Sagem IDT81-SD on Ebay

gooner99

Hi,

Anyone buy a "sagem IDT81" box on ebay uk to pick up Irish DTV?
If so could you pm me the details of the shop you used and your experience with them and the box you received.

I found this one that ships to Ireland.Is it the correct receiver for the job?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SAGEM-PICNIC-FREEVIEW-DIGITAL-TV-SET-TOP-BOX-ITD81-SD_W0QQitemZ170420289388QQcategoryZ96964QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BIEW%252BFICS%252BUFI%26otn%3D11%26ps%3D63

Thanks,

Gooner

glineli

gooner99 wrote: »

Hi,

Anyone buy a "sagem IDT81" box on ebay uk to pick up Irish DTV?
If so could you pm me the details of the shop you used and your experience with them and the box you received.

I found this one that ships to Ireland.Is it the correct receiver for the job?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SAGEM-PICNIC-FREEVIEW-DIGITAL-TV-SET-TOP-BOX-ITD81-SD_W0QQitemZ170420289388QQcategoryZ96964QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BIEW%252BFICS%252BUFI%26otn%3D11%26ps%3D63

Thanks,

Gooner

These look like mpeg4 so i imagine they would. Anyone else know?

Sam Russell

It is the picnic box, but they have been returned to Ctrrys and so probably faulty. The box suffers from overheating. Beware. But they are cheap and do work, if clunky.

I ordered one of these to see how it works. Since I'm just experimenting I can't really argue about the price.

John1000

I got one these boxes. It picks up all the channels , has the 7 day epg
and digital teletext.

The problem with the receiver is that the picture randomly starts freezing and pixalating and the only way the fix it is to plug the receiver out and back in again. The picture may be ok for 5 mins or an hour, but it always turns out the same eventually.

I got my box today too. It did do that pixelating/freezing bit on one occasion, just powered it off and back on with the remote to sort it - it only happened when I tried to exit the MHEG-5 Aertel. I also have the reverse order bug, where News Now is on 800 and RTÉ 1 is on 805.

Still, for about €25 I can't really complain. I'm happy enough with it for a test box.

John1000

You can use the favourites menu to order the channels and have them
numbered as 1,2,3,4 etc... Then just change the default favourites list to B

glineli

Got mine today, works fine. Good tip on the favourites.

pa990

have had no problem with my box,
I think the issues occur in areas without an excellent signal

Sam Russell

pa990 wrote: »

have had no problem with my box,
I think the issues occur in areas without an excellent signal

No, I have a very good signal, and I get the problems after the unit has been on for some time. It is like a heat problem. If it is not well ventilated, it fails. I have had no ptoblems since I put it away from the other boxes.

gooner99

got my box Today from this seller on ebay.pictures great.dont have it long enough to comment on whether it freezes or not.will post my thoughts here when i've tested it a bit longer.

glineli

Sam Russell wrote: »

No, I have a very good signal, and I get the problems after the unit has been on for some time. It is like a heat problem. If it is not well ventilated, it fails. I have had no ptoblems since I put it away from the other boxes.

i had my one on for 12 hours on christmas day, no problem. i did notice a problem after the epg was left on, but for 25 quid, its a great bit of kit

TVDX

Indeed, have two of them and they are great for the price.
The only time I ever saw any kind of judder pictures was when the signal threshold was going below 42% with some BER.
When I changed the indoor aerial I used, this stopped happening as the signal stayed firmly at 43%.
The boxes have run for hours at a times since with no worries about that whatsoever.

gooner99

have had the box on for over a week now.only problem i had with freezing was when i had my dvd player on and the box was on top of it.the heat from the dvd player caused the box to overheat.other than that i can say it does what it says on the tin for the money.can also give the thumbs up for the ebay seller,no problems there at all.will suffice until all formats are sorted and the price of hd combo boxes come down.

