First Look: The Best of Dish

[Scott Greczkowski]

Once again SatelliteGuys.US shows why they are the internet's most popular Satellite Information Forum with another first look, this time at a new concept feature called "Best of Dish"

According to Dish many people forget to record their favorite shows on their DVR's. Dish has decided to help those folks out and start recording shows daily which Dish feels are quality shows (or the "Best of Dish")

The shows recorded will live in the reserved area on the hard drive and will not take away from your recording time.

I really don't care for this idea at all. If I wanted some monkeys to record shows for me on my DVR I would go buy a monkey.

I hope that the "Best of Dish" concept is one that never sees the light of day.

And there you have it another First Look from SatelliteGuys!

 

[dlsnyder]

Sounds like shameless program placement that somehow Dish is going to make money off of. If it evolved into some kind of a Tivo-like suggested viewing list THAT might be interesting.

...as long as we could turn it off if it became too annoying.

 

[jerryez]

Yeah, you must be able to turn it off, like you can do with TiVo suggestions.

 

[Stargazer]

If there was an option of what channels you could tell it to do this with and which ones not to do it with then it would be good. Perhaps if they could record shows that are just from channels in your favorite list then this would make the functionality much better.

I think it is better if the space is used for this than for VOD events. Next thing you know they will try to sell us more space for so much a month or year if we want to opt out of the VOD service or the best of Dish, to have it dedicated to extra space you can choose what to do with.

Seeing how some markets still do not have their locals or some do not purchase them I wonder if they are going to have shows recorded that are on the locals. I also wonder if they are going to choose shows that you do not subscribe to, if this would limit them to only recording shows on the AT60 package or if they could somehow allow it to determine which package you have and do it from there. Perhaps if we could choose by theme then that would also be good or if we could just use that space to use for ourselves.

Are we going to be able to save shows that are in the reserved area or are they going to be automatically deleted when more shows come about? If we do not watch some of the shows will Dish automatically delete them for us? If they do not become automatically deleted then will we see those same shows on there all the time?

How often are they going to put additional shows into the reserved area and how many shows? What if the Best of Dish shows conflict with our timers when we try to record a show ourselves? Would we be able to automatically overide the timers that Dish set our receivers to record?

Will there be a different area where we can access these shows instead of putting them in the DVR Events screen of shows that we selected to view later?

I am also wondering if they were to implement sharing of music and pictures if the space to use that would also be from the reserved area. Some may want additional games to be an option to select in the reserved area as well.

 

[dlsnyder]

Knowing the kinds of things that Dish will do to make a buck my guess is that they will sell this space to whoever is willing to pay for it. We will probably end up with full length episodes of shows we have never heard of or care about for awhile. Then it will descend into space reserved for infomercials that we will HAVE to watch at least a portion of in order to subsidize our VOD fee (for those of us who have a fee-free unit).

 

[GaryPen]

If it works like Tivo's suggestions, it would be cool. Of course, it would have to be voluntary.
But, I'm sure that dlsnyder and stargazer are on the right track when they say that Dish will probably just sell this space to the highest bidders.

 

[dlsnyder]

Gary - I really hope I'm wrong but something tells me they are up to no good. It's like finding a way to squeeze in yet another shopping channel, knowing that almost no one will watch. I'm afraid our DVRs are going to get "spammed" with infomercials. They say that these programs will be recorded in a reserved area but I don't want them cluttering my recorded program menu. It's already cluttered enough now!

 

[mike123abc]

I bet they will be the same movies on the regular PPV. If they were smart they would release them to damand a week prior to the regular PPV.

 

[Stargazer]

Perhaps certain shows/movies that are normally sold in premium packages would be available in the VOD Events/The Best of Dish for free if you watch the commercials and you would not have the ability to use the DVR functionality during those Events as a result.

 

[WeeJavaDude]

Gary - I really hope I'm wrong but something tells me they are up to no good. It's like finding a way to squeeze in yet another shopping channel, knowing that almost no one will watch. I'm afraid our DVRs are going to get "spammed" with infomercials. They say that these programs will be recorded in a reserved area but I don't want them cluttering my recorded program menu. It's already cluttered enough now!

Based on the screen capture it looks like another menu choice so i would not expect it to clutter your already recorded shows. I would expect it to be someplace to go take a look if there is nothing live to watch and you don't want to watch what you recorded.

The content is left to be seen. The thing that bothers me about this is that they claim they are using that reserved space. Problem is that reserved space is on the same drive as your content... this adds additional wear on the drive that may or may not be desired. I hope both this and VOD are options that can be disabled for this reason.

 

[minnow]

Wouldn't be at all surpised to see "Best of the HSN" network or other some such shopping channel. How the hell does Dish know what the "Best OF" is from all of the channels the sunscriber gets. I agree with those that indicate that the Best Of crappola is available to the highest bidder.

 

[Stargazer]

I do not think Dish would put the best of (your pick of shopping channel) on the list because they know that nobody will watch it and it will be a wasted effort. If they put their own commercials in there then that would be different.

 

[rtt2]

Funny how all those programs are G4TechTV programs and Echostar just happens to own a minority stake in G4TechTV

 

[dlsnyder]

I noticed that too and that is what prompted me to suspect that we would only be seeing programs that paid for placement in this area. Perhaps this is a way to inflate ratings, equating a recorded program with a watched program?

 

[Stargazer]

People will be more likely to watch a program that is already recorded that you can skim through and skip commercials than a live show (kind of like skimming through a newspaper overlooking the ads). Perhaps in doing this it will give more exposure to those channels and programs and get more people interested in them.

 

[SimpleSimon]

People will be more likely to watch a program that is already recorded that you can skim through and skip commercials than a live show (kind of like skimming through a newspaper overlooking the ads). Perhaps in doing this it will give more exposure to those channels and programs and get more people interested in them.

I haven't watched a "live" TV show since I got my first PVR several years ago. There's just no point in it - except maybe for interactive features that are on a couple of series. Football games take about 90 minutes - including doing my own instant replays. NASCAR is sweet at 4x with a skip back on a bump-n-run, lead change or crash.

 

[Mark_AR]

Just another step toward target marketed advertisements loaded on your DVR. It will come to it. Next generation DVR's will track viewing habits and 'suggest' programming that fits your viewing demographic. Viewed advertisements will be tallied and it will compound the clutter that we wade through.

Why do you think they are facilitating OpenTV. To get you used to interactivity. Then there will be surveys... yada.. yada... yada... and companies will pay a PREMIUM to get your info.

Its a conspiracy. An alien plot to overtake the human race!

 

[GaryPen]

Stupid stupid humans!

 

[Stargazer]

I do not watch very many live programs anymore, I am always going into my DVR Events to watch shows making sure I have plenty to record. Sometimes I will watch live programming such as The Weather Channel or CNN Headline News. Sometimes I put up the PIP and pause it then go back to my DVR Event and start watching them again in the main screen.

 

[dlsnyder]

I have seen reports of Tivo having in place a way to make certain commercials un-skippable. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that Dish DVRs could do this as well, and that those unskippable commercials would be in "Best of Dish" programs.

Man, I'm getting cynical in my middle-age (at least where Dish is concerned).