The State of Automated Commercial Skipping 381
iskqy writes "Even though attention to commerical skipping has gone down since the motion picture studios sued replaytv for it, I've noticed that it appears to be alive and well in some PVR products on the market. ReplayTV PVRs have it (though different from what they got sued for) in what they call Show|Nav (what a terrible feature name!) and SnapStream's Beyond TV has it in a feature they call SmartSkip. In both cases, the user has to press a button to automagically skip a commercial (vs. the original ReplayTV feature which skipped them without any user intervention) but it's basically the same thing. ReplayTV plays down commercial skipping ("jump forward and back between scenes in a show") but SnapStream is more open about the feature ("Skip commercials and other parts of TV shows"). "
maybe im missing something... (Score:5, Interesting)
state of commercials (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:MythTV (Score:3, Interesting)
What about the station logo? (Score:1, Interesting)
Teach those stations to clutter up my screen with their crap.
How ReplayTV Show/Nav works (Score:1, Interesting)
Having owned a ReplayTV for some time now, I can let you guys know exactly how the commercial skip and the new show/nav features work.
Commercial skip, when on, attempts to detect commercials and skip over them. It uses an unspecified algorithm, most likely relying on fade-outs and black screens. It does not blindly skip ahead x number of minutes.
There is another feature that is quite handy, a button on the remote that skips ahead 30 seconds. Another button will skip backwards 7 seconds. In addition, you can type a number on the remote (like "3") then hit the skip ahead or skip backwards button, it will skip that many minutes ahead or backward.
Another feature is, if you want to skip to a certain portion of the show, and you know how many minutes into the show that portion is, you can just type that number and hit the "skip" button.
Show/Nav works similar to commercial skip, but you have to press the right-direction button. You can also go backwards by pressing the left-direction button. I find it helps to see the time, just to make sure I don't skip too far ahead... so I hit "select" to show the current program time, then hit the right-direction button. If it skips too far ahead, I just hit the left-direction button, then use the other methods to jump over the commercials.
Re:What's with extra commercials anyway? (Score:2, Interesting)
Shareholders ?
Identifying Commercials 101 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Flawed business model? (Score:3, Interesting)
If this ends up being a feature TV watchers like, TV stations will just have to change buisness models. Probably by increasing product placement in lieu of commercials.
Truthfully, I'm surprised that advertisement as a TV revenue stream didn't fail decades ago. Survey results show that it just isn't that effective beyond initial product introductions. And they annoy people. No buisness model thats based on annoying your customers will work once there's an easy way to circumvent the annoyance.
Re:maybe im missing something... (Score:5, Interesting)
A commercial broadcast is a copyrighted work. So you can't infringe on that copyright by creating a derivative work. Deleting the commercials creates an unauthorized derivative work, just like deleting certain scenes of a movie creates an unauthorized derivative work. This is why devices that automatically remove the commercials for you infringe.
But wait, you say, I am not deleting the commercials, I am just skipping them! Actually I am not even doing that -- I am just skipping ahead 30 seconds when I feel like it. If that always happens to come during commercials, that's not my fault. This is where it gets really interesting -- the networks say that the 30-second-skip is an infringing device under the DMCA because there is no substantial non-infringing use for a thirty-second skip ahead. That is, the only purpose that most TV users would use for a 30-second skip is to skip commercials, thus creating an unauthorized derivative work. On the other hand, you could say that 30-second skip is no different from fast-forward, and we know fast-forward has a substantial non-infringing use -- going past stuff that you've already seen or don't want to bother with.
If I wanted to distinguish pop-up blockers from replay, I would say that pop-up blockers are different because (1) the commercials are not integrated with the rest of the site (they change by user) and therefore they are not a coherent copyrighted work like a TV broadcast, and (2) pop-up blockers have a substantial non-infringing use because they prevent people from falling into pop-up traps, which are obviously very bad.
But I'm not sure that argument would win.
Well, (Score:3, Interesting)
Popups, on the other hand, and at least for now, require that a person enable popup blocking, so they are voluntarily requesting to skip "web commercials", and it can't be argued that a user might have missed a "feature" that they wanted to see. When Microsoft's next version of IE automagically disables popups, we'll have to see if they get their hands slapped in a simmilar manner to ReplayTV.
Also, it could be argued that popup and popunder advertisements are really a hack/loophole in the web standards (especially popups that trap on the back & close buttons), and that this was not the intended usage, so a user has the right to take "corrective" measures to disable them.
