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My Hopper/Joey Install Experience

164K views 491 replies 160 participants last post by  Stewart Vernon 
#1 ·
Now that Hopper/Joey are available we expect a few people to join the "bleeding edge" and either change out their existing DISH system for Hopper/Joey or become a new DISH subscriber.

Once you have Hopper/Joey installed in your home tell us your experience! Make sure you tell us what you replaced and your initial reactions (whether you are pleased or regret the decision to go with Hopper/Joey, what are the good or bad experiences so far).

We hope to have a structured look at this new product in a few days but here is your chance to share - member to member - your experience. So once you get your Hopper/Joey tell us all about it right here.
 
#2 ·
I upgraded from a 722k to a hopper today (no joeys). The install took a very long time (3 hrs) because mine shipped with an apparently very old, very buggy firmware which took many, many tries before it would update so the install could complete. The physical connections only took a few minutes, with the addition of one device outside. The installer had no problem with that, but had no idea how to work the hopper itself or the remote. I knew a lot more about it than he did.

I had a few scares with my EHD not working at first, but now all is well. I love the speed, the HD GUI, the remote and PTAT. The PQ even seems better on both HD and SD (but that could be my imagination).

Those who are upgrading need to save their favorites and timers somehow because a backup/restore from another remote will not work. I just printed out my timers from DishOnline before hand.
 
#4 ·
To add to El Gabito's question; if you are allowed to auto-save will the auto-save automatically add the default padding? And if not, if you manually save can you add padding in order to "copy" the entire program?
 
#5 ·
mdavej said:
I upgraded from a 722k to a hopper today
How is this possible when the unit only became available to order today?
 
#6 ·
I didn't wait for it to be available for order online. I called my local installer yesterday and scheduled the install for today. He said he'd put in the order for me this morning, which he did, and bring it to my house and install it by lunchtime, which he also did. So now I have a hopper :D
 
#8 ·
El Gabito said:
So to those of you that have it - can you set up an auto-save for PT shows that you regularly watch? I see that you can save shows manually - but I'm interested in auto-saving in case I don't get to it in 8 days, but don't want to dump it.
For those programs that you want to save beyond the 8 days that PTA offers, set those timers like you always have. They will be recorded on the same tuner as the rest of the PTA programs and they will automatically be moved from Dish's side of the hard drive to the users side of the Hard drive.
 
#9 ·
mdavej said:
I had a few scares with my EHD not working at first, but now all is well. I love the speed, the HD GUI, the remote and PTAT. The PQ even seems better on both HD and SD (but that could be my imagination).
Can you elaborate on what happened with your EHD at first?

What output resolution options does the Hopper/Joey allow you to select from? 1080p? is there an option for native passthrough (e.g., if ABC is broadcasting 720p then output 720p, if NBC is outputting 1080i output 1080i), etc.?
 
#10 ·
At first it showed there were zero recordings on it (almost giving me a heart attack). So I contacted Dish and they sent down some sort of update to my "home key" they said. All my recordings showed up as soon as they did that and all was well. So it turned out to be an issue with my installation, not any sort of bug.

Resolution settings only go up to 1080i, but 1080p content (what little there is) is output at 1080p AFAIK, like the VIP series. There's no native option like DirecTV.
 
#11 ·
mdavej said:
At first it showed there were zero recordings on it (almost giving me a heart attack). So I contacted Dish and they sent down some sort of update to my "home key" they said. All my recordings showed up as soon as they did that and all was well. So it turned out to be an issue with my installation, not any sort of bug.

Resolution settings only go up to 1080i, but 1080p content (what little there is) is output at 1080p AFAIK, like the VIP series. There's no native option like DirecTV.
The lack of native passthrough as an option is disappointing. This has been on some DVRs many years back.
 
#13 ·
Almost all current TV technology uses fixed-pixel displays, i.e. the display is of a set resolution, and cannot be changed (1080, 720, etc.) Unlike CRT's which can actually scan at different resolutions.

Even if you have native passthrough in the box, the TV itself must convert it to whatever its native resolution is before it shows it to you. So it comes down to if the conversion happens in the DVR (Dish) or the TV (DirectTV). I've viewed both, and to my eyes there is no difference quality wise.

