DISH Anywhere - bandwidth requirement for 4K content from DISH Hopper 3

[Almighty1]

Greetings everyone:

I have a question, does anyone know how much bandwidth is needed to use DISH Anywhere with a DISH Hopper 3 if the content was 4K or basically what is the maximum the DISH Hopper 3 can actually stream upstream back to something that uses DISH Anywhere at a remote location like either a tablet/mobile phone or PC? Just trying to decide on what internet plan to sign up with. Thanks!

 

[Conway]

the hopper doesn't stream over the internet it streams over your local intranet. It only uses the internet to authorize the stream.

 

[ncted]

the hopper doesn't stream over the internet it streams over your local intranet. It only uses the internet to authorize the stream.

What if the device you are streaming to is not local to your home network? For instance, I sometimes watch shows on DA at work from my H3 at home. Perhaps I misunderstood the OP's question?

 

[dweber]

I don’t believe that Dish Anywhere will do 4K content. The Hopper3 and 4K Joeys will show 4K content if connected to a 4K TV.
I just tested it using Dish Anywhere and the recorded 4K content on my Hopper3 DVR shows up as not available.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[ncted]

Greetings everyone:

I have a question, does anyone know how much bandwidth is needed to use DISH Anywhere with a DISH Hopper 3 if the content was 4K or basically what is the maximum the DISH Hopper 3 can actually stream upstream back to something that uses DISH Anywhere at a remote location like either a tablet/mobile phone or PC? Just trying to decide on what internet plan to sign up with. Thanks!

The most I have ever seen is about 8Mbps, but that wasn't UHD content. Not sure it would actually transcode UHD to anything higher than anything else.

 

[Almighty1]

the hopper doesn't stream over the internet it streams over your local intranet. It only uses the internet to authorize the stream.

Doesn't it depend on the content since I don't know how it handles VOD or when you are watching the channels from the Tuner or OTA but wouldn't recordings actually come from the Hopper itself?

 

[Almighty1]

What if the device you are streaming to is not local to your home network? For instance, I sometimes watch shows on DA at work from my H3 at home. Perhaps I misunderstood the OP's question?

You read it correctly, I did say from remote location since if it was on the intranet, that means it would stream over the LAN locally and won't even use the internet or the WAN at all. So I am talking about the same scenario as you as it seems like there are three types of content being as in live tv either coming from the dish itself or OTA, DVR Recordings or VOD.

 

[Almighty1]

I don’t believe that Dish Anywhere will do 4K content. The Hopper3 and 4K Joeys will show 4K content if connected to a 4K TV.
I just tested it using Dish Anywhere and the recorded 4K content on my Hopper3 DVR shows up as not available.

I never actually seen any 4K content as of now so you are probably correct. I thought it would either do it in the native resolution or scale it down to the maximum DA supports.

 

[Almighty1]

The most I have ever seen is about 8Mbps, but that wasn't UHD content. Not sure it would actually transcode UHD to anything higher than anything else.

Isn't HD only 5Mbps though? Just out of curiousity, how fast is your internet connection for both download and upload since 8Mbps out of 10Mbps is different than say 15Mbps for example. I figure even with UHD or HD content, it would be compressed so it wouldn't require the raw bandwidth of something that was uncompressed.

 

[ncted]

Isn't HD only 5Mbps though? Just out of curiousity, how fast is your internet connection for both download and upload since 8Mbps out of 10Mbps is different than say 15Mbps for example. I figure even with UHD or HD content, it would be compressed so it wouldn't require the raw bandwidth of something that was uncompressed.

Well, I don't know the specifics of Sling's transcoding algorithm, but I would suspect that, to make it fast, it might output more data than is input. In theory, it is going to take the video output from the satellite feed, and transcode it to a format that is readable by the client (Firestick/Android app, browser, iOS App, etc.). The secret sauce is the adaptive bit-rate stuff, which isn't so secret anymore, but it allows the throughput to change dynamically based on the network conditions between the source and destination. That is going to require some transcoding unless there is something I am missing. Also, the encryption on the satellite signal needs to be removed as I doubt the DA clients are doing that. Sling/DA probably just uses TLS over http for the transport encryption of the "slung" content.

Anyway, the actual HD stream from the Satellite which is received by the Sling hardware probably isn't what is "slung" to the client (Firestick in this case), so the bitrates are going to be different, and, to do it in near real-time in a consumer device means it probably isn't going to be as efficient as the high-end transcoders Dish uses in their uplink centers, so it could easily end up using more bandwidth than the original signal.

My internet is 100/100 Fiber FWIW.

 

[ncted]

Doesn't it depend on the content since I don't know how it handles VOD or when you are watching the channels from the Tuner or OTA but wouldn't recordings actually come from the Hopper itself?

