jes@natinst.com (Jerry E. Sullivan) (09/15/89)
Is it possible to detect impending commercials in TV broadcasts electronically? I suspect some kind of inaudible tones might be present. If there are such signals, are they filtered before they reach my home? If there is a signal, whre might I find out its exact nature? Thanks, Jerry Sullivan
rick@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Rick Miller) (09/15/89)
In article <4482@natinst.natinst.com> (Jerry E. Sullivan) writes: >Is it possible to detect impending commercials in TV broadcasts electronically? >I suspect some kind of inaudible tones might be present. If there are such >signals, are they filtered before they reach my home? If there is a signal, >whre might I find out its exact nature? > "Radio Electronics" had an article on how to 'blank out' commercials from FM radio broadcasts a while back. It's based on the fact that advertisers want very badly to be HEARD, so they often use somewhat distorted signals to get a higher apparent volume. They do this by amplifying the signal so that it's clipped to a certain degree, but not too noticably. I've noticed that TV commercials tend to seem louder too, so this same sort of detector should work. Rick
BHB3@PSUVM.BITNET (09/15/89)
A little levity: Design something to recognize the words "commercial alert" from Alf and you will eliminate the problem for 30 minutes a week.
generous@dgis.daitc.mil (Curtis Generous) (09/16/89)
In article <4482@natinst.natinst.com> (Jerry E. Sullivan) writes: >Is it possible to detect impending commercials in TV broadcasts electronically? There use to be a box on the market which allowed a VCR to pause automatically during TV commercials. Being curious on how this boxed worked, I read through the user's guide and the principle that it used was that the _only_ time that a total lack of video signal was present was during the pause right before a commercial was to start. The box would then put the VCR on pause and trigger a 30 sec timer (standard length of a commercial). If another blank showed up during this time, the timer would reset. When the timer expired, it put back the VCR to run. At worse case, you could loose about 30 seconds of your show every commercial break. --curtis -- Curtis C. Generous DTIC Special Projects Office (DTIC-SPO) ARPA: generous@daitc.mil UUCP: {uunet,vrdxhq}!dgis!generous
logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) (09/16/89)
generous@dgis.daitc.mil (Curtis Generous) writes: > through the user's guide and the principle that it used was that > the _only_ time that a total lack of video signal was present was during > the pause right before a commercial was to start. Having just learned a bit about video editing (for public access cable tv) I would guess that this is a very unreliable way to detect commercials. It is true that you often will see "black" between program and commercial, it is certainly not a requirement -- but worse still is that you might often see "black" between one scene and the next, especially if they want to highlight a time or location transistion. -- - John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - - logajan@ns.network.com / ...rutgers!umn-cs!ns!logajan / john@logajan.mn.org -
saaf@joker.optics.rochester.edu (Lenny Saaf) (09/16/89)
>> through the user's guide and the principle that it used was that >> the _only_ time that a total lack of video signal was present was during >> the pause right before a commercial was to start. > It is true that you often will see "black" between program and > commercial, it is certainly not a requirement -- but worse still is > that you might often see "black" between one scene and the next, > especially if they want to highlight a time or location transistion. My idea would be to have the TV on a tape loop similar to the ones used on radio talk shows. [Similar, that is, in purpose: to eliminate vulgarity.] The loop should be longer than the longest commercial, which might be 60 seconds. The "blurb-zapper" would look for short periods of black silence that are spaced by the length of commercials, e.g. 15, 30, and 60 seconds. This would avoid most of the problems with black silence occurring during a program. When you find such a segment, you can replace it with whatever you like when it comes through on the tape loop. Two questions: 1. What would you replace the commercials with? Music? A video tape of wildebeasts thundering across the Kalihari? Public service announcements? Silence? 2. Don't people who watch commercial television like commercials? If they didn't everyone would watch PBS, right? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Len Saaf, The Institute of Optics, Univ. of Rochester, Rochester, NY | | Internet: saaf@joker.optics.rochester.edu Bitnet: SAAF@UOROPT | ------------------------------------------------------------------------
kucharsk@uts.amdahl.com (William Kucharski) (09/16/89)
On a similar topic, has anyone out there ever built something to use the tones many satellite services use to start local cable franchises' VCRs playing local commercials to pause their own VCRs? (whew!) -- =============================================================================== | ARPA: kucharsk@uts.amdahl.com | William Kucharski | | UUCP: ...!{ames,apple,sun,uunet}!amdahl!kucharsk | Amdahl Corporation | =============================================================================== | Saying: "It's a window system named 'X,' NOT a system named 'X Windows'" | =============================================================================== | Disclaimer: "The opinions expressed above may not agree with mine at any | | other moment in time, so they certainly can't be those of my | | employer." | ===============================================================================
brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) (09/16/89)
If you install a widget to look for chroma information, and pause the recorder whenever there is some present, you'll eliminate almost all commercials and all of Ted Turner's color-excrement from those wonderful black-and-white movies that are really the only things on television worth taping these days. - Brian
nagle@well.UUCP (John Nagle) (09/17/89)
About five years ago, I encountered a unit designed to eliminate
commercials from VCR tapes recorded off the air. This unit was for sale
at a video store at the Stanford Shopping Center, for about $350. The
manual claimed that it used "AI techniques" to recognize commercials.
