[joel1]

From the Engadget Interview: Mike Ramsay, CEO of TiVo


Q: How are you negotiating your relationship with Hollywood after they essentially put your main competitor out of business?


A: Our role is to create a great experience for people who want to watch television. ReplayTV crossed a line, and they kind of asked for it, and they were put out of business. There is a business objective we have as a company to have a certain level of support from the industry because that’s good for our business. If you get stupid and you go out of business, that isn’t doing the consumer any good.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/5844164528551586/

 

[MethodMachine]

...And I am so glad that ReplayTV (well, SONIC|Blue actually) crossed that line. I am happily enjoying my "out of business" ReplayTV service!


I personally think that TiVo has crossed a line by keeping tabs on what their customers are watching (and even how they watch it).

 

[HopelesslyLost]

I agree completely MethodMachine..... I'm a new Replay TV user, and the one reason I decided on Replay was the statistics TIVO keeps advertising about their users. Just feels too much like another form of Big Brother to me.

 

[sfhub]

I think the studios crossed the line, but what do I know.

 

[j.m.]

I think Mike Ramsay crossed the line--the line between being a Hollywood sycophant and not. Given the inherent limitations of IVS, I just can't see it being much of a problem compared to P2P, IRC, NNTP, etc. Unlike many users of those services, IVS users are generally not trying to score a bootleg of a just released/unreleased movie (such things usually aren't even widely available via IVS, unlike P2P). I suspect the vast majority of IVS transfers are of shows from regular broadcast networks that, for whatever reason, people missed. This can only help the networks reach a larger audience. If some of those people actually watch the commercials, all the better.

 

[rm -rf *.*]

What a profound statement:


"Our role is to create a great experience for people who want to watch television. ReplayTV crossed a line, and they kind of asked for it, and they were put out of business."


This might be just my opinion on things, but the chronology of ReplayTV is an excellent, case-study example of what you get when when a bunch of brilliant engineers "geek-out", form a company and hit critical-mass: a truly revolutionary product - with great engineering-most all the features you'd want - already built in, before you even know you want them. The problem with this phenomenon is that (speaking as one myslef), we know how to make it work and how to build it, but not how to market it or sell it...


Look at the Apple Newton, and the RTI Theater Touch T2 remote - different chapters in the same book titled: "Decades Ahead of Their Time; Going beyond 'Tomorrow's technology: Today!' "(alternate title: "HOLY S**T! IT actually f**king works! Now what the hell do I do with it???)


Such being said, I'd hardly describe what happened to ReplayTV and SonicBlue as "being run out of business by Hollywood and the MPAA."


Mike Ramsay, in this interview at the very least, you come across as nothing more than a self-righteous prick that needs a history lesson - want to know what the meaning of being "PUT out of business" really is? Look at Preston Tucker and what the big 3 did to both him and his dream car, the truly revolutionary Tucker Torpedo. And, just to make it clear that there's no hard fellings: If you'd like, PM me your IVS-# and I'll send over the 1-hour PBS special presentation of "Great Automobiles: The Tucker".

 

[jlv]

Quote:

Originally posted by MethodMachine I personally think that TiVo has crossed a line by keeping tabs on what their customers are watching (and even how they watch it).

Uh. ReplayTV collects that data, too. After all, they upload a list of everything you have recorded. They just don't flaunt the fact like TiVo.

 

[richierich]

Quote:

Originally posted by jlv Uh. ReplayTV collects that data, too. After all, they upload a list of everything you have recorded. They just don't flaunt the fact like TiVo.

*IF* you sign up for MyReplayTV then ReplayTV collects the data at your request so you can view what is recorded, set records, etc. on-line (although I think we would all recommend DVArchive over MyReplayTV). I have never heard of ReplayTV collecting data for their own use or analysis (and they argued in court that it would require them to write new software to do so).

 

[rm -rf *.*]

Quote:

Originally posted by jlv quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by MethodMachine I personally think that TiVo has crossed a line by keeping tabs on what their customers are watching (and even how they watch it). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Uh. ReplayTV collects that data, too. After all, they upload a list of everything you have recorded. They just don't flaunt the fact like TiVo.

