Channel Nine and FreeView hate your digital recorder...

But the Australian High Court doesn’t.

The frivolous lawsuit brought by Australia’s Channel Nine - claiming the times and names of their broadcast programs were protected intellectual property - appears to be permantently canned, leaving a much brighter future for TV consumers.

After a courtroom battle that’s raged for three years, the independent digital program guide service IceTV will be able to publish television listings, including those for Channel Nine programs, without further ado.

Channel Nine, you see, has been suing IceTV in an effort to discourage people from using convenient digital recording devices such as personal video recorders (PVRs) or Home Theatre PCs (HTPCs). In Channel Nine’s dinosaur mind, any change in technology is a threat to their bottom line.

This court drama has broadcast the reality of Channel Nine’s attitude toward consumer choice: They don’t much care for it. Customers who want to record broadcasts with commonplace PVRs or HTPCs can go to hell, if Channel Nine may stand at the pearly gates of digital broadcasting.

Now IceTV can go on transmitting their digital program guide - and perhaps other guides will become available. (Most Aussies don’t realise that Microsoft itself provides this service in many places, but steers clear of Australia because of the aggressive TV networks’ legal saber-rattling.)

But Channel Nine still has a couple tricks up its sleeve.

First, of course, is the “revolutionary” Freeview service. This Aussie broadcasters’ cult is a shell-game designed to trick consumers into watching TV according to networks’ preferences - instead of their own. Everything FreeView offers - including more of those great duplicate channels! - will be freely available to anyone with a digital tuner and/or recorder. Don’t be misled by the intentionally-confusing ads and hype!

Interestingly, although digital recorders frighten poor Channel Nine and their Freeview friends, they will be happy to sell you a specially equipped Freeview-approved recorder themselves.  What is so special about a Freeview recorder you ask? Well, a Freeview-approved device will not let you skip commercials - a key benefit enjoyed by most PVR & HTPC users.

Another trick used by Channel Nine (and their network friends Channel Ten and Seven) is to run programs off-schedule. Always. Does the Aussie viewing public believe that the networks just can’t quite figure out how long the programs will run? The issue is that by running programs ten to twently minutes late during prime-time every day, they make it a bit of a nuisance to schedule automatic recordings of your favourite programs.

The good news for digital TV viewers:

You can set recording defaults on most devices (and on IceTV’s excellent service) to automatically place a buffer before and after programs, so you’ll get the whole shows.

And everything Freeview offers - including more of those great duplicate channels! - will be freely available to anyone with a digital tuner and/or recorder. Don’t be misled by the intentionally-confusing ads and hype!

PS:  Interestingly, networks and the newspapers they own sometimes pretend that digital recording devices are a special new threat to their livelihood. Apparently they’ve forgotten their own failed oppositions to the VCR.