Skybox F3

[Lazarus]

Nice idea - might investigate that.

Done some research and although some sticks claim to be High Speed, it's difficult to assess suitability as the spec. for the F3 is also vague.

I'll get there.

 

[Ghostleader]

Im really quite surprised that the Sandisk drive not being up to the job, I use a Sandisk Cruzer bog standard 32Gig that I bought on promo for £20 to use with my Vu+ Solo and it works fine, I recorded Wallander on BBC 1 HD last night and I have been fast forwarding through the recording at 128 times speed, this would have killed a cheap cr*p pen like the "Intenso" garbage maplin sell.

 

[Lazarus]

This morning I've successfully managed to get the Ethernet connection working and proved Interweb access by successfully using the "Weather" option.

Been trying to access the alleged hidden menu for access to CCCam (Supposed to Press 6666 from the Network Menu), but sod all happens.

Going to order a WiFi dongle for it in a mo. (Done)

 

[Lazarus]

Finally got into the hidden menu for CCCAM etc.

Now got to figure out .config files : Dumped the one installed and opened it with Notepad, but it is totally empty.

No doubt I shall be able to generate something in due course

Edit: No need - found out how to manage it direct with the box.

It all seems pretty straightforward.

 

[thehumangoing]

How does this compare to a dm800se clone?

 

[Lazarus]

Been populating more Satellites this morning - all very easy and sorting/editing/deleting features are powerful.

Looks like the F3 is a really good buy for less than 50 sovs (plus a sick squid for a dongle).

 

[Vipersan]

Been populating more Satellites this morning - all very easy and sorting/editing/deleting features are powerful.

Looks like the F3 is a really good buy for less than 50 sovs (plus a sick squid for a dongle).

Indeed a very good buy for the dosh..
My only real complaint ..
Editors of course ..
the Ali one size fits all is not as useful as I'd like..
Also the buttons on the remote are a bit on the small size for my MS affected fingers..but luckilly the Openbox S9 remote works instead..
;)
rgds
VS

 

[aceb]

Well hopefully mine will be here tomorrow, the intention being to put it in the front room assuming it ever makes it downstairs from here. I didn't realise you had one now Evan, how does it compare for sensitivity against the F15 and the 6925? Hopefully in the next few days I'll finally be able to get a comparison between the Prof cards and the 6925 so I'm curious to know how your three stack up?

 

[Lazarus]

Well you won't be disappointed: I have it clagged on to my 80cm motorised and it seems to be pulling in stuff I previoulsy found marginal.

Just updated my constant.cw file and got a couple of Fox Channels at 12.5W (Thanks to a fellow Member who has been reading avidly).

 

[Vipersan]

Well hopefully mine will be here tomorrow, the intention being to put it in the front room assuming it ever makes it downstairs from here. I didn't realise you had one now Evan, how does it compare for sensitivity against the F15 and the 6925? Hopefully in the next few days I'll finally be able to get a comparison between the Prof cards and the 6925 so I'm curious to know how your three stack up?

Hi Paul ..
yes I quite like the F3 ...its as good as the S9HD generally ..
Not quite as sensitive or controllable as the 6925 ....and the F15 is still my top receiver..
It wont get used for general dxing and TV watching..
The F15 is soley for DXing in Cband ..with one sat position for dxing in ku..
The S9HD is now soley for ku .. hopefully once I've solved the editor UDF import probs..
The TBS card is the analysis workhorse as it where..
The AZbox is for 4:2:2 and feeds
The Cuberevo/ABsat9000HD is just for general TV watching..
The latter 2 not being particularly sensitive tuner wise..
and finally ..the F3 is now my Truely portable receiver to take outside on alignment missions..thus doing the job of a meter I guess.

The F3 has all the same motor and switching facilities that the S9 has ...and this too is one of its more impressive features..
All combinations of diseqc 1.2 and usals motor control ...with stacked uncomitted and dedicated diseqc switching are possible.
A nice box for the money ..and I can recommend it for everything but dxing and 4:2:2 feeds

finally ..splitting the arc into Cband and ku accross 2 boxes solves the limited number of storeable sat positions and channel storage space that once had me grinding my teeth..
So all in all a nice solution.
rgds
VS

 

[Lazarus]

Now got glitch free Recording of SD Channels, and a sniff of HD, although TSR still won't do the biz.

Using the same 8GB stick as before, I reformatted (Albeit still FAT32) and changed the Policies for it to optimise for Speed as opposed to Quick Removal.

It has made a big difference and I'm fairly confident that a new "High Speed" device will cope with TSR too.


I am increasingly impressed by this box ...................

 

[Lazarus]

BTW, I've found an "Accurate Scan" mode - no time to try it right now, so can someone tell me briefly what it is?

 

[Costactc]

I have tried both the blind and accurate scan and have yet to notice a difference in tp scanned in, the only thing I noticed is that the accurate scan seems to take a bit longer.

 

[Vipersan]

..From the brief test I made on 57 East ..
Accurate scan appears to deal with Very LSR better than blind scan ...but no firm conclusions really..
As Costa says ...they are much the same..but accurate scan appears to take more time to interrogate the signal.
rgds
VS

 

[Lazarus]

Thanks chaps.

Just finished choosing a likely candidate for glitch free Recording: The Sandisk Cruzer Blade 8GB I'm using is, as I said before, marginal - even though my latest Policies for it improved matters.

But fleabay do a Sandisk Extreme Cruzer 16GD for £13, 8GB for £9 and the Write speed is three times faster than the Blade.

Should be ok for what I want: No point in getting a dinky 2.5" Portable HDD then finding there ain't enough power available.

 

[Costactc]

Just did a test on Amc 9 at 83w and accurate scan took approximately double the time to scan in exactly what a blind scan did.

 

[PaulR]

... the Write speed is three times faster than the Blade.

Surely it's the read speed that's important for playback? Or have you ascertained that the file isn't being written properly - in which case I would have thought that it would be corrupted rather than drop frames.

 

[Vipersan]

Thanks chaps.

Just finished choosing a likely candidate for glitch free Recording: The Sandisk Cruzer Blade 8GB I'm using is, as I said before, marginal - even though my latest Policies for it improved matters.

But fleabay do a Sandisk Extreme Cruzer 16GD for £13, 8GB for £9 and the Write speed is three times faster than the Blade.

Should be ok for what I want: No point in getting a dinky 2.5" Portable HDD then finding there ain't enough power available.

I'll try a 2.5 inch sata drive/caddy on the F3 for you at some point soon ...but I can tell you ..the S9HD handles one perfectly well ..
My system is currently tied up performing a full visible ku arc scan (fta channels only being stored)...as to do ALL would overfill the limited capacity of the S9 ...which is 5000 max same as the F3.
Its automatically switching usals motors via an uncomitted switch very smoothly indeed....and am currently on Hotbird (47%) of scan ....and has taken over 2 hours ...thus the total scan should take around 4 hours.
I suspect the F3 would perform in much the same way..
;)
rgds
VS

 

[mbalase]

F3 is a very nice box! The only disapointment for me: It can't be used as a server.

 

[Lazarus]

When Recording, as soon as there is a bottleneck, it gives the Too Slow To Record message - and even though it appears to recover and carry on, that actually ends the Recording.

I've not had Playback issues with clips that Recorded without error.

What I thought were the problems yesterday have morphed slightly as my familiarity grows.