Life After an Edision OS Mio+

[cyberham]

I'm wondering if there is a newer FTA / streaming STB coming down the line. My Mio+ seems to have retired and rather than just buying a new Mio+ (which is still an option for now), I'm always keen to try something newer / better. This hobby is about experimenting, not watching TV. I prefer an STB over a USB card. No rush anyway since I won't have any dishes installed until well into 2023 at the earliest. So, for now, I'd only be using a new box for its streaming features.

 

[LocutusOfBorg]

I'm still using two non-plus mios with no problem. So I'm not considering replacing them anytime soon. Unlike you, I don't consider this a hobby. Someday I'll go 100% streaming though - especially when the next major hail storm shows up. Unless someone starts selling consumer grade 12 footers I'll be out - I doubt my insurance company would replace them with 12 foot commercial grade antennas to the tune of $4,000+.

 

[N6BY]

... Unlike you, I don't consider this a hobby. ...

Same here. As of last week, for me FTA went from being a hobby to a great source of news and information. That is because I dropped Dish Network, and have found some channels that help fill the void on C-Band.

FTA plus Netflix, Discovery+, Paramount+, Amazon Prime, and my OTA TiVo have more than enough to keep me entertained. Its actually too much and I am going to drop at least one of the streaming services.

For the past several years I have used my 10' Unimesh to receive NOAA weather satellite images. For FTA I was using my 8.5' Birdview.

But the 8.5' Birdview is not big enough for some of the C-Band so today I am switching back to the 10 footer for that.

And my OS Mio+ 4K is working great. I see no need to replace it anytime soon.

 

[Comptech]

I use receivers and PC cards, but there is not much to watch anymore, just different versions of the SOS, reality competitions ect. Not much worth watching anymore. A OTA antenna will get you good programming.

 

[cyberham]

There are no OTA channels receivable using an antenna at 30 feet high where I'll be living. So if I want to avoid getting cable or pay satellite (which I do), I will use a combination of FTA (Ku/C), amazon or Netflix (alternating) and streaming online for news and entertainment. But satellite will be limited due to too many tall trees.

I will use my GSP microHD in the beginning, but I enjoyed the Mio+ so am looking something comparable or better (if it exists).

 

[Corrado]

I realized last week after many years when I connected my microHD how many services in the channel list were gone.

I haven't had paid subscription TV since Orby shut down. I really don't miss it since I have over 40 OTA channels in my area. Most of which were the FTA satellite channels anyway.

Lately, FETV, Story TV and Movies! are the only FTA satellite channels I watch.

 

[iBoston]

Last time i paid for TV was back in 1995 when i owned a Cband, and got everything i wanted including the HBO line-up for 19.oo a month. When i moved from there, i never saw that same DEAL ever again.. Most TV is geared for 15-25 year olds. Plus, i have NO interest in paying for TV and having to watch commercials... That makes little sense to me...

As for streaming services, one problem is that they cycle their content. So, if there is a TV series you really enjoy, its there one period, and gone the next. Cannot rely on stuff being available, which to me doesn't give the sense of reliability that you would expect from such a service. - If i want to watch a Babylon-5 episode, i pop in my DVD and its there guaranteed... Plus, i dislike forced commercials. I don't mind watching commercials on FTA, because that's my way paying for the service i receive , but when I'm paying for a service, i don't want to see ANY commercials, and an advertisement for another show they want you to be aware of is STILL a commercial! - Hence, why we NO longer use any streaming services.

I am VERY happy and entertained with the FTA channels we have. To be honest, 70% of what we watch are the FTA "News" channels. But, my favorites right now are DECADES,COZI,PBS,BYU and a few of my favorite music channels...

But, its also a life-style. I am very frugal. I don't own a cell phone. I just have no need for one.. I have a free incoming internet based phone line. We have a Well, and solar panels. We have no heating / cooling costs, no electricity bill, no water bill. Our cost of living is very LOW. I have zero debt and this frugal lifestyle leaves me wanting for nothing, and having more than plenty to retire at 50. So, Ill let everyone else consumer themselves for eternity and keep them in the servitude of debt and work.

