Why have HDD Recorders failed in the US?

[PuzZLeR]

If your provider happens to carry that channel, you might want to check out MHD (which turns up here around 6 down from HDNET).

I appreciate the post, and this would be awesome, but we can't get that legally here in Canada.

But there are a few Canadian 24hr specialty music video stations like 24hr retro or 24hr metal/punk/alternative, etc. Even though they were excellent, and well worth the price to have clean, untouched music videos, they have been cut back due to lack of demand. It's just not as big here (or probably anywhere) unfortunately.

In fact, it seems like more rule than exception when "reality shows" have taken over music video stations in order for them to survive in general - which is an indication of yet another reason why the masses today may find a DVR too complicated (AS IF there's anything worth archiving anyway).

...nothing sucks more than recording a loved music video only to see during playback a popup overlay flashing and advertising for a program that will feature has-been junkies huffing gasoline while slapping their trash spouses. How enlightening and enriching...

[p_l]

And in some cases, the licensing rights for the music on a TV show preclude the issue of a DVD altogether; think of The Wonder Years, for example.

[Seeker47]

One thing was mentioned about the reliability of tapes vs. discs. This has always been a big concern of mine, and is one of the main reasons that I came to DVD recording a bit late to the game. Horror stories of people losing valued burnt discs within mere months worried me (and still do), and as for backing stuff up to DVD, I'm still of the opinion that if it's important, you'd better hang onto the original tapes, and you just don't know when that burnt disc is going to turn into a coaster.

When I back up all my 8mm home movies some day, I'll probably stick the tapes in the lock box at the bank. I certainly won't throw them in the bin!

That has been my opinion since Day 1 of the digital age. The tapes have a well-proven track record (if properly stored) . . . even though the VCRs will go bad mechanically long before the tapes do, and you have to wonder whether there will still be competent repair available for the decks. I'd say, use only TY blanks for your disc media, and be prepared to rip / re-burn them periodically. At least until some more durable technology comes along.

[PuzZLeR]

And in some cases, the licensing rights for the music on a TV show preclude the issue of a DVD altogether; think of The Wonder Years, for example.

This complicates things. And it happens alot in reverse too - when a band creates a song for a movie's/TV show's soundtrack the rights get all screwed up. A good example is Guns N' Roses' "You Could Be Mine" which was not on the GNR music video DvD because it actually became the property of T2 (Tri-Star or Guild?, not sure), which irritated many fans.

[TBoneit]

That's a good point. They do the same here. Many newer popular shows with current sound tracks get altered for DVDs. Seems they don't want to pay for the licensing of the popular songs.
Most of my interests are older shows where this is not a concern but it would bother me if I remembered the original broadcast version had one song and the TV on DVD version had a different.
I haven't heard of editing on TV on DVD, in fact most of the time they advertise "extra" scenes on the discs I've seen. Don't ask me how they can do this since it was originally shot for TV anyway but maybe they have different versions for European TV and a more edited version for US TV, and the DVDs are more like the European version.

The extra scenes are easily possible for TV shows. They don't just shoot only 22 to 23 minutes of show for a 1/2 hour show. There are always bits and pieces and scenes that don't make the show due to running time constraints. I don't bet but on the fact that they keep those bits and pieces I'd make a bet.

Remember the Bloopers Shows where they show bloopers from TV shows? Where did you think they came from?

[amckinney]

The extra scenes are easily possible for TV shows. They don't just shoot only 22 to 23 minutes of show for a 1/2 hour show. There are always bits and pieces and scenes that don't make the show due to running time constraints. I don't bet but on the fact that they keep those bits and pieces I'd make a bet.

Remember the Bloopers Shows where they show bloopers from TV shows? Where did you think they came from?

Trims, deleted scenes, bloopers, etc. are saved more these days than in years past, though. After older shows went "out of production" (i.e .off the air), there was no real reason to save all the trimmed footage. Some TV studios keep more things than others (the extra footage on the Battlestar Galactica (1978) Complete Series was a happy surprise), and in some cases, this material is destroyed by the producers themselves, not the studios, or goes "missing" (Gene Roddenberry and Majel backed up a truck to Desliu one day and stole all the extra FX footage, deleted scenes, trims, etc. of Star Trek one weekend when security was light, and, thinking it would never be missed, cut it all up and sold it through Lincoln Enterprises).

