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OpenTV Like TiVo on Steroids
Davis Freeberg writes "Davis Freeberg and Thomas Hawk recently interviewed OpenTV about some of the more progressive programming that they are offering to viewers outside of North America. Specifically, they have created a PVR that allows users to not only choose from 4 - 8 video angles, but even more importantly consumers can choose what audio feed they would prefer. Recently they miked up some drunk hooligans during a rugby match in Austrailia and cable customers could choose which commentator they prefered.
Of course this functionality doesn't come without a cost. In exchange for interactive games, karaoke and multiple HDTV streams, they collect data on the viewing habits of their users and then digitally insert 30 second ads based upon the demographics of their customers. While I'm not sure if this is good or bad, I do believe that this will be the future of television advertising. While we haven't seen this type of a privacy policy introduced in the U.S. yet, I'm sure that the PVR industry has taken notice of the willingness of Aussies to give up privacy rights for the ability to time shift televison.
"
The term smacks of something unwholesome...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Is the drunken Australian hooligan audio feed available for all TV shows?
This has potential, but I think the "open" in the name is a misnomer...
I'm not opposed to personalized advertising. I don't see what the fuss is about really. Who cares if an advertising company has on record my TV viewing preferences?
Maybe it would stop me from receiving tampon and ED commercials.
I, for one, welcome our multiple view angle personal video recording demographically focused overlords.
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If I'm subscribing to their service, they already know what I'm watching because they're pushing it through the wire!
I see no harm in using that data to show ads that are relevant to the genre of programming I'm watching. To me, it seems better to advertise athletic gear and sports drinks during a football game than tampons and depends undergarments.
Context sensitive advertising seems to be the way to go as long as its not overly intrusive. They have a right to make money after all and if people aren't willing to pay with their dollars, then they'll have to pay with their eyeballs.
Privacy or not, just don't buy the stuff advertised. It's not like anyone is forcing you to buy anything, right?
And here's a thought. Do "they" have the right to discriminate their commercial advertisements based on the individual they are broadcasting to? Could that be unfair because someone else is getting different television programming than you are, yet you are paying for the same service?
However, since there is a lot of regulation in the States (v-chip, ratings, standards, and artifical monopolies), cable users may find themselves screwed; either get monitored or don't get cable... and I'm sure the Patriot Act would get its grip on TV too, now if you watch Cops & the hitlery channel, you can be suspected as being a terrorist.
Something is definitely going to have to be done with television advertising as PVR's continue to gain popularity. I've had my PVR now for about a year and I almost never watch commercials since I rarely watch live television. Since PVR's have not yet reached critical mass, I don't know that it is a current issue but it soon will be.
I think we've already started to see a lot more product placement than we used to in current programs. If you watch a single episode of American Idol (if you do, I'm sorry) you will have seen the Coke glasses prominently displayed in front of each judge, and carefully sat back down so that the logo is always perfect aligned to the camera. It's one small example, but I think we'll see it taken to extremes soon.
I think the best example of cramming advertising down user's throats and avoiding the PVR problems is with sporting events. By nature, they're not susceptible to the problems of PVR since most viewers would prefer to watch them live instead of delayed, although the product placement in the stadiums is fantastic. With all of the billboards and the camera panning around during downtime, a lot of local businesses get their name out there. It will be interesting to see if a shift to product placement ousts these local businesses and we see more national companies bidding the price up on stadium billboards.
Just my $0.02.
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It would probably sell here in the U.S. too, So many mindless sheep have to buy the latest and greatest equipment.
I would shift all commercials towards the morning/early day when I don't watch TV.
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Welcome our new shepards of cathode rays overlords...
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. -Heinlein
Well, it would be nice to get rid of tampon commercials. However, what about when they start targetting prices in the supermarket based on your ad profile? They are not doing this to make it easier for you, they are doing this to milk the most money out of you, by providing high prices on what you like, and low prices on stuff you dislike.
As TiVo becomes available only as a standalone unit as users migrate towards High Defention we will see the end of TiVo as a hardware platform and the beginning of TiVo as a patent licensing agency.
