# Dish anywhere



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

I HATE calling Dish for anything. I cannot trust what the customer service people tell me half the time and they sound like they are reading the answers they give me from a computer screen for the first time themselves.

So maybe the good folks in here can help me cut through the stuffing.

I have a limited internet connection. I know, I know, everyone assumes EVERYONE has a massive pipeline of internet all the time. Trust me, if I could get it, I would have it and pay big bucks for it. But, I live on 4G modems with 5 Gig limits. Well, not exactly limits but its 10 bucks a Gig, not exactly a cheap movie date for streaming...know what I'm saying?

-My basic question is, if I use the Dish anywhere app on a laptop or phone, how much data could it gobble up?

-Does the Hopper use my internet connection to literally stream my DVRs like its Netflix?

-I noticed there was a feature where you can transfer DVRs (recorded shows) to your device and take it with you. Will it do that over my Wi-Fi without ripping through my data? In other words will it just direct transfer?

Every time I have called Dish I was left with a sense that I really didn't get an answer I felt like I could trust. I keep my Dish hopper off of my Wi-Fi because I don't trust it to not go out and burn up my data like it owns it.

Any knowledgeable feedback is very much appreciated.


----------



## Mike.H_DISHNetwork (Feb 1, 2011)

What is it you hate about DISH Anywhere, are you able to play live TV and DVR recordings? Is the Guide showing up on your device? 

Please try to log out and log back in, check to see if the issues have been resolved. If not please let me know to better help you. 

Thanks.


----------



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Sorry, my post posted before it was intended.

You can see what I hate about my Dish experience partially in my post. Maybe you can change my experience here. I have been a loyal dish customer since 2001&#8230;primarily because my other choice is Direc, so you have a captive customer.


----------



## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Actually... I don't see where it says anything about your Dish Anywhere experience. It kind of sounds like you haven't used it.

You will only be able to watch your Hopper DVR content via Dish Anywhere IF you have the Hopper w/ Sling model... the original Hopper does not support that. Assuming you do... both the Hopper and your device need to be Internet connected because both ends do connect via the Internet through the Dish Web site to validate some things... but IF your tablet/laptop and your Hopper are on the same WiFi/home network then the bulk of the data usage of streaming from your DVR content would be via the home network and not using your Internet connection.

Other content, however, via Dish Anywhere (streaming On Demand for example) would use your Internet connection of course.


----------



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Thank you for your reply and patience with me Stewart.

My apologies, I make the mistake of venting my Dish frustrations here and I forget many people here are Dish proponents in one way or another. The problem with my first post was it posted my first few words with an accidental click, while I was editing that and finishing my comment/questions, Mike, the dish person had already responded.

So again, please accept my apologies for going astray with my frustrations. And I was referring to my overall experience with Dish, not the "Anywhere" system. And yes I do have Hopper with sling, perhaps I need to check my profile and put that in there if it is not.

I'll get right back to the point:

1-No I haven’t used "anywhere" except the content that is available through the Dish web site, with a laptop, in a place other than my home. The reason for this is what I stated above. I have no idea what the data impact will be if I use "anywhere" in any other way. No one, even at Dish can give me a clear concise, preferably technical answer. When I first allowed the Hopper to connect to my data/Wi-Fi it ripped through data like crazy. I understand it may have been initial setup stuff and updates but no-one at Dish could tell me what to expect going forward so I disabled it.

I would like nothing more than to use the full features of my Dish Hopper Joey system, but when you have limited, expensive internet...and I have very few marginally better choices, test driving it to figure out what will happen can get expensive, and I like I said, Dish has been no help to me on this issue.

2-Stewart, you did answer a very significant question for me. At home within my own Wi-Fi it seems data used would/should be limited to "validating some things"; problem is I need tangible data amount facts...at least in a ballpark type of estimate. Does validating use 150kb? Or 4 Gigs? I realize this is a radical range but that’s my point...I'd like to narrow that down and actually know better. Figuring it out through trial and error could cost tens to hundreds of dollars of data charges. Keep in mind my first post...10 bucks a Gig, that's what I pay, I do not have cable or DSL, nor can I get it, nor can Dish even provide me with decent internet to use their own system.

3-I see now where I was not clear enough originally, so here's a scenario: I'm traveling...say in a hotel room. Hey, awesome I get free Wi-Fi right? Usually.

I fire up my Dish Anywhere on my laptop or android and want to watch something on my DVR back at the house. Is the Hopper going to literally stream the content from my DVR, through my internet connection, up to a server/cloud, whatever, then back down through the internet connection at the hotel to my device? Using my data back at the house to do this?

