DocBug

How long is the long run? Do you think the whole host of small manufacturers, kit makers and DIY mod kits will be sufficient to make commercial skipping and sharing DVRs more than a niche hobby? Apple 1s and Heathkits and all of the other small manufacturers and kit makers of the 70s stayed a niche market for a really long time.

If they stave of DVRs for even 5 years, they may get a foothold into another economic model that will keep them earning money. I think that is what they are trying for. TV distribution is not the lost battle that music distribution seems to be.

It's always dangerous to make timeline predictions, but I expect we'll see a lot more feature-rich systems within the next two years. That or the PC-as-media-hub will become a reality and folks will just buy a cheap wireless system that hooks their TV to their computer, and then download free software to do the job for them.

Software is hard to limit because there's no one source you can stomp out. Killing Napster was like hitting mercury with a ball-peen hammer -- the whole thing just became more distributed and difuse. Now hardware is becoming Napsterized, or more specifically things that used to be in the domain of specific, controllable hardware devices are being moved into the software domain. Things like WireTap (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/freebies/ ) send a clear message to the appliance manufacturers: figure out a way to give consumers what they want (without getting sued into oblivion) or someone else will.

(by the way, the link to the Seattle times gives me a page not found error, and the link to ambrosia does too.)

Of course, this morning I come across this:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59690,00.html

Which describes exactly what you were referring to: a PVR made from off the shelf parts, designed to be extendable and hackable. Its to be sold commercially for $900, no subscription fee. Seems a bit steep. It doesn't come with a commercial skip, but will share files on a net. It's just a linux box, and they are apparently courting 3rd party developers.

Maybe they will manage to give us what we want without getting sued into oblivion, maybe not. Its that possibility of being sued into oblivion that make me think that it's not quite guaranteed that if the appliance manafacturers don't come up with a way to give it to us , "someone" else will.

Links have been fixed, thanks.

If they keep suing folk then eventually we'll get to a point where the software is free and downloadable, like Gnutella, and the hardware is a general purpose media hub. At that point there's no one to sue except the end-user. Mind you, they've already proven themselves desperate enough to sue those end users and bad-PR be damned, but if that doesn't produce a chilling effect they're sunk. Especially since the whole "skip a commercial, go to jail" argument probably won't wash in court anyway.