In fact, I MUCH prefer the DVR be doing the conversion, why? Because it's always sending the native resolution out the TV is expecting, no conversion takes place in the TV itself. This means it doesn't re-sync every time you change channels, which I find MADDENING. To each his own, but with a flat-panel, non-CRT TV, I prefer the DVR do the conversion (Dish.)

Native pass-through is a feature I would turn off, if present.
 
#14 ·
ZBoomer said:
Almost all current TV technology uses fixed-pixel displays, i.e. the display is of a set resolution, and cannot be changed (1080, 720, etc.) Unlike CRT's which can actually scan at different resolutions.

Even if you have native passthrough in the box, the TV itself must convert it to whatever its native resolution is before it shows it to you. So it comes down to if the conversion happens in the DVR (Dish) or the TV (DirectTV). I've viewed both, and to my eyes there is no difference quality wise.

In fact, I MUCH prefer the DVR be doing the conversion, why? Because it's always sending the native resolution out the TV is expecting, no conversion takes place in the TV itself. This means it doesn't re-sync every time you change channels, which I find MADDENING. To each his own, but with a flat-panel, non-CRT TV, I prefer the DVR do the conversion (Dish.)

Native pass-through is a feature I would turn off, if present.
No point in arguing about native passthrough, the concept is very simple, if the DVR has a better scaler than the display device then turn the feature off. If the display device has a better scaler than the DVR then turn the feature on. It's a very useful feature if your display device has a very good scaler. My display device has an excellent scaler. For channels that broadcast 720p I've run a test and changed the DVR output from 1080i to 720p and compared picture on my 1080p front projector (large screen reveals a lot) vs. what it looks like when the DVR is outputting 1080i for the 720p native signal and there is a BIG difference on my display device meaning my display device's scaler is far superior to my VIP722 DVR's scaler.

If your display device is 1080p and you're watching a 720p channel yet have the DVR's output set to 1080i you have 720p --> 1080i --> 1080p conversion vs. if the DVR had a native passthrough option you'd have 720p --> 1080p, less conversions the better.

Re: annoyance of slowness changing channels with native passthrough set on there aren't that many 720p channels so normally the DVR is outputting 1080i, plus in the days of having a DVR I pretty much never channel surf anymore, 99.9% of what I watch has been recorded on my DVR and watched after the fact to give the opportunity to fast forward commercials/etc. Everyone I know with a DVR time shifts this way, doesn't channel surf like was done in the "good old days". With the new Prime Time Anytime feature that's another reason watching live TV is an antiquated concept.
 
#17 ·
I have DIRECTV whole home. I don't have Hopper and don't mean to troll. I have been watching this thread and I'll make some comments:

DIRECTV whole home does not let you pause live TV on every receiver, unless every receiver is a DVR. On the other hand if you have DIRECTV's HR34 DVR and 3 regular recievers (the closest analogue to a Hopper/3-Joey setup) you can record 5 things on the main DVR and still watch 3 things live on the other TVs.
 
#18 ·
I had DirecTV whole home and now hopper, but no joeys, so I can't say how the clients work. But I think it's a little too early to compare because neither is in it's final state. Dish has a thin client box today (joey) and DirecTV does not, save for a few tv's with integrated RVU. On the flip side, DirecTV can integrate multiple servers but Dish currently cannot. All of those will ultimately be features.
 
#19 ·
If you want to save a PTAT recording, it has to be manually saved to your HD. There isn't an auto save feature. If you do save a PTAT recording, it does keep a copy in the PTAT folder. If you have further questions, please let me know. Thanks.

El Gabito said:
So to those of you that have it - can you set up an auto-save for PT shows that you regularly watch? I see that you can save shows manually - but I'm interested in auto-saving in case I don't get to it in 8 days, but don't want to dump it.
 
#20 ·
WynsWrld98 said:
Who cares if it's a different company's DVR that has native passthrough there's no technical/licensing reason a DISH DVR cannot offer it. I don't see your point at all...
I don't want to debate native too much. I understand it's a feature that some people want for various reasons. But I kind of see it as an outdated feature that Dish will probably never have. It's very rare for disc players or any DVR besides DirecTV to have it. If Dish's scaler is good, which it is, what's the point? Very few people are going to have external scalers that are any better. So I think it would be a waste of money to add a feature so few would ever use.

