I assure you I am most serious. For the commercials immediately preceding and following the "black" screen VZ occurrance, the FF function in fact is fully operational. And I recognized immmediately, as you suggest, that the defective "execution" of said commercial was due to either a - hopefully "one of" type - transitory DVR issue or a transmission failure of some sort.
However, the fact that it was a VZ commercial for which I lost control appeared to me a little too coincidental. I am aware also that there has been some press lately in which the ability to skip commercials has been noted as a sore point among content providers and advertisers ... players crucial to the well-being of VZ's FIOS TV ambitions. Hence, I posed the question .... and when you think about it, what better place for VZ to begin playing "Big Brother" on their DVRs than in protecting their own self-interests first.
Your "no" was delivered in a very authoritative way. As I am not well-versed in the nuances of these forums, shall I interpret that to mean you indeed speak directly as a representative of VZ on this matter?