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TiVopony drops some details

User and TiVo employee "tivopony" drops into the TiVo Community Forum every now and then to give official company policy on a whole host of things. It's always been one of the great things about TiVo, that they embraced an active user community while at the same time empowering employees to speak candidly about their product.

Last night, tivopony posted some details in the thread about the possible new ads in TiVo. He clears up a lot of speculation that's come up here and elsewhere, about how the feature will look and act and what will and will not happen to the TiVo featureset in general.

The highlights:

• TiVo knows when commercials start and stop using hidden tags
• They will be similar to the current "thumbs up on this ad for more info" feature, but be larger and graphical
• they won't be full screen, so you'll be able to see around them
• the ads will only be tied to the commercials you're skipping past. So no generic commercials over others
• no ads when you pause
• the generic data they may sell to networks and advertisers will remain anonymous and pooled with everyone else's data

It's good to hear a somewhat official word from someone at TiVo HQ, though I still think most fears would be assuaged if they released a screenshot somewhere so folks could see what it looks like.

by Matt Haughey November 18, 2004 in News

Comments

"Hidden tags." Probably just bits in the VBI. Nice, built in indicators so other PVR vendors can use them to skip ads.

Posted by: Ian at Nov 20, 2004 7:39:48 PM

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