Dual Hopper Intergration (From Team Summit)

[Scott Greczkowski]

My question: I assume adding a new timer would go to the hopper you're looking at ?

I.E. I have Hopper A in the Bedroom, Hopper B in the Living Room, I'm in the bedroom, but looking at the content on Hopper B, and schedule a new timer from the guide.

Which hopper does the timer go to, and if there is a conflict, can it move to the 2nd hopper?

You can set the timer from the Hopper or the Joeys paired to that Hopper. If you want to record to another Hopper you can pair the Joey to that Hopper and setup the timer.

All's the intergration does at this point is allow you to view recording from both Hoppers on any Joey (or Hopper)

 

[king3pj]

hoppers will see each other as an EHD, at least is an step

Right. I'm just kind of surprised it has taken them this long to give it to us if this was all they were doing. I understood the delay when I thought it was going to be true integration. It seems like this much functionality should have been possible at release.

 

[Ganthet]

Its up to the customer to load balance their Hoppers and Joeys. You will not see all 6 tuners listed on the screen.

This is a little disappointing to me. Perhaps I misinterpreted the early descriptions of the system but I though that 2 integrated hoppers became 1 logical unit allowing consolidated management of the timers and all hoppers and joeys could use the combined resources.

As LER mentioned I hope this is only the first version of the functionality.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I'm glad to be able to see recordings from both hoppers but this is not what I was hoping for at all. I wanted true integration. I was hoping for one unified list of recordings and one unified set of timers that could grab a tuner from the 2nd hopper if all were being used on the 1st one. I also wanted any hopper or Joey to have access to all 6 tuners for watching live tv to truly end most or all conflicts.

In their labs they had everything displaying on one DVR listing, but it became too cluttered. so they went with this approach instead. For most people they will record to one Hopper. So for example, one hopper for the adults and one Hopper for the kids.

They are still working on things and in fact upon release you may be able to sepcify which Hopper you want to record to when you set a timer.

This is NOT the finished product by any means.

 

[LER]

You can set the timer from the Hopper or the Joeys paired to that Hopper. If you want to record to another Hopper you can pair the Joey to that Hopper and setup the timer.

All's the intergration does at this point is allow you to view recording from both Hoppers on any Joey (or Hopper)

I hope they don't think they are done. This is good as a start, but not what the average customer would think from a "Whole Home" DVR.

They really need to try(!) to really integrate it, so that the hoppers can move timers around between themselves, and it looks like one big programming collection..

Not that I'm complaining, but I think they can do MUCH better.

 

[jrapps]

While this is not what i was hoping for, I can understand it...imagine if you had a 2 hopper setup before integration and you had duplicate timers and recordings on the hoppers..once integration was turned on, that would be a mess to deal with. Getting the system to automatically remove duplicate timers and recordings...this method is definitely cleaner.

I think the only thing this lacks for me is timer conflict. If Hopper1 had a conflict, I would still like to see a future update where the recording could be sent to Hopper2. maybe one day....

 

[Scherrman]

I consider this a step in the right direction. Just like everything. They'll roll out the feature and see how it's received. If changes need to be made, they can.

 

[jrapps]

Scott...did they happen to mention how Sling Adapters would factor into this...i assume with this method, you still need 2 Sling Adapters (1 for each Hopper), right?

 

[king3pj]

In their labs they had everything displaying on one DVR listing, but it became too cluttered. so they went with this approach instead. For most people they will record to one Hopper. So for example, one hopper for the adults and one Hopper for the kids.

They are still working on things and in fact upon release you may be able to sepcify which Hopper you want to record to when you set a timer.

This is NOT the finished product by any means.

That's good to hear. In this case though I guess my response would be give us options. If they thought it looked too cluttered let people decide if they want to keep their content separated by hopper or as one unified DVR listing. It could be a simple toggle to switch between the two.

 

[rglore]

The Hopper selection button for recordings has been there since S209 but when selected it says "coming soon", really, no kidding.

 

[3HaloODST]

You can set the timer from the Hopper or the Joeys paired to that Hopper. If you want to record to another Hopper you can pair the Joey to that Hopper and setup the timer.

