April 18th, 2006
Kiss Commercial Skipping Goodbye if Philips Has Its Way
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
It’s been so long since I’ve watched a commercial (without it being by choice … meaning I saw a commercial that caught my eye while skipping them and I went back) that I can’t remember when the last time was. If Philips Electronics has its way this will be a thing of the past, however, as they’ve applied for a patent for a device that will prevent a user from either changing the channel or fast forwarding when a commercial is detected.
The device Philips envisions would scan any broadcast or recording for digital signals labeled as commercial content. Just as many new DVDs begin by displaying ads that the viewer cannot bypass, a channel running a commercial would be locked until that commercial was over. Similarly, the fast-forward or skip controls on your digital video recorder would be disabled while a commercial is playing. Source: Ars Technica
We Say: It’s bad enough they don’t want me to fast-forward, but I can’t even channel surf?! Personally, I think this would be something someone (I hope) would hack fairly quickly. I have gotten too used to the commercial skip feature on my PVR! Ars humorously goes further and says Philips should also add something to prevent the phone from ringing (distracting the viewer from the commercial), or even a device that prevents the viewer from say, eating one brand of potato chips while another is being advertised. 
Tom says:
Or how about preventing me from taking a dump during a commercial. What kind of morons work at Phillips.
April 18th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Cheese Toast says:
Just another reason to hang on to that old tech, current DVR’s, VCR’s, “analog” TV’s. This will go great with the idea of turning all television programming into on demand, nothing like paying a fortune per show AND being forced to watch ads!
[QUOTE]Jeff Bewkes, the COO of Time Warner, says the TV industry should put all its programming on VOD. The whole darn grid. All at once.[QUOTE]
April 18th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
MarcosV says:
Personally I never did understand those who stuck with vinyl records while the rest of us moved over to CDs.
Then there was the shift from LDs to DVDs.
Now we got DRM and technology that will prevent us from skipping commercials and override how long a show can be stored and when it must be deleted.
I think I’ll stay with the old technology and live with reduced capabilities as long as I can. It’s not like HDTV suddenly made NTSC broken. And it’s not like we’re getting the full quality of HDTV anytime soon either. Look at the high compression rates being used to cram as many VOD and premium channels in a finite amount of bandwidth.
What would be scary is not upgrading the computer due to DRM concerns.
April 18th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
Sergio Pereira says:
So that’s the story behind all that push for going digital, huh? They really don’t care about the quality of the picture or bandwidth usage. They (who are they anyway?) just want to be able to force the viewers into their business model instead of creating a business model that is viable in the digital world.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:10 am
Snopesman says:
Luckily we don’t have to buy our equipment from Phillips. Good luck with that guys, it only takes one maufacturer to break out from the cartel and offer products without this “feature”. How does this get “sold” to customers? Unless they get some government buy-in, who is going to buy a tv that won’t let you change channels?
April 19th, 2006 at 4:40 am
jb says:
I expect government buy-in,ordinary people can’t afford the bribes to have politicians represent their interests.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:53 am
Sven Lowry says:
So what happens when a program ends, the adverts come on and you want to change channel to watch something else?? Do you have to sit and wait for the next program to come on? A few digital channels can have up to five minutes of adverts, are we supposed to miss the first 5 mins of the other program we want to watch?
April 19th, 2006 at 5:35 am
John Corliss says:
Hacking this “feature” set would be unnecessary, since nobody would buy such garbage. However, should big business and the advertising community succeed in this plan to shove commercials down everybody’s collective throats, what’s going to happen is quite obvious: anybody with any brains is simply going to stop watching television. I pretty much already have anyway.
There should be a hunting season for advertisers since they’re a waste of human skin anyway.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:11 am
MarcosV says:
The way to ram this technology down people’s throats is to make sure that the only way you’re going to hook up a PVR to your system is by buying one from Tivo (who owns some patents) or your cable/satellite provider. That may also happen if there isn’t an uncrippled PVR solution out there that’s HDCP compatible.
Then you can force the user to do whatever you want.
My hope is analog HDTV signals remain good enough for our needs that we won’t miss not having a HDCP crippled all digital path. I find 720p upscaled to 1080p just fine if the source is good and the upscaling equipment (e.g., DVD player) is excellent. But, that will probably not be the case when true HD content comes out.
April 19th, 2006 at 6:45 am
John B says:
Given the total buy-in to DVD player technology I would be surprised if we do not fall prey to that famous line of “Don’t touch that dial, we’ll be right back”. Yep, we all thought that was cute way back in the 60’s. Now Phills is making it a reality.
Just look how many people are trashing thousands of dollars spent on video tapes just so they can be forced to watch promos and commercials on DVD’s. I love video tape where I can hit the fast foward button to upwards of 10 minutes into the film to finally get to the film I wanted to watch.
April 19th, 2006 at 7:38 am
PsychoHazard says:
Personally, the whole reason I got my DVR was to be able to fast-forward through commercials and pause/rewind live TV. If they take away my functionality, there’s no reason for me to have the damned thing.
