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Disney Says, You WILL Watch the Ads
smooth wombat writes "ABC and ESPN, both owned by Disney, have struck a deal with cable operator Cox Communications to offer hit shows and football games on demand, but with the condition that Cox disable the fast-forward feature that allows viewers to skip ads. This is the first agreement of its kind. It only applies to Cox's video-on-demand service and will not affect viewers using DVRs to fast-forward through ads. The companies will also test technology that will place ads in shows based on ZIP Codes and geographic area, and 'freshen' the ads with new ones every few days."
Even more reason to build a MythTV box..
At least i stil have my mute button and a laptop with wirless to distract me
I just won't be signing up for this idiotic service. As the other poster said, MythTV for me.
I will not watch a Disney owned channel. Easy as that.
Content is neither bread nor air. I don't need it to survive.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The only reason they haven't put these restrictions on the DVRs yet is that they have to compete with TiVo. Once the competition is gone and they've gotten the market sealed up again you can expect these sort of restrictions to start appearing on their own DVRs. MythTV boxes don't count either. It seems to me that the cable companies only embraced DVRs in an attempt to kill them off, I imagine if they manage to drive TiVo out of business then they'll go back to their old tricks.
I read the internet for the articles.
One of the things that I really like about the on-demand stuff I get from brighthouse is that there are no commercials at all - other than sometimes before the program begins. Like Anime on demand will often have a short commercial, then the show with no commercials. It's nice too when my kids want to watch Avatar or something because they get to see the whole episode but takes less time.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Every rewind backwards by 10 minutes so you could compare what you just watched with what happened earlier? If they disable fast-forward, you'll have to watch those 10 minutes over again.
I wonder if it will be possible to reinstate the fast-forward button by running the on-demand movie through a DVR.
As a TV commercial producer, this makes me very happy ;)
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Utterly stupid. You pay for cable. You pay for DVR service. You pay for in-demand. Then you get penalized for being a consumer and you can't use your DVR on paid-for content. Kinda pisses me off, even though I never order any ala carte content.
u-bend
So I'm paying for a TV show using on-demand and then am forced to watch ads also? Or is the on-demand service otherwise free. It sounds like a scam to me.
--- Bah, who needs a sig?
The big killer will be in a few years when cable providers have everyone on digital cable and include DRM in the cable boxes that prevent you from using third-party DVRs. Just as they don't want you putting a VCR on the output of a DVD player, they will no longer allow anything but TVs on the outputs of their boxes.
...Its called an OFF button and I know how to use it.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Stuff like this makes me not feel so bad that China has a government owned Disneylan.. err Shijingshan Amusement Park. http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1678
I won't see the ads if I'm not even watching the show. My wife and I dropped down to basic cable (20 channels, $16/mo) earlier this year, and if they somehow manage to disable the FF button on our Tivo, I'll just stop watching altogether. I keep saying I should read more, anyway.
"Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous?"
They can go ahead and blow all the money they want to force me to view advertisements. Even if they somehow completely prevent me from stripping them out, I'll still just continue to mute them and look elsewhere as I do for broadcast TV anyways. Their message won't reach me regardless.
On the rare occasion that I actually watch TV, I change channels or get up and go do something else when a commercial comes on. Commercials are one of the primary reasons I stopped watching TV. If I want to see ads, I'll watch them on my own time.
TV, like magazines, newspapers, and radio are financed through ads and sponsors. While I realize that it is convenient and preferable to not have to watch all those damned "Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean, do dah dah do dah dah" ads, sometimes back to back, in between sections of your favourite show, that is what finances your show.
Besides, I have a feeling that with the popularity of DVD sets being what it is, cable TV will likely start to dwindle and the box sets will be released at the beginning of each season. This way people can choose what shows they absolutely want to watch with no commercials, and which ones aren't really that important.
Kinda free-market at work there.
Then again, I haven't watched TV in several years so I don't know, maybe I missed something vital here...
This is why projects like MythTV are so critical. Eventually this will be expanded to "All cable operators must disable the fast forward when playing back videos of our stations on their DVRs". Sure, some cable operators might hold out, but there will be a user revolt when JimBob can't get his left-turning action on ESPN, and they will accept this limitation. MythTV can't be bullied as easily, and will gain in popularity.
VOD is just a rehash of shows are already on the channels anyway. Just DVR the show that's on VOD and skip the ads.
My comments here are my own; I do not speak for my employer.
but I just had a glance of the news on a TV, apparently Disney is not going to allow advanced movie screenings in Canada anymore. I guess they figure Canadians don't arest people with camcorders in the theaters or something. It is bizzare though, the US has 10 times the population, isn't it more 'dangerous' to do advanced screenings there?
You can't handle the truth.
Wonder what other sort of medieval torture devices they can think of to force us to watch ads?
FLR
When there's any method to avoid exposure to advertisements, it's only a matter of time until it's overcome. Either by ingenuity or contract terms or otherwise. When DVRs first came on the market I could only imagine advertiser's chagrin at the ability to skip ads. It weakens the value of advertising on TV. But the cable company itself was offering such a feature? I guess it's a battle between revenue from loyal subscribers vs revenue from advertisers.
Janie Crane: "Edison... an off switch!"
Metrocop: "She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!"
- from Max Headroom, Episode 1.6, Blanks
Soon, Disney will be showing those ads at much higher speeds, allowing many more to be shown within a given span of time. Advance word from the Magic Kingdom indicates that these will be called "blipverts"...
Can't stop the Beta? Time to evacuate to ##altslashdot at webchat.freenode.net - Slashcott in effect.
