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Big Game Sunday & IFTTT tests

40K views 279 replies 89 participants last post by  krkaufman 
#1 · (Edited)
Hey all,

I wanted to give you all a heads-up about a couple of experiments we're working on for this Sunday's big game. We don't usually tag commercial breaks in sporting events, because sporting events are mostly watched live, and many of them are regional by nature.

That said, everyone knows that this Sunday's commercials are some of the best, highest quality commercials of the year. So, we're going to tag the game backwards, with the commercials and the halftime show marked as if it were the program, and the game marked as if it was the commercial.

As usual, the SKIP function will not show up until after the game has finished. But, once the green SKIP icon shows up next to your recording of the game, you can watch the recording and use the SKIP or D button to jump to the commercial segments quickly. Padding the game with extra time at the end of the recording should not be a problem either. We'll keep tagging until the game is done.

This "GameSkip" functionality should work for all TiVo boxes that have SKIP enabled today. However, there are a few things that could go wrong. We use closed-captioning data as a guide to lineup our commercial tag markers with the program. This works great for regular shows, but not all commercials have closed-captioning. Similarly, if there are lots of local/regional commercials that air during the game, that could screw things up as well. If you record the game from NBC and your local station doesn't do anything fancy, we think (fingers crossed) it should work for everyone.

As an added bonus, we're starting to go live with support for IFTTT. IFTTT is an acronym that stands for "if this, then that". They are a free service that provides connections between tons of consumer electronics device and Internet services. We have pre-programmed a few example "Applets" on IFTTT to help you get started. One of them allows you to have IFTTT send a button command to your TiVo box whenever a commercial break is detected. Once you have enabled this Applet, it will send the SKIP / D button to your box every time a commercial airs. Or, when combined with our Big Game experiment, you can use it to watch the game afterwards, and IFTTT will jump you from commercial break to commercial break automatically, stopping only to include the half-time show. If you have a Roamio or BOLT device running TiVo Experience 3 or TiVo Experience 4 (aka Hydra), you will receive a TiVo message and an invite to join IFTTT. These messages will start to go out in the next day or two, along with an App on your TiVo box that gives you a code to pair your TiVo account with your IFTTT account.

For auto-skip to work, you need to be running TiVo Experience 4. We will be enabling IFTTT for all devices running TE4. We are working to support IFTTT on TiVo Experience 3 with all other features, but there are still a lot more boxes running TE3, and we won't be able to activate them all on IFTTT this week, probably only 100,000 or so. The remainder of the boxes will be enabled in waves over the next couple of weeks.

We will have example IFTTT Applets that show you how to trigger the find-my-remote button using your voice from a Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa powered device. We are also working to create a TiVo Skip command so that you can tell your Google or Amazon device to send the skip button command. I'll weigh in with more details in the coming days, but I wanted to make sure you all heard it here first!

This is just the beginning of us enabling the smart home services that we showed at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month. We have lots more coming, and also plan to bring these features back to Premiere customers running TiVo Experience 3 as well. Stay tuned.

-Ted
 
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#4 ·
And it appears that this killer feature strongly resembles kmttg's AutoSkip feature which works with gen3. If, in fact, TiVo will now be tagging the end of program segments in addition to the beginning, this will greatly improve kmttg's version which currently has to do some intelligent guessing on segment end tags (if I'm correctly recalling how that operates). I confidently hope that kmttg will be updated to take advantage of this new information, if available. :)
 
#7 ·
The app on the TiVo only does one thing - it helps you link your accounts. From that point on, the TiVo box talks and listens to the TiVo service. The TiVo service then talks and listens to IFTTT. In the case of Auto-Skip, the box just alerts the service (and then IFTTT) that a commercial break has occurred. Then, an Applet on IFTTT decides what to do. The Applet could open your garage door or set off a siren for all we know. In this case, the Applet sends a button press back to your TiVo box. You can choose any button, but the "D" button sends the skip command. The round-trip takes about 4 seconds.
 
#6 ·
This is like my dream I can't stand football and don't want to see one second of the game. Only record for commercials and halftime lol. It would be better if skip worked in real time because I probably won't wait until its totally over to start watching. The auto skip sounds awesome as well! Thanks for the updates!
 
#8 ·
This is just the beginning of us enabling the smart home services that we showed at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month.
I'd prefer user profiles and associated personalization, even if only through a mobile app UI, but this all sounds interesting and could be fun, and (nearly) any innovation is better than none.

Hope the NFL experiment works out, though having both start & stop markers for commercial breaks would be a boon across the board.
 
#9 ·
Stupid question.....

When I go to IFTTT to activate, it asks me:

Enter the activation code from your TiVo device.

Where is this?
 
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#11 ·
Stupid question.....

When I go to IFTTT to activate, it asks me:

Enter the activation code from your TiVo device.

Where is this?
Hey all,
If you have a Roamio or BOLT device running TiVo Experience 3 or TiVo Experience 4 (aka Hydra), you should receive an invite to join IFTTT in the next day or two, along with an App on your TiVo box that gives you a code to pair your TiVo account with your IFTTT account.
 
