[BigFrank]

One of the largest problems with Cable companies and television studios wrt their attitudes towards DVR (TiVo being chief among them) is IMO a lack of vision and understanding.

they just don't get it.

They *only* reason I am still a cable subscriber is my HD TiVo. If 50 new HD channels come out and I can't get them on If I didn't already have a TiVo, I would have switched already. But cable doesn't see it that way - they see my TiVO as a competitor to their own DVR! Foolish foolish foolish.

Advertisers are very skittish right now about advertising on television due to the impact that DVR is having. What they don't understand is that 1) DVR may offer an even better way of getting targetted ads to eyeballs and 2) the influence of DVR on what people watch and how they view ads is not entirely known yet - not enough study has been done.

The only way DVR use is going to be re-democratized if business is made to understand that DVR could potentially make them more money than if they try to fight against it. The best way IMO to do this is through an advocacy group!

Could someone get on that please?

 

[ZeoTiVo]

Exactly - the irony is that if cable companies dove in and had a really good 2 way interactive cable card system going and had a flood of TVs that could easily do cable without a box and the TV remote worked fine, and retail shelves had lots of cable card DVRs then Cable would be the easy choice for lots of people and cable companies could SDV any darn thing the wanted to and nobody would be bothered and TV/DVR sets could sell PPV/VOD.

It would be a long sighted plan if they locked sat companies out of the cable card idea . Of course then consumers would be back to square one as far as marketplace forces since cable could mockingly still point to Sat providers as "competition"

such a group would have to step carefully to avoid that last pitfall.

 

[CharlesH]

One of the largest problems with Cable companies and television studios wrt their attitudes towards DVR (TiVo being chief among them) is IMO a lack of vision and understanding.

they just don't get it.

Reminiscent of the movie studios who thought TV would kill movies, and later thought that home videotape would their end unless it was outlawed. In both cases, they eventually realized that these were lucrative new revenue opportunities, not threats.

 

[CharlesH]

Exactly - the irony is that if cable companies dove in and had a really good 2 way interactive cable card system going and had a flood of TVs that could easily do cable without a box and the TV remote worked fine, and retail shelves had lots of cable card DVRs then Cable would be the easy choice for lots of people and cable companies could SDV any darn thing the wanted to and nobody would be bothered and TV/DVR sets could sell PPV/VOD.

But isn't that essentially the OCAP/Cable Card 2.0 idea? Essentially, make the TV/DVR/whetever a set top box running the cable company's UI, with their ads. It would annoy Motorola and SA at losing the exclusivity over the set-top business, but "anyone" could make a "set-top box", as long as they were happy for it to have the cable company look & feel. :down:

 

[ZeoTiVo]

But isn't that essentially the OCAP/Cable Card 2.0 idea? Essentially, make the TV/DVR/whetever a set top box running the cable company's UI, with their ads. It would annoy Motorola and SA at losing the exclusivity over the set-top business, but "anyone" could make a "set-top box", as long if they were happy for it to have the cable company look & feel. :down:

well yes and no.
Yes in that, as I pointed out, this becomes a cable company solution only and locks out sat providers. Not good for consumers overall.

No, in that I was thinking of a interactive 2 way that even a TV manufacturere could include without killing sales as that TV was priced much higher than one without it and the support costs of people mad at what the cable company downloaded software wise that would escalate as well. See there is a way to do interactive 2 way without all the OCAP and DOCIS junk. The cable company could get in a helpful mood and come up with some standard way to display the guide and PPV/VOD. The idea is that UNLIKE a cable box - this version should work on Comcast and on TWC without major hassles for the TV maker or the consumer