royalties, marketing and other costs are considered.
But once you've bought the DVD, the publisher will make no more money out of you for that particular title. Yes, if you've got more money than sense (or if you really, really want it) then they might manage to sell you a director's cut, special edition or whatever but the bottom line is that the publisher will only make a fixed amount from you no matter how often you watch the product.
However, if they could keep the movie, but sell you access to it, at $3 per viewing, then pretty soon they'll have recouped the same amount of money if not more from you. Let's face it, any movie that you like enough to go out and buy on DVD is one that you'll happily sit down and watch at least two or three times, and at $3 a time that's $6-9 already. Then you get your Star Wars devotees and Titanic nuts who'll watch their favourite movie at least once a week. Now your talking about at least $150 per year from just one movie.
Now let's consider how else those customers could be milked/revenue streams maximised. Well, for one thing you could charge different customers different prices. Charge Titanic nuts who'll pay $4 per view that amount while charging those that'll only pay the basic $3 "only" $3. Charge a premium for watching Disney movies on Sunday afternoons, or whatever else you want.
Charging different customers different amounts for the same product is nothing new and it's certainly not something that companies are embarrassed about - Amazon does it, and so do mobile (cell) phone providers. So you can bet that AOL (or whoever) would do it too given the chance.
This isn't going to happen tomorrow, or next year, or in five years but it is coming. It's just to attractive for the publishers and broadcasters to ignore forever.
So, while a broadcast/cable provider-end storage solution Tivo might not sound like a big deal on its own, it does sound like a pretty big when you take it to its obvious conclusion.
Storage versus bandwidth (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Storage versus bandwidth (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://mmdc.net/)
Same deal for hundreds of years now, yet both survive.
Cheers,
Jim
Decoding the AOL strategy... (Score:2, Insightful)
AOL is planning on sweeping into a market with an obviously inferior product that gives consumers less control than products that are already on the market, they'll probably charge more for it (wild guess there), and they seriously expect this to be a profit-making venture.
AOL is dumber than Enron.
Bah, bandwidth... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.dasmegabyte.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday June 22 2004, @11:41PM)
Cable's such a great solution...it's big, thick, has high potential and is well insulated. It's got less noise than power lines and better range then telephone while being less expensive than copper.
Of course, there's also the matter of the supply boxes at the head end. VOD suppliers are like massive DVRs that operate in parellel -- and they're not perfect yet. There's still a lot of lag when they get loaded and many companies have yet to scale the number of their VOD boxes to match the number of digital subscribers.
I kind of worry that this is intended to replace the really cool DVR devices TW has been testing. The menu system is great and they go a beyond Tivo and the like by allowing your to record almost all pay channels and PPV material (first run stuff is black of course), and by having simple native support for watching one channel while recording another. Sure, Tivo can do this, but it's complicated as hell...my mom, who never even figured out her VCR, uses the DVR without trouble.
Re:Bah, bandwidth... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Holy crap! I wish that were true. 1/100th isn't the case. A regular broadcast channel takes up a 6MHz slot. At most, you can fit in 10-12 digital channels in that same slot using a statistical multiplexer. Of course, the images look like shit (especially if the mpeg has a moving background). You may be able to fit in 10 channels of CSPAN though. You're more likely to fit in 6-8 digital channels in place of one analog channel.
The 800 pound gorilla... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, their implementation is never as good or as free (in the liberated sense) but they've got the muscle to make it happen. Want Tivo? Well, it'll cost you $250 for the iron and $10/month to keep it going. Oh, wait a second, here's this great online service from the cable company...no iron, $5 a month. Yeah, it's not the same thing, and we take control of your viewing habits (forced commercials, can't record certain shows, we keep a record of the crap you're watching and sell it, etc) but come on, it's cheap and easy.
And, sadly, in the America of today, that's likely the product that will succeed.
I'm a 2 1/2 year Tivo user and it's the best thing ever created for television, and I tell anyone who asks that. However, the startup costs were inconsequential for me and I recognize that's not always the case...despite my evangelizing the product, a grand total of zero of my friends have Tivos. But I bet more than a few of them will opt for something like this.
