Last Halloween weekend we were gathered at home at night thinking about which movie to put on that we hadn’t seen yet and since we couldn’t decide between the assorted options on streaming platforms we did a little I zap through DTT to see what they threw and we found a proposal that fit us: ‘It. Chapter 2’, a tape that we had not seen and that promised to fill the movie night.
However, after starting a few minutes behind schedule, the commercial breaks in the first part of the film were so long that we finally opted for record it and leave the rest for the next day already around half past twelve at night, at which time according to the DTT guide there was still another hour and a half of film left until almost two in the morning.
And it is that currently being able to see on DTT full length moviesand even sometimes also some shorter ones or episodes of series is almost an impossible mission if you are not willing to stay until dawn waiting for the advertising blocks to end.
Pause, rewind and record live TV to skip commercials
Until a few years ago, in most cases, there was not much else to do to skip advertising, you put up with the ads, meanwhile you zapped a little for other chains and that’s it. There were some TVs that implemented smart features to skip commercials by changing channels every so often, but they didn’t work too well.
Or even if you had a video recording systemwhether it was external or integrated into the TV, you could record the programs broadcast live and watch them later, although always limited by the recording medium you used (at home we first had VHS video, then rewritable DVD and also a DTT decoder with a hard disk internal) and by a functioning of some technologies that was not as smooth as we would like, especially in the early years.
However, right now thanks to the cloud recording functions offered by some platforms, for the moment and if they do not change it, it is possible to skip the advertising or at least pass it quickly and without waiting. This is the case, for example, of viewing through the Movistar Plus+, Vodafone TV and Orange TV television services, but also other pay services to view DTT such as TiViFy.
The operation is similar on all platforms, which offer us the option through their decoders or dedicated applications additional advantages such as the possibility of control live channels. So you can pause the content or go back to watch the program from the beginning. But above all it is possible to access most of the content broadcast during the last seven days (something that is usually called U7D) in most of the contracted channels and they also give the option of record content in the cloud.
In my case, we have at home Movistar Plus+ and this function pause, rewind and record content to see the next day has already become something habitual and I would say even more, it is already essential in our way of consuming television from DTT.
With programs that almost never start on time, with commercial breaks every few minutes that sometimes last longer than the section of content you are watching, if you have to get up early the next day to work, go to school, university, etc., it is almost the only option see the programs in full without staying up past twelve at night.
And with feature films of more than two hours it is almost mandatory to use it if you do not want to depend on the networks forcing you to sit in front of the TV for more than three hours in most cases.
Watching the DTT of the past so as not to put up with the ads of the present
Not all programs are viewed this way at home. For example, we usually put the news liveor at least the initial section with the summary and until they start to put commercial breaks.
We also see live some short series of those that last 20 or 30 minutes where, hopefully, they don’t put an advertising block or at most one of the “we’ll be back in 6 minutes” type. But in general we are getting used to live a few hours or days late as far as DTT programming is concerned.
That for example we see in the guide that there is a movie that may interest us and they are going to broadcast it that day. We record it and watch it the next day passing the ads. That there is a talk show, a series or similar that may interest us, instead of starting to watch it at the right time or we record it for another time or we started watching half an hour lategiving “start” or rewinding, which allows us to have room to quickly pass a good number of ads and advance in the parts that do not interest us so much.
In summary, the so-called U7D functions, of paused live with rewind and fast forward They have already become essential when watching TV at home. They offer more versatility of schedules and a better adaptation to the possibilities and times available, saving efforts and sleeping time if we want to enjoy a specific program that interests us.