Thread: How many streams can Hopper output at one time?

I'm sure there are several posts among the thousands about Hopper that mention this but,

Is there a design limit on how many joeys a one hopper can connect with and/or is there a limit to how many simultaneous streams it can provide to the joeys;

1. If they are all different (a mix of live broadcasts and recordings)?

or

2. If they are all the same (like everybody wants to watch the Superbowl real time)?

One Hopper will work with up to three Joeys. There are a maximum of three live streams with up to 4 streams total as best as I can tell.

Thanks. I wonder if they set these limits for business purposes or these are real technical limits.

Originally Posted by steve4810

Thanks. I wonder if they set these limits for business purposes

YES

I don't think it's a technical limitation so much as a practical one. The Broadcom chip they're using is very powerful. The unit only has three tuners available for live viewing so it doesn't make a lot of sense to allow for 10 Joeys to be connected and ten streams. A second Hopper can be added to the mix along with another three Joeys though and all will work as a combined entity.

But what about the exception of everybody wanting the same thing? Shouldn't mirroring the stream be really processor lite. Or can't a single stream be viewed my multiple devices. Just heard these kind of things are what makes Victoria Secret able to mirror their "fashion show" to millions of separate IP addresses at once.

I'm just guessing of course.

Originally Posted by steve4810

Thanks. I wonder if they set these limits for business purposes or these are real technical limits.

I think it's a little of both. The Hopper would not fall to pieces if you added a fourth or fifth Joey, but keeping headroom in the box allows for some future capabilities.

Also, would Dish be doing the right thing promoting a single Hopper as supporting 5+ locations? If a client has 5+ TVs, chances are very good any additional up front for a second Hopper would not be a big impediment, and the client will be happier in the long run with the dual hopper solution.

Does it matter that the hopper will serve you DVR content while you're watching live and/or recording streams?

I think you could technically record three live streams and then also be watching different DVR content on all the hoppers and Joeys.

I wonder if that creates some sort of limit.

And throw in an OTA stream or two.