CNET Stripped of CES Award Duties

lol.

Glad somebody took some action.

We should be looking to a much more independent source. Not sure who's out there that has as much knowledge as the CNET staff but I'm sure there are alternatives somewhere.

AVS Members. Maybe they should look to us and the members.

+1 on that David.

Why do some of you have CNET hate? Their leadership did everything they could to do the right thing, but when "the boss" gives a direct order then you do it. No one individual runs CNET- it's part of a Corporation where the shareholders best interest take precedence. CBS did not act in their own best interest in my view, but we all make mistakes. As for CNET staff, shouldn't we feel badly for them? For those laughing, is it really funny? Think about it.

Their reviews can no longer be trusted, that is why there is CNET hate. I do not push that onto any of the individuals working there, but now that we know their reviews are biased we must stop using them as a good review source. The corporate shareholders are better served when a company does not smear its own reputation, as CBS just did.

Unfortunately Money Talks!
Standard responce about the problems that a decision will create, whether it will affect man, beast or Mother Nature is: `But look at the Money you'll Make!'

So, the legality of a product is not an issue?
What would there be to stop somebody from marketing a product that helps you pirate satellite or other programming, and it getting an award "because it's popular"?

The difference is, the courts haven't decided if it's legal or not and if the networks keep making the same stupid arguement that it hurts their business model, it's less likely the courts will rule in their favor. There's every possibility the courts will tell the networks to stuff it.

If they were smart, they would focus only on the copyright issue ("This broadcast may not be altered or redistributed without permission"). Instead, they're wining about their business model, which is why the studio case against Betamax failed.

The studios, in theory, should have had a slam dunk since people are actually marking the commercials so the DVR knows what to skip. In a sense, they're editing the program for the viewer. ReplayTV used scene and audio detection to automate it on the fly and wasn't 100% accurate.

So, ReplayTV should have been legal, while this, in theory should be considered a copyright violation. Dish is essentially creating a commercial free version of the show, rather than skipping content on the fly with a best guess at it like ReplayTV did. Sure, you could turn the function off and get those comemrcials back, but why would you?

In the case of ReplayTV, what really got them in trouble was the ability to forward content to receivers outside of the viewer's home network. The sharing, not commercial skipping was what doomed them.

TiVo to Go got around that by limiting distribution.

The fact is, commercial skipping by the user has been shown not to be illegal. TiVo and the DirecTV DVRs both have an option to skip forward 30 seconds at a time instead of fast forwarding. Sure, it's not the entire break in one shot, but it's far better than fast forwarding where you still see the ad, just faster.

CNET hasn't been a good review source for years already. When there is a significant and frequent divergence between their "pro" reviews and those by many informed and articulate end-users of various products (my preferred source, the "wisdom of crowds") red flags go up. They have what seems to me like in-house biases for bright and shiny useless features, and sloppy research or just plain laziness of thought and methodology. Their ownership by CBS corp. has been suspect to me and these latest developments are not a surprise.

CNET is a disaster. Those clowns have no idea of anything anymore. It's seem like the guys doing the reviews use to work at bestbuy or something and haven't got a clue.

Hmm...Do you have any specific examples of bias? I have only used their reviews for the purposes of researching flatpanel TV's and have found David Katz. to be reliable and accurate (in my limited experience). He has typically looked beyond the flashy features of many new TV's and instead placed the emphasize on picture quality. For example, preffering this years Panasonic ST/GT plasma over the goofy features of the Samsung E series plasma (both of which i have owned).

...just curious
Edited by wattheF - 2/3/13 at 10:08am

I still respect Cnet but I have no respect for their corporate overlord, CBS. The studios still cling to the archaic notion that we are all thieves, Sony won that battle vs Universal regarding time shifting and I think it applies with the Hopper. Who cares if a customer fast forwards over a commercial, the greedy studios still got paid by the advertiser.

