# SkipMode - Only as good as humans



## andyf (Feb 23, 2000)

So far I'm 1 for 3 for SkipMode tags. Rate the markers by listing your missed skip tags.

CENTRAL TIME

Oct 8th - CW - 11:30pm to 12:00 Midnight - Rules of Engagement
Oct 9th - DSC - 8pm - 9pm - Bering Sea Gold
Oct 9th - DSC - 9pm - 10pm - Gold Rush


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

Arizona Time (currently Pacific)

10/06 - 7pm-8pm - CW - The Flash (S2E1)
10/07 - 7pm-8pm - CW - Arrow (S4E1)
10/09 - 7pm-8pm - CW - Reign (S3E1)

10/08 - 10:35pm-11:37pm - CBS - The Late Show w/ Stephen Colbert (S1E23)

Added:
10/09 - 10:35pm-11:37pm - CBS - The Late Show w/ Stephen Colbert (S1E24)
10/09 - 10:35pm-11:37pm - ABC - Jimmy Kimmel Live (S14E5) - Repeat from 09/28


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

Arizona Time (currently Pacific)

10/10/15 - 10:29pm-12:02am - NBC - Saturday Night Live (S41E2)

possibly due to the East Coast feed not beginning until 11:30pm, but still this seems it should be an exception.


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## hmspain (Oct 11, 2015)

I've been a fan of commercial skip since VCR days. As we all know, commercial skip was built into a few VCR models using what was called "black screen" marking.

The VCR scanned the video content for black screens, and then determined where the commercials were. The 20 yr patent is set to expire in another 5 years. In the meantime, the technique could be licensed (I would think).

I wonder what Tivo thought about either using the black screen marking (was it reliable enough?) or licensing it for five years (too expensive?) instead of the "human" approach.


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## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

I have been using Various Commercial Skip technologies for many decades.
I used various devices that connected to my VCRs in the late 1970's.
Then I had several of the initial ReplayTV that skipped commercials.
The last decade I have been using Dish Hopper that hopped over commercials but only those in PRIMETIME (8-11 on 4 Major Networks ONLY).

The last year I have been using TiVo about 75% of the time without any commercial skip.
I may bet a Bolt just to get back to Commercial Skipping.

But the current BOLT has very few Tuners and very Little storage and I do not like the new Lifetime payment going up $200.
I can get the WeaKnees 8TB to settle the storage problem but it will still have only 4 tuners. 
I will wait for the Pro and hope it has around 8 tuners and a larger form factor so that desktop sized drives with much higher capacity can be used instead of laptop sized small capacity drives.
I THINK THE NEW TIVO SERIES 6 BOLT PRO SHOULD HAVE AT 8 TUENRS AND 8TB OF STORAGE IN A LARGER TIVO CABINET.



hmspain said:


> I've been a fan of commercial skip since VCR days. As we all know, commercial skip was built into a few VCR models using what was called "black screen" marking.
> 
> The VCR scanned the video content for black screens, and then determined where the commercials were. The 20 yr patent is set to expire in another 5 years. In the meantime, the technique could be licensed (I would think).
> 
> I wonder what Tivo thought about either using the black screen marking (was it reliable enough?) or licensing it for five years (too expensive?) instead of the "human" approach.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Black scene detection isn't reliable. We use that in VideoReDo and while it works probably 90% of the time I wouldn't trust it to a completely automated solution. More sophisticated programs use not only black detection but they look for audio changes, detect station bugs and ratings tags (i.e. ABC logo in the corner or the TV14 box along the top), and a few other things and they're still not 100%. There is really no way TiVo could make this system completely automated and still accurate.


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## hmspain (Oct 11, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> Black scene detection isn't reliable. We use that in VideoReDo and while it works probably 90% of the time I wouldn't trust it to a completely automated solution. More sophisticated programs use not only black detection but they look for audio changes, detect station bugs and ratings tags (i.e. ABC logo in the corner or the TV14 box along the top), and a few other things and they're still not 100%. There is really no way TiVo could make this system completely automated and still accurate.


Thank you Dan, it appears the tech has progressed somewhat since VCR days.

I guess the question is, are we willing to live with 99% for 20 channels, or 90% for ALL channels?

Tivo has taken the first step, only time will tell how this will evolve.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

hmspain said:


> I guess the question is, are we willing to live with 99% for 20 channels, or 90% for ALL channels?


Ignoring the legal aspect of an automated solution that's not 100%, I would never settle for 90%. I can FF3X and get 100% on my own. I like to think the TiVo process results in 99%+ success.

