You\u2019d think that the electronics industry would jump on any horse that was a clearly superior technology and ride it ’till it dropped. This is a brief synopsis (by geek standards) of why that didn\u2019t happen to one the best gadgets ever, and why that was such a truly significant and far reaching harbinger of things to come.<\/p>\n
Replay Networks won the CES 1999 `Best of Show` award with an item that seemed a clear hit, and it was, with everyone who bought one. It was the original DVR. This goodie could automatically cut out commercials (with 85% accuracy) of recorded shows, jump forward thirty seconds or back seven seconds, had a simple interface, could record forty hours (with mods, 500 hours!) without tape and had the most desirable feature of all \u2026 and that\u2019s exactly what caused it to stop production \u2026 the ability to share recorded shows via the internet (Replay to Replay only). With special free software, you could even pull shows off of it and save them on a DVD. It\u2019s not that the ReplayTV (RTV) was a pirating device, it allowed you to connect together RTV\u2019s in a home and watch the one in the den from your bedroom unit \u2026 only for the third time since the invention of television (after the VCR and remote control), a genuinely helpful video accessory had arrived. It also allowed the RTV of a friend to send a show to your RTV \u2026 so if you missed the \u201cbig game\u201d your buddy recorded, a simple entry told his Replay what to do. But the networks considered the public to be thieves for watching the very shows that they aired at a different time or day. They had exactly the same argument when the VCR came out, and everyone is aware of how that argument worked out in the courts. You\u2019d assume that it\u2019d be a lost cause trying to stop the Replay, but the media giants were successful with the same old, stale argument. And not a single other company came to their aid. The result is the neutered TiVo \u2026 still clearly inferior in operation, despite years of playing \u201ccatch-up\u201d. So here we are with giant, flat HD sets on the verge of 3D and we are still using technology that was outdated ten years ago. And there is no change anywhere is sight \u2026 because the networks consider the viewing public to be little more than criminals, no electronics company will pick up where Replay production stopped for fear of being sued or having to fund a legal case to force the issue to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Technology affords us to crudely duplicate the RTV, but the elegant design and ease of use is gone. If you\u2019re not sufficiently geeky to handle internal computer mods, transcode video formats, manipulate video editing software and choose the correct method of exchange on the internet \u2026 you\u2019re out of luck. The 5000 series RTVs are so treasured amongst video geeks, that an almost ten year old unit will actually bring more than the original cost on Ebay!<\/p>\n
You might ask why this happened and why this matters. The sole reason is greed. If the media giants can stop you from sharing \u201cCSI Las Vegas\u201d, their bean counters say they might make an additional fifty bucks on DVD sales. And this “Gordon Gekko-like” greed has had some mighty odd repercussions for the consumer. Some companies who were true innovators, like Sony, have lost all ability to invent after the death of their founder. So by acquiring movie studios and such, they can stifle their competitor\u2019s advances also. Sony clearly no longer has the best TVs, best MP3 player, best video camera or best of anything, in any sector of electronics. Its reliability was legend, and that too is long gone. So like any failing company, it will do anything it can to stay afloat \u2026 but in the bizarre case of Sony, it will do so by damaging the very industry it was once the leader of. The new and very hungry 800lb gorilla in the market abandoned by Sony \u2026 is Samsung. (Although LG and Toshiba are now seriously nipping at their rear of Samsung) A walk through Samsung\u2019s mega booth at the 2010 CES really makes the point how far Sony has fallen.<\/p>\n
As I look down the road I can see only two paths ahead for the electronics industry. In one, companies like Sony will install a virtual coin slot in the side of every piece of electronics you use, so to speak, forcing payment from you for all but the most basic viewing. Think I may be exaggerating? Look at the monthly subscription fees for TiVo, for HD on cable and satellite, for even the most basic cable which has only the free local channels, extra cable boxes because media suppliers won\u2019t adapt a standard encryption method and even things like the increased cost of DVD players due to the requirement of additional hardware to performing decoding and region locking. Supporting the death of analog TV that now requires the purchase of a special decoder, while knowing full well that the new digital signal will not reach the majority of over-the-air viewers, mandating a cable\/satellite subscription\u2026 even the internet site \u201cHulu\u201d, is going to be subscription based \u2026 the list goes on and on. The vast majority of these items that you are charged for, actually have no cost (or so small as not to matter) for the media suppliers. But, they can only be profitable by stifling innovation and forcing a stagnation of technology. That\u2019s an odd situation isn\u2019t it? They have to cripple\/kill future technology, by using obsolete technology to make a buck. I can safely assume they\u2019d take away the mute button on TV remotes if they thought it would force us to listen to the commercials.<\/p>\n
On the flip side, you have either laws or a court case that breaks the technology logjam. There is no other way for an immediate change. The free market is being controlled and perverted by a handful of media types, lobbyists and politicians … so it becomes a daunting task. If the impossible were to happen and the public were to revolt en mass, then yes, there would be change. But the fact of the matter is this: most people are technology illiterates and therefore, easy prey.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what could happen should things take a step forward. For instance, imagine an \u201cApple TV\u201d connected to a fancy HD set using an operational standard (no more cable boxes) and with full connectivity on the internet. Miss a show? \u2026 go to a central server and stream it for immediate viewing, or download it directly to your portable device (iPod, Zune, cellular phone, etc.) in the correct format automatically. The revenue loss to the networks is zero \u2026 in fact it increases their viewing public and therefore their ad revenue. And unlike normal TV, it\u2019s measurable and extremely accurate as to how many new viewers they have garnered. (Then again, it\u2019s a little hard for the networks to lie about the number of viewers to advertisers, when it can be so precisely measured.) How about cars, with the now cheap LCD screens, receiving live TV via a standard car antenna for its backseat passengers \u2026 along with the premium channels (like HBO) that you may be already subscribing to at your home. That is already possible using current technology. In fact I saw something somewhat similar at CES this year … and guess what … it had a fee for even the free over-the-air channels.<\/p>\n
There may be one, very tiny additional possibility \u2026 that some innovator will come up with a way to satisfy the antique copyright laws and still give us what we really want \u2026 even if the bulk of the consumers don\u2019t know what that is yet. But that wouldn’t be a genuine fix, would it?<\/p>\n
Change is coming at some point \u2026 even with all the issues I stated previously, technology simply can\u2019t be held back indefinitely \u2026 when the resources begin to dry up from bilking the consumer, the dam will break and the resulting flood will change permanently how we interact with technology.<\/p>\n
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