# Hopper Questions: Memory and My Existing System



## 62Lincoln (Jan 25, 2006)

Will the Hopper memory allow me to create separate areas for my children's recordings vs. the recordings for my wife and I? - And - will I be able to assign a security code to lock the parental recordings?

My existing system has 4 receivers being fed from the latest switch (444?). With the Hopper system (1 Hopper, 3 Joeys) will I be able to utilize the existing cable runs, and essentially 'plug in' the distribution from the Hopper to the existing cable runs that terminate at the current switch?

Thanks for your help!


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## KeViN_VSC (Nov 7, 2007)

I can answer a part of your question.

The Hopper's hard drive will not let you make separate areas(partitions) for your children and you. It'll be like any other DVR where all recordings are simply saved in the hard drive. Although, you can setup locks on Joey's so that you can restrict your children from watching something that shouldn't.

I hope this helps!

PS: The Hopper has a 2TB HD but only 500GB is for the user. The 1.5TB goes for the system firmware/software and the PTAT recordings. If you don't use the PTAT feature you will have more storage.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

Are you sure disabling PTA would give the user more storage? My impression is that if PTA is disabled the Hopper doesn't rebuild the partitions for additional user space. The PTA space is allowed to fallow.


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## VDP07 (Feb 22, 2006)

The Hopper has a 2TB hard drive. 1TB, 250hrs of hd recording capacity is reserved for the user and 1TB is reserved for Dish. Disabling PTA has zero effect on the 50/50 split of the hd capacity.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

KeViN_VSC said:


> I can answer a part of your question.
> 
> The Hopper's hard drive will not let you make separate areas(partitions) for your children and you. It'll be like any other DVR where all recordings are simply saved in the hard drive. Although, you can setup locks on Joey's so that you can restrict your children from watching something that shouldn't.
> 
> ...


India ? Oh, so dish will install h/j in India also. Cool.

Anyway, that part of your post isn't accurate. FW wouldn't use drive as system partition, perhaps for logs.


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## kstevens (Mar 26, 2003)

VDP07 said:


> The Hopper has a 2TB hard drive. 1TB, 250hrs of hd recording capacity is reserved for the user and 1TB is reserved for Dish. Disabling PTA has zero effect on the 50/50 split of the hd capacity.


I looked on my hopper. I only have 500GB for user storage, not 1TB.

Ken


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

kstevens said:


> I looked on my hopper. I only have 500GB for user storage, not 1TB.
> 
> Ken


Could you please post the fact, I mean snapshot ?

So far, all testers and techs reporting 1 TB of user space (actually based on dish claim: 250 hours of HD) and no one bring facts.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

For 250 hrs, having 500GB free sounds more like it. Does anyone know if DISH still reduces the amount of colors in the stream? Or, is that only for SD? I recall one of the engineers discussing on a Tech Chat a while back that full RGB takes too much bandwidth and DISH uses something like 256K colors. I know on SD the colors look horrible in gradient lighted scenes.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Blowgun said:


> For 250 hrs, having 500GB free sounds more like it. Does anyone know if DISH still reduces the amount of colors in the stream? Or, is that only for SD? I recall one of the engineers discussing on a Tech Chat a while back that full RGB takes too much bandwidth and DISH uses something like 256K colors. I know on SD the colors look horrible in gradient lighted scenes.


Check other h/j thread - we dissect the numbers very thoroughly and had lengthy discussion (and I did same mistake as you initially).


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

P Smith said:


> Check other h/j thread - we dissect the numbers very thoroughly and had lengthy discussion (and I did same mistake as you initially).


So, then it's not a 500 GB partition for 250 hours as "kstevens" suggests?

Or, are you replying to my question regarding the lack of 32-bit color on the Hopper/Joey?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I'm on same track - digging the dish's claim and asking Ken give us real facts as he said differently having the h2k in his hands.


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## kstevens (Mar 26, 2003)

I'm away for the weekend. I'll try to post a snapshot Sunday afternoon. 

Ken


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

Just for comparison, I can get 408 hours of mpeg 4 hd recording on a 2tb drive with a directv hd receiver. 100 gig is reserved for Directv. So around 200 - 250 per 1 tb, so if they are getting that in 500 gigs, they are doing something funky to that signal.

It also doesn't make sense that they should need 1.5 tb space saved for 96 hours of hd. That fits in more like 500 gigs of space, so the math is real weird here. Maybe a dish internet response team member can shed some light on this? I am curios...


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

inkahauts said:


> It also doesn't make sense that they should need 1.5 tb space saved for 96 hours of hd. That fits in more like 500 gigs of space, so the math is real weird here. Maybe a dish internet response team member can shed some light on this? I am curios...


