New Hopper?

[Troch77]

There's a practical limit on the load that MoCA can sustain and it is considerably less than the theoretical mesh rates many like to talk about. Flying live channels twice across the network is a bad idea and I expect that's why we have the limits that are in place now.

Build the technology.
If a swm 16 can integrate 16 tuners into a fully functional whole home system from one single switch.
Not sure why it's so difficult for Dish to do 7 or more tuners.

And the Moca limits far excede anything Dish has got going on.

I know a Guy right now with a HR44, 4 HR24s And 3 C41s.
His entire play list can be accessed from every room.

With one Switch (Swm16)the size of the DPP44 that only provides 4 outputs.

I can't even hook up 3 hoppers with one switch.

And my company Cable, allows 4 Tivo Roamios and 8 minis per account. That is all Moca.
And no switches are required just 2 splitters.

 

[bradfordj]

How about a standalone Hopper without requiring you give up all your receivers. I have a 922 and I'd get a Hopper today if my roommate didn't have to give up their 622 to share programming and DVR with me.

 

[harshness]

Navy, this thread asked for imagination. And that was out there but interesting.

This isn't a contest to see who can dream up the most "fantastical" or absurd schemes.

The idea should be to incorporate things that would advance the entertainment experience and be of ongoing use to a majority of users. Every technology license you incorporate adds cost for everyone; whether they can/will use it or not.

 

[dare2be]

There's a practical limit on the load that MoCA can sustain and it is considerably less than the theoretical mesh rates many like to talk about.

Isn't that what the new MOCA 2.0 is supposed to solve?

 

[Troch77]

How about a standalone Hopper without requiring you give up all your receivers. I have a 922 and I'd get a Hopper today if my roommate didn't have to give up their 622 to share programming and DVR with me.

I agree, Instead of worrying about the Actual Hopper Which seems fine to me, Why not work on the Switches and Limits that plague a 3 or 4 Hopper Joeys system,and re incorporate the VIP dvrs back into the systems.

 

[Troch77]

Isn't that what the new MOCA 2.0 is supposed to solve?

Yes, But you weren't supposed to know about Moca 2.0.

 

[harshness]

Build the technology.
If a swm 16 can integrate 16 tuners into a fully functional whole home system from one single switch.

SWM technology doesn't create tuners. It splits transponders into smaller bites. Not the same thing.

Not sure why it's so difficult for Dish to do 7 or more tuners.

It is difficult because they haven't invested in something like SWM.

And the Moca limits far excede anything Dish has got going on.

Do you have any hint of tangible proof for this claim?

I know a Guy right now with a HR44, 4 HR24s And 3 C41s.
His entire play list can be accessed from every room.

Do the majority of customers really need support for eight or more TVs or is this an admission that DIRECTV recorded content isn't particularly safe from loss?

I can't even hook up 3 hoppers with one switch.

Do you need to be able to do this now or in the foreseeable future?

And my company Cable, allows 4 Tivo Roamios and 8 minis per account. That is all Moca.

The Roamios themselves don't use MoCA to obtain their content. I'm not convinced that MoCA alone will support eight high quality HD client sessions.

We don't need to engage in theoretical limits as most can be completely satisfied with much less. We need to figure out what is going to make most everyone happy so that the bulk of the users aren't subsidizing those who are participating in conspicuous consumption or a well-deserved fear of lost content.

 

[Troch77]

SWM technology doesn't create tuners. It splits transponders into smaller bites. Not the same thing.
It is difficult because they haven't invested in something like SWM.Do you have any hint of tangible proof for this claim?
Do the majority of customers really need support for eight or more TVs or is this an admission that DIRECTV recorded content isn't particularly safe from loss?
Do you need to be able to do this now or in the foreseeable future?The Roamios themselves don't use MoCA to obtain their content. I'm not convinced that MoCA alone will support eight high quality HD client sessions.

We don't need to engage in theoretical limits as most can be completely satisfied with much less. We need to figure out what is going to make most everyone happy so that the bulk of the users aren't subsidizing those who are participating in conspicuous consumption or a well-deserved fear of lost content.

I'm not even going to comment on this.
No Clue!

 

[dare2be]

We don't need to engage in theoretical limits as most can be completely satisfied with much less. We need to figure out what is going to make most everyone happy so that the bulk of the users aren't subsidizing those who are participating in conspicuous consumption or a well-deserved fear of lost content.

Liked for the above.

 

[kwindrem]

Dish has built a system that satisfies 95% of their customer base, evolving what existed previously (e.g., 3 tuners on a single coax instead of 2), using coax as a distribution system, etc. The choice of what's in a Hopper box targets the majority of customers with a second Hopper picking up another 3-4%. Those asking for 8, 10, 12 or more tuners are a tiny minority and architecting a system to satisfy their needs won't be cost effective for the other 99%. The cost for such systems needs to rest on the 1-2% of the customers that need it, so saying a Hopper should have 6 tuners is unrealistic. Where Dish dropped the ball is in not integrating two (or more) Hoppers so that the users don't see a hard line between them: where material is located, which receiver has a spare tuner at the moment, ... This could be fixed but Dish has chosen to focus software development on things like AutoHop, Netflix and a new skin on their U/I. They seem to want to attract new customers with glitz rather than keeping existing customers with a system that works as promised at an attractive price.

