DIRT help. Update Bug? HWS

onethree

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Jul 10, 2007
41
2
Oklahoma
Last night I noticed an ad on the standby screen. That was unseemly but the real problem is that no matter what channel I leave my HWS on when I turn it off it ALWAYS comes back on to channel 346 Encore Classic. Has anyone else had this problem? Can a DIRT member help? Software version s520 NDEB.
 
Update: My other HWS does the same thing but it defaults to our local NBC station every time it is turned off and back on. Both are running the same software BTW.
 
If you have the latest software, it is not a bug, it's a new feature. The new software looks at your watching history and makes a decision as to what channel to open up on. There is not a way to turn it off.....
 
Wow, not a feature I am interested in because it could land you in a program that is not appropriate for all audiences. Depending on what you watch it could be embarrassing. It's also a little Orwellian that it keeps track of your viewing history. It doesn't sound well thought out at all. Thank you for the information. I hope someone from DISH sees the potential problem with this and changes it or gives an option to turn it off.
 
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Exactly. Been discussed before and I'm sure will continue. Dish rarely ever allows its customers to configure things to their liking/needs which is one of their big weaknesses holding them back. Totally understand that they can't make everything user configurable and not suggesting that. But for something simple like this where it is NOT a necessary function of the user experience, there should be an out for us to not be tracked and allow the Hopper to simple turn on at the last station we were watching. Simple menu setting. And instead of assuming and a very poorly written algorithm to do this, they should at least have an option where the user can set the channel they want as a default if they like.

It absolutely drives me nuts as for some reason the Joey I have always comes up so Sirius Hits and I never listen to music from that device. Mostly recordings on the other two DVR's so since I rarely change the channel for regular watching it must "think" I like this channel. Uggh.
 
I don' t have the latest software that just hit ,but my hopper defaults to my ota Abc station. Because we stay tuned to this station from 6:00am till around 11:00am and all our news comes from this on at noon, 5:00pm till 6:30pm. So 9 out of 10 times my hopper is on that station when I turn it on.
 
I don't know, I think it might be something good. Not to mention it was asked for a few times over the years on the main forum. Sort of.

Agree, if done right and they allow the option to turn it off. It's been discussed that what if you accidentally turn off the Hopper. When you turn it back on you are not at the same channel you were watching, but thrown back to that default. Not an Earth-shattering problem, but guarantee that if left as is over time it will become a nuisance.
 
When people are saying that the default it currently goes back to might be inappropriate... That would mean they spend the majority of their time on that inappropriate channel. It's a smart system. For instance, I leave my box on USA when I am not watching anything in particular. When I turn my hopper on, it goes to 105. It's whatever you watch the most, so this really should cause concern to most people as most people will not leave it on the playboy channel all day, and if they do, they likely do not care or have anyone there to hide it from. If you watch a lot of Cinemax, and are afraid of skinemax coming on the Tv, that is after 8-9pm, so again, kids likely won't be the problem for those that don't want them to see that. It's all based off what you watch the majority of the time so I do not see that being an issue honestly.
 
IMHO the only thing it does besides being annoying is it reminds me how much Dish knows about our viewing habits. :eeek
 
Lol. I have been preaching that since signing up on this forum last year!!!! Digital. They know exactly how much of each channel and when you are watching(it doesn't record your account information, just the volume for negotiation purposes. Ask Ovation how that goes). Just goes to show that does not need Internet for the box to customize itself.
 
Interesting subject..

While we don't have kids, lets say you like to watch porn on one of the channels you subscribe to so no special code needed. The next day your kid turns on the TV and (sorry for the pun) boom! Result, instant lawsuit to Dish, followed by class action suit and more bad publicity. that will be picked up by every news outlet in the nation and then multiple other suits. Then payments from Dish for the rest of the child's life for psychiatric help and heaven forbid the child commits a sex crime later on! :ballchain Just following a logical chain of events.

Kids may be allowed 1-2 hours of viewing during the day but you watch the rest of the day and especially the evening. Next day your daughter turns on to watch the morning comics. It won't be comical.

I can understand some of the reasoning, but it's also personal intrusion. My wife stays up late sometimes to watch TV because I have to go bed early. In the morning when I'm having breakfast and I turn on the TV, it turns onto the channel she was watching. What happened to personal privacy? I now know what channel she was watching last night and by looking at the guide, what show she was watching. Either way, an invasion of personal privacy. Forget that they sell your viewing habits to marketing companies and Nielson. The implications of others in your home, or for that reason a guest that is told to just turn on the TV, gets an eyeful of something they never thought you would watch. Church channel or the other extreme.

Boy I can smell a giant lawsuit on this one. Just how much conference room discussions goes into each feature at Dish? Or does a single programmer say 'Hey, this would be nice and puts it in, It gets by code review because they never test it in their homes for a few days and no one notices it'. Either way the 'Company' is liable for anything a single employee does.

It should either default to a channel you can set, not the last watched or most watched. We mostly watch USA or BBCA at night, But both of those channels have crap at 7am...

I'm having lunch with my attorney a couple weeks from now on another matter. I might bring this up, reminding him it's not billable for his opinion :shh if it happed to him and how he would respond from a legal point of view, as it would be free for him to file a law suit.

