By Alan Kohler
Analysis
August 24, 2004 - 3:51PM

Over the weekend we learnt that Rupert Murdoch thinks the next media revolution will be personal video recorders, which are basically a cross between VCRs and computers, in which the TV programs are recorded on a big internal hard drive instead of videotape.

One always is inclined to pay attention to Rupert Murdoch's musings on the future of the media, but perhaps the most interesting thing about PVRs is that we can't buy them, even though they have been on sale in America for four years.

Murdoch's Foxtel plans to introduce them next March - a total delay of about five years, if it's the first to sell them.

Why the hold-up? Answer: PVRs have been kept out of Australia by a TV network conspiracy.

That's because they allow advertisements to be easily skipped, either when you are recording or playing back.

They also improve the efficiency of recording TV in general by using electronic program guides (EPGs) to help preset the recorder weeks ahead, but the main thing is ad-skipping. "Ad-free TV" is the promise.

In the US, TV networks were unable to prevent PVRs. A device called TiVo has become a cult product and is selling well for $US99.99 ($A138).

In Australia the networks have blocked them. TiVo has been trying to get into the Australian market but failed. Go to the local Harvey Norman or JB Hi-Fi and you won't find a PVR.

To operate effectively, PVRs need electronic program guides so they can hunt for shows you want to record; without EPGs they are just VCRs with more storage.

The TV networks control who gets program guides in Australia because the courts here apply a different copyright law to that in America. A seminal case called Telstra v Desktop Marketing, in which Telstra prevented that company reusing the White Pages, has resulted in copyright in Australia applying to raw data.

In America, thanks to a case called Feist v Rural Telephone, there needs to be creative addition for copyright to apply.

A Sydney-based listed company called HWW Ltd, controlled by Stephen Wall, has a licence to distribute electronic versions of TV guides in Australia. Its contracts with the TV networks explicitly prevent it from selling the guides to anyone who plans to use them in PVRs. In the contracts, the networks assert copyright over the guides, although this has not been tested in court.

Chief executive Paul Marshall says he gets at least five requests a month to use the program guides in PVRs. He refuses them all.

Another company in Sydney, Faulconbridge, using the brand name ICE and run by Peter Vogel, believes it has found a way around this.

Vogel collects TV guide information from a variety of public sources, including newspapers and websites, and is planning to launch a service for PVR owners in two weeks' time, providing EPGs over a wireless data network for $2 a week.

He says his legal advice is that copyright does not attach to his EPG, but he is preparing for a big legal battle anyway. He believes, with good reason, that the TV networks will move heaven and earth to stop him.

But the thing they really want to stop is not so much his EPG service, which might actually get people to watch more TV, but his fiendish added extra: for $1 a week Peter Vogel will also notify your PVR, using the wireless data network, when the ads start and finish.

This means that when the PVR is recording a program, it can stop recording during the ads (this is what TiVo machines do in the US). When you play it back - no ads!

The implications of this for TV networks are obvious. In the US, TiVo has produced a trend towards product placement in TV shows instead of traditional ads, because so many people are zapping them. There are some who believe that the only viable long-term television business model is now subscription (which is why Rupert Murdoch is excited).

Even without Peter Vogel's ad-notification service there is trouble for the networks.

I found a business in Melbourne called DVRs Direct, run by Nigel Trinca, selling digital PVRs through a website. He sells 14 brands from Korea and Taiwan at $500 to $1500.

Most of them, says Trinca, can be programmed to automatically skip the ads, but he doesn't want to take on the networks. Instead, his machines fast-forward in 30-second jumps. So you press it five times for five 30-second ads, which takes about five seconds, and the ads are gone.

Yesterday I went into a JB Hi-Fi store. There were a few hard-drive video recorders for sale (they're not PVRs without EPGs) that have varying ad-skipping abilities. One fast-forwards very quickly; another goes in 10-second jumps. All of them are more efficient at zapping the ads than any VCR.

And that's the basic problem for the networks: the principle of fast-forwarding is no different to the VCRs we are all used to, and the recordable DVDs that are on the market now.

It's just that PVRs are much better at it, and can do it automatically, while they record.

Foxtel and Rupert Murdoch, meanwhile, have an interesting decision to make with their own PVRs next March: what sort of fast-forward/ad-skipping do they allow? (Five per cent of Foxtel's revenue comes from ads and Kerry Packer owns 25 per cent of the business.)

Will it be just the usual rolling fast-forward, or 10-second skips, or 30-second skips, or automatic ad-zapping?

I asked Foxtel this question yesterday - a spokesman said it hadn't decided yet. But he understood the significance of the decision.

If Peter Vogel wins his forthcoming battle and other PVRs have the full ad-skipping function, anything less from Foxtel would make its PVRs less attractive to the market, but threaten 5 per cent of revenue.

The networks and Foxtel have done well to hold back the tide for four years, but they can't do it forever.

Whoops, I forgot - this is Australia. Maybe they can.

This story was found at: http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/24/1093246514861.html

VoIP gaining ground, despite cost concerns - Computerworld: "oIP gaining ground, despite cost concerns
Users see benefits in the networking technology

News Story by Matt Hamblen

AUGUST 13, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Interest in voice-over-IP projects at U.S. businesses remains keen, according to analysts, and several companies are moving ahead with plans to install such systems.

For example, The Boeing Co. said last month that it plans to install 150,000 VoIP phones and related networking equipment from Cisco Systems Inc. (see story). In March, IBM outlined plans to provide VoIP phones to about 400,000 of its employees and contractors over the next five years using gear from Avaya Inc., Cisco and Siemens AG (see story). And SouthTrust Bank in Birmingham, Ala., has installed a VoIP system, based mainly on Cisco gear, in 825 branches in the Southeast over the past three years. The system has saved the bank millions of dollars and has reduced annual communication costs by 30%, said Stanley Adams, SouthTrust's group vice president of network services."