Time to buy a Dreambox but which one ?

Pal

Help.
where to begin.

no need for a PVR.
HD would be nice.

so why is the 500s so cheap ?

very confused

pointers please..............

tomslick

The 500s is usually cheap because they are normally clones of real ones. They are still good though but it's up to you. It's hard to get an original one anymore.

To choose the right box for you, you'll need to know what you want to do with it. If it is purely for FTA +HD you'd be better off with a cheap box not dreambox.

Let us know what sats/channels you want we'll beable to advise better.

byte

DM800s I guess if you want HD (I figure this to be the HD equivalent of the 500s). IIRC, it had overheating issues, though not sure if this is still the case.

The ultimate, I guess would be the DM8000, but stupid price.

Or maybe a non-Dreambox Linux box.

kaisersose77

azbox hd elite

http://www.dealcat.de/product_info.php?refID=1110&info=p645_Azbox-elite-HD-DVB-S2-Receiver---Media-Recorder.html

http://www.medinasat.de/product_info.php?products_id=1365

Plays xvids and mkv files aswell

jhegarty

tomslick wrote: »

...are normally clones of real ones. They are still good though ....

Right up until you install a new image and the box self-destructs.

tomslick

jhegarty wrote: »

Right up until you install a new image and the box self-destructs.

Only on the gemini image but if you don't know what your doing ................... Just like all those asking for a cure to the Nagra3 plague.

cormacl

Hm-sat or sat-place will sell original dreamboxes. The dm800 is going at the moment for €400. The 500 and oddly 600 (can have am internal drive) are retailing around €200. I think they may phasing out the dm600 with those prices. The twin tuner 7025 is now €377. A good price IMO.

I recently got a dm8000 for €999. It was my only option for sat/dtt combination with a decent feature set and not the bull**** of one tuner active at a time. Was expensive but works well with Irish dtt, german tv for the wife, uk tv and freesat epg and will read my ftv card. Can now get c4 hd as a result. Can also transfer recordings to/from the box. So costly but I'm like a pig in **** with it and the wife loves it. Its very easy to use

20/20

Hi cormacl i also will be buying a dm8000 and was wondering for e999 is a dtt tuner standard,because the hm-sat web spec says it has MPEG2/ H.264 Hardware decoding? or did you upgrade to something. What s/w have you installed on it? Do you get any type of EPG for the dtt? What is the ftv card or i mean what is the advantage of ftv card? also you say transfer recordings to/from the box? did you get hm-sat to fit a HDD or what are you using,hope its not to much at once but iam very interested plz.

cormacl

The dm8000 has 2 built-in DVB-S2 satellite tuners with 2 expansion slots for -S -T or -C variants. In my case, I already had a DVB-T tuner from my 7025 and was able to install it to get the sat/terestrial combination.

The H.264 is the mpeg4 part. Technically, mpeg4 is merely a label for one or more codecs, of which H.264 is one and the most important one because its used for HD broadcasting and modern DTT broadcasting as with RTE NL.

So in terms of cost, the 999 gives you the box with its 2 S2 tuners, built-in wifi and no HDD. So you would need to add €50 for a DVB-T tuner and whatever sata 3.5 inch HDD you would like. I opted to source and fit my own, getting a 1Tb samsung drive from komplett.ie. That cost around €100.

The Terestrial EPG is a standar DVB EPG that is included with the broadcast.. very generic and is usually 7 days. Even those with TVs/receivers without mpeg4 support (no picture) can actually see this EPG.. so nothing special and the specs for Irish DTT say that the EPG is DVB standard with only interactive text using MHEG5.

The sat EPG only includes now and next for UK services but the Gemini image I installed for the dm8000 has freesat EPG support and can get 7 days for typical FTA UK services on freesat.. BBC, ITV, C4, Five, etc. The stock software wil not have this Freesat EPG support. I highly recommend the Gemini image from i-have-a-dreambox.com. Its very stable and has a good set of features.

The FTV card I have is a Sky UK "freesat from sky" card that at one time would give ITV, C4, Five etc.. but these days only really adds Fiver, Five US & Sky Three.. but now also C4 HD which is at this time encrypted for UK only. In any event, Sky are rolling out NDS V3 cards and AFAIK, these are not yet readable by non-sky hardware.. so these FTV cards are going to stop working and any new ones will only be usable only on sky kit.

The receiver has integrated wifi and also an ethernet port.. so it can be networked, I use mine cabled over ethernet to copy recordings to/from the box for occasional dvd burning of recordings but mostly ripping my dvds and pre-loading onto the box for fast access.

The DM8000 also has an expansion bay for a slim laptop-type DVD drive and this can be used to burn and play DVDs. But without the installed drive, you can still burn a DVD ISO image file on the hard drive and copy this off the box for direct burning. I did a few tests and while it took quite a while, the result was not at all bad and included a menu of the selected recordings I burned.

The box also has a web interface that can be used for streaming tv and recordings elsewhere in the network and also for remote programming (say from work).. but you would want to be a bit nifty with firewall/router settings etc and all the issues with allowing home broadband access from outside.

I already had a 7025.. twin tuner sat/terrestrial solution and I loved it.. but it would not work with the new DTT mpeg4/H.264 services or HD.. so it was necessary to go the upgrade route. I think the 8000 box is at least €200 overpriced. But its great and I love it. There is a notion in some peoples minds that these receivers are hobbyists boxes.. they are... but they are very well designed, easy to install and setup and the UI is about the best there is. So I highly recommend it.

20/20

Many thanks cormacl very helpful,i will certainly add on the DVB-T tuner when ordering and think about the other extras.

Pal

Thanks everybody.