TiVo Granted PVR Patents 212
mnip sent in a Reuters story about TiVo getting patents on its digital television recording technology (also see their press release). Here's one of them - recording one program while watching another.
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TiVo Granted PVR Patents
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To write good code is a worthy challenge, and a source of civilized delight. -- stolen and paraphrased from William Safire
Link to Prior Art (Score:1)
However, a VCR cannot both capture and play back information at the same time.
Oh, I guess this doesn't exist then: http://www.videoverdicts.com/hardware/govideo.htm [videoverdicts.com]
Patents can kiss my ass.
Re:this *might* be okay... (Score:1)
There are however a couple (the ones around closed captioning) which do seem to me to be genuinely unique and probably deserving of patenting
Let me get this right. (Score:1)
- Microsoft patents ultimate TV. bad. Bill is evil. Patents are evil.
- Tivo patents TiVo good. Linux is ready for the desktop!
Thanks, I feel much better now.You're Applauding This? (Score:1)
Let's look at the numbers [yahoo.com]:
Sales: 4.5m
Income: -225.4m
Total Cash: 124.5m
Do the math!
Re:A preventative chill pill (Score:1)
Re:Aren't patents supposed to be non-obvious? (Score:1)
The revolver was the result of centuries of effort. It's not even close to being comparable to what a TiVo does.
Should the like of Commander Data finally be developed in 2364. THEN, that would be a comparable. Quite simply, no one in computer science has been putting in that much effort for that long on ANYTHING.
Yet still, the revolver patent's primary effect was to stall subsequent technological progress. This is especially saddening since the history of firearms clearly shows that the mere utility of "getting it to work" was sufficient enough to motivate research.
Dangling carrots over the heads of would-be Robber Baron simply wasn't necessary.
Re:Recording while watching (Score:1)
It's just a PC.
PCs can do little tricks like "view previously recorded data" while "recording new data".
This is called multitasking.
Even my Atari ST could do it.
The only thing that has changed is the particular nature of the data. It's still just one's and zeros. The bits are just "designated" as "video".
H*ll, I might even have pulled off watching one CyberStudio video while downloading another...
Re:not cool at all (Score:1)
Tivo isn't living up to their end of the bargain. They should not be rewarded for loafing. This is a very basic and fundemental idea in capitalism.
Tivo shouldn't get something for nothing here. It simply doesn't encourage them to make genuine contributions to the state of the art.
Re:not cool at all (Score:1)
TiVO's work, their REAL work, is in their software. That is already protected by copyright. What they don't, or rather shouldn't, have the right to do is to claim ownership to the idea of a jukebox with a recording device.
Re:Stop granting "things my mother does" patents! (Score:1)
DOING TWO THINGS AT ONCE ON A COMPUTER IS NOT NOVEL!
Depends on the patent (Score:1)
Re:Love the language :) (Score:1)
It's just a jump to the left...
Re:Cool (Score:1)
Re:Microsoft? (Score:1)
Like hell. UltimateTV is Microsoft's competitor of TiVo. TiVo is partnered with AOL, not Microsoft.
My ATI All-in-wonder does this, so does more (Score:1)
The UNIX more command does the same thing. If, for example, you do a "find | more", you can read the contents at the start of the file (pipe) while the end of it is still being written. "tail -f" can be loosely argued as doing the same thing.
Re:Cool (Score:1)
Re:Aren't patents supposed to be non-obvious? (Score:2)
Re:Umm..Prior Art??? (Score:2)
Re:Recording while watching (Score:2)
Not too broad, unlike some other patents. (Score:2)
1. A method for getting to my friend's house:
Go down this street, turn left, cut through the park, staying on the path because people walk their dogs in the park, go down the dead-end street, slip though the hole in the fence, and turn right.
Such a patent would only apply to the method, which is somewhat clever, and not to either the steps involved (which come be used by other people) or the end result (which could be done in other ways). As far as I can tell, TiVo's patent doesn't even apply to their direct competitor's product (I believe ReplayTV uses a different storage format), let alone prohibit the creation of devices that differ in other ways. Basically, you just can't build an exact clone of TiVo.
Re:Cool (Score:2)
My old Hauppage card does mpeg-1 recording, but it only has one tuner, so you have to watch the same thing you record. I'm trying to find out if they've put out dual-tuner cards capable of this - if they did, it *may* qualify as prior art, depending on how specific the implementation is.
Tivo's patent seems to be fairly specific on the process - feed->mpeg-1->seperate audio/video streams, etc... As long as they don't try to sue for infringement outside of that process, it'll probably be OK, but if they sue anyone who offers a record-while-watching-something-else product, regardless of the process, there could be trouble.
Re:Recording while watching (Score:2)
Re:Recording one program while watching another? (Score:2)
This is not the same as having separate record and playback heads on one video head drum.
It's just a consumer grade video server (Score:2)
For that matter there were professional systems built out of computer controlled VTR decks ans switchers that could do the same thing using VIDEOTAPE, though it was inelegant and complicated and expensive.
