Why 6 recordings not possible outside Primetime?

smooth28la

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Feb 16, 2004
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If I have 4 of the scheduled recordings from networks or stations on the same Transponder, why can't DISH allow 6 recordings at once all the time besides Primetime?
 
I'm not sure if this is the reason but your locals are served by a spot beam (only people in your area can receive these), and the other channels are CONUS (everyone receives these). So your locals are on the same transponder/sat while every other channel on your system are on different transponders and satellites. I would imagine for the Hopper to work like that the user would have to know what channels are located on the transponders/satellites which would never happen because the average user is not that smart, nor would they want the hassle of researching what is located where. This is probably the reason why PTAT only works for HD since a transponder can hold more HD channels than it can hold of an SD channel.

Once again i'm not an expert this is just what I understood when reading up on Spotbeams/Conus and channel allocation on transponders. I could totally be off base on my assumption, my IQ was only 83 the last time I was tested in middle school.
 
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the average user is not that smart

That's the real issue. Imagine the hell when "switch to live mode" doesn't just kill your recording, but the wife's as well. To do it anywhere near gracefully would require a good bit of programming and testing, would still be a support headache, and would be hard to market.

I have thought they could do it on some special event basis. Move all the NBCU stations to a single transponder, create a guide entry for the "Olympics Pack" and allow recording of that in something like 3 hour blocks.
 
I think the recording of the four nets full time would quickly use up the partition used for it or it would have to take a larger portion of the total hard drive and take away recording space for whatever else you record or the records would have to delete after two days instead of the eight. Plus, most of recording from the big four is usually for prime time so why would most people need it for longer than the four hours?
 
Sticking with the major nets, it would be nice if in the future Dish offers Late Night Anytime (record all ABC, NBC, and CBS late night news--Nightline-- and talk shows including all the subsequent shows like Last Call and Craig Furgison, and Icky Fallon. Also, Morning Time Anytime would be all the broadcast net morning chat crap shows along with Evening News Anytime with all major nets national evening news casts. That would be the national programming.

Now, recording the blocks of local late afternoon and 10/11PM local news broadcasts would be great. The AT feature extended. However, beyond that, it would be far too much trouble for Dish to make AT work for other than local stations as locals must always be on the same transponders, but other transponders depend on a mix in the stream of high demand and low demand (sports or action movies compared to talking head or educational channels) to use the limited bandwidth efficiently and without too much degradation in PQ because all the sports channels are on the same transponder, etc. And Dish want the flexibility of moving services to different transponders in the best effort for PQ regarding statistical encoding as things change
 
There's way too much free space left on the reserve partition not to extend the Primetime Anytime to the rest of the Network's schedule, if even the commercial skip feature is only for primetime.. that's cool with me!
 
There's way too much free space left on the reserve partition not to extend the Primetime Anytime to the rest of the Network's schedule, if even the commercial skip feature is only for primetime.. that's cool with me!
In many cases, network schedule = Prime Time.

The issue is surely storage as it would take roughly eight times as much storage to record all 24 hours so that you could ignore the 6-16 hours of infomercials.

Practicality is always a concern.
 
If I have 4 of the scheduled recordings from networks or stations on the same Transponder, why can't DISH allow 6 recordings at once all the time besides Primetime?

there are only 3 tuners in the unit
thereofore 3 max recordings, with no live feeds to any joey or the hopper

its been discussed before to length
and many people say you dont need more then 3 tuners

me, i say more tuners the better
 
and many people say you dont need more then 3 tuners

me, i say more tuners the better
Just as a few need more, most don't. Of the stuff that isn't on the Big Four, most of it shows at least twice a day. I'm recording Longmire on A&E and each episode airs at least three times at different times and different days so if you can't find one that doesn't collide with something else, you've got to be working at it. The same is true of content on most (but certainly not all) of the other cable channels.
 
If I have 4 of the scheduled recordings from networks or stations on the same Transponder, why can't DISH allow 6 recordings at once all the time besides Primetime?

there are only 3 tuners in the unit
thereofore 3 max recordings, with no live feeds to any joey or the hopper

its been discussed before to length
and many people say you dont need more then 3 tuners

me, i say more tuners the better

He is referring to PTAT, using one of the sat tuners to capture 4 locals from one transponder. Hence, 6 recordings. Rather than just during Prime Time, he wants to do it all day.
 
I think it's because everyone knows what local channels are and everyone knows what primetime is. So very little confusion there. However hardly anyone (outside of these forums) knows what a transponder is. I'm just glad Dish allows 3 Hoppers. 2 Hoppers weren't even enough for my household.
 
The main problem with the "all the channels I want to record from are on the same transponder" argument is that DISH reserves the right to move CONUS channels around. If they make a move, you're screwed. This doesn't need to happen with a LIL spotbeam.
 
Yeah there would have to be some good programming going on to make it work without confusion.
 
The main problem with the "all the channels I want to record from are on the same transponder" argument is that DISH reserves the right to move CONUS channels around. If they make a move, you're screwed. This doesn't need to happen with a LIL spotbeam.

HOWEVER Dish does move locals around on CONUS transponders (61.5 & 77)...but they move the Big4 together
 

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