OpenTV is the NDS based system which powers the Sky+ system which our US Cousins (Brit here!) will shortly be being sold now that Mr. Murdoch has taken control of DirecTV. Sky in the UK were the marketing partner of TiVo and used the experience and knowledge gained to help develop the OpenTV platform to create Sky+ - shortly after they abandonned the TiVo exercise and left it to die.
I myself prefer TiVo over Sky+ since I have a lifetime subscription and TiVo offers much greater flexibility but I can see the time coming where TiVo are forced to offer their patents to NDS and Sky+ and its Italian, Australian and American derivatives starts to offer the same ease of use and intelligence that I have had for the last 6 years.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
to watch on tv besides the new Galactica?
some people will truly do *anything* for entertainment's sake... I like to play with bee stingers mostly, but some people will watch through any add...
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. -Heinlein
Australians generally don't give a hoot about the intrusion of Big Brother/New World Order style mega-corps into their living rooms. For the most part, Australia is a textbook example of what globalists want: a mono-culture'd single-source-for-everything authority-fearing nation full of sheep.
.. Aussies just don't give a damn about repression, as long as they've got their 'lifestyles' to adhere to ...
You can't get a more "McDonnell Douglas'ed"/"Carlyle Group-ified" nation than Australia. As a nation, it leads the way for the idealization of globalist technology
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I have no problem with a service colleting my demographic information, as long as I understand and agree on how they use it, without any bull crap like "Terms of service may change without notice".
Using my demographics to give me more ads for computers, sci-fi shows, and other things that match my interest is a better use of my time than commercials for Massingil's latest lemon-scented douche.
Using my demongraphic information to increase my car insurance rates, on the other hand, would not make me happy.
Just a question regarding the multiple angles thing. Is this really going to get used? I mean, DVDs have had this feature since day one. I've only ever seen one disc that actually used the feature, and it was some pr0n movie. And I gotta tell you, watching people shuffle around the background during the filming of a pr0n shoot, though funny, doesn't make for a better viewing experience. Let's also not forget about the increased production costs to do this for more, umm, legitimate shows/movies. Sports are about the only thing this is good for, both from viewer and production points of view (har har).
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
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Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. -Heinlein
Here is another point , .People are all to happy to pay for cable or satellite television channels and hardly ever question the fact that they also need to put up with advertisements
if you have to pay for a service , what exactly are the adverts for
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
As for PVR innovation, US is ion the dead end. Tell me ONE single innovative thing that has been innovated in the DVR business in the last 2 years. MPAA has scared the DVR companies into turning their DVRs into nothing but fancy digital VCRs.
What are my justifications for this comment of mine, you say? Alright. Remember Replay TV? They introduced the Commercial Advance; This technology was one which would AUTOMATICALLY detect commercial breaks for you & skip them, AUTOMATICALLY!! No more lame 30-second skip 'easter egg' of TiVo. They had Internet Video Sharing. They had absolutely best home networking for DVRs. These were the innovations which were really revolutionary in the DVR biz. Then MPAA sued the pants off Replay TV & forced them into bankuruptcy.
For all the TiVo fans out there, compare the features of Replay TV & TiVo. See. MPAA has killed innovation in the industry. Nobody wants to innovate something new in the DVR industry. Thats the reason all the DVR offerings from cable/sat providers as well as pioneers Replay & TiVo have basically stopped doing any substantial innovation.
Sad.
willingness of Aussies to give up privacy rights for the ability to time shift televison
Isn't this the same place where it's illegal to rip a cd to mp3 or to copy it an iPod? Of course they are willing to give up privacy in exchange for more rights to do what they want with the content.
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We Americans have been led to believe that Aussies are a headstong, athletic, practical, and overall independantly thinking culture which we can only strive to emulate though various products marketed using people pretending to have an Australian accent and the name "outback" somewhere in the name. Please don't tell me that all the marketing has been a lie!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Read the foxtel privacy agreement. It is an opt-out type system which is made worse as you must write them to even find out who they are giving your personal information to.
You must opt out of their direct-marketing and their "related business partners".
They are not only obtaining the right to feed you 30 second commercials they are obtaining the right to pass off your information to any company they deem to designate as "partner" or otherwise.
This is probably a never ending chain as each of their "partners" has their own privacy policies which could open you to even more unrelated companies.
I wouldn't be surprised if your information ends up on a spam list because of "partner" associations.
