Alternative but questions..

[PiX64]

I think that the new Dish Hopper with Joeys is a viable alternative:

1) whole home DVR
2) 6 tuners (when recording primetime pass (or whatever they call it))
3) small footprint STB at each TV capable of full 1080p playback
4) Connect to DLNA servers on local newtwork.
5) Blockbuster Movie Pass (including streaming content to ALL devices)
6) Remote web DVR control
7) already built iOS apps for dvr playback when away, and scheduling/remote
8) Interenet Apps like Pandora, FaceBook, etc. on every Hopper/Joey

Now I have found many topics about using the DLNA server on the hopper and joey with MP3s, Photos, Home Videos, but I cannot find anything about wether or not the DLNA support on the Joey and Hopper will allow you to play make archived dvd/bluray. If it does then the 1 and only thing missing for me with this setup is COMSKIP :-( booo, but a very attractive alternative nonetheless.

Does anyone know if this setup will allow for DVD/Bluray playback?

http://www.dish.com/redirects/promot...Fcnc4AodHF99Jw

[ToadMazter]

I too am intrigued by the Hopper/Joey solution. Confirmed BluRay and DVD support would seal the deal for me I think.
Another question, does the Joey require MoCA to operate, or does Cat5 Ethernet suffice? I have Cat5 everywhere, but don't have coax in all rooms.

[stanger89]

To clarify, it's not actually six timers, it's got three, and uses clever transponder placement to record four locals during primetime.

And personally I'd bet against DVD/BD support, even though I'd love that being a Dish sub.

[ToadMazter]

Regarding the PrimeTime feature, that actually should serve most peoples needs. The only time I have all 4 of more tuners going is during the prime time hours, with at least 2-3 of those recording something from the big 4 (ABC, FOX, NBC, CBS)... gotta have my 4 hours of American Idol every week ;-)

I also just read that the Hopper/Joey doesn't support 1080p... which relates back to the BluRay support. That definitely needs 1080p along along wiht HD Audio passthrough over HDMI (7.1 DTS-MA, TRUEHD, etc).

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by stanger89

To clarify, it's not actually six timers, it's got three, and uses clever transponder placement to record four locals during primetime.

And personally I'd bet against DVD/BD support, even though I'd love that being a Dish sub.

Agreed - thats why i pointed out the primetime pass or whatever its called :-) i suppose i could have clairified better, thanks stanger.

According to the tech specs on the dish page under tech specs tab it says MoCa and Ethernet...

http://www.usdish.com/equipment/hopper

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by ToadMazter

Regarding the PrimeTime feature, that actually should serve most peoples needs. The only time I have all 4 of more tuners going is during the prime time hours, with at least 2-3 of those recording something from the big 4 (ABC, FOX, NBC, CBS)... gotta have my 4 hours of American Idol every week ;-)

I also just read that the Hopper/Joey doesn't support 1080p... which relates back to the BluRay support. That definitely needs 1080p along along wiht HD Audio passthrough over HDMI (7.1 DTS-MA, TRUEHD, etc).

Everything i have read says full 1080p in all rooms. look at the tech specs in my link above.

directly from tech specs

Hopper - 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p24
Joey - 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p24

[tomatodave]

Yes indeed this is intriguing. I have the same questions as already stated about blue ray and DVD support, but I am also curious about mkv or any other format that could be transcoded to.

Here is what I know (or at least think I know) since I have been getting various stories from Dish depending who I talk to.

The Hopper has 3 tuners, but if you enable the Primetime Pass thing the 4 networks will use 1 tuner while recording them all - leaving 2 tuners for a maximium of 6 recordings at once. But keep in mind it will record primetime whether you want that or not (if enabled), so in some instances that feature may just use a tuner to record 4 channels that you don't want in lieu of 1 that you do want.

So really you just have 3 tuners. But there are options to add another Hopper to the mix bringing 3 more tuners with it. I was told that you could change the pairing of the Joeys to access whichever Hopper your recording is on. There are future plans to seamlessly integrate Hoppers so as to appear as one, but that hasn't happened yet.

