Is Dish sending ads via Broadband?

[kgsm96]

I have a very simple installation, only a 722 connected to my internet and connected to a single HDTV. During the day the TV is tuned to CNBC. Recently I noticed that local ads were playing. These ads looked like a video file that was playing via an extremely slow internet connection (very poor video). When I use the remote to backup the playback, the local ads are gone and a national ad is in the place where the local ad had been. This seems "inconceivable" on so many levels but I have observed it multiple times. I find it hard to believe that a stream from the satellite would be able to bypass the DVR, so the only other connection would be the internet.

So is Dish using my internet to push advertisements onto my satellite receiver?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Nope they are delivered via satellite overnight.

 

[Hall]

It's not "bypassing" the DVR, well, I guess it kinda is..... It works something like this normally:

Satellite >> Receiver >> Hard drive >> Output

What Dish must be doing to overlay these ads is:

Satellite >> Receiver >> Hard drive >> Insert ad into audio/video stream >> Output

This is why when you rewind, it's not there. I don't believe you'll see these when playing back a recording either.

 

[Tampa8]

And I'll add not new DISH has been inserting ads for quite sometime.

 

[kgsm96]

Nope they are delivered via satellite overnight.

Thanks

 

[Joe891]

When i do see a local ad it's usually in hd quality, it seems like a 1 in a million chance that i get them as I'll see them maybe once a week other than on my locals which I'd expect to see them on there

 

[The Fat Man]

It's funny when I watch a show on the DVR that has an ad inserted, but when I reverse (I don't say rewind anymore, as there is nothing on digital hardware to "wind") to find that the original ad that Dish overlapped is playing instead.

 

[pattykay]

It is even funnier if you have the exact same channel in both windows of side-by-side PIP. This makes it really easy to spot the inserted ads. (If you are bored enough to look for them) The inserted ad will play in the window on the left with audio, while the original ad plays in the window on the right.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I believe Directv does this also.

The reason why most of them are in SD is because I think they download several at one time and compress the crap out of it.

I bet it's only on DVR's that are connected to the internet so they can report back that the ad was actually viewed.

 

[Claude Greiner]

They can't technically upload them through the broadband connection unless in the case of AT&T they are the broadband provider.

They would not want to create a situation of putting you over your data cap because they used your data connection to upload ads to your TV.

 

[pattykay]

I bet it's only on DVR's that are connected to the internet so they can report back that the ad was actually viewed.

None of my DVR's are connected to the internet, and I have still seen the inserted ads. I have even seen them on a 512, which isn't even capable of being connected to the internet. (The 512 is capable of being connected to a land-based phone line, but I didn't have a landline at that time, either.)

 

[Hall]

If people remember, years ago, Dish installers would insist on connecting receivers to a telephone line. It wasn't mandatory but Dish threw in that bone of "caller ID on-screen" to entice people. Once receivers with Ethernet (and later, WiFi) came along, notice that they no longer made a big deal about the phone line connection ?

 

[Bobby]

If people remember, years ago, Dish installers would insist on connecting receivers to a telephone line. It wasn't mandatory but Dish threw in that bone of "caller ID on-screen" to entice people. Once receivers with Ethernet (and later, WiFi) came along, notice that they no longer made a big deal about the phone line connection ?

I think that had more to do with ordering up PPVs from the receiver than anything else. A telephone connection or internet connection was the only way to alert Dish that you had watched a PPV. If you had no connection to either, the box would have a timer that would give you a popup that your receiver was going to be disabled until you paid for that event. That timer would be weeks out from when you actually viewed it.

 

[pattykay]

I think that had more to do with ordering up PPVs from the receiver than anything else. A telephone connection or internet connection was the only way to alert Dish that you had watched a PPV. If you had no connection to either, the box would have a timer that would give you a popup that your receiver was going to be disabled until you paid for that event. That timer would be weeks out from when you actually viewed it.

Maybe that is why Dish doesn't care that my receivers are not connected to a phone line or internet. I hardly ever order PPV, and when I do, I always use a PPV certificate to pay for it. I have never seen that popup.