Slashdot Mirror
TiVo to Sell Your Fast-Forward Button
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.
.... I mean, its not like you are looking at anything useful while you are fastforwarding, and "free tv" needs some sort of revenue.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
1. Shoot self in foot by eliminating product's most popular feature.
2. ???
3. Profit!
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Then hammer them with advertising. Its the american way :)
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
All the more reason to get a ReplayTV! I love mine, which I've had for a few years after upgrading the hard drive to a 250 GB model. And DVArchive rocks: download shows and save them for later! Store a whole seasons worth on your PC and access them over the network from your ReplayTV unit.
I don't know, but it works for me.
my dad asked me to build one for him, yeah it may be a bit more expensive but you don't have to put up wiht this corporate shit, i only watch movies so it doesn't bother me. $400 total compared to the ~$200 for tivo +subscription, meh
build your own
????
profit
Suffering Viagra ads while I'm skipping to the money shot.
The real value-add from TiVo here (for me, anyway) is not so much avoiding commercials as it is saving time.
...
If the banner-ad-while-fast-forwarding still allows me to skip 4 minutes of commercials in 5 seconds, that's fine with me, as long as the banner-ad goes away when I'm *not* fast-forwarding
First of all, HR 2391 doesn't make it criminal to "skip commercials".
It's meant to disallow technologies that bypass commercial and advertising content explicitly (such as things like the commercial skip features of old which skipped all ads, regardless of length, and returned you to the programming, or features that simply delete or auto-skip ad content altogether), but it won't prevent good ol' "fast forward" and 30 second skip features from working, nor will it make their use, even for commercial content, "criminal".
However, it's the implementation that is the concern. If the law is *interpreted* to mean that even things like fast forwarding through commercials are inappropriate, well, then we have a problem. But that is NOT the intent nor the purpose.
On the subject of TiVo and placing banner ads during fast forwarding, and the general idea of *automatic* ad content skipping/deletion:
If the entire TV industry is predicated on advertising, and the idea of advertising is predicating on paying to have as many people see your ads as possible (and the payment is proportional to proven amounts of people who may be watching), if an increasing number of people (many in educated and financially stable demographics) have the capability to avoid ever seeing any advertising, what, exactly, makes it worthwhile for advertisers to continue paying for it, at least at the same levels? You are choosing to watch content whose creation and delivery is funded in large part by advertising revenues. What funds it if that model is completely broken?
Sure, your cable/satellite bill can, but only to a point. There are billions of dollars that come from advertising. Is there not that side to this story as well?
What about newspapers? Sure, you can argue that newspaper ads aren't "intrusive", in a time-dependent way, but would a newspaper or its advertisers welcome a service that made it free or easy to eliminate all ads, and keep the other content, while still keeping the newspaper cost at 50 cents?
Additionally, I've seen people here and elsewhere say they actually wouldn't mind "advertising" for products and services they're actually interested in - but at the same time, people argue against giving anyone the data needed to do exactly that kind of targeted advertising as a violation of privacy.
So, my question is, what takes the place of the advertising revenue? How and when is it acceptable for products to be advertised?
is to stop watching the television. I moved to my new app. and decided not to buy a TV and in about 1.5 years I haven't watched a single TV commercial.
You can't handle the truth.
Next announcement: It will be a criminal act to get up and take a leak while the commercials are on.
Tivo should be careful. As I imagine more people will become interested in messing with the software in TIVO as it does run Linux. Example, on the major Tivo boards, they don't talk about subscription stealing because Tivo threatened legal litigation over such discussion - fair enough. But if Tivo Corp goes too far than there will be a backlash and people will go just as far. People would (and some do) install a larger drive, hack the advertisement feature, re-add 30 second skip and while messing with it mid as well get a free subscription to boot.
I don't really want to see Tivo go down the tubes but I can imagine that the development community would pick up the charred remnants and actually produce a better product.
I'd think most peoples' motivation is to save the time of viewing commercials, not because of some aversion to advertising.
I'd think as long as the banners don't make the ffwd through commercial slower (by assuring they're on the screen for some specific time) people won't mind.
Better for the marketing folks to pay tivos electric bills then us.
It looks like we've finally found the advantage to being stuck with Series 1 hardware and 2.5.5 software. Almost makes up for not getting Home Media Option and all the other additional features...
TiVo stock was up 7% yesterday on no news whatsoever and another 4% today. (Where "no news whatsoever" means "already known through back channels to everybody on the rumor boards, as well as close personal friends of the executives.)
So the people who own TiVo seem to think that this is a profitable idea. Not just "profitable" in the sense of "charging more" but profitable in the sense of "making more money total", i.e. revenue - customers lost - lawsuits.
1. Why are you using the fast-forward button? Why not use the commercial-skipping forward button? What do you mean TiVo don't have one?
2. Okay then, why not use skip-ahead 30 seconds button or random-access? Oh, TiVo doesn't have that either.
This is why I have a ReplayTV. Actually, I have two of them. I can skip commercials with a single button press. This works 90% of the time. Also, I can skip ahead or back any amount or go any point in a program instantly. Plus, a lot more.
Also, check out the ReplayTV forum at AVSForum
Tivo is a company that makes a product which I choose to use. If you don't like this new feature, then stop using it or even complain to them.
But slashdot has constantly elevated every minute case into a "rights" issue, it has minimized what a right really is. It's really shameless and deceitful of them to be doing this.
Wow, talk about overreacting.
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.
The fast-forward screen-blocking filter - whenever this box detects that your remote-control is sending out the "Fast-Forward" command, it automatically blanks out a pre-selected portion of the screen and thus eliminating any unwanted video spam.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
another alternative to TiVo/Replay/MythTV is MeedioTV. Meedio is the successor to myHTPC, which was great, and Meedio is even better. The TV portion (good feature set) is coming out of beta soon, I can't recommend it enough. http://meedio.com
Doesn't really bother me, I just look at the time on the bar, when it hits 2 minute (3 minutes on some shows) you hit play.
It's muscle memory at this point, I'll probably notice the pop-ups as much as I notice banner ads now.
that apparently the only way to avoid being whored out to advertisers is to use Free software. You'd think some company would keep their promises, but it seems that there are none that ethical left...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This is ironic for a company whose slogan used to be "TV Your Way,"
that makes perfect sense to me ... TiVo banners will be like, YOUR banners :)
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I possibly have seen this in action.
Basically, as you are fastforwarding you spend 10 seconds watching commercial in fast mode waiting for them to end. What will happen is that instead you will see a 10 second regular-speed commercial.
If you have DirecTV I think Ultimate TV is still the way to go. You can pick receivers up on Ebay for as low as $25. Hard drive is easily upgradable to a larger one and you get 30 second forward skip, 10 second back skip, and the normal fast forward/rewind. Plus there will never be banner ads on it since they no longer make UTV receivers. I thought about changing my 3 UTVs out to TIVOs but when I looked at them I really wasn't impressed enough to spend $300 to change them out plus a commitment for a year's service (to get the $99 price) to DirecTV.
I don't know why anyone bothered with Tivo in the first place - the promise was of "TV Your Way", but TV my way has always been best served by Bit Torrent. It's quasi-legal to be sure, but I can get a 400 meg HDTV broadcast of one of the very few shows I do watch over TV, the commercials are nicely stripped (so I don't even have to fast forward them) and the service is fast and reliable, especially on third generation high-speed internet technology.
If you're getting a TIVO, I'm assuming the moral issue of skipping the stations precious advertisements don't matter to you that much anyway, right?
You are joking, right? Please don't tell me that you wouldn't run MythTV because it would violate the law. Do you not ever speed either?
I figure that if I can still watching television hitting pause whenever I am recording to not put commercials on a VHS tape, it should be fair game if you figure a way to automate this. I can see a law being made, but unenforceable.
Click here or here.
You can program your tivo remotes to instantly skip ahead 30 seconds. So when commercials come on, clicking it 4 to 5 times instantly gets you past the commercials and back to the show. No having to sit through sped up commercials. Hopefully they dont mess with that also.
When you fast-forward, the content isn't all that interesting anyhow. You're kinda watching it for visual cues to see when the ads are over so that you can then rewind slightly and continue watching your show.
As long as the banner ad doesn't intrude on that in a way which makes is difficult to see what you need to see, who cares?
Listen, TiVo needs to make money. They're a company selling a product. Everyone seems to forget that and whine when they don't give you everything for free. I applaud them for coming up with a way to sell ad space without interfering with normal use of the product.
What would you rather have, no fast-forward, forcing you to watch commercials, or a fast-forward with a small screen overlay that you only have to look at for as long as you are fast-forwarding?
It appears to me that TiVo has strayed off course of their mission. Pop-up banners while I am fast-forwarding is intrusive.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I never sit on my couch without it.
It IS a bad bill.
But the part that gets all the attention -- the new exemption in 110 -- is actually good.
It doesn't make anything illegal. Just the opposite: things that are illegal now become legal, and things that are of unsure legality become certainly legal. If something still doesn't fall within the scope of the new exemption, then NOTHING CHANGES. This is because the current exemptions that such things might fall under are left alone.
So if skipping ads in time shifting is fair use now, and it doesn't fall into the new exemption, then it is still fair use -- if it ever was -- even if the bill passes.
So if y'all want to bitch about 2391, that's great, but at least bitch about the parts that are in fact bad. (i.e. pretty much the remainder of it)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The two solutions are:
--- Get rid of the TV. I don't see this one as very realistic, since the kids would completely freak out.
--- Stick to watching VHS and DVD shows. This is more likely, since I don't watch much "regular TV" anyway.
Leave it to the Marketing Union (if there is such a thing) to fsck things up. It's always got to be about the all-mighty dollar, doesn't it?
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Sometimes I fast forward through the programming so that I can watch a cool commercial. How am I ever going to find my favorite commercials with a huge banner ad in the way?
AnimeNEXT anime convention
TiVo better aggressively lower the price to consumers if they expect this ploy to work. They could adopt a model a'la some adware: it is extremely cheap or free to use if they can promise the advertisers your eyeballs, but you have the option to pay a higher fee in order to be ad-free.
WTF is he doing with them? I know these things can be frustrating to use and the odd remote thrown at them is part of their life but 1 every 15 months?? I wouldn't want to be part of TiVo management if this guy ever goes to one of their shareholder meetings! :)
Can this be away to get around yesterdays story?
I
Allow me to begin by saying that I just purchased a TiVo less then a week ago. I actually netted it for a lousy $30 ($180 on Amazon - $50.00 promotional certificate - $100 mail-in rebate) figuring that I'd get the cheapest one and could always add a Hard Drive later (thanks to TiVo still being somewhat hacker-friendly).
In one lousy week it has already changed the way I watch TV. Just the quick case in point: I didn't start watching Amazing Race until 9:45pm last night. By 11:30 I had seen both Amazing Race and Jon Stewart -- without watching a single commercial. That's 45 minutes of my life to do productive things (or surf Slashdot).
Needless to say I will be the first one to cancel my service (after-all I only have a $30 investment) and stick pins into my TiVo voodoo dolls if they take the fast-forwarding away from me. What the heck would be the point of a DVR if they were to do that? I'd just go back to my VCR days.
But if all they intend to do is place some advertisements on your screen while you are fast-forwarding then what exactly is the big deal? Did Jamie bother to RTFA before he went on his rant about switching to MythTV? To quote: "Kent says the advertising revenue will probably bring down the cost of TiVo to its 2 million subscribers -- currently $12.95 a month" So they sell some ad space (that I can just ignore for those 5-10 seconds I am FF'ing -- less if you use the 30 second hack) and my service becomes cheaper?
Perhaps we should adopt a wait-and-see approach before we break out the torches and pitchforks.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I apologize for all my whining when I heard that TiVo was going to stop updating my Series 1 software. Now I'm glad I stuck with my old classic.
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.
First of all, HR 2391 doesn't make it criminal to "skip commercials".
