[I've been off doing a crash project for a client. Catching up today.]
Several sources including this Ars Technica article by Eric Bangeman report that Direct TV has changed the rights management rules regarding the time to view recorded TV shows.
DirecTV DVR owners got some bad news from the satellite TV provider recently when the company announced that it will break some of the existing functionality of the DVRs. Effective April 15, subscribers will only have 24 hours to watch pay-per-view movies recorded to their DVRs. Once the movies are purchased, the clock starts ticking, and after 24 hours, the PPV movie saved to your DVR will become nothing more than an unreadable collection of zeros and ones.
Why the studios should care is beyond me. Another capricious act by content owners and distributors.
This 24 hour limit on watching Pay Per View movies is just ludicrous. My husband and I rarely can find time to sit down for 2 hours together and watch an entire movie. We usually watch movies in parts. (Plus, TV has trained us to watch shows in 30 minute time blocks.) Also, the movies I like to buy from PPV are usually from independent films or foreign films and are usually not available during prime viewing hours on Direct TV.
My husband and I are not video pirates. We are just a couple of senior citizens who go to bed early and need extra time to watch movies that we pay for. This time limit is just mean and takes away one of the few things that I enjoy. Way to go Direct TV - you guys get two thumbs down.
Posted by: Deborah Moore | Tuesday, April 08, 2008 at 10:03