Scott's Hopper Thoughts

[DodgerKing]

With DirecTV you can use any DVR as your main MRV Server (Hopper) and any as a secondary device (Joey), and it is the same price regardless. No matter the setup you have an extra receiver fee which is the same for all additional units regardless of the type and the number of tuners, one flat DVR fee, and one flat MRV fee. All of this is irregardless of which receiver/DVRs one is using (one tuner or 5 tuners). Dish can easily do the same.

 

[JM42]

There is no paranoia here. The chart, shown in a few places, doesn't show a 2 Hopper / 1 Joey configuration. One only has to think about it. If you can get the second Hopper for the same price as the Joey, monthly, everyone would order it that way. When you tack on the extra $7 for a Joey, it gives you pause. Another example is, if you can get a second Hopper for just $7 with no Joey needed, it would be advantageous to order 2 Hoppers for a single TV location just to get the extra 3 tuners. Dish is in business to make money and that won't happen with the no Joey configuration.....

It's an estimate sheet, not an order form. They want to keep it as simple as possible and are only going to list what they believe the most common configs will be and admittedly the configs they want to steer customers and retailers towards. This is no different than any other sales form out there. It does not mean those are the only options.

How do they enforce the requirement? If you decide to drop a Joey, are they instead going to make you return the Hopper you paid an extra $200 for?

I can't see Dish walking away from a customer willing to pay an additional $100-$200 up front and $7/month for a second Hopper. It shows a commitment from the customer and that additional up front cost helps make the customer sticky and less likely to switch.

We'll know for sure in a couple of weeks and I may be proven wrong, but its not something I'm worried about at all.

 

[Laddyboy]

It's an estimate sheet, not an order form. They want to keep it as simple as possible and are only going to list what they believe the most common configs will be and admittedly the configs they want to steer customers and retailers towards. This is no different than any other sales form out there. It does not mean those are the only options.

How do they enforce the requirement? If you decide to drop a Joey, are they instead going to make you return the Hopper you paid an extra $200 for?

I can't see Dish walking away from a customer willing to pay an additional $100-$200 up front and $7/month for a second Hopper. It shows a commitment from the customer and that additional up front cost helps make the customer sticky and less likely to switch.

We'll know for sure in a couple of weeks and I may be proven wrong, but its not something I'm worried about at all.

I agree because to do otherwise would just push these subs to other providers.

 

[lparsons21]

With DirecTV you can use any DVR as your main MRV Server (Hopper) and any as a secondary device (Joey), and it is the same price regardless. No matter the setup you have an extra receiver fee which is the same for all additional units regardless of the type and the number of tuners, one flat DVR fee, and one flat MRV fee. All of this is irregardless of which receiver/DVRs one is using (one tuner or 5 tuners). Dish can easily do the same.

One complaint with D*'s MRV is that there is no central control/viewing of the series manager and todo list. Makes it a PITA to manage recording series, not a major PITA that makes you want to throw a remote, but a PITA never the less. You get that because of exactly what you are describing. Of course, the advantage of the D* system is there isn't a central point of failure also.

With E* and one Hopper, everything is done on the Hopper. Either by the remote talking to the Hopper, or via the Joey being controlled. And assuming that a 2nd Hopper at some point will be fully integrated, you still have central management. That is a big plus for the Hopper/Joey design. The downside of a single Hopper install is you have a single point of failure.

BTW, with D*s design, and using RVU TVs or the rumored upcoming RVU box and an HR34, the system is essentially the same as the Hopper/Joey install with the same benefits and downsides. When/if D* gets the RVU box out, and/or more TVs show up with RVU, I think you'll see D* pushing for a similar install to the Hopper/Joey. Makes financial sense for the company side. Reduces cost of the install.

 

[dare2be]

Paranoia is rampant here.

Accusations are rampant here.

 

[JM42]

BTW, with D*s design, and using RVU TVs or the rumored upcoming RVU box and an HR34, the system is essentially the same as the Hopper/Joey install with the same benefits and downsides. When/if D* gets the RVU box out, and/or more TVs show up with RVU, I think you'll see D* pushing for a similar install to the Hopper/Joey. Makes financial sense for the company side. Reduces cost of the install.

I think you're probably right. Once RVU boxes are out, I expect D* to start charging up front for second receivers if you have the HR34. I also doubt we will see any further significant development of the existing MRV functionality. RVU is their future.

And I don't actually consider that a bad thing. I don't really like the current D* MRV functionality when the "client" is a non-dvr box.

 

[lparsons21]

I think you're probably right. Once RVU boxes are out, I expect D* to start charging up front for second receivers if you have the HR34. I also doubt we will see any further significant development of the existing MRV functionality. RVU is their future.

And I don't actually consider that a bad thing. I don't really like the current D* MRV functionality when the "client" is a non-dvr box.

Yeah, D* was the first to offer MRV to satellite TV and made the best choices they could with the tech at the stage it was. I don't fault them for that. And while D* is generally mum about lots of things, I think the single multi-tuner DVR with 'clients' (RVU) is just the logical next move. The only thing holding it up is getting RVU out there in significant numbers.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Dish was offering MRV long before Directv, granted it was only to two rooms but it was true multi room viewing.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[lparsons21]

Dish was offering MRV long before Directv, granted it was only to two rooms but it was true multi room viewing.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

Yeah, that's true. It wasn't a solution as far as I was and am concerned. One HD and one SD and then hamstring the usefulness of the DVR isn't exactly my idea of wonderful!

