Whats your Sat receiver like?

eoinm1

Hi Everyone

Just wondering which sat receiver do you have and what do you think of it?

I have two a Strong 6155 and a Comag Porty Lidl receiver.
My setup is two dishes one at Astra 28.2 and one at Astra 19.2. Each dish has a quad LNB and with the use of 4 switches I have the 8 down leads merged into 4 cables that run to each TV in my house.

The strong is a good looking unit but I must say I hate the software on it.
It awkward to setup with more than 1 sat as you have to switch the sat input on the receiver it’s self (i.e. there is a change sat button on the remote). This is main niggle I have with the unit.

The Comag allows your to have all the channels on the two Satellite’s in the one EPG listing meaning you don’t have to tell the receiver to switch to the required sat.

I’m thing of getting a new receiver from Technisat called DigitMod S1. This is a small neat unit. http://www.hm-sat-shop.de/10482.ahtml

So does any one have a Technisat unit and what do you think of it?

Please also tell us about your own receiver and what it’s like, good and bad points.

Thanks,
Eóin

byte

I have a Manhattan Skyline 3000, which is about 3 years old now. It has 2 CI slots, neither of which I used yet! I did update the software last year, not that I noticed any changes.

Overall, I think it's a good enough receiver, only let down by the fact it's a bit slow when browsing channels.

I used to like the Topfield receivers from that era, very fast so they were.

Also, whatever happened the Digenius receivers? They were supposed to be very good, I remember Tony used to sell them.

If I were to buy a new receiver I wouldn't mind going for a Dreambox DM7020 or a Topfield TF5500PVR! Sadly, they're a bit on the dear side.

watty

I have two Sky boxes:
Good points:
* Never need to retune
* over 1 week EPG on most TV channels
* Works with Sky pay Tv card
* Works BBC interactive Text
* Parental Control
* WS / Crop / letterbox modes
* PAL or RGB

Bad points:
* Limited SR
* poor Teletext support
* No Diseqc of any sort
* Limited radio EPG
* Radio on same list as TV (changing soon)
* No true standby
* No PC interconnection.
* Awkward subtitle support
* Awkward / poor multi audio channel/ language support
* No method is seeing transponder details
* Awkward access to RF modulator
* No delete of Channels except Adult
* Poor additional channels support
* Awkward to view signal/quality of selected channel
* Awkward to change PIN
* Awkward Parental control
* No view last channel
* No Digital Audio Out

I have a Palcom DSL4:
Good points:
* Full Diseqc support (4 way switch or Motor with USALS/GotoX)
* Good Teletext. Stores entire magasine and navigates index numbers
* Teletext and DVB subtitle Easy access
* Good and easy multiaudio channel support
* Easy view of signal/quality and transponder of selected channel
* EIGHT favorites lists (4 TV, 4 Radio)
* Delete unwanted channels
* Change favorites order
* Changed channel order
* Easy add more channels or transponders.
* Up to a week EPG of German/Swiss/Austrian TV/Radio
* Adjustable colour and transparancy of on screen Menus
* Parental control
* Easy to change PIN (but write it down!!!)
* Select last channel
* Separate TV and Radio lists/channels
* Connects to PC to backup or load channels etc
* Remote control volume level
* Digital Audio out
* WS / Crop / letterbox modes
* PAL or RGB
* Very low SCPC support (SR1500 works)

Bad points:
* Won't work with Sky card
* No extended EPG on UK channels
* No BBC / Sky Interactive
* Need PC to add unlisted Satellites (rare need) for GotoX.

I have a PCI Satellite card like Skystar1 / Hauppauge Nexus-s (A Hauppauge early PCI card made by Technotrend):

Features are largely decided by which program you install

Good points:
* Full Diseqc support (4 way switch or Motor with USALS/GotoX)
* Good Teletext. Stores entire magasine and navigates index numbers
* Can make a website automatically from Teletext
* Copy teletext to other windows Applications
* Teletext and DVB subtitle Easy access
* Good and easy multiaudio channel support
* Easy view of signal/quality and transponder of selected channel
* Any number of favorites categories
* Delete unwanted channels
* Change favorites order
* Changed channel order
* Easy add more channels or transponders or Satellites
* Up to a week EPG of German/Swiss/Austrian TV/Radio
* Adjustable colour and transparancy of on screen Menus
* Perfect TV or Radio Hard Disk recording
* Select last channel / Browser style channel history
* Separate TV and Radio lists/channels
* Connect PC to Internet to update transponder lists
* Programable Remote control volume level and about everything else inc Record/playback
* Digital Audio out and analog Audio out built in
* WS / Crop / letterbox modes
* PAL or S-Video out built in
* IR remote built in and supplied
* Option for a real CI slot for CAM
* Can disable onboard MPEG2 chip for HD or strange resolutions
* Can use remotely via extended IR cable and video cable or via MPEg2 streaming on LAN (TV set or Laptop in differfent room)
* True TV out without graphics card support
* Reasonable video in Window (depends on Graphics card overlay quality).
* Very low SCPC support (SR1500 works)
* Very very low CPU usage (works on P90) unless in "soft mode",

Bad points:
* Won't work with Sky card reliably
* No extended EPG on UK channels
* No BBC / Sky Interactive
* Not enough current for 100% reliable motorised use.
* Need 100Hz Graphics card/Monitor for best PAL on PC screen
* I need much more powerfull PC for HD TV
* no auto NTSC switching. Often needs application restart.
* In soft mode it is like a slightly slow dodgy Skystar2. SkyStar2 better than "Soft Mode"

I have:
* One motorised 80cm Dish Motek Motor. Feeds Palcom DSL4
* Two fixed dishes (one with 28E Sky using QUAD LNB, 19E Astra, 13E hotbird and one fixed Telstar12 @15W).
* Four Way Diseqc switch feeding PC
* two outlets of Quad LNB feed two Sky boxes

andrew3

I have a 2m Channel master motorised dish
2 fixed 1.5m channel masters
0.3dB lnb with seperate feedhorn
ODU
2xPowerVu 9223 -- beautiful picture and sound - nice menus - but only hold 1 transponder in memory!

Manhattan 2500APCI - nice unit - crisp clear picture -doesn't handle widescreen very well -tends to muck up the borders! - can recieve strong signals at incredibly low symbol rates.

Strong4375 - nice unit - love the way you can select satellites and from there take your channel list! can't go as low symbol rate wise as manhattan and cant lock on many feeds! but primo as far as reception wise!

every make of digibox! --- pieces of crap really not worth the PCB their printed on!

Technisat sky star 2 dvb PCI card - fantastic bit of kit - build your own sat reciever with PVR

hauppauge usb box --ughhh awful lesson learned here -as with all hauppauge products -stay the hell away from them!