[rkruthoff]

When I worked for Zattoo (leading TV streaming provider in Europe; B2C+B2B business), we developed a dynamic ad insertion technology that can do exactly that but without any hardware: https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2017/03/20/zattoo-offers-dyn...

It replaces ads in a unicast stream with targeting down to an account level - at least from a technical perspective. All server side. No box required.

Feel free to reach out if you want some feedback, advice or industry insights. Love your idea!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralf-zattoo/

[rahimnathwani]

I'm guessing their approach (switch the channel when there's an ad) is motivated by the need to keep to the cable TV company's TOS.

If you digitize the cable stream, replace the ads, and display that on your in-house TV, you're probably violating copyright and/or some TOS.

But I guess no TOS says you can't change the channel when ads are showing, so why not have a little robot help you do that?

[xenospn]

We did the same at Fabrix Systems back in 2007-8 - the real winner for OP might be giving the boxes away for free and setting up an ad auction system.

[solstice]

Isn't the point of this product to _not_ have ads anymore?

[moftz]

A business owner could sell more targeted ad space instead of whatever commercials are run by the station. During college football games on ESPN, there are no beer ads and a huge amount of ads for Coke Zero. You go to a bar to drink beer so there shouldn't be an issue with running ads for whatever beer they serve. You could display specials menus or run quick trivia games or advertise gift cards/merch. You could even run local commercials to make the system have a really visible ROI. Finding your ROI on running specials menus might require some advanced accounting skills but getting paid to run local ads requires little skill to realize the benefit.

[nicoty]

It seems to me that the point is to have targeted ads.