The folks over at The Lost Remote are reporting that one of their readers had a little trouble with an episode of American Idol he had recorded:
One of our loyal readers, Michael says he couldn’t get his fast-forward button to work while his Comcast HD-DVR played back American Idol—but it did work on other TV shows. He sent a screen grab to prove it. “Notice how the bottom bar has a ‘no’ sign. Usually that would switch to arrows when you’re fast forwarding,” he writes. Anyone else have this happen?
There have been similar reports from folks who record 24, another FOX program, but details are sketchy as it appears to be limited to users of Comcast’s HD-DVR boxes. The possibility of blocking the fast forward button on DVRs is something the networks have been demanding from all PVR makers as they equate skipping the commercials to stealing the program and the cable companies are in a position to cave in on the issue for fear of the network yanking rights to carry their channel. Considering that one of the reasons a lot of people make use of PVRs is so they can skip the commercials the loss of that ability could be a setback to adoption of the technology if it becomes widespread. Of course, that could be a selling point for TiVO or ReplayTV if they can resist the pressue to modify their boxes to do the same.
I was fixin to get one of these puppies a couple of months ago when I heard about this possibility. I will not be buying a DVR now. Not sure why I was going to buy one in the first place - nothing but crap on the tube nowadays anyway!