Zatz Not Funny. . . ? Time Warner Launches Pseudo-DVR Service I originally posted on Time Warner’s new “Start Over” service back in March and Dave Zatz picks up on another article on the service in USA Today. Apparently they will be rolling out this lamo service to the lucky viewers of South Carolina next month.
Dave says, “start Over falls somewhere between VOD and a DVR in functionality – you can restart a show already in progress, but you can’t skip ahead or schedule recordings. It may be a simpler concept to grasp for folks who haven’t jumped on the DVR bandwagon, but Start Over isn’t very compelling for those of us who have.”
Ed Bott chimes in with, “I’m not entirely sure how this is going to work. If I can’t fast-forward, then I have to be very careful when I rewind or I’m forced to watch a portion of a show again. Given that cable-company DVRs are dirt-cheap, why would anyone want this?
This is a classic example of a company designing a product that considers its customers secondary to its ad dollars.”
Ed ads, “NBC Universal Cable President David Zaslav is a master of denial: “The attraction of Start Over is that there’s no fast-forwarding through commercials, and it keeps you on the traditional television platform.””
What a truly horrible service. It is quite simply beyond me that at this point in the game any company would be investing in technology like this.