Free Republic

LAS VEGAS - The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is a new convert - to the personal digital video recorder. "My favorite product that I got for Christmas is TiVo," FCC chairman Michael Powell said during a question and answer session at the International Consumer Electronics Show. "TiVo is God's machine." If Powell's enthusiasm for digital recordings of TV broadcasts is reflected in FCC rulings, the entertainment industry could have a tough time pushing its agenda in Washington. It wants restrictions on making and sharing the recordings. Powell said he plans to use TiVo to record shows to...

There's Linux code to turn an old PC into a personal video recorder. Some people don't like that idea at all. Take one digital video capture card, a big cheap hard disk, a home-brew infrared receiver, and a seven-year-old PC out of your nearest closet or dumpster. Add some free software and—voila!—you have a personal video recorder, your own homemade Tivo. As with Tivo, watch what you want, when you want. Thumb your nose at the head of Turner Broadcasting or whoever else is angry that you have broken your "contract" to sit through commercials and are "stealing" programming if...

<p>Basil Iwanyk is not a neo-Nazi. Lukas Karlsson isn't a shadowy stalker. David S. Cohen is not Korean.</p> <p>But all of them live with a machine that seems intent on giving them such labels. It's their TiVo, the digital videorecorder that records some programs it just assumes its owner will like, based on shows the viewer has chosen to record. A phone call the machine makes to TIVO, Inc., in San Jose, Calif., once a day provides key information. As these men learned, when TiVo thinks it has you pegged, there's just one way to change its "mind": outfox it.</p>

The BBC was accused yesterday of Orwellian tactics after digital video machines in thousands of homes were switched on remotely to record Caroline Aherne's new sitcom Dossa and Joe. The move was described as the equivalent of junk mail. Many of the 50,000 households that own TiVo machines awoke on Friday to discover that the 30-minute programme had been downloaded on to their recorders without having asked for it. It is the first time a broadcaster has used the new technology to try to boost audiences for a show. TiVo's selling point is its ability to "remember" to tape viewers'...

Jamie Kellner, chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting System Inc., argued that if personal video recorders like TiVo Inc.'s and SONICblue Inc.'s ReplayTV are going to allow viewers to zap commercials, consumers should pay for the privilege -- as much as $250 per year. At a dinner with AOL Time Warner executives and the media Sunday in New Orleans -- gathered there for the National Show -- Kellner said he worries that PVRs that will eventually be installed in set-top boxes threaten to destroy commercial TV, which, he argued, is already a fragile business. He cited a new analyst report...