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ReplayTV May Drop "Commercial Advance"
An anonymous reader writes "Wired News is reporting that the new owners of ReplayTV are considering dropping the Commercial Advance and Send Show options features." I had bad luck with that function chopping out bits of show anyway. Between that and the 30 second skip function, I'm surprised ReplayTV has lasted this long!
I've thought of Tivo and Replay TV in the past, but as time goes on the companies degrade their products by getting rid of useful features like this.
How feasable is it to do something as good, but without the crippling, on a computer with a large hard disk and good video card?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Well honestly how can you really tell if it is going into a commercial anyways? Its not like the screen doesn't change at all within a show on TV anyways...
They're eliminating some of their main selling points, aren't they?
They sell you these products with the promise of watching "TV Your Way" (or whatever their silly tagline was) and pull stunts like this. It's bait-and-switch.
Trolling is a art,
About 3 months ago I was really considering buying a ReplayTV, but with the whole bankruptcy thing swirling around I became a bit anxious. I have been speaking with people who currently own a Replay and they said their service is still great, so I was starting to come back around. This whole thing has just sent me back towards the Tivo way. I would love to get a Tivo, but I do not have a phone line in my house (cell phone is the only phone I need). Hopefully I can find a Tivo that will not require a phone line, and I will be all over it.
Johnkoerner.com
I don't understand why ReplayTV would even consider removing those features, especially seeing as those are two of the HUGE advantages it has over its (winning) competitor Tivo.
Sure, Tivo has the 30 second skip if you have the right model and you enter in the Easter Egg, but most people don't surf around for Easter Eggs and therefore aren't aware of it (plus it isn't advertised as a feature for drones shopping at Best Buy, etc.).
They already declared bankruptcy and were bought out by another company, so somehow by eliminating some of its most compelling features they are going to rise to the top?
Would you rather have cat^H^H^HTV detector vans running around?
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Company wants to drop features from their proprietary product. One more feature the open source solutions can have over the product.
Maybe someone can convince Microsoft to drop all network support.
I'm sure it'll be a big hit.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
TV is evil anyway. It really adds no value to one's life. It is a disease in that it gives your brain just enough stimulation to prevent it from getting bored and doing something worthwhile. Stop watching it. Doing so will change your life. I'm not joking. Watching TV conditions you for the worse, and the only way you'll know I'm not making this up is to go without for 2 months.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
Software solutions such as MythTV and Freevo (both run on Linux) require fairly hefty hardware to do the encoding of TV to MPEG-2, MPEG-4, etc. Then they need to decode it to play it to the screen. Both encoding and decoding is necessary in order to do the time shift.
However, MythTV is leading the charge to offload this processing to the WinTV PVR cards, freeing up the system CPU for other stuff, or just allowing the user to scrape by with minimum requirements. So the feasability is improving quite rapidly right now.
MythTV has also been doing some impressive work on their GUI (check out the screenshots). This was one area I previously thought Freevo had a leg up on, but that advantage is going away.
Links:
MythTV
Freevo
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
"I must be a bit confused. Which features has Tivo removed from my system?"
I read on Slashdot a few months about about a feature, perhaps a hardware jack, that made it easy to copy TV shows to your hard disk....and that whatever feature it was, Tivo took it away or was going to take it away. Or maybe it was an encryption that was added?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Haven't watched TV for at least two years, don't miss it one bit.
People should go out, talk and get their own lives instead of borrowing fictional lives off of the TV.
Did you know that the US government gave money to ER (is it still running?) to show positions favourable to government policy. (e.g. evil drug addicts)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
"own lives instead of borrowing fictional lives off of the TV"
The same argument can be used for stopping reading books, never seeing plays.
I believe there was a Ask Slashdot a few weeks ago regarding building your own PVR. The majority of the comments seemed say "Why bother, just buy a TIVO/Replay TV, its already done for."