Enough with my speech, I love my Enigma receivers, and will for as long as i can see forward, will only buy enigma based receivers.. As long as you get a receiver that can handle the new HEVC h.265 codec, and has a decent CPU/Speed then go with what ever is in a good price point. I have one very cheap 40.oo enigma receiver, and my only complaint about it, is that it is very slow navigating through the menus. I feel a lag between hitting the remote and the commands showing up on the screen. That makes it difficult to manage the device. But, as a spare its just fine.

 

[arlo]

iBoston. Let's have a beer. The last time I watched any pay TV at home was some 10 years ago. My dad passed on and I quit the rat race that I loved but stressed every single working day. On call 24/7. I love technology. But enough is enough.I moved back to the north from 30+ years in Florida on the family farm. I let his Dishnet sub run out.
Internet is mandatory for me and luckily enough the local ISP/CATV provider had 70 channels itc w/o a cable box.
That's all gone. Internet content and the Edision mio is it.

I have a Prime account. I get a lot of electronic stuff from Amazon and eBay for my home repair thingy.
A few friends share their Netflix, Disney+, etc codes. I've never even played a DVD. I have a BR burner, in my main tower. Some day I ponder a dvb card. Nobody has helped me nail down a choice. Blindscan is 100% mandatory.
Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley. Now there was news that you could believe. Now it's a crap shoot.
I hate politics. But 4 years went by in a flash. Now I feel like I'm on a double dose of Ritalin
I love technology. YouTube has been my kick lately. Tips on electronic repairs and techniques, Right to repair.
And keeping up on that thing going on over there. So sad and terrible. I use a VPN to get around biased and massaged "news".
Kids content. I don't know. "We" were kids. Sanford and son, Archie bunker, Good times. Cartoons.
Combat, 12 O'Clock High. They spanned a period from WWII. MASH only came out at the very end of Viet Nam.
But during Viet Nam? He had Walt, Chet, and Dave. Variety shows and such.

iB. I have a cell. Down to 30 bucks or less now. With Verizon. Something like 12 gigs of data and it goes up.
3 springs that start out my back door. Rural electric out here is almost twice what people on West Penn pay in the small town close to me. I went solar. 3.5kw. Not net metered yet. Inverter, charge controller is new.
My panels are used take downs. But 320 watts per, X8. United Electric down by Philly sent piles of info. A guy from their solar division was very helpful. The best tip he gave me? Deep cycles are going to last what...5, maybe 8 years? Hit the late model salvage yards and just pick up a bunch of matching car batteries. And I did.
I have lights day and night, my pump keeps water under pressure, the fridge is happy. everything including the Mio and Internet stuff behind my entertainment center that has wall warts with 12 vdc out is now on a single Mean Well switcher with a buss bar terminal strip. No brags. I guess I just carried on my tekkie career into the house a touch. Solar tracker mount next. Got to keep the TIG skills sharp.
Yeah.

When I saw what Dad was paying for Dish. With the ball games, HBO, Max. I said screw it. There was this bigassed 12 footer in the middle of the yard. Sat since the DCII days. Idle when the cable company finally strung cable. Mom got off of dial-up, dad got his TV. Then got Dish. For the ball game packages.
I de-mothballed he dish. Works like a peach.
A nosy old-fart neighbor drove by and asked me if I was finally tearing that thing down.
I asked him. And HOW much is your cable or satellite bill a month?
Who knows how long C-Band will still work. To be honest, i think ku sat. sucks. I have every receivable satellite stored and scanned in my Osmio4k. My friend who works for Comcast didn't even realize that C-Band still existed. And he was the head end engineer here before Adelphia went belly-up. He deals in fiber and backbone work now. We had a good conversation recently.

 

[armadillo_115]

Along with the commonly desired features:
One thing I will look for on my next Enigma2 box: RCA cable output in addition to hdmi! Sitting here with a good OS Mio with blown hdmi output suks.
Losing hdmi on equipment is common here. They say it is due to all the iron in the ground. Buried phone line suffers from it as well.