Also, if this stuff even does exist for older shows, how well is it catalogued? Since there was probably little perceived re-use value of this stuff until the DVD age, a lot of old deleted footage is probably sitting in a dusty corner of an archive and may or may not even be indexed properly as to what is included. I'm sure the trims for more modern shows are probably fully described and are more readily accessible and would probably require less clean-up to even be used.

Then, you get into legal clearances issues. Would actors have to be negotiated with to use deleted footage? Majel Barrett told me once that one reason the Star Trek Bloopers would likely never be released on home video was that the artists would have to give consent, and I seem to remember her going on to say she knew of one or two who didn't want this stuff available commercially. For modern shows (like Scrubs) I'd say it's pretty certain this stuff is all negotiated, worked into contracts, etc. up-front.

[SLK001]

Content aside, I believe that it is a patent issue. The holder of the original DVR probably sets the licensing fees too high to encourage generic machines into the market.

I don't know (and really don't care to find out), but I believe that Tivo owns the patent - thus Tivo rules the roost over here in the "colonies".

[yoda313]

Majel Barrett told me once

Are you serious? Or do you mean when you went to a Star Trek convention? I'm asking honestly as a Star Trek fan, not baiting you but interested sincerely.

[amckinney]

Majel Barrett told me once

Are you serious? Or do you mean when you went to a Star Trek convention? I'm asking honestly as a Star Trek fan, not baiting you but interested sincerely.

No, this was from Majel herself (and was not said at a convention). She also told me how the STNG season one bloopers "leaked" to the public. She brought the tape to a convention for a screening and entrusted it to a fan to "run" it for her. He managed to get a copy of the tape run-off before returning it to Barrett (may have even had things set up to copy while it was being run).

[RabidDog]

That really does not compute! Over here in Blighty its obvious when the Beeb shows USA shows as the actual running time is only 44 mins in the Hour.. A beeb show is 60mins on the Hour.. so its def worth yanks buying those DVd's. They do also change the title music etc for some shows eg the wire, shown on Fx.

Footnote I once asked Kowalski if he liked "Voyage to the bottom of the Sea".
STK: Hey capt is this a dangerous Mission? yep! Right, all three of the most senior people on the enterprise should beam down together then + 1 unnamed crewman

[amckinney]

That really does not compute! Over here in Blighty its obvious when the Beeb shows USA shows as the actual running time is only 44 mins in the Hour.. A beeb show is 60mins on the Hour.. so its def worth yanks buying those DVd's. They do also change the title music etc for some shows eg the wire, shown on Fx.

Well, don't forget that most USA shows do not run for the full hour (not even HBO shows). A standard modern US drama is less than 45 minutes these days, compared to approx. 52 minutes in the 1960s. Commercials keep encroaching more and more as the years go by.

Also, bear in mind that in the UK, your runtimes of US shows might be shorter than our due to the "PAL-speedup effect". PAL conversions of US film-based material plays 4% faster than its native speed (assuming the PAL masters were made from the original film and not from NTSC tapes)...

[yoda313]

@ amckinney - Cool! Thanks for sharing.

[vhelp]

Regarding NTSC air times..

Actually, you might want to reconsider those figures for the stuff broadcasted. The reason I say this is because you forget one important and overlooked point, that our shows are stretched or squeezed into their respective timeslots for various reasons. So, a 44 minute ntsc show might actually be 50 minutes.

Think of it like a PAL->NTSC conversion, or is it the other way round, when they time expand ntsc program contents.

Yeah, so you just have to decode the TEC (time expansion or compression -- depending on what was source encoded for) and the 44 minute might be a bit higher than that. When I dicovered this on my own, I came to realize that this was *ALWAYS* the case with our source, but it was dependant on various things that even I don't know or understand, why.. they just were. Shows even from the 70's ERA and shown today were time expanded back then, only we didn't realize it and blaimed it on broaken telecine or missed/ dropped frames in our earlier (pioneering) days of capturing video from analog, even digital sources, yester day and still to this day.

I don't know the math behind it, to give you the exact *real* time for these shows, but thinking about it just makes my head hurt.. I'll leave that one up to the more math-challenged guru, otherise, I give up

-vhelp 4763

[usually_quiet]

I never thought I'd have a problem tolerating a station logo. However, WGN America's new one was the limit.

I can't stand the new staring eyes logo and the big blob of bright purple smoke blowing across the bottom of the screen that highlights messages when programming resumes after a commercial break. "Television You Can't Ignore" is the opposite of how I feel about their programming now. They have to be showing something that I want to watch very badly for me to put up with that distraction.

