# Hopper and Joey



## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

My apologies if this is redundant. I am not a tech but I do a lot of my own wiring and such.

My question is about the hopper and joey…and specifically about the joey.

Currently I have a dish 522 and I’m thinking about an upgrade to the Hopper as well as finally going to HD TV.

I currently have the standard coax for TV2 coming in to one room. I have split and shared that signal with two other rooms. I can walk in to any room of the three and use the dish remote and the TV remote to watch TV2 signal. In one of the rooms I of course have the dish remote set to operate the TV.

This works fine for us because it is very rare that someone would want to watch TV in two or three of those rooms at one time.

With the joeys, they charge $7 a month for each. There is hardly enough TV watching in the three individual rooms that currently share the Dish 522 TV2 signal to justify paying $14 extra a month for TVs that are really not watched very much.

Question: Can I take the feed/signal off of just one joey and split it like I have the Dish 522 TV2 to watch TV in the other two rooms where I have the coax pulled? I understand that I would only have one controller and all TVs would show the same thing…that’s what I have now.

Will the remote from a joey work across multiple rooms like the RF remote for TV2 with the 522 receiver (joey in one room, split and cabled to a room 50’ away)?

The TVs in the three rooms currently served by the 522s TV2 signal are not HD, but I would slowly upgrade them.

I appreciate any help and thanks for your patience if this has been answered a hundred times. I did some reading here on this and was left more confused that I started so I thought I would try a direct question.


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## some guy (Oct 27, 2012)

You can split the lines but keep in mind that the Joey doesn't have a coax output. SO you would need an RCA or HDMI splitter. And Yes, the remote will work.


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## RBA (Apr 14, 2013)

Maybe an upgrade to a 722 instead of the hopper would be better for your current needs. Think of the 722 as a 522 with 1 HD output and a splittable SD output like your 522.


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## david_jr (Dec 10, 2006)

A lot would depend on how many TVs you are trying to get HD on. If only 2, you could do Hopper and Joey and split the signal from the Joey out to the other 2 TVs using a cheap RF modulator over your existing coax. As far as the remote reaching 50 feet you would have to try it to see. If you are trying to get HD on all sets you could still get 1 H and 1 J and carry the Joey to the other location when you want to view there. This would be a bit more complicated but can be done if you are trying to save $.


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Thanks for the replies;

To all but based on “someguy’s” reply,

So the coax on the joey is an input only and that’s how it connects to the hopper? See rear view of joey attached that I found on usdish.com

So the HD signal comes out of the RCA or HDMI? Or just the HDMI and the signal from the RCA is not HD?

RBA,

Thanks, I have considered that and in fact Dish brought that to my attention. They would switch me for no extra charge to the 722. How is the 722 compared to the 522? Can I still record two shows and watch another already recorded? How many hours of recording time? I think I was a bit confused reading the specs.

David_jr,

So an RF modulator would convert the signal for coax from what? The RCA video jack? HDMI? Sorry for my ignorance.

Also, the signal coming out of the modulator would not be HD?


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## thomasjk (Jan 10, 2006)

RCA outputs (composite) are not HD. They are SD. Only the HDMI output is HD.


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## RBA (Apr 14, 2013)

Keniff think of the 722 as the same as a 522 you can record 2 HD signals at the same time on tuners 1 and 2. Recording time is impossible to answer because you can record both HD and SD on the hard drive. Hd takes 3 to 4 times as much space as SD so the mix of recording determines how much you can record. The 722 does have a 500 gig hard drive which is much larger than the 522 and you can add external hard drives to the 722 up to a 2TB.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

> you can add external hard drives to the 722 up to a 2TB


the limit has been raised - see my old posts, I did test 3 TB drive


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

Thanks to all. I very much appreciate your time.

General questions:

Can the RCA Standard Definition out connections on the TV2 Joey be easily and inexpensively converted to a coax so I can convert to coax and then split the coax to use the existing coax that is run to my two other rooms (three rooms total upstairs)? I assume the HDMI cannot be split and converted to coax standard definition but please correct me if I'm wrong. (I would assume it can be split, it's the conversion to coax question I'm curious about)

Possible setup>Joey at TV2 fed by HDMI for HD. Then composite (RCA) out converted to coax, then split to feed TV3 and 4 which I understand would not be HD.
&#8230;and if I could do that&#8230;
*What if it is an HD channel? Will the channel still display in standard definition on an older TV? Or would I have to select a standard definition channel in order to see it on the two non HD TV3 & 4?

To RBA and all:

Looking at the rear of the Dish 722, it looks like the TV2 output is RCA (composite). So this means TV2 is not HD on the 722, correct? (picture attached)

I guess that means maybe there *is* a composite (RCA) to coax converter, and that's how the dish installers feed the coax that goes upstairs to TV2?
*In my case currently TV1 is downstairs, TV2 is upstairs fed by coax and I currently have that coax split twice to feed TV3 and TV4, which of course all of the upstairs TV2,3 & 4 show the same thing if you turn them all on.

P Smith,

Thanks for the info on the external hard drive.

I hope I'm not wearing out my welcome here,

Thanks


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

OK folks, thanks for your help. Not replying to my last forced me to do more of my own research, I only asked here because I thought it may be possible that your collective knowledge could answer this stuff faster.

As a thanks for the help you did try and give, here are my results:

The 722 Receiver will give me almost exactly the same multi-tv split coax feed capability for TV 2,3,4 in SD AND still have the UHF remote for TV 2 allowing me to carry the remote to the other rooms where those TVs are and control dish from each room. Of course the 722 would improve TV1 to HD and greatly expand the hard drive capacity AND the addition of an external drive even more capacity.

