Question... Now that you have had your Hopper

As a new Dish installer I have the hopper with sling and I love it. Some of my customers of the elderly population with smaller TV sets would like to have the guide a little larger ( like on the vip receivers). I think the TV anywhere feature is awesome as well. Today our Caller ID just stopped working for some reason and after a hard reset, still not working. Will troubleshoot it further later.

I also lose caller ID occassionally, I find a red button reset will bring it back. If I remember right I tried the hard reset and it didn't work.......


Yellow, 8, 2 will show if it's working..... Local = yes Not connected = no
 
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1. What are your favorite features on the Hopper/Joey? For me, it's the overall speedy operation of the whole system. I left DirecTv due to the snails' pace speed of their DVR. Really. Beyond that, the 2TB hard drive is a blessing, as is the ability to have a separate hard drive (which I do). I upgraded from 720's so the total house HD solution is obvious. The ability to "Hop" is a great feature that I unfortunately don't get a chance to use very often. I usually watch recordings the same day, and many aren't from the network channels that this ability works with.
2. What has been your biggest issues with the Hopper/Joey? (If you had install issues you can note them here as well.) 1) I'm sure this is a response that nobody at Dish wants to read, or do anything about, but it is very, very, real, at least for me. The cost of a totally functional Hopper(s)/Joey(s) system is down right EXPENSIVE! For a family of four, I have two Hoppers and two Joeys. By the time you add the recent increased costs for programming, the DVR fee, the Joey fees, and whatnot, I'm getting priced out. In fact I find myself "fantasizing" about the day I cut the cord. That day is getting closer, and unfortunately, looking inevitable. 2) Niggling issues that never get resolved. Examples: Flaky pause/frame forward/reverse. Pixelation stutters every half hour. Local channels getting dropped from the guide. The guide not staying on my specified preference. 3) My wife says the resume function doesn't work properly, she says she almost always has to go back to the beginning of a program instead of being offered the option to resume where she left off. 4) Joey not being as functional as the Hopper. I use the "swap" function a lot with the Hopper, but it's not available on the Joey. I bought some Bluetooth headphones so I could catch the news on the Joey in our bedroom while my wife settles in to sleep, but found the Joey doesn't work with them. My bad, but it sure seems to make a lot more sense to use headphones in a bedroom setting where a Joey is more likely to be located, than a living room where a Hopper is more likely to be located.
3. Besides upgrading to a new Hopper with Sling, have you had your Hopper/Joey replaced or had a service call placed? If you have what was the issue and how was it fixed? Just realized I didn't comprehend the question properly when I wrote the following response. I didn't upgrade to the new Hopper, but have the original Hopper with sling, so I'll leave my response. I had several issues with Sling but DIRT was able to help me resolve these issues.
4. If you could change or add just ONE feature on the Hopper what would it be and why?
The ability to remain in the folder you viewed the current program from after it ends. I hate when you go back to "DVR" and it takes you back to the top of the folder stack.
 
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I've had my hopper v2 and joey about 3 weeks now.

1) HD Space and speed

2) I find the need to use a cloud service and cloud authentication to access local services unacceptable. I should be able to set my own usernames and passwords that only I know on my hopper and open and close ports on my firewall as I see fit to lock down my home network. Having to run UPNP and other things that swiss cheese my network security is ridiculous.

3) No replacements yet

4) I would add the ability to create channel lists with EXCLUSIONS. example: All HD channels or All channels EXCEPT the ones I check. Channel previews and stuff is missed with channel lists like they are now. You either show everything or the ones you like that you have right now.


As for #2, I understand Dish and Sling probably want as close to zero config as possible for less support calls. And I also understand there is business motive of wanting to know every little thing you do. Funneling it through a cloud service allows them that level of control. But it absolutely should not be required. You should have the ability to opt out of cloud management and zero config if you care about your security, because the current setup requires a home network to be configured hideously insecure. And sorry Dish and Sling. I don't trust you to have the keys to my home network.
 
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Well I've had my Hopper now for about 2 weeks, and think it's awesome. Replaced a 922 that worked pretty good. Wonder why they didn't come out with it sooner(like 10 years ago). I haven't had one issue. Was kinda surprised the installer had to replace my cable connectors in the wall with special blue ones. Glad I made the move. Wifey likes it to, now she can record all her General Hospital crap :)
 
Getting tired having to reboot the main Hopper at least once a day (shades of HR-24-34 days) in order to hear sound and see video on recordings from another Hopper. My 9 year old son tells me it was a bad idea to go from Directv to Dish. :) Time to replace?
 
I don't think I should have to go out of my way to make their box work properly. And now I see Dish is going to double the fee of the second hopper and increase whole home fees by $4.00 this summer. I am done with this greedy company. Never should have left Directv but was expecting good things with the Hopper.
 
4. If you could change or add just ONE feature on the Hopper what would it be and why?
There are a few (mainly folders issues!) but the icons could be improved. What I mean is that the icons show the small picture of the show itself which is cool. They also show a number of much smaller icons along the top like for New, HD, saved, etc... Now, we all can see (including the DISH engineers I would assume!) that the show picture does not fill the entire icon space. There is a left/right border of grey.

In some situations like viewing regular saved recordings the icons are along the bottom of the icon tile. Easier to pick out. But for PTAT they chose to put them along the top of the icon tile and they are tough to pick out at times. Most specifically, the "saved" icon. Why not be consistent and put them along the bottom as well? Or at the very least along the sides where there is plenty of empty space available. The Auto Hop icon is there so they can't say it's not possible to use that area.

And it's also a bear to read some of the text on top of the icon if the TV show graphic is busy. Which a number are. Suggest they dim the TV show icon that's in the background when highlighting a specific recording so the text, show info and what have you are easy to read. Then when you move focus the background image goes back to normal. The background image is not important at the time when you are highlighting that recording since you can see the name of the show, etc... from the text.
 
I use the "start 2 min early, end 2 min late" option when recording. This results in 2 tuners being in use during the 4 minute overlap when recording consecutive shows on the same channel, even if they're back to back episodes of the same show. I hope this gets fixed soon.
 
I use the "start 2 min early, end 2 min late" option when recording. This results in 2 tuners being in use during the 4 minute overlap when recording consecutive shows on the same channel, even if they're back to back episodes of the same show. I hope this gets fixed soon.

I have this problem too. It's really drive me nuts.
Ghpr13:mad:
 
I've had my 2 hopper with sling and one joey for about a week now. I've searched looking for the issue I have but not found it so it must be something I am doing. As long as the hopper and joey are watching a show, each on a different tuner, there is no problem. The moment I do anything else on the hopper, show the guide, look for a recording, etc, that activity is displayed on the joey. It moves the tuner to a small squarer at the top corner. When I return t normal viewing on the hopper, the joey channel also returns to normal. This id driving the joey viewer nutty. Is this normal?
 
I wish bluetooth would work consistently. Bose soundlink works sometimes, never shows up in devices. Gotta go thru all the hoops everytime I want to connect up speaker. It works just fine with my phone and computer and tablet. Just another software problem added to all the rest. Oh, if I could only get U Verse.
 

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