As a commercial producer, your goal is to get the attention of people and get them to remember your product. Because, well, that's what your customers pay for.
So far, commercials aren't even seen as a nuisance by many. They are an often welcome interruption for various personal needs, from bathroom to fridge. When you overdo it, people get annoyed.
And don't underestimate the negative effect of force. If you outright force people to watch an ad, they will connect no good feelings with it. So far, what makes people accept ads is that they enjoy the program around them and that they're in a generally good mood when they watch an ad. When they now pick up the remote and can't FF, they're pissed. And if this isn't carefully watched, the general mood when it comes to ads will be a very negative one. Not only on the "conscious" level, where people complain about ads, but also on the subconscious level.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My cable company offers VOD for a monthly fee. My cable company also rents me a DVR which I use for almost all of my TV watching. If they start messing with that I'll go ahead and set up a MythTV box.
Unless there is some truly unique and outstanding content or they add Disney VOD to my package for free, I wouldn't even consider using it.
Politicians are like diapers - they should be changed frequently and for the same reasons.
I will just go back to the old fashioned ad-skip method:
First break, make a sandwich. Second break, get a drink and/or take a leak. Third break, take a dump.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Yeah you have to watch commercials. You also "have" to watch the commercials on the live feeds as well. At least we are moving to an on-demand system that will allow those of us who don't care to watch ABC at 7:30 pm to see some random show. We can watch it when ever. When this is all said and done it will be similar to this for every network. Eventually Cable and Telephone service providers will be nothing more than ISP's and who ever serves up the media will be the real winner. BTW I agree Disney's channels really don't offer much to me either but it is a start.
"Content" is a metaphor intended to make people think of creative works as products to be wrapped up and shipped around like any other commodity, when in fact creative works are natural expressions of our humanity and civilization.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
... symptoms?
Most of the time don't bother flipping the channel or muting during ads - I don't want to miss the few seconds of my show that come on right after the ads. I know a lot of people who are the same way. However, and the same time, there are advertisements that are so annoying, I just have to switch the channel.
Maybe they should consider the problem, not the ads, but the companies that make the horrible ads - and rather than preventing people from switching (coutner productive for all parties), analyze which ads are switched off, and figure out who should be fired.
of course, this is more related to the upcoming 'no change channel during ads' thing that they are planning on putting in TVs (or at least were planning), but it is relevant for this case also.
Oh, and while I'm on this rant.
The world is not talking about who will win De Lahoya/Mayweather, unless by talking they mean not giving a damn.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
But you can try to make me, I guess. I'll mute it and deal with some minor household chore like chacking my bank balance or something. As will most people.
Am I the only person who sees this as the studios fleecing the advertisers by selling advertising that they know a lot of their viewers aren't watching.
"The agreement could also provide broadcast networks a way to give viewers an alternative to the convenience offered by digital video recorders , without allowing them to avoid the ads, according to the report"
Sorry what is being "given" to viewers here?
-An alternative to convenience (i.e. annoyance)
-"without allowing them to avoid" (i.e. "while forcing them...")
Maybe I'm old-school, but usually giving things to one's customers is, um, phrased positively like e.g.
"giving viewers quality programming *without wresting control of their devices from them
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
During ads,
or will that violate my Terms of Service?
TV shouldn't be all that expensive, but it ends up like that so someone needs to pay up Someone needs to pay for the exorbitant salaries sportstars and popular actors make. And that person is the one watching it
If you could subscribe to channels at the actual cost it took to make a show we would pay pennies per month we could all afford it. But if when you need to cover Katie Couric's million dollar salary we're in trouble.
It's the system that is broken...
As we speak, suits in every single media company are now saying "If Disney does this and we don't, we'll fall behind on ad revenue!"
I expect this new ad-blocking-blocking to spread across the industry and become standard. I wouldn't be that surprised if they even persuaded (read: bribed) Congress to make it illegal to skip ads.
Or would it already be illegal via the DMCA???
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
We all know how Americans have like 5 mins program 5 minute ads, and sure you can go make a drink but can you really cope with 6 pints of coffee an hour. Not only will you have a huge bladder, but you will be buzzing off the caffine for weeks! This is all in jest btw!
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
Technology will continue to advance; the ads WILL be bypassed.
If they want people to keep watching ads, they'll have to integrate them into the show somehow, in such a way that skipping past them also skips past stuff you want to watch.
Actually, this has been done for years already with "product placement" in movies and TV shows. Now they'll have to figure out how to move it to the next level of obnoxiousness.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
I will not watch them. I hardly go to the movies anymore... i'm PAYING for cable, ads were not in the contract i signed.
In soviet russia... ads watch you!
I'm all for the need of content providers who provide content over the airwaves to put commercials in and try to make sure they don't get devaluated (i.e. skipped). They HAVE to do this because without it, they have no income, and stop existing.
I can extend this easily enough to cable companies, sat TV providers and such for channels that aren't premium channels for much the same reason. The cost of producing the content is higher than the small fraction of subscription costs they get back.
But premium content (Video on Demand, HBO, Showtime, PPV) are charging explicitly for the content, having ads at ALL invalidates a portion of that premium they get to change. FORCING ads on people is downright greedy. But I suppose if you own stock in Disney this is the idea...
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
This is exactly why I'm moving more and more stuff to being viewed via a computer (Mac). I should be in control and not held hostage to my DVD player, TV, etc.
The harder they try to control viewing habits, the harder people will work to thwart whatever system is put in place.
Sometimes when I'm watching something on TIVO I'll forget I can zip through the commercials. I'm more prone to forget and watch the commercials if there are fewer of them and they're interesting. The really obnoxious ones will spur me to either mute the TV if it's live, FF on TIVO and go to great lengths to find an alternative if some company like Disney tries to make me watch. Not happening.
