This topic

BT Box/Now hijacks the fast forward button

PhilC42 — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 05:53:22 GMT

BT Box/Now hijacks the fast forward button.

As if Now TV continually asking for the parental PIN when you're trying to binge watch a series wasn't bad enough, it also hijacks the fast forward button so denying you the possibility to skip forwards to the start of the show, instead they force-feed you trailers to other shows that you then have to watch over and over again.

Is this another bug? can this be stopped?

Re: BT Box/Now hijacks the fast forward button

garybs29 — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 08:30:27 GMT

Sounds very much like those are the now ads that are controlled by them tbh

Re: BT Box/Now hijacks the fast forward button

zulu17 — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 09:11:58 GMT

according to NOW

If you have Now Boost, you won't see ads when you watch on-demand shows, movies and sport. You'll still see promotional trailers for shows, movies and events you can access, as well as ads that appear on live channels.

Any option to FF trailers would be determined by NOW and may differ depending how NOW deliver the trailers.

Re: BT Box/Now hijacks the fast forward button

NigelB72 — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 10:25:53 GMT

The adverts are pushed by NowTV and BT have no control over them. Regardless of how you subscribe to NowTV, you'll get them and if you don't have the Boost add-on you will also get adverts during content. Sky Glass and Sky Stream also push adverts through as well.

Re: BT Box/Now hijacks the fast forward button

PhilC42 — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 06:43:38 GMT

for NOW to force feed trailers and hijack the FF button, that would require BT to publish the neccessary API's for their BT remote and their BT Box in order to allow NOW to do that

Re: BT Box/Now hijacks the fast forward button

DarrenDev — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 07:31:03 GMT

No special APIs required @PhilC42 - apps interpret the remote control signals any way they want.

Now TV own their content, and have the right to choose how it's displayed. If platforms don't offer the required features and protection, then they just won't be available on those platforms.

Re: BT Box/Now hijacks the fast forward button

gomezz — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 09:14:02 GMT

For non-skippable ads on any catch up service I just hit the Mute button for the duration. If they can over-ride that on my AV amp then they are indeed a lot cleverer than I thought - though I suppose there could be an HDMI spec update and enforced changes to new AV amps to implement such a thing.