Skipping adverts and missing the tedious bits in TV programmes is about to get a whole lot easier if a bunch of recent US patent applications are anything to go by.
It is already possible to buy a VCR that doesn鈥檛 record the ad breaks in a TV show. Now Japanese company Orion is planning to do the same for live TV with a TV set that detects the telltale signs of a commercial break and offers you something else to watch while the ads are playing (US 2004/0155986).
Orion鈥檚 set identifies the beginning of an ad break by sensing when the video and audio fade away simultaneously, followed by the much louder ad soundtrack and a lot of rapid scene changes. The TV has two tuners: one is set to receive the channel transmitting the programme you have chosen to watch, your favourite soap, say, while the other is set to a second-choice channel such as a news station that it switches to whenever it encounters an ad break.
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Thomson, which owns the RCA brand, is taking a different tack. In US 2003/0115595 it describes a TV with a built-in video game that switches on as soon as the set detects the start of a commercial break. You play the game until the set detects the end of the ad break and switches back. The game freezes at that point and stores your score, so at the next break you can pick up the game where you left it.
Mitsubishi鈥檚 US research lab has a trick to help people who tape a long sports event but only want to watch the most entertaining highlights (US 2004/0167767). Previous systems have tried to analyse the picture content, or used speech-recognition software to detect keywords in the commentary (New 杏吧原创, 3 July, page 24). Mitsubishi has a simpler way to get the same result: its recorder is programmed to detect the sound of the crowd applauding, cheering or booing. When you want to watch the highlights, it fast-forwards through the recording, playing back only when it detects the crowd is going wild because someone has scored, landed a knock-out punch or been unjustly penalised.