It's meant to disallow technologies that bypass commercial and advertising content explicitly (such as things like the commercial skip features of old which skipped all ads, regardless of length, and returned you to the programming, or features that simply delete or auto-skip ad content altogether), but it won't prevent good ol' "fast forward" and 30 second skip features from working, nor will it make their use, even for commercial content, "criminal".
However, it's the implementation that is the concern. If the law is *interpreted* to mean that even things like fast forwarding through commercials are inappropriate, well, then we have a problem. But that is NOT the intent nor the purpose.
I am glad someone is pioneering this, because I have always thought that Free HBO with ad banners would make executives and consumers smile. Now, the fact that people have to pay for tivo with ads is pretty annoying what are they AOL??
Let them know that you are not pleased. I just sent a message to directv and will follow through with cancellation if this becomes reality. I have a PVR just don't use it because the Tivo is easy for my wife and kids to use.
d back.ds p
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
TV is a waste of time. The shows are glorified advertisements and the commercials are overwhelming. The best solution is to just skip the whole thing. Spend more time with your family.
The 5500 series removed the automatic commercial skipping feature that I love so much on my 5040, making the newer units somewhat less useful (though the 5500 units still puts marks around the commercials in the recording so you can use the ShowNav buttons to manually skip around them).
:-)
Still, it makes me glad that I purchased my ReplayTV unit when I did...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
...yet.
I still have 30-sec skip out of the box and the ability to download shows to my PC with free tools over the built in NIC. Sure, it may not run Linux, but it has 2 advantages over TiVO:
1. It doesn't force me to watch commercials while fast forwarding.
2. It doesn't assume I'm a gay octogenarian and record shows it thinks I'll love.
-EvilMagnus
This pisses me off, as I just ordered a TiVo with lifetime subscription to give to a friend as a holiday gift. Oh well, at least it's better than the POS SA DVR that he has now.
With the increasing popularity of no-strings-attached consumer hard disk video recorders from the likes of Panasonic and JVC I'm afraid Tivo will soon be history. Like most pioneers really. Though in this case I doubt they'll be missed.
Just how do you propose broadcast TV be paid for?
Get a clue. If you don't want to watch commericals, then...go running, or read a book. When you eat a traditional cake, you have to deal with the fact that it has fats and sugars in it. If you want a cake with no sugars or fats, then you're going to have to eat a non-traditional cake.
Watching tv while circumventing the commercials *is* theft - you're breaking the obvious social contract. No one is wronging you, you are wronging *them*.
That being said, Tivo is being very counter-productive. If someone is fastforwarding through an ad, that means they don't want to see them... I would be terrified to advertise to such a hostile audience, if I were a company.
Fast forwarding commercials is about getting on with the damn show without all the inturruptions. If they want to toss a banner up for the 3 seconds I'm fast forwading, so be it.
Jesus may love you, but I still think you're an asshole -BVB
I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea, but it all depends on how they implement it. The article says a small log will be displayed somewhere on the screen. If that's so, then I am not going to mind at all.
The reason I skip ads is stop wasting my time on stuff I don't want to see. I watch a lot of sports, and I skip the non-action parts on the games for the same reason. The viewing time on NFL games gets reduced from 4 hours to 1 hour.
The Tivo plans in no way interferes with that. In fact, if the ads are targeted specifically to me, it may even benefit me, although I doubt that'll happen.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Banner ads while fast-forwarding - what will they think of next?
After hearing about and drooling over the TiVo boxes. I'm glad I built my own HTPC using SageTV 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 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.
Terry
EMACS already does this.
But seriously, a PC could easily perform TiVO like functions, given the right hardware to interface with the TV. The hardware could just be a dumb comm interface, sold seperately.
Now here's one for the legal eagles.
The software performing the commercial skipping is simply a standardised FOSS program you download off the net. It wasn't a product, no one is selling it, so shouldn't it be exempt from FCC regulations? In other words, is software I write, or modify, at home myself, or software someone had freely given to me(gratis), subject to FCC regulations on commercial products?
Bear this in mind though.
bool The_System_Works{
if(A_LOT_OF_$$$ > 0)
return false;
else
return true;
}
May the Maths Be with you!
-phixxr
ungggghhhh
I actually wouldn't object to ads so much if they were more targetted. I couldn't care less about the latest grill or set of knives etc. However if your telling me about a new cheap plasma screen, ipod etc. then I don't mind so much.
I still want to be able to skip ads, but you never know if they were more targetted perhaps I wouldn't skip them as much in the first place *shrugs*
ReplayTV does everything I want and nothing else I don't want..
We can't let MythTV fall behind Tivo in this arena.
I propose we band together and write a plugin for MythTV so that the common man can have access to commercials whilst skipping commercials.
Think of it:
"This commercial skipping segment brought to you by McDonalds."
Yeah. I agree. This makes no fucking sense.
With all these new headlines from Tivo, I'm feeling less and less guilty about getting a DVR straight from my cable provider.
What would you do if you went to the cinema and every 30 minutes they showed you adverts? you'd be a bit miffed.
Being able to skip the commercials is to me about not having my viewing pleasure interrupted by commercials for products I'm not going to buy. I don't need advertising to make an informed choice about buying a product.
Farewell TiVo. You were a good product, fun and revolutionary at the time, but your failure to change, update, add snazzy features, support high def OTA, share content to my pc and constant subscription fees have pushed you past your prime.
I've been toying the concept of starting a serious relationship with myth-tv, and this last little knife to the gut will certainly motivate me to move on with a new relationship.
Good for TiVo for using their technology for profit. Isn't that the point of going into business?
Ideally (this is how I think it should work, I don't know exactly how it works...):
Think of how many commercials are on the air. If advertisers are concerned about commercial skipping, they pay TiVo for the software needed to encode a billboard into their ad, similar to the "press thumbs up to record" or "press thumbs up for more info" that you see often on NBC.
When TiVo is fast forwarding through the ad and sees the bill board encoded in the video stream, it displays the bill board.
So:
- TV stations are happy because advertisers want to buy longer ad slots in order to increase the time their bill board is on the screen during a TiVo fast forward.
- Advertisers are happy because they have a captive audience for their ads. (you actually have to attentively watch the screen or you'll fast forward into your show)
- TiVo is happy because they have another revenue source.
- TiVo owners are still happy because they are still getting through commercials at the same rate as they did before TiVo added this feature.
Who exactly is loosing?
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
I'd say what's the big deal, the point is still you sit for a split second instead of 30. I'm not trying to avoid advertising, I'm trying to NOT LOSE TIME.
Unfortunately this might still be a very bad idea for Tivo. Tivo is starting to face increasing competition, and they're going to have Microsoft breathing down their necks very, very soon (Microsoft's PVRs up until now have been jokes, but this won't last forever). Microsoft will seize on any sign of weakness they can find once they get into their "conquer new market" mode, and if Tivo can't keep the public perception of being the best option they are in big trouble.
Look, you idiots, go volunteer your time with the EFF or something, better yet, a soup kitchen.
It takes, what, 3 seconds at the fastest rate to skip over a few minutes of commercials? You're not even on that screen long enough to read an ad. If it keeps TiVo (the service with the best interface) out of the dustbin for a few more years, then shit, go for it.
"But Wwwaaaaaaaahhhh!"
Get a life.
Did you honestly believe the behemoth media empires would allow their business model to crumble at the hands of thousands of third world laborers?
"And now, a musical interlude..."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Who really cares if there's an advertising blip on the program advancing bar while you are fast forwarding? TiVo is still the best PVR for its ease of use. The story submitter is completely overreacting over this common-sense addition to the service that will hopefully give TiVo enough money to survive all the challenges it faces.
and it's filled with commercials. Just because you pay for something, doesn't mean it won't come with advertisement.
click me
I built my own PVR!!!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I dream of the day I can sit down on my virtual couch and watch my virtual television while munching on virtual snacks.
Meh.
Tivo has slowly been piling on advertisement after advertisement onto their boxes anyway. I'm already paying 13 bucks a month for their service(which is basically just a program guide listing), I don't need the ads.
If it's annoying enough maybe it'll finally motivate me to finish building my own PVR and save a 150 bucks a year.
In order to use my PC as a PVR I need to be able to bypass my cable box; right now I can't do that, the internal tuner has to stay on channel 3. Does anyone know of software for the Radeon that will descramble the signal? I suppose it would be illegal here in the States?
www.mythtv.org is slashdotted, if that's what it does.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Tivo's a really great technology and the convenience of just taking it out of the box and having it work is very cool by me but catering to the needs of the advertising industry by removing one of their main selling points is like
If you don't want to see them while ff'ding you could just watch the real commercials. There is no free lunch.
First of all, RTFA... This is not about putting banner ads during fast forward. It is about putting up interaction during ads. This has already been tested and is shown to work. (IE people respond to it).
It is also an article showing that TiVo can provide advertisements that have better response rates than interstitial advertising provides.
But this slashdot posting is editorializing from beginning to end. I can understand that *you* don't wnat to see any advertising ever... Good for you. (but look at the banners at the top and right of the the slashdot page you nit.) But you know nothing about why I or many people have TiVo! And for the most part all this editorializing is WRONG. The interstital is being replaced by the more attractive click-ins. The ads are better produced, more entertaining, more informative. And they are not being replaced by more intrusive advertising. It is being replaced by *less* intrusive and more interactive advertising. And you can still opt out of the data collection! Get a friggin grip.
Ok, now just how f@#$'n STUPID are Amercians going to get before the implode on themselves or the rest of the planet kicks their greedy lying asses?
The US government is spreading cruelity and misery in the Middle East and calling it freedom. US corps are patenting anything and everything. FCC declares they own PCs and anything attached to them that "communicates"... the list of stupidity goes on and on!
Think about folks... the last attack on the US government before 911 was Oklahoma and executed by Amercians.
When I fast forward I'm not trying to avoid ads so much as I'm trying to get back to the show I was watching.
If you don't like the ad, then don't look at it. It's not like the web where banner ads take up prescious screen real-estate; who cares if you can't see part of an advertisement you were fast forwarding through anyway.
However, I could see how it would be annoying when you're fast forwarding through a movie trying to find a certain point.
Can't miss the commercials!.
Hey, it COSTS MONEY to GET cable. Once they've laid down the line, it costs bugger all to keep it there.
When cable came out, it cost a lot more than broadcast TV, but the reasoning for this was "Well, you won't get advertisements braking into your programming". Where did that idea go?
Tell you what, if you are going to tell me what I can watch, YOU can pay for it. All of it. In fact, I may start charging you for the time spent watching it. Hey, my time ain't free!
I am a proud owner of a ReplayTV 5040. That being said, it to has ads: leave your ReplayTV paused sometime & you should see an ad for discounts on the 5500 series or additional subscriptions. So far, the ads have been almost all for ReplayTV's own products, which is slightly more tolerable. They are also only on when you aren't actually watching TV. But they are still fullscreen & they are still a bit tacky. My CD players don't spew commercials if I pause a CD. My microwave doesn't scoll ads when I'm not cooking. Why should any unit that I pay for--especially one that is a somewhat expensive luxury item--inundate me with ads.
tivo can do this right by offering service credit to those willing to watch the ads while fast-forwarding. if they really mean "tv your way" then that's the right way. (the wrong way, like the caller-id crap, is to charge the customers to not watch ads during fast-forward.) if you respect the customers, tivo, then give them the choice.
First, you pay $50 for your cable. Then you pay $12 for your TiVo. And after all of this they STILL won't allow you to totally skip commercials. Good lord, sometimes I'm so glad I don't watch TV. AT ALL. Is this a criminal act yet to not watch TV at all?
I've complained to TiVo about this, but I suppose the only way to influence them is if enough of us cancel our TiVo service in protest. They claim innocence, that the TiVo changes the channel just to get programming updates, and that it's a necessary annoyance of the service.
I suggested then, fine, just change the channel back after you're done. The phone drone on the line claimed this was not technically feasible.