The Hopper/Joey will not do this for me using just one Joey to easily send that same feed to two additional TVS and here's why:
-The Joey's remote is IR so you have to be in the same room with the receiver to control it.
-The Composite connectors on the Joey will provide an SD signal concurrently with the HDMI providing HD...but/and...
-The Composite could be converted to coax to feed those other two TVs but I would have to return to the room where the Joey is in order to change channels, pause, etc. So this will not work the way I wanted.

Bottom line is the remote. The IR remote vs. UHF remote was the missing link to my situation/question. You cant take the remote to another room out of line of sight to operate Dish with Hopper's Joey but you can with the TV2 remote on the Dish 522 and 722 receivers.

Whew..took me a long walk to get there but I know what decision I have to work with now.

I can go 722, get HD on one TV and keep the same SD setup I have now feeding three sets on one feed of TV2 at no extra charge (Dish trying to keep me happy). This would essentially be a one TV HD upgrade for free.

Or

I can go Hopper with three Joeys and my bill goes up $26 a month. But I get all the Hopper/Joey benefits and actually end up with a major upgrade all around.

I hope this thread will help someone in the future...but I'm probably the last guy on earth without HD right now so who knows.


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

As a follow up.

I got the Hopper/Joey setup. It works OK but the Joeys have serious lag when controlling them

The Joey remotes do in fact work from another room. You do not have to point them directly at the box. You can go in to another room and change channels back in the room the Joey is in.

I would still like to find a solution to split the HD signal coming out of the Joey and share that on three TV's total. I realize it would be whatever channel is on that one Joey.
Any way to split the HDMI, take one and convert that to coax, then split and distribute the coax? I know HD works through coax because the Dish tech used my existing coax runs to get the hopper connection to the Joeys in the three rooms upstairs.

Since those coax runs are already there, that's why I want to convert the HDMI to coax.

Thanks for any wisdom!


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

HD doesn't "work" over coax as such.

You can send a digital signal across almost any medium... and therein lies the rub.

In order to do what you suggest, convert HDMI to coax and back again... you would need an MPEG encoder to convert the HDMI signal into something that can be transported over coax... then have MPEG decoders at each "exit" point to convert the signal back to HDMI. Such devices exist, but are not cheap.

You would be better served to split the HDMI and run cables... but if you don't want to do that, get more Joeys... if you don't want to do that... you can split the line that runs to a Joey, connect all those rooms together and them pick up the Joey and move it from room to room as you need it... you just wouldn't be able to have viewing in more than one place obviously.

Or, Dish has wireless Joeys too.. you could get one of those for another room.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Running 1 HDTV with 3 SD TVs off coax - The 722 is probably the easiest way to do it. Will work exactly like your 522 /625, except that TV1 can be HD (Via Component or HDMI) locally. TV2 has both A/V (SD only) and the built in Coax output will output both TV1 AND TV2 in SD (2 different channels) (the RF outputs are using builtin modulators). Using a 722K , you can add an MT2 OTA adapter and these can be output to TV1 and TV2.

Using a Joey / Hopper to SD secondary TV's - you can buy (from other sources besides DISH) these gadgets called modulators that will take SD A/V and convert it to NTSC (analog) RF signals. Again, you could have as many modulators as you have Hoppers+ Joeys. And yes - both the Hoppers and the Joeys have said SD video (the yellow one ) and audio (red and white). www.smarthome.com used to have them, although I haven't looked in a while.

If you want to do multiple HDTVs - no question - the Hopper and Joey system is the cat's meow - as long as all the HDTVs have HDMI (and when was the last time you DIDN'T see an HDMI port on a HDTV ?).


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

Any old VCR with composite input can be used to generate a TV signal on usually ch3 or ch4,

Wally world has composite to RF converters that are not too expensive.


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## Keniff (Nov 25, 2013)

My apologies folks, I could have been clearer.

I stated that I do have the Hopper with Sling and Joey setup now, but I forgot to mention that I have 3 Joeys already. It occurred to me I had not stated this after reading Stuart Vernon's last post.

What I'm getting at, is I have three Joeys upstairs in the house. Bedroom 1, Bedroom 2 and office.

Bedroom 2 and office are rarely watched. I can trim my bill $14 a month if I could figure out how to feed three TVS with one Joey. The TV's are all wall mounted and have coax split from one room to all. Dish actually used that split location and installed their own splitter of some sort.

I know I could carry a Joey to the three different rooms when I want to watch there. Unfortunately I have slickly mounted the Joey in Bedroom 2 behind the TV on the wall mount to keep the mess off of the dresser and more hidden so I would lose that.

In the grand scheme I realize I'm being a cheapskate trying to save the $14 a month and it's not much for the convenience the extra Joeys give me. Buy hey, $14 a month is $14 dollars a month. I didn't get where I am but not being very strategic with my money and saving everywhere I can.

I'm always trying to get something in configurations that don't exist&#8230;story of my life! But, I like the challenge. I'll keep playing around with this.

Hey folks, do these things work? Some reviews say it's only SD. I want to wirelessly beam a signal to a temporary TV out on the back deck on occasion. A Separate subject, but if these work maybe it could solve my other problem too?

http://www.amazon.com/Nyrius-NY-GS10-Transmitter-Streaming-Satellite/dp/B00FB1NTP6/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

May need to spend more for a better unit&#8230;but you guys have any experience with this?

I can post a fresh topic if it makes sense.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

That Amazon-linked product may work... it is obviously only SD if it does, from the component connections visible in the picture. Again, it's starting to be a lot of money to spend for not much convenience.

If it were me, I would split some coax and just manually move my Joeys around if you are looking to save money.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

If Ethernet is available the Joeys could be moved around on that as well.


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