Two words
No thankyou.
http://www.foxtel.com.au/Privacy.htm
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
showing blipverts any time soon?
When you have to zap through the channels and see half commercials everywhere just to find 1 hour of television worth to watch, timeshifting to the programs you like but then not being able (or less being able) to avoid commercials, it might just be worth it.
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Otherwise it'd be more expensive.
Drunk Aussies are a dime a dozen - Assuming they could find one, how much extra do you have to pay to hear a sober one?
BBC DIgital often has multi-audio channel for sports - with TV commentray and local and national radio commentary often avilable (interesting for matches like Wale3s vs England rugby where you can listen to English or Welsh commentators!). They may not have drubnken hooligan soundracks yet, but if you swithc on the ref's mike you oftne hear interesting commentary from the players ;-) Also, you can turn off the commentary completely and watch the matches as if you were there.... :-)
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TiVo on steriods would be gobs of hours, enhanced sorting and archiving functions, multiple tuners, and lots of stuff the end users want.
Thisis more like TiVo after an experiment went wrong and it was mutated by gamma radiation before it killed all the scientists and escaped from the lab. I mean, look at the focus - straight from the source,
our real customers, in most cases are network operators, in the context of deals between network operators and programmers or advertisers we can certainly provide services, but we're clear who the primary customer is.
They admit they don't really give a rats ass about the people with the remote, except how they can serve their eyeballs up as a product for their "real customers". That said, in a perfect world, the multiple audio options would be nice for certain programming like football. Being able to choose your commentators would be a welcome change. Anyone who has suffered through a national College FB feed where the commentators are clearly against your team (Brent Mussberger calling any Virginia Tech game, for example) or any game where the commentator just annoys the hell out of you (John Madden for football, Dick Vitale for basketball) would realize the value in this feature. Multiple camera angles would be minimally useful, unless I could get multiple feeds of the same game, and had enough screen to watch them all.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Haven't there already been studies that show people don't want to interact with their television? Personally, I would rather sit passively and be entertained, informed, educated, etc. That's why it's TV!
Tivo allows me to choose what I watch when I want to watch it. Like the multitude of options available on a high-end stereo, providing me with a multitude of audio and visual choices would only be an annoyance.
Whatever privacy rights Australians have were not given up.
They simply exchanged a certain measure of their privacy for a certain benefit (advertising targeted to something they might want to buy). This benefits them and the advertisers. Could what they give up be used for other purposes? Yes, either above board by making the possible usage public or (possibly) illegally without the viewer's consent. That's the down side of the exchange.
Don't watch TV.
You can always rent the DVD commercial free.
"Ack. Yech. Barf. Snort." - Bill the Cat
...and here come the consumer and privacy advocates... maybe they'd like to watch commercials about voting? ;-)
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
If there was any way to get rid of Joe Buck or Tim McCarver during Fox National MLB games, I'd pay probably 8 billion dollars for it. "Brandon Arroyo is going for the Red Sox tommorow.."
they haven't quite decided how to spell Australia yet. In the article they mention 'Austrialia' and 'Austrailia' several times, but never correctly.
256 channels, 1024 camera angles, 4096 audio choices... but still nothing to watch.
No matter how annoyed I get with the US sheeple it is always the stories about Australia and the UK that remind me just how screwed up things could really get if only the politicos and the church ladies and the feminazis could once and for all strike down that pesky Bill of Rights in our Constitution. There are other places I often think I would rather live, but australi and the UK for me rank right up there with perhaps Singapore or Saudi Arabia...
Most people posting here don't seem to realise why broadcasting select ads based on your viewing habits is an invasion of privacy.
The ads that are shown on your TV will reflect who you are, and what you watch when you are alone in the privacy of your own home. That might not be the image you want your friends or family to see when they come over to see a football match.
Taking it to the extreme; If you watch a lot of porn when you are alone, having the TV show you ads for the newest adult movies when your girfriend uses your TV might *not* be desirable.
(The above is of course a hyperbole - advertising adult movies is probably illegal almost everywhere)
"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." -George H.W. Bush
"digitally insert 30 second ads based upon the demographics of their customers. "
I hope eventually this leads to the ability to rate commercials. There are a few commercials that after the 5th or 6th time I've seen it, does nothing except annoy me and bring about general dislike for the advertiser.