Re:Commercials are ok - once (Score:3, Interesting)
Repeatedly showing the same scenario to you - say, the white nuclear family is talking about Timmy's grades over dinner, Whippy Mayonnaise in the new plastic container falls off the table and falls, bounces, but does not break - is done intentionally, and designed so that over time, when you're sitting at dinner talking about grades, you'll think fleetingly of the new container for Whippy Mayonnaise. Since you've seen it hundreds of times, it occupies that same kind of memory space that your favorite songs do, and will be recalled by associated moments and events. Thus you will be more likely to buy Whippy (because you think about Whippy every night at dinner when you ask your kid about school today). These are called "impressions," and they are carefully crafted by psychologists and marketing people to take over your thoughts about particular events.
In essence, they're trying to take over a part of your brain forever, and all you get for "free" in return is.... television, which frankly sucks.
Re: Commercial Volume (Score:2, Interesting)
Some of us knew though, that a dB meter measures 'heating', or average level. The new trick advertisers were using was sampling, which essentially PULSED the audio, at much higher levels, so it looked the same on a meter, because its heating value (duty cycle) was equivalent, but sounded louder, because it deflected speakers more.
Replay commercial skip just looks for video blackouts, which typify transition to/from commercial. Though this makes mistakes on dark shows/interludes, it's still amazingly good.
Skip Commercials I don't like (Score:1, Interesting)
What I would like is a method to "kill" a commercial I don't like. I see a commercial I don't like-- *BOOP* it's gone, the hypothetical system remembers I've killed it, and it makes sure I never see it again. I don't even mind if the information about which commercials I've killed and how many times I viewed it before I killed it get sent back to the networks or some information clearinghouse. I don't even mind if they replace the commercial I killed with *gasp* another commercial (which I haven't killed yet).
I would especially like if they make the aggregate information available to the public. It would be interesting to me to see statistics on how many times people will watch a good commercial before they kill it because they are tired of it. And to see product categories or advertising agencies whose commercials get killed the most quickly.
In general, I accept advertisements as the devil's due for broadcast channels.. but I would like to see technology relieve some of the annoyance factor.
Automatic skipping shouldn't have been illegal (Score:3, Interesting)
As it stands, it looks like automating the skipping process is what takes away the substantial non-infringing use claim for customers. (Of course, this is likely to change rapidly in the existing legal environment, but that looks to be the case for now).
The court should have recognized that being able to detect commercials automatically in the first place shouldn't have been possible at the accuracy the devices are capable of, unless broadcasters are themselves infringing on both laws and FCC regulations. For example, some of these devices detect differences in the peak or mean amplitude of the audio track. Others detect digital labeling originally used internally by the broadcast studios, and so are not just detecting commercials, but public service broadcasts, tests of the EBS, and station identification.
That last would not be necessary if local stations didn't sometimes broadcast 10 or 12 commercials in a row, broken up by a station identification segment to give a superficial legal defense against violating the FCC rulings.
That being the case, it's like a drug dealer going to court for taking a bad check. Their own violations mean they should not have standing to bring the lawsuits. Unfortunately, their own violations have been largely ignored by the system, which is often reluctant to enforce the law, and powerless to give FCC rules the full weight of law.
Re:Car ads (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems that a quick subliminal picture of a Coca-cola product, for example, actually influences viewers a great deal. They apparently all get reminded to think about whether they are thirsty. Then they either decide they aren't, or go ahead and respond to their decision that they are. They go get water from the fountain, or buy a Coke, or buy a Lemonade, or decide not to pay movie theatre prices and wait until later.
By this model, subliminals don't increase Coke sales at all, but instead of people trickling up to the counter throughout the movie, more of them cluster in the times just after showing the commercial. They also still pick the brands they prefer, among the available alternatives.
Now what if regular commercials work the same way? You see a Geico ad, you think "I really do need car insurance. I think I'll compare their price with some local agents and make a final decision. Huummm, I wonder if Allstate can do any better? What was that insurance company that used to sponsor Wild Kingdom?", and so on.
Re:Identifying Commercials 101 (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, there is full intent by the studios to force the use of the broadcast flag everywhere. The FCC may only require its use in over-the-air HDTV signals, but don't forget that that the studios have already forced satellite providers to include this functionality (thus no FCC mandate required). Just because the FCC does not require the flag for "satellite or cable consumers" does not mean that they will not also be subjected to it!
Don't forget that once the flag has been added, that the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent it (regardless of why the flag was put there; the DMCA treats both FCC-mandated over-the-air and manufacturer "feature" broadcast flags equally).
The only solution for commercials - trailers (Score:4, Interesting)
Make it really, really easy to download commercials - then before every show show "trialers" for a few commercials related to the show. If these are done well enough then people would watch instead of skipping, and go somewhere else to view the full versions of thigns they liked.
I LOVED adCritic when it was free and I could look at whatever commercials I liked. Broadcasters (including cable on over the air stations) are really missing out by not making it so that I can look at a commercial when I want to, instead of when they think I should. As it is even if skipping is not in a product I can and do just leave or FF anyway, since I have no idea anything of any interest may be shown.