Re: Commercial killers
At 1:00 AM 8/1/95, Robert Hettinga wrote:
God help me, all of this reminds me of a Carl Sagan book, of all things. One of his science fiction characters was said to have made his first fortune by building a commercial zapping chip for VCRs.
Butthead Astronomer, indeed...
There have been _billions and billions_ of proposals for commercial zappers. (Actually, not such a saganesque number, but dozens at least.) Harry Bartholomew was telling me a year or so ago about some ideas for detecting volume changes. I think, however, the problem of distinguishing commercial from non-commercial signal is, I think, a tough one. My point earlier was not to actually do this, but to suggest that if the V-chip is to code various kinds of content, then the logic is strong for commercial content to be similarly coded. (For example, schools often show taped broadcasts...they might claim that it would be harmful and improper for children to be exposed to beer commercial during school hours...) This would gore the ox of the advertisers, so they might quietly have the whole V-chip thing killed. --Tim May .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@sensemedia.net | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."
| Harry Bartholomew was telling me a year or so ago about some ideas for | detecting volume changes. I think, however, the problem of distinguishing | commercial from non-commercial signal is, I think, a tough one. Yes, but the tv stations put in a short period of black & silence before returning to the show. I'm pretty confident that this is what the 'zip through commercials' vcrs cue on. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
Adam Shostack <adam@bwh.harvard.edu> writes:
Yes, but the tv stations put in a short period of black & silence before returning to the show. I'm pretty confident that this is what the 'zip through commercials' vcrs cue on.
Darned close. The article I saw said it detects the period of black and silence and puts a `notch' on the tape at each such switch. The notch can be detected at fast-forward speeds. My question is - what happens if there is black/silence *between commercials*? How does the VCR know that what follows a mark is show or merely the next commercial? -- Simmons' Law Of Alcoholic Expectations: The best stuff always happens after the meeting, when everyone goes to the bar. Correlary: Any meeting which doesn't adjourn to the bar isn't worth going to.
participants (3)
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Adam Shostack -
scs＠lokkur.dexter.mi.us -
tcmay＠sensemedia.net