Interactive commercials??

[ytseryan]

Ok, did a search..didn't find anything about this yet (unless I missed it)...

While watching dish today, during an American Express commercial, a prompt appeareed on my 501 (upper left corner), which said something to the effect "for more info press SELECT". I pressed select, and the dish home feature comes up, and it has an interactive ad for AmEx. I didn't stay long on that page, didn't want to accidentally order a new credit card!! haha.

It was just interesting, somthing I havn't seen before from Dish yet. Anyone else see this??

[DarrellP]

Buried in the menu somewhere there's an option for TV Enhancements. I turned mine off, there's nothing I dislike more than my TV talking to me.

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yup its part of the Wink Like fuctionality from Dish.

Unfortunately they are using the technology so that customers want to turn it off instead of a fun and interesting way that would make people enjoy the technology.

[DarrellP]

Scott, what would be an example of a fun and interesting way to enjoy this technology? Maybe I'm just an old fart, but when I watch TV, I want to watch TV and not see TNN black bars or CNN graphics plastered all over the screen or upcoming promos from the station blocking the credits.

Just curious,

Thanks.

[tampa8]

I can understand some do not see the value in this, and as it is now it certainly is not a must have feature. But it is new and the potential is there for it to be a better feature than it is now. I know I read quite sometime ago the QVC would offer special pricing via this method eventually. And during sports, it is planned for alot of information to be available to the viewer. For hard core sports fans this could be a wanted feature. It also could become to a link to other programs that you can pick to record - such as during American Idol, you could click and it will offer you to record the second night (results night). There are many other ideas out there. Will they come to pass? That is the question.

[DarrellP]

I rest my case.

[Mike Richardson]

Scott, what would be an example of a fun and interesting way to enjoy this technology? Maybe I'm just an old fart, but when I watch TV, I want to watch TV and not see TNN black bars or CNN graphics plastered all over the screen or upcoming promos from the station blocking the credits.

Just curious,

Thanks.
TNN finally killed their black bars around the time they were to change to Spike TV (but couldn't due to Spike Lee suing them). The black bars were totally USELESS anyway: We already have an on-screen banner that tells us the name of the program that is on!

[DarrellP]

Mike, I actually watched an episode of Babewatch on TNN this week. Since they killed the black bar, the girls look like they all lost about 40 lbs.

[Scott Greczkowski]

Lets see, some good uses I have seen of Interactive was on Bloomberg the stock ticker on the bottom is replaced with your own custom ticker.

On the weather channel the local weather shown is for your area.

On the Music Channels you see a picture of the album cover and get neat facts about the songs.

[crkeehn]

I think it was on TBS, with Sum of All Fears. Bringing up the interactive gave you background information on the film and it's filming, information on the actors, future program listings and future showings of the film. Yes, I could have lived without it but I did enjoy (probably more than the movie as I felt they butchered the story) the additional content. In all fairness, most of the interactive channels have not provided content that good.

[DarrellP]

Scott, I think having a custom stock ticker would be very depressing. I try not to check my 401k everyday, but it's too tempting with the flux in the market these days.

Thanks for your input, it's just not anything I can get jazzed by.

[crkeehn]

Scott, I think having a custom stock ticker would be very depressing. I try not to check my 401k everyday, but it's too tempting with the flux in the market these days.

Thanks for your input, it's just not anything I can get jazzed by.

It's one of those things that has lots of potential, it could go either way. Unfortunately most of the stations I have seen with interactive content don't seem to know how to use it yet. Gee, that reminds me of the web a few years back.

[UnnDunn]

This (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds4444.html) is an example of what I'd like to see on interactive. I'm glad Dish is doing something with OpenTV, finally.