Hopper Wins In Court AGAIN!

[king3pj]

Frankly I see AutoHop as pointless and "dangerous" in the sense that it gives networks an excuse to go after time-shifting technology in general, not just AutoHop. It seems to me that money will be wasted on AutoHop regardless of the outcome. Not to mention, is Dish paying employees just to sit there and watch TV, placing markers to skip, every single day? Is it really worth all that just so that lazyasses don't have to hit SKIP FWD 7 or so times? The one time I tried AutoHop I didn't even like it because it took too long to start skipping. I was already grabbing my remote ready to skip before I remembered "Oh yeah, AutoHop is supposed to kick in any moment now."

See, I love Auto Hop. I like the set it and forget it nature. I usually only see maybe 2 seconds of a commercial before it kicks in. Occasionally there will be a promo that isn't skipped but it's not like that happens every commercial break. It's great when I am doing something else while watching TV and never have to think to grab the remote.

My only problem is that I can't find enough network programing that I like to take advantage of it with. I want Auto Hop to be expanded to every channel. The fact that someone has to actually watch and manually insert the markers mean that's probably not likely though.

 

[Scherrman]

I honestly can't believe how worked up some people are getting about this. Whether or not Dish has the Autohop feature there are going to be price increases. They will not stop.

For those of you siding with Fox about how they need to make money on the ads, There is onlt a small percentage of Dish customers with Hoppers and of that percentage only a small percentage use PTAT and of the percentage of people who use PTAT there is another percentage of them that use the Autohop feature. Granted, the percentage of PTAT users that use Autohop is pretty high but the total of overall subscribers has to be very small. I haven't watched a PTAT anytime show since last Fall, so almost a year. I'm sure there are many more Hopper users out there just like me. So lets not get so paranoid people.

 

[gadgtfreek]

I don't think anyone is siding with Fox, read again. My only concern has ever been for a company who is already on enough shaky ground with broadcasters, why stir it up more for a feature that does not add much, especially when its proponents here admit it doesn't work that well. Then if they are really having someone sit there and mark this stuff manually (hello square wheel), whats the freaking point.

 

[cosmo_kramer]

I seriously doubt that the AutoHop marking is a manual process.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/284295-AutoHop-secrets-revealed

 

[ekilgus]

You dont get the fact that at contract time the networks have two choices... pull themselfs off of DISH and lose 15 million customers... or charge DISH what they charge all other providers.

They just cant say "Well its DISH, we hate them so we will charge them more." its not like that. The laws are in DISH's favor all around.

Not only are you correct but it's my belief that the other providers (Direct, Comcast, etc.) have this or similar technology and are waiting to see how this plays out with Dish and the courts before introducing it themselves.

 

[Gobucks]

It's all moot, as the customer always loses at contract renewal time, for all providers, whether it's loss of carriage, or increased rates. Autohop, or not, Dish or Direct or cable. It doesn't matter. We could be in the worst recession/depression ever, and the content providers will continue to demand higher and higher rates.

I'm sure companies like Dish, Direct, TWC and so on would still add more fee's and raise the price of fee's too. It's like we the consumer can never win. If the content providers decided to give us a year or two off we would still see our bill raised with fee's. It will never ever end.

 

[gadgtfreek]

I seriously doubt that the AutoHop marking is a manual process.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/284295-AutoHop-secrets-revealed

Well, Scott just posted this:

Here is the Hopper Secret Sauce.

"To create the AutoHop functionality, Dish technicians in Cheyenne, Wyoming manually view Fox’s primetime programing each night and technologically mark the beginning and end of each commercial.
The program contentis not altered in any way.
The electronically marked files are then uplinked in Wyoming and eventually transmitted to subscribers in an “announcement” file that Dish makes available to subscribers after the show has aired.
Simultaneously with the uplink, three “beta Hoppers” record the Fox primetime block for transmissions in Kentucky,Pennsylvania, and Florida to test the marking announcement.These copies remain at the uplink facility and are used to make sure the commercials have been accurately marked and that no portion of the program has been cut off"

The new conversation should be about how sorry we feel for those guys who have to do this, its means they have to watch all the Fox programming. Thats punishment.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I don't think anyone is siding with Fox, read again. My only concern has ever been for a company who is already on enough shaky ground with broadcasters, why stir it up more for a feature that does not add much, especially when its proponents here admit it doesn't work that well. Then if they are really having someone sit there and mark this stuff manually (hello square wheel), whats the freaking point.

It only does not work well in SOME markets is because some stations operate on a delay of a few seconds.

For example My local ABC is 7 seconds behind the Springfield affiliate. These delays cause glitches in the AutoHop since the timing is not the same even though your watching the same show from the same network.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I seriously doubt that the AutoHop marking is a manual process.

This is what they claim in court documents.

