A legal row has erupted in the US over a set-top box that lets viewers skip over adverts in recorded TV shows.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18206803
Well as any PVR e.g. Humax will let you fly through the ads at 64 speed then I don't see much difference really.
Its the only way to watch TV IMHO

Haven't watched TV in ages. iPlayer or other channels online with AdBlock Plus, although 4OD detects it and don't work. So you go and watch the shows on the 4OD channel on YouTube without the ads instead...

If ad-free options disappear, I will go without. Books, made from paper, FTW!

I used to fast forward though the adverts on tv programmes I'd recorded on VHS (back in the day). I fail to see how doing this is any different.

+1. IMO no different from videotaping a TV channel and skipping through the adverts.

These days, I just download TV shows. It's how I watched the new series of The Big Bang Theory before it aired on E4.

I think the main difference in their eyes is that the feature is being provided by a broadcaster rather than a company which makes receivers and doesn't do any broadcasting such as Humax.

Yeah, it's a bit odd. Do they think that people who record shows actually sit through the adverts?


I've been meaning to watch that, as people keep raving about it at work.

I'll pick up a box set, once I've finished wading through the SG-1 back catalogue. Four seasons down, six to go .

The wife and I recently watched all 10 series of SG1. Took a couple of months. It's the one SciFi show she likes.

From the article it looks like the networks argument is that, by deleting the adds completely from the broadcast Dish Network is altering the original material.
Skipping through the adds at 64x speed is different from them not having been present in the first place so up to that point I kind of see the argument the other networks are making.
Would I buy a box that automatically deleted the adds? Yes I would.

However, it's worth thinking about the alternative here. If easily defined and therefore removable add breaks become largely pointless the advertising will increasingly be done elsewhere - product placement for example. Personally I'd much rather have the add breaks that I can skip through than having stuff rammed into programs that can't be removed without getting the content (what little of that there is left these days) to prop up advertising revenues.

Viva la BBC!

+1

Did you read the same article I did? From what I see, it skips over the adverts. It doesn't change or modify them. Just skips which I presume is like skipping a track on a music CD.

There was a VHS deck that did that too - a lot of fuss was attempted to be created about it by broadcasters.

My Humax box has a function called Commercial Skip. It is customisable but its defaults are to jump forward 30 seconds and back 7 seconds which is great for when that last skip eats into the program.

So the machine could auto skip at x1000 speed for a fraction of a second every time the adverts came on and it would be all above board and legal.

My understanding of the netowrks point of view from the article was that by having a feature that completely removed the ads from what the viewer sees the box is displaying an unauthorsied edit of the broadcasted (copyright) material. When I read it I assumed the box was actively deleting the ad breaks as it was recording. If it records the ads but just jumps over them then that's somewhat different although the effect on the presentation to the viewer is essentially the same (from the networks point of view).



I believe that's the whole point of the various law suits that have been kicked off. If the box is skipping the ads at extremely high speed, such that the viewer see's nothing then it's effectively the same as deleting the ads at time of recording. In the past there was naff all the networks could do to prevent someone anal enough sitting watching a program with their finger poised over the pause button to remove the ads in the broadcast. Now that the process can essentially be automated they have a target to go after.

I never said I was in favour of the networks view point, just that I could understand their argument and that the consequences for broadcasting in general may be less desirable than some people think (e.g. an increase in gratuitous product placement).