I can live with that.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

astrohip said:


> Ignoring the legal aspect of an automated solution that's not 100%, I would never settle for 90%. I can FF3X and get 100% on my own. I like to think the TiVo process results in 99%+ success.
> 
> I can live with that.


it basically needs to be at least 99.9% for me. If it was only 90% or even 99% I would have to double check it to make sure it didn't mess up which would defeat the purpose. So far I've used the skip function around twenty five times and its been 100% accurate. If I see a coup!e of issues before I get to 100 uses then I would need to stop using it. But so far the skip mode and quick mode have been awesome.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

zerdian1 said:


> I THINK THE NEW TIVO SERIES 6 BOLT PRO SHOULD HAVE AT 8 TUENRS AND 8TB OF STORAGE IN A LARGER TIVO CABINET.


Cable cards only support up to 6 tuners in the spec, AFAIK. (I seem to remember there COULD be cable company differences...)

Would you want to get a 2nd cable card? I think not.



hmspain said:


> I guess the question is, are we willing to live with 99% for 20 channels, or 90% for ALL channels?


Depends on whether there are false positives or false negatives.

I NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER want part of the actual show missed... Even if that means I have to FF or 30 second skip sometimes.

(I'm about to find the appropriate thread to ask about the shows in the past few years that have a short segment "in" the commercials..)


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Tivo's Support site has a link to a survey, in case anybody's having issues with Skip not appearing where it should.

http://survey.confirmit.com/wix1/p3075425841.aspx


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

mattack said:


> Cable cards only support up to 6 tuners in the spec, AFAIK. (I seem to remember there COULD be cable company differences...)
> 
> Would you want to get a 2nd cable card? I think not.


There are cable cards that support eight tuners, I believe. But a cable company is only required to support six, or the number supported by their own DVRs, whichever is greater. Or so I've been told.

In any case, the only downside I can see to having two cable cards is the extra fee. In my area that's $1.50 per month, so I wouldn't have a problem with it, particularly since it would mean I could safely retire my alternate TiVo. And back in the Series 3 days (which for me include the present) we needed two cable cards per TiVo just to support two tuners. What issues do you see with having dual cable cards?



mattack said:


> Depends on whether there are false positives or false negatives.
> 
> I NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER want part of the actual show missed... Even if that means I have to FF or 30 second skip sometimes.
> 
> (I'm about to find the appropriate thread to ask about the shows in the past few years that have a short segment "in" the commercials..)


In the past few years the only things I see interspersed in the commercial break are 1) teasers for the next segment as on SNL, 2) commercials presented by the show's cast, and 3) behind the scenes glimpses as on "Doctor Who". I personally could do without all of these, in fact I would be happier not to see them. But this is my personal preference, others I'm sure want to see *everything*. What I never, never want to miss is the epilogue jokes at the end many comedies do, like "The Middle". Even if TiVo's minions were to miss them, if I knew they were there the SkipMode as it works now would allow me to skip back and see the sugar at the end of the episode. In any case, I would not expect SkipMode to miss those any more than the "Next Time On" segments.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I used Skip mode on a few more programs tonight. Again they were 100% accurate. Hopefully the accuracy keeps up. My only issues is Skip mode not showing up on some shows when I would have expected it be available.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Tivo's Support site has a link to a survey, in case anybody's having issues with Skip not appearing where it should.
> 
> http://survey.confirmit.com/wix1/p3075425841.aspx


Thanks for the Link,

No CW programs in Phoenix, have had SkipMode every other network seems to be good.

Except for CBS - The Late Show w/ Stephen Colbert, it had it once and that was it.


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## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

You are probably right. 6 is the limit of Comcast Cable Cards, which they have been using for over a decade now,



mattack said:


> Cable cards only support up to 6 tuners in the spec, AFAIK. (I seem to remember there COULD be cable company differences...)
> 
> Would you want to get a 2nd cable card? I think not.
> 
> ...


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## zerdian1 (Apr 19, 2015)

Comcast only supports 4 much like the TiVo Roamio Basic and now the Bolt Basic.
So if the statement is true then comcast is only required to support 6 tuners and they have for at least 5 to 7 years now, I am told.



ej42137 said:


> There are cable cards that support eight tuners, I believe. But a cable company is only required to support six, or the number supported by their own DVRs, whichever is greater. Or so I've been told.
> 
> In any case, the only downside I can see to having two cable cards is the extra fee. In my area that's $1.50 per month, so I wouldn't have a problem with it, particularly since it would mean I could safely retire my alternate TiVo. And back in the Series 3 days (which for me include the present) we needed two cable cards per TiVo just to support two tuners. What issues do you see with having dual cable cards?
> 
> In the past few years the only things I see interspersed in the commercial break are 1) teasers for the next segment as on SNL, 2) commercials presented by the show's cast, and 3) behind the scenes glimpses as on "Doctor Who". I personally could do without all of these, in fact I would be happier not to see them. But this is my personal preference, others I'm sure want to see *everything*. What I never, never want to miss is the epilogue jokes at the end many comedies do, like "The Middle". Even if TiVo's minions were to miss them, if I knew they were there the SkipMode as it works now would allow me to skip back and see the sugar at the end of the episode. In any case, I would not expect SkipMode to miss those any more than the "Next Time On" segments.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

ej42137 said:


