The BBC has an interesting plan to take some of the "personal" out of "personal video recorder."
During a three month trial period, the BBC will be providing viewers with set top boxes capable of recording 100 hours of programming. But here's the thing. You'll only be able to choose up to half of what the box records. 50 hours of programs will be reserved for programs selected by the BBC.
While the recently-launched BT Vision service allows you to download content to your box, the BBC's system would primarily be a PVR. The BBC would be able to remotely schedule programming to highlight programs you might want to watch. I'm not really sure what this accomplishes that a few well-placed promotional spots for new programming wouldn't. I can't really envision a situation where I'd want to give over half of my hard drive space to someone else's selections -- especially if it means I can't schedule conflicting recordings. The hardware specs aren't available, so it's not clear if this is a multi-tuner box.
The trial will only be available to about 300 Freeview customers in the London area for now.
1. The BBC needs to to create new Revenue streams (to add onto thie UK license revenue stream).
Here in America I can order Polish, Japanese, Chninese, Turkish well you get the idea. Everything BUY UK TV channels. I am guessing that the reason is the UK TV people like to SELL individual programming to the USA (usually PBS) and the BBCAMerica (Jt venture with Discover) the latter whish shows some new stuff but mainle 30+ year old repeats.
Remedy:
Give Non UK TV people a pay option (per month) to download BBC programs).
Won't happen though as it's too original an idea.
I end up importing UK Region DVDs and playing them on my hacked US DVDPlayer.
Posted at 7:37PM on Dec 14th 2006 by Ian