I saw this article on NYTimes this morning about Time Warner/AOL's new tivo like device. I've got to say, I completely agree with BoingBoing. Dubbed "MystroTV", this thing is just horrible. It attempts to be a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) but is laden with DRM to manage your rights (DRM having about as much to do with helping you manage your rights as a ticketmaster convenience charge is about being convenient to you). Unlike tivo, one could not skip through certain commercials with a fast forward button, share recorded programs with friends, and not have full access to record all programs.

This concept product is just yet another example of the failure of old-economy content distribution companies in understanding that the avalanche of technological adoption both current and coming has completely destroyed tradional methods for deriving income. Though I do have strong faith that we'll soon see the tide turning away from such feature crippled products for the sake of "licensing," it does seem for now that these media giants have still not learned their lesson from the music swapping that has already turned the corner and moved straight on to video and whatever else you can imagine sharing. The bubble may have burst, but the chewing gum hasn't lost its flavor. They're screwed, and making crappy products surely won't help them.

And speaking of their current crappy products, lets talk about time warner's current Tivo system which I have. Living in Austin means living in a city of early adopters and as such, it is one of TW's test markets. The NYTimes articles makes brief mention of it, but Time Warner is hedging their bets as they currently have a DVR cable box available in Austin that works just like tivo. And, unlike their new dream product, this one isn't crippled ... on purpose. Sure, the thing works well enough, but its got some issues:

* It reboots often, perhaps 4-5 times a week. This takes about 3 minutes.
* You cannot reliably expect it to record your program if you've set it to record all instances of a show.
* Because of this, you are pretty much forced to manually select every single thing you want to record.
* If you are recording two programs at the same time, you can't watch anything else live.
* The program guide randomly forgets to highlight things you've set to record in the future.
* It has no ad-skip feature, but you can get pretty good with the "triple fast-forward" followed by an "instant replay."

Oh, to be an early adopter. Sure, I've never used the real tivo before, but even with this meager offering, I'm still somehow satisfied, especially given the potential I see in it. Of course, the same can't be said of Mystro. Do they really believe that people would actually give up one for the other? They'd have to be stupid, and, unfortunately, they haven't shown much brilliance as of yet. Perhaps they'll just simplify it all by taking away the choice. That's some rights management.

By Gary at 09:54 PM in Rights | Comments (5)  

"Works just like tivo" is a statement that only someone who has never used tivo before could say. I had tivo for about a year, but for the past couple months have been living in a house with guys who have the TW "tivo-like" box. This box feels like an alpha product, and the tivo feels like 2nd or 3rd generation. I simply cannot state how much better a "real" tivo is. 10x more reliable is the main difference, but also features like search/record by director/actor/keyword/subject are awesome. The only downside is not being able to record 2 progs at once (unless you get a dual-tuner version), but that's not a big deal for me since I don't watch a lot of primetime programming.

Posted by: jeremy at March 11, 2003 10:40 AM

Thanks for the insight. I figured as much when I posted this and I agree that the Time Warner box is really just an alpha release. This hopefully means it will get much much better-- that is as long as they don't kill it for their crappy alternatives.

Also, does tivo handle digital cable very well? I think one of the overall strengths of the TW version is that I can get both DVR functionality and HBO on demand with the same box. Plus, there's no upfront charge to buy the box. Once TW gets with it on the reliability and functionality, I think tivo is screwed in those markets.

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