What tv combo box to buy?

Zgemma as far as I know is very much still in business and the H7s is still a very popular box.

Its 99 pounds from WOS in the UK but that is going to rise considerably once you add in a hard drive , and pay the customs handling fees due to brexit.

There are Irish sites which sell the box for around 200 euros , thats with a hard drive though , and taking everything into account is not much different to what the WOS box will cost with all the hidden brexit fees.

It has two satellite tuners and one DVB T tuner.

That lets you record one sat channel whilst watching another.

Keep in mind that with all of these boxes you need a Satellite dish and an aerial for the DVB T tuner to get saorview.

The octagon SF8008 ( the latest version ) is a cool little box for tinkering , but it only has one sat tuner and one DVB T tuner , so you can record a sat channel whilst watching RTE , or record RTE whilst watching a sat channel ……. not what most people want. It does take an NVME drive , which can be configured for unlimited image slots , which makes it ideal for experimenting with Enigma 2 images.

Gigablue is considerably more expensive that the other two you mention , but normally comes with at least one dual FBC tuner , and if you pair that with a Unicable II LNB then you have a very powerful box indeed. The dual FBC tuners equate to two real tuners and 6 virtual tuners , they capture almost all transponders and you can set up to 50 ( maybe more ) recordings at the same time.

Basically the H7s is the equivalent of a Sky HD box , the Gigablue is the equivalent of a Sky Q box. ( but much better )

I went with VU+ Duo 4K SE , which is almost the same as the gigablue.

Great box , but for a while it was very hard to find with the dual DVB T tuner , which makes it unpopular in Ireland because you cannot get RTE without the DVB T tuner.

It seems to be back in stock with the DVB T tuner now both in WOS and on Amazon.de

Enigma 2 boxes in general are not easy to set up , and as a beginner the best image to install is openvix because its much easier than the others and has a manual.

I have bought all my boxes except one from amazon.de and there have been no issues with hardware. ( worst case , you have to buy an adaptor or a new figure 8 lead with a 3 pin plug )

My first VU+ Duo 4K SE I bought from WOS in the UK , great box , built like a tank , but cost more than 100 over the going rate because of brexit / customs handling fees , so will never buy from WOS again.

There is no customs charge on satellite receivers, and there are no hidden Brexit fees. What happens is that WOS deduct the UK VAT (20%) from export orders, as per the example here. When it gets to Ireland, the Revenue charge 21% Irish VAT on the cost of the receiver and the postage/packing charge combined. The delivery company who collect that VAT will also have their own fee, but it is not subject to VAT. The exchange rate stays the same all month. So if the postage charge by WOS and the delivery fee by the courier is known, the exact overall cost can be worked out.

https://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/brexit-and-european-orders-from-january-2021

https://www.revenue.ie/en/customs/businesses/importing-exporting/exchange-rates/2024/november.aspx

WOS currently have the Zgemma H7S at £109 for UK customers, £90.83 for export.

https://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/satellite-and-terrestrial/digital-receivers/zgemma/zgemma-h7s-pre-setup-for-freesat-uk

If its any help you can get the H7S from Amazon for about €140 (£110) delivered and no taxes to pay.

It's £90.83 plus shipping. The Irish VAT at 21% goes on that converted to Euro. The only etc is the delivery company charge.

Im assuming your budget is between 100 -200 euro. If its higher , I would go VU+ , but thats going to be about 400 or so.

Probably the most popular box on here is the H7s , plenty of support on here for it too.

The older version of it has an internal hard drive , you would have to take the lid off to fit one.

The newer version has a slot on the back for an SSD drive , so much better.

Unfortunately the model number is exactly the same so you dont know what you are ordering unless there are pictures.

A lot of people buying these boxes have spare hard drives they can use , so the most popular sales wise is the box without a hard drive , thats the 90 quid version most are talking about.

Amazon.de seem to be out of stock at the moment.

There are Irish sites selling it , but are price gouging based on the fact of how much its going to cost if you try and buy it from the UK , note Amazon.co.uk are prone to the same fees.