The Joeys need to be connected to the Hopper by a coax cable. It is my understanding that the Joey uses the MOCA (multimedia over coax alliance) standard to get the 1080p at each joey. It appears that the Joey has composite and hdmi connections but lacks component. I think it also has optical audio out as well.

The other feature that is definitely a plus is the whole house synced audio, something that sage doesnt do.

Interesting stuff

[Ken C]

Has anyone compared the new Dish stuff with Directv's HMC HD DVR ?

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/conten...y/hmc_receiver

It says it has 1080p.

[briands]

Does the Dish solution support additional storage? I could probably live with 2TB for TV, but it might be nice to have more.

What music formats does it support? My library is FLAC.

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by briands

Does the Dish solution support additional storage? I could probably live with 2TB for TV, but it might be nice to have more.

What music formats does it support? My library is FLAC.

If u take a look at my second or third post above there is a link. That's the link to the dish page which has the tech specs on both hopper and Joey.

[PiX64]

http://www.satelliteguys.us/archive/t-279742.html

Sounds possible to playback DVDs and other ripped content. My buddy just decided to ditch sage and go for dish hopper/Joey. It is getting installed this wed. If we don't have a definite answer by then I'll report back as I'll be going over there to check it out.

[PiX64]

According to several threads I found over at the satellite guys forum, streaming media including movies,etc work via dlna on the hopper / Joey system.

My buddies install isn't going well, but he did send me a picture from the hopper which shows the ability to connect to dlna servers!

It shows:

Some supported applications are:
Tversity
Playon
Nero
Ps3 media server

[cncb]

This system sounds like it has real potential and I am also curious what video and audio formats are supported via DLNA. I must say, though, that they have some annoying commercials and the choice of Blockbuster instead of Netflix streaming is puzzling...

[drewg]

Originally Posted by cncb

the choice of Blockbuster instead of Netflix streaming is puzzling...

Dish bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy last year, so it makes sense they'd want to drive sales for their subsidiary.

Drew

[sagestuff]

I have been a long time Sage user but just made the jump to Dish yesterday and had a 2 Hopper / 3 Joey configuration setup. The system seemed like a good whole home DVR solution (better than what has been out there for Satelite providers anyway) so really hope it turns out that way. Hard to consider dismantling my Sage HTPC setup but with the sale of Sage and my desire to not spend as much time doing tech support at home :-) I figured it was time to try another solution.

