Hopper/Joeys Install Friday Afternoon

[dhickman]

View attachment Proposed Hopper install - Ethernet based.pdf

I have attached a pdf of what I want to do.

Basics -

1 Hopper in Childrens Front Room ( easy to access where I want the dish install)
1 Joey on Primary HDTV 1080p in TV Room
1 Joey in home office (720p)

I prefer to have the hopper installed on the seconday children's tv since it would very easy to repurpose an old telephone jack where the brick wall was penetrated years ago. The primary TV is an interior room with hard wood walls that I really do not want anyone to mess with.

I am currently using a 200mbit Homepower network between the kids tv, main-tv and the server/office room. Each location has a boxee box pushing 1080p and can easily handle bluray quality MKV files ( 8-12 GIGS per movie) Netflix also will play 1080p with no problems. The home office has Gig ethernet with an internet connection of 20up/100down.

From what I have read, the system unofficially supports ethernet. I would prefer to install the system as documented.

Ethernet directly to Hopper, RG6 to dish outside. Each joey connected directly to ethernet.

The house is quite old, and if I need to run wiring to each room, it will be cat5 or cat6. My current setup with higher end Powerline bridges can handle the MKV data over a SMB network, unless Dish is pushing 20+ megabit streams, I do not see how this would be an issue, especially since I have heard of people getting it to work with 802.11b and the original power line 2Mbit sling adapters.

If the installer will do this, the install should be pretty simple and quick, but if he insists on running rg6 to each location he will be spending hours in a 120+ degree attic.

Am I insane? or any better ideas?

Also what control over the system does the Joey have, will I still need to access the Hopper once in a while? I had a directtv (at my old rental house) whole house system and the slave receivers were limited in the control of the DVRs. My new (old) house had Dish at some point but the cable run went to a room that we do not watch tv. This new system appears to be the integration of sat tv/ DVR/ and iptv.

Thanks

David H Hickman

 

[MattG@DISH]

The technician will need to hookup your Joeys with coax (you also need a solo node in your installation). Where we have seen that Joeys are working over the home network, we do not officially support it.

The Joeys have a couple limitations over the Hopper, but not many

 

[dhickman]

The technician will need to hookup your Joeys with coax (you also need a solo node in your installation). Where we have seen that Joeys are working over the home network, we do not officially support it.

The Joeys have a couple limitations over the Hopper, but not many

The problem with them running coax is that they will want to penetrate my brick exterior ( i have dealt with Dish contractors before a couple of years ago during the 922 nightmare and they almost burnt my house down by not grounding the system.) The only way that I will allow coax to be ran to each location is via the attic. The problem is that the there are three non connected attics/vaulted rooms where the equipment is to be installed. When I moved to this house, direct tv stated that they would not install under the free move plan since I would not allow them to penetrate the exterior brick. They quoted me around $2,000 to do the install. I told them where to go and bought a couple more Boxee boxes and enjoy them, but the hopper system looks interesting and I miss the documentary channels.

Are the installers required to install COAX via the attic? If that is the case, I can have them put the Hopper on the primary tv and then put a joey on the kids tv.

What are the limitations of the Joey? All I want it to do is have an EPG, 1080p, manage recordings, and be a DNLA client. With the HR-24 and H-24 the non-dvr receivers could only view and delete from the dvrs but not schedule.

Thanks

 

[MattG@DISH]

The problem with them running coax is that they will want to penetrate my brick exterior ( i have dealt with Dish contractors before a couple of years ago during the 922 nightmare and they almost burnt my house down by not grounding the system.) The only way that I will allow coax to be ran to each location is via the attic. The problem is that the there are three non connected attics/vaulted rooms where the equipment is to be installed. When I moved to this house, direct tv stated that they would not install under the free move plan since I would not allow them to penetrate the exterior brick. They quoted me around $2,000 to do the install. I told them where to go and bought a couple more Boxee boxes and enjoy them, but the hopper system looks interesting and I miss the documentary channels.

Are the installers required to install COAX via the attic? If that is the case, I can have them put the Hopper on the primary tv and then put a joey on the kids tv.

