Mediaweek has a fascinating story on the possibility that cable companies could offer unlimited DVR capacity from a central location:

A report issued last week by Magna Global predicts that if network DVRs become a reality, DVR usage could skyrocket. Unlike set-top DVRs, which are already offered by several cable operators, a network DVR records virtually all programming on a central server in the cable system’s “headend.”

Theoretically, anybody who subscribes to digital cable could record whatever they wanted, without having to schedule an appointment with the cable guy or install a TiVo box.

According to Magna, network DVRs, if deployed this year, “would immediately make time-shifting technology available to 40 [percent] to 50 percent of a cable operator’s subscribers…significantly impacting how video content is consumed.” Magna Global’s director of industry analysis, Brian Wieser, who authored the report, said, “The possibility could be here a lot sooner than people think.”

In theory, this is a fascinating idea. Why should 10,000 users record Lost or Desperate Housewives on their individual hard drives when the service provider (cable or satellite) could store a single copy and serve it on demand? That would, again in theory, allow the service provider to preserve all the other content being broadcast at the same time as those hit programs, making it available for anyone to watch on demand.

In practice, I fear that some or all of the following would happen:

• Cable companies would start charging a premium for certain types of content.
• Cable companies would ignore unpopular programs, no matter how interesting, and focus only on the top 100, making the selection of programming even less diverse and more bland.
• A significant minority of content providers (yes, I’m looking at you, HBO) would object and file lawsuits to block the service completely.
• Someone would figure out a way to insert ads into the content (or in a bumper that plays before the program) that could not be skipped.
• The programs delivered to the customer would be “protected” with DRM, making it impossible to reuse them even in ways that have been traditionally acceptable under the fair use doctrine.

I’m not a Comcast subscriber, so I don’t know enough about the service, but apparently Comcast’s On Demand feature already offers at least some of this functionality.

(Via Lost Remote)

The new head of the FCC is not my friend. Or yours. That’s the only conclusion I can draw from this New York Times story, published today [emphasis added]:

Leading lawmakers and the new leader of the F.C.C. have proposed a broad expansion of indecency rules, which were significantly toughened just last year. They are also looking for significant increases in the size of fines and new procedures that could jeopardize the licenses of stations that repeatedly violate the rules.

Some senior lawmakers, including Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaskan Republican who is the leader of the Commerce Committee, as well as Kevin J. Martin, the new chairman of the commission, have suggested it may be time to extend the indecency and profanity rules to cable and satellite television providers, which now account for viewership in 85 percent of the nation’s homes. And organizations opposing what they consider indecent programming have joined forces with consumer groups that have been trying to tighten regulation over the cable industry and force it to offer consumers less expensive packages of fewer stations, known as a la carte services.

Let’s be crystal-clear what’s going on here. This is the work of a fanatic named L. Brent Bozell, who hires an army of people to sit around all day watching television and cataloguing all the naughty bits they see. Bozell’s team then posts those naughty bits on his Web site alongside a complaint form. His legions of flying monkeys then send robo-complaints by the millions to the FCC over shows they never watched. Before Bozell’s organization existed, the FCC received a few hundred complaints a year. Today, his group is responsible for 99.8% of all “indecency” complaints. Media Week reported on December 6, 2004:

In an appearance before Congress in February … Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.

The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”

What Powell did not reveal — apparently because he was unaware — was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by [Brent Bozell’s] the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

Bozell is also founder of a group called the Media Research Center, one of the leading forces in trying to tear down the independent press in this country.

This is a dramatic overreach by the self-appointed mullahs who want to tell us what to think. Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, told Salon earlier this month: “Religious and conservative groups campaigned for the elevation of Mr. Martin. They have succeeded in establishing a new ‘litmus’ test for the FCC chair –someone who will be at the forefront of monitoring programming.”

None of this stuff is very complicated. If you don’t want cable coming into your home, don’t subscribe. If you think the airwaves are filled with filth, turn off your TV, or throw it away. If you want to block particular channels, block them. It’s very easy. But don’t tell me what I can or can’t watch in the privacy of my own home.

