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The Official AVS TiVo "Series4" Premiere topic - Page 72

post #2131 of 2514
1/27/13 at 10:47pm
TiVo Premiere 4/XL4 & Stream Bundles

Refurbished Premiere XL4 & Stream Bundle - $399.99
New Premiere 4 & Stream Bundle - $299.99

http://www.woot.com/offers/tivo-premiere-dvr-stream-bundle
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post #2132 of 2514
1/28/13 at 2:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

Which would you be more ticked off at -- missing the first couple minutes or missing the last minute where you find out who the killer is or whether or not they hopped into bed together? I can figure out what happened in the first 2 min by the first commercial; I would be way more ticked off if I watched for an hour and missed the punchline. IMHO TiVo got it right.

For me either. I don't clip anything. If I miss the first couple of minutes or the last couple of minutes I don't want to watch the program. I will end up getting it from Amazon or VUDU. I've always had my TiVos set to not record the lower priority. And I make lower priority shows the ones that are repeated throughout the week, like cable shows. While I have shows that only have one showing, like the broadcast networks, set at a higher priority. This has worked very well for me with my TiVos since 2001.
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post #2133 of 2514
1/28/13 at 2:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryan_CoxPHX View Post

TiVo Premiere 4/XL4 & Stream Bundles

Refurbished Premiere XL4 & Stream Bundle - $399.99
New Premiere 4 & Stream Bundle - $299.99

http://www.woot.com/offers/tivo-premiere-dvr-stream-bundle

Is the stream still Apple only or is it finally working with Android devices?
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post #2134 of 2514
1/28/13 at 3:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

Using a wired network.
The Premiers' transfer speed to PC is 40Mbps -- that is >2X the bitrate of any recording. Premier to Premier is faster because between TiVo's they transfer the transport stream as it is stored on the disk and don't have to mux the output into an MPEG-2 file like they do for PC transfer. The TiVo HD transfer speed to PC is much slower -- 10-14 Mbps -- which will bottleneck a Premier <--> TiVo HD transfer to the lower speed. You cannot watch a TiVo HD based transfer as soon as you start the transfer (except ABC), you have to give it some initial transfer time.

You do not need TiVo Desktop software running on a PC to transfer between TiVo's -- the two functions are unrelated. You do not even need TiVo Desktop software to transfer from TiVo to PC if you elect to use kmttg instead; there is also a direct FTP method. TiVo Desktop has value in that the Desktop server runs in the background and will automatically transfer series recordings to PC if you are collecting. It will also "publish" PC folders to your TiVo so they are available to you in the TiVo playlist. A Tivo could be set to record a series; Tivo Desktop could be set to automatically transfer each recording of the series as soon as it is recorded to your serving PC; TiVo Desktop can publish those recordings so they can be accesses by any other TiVo in your household.

More options:
Tivo is not limited to playing .tivo files. It will play .VOB files (from DVD) and .mpg files (HD/5.1). You can rip movies or TV episodes from your DVD's as single .VOB files; store them on your TiVo Desktop server and have them available to all your TiVo's for transfer and playback from your TiVo playlist. You can transfer TiVo HD/5.1 recordings to your PC then edit out commercials with Video ReDo and save them as .mpg files; then store them on network storage where they can be published by TiVo Desktop to be accessed by your TiVo's or shared by Windows so they can be accessed by any media players on TV's without a TiVo -- whole-house media. If you don't need two TiVo's but occasionally need more than two tuners, you can buy an inexpensive PC tuner (I have the dual-tuner HD Homerun) to record the overflow, then edit commercials and save to .mpg and publish for transfer/playback on your TiVo.

When you went from the DHG to a TiVo you acquired a very sophisticated piece of kit with far more capability than the DHG ever had, beyond DVR functionality, due to TiVo's network capability. Right now people are into nit-picking minor capability differences and ways of doing things. Once they get over this and get into the network features, they will find a whole new world of capabilities the DHG could never provide. The first post of this thread has a lot of information that is still relevant and answers a lot of these things.

Your speeds should be faster. My speeds to my TiVo Desktop machine are between 70Mb/s and 75Mb/s. I can be transferring concurrently from my two Elites and my two Tuner Premiere and the transfer rate into my TiVo desktop machine will be around 225Mb/s.
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post #2135 of 2514
1/28/13 at 3:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronwt View Post

Is the stream still Apple only or is it finally working with Android devices?
Apple iOS only still frown.gif
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post #2136 of 2514
1/28/13 at 8:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post

Which would you be more ticked off at -- missing the first couple minutes or missing the last minute where you find out who the killer is or whether or not they hopped into bed together? I can figure out what happened in the first 2 min by the first commercial; I would be way more ticked off if I watched for an hour and missed the punchline. IMHO TiVo got it right.