spongerobinson

anybody know anywhere else i can pick up one of these for cheap? the ebay seller above doesn't seem to have any listed anymore, and a search on ebay doesn't give me any results. thanks!

declans

spongerobinson wrote: »

anybody know anywhere else i can pick up one of these for cheap? the ebay seller above doesn't seem to have any listed anymore, and a search on ebay doesn't give me any results. thanks!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sagem-freeview-Receiver-Picnic-idt81-Digital-TV_W0QQitemZ290389287569QQcategoryZ96964QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BIEW%252BFICS%252BUFI%26otn%3D11%26ps%3D63

But he only ships to UK ! I got 4 sent to a relative and they forwarded on , They have not arrived yet so can comment on condition as they are used

JRH

They're back ....
http://cgi.ebay.ie/SAGEM-PICNIC-FREEVIEW-DIGITAL-TV-SET-TOP-BOX-ITD81-SD_W0QQitemZ380196554066QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_ConEle_SatCableFreeview_RL?hash=item58857b0552

CrowdedHouse

I got one this morning from that eBay seller.

I using it in the kitchen on a cheapo 'Playsonic(!)' 4:3 CRT

For 29 quid it seems fine,haven't noticed any freezing or spitting on the picture/audio.

As a test I left it on all day and was OK when I came home.

Couple of things I did notice compared to the mvision 200 - It seems to store the first transmitter it comes across whereas the mvision stores them all ( I can receive 4 different DTT tx where I am) even though the signal might be stronger on subsequent ones.

Signal strength meter shows Mahera at 45% - the mvision gives 78%

glineli

I had very bad reception from Maghera last night, 45% too, that was on my sagem box and also my 2 samsungs with inbuilt tuner

CrowdedHouse

glineli wrote: »

I had very bad reception from Maghera last night, 45% too, that was on my sagem box and also my 2 samsungs with inbuilt tuner

OT - and I notice picture is freezing from Mahera this evening

Dublindigi

[FONT=&quot]
Re: Sagem Picnic ITD 81 Freezing

I have found that when I changed a setup option i.e. disabling Network monitoring, the problem of freezing seems to have dissappeared

MENU > User Settings > User Preferences > Network Monitoring > select "NO"


[/FONT]

Martin_F

I got mine today from that seller on ebay.

First impressions are good for a cheap box to supplement my Freesat PVR.

I've seen brief pixelation/stutter on the odd occaision - but the picture is a massive improvement over the analogue picture I've had since new year.

glineli

I also get the message new channels found, on a regular basis. can this be turned off?

Otherwise all working fine, great for 20 quid

elsie1b

CrowdedHouse wrote: »

I got one this morning from that eBay seller.

I using it in the kitchen on a cheapo 'Playsonic(!)' 4:3 CRT

For 29 quid it seems fine,haven't noticed any freezing or spitting on the picture/audio.

As a test I left it on all day and was OK when I came home.

Couple of things I did notice compared to the mvision 200 - It seems to store the first transmitter it comes across whereas the mvision stores them all ( I can receive 4 different DTT tx where I am) even though the signal might be stronger on subsequent ones.

Signal strength meter shows Mahera at 45% - the mvision gives 78%

I live near Enniscorthy and receive Mount Leinster dtt.
In the past week I can receive RTENL on channel 52 and on one occasion channel 60.
What transmitter is this ?

MACHEAD

Got one yesterday, (£15.50 GBP) including postage from an Ebay seller.
Certainly looks clunky and retro looking, but seems to be working ok. Less pixelation and break up than I'd expect here (on UK channels). Unfortunately no irish DTT though, not even a flicker on Ch. 53. Ah well it was worth a try though.

spongerobinson

anyone having any trouble with their box no longer starting up? bought two....one is still working perfectly, but the second one won't load at all...lcd screen gets as far as 'init' and then goes blank and starts again, with the process repeating. No menu on screen or anything.

Anybody know a way of resetting the box? The only thing i can think of is it somehow thought it was receiving an update, and is after getting stuck on that.