Well, this is why you roll your own. Yes, its a little more work, the cost is pretty much the same, but there is no monthly fee, and features don't get yanked out from under you.
MythTV is absolutely amazing, and its evolving incredibly fast. If your lookinng for a PVR, I recommend giving it a shot.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
"Money didn't "flow" like that at all when cable was in its infancy. One of the selling points was that aside from the local stations, none of the other channels had commercials because you were already paying for it."
I've had cable since the late 1960s. Its real infancy: there were no channels without commercials other than the one at the bottom of the dial where the camera panned back and forth across weather dials.
The selling point was that you could receive stations period. Without cable, the broadcasters were too distant to see.
In 2003, I still have cable since it the only way to see the broadcast networks.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The commercial skip works great on sitcoms that are on the main network stations. That's about it. On TechTV and G4 it doesn't skip past the long commericals (video professor, that air filter thing). On dramas like 24, Buffy or Alias it skips too far, requiring me to rewind several minutes. I probably use commercial skip on about 1/4th of all my recorded shows.
My Parents:
Watch TV all the time. Requests to turn the damn thing off are met with a confused gaze.
My Apartment:
TV gets turned on when we have friends over for the purpose of watching a movie, or we're too brain drained to do anything but sit and watch pretty colors. Oh, and when I want to play with my PS2.
How does that impact our lives? I spend most of my time with my friends. A night to myself becomes a rare and cherished thing spent reading a book I've been looking forward to or on a game I haven't played in ages.
My GF and I throw dinner parties, have nights out with friends, spend time talking to each other and interacting as adult human beings.
Hell, I didn't have cable for four years and never missed it.
Although I do admit, the Food Chanel is pretty fun. Of course, my GF and I end up trying a lot of the tings we see on the shows there.
My mother can give a run down of the entire life story of all the characters on "Friends" and "Stargate SG1" (The latter watched not for the content, but for MacGyver's presence.) Her social life consists largely of people from Church, and she doesn't see them very often.
I prefer my life, thank you very much.
And to add a slice of irony, I'll quote a character from a very bad sci-fi show: "We stopped watching movies when we realized that our own lives were far more interesting."
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
"If one is a free-thinker and a disbeliever in mythologies then all religions can be filed under "Rubbish"."
Except, of course, for the religion the so called "free-thinker" subscribes to. Yes, only if they think like you do are they a "free thinker".
(that term is troublesome, free-thinkers are found in and outside of all religions)
What exactly is the legal problem with Commercial Advance? Replay doesn't remove commercials from the recording, it just marks the video with indexes that it later uses to identify commericials. Skipping ahead about 3 minutes (3, QuickSkip) works pretty well too. It would seem to me that if Big Media has a problem with Commercial Advance, they'd have a problem with ALL DVRs.
I think you mean "unabridged". Other than that, keep up the good work!
I have the DSS tivo, very nice as its all digital, no analog saving. Saw that the Replay was onsale at costco, and the slashdot article on copying files to your PC/MAC.
Bought the replay, found out you had to buy a subscription, it wouldnt work without one. (and it was refurbished...)
Hooked it up off the tivo, and the picture quality saving fromt the Tivo to the Replay was not that great. Could of been the Digital->Analog problem, but even my VCR recorded better. But I was able to move the files to the PC or MAC and edit them. But in the end, I didnt want to pay for the subscription, and he quality wasnt as good. Also, it didnt work with my normal DSS box. (the IR didnt control it) So I returned it.
Even thou Tivo doesnt have an option to copy the movies off, the DSS models have a great picture, even better than the normal broadcast quality. Im thinking of getting the series 2 for DSS, could use more HD space also.
BTW, i used the litttle secret code to enable 30 second skip, works great. Only problem tivo has, season pass manager is slow.
While watching a show hit:
Select -> Play -> Select -> 3 -> 0 -> Select
The move to the end of the show button turns in to a 30 second skip button. It works great for me, sometimes it turns off after software updates so you will have to run the button sequence again.
