Greetings from Team Summit

[3HaloODST]

I dunno, I like having 2 Hoppers personally. I doubt that Dish will release a bigger Hopper anytime soon seeing as they are already saying that those with 2 Hoppers are only 2% of Hopper installs...

 

[mike123abc]

With less than 2% having a second Hopper, I just don't see the business case for it anymore.

It would probably be cheaper to have 1 box with 6 tuners than 2 boxes. That way even with only 3 TVs you can record and watch live at the same time easier. Even with the same size disk, I bet a lot would go for it over 2 hopper setups.

 

[3HaloODST]

The thing about it is... Dish is pretty much pushing 1 Hopper setups. So in reality it is cheaper to just go with the 3 tuner than the 6. With Dish claiming that only 2% use 2 Hoppers, it just further enforces the fact that they probably don't plan on doing a 6 tuner anytime soon.

 

[navychop]

It would probably be cheaper to have 1 box with 6 tuners than 2 boxes. That way even with only 3 TVs you can record and watch live at the same time easier. Even with the same size disk, I bet a lot would go for it over 2 hopper setups.

I'd still prefer the redundancy.

 

[patmurphey]

It would probably be cheaper to have 1 box with 6 tuners than 2 boxes. That way even with only 3 TVs you can record and watch live at the same time easier. Even with the same size disk, I bet a lot would go for it over 2 hopper setups.

Think of it from Dish's point of view - only 2 pieces of hardware to satisfy people with up to 8 HDTVs, whole home, and maybe 4 more not networked.

From my point of view I'd rather have 2 Hoppers for the 6 tuners.

 

[manteca]

It would probably be cheaper to have 1 box with 6 tuners than 2 boxes. That way even with only 3 TVs you can record and watch live at the same time easier. Even with the same size disk, I bet a lot would go for it over 2 hopper setups.

perfect! i bet in a year this is the new toy!

 

[dare2be]

It would probably be cheaper to have 1 box with 6 tuners than 2 boxes. That way even with only 3 TVs you can record and watch live at the same time easier. Even with the same size disk, I bet a lot would go for it over 2 hopper setups.

Cheaper for who? Certainly not Dish.

 

[sparc]

It would probably be cheaper to have 1 box with 6 tuners than 2 boxes.

not when 98% of your hopper customers are only using 3 tuners. You might have had a point if there was a big demand or install base of 2 hoppers, but it doesn't look like its' materializing.

Even if the number climbs from 2%..... what is it going to rise to? 5%?

 

[mike123abc]

Cheaper for who? Certainly not Dish.

If they charged a fee to go from 3 to 6 tuners in the box it could be cheaper for Dish. In other words what if it was $99 to get 6 tuners in the hopper (same disk) or $199 to go to 2, 3 tuner hoppers? Or perhaps $299 to go to 2 of the 6 tuner boxes? For Dish $100 probably more than covers the extra tuner module.

 

[dare2be]

So you are saying put 6 tuners in the existing Hopper hardware with the same disk space? You just switched the problem from tuner conflicts to DVR space conflicts. 3 tuners + 1TB user space, both scalable with a 2nd (or 3rd) Hopper is the way to go, especially when such a small percentage of users need more than 3 in the first place.

 

[mike123abc]

So you are saying put 6 tuners in the existing Hopper hardware with the same disk space? You just switched the problem from tuner conflicts to DVR space conflicts. 3 tuners + 1TB user space, both scalable with a 2nd (or 3rd) Hopper is the way to go, especially when such a small percentage of users need more than 3 in the first place.

Given Dish's super MPEG-4 compression, 1 TB user space should hold around 350 hours of HDTV, I would say that is enough for 6 tuners, especially since you can archive to EHD.

 

[dare2be]

So, the over 50% of 1-2 TV users who don't need more than 3 tuners will have 6 tuners regardless? Or are you saying they manufacture 2 types of boxes, one with 3 tuners, and another with 6 tuners? Either way, it's a wasteful expense when piggybacking a single model of 3-tuner hardware (for a minority of customers) would be more cost effective.

