Dish Hopper with 2 Super Joeys - is it possible

[gjolsen]

I'm currently with DirecTV and looking to make a move to Dish. My current Genie receiver is getting slower by the day to operate and is really frustrating me. One issue I'm having though with making the move to Dish is the number of available tuners I would have with the Hopper/Joey system. Currently with DTV I have a total of 11 tuners in my house on 5 TV's (Genie, 1 HD Receiver, 1 Standard Receiver, and 2 HR22 Receivers), so I never run into issues with not having enough tuners available.

If I go with Dish's Hopper and 1 Super Joey, I'd have 5 tuners available with 1 going towards PTAT (4 free tuners), or if I go with 2 Hoppers I'd have 6 tuners available with 1 going to PTAT (5 free tuners) but I would not have true integration between the 2 hoppers for managing recordings.

Would Dish allow me to have a Hopper and 2 Super Joey's ? This would give me 7 tuners available with 1 going to PTAT, but still leaving me with 6 available tuners. At least with this configuration, I could manage all recordings via the hopper, and have the most available tuners for the house to use. I just want to be sure that I have enough tuners as I am currently running with 5 TV's.

 

[satnewb]

That would be a negative.

You could always add an OTA module to one or both hoppers.

I have 2 HWS+OTA for a total of 7. Never have an issue. Obviously it depends on what you record and how many people you have watching live tv concurrently.

 

[navychop]

Or you could have 3 or even 4 Hoppers. I believe you'll have to buy any past 2.


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[gjolsen]

How does that work? I assume you receive local programming via the OTA module, and can also use it to record, so it counts as a tuner?

 

[Rizon216]

Any stations you can receive OTA you can record. It uses the tuner provided by the OTA adapter, so it doesn't take up any of your satellite tuners. You do have to make sure you select the OTA version (and not the satellite version) for it to use the OTA tuner to record. The OTA channels will be marked in orange on the guide.

So, you could record something from OTA and record 3 other satellite channels with one Hopper.

 

[Grandude]

Or you could have 3 or even 4 Hoppers. I believe you'll have to buy any past 2.

I guess you missed the point about how he wanted to manage all the tuners from ONE Hopper.

Posted by typing on my old reliable IBM keyboard and sent by magic over the ether!

 

[dwarren2]

AFAIK, the only thing he can't do is program the other Hopper to record. You can watch and delete programs from any H or J. With the ota module you get your locals and any sub channels they broadcast. Also if there are any independents that Dish does not carry. If there is a 2nd city whose channels you can receive ota, the module will also pick those up. So with 2 HWS anda ota module for each (my set up) you will have 8 tuners.

 

[navychop]

I guess you missed the point about how he wanted to manage all the tuners from ONE Hopper.

Posted by typing on my old reliable IBM keyboard and sent by magic over the ether!

He was discussing integration between two Hoppers. I merely pointed out another option.

Besides, we MIGHT have the ability to program one Hopper from another by year's end. MIGHT.

 

[dare2be]

And in case it wasn't clear, any Joey can manage timers from any hoppers. You just have to switch the joey to pair with the hopper you want to manage. So, with 5 tvs, you could have 3 hoppers and 2 joeys for 9 tuners. Timer management could be done at any joey location or the physical location of the hopper in question.

 

[Grandude]

He was discussing integration between two Hoppers. I merely pointed out another option.

Besides, we MIGHT have the ability to program one Hopper from another by year's end. MIGHT.

I'm standing my ground on this one. His last paragraph specifically said he want to control all from one Hopper.

I'm not holding my breath on being able to program one Hopper from another one anytime soon or, for that matter, ever.

I'm considering replacing one of my Hoppers with a SuperJoey so that I can control all (except the 211K of course) Hopper operation from one location. I would have the SuperJoey sitting beside my Hopper in the family room and my remote Joey in the garage where it is now. The only thing delaying this change for me is that I'm grandfathered in on the second Hopper only costing 7 bucks per month. When that expires, I will make the change.
Note: Self installed and all purchased cuz I like to do it that way. Second Hopper would become an emergency spare.

Posted by typing on my old reliable IBM keyboard and sent by magic over the ether!

PS. Still not holding my breath.......

 

[bigjohnok]

you can do a multiple hopper set up and with the way the hopper joey system tuner management can be controlled from any box, it all depends on configuration of the cable runs and required node, splitters, taps, etc in the coax lines.

 

[SomeDishGuy]

you can do a multiple hopper set up and with the way the hopper joey system tuner management can be controlled from any box, it all depends on configuration of the cable runs and required node, splitters, taps, etc in the coax lines.

Really? We already know, when at a Joey, the user can select which Hopper to link to, and control tuners from there.

How would one do that from one Hopper, accessing another Hopper? Unless you know something I don't, it can't be done.

 

[Scherrman]

Really? We already know, when at a Joey, the user can select which Hopper to link to, and control tuners from there.

How would one do that from one Hopper, accessing another Hopper? Unless you know something I don't, it can't be done.

Maybe he's talking about having a Hopper mirrored to the same TV so you have access to each Hopper from that location. You could have Hopper 1 on HDMI and Hopper 2 on antenna channel 3. It's not ideal but could be done.

 

[John Kotches]

Maybe he's talking about having a Hopper mirrored to the same TV so you have access to each Hopper from that location. You could have Hopper 1 on HDMI and Hopper 2 on antenna channel 3. It's not ideal but could be done.

Seems like a waste of $17 a month to me for some convenience.

 

[gjolsen]

I appreciate all the replies to this. So let me ask those with multiple TV's, how did you configure your system with Dish to get the best setup ?

 

[navychop]

I appreciate all the replies to this. So let me ask those with multiple TV's, how did you configure your system with Dish to get the best setup ?

I simply lease two HWS and own one Joey (so I can deactivate and reactivate it at will). I can link to either HWS from the Joey. I generally just record only certain things on the MBR HWS, with most going to the LR HWS. It works. Of course, I can watch any program on any HWS from any of the three locations.

I certainly don't "know" that the ability to program one Hopper from another is coming (& if it is, I'll bet it'll be late). But I believe there was a post to that effect around the time of CES 2014. It would be a nice feature to have. And since we can already do it from a Joey, and we can watch one Hopper's contents from another, I can't imagine it would be difficult to do.

BUT let's fix the bugs first!

 

[gjolsen]

Would Dish allow a customer to have 2 Hoppers, and a Super Joey ? Just trying to get the most tuners as possible like I have currently with DTV.

 

[agentc13]

Would Dish allow a customer to have 2 Hoppers, and a Super Joey ? Just trying to get the most tuners as possible like I have currently with DTV.

Nope.

Super Joey is only available with a single Hopper.

 

[navychop]

:dead

 

[Scherrman]

Seems like a waste of $17 a month to me for some convenience.

A waste of $17? I'm not sure you understand what I was getting at. My thinking was he'd have Hopper 1 in the living room and Hopper 2 in another room along with how ever many Joeys he needs for the other TVs. He could then mirror Hopper 2 to the TV that Hopper 1 is at. This would allow him access to Hopper 2 from Hopper 1 without paying any extra fees per month. All he would have to do is switch the TV's input to view it and get another remote.