TVNZ OnDemand - Advertisement Frequency and Length

Forums › Off topic › TVNZ OnDemand - Advertisement Frequency and Length

1 | 2

fe31nz

1228 posts

Uber Geek

#2905904 23-Apr-2022 23:20

JimmyH:

I loathe ads. With an almost visceral hatred. Life is too short to put up with that jarring and annoying nonsense. It's why I don't watch free to air TV pretty much at all, why I seldom use the NZ broadcaster's streaming services (except for kids shows on TVNZ for the young fella - they seem to be ad free), and why I parted company with Sky. Sky was particularly egregious - bombarding me with ads when I was already paying handsomely for the feed was insulting.

I might be interested in the programming on TVNZ on demand if there was an ad free option, at a reasonable price given their tiny and largely dated content line up compared to other services.

At the moment I have Spotify, Disney Plus, Netflix, and my own media server. If there is appoint where my entertainment starts being interrupted by annoying ads I will cancel the subscription same day.

For FTA programmes, you can just record them and watch them later with software that allows you to skip over the ads. I use MythTV and I have not watched an ad for years until earlier in the week when I had to take my mother to the ED at the hospital and they had a TV there playing Duke. I did not recognise a single ad. Do not use Freeview certified equipment to record FTA, as it is certified to not be able to skip the ads easily. I also record Sky the same way, so I do not see their ads either.

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#2906565 25-Apr-2022 17:56

fe31nz:

For FTA programmes, you can just record them and watch them later with software that allows you to skip over the ads. I use MythTV and I have not watched an ad for years until earlier in the week when I had to take my mother to the ED at the hospital and they had a TV there playing Duke. I did not recognise a single ad. Do not use Freeview certified equipment to record FTA, as it is certified to not be able to skip the ads easily. I also record Sky the same way, so I do not see their ads either.

Interesting, thanks. I have been contemplating doing something along these lines as my next project. I hadn't done much research recently, but last time I looked automated add detection and removal was a bit hit and miss on Freeview. It sounds like the technology may have improved?

I had been tentatively thinking about building a NextPVR box to do this, as I know it integrates with Comskip and Jellyfin, as Jellyfin is what I am migrating the house/family over to as our main media platform. But I haven't got very far beyond just reading a few blog posts so far. I haven't looked at MythTV, but if it does the business then I will have to see whether it's a feasible alternative.

fe31nz

1228 posts

Uber Geek

#2906614 25-Apr-2022 23:43

JimmyH:

Interesting, thanks. I have been contemplating doing something along these lines as my next project. I hadn't done much research recently, but last time I looked automated add detection and removal was a bit hit and miss on Freeview. It sounds like the technology may have improved?

I had been tentatively thinking about building a NextPVR box to do this, as I know it integrates with Comskip and Jellyfin, as Jellyfin is what I am migrating the house/family over to as our main media platform. But I haven't got very far beyond just reading a few blog posts so far. I haven't looked at MythTV, but if it does the business then I will have to see whether it's a feasible alternative.

I do not use any automated ad detection. MythTV does have support for it, but it never worked well on any channel I watch. But it does not matter with MythTV - you can just skip the ads very easily using the remote control. A typical ad skip is 7 or 8 right-arrow button presses to get past the ads then a few left-arrows to go back to the last few seconds of the ad break. With the right settings, the right-arrow in MythTV is 30 forwards skip. There is an option that makes the left-arrow do 10 seconds backwards when used directly after a forwards skip. When left-arrow is used first, it will do the standard skip of 30 seconds backwards. Using this setup, it normally takes a couple of seconds to skip the ad break and be watching programme again. All the settings are configurable to your taste. For long skips, you can type a number on the remote or keyboard and the press the arrow key. The skip is that number of minutes. Multiple digits are accepted, so very long skips can be done.

I do not think that Comskip works any better on NZ television than the MythTV commercial detection - NZ TV services just do not provide the clues in their transmissions that are available in other parts of the world that allows reliable commercial detection. But it really does not matter as manual skipping in MythTV is so easy and rapid.

MythTV runs on Linux - the largest group of users (including me) run it on Xubuntu, which is Ubuntu using the XFCE desktop. XFCE is a rather more minimalist desktop than the customised Gnome used by standard Ubuntu

I have not heard of any Jellyfin integration for MythTV.

gzt

17104 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2914241 15-May-2022 15:05

TVNZ On Demand is not good for watching in small bursts as I sometimes do with streaming. Every time I return to Strange New Worlds there's a 30 second ad-roll. Sometimes this is even extended for some reason. This all needs some tweaks to avoid impacting short period watchers and keep them on the app.

Edit: Cannot rewind. That is unusual for a streaming service.

Journeyman

1186 posts

Uber Geek

#2914244 15-May-2022 15:13

Contact them. They can't fix what they don't know about.

1101

3122 posts

Uber Geek

#2914381 16-May-2022 09:43

watching TVNZ on Demand yesterday..

one ad was insanely loud. Seemed 3x the volume .
Im finding that the ads are sometimes louder than the actual program, so I ALLWAYS hit the mute icon when ads come on.

Forcing ads at too high a volume , its just stupidity.
Id happily just wait them out/sit through them otherwise , but I now have no choice but to hit mute when the streaming ads com on.

nitro

656 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2914386 16-May-2022 09:55

mattwnz:

YouTube has been getting worse and worse. Guess they want to push people over to premium. But then the video creators don't get paid as much from the ads when people are viewing on premium.

but don't let that be the reason to go premium. a fair bit of content providers now include a segment of their videos hawking something, so you don't completely escape 'ads' either.

i do understand they need to make it worth their time creating content. we're on premium family because we also use it for music.

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

Oblivian

7296 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2914403 16-May-2022 10:00

It's essentially 2 streams.
The program and the ad stream. Which even if you pause, often gets confused. Tries to play one and goes, oh.. you weren't watching for 30sec. We won't

Is also why you can... Focus on one stream as it were.

I expect the ad stream has a clump of paid bands of which to show depending on time slot
And random internal programming plugs for other shows on the service

Getting fed those ad breaks from 3rd parties and then feeding out is probably not an aligned process to even up volumes etc.

1 | 2