As fallout over DISH Network’s new Auto Hop commercial skip feature expands, TiVo has injected themselves into the conversation. From the New York Times:
TiVo has taken the same approach, promoting ways to serve ads to viewers even as they’re fast-forwarding through them. “We’ve gone from being a black hat to being more of a white hat,” said Tom Rogers […] TiVo owners can find ways to hack the hardware and create an auto-skip feature, but the company has never promoted it, preferring instead to be in business with the broadcasters.
Never mind the gross mischaracterization of TiVo’s quite manual 30 second skip, which is more easter egg than “hardware” hack, and let’s focus instead on TiVo’s increased chumminess with the broadcasters, advertisers, and cable industry… who are often one and the same. While they may find TiVo more “white hat” these days, us subscribers might actually see it in reverse. Something I discussed with The Associated Press back 2009:
He said he’s been wondering, “Who are TiVo’s customers?” People like him, or advertisers? “They’re getting paid on both ends.”
All things considered, I’d say TiVo has been relatively successful walking that fine line as they’ve the brokered deals (and defended patents) needed to survive without overly polluting our end-user experience. But I hope they continue to remember us little people. As the best way to skip commercials doesn’t involve cable television or DVRs. Rather, it remains renting DVDs and Blu-ray discs from Netflix.
Beyond these fun little tricks, there is some real TiVo hacking out there. But I doubt TiVo would have shared that stuff with the NYTimes. Like replacing the PROM to remove encryption or ignore the CCI Byte.
Not to mention a 30 second skip is not at all unusual – other providers offer similar… or one up TiVo with additional timing options. Here’s a pic from FiOS TV *in 2007*.
I’ve never enabled 30-second skip, but it has been enabled on both my Premieres since the winter software update.
“What Color Is TiVo’s Hat?”
The black of DISH’s adorable kangaroo hat makes TiVo’s hat seem lily white by comparison. TiVo should send DISH a thank you note and some flowers for making them look good by contrast.
Manual comskip is something content companies will live with, since surveys seem to show a majority of hours watched by folks with DVR’s don’t get skipped.
But mass-deployed auto-comskip really is something I’d fight like hell, were I running a content company. And the content companies seem to have big artillery.
“Beyond these fun little tricks, there is some real TiVo hacking out there. But I doubt TiVo would have shared that stuff with the NYTimes. Like replacing the PROM to remove encryption or ignore the CCI Byte.”
It don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t mass-deployed.
Fringe hackers don’t matter in the big picture. (I highly prized my late-90’s DVD player with hacked PROM to disable region control and Macrovision on the outputs, but given that I was part of .001% of the DVD market who bothered with such measures, nobody cared.)
Agreed. Just reinforcing the distinction between clicking a few buttons on your remote to change manual fast forward behavior versus a “hardware” hack that involves soldering.
“versus a “hardware” hack that involves soldering”
My magical late-90’s Korean DVD player happily had a ZIF PROM. Pop it out, send it to a guy in California, get it back a week later, pop it back in, and voila.
No soldering, and still I bet that particular hack market was still infinitesimal. Happiness all around.
Well, I couldn’t find a “TiVo hat” but in looking for it I did find this:
http://theanatomist.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/cat-frog-hat.jpg
My $45 Philips DVD player came pre-hacked off ebay (region free, reads PAL, HDMI out).
Frankly the main reason I keep Tivo is that I’m OTA-only.
If I wanted more than broadcast channels Dish’s Hopper would be cheaper than an equivalent cable package.
“Well, I couldn’t find a “TiVo hat” but in looking for it I did find this”
I knew DISH was making a mistake in going marsupial over mammal. Imagine a Tabby and a Kitten instead of a Hopper and a Joey. They could’ve used that image as their ad, and everybody would’ve swooned and been in. As the Japanese say, it’s kawaii.
Even with 30-second skip, TiVo had skewed towards the advertisers by making it a 30-second fast forward and no longer a skip.
