Dish Network Hopper 3 Review - Review 2022

Dish has once once again upgraded its Hopper whole-home DVR system. Last year'southward upgrade added Sling-powered identify-shifting, letting you lot watch Dish programming outside of the business firm. The new Hopper 3 brings ultra high-definition (UHD, or 4K) back up. It also more than doubles the number of tuners in the box to xvi, adds a fantastic full-screen four-channel multi-view Sports Bar mode, and features a redesigned, slimmer remote. In that location isn't a whole lot of 4K content to picket on the $350 box just withal, only considering it's available every bit a free upgrade for qualifying Dish subscribers when coupled with a $15 monthly whole-home DVR fee (the same as the previous Hopper), it'south a no-brainer upgrade for future-proofing your Dish service . If you don't want to commit to satellite, the Tivo Commodities ($179.93 at Amazon)  is an impressively functional DVR and tuner that can work with over-the-air and cable service.

Design

The Hopper three ($387.99 at Amazon)  looks like a slight redesign of the Hopper With Sling. Its 2.1-past-16-past-11.iv-inch (HWD) black frame is like in size, but with flatter sides and a bright scarlet ring that runs effectually the front end console as an accent. The front panel is glossy black plastic with a flip-down door on the left half that reveals a variety of controls, and a USB 2.0 port on the correct half. The CableCARD slot now sits on the left side of the box. The back panel holds a plethora of connections, including HDMI, component, and composite video outputs, an optical sound output, ii USB 3.0 ports, two Ethernet ports, a phone port, a coaxial Jack for the satellite connection, a coaxial jack for the remote control radio antenna, and a power connector.

Dish heavily redesigned the Hopper iii's remote, while retaining about of its layout and functionality. Like the larger, old remote, the new remote uses a radio connection to the Hopper, so you don't need to have a line of sight with the box; I could consistently command the Hopper 3 with my easily behind my dorsum, pressing buttons.

The new remote is much flatter than the previous mesomorphic, button-filled wand, measuring 6.3 past 1.9 by 0.8 inches with a red band effectually the edge and rectangular plastic buttons that barely jut up above the surface. The square navigation pad dominates the top half, merely like the rounder navigation pad of the previous version. Various carte du jour buttons including Apps, DVR, Home, and Power sit in a higher place the pad, and playback controls, book and channel rockers, and a number pad sit beneath. Aux, Input, Sabbatum, and Goggle box buttons sit down on the left edge of the remote, offering quick switches between decision-making the Hopper iii and any compatible connected devices. The Input button also switches betwixt the currently agile tuners.

Tuners and 4K

The Hopper three now features an impressive 16 private tuners, more than doubling the previous Hopper's number even with the tuner-expanding (and now unnecessary) Super Joey  installed. That means y'all can melody into or record from sixteen different channels at once, hopefully eliminating once and for all any demand to prioritize family unit members' favorite shows.

The box too supports 4K resolution, and volition presumably be able to display 4K streams as shortly as satellite channels back up them. For at present, all the same, your 4K content is limited to a selection of films bachelor on demand through Dish and on Netflix. I loaded the 4K version of The Amazing Spider-Man on the Hopper 3 and it played in the proper resolution.

New Interface and Apps

Dish overhauled the Hopper three'due south on-screen interface to add several new features. The basics, like the program guide and DVR controls, remain like to by iterations, only a new pop-up Apps bill of fare offers easy access to new functionality. There are diverse social networking apps, including a Facebook client and a carve up Social overlay that lets you conversation with other people watching the same show as you at the aforementioned time. Yous can likewise access Netflix, Pandora, SiriusXM, and Vevo streaming video and music services. There are even simple games like Solitaire, though like nearly HDTV-based games, they seem like an afterthought.

The biggest new feature in the Hopper 3 is Sports Bar mode. This is a full-screen multi-source viewing mode that lets you scout four channels or DVR recordings at once. Each source takes up a full quarter of the screen, and then if y'all have a 4K HDTV, you can watch four HD channels at the aforementioned fourth dimension. But the selected screen, marked by a small border, sends out audio, and y'all can hands switch betwixt them. The way besides works with 1080p HDTVs, displaying each screen in 540p. This is an incredibly useful feature, specially for sports fans or news buffs who want to follow multiple games or reports at one time.

Too Sports Bar mode, you can access a scattering of multi-channel viewing modes through the Apps menu. They can show upwardly to six live feeds at once, just the interfaces are very clunky and each screen is shrunk significantly into an overlay menu. These modes might exist useful for tracking multiple sports games, but the smaller displays and awkward navigation congenital into each multi-channel app makes them unpleasant to use. Sports Bar mode is wholly superior to these choices.

Whole-Domicile and Identify-Shifting Television

Like previous Hoppers, you can utilise the Hopper 3 equally the centerpiece of a whole-habitation satellite television system with the addition of Joey gear up-summit boxes. Joeys, including the new 4K Joey ($174.00 at Amazon)  (which volition have all of the same 4K features every bit the Hopper iii as Dish releases them), can access whatever tuner or recorded DVR content stored on the Hopper from other rooms in your house. With the exception of the Wi-Fi-continued Wireless Joey , Joeys crave coaxial cable connections to the Hopper to function.

Thanks to congenital-in Sling identify-shifting functionality, you tin can picket live and recorded Dish television anywhere outside of your house. The Dish Anywhere app for Android, iOS, and Windows logs into your Hopper 3 over the Internet, letting you access any free tuner to lookout alive television, or play back any recorded DVR content. It functions identically to the Dish Hopper with Sling, and remains one of the most compelling features of the Hopper iii. I had no problem watching live and recorded programming on my iPad and PC, away from the test lab where the Hopper iii was installed.

Conclusions
With a simply ridiculous number of tuners and support for 4K content, the Dish Network Hopper three is the new must-have set-top box for satellite television service. The addition of Sports Bar mode helps put those tuners to use by letting you lot watch four different channels at in one case on the same screen, a surprisingly useful characteristic for sports fans and news junkies. At that place isn't much available over Dish in terms of native 4K content outside of on-demand films and Netflix however, but the Hopper 3 ensures that yous'll be gear up when more comes out. It'southward an piece of cake selection for our Editors' Choice.

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• Sony Pushes Back Well-nigh Major Moving-picture show Releases to 2022

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/digital-video-recorders-products/11026/dish-network-hopper-3-review

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