The State of Automated Commercial Skipping

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"). "

Comments

maybe im missing something...

[jtilak]

This has probably been said already (maybe not) but isnt suing replaytv for giving consumers the ability to skip commercials like suing mozilla for blocking popups?

Re:maybe im missing something...

[buelba]

That's actually an interesting analogy. Here are some very vague initial thoughts (yes, IAAL):

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.

state of commercials

[a1g0rithm]

aside from the lawsuits, maybe the push for this techology will force the media to step up their game when it comes to the quality of commercials.. it seems that more and more people are watching things like the superbowl - just to see the commercials that promoters spent time and money to develop.. either the quality of the commercials will increase, or they will go the way of the internet banner ad..

I don't get it

[acidrain69]

As a TIVO/ReplayTV virgin, how does the commercial skipping operate? Does it skip a certain amount of time ahead? Does it somehow use motion compensation to detect frame changes and stop fast forwarding when the scene has changed a significant amount? Are commercials just a set amount of time and I've never noticed it all these years? Is it more like a VCR system where you have to fast forward and then curse when you went too far, and then it uses scene changes to go back? Any ideas?

Re:I don't get it

[Threni]

Also, many commercials have speech which has been edited to increase the speed but maintain the original pitch, so it doesn't sound like a chipmunk on helium and so that you can fit more in. It still sounds pretty funny to me (try and repeat what they just said) but apparantly not many people notice it.

Re:MythTV

[LightlyToasted]

I don't find the auto-skip feature to be very useful in MythTV. It gets it right about 80% of the time, but some shows that I watch with lots of black frames (like 24) tend to get confused with commercial boundaries. 80% isn't good enough yet, but it's an awfully cool feature that I'm sure will improve as the product evolves.

Identifying Commercials 101

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be easy to identify commercials for skipping. They are the blocks of broadcast time that don't have the Broadcast Flag set.

The only solution for commercials - trailers

[SuperKendall]

The only way for stations to solve this commercial dillemaa is this.

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.