Tivo is an inexpensive video server with VCR-like record functions. It's apparently a nice product, and I wish them well, but this patent should not have been granted.
Jon Acheson
I guess /. just proved its editorial independence (Score:2)
Ummm ... No. (Score:2)
Sony doesn't own Tivo. Tivo is a publicly traded company. The following companies have invested in Tivo, (from Tivo's website) "America Online (AOL), Advance/Newhouse, CBS, Comcast Corporation, Cox Communications, DIRECTV, Discovery Communications, Encore Media Group, Liberty Media subsidiaries, Liberty Digital, NBC, Philips Electronics, Showtime Networks, SONY, TV Guide Interactive and The Walt Disney Company". As you can see, Sony is but one of a number of investors.
ReplayTV is a privately held company which is in the process of being acquired by Sonic Blue.
Tivo doesn't manufacture any units. They license their technology to others, most notably Sony and Philips.
ReplayTV had been manufacturing their own units but recently decided to switch to a licensing model as well. Panasonic is the only significant licensee I am aware of. They did recently sign an agreement with Motorola to incorporate Replay's technology in Motorola's cable set top boxes.
We need a moderation catagory of 'Clueless' for posts like the above.
Steve M
Re:This is not like a VCR! (Score:2)
You are correct that you cannot watch one show while recording another with a VCR. So when stated like that it sounds rather innovative.
But if I state it as being able to write data to a hard drive while also reading other data from that hard drive it doesn't sound all that innovative any more.
Steve M
How will this affect Microsoft.. (Score:2)
Will rocky and bullwinkle get out of this mess that boris and .. (rotflol)...
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Re:How will this affect Microsoft.. (Score:2)
This is microsofts Ultimate TV. I wish there was a way to edit an initial post and add information to it in slashdot for things you think of after you hit the submit button...
Any way read on ...
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Re:It's just a consumer grade video server (Score:2)
If you read the claims, you will see that the Tivo includes stuff like receiving broadcast TV as part of the claim. This excludes MPEG video servers as prior art.
Look at a the Claims (Score:2)
When you've got a patent, what is protected is not the description of the patent but the claim(s).
So this patent cover not just :
- "recording one program while watching another"
as stated on the"A process for the simultaneous storage and play back of multimedia data, comprising the steps of:
- accepting television (TV) broadcast signals,
...
- tuning said TV signals to a specific program
- ...
- providing at least one Input Section, wherein said Input Section converts said specific program to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) formatted stream for internal transfer and manipulation
- ...
- storing said video and audio components on a storage device
- ..."
multiple steps describing what is a Tivo, and not a VCR .The description are usually written to fool peoples. It is originally means to describe the object (the claims) of the patents to people so that they are easily understood. Not more !
Re:Creative ? (Score:2)
Again, it's a *specific* method of utilizing an MPEG coprocessor that apparently has some additional intelligence about circular audio / video buffers, indexing in the buffers, processing timestamp data from digital video feeds, and a bunch of other stuff that makes it a lot different (and likely better) that what your typical PC video encoder card is up to.
Re:Aren't patents supposed to be non-obvious? (Score:2)
I'm not saying Tivo doesn't deserve the patent but what a lay person thinks when it comes to issuing a patent means squat. At least in theory considering the crap that is currently being issued nowadays in certain industries.
Re:read it for me please? (Score:2)
This is not TiVO's fault. It is the cable company's fault. Isn't there supposed to be some sort of standard that would allow us to get whatever cable box we wanted and have it work with our cable system? Then companies like TiVO could have 'drop-in' tuners or reprogrammable ones for the box that would obviate the need of the cablebox itself. DirecTiVO is a TiVO and a dual tuner DSS box in one.
--Mike
For more info go to the AVS TiVO forum located here [avsforum.com].
Stop granting "things my mother does" patents! (Score:2)
Ok, what country can I move to to avoid this kind of stupidity?! They go on to describe their "preferred embodiment of the invention", which is basically the same thing, but "TV streams are converted to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG)" format....
The US is way out of control!
On the humor side: Hey, someone just got a patent on the Time Warp! Look out RHPS!
Re:Did you read the rest of the paragraph? (Score:2)
Uncalled for.
I have a feeling that if Slashdot had been around when the mechanical adding machine had been invented, we would have been snickering about the abacus being prior art on the "adding two numbers" patent.
If the patent had stated that their claim was on "adding two numbers" and then gone on do describe the adding machine as a "preferred embodiment of the invention", then you're danrned tootin' I'd bee snickering (and complaining about the incompetence of the USPTO).
Now, if I'm reading this wrong, that's one thing, but the patent seems pretty clear to me: time warping is ours. TiVo is how we do it.
IANAL, but how else can one read that?
Re:RTFP (Score:2)
The only innovation here is that it's a piece of customer electronics. Rather than the sort of thing TV companies have had for a long time. Well over the 20 years a patent would cover.
