I’ve been writing here a lot about the development of online TV services and my desire to be able to truly cut the cord and fully rely on the internet for my media consumption. I don’t currently have a cable subscription of any kind, which makes me really really happy, but my system isn’t perfect and could definitely stand to get a lot better.

The biggest thing standing in my way are the paid subscription services. They show up every few weeks to say stupid shit like this about Hulu and similar services: “If I can watch Glee tomorrow morning and I don’t have to pay a pay TV service –- I think that’s bad.” That’s Dish Network’s VP of Online Content Development and Strategy, Bruce Eisen. Sorry, Bruce, but you’re a moron. For starters, Fox – you know, the company that broadcasts Glee – allows me to do this. Why do they do this? Because customers want it. That’s what being in any sort of delivery service is all about – catering to your customers.

Somewhere along the road to present day, guys like Bruce Eisen forgot that their companies exist to deliver a product that customers want, not to dictate those wants by delivering a mediocre product at a ridiculous price. Not to limit consumer access to content but to provide it. Every time a cable or satellite exec says something like this, I can hear PR firms squealing in dismay. “Bruce! You just told the customers you don’t want them to have what they want! You want to bleed them dry before they can have it! These people aren’t stupid!”

And there’s the other problem. All these execs like to talk as though we don’t understand their business, like we can’t possibly understand the position Hulu has put them in. Sorry for asking you to think, Bruce. Sorry for asking you to adapt. Sorry for asking that American business men do what they were born to do. Make things. We’ve stopped making and become a country of consumers. Well I, for one, am done consuming and I’m ready to make.

Yeah, Bruce, that’s from 30 Rock. I loaded it up on Netflix just now, scrubbed forward to the part I wanted and transcribed it. Why can’t you make things like this:

And less like…wait…hold on a sec. Just have to fire up the old satellite and dig through the DV-ah, fuck it. Nevermind.

You may have seen ads for the Dish Network claiming its DVR service is actually “better than TiVo.” What you may not know is that they’ve been ordered to stop selling their DVR service after losing a patent struggle with the very company they claim to be better than. As a result, a judge has ordered Dish to pay TiVo a sum of $200 million as punishment.

About $110 million of that punishment actually accounts for profits Dish reaped as a result of patent infringement. The other $90 million is the slap on the wrist. Dish has already paid out nearly $193 million for previous infringement, bringing the grand total of damages to nearly $400 million. Dish says it plans to appeal this most recent ruling.

As you probably know, TiVo really needs the money. A few years ago it had been essentially left for dead. TiVo reported its first profitable year in some time early this year, but that was largely due to a few new contracts and some big lawsuit money from EchoStar. This win for Dish would keep the company healthily in the black, but as more viewers take advantage of web content, we’ll likely see TiVo struggling in the near future.

Source: Bloomberg

Today, Western Digital announced the newest in its line of “My (fill-in-the-blank)” external storage peripherals with the My DVR Expander. The unit is being advertised as “TiVo verified” with options for 500GB and 1TB of expansion.

This is certainly a boon for TiVo users, particularly the HD folks. Consumers should be able to record about 100 hours of HD or 400 hours of standard video on the 1TB drive. Hopefully Western Digital has managed to solve the circuit board failures associated with the My Book series of drives. I’ve heard horror stories involving the drives just powering down mid transfer. Not cool when I’m trying to get my Dexter on.

Source: Crave