Periodically, watching people argue about technology on Slashdot elicits a healthy laugh… I’m highlighting the relevant bits in red so the less nerdy can “get to the point”. 
First, a fellow A/V connosieur gives his long-winded take on the Intel-Tivo partnership:
by dada21 (163177) * <adam .dada@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 30, @01:48PM (#14149215) (http://dadasays.blogspot.com/)
Tivo is in a world of hurt, from what I can tell. As one of the first Tivo users, my Tivo units just sit in the closet for the past few years.
Everything I see is pointing to the fact that people want on demand video more and more. The Pirate Bay’s top downloads are consistently TV shows! Maybe it is because these shows are not available in Europe? Either way, people want TV when they want it, and they’re willing to wait for a download of a show with no commercials and no price.
The profitability for a video provider is taking that 12-72 hour free download and turn it into a fast (real time?) download for the consumer when they want it. I’m not sure how we’ll see this happen in the far future, but in the near future, it could just be On Demand from Comcast (which is actually pretty amazing) or Microsoft IPTV style downloads.
Tivo is wise to try to connect with Intel on selling their name as the “Video as you want it when you want it” brand. As an early adopter in almost everything, I can tell you my biggest complaints about Tv shows and movies are the following:
1. If I download a show, it is always in a codec that I can’t view easily. AVC doesn’t run well on any of my platforms (I mostly have 1.8Ghz P4s). XViD seems better, but I get odd pixelization on occasion. Intel has the power to combine with Tivo and offer a codec that is specific to their hardware platform, whereas illegal torrents aren’t really targetted at anyone. I would gladly pay for that consistency. So would most adults.
2. I want it quick. Yesterday I had to redownload Quicktime and I was watching the download at aroun 850K/s. That’s damn fast (I’m testing a new broadband provider right now). My neighbor’s comcast cable was getting consistent 400K/s downloads. BitTorrent and other P2P systems halt at about 50K for me (with and without NAT). If I want to download a file, I want it near real time or faster.
3. I want to be able to pause, fast forward and rewind. I’m sick of getting movies that I have to re-encode beause someone screwed up and prevented me from skipping data.
5. I want to be able to store it for the future or be able to redownload it at a cheaper price.
6. Rather that reconverting my shows for various watching formats (PDA, SDTV, HDTV or whatever) I should just have the option of redownloading it. I am currently converting an AVC to WMV for my PDA and it seriously says it will take 90 hours. Ouch.
7. I should be able to select my price to pay versus what I am willing to give up. In some situations I wouldn’t mind paying less and be forced to watch ads. In other cases, I don’t mind reporting what I fast forwarded past and rewound to review. It depends on what it is. I’d love to be able to say “I’ll pay full price if I can keep it forever, never watch an ad, pause it as I’d like and rewind all I want” and also say “I’ll pay zero but I will accept not being able to skip ads.”
My fear is that Intel’s VIIV and Microsoft’s MCE are both looking to try to capitulate to a dying industry. I use Microsoft’s MCE and absolutely love it but I won’t upgrade to the latest patches that involve DRM. I am not against DRM, but I am against DRM that doesn’t offer something to the end user.
Once a consumer tastes the sweetness of a new feature (even if illegal), there is NO way to back out of it. Instead, the market has been permanently changed and the suppliers need to modify their product to offer what the consumer is looking for.
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Gamers, come back to Action Quake 2 [aq2world.com]. You miss it.
Then came this rather insightful response…
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 30, @02:13PM (#14149468)
There is nothing worse [than] trying to watch cable at 110″ and seeing crap.
Ouch. Damn. Puts the whole quest for the perfect home theater experience in perspective. I’ll try to maintain perspective next time I spot some dead pixels on an LCD TV… Wow!
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