The ONLY time you should assume that one wants to see the commercials, is if the user turns off the skip function.
Otherwise, should the user hit the FF button and happen stop it in the middle of a marked break, the Tablo should immediately and without hesitation start playback at the next program marker.
FF to get back to a general area of the program is a very common practice, and odds are very very high that the user will stop inside a commercial break. Making that assumption, that it was intentional, is a very bad idea.
I actually disagree with this. If I am manually fast forwarding it is a for a reason and I like that the Tablo resumes exactly where I FF to. I wouldnât want it to resume at the next marked show segment.
If you let the com skip do its thing during playback at the end of a show segment, it will automatically skip over the segment marked as commercial as intended.
Tabloâs current implementation is an all or nothing server setting. Either all recordings get commercial skip or none do. There is no user selectable per recording or per series setting.
Some users donât think every recording needs or deserves commercial skip. Some people may want to actually see a certain recordings commercials. And continually turning the commercial skip option on and off to achieve your design probably doesnât work. Especially when you have multiple family members concurrently viewing different recordings.
I agree. The functionality, as implemented, allows for multiple usage styles. As you said, if you want it to work exactly as expected, just donât touch anything and it will. Thatâs the whole point.
Since the skip functionality is not perfect (and may never be), there has to be a way for a user to get into the marked area in case it isnât actually a commercial. So that ability exists.
Maybe some day it will be perfect and also smart enough to realize that this recording is waste of a humanâs time. It will then remove everything but the opening and closing credits.
Iâm discussing what happens during playback. Either honor the markers, or donâtâitâs very simple. The whole purpose of commercial skip is, Iâm here to watch the showânot the commercials. If Iâm FF through the show, itâs because Iâm watching the showâand stopping in the middle of commercials is NOT my intention. Itâs an accident, an artifact of the whole FF mechanism. Whenever I stop, I want to be at program. I want the automated system to understand that commercial skip is ON, so donât show commercials.
If I want commercials, I can turn skip OFF for that show/session. For example, accurate commercial detection may fail for any number of reasonsâso for that show only, I will turn off skip during playback knowing full well that now Iâm back to old-school playback.
I do this all the time today. Again, hereâs something thatâs existed for a long, long time on other platformsâbut Tablo decides to do it in a worse way.
If itâs during playback for that session, it absolutely works.
Seeing commercials after I FF when I have playback set for skipping commercials absolutely defeats the purpose.
Absolutely. âHey, on this show for whatever reason I donât want you to skip commercials.â No big deal.
But if I do have commercial skip turned on, and should I FF and end up stopping during a commercial break, I donât want anyone to assume I stopped that FF at that point intentionally. The fact that Iâve chosen to skip commercials during playback should override any such notion.
Why are you fast forwarding if commercial skip is on anyway? Isnât one of the main purposes of commercial skip is so that you donât have to use that functionality anymore? (Barring special events like sports or award ceremonies where watching the whole show is not that important)
Itâs also very easy to avoid FF to a commercial spot. It is well marked, and as long as you havenât started playing again, you can keep FF past the commercial to avoid seeing that commercial break.
So Iâve finished the show and want to go back and find some specific part or parts. Maybe Iâm doing that later, because I want to show my wife something specific. Or itâs a couple weeks later, and the newest episode makes reference to something in a previous episodeâsomething I want to re-visit.
I will use FF and REW to do that.
Just wow. The blind defense of Tablo is astounding.
Itâs not blind defence. Yes if you want to FF or RW to part of the show to re-watch it or show it to someone, you can do that readily, easily and freely with how everything is implemented currently. No need for any changes to be made.
Most of us responding are just having a very hard time understanding your logic. While that doesnât mean your logic is wrong, it just means the majority canât comprehend it.
That was literally the logic for the implementation of this feature.
Yes, we could have made you go into the player settings and turn off skipping and then go back and find the section you wanted in order to access that content, but we felt that would be a bit too painful, especially since weâre still tweaking algorithms.
I and others who have actually used the feature agree with the logic of how it is currently implemented. Maybe after the dust settles and others have actually used the feature, you could take a poll / survey to see if people want more clicks to be able to FF / RW into a commercial segment?
