FF thru commercials thwarted?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

I love my TiVo especially when it comes to Sunday afternoon golf. I wonder,
however, if anyone else has noticed the following strange happening,
something that appears to be TiVo appeasing the commercial folks.

When I Fast forward (FF,FF,FF) my eye catches a glimpse of the golf course
or a player swinging a club so I naturally hit the Play button. But at
times I find that I'm still in the middle of some commercial -- and need to
go nearly a minute more to actually be within the golf program. Being of
the suspicious type I finally tried this: I slowly went backward from live
golf, backing through all commercials to live golf again, and found no such
video of golf courses or players swinging clubs within those commercials.
Where did that golf clip come from?

I've found the above to be true several times and now wonder if TiVo is
intentionally capturing clips of the main program and reinserting them in
the middle of fast forward cycles -- just to lure the user into prematurely
hitting the play button.

Len Miller
--
To email reply, eradicate all threes in my SPAM guarded address.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 10:28:55 -0600, Fatfreek wrote:

> When I Fast forward (FF,FF,FF) my eye catches a glimpse of the golf course
> or a player swinging a club so I naturally hit the Play button. But at
> times I find that I'm still in the middle of some commercial -- and need to
> go nearly a minute more to actually be within the golf program. Being of
> the suspicious type I finally tried this: I slowly went backward from live
> golf, backing through all commercials to live golf again, and found no such
> video of golf courses or players swinging clubs within those commercials.
> Where did that golf clip come from?

Your reflexes are too good.

When you are Fast Forwarding very quickly, and press Play, the TiVo jumps
back a few seconds. The reasoning is that, by the time you actually
pressed Play, whatever it was you wanted to see was back a bit.

If you FF at a lower rate, the jump back is less.

Eventually, you'll get pretty good at it, and the jump back will be a
benefit. (I trained myself to not jump on the play button. Actually, I
use the 30 second jump more often [google or read previous posts if you're
not familiar with that].)

--
Lenroc

 

[Kenny]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"Fatfreek" <mil3le3rlr@ark3ans3as.net> wrote in message
news:w9Sdne5wAsIP277fRVn-pQ@arkansas.net...
>I love my TiVo especially when it comes to Sunday afternoon golf. I
>wonder,
> however, if anyone else has noticed the following strange happening,
> something that appears to be TiVo appeasing the commercial folks.
>
> When I Fast forward (FF,FF,FF) my eye catches a glimpse of the golf course
> or a player swinging a club so I naturally hit the Play button. But at
> times I find that I'm still in the middle of some commercial -- and need
> to
> go nearly a minute more to actually be within the golf program. Being of
> the suspicious type I finally tried this: I slowly went backward from
> live
> golf, backing through all commercials to live golf again, and found no
> such
> video of golf courses or players swinging clubs within those commercials.
> Where did that golf clip come from?
>
> I've found the above to be true several times and now wonder if TiVo is
> intentionally capturing clips of the main program and reinserting them in
> the middle of fast forward cycles -- just to lure the user into
> prematurely
> hitting the play button.
>
> Len Miller
> --
> To email reply, eradicate all threes in my SPAM guarded address.
>
>

It really shouldn't, but sometimes the ridiculously high level of stupidity
displayed by the average American consumer amazes me.

 

[Sean]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 13:24:07 -0600, "Kenny" <spcolorado@animation.com>
wrote:

>
>"Fatfreek" <mil3le3rlr@ark3ans3as.net> wrote in message
>news:w9Sdne5wAsIP277fRVn-pQ@arkansas.net...
>>I love my TiVo especially when it comes to Sunday afternoon golf. I
>>wonder,
>> however, if anyone else has noticed the following strange happening,
>> something that appears to be TiVo appeasing the commercial folks.
>>
>> When I Fast forward (FF,FF,FF) my eye catches a glimpse of the golf course
>> or a player swinging a club so I naturally hit the Play button. But at
>> times I find that I'm still in the middle of some commercial -- and need
>> to
>> go nearly a minute more to actually be within the golf program. Being of
>> the suspicious type I finally tried this: I slowly went backward from
>> live
>> golf, backing through all commercials to live golf again, and found no
>> such
>> video of golf courses or players swinging clubs within those commercials.
>> Where did that golf clip come from?
>>
>> I've found the above to be true several times and now wonder if TiVo is
>> intentionally capturing clips of the main program and reinserting them in
>> the middle of fast forward cycles -- just to lure the user into
>> prematurely
>> hitting the play button.
>>
>> Len Miller
>> --
>> To email reply, eradicate all threes in my SPAM guarded address.
>>
>>
>
>It really shouldn't, but sometimes the ridiculously high level of stupidity
>displayed by the average American consumer amazes me.
>


Yes. How true.

