Review: DISH Hopper With Sling

You might start talking with a Boston accent when you use DISH Hopper with Sling. Echoes of the TV commercials, including the one where a guy turns a toilet into a recliner, will resound in your head like a gong. "The Hoppa, The Hoppa," you'll murmur to yourself as you sit back in your own easy chair. Maybe it's just a brilliant marketing campaign, or maybe it's just annoying.

Either way, after months of teasing, the Hopper with Sling is finally here. And, fortunately, it's worth the wait.

SATELLITE SMACKDOWN
The DISH Hopper and DirecTV Genie set-top boxes both have distinctly unique features, so we reviewed them head-to-head, going deep on each device individually while pausing to compare them to each other along the way. Once you've read about the Hopper, go read our review of the Genie.This is the second generation of Hopper, and it's much improved over the device that first debuted a few years ago. The new model includes the Sling place-shifting service so you can offload shows – live TV programs and DVR recordings – to any compatible device like an iPad or your laptop. So, you can transfer an HD recording of a show like Psych to a remote device and watch it later, even if you're somewhere without internet access. DISH has offered these Sling features before, but never as a feature on the main DVR.

For those trying to decide between DirecTV Genie and DISH Hopper with Sling, the good news is that both DVRs have distinct advantages and unique features. So depending on how many of the network TV shows you watch, how many people live in your home, and whether or not the iPad connectivity is something you'd really use, you should be able to make an educated decision.

I lived with the device for a few weeks – Poor me, right? I wanted to try every conceivable entertainment option, and DISH was happy to oblige, setting me up with one main Hopper DVR and two compact Joey clients. The company activated the best package (Americas Everything, $85 per month), pointed me to all the various apps, and even let me test out the Blockbuster@Home service for streaming shows and renting discs.

The main DISH Hopper box is slim, black, and silent. The design is a bit understated compared to DirecTV's Genie, which is a bit taller and has bright blue LED lights. The Joey clients that pair with the Hopper are bigger than the DirecTV Mini clients, and have no extra frills. They're just plain black boxes.

The 'Autohop' feature automatically removes all the commercials in the shows the Hopper auto-recorded for you.One of the big differences compared to DirectTV Genie is that, with Hopper, you can activate DISH's "Primetime Anytime" service and record all evening shows on ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC. The hard drive is 2 terabytes, which is twice as much space than what you get on most other set-top boxes. But I figure, if DISH eventually offers an 8TB version or something much larger, you might be able to auto-record every channel each night. (Such on-demand access would look and function a bit like Hulu, but more on that later.)

So, why auto-record? It means you can play any show saved over the last eight days. Missed an episode of Blue Bloods and forgot to set your timer? No problem, it's auto-recorded for you. The service scoops up everything on the big four networks' primetime schedules – that's 8pm to 11pm on the east coast, an hour sooner elsewhere – but not the late-night shows.

And, Primetime Anytime only uses one of the three tuners. (The four major networks on the service all stream over one tuner at the same time.) The first-gen Hopper included the feature, but with the Sling service, it's even more valuable. You use the DISH Hopper app on your iPad or Android tablet, or from a computer browser using the company's dishanywhere.com website. To place-shift, you have to select a Save option for each show, which makes the recording available for external access.

Another key feature of Primetime Anytime: Autohop, which automatically removes all the commercials in the shows the Hopper auto-recorded for you. (This feature is famously the subject of some high-profile corporate shenanigans.) Select the Autohop option when you start the recording, put down the remote, and watch the program in one chunk while the Hopper skips the ads automatically. It only works with primetime shows recorded with Primetime Anywhere. And it's only semi-magical – it might pick up the beginning or the tail end of the network promos for other shows, but then after a few seconds, it jumps right back into your program.

The alternative from DirecTV, the Genie, doesn't auto-record all primetime shows, but it watches your timers and records shows you might like – it uses a predictive engine approach versus DISH's smorgasbord. For me, using the DirecTV box meant keeping up on the evening primetime schedule each day. But I also liked Genie because it recorded slightly more obscure shows. (My best example: it auto-recorded Justified on FX because it had learned of my Persons of Interest addiction.) With DirecTV's Genie, you can sync shows for internet-free viewing if you purchase the Nomad for $150.