> In the past few years the only things I see interspersed in the commercial break are 1) teasers for the next segment as on SNL, 2) commercials presented by the show's cast, and 3) behind the scenes glimpses as on "Doctor Who". I personally could do without all of these, in fact I would be happier not to see them. But this is my personal preference, others I'm sure want to see *everything*. What I never, never want to miss is the epilogue jokes at the end many comedies do, like "The Middle". Even if TiVo's minions were to miss them, if I knew they were there the SkipMode as it works now would allow me to skip back and see the sugar at the end of the episode. In any case, I would not expect SkipMode to miss those any more than the "Next Time On" segments.


It's sort of "behind the scenes", but the one I keep mentioning is Mythbusters. They do a very short, I think at MOST a minute, sometimes less, segment during one of the last few commercial breaks. Usually it's Adam telling some joke or more info about how he built some rig during the show.. not the actual results of the myths.

Jeopardy also rarely, but enough that I 2FF through it rather than 30 sec skip, puts little segments about one of the clues (yes I know they USUALLY go before a commercial break, but not always), or the anniversary segments with Alex a few years ago..


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

zerdian1 said:


> Comcast only supports 4 much like the TiVo Roamio Basic and now the Bolt Basic.


No, that is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.

Many of us have Comcast, and have 6 tuners going fine on Roamio Pro..


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

mattack said:


> No, that is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.
> 
> Many of us have Comcast, and have 6 tuners going fine on Roamio Pro..


I think he means that Comcast DVRs have only 4 tuners; however many tuners a Roamio has is not germane to the conclusion he was making.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

??? the Comcast X1 has six tuners.


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## rjcc (Jul 15, 2010)

ej42137 said:


> There are cable cards that support eight tuners, I believe. But a cable company is only required to support six, or the number supported by their own DVRs, whichever is greater. Or so I've been told.
> 
> In any case, the only downside I can see to having two cable cards is the extra fee. In my area that's $1.50 per month, so I wouldn't have a problem with it, particularly since it would mean I could safely retire my alternate TiVo. And back in the Series 3 days (which for me include the present) we needed two cable cards per TiVo just to support two tuners. What issues do you see with having dual cable cards?
> 
> In the past few years the only things I see interspersed in the commercial break are 1) teasers for the next segment as on SNL, 2) commercials presented by the show's cast, and 3) behind the scenes glimpses as on "Doctor Who". I personally could do without all of these, in fact I would be happier not to see them. But this is my personal preference, others I'm sure want to see *everything*. What I never, never want to miss is the epilogue jokes at the end many comedies do, like "The Middle". Even if TiVo's minions were to miss them, if I knew they were there the SkipMode as it works now would allow me to skip back and see the sugar at the end of the episode. In any case, I would not expect SkipMode to miss those any more than the "Next Time On" segments.


At least on Naked & Afraid, it does detect the in-commercial segments. That's the only SkipMode enabled show that I watch that does them (only other one I can think of is Highly Questionable), and it's worked perfectly.

I did have a missed SkipMode tonight, on The Blacklist


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## eric102 (Oct 31, 2012)

Blacklist had skip for me.

On the other hand House Hunters on the HGTV network was getting skip last week, this week it isn't.

Seems pretty random who gets skip on a program and who doesn't, TiVo says they are working on it.


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## serevis (Oct 19, 2015)

In speaking with some Tivo phone reps there are 25 people working for them who are manually marking the commercials. Apparently the software isn't done yet and this is the process until it is complete. Definitely a few misses but overall I am pleased.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

I was going to post a question on here about why SkipMode wasn't implemented on my recording of Sunday night Football last night, but then while scanning through a commercial break I saw the commercial for the new Star Wars Battlefront game for PS4 and had to stop, rewind and watch it. Now I'm super glad they DIDN'T have SkipMode on it because I would've missed that incredible commercial!!! Three thumbs down for SkipMode now.......Boooo!!!!! Haha!


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

SkipMode doesn't work on live TV, so even if they were to add football to the list you'd have to wait for the recording to be completely done before the SkipMode data would be available. I know most sports fans don't like to watch games like that delayed by 3+ hours, so it would only be useful to a small number of people.


