Sony DVR Useless After Rovi Stops TV Guide OnScreen 321
New submitter speedlaw writes "Rovi has just announced that they are stopping the TV Guide OnScreen service as of April 13th, 2013. This was announced via the service itself. This is an on-air listing service that provides listings over the air, as part of an OTA TV signal. Many devices, notably the Sony HDD 250 and 500 Digital Video Recorders, will no longer function without the clock-set data this stream provides. When other companies decide to stop supporting something, they don't make older systems useless. Worse, Sony never came out with another DVR in the U.S. market. Why do we have to rent them? How do we get Sony or Rovi to provide at least a software patch to set the clock so the DVR can at least retain 1980s VCR functionality? Sony admits there is no fix. A thread on AVS forums has a bunch of information on TV Guide OnScreen. The TV stations who broadcast the data have been ordered by Rovi to disconnect the data inserters and ship them back. I have a TiVo, and yes, I know all about HTPC, but this data stream was 'lifetime listings' like TiVo has 'lifetime listings' — now that Rovi is looking to cut service, my two DVR units are about to become useless."
What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why don't the channels just broadcast the programme data alongside the actual programming? That's how they do it here, in the DVB-T streams. A full week's worth of programming and programme descriptions, transmitted over the air.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Informative)
Thats what happens here in Australia too, the networks broadcast program data over-the-air through the DVB-T streams. How far into the future depends on the network but all of them do it.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the issues with this method is that each channel only sends its own guide data, as they have no incentive to let you know what is showing on other channels. This is the way it is done in the US.
The problem is that to see what's on another channel, your TV has to tune to that channel. If the TV has enough memory and the channels send data for long enough, the TV can just do this sort of tuning when it is "turned off" and it would work fine. But, without memory or extended guide data, there is no way to check the guide for channels that you are not watching without stopping viewing of live TV.
A DVR should always have plenty of memory, and if it has more than one tuner then most of the time you shouldn't have an issue even without extended guide data, but without extended data, there would be times that shows would not record because all tuners were in use for current recordings and could not be used to see what's coming up.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
"... they have no incentive to let you know what is showing on other channels."
There is a ridiculously simple -- and INEXPENSIVE -- solution to this problem:
[1] Each broadcast or cable channel publishes its schedule and program info to a central database at the FCC.
[2] The FCC broadcasts -- free -- all this information, on a specified band and standardized format.
[3] Problem disappears.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
It probably violates someone's copyright or patent. Or that's what they think may be the case. Better be safe than sorry, consumers be damned. They're anyway supposed to just consume the advertising with intermittant fragments of some mildly entertaining show, instead fo recording it and remove the ads.
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Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
An area of computer tech NOT mired in bogus trivial patents? THAT would be the thing that you need to defend. The original jaded comments were very much consistent with the state of current patent law.
Just consider Tivos own patents and the fact that someone else sitting on a patent jury managed to get a redundant patent.
The PTO can't even keep track of it's own nonsense.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually the very first VCR my parent's owned got the programming directly from teletext. You could go to the page where the program is listed, select the page, and it would take the data directly from that page and store it (and it even got the correct VPS times that way, in cases they differed from scheduled times). That was before the invention of ShowView, the system which presumably was making programming your VCR so simple. I've never understood why entering a seemingly arbitrary number should be more easy than just selecting directly from the program table. Indeed, that was the easiest to program VCR I've ever come across, and superior to all the systems which came later, without exceptions. And it worked perfectly for more than a decade (apart from a nasty Y2K bug which you had to work around by lying about the year) until the VCR stopped working correctly (and it was not the programming part that failed)
And of course, if the stations had ever stopped to provide programming data over teletext, the VCR had also the option to enter everything manually.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:4, Informative)
You don't state where you are but they also broadcast the data on DVB-T in the UK, and the Sony recorders are still next to useless. They used some proprietary data source that died a few years ago and now the best you can manage is 1980s VCR like functionality where you program the clock and then a recording time and channel. Not exactly the experience you expect with a high end high price DVR.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think this is bad wait a couple of more years for smart tv's to start needing these kinds of updates.