Re:The 800 pound gorilla... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://penguin.lvcm.com/)
Tivo is already an expensive luxury item that sells to a nich market interested in it's quirky features. A cheap wannabe will not alter this condition. Tivo will still be an expensive luxury item that sells to a nich market interested in the extra features.
Tivo's are expensive toys for people willing to pay for that level of flexibility.
This new AOL service will not really steal Tivo's thunder. Tivo will still have extra features that trump Mystio.
If anything, this may raise general awareness of PVR features. Once "joe sixpack" has experienced a poor PVR, he will probably be MORE inclined to want an expensive one.
Best thing ever for TiVo (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.michaelmaggard.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday January 11 2006, @12:39AM)
Also, for all of those sooo proud of your homebuilt's: You've reinvented the VCR, just more awkward, more expensive, and without cheap media.
Does your whatever adjust for scheduling changes, support wishlists, do smart scheduling that'll ignore recently recorded programs, re-runs, etc? Does it do this all automagically or do you need to rely on screen-scrapers or poor quality listings?
I don't mean to bust on folks, and all props to homebrew, but don't go calling something TiVo-like unless it really has the TiVo feature-set. If you've just managed to turn your couple-hundred-buck PC into an awkward thirty-buck VCR then call it what it is...
Great Googlie Mooglie! (Score:1, Funny)
(http://dhbarr.freeshell.org/)
Of course, there are plenty of repeats, but still -- digital access to all the content on
[cheese] And just imagine a Beowulf cluster of those [\cheese]
*rimshot*
-theGreater Nutcase.
AOL/TW seems to have noticed... (Score:3, Informative)
(Last Journal: Wednesday October 08 2003, @01:33PM)
Glad I sold my AOL! (Score:1)
(http://www.weaknees.com/)
This will go the way of UltimateTV and ReplayTV.
Funny how AOL can't seem to find any product lines that are actually *profitable*.
TiVo is an amazing gadget, but even TiVo, Inc. is struggling to find a way to make it a profitable service. Doesn't look like AOL is doing anything unique.
This might be good for Tivo. (Score:2)
qustion (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Sunday October 09 2005, @12:15AM)
Mystro == TiVo (Score:1)
(http://www.scylla.org/ | Last Journal: Friday January 31 2003, @06:28PM)
How long... (Score:2)
(http://anti-dmca.org/)
I have a TiVo (Score:1)
Most Tivo owners say they watch more TV. I've found the opposite to be true. I guess I was expecting my Tivo to discover lots of hidden gems that I was missing. It turns out that most of TV is crap (IMO). There are maybe 3 tv shows that I regularly watch- Simpsons, Good Eats, and... okay, two tv shows.
But now that I know the Tivo will snag them, I never have to worry about being in front of the tube at a certain time. Consequently I watch far less tv. And now I rarely find myself watching things off of the Tivo. So in a way, Tivo has weaned me from TV.
A few problems with this idea.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, although obviously I am not every consumer in America, I am unable to see what this service has to offer, and what they honestly believe will make people choose their service over something else the consumer can have much more control over.
So does this mean... (Score:1, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday February 03 2004, @04:23PM)
Other reasons... (Score:1)
(http://www.lifecereal.net/)
Myths about DVR/PVR (Score:5, Insightful)
Myth 2: Advertisers automatically hate DVRs/PVRs because of Myth 1. As recently reported on Slashdot, there is at least one study to show that retention levels are just as high for viewers who fast forward through commercials than those who watch them at normal speed. Of course, everyone's gut reaction is that DVRs/PVRs are bad for advertisers because they have the capability to fast forward.
Myth 3: Hot women are great in bed. I'm not suggesting you start sleeping with ugly women, but don't assume anything.
