Been a while since I reported on the QboxHD, but I have some good excuses
Anyway, here is the situation:
On the 25th of September Duolabs issued their latest bootloader program, which is the base of all images issued since. It was followed by the "Fire Distribution" images, that they have been churning out in a rate of roughly once a week. The nice thing is that from now on all the boot updates are automatic and don't require the LAN to be connected.
So let's see what we got now:
Picture quality - superb.
Both HD and SD can't be bettered by any other receiver as far as I can see (but then I am not that fussy). I haven't made a direct comparison, but having had the QboxHD in a TV shop I compared the HD image to many other receivers, and I guess the difference has more to do with the quality of the TV than the receiver. SO this is just a feeling I have. Let's say it this way: The picture quality is not going to be a factor for me wanting to buy a different receiver.
Zapping Speed:
Has improved a lot since the start. When sapping unencrypted channels the speed is acceptable, when zapping encrypted channels on CS or EMU, the channel switches but it takes a bit longer until it is cleared. As a comparison, my old 5620 Dreambox is faster. I am pretty sure this is going to improve; it seems to be a point that is very important to a lot of users, so they will have to do something.
Images
In the last few months the official image is followed fairly close by a NAPO image. There were a few others, but it seems that NAPO is the Image maker of the moment. The nice thing about NAPO is that it has a lot of stuff on his download server, and you can download everything from emus to cams, plugins etc. directly from the remote. The NAPO is basically an original image but has all the goodies already installed, and some different skins. I tend to wait after the release of the official one for the NAPO, saves me a lot of time installing all the stuff manually.
Plugins
There is a whole list of downloadable plugins available, it would take too much time to list them all, but things like the weather plugin and Youporn players will find their fans. For me, I am happy to have settings and cams, key updates etc. But as more people are using this receiver and other Enigma2 HD receivers, the more of these plugins will appear. There seems to be quite a following for the picons, those displaying the station lgo on the display. It is quite nice I guess, but not essential. But there is a whole lot of work done by some people, so I got to install them to show my respect
After installing plugins, it will ask you to reboot the system, and then the plugin is ready to be used.
Cams and EMUS
The software panel I have on my box at the moment lists the following cams: Mbox, Radar+Nw, Poison, Mgcamd, Radar, Underworld, Mbox-newcs. Also available is the incubus, which is a very popular one. From this list the Mgcamd is the only one that does softcam, i.E. Digitv on Thor, and the Underworld (which is the internal Diablo cam) does some stations (haven’t had the time to try it out, but it works). At the moment it is quite easy to connect to a cccam server, even using multiple lines, but the Radar does not operate as a CCAm server. Several of the cams allow you to operate as a server and a client, but as for now not as ccam. I solved the problem by using my old Dreambox as a server/client, and simply connect the QboxHD to it. Switching between cams is much much better than at the start, and is quite quick.
Recording
I have tried to use a regular off the shelf USB 2 hard drive, but that did not work out very good. It may be that the HDD I used was simply not good enough, but after a while I guessed that the problem is with the HDD rather than the QboxHD, as other people did not report the same problems. One of the annoying things with the USB hard drive was that you had to disconnect it when booting the box after it was shut down from the mains – otherwise it tried to boot from the HDD. So what I have tried now is much better: I am using a simple USB to SATE/IDE converter, and connected it to an old PC hard drive I had collecting dust in my room. It’s only a 40 GIG, but it is enough for many hours of HD recording. I might get a larger one if this proves to be working well. And the nice thing is, now I can boot without having to disconnect it. The next step would be to take the power supply for the HD from inside the QboxHD, but I will leave that for later.
At the moment, the fast forward speed is limited to 16x, but in recent weeks they have been working on it. Also, timeshift is supposed to be working, but user report that it is still not quite what it should be. But normally I would think that it is a matter of a few more images before it will work.
Playback is straight forward, and I got HD recorded and viewed in good quality. The feature that allows you to forward a few minutes is there , but when used it starts to confuse the box and the picture gets funny, so still a bit of work needed.
Twin tuners
Haven’t tried it yet, so can’t comment. Hopefully soon
WIFI
The wifi works fine, once it is set up id does not need any more attention. What I do now, is simply use the backup/restore function to quickly load the configuration after a new image has been loaded, and I am ready to go. I am quite happy that it does not need another cable in the living room, so it is a great feature of the QboxHD for me.
Software/image loading
Nothing much has changed, I pop the software on an USB stick, power off the box and put the stick in the upper USB slot. Start the box and after about 5 minutes it’s all there. I then use the backup function to load the network and general settings on, and it is ready to go. It is especially nice that it takes the entire motor configuration etc, so there is not much to do.
Motor operation
Faultless really. Moves my old SG diseqc without any problems. I got the Dreambox and the QboxHD both on the same motor, so it is important to put one of them on standby when moving the motor.
So for the conclusion: That black thing that is sitting under my TV has probably earned the right to be called an HD receive by now. When I first got that ugly duckling BETA box at the beginning of the year (before it was replaced by the proper box), if was close to useless as a receiver. But now I can do most of the things I need it to do. Does CS, does recording, does the motor. It is not at the level my old Dreambox was in terms of reliability (still get the odd enigma crash), but I can see that it is getting there. Obviously the Dreambox took a long time to get to where it is now, so I am confident now that they will improve on the reliability and add all those functions that make the QboxHD such an interesting prospect. In a way, if they would have sold the first QboxHD with the software it has on it now, it would have been sensational really.
Keep on zapping!
