# 30-Second Scan



## johnddx (Dec 3, 2007)

I like 30-second skip (the hidden feature you have to enable over skip-to-end), but I'd prefer a 30-second scan.

Here's how it would work:

With a single 'skip-ahead' button press, let me scan ahead (fast-forward) in increments of 30-seconds, at approximately 16x speeds (with a frame-rate that provides good detail on the content)
Count the button presses, and continue the scan until 30, 60, 90, or 120s have passed (depending on how many times the button was pressed)
Let me interrupt the scan at any time by pressing play or skip-back (instant replay). Do NOT skip back when I press-play, the whole idea is to scan ahead somewhere between 1 and 30s, and skipping-back just makes that harder to do. If I want to skip back, I'll use Instant Replay.

With this feature, I could skim programming *and * commercials and be able to go back and watch segments of either without completely missing them--in contrast, I hate 30-second-skipping into the middle of my program. With 30-second-scan, I could also very measurably pass through time in increments of 30s, which is something I can't easily do with the unwieldy FF3. So I see it as a best of both worlds.

For instance, I would use this to skim through a football game I'm only mildly interested in, and use this feature to skip the time between plays. Likewise, I would use it to skip through commercials, but make sure I don't miss any commercials that actually interest me.

I had a feature like this on a VCR once, and I found it quite nice, and that the 30-second-skip on Tivo is missing out on some of its benefits.


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