Death of the PVR

[jason531]

I just stumbled across an interesting article predicting the death of the PVR. It is based on the Tivo, but really applies to all PVRs.

Personally, I am glad I am migrating from ReplayTV to Sage because the software can evolve to support new hardware. I also don't think the PVR will die.

Read the article here

Best regards,

Jason H.

[malore]

The article just applies to all stand alone PVR makers (Tivo, Replay, etc.), because it will be hard to compete with PVRs built into cable and satellite boxes. This is similar to what happened to Netscape once Microsoft built Internet Explorer into Windows. Web browers didn't die but Netscape as a company did.

I think the article's assessment that "2004 will be the year America embraces HDTV" is unlikely. [Sarcasm] I'll definitely be rushing out to spend $2000 on a HDTV so I can get SportsCenter in HD. [\Sarcasm]

[justme]

Interesting article, but I agree with malore on PC PVR's being different in this case.

I think the article's assessment that "2004 will be the year America embraces HDTV" is unlikely. [Sarcasm] I'll definitely be rushing out to spend $2000 on a HDTV so I can get SportsCenter in HD. [\Sarcasm]

My wife and I will actually be making a HD purchase soon. Mainly to avoid buying equipment that must read the broadcast flag. I'm always suprised at how few people know about the schedule for HD and mandatory use of Broadcast flag circuitry in consumer electronics. This poses a far more serious threat to TV viewers in general. And an even more serious threat to PVR users of all types.

[Opus4]

Originally posted by justme
My wife and I will actually be making a HD purchase soon. Mainly to avoid buying equipment that must read the broadcast flag. I'm always suprised at how few people know about the schedule for HD and mandatory use of Broadcast flag circuitry in consumer electronics.

OK... I _used_ to know what that was, but could you remind me what the broadcast flag will do? Thanks.

Oh -- and I rember reading that article a while back & thinking that it mostly applied to stand-alone DVRs that had no other purpose to exist & that had monthly fees.

- Andy

[justme]

Rather than me mis-speak myself, since it is a very complicated issue. I'll point you toward a cached page from Google(see below). Sorry about using a cached page, but the recent G4 TechTV merger has left all the TechTV stuff MIA, so far.

But the simple answer it's DRM(digital rights management) for TV. As for exactly what it can/can't do, it'll do whatever it's allowed to do. So we'll see what the public is willing to giveup.

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache...ast+flag&hl=en

Oh and in the interest of being fair, since the article above is largely EFF created. Here's the MPAA's explanation.

My personal opinio is you can't trust the MPAA/RIAA as far as you can throw them, but their view should be heard. Oh and the last official word was that all appropriate equipment manufactured after July 2005 must include Broadcast Flag circuitry/mechanisms.

[xlr8shun]

someone will crack the broadcast flag, i hope....

[TunaBoo]

You can crack anything, obviously.

But - do you want to possibly go to jail for being able to get FAIR USE out of a stream that you PAY for? Time shifting is fair use, but the DMCA overrides fair use... it is a bunch of bull.

[stanger89]

The thing with the BF, is that in and of itself, it's a passive device, it's just a bit in the datastream (already there unless I'm mistaken). Current HW just ignores it, and it shouldn't affect anything currently available. The BF doesn't mean anything is encrypted or anything, it's up the the client device to ensure that the flag is obeyed.

The easiest way to bypass the flag is to just buy equipment before it has to obey the flag.

[RANT]
It's kind of funny, but at the same time depressing. Content providers are trying so hard to lock down their content but there are too many people who have "Legacy" devices that they have to include all kinds of loopholes (analog hole, legacy non-BF hw, etc.) so they don't "disenfanchise" their customers. What we end up with is just a system that does absolutely nothing but inconvenience their decent/willing to pay customers, and proves only a roadbump to others. I mean, who do they think is going to spend the time to download a 26GB MPEG-2 HD movie, or a 6GB WMV-HD movie, I mean most people are lucky if they can pull 1Mbps off of huge servers like Microsoft, it's more like 10kbps over P2P.
[/RANT]

[xlr8shun]

i can see the need for people to feel like they need to protect their work, and thats in their right to do so. however some of the stuff they proposed for this 'broadcast flag' is outrageous.

theyve proposed everything from not letting you record the program at all, to recording it in a reduced quality. both of which are unacceptable.

not letting you record the program at all, could effectivly kill tivo/replay tv/sage/btv/etc as we know it. because these pvr's record EVERYTHING even live tv, if your pvr tunes into a program that wont let it record. what is going to happen?