I love the way advertisers treat viewing like a one-way street. You watch what we give you. Well, screw you, Disney. The local ads are the worst. There are several that get me diving for the mute button. Where if they were more informative and less obnoxious, it might make reaching for the remote more of an effort and I might not bother.
But broadcasters thinking they can squeeze 20 minutes of commercials into 60 minutes of broadcast and advertisers thinking we'll calmly sit through whatever annoying crap they throw up there...yes, I'm looking at you, Oxyclean guy...they can kiss my butt.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
<Lex:> WRONG!
If I'm paying for an on-demand show *I* am financing my show.
I accept that on broadcast television, which is provided to me for free, I have to "pay" with the inconvenience of ads.
I accept that on cable channels, which I pay to access, I still have to put up with ads. I'm not happy about it, but I know that my $50/month doesn't finance 50-odd channels AND the service provider. But, if the ads get too obnoxious, I turn the fucking thing off.
However, if I'm paying premium pricing for an on-demand show, I'll be damned if I'm STILL going to put up with ads.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
But, every time I see this I'm glad we have the BBC. 45 minutes of uninterrupted Dr Who, Star Trek etc etc. Record, timeshift, playback, all fine, no adverts in the middle of programs, only short ads for other programs inbetween, and none of those ridiculous little banner things than cover up the bottom 1/4 of the screen during a show.
I know that not everyone likes the license fee, but honestly I think it's by far the lesser of two evils.
I can understand that they want us to watch the ads, it's suppose to generate money for them. I also understand that they need to repeat the ad so that awareness of the brand gets stuck in my head. I don't want to watch the same frackin ad every single commerical break or worse twice in the same commerical break! With that said, I'm seriously looking at getting a series 3 TiVo for my FiOS cable so I can continue to fast forward through ads that don't interest me or have already seen. Honestly I will watch some ads. In fact, I backed a recording earlier today to watch one of those mac/pc ads cause I'm mac fanboy.
Brought to you by Team SPAM! where we believe: "Information in the noise!"
Disney,
Was also the first company to force me to watch commercials prior to viewing a DVD I for which I had already bought and paid.
I distinctly remember the letdown I felt when I stuck in that DVD and couldn't get FF past the commercials. I knew it was over, all of my future DVDs would be polluted with garbage.
Asswipes!
What I don't understand is, time after time, people think they HAVE to consume media.
Just go outside! Enjoy the fresh air once in a while. I watch no TV (though there's one downstairs). Disney is probably doing people a favour.
-1 not first post
the more unpleasant they make it, the more people will go to the p2p sites instead... what you want to watch, basically when you want to watch it... and none of the crappy adverts or stupid digital restrictions on how you can watch it...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
8+ months for me. When I moved, I deliberately did not have cable TV hooked up. Broadcast TV is pretty much pointless where I am. No TV? it's wonderful. There's too many other things to do than stare at the tube, and if I _am_ going to watch something it's deliberate, worthwhile, and ad-free: DVDs.
When I _do_ happen to watch TV (somewhere else), all I can think is how lame it is.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Between crap like this and the crap they subject you to in the name of "entertainment", I'm so glad I gave up on TV years ago.
Disney, and any other oppressive media company out there, can blow me if they think they are getting a single dime outta me.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Golly! Thanks Cox! Your local monopoly is just SPIFFY! Can I bend over any further for you?
You keep giving me more and more reasons to just cancel my service.. DVRs that arrive DOA, poor/low signals between the neighborhood amp and my house causing internet disconnects, now this crap....
fsck Cox and horse they sucked off last night!
For the sake of underwriting "free" television, I'm OK with broadcasters putting ads that can't be skipped, but that are refreshed occasionally in shows that I record. Additionally, if a show has non-removable advertisements, that removes the ability for a broadcaster to prevent me from re-distributing the show on P2P networks or video sharing sites. The show's original broadcaster and advertiser information is now bundled with the show, so no material harm occurs to those parties if I redistribute the material - in fact, they benefit from the additional exposure.
For shows that I purchase, however, I want them ad-free. If I purchase a show, that means I am subsidizing it (at least, a very very small portion of it), and don't want to deal with ads as a bonus to purchasing it. I would also be willing to waive my right to re-distribute the material, but not willing to waive my right to create copies of the material for my own backup & archival purposes.
I think that's a fair arrangement. In fact, I'd be willing to have my representative sign legislation to this effect.
I ff through ads, but sometimes backup and watch an ad that catches my eye, like a new movie trailer (300!), or anything else that makes me say wtf? Heck, sometimes I forget to ff at all. (I really need to shut the damn thing off.)
Let Darwin decide which ads get watched instead of being ff'd through. Make 'em good enough (no Head On ads) and maybe I'll rarely ff.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
10. Take a nap
9. Fix a snack
8. Let the dog out
7. Check your email
6. Get a drink
5. Go to the bathroom
4. Stare into space
3. Read an article
2. Smooch
1. Mute the sound
You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
does anyone else think that HBO and other movie channels have the best advert/show structure? Don't get me wrong, adverts like HeadOn make me want to slit my wrists, but for the most part I don't mind watching them, so long as they don't interupt the thing I'm actually sitting infront of the tv to see. I absolutely love that HBO has 0 ads during the show/movie I am trying to watch, and only shows them at teh start/end of a show.
