As you probably know, Ars is all about creating a scene. As we celebrate our 15th anniversary, we’re looking back at some of the people, companies, and technologies that have caused the biggest stirs in the past decade and a half. Today, the focus shifts to technological innovations that have radically changed—or promise to change—our digital lives.

A spirited editorial debate led to a consensus on three technologies: time-shifting of broadcast content, fiber-to-premises broadband services, and social networking. Each of these has directly or indirectly impacted the way we work, play, and interact with the world. The roots of each extend back to before Ars was a glimmer in Ken Fisher’s eye, but we'll continue experiencing their effects for the foreseeable future.

Time-shifting (or why Jack Valenti is spinning in his grave)

Time-shifting content has been with us for a long time, driving the media industry nuts ever since the invention of the video cassette recorder. In 1982, Jack Valenti—then president of the Motion Picture Association of America—testified before Congress, saying, “The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” (See the Ars series on TV for more Valenti rage.)

But Betamax and VHS were just the beginning. It was a shaky beginning at that, as I can tell you firsthand from years of prying my kids’ mangled copy of half a season’s worth of Power Rangers episodes out of the maw of a VCR tape slot. When hard drives were eventually married to video recording, it did a lot more than just change the recording mechanism. Digital recording moved time-shifting of TV and other content off tapes, virtualizing and outsourcing the recording process to the point that broadcast times are almost irrelevant.

So in some ways, Jack Valenti was right about time-shifting, or at least prescient. The virtualization of broadcast content—its separation from the tyranny of network time slots and from recording media itself—has changed the acts of viewing and listening. It’s accelerated the disintegration of network television and hastened the creation of new media outlets made purely for the Internet. If it weren't for the move from analog VCR to bits on a disk, things like Netflix’s on-demand service and its all-at-once release of the original series House of Cards would never have happened.

The revolution will be TiVo’d

This modern digital revolution began with the birth of the DVR. The most successful of the earliest batch, first arriving on the market circa 1999, was TiVo. Ken Fisher reviewed the first TiVo in 2000 for Ars, declaring that TiVo “changed the way I watch TV.”

TiVo didn’t spawn much controversy with broadcasters. The device even won an Emmy Award in 2006 for “Outstanding Innovation and Achievement in Advanced Media Technology.” But it did spawn a fleet of other products that raised copyright holders’ ire. Dish was an early adopter of TiVo technology in its satellite TV boxes, and a derivative of that marriage called Hopper (a multi-room DVR system that includes ad skipping technology) has raised the blood pressure of TV network executives. Viacom was so ticked that the company blocked CNET from awarding the device a “best in show” at CES even after the editors had already told Dish the product won.

A somewhat similar audio version called Inno, an XM radio DVR from Pioneer, equally aggravated the recording industry. Only after a fleet of recording company lawsuits against XM were settled could the device to continue to be sold (with XM agreeing to pay fees for the music).

Some time-shifting products would become the target of TiVo’s legal team, as TiVo went on to sue or extract payments from a string of companies for patent infringement. Just last year, Microsoft and TiVo agreed to a ceasefire on mutual patent lawsuits.

While DVRs broke the iron grip of the broadcast schedule, they still didn’t defeat the barrier of location. These early devices remained, for the most part, tethered to a single TV. They were restricted to whatever storage was in the device. When services and devices started to arise that broke out of those restrictions, making it possible to stream what was once restricted to broadcast and cable networks, that was when things got really interesting.

The battle over time-and-space shifting went high-definition when Cartoon Network sued Cablevision over its remote DVR service. This was a “boxless” service that recorded requested programs on disk at Cablevision’s central office. Cablevision won that lawsuit after the Supreme Court refused to hear it in 2009.

Today, time-shifting and on-demand streaming services have given networks competition like never before. In fact, the networks have tried to get into the time-shifting game themselves with streaming services like Hulu or HBO Go. But between DVRs, streaming services, and plain old piracy (how else does half the world watch Game of Thrones without HBO anyway?), cable companies and networks have lost much of the control they once held over how we watch their content.



The end of the TV world as we know it

Time-shifting has directly changed my life in a number of ways. I have three children, one in college; nearly all of what they watch is time-shifted content. Late last year, we got a big lesson in the value of time-shifting when my wife came home from nearly a month in the hospital. Instead of sending flowers, the Arsians sent a Roku box, which went into the recovery room we set up for her at home. After having missed four weeks of television, she was able to catch up on everything she had missed. These were programs she probably would have skipped entirely before, but now she could catch up at her own pace. (She’s become addicted to Chicago Fire as a result. Thanks, guys.)

The power to simply defer watching until later has also proven to be an unexpected delight. It allows us to watch more television as a family, whether it’s a collective catch-up on Bob’s Burgers or a by-appointment group viewing in Westeros. It’s been a gateway drug to on-demand video streaming for all of us.

Ars on TiVo We've covered DVRs and time-shifting extensively over the past 15 years, dating back to our review of the TiVo back in 2000. We've covered DVRs and time-shifting extensively over the past 15 years, dating back to our review of the TiVo back in 2000. TiVo Personal television receiver by Ken Fisher

TiVo's triple play: recommendations, rentals, and lawsuits by Anders Bylund

TiVo: Cable is strangling our business with SDV by Nate Anderson

Here’s what some of the Ars staff said about their experiences with time-shifting in an informal straw poll:

Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher:

Although this started with VHS, DVRs really changed consumption patterns, particularly TiVo. Time-shifting has accelerated the decline of TV networks, and we expect that the next 15 years will see a complete reformation in content production and distribution for video.

It’s easy to underestimate this, but remember: Americans spend more time watching TV than anything other leisure activity. Furthermore, the adoption of DVRs has been incredibly rapid. There’s a ton of talk about the second screen, but the first screen is still reigning supreme.”

Managing Editor Eric Bangeman:

As Ken said, time-shifting changed consumption patterns and really upended the business models of the traditional networks. What interests me more about time-shifting, however, is how it has led to place-shifting.

Back in the old days of the VCR, the only way to watch a recording was at your house on the TV you recorded it from (aside from taking the tape over to someone's house, obviously). That was also the case with TiVo and other early DVRs. You could watch what you wanted when you consumed content on the device of the content producer's choosing, usually PCs and laptops in the pre-tablet days.

P2P and Usenet provided that ability to the technically savvy, but content providers and carriers (e.g., satellite and cable providers) have come around too. I'd argue that we have TiVo and the DVR to thank for that.

Deputy Editor Nate Anderson:

Personally, time-shifting crept up on me, but now I can’t recall the last time I watched a show when it aired. It’s all Internet-based streaming now. I don’t even bother with a DVR, which is tethered more directly to a single screen.

Senior IT Reporter Jon Brodkin:

When I was a kid, there were a few times I forgot to watch The Simpsons. I was crushed because I knew it could be months before the episode I'd missed might be shown again. The idea of not being able to watch a TV show because you weren't home at 8:30 pm on a particular night or simply forgot to turn the TV on sounds archaic to me now. Plus, there's nothing like building up a week's worth of Colbert Report episodes and binge-watching them in one sitting (while skipping the commercials).

Associate Writer Casey Johnston:

I think it's interesting that this has become such a popular method of consumption when information now travels so fast and there are spoilers galore. It's engendered a new level of respect for the notion of the spoiler. Consumers can now package and consume content the way they want with the ability to take control away from cable providers, at least in terms of when and where. I wouldn't say primetime or Thursday night have no meaning anymore in terms of TV, but a TV show can make as big of a splash getting dropped in a 13-episode chunk on Netflix as it can debuting in a prime time slot, if not an even bigger and more immediate one.