# Does Hopper with sling have an OTA module?



## PhantomOG (Feb 7, 2007)

Coming back to Dish after a brief and painful stint with time warner. Previously had the first generation Hopper and a USB dual OTA tuner. Is the new Hopper with sling compatible or have something similar?


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## hasbeen29650 (Mar 25, 2012)

I had a USB tuner on my original hopper. When I got a Hopper with sling, it continued to work just fine. It is not a dual tuner however. As far as I know, there was never a usb dual tuner.


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## PhantomOG (Feb 7, 2007)

That's right, my memory is wrong, it was a single tuner. 

Now I regret sending it back... I didn't have to but I did anyways. Now I will have to pay for it again.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I did try to connect two USB tuners to the H .... no dice that time and no announcement happened for support two USB OTA tuners in new FW


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I can only guess that there is a CPU issue with trying to process more tuners than is currently supported... otherwise you would think you could use another USB OTA tuner ona Hopper. I can only imagine it is an intentional limit to support just the one USB add-on due to poor performance when multiple ones were tried during development. Mind you, that's a pure guess on my part and no actual data to support my supposition.


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## hasbeen29650 (Mar 25, 2012)

Stewart Vernon said:


> I can only guess that there is a CPU issue with trying to process more tuners than is currently supported... otherwise you would think you could use another USB OTA tuner ona Hopper. I can only imagine it is an intentional limit to support just the one USB add-on due to poor performance when multiple ones were tried during development. Mind you, that's a pure guess on my part and no actual data to support my supposition.


 I might agree except that the super joey should be presenting about the same load on the Hopper and it has two tuners. It is almost like they do not want to encourage you to get too comfortable with OTA tuners.


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## Jaspear (May 16, 2004)

hasbeen29650 said:


> I might agree except that the super joey should be presenting about the same load on the Hopper and it has two tuners. It is almost like they do not want to encourage you to get too comfortable with OTA tuners.


Yeah bingo. The whole OTA dongle experience seems somewhat half baked. Just like the DTV AM21. But that might change if that OTA a-la-carte proposal actually turns into law.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

hasbeen29650 said:


> I might agree except that the super joey should be presenting about the same load on the Hopper and it has two tuners. It is almost like they do not want to encourage you to get too comfortable with OTA tuners.


But it isn't presenting the same load on a Hopper, is it?

The OTA module plugs in and runs directly with the CPU of the Hopper... The Super Joey has its own tuners... and just streams the video across MoCa.

The Hopper can connect to 3 Joeys so the video streaming across MoCA is already accounted for even if all possible tuners in a Hopper are in use simultaneously.

We're talking about specifically adding more live-processing tuners directly to a Hopper.... that's what would happen with another OTA module.

The Super Joey has its own CPU to process its tuners... and then merely shares the streaming across MoCA... so it's not the same thing in terms of occupying CPU on the Hopper.


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## PhantomOG (Feb 7, 2007)

are the OTA usb tuners in stock? previously it seemed hard to get. About to sign up for Dish again, hopefully it won't be too hard to get one.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

when you will have dish account, you should go to it and order the tuner, then you will get an answer


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## PhantomOG (Feb 7, 2007)

yeah, I know that. Was just hoping to find out from those here who already have access whether they are available for order or not. I consider the OTA a pretty important part of signing up again.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

eBay
I sold two of them there


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## PhantomOG (Feb 7, 2007)

P Smith said:


> eBay
> I sold two of them there


that is a good idea, might even save me a buck or two.


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## hasbeen29650 (Mar 25, 2012)

Stewart Vernon said:


> But it isn't presenting the same load on a Hopper, is it?
> 
> The OTA module plugs in and runs directly with the CPU of the Hopper... The Super Joey has its own tuners... and just streams the video across MoCa.
> 
> ...


Well, I don't really know much about what is inside the OTA module but it must contain the tuner. That means the Hopper only has to accept that stream from the USB port and write it to the hard drive. Should not take a huge amount of processing. I can't really believe the Hopper with Sling is that short or processing power. Maybe the first Hopper was tight but the sling can convert video to mobile devices, it has to have some spare power.


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## audiomaster (Jun 24, 2004)

I wish the hopper/Joey system had an INPUT that would allow me to transfer my home videos to the internal or external hard drive and then play them back over the system on any of the Joeys. An input for a camera would also be nice for security systems or live recording.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

You are mistakenly define input as a device what digitize and compress analog signal. Not that simple...


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