I have noticed that Comcast has started adding adverts to the beginning of some on-demand content, which isn't so bad because I can hit play, then go get my drink and come back just in time for my desired content to start. I can fastforward thru, but comcast seems to take a 5 second delay between me hitting a button and it actually performing the function.
still, having a feature disabled because a company wants to force you to watch their advert is a horrible idea. Good thing I never watch Disney content OnDemand, unless they happen to own HBO.
Unless they can find a way to stop me from leaving the room, I still won't see their ads. I see the "If you make your customers mad and hate you, you'll make more money" school of marketing is alive and well...
You WILL have your shows download; ads removed and put on a P2P / Bit Torrent / etc network.
They may be able to disable the fast forward, but its highly doubtful that they can disable the go-to-the-bathroom feature.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
I understand why they want us to watch the ads; because if I'm not reminded every 15 minutes that Ditech has low mortgage rates and my erectile problems can be solved by using Cialis, I may start forgetting. And God knows we cannot allow people to forget that Ditech has low mortage rates and erectile problems can be solved using Cialis. Because if they ever need to refinance--something that apparently people do every weekend, by the rate of Ditech ads--they'll know they can refinance with Ditech. And God knows everyone on the planet has erectile problems that can be solved with Cialis, so if they should have erectile problems they can solve them by using Cialis.
Isn't the whole point of ads to sell me what I want? There is a ton of stuff out there I'd love to have if I knew about it--and refinancing through Ditech or having a hard penis using Cialis aren't it!
--
This message brought to you by the Mortgage Experts at Ditech and by the Erectile Dysfunction experts who make Cialis.
to shoot your TV
However a NEW ad, one that is something DIFFERENT wouldn't be so bad. Yeah sure we all hate ads but atleast we don't have to endure the same thing over and over.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Rule 1 & 2 violation! Do NOT tell them about you know where!
Keep the binary groups to the geeks, or the MAFIAA will come along and ruin it.
I mean, the damn spammers are bad enough, we don't need to add lawyers to the mix.
This is another example of corporations trying to clinge to their outdated business models. Once upon a time it was a problem to distribute TV programs to the people, you had to centrally broadcast it to all at once, and what you broadcasted everyone watched, since that was the only way to see the content. TV ads, as we know them made sense back then. Today, TV programs can like music and movies, be distributed individually and on demand. Trying to force ads in there is like avoiding to sell music digitally and only on say a CD. It is doomed to just annoy the customers, and there will be pirated versions available in a form the (potential) customers would prefer(ie. music as mp3s, TV shows as xvids - without the ads). Sooner or later the old business model will change. One guess is that the replacing model could be some more extreme version of todays product placement -- ads and content merge in a way that makes them hard- or unseparable. //T
Just demand it an hour earlier than you expect to watch it.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
In A Clockwork Orange, the main character, a teenage thug, is forced to watch "therapeutic" messages in an attempt to reprogram his behavior. In this tale, forceps hold his eyelids wide open while the video is beamed directly onto his retina and audio into headphones.
Kubric was prophetic, but it's not government propoganda that's being forced down our throats, it's ads.
Both suck.
___________
I am Anna Merikin and I feel very strongly about things. I call this thinking.
I don't mind ads, and I'm not willing to spend money trying to avoid watching them, but if they're going to go out of their way to force paying customers to watch ads that they don't want to, then I won't hesitate one bit to just not watch any of it.
Fuck Disney, fuck them in the ear. Eisner can kiss my ass if he thinks Disney has some God-given right to force people to watch ads and make them money.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Until there are devices that strap me to my seat during an ad, I WILL NOT watch the ads.
MythTV is great for a non-production TV system, but it ain't ready to scale to a multi-person, household TV. It is just too much effort to get the baseline running, let alone any cool stuff like commercial skip or streaming media. The tinker facter was so high that the ladyfriend would constantly bitch. The kicker was she'd be bitching about shit that should just work, like the key mappings on the remote control.
:-) Plus, the media extender in the bedroom just worked when I plugged it in. I'd hate trying to get those little guys working reliably on MythTV.
$79 later and I am a happy SageTV user instead. It works out of the box, the lady loves it, and I can still tinker with it... only I'm tinkering on improvements (comskip for example) not just getting the baseline system running
How about i dont watch ( pay ) for your content?
Screw you. Why should i have to pay ( more ) just to watch your damend advertisements?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Couldn't have said it better.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
In Soviet Disney....things go exactly as described in TFA.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I believe Disney was one of the major players behind the suit of ReplayTV because the ReplayTV could automatically skip commercials and also had limited file sharing capabilities (with a limited number of other ReplayTV users). They tried to force ReplayTV to monitor all of the user remote activity to record what was skipped, what programs were watched, etc. which Replay successfully fought off.
I'm still pissed at Disney for one of the DVD's I bought which has a 12 minute preview which forbids me from fast-forwarding, and more annoying, it has a bug with my DVD player which requires me to restart the movie about 3/4 through it where I have to watch the damned preview again.
Somebody should take the CEO and their lawyers and force them to watch the previews over and over again for a month straight interspersed with programming where the same 90 minute infomercial shows over and over again which they cannot skip.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
There is the main problem of open-source. Marketing and the public perception. If we cant get past that, then OSS will never get out of the geek world.
"if its free, that means they can get into your computer, you know all those hackers are bad" "if its free, it cant be any good" "why do they give it away then"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... before I'd watch that kind of crap.
They want it both ways, but I ain't buying...
I don't pay for services that are supported by advertising-- if it has ads, it better darn well be free as in beer.
I take no magazine or newspaper subscriptions either.
Wow, all this rage against the machine...
There are ads in the shows, they put the shows free on demand so you can watch them anytime, they make the show play as if it were being broadcast.