People expect their tv's to last 10+ years without a simple software update some of those tv's won't be working right.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think this is bad wait a couple of more years for smart tv's to start needing these kinds of updates.
I know. I'm wandering around various stores laughing at these 'Smart TVs' with stuff like YouTube and Netflix on them and thinking to myself 'What happens when this needs a major update in a couple of years, someone changes their interfaces or Netflix goes bust?'. It'll also be a cold day in hell before I plug an ethernet cable into a TV and give it access to the internet. I hate to be cynical, but us technical people always know this crap goes badly wrong.
If I want this shit I will plug my computer into the TV. In the meantime just display the damn picture on the screen.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Informative)
You do not need to wait a couple of years. I purchased a Samsung TV (LN-750B model - although not for the smart TV functions) and they promised all sorts of applets for the TV. Netflix being one of them.
9 months later, a new model comes out and Samsung releases a firmware update for my model. What does it do? Locks the set to the last available firmware and makes it unmodifiable. Then they drop all support.
Netflix never appeared for it either. Better to have an expensive "dumb" TV and a cheap smart box to attach to it.
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same. I have the LN40B630. There was I think only a couple firmware updates since I bought it. Same with my LG Blu Ray player, and the last one of which farked up my DVD quality.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:4, Interesting)
It'll also be a cold day in hell before I plug an ethernet cable into a TV and give it access to the internet.
My TV has an Ethernet connection and can do things like show YouTube and Netflix. I don't care about any of those extras because other cheaper devices can also do this for me.
But, the Ethernet connection does give me an easy way to apply updates (one has already improved picture quality), and stream media from a PC. The TV also has a web browser that is good enough to allow basic browsing, and works pretty well if you add a bluetooth keyboard. With bookmarks, you can do things like check the local weather without even needing a keyboard. This means that you can do some things without having to have another device involved. You can also control the TV using an Android or iOS app.
So, yeah, when they stop supporting the TV with updates, some of this functionality will stop, but there is a lot that an Ethernet connection gives you that will never go away.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
These days? Because if they did that, then people could record the shows, and skip the ads. And that would be terrible.
At least if you're a TV network who wants to milk the most ad money you possibly can. Don't forget, getting up to go to the bathroom during the commercials is theft.
Re:What are the channels doing? (Score:5, Funny)
Great that I'm already in the bathroom that I can express what I think of that.
The data is broadcast, just not for this box (Score:5, Informative)
The data is available, and broadcast, alongside ATSC signals via the PSIP system. But this particular box chose to use the proprietary system instead; I believe it provided data much farther out than the PSIP data.
What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hello...it's Sony. You should be surprised that it worked this long.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
And "plays for sure" can't have hurt many customers. For starters those devices never sold well, secondly there can't have been much content sold for it either, with so little uptake on the hardware side.
That was mostly MS screwing over their business partners. But then, MS business partners are probably used to that already.
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..they sold hundreds of millions of devices. (hint: certain mobile manufacturers phones included playforsure... which made it more complicated for that manufacturer to give root access to developers - as it would have enabled stripping that drm, never mind that it was easy enough to strip anyhow... that screwed a lot of people actually. and to add insult to injury now that same company made MS their primary partner! GO TEAM!!!)
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Surprised for other reasons. (Score:5, Funny)
Hello...it's Sony. You should be surprised that it worked this long.
Sometimes it's a good thing when Sony products die. It means they stop spying on you.
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Wish there were a +1000 insightful mod.
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Sony used to be the brand of high quality products. All my old Sony tape players and other hardware still works. It can take awhile for people to lose their impressions of a company, especially if they don't understand why their devices stop working. "Computer tech just does that sometimes"
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Yeah, it's funny - you can almost guess the age of someone based on their opinion of Sony. Those of us who were buying electronic gadgets in the '80s still have a memory of Sony as making some of the best quality consumer electronics, and being innovative as well. Those who weren't old enough to be buying consumer electronics until the mid 90s and beyond know Sony only as an insane DRM machine.
