[mythtv-users] The Death of MythTV in the US?

[jedi]

On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 05:52:35PM -0600, Brett Kosinski wrote:
> >  Anyone know why the cable companies even care? What does time warner care if
> >  you have a copy of an HBO TV Show? NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, etc don't seem to
> >  care, cause if they did, I'm sure they would have ranted enough to have some
> >  type of encryption created with the digital OTA broadcasts and then have
> >  only certified TV's able to decrypt those stations.
> 
> Well, never forget that these cable companies are, more likely than
> not, part of large corporate conglomerates that also include media
> production arms.  As such, you can bet Time Warner Cable is influenced
> by the needs of the various Time Warner production arms, who generate
> content that ends up broadcast on their network.
> 
> Meanwhile, cable companies have a business:  they broadcast content to
> get eyeballs.  Those eyeballs then provide subscriber revenue (which
> makes up a good majority of their income), as well as local
> advertising dollars.  And if you don't have good content, that means
> you might lose eyeballs to competitors who are, right now,
> overbuilding your network and stealing your subs. And it's those same
> advertising spots you'll likely use to advertise your own services to
> fight overbuilders, which means good content is even more important.
> 
> So, make no mistake, it's most certainly in the interest of these
> operators to protect the content as best they can.

   If that's what they're really worried about then the have far more
to fear from Frys and Walmart. A great deal of their content is being
sold to the end user. A lot of what you might have cable for can be
permanently acquired. No more need to bother with cable.

   A sort of JediTV plugin would be a cool idea in this regard. It's
a notion I've brought up before, sort of virtual channles that feed
you stuff from MythVideo as if it were part of a TV channel lineup.