Dish's Hopper DVR powers up and Sling simplifies at CES (pictures)
At its press conference, Dish unveiled the next generation of its Hopper DVR and a portable drive for wireless streaming, while Sling showed its forthcoming simplified interface and new features.
Hopper 3
Dish's Hopper 3, the update to its Hopper 2, doesn't look as powerful as it is. I think it's the Kangaroo remote holder.
New partner announcement
Did you guess YouTube? That's coming this year. Not the levitation technology, though.
4K multichannel view
Targeted at sports fans -- despite the weather-crisis-junkie graphic -- the 4K multichannel view lets you tile four quadrants of HD video.
Specs
The Hopper 3 supports all the latest buzzy video technologies: high dynamic range video, 60-frame-per-second 4K, the expanded 10-bit color gamut, H.265/HEVC decoding, plus the current versions of HDMI and the HDCP copy-protection specification.
More specs
This is such a happy little slide. It wraps up the main aspects of the Hopper 3, including the fact that it has 16 tuners so you can record up to 16 shows and play on 7 TVs simultaneously , a 2 terabyte hard drive, USB 3 support (you need that bandwidth!), and the logos of its latest partners. It's based around a 1.5GHz quad-core ARM chip, which the company claims makes it seven times more powerful than the earlier model.
Unified search
The interface now delivers search results across all the available content, including Netflix.
Hopper Go
Its brand new product, the Hopper Go, is a portable hard disk that enables you to carry some of your recorded content for streaming wirelessly to mobile devices.
Hopper Go
Yet another puck-sized device. It has 64GB of memory and can stream to up to five devices. The battery is rated at 4 hours. It will run you $100.
Streaming
This cleverly emphasizes how the Go can broadcast to five devices at a time.
Who's slinging?
The unsurprising data given that the company has been targeting cord-nevers with its $20-per-month service.
Who's watching where?
What I find surprising here is that 'boomers watch more total video than anybody. Sling considers those viewers "supplementers" -- people who watch streaming video as well as traditional TV.
ESPN 3 comes to Sling
It aggregates all the games available on ESPN 3, even if they're running simultaneously.
Unified search
Just like its sibling service, Sling's new interface aggregates all search results across types of content.
myTV
Why is every personalization capability represented by a bunch of hearts? Sling says its version can learn your preferences over time and make recommendations.
myTV
It looks very similar to other streaming services. That's not a bad thing, though.
Hopper Go availability
Springing in this spring.
Hopper 3 availability
This month!