On the Hopper, place-shifting works fine, but it's not perfect. For one thing, transferring an hour-long show to an iPad over an 802.11n wireless network takes about five minutes. Transferring a show to the DISH web service is equally time-consuming, but still very easy, and the streaming quality in the browser for several episodes of a new SyFy show called Continuum looked silky smooth.

Using the "more is more" approach, DISH offers an additional app called Explorer for controlling Hopper with Sling from a mobile device. The apps show sports scores in real-time and a Twitter feed for any selected show. Using an iPad as a remote is bit superfluous, and I was hoping for more robust second-screen options like actor bios and trivia pop-ups related to the show.

Hopper with Sling is technically superior to the DirecTV Genie, though. First, in terms of specs, the drive holds 2TB of data compared to the 1TB you get with the Genie. Hopper has a built-in Wi-Fi radio, while Genie has an external Wi-Fi device. Hopper has a remote finder (it lights up and beeps) and a way to connect a Bluetooth headset. The Hopper is also much faster. In my tests, pushing a button earned an immediate response. Screens flipped quickly without any of the delays on the Genie. Searches popped up instant results, with pictures of actors. You can set a "seek and record" filter – say, to find and then record all matches for Minnesota sports games. The DVR curates shows quickly in a "What's Hot" section and flags popular shows.

WHICH ONE DO I BUY?
It depends on how you watch TV. The Genie has the more friendly interface, and it's the better device for staying on top of all the newest shows – even the ones you haven't heard of, thanks to its recommendation engine. Plus, it can record five things at once. But the Hopper with Sling earns our recommendation because of its superior place-shifting tablet experience, and its primetime auto-record feature, which is a technical marvel and a huge plus if you watch a lot of network shows. Even though it only has three tuners to the Genie's five, the Hopper offers better access to recorded content for larger families, and better overall hardware performance.But it's not all smurfs and rainbows. While up to five devices can stream videos from the cloud using the Dish Anywhere service, you're limited to one connected device at a time for live TV. So if you're a three-iPad household, you'll have to play nice. Also, during my weeks of testing, there were several times when someone in my house wanted to watch a show and found that the tuners were busy – exactly the limitation DirecTV calls out in its ads for Genie. And in one instance, a Joey client kept trying to find a satellite signal, even though the main DVR was showing live TV in the living room. (It was not a cloudy or rainy day.)

Hopper with Sling's interface is fast, but has a PC-oriented look and feel. You can even see a mouse cursor (but you can't hook up a USB mouse). It takes too many clicks to search for a genre. On Genie, you can quickly access a list of recent sci-fi shows. On Hopper, you have to search, select a theme filter, click movies, then sci-fi. It's a bit more cumbersome.

For apps on the DVR itself, DISH has some work to do compared to DirecTV. There's one for Pandora music streaming, and you can play BlackJack or poker. But there's no Netflix or Hulu app, and Hopper with Sling is even missing a YouTube app. (You can use an iPad app like iMediaShare to save YouTube vids and stream them to the DVR.) The Genie from DirecTV, however, does have a YouTube app.

For sharing digital media across my home network, Hopper with Sling worked famously. In a few seconds, I found my network drive and could stream both my own digital movies and music in an archive. There's also an app for playing Picasa and Flickr slideshows. I liked how DISH uses a parental codes so aggressively on the iPad, web player, and on the DVR.

In terms of price, DISH tends to arc a bit lower. The base package costs $25 for 120 basic channels and up, while DirecTV costs $30 for 140 channels. There is generally about a $5 difference between plans, with DirectTV being a bit higher. Pricing varies by contract, and the Hopper with Sling set-top box arrives free of charge when you sign up. You'll end up paying about $17 per month for the server and two clients, plus package fees.

Both Genie and Hopper with Sling are remarkably good entertainment boxes, but in the end, the devices are serving two kinds of TV-watchers. The Genie has a more friendly interface, and a good recommendation engine. But Hopper with Sling gets the nod for its primetime auto-record feature, which is a technical marvel and a huge plus if you watch a lot of primetime shows. The Hopper also has the better tablet experience, better access for larger families, and better overall performance specs. It's the bigger hit, even outside of Boston.

WIRED Records and place-shifts all primetime shows automatically, and skips the commercials for you on playback. Fast hardware with robust storage. "Seek and record" feature is a boon for sports fans and the genre-curious. Price is a bit cheaper than the competition.

TIRED No predictive tech to record shows you don't already know you like. Interface feels behind the times. Only three tuners.