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Enjoy Skipping TV Ads -- While You Can
thedenverchannel.com ^

Posted on 04/20/2006 6:26:51 AM PDT by Xenophobic Alien

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- In this era of easy ad skipping with TiVo-like video recorders, could television viewers one day be forced to watch commercials with a system that prevents channel switching?

Yes, according to Royal Philips Electronics. A patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said researchers of the Netherland-based consumer electronics company have created a technology that could let broadcasters freeze a channel during a commercial, so viewers wouldn't be able to avoid it.

The pending patent, published on March 30, said the feature would be implemented on a program-by-program basis. Devices that could carry the technology would be a television or a set-top-box.

Philips acknowledged, however, that the anti-channel changing technology might not sit well with consumers and suggested in its patent filing that consumers be allowed to avoid the feature if they paid broadcasters a fee.

On Wednesday, company officials issued a statement that noted the technology also enables the opposite: allowing viewers to watch television without advertising. The intention was never to force viewers to watch ads against their will, the company said of the technology.

"We developed a system where the viewer can choose, at the beginning of a movie, to either watch the movie without ads, or watch the movie with ads," the company stated. "It is up to the viewer to take this decision, and up to the broadcaster to offer the various services."

The company also said it had no plans to use the technology in any of its products.

Philips wanted to provide the technology and seek the patent only as part of the broader developments within the industry, Philips spokesman Andre Manning said.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: brainwashing; dcma; digitaltelevision; dvr; indoctrination; mythtv; pvr; television; tv
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To: A message

Don't you mean Anthony Burgess? He wrote the book that described the scene which Kubrick shot.


141 posted on 04/20/2006 8:39:36 AM PDT by lemura
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To: Xenophobic Alien

Sounds like another variation on the the old protection racket, no broken windows in my house.


142 posted on 04/20/2006 8:40:02 AM PDT by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: dfwgator

My cable bill is $127.00 month.


143 posted on 04/20/2006 8:40:59 AM PDT by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: HamiltonJay
24 hour Farting network...

Hey, I need to ask my cable company to add that one.

144 posted on 04/20/2006 8:41:57 AM PDT by dfwgator (Florida Gators - 2006 NCAA Men's Basketball Champions)
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To: dfwgator

If my tv wouldn't let me switch channels during a commercial, I wouldn't pay an extra fee. I'd stop watching television completely. I can get my news off the internet.


145 posted on 04/20/2006 8:45:44 AM PDT by mysterio
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To: lemura

Already have been corrected once :-) see post #70


146 posted on 04/20/2006 8:45:55 AM PDT by A message
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To: XJarhead
At some point, the people putting those things on the air have to make money or they're going to stop making them.

One can always hope...

147 posted on 04/20/2006 8:45:57 AM PDT by Overtaxed (You can't cure stupid.)
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To: brytlea

I loved Monk, but I simply can not stand the blonde Sharona replacement, so I stopped watching. *Sigh*


148 posted on 04/20/2006 8:46:31 AM PDT by Politicalmom (Must I use a sarcasm tag?)
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To: 50sDad
I've noticed that TV and radio commercials often seem to be in sync. I blip a commercial and hit another commercial and then another. In some cases the same commercial is on several channels in perfect synchronization. At first I thought my remote was dead.
149 posted on 04/20/2006 8:50:17 AM PDT by VOATNOW1
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To: dfwgator

HOw about advertisers choose which show they want to SPONSOR...instead of these nationwide "buys," where advertisers sometimes don't know which shows their commercials show up on, have them sponsor entire shows and get to air one two minute commercial before the show starts and one in the middle. This way, corporations have better control over what shows their name is attached to, and viewers won't have as many commercials. We'd have a lot less dreck on TV, that I can guarantee. It's a win-win.


150 posted on 04/20/2006 8:57:32 AM PDT by Hildy
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To: Hildy

I think we are going to start going to an a la carte system, where you can on-demand select the shows you want to watch for a fee.


