Receiver and tuner owner opinions needed for 2023

[ArloG]

I'm in the USA.
To start with I own a Zgemma H7 and an Edision Os Mio4k.
Accurate blindscan plus ACM/VCM, flexible and wide SR is paramount.

The H7 is incapable of blindscanning and was flim flammed with needing a special satellites.xml that included every possible frequency, sr, etc. combination to "catch" signals.
No ACM/VCM.

The Edision Os Mio4k & 4k+ are apparently the leaders. I've had my 4k for a few years now and am very pleased.

In a quest to find a new receiver. And questions from others as to which one to buy.
I have asked what should myself, me, consider as my next receiver.
At the risk of being descriptive and blunt I was shot down on a few top choices.

"All" VU+ receivers....suck.
We don't need FBC tuners. And c band is reception is popular. Ku band reception also.
FBC tuners either do not allow blindscanning or do it very poor.

Gigablue receivers.....suck
Supposedly virtual copies of VU+ receivers in chipsets and similarities.
Pluggable tuners like the VU+ receivers.
None having the Availink AVL6261 (DVB-S2X) tuner chipset that the Os Mio4K receivers have.
Apparently no third party tuners out there that do have what appears to have the AVL6261 tuner chip, if there is such a thing.

Neither of the 2 manufacturers advertise what chipset you're going to get in your choice.
Vendors do not reply to that question.
It appears that the Availink tuner is the best for blindscanning and all that makes it versatile for FTA reception.

A guy in another forum for the USA bought a DM One based on the internal tuner and chipset.
His report was that is was basically useless in the USA. At least after owning it for a few days.
And trying the few E2 images that it would work with. If I could say he's pissed, well he is.

So. It appears as if the Octagon SF8008 is the next and best selection of receivers that meets the requirements and expectation.
And as the Os Mio4k has been discontinued. And the Os Mio4k+ is hard to get with backorders and possible discontinuation once the production run is finished.
The SF8008 seems to be the wise choice for a higher end E2 receiver.

If you are still with me.
Can members who own receivers with pluggable tuners with non FBC and non unicable lnbf's please give your opinions of what you have?
It's difficult to grasp that even thought the VU+ and Gigablue receivers advertise blindscan capabilities. Others who actually own them blatantly say that they suck at it, if they do it at all.
It's easy enough to tell what tuner is in the box by opening the webif and clicking Box info.
I do appreciate all good input.

 

[Ferret]

The Gigablues with FBC tuners can not blind scan even with a plugin DVB-S2x tuner in the slot.

I believe Gigablue removed blindscan options and drivers.

 

[Francescone]

Technomate TM5402 M4 and Viark Sat 4K are good receivers, and both are blind scan capable.
But I do not know if they are good in the USA. Maybe more members can help you more.

 

[ArloG]

My assumption is if a receiver with a particular DVB-S2X tuner/demod. can scan very well "there" is should do well here.
The Zgemma refuses to play some music only transponders. The mio4k will. Although I am still in the learning stage after a few years. Believing it has something to do with ACM/VCM.
The Zgemma does not have that feature.
More and more multistream transponders are popping up. The mio grabs them and displays the particulars in the scan results and in the satellits.xml file.
Zgemma, not so much. And that's another learning curve I'd like to master. What's in a multistream tp even if it is excrypted.

Ferret. Your reply is interesting. Not looking for a definite answer. But why in the hell would Gigablue do that?
Couldn't the drivers be found and replaced or updated? I often see alternate update feeds available and links of how to install them to show up.
Example is OpenATV. They pulled oscam capability. But adding an alternate or 'secret' feed allows you to easily install several versions.

I would say that to refine Francesone's reply. Blindscan working good would be to capture closely spaces transponder frequencies and same frequency but different symbol rates.
All that your would think a scan would do. I have a case in point.

For quite awhile now one slot has OpenViX installed and another TNAP.
TNAP has superior blindscan performance over ViX. My preference is to use ViX.
I was copying the channel list and satellites.xml (after adding the newly found TNAP scan results) to ViX over FTP.
I was playing around one day and took the TNAP Availink avl6261.ko drivers and placed them into ViX.
After a reboot I found that ViX scanned just as well as TNAP.
Where the out-of-box ViX image missed a lot of transponders. A lot being 2-4 MHz spaced. It now picked up many more.
You could try the same thing and see if you also grab a few more "over there". It would be a cool experiment.
Oh, Thanks!