My workaround: I set the TiVo to record 30 minutes of HLN every morning at 7:00, thus changing the channel to a non-infomercial channel every morning.
Despite this, I suspect that TiVo is going to fuck around enough eventually that I will just cancel the service, and that will be that.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Yes, yes we are.
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.
You can't possibly believe the free ride of DVR's (whether it be Tivo, Replay, MythTV, or whatever) could possibly last forever. If the facts in the article are accurate, and 40% of viewers will be using DVR's to skip commercials in the next few years, the advertisers will just stop paying the same rates. Someone has to pay for these shows, and I sure as hell don't want to pay more on my cable bill than I do now, so whatever TIVO can do to legitimize this technology is fine with me.
Anyone who didn't suspect something like this was coming simply doesn't understand what pays for all the television we're addicted to. Sure we could have done this with those VCR's sitting in our closet, but I never recorded 30 hours of TV a week in the VCR days like I do now.
I commend TIVO on battling back all the bureaucratic and corporate bullshit that plagues this kind of technology. I'll give ReplayTV and MythTV a try when they start helping solidify the technology, and not just hiding in the corners and screwing it up for the rest of us.
We can live with the freaking banners.
Just enable the 30 second skip and you'll never use fast forward to skip commercials again. When it's enabled, the -->| button becomes a 30 second skip button.
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.
The whole point of Cable TV when it was introduced is to offer people a scheme whereby they payed to NOT see commercials. Then execs realized they could make more money by forcing you to watch commercials in addition to paying for TV.
Same thing with movies. For a while, the justification of higher movie ticket prices was the fact that you didn't have to see commercials before the movie. Now they brought that back, so you are once again paying for both content and commercials (typically I will be 10-15 minutes late to a movie so I don't have to sit through commercials.)
Even websites are getting increasingly annoying. A web browser without a popup ad blocker is almost useless. Half the websites you go to, you have to register to view any content, so the company can spam your inbox with product ads. God forbid a person read any content without a million ads in their face.
Now even TiVo has sadly succum to what seems to be a very bad trend in the US. TiVo was one of the few companies that seemed to understand that people DON'T want to constantly be smothered by rediculus ads. One of the few companies using a technology to give power back to the people. But it looks like it wasn't meant to last. Time to kiss that all goodby, and say hello to more pop up ads and spam.
And execs wonder why people do things like pirate TV shows and movies? When you treat your customers like little babies, guess what? Eventually people get pissed off, and will go out of their way to find an alternative system that works for them. Even if it's illegal.
A long time ago, upon becoming an adult, I decided that the so called "entertainment value" of TV was no longer worth my time, due to the constant and disgusting attempts at psychological manipulation and subversion.
It's a shame, because I thought TIVO was eventually going to change that viewpoint for me, and that maybe I'd watch a little more TV. Nope. Glad I didn't buy one.
Look, strangers don't have a right to your psychological anchors and desires. These people study mind control for a living. Entertainment will eventually be ad-free, or we can expect a large percentage of the educated populace to forego it. Consumer voodoo does not deserve storage on even a single wrinkle of my brain.
The sad thing is that even movies are getting spammed these days.
Which one is it? One of the points, or the whole point? I'm so confused.
The advent of TiVo undermined this quite a bit, of course, which is why there's a bit of backlash now. Again, I think more people are in it to save time (although there is that "skip annoying commercials" aspect to it...), but circumventing advertisements that pay for the shows you enjoy is a bit of a grey area.
Also interesting is that TFA doesn't make it clear whether the banner ads will be equivalent to the commercial being skipped over, which would raise some issues if advertisers making payments to TiVo overruled those who had paid for a certain time slot. Even if the ads=the commercials, there is some question of who will end up profiting from the exposure-Should Tivo share its money with NBC because one of its banner ads was triggered by a commercial broadcast during one of NBC's programs?
Thank Christ I'm not in advertising!
This reminds me of the early Gator system that would "eat" online ads, and replace them with ones Gator felt you'd rather see.
I believe they settled with most, but last I knew they were still in court with Fed Ex and UPS. CNN.com
How is what TiVo intends to do any different? It seems like a quick way to get dragged into court IMHO. I mean really, who's to stop Gateway (or other company) from advertising on TiVo during the Christmas season when Dell (or other competitor) is pouring money into the networks?
Screw Tivo and DirectTV. Just switch to DishNetwork and get their PVR setup. It isn't Tivo and it is fully featured with a 30 second skip, 5 second rewind, fast forward, slow motion, etc. All the same basic features (although when shows move time slots, the PVR doesn't follow them.. at least not the version I have. I'd like that feature, but it doesn't kill me to not have it.) Plus in the past DishNetwork has shown a remarkable attention to their customers and would likely(or I hope, anyway) fight to keep their PVR option available.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Even though the firmware has been updated, that feature hasn't been removed from the 5000-series units.
If you can find an older model unit, that feature will still be there...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Just watch BBC!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I was planning to get Tivo but with this kind of nonsense ... no way. MythTV, here I come!
To all of those "this is going to destroy TiVo" people out there, let me remind you of this: it takes 1 second to skip 1 minute of commercials on a TiVo. I own two of them, and this doesn't bother me one bit. So I have to look at a 4-second long banner ad while I fastforward? Who cares?!
I'm not the originator of these types of complaints. I heard these complaints from TiVo owners themselves. I was part of the distributed computing approach to crack the key in the 3.2 release of TiVo, including working on software updates just before the project was cancelled. Read the posts on the site for yourself. I helped even though I'd didn't have a TiVo.
ReplayTV owners believe they have a better system and are often irritated that TiVo gets all the attention. It seems like its Betamax vs VHS again.
I feel bad for Tivo owners. I love my ReplayTV 5000. It skips commercials automatically with surprisingly good accuracy. It rarely if ever incorrectly skips content...but sometimes it doesn't realize that a commercial break has begun. In any case, I can just instantly jump forward 30 seconds (or however far I want).
Tivo is the AOL of PVR's.
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
-- unless HR2391 passes and makes me a criminal for skipping commercials
Even if it passes, I'm not getting rid of my MythTV box. Once the signal is in my home, I can do what I want with it. If I don't want to watch commercial advertisements, I'm not going to. Whether that means turning the TV off for 3 minutes or letting my MythTV sort it all out for me doesn't really matter. Either way, someone is losing ad revenue on me. Besides, I can't even remember the last purchase I made based on a TV advertisement. The only thing I find useful with commercials are the advertisements for upcoming shows on the History CHannel.
What is your penile percentile?
That associating your product with a feeling of annoyance in the consumer does not generate more revenue, it generates less.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
switch of your television set and go do something less boring instead?
Ok come on here.. Advertising while i fast forward.
I bought the device
I pay direct tv through the nose for programming (monthly)
I pay direct tv again just to use the tivo (monthly)
I'm playing by the rules and still feel like i'm getting screwed, wait that's because i am..
It's time we stood up to the big guys. -my2cents
You know what I don't do? Watch television. I only watch DVDs or things downloaded from the net. All of which are commercial free. I'll sometimes go to the movie theatre, but I make a concious effort to ignore, talk over, or make obscenities at the pre-movie ads. Except at the artsy theatre, where the ads are for other artsy movies. All the information I get comes through the net, filtered through firefox to remove all ads. Yeah, I don't see slashdot ads. So ha! I don't use the AdBlock extensions either. I have a handy userContent.css file that does it all.
My life is ad free except for physical adsvertisements that get in my way out on the street. Like when I go to the grocery store, or billboards on the highway, or a visit to NYC.
Rather than complain that something like TV has ads you can't remove, just don't watch TV as long as it has ads. If slashdot's ads were unremovable I would probably stop reading it too.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Speaking of "free" tivo (free as in commercial free) check out http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
Ditto. If my S1 ever fails, I'm just going to get a MythTV.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
TiVO, Replay and other PVR are much more about time shifting then anything else. Forwarding through content ads or TV is a feature. That Tivo seeks to put ads there isnt' wrong in any moral sense. It might not help them in the marketplace but it might not hurt them either. As long as they dont' "slow" the forward movement of the fast forward, they aren't interfering with the feature.
http://www.hawknest.com/
So how do the networks earn money to produce content if Tivo usurps their advertsing space with advertising of its own? Do the networks and cable channels who derive most of their money from ads somehow share in the revenue? If not, it would seem to be an ultimately unsustainable model - if everyone has a Tivo, why would I pay to advertise on ABC/CBS/NBC when I know most people will just fast forward through it and see a Tivo advertisement instead.
I mean seriously folks.
Advertising is here for good. It's a mainstay of our entire socio-economic model.
Of course, as television changes, so will the way advertising works.
For all of you that are 'shocked, shocked' that Tivo intends to get into the ad business, wake up and smell the coffee. Business is about money and ads are where the money lives.
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You made a good point. Time shifting and season passes are the reason that I bought Tivo. I was paying so much for cable and there was often nothing on that I wanted to watch. I was also tired of staying home certain nights to catch my favorite shows when something else was going on that I wanted to do as well. With time shifting and season passes, there's also something to watch and I can watch what I want, when I want.
As for commericals, sometimes when I'm watching a prerecorded show on Tivo I forget that it is prerecorded and that I can fast forward through the commericals and I end up sitting right through them anyway. Commericals really aren't that bad. Although, if they do insist on showing ad's while fast forwarding, I should hope they reduce the monthly fee they charge subscribers. Of course we both know that won't happen.
Under "HR2391" If I blink during an add which is an electronic act, e.g. electric pulse sent from my brain (A form of technology) to my eyes. --- http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/19 99-00/99-048.html
--- "Clutch my testes, bloody squirrel humpers!!" -Happy Noodle Boy
I'd love something like MythTV to break out and replace TiVo. Only problem: MythTV does not to my knowledge have an IR channel-changer, so I'm probably stuck with some TV-tuner card, which only will get a few stations. In other words, it's not cable-TV/satellite TV friendly. All the shows I watch are on cable/HBO. Bummer! Please tell me I'm wrong. Also, even with an IR changer, it fairly often fails to change the channel correctly, for some reason. It's certainly no more than 95% or 98% reliable. The integrated satellite+TiVo (direcTivo) unit I have ALWAYS, FLAWLESSLY records what I want when I want. That being said, TiVo sucks. It is not configurable enough, you have to do text entry with a freaking remote control, the filters and other choices are limited, and they've never improved their features in the years since I've been using them. But, like democracy, it's the "worst possible form of (entertainment), except for all the others."
Currently hooked on AMP
Tivo has had it's ups and downs, and it shows.
But just as important as the price, is the number of stocks trading (the little logarithmic graph below the main graph). This is a direct (albeit, relative) indication of it's popularity. You want people talking about your product; some will be cussing it, others will be deciding about it, and still other will be smoozing others into it. But they are talking about it, and people walking by just happen to hear about it, creating even more discussion. Which leads to window shopping, which leads to people walking out with a Tivo and an audio receiver.
But this little maneuver with the "banner ads" will remind people of adware and spyware and malware and popups. It will remind people of spam.
You do not want to relate your product to spam...
Yes, I use TiVo to skip over commercials. I also use FF for shows I can watch without sound and faster than real time. Will the service know if I'm FF over a commercial or for some other purpose?
For example I can watch a 3-hour football match in about half the time. I don't need the analyst's inane chatter, and I can always go back to regular speed to catch a big play.
In addition, this 'feature' contradicts TiVo's own marketing. There's no sound while a show is in FF, but one of TiVo's tips is to turn on the closed captions and read the dialogue while watching the show faster.
If the banner ad is anywhere on the screen where I can see it, then it is intrusive.
"Listen, TiVo needs to make money. They're a company selling a product. Everyone seems to forget that and whine when they don't give you everything for free. I applaud them for coming up with a way to sell ad space without interfering with normal use of the product."
