Earlier today, Dish made news by introducing its over-the-top video service, Sling TV. But the company isn’t betting the farm on courting cord cutters — it’s also improving products for its traditional pay TV subscribers.
With that in mind, Dish has updated its Hopper set-top box to support higher-definition video. It’s also added a couple of streaming content partners from both the video and audio worlds.
The new Dish Hopper will support 4K video and will work with all 4K TVs, the company announced at a press conference today. That comes as the industry is preparing for an onslaught of TVs and content producers that support the higher-quality video standard.
Dish also added more streaming content partners to the set-top box. While it had announced a partnership to offer Netflix on its boxes last month, more services are coming. That starts with Vevo, which will allow viewers to stream music videos directly to their TV through their Input 1 device.
In addition, the company talked up the ability to launch whole-home audio streaming with a series of partnerships that will bring new music services to its set-tops. That includes Pandora, TuneIn, and iheartradio apps that will be available on the Hopper.
Finally, Dish announced a new remote which will enable subscribers to navigate with voice navigation.
For Dish, the upgrades are meant to give users more reason to start or continue subscribing to its satellite TV service, by improving the tech they’re already using and adding features to new devices. As pay TV providers are competing for a shrinking consumer market, providing greater value and better tech is becoming a differentiator, especially when it comes to competition between satellite and cable.