All's the intergration does at this point is allow you to view recording from both Hoppers on any Joey (or Hopper)

Finally some integration, or at least a good start. So basically this integration will add the other Hopper to the menu just like the external drives you have hooked up. Which brings me to a question, will you be able to view recordings on the external HDDs hooked to the other Hopper?

The Hopper selection button for recordings has been there since S209 but when selected it says "coming soon", really, no kidding.

IIRC it was in S207 as well.

 

[John Kotches]

All's the intergration does at this point is allow you to view recording from both Hoppers on any Joey (or Hopper)

That ain't integration for anybody that does any type of real IT work.

 

[John Kotches]

The more I read, the more disappointed I get. This is access to all network resources but the user has to take manual steps to accomplish the goal.

It's access to shared resources but it isn't integration.

Integration is having a pool of 6 tuners and having a software layer manage them. Integration is having a common database for the DVRs between the 2 hoppers with the consolidated library between them. The clients (Joeys) should neither care nor have to look for X on Y.

 

[3HaloODST]

While that is true, this is certainly more interesting than commercial auto skip. Hopefully, this "integration" is just a sign of more to come. I'll take every new feature I can get and enjoy it. The Hoppers are already my favorite DVR I've ever used, so I'm not going to complain if they don't get the full integration going in just 1 software update. Judging by how they are releasing updates recently, I think that they're working pretty hard to add more and more to the H/J system as quickly as possible. I'd rather them take their time and iron out any major receiver-breaking bugs than to release everything at once quickly only for it to cause a crapload of issues.

But hell, my Hoppers are currently on isolators, going to stay that way until I do see the "full" integration, and even then they might not stay off of the isolators for very long (don't want the kids to mess with my Hopper.)

 

[Claude Greiner]

I don't get it, wasn't the fact most of the people on here went and got 2 hoppers was due to the fact that it was susposed to be a seemless integration?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

That ain't integration for anybody that does any type of real IT work.

But it is integration for most people who WATCH TV.

We are NOT your normal customer.

 

[cac303]

I agree with everything that has been said. It is a good start, but really they need to complete the integration and make it seamless. My wish list for full integration certainly includes the following:

1. Tuners "load balanced" between the hoppers.
2. Available disk space load balanced as well, so that when one hopper starts getting full, it can copy some of its shows to another hopper in the background. (I shouldn't need to manage this, or care which hopper the content is on.
3. The ability to view all DVRs from all hoppers in one screen. (Really, if folders are used properly, that should be the way that you should filter, not by hopper.)
4. Unified timer listing.
5. All tuners displayed in the tuner listing.

Did I miss anything?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Integration is having a pool of 6 tuners and having a software layer manage them. Integration is having a common database for the DVRs between the 2 hoppers with the consolidated library between them. The clients (Joeys) should neither care nor have to look for X on Y.

That soundss great John but your missing the big piece of the puzzle and that is dealing with the aspect of MoCA, some of the limits are based on the MoCA spec.

Of course MoCA 2 takes care of these issues, but we are still 2 or 3 years away from seeing any MoCA 2 boxes from anyone.

 

[3HaloODST]

I don't get it, wasn't the fact most of the people on here went and got 2 hoppers was due to the fact that it was susposed to be a seemless integration?

Well, seeing as Dish seems to be pushing 1 Hopper / 3 Joeys for 4 TVs, I'd say that integration would be the least of some peoples' problems... They'd probably be fighting each other over the tuners. Personally I couldn't care less about the integration, as I don't like sharing very much . I keep my Hopper to myself. Everyone else can have the other one .

 

[king3pj]

That soundss great John but your missing the big piece of the puzzle and that is dealing with the aspect of MoCA, some of the limits are based on the MoCA spec.

Of course MoCA 2 takes care of these issues, but we are still 2 or 3 years away from seeing any MoCA 2 boxes from anyone.

i don't understand the technicalities of MoCA, but are you saying it isn't possible for one hopper to use a live tuner from the other hopper with the technology we all just had installed? Do you mean that we will never have access to all 6 tuners with the current hardware?