TiVo Ad Pre-Roll Plans Makes National Radio

The pre-roll ads aren't on TE3 yet.

shwru980r said:

The pre-roll ads aren't on TE3 yet.

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Key word!

Since there was a lot of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) last Sunday, I may either call into the show tomorrow or update Leo via chat to provide an update from what was discovered over the last week. If you happen to be in the IRC chat, my nick is Mike_B.

Regardless of the merits (or lack thereof) on this pre-roll advertising idea, I'm mildly impressed by how unanimously negative the response has been across multiple outlets. TiVo's barely had a peep of news coverage all year, but boy-howdy, they've really stepped in a pile of it this time.

Did TiVo hire the PR people from EA's loot box debacle last year?

mbernste said:

Leo Laporte of ZD/TechTV fame and author of "Leo Laporte's Guide To TiVo" discussed TiVo's ad pre-roll plans on his nationally syndicated radio show. Basically he says, "bye bye TiVo." You can see his monologue about it at the link below. Bad press for TiVo.

TIVO To Put Ads on Your DVR Recordings | The Tech Guy

Humblebrag--I'm the one who told him about it.

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Thanks--it was interesting to listen to. As I had posted earlier, Laporte also briefly mentioned the pre-roll ad development in last Sunday's edition of TWiT (This Week in Tech.), with a similar take.

Of course, as he can tend to do, he got some of the facts wrong, including by saying that the viewer cannot skip over the pre-roll. He also didn't know that one still could use/opt into TE3 and avoid the pre-roll (with some exceptions)--a caller called in with that information. Nor did he know or say anything about being able to call into TiVo customer support and asking to be exempted from the pre-roll ads (depending on various factors).

Mikeguy said:

Thanks--it was interesting to listen to. As I had posted earlier, Laporte also briefly mentioned the pre-roll ad development in last Sunday's edition of TWiT (This Week in Tech.), with a similar take.

Of course, as he can tend to do, he got some of the facts wrong

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That's where the FUD came into play. At the time of his broadcast, none of that was generally known. It was from subsequent discussions on this board, including Tivo_Ted's clarification that more information became known. I intend to clarify some of this with Leo tomorrow when he does his show.

mbernste said:

That's where the FUD came into play. At the time of his broadcast, none of that was generally known. It was from subsequent discussions on this board, including Tivo_Ted's clarification that more information became known. I intend to clarify some of this with Leo tomorrow when he does his show.

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Yep, understood. I like him on TWiT, but I've noticed, e.g. on his call-in help show, that he can tend to say things that are not the case when he instead (as here) should avoid commenting, such as when he doesn't know, or simply say that he doesn't know, instead of making statements implying that he does know and getting them wrong.

Dan203 said:

Key word!

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Ain't that the truth! I know for a fact that TiVo is asking for beta testers for new TE3 changes, but I have no idea just WHAT those changes might be. It scares the hell out of me though.

V7Goose said:

Ain't that the truth! I know for a fact that TiVo is asking for beta testers for new TE3 changes, but I have no idea just WHAT those changes might be. It scares the hell out of me though.

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I think we all know what those changes are going to be. They haven't touched TE3 in over a year, now this comes along and they want testers. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to do that math.

V7Goose said:

Ain't that the truth! I know for a fact that TiVo is asking for beta testers for new TE3 changes, but I have no idea just WHAT those changes might be. It scares the hell out of me though.

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Dan203 said:

I think we all know what those changes are going to be. They haven't touched TE3 in over a year, now this comes along and they want testers. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to do that math.

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It is absolutely apparent that it's to test the awaited TiVo Mini Wireless Adapter and the Roku/Fire TV/Apple TV TiVo app on the TE3 platform, and to assure the issuance of those technologies for TE3.

And no, I'm not going to listen to anything otherwise.

TiVo has turn into FOX territory in terms of burn in hell.

ufo4sale said:

TiVo has turn into FOX territory in terms of burn in hell.

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Funny, I was gonna say the same thing about CNN and the NYT.

Dan203 said:

I think we all know what those changes are going to be. They haven't touched TE3 in over a year, now this comes along and they want testers. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to do that math.

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I sent support a request to join the TE3 beta program. They sent me a link that didn't work.

If they roll out a new TE3 with the pre-roll ads... maybe it'll just be for Bolts. That won't be so bad. I was considering putting TE4 on my Bolt anyway. Hope they don't touch my Roamio. That could happen, right? Right??? My worst fear is a TE3 that has all the bad things of TE4 (pre-roll ads, no ability to transfer from PC to TiVo) but none of the good things (autoskip). Streaming from Plex sux compared to playing programs transferred from my PC to TiVo via pyTivo, mostly when it comes to "trick-play" or whatever it is called (30ss forward, 8 second back, etc).

JoeKustra said:

I sent support a request to join the TE3 beta program. They sent me a link that didn't work.

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Maybe it only works if you're running TE4 on the enrolled box?

I have been running TE4 on my Bolt since the first day it was available and have not seen any ads inserted at the start of any of my recordings and my Bolt has the latest update installed on it.

TiVo used to have ad’s that where dowloaded to your playlist that you could watch if you want.
I don’t think TiVo’s
market saturation is high enough
for them to charge much money for the ad’s

The hoops you have to go thru to get a TIVO on a cable system is so high that it keeps many from switching from cable box’s to a TiVo

rjrsouthwest said:

I have been running TE4 on my Bolt since the first day it was available and have not seen any ads inserted at the start of any of my recordings and my Bolt has the latest update installed on it.

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TiVo said that it's a 90-day rollout.

rjrsouthwest said:

I have been running TE4 on my Bolt since the first day it was available and have not seen any ads inserted at the start of any of my recordings and my Bolt has the latest update installed on it.

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You will within 90 days.