I would be somewhat ticked off if I missed anything. I watch a lot of PBS, where there is usually much padding at the end of the time slot and no last-minute nonsense. I'm used to things like the NewsHour or Charlie Rose being clipped as necessary at the end. Recently I've noticed the Premiere wanting to clip some shows at the beginning. Is it because I've switched (maybe temporarily) to the HDUI, or is it because they changed something in the latest software update? Maybe each season pass needs to have an option for clipping at the beginning or at the end (when needed).

I've also noticed the problem of missing episode numbers, recently mentioned in some TiVo Community Forum threads. Is that just missing guide data or is it a bug in the HDUI? I first assumed it was just the guide data, but now I'm not so sure.
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post #2137 of 2514
1/28/13 at 9:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by L David Matheny View Post


I've also noticed the problem of missing episode numbers, recently mentioned in some TiVo Community Forum threads. Is that just missing guide data or is it a bug in the HDUI? I first assumed it was just the guide data, but now I'm not so sure.

It started with a 2x4 being smaller. Then the foot-long subway is only 11". So losing information in the guide is just another cut-back. I do miss the episode numbers. Maybe that was the price for Tribune Media to get out of bankruptcy?
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post #2138 of 2514
1/28/13 at 9:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeKustra View Post

It started with a 2x4 being smaller. Then the foot-long subway is only 11". So losing information in the guide is just another cut-back. I do miss the episode numbers. Maybe that was the price for Tribune Media to get out of bankruptcy?

From time to time episode numbers are crucial. I've recording some series out of order that have the same (limited) program information. So, it's really necessary to have the episode numbers to figure out the order to watch them. I hope this isn't permanent.
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post #2139 of 2514
1/28/13 at 10:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BIGA$$TV View Post

From time to time episode numbers are crucial. I've recording some series out of order that have the same (limited) program information. So, it's really necessary to have the episode numbers to figure out the order to watch them. I hope this isn't permanent.

Yes, episode numbers are important. TiVo has traditionally erred on the side of caution by recording season pass shows with missing episode numbers, since the unit couldn't be sure that they were duplicates of shows already recorded. If episode numbers are frequently missing, this will result in many duplicate recordings. Worse yet, if TiVo ever stops being that cautious, the result could be many missed recordings.
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post #2140 of 2514
1/28/13 at 10:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BIGA$$TV View Post

From time to time episode numbers are crucial. I've recording some series out of order that have the same (limited) program information. So, it's really necessary to have the episode numbers to figure out the order to watch them. I hope this isn't permanent.
Since Zap2It uses TMI also and they have Season and Episode number, I hope it's a temporary TiVo problem.
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post #2141 of 2514
1/28/13 at 11:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BIGA$$TV View Post

From time to time episode numbers are crucial. I've recording some series out of order that have the same (limited) program information. So, it's really necessary to have the episode numbers to figure out the order to watch them. I hope this isn't permanent.
In the information screen you can find the original air date. Alternatively, go to TV.com and look up the series -- in the episode guide you can match up the episode title with the episode number.
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post #2142 of 2514
1/28/13 at 1:52pm
Whats odd is why Tivo sometimes show the episode number(actually probably the majority of the time) but other times like with Castle they don't confused.gif
I also frequently look at the OAD(original air date) which isn't always shown but the vast majority of the time it is although if they are showing episodes out of order(like Castle and Body of Proof like to) then OAD is really of no help.
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post #2143 of 2514
1/29/13 at 4:07am
Walmart and Walmart.com now sell the 500GB Premiere. No discount and no mention of service.
update: it's $1.99 off list.
Edited by JoeKustra - 1/29/13 at 4:33am
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post #2144 of 2514
1/29/13 at 4:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjeff View Post

Whats odd is why Tivo sometimes show the episode number(actually probably the majority of the time) but other times like with Castle they don't confused.gif
I also frequently look at the OAD(original air date) which isn't always shown but the vast majority of the time it is although if they are showing episodes out of order(like Castle and Body of Proof like to) then OAD is really of no help.

