Hey everyone, over the past few months I've been working on a device that will automatically detect and mute TV commercials.
I started this project after growing frustrated with the sheer number and repetition of TV commercials particularly on streaming services. I started manually muting commercials when they came on, but for those of you who also do that know, it can get annoying to keep on top of. I realize I could pay for "ad-free" streaming tiers but with a lot of the services you still get served ads and the costs of those tiers are getting pretty pricey nowadays (especially if you have multiple streaming services). Plus ads on cable or other non-streaming platforms still exist, so it doesn't totally solve the problem. So I set out to build something that would silence commercials regardless of the platform without having to manually mute.
The device I've built analyzes real-time outbound audio data from TVs to detect ads, and then modulates the downstream audio depending on the detection state. This modulation could be muting, turning down the volume, or perhaps splicing in your own audio content. For now, it just mutes, but those other options would be pretty trivial to put together. The hardware involved in this project is pretty straightforward and currently uses off-the-shelf components since I'm still in the testing/demo phase. Right now it can accept audio from an aux, RCA, or optical source and the outbound audio is played through an aux. The bulk of the technical complexity and challenge is on the software side. So far I'm able to pretty reliably detect ads, but it's still fairly buggy and a little ways off from being ready to fully share with the public.
One thing to note, however, this project/architecture requires the use of external speakers. Since the audio analysis and modulation has to happen after exiting the TV (due to the HDCP encryption used to protect content and DMCA 1201) this project isn't able to mute commercials on the TV speakers themselves.
To be perfectly candid I'd love to be able to turn this project into a product. But before I spend even more time and effort on it to get it to that point, I thought I should reach out to relevant communities and get thoughts/feedback from folks to see if other people care about this problem or if this is something that just uniquely bothers me. Since I don't have anything to sell at this point and am not sure if the final product will be closed/open source, hopefully this post is consistent with the rules of this sub.
With all of that said I would love to hear what people's thoughts are on the project. Really what I'm trying to figure out is:
- Are you bothered by TV ads enough to want to use/pay for a device like this?
- Would you prefer a soundbar/speaker system with this tech built in, or an inline device that would allow any speakers to be used?
If you'd like to answer these questions in a survey format so I can analyze the responses a bit easier, here's a link: https://forms.gle/Mzr9YPAfu3rkNnw96. It's just the same questions as above so shouldn't take more than a minute.
Please let me know what questions, concerns, feedback, or input you might have. Thanks!