What are the limitations of the Joey? All I want it to do is have an EPG, 1080p, manage recordings, and be a DNLA client. With the HR-24 and H-24 the non-dvr receivers could only view and delete from the dvrs but not schedule.

Thanks

The tech may be able to install the coax in your attic, but there may be an extra charge to have this done (he can determine once onsite).

The Joeys have EPG, can do 1080p (only 1080p content is VOD), and can manage the recordings, and be a DLNA client (you'll want a HIC installed for this, which tech can provide free).

 

[dhickman]

The tech may be able to install the coax in your attic, but there may be an extra charge to have this done (he can determine once onsite).

The Joeys have EPG, can do 1080p (only 1080p content is VOD), and can manage the recordings, and be a DLNA client (you'll want a HIC installed for this, which tech can provide free).

Well if that is the case, then it is likely that I will cancel the install.

There is no reason at all to use a legacy physical medium for an ip based delivery system. If the coax is already existing then the case could be argued, but to require the deployment of coax to run IP over it does not make sense.

If I am going to pay money to run cable, I will run cat6 and then isolate a vlan if needed for video distribution. I already have a couple of vlans in the house for my server network (iptv) (kids) (office) (servers) (wifi.)

The writing is on the wall, and Dish (with the hopper tech) and ATT (uverse) are both in a good position to eventually migrate over to an ip only distribution system where the only thing that matters is that the end user has a decent internet connection. The market is shifting this way and they can either adapt or be left behind. My Boxee boxes can access the BBC, EU and Japanese streaming channels in full 1080P. Even MLB TV is 1080P. This works well even over my Verizon 3G/4G phone tether.

Personally I want the ease of being able to stream ~250 channels and then combine it with Netflix and MLB on demand. I am willing to pay the premium for a Sat or cable based system, only if it can allow for me to consume the data in a manner that I want it to. To date the Hopper is the closest thing that I have seen and even complements a roku/boxee/mythtv setup.

I realize I am in the ultimate small minority of customers (over 40 and extremely tech savvy,) but there is a growing group of consumers that is scaring the hell of of the establishment. The 20 something crowd does not watch television on the same screen at a set schedule. DVRs are a pain in the ass for them and too limited. They don't care where the media comes from, and to be honest, tired of commercials or even paying for content. Netflix and Hulu appealed to them until both companies started to screw with the content and rates, so their solution was to go back to downloading the content from Peer to Peer or darknets. Many of them do not even watch television at all.

If Dish wants to attract and retain PAYING tech savvy customers, then they need to embrace tech like IPTV. Otherwise they will only be a rural television provider when the 20ish crowd gets into their 40s and can afford toys. I deal with this crowd all of the time as a infomation security officer for a very large university. They actually demanded that we pull the free cable tv from their rooms and common areas so they could have better internet access.

Right now I can easily obtain 1080p content without commercials about an hour after it airs anywhere in the world. If the content has a live stream that is geographically locked ( like MLB or the BBC) it is trivial and legal (VPN) to shift the source location to bypass these restrictions. Note all of this content except the MLB is free if you know where to look. Here is the thing, I actually want to pay (and do for MLB.TV) for the content and would like to have a system that has real time feeds. The Hopper tech is the first thing in years to be something interesting, that is why you are seeing reviews of this system on sites like Slashdot and EnGadget. However requiring legacy wiring for no logical reason other than the installer will not understand it, or the tech line will have difficulties trouble shooting it, will kill this tech in the eyes of people like myself and the younger crowds.

Ethernet based installs can be easily supported by Dish. They can treat it like the cable company does. The cable company will log into the cable modem and check connectivity, if they discover that the end user has installed their own router, and it appears to be functioning, then the problem is on the customer side and they have to fix it themselves. Dish could do the same thing. User calls in saying that their Joey is not working, the tech logs into the hopper and sees that the end user is using ethernet or wireless, instead of the moca connection. He runs some diagnostics and it shows packet loss on the ethernet interface. The user has a choice, they can fix it themselves, or pay for a truck roll if the problems ends up being something on their network (like an infected windoze computer.) This is how Ma Bell has supported user installed phones and lines for decades.