Imagine the imbeciles that are still buying archaic Tivo technology.

Sean

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Lenroc (lenroc@NOSPAMFORYOU.hotmail.com) wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:
> Eventually, you'll get pretty good at it, and the jump back will be a
> benefit. (I trained myself to not jump on the play button. Actually, I
> use the 30 second jump more often

Without 30-second skip, I'd *have* to hack my TiVo just to change the FF
overshoot values to as close to nothing as possible. Because of much
training, I have "video-game reflexes", and I think a lot of other people do
now, too.

--
Jeff Rife | "Women...can't live with 'em...can't explain to
| the desk clerk why you only need one bed."
|
| -- Ellen

 

[Howard]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"Fatfreek" <mil3le3rlr@ark3ans3as.net> wrote in
news:w9Sdne5wAsIP277fRVn-pQ@arkansas.net:

> I love my TiVo especially when it comes to Sunday afternoon golf. I
> wonder, however, if anyone else has noticed the following strange
> happening, something that appears to be TiVo appeasing the commercial
> folks.

Yes. However, it is not strange, it was designed that way.

> When I Fast forward (FF,FF,FF) my eye catches a glimpse of the golf

First step, back off. Either use the 30 second skip, or don't use three
FFs. You'll see why in a moment.

> course or a player swinging a club so I naturally hit the Play button.
> But at times I find that I'm still in the middle of some commercial --
> and need to go nearly a minute more to actually be within the golf
> program. Being of the suspicious type I finally tried this: I slowly
> went backward from live golf, backing through all commercials to live
> golf again, and found no such video of golf courses or players swinging
> clubs within those commercials. Where did that golf clip come from?

It came from the golf show. Here is what happens, although the numbers
WILL be off, since I am using them merely as an example. When you hit FF
twice and then hit play, the TiVo will back up 5 seconds to compensate for
the 'twitch factor'. When you hit FF thrice, and then hit play, the TiVo
will back up 10 seconds, again due to the 'twitch factor'. Once you see
the video of the program you want, you are obviously PAST the commercials
and into the program, no? So after hitting play, the first thing you are
going to do is 'rewind' a bit anyway. The TiVo does it for you.

> I've found the above to be true several times and now wonder if TiVo is
> intentionally capturing clips of the main program and reinserting them
> in the middle of fast forward cycles -- just to lure the user into
> prematurely hitting the play button.

No. A healthy dose of paranoia is good, but it doesn't ALWAYS mean they
really are out to get you.

--
Minister of All Things Digital & Electronic, and Holder of Past Knowledge
stile99@email.com. Cabal# 24601-fnord | Sleep is irrelevant.
I speak for no one but myself, and |Caffeine will be assimilated.
no one else speaks for me. O- | Decaf is futile.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Fatfreek <mil3le3rlr@ark3ans3as.net> wrote:
> When I Fast forward (FF,FF,FF) my eye catches a glimpse of the golf course
> or a player swinging a club so I naturally hit the Play button. But at
> times I find that I'm still in the middle of some commercial -- and need to
> go nearly a minute more to actually be within the golf program. Being of

I don't think the other posters counseling about the "backspace" paid any
attention to what you said.

I see this happen all the time. I don't think it is only associated with
sports, or any particular network, but now that you have mentioned it, I
might try to categorize it.

I notice it during "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central. I see Jon, hit
play, and then find that I'm in the middle of the commercial break, as you
note, another full commercial or two, not the short rewind that normally
occurs.

Sometimes there is a teaser in there. I notice that a lot with news
programs, and for a while it was an ad for the Jon Stewart book, in the
midst of a commercial break. Those might be put there deliberately to
catch commercial skippers off guard.

But I definitely have observed what you are talking about. I think it's a
glitch, not deliberate. Maybe you should log what ceommercials you are
being tricked into watching. I think it's random.

