What the heck?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Osiris]

I came across this, this is freaking insane, another reason for cable companies to raise their dang rates higher then they already are! I will definetaly look at alternatives if this happens:

New Television Broadcaster channel changing blocker story

[genetics]

Irrespective of whether or not the patent goes through, the general public will surely be against the idea of being forced to watch ads.
I feel that though this channel-blocking 'thing' seems original, there is simply no demand for such a device in our society.

Yes, this idea is original and interesting.... but TV manufacturers who implement such channel-blocking mechanisms will surely experience decreases in sales FOR SURE!!!

[meyerhaus]

You can bet your sweet arse that I would be buying older TVs.

[fish_doc]

I know it ticks me off when I BUY a dvd and put it in my player and I am forced to watch preveues of other movies before the main screen where I have control. They even block out so you cannot fast forward to that screen. What gives I bought the movie why am I forced to watch ads?

[CVV1]

With tivo you cant just fast forward through commercials (unless its recorded) IMO the channel watching thing is dumb.

[fish_doc]

I know the ads pay for the free "so called entertainment" but it does get annoying at times.
There are many forms of advertisement that serve no purpose other than to just earn money. Like billboards. What purpose do they serve. By forcing you to see those ads what do you benefit?
I could see in the future ads being worked into shows. You see it to some degree now with american idol (coke, ford) Nascar (Nappa, Dupont, Home Depot... ect...) But I think it will get worked in more and more to movies and tv shows. If done right I dont see a problem with it. And if it would allow no ads during the show that would be great.

[Lydia]

Did anyone read the whole article? I didn't, but I did notice this part:

"Philips acknowledged, however, that the anti-channel changing technology might not sit well with consumers and suggested in its patent filing that consumers be allowed to avoid the feature if they paid broadcasters a fee.

On Wednesday, company officials issued a statement that noted the technology also enables the opposite: allowing viewers to watch television without advertising. The intention was never to force viewers to watch ads against their will, the company said of the technology.

"We developed a system where the viewer can choose, at the beginning of a movie, to either watch the movie without ads, or watch the movie with ads,'' the company stated. "It is up to the viewer to take this decision, and up to the broadcaster to offer the various services.''

The company also said it had no plans to use the technology in any of its products. "

[Alin10123]

In the article it said that cable providers could "unfreeze" the channel freezing mechanism for a monthly "fee".

So now not only are we paying for cable. We are also forced to pay to change the channel? What if we turn the TV on and it's in the middle of a commercial and it wont let us change channels? This will be the biggest bunch of BS that hits the market if it ever does.

[Osiris]

I think next president would ban it for election

[Scy64]

I'm not surprised they came up with something like this. As someone mentioned, a lot of DVDs won't allow you to fast forward through the warnings and previews (depsite the fact you paid good money for your copy of the DVD- you STILL don't get to decide what you do and do not want to watch). I understand something like paying money to a website in order to disable ads (especially if you can still use the site for free, with the ads). But TV... that costs so much anyways.

I just forsee people either buying older TVs as mentioned, or even finding different tv serviced in which the ad program isn't used at all. If some huge investor could create a "new" cable company somehow, I'm sure they'd get the majority of consumers. Even if an existing company refused to do it, people would flock to them. You're already paying money for the cable service, why go with a company that wants to suck out every last penny they can?