I had bad luck with that function chopping out bits of show anyway.
turn off commercial advance, after the advance and rewind a couple of seconds to desired point. Turn commercial advance back on.
Commercial advance is by far one of the greatest features, it makes hour long shows into 40 minute shows saving me time and giving me more tv!
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Ok first of all:
I had bad luck with that function chopping out bits of show anyway.
1. Not sure exactly what was meant by this. But it doesn't actually chop the show an commercial is still there. If you meant that it might of skipped some of your show that would of been better said.
2. Seems to be some confusion at least it seems in this article about the 30 second skip and Commercial Advance. These are 2 different features. 30 sec skip seems like it is on all PVR's but CA is only on the ReplayTV. It actually skips commercials while watching (doesn't skip the recording of commercials) the show. It is a great feature. Hope it doesn't get removed.
3. A lot of people responses sound like they think this is a for sure decision. It is not! It is an option DNNA is looking at. They will make that decision based on the cost. Lawyers compared to sales from feature. Also if they believe they can win.
I can say one thing and this is the main reason I supported ReplayTV. Sonicblue stood up for the consumer; you don't see any other PVR doing this. The fought until it emptied their pockets but they didn't let up! I only hope DNNA also has the guts to stand up for the consumer! I lose the features no big deal it is the principal of Hollywood thinking they can prevent innovation that bothers me!
Replaytv owner - Proud and Extremly Happy!!! Plus must add a brag, we have DVarchive!
I have not made the move to a PVR, but we use our 9 year old VCR to tape shows and watch later. And guess what, I use the fast forward button to get through the commercials! Perhaps we should remove that button from all remotes.
The real power of TiVo can be found here: -A list of all your recorded programs (just browse through to see what you want to watch) -Program once, record forever (even if the show changes time slots) -Pausing live TV (great for potty breaks & getting a snack - you don't have to wait for a commercial) -Rewinding live TV (Whoa! Was that a boob I just saw?!) -Beautiful & instant Pause -Insanely speedy fast-forward & rewind (60x play speed by default - can be "hacked" to be faster) -Recommended programs that are automatically recorded I have a TiVo & the 30 second skip button is nice (yes it's an easter egg), but the "super-fast-forward" will generally get you through the commercials in 5 seconds (instead of the 2 seconds that it takes to hit the skip button 8 times), and it starts playing the instant you hit the play button. People who make the decision to buy a TiVo based on the 30-second skip button probably don't understand the product. It does so much more... Since I've had TiVo, I watch more television shows than I used to, but I spend less time doing it (i.e. watching American Idol takes 20 minutes instead of 1 hour, most shows only takes 20 minutes instead of 30, you can get right to Dave Letterman's Top Ten List, etc.)
Like any drug, used occasionally, wisely, and with moderation, it can add pleasure to your life without ruining it.
I like TV when I'm frustrated; it can reset my mind when I'm spinning on some issue. I like TV when I'm ill; it takes my mind off the suffering. I like TV when I have 30 minutes to kill and there happens to be an episode of The Simpsons on.
It's a drug many, many people abuse, and I'm sure that's what you're thinking of in your post. If you're watching TV three hours a night, every night, it's clearly a drug that has begun to control you. If you're settling for the best thing on TV rather than getting on with your life, you're doing it wrong.
To paraphrase Shakespeare: "Good TV is a good familiar creature, if it be well used; exclaim no more against it."
I do wish most people would watch less TV, but I think that declaring TV in general to be a "disease" is counterproductive. Try thinking of it as a drug that too many people are addicted to.
A lot of people in the USofA tune in to the Super Bowl solely to watch ads of a higher caliber than usual. If companies developing advertisements would make them more appealing on a regular basis, people would be more inclined to watch them rather than reach for the skip button.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
the commercial skip feature wasnt useful enough. as a consumer i want to skip the ads. they take that away, and theres one less reason to buy one. they shoulda learned from intuit, that making things worse for the consumer hurts the bottom line, making things better for disney helps them avoid frivolous lawsuits. first company with a good commercial skip will drive them out of business. my mom always told me that intelligence is not something you should avoid.