the next, which isnt near as bad as the former, is to record at reduced quality, which is still a bad idea, i know im not going to go out, and pay 1000 for a tv, a pvr (maybe a subscription), pay more for dtv programming, and record at sdtv quality because i had to work and couldnt watch the game. or i had company over and couldnt watch XXXX show. had to go to the hospital and couldnt watch this or that. it doesnt make any sense to spend more money and get the same quality as you had before.

what i would propose is, since there is going to be a broadcast flag no matter what, no amount of complaining, protesting, or boycotting is really going to help unless more then 60% of the market joins in an uprising. i would propose something like they do in one of the asian countries. a 'record once' flag. this allows you to record the program, move it from place to place (not copy) you can still have the program in full quality for your own personal use, but cannot have more then 1 copy floating around. it seems to work fairly well, and of course im sure there are ways around it.

but the whole idea is, not to necessarly STOP pirating of their shows, because they know that a pirate will always pirate, they want to stop everyday joe user, from easily being able to stick in a dvd (or whatever) and recording the program to it to spread around to his friends. if its not easy to do (like get on kazzaa and download music) then the normal user will give up and say oh well.

i would probably go a bit further with the asian broadcast flag, and make it more like apples drm that is used for their music store and for the ipods. ideally what would happen is, you could record something from a device in your home, and 'authorize' other devices in your home to be able to play the program. each device would be authed by a unique serial number of sorts. you would still only be allowed to 'move' the program, but not copy it.

the only problem i see with this, is people wanting to edit their programs, like to cut commercials, im not sure how you could edit and resave the program without 'making a copy' of it. maybe you could edit and save, overwritting your original. but man i would hate to screw up a 5 gig show, that probably wouldnt come on again for a year. that i never got to watch and really wanted to. but im sure that things like this could be worked out by someone a lot smarter then me.

i belive its a fair comprimise, hollywood can still protect their property, while giving us the ability to watch it and record it, and manipulate it for our own personal use.

[justme]

EDIT:Just for context this post was started before I saw xlr8shun's post above.

stanger89,
I agree this is why I said I'll be buying some HD equipment soon.

But with computers the situation is far worse. Let's face it we all upgrade fairly fast, and both Intel and AMD have plans that will allow the broadcast flag to tap into them. These systems by AMD and Intel are supposed to secure our computers, but their real use will be to control content. Imagine if you record a BF show and on one of these "Secure" computers. It will make the show and identify your system as an allowed playback device. But what happens when you burn it to DVD and take it to a friends house. Or worse yet when you upgrade your system and your unique ID changes. Do you call up Viacom and ask that all your old archive DVDs be OK'd for playback on the new syatem. Even if they do authorize it, do you really want them knowing exactly what you watch?

This is a very broad generalization but it could happen. All the pieces are coming together. It's up to consumers to stop their miss-use. What they can do and what they will do depends on what the market will bare.

[stanger89]

Originally posted by xlr8shun
but the whole idea is, not to necessarly STOP pirating of their shows, because they know that a pirate will always pirate, they want to stop everyday joe user, from easily being able to stick in a dvd (or whatever) and recording the program to it to spread around to his friends. if its not easy to do (like get on kazzaa and download music) then the normal user will give up and say oh well.

That's the thing, we've been doing this for years, with Tapes (I realize that digital copies are much better than VHS). What they call "Casual Piracy" is what most of us would call fair use. How many people are going to bother making copies of stuff on TV and distributing it, not many, and how is that violating their copyright, it is for "Private non-comercial use" after all.

My biggest problem is not with them protecting their content, it's with the reasons they give for the need. They cry, we need the BF to stop content from being sent over the internet. Which is either a flat out lie (they know that that's not a big problem) or a ignorant possition (if they actually believe it). Average high speed internet is about 256kbps outbound, given that connection, under the best conditions, a 2hr ATSC movie would take 150hrs to transmit, that's almost a week (6.25 days).

I have no problem with content providers protecting their content, if it's that important they should not release the content to non "trusted" mediums. Cable and Sat are very much different than OTA, you know going in that there are limitations to the service. Some sort of BF/copy protection on Pay services no big deal. But for OTA, that has been free and unrestricted for over half a century is something different. You never see firstrun movies on broadcast networks, presumably because they are as profitable.

I have no problem with DRM, as long as it's op-in (like iTMS, WMV-HD, etc), but OTA is supposed to be free to everyone, and to restrict its use...

[kny3twalker]

on a different note
go Mark
What's more, Marc Cuban, the owner of HDNet, the only national DTV network, says that he's not interested in airing Hollywood movies. He's making his own programming, and he's ready to beat Hollywood at its own game. He's not your neighborhood cable access guy, either -- HDNet is the outfit that brought you the 2002 Winter Olympics in HDTV.

Meet him once at a Mavericks game
He is their owner