Hopper PTAT recording question--Dish newbie (maybe)

8567 Views 12 Replies 10 Participants Last post by NightTimeHD, Oct 16, 2012

PtownPhil

Discussion Starter · Jun 7, 2012

Hi,

I'm moving off DTV to either DISH or Comcast. Looking at the PTAT is there a way to automatically schedule having a series from PTAT saved onto the DVR? During the season we frequently get behind a few weeks on a series but our DTV DVR keeps them until ready to watch. Is that possible with Hopper, or do you have to go daily or weekly and save preferred shows to the DVR?

I'm concerned that PTAT has so much content it would be come a hassle weeding out to just that which we really want to have and save. We do occasionally have 3 shows to record, so i can't rely on just the individual tuners.

Thoughts and suggestions? (I'm going off DTV because of all the audio and video problems this past year with poor software releases.)

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cloudtamer

· #2 · Jun 7, 2012

PTAT records the 4 major networks, and only saves them for 8 days.

If you have a show you must keep up on and watch, then I would suggest that you use the Standard DVR feature to record those series, and you can manage them yourself (Ie, 5 Shows worth, instead of the PTAT of 8 days). The PTAT feature is one of those nice features that you can pop in an out of a show you may have wanted to watch during prime time, and did not have enough tuner's to watch or forgot to record.

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n0qcu

· #3 · Jun 7, 2012

PtownPhil said:
Hi,

I'm moving off DTV to either DISH or Comcast. Looking at the PTAT is there a way to automatically schedule having a series from PTAT saved onto the DVR? During the season we frequently get behind a few weeks on a series but our DTV DVR keeps them until ready to watch. Is that possible with Hopper, or do you have to go daily or weekly and save preferred shows to the DVR?
Yes, it can be set to automatically save any PTA recording to your partition.
I'm concerned that PTAT has so much content it would be come a hassle weeding out to just that which we really want to have and save. We do occasionally have 3 shows to record, so i can't rely on just the individual tuners.

Thoughts and suggestions? (I'm going off DTV because of all the audio and video problems this past year with poor software releases.)

...

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RasputinAXP

· #4 · Jun 7, 2012

Yes, just set a timer as normal and it'll keep them in PTAT until the 8 days is up, then slice it out and put it in your DVR folder.

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zer0cool

· #5 · Jun 7, 2012

Actually, you can select any episode of any series currently in the PTAT folder, and select "Save Series" from the popup menu.
This will save all recordings of that series until you manually delete them.
(It will be listed again outside the PTAT folder, but still occupy space reserved for PTAT on your hopper's drive, I believe).

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Ray [email protected] Network

· #6 · Jun 7, 2012

You are correct with our assessment of 2 copies of the event being saved. One in the PTAT folder, which is purged every 8 days and a copy in No Folder. Thanks.

zer0cool said:
Actually, you can select any episode of any series currently in the PTAT folder, and select "Save Series" from the popup menu.
This will save all recordings of that series until you manually delete them.
(It will be listed again outside the PTAT folder, but still occupy space reserved for PTAT on your hopper's drive, I believe).

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RasputinAXP

· #7 · Jun 7, 2012

zer0cool said:
Actually, you can select any episode of any series currently in the PTAT folder, and select "Save Series" from the popup menu.
This will save all recordings of that series until you manually delete them.
(It will be listed again outside the PTAT folder, but still occupy space reserved for PTAT on your hopper's drive, I believe).

Until 8 days has passed, yes. Then it moves over to 'your side' of the drive.

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Ray [email protected] Network

· #8 · Jun 7, 2012

Actually, the copy resides in both folders - one copy in the PTAT folder and the 2nd copy in the No Folder. It will remain in the No Folder until it is manually deleted. The PTAT copy is purged after 8 days. Thanks.

RasputinAXP said:
Until 8 days has passed, yes. Then it moves over to 'your side' of the drive.

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sregener

· #9 · Jun 8, 2012

PtownPhil said:
I'm concerned that PTAT has so much content it would be come a hassle weeding out to just that which we really want to have and save. We do occasionally have 3 shows to record, so i can't rely on just the individual tuners.

I left DirecTV in April because of their slow DVRs. I've been very happy with the Hopper, with the exception of HD LiL quality. I did not have that option with DirecTV, so I can't compare the two, but I find the Dish LiL quality to be vastly inferior to OTA. The Hopper OTA module is supposed to be coming out "soon" and will have a single tuner.

The Hopper has 3 internal tuners. One of them can be used for PTAT, or you can turn PTAT off and record three different channels at once from any source. If one of your three programs is on the "Big 4" in primetime, there's no harm in using PTAT - the picture quality will be the same either way.

As others have stated, you can select any series you want to save, and it will save the series in your main menu (it also appears in the PTAT folder) until you delete it. Simply select the program from the Guide and choose "Save Series." It will not require a separate tuner - it uses the PTAT tuner.

I don't find it hard to weed through the PTAT folder - the programs are indicated by nice icons rather than lines of text. It's pretty easy to find what you want. It's also arranged by recording date, so it isn't hard to find the proper day.

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jeffdb27

· #10 · Oct 11, 2012

RasputinAXP said:
Until 8 days has passed, yes. Then it moves over to 'your side' of the drive.

I just got my Hopper last night. In what little chance I've had to play with PTAT, I noticed that the recordings, even after selecting "save", cannot be coppied to the external hard drive. Does this change after the 8 days? Is the program then actually "moved" to the user's side?

Jeff

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garys

· #11 · Oct 11, 2012

jeffdb27 said:
I just got my Hopper last night. In what little chance I've had to play with PTAT, I noticed that the recordings, even after selecting "save", cannot be coppied to the external hard drive. Does this change after the 8 days? Is the program then actually "moved" to the user's side?

Jeff

Yes, I believe that even when you save the recording, you need to wait till the original recording is gone from PTAT.

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RasputinAXP

· #12 · Oct 11, 2012

what Gary said. You can't archive them until they're out of PTAT.

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NightTimeHD

· #13 · Oct 16, 2012

Ray [email protected] Network said:
Actually, the copy resides in both folders - one copy in the PTAT folder and the 2nd copy in the No Folder. It will remain in the No Folder until it is manually deleted. The PTAT copy is purged after 8 days. Thanks.

I just got my new Hopper today (upgrade from 722K) and had some questions in this area as well.

Based on the few hours I have had the Hopper and with the little bit of experimenting I have done it seems like I can do one of the following to save the shows I want longer than 8 days.

1. Wait until the next episode of the show records in PTAT and then use the Save Series option to have them all saved in the No Folder after the 8 days expires for each.

OR

2. Manually set a timer for each of the shows I want to keep.

I am thinking that #1 would be less time consuming and easier to manage and will accomplish the same thing as #2 (which is how I did it on the old 722k)

My desired result it to make sure my favorite shows remain on the DVR until I delete them. (i.e. I might not get to one within 8 days)

Thoughts?

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