I envision a big red button that says "ANNOYED". This could also be used for Seinfeld reruns.
As an aussie, can somebody please point out to me at what point I've been all too happy to give up privacy?
When can I look forward to a slashdot submission including the line; ".. beer companies should be taking notice of the North American tendancy to drink piss poor beer and act like a jackass"
Nobody down here has willingly given up a damn thing. Privacy is still invaded by sneaky bastards with legislation or smoke & mirrors (or often both).
We don't give up anything easily, so please don't feel the need to print a line making us sound like morons. Cheers very much.
Nice lobby....its er... OPEN.
If PVR providers are allowed to have this kind of information, there is nothing to prevent them from using it to show me ads for stuff I might actually buy instead of tampons, facial cream, and herpes and erectile dysfunction meds.
I'm paying good money for my cable company to tell me which vaginal cream is the best at fighting yeast invfection, and I'll be damned if PVR providers are going to take that away from me!
paintball
> if you have to pay for a service , what exactly are the adverts for
I agree, growing up without cable, thats all I heard about was get cable, and you don't have to watch as many adds, if that was ever true, then I was too late to catch it.
which was my same response to this story, hey as long as they offer a premium service without the adds, this is great. until 2 years later when your paying extra, and watch the adverts.
You cannot give up a right. That's what makes it a right. Rights are inherent, innate, inborn, and inseperable. They can be suppressed, ignored, and trampled on, but not given up. Only priviledges can be given up or traded away.
The Aussies are not giving up their privacy rights. They are giving up their privacy. They can reclaim their rights any time they have the courage to do so (I speak for my fellow Americans, as well). Unfortunately, privacy like virginity is not so easily reclaimed.
User Training for Busy Programmers
First, I should point out, I am Australian.
That said, the choices when it comes to PVRs in Australia is horrible.
Choice? What choice? The first real one the Australian public has seen is 'Foxtel IQ' which was released early this year. This happens to also be the device they mention in this article.
Ask an Australian last year what a PVR was, and they would have no idea. Hell, ask them this year, and they probably still have no idea (even after Foxtel's fairly large advertising campagines).
Some of us, didn't take this entire situation sitting down, and stated importing TiVos. Thus, OzTiVo was born. For the first time, it allowed Australians experience a true PVR. although, few people then, and even now, actually know about it.
The Foxtel IQ box fails when put up against an imported TiVo in every way, except one: It can record two shows at once. Other then that, it's all bad. The sad fact is, the general public has no idea how badly they are being ripped off. It will cost you $500 for 'Foxtel IQ', which Foxtel remains ownership of, if you disconnect, they take the box back.
Their versions of 'season passes' has many problems, and often doesn't work - They have nothing like 'wish lists', they don't have TV guide data for the vast majority of free-to-air stations and it's full of copy-protection among other rubbish. Not to mention the bad UI...
I feel bad knowing how good a TiVo is, and how many people still continue to buy Foxtel IQ. It is *not* good.
Give me a TiVo any day.
So, when you play back a recorded show, do all of the actors suddenly have massive pects?
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Please show me only "G or PG rated" commercials (at least while my kids are watching) regardless of the program that I am watching).
It is erroneous to assume that because somebody likes sports, that automatically means they would, as Jeff Foxworthy puts it, "like a beer and to see something naked".
oooooooooohhh!
I would love to be able to watch a sports event WITHOUT any commentator adding their inane two cents.
Rafael Palmeiro
My dad would like that. He would watch Vikings games muted, but listen to the radio commentary with his trusty 'ol transistor.
Thanks for that, I was sitting there with my head spinning at the thought that someone would actually need this pointed out.
I wonder if a more-money-but-no-ads service would be feasible? My gut feeling is, feasible or no, people just wouldn't want to pay the extra premium.
Of course, the TV executives didn't get the hint.
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What if we look at this from a different angle (uhh no pun intended there) In this scenario advertisements are being picked according to your viewing habits....what about being interested in a product that has nothing to do with your viewing habits? As much as everyone says they hate commercials, there are tons of products out there that if i hadnt seen some random commercial for it, i never would have sought it out on my own. I for one like commercials...i also like the ability to skip the ones that dont pertain to me...but id like to keep them random, not have them tailored to me, i might miss some great product or never here about some great service or business if the content provider doesnt think that i should see it...