---
Look buddy, my ReplayTV does everything it's supposed to, and more. I have NEVER had the commercial advance cut out chunks of my shows. I have NEVER had a problem with any function of the device. Except for the fact that when I'm watching TV sometimes without the replay I get really confused when I see ads.
Fuck ads. I hate ads. The ReplayTV is the coolest device i have ever bought.
If they stop making them i guess its back to Kazaa for me to get commercial-free programming.
Once again, FUCK ADS.
I've been toying with the idea of writing an ivr program (interactive voice response) on a spare machine as both an answering machine as well as a pbx. (caller has to select a number to get in, similar to the privacyguard.com stuff.)
Combine that with freevo, and when the phone rings, the tv show freezes and the caller's number and name is displayed on screen.
Or you could simply hit a button on the remote for Do Not Disturb, and only messages are taken (unless the user selects the Emergency option on the ivr software.)
can replaytv run linux?
Responding to all of the "I told you so" Tivo posts:
:)
The one reason that I bought a ReplayTV instead of Tivo is that I can plug the unit into my router and then download the recorded Mpeg2 files down to my primary computer, where I can then compress it into Divx or whatever.
It is the open attitude that SonicBlue represented that eventually won me over. I can only hope the D&M is good about this too. If not... MythTV is probably in my future
Buffy's gone and everything else is all reruns for the next two months anyway!
I'm a bit confused as to why commercial skip/advance has become so controversial all of a sudden. VCRs have had these features for years: Panasonic, Sony. So why is this a big deal when it comes to PVRs?
In the scenery where I don't pay for ads in the food, clothing, cars, etc prices, I would wholeheartedly give the money (even some US$ 300) for the production of the shows I like.
An advantage: if Berman and Braga started making my favorite show suck, I would cut their budget!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
...drop Replay itself and exchange its intellectual property with Tivo in exchange for a Tivo hardware/software license and a stake in the company. In the end, they'll save themselves a lot of legal problems and they can carve themselves out a profitable niche for more advanced Tivo hardware...better that than spend a ton of money trying to educate consumers why their Replay TV system is *better* than the prevailing Tivo and Dish Network DVR platforms... Last time I heard, Replay had less than 100k customers, Tivo had over 700k, and Dish has 1 million PVR customers...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
So skipping commercials isn't allowed? How about getting up to use the bathroom when a commercial comes on? Give me a break, as much as the networks will complain about commercials being skipped they don't have much choice do they. If they send you the data you have every right to record it and play it back at a later time, skipping parts of shows, commercials, anything you want.
Chris
OK to summarize:
I buy the Tivo OR ReplayTV for one reason and one reason only, to make more time for myself.
I am a busy guy (read: Pr0n) and don't have the time to look up shows and watch them when they are on. Tivo or ReplayTV do this for me.
I also like the speedy set up. The Tivo integrates directly with my satellite, automatically updates itself, and basically requires no maintenance on my part. I want to just sit down in front of my TV and watch whatever shows I missed while I was working, looking at pr0n, whatever.
Right off, this means Freevo or similar probably won't work for me. It is too kludgy and time consuming to set up and maintain (key point is patching). Plus the guides in it aren't as good. Lastly, I don't want to maintain extra computers (I already look after 2 Solaris and 3 x86 systems... I don't want any more).
BUT! The other half of the Tivo service that gives me extra time, is the ability to skip commercials. A normal hour of television has about 15-20 mins in ads. I can skip these and fit in another half-hour (commerical free) show!
If you take away the commercial skips, you take away half of the benefit. Now your providing a lesser product, but still charging the same price. To me it is a no-brainer. Either they can lower the price to match, or people (at least those like me) won't buy it, if they do this.
"I don't own a TV"
That is nothing to be proud of, unless it turns out you have one through borrowing or rental.
