Official - I have a Hopper 3 Thread!

[MikeL2653]

Today I got my Hopper 3 installed in my Motorhome.
How about your ordering experience! I called Dish & it went very well and I got an appointment for the installer to come out the Next day.

We want to hear about your install how did it go? My installer had never done an install on a Motorhome. At first he said my auto point Dish by RF Mogul would not work with the H3. I called RF Mogul and they said they had tested the H3 with their system and it work great and the LNB would be a direct swap.

We want to hear what the Techs did and upgraded at your house!-- I helped the Installer swap the LNB on my RF Mogul dish on the roof of my Motorhome.

We want to hear your thoughts on the Hopper 3! --So far it looks great Just have to learn how to use the remote since it is a lot different from my old Hopper.

Update.
I discovered after I moved to a new spot and deployed the Dish by hitting the Search button on the RF Mogul Controller it would not find any Sats and never locked on. I called RF Mogul and they told me how it should be hooked up. What we discovered is there are 2 ways to run cables from Dish to their controller and the the Sat Receiver. The way mine is done if the Sat Receiver is on it prevents the RF Mogul Controller from Locking on to a Sat. If I have the Sat Receiver power off then it will find the Sats and Lock on. I can live with it like that. If I was to run another cable I would not have to power off the Sat Receiver.

 

[pawdog]

Not terrible, but not great. Tech arrived within the 8-12 A.M. window and finished in just over 1.5 hours. first thing he did was inform me he only had one of the 2 Joeys ordered so it would require another visit after the "truck comes in", good enough go ahead and install what you have. Everything was set up and a good explanation on the basics of operating the equipment was given. Only small issue. My old dish and LNB was just left on the ground where they fell. There was no offer to take them or anything. The boxes the Hopper and Joey were also left behind. Don't know if any of this is considered an issue by Dish but I found it a little off putting.

I was also informed there would be a one time charge for the HDMI cable because the Hopper 3 needs a special cable. This actually kind of pissed me off to see that Dish is still trying to screw people over with over charged cables. My last Dish install happened in the original VIP722 with built in OTA tuner days, and the tech didn't even have HDMI cables to install with, so progress?

My original ordering turned into a bit of thing. I ordered online and everything seemed fine until after setting a whole day aside to get the install done, I got an email saying I had canceled my own order. So I call and am told the fraud department had canceled. So I get sent to the fraud department and they took care of the problem after taking a short multiple choice test over the phone. The man was a very nice native English speaker. He set up a new order and date.

 

[ChairBound]

Not terrible, but not great. Tech arrived within the 8-12 A.M. window and finished in just over 1.5 hours. first thing he did was inform me he only had one of the 2 Joeys ordered so it would require another visit after the "truck comes in", good enough go ahead and install what you have. Everything was set up and a good explanation on the basics of operating the equipment was given. Only small issue. My old dish and LNB was just left on the ground where they fell. There was no offer to take them or anything. The boxes the Hopper and Joey were also left behind. Don't know if any of this is considered an issue by Dish but I found it a little off putting.

I was also informed there would be a one time charge for the HDMI cable because the Hopper 3 needs a special cable. This actually kind of pissed me off to see that Dish is still trying to screw people over with over charged cables. My last Dish install happened in the original VIP722 with built in OTA tuner days, and the tech didn't even have HDMI cables to install with, so progress?

My original ordering turned into a bit of thing. I ordered online and everything seemed fine until after setting a whole day aside to get the install done, I got an email saying I had canceled my own order. So I call and am told the fraud department had canceled. So I get sent to the fraud department and they took care of the problem after taking a short multiple choice test over the phone. The man was a very nice native English speaker. He set up a new order and date.

Pawdog, what type of special HDMI cable is needed? I would love to have the exact cable ready and waiting if that crap is pulled on me.

 

[Bobby]

The Hopper 3 comes with an HDMI cable in the box. That cable works just fine as will just about any other one you may have. The OP was ripped off by the installer.

 

[JSheridan]

The Hopper 3 comes with an HDMI cable in the box. That cable works just fine as will just about any other one you may have. The OP was ripped off by the installer.

DISH company and RSP techs are under such pressure to sell surge suppressors, screen cleaner, 'special' HDMI cables and a host of other 'products' and 'services' that they probably might be tempted to say just about anything to make a sale.

 

[pawdog]

Pawdog, what type of special HDMI cable is needed? I would love to have the exact cable ready and waiting if that crap is pulled on me.

Turned out to be the 8ft version of this one

AudioQuest Pearl 2m (6' 7") Black/White HDMI Digital Audio/Video Cable with Ethernet Connection

I guess I knew better, but I just let it go.

 

[ChairBound]

Thanks paw dog and everyone else. As a woman, I try to provide myself with the means to avoid all BS confrontations if at all possible. I builds PCs for a hobby, but I don't know much about audio/video entertainment stuff.