There is a lot of other stuff that DISH downloads to the receiver to serve as DISH on Demand content, including Blockbuster @ Home content and HBO and Cinemax on Demand content (call it DISH unplugged). Some of that content is downloaded over one's own home broadband connection on demand, but a lot is predownloaded overnight when the receiver is at "rest".

If 500 GB is enough for 250 hours of the customer's satellite HD recordings, the 1.5 TB would be enough for 750 hours of other content. Which could be a month of 24/7 television viewing. Not that anyone would watch it all, but it would all be available instantly, without waiting for download or scheduling.

Hopper / Joey can also do 3D ... which in DISH's world is on demand only (no "live" channels). So some of that "reserved" space is used for that.

Blockbuster @ Home requires subscription to the Blockbuster package. HBO and Cinemax content requires subscription to those premium packages. The other content would either be included with your subscription (such as Epix and Starz! content or other channel related content) or be available as PPV. Stored on your receiver, start any time.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

We did that already, why repeat same mistakes ?
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2937586


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

P Smith said:


> We did that already, why repeat same mistakes ?
> http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2937586


It has been a while since I measured ---
*MPEG4 in 2010 ...*
An hour of The Discovery Channel is 1.9-2.0 GB
An hour of CNN is 2.1 GB
An hour of Speed is 2.0-2.3 GB
An hour of Style HD is 5.9 GB (surprisingly high!)
An hour of my local CBS via satellite is 2.5-3.0 GB
An hour of my local NBC via satellite is 2.2 GB
An hour of my local FOX via satellite is 2.2 GB
(source post)​2 GB per hour x 250 hours = 500 GB


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

I'm still curious about this....

Does anyone know if DISH still reduces the amount of colors in the stream? Or, is that only for SD? I recall one of the engineers discussing on a Tech Chat a while back that full RGB takes too much bandwidth and DISH uses something like 256K colors. I know on SD the colors look horrible in gradient lighted scenes. Such scenes as moonlight, submarines under water, etc.

Since using less colors per channel mean less bandwidth to stream, the results are also smaller files on the hard drive for each recorded event. 

Has this changed?


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## Joe Bernardi (May 27, 2003)

I was extremely pleased with the picture quality on the Hoppers and Joeys I had installed on 3/15/12. They must have a great processor because HD programs looked almost as good as it did ten years ago before HD channels got so compressed.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Blowgun said:


> I'm still curious about this....
> 
> Does anyone know if DISH still reduces the amount of colors in the stream? Or, is that only for SD? I recall one of the engineers discussing on a Tech Chat a while back that full RGB takes too much bandwidth and DISH uses something like 256K colors. I know on SD the colors look horrible in gradient lighted scenes. Such scenes as moonlight, submarines under water, etc.
> 
> ...


It's not just the quantization, but little more complicated. Rod put it regarding MPEG-2 on his web site awhile, but the method still the same for MPEG-4.
Read the chapter "What's 4:2:2 and HHR MPEG-2?" here http://www.tsreader.com/legacy/


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

James Long said:


> It has been a while since I measured ---
> *MPEG4 in 2010 ...*
> An hour of The Discovery Channel is 1.9-2.0 GB
> An hour of CNN is 2.1 GB
> ...


If someone would get data about 813's partitions, then we will settle it.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

"James Long" said:


> It has been a while since I measured ---
> MPEG4 in 2010 ...
> An hour of The Discovery Channel is 1.9-2.0 GB
> An hour of CNN is 2.1 GB
> ...


So dish takes about half the space as DirecTV does on a hard drive per hour. Interesting.

I'm more amazed at just how much they push to dvrs though. That's an incredible amount of shows. DirecTV only pushes about 10 to 12 movies at a time to your dvr, sounds like dish pushes 20 times that.

And DirecTV has people constantly complaining about the 100 gigs that is set aside for DirecTVs use... 

Does dish make it easy to find what is loaded n their dvrs so it's easy to choose one of those shows and watch them? Aside from the PTAT stuff.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

P Smith said:


> If someone would get data about 813's partitions, then we will settle it.


Opening a leased receiver would not be a good option and I don't believe anyone wants to pay $399 (or more) to buy a Hopper when the lease upgrade deals are available. 

Hopper records the same satellite feeds as the ViP units. Perhaps a new reading is needed to see if DISH made their feeds considerably smaller than 2 GB/hr over the past two years. But that can be done without violating warantees.


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

inkahauts said:


> Just for comparison, I can get 408 hours of mpeg 4 hd recording on a 2tb drive with a directv hd receiver. 100 gig is reserved for Directv. So around 200 - 250 per 1 tb, so if they are getting that in 500 gigs, they are doing something funky to that signal.
> 
> It also doesn't make sense that they should need 1.5 tb space saved for 96 hours of hd. That fits in more like 500 gigs of space, so the math is real weird here. Maybe a dish internet response team member can shed some light on this? I am curios...


