Need help in understanding Dish

[surveymanager]

I have DishNetwork with two VIP 722 DVRs. Each is installed behind one television. My wife and I use one in the living room, my son uses one in his room. Our DVR usages is that we never watch anything that is not recorded, so we have lots of times when we cannot record as many shows as we want (minor irritant). The big irritant is that if we have two shows recording from 7-8 and two from 8-9, then the 7-8 shows end at 8 (even though we have set them to record 5 minutes longer) in order to catch the 8PM shows. With the networks allowing about 5 seconds between shows it is rather difficult to hit it dead on, so we often lose the last 20 seconds of a show and find those are always the most important 20 seconds.

We thought a cure would be able to record more shows at once and the Hopper sort of does that, although I am completely unable to understand how it would be a good deal to have 112 hours of stuff recorded on my DVR that contains about 16 hours I want and 90+ hours of stuff I need to delete. Can someone explain how this works from the user perspective? Because DishNetwork sure can't.

OK, Dish says I have to get rid of both DVRs to get a Hopper. Why? I can understand the Hopper may be wired differently, and that likely requires another dish and more wiring, but I don't understand why that automatically means they can't leave one of the 722s connected to the old Dish and just put in a new one (with wiring). (I even own the DVR).

Thanks!

 

[Tampa8]

Hopper is indeed wired completely differently. Technically a VIP receiver like yours could be in the system, but for a variety of reasons Dish does not want it done and seems to be one thing they will not budge on. (A VIP 211K can purchased but still not allowed for home use, meant for an RV) Without getting into full details one reason is to cut down on account stacking. Another is because they are connected so differently it is thought Dish did not want interference between the two systems and make it harder to install the Hopper. Yet another could be to at least start to move people to the Hopper and off the older systems.

Not sure I follow what you think is not a "Good Deal." It will record all the networks during primetime using only one tuner, leaving two others available for other channels to record at the same time. And all tuners are available for both rooms. It sounds like exactly what you want. It has been a huge hit, I would say faster than I would have thought.
One thing though - you now have four tuners, one Hopper has three. During non prime time hours or if not recording anything from the four networks you would have less tuners available than now. From your description you are only using two tuners, and your Son is using two? It depends on what you usually record, it's possible one Hopper would help if you record more than one of the networks at night.

 

[mike123abc]

The 722 should record +3 minutes. But, if you are also recording the show immediately after it will not do so, but the ending of the show should be on the next show. I find this annoying, but it is more the fault of the networks than the cable/DBS company.

If you start watching the second show use the skip back button to find the ending of the first show. Usually it is less than a second lost between the two shows, but your TV takes a few seconds to sync with the DVR when watching the second show so you lose these seconds. But, skip back tends to go back and then you can see the ending.

 

[garys]

OK, Dish says I have to get rid of both DVRs to get a Hopper. Why? I can understand the Hopper may be wired differently, and that likely requires another dish and more wiring, but I don't understand why that automatically means they can't leave one of the 722s connected to the old Dish and just put in a new one (with wiring). (I even own the DVR).

Thanks!

Dish does not allow it (it could be due to the wiring as each Hopper is fed three frequencies in order to work correctly). I don't think they explained the reasons why they don't allow it, but in your case I would think 2 Hoppers would be better for you than one with a 722.

 

[dare2be]

Sounds like he is recording a show directly after that is on a different channel, which would not contain the ending of the first show.

I use buffers of 2 minutes before and 2 minutes after, which will almost always record the overlaps of 2 consecutive programs in the schedule (whether they are on the same channel or not) by switching between tuners. If a 3rd (or 4th) event is scheduled to record during that overlap time, then it or one of the others will get skipped by priority. I manage this problem by finding re-airs of the same program, extending the first program in the schedule to cover the 2nd program if it is airing on the same channel as the first (or skip both and create a manual timer). All this is dependent on the situation at the time, so it does occasionally become an active management effort.

If most of your timer conflicts are on local channels, then PTAT on the Hopper will solve all of those, as the entire primetime lineup for each channel is saved as one continuous stream (with pointers for each individual program).

 

[sparc]

We thought a cure would be able to record more shows at once and the Hopper sort of does that, although I am completely unable to understand how it would be a good deal to have 112 hours of stuff recorded on my DVR that contains about 16 hours I want and 90+ hours of stuff I need to delete. Can someone explain how this works from the user perspective? Because DishNetwork sure can't.

If you're referring to PTAT, you don't have to delete any of it. It automatically deletes after 8 days. You just set timers for the 16 hours of shows you want to save out of PTAT.

Hopper comes with a 2 Terabyte hard drive. You won't be lacking for space.

I think your real problem is trading from a 4 tuner system down to a 3 tuner hopper system with three people in your household. If you do decide to change to the hopper, you want to be absolutely sure that you can manage any conflicts with sharing those tuners for recording/live viewing.

If you're concerned about conflicts with too few tuners, then you may want to go with 2 Hoppers. Although that might involve some level of hassle to get since you only have 2 TVs. You may have to upgrade to 2H/2J and then drop the 2 joeys during the install.

 

[surveymanager]

Wow, thanks! I never thought of getting two Hoppers! I'd like to save some stuff from the 722s. If I put the shows on an external drive can the Hoppers read them?

 

[sparc]

Wow, thanks! I never thought of getting two Hoppers! I'd like to save some stuff from the 722s. If I put the shows on an external drive can the Hoppers read them?

yes. Just load all your recordings onto the external drive before the install date so you have it all ready to go.

 

[garys]

Wow, thanks! I never thought of getting two Hoppers! I'd like to save some stuff from the 722s. If I put the shows on an external drive can the Hoppers read them?

Yes, but the EHD is only viewed from the Hopper it is connected to. Each Hopper can view the recordings on the other Hopper though.

 

[3HaloODST]

Dish does not allow it (it could be due to the wiring as each Hopper is fed three frequencies in order to work correctly). I don't think they explained the reasons why they don't allow it, but in your case I would think 2 Hoppers would be better for you than one with a 722.

Nope it's definitely not a technical limitation... Hopper still uses DPP (two tuners per line band stacked) technology on the dish-side of the node just like the ViPs. The dpX (3 tuners per line, band translation/band stacking) technology is on the other side of the node. The general consensus is that Dish is not allowing ViPs on Hopper accounts to prevent account stacking.

 

[surveymanager]

Thank you all for your support!

 

[garys]

Nope it's definitely not a technical limitation... Hopper still uses DPP (two tuners per line band stacked) technology on the dish-side of the node just like the ViPs. The dpX (3 tuners per line, band translation/band stacking) technology is on the other side of the node. The general consensus is that Dish is not allowing ViPs on Hopper accounts to prevent account stacking.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Tampa8]

Thank you all for your support!

Now get it installed!