I'm thinking the traditional approach to send all transponders on a given satellite to the receiver where one channel from one transponder is extracted may not be the best approach to a new system. Why not move the tuners closer to the receiver then send the much lower data-rate to the places where the channel is viewed or recorded. If MOCA limits what can be done in a system, choose something else (like 10G ethernet). Does the place where material gets recorded physically need to reside next to one TV or is there a better location that makes expansion and distribution to viewing locations easier? Does a different partitioning of the system reduce or increase cost for the single-TV customer? I don't have the answers, just tossing this out for what it's worth.

 

[kwindrem]

And one more thing:

The future of broadcast content distribution needs to be considered. This includes TV stations and other content providers such as HBO. Maintaining (and powering) transmitters and satellites is expensive and with internet bandwidth increasing rapidly, plus with a shift to watching content when you want may limit the customer base for current distribution channels: TV stations, cable and satellite TV services. Most people I know don't even care when a specific program is on. It shows up in their DVR and they watch it when they have nothing else to do. Gone are the days when we scheduled live viewing of prime time TV programs. To a large extent, viewers don't care what the distribution channel is but many are cutting the cord on push based "broadcast style" distribution and switching to pull-based systems like Netflix, Hulu, ... If it's less expensive to buy the content you are interested in than subscribing to Dish or DirecTV then most will drop their cable and satellite provider.

 

[Hall]

Dish has built a system that satisfies 95% of their customer base, evolving what existed previously (e.g., 3 tuners on a single coax instead of 2), using coax as a distribution system, etc. The choice of what's in a Hopper box targets the majority of customers with a second Hopper picking up another 3-4%. Those asking for 8, 10, 12 or more tuners are a tiny minority and architecting a system to satisfy their needs won't be cost effective for the other 99%. The cost for such systems needs to rest on the 1-2% of the customers that need it, so saying a Hopper should have 6 tuners is unrealistic. Where Dish dropped the ball is in not integrating two (or more) Hoppers so that the users don't see a hard line between them: where material is located, which receiver has a spare tuner at the moment, ... This could be fixed but Dish has chosen to focus software development on things like AutoHop, Netflix and a new skin on their U/I. They seem to want to attract new customers with glitz rather than keeping existing customers with a system that works as promised at an attractive price.

I'm thinking the traditional approach to send all transponders on a given satellite to the receiver where one channel from one transponder is extracted may not be the best approach to a new system. Why not move the tuners closer to the receiver then send the much lower data-rate to the places where the channel is viewed or recorded. If MOCA limits what can be done in a system, choose something else (like 10G ethernet). Does the place where material gets recorded physically need to reside next to one TV or is there a better location that makes expansion and distribution to viewing locations easier? Does a different partitioning of the system reduce or increase cost for the single-TV customer? I don't have the answers, just tossing this out for what it's worth.

I wish I could "like" that post more than once. So true... Dish has shown the path they're on with hardware and you're exactly right, it's tailored for 99% of Dish's customers, not the 1%.

 

[Troch77]

I wish I could "like" that post more than once. So true... Dish has shown the path they're on with hardware and you're exactly right, it's tailored for 99% of Dish's customers, not the 1%.

See I don't agree, Before I would fully agree with that, I want to see climbing subscriber numbers.

Some people are turned of by a lot of the limitations posted in this very topic, So guess where they go?

 

[Hall]

People here are generally in the 1%.
- Dish removed the OTA tuner
- Dish designed an excellent receiver in the Hopper but didn't increase the # of tuners from the previous generation (622, 722, 722k - I don't include the 9xx series as they weren't popular)
- They did implement a software function to emulate add'l tuners (PTAT) though
- 4k support is being implemented by a secondary device (a smart move by Dish - it doesn't change the CORE device, the Hopper)
- They did provide REAL add'l tuners via the Super Joey (again, without changing the Hopper)

 

[Bobby]

Um, the Hopper has 3 satellite tuners, and one OTA tuner if you want it....

 

[Hall]

and one OTA tuner if you want it....

It's not built-in, hence the built-for-the-99% group. Once again, the 1% can add it.

If OTA reception was popular, why would Dish remove it ? The 622 (and 722) had one built-in, adding costs. The 722k had a rather proprietary "module" option. It wasn't included by default. The Hopper has a USB dongle OTA tuner - a very cost-effective (read: cheap for Dish to procure) option for Dish.

Hopper has 3 satellite tuners

My mistake. The previous generation had (2) satellite tuners and (1) OTA tuner (with caveats above).

 

[navychop]

Let's face it. It's NOT the percent of CUSTOMERS, it's the percent of profit.

If 10% of customers produced 30% of profit, and wanted feature XYZ, then we'd see feature XYZ. This may be why we see OTA and support, sorta, for 3 Hoppers.

 

[rjruby]

Let's face it. It's NOT the percent of CUSTOMERS, it's the percent of profit.

If 10% of customers produced 30% of profit, and wanted feature XYZ, then we'd see feature XYZ. This may be why we see OTA and support, sorta, for 3 Hoppers.

Of the several dozen Dish and DirecTV installations in my development, mine is the only one with an OTA antenna installed.

 

[Hall]

Of the several dozen Dish and DirecTV installations in my development, mine is the only one with an OTA antenna installed.

What? Less than 5% use OTA? That seems too low... (sarcasm intended)

 

[dare2be]

Of the several dozen Dish and DirecTV installations in my development, mine is the only one with an OTA antenna installed.

I agree with the sentiment that OTA usage is in a small minority, but how do you know some of those Dish/DTV installations aren't using an indoor/attic antenna?