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The Secret Origins of TiVo

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the trust-no-one dept.

Davis Freeberg writes "TiVo is probably better known for their ad zapping technology than their television advertisements. In fact, other then a few lousy infomercials and a commercial that was rumored to be banned by the networks, TiVo has never really had much in the way of TV advertisements. Apparently though, one of TiVo's more rabid fans did some sleuthing and discovered a hidden easter egg video buried deep within TiVo's own website. The video itself exposes the true origins of TiVo's technology and how they got their hands on that ad zapping photon remote to begin with."

3 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Zap Ads? by russ1337 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does TiVo 'Zap' Ads? Does it actually skip the whole section of ads with one click and no further interaction? I dont have a tivo, but I thought it ony fast fowarded them. I have a mythtv and that can skip the entire ads and detects the end of the advertising segment where the show starts again, but didnt think TiVo did this. - Anyone?

    1. Re:Zap Ads? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      you can hack it to skip at 30sec increments, but it will NEVER zap commercials.

      tivo's "bosses" (the entity higher up the food chain, that trickles down 'stuff') wouldn't dare allow that, of course. I'm very surprised they even 'allowed' any skipping at all! I consider that a fluke, actually; in the age of 'do not FF' (the icon that appears when you first insert a dvd and are FORCED to watch stuff that you don't want or need).

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  2. Re:File format? by gwiner · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The unit in the video demonstrates features that were not available until the Series II units w/ LAN capability were introduced (photos, music), so I'm thinking this was meant to promote the series II, or perhaps the forthcoming Cable Card models.