Re:Aren't patents supposed to be non-obvious? (Score:2)
It isn't a new concept. It's one method "live" broadcasts can use as a profanity delay.
Maybe not in exactly the same kind of encoding, maybe not aways digitally.
It's a question of where do you draw the line...
Re:This is not like a VCR! (Score:2)
However it's rather trivial to do with 2 VCRs. Also there have been VCRs produced with 2 tape mechanisms in the same box.
Re:Did you read the rest of the paragraph? (Score:2)
What you're basically talking about is hardware MPEG handling, with DMA to the disk, so that the CPU doesn't have to get involved except for control processes. This isn't very novel, for example I dealt with a SEM with very similar characteristics. The CPU set up the scans, then retreived them from the disk, but didn't get involved apart from that.
Compromising free speech? (Score:2)
The patent doesn't say you can't use a VCR. Or a TV card in your PC. I don't see any infringement here. Certainly nothing worse than HBO or, for that matter, your local cable company.
Re:What a great idea! (Score:2)
However, combining "time warping" with all of Tivo's other stuff is novel.
Novel ideas always build off of prexisting ideas. As such, patents should be and are considered novel even if they build off of previous patents.
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This pisses me off. (Score:2)
Although the TiVo is new and arguably innovative, it only deserves 2 years of patent protection, because anyone else could have done it (including me, once I get old enough to have the resources to do so).
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Re:Microsofts UltimateTV *is* a Sony Tivo. -Read- (Score:2)
Why the TiVo is cool... (Score:2)
To those people: Go get a TiVo. The great thing about a TiVo isn't the fact it stores video on a hard disk. It's how wonderfully seamless the integration is to the rest of your system. I can't imagine watching TV without one now. My parents and my sister have them now and feel the same way. The interface is great and the featureset is almost everything you could want.
The price is right on target for a pre-built system that looks nice, works well, and isn't a hacked together PC sitting in my AV rack. There has also been a lot of work to hack these systems and make them even better. My main TiVo is an 87.5 hour unit.
And for the
What a great idea! (Score:2)
Hey, this gives me an idea now. What if a computer could do more than one thing at once? I'll call it "multitasking". Imagine the convience of having a computer perform multiple tasks at the same time. I'll make millions! Now, where's that patent application....
----
Re:Microsoft? (Score:2)
Nowhere close to being true. UltimateTV is a direct competitor to TiVo's DirecTV product. UltimateTV is a joint venture of Microsoft and DirecTV. DirecTV is also a partner of TiVo. DirecTV wisely doesn't put all their eggs in one basket, but that certainly doesn't mean that MS and TiVo are on the same team.
Patents are great! No, seriously. (Score:2)
Hey, I wonder if Microsoft thinks software patents are so great now? I bet Ultimate TV (their tivo rip-off - what great innovation) can do the same thing. It would be nice if Tivo sued microsoft or was otherwise able to extract billions for the right to use this patent in its rip-off products.
I want to see Ultimate TV fail. The damned thing obviously only exists because microsoft feels threatened that another "OS" could penetrate the home market. Bastards. I dont want all my devices to be MS controlled!! Lets kill the 7 headed serpent. I'll take TV, you take PC's, you over there, take Video games, and divide the rest evenly among you the rest of you.
Microsoft? (Score:2)
Re:Stop granting "things my mother does" patents! (Score:2)
Its not obvious as you think it would be. Without fail, when I describe my TIVO to people, they think it sounds pretty mundane, and worth not much more than a VCR.
But when they see it and have a chance to really play with it, ALL of them have been very surprised at how different it was from what they thought.
Was this really OBVIOUS in 1998? I remember hearing about it back then and thinking there was no way a computer (or set top computer) could record or watch a full screen stream of video without pausing hiccuping or generally having serious problems. Our computers in the last couple of years have been capable of replaying fullscreen NTSC video from file, but recording fullscreen NTSC video at the same time without dropping frames? Doubtful.
Its very easy to sit on the sidelines and snipe at what people have done. Everything is obvious in retrospect.
Re:They have patents on EVERYTHING (Score:2)
Not even that easy. With TIVO, you can watch the program you are currently recording as well. Jump to live, back to the beginning, whatever.
Re:They have patents on EVERYTHING (Score:2)
The only way to do this with a computer is to have two tuner cards and a TV out card because it says the ability to watch one program on your television while recording another on in MPEG format. Plus it does it all with a neat interface and it kinda hidden to the user. I have yet to see a decent TV recorder using a computer that works well. I found webvcr the other day, and there's some commercial packages, but they don't let me watch something and record something else.
--
Re:Recording while watching (Score:2)
--
They have patents on EVERYTHING (Score:2)
- granted in 1994! the first one that this is based off of is 1990! There's patents on paper bags, and other very very simple stuff.
Who cares anyway, it's DiVX ;-) a better format anyway for this type of application?
