<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jan 11, 2007, at 4:13 PM, Steve Hodge wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">On 1/12/07, <B class="gmail_sendername">Brian Wood</B> <<A href="mailto:beww@beww.org">beww@beww.org</A>> wrote:<DIV><DIV><BR>My guess is purely subscription funded TV initially and probably pay-per-view (probably on demand, e.g. downloads) in the long term. Somebody will probably try more intrusive ads such a banners, but I don't think the public will accept it. Free to air, advertising-funded networks will have to find a new business model or go broke. <BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>There is already talk of commercials with more or less static visual messages that would be seen in FFWDing through a spot.</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><DIV></DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">As long as Myth remains a "hobbyist" application I don't think the <BR>advertisers will perceive us as much of a threat as far as commercial<BR>skipping.</BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR>The writing is on the wall. If it's not MythTV it'll be something else. E.g. LG have released TVs in Australia with inbuild HDDs that support 30 second skip (50PB2DR, 42LC2DR). Incidentally Australian TV networks refused to air commercials touting that feature. <BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>A 30-second skip is fairly common today. A TiVo can do it with a simple hack, TiVi is smart enough to not ship units that have the feature out of the box.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>But you have to have the remote in hand and take a positive step (push the button) for each 30-second skip. Inevitably you will wind up watching *some* of the spots.</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><DIV></DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">If it were to go commercial in a big way that would be a different<BR>story, look what happened with ReplayTV. </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR>Naturally broadcasters will try to protect the status quo in the face of change, but in the end they'll lose. It's inevitable.<BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I agree, but the end can sometimes be pretty far away, and the broadcasters can be pretty persistent. Look how they just never seem to give on the "broadcast flag".</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><DIV></DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> That's one of the reasons I get nervous when outfits try and sell<BR>commercial Myth systems. I'm afraid the advertising community would<BR>put pressure on Tribune to stop making things easier for us.</BLOCKQUOTE> </DIV><BR>That may well happen, and if it does then MythTV community will adapt. Don't forget that those of us that don't live in North America are already in that situation.<BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE>And we here in NA had to "scrape the screen" before DataDirect. I think Tribune came up with DD because they realized it would put less load on their system.<BR></DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>