"They got out of it around the same time TV began pushing the boundaries..."
That is what new information often does: broadens horizons.
I have an RCA VCR that is about 5 years old and has commercial skip. After it records a program, it rewinds, scans the show, and 'marks' the commercials. On play-back it can automatically fast-scan through them.
As far as I know RCA still sells VCR's with this feature. While you don't have all the features of a digital machine, at least you don't have to worry about them automatically 'upgradeing' your machine and removing features !
I wouldn't purchase a PVR unless it had a commercial skipping feature.
I also would never purchase a ReplayTV, purely on the basis of their EULA. Ever read it? It grants them the right to change the feature set on your device whenever they choose. So curent owners may see useful features dissapearing at anytime!
Good luck!
" wish there were a way to filter out the smug, self-righteous "kill your television" evangelists who invade every TV-related thread for the sole purpose of telling us we're wasting our lives. TV is no more evil than books or movies, and avoiding TV does not make your life inherently better."
Hear, hear! TV is just information. The more information, the better. "Kill your television" comes from the same "censor those evil outside ideas" mentality that the book-burners in the South and Nazi Germany thrive on.
Manufacturer pays for advertising so that consumer knows goods exist
I can understand this in the case of RC Cola, but at least five nines of the audience already know that Coca-Cola and Pepsi exist.
Will I retire or break 10K?
As a long-time ReplayTV owner (have a model 2001, 2020, and a 5040) for me, this really is no big deal at all.
First off, it only affects the 5000 or newer series. So, two of my three ReplayTV boxes will be unaffected.
Second, some have had great success with Commercial Advance, but I never had much luck, so I never use it.
And third, the Internet File Sharing for me is another non-issue. Given the upstream cap on my Internet connection, show sharing is just plain prohibitive.
Dinally, let's not confuse "Internet File Sharing" with in-house program streaming between ReplayTV boxes on the same LAN. This feature is NOT being removed. This is the one feature for me that makes the 5040 worth it--it lets me seamlessly offload shows using the DVArchive app to my PC where storage is cheap and either stream them back to the ReplayTV box or burn them to DVD.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
I don't see anything in the article that mentions the 30 second quick skip. They are talking about Commercial Advance (which jumps over commercials automatically when it detects them) and the send show feature.
;)
I'm sure many RTV owners will agree with me that having the ability to send shows over the internet is pretty pointless (it can take hours to days to send one). That feature is probably rarely used my most. However, in the process, D&M better not remove the ability to stream shows from other RTVs on your LAN. That would sucks and break DVArchive (which is probably the biggest selling point of Replays).
Now Commercial Advance is a nice feature, but it only works on about 1/2 of the shows I watch, and on that half it doesn't work flawlessly. It wouldn't kill me to lose this features, but it is one of the reasons why I bought a Replay instead of Tivo.
Lastly there is the 30 second skip. There is no talk of removing this feature...and they better not. Being able to "shorten" show watching time is one of the big reasons for owning a PVR in the first place. This feature is a must!
And for those who don't know, you can do a X minute skip by typing the number of minutes on the keypad and pressing skip. 3 + Skip works well to skip over a lot of commercials.
ÕÕ
"Judaism, Christianity, Islam. What do they all have in common?"
You certainly have no idea.
"Go back to your apologist boards where people don't question the dominant religious teachings."
Nothing to apologize for. What boards do you use to be indoctrinated in your faith and fire up the bigotry against those who do not have your religion?
I'm noticing a lot of posts along the line of 'This is why you should use MythTV..'
Don't overlook SageTV!
While it's not free, nor open source, it's the most incredible PC-based PVR I've seen to date. At only $59.95, it's a bargain. Program guide data is FREE! Upgrades are FREE! And the pace of development has been outstanding.
In it's current build, it supports;
- Multi-tuner, multi-lineup recording (satellite on one card, cable on the other.. or two cable captures, or five.. whatever.)
