ReplayTVBlog

One of the most sought after features of any DVR is the ability to effortlessly skip TV Commercials. For all the effort (and money) advertisers put into making commercials, we just don’t want to be forced to watch them. How about AntiVirus for our DVR to get rid of those evil commercials.

Enter a new patent application that was recently filed for a system to detect and eliminate TV Commercials from recordings on a DVR. Basically, this system would involve a database of commercials stored on the DVR and anytime a commercial comes on, the DVR would check it’s database and if it found a matching commercial, it wouldn’t record it.

Of course, an application like this would require that it’s “database” of commercials is constantly updated with new commercials — just like virus definition updates for the AntiVirus program running on your computer!

While this sounds like an interesting idea, I don’t think it will ever be viable as a commercial product. As proven by the ReplayTV and it’s famous commercial advance, the TV industry will never allow such a product to come to market. In the case of ReplayTV and Commercial Advance, they were sued and forced to remove the feature from new ReplayTV models.

But there is always a chance that something like this could be developed as an open source application for Media Center computers . With no company to sue, there would be no real way for the TV industry to stop it.

Technorati Tags: DVR, PVR, ReplayTV, AntiVirus, Commercials

via USA Today

Popularity: 25%