Myth 4: Media companies are smart. Ok, that's not a myth but it is a point I want to make. ReplayTV was sued because it allowed users to email shows and had a "instant" commercial skip function. Besides the fact that emailing the show is no different than recording it on a VCR and giving the tape to a friend (which is completely legal under the fair use doctrine), the media companies just want to treat anything in digital form different because it lets them fight a battle that they already lost 20 years ago. Their argument is essentially that any device which COULD be used for illegal purpose is inherently illegal. Their goal is to continue their business model of reselling content. Take a movie. Pay to see it in a theater. Buy the video or DVD. Purchase it on PPV. This is because they truly feel that the content is licensed and not owned (in a limited fashion) by the consumer. As long as they can resell it, the economics make sense because they get multiple returns for the production. DVRs/PVRs and the change in behavior are one step in the process for destroying that model. Record a digital version of a movie on PPV and then burn it to a consumer DVD burning device. Then loan the copy to a friend. Each step is removing a revenue stream from the media company. And they don't know how to stop this.
Dupe (Score:3, Funny)
from the now-here's-where-it-get-interesting dept.
admiral2001 writes "Here is is a NYTimes story about AOL-Time-Warner's plans for a TiVo-killing 'Mystro TV [nytimes.com]' (nytimes annoying free registration required). They plan to begin rolling this out sometime in the next two years. Their major features are the simple pause, rewind, and fast forward that all PVRs have. However, they've taken the obvious stance to "let[s] networks set the parameters, dictating which shows users can reschedule, and it also creates ways for networks to insert commercials." The article even mentions how they could get an advantage in pushing their product because "viewers could try out Mystro TV by pushing a button on their remote"."
This won't kill TiVo, don't forget DirecTV (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 24 2003, @10:01AM)
The point is that it's fully supported by DirecTV. And it's highly unlikely that DirecTV will ever go to some centralized server like the AOL/Mystro solution because Sat TV is (for the most part) one way. So for DirecTV the best solution is a distributed solution like TiVo, rather than a centralized solution like Mystro.
And I know at least one person who, when their DirecTV receiver broke, decided to replace it with a TiVo enabled receiver.
So I don't think TiVo is going away. It may not replace the VCR as a consequence of being effectively locked out of the cable market. But it isn't going away. It'll just be a different upgrade feature for DirecTV. They'll advertise it as Mystro on steroids, and they'll let AOL do 90% of the marketing.
$.02
Better than Tivo in some aspects (Score:2, Interesting)
"For example, if Mystro TV is successfully developed and the appropriate rights secured from owners of video programming, a subscriber could use the Mystro TV service to watch a program that aired the previous day, or to begin watching from the beginning a show already in progress," AOL said.
If your Tivo does not record a show, its gone - with this it appears that in some cases you can watch the show without waiting for repeats.
AOL wants to Maintain Control... (Score:1)
(http://www.ssabbs.com/)
I might possibly try the www.mythtv.com once it matures, but for now, I enjoy my Tivo. Love the fact I bought a refurbed one for $150 and then stuck two 120Gb drives in there for a nice 300hr recording time, and no one to tell me what I can record or not.
Bandwidth is a non-issue. (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.hyperlogos.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 18, @08:19PM)
In other words, claiming bandwidth will hold you back is pure fud. You can put 10,000 people on a single line card and get speeds of over 5Mbps per subscriber if you feed that head end with a wide enough pipe. (Multiple GigE interfaces?)
I've been saying that they should throttle at their internet border for a long time (they being cable companies) and give you some more bandwidth to internal content, like NNTP. That would doubtless distract people from using the internet at large quite so much. It would also allow more traffic between subscribers.
So? (Score:2)
Well, I guess I could mail my cassettes to the cable company after recording them. Then I'll have my own Mystro.
My dream of TV (Score:1)
Personally, I really like the theory that what this is about is creating a VOD system for old television content. It's a real step in what I would consider the optimal direction for TV - subscription TV.
Instead of paying an obscene cable bill for access to all channels, I'd really love to pay per show I watch, commercial free. Probably with some kind of preview system where I can watch a show for two weeks with commercials, and then decide if I want to order the whole season. I imagine this would also cause a tendency for special features on TV. "For $3 extra, you can see the special features for this episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, including writer's commentary, outtakes, and the script."
