DISH Hopper and Joey Whole-Home DVR Preview
DISH Hopper and Joey Whole-Home DVR
Summary
- Product Name: Hopper and Joey Whole-Home DVR
- Manufacturer: DISH Network
- Review Date: January 09, 2012 14:50
- MSRP: $TBD
- First Impression: Gotta Have It!
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- Three satellite TV tuners
- A two-terabyte hard drive for up to 2,000 hours of video entertainment
- Up to 250 hours of HD or up to 1,000 hours of SD user recordings
- Bluetooth for linking to devices such as wireless headphones
- Picture-in-picture for watching any two channels simultaneously
Combined with a Joey, the Hopper whole-home HD DVR system offers more advanced features:
- 750 MHz Broadcom processer – the fastest satellite receiver processor available today for a quick, responsive on-screen guide
- Approximately 50 percent more energy efficient for a four-room installation than previous models
- ZigBee RF4CE using a proprietary protocol remote with “remote control finder” alert
- High definition user interface
- Easy-to-use, fast, graphical, tile-based user interface with predictive search
- Small, sleek chassis for convenient placement
Executive Overview
DISH Network is completely changing the way it does DVR - particularly as it has to do with a whole-home setup. And this really makes sense, considering that right now you need a DVR in each room in order to record your favorite shows - and those shows can't be shared from one room to the next. Now they can. DISH is introducing Hopper and Joey, a whole-home high definition DVR entertainment system. The Hopper HD DVR and accompanying small Joey set-top boxes create a whole-home HD DVR entertainment system that lets DISH customers easily record, pause, and play back shows from any room in the home. While most whole-home DVRs do not have the same DVR functionality on every TV, the Hopper and Joey whole-home system offers the exact same DVR functionality on every TV, letting customers pause, play and rewind both live and recorded HD programs in up to four rooms.
DISH Joey
The Hopper was unveiled today at CES by DISH CEO Joe Clayton (being a loyal DISH subscriber, he's my new hero). The system is already winning honors as a CES Innovations 2012 Design and Engineering Award honoree. Pricing and packaging will be announced later this quarter, but expect the system to come with the Hopper and then plan on an incremental price bump for each Joey desired for other rooms.
The main Hopper unit features:
- Three satellite TV tuners
- A two-terabyte (2TB) hard drive for up to 2,000 hours of video entertainment
- Up to 250 hours of HD or up to 1,000 hours of SD user recordings
- Bluetooth for linking to devices such as wireless headphones
- Picture-in-picture for watching any two channels simultaneously
Combined with a Joey, the Hopper whole-home HD DVR system offers more advanced features:
- 750 MHz Broadcom processor – the fastest satellite receiver processor available today for a quick, responsive on-screen guide
- Approximately 50 percent more energy efficient for a four-room installation than previous models
- ZigBee RF4CE using a proprietary protocol remote with “remote control finder” alert
- High definition user interface
- Easy-to-use, fast, graphical, tile-based user interface with predictive search
- Small, sleek chassis for convenient placement
"Building on a heritage of award-winning DVRs, DISH is proud to be the first to introduce a groundbreaking product that delivers the most choices for TV entertainment by integrating multiple sources of video into one set-top box. The Hopper gives our customers network TV shows on demand and thousands of family movie choices streaming or delivered to the hard drive. With its massive storage, the Hopper leads the industry in delivering the most entertainment options, bar none, for every member of the household."
- Joe Clayton, DISH Network CEO
The Hopper’s new, unparalleled feature, PrimeTime Anytime allows customers, with one click, to record using a single tuner all of the primetime TV programming from ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC – the networks that deliver the most popular shows during primetime. Once activated by a customer, PrimeTime Anytime records network programming in high definition, where available, every night and stores them for eight days after they have aired. This creates an on-demand library of approximately 100 hours of primetime TV shows, and makes it easy to catch up on episodes from last night and last week’s airing.
The Hopper can record up to six TV shows at once (two live programs and four PrimeTime Anytime shows) while allowing viewers to watch up to four different recorded or on-demand shows in four rooms of the house, simultaneously. This gives a family a variety of options to control or view their recordings and to watch shows in any room from a single Hopper.
The Hopper’s on-demand capabilities also give you access to DISH’s Blockbuster @Home for $10 per month which is now enhanced with more than 10,000 total titles streaming to the TV.
The Hopper also offers on-demand content for customers with limited or no Internet access with a feature called DISH Unplugged. This feature delivers via satellite hundreds of the most popular movies and TV shows to the hard drive, including transactional and authenticated videos on demand. DISH Unplugged provides a high quality picture without buffering and makes available many of the same streaming movie choices offered by Blockbuster @Home, including premium movie access.
And for subscribers of DISH’s America’s Top 120 programming package or greater, the Hopper provides whole-home music distribution from 73 SiriusXM channels, including album art and a unique collapsible list of music channels located at the top of the channel guide at Channel 99, making it faster and easier for SiriusXM music fans to find their favorite music.
Additionally, the Hopper will features TV apps that give viewers real time access to Facebook, Twitter, Pandora and photo sharing, as well as games, news, weather, sports, and stock quotes.