I was speaking to a general overview of all their electronics reviews and not merely A/V equipment. This is going back years and I usually don't bookmark reviews I don't agree with. But basically there have been many cases where for example an electronics product was given a middling review by them only to have a high rating by hundreds of people like on Amazon. This also can happen in their own user reviews. That's not a crime or even anything controversial if it happens every so often. But when you see it or things like it happening over and over it leads a suspicion of two possible factors: either the reviewers aren't doing their jobs right, or they are being forced to put their thumb on the scale by the owners, or both.

There are some good writers on there that I've read as well, but I have simply looked at their reviews of ALL electronics as unreliable for years now.

only thing legit on Cnet is their TV reviews that Katzmier does. Hopper product of the year? thats a laugh. i thought it sounded strange

Its sad but there is no doubt that money and greedy corporations run the world. It has infultrated all area's of media as well. Thats why I tend to take all "pro" reviews with a grain of salt or for what they are worth and compile information from multiple sources. Using other peoples reviews like on Amazon can be somewhat helpful but generally is risky because most people don't have a clue! The most important thing is to do your own research.

Good to know the one thing i use them for seems to be legit!

WOW. On the one hand it's great that there is some penalty paid for this shameful subversion of the journalistic enterprise. On the other hand, CNet's in-house management and staff are absolutely not to blame for being prostituted in this way, and I think they're to be respected for publicly acknowledging as they did that the decision to pull the award

a) was a thing that happened and
b) was a decision that came from (soulless, ruthless) corporate overlords.

It probably doesn't matter one way or the other to the suits at CBS who are really to blame. Everybody loses. Man, this is ugly.

Cnet these days is increasing being called iNet due to their constant fawning over Apple and it's products..

^^ Aw man, just quit it with the fanboyism already. Lots of tech sites, even teeny-tiny ones, give Apple products high praise. I guess Apple pays them all off, huh? Yeah, that's completely implausible. To some people, it's as if any review that doesn't condemn Apple for... something, indicates payola. Hey, I use a Windows PC at home because it's perfect there, but for mobile devices, Apple products can't be beat. No, they don't pay me, I'm just a dude who's made a purposeful habit of switching electronics hardware manufacturers whenever possible, to see what everybody else is talking about. You should probably try that.

I wanted to see how bad of a source they were so I looked up a Bose review and they said the system had great distortion free highs and rich deep lows and it sounded great. They obviously have no idea what they are talking about. Lol

You sure that wasn't Consumer Reports?

CBS is going crazy banning things... they actually banned a SodaStream ad from airing on the SuperBowl because they are afraid it would offend Coke and Pepsi.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cbs-rejects-super-bowl-soda-ad-article-1.1254302

All I know is that CNET looked the other way a couple of years back when Panasonic turned their back on the engineering faults present in their 2008, 2009, and 2010 plasma sets. I don't care how much knowledge they might collectively have, they had the quantitative results in their hands (indeed, they did the testing themselves to validate what others have seen), and they did nothing (other than a token complaint to Panasonic, who promptly denied that there was an problem, and then CNET dropped the issue altogether.) CNET is the absolute last place I would go for unbiased, accurate equipment reviews (especially when I upgrade my plasma)...

How about the people at Revision3? After all the fiasco with CBS vs CNet, I started watching HD Nation, Tekzilla, Hak5, etc. They've got knowledgeable people there too.

This is prime time for some staff members to start their own site. Or should I say ex staff.

I feel bad for the team at CNET. I imagine they were not given a choice in their own actions, and all the decisions came down from the higher ups corporate types. Still this does sound like the right decision...

Good for them! Cnet has been, in my opinion, terribly biased for many years (ten or more). I feel their reviews are worthless and that many times the reviewer does not even use the software/hardware, rather only reads the manufacturers' promotional material. I sometimes find the *user* reviews helpful, but what started out as a great site in the mid 90's really went to crap. I would like it if the industry stopped taking them seriously.

+1
If you have a particular area of expertise and Cnet reviews an item in that field- that's when you notice Cnet's glaring lack of knowledge and insight.
I feel bad for ppl who've taken Cnet reviews as gospel and based their purchasing decisions based upon them