151 posted on 04/20/2006 8:59:10 AM PDT by dfwgator (Florida Gators - 2006 NCAA Men's Basketball Champions)
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Comment #152 Removed by Moderator

To: dfwgator

I really don't think that would work.


153 posted on 04/20/2006 9:05:24 AM PDT by Hildy
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To: Old Professer

$127 a month for Cable? Forget that, I buy houses for less than that out of pocket.


154 posted on 04/20/2006 9:46:29 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Xenophobic Alien

What happened to "choice"? where's the "pro-choice" crowd now. Bet the OFF swt. still works. And the "pull the plug outta the outlet."


155 posted on 04/20/2006 9:53:29 AM PDT by Waco
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To: mlc9852
Just so long as we still have an OFF button, I see no problem.

And that's the subject of their next patent.

< ]B^)

156 posted on 04/20/2006 9:54:55 AM PDT by Erasmus (Eat beef. Someone has to control the cow population!)
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To: Xenophobic Alien

"technology that could let broadcasters freeze a channel during a commercial, so viewers wouldn't be able to avoid it."

Fine, I won't watch tv. F'em!


157 posted on 04/20/2006 9:54:58 AM PDT by stephenjohnbanker ((Immigration: Acting like dupes does not earn us their respect, but their CONTEMPT.))
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To: Xenophobic Alien
[In this era of easy ad skipping with TiVo-like video recorders, could television viewers one day be forced to watch commercials with a system that prevents channel switching?...The pending patent, published on March 30, said the feature would be implemented on a program-by-program basis. Devices that could carry the technology would be a television or a set-top-box.]

Blahahaha! Yeah sure, I'm going to run out today and buy a device that forces me to watch commericals.

The only way to force me to watch commercials, now that I have a TiVo, is to tie me up.



158 posted on 04/20/2006 10:05:48 AM PDT by JeffersonRepublic.com (There is no truth in the news, and no news in the truth.)
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To: cspackler

Remember when they first sold us the idea of Cable Television?

Because there are no commercials we have to charge you a monthly fee.


No way this flies unless we "roll over one more time"(Web Hubell quote)


159 posted on 04/20/2006 10:14:35 AM PDT by sportscaster ("LET'S ROLL")
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To: weegee
By the way, what we call television he called radiovision. Televsion was through a wire (what we would call cable television) and he could not afford high enough grade wire to implement it.

A small technical digression, if you will.

Jenkins and other mechanical TV inventors had systems that could produce about 30 lines (today we'd say 30 by 30 pixels) at around 10 frames per second. At those data rates (in the analog domain, of course) it translated into a bandwidth of a few kilocycles (Hz weren't invented yet <];^).

The good news: These primitive TV signals could fit into any audio technology: phone lines, mechanical records, and ordinary AM broadcast stations. All the early broadcasters of these signals did so on AM broadcasting channels with ordinary transmitters.

The bad news: The more clear-headed of the inventors, and I think Jenkins was one, knew that the system would have to tremendously improve its image quality before the public would accept it.

Two problems with scaling it up: First, they were tearing their hair out trying to do it; ultimately, they failed because the mechanical technology presented pretty much of a brick wall to significant technical improvement.

Second, they would necessarily give up all that cheap, easy-to-come-by storage and transmission. Because instead of a few measly kilocycles, they were going to need systems that could handle at least a megacycle, or five, for a video signal.

The electronic system proponents realized all this, and embarked on an expensive R&D program to make electronic TV work, with new and difficult technology at every point of the chain from the live image to the one in the user's eyeball. (The expense of the project at RCA gave Sarnoff considerable heartburn.)

So you had two competing systems developing: One, with near-immediate payoff but fundamental limits that would keep it from ever becoming a great commercial success, and the other that required a long and ruinously expensive R&D cycle but whose performance promised a chance of universal acceptance; a promise that was ultimately fulfilled.

160 posted on 04/20/2006 10:17:57 AM PDT by Erasmus (Eat beef. Someone has to control the cow population!)
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