It is not a service to you jokers with DVR, they just let normal people start a show when they are ready instead of having to honor an appointment with thier couch. This is Disney offering more capability, not less. If you read this and thought "Disney is coming to my house to break my DVR" then you belong here. Slashdot is the home of rage and low reading comprehension.
And the studio's wonder why TV viewership is declining? After trying for a year, I dropped my cable subscription -- I don't think what is on the networks is particularily good for my young kids. I get movies / video's from my public library, which is quite good. I truly despise the 10 minutes of adds for other video's that Disney puts in their headers, so only occasionally do I check out a Disney video for them to watch. My kids watch the occasional video, play outside, play some on the computer (I have done extensive filtering and if I see to much usage of a site such as neopets, I blacklist it), and read. Given few alternatives, even athletic kids will take to reading when they can't be outside with a ball. I have one TV in the house, a ~ 4 year old HDTV ready CRT. If the content suppliers think that I will replace my system to get DRM-protected content, they are sorely mistaken. I would rather read. With Google's book scanning project (books.google.com) and the Gutenberg project, there is a mass of older books that are free to complement what you find in your library and bookstore.
They will show you a series of ads, and you will not be allowed to fast forward. If you purchase one of the items shown in the ads, you'll get a code to unlock fast forward. If you buy 2 of the items, you can fast forward 2x. Don't buy any products for a year and you'll lose volume control. Be sure to save your profile or you'll have to buy the products over again.
You are a terrorist!
Priceless.
Yeah, this is a bit off-topic, but I just had to chime in and say that I've run across this attitude towards open source software, too.
A coworker of mine bought a cheap computer a couple of years ago. He commented on how he didn't want to spend a lot of money of Microsoft Office for it, and was thinking about getting one of the second-tier office suites. I told him, "Just download OpenOffice."
He had no idea what I was talking about, and thought I was referring him to some seedy warez site. I explained what FOSS was and told him about some of the more popular FOSS applications out there, but he just couldn't bring himself to believe me. He was absolutely, positively convinced that you end up "paying" for free software in one way or another; that even if OpenOffice didn't charge you to download and install their software, that there was some kind of hidden catch where it had to be adware or spyware or something. I even showed him the copy of OpenOffice I have installed alongside Microsoft Office on my work machine. He seemed really impressed, but I think he still ended up buying a copy of StarOffice or Corel WordPerfect Office because he just couldn't believe that it was free.
Needless to say, I don't think he's going to be a Linux convert anytime soon.
It almost made me wish that OpenOffice.org would set up a web site, something like OpenOffice.com, that has the exact same software, but charges you a $50 or so fee to download. Unfortunately, regardless of the best of intentions, some people just don't get it. At least then, I could point these people to the site where you can get the "real" copy.
And they can't make me, no matter what they think, no matter how hard they try.
Here's where ads are headed IMO... Ever notice how when you're watching something on TV, when a commercial comes on and you surf to another channel... the other channel is also showing a commercial? Not all the time, but often. I think soon we'll have standardized commercial break times that broadcasters will be required to use. Industry lobbying will get this put into place to make damn well sure everyone sees at least a commercial (no honor among thieves), if not the one they want to show them. With standard commercial times, the incentive to click away for a minute or two will be less.
At first this will happen on an honor system among broadcasters and producers who will see to it that the natural "break times" in a program occur in accordance with the standard times. Soon after that the Congress will be bribed by lobbyists to pass legislation that forces adherence to the scheduled break times. They'll call it the "Consumer Rights Advertising Plan".
No matter where you go to watch streaming content - be it a movie trailer or a Sportscentre clip - you already get advertising that you cannot skip past. The only thing new is that Disney is forcing Cox's hand, but in reality, this has been in effect for awhile.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
I'd say that phrase pretty much sums this up nicely. The only alternative to convenience is inconvenience, which makes this service dead on arrival as long as there's any other alternative. I'm sure the idea is ensure there is no alternative, but if this is where things are heading, then I'll either end up on MythTV or watching even less TV than I do already.
This space intentionally left blank.
Is that about it?
They're just commercials. What's the big deal? Just because I see something on the tube doesn't automatically mean I go out and buy it. Seriously, how could me not watching a commercial cost them money? Just because I don't watch it or buy their product doesn't me everyone will. Someone always buys the latest and greatest "bargain" from a TV add . . . right?
I seem to remember a time when the chief purpose of advertisement was to inform people of a product they would be interested in. Since interest translates into money, that's pretty much what the advertiser was satisfied with. If you didn't want to look at the ads, you probably weren't going to buy anything anyway. Not even [i]spammers[/i] (which, before reading this article, I would have classed as the lowliest of advertisers) want to force you to read their email. They're happy with the tiny percentage that is interested in their trash.
It appears that at some point in the last years, advertisers have decided that the number of people who look at your ads is more important than the likelihood of them buying anything (perhaps inspired by said spammers). Combined with the tendency of the media industry to try to boss its customers around, you get this.
So, Disney, do you think that if you make me sit through an ad I can't skip, I'm more likely to buy whatever is advertised? Good luck.
Okay, I record it to my DVR, start watching a few (lot of) minutes later while it's still recording the latter parts of the show, and skip the d@mn ads.
Oh, right, while they say it won't affect my DVR, what are the chances they won't allow said DVR to record that channel now?
Suppose I only care about the last quarter of the game because I missed that part on the live broadcast. Am I going to have to sit through everything else now to get to it?
Tell me again how this is somehow going to make me like Disney/Cox even more than before?