 

[moonbase]

Octagon SF8008 with OpenATV image is a good as it gets for closely spaced, narrow bandwidth, low SR frequencies.
It outperforms a MIO, I tested both the SF8008 with OpenATV and a MIO with ViX on 95W when it used to have a lot of feeds a couple of years ago, no contest, SF8008 with OpenATV easy winner.

That TNAP is OK but its designed for FTA, as soon as you try to go beyond FTA you get stuck as it will not work with oscam in its default install state.

 

[Francescone]

As I know, enigma2 is not the best solution for blind scan.

Yes SF8008 with Openatv works fairly well, but if blind scan is your major goal, grab such "closed" box and you will be happier.
I mentioned two receivers in my previous post.
My Viark Sat 4K never lost one single frequency, and it finds nearly placed transponders. The only weak point is that I can't define specific frequency ranges, so I must always perform a full band blind scan. But other than that, it works very well.
In the past I used Technomate receivers. Now you can buy TM5402 M4, waiting for a new box (maybe late 2023), and, as I know, it is a good receiver too, but not tested by me.
Hope this helps.

 

[moonbase]

Yes SF8008 with Openatv works fairly well, but if blind scan is your major goal, grab such "closed" box and you will be happier.
I mentioned two receivers in my previous post.
My Viark Sat 4K never lost one single frequency, and it finds nearly placed transponders. The only weak point is that I can't define specific frequency ranges, so I must always perform a full band blind scan. But other than that, it works very well.
In the past I used Technomate receivers. Now you can buy TM5402 M4, waiting for a new box (maybe late 2023), and, as I know, it is a good receiver too, but not tested by me.
Hope this helps.

Unless a receiver can accept a user defined frequency range for a blind scan it is worthless in my opinion.
If you want to blind scan a feed satellite such as 10.0E with a receiver that has not got user defined selection of a blind scan range you get a pile of trash from 9.0E scanned in, useless.

The E2 receivers have very good selection of user defined ranges for blind scans, however, they are not receivers for beginners, they need a learning curve to get used to them.
If you want to go the non E2 route and have user defined blind scan range functionality then the Dr HD F15 is just about as good as you can get apart from the fact it is not 4K or S2X capable.

Moving away from set top box receivers, DVB cards offer good blind scanning options with selection of frequency ranges in tools such as EBSPro.

 

[ArloG]

Please. If we could stay in the E2 route. I have my share of closed firmware receivers. I see that the UCLan Ustym 4K PRO may be a clone of the SF8008. Or perhaps the other way around.
I have come to like the E2 receiver firmware and the flexibility to dive into the Linux based core.
I wouldn't exactly say that I am a beginner. But hey, a day that you learn something is a good day. You should agree hopefully.

I get replies in the send your .ts stream to us section. Always told my file doesn't have what they are seeking. When mentioning how I got the stream. Am told that no E2 .ts stream will have what a DVB card will.
Is this true? I see that TBS card software has a satellite data program also. And that interests me as a hobbiest and experimenter.
Don't really intend on going on a tangent here. I have used dvbsnoop. And as a matter of fact need it because I use The Last Drakkar to grab ecm/emm logs.

If saying TNAP is fta only. Then OpenATV would be also. As they too have taken the built in softcam install capability out. For a reason.
It blows me away the the Brits have tv police. So an image not having certain functions not built in reduces the chance of 'somebody' asking 'hey, whadda' you doin' there?'.
Or....a knock on the door.

Me. I certainly am not looking for 5 year or older technology stuffed into a 2023 box. And as it's mentioned that bcm is getting out of the fta chipset market. Supplies will only dwindle.
You guys are cool. Keep it coming.

 

[moonbase]

If saying TNAP is fta only. Then OpenATV would be also. As they too have taken the built in softcam install capability out. For a reason.

Incorrect assumption about OpenATV.
OpenATV is FTA in its default installation state, it can easily and quickly be enhanced for oscam.

