🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <10574@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:
>In article <1992Sep03.042045.5095@ecst.csuchico.edu> rmintz@ecst.csuchico.edu (Rich Mintz) writes:
>>I'm interested in building a device (or making my 386sx 
>>act like one) that will be able to distinguish television 
>>commercials from television programs. I've talked to a 
>>few people and have heard of a couple of ways it is said 
>>that this can be done.
> 
>  ...
>
>>Any suggestions? Thanks.
>
>  No suggestions - but if you can come up with such a device, you
>  can probably make a lot of money with it.  (Assuming, of course,
>  that the advertising agencies do not have you done away with :-) )
>  Of course, you have to also have a mechanism for controlling
>  the TV sound with it.
>
>  I use the "mute" button on my remote, of course, as does everyone
>  else probably.  But this has the disadvantage of you still have
>  to look at the stupid picture, or else they'll switch back and
>  you'll miss the touchdown (or whatever).
>
>  John
>
>--
>John W. Nall              | Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
>nall@mailer.scri.fsu.edu  | Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida
>  "Sugar and spice/and everything nice/blend it twice/add more spice/
>   Then serve over ice..." - original recipe for making southerners

This is an old concept... A device to filter commercials on T.V.. The problem
is that there is NO WAY to tell when a commercial appears. We had a rather
lengthy discussion on this news group about this idea last year. There were
many ideas passed back and forth, but in the end, no one came up with anything
that would work 100% of the time. 
 
The volume levels do not change during a commercial in any particular way.
There is no "coded signal" in a commercial that identifies it as such.
The pause between tv shows and commercials can be variable length (from as
little as a few tenths of a second to many seconds). Therefore, you can 
simply search for a pause. (TV shows have pauses in themselves of the same
type and length)
 
An idea was to have a computer listen to commercials and shut off if it hears
a commercial that was already played... Real-time computers can do this in
less than a few tenths of a second. However, you must record the ENTIRE
commercial onto a disk. You say, "so what? Just get a large disk drive." 
Okay, now the device has to register commercials that start in the middle
or stop abruptly. It's just too complicated.

I recommend getting cable.

- Steve Weigand
 (weigand@ee.udel.edu)