Auto Hop Explained

Customers will love it just as much as the networks will hate it. I see a lawsuit. It will be like those you-know-what blu-ray discs that won't let you skip the previews!!

I always skip the previews on Bluray discs. If I can't get rid of them with a chapter advance I simply hit fast forward, boom, they're gone!
 
I always skip the previews on Bluray discs. If I can't get rid of them with a chapter advance I simply hit fast forward, boom, they're gone!
There are some that do not allow you to do that. You get a "command not available" error, or something like it, when you attempt to skip or ffwd. Pretty ballsy on their part.
 
This is only for PTAT? That kinda sucks.
As some have speculated - I'm not sure how practical it is though - Dish could have human beings manually "marking" the spots, hence the time delay before it's available and why it's only available on pre-defined shows.
 
As some have speculated - I'm not sure how practical it is though - Dish could have human beings manually "marking" the spots, hence the time delay before it's available and why it's only available on pre-defined shows.
Doubtful. It is most likely software driven. There are markers embedded in all network broadcasts that signify commercial placement. This allows local affiliates, and cable/sat carriers, to insert their commercials automatically. Auto Hop most likely takes advantage of those markers.

I just wish they could apply it to non-PTAT recordings.
 
Is anyone up late to verify when this enabling every night?

Reason i ask is that i was up late last night and I think even at 2AM ET it hadn't enabled yet for the Thursday recordings. I fell asleep after that and didn't see when it finally did. It did start showing in the morning though.
 
Is anyone up late to verify when this enabling every night?

Reason i ask is that i was up late last night and I think even at 2AM ET it hadn't enabled yet for the Thursday recordings. I fell asleep after that and didn't see when it finally did. It did start showing in the morning though.
Remember DISH is headquartered in Colorado, MDT... :) 1 am here is 3 am Edt.
 
I remember when they had this feature in the old VHS VCR's

It would do the commercial advance, but after the show recorded the VCR had to go back and put in marks where the commercials needed to be skipped.

Replay TV almost got sued over this. I guess Dish must love being in lawsuits.
 
Doubtful. It is most likely software driven. There are markers embedded in all network broadcasts that signify commercial placement. This allows local affiliates, and cable/sat carriers, to insert their commercials automatically. Auto Hop most likely takes advantage of those markers.

I just wish they could apply it to non-PTAT recordings.
Agreed on both counts.
 
I'm very curious to know how this works and am pretty sure there are not markers in the stream. I was able to tour a TV station a few times and met the guy who inserts the local commercials. He literally sat there and flipped a switch and logged the fact that they were inserted as promised. I recall being very surprised that it wasn't automated.
Doubtful. It is most likely software driven. There are markers embedded in all network broadcasts that signify commercial placement. This allows local affiliates, and cable/sat carriers, to insert their commercials automatically. Auto Hop most likely takes advantage of those markers.
I thought there were markers as well and that's how local stations inserted commercials, but then someone has seen how commercials are actually inserted posts...
I just wish they could apply it to non-PTAT recordings.
If there's markers, they could. They could have done this a long, long time ago as well, before Hoppers.
 
I watched the 3 hours of two nights of American Idol in 15 minutes, but at 300 times speed. 30 second skip would have taken forever. Idol has become boring. I just deleted the timer.
 
I think that eventually E* will enable Auto-Hop for everything (if legally possible), but right now it's being used as a dangling carrot to get people to turn on PTAT. PTAT is a HUGE advancement in DVR technology, and E* wants people to experience it, but for some reason, a fair number of people aren't turning on PTAT because they aren't going to watch a lot of that programming and instead are setting timers as they did with their prior receivers. They believe it's going to take up all of the room on the hard drive and don't want that to happen. You can talk until you are blue in the face about a 2TB drive being partitioned to allow these recordings to not take up the space of "your" hard drive, but this shoots right over the heads of most folks. I personally like that I can record all of my network shows on one tuner, but again, that zips right past a lot of people. The one thing everyone has in common is that we hate commercials. So flip on PTAT and get rid of them. People will listen to that.
 
Yeah, all 2 of my network shows. If I had the Hopper, I wouldn't be turning on PTAT either.
 
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