Newbie Here Want to upgrade my DIY install!

Assumpta Tang

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Hi, I'm a relative newcomer to satellite TV. A few months back I got given some old equipment, and despite being perfectly happy with my Humax Freeview PVR, as an incurable tinkerer I decided to give it a go!

The receiver is a Lidl/Comag SL65, fed by a motorised 60cm dish. I managed to get this to work using one of those £3 Lidl sat finders, and now I can receive channels from 28.2E, 19.2E and 13E. I can't get any satellites west of due south, but that's because the dish is on the side of the house and hits the guttering! I plan to use a longer pole to lift it up over the edge of the roof, but that's for another day.

What I wanted to ask is if I can buy a PVR which will be able to record from all the different satellites that I can receive? The old Lidl receiver works fine, but my OH isn't as keen on the Bundesliga highlights as I am :) Also, if I were to upgrade to an 80cm dish (I think I know where there's one going begging!) what satellites might I hope to see in my location please?

Thanks in advance for any help!
 

Mickha

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Welcome to the forum,
even with a 60 cm dish you should be able to add 23.5E, and if it's tracking the satellite arc, correctly, you should get 52E, 42E, 39E, with an 80cm dish, and some T+K brackets, plus a pole, to take the dish a bit higher, you could be able to get a wide range, of satellites, East, and West.
How much were you thinking of spending, on a new satellite receiver? There are a wide range, capable of PVR, from an internal hard drive, with multiple tuners, allowing you to record, and view, channels at the same time.
 

Assumpta Tang

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Thanks! I haven't tried 23.5E, I did try to find 42E without success, so maybe my dish isn't tracking the satellite arc correctly? I don't know how I'd go about correcting that.

As far as a PVR goes, I don't envisage wanting to record more than one channel at a time so something fairly basic would do fine. There seem to be plenty of 2nd hand Foxsat HDRs on eBay, would one of those be OK?
 

Channel Hopper

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The Comag is a very capable receiver within its own specifications (I prefer it over most Humax machines). Why not plug it into an old VCR or DVR with line input for those recordings ?
 

Assumpta Tang

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Why not plug it into an old VCR or DVR with line input for those recordings ?

Just convenience really, I was hoping I'd be able to make recordings using an EPG in much the same was as is possible using Freesat. The Comag displays this information for a lot of the German channels I use, so I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that this would be possible?
 

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The Comag will only populate now and next for the 28E channels and even then it would need to be on the particular channels transponders to gather this. It's because Freesat and $ly use their own EPG systems and normal sat receivers don't do that shenanigans bud. Linux receivers do the Freesat EPG data no probs, and also $lys with a bit of configuration.

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Assumpta Tang

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I'm not too bothered about 28.2E, as everything I watch on there is available on Freeview. The Comag is able to display a full EPG for many of the German channels on 19.2E, so I'm wondering if a domestic Freesat recorder would be able to, for example, record the Bundesliga highlights programme on Sport1? Or would I need something else, like one of these Linux based recorders you mention? I'm not a stranger to Linux by any means but I've not come across these devices before; I think I'll have to go away and do some reading up!
 

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Some Freesat receivers have a "non Freesat" mode but its hidden in the Humax cases and convoluted on many others, plus while in "non Freesat" mode anything that was set to record on 28E will be ignored, completely shit in my opinion.

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PaulR

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If you can get hold of one of the original Humax HDRs (not the newer 1000 or later) they can be upgraded with Raydon firmware then this can be converted so that it's completely customisable. You can have the Freesat channel listing and then extra channel numbers for the non-Freesat channels. These non-Freesat channels can be on other satellites as DiSeqc switching can be used.

Humax Foxsat HDR Custom Firmware
 

Assumpta Tang

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Are these Openbox V8S things any good? They seem very cheap and I have some external HDs kicking around that I could use for recording.
 

hairybadger

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Are these Openbox V8S things any good? They seem very cheap and I have some external HDs kicking around that I could use for recording.
The Openbox/Skybox in its various incarnations has a fairly good reputation here, as long as you can get hold of genuine models and not clones. I had an Openbox S10 with which I was very happy; am tempted by the V8S at the moment...
 

hairybadger

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I see, is there a particular seller I should use in order to get a genuine one?
I bought my Openbox from Amazon, but then it was a marketplace seller and YMMV. A good starting point (for those in the UK at least) is normally the forum sponsors :)
 

dankargo

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I have an Openbox V8S - no problems thus far.

I bought it from an eBay seller so I really don't know if its a clone or not. What's the best way to check if its a clone? (If possible)
 

hairybadger

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I have an Openbox V8S - no problems thus far.
I bought it from an eBay seller so I really don't know if its a clone or not. What's the best way to check if its a clone? (If possible)
The first thing you know about it is generally when you try to update the firmware and it bricks the box :)
There used to be something you could do with chip IDs (from an information screen somewhere) but I suspect that that's no longer reliable. Was it sold as a genuine box? You could contact the seller to ask how you check.

edit: I remember an esteemed ex-member bricked his *genuine* F3 with a firmware upgrade :)
 
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