said by mikedz4:Will there come a time when we can no longer skip commercials while watching a previously recorded show on our dvrs? Which in my opinion would render them useless.
Cable companies are already doing this with OnDemand. Some networks restrict the use of fast forward to either a slow fast forward or no fast forward. It would be easy for cable companies to do this with network DVRs. It would be harder to do this with stand alone DVRs because people are used to being able to skip commercials and would resist this. I think fewer people would rent DVRs if they couldn't skip commercials.
If the court rules that the automatic skipping of commercials violates copyright laws and Dish loses all appeals, Dish can remove that feature. This won't affect other DVRs that don't automatically skip commercials.