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Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

pilane.obviy.us

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Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#61

Post by Alive-in-2025 »

pkamb wrote: post #23

Watching football this fall, I've been thinking about a little box that sits on my table and mutes the TV whenever an ad comes on. Not decoding HDMI HDCP or anything, but a webcam + AI or whatever that watches football with me and mutes ads. Similar to plane detection, maybe. Are there any projects like this?

Years ago Microsoft TV had a free 3rd party extension that analyzed the video and skipped the commercials. Amazingly you could see the downloaded video, there wasn't drm on that in the early days. There were several tools like this.

I think you could do this. If you had a web page logged into the same program it could analyze the video. I wonder if people build "video scraping" from web page tv apps, probably some drm blocking thing.

There also used to be subsonic chimes or something simila on the network tv audio to signal to some other server (maybe at the local tv station?) that would know to automatically run a commericial right now.

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#62

Post by Alive-in-2025 »

gruez wrote: post #56
notjoemama wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then, they'll track your eyes and require you to watch the screen :) Check out the recent controversy over Activision and Call of Duty. Evidently the game code requires access to your webcam and the company has patents on using your gameplay to train a bot that play like you do, then uses the idle time to make the bot play while you are away. This bulks up the pool of players ensuring you are matched with people re…

>Evidently the game code requires access to your webcam Source? >then uses the idle time to make the bot play while you are away Surely they're better off using a GPU cluster to do training like every other AI company?

What if you don't have a webcam, you can't play the game? I'm skeptical.

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#63

Post by gosub100 »

pkamb wrote: post #23

Watching football this fall, I've been thinking about a little box that sits on my table and mutes the TV whenever an ad comes on. Not decoding HDMI HDCP or anything, but a webcam + AI or whatever that watches football with me and mutes ads. Similar to plane detection, maybe. Are there any projects like this?

I wanted to do this too! I'm an "idea man" that doesn,t deliver, though. Here is my feature list:

* auto commercial block using audio fingerprinting and duration, so if it finds the ad, it knows the ad will last 10-15-30-60 seconds.

* frame-slowdown. often ads just show way too many frame jumps in rapid succession. If this is detected, visual mute would freeze one of the frames and only allow a jump after 5-10s.

* visual mute - if the commercial is not identified audibly, have a blur or black box that covers 85% of the center of the screen. you would un-mute it when you recognize your game from the borders.

* logo-blur. OpenCV to recognize most common ad logos and blur or black them

* commercial-over-dub. allow funny joke audio to be played over existing, known commercials. So when they show insurance ads, someone can say "yeah they didn't pay my $40k roof claim because I didn't have hail coverage", right over the insurance logo

* announcer over-dub. This would allow aspiring sports announcers (or comedians) to have their audio played in place of the game audio. This would require some visual sync, which would include a few seconds of delay. I bet there are some really good announcers out there who would love a chance to announce a game. Also some really funny smart-asses , or you could choose a biased announcer who roots with you for YOUR team and disparages the other!

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#65

Post by giantg2 »

nradov wrote: post #41
dave333 wrote: post #22

Given that drone warfare is now a thing this seems like it could be useful as the basis of a personal drone detection and warning kit that soldiers could wear over their helmet to spot drones and give say an audible warning in the soldiers ears that lets the soldier locate the drone direction and maybe azimuth with pitch - lower frequency for a low drone and high for one more overhead. Not sure if such a thing alread…

Shotguns have proven ineffective as drone defenses. Range is too short and the targets are too fast.

Ukraine is using shotguns on drones to hunt other drones. Seems it works.

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#66

Post by nradov »

giantg2 wrote: post #65
nradov wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shotguns have proven ineffective as drone defenses. Range is too short and the targets are too fast.

Ukraine is using shotguns on drones to hunt other drones. Seems it works.

They are using those mostly to take down larger reconnaissance drones. Not the small ones used to directly attack individual soldiers. Watch the videos.

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#67

Post by savrajsingh »

pkamb wrote: post #23

Watching football this fall, I've been thinking about a little box that sits on my table and mutes the TV whenever an ad comes on. Not decoding HDMI HDCP or anything, but a webcam + AI or whatever that watches football with me and mutes ads. Similar to plane detection, maybe. Are there any projects like this?

I have had this exact same idea, it’s a good one. We all hate ads, and muting the audio is all we really need!

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#68

Post by giantg2 »

nradov wrote: post #66
giantg2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is using shotguns on drones to hunt other drones. Seems it works.

They are using those mostly to take down larger reconnaissance drones. Not the small ones used to directly attack individual soldiers. Watch the videos.

I never said it works against all drones. It is a valid option that has shown efficacy. In the context of this thread (one's home/property), it seems reasonably applicable, and in many locations, more likely to be legal than many alternatives.

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#69

Post by nradov »

giantg2 wrote: post #68
nradov wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are using those mostly to take down larger reconnaissance drones. Not the small ones used to directly attack individual soldiers. Watch the videos.

I never said it works against all drones. It is a valid option that has shown efficacy. In the context of this thread (one's home/property), it seems reasonably applicable, and in many locations, more likely to be legal than many alternatives.

Wrong. Shotguns haven't shown any real efficacy when used by soldiers (or homeowners) on the ground. In the USA it is a federal crime to shoot at aircraft, including drones.

Re: Show HN: I built a DIY plane spotting system at home

#70

Post by naveen_k »

pkamb wrote: post #23

Watching football this fall, I've been thinking about a little box that sits on my table and mutes the TV whenever an ad comes on. Not decoding HDMI HDCP or anything, but a webcam + AI or whatever that watches football with me and mutes ads. Similar to plane detection, maybe. Are there any projects like this?

Perfect timing! I got annoyed by Ads in streaming services and decided to build something to mute the TV when an Ad comes on. Simple vision based system.

I'll post a write up in a few days.

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