That's just wrong. TiVo gives NOTHING for free. I've already paid for the hardware and paid for the service, and I didn't whine about it. This is TiVo unilaterally changing the terms of the deal after they have my money. Would you applaud nVidia if they decided to display banner ads on every computer with their graphics cards? Listen, nVidia needs to make money, right?
"What would you rather have, no fast-forward, forcing you to watch commercials, or a fast-forward with a small screen overlay that you only have to look at for as long as you are fast-forwarding?"
I'd rather have the service I paid for. But you're missing the real question, would you rather have FF with a small screen overlay, or a boat anchor that's useless if TiVo goes out of business and no other company picks up the service?
Doing a bit of digging, I find that Tivo is a public company. Some information on them:
Company Profile
Company Two Year Stock Chart
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.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
I defy you to deliver channels to me *without* the content.
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
I have a mythTV with 500GB of attached storage and it just rocks... I originally owned a tivo (added 80GB to it), loved it, but didn't want yet-another-monthly-bill after that tivo died and wanted something where I can dump my DVD collection with either a DVD jukebox or massive storage. its absolutely brilliant, no monthly fees, I get CVS builds once every few weeks, I have a nice quiet Antec Sonata case hidden away, and I have over 200 DVDs I ripped using mythTV so I can watch them whenever I want, however I want. LOL i use mythTV more for the ripped DVDs than TV, I probably only watch 3-4 hours of recorded TV per week (daily show, 24, amazing race, will & grace). The only improvement to mythTV I hope to see is picture quality... imo the PVR-250/350s that most people use for recording isn't the highest quality, I think my Tivo had slightly better TV quality and much, much faster channel changing while watching live. Hopefully a next generation of HDTV PC cards will come out without silly cap'ing problems and we will all be happy :)
Ooops! I just RTFM'd... sorry, MythTV DOES support IR blasters. I am so checking this out right freaking now. Ok, soon. Thanks. /.!
Now if only it would work with OS X... anybody know about this?
Currently hooked on AMP
When you pay for cable TV, the cable company has to pay the networks a 'per subscriber' fee, which needless to say the cable company passes on to you.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
These days, companies are finding it harder and harder to stay in business. It's a bad economy. In a better economy, there would be more TiVo customers, and they would be able to make enough revenue, but unfortunately, every company, and TiVo is no exception, is finding it hard to make ends meet.
We're used to hearing about how greedy companies are. And there are plenty of them, with Microsoft being their poster-boy. But when you're a company with real competition, then you're walking a fine line between making enough income and selling at a competitive price. It's hard to balance. Apple is one of the few companies that seems to be able to charge a premium with impunity.
I'm not saying I know for SURE that TiVo is struggling financially, but given the statistics, they probably are. Making that assumption, they are faced with a choice between increasing what they charge customers or finding some OTHER way of increasing revenue. Selling banner ad space is just such an alternative.
Frankly, I suspect that most people would prefer to see an unintrusive banner appear when fast-forwarding than to have to pay a higher monthly fee.
The "fixed block of advertising is the lifeblood of content providers" line is getting old. For decades, product placement WITHIN content has been gaining ground. Have you seen a $100 MM+ movie lately? The Mini and Dorritos ads are quite visible, but not irrating enough to repulse viewers.
The future holds two options: pay-per-view on-demand content, and free content with integrated product placement.
this must be an onion story right?
i mean... come on.... this aint real?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Will I get cheaper monthly service fees for my Tivo because their costs will be offset by *shudder* these banner ads?
Granted, if TiVo needs the ad revenue to stay solvent, I guess it's necessary (the TiVo is doorstop without the service, well sorta =))
But they might be shrinking their market to tap these new ad based revenue streams, which will make the ad placements be worth less...
Apparently it won't be cable companies clumsy DVR's, or even us diy PVR'ers (shameless plug), or dillution of "brand/identity" that kills TiVo... it will be TiVo killing TiVo with practices and commitments that aren't in their CONSUMERS best interest.
Why would someone who buys a special box and pays a monthly (or lifetime) service fee to skip commercials put up with replacement commercials during the commercial skipping process?!?! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!
Furthermore what advertiser in their right mind would want to reach people that ADD and disposition makes them actively adverse to ads? And if tivo's DVR/PVR share decreases what will those banner ads be worth to the advertisers then?
Will DirecTivo's be effected by this change? (and will this hasten DirecTV's dance away from TiVo specific DVRs?)
*Shrug*
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I want to be able to subscribe to channels X, Y and Z and pay for content without commercial interruptions.
;-)
In this country (UK), that is simply not allowed. My cable provider (NTL) even bundles free-to-air content into pay-to-view bundles and there's nothing I can do about it. Sky does the same and costs even more. Luckily, for free-to-air shows, there's always p2p as I reckon that free-to-air stuff is also free-to-download
Till I can buy content a-la-carte, I will fast forward every single commercial, not to save time (I often pause shows to chat about interesting bits to my SO - drives her mad!) but because the ads are intrusive and spoil the program.
Plus, if these 'banner' ads have any sound, I'll be even madder, and I'll be building a MythTV too.
Ads are soooooooo 20th century... I was asked by a marketeer about an ad at the cinema a bit ago. The question was "Does the fact that the girl in the ad owns a XXX make you feel anything about that model car". WTF? No, of course it doesn't.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
My other Beowulf cluster is... er...
2. They'd better leave enough of the commercial that we can tell when to stop fast forwarding.
3. This could only work if the same advertiser played payed for the "popup" right? They couldn't get away with clobbering an ad with someone elses even in fast forward, could they?
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
This just in: "A new bill being lobby for in congress will make it illegal for you to leave your television off." Providers of entertainment, in desperate need of more money intend to enable police officers to detain you for not watching television.
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
This makes me glad that I didn't opt for the "lifetime" subscription option. First, because if TiVO does become annoyingly intrusive, at least I haven't been cheated out of a lifetime subscription.
Secondly, if this actually does lower the monthly cost, it makes the lifetime subsription less of a bargain.
Proverbs 21:19
I doubt they'll lower the cost; they'll just consider this a way to lower losses.
I'd own a second (and possibly third) Tivo if I didn't have to buy subscriptions for all of them. That's just lunacy, especially when the two other units could just copy the data from one of the units, in effect costing Tivo zero in delivery costs.
If the banner ads are a problem, I'll just keep using my 2nd gen standalone until it craps out and then rent (for $5 per month) a hidef PVR from the cable company. It'll suck more than the Tivo, but it'll record Hidef (satellite HDTivo isn't an option where I live) and I won't have any money sunk into the hardware.
Among Tivo's many idiotic decisions are wasting too much development effort on non-core features (such as MP3s and photos), failure to deliver more core features (batch save/play), no cablecard-based unit on the horizon (HD recording, no IR blasting for digital cable channels), and little if any evolution of the hardware (firewire disk expansion and DVD-R add-ons).
Adding banner ads is just another stupid decision on their part to cover up the other stupid decisions on their part.
I don't recognize those initials. Turner Velodrome, did he buy a bike racing track in Georgia? True Value, a hardware store company, who I thought was Ace?
Anyway, this discussion was concerning television, usually known by its abbreviation, TV. Maybe you posted to the wrong forum.
Infuriate left and right
It's about time for the cheap, generic PVRs from China to start appearing. Pure product, no service, price around $79 and dropping.
I love the undocumented 30 second skip feature of the Motorola DCT-6208 (and 6412) ;)
I thought Tivo had a skip key too? Or were they also forced to remove or hide it?
my next PVR will run MythTV -- unless HR2391 passes and makes me a criminal for skipping commercials.
If HR2391 passes I'll consider buying a gun and entertaining myself at the firing range. I bet if several million TV watching couch potatoes did something like that it would send a very clear message to everyone who wants to make everything illegal. They remember our history. Could you imagine how scared they would be if target practice suddenly became the nations favorite method of entertainment?
I bet they'd want to give you commercial-free cable TV for free, anything to keep you sedated.
More commercials, Yahoo clunky, Netscape slow... more commercials, Fox, recording ever more commercials, Media Center competition - DEATH!!!
I guess I'm simply going to watch "buffered TV" from the day before, as I simply don't want to spend 50% of my time watching commercials.
Google seem to be the only company that hasn't continuesly tightened the "commercial screw"
How is this different than gator, spyware, et al replacing banner ads on your browser with different/competitor's ads (and similiar shennanigans)?
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I need a pvr in my life. help apprectiated. best pvr available in the uk? (cost/performance/etc)
I think this is great. Anything that helps TiVo stay in business is good. It is not the advertising that annoys be anyway. It is the time taken for the commercials.
Now this _really_ pisses me off. I am just now getting a TiVo for christmas, and now it goes bad...
Until people start exploding right and left...
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Ummm, I must be missing your point here
Are you saying we'll all be given Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) (eg antidepressants and the like) to make sure we're all a bunch of drooling happy people who don't mind commercials?
Wow, what a future we have to look forward to.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But if my AdSense revenue goes away, I'll go back to subscriptions. I even have my pages set so that ads only appear a fraction of the time (50-80%) which cuts down on ad impressions and actually increases revenue.
Making Sense of Google AdSense
You can't adblock your way out of subscriptions. There is no bandwidth fairy. It costs content providers real money to host things.
You're either going to allow the advertisers to pay for the costs by "suffering" through some ads or pay for it yourself.
Lots of major sites already are going to the dual model of free content and paid premium content.
The money has to come from somewhere. Either the provider is rich (or the web-site is cheap to run) and willing to cover all the costs themselves, the advertisers cover costs, or the visitors cover costs.
Most big sites pick one of the last two.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I'm sorry, I misssed the "Slashdot: Tivo FUD for nerds. Biased idiots that think they matter." heading. Seriously what the hell is up with the constant stream of "Tivo's gonna die, they are evil and are going to kill your babies" posts here. Honestly I've been a tivo owner for years, they have it figured out, there is No other DVR UI that I have used that is so simple and intuitive. Targeted ads, like the ones currently available in the tivo menu are A-OK with me. I'd rather have a banner ad for Porsche, Computer hardware, or the latest Sci-fi movie than site through another Kotex commercial.
"... I mean, its not like you are looking at anything useful while you are fastforwarding, and "free tv" needs some sort of revenue."
I think my brain just exploded. One of the key points TiVo had in it's favor was skipping those advertisements. That, and you're already paying for a subscription. Are they just going to drop that now too? For somtehing that should have been free to begin with? I mean you're already shelling out for the hardware itself and it isn't that cheap.
I'm sorry, but contrary to the submitter of this story, there is no way I could have ever bought one of these devices from a company looking to milk their consumers so damn much. It's like XBOx Live. It's not free because they're money whores, no other reason.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
What makes commercials so annoying isn't that you are being advertised to, but that you are being advertised to INSTEAD of doing what you want, and you have to sit there and wait and wait and wait to get back to the activity you were trying to do. If you hold in the fast forward button for 20 seconds, then a 20 second banner ad during that wouldn't be that annoying. But if the system slows down your fast forwarding so you have time to watch, say, a 1 minute commercial instead of spending just 20 seconds fast-forwarding, THEN customers will get pissed and leave in droves. If it doesn't change the rate of fast forwarding, AND it doesn't ruin functionality by obscuring too much of the screen, then I don't think there will be much customer backlash. (It would be annoying if you saw the ad INSTEAD of being able to see your place in the material you are fast-forwarding through. I'm assuming this will be a banner across the bottom or something like that, not something that obscures teh whole screen.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
is that it has increased to the point where there is as much advertising as content. At one time, there was maybe 5 minutes of advertising in an hour. Now it seems like there is 30 minutes of advertising in an hour.
It really wouldn't take much to convince me that there was a link between ADD and television commercials.
If the television folks weren't trying to abuse us with the advertising, people wouldn't bother skipping the comercials.
When you watch commercials with a TiVo, there will be additional information displayed, maybe just "press thumbs-up for more information and a chance to win etc etc".
If you fast forward through this commercial you will still see that information, but of course for a shorter time.
