# Commercial "Skip" Scam Feature?



## rochambeaux (Nov 3, 2015)

Of the 40 or so shows we've recorded on our new Bolt, about 10% have the "Skip" feature.

Is this one of those "read the tiny print" features they use to boost sales of the product?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It only applies to 20 networks for shows aired between 4:00-12:00.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

It's limited, but that certainly doesn't make it a scam.

The print wasn't all that tiny.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

To be fair, the first presentation of the feature on the Bolt product page is seemingly definitive: "Commercial killer. The only thing more annoying than commercials is having to fast-forward through them every 10 minutes. Now skip over entire commercial breaks at the press of a button."

You have to go one level deeper to see the description of the feature: "The idea of skipping entire commercial breaks at the press of a button has me feeling all tingly inside. How exactly does SkipMode&#8482; work? SkipMode is available when you're watching a recorded show. Although not all shows will be available with the SkipMode feature, we've taken great pains to ensure we're covering most of the channels that most people in the TiVo community record a lot."

Then you have to go one level deeper to get the full story: "The SkipMode feature is available on the top 20 most-watched networks and more channels will be added in the future. The shows that will be SkipMode-enabled are those that appear during the most common recording hours: seven days a week, between the hours of 4:00 pm and midnight (12:30 am for late night talk shows airing on ABC, NBC and CBS)."

I think that's fair, but arguably they could have made that first presentation say, "Commercial killer. The only thing more annoying than commercials is having to fast-forward through them every 10 minutes. Now skip over entire commercial breaks during prime time on the top twenty networks at the press of a button." There wasn't even an asterisk or other indication that there were limitations, in the first presentation of the feature, as they have it now. However, that's really picking nits imho.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> It only applies to 20 networks for shows aired between 4:00-12:00.


Even that seems misleading. Since it's really 7pm to midnight Eastern Time. And the 4PM comes from Pacific time.


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## SrLANGuy (Dec 26, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> Even that seems misleading. Since it's really 7pm to midnight Eastern Time. And the 4PM comes from Pacific time.


If I'm not mistaken, I believe it is 4pm to midnight Eastern Time (12:30am Eastern Time for the Tonight Show and the Late Show since they run past midnight).


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

The point I think Aaron is raising is what is being processed between 4pm and 7pm Eastern Time?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

bicker said:


> The point I think Aaron is raising is what is being processed between 4pm and 7pm Eastern Time?


As far as I can tell nothing. They do not do the ABC, CBS, or NBC evening news which is on at 6:30. Does anyone on the East cost actually have shows they record between 4pm & 7pm that have SkipMode enabled?


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## rochambeaux (Nov 3, 2015)

I'll double check but I'm pretty certain I have a number of recordings that should have fallen under the 20 channel/time slot and still didn't have commercial skip enabled.


Does Skip need to have contact with the Tivo servers at the time of the recording? My Bolt is constantly doing the spinning icon/Tivo service not available error.

And it's not a network issue on my side...


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

I thought the approach they were using would require access to the TiVo server at time of playback, not at time of recording. Not sure though.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

bicker said:


> I thought the approach they were using would require access to the TiVo server at time of playback, not at time of recording. Not sure though.


I am guessing the Bolt needs to have a good connection to the TiVo Servers throughout the evening. SkipMode shows up usually within a few minutes of the end of a show so the data must be being sent throughout the evening. If someone wants to pull the network connection for a day and then see if SkipMode is enabled after they reconnect please do so and post back the results.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> As far as I can tell nothing. They do not do the ABC, CBS, or NBC evening news which is on at 6:30. Does anyone on the East cost actually have shows they record between 4pm & 7pm that have SkipMode enabled?


I do and none of them have skip. Starting at 7pm on the East Coast I get shows with the Skip function.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

atmuscarella said:


> As far as I can tell nothing. They do not do the ABC, CBS, or NBC evening news which is on at 6:30. Does anyone on the East cost actually have shows they record between 4pm & 7pm that have SkipMode enabled?


They don't do live or local content. The news falls under both. Locally syndicated programming falls under the later. So I think the only thing that would qualify between 4pm and primetime would be nationally syndicated shows.

Looking at the schedules for the big 4 networks the only show I see listed as being nationally syndicated is Judge Judy on NBC. Everything else is local programming before 7pm.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I've had reruns of Modern Family on the local Fox station between 7pm and 8pm show up with Skip. Although I've only seen a few of them with it.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

aaronwt said:


> I've had reruns of Modern Family on the local Fox station between 7pm and 8pm show up with Skip. Although I've only seen a few of them with it.


From what I've seen they use a content ID for the episode to generate the skip points, and IIRC Modern Family also plays on USA, so maybe the skip points were generated for USA and just happen to be the same episodes played by your local affiliate.

