Hopper 2 Video Resolution?

[StevenZ]

I've had a Hopper with Sling for a few years, connected through an AVR to an LG OLED TV:
Hopper outputs 720p -> AVR scales that to 1080p ->TV scales that to 4K

I watch mostly broadcast content, occasionally VOD catch-up, never PPV, and I have plenty of non-Hopper Netflix options.

I tried selecting the 1080i output on the Hopper – yeah, I got more pixels, but that interlaced video ultimately looked much worse. I then tried passing it through the AVR at 1080i to let the TV deinterlace it, but it looked just as bad.

So 720p out of the Hopper seems like my best set-and-forget choice, but I'm wondering if there's another approach I might consider. I've been 'waiting' for native resolution since my 722, but have no idea if it's actually in the pipeline. It seems a shame that I have to throttle any 1080i or 1080p Dish video when my TV can display 9x more resolution. Thoughts?

 

[dweber]

What does the picture look like if you connect the Hopper directly to the TV bypassing the AVR and set the Hopper to 1080 resolution? That way you are only doing the scaling once. It would be something to try. Let us know what the picture looks like.
I own older AVR equipment that do not do HDMI so I connect all of my devices directly to my TV and use the TV optical out to feed my AVR equipment. Newer TV's have a HDMI/ARC to connect HDMI to the AVR.

 

[StevenZ]

What does the picture look like if you connect the Hopper directly to the TV bypassing the AVR and set the Hopper to 1080 resolution?

Thanks, but I get the same disappointing result when bypassing the AVR: 720p looks better than 1080i