Hopper, the new feature from DISH, is sure to change the way that you and your family watch movies and television. Here’s what you need to know about the new service.

What the Joey and Hopper Are 
Hopper is the DVR system that DISH is using to stream and record the various channels while Joey refers to the set top boxes.

The Hopper

Hopper is a simple service that can record up to six HD channels at a time. Additionally, it can stream to up to four HD TVs or devices at a time.

This solves an age old problem of having your kids fighting all day over what show to watch. When your son wants to watch one show and your daughter wants to watch something else, they can now record whatever they please or stream it to their cell phones or laptops.

Essentially, Hopper is a big leap forward in the breaking of the barriers between online streaming entertainment, television and movies. With Hopper, nobody has to miss out on any of their favorite shows ever again.

Why the Hopper Matters 
The most important aspect of Hopper, the way it benefits your family, is that it puts an end to the constant bickering between the kids, it lets everyone get their way so that nobody gets preferential treatment, feels jaded or misses a show. In short, you’re putting an end to one of the biggest reasons for arguments between the kids.

What Joey Does 
One of the fastest receivers available, the Joey allows televisions and other devices to pick up signals from the Hopper system. With a few Joeys and a Hopper DVR system, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you want to watch it, without infringing on what anyone else watches.

In other words, Joey is the receiving end of the Hopper and Joey system and Hopper is the central hub of the experience.

Why the Kangaroo Metaphor? 
Joey, referring to a young kangaroo, and Hopper lend the system a unifying theme that’s getting some attention in its own right in the marketing field. The clarity of purpose identified by the name is refreshing in an age of confusing product names like Android and Blackberry. The system revolves around a general theme of recorded programs and content bouncing from one device in the home to another. You look at the name of the setup: “Hopper and Joey” and you immediately have an idea of what the service can do for you.

How Much Can it Store? 
The system comes with a 2 Terabyte (TB) hard drive. The average Blu-Ray disc holds 25 to 50 Gigabytes, a Terabyte is made up of around 1,000 Gigabytes. At 2 TB, that’s close to one hundred high definition movies worth of data. If this isn’t enough space to hold all of the shows your family wants to watch, then nothing is.

This gets down to the real purpose of the system, which is to allow everybody watch whatever they want to watch. With the Joey set top boxes, three tuners, six recording channels, and 2 TB of storage, there’s very little chance of ever hearing another argument about what to watch on television.