[mythtv-users] Tivo suing everyone in sight over DVR patents

[Brian Wood]

On Friday 28 August 2009 01:08:32 Simon Hobson wrote:

> Yes, I was once told to just read the first few claims. The key bit
> of this is Claim 1, and MythTV does not infringe upon it in my
> opinion (IANAL). If it came down to it, what Myth does has prior art
> - such as the (expensive) systems used way before this patent for
> instant replays during live sports coverage. Early onces used tape
> and a mechanism to looping up a lot of tape to the recorder could
> keep recording while the playback machine was shuttled back and forth
> as required, I believe some used laser disk with a separate readback
> head though I stand to be corrected on that.

That was the Ampex HS-100 unit, for which Ampex won it's 12th (technical) 
emmy. Introduced in 1967 I believe.

It  was a nice big shiny metal disk using magnetic, not laser/optical, 
technology. You cleaned it with the special cleaning fluid, which was 
re-packaged isopropyl alchohol.

You could record up to 30 seconds of video, and since you could be "reviewing" 
another program on a TV set, Tivo's patent should have been tossed out for 
prior art.

-- 
Brian Wood
beww at beww.org