Hopper - will 3 tuners be enough?

Are 3 tuners enough for Dish Customers (not you personally)

  • 95% of Dish customers don't need more than 3 tuners and 5% want more tuners

    Votes: 87 35.8%
  • 60% don't need 3 tuners, 30% need more but are dumb and happy, and 10% want more tuners

    Votes: 48 19.8%
  • At least 50% of Dish customers are not going to be happy with only 3 tuners

    Votes: 51 21.0%
  • 3 tuners won't cut it for most customers

    Votes: 57 23.5%

  • Total voters
    243

KAB

SatelliteGuys Master
Pub Member / Supporter
Lifetime Supporter
Sep 20, 2005
21,734
5,224
Fishers, IN
I'm glad he's not my customer. I understand the situation with the house but it sounds like a nightmare install for a Dish tech. I have no problem with the customer wanting to install their own equipment just as long as the purchase it. If they want to do it under a promotion then we do it ourselves since we are resonible for it and we need to make sure we get paid by Dish.

Some people have special homes and they want them treated as such. Obviously only the owner has the right to feel that way but it can be tough for an installer to handle that situation, especially one from Dish.
I have a home about 22 years older than his. But you do what you need to do to be a part of THIS world.
 

Scherrman

SatelliteGuys Master
Supporting Founder
Mar 14, 2008
15,555
9,951
Eastern Iowa
Well, you try your best but sometimes it can be very tough to please everyone. I had a customer complain today that the discount for the first 12 months was not enough. He said that 1 year goes too fast and that Dish is screwing him. So we said get cable if satellite isn't for you. He said cable screws everyone too with their high prices. When done talking to him if what decided that he wouldn't be happy even if he got his programming for free. Just one of those guys, we all know one.
 

TheKrell

A mighty and noble race originating on Altair IV.
Pub Member / Supporter
Jan 4, 2007
38,817
46,474
Fairfax, VA
This nonsense of running cable on the outside of houses, whether old or new, is crap. It looks like crap and, when not properly secured, it weathers like crap.

You are being kind using the "crap" word. My current merely 35yo light grey home had hideously ugly black dual cable draped all over the outside when I moved in. What was the installer thinking? First thing I did was tear it all down and make my new grey cables disappear 5' from the dish.
 

Dishman1978

SatelliteGuys Pro
Jul 31, 2010
3,274
90
California
TheKrell said:
You are being kind using the "crap" word. My current merely 35yo light grey home had hideously ugly black dual cable draped all over the outside when I moved in. What was the installer thinking? First thing I did was tear it all down and make my new grey cables disappear 5' from the dish.

I wish Dish would let us still carry grey cable. That was so nice. Now its black outside and white inside only. :-(
 

SQUEEZON

SatelliteGuys Pro
Jan 10, 2007
351
25
Oregon
I think most 2 person or more households will discover they would like to have more tuners, but they don't want to increase their bill.............
 

navychop

Member of the Month - July 2014!
Pub Member / Supporter
Lifetime Supporter
Jul 20, 2005
60,011
27,279
Northern VA
I think most 2 person or more households will discover they would like to have more tuners, but they don't want to increase their bill.............
I'd like 12 tuners, 6 OTA tuners, free sat service, free ISP service, and a million dollars a month, all at no cost to me......

Is it comfy, under that bridge?
 

LER

Supporter / Pub Member / Server Weenie
Sep 28, 2003
7,061
31
Round Rock, TX US
With one tuner available for the "Big-4", most should(!) be happy with 3. I have 2 hoppers, but really it's because of the way things work(ed) prior to the real integration.
 

ChadT41

THE BEST THERE HAS EVER BEEN
Apr 20, 2014
11,080
4,512
Mesa, Az
With one tuner available for the "Big-4", most should(!) be happy with 3. I have 2 hoppers, but really it's because of the way things work(ed) prior to the real integration.
I have two, but I have 2 roommates none of us watch the same thing. It is more of an oppurtunity to for everyone to get what they want. I also pay for their Netflix, and everything else "home" related, all included in the cost of rent. Except food. They do not cook for me... so I do not buy their food...
 

Straybeat

SatelliteGuys Pro
Sep 4, 2007
155
14
Phoenix
I had 8 tuners 20 years ago and could have used more at times. Actually, my setup was a 10 foot dish with 4DTV and a stack of VCR's with 8-hour tapes in each. I would set it to a particular satellite for the time of day, then record all of the transponders I wanted on that sat. Switch to a different sat the next hour and record all the things on that sat, etc.

I could use the same thing with my Hopper.
 

TG2

SatelliteGuys Pro
Feb 7, 2011
1,380
7
Viginia
Biggest problem I am running into with one hopper on PTAT, and a second on standard 3tuner, is that back to back shows tie up 2 tuners for a period of time, and that leads to me having to re-juggle stuff or have the second viewing of something recorded because a 3rd show that starts at the same time has no tuner available.