- Recording to either Mpeg2 or Mpeg1 format (for easier portability to DVD-R or VCD.)
- Network streaming to other PCs
- Automatic recording of favorites, as well as suggestions based on your viewing history (which is easily disabled.)
- XMLTV listings import (if for some reason, free listings aren't good enough for you.)
- Dscaler support and plugins (much better quality than MythTV, Tivo, or Replay on my HDTV.)
- Audio library management..
Features they're saying will come 'soon' include;
- HDTV Support
- DVD Playback
It's not free, but it's definitely a value. The way the guys at Frey Technologies are adding features is just unbelievable. Sometimes, free solutions are not the best.
"I don't have a problem, and I get enraged when someone mentions that I might!"
Open your eyes, dude.
Your wallet stays open. Our source remains closed. We are MSFT
With the recent move to 5.0 software, commercial advance has become rock solid. It is one of the best features of the box. DNNA will be idiots if they remove one main feature that separates them from TIVO. Why would anyone want ReplayTV if it is the same as TIVO and TIVO appears to be more stable.
They should have simply released an SDK and someone would have added this functionality for them. If you're an amateur enthusiast programming your ReplayTV and you learn how to skip 30 seconds, well, how is that a) illegal or b) thier fault.
probably would give us lots of other cool things too, but what the hey.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Slightly off-topic, but does anybody know how CA works? What in the TV signal distinguishes the program from the advertisements? Does Replay have a patent on this technique?
What the hell do these no TV no-goodnicks watch PORN on?
Personal computers can play erotic DVDs and erotic video streamed from the Internet. Both literary and visual erotica are available in dead-tree format, often from a public library.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I've not found commercial advance to do a good job of identifying the commercials, and always turn it off. The skip forward feature is just as effective, particularly if you're watching a show you watch frequently enough to know the pattern of the commercials.
I think the networks should align the commercials very regularly, such that a 30-second skip will give you a few frames after the start of each commercial. I've been watching TV with a ReplayTV recently, and haven't seen any of the commercials people have talked about. Ideally, people would skip all of the commercials which aren't targetting at them and watch the ones that are because they're interesting.
Ads between shows are also effective, since ReplayTV continues to play the audio while you're selecting a show and doesn't let you skip if there's nothing to skip to.
Another Wright quote:
"If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger""
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Even the abridged versions are extremely long.
I agree. Plus, skipping commercials lets me watch 6 hours of TV in about 4 hours, sometimes less.
I agree with that sentiment. TV is a lot like a mild drug in the sense that it's a habit with small psychological payoffs.
Enjoy the occason round of drinks, but know why you drink. There's an old saying "drink because you're happy not because you're sad".
In other words, the problem is a lot of people haven't figured out "why" they spend so much time watching television. And often they really want to be doing something else, but don't feel motivated enough to do it, or fine what it is.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
read it here: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=49 4&ncid=763&e=3&u=/ap/20030523/ap_en_tv/earns_t ivo
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Actually, my wife and I DID stop watching TV for about two years, entirely... Everquest just took up too much time to follow TV shows.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I'm supprised no company sells mythtv based PVRs. Go ahead and do all the setup and sell a redy to go box. Myth is a bitch to set up(compared to tivo), but once it's working it's as easy to use.
I'm no lawyer but I can't imaging a company could sell a device with an advertised commercial skip function and then remove it later. I would believe that they are considering removing the feature from *future* ReplayTV's. That would make sense.
The comercial skip feature feature is great! It doesn't work so well on a lot of the high-budget teenyboper shows with quick cuts and no blank frames inbetween the shows and comercials but so far it has worked perfectly on the history channel every time. It also doesn't work well on shows with a lot of mostly black frames like Angel and Buffy. It doesn't skip the last comercials in a show so you do still see some comercials even if it works flawlessly. Comercials are so much less annoying now though, that I don't mind seeing a few.
