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by otakucode 3201 days ago
Back before cable companies gave everyone a DVR to try to kill Tivo (their plan was kill Tivo then kill the DVR but courts got in their way), I had a hacked Tivo with a network card. I could pull recorded shows off onto my PC. And then the PC would run a custom bit of software that would process the video and strip out the commercials (or you could have it just insert auto-jumps for the Tivo to follow). That was back in the very early 2000s... so I'd expect this would not be difficult at all now. The software back then did raw processing of the stream and, as I understood it, looked for stacks of I-frames and fade-to-black as well as volume differences. Those stats might be different for online ads, but a little experimentation would solve it.
1 comments
devotedtoneu 3201 days ago
I'm being unrelated, but thank you for this comment.

This instantly brought me back to the 2003/2004 Computer Magazine articles with customized TiVo Setups or homebrewed alternatives entirely running on a media center PC.

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otakucode 3201 days ago
It was a fun time! I got to find out that if your local cable company responds with "huh?" when you ask for a cable box with an active firewire port (just for reliable channel changing, I was never able to get video) and then call the state utilities commission when they refuse... you get a call from the actual owner of the local Time Warner franchise confused out of his mind! That was fun... he called saying "you were asking about whether our cable boxes were fireproof?" so I got to explain what Firewire was, that they were legally obligated to provide a box with an active port if I requested one under such-and-such FCC regulation, etc. They eventually figured out what checkbox on my account to tick and I got it.

I still have the hacked Tivo with its network card actually, down in the basement. Hasn't been used for probably going on a decade, but I loved that thing to death while it lasted.

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devotedtoneu 3200 days ago
I would've never guessed providing a channel-changing interface over firewire would be law! That's very interesting.

Sounds like you might've been the first to ask!

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