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Hey, my Sony remote for the Sony TV I bought failed within 18 months, but Sony said "We don't make that remote anymore!"
Sony is a Dinosaur; headed for quick extinction.
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rms is right (Score:5, Insightful)
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More importantly, try to get the common consumer to care.
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Doesn't work. To them, it's just you searching for excuses because you're too dumb to fix it.
After all, you're just you, but Sony, that's a big company where a lot of very smart people made that piece of crap you're now struggling to get to work. People still think that products are made with the intention to serve them, not their maker.
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There was an article on Techdirt like this with senior people from the content industries doing the complaining about things like the magical button they want at Google.com that will allow them to stop piracy. This kind of stupidity isn't just restricted to people's n00b friends and relatives. Captains of industry that should be smarter than that also buy into that kind of nonsense.
All around there are plenty of people that don't understand that there's a limit to what tech can do or what companies are will
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Captains of industry that should be smarter than that also buy into that kind of nonsense.
These are the same captains of industry that have their administrative assistants print out their emails so that they can read them and hand write a reply. The admin then dutifully types the reply email from the notes. It's going to get worse before it gets better.
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Re:rms is right (Score:5, Insightful)
In particular, this situation indicates why tivoized [wikipedia.org] systems are a bad thing and why the GPLv3 was necessary. Not that this system had GPL'd software in it necessarily, but if it had, it would have needed the updated, v3 license to allow customers to run their own mods to make the hardware work for them.
Oh, wait. Are the Sony HDD 250 and 500 DVR systems digital signature-locked to prevent modified software from operating?
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Exactly. I find myself someties sticking out as being one of the most pro-GPLv3 people I know (I hang around with a lot of open source software contributors), and it's when situations like this occur that I can point to the flag I'm standing under, and say "This is why I am here - I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so".
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Re:rms is right (Score:4, Insightful)
Proprietary software isn't the problem here, proprietary APIs are. If there was an open API that could be switched too this wouldn't be an issue.
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This is the classic "I can't fix my own printer" problem that inspired RMS to propagate Free Software.
Of course the problem is proprietary softare and systems that cannot be serviced by the end user.
Wake up, Federal Trade Commission (Score:5, Interesting)
There should be a mandate that if you want to be a dick and no longer choose to support the software of an obsolete product you sold to maintain core functionality, you should forfeit the source code. At the very least, make it legal to reverse engineer and distribute fixes/functionality without fear of retribution. This is going to become much more common in the future unless someone does something.
Re:Wake up, Federal Trade Commission (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes - I agree, if you don't support it at least make the source code available.
I recently upgraded from CentOS5 to CentOS6. I have a 4 year old Brother printer/scanner, the RPMs for the drivers would not install (wrong [old] version of glibc & similar). Brother tech support tried to be helpful, but no - it was no longer sold and they would not create new RPMs. With a bit of fiddling I was able to get it to work - but a naive user would not have [I am not being rude about some people].
I will never buy a Brother product again - 4 years is not that old for a bit of hardware; if they don't maintain their drivers I will not take the risk of being left with working but unusable hardware; neither will I support a company that leaves its customers in the lurch.
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Unfortunately, 4 years isn't all that bad these days. Lacie has dropped support for 1 year old drives, G-Drives (now Hitachi) dropped support for their expensive externals after 2 years.
Their answer? We'll give you a 10% discount on some new stuff from us.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
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Actually, our copyright law makes reverse engineering "for the intention to create or maintain interoperability" legal. If yours doesn't, it's time to give your politicians a kick in the rear.
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Great idea... but that's just not going to work either.
Very few projects can simply open up their code without getting into all kinds of legal trouble. Third party libraries, distribution agreements, confidentiality agreements, licenses, employment contracts, etc ad infinitum. Some of this can be negotiated around, some can't. None of it can happen without people willing to put in the time and energy (and money) to do it.*
And I don't believe the government should be intervening in business to place them in
COTS versus embedded (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why you buy COTS hardware instead of embedded solutions, guys. You can always upgrade the software on your own if you have to, but if you can't get to the firmware, then there's no telling if there's some dependancy or requirement to an outside source that you've overlooked. People have been building their own PVRs for years now, and many open source solutions like XMBC have matured to the point where they offer multiple service providers on a wide variety of cheap hardware.
