GTMedia GTCombo 4:2:2 receiver

[Channel Hopper]

The tuner sensitivity has been mentioned here and other forums too. Remember I express a personal opinion based on my setup and subsequent findings. No two owners setups are exactly the same.

This is the output of Al Forat on my TV screen from the V8 UHD running through my homespun ATV box via GT Share. I gave an example of being able to output to an old iPhone 5S as an example of how this setup was.

My V8 UHD is connected to HDMI 1 and my ATV to HDMI 2 on the TV. One simple press of a remote and I can switch between both. I’ve full control of the V8 UHD via GT Share on the ATV box.

Has somebody opened up the V8UHD to work out the tuner chipset ? I recall Moonbase bottling a month or so ago.

 

[jeallen01]

Morning all

Please could someone post a direct link to the GT Media Forum as I got various obviously incorrect links when I searched for it.

Thx in advance.

 

[ozumo]

Morning all

Please could someone post a direct link to the GT Media Forum as I got various obviously incorrect links when I searched for it.

Thx in advance.

https://www.freesat.cn/forum/index.php

 

[jeallen01]

https://www.freesat.cn/forum/index.php

Ah, I saw that listed but it didn't look like the right link and so I didn't click on it! So Thx!

 

[moonbase]

Has somebody opened up the V8UHD to work out the tuner chipset ? I recall Moonbase bottling a month or so ago.

No bottling 'ere, just did not want to bitch up a working receiver to satisfy your curiosity.
I removed the case screws and there was no obvious way to open it up so I left it.

 

[Satspot]

Interesting thread particularly the last comment. Could any members here with the relevant technical knowledge comment on this. 422 : if and which - GTMEDIA Forum

 

[stephan94]

Interesting thread particularly the last comment. Could any members here with the relevant technical knowledge comment on this.

this member has been repeating the same statement since the beginning of the year on this forum.
Is it his truth? Or is it the truth?

 

[Satspot]

this member has been repeating the same statement since the beginning of the year on this forum.
Is it his truth? Or is it the truth?

Exactly why I asked for comments from members suitably qualified to do so. From what I can see the tuner section of the receiver is just passing a transport stream to the integrated player, something that could be achieved using any sensitive tuner and an android box or a decent PC which many here have these days with something like a TBS DVBS card.

 

[moonbase]

In my personal opinion, the 4:2:2 capability of the GTMedia combo is more of a sales feature than an actual functional feature.
Any half decent E2 receiver can stream 4:2:2 smoothly to VLC and the same for a TBS card.
Everyone knows this, the dogs round 'ere been barking this for ages.

It is what it is and it probably aint gonna get any better within the confines of the hardware currently in the GTMedia combo.
If GTMedia wanna improve the quality of the 4:2:2 they gonna have to spend more wad on the internals and increase the price to buyers.

The GTMedia Combo will let the user see what is on the 4:2:2 signal and it pours Poop which tastes good, both useful and nice to have features.
For less than £100 delivered it is decent value. However, for constantly smooth and viewable 4:2:2, forget it.

If anyone wants perfectly smooth viewable 4:2:2 direct from a receiver to a TV then the Ericsson RX8200 with suitable licenses enabled will do the job.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Exactly why I asked for comments from members suitably qualified to do so. From what I can see the tuner section of the receiver is just passing a transport stream to the integrated player, something that could be achieved using any sensitive tuner and an android box or a decent PC which many here have these days with something like a TBS DVBS card.

There have been domestic receivers in the past able to decode 4:2:0 without difficulty.

From what I could gather after dismantling the combo the motherboard was fully populated. Others here have had indifferent to good results decoding 4:2:2 and so only a firmware upgrade is likely to improve those with issues.

Which specific channels are members having difficulty with ? I now have a Bullseye LNB on the front of the steerable and it tracks more or less perfectly, for the UK.

 

[Satspot]

There have been domestic receivers in the past able to decode 4:2:0 without difficulty.

From what I could gather after dismantling the combo the motherboard was fully populated. Others here have had indifferent to good results decoding 4:2:2 and so only a firmware upgrade is likely to improve those with issues.

Which specific channels are members having difficulty with ? I now have a Bullseye LNB on the front of the steerable and it tracks more or less perfectly, for the UK.

But the user commenting states that even with a firmware upgrade it still won’t make a difference as the on board hardware is just not up to the job to do this and I tend to agree.

Could you elaborate a little on the board being fully populated. Have you managed to identify exactly what it is populated with.

