I suspect that few people, if any, own more than I do. Perhaps my cable provider, Cablevision, did not encode the premium digital programs as copy protected until recently. MRV represents one of the most important TiVo features to me, so this was a very unwelcome development. It feels like TiVo is using a chainsaw here instead of a scalpel.
To state my issue quite simply: I pay Cablevision monthly for the cable cards that enable me to receive the content in question on each of my HD-capable TiVos, so I should be able to transfer the shows to any of those TiVos via MRV. It does not stop a copyright infringement, because none could occur.
TiVo has some of the best software programmers in the world. I would be very surprised if they prevent their users from transferring some shows, but permit the transfer of others. I can understand that copyright holders would want to prevent transfers of the shows in question to a computer because once on a computer, an unscrupulous person likely could find a way to make recordings of the show and give it to his friends, post on-line or engage in other intellectual property theft.
This concern, however, does not arise if the show is transferred to another TiVo which already could have recorded the show when broadcast. The risk of intellectual property theft it is the same irrespective of which TiVo it is on. I went through this issue with him, and he said there was nothing he could do to help me, and there was no one else I could speak to about it.
I found that very disheartening, and am hoping that this letter will prompt you to act. I purchased so many TiVos over the years because I fell in love with their functionality. When I moved to my house about five years ago, I spent a lot of money to wire the house with Ethernet just so I could utilize the MRV feature. With this development, I feel like my investment of thousands of dollars in wiring my house has been a huge waste of money.
I am certain that TiVo can find a way to address copyright concerns when they exist, but permit full functionality of its product when no such issues exist, as is the case here.
I also do not think this is just a matter of making your existing customers happy. Content is king. Ben, Agreed. Copying is more fault tolerant and maybe conceptually easier to understand.
TiVo should provide some clues as to their future plans. Cypher, either their Macrovision license or CableLabs certification or some other similar thing prevents TiVo, Inc from ignoring the flag. I have confirmed with a Cincinnati Bell representative that its FiOptics service will keep the flag set at copy freely unless otherwise mandated by the network. Both only have CCI on premium channels. You can always switch providers in a pretty painless manner, and if you let the providers know that, they are almost always willing to cut you a price well below the rack rate to keep their wire from going dark to your home.
An hour of phone work can save you a grand per year, in my experience. Perhaps they should be. On another subject, I agree with Dante, RCN is certainly worth mentioning as the most TiVo friendly, and a model for other cable companies.
Regarding RCN, I mostly left them out as they rent TiVos directly to customers which puts them in a different category — of course you can still buy your own and old timers will have their own hardware. In fact, it should be easier to meet new requirements without legacy hardware. Maybe Mari can write us a post on the regulation of this all. Wish Cynthia Brumfield were still blogging — this is her territory. Dave hits the nail on the head here — Comcast has come a long way since I got my first Tivo HD in It was a major fiasco to get the card activated correctly.
Two other cards added in the past couple of years have gone very smoothly with everything working from the get-go. Per card. And the amount of spare parts, dead units, and accessories that could be found in a neighborhood garage sale are all the makings of a good hobby. DVRUpgrade, and others helped in that crusade.
Additionally, when the units could use usb wireless adapters, that was a moment in time. Comcast will ask you if you have a wireless network, HDTV, and a home theater stereo, before they come out to install. And Comcast, before DirecTV made you rent the boxes, would give you an equipment credit and free removal of your dish equipment, just for switching. Comcast has several reasons for keeping it a closed network. Chiefly being available bandwidth for the cable modems. All thanks to the Motorola Box from Hell.
Toss Shaw Canada onto the worst list. Although Shaw does use cablecards on their own cable boxes. Plus they are now charging customers on old analog packages substantially more than digital only packages. Recently upgraded to a lifetime Tivo Elite very happy mostly and getting a working Cable Card took weeks, multiple self-installs with different cards then finally a truck roll. Makes you dread the day you ever buy another TiVo. But a decent set of HD channels.
Less than horrible compression. No charge for me for each Cable Card as long as you only need one per device. No SDV. It has the horrible install experience which they avoid by pre-pairing card and STB they designed.
If the FCC had any balls at all this would all be very different. Glenn, amazing how different of an experience you had and I had. Thanks, Sam. Pretty cool. A practical mandated IP backchannel is really a no-brainer if the FCC wants to do their job and make the Telecommunications Act of properly relevant in They just move at a deliberate pace.
Just open it up like the olds days — all of basic cable via clear QAM assuming the operators map the channels, and consistently.
Why do we need cable boxes? I doubt they inhibit piracy as the content folks and MSOs would like… but it does probably provide a lucrative pay per view outlet for them. The other day, he wanted to watch this movie on the TiVo that it was not recorded on. And this version will be commercial free, about a 4GB download. I realize that premier to premier streaming is the answer to this, but I love my Series 3 too much to upgrade.
Do we really know that yet? How does that make any sense? I emailed the FCC for some clarification. I assume TiVo return rates are high given the continual availability of discounted refurbs. Optimum Cable is Tivo friendly. It all works. But some consumers do complain. Especially consumers who are aware enough of the issues to be aware that the FCC is asking for complaints about problems with Tuning Adapters.
The stuff the FCC did last year mandating self-installs and online ordering helped a bit. They need to keep at the job to make the Telecommunications Act of properly relevant in I would switch to Fios in a heartbeat if they offered it in my area. I did run into the copy protection issue once or twice in the process of trying to migrate shows from an older Premier box to a new Elite box.
The latest release supports MRS which I use all the time. Send me a copy of your bill if you want me to comment. Sam, multi-room streaming only helps folks on the Premiere platform. Not to mention TiVo sales were never good back in the old days. For most stuff, I do too. Most entertainment and news shows reacted to the DVR by getting unpredictable with the break times years ago. It can differ slightly for the Disney networks broadcasts, but everything else has totally predictable breaks in the action.
A full timeout is between whistles, which works like butter with 5 skips. Between the 1st and 3rd quarters is 6 skips. You just need to FF through the halftime. All NBA action, and no distractions. I used the 30 second skip for over eight years with my TiVos. Then in when the Premiere was introduced I did not think I would like the 30 second scan function. I like the 30 second scan much better. And have no desire to ever go back to the 30 second skip. I actually think in-show product placement is one of their good options.
Uncle Miltie himself would stand on the stage and plug the product with dancers behind him. The easter-egg 30 second skip is broken by design in TiVo premiere S4 hardware. This was done intentionally. They say they will install it at no extra cost. Mark, yeah we covered their marketing push with Comcast in SF here. I suppose that depends on whether you look at it as a TiVo customer faithfully paying them monthly for the past twelve years or as a cartoonishly evil mustache-twirling media conglomerate.
I did not know that. But I do love inhaling NBA games. Less stylish. But if someone is willing to locate and use the easter egg, it ought to work right.
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