--
Re:Cool (Score:2)
--
Prior art? SmarTV in 1988 (Score:2)
There's not much documentation online [broadcatch.com] but I have a box full of paper docs that I have brought to the attention of Hughes in their fight against Gemstar's patents of on-screen TV guide displays. Perhaps it may be useful to refute at least a few of TiVo's claims, too...
--
mixed feelings. (Score:2)
A lot of people are saying that the patents were ok in this case since they didn't patent obvious things but I want to know what these peoples sources are before I can agree with them. After all if you read the yahoo! article it isn't very specific.
Re:this *might* be okay... (Score:2)
I'm not sure what TiVo is going to do with this egrevious patent, but I know what I'm going to do with mine.
True, it must be MPEG and only MPEG to infringe (Score:2)
The patent is fairly specific in regards to the actual recording process - in that the input stream is encoded to mpeg-1 - I'm not entirely sure, but I doubt VCRs used mpeg-1
You seem correct about the MPEG requirement; Apple, Microsoft, and Real could circumvent the patent by using their proprietary video encodings. From the patent [164.195.100.11]:
This covers not only MPEG-1 but also MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 (aka DivX ;-) )standards; infringing this patent requires infringing the patents on MPEG [ffii.org]. To infringe a patent, you have to infringe one claim, but to infringe a claim, you must infringe every part of that claim. As all other claims refer back to claim 1 (and the nearly identical claim 32), a fellow could circumvent this patent by using a compression technology other than one created by MPEG, such as the Ogg [xiph.org] Tarkin video compression technology that Xiph.org is developing.
And as diakka said, two tuner cards in one box (or even in one household) could by a reasonable stretch of the imagination be considered infringement.
The real question comes if Tivo tries to enforce their patent based on principle rather than process - claiming rights to ANY digital recording of one TV signal while watching another, regardless of medium or compression format used.You're referring to the "doctrine of equivalents," which was recently severely narrowed [gigalaw.com]. The patent explicitly names MPEG, and it does not say "or any other media encoding technology."
(Of course, nothing you read on Slashdot is legal advice.)This is obvious... (Score:2)
This patent can't be valid since a VTR would be prior art. The mere fact that they use a particular recording scheme doesn't matter-- different VTRs have different data formats, some analog some digital, some even compressed digital. The mere fact they're using a disk instead of tape isn't important-- video disk recorders were used for years for things like still stores and instant playback at sporting events.
It's just not valid to say that their timeshifting is novel since they use MPEG and computer hard disks.
Once again... (Score:2)
[insert picture of smiling
Re:Beautiful. (Score:2)
--CTH
--
Re:Microsoft? (Score:2)
The Ultimate TV also has WebTV like stuff added (surfing, chat, e-mail). It is not a joint MS/TiVo effort. (Unless I totally missed something.)
On a slight tangent: Funny TiVo story of the week. I have a Sony TiVo. The remote started going through batteries in a week. I called waranty service, and they told me I would have to send my remote in before they would send me a new one. Considering TiVo's have no controls on the box, they are totally useless without the remote. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
Re:This is not like a VCR! (Score:2)
Tivo is able to do what it does because a) it uses a multi-tasking OS (Linux), b) because it uses an MPEG chip that's capable of playing back and recording simultaneously (developed by IBM, I believe), c) because they can read and write to disk without monopolizing the CPU (DMA, using standard bus technology and IDE equipment.)
The only thing that they actually developed is the "feature" of being able to simultaneously play back and record. Given that I have been able to capture video to disk on a PC while viewing a different video file for several years now (using a capture board), I'm not sure how they can even claim that as an invention, much less a non-obvious one.
When you combine this requirement with all the other very specific stipulations the patent makes (must use MPEG, must separate audio and video, must have a little dancing TV-set as a logo), you might be able to come up with a unique product-- but not necessarily a novel, non-obvious invention.
Re:What a great idea! (Score:2)
Throwing a bunch of existing ideas together does not a patent make, especially if the ideas were all suggested by people looking to include them in a single product. Manufacturers have been looking for ways to automate the recording process for years. Unfortunately, media has always been the problem. Ask the research dept. of any major video-recorder manufacturer (at least, those who have one) and they'll tell you that they mulled all of the "novel" ideas Tivo came out with at one time or another: Ideas like hard-disk recording of programs, automatic recording of specified shows (which necessitates schedule updates), suggestions, etc.
Most of those ideas just weren't possible given the state of the hardware until very recently, and the big companies just didn't get their implementation moving fast enough. Even if they hadn't included all of these ideas in a bundle the way Tivo did, within a couple of years the boxes would have naturally evolved to include them (think "obvious"). Of course, that kind of evolution is impossible when companies can file such restrictive patents.
In any case, I'm sure we'll be seeing ten year old white papers that vaguely describe Tivo, if anyone takes this thing to court. Remember that the patent office does only the barest searches for prior art.
