METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING A VIDEOTAPE PLAYER TO AUTO- MATICALLY SCAN PAST RECORDED COMMERCIAL MESSAGES

An automatic editing device is coupled between a conventional VCR and a conventional television monitor/receiver. During recording of a television signal, data is accumulated with respect to the time of occurrence and duration of detectable events, such as blank frames, in the television signal, and such data is stored in the device. At a time subsequent to the recording process, the stored data is analyzed to classify the content of the television signal between the detectable events. The recording is made on a tape which has timing reference data permanently encoded thereon. During playback, the stored data for each event is compared to the timing reference data read from the tape and the VCR is automatically commanded into a fast scan mode when the tape reaches the beginning time of a portion of the video signal that has been classified for elimination during playback. The VCR is then automatically commanded to return to the normal "play" mode when the tape reaches the ending time of that portion of the video signal. Since all of the television signal is recorded on the tape, any or all of the signal may be viewed, even if portions of it have been misclassified.