I understand the typical HD streaming data rate is somewhere between 1 and 2 Gigs per hour (correct me if I'm wrong please), so a two hour movie could cost me $20-$40 in data usage. This is referring again to if my Hopper is using my internet connection to stream "up" the content from my DVR back at the house to get me the program elsewhere in the hotel sitting there with my laptop or android. I realize I'm getting the hotel Wi-Fi free in this scenario, my concern is what is Dish/Hopper using of my internet back at the house.

Did I make this any clearer? I realize it's sometimes a tough thing for folks to understand the whole "not having cable/DSL" at home thing, but I cannot get it here...pitfalls of rural life, it's just the way it is where my house is.

Thanks, and again I apologize for getting off to a rocky start.

Ken


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

More often than not, the epic life stories and additional background fluff get in the way of the question.

If the question is "How much bandwidth does Slinging require?", the answer is about 1-4GB/hour if you're streaming to some place outside your LAN.

In simpler terms, if you feel compelled to ask the cost, you probably can't afford it. However you _may_ be able to make use of the transfer to device feature instead.


----------



## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Ballpark is probably about as good as you're going to get because there are a lot of variables. I'm also not sure how file sizes compare from the On Demand content VS things we record on the DVR from the SAT broadcasts.

But... I typically see close to 1GB for most of the half-hour recordings I make from HD SAT channels. I've seen as high as 5-6GB for some movies that are 2 hours or longer. At least for recorded content on your DVR, you can highlight one, hit the select button and choose "Edit" and it will show you the file size of that recording... at least that's how it works on the other DVRs.

Now, if you're streaming from your DVR in your home on your home network, it should be negligible use of your Internet bandwidth... but I don't know what "negligible" really means in real-time use. Obviously if you're outside your home, and you stream content from your DVR that is going to have to use your Internet connection in order to upload it to wherever you are.

On Demand content, whether you watch it on your mobile device or on your Hopper is going to be using your home Internet connection to stream... unless you take your tablet with you and use a different WiFi connection of course.

Harsh makes a fair point, though, and not one meant to insult... but when you're dealing with low bandwidth caps and expensive overages on your home Internet connection... streaming is really not going to be for you because you'll go way past that cap with most things you'll watch in a hurry!


----------



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

harsh said:


> More often than not, the epic life stories and additional background fluff get in the way of the question.


Story of my life. In this world one loses folks after about 140 characters typically. Thanks for your help.



harsh said:


> In simpler terms, if you feel compelled to ask the cost, you probably can't afford it. However you _may_ be able to make use of the transfer to device feature instead.





Stewart Vernon said:


> Harsh makes a fair point, though, and not one meant to insult... but when you're dealing with low bandwidth caps and expensive overages on your home Internet connection... streaming is really not going to be for you because you'll go way past that cap with most things you'll watch in a hurry!


Yes I get that too. I am in no way insulted, I've been living with this problem since 2001. But I'm not really asking cost, I can calculate that. Ballpark yet slightly definitive info on data flow is all I was looking for. You both have been a real help on that once I cleaned up my question a bit. I try to emphasize my data cost problem because so many people can't fathom not having good internet. I see people referring to Wi-Fi all the time like it's free...like the term Wi-Fi means free, I see it in smart phone forums all the time. You folks in here are mostly aware that Wi-Fi simply puts internet and LAN data in the air for multiple devices to use. Where that internet service comes from and how it gets to the Wi-Fi is another animal altogether of course.



Stewart Vernon said:


> Now, if you're streaming from your DVR in your home on your home network, it should be negligible use of your Internet bandwidth... but I don't know what "negligible" really means in real-time use. Obviously if you're outside your home, and you stream content from your DVR that is going to have to use your Internet connection in order to upload it to wherever you are.
> 
> On Demand content, whether you watch it on your mobile device or on your Hopper is going to be using your home Internet connection to stream... unless you take your tablet with you and use a different WiFi connection of course.


Now this gets directly to the crux of my question...if I am using Dish Anywhere while on travel to watch my DVR content, it actually uploads that content from my DVR in my home. This would be as opposed to Dish knowing what is on my DVR and providing that program to me directly from Dish to wherever I am on travel. In other words it burns double the data...once to upload it from my home and again to download/stream it wherever I am on travel on whatever internet source I am using there. Dish really rides on the ISP backbone to do this much like Netflix...which I have to watch on Blue Ray rather than internet. ISP's are chomping at the bit to make consumers pay for all that data flow, that semi-free ride may come to an end someday. Pay for what you use may be coming to cable and DSL at some point...probably the same day I am able to get DSL with my luck.