While it is true that both machines do collect viewing statistics, I believe there's a lot more to it than just that.


AFAIK: ReplayTV uses a much lower level of detail in the statistics - ReplayTV knows you _recorded_ the superbowl, and that's it. TiVo, on the other hand, knows how much of a fan or the teams you are by how many times you played back the game, and how much of a perv. you are because they can tell you how many times you "rewound" various parts of the show and watched Janet Jackson flash the world at half-time.


Also, I think you can turn off the statistics upload from the ReplayTV - it's a registry value change - which value or if it's still there (or ever was) - I'm not 100% sure though.


ReplayTV does upload a syslog nightly, but that's just the OS messages.

 

[icecow]

Quote:

Originally posted by richierich *IF* you sign up for MyReplayTV then ReplayTV collects the data at your request

It's completely silly to assume they collect data only if you sign up for MyReplay.


It seems like ~40 times every single day someone is trying to give me a lesson on how to be naive.


no offense

 

[DrStrange]

Quote:

Originally posted by richierich I have never heard of ReplayTV collecting data for their own use or analysis (and they argued in court that it would require them to write new software to do so).

You haven't paid attention then. Part of ReplayTV Inc's early business model was the same as Tivos, to sell anonymous aggregated viewing data to interested parties, and ReplayTV did originally gather the same kind of aggregate data as Tivo. When Tivo took heat over the same kind of misinformed "they're spying on me" speculation and accusations that are being made in this thread, ReplayTV took advantage of their lesser name recognition and stopped gathering even anonymous data before the media noticed they'd been doing it too. But their privacy policy under all their owners has always left the door open to resume collecting aggregate data (Currently: "We do reserve the right in the future to collect certain Non-Personal Viewing Data"...) although admittedly this gets less likely as ReplayTVs relevance fades. It should also be noted that Tivo has always allowed opting-out of even anonymous data collection. ReplayTV never did, and their current policy only guarantees opt-out of any future personal data collection, with no similar promise for anonymous data collection.


What the court wanted them to do was to track and record individual users habits, specifically how they were using the IVS feature, which they were not set up to do.


All this was in press releases and whatnot, but those disappeared along with the companies that released them.
Quote:

Originally posted by rm -rf *.* TiVo, on the other hand, knows how much of a fan or the teams you are by how many times you played back the game, and how much of a perv. you are because they can tell you how many times you "rewound" various parts of the show and watched Janet Jackson flash the world at half-time.

No, Tivo knows someone in your zip code is a perv. They do not know it was you.

 

[tlally]

I don't care what anybody knows about what I watch. My four ReplayTVs are far superior to my HD Tivo recorder. The Replay interface is much better. The guides are faster. I can move around in the guides much easier and they are organized better. And I can skip to exactly the part of the show that I want to which I cannot do with the $1000 HD Tivo. Oh yeah and the Replay has Commercial Advance. To me, this is the best feature ever made (way better than on my old RCA VCRs which also had it and Tivo doesn't). Tivo is still better than my VCR though.

 

[rm -rf *.*]

Quote:

Originally posted by DrStrange quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by rm -rf *.* TiVo, on the other hand, knows how much of a fan or the teams you are by how many times you played back the game, and how much of a perv. you are because they can tell you how many times you "rewound" various parts of the show and watched Janet Jackson flash the world at half-time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, Tivo knows someone in your zip code is a perv. They do not know it was you.

*shush!* you'll screw up our propaganda campaign...

 

[hilbert1862]

One line that Sonic Blue crossed, as far as I tell can from the variuos refrences to the legal action, was to allow CA mindlessly to get involved in the declaratory judgment action, brought on behalf of viewers, that was also related to copyrgiht issues. And I suspect that that was the brainstorm of that "learned" attorney at EFF.


The other line was involvement in the copyright issue, which, I think also, started up when action was brought on behalf of viewers seeking a declaratory judgment.


But this is all dead fish now.

 

[icecow]

The article hit slashdot.
http://slashdot.org/articles/04/10/1....shtml?tid=129


Slashdoters are commenting on the Replaytv factor if you want to read them