Tivo Accessory.

[swestrup]

I have plans, for when I have enough of an income that I can have some spending money again, to build me a MythTV set (sort of a do-it-yourself TIVO). It just occured to me that one thing that I very much want is something that blocks particular commercials. Now, I don't mean ALL commercials (although that is not something I'm against). Most commercials don't bug me too much, but there are about a dozen commercials that I hate so much I will change the channel or turn off the TV rather than sit through. For those, I would like to have a 'This is obnoxious' button on my remote. By clicking that button, the TV box would derive a signature from the first few frames of each 15-second interval (because at least in North America, commericals slots are sold in 15-second increments). From then on, whenever the commercial was shown, after the first few frames, I would just get a gray screen with a countdown instead of the obnoxious commercial. Adding a feature that allowed you to fill in a questionaire about why you hated it and mail that to a clearing house for statistical aggregation and delivery to the media would be a bonus feature.

Comments

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, some ad companies design ads to be hated so that the product name sticks in memory better. They hope that the fickle viewers forget the reason they remember it when buying time comes around.

I've developed strong mental filters; When I had a strong enough attention span to watch television (was it just a few months ago?) I would completely blank out during commercial. The television was not there. Often, this meant that I'd notice myself sitting on the couch doing nothing, and wander off to do other things.

It's difficult for me to find informational announcements in the paper; if it's in the same size format as an ad, I'll block it out as well.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine in college had an idea that went one better - a "kill" button. When the add you don't like comes on, you hit "kill" and it edits the incoming video signal to show the people in the ad dying in messy and amusing ways.

[swestrup]

Actually the commercial that prompted me to post my diatribe above was because of an add that shows someone actually getting eaten by a shark.

Its part of a promotion for 'shark week' on discovery channel. Ick!