You get 96 hours, as that is 8 days of four channels for three hours that you access. However as I understand it the PTAT is actually recording the entire transponders contents for three hours for 8 days.

That could be the equal of 8 or more channels for the 8 days at 3 hours per day as I understand it.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

James Long said:


> Opening a leased receiver would not be a good option and I don't believe anyone wants to pay $399 (or more) to buy a Hopper when the lease upgrade deals are available.
> 
> Hopper records the same satellite feeds as the ViP units. Perhaps a new reading is needed to see if DISH made their feeds considerably smaller than 2 GB/hr over the past two years. But that can be done without violating warantees.


Nay. Opening the box will not void the warranty; only if you will remove the drive. Void label do bonds the drive to drive's holder.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

"TBoneit" said:


> You get 96 hours, as that is 8 days of four channels for three hours that you access. However as I understand it the PTAT is actually recording the entire transponders contents for three hours for 8 days.
> 
> That could be the equal of 8 or more channels for the 8 days at 3 hours per day as I understand it.


So now we are talking about maybe up to 200 hours or so. Still no where near the amount of space they set aside. Andif they do that, i would hope they would make all those programs available as well to watch. Do they?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

inkahauts said:


> So now we are talking about maybe up to 200 hours or so. Still no where near the amount of space they set aside. Andif they do that, i would hope they would make all those programs available as well to watch. Do they?


Only the big four networks are available via PTA/PTAT. There is no solid answer on whether the entire transponder is recorded or if only the streams needed for those four channels are recorded. I hope to know more later today. 
(No, I will not be taking any screws out of the box.)


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

James Long said:


> Only the big four networks are available via PTA/PTAT. There is no solid answer on whether the entire transponder is recorded or if only the streams needed for those four channels are recorded. I hope to know more later today.
> (No, I will not be taking any screws out of the box.)


Yeah, yeah ...


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

James Long said:


> It has been a while since I measured ---
> *MPEG4 in 2010 ...*
> An hour of The Discovery Channel is 1.9-2.0 GB
> An hour of CNN is 2.1 GB
> ...


If I will start calculating, I would use measured bandwidth of such channel.
For now I would take average number of not that 'fat' channel: 5 Mbps.
Simple math (5 Mbps * 3600 sec = 1.8 GB/h) do shows - the 2 GB per hour (above) taken per low then representative channels.
As many of you aware, a lot of channels/programs occupy 10...13 Mbps on the company's transponders.
I didn't count audio and system overhead !


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

All I did (in 2010) was take a few single hour recordings from the networks noted and mark them for transfer to an external hard drive. The GUI gave me the sizes reported.

If eight or nine channels of bandwidth capable of delivering 2 GB per hour can fit on an 8PSK transponder with some overhead then it works for confirmation. If one cannot fit eight 2 GB per hour channels on an 8PSK transponder perhaps the size is a little smaller now. When I have a chance I will check the file sizes again.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I don't see how the 8 channels constituted as representative selection from 100s HD channels. Nowhere in dish official wording you will find such narrow by count and particular channels reference when it come to state how many HD hours your model will hold.

Nay, it's not correct method of counting.

To your advantage I would come with something like average.


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## VDP07 (Feb 22, 2006)

As far as the division (User partition vs Dish's partion) of the 2TB hard drive goes, every single official declaration I've seen or heard states a 50/50 split. This has been stated in numorous training videos, Retailer Chats and live training classes. I'm pretty sure I have seen it in print as well. I would wonder why this info has been reapeated so often if not true.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Because you have no access to the drive and cannot verify such claim.


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## VDP07 (Feb 22, 2006)

Mr Smith, ye hath little faith in the honor of our leaders, eh?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

There are no leaders for old man.  Particular in the company.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

P Smith said:


> Because you have no access to the drive and cannot verify such claim.


You apparently don't have access to a drive and seem to be stating claims.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

James Long said:


> I hope to know more later today.


The answer is 500 GB. (Found under Menu/Recordings Transfer)


> (No, I will not be taking any screws out of the box.)


And I did not have to do that.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

James Long said:


> You apparently don't have access to a drive and seem to be stating claims.


Quotation please or it would be classified as ummm, how to say politely ? bulling ?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

James Long said:


> The answer is 500 GB. (Found under Menu/Recordings Transfer)
> And I did not have to do that.


Could be a picture posted here ?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

James Long said:


> It has been a while since I measured ---
> *MPEG4 in 2010 ...*
> An hour of The Discovery Channel is 1.9-2.0 GB
> An hour of CNN is 2.1 GB
> ...