TiVo is currently looking into the missing Season and Episode numbers, add your comments here:
http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaythread?rootPostID=11064282&channelID=10&portalPageId=10432560

Also file a Support Ticket about this issue:
http://support.tivo.com/app/ask
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post #2145 of 2514
1/29/13 at 9:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeKustra View Post

It started with a 2x4 being smaller. Then the foot-long subway is only 11". So losing information in the guide is just another cut-back. I do miss the episode numbers. Maybe that was the price for Tribune Media to get out of bankruptcy?

Where do you come off saying that losing information in the guide is "just another cutback?" Documentation please because, as the above poster just mentioned, TiVo is looking into this problem. To assume that it's some kind of "cutback" is certainly misleading and false....
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post #2146 of 2514
1/29/13 at 10:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bierboy View Post

Where do you come off saying that losing information in the guide is "just another cutback?" Documentation please because, as the above poster just mentioned, TiVo is looking into this problem. To assume that it's some kind of "cutback" is certainly misleading and false....
Guilty of trying to add humor. I will try harder to avoid it.
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post #2147 of 2514
1/29/13 at 12:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeKustra View Post

Guilty of trying to add humor. I will try harder to avoid it.
I took it as humor, which isn't all that bad but I also like to use the little biggrin.gif which can tell people my intention.
Of course some probably think I use them too much, but to that I say tongue.gif
BTW as per Bryan_CoxPHX's suggestion I filed a ticket with Tivo in regards to missing episode numbers, I'm OTA only. Not sure if it's a bug but if other TMS list a episode number then Tivo should also, I had assumed the episode number was also lacking on other TMS listings.
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post #2148 of 2514
1/29/13 at 12:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjeff View Post

I took it as humor, which isn't all that bad but I also like to use the little biggrin.gif which can tell people my intention.
Of course some probably think I use them too much, but to that I say tongue.gif
BTW as per Bryan_CoxPHX's suggestion I filed a ticket with Tivo in regards to missing episode numbers, I'm OTA only.
I keep forgetting. I guess the brain goes first. smile.gif

I added my name to the list also. TMI still has them on Zap2It.
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post #2149 of 2514
1/31/13 at 3:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mabuttra View Post

I bought a TiVo Premier over the holidays, and also had tuner issues (the same symptoms as you describe). I exchanged it for a different one, and it also had the tuner problems. The problem is that these tuners are easily overdriven (even with my unamplified attic antenna). I added a variable attenuator to the setup, and my bouncing signals in 60s jumped into the 90s, and were then stable. Unfortunately since I had to attenuate the signal, my weakest stations (that I never watch) could no longer be tuned. I haven't had any more problems with reception since.

Mark

Quote:
Originally Posted by jjeff View Post

^^^interesting that even a non amplified setup was strong enough to cause issues, sounds like a bad design to me. I should try your theory on my TIvo HD. Like I said in a previous post I get 98%+ on most all my stations and 99.9% of the time everythings fine but occasionally I get a bit of brief pixelazation on 1 channel(my favorite that I make the majority of my recordings, CBS). I've never been able to catch it live(I almost exclusively time shift programs) so by the time I see it the issue has been long gone. I guess I could try a simple attenuator, maybe 5db or so and see what happens. All the stations I watch are strong so I doubt I will have issues with weak stations. I'll give it a try, thanks for the tip smile.gif
I tried my variable attenuator but since it's so old it must have dust on the pot so every time I touched it my signal would bounce all over the place. Instead I tried my -10 and -12 and -20db fixed attenuators. The -20 was way too much and stopped all but my strongest signals. The -12 lost several channels, the -10 was better but brought some channels down to 20 on the signal meter, a bit low for my taste. On the bright side the attenuators seems to have mostly fix my dropouts on my local CBS channel. Without the attenuator both my Tivo and Sony TV would drop badly, swinging from +90 signal strength to 0, with the attenuator it was a solid 40 and only dropped once in a 1/2hr test. I think I'll try and locate a -8 or even -6db attenuator and see how that works. Long story short your attenuator suggestion seems to be on the right track for my dropouts, thanks for the tip smile.gif
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post #2150 of 2514
1/31/13 at 3:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjeff View Post


Without the attenuator both my Tivo and Sony TV would drop badly, swinging from +90 signal strength to 0, with the attenuator it was a solid 40 and only dropped once in a 1/2hr test. I think I'll try and locate a -8 or even -6db attenuator and see how that works. Long story short your attenuator suggestion seems to be on the right track for my dropouts, thanks for the tip smile.gif

I often wonder if some signal levels can only go from 0 to 99 so I prefer the SNR. For minimal attenuation a splitter should offer 3 to 6 db.