Note that both of these seem to be the older box ….. I would wait until it comes back into stock on Amazon.de , probably wont be too long until it does.

https://freesat.ie/products/zgemma-h7s-4k-uhd-500gb-hdd?_pos=3&_psq=zgemma&_ss=e&_v=1.0

https://www.satworld.ie/zgemma-h7s-4k-uhd-500gb-hdd.html

An issue I have seen in the H7s thread , with the " take the lid off to install a drive" models , is that if you dont order it with a drive then they dont supply the drive cables, and they are not standard drive cables , there is a special connector for the mainboard end.

So if you are buying without a drive , contact the seller and make sure its included.

Pre set up models , well , its not going to be pre-set up for you because most likely they cannot know what saorview area you are in.

Satellite is simple enough , just set mode to simple , point it at Astra 28 and away you go.

I personally would start from scratch , put on a fresh version of openvix , leave in on the default "simple 1080 skin" run the wizard to set up your tuners , have you saorview details handy ( mine is Dublin 3 rock ).

Once the tuners are set up then exit the wizard and set up ABM to run every day at say 3am , once its set up then run it , you should end up with about 780 channels or so , in various different bouquets , then set up your favourites , copy your frequently watched channels to favourites , and you are done. You also need to set up "open epg downloader" and set it to run every day, say 4am to avoid conflicts.

Hit the blue button on the remote at this stage , and make a full backup to a USB stick , now you can get back to this point at any time.

Tinker away until its how you want it.

Oh and my experience , stay away from copycat sky skins , they always end in disaster.

Drive type needs to be 2.5 inch , for the "take the lid off to install" model it can be HDD or SSD , for the slot in the back model its SSD only.

Dodgy ….. is there board electronics visible from the extruding part of the drive ? If so , then the risk of a short circuit is very high

Ive had both types , the slot version leaves about an inch sticking out , heres a photo of both drive types , you can clearly see the problem.

The HDD is meant for internal use only , not for a slot load like the Zgemma.

My VU+ has a drawer that takes the drive in the rear , leaving nothing exposed , the only safe type for the slot in the Zgemma is an SSD.

But hey , its your box , I wouldnt feel right leaving a circuit board like that exposed on a live device , its just asking for trouble.

The Zgemma H7 is £110 on Amazon UK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zgemma-H7S-Tuners-DVB-S2X-DVB-T2/dp/B078ST6NV9

It was 110 euro plus delivery on Amazon.de up till last week but seems out of stock

Your box was famed for its sensitive tuner and it was hacked a long time ago in that loading a patch did lots of things if you had a motorised set up. Now is has been overtaken. The zgemma has 2 sat tuners and a saorview tuner. It can take an ssd using slot at rear, it has 3 usb slots. It is highly configurable. With 2 sat tuners you can record 2 channels and watch a recording or another sat channel on same transponder. and with saorview you can record all of the saorview channels on one mux at same time . It can receive 4k and output h265. It can be configured for iptv. You can skin it to have a sky look or others depending on taste. It can take 4 images as it has 4 partitions. It has great support.

I take it your box has only one tuner and no saorview… need I say more.

plus auto-retuning, a proper EPG and the ability to add IPTV. EPG doesn't seem important if you've never had it, but once you do - it's hard to live without.

Sorry to be bumping this old thread, but the h7s seems like it's sold out everywhere on amazon. Is the h17 as good or should I get one of the "older models" from satworld or freesat?

No thats the slightly older box , the new one is this one ….

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/GigaBlue-UHD-Quad-Pro-Bluetooth-black/dp/B0DKK3KW3T/

I may have been unlucky , lost one of my VU+ due to a powercut ( Storm Eowyn) and replaced it with this , but it died within two weeks , completely dead , wouldnt even power on , dont know what happened , at 2 weeks old it went straight back , amazon covered postage and every penny including shipping costs was re-imbursed so no complaints there.

Note the box is very new , only a few openvix images or other E2 images available , so may have been a bug that caused the problem.

I managed to get another VU+ duo 4K SE from amazon.de. Arrived yesterday and up and running now.

I am only very new to these boxes but find the zgemma h7s excellent (am over stretching looking at extra tuners but that's separate)

But rather than my advice be better seeing do one of the experts have a good recommendation for a similar priced alternative to the h7s now that it's not being manufactured.

What's your budget and your needs /expectations from the box.

Did you see the more expensive options in the last few posts of the h7s thread? (even tho the lads have highlighted you need a unicable lnb to justify/get full use of those )