This is the nearest I could find to a full technical spec on this board. GTMedia GTMedia Combo 4K Android 9.0 - Satellite Receiver

Amazingly the on board Mali T860 GPU chip on the Combo is the same as the GPU that I use on my DIY built android box yet the 4.2.2 output is far inferior. I’m very curious about the comment on that post regarding the bitrate throughput. Is that the key to the choppy 4.2.2 output from the Combo I wonder. Has the hardware been optimised to take account of this. Definitely sounds like a hardware upgrade is needed. Possibly a Combo V2

Regarding bisto and Poop there’s much cheaper and more efficient ways of achieving this and it certainly wouldn’t be a selling point for me.

 

[moonbase]

There have been domestic receivers in the past able to decode 4:2:0 without difficulty.

All the satellite receivers I have decode 4:2:0

 

[moonbase]

Regarding bisto and Poop there’s much cheaper and more efficient ways of achieving this and it certainly wouldn’t be a selling point for me.

For home Poop cooking and consumption I agree there are more efficient ways.
As for cheaper, yes but only if you buy a less expensive Poop pouring receiver.

Poop seems to be a receiver selling point for Poop slurpers who are not into alternative methods.

 

[moonbase]

Which specific channels are members having difficulty with ? I now have a Bullseye LNB on the front of the steerable and it tracks more or less perfectly, for the UK.

I think the Al Forat channel (10.0E, 10993V) might offer a test for the Combo?
However, I have not checked it lately so things may have changed.

 

[ozumo]

It would be interesting to know if a resource monitor can be installed on the GTCombo to see how much CPU is used for various video formats, but also to see how resource hungry the satellite app is, as well as how much bloat there is that could be done away with.

 

[Satspot]

It would be interesting to know if a resource monitor can be installed on the GTCombo to see how much CPU is used for various video formats, but also to see how resource hungry the satellite app is, as well as how much bloat there is that could be done away with.

I imagine the Mali T860 GPU does all the video processing. That’s quite a powerful GPU. I think the problem lies deeper than that. It feels like there’s a bottleneck between the DVB tuner and the SOC board. That could be purely down to poor design. The board presses all the right buttons regarding spec with a Amlogic S905X3 quad core processor. Possibly a little lean on memory, 2gb DDR3 but I don’t see that being an issue here unless there is a lot of memory swapping during video processing.

I will say at earlier advised purchase prices from members here for as little as £54 delivered to a current advertised price of around €115 from Aliexpress I’m not sure I’d be pressing the buy button if I was in the market for one now

 

[ozumo]

I imagine the Mali T860 GPU does all the video processing. That’s quite a powerful GPU. I think the problem lies deeper than that. It feels like there’s a bottleneck between the DVB tuner and the SOC board.

I don't recall any evidence of high bitrate 4:2:0 feeds/channels causing problems.

I wonder what 'player' is being used to decode the video. On my low spec Linux PC I find MPlayer does a better job than VLC, for example Al Forat is juddery on VLC but perfect on MPlayer. Also broadcast 4:2:0 4K is a mess on VLC whereas MPlayer produces a watchable low framerate video with complete frames.

 

[stephan94]

with a normal Universal LNB, I tried to receive the amateur radio promo channel on 26° East (10493 H 1500)
there is a signal ( 63%) and a quality ( 55%).
I have a scan done on this transponder, it seems to find nothing
and suddenly appears the image of the Promo, but with the data of the frequency and the satellite that was watched before
So the data and the title of the program are wrong but the program is well seen.

 

[Satspot]

I’m assuming you’re referring to 4.2.2 feeds and not 4.2.0.

I don't recall any evidence of high bitrate 4:2:0 feeds/channels causing problems.

I wonder what 'player' is being used to decode the video. On my low spec Linux PC I find MPlayer does a better job than VLC, for example Al Forat is juddery on VLC but perfect on MPlayer. Also broadcast 4:2:0 4K is a mess on VLC whereas MPlayer produces a watchable low framerate video with complete frames.

I’m assuming you’re referring to 4.2.2 and not 4.2.0

As you know the Combo has two players so I’m assuming it’s something like KMPlayer as default switching to VLC when required. Again that’s an assumption based on what I can see.

Yes passing the basic transport stream to a suitable player with the correct codecs installed does play 4.2.2 more reliably even on low spec system as you’ve seen.

If you watch the bitrate playback on the Combo it’s up and down like a yo-yo. The trick I imagine is to maintain a constant bitrate for smooth playback which the Combo struggles to achieve.

 

[Manikm909]

as its an android unit, we could try installing other players to see if the DVB app offers a choice of player to switch to - or make a test recording and then see how it plays back on an additional player...