TiVo patent for DVR PPV

It's a long way from the wild west days of PVR, but this work by TiVo to develop a system to securely distribute and monetize Pay Per View and Video On Demand programming is fairly exciting all the same. The patents filed refer to purchasing MPEG-2 downloads, and differentiate between TiVo's own DVR service and the actual content provider, which will hopefully mean a bit more success in nabbing content for the service. There are descriptions of PPV and subscription methods for purchasing content, and the content is securely tied to the MAC address of your DVR's network adapter. The patents were filed in November, so it's anybodies guess as to when TiVo will actually roll out the functionality, but so far things are looking good for your entertainment convenience, and not so hot for your credit card balance.

[Via Zatz Not Funny]

Read - Patent 1
Read - Patent 2

[Don Wilson @ Jun 17th 2006 12:22PM]

I wish one of these companies would allow me to put in my credit card into a profile on the TiVo/DVR so if I, not the owner of the DVR service (that pays the bill) wanted to order something for myself, I don't have to ask said owner.

[Storm9 @ Jun 17th 2006 12:55PM]

Now that is a freaky program to download... "hell house"

[EdZ @ Jun 17th 2006 2:57PM]

"Securely" and "MAC address" don't belong in the same sentance.

[AndrewNeo @ Jun 17th 2006 7:15PM]

EdZ: That's just another way of saying, "We want you to hack us!"

[Droo @ Jun 17th 2006 7:24PM]

Dish Network has had Video on Demand by saving shows since before November with the Dish625 DVR (and subsequently later models). You can buy them just like a regular PPV event to 'unlock' them.

I don't know if this will count as 'previous work' or not.

--D

[GhostDoggy @ Jun 18th 2006 9:35AM]

MPEG-2? I didn't realized that they were being stored as MPEG-2. I thought they were wrapped (encapsulated) in something TiVo-specific envelope that made transmission possible.

So, anyone doing this using VC1, MPEG-4 (name your book), etc. easily escapes this, huh? Me thinks TiVo is filing this patent to really go after already-present businesses.

[vibrokatana @ Jun 18th 2006 11:30AM]

TiVo runs linux, and the tivo OS has been thoroughly hacked and installed on different hardware. Considering that mac addresses usually arn't unique, I could see the possibility of friends being able to share their tivo downloads in more then one location.