It would also be nice to have loop-out as well... just in case it is ever needed.

 

[iBoston]

I don't use Amazon prime any more. I found it to be a waste of money. In the past, two day shipping was actually 2 days, but over the years, it turned out to take about a week. I ordered things on Ebay and Amazon on the same day, and would receive my Ebay items way before Amazon, and it was a 2 day prime eligible. When i called them, they would say something slick like, its not 2 day guarantee when from when you order it, but from when its shipped, and i noticed that they would sit on the product for 2-3 days before shipping.. So, what was i paying for Prime for?!?! - I cancelled prime and just add things into my basket til it hits the free shipping and process the order.

My Spouse has a cell phone, but its on a 11.25 a month, including all taxes and fees. 500 calls, 500 texts, and no data. If we go on vacation, we up it for one month to the unlimited data plan of 50 bucks so we can use google maps, and Yelp to find restaurants and Hotels.com etc, and then back to the 11.25 when we return. The family could not live without Internet, and i make the buck go far with it. We pay about 45 bucks a month for Internet. But i have 24/7 VPN connections with it to my parents network. Our free telephone calls are made through it, and i even host my own website and other services on it, so its well utilized.

For what Armadillo_115 said, i have a Voltage Regulator for all my sensitive electronics, and have never had any issues. They were about 50 bucks each, and i have around 5 of them. I have been using those for well over 10 years and have had no electrical burn outs since then... Before then, i had a laundry list of things, including a Refrigerator Circuit board fry, network switches and PC's.

Oh and ARLO, would love to have a beer. - I love technology too, but only so as the technology understands 1 simple rule. I'm in charge, and you do what i want. Today, i find technology is geared to training the consumer, or building a end-of-life into the product. Example : I needed a device that warned me if the green house got too hot or too cold. First product i bought, forced me to use their cloud service and gave me little control. Plus, after 4-5 years, they disable the cloud for the older products forcing you to spend money to replace a unit that works perfectly.. I found a temperature sensor that had a built in web-server that showed the info. No Forced 3rd party (offsite cloud). I then wrote a script to crawl the webserver temperature sensor every 15 minutes and then displays it on my own internal website for months going back. It also sends me audible alerts on my laptop if the temperature exceeds 100 degrees or drops below 60 degrees.. Letting me know if i need to open or close a window/door. As long as the unit keeps working, i rely on no 3rd party sites, and will operate for the next 20 years. Perfect, and my cup of tea. - Ps, I put a bookmark on spouses phone that links the greenhouse temperature so that from work's WIFI can pull up the temperature to make sure I am on top of it.. Ofcourse, with the tech i setup, I never forget to open/close the windows doors.. (wink)

 

[N6BY]

...But the 8.5' Birdview is not big enough for some of the C-Band so today I am switching back to the 10 footer for that.
...

Well the 10' Unimesh did no better than my 8.5' for C Band. I tried multiple receivers and different LNBFs and C Band had pixelation and audio dropouts every few seconds. So the problem wasn't unique to any single piece of hardware. No matter what I did, most of the channels were unwatchable.

So I did a signal graph with my DVB card and I saw some intermittent and very strong signal spikes where there used to be nothing before. It turned out to be 5G. My area is now filled with 5G.

So if I wanted to continue watching C Band, a new Titanium C138 was my only choice. Fortunately it took care of the problem, and now I can get 3.8-4.2 GHz. From what I read, it may eventually be only 4.0 to 4.2 GHz and require yet another new LNBF.

It upsets me that our government (the FCC) has allowed cellular companies to trash C Band in the major metropolitan areas. The 5G signals are so strong they leak above their current upper limit of 3.8 GHz. I've known that 5G has been coming for a long time, but I didn't think they would cause problems outside of their allotted spectrum.

Also I found out yesterday (from Antenna Man on You Tube) that 5G is causing some people problems with OTA, especially the channels near 600 MHz.

And 5G small cell sites can easily be installed on top of existing street lights in my area. The City of Roseville has fought the 5G companies and lost: City of Roseville's stance on 5G. Cellular companies are free to install above any street light in Roseville (and all other municipalities in the US). So I fear the situation may get even worse, maybe to the point where 5G filters don't work?

