Sign up for a new account or log in here:
also @ TechSpot: Tea Party Republicans and 'liberal weenies' alike celebrate Texas email privacy law
Home › News › Industry News
Philips to prevent consumers from skipping commercials?
Philips suggests adding flags to commercial breaks to stop a viewer from changing channels until the adverts are over. The flags could also be recognized by digital video recorders, which would then disable the fast forward control while the ads are playing.
So it's not as bad as having your eyes held open and being forced to watch propaganda, but ultimately, people pay to be able to have the choice to see what they want. Some may argue that you can't skip past the previews and ads at a movie theater, but the numbers show that even movie theaters are becoming more and more unpopular. It gets even better, with the mention of more money being paid to "get back" the ability to skip advertisements. Is this a joke? Sadly, it's not. Hopefully it will be one of those patents that is never used, and an idea that slowly dies and fades into history. What is your opinion? Is this crossing the line? Is this acceptable?
User Comments: 7
Got something to say? Post a comment-
And some people would then hack firmwares to do things backward : Skip the flags but not the rest.
-
Maybe, if they keep current prices, but offered a low-end version with this "feature" that was 1/4 less then standered priceing.
-
I agree with DragonMaster, its not illegal to skip these adverts, but I don't even think I firmware hack is needed. A company who would make a TV/digital recorder which could still skip the adverts would be a popular choice for consumers and would be completly legal.
-
Creating forceful commercial veiwing technology will affect us all. If we don't have Tivo or any of those devices, just regular t.v., then you are at risk of being forced to watch one channel. If you can't change the channel during commercials then if your channel surfing and hit a network with a current commercial then you have to wait to change the channel.
-
It won't prevent turning the TV off, will it?
-
[b]Originally posted by Mictlantecuhtli:[/b][quote]It won't prevent turning the TV off, will it?[/quote]You can always un-plug it. No power, no go!!!
-
[b]Originally posted by enasni:[/b][quote]Creating forceful commercial veiwing technology will affect us all. If we don't have Tivo or any of those devices, just regular t.v., then you are at risk of being forced to watch one channel. If you can't change the channel during commercials then if your channel surfing and hit a network with a current commercial then you have to wait to change the channel.[/quote]What will the Cable/Satellite get from forcing you to watch the commercials? It's not like the net where you get X amount every time someone views a page. I don't get it.
Most Popular
| Trending | Featured |
-
PlayStation 4 is destroying the Xbox One in Amazon customer poll
-
In Win D-Frame Case Review
-
Noise cancellation technique harnesses magnets to silence CPU fans [video]
-
Intel Haswell-E enthusiast chip to carry eight cores and support DDR4
-
Cookie-blocking browser plugin Ghostery feeds data to the ad industry
Subscribe to TechSpot
Get free exclusive content, learn about new features and breaking tech news.