Posts by Russell Brown
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But I'd like to make a more general comment - when you watch TV you should be in control, not the TV station - that's the whole point about PVRs: you get to take control over when you watch TV, if you own the box you should be in control of 'how' and 'where' too
Of course, and the TiVo is certainly friendlier than the MySky on that score -- but an additional non-broadcast on-demand service is a different matter, no?
So I can't quite grasp why Danielle's got the fear over the ads in on-demand programming that she never has to look at if she doesn't wanna.
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I shall, therefore, keep my boring old MySky. It is now my god-given right to fastforward through all ads, dammit!
Which you will be able to just like MySky -- it's only the separate, on-demand-via-broadband service where you won't, but you're talking about three ads per programme -- beginning, middle and end. It doesn't sound onerous.
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So I presume this means you can do the old Sky+ trick of starting watching a standard broadcast program late (by recording it at the start) and fast forward through ads? Just not in the downloaded movies?
Yes. The DVR function is quite separate from the on-demand programming.
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Re Tivo, very interesting. Feels like a smart play for me - it's testing the boundaries of TVNZ's "we're content, not platform" approach but makes sense to be just one player in order to make it happen.
Yes, it's a mature platform with a strong brand and good partners.
Question - is it Freeview terrestrial? i.e. HD?
Yes, but not satellite.
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The tie-in with Blockbuster for on-demand movies just announced in the US was also part of today's TiVo NZ briefing -- although they didn't actually say that Blockbuster would be delivering the movies.
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That revolving door between politics and broadcasting amazes me. Doesn't Leighton Smith still have a morons radio show, even though he's being paid as a cabinet minister.
Assuming that wasn't a clever joke, no.
Lockwood Smith is the cabinet minister, Leighton Smith is the guy with the dittohead radio show.
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Just back from TVNZ's TiVo announcement: quite impressive.
TVNZ is a one-third shareholder (with Australia's Channel Seven) in Hybrid Television, which is the exclusive licence-holder for TiVo in Australia and New Zealand. The stake cost $8 million, and TVNZ will provide about $19 million worth of advertising airtime for the platform (which sounds a lot, but they're going to have plenty of spare inventory for the next year).
The box is:
- A twin-tuner Freeview DVR
- An on-demand box via the home broadband connection, with both ad-supported and pay-per-view programming
- A service-delivery platform via broadband -- so you can order pizza from the lounge (why is it always pizza?)It will come with all the TiVo features delivered in the US market -- but will not be a subscription service, but a once-only purchase (retail $A599 in Australia). Add-ons include a 1TB hard drive and home networking.
To launch at retail here by December, expressions of interest being taken by Dominic Bowden at http://mytivo.co.nz
On-demand content will be DRM-protected (and you won't be able to fast-forward through ads, although there will be far fewer of them), but you'll be free to transfer off-air recordings to other devices.
The intention is to build a content delivery network allowing them to have all on-demand content zero-rated (ie: it won't damage your data cap) from participating ISPs. This has begun in Australia.
The one question I forgot to ask: will Sky's exclusive licences with all the telcos be a problem?
It seems like a good move for TVNZ -- it's a mature platform and if it works the initial stake will seem like a bargain.
Mediaworks has been hinting that it might not provide EPG data, but Rick Ellis says they're obliged to as a Freeview stakeholder.
Paul Campbell might care to come in with some sage observations here ...
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And, while I realise it must be awful to suffer through it, quite an interesting one. The fact that those of us "off" the spectrum presumedly receive the sensory information in the same way (there being no difference physically in our sensors) yet somehow ignore the flickering, strobing etc at a neurological level is quite fascinating.
There's no shame in being fascinated by it -- it is bloody fascinating.
The lesson is how much of our senses have little to do with the sensory organs themselves, but with the way out brains process the input they capture -- they do a lot of user-friendly stuff that aids our progress though the world. Some way back, I realised that my kids actually experience physical reality in a profoundly different way than I do.
It's a helpful insight into human difference in general, actually.
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@robbery
At the risk of engaging in another death-spiral "discussion" ...
is your point that the 4 majors act as their own agrigator and by pass that step?
Yes. That is what I said more than once. It's a very simple point.
I guess that would mean that most of the people who get to skip the agrigator part are on major label deals so most people are screwed either way, apart from ffd who's label deals direct.
Artists on independent labels, or the labels themselves, will generally go via an aggregator, as will artists who have P&D deals with a major so long as they haven't signed over digital distribution rights to the major label , in which case they will be stuck with a much lower rate of return. Short version: as an artist, you're much better off paying 20% to an aggregator than having your digital distribution rights with a major.
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Tom's right, Craig. It's a significant breach of faith.
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