SETUP:
* Hardware - 2 Hoppers / 3 Joeys / 1 Sling Adapter (& one on the way) for the Hoppers to enable TV Everywhere (TV Everywhere provides access to all recordings, LIVE TV Content, set recordings, etc). Hookup - All boxes connected to each other via Coax & hardwired to home network. All boxes connected to TVs via HDMI.
* Cost - Currently a 1 Hopper / 4 Joey setup is free. Going with a second Joey cost $199 and the Slings are $30 ea. I received a $30 rebate for a Sling for doing the TV Everywhere 24 HR test drive so that makes one Sling free so give that a try if you are considering this. Hoppers & Joeys cost $7 MO each and there is a monthly cost for DVR / Whole Home DVR Service.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED THE LAST 2 DAYS:
- If you call to setup an install ask them to include an H.I.C. (Hopper Internet Connection). I have not been able to get the Home Media feature to work (DLNA). When I go into it no devices are listed and I have Playon & TVersity setup on my server and those are 2 solutions specifically called out by Dish as being compatible. In checking support forums I have seen a # of others with this same issue and response from Dish Tech support has been that it is a bug they will fix but in the interim the H.I.C. has helped for some folks.
- My hope is to be able to stream music, photos & videos off my media server through Playon / TVersity in the Home Media function. I know that I will need to convert my full DVD rips into another format to accomplish this and that I don't currently see any option to play BluRay rips.
- Installation issues: Tech that did my install said primary issues he's had so far is long download time when updating Hopper SW when setting it up. For my install he came across a new issue in that one of the Hoppers would not activate. He had to track down another Tech in the area and swap that Hopper for one of his. This was the issue that caused my install to be about 8.5 hours - Tech arrived at about 1PM and left at about 9:30 PM. They also have to do the setup & activation of each Hopper sequentially - complete one, they unplug and start the other one. I would ballpark 25 to 45 min for each Hopper setup. Same sequential setup for the Joey's but they only take 5 to 10 min each to complete setup.
- RG6 Coax (3000MHz) is recommended. Could not find rating on my Coax and basement partially finished so they could not easily rerun the coax and went ahead with existing.
- Dish is supposedly planning to update the software to create an "integrated" experience with 2 Hoppers. Currently they are not. Each Joey can connect to either Hopper but the Hoppers cannot connect to each other to play the respective recordings on the other box.
- The HD is 2 TB but a large chunk of that is allocated for the Primetime live & Blockbuster local content downloads. I believe about 500GB is available per Hopper for your personal DVR recordings. Each Hopper does have 3 USB ports and a SATA port and I have been told by Dish that additional storage can be attached.
- There is an option to transfer recordings from one box to another but that does not appear to be functionaly either at this time.
- They have advertised bluetooth headphone connectivity on the Hoppers (not Joeys). There is an option in the menu for connecting headphones but you select it and it tells you that feature has not been enabled yet.
- They advertise Pandora, Facebook and other Apps that do not appear to be available yet. I am still searching to see if there is an "App Store" or something that I have to do to download them.
- It does have Caller ID but currently you will have to have a phone line to each Hopper as the Joeys connected to each Hopper will pull the Caller ID info from the Hopper it is connected to.
- I have not played much with the Blockbuster@Home yet. Free for 3 months so giving it a shot. My hope is to be able to access Netflix through Playon if I can get the Home Media feature working.
- Each Hopper box is capable of receiving RF remote signals and has an antenna on the back to receive those RF signals. The Joeys cannot receive RF remote signals.
- TV Everywhere seems pretty cool so far - we'll see how reliable it is over time. There is an iPhone App, iPad App and PC capability.
- Hoppers are PIP (Picture In Picture) capable (Joeys are not). When you connect to a Hopper via TV Everywhere app the PIP for that Hopper is disabled.
- Interface seems pretty intuitive
- Setup of Favorites is pretty straight forward
- DVR menu has a number of sort options
- Navigating the guide is VERY fast.

I hope this may help if you are trying to decide if you will go with Dish (Hopper / Joey Setup) or if you have gone with it and are running into some of the questions I have. If this is helpful I can continue to post anything additional that I come across. I have gotten a lot of great help from the participants in this forum over the years and hope that I can pay a little of that back! :-) Please let me know if you have any specific questions.

Thanks again!

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by sagestuff

I have been a long time Sage user but just made the jump to Dish yesterday and had a 2 Hopper / 3 Joey configuration setup. The system seemed like a good whole home DVR solution (better than what has been out there for Satelite providers anyway) so really hope it turns out that way. Hard to consider dismantling my Sage HTPC setup but with the sale of Sage and my desire to not spend as much time doing tech support at home :-) I figured it was time to try another solution.

