ALVISO, Calif., July 16, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — A whole new ratings race is on. It is not the start of a new TV season yet, but it is the start of a whole new ratings competition. TiVo’s “Top Commercial Rankings.” So TiVo says let the competition begin for the most watched, most time-shifted and least fast-forward television advertising campaigns in the market today.

TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in advertising solutions and television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), unveiled for the first time today the industry’s first Top Commercial Rankings reports. Using TiVo’s StopWatch service’s unique ability to track consumer viewing behavior on a second-by-second basis, in both Live and Timeshifted viewing context, TiVo will release these reports monthly.

Spotted on TiVoLovers.

DVRPlayground has put together a great step by step tutorial on how to remove commercials from TiVoToGo records. Essentially what you’ll need is a network connected Series 2 TiVo, VideoReDo ($49.99) and TiVoDesktop.

Let’s begin with what you’ll need to make this work:

1. A Series 2 or later TiVo. Series 1 and the old DirecTV TiVo’s don’t support TiVoToGo. But no worries… If this is you, then you just have to modify your TiVo, and follow a slightly different set of instructions.
2. A network adapter to connect your TiVo to your home network. TiVo offers installation instructions for setting up either a wired or a wireless network connection to your TiVo DVR.
3. A copy of the TiVo Desktop software, which is available free from TiVo here.
4. A copy of the VideoReDo Plus software. You can download a free trial or purchase the registered version for $49.99.

I think I might try this out later this month when I have travel for work.

Head on over to DVRPlayground for additional information….

Mike over at Techdirt.com has posted an interesting article which talks about how TiVo is changing the way we watch commercials.  Check it out if you are interested in that kind of thing.  I thought it was rather well done and that it brought up some good points.