Re:this *might* be okay... (Score:2)
Requiring a competitor to use another codec seems somewhat anti-competitive, considering that by using a standard like MPEG, Tivo reduces the cost of their encoders to about $14. To do the same thing in software, or with a different chip would probably cost significantly more. Separating audio and video is a fairly straightforward way to do things, and is the technique used by hundreds of pre-Tivo products.
Of course a competitor could work around the patent (at some expense), but I don't think it's reasonable for Tivo to combine a handful of standard practices (using MPEG, recording audio/video separately) and a couple of old ideas (time-shifting, schedule updates) and file such a broad patent on an entire product. Tivo is certainly welcome to file patents on the unique ideas they came up with-- and there are several-- but to patent the entire product is too much.
Re:Recording while watching (Score:2)
RTFP (Score:2)
This isn't that bad of a patent, if you really read the thing. Yeah, it's a fairly simple idea, but no one's done it before (look carefully again at the convert to MPEG and then spilt part of the patent). The thing that pisses me off here is that many of the posts are "it's not a bad patent because we like our TiVo and they're l33t" - this shouldn't matter. If it's a crap patent (which this one isn't), then it shouldn't matter what the usage of it is.
Re:Another Troll Feature Story (Score:2)
% receive | mpeg_decode | tee bab5.mpg >
...Blair
Re:not cool at all (Score:2)
That's true, and it is also easy to fool oneself about whether one thought about something like that before the company did. However, in this particular instance, I had two other people describe the idea to me on separate occasions during brainstorming long before any of the PVRs ever made any press.
And it's not exactly particularly surprising that people come up with that idea when they have hardware sitting on their desk that can do this sort of thing out of the box, as many researchers at IBM, MIT, and other places did for many years. It's just that as long as that hardware costs $30000, you won't try to turn it into a consumer device.
In fact, hyperbole in place, everything that ever was invented or ever will be, would have eventually been thought of by someone else anyway,
True, too. However, people had been recording and playing back broadcast video digitally for years before TiVo came out. On reasonably well equipped workstations, you could even record and view multiple video streams simultaneously. What distinguishes TiVo is not some new capability but simply the fact that they defined a market niche for this product and entered the market with a consumer device roughly when disk storage prices and the availability of low-cost video compression chips made it feasible to do so.
I don't blame TiVo for filing these patents--they had to. Every startup does. But it's not an instance of innovative or far reaching thinking. To most people who have the hardware available to them, this is an obvious application, and the little tweaks you apply to make it more usable and convenient are standard engineering.
Re:This is not like a VCR! (Score:2)
$ mpeg_capture live.mpg &
$ mpeg_play previously_recorded.mpg
Note that many high-end workstations were capable of doing that long before TiVo appeared on the scene. It's so obvious and trivial, why would anybody write it up? It only becomes an identifiable capability once you stick the whole thing into a box and call it a "consumer device". So, what exactly is the innovation there?
Re:A preventative chill pill (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong: I think TiVo is a pretty decent company that makes a pretty good product. I just don't think it's an example of breakthrough innovation: PVRs are here because disks and video compression have become cheap enough. TiVo had the business smarts to enter the market at the right time with a good product, and that's why they have been successful (but that's not something that ought to be patentable). Technologically, however, there is little that's surprising or unobvious about them.
and what's so specific about that? (Score:2)
Re:not cool at all (Score:2)
It is really easy to take a look at a finished product and declare how anyone could have thought of it.
In fact, hyperbole in place, everything that ever was invented or ever will be, would have eventually been thought of by someone else anyway, so why bother granting intellectual protection to encourage the investment of thought/energy in the creative process.
______
Re:Recording while watching (Score:2)
Re:Recording while watching (Score:3)
The real question comes if Tivo tries to enforce their patent based on principle rather than process - claiming rights to ANY digital recording of one TV signal while watching another, regardless of medium or compression format used. That could become scary in the current legal climate in the US.
How many current TV cards (Hauppauge, etc...) are able to do this kind of encoding? How many of those can watch a second channel while you're recording from the first? I have an older Hauppauge card that can in fact do mpeg stream encoding, but it lacks the second tuner required to watch another channel. It wouldn't suprise me if one of the newer cards (from any company) had the second tuner - and if it predates Tivo's patent, that *could* be prior art, depending on the specifics.
Re:Recording one program while watching another? (Score:3)
In order to do that the VCR would need 2 video head drums so that the second could read what the first had just recorded. Either that or one horribly complicated video head drum with the tape wrapped completely around it.
When you watch what you record at the time that it's being recorded the video and audio signals are split into two streams, on of which goes to the audio and video heads, and the other of which goes out to the television.
A video head drum with a playback head right next to the record head (like three head audio recorders) would theoretically be possible (and maybe there are some high end commercial braodcast machines with them), but trying to build a VHS consumer deck with that would be an expensive technilogical nightmare.
