HOPPER NOT HOPPING

[KAB]

 

[gpflepsen]

So, after 7 days you can autohop until it's automatically deleted on the eight day... Great timing!

 

[thomasjk]

So, after 7 days you can autohop until it's automatically deleted on the eight day... Great timing!

If you save the series or the episode they are stored in My Recordings. Where they will remain until YOU delete them.

 

[KAB]

If you save the series or the episode they are stored in My Recordings. Where they will remain until YOU delete them.

You know that, I know that, but some folks.........

 

[KAB]

So, after 7 days you can autohop until it's automatically deleted on the eight day... Great timing!

Might want to spend a little time getting to know the equipment you use.

 

[gpflepsen]

If you save the series or the episode they are stored in My Recordings. Where they will remain until YOU delete them.

You know that, I know that, but some folks.........

Might want to spend a little time getting to know the equipment you use.

No sh!t guys...

 

[MikeD-C05]

You know I find the auto hop feature nice, but not having it won't kill me at all. I can still use the skip button and often I do it when I have auto hop on a show,because I can't get out of the habit, after so many years hitting the skip button. I really like the fact that they can record the big 4 networks using just one tuner. To me that is the best part of Prime Time Anytime anyway. IF you don't want to , you don't even have to set any timers for your network shows. I still have timers ,because I use them to save a copy for my Mini I-pad ,so I can watch them at work when I have nothing to do. Also allows me to put my show copies in my folder and my wife uses the Prime Time folder for watching her shows. We can share without fighting.

And as I have said before , the auto hop feature was used on the big 4 networks , so that DISH could use the feature as a bargaining chip in negotiations, for carriage of the local networks at a lower price. IF the station wants their advertisement revenue to keep coming in , they negotiate a lower price ,but delay the auto hop feature for a certain amount of days after the show airs, in hopes that subs will watch the commercials. If the locals decide to hike their price again too high for carriage ,when the contract comes up , DISH can always enable auto hop again , in order to extract a better deal. DISH could use this same auto hop feature on national cable channels if they wanted to , in order to do the same thing at contract time . It would involve moving some channels around on the same transponder so they can record a companies national cable channels. Say Time Warner, or Viacom etc. Then they could via software enable new menus for Prime Time Anytime folders for other related channels. They might not ever do this either, but it is an option if DISH chose to pursue it. So even though the auto hop feature was sold to customers as a feature , or I say a gimmick, it was really intended for bigger purposes than most people knew.

 

[ChadT41]

You know I find the auto hop feature nice, but not having it won't kill me at all. I can still use the skip button and often I do it when I have auto hop on a show,because I can't get out of the habit, after so many years hitting the skip button. I really like the fact that they can record the big 4 networks using just one tuner. To me that is the best part of Prime Time Anytime anyway. IF you don't want to , you don't even have to set any timers for your network shows. I still have timers ,because I use them to save a copy for my Mini I-pad ,so I can watch them at work when I have nothing to do. Also allows me to put my show copies in my folder and my wife uses the Prime Time folder for watching her shows. We can share without fighting.

And as I have said before , the auto hop feature was used on the big 4 networks , so that DISH could use the feature as a bargaining chip in negotiations, for carriage of the local networks at a lower price. IF the station wants their advertisement revenue to keep coming in , they negotiate a lower price ,but delay the auto hop feature for a certain amount of days after the show airs, in hopes that subs will watch the commercials. If the locals decide to hike their price again too high for carriage ,when the contract comes up , DISH can always enable auto hop again , in order to extract a better deal. DISH could use this same auto hop feature on national cable channels if they wanted to , in order to do the same thing at contract time . It would involve moving some channels around on the same transponder so they can record a companies national cable channels. Say Time Warner, or Viacom etc. Then they could via software enable new menus for Prime Time Anytime folders for other related channels. They might not ever do this either, but it is an option if DISH chose to pursue it. So even though the auto hop feature was sold to customers as a feature , or I say a gimmick, it was really intended for bigger purposes than most people knew.

I agree on all points. My favorite thing is the PTAT as well, on one tuner, and automatically records. There are quite a few shows that I NOW watch that I had never heard of before, because I saw it on PTAT. The actually, IMHO, was the best marketing ploy for the channels, not DISH yet still remained symbiotic.

 

[bookworm370]

I agree with MikeD completely. Only now do cooler minds prevail and understands that Charlie looks out further than the end of his driveway. They started Autohopping the broadcast channels. The contacts came up, so they said, keep the price the same and we'll delay the start of autohop. So it will happen with others. Skip is still there. But it is nice to know which can hop and which can not.

