Next Generation Hopper

abfabguy

Well-Known SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Nov 27, 2006
30
2
Northern Illinois
There does not seem to be any news release or leaks about a possible release of the next generation Hopper. Now that we are going into 2020 in just a little more than 6 weeks, do any of our forum "insiders" have any information that can be shared with us? Is a next generation Hopper been actually designed and in production, or stalled in the strategy development phase? I am hoping that Dish will make some sort of an announcement of one at CES 2020 in January. In the meantime, any status update on one is appreciated.
 
There does not seem to be any news release or leaks about a possible release of the next generation Hopper. Now that we are going into 2020 in just a little more than 6 weeks, do any of our forum "insiders" have any information that can be shared with us? Is a next generation Hopper been actually designed and in production, or stalled in the strategy development phase? I am hoping that Dish will make some sort of an announcement of one at CES 2020 in January. In the meantime, any status update on one is appreciated.

No new Hoppers on the horizon.

I'm curious why you think there's a need for one?
 
As technology advances the profile of a Hopper should be the size of a Joey. Lower power consumption. Adding the Plex app instead of having to go through the Home Media App which does not have the features of the Plex app. Larger capacity of HD storage to accommodate more 4k content as it become available in the next few years. The abiltity to back up the content of internal HD in the event of a hardware failure. Allow HDHomeRun device to be incorporated into channel listing and guide instead of the lower quality OTA device that is used now.
 
I wish I could link the Forum thread I started a few months ago called Hopper 4 Wish List on the tech portal. It was a really good multi-page list with some cool ideas, like built in Mesh Networking for WiFi Joeys, eliminating the WAP and reducing it to the size of a Hopper Duo. Switching to the M.2 SSD's which have long and reliable RW life spans
 
I wish I could link the Forum thread I started a few months ago called Hopper 4 Wish List on the tech portal. It was a really good multi-page list with some cool ideas, like built in Mesh Networking for WiFi Joeys, eliminating the WAP and reducing it to the size of a Hopper Duo. Switching to the M.2 SSD's which have long and reliable RW life spans

I don't know where the tech portal is, but I did find these:

Hopper 4
Dish Hopper 4???
What do we want for Hopper 4?
 
H3 has been a pretty solid platform. A case could be made for using newer hardware components that are faster and energy efficient--as long as it is not at the expense of reliability. Moving to SSD would be great for power consumption, but the speed benefits would not be as noticeable as on a computer. It would also require enterprise class devices with high P/E cycles since the DVR is write-heavy, adding substantial costs. A hybrid approach where the OS is on a small SSD and the video streams written to HDD could be beneficial, especially if the HDD were made to be user-replaceable. This would allow the end user to put in a larger drive and, I'd imagine, a reduction in DVR replacements due to a faulty HDD--with the added benefit of keeping the timers and other preferences.

Time spent on improvements to the UI/UX are definitely welcome.
  • In this binge-watching era, the ability to sort by season/episode with oldest first and fix autoplay so it'll play more than 2 or 3 episodes would be a vast improvement, especially if the feature is not buried in menus. It worked better pre-Carbon UI.
  • Option to make a tone in addition to the reboot prompt when the TV is active.
  • Fix the inconsistent pause/rewind/ff function. It's very annoying when you go pause for a few seconds or go back and hit play, only for it to go to live TV.
  • Kudo's to anyone who's ever gotten DLNA to work reliably ever...on any device, but very few even know what that is anymore. Concise instructions on how to encode/implement would be nice.
  • Searching for a show, you should be able to press the Record button on specific episodes. Instead, you have to select it first, hit record, then go back which takes you to the first search window--not to the list of shows.
  • The ability to sort the timers by last recorded date (without changing priority) could help clean up canceled shows.
  • Add some intelligence to recordings, especially when there is a sporting event that pushes other shows later. With PTAT, it should be able to identify when a show starts 30 minutes late and adjust accordingly. And extend PTAT past 11PM for the same reason.
  • If signal interruption is detected during a recording, check to see if a later show will be aired and record that one.
  • While not much of an issue with the H3 and the number of available tuners, automatically select a later showing if there is a conflict.
I'm sure there are others, but the first few are my biggest annoyances. Overall, though, the hardware and ease of use are what keep me as a customer providing costs are kept in check.
 
You're not missing anything. Mostly techs asking the same dumb questions over and over.
That's exactly what it is. "Netflix/On Demand et al not working on the hopper." "Didn't get credit for a sale" Remotes unpairing from every Joey ever installed since the beginning of time" and"Super Joeys won't activcate"
 
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