TiVo to Sell Your Fast-Forward Button 777
Thomas Hawk writes "PVRblog is reporting today that TiVo will begin to place banner advertisements on your screen when you are fast forwarding. As one of the whole points for people getting a TiVo is to remove obtrusive advertising, it seems like a really bad move to force advertising on people at the exact moment that they are using your technology to avoid advertising. This act points to the desperation of TiVo and their management team and although it might help them in the short run it will most certainly backfire in the long run." This is ironic for a company whose slogan used to be "TV Your Way," but not surprising, since its CEO says he wants to move to a largely advertiser-supported revenue stream. I've bought three TiVos in the past four years, but my next PVR will run MythTV -- unless HR2391 passes and makes me a criminal for skipping commercials.
Get a ReplayTV (Score:3, Informative)
Everyone chill out! (Score:5, Informative)
Do you really think Tivo is stupid enough to alienate its customers? If you read the article you'll see that this in no way interferes with skipping commercials. It basically expands the "press thumbs up for more info" tag that appears in the top right of the screen during some commercials and makes them more of a billboard size. This is actually a popular feature among Tivo users as you could say, get a brochure for the new Corvette sent to your home by simply pressing thumbs up during the Chevrolet commercial. I welcome this.
Re:MeedioTV (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I dont think its such a bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
Re:that's fine with me (Score:3, Informative)
True that some ReplayTV series had a similar feature but that's been done away with.
Series 1, oh yeah. (Score:2, Informative)
Once again, our Series 1 value bounces back. I have a series 1 w/ network card, additional hdd, web interface, and lifetime service. You couldn't pay me to trade a series 2 for my series 1.
Email Directv and Tivo (Score:4, Informative)
Here is a link to the Directv Feedback page,
http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/glb/Form_Fee
and a link to Tivo's contact page
http://www.tivo.com/5.9.asp
Re:How to irritate a TiVo owner (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong.
During playback, on your remote, press:
Select - Play - Select - 3 - 0 - Select
and you'll have 30 second skip on your tivo until it loses power for whatever reason.
Re:Best way to avoid commercials (Score:3, Informative)
I've been tempted to buy a Tivo, but I don't want to dedicate that much to watching TV.
My Home Theater PC looks better and better (Score:2, Informative)
After hearing about and drooling over the TiVo boxes. I'm glad I built my own HTPC using SageTV [www.sage.tv] and Hauppauge PVR-250 cards. I can record and encode three shows simultaneously while playing a fourth. I can also stream to a client version of the software on my notebook. RealVNC [realvnc.com] lets me have in-depth control of the HTPC via my notebook to take advantage of my 1680x1050 notebook resolution.
I've got a writeup and pictures of my Home Theater PC setup on my website [terrystockdale.com].
Terry
TiVo Commercial Skipping Trick (Score:4, Informative)
Now your 'jump to index button' (the right arrow pointing at a pipe ->|) will jump 30 seconds if you are in play mode. You can change the 3 and 0 to suit your needs. The 'jump to index' still works as it used to if you are in rewind or fastforward mode.
Re:I dont think its such a bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
Enable the 30 second skip and don't worry about it (Score:5, Informative)
To enable:
1. Grab your TiVo remote.
2. Bring up any recorded program. (You have to be watching a recorded program rather than "Live TV" in order to enable the feature.)
3. On your TiVo remote, key in the following sequence:
SELECT PLAY SELECT 30 SELECT
4. If you've successfully entered the code, you should hear three "bings" in succession to inform you that you've successfully enabled the 30 second skip.
The only down side is that any time your TiVo is rebooted (such as after a power outage or a software update) you'll have to re-enable this feature.
What is this thing "fast forward" you speak of? (Score:3, Informative)
Tivo is the AOL of PVR's.
Re:I dont think its such a bad idea (Score:3, Informative)
Many
Try Out Freevo (Score:1, Informative)
Tivo's revenue stream and stock price. (Score:3, Informative)
Company Profile [reuters.com]
Company Two Year Stock Chart [yahoo.com]
This move seems to be a result of the hard stock price drop which occurred between March and September of 2004. I've always thought of corporations as one of those huge Euclid off road dump trucks with the 12' tires, and no power steering.
Re:I dont think its such a bad idea (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tivo's revenue stream and stock price. (Score:3, Informative)
The reason I bought it is because they are on the verge of being so great. It is a bit of a risk, but I was hoping to jump in while the getting was good, before the stock took off. As it turns out I got in a litle too early, and have lost a bunch of money.
I still think it is a good company that is ready to hit it big. The timing is the tricky part.
Oh well. Good luck!
Re:Make your TiVo "ReadOnly" (Score:2, Informative)
TiVo Employee clarifies change (article misleads) (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I dont think its such a bad idea (Score:3, Informative)
Ya know, back several years ago there used to be limits on how many commercials were allowed to be on tv. It was something like 2 minutes for every half hour. Then the companies lobbied the FCC and said they would behave. For the first few years they did as they promised, and slowly started to get worse and worse. It has now gotten so out of hand there are nearly 8 minutes of commercials for every 30 minutes. If they could make money out of 2 minutes of air time, they can certainly make money out of 8. I don't think media executives are worrying about putting food on their plate.
HR2391 Does Not Ban Commercial Skipping (Score:1, Informative)
Well, if you did, you'd see on page 26
If you didn't read where I bolded and italicized the appropriate content, then let me break it out for you:
"if no fixed copy of the altered version of the motion picture is created by such computer program or other technology."
There's no room for misinterpretation here. Unless you are *CREATING* an altered copy by skipping commercials or other content (which Tivo DOES NOT) you are perfectly fine.
RTFA!!!