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
Saying isn't doing though — I'd like to see this actually implemented, but I wouldn't like to be the one to implement it, if you get my meaning.
Another problem are the technical aspects of providing both ad-supported and ad-free content, timing and so on would all go to pot. Switching to content-on-demand would semi-remedy this but we're already straying further from traditional TV, which as we've seen by the music industry's unreasonable royalty demands for online stores is not a great way of dealing with existing providers.
That said, living in the UK, I already pay about another $250 a year for some ad-free channels...
I can finally see the naked chick whose back is always to the camera.
I though I was already reading the drunken Australian hooligan feed by default?
If not - I WANT A REFUND!
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Maybe it'll even have a pop-up blocker for those 30-second, targeted ads.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
... it's licensing, production, and demand.
BBC did multiple audio streams for their soccer games years ago - you could choose between the vanilla TV commentators, or get the BBC radio feeds from either stream. They could do this, because they owned them all. Have fun working out deals with all the stations that have local NFL/NBA radio rights. Or finding good commentators. (If i want drunken hooligans, i'll invite my friends over.)
As for the multiple angles, i'm sure this will take off in a huge way just like it did for DVD. Have you ever seen a control room for a live event? Have you seen how haggard the producer looks, scrambling trying to cut to the best shot? Is that how you want to watch sports? Do you really think that you, half drunk and half paying attention, are going to do better than well trained, highly paid professionals?
OpenTV is a middleware provider, pushing what the tech can do. The question is, do people want it? and is it worth the money to TV producers and cable or sat providers to support it?
I'm sure greed factors into a lot of things, but I'll leave that aside for now.
About on-demand television, imagine this. If we had a box hooked up to our t.v., hooked up to the Internet, which we could choose to buy services, very specific ones, from a lot of providers. Then it would have a list of channels, with a list of shows in rotation for the channels. And about the advertisements, if there are any, those could include commercials even though it's on-demand. But they shouldn't get as specific as one's household as it invades privacy. Street address, or better yet zip-code, would be semi-okay. If they do make these boxes, specifically for my idea, it'd be in the best interest to have a fast-forward and rewind option, but no more than 2x play speed if you know what I mean. It'd solve ad-skipping problems. Of course, there should be an option to watch ad-free on-demand shows, which could be charged at a premium fee or whatever.
Always possible, but as I said before there's a dignificant difference between on-demand media and scheduled media, and I think that's causing quite a few problems, since the internet/digital services are quite suited to the arguably superior one, and more traditional broadcast media is only suited to the other.
As for fixing winding speed, I don't think it's practical. I don't think it's practical because, particularly with digital media, it's the kind of thing that you need to specifically cripple the end-user hardware to enforce. Anything that you can do that to, you can theoretically un-do it to, and that should be legal. It should therefore, at least most likely, be legal to sell machines that do it already, and once one person does it everyone will to keep up. This will lead to the system most likely being circumvented fairly quickly. That said there are time-shift systems available which essentially do what you suggest. If you paid extra for ad-free programming, however, and things are still semi-scheduled (rotation) as you suggest, there's going to be some interesting problems with synchronisation between channels and the like.
I like the idea of buying services (shows might be more appropriate) from a selection of providers, but I'm just not seeing a practical way to factor ads into it. Suggestions welcome, though.
I only ever watched the BBC(I don't own a TV anymore) , which really has some fantastic programming over the 2 main channels , some ok radio programs (occasionally exceptional radio plays). The best bit about the BBC , no frizzing adverts . .. which will perhaps lead to a DVD or two being purchased), but the amount of repeats on cable and satellite is silly.
,unbiased news and a smattering of scheduling sense (unfortunately I'm not in the UK right now so no BBC, and the having to pay the license fee no matter what debate is another story) but paying for total crap and having to sit through 8 ad breaks an hour to watch anything is so mind numbingly frustrating that its no wonder everyone is starting to download TV shows.
As someone pointed out above that it would be more expensive if they didn't have adverts (which is fairly obvious) , but the fact is they are taking the piss .