Awful, that's how I'd describe those eyes. Sometimes I think advertisers don't care how much we dislike something they do as long as we remember who did it. In this case the minute you said WGN I knew where you were going
I suppose in that way those eyes did their job
Personally I don't like any kind of watermark or station bug. It's the main reason I bought all 5 collections of The Twilight Zone Definitive Edition. No cra* on the screen or commercial interruptions. Unfortunately not everything is on DVD nor can I afford everything I'd like

It may be that we are not the only ones to dislike WGN's "staring eyes" watermark. It's gone!

I resigned myself to seeing the ugly thing again to watch a missed episode of a favorite series recorded eariler in the week, and saw they have changed to a simple "WGN America" as their watermark. Much better.

[nina96]

Dvd recorders have failed in the U.S. because Americans have been stupid enough to use TIVO. FYI, TIVO SUCKS! You have to pay monthly fees for TIVO dummies. A Dvd recorder with hard drive allows you to record to both hard drive and disc, and allows you to play dvds as well, all in ONE machine. And once you buy the machine, it's yours to record and play to your heart's content with no subscripion fees to pay monthly. Can't anyone see this? Why would you want to clutter up your living space with both a DVR/PVR and a separate DVD player when you can have both in one machine that you don't have to rent or pay subscription fees for?

[orsetto]

Because, nina96, as has been pointed out by many others earlier in this thread, American television service is unlike that anywhere else in the world. We have something like 85% cable/satellite penetration, and of that 70% opt for premium channels that require a decoder box. We like our sports, we like The Sopranos. But most of us hate HATE H-A-T-E trying to make a DVD recorder cooperate with a decoder box for timeshifting. It requires a bit of coordination and pausing to think first, and the initial hookup is daunting. With a TiVO or cable/satellite PVR, you pay a monthly fee for convenience and performance that cannot be matched by any "100% owned by the consumer" recorder. The monthly-fee recorders offer "one-touch, point to the tv show and click timeshifting" that even Helen Keller could operate, plus they timeshift in 100% high definition. By contrast, dvd and DVD/HDD recorders are a nightmare to timeshift with and they cannot record in high def. If you have a 42" screen and your husband likes sports, get a TiVO or risk your marriage.

Myself, I agree with you. Owning and controlling my own hardware and being able to burn permanent DVDs of whatever I want to keep are more important to me than timer convenience or high def. I cope with difficult timer coordination, and I'm perfectly happy to watch TV shows or old movies burned to standard DVDs on a smaller 22" or 26" flatscreen (which, by the way, was the largest typical living room television size until 2001: how quickly we forget). Unfortunately you and I are a very tiny minority, nina96, everyone else feels "the bigger, the better" and "I can create a bogus Excel spreadsheet in my office so complex it crashes Wall Street and destroys the world economy for a period of three years, but when I get home I want my TV recorder to read my mind and program my shows for me, because I'm wiped out and can barely tell my ass from my elbow". Such is progress.

[victoriabears]

As a Brit, where they archive a great deal to watch another time, I think its because to North Americans TV is not a hobby like it is for the Brits.

The Brits love their TV, have many oldies channels and I think we would all agree the output quality is better, if only because it does not fill up with commercials, 30 seconds after the start of the show.

The need on a dvd recorder to learn how to set the channel.timer etc is more complicated than a PVR.

Although I am of an age group, mid 50's, where most TV/movies are not aimed, I archive nothing from broadcast TV, preferring to borrow DVD's from our fantastic local library or on line rentals.

"The annual cost of a colour TV licence (set by the Government) is currently £142.50. That works out at less than £12 per month - about 39p per day for each household.

A black and white TV licence is £48.

The licence (whether colour or black and white) is free if you are 75 or over, and half-price if you are registered blind, although you still need to apply."

http://www.sky.com/portal/site/skycom/skyproducts/getsky

So for about 70 pounds a month (Doing the currency conversion is an excercise that has limited value) , you get all the BBC, which is 2 main commercial free stations, 5 national radio stations, commercial free, and countless local radio and all the channels like discovery, etc. and Internet and phone.

I think North American cable.satellite is expensive because of the content, I would love to see a BBC style thing here, but again, the interest in the subject is not what it is outside North America.