 

[MikeD-C05]

Dish was offering MRV long before Directv, granted it was only to two rooms but it was true multi room viewing.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

Although they got side tracked with the whole sling/ 922 thing. While they were trying to get it working ,Directv moved right in on mrv features. By Rights DISH should of been the one to get the mrv feature up and running. They are at last going to have a true whole house dvr, but the FEE structure might limit those who might want it.

 

[Character Zero]

Although they got side tracked with the whole sling/ 922 thing. While they were trying to get it working ,Directv moved right in on mrv features. By Rights DISH should of been the one to get the mrv feature up and running. They are at last going to have a true whole house dvr, but the FEE structure might limit those who might want it.

I dunno I think the Sling integration and Sling Adapter paved the way for the Hopper/Joey. Its like the Hopper is slinging to the Joeys. I have wondered if the Joey could have been spun off from the Sling Catcher device that was in the works to work with the adapter and 922. IIRC the problem was getting the UI right to use with both the 922 and 722. And If i heard right you can hook up a Sling Adapter to the Hopper and it basically acts as a Joey when connected to (can take over any Tuner not tied to TV2 like with the 722)

 

[JM42]

I dunno I think the Sling integration and Sling Adapter paved the way for the Hopper/Joey.

Only in that it showed them how NOT to do it.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Only in that as it showed them how NOT to do it.

Which in my tests show that was a GOOD thing.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I dunno I think the Sling integration and Sling Adapter paved the way for the Hopper/Joey. Its like the Hopper is slinging to the Joeys. I have wondered if the Joey could have been spun off from the Sling Catcher device that was in the works to work with the adapter and 922. IIRC the problem was getting the UI right to use with both the 922 and 722. And If i heard right you can hook up a Sling Adapter to the Hopper and it basically acts as a Joey when connected to (can take over any Tuner not tied to TV2 like with the 722)

Except they are really slinging anything. It is coming straight over the coax ,like it should of in the first place. I said before I knew that the moca whole house dvr ever existed , that I never could see why they couldn't do a whole house dvr using coax. They must of been thinking on similar lines ,because this system would do just that. The concept is similar to the sling extender/sling catcher , but better executed and with more stable results. Until Broadband is wide spread and works consistently , I don't see anything over the internet taking over from what we have today from sat/cable . But say 10 years from now, give or take an entire collapse of the country and world's financial system, that may change.

 

[bpjester]

I've also read and read these posts waiting to make a comment. Being a dns technician, I've been very excited about this. At first I was really upset with not getting the first joey free of fees. However the more i think about it, im ok with it. I currently have a 722k in the living room in which tv2 is mirrored between the master bedroom and my outdoor patio with tv1 modulation turned on and a uhf remote outside so that i can flip between channel 60 or 62 and just flip the tab on the remote depending on which tuner is not being used inside. I also have a 211 in my sons room. In a new setup i can easily use a hopper and two joeys. Just grab a joey from one of the rooms when i want to go outside and have HD and whole home dvr. Which is way more important to me personally. To me this system is a true upgrade and thus worth the additional fees.

 

[patmurphey]

There is no paranoia here. The chart, shown in a few places, doesn't show a 2 Hopper / 1 Joey configuration. One only has to think about it. If you can get the second Hopper for the same price as the Joey, monthly, everyone would order it that way. When you tack on the extra $7 for a Joey, it gives you pause. Another example is, if you can get a second Hopper for just $7 with no Joey needed, it would be advantageous to order 2 Hoppers for a single TV location just to get the extra 3 tuners. Dish is in business to make money and that won't happen with the no Joey configuration.....

The are not going to require me to have more receivers than I have TVs and they are not going to force to to have H/J combination with lesser capacity than my current 722, 622, and 211 configuration. It is paranoid to worry that I wont get what I'm asking for.

 

[mike123abc]

Sling was the wrong technology. Sling was built for the internet where the server sends a stream down to the client, the client reports back on the ability to receive the packets and the server adjusts the data rate based on the feedback from the client. Essentially if you watch sling (especially on a home network) it starts off with a low bandwidth stream and builds up the data rate to HD. Interactive features like skip forward/back require the stream to start over again and the negotiation of bandwidth starts over. It is very clunky even on a fast network.

I expect the hopper/joey relationship to be a simple file system sharing system. The Hopper has no idea what the joey is really doing. The joey just requests blocks of the file (the program being watched) as needed. If there is a skip back/forward the joey just figures out which block to read out of the file. All you see on the hopper is which file the joey is accessing.

This works because Dish knows that MOCA is fast enough to make it responsive. The joey is minimal CPU load on the hopper, just simple data requests. All the trick play is handled by the joey.

The only time I see the Hopper and Joey really interacting is when you are doing something like setting up timers on the Joey. The joey is probably just passing on all your remote control actions over to the hopper to handle timer setup.

 

[dentke]

My thoughts exactly!

Hmmm. I've got an even better idea. 1st Hopper adds $6 since it's a DVR. 1st Joey adds $4 MRV fee. Additional Hoppers/Joeys $7 apiece.

 

[Jhon69]

It's too bad DISH cant intergrate the 211k into the Hopper system.

 

[navychop]

"Won't."