AFAIK, VOD on DA goes over the Internet to the client directly without involving the Hopper, wherever the client happens to be. Satellite and OTA signals and recordings would get "slung" from the Hopper. I'd be shocked if any UHD content was available to DA clients, but anything is possible..

 

[Almighty1]

Well, I don't know the specifics of Sling's transcoding algorithm, but I would suspect that, to make it fast, it might output more data than is input. In theory, it is going to take the video output from the satellite feed, and transcode it to a format that is readable by the client (Firestick/Android app, browser, iOS App, etc.). The secret sauce is the adaptive bit-rate stuff, which isn't so secret anymore, but it allows the throughput to change dynamically based on the network conditions between the source and destination. That is going to require some transcoding unless there is something I am missing. Also, the encryption on the satellite signal needs to be removed as I doubt the DA clients are doing that. Sling/DA probably just uses TLS over http for the transport encryption of the "slung" content.

Anyway, the actual HD stream from the Satellite which is received by the Sling hardware probably isn't what is "slung" to the client (Firestick in this case), so the bitrates are going to be different, and, to do it in near real-time in a consumer device means it probably isn't going to be as efficient as the high-end transcoders Dish uses in their uplink centers, so it could easily end up using more bandwidth than the original signal.

My internet is 100/100 Fiber FWIW.

Good analysis. I thought even the satellite signals received by the Hopper itself are compressed and not uncompressed HD. I have a 250/10 connection currently and I know live tv works even when I was in Punta Cana, Dominican Republican but the issue is that 10Mbps is shared with things like Ring Video Doorbell 1 but if I upgrade to the Ring Video Doorbell Pro which should require more bandwidth and add additional Ring video cameras, it would probably require more as 8Mbps from what you mentioned basically leaves me with 2Mbps free but the other problem is that the upload pipe needs room for the acknowledgement packets as confirmation that a packet was receive on a download stream which is where the advantage is if you had a symmetrical connection like 100/100 in your case. Even with 1000/35, if one was uploading and hit the 35Mbps, the download would actually slow down because the pipe for the upload is filled and the acks has to get in line and go back out. And ofcourse the only choice I have is 400/10 which doesn't really help with the upload which means my only choice is 1000/35 as that would seem like with the 8Mbps, I would still have 27Mbps to use. I wished I was 3,000 feet closer where I can get 1000/1000 fiber for $60 a month instead of the 1000/35 from Comcast. The price difference is $10 extra to go from 250/10 to 1000/35 which roughly is 3.5x more speed in both directions as 1000 will only do 940Mbps max due to ethernet overhead. Never knew that it could use more bandwidth than the original signal since I guess it's your internet connection that you pay for so what it uses is not a issue for DISH as they only care about how to save bandwidth to deliver to the customer.

 

[Almighty1]

AFAIK, VOD on DA goes over the Internet to the client directly without involving the Hopper, wherever the client happens to be. Satellite and OTA signals and recordings would get "slung" from the Hopper. I'd be shocked if any UHD content was available to DA clients, but anything is possible..

That makes sense as VOD doesn't really need to sit on the Hopper since it's stored on servers elsewhere. Anything is possible but it will probably be scaled down since Hollywood wouldn't like it for sure, otherwise they wouldn't need HDCP for HD and higher.

 

[joewhite57]

Isn't HD only 5Mbps though? Just out of curiousity, how fast is your internet connection for both download and upload since 8Mbps out of 10Mbps is different than say 15Mbps for example. I figure even with UHD or HD content, it would be compressed so it wouldn't require the raw bandwidth of something that was uncompressed.

I’ve always read 5mbs for HD and strong 20mbs for 4K. I have 25/3 Comcast and never had buffering or delay start up of on demand. HD or 4K but I live in a more sparse rural area of a big 10 school with recent distribution updates in neighborhood.

 

[ncted]

Good analysis. I thought even the satellite signals received by the Hopper itself are compressed and not uncompressed HD. I have a 250/10 connection currently and I know live tv works even when I was in Punta Cana, Dominican Republican but the issue is that 10Mbps is shared with things like Ring Video Doorbell 1 but if I upgrade to the Ring Video Doorbell Pro which should require more bandwidth and add additional Ring video cameras, it would probably require more as 8Mbps from what you mentioned basically leaves me with 2Mbps free but the other problem is that the upload pipe needs room for the acknowledgement packets as confirmation that a packet was receive on a download stream which is where the advantage is if you had a symmetrical connection like 100/100 in your case. Even with 1000/35, if one was uploading and hit the 35Mbps, the download would actually slow down because the pipe for the upload is filled and the acks has to get in line and go back out. And ofcourse the only choice I have is 400/10 which doesn't really help with the upload which means my only choice is 1000/35 as that would seem like with the 8Mbps, I would still have 27Mbps to use. I wished I was 3,000 feet closer where I can get 1000/1000 fiber for $60 a month instead of the 1000/35 from Comcast. The price difference is $10 extra to go from 250/10 to 1000/35 which roughly is 3.5x more speed in both directions as 1000 will only do 940Mbps max due to ethernet overhead. Never knew that it could use more bandwidth than the original signal since I guess it's your internet connection that you pay for so what it uses is not a issue for DISH as they only care about how to save bandwidth to deliver to the customer.

