Re: Apple II: Second Best Tech Product of All Time!

[alawther@spammenot.mac.com (Anthony Lawther)]

mdj <mdj.mdj@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Apr 4, 9:42 am, Andy McFadden <fad...@fadden.com> wrote:
> 
> > > I barely even know what a TiVo is. The only way I know at all is from
> > > stale US TV shows that have oozed over here slowly. Was it really so
> > > influential?
> >
> > Apparently you are not of the body.
> >
> > You will pry my TiVo from my cold dead hands, and probably not even
> >then.
> 
> The Television industry is a very different beast in Australia. There are
> only three commercial free to air networks and two cable players, and
> they're trying their level best to take advantage of outdated draconian
> copyright law and prevent the introduction of PVR's to the Australian
> market. Heck, providing machine-consumable television programming
> information is illegal here.

Hmmm... which Australia are you guys living in?

The situation might be different for analog TV but with digital TV there
is a wide selection of PVRs available for use, with an Electronic
Program Guide (machine-consumable television programming information)
as part of the package.
There is a dashboard widget for OS X that gives access to the TV guide
for basically all stations in the major cities (another example of
machine-consumable television programming information).

> A few bold individuals import TiVo's and hack them to work with the local
> television system, but it's essentially an underground phenomena. I think
> that's what Tristan was eluding to.

I don't know why anyone would bother importing a TiVo and then commence
hacking when you can go to your local Good Guys, Harvey Norman or
similar and buy yourself a Topfield (or other brand) PVR with digital
tuners that works straight out of the box. Given the digital tuners it
can't be used for anything *but* recording TV broadcasts. If this wasn't
legal then surely they wouldn't be available for sale ?!?!

With analog transmission ending within the next decade (at the latest)
any analog solution is a waste of resources IMHO.

> 
> The geek (and even non-geek) crowd in Australia is skipping over PVR,
> since actual content is *very* limited and most of it is imported from the
> US or UK, so the better model for us is to torrent our content via the
> net.
> 
> Or so I've heard anyway :-)
> 
> Matt

Perhaps I'm in the minority. I have a PVR, haven't kept it quiet, and
haven't had the police beating down my door. I also don't feel I have
the justification for spending large amounts of money on "high-speed"
broadband, to then download TV (is that legal?) that I can get for free
anyway.

YMMV,
Anthony.