The barriers for entry into the PVR market are lowering. It's time for some new blood in this arena. I've had a ReplayTV for a while now and I'm impressed with it but it's been a few years since the Tivo and ReplayTV first came out and there hasn't been much advancement since.
Where are the PVRs that can encode to and play MPEG 4? Where are the PVRs with a DVD drive that will also rip and store audio CD's as MP3's? Were are the PVR's that can burn their shows to a DVD or SVCD? Where are the PVRs that can stream shows to/from a PC in a nice standard format (the Replay's mpeg2 files are messy, most programs don't like them and it can't play mpeg's that it didn't create.) These are all things that are so easy that you could almost hack the existing machines to do it and yet it hasn't been done. Are these companies so afraid of being sued that they won't even try and give consumers what they want?
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
Accorting to TrafficRanking.com AdCritic is more popular than Cinemax online and Showtime online. If the commercials are good people will seek them out.
AdCritic: 53935
Cinemax: 60065
Showtimeonline:214773
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
But of course they haven't, they were acquired by SonicBlue, which went bankrupt. Presumably the new owners D&M would like to avoid the same fate, hence removal of the consumer friendly features.
About 6 months ago I built my own computer/TIVO based around ATI's AIW Radeon 8500DV, which comes with their fantastic RemoteWonder. ATI's latest software has a 30 second skip feature, plus you can set up custom buttons to skip back or forward 3 seconds to get exactly where you want to be.
My family can watch the recorded shows on any computer throughout the house. We can pause live TV. ATI's software identifies the station and gives the program's name (which is great for surfing). You can also set it up to check what's on all of your favorite channels at the same time!
Plus, you can use if to store you music collection (which you can also play throughout the house) and for games.
And best off all, you can build such a system for less than $500 bucks and you'll never have to pay monthly fees.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
"Cancel cable service."
Sorry, I have to admit I like The Simpsons. If I cancel cable, I won't be able to see it anymore.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Detroit (AP) - Ford Motor Company said it would likely leave some controversial features on its motor vehicles for now but may strip them from new models.
Ford, the American automaker which is approaching its 100 year anniversary, said it is mulling the fate of its automobile features which allow them to stop more quickly and safely than autos utilizing traditional brake systems.
"We want to respect the intent of body repair shops, and give consumers everything that they can get," said J. Random Moneybags, an executive at Ford.
Moneybags added that Ford models selling today still include airbags and seatbelt options, but the company has not made up its mind about including those features in future products.
Ten years ago when Ford introduced its 4000 series of airbags, that feature upset major healthcare players, which filed lawsuits against Ford claiming that its safer autos robbed them of revenue.
Moneybags said the old lawsuits remain with Ford, but current Ford models still offer the features that prompted the ire of those auto repair and healthcare companies.
That is a myth. Radio/TV engineers keep the volume the same. Look on the net and you'll find discussion.
Sometimes the commercial seems louder, if the TV show doesn't have people running around yelling as loudly as the announcer is saying "SALE! SALE!".
If you look on the net you can find discussions supporting almost anything. So although you can argue that the "SoundRite" feature in this advertised zenith television which supposedly "automatically corrects the annoying difference in volume levels that frequently occur between programs and commercials" is just playing to that myth, I can argue that those net discussions you speak of are BS.
In fact...I do argue that. Simply because I've heard differences in volume that are too great for me to attribute to a difference in activity level (especially during high action movies with explosions and the such)
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
I was playing with my brother's Tivo, and was shocked to discover it had no random access, or at least not that I found.
Why can't I tell it, 'Advance to point 38:14', and have it skip there? It's running off a hard drive, right? Why this ridiculous serial access?.
Honestly, they are 1/4 the price of any of these machines, and do a much better job of archiving shows, as they record the raw MPEG-2 stream from the satellite.
That and most of the companies keep all their specs and libraries open.
Oh, and they usually work in Linux, too. Plus there's PVR software for them, and I don't think the authors are about to remove features like ReplayTV.
