No more Commercial Skipping ?

[1A12]

On the way to work this morning I heard something on the news that we may loose the ability to skip through commercials on our dvr's. Anyone know the particulars on this bs? Thanks

[Cholly]

On the way to work this morning I heard something on the news that we may loose the ability to skip through commercials on our dvr's. Anyone know the particulars on this bs? Thanks
You can find discussion on this on the General Discussion Forum, since it applies to all DVR's. :rolleyes:

[Kev]

I heard it was just tivo machines

[Unthinkable]

So much for the ever loyal declarations that Tivos are superior to Dish Network DVR's in every single way. Who on earth wants to be prompted to look at forced advertising popups while watching TV when regular ads are bad enough as it is? The ratio of good ads to bad ones has to be 1:50 in the Boston metro area.

[Phil T]

If DirecTivo does it you don't think it will appear on Dish soon after?

It is the programmers and advertisers driving this, not the consumers. :(

[nova828]

A good alternative to consider is a DVD/HDD recorder and a standard receiver instead, like a 311 or 322. I have the Panasonic DMR-E80 and 322 and love it. Major downside is having to set two timers, but not only is it monthy-fee free, but no one has any control over it other then you. You can even edit out all the commercials ahead of time using the "playlist" feature, that way you can just sit back and enjoy your show without having to find the remote every 7-15 minutes to fast forward through the commercials. And if you want to keep the show, just put in blank DVD and push the "dubbing" button on the remote, and in an hour or less you got a perfect bit for bit copy of the show on DVD you can watch anywhere.

[jsanders]

A couple of my friends have Tivos, and they did not come with the commercial skip ahead enabled. To do it, they had to play a pre-recorded program, and then hit the sequence like "select play select 30 select". After that it worked like the Dish equipment.

Are you saying they would disable the function completely, not just turning it off as a default?

[hongcho]

They are not removing FF.

What TiVo is going to do is to display, while FFing, a banner (pop-up if you want) that do not obscure the whole frame which corresponds to the ad that is being FFed.

The information is already present in the broadcast. TiVo currently has something called "iPreview" which displays something like "press select to record" (for some TV show promotion) in the top right corner if the signal is detected. This information is not there for all ads though.

What TiVo is going to do is instead of just displaying the "press select to record", it will display a banner of the ad that's currently being shown, only while FFing. They are trying to be friendly to advertisers, that's all.

As for the 30-second skip, it is considered a "backdoor hack" and it does not seem to be mentioned. Since it is a "backdoor hack" (not an advertised feature of TiVo), it may disappear at any moment, but it doesn't seem like it's going to.

PS: Actually, the more troubling bill that is rumored to have passed is making FF through commercials in DVD illegal because it may extend to all recorded material, thus making DVR illegal.

Hong.

[jsanders]

As for the 30-second skip, it is considered a "backdoor hack" and it does not seem to be mentioned. Since it is a "backdoor hack" (not an advertised feature of TiVo), it may disappear at any moment, but it doesn't seem like it's going to.

PS: Actually, the more troubling bill that is rumored to have passed is making FF through commercials in DVD illegal because it may extend to all recorded material, thus making DVR illegal.


Thanks for clearing that up Hong. I think there I a difference between skipping over a DVD commercial vs. a DVR commercial. The DVD is pre-recorded media that you buy. When you buy a DVR, it doesn't have any commercials on it to skip over, nothing is pre-recorded on it. I sure hope the legislators see it that way too! :hurah: