Australian TV moguls still don’t get the future of TV and computing

May 30, 2006 — 1 Comment

I don’t use IceTV myself, because they don’t offer a regional WA guide, but this company is doing a great job in making programs like Windows MCE more usable by providing a EPG, something that you just cant get in Australia, despite the fact you can pretty much get free EPG’s everywhere else in the world.

From the SMH:

JAMES PACKER’S Nine Network has a bone to pick with fledgling electronic program guide IceTV and it is taking its grievances all the way to the Federal Court.

Subscribers to IceTV’s program guide can use it to record shows from their computer or mobile phone. They can also record two shows at once, automatically record their favourites, and pause and replay live television – and fast forward past the ads…Nine’s problem, as laid out in its statement of claim, is that it believes IceTV has breached its copyright by creating a program guide that looks like its own. It is seeking unspecified damages.

But perhaps the bigger gripe that Nine and the other commercial free-to-air networks have is that IceTV’s technology allows users to dodge the ads.

Bring on TiVo to Australia. In the mean time I’ll just have to live with a Windows MCE box without an EPG….grrr.

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