Dish has a long history at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, specifically with the Hopper. This year is no different and the company has unveiled the Hopper 3, along with the HopperGO. The Hopper 3 has some big features including 16 tuners inside, Netflix integration, 4K content, and a Sport Bar mode. While the HopperGO is the first mobile video drive that can store programs from your DVR.
The Hopper 3 is the big story and it has a record 16 tuners inside, which should let you record the amount of shows you need too and could ever want too. This set-top box will let you watch recorder shows in any room, while at the same time recording multiple shows. Sports Bar Mode is the real star of the show, in that it splits the screen up into quadrants and displays a different program in 1080 in each quadrant. The technology behind is that it decodes any four different HD feeds and displays them at the same time. And this can even decode 4K feeds of games, plus if you want content in 4K, Dish has some good news for you.
Dish has made agreements with Sony Pictures, The Orchard and Mance Media to deliver 4K content directly to the Hopper 3. At launch customers who have the Hopper 3 will have access to The Amazing Spiderman, American Hustle, and The Smurfs 2 in full 4K.
Netflix is already integrated in with Dish’s set-top boxes, but today they are taken this integration a step further. When you search for content, Netflix results will now be integrated in with them, making it very easy to find the content you are looking for. In addition Netflix 4K content will be available on the Hopper 3 and the 4K Joey. Plus, this new Netflix search integration is coming to both the Hopper 2 and the Hopper 3.
YouTube has been mentioned several times at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show and in the coming months the popular video platform will be available on the Hopper 3. YouTube will be joining Netflix, Pandora, Vevo, The Weather Channel and Hopper Arcade which all make up the Hopper Apps.
The Hopper 3 is powered by a Broadcom 7445, a quad-core Arm processor which makes it the fastest set-top box on the market. It can support up to six Joeys at once, making for a total of seven TVs supported at the same time. It is compatible with the standard Joey, Wireless Joey, and the forthcoming 4K Joey. Dish also offers MoCA 2.0 and Gigabit Ethernet as connectivity options for the whole house. In total the Hopper 3 has two TB hard drives on board which equates out to about 500 hours of recorded content. It is also the first DVR to use USB 3.0 for storage expansion
Lastly, we have a first from Dish the HopperGO and it is a unique one. The HopperGO delivers on Dish’s promise of TV being anywhere, in that it connects to the Hopper 2 or 2 via a USB port, copies content off of the DVR, and then the device creates a private WiFi network to watch the show from. It truly will let you bring your content, specifically your DVR recorded content anywhere you want. In fact the technology that HopperGO uses is similar to that of the SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick. The HopperGO will have 64GB of internal storage and will cost just a one time payment of $99 when it becomes available in late Quarter 1 of 2016, there are no monthly fees for this device.
Dish brought some great announcements to the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, the HopperGO is truly a game change and the Hopper 3 is a worthy upgrade, especially with 16 tuners inside and a Sports Bar mode. The Hopper 3 will be launching in early 2016 with pricing being released closer to it’s launch.
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