[Doug Brott]

With the improvement of 30s Slip in the most recent release (0xEF), I'd like your opinion.

Is the 0xEF improvement to 30s Slip a suitable workaround to 30s Skip?

 

[RCY]

With the improvement of 30s Slip in the most recent release (0xEF), I'd like your opinion.

Is the 0xEF improvement to 30s Slip a suitable workaround to 30s Skip?

What was the improvement? (I don't have a HR20) Is it faster?

 

[CerpinTaxt]

It's better now than it used to be (faster), but I prefer the old TiVo instant 30 sec skip. But I doubt we will ever get the true skip on the HR20.

 

[Chris Blount]

It's too bad they can't sneak in a 30 second skip by entering a code just like on the Tivo. For all we know it's already there.

 

[Doug Brott]

It's better now than it used to be (faster), but I prefer the old TiVo instant 30 sec skip. But I doubt we will ever get the true skip on the HR20.

That's my take on it as well. I'm inclined to remove it from the Wish List, but since it is pretty high on the list now and I know it is near and dear to some folks, I wanted to get some kind of consensus on this item before I took action. I'll let this play out until tomorrow and then make a decision.

 

[qlanus]

If D* going to reduce the 'slip time' to two seconds this time, making the commercials essentially unwatchable (thankfully), I suggest they just bite the bullet and either make an 'immediate' skip option, or the only choice. If there is some contingent of users who prefers to view the commercials - they could use one of the various FF choices.

Just my $.02

 

[RCY]

It's too bad they can't sneak in a 30 second skip by entering a code just like on the Tivo. For all we know it's already there.

I agree completely. Make it a backdoor like that other DVR type that shall go unspoken.

 

[Milominderbinder2]

Slip is Now Better Than Skip!
The design speed for the Advance button (Slip) has doubled to the FF3 speed of 20 times normal playback speed. Again your results may vary. A 30 Second Slip is now shown in about 1.5 seconds.

Shown is the key word.

Now the HR20 Slip is a better Skip than the old TiVo Skip. The old TiVo backdoor Skip took just under a second to skip 30 seconds. But the TiVo Slip screen did not update during the Skip. You had no idea where you were. The old TiVo Slip was blind.

If you pressed TiVo's Skip 8 times to go through 4 minutes of commercials during a game, you could overshoot by 1 or 2 minutes if the break turned out to be shorter. It doesn't matter how fast you are if you don't watch where you are going.

The HR20's Slip lets you see where you are and hit Replay to come back out.

You need to have an option on your survey:
The HR20 Slip is now BETTER than the old TiVo Skip.

- Craig

 

[kenmoo]

Slip is Now Better Than Skip!

The HR20's Slip lets you see where you are and hit Replay to come back out.

You need to have an option on your survey:
The HR20 Slip is now BETTER than the old TiVo Skip.

- Craig

Thanks, MMB. I couldn't have said it better. Obviously there are two camps to this question and I understand the wish for a secret backdoor to activate a potential skip but it seems like the commercials are now being played in different timing segments to mess up the skip. Being able to watch it in the new much faster slip speed now allows me to adapt to every commercial break and not come back to the content blindly. I can also laugh at the holiday Clapper and Chia Pet commercials. :lol:

 

[RCY]

...
But the TiVo Slip screen did not update during the Skip. You had no idea where you were. The old TiVo Slip was blind.
...

Every time I press skip on my DTivo, I get one frame of picture to look at and rarely skip more than once more than I need to. For a 120 second commercial break, "slip" would take 6 seconds, assuming 1.5 seconds per 30 seconds commercial time. I can be off two on 30 second skip, and still easily beat 6 seconds. There may be other reasons to prefer "slip", but IMO, speed is not one of them.

 

[jaywdetroit]

With the improvement of 30s Slip in the most recent release (0xEF), I'd like your opinion.

Is the 0xEF improvement to 30s Slip a suitable workaround to 30s Skip?

I'm saving my vote. I need to use this feature for a few days to see if it is a suitable solution. My initial thought though is that this is a VAST improvement and it is welcome.

 

[Milominderbinder2]

Every time I press skip on my DTivo, I get one frame of picture to look at and rarely skip more than once more than I need to. For a 120 second commercial break, "slip" would take 6 seconds, assuming 1.5 seconds per 30 seconds commercial time. I can be off two on 30 second skip, and still easily beat 6 seconds. There may be other reasons to prefer "slip", but IMO, speed is not one of them.

We are in the middle of an advertiser's revolt against DVRs. They have always hated the remote control but DVRs are beyond scary.

