DISH Hopper coming at CES ?

dvrman

Well-Known SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Nov 14, 2005
26
3
************************
**** NOTE FROM SCOTT ****
************************

We are told by DISH Network that the below article contains a number of inaccurate facts. I have worked digging for answers and believe I have found most of the inaccuracies which I posted at http://www.satelliteguys.us/pub-members-bar-grill/275184-dish-hopper-coming-ces-15.html#post2742800 however DISH will not officially confirm the information, so please take all information here with a grain of salt. In other words it's not gospel!

We will know everthing FOR SURE next Monday afternoon when we kick off our 2012 CES Coverage from Las Vegas! STAY TUNED!

*************************
*** END NOTE FROM SCOTT **
*************************


DATE: 01?10?2012

HEADLINE: Clayton Gets Hopping With Dish Campaigns

The new multi?room home?networking tools are central to the subscriber?challenged satellite TV service's

new marketing push and promise to, among other things, allow subscribers to record and cache all of the

prime time programs from local CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX affiliates each night between 8 and 11 p.m. and

hold them for up to eight days. That way, viewers will rarely miss a favorite major network program again,

Clayton said.

Dish CEO Joe Clayton presents the Hopper and the Joey (in his hands), key components in a new multi?room

DVR networking system.

Dish has named the automatic network recording capability Primetime Anytime, and will use it as part of a

massive advertising campaign Clayton has planned to grab eyeballs away from DirecTV, cable and telco TV

competitors.

The Hopper, which uses a kangaroo as its trademark, is a DVR and household server on steroids. It contains

2TB of internal storage capacity, three tuners, the ability to record up to six programs at a time, and can relay

programs from the Hopper's hard drive and tuners to up to three remote rooms in the house.

Viewers, in effect, gain the ability to "hop from room to room" viewing the same program on different TVs.

"We want people demanding a Hopper," Clayton said. "It's fun, it's entertainment, it's emotional and it's

different from what everybody else has."

It's smaller partner, the Joey (as in a baby kangaroo), is actually a thin?client box that is tethered via a MoCA

coaxial cable system to the Hopper to share live and recorded TV programs in up to three additional rooms.

The system will incorporate a new interactive program guide that features a more ergonomic look and feel,

and provides access to programs recorded on the Primetime Anytime service.

In addition to launching the Hopper here, Clayton is also polishing up the Dish facade by dropping "Network"

from the brand name ? it's just Dish now on the marketing side ? introducing a new logo and amping up a

commercial advertising blitz to appeal to families.

"The new Dish is about fun and family entertainment," Clayton said. "It's not about model numbers or set?top

boxes. Each member of the family can be entertained together or with different programming playing at the

same time."

Clayton will be appealing to potential subscribers with the pitch: "more music, more magic, more memory,

more movies."

On the music end, Clayton is leveraging his past role as CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio to enhance and expand

SiriusXM music channels available on the Dish TV platform.

"We believe music is under served by cable TV and DirecTV," Clayton contended. "Today, we offer in our

higher?end packages up to 65 channels of SiriusXM commercial?free music. We are going to expand that

virtually across our entire platform and move it from channel 6000, where it is hidden, down to channel 99,

and when you hit 99 and then hit 61, you'll see SiriusXM Blue Grass come up and play, along with a picture

of the cover of the album the song comes from."

Clayton said in addition to existing SiriusXM channels, Dish plans to add a couple of additional music

services, hinting that "the Latino market is a growth market in an otherwise saturated pay?TV field, so we

will be adding 15 channels to appeal to that audience."

Dish will launch the Hopper and Joey with a promotional campaign, starting with Blockbuster At Home. The

new effort will play off of the previous Blockbuser Movie Pass campaign offering additional family and

children's programming in the package.

Subscribers who sign up will receive three months of free DVD rentals by mail, more than 40 channels of HD

programming, and more than 3,000 children's and family titles added to the existing library of streaming

Blockbuster on Demand movies, for a total of more than 8,000 movies and television programs.

For those without broadband service, Dish will offer a program called Blockbuster Unplugged, which will

download via satellite more than 500 movies at a rate of 10 a day.

Dish will also offer a program this spring for existing Dish subscribers who do not have a DVR?equipped

tuner decoder. This will provide an external hard drive that will plug into legacy equipment to deliver DVR

functionality to a standalone tuner box.

To engage consumers curious about Dish service, Clayton's team has developed a 72?hour sampling service

of the most popular movies and TV shows, called Dish Test Drive. This will use a downloaded app and cloud

service to provide live broadcast TV channels.

"You sign up online and we will provide Dish service to your phone, tablet or portable PC to try out," Clayton

said. "We believe people will get hooked on the service, plus it is a lead generator for us."

Dish will play up the various promotions with a new advertising campaign leveraging national TV spots to

talk about new products and features. The ads will center on Dish delivering more variety, more innovation

and more value.

Dish plans to tie the spots into its online efforts by launching a redesigned website, Clayton said.

Highlights: satellite, DirecTV, cable, Satellite, broadband
 
Last edited by a moderator:
3 tuners recording 6 shows? Are they referencing OTA tuners as well? Still behind the 8-ball from DTV's 5-tuner monster......
 
Well since the cat is out of the bag...

Pay attention to this part... "allow subscribers to record and cache all of the prime time programs from local CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX affiliates each night between 8 and 11 p.m. and hold them for up to eight days"

DISH is going to be be heavily advertising "Prime Time Anytime"

I have known about this for awhile, but was asked to keep quiet for competitive reasons. :)

Things are going to get very exciting. :)
 
I think they have to have this out of the door pretty quickly if they have ad campaigns built around it. Makes little sense otherwise. I wonder how they'll be able to record all of primetime during football season when the schedule gets out of whack or when there are Presidential addresses and other events, as well as local events that pop up.
 
Do the prime time stations really want their programming "cached"???

As it is ... advertisers probably "hate" DVRs because no one is watching the commercials anymore.

Case and point ... for ANY "result" show (American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, X Factor, for example) ... my wife and I "maybe" watch 10 minutes of the actual program ... a good act if they have it ... and then the result. In fact, for SYTYCD, Fox has cancelled the weekly result show, probably due in some part because advertisers are not willing to pay for them for the reason already mentioned.

The popups during programming is becoming so crazy large ... it is almost funny.

Anyway ... I can't see the networks a fan of this device.

With that being said ... I want one ;)
 
With this advanced equipment they'll end up making retailers take responsibility on equipment for a year instead of the current 6 months. It would be nice to hear about pricing also. From a dealers perspective, upfront costs to customer & monthly fees. It needs to be reasonable, which is always subject to personal opinion.
 
I am out at my sons 9th birthday party but was wondering if anyone knew who the source of the article is? I am almost believing the info is real.
 
***

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)

Latest posts