If that is how it works then this whole thing should get more robust, especially with reruns, over time.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

I've seen Skip appear on random channels at random times also... A local independent station has Skip on many old Judge Judy reruns, but the major Fox affiliate with new episodes doesn't. Go figure. Those tags must be getting repurposed.

But basically anything that isn't part of a national schedule is going to get hosed.

I don't know what the excuse is for the hit and miss of national stations like TBS, Comedy Central, and others though. Does Tivo only watch a show once, and if the markers don't line up (due to speeding up the video or whatever) they just ignore it?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> I don't know what the excuse is for the hit and miss of national stations like TBS, Comedy Central, and others though. Does Tivo only watch a show once, and if the markers don't line up they ignore it?


From what I can tell they use two lists. One is a segment list with each segment of the show expressed as a start and end point aligned to some clock that is specific to the machine that recorded the episode they used to mark those points. The second list is a hash of all the captions in the recording aligned to that same clock.

My assumption as to how it works is that while the episode is being recorded your TiVo hashes the captions using the same algorithm. They then try to match those hashes to the hashes in the list sent with the cut data. If they match then they use their positions to offset the segments in the data to match the timecodes of your recording. I'm not 100% sure if they do it for each segment individually, allowing for different commercial lengths between broadcasters, or if they require a match across the entire show and if one segment doesn't line up they just drop the data completely. Based on the inconsistency some are seeing I'd guess the later.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> They don't do live or local content. The news falls under both. Locally syndicated programming falls under the later. So I think the only thing that would qualify between 4pm and primetime would be nationally syndicated shows.
> 
> Looking at the schedules for the big 4 networks the only show I see listed as being nationally syndicated is Judge Judy on NBC. Everything else is local programming before 7pm.


I guess the National news might be live but I don't see how it is local. Do they actually do separate broadcasts for the east & west costs? I thought it was just repeated at the correct local time.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

atmuscarella said:


> I guess the National news might be live but I don't see how it is local. Do they actually do separate broadcasts for the east & west costs? I thought it was just repeated at the correct local time.


I was thinking local news. But yeah even the national news is live, so that's probably why it's not included.

The reason they probably don't do live.... captioning in live feeds is inconsistent and typically replaced by real captions on subsequent airings. If they are using the captioning data to align the segments, as I suspect they are, then this would effect that.


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## LightningBOLT (Sep 30, 2015)

It seems skip isn't ready for prime time. Tivo almost comes off desperate by pushing it so hard yet not delivering consistently.

They are trying to be Apple so hard, without the chops, and it is resulting in more hype than substance.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

How can you be sure that what they're delivering isn't both what they intended to deliver (i.e., no desperation) and what they plan to deliver long-term (i.e., no inconsistency). 

Perhaps you just don't think the feature is worth it to you. There are lots of TiVo features that are completely lost on me, without it being because TiVo is missing some mark.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

For people who have used this consistently.. How accurate are the actual skip points? I guess, since you have to initiate it as a user, the question really only applies to the jump back IN point (since you have to wait until the commercial break starts to hit the key, right?).

So lets say you go into a break and hit the key..

Now do you ALWAYS jump to a fade in right into the show? or does it sometimes show a brief bit of the commercial break, then the fade, then the show? and even worse IMHO, does it ever actually jump a fraction of a second into the show?

Even as someone who hates ads, I still do use On Demand sometimes, even with a few forced commercials shows... and they don't seem to be able to hit their ad breaks well, since often I see a tiny fraction of a second that should be on the 'other' side of the break.. (i.e. the commercial break starts a fraction of a second too early or late, not at the exact point it should)..

and I'm wondering how this skip mode compares. (Yes, obviously, with manual commercial skipping, you're not accurate either.. But I go WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM on the 30 second skip button, then skip back a couple of 8 secondses, and am usually pretty close to the right spot.)


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## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

In the Dish Hopper using its Commercial Hopping, 
it would show you the first few seconds of the commercial and the last few seconds of the last commercial, before returning to the show.
this only occurred not the 4 Major Networks and only during PrimeTime.

Not to cut out any of the show was apparently a requirement.

With Dish Hopper you only had to select the Kangaroo to skip all commercial for that show at the beginning of PlayBack.

Dish Hopper had a very easy function called PrimeTime 
That would record every day the Primetime shows on the 4 major networks.
That was also a great feature.



mattack said:


> For people who have used this consistently.. How
> accurate are the actual skip points? I guess, since you have to initiate it as a user, the question really only applies to the jump back IN point (since you have to wait until the commercial break starts to hit the key, right?).
> 
> So lets say you go into a break and hit the key..
> ...


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mattack said:


> For people who have used this consistently.. How accurate are the actual skip points? I guess, since you have to initiate it as a user, the question really only applies to the jump back IN point (since you have to wait until the commercial break starts to hit the key, right?).
> 
> So lets say you go into a break and hit the key..
> 
> ...


