H3 is 6 years old :o

[brad1138]

Hard to believe the Hopper 3 is 6 years old now. It still holds it own very well, it is quite difficult to stay on top these day for that long. But I have to wonder when the H4 is due, a few "in the know" on this page have hinted at next gen 4k Joeys and wireless Joeys. The current 4K Joey doesn't handle HDR well, so it is fairly useless for 4K.

The biggest things I see the H3 lacking is in the audio, limited to Dolby Digital (DVD level surround). A lot of current titles stream w/ ATMOS, or at least HD audio, and that sounds so much better. Also, lack of enough memory for more apps.

 

[navychop]

Well, there’s a Plus side to this…

 

[brad1138]

Well, there’s a Plus side to this…

So I've heard.... "Soon"

 

[ekilgus]

The biggest things I see the H3 lacking is in the audio, limited to Dolby Digital (DVD level surround). A lot of current titles stream w/ ATMOS, or at least HD audio, and that sounds so much better. Also, lack of enough memory for more apps.

It may seem a bit petty, but the one feature I would miss by upgrading my HWS to the H3 would be the red recording light which I find incredibly useful and have no idea why Dish elected to eliminate it. That said, when the Plus becomes available I'll probably finally upgrade. But I'll miss that little red light.

 

[charlesrshell]

It may seem a bit petty, but the one feature I would miss by upgrading my HWS to the H3 would be the red recording light which I find incredibly useful and have no idea why Dish elected to eliminate it. That said, when the Plus becomes available I'll probably finally upgrade. But I'll miss that little red light.

It is a growing pain but you will get use to it. H3 is superior compared to the HWS.

 

[patmurphey]

It may seem a bit petty, but the one feature I would miss by upgrading my HWS to the H3 would be the red recording light which I find incredibly useful and have no idea why Dish elected to eliminate it. That said, when the Plus becomes available I'll probably finally upgrade. But I'll miss that little red light.

Because it is meaningless with the number of tuners...

If you want see red lights, click on DVR and there will be a little red light in the corner of the icons of all shows currently being recorded.

 

[Bruce]

Well it could be worse, the last DVR introduced by DirecTV, HR54, was in 2015, the HR44 before that and it is not like they are putting out new boxes ( the streaming box does not count), at least Dish is trying to extend the life of the Hopper 3 with this add on.

 

[TheKrell]

It may seem a bit petty, but the one feature I would miss by upgrading my HWS to the H3 would be the red recording light which I find incredibly useful and have no idea why Dish elected to eliminate it. That said, when the Plus becomes available I'll probably finally upgrade. But I'll miss that little red light.

With 16 tuners and 2 OTA tuners, the red recording light is of little utility since it might be on much of the time you view your Hopper.

I personally have my H3 in a closet and never look at it. But I understand some people love to look at that red recording light even though IMHO it's fairly useless on an H3. Why do I say that? You will not have conflicts if you want to turn it on and watch something else. If you are checking on whether your timer has fired as you expect, one red light won't tell you that, particularly if it's on much of the time. A single red light doesn't tell you whether it's recording the timer you expect it to be recording. To find that stuff out, use the DVR button as patmurphy said above. And if you want even more info, you can always check out the Options --> Activity button which shows you which tuners are doing what.

 

[NYDutch]

It may seem a bit petty, but the one feature I would miss by upgrading my HWS to the H3 would be the red recording light which I find incredibly useful and have no idea why Dish elected to eliminate it. That said, when the Plus becomes available I'll probably finally upgrade. But I'll miss that little red light.

I'm happy with my two HWS's for now, so I'm willing to wait for the HWS version of the Plus to be released after the H3 folks get through debugging it...