[usually_quiet]

If the only goal is to time-shift TV viewing and service is obtained via an antenna or an analog cable system that does not require a STB, buying an HDD DVD recorder is a viable option. ...But antenna-only viewers are less than 20% of the population, and the number of analog cable subscribers is dwindling because several cable providers, including mine, are now in the process of moving anything beyond 20 or so mostly local channels to a digital service tier

If consumers need an STB, renting a DVR from the service provider is often less expensive and more convenient than using their own equipmant. TiVo is a different story because of the monthly service fee charged in addition to the cost of the hardware,

Using myself as an example, once Comcast switches me to a digital plan, using my own equipment would require renting 3 STBs, one for the TV and one for each recording device. They'll be giving me a reduced rate for a while, but the normal fee is $7 per month for each STB. None of my equipment includes an IR blaster to change channels on the STB, so I would have to program my recording device to be on at the right time, set up the STB to tune the correct channel, and remember to leave it on. Plus, I will have to buy new recording devices eventually.

Instead, I could rent one STB for the TV, and a DVR that allows me to watch one channel while recording another, or record two channels at the same time, and I would only need to worry about programming the DVR. The regular fee for the DVR is $11 per month. That's $18 vs $21. Maybe I can get by with just a DVR. Thats $11 vs $21.

[jman98]

As a Brit, where they archive a great deal to watch another time, I think its because to North Americans TV is not a hobby like it is for the Brits.

Ding! Ding! Ding! I think we have a winner here.

I am the ONLY person in my circle of friends and family who ever archives TV shows to DVD discs. The ONLY one. I have friends and family who have Tivos (these are a specific brand of DVR in North America) and others with DVD recorders and nobody in either group has any desire to keep even a single show archived. One of my friends who has a DVD recorder simply buys the DVDs of shows he likes when they come out. He does use his DVD recorder but the only thing he ever keeps is copies of American football games that his favorite team plays. Those are not available for purchase anywhere.

[victoriabears]

I gotta tell you guys (Isn;t it lovely when an immigrant learns the local inflections) , I love this forum for its humor if nothing else.

Now if only you could script write for so called comedy shows, most of which look like an update on "I love Lucy"

[Seeker47]

The monthly-fee recorders offer "one-touch, point to the tv show and click timeshifting" that even Helen Keller could operate, plus they timeshift in 100% high definition. By contrast, dvd and DVD/HDD recorders are a nightmare to timeshift with and they cannot record in high def.

I continue to be a bit surprised that the Japanese market (at least there -- because they have a demonstrated history of being "gadget crazy", with a lot of very pricey toys that are never seen over here) never got something like a Pioneer 460 / 660 with a big HDD for Hi-Def plus a Blu-Ray burner. But I'm pretty sure the economics of it would not add up, just for that market, not to mention the movie studios nixing it big time over there much as they would here.

So, I wanted to ask a related question. Do you think it would be possible for someone who could assemble a regular PC and had a nice budget to build their own equivalent-function HTPC ? (I would seriously consider doing this, but then I'm weird that way.) The issues I can see right off the bat:

1. Size / form factor. (Probably solvable.)
2. How do you get it to turn on by itself at designated times ?
3. How do you get it to change the STB channel at set times, as required ?
(Most likely you can't, though the STBs generally have their own timer function.)
4. Recording parameters control, like the MN settings.
5. No dedicated "OS" with relatively simplified editing, thumbnail creation, finalizing etc.

Probably there are some other problems I'm overlooking.

[A Note to the Forum Police: I'm sure that some will disagree, but I feel that 'B' flows directly from 'A', so this is still on-topic. If you can no longer buy a standalone DVDR in the U.S., what other option do you have than to -- in effect -- make your own ?]

[usually_quiet]

As far as #3. Hauppauge makes some tuner cards with an IR blaster to change channels.

Getting the PC to turn itself on is the tough part. The PC might need to be left in a sleep/standy mode.

[PuzZLeR]

He does use his DVD recorder but the only thing he ever keeps is copies of American football games that his favorite team plays. Those are not available for purchase anywhere.

If he's a Steelers fan, boy did he, and I, have quite a season. I love the games I archived with my DVR this season - still will be watching them for years yet.

Maybe the big show - the actual Super Bowl game - can be purchased/downloaded/rebroadcast, but the mini classics along the way to a championship season are the true gold (and black :P). I would have bought these without blinking if they were available, but I knew they wouldn't be unless you record them the first time. My point is - thanks to my DVR I have these irreplaceable gems forever.

Five years later after my purchase, which includes returning to this thread a year later, I still adore my DVR.

[nina96]

If a Blu-ray recorder becomes available in the U.S., the problem of the inability to record in high def is solved.

