Hopper Still To Buggy? I may cancel my VIP to Hopper Installation

[midwesttv]

Man,

After reading all the bugs and frustrations people are having with their Hoppers/Joey systems, I may just put a bullet in moving from my VIP 722 and 612 (?) for now..

I'm supposed to get a hopper/joey install tomorrow and after reading all the problems on this forum, am I better served waiting 6 mos to a year?

I have ZERO Tolerance for re-sets, screens of death, waiting for techs on the telphones etc...Our two DVR's are rock solid right now (knocking wood)

Someone want to comment

 

[3HaloODST]

VIP has plenty of resets and screens of death too. Overall, my 3 Hoppers/2 Joeys have been about as reliable as my 722Ks were. There are some cons compared to the 722Ks I had but there are a lot more pros that the H/J have over the VIPs.

What issues in particular are you concerned with? As previously stated, as far as resets and screens of death are concerned, about the same reliability between the two (for me) which is so far only 1 reset in 2 months. Never had to wait on techs on the phone for my VIPs nor have I so far with the Hoppers. Granted, most of the work on the sat system I do myself (only thing I don't do is point the dish as it's on the roof 20 feet off the ground, but I've never needed a re-peak in over 3 years. Had to trim tree stuff off the roof though.)

I was initially concerned over stability when I upgraded to Hopper however so far nothing has occurred that has made me regret the upgrade.

 

[midwesttv]

It just struck me as I was reading through the threads here that this system is still quite buggy overall? Perhaps that's just the nature of forums. But I am now unsure about overall reliability of the system. I really don't want to move to something that is pretty solid to one that's still pixelating, dropping timers, freezing etc...

VIP has plenty of resets and screens of death too. Overall, my 3 Hoppers/2 Joeys have been about as reliable as my 722Ks were. There are some cons compared to the 722Ks I had but there are a lot more pros that the H/J have over the VIPs.

What issues in particular are you concerned with? As previously stated, as far as resets and screens of death are concerned, about the same reliability between the two (for me) which is so far only 1 reset in 2 months. Never had to wait on techs on the phone for my VIPs nor have I so far with the Hoppers. Granted, most of the work on the sat system I do myself (only thing I don't do is point the dish as it's on the roof 20 feet off the ground, but I've never needed a re-peak in over 3 years. Had to trim tree stuff off the roof though.)

I was initially concerned over stability when I upgraded to Hopper however so far nothing has occurred that has made me regret the upgrade.

 

[homeron]

Man,

After reading all the bugs and frustrations people are having with their Hoppers/Joey systems, I may just put a bullet in moving from my VIP 722 and 612 (?) for now..

I'm supposed to get a hopper/joey install tomorrow and after reading all the problems on this forum, am I better served waiting 6 mos to a year?

I have ZERO Tolerance for re-sets, screens of death, waiting for techs on the telphones etc...Our two DVR's are rock solid right now (knocking wood)

Someone want to comment

I moved from a 722 k to the hopper I rarely had trouble with the 722 k Everyday on my hopper I have to go reset my favorites list channels it just randomly erases them. also when I got the hopper they promised bluetooth ability to use bluetooth headphones that is not available. If you like seeing and watching your external drive on dish online you won't be able to on the hopper like you said on the 722 k. That's a few of the bugs I have there are others I feel like I am a beta tester still on this hopper system. I have to say mostly good things about the hopper but even these few annoyances are ..... annoying.

 

[sparc]

It's not bug free and there's definitely some annoying quirks. It's overall fairly reliable now. I think most people are happy with it.

Your "zero tolerance" comment makes me think you'd be better off waiting. Especially since you're so happy with what you have right now.

 

[midwesttv]

The draw for me is the interfacings, expanded timers and some of the unique functionality. Im starting to heavily lean towards waiting till maybe 2013, which is disappointing. I was looking forward to the new system.

It's not bug free and there's definitely some annoying quirks. It's overall fairly reliable now. I think most people are happy with it.

Your "zero tolerance" comment makes me think you'd be better off waiting. Especially since you're so happy with what you have right now.

 

[sparc]

I think maybe even in the next few updates some of the stuff on this forum will start disappearing. I'd check back towards the end of the summer.

 

[Jadarock]

I think maybe even in the next few updates some of the stuff on this forum will start disappearing. I'd check back towards the end of the summer.

That's what I keep counting on. But hearing some are so (relatively) problem-free probably means the DIRT member I pm'd was right and my Hopper is defective. Sigh.

 

[rocket69]

The one ive been using seems to be fine other then the glitching of local from PTAT but don't have an issue on 722 on same switch. What im sure of if we keep dish and upgrade we would need 2 hoppers for our needs with us and the kids.

 

[dangue]

The one ive been using seems to be fine other then the glitching of local from PTAT but don't have an issue on 722 on same switch. What im sure of if we keep dish and upgrade we would need 2 hoppers for our needs with us and the kids.

I've had my hopper set up since the second week after release. No major issues to report here. The one exception: I did lose all seek and record timers when a software was rolled out a couple of months back. And they did not restore from the remote. Other than that, it's been an awesome system from my experience.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[isaacmorseMI]

I have had no issues with my system.

Sent from my iPad 2 using Forum Runner

 

[bigwillieb]

I love my hopper. It's recorded everything I have asked it too. Way better then my 922. Had to do one hard rest due turning off the hopper while playing the Pandora app. Very happy with my Hopper!!