Sorry for the long post, but it is kinda silly to require installing new coax just for IP data.

 

[rocket69]

your network diagrams are on par just have them run jumpers all around your house to get the system on line after save all the coax

Hopper system on a subnet with its own router with a static add from main router and gigabit switches not shared to any device in your home other then joe's. "happy networking"

 

[dhickman]

your network diagrams are on par just have them run jumpers all around your house to get the system on line after save all the coax

Hopper system on a subnet with its own router with a static add from main router and gigabit switches not shared to any device in your home other then joe's. "happy networking"

Do you use a hic or just plugged the Hopper directly into the switch.

Also if you did use a HIC, did you have them hook it up via the solo node on the client side?



This is my initial idea. In a month or two I am planning on running cat6 to each room, at that point the entire system will be on its own vlan.

thanks

 

[rocket69]

Im a tech for higher to the highest bidder. Dont care if its sat or networking if i get payed then im happy.

When we tested the hopper system we tested only one hopper and 4 joeys. full install standard coax then just jacked them in to the existing network and removed all the coax other then the hopper. Every thing was fine and dandy for quite some time till i need to show a client the network movie storage and MVK files where like watching youtube on 28K back in the day. After we jumped all the lines into a singe gig router and gave it its own ip off the main to distro to the new sub and every thing via the network has been fine. even have one via wifi and moca has been full bars. We only tested one hopper as we dont have 2 hoppers on our account so no telling how it will work with 2 on a router.

If you have issues you must put it all back on coax and if the issue is still showing call dish leaving it all cat 6 will just make the tech fell stupid and he wont do the job

 

[njk986]

When we tested the hopper system we tested only one hopper and 4 joeys.

One hopper and 4 Joeys? I thought that setup wasn't possible.

 

[Austin G]

Any tech I'm sure wouldn't mind doing an easy install by laying coax through the house and leaving it up to you for the networking after he leaves. You're just going to be screwed if dish decides they don't want joeys to be able to access the hopper via the network connection. It creates a network outside their control and could be easily disabled at any time. If they were to decide to do so surely the few customers that decided to modify their installations outside of dish standards won't be changing that. So you are taking the risk of some time in your 24 months you may be screwed on your joeys.

 

[dhickman]

Any tech I'm sure wouldn't mind doing an easy install by laying coax through the house and leaving it up to you for the networking after he leaves. You're just going to be screwed if dish decides they don't want joeys to be able to access the hopper via the network connection. It creates a network outside their control and could be easily disabled at any time. If they were to decide to do so surely the few customers that decided to modify their installations outside of dish standards won't be changing that. So you are taking the risk of some time in your 24 months you may be screwed on your joeys.

I read up on the MOCA standard and it is simply a networking standard for COAX. All that is needed to intercommunicate with a standard cat5 or other network technology is a network bridge or protocol converter ( the HIC), or coax port is wired into an internal switch on device like the Hopper and Joeys.

If Dish decided to put up traffic filters on the ethernet port of the Joeys and hoppers to block the iptv portion (and complicates things), then all that needs to be done is to buy a HIC for each joey and plug it into the coax input, and then plug it into the network. Unless there is an undocumented "feature" that does not comply with MOCA or Ethernet standards, this has to work.

I do not see why Dish would even want to do something like this, since it would only affect their really high end users. Anyway, I just discovered a way to deal with it should Dish decide to do that.

 

[dhickman]

I read up on the MOCA standard and it is simply a networking standard for COAX. All that is needed to intercommunicate with a standard cat5 or other network technology is a network bridge or protocol converter ( the HIC), or coax port is wired into an internal switch on device like the Hopper and Joeys.

If Dish decided to put up traffic filters on the ethernet port of the Joeys and hoppers to block the iptv portion (and complicates things), then all that needs to be done is to buy a HIC for each joey and plug it into the coax input, and then plug it into the network. Unless there is an undocumented "feature" that does not comply with MOCA or Ethernet standards, this has to work.