And here's another reason people pirate: I know that I'll always have my video files on my harddrive. They're in a video container format that's been industry standard for years. There are no commercials, no external dependancies, and will play on almost any computer. I can't get that with Netflix -- once, I was halfway through watching a series on 'instant play' when they yanked the entire series. It's no longer available because of some obscure licensing issue that I wasn't informed of until after it was gone. When you rely on "legal" solutions, you're conceding that they have the right and ability to terminate your access at any time. That's also why I don't watch cable TV: It's encrypted and I can't record it. I can't go back and watch it again, and it may never be available again. With pirated content, I know exactly when it'll be available once I have it: Forever.
You're in America (Score:5, Interesting)
Cant you just sue them?
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Sure, and after 5-10 years of legal battles, your DVR just might work again!
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Not this one. (Score:5, Informative)
From what I read, Sony decided to save pennies by not having a rtc, and relying on the ota signals. So no ota clock signals, no clock, no work.
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Bashing onwards (Score:5, Informative)
Is this meant to be another bash SONY because they are "evil" "article"?
Before you head down that line, note that:
- Rovi (corporation) used to be called Macrovision.
- This is for a (free?) Over The Air service.
- No link to the Rovi announcement or their reasoning.
- Affects any device and service relying on Rovi and their data.
It seems to me this is just another move to get people onto cable where media companies can exert more control over content (and the people watching) and rake in more money.
Re:Bashing onwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Rovi (corporation) used to be called Macrovision.
That snippet alone would have explained about eveything. Why was this omitted in the submission? So basically Sony built a system that relied completely on a service provided by Macrovision and the customers got completely screwed over?
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
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"And here's the problem: A device which relies on (instead of just uses, as an option) a specific third party service without need."
And here's the solution: So sue the fuck out of the for violating the anti-tying provisions of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty act.
Normal End of Life cycle (Score:2, Insightful)
Dude, Sony discontinued this product 7 years ago. I'm sure you've gotten your money's worth out of it.
Think about it this way: If it died of hardware failure instead, would you be so upset? Likely not.
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I have a VCR that's over 20 years old that still works fine. Weird thing is, it's a Sony.
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The problem is it didn't suffer a hardware failure. This is like if your car suddenly stopped working because Ford wants to sell you a new one. Yes the engine could've died, but it didn't, it would still work just as well as yesterday if they didn't put the equivalent of a time bomb in the software.
Were the customers aware of this time bomb on the moment of purchase? And I don't mean hiding it in legaleze, was it written in the box that the device would stop working in 2012?
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Wouldn't this be a case for a class action suit?
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"Dude, Sony discontinued this product 7 years ago. I'm sure you've gotten your money's worth out of it."
They told us before: "It's not a trick, it's a Sony! "
Re:Normal End of Life cycle (Score:5, Funny)
The Mayans even predicted this long time ago: the calendar support will end in 2012...
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Yeah, but I guess its life cycle is reasonably longer than "lifetime warranty".
And I mean the USER'S lifetime.
Re:Normal End of Life cycle (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, Sony discontinued this product 7 years ago. I'm sure you've gotten your money's worth out of it.
Think about it this way: If it died of hardware failure instead, would you be so upset? Likely not.
The appliance that heats my home is 50 years old. The manufacturer has been out of business since before I was born. Thank God they didn't have this mentality or I'd be in big trouble right now. Remember that the next time you're considering a Sony product. I do. I grew up with everything Sony, but ever since they took functionality away from my PS3, over and over, I make a conscious choice not to buy their products. Even if I don't see a suitable alternative (which sometimes does happen with mid-range headphones), I'll leave the store without buying anything. Every time. You might say I got my money's worth out of the company, so I'm done with it.
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It's a pity the government of whichever tinpot shit-hole you're from didn't dictate that lead paint [wikipedia.org] wasn't allowed in toys.
