Looking at switching to Dish From 4 years of DTV
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There are a couple of errors in other posts in this thread that could affect your buying decision:
1) You can NOT have a Super Joey and 2 Hoppers.
To fit your needs you can order:
1 Hopper, 1 Super Joey and 1 Joey
or
2 Hoppers and 1 Joey
or
1 Hopper and 2 Joeys, but this may not provide sufficient tuners
2) The number of tuners is as follows:
3 tuners/Hopper
2 tuners on the Super Joey
0 tuners on a Joey
So with 2 Hoppers you get 6 tuners and only FIVE with 1 Hopper + Super Joey
Remember that the 4 networks use a single tuner so depending on what you are recording/watching live you can add 3 to the above numbers for total programs. This is commonly referred to as Prime Time AnyTime or PTAT. However, PTAT is really a way to record all shows on the 4 networks during prime time hours without setting timers. The tuner sharing occurs all the time whether PTAT is on or off.
Watching live uses one tuner or 1/4 of the PTAT tuner. Watching a previously recorded program does NOT use a tuner.
You can add an off-air DTV tuner USB dongle and gain one additional tuner to watch/record off-air programming. Each Hopper can accept one USB dongle.
Depending on your viewing habits, you may not need a box dedicated to each TV. You can "mirror" one box to a second TV which would then display the same thing as the primary TV. Hopper has component analog outputs allowing them to be run to a second TV. Joey (and Super Joey) do not. You can use an HDMI splitter on any of the boxes as an alternate way to mirror.
Hopper and Super Joey integrate all programming into a single list and record off of the same set of timers. Two Hoppers have independent DVRs and their own set of timers so getting to programming is sometimes more difficult. Recent software changes allow a timer to utilize a tuner in the other Hopper if all are currently in use, so it's not as bad as it was initially.
Two Hoppers provides redundancy should one fail. With a single Hopper, with or without a Super Joey, all TV viewing is down until the Hopper can be replaced.
1) You can NOT have a Super Joey and 2 Hoppers.
To fit your needs you can order:
1 Hopper, 1 Super Joey and 1 Joey
or
2 Hoppers and 1 Joey
or
1 Hopper and 2 Joeys, but this may not provide sufficient tuners
2) The number of tuners is as follows:
3 tuners/Hopper
2 tuners on the Super Joey
0 tuners on a Joey
So with 2 Hoppers you get 6 tuners and only FIVE with 1 Hopper + Super Joey
Remember that the 4 networks use a single tuner so depending on what you are recording/watching live you can add 3 to the above numbers for total programs. This is commonly referred to as Prime Time AnyTime or PTAT. However, PTAT is really a way to record all shows on the 4 networks during prime time hours without setting timers. The tuner sharing occurs all the time whether PTAT is on or off.
Watching live uses one tuner or 1/4 of the PTAT tuner. Watching a previously recorded program does NOT use a tuner.
You can add an off-air DTV tuner USB dongle and gain one additional tuner to watch/record off-air programming. Each Hopper can accept one USB dongle.
Depending on your viewing habits, you may not need a box dedicated to each TV. You can "mirror" one box to a second TV which would then display the same thing as the primary TV. Hopper has component analog outputs allowing them to be run to a second TV. Joey (and Super Joey) do not. You can use an HDMI splitter on any of the boxes as an alternate way to mirror.
Hopper and Super Joey integrate all programming into a single list and record off of the same set of timers. Two Hoppers have independent DVRs and their own set of timers so getting to programming is sometimes more difficult. Recent software changes allow a timer to utilize a tuner in the other Hopper if all are currently in use, so it's not as bad as it was initially.
Two Hoppers provides redundancy should one fail. With a single Hopper, with or without a Super Joey, all TV viewing is down until the Hopper can be replaced.