An announcement in advance maybe in this board might have been made. But instead of Dish paying 20% more to defray the lost revenue that CBS was seeing they are paying the same and not passing on the new prices to us. Hell, which I doubt is likely, the retransmission charges might have been reduced but I can't see CBS or the others agreeing on that. So IMHO Dish is not pocketing anything.

And yes, why is everyone crying over 2 channels when the recorder has the ability (once channels are moved on the satellite to auto-record and hop over any, repeat any, channel. I have yet, except for one inference that anyone is whining about not being able to Auto-Hop over the TCM and USA network (etc, etc) commercials. Why not? Because you never had it...

It also gives Charlie the power when contracts expire with TCM and USA to just start Auto-Hopping those channels. In about 2 months, all the networks that Dish has started Auto-Hopping on will come back to re-open contract talks and guess what, there will be a price reduction involved. Dish doesn't even to play bad guy at the beginning. They didn't warn ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX that they would be auto-hopped did they? Why warn USA and TCM that they will be to? That will just cause them to dig in their heels, stall negotiations and still raise rates. Simple business obfuscation.

Renegotiate the USA contract, take a 10% bump in price, then auto-hop them, eat that bump for a few months. Guess what, USA come back and says we'll give you the 10 or 20% back (maybe even retro-actively) if you also include is in your longer delay package.

As a C-Suite executive (sorry, not marketing) I would walk up to Charlie or the CMO and kiss them on the cheek! A throughly thought out (let's not win the battle, let's win the war) strategy. You gained Auto-Hop and it's still capable. You never had it before (Apple Watch, or iPhone anyone???) and now you can't live without it. Well the networks can't live with it. Perfect position to be in. He must have taken a lessons from Apple!

Oh and BTW, what other provider will you threaten to go to because you can't Auto-Hop anymore? NADA.. Time Warner? Nope, ComCast, Nope, Common, This is not bad for us, inconvenient for some because your iPhone (or sorry Hopper) doesn't work the same anymore, Yes. But the end result is the costs stay stable for us and maybe give Dish some extra buffer to launch a few more satellites to do real competition they WILL be facing. What have you been reading about what NETFLIX and APPLE are doing now????

With all due respect.......

 

[patmurphey]

I record the shows and watch them when the red kangaroo appears. For crying out loud, it's not rocket science and the shows are not time sensitive. Autohop remains a great feature.

 

[osu1991]

Sorry but COSTS are still rising and it was hinted that auto hop was a negotiating tool from the beginning, but it still hasn't been a benefit to consumers on the rising costs. Costs have still been passed on to consumers. They caved to Disney because of espn and all it got was a few HD channels that Dish should have already had, if Disney wasn't double dipping and charging for both SD and HD versions. Where is Disney XD HD that everyone was harping about having? It's no where on Dish, you have to go online to see that in HD. Why are SEC and LHN in basic national programming packs instead of the multi sport or treated as RSN's for their specific geographic areas? Just more fleecing of the consumer.

You want auto hop on the national cable channels, that's going to cost you too. Dish isn't going to pay a bunch of people to go through and tag programming 24/7 on 200+ channels, so auto-hop can work and not pass that cost along to you.

I would rather see Dish drop some programmers suites, if they don't agree to cut the fat on low rated niche channels with duplicate programming loops and reduce costs to consumers. They can start with the Weather Channel and then the Viacom and Discovery suites.

 

[bookworm370]

"Dish isn't going to pay a bunch of people to go through and tag programming 24/7 on 200+ channels, so auto-hop can work and not pass that cost along to you."

Sorry, but aren't all those 'people' already on Dish payroll, therefor a sunk cost and it won't cost them a penny to have them mark other channels hop-able? In manufacturing that's called fixed overhead cost of the plant. You run the plant to cover the fixed cost and anything over is profit. If you can't meet fixed cost then you run at a loss.

So the people are already paid, and they won't be paid more to go back and tag, it's part of their job and fixed.

 

[osu1991]

Really and so who is going to do the jobs they are already doing? They certainly don't have people sitting around now with nothing to do that can also take on 8hrs of video scanning and tagging daily. That fixed cost doesn't already exist

 

[bookworm370]

Sorry, are you in business anywhere. Salary is salary.... Spread it out over 100 people, it will get done in 1 hour of real time. A grain of sand in productivity. And if they stay 10 minutes each, it's still salary. NO extra cost.

 

[osu1991]

Guess I don't know anything about business. I only took in $1.8million last year for my little company. Maybe I should hire you, so I don't go broke with stupid theories.

 

[bookworm370]

Ok.. Last post from me on the subject. If you want to compare sizes. Mine is a 850MM public company. I guess different perspectives and Dish see us as we see each other.. All due respect.

 

[ChadT41]

Are we comparing Johnson sizes via work now?