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Lighthearted thread title, sort of serious issue... Does Dish ever monitor these forums anymore?

Current Dish Setup includes

• EA dish and Hybrid Twin LNB/Switch
• Hybrid Solo Hub
• Hopper 3
• Two Joey 4k
• UHDTV at all locations

My viewing is 100% from two locations, one fed from the Hopper and the other from a Joey 4k. Most on my viewing is sports related and could be from either location, depending on where the wife happens to be watching her stuff. I always have (or want to have) the 4-image PiP running to keep track of several games. I have had to swap a Hopper and Joey any time I'd like to watch from a location that doesn't support the PiP function (a pain in the a**, I'm looking at you, Joey 4k). Only the Hopper supports PiP.

So, the inability to easily enjoy 4-panel PiP on Dish in any location due to Joey limitations is my biggest gripe about the Dish Hopper-Joey echosphere. Sure, there's the associated shortcoming of the Joey 4k to actually show DISH 4k content. Joey 4k doesn't tune channel 540 4k content. Joey 4k does not access YouTube. Heck, the Hopper doesn't play 4k UHD content in 4k. Neither the Hopper3 nor Joey 4ks can play DISH 4k UHD OnDemand content. They pop the Insufficient Bandwidth window, even though the YouTube for Nerds window shows download speeds in excess of 40Mb/s. My house network routinely tests at 900Mb/s and YouTube shows speeds in excess of 100Mb/s on other non-Dish equipment.

So, the stuff outside the ability to do PiP on the Joey 4k is ancillary to my issues with the DISH service. I have other means to accomplish what are gaps in DISH's service (other than PiP).

The obvious solution, to me anyway, was to replace a Joey 4k with another Hopper3. This would give me the ability to have the PiP in my two major viewing locations without having to swap receivers.

I called DISH back at the start of football season this year, the ultimate goal is to get a 2nd Hopper running in the house. I expected some routine responses to the effect "we can't do that", "that's not an option", etc. After escalating two levels above the entry CSR in Tech Support, a supervisor's supervisor flat out lied to me to get off the phone. They told me that the Joey 4k can do the 4k programming and it does the PiP. When I asked about exploring the option to buy a Hopper3 and the necessary equipment, they said they could not activate the new equipment as it was not even an option in their activation software. I was just left speechless. The only option at that point was to just hang up.

I'm not one to start down the retention-cancel road unless I'm prepared to carry through. I don't bluff. The other options available do not provide a functional 4-channel PiP, and I needed to research options.

I'm not really impressed with the functionality of the streaming services (HULU, YouTube TV, Sling, etc), mostly related to how their user interfaces are just horrendous to use. As an example, in my mind I want to switch from one channel to another. With a Dish Remote, I can just enter a channel number and I'm there. Recall goes to the last channel. The other services are only responsive to UP-DOWN-LEFT-RIGHT-ENTER to navigate. Sure, favorites can be set up, but they're just clunky and only perform high-level filters on channels. I'm still left with UP-DOWN-LEFT-RIGHT-ENTER to navigate.

Sure, YouTube TV provides 4-chan PiP. But their version only gives you the option to choose from the set of PiP displays they've pre-chosen. That's not good when their choices only align 40% of the time with what I want to watch.


So, these are my grievances with Dish Network. The hardware limitations are understandable, in the sense of I understand they exist and can work with them and live with it. What I find as the most grave of transgressions is the outright lying to me on what I know as facts. I'm not into cutting off noses to spite faces, or I would have cancelled them at that point.

If you're still here after this have a Happy Festivus and Merry New Year!