"Unhappy user Haughey" on NPR

Earlier today I was interviewed by an NPR show called Marketplace, for a segment on recent TiVo news such as the new ads and the macrovision change. TiVo head of legal Matthew Zinn and I got a few quick quotes. Here's the ~90 second segment:

NPR on TiVo (1.5Mb, MP3 file)

As with all these radio things I do, a ten minute balanced, nuanced conversation becomes one or two quick cuts to fit the story, but it wasn't too bad in this case.

I've been reserving final judgment on the ads until I got to see them. Well, someone at TiVo did finally show me some screenshots of the ads in action, but I was sworn to secrecy and can't display them here. Suffice to say that I was expecting something really subtle in the tivo UI but they looked very beta and looked like someone slapped a giant jpg of an ad poster over a quarter of the screen. They're also showing up in different spots, so you won't be able to tune them out by ignoring one section. But again, that's just in the early beta.

Another blogger connected the dots with a recent post by Mark Cuban. Last month, Cuban noticed  that when you FF is the only time you pay 100% attention to your TV and offered the idea of putting ads there as a freebie to anyone that wanted to act on it. Now, features probably have a very long cycle between idea, testing, and final execution at TiVo, but it's funny that Cuban's idea was floated a month before a rough beta of what he proposed ended up in testing.

Comments

[IanK]

I love how all of these bits about TiVO invariably end with "recently legal action drove one-time competitor ReplayTV outof business" which inplies they are gone when they are not. They continue to be the primary DVR innovator. CA, Show|Nav, networked DVR with unit to unit streaming. All first on Replay. Replay delviers features for the user, while TiVO continues to bend over for the MPAA and other to provide new way to spam their users.

[Mark Mascolino]

Heard the piece on my way home today. I actually had the thought while listening, "I wonder how much material Matt gave them to get that exact soundbite".

[MegaZone]

Replay continues to deliver? What has Replay delivered recently? MP3 playbacK? Oops - cancelled - TiVo did it. Native WiFi support? Oops - cancelled - Tivo did it. 4k to 5k communnication? Oops - cancelled. DVD integration? Cancelled - TiVo did it. In the last major update RTV changed their scheduling system to better match TiVo's system. After TiVo dropped their pricing on additional units, RTV matched them. DNNA dropped Send Show and Commercial Advance like a hot potato - and added Show|Nav as a manual replacement for CA.

And watch where you point fingers about bending over - RTV agreed to the new MacroVision restrictions first, last year. TiVo only agreed recently.

ReplayTV has some great features - but the best feature isn't even officially a feature. DVArchive and QVision are 3rd party applications created without the support of RTV. Those are the killer apps for RTV, and they aren't even official features.

DNNA has acknowledged that they're not really interested in the standalone DVR market. RTV is effectively dead, they've transferred engineers to Escient, etc. DNNA is more interested in adding DVR features to their high end media servers, that's why they acquired RTV - for the IP and engineering talent. They haven't touched the HW since the 5000 debuted, and it has been a while since any noticable SW update. They're retail presence has shrunk.

RTV has some nice features - some of them I wish TiVo would support, like network setup out of the box. My biggest problem with TiVo is the requirement for a POTS line - that's archaic. But trying to claim that RTV is the only innovator is a stupid as claiming TiVo is. They were both pioneers in the DVR market and they both innovated. Anyone who claims one innovated and the other didn't is wearing a serious pair of blinders.

It is sad to see how DNNA has treated RTV, competition is a good thing.

[Jemal]

Back on topic: In the other thread about the ads, everyone was saying, "use the 30 second skip". But who's to say that they aren't going to remove the skip feature when they do the upgrade?

[p-dog]

What's this about restricting the amount of time to save VOD or PPV shows? I must have missed that somewhere -- this also feels communist.

[Matt Haughey]

p-dog, click on the link under "Matthew Zinn" in the post above to see my take on the macrovision change. Soon a TiVo will be forced (by macrovision) to delete HBO and PPV movies after a certain number of days, so you can't just save until I delete, which is really dumb, but Hollywood is convinced they're losing money on lost DVD sales.

[Josh]

This was SO not "first floated" by Marc Cuban. Hell, it's been discussed and rumored for more than 2 years now:

http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=eccad0c037e0009a885ac94b8726e614&threadid=90833&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

Indeed, those that warned of a "slippery slope" back then were on to something...

[Josh]

Here, a TiVo employee clarifies that the 30-second skip is a "backdoor," not an official aspect of TiVo service we're paying for. I expect it to disappear shortly.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2370448#post2370448

[brock]

MarketPlace is actually distributed by PRI (public radio international), not NPR -- all public radio != NPR.

carry on.

[MegaZone]

TiVo has always called the 30 second skip a backdoor, most of us think it is a bit of a shell game. By not officially supporting or advertising it, they duck being accused of making it easy for people to skip ads. And, yes, the majority of users probably don't even know it is there and are happy using FF - while the geeks like us, who read these online forums, know about it and can use it.

Which is precisely why I *don't* see them removing it - it is a stealth feature that isn't going to impact the majority of their user base, so it isn't a problem. It is a way to keep the more advanced users happy.

