Supreme Court allows wider DVR use

The Supreme Court declined to block a new digital video recording system that could make it easier for viewers to bypass commercials.
(From The New York Times)

The story "Supreme Court allows wider DVR use" published June 30, 2009 at 4:33 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[Seaspray0]

Perhaps if the programmers toned down the volume in their ads, I wouldn't be so objectionable. There are rules on volume, but over the years, advertisers have found new ways to streach that rule to the point that makes their ads equivalent to shouting.

[RompStar_420]

I never buy anything from any commercials, or web click ads, never have and been using the internet since it started. I wonder who clicks on that crap anyways, I have a hard time justifying these billion dollar online business models.

[kieranmullen]

Before it started eh? Me and my 300 bps modem disagree. Internet is a proper noun.
KieranMullen
Portland, Oregon

[Mergatroid Mania]

He said since it started, not since before it started.
I was using the internet before it was available to the general public, and I have also watched it change over all the years. I agree, I have never clicked on an ad either, and I also wonder just who the people are who have so little do to that they actually click on ads. After all, you can learn more by looking through websites than most ads wil tell you.

[fokkwp]

Advertisers will always find a way to advertise. It's all about competition, right? so if there are less places to advertise, the smarter, better, more competent advertisers will garner all the revenue for their clients and their smarter, better, more competent executives. All you need is one billboard in the entire United States of America, and let the best company win! Or even better, make products so good that we can't stop twittering and blogging about them (as if those media weren't already saturated with paid promotions, thinly disguised).

Same with electronic distribution. If that doesn't turn out to be economically viable, don't use the channel. You're in business to compete, not legislate more corporate welfare, right? Right?

[BtmnHatesRbn]

The companies complain...look, we don't want commercials. Hate to break it to Hollywood, but we don't. Case in point: AMC. Concorde 79 took near 4 hrs. to watch. It's like 100 minutes or something. Every two minutes a commercial. And commercials are supposed to be two minutes. I can tell, since I worked at a TV station, commericals are four to six minutes long now.

I'll keep Netflixing DVD on TV or buying the shows, if I really want it, on iTunes or Xbox 360. So what if the show's a little late. Nobody "stands around the water cooler" at my jobs anymore. That's a 1950s thing, where three networks controlled the content and Lucky Strikes promoted the whole show.

[Been_there_Saw_it_before]

The best part of the remote is the mute switch. Blab off to the commercials.

A few other observations about commercials...
Low priced cars have louder commercials than high priced cars (in general).
Most medicine is aimed at women.

Commercials do not have higher Volume, but they do have a different frequency distribution and a much higher energy density. The energy density is what ought to be regulated. Set the energy in a commercial at the same level as the prior program for the same length of time.

[gsigas]

I don't mind commercials if they are inside free content, are brief and at the beginning, middle and end (like Hulu) and if they match my interests (like a lot of ads do on interest-related websites). When I pay for something I don't want any commercials at all inside the content.

[Mergatroid Mania]

I agree, commercials have their place. It's just that their place is not in my face like full page web ads that open when you go to a website (right CNET?).

[unknown unknown]

The fact that this was even in court is just another example of ridiculous copyright has become. It's fair use when the DVR is next to your TV, but copyright infringement when it's move to a remote location despite the result being the same. I am just glad the Court of Appeals saw through this and the Supreme Court listened to the Solicitor General and refused this case.

I don't mind a few commercials, but when you start getting 5 minutes of programming and 4 minutes or more of commercials, I change the channel or go find it online.

[Mergatroid Mania]

The whole arguement about commercials is just a distraction.
People have been skipping commercials ever since VCRs came out. To start whining about it now is just misleading us from what they actually want (whatever that is, control?).

I have a DVR at home, so I don't need one from a cable company. And mine also has a DVD burner in it. It's odd that the industry would object to a cable DVR but not to the home DVRs with DVD burners.

Oh, and I have a button on my DVR remote just for skipping commercials, so I don't need one from the cable company to do that.
The real problem is that there's very little on TV these days worth recording anyway. My DVR doesn't even get as much use as my VCR used to. Maybe that's what they're trying to distract us from.

I have had DVRs since I was introduced to the concept by the first TiVo generation. Then got ReplayTVs, then tried the DirecTiVo then tried the DishDVR to finally end up with a Vista Media Center with 6 tuners (2 analog, 2 ATSC, 2 QAM). I would only replace this with a CableCard capable Media Center. I use LifeExtender to get rid of the commercials. I am also a Netflix subscriber and we watch a lot of TV series from their online library. I can't stand watching Live TV as you get sucked into the channel surfing to avoid the commercial breaks and end up wasting a ton of time to consume the content in between the commercials. One other thing that I have noticed with my kids is that they watch a lot less TV than other kids we know that rely on live TV because their TV shows END/STOP. If you watch the chain of shows that are on the kids channels with all the commercials about the NEXT/BEST show ever, you would never turn off the damn thing.
I posted the long background of how my kids were raised with DVRs to let you know that they actually mentioned this feature that I didn't know CableVision was fighting in court to enable. I remember one day I was browsing through the guide to find a show to be recorded when one of my kids said 'why don't you play this one and that one?' for shows I wasn?t recording at the time. I tried to talk about the limitations of disk capacity and number of tuners, but then they said why can't somebody get the biggest disk and 100s of tuners and record everything so that we can play it here. I thought it's a great idea, but left it at that. Well if this service does become available, I would definetly be intrigued to give it a try but commercials must be something short like Hulu commercials. Go CableVision!