On demand has been out of the question. They are doing nothing but riding the backbone of your ISP just like Netflix...and I find it funny they offer Netflix but I suppose there must be some "There There" for consumers. When I think of "Dish", my expectation is they will provide my service through the physical dish they install. If I had the real internet they require of me to use all these advanced services with Dish...I probably wouldn't have Dish, I would simply use internet for entertainment access. I can live without some stuff and put the $1,200 a year I spend with Dish toward up-tier internet packages. My smart TV will manage a lot on its own.

Thanks for the help folks. This probably doesn't replace the dreaded phone call to Dish I was hoping to avoid, but it better arms me with info I didn't have before.

Ken


----------



## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

There might be times when what you have recorded on your DVR does exist as an On Demand selection too... but there is no automatic process in finding that. You'd have to specifically choose an On Demand stream vs the one on your DVR. It might be nice if they did implement such a feature, though, and present you with the option of watching the On Demand version instead of the one on your home DVR.


----------



## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

The OnDemand content available through DISH Anywhere is content that DISH has the rights to distribute digitally. You can watch content that is not and never was on your receiver through DISH Anywhere ... as long as DISH has the rights.

The additional content that a Sling module or Sling enabled receiver can deliver requires home uplink bandwidth as well as the usual downlink bandwidth wherever the viewer is. The good news is that Sling adds additional content. The bad news is the uplink. Sling content gets around the rights issue since it is your recordings/receiver being watched on your devices. (Although providers who would rather you watch content on their websites with their advertising don't like Sling.)


----------



## Zulu (May 11, 2012)

Keniff said:


> I have a limited internet connection. I know, I know, everyone assumes EVERYONE has a massive pipeline of internet all the time. Trust me, if I could get it, I would have it and pay big bucks for it. But, I live on 4G modems with* 5 Gig limits*. Well, not exactly limits but its 10 bucks a Gig, not exactly a cheap movie date for streaming...know what I'm saying?
> 
> -My basic question is, if I use the Dish anywhere app on a laptop or phone, how much data could it gobble up?


Here's my experience with DISH Anywhere.

I'm familiar with limited bandwidth. I RV and use a 40GB Verizon plan. Sounds like a lot, but it goes fast.

Forget about streaming on 5 GB/month.


----------



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Thanks Stewart and James. This thread is really getting to the point of my question now.

James, you mentioned that the Sling adds additional content. Can you elaborate on that and forgive my ignorance? An example of the additional content is my question.


Zulu said:


> Forget about streaming on 5 GB/month.


Thanks Zulu, I had never thought I could stream on 5 GB/month. That has been my whole concern about using Dish Anywhere...the fact that I'm learning it burns up data from my home to get my DVR contents to me somewhere else has confirmed my fears/suspicions.

Thing is, I can stream all I want really&#8230;it's only ten bucks a gig! So using your experience/example from your blog post of 1,352 MB, that 2 hour movie would cost me over $13 to watch with Dish anywhere from my DVR&#8230;assuming I'm getting free Wi-Fi wherever I am streaming it to.

You didn't say whether that was an HD movie but earlier in your blog post you referenced a 2 hour SD show that used over a GB of data. So assuming that last example you gave (folks, click on Zulu's link to read his blog post) is SD, an HD movie could be 3-4 GB&#8230;costing $30-$40 in data on my current plan. I can go over 5 GB but the plan is $50 for 5GB and $10 per GB beyond that so that's where the calculation comes from. I know I can get a little better deal on more GB's but not enough to NOT make streaming in general cost prohibitive. I can take my wife to the movies and buy popcorn for that kind of money!

Your blog post was fantastic Zulu, but all your action is in one vehicle if I read that right. There is no reason for me to stream my Hopper/Sling to a portable device over my LAN because I have the Hopper and three Joey's, so I can watch anything I want from four different rooms already. I'm also ordering an ARIES wireless HDMI Digital Transmitter/Receiver to toss the signal from one of the Joey's to my garage or back deck for even more remote/portable viewing in other parts of the house. I have an extra little 22" flat screen to move around for that. I suppose streaming to a tablet or smart phone would be easier like you do and I will keep that in mind, but if I want to watch something enough to go remote like that I'll probably want something bigger than a device to watch&#8230;and if I'm "back decking" the last thing I want to watch is the news!