SETUP:
* Hardware - 2 Hoppers / 3 Joeys / 1 Sling Adapter (& one on the way) for the Hoppers to enable TV Everywhere (TV Everywhere provides access to all recordings, LIVE TV Content, set recordings, etc). Hookup - All boxes connected to each other via Coax & hardwired to home network. All boxes connected to TVs via HDMI.
* Cost - Currently a 1 Hopper / 4 Joey setup is free. Going with a second Joey cost $199 and the Slings are $30 ea. I received a $30 rebate for a Sling for doing the TV Everywhere 24 HR test drive so that makes one Sling free so give that a try if you are considering this. Hoppers & Joeys cost $7 MO each and there is a monthly cost for DVR / Whole Home DVR Service.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED THE LAST 2 DAYS:
- If you call to setup an install ask them to include an H.I.C. (Hopper Internet Connection). I have not been able to get the Home Media feature to work (DLNA). When I go into it no devices are listed and I have Playon & TVersity setup on my server and those are 2 solutions specifically called out by Dish as being compatible. In checking support forums I have seen a # of others with this same issue and response from Dish Tech support has been that it is a bug they will fix but in the interim the H.I.C. has helped for some folks.
- My hope is to be able to stream music, photos & videos off my media server through Playon / TVersity in the Home Media function. I know that I will need to convert my full DVD rips into another format to accomplish this and that I don't currently see any option to play BluRay rips.
- Installation issues: Tech that did my install said primary issues he's had so far is long download time when updating Hopper SW when setting it up. For my install he came across a new issue in that one of the Hoppers would not activate. He had to track down another Tech in the area and swap that Hopper for one of his. This was the issue that caused my install to be about 8.5 hours - Tech arrived at about 1PM and left at about 9:30 PM. They also have to do the setup & activation of each Hopper sequentially - complete one, they unplug and start the other one. I would ballpark 25 to 45 min for each Hopper setup. Same sequential setup for the Joey's but they only take 5 to 10 min each to complete setup.
- RG6 Coax (3000MHz) is recommended. Could not find rating on my Coax and basement partially finished so they could not easily rerun the coax and went ahead with existing.
- Dish is supposedly planning to update the software to create an "integrated" experience with 2 Hoppers. Currently they are not. Each Joey can connect to either Hopper but the Hoppers cannot connect to each other to play the respective recordings on the other box.
- The HD is 2 TB but a large chunk of that is allocated for the Primetime live & Blockbuster local content downloads. I believe about 500GB is available per Hopper for your personal DVR recordings. Each Hopper does have 3 USB ports and a SATA port and I have been told by Dish that additional storage can be attached.
- There is an option to transfer recordings from one box to another but that does not appear to be functionaly either at this time.
- They have advertised bluetooth headphone connectivity on the Hoppers (not Joeys). There is an option in the menu for connecting headphones but you select it and it tells you that feature has not been enabled yet.
- They advertise Pandora, Facebook and other Apps that do not appear to be available yet. I am still searching to see if there is an "App Store" or something that I have to do to download them.
- It does have Caller ID but currently you will have to have a phone line to each Hopper as the Joeys connected to each Hopper will pull the Caller ID info from the Hopper it is connected to.
- I have not played much with the Blockbuster@Home yet. Free for 3 months so giving it a shot. My hope is to be able to access Netflix through Playon if I can get the Home Media feature working.
- Each Hopper box is capable of receiving RF remote signals and has an antenna on the back to receive those RF signals. The Joeys cannot receive RF remote signals.
- TV Everywhere seems pretty cool so far - we'll see how reliable it is over time. There is an iPhone App, iPad App and PC capability.
- Hoppers are PIP (Picture In Picture) capable (Joeys are not). When you connect to a Hopper via TV Everywhere app the PIP for that Hopper is disabled.
- Interface seems pretty intuitive
- Setup of Favorites is pretty straight forward
- DVR menu has a number of sort options
- Navigating the guide is VERY fast.

I hope this may help if you are trying to decide if you will go with Dish (Hopper / Joey Setup) or if you have gone with it and are running into some of the questions I have. If this is helpful I can continue to post anything additional that I come across. I have gotten a lot of great help from the participants in this forum over the years and hope that I can pay a little of that back! :-) Please let me know if you have any specific questions.

Thanks again!

Awesome! Eric was able it get dlna working without a HICand said it was quite easy. I will ask him how exactly he did it.

Great write up and great feedback!

[tomatodave]

Thanks for the report.

I didn't think that I would ever see the day that I was at least looking around for a Sage TV replacement. I absolutely love my Sage setup - love it - love it - love it, but the system isn't finished. I want to add a TV to my hot tub room, as well a TV in the bedroom for the granddaughters. At this point I don't think I can realistically justify the high ebay prices for a used extender for a system that seems to be no longer supported.

I would be interested to hear how the home media library works out. I have quite a few DVD and BD's that have been trans-coded to .mkv files. When I buy a DVD or BD I rip it to a hard drive then trans-code it to .mkv, that makes viewing anywhere at home or even on the road through placeshifter much simpler. I also have photos and home video as well.

