Post by dkennedy on Sept 20, 2005 4:49:55 GMT -5
A shift may be ahead in TiVo's balancing act
September 20, 2005
By Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle
TiVo's strongest sales pitch has always been that it unshackles television, giving you the freedom to watch programs how and when you want.
Early on, that meant making it easier to record shows to view at more convenient times. Freedoms have been expanded with more recent features, including the ability to move shows off the TiVo and onto a networked personal computer, so they can be burned to disc.
But TiVo and its competitors have always had an uneasy and sometimes contentious relationship with the studios and companies that make, market and distribute movies and TV shows. Traditionally, TiVo has done a good job of balancing consumers' and content-producers' rights, often favoring the former over the latter which is one more reason why TiVo owners are fanatical about the product.
That may change.
As I wrote last week in my TechBlog (blogs.chron.com/techblog), TiVo has begun updating the software that controls its Series 2 boxes. Version 7.2 includes some useful new features such as better network performance when using a WiFi adapter, and snappier channel changes with the remote but also one that has horrified many users. And it's a feature that was made public by a nasty bug. TiVo has added a copy protection feature that, at the whim of the content provider, can limit the amount of time you can store a given program on your hard drive. It also can prevent you from transferring it over your network to a PC. And it can dictate that, if you start watching the program, you must finish it in 24 hours.
Unable to change settings
The copy protection became public when some users found they couldn't change the deletion settings for some syndicated Fox Network programs. TiVo can delete older, recorded shows to make disk space available for new ones, but you can flag shows to keep until you delete them.
Suddenly, a handful of users reported on TiVo community forums that they couldn't change these settings. They were greeted with a red screen that indicated the show would be removed in seven days, period. Users were referred to a Web address, www.tivo.com/copyprotection, which outlined the restrictions.
There was a roar of outrage online as bloggers and forum commenters feared a major change in TiVo's strategy. That included me, as I wrote in TechBlog: "I'm a TiVo user, and while I'm a fan of the machine, I'll bolt as soon as this new 'feature' kills out a show I'd been saving. There are alternatives that don't do this, including Windows XP Media Center Edition and my cable company's DVR."
But then I put in a call to TiVo and was put in touch with Jim Denney, director of product marketing. He said what users were seeing was a essentially a bug something in the signal TiVo was receiving from that particular program or channel was activating the feature.
"During the test process, we came across people who had false positives because of noisy analog signals," he said. "We actually delayed development to address those false positives."
Downloadable movies
Denney said he was unaware of any content provider using the copy protection scheme. But he would not be clear about exactly how it would be used.
However, in a November 2004 interview in Wired magazine headlined "Has TiVo forsaken us?," General Counsel Matthew Zinn discussed the pending copy protection and said it would primarily be used for pay-per-view and downloadable movies.
TiVo is working on a deal with Netflix, which pioneered movie rentals over the Web, that would allow TiVo owners to download films and watch them at their leisure. Copy protection would ensure it wasn't too leisurely.
The restrictions were imposed as the result of a new agreement with Macrovision, a company that develops anti-piracy technology for movie and TV studios. Anyone who's tried to copy a commercial VHS tape and been dismayed at the terrible quality of the copy has experienced Macrovision's handiwork.
Rivals all around
TiVo's move comes at a time when it has fierce competitors, most notably Microsoft, with its Media Center Edition operating system, and cable and satellite TV companies, which are putting digital video recorders into set-top boxes. These devices don't have similar restrictions, but Denney implied they'll soon be ubiquitous.
Copy protection is a sensitive subject, one that quickly raises hackles and red flags. Certainly the creators of content have the right to protect the value of what they generate. But if copy protection gets in the way of people enjoying content how and when they choose, that could reduce the product's value, even more than if it was free.
Those who seek to impose Draconian technological restrictions on use and their enablers, such as TiVo should be very careful what they ask for.
September 20, 2005
By Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle
TiVo's strongest sales pitch has always been that it unshackles television, giving you the freedom to watch programs how and when you want.
Early on, that meant making it easier to record shows to view at more convenient times. Freedoms have been expanded with more recent features, including the ability to move shows off the TiVo and onto a networked personal computer, so they can be burned to disc.
But TiVo and its competitors have always had an uneasy and sometimes contentious relationship with the studios and companies that make, market and distribute movies and TV shows. Traditionally, TiVo has done a good job of balancing consumers' and content-producers' rights, often favoring the former over the latter which is one more reason why TiVo owners are fanatical about the product.
That may change.
As I wrote last week in my TechBlog (blogs.chron.com/techblog), TiVo has begun updating the software that controls its Series 2 boxes. Version 7.2 includes some useful new features such as better network performance when using a WiFi adapter, and snappier channel changes with the remote but also one that has horrified many users. And it's a feature that was made public by a nasty bug. TiVo has added a copy protection feature that, at the whim of the content provider, can limit the amount of time you can store a given program on your hard drive. It also can prevent you from transferring it over your network to a PC. And it can dictate that, if you start watching the program, you must finish it in 24 hours.
Unable to change settings
The copy protection became public when some users found they couldn't change the deletion settings for some syndicated Fox Network programs. TiVo can delete older, recorded shows to make disk space available for new ones, but you can flag shows to keep until you delete them.
Suddenly, a handful of users reported on TiVo community forums that they couldn't change these settings. They were greeted with a red screen that indicated the show would be removed in seven days, period. Users were referred to a Web address, www.tivo.com/copyprotection, which outlined the restrictions.
There was a roar of outrage online as bloggers and forum commenters feared a major change in TiVo's strategy. That included me, as I wrote in TechBlog: "I'm a TiVo user, and while I'm a fan of the machine, I'll bolt as soon as this new 'feature' kills out a show I'd been saving. There are alternatives that don't do this, including Windows XP Media Center Edition and my cable company's DVR."
But then I put in a call to TiVo and was put in touch with Jim Denney, director of product marketing. He said what users were seeing was a essentially a bug something in the signal TiVo was receiving from that particular program or channel was activating the feature.
"During the test process, we came across people who had false positives because of noisy analog signals," he said. "We actually delayed development to address those false positives."
Downloadable movies
Denney said he was unaware of any content provider using the copy protection scheme. But he would not be clear about exactly how it would be used.
However, in a November 2004 interview in Wired magazine headlined "Has TiVo forsaken us?," General Counsel Matthew Zinn discussed the pending copy protection and said it would primarily be used for pay-per-view and downloadable movies.
TiVo is working on a deal with Netflix, which pioneered movie rentals over the Web, that would allow TiVo owners to download films and watch them at their leisure. Copy protection would ensure it wasn't too leisurely.
The restrictions were imposed as the result of a new agreement with Macrovision, a company that develops anti-piracy technology for movie and TV studios. Anyone who's tried to copy a commercial VHS tape and been dismayed at the terrible quality of the copy has experienced Macrovision's handiwork.
Rivals all around
TiVo's move comes at a time when it has fierce competitors, most notably Microsoft, with its Media Center Edition operating system, and cable and satellite TV companies, which are putting digital video recorders into set-top boxes. These devices don't have similar restrictions, but Denney implied they'll soon be ubiquitous.
Copy protection is a sensitive subject, one that quickly raises hackles and red flags. Certainly the creators of content have the right to protect the value of what they generate. But if copy protection gets in the way of people enjoying content how and when they choose, that could reduce the product's value, even more than if it was free.
Those who seek to impose Draconian technological restrictions on use and their enablers, such as TiVo should be very careful what they ask for.