GEOSATpro HDVR3500 - New DVBS2 STB - Photos and Initial Testing
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I've been putting away a bit of money each week to buy a A3, but I think this receiver might be the one I buy instead. Will wait a month or two for any bugs to be ironed out though.
I spoke too soon. Learning more as I play...
Yes, you may manually add a TV or Radio service via PIDs. Love where it is located. In the channel list edit screen! No that makes too much sense!
Video types: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, h.264, AVS, WM9.
Audio types: MPEG1, MPEG2, AAC(ADTS/LATM/RAM), AVS, WM9, AC3, DTS
Yes, you may manually add a TV or Radio service via PIDs. Love where it is located. In the channel list edit screen! No that makes too much sense!
Video types: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, h.264, AVS, WM9.
Audio types: MPEG1, MPEG2, AAC(ADTS/LATM/RAM), AVS, WM9, AC3, DTS
With a weekend of testing under the belt, I am 95% very happy with this STB. The IP functions are smooth and had no issues with watching IPTV and a few HD movies. I inquired about upgrading XBMC to Kodi and this is planned to be done.
Did notice a few buffering issues on select HD channels (121w -Velocity / 125w PBS) and a DVR file end closing glitch but they appear to be simple fixes. Notified Satellite AV and they already replied that the factory engineers were notified, already working on it and expect a resolution soon.
Did notice a few buffering issues on select HD channels (121w -Velocity / 125w PBS) and a DVR file end closing glitch but they appear to be simple fixes. Notified Satellite AV and they already replied that the factory engineers were notified, already working on it and expect a resolution soon.
Sounds like a great new offering. Does this one also have the issue of RCU code overlap with Toshiba televisions like the MicroHD has?
Nice work GEOSATpro.
Very sharp looking GUI. I like the serial port on the back also.
I'm glad this new model also has CC. I use it if I need to take a phone call and follow a program at the same time.
Very sharp looking GUI. I like the serial port on the back also.
I'm glad this new model also has CC. I use it if I need to take a phone call and follow a program at the same time.
Did a little more testing. No on ACM/VCM. Yes on 8/16apsk. Not able to find any 32apsk services, but I only have a 10' dish, so not sure what 32APSK I could lock. Anyone have a 32apsk channel logged for testing?
No idea about IR codes or conflicts. So far no conflicts with a few Samsung and Visio TVs that it has been tested around. This is a different chipset and manufacturer, so I would guess that different codes are used. Time will tell... Maybe someone will read the codes or release a JP1 for Universal devices.
Also found that the Weigel 101W channels with the 4MHz spacing using the same SID log the wrong APID/VPID/ PCR and Service Name. This is a simple fix. Once it is done, I will DVR the channels as per a few members requests. Received an update that they are working on the items and I see a new version _898 available. Will test again in a few days after I get some other projects wrapped up.
No idea about IR codes or conflicts. So far no conflicts with a few Samsung and Visio TVs that it has been tested around. This is a different chipset and manufacturer, so I would guess that different codes are used. Time will tell... Maybe someone will read the codes or release a JP1 for Universal devices.
Also found that the Weigel 101W channels with the 4MHz spacing using the same SID log the wrong APID/VPID/ PCR and Service Name. This is a simple fix. Once it is done, I will DVR the channels as per a few members requests. Received an update that they are working on the items and I see a new version _898 available. Will test again in a few days after I get some other projects wrapped up.
Just got mine and have started digging into it.
First impressions, the good: tuner is much more sensitive than the MicroHD. Blind scan is effortlessly picking up transponders down to 1000kbps without a problem. The on-screen display looks great and it very clean. I really like the OSD.
First impressions, the bad: the manual wasn't well customized for the receiver, there are annoying but minor inconsistencies in the way certain screens work, and a few bugs in the main display screen.
I think Brian is right. It's 95 percent of the way there. I hope some of these small things get ironed out and we don't end up having to live with them.
On the annoyances, I've noted:
1) If you reprogram a channel name (from say, "No name" to "Fox Caribbean," it gets rewritten next time you do a blind scan. This is very annoying for me.
2) The unit overwrote all my stored satellite names in the ASC-1 to blanks, so now I have to reprogram that.
3) There appears to be no "mute" button on the remote control, despite one being mentioned in the manual.
4) I can't find a display anywhere that gives me the FEC for the channel I'm watching. I think they forgot it.
5) Someones on closely-spaced narrow transponders, the AFC snaps to the wrong one. For example, it might confuse 12105/1800 and 12110/1800 when you channel surf.
6) While the SD/HD indication on the screen updates to reflect the channel being watched (as Brian noted), the display in the bottom of the screen (1920x1080 etc) seems to be more or less random.