Something to think about...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
You mean this one: While watching any show, hit SELECT > PLAY > SELECT > 3 > 0 > SELECT. Hear the satisfying DINGDINGDINGDINGDING! noise. Your Advance button now does 30 second skip.
You need to enter it again if you reboot your TiVo.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
True: Anyone can hear that the ads are louder
False: The loudest parts of the ad aren't any louder than the loudest parts of a show.
The sound in the ads is compressed, ie. the frequencies are compressed. There is less dynamic range. The audio is run through a compressor which squishes the highest and lowest frequencies.
Lots of pop music does this. It sacrifices dynamic range for a punchier sound. Listen to an older recording (a symphony; Dark Side Of The Moon...) and watch the meters. They peak at parts that don't sound that loud. This is the stuff that gets compressed away. Soundtracks, like Pink Floyd, care about preserving the full dynamic range of the sound; pop songs and ads don't. They just want your attention.
By running the signal through a compressor, all the rest of the frequencies can be boosted up to the peak level. If you look at the meters for an ad, they hover around the peak level. So more of the sounds are more consistently louder - but at their loudest, the ads aren't any louder than the shows.
I personally have only seen it "cut out" the actual show twice in the 6 months+ I've had it, and I wouldn't trade Com. Adv. for anything! I love that feature!
I will be really disappointed if they remove these two features, and I wonder what the legal right is for them to change it after the fact, I mean I know they reserve the right to make feature changes, but it seems a little sweeping and broad to me to say that you can advertise the product based on a, in this case, a couple features your competition does not have (and the deciding factor for me) and then remove them after the fact.
I would hope that there would be some liability as to what "rights" these companies are allowed to reserve.
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
Agreed. Very insightful. I personally haven't upgraded because of the cost, and because I think my ability to extract video snippets from shows will disappear. On the plus side, the new units are faster and can get on my home network even more easily.
As for more more more features, let's not over-geek the product to a point where it's scaring people away. There is a large enough market between the people that fear computers but are OK with their VCR's that TiVo would be wise not to frighten off with too many buttons/menus.
I had a sucky sig.
The hard thing to convey is just how well-designed the TiVo software is. Virtually everything from the remote to the system for setting recording priorities seems to work in a straightforward, intuitive way, and it manages to be very powerful without overloading the user with options. And I've never known the thing to crash. I was a bit skeptical of the Home Media Option, but once I installed it, all my photos and mp3's from the computer in the next room were "just there."
Here's how to fix this problem.
Get a PS2 with a hard drive running Linux, an Open Source Linux ReplayTV emulator, and a ReplayTV subscription. ReplayTV probably sells their hardware below cost as a loss leader so they shouldn't have a problem letting Sony distribute an emulator as part of the official PS2 distro. Hell, they might even write it for them. With hardware that standard the install should be simple even for average users and everything should run like clockwork. Hacking an Open Source program to add "illegal" features is pretty easy and since the PS2 can play DVDs it should be able to handle playback.
Since a lot of non-geeks have PS2s hooked up to their tv's anyway it isn't as intimidating as getting something like MythTV working. If Sony did this... PS2=God, XBox=Extinct.
I have a ReplayTV 4540 and the commercial advance works wonderfully! The only time it ever fails is when the shows are dark, and the Replay uses the fade in/out before/after commericals to help mark where commericals begin and end. Some ReplayTVs shipped with software versions that broke the CA feature. Those have since been fixed with software updates that have been pushed out within the last two weeks. I'm not really suprised about this news. Broadcasters have HATED the commercial skip function of the ReplayTV. That coupled with the ability to share content of the internet (though at extreamly slow transfer rates) has made Sonic Blue and ReplayTV a target. On the plus side, I was suporised to see that software updates for the various ReplayTVs have continued displite the D&M buyout. The new feature to be added to all ReplayTV 4500 and 5000 series models is a "Season Pass-like" recoding feature and finally a real conflict manager.