During the Super Bowl, the classic scene is the guys watching the game and calling out for the girls to come in when the next commerical comes on.

If we are doing a 4 minute Slip and a Miller Lite Man Law commercial comes on, we stop. The same goes for the Careerbuilder.com guy who works with a bunch of monkeys. Our favorite was when he called the girl who worked with a bunch of jackasses.

If you make someone laugh, they are more likely to buy from you. They remember you. But it takes creativity to make the viewer want to watch your commercial.

For the short term, what we will see is more variable length commercial slots. Broadcasters used to have to make commercials start and stop at constant intervals like 120 seconds. SOmetimes the affilliate would miss and you would watch dead air.

Not any more.

Metatags or flags let a network embed a marker to tell local carriers when to insert commercials and for how long. This is a key weapon because broadcasters will be varying the length of commercials making it harder to channel surf or 'bloop' during a commercial.

The new Fast Slip let's us catch them when they try to do a quick cut back out of commercial. It also let's watch a good commercial. It does not matter how fast a player is if he can't play heads-up ball.

Our old friend Skip is blind-folded.

My first prediction for 2007: By year end, TiVo will be under pressure to replace Skip with Slip.

Skippy won't be able to keep up.

- Craig

 

[jkc120]

With the improvement of 30s Slip in the most recent release (0xEF), I'd like your opinion.

Is the 0xEF improvement to 30s Slip a suitable workaround to 30s Skip?

I'm quite happy with the new 30s slip. I actually prefer it to a 30 second skip, the reason being I can queue up 6-7 of them, and hit skip back when I see a frame from a show after a commercial. This allows for slightly varying commercial break lengths. With 30s skip, I might land 30-60 seconds short of the restart of the show, or land 30 seconds into a show.

 

[paulman182]

It was fine for me as it was. Now it is excellent.

I'm not very picky.

 

[RCY]

Our old friend Skip is blind-folded.

My first prediction for 2007: By year end, TiVo will be under pressure to replace Skip with Slip.

Skippy won't be able to keep up.

- Craig

Let me say this once more: Every time I press the "skip" on my DTivo, I see a frame. I am able to discern the difference between the program I'm watching and a commercial. Skip (on my DTivo anyway) is not blind.

Skip has been around for about 5 years now. It is still in TIVO, DTivo, Dish, Sony, MythTV, BeyondTV and HTPC DVRs.

I have no problem with folks who like to watch commercials for whatever reason - that's your right.

 

[sequoiadean]

We've had an HR10 for over a year now, and my wife and I never use the 30 second skip. Pressing FF twice, then play to jump back, works perfectly. You don't have to guess how many commercials there are. I haven't tried this function on the 0xEF update yet, but on the previous version, this definitely did not work as well as the HR10 - maybe because the FF speed (even at 3) wasn't as fast. I'd press FF 2 or 3 times, then the jump back button to go back, it didn't seem nearly as precise as the Tivo unit. We can hit the right spot virtually every time on the Tivo, if we can do a similar thing on the HR20, we'll be thrilled.

 

[Milominderbinder2]

Let me say this once more: Every time I press the "skip" on my DTivo, I see a frame. I am able to discern the difference between the program I'm watching and a commercial. Skip (on my DTivo anyway) is not blind.

TiVo's Slip freezes one frame for 30 seconds. So you can't see the next 719 frames.
- Craig

 

[RAD]

I don't know about you by the 30 sec slip isn't 30 seconds on my two boxes. Using the HDNet test pattern which has a clock on it when queuing up 6 'slips' it's 3:17 vs. 3:00. Boxes were like that on the prior code. For me just get the time right, I don't care slip or skip.

 

[tiger2005]

I'm quite happy with the new 30s slip. I actually prefer it to a 30 second skip, the reason being I can queue up 6-7 of them, and hit skip back when I see a frame from a show after a commercial. This allows for slightly varying commercial break lengths. With 30s skip, I might land 30-60 seconds short of the restart of the show, or land 30 seconds into a show.

I could not agree more. After using the 30s skip on the TiVo for a month I ended up disabling it mostly because you had no idea where you would end up. I have only been watching TV this evening, but so far I LOVE the 30s slip in EF. Its FAST, I know where the video is at all times, and I know exactly how many slips I have queued. I have to hand it to D* on this one. They are really starting to raise my standards of what I expect from them. And that is a good thing!! Based on this, Dual Buffers should be here any day now!

 

[houskamp]

Love it.. Can't wait for NASCAR on fox.. they do a wonderful job of 'popping' out of comercials for yellow flags.. if I couldn't see I would be way past..