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Re:Normal End of Life cycle (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I think this should ding Sony's 'green rating', because of a too-short lifespan and no little-to-none recycling-to-keep-in-use options. Is everyone expected to suddenly buy a new TV set every now and then? Gimme a break. All Sony has to do is allow user-mods to happen. Imagine if a classic car owner was not allowed to 3d-print the broken dashboard controller-thing just to keep it alive. I dunno, something like a plastic turn-signal lock doo-hickey which otherwise makes the car illegal (except when hand-signals are used). Same difference.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/Campaign-analysis/Guide-to-Greener-Electronics [greenpeace.org].
Admittedly I am biased because I see an old PC, and I think, 'will it run linux?'
But then again, this is Sony that refuses even the U.S. Military the right to run linux on their paid-for playstations. Apple lost its soul a long time ago, and Sony continues to show them the way.
Why accept this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you so readily accept electronic end of life as being normal?
My SEGA Mastersystem still works.
My SNES still works (and you can still buy controllers for them too).
My sound system is much older than 10 years.
I still have a working CRT TV, and a working VCR.
Incidentally my grandma has several working pieces of electronic equipment from World War 2.
Why are you so quick to accept that electronics need an end of life, and especially one so short? This is not the death of the medium which the DVR uses like say the move from analogue to digital TV was. This is a piece of gear with a really poor design flaw that for some reason depended on a proprietary 3rd party signal to work. Why would you accept that this 3rd party should decide when you can no longer use your electronics?
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I think his apology would probably be his age. I, too, am from a time when TVs lasted 20 years+ and a used car of 10 years of age wasn't something where you're surprised if it still starts on a cold and/or rainy day, when computers were "current" for about 5 or even more years (let's be frank here, what was the lifetime of the C64? I wouldn't be surprised if it ruled for close to a decade).
Today I should consider myself lucky if my TV still runs after 3 years, if my car doesn't break down before its 7 year
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and a used car of 10 years of age wasn't something where you're surprised if it still starts on a cold and/or rainy day
You were making sense up until this point.
Old cars rusted and the engine wore out. On the other hand modern engines tend to go forever and the cars no longer rust due to the materials used. However if you don't look after the rest then the car will become useless but that is true of any mechanical device which needs regular servicing to keep running, this was true then as well just that the car engine would die or the car rust away first!
Of course you could only be 16, in which case your other points did no
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Think about it this way: If it died of hardware failure instead, would you be so upset? Likely not.
But in this case, it's like the hardware failed only because the company sent a goon to your house to smash it.
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You're on to something, but it's not the same as HW failure. It's a new model that has come about after the internet, where they sell a physical item + a service, where the servie is often free. It's similar to providing software updates, but it's different in that when the service ends, the product is useless.
The expectation should be somewhere between shutting it down right after the warranty ends, and keeping it running forever. Don't know what's fair.
Re:Normal End of Life cycle (Score:4, Informative)
Will you take it to the apothecary or the cobbler to get it fixed? Or perhaps you could take your autogyro to the haberdasherer instead.
"Ending is better than Mending."
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Just don't buy them (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought a Sony DVR/DVD player about four years ago. It booted up with a choice of EPGs - a plain one, and one with additional functionality and adverts. Yes, half the screen was occupied by ads. After getting annoyed with that after about two microseconds I switched to the plain one.
After a couple of years it started misbehaving, as these things do, telling me that the only thing on TV was 'No Channel Information'. So I thought I'd switch back and see how bad the ad-ridden one was. So I found the setting deep in the unexplored regions of the menu system and flipped.
Same old ad-ridden screen, except this time the ads were blank placeholders. I reckon nobody wanted to advertise there, since nobody was using the annoying EPG...
I did an upgrade from a new OS via a DVD from the Sony web site and it fixed most of the EPG blankness, but the thing has been pretty flakey from day one. I think the initial flakeyness is controlled to be just enough that you don't know if its your own fault for not reading the instructions or if it is genuine faults. Products are always released when the cost in fixing the bugs is more than the cost of handling support calls, right?
