FF through Comercials Soon.....

[Frank Jr.]

FF through Commercials Soon.....

While getting ready for work today I over heard someone on fox news talking about somebody I believe in congress talking about outlawing our ability to fast forward through commercials on recorded programs. Whats up with this?

 

[Wishbone]

While getting ready for work today I over heard someone on fox news talking about somebody I believe in congress talking about outlawing our ability to fast forward through commercials on recorded programs. Whats up with this?

That's a better alternative to outlawing recording at all.

 

[Derwin0]

they can't outlaw recording.
Supremes settled that in the Sony Betamax case

 

[Frank Jr.]

I don't think that any legislation would pass outlawing the ability to record programs. Most of us have been doing this now for about 30 years. Television commercials pay for the programming that we watch. At present there is no way to edit these commercials from live tv. I have no problem with that, other than how loud the commercials are compared to the normal programing. The last time I checked the fcc regulated audio at 100 % modulation . Anyway I'm getting off track. I like being able to edit my recordings like we could do with our vcr's. Now with the dvr's we can't readily edit the content of a particular program however we can fast forward through the commercials. I feel that if this was imposed on us not only would it make us the viewers sit and watch the same boring sometimes inappropriate commercials over and over again it would hurt the satellite industry as well. Sorry just my $.02

 

[Bizzach]

TiVo announced yesterday that they'll begin showing a 'banner' of advertising when you fast forward (assummingly through commercials). So here's the logic: when you try to AVOID advertising, they're going to put it there. [sarcastic] THAT makes sense! [/sarcastic]

 

[BobMurdoch]

PLUS cable companies have no problem superimposing THEIR local crap commercials over commercials on other channels, so I can't see how Congress will outlaw this......

 

[TyroneShoes]

I...than how loud the commercials are compared to the normal programing. The last time I checked the fcc regulated audio at 100 % modulation...

They do that not to keep commercials from being too loud, but as a technical restriction that keeps the audio modulation from affecting the video, which is something nobody wants. All broadcasters (well, most) are pretty vigilant about modulation levels, because it affects their product negatively if they aren't. That is the motivation, and not whether commercials are louder or not.

That's not to say they don't care about perceived loudness changes, because most do. But its a sticky problem with no good solution. Its easy to set a brick-wall limiter to prevent excursions from exceeding 100%, and virtually every broadcaster does that.

But even with a ceiling physically set at 100% programs and commercials may not be perceived at the same level, even if the VU meters at the stations say they are. A highly compressed audio track for a commercial can be perceived as extremely loud compared to the program its in, which also has 100% modulation peaks. Is it louder? Not if you define loudness by how high the modulation peaks are. But if you look at the total amount of audio energy in one track compared to the other there will typically (see below for untypical) be a very high correlation between what is perceived as loud and such high amounts of audio energy. This is also why broadcasters have such a degree of difficulty regulating such perceived levels, and there really isn't good technology available to help them, and there never has been.

Perceived loudness is not always correlated with audio energy, either. Sometimes "annoying" just sounds "loud". If "Crazy Allah" screams at the top of his lungs while trying to sell us cheap boomboxes, he's going to sound 'louder" than the program, even if the station singles that commercial out and reduces its modulation level to 20% below the surrounding program's level.

 

[TyroneShoes]

TiVo announced yesterday that they'll begin showing a 'banner' of advertising when you fast forward (assummingly through commercials). So here's the logic: when you try to AVOID advertising, they're going to put it there. [sarcastic] THAT makes sense! [/sarcastic]

Actually, that does make some sense, ironic as it sounds. If you scan through commercials there is a period of time that this takes that no one can really take advantage of, unless you believe studies that report that people get nearly the same effect from a watching a scanned commercial as they do from wathching the commercial in real time (I'm not sure I buy that theory). If they want to place a popup graphic over this, I don't like it, but I really don't have that much of a problem with it, up to the point where I can't determine where the next program segment begins, at least.

But I think this means that the back door on Tivo that turns on 30-second skip will probably go away, and I really don't want to see that happen. Hopefully, advertisers who represent the scanned commercials will complain, citing the theory above, that the popups are usurping any effect their commercials might have during scanning. That might be our only hope.

Replay tried some experiments with Coke and other sponsors with full-screen graphics popping up during pause a few years ago, and they still do that from time to time for promotional reasons, but it got nearly universal negative reaction, and they obviously had a hard time finding sponsors. Hopefully this ploy will meet with a similar fate.

I'm sure TIvo will position itself as a mechanism to watch TV on your own schedule rather than as a device to skip commercials. IOW, they will play both ends against the middle.

 

[Big Bob]

and there really isn't good technology available to help them, and there never has been.

Except for a good master control operator with her/his hand on the volume control


(her/his instead of his/her because I personally have known way more female MC operators than male.)