I don't even care if the shows Macrovisioned so I can't tape them to my VCR without an added charge (Though at that point, I'd prefer, rather than VCR, if I could just instantly order DVDs of episodes). I suspect this is a model that would be wildly more profitable for everyone involved, but, ultimately, more convenient to the consumer.
Then again, I may be underestimating the power of channel surfing.
Technology moving faster than business can keep up (Score:2)
This is just another case where new technologies conflict with established business models. I can see that this type of content caching is the wave of the future. There are so many possibilities here.
Mass broadcasting is definitely the old way of doing things but that is the methodology that all of the old business practices are based on.
By far the easiest part of this type of project is to develop the technology. To make it doable from a technical standpoint. The hard part is to work it into our social framework. There are a lot of established business relationships and ways of doing things that are going to be totally turned on their head with this stuff (as with so many new technology products). It is going to take a lot of hard work to establish new business models and relationships and make this all work. I applaud AOL for trying.
I've seen a lot of doom and gloom posts about the job market and things going down hill. If you look at things like this, there are so many opportunities out there but you have to be a little more than the really smart guy/gal in the back room with really good technical skills and bad social skills.
The experimentation and the hacking don't stop when the technical product is developed. There is another level of hacking and experimentation on the social/business level. It is every bit as frustrating/challenging/rewarding as any of the technical challenges if you approach it with the right attitude and realize that we are blazing new ground here. You are bound to meet resistance but it is just another nut to crack.
If you grasp the technology concepts (most people don't) and you have the patience to learn the social/business concepts then you make yourself much more valuable and you have many more opportunities. The negativity and impatience with the social aspects of change that I see represented in so many
Old News (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.spamer.me.uk/ | Last Journal: Thursday February 12 2004, @08:20AM)
Kingston are the world leaders in real Interactive DTV and nobody has come even close to duplicating the same range of services. As well as PVR, it is the only system in the world to offer user directed content, true VOD, DTV, Internet to the TV, Broadband Internet to the PC and webmail, all for ~£30 (50 USD/EURO)pcm.
As for the fact AOL have been developing this system in secret. Well I'll settle to call it an open secret in the DTV Industry. They tried to sell ourselves their system/technology and stated it would be ready for launch within months, however they had no STB, no content and few details; this was two years ago.
We then demonstrated our live system, already superior to what they offered and they went white, literally.
Typo (Score:1)
(http://www.hanshootsfirst.org/)
The real issue... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.jwnyc.com/)
And of course, along the way you lose any real choice about the TV shows you want to watch or when you want to watch them, since there may only be a certain window of time a show is available, for example (this is true of Tivo by default as well, though you can always tell Tivo to keep a program "until I delete it").
My problem is not with this service being available, as I see no reason to switch from my Tivo. But it's silly to dismiss this as an idea that won't work. All AOL has to do is make it part of the standard cable service and boom - no more Tivo for anyone. It's not as if there's any actual competition among cable providers. (There's satellite, yeah, but as I know first-hand as an unfortunately former DirecTV subsriber, satellite is not always available to apartment dwellers. And this is a city of apartments.)
Inefficient use of bandwidth? (Score:2)
or storing it digitally at a central location... "wasting bandwidth? If you can watch a movie through VOD in DVD quality, then why buy the DVD unless you're definitely going to be watching the content more than a few times?
I have a very small DVD collection, with just over a dozen discs. This time around, I'm much more careful about which movies I buy or ask for as gifts because of the huge assortment of VHS tapes I have sitting around the house that were never watched more than two or three times. What can I do with the old VHS tapes? Sooner or later, nobody's going to want them, even if I could manage to shuffle them off to someone on eBay.
Think about it. Obsolete mediums are worse than an old pop can because you really can't recycle an old VHS tape, AFAIK.
I'm not saying that the idea of specialized movie mediums should be killed off, but if the last 20 years are any indication, Blu Ray discs aren't going to be the last stop in terms of movie software sales.
Re:OMG (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.floabie.com/)
Re:AOL seems to only Market to morons... (Score:2)
(http://--/ | Last Journal: Monday December 09 2002, @05:12PM)