At any rate, the information will be tied to the commercial you're currently viewing.
Where's the story here?
The original article seems to have little to do with the slashdot story reporting it. It's almost like the FUD microsoft spreads about Linux, but since here we all love TiVos (or don't watch TV at all) it can't be intentional.
Dear slashdot, please correct the factual errors in the original article.
"You must be new here" comments are not solicited at this time.
Depends how the implementation ends up looking like:
Option 1: out of the jumbled mess, which is how all playback looks like at 30X, a small portion is less jumbled. Fine, whatever, I wasn't watching it anyway, just as long as I can see when the movie resumes.
Option 2: enough of the screen is covered up so it't hard to see when to stop fast-forwarding. That would be bad, unless TiVo also added some features to help stop the fast-forward on time, like automatic detection of the end of the commercial.
Option 3: every time I fast-forward the box plays some extra ads. That's evil.
Fortunately, option 3 is almost certain to be challenged in courts, and may be option 2 as well: the advertizers and the networks will sue for effectively replacing their ads with TiVo's ads, similarly to how web advertisers sued when some companies tried to do a similar thing with web pages (stick code into browsers to float their ads over the original ads).
BS. If you don't like the product, don't buy it. Sounds like you no longer like the TiVo product. Don't buy it.
*sigh* Even outside of the arguments all over this discussion about people who have bought the units or have lifetime subscriptions, there's also the fact that a lot of people like this service. They believe that this is a short-term profit solution, possibly created by someone who plans to leave for another job before things crash, having reaped profits. Because they care, they complain.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I have this moxi pvr (also Tivo on another tv) and unlike tivo, moxi really *has* sold my ff button. I tried to ff through a PPV Fight (PPV!!! meaning I PAID to VIEW) and it gave me an error pop-up saying that wasn't allowed. So yes, Moxi is supporting some kind of goofy program-based command disabling. Now THAT's annoying...
This Tivo change doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.
This is slashdot: FUD for nerds. Propaganda that matters.
Both cable companies in my area offer a DVR service. It only costs $13.00 more a month for the service and DVR rental. No ads, and it works just like Tivo. I live in a rural town in Eastern NC, so I figured most places would have this availible.
Commercial TV started to die the day the remote control was invented.
From that day, people could avoid the ads without leaving the chair, and they did so.
TiVo is essentially capturing a TV signal, filtering out the original advertising, and replacing it with their own. If this isn't IP theft, I don't know what is. The TV networks and their advertisers should sue, and if they do, they should win.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I am always wondering when will the open source/free software community stand up and start making their own hardware. Personal computers are so 1990s, it's great that they're standardized and fairly open, but let's not forget about the computers of the future, cell phones, Tivos and the like. Creating an free OS for the the personal computer will only be a small victory if all of the future computer platforms are closed and subject to the whims of corporations.
--
TiVos by default do not have any "quick jump" feature. You have to literally fast-forward through commercials. However, there's a widely-known code you type into the remote to turn on a 30-second instant skip feature. So when I skip commercials, I'm never fast-forwarding; I press the jump button 6 or 8 times and that's it. The whole thing takes like 3 seconds. As long as they don't remove that feature, super-anti-commercial people like me will still be happy.
I remember an old Loony Tunes cartoon episode where Daffy Duck is a salesman to convert your house to a push button house and he was trying to sell it Porky Pig. There a button on the panel your not supposed to touch that was red but Porky Pig being curious pushed it and the whole house lifted to about 100 feet into the air and Daffy Duck wanted to sell Porky Pig a blue button to get the house down.
Cartoons are humorous and sometime ridiculous but nowadays that are becoming reality and that is the problem.
AC comments get piped to
Kids, think "breach of contract." I paid for a lifetime subscription. It included certain features. TiVo is seeking to take away one of those features from me without asking me.
No party to a contract may unilateraly change it. Even if there is a clause in the contract allowing for any change TiVo wants, the contract would be unconscionable as one of adhesion and a court would disallow it.
In other words, they probably can't legally do what they are doing. I'm sure no one will object to it, though....
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
I see the ability to skip commercials secondary to not missing shows. Granted, a VCR can do this but it has serious flaws. The TiVo allows me to not worry about having a tape ready and a timer set to record a show.
This keeps me from having to panic and run home in the middle of a Dungeons and Dragons game to watch the next showing of Star Trek. In fact, not recording shows using a TiVo can be cost a life. As a dear friend of mine has become a case in point.
Some time ago, before I owned a TiVo, my friends and I were in our Klingon characters waiting for a new episode of Star Trek to start. Anxious, we started to break stuff with our batliffs. Then General P'ocLow brought to our attention that Lieutenant Ykiouw was missing.
"Where is Lieutenant Ykiouw?" we chanted in song as we drank grape-juice (Master Gunner Kinought was allergic to blood-wine, so we had to substitute). Eventually the episode started and we had no blank tapes available. Regretfully we began to watch the show without Lieutenant Ykiouw.
As it turned out, Lieutenant Ykiouw was speeding through traffic to get to my mom's house in time to watch the show with us. He was late because he just attended his cousin's Right of Ascension. Delayed from the pain ceremony he was more angry than usual. And this perhaps, was the cause of his ultimate demise.
Unfortunately, an inconsiderate motorist pulled out in front of him just before a stoplight and caused him to swerve and hit a light-post. Bound to defend his honor, he grabbed one of the Cisco routers in the back seat and proceeded to exit his vehicle. Standing next to his now (more) broken '82 Honda Accord, he raised the router high in his hands with dangling cables and screamed his fearsome war-cry.
Now, Lieutenant Ykiouw was one of the more skilled warriors of our group. I have no doubt that he would have reclaimed his honor in glorious battle against the elderly woman who had shown such disregard for his status. However, blinded by his rage he failed to watch for oncoming traffic has he charged across the street dressed in his full Klingon makeup and clothing. The semi-truck driver in the dim light of dusk mistook him for a rabid Afghan dog running across the street. The driver didn't even try to stop.
Until a few hours later we had no idea of the events that had transpired. We already had felt bad that Lieutenant Ykiouw missed the episode, the impromptu Klingon Tea Ceremony and subsequent orgy. After finding out we lost one mighty warrior, we learned how dearly important it is not to feel that an episode of Star Trek might be missed. We also learned after the fact, that Heklaa, sister of Teriok was the cause of us all getting genital warts that fateful evening.
RIP Lieutenant Ykiouw 1963-1995
Well, instead of going the Tivo route to begin with, I built a MythTV box and used the Knoppix Myth ISO to install it.
Let me tell you, if you're accustomed to the stability and reliability of a Tivo type device, you will NOT be happy with MythTV yet at all!
The current Knoppix Myth release (R4V5) has some serious flaws in it, including:
* MythWeather module often reports a "timeout error" while trying to collect current weather data, and makes you click a "retry" button to get your weather. (Seems like this started when they tried to add animated doppler radar map support.) This happens despite me being on a 3Mbit DSL connection, load-balanced with a second 3Mbit cable Inet connection - so I'm not exactly short on bandwidth!
* Lots of struggling reported by various users getting the "ivtv" drivers in it working reliably and smoothly. I've tried compiling in various versions for my relatively basic Myth setup (Hauppage PVR-250 card and GeForce 4TI 4600 video card in a Pentium 4 1.8Ghz system w/512MB RAM) and I still get everything from occasional glitches in the video to the whole thing freezing up and requiring a reboot to return to normal operation.
* Free TV guide data Myth utilizes (via zap2it.com) is lacking in several ways. Primarily, pay-per-view events on satellite TV are not detailed at all. They all simply say "PPV event" in the listing.
* If you're like most users, wanting to use MythTV with a cable box or Dish Network satellite receiver, you'll have to build your own "IR Blaster" (I.R. LED soldered to some wire and a serial port connector), so your Myth box can pretend its a remote control and change the channels on the receiver. This wasn't terribly difficult or very expensive to make, but it's just another additional hassle to keep in mind. Some receivers don't catch all the digits sent too well either, requiring you fiddle with timing values in the script to get it working reliably.
a hacked tivo box can do some of the things myth tv can do (add bigger hd, look at pictures, rss, weather, setup ftp server) http://javahmo.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html. but a lot of the hacking seems like too much trouble to get it to work. I like my myth tv box, works great, can network it to my other computer easily with samba, can play divx/xvid/mp3/etc, and supports transcoding. Myth can be installed easily using KnoppMyth. Hoping to put a hd tuner card in there when i get some $$.
I own 3 TiVO's and have modified them with larger disks, network connectivity, and video extraction capability. I've been doing this since I bought my first TiVO in Fall 2000.
One of the primary drawbacks to root'ing your TiVO was that the next time a software update was transmitted from the magic entertainment boob in the sky, all your hard work would be erased, as the update would wipe the OS install clean (usually).
While my work in the TiVO community has dwindled significantly in the past months, I did happen to take note of a warning that said something to the effect of "Disable Remote Update". I'm not certain what this feature of the hack does, but it sounds (at least from the name) that it would not allow TiVO or DTV to upgrade your TiVO's OS from 3.1 to 3.x in the future.
I'm going to go look into that option now. But I think that if you really feel strongly about TiVO and DTV whoring themselves to the ad-nipple in California, you might want to invest a Saturday afternoon in root'ing your TiVO so that you won't receive this unwanted feature.
-c
Do it for da shorties
You could certainly run the (Qt) frontend on OS X (against the GPLed Qt available there). The backend is quite dependent on Video4Linux (v4l), so I don't think you'd have much luck there.
My suggestion, however, is to run both the frontend and backend on GNU/Linux (possibly on the same machine); you could always run an _additional_ watch-only frontend on your personal OSX box.
I've got a ReplayTV, and the last few software revisions have allowed "PauseAds," which they tested by having a contest screen for a few weeks. However, we have community-based software available that will sit between our boxen and the Replay servers, that so far can turn these off, along with all the other cool stuff it does. They've never actually tried to have real ads, as far as I know.
"You people need to get a life. "
This, coming from someone defending commercials.
People pay for cable. They pay for Tivo, they pay for their Tivo subscription.
And now they have to watch even more ads.
Its like getting raped and being forced to pay for the lube.
I don't fast forward on my TiVo, I use the 30-second skip button. That's the easter egg you access by pressing "SELECT PLAY SELECT 3 0 SELECT", which makes the "->|" button into something useful. Six clicks on the skip button and 3 minutes of commercials are excised with barely a moment's distraction. Yeah, I have to use the 10-second backskip once or twice, but it still beats straining to watch ultra-fast video looking for the end of the adverts.
If they ever take this away, the TiVo's go in the trash (figuratively) and MythTV will probably be the new option.
I have two Directtivo's that I haven't gotten around to hacking, yet. It looks like it's just about time, so that I don't have to phone home, nor will I have to watch the banner ads.
Once upon a time, I watched little to no TV -- and by that, I mean I watched a Simpson's episode once every few weeks, and that was it.
Then TiVo came along (my wife, who watches TV, wanted it) and I was totally drawn in. Freed from having to pay attention to programming schedules and whatnot, and given the ability to pause live TV and skip commercials, I started watching more TV. Now, a weekly roster includes NASCAR racing, three or four programs from the Cartoon Network, the Daily Show, and other tidbits.
Then, several months ago, TiVo tried a new kind of advertisement wherein an interstitial ad popped up when you tried to reach the main menu, asking you if you wanted to find out more, or continue on to the menu. It infuriated me (and others in public forums) because it put the advertising in the way of the menu I was trying to access, which was highly intrusive.
I was ready to get rid of TiVo at that point, but evidentally the TiVo folks got a lot of flak for it, because the next ad showed up as a link in the main menu instead -- and I decided it was acceptable since I could safely ignore it.
Well, my jury's still out on this one. If the ads are merely visual annoyances that can be ignored (I do, after all, watch NASCAR, so I'm used to it) I'll continue the service, but if the ads in any way interfere with the usability of the device, I think I'm done.
