Just had my install — was with a subcontractor of Dish and his (and company's first too) first hopper per setup…
The bad:
At first the hopper per was not able to Acquire the correct satellite during setup, it was trying to look onto 119 even though I was an EA customer… after running through just about all of the transponders on step 1 of 5, the Hooper then skipped to the last step quickly on sat 77. But then appeared to hang for 10-15 minutes, and you could not press 'select' to switch displayed or 'menu' to pull up the menu… so we decided to do a power pull. After it rebooted (quickly I must say) same thing… the installer went to the menu screen which worked and performed a 'check switch' which passed all tests, but provided only signal on 72. He then proceeded to the 'factory rest' option in the menu (which his boss told him to do) on reboot it yet again tried to lock onto 119, but on step 2 through 5 used 77, and then finished.
the Good!
The hopper per now started the setup wizard and finished with out issues (took maybe 30 minutes in total once the above issues were worked out), signal on 77 was about 100, 61.5 was in the high 80's, and 72 was in the high 90's… not sure if those are any good (on my D* boxes I had high 90's and most 100 on all sats - I notice E* uses a 125 scale? hope they are good enough to handle rain fade) Then we powered up the Joey - which took all of maybe 20 minutes from start to finish. Loved it! (so did he lol)
My observations so far:
* PQ does look a bit worse than I was use to with D* - f the fact was that I didn't gain some channels over D* and pay a hefty amount less with E* I would be upset. But in reality I think it will be just fine!
* Easy of use with the menus and guide - it is different from what me and my wife are use to, but seems intuitive (kind of funny off topic but both my previous HR boxes from D* and now this E* box appear to have better menus and process than the TiVo Premiere I tried prior to switch to E*….)
* My Joey is telling me that it is not connected to the broadband (hooper is all green and seems to work just fine) I did try to reconnect and sync but no internet, I tried using on demand and no go) maybe it was karma as the installer insisted that I use the Internet Hub kit E* makes, but since my router is 1.5ft from my Hooper I figured why have the extra box (which I couldn't stand with D* had a DECA box, had a power injector box, had a splitter, had a kitchen sink lol) So I will try that later…
* Whole Home DVR from what I have played with is superior than my HR24s I had with D* - everything from speed of guide, to speed of fast forwarding and speed of a show starting.
* The installer I would recommend 100% for being his first hopper you really would have known it (unless you were a SG member
)
* PTAT - I didn't know it also included weekends, I figured it was just M-F. So 8 days technically only gives you 1 episode (or 2 I guess but just for 1 day then its 1 + the newer one) I'll have to see if its easy to push an episode over to the "DVR" list incase we are a week+ behind.
* Is there any easy place to see how space is left on the "DVR" side of the drive, as I believe the drive is "partitioned" for 1TB for me and 1TB for PTAT and PPV correct?
Oh and who gets the gold star in all of this?
Scott and the site here that he created for our enjoyment and education! I must say this place ROCKS, thanks for every ones help and feed back!!!!!! (thank you Scott!!)
The bad:
At first the hopper per was not able to Acquire the correct satellite during setup, it was trying to look onto 119 even though I was an EA customer… after running through just about all of the transponders on step 1 of 5, the Hooper then skipped to the last step quickly on sat 77. But then appeared to hang for 10-15 minutes, and you could not press 'select' to switch displayed or 'menu' to pull up the menu… so we decided to do a power pull. After it rebooted (quickly I must say) same thing… the installer went to the menu screen which worked and performed a 'check switch' which passed all tests, but provided only signal on 72. He then proceeded to the 'factory rest' option in the menu (which his boss told him to do) on reboot it yet again tried to lock onto 119, but on step 2 through 5 used 77, and then finished.
the Good!
The hopper per now started the setup wizard and finished with out issues (took maybe 30 minutes in total once the above issues were worked out), signal on 77 was about 100, 61.5 was in the high 80's, and 72 was in the high 90's… not sure if those are any good (on my D* boxes I had high 90's and most 100 on all sats - I notice E* uses a 125 scale? hope they are good enough to handle rain fade) Then we powered up the Joey - which took all of maybe 20 minutes from start to finish. Loved it! (so did he lol)
My observations so far:
* PQ does look a bit worse than I was use to with D* - f the fact was that I didn't gain some channels over D* and pay a hefty amount less with E* I would be upset. But in reality I think it will be just fine!
* Easy of use with the menus and guide - it is different from what me and my wife are use to, but seems intuitive (kind of funny off topic but both my previous HR boxes from D* and now this E* box appear to have better menus and process than the TiVo Premiere I tried prior to switch to E*….)
* My Joey is telling me that it is not connected to the broadband (hooper is all green and seems to work just fine) I did try to reconnect and sync but no internet, I tried using on demand and no go) maybe it was karma as the installer insisted that I use the Internet Hub kit E* makes, but since my router is 1.5ft from my Hooper I figured why have the extra box (which I couldn't stand with D* had a DECA box, had a power injector box, had a splitter, had a kitchen sink lol) So I will try that later…
* Whole Home DVR from what I have played with is superior than my HR24s I had with D* - everything from speed of guide, to speed of fast forwarding and speed of a show starting.
* The installer I would recommend 100% for being his first hopper you really would have known it (unless you were a SG member
) * PTAT - I didn't know it also included weekends, I figured it was just M-F. So 8 days technically only gives you 1 episode (or 2 I guess but just for 1 day then its 1 + the newer one) I'll have to see if its easy to push an episode over to the "DVR" list incase we are a week+ behind.
* Is there any easy place to see how space is left on the "DVR" side of the drive, as I believe the drive is "partitioned" for 1TB for me and 1TB for PTAT and PPV correct?
Oh and who gets the gold star in all of this?
Scott and the site here that he created for our enjoyment and education! I must say this place ROCKS, thanks for every ones help and feed back!!!!!! (thank you Scott!!)
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