# PTAT Question



## BreadDawg (Sep 12, 2016)

So I thought I remembered someone saying on here as long as you have ptat turned on for one night, you can autohop on randomly recorded shows throughout the week that are recorded on the 4 networks, even if they were not recorded using the ptat tuner. Is this correct?


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## thomasjk (Jan 10, 2006)

That is true as long as you are recording the big four, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. There is an autohop delay as a result of recent contract negotiations.
ABC (owned & operated only) 3 days
CBS all 7 days
Fox all 7 days
NBC currently none


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

Stupidly, DISH decided that PTA needs to be enabled for AutoHop to function, even-though there is no technical reason to limit AutoHop in that way. However, if PTA is set up for one network, one day of the week and saved for 2-days (the minimum intrusion), AutoHop will be available on all four big networks, any day of the week during the three prime time hours, regardless of the tuner used to record the event. Depending on the big network, AutoHop will become available for the recorded event anywhere from the next day to 7-days later (plus an additional 3 to 5 hours). It goes like this:

ABC - Available three days later (only on ABC owned and operated (O&O) stations).
CBS - Available seven days later on all stations.
FOX - Available seven days later on all stations.
NBC - Available the next day.

The NBC delay will likely change when their contract comes up.

Once a week I move the PTA day of the week so that PTA never records anything. That way it saves unnecessary wear on the hard drive, frees up a tuner for something important and I don't have to move a CBS show out of the PTA folder due to the ridiculously short window to watch the event.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Blowgun said:


> ... and I don't have to move a CBS show out of the PTA folder due to the ridiculously short window to watch the event.


Even with PTAT enabled one can set a timer for a program where it will be kept until deleted (or otherwise expired off due to # of kept episodes and hard drive space). The event will show as "skipped" due to PTAT, but one recorded it will be in the main DVR folder and available beyond the 2-8 day setting of PTAT.


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## patmurphey (Dec 21, 2006)

James Long said:


> Even with PTAT enabled one can set a timer for a program where it will be kept until deleted (or otherwise expired off due to # of kept episodes and hard drive space). The event will show as "skipped" due to PTAT, but one recorded it will be in the main DVR folder and available beyond the 2-8 day setting of PTAT.


The problem is that you can't edit the PTAT timer for extra time, for example, to deal with CBS's crazy timing on Sundays in football season. As long as you have the minimum PTAT on for Autoskip, you lose nothing by using regular timers, which can be edited. One tuner for 4 channels is on 24/7, not dependent on PTAT. Unskipping with PTAT on that night allows editing and I believe it wastes a tuner.


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## thomasjk (Jan 10, 2006)

Yes, it uses a tuner. If you have an H3 with 16 tuners it won't really matter.


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## BreadDawg (Sep 12, 2016)

Thanks for the info guys. With the delay in the networks it kind of negates the benefit of autohop imo. So when I look on the dvr schedule I have some shows with a white line drawn through them. Anybody know what that is? Seen it before?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

patmurphey said:


> The problem is that you can't edit the PTAT timer for extra time, for example, to deal with CBS's crazy timing on Sundays in football season.


That is a different issue - I was responding to the "ridiculously short window to watch the event" claim.



patmurphey said:


> Unskipping with PTAT on that night allows editing and I believe it wastes a tuner.


It shouldn't. All recordings of any of the four networks share that tuner. If you record Fallon, Colbert and Kimmel it consumes one tuner, leaving the other two Hopper tuners (or other 15 Hopper 3 tuners) free to record other things. It is even set so if you set Colbert to record +5 minutes then Corbin to start 5 minutes early the same tuner is used. No waste.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

BreadDawg said:


> Thanks for the info guys. With the delay in the networks it kind of negates the benefit of autohop imo. So when I look on the dvr schedule I have some shows with a white line drawn through them. Anybody know what that is? Seen it before?


The white lines show skipped programs. Highlight the program and the reason why the recording was skipped will show on the screen.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

James Long said:


> Even with PTAT enabled one can set a timer for a program where it will be kept until deleted (or otherwise expired off due to # of kept episodes and hard drive space). The event will show as "skipped" due to PTAT, but one recorded it will be in the main DVR folder and available beyond the 2-8 day setting of PTAT.


Hmm, I was under the impression that PTA superseded any regular timers due to having the highest priority.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Blowgun said:


> Hmm, I was under the impression that PTA superseded any regular timers due to having the highest priority.


If you have the same program set to record using PTAT and a regular timer it will show as "skipped" but will record as part of PTAT. It will show up in both the PTAT folder and under My Recordings. It will remain in My Recordings after it expires from the PTAT folder.

If you do not set individual timers for PTAT shows they will leave the PTAT folder based on your PTAT settings (after 2-8 days). Setting a timer keeps the show until deleted by the user (or deleted by rule if # of kept episodes is exceeded or hard drive space is full).

Setting the timer gives one the freedom to watch later than the PTAT settings - as well as putting those shows in the main My Recordings folder. I do that with all of the shows I watch. Having the recordings in the main folder makes them easier to find and if I get behind I can catch up even after the 8 days.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

James Long said:


> If you have the same program set to record using PTAT and a regular timer it will show as "skipped" but will record as part of PTAT. It will show up in both the PTAT folder and under My Recordings. It will remain in My Recordings after it expires from the PTAT folder.


That's not very intuitive.



James Long said:


> If you do not set individual timers for PTAT shows they will leave the PTAT folder based on your PTAT settings (after 2-8 days). Setting a timer keeps the show until deleted by the user (or deleted by rule if # of kept episodes is exceeded or hard drive space is full).