I do not see why Dish would even want to do something like this, since it would only affect their really high end users. Anyway, I just discovered a way to deal with it should Dish decide to do that.

The installer arrived at 5:40pm ( 12-5pm) slot.

He reinstalled an old DISH/DIRECTTV install on the roof.

He then ran a direct line to the hopper in the main tv room.

The joeys were hooked up with jumper cables and a HIC was attached directly to my switch.

By the time the downloads to the joeys were complete, I had configured a dedicated vlan. At that point they were directly attached to the ethernet network and the coax removed.

It works very well. I plan on having some network stats in a few days from some network tools.

 

[PokerMunkee]

Nice, I love technology. Subscribed to see your findings on the network bandwidth.

 

[dhickman]

Nice, I love technology. Subscribed to see your findings on the network bandwidth.

So far, I have yet to see the hopper go over 9mbit in streams to the joeys. All internet access from the joeys for apps and on demand are proxied through the hopper.

To tell you the truth, this is the way tv clients should be. Have the primary system with access to the fat pipe, in a central location, and then have versatile clients that can be adapted for the specific client site needs. In my case wifi would never work since 2.4gig is saturated, but for many customers this would be a good option.

For myself using a combination of switched 1 gig ethernet and 500/200 mbit PowerLine bridges work great. Now If I want to watch TV in another part of the house, I can grab a hopper and plug it into the wall and Tv and it just works.

We just finished watching the Indy 500 with a tv outside by the BBQ pit and then tonite we are going to have a party while watching the Thunder Vs Spurs game outside. If I had a traditional sat system, this would not have been easy to do without cables all over the place or a very expensive wireless HDMI setup. I am probably going to get another joey to use for this specific purpose and and in the Garage and barn (about 1000 feet from the house but has 5 gig wifi.)

 

[dhickman]

Here is some info from ntop. The Dish stuff is listed in there.

The system definitely favors the MOCA connection (as expected) but as these stats show, the system can easily work on a basic home network. I am going to toss my video vlan on something that Ntop can see for specific data in the next day or so.


Network Throughput: All Hosts - Data Sent+Received

Hosts: All Local Only Remote Only

Data: All Sent Only Received Only

Host	Location	Data	Packets
Current	Avg	Peak	Current	Avg	Peak
Amys-Ipad		0.0 bit/s	190.6 bit/s	15.7 Kbit/s	0.0 Pkt/s	0.1 Pkt/s	10.9 Pkt/s
dhickmans-iPad		49.1 bit/s	121.7 Kbit/s	22.1 Mbit/s	0.1 Pkt/s	12.6 Pkt/s	2297.1 Pkt/s
hopper_eth1		676.3 bit/s	219.0 bit/s	4.1 Kbit/s	0.9 Pkt/s	0.2 Pkt/s	2.0 Pkt/s
hopper_moca		1.3 Kbit/s	3.8 Kbit/s	1.9 Mbit/s	1.7 Pkt/s	0.9 Pkt/s	266.3 Pkt/s
joey_eth0		676.3 bit/s	204.8 bit/s	3.7 Kbit/s	0.9 Pkt/s	0.3 Pkt/s	2.2 Pkt/s
joey_eth0		676.3 bit/s	170.7 bit/s	3.1 Kbit/s	0.9 Pkt/s	0.2 Pkt/s	1.6 Pkt/s

Peak values are the maximum value for any 10 second interval.
Average values are recomputed each 60 seconds, using values accumulated since this run of ntop was started.
Note: Both values are reset each time ntop is restarted.
Network Traffic [All Protocols]: All Hosts - Data Sent+Received