If any of this is wrong, please let me know how to find these features.
And a few small other bits and pieces. If some of these could get cleared up (OK, just the first one, that's the one I really care about, so I don't have to remember all the strange names on transponders) then I'll be a very happy camper.
I've only just started looking at some of the other functions, but the IPTV one appears great. I found some IPTV channel lists online, loaded them up and boom, I was streaming CNN and BBC News. I'm sure those streams come and go like feeds -- at least the pay TV streams -- but it looks like a very handy feature to have.
Will post more later!
First impressions, the good: tuner is much more sensitive than the MicroHD. Blind scan is effortlessly picking up transponders down to 1000kbps without a problem. The on-screen display looks great and it very clean. I really like the OSD.
First impressions, the bad: the manual wasn't well customized for the receiver, there are annoying but minor inconsistencies in the way certain screens work, and a few bugs in the main display screen.
I think Brian is right. It's 95 percent of the way there. I hope some of these small things get ironed out and we don't end up having to live with them.
On the annoyances, I've noted:
1) If you reprogram a channel name (from say, "No name" to "Fox Caribbean," it gets rewritten next time you do a blind scan. This is very annoying for me.
2) The unit overwrote all my stored satellite names in the ASC-1 to blanks, so now I have to reprogram that.
3) There appears to be no "mute" button on the remote control, despite one being mentioned in the manual.
4) I can't find a display anywhere that gives me the FEC for the channel I'm watching. I think they forgot it.
5) Someones on closely-spaced narrow transponders, the AFC snaps to the wrong one. For example, it might confuse 12105/1800 and 12110/1800 when you channel surf.
6) While the SD/HD indication on the screen updates to reflect the channel being watched (as Brian noted), the display in the bottom of the screen (1920x1080 etc) seems to be more or less random.
If any of this is wrong, please let me know how to find these features.
And a few small other bits and pieces. If some of these could get cleared up (OK, just the first one, that's the one I really care about, so I don't have to remember all the strange names on transponders) then I'll be a very happy camper.
I've only just started looking at some of the other functions, but the IPTV one appears great. I found some IPTV channel lists online, loaded them up and boom, I was streaming CNN and BBC News. I'm sure those streams come and go like feeds -- at least the pay TV streams -- but it looks like a very handy feature to have.
Will post more later!
Mine arrived yesterday. Blind scan is definitely faster and the tuner does seem more sensitive.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it receives 8PSK ACM from a transponder on 125W C-Band! My other receivers don't get it -- only my TBS6983 tuner card and the HDVR3500.
My times for blind scanning 103W SES-3 KU Band:
GEOSATpro HDVR3500: 2:08
Vigica C90S: 2:27
Amiko Mini HD SE: 3:02
The HDVR3500 found 33 channels, the Vigica found 30, and the Mini HD SE got 28..
Yes, I read the manual cover to cover because I wanted to make sure I didn't miss out on any cool features (which there are quite a few!)
However, I also found parts of the manual that didn't match:
1) Page 5 of the manual mentions the existence of a mute button, but I didn't see one on mine either. It would have been handy to have.
2) On pages 22 and 23 it mentions "Access a shared folder on a computer" for playing media files. I hope I'm wrong, but I couldn't find a way to do that. Also my HDVR3500 did not show up as a device on my network. Tried both Windows and Mac. Will have to study this more.
IPTV works very well for me too. But I ran into problems with XBMC, probably because its older than KODI. One of the problems was that I installed an add-on for 'TWiT TV' (The Week in Tech) and it loaded the older add-on that didn't work. Didn't have this problem with KODI on other devices. I look forward to a transition from XBMC to Kodi.
Overall, I'm very happy with this purchase.
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As I type this, I'm listening to BBC World Service radio on the Minnesota Public Radio mux on 99W, with no break up.
3741 H 741
That's no typo. Symbol rate of just 741. I needed to manually enter the transponder, but the scan almost immediately brought up the channels. The receiver had no trouble finding it and locking to it. The Colorado Public Radio mux on the same satellite came up immediately too when I entered the transponder and scanned.
This receiver seems really sensitive, more so than the Micro HD which would bring these in but kept losing lock on the signal.
A curiosity though, I tuned into NBC Central earlier and the Micro HD reported signal/quality of 90/75 and the 3500 reported 62/19. I'm not sure why it sometimes reports a lower signal level and quality than the MicroHD despite appearing to do well with more difficult to catch signals.
I could also add the Muzak channels on SES3. Well, I added one. I didn't have the desire to go through and add the 50 or so channels that are there. I never figured out how to do this on the Micro HD.
