Actually it IS (actually 12) tuners 24/7; ANYTIME you record from any of the local big 4 nets, ALL 4 channels only take 1 tuner. The ONLY difference is during PT, you get auto-hop.
I have 3 Ho's as well, so I DO know this for a fact...
Actually not really.
When you Activate PTA, it takes a tuner from your 9 leaving you with 8.
And now if you have the new UI U210 PTA can't be shared between Hoppers anymore.
I have a 2 Hopper setup, so if you want view PTA across Hoppers, you have to activate PTA on both, and that only leaves 4 live tuners left to serve 4 rooms, while them 2 tuners are tied up for over 3 hours for mostly garbage programs.
Quite frankly I've never ever had a use for this feature for the simple fact that local network programming IMO flat out sucks.
For the 4 hours a week our family does from PTA it's not worth 21 hours of tuner tie ups just to "Auto hop " 2 out of the 4 programs.
Rant....
("I'm sorry I'm fine with manually pressing a remote button to skip commercials.
I'm a customer that's against Charlie spending money on this feature from the Networks that resulted in more money spent in lawsuits from it.")
Rant over.....
But anyway
The Hopper 3 with 16 tuners makes more sense now.
While PTA a Nice feature certainly wasn't the answer to having low 3 tuner Equipped Hopper.
But 3 Hoppers vs Directv 9 tuners, I would much rather have 3 Hoppers.
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