Newbie query - commercials

[svevo]

Yes, I've already found the 30 second "hack," but before that I'd noticed that when I fast forward through a cluster of commercials, if I over-shoot a bit, my HD Tivo will skip back a little to the end of the final commerical so that I miss none of the show. Much like the way certain Photoshop tools will jump to any clear nearby line.

So my question is, since the Tivo seems already to know exactly where a commercial cluster ends, is there a way to access this ability and get it to jump past a whole cluster?

Alternatively, must the numeric element of the 30 second hack be 30 or would some other number, say 120 or 180 work also? There's no such thing anymore as a 30 second break. I've counted up to 15 commercials in a single three and a half minute stretch. Seven skips do beat fast-forwarding, but they're still a pain in the eye.

fg

[ZeoTiVo]

nope- the skip back after FFing is actually a nuber of seconds as well - 2xFF is 8 sec for instance.

the 30 sec skip is just that without extenive physical hacking to get at the number

[greg_burns]

Don't forget that you have an 8 second Instant Replay button. The 30sec Skip and the 8sec IR is a great combo for skipping commercials.

[classicsat]

"30" isn't a variable, it is a fixed part of the code.

[civicracer24]

TiVo doesn't actually "know" where the end of the commercial is when you hit Play while FF'ing... it just jumps back with a calculated guess stemming from natural human reaction time.

[BobB]

Yes, I've already found the 30 second "hack," but before that I'd noticed that when I fast forward through a cluster of commercials, if I over-shoot a bit, my HD Tivo will skip back a little to the end of the final commerical so that I miss none of the show. Much like the way certain Photoshop tools will jump to any clear nearby line.

Not exactly. The TiVo has no way of knowing what video is a commercial and what is part of a show (if it did, it could have a button that skips commercials precisely - wouldn't that be fun!)

What's happening, as the posters above have tried to point out, is that TiVo ALWAYS backs up a bit when you return to play mode after fast forwarding in 2x or 3x mode. It does it more in 3X than 2x, because 3x is 60x normal play speed while 2x is 20x normal, so there's likely to be more overshoot. It's really kind of a learned skill to be able to watch the fast-forwarding images and hit Play at just the right moment to jump back to exactly where the commercial ends.

I have read that the exact amount of skip-back is adjustable with a hack, but personally I don't think it's worth the trouble to try. As you've seen yourself, for a person with normal reflexes it usually hits pretty darn close to the right spot.