A few other observations and/or bugs:
The audio selection menu isn't saved per channel, so if you switch to the second audio channel on one station, when you click to the next one the receiver stays on the second audio. The MicroHD remembered this channel-by-channel, which I think it a better deal.
In addition to having no FEC display, there is also no indication of the modulation DVB-S/S2, QPSK, 8PSK etc
It does share some of the remote control codes with the MicroHD. I had them both on today and the power button powered both on, and I think the channel up was common but not channel down.
The signal strength screen is just a single horizontal bar. That's not as useful as the screen on the MicroHD.
In some of the menus and dialogs that use the color keys, they keys on screen are not in the same order as the remote control, which has red, green, yellow and blue buttons in that order. This might be because the apps were coded in other regions where buttons are a different order. Not a huge deal, but I have been caught out a couple of times by pressing the wrong button because I went for the second one in, which it was not on my remote.
Sometimes the audio menu gets messed up and lists "engio1", which it appears is a mix of "eng" and "audio1"
3741 H 741
That's no typo. Symbol rate of just 741. I needed to manually enter the transponder, but the scan almost immediately brought up the channels. The receiver had no trouble finding it and locking to it. The Colorado Public Radio mux on the same satellite came up immediately too when I entered the transponder and scanned.
This receiver seems really sensitive, more so than the Micro HD which would bring these in but kept losing lock on the signal.
A curiosity though, I tuned into NBC Central earlier and the Micro HD reported signal/quality of 90/75 and the 3500 reported 62/19. I'm not sure why it sometimes reports a lower signal level and quality than the MicroHD despite appearing to do well with more difficult to catch signals.
I could also add the Muzak channels on SES3. Well, I added one. I didn't have the desire to go through and add the 50 or so channels that are there. I never figured out how to do this on the Micro HD.
A few other observations and/or bugs:
The audio selection menu isn't saved per channel, so if you switch to the second audio channel on one station, when you click to the next one the receiver stays on the second audio. The MicroHD remembered this channel-by-channel, which I think it a better deal.
In addition to having no FEC display, there is also no indication of the modulation DVB-S/S2, QPSK, 8PSK etc
It does share some of the remote control codes with the MicroHD. I had them both on today and the power button powered both on, and I think the channel up was common but not channel down.
The signal strength screen is just a single horizontal bar. That's not as useful as the screen on the MicroHD.
In some of the menus and dialogs that use the color keys, they keys on screen are not in the same order as the remote control, which has red, green, yellow and blue buttons in that order. This might be because the apps were coded in other regions where buttons are a different order. Not a huge deal, but I have been caught out a couple of times by pressing the wrong button because I went for the second one in, which it was not on my remote.
Sometimes the audio menu gets messed up and lists "engio1", which it appears is a mix of "eng" and "audio1"
This reciever I would like to see on mini bud test to do a comparison between the nano and geosat 3500.
It's for sale on Amazon, for those of us who like to buy through Amazon:
Amazon product ASIN B011Q0G4LQ
Amazon product ASIN B011Q0G4LQ
Anything specific you want me to try?
I have noticed the clock stays on local time and doesn't re-sync with the time on transponders
Sure, I watch a lot of ME tv on 101W and the LESEA/Cozi channels on 99W. If you could set a few scheduled recordings between those channels that would be great.
Thanks.
Sat->IP server has been tested, but there were playback bugs, once approved, VLC Plug'n'Play will playback content, but this is not priority. Same with the remote, both Android and iOS applications are in Alpha testing.
See short video how VLC will play the files currently. (Files can be from GEOSATpro microHD or HDVR1200)
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What are the priorities?
Anything I listed above?
I would love to be able to rename a channel and not have it change back with each blind scan. I blind scan a lot for feeds and services
I set some timer recordings and all went well.
The timer is under the "Schedule" tile on the home screen. This was originally not present, but it appeared when I deleted the iTBN app from the home screen. I'm not it's possible to have both on there.
I didn't find any transponders from which to record from an EPG, so I set the timer manually.
You need a minute between the end of one and the beginning of another. It won't allow you to end at 03:00 and begin at 03:00.
This is probably for the set up. I noticed the dish started moving to the new channel about 45 seconds before the allotted program start time.
I'm curious if back-to-back shows from an EPG would record or if it would throw up an error. And then, if so, how you would go about adjusting a program from the EPG or if you would have to enter the whole thing manually.
Playback was good with up to 32x playback speed - faster than the MicroHD. You can also resume playback from the last position or the beginning of the file. I'll try it out some more this week.
Where can I find an EPG these days?
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