Dish Network is looking to make a splash at this week’s 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas — but one announcement, which leaked out prematurely, could raise the ire of ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. Tech trade publications Dealerscope and TWICE broke news embargos tied to Dish’s press conference later today regarding a multi-room DVR called Hopper: It will have three tuners and a huge storage capacity of 2 terabytes. Hopper will make it possible for users to stop watching a recoded show in one room and resume where they left off in another, reports blogger Dave Zatz, who saw a posting of the TWICE article before it was taken down, and Multichannel News, which caught the one yanked from Dealerscope. But it also includes a feature called Primetime Anytime that will automatically record primetime broadcasts from local stations for ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC and retain those shows for a week — in effect turning Hopper into into a catch-up VOD service. Broadcasters have been licensing catch-up rights to Hulu and cable VOD. The TWICE article also notes that Dish is dropping the word “Network” from its name as it focuses more on technology.
Meanwhile, Dish announced Sunday that it has created an intriguing application for sports fans who use Google TV. It monitors what the company calls “excitement levels” during broadcasts and pops up an alert telling viewers where to turn to catch the action. It will focus on Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, soccer, cricket and rugby games, along with pro and college football and basketball. Dish also says that it will rename its Blockbuster Movie Pass — it’ll now be Blockbuster @Home — and expand it to iPads. It won’t affect a lot of people, at least initially: Dish subscribers who pay extra for the service or premium channels, including HBO — and who also have a Dish Sling Adapter and a broadband-connected compatible Dish HD DVR — can use a new free Dish RemoteAccess app to stream movies and shows on-demand on their iPads.


Isnt time Warner cable advertising that feature in tv ads that if u missed a show you can still see it.
DirecTV allows viewing any recording on any DVR in your home from any other DVR or receiver, so that’s not unique. And any DVR could be manually set to record 7 to 11 pm daily on any channel. Just making it a menu choice doesn’t seem like any difference from a legal/copyright standpoint.
“And any DVR could be manually set to record 7 to 11 pm daily on any channel.”
Yes…but this records all 4 networks at the same time without tying up the other two tuners. (Since “local” channels are on a single transponder, it simply records everything on that transponder and then you watch whatever you wish to watch)
DirecTV Fan, Just to clarify,
1. The Hopper/Joey combo allows you to not only start a recorded show in one room and then finish it in another (a la DTV) but it also allows you to pause a live show in one room and then pick it up in another.
2. As for PrimeTime Anytime the Hopper will record all 4 networks simultaneously on one tuner in HD. The feature can be disabled if you don’t watch network programming.
3. The Hopper includes Sling technology furthering DISH’s TV Everywhere mantra
As writen this seems to be a non-story. There is no way that you could record 4 networks with 3 tuners, and Dish doesn’t have “cloud” capability. Whole house DVR… Not new, and you can build one for free DTV (which would give you primetime network TV). Primetime viewing at anytime… Not new! (I do that now and I don’t even pay for the content.) So, what exactly is new and earth shattering about this article?
I don’t understand the problem. Here in British Columbia, Telus, Shaw and Rogers allow automatic recording of episodes, and allows you to start watching it in one room and pick up in another. We’ve been doing it for years. What exactly would the networks have a problem with, anyway?
Doesn’t TiVo already offer these features? Is this considered innovative?
What Dish subscribers have yet to realize, and this issue became the subject of major customer complaints, is that these “automated recordings” take up much space on the DVR, reducing the space available for the shows that YOU WANT TO WATCH! Furthermore, the listing of recorded programs becomes overwhelming and unmanageable, filled with many titles that the subscriber has no desire or interest in viewing.
I don’t know how much memory your DVR’s have, but up here in Vancouver, I’ve got a few dozen movies, a bunch of NBA games and I still have several shows that I automatically record. I’ve never once run into a problem of not enough room.
I believe that is the reason for the 8 day limit. The shows will be stored compressed on a separate partition of the 2TB drive so used to max will only use about 1/8 of storage.
“There is no way that you could record 4 networks with 3 tuners, and Dish doesn’t have “cloud” capability.”
As I explained on an earlier post they do this by recording everything on the “locals” transponder using a single tuner.
To be more specific, a satellite tuner works by going to a specific transponder, then filtering out everything except the channel you selected.
Since Dish puts all their locals on the same transponder, they simply tell the box to record everything coming off that particular transponder and hold it for eight days.
It is ‘filtered’ by you later choosing what show to watch from the whole mishmash that was downloaded from the satellite earlier.
Watch in one room and pick up in another? Seriously? TiVo had this technology years ago. Nobody appreciates the superiority of TiVo. My TiVo box has 4 turners to record and over 300 hours of HD capacity. Not to mention every single movie and TV show in existence…and any application you can think of.
It makes me laugh every time a cable provider steals a TiVo feature from 5 years ago and claim it’s ‘innovating’