I get my memory back ! 

I did measures of the COMPANY's values of the counter and found a formula here.


> - reserve for internal needs is equivalent to 300 min of SD time or 75 of HD time
> - estimate 1 min of SD should take 42 MB and 1 min of HD - 168 MB space


That would clearly buried your measure deep into our personal opinions. 

I recall my research of same aspect for internal drive 622/722 (I can't find my post here - damn Search ! ).

P.S. I'm little surprised after converting to GB/h: 10 GB/h for HD recordings, duh ! But it's how *FW* calculating ... :shrug:
It was static measures, for empty new drives with ViP211. 
Perhaps someone with three empty [approved] drives could do same for 622/722 - that set is very short: 250 GB, 320 GB and 500 GB.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

P Smith said:


> P.S. I'm little surprised after converting to GB/h: 10 GB/h for HD recordings, duh ! But it's how *FW* calculating ...


DISH is claiming 250 hours in the customer space on the drive. 10 GB/h would be more than the physical space on the entire drive. Perhaps your calculator is broken?

2 GB/h matches 250 hours in 500 GB. 500 GB is the listed size of the customer space on the drive. While a good quality 1080i OTA feed would consume more that 2 GB/h that isn't an issue on a receiver without OTA.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I got the surprise to see the value - how FW calculating free space (in hrs and min) for ViP211 EHD.
In case I'm miscalculated - you can repeat all tests and do own calculation.
Perhaps that FW version using MPEG-2 stream parameters ...


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

P Smith said:


> Perhaps that FW version using MPEG-2 stream parameters ...


Perhaps ... my 622 doesn't use 2 GB/h when estimating space but when it was released HD was still in MPEG-2 over some satellite channels. It is odd to see "one hour remaining" on my 622 and know I could record a five hour HD show without bumping an older program.

Hopper will likely never see a satellite MPEG-2 HD stream, although once OTA becomes available it will see local MPEG-2 streams (HD and SD). The 250 hours will be consumed more quickly if people use it to record OTA HD.


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## kstevens (Mar 26, 2003)

I have an picture but I don't have a host for the picture. anywhere I can send it?

Ken


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

kstevens said:


> I have an picture but I don't have a host for the picture. anywhere I can send it?
> 
> Ken


You don't need a host. Scroll down under the text box for a new post and you will see a Manage Attachments link. That lets you upload from your computer.


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## kstevens (Mar 26, 2003)

Ok, here is the photo.


Ken


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

kstevens said:


> Ok, here is the photo.
> 
> Ken


Thank you. The 1/4 of total size looks funny when you know there is 2 TB drive.


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## txsrooster (Mar 19, 2012)

I wonder if you have 2 hoppers and in theory they will be able to link later in the year..can you recover one of the 2tb drives for personal use as you would only have the need for 1 for PTAT.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

txsrooster said:


> I wonder if you have 2 hoppers and in theory they will be able to link later in the year..can you recover one of the 2tb drives for personal use as you would only have the need for 1 for PTAT.


no, no changes in H2k tandem


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

P Smith said:


> The 1/4 of total size looks funny when you know there is 2 TB drive.


Truth brother. Particularly when it suggests that the receiver needs nearly 1.5 TB just for the thing to work. That's either poor management of space or theirs a Bloat-a-potamus swimming inside.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Blowgun said:


> Truth brother. Particularly when it suggests that the receiver needs nearly 1.5 TB just for the thing to work. That's either poor management of space or theirs a Bloat-a-potamus swimming inside.


There are potentially 2000 hours of content inside. (How 500 GB = 250 hours of customer HD and 2 TB = 2000 hours of total HD is an interesting paradox. More compression of downloaded / on-demand content?)


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

James Long said:


> There are potentially 2000 hours of content inside. (How 500 GB = 250 hours of customer HD and 2 TB = 2000 hours of total HD is an interesting paradox. More compression of downloaded / on-demand content?)


Interesting. And, a 2 TB hard drive isn't 2 TB (1000 vs 1024). Yeah, more compression, reduced resolution, etc. The poor hard drive, in order to handle the ever changing content must be grinding away it's life.


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## jeffdb27 (Jul 13, 2007)

It sure would be nice if there was an option that said I'm never, ever going to watch anything On Demand or any other type of preloaded content so that they would give that space back to the user.


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## jeffdb27 (Jul 13, 2007)

James Long said:


> Hopper / Joey can also do 3D ... which in DISH's world is on demand only (no "live" channels). So some of that "reserved" space is used for that.


 (off topic)
According to this page, 3D programming is also available on the 722/722k. I have a 722k and have never seen any 3D content on there. Has anyone out there?

Thanks,

Jeff


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