Hopper + speculations and ruminations

[bookworm370]

Please delete post.... Can't find a delete option

 

[charlesrshell]

Please delete post.... Can't find a delete option

Where did your post go. I have same concerns as you. Also it has been posted that the USB 2.0 port can be used. I would think as a minimum the USB 3.0 would be the primary port.

 

[bookworm370]

Ahh, you read it before I rethought it. Sharp guy.

I didn't want to start a war until we have all the info in.

I started thinking the only way it could even conceivably work was to send the completely
compressed MPEG4 data stream across the USB and then have the Hopper + do the heavy lifting. Sort of the way you can still watch HD and UHD from an EHD on a USB 2 port.

But on multiple streams, if the Hopper + doesn't have an Ethernet connection where they could also create a MOCA path as well, I can't see how it could handle not just the local TV and also up to 4 Joey's at the same time.

Just the geek in me I guess.

 

[ethanlerma]

I started thinking the only way it could even conceivably work was to send the completely
compressed MPEG4 data stream across the USB and then have the Hopper + do the heavy lifting. Sort of the way you can still watch HD and UHD from an EHD on a USB 2 port.

I'm pretty sure you are right on the money. Why? Well, here is my theory. Only the HWS and H3 are supported. What do these two receivers have in common, that also makes the H2K incompatible (which AFAIF has the same SoC as the HWS)?

The "Sling" capability, aka a video encoder of some sort. This encoder is more efficient then the MPEG4 that comes down from the satellites (H.264/5?), and allows for reasonable internet bandwidth usage with dishanywhere. So, Instead of the raw MPEG4 stream from the satellites, you are essentially going to see a Sling stream from the Hopper to the Plus device. This would also explain the difficulties that Dish is apparently having getting Multiview working.

But on multiple streams, if the Hopper + doesn't have an Ethernet connection where they could also create a MOCA path as well, I can't see how it could handle not just the local TV and also up to 4 Joey's at the same time.

I'm pretty sure the Joeys will pull the satellite video feeds directly from the Hopper, in the worst case scenario you are allowed up to 5 Joeys per H3, so that is up to 6 1080i streams, out of which 5 would be bi-directional to boot. It would be really inefficient to do it over even USB3. Same with DVR recordings, all still done on the Hopper itself, but the Plus becomes the coordinator.

The AirTV devices they make sort of do this already, they have integrated or external storage, OTA tuners and some logic to manage them. Then everything is streamed over LAN to your devices.

 

[pattykay]

So, Instead of the raw MPEG4 stream from the satellites, you are essentially going to see a Sling stream from the Hopper to the Plus device. This would also explain the difficulties that Dish is apparently having getting Multiview working.

The only problem I can see with that is the most recent information we have about the number of simultaneous Sling streams these Hoppers can handle is a limit of three. Even that is a fairly recent software improvement. The previous limit was only one Sling stream at a time. So, I wonder if this limits the number of new Joey 4's that can currently be paired with the Hopper+. Maybe the new customers being selected to test this system are not truly random. It could be that only new customers who need two or fewer Joeys get the new equipment. Anyone needing three or more Joeys would not get the Hopper+, until Dish gets things sorted out to be able to support four or more simultaneous Sling streams. At that point, Multiview would also be enabled.

I'm pretty sure the Joeys will pull the satellite video feeds directly from the Hopper

If this is the case though, that creates the possibility that the new Joey 4's will still work with a Hopper Duo and/or H2K, even though neither of those models would support the Hopper+.