Not happy with the Dish Hopper DVR

[Tampa8]

Then it wouldn't be a Joey, it'd be a Hopper. Can always get two Hoppers.

No, my point is not a hopper, a Joey+ that has at least one tuner maybe two, but still can be part of the Hopper. Maybe something like a converted VIP211 that can be part of the Hopper system, yet work alone if the hopper system is down. It also could work alone to watch something no one else can. My thought being it would be cheaper than getting another Hopper. Or just a new Joey with one tuner, just for backup should the Hopper fail, and to be able to watch something no one else can see.......

 

[Lt Disher]

One Hopper and Two Joey= really a 2 Tuner solution as one it tied up to Prime time.

Not true. If you don't want the PTA feature you can disable it, leaving you three timers all day long. If there IS something on primetime that you want to see, enable PTA and you will have that show, plus two other tuners which also equals three. it is a 3 tuner solution.

 

[Tampa8]

There is also the option to watch a program from the TV (OTA) not through the Hopper, leaving three tuners. (four when then USB tuner is added). Even if you are using the PTA, you might watch PBS or a subchannel directly from the TV, have four networks recording, and still have two more tuners available. (Three more when the USB OTA comes out - for yet a another OTA channel not part of the Four)

 

[sparc]

I agree on the price concern for the 2nd Hopper.

Any thing more than $99 extra for the 2nd Hopper and they risk loosing new customers to the DirecTV HR34, they need to price match BASED on the total number of tuners for the total solution.

The HR34 at 5 tuners is still outside the needs of most customers. Even a second hopper is outside the needs of most customers.

Even if Dish loses new customers to Directv, it's going to be a small group of people chasing after a lot of tuners.

Just about everyone who reads satelliteguys is not a typical Dish customer. Most of us have particular needs like more tuners that's outside of the norm.

 

[digitalblue]

Geez .. six more weeks of this.

 

[Tampa8]

Geez .. six more weeks of this.

This is exactly the kind of stuff we can speculate and debate on for weeks..... lol.......
And when it comes out we will start all over again.

 

[DishSubLA]

You are right.

SOLUTION-
with only 3 Tuners and One Tuners doing Prime time this is really ONLY a Two Tuner solution. They need to advertise it as a TWO TV Solution so customers dont get mad later after there locked into a contract and cant watch live TV on there THREE TV Household (household with Two parent and One or more kids)

They need to sell the Second Hopper at $99 and tell people up front if they have a family with more than 2 or 3 they need TWO Hoppers. Then they will have 6 Tuners and the sulution will work great.

As for Privacy they need to add a feature for the Parental Locks that TV-MA does not show what your watching so people cant spy on you, it should simply says Parental Lock on it.

Now all they need is the Over the Air Turner so people dont get it home, locked in a Contract and then realize they cant watch the 10 other local channels they used to have on Cable as Cable has many of the Digital Sub channels that dish does not carry. They need this Tuner at Release date so when the customer calls in to complain they will have a solution to offer, they could sell it for say $49.99 and it would be an other tuner.

You make an excellent point. I know several households who ended up being unhappy and counted the days when the obligation expired to DUMP Dish because they found the "2TV" solution of the dual tuner DVR's that support TV2 to be completely inadequate for their household because when in Dual mode each person has, essentially, a ONE tuner DVR experience. Please, take my word for it, I know A LOT of people who were in this situation and thought that Dish technology was insufficient for their never being offered the opportunity to get a 2nd box at a significant discount at the time the account is created.

Now, I know why Dish NEVER revealed the limitations of the "Dual" mode experience: It would have meant, even with a $99 one-time charge for the 2nd box, that they would have to subsidize TWO boxes and suffer the increase in the cost to acquire a customer, and Wall Street would've hyperventilated at the higher acquisition cost rather than see a customer base experience high satisfaction with Dish and remain subscribers of many years.

I do hope that Joe Clayton is willing to have CSR's inform and advise subscribers regarding a 2nd Hopper for a reasonable upgrade ($99 does seem a reasonable fee for each additional Hopper) and take the short term hit in cost and inventory to attain the long term increased number of subscribers and, most likely, such satisfied customers would be more likely to upgrade their package. Ergan was always short-term spreadsheet mentality, but given Joe's background, Dish may finally see the wisdom providing the customer with the BEST possible experience that MEETS EACH HOUSEHOLD'S NEEDS and be willing to even take a bit of a short term tumble on stock price and tell Wall Street to keep their knickers on as Dish will increase in value as such a strategy would keep churn down and change from LOSING subscribers to GAINING as word or mouth to friends and neighbors spreads about how satisfied they are with Dish and the whole home DVR solution. Word of mouth is still a significant factor in Dish and other businesses obtaining business. Say it is so, Joe!