The TiVo skip points are always before the show starts. Sometimes they're in the fade to black, but most times you see a second or two of the last commercial.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

mattack said:


> (since you have to wait until the commercial break starts to hit the key, right?)


Actually no. The "Press D to skip" message doesn't show up until the commercials start, but you can in fact press D at any time, and it will skip to the start of the next block from there.



> _Now do you ALWAYS jump to a fade in right into the show? or does it sometimes show a brief bit of the commercial break, then the fade, then the show? and even worse IMHO, does it ever actually jump a fraction of a second into the show?_


It varies a bit, but I don't think I've missed anything. (One time, when the resumption seemed too abrupt, I rewound and verified that no, it really did come back from commercials like that.) It actually seems like it's gotten a little tighter lately (less junk left intact), maybe as they've gained confidence and skill in what they're doing.


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## kenboy (Sep 24, 2006)

My experience has been similar. I think I DID actually go back and catch that a word had been missed once, but it was literally once.

It's pretty solid.



wmcbrine said:


> Actually no. The "Press D to skip" message doesn't show up until the commercials start, but you can in fact press D at any time, and it will skip to the start of the next block from there.
> 
> It varies a bit, but I don't think I've missed anything. (One time, when the resumption seemed too abrupt, I rewound and verified that no, it really did come back from commercials like that.) It actually seems like it's gotten a little tighter lately (less junk left intact), maybe as they've gained confidence and skill in what they're doing.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Seeking has to jump to the nearest I frame, so it could be +/- a few frames on your recording compared to the one they used to mark the points. I assumed that's why they errored on the side of caution and moved them back a couple seconds. But they do seem to be getting a bit tighter on recent recordings.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> The TiVo skip points are always before the show starts. Sometimes they're in the fade to black, but most times you see a second or two of the last commercial.


Thanks for the answers.

I wish it were more accurate (exactly at fade in), but since I _now_ see at least a second or two of a commercial with 30 sec skip + 8 sec back for offshoots, it's _no worse_, and likely significantly better, than my manual skipping.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

mattack said:


> Thanks for the answers.
> 
> I wish it were more accurate (exactly at fade in), but since I _now_ see at least a second or two of a commercial with 30 sec skip + 8 sec back for offshoots, it's _no worse_, and likely significantly better, than my manual skipping.


I think what most people want more than not to see two seconds of commercial is not to see an overshoot that spoils the development of pending events. I know that's what I want more, having been spoiled like that just last night. Second, I think, is the convenience of not wearing out your finger or your remote skipping over commercials. I can live with a second of commercial if I get those advantages.


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## georgeorwell86 (Sep 15, 2015)

LightningBOLT said:


> They are trying to be Apple so hard, without the chops, and it is resulting in more hype than substance.


If that were true, the Bolt would cost $800 and come in a gold option.


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## aspexil (Oct 16, 2015)

I like the skip option. We have it on lots of the shows we record OTA.


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## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

atmuscarella said:


> I guess the National news might be live but I don't see how it is local. Do they actually do separate broadcasts for the east & west costs? I thought it was just repeated at the correct local time.


3-hour old news isn't "news" anymore. 

Both the CBS Evening News and the NBC Nightly News do have a separate west coast version. (Usually with only a few updated segments to cover breaking news, but on some occasions the entire show is redone.)

At one time ABC World News Tonight did an entirely new west coast telecast every night, but I don't know whether or not they still do.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

tim1724 said:


> Both the CBS Evening News and the NBC Nightly News do have a separate west coast version. (Usually with only a few updated segments to cover breaking news, but on some occasions the entire show is redone.)


Wait, are you claiming that EVERY DAY the NBC Nightly News does a separate version (or at least some segments)?

I'm on the West Coast, so only notice when they 'break in' to the original broadcast, or sometimes they mention that it's a West Coast edition. I thought that the VAST VAST majority of the time, it was the same exact show.

(Not like I care.. heck, you're complaining about 3 hour old news? I read newspapers much older than that -- and yes, the older it is, the more stuff I ignore.. But I still get news/entertainment out of old newspapers. Though the fact that CNN nowadays in the middle of the night is what CNN Headline News used to be -- _basically_ the same half hour repeated over and over -- is slightly a pain..)


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## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

mattack said:


> Wait, are you claiming that EVERY DAY the NBC Nightly News does a separate version (or at least some segments)?
> 
> I'm on the West Coast, so only notice when they 'break in' to the original broadcast, or sometimes they mention that it's a West Coast edition. I thought that the VAST VAST majority of the time, it was the same exact show.


No, NBC doesn't always update any segments. And I think they do so a lot less often now than they did 20 years ago.

But they certainly do so often enough to give TiVo problems when it comes to Skip Mode.


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