And you know what? Americans overwhelmingly feel the way I do. This is not a grass-roots movement on behalf of the American people. It is a concerted campaign by a small number of fanatics who would prefer to rip up the Bill of Rights and replace it with a Code of Conduct.

Ah, I love the Internet! I especially appreciate communities that are made up of people who use the same toys I do and are committed to making those toys work better. This post is a perfect example. A poster at AVS Forums discovered the secret that allows you to plug an external SATA drive into an 8300HD DVR and magically increase your storage capacity:

I plugged the unit in as described in the 8300HD manuals found online, and the 8300HD recognized the external drive and asked me if I wanted to format it. Once this was done (it did this very quickly) the remaining disk space on my existing 8300HD increased accordingly.

I tried this months ago, with no success. The secret, it turns out, is to get a cable with a standard SATA connector on one end and a SATA II connector on the other. (A standard SATA cable will not work.) I searched extensively, and I can confirm that only one vendor appears to have this cable available for sale. Will I order it on Monday? Oh, you betcha! And then I will quadruple my high-def storage capacity. Woo-hoo!

(Now, if only someone could figure out how to activate a 30–second skip function for the execrable SARA software. Anyone?)

Update: When I wrote this item, SATA II cables were nearly impossible to find. It appears now (late August 2005) that they’re a little more common. If anyone has tried this and succeeded using a standard SATA II cable, leave a note in the comments, OK?

“PS: cheapest place to find the cable is here.”

Thanks, David!

Thomas Hawk picks up on the news that TiVo offered a special “journalists only” promo for its hardware:

I can see where TiVo would probably be frustrated and use this to try and push their message. They probably have the best PVR on the market. When you poll consumers everyone loves their TiVo but it’s a chicken and an egg thing. In order to know that you love it you need to try it. And you can’t try it until you buy it. By pushing these units out to the media TiVo probably hopes to better communicate their marketing message. Still a questionable strategy but probably done in a serious way to build awareness of their products with influencers.

For what it’s worth, no one at TiVo offered me any special deals. I wouldn’t accept a discount on a piece of hardware for my personal use, although I would gladly accept a loaner unit that I could use for review purposes. It’s unreasonable to expect a blogger to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for evaluation equipment. If I did, of course, it would be fully disclosed here.

These are basic journalistic standards. You shouldn’t get a special deal that isn’t available to the public. If you get an accommodation from a company to facilitate a story, disclose it, and don’t accept anything that would create even an appearance of a conflict of interest.

Via Shelly Palmer, here’s the text of TiVo’s 8-K with the SEC, which lays out more details about its deal with Comcast. It doesn’t contain any financial terms (those will presumably be in the full agreement, which will be filed as an attachment with the upcoming 10–K).

Everything up to this point has been press releases and spin. This document is filed under threat of criminal penalties for misstatements or omissions. So it’s worth a careful read. I went back and read this sentence twice:

Pursuant to our agreement, we have agreed to develop a TiVo-branded software solution for deployment on Comcast’s DVR platforms, which would enable any TiVo-specific DVR and networking features requested by Comcast, such as WishList^™ searches, Season Pass^™ recordings, home media features, and TiVoToGo^™ transfers.

What does “any TiVo-specific features … requested by Comcast” mean? Does Comcast get to decide which TiVo features get passed along to its customers? If I read this correctly, the agreement gives Comcast a veto power similar to what DirecTV has used to restrict deployment of features from the Series 2 platform.

I just read the Comcast press release to see exactly what sort of deal Tom Rogers negotiated for TiVo:

Under the terms of the agreement, Comcast and TiVo will work together to develop a version of the TiVo service that will be made available on Comcast’s current primary DVR platform. New software will be developed by TiVo and will be incorporated into Comcast’s existing network platforms. The new service will be marketed with the TiVo brand, and is expected to be available on Comcast’s DVR products in a majority of Comcast markets in mid-to-late 2006.