Thanks.

slegs

MACHEAD wrote: »

Got one yesterday, (£15.50 GBP) including postage from an Ebay seller.
Certainly looks clunky and retro looking, but seems to be working ok. Less pixelation and break up than I'd expect here (on UK channels). Unfortunately no irish DTT though, not even a flicker on Ch. 53. Ah well it was worth a try though.

Have you a separate UHF aerial pointing towards an enabled transmitter in ROI? If your Freeview aerial is pointing towards Belfast you wont receive.

glineli

Is the only option to watch the channels on this via scart?

I was hoping they could be viewed via the coax to back of tv.

ah well

CrowdedHouse

ginoglineli wrote: »

Is the only option to watch the channels on this via scart?

I was hoping they could be viewed via the coax to back of tv.

ah well

Yes scart only,in fairness it would want to be a real antique tv not to have a scart socket

Zardoz

TVDX wrote: »

Indeed, have two of them and they are great for the price.
The only time I ever saw any kind of judder pictures was when the signal threshold was going below 42% with some BER.
When I changed the indoor aerial I used, this stopped happening as the signal stayed firmly at 43%.

So 43% signal strength is the threshold for a decent signal.
I presume Signal strength is more important than Signal quality ?

I connected mine up to my old vhf aerial in the attic and surprisingly I got a signal for all the DTT channels.(My analogue reception for TV3 and TG4 is rubbish,RTE1 and 2 are good reception)
The signal strength is only 14% but the signal quality is ~85% @474Mhz.Is that strong enough ?
It breaks up a small bit but its not too bad.
I'll switch the aerial for a uhf one and I should be flying.

lawhec

Zardoz wrote: »

So 43% signal strength is the threshold for a decent signal.
I presume Signal strength is more important than Signal quality ?

I connected mine up to my old vhf aerial in the attic and surprisingly I got a signal for all the DTT channels.(My analogue reception for TV3 and TG4 is rubbish)
The signal strength is only 8% but the signal quality is ~70% .
It breaks up a good bit but its not too bad.
I'll switch the aerial for a uhf one and I should be flying.

Signal quality is more important than signal strength; of course you have to have some signal in the first place. Once you cross a threshold in signal strength, having a stronger signal is only helpful in (a) having better resilience against electrical noise like unsupressed car engines or light switches, and (b) better elbow protect against varying incoming signal strengths that may be caused by the transmitter running on reduced power and atmospheric conditions.

My experience using the Sagem ITD81-SD is that it will comfortably work with a signal strength as low as 15% on its meter, provided that the quality is good (80% plus). The BER should be reasonably steady (1E-07 is ideal, though this can occasionally fluctuate) and the SNR should be as high as possible, again ideally >24db but the RTÉNL test multiplex from Truskmore can work happily down as low as 17db.

Zardoz

lawhec wrote: »

My experience using the Sagem ITD81-SD is that it will comfortably work with a signal strength as low as 15% on its meter, provided that the quality is good (80% plus). The BER should be reasonably steady (1E-07 is ideal, though this can occasionally fluctuate) and the SNR should be as high as possible, again ideally >24db but the RTÉNL test multiplex from Truskmore can work happily down as low as 17db.

Thanks for the info.
I'm pointing at Mullaghanish.
Signal Strength is 14%,Quality is solid at ~87-89%.
C/N is 21db and the Ber is 1E-07 on some channels but down to 1E-05 on others.
I'm surprised I'm getting a signal as the aerial is over 25 years old and vhf only.
I know that the ITD81 suffers from breakup due to overheating so I'm trying to deduce if the minor breakup is due to a weak signal or the box.

lawhec

Zardoz wrote: »

Thanks for the info.
I'm pointing at Mullaghanish.
Signal Strength is 14%,Quality is solid at ~87-89%.
C/N is 21db and the Ber is 1E-07 on some channels but down to 1E-05 on others.
I'm surprised I'm getting a signal as the aerial is over 25 years old and vhf only.
I know that the ITD81 suffers from breakup due to overheating so I'm trying to deduce if the minor breakup is due to a weak signal or the box.

