Skip Commercial Recording

It would be nice if there was a setting for commercial detection to not record commercials like the old TiVos used to. Tablo isn’t exposed to the same market pressures that TiVo was when they were forced to remove that feature. It would save on a lot of the FF/RW frustration since that’s 99% of the reason to use those buttons. The storage savings are substantial too since about 1/3 of time in most shows is commercial breaks.

I think you may be confused with ReplayTV, and even then, it recorded commercials.  The feature ReplayTV had was an automatic commercial skip with recordings.


I think there is software out there for PCs that will take a recording and delete the commercials from the recording.  But I have never heard of any DVR that could avoid recording commercials in the first place.  

I seriously doubt Tablo will ever implement an automatic commercial skip functionality, but they are working hard to make it easier to skip commericals with thumbnails.  

ReplayTV, TiVo whatever. The point being it is back in the day the advertisers didn't like it so they pressured the cable companies who pressured ReplayTV. Tablo doesn't answer to cable companies so no issue.  Not really interested in software on my PC that strips out commercials as I just don't want to thumb through them while watching TV, I'm not making an archive of American Dad episodes. The thumbnails on FF/RW are most definitely needed but the entire lack of commercials would be ideal.

There is a reason ReplayTV does not exist anymore and TiVo still does.

It’s been asked for again and again and I don’t think it’s a feature that will ever be implemented.

There is a reason OTA has been mandated as free. Start making devices that skip commercials and the networks will have reasons to tell the CRTC or FCC that they will no longer broadcast OTA signals. Then you’re stuck with only cable.

OTA only exists because of government intervention these days, it is not a very good way for networks to monetize their content.

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Just take a look at the Dish Hooper and Primtime anytime (or whatever its called) that allowed you to skip commercials on ALL network channels.


I believe they are still in litigations.

Besides… no commercials means no advertising money to the network which inevitably means … no more free tv.

Thumbnail preview on the tablo for all recordings will prove to be MOST useful in my house as I hate commercials and equally hate pressing the right arrow on the roku remote 16 times to skip commercials :slight_smile:

love the thumbnail previews.
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We have looked at a few options for commercial skip technology but none of them were a good fit for Tablo specifically. We’ll always keep an eye out for options though.

Just throwing this new startup product skipr.tv into the thread mix, as it was noted in reddit’s r/cordcutter.  http://www.cordcuttersnews.com/automatically-skip-commercials-on-live-tv-with-the-skipr/

From what I read, it seems to replace commercials with content, as opposed to eliminate. Yet, when used with a DVR, the commercials can be skipped once synchronized.  Skipr’s is an Android TV app. Seems to be in very early beta testing stage.

Interestingly, Skipr.tv website has the feel of Tablo’s website. Also, "It’s worth noting that Skipr hasn’t actually shown its technology in action."

And,

Skipr maintains that it’s legally in
the clear because it’s not recording or re-transmitting any video
itself, nor is it actually skipping over any video…”

Uh… Skipr is replacing paid for “live tv” commercials with other things of the user’s choice.  I smell a lawsuit.


Let me clarify that a bit… in an attempt to thwart things, they are more or less changing “the channel” when a commercial comes on and switching back when the commercials are done.  Similar to what you’d do with your remote (if so skilled).  But still… I do believe the error here is in the automation done on “Live TV”. 

@streambird - I saw this yesterday but wasn’t super excited. The reason people want to skip commercials is because they want to finish the show sooner and/or don’t want their show to be interrupted. It just replaces tampon commercials with cat videos which is an improvement, but doesn’t really solve the issue.

@TabloTV, looks like it replaces it with “whatever”… for example, you can configure it to watch a different channel while a commerical is playing on the channel you’re currently viewing.  IMHO, this would be complex to do as some sort of transparent “thing”… so I believe their is going to be difference between “what they say” vs. “how you do it” with regards to how “easy” it will be to operate.  I could see this being a “crash and burn from day one”.

How about allowing the recordings partition be mapped via SMB or something. That way a script could be written to scan the SMB share and run some of the 3rd party commercial skipping apps on all detected video files.

You guys wouldn’t be responsible for the skipping, and it adds the download functionality you are already considering.

The recordings for a show are not a single file but many files. The third party app would have to build a single file first then parse for commercials.

This is what SurLaTablo script is doing.

While true and while mplayer and ffplay and others can play the commercialess files… they are “wrongly formattted”.

Which causes audio out of sync problems for non-skilled players (e.g. Plex, even Plex via Roku)… especially noticeable on 1080p from the Tablo (please note there is NOT even a tiny bit of quality gain from 720p to 1080p on the Tablo… just saying… I do urge everyone to compare for themselves).

I’m still playing with it… tell you the truth, it’s not that interesting of a feature anymore… I think people want “mass delete” more.  But I’ll still keep working on it… and I do have a fatal bug problem to push out as 0.91 soon (only happens when removing commercials).

The recordings for a show are not a single file but many files. The third party app would have to build a single file first then parse for commercials.

This is what SurLaTablo script is doing.

But I still think some sort of shared folder that is mappable would allow surlatablo to edit the files in place without having to remove the HDD each time.

surlatablo pull files from the server, drive stays attached.

This is how tablo2go works as well.


surlatablo pull files from the server, drive stays attached.

This is how tablo2go works as well.

It’s not an “in place” edit however.  It’s a pull over the network… that’s all I’m saying.

That is fantastic. I’m going to look more into surlatablo. Thanks to everyone for informing me.

New version of surlatablo will be out in a few days.  Will contain “fix” for the out of sync audio/video problem especially noticeable on high bitrate vids (basically, it just does an ultrafast transcode to fix the issue… takes a bit longer, but it works).

Online example here.

ReplayTV, TiVo whatever. The point being it is back in the day the advertisers didn't like it so they pressured the cable companies who pressured ReplayTV. Tablo doesn't answer to cable companies so no issue.  Not really interested in software on my PC that strips out commercials as I just don't want to thumb through them while watching TV, I'm not making an archive of American Dad episodes. The thumbnails on FF/RW are most definitely needed but the entire lack of commercials would be ideal.

One of the ways this used to be accomplished was for the software to look (listen) for things like the volume increase in commercials, the blank space between program and commercial, etc. Many broadcasters make adjustments to get around the automatic commercial skip software, which also sometimes gave false positives depending on the material and skipped parts of the program. Likewise legislation was also enacted to deal with consumer complaints of load commercials.


Much automated commerical skipping on live programs is mostly dead.