And that, at the end of the day, would be a good thing. It's too easy to forget that TV is a toy, not a necessity.
tivo, if you're even bothering to listen i'm done. the road you're going down is oneway and downhill as far as i'm concerned. i do not want to watch "other" stuff, only what i chose and when i chose. mythtv, here i come.
br.
tivo management, i think that you're a bunch of assholes.
"You are downloading copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner"
Right and going 60 MPH on most highways is illegal too.
Big deal.
"Watching tv while circumventing the commercials *is* theft"
Funny, but your mom said that having sex without paying her is stealing too.
But afterwards, I couldn't help but thinking that even a dollar is overcharging.
The problem with people skipping commercials is that eventually companies will not want to pay as much for commercial space. Which will mean lower revenue for the network, which will in turn lead to either
A) more commercials per hour, or
B) increased cost to cable customers.
The core problem here is that by being exposed to commercials you are partially paying for content being delivered to your box. By making it easier to skip commercials (not everyone wants to flip the channel or get up off the couch during commercial) you devalue the seconds devoted to advertising.
How should we solve this? I don't know. Premium channels avoid commercials by charging for content directly. Possible answer would be to make more channels "premium" as in: "Pay a buck more if you want Comedy Central". Cable companies might object to that since bundling unwanted channels makes you pay for content you are not using. I mean, can you really watch more than one channel at a time (if you have only one TV)?
TANSTAAFL
I'm testing now using BitTorrent to get all of my family's shows. I will be missing sports but the torrents are better quality than the satellite feeds I'm getting and commercials are already edited out. I can then play the shows as I want to on my computer with TV out. It's been working great as of week 1 of my experiment. In week 2, we're going to try watching everything but NFL and NCAA Football from the torrents. So far, it doesn't look like that will be much of a challenge. I'll be a day behind on shows, but I'm not too concerned about that. I can get used to watching the Simpsons on Mondays.
I am fastforwarding through commercials and yet TiVo is *SHOWING* me a commercial?!?!?!?
When fastforwarding at a minimum 2x, how can they show me a commercial and yet let me see when to stop fastforwarding and go back to my show? (How do they know how long a commercial to show?)
Given that it is, after all, digital content; does this mean that TiVo will deliberately slowdown the FF to allow time to show commercials? I mean, if I am using 30-sec skip, how CAN they show a commercial?
And when they are (technically) showing commercials ON TOP OF the paid advertisers commercials (thus obscuring them), aren't they treading into the realm of "taking" the broadcasters IP?
Quite frankly, we are all at odds with one another: viewers seeking ways to escape ads, and everyone else trying to show us ads. No way is this going to work out well for TiVo. Since when has anyone even had longterm success trying to BRIBE people to watch ads?
This is undoubtedly the first nail in TiVo's coffin (and I own 3 units).
Worse, this is the first real sign of the merging worlds of internet and broadcast--it's the same issue in both cases.
"If this isn't IP theft, I don't know what is."
I would judge the 2nd part of this statement to be the case.
Expecting something for nothing is not a new concept but doesn't scale well. Skipping commercials is a technological response to an economic problem, and won't legitimately work. If we want commercial-free programming, the money's gotta come from someone other than advertisers. While I'd like being able to skip the commercials, and could set up a MythTV box to do so, the economic model can't support everyone doing so.
Until we adopt pay-tv like Great Britain, in the American model of TV economics it's those pesky commercials that pay for the non-premium programming.
Slashdot's name? When my compiler sees
I just looked up HR 2391 on Thomas . I don't see anything that addresses recording broadcast programming and skipping commercials. The only thing mentioned seems to be recording movies in a movie theater.
I did note that HR 2391 got a lot bigger when the senate got the resoultion after the house passed it.
. there used to be a sig here.....
It may surprise you to consider that producers of television entertainment are not in the business of delivering entertainment to consumers.
They are in the business of delivering consumers to advertisers.
Delivering entertainment to consumers is simply a side-effect of their reason for being in business -- it's just one means to achieve their purpose. As soon as it doesn't work, there's no reason for them to keep producing the side-effect (your shows) instead of looking for a better way to deliver your attention to advertisers.
$0.02,
ptd
I'm an animal lover -- they're delicious!
I think TiVo are really just covering their asses on this one. Its not exactly intrusive if its just a banner and it will go away as soon as you stop fast-forwarding. I think stations should conspire together to cut the number of hours of advertising - people don't like being constantly interrupted and the laws of supply and demand say that each advert slot will become more valuable if there are less of them, and each advert will have more of an impact if its less drowned out by all the others - so a total net gain for everyone except the advertising companies (but who gives a shit about them?).
On UK terrestrial stations (atleast) theres a break every 15 minutes and in films usually more like one every 30mins, if they tried to push that futher people would do their nut. No-one wants to be constantly bombarded with the same adverts or things that have no interest to them, now the real smart thing TiVo could do is work with stations and get them to allow TiVo to play its own adverts during breaks instead - these would be specially selected to each viewers tastes, would have the 'thumbs up/down' option so people could give their opinion, they wouldn't repeat so much, and they'd make it easy for further interactions - eg instantly buying it (does the one-click patent cover that? oh well) finding out more, or texting the user when they happen to wander near that shop (if they said they were interested) etc. TiVo could even get away with say locking out the skip button for atleast 5 seconds in each advert as long as the user feels that they are being treated well and their input taken - if the user thumbs-down an advert then theres no business reason to waste money trying to show it to them another 15 times! Obviously various people get their cuts including TiVo, the entry level for advertising even on major stations would be low because you could for example, buy only 100 viewers instead of 1000's. everyone is happy, including the advertisers and the stations, and the viewers!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I love Linux as much as the next person, but my power horse PC runs Windows. My Linux box is a laptop without a TV card. Is there a version of MythTV, or similar software, that runs on Windows?
These guys make me laugh... I don't know jack anout the US TV market, but here in Brazil, with the advent of the DVD, most people trashed their old and malfunctioning VCR's and still have got no replacement. I mean, most people don't have a way to record TV shows... DVD recorders are too expensive and they're simply not worth it. The VCR still seems to be tougher when it comes to rewritability. PVR's are so popular in the US? Or the MPAA and NAB (or whatever) are so desperately trying to stop people from digitally recording TV broadcasts before it's too late? I, for one, will record anything I want. I have DirecTV and I pay for that (I could find a way to have it for free, but I tend to be honest most of the time). I won't let go my right to watch a TV show that I paid for. That's why VCR's and PVR's exist: they provide a way for you to record show for later enjoyment! This is fair use and will always be. Now, for TV commercials... I like some of them. They even work with me and I have bought stuff because of TV ads. But I don't pay for these commercials. No one does it, except for the advertisers. If there's a law banning any ad-skipping feature and anti-fast-forward measures become a standard, I will hack my PVR, be it based on open source software or not. My rights should never change. What is good for me today will be good for me forever.
They first sell you the idea of a "FREE FOR ALL" webmail. Then they start removing POP3 access, SMTP access, and what you get? Animated Flash banners while you're reading your mail.
And no, I don't care how the heck that freaking Dew tastes! I don't have it in my country dammit!
Well if these guys at Tivo start crippling their software, then I guess I'll make MY OWN. Or if I'm a cheapstake, then I'd go for the analog version.
(Stupid government regulations... *mumbles*)
Ok, before you all go & cancel your subscriptions, you might want to READ THE DAMN ARTICLE. "TiVo viewers will see "billboards," or small logos, popping up over TV commercials as they fast-forward through them, offering contest entries, giveaways or links to other ads." Not quite the overwhelming barrage of advertising that some of you seem to be implying. Would I rather the ads weren't there? Sure. But I don't really care that they are.
Contrary to what the post implies, people don't buy a Tivo to "avoid advertising". They buy it so they can watch shows how & when they want, and so that they can fast-forward through advertising. You can still fast-forward through the ads, you'll just be shown a logo on the screen during the ad you're fast-forwarding through. This will likely be no more intrusive then the "Record this program" logo that shows up one ads for certain TV programs already. Not the end of the world, really.
Finally, I want to know, why is there such an overwhelming anti-Tivo sentiment on Slashdot? I understand the anti-Microsoft sentiment. But Microsoft is a company that makes frequently bad products, charges outrageous prices (that you really have no choice but to pay), offers lousy customer service, routinely violates anti-trust laws, Etc.. NONE of these really apply to Tivo. Some people object to their monthly fees, but if you don't like it you can feel free to build your MythTV box. But you'll probably end up spending considerably more in the long run, and be prepared for lot's more hassles, Oh, and your TV litings, though free, won't go as far in advance (last I checked xmltv only gave you one week of listings), and be prepared to upgrade xmltv at least every couple of months, sometimes twice a week (usually with no advance notice-- your listings just stop working).
Tivo makes a solid, VERY well designed product. They sell it cheap, but charge a reasonable monthly fee to use the service. They're even reasonably supportive of the hacking community. Yes, they hope to make a profit in the process. What's really wrong with that?
Paying for their crappy or not so crappy art projects seems to me is their problem. Not the government's or mine. Maybe they would like to give the air time back to the people. If Fox needs programming I have some ideas.
I wish I could get some federal legislation that would require people to give me money for my crappy paintings.
Maybe so many people wont just sit around watching crappy tv just because its free.
MythTV, Freevo get all this publicity, but the hardware required to run them is still a pain (PC, WinTV card, composite output).
It's time to build a custom OS for the Tivo hardware platform!
MythTivo!
Series 2 tivo's seem to use the KFIR-II broadcom chipset, also used in the Pinnacle Bungee and already working under Linux. Series 2.5 seems to use custom Mips core, and odd hardware.
Linux people, Tivo is not your friend. You don't owe them anything for "letting" you upgrade YOUR machine's disk to a larger drive.
You are a customer of their service.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
The old, customer-oriented Tivo was like a web browser with popup blockers, and nobody has been sued over popup blockers yet. Tivo's new ad-supported model is more like that browser hack that stripped the original ads and replaced them with other ads - and they DID get sued.
Knowing some customers aren't watching your ads is bad enough, but knowing your competitors are paying much less to have your ads replaced with theirs will really make companies angry.
It sounds an awful lot like the commercials in Starship Troopers. After every commercial they'd have that tagline. Should we expect the bugs to attack soon?
I've got a counter offer. How about this: I pay you a set amount of money every month, and you remove ALL commericals from my TV. How about that?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
TiVo has 3 fast forward speeds: 3X, 18X and 60X (source, TiVo FAQ). If you're skipping commercials at high speed, as I always do, a one minute commercial goes by in one second! How annoying can a pop-up ad be during that time?
If everyone had PVRs and did this kind of skipping, advertisers could get the same effect by putting up a stationary box for the whole minute with their ad text, on part of the screen. It's not objectionable.
The main new feature is that you can press a button and send in your name and address to request information about the product. TiVo has had opt-in ads accessible from their main menu like this for a year or more. These are high quality ads and I've used the opt-in occasionally, it's pretty nice.
The big problem I see is that there is no time to react in one second and press a button to get more information. My guess is that this is targetted at the people who FF at 18X, who will have 3 seconds to react. Quick people like me won't be affected.
Far more annoying are the banner ads which run across the bottom of regular programs, advertising upcoming shows (and sometimes products!). These have recently become noisy and drown out the dialog or add incongruous sound effects spoiling the scene. I expect the use of this kind of advertising to increase because you can't TiVo around it. Banners during commercials would be much less of a problem.
I would pay *FOR* ads, here's why... I've been asking for this feature for some time now. What I want are ads to display as a screensaver. If I'm watching Tivo and want to pause to answer the phone or do whatever, it would be nice to have the screen go into screensaver mode, and they might as well show ads (as long as they don't have burn in areas). Likewise when a show is finished, instead of sticking on the menu page, it would be nice if it went into a screensaver mode. Sure this would be nice if it showed my pictures or what not as an option, but personally, I wouldn't mind the fact that Tivo was making some money, and heck, they could be worthwhile ads. What worries me about fast forward ads is that they could distract from what one is trying to do (often just scanning content).
