DreamBox Receivers

[Scott Greczkowski]

More in the coolness from the SatelliteExpo these comeing from Dream MultiMedia with their DreamBox receivers.

I saw the DM 6000S which was cool as you could add a over the air tuner and intergrate it with the FTA stuff.

And another new receiver which shocked me which was the DreamBox DM 500 (AKA Honey I shrunk the Dreambox) this tiny (and I do mean tiny about the size of a VHS tape) packs all the power of other Dreambox units but at an 80% smaller size!

 

[Mr Tony]

Dang that box is small...

 

[PSB]

The over the air tuner is a neat feature on the DM 6000S, along with FTA who needs pay TV!

 

[voomvoom]

I saw the DM 6000S which was cool as you could add a over the air tuner and intergrate it with the FTA stuff.

I hope that tuner would be ATSC (digital)?

Al

 

[az_timeshift]

Looks like it has an RJ-45 connection too. That's a mighty small DVR.

 

[jegrant]

Finally, a DVR for the frequent traveler!

Seriously, it must not be that much bigger than some iPods (or MyFis).

 

[Das Hammer]

I used to have a couple, and they are tiny! The Ethernet port is great. You can record directly to your PC through the network. You can also stream to the box using something like VLC. You can also go into the dreambox through your PC's web browser and perform all functions remotely.

Even though you can put it into NTSC mode from the initial on-screen menu, you end up missing much of the TV program image (and on screen menu). The TV image is larger than what the dreambox displays on the screen. So, you have to pick up an NTSC skin - which is one of the other nice features - skins! One advantage of having an opensource code.

These appear to be the long anticipated 500s with the built in hard disk controller. Looks like a removable/interchangable tuner too.

Unfortunately, support for something other than hacking is hard to come by in NA.

 

[WyrTwister]

I used to have a couple, and they are tiny! The Ethernet port is great. You can record directly to your PC through the network. You can also stream to the box using something like VLC. You can also go into the dreambox through your PC's web browser and perform all functions remotely.

Even though you can put it into NTSC mode from the initial on-screen menu, you end up missing much of the TV program image (and on screen menu). The TV image is larger than what the dreambox displays on the screen. So, you have to pick up an NTSC skin - which is one of the other nice features - skins! One advantage of having an opensource code.

These appear to be the long anticipated 500s with the built in hard disk controller. Looks like a removable/interchangable tuner too.

Unfortunately, support for something other than hacking is hard to come by in NA.

I was looking at the " old model " 500 on EBay . Some one in the UK had several auctions .

I placed a low bid on them .

Every one of the auctions were canceled ? :-(

A DB might force me to learn something about Linux ?

Any idea of price on the ones w/ HD's ?

Wyr

 

[Das Hammer]

No, you don't have to know a thing about Linux. The only bad thing with the old/current model 500 is that there isn't timeshifting (at least that I'm aware of). You can record whenever you want across the network to the PC, but you can't "pause" or "rewind". I don't know if the new one will have that.


They had announced plans for this 500 model with the built in hard drive over a year ago on their website. The 7xxx series might do pvr stuff because they already have internal hard drive capability, but I never tried one out.


Another problem was no power switch on the back. If it ever locked up, and it did, you'd have to pull the power cable from the wall.


I started thinking about the size of this unit again, but have you ever looked at the inside of a coolsat 4000 pro? Once you take out the power supply, there's not much there.

If you're thinking about purchasing one of the old/current 500s models, make sure you are familiar with networking. That's most of the fun. I wouldn't recommend this for someone without a basic knowledge of home networking.

That TV picture thing just bugged me so much that I had to get rid of it. Even with the proper NTSC skin I was missing some picture. It would record in full size, but couldn't display it properly on the TV, and I've just got a standard tv.

Just some comments from a former owner.

 

[Marcyjok]

there is a lot of imgs (bins, softwares) that have NTSC frames, picture aligned in the proper way for NA market, but all of them are done for "testing" hacking purposes, but nobody force the owner to put there illegal "emu"s and keys, so they can be working great as true fta receivers

 

[Das Hammer]

there is a lot of imgs (bins, softwares) that have NTSC frames, picture aligned in the proper way for NA market, but all of them are done for "testing" hacking purposes, but nobody force the owner to put there illegal "emu"s and keys, so they can be working great as true fta receivers

That's true. I used the Gemini image with NTSC skins and it looked great. However, there was still the problem (and I confirmed this with some other users) that the video would not display properly on the screen. Using the NTSC skins did fix the menus though. Nice to be able to choose your OSD's. Just because I used a different image doesn't mean I installed the additional emulators, etc.

For example, while watching TVU on AMC3 C band, their logo would be partially cut-off on my TV screen. If I recorded it and watched it on the PC, the entire logo was there, plus additional video to the right of the logo. If I were to watch it on my Pansat, the entire logo would be visible, but nothing beyond that. If you watch TVU on Sky Angel, it shows the entire logo, plus the additional video to the right, but the picture quality stinks.

 

[ken2400]

IMOH the 500 is not there yet. It can do a lot of things BUT it lacks blind scan. It also needs some level of Linux knowlege to get the full use out of the box. If the DM 6000S can scan and is not too much $$$$ then maybe?

More in the coolness from the SatelliteExpo these comeing from Dream MultiMedia with their DreamBox receivers.

I saw the DM 6000S which was cool as you could add a over the air tuner and intergrate it with the FTA stuff.

And another new receiver which shocked me which was the DreamBox DM 500 (AKA Honey I shrunk the Dreambox) this tiny (and I do mean tiny about the size of a VHS tape) packs all the power of other Dreambox units but at an 80% smaller size!

 

[Krapola]

If you are looking for Dreambox info, you can troll this forum..

http://www.austech.info/index.php?

 

[WyrTwister]

That's true. I used the Gemini image with NTSC skins and it looked great. However, there was still the problem (and I confirmed this with some other users) that the video would not display properly on the screen. Using the NTSC skins did fix the menus though. Nice to be able to choose your OSD's. Just because I used a different image doesn't mean I installed the additional emulators, etc.

For example, while watching TVU on AMC3 C band, their logo would be partially cut-off on my TV screen. If I recorded it and watched it on the PC, the entire logo was there, plus additional video to the right of the logo. If I were to watch it on my Pansat, the entire logo would be visible, but nothing beyond that. If you watch TVU on Sky Angel, it shows the entire logo, plus the additional video to the right, but the picture quality stinks.

If you record to a PC hard drive , what file format does it save it as ? MPEG2 ?


Thanks ,
Wyr

 

[global0]

It gives you three files for every recording. The recording itself is in .ts but it has a .ap and a .meta which are basically the index files associated with it.

 

[WyrTwister]

It gives you three files for every recording. The recording itself is in .ts but it has a .ap and a .meta which are basically the index files associated with it.

Well , that just went over my head .

Does the PC have to be running Linux , or will it record to a Windows PC ?

Wyr

 

[global0]

Well, here is the full story. You can record locally on the DB provided that it has a HD. If you want to save your recordings on a remote machine (Windows or Linux) this can also be done. You just need to make that space visible to the DB. For Linux boxes, that resource can be mounted in the DB file system. If you prefer to use a Windows box, that is fine too. Using the "Samba" you can mount the windows shared resource (d:, e:, or whatever your drive is named in windows). Check this out for further detailed info: http://us4.samba.org/samba/ . Hope this helps!