considering upgrade finally to Hopper with OTA antenna

[BostonMA]

The Hopper 3 has a 2TB internal hard drive, so you should not have to worry about running out of available space as quickly as you might on the ViP612.

You'd be surprised, my external drive is a 2TB drive. I've recently done some pruning of recordings and it is still over 3/4 full.

I seem to recall that you can swap out multiple external drives. True? Any cautions?

Looks like I'll pull the trigger early next week. Just detailed all my scheduled recordings to a spreadsheet. Next will be my searches.

Finally, I will review my settings. Can't even remember which one's I made. Any recommendations or new ones that will come with the Hopper 3?

 

[pattykay]

You'd be surprised, my external drive is a 2TB drive. I've recently done some pruning of recordings and it is still over 3/4 full.

I seem to recall that you can swap out multiple external drives. True? Any cautions?
...

Yes, that is true. Even better, you can have multiple external hard drives (up to a limit of three, I think) all hooked up to the Hopper 3 at the same time. You may need to make sure that the total amount of external storage hooked up at the same time does not exceed 7TB. It will not harm the drives in any way if you exceed that limit, but some of the drives may not show up until you unhook one or more of them, to be under that cap.

...
Finally, I will review my settings. Can't even remember which one's I made. Any recommendations or new ones that will come with the Hopper 3?

The most important one I can think of is Menu > Settings > Power > set Power On to "Tune to Last Channel." This will ensure that the Hopper acts the way that you are currently used to using your ViP612 when you turn it on. The other options for that setting will either Tune to Smart Channel (the Hopper remembers what channels you watched previously, and automatically tunes to what it "thinks" you want to watch) or Show Home Screen. With "Show Home Screen" selected, the Home screen will also automatically launch with the "Smart" channel in the video window in the upper-right corner. This behavior can be annoying if the Hopper guesses incorrectly about what you want to watch, so it is better just to have it Tune to Last Channel, like all previous Dish receivers have always done.

 

[Jim5506]

IIRC, the ViP722 was the first receiver to be able to support DishAnywhere (with an optional Sling Adapter plugged in).

I don't think and of the 600 numbered ViP receivers could support DA and now that the Sling Adapter has been disabled, even the 722 and H1 cannot support DA - only the H2 and H3 AFAIK support DA.

Please correct me if I'm incorrect.

 

[pattykay]

IIRC, the ViP722 was the first receiver to be able to support DishAnywhere (with an optional Sling Adapter plugged in).

I don't think and of the 600 numbered ViP receivers could support DA and now that the Sling Adapter has been disabled, even the 722 and H1 cannot support DA - only the H2 and H3 AFAIK support DA.

Please correct me if I'm incorrect.

Just to add that the 922 also would no longer support DA. In this case, it is due to the built-in Sling being disabled, rather than the Sling Adapter. (And, just being nit-picky and making sure all of the relevant model numbers are covered, your list of models that no longer support DA would also apply to the 722k. I am sure that you intended "722" to cover both flavors, of course.)

 

[BostonMA]

Thanks for all your input

Yesterday, updated to Hopper 3 with OTA antenna due to the 3 local channels removed from Dish. Two are owned by the same company( a bad actor, one channel lost it's NBC affiliation and is mostly a news station now. the other station is a CW affiliate)

Have question about the OTA info. On the VIP612 the OTA channel data seemed to be accurate. With the Hopper 3, the OTA CW affiliate has the same program descriptions as the newsy channel. Does anyone know who provides the data and how to fix it?

Could also use any tips, suggestions, warnings as I get used to the equipment. Particularly regarding the apps available.

 

[BostonMA]

Your current external hard drive from the ViP612 will work with the Hopper 3. Some members here recommend waiting a few days after the Hopper 3 is installed before connecting the external drive to it for the first time. This gives the Hopper time to "settle in" (make sure it has all of the latest software updates) to help avoid any potential problems.

I followed the recommendation to wait on connecting the external drive. Having a strange problem. Does not recognize the drive as connected when trying to access recordings or copy programs to it. Notices when I remove USB connector but does not recognize external drive when connecting USB.

When I record programs. episodes on the external drive are shown but cannot be accessed.

Tried several things including removing both USB connectors (external drive & OTA antenna), then first inserting external drive then OTA with no change.

 

[TheKrell]

I followed the recommendation to wait on connecting the external drive. Having a strange problem. Does not recognize the drive as connected when trying to access recordings or copy programs to it. Notices when I remove USB connector but does not recognize external drive when connecting USB.

That is exactly my problem with the 1.5TB disk I brought to the H3 from my VIP612. The disk shows healthy and I can see (but not play) the program folders from Linux.

 

[BostonMA]

That is exactly my problem with the 1.5TB disk I brought to the H3 from my VIP612. The disk shows healthy and I can see (but not play) the program folders from Linux.

I don't understand the reference to Linux. Is the VIP612 Linux based?

 

[Jim5506]

Dish uses a Linux based format on their hard drives.

Files on the drives can be copied to another hard drive with Dish formatting but the videos themselves are not playable except by the receiver.

 

[BostonMA]

Are the files in a proprietary format?

Is there any way to initialize a new drive and copy the files to it?

 

[Jim5506]

You can copy files (it is the DISHARC folder).

First let your Hopper format the new drive as an EHD for the Hopper.

Next you must have a PC running some version of Linux.

Connect both the new and the old Dish EHDs to the PC.

Boot linux into the root directory you should be able to view files on both drives (make sure you know which is which).

Simply copy the DISHARC folder from the old drive to the same place on the new one.

Shut down Linux and connect your new EHD to the Hopper - if all went well the recordings should show up and be playable. Emphasis on should.

 

[pattykay]

That is exactly my problem with the 1.5TB disk I brought to the H3 from my VIP612. The disk shows healthy and I can see (but not play) the program folders from Linux.

It would be interesting if Dish would allow both the H3 and the ViP612 to be activated on the account at the same time, to see if the ViP612 would still recognize (and be able to play) the recordings after the H3 failed to do so. In other words, is it the H3 that is screwing up something with the hard drive, making those files non-playable no matter what Dish DVR is trying to access them?

 

[BostonMA]

is it the H3 that is screwing up something with the hard drive

It is not clear to me that there is anything wrong with the drive. My suspicion is that the Hopper programming is not setup to read/write to an initialized drive until it first initializes one and the linking of the directories works differently.

 

[TheKrell]

It is not clear to me that there is anything wrong with the drive. My suspicion is that the Hopper programming is not setup to read/write to an initialized drive until it first initializes one and the linking of the directories works differently.

Me too. But the first 1.5TB drive, which was formerly connected to my 722, was working and is still working fine. I had transferred the EHD between 612 and 722 multiple times before with no issue. So I delayed trying the 612 EHD for a long time. I don't know if it's a Hopper software update that caused this problem, or rather something about the VIP612 EHD that makes it fail.

 

[BostonMA]

Me too. But the first 1.5TB drive, which was formerly connected to my 722, was working and is still working fine. I had transferred the EHD between 612 and 722 multiple times before with no issue. So I delayed trying the 612 EHD for a long time. I don't know if it's a Hopper software update that caused this problem, or rather something about the VIP612 EHD that makes it fail.

I waited until the install had time to settle in(about a week). Then I initiated an update to the latest version. It was only then I attached the EHD.