...but my next PVR will run MythTV -- unless HR2391 passes and makes me a criminal for skipping commercials.
Screw HR2391, as long as I have my encrypted tunnel to an off shore proxy server, I can download MythTV from anywhere, and they (the government, the RIAA, the MPAA, etc) wouldn't be the wiser.
Honestly this doesn't effect *me* at all, I can get around these pesky little inconviences. Who this really effects is the average Joe who thinks the most important issue is restricting marriage to a certain class of people that is determined by gender. Once the other Americans who are asleep at the wheel see how fuck they really are *THEN* we might see some progress, but until then I can get by just fine, Act of Congress or no...
I didn't start watching Amazing Race until 9:45pm last night. By 11:30 I had seen both Amazing Race and Jon Stewart -- without watching a single commercial. That's 45 minutes of my life to do productive things (or surf Slashdot).
You have a valid point here, but what about this. Money talks. How long before the FF starts going a little slower so Tivo can sell a little more advertismet time? Your time saved may drop to 40 minutes, then 35... and so on. "Wait-and-see" is a great idea, but it still comes down to that good old talking money.
TiVo allows you to fast forward through commercials but it doesn't remove them.
How long until Microsoft adds commercials to their startup screen and BSOD?
They advertised a free unit givaway contest on that screen a number of months ago, and in the past week or so they placed an ad on a pause screen for a special deal on additional units for existing ReplayTV customers.
I don't have a problem with ReplayTV using their own service for advertising as long as the ads are not intrusive, and their current method meets that criterion (IMO).
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
My Sony Trinitron Monitor has a Dell advertisement on it. What, you think its a Dell branded monitor?
I think this is relatively moot if you're like many Tivo users and you've enabled the unpublished 30s autoskip hack (S-P-S-3-0-S). When you press the skip button, it jumps exactly 30 seconds. You hit this 6-8 times during commercial breaks and you're back at your show; much faster than FF and you don't have to pay attention to the screen so who gives a damn what they're displaying?
I am less interested in the fact they may want to run ads, as I am profoundly disappointed that this idea on the part of Tivo indicates that they are way, WAY out of touch with their customers' needs and desires, which doesn't bode well for the future of the company. There are tons of ways they could make money by adding new services and features.... and advertising-related crap will never be among them.
MarK Cuban put this in his blog about a month ago, he invited someone to make a million off it, because he didn't have time...
tivo is an amazing device. if they need to add advertising, and doing so does not inherently change how i use the device, that's okay with me. i'd rather see tivo with some minor non-invasive advertising than no tivo, or tivo like devices.
regardless, if they insert banner adds when i am ff'ing, who cares? i am still in control. i choose how long i need to ff. it's much different than a commercial where you are stuck there doing nothing until your scheduled programming returns.
Contrary to what the post implies, people don't buy a Tivo to "avoid advertising"
I hate to break it to you, but some people do buy a Tivo for this express purpose. If you don't believe it, then you are out of touch.
Finally, I want to know, why is there such an overwhelming anti-Tivo sentiment on Slashdot?
Maybe it is because we bought our tivo's to avoid ads, which you don't seem to realize, and what is Tivo repeatedly trying to do? Put ads in front of us. Take away or limit features that help us to avoid ads.
Of course, being out of touch with the first point, would explain your puzzlement on the second point.
"TiVo viewers will see "billboards," or small logos, popping up over TV commercials as they fast-forward through them, offering contest entries, giveaways or links to other ads." Not quite the overwhelming barrage of advertising that some of you seem to be implying.
You may not see a problem with this, as you explained. And that is fine for you. But I don't want ads, or small logos, or offerings of contest entries, or giveaways or links to other crap crap crap. That's what I am trying to get away from.
As I said, you probably don't understand the anti-Tivo sentiment because you do not share the loathing of the ads.
This will likely be no more intrusive then the "Record this program" logo that shows up one ads for certain TV programs already. Not the end of the world, really.
Spam will likely be no more intrusive than an e-mail logo that shows up as one more subject line in your inbox. Not the end of the world, really.
(Of course, I may be making a false assumption. Maybe you think spam is not so bad?)
Tivo makes a solid, VERY well designed product. They sell it cheap, but charge a reasonable monthly fee to use the service. They're even reasonably supportive of the hacking community. Yes, they hope to make a profit in the process. What's really wrong with that?
Yes, yes, and also yes. Finally, nothing is wrong with that.
If part of their effort to make profit is to put craptacular logos and giveaways and contests in front of my face, then they are undermining the very profit they seek. Isn't it obvious that people don't want this? (Maybe not, see my first response above.)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Everyone of those who use this technology will roll over and take it like whining little boys who don't get their way.
Get used to our coporate overlords, cuz it's only going to get worse, unless folks actually start writing letters to your elected offficials in order to stop this madness.
I can only vouch for myself and my wife, but when we fast forward *anything* in TiVo we are watching the whatever is being fast forwarded to know where to resume play.
Any banner ad will be 100% ignored simply due to this fact. I may not be watching the commericals, but I am watching them in fast forward to know where to resume play. I sure as heck won't be reading a banner ad.
The more news I read about Tivos, the more I love my Replay 5040. Never mind the fact that it costs less and has more features and comes with things that Tivo users have to buy seperately, but it skips commercials, doesn't ram ads down my throat and doesn't tell the mother company if I paused or rewound Ms. Jacksons teet.
"TiVo viewers will see "billboards," or small logos, popping up over TV commercials as they fast-forward through them, offering contest entries, giveaways or links to other ads."
Do you know how long it takes MythTV to fastforward over a commercial? It's like milliseconds - okay maybe 1 or 2 seconds if you have to do it manually 30 seconds at a time. If Tivo's fastforward is so slow that they have time to show you additional commercials, then I feel sorry for you.
How about letting the market decide that? If the payback from advertising drops to the point where it can no longer support creation and delivery of programming, what then? Will the demand for programming go away?
SO, you mean to tell me that reality TV shows are so expensive to create?
You mean to tell me that following a couple on a date and filming it costs a lot of money to create?
You mean to tell me that cleaning someone's house and filming it on TV costs a lot of money?
Advertising needs to deal with the new reality and their new econimic models. I, for one, will continue to use every tool and technology to optimize my leisure time viewing and listening for maximum content and minimum advertising.
I have already begun such a process. Instead of putting up with the shenanigans of the studios, I've ceased to watch add-based television.
:)
Then I download the shows I want to watch, 100% commerical free
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Not only could you not avoid ads, you could not turn off the TV either. I wonder how long it will be before we are forced to that model.
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!!!
I guess i'll need to start running FireFox on my TiVo so i can use AdBlock?
besides TiVo is an open-source thing, if they decide to add that feature i'll just change it.
also, i don't used the fast forward button. you can use the >| button as a 30 second skip by pressing the following buttons:
Select Play Select 3 0 Select
and it will unlock the 30 second skip, it makes fast forwarding through commercials easyer (in my opinion)
putting banner ads on my TV is really agrevating, thats why I dumped Comcast Digital Cable (3 seconds after install) and desided to get DirecTV (2 years later)
I have a simple answer to the question of what should replace advertising revenue: subscription revenue or pay-per-view.
Except that obviously the cable companies would need to allow people to buy only the channels they want, because a full subscription to absolutely everything would balloon to hundreds of dollars.
And obviously, the big media corporations are rabidly against having that happen, because they wouldn't then be able to force their crappy channels on people who don't want them, and they wouldn't be able to claim ludicrously inflated statistics about how many homes get their channel.
I'd benefit, because I'd buy the half dozen channels I actually watch, and not get stuck with paying for ESPN, CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox News and other dreck.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
in the past week or so they placed an ad on a pause screen for a special deal on additional units for existing ReplayTV customers.
So who shot first, Han or Greedo? The ReplayTV unit, you say? Err... nevermind...
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
So you mean actors might actually only make 6 or 7 figures per year instead of per episode? Boo hoo! I will NEVER feel sorry for hollywood not making enough money.
There will be no tear in my beer for them.
It's like that South Park episode about the RIAA. "Look, here's Britney Spears. Why is she so sad you ask? Well, she had her eyes set on a Gulfstream IV, but because people are downloading her music off the internet for free, she can only afford a Gulstream III now."
In some twisted way, we, the people, pay to be bothered by stupid irritating commercials. Without advertisement products could be cheaper. For example, just look at how much money goes to marketing when you buy a cd.
At least we should be allowed to not watch the commercials we paid for ourselves...
PjotrP
For almost half a decade, ReplayTV units have had 30-second skip, automatic commercial skip, and a TCP/IP port so that you can suck shows off the unit and burn them to DVD (with DVArchive and others). I honestly cannot understand why people keep buying TiVo when ReplayTV is and always has been a much better option.
I would rather bulid a PVR where I could control everything myself instead of being lazy and relying on Tivo to take care of my lazy ass. How hard is it to program something to record? It reminds me of the dopey people that always bitched about VCRs being soooo complicated and the clock is always flashing 12:00am....
Yes, that's a lot of people.
Also, all of that data about yourself you're passing along to Tivo and who-knows-who. That's no good.
It's not quite a paperweight. The TiVo works without the subscription, it's just not as fun. Your $300 in equipment will still be there, but your service will disapper when your monthly service charge disappears.
You know, executives are crazy. Why force people to watch something when you already *know* they will watch it if you give them access to it voluntarily?
For example, commercials... Anyone ever heard of the endless commercial channel known as "The Shopping Channel"? Crap, I'm paying to get this thing in my cable setup. There are people who have this abomination hard wired into their TV so that they don't have to be subjected to any actual content in their viewing pleasure.
Here's what I want from a PVR: When the commercials are coming up, instead of skipping them, give me a menu of all the commercials and allow me to choose to watch one if I want. Also give me a an option *not* to watch any. Give me the option to ban specific ads (for content inappropriate to my family) on my PVR too. Finally, give me a list of all the ads associated with a show and allow me to save the ads separately (in case it's a particularly good one and I want to show my friends).
Let's face it. Some people don't want to see any ads. Showing them ads will just piss them off and make them *less* likely to buy your product. The *vast majority* of people actually want to see some ads and would choose to watch them at least once or twice if given the option.
I don't see the point in forcing people to view an ad for a product that they don't want. In some cases (McCain's!!!!!) the ads themselves are so bad that some people (I won't mention any names) boycott the product just because of the ad.
In 2003, I terminated it when the family budget got tight. TV viewing became a miserable, boring, and frustrating experience. I was so ready to sign up again at what ever the price.
In 2004, I signed up for the DISH network with a 100-hour PVR (Personal Video Recorder) (PVR-522) that added $10 a month to my 2-set bill.
When I got on the phone, they charged me two months programming up front, then waived the next two months of bills. The net: no real up front charge and the commitment is only month-to-month.
The dish PVR does most of what TIVO does. There are two things it does not do. First, it does not go out and record shows you have not requested but where the database shows you are LIKELY to enjoy. Second, when you like a show, you have to manually pick each of the channels you want to record from. (I.e. the West Wing is on two networks and you have to pick both.) Neither of these deficiencies were deal killers for me.
The PVR came with 1 box and one remote for each of my 2 TVs. You can record up to 2 shows at one and either TV can play anything recorded on the PVR. Once again I am watching 1-hour shows in 42 commercial-free minutes.
I now pay less for programming than I did with Comcast and less for the PVR than I did with TIVO.
(I must so sound like a shill for DishNetwork. I have no connection with them and none of their stock.)
Not only does the PVR have a fast-forward button like on TIVO, but there is also a 30-second forward button. Press 6 times during a prime-time commercial (or 8 times during the West Wing) and you have zapped past the commercials faster than TIVO's fast-forward.)
