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- Hacker News
- Shocking! That TiVo still exists.by andrewstuart
- I've been a heavy user of Tivo from 1999 to a couple years ago when I dropped cable TV. I have never heard of SkipMode. Is it something they just added? because "longest-standing and most popular DVR features" doesn't sound like it was just added.by KevinMS
- Some commend on Reddit said it was introduced in 2015. I can't verify that.by Mashimo
- Never owned a TiVo, but I just looked up what skipmode is, and I thought that was the whole point of a TiVo.
Like, it has always been advertised as record shows and skip commercials. When they said skip commercials in the early 2000s, did they just mean fast forward?
by wodenokoto - Gabe Newell had the clearest thoughts on this topic
- Yeah, it's interesting to watch humanity graduate from "how can we delight the customer the best?" to "how can we trap the customer and extract the most from them?"by rpdillon
- Reads like an onion article. I've gone to great lengths to avoid ads - but it's a war I am losing. Content is now interleaved with ads at the creative stage in subtle (and not so subtle) ways, this inexorable convolution occurs even on formerly alternative spaces. Let me pay, I want to pay, I'll pay a lot, just stay out of my fucking head.by reedf1
- There’s an easy solution that I’ve taken: just stop watching stuff. Choose not to participate in the bullshit.by nkrisc
- What is keeping you hooked to that type of content?by Freak_NL
- Only old school media is holding themselves to a standard. No AI, no sponsored content. And thank god we still have a public broadcaster.
The future is unfortunately propaganda and brain rot.
by TitaRusell - The only winning move is not to play.by PlunderBunny
- Yeah, I pay for youtube so I don't have to watch ads, but then youtube creators at some point all decided to jump on the bandwagon of interleaving ads into their content. Many are kind enough to make it easy to jump ahead to when the ad is over, but man, I would much prefer they set up a patreon or just let me pay them through youtube's own UI. Incredibly annoying.
- Just in case you don't know the SponsorBlock extension can skip past Youtube interleaved ads, promotional items other time wasters. You can pick and choose what you want to skip and in the Youtube Interface you can also press a button to automatically go past a skipped item you wanted to see. [1]:https://sponsor.ajay.app/
Also hate clickbait title cards? Theres now an extension to remove those as well: https://dearrow.ajay.app/
This SponsorBlock extension also integrates with yt-dlp so downloaded videos can have ads stripped in the final video. That way you don't even have to ever go to youtube itself. The war isn't over yet and people must keep fighting back.
by saturn8601 - > I've gone to great lengths to avoid ads - but it's a war I am losing. Content is now interleaved with ads at the creative stage...
In the end you'll win this war, maybe not in the way you envisioned but win it you will by avoiding 'content' altogether. There is more than enough to read, listen to, see and do that you don't need 'content' to keep you satisfied. Drop it like the lukewarm turd it is and you'll be better off while they can hide their ads where the sun don't shine.
Source: living ad- and 'content'-free for decades
by Leonard_of_Q - Once again PLEASE DRINK A VERIFICATION CAN (note this is from 2013, and while its origin is as a shitpost, it's prophetic)by walrus01
- It was based on a patent for a system where you had to get up from your couch and yell McDonalds to continue you game or movie. Its prophetic because it is satirizing those corporations explicit fantasies.by tokai
- I'm surprised there's an online component to that. I've never seen such a device in real life but I've always assumed that these have some sort of automatic commercial break recognition and that such features were first introduced way back in the 90s when requiring an internet connection was impractical to say the least.by grishka
- Virgin Media cable user in the UK here.
I had their Tivo box until a couple of years ago when the forced an "upgrade". The new box has uch better hardware but the software was a leap backwards.
Regarding ads, on recorded programmes I can fast forward through them. It's not a direct skip but can jump +30 seconds at a time.
When viewing through any of the channel apps most of them used to allow skipping, but over the past few months it's now blocked on all of them I think. They do tell you how many adverts there are in each block and how long the one is, such as "2/10 29 seconds to go". Unfortunately they don't tell you the total length of the break, some sections are just a few seconds.
by Steve44 - My parents still have a couple, but I think most people's reaction to this is "TiVo still exists?" CableCARDs are going extinct and there are lots of other options to record OTA these days.by V99
- > TiVo still exists?
Not for long. They stopped making hardware a while ago, this feels like the last ditch attempt to find a new business model that works, before it doesn't and what is left of the company is bought and asset stripped (the key remaining asset likely being what data they hold about their customers).
by dspillett - > "TiVo still exists?"
Certainly that's my reaction that made me click on this. Hard to believe.
Never used TiVo but I ran a MythTV box for a long time, it was really awesome. But it's been ~15+ years or so haven't used it. Can't believe TiVo still exists.
by jjav - I wonder how long technical protection measures will last in the era when everyone has an AI with a spectacular reverse-engineering capability. See the current MIDI piano thread.
At the very basic level you can have the AI spot when ads are playing and mute them for you. Used to be easily done with loudness and various other in-band signals.
by pjc50 - Astra flagged my request to look into a security vulnerability into my own(!) code. So I’m not sure.by pell
- They were saying the same thing about DVR's ability to skip those pesky ads, and look where we are.
When the enshittification hits AI, your AI will magically develop the ability to politely refuse such a request.
You could hack together your own solution (like you can today), but most people won't and that's the point.
by avaer - I couldn't imagine engaging with any form of media where the possibility of being exposed to an ad exists. I haven't seen an ad in over 20 years now and I can't go back.
Only watch Blu-rays and when I do Youtube, I do it through yt-dlp. If there are ads, I'm out. I just can't physically handle this assault on my mind. It's too much.
by OroPla - my blu-ray’s have ads before the movie starts.by nickthegreek
- What about product placements in movies?by mikeweiss
- I am on the same boat. Product placements on movies and TV series are bad enough.by david-gpu
- So you don't use any form of social media whatsoever? Ad blocks don't block sponsored content
- So, like, you just have to imagine all the things that could make you unhappy and jealous that you don't have?!?by BLKNSLVR