TiVo to Add Banner Ads When Fast-Forwarding
It's a sad sad turn of events for my beloved TiVo if what they are saying over at PVRblog is true:

"Coming soon to the standalone TiVo OS: when you hit fast forward to skip past commercials, small banner ads will show up on your screen. You'll be able to click them to get more info, see an informercial, or send your home address details to get more info about a product mailed to you.....Also on the horizon: plans to enable purchases via your remote (fine by me, if you're really interested, why not make it easy to buy), and someday letting networks and ad agencies mine the data on tivo use, which I also think is a fine idea if it means better shows and better advertising. But overall, I'm not happy to hear the fast forward button was sold to advertisers today. That was the killer feature for so many, and to see it changed to force ads on customers isn't going to make those customers happy."


>>Read the L.A. Times Story on TiVo's Advertising Plans

I am too choked up to even comment yet. Stay tuned...Alice

From the "This is Why I Like Having Alice Back" Department: Chalk another one up to the superiority of my PC with its WinTV PVR card. Trying to convert the T(i)V(o) into an interactive network sales appliance is a major affront to my sensibilities. By the way, have you seen the new Panasonic DVD-recorder/hard disk combo unit that boasts 700 hours of capture capability? It has a 400GB drive. At TV quality (about 2000kbps), the average 1 hour show is around 1,100MB in size. At that rate, using the unit (or your modified TiVo) to record 700 hours gives you video that's less than half of broadcast quality. It's terrible. Don't you love marketing applied to technology? -Bill


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