Re:this *might* be okay... (Score:3)
What you should be asking is, 'does it make sense for the government to grant 20-year monopolies on ideas such as this'? How much extra incentive does it provide to have patents available? Would nobody have come up with these techniques if they were not patentable? Does the impact on competition and the potential for creating legal quagmires outweigh the increased incentives to the developer?
(Do patents such as these increase incentives at all? Some might argue that software patents, on the whole, reduce the incentive to innovate because of the risk of being sued.)
The US constitution is quite explicit: the government _may_ grant patents on certain areas, to promote progress in science and the useful arts. Does granting patents on software and on techniques implemented with a computer promote progress?
A few facts about TiVo and UTV... (Score:3)
- Microsoft's "UltimateTV" does NOT use the TiVo service; it is a competing service.
- UltimateTV is ONLY available (at this time) integrated with a DirecTV receiver.
- "DirecTV Receivers with TiVo" (aka "DirecTivo" or "combo" boxes) compete in the same market as UltimateTV.
- TiVo also sells "standalone" units which work with any video source (including cable, satellite, broadcast, etc.) -- these units contain an MPEG encoder and have tunable quality settings to choose from.
- There is no UltimateTV product for the standalone market; DirecTV is required.
- UltimateTV and DirecTivo boxes BOTH lack MPEG encoder hardware; they can only store the MPEG signal coming from DirecTV's satellite.
- Because the MPEG signal comes from the satellite, the recordings are essentially PERFECT recording quality; the playback from a recorded program will be IDENTICAL to the quality of the live DirecTV signal. (Standalone TiVo units suffer variable degradation based on the quality settings and program material.)
- Because the MPEG signal was compressed by DirecTV before being sent to the satellite, there are no encoder quality settings to choose from, BUT the compression should be better than consumer-grade hardware can hope to achieve at the same bitrates.
- UTV has two physical DirecTV satellite tuners, which allows recording two shows at once or watching one show while recording another. This works today.
- DirecTivo combo boxes ALSO have two physical DirecTV satellite tuners, but only one can be used at the present time.
- All existing DirecTivo units will receive a free software upgrade ("sometime this summer") to enable the second tuner already present in the box. Until that time, UTV has a temporary dual-tuner advantage.
- For any dual-tuner system, two cable runs from a dual-LNB satellite dish for technical reasons; you cannot split a single cable to operate two satellite receivers.
- You can, however, "split" a PAIR of satellite cables using a "multiswitch" to connect more than two receivers/tuners to one dual-LNB satellite dish. (Two physical cable runs back to the dish will ALWAYS be required.)
- Since standalone TiVo units don't have dual tuners or dual MPEG encoders, they can only record one program at a time.
- Even with a single tuner, any TiVo or UTV box will allow you to record one program while watching a different program previously recorded. (This is somewhat like having two VCR's and no hassles with videotapes.)
- UltimateTV is based on the "Microsoft TV" platform, which uses Windows CE as the underlying operating system.
- TiVo is based on Linux as the underlying operating system. (Don't get your hopes up, the PVR functionality runs in a proprietary application on top of the Linux operating system.)
- Some TiVo users have been known to hack their systems, usually to add hard drives for additional storage capacity. (e.g. adding an 80GB drive to turn a "14-hour" unit into a "105-hour" unit) TiVo has been very gracious and accepting of this hacking, though of course it voids the warranty.
- UltimateTV has Internet access features (much like WebTV) that TiVo does not offer. However, many people question the importance/value of this.
- UltimateTV also has PIP (picture-in-picture) functionality, which is very important to some people and inconsequential to others.
- TiVo units do not have hardware support for PIP, and software support isn't likely -- none of the current models will ever have PIP capability.
- It doesn't help if your TV has PIP, unless you want to watch a different video source; current models only have one MPEG decoder so independent outputs aren't currently possible.
- TiVo is acknowledged as having the most advanced PVR software and has more sophisticated management features than UTV has.
- TiVo now has 200,000 subscribers, up from about 150,000 around the start of this year.
- TiVo has reduced their operating costs and revenue increased 48% (from $2.2M to $3.2M) between 2000 Q4 and 2001 Q1.
- TiVo remains in a negative cashflow situation. Although they expect to burn about $50M the rest of this year, they won't need outside funding until early next year. Positive cashflow is predicted to occur sometime next year.
- Microsoft, of course, has mountains of cash at their disposal.
- Despite this, UTV's impact on DirecTivo sales is "imperceptible" -- much of their advertising serves to sell people on the idea of a PVR, not necessarily their implementation. (And of course, UltimateTV probably helps standalone TiVo sales.)
- After dual-tuner support is released for the DirecTivo's, TiVo will have a clear overall advantage -- UTV will only be compelling to those who truly care about unique features like Internet access or PIP.
- There may be a few hundred thousand PVR's out there now, but a few hundred million TV's & VCR's. The potential market is enormous, but it's still in the early-adopter phase, probably for another year or two.