Personally, in the several years I had DirecTV, I was able to tolerate native for about 5 minutes for the reasons already mentioned plus the fact that in many cases native was significantly worse than upconverted. This is because many SD channels are broadcast stretched, which carries over on native. If you switch from native to pillar box, you can squash it back to a normal aspect ratio. With native, you're stuck in stretch mode, which I find unwatchable.

There are lots of DirecTV features I wish Dish had besides native, like bookmarks, skip to tick, better dual live buffers (I often lose my buffer when switching back and forth, while that never happened on DirecTV), youtube and pandora. One huge thing I get with Dish that I never got with DirecTV is being able to use IR and RF remotes simultaneously. Others include the 3 hr wide guide display, portable EHDs, sling and PTAT.

Sorry for getting off topic onto DirecTV vs. Dish. This is supposed to be about the install experience. Mine was difficult and slow, but the end result was good.
 
#21 ·
I PMed a Dish Internet response Team member at 9:30 am yesterday, ordered an upgrade from a 922 and two 612s to two Hoppers and three Joeys. The installer arrived less than five hours later and took 2 1/2 hours to finish. My existing wiring helped him out.

Everything is working great. I love it, and I also think the PQ is better than it was.
 
#22 ·
mdavej said:
I don't want to debate native too much. I understand it's a feature that some people want for various reasons. But I kind of see it as an outdated feature that Dish will probably never have. It's very rare for disc players or any DVR besides DirecTV to have it. If Dish's scaler is good, which it is, what's the point? Very few people are going to have external scalers that are any better. So I think it would be a waste of money to add a feature so few would ever use.

Personally, in the several years I had DirecTV, I was able to tolerate native for about 5 minutes for the reasons already mentioned plus the fact that in many cases native was significantly worse than upconverted. This is because many SD channels are broadcast stretched, which carries over on native. If you switch from native to pillar box, you can squash it back to a normal aspect ratio. With native, you're stuck in stretch mode, which I find unwatchable.

There are lots of DirecTV features I wish Dish had besides native, like bookmarks, skip to tick, better dual live buffers (I often lose my buffer when switching back and forth, while that never happened on DirecTV), youtube and pandora. One huge thing I get with Dish that I never got with DirecTV is being able to use IR and RF remotes simultaneously. Others include the 3 hr wide guide display, portable EHDs, sling and PTAT.

Sorry for getting off topic onto DirecTV vs. Dish. This is supposed to be about the install experience. Mine was difficult and slow, but the end result was good.
You're stating incorrect information but I've already stated the correct information so since this has gotten off topic like you state let's get it back to the Hopper/Joey.

So anyone who has had it installed have you seen any problems such as intermittent problems with slowness, freezing, anything like that that often occurs on the bleeding edge?

Anything you like less on Hopper vs. your previous 722/922 DVR?
 
#23 ·
Hello all, One question here, I have several recorded programs that I have saved on my 722 that I have not gotten around to watching yet. Due to working 7 days a week at present. Should I wait to get the hopper until I have watched all the recordings or waste the money to get a external hard drive to download the recordings and than have them transferred to the hopper later?
thanks for your help in advance!:)
 
#25 ·
jefte1 said:
Hello all, One question here, I have several recorded programs that I have saved on my 722 that I have not gotten around to watching yet. Due to working 7 days a week at present. Should I wait to get the hopper until I have watched all the recordings or waste the money to get a external hard drive to download the recordings and than have them transferred to the hopper later?
thanks for your help in advance!:)
If you think getting an external hard drive is a waste, watch all the recordings before upgrading to the Hopper.

If there are any recordings that you'd prefer to keep for a long time, get an EHD to store it in case your 722 (or Hopper) fails.
 
#26 ·
WynsWrld98 said:
...

Re: annoyance of slowness changing channels with native passthrough set on there aren't that many 720p channels...
Really? :rolleyes: FX, Fox, almost every ABC, all Fox sports regional nets, A&E, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, History, History International, Crime & Investigation, Biography, Fox News, Fox Business, Fox Soccer, MLB Network, Disney, DXD, Disney Kids, ABC Family, Speed Channel, Fuel, Big Ten Network.

Yeah, there aren't that many. :lol:
 
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