There wasn’t a lot of hoopla at the DISH booth at CEDIA Expo 2012, but that doesn’t mean there was nothing to talk about. DISH showed a prototype of a 12-tuner home system based on Hopper technology.
When it comes to large whole-home installs, DISH has lagged behind competitor DIRECTV for quite some time, owing to the relatively simple multiswitch setups they use. DISH just doesn’t have anything like the DIRECTV SWiM-16, which allows for up to shared programming from up to 8 sources, in up to 15 rooms (presuming one room was a 2-tuner DVR.)
The prototype system shown at CEDIA Expo seemed to allow three Hopper DVRs to share programming with up to nine Joeys, for a 12-room system. This provides a level of functionality that works for large homes.
Details were scarce but it’s a fair bet that this is an evolution of the Duo Node that DISH already uses to share programs between two Hoppers and six Joeys. Expo visitors weren’t allowed to play with the system, but it did seem to function similarly to the Duo Node, just with three Hoppers. Wiring is expected to be similarly simple to the Duo Node.
No news yet on when the “Triple Node” or whatever it will be called will be available.