 

[manteca]

so, replace the HDD with a 3TB one (2TB for user, 500GB for PTAT & 500GB for VOD), add one additional 3 tuner chip and an additional host connector and you get the 2 hoppers config in only one new hardware, and include a slot for an OTA double tuner module and you kill all the seamless integration with one shot! is so easy and cheap to do it!

 

[KKlare]

What is magic about 2TB? It is also the limit for EHD now.
2.5 and 3 TB disks are now about the same price/TB as the 1.5 and 2TB ones.
Besides sector size, is there a change the bus width? Or is timing changed?

Inquiring minds...

-Ken

 

[navychop]

so, replace the HDD with a 3TB one (2TB for user, 500GB for PTAT & 500GB for VOD), add one additional 3 tuner chip and an additional host connector and you get the 2 hoppers config in only one new hardware, and include a slot for an OTA double tuner module and you kill all the seamless integration with one shot! is so easy and cheap to do it!

What is magic about 2TB? It is also the limit for EHD now.
2.5 and 3 TB disks are now about the same price/TB as the 1.5 and 2TB ones.
Besides sector size, is there a change the bus width? Or is timing changed?

Inquiring minds...

-Ken

Probably not cheap enough. Business is cutthroat. Price per TB is not the same as price. They now have More Than Enough. Beating all comers.

Let us not forget REDUNDANCY. It is very important to many of us, not to lose ALL TV when a box goes down. I was an early 721 adopter. I loved that box, but I will NEVER forget. Thankfully, I had a 301 also.

I am reminded of a GREAT Russian saying: "BETTER is the ENEMY of 'Good Enough.' "

And, considering the economics, quoting Stalin: "QUANTITY has a QUALITY all it's own."

I think with the added CPU power and memory, including HDD space, they have built a WONDERFUL box for the future. A LOT of potential added capability in those STBs, without needing a hardware replacement.

 

[TheKrell]

What is magic about 2TB?

I think it's simply that manufacturers failed to learn their lesson regarding the earlier 137GB 28-bit limit and left a 32-bit limit in various places instead. 2^32*512=2,199,023,255,552 bytes. Note that the good ol' sector size from the mists of antiquity (remaining in many large disks today) was 512 bytes.

 

[dare2be]

so, replace the HDD with a 3TB one (2TB for user, 500GB for PTAT & 500GB for VOD), add one additional 3 tuner chip and an additional host connector and you get the 2 hoppers config in only one new hardware, and include a slot for an OTA double tuner module and you kill all the seamless integration with one shot! is so easy and cheap to do it!

Ever hear of the concept of economies of scale? At the current low 2-Hopper adoption rate, it makes no economic sense to manufacture and support an additional higher-end model configuration. They chose the scalability route of a single hardware config instead. Really, the crux of the problem is they released the Hopper before they had full integration implemented, otherwise, no one would be clamoring for a 6-tuner model.

 

[manteca]

6 tuners integration between two hoppers and joeys is just an speculation, there is no document that specify this is what dish is looking for when they refer to "seamless" integration, so, i too speculate that a hopper with 6 tuners is what we need to accomplish that

 

[dare2be]

nevermind

 

[king3pj]

So, the over 50% of 1-2 TV users who don't need more than 3 tuners will have 6 tuners regardless? Or are you saying they manufacture 2 types of boxes, one with 3 tuners, and another with 6 tuners? Either way, it's a wasteful expense when piggybacking a single model of 3-tuner hardware (for a minority of customers) would be more cost effective.

I think one of the reasons no one has 2 hoppers is because the default from Dish for 4 TVs is 1h 3j. People hear the commercials saying they can record 6 things at once and probably don't understand PTAT. I would guess that almost everyone with 1h and 3j is having conflicts and most of them probably didn't realize they would before they bought it. I think if Dish was recommending 2 hoppers in those situations a lot more people would have 2.