---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 20:12:25 +0000, dold wrote:

> Fatfreek <mil3le3rlr@ark3ans3as.net> wrote:
>> When I Fast forward (FF,FF,FF) my eye catches a glimpse of the golf course
>> or a player swinging a club so I naturally hit the Play button. But at
>> times I find that I'm still in the middle of some commercial -- and need to
>> go nearly a minute more to actually be within the golf program. Being of
>
> I don't think the other posters counseling about the "backspace" paid any
> attention to what you said.

Perhaps you don't understand the situation yourself. The OP's description
fits perfectly with an unexpected backwards jump from 3xFF.

--
Lenroc

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Thanks for your input, Clarence. I was beginning to think I was crazy for
my observation that I "need to go nearly a minute more to actually be
within the golf program", far more than the 10 second backup that 3 FF's
provide.

Len
<dold@XReXXFFXth.usenet.us.com> wrote in message
news:cvvtv9$bd9$1@blue.rahul.net...
> Fatfreek <mil3le3rlr@ark3ans3as.net> wrote:
> > When I Fast forward (FF,FF,FF) my eye catches a glimpse of the golf
course
> > or a player swinging a club so I naturally hit the Play button. But at
> > times I find that I'm still in the middle of some commercial -- and need
to
> > go nearly a minute more to actually be within the golf program. Being
of
>
> I don't think the other posters counseling about the "backspace" paid any
> attention to what you said.
>
> I see this happen all the time. I don't think it is only associated with
> sports, or any particular network, but now that you have mentioned it, I
> might try to categorize it.
>
> I notice it during "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central. I see Jon, hit
> play, and then find that I'm in the middle of the commercial break, as you
> note, another full commercial or two, not the short rewind that normally
> occurs.
>
> Sometimes there is a teaser in there. I notice that a lot with news
> programs, and for a while it was an ad for the Jon Stewart book, in the
> midst of a commercial break. Those might be put there deliberately to
> catch commercial skippers off guard.
>
> But I definitely have observed what you are talking about. I think it's a
> glitch, not deliberate. Maybe you should log what ceommercials you are
> being tricked into watching. I think it's random.
>
> ---
> Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 20:02:18 -0600, Fatfreek wrote:

> Thanks for your input, Clarence. I was beginning to think I was crazy for
> my observation that I "need to go nearly a minute more to actually be
> within the golf program", far more than the 10 second backup that 3 FF's
> provide.

Pressing play from 3xFF jumps back a _lot_ more than 10 seconds on my TiVo.

--
Lenroc

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Jeff Rife wrote:
> Lenroc (lenroc@NOSPAMFORYOU.hotmail.com) wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:
>
>>Eventually, you'll get pretty good at it, and the jump back will be a
>>benefit. (I trained myself to not jump on the play button. Actually, I
>>use the 30 second jump more often
>
>
> Without 30-second skip, I'd *have* to hack my TiVo just to change the FF
> overshoot values to as close to nothing as possible. Because of much
> training, I have "video-game reflexes", and I think a lot of other people do
> now, too.
>

;-) I still have this exact same problem. I'm slowly training myself
to pause before hitting the play button when FF at high speeds. But
after too many video games it's *really* ingrained the other way!

Randy S.

 

[Howard]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

dold@XReXXFFXth.usenet.us.com wrote in news:cvvtv9$bd9$1@blue.rahul.net:

> I don't think the other posters counseling about the "backspace" paid
> any attention to what you said.

I don't think you understood what was said.

--
Minister of All Things Digital & Electronic, and Holder of Past Knowledge
stile99@email.com. Cabal# 24601-fnord | Sleep is irrelevant.
I speak for no one but myself, and |Caffeine will be assimilated.
no one else speaks for me. O- | Decaf is futile.

 

[Howard]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"Fatfreek" <mil3le3rlr@ark3ans3as.net> wrote in
news:gamdne99WaBrUb7fRVn-pA@arkansas.net:

> Thanks for your input, Clarence. I was beginning to think I was crazy
> for my observation that I "need to go nearly a minute more to actually
> be within the golf program", far more than the 10 second backup that 3
> FF's provide.

I apologize you took the 10 seconds literally, although I took pains to
explicitly state the numbers were not accurate and were included only for
illustration. Clearly my fault.

It would appear that going over the 'backdoor' method of how to
tweak/disable the overshoot compensation with you would be a mistake, so
may I suggest using the 30 second skip combined with the 8 second skip
back? You can also decrease down to two FFs by hitting rewind to decrease
the compensation, or hit FF a fourth time to begin playing immediately,
with no compensation.

