Is the Hopper learning?

[mritt75]

Have noticed for about the last month that when I get home from work and turn on the Hopper, it is not on the last channel that when I turned it off from the night before. It is actually usually tuned to the channel that I usually watch at that time. It is not the same channel every time, either. It even is different by day of week. Has probably been about 80% accurate to the channel I want to watch at that particular time.

 

[CheriT]

This was a feature added by design in one of the software updates!

 

[mritt75]

Hmm, is Dish really Skynet ; )

 

[ChadT41]

Just trying to come out with the next big thing. I'm definitely in the minority when I say I like the feature. It's been mostly accurate for me, and usually I just have the TVs on for noise as of late, and it's always the right kind of noise.

 

[dwarren2]

Extensively discussed in this thread
http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/changes-channel.350948/#post-3692239

 

[Hall]

Someone suggested it auto-tunes based on the time of day as well.

 

[Jim S.]

Ours keeps coming up on channels we DON'T want to watch. I don't know why the hell anybody at Dish thought that this was a good idea. Even worse, it had to have taken multiple people -- someone to come up with the idea, and someone else to approve it. Scary!

 

[ChadT41]

Once perfected, Jim, it will be an awesome tool. I think it is a great idea. I have seen people say it tunes to channels based on time of day, and day of week. So the more info you give it, they better it reacts. It's a great encouragement to have people watch more TV and enjoy more TV.

 

[KAB]

It's BS. There, had to say it.

 

[ChadT41]

It's BS. There, had to say it.

I'll be the sole holdout for the next 2 years when everybody is going to be using it and love it.

 

[Tron2012]

I've mentioned before that as long as Dish does this right then it can be a nice feature. But understood it will not make everyone in the family happy.

At first it seemed to just track the most watched channel then defaulted to that. Hopefully Dish is working on an algorithm that does track more than time on a channel. I've suggested to Dish details (for what it's worth) on some things to consider. The biggest is to have this set as a user configurable option to turn on or off (on by default). They can still track usage in the background if the user has it set to off so when the user enables in the future there will be history to go against. And the thing Dish needs to program in is that if the user turns the Hopper/Joey off then back on within xx minutes (30 or 60) that the Hopper turns on the last channel they were viewing. Not to what they think the user would want to see. To cover accidental or temporary shut offs.

 

[Tony S]

I think it is OK for Dish to add that 'feature', but there should be an enable/disable on the setup screen. That way, people that like it can have it, and those that do not like it won't have it forced on them.

 

[ChadT41]

Every time something new comes out, people always say "there should be the option of we want to use it". Why? When they know that once you adjust to it, you won't mind it in the long run. And if people still mind it, they just quick talking about it.

 

[Tony S]

Every time something new comes out, people always say "there should be the option of we want to use it". Why?

...because if you have the option available it satisfies ALL of your customers rather than have some satisfied and others dis-satisfied. I know that I will never like that feature. No matter how long it is there I will never like it or get used to it. I am sure that if I feel that way, there are most likely many others that feel the same way.

 

[ChadT41]

Has made Billions doing that model for Apple. Ever wonder why? Even if the option was added, there'd be a whole group dissatisfied. No matter what they do, someone is not going to like it. This is a way to control the situation, like a good company should do.

 

[Hall]

I'll be the sole holdout for the next 2 years when everybody is going to be using it and love it.

As long as there's more than (1) person in the house and Dish doesn't first ask "who is this?" (similar to Netflix's profiles), no, not "everybody is going to be using it and love it". There are (5) people in my house and while we do have some TV viewing preferences that overlap (well, exclude the 6-year old from that), we each have our own favorites that generally do not overlap.

 

[ChadT41]

And that is why it does time of day, and day of week. I'm sure, as is human nature, that you guys have a pattern on who watches each TV in your household at a given time. For instance, growing up, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday me and my dad watched wrestling. Same time, every week. My mother had it every other time. This is simple human nature to do things as a routine, and this feature is to match that routine(when it is perfected).

 

[robstudio]

I like the feature as well... but get why others wouldn't.
It should be configurable IMO..

 

[Hall]

there'd be a whole group dissatisfied. No matter what they do, someone is not going to like it.

In Apple's eyes, if you don't like it, you're doing it wrong

This is a way to control the situation, like a good company should do.

At least with Dish, there's the slight possibility of disabling this feature. As I noted above, believe it or not (I know it's a hard concept to grasp), not everything Dish does is ideal. In many households, you could end up with a viewing split like this:

% of viewing in a 5-person household
21, 20, 20, 20, 19

Now when anyone turns on the TV, we're likely to see the first person's preference. Granted, there is likely much more involved in the data-mining and in fact, when it's close like this, Dish may randomize the channel (some say channels show up that they never watch, for instance) or something else.

 

[Hall]

that you guys have a pattern on who watches each TV in your household at a given time.

Actually, no. We record and watch from the DVR A LOT ! I'm confident we watch do more DVR playback than live TV viewing. It would be interesting to know how that skews the data.... Does DVR playback influence it ? Does recording the same show at 3pm even when the receiver has no video output (screen off) factor in ?