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How MythTV Detects and Flags Commercials
peterdaly writes "Automatic commercial detection is the "killer app" feature that none of the commercial DVR's dare to include. MythTV's automatic commercial detection does a great job of properly separating commercials from content. Here's how the commercial flagging works."
Automatic commercial detection is the "killer app" feature that none of the commercial DVR's dare to include.
A sentence that (I think) neatly points up the big problem with the USA's legal system...
I believe they're more compressed - perhaps analysing the distortion characteristics of the sound could be helpful?
well if the commercials get more clever, interesting, or fun I just might not skip them. There are a few that I just love like the Geico Caveman commercials. I think that some companies out there have realized that fun commercials sell just as good, if not better then the same old boring info-commercials. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZrjr4A-ASQ
You are all a bunch of idots.
"Will this not make tv stations go bankrupt?"
You seem to talk about this as though it's a bad thing.
You seem to be assuming that networks *deserve* to exist. Like any other company, if the business model is no longer self-supporting, it is time to switch to a new business model. Pay-per-view is one example. I am not saying that every network should go pay-per-view, but if they cannot bring in sufficient income to support themselves through, for example, the sale of commercial time, maybe they need to look at other ways of doing so.
Of course, the MPAA and RIAA don't agree with me...
You're not wrong, but you miss the point.
Consumers are tired of the commercial bombardment. And many of us are already paying to watch TV -- through payments to the cable company or to the satellite company. From the consumer's point of view, we're paying for the show, and then the viewing experience is degraded with non-content.
TV networks are in dire need of a better marketing model that better serves the consummer of their product.
The availability of this technology is a threat to the existence of less innovative networks. And it should be. Creative destruction is a good thing.
Why not use volume? I think it would be a good addition. Anyone trying to NOT wake up their significant other, or a small child while watching TV has noticed this. The Volume for the commercials is much louder than that of the shows. I can't tell you how many times the 'kids' have been woken up because I was out of the room when the commercial came on, and it was LOUD.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Comcast where I live (Boston, MA) has lately begun offering a targeted advertising service - "Spotlight" - which detects and overwrites network and affiliate commercials with their own (usually very cheaply done) local commercials. You'll get part of a network commercial, then some guy selling couches in the next town, then the tail end of another network commercial.
So, I'm sure they're compensating the networks for the commercials they're overwriting, right? I mean, with network commercial time costing in the gigabuck$ and all. And when we viewers do the same thing, we're stealing the networks' life blood...
I'm going to need a little more convincing.
Errr, clue: The reason you're having a hard time thinking of new ways that advertisers can rape your consciousness is because it's already being raped in every possible way that they can think of already.
These days, it's almost impossible to watch TV, use the internet, turn on the radio, go to the cinema, read a newspaper or magazine, walk down the street, check your snailmail, answer the telephone, play a video game , or even go to school without being psychologically invaded and manipulated into buying one piece of consumer trash or another. Taking back just ONE part of society from those devious corporate skullfuckers would be a huge victory.
If you want a Godwinish analogy, your argument is comparable to saying it would be A Bad Thing to kick Hitler out of North Africa or Stalingrad, because he'd only use the leftover troops to invade Poland again, only a bit harder.
I'm sure they'll find other work. I hear there are plenty of burgers out there that need flipping. The fact that most of them will be unable to find work doing anything else should tell you plenty about how worthless they are at actually adding value to the economy.
-1 Troll? Indeed. But the fact of the matter is that people are being forced out of their chosen industry all the time... It's happened before, and it will happen again in the future. "But people will lose jobs" should never be considered a valid argument against a superior technology.
"TV networks are in dire need of a better marketing model that better serves the consummer of their product."
You forget, the consumer of their products are the companies buying ad slots. Their "product" is us, their viewers. They have been aggressively trying to find ways to better serve advertisers, their consumers. The money they get, if any, via the cable company isn't really enough to probably even play re-runs. Basically they wouldn't just be changing how they market their product, they'd be completely changing the product itself, and who they're selling it to. How companies like HBO run vs ABC is like comparing apples and oranges.
Indeed, the promise of satellite/cable channels was that because you were paying for the subscription to see them, you wouldn't have to see commercials.
And that promise has been met - for channels where the programming and audience justifies it, like HBO. The thing is, when that promise was made, nobody envisioned 200 niche cable channels. There isn't enough subcriber revenue to pay for all those when the audience gets spread around like that, and commercials make up the difference.
You could have commercial-free cable TV, if you were willing to accept that your cable TV lineup consisted of 10 channels total. But that's not what most people want, and the market has adjusted accordingly.
paintball
My wife and I just watched seasons 1 & 2 of Veronica Mars on DVD via Netflix. We'd never heard of let alone seen it because, frankly, who the hell actually watched UPN? We both had it recommended to us on Netflix, were intrigued and added it to our queue at the same time.
We got hooked, loved it, and sucked it all it over the summer. We couldn't wait for season 3 to start on, what is it, CW? So we sit down on opening night and it sucked! The pacing was all off, we couldn't rewind it to hear that line we missed because the baby decided she wasn't ready sleep after all, and we had to sit through terrible ads aimed at people 10-15 years younger than us. We're sitting this season out and will put it in our queue next spring when the DVD comes out.
The troubling thing about this is that we are die-hard fans of this show and rave about it to everyone whenever TV comes up, but we could be part of what will kill this show. We aren't watching ads and we aren't buying the DVDs, so I don't think we exist to the producers of Veronica Mars. If a majority start watching TV like we do, I afraid of the shake-out period during which TV shows suck because the producers can't figure out how to make money in this new world.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies