Tablo’s DVR boxes will soon be able to automatically skip the ad breaks in your antenna TV recordings, its manufacturer Nuvyyo has announced, according to Variety. The skipping will happen without you having to do anything. As you watch, the DVR will automatically skip to the end of the break when it detects that one has started. The new functionality will enter a testing phase this quarter and the company intends to have it ready for a full release in the coming months.
The functionality works by uploading a small amount of data about the recording to the cloud as you watch, which Tablo’s algorithms analyze to try and work out what is an ad and what isn’t. If a given bit of footage has the kinds of features that make it seem like an ad (which TechCrunch reports could be as simple as featuring lots of quick cuts), then it will send metadata back to your DVR to tell it to skip that part of the recording.
Nothing from the recording gets deleted as part of this process (so you can go back and watch anything that you didn’t mean to skip) and it works whether the DVR is streaming to a Roku, Fire TV, Android TV, or Apple TV. The catch is that you’ll need to be a Tablo OTA DVR subscriber to get the functionality, which costs $4.99 per month, $49.99 for the year, or $149.99 for a lifetime subscription.
Alongside the new feature, Tablo also announced the new Tablo Quad, a 4-tuner DVR that is the company’s first to allow you to install an internal hard drive rather than having to rely on external USB storage. The Tablo Quad will retail for $199 when it launches later this quarter.
Read the full article on The Verge…
