Twenty Years and Still The Same Technology Problem

This post is about a consumer electronics technology problem that hasn't been solved for twenty years.  I recently experienced it, and remembered vividly how I had also suffered from the same problem exactly 20 years ago just about now.  I will get to this amusing problem in a second, but I have to digress for a little while, because 20 years ago, just about now, was a very memorable moment in sports history that needs to be mentioned.

Mexico 1986.  The first World Cup I was old enough to thoroughly enjoy and remember.  It was the world cup where I saw the greatest goal ever scored, on June 22nd, by Diego Maradona against England.  It's not the "hand of God" goal, but the other one.  I still remember it like yesterday.  I was sitting on a couch when Maradona took the ball at midfield and was about 2 centimeters from the screen by the time he passed everybody and scored over Shilton.  You can watch that goal again and again here.  Argentina beat England in the quarterfinals, Belgium in the semis (with another amazing goal from Maradona) and played Germany in the Final.  Brown and Valdano gave Argentina a 2-0 lead, but Rummenigge and Voeller tied the score and Buruchagga "the son of the wind" scored the winner for Argentina.  What a game that was.

Now fast forward 20 years and tomorrow Argentina is playing Germany again.  20 years ago I was living in Europe watching the game in North America, and now I live in North America and will watch the game in Europe.  Well, not exactly watch, I'll have to record the game using a DVR, which brings us back to the technology problem I wanted to mention in the first place.

Couple of days ago Ukraine beat Switzerland 3-0 in penalty kicks.  Wasn't a noteworthy game until I got an email from my Brazilian friend Eduardo saying that "we could kick better penalty kicks than the Swiss team"  The game became interesting after that comment and I went to a friends house to watch the penalty kicks.  He had programmed his DVR to record it, but alas! we had a problem.

When a soccer game goes overtime the DVR doesn't know to continue recording and after regulation play it promplty cuts the recording short and misses the overtime.  Therefore we couldn't see the penalty kicks.  What a bummer.  Funny thing is, this was the exact same problem I had 20 years ago with a Betamax video recorder.  You program it for the length of the game and are out of luck if it goes over time, since it has no way to know.  After generations and generations of technology and innovation, this exact problem persisted, just as unsolved and equally disappointing.

I don't know if it is VOD that will fix it, or network PVR, or personalized TV, or IPTV, or BitTorrent, or Youtube, but I just wish for my son's sake that in the next twenty years, this problem can be fixed once and for all. 

Comments

[Engmet]

Ok this is dumb but why not, knowing that knockout games may go into extended time and then into penalty kicks, program the recorder accordingly? :-)

I understand this is just an example of a real problem... I just couldn't help but make the comment.

As for your friend Eduardo, should they end up a game in penalty kicks, I hope they can do better than the Swish team. Then again, I'm not rooting for Brazil.

Mexico 86 was a stellar World Cup!!

[Baris Karadogan]

In this case, my friend selected the game from the DVR menu. Didn't do it by time. If it is possible to do it by time, then yes that's the obvious solution, but consumer behavior is to select the content not the time intervals.

Now if you really want to dive in to how it was with VCR's, you have to realize that back then tapes didn't go for 2.5 hours. So you had to solve the problem by making a bet. You either betted that it wasn't going go to overtime and taped the whole game, or betted that it would go to overtime and skipped the first half. But if there were many goals in the first have you'd miss it.

This is getting Nostalgic!

[Baris Karadogan]

What a world cup that was indeed.

Web 2.0 Tags for Mexico 86: Schumacher, Platini, Bats, Fernandez, Tigana, Careca, Rummenigge, Voeller, Brehme, Briegel, Mattheus, Valdano, Bruchaga, Lineker, Shilton, Jesper Olsen, Zico...

[amit]

You are so right on ! Good to hear that another sports nut has been thinking of the same thing. Drives me crazy that my TiVo will not record into overtime.

[Balaji]

Baris,

You are so right .. DVRs like TiVo allows consumers to choose a program to record. But they also allow an option to extend the recording by 'n' minutes. We can use this option to solve the problem that you'd mentioned. However, I agree with you that users may have to guess whether there will be an overtime in a game or not !!

We are working on a startup technology that may solve this problem to certain extent .. Our technology can help users to define some parameters based upon which the recording will happen. Obviously this may not be perfect, but it may be better than guessing OR it can be used to make a better guess !!

We do have a strategy and business plan for our technology that is pretty close to the market that you'd mentioned. In addition to this, we also have other target markets in our plan.

We are working on our prototype now, and we will soon be looking for venture funding to expand our business. We would love to talk to your VC firm, if you may be interested.

[kb]

That friend was me. Yes, I could program my DVR by time rather than by program... but who has time for that... or better yet, who wants to do deal with that... plus, I had to miss one game to really find out about this problem... not a pretty way to find out I'd say... Comcast should fix their act up... or i am suing them for the emotional damage it caused me... i am mad!!

kerim