 

[navychop]

You dont get the fact that at contract time the networks have two choices... pull themselfs off of DISH and lose 15 million customers... or charge DISH what they charge all other providers.

They just cant say "Well its DISH, we hate them so we will charge them more." its not like that. The laws are in DISH's favor all around.

And there's Aereo thundering forward with another, expanding, option.

 

[gadgtfreek]

For Autohop to implement itself, you have to use PTAT, correct? Then after the nightly update, the commercial wipe's are implemented, so if you watch the show 5 days later you just hit play and watch until the show ends? Or is there a set timeframe before autohop is active? Ive also noticed Dish says sometimes autohop for a show is "not available".

 

[cosmo_kramer]

This is what they claim in court documents.

Sure, because they want to extend the appearance of human intervention in the process.

I do agree that the process of shutting down the HD RSN feed at the end of a game is a manual one though...

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Gadgetfreek I love that you are arguing against something you seem to have no clue about, but here we like to educate people, so your good.

First off, no commercials are wiped.

When you watch a PTAT recorded show you get a big screen that pops up and asks you if you want to skip the commercials, the default is for NO. But if you select yes then when watching a show you will see a few seconds of a commercial then the AutoHop kicks in where it basically hits the 30 second skip for you to get you through the commercials.

If you grabbed the remote and rewound the should you would see the ads. They are still there, they were not wiped.

 

[Scherrman]

For Autohop to implement itself, you have to use PTAT, correct? Then after the nightly update, the commercial wipe's are implemented, so if you watch the show 5 days later you just hit play and watch until the show ends? Or is there a set timeframe before autohop is active? Ive also noticed Dish says sometimes autohop for a show is "not available".

?Autohop is available the next morning for a PTAT show. That show is available for 8 days unless you save it to your hard drive.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I do agree that the process of shutting down the HD RSN feed at the end of a game is a manual one though...

I dont know about that, I have seen a few times games were shut off because the games were still being played just in extra innings. (I hate when that happens!)

 

[king3pj]

I don't think anyone is siding with Fox, read again. My only concern has ever been for a company who is already on enough shaky ground with broadcasters, why stir it up more for a feature that does not add much, especially when its proponents here admit it doesn't work that well. Then if they are really having someone sit there and mark this stuff manually (hello square wheel), whats the freaking point.

A couple people said it doesn't work that well. I think most of us are quite happy with it. Auto Hop has never caused me to miss any programing. What I see is usually about 2 seconds of commercial at the start of the break and about 2 seconds of commercial at the end of the break. I'm certainly not going to quit using it over that "inconvenience". It still means that once I press play I'm basically watching shows on my locals like they are a premium network with no commercials or intervention from me.

 

[Hall]

This is what they claim in court documents.

People have always speculated two scenarios, 1) Some poor chaps have to sit and watch all the shows on the Big 4 (further speculation that it was even done in India!) or 2) it was done by software using closed-caption markers.

Now, just because Dish said in court how they do it doesn't mean it's true (though they do swear to "tell the truth"). How they do it isn't in question nor is it the issue at hand. They also don't want to give away the secret. Of course, if as claimed that D* also does it by using CC markers, Dish has this technique patented ! Uh-oh !!

 

[gadgtfreek]

?Autohop is available the next morning for a PTAT show. That show is available for 8 days unless you save it to your hard drive.

Thanks, I figure if I'm gonna form a full opinion about something I need to use it. It'll pain me to release the death grip on OTA programming, but I reckon I can do it

I imagine id get in the PTAT folder once a day, and move the previous nights stuff over to my actual folders, and get rid of the rest. We stay more than 8 days behind usually so I cant rely on leaving it in the PTAT folder.

 

[Hall]

...especially when its proponents here admit it doesn't work that well. Then if they are really having someone sit there and mark this stuff manually (hello square wheel), whats the freaking point.

First off, it works, IMO, "pretty good". Is it perfect ? Nope.... Do you sometimes see a couple seconds of a commercial ? Yeap.... The bigger benefit is the user has to do nothing !

 

[gadgtfreek]

Gadgetfreek I love that you are arguing against something you seem to have no clue about, but here we like to educate people, so your good.

First off, no commercials are wiped.

When you watch a PTAT recorded show you get a big screen that pops up and asks you if you want to skip the commercials, the default is for NO. But if you select yes then when watching a show you will see a few seconds of a commercial then the AutoHop kicks in where it basically hits the 30 second skip for you to get you through the commercials.

If you grabbed the remote and rewound the should you would see the ads. They are still there, they were not wiped.

Well, my argument has been that it will make the Big 4 more po'd, not about how it works . I don't need to understand that to make that argument. But like I said, Im going to turn the goofy thing on and try it to see what all this mess is about. Who knows, maybe next week Ill be outside the Supreme Court building holding up Pro-AutoHop signs.