Using a VHF Band III aerial for a UHF signal is always going to be black magic - a proper UHF aerial should give better results still. IIRC the current tests from Mullaghanish are on channel E21, a good Group A aerial should give the best results as most "wideband" UHF aerials work poorly on such low frequencies.

As for the ITD81-SD receiver itself, my own experience of it and those reported here and elsewhere indicate that it is a mixed bag and prone to being unreliable. It's unnecessarily big, a fair bit bigger than most Freeview STB's but also not big enough to sit/stack alongside the likes of a Sky Digibox or VCR/DVD recorder. As you say, it also heats up on the underside quite hot too (so not really recommended to stack on something else anyway). I remember reading a tip-off somewhere that it degrades reception on analogue channels through the loop through - I tried this and it didn't affect my analogue reception (Brougher Mountain & Truskmore) but it did put out something around channel E30 which when fed to a second STB completely destroyed the reception of the BBC multiplex (from Brougher Mountain) and also badly affected another multiplex (Mux C) on E29. In places where E30 is still used for analogue broadcasts, including London where Crystal Palace transmits Channel 4 on that frequency, it would be very noticeable. Currys ended up stopping selling these receivers, I would guess they got feedback on problems regarding heat and interference.

Zardoz

lawhec wrote: »

Using a VHF Band III aerial for a UHF signal is always going to be black magic - a proper UHF aerial should give better results still. IIRC the current tests from Mullaghanish are on channel E21, a good Group A aerial should give the best results as most "wideband" UHF aerials work poorly on such low frequencies.

Yes Channel 21; 474Mhz is correct.
The reception now is perfect ,no break up at all,1E-7 on all channels .I'd expect the signal to be better at night time anyway.
The break up earlier must have been due to signal issues.
I'll pick up a group A aerial as you recommended,they are very cheap .

TheDriver

i use a wideband grid aerial in my attic where you could barely pick up bad tv3 with massive boosting yet I am getting perfect DTT with meter on my z81 showing 8-9 out of 10 usually.

Milky Lumps

Using the Sagem and a cheapo indoor aerial I have perfect reception, great value. Thanks to the op for the tip.

I decided, since I'm a curious fecker, to pop the lid on my ITD81 SD to see how elaborate the cooling system is. It's secured by one T10 torx screw underneath the white label on the back. Inside, there's a heatsink of about 40mm square. You could probably put a 40mm fan on it if you needed to.

Here's the full size photo (3.73MB, 4000x3000 resolution)

FREETV

Karsini wrote: »

I decided, since I'm a curious fecker, to pop the lid on my ITD81 SD to see how elaborate the cooling system is. It's secured by one T10 torx screw underneath the white label on the back. Inside, there's a heatsink of about 40mm square. You could probably put a 40mm fan on it if you needed to.

Here's the full size photo (3.73MB, 4000x3000 resolution)

Could someone have a go and then provide a detailed tutorial please on how exactly to go about doing that correctly so that anybody interested in modifying the Sagem can do so? I am sure that my Dad would be interested in stopping the freezing and breakup problems attributed to the over heating problems associated with these boxes. They do produce a good picture so it is a pity that they have this problem.

Because the input voltage from the PSU is 12V it should be fairly simple to do as the fans would operate on 12V too - in theory it should be possible to run a spur from the DC jack. However I'd expect a 40mm fan to be quite noisy on full blast. If I were to do it, I'd probably fit a variable resistor to control the fan speed.

FREETV

If you do go ahead Karsini can you give all of us here on Boards who own Sagem Picnic Boxes a layman's step by step tutorial with zoomed in or large photos of each step showing everything in detail please? Keep it easy for everyone to understand. Let us know how you get on. Hope it goes well for you.

