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Advertising Comes to DVR Owners

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you-will-enjoy-the-signal dept.

bill_kress writes "According to Reuters, television studios are finally trying to target DVR viewers with advertising. The effort, however, seems rather backwards — They are extending the same exact image across the entire 30 second commercial so that TIVO Viewers will be forced to view at least one frame. Wouldn't it be better to add value to the viewing experience instead?" From the article: "The advert for its new drama 'Brotherhood' will show a single image on the screen for the entire 30-second slot, and therefore retain its "sales message" when viewed even at the 12-times speeds enabled by Sky+ and other digital recorders, also known as personal video recorders, or PVRs. Advertisers have been racing to find ways to get messages through as higher numbers of consumers watch TV programs when they want using such recorders, often skipping the commercials."

9 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Skip 30 seconds button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I'll just use the "skip 30 seconds" button that's on both my DVD and VHS recorders.

  2. Their approach doesn't work against Mythtv! by russ1337 · · Score: 5, Informative
    They are extending the same exact image across the entire 30 second commercial so that TIVO Viewers will be forced to view at least one frame.
    Fortunately, this does not work against Mythtv - you can skip the entire ad's with one press: -All you see is the start of the show after the ads! The ad detection algorithm just got an overhaul with Googles-Summer-of-Code (they wrote another version), but i've always found the current one pretty good.

    (I know your all gearing up to whine about how hard mythtv is to install,... then you probably havent tried Knoppmyth, or the Hyams Fantastic How-to )
  3. Re:Go Go! by Guppy06 · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Windows DVRs: Uh... Go go gadget DRM! Aw, crap!"

    Uh... my MCE setup did 30 s skip out of the box. In fact, I've become so used to it that it's become a bit of a problem while watching DVDs (it's the same button as chapter skip).

    FUD much?

  4. Re:For G by Phillup · · Score: 2, Informative

    My child is pretty rarely exposed to television advertising.

    Mine actually scream for me to come and ff when commercials come on.

    (The little one cries until the show comes back on!)

    I actually built a mythbox specifically so I could record the kid's shows and edit out all the crap... now I can set them down and let them watch without the commercials.

    I've got one of these that I stuff full of kid shows (and stuff for mom & dad too) for when we go traveling. Very nice to be in a hotel room and not be at the mercy of broadcast television!!

    --

    --Phillip

    Can you say BIRTH TAX
  5. Re:Go Go! by amuro98 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Tivo calls it an "easter egg". I think Tivo wanted to make it a normal feature, but decided against it after the TV studios growled at them.

    Anyways, it takes all of 10 seconds to enable the 30-sec. skip on your Tivo:

    Just start playing a program, then hit:

    [select] [>] [select] [3] [0] [select] If you did it right, it'll go "ding ding ding" and then the button that used to skip to the 15/30 tic marks, now just skips 30 seconds forward. The only downside to this is that if your Tivo reboots or loses power, you have to re-enter this code in again.

  6. It's okay to breathe. :-) by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 2, Informative

    No need to hold your breath -- it's been done already by a commercial DVR vendor, and the end result is still very much available. Just check out eBay for any 5000-series ReplayTV unit (not 5500-series, which dropped the auto-skip feature).

    --
    Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
    The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
  7. Re:Wow by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    My Tivo has 60x fast forward... so advertisers will have a 1 in 2 chance of me seeing their single frame!

    Only if TiVo showed 60x fast-forward updating at only 1 frame per second would that be true. In fact, at 60x speed, out of a 30-second commercial TiVo shows you 15 frames of it in half a second.

    To see only one frame of a 30-second commercial without still-storing the frame longer than the standard 1/30th of a second, you'd need 900x speed.

    --
    Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  8. Re:So... by DDLKermit007 · · Score: 2, Informative

    They allready do, but they look at far more than just audio. Models no longer in production that Replay made did exactly that. They got sued and stopped using that, but there are allot out there still if you want them. I use a Replay with comskip functions and it works roughly 80-90% of the time and still has a 30 second skip button. Only problem really is with autocomskip functions is every once in a while you get a show that a part gets mistaked for a comercial, but it's not something you can't deal with. Just rewind and turn off comskip for that part.

  9. Re:For G by Phillup · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, they are smart enough to know they are watching a specific show... and that they aren't sitting there to have shit^H^H commercials stuffed into their head.

    And, you can't always send the kids outside either.

    There is only one of me... mom works too... and someone has to cook dinner.

    I can't cook dinner and watch the kids at the same time.

    And neither can you.

    So, yeah. Sometimes they get to watch the tube. If you don't like it... tough.

    They aren't your kids.

    --

    --Phillip

    Can you say BIRTH TAX