Alright, let's assume that "Never" is true. Then the question becomes "Why not?". And, what can we the consumers do to change that? I was promised over twenty years ago that I could record television for my own use and I don't like having rights taken away from me!
Believe it or not, the MPAA has said that you still have those rights because you can point a camcorder at your screen and record the results.
The really odd thing is that given the relative quality of the things, it probably will not be that long before that's a serious option. A 2160P camera pointing at a 1080P 10,000:1 monitor? That might even work.
At this point though, there are options for putting recorded ATSC TV into DVD/BD. I made an "HD" DVD of a movie I recorded a few weeks ago as a proof of concept and the process was lossless. It actually plays on my HD DVD player though that's an aside. What you need is a PC with an ATSC tuner and DVR software like Myth. ATSC is unencrypted. DVD burners are cheap, and BD burners may come down to a reasonable price (though whether they'll ever compete with hard disk prices is open to question)
If you want to burn OTA TV onto a disc playable on your BD or DVD players, the options exist today. Cable and satellite though, well, that's just not going to happen any time soon.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TimB @ Jul 1st 2009 6:43PM
Alright, let's assume that "Never" is true. Then the question becomes "Why not?". And, what can we the consumers do to change that? I was promised over twenty years ago that I could record television for my own use and I don't like having rights taken away from me!
squiggleslash @ Jul 1st 2009 8:46PM
Believe it or not, the MPAA has said that you still have those rights because you can point a camcorder at your screen and record the results.
The really odd thing is that given the relative quality of the things, it probably will not be that long before that's a serious option. A 2160P camera pointing at a 1080P 10,000:1 monitor? That might even work.
At this point though, there are options for putting recorded ATSC TV into DVD/BD. I made an "HD" DVD of a movie I recorded a few weeks ago as a proof of concept and the process was lossless. It actually plays on my HD DVD player though that's an aside. What you need is a PC with an ATSC tuner and DVR software like Myth. ATSC is unencrypted. DVD burners are cheap, and BD burners may come down to a reasonable price (though whether they'll ever compete with hard disk prices is open to question)
If you want to burn OTA TV onto a disc playable on your BD or DVD players, the options exist today. Cable and satellite though, well, that's just not going to happen any time soon.