Hitbliss?

[pjpjpjpj]

Anyone else using it (watch commercials, earn credit, buy movies or TV shows)?

Any way to get it into Sage? If it opened in a normal web browser there would be several ways, but it has its own app window. It doesn't look like it's open-source either, but perhaps if they were contacted?

I looked around the app and there doesn't appear any way to get info on stream data, etc.

[waynedunham]

Pardon me, but one of the major reasons to set up something like SageTV (for me at least) is Comskip and the ability to NOT watch commercials.

With comskip I can watch a half hour sit-com in about 18 minutes, a 2 hour TV movie in about 1:20, and a PBS hour show in about 45 minutes (since they have "commercials" now at the beginning and end of almost every show)

I just can't imagine the pain of watching x number of commercials just to earn a movie.

BTW, nowhere on their website could I find any hint of how many commercials I would have to watch to earn a movie. Not in the "How it works" section, nor the FAQs which sounds a bit hokey because I am sure the #1 frequently asked question is along the lines of how many commercials do I have to watch to earn a movie.
So since they won't tell me, maybe you can?

[pjpjpjpj]

They have various levels of "info sharing" you can select at sign-up, and the more you share, the faster you earn. I shared my gender, age, location (city), and income bracket (in $10k-$15k windows). I did not share my web searches or my browser history.

You then are given a set of commercials. You can choose to skip or to "bury" (meaning, "I have no interest in this product, don't show it to me again") them as you watch. Several of the commercials were movie trailers or video game trailers, so it wasn't horribly painful. A few were Super Bowl commercials I'd seen already (but were at least "good ones").

While you are watching, if you click away from their app window, it pauses automatically, so you can't try to minimize or multitask.

As you watch, every so often, a button pops up that says "still watching?". The faster you click on it, the more points you earn. If you don't click on it in like 5 seconds, you lose a few points.

All of that said - and with pretty fast clicking on the button each time - I watched maybe 10 commercials to earn the maximum-you-can-have-at-a-time $6. Every time you get to $6, you have to spend down before you can watch any more.

None of the commercials were longer than 20-30 seconds. Several were barely 10 seconds. So it's not like you are investing a half-hour just to watch a movie. It took me less than 10 minutes to max out at $6.

I only did it that one time thus far - supposedly it should begin to tailor the commercials to what you like. ....though I don't know how if you don't share your web searches and history.... maybe just avoiding stuff you "bury"?

All the movies or TV shows I saw were $1.99, $2.99, or $5.99. So for watching about 10 commercials, you could get 1, 2, or 3 movies. Then you'd have to watch a few more.

Once you "cash in" for a movie, it starts playing in their app window. You have access to it for 24 hours, from up to three devices on which you register your account. You can skip around (drag the marker on the scroll bar) at will. Watch it as many times as you want, whatever.

It's really not as painful as you make it sound - though it sounds like you REALLY, REALLY hate commercials. Personally, we don't even use comskip in our house (that's what the "skip1" and "skip2" buttons on the extender remote are for).

[waynedunham]

Thanks for the info. Your few lines were MUCH more informative than their own "How it works" section on their website which basically gave NO information on how it worked from a users standpoint.

Unfortunately I hate commercials so much I fear our country would run out of iron ore with the # of shovels I would wear out when I "bury" things I'm not interested in.

From the price of the movies I'm guessing they aren't anywhere near current and are at least 3-5 years old or more.

Viewing trailers wouldn't be too bad as long as they were for movies that I could be interested in.

Again, thanks for being FAR more informative than their own website.

[pjpjpjpj]

Yeah, their website is not very informative.

The movies are not all old. They have a wide variety (with some old "classics", but plenty of new). Some are less than a year (they are pushing "The Hangover Part III" big). They also are tied into Amazon Instant, so a lot (I don't know if "all", but quite a few) of those movies and TV shows are available.

I looked up, for instance, Iron Man, and they had 1 and 2, but not 3. I don't know if that's indicative of anything or not.