Need a little education please..............

[bnewt]

I currently have 2 722's. 1 feeds 3 other tv's via the home distribution outlet, the other 722 is strictly for 1 tv. I am thinking of changing to the hopper/joey setup, but have a few questions.

If I replace the 722's with 2 hoppers & 2 joeys, will each tv be able to watch different stations? Other than the added recording space, what would I gain with the 2nd hopper vs making it a 3rd joey? Any price savings? Are the hoppers dual tuners like the 722's?

 

[3HaloODST]

If you go with just 1 Hopper, you will have only 3 tuners for 4 TVs. With 2 Hoppers you will have 6 tuners for 4 TVs.

 

[navychop]

Plus, you'll still have some TV service if one Hopper goes down. Joeys need a Hopper to work. Hoppers do not need Joeys, despite what some CSRs have been reported to be saying.

 

[bnewt]

Is a hopper a dual tuner like the 722?

 

[3HaloODST]

It's a triple tuner.

 

[garys]

Triple tuner but only one output, to have two outputs, you need to pair a Joey with it.

 

[3HaloODST]

Each Hopper can support up to 3 Joeys, so for a 1 Hopper system that's up to 3 Joeys. For 2, 6. Each Joey borrows a tuner from the Hopper when it's viewing live TV or recording. So say you get 1 Hopper and 3 Joeys, only 3 TVs at a time will be able to see/record different channels. TV #4 would have to share a tuner or watch a recording.

 

[eddwall]

Doesn't use a tuner when watching a recording...

 

[bnewt]

Each Hopper can support up to 3 Joeys, so for a 1 Hopper system that's up to 3 Joeys. For 2, 6. Each Joey borrows a tuner from the Hopper when it's viewing live TV or recording. So say you get 1 Hopper and 3 Joeys, only 3 TVs at a time will be able to see/record different channels. TV #4 would have to share a tuner or watch a recording.

so only 3 tv's at a time can view live programming in this setup, doesn't matter which 3 does it?

would it be possible to use one of the joey's to transmit wirelessly to another tv?

 

[garys]

More that one receiver can watch the same channel. IE: two receivers watch their own channel, other two watch the same channel.

 

[JM42]

Only you know your real viewing habits and how ofen timer conflicts are a problem. If a lot of your viewing or conflicts involve the big 4 primetime, then PTAT on a single Hopper may be sufficient.

Each Hopper can support three live streams from the sat(2 live + 4 PTAT during primetime). If multiple locations are watching the same live channel they can share a single tuner. If you watch/record much primetime, often watch the same channel, or one of the TVs is really only for occasional use, then a single Hopper may be fine.

That said, unless the up front cost is a major issue, go with the 2H/2J config. The only extra cost would be the up front upgrade for the 2nd Hopper - an extra $100 for most users. Monthly costs will be the same either way. You will probably be happy with the investment.

 

[eddwall]

All great advice from everyone. They are right, it ALL depends on your viewing habits. I have a 2H/4J system, a family of 5 and 6 TVs. Everyone records alot and tuners was the big issue for me.

Also with two Hoopers, you can still have TV. With one Hopper out you are dead till you fix that one Hopper. I lost one Hopper for about a week and a half, trouble shooting duo nodes and Hoppers. Through it all I still had TV, I put 4 Joeys on one Hopper. I enabled PTAT on the Hopper, which gave me two free tuners and one for PTAT,
when you hit the red button, you can access any of the 4 networks "CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC"). So technically I had 5 TVs watching 5 live independent feeds on one Hopper.

With both hoppers now working again, I have distributed the load equally across Hoppers and we use one Hopper for PTAT and movie storage and the other for our individual recordings in our folders.


The only thing I could still wish for is to cross over to either Hopper and use the available tuners when they are busy on your existing Hopper.

Goog Luck
I have really enjoyed my system.