The satellite signals received by the Hopper are definitely compressed. I've seen reports of the bitrate being as low as 3.5Mbps. However, that doesn't mean that the Sling bitrate is going to be that or less due to interpolation. It could actually be much higher. I don't know that it works this way, but if each frame has to be decoded, that is a 1080i or 720p image, which is at about 1Mb in raw form. Assuming 30 frames per second, that is 30Mbps. The transcoder then encodes/compresses the frame for transmission over the Internet, which is going to be somewhat less than that, but could easily be more than the original bitrate from the satellite signal.

The other thing to consider is DA/Sling will automatically adapt the bitrate to what is available. 8MBps is just most I've seen. It looks pretty good at 5Mbps too.

 

[ncted]

I’ve always read 5mbs for HD and strong 20mbs for 4K. I have 25/3 Comcast and never had buffering or delay start up of on demand. HD or 4K but I live in a more sparse rural area of a big 10 school with recent distribution updates in neighborhood.

It totally depends on the encoding. Netflix only really needs about 3.5 Mbps for their best HD, and Vudu only needs 12Mbps for UHD.

 

[KAB]

It totally depends on the encoding. Netflix only really needs about 3.5 Mbps for their best HD, and Vudu only needs 12Mbps for UHD.

And yet I have a neighbor with 25 down AT&T Uverse who get stalled/kicked off non 4k Netflix all the time.

 

[Almighty1]

I’ve always read 5mbs for HD and strong 20mbs for 4K. I have 25/3 Comcast and never had buffering or delay start up of on demand. HD or 4K but I live in a more sparse rural area of a big 10 school with recent distribution updates in neighborhood.

I know for HD, it's 5MBps for certain but for 4K, it seems to vary by vendor as Amazon advises 15Mbps while NetFlix advises 25Mbps but that depends on what the Hopper 3 is capable of actually pushing maximum for the DishAnywhere stream so it could be more or less as I don't see it published anywhere. On Demand is streamed from the DISH's servers so you wouldn't even be using your 25/3 connection unless you were watching it at home but then it would be using the 25 and not the 3. Is this big 10 school Purdue?

 

[ncted]

So, I checked, and Netflix has updated their HD requirements to be 5 Mbps. I stand corrected.

FWIW: I never hit anywhere close to 25Mbps while watching The Grand Tour in UHD.

 

[Almighty1]

The satellite signals received by the Hopper are definitely compressed. I've seen reports of the bitrate being as low as 3.5Mbps. However, that doesn't mean that the Sling bitrate is going to be that or less due to interpolation. It could actually be much higher. I don't know that it works this way, but if each frame has to be decoded, that is a 1080i or 720p image, which is at about 1Mb in raw form. Assuming 30 frames per second, that is 30Mbps. The transcoder then encodes/compresses the frame for transmission over the Internet, which is going to be somewhat less than that, but could easily be more than the original bitrate from the satellite signal.

The other thing to consider is DA/Sling will automatically adapt the bitrate to what is available. 8MBps is just most I've seen. It looks pretty good at 5Mbps too.

Yep, I remember reading here about how DISH's HD are not true HD and stuff like that so depending what kind of compression is used, it can vary. Obviously, they will not want the picture quality to be as good using DishAnywhere compared to the TV. From their website, it seems that the minimum suggested speeds are way different for dishanywhere on a mobile device compared to dishanywhere.com.
Recommended Speeds and Data Usage of Internet Services | MyDISH | DISH Customer Support

So it seems for HD, they recommend 500kbps on the mobile platform and 4Mbps for dishanywhere.com. Not sure where the Firestick 4k would fit in. I remember trying to use Dishanywhere app in 2017 and I already had the 250/10 and the other side where I was watching it from on mobile has atleast a 300 down connection on Time Warner Cable in Dallas, TX and it was laggy for some reason. So maybe it was another issue since I also went to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic before and after and it was fine. So I guess atleast you have seen it hit 8Mbps max which atleast for now would be the highest anyone has seen so far, better than just specifying minimum speeds.