In fact, the only way these ads will stop is when everyone writes to every advertiser and informs them they will not buy this product as long as it's advertised in this manner!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
While I have had DVRs for almost a decade now and I hate ads as much as the next guy (and you can usually skip the Disney preview on the DVD by hitting >>| ), everybody needs to calm down and RT*A.
THIS IS FOR FREE VOD ONLY. (I had to shout above the noise level in here.) Disney and ABC didn't want to charge people for VOD so they said, "We'll offer all these hit shows and College Football games for free if you disable the ad skipping."
Now, what precedent this sets and where it goes from here is another matter. But for right now, this seems like a reasonably fair trade-off. If you forgot to record a show, your options now are:
Given those choices, I think the FREE VOD version sounds like the most convenient option.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
They are going to put their shows on VOD for free. Of course they will have ads, otherwise why would anyone watch them on a network if they could watch them ad free whenever they felt like it for free? This is just for the 2 people in the US that don't have a VCR, DVD recorder, or a DVR.
You don't have to shutoff Disney, as some posters are suggesting. You only have to shutdown their commercial advertisers. Use the time you're being forced to watch commercials to write protest letters to advertisers. This does get their attention -- especially when they arrive by the postal truck full.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
For many years, I watched almost no television. Few shows were worth my time, and almost none were worth arranging my life around a broadcast schedule.
Then I bought a cheap tuner card on sale, on impulse. I built a MythTV system out of parts left over from upgrades. When I felt like relaxing with a TV show, I had a library of previously recorded shows to choose from. With more control over my viewing, I found that I spent more time watching TV. I could skip ads, but often didn't. Most advertising has a much greater budget per second than any entertainment show, resulting in at least some ads which I enjoy watching. The key fact that Disney shareholders need to understand is that I watch an order of magnitude more advertising after MythTV than before MythTV.
The FCC, prompted by Disney and others, threatened to impose a Broadcast Flag over digital TV broadcasts. I hadn't been interested in digital TV or High Definition before then, but I wanted to keep the control over my TV viewing that I had gained, so I bought a digital tuner card. Built before any Broadcast Flag laws could effect, it would be grandfathered in and not impose the restrictions that would make viewing unpleasant. I put an antenna in my attic, and discovered Over-the-Air digital TV. Wow! DVD quality for the SD material, and even better for HD. Even downscaled to my old TV, HD looked good.
I bought a large screen 1080i TV. I bought a second tuner card. I bought larger hard drives, and recorded more shows. I even watched the Olympics, which had been too boring to watch before. Before MythTV, I watched -0- hours of Olympic coverage. After, I watched hours. Yes, I skipped most of it, but the point is that I watched hours more than before. The ability to skip over the boring 'human interest' crap (shouldn't sports TV be produced by people who LIKE sports? Don't the viewers who select sports coverage want to see the competition?), the ability to skip over events I'm not interested in resulted in my watching many, many more ads than ever before. And there were surprises: I expected bobsled and luge to be exciting, but they were boring. Skip. Cross-country skiing, which I expected to be boring, turned out to be exciting.
I repeat for the attention of Disney shareholders: my ability to control how, what, and when to view resulted in my watching MORE ads.
Cox offered a free trial of their digital service. It sucked. They offered again, and the salesman promised that they'd improved it. I tried it again, and coughed up enough money to try their HD service. The salesman lied. It still sucked. I canceled ALL cable services. There are two problems, which have much in common. The first is that Motorola builds boxes for the cable companies, not for the end users. I'm willing to pay a premium for a good user interface and high quality. Cable companies want to spend as little as possible. The result is lowest common denominator crap that's underpowered and lacks the features *I* want. The other problem is that the program suppliers. like Disney, impose conditions on the cable companies that make my viewing experience less pleasant. You can't force me to watch.
Cox lost my business, in part because Disney overcharges for ESPN. I can watch ABC free OTA, although I can't think of any shows on ABC other than sporting events that I have watched.
Disney, let's review basic economics. You want my money, either directly or through selling my viewing time to advertisers. You only get my money or time when you offer something I want on terms that I find acceptable. I can live without Disney. Disney can't survive without viewers. Your control over distribution has created a false sense of power, but the real power is with the viewer. Making viewing less pleasant will cost you sales. I WILL watch advertising when I control which ads to view. Take that control away from me, and I won't watch ANY advertising. Drop the damned stick and focus on the carrot.
This reminds me of when I first bought DirecTV about 10 years ago. Back then, you could receive (for an additional fee) the East/West network feeds. I loved it, I had 3 chances to see my favorite network shows, if you take into account the local affiliates also. Then one day, I received a letter from DirecTV informing me that unless I could prove that I could not receive a "satisfactory" analog signal from my local affiliate, the East/West feeds would be shut off. I found out the reason why was all because of advertising revenue for the local affiliates. I guess they only want me watching their commercials. Like if I live in the Rocky Mountains, I'm going to buy a Ford from a dealer in Buffalo, NY? Forcing people to watch your advertising will not induce them to buy the products advertised. Disney can go pound sand.
Excessive drinking is fine...in moderation.
Yeah you, you people who walk away from your set during a commercial. They know you do that. That is why COMMERCIALS ARE SO DAMNED LOUD THESE DAYS. They want you to hear their dribble while you let the dog out, take a wiz, fix a snack or get a drink.
And to all you posters who say "well it is funded by commercials" I say "not if I pay for it". If someone else is paying for it, I shouldn't as well. That is called double-dipping or double billing and is illegal in most industries. I pay to watch my show(s), I did not pay to watch commercials.