 

[bhawley]

Not to mention that my older kids don't even watch traditional TV anymore. Unless it's on their laptop, then it's a no go. They watch more stuff at dishonline.com than anything else. Plus, I have a daughter at Mizzou and she uses dishonline.com a ton and, on the extremely rare (and I mean extremely) times she wants to watch something live, she accesses our 922 remotely.

Welcome to the future, folks.

 

[DishSubLA]

Agreed. I think it is largely going to come down to pricing, ESPECIALLY for that second Hopper. The purchase cost and monthly fees associates with TWO Hoppers should be comparable to the new SINGLE Direct HR34 receiver sense Directs receiver has 5 tuners built in. I am not going to argue over a total of $5/month more but if I have to pay $400 upfront for the privilege of leasing a second Hopper and then they charge me $17/month for each Hopper then my choice to switch to Direct becomes a no-brainer.

ABSOLUTELY!

 

[empiretc]

I went to CES last week and saw the Dish Hopper first hand, and im not really impressed as compaired to what Directv has to offer with the HR34 home media server.

Here is what I like about it...

#1 The Prime Time anytime is a great feature. Considering it can record 4 shows from a single Tuner is great. I like the fact it records everything in prime time, which takes all the hassle out of setting up a timer to begin with.

#2 I like the guide format and the way the menu's are displayed

#3 I like the larger hard drive.

Here is what I don't like about it..

#1 The receiver only has 3 Tuners. For a 1 or 2 Television household I don't see this as being much of an issue. The problem when you add 3, 4 or 5 Televsions to this setup, you become very limited in the amount of things you can watch live, and the more shows you have recording in the background the even more limited this DVR becomes.

Granted you can add another Hopper, but with DISH Networks track record on additional receiver outlet fees, I bet we are looking at an additional $20 per month, not to mention another few hundred dollars upfront.

#2 From a sales point, this is where they are going to get all their complaints. This is very difficult to explain to people, to get them to understand the entire 3 tuner concept with multiple TV's. I can see the sales people selling this now telling customers just to add another Joey box, but when the customer has got 2 shows recording on the DVR they are not going to understand why they can't watch something different on their 3 other TV's in their home.

#3 The thing where you can "Hop On" an existing TV program in another room is going to piss alot of people off. If im in my bedroom at 1AM watching Bikini Girls gone wild on Cinemax, I do not want anyone else in my house knowing what im watching on TV, or hopping on my program and watching it with me.

Granted this works great for parents seeing what their kids are watching, but this is going to ruin the privacy for alot of customers. If a huspand who has a wife thats offended by that kind of stuff, the second the wife gives her huspand crap over it, is when the huspand cancels DISH Network and switches to Directv.

you have expressed a lot of the concerns I have with this unit. while it looks really cool, i can already see the kids at war. timed recordings on the 722 interrupting someone show was always a battle. (when a timer was cancelled it was a war!)

as others have said, a family of 4+ may have problems. a bunch of 211k would be better. one for each kid, and if you want MRV, just sneaker-net the external drive. this would be better for keeping the peace.

as for the other possible problem you pointed out- yeah, i prefer to watch my porn incognito, lol....

 

[Scherrman]

As a retailer I am excited for the hopper and I'm not worried about it being misleading to customers. My average customer is not going to be interested in this because they are afraid of new technology. So the once that will be interested in it will most likely understand what it does. I also take pride in my ability to qualify the customer and explain to them what they should get and how it works. Since I have educated myself on it I'm not worried. Now I could see how a sales person that is not up to date on it could have a tough time with it.

 

[Claude Greiner]

The HR34 at 5 tuners is still outside the needs of most customers. Even a second hopper is outside the needs of most customers.

Even if Dish loses new customers to Directv, it's going to be a small group of people chasing after a lot of tuners.

Just about everyone who reads satelliteguys is not a typical Dish customer. Most of us have particular needs like more tuners that's outside of the norm.

The issue is that Directv is overkill on the number of Tuners, where as Dish is way under.

The nice thing about the HR34 is that there are so many tuners on the unit, its going to be rare that a customer will not be able to schedule a recording, or having an issue watching and recording at the same time. Most customers will go and schedule their recordings without even thinking twice or knowing the limitations of the HR34.

Dish on the otherhand, if you got more than 2 TV's in your household with 2 or more family members, your going to find out the limitations of the system fairly quickly.

 

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

Since as somebody earlier in this thread brought up the problem that no one wants to read through pages of this thread to catch up,I'm asking a question that may have been addressed earlier in this or another thread,but which I really don't want to dig through to find the answer.
My situation is that I have a 722k(waiting to get activated as soon as I clear some trees for LOS,but I still have one). DIRECTV allows you to have one HR34 & up to 3 HD receivers(if you want to go with a one cable swm set up) where you can still watch live TV independent of the HR34(everybody knows this,it's been discussed before). Why can't the 722k be networked with the Hopper? For that matter,how about those who maybe payed up to $500.00 for the 922,are they expected to trade it in in addition to maybe paying the same amount for the Hopper? People who currently have 722k's,222k's,922's,612's,212k's should be able to network their boxes with the Hopper to have whole home service. DIRECTV allows you to be able to network pre-DECA HD DVR's(HR20/21/22/23) & receivers(H21/23) with their HR24/34 DVR's & H24/25 receivers using special external adapters. Is there a problem of copyright protection that would prevent Dish from being able to do this also?

