Ever since DISH announced the new Hopper 3 at CES, SatelliteGuys members have been clamoring that they want one! Thanks to DISH Network I was provided one of the first units and was able to see and experience all the hard work that goes into making a new receiver like this work. This new receiver was built on a lot of pride from the employees at DISH and Echostar and it shows.
Before getting my Hopper 3 I needed to have my DISH 1000.4 satellite dish replaced with a DISH 1000.2 with the new Hybrid LNB. For this update I was the first in Connecticut to get this upgrade, so an installer and the area manager stopped by to perform the upgrade. Both the tech and Area Manager really didn't have a clue about the new LNB or what it was for... in fact they kept prying me for answers but I kept my lips zipped.
A few days after the new LNB was installed the Hopper 3 arrived at my house. It was so new that they didn't even have proper Hopper 3 boxes to ship them out in. In the box was only the Hopper 3 and the 50.0 Voice Remote. (Note since the 50.0 Voice remote has not been publicly released yet I am not going to talk much about it, but I will say after you get use to it, it works well and the voice functions are very cool.)
Because I had a Hopper and Hopper with Sling I had to unhook those units first. I then hooked the Hopper 3 where the Hopper with Sling was located. And then power it on. I grinned from ear to ear when I saw the Hopper 3 with Sling logo appear on my TV Screen.
Next up it did a Switch Test, when it was done I saw the results and showed me I was hooked to a Hybrid LNB.
Next up it did a software download, because this was beta software this download took quite awhile, but it is my understanding this process is a lot faster now. When the software was all downloaded and installed next up was to pair new remote to the Hopper 3. Again DISH has made this easy to do I just had to press the SAT button on the remote. Once that was done you specified the location of your Hopper 3 (or gave it a location name) clicked next and you were taken to the call to activate screen. A quick call to the number that was provided to me and I was watching live TV in a matter of Minutes.
The first thing you notice is the new Carbon user interface, this new UI looks amazing but I will admit it does take some getting use to. But after a few days of using it I never wanted to go back to the old UI. Next was to go through all the screens and see what was new in there. Besides the new fresh UI I quickly found out that this new Hopper was just like my Hopper with Sling... but with a lot more tuners!
How could I forget to look at the tuner screen? When I figured how to get there using the 50.0 remote there they were... in nice white letters at the top of the Tuner Use screen... Tuner 1 of 16 in use! Wow 16 Tuners! Then I wanted to see what would happen if I popped my OTA adapter in (available from your account screen at dish.com) and after the Hopper 3 rebooted I went back into the Tuner Status Screen to see 1 of 17 tuners in use! Awesome!
Next up was to play with 4K, so I looked at the VOD screen and saw that DISH put up some demo 4K stuff for us to test. I clicked on one and was blown away by the quality I was seeing on my 4K Samsung's screen!
I then tested Netflix, logged into my account and tested some 4K Content from Netflix. It worked great! (Note: At release Netflix on the Hopper 3 is disabled... its not because there is anything wrong with it, its just because Netflix has not finished testing it yet so the Netflix app on the Hopper 3 has not been certified for Public use yet.)
While the Hopper 3 is a whole lot faster then the Hopper with Sling, I will admit after a few days you forgot how fast it is, but if you ever want to be reminded of it's speed just press GUIDE then press and hold the page up or down keys.
I am not going to rehash all the things a Hopper can do as this Hopper 3 does them all just as well if not better itself. And since most of know the Hopper inside and out lets focus on whats new on the Hopper 3... the 16 tuners!
Now I have seen on other satellite forums the mobs turn out and say that this can't be real and there is no way this thing really supports 16 tuners at once. Folks lets lay that rumor to rest and tell you it works and it works well.
A few times in testing things I have tried to break the Hopper 3 without success by performing the following test... Recordings 20 things at one time (yes 20 including 1 OTA and all 4 networks via Prime Time Anytime) while watching playback of HD shows on 4 joeys around the house (at the same time) and while watching a 4K Movie on the 4K Joey.... plus watching a different 4K movie on the Hopper 3 itself... That's a total of 26 streams going all at once including the two 4K UHD streams and guess what folks, the Hopper 3 handled it easily without a hiccup!
Since getting the Hopper 3 I hve gotten use to the new Carbon UI and as I said earlier I don't think I could go back. And once you get use to the power of the Hopper 3 it works so well that you will soon forget that you have all that power in there. The 16 tuners become just part of the system and you forget they are there. You just know anytime you set something to record you know it will, and its refreshing to know that you will never see a timer conflict again.
I should note I did pair my old 40.0 Remote to the Hopper 3, before I got use to the 50.0 I would use my 40.0 remote to get to places I couldn't easily figure how to access on the Touchpad remote. I know many people will be relieved to hear this as I know many folks love the 40.0 remote.
You will notice I did not talk about Sports Bar Mode on the Hopper 3, and that is because the Hopper 3 is shipping without that feature in the software. The only time I played with Sports Bar Mode was at CES and while the feature itself worked great if you tried getting out of Sports Bar mode, many times the Hopper 3 would reboot when you exited that mode. The Hopper 3 does however ship with Picture in Picture.
Would I recommend everyone upgrade? Tough question as once the Carbon UI rolls out to the Hopper with Sling the only two big things I see missing Sports Bar Mode and the 16 Tuners. If you have a Hopper with Sling now and don't run into Tuner Conflicts you are probably good for now where you are... but if your like most SatelliteGuys members who need to have the most power and tuners then no doubt get one.
Again the Hopper 3 works so well that once you get use to it you forget about all that power that under the hood.
All in all the folks from Echostar and DISH have done it again, they have taken one of the best DVR's out there and made it even better.