Kinda like XM. When it came out people all over were saying it'll never work because people won't pay to listen to the radio. Mostly true. But we will, and do, pay to listen to the radio without commercials. I pay for Showtime to watch shows without commercial interruption. Just as commercials have bastardized our "news" they've bastardized most services.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
CableCards are trouble for any homebrew PVR be it SageTV, MCE, or MythTV. Which sucks :-(
i must be downloading my tv shows from the wrong place cause i have yet to see an ad..
http://www.eztvefnet.org/
(pc + plasma tv + PC remote + winamp + utorrent + rss) =~ (MythTV + Cable TV - ads)
thats too much math..
I do that too.
I really wish that these places would let you customize what ads you see. Most common example - males have absolutely no use for ads about feminine hygiene products.
I also don't drink, so all beer/booze ads are also pointless.
I do like movies and eat out a lot, so movie previews and local restaurant ads would be appreciated.
Macy's telling me that all summer dresses are 30% - not so useful.
Don't show me the same set of ads over and over again. Yes, I know Comcast is "comcastic", you told me that 5 times during the last break, and the break before that, and the one before that and probably about 300 times last week!
And I don't care HOW cute/funny/amusing an ad is, after the 5th time, it's boring and annoying.
In other words, if you want me to watch ads, at least send ads that I may actually be interested in, and give me VARIETY - don't just take the same 20 ads and put them on shuffle!
If Tivo can do keyword categorization with TV shows, why can't these VOD systems do the same with commercials?
Interesting i didn't know clicking reply-to OR read more of this comment would expnad it and apply your indenting that doesn't show in regular display.
Just in case someone else didn't know that either....
What do you say to a Cox Cable subscriber with two black eyes?
Nothing, you've already told them twice.
Since everyone is being so nice.....its my turn to be an ass.
Fuck you if I am going to watch your bullshit.
If I pay for a show on demand, I want No fucking commercials.
Disney is fucking dead.
Good for china for fucking breaking copyright and stealing disney's mickey mouse.
I'll piss on you and the horse you rode in on.
Retarded fucking disney bullshit assholes.
I feel better.
mmmmm.........
...Cox must really want to kill their video on demand service. It's crap like that that is why I will never use a centralized service to start with.
I know how I'll work around it - I won't watch cable. Seriously. Fuck that shit. There's nothing so compelling on cable that I feel any need to keep it. I've posted before about how I have a MythTV project in the works and when it's done I'm going to drop my DirecTV service and just stick to over-the-air HDTV. And I haven't done it yet, since real life keeps getting in the way, and right now there's just no pressing need. But as more and more things like this keep happening, I have more and more reason to escape from the deadly clutches of pay TV. For now I can make do with getting the few shows on cable I care about via Bittorrent, but if they somehow close all those holes and goes away, I'll either get a Netflix subscription and get entire seasons of shows at once, or I'll just watch less TV! I've been without a TV before and, really, it's not nearly as traumatic as people make it out to be.
All they do is make the fast forward so painfully slow that you just don't bother using it. While the Comcast PVR FF goes up to 8X, I doubt that the FF on the on demand channels is anywhere close to 2X.
On top of that, most of the shows on the non-premium on demand channels (the "free" areas within Comcast's Channel One) have plenty of ads already.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
tivo works just fine.
and for stuff I want to watch commercial free, Internet Bitches!
They're using their grammar skills there.
Yes. We still exist. (The only other option here is Satellite with high latency and less bandwidth than I have with dialup due to FAP.)
;) I haven't been able to find anything on it and would appreciate any help or linkage anyone has to offer.
Does anyone know of a how-to for MythTV setup for dial-up users? I have Ubuntu 7.04 and I'm downloading the alternate-install now. (Only another day or two.
Thanks!
Disclaimer: I work for Disney and in the television group.
Why is this issue so important to you that will not watch Disney owned channels?
Is it the lack of control over the VOD stream, the ad itself, or something else?
As someone involved, I'd like to hear what's important to you.
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Honestly, I just "watched" an episode of Good Eats (cheap plug) that TiVo recorded for me a few hours ago. I had seen it many times before but I just have it run as background noise. The few times I actually looked at the TV were some moments that I remembered as funny, and to fast forward through the commercials.
Yes, The commercials would come on and I would watch the screen while fast forwarding and once they were over and the show was back, I would go back to what I was doing.
Although I was watching the commercials at skipped speeds, I do remember a few of them, in fact, there was a Terminex ad that was shown at the first and third commercial break. Who knows if my subconcious mind will remember more. I'd say that their ad campaign worked. That's not even mentioning some of the commercials that I will actually rewind and watch.
The point is, take away people's ability to fast forward and they will go an alternative route. There is plenty of media that can be viewed without commercials, some of it at no cost to the viewer. Wouldn't it be tragic if we all just got up and went outside once in a while?
Living in a foreign country, TV is a great insight into the culture and the language. Actually talking to people is great practice too, but it's impratcical to go out every night. Also it's frustraiting because many people dumb down the way they speak to you because they're afraid you won't understand. TV may be dumb, but the people on it don't go out of their way to speak "easily" to you.
and when I do it's on a DVD that I, or a friend, purchased and I can watch it whenever I want.
Sure there are minor amounts of ads in there, but most you can fast forward though or outright skip.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
"When usenet dies, the rest of the internet, and civilisation itself, will not live more than 3 years"
-Albert Einstein (just after he made his "bee" statement.
- Ecsad Essemal
The Hexadecimal TV-REMOTE!
I wonder how many years it will be before we are required to have our eyelids mechanically clamped open with our heads aimed at the screen, to enable the 'premium' content from our entertainment provider.
(I feel a patent coming on!!!)
I automatically mute every fucking commercial on television as a second nature. Advertisers listen up; nobody gives a shit. Subliminal is the only way.