That makes the "Keep" option in a regular timer more versatile and if for whatever reason was set to seven, would act like the "# Days to Save" option in PTA.



James Long said:


> Setting the timer gives one the freedom to watch later than the PTAT settings - as well as putting those shows in the main My Recordings folder. I do that with all of the shows I watch. Having the recordings in the main folder makes them easier to find and if I get behind I can catch up even after the 8 days.


That freedom doesn't leave PTA with much value. Considering that PTA doesn't need to be enabled for a single tuner to carry the big four networks. Nor is PTA necessary to have a recording tagged with the AutoHop index marks. A regular timer has the advantage of keeping shows past the 8-day limitation of PTA and if desired, a regular timer can be set to work nearly identical to PTA by deleting a recorded event after 7-days. Plus, a recording from a regular timer are easier to find in the My Recording folder since one doesn't have to wade through shows of no interest. PTA also adds unnecessary hard drive wear and locks one tuner (important for non-H3 users) which could result in conflicts with other timers while it records useless stuff. Aside from enabling the artificial limitation of AutoHop, PTA seems practically useless with one other exception, and that is to watch a show that might occasionally get cut off, minus any transitional loss between them. It seems the way DISH shoehorned AutoHop into PTA was to give PTA a greater value so it didn't appear as much of a gimmick by itself.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Blowgun said:


> That makes the "Keep" option in a regular timer more versatile and if for whatever reason was set to seven, would act like the "# Days to Save" option in PTA.


The "# to save" option on a regular timer is the # of events. Set it to seven and the receiver will keep seven shows (which could be seven weeks of programming). It can be set as high as 20 or set to keep all. It is NOT a time based keep, it is a number of shows based keep.



Blowgun said:


> That freedom doesn't leave PTA with much value.


The biggest value I get out of PTAT is when it records shows I forgot to set a timer for. This time of year is especially bad with new season premiers. One can only set timers once a show is in the guide. If one forgets that a new show is starting it is easy to miss the first episode. PTAT can catch those shows.



Blowgun said:


> PTA also adds unnecessary hard drive wear and locks one tuner (important for non-H3 users) which could result in conflicts with other timers while it records useless stuff.


Feel free to disable the feature. It is there for people that it helps.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Initially PTA was the only way the shared tuner worked for those LiLs... but fairly quickly they made the shared tuner for LiLs work 24/7 and that did take some of the "Bang" away from the PTA feature. If you're like me and don't mind pressing buttons on a remote to skip commercials, then AutoHop wouldn't be a major feature either. I mean, it's cool and all... but I'm long used to skipping commercials for all the other channels, so having AutoHop wouldn't be a huge thing for me.

IF you record only 1-2 things, on any combination of LiLs each night... then it's probably 50/50 whether enabling PTA every night is for you. It's probably just as easy to set those timers and ignore the feature. But I happen to watch a lot from my LiLs... so I would find it a convenient thing to know that block was being recorded every night and I wouldn't have to worry about setting timers for any of that... just have to monitor a few things for sports overruns (like CBS or FOX on Sundays during NFL season)... and something James eluded to in a different way... besides possibly forgetting a timer... if a new show comes on and you didn't know about it, but after it airs you read about it online and it sounds like a show you wish you had recorded... no worries, it is already recorded for you! I think this feature would probably make me more apt to try some new shows because they'd be there waiting for me.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Stewart Vernon said:


> ... but fairly quickly they made the shared tuner for LiLs work 24/7


Maybe it is a sign of age, but I do not remember the shared tuner not working 24/7 (and I have one of the first Hoppers - delivered on the first weekend of installations). At that time Autohop defaulted to "on" instead of "off" for each playback and PTAT could only be 100% enabled or 100% disabled (no choosing networks, days or number of days kept).

I miss the immediate Autohop on the networks where the feature has been negotiated away. But my favorite shows usually get watched later the same night before Autohop was available - and now I am more likely to watch the same night and use "old school" commercial skipping instead of wait until next day just for Autohop.

There are three features in play ... 1) shared tuner (which cannot be disabled and I cannot find a reason why one would want to disable), 2) automatic recording (PTAT, which can be disabled) and 3) automatic skipping (Autohop). I do not know why Autohop isn't enabled without at least a day of PTAT ... but these are features that build on each other.

The Hoppers are still decent receivers without PTAT and Autohop - perhaps it is because my previous receiver was a "Duo" (dual tuner DVR) that I see the third tuner as a bonus that helps avoid conflicts (I had conflicts with two tuners ... three tuners, especially a shared tuner, is a big help). And on those days where it is recording "junk" on all four networks I am no worse off than I was with a "Duo". Glass half full ... no loss.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Looks like April 2013 (S308 I think) was when the Hopper got full LiL-tuner-sharing 24/7 features. The water is a little murky, though, because I saw a post from James talking about using a single tuner for watching live TV in January of 2013, but acknowledged that recording used multiple timers... so it might be that they allowed the shared tuner for live TV watching earlier... but recording outside the automatic PTAT function seemed to not work until April 2013... which is what, a year maybe after the Hopper originally came out?

I had to dig really hard into our archives to find that! I definitely remembered the discussion, but it was a long time ago.


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## patmurphey (Dec 21, 2006)

My wife wanted a 10PM CBS show recorded every Sunday. During football season, with game overruns, CBS would delay the start of evening shows based on the live football result. A "saved" PTAT recording of that 10PM show could not be edited to add an extra hour to completely cover the nonsense. The solution was to create a regular timer that could be edited and unskip it every week, wasting a tuner on a 3 tuner Hopper. When the software came out that allowed turning PTAT off on unwanted days, the issue became moot.


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