# Possibility of season pass on Dish Network?



## mongo (Jan 21, 2004)

I am a long time subscriber deciding whether to get a 921 or switch to Directtv. After reviewing a lot of information on this site, the main differentiator for me is the Tivo Season Pass feature. Does anyone know whether Echostar has ever made a statement about whether they intend to do this, when they intend to do this, or why they will not or cannot do this? I have seen speculation, but it seems odd to me that Echostar would not document their intentions. 

Thanks very much.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

My opinion is the season pass feature as well as the name based recording features are trademarked by Tivo, so there are legal issues surrounding this. But, since Tivo is currently sueing Dish anyway, some kind of liscensing deal may end up coming out of this, allowing Dish to provide name based recording and season passes. But, if that were to happen, it'd be a ways down the road. If those are make or break features for you, you'd be better off going with the HDTivo and make the switch.

BTW, welcome to DBSTalk mongo. :hi:


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## Inaba (Jun 20, 2003)

> The season pass feature as well as the name based recording features are trademarked by Tivo, so there are legal issues surrounding this. But, since Tivo is currently sueing Dish anyway, some kind of liscensing deal may end up coming out of this, allowing Dish to provide name based recording and season passes. But, if that were to happen, it'd be a ways down the road. If those are make or break features for you, you'd be better off going with the HDTivo and make the switch.


This is utter bunk. Provide one shred of evidence to support this, please. Until then, please stop propegating this misinformation as to why there is not name based recording on Dish. The simple fact of the matter is, the E* engineers are either a) too lazy to impliment it, b) are hamstrung by management in further development or c) there's no one left that knows how to impliment it from the dev crew.

I respect your opinion, Mark, but seriously... verify your information prior to repeating tired old defenses of Dish's poor quality software. Every PVR on the market, except for Dish has NBR (aka Season Pass), and I seriously doubt any of them licensed it from Tivo. Besides, NBR has much, much prior art before the advent of the Tivo company, and thus any patent they might concievably have that could *maybe* be interpreted as being related to NBR would be busted in 12 seconds flat once it got into a court room. Even Tivo isnt' that stupid.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Um...yes they are (Tivo being that stupid), except they are going after digital recording to a hard drive while playing back something else. Every other PVR (hardware based and software based alike) does the same exact thing, but Tivo and Dish are now headed for the courtroom (or a settlement if Dish backs down)...And I would say that mpeg recording is a much more basic thing than NBR.

Inaba, you're certainly welcome to your opinion, but I disagree with it.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Inaba said:


> This is utter bunk. Provide one shred of evidence to support this, please.


Tivo is sueing them anyway so what difference does it make? If Tivo is starting a lawsuit over the entire DVR recording process, name based recording would surely be part of the suit if Dish had the capability.

http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=technologyNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4076631


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## Inaba (Jun 20, 2003)

> Um...yes they are (Tivo being that stupid), except they are going after digital recording to a hard drive while playing back something else. Every other PVR (hardware based and software based alike) does the same exact thing, but Tivo and Dish are now headed for the courtroom (or a settlement if Dish backs down)...And I would say that mpeg recording is a much more basic thing than NBR.


This has nothing to do with NBR. I want any shred of evidence that Tivo has a patent on NBR. They don't... even their broad patents don't cover it. Using Tivo's non-existant patents as a reason that Dish doesn't impliment a form of NBR is a cop-out. Thats' what I was driving at...

If you want to discuss the E*/Tivo lawsuit, I will be happy to do that as well. After reviewing the information a little closer, I believe Tivo has more of a case in _what they are asking for_ than we're lead to believe by the snippits you read here and on the basic news sites. They aren't asking the court to support their broad patent stuff, but they are focusing on some very specific features, which is exactly what they should be doing. Do I think it's right? I don't know yet... initially, I was up in arms about the BS that Tivo was spewing, only to come to find out it's not so much BS afterall.

But I digress... the point of this thread was NBR. Tivo does not have a patent on NBR. Period. As I said, if Tivo decided to try to interpret one of their broad patents as covering NBR, prior art would blow it out of the water almost instantly... Thus, Tivo has absolutely no claim on NBR. Dish does not impliment NBR most likely because of one of the above reasons, and it has absolutely, positively NOTHING to do with any non-existant patent on NBR.


