What is Digg?277 Comments
- discoloda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+134hacking fun!
in the news:
TiVo hackers have used the Phillips advertising flags to skip all commercials.
technology like this is lame, not because of the intent of it but because it will be hacked anyway. in this case it can be used against them. even a simple filter could be made between the signal source and the unit to keep the 'flag' off. - leobaby, on 10/12/2007, -6/+104I DONT MIND COMMERCIALS, I JUST HATE HOW THEY ARE ALWAYS SCREAMING AT ME!
- stealthboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+71More to the point, technology like this is lame because NOBODY WANTS IT. It's yet another example of how companies like this one have completely lost it. No longer are companies interested in producing items we want, now they are out to produce things that protect their's or another racket's (RIAA, MPAA, etc) self-interests.
I mean, honestly, who woke up this morning and said "You know, I *could* use more DRM in the media I enjoy!". - saigumi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+56A commercial technology that I would want is one to tell companies which commercial was on when I changed the channel.
On my drive home, there are a few annoying commercials every few months that as soon as they come on, I change the freaking channel because they are just that annoying.
Broadcasting Exec: "It looks like at 3:46:02 PM, about 19% of our listeners changed the channel. Baseline change is about 3%, so why did 5700 people stop listening? Oh, that crappy women bitching about men commercial was on. Let's stop doing business with them so that our other advertisers get a higher listener rate." - Chewie67, on 10/12/2007, -2/+53"I JUST HATE HOW THEY ARE ALWAYS SCREAMING AT ME!"
I agree. It seems that the volume on the commercials is always MUCH HIGHER than the show itself. I wish there was a setting on the TV (Cable Box, wherever) so I could equalize the volume. - threepio, on 10/12/2007, -3/+52I think they're just a BIT out of touch. This could unleash a TORRENT of problems in the future. If something like this goes DOWN I'd say it's a LOAD of crap. Just SHOWS you that there's no room FOR FREE thinking anymore.
Ahem. - Mesach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+45I can just see it now, you are changing channels and get stuck on a channel that already has commercials on it, this would last all of about 3 minutes before the TV would be packed up and shipped back to where ever it came from as defective.
- rockforever, on 10/12/2007, -0/+39Exactly. The voice of the consumer isn't even heard anymore. The voice of the consumer are corporations. And end users are SOL, until we hack it, break it, or sue someone.
- stlcadet11, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24It's our damn tv, we bought the frickin thing and we are paying for the cable/satellite service, we should be in control of what we want to watch.
- ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25The inventor of this needs to suffer a painful death.
- duranracing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19What the hell, first we pay for cable then we will have to pay for wanting to skip commercials.
- Lord_oftheTrons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Yeah but this flag won't stop me from turning off the TV or just walking out the room. Especially if I have to hear any more annoying commercials from Applebees. I still have the mambo italiano one stuck in my head, and now they have gilligans island and some new awful one out. Arg.
- tehJR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Speaking of volume differences; has anyone noticed that the music in CSI is WAY louder than the voices? I always have to turn it up to hear them talking then turn it back down when the music cuts in.
Seriously annoying. And you know that someone at CBS is like "Lets make the music louder! That way people will like it more!" - Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18I'd pay for a DVD player that didn't respect the stupid non-skippable 'you must not watch this on an oil rig or skip this copyright notice' segments.
Anyone know of any models? - afex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18@chewie & leo:
many tv's have (or had, i dont know how often you see it now) a volume reduction function that senses the loud commercials and quiets them down. I believe its just a simple limiting circuit, and isn't intelligent enough to know if the audio is actually a commercial or not, just that its loud. and this wasn't just on the big bad tv's either, all the little 20"ers had it too, i want to say magnavox was the one to make it a big feature - surfactant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18...until the industry successfully lobbies it into legislation, effectively requiring all appliances to conform. Of course, on that day, I will no longer own or ever again use a television.
- winneo2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Interesting (and from a user's perspective, awful) idea. I think though, that this is the kind of thing the market would sort out. If you bought this TV, found out what it did, 99% of people would return it for a TV that didn't do this. As a result the TV wouldn't sell, and the idea dies. If Philips wants to find out if that's what the market thinks, they're free to do so I guess...
- spectre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Why stop short, let's just make a TV that can only get one channel?
I'm sure that would be just as popular with consumers.
I'm not sure who over at Phillips squirted this idea out, but I'd love to see them try to market this thing. I'm willing to bet that they won't be able to give these things away. - ole1kanobe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16What's lame is the fact that all of these industries keep trying to come up with the 'holy grail' product that allows them to have complete control over their users.
The only flaw is the fact that anything that can be made through electronic means (i.e. programs) can be un-made or reverse engineered.
Anyone remember when DVD's first came out and were touted as not being able to be reproduced outside of the factory?
How about the XBox 360, it was supposed to be so secure, yet it was hacked in 4 months.
I wonder how many millions of dollars are spent on this kind of crap trying to control people, then having to keep fixing it every time someone finds a way around it, lol. - leszek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14i will patent a new technology : the DRM door
If a commercial is played the door is automatically closed so you can't escape !
what will they bring next ? - Yankees368, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15So you didnt stop watching TV, you stopped watching the box in your living room, and now use the box that is attached to your computer.