Even amongst those who know about the feature some people still prefer to use FF.

[Foo]

Well I guess this means TiVo won't be implementing the feature *I* want: pressing a button will bring up a 3x3 grid of screenshots from the next 4.5 minutes (30 seconds apart); you can arrow over to one of them and select it to jump to that frame, or "zoom in" to one of them (which makes a 3x3 grid of screen shots 3.3 seconds apart). "Zooming out" would be useful for longer things like sports games, etc.

That would make it really easy to skip commercials and other crap but leave no room for ads. Unless they put an ad in the center square or something, which would be tacky but perhaps I could live with it.

[max]

The capability of inserting billboards over just advertising would seem to be extraordinarily difficult for Tivo to achieve. How would the Tivo box know that the consumer is fast forwarding through "advertising" as opposed to programming content. The program guide data certainly doesn't have this level of granularity. And while the streams from the programmers do have ad tags for local ad insertion, this information is commonly stripped out before it gets to the consumer and is probably unreadable by the Tivo box anyway. THe consumer reaction will be even more adverse if billboards show up over normal content during fast forward (which is how I often watch baseball games, for instance, when I do not have much time.)

Also, how is Tivo going to get the billboard content onto the box? If the content is to have graphics impact or motion, the files would be big. Given the number of sponsors and the number of channels, far too much to download over phone dialup.

While one can imagine creating a system to do this, lots of cooperation from programmers and cable/DBS operators would be required to create such a solution and it would take years to achieve universally and probably only run on a new generation of Tivo boxes, IMHO. Meanwhile, other manufacturers would claim market share with more consumer friendly solutions.

This seems like a non-starter to me.

[Michael Pate]

The thing is, TiVo is continuing to do things to try to appease the NFL, Hollywood, etc. without actually releasing the products (like TiVoToGo) that they promise. Meanwhile, WXPMCE-based products, Beyond TV, MyThTV, etc. are continuing to get better and cheaper. I actually entertained the thought of getting another TiVo the other day and then quickly realized it makes no sense right now to do so. The enthusiasm I had in January wanes a little more each day even without announcements like yesterday.

[MegaZone]

Max - they already solved all of those problems a long time ago. TiVoMatic has been around for a long time with pop-ups over ads and promots "Press Thumbs Up To Record" or "Press Thumbs Up For More Info" and it has worked well. The advertiser embeds and invisible tag in the content that TiVo recognizes. The billboards work exactly the same way.

The billboards, as I understsnd them, are static images. And for TV resolution a full color image really isn't that many bytes - and it on occupies a small portion of the screen. If they wanted motion I imagine it'd be recorded as part of the middle-of-the-night Service Data Downloads of Discovery, like the video for Showcases is.

Michael: Context. This ad feature is coming in the next software update. The next software update has TiVoToGo. QED. I believe the MacroVision changes are actually coming in a later release.

So no, they aren't releasing these things without releasing real features. It is parellel development destined for the same release vehicle.

[Michael Pate]

MegaZone, the LA Times article said banner ads would be appearing "by March." So you think TiVoToGo is going to be delayed that long. My enthusiasm just waned some more. :)

[Josh]

MegaZone, regarding the labeling of the 30 second skip as a backdoor, I recognize that's nothing new, but was specifically referencing a recent post from a TiVo employee that discussed the matter in light of the new blipverts. His "careful wording" is what raised my skepticism on this particular backdoor's long-term future.

That said, I'm in the "prefers manual FF" camp. I'd never know how many commercials there were to skip, I like visually scanning for some trailers and ads, and I'm a gunslinging virtuoso on that peanut remote. I nail the timing, down to the frame, every time. (Indeed, TiVo's overshoot protection and I are in perfect sync.) But I can see how some folks would really miss SPS30S.

That said, my HDVR2 is hacked up the wazoo and for once I am happy to not be getting the next TiVo "update" on my DirecTiVo.

[MegaZone]

Josh: Actually I hear 6.1 is the next DTV release and it will have folders and other features. But that's a rumor from people who leaked beta info - the threads on TiVoCommunity got deleted quickly. But I think this ad feature may only be on standalone units, DirecTV controls the software for their units. (Which is why they don't do networking, etc.)

Michael: Remember, the LA Times reporter is reporting on rumors. I'm confident TTG will hit the streets this year. Now, even if the feature is in the software it doesn't mean they're going to be using it day one. They'd need to get it rolled out to everyone and then make marketing deals before any ads show up on boxes.

[neomajic]

Foo:
TiVo already knows the difference between a show and the commercials. Just the other day I was watching a commercial for a truck and the "Green Thumbs" prompt came up in the upper right hand corner. I press it and was taken to a more content allready on the TiVo. I'm not sure of the technology involved, but I think it may involve some type of coded signal in the main broadcast stream.

[TaosMarc]

My "back door" 30-sec. commercial skip seems to have stopped working. I've tried reprogramming it to no avail. Anyone else having such a problem...perhaps the software got updated and killed it, as feared?

Marc

[DVRFan]

I spoke to DirecTV customer service today and found out that they will be accepting this feature from TiVo eventually. It likely won't happen in the same timeframe as the standalone TiVo boxes, but it's supposed to happen sooner or later.