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## MattG (Dec 31, 2003)

Here's a shred of evidence on NBR.

Search this patent:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...ND&d=ptxt&s1=tivo.ASNM.&OS=AN/tivo&RS=AN/tivo

for "season pass". This is why E* doesn't have this functionality since it would be a blatant violation of tivo's patents. Like Mark said hopefully will come out of the Tivo lawsuit and E* will be able to license some of Tivo's patents.


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## mongo (Jan 21, 2004)

Thanks for the input, everyone. Everything I am reading here is speculation, which leads me to believe that Dish has not gone public with any statement about thier intentions regarding this functionality, and that leads me to conclude that Season-Pass type functionality will be a long time coming, if ever. All the other differentiators seem to even out, so I guess it is time for me to try DirectTV.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

mongo said:


> Thanks for the input, everyone. Everything I am reading here is speculation, which leads me to believe that Dish has not gone public with any statement about thier intentions regarding this functionality, and that leads me to conclude that Season-Pass type functionality will be a long time coming, if ever. All the other differentiators seem to even out, so I guess it is time for me to try DirectTV.


The season pass feature is one of the reasons I jumped to DirecTV a few months ago. Dish does not plan to implement any type of name based recording and even if they did, they would have to do some major software changes.

On the other hand, many people here like timer based recording so it's really all up to you.


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## mongo (Jan 21, 2004)

Chris Blount said:


> The season pass feature is one of the reasons I jumped to DirecTV a few months ago. Dish does not plan to implement any type of name based recording and even if they did, they would have to do some major software changes.
> 
> On the other hand, many people here like timer based recording so it's really all up to you.


Have you been happy with your switch, Chris? Is there anything you miss?


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

mongo said:


> Have you been happy with your switch, Chris? Is there anything you miss?


Yes! Very happy. The Tivo is much more stable. It was quite a culture shock going from Dish to DirecTV but once you learn the functions of the Tivo and the shortcuts, there is no turning back.

The only things I really miss are caller ID and the speed navigating the program guide. The grid style programming guide on the Tivo is dreadfully slow. Tivo does offer an alternate guide which is text based and much faster.

I still have Dish and subscribe to the Superstations with my PVR 508. I have to admit, I am so used to using the Tivo now that when I use the 508, it almost seems like a step backward. The 508 is faster but the features are not as complex as the Tivo.

I am so looking forward to the HD-DirecTivo. It should kick butt!


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## Inaba (Jun 20, 2003)

MattG said:


> Here's a shred of evidence on NBR.
> 
> Search this patent:
> 
> ...


Have you even bothered to read that patent? (I have, which lead me to my conclusion that Tivo's lawsuit against Dish wasn't as baseless as it first seemed)

But it's apparent you haven't read that patent in any detail what so ever. So let me sum it up for you: There's no mention of name based recording in the patent. In fact, it almost goes out of it's way to avoid mentioning recording via the name of a program.

So once again, you are perpetuating false information. Tivo has absolutely, positively NO (aka ZERO, NONE, ZILCH, NADA, NOTHING) patent on "Name Based Recording" or anything reasonably describing it.

Here is the patents definition of "Season Pass":



> A season pass tells the system that the user wants to record each airing of a certain program for the entire season. The system notes, for example, that the program is shown every Monday at 8:00 PM and saves the program on the storage device every Monday at 8:00 PM until the end of the season. A season pass will only be offered to the user if the program is episodic h nature.


There is nothing in there to indicate that it's based off of using the name of a program. Simply that it's every episode for the current season. Tivo isn't stupid... they know that Name Based Recording is not something that can be patented. It's also obvious that most of the people here have never filed for a patent (I have) - and what actually goes into filing an application and what you can (or should) and can not (or should not) do when trying to obtain one.

Tivo did the right thing with their patent, and blatently spelled out exactly what they were patenting, in mind numbing detail. The broader a patent it, the easier it can be busted. In Tivo's case, it's so mind numbingly focused, that it's going to be tough to bust it, except through proof of prior art.

So once again, before anyone else decides to defend Dish because of non-existant patents, PLEASE get your facts straight and come armed with proof of this hypothetical patent. Be sure to note the paragraph number that you *think* might cover name based recording... because the entire patent cited here has nothing to do with it.


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