You really should have been here when the overshoot compensation was
actually lengthened awhile back. The black helicopters and tinfoil hats
were plentiful.

--
Minister of All Things Digital & Electronic, and Holder of Past Knowledge
stile99@email.com. Cabal# 24601-fnord | Sleep is irrelevant.
I speak for no one but myself, and |Caffeine will be assimilated.
no one else speaks for me. O- | Decaf is futile.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Lenroc <lenroc@nospamforyou.hotmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps you don't understand the situation yourself. The OP's description
> fits perfectly with an unexpected backwards jump from 3xFF.

I do understand the backskip. It works fine for me, most of the time. If
I am am a little too quick reacting to the reappearance of the program, I
get to watch part of the commercial. Sometimes, however, the backskip
seems overly large. This doesn't happen very often. I wouldn't personally
attribute it to some scheme on the part of the program distributors. It
might have something to do with the rate of compression applied to
different DirecTV channels. I seem to notice it more with Comedy Central
than other channels.

Maybe a distinction of the behavior between SA Tivo and DirecTV Tivo is
important. Because I recognize the complaint, I assumed that it was a
common problem. The OP doesn't note whether he has DTivo or not. On SA
Tivo, does the amount of the backskip change at different compression
rates?

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Mine is the DirecTV TiVo.
Len

> Maybe a distinction of the behavior between SA Tivo and DirecTV Tivo is
> important. Because I recognize the complaint, I assumed that it was a
> common problem. The OP doesn't note whether he has DTivo or not. On SA
> Tivo, does the amount of the backskip change at different compression
> rates?
>
> --
> ---
> Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5
>

 

[Kenny]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

"Fatfreek" <mil3le3rlr@ark3ans3as.net> wrote in message
news:gamdne99WaBrUb7fRVn-pA@arkansas.net...
> Thanks for your input, Clarence. I was beginning to think I was crazy for
> my observation that I "need to go nearly a minute more to actually be
> within the golf program", far more than the 10 second backup that 3 FF's
> provide.
>


I just did a little experimenting and at 3 FF's it jumps back between 1:30
and 1:45 minutes.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

dold@XReXXFFXth.usenet.us.com wrote:
>
> That's 1/2 second per commercial... Maybe DTivo is different.
> If anything, I'd say the top speed on DTivo is 18x. That would be
about
> right by my memory.

No, DTiVos are the same. One second of FFF is one minute of TV time.

Although, I think RRR is a little slower (by a small percentage).

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

Kenny <spcolorado@animation.com> wrote:

> I just did a little experimenting and at 3 FF's it jumps back between 1:30
> and 1:45 minutes.

My tests don't correspond with yours. If yours were true, and I was slow
enough to take 10 seconds to hit play after the show started, I would still
see one or two complete 30 second commercials? That just doesn't happen.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

(dold@XReXXFFXth.usenet.us.com) wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo:
> Kenny <spcolorado@animation.com> wrote:
>
> > I just did a little experimenting and at 3 FF's it jumps back between 1:30
> > and 1:45 minutes.
>
> My tests don't correspond with yours. If yours were true, and I was slow
> enough to take 10 seconds to hit play after the show started, I would still
> see one or two complete 30 second commercials? That just doesn't happen.

That's because hitting FF 3 times makes the TiVo fast forward much faster
(60x real time is the listed speed, although I haven't timed it myself).

As long as you hit "Play" 1.5 seconds or more after you first see the show,
you won't see any commercials. If you wait 10 seconds, you will skip
10 *minutes* of show and Play jumps back less than 2 minutes, so of course
you won't see any commercials.

--
Jeff Rife |
| http/www.nabs.net/Cartoons/OverTheHedge/HDTV.gif

 

[Kenny]

Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo (More info?)

<dold@XReXXFFXth.usenet.us.com> wrote in message
news:d057mr$lp4$2@blue.rahul.net...
> Kenny <spcolorado@animation.com> wrote:
>
>> I just did a little experimenting and at 3 FF's it jumps back between
>> 1:30
>> and 1:45 minutes.
>
> My tests don't correspond with yours. If yours were true, and I was slow
> enough to take 10 seconds to hit play after the show started, I would
> still
> see one or two complete 30 second commercials? That just doesn't happen.
>



No you wouldn't see any commercials because you'd have missed about 8-9
minutes of the show. My tests (limited as they are) show that if you press
play at the exact moment the commercials end, you'd see (at most) three 15
second commercials before the show resumes.