CoolSat 8100 vs 7000 & OTA tuner

[teseda]

My 18 months is just finishing for my Dish Network and I have cancelled it. I had the HD package with a VIP 211 receiver that also worked as an OTA tuner. As part of the cancellation, I will need to return the equipment to them, so I won't have a tuner for my projector setup in my media room.

I have been wanting to to to an FTA setup since I think my wife will enjoy the international programming we would be able to receive. I had been planning on getting a CoolSat 7000 because I have heard it is a good receiver and I also really like the PVR capability.

My problem now is that I won't have an ATSC tuner and, to my knowledge, the 7000 doesn't have such a tuner. So I would have to get some kind of tuner as well, perhaps an old voom box, I had one of those before getting Dish. However, I would like recording capability. So I have been more interested in getting a DVD recorder with a digital tuner.
The cost of a CoolSat 7000 seems to be running around $175. The cost of a good DVD recorder with tuner seems to be running $200 or so. The total is about 375 or more.

The amount for the two separate pieces of equipment is close to or equivalent to the cost of a CoolSat 8100. The 8100 would give me the OTA tuner, an HD sat receiver (though probably no programming I would be interested in, but perhaps eventually there would be some, i.e. future proofing), and very desirable PVR capability all in one bit of equipment that would hopefully work seamlessly.

The purpose of this posting is to find out how well the 8100 works in all these capacities: Sat receiver, OTA receiver, PVR. I haven't seen any discussions about the 8100 as an OTA receiver. I know it has an ATSC tuner, will it also do QAM for cable connections? From what I saw in descriptions about the 8100, it can do PVR with OTA in both Mpeg2 and Mpeg4. I also haven't found much in the ways of review or posting about experience with the 8100.

Would I be best off going with the 8100 or two separate pieces of equipment (i.e. 7000 & DVD recorder with tuner)?

Can anybody think of other potential solutions? Other receivers I should consider that would have all the desired capabilities?

Thanks for any help with this decision.

 

[ind224]

8100

I'm having problems while having fun with the 8100. The OTA tuner is causing a reboot after getting 5 channels. I'm going to try and load them manually if I can get the frequencies. I've asked Coolsat about it but no response so far.

This box will decode and display an HDTV signal to a non HD TV.
I've not gotten far enough into the box and still need a null cable to program. Using a 922 for dish control and GFMS feed site for coordinates, HD feeds are yours.

 

[turbosat]

Don't think there are many full time HD satellite channels that are free to air yet (PBS-HD is one I know about) , so other than looking for HD sports wildfeeds, I haven't been dying to buy an HD receiver yet. Same is prob true for fta-mpeg4 channels. HD is still in early stages in the fta area but there are quite a lot of sports wildfeeds in HD lately. But unless you have good access to wildfeeds-groups who post the channel info, you may have to invest in another fta rec that will blind scan, to find those channels for you. From what I'm reading, there just aren't many HD fta boxes that have a good blind scan option that works well, yet. Manufacturers release the boxes early, without every function working properly, and buyers end up waiting for the software to be fixed later. I'm happy with my standard def receivers, and stand-alone DVD-record/OTA tuner for now, even though I'm missing a few hd signals.

 

[gpat]

Also Im not impressed with the tech service from CS.