This long-term, non-exclusive partnership will provide millions of Comcast customers with the opportunity to choose the TiVo service, including TiVo’s award-winning user interface and features like Season Pass(TM) and WishList(TM), as an additional option. In addition, the service will showcase TiVo’s home networking, multimedia, and broadband capabilities.

My interpretation:

• “a version of the TiVo service” = Comcast gets to pick and choose the features it wants to offer
• “available on Comcast’s current primary DVR platform” = TiVo will have to make the software run on a Motorola or Scientific Atlanta DVR box
• “New software will be developed by TiVo” = some elements of the TiVo interface
• “long-term, non-exclusive partnership” = Comcast will use its deals with other suppliers (including Microsoft) to play hardball in negotiations, making it difficult for TiVo to make money on the service
• “the opportunity to choose the TiVo service” = you’ll have to pay extra

TiVo is negotiating from a position of weakness, and it’s not likely they were able to squeeze out too many terms that are in their favor. The devil is in the details, of course, but this press release clearly positions TiVo as a “premium service.” Cable customers who choose the Comcast DVR are already paying for basic service. Can TiVo really be successful with a business model that depends on customers paying an extra monthly fee on top of an already-high cable bill? I suspect most people will choose to see whether they can tolerate the basic DVR service and will only pay for the upgrade if the experience is unbearable.

Update: The New York Times says TiVo service will indeed cost extra: “The new deal calls for TiVo to create software that can be downloaded and run on the Motorola video recording set-top boxes. It would be offered for a higher monthly fee than the generic Comcast version, which would still be available.”

 And the Seattle P-I has a quote from Shari Glusker, a group product marketing manager in Microsoft’s TV division, who confirms that competition will be alive and well: “The partnership between TiVo and Comcast is not limiting to us in any way. While for both basic and ‘power user’ DVR functionality, TiVo and Foundation Edition are very close feature-to-feature, Foundation Edition is a much more comprehensive digital TV software solution that enables operators to give their customers simple and elegantly integrated control of advanced digital TV services like VOD, DVR, HDTV and Interactive Program Guides. That makes Foundation Edition a very compelling solution for the operator that wants to be competitive in the long run.”

TiVo’s stock went up 70% yesterday on the news that it had signed a deal with Comcast. But is it really a good deal for TiVo? This revealing paragraph was in The New York Times this morning:

The Comcast deal, completed late Monday, was spearheaded by Tom Rogers, a former executive of NBC Cable, who is now vice chairman of TiVo’s board. In an interview yesterday, Mr. Rogers said that the economics of the current deal were better for TiVo than the one it had walked away from last year.

“Each side gained a greater appreciation of how working together would be a benefit,” he said.

TiVo fans and stockholders might want to look carefully at Tom Rogers’ track record on earlier deals. It’s not a pretty sight.

Continue reading “More on the TiVo-Comcast deal” →

Yesterday it was rumor. Now it’s confirmed: TiVo and Comcast have made a deal to put the TiVo interface on a Comcast box. From News.com:

TiVo and cable giant Comcast have reached a distribution deal, easing some investor concerns over the digital video recorder pioneer’s future.

The companies announced the agreement Tuesday, saying they are working to make TiVo’s DVR service and interactive advertising capability available over Comcast’s cable network. The first of their co-developed products will be available in mid- to late-2006 and will use the TiVo brand. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the alliance is long term and nonexclusive.

Why on earth will it take 18 months to roll out products? In this industry, that’s a lifetime. And do you think Microsoft, which is supplying the foundation software for other Comcast boxes, will stand still during that time?

Although this is probably good news for TiVo stockholders, it’s of little practical value for me, because I don’t live in a Comcast service area. TiVo, will you please call Cox Cable and work out a deal with them?

Update: I just read the TiVo press release, which includes a rosy quote from TiVo Vice Chairman Tom Rogers. A few years back, I worked for About.com when they were purchased by Primedia. At the time, Mr. Rogers was chairman and CEO of Primedia, and I sat in several transition meetings where he explained how bright our future was. Most of those statements, it later turned out, were pure BS. Based on that experience, I’m betting against the TiVo-Comcast deal.