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I've been thinking about this as well - make a small device that in real time detects ads and turns off audio an video while it's playing. I'd rather see a blank screen than an ad. That way, the whole ad pyramid scheme stays intact while the conversion rates plummet.

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> while the conversion rates plummet.

Isn't the segment who will set this up also likely to have a low conversion rate to begin with?

You'd need to make it so easy that it becomes fully mainstream. I suspect that's what happened to adblockers, it got a bit too "standard" for (Google's) comfort.

Same here. I've done this for podcasts (not in real time) and it works great. TV should be easier in some ways since the video stream and captions can also indicate an ad.

I used to find when listening to a good many podcasts with VLC there would be:

> ... See you after the break.

brief pause

> And we're back ...

Unfortunately, most ads are now burnt in. The 10 second advance will skip through them, but as it's usually the host parroting the ad text and it's easy to over shoot.

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