Insert DVD.
When ads start that you can't skip, do the following:
Turn off DVD player.
Wait a second or two.
Turn on the DVD player.
Press "Root Menu" on remote immediately.
Bingo. Ads are skipped.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm a bit surprised to not see any mention of Democracy Player so far, especially when integrated with tvrss.net. After a false start with MythTV some time ago and a long time user of a hacked Series 1 TiVO and Comcast HD DVR, I'm now on long term business travel and Democracy Player and tvrss take care of some of my needs. So here's what's missing.. a method for matching up consumers with MythTV users who volunteer to automagically record and submit content into the TVRSS system. I want to watch the 5:00 news from Philadelphia while on the West Coast. It can be captured, torrentized, posted to TVRSS, and downloaded in Democracy all before I leave the office for the evening. Can someone please develop a module whereby requests for content, sometimes from a specific market, will be fulfilled by people volunteering disk space and bandwidth? Leave the commericals in, I don't care. I just want to know what's happening at home. I don't have to remind you of the benefits of pairing up BitTorrent with RSS, especially when "the little guy" is involved. What about software for TiVO that will let me browse other markets and subscribe to the evening news anywhere in the country using the same mechanism? Just make it easy to use. Imagine browsing TVRSS.net from your TiVO and subscribing to content? I love it!
Also, with all the holier than thou stuff going on around here about not watching tv anymore, you're missing out on some pretty cool, legal content being published by universities and other organizations all over the globe - video podcasts from Princeton University and the NIH come to mind immediately. KQED QUEST is another incredible source of interesting, legal content. I also enjoy the BBC Breakfast Takeaway. By actively dismissing and rejecting all video content not in a Netflix envelope, you just may be hurting yourself more than you realize.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Are they serious? People will simply switch off. It's a well known fact people hate adverts, they fast forward if they can and if they can't they switch over/get a cup of tea until the ads are over. There's no way I'd pay for VOD if I couldn't at least fast-forward through ad breaks.
Playing on my iPod while reading this thread: "Professional pirate" (from the movie 'Muppet Treasure Island', produced by... Disney Pictures).
Some say that pirates steal and should be feared and hated
I say we're victims of bad press it's all exaggerated
and also
We'd never stab you in the back, we'd never lie or cheat
We're just about the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet
I used to live in the US and I found that the ads there were the most annoying ever. In particular the kind of superfast disclaimers that they often read at the end (usually on radio, but sometimes on TV ads too), you know the kind that goes: "thisproductcancausetoenailfunguslossofgenitalhair onlylegalabove12yearsofagenotappliacableinalaska.. ." in less than one second.
How do they read stuff so fast anyway; through some kind of computer speed up system ?
Is there a name for this kind of fast disclaimer (I'm sure there is) ?
Anyway, just one more reason to avoid watching TV or listening to CCC.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Yes, great idea. We've seen it with DVDs as well - an advert before the film starts which cannot be skipped. Same as all these adverts for the industry itself can't be skipped at the start of a film.
So: an honest user has a non-backupable box on his shelf (which he needs to take down, open, and insert the DVD into his drive). Then he has to select the movie. Then he has to watch through advertisement. Then he's insulted by warnings that'll you are EVIL and JAILBAIT if you DARE to copy this film.
Then the film begins.
Owner of a pirate AVI: click on the file. Film starts.
Soooo.... give me a good reason for buying originals?
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
What's next after removing the option to skip commercials for on-demand content? Will we find ourselves forced to listen to commercials as well, regardless of the volume (mute) setting?
I've been a paying consumer of underwhelming cable 'service' for 15 years and a happy TiVo owner for 3.5 years. I'm currently paying US$100/month for cable service, which includes a dozen or so commercial-free movie channels (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax). I can't help but think, why am I subjected to commercials when I already pay to watch content already? Technology has advanced; the television programming business model has not.
Content producers ('broadcasters' in the days of a world gone by) need to adapt with technology, else consumers will look elsewhere. Netflix/Blockbuster (movies) + iTunes (episodes) + CNN/Fox/etc (news) is a reasonable alternative to cable service. Given the amount of programming I and my family watch each month, the alternative is certainly cheaper. The major obstacle keeping me from adopting the alternative and dropping cable today is the lack of iTunes availability for some of the shows I watch. Day by day that barrier is dissolving.
Even if you don't consider recently service alternatives, content producers for the cable market are overdue to make changes to their tired, decades-old business model. Hollywood has demonstrated that embedding product placement in content to subsidize costs works well, with hits like The Truman Show drilling the point home. Product placement needs to be incorporated within the content, not as an afterthought, if content producers want to have a reasonable expectations that consumers simply won't skip over it.
The more they try to force me to do something that is not in my best interest, the more they marginalize themselves...
Show me what you want, and I'll show you how to get along without it...
with this. If you're worried about being deluged with ads, or being beholden to some tyrannical cable provider's policy on said ads, don't fucking watch TV anymore. Television is a wasteland; aside from a few things like the Discovery channel there is nothing of value to watch, and even that kind of content would be better presented in the form of books or on the Internet.
What people don't seem to understand is that TV subscribers are not the media industry's customers; the customers are the cable companies and other "providers." Cable subscribers are consumers, which is a very different thing from being a customer. To use a movie analogy, since the media seem so popular here: the cable service providers are the code and infrastructure of the Matrix, the media companies are the robots, and you, dear friend, are a giant hairless fetus with a coax cable down your throat, sucking down whatever liquefied crap your providers see fit to squeeze out. Pull the tube out and wake up.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
Just in time for the BSG marathon this week. *happy dance*