166
TiVo Plans to End Free Automatic Commercial Skipping in November, Tests Paid Premium Replacement Service
(cordcuttersnews.com)
The boomers will pay it too
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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Technology
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Huh, boomer bad amirite
With technology? Hopelessly bad. People need to look out for their family in this sense.
TIVO still exists?
literally the first words out of my mouth. It seeing a news headline about TiVo feels like i'm back in 2001
same here, I was like what year is this
Well... For now....
Yeah there’s not much reason to use it anymore so chipping away at it now guarantees its death.
Depends on the use case. If you're someone that wants to watch shows that air on broadcast television, OTA (over the air) DVRs are a great way to get TV content without a cable or streaming service subscription. With the increased number of OTA stations now that represents a lot of ad-skippable content. We get close to 40 OTA stations at our house with just an antenna in the attic.
Jellyfin does that
Appliance based DVRs are turn-key solutions. I hope we both agree setting up a Linux box, obtaining a compatible OTA tuner, downloading and configuring Jellyfin all on hardware that is easily integrated into a general home entertainment setting is not a trivial task that most non-technically inclined folks can accomplish.
I personally ran PC based software DVRs for many years predating Jellyfin, but even in those years we had a Tivo for the wife.
Gather ‘round kids, time for a story. The year was 2003, and TiVo had defined the category of DVRs and instantly become indispensable. People loved that they could fast-forward through commercials, much to the chagrin of networks and advertisers.
But a new competitor entered the scene: ReplayTV, a product that did everything TiVo did with one major added benefit: it automatically detected and skipped commercials without having to press a button. It was glorious. So naturally, like all things which improve the life of a consumer, the powers-that-be took umbrage. Funded by TiVo lobbying, the FCC decided that not having to press a button on a remote was a bridge too far. ReplayTV was crushed by a heavy fine and ban, relegating them to the tech scrap heap. Thus TiVo maintained their position as market leader, despite having an inferior experience.
All this to say: fuck you TiVo, you wasted your brand clout and position by getting into bed with the same lawmakers who fomented your demise when the HD era was legislated to ban commercial-skipping mechanisms.
Damn, that sound spike Inuti/TurboTax making taxes easier, then using all that profit to lobby against anyone making taxes even easier.
My mom watched Coronation Street. She wasn't home when it was on because she had a job like so many other people.
We got this VCR that would record the show then erase the commercials because networks couldn't resist playing ads louder so it would detects the volume increase and tag those as ad starts and finishes. When you went back to watch the show the ads would fast forward.
Ironically, it's those ephemeral local ads you were erasing that were worth saving and not the shows that are still available.
Edit: If someone says they have a VHS copies of the X-Files, I wouldn't take them UNLESS they had all the advertisements. I can get the X-Files streamed or on DVD or Blueway or MK4. What I can't get is a 1:1 recording of the experience of watching the show as it was watched at the time in Dubuque, Iowa. Now, yes, commercials do suck, but it's a little different when they're a peek into a lost world.
*(I'd also need to get a VCR player and a CRT, too.)
I have a copy of The Hunt For Red October that was taped in December off of HBO, and it's got this ad before it for...you know those children's games, it's a plastic enclosure, you fill it with water, there are like little plastic rings or balls, and you like push a button to squirt water around the enclosure to move the rings around, it's like if you explained the concept of Pinball to someone, and the only language you share in common is Klingon? I have a late 80's early 90's ad for that.
People are downvoting you, but I get it. My dad loved old time radio shows. And his favorite part was the old advertisements.
I'm guessing the downvoters have no nostalgia for advertisements--because they never watched them or because they are too young to nostalge--or that they are acolytes of Rod Serling.
I still remember the local ads. We still had to watch ads on live tv. Just a few shows that were recorded got to be ad free.
The Captain made "famous" ads back in the 90s. https://youtu.be/-vEXqG54hCw
Yessss!!! This is what I'm talking about!
TiVo Plans to End ~~Free Automatic Commercial Skipping~~ in November
Too many people will be too ignorant and will gladly pay for it. Prime Netflix etc are all still raking in the dough after implementing ads, most people just dgaf
TiVo still exists?!
I've had TiVo since the beginning. I still have an antenna version. It has a lifetime service plan. I won't pay for the premium skip. Using FF is just as easy.
That's wild.
Not much longer, by the sounds of it.
at their peak, the auto skip didn't even exist.. just the manually-activated 30-sec skip that you had to enable yourself like a cheat code in a video game.
replaytv got sued out of existence due to the same basic functionality. dish's hopper still exists but i think they made a deal with the networks (we won't sue you if you delay the feature for a number of hours).
the networks will sue as soon as tivo makes it a specific line item on a bill for the specific feature of automatically skipping commercial breaks. and that's on top of subscribers leaving due to the rug pull.. but where tf they gonna go? alternatives kinda suck and are not as easy to set up or use.
Yeah apparently they’re feeling the effects of continued enshittification of everything.
The cause is capitalism. Every company is driven by an insatiable profit motive to endlessly grow, and extract as much value from consumers and employees as possible, like a cancer.
You could perhaps still have enshittification in a worker owned organization. It seems more likely to happen when the decisions are being made by rich ghouls and absent shareholders, rather than the people who actually made the product.
A big problem is often lack of competition.
And their response appears to be "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
I blame private equity.
We already have a grown up generation who don't know the meaning of the "tivoisation" word.
I mean, it's been 20 years since GPLv3 came out.
That was my question as well.
That was what I came here to say. Glad to see it's top comment. The fediverse does not disappoint.
Wow, what are the odds these are related???
Remember, every dollar is a vote. Ohh you don't have millions of dollars laying around to vote with!?
Why would they be?