DISH Hopper coming at CES ?

[Miner]

I would love that to be the case since I'm 5E throughout the house and not RG59. But Scott says "No," it must be coax.

ATT Uverse out here is promoting their wireless receiver (comparable to Joey). Not needing coax or CAT5 makes it attractive to me. Of course, I live out in the sticks so its not currently an option for me, but it is an attractive feature, just like the built in homeplug on the ViP boxes.

Such is the way it goes, though. Can't please everybody.

 

[TheKrell]

You would be wrong. I talked this over with Mark Jackson and he explained it to me...

Smith, P and I are not disagreeing with the existence of this bridge function; only whether it's done in hardware or software. We think it's done in software. (I for one am surprised that it's done at all; Smith can speak for himself!)

I would trust Mark he is the president of the company. And I don't think he would make up a reason why they put two Ethernet ports on the box.

Well, asking the pres about fairly technical issues is IMHO inviting a garbled answer. It won't be the first time that the president of a company has gotten it wrong!

 

[BobaBird]

It won't. Totally different. You have a choice, in home: ViP setup, or Hopper. Not both. Hardware incompatibilities.

They don't want to allow a customer to have both, but that's a business decision to avoid potential support issues. The XiP Node takes 2 lines off a DPP switch (integrated or external), leaving 1 or 2 for ViP or even legacy receivers.

 

[Ghpr13]

You would be wrong. I talked this over with Mark Jackson and he explained it to me that most people only have one Ethernet cable in their living rooms do this allows them to plug the cable into the box and then loop out for plugging into your Xbox or bluray player.

I would trust Mark he is the president of the company. And I don't think he would make up a reason why they put two Ethernet ports on the box.

Yeah! He's not Charlie!
Ghpr13

 

[Scherrman]

I was curious about that. Whats to stop me from having one hopper hooked up, which requires two cables from the Dish, and also having a 211k hooked up from the third cable from my dish? Just wondering how this all works. I don't have to have my 211k continuously hooked up but I would like to have for when I use my Tailgater.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I was curious about that. Whats to stop me from having one hopper hooked up, which requires two cables from the Dish, and also having a 211k hooked up from the third cable from my dish? Just wondering how this all works. I don't have to have my 211k continuously hooked up but I would like to have for when I use my Tailgater.

They said their billing system will not allow them to have hopper and VIPs together.

I do think they will need to do something for those with tailgaters or mobile homes.

 

[TheKrell]

I would bet for full price of the XiP813, there is none of such hub/switch inside of it. Check FCC pictures of its PCBA.

If it's for "pass through" like Scott says, which would be my first assumption, then there has to be at least some minimal "hub" circuitry in somewhere in the box, you can't just "split" the "incoming" cat 5.

Nope; can't split the incoming cat 5. If this is done somewhere in hardware, I believe Smith that it's not in the LAN adapter chipset. But, playing devil's advocate here, why couldn't it be lurking somewhere else, such as in the MoCA chipset? If it where there, then both Hopper and Joey could function as a MoCA bridge without embedded CPU intervention. This would make the external HIC of limited utility, e.g. in locations where there is a coax, but there is neither a Hopper nor a Joey.

 

[BobaBird]

There is a question on what been I've been beaten recently: how that SOLO NODE box translate 3 bands (500 MHz each) from two DPP coaxes (from antenna) to _one_ coax feeding _three_ sat tuners of XiP813 ?

DPP tech can feed 2 tuners with one drop via the DPP diplexer (like the 622/722/922 do now), so 2 drops from the switch in theory could supply 4 tuners. Essentially DPP only feeds 1/2 the satellite to the tuner (even or odd as requested) and the other tuners gets 1/2 of a satellite (even or odd). That is how they fit DPP on one cable. ...

One assumes that the new cable probably uses some lower frequencies on the cable to feed the third satellite stream, making it incompatible with OTA diplexing.

XiP Node stacks the third stream to to a higher freq above DP. Hopper does not have an internal Separator but rather can directly tune that freq.

I was initially told that you can diplex OTA but would need to break it out before the XiP node. I was later told by someone closer to the project that you can diplex and you can even use home distribution to sets without a Hopper or Joey if you buy your own modulators. They designed the MoCA network to fit in the space between the top of the OTA band and the 950Mhz start of DBS.

Can the tuner that is being used to record all of the prime time shows, be used to watch the shows as it is recording them? Say two of the Joey's are watching cable channels, then can we switch between the major network channels on the hopper?

Yes you can watch live network channels as they are being recorded.

When I asked I was told no, but you could watch essentially live by going through the DVR menu.

