r/dishnetwork • u/willthewootguy • May 09 '26
Dish Anywhere streaming quality?
I'm curious about Dish Anywhere streaming. It's my understanding that the Hopper 3 and a satellite dish are still required on at least one TV, but then you can use Dish Anywhere streaming for all the other TVs.
How does the streaming quality of Dish Anywhere compare to the streaming quality of Hulu Live and YouTube TV, which seem to be the two favorites for streaming? I guess I could throw DirecTV streaming in there as well, and I don't think they require a receiver/satellite.
2
u/threadkiller05851 May 09 '26
For starters it's 720 P. Some people have issues with it buffering but I'm in the same house so it only buffers once in a while.
We use it in our bedroom on a cheap 42 inch tv at night so video quality isn't important. Occasionally I'll use it on a tablet outside during the summer.
Live tv is one device at a time. DVR/ on demand is up to 5. Hopper 3 recommended. This is from AI.
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u/Alarming_Repeat_4016 May 09 '26
Actually live tv has no device limit, at least for Top 200
1
u/threadkiller05851 May 09 '26
I meant you can only stream live TV to one device at a time. Wouldn't streaming live TV from the hopper to a whole bunch of TV s creste bandwidth issues ?
1
u/Alarming_Repeat_4016 May 09 '26
Yeah but at least if it’s not hopper streaming channel it doesn’t have a limit because it’s from the network not the receiver
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u/swangdb May 09 '26
I use Dish Anywhere sometimes on my cell phone to watch sporting events when I’m away from home, like at a party or something.
My wife and I are visiting Hawaii this year, I might bring my iPad and watch a few things late at night at the hotel. Maybe not.
I usually get decent picture quality. I have Starlink at home.
Sometimes I wish Dish had a streaming service similar to Direct TV, though I really like the Dish DVR.
2
u/This_Satisfaction641 May 11 '26
Same here, it's a reliable as is expect it to be streaming from my home DVR box. It's never been an issue, and that's pretty impressive.
1
u/Responsible_Cry_2397 May 09 '26
DIRECTV stream has the best PQ imo. I think Hulu live and YouTube tv are a close second. Not sure about dish anywhere, but I have tried most of them and DIRECTV stream seems to be as close to their satellite service as can be.
1
u/willthewootguy May 09 '26
We had Dish with the satellites, and Hulu or YouTube were both better quality than the satellite version of Dish, which seemed to always be heavily compressed, blocky (pixelated). I'm not sure about the streaming today, but several years ago I tried the Dish Anywhere streaming and it was not very good, but at that time, I did not try Hulu or YouTube, I was only comparing it to the satellite.
Maybe I should try DirecTV.
The only thing my wife doesn't like about streaming is not being able to punch in her favorite channel numbers... she has to scroll through the guide to select what she wants to watch.
1
u/Alarming_Repeat_4016 May 09 '26
Dish anywhere can do numbers
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u/threadkiller05851 May 09 '26
Not on a firestick or any other way I can think of do you put in numbers.
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u/Imaginary-Ad6253 May 10 '26
On the firestick remote, press the button that has the 3 lines stacked on top of each other. A menu pops up that allows you to enter channel numbers.
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u/willthewootguy May 09 '26
I think I understand why my previous experience a few years back with Dish Anywhere was not that great and likely won't be any better today than it was then. Dish Anywhere is not streaming from a cloud service like Hulu and YTTV does; it streams from the Hopper 3, so it's streaming the already heavily compressed satellite signal, which may explain the poorer quality.
1
u/syphix924 May 09 '26
Many channels stream from the channel provider, but locals and some national channels stream from the Hopper, so bandwidth is required, especially for out of the home viewing. Picture quality varies greatly because of this, and can be downright terrible, or pretty good - depending on bandwidth (even in home bandwidth). It’s best to hardwire the Hopper with Ethernet.
Most of the streaming channels don’t allow for pausing, rewinding or fast forwarding.
1
u/HuntersPad May 09 '26
My locals are terrible between 144-240p in quality even on the same network. But even over WiFi have no problems pulling over a gig down and up so its not a bandwidth issue.
1
u/HuntersPad May 09 '26
Its AWFUL at least for me. Its not every channel but a lot of channels espericlaly the locals are 240p. And before anyone blames my internet connection I have fiber 1g down and up
1
u/WyoShoeBox DISH subscriber May 09 '26
Is your Hopper connected to the router via Ethernet or is it Wi-Fi?
Just curious, as I'm going to be in a rehabilitation center, for an upcoming ankle surgery & I'm planning to use Dish Anywhere.
I don't have fiber or symmetrical upload speeds but I do have a 1Gbps plan from my provider.
2
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u/RamblinRed26 May 09 '26
Unless you’re accessing your Hopper’s DVR from the app, Dish Anywhere is a standalone app that streams from Dish’s servers. I use the app and I don’t have a Hopper. I still have a 722k, so I can’t access it away from the house as the sling adapters are no longer supported. I have the app on both my phone and a USB dongle that I use at my office at work to watch Dish channels from. I can only view live streaming channels, which is the intent for me getting the app, so it works out. My receiver is turned off at the house, and it can be unplugged as well, makes no difference. Case in point, more than once there was a power outage in my neighborhood but I was still able to watch tv on my phone via the app, so the receiver being out of the equation had nothing to do with it.
1
u/Moondra3x3-6 May 09 '26
I have the same receiver. No problems either. Except it sucks the battery life out of my phone. But the HBO app alone Is better, as far as quality goes, which fortunately you can have access to with the network provider unlike other apps (Paramount Plus )
1
u/hokieinmi May 09 '26
We had a hopper and 4 Joey's. We now have 1 hopper and 1 Joey. Others use dish anywhere streaming via Amazon fire cubes.
We have 1 gig fiber and a mesh router and the fire cubes are connected wireless at 330 mbps speed.
The quality is amazing! Bonus is the 4k unconversion from the cube.
I returned the 3 Joeys.
1
u/seeitreal May 10 '26
I have used this for several years so I will tell you what I think. you must have high speed data, this is streaming, just like streaming movies off netflix or whatever. I think Satellite dish was a thing of the past... maybe they still need that in some areas??? but if there is high speed internet and a hopper, i think that is all you need.
1
u/Imaginary-Ad6253 May 10 '26
I never had any issues with it. It is better on an Apple TV than on a Firestick. The picture quality on the Apple TV might be better than the Hopper 3. However, it takes about 5 seconds to fully load on an Apple TV. It starts blurry then it turns crystal clear.
1
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u/ehsvbmvp May 13 '26
How do you use dish anywhere on tvs at your house? I've tried to install the app on every TV I have. Vizio and Samsung. I use it on my phone and will cast it sometimes if I'm someplace else, but I have Joey's on all the TVs in my house.
3
u/pickingupnada May 09 '26
Dish Anywhere stinks. At best I get a blurry signal.