All you need to do to go beyond FTA with OpenATV is install the relevant file that enhances the online feed download options. The file is/was named "softcam feed universal.ipk", there is a version number in the name. Once installed, this will allow you to see the softcam section in the list of plugins available for downloads, oscam is in there and can be installed from there.

TNAP can also be enhanced beyond FTA but it is not such a simple process as that for OpenATV.
I also tested TNAP on a satellite receiver on 95W when it had a lot of close together, narrow bandwidth, low SR feeds. It could not match an Octagon SF8008 running OpenATV.

 

[ArloG]

Incorrect assumption about OpenATV.
OpenATV is FTA in its default installation state, it can easily and quickly be enhanced for oscam.

All you need to do to go beyond FTA with OpenATV is install the relevant file that enhances the online feed download options. The file is/was named "softcam feed universal.ipk", there is a version number in the name. Once installed, this will allow you to see the softcam section in the list of plugins available for downloads, oscam is in there and can be installed from there.

TNAP can also be enhanced beyond FTA but it is not such a simple process as that for OpenATV.
I also tested TNAP on a satellite receiver on 95W when it had a lot of close together, narrow bandwidth, low SR feeds. It could not match an Octagon SF8008 running OpenATV.

yeah. libcrypto and its dependencies and a reboot and install your .ipk.
same with openatv if you want to go that route. not too hard. just read your error messages and fix it.
repeating myself but i have tnap in a slot. but using vix with the tnap tuner drivers.
but your stats make the octagon look good as the next receiver to get.

 

[manic01]

The E2 receivers have very good selection of user defined ranges for blind scans, however, they ar
If you want to go the non E2 route and have user defined blind scan range functionality then the Dr HD F15 is just about as good as you can get apart from the fact it is not 4K or S2X capable.

DR HD F15 is the same tuner as TM5402 M1 I believe.

 

[moonbase]

DR HD F15 is the same tuner as TM5402 M1 I believe.

Possibly, not sure though.

However, the Dr HD F15 firmware is better than the TM5402 series in that it allows the user to "see" frequencies that are below a lock level and to get a dB readout for them.
This is useful in determining how much more signal level is required to lock the frequency.

 

[manic01]

Possibly, not sure though.

However, the Dr HD F15 firmware is better than the TM5402 series in that it allows the user to "see" frequencies that are below a lock level and to get a dB readout for them.
This is useful in determining how much more signal level is required to lock the frequency.

Not possibly, its 100%

 

[moonbase]

Not possibly, its 100%

If you say so.

I never bother looking at makes of tuner in receivers, no point, not much you can do about it except use a different box.
To me, if the box does the job fine, if not get wan that will.

I aint wan of these tinkerers with a soldiers iron, messing around changing tuners and chips, On a plate is only place I get interested in chips.

 

[manic01]

If you say so.

I never bother looking at makes of tuner in receivers, no point, not much you can do about it except use a different box.
To me, if the box does the job fine, if not get wan that will.

I aint wan of these tinkerers with a soldiers iron, messing around changing tuners and chips, On a plate is only place I get interested in chips.

Same manufacturer for Clarke tech Dr hd, TM, same guts.
Enjoy your chips

 

[ArloG]

Same manufacturer for Clarke tech Dr hd, TM, same guts.
Enjoy your chips

Old receiver. No 4k. And firmware based. But nice features. Obscure ACM/VCM. Even the "Newer versions"...."For those who can afford".
Believing at that point a TBS card would be very much better.

But you see. I am one (not wan) of those tinkerers. And not one but at lease 3 daily used soldering irons. Lol!
I already have a spectrum analyzer to peek at where an active transponder may be.
Can the demodulator inside of the soldered in tuner or the pluggable one you had your selection of do anything with the signal?
Not really into playing musical receivers or tuners. Nor getting a surprise package to figure out before the return policy expires.

An analogy being your car blows an alternator and you need a 75 amp replacement. You hit the auto parts store and ask for a replacement.
Out the guy comes with a box that has a picture of whats inside and a label reading "Alternator".
You slap it in, head down the road on your merry way. It blows out in the boonies to only later discover when your only choice is to be towed to a repair place.
That "Alternator" that fit is only a 30 amp unit.
And so, screwed you are. As the place you bought it from is 500 miles (however many km that is) behind you. As you're stranded in BFE waiting on the right one to be shipped in.
.....yeah.