I was talking to someone from Dish Engineering earlier today. Very nice guy. I don't remember his name. He called to clarify the general "video problem" issue listed on my account. Very pro-active on Dish's part. Anyway, during the course of our conversation, I offered some thoughts on a few of the so-called features that I felt were actually annoyances, and he was very receptive to my opinions, and informative about the reasons they choose to do certain things.
-My Channels: The reason they programmed it that way is due to what they felt was a high number of CSR calls wherein the customer would complain of missing channels, when the "problem" was that they had the guide set to a custom list. They feel that reverting to My Channels prevents this. I think it probably causes more customers to be frustrated than forgetting you're using a custom list. But, it's their call, I suppose.
However, he did offer the possibility of making this behavior user-configurable in a future SW release. He said it would be an easy thing. The factory default would be My Channels. But, for the type of customer that likes control, and wouldn't be calling CSR's about missing channels because they forgot which guide they were using, we could have a choice of default guide: My Channels, Last Used, or a specific one.
-Nested (Collapsible) Channels: Obviously, their reason for doing this is to reduce clutter and confusion in the guide. It certainly works well for large groups of channels. But, I pointed out that it's not very good for small groups of channels such as International or Regional Sports Nets. There's two reasons for it. The first is that even though, as a whole, Dish has a ton of Internationals and RSN's, each individual customer only has a few. In any particular market, there are only a couple of RSN's. Even if you add the HD versions, that's still only a handful. And, most subs would want them visible at all times in their guides. No need to for the extra "master" channel. The same is true for International pack channels. Plus, in any given household subscribing to an International Package, those channels are most likely the most-viewed.
After I explained this, he seemed to agree that nesting groups of channels with fewer than ten channels is counter-productive. (My argument was that they were creating a solution for which there was no problem, thus creating a problem where none existed before.) But, he felt it might be hard to change the way they have channels assigned to this system. However, he did feel it would be relatively simple to create a user option to enable/disable this feature. I'm definitely down with that!
BTW, he did say that they will probably never nest the PPV channels, as it is apparently a huge cash cow for them. That's a shame, as those channels cause the biggest clutter. Plus, I doubt very much that much of that revenue is generated by impulse purchases instigated by accidental glances in the guide. If someone is going to choose a PPV movie, they make an active choice to do so, and then search for a movie they might be interested in. They could do this just as easily if those channels were nested. But, I doubt we'll ever see that happen.
-He agreed that the HW design is not as optimized as it could be for ventilation and cooling. I feel that they totally ignored the heat generated by the PSU, just as they did with the 722k. They concentrated so much on the HDD that they neglected the PSU. If they would have just put some vents on the top of the case, above the PSU, they'd solve a lot of it. He didn't argue the point.
-The SW update spooling order is based on date of manufacture.
-They are taking a much different approach to the Hopper system than previous model rollouts. They want this to work as well as possible, as quickly as possible.
-They have the technology to apply Auto-Hop to almost all programming. BUT...they need to tread carefully due to legal and business issues. So, we may see this go beyond PTAT at some point. Or, we may not. There are certain sporting and special events where it will NEVER happen, such as the Super Bowl. (I would imagine this may be due to the live nature of these events. Also, in the case of the Super Bowl, the ads are part of the show itself.)
-EHD Transfer Issues: I had an issue with the transferring recordings to a replacement Hopper using an EHD! Almost all of the transferred recordings are unplayable. When I try to play them, I get a black screen. When I go back to the DVR page, and highlight the recording again, I get an error 04 in the program info field at the top. When I check the details for the recording, it says 0.0GB, and a date in the year 2106.
He said that one possible cause is if the Hoppers were on different SW revisions. And, that was the case. The original Hopper was on 210, and the replacement Hopper was 209. So, I was transferring from newer to older revisions. IOW, something may have been done to 210 that made recordings incompatible with 209.
In any case, for anybody that will be transferring recordings from one Hopper to another, I suggest making sure the one you transfer to is on the same or newer SW than the one the recordings came from, preferably the same. Or, just keep them on the EHD, and play them from there.
