Dish Network on Thursday did TiVo one better: instead of skipping a 30-second commercial, Dish's new Hopper DVR now records most shows commercial-free.
The new feature, called "Auto Hop," is an option with the Hopper's "Prime Time Anytime" capability, which can automatically record all of primetime from ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC at the same time. When the new option turns on today, a user's recording will automatically skip the commercials, turning the Hopper experience into something akin to Netflix.
There's a catch, however. A viewer can watch a show with the Auto Hop option commercial-free starting at 1 am ET, after a show has been recorded to the Hopper's PrimeTime Anytime library. Prior to that, the Hopper's 30-second "hop forward" feature continues to work for same-day viewing, allowing users to simply jump forward in time 30 seconds.
Dish said that the feature will work for "most" programs, also noting that the Auto Hop capability would not work on live broadcasts. It wasn't clear whether "most" included the live-broadcast caveat, or whether or not the networks would be able to negotiate programs where commercials would have to be viewed.
Dish representatives were unable to be reached for comment by post time.
"Viewers love to skip commercials," said Vivek Khemka, vice president of Dish product management, in a statement. "With the Auto Hop capability of the Hopper, watching your favorite shows commercial-free is easier than ever before. It's a revolutionary development that no other company offers and it's something that sets Hopper above the competition."
Dish has had its problems with content creators, threatening to drop and Breaking Bad network AMC and its affiliates over a contract dispute and viewership numbers.
PCMag awarded its Editors' Choice award to the Dish Hopper, a three-tuner home DVR gateway that is paired with smaller satellite units, called Joeys. "Instead of having a full-blown digital video recorder installed with every HDTV in the house, use a single storage device that can hold all the recordings, and use terminal devices to access them on different TVs. The Dish Network Hopper is the best implementation of this idea we've seen yet," PCMag analyst Will Greenwald wrote.
TiVo and ReplayTV invented the 30-second skip feature for DVRs, allowing consumers to essentially skip commercials. Advertisers got wise to the fact, though, and began varying the length. TiVo has kept the 30-second skip feature within its Premiere DVRs, but also added a "scan" feature as well.
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