April 19th, 2006 at 8:00 am
MarcosV says:
A friend of mine hates commercials in the Disney DVDs that his daughter is watching so much, he ripped his store bought DVDs to his hard drive in order to eliminate commercials.
He uses a Mediagate MG-35 hooked up to server via ethernet to playback content. The MG-35 does such a great job upscaling, it rivals some of the expensive set top DVD players out there (also mentioned by some guys on the avsforum as well). The MG-35 does a great job with AVI files too.
It’s going to really suck when DVD format is gone and the HD-DVD or BluRay format cannot be copied — even via analog. If there’s no work around to that, I just might be upset enough to opt out and change my habits to no longer include as much A/V entertainment as I do now and do something else for recreation. My health might improve, but, to dislike all of this manipulation enough to change my habits is going to hurt.
April 19th, 2006 at 8:01 am
Fred M says:
I’ll never by a Philips product EVER again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
April 19th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Kiss Commercial Skipping Goodbye If Philips Has Its Way
Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes: It’s been so long since I’ve watched a commercial (without it being by choice… meaning I saw a commercial that caught my eye while skipping them and I went back) that I can’t remember when the last time was. I…
April 19th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Rick says:
People, people, people!
RELAX … take a deep breath … let it out S-L-O-W-L-Y …
Ahhh, doesn’t that feel better. I thought so.
Now … Philips wants to encode broadcast material with “THIS IS A COMMERCIAL” flags set? Good. I wish they’d to that. I’ll take that information and use it to mute the audio, skip past it, or jump to any number of alternate channels … or attend to other business as the need arises.
Will I buy a crippled piece of junk that refuses to listen to me when the flag is set … I don’t think so! Will I mis-use their flag (well, in their minds, perhaps) … Absolutely.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled mayhem … “FUD Factor” (that’s Fear, Uncertantity, Doubt).
Rick
(Copyright 2006 The Really Cheap Card Company)
April 19th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Chris says:
Folks, take it easy. You don’t want to pay for your TV but someone has to and guess who that is? Right! The advertisers. They pay good money so you cheap people can watch FREE tv. Free Enterprise. Capitalism! You wanted it and you got it.
April 19th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
PsychoHazard says:
I pay for my TV. Most people that would want a DVR/PVR/TiVo/etc. of some sort pay for their TV. I’ve never been anyplace where there are enough local broadcasts to even warrant wanting a VCR, but I digress…
As I was saying. I pay for my TV. I pay a premium for my TV. I pay a lot every month for my entertainment. I even pay extra to have a DVR hooked up to my TV. In particular, I pay extra to have a DVR hooked up to my TV so that I don’t have to watch commercials.
April 21st, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Just Cid says:
What’s next, Philips??
Are you going to get rid of the off switch so we’re required to watch commercials 24×7??
Didn’t they have something like that on the old “Max Headroom” TV show?? TV’s without off-switches and such???
April 24th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Stephen says:
You know what? I been looking for that ‘last straw’ to stop watching TV. This would definetly be it.
April 29th, 2006 at 3:40 am
» Cox to Test Video-on-Demand with Ad-Skipping Disabled » Blog Archive Alice Hill’s Real Tech News - Independent Tech says:
[…] You may recall I wrote earlier about Philips and their ad-skipping technology. Well, Cox Communications has signed a deal with ESPN and ABC for a video-on-demand (VOD) service. Part of the deal, though, involved making sure people couldn’t skip ads … and while this only affects VOD for now … and it’s only a test … it’s quite possibly a sign of things to come. […]
May 9th, 2007 at 6:48 am
David Vielmetter says:
Stick it to the man and build your own pvr that skips commercials and can burn video minus the commercials to DVD.
Step 1: Get SageTV Media Center
Step 2: Read http://www.geneomatic.com/wordpress/?p=337
Step 3: Enjoy
May 25th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Cox to Test Video-on-Demand with Ad-Skipping Disabled | Etixet Tag Cloud Archive 10.000 Web Site Feed says:
[…] I shuddered when I read this. Honestly. After being spoiled by past PVRs as well as my current Tivo, commercial skipping is a necessity nowadays. We almost never watch anything live, or at least delay it until the point where “ok, we can start watching now; it’s late enough so we can skip all the commercials”. You may recall I wrote earlier about Philips and their ad-skipping technology. Well, Cox Communications has signed a deal with ESPN and ABC for a video-on-demand (VOD) service. Part of the deal, though, involved making sure people couldn’t skip ads … and while this only affects VOD for now … and it’s only a test … it’s quite possibly a sign of things to come. The goal with the new program is to increase ad revenue, which broadcasters have been crying foul over since the dawn of PVRs like TiVo. ABC, ESPN and parent company Walt Disney Co. handed Cox the rules to abide by if Cox wanted to have access to hit programs. But Cox isn’t showing any concern, and in fact welcomes the restriction. […]
January 7th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
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May 18th, 2008 at 7:49 pm