(Note: parts of this review were done on tests that we using beta software. Also in accordance with SEC guidelines I was provided the Hopper 3 for this review by DISH.)
Before getting my Hopper 3 I needed to have my DISH 1000.4 satellite dish replaced with a DISH 1000.2 with the new Hybrid LNB. For this update I was the first in Connecticut to get this upgrade, so an installer and the area manager stopped by to perform the upgrade. Both the tech and Area Manager really didn't have a clue about the new LNB or what it was for... in fact they kept prying me for answers but I kept my lips zipped.
A few days after the new LNB was installed the Hopper 3 arrived at my house. It was so new that they didn't even have proper Hopper 3 boxes to ship them out in. In the box was only the Hopper 3 and the 50.0 Voice Remote. (Note since the 50.0 Voice remote has not been publicly released yet I am not going to talk much about it, but I will say after you get use to it, it works well and the voice functions are very cool.)
Because I had a Hopper and Hopper with Sling I had to unhook those units first. I then hooked the Hopper 3 where the Hopper with Sling was located. And then power it on. I grinned from ear to ear when I saw the Hopper 3 with Sling logo appear on my TV Screen.
Next up it did a Switch Test, when it was done I saw the results and showed me I was hooked to a Hybrid LNB.
Next up it did a software download, because this was beta software this download took quite awhile, but it is my understanding this process is a lot faster now. When the software was all downloaded and installed next up was to pair new remote to the Hopper 3. Again DISH has made this easy to do I just had to press the SAT button on the remote. Once that was done you specified the location of your Hopper 3 (or gave it a location name) clicked next and you were taken to the call to activate screen. A quick call to the number that was provided to me and I was watching live TV in a matter of Minutes.
The first thing you notice is the new Carbon user interface, this new UI looks amazing but I will admit it does take some getting use to. But after a few days of using it I never wanted to go back to the old UI. Next was to go through all the screens and see what was new in there. Besides the new fresh UI I quickly found out that this new Hopper was just like my Hopper with Sling... but with a lot more tuners!
How could I forget to look at the tuner screen? When I figured how to get there using the 50.0 remote there they were... in nice white letters at the top of the Tuner Use screen... Tuner 1 of 16 in use! Wow 16 Tuners! Then I wanted to see what would happen if I popped my OTA adapter in (available from your account screen at dish.com) and after the Hopper 3 rebooted I went back into the Tuner Status Screen to see 1 of 17 tuners in use! Awesome!
Next up was to play with 4K, so I looked at the VOD screen and saw that DISH put up some demo 4K stuff for us to test. I clicked on one and was blown away by the quality I was seeing on my 4K Samsung's screen!
I then tested Netflix, logged into my account and tested some 4K Content from Netflix. It worked great! (Note: At release Netflix on the Hopper 3 is disabled... its not because there is anything wrong with it, its just because Netflix has not finished testing it yet so the Netflix app on the Hopper 3 has not been certified for Public use yet.)
While the Hopper 3 is a whole lot faster then the Hopper with Sling, I will admit after a few days you forgot how fast it is, but if you ever want to be reminded of it's speed just press GUIDE then press and hold the page up or down keys.
I am not going to rehash all the things a Hopper can do as this Hopper 3 does them all just as well if not better itself. And since most of know the Hopper inside and out lets focus on whats new on the Hopper 3... the 16 tuners!
Now I have seen on other satellite forums the mobs turn out and say that this can't be real and there is no way this thing really supports 16 tuners at once. Folks lets lay that rumor to rest and tell you it works and it works well.
A few times in testing things I have tried to break the Hopper 3 without success by performing the following test... Recordings 20 things at one time (yes 20 including 1 OTA and all 4 networks via Prime Time Anytime) while watching playback of HD shows on 4 joeys around the house (at the same time) and while watching a 4K Movie on the 4K Joey.... plus watching a different 4K movie on the Hopper 3 itself... That's a total of 26 streams going all at once including the two 4K UHD streams and guess what folks, the Hopper 3 handled it easily without a hiccup!
Since getting the Hopper 3 I hve gotten use to the new Carbon UI and as I said earlier I don't think I could go back. And once you get use to the power of the Hopper 3 it works so well that you will soon forget that you have all that power in there. The 16 tuners become just part of the system and you forget they are there. You just know anytime you set something to record you know it will, and its refreshing to know that you will never see a timer conflict again.
I should note I did pair my old 40.0 Remote to the Hopper 3, before I got use to the 50.0 I would use my 40.0 remote to get to places I couldn't easily figure how to access on the Touchpad remote. I know many people will be relieved to hear this as I know many folks love the 40.0 remote.
You will notice I did not talk about Sports Bar Mode on the Hopper 3, and that is because the Hopper 3 is shipping without that feature in the software. The only time I played with Sports Bar Mode was at CES and while the feature itself worked great if you tried getting out of Sports Bar mode, many times the Hopper 3 would reboot when you exited that mode. The Hopper 3 does however ship with Picture in Picture.
Would I recommend everyone upgrade? Tough question as once the Carbon UI rolls out to the Hopper with Sling the only two big things I see missing Sports Bar Mode and the 16 Tuners. If you have a Hopper with Sling now and don't run into Tuner Conflicts you are probably good for now where you are... but if your like most SatelliteGuys members who need to have the most power and tuners then no doubt get one.
Again the Hopper 3 works so well that once you get use to it you forget about all that power that under the hood.
All in all the folks from Echostar and DISH have done it again, they have taken one of the best DVR's out there and made it even better.
(Note: parts of this review were done on tests that we using beta software. Also in accordance with SEC guidelines I was provided the Hopper 3 for this review by DISH.)