What I'd like to see, is Dish soft-record or buffer record such that, when it has back to back recordings,
  • the timer is adjusted/extended to the end of the 2nd show,
  • where the second show is to "begin" the recording buffer inserts a "show2 start" tag, (eg defaults for us are start 1 min early, end 2 mins late, as it seems MANY shows do this)
  • And then where the end of the first show +overlap should be a "close Tag" is inserted into the buffer
  • the buffering file manager, then starts a new Jpeg/data stream to the hard drive, writing out the first minute and continuing the 2nd show's write to disk operations, while it closes out the end of the first recording from the buffer to the "closeTag"..
... so 1 tuner, buffered to temp files as does now, and since the hoper *can* support 4 ~ 5 users, this shouldn't be too hard on the hard drive for accomplishing the multiple file read/write during that transition time.

:( oh the wish to have the programming chops to take this on.
 

satgirl51

SatelliteGuys Pro
Oct 3, 2007
380
106
USA
Biggest problem I am running into with one hopper on PTAT, and a second on standard 3tuner, is that back to back shows tie up 2 tuners for a period of time, and that leads to me having to re-juggle stuff or have the second viewing of something recorded because a 3rd show that starts at the same time has no tuner available.

What I'd like to see, is Dish soft-record or buffer record such that, when it has back to back recordings,
  • the timer is adjusted/extended to the end of the 2nd show,
  • where the second show is to "begin" the recording buffer inserts a "show2 start" tag, (eg defaults for us are start 1 min early, end 2 mins late, as it seems MANY shows do this)
  • And then where the end of the first show +overlap should be a "close Tag" is inserted into the buffer
  • the buffering file manager, then starts a new Jpeg/data stream to the hard drive, writing out the first minute and continuing the 2nd show's write to disk operations, while it closes out the end of the first recording from the buffer to the "closeTag"..
... so 1 tuner, buffered to temp files as does now, and since the hoper *can* support 4 ~ 5 users, this shouldn't be too hard on the hard drive for accomplishing the multiple file read/write during that transition time.

:( oh the wish to have the programming chops to take this on.

Been discussing that lately herehttp://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/index.php?threads/Multiple-tuners-used-to-record-back-to-back-shows-on-same-channel.347210/
 

bwexler

SatelliteGuys Pro
Nov 29, 2007
749
270
San Marcos, CA
My biggest problem with the Hopper is the tiny 2 TB hard drive. Both my Hoppers are 98 to 100% full and most of my EHDs are full. Offering an external enclosure capable of holding 4? larger hard drives up to 6 TB each would allow some growth especially if they were all available/ accessible to record and view as if the were all internal to the Hopper.
 

dishfan82

SatelliteGuys Pro
Lifetime Supporter
Feb 18, 2012
1,412
133
clinton Township
2 TB HD is huge. We didn't even come close to filling it all the way up when we had Dish. We have DTV now and delete shows as we watch them. I miss the EHD Transfer option that we don't have.
 

allargon

SatelliteGuys Pro
Aug 2, 2007
1,642
26
Austin, TX
2 TB HD is huge. We didn't even come close to filling it all the way up when we had Dish.
2TB is not huge with 7 day PTAT or a good chunk of OTA recordings. Most hard drives are at least 4TB these days. There are now 6TB single drive EHD's. Dish needs to fix their 1000 program listing limit on EHD's and bump up the HWS hard drive to at least 4TB (6TB preferred).
 

ChadT41

THE BEST THERE HAS EVER BEEN
Apr 20, 2014
11,080
4,512
Mesa, Az
2TB is not huge with 7 day PTAT or a good chunk of OTA recordings. Most hard drives are at least 4TB these days. There are now 6TB single drive EHD's. Dish needs to fix their 1000 program listing limit on EHD's and bump up the HWS hard drive to at least 4TB (6TB preferred).
2tb is the largest in the market for any MVPD. That said, you can increase it by adding as many EHDs as you want. Or you can go to DTV, and use their 1tb.
 

Scott Greczkowski

Welcome HOME!
Staff member
HERE TO HELP YOU!
Cutting Edge
Sep 7, 2003
102,747
26,376
Newington, CT
Most hard drives are 4TB? I just checked Best Buy and most everything they sell does not even come with 1 TB drives yet.

In the TV world is there even a provider that had 1 TB drives yet?

In addition DISH allows you to add external hard drives for unlimited storage space if you want it. Since DISH knows how much hard drive space everyone is using, I doubt there is a rush to upgrade to 4TB nor would we see them move that way unless 4TB matched the prices they are currently paying for 2TB drives. (Now the prices they pay for 2TB drives is MUCH different then what you and I would pay for the same drive)
 
  • Like
Reactions: ChadT41

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)