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.