Best options for upgrading?

[merianb]

We have been out of contract for quite a few years. We are very rural and have hughesnet for our internet service, so other tv watching options are not available. We also live in a white hole for cell phone service although lately my husbands data on his Verizon phone has been giving us some options to watching shows on Amazon Prime.

We currently have a 622 receiver in the living room where we do our primary viewing. This week the power source keeps powering down and now making our external hard drive act up so I'm concerned about losing content on our dvr. We have a 211 in the bedroom. We tend to record shows and watch them later, some on networks some on pay channels. I do have to maneuver a bit to record programs running at the same time and glad the cable shows run multiple times to accommodate this. It would be nice to be able to watch the recorded shows in both rooms.

All equipment is leased and looking for the best options. Also, if the box finally conks out, is there a way to transfer from the dvr to the external hard drive? I've been trying to do that the last few days when it's powered back on but it's having some issues recognizing the hard drive. My hubby is returning from work on Friday and I'll have him look at it and give everything a good cleaning. For now I'm running a fan in front of the receiver in case it's a cooling issue.

 

[TheKrell]

I'm guessing one Hopper ($12/mo) and one Joey ($7/mo) would suffice. This compares to your 622 ($7/mo) and your 211 ($7/mo). Hopper recordings are available at all Joeys (should you get more than one).

 

[kwindrem]

You should continue your efforts to transfer programming off the 622 since when it eventually dies there is no way to access programming on it's internal drive.

If you are happy with the setup you have not, there's no real motivation to upgrade. A hopper/joey setup would cost you $5/mo more but there are a few differences that may be an advantage to you:

• Hopper has 3 tuners, plus one tuner can be used to record/watch ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. So depending on how much "big four" TV you watch, that could be up to 6 programs available to watch/record at the same time. Joey has no tuner and uses one of the Hopper's tuners for live viewing. If you mainly record, the third tuner could be an advantage for you.
• The DVR is common to both viewing locations.
• The hard drive in Hopper is much larger than the one in the 622 so you can save more programs on the internal drive. I tend to transfer any program I want to retain to an external drive since you'd loose anything on the internal drive with any receiver malfunction. While not supported, I use a RAID to reduce the possibility of program loss with an external drive failure.

 

[merianb]

You should continue your efforts to transfer programming off the 622 since when it eventually dies there is no way to access programming on it's internal drive.

If you are happy with the setup you have not, there's no real motivation to upgrade. A hopper/joey setup would cost you $5/mo more but there are a few differences that may be an advantage to you:

• Hopper has 3 tuners, plus one tuner can be used to record/watch ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. So depending on how much "big four" TV you watch, that could be up to 6 programs available to watch/record at the same time. Joey has no tuner and uses one of the Hopper's tuners for live viewing. If you mainly record, the third tuner could be an advantage for you.
• The DVR is common to both viewing locations.
• The hard drive in Hopper is much larger than the one in the 622 so you can save more programs on the internal drive. I tend to transfer any program I want to retain to an external drive since you'd loose anything on the internal drive with any receiver malfunction. While not supported, I use a RAID to reduce the possibility of program loss with an external drive failure.

No, not really happy with the set up because we don't have a dvr in the bedroom and would like to be able to watch recorded programs in both rooms so it looks like a Hopper and Joey might work well for us. We plan on canceling some of the services we have because we have them all and not using some of theme especially the Blockbuster package. Probably will get rid of some of the movie channels also because our bill has gotten outrageous!

I figured as much with the dvr so will keep trying that.. Some of the things I have on there aren't available legally online and it's mostly newest episodes of stuff that started up mid season. We usually catch up when my husband gets back from out of town jobs.

 

[boba]

For a one time $40 fee you can make your 211 into a DVR you have to add an external hard drive that won't be compatible with the 622 but it does have a DVR capability.

 

[dwarren2]

If you upgraded to the Hopper and a Super Joey, you would have 5 sat tuners and if you can receive over the air stations, the ota dongle would give you another tuner. If you husband travels a lot and has a laptop or tablet, he would be able to access the dvr via Dish Anywhere. The Hopper can support 2 ehd's at a time. It will support a 3 tb ehd. O just installed one.
Another feature is the ability to transfer recordings to a tablet Handy if you fly.

 

[merianb]

If you upgraded to the Hopper and a Super Joey, you would have 5 sat tuners and if you can receive over the air stations, the ota dongle would give you another tuner. If you husband travels a lot and has a laptop or tablet, he would be able to access the dvr via Dish Anywhere. The Hopper can support 2 ehd's at a time. It will support a 3 tb ehd. O just installed one.
Another feature is the ability to transfer recordings to a tablet Handy if you fly.

Does this require a good internet connection at home? With hughesnet, it's just not gonna happen.

 

[merianb]

For a one time $40 fee you can make your 211 into a DVR you have to add an external hard drive that won't be compatible with the 622 but it does have a DVR capability.

But if I read correctly, you could only watch what each individual tv/box/dvr has recorded correct? I think the Hopper with Joey option will allow us to record from one and watch on the other?

 

[Bobby]

But if I read correctly, you could only watch what each individual tv/box/dvr has recorded correct? I think the Hopper with Joey option will allow us to record from one and watch on the other?

That is true.

 

[dwarren2]

Does this require a good internet connection at home? With hughesnet, it's just not gonna happen.

Yes, that would be a problem. If you decide to go for the Hopper, get it with Sling Built In. It has a better processor. You can always try DA. If you have a wifi router, you can use DA on any computer in the house.

 

[stardust3]

Does this require a good internet connection at home? With hughesnet, it's just not gonna happen.

You do not want to connect your hughes to the hopper...dish anywhere would kill your data allowance, also the other online apps would eat it up also.

 

[merianb]

You do not want to connect your hughes to the hopper...dish anywhere would kill your data allowance, also the other online apps would eat it up also.

Yes even though I can do things in moderation due to us still not having gone to Gen4 so we still restock allowance every 24 hours and we have the highest lever. Of course that only allows us to watch one or maybe two episodes of a tv show or one movie each day.

 

[stardust3]

Yes even though I can do things in moderation due to us still not having gone to Gen4 so we still restock allowance every 24 hours and we have the highest lever. Of course that only allows us to watch one or maybe two episodes of a tv show or one movie each day.

Oh wow...you on the 7000 or 9000 system? Gen 4 is night & day compared to either of those.

 

[ChadT41]

Does this require a good internet connection at home? With hughesnet, it's just not gonna happen.

The DA part would require a good internet connection, and so does on demand. The transfer feature only requires the mobile device and the hopper be on the same network... So in theory you could hook up a stand alone router and have the hopper and mobile device connect to it, and that would not use any data at all. Then you can watch whatever you transfered outside the home on the mobile device.

 

[stardust3]

So in theory you could hook up a stand alone router and have the hopper and mobile device connect to it, and that would not use any data at all.

Has this been tried & tested. Seems that a network connection with no connectivity could cause issues.

 

[ChadT41]

When I worked there, we did it....We did not have an internet connection in the building(that we were privy to), but we had countless routers and tested it out. I have not tried it since the days of the TRansfer App, but it was done on that.

 

[merianb]

Oh wow...you on the 7000 or 9000 system? Gen 4 is night & day compared to either of those.

We are on the 9000 and am okay with the speed. We have 1 GB of bandwidth we can use daily (or abouts depending on if we have a heavy day of use and then don't get the full load the next day) and we still get 3 free refills per month. I don't think I would want to use up all our allotement early in the month and be stuck with slow speeds after that. I hear too many horror stories about it. I love the 24 hour refills so happy with that for now.