 

[midwesttv]

I think this is what we are going to do. Our VIPs are rock solid.. There are very, very few I love my hopper posts on this forum. User feedback elsewhere is spotty too. Seems to me like the system was rolled to early and is closer to beta than ready for the masses. Appreciate folks weighing-in

I think maybe even in the next few updates some of the stuff on this forum will start disappearing. I'd check back towards the end of the summer.

 

[mloebl]

I moved from a 622 to a 922, then to a H/J system. I used to have to reboot the 922 daily (or it rebooted itself ) but in all seriousness I find the Hopper/Joey pretty reliable. Since getting the latest sw (or maybe a rev before that), I haven't had a single lock up or reboot. Recordings seem to be pretty reliable, and having the PTAT to free up the tuners has been wonderful. Really the only issues we have our just minor annoyances. For example you delete a recording, and it doesn't go away initially and you have to delete it a second time.

Let me also put it another way... we moved a couple weeks ago to an area that has FIOS. My wife (who HATED the 922) loves the H/J so much, she opted to keep dish for their DVR rather than save money and do the FIOS bundle... If you knew my wife, you'd truly appreciate how much that really means

-Mike

 

[JM42]

I think this is what we are going to do. Our VIPs are rock solid.. There are very, very few I love my hopper posts on this forum. User feedback elsewhere is spotty too. Seems to me like the system was rolled to early and is closer to beta than ready for the masses. Appreciate folks weighing-in

I had two 722s. I would not go back from my 2H/2J. Hopper is hands down the better system. I haven't had any of the major issues, only reset one Hopper one time in three months.

There are quirks and bugs, but they are only minor annoyances for me. Probably my biggest gripe after living with it for three months is the relative weakness in the folder system vs VIP. I want to get to OTA and Hopper sharing/integration but I don't consider those bugs. I knew they weren't there when I went in, and honestly if they never show up I'll OK. I don't make a purchase based on future enhancements.

The nature of forums is to discuss and get help with issues. "Negative" posts always outnumber positive by large numbers.

I have seen a lot of positive posts on Hopper, but they easily get lost. "I love Hopper" and "Hopper is great" posts are boring, short lived and spur no further discussion.

There is always the chance you will be hit by a rare "killer" bug, but generally if you're a glass half full type, get Hopper you'll be happy with it. If you're a glass half empty type and will get perturbed by any glitch then stay away for a while.

 

[mdonnelly]

My Hopper and Joey have been pretty solid since we had them installed the first week of the rollout. We did have one Hopper reset for unknown reasons last week, about 11pm on Friday night. Five minutes later all was well again. The downside of this configuration is that if the Hopper goes down, the rest of the system is useless. So far having access to the DVR repository from any receiver outweighs that.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I've had the Hopper for going on two or three weeks now. Love the speed and the ability to watch in any room. Love the hard drive space and the Primetime Anytime feature. Use it more than I thought and have watched some shows I never have before. Quirks are you can't delete a show while Ptat is recording and two other shows are recording or 6 shows at a time. As far as the menus and guides , I had the 922 for 10 months back in 2009 ,so I am used to these and they are easy to maneuver . The dislikes are still NO OTA ability and no 2 hopper integration yet. Hopefully ,both will come in the next 2 months before September. To get ota , I ended up using a 211k on a second account just for Welcome pack ,so I can record my local news and sub channels like Metv . I'm a "mover" so I can get all channels in HD. Without ota support , the hopper makes "moving" kind of hard to do. But over all if you don't mind no ota , the hopper is a nice receiver and you will like it .

 

[KRUZNBY]

We loved our 722, but we like our 1H/1J better. It's been as stable for us as our 722, but we may not be power users. The PTAT is great. I love being able to go back and watch shows that someone said were of interest or something I forgot to record. Also PTAT has really freed up tuners for non-big4 programing. Predictive search, watched progress, and episode number display has been very helpful. So far the only major complaint is not being able to move files from our EHD to the hopper and still have them play.

 

[Tampa8]

Strongly suggest you not get a Hopper. It will not be worse, maybe even better but you will see it as worse. The way you read posts would indicate you won't be happy. I see many, I would say a majority and then some who are happy, you see the opposite I think because you dwell on the negatives that any system is going to have. Add to that some complaints are not bugs but just the way the system works but come off as problems.
Waiting for some is the way to go. You have to go into any completely brand new system knowing there are going to be problems. From my reading of posts it's less than one might have thought, but there are things to work out.
I do the same thing when buying something like a TV. I see good ratings from reputable sites, but then after reading the review I see more problems than good and keep looking. I finally realize they all have faults and that I keep looking for the problems rather than the overall pluses and minuses.

 

[midwesttv]

I think it's a matter of whether or not you want to be an early adaptor of a specific technology..For tv, I want to turn it on and not mess with any issues..Granted nothing is perfect, but the VIP's have been solid and the HJ is still early in its lifecycle (so this is not an indictment of the system).

I reached a very helpful advanced tech at the supplier and their reco was (given my criteria) to stick with the VIP's for now and wait a bit for the remaining "little quirks" with the HJ system to be resolved. May not be the right move for others.

I will continue to check back here and see the feed-back you users have for us...That's the best advice we can get

We loved our 722, but we like our 1H/1J better. It's been as stable for us as our 722, but we may not be power users. The PTAT is great. I love being able to go back and watch shows that someone said were of interest or something I forgot to record. Also PTAT has really freed up tuners for non-big4 programing. Predictive search, watched progress, and episode number display has been very helpful. So far the only major complaint is not being able to move files from our EHD to the hopper and still have them play.