So if a feature is implemented exactly as you dream and the cost of implementation in the base tablo and all apps is $20,000 just how many new units would be sold to recover the initial investment of $20,000.
And of course the idea is to make more then the initial investment. Not break even.
Tablo has announced a new commercial skip feature. Once turned on it applies to recordings made on all channels. Someone ask about having the feature per channel because PBS already has few if any commercials. Doesn’t the competition already allow per channel commercial removal? Did Tivo also announce a number of new features? Does Tablo need to keep up with the competition?
Ask Tablo if they think they need to keep up with the competition.
Better yet, tell Tablo “no, you don’t need to keep up with the competition–just do whatever comes to mind, don’t worry, I’ll buy it” and see what they say.
And what competition do they have for commercial skip? Oh, none. Not even ReplayTV anymore. Yes, there are homebrew setups that use Comskip or similar and which may allow one to set up custom commercial skip parameters on a per-channel basis (I’m running something like that now inside WMC). No one is suggesting that they need to compete with homebrew solutions.
If the rest of the world has a feature set that has come to be accepted as what’s basic, then a developer like Tablo has to accept that and work within that world, yes. If they can’t figure out how to do it and make money, that’s not the rest of the world’s problem. It’s not up to me to buy whatever they sell just because they sell it. “Hey, all the other choices have features A, B, and C; do you? No? Then I won’t buy yours.” End of story.
That’s the real world any developer has to live in.
The Tivo does do some limited commercial skip. The commercial markers are made by humans, by hand, and are made available to the Tivo world the next day.
As such, the commercial markers are made only for prime time major network shows.
That’s way different than using machine automation to look at any and every show I record, and determine the markers, and make them available to me at playback time. My WMC machine does it today using ShowAnalyzer; many others use Comskip.
More important to me, my setup today not only finds the commercial markers, but uses them automatically during playback. No need to press a button to skip.
Based on what I know of the ReplayTV situation with commercial skip, my guess is that Tablo will find and mark the commercials–but they probably won’t go so far as to automatically skip over them.
Yes, Plex offers a setup that integrates a couple of third party bits to create a no-commercial environment. But the bits don’t come from Plex. It’s a big science experiment.
And regarding the Plex implementation:
“Commercial detection is not always perfect.
Removal is a “destructive” process. That is to say, whatever is detected as a commercial will be removed forever from the recording and if an incorrect detection is made, it is not possible to restore the deleted sections.”
they’re using Comskip PLUS MCEBuddy to create a brand new file without commercials. That’s different than simply marking the commercials and having a playback engine that recognizes the markers.
There’s no way I’d use a destructive process like that. My system today lets me turn the skip feature off for the duration of the program playback, should I so desire. And sometimes I do; Hollywood LOVES dark scenes, and dark scenes look like transition to commercial quite often. As a result, a dark show doesn’t play back well with commercial skip today.
(Here’s to hoping Tablo has improved algorithms over ShowAnalyzer or Comskip.)
No, commercial skip should be NON-destructive. From what I read of Tablo’s implementation, that’s how they do it. Comskip plus MCEBuddy to a new file while deleting the old one–that’s a recipe for failure.
the words “shut up and take my money” come to mind right now.
The concern long term, though, is that Hollywood will do to Tablo what they did to ReplayTV. The 5500 series came out with the commercials marked, but not automatically skipped–it was a nod to the heavy pressure Replay was getting from the entertainment industry.
Probably more like the DISH Hopper commercial skip software. Just a few legal challenges to cripple a small VC company.
Of course destructive commercial skip software could be a blessing. Lots of OTA programs are so bad you wish you could set the comskip software to remove everything but the commercials.
