By detecting differences between television shows and commercials, the SmartVCR can pause its recording to edit out advertisements. Early models will detect differences in volume, certain catch phrases, flashing telephone numbers that don't start with 555, and lack of laughter. You can adjust settings so you can catch your favorite commercials for movies and whatnot (I happen to like Jack in the Box ads, myself).-- centauri, Mar 21 2000 Panasonic VCR http://www.panasoni...onics/video/vhs.htmA Panasonic VCR which will skip recorded commercials. [tomierna, Mar 21 2000, last modified Oct 05 2004] Commercial Advance Tech http://www.adlenter...s.com/comm_ad2.htmlTechnology touted by Arthur Little that probably senses DTMF's [tomierna, Mar 21 2000, last modified Oct 05 2004] XMLTV http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/XMLTVTelevision Content Markup Language [jimfl, Mar 21 2000, last modified Oct 05 2004] Tivo commercial for editing out commercials http://www.adcritic...tent/tivo-golf.html [jutta, Mar 21 2000] Most networks broadcast either DTMF tones or vertical blanking interval data in the signal to allow local stations to insert local advertising.
Several companies offer VCR's that will look for these codes post-recording and skip ads for you.-- tomierna, Mar 21 2000 A real SmartVCR would play only the commercials you are interested in. (Don't say that there aren't some... I am constantly being asked "Did you see the XYZ commercial? You gotta see it!")
The correct approach, however, is probably to make the content smart, not the devices. XMLTV!-- jimfl, Mar 21 2000 That'd NEVER happen. They pay all this money to get their commercials on, but rig them so you can easily avoid them? Or do you mean tailored to what you're watching? Don't like the privacy invasions as it is, wouldn't want more...-- StarChaser, Mar 22 2000 I tried turning up the brightness of my television, but it didn't work!
Another approach to detecting commercials (after the fact) is to detect blank video frames spaced 30 or 60 seconds apart. A company I worked for considered building this feature into their product, but decided against due to possible legal issues.-- brouhaha, Jun 16 2000 A shame...I'd have bought one...-- StarChaser, Jun 16 2000 Yet another way to detect commercials is to broadcast signals somewhere on the near forgotten radio-frequencies that nobody wants because of their bad quality. Longwave, shortwave, I don't even know what they are called. Not FM at least. Special add-on hardware can pick these signals up with a little antenna. The vendor of this hardware employs a bunch of tv-viewers that push buttons when commercials/station calls end or start. Would also be great for radio. When commercials or stationcalls are detected the device switches to a build in MP3 player with some of your favourite songs. Or temporarily to another channel without commercials. To prevent lawsuits from the networks the company should be off-shore. I am not a lawyer, but what could legally be against such a device?
ReindeR-- rrr, Oct 15 2000 Interesting question. Could the advertising tags be seen as derived work?-- jutta, Oct 15 2000 Nobody's stepped on Web ad filters yet (but they're not widely used). On the other hand, people are suing MAPS. We'll have to see how that turns out...-- egnor, Oct 16 2000 Imagine the problems you would have advertising these services...-- Gimp, Jan 25 2001 None whatsoever. (See the linked Tivo TV ad.) For once in your life, you're reaching *exactly* the people who need your services.-- jutta, Jan 25 2001 Baked. My Panasonic has Comercial Advance and well as Movie Advance. Movie Advance fastforwards the tape to the beginning of the movie.-- -----, Feb 22 2004 What navel-gazing generation would choose to archive / collect bad commercials?-- RayfordSteele, May 11 2016 random, halfbakery