#17 ·
Sweet - Thanks Ted!

One more quick question - will the option be available for Mini's as well (or just work automatically if it is set on the Roamio/Bolt)?

Great feature addition! Off topic question - any chance of skip mode tagging for big sports events like Olympics or National Championship games on network TV? Only think to ask since the super bowl is getting special treatment...
 
#18 ·
I just had to re-edit my original post here. I have been informed that we still have so many boxes running TiVo Experience 3 that we will need to enable boxes to run IFTTT in waves. We should have about 100,000 boxes enabled this week, and we can do 20k-50k boxes every day or two starting next week. That means it will take us 2-3 weeks to get IFTTT turned on for everyone. Apparently we've increased the rate at which we communicate between the device & service to 250 milliseconds, and we need to be careful not to go too fast.
 
#23 ·
I received my access code and set up an account. IFTTT only lets you set up auto skip for one box. I selected my Roamio Plus. It worked on the Roamio Plus although it seemed slightly delayed before auto skip kicked in.

It did not work on my Mini's. Perhaps it can be updated to select Auto Skip for all boxes. Glad they added this.
 
#38 ·
That is sort of what I thought might be the case, but then the app showed up, and somebody mentioned it was working on their Roamio Plus. They must have upgraded to gen 4. Both my RP and Bolt are still gen 3. It is tempting to upgrade my Bolt to Hydra. I was _hoping_ maybe things got rolled out earlier than planned. It has been known to happen. Maybe not with TiVo, but I always get my packages from Amazon earlier than the projected delivery date. ;)
 
#54 ·
I got it set up and working tonite. A few times it was wayyy longer than 5 seconds so I skipped using the D button but later it would kick in and double skip bascially so I would have to rew but then once the prompt re appeared and it double skipped again lol. Im sure its just new and takes time to get used to. I love the idea tho
 
#55 ·
Yeah, I was concerned about that impatience factor...
What happens if the user presses the "D" button on their remote during that 4-second window, before the IFTTT button press arrives?
Might be worthwhile creating a new network-only skip "button" that can be sent from IFTTT, and ignored if a manual skip from a traditional source has been received within the expected IFTTT auto-skip window.
 
#58 ·
Is it going to be working for TiVo experience 3 in time for the super bowl? Why are you rolling this out to experience 3 boxes if it doesn't work?
You may want to give @TiVo_Ted's OP another read. You're confusing IFTTT and auto-skip with the separate experiment they're conducting for the Super Bowl, related to skipping content to more quickly get to the ads (if I'm understanding the premise).
 
#60 · (Edited)
Unfortunately, IFTTT functionality will not work as intended when it comes to events that require near-instantaneous actions (e.g. auto-skip). In ideal situations it might work good enough but things are rarely ever ideal and many variables are beyond the control of the consumer (e.g. Tivo Cloud and IFTTT server load). This might not be a big deal if the auto-skip task wasn't critical but it is. One might say, "Why is the task critical? It's just an auto-skip task". Here's the problem: If the task is delayed you have two options, you either wait for it to process or you manually skip because the auto-task process is taking to long to execute. In both instances you'll grow increasingly more frustrated because you'll either be forced to watch some ads while you wait for the task to execute or you'll get double skips if you choose to be impatient and just manually skip.

These issues can already be seen in above posts. One post already complained about a double skip and another post said there was significant latency. Expect to see a ton of these sorts of posts in the future.
 
#61 · (Edited)
Been over 24 hrs already since the new IFTTT SKIP feature, why is it taking so long to fix the double SKIP bug. And I did't buy a Tivo to sit through 4 seconds of commercials! ;)

...IFTTT is a great enhancement to Tivo. I'm sure these minor issues will be worked out. And if the 4 seconds delay is an issue, then just set up kmttg on a Raspberry Pi Zero :)
 
#63 ·
Been over 24 hrs already since the new IFTTT SKIP feature, why is it taking so long to fix the double SKIP bug. And I did't buy a Tivo to sit through 4 seconds of commercials! ;)

...IFTTT is a great enhancement to Tivo. I'm sure these minor issues will be worked out. And if the 4 seconds delay is an issue, then just set up kmttg on a Raspberry Pi Zero :)
The double skip issue isn't a bug -- the IFTTT applet operates exactly as intended when the issue occurs. Also, the four second delay is merely an ideal figure thrown out by Tivo. In reality, the delay will vary widely. Google 'IFTTT delay' or 'IFTTT slow' and you'll see what I mean. If it were always four seconds, the double skip issue wouldn't even be a problem for most people (unless you REALLY don't like ads... LOL).

For the record, I have extensive experience with IFTTT and smart home platforms in general. I have also spent countless hours working with IFTTT. As such, I totally agree that IFTTT integration is an awesome addition to Tivo. I just felt it was necessary to point out that IFTTT doesn't really do well with critical tasks that require near-instant execution.
 
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