Both my Sony TV and Tivo agree that I have a 36 to 37 SNR. It's cable so they don't move a lot.
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post #2151 of 2514
2/2/13 at 5:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelson View Post


I use both.


The simplest to set up by far is the TiVo Desktop software. The free version is sufficient for standard transfers, the pay version is only necessary if you want to transcode for mobile devices. TiVo desktop runs as a service and allows bidirectional transfers to and from your TiVo. It is most useful if you want to collect a full season of a series to watch in the summer without having it take up all the disk space on your TiVo. If you have TiVo Desktop running on a PC that is on all the time, you can set it up to auto transfer the programs as soon as they are done recording. I typically collect several that I just don't have time to watch during the regular season. Then during the summer when the TiVo que has been cleared I'll send the series back to the TiVo to watch. Best of all, if it's a new series I'll collect it. That way if it gets canceled after half a season I can flush it without ever having wasted time getting interested in it.


kmttg is a stand-alone program that just does one-way transfers from TiVo to PC but with a lot of features -- these features come from it's use of open-source helper apps that have to be installed but it guides you through all that. Native TiVo files have an encrypted wrapper that kmttg can easily strip off to give you a simple .mpg file that can be edited to remove commercials (Video ReDo TV Suite) if you want to archive the recordings on a NAS or burn to disk. kmttg can also recode the TiVo files from MPEG-2 to H.264 which allows you to shrink them a lot without loss of quality -- again, for burning to disk or storage on a NAS for media players. I like kmttg because it is fast and doesn't run as a service.


With any of these apps, if the source on the TiVo is marked as copy-once you will not be able to transfer it to either your PC or another TiVo. But since you are using it for OTA (like I do) nothing is copy-protected and so there are no restrictions. I have never been unable to copy anything from my TiVo to my PC using either software program.



Ok. So after a year of getting by with TiVo Desktop, I've decided to add kmttg into the mix. But I'm not sure whether I need to buy VideoRedo as well, and if I do need VideoRedo I'm not sure which of the three "suites" to get.

My question is with the paragraph about "QS Fix" shown in the picture. All I really want to have is the best quality video in the output file, without the TiVo wrapper. Smaller file size is a plus too, as long as there is not quality hit. The paragraph in question says if you don't have VideoRedo it will accomplish the task using alternate software. But is VideoRedo better than the other options?
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post #2152 of 2514
2/2/13 at 6:12pm
I always thought VideoReDo was one of the best options. But it isn't free. I've been using it for many years with TiVo Desktop.
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post #2153 of 2514
2/2/13 at 11:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by WS65711 View Post



Ok. So after a year of getting by with TiVo Desktop, I've decided to add kmttg into the mix. But I'm not sure whether I need to buy VideoRedo as well, and if I do need VideoRedo I'm not sure which of the three "suites" to get.
The minimum version would be "VRD TV Suite v3" ($75). This is suitable for editing MPEG-2 HDTV captures and .tivo files directly. You have to have TiVo Desktop installed in order for VRD to edit .tivo files because it calls the TiVo Desktop decrypter. If you have any thoughts to recoding the titles to H.264, working with H.264 recordings from another device or working with Win MCE (.wtv files) it is worth the extra $20 to get "VRD TV Suite H.264" ($96).
Quote:
My question is with the paragraph about "QS Fix" shown in the picture. All I really want to have is the best quality video in the output file, without the TiVo wrapper.
I have never had to use the Quick Stream Fix on any .tivo file, so I can't comment on its utility. If you just want to remove the .tivo wrapper with kmttg, just check the "decrypt" box. In a first step, it will transfer the .tivo file over; in a second step it will remove the .tivo wrapper and write an .mpg file -- there is no recoding involved, it maintains original fidelity. At the end you will have both files on your HDD.
Quote:
Smaller file size is a plus too, as long as there is not quality hit.
Then you should get the VRD H.264 version. I have used their H.264 encoder to recode HDTV MPEG-2 with a 30% file size reduction (their default profile). When used as a 2-pass encoder, I could not tell the difference from the original MPEG-2 recording when viewed sequentially. When used as a single pass encoder, it did not look too good; the picture was clearly inferior and not something I wanted to watch. I only recode to H.264 if I want to save the recordings to BluRay and the MPEG-2 recordings won't all fit on the BD-R -- otherwise I leave them as MPEG-2.