 

[chapman]

Hopper 3 (only) installed today. Two hours total, including a new eastern Dish and LNB, new routing, and the normal set up. The installer, Sampson, delivered by far the best Dish installation experience ever, and I've had several. In addition to being efficient outside, he was quite knowledgable, having been one of the beta testers before the hopper 3 came out. He set up my old and new remotes, transferring my timers from the old system as par for the course. He also demonstrated the new voice operated remote, but I'm going to wait on that.

I was surprised that I was quickly able to access dishanywhere and set up recordings. Some icons are still loading but this has been a unexpectedly smooth set up.

The ordering was somewhat more complicated. I was first informed calling dish that it was not available in my location. Later I posted on the dirt forum and Chris S. solved that issue and worked through other issues. Another Dirt team member set up the installation, my choice of yesterday or today. Thanks dirt team! And Sampson.

 

[Pepper]

I may as well say my piece here. I contacted MattG@DISH (Speedy) last week inquiring about the flex pack and Hopper 3. He answered all my questions quickly and accurately, and scheduled my install for yesterday. I ordered just the Hopper 3 and no Joeys (an $8 increase of DVR fee is enough, thanks) since it's just the two of us in the same room together and I have HDMI distribution to every other room.

The guy from the local Satellites Unlimited who did the install was very professional, replaced my 1K4 EA with a 1K2 EA Hybrid. I already had good cable, grounded, all the way from there to the 622 so it was just a matter of plugging in the Hopper and let it initialize and download. He wanted to install the hybrid solo hub but I told him I had read here that if there are no joeys, you need nothing but cable between the dish and hopper. We tried it and both learned that it actually works. We had some interesting conversations while waiting for the hopper to finish downloading, I demoed my microHD and showed him the kind of channels that come from all those "other" dishes out in the backyard.

I am very impressed with how far the technology has come. This is what, 4X the bandstacking of DishPro and double that of DishProPlus. Blows my mind that they finally figured out how to stuff it all on one input for 16 tuners, where my 622 required 2 inputs for 2 tuners. I guess at this point, since the entire signal from all LNBs is coming down the wire, the number of tuners is arbitrary and could be any number they decide to support in software depending on how fast the hardware decoding and disk transfer speeds are.

Pawdawg: I guess what you consider a minus, I consider a plus. I made sure to keep the box and all packaging material that came with the Hopper, "just because" - and the retired 1K4 dish, I am sure I'll find a use for it before long.

 

[texasone]

My Hopper 3 and 52.0 remote work well together, except for one issue. The remote despite having the Dish provided code to be recognized by the H/3, does not turn the Klipsch surround system on. I need to use my Harmony Touch to turn on/off the surround system. Any suggestions for forcing the remote to recognize the CS-500 Klipsch unit?

 

[ncted]

My Hopper 3 and 52.0 remote work well together, except for one issue. The remote despite having the Dish provided code to be recognized by the H/3, does not turn the Klipsch surround system on. I need to use my Harmony Touch to turn on/off the surround system. Any suggestions for forcing the remote to recognize the CS-500 Klipsch unit?

Have you tried "teaching" it to do what you want?

Customizable Remote Commands | MyDISH | DISH Customer Support

 

[CoCoDave]

Can the "skins" of the Hopper 3 display screens be changed? e.g. program guide, timer search and setup, etc.

We just scheduled the installation of our Dish equipment to replace the current Directv system. When looking at the various Dish web pages, we find the appearance of screen samples to be difficult to read. Can background color, font, and size be changed?

It's likely that the answer to this is contained somewhere in here but I can't seem to tease it out.

TIA

 

[Bobby]

Menu. Settings. Appearance. You have two choices, Modern or Classic...

 

[dare2be]

TheKrell needs to post in here.

 

[ncted]

Can the "skins" of the Hopper 3 display screens be changed? e.g. program guide, timer search and setup, etc.

We just scheduled the installation of our Dish equipment to replace the current Directv system. When looking at the various Dish web pages, we find the appearance of screen samples to be difficult to read. Can background color, font, and size be changed?

It's likely that the answer to this is contained somewhere in here but I can't seem to tease it out.

TIA

To an extent, yes. You can change the Appearance theme to dark or light. There are some other options which may help with readability as well.

 

[TheKrell]

TheKrell needs to post in here.

Not yet! My tech didn't arrive at 12:45 to 2PM. I was watching the website and his arrival time kept getting put off until it was 6:15 - 8pm. So I rescheduled.

 

[dare2be]

Sounds like divine intervention to me. Give time for that kool-aid drink to wear off.

 

[navychop]

Another batch, coming up!


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[dare2be]

Another batch, coming up!


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

A dealer that doesn't even sample the merchandise...

 

[navychop]

Oh, I’d like to wait for a H4, but with the next HWS failure, I can see it being H3 time.


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!