TV Everywhere
Customers can manage the Hopper via the Internet at www.DishOnline.com or the DISH Remote Access app, providing the ability to control DVR recordings on their tablets, smartphones and computers. Connecting the Hopper with DISH's Sling Adapter provides customers the ability to watch and control all live TV channels, PrimeTime Anytime programs and the DVR on their computer, tablet or smartphone wherever they go.
The Hopper and Joey are designed and engineered by EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS). The Hopper works by distributing HD signals through existing co-axial cable in the home using the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) specification. The Hopper is powered by a Broadcom 750 MHz processor, the most powerful satellite TV processor available today delivering a fast and responsive on-screen guide and a graphical user interface that features channel logos to help search channels, movies or TV shows quickly. The advanced search platform also allows for navigation of programs across satellite TV, broadband and an optional external hard drive.
For more information about the award-winning Hopper and Joey by DISH, including technical specifications, please visit www.dish.com/hopper.
To watch live TV on the iPad, subscribers need a Sling Adapter from DISH and a broadband-connected compatible DISH HD DVR receiver. More information is available at dishnetwork.com/tveverywhere/remoteaccess.
Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.
The LA Audio File Hopper review claims the external storage can be quite large. If true, this is great.
alpinist, post: 871261I have been trying to find that information as well
Any idea what universal remotes will work with the hopper/joeys in an HT with IR devices? For instance, do the URC zigbee remotes have the hopper/joey commands?
Any idea what universal remotes will work with the hopper/joeys in an HT with IR devices? For instance, do the URC zigbee remotes have the hopper/joey commands?
jfalk, post: 856347
I did read the article (well… I glanced at it) but I still don't see what Dish has that DTV doesn't and hasn't had for some time, though I grant that some of the features are fairly new to DTV as well with the new HR34 which has 5 tuners, not 3, along with 2 TB of storage PIP and internet connectivity for VOD.
I'm not picking on Dish, but even Clint admits they've been falling behind and I really don't see this as much more than catch-up… not that there's anything wrong with that.
Where to start, the Hopper has…
* A 2TB HD (The HR34 only has a 1TB HD)
* EHD support
* PrimeTime Anytime - very cool feature that records all primetime programming from ABC, NBC, CBS & FOX using only ONE tuner. Programming is cached for 8 days and can be saved as needed. Primetime Anytime recordings do not impact user recording space.
* With Primetime Anytime enabled you can record up to 6 HD shows simultaneously.
* Full DVR functionality which means the ability to manipulate live programming from any location, not just the main location.
* The ability to pause live TV in one room and pick it up in another. No additional steps required. Press pause in the living room and press play in the bedroom.
* Supports optional Sling adapter which has no associated monthly service fee and will be $29.99 as of 2/1/2012.
* Blockbuster @Home support which now includes over 10,000 streaming titles to any connected television. This is in addition to DISH Cinema and traditional PPV and VOD services.
* The ability to “stack” Hoppers giving users 6 tuners as opposed to 3. When stacked all locations automatically “see” one system, one DVR library, one “set timer” process, and the ability to select any tuner from any location seamlessly.
* USB OTA tuner support
* Zoned music with over 70 channels of SiriusXM. DISH is moving all SiriusXM stations to channel 99 using an expandable/collapsible guide feature. All channels will display album art etc.
* Apps and games including social media apps like Facebook, etc.
* For lack of a better term: “Parent View.” Single button ability to see what the kids are watching in other rooms.
* 750 Mhz Broadcom processor which is lightning fast. More than twice the processing power of the HR34.
* The Hopper utilizes “Joeys” at the remote location. A Joey is slightly larger than your hand and can be easily slipped behind a wall mounted TV. A single Hopper supports 3 Joeys. So a single Hopper can support up to 4 HDTVs just like the HR34. However, each Joey has a 750 Mhz Broadcom processor so that the Hopper is not over-taxed.
* Since the Hopper utilizes the MoCA standard all Joeys can be installed using standard cable splitters and RG6 or RG59 cable meaning you can “light-up” every outlet in your home and move your TV & Joeys at will.
* Bluetooth support for things like wireless headphones (NICE!).
* Zigbee remote technology. Meaning the Hopper and Joeys can be stored out-of-sight and out-of-mind. No more IR remotes!
I've also heard that the Hopper will have apps for HBO GO and Max GO, but that's not confirmed.
As per the Washington Post the Hopper will be FREE to new customers agreeing to a two-year commitment.
and FYI ..
America's Top 250 with Blockbuster @Home has 100 everyday channels in HD compared to 65 for Choice Ultimate (using my market as a baseline, your market may vary). These are not PPV or VOD channels, these are everyday channels like you locals, AMC, ESPN, Versus, EPIX, Sony Movie Channel, Universal HD, etc.
Seems a bit more advanced, but maybe that's just me ….
I'm not picking on Dish, but even Clint admits they've been falling behind and I really don't see this as much more than catch-up… not that there's anything wrong with that.
Clint Deboer was terminated from Audioholics for misconduct on April 4th, 2014. He no longer represents Audioholics in any fashion.
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