Does that clarify a few things?Ethernet? (Score:3)
Re:Stop granting "things my mother does" patents! (Score:3)
But the patent is much broader than that, and what is claimed in the patent is obvious. Please read the patent text in detail, and you'll agree that anyone who wants to implement a PVR device in clean room conditions (i.e. without prior knowledge of the current TIVO implementation) would have a good chance to come up with a system that would violate the patent. For me that makes the patent claim, by definition, obvious and thus unjustified.
Stupid TV patents (Score:3)
Digital Television Recording technology (Score:3)
What about Microsofts digital recorder? Is that a violation of this patent also? Maybe we could get Microsoft for patent infringement. Of course Microsoft allows you to record two programs at the same time, I wonder if Microsoft will be filing a patent for that now?
Hilarious, Intentional Misleading of Patent Office (Score:3)
But that's where the double-take comes in. Look at the sorts of "restrictions" they're volunteering to put on their patent, so that it only covers their "non-obvious" technology:
User control commands are accepted and sent through the system. Watch out, you can fast-forward.
The video and audio components are stored on a storage device and when the program is requested for display, the video and audio components are extracted from the storage device and reassembled into an MPEG stream which is sent to a decoder. Damn, that's what my MPEG playback algorithm has been getting wrong-- I need to store my audio and video on a storage device! Damn, if they hadn't patented that bit, I would've stolen it.
The decoder converts the MPEG stream into TV output signals and delivers the TV output signals to a TV receiver. Those wizards at Tivo have done it again. Apparently, the secret to getting MPEG to play on TV is-- get this-- converting the MPEG stream into a TV-readable format.
The invention allows the user to store selected television broadcast programs while the user is simultaneously watching or reviewing another program. This, in fact, is a breakthrough. Have you ever tried to do this with your VCR? The instructions read something like: "During install, wall cord into first input, VCR cord from box to television. Then on watching, Input A the program watching, Input B the program being.". I don't know anyone who's ever done this-- they eventually gave up and watched TV upstairs.
It looks like the Patent Office, even if they have longer to review patents in the future, will run into the problem encountered in programming: it's easy to make a very complicated, confusing explanation for a very simple solution. Luckily for us (and, well, quite expensively for us), the courts have a lot more time to puzzle through all the bullshit.
Love the language :) (Score:3)
I hope they're obeying the Multimedia Temporal Prime Directive.
Re:Ethernet? (Score:3)
Not likely to effect Dishplayer, or Ultimate TV (Score:3)
Radeon All-In-Wonder? (Score:3)
But one thing I'm curious about: I just this week got an ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder card. It's pretty nifty -- great TV receiver, pretty good graphics -- but it also has the 'TV-On-Demand' option: you can watch TV, pause it, skip past commercials, etc.
It even has (evil) Gemstar's GuidePlus software which makes the Radeon *very* much like the TIVO in that you can select shows in the future and have the Radeon record them as MPEG streams. (In fact, the Radeon has the added benefit -- along with some additional software -- of being able to serve up your TV across your LAN, which is quite nifty if yo actually need (or want) TV streaming across your home LAN.)
Anyway, I wonder if this new TIVO patent will put an end to one of the Radeon's AIW's big selling points: the ability to time-shift, encode, and then view time-shifted television files.
(The Radeon software isn't as quick as the TIVO software, but it does do essentially the same thing: encode while simultaneously allowing the file to be viewed.)
Ah well. I guess if the patent was gonna be awarded, I'd rather see TIVO get it than Microsoft.
Another Troll Feature Story (Score:4)
Here's a clue: The title of a Patent is NOT the same thing as what the patent covers or claims.
In Slashdot's posting we have:
Here's one of them - recording one program while watching another.
What the patent really claims (which is far more limited and justifiable) is this:
What is claimed is:
1. A process for the simultaneous storage and play back of multimedia data, comprising the steps of:
accepting television (TV) broadcast signals, wherein said TV signals are based on a multitude of standards, including, but not limited to, National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) broadcast, PAL broadcast, satellite transmission, DSS, DBS, or ATSC;
tuning said TV signals to a specific program;
providing at least one Input Section, wherein said Input Section converts said specific program to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) formatted stream for internal transfer and manipulation;
providing a Media Switch, wherein said Media Switch parses said MPEG stream, said MPEG stream is separated into its video and audio components;
storing said video and audio components on a storage device;
providing at least one Output Section, wherein said Output Section extracts said video and audio components from said storage device;
wherein said Output Section assembles said video and audio components into an MPEG stream;
wherein said Output Section sends said MPEG stream to a decoder;
wherein said decoder converts said MPEG stream into TV output signals;
wherein said decoder delivers said TV output signals to a TV receiver; and
accepting control commands from a user, wherein said control commands are sent through the system and affect the flow of said MPEG stream.
Did you read the rest of the paragraph? (Score:4)
The parser and event buffer decouple the CPU from having to parse the MPEG stream and from the real time nature of the data streams which allows for slower CPU and bus speeds and translate to lower system costs.
