Dish's Auto Hop skips commercials in recorded shows By Edward C. Baig USA TODAY
May 9, 2012 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/story/2012-05-09/dish-hopper-skips-commercials/54865574/1 Love TV but loathe commercials? When satellite TV provider Dish Network introduced its high-definition Hopper DVR at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, it incorporated an aptly named feature, called PrimeTime Anytime, that automatically records and stores prime-time shows from the big four TV networks for eight days. Today, Dish will announce a potentially controversial — but for most viewers welcome — feature for PrimeTime Anytime that will let you play recorded shows seamlessly without any of the commercials. It's called Auto Hop, and it performed well enough in my tests to make it seem as though commercials were never even part of the mix. I've been given exclusive early access to try the feature, which does have certain limits. For starters, Auto Hop works only with your PrimeTime Anytime recordings, defined as all the programs automatically captured on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC from 8 to 11 p.m. ET Monday through Saturday and 7 to 11 p.m. on Sunday. If you record shows on any other channel during prime time or record major network programs during off-hours, you cannot watch ad-free, at least without fast-forwarding or pressing a skip-ahead button on the remote to advance in 30-second intervals (which you could do previously). Moreover, you have to wait until 1 a.m. ET daily for the Auto Hop feature to take effect. If you choose to watch a favorite show that aired live at, say, 8 p.m., don't expect to watch sans commercials after putting the kids to bed a half-hour later. Dish will market Auto Hop as a "next-day" feature; the company explains that it takes time to process the recordings to eliminate the ads. Auto Hop doesn't work on local news or sporting events, even those broadcast in prime time on a major network. In the New York City market, the local Fox news at 10 was recorded as part of PrimeTime Anytime. But you could not watch without ads. Same goes for the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) bouts that also aired on Fox. You'll know if a show can exploit Auto Hop in one of two ways. A kangaroo icon will appear on the poster art for a program in the DVR menu for PrimeTime Anytime. Or when you press play to watch an Auto-Hop-capable program, a window appears asking if you would like to "automatically hop over this event's commercial breaks." Choose no, and you can take in all the commercials as before. But even if you choose yes, you can still go back and watch the commercials next time. And if you choose Auto Hop but then skip or fast-forward past a commercial break while watching, you lose the ad-free feature during that particular viewing session. Tech analyst Richard Doherty of The Envisioneering Group, who was briefed on Dish's plans, calls Auto Hop a "huge change for the media industry and a clear indication that the consumer is in control." It remains to be seen how advertisers and broadcasters will react. Media analyst Bruce Leichtman of Leichtman Research Group, who was also briefed, says, "I can't imagine they'll be ecstatic about it." The concept of skipping ads in DVRs — and the controversy that goes with it — dates at least as far back as the ReplayTV in the early 2000s. Dish's Vivek Khemka believes the company is on sound legal ground, because no commercials are actually deleted from the recorded video signal. He says Dish has just made it easier to bypass commercials than the technology already in use today, such as fast-forward and auto skip. You'll know when a commercial has been skipped. The kangaroo icon appears for a moment on the TV screen and you'll see a brief flash of a commercial. Khemka says it was done that way so as not to disorient the viewer. It didn't faze me. Hopper has a 2-terabyte hard drive for 2,000 hours of storage, including up to 250 hours of HD recording time or 1,000 hours of standard-definition time. Dish says 60% of DVR recordings during prime time are from one of the big four TV networks. But people who don't like those prime-time shows can turn off PrimeTime Anytime. Overall, Hopper has three satellite tuners, one dedicated to recording PrimeTime Anytime shows. You can save a PrimeTime Anytime show beyond the eight days it would otherwise be stored on the Hopper. During prime time, you can record up to six live HD channels at once. Hopper has a handy remote-control finder: Press the finder and the remote lights up and makes a sound. Smaller set-top boxes called Joey let you watch the DVR content in other rooms. Auto Hop is a cool feature that should help Dish retain customers and perhaps lure new ones. The bottom line: Dish Network Hopper (and Joey) New customers get one Hopper and up to three Joey boxes for no upfront cost. Monthly DVR leasing costs: $10 for Hopper and $7 for each Joey, on top of programming package of about $35 a month on up. Customers on lower-tier programming plans pay $99 upfront for Hopper plus leasing costs. •Pro. PrimeTime Anytime feature automatically records all shows from major networks during prime time. New Auto Hop feature lets you watch seamlessly without commercials. Lots of storage. Remote-control finder. Joey companion boxes let you watch and control Hopper from other rooms. •Con. Auto Hop doesn't work on non-PrimeTime Anytime shows. Ads-free watching doesn't kick in until 1 a.m. ET. _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