-That's all I can remember. It was like 12 hours ago or so. Hey. I'm an old man. (My eyes are poor, my nose is knackered. My legs are old and bent, my ears are grizzled.)
-My Channels: The reason they programmed it that way is due to what they felt was a high number of CSR calls wherein the customer would complain of missing channels, when the "problem" was that they had the guide set to a custom list. They feel that reverting to My Channels prevents this. I think it probably causes more customers to be frustrated than forgetting you're using a custom list. But, it's their call, I suppose.
However, he did offer the possibility of making this behavior user-configurable in a future SW release. He said it would be an easy thing. The factory default would be My Channels. But, for the type of customer that likes control, and wouldn't be calling CSR's about missing channels because they forgot which guide they were using, we could have a choice of default guide: My Channels, Last Used, or a specific one.
-Nested (Collapsible) Channels: Obviously, their reason for doing this is to reduce clutter and confusion in the guide. It certainly works well for large groups of channels. But, I pointed out that it's not very good for small groups of channels such as International or Regional Sports Nets. There's two reasons for it. The first is that even though, as a whole, Dish has a ton of Internationals and RSN's, each individual customer only has a few. In any particular market, there are only a couple of RSN's. Even if you add the HD versions, that's still only a handful. And, most subs would want them visible at all times in their guides. No need to for the extra "master" channel. The same is true for International pack channels. Plus, in any given household subscribing to an International Package, those channels are most likely the most-viewed.
After I explained this, he seemed to agree that nesting groups of channels with fewer than ten channels is counter-productive. (My argument was that they were creating a solution for which there was no problem, thus creating a problem where none existed before.) But, he felt it might be hard to change the way they have channels assigned to this system. However, he did feel it would be relatively simple to create a user option to enable/disable this feature. I'm definitely down with that!
BTW, he did say that they will probably never nest the PPV channels, as it is apparently a huge cash cow for them. That's a shame, as those channels cause the biggest clutter. Plus, I doubt very much that much of that revenue is generated by impulse purchases instigated by accidental glances in the guide. If someone is going to choose a PPV movie, they make an active choice to do so, and then search for a movie they might be interested in. They could do this just as easily if those channels were nested. But, I doubt we'll ever see that happen.
-He agreed that the HW design is not as optimized as it could be for ventilation and cooling. I feel that they totally ignored the heat generated by the PSU, just as they did with the 722k. They concentrated so much on the HDD that they neglected the PSU. If they would have just put some vents on the top of the case, above the PSU, they'd solve a lot of it. He didn't argue the point.
-The SW update spooling order is based on date of manufacture.
-They are taking a much different approach to the Hopper system than previous model rollouts. They want this to work as well as possible, as quickly as possible.
-They have the technology to apply Auto-Hop to almost all programming. BUT...they need to tread carefully due to legal and business issues. So, we may see this go beyond PTAT at some point. Or, we may not. There are certain sporting and special events where it will NEVER happen, such as the Super Bowl. (I would imagine this may be due to the live nature of these events. Also, in the case of the Super Bowl, the ads are part of the show itself.)
-EHD Transfer Issues: I had an issue with the transferring recordings to a replacement Hopper using an EHD! Almost all of the transferred recordings are unplayable. When I try to play them, I get a black screen. When I go back to the DVR page, and highlight the recording again, I get an error 04 in the program info field at the top. When I check the details for the recording, it says 0.0GB, and a date in the year 2106.
He said that one possible cause is if the Hoppers were on different SW revisions. And, that was the case. The original Hopper was on 210, and the replacement Hopper was 209. So, I was transferring from newer to older revisions. IOW, something may have been done to 210 that made recordings incompatible with 209.
In any case, for anybody that will be transferring recordings from one Hopper to another, I suggest making sure the one you transfer to is on the same or newer SW than the one the recordings came from, preferably the same. Or, just keep them on the EHD, and play them from there.
-That's all I can remember. It was like 12 hours ago or so. Hey. I'm an old man. (My eyes are poor, my nose is knackered. My legs are old and bent, my ears are grizzled.)
