Direct-to-home satellite TV provider Dish unveiled at CES 2016 Tuesday its Hopper 3 receiver/DVR that doubles the numbers of shows that can be recorded at one time – from eight in the current Hopper to 16 programs at once.
Dish also revealed its new “Hopper GO” accessory hard drive that lets users take along 100 hours of content and play it back on up to five devices, simultaneously.
In other announcements, the company’s Sling TV cord-cutting service division is revamping the service’s user interface, and will be adding ESPN3 to the growing list of available channels.
Read more on Dish’s CES product introductions after the jump:
Meanwhile, the Hopper 3 (pictured at top) will feature built-in 4K UHD at up to 60fps capability using a new more powerful chipset. Dish said the chipset delivers 7x the processing power of the previous Hopper 2. The DVR is powered by a Broadcom 7445, Quad-core ARM application processor at 1.5GHz, and 21K DMIPS. In includes 10-bit color support, H.265, HDMI 2.0 output with HDCP 2.2, and MoCA 2.0.
The Hopper 3 incorporates 2TBs of internal storage, capable of recording more than 500 hours of HD content. Dish said it will be the first DVR with USB 3.0 ports for high-speed connections to external storage devices for expanded archival capability.
In addition, the universal search feature in previous Hoppers has been expanded to include scans for programming available on the Netflix over-the-top subscription streaming service. It also includes voice search as a standard feature.
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Other new features include a “sports bar mode” that allows you to display four Full HD 1080p channel streams at one time on a single 4K Ultra HD screen. It allows viewers to create their own sports bar (or any other content) and display all four sources simultaneously on the same screen.
Dish executives said they believe sports bar mode will be a sleeper hit, in part, because equipment designed to perform similar functions for the custom installation market costs tens of thousands of dollars; But the Hopper 3 will provide the service as a standard feature.
Meanwhile, the Hopper GO portable storage device will feature 64GBs of capacity and has a four-hour battery life. Dish said the HopperGO will enable users to take up to 100 hours of DVR recordings on the road with them.
Five simultaneous connections are supported via private wireless cloud using the Dish Anywhere App.
By Greg Tarr
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