Did your mother think of that? I have a feeling that if Slashdot had been around when the mechanical adding machine had been invented, we would have been snickering about the abacus being prior art on the "adding two numbers" patent.
Cheers,
IT
Reading material (Score:4)
After you read one, or both, of them, reflect on the "obviousness" of pencils and paperclips.
So what are they going to do with it? (Score:4)
The real question is what is Tivo going to do with this new patent? Their press release really didn't say anything about whether they planned to start suing ReplayTV, MS UltimateTV, etc. If they're just going to add it to their portfolio and use it for negotiating power when doing deals (a lot of times big companies will do this without actually forcing everyone to license the patent), then more power to them. But if they're going to start attacking the other players, it could really harm the PVR market.
-Todd
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Re:Stop granting "things my mother does" patents! (Score:4)
The goal of patents is to promote innovation, to make innovation worthwhile. Anything that is due to be implemented by combination of known elements in an obvious way, such as what TIVO does, doesn't need to be promoted by definition, and thus doesn't need nor deserve patent protection. Otherwise patents stifle innovation (because without competition there will be less incentive for further improvements) rather than promote it.
this *might* be okay... (Score:4)
The patent linked to on the article header here on
So what I want to know is, what are the other patents like, and what is TiVo going to do with the patents?
not cool at all (Score:4)
TiVo's success wasn't about a great idea. Lots of people had the same idea. Cheap digital video compression technology and harddisks just made it feasible to turn that idea into a consumer product at a certain point in time. TiVo's success was about timing, about lining up investment and going to market at roughly the right point. And a lot of their patents sound to me like stuff any reasonable engineer would come up with as a natural part of designing a PVR, without any significant thought.
See - the patent system isn't all bad :)
We would have TiVo-like devices with or without TiVo: the idea is pretty obvious. Without TiVo or some other company pushing consumer hardware early on, this would probably have started a couple of years later, first as software and hardware add-ons to PCs, Macs, and Linux machines.
Perhaps they can even get some money out of Microsoft for ripping them off with their Ultimate TV.
I don't see any rip-off. And they will be after you when you try to do similar kinds of things with your GPL'ed video recording software on Linux.
By granting these kinds of patents, the PTO risks that for the next 20 years, it could be mainly TiVo that controls this market, without being forced to innovate further. Soon, it will be cheaper to build TiVo-like devices than to build VCRs, yet if TiVo's patents turn out to be broad enough, they can keep the prices and profit margins high.
I think this is actually a good example for why patent life times should be shortened. TiVo should manage to make a tidy profit on their patents in five years. It makes little sense to grant them an artificial monopoly beyond that, no matter whether their patents are sensible or not, and doing so deprives the public of further innovation, in contradiction to the foundations of the patent system.
Of course, since there is so little that is worth recording on TV, it's probably pointless to get very upset about this.
Creative ? (Score:5)
2. The primary gist seems to be the use of a MPEG-specific coprocessor in a certain way that unloads the main CPU from having to do any video encoding / decoding work. IANAL but this does not seem to cover PVR functionality implemented in a PC, given the way most videocards are implemented.
And this is judged creative enought to be granted a patend ??
Sorry, but isn't this *exactly* what MPEG-specific coprocessors are designed for ???
--
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb15CB32EF3AF9C0E5D727
A preventative chill pill (Score:5)
1. The patent does not cover timeshifting- it covers a specific implementation of timeshifting. They reference use of VCRs and hard-disk based video recording systems in the prior-art section.
2. The primary gist seems to be the use of a MPEG-specific coprocessor in a certain way that unloads the main CPU from having to do any video encoding / decoding work. IANAL but this does not seem to cover PVR functionality implemented in a PC, given the way most videocards are implemented.
3. There's a lot of other stuff in there about refinements to the technique- sniffing out program start / stop info by scanning closed captioning information, and so on. Seems legitimately innovative to me.
Of course, if you believe the whole patent system is bunk all of this is irrelevant, but it doesn't look like anything to freak out about. However, it does reference a previous patent on hard-drive video recording dating back to 1994 that might be more troublesome... but I haven't read it.
This is not like a VCR! (Score:5)
--Scott D. Iekel-Johnson
Slashdot is getting just a bit too sensationalist (Score:5)
It is obvious that TiVo have patented the act of recording one programme whilst watching another by whatever processes go on within their box, rather than the whole concept of it.
Suggesting the former is just a good way of getting your submission noticed, and causing rampant hysteria in the forums...
Cool (Score:5)
TiVo managed to come up with an innovative product that plenty of people (especially here) have found to be extremely useful and worth the price. As such, they deserve to have their advances in technology formally protected, and they have.
See - the patent system isn't all bad :) With all the whinging about one-click patents, we forget that every month, hundreds of patents are granted for worthwhile products, ensuring that research and development continue to thrive.