- lendrick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I've got a new idea for the article title:
Invention Would Stop People from Purchasing Phillips Televisions - retral, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14I also hate the fact that commercials are louder than the movie/show playing, it really irks me. Same for ideas like this.
- rubbishk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12that seems to be what phillips is saying to their customers too
- uptown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10It's becoming time that consumers band together to defensively patent concepts that they DON'T want companies to implement to protect against them implementing them in their products.
- BryanQ, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12cappslite is an idiot. There is a BIG difference between Communism and Fascism.
- drsnacks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Yeah, a city with gay people in it? That's WEIRD!
- ConceptJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Back before I stopped watching broadcast TV, it was my experience that I would generally sit through the commercials unless they annoyed me. When they annoyed me I would turn them off. So what do advertisers do? Come up with new and improved ways to annoy me, the easiest of which is to be loud.
Well-made, clever, artistic or otherwise interesting commercials don't bother me at all (other than as an interruption to my show), but most people don't seem to want to make those.
United Airlines has a series of animated commercials a few years ago that were not only unobtrusive, they were actually worth watching. Each one was a miniature story done with an interesting animation style with nice music. I not only didn't shut those off, I would actually watch them. And guess what? I remember the name of the product they were advertising (thanks in no small part to "Rhapsody in Blue"). But just like everything else in Hollywood, they loud, crass, idiots outnumber the intelligent artists by about 100 to 1. - shawnz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12I was just about to say that exact thing when I opened the comments. They're creating a blip, and its screaming I'M A COMMERCIAL. Nothing more needs to be said about what can be done with that sort of information.
- jo42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Marketing ret*rds at Philips must be watching Dilbert and thinking that is how things should be done.
- DBCubix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Lets make it so that you can't turn off the tv either, and if you try to unplug it it calls the cops. Also, lets add a sensor that if you try to leave the room it gets up and chases you blaring the commercial even louder. Gee, I should send my resume to Phillips now. haha
- twisterX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I have one thing to say to Phillips "***** You"
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9They make commericals louder with signal compression.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_compression
There is no special function in the TV, they just exploit the way it works. - SniperGX1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8This is a damn good idea. It will make MythTV auto commercial removal 100% effective. No more annoying 5 seconds of commercial before show.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7If you have a DVR, essentially you already are paying to skip commercials.
- arcterex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Or better, implement isight-like technology that watches for people in front of the TV, and if they move, the TV is paused until they return.
And they don't understand why people steal tv shows / movies / music. With crap like this, the Sony debacle with CDs, and the ever-continuing barrage of commercials that you are forced to watch while you eat your $20 popcorn at movies, I'm considering moving into the mountains away from all this.
Well, if they can lay fiber out there that is. - cazbar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yes! We will no longer be able to change the channel when an Enzyte commercial is on while our children are in the room.
Seriously these people are morons. - drizek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6bittorrent is the solution to all the worlds problems.
- beejay, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Who still watches TV, anyway? Ok, I'm probably still in the minority, but I gave it up completely in August and don't miss it. I can still catch South Park and The Office through various means...commercial free!
- Engival, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"I'm sorry, but your current TV set is incompatible with this cable box. Please upgrade your set with a supported DRM'ed HDMI interface. Thank you."
- newezra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6If this goes through I'll have no reason to watch TV. I'll get all my news and entertainment online, watch DVD, play games, etc. I wouldn't be missing anything in life if I got rid of TV broadcasting.
- birdwatcher3000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Keep your old TV set.
It seems that companies will f@ck things up so bad than in the future it will be worth millions. - joero4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6This technology would not be built into a TV. It would be in your cable box. You can't return your cable box if it's working the way it's suppose to.
You could throw your cable box out the window and go back to rabbit ears :) - sosuke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Hell freaking yeah, worse commercial in the world right now on my radio has a high pitched beep through the whole damn thing.
- clever, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6That's exactly what Tivo already does. They monitor your viewing habits -- what shows you watch, what you don't, which commercials you view, which ones you skip, when you change the channel, when you use Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down -- and sell all that data to advertisers. The same idea is how they knew the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" was one of the most watched events ever, because they collected data on how many times that part of the show was replayed.
- rewritable, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5GO AHEAD I'LL JUST UNPLUG THE DAMN THING AND DOWNLOAD MY SHOWS COMMERICAL FREE !!!!!!!!!!!!
- StealthTomato, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT post. You deserve an award. Wish I could doubledigg.
- superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I stopped watching TV, but I still watch the box attached to the box in my living room - one of those boxes happens to be a computer, a Mac mini in fact.
I canceled cable and just watch TV either Over the AIr (HDTV, what little I can get OTA where I live) or bought on iTunes. What I cannot get by either of those two means is either from DVD or downloaded, then bought later when DVD's come out.
The best part is not being tied to any schedule, which TiVO owners already know about... but also having no monthy subscription. - nayr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5...among other things. Make him watch BLARING COMMERCIALS for the rest of his life!
- thewebguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6whahahaha that would be amazing
-
Show 51 - 100 of 277 discussions
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is