BBC offers not-so-Personal Video Recorder

Adam Turner
Sunday, 17 December 2006 20:46

Opinion and Analysis

A Personal Video Recorder is supposed to liberate you from the haphazard approach to scheduling taken by television networks, but it isn't quite so personal when the network dictates which shows you record.

In a three month trial, the BBC is providing viewers with PVRs capable of recording 100 hours of programming, reports PVR Wire. The catch is 50 hours worth will be reserved for programs selected by the BBC. It's unclear if the box has a dual tuner. If it doesn't, you can only record one thing at a time so too bad if your favourite trashy show clashes with whatever educational doco the BBC has decided is good for you.

Several years ago, when television networks still considered PVRs the devil's work, free speech crusaders the Electronic Frontier Foundation released a subversive "how to" guide in the form of the HDTV-PVR Cookbook. From the Anarchist Handbook to the Pop-up Karma Sutra, anything offering to teach a forbidden art captures my attention. Rather than teach you how to brew home-made nitro glycerine or bend over backwards to please the one you love, the HDTV-PVR Cookbook guides you through turning an off-the-shelf computer into a fully blown home entertainment device capable of recording high-quality digital television to DVD or a hard drive.

When Che Guevara wannabes polish their rifles while starting sentences with "when zee revolution comes", I doubt the conversation turns to building computers to record West Wing at whatever ungodly hour the networks randomly chooses to show it this week. Even so, with the HDTV-PVR Cookbook the television networks could smell a revolution in the wind. It's interesting that the government owned BBC is making at last a half-hearted attempt to embrace change. In contrast, Australia's commercial Nine Network which is fighting tooth and nail - going so far as to sue Electronic Program Guide provider IceTV.

Nine insists its television schedule is covered by copyright, even though the law clearly states you can't copyright a list of facts. It's painfully clear to fans of late night TV shows such as Star Trek and West Wing that the networks treat schedules, and viewers, with contempt. They shuffle shows around and even deliberately finish them late so you miss the beginning of what's on the other channels. Perhaps Nine's lawyers are going to claim that the TV schedule is actually a work of fiction, and therefore subject to copyright.

Several years ago I wrote a story taking the networks to task for their shabby treatment of viewers and asking the programmers why they did things like axe a show mid-series and claim it was the final episode.

"At the end of the day, we define what the series is or what it isn't," was the remarkably frank reply from one.

When zee revolution comes, it's clear who will be first up against the wall.