STB

FREETV wrote: »

If you do go ahead Karsini can you give all of us here on Boards who own Sagem Picnic Boxes a layman's step by step tutorial with zoomed in or large photos of each step showing everything in detail please? Keep it easy for everyone to understand. Let us know how you get on. Hope it goes well for you.

Presume there are vents underneath ?

Well rather than modding the inside of the board why not just buy a laptop Cooling pad like this. (7.99)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/3-Fan-USB-Laptop-Notebook-PC-Cool-Cooling-Cooler-Pad-UK_W0QQitemZ360232959076QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_LaptopAccess_RL?hash=item53df8ebc64

And then rather than connecting it to a USB port (does the Sagem even have one?) connect it to a USB AC Power Supply Wall Adapter (99c) http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-AC-Power-Supply-Wall-Adapter-MP3-Charger-UK-Plug_W0QQitemZ250491509864QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CE_MP3Access_RL?hash=item3a52751c68.

You are less likely to blow the board!

I hadn't intended to do it myself, just wanted to show the internals in case anyone's interested. Now that you say it STB, I don't think there's vents underneath.

STB

Karsini wrote: »

Now that you say it STB, I don't think there's vents underneath.

Probably explains why the box is cooking. There must be some at the top then. Same idea.

I dont have a picnic box to try it. Does it have a USB port ? You could take a feed off the USB and connect it to an old PC fan quite easily.

If you are going to solder to the main board there is a 12v fan half way down the page below that you could mount (away from high voltage area) and involves connection of the wires to a 0 volt point and to the 5 volt supply rectifier diode. Look here if you are confident that you could this and not blow yourself up.

http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/fan.htm

It looks like this.

polyfusion

Karsini wrote: »

... I don't think there's vents underneath.

On my Sagem Picnic, there are a huge number of vents on the underside, and generous vents at the sides (you can see clear through). I haven't had any problems with overheating (though the picture momentarily goes blocky when the kitchen extractor is switched on or off), mine is performing as a STB though, literally sitting on top of my TV, a CRT; I imagine this would be difficult for anyone with an LCD, so anyone sitting it on top of any other boxes/receivers with vents on the top, or inside a cabinet isn't doing the Sagem any favours.

MACHEAD

Maybe it's me being 'fussy' or maybe it's a bit rate issue, but we were watching channel 5 this afternoon and to me it just looked like a very pixelated picture (not break up). Particularly on moving action, camera panning etc. And that's on a CRT, I shudder to think what it would look like on a LCD!

Apogee

Anyone experiencing picture breakup/freezing should take note of the advice in #21 to disable 'Network Monitoring' - this has been effective in several cases.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=64092168&postcount=21

derek_c

Thanks OP, just picked one up on Ebay for £24

Freezing may be caused by overheating in which case a cheap laptop cooler from the likes of dealextreme should fix, cost is about $7 or there is an Irish seller also on Ebay for €6 delivered

Anymore of these or similar available cheaply?

They have to be mpeg4 backwards compatable to uk freeview.

links thanks

gtg60

Deleted User wrote: »

Anymore of these or similar available cheaply?

They have to be mpeg4 backwards compatable to uk freeview.

links thanks

Try eBay, that's where I got a few:
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=p4840.m38.l1313&_nkw=sagem+picnic&_sacat=See-All-Categories

Cracking little box for the money, put one in a friends house last week that had an aerial pointed towards Arfon, he now get 20+ channels perfectly INCLUDING the Irish ones and he only has the Arfon Aerial with a Group B amp fitted!
I'm assuming he's getting the Irish ones from the back of the aerial from Kippure.

Logging into ebay.ie-those items aren't found

gtg60

Deleted User wrote: »

Logging into ebay.ie-those items aren't found

Ah yes, I always log into ebay.co.uk, if a shipping price isn't listed I just ask the seller, most of the time people are reasonable enough.