Terrestrial TV does not charge for access and generally in my experience has half the number of adverts
The problem is too many competing channels , 99% of which have absolute shite on half the time or constant repeats . I enjoy to watch classic comedy shows and enjoy reruns (after several years , and shows i missed the first time around
I would happily pay for Ad free TV , i would be willing to pay up to 150 per year if it had quality documentaries , great new shows with good writing
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Why don't you just rent DVDs? If you can wait 1-2 years, pretty much every TV show that's on now will be available on DVD. Sign up for Netflix, and for much less than $250/year, you can watch all the TV you want, ad-free.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Now, as part of the package you subscribe to, the cable/satellite co includes certain channels - channels which require to show their own adverts to be able to break even/make profit.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
Any drum corps dvds I know have multiple angles. Sometimes you want the high cam so you can see the formations and sometimes you want the more detailed stuff. There are usually cameras that focus on certain sections of the ensemble so you can just stay in with one of them.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
'Cause it's all about the new flesh & the Civic TV...
Long lived the new flesh!!!
Although OpenTV does make the most widely used (and arguably the best current) STB middleware operating system their new PVR 2.0 extension is failng to make headway against NDS's earlier and more widely adopted XTV software and this article manages to obscure that fact magnificently.
OpenTV middleware is indeed used in both the SKY (UK) and Foxtel (Australia) PVRs. TFA states "While OpenTV provides different levels of functionally[sic] to each operator, I was most impressed by OpenTV's 2.0 PVR that is currently available to Foxtel subscribers in Australia." OpenTV PVR 2.0 is available to Foxtel subscribers, should Foxtel decide to go out and buy it from OpenTV, integrate it into their IQ PVRs and throw out NDS's XTV - not likely at this point, but the way it's put in this article makes OpenTV sound as though it is in full control.
From TFA : "Their 2.0 PVR allows viewers to not only choose amoung 4 -8 camera angles on select programming, but even more exciting they are able to choose from 4 - 6 audio streams as well." This functionality is not PVR dependent and is offered by standard STBs at Foxtel. Switching audio stream sources is trivial and is routinely offered on rugby matches in the antipodes even when video switching is not.
From TFA : "The 2.0 PVR supports HDTV, live stats, interactive weather reports, karaoke & even interactive gaming for their customers." Once again these are not PVR specific features - they've just been lumped in as things that most any STB can do to make "OpenTV's PVR" sound good.
Seriously, posting articles of this low level of useful fact but high level of undigested marketing speak (not to mention the spelling mistakes) is a pointer to a whole new area of bullshit that we have to detect. Would we have accepted this kind of misinformation from Microsoft if they'd claimed that the release of Windows 3 with support for hard disk drives (or somesuch) showed that Microsoft owned the market for all cmputers with hard drives?
STBs provided by broadcasters will always be different beasts to the open PVR platforms that Slashdotters know and love, and they include an absolute requirement for a level of DRM that would not be tolerated in discussions of PC platforms. That said, these devices offer a degree of utility in our homes that is difficult to obtain in other ways and they will be important to our gadget-centric lives. If we act to understand how they work then we can push for, for example, APIs which enable fair use without impinging broadcaster's needs.
Articles like TFA are as empty of utility as OpenTV's glossy foyer other than to point out the need for us to be on guard against vendor hype.
I think the idea is that if they show you enough "erectile dysfunction" ads, you might just start to worry about it. And once you start worrying, you might need their products.
I dont mind giving up my privacy if it means i'm going to be watching an interesting advertisment, rather then on i'm not going to like. That is, we're gunna get the advertisments anyway, so what if they're more suited to us? We're more likly to take notice. Its a benefit for consumers and the service providers.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Actually I get it now. Look at the misspelling. They meant Austria!
DVDs are ad-free? I don't think they are. I thought some contained previews of movies still, which are in fact advertisements. I'll pay attention next time I stick one into my DVD player.
Unbiased t.v. news, that would be something.
Cartoon Network's Adult Swim (ironically cartoons aimed at teens) pretty much has a 26 minutes with a short break inbetween I think, then a 4 minute break (commercials I mean) at the end. I think that works pretty well, but I don't know how much money they make.
I've never seen a DVD for a television show that had an ad in them. What I usually do is stick the DVD in the player and then come back after a couple minutes and turn the TV on.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart