My Recent Exchange with Pansat USA!!!

[McGuyver]

My Pansat 9200HD is worse than ever with the latest '1226' firmware and DVB-S2 Plus tuner module installed. As we have discussed in other threads the issues concerning this abomination of a satellite receiver, it does have it's positive attributes.

In recent email exchanges with Pansat USA's Customer Service Rep Mr. Hugo Montenegro, he explains that a larger dish is necessary for the proper function of this receiver with the new DVB-S2 Plus tuner module. I do agree that it may not work as well with smaller C-band dishes so I have installed a 10.5 ft dish that has no increase on the performance. In fact my 8 ft solid BUD works better in spite of what they say. At this point, all of the problems I've been experiencing are not associated with DVB-S2 signals yet Mr. Hugo Montenegro insists it's a dish size problem.

I'm not having any DVB-S2 signal problems to emphasize, there are other issues concerning the PVR function, the time setting modes and the PVR timer settings and DVB-S problems that I have itemized to Mr. Montenegro. I wrote to him 2 days ago again explaining these other issues and he replies with the same response of it being a dish size problem. Well, I gather the fact that he must not have read my email thoroughly as he did not even mention the PVR and timer issues. I wrote back asking him to read my message again and still awaiting his reply.

The PVR functionality is worse than ever, the option to set the clock manually is disabled, no way to set it up in 'User mode' and the PVR recording timer is useless if I can't set the clock to my time because time varies with individual TP's and not to mention the other malfunctions of the timer.

When watching any channel either it be DVB-S or DVB-S2 signals I occasionally get a "No Signal" pop-up message in spite of an uninterrupted and a perfect audio/video with any quality signal regardless if it's 70% or 99%, it doesn't matter, I watch more SD channels than HD. This doesn't occur with other receivers tested on the same line feed. Since all the new problems I've experienced with the new DVB-S2 Plus tuner module and the '1226' firmware, I've hardly used this stb for any recordings due to the frequent malfunctions. I find it necessary to frequently reboot the stb with a full power-off cycle to hopefully clear any congestion in memory prior to any recordings and/or playback.

To my surprize, I successfully recorded a recent movie on FMC without any glitches. Later that day after rebooting the stb and giving it a few minutes to stabilize I started the playback and within 2 minutes the stb froze up with the video image that I have posted in the photo, this has occured more than once. It was necessary to power off the stb as it was not responding to any local or remote commands. I restarted the playback and this time it played successfully. At this point I consider this box to be unpredictable and unreliable for any usage especially for PVR recordings and playback.

Unfortunately many of people have purchased this model and may be experiencing similar and/or other problems. I have been faithfully sending my reports of all issues to Panarex/Pansat USA customer service rep Mr. Hugo Montenegro asking for his assistance. My voice has little to no impact on them so I am asking and encouraging all 9200HD owner's to email Mr. Hugo Montenegro explaining your concerns. Let our voices be heard, if we consistantly and faithfully send our reports to them with our combined efforts then hopefully they will step up and do something.

It won't do us any good if we don't speak up, numbers mean something. Please, I don't want to hear negative replies about how futile this is because it's not, I didn't invest $500 for nothing and neither have you! It doesn't matter how insignificant the problem may seem, it's our voice that matters, United We Stand!

Please take a few minutes to write to Mr. Hugo Montenegro at Pansat USA and explain your issues and ASK for your deserving customer support. Customer support should not end after the sale, after all they did sell this box with a 2 year warranty and regardless of warranty, the DVB-S2 Plus tuner module is a whole new issue with it's related firmware.
Please write to: Mr. Hugo Montenegro pansatusa@cs.com

Thanks to all of you

 

[pendragon]

I'm sorry to read your 9200HD is causing so much trouble. I have had only minor issues with my unit since acquiring it not quite two years ago. I do not use the PVR features, however. I started with the original DVB-S2 board and found it nearly useless, but the replacement Plus board has worked perfectly for me. My only quibbles with the 9200HD are:

1. Lack of DVB-S sensitivity compared to other tuners
2. Occasional freezes (once or twice a month)
3. Klutzy GUI
4. Overvoltage supplying vertical polarization (I fixed this)

All of these are merely annoyances to me and may simply reflect my belief that the unit could have been executed better. This is hardly unique to most things in my life. I don't know whether your problems are caused by a different usage pattern than mine, but you may simply have a defective unit.

 

[Ironsides]

I know nothing

Maybe I shouldn't even post because I don't have this receiver. However, I do own Pansats although older I have seen that screen or similar on mine. Firmware sometimes doesn't seem to take all the way even though it says it did and I'd have to re-install the firmware. I know you know this already but it might not hurt to try and re-install the newer firmware or roll back to an earlier version and then upgrade again? I know this may sound silly and you've already thought about it, more than likely. Really you shouldn't have to even consider it but with Pansat it's almost a certain they have a glitch in their firmware in some cases.

Very sorry you're having issues with your Pansat and hope you get them resolved very soon. That's a lot of money spent on something that doesn't do it's job as expected and dang well should! They should at least offer to exchange with you to help resolve the problem.

 

[toucan-man]

When watching any channel either it be DVB-S or DVB-S2 signals I occasionally get a "No Signal" pop-up message in spite of an uninterrupted and a perfect audio/video with any quality signal regardless if it's 70% or 99%, it doesn't matter, I watch more SD channels than HD.

Wish there was a way to suppress that silly pop-up message. The AZ-BOX may be the best "work-around", haha.

 

[McGuyver]

Thanks Guys...

pendragon & Ironsides, thanx for your reply. First of all if I may ask pendragon, could you take a look at your 'time settings' and see if you can adjust the clock in the 'User mode' because mine is either disabled or I'm missing something here, like my marbles, LOL. The only mode I can adjust is the time zone but not the time, this option is displayed in the menu but it won't open as if it's dead, disabled or malfunctioning. I don't recall but I think it worked with earlier firmware.

And to Ironsides, yes, I went through that repeatidly when I initially installed the S2 Plus tuner and 1226 firmware. That's when I had serious problems, it took me days to upgrade the firmware, the receiver was very, very slow to respond to commands and took hours to change screens or even one channel at a time. Yes you heard right, after getting it all set up, it took hours to change a single channel. It's a long, long story but it cleared up with time. I have reinstalled the F/W many times and I may just try it again and hope it doesn't go through the same thing again.

In spite of the usual glitches I do like this unit when it performs correctly that is most of the time and it has an excellent audio/video. Now that it appears to work responsively, blind scans good, changes channels good and navigates the menu's well, it still has PVR issues. At this time, my issues are equal to pendragon's if I exclude the PVR problems and if you don't use this feature then you can't experience the same as I have. Over the past month or so I recall many other's who have reported similar issues with and without the PVR functionality issues. These owner's were not happy to say the least. You may recall them as well.

I would hope to hear reports of other PVR user's of this model and ask for their support in reporting to Mr. Montenegro at Pansat. I have corresponded with this man through my entire ill experience regarding this S2 Plus module installation and the new F/W. I have saved all of the emails which are many. The main subject has been primarily the S2 mod and F/W with little emphasis on other problems.

What gets me stirred is the fact that I recently wrote to Mr. Montenegro and described the PVR issues and his response was this:

"Dear Mr. _ _ _ _ _ ,
After receiving enough feedback from television station engineers,
local installers, and a few distributors that buy our unit on a regular
basis we believe that your unit may have to be inspected since they
seldom find any type of problem like the one you mention with your unit
and when they do they are able to fix the problem either by increasing
the size of the dish or adjusting the symbol rate sometimes. Thew
signal that is being sent on the S2 format is weaker than the other
signals, therefore, many stations tend to use a larger size dish. This
is not a receiver problem but a weak signal problem on this particular
format. If you read page #31 of the new March edition of "TV
Technology" about the similar problem TV Globo had with their signal
and needed assistance from DSI RF Systems to fix the problem you will
then see and understand the reason why those problems occur and a
larges size dish is needed.
Best regards,
Hugo / Panarex"

Notice that he speaks again of the dish size issue. This seems to be is only recourse and he never once inquired as to what dish size I use, how can he say this with no knowledge of my setup? He's obviously not reading my last message thoroughly in which I never mentioned anything other than the PVR and time settings. How on earth do these issues have anything to do with the size of my dishes? I just recently installed a 10.5 ft mesh with no increase of perfromance, in fact my 8 ft solid Channel Master outperforms the 10.5 footer. I made certain to inform Mr. Montenegro of my setup and the new installation of my 10.5 ft dish.

Again I emphasize that it's NO LONGER a S2 issue, I'm happy with it's performance and I'm getting the channels I wanted but I just can't rely on the PVR recorder for stability, it's totally unpredictable. I constantly reboot before watching TV and before using the PVR and I have described these things to Pansat. I even sent Mr. Montenegro a photo of the screen image, I have yet to hear a reply from him.

 

[McGuyver]

Wish there was a way to suppress that silly pop-up message. The AZ-BOX may be the best "work-around", haha.

You have a point there! LOL

 

[Corrado]

I agree about how buggy the 9200HDs are. Mine also pops up the random "no signal" in the middle of the picture. I use it mainly for scanning. I do not have the PVR setup for mine since it needs a component repositioned on the circuit board because mine is an early unit. However I have used it with mine DVD/ PVR recorder and can't trust it not to suddenly switch to "bad or scrambled channel" and record 2 hours of that message. I don't remember the SW level but it's not the latest.

My trusty Pansat 2700A is far more stable and scans in just as well. Lately I have been using that for scanning.

 

[pendragon]

First of all if I may ask pendragon, could you take a look at your 'time settings' and see if you can adjust the clock in the 'User mode' because mine is either disabled or I'm missing something here, like my marbles, LOL. The only mode I can adjust is the time zone but not the time, this option is displayed in the menu but it won't open as if it's dead, disabled or malfunctioning. I don't recall but I think it worked with earlier firmware.

When the clock is in "User Mode", I can change any of the settings for time/date/time zone and they take effect.

 

[c_perrone]

When the clock is in "User Mode", I can change any of the settings for time/date/time zone and they take effect.

Just to chime in. I also can change these settings with the latest firmware and DVB-S2 Plus tuner module installed.

Clint

 

[Ironsides]

I hope

I really hope you get this resolved, Pansat used to be very good and made a decent box. In the past it was known to be one of the best on the market.

I know I shouldn't say this on this topic but my experiences with Pansat and others. Is exactly why a couple of years ago when my boss asked me if I wanted a good fta box; I took his advice and went with a Dreambox 7020 with internal hd, had him purchase it when he went home to England. I realize Dreambox has a bad rep with many people here and the States for several reasons.

That said, I can honestly say even being several years old now it is still one of the best FTA open source receivers on the market imho. A lot of people don't like them because they aren't user friendly. I admit with my recent questions concerning loop out and connecting up to my Uniden Analog C-Band I was flustered. However, The recording, networking, streaming just say to me it was well worth the learning curve and time. It has never failed to record and never failed to stream for me. After learning and I still have a lot to learn I find it to be the best fun I have when I am working with it! At this Time, Sorry I brought this into the conversation but I felt it necessary to say in this way, I have shared your grief with Pansat and others...

I do very much think in your case, that Pansat should offer to exchange your unit with a new unit or refund your money. After all the problems you've had it would suggest it has a major problem. After reading of your troubles with a simple firmware upgrade they should have saw then a need for replacement.

It shouldn't be an issue to upgrade the firmware as it's in the design and should have been a very easy task.

Again I am very sorry and hope others will take the time to read your requests and complain to Pansat and this guy who cares nothing for his customers by the lack of response. Or should I say the correct response because clearly he hasn't taken time to read your issues.

 

[McGuyver]

Thanks to you all, being that you who can change the time clock settings manually indicate to me that I should try to download the firmware again and see what happens, it's worth a try. I do appreciate your informative replies. :up

 

[hd fan]

Well I just read Montenegro email that you posted and indeed like pendragon suggested , at the beginning he mention that "the unit may have to be inspected" suggesting it could be defective. I think you should try getting it fixed or replaced under warranty. Just a thought.

 

[Cband55]

That happens to me often I just reboot the reciever no big drama

 

[McGuyver]

Well I just read Montenegro email that you posted and indeed like pendragon suggested , at the beginning he mention that "the unit may have to be inspected" suggesting it could be defective. I think you should try getting it fixed or replaced under warranty. Just a thought.

That happens to me often I just reboot the reciever no big drama

Well it may not be big drama to some but it sure is to me and other's who want their $500 investment to operate as advertized.

I went ahead and reinstalled the firmware and can now adjust the time clock manually, this is an improvement but the 3 main issues still exist, (1) being the freezing with a scrambled video, (2) being the frequent "No Signal" message and (3) being the recorder timer will not record the specified channel. The first 2 issues occur in any mode on any signal and any channel while either watching or recording.

I've been testing the PVR functions today and the timer turns on and turns off at the specified times but somehow records another channel. This has always been, it has done this from day one, nothing has changed here.

This unit does not need repair, it's working just the same as others now and the current issues are firmware related.

Maybe Mr. Montenegro hasn't replied because he can no longer suggest a larger dish.

 

[FaT Air]

I have the S2+ bd installed but most viewing is SD. I deleted unused/ unwatched channels and transponders and my freezing ( identical screen as yours ) has improved drastically. It will only very rarely freeze while watching a channel. Before the clean-up, I was about to put it on craigslist, or the trash. Now, freezes are usually caused by me being too button happy.
One problem I have, every time, is when selecting a different audio stream on a video channel, the new audio stream comes through, but the video quits and just shows the stupid blue screen. I can sit on it forever, doesn't come in, but changing channels, then back, all is well. I haven't yet played with the PVR function. But maybe a clean-up of unused, channels and TP's , will help.
Pendragon, How did you fix your polarization problem? I have the same issue, fixed with a diode inline of the LNB in an aluminum box . Have no way of knowing if this has adversely affected its performance though. Did you do something a little more professional?

 

[goaliebob99]

I will not buy another pansat product again after owning the 9200. Mine overheats like crazy, Constantly is buggy and wont tune to channels even tough they are locked in. Heck it wouldn't play the Access America feed yesterday even though I had 52 percent quality! It constantly gets rebooted for issues with feeds, or it wont even swich resolutions correctly. The S2 portion locks most signals on my 7 1/2 foot Bud, but wont lock easy ones like HBO mux or the Disney Mux.

A user cant even program all the satellites in on the arch without running out of positions when using diseq 1.2. It wasn't until the recent event of the channel editor that it got solved, and even that is unofficial. Between all the bugs in the software and the lack of proper support in English from pansat, has left a very bad taste in my mouth about pansat. In the future I will go with Fortec Star or a different brand. At least with fortec star I know that my unit would be worlds ahead of any pansat product.

 

[pendragon]

How did you fix your polarization problem? I have the same issue, fixed with a diode inline of the LNB in an aluminum box . Have no way of knowing if this has adversely affected its performance though. Did you do something a little more professional?

I popped the unit open and found the regulator that supplies +13V for vertical polarization selection. From memory, it's located near the back of the primary circuit board, not too far from the DVB-S IF input. I also recall that this was a LM317, which is a variable regulator set by a resistive divider. I simply calculated the resistance required to parallel what was already there and come out with the right ratio. It seems Pansat set this a little on the hot side, or perhaps they had a manufacturing issue.

 

[McGuyver]

I have the S2+ bd installed but most viewing is SD. I deleted unused/ unwatched channels and transponders and my freezing ( identical screen as yours ) has improved drastically. It will only very rarely freeze while watching a channel. Before the clean-up, I was about to put it on craigslist, or the trash. Now, freezes are usually caused by me being too button happy.
One problem I have, every time, is when selecting a different audio stream on a video channel, the new audio stream comes through, but the video quits and just shows the stupid blue screen. I can sit on it forever, doesn't come in, but changing channels, then back, all is well. I haven't yet played with the PVR function. But maybe a clean-up of unused, channels and TP's , will help.
Pendragon, How did you fix your polarization problem? I have the same issue, fixed with a diode inline of the LNB in an aluminum box . Have no way of knowing if this has adversely affected its performance though. Did you do something a little more professional?

Thanks for the suggestion, :up I have already taken this approach and it seems to help quite a bit but it won't hurt me to run through the list again and do some weeding.

 

[McGuyver]

I will not buy another pansat product again after owning the 9200. Mine overheats like crazy, Constantly is buggy and wont tune to channels even tough they are locked in. Heck it wouldn't play the Access America feed yesterday even though I had 52 percent quality! It constantly gets rebooted for issues with feeds, or it wont even swich resolutions correctly. The S2 portion locks most signals on my 7 1/2 foot Bud, but wont lock easy ones like HBO mux or the Disney Mux.

A user cant even program all the satellites in on the arch without running out of positions when using diseq 1.2. It wasn't until the recent event of the channel editor that it got solved, and even that is unofficial. Between all the bugs in the software and the lack of proper support in English from pansat, has left a very bad taste in my mouth about pansat. In the future I will go with Fortec Star or a different brand. At least with fortec star I know that my unit would be worlds ahead of any pansat product.

I hear ya man, this is the last Pansat I'll own in my lifetime.

 

[ikki]

> Heck it wouldn't play the Access America feed yesterday even though I had 52 percent quality!

I have had this problem as well. The answer is to press the mute button, switch to the Access America radio channel from another radio channel, and then press the mute button again. The audio should then pop in. The 9200 software seems to be the worst written product since Microsoft wrote Millennium Edition.