Based on all of this, I think a little less TIVO-centric ranting is in order. Ticked off at TIVO? Consider the competition.
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
I hate to break it to you, but some people do buy a Tivo for this express purpose. If you don't believe it, then you are out of touch.
So let me get this straight. The only reason you bought a Tivo was to avoid commercials? So you would be equally happy with a box that didn't let you pause, rewind, schedule, etc. as long as it blanked the screen & muted the volume while the commercials were on? I didn't think so. You bought a Tivo because you wanted to have more control over the TV. This doesn't change anything about that. All it does is show an icon on the screen during the commercials. It won't even be on every commercial, since advertisers will have to pay Tivo for the privilege. Big Fucking Deal. You will still be able to fast forward past the commercials just as quickly as you could before, and with the hack someone mentioned earlier, you will still be able to skip 30 seconds at a time & not even see the commercials.
As I said, you probably don't understand the anti-Tivo sentiment because you do not share the loathing of the ads.
Maybe you're right. I only have a normal hatred of advertising. You seem to have a borderline psychosis on the issue. Of course, down the road when the only channels that are available are pay channels, you'll probably be longing for the ads.
Spam will likely be no more intrusive than an e-mail logo that shows up as one more subject line in your inbox. Not the end of the world, really.
This is about the stupidest argument you could have possibly made. This is no more intrusive then the commercials that you are already FFin past. The ONLY difference is a small logo on the screen. Once again, BIG FUCKING DEAL! If they ever start (for example) requiring me to watch an ad before I can watch a recorded program, I'll be screaming as loud as you are. But the current plan is no where near enough to make me upset. There are REAL things in the world to worry about, why get your panties in a bunch over this silly issue?
If part of their effort to make profit is to put craptacular logos and giveaways and contests in front of my face, then they are undermining the very profit they seek. Isn't it obvious that people don't want this? (Maybe not, see my first response above.)
But you don't need to click on the link to view the contest or whatever. YOU ARE NOT BEING FORCED TO DO ANYTHING. If you don't want to watch the ad, continue to fast forward past it like you do now. Like I said, if you don't like the new "feature", switch to MytyhTV. I have absolutely nothing against it. But your irrational hatred of Tivo is silly. Tivo isn't evil. Can you imagine you grandma setting up & using MythTV? A friend's grandma just bought a Tivo, set it up herself & is very happy with it. She's not technically illiterate, but there's no way in hell she could have set up Myth. So if you hate this feature so much, please switch. But keep in mind that it's not THAT big of a deal.
So what? Ads are showing where its not obtrusive. I'd much rather they made money this way then charge me more per month.
I think Tivo isnt being run right. They shouldnt have to charge people monthly for their service. In fact, they should give out the boxes for next to nothing. Can you imagine how valuable the data that they collect could be? Who is watching what, who is recording what, plus direct access to consumers. Tivo popup ads, and buying guides could get them tons of revenue.
Maybe the reason why they dont do this is the stereotypical slashdot user would shit a brick if they found out some company was "stealing" their tv usage data anonymously. You guys are way to freakin sensitive.
I pay the cable company and I get ads, I pay tivo a service fee and they're going to force me to see ads?
I hope this only affects fast forward and not the skip button.
If the tivo service was really cheap I wouldn't mind so much, but it's fairly pricey. They're trying so hard not to piss off the big media that they're going to alienate their customers and therefore confront head on their biggest fear - loss of their business.
They're trying to sell you a box AND make you pay a monthly subscription fee, while cable companies will rent you a box for about the same price as the subscription fee.
replacing commercials with banner ads, so instead of watching ads you're essentially paying to watch ads... good move tivo... probably time to short the stock
Get your torrents...
I've never understood this one. How do you know how many times to press this button? Are there always a certain number of 30 second commercials?
Does this only work with certain TiVo versions? I have TiVo Series 2 (?) and I've never been able to get this hidden feature to work. I hear the bing-bing-bing, but the skip button still jumps to the show's end or 15 minutes.
cpeterso
The best way round it seems to be to get a UK TiVo - we just don't get any software updates :(
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
Umm, no, that is not quite the same thing. You are actually using all the products you mentioned. You don't get any forced advertisements for products you haven't chosen, or have no desire to choose, or even find to be repulsive and intrusive to begin with.
I sure wouldn't want to see McDonalds, Exxon or even Windows logo every once in a while, because I find those companies somewhat repulsive. And just as well someone else might not want to be forced to look at a RedHat ad, since they want to have nothing to do with that.
It's my environment, and I want to choose which products appear in it.
Well, isn't Replay out of business?
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
What if you got MythTV working well on an X Box? Then you'd have a Tivo replacement that's about the same price as a Tivo, but (obviously) with all the advantages of open source.
Linux already boots on XBox, so isn't it possible to make MythTV work? Am I the first to think of this?
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
I only have a normal hatred of advertising. You seem to have a borderline psychosis on the issue. Of course, down the road when the only channels that are available are pay channels, you'll probably be longing for the ads.
TiVo's ads do nothing towards funding the programming whose ads I am skipping.
I have a problem with advertising because it is everywhere. It is impossible to avoid. I want to be left alone in peace. I'm sorry that you think that a desire to avoid ads is a psychosis.
If ads were like they once were, there wouldn't be the current anti-ad sentiment. Advertising has gotten way out of control. That fact is not a psychosis. If ads hadn't gotten way out of control, I wouldn't have a problem.
If they ever start (for example) requiring me to watch an ad before I can watch a recorded program, I'll be screaming as loud as you are. But the current plan is no where near enough to make me upset. There are REAL things in the world to worry about,
DVD's already do this.
I'm not really so upset as you seem to think. I just think Tivo is making a very stupid mistake. Their ads don't fund the progrmaming. The money goes to Tivo. So there is no argument about Tivo's ads supporting the program.
People who bought a Tivo, where one of its significant benefits is to skip ads, have a genuine right to be FUCKING UPSET that tivo is taking this away. Why do you think owners should be happy about this and just accept it? After all, there are bigger problems in the world. Just accept whatever changes Tivo wants to make. Be quite. Don't complain. I suppose this should extend to Microsoft as well.
I do worry plenty about other real things in the world. But I have a right to be upset at Tivo.
If you don't want to watch the ad, continue to fast forward past it like you do now. Like I said, if you don't like the new "feature", switch to MytyhTV.
There is slipery slope principle here.
There is a similar argument, if you don't like spam, just click delete. After all, once upon a time, it was just an occaisional spam. You seem to miss the slipery slope connection.
How long until my Tivo is plasterd with ads, logos, giveaways, contests, and other crap? It's just one more intrusion. Just ignore it.
BTW, using MythTV or Freevo is a possibility I look at from time to time. I would love to see a Knoppix-like eash-to-install special purpose distribution that is turnkey. Just boot the CD, format drive, install, and reboot.
So let me get this straight. The only reason you bought a Tivo was to avoid commercials?
No. It was a major reason.
Imagine that a different history had taken place. Suppose someone developed a box that ONLY skipped commercials, are you suggesting that there would be no market for that?
People would buy boxes with various functionality and various prices. Tivo happens to have found a combination and price that the market will bear.
So you would be equally happy with a box that didn't let you pause, rewind, schedule, etc. as long as it blanked the screen & muted the volume while the commercials were on? I didn't think so.
You're right, of course. I wouldn't be EQUALLY happy. But you seem to miss the point that avoiding commercials is a significant part of the picture.
Big Fucking Deal. You will still be able to fast forward past the commercials just as quickly as you could before
Hey, if you're happy with that, then I'm glad for you.
I continue to assert that it is my right to be upset about it. And it is not unreasonable either.
If you believe that I should be happy to accept what ever creeping changes Tivo wants to make from what they sold, then the psychosis is yours.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
No, they are not out of business! Sheesh. You can buy units for $100 and the monthly fee is $12.95 a month (worth it for the great program guide and searching).
Well, I'm glad you are having better results than me with your Myth box. But I think my points still stand. If you browse the forums at www.mysettopbox.tv - you'll see plenty of complaints with stability problems, and hardly anything in the way of real solutions.
Most people seem to either be running older revisions (and missing out on some of the newer features), or anxiously awaiting the R5 release (which seems to still be a ways off).
I don't own a Tivo so I may be incorrect, but I thought Tivo owners had to pay for a subscription for the unit, and that gave them a different (and supposedly better) source of guide info than the free data offered at zap2it.com?
In any case, I don't know anyone who honestly found the MythTV solution to be "quick and easy" to set up and get working. Heck, I must have spent at least 2 or 3 days fighting with mine just to get it to center its display on my big-screen TV set properly, without "overscanning" too far and cutting things off on the edges, or starting to show an edge of an X window on one edge. Lots of people have to use custom X mode lines just to get things to synch up properly with given TVs, and if you own an ATI video card - good luck there too. It's a neat project, but FAR from "plug and play" like a Replay TV or Tivo would be.
DVD's already do this.
Few DVD's have ads other then trailers (at least that I have seen), and most trailers can be skipped. When they can't, I agree you have reason to be upset. They also do this in some theaters, and I don't go to those theatres. The last movie that I saw in a Cineplex Odeon theater had 21 minutes of advertising before the movie (about 50/50 ads & trailers for bad movies). I don't go to that theater anymore. Instead, I'm a loyal fan of Landmark Theatres, who have NO advertising before films other then trailers (at least here in Seattle), and the trailers are mostly for movies that I have at least some interest in seeing. Advertising isn't so bad when it's for something that you have an interest in.
I have a problem with advertising because it is everywhere. It is impossible to avoid. I want to be left alone in peace.
Then you should love this advertising. You're right, advertising is ubiquitous. But these ads are basically non-intrusive, unless you actually want to get more information about the product. Since it's completely voluntary to view the offer, it seems unreasonable to be overly upset.
People who bought a Tivo, where one of its significant benefits is to skip ads, have a genuine right to be FUCKING UPSET that tivo is taking this away. Why do you think owners should be happy about this and just accept it? After all, there are bigger problems in the world. Just accept whatever changes Tivo wants to make. Be quite. Don't complain.
But you can still skip the ads! You will get through the ad exactly as fast as before. The only difference will be an icon on the screen. If they make the process intrusive, I'll be upset. And I'm not saying you shouldn't complain. Just understand the issue before you complain.
I suppose this should extend to Microsoft as well.
No, as I'm suggesting you do with Tivo, I judge MS on their history. MS has an extensive history of bad behavior. I've made this point quite clear in every one of my posts on the matter. Tivo has NO history of such behavior. We really don't even know what the plan is. This entire uproar is over one article, with only one brief quote from a Tivo employee. So until we know more, I think skepticism is warranted, but not outrage. Sending Tivo a polite email telling them your concerns with program is appropriate at the present time, but publicly ranting about how "TiVo is dead to me" (not a quote from you, but from another poster) seems a bit premature.
There is a similar argument, if you don't like spam, just click delete. After all, once upon a time, it was just an occaisional spam. You seem to miss the slipery slope connection.
Comparing this to spam is completely invalid. A reasonable comparison would be to website banner ads. And, probably unlike you, I don't mind banner ads, as long as they are not overly intrusive. After all, many of the websites we visit every day wouldn't be here if they did not have advertising support (Slashdot for example). If the ads are very annoying, with sound & flashing colors & such, then I will be more upset. But I have no reason to believe that that is the case. They currently offer this exact service to Networks ("Press thumbs up to record this program") and it's not overly intrusive. Since they have a history of doing this sort of thing right, it seems a tad paranoid to assume that they will do it wrong this time.
I'm not really so upset as you seem to think. I just think Tivo is making a very stupid mistake. Their ads don't fund the progrmaming. The money goes to Tivo. So there is no argument about Tivo's ads supporting the program.
Granted (and you're correct that I was mistaken in pointing this out). But people are always screaming that Tivo is going to be out of business any day now, so any additional revenue is a good thing. And since they are saying that "the advertising revenue will probably bring down the [subsc