 

[sullivbt]

It won't. Totally different. You have a choice, in home: ViP setup, or Hopper. Not both. Hardware incompatibilities.

Can't find an answer to this, but is it possible to have a Hopper/Joey combo AND a 722 coming off of one dish? Note that I am not talking about having the 722 linked to the Hopper, but two basically "standalone" systems (i.e. the Hopper/Joey would service the second floor of my house while the 722 services the first floor of my house). My current set-up has two runs of RG6 coming of my Eastern Arc dish and DPP, with one run going upstairs and one run going to the first floor.

 

[Scherrman]

Can't find an answer to this, but is it possible to have a Hopper/Joey combo AND a 722 coming off of one dish? Note that I am not talking about having the 722 linked to the Hopper, but two basically "standalone" systems (i.e. the Hopper/Joey would service the second floor of my house while the 722 services the first floor of my house). My current set-up has two runs of RG6 coming of my Eastern Arc dish and DPP, with one run going upstairs and one run going to the first floor.

I basically just asked the same question a couple posts before this but with using a 211k. Scott makes it sound like Dish won't let it happen.

 

[BobaBird]

Technically you can. You would need a second RG6 run to whereever you place the XiP Node. The business side has chosen not to allow it due to potential need for added support for confused users.

 

[sullivbt]

Technically you can. You would need a second RG6 run to whereever you place the XiP Node. The business side has chosen not to allow it due to potential need for added support for confused users.

Hmmmm, thanks for the quick response. This is interesting - I guess I could get 2 Hoppers (1 for downstairs) and a Hopper/Joey upstairs, but can you hook a Joey directly to the Hopper via coax a la having a second TV hooked directly to a 722? Looking at the HIC wiring diagram, that doesn't seem possible - it looks like the Jeoy cable has to run directly back to wherever the node is located at, right?

 

[Scherrman]

Why do you need the cable to run directly back to the Hopper?

 

[gpflepsen]

Why do you need the cable to run directly back to the Hopper?

You should be able to daisy-chain any Joey coax outlets, if that's what you want to do.

 

[JM42]

Smith, P and I are not disagreeing with the existence of this bridge function; only whether it's done in hardware or software. We think it's done in software. (I for one am surprised that it's done at all; Smith can speak for himself!)

I just can't believe they are committing the processor to potentially passing 100mpbs+ of non video related traffic. If the functionality is not provided by the core chips, it would be cheap to implememt. A couple years ago a 4 port switch chip was about $1 at fairly low quantities, can't imagine what they are today at Dish's quantities.

Going back multiple posts to wondering if Hopper or Joey could function as a Moca bridge, if they are bridging the ethernet ports via software, adding the Moca port would be trivial.

Not saying they may, will or even dream about it.

 

[mike123abc]

Looking at how the connections all work, it looks like you could simply add OTA to the MoCA feed. The specs say band F which is above OTA frequencies.

 

[356B]

They said their billing system will not allow them to have hopper and VIPs together.

I do think they will need to do something for those with tailgaters or mobile homes.

So you can't keep some or all your existing equipment? If you go with Hopper it's all in?

 

[Bobby]

That is correct....

 

[keckge]

Ok I have put a little thought into this post I love the Idea of these hoppers really want two of them. Love the idea of Prime time anytime. However I'm very very curious how they are are going to deal with the run over problem it happens all the time. Are they going to have someone to sit and watch and send real time data to our machines to update them so they know when to start and stop recording. I truly love new state of the art equipment don't get me wrong and I am not trying to nit pick or anything but this is a very real concern because I am one that that watches the 58 % of broadcast programing and added an antenna to my roof and would love to get rid of the thing if I could, I hate the thing up there for lighting reasons. I will of course have to wait and see what happens when they come out to get the answer to this question because I'm sure they haven't answered it. I really wish one company would come up with a fix for this that would send live data when there is a run over to a machine and automatically fix the recordings for us.

 

[sullivbt]

Why do you need the cable to run directly back to the Hopper?

Because that would simulate my current set-up, which is a 722 feeding two TVs - one in the master bedroom (hooked to the 722) and one in the guest bedroom (hooked to a coax run back to the 722). What I was is hoping to do was put the Hopper in the master bedroom and then put the Joey in the guest bedroom, and just hook that coax run to the Joey so it "links" back to the Hopper. That, of course, is not going to work.

This gets back to my original point which is that, for the Joey/Hopper system to work, ALL coax run for either a Hopper or a Joey need to run back and terminate at the Node. You cannot (I think) daisy chain via RG-6 like this:

NODE --> Hopper --> Joey

If anybody has information otherwise, please correct me.