Certain things I don't mind, for example time shifting shows can actually save a TV show from being canceled if you watch it a day or so after it airs. The networks want to not just know their share in a time slot but if the other show does have a following. If so it could be saved if moved to another slot. Same issue with loss of revenue by hopping that they have been negotiating with lately and why we can't hop for certain periods on certain channels.

But the turning on to the most watched or last watched channel watched goes too far IMHO.
I wouldn't be surprised if Dish hasn't already been served with lawsuits as we speak. Hummmmm..
 
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I am sure that the porn channels have been taken out of the mix. I, myself, have only seen 3 channels come up. MY CBS, Fox, and ESPN.....
 
DIRT please register my comment with development. I will call this a feature however it is very annoying at best. When I turn a hopper or Joey off and come back 5min, 30min or 3 days later I expect / want it to tune to the channel I left it on, not what I happen to watch a lot. I would ask for a on off switch in settings for this please. And please beat the person who came up with this with a wet noodle!
 
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I have both Hoppers set to tune to one of the music channels at 6 am. When any child in our house turns the TV on during the day, it will always be on the music channel. Problem solved.
 
I wonder how this feature will behave in the future with the upcoming UI change (as shown at CES). It is supposed to include "user profiles" so if a Hopper has multiple users enabled, which channel will be used by this feature ? If anyone recalls, this update will incorporate the same 'most watched' feature for each user's home screen.
 
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Interesting subject..

While we don't have kids, lets say you like to watch porn on one of the channels you subscribe to so no special code needed. The next day your kid turns on the TV and (sorry for the pun) boom! Result, instant lawsuit to Dish, followed by class action suit and more bad publicity. that will be picked up by every news outlet in the nation and then multiple other suits. Then payments from Dish for the rest of the child's life for psychiatric help and heaven forbid the child commits a sex crime later on! :ballchain Just following a logical chain of events.

Kids may be allowed 1-2 hours of viewing during the day but you watch the rest of the day and especially the evening. Next day your daughter turns on to watch the morning comics. It won't be comical.

I can understand some of the reasoning, but it's also personal intrusion. My wife stays up late sometimes to watch TV because I have to go bed early. In the morning when I'm having breakfast and I turn on the TV, it turns onto the channel she was watching. What happened to personal privacy? I now know what channel she was watching last night and by looking at the guide, what show she was watching. Either way, an invasion of personal privacy. Forget that they sell your viewing habits to marketing companies and Nielson. The implications of others in your home, or for that reason a guest that is told to just turn on the TV, gets an eyeful of something they never thought you would watch. Church channel or the other extreme.

Boy I can smell a giant lawsuit on this one. Just how much conference room discussions goes into each feature at Dish? Or does a single programmer say 'Hey, this would be nice and puts it in, It gets by code review because they never test it in their homes for a few days and no one notices it'. Either way the 'Company' is liable for anything a single employee does.

It should either default to a channel you can set, not the last watched or most watched. We mostly watch USA or BBCA at night, But both of those channels have crap at 7am...

I'm having lunch with my attorney a couple weeks from now on another matter. I might bring this up, reminding him it's not billable for his opinion :shh if it happed to him and how he would respond from a legal point of view, as it would be free for him to file a law suit.

Certain things I don't mind, for example time shifting shows can actually save a TV show from being canceled if you watch it a day or so after it airs. The networks want to not just know their share in a time slot but if the other show does have a following. If so it could be saved if moved to another slot. Same issue with loss of revenue by hopping that they have been negotiating with lately and why we can't hop for certain periods on certain channels.

But the turning on to the most watched or last watched channel watched goes too far IMHO.
I wouldn't be surprised if Dish hasn't already been served with lawsuits as we speak. Hummmmm..
Remember, it is most watched at each television. Most people are not going to be watching porn the majority of their time with a child in the house, especially on a TV that would be majority shared with the child(living for instance). And it is not about Dish knowing what your specific TV watches, it is like smart phones nowadays that customize settings around you and adapt based on your daily user controls. If you have a child in our house, sharing a TV with you, there is a good chance they are going to be watching more Disney and Nick, than you are of porn. And I don't see how displaying something you have chosen to subscribe to would be a lawsuit, and I'm sure that is the card that would be played by Dish. Subscribing to it was your choice, and your liability.
 
Correct on the legality of this one feature of the entire Dish system. There is no way a judge would ever rule that knowing what another family member is/was viewing is an invasion of privacy within the same household.

I can see if we had a way to spy on people OUTSIDE our home, like a hack or bad programming where we could tap into someone else's Dish device, then definitely a lawsuit waiting to happen. As Chad mentioned, this is a luxury spend and we have the option to not use this service. TV is not like a public utility where without it your life could be at risk or you may not have other options.

And if I remember correctly, from the beginning Dish always had their devices programed to come on with the last channel viewed. It's just recently that they are trying to develop a way to customize the user's viewing experience.

Again, simple menu solution: -allow the feature, -allow users to set their own default channel (eliminates the 'honestly honey, I have no idea why the Naughty Booty channel keeps coming up' dilemma), -allow it to be disabled and last channel is used. Easy. Clean. Done.