The device contained a TV tuner and was connected to a VCR via
the video in and wired remote control connectors. A short list of about
eight VCRs were supported. The basic way the unit operated was that
when recording, recording continued into a commercial, but about five
to ten seconds into the commercial, the unit would notice that it was
recording a commercial. The VCR then stopped, rewound briefly, switched
to play, advanced to the beginning of the commercial, and switched to
record and pause. At the end of the commercial, recording resumed
immediately. If the next segment was also a commercial, the cycle
repeated.
I spent some time playing with this unit, and was quite impressed.
I tried it on a basketball game, and it was quite happy to record the game
without any false alarms, despiteots of cuts and effects during the game.
When a commercial break started, the unit detected the commercial properly
and executed the rewind sequence. This repeated for all the commercials
during the break. After the break, the game resumed and so did recording.
Playing back the tape showed a clean edit around the commercials.
Unfortunately, I don't have the name of the manufacturer, and
the store is gone as well. If anyone has further information, I'd like
to hear it. I had no idea this device would disappear from the market.
John Naglejeffj@pedsga.UUCP (Jeff Jonas) (09/18/89)
In article <13675@well.UUCP>, nagle@well.UUCP (John Nagle) writes: > > About five years ago, I encountered a unit designed to eliminate > commercials from VCR tapes recorded off the air. I really wish that someone with the facts would speak up! I am not a video technician, and I don't play one on t.v. I read somewhere, sometime that there is some barcode in the commercials so that sponsers can have 'black boxes' watching the t.v. all day and verify that the commercials were actually broadcast. I would further guess that the codes are at both the beginning and end of the commercial in order to catch those times whan a commercial is started but not played to the end. After all, if you payed for air time, you'd want verification that you got what you paid for! Now, is this barcode a trade secret? It's rather self defeating (for the commercial advertisers) should a VCR manufacturer build-in a commercial deleter. Do all commercials have this, or only those from those sponsers who are auditing? What about other annoyances, like "Editorials" and "Editorial replies" and station identification and ads for TV shows? I never claimed to have the answers, only pointers. __________ What do electrical engineers do when capacitors fail? They have Tantalum tantrums. Jeffrey Jonas INTERNET: jeffj@pedsga.tinton.ccur.com USENET: allegra!io!mtune ---------> petsd!pedsga!jeffj decvax!mcnc!rutgers _____/
mbutts@mentor.com (Mike Butts) (09/20/89)
From article <980@pedsga.UUCP>, by jeffj@pedsga.UUCP (Jeff Jonas): > > I read somewhere, sometime that there is some barcode in the > commercials so that sponsers can have 'black boxes' watching > the t.v. all day and verify that the commercials were actually broadcast. > > I would further guess that the codes are at both the beginning and end > of the commercial in order to catch those times whan a commercial > is started but not played to the end. > After all, if you payed for air time, you'd want verification that > you got what you paid for! I haven't looked lately, but when I used to watch TV on a Commodore computer monitor that was set up without the overscan normal TVs have, I could see these little bar codes appear in the corner for a second or so at the start and end of *some* commercials (not all :-( ). I have read that these are used by fulfillment agencies' automatic verification machines for the purpose of confirming that the commercials paid for actually appeared. I have wondered since if anyone has rigged up such a gizmo for the home. A big problem is that the codes only appear on some national commercials, and I never saw them on the locals. -- Michael Butts, Research Engineer KC7IT 503-626-1302 Mentor Graphics Corp., 8500 SW Creekside Place, Beaverton, OR 97005 !{sequent,tessi,apollo}!mntgfx!mbutts mbutts@pdx.MENTOR.COM Opinions are my own, not necessarily those of Mentor Graphics Corp.
generous@dgis.daitc.mil (Curtis Generous) (09/20/89)
logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes: >generous@dgis.daitc.mil (Curtis Generous) writes: +>> through the user's guide and the principle that it used was that +>> the _only_ time that a total lack of video signal was present was during +>> the pause right before a commercial was to start. +>Having just learned a bit about video editing (for public access cable tv) +>I would guess that this is a very unreliable way to detect commercials. +>It is true that you often will see "black" between program and commercial, +>it is certainly not a requirement -- but worse still is that you might +>often see "black" between one scene and the next, especially if they want ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I had argued the same thing with the owner of this box at the time. The way he had explained to me was (he was an EE working at a television station) was that there is a difference between 'black' as you call it during a show and a lack of video that appears between commercials (I guess when they switch from one playback machine to another), and that was the principle on which this box worked. +>to highlight a time or location transistion. +>-- +>- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 +>- logajan@ns.network.com / ...rutgers!umn-cs!ns!logajan / john@logajan.mn.org --curtis -- Curtis C. Generous DTIC Special Projects Office (DTIC-SPO) ARPA: generous@daitc.mil UUCP: {uunet,vrdxhq}!dgis!generous