 

[Claude Greiner]

As a retailer I am excited for the hopper and I'm not worried about it being misleading to customers. My average customer is not going to be interested in this because they are afraid of new technology. So the once that will be interested in it will most likely understand what it does. I also take pride in my ability to qualify the customer and explain to them what they should get and how it works. Since I have educated myself on it I'm not worried. Now I could see how a sales person that is not up to date on it could have a tough time with it.

I have been in sales too long. Let me ask you, how many times do you get a customer who has a 2 TV solution and you ask how many of their TV's are in HD. While the customer is giving their responce, how many times do you say to yourself "If hope they have only 1 HD and 1 Standard TV" so I can sell the customer a 722"

Why? Because now your job just got harder explaining to the customer only 1 TV will be HD, or they need to pay an additional $7 for another HD receiver.

Misleading customers is not the issue, and explaining it to them is not the issue either. Its the fact of the matter is that no matter how you explain the product, there is an expectation that the product will operate a certain way. When the customer has a timer conflict, or can't watch something live because the other 2 tuners are in use, that is when the customer will realize there is an issue and will need more tuners.

So add another Hopper...

Granted we have not seen pricing, but this is going to be just as bad when a customer wants to buy a second 722. Customer service aint giving it to the customer for free, and then there is going to be additional fees to pay to be able to use it.

 

[sparc]

The issue is that Directv is overkill on the number of Tuners, where as Dish is way under.

The nice thing about the HR34 is that there are so many tuners on the unit, its going to be rare that a customer will not be able to schedule a recording, or having an issue watching and recording at the same time. Most customers will go and schedule their recordings without even thinking twice or knowing the limitations of the HR34.

Dish on the otherhand, if you got more than 2 TV's in your household with 2 or more family members, your going to find out the limitations of the system fairly quickly.

why wouldn't those dish customers just get a second hopper and be happy? in terms of technology, one HR34 seems to be slightly less than two hoppers. Especially if you have PTAT enabled on one hopper.

It would be pointless to compare pricing at this point since Dish hasn't announced anything officially. I could see Dish go either way with pricing as this system should technically cut their costs down in a lot of ways. I'm still skeptical based on their past behavior, but little to discuss until it's on paper.

Edit: Looks like you added another reply while i was making this one. I have to agree that educating customers on their needs is going to be the hardest challenge Dish has. DirecTV is the easier system to advertise because it takes tuners out of the equation. With Dish, the customer is going to have to understand what they actually need. Especially if Dish creates a complicated pricing scheme.

 

[GaryPen]

why wouldn't those dish customers just get a second hopper and be happy?

If Dish charges $400 for the second one, that's one reason why they wouldn't be happy.

 

[3HaloODST]

I think it's all going to depend on fees. Judging by DISH's fees for just plain old 722s, DISH will probably charge a "Hopper Fee" of $6 (maybe even $10 judging by 922) for the first hopper, maybe include a single Joey in it, then charge $7 for each additional Joey, and if you need another Hopper, $20. If their fees are in fact this ridiculous then Hopper will flop fast. Not to mention "upgrade fees."

 

[rapidturtle]

It will really come down to their pricing. One Hopper will prob cost existing subs at least $100 if not more. They also need to not go crazy with their monthly fees for it. I really don't think they should charge for the Joeys, as they essentially are only allowing you to get HD to your other T.V's. vs the current setup of a 722, 2nd T.V. being only SD. I know the Hopper will do 3 T.V's, but If they are going to charge a $7 receiver fee for Joeys, wouldn't we be better off with a 722, and then just adding 211's with EHD's? At least if my 722 goes out, I could still watch T.V. with the 211's. There also won't be any recording conflicts with the 722 and 211's.

 

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

Whole home DVR & MoCA is an excellent idea for Dish,the only way to get it being through Hopper & Joey only isn't. If you can't integrate a 722/722k,922,612,222/222k,&/or 211/211k(which most people already have) into the mix,why bother?

 

[Claude Greiner]

As far as the add another hopper argument, I have been in sales for 10 years and if it aint free to the customer you can pretty much forget them buying into it.

I have sold many systems to satelliteguys members and multiple DVR's is rarely an issue when it comes down to cost. If I sell to a non satelliteguys member, I would say less than 1% will opt to spend any additional money out of pocket.

To say something negative about Directv, the only thing I don't like about their whole home solution is that you can't pause on the HD receivers in the other rooms when watching a live program.

Directv needs to put out a software update to allow a simple USB flash drive to be used to give the receiver the ability to pause. Take a 15 Gig flashdrive, and that will give you an hour of pause time for any program