Anyway, no more Sony for me.
Rovi is evil here, not Sony (Score:4, Interesting)
Rovi uses patents to make money of stuff like DVRs, EPGs and copy protection. I guess they could be called a 'patent troll'. More DVRs sold equals more money for Rovi.
Rovi was born as Macrovision, the VCR copy protect signal. That was compulsory on video cards. So if you have a computer with composite of S-VHS out you probably paid Rovi half a dollar for that.
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No, there's been plenty of blind hate for Rovi/Macrovision [slashdot.org] too.
What's the problem? (Score:2)
Don't buy Sony. (Score:2)
Yet another reason on a very long list of reasons to not buy Sony products.
No sympathy (Score:2)
You bought Sony. Even if you are new here you would done a search for "Sony" before investing in any of their products. They are really, really bad news for anyone favoring openness.
Panasonic uses it too. (Score:2)
Don't have this issue with Comcast DVR (Score:2)
I understand that the OP already purchased the devices, but it seems to me the simpler and more reliable solution is to simply rent the devices where possible from your cable or satellite provider. When the device goes bad, they swap it out for a new one. If they decide to stop supporting a device, you don't pay for it any longer. No headaches and at around $10 - $15 per month per DVR it seems to be the better option.
I heard.. (Score:3)
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its the lifetime of the product
So a lifetime warranty means it's warranted until it breaks down?
Re:lifetime doesnt mean your lifetime (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much, yes.
"Lifetime product warranties" typically cover the 'reasonably expected' lifetime of the product the product in question, not your lifetime.
If anything, 'lifetime warranty' can be a much worse deal than a predefined number of years, since it's so vague. It's often used in sales since it sounds like a great deal to the uninformed buyer, but in reality it's pretty much the ultimate weasel-word.
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no, it means its warrantied until they stop making it, and its impossible for them to replace it.
most consumer electronics companies are required to keep parts 3 years.
When I had to deal with it, we had a few irate calls a month cause someone bought a digital piano in 1989 and could not get replacement parts in 2009 when it shat on itself.
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When I had to deal with it, we had a few irate calls a month cause someone bought a digital piano in 1989 and could not get replacement parts in 2009 when it shat on itself.
If it had a lifetime warranty, they were justified in being irate. That's a misleading term if you don't mean it to be for the life of the company or company's name (whichever is longer) which is what it should mean legally.
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Legally, abny vague term such as 'lifetime' is SUPPOSED to be interpreted in favor of the consumer. If the company means "until we say it's not" or 'three years', they better say that.
Of course, the courts have been corporate friendly for a long time.
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Clearly, the term "lifetime" should be abandoned. As you say, it's too vague to be of use, and frankly, I ignore that, it's not a selling point for that reason. Along similar lines, in practice, I generally find that a lifetime warranty to be of less value than a warranty of specifically defined duration.
Under no circumstances is it realistic to assign a lifetime warranty of an electronic device to the life of the owner. It's clearly a hyperbolic stretch, but I'd almost be concerned that it would give a per
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I have a couple VCRs from the '90s that still work fine, why shouldn't a DVR last at LEAST 10 years (possably w/ a HD replacement)? Apparently Sony=expensive junk.
Considering that a firmware upgrade would at least allow the things to retain useful functionality, it seems like Sony really does owe it to their customers.
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That depends on what you watch. And, of course, how much.
Indeed, I've noticed that a DVR makes me watch less: I first record the show. Now, I am at a point where I can watch it any time I want, so it's not a priority "I'll have to see it now, or I'll miss it". Which means I might end up not watching it at all before I much later delete it to make space for something else, on the account that if I haven't watched it till then, I'll probably not watch it later either.
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A good DVR makes TV watchable.
It can find things for you and present them to you under your own terms.
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You are confusing capitalism with the novel "Brave New World".
There's simply no good reason to be wasteful. It's economically ineffcient and negatively impacts the environment as well as one's ability to be self-sufficient and plan ahead.
In any market that resembles the ideal models of capitalism, Sony should have been run out of town on a rail.