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General discussion

BOL ads causing playback problems

Nov 9, 2010 8:49AM PST

I listen to BOL and other podcasts on my ipod nano, often 15 minutes at a time. My nano nicely picks up where I left off. However starting maybe about 6 months ago whenever I go to resume a BOL with an ad it insists on going back to the start of the ad rather than to where I left off. And if I am past an ad and scroll the video backwards it goes back to the start of the ad. This is a real pain, any idea on how to fix this? I don't have this problem with any other podcast, even ones with ads.

Discussion is locked

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Looking into it!
Nov 9, 2010 9:49AM PST

Thanks for the note, I'll look into this. Anyone else have this issue?

-Benito

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BOL ads
Nov 17, 2010 12:37AM PST

I am having this problem as well, although it is on an iPod classic.

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any help?
Nov 17, 2010 2:21PM PST

Benito, anything you can do? Now that BOL has two sets of two ads, every time I resume I have to go back to listen to the ads. If I try to fast forward it takes me back to the start of the first ad and I have to listen to both of them again. Honestly this is deserving of a full fledged Molly rant, this is just the type of RIAA like practice that the hosts ridicule. Can you try something different?

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Hmmm...
Nov 18, 2010 12:04AM PST

I downloaded yesterday's show mp3 to my desktop pc and opened it in Adobe Audition. I didn't see any obvious "cue points" whereby a player might be compelled to go back during a resume. There's was the slightest "burp" before the spots played yesterday, but I'm not seeing why that would matter.

Are these the same commercials in the problematic show downloads? Are they being played live during the show record, or are they being inserted later?

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update, but not really
Nov 18, 2010 12:44PM PST

lots of things going on behind the scenes that i'm still trying to wrap my head around, but this problem is by far the most perplexing. i've tried it on a bunch of different computers and browsers and some of them have no problem at all (my personal computer at home has this problem and i agree, it's frustrating as hell). we are also in the midst of some hardware changes that i'm not at liberty to discuss but i'm starting to think that's the culprit. i'll put up more details when i can.

-benito

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OK
Nov 19, 2010 3:53AM PST

As I mentioned before, are you actually playing these commercials live during the podcast or are they inserted later? Do all your sources to the record have the same sample/bit rates? I've heard where things like bit rate shifting/inconsistencies can cause this anomaly.

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scrambled video
Nov 19, 2010 3:18PM PST

Since this problem kept returning me to the start of the commercials I assumed it was something intentional, sounds like it's more of an anomaly.

If it helps, at the start of the commercials there's maybe a second of scrambled video, could this be the cause of the problem?

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more details
Nov 22, 2010 12:17AM PST

I've been experimenting with this a little more. I can pause, resume and fast backward just fine betweem the start/first set of commercials and the second set of commercials. After the second set of commercials, which start with some scrambled video, when I pause or fast backwards it goes back to the scrambled video/start of the second set of commercials. So it's starting to really look like it's this scrambled video that's causing problems. Maybe it's not edited in properly?

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Any news?
Dec 20, 2010 3:17AM PST

I continue to have this same problem.

I have the newest generation of iPod Nano. When I pause if it's for more than a minute or two, the podcast goes back to the commercials. I don't have this problem with any of my other podcasts and the problem doesn't occur on my PC in iTunes.

Has there been any other movement towards a cause and possible solution for this issue?

Thanks!

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video editing is easy!
Dec 20, 2010 4:11PM PST

Benito, there are free applications that will allow you to seamlessly add in a commercial without corrupting the video, if you like we can give you some suggestions! This should be easy to do.

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Me Too
Dec 21, 2010 2:29AM PST

It's happening on my ipod nano. I thought it was just me. It's extremely annoying.

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tick tock
Jan 2, 2011 12:53AM PST

Benito, any progress? This seems like it should be an easy thing to take care of. I do lots of video editing without corruption problems like this.

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splicing in ad causes video corruption in BOL podcast
Apr 16, 2011 1:53AM PDT

Any hope of getting this fixed? It should be easy to splice in ads without corrupting the video.

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I can't believe this hasn't been fixed yet.
Apr 19, 2011 9:35PM PDT

It has gotten to the point that I don't care if I hear the end of the podcast. If I need to hit pause at any point after the ad then I just quit listening. I used to search for my spot. It just became like a job, so I listen to as much as I can without pausing.

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CNET, really, you can't handle a simple video edit?
Apr 20, 2011 2:12PM PDT

Yeah, this has turned into such a hassle I don't listen to BOL much anymore, I listen every once in a while to see if it's been fixed but that's about it. I hate to say this, but I hope they lose their sponsors so this isn't such a hassle.

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Please, please fix this problem!!!!!
Jun 10, 2011 10:58AM PDT

<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> This very annoying bug has occurred for such a long time now!!! If I watch the video BOL podcast on my desktop and then switch to my iPod for the car, I can't fast forward to the last watched point- it always goes to the commercial first. Are you guys ignoring the issue just because it forces us to watch the commercial more times?

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Ugh!
Jul 7, 2011 12:26AM PDT

I guess this is never going to get fixed. It's so annoying to have to figure out if I have time to listen to the show uninterrupted. If I do get interrupted, I just go to iTunes later and "mark as watched".

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10 months now, obviously BOL doesn't care about listeners
Jul 8, 2011 5:34PM PDT

After 10 months CNET still can't do a simple video edit? Do they care at all about their listeners??