And finally folks, this is exactly why I started this thread here. This is a quote from Zulu's blog:

"It took several phone and email conversations with DISH (and Sling Media) Tech Support staff + a number of network tests I performed to verify this - but its true:"

This is what angers me and I mentioned before. Dish kicked this system out without their staff even knowing how it works thoroughly. I see Zulu started his experience about the same time as me, starting the Hopper early 2014 and he just recently began using the Sling features a bit, so that means customer service is still flaky on it if he had to have several interactions and do his own network tests to answer questions Dish should be able to answer in short order with the first or second person you speak with. I like my system in general, but this ignorance of the customer service staff is insulting to me as a customer and not fair to their staff putting them out there untrained/uneducated on the very system they are supporting. It's pathetic really. Any business with real competition would never survive like that, but they essentially have me over a barrel where I am if I want cable-like service&#8230;at the moment.

I see "Mike", the Dish guy above hasn't touched this since his post. He was on it like flies on stink when I accidentally posted a few words and had to edit it to get the rest of my first post up. He replied before I could even perform my immediate edit and we haven't seen him since. Seems pretty typical with mine and Zulu's experience, so I suppose consistency is a virtue? Maybe he's learning as he goes like it seems the rest of the Dish staff is. Perhaps we educated him a little here and he'll be able to help someone in the future better.

Thanks again to ALL

Ken


----------



## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Keniff said:


> James, you mentioned that the Sling adds additional content. Can you elaborate on that and forgive my ignorance? An example of the additional content is my question.


Sling adds the content on your receiver ... recorded and live ... not just the content that DISH has the rights to deliver via streaming from servers on the Internet.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Keniff said:


> Perhaps we educated him a little here and he'll be able to help someone in the future better.


Perhaps you'll start with a query that better represents "the crux of your question" as opposed to a long-winded oration about your deep-seated certainty that DISH is surely trying to pull a fast one one you.


----------



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

harsh said:


> Perhaps you'll start with a query that better represents "the crux of your question" as opposed to a long-winded oration about your deep-seated certainty that DISH is surely trying to pull a fast one one you.


Fair enough.

I dont think they are pulling a fast one on me. I own a business, I know what customer service looks like. 14 years of marginal customer service wil indeed "seat" frustration pretty "deep". My apologies for writing too much.

Thank you for your feedback.


----------



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

James Long said:


> Sling adds the content on your receiver ... recorded and live ... not just the content that DISH has the rights to deliver via streaming from servers on the Internet.


Thanks James.


----------



## david_jr (Dec 10, 2006)

Keniff, I think that DISH first line CSR is only there to help the customer try to get their TV back on, say, the old lady who changed TV channels by accident and can't figure out how to get it back on and such. They first line CSR may not even speak English as a first language and probably have only been trained to read from a script that they go from A to B to C, etc. They probably have so few questions like yours or Zulu's that they probably do not have anyone trained at the first several levels of CS. Remember they have almost 14 million customers. Most of those know almost nothing about their system, flat out zero. It is really only the power users like folks who hang in these forums that really know much about the systems and might ask such questions.


----------



## Zulu (May 11, 2012)

david_jr said:


> Keniff, I think that DISH first line CSR is only there to help the customer try to get their TV back on, say, the old lady who changed TV channels by accident and can't figure out how to get it back on and such . . . They probably have so few questions like yours or Zulu's that they probably do not have anyone trained at the first several levels of CS.


When I was investigating how much bandwidth Sling uses, I asked a DIRT member who gave me the wrong answer. DIRT is certainly not front line support.


----------



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

David and Zulu,

That is the exact experience I have had for 14 years and it goes beyond first line support. The office and field also do not communicate. I can't tell you how many times a field guy said, "they told you what?". Seems to be the case with all utility type services.

And David, you are right, I have patiently waited as many customer non-service non-English as a first language people read through the same troubleshooting pages you can find for yourself online.

The reason it's under my skin is I have talked to people who know what they are doing at Dish&#8230;regional manager level, who told me they know they have a problem and they are on top of it and will be resolving it post-haste. NOT!

The only reason they get away with it is they have virtually zero competition in some markets and they do have a product that works reasonably well&#8230;far from perfect, but at least I have decent TV most of the time in a place where if you want cable-like TV you'll have to have them install the West Virginia state flower&#8230;a satellite dish. But I am in Virginia&#8230;so it's a little embarrassing! ;>) (That was a joke for anyone with no sense of humor)

I don't think it is unreasonable to expect more. In my business I demand more of myself and my people. Making excuses doesn't get it done and breeds mediocrity&#8230;not the U.S.A. I grew up in.

No doubt the people in here are the most knowledgeable&#8230;even if some are a bit "Harsh". But I took welding class starting at age 16 and the instructor informed us he was an arsehole and we would not like him. Next day half the class was gone. That man changed my life eventually. I will take good advice from a jerk any day over bad advice from a sweetheart.

There I go writing too much again&#8230;it's a disease&#8230;

Thanks to all. As a result of finding this web site I know more about my Dish than Dish can tell me.


----------