A blu-ray recorder with 2 tru-way technology would eliminate the need for the stupid box. You could get your all-important Sopranos without need for an stb.

A Blu-ray recorder can also play both Blu-ray and dvd discs.

And the timer recording system is SIMPLE, especially if you set it up manually, just set it one time for each show you watch regularly and you will not have to reset again unless your power is out for a long time. My Panasonic dvd recorder was out once for over 24 hours and none of my settings, or programs already recorded, were lost.

--A big hard drive holds a ton of shows that you can delete or record to disc.
--One touch recording
--Recording one channel while watching another
--The ability to pause and rewind while recorded programs are still in progress
--The abilty to both play and record in one machine
--The ability to transfer your old vcr recordings to disc
--Ability to edit recordings, removing commercials, relabeling titles etc

And the machine is yours, no rental, no subscription. I repeat, TIVO sucks, and is totally unnecessary. Americans are allowing themselves to be duped and ought to be demanding that the technology that exists should be made available in the U.S. Instead they choose to pay more and get less and waste space.

[PuzZLeR]

Nina96 I agree with you totally, but you're talking to a forum like this which is frequented by individuals able, willing and preferring better control of their video recordings/captures. Even if it would be easy indeed to setup anyway, it wouldn't be for Consumer Average Joe and his mindset when it comes to the complexities of "this video thingy".

It's really about marketing, not what's best. TIVO, although would suck among most folk here, still serves a purpose just like maids do when you can clean your own house, or bank tellers do when you can save service charges online or with a bank machine, or when a service attendant fills you up at the pumps when you can easily fill up on gas on your own and save a few pennies.

TIVO's a service. It's unfortunate that such crap is preferred so much more than manual setups to the point where it actually contributed to the end of DVRs. I went to the local electronics chain here in Canada just last week and now they had none more on display. Very sad indeed when I have fond memories of my DVR purchase back then.

And speaking of blu-ray recorders, I would drool for something you describe. But it's funny. I bought my DVR in 2004 thinking that this will carry me for a few years till blu-ray (or maybe HD-DvD) recording units hit.

Where are they? I'm still waiting.

[joecass]

Toshiba of Japan made some Hi Def recorders with a hard drive, not available in the US market. Since Toshiba's HD format
lost to Sony's Blu-Ray, I guess it will be up to Sony to come out with Blu-Ray Hi Def recorders with hard drives with the
ability to burn content to Blu-Ray discs or DVD

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2007_10/pr3101.htm

[orsetto]

I guess it will be up to Sony to come out with Blu-Ray Hi Def recorders with hard drives with the
ability to burn content to Blu-Ray discs or DVD

Sony seems to have handed off everything BD (except the PS3 and a couple of players) to Panasonic, which is planning to market some pretty slick BluRay/HDD recorders. They cost something like $2000 and up, natch, and are only being sold in select parts of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, but they're out there. Whether they'll reach North America before being eclipsed by holographic recording on sugar cubes is anyones guess.

[Seeker47]

I thought there already were Blu-Ray burners you could stick in a PC -- albeit slow and expensive -- but I haven't really been paying attention to this "market" or component category, thus far.

[SatStorm]

Meanwhile, in Europe, we have USB PVRs now!

Those are typical satellite / terrestrial / cable recievers with a USB or e-SATA port. You hook there any external USB (or - more rare - e-SATA) HDD (or stick), push the red button on the remote and that's it! What you see, is recorded. You can playback that with the same reciever or you can carried it "as is" to your PC. Also time shift, pause, ff, rew, etc... All are there.
And this is possible with both SD and HD broadcasts!

Also, all the receivers with an ethernet port, you can connect them to your home LAN and store the broadcast directly to your PC. A 2 click process.

I don't understand why to get a standalone recorder, when there are so many alternatives. I mean: Hook HDD / USB Stick, press rec. No quality loss, simple data storeing.
How could it be easier?

[edDV]

Meanwhile, in Europe, we have USB PVRs now!

Those are typical satellite / terrestrial / cable recievers with a USB or e-SATA port. You hook there any external USB (or - more rare - e-SATA) HDD (or stick), push the red button on the remote and that's it! What you see, is recorded. You can playback that with the same reciever or you can carried it "as is" to your PC. Also time shift, pause, ff, rew, etc... All are there.
And this is possible with both SD and HD broadcasts!

You can do that here in the USA (via eSATA) but the files are encrypted and playable only on the cable/sat tuner that recorded it and then only if you are current in payments.