It’s not their relationship with the advertisers that bothers me, it’s their relationship with the cable companies. Maybe it’s out of necessity, but a ton of their problems are self-inflicted because of their conflicted relationship. Still no placeshifting, obnoxious restrictions on transferring recordings from one box to another and the entire support for broadcast flags have more to do with keeping big cable happy then their real customers.
I’d say their “real” customer is Virgin Media at this point. In a little over a year, they’ve deployed nearly 700,000 Cisco boxes running TiVo software. Which is significantly higher than the number of retail TiVo Premiere units out there after two years of sales.
FYI The Times author has updated his story after I mentioned the mischaracterization on Twitter. I guess he doesn’t use TiVo as he puts it on unnamed “sources.” The replacement sentences:
TiVo’s Web site specifies that its devices “do not offer a commercial skip feature,” though there is a way to turn on a 30-second skip-ahead button. Mr. Rogers said Dish’s all-ads-skipped button takes the notion “to an extreme.”
“TiVo’s Web site specifies that its devices “do not offer a commercial skip feature,” though there is a way to turn on a 30-second skip-ahead button. Mr. Rogers said Dish’s all-ads-skipped button takes the notion “to an extreme.”
I do think Rogers’ point is valid.
Manual comskip and auto-comskip really are different in kind, not just different in degree.
Marsupials are mammals. By comparison, TiVo is the koala bear quietly eating eucalyptus as his habitat is slowly mowed down by big corporate bull dozers.
The 30-second slip is available by default using the -> key.
DirecTV’s 30-sec Slip seems like the best solution IMO.
You can skip ahead, but still register the gist of what you skipped. If it looks interesting, you can then rewind.
Apparently I didn’t read all the comments. My bad.
We should probably distinguish a 30 second “skip” from a 30 second “scan”… However, I simply use the traditional fast forward for fine control.
Chucky, agreed:
Manual comskip and auto-comskip really are different in kind, not just different in degree.
The best solution to customers skipping commercials is to make commercials customers want to watch. We fast-forward through 90% of ads, but if we see one that looks interesting, we’ll back up to watch it.
“We should probably distinguish a 30 second “skip” from a 30 second “scan”
Yup. And TiVo wears a white hat in shipping units with “scan” as default, while still allowing folks to find the easter egg to enable “skip” if they prefer.
There is tremendous power in default settings. Most folks don’t change ’em.
“However, I simply use the traditional fast forward for fine control.”
For most stuff, I do too. Most entertainment and news shows reacted to the DVR by getting unpredictable with the break times years ago.
But when I want to inhale an NBA game, which I like doing, it’s all easy skips for me. It can differ slightly for the Disney networks broadcasts, but everything else has totally predictable breaks in the action. A full timeout is 2:45 between whistles, which works like butter with 5 skips. A “20 second” timeout is 1:15 between whistles, which is two 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 2010 when the Premiere was introduced I did not think I would like the 30 second scan function. But now after using it for over two years, I can’t stand the 30 second skip any more. I like the 30 second scan much better. And have no desire to ever go back to the 30 second skip.
“The best solution to customers skipping commercials is to make commercials customers want to watch.”
Lots of ‘best solutions’. I actually think in-show product placement is one of their good options.
Plus, if you look back on late-40’s and early 50’s TV, a lot of the ads are done by the show itself. Uncle Miltie himself would stand on the stage and plug the product with dancers behind him. Folks will still watch that because it doesn’t ‘take you out of the show’ in the way that what ads evolved into does.
The easter-egg 30 second skip is broken by design in TiVo premiere (S4) hardware. They introduced a delay so you can’t hit the button 4 times quickly in rapid succession to skip 2 minutes ahead. It’s no faster than the 30 second scan, and considerably more annoying. This was done intentionally.
FYI: Comcast is promoting TiVo thru commercials in the SF Bay Area. They say they will install it at no extra cost.
Rodalpho, so what color would that make TiVo’s hat? ;)
Mark, yeah we covered their marketing push with Comcast in SF here. We know the Boston region is next and rumor has it they’re coming online soon.