The other feature that is of great interest to me is the whole house synced audio (something that Sage wouldn't do) I have quite a collection of ripped CD's, but also would like to utilize internet music like playlist.com and pandora. Part of the hot tub room TV addition is to facilitate sending music to speakers in the backyard, while synced in the rest of the house. I have been close to pulling the trigger on Sonos in the past, but would prefer to have just one multimedia system.

I am definitely interested in hearing your opinions as time goes by.

[sagestuff]

Originally Posted by PiX64

Awesome! Eric was able it get dlna working without a HICand said it was quite easy. I will ask him how exactly he did it.

Great write up and great feedback!

Thanks! I would much prefer not putting another piece of hardware on the network if I don't need too - one more thing to break! :-) Will be great to hear how Eric got the dlna working w/out the HIC. Thanks!

[sagestuff]

Originally Posted by tomatodave

Thanks for the report.

I didn't think that I would ever see the day that I was at least looking around for a Sage TV replacement. I absolutely love my Sage setup - love it - love it - love it, but the system isn't finished. I want to add a TV to my hot tub room, as well a TV in the bedroom for the granddaughters. At this point I don't think I can realistically justify the high ebay prices for a used extender for a system that seems to be no longer supported.

I would be interested to hear how the home media library works out. I have quite a few DVD and BD's that have been trans-coded to .mkv files. When I buy a DVD or BD I rip it to a hard drive then trans-code it to .mkv, that makes viewing anywhere at home or even on the road through placeshifter much simpler. I also have photos and home video as well.

The other feature that is of great interest to me is the whole house synced audio (something that Sage wouldn't do) I have quite a collection of ripped CD's, but also would like to utilize internet music like playlist.com and pandora. Part of the hot tub room TV addition is to facilitate sending music to speakers in the backyard, while synced in the rest of the house. I have been close to pulling the trigger on Sonos in the past, but would prefer to have just one multimedia system.

I am definitely interested in hearing your opinions as time goes by.

I know exactly how you feel about considering a SageTV replacement. I have used it for some time and have invested a good chunk of hours into the setup and enhancements. I had gotten to what I considered a pretty reliable and robust setup.

The Home Media portion is the key for me to avoid using multiple devices (e.g. Roku) at each TV. My family has gotten used to a single interface for all entertainment. I have used Sage for Home Movies, DVDs, Music, Netflix, Pandora, etc and would like to get access to as many of these as possible on the Dish Hopper / Joey setup. I knew that I would need to give up DVD ISO support to likely go with a .mkv format which I don't have a big issue with since we rarely really use the menu's or "bonus" features. I am hoping to use PlayOn primarily for the Netflix access but hope their media sharing features (Beta) may work well. Dish had advertised Pandora as one of their Apps that would be available but it is not under the Apps section yet. I have also downloaded the free version of TVersity to try it our for it's Music, Photo & Video streaming. They have a paid version that provides access to some "premium" content. The interface on the Dish Home Media sections appears as if it will be easy to switch between sources (that is once I actually get sources to appear in the menu :-). I have not started going the BD direction yet due to the added $s for Netflix and the fact that I only have one 1080p TV in the house and it's not my medial room projector.

I will give the whole house synced audio a shot as well when I get access to my media and let you know how that goes.

Overall I am really hoping to be pleasantly surprised with the Dish solution as it is hard to give up the functionality and level of control over my home entertainment system that I had with Sage!

[pjpjpjpj]

Great write-up, sagestuff.

Seems like there's a lot of stuff planned that isn't available yet, though... the downside of being an early adopter?

As for files such as .mkv - something I just thought of - there's a PlayOn plugin called "LocalFiles". With it, through PlayOn, you can navigate your server's hard drives (maybe even network drives, I don't know) and find your files. If I remember correctly, you have to set up the file paths within the PlayOn UI on your server, but then you can see whatever is in that path. I don't think it works for DVDs (and probably not BD) but it likely works for .mkv. I just tested it as I type this and it played the 1080p .MTS files that my camcorder produces flawlessly on my iPod Touch, so I'm guessing it can handle some pretty tough other file types, as long as your server can handle the on-the-fly transcoding.