Hosts: All Local Only Remote Only

Data: All Sent Only Received Only

Host	Location	Data	TCP	UDP	ICMP	ICMPv6	DLC	IPX	IPsec	(R)ARP	AppleTalk	NetBios	GRE	IPv6	STP	IPsec	OSPF	IGMP	Other
dhickmans-iPad		818.2 MBytes	35.1 %	816.6 MBytes	1.5 MBytes	20.3 KBytes	0	0	0	0	59.7 KBytes	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	292	0
hopper_moca		25.4 MBytes	1.1 %	23.9 MBytes	481.4 KBytes	990.0 KBytes	0	0	0	0	124.7 KBytes	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
192.168.2.1		23.9 MBytes	1.0 %	3.7 MBytes	7.0 MBytes	12.3 MBytes	0	0	0	0	1003.9 KBytes	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
hopper_eth1		1.5 MBytes	0.1 %	3.8 KBytes	382.0 KBytes	1001.6 KBytes	0	0	0	0	119.7 KBytes	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
joey_eth0		1.4 MBytes	0.1 %	22.1 KBytes	280.1 KBytes	979.0 KBytes	0	0	0	0	127.8 KBytes	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Amys-Ipad		1.3 MBytes	0.1 %	119.3 KBytes	1.1 MBytes	210	0	0	0	0	63.2 KBytes	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
joey_eth0		1.1 MBytes	0.0 %	22.1 KBytes	52.5 KBytes	976.4 KBytes	0	0	0	0	122.9 KBytes	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Note: These counters do not include broadcasts and will not equal the 'Global Protocol Distribution'

TCP/UDP: Local Protocol Usage

Reporting on actual traffic for 25 host(s) on 15 service port(s)

Service	Clients	Servers
daytime	13	192.168.2.2	192.168.2.1
ssh	22	192.168.2.2 192.168.2.2	192.168.2.253 192.168.2.1
smtp	25	monolith 192.168.2.2	192.168.2.1
time	37	192.168.2.2	192.168.2.1
domain	53	monolith linksyspap monolith 192.168.2.253 dhickmans-iPad 192.168.2.20 Amys-Ipad 192.168.2.250 joey_eth0 joey_eth0 192.168.2.2 192.168.2.49 hopper_eth1 hopper_moca 192.168.2.200	192.168.2.1
bootps	67	monolith linksyspap monolith squeezeboxradio dhickmans-iPad Amys-Ipad joey_eth0 joey_eth0 192.168.2.49 hopper_eth1 hopper_moca	192.168.2.1
bootpc	68	192.168.2.1	monolith linksyspap monolith squeezeboxradio dhickmans-iPad Amys-Ipad joey_eth0 joey_eth0 192.168.2.49 hopper_eth1 hopper_moca
www	80	monolith monolith 192.168.2.2 192.168.2.253 dhickmans-iPad 192.168.2.20 Amys-Ipad 192.168.2.250 192.168.2.2 192.168.2.49 hopper_moca 192.168.2.200	192.168.2.250
auth	113	192.168.2.2	192.168.2.1
ntp	123	monolith linksyspap monolith dhickmans-iPad 192.168.2.250 192.168.2.200	monolith monolith dhickmans-iPad 192.168.2.250 192.168.2.200
netbios-ns	137	monolith	192.168.2.2 192.168.2.44 192.168.2.1
https	443	monolith monolith dhickmans-iPad Amys-Ipad 192.168.2.33 192.168.2.250 192.168.2.2 192.168.2.49 hopper_moca 192.168.2.200
submission	587	monolith 192.168.2.2	192.168.2.1
imaps	993	monolith
1022	1022	hopper_moca

hopper_eth1		192.168.2.41	00:13:B6:xxxxxxxxx				Sling Media, Inc.		5	15:33:19

joey_eth0		192.168.2.61	00:13:B6:xxxxxxx				Sling Media, Inc.		5	15:33:14	5 sec
joey_eth0		192.168.2.55	00:13:B6:xxxxxx				Sling Media, Inc.		6	15:33:17

 

[navychop]

I'd love to hear how that last bit (wifi) works out for you.

 

[dhickman]

I'd love to hear how that last bit (wifi) works out for you.

Wifi works fine from the barn. As long as you can keep the device in the same broadcast domain, and have adequate bandwidth and latency, I do not see how this would not work, as long as the devices stick to RFCs.