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.
“The easter-egg 30 second skip is broken by design in TiVo premiere (S4) hardware. They introduced a delay so you can’t hit the button 4 times quickly in rapid succession to skip 2 minutes ahead. It’s no faster than the 30 second scan, and considerably more annoying.”
Huh. I did not know that. I assume it’s the same ‘broken by design’ in SDUI emulation mode. In which case, maybe I shouldn’t upgrade after all.
(Though the ‘stop cycling FF from 3 back to 1’ feature of the S4 does seem attractive to me. But I do love inhaling NBA games. Hmmm…)
“Rodalpho, so what color would that make TiVo’s hat?”
Less stylish. I’m all in favor of shipping with “scan” instead of “skip” by default. But if someone is willing to locate and use the easter egg, it ought to work right. That’s fair all around. Bad TiVo on this one.
Yes, it also happens in SDUI mode.
This comes from when I used a Premiere before and at release, but from what I can see from a quick search it has not been fixed.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=484467
Also note that a lot of people LOVE the new premiere 30 second scan, but I’ve used a TiVo for 12 years, and 30 second skip is muscle memory by now. It comes down to personal preference.
The bastardization of using the word “hack” in marketing and news really annoys me. It is as bad as anything involving “Clouds”
If TiVo didn’t have the 30 second skip feature (albeit hidden, inexplicably) I would not own three TiVos.
If you are on FIOS and use iTiVo, you can easily transfer most programs to your Mac. I don’t believe FIOS uses the CCI byte at all. No PROM hacking required.
@Davis Freeberg — another point of important distinction. TiVo execs never agreed directly to honoring broadcast flags or for that matter macrovision.
CCI bytes/flags came with cable card and cable labs debacle. IF TiVo wanted to use cable cards versus the horrible kludge of IR blasters and cable box input and no HD — they had to agree to what cable labs demanded.
same with macrovision – if TiVo was going to make DVD models then they had to honor macrovision.
Replay TV tried to go black hat and was beaten down under legal costs, that simply could not be avoided as content owners will always hold the ace card of the actual content. Broadcasters have a very good set of hole cards in that they own the infrastructure and paid significant capital to set it up.
so a characterization that TiVo WANTS to put in limitations is off the mark by quite a bit. Dave’s point that TiVo walks a fine line is the correct characterization.
“@Davis Freeberg … CCI bytes/flags came with cable card”
Of course. CCI byte is an important part of the CableCARD specs. And, of course TiVo has no choice but to honor it.
The part I always find fascinating is that the one big wireline company that has zero ownership of content companies is the one big wireline provider that sets the CCI byte in a customer friendly manner: Verizon. Funny how that works.
(The corollary is that the one big content company that completely got out of the distribution business – no wireline or broadcast – is the best content company: Time-Warner.)
Vertically integrated content/distribution companies get evil real quick. See Comcast for the best example, but there are many other examples.
The Macrovision thing always bugged me as TiVo stuck it on all units, rather than just the DVD models. Even back then they chose to tread carefully with the content industry.
“The Macrovision thing always bugged me as TiVo stuck it on all units, rather than just the DVD models.”
You are likely talking about a TiVo era I knew nothing about back when it was occurring, but wasn’t respecting Macrovision settings non-optional for TiVo, even pre-CableCARD? I thought DMCA regs mandated Macrovision respect for cable, not just for DVD’s.
Well, it was never tested in court or anywhere else public. TiVo looks to have simply sidestepped a (public) debate and added Macrovision protection to their defense when pitching the content industry in how they don’t circumvent, yada yada. Here’s some historical coverage of one inadvertent dust up: http://www.pvrblog.com/2005/09/drm_on_ifc.html
If you’re going to go digging into history, I’ll mention that one of the good things about Beta VCRs was that they ignored macrovision so dubbing VHS tapes (via cables) was totally doable using Beta. So Sony of all things was a favorite of pirates everywhere back in the day…