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## hmspain (Oct 11, 2015)

The Bolt commercial skip works... but, I sure wish the manual approach scaled across all shows and was more reliable (I don't want to rely of 1-2 individuals to do the marking).

Marking the commercials could be done by larger groups of individuals. Many of us would do it for free. Tivo could then compare the submitted commercial markings from a larger group, throw out the ones that did not match (assume they are errors), and register the final result.

In this way, almost any show could be marked rather than the limited number they do today. It would be as good as the group instead of the individual.

The alternative is to use black screen (or similar) tech, but it has been pointed out that this tech is not even close to 100%.


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## reneg (Jun 19, 2002)

hmspain said:


> The Bolt commercial skip works... but, I sure wish the manual approach scaled across all shows and was more reliable (I don't want to rely of 1-2 individuals to do the marking).
> 
> Marking the commercials could be done by larger groups of individuals. Many of us would do it for free. Tivo could then compare the submitted commercial markings from a larger group, throw out the ones that did not match (assume they are errors), and register the final result.
> 
> ...


There are lots of things that could be done. Validating a group of results is more complex both in time and effort than validating an individual's results with compute assistance. Tivo would also look at the overall cost of commercial marking plus how quickly their marks are available to customers. It seems like they are making an effort to be quicker than Dish is with Hopper.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

HarperVision said:


> I was going to post a question on here about why SkipMode wasn't implemented on my recording of Sunday night Football last night, but then while scanning through a commercial break I saw the commercial for the new Star Wars Battlefront game for PS4 and had to stop, rewind and watch it. Now I'm super glad they DIDN'T have SkipMode on it because I would've missed that incredible commercial!!! Three thumbs down for SkipMode now.......Boooo!!!!! Haha!


Read somewhere on the Tivo site that SkipMode doesn't cover sports.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

reneg said:


> It seems like they are making an effort to be quicker than Dish is with Hopper.


Dish made a deal with the providers that they would adhere to C3/C7 rules with their feature. C3/C7 are the windows used by VOD where networks require that the original commercials stay intact, and unskippable, for 3 or 7 days after the initial airing of the show. With that system Nielsen still counts VOD viewings in those windows toward their ratings. Dish agreed to use those windows as part of a settlement from the lawsuit brought against them. Even though they really won the lawsuit they are still a distributor and agreed to these terms as part of their carry agreements with these networks. Since TiVo is a standalone product they don't have to worry about that part, and the part they do have Dish already won in court.


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> SkipMode doesn't work on live TV, so even if they were to add football to the list you'd have to wait for the recording to be completely done before the SkipMode data would be available. I know most sports fans don't like to watch games like that delayed by 3+ hours, so it would only be useful to a small number of people.


I usually do miss the games and have to watch hours later via recording due to the time difference between HI and the mainland.



BigJimOutlaw said:


> Read somewhere on the Tivo site that SkipMode doesn't cover sports.


That's good because as I said I'm glad they didn't have it now anyway or I would've missed my Star Wars commercial!


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> Dish made a deal with the providers that they would adhere to C3/C7 rules with their feature. C3/C7 are the windows used by VOD where networks require that the original commercials stay intact, and unskippable, for 3 or 7 days after the initial airing of the show. With that system Nielsen still counts VOD viewings in those windows toward their ratings. Dish agreed to use those windows as part of a settlement from the lawsuit brought against them. Even though they really won the lawsuit they are still a distributor and agreed to these terms as part of their carry agreements with these networks.


Wikipedia mentions ABC & CBS. Is it really the big 4 that are covered?

You say "or 7 days". But isn't PrimeTime Anytime only applicable for 7 days? If so, then do you mean one has to choose either PrimeTime Anytime _or_ AutoHop (for networks that have the 7 day window)?

I know this is off topic, but AutoHop was one of the things that intrigued me at the time.. (I want(ed) the same things I can do with a Tivo -- own the hardware, lifetime subscription, and be able to download non-copy-protected shows.. I know there's some sort of drive-adding feature, but I don't think it's quite as capable.) Media Center with 6 tuners was the other intriguing thing, and I hate Windows! But it was intriguing for the 6 tuners (at the time, not doable on Tivo), expandable storage, and IIRC, some kinds of scriptability/customizability.


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## ArmandXP (Oct 19, 2015)

serevis said:


> In speaking with some Tivo phone reps there are 25 people working for them who are manually marking the commercials. Apparently the software isn't done yet and this is the process until it is complete. Definitely a few misses but overall I am pleased.


I'm hoping it gets better in the coming weeks. I'll get skip mode on one episode of a show, and then the next week's episode of the same show, doesn't have skip mode. I'm willing to wait out all the bugs, but hope for better support soon.


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