Hopper Wins In Court AGAIN!

[tomcrown1]

After you exhaust the lower courts you can then petition the Supreme Court. Then can then decide to hear the case which I believe they will.

This Supreme Court have heard cases that the lower courts have rejected.

 

[dfergie]

The Supreme Court is overloaded as it is...

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Word is that time markers in the PTAT stream are placed manually by someone watching, and then those markers are sent down overnight through the update window or thereabouts. So supposedly software solutions to defeat it would be ineffective.

I am told the way DIRECTV's commercial skip works (which again is not turned on) is that it watches the closed captioning and is technology they acquired when they purchased Replay TV.

Honestly the DIRECTV solution could remove the commercials from ANY channel not just from 4 channels durring the 4 hour prime time hours that the Hopper does.

 

[JM42]

? It can not be used during live viewing, nor during the same day as the airdate. Nielson ratings are not affected. Commercials are still there to be skipped manually, just as they are being done now without Autohop.

I actually see significantly more of the ads when using autohop than when manually skipping. With autohop, you usually get a few seconds of the first and last commercials. My thumb is more efficient, but takes more effort.

Also, autohop does not skip any of the in-show promos that often lead into the commercial break, ie: "brought to you by blah blah blah." Again, if manually skipping, I miss all of that, starting as soon as there it feels like a break is coming.

 

[dfergie]

I am told the way DIRECTV's commercial skip works (which again is not turned on) is that it watches the closed captioning and is technology they acquired when they purchased Replay TV.

Honestly the DIRECTV solution could remove the commercials from ANY channel not just from 4 channels durring the 4 hour prime time hours that the Hopper does.

I still have a 50XX model Replay, it worked pretty good at skipping but would occasionally slip up on one.

 

[dare2be]

I am told the way DIRECTV's commercial skip works (which again is not turned on) is that it watches the closed captioning and is technology they acquired when they purchased Replay TV.

I've seen some commercials that had closed captioning on them, so I wonder how truly effective that solution would be.

 

[JimWH]

I don't have Hopper, so I'm curious. Does it filter out DISH's own commercials as well? If it does I might consider getting it just to be rid of that annoying chick gets who gets what she DE-SERVES.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Even by some miracle that it was heard by the supreme court, the broadcasters would lose just based on the merits displayed by the lower courts.

 

[JM42]

After you exhaust the lower courts you can then petition the Supreme Court. Then can then decide to hear the case which I believe they will.

I doubt they would take up the injuction, but the final ruling(s) - yeah.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I don't have Hopper, so I'm curious. Does it filter out DISH's own commercials as well? If it does I might consider getting it just to be rid of that annoying chick gets who gets what she DE-SERVES.

Yup it does. As long as they air on one of the big four during Primetime Hours.

Here lets let the Boston Guys explain this one for you.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

For those who still think DISH is in the wrong, you might want to read the ruling issued today.

Some interesting things in there.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/155719747/Hopper

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

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"

 

[Tampa8]

"As to a direct copyright infringement claim, the record did not establish that the provider, rather than its customers, made copies of television programs for viewing."

That, everyone is the crux of the question. The question of skipping by the Consumer I just don't see as being revisited, it's been long decided.

 

[cosmo_kramer]

What good is 15 million viewers for network if we all use auto hop and can not see the ads? That is the fear.

Isn't the important part that we're still watching the programs and we're still counting towards ratings?? How many folks with DVRs, no matter the provider, and AutoHop or not, regularly watch ads??

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

"As to a direct copyright infringement claim, the record did not establish that the provider, rather than its customers, made copies of television programs for viewing."

That, everyone is the crux of the question. The question of skipping by the Consumer I just don't see as being revisited, it's been long decided.

Bingo, we have a winner.

Remember the consumer must enable this feature if they want to use it, it is a consumer choice, not something being forced by DISH.

 

[rexlan]

Word is that time markers in the PTAT stream are placed manually by someone watching, and then those markers are sent down overnight through the update window or thereabouts. So supposedly software solutions to defeat it would be ineffective.

Channels could start injecting more commercial breaks into the stream, so instead of 3 commercial breaks of 3 minutes each, they could have 9 commericlal breaks of 1 minute each, making it harder to set up the autohop for each episode.

I thought you were done here ... LOL. Until you modified your post ...

 

[dare2be]

I thought you were done here ... LOL. Until you modified your post ...

Addiction is an awful thing...

 

[3HaloODST]

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."

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

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."

Thats what I said half the time AutoHop misses big chunks of commercials. I did better commercial skip by using the 30 second skip button on my remote.

 

[mike123abc]

For those who still think DISH is in the wrong, you might want to read the ruling issued today.

Some interesting things in there.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/155719747/Hopper

I do think Dish will win, they have a strong case, the broadcasters may have to force removal of autohop by withholding programming.

But, of course the courts could find differently. Remember Dish had a great "win" in the preliminary injunction stage of the VOOM trial too...