Dish Hopper vs ATT U-verse

[Shimyr]

Hello. I am a long time Dish customer who is extremely happy with my old 622.

A few years back my gf's folks wanted to get rid of Comcast TV and saw a well-priced promotion for ATT U-verse, which was pretty much brand new at the time. It wasn't around long enough for me to hear about some of the horror stories people would later have with it so, just based on price and value, I told them it could work out very well for them. Wow was I wrong. I've never heard of more downtime for modern day utility, period. The price is also around $250/mo for voice, internet, and TV, way up from the initial $129.99 promotional price. The last straw for them was yesterday when all 3 services went down for most of the day, only to be told "yes, we can see that there are upgrades happening in your area" and that they can't get a tech out there until Friday to return service to the house. No phone, no internet, no TV, and certainly no giving a damn about the customer.

So naturally I thought to recommend Dish for their TV needs only to discover the new Hopper works in a similar way to how the TV aspect of U-Verse worked with a master receiver and slave receivers. What I'm here to ask is how similar does the Hopper work to U-Verse as far as streaming protocol, etc. and if I'm crazy to even suggest they go with one considering the horrible experience they are trying to escape.

The review I read seemed to indicate an exceedingly successful release, however, if anyone expects that they might have similar issues with the Hopper I might insist they go with separate receivers for all rooms. They do want TV in 4 rooms (maybe even 5 if there was an easy way to do it) but might only need HD in 3, and DVR in up to 3, so I'm not sure if that would be too cost prohibitive to have say two 722ks, and two 612s instead. The monthly costs would basically be a wash as DVR+Hopper+3 Joeys is $31 and my account with a 622 and 612 is $16 so for two of each it might be $32. Does one still have to pay $200 lease fees for the receivers?

Any guidance in this matter is appreciated. Thanks

 

[3HaloODST]

Hopper is a LOT more flexible than U-verse, BY FAR. With 2H/2J you already have 6 HD tuners that can both watch and record in HD. Then there is a PTAT tuner in each Hopper that can record 4 shows at once plus 2 more SAT tuners, which equals 6 channels per Hopper. U-verse is limited to (if you're lucky) 4 HD streams live and only 3 HD streams can be recorded at the same time. There are tons of people who can't even get that much because they are too far away from the VRAD. Also, with 2 Hoppers, you have FAR superior interface, and TWO HD DVRS compared to the limit of ONE HD DVR per household with U-verse. Then there is the fact that watching DISH TV doesn't slow down your Internet. PLUS if there are tuner conflicts, instead of just randomly booting users from watching TV like in U-verse Hopper will actually ask you if you want to be interrupted or not. Then there is of course the fact that DISH HD is superior to U-verse HD.

FAR, FAR superior in almost every way.

 

[Shimyr]

Thanks but I should've been more clear about my priority when asking this, which is reliability rather than functionality. Will the Joeys randomly stop working because of silly IP issues a la U-Verse or is that simply a minor concern? I do realize U-Verse is entirely internet based so if the internet goes down, pretty much everything does, so I just wanted to make sure the Hopper does not have a different but similar Achilles heel.

 

[3HaloODST]

No Hopper is still SAT TV so no Internet connectivity required except for VoD and the likes. For me Hopper/Joey have been just as reliable as any other Dish receivers, and that's WAY better than U-verse was for me.

 

[Shimyr]

Thanks! I'll let them know.

For my own curiosity, can you still have equal sized side-to-side PIP and plug in any two feeds or recordings? I love being able to put two sports games on and swap between them so effortlessly, or have a game on a the second feed while I watch the news. I've gathered it's not something you can do on the Joey but I'm hoping you can on the Hopper itself.

 

[3HaloODST]

Thanks! I'll let them know.

For my own curiosity, can you still have equal sized side-to-side PIP and plug in any two feeds or recordings? I love being able to put two sports games on and swap between them so effortlessly, or have a game on a the second feed while I watch the news. I've gathered it's not something you can do on the Joey but I'm hoping you can on the Hopper itself.

Yep and yep. Hopper has full PiP functionality that you are used to with the ViP 622. Joeys do not have PiP functionality (not sure if they ever will, never heard either way.)

 

[EmSurfer]

Glad I didn't switch from Dish 622 to Uverse TV when it first came out. Now that Uverse has gone wireless there are other stability issues. I upgraded to the 922 last year and just switched over to the Hopper/Joey for over a week now. Looking at people's experiences since March, Dish has been very responsive on improving and solving glitches that come with any new equipment with timely software updates. So far I am glad I switched to the Hopper with only few minor issues.