... I finally got the return shipping box to return my Hopper Duo, LNBF, and remote. Took it to UPS yesterday with no regrets. Am now saving ~$70 a month, and I feel a great sense of relief not being responsible for rented equipment.

 

[Corrado]

It's already been 2 years since I left Dish. I still have my owned VIP211K receiver with the EHD setup for occasional DVR use with about 1 TB of programming stored.

It still works fine with the recordings. I disconnected the dish before cancelling the service. Once in a while I power it up to watch something.

Upon boot up it gives a complete signal loss message and offers to view the DVR content meanwhile.

 

[primestar31]

Also I found out yesterday (from Antenna Man on You Tube) that 5G is causing some people problems with OTA, especially the channels near 600 MHz.

The latest Channel Master 5g/LTE filter that starts at 609Mhz, (just above last channel rf36) kills 5g/LTE DEAD (flatline) as a door-nail, per my spectrum analyzer. It does nick rf36 a little bit, but not very badly. LTE/5G Filter

Not only that, BUT, it's power-passing, so can be used inline in the case of an antenna that has the preamp built into the dipole, with no such filter, OR, a older filter with much higher limits from the other previous spectrum sales.

Of course, it's BEST if such a filter can be installed ahead of any preamp, but it can't in that specific case, since it's built directly into the dipole.

 

[N6BY]

The latest Channel Master 5g/LTE filter that starts at 609Mhz, (just above last channel rf36) kills 5g/LTE DEAD (flatline) as a door-nail, per my spectrum analyzer. It does nick rf36 a little bit, but not very badly. LTE/5G Filter

Not only that, BUT, it's power-passing, so can be used inline in the case of an antenna that has the preamp built into the dipole, with no such filter, OR, a older filter with much higher limits from the other previous spectrum sales.

Of course, it's BEST if such a filter can be installed ahead of any preamp, but it can't in that specific case, since it's built directly into the dipole.

Thanks for the tip. I just ordered one.

 

[Ectron1]

Along with the commonly desired features:
One thing I will look for on my next Enigma2 box: RCA cable output in addition to hdmi! Sitting here with a good OS Mio with blown hdmi output suks.
Losing hdmi on equipment is common here. They say it is due to all the iron in the ground. Buried phone line suffers from it as well.

It would also be nice to have loop-out as well... just in case it is ever needed.

I'm in the same boat, otherwise perfectly working Edision Mio+ with no hdmi video output.

 

[N6BY]

I'm in the same boat, otherwise perfectly working Edision Mio+ with no hdmi video output.

2 or 3 blown Edision Mio HDMI outputs in this thread alone -- makes me quite concerned about what the lifetime of mine will be? I almost never stream from the Mio, so a blown HDMI output would send mine to the trash.

I am curious if anyone knows the cause of the HDMI going out? Could it be bad solder that fails after X number of heat-up, cool-down cycles?

 

[armadillo_115]

Lightning got mine, along with another receiver and the hdmi on a tv. So not any design fault of the Mio.

 

[jorgek]

KU band FTA and OTA here is basicly a hobby. All my favourite cable channels are not available so I will continue with cable. We also stream but it isn't a solution to replace cable.

 

[LocutusOfBorg]

I try not to spend too much time watching TV so I don't have cable or the pizza dish. There's plenty to watch off of C band. Sometimes I stream video though. But most of todays TV shows and movies are of no interest to me.

 

[Ectron1]

2 or 3 blown Edision Mio HDMI outputs in this thread alone -- makes me quite concerned about what the lifetime of mine will be? I almost never stream from the Mio, so a blown HDMI output would send mine to the trash.

I am curious if anyone knows the cause of the HDMI going out? Could it be bad solder that fails after X number of heat-up, cool-down cycles?

Mine was bad after a storm, so I assume lightning. I plan on taking it apart and investigating possible repair options when I get time. I don't really want to spend $200 for another one since I'm on ku band, and have already spent a lot on all of this equipment as it is. RCA jacks would be a nice addition.