kmttg is a transfer program, VRD is an editing/recoding/authoring program. If you want to edit commercials from your recordings, I think VRD is one of the best and worth the money. The Auto Commercial detection works very well to mark the commercial start-stop points. It can be run in unattended batch mode to process a bunch of recordings. I find it takes me about 5 min/1 hr episode to proof the marks and make the actual cuts. Saving the edited files to your desired filetype can also be done in unattended batch mode. Cutting commercials effects a huge reduction in file size -- a 1 hr episode contains about 20 min of commercials which are encoded at the same resolution and bitrate as the show. Cutting out the commercials reduces the file size by about 1/3 without touching the original broadcast quality.
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post #2154 of 2514
2/3/13 at 8:42am
^^
Kelson - Thanks for the helpful information! smile.gif
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post #2155 of 2514
2/3/13 at 8:41pm
So, what's this crap with commercials/ads popping up on the Premiere? I thought the first one was a fluke, but now I'm getting ABC commercials constantly. Is that part of the deal or is there a way to shut them off. Could be a new trend for the 21st century. Windows 8 is loaded with advertisements that you can't shut off. Doesn't seem right that when you buy a product, you get force fed unwanted crap.
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post #2156 of 2514
2/3/13 at 9:18pm
Occasionally there will be an advertising banner when you hit Pause, (hit down arrow to dismiss), there is also sometimes an advertising in the Discovery Bar along the top of TiVo Central. There is no way to turn them off, but they quickly become irrelevant after a short time, and you will never notice them, at least I don't.
There is a current SW bug where sometimes the Pause Banner add will not dismiss,

You are never forced to actually watch the Ad unless you click on them.

Currently the ads are Charmin, Bounty, and ABC Zero Hour.
TiVo Central > Showcases & Apps > Showcases - will show you all the current ads loaded by TiVo.
Edited by Bryan_CoxPHX - 2/3/13 at 9:34pm
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post #2157 of 2514
2/3/13 at 9:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by linkstur View Post

So, what's this crap with commercials/ads popping up on the Premiere? I thought the first one was a fluke, but now I'm getting ABC commercials constantly. Is that part of the deal or is there a way to shut them off. Could be a new trend for the 21st century. Windows 8 is loaded with advertisements that you can't shut off. Doesn't seem right that when you buy a product, you get force fed unwanted crap.

Where are the ads on Windows 8? I'm running two machines with WIndows 8 Pro and two with Win8 Pro with Media Center and I don't recall ever seeing an ad. If they were there then I did not notice them.

The ones that are on my TiVos have never been in my face so teh only time I might even notice them is when I pause and something pops up. But I would need to select it to actually see the ad.
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post #2158 of 2514
2/3/13 at 10:28pm
W8 has all kinds of ads for xbox and a variety of TV shows. I don't run 8, yet, but recently set up a clients machine. Had to buy a retro program to get rid of the full screen apps and restore the start button feature. IMO...8 sucks.

After seeing that, and then the ads on TiVo, it just struck me the wrong way. I don't think it's right to pay for something that has built in ads. If ads are subsidizing the product, that subsidy should be passed on to the comsumer. Give us the box for free and I'll let you show ads. If I gotta pay for the box, keep your f*****g ads to yourself.
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post #2159 of 2514
2/3/13 at 11:50pm
You "might" be able to stop the recording of the Ads if you uncheck all the channels that download the TiVo Ads through "Teleworld Paid Program"
http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tv/teleworld-paid-program/EP00617254

For me it is usually Ion Network, TBS, and Discovery
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post #2160 of 2514
2/4/13 at 5:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by linkstur View Post

W8 has all kinds of ads for xbox and a variety of TV shows. I don't run 8, yet, but recently set up a clients machine. Had to buy a retro program to get rid of the full screen apps and restore the start button feature. IMO...8 sucks.

After seeing that, and then the ads on TiVo, it just struck me the wrong way. I don't think it's right to pay for something that has built in ads. If ads are subsidizing the product, that subsidy should be passed on to the comsumer. Give us the box for free and I'll let you show ads. If I gotta pay for the box, keep your f*****g ads to yourself.

I've been looking all morning and I still have not noticed a single ad in Windows 8.
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