Reviews: SatHawk PVR800 WorldDVB DVB-S2 HD FTA Receiver

[Zeb128]

I just got my Sathawk PVR800 today. After reading all the reviews from you folks, I have to say I was excited...Imagine my surprise when I opened the box to find the receiver had been damaged in shipping. The outside shipping box showed very little damage, not enough to be concerned, so I signed off on it. The inside box, which just barely fit into the shipping container had NO packing around it, just a little bit of paper on top. A slightly bigger box with some real packing material would have prevented this. The AC adapter was NOT included. Talk about a disappointment. The compartment door is broken off, and I hear loose parts inside, other than that, it looks like a decent fta box...so... it's a no-go for time being anyway, maybe Sadoun will be of some help

 

[Mr Tony]

By the way, "googling" on SCART adaptors returns some Scart to composite/s-video adaptors for as little as $2.99 . No telling if they'd work , or not, but the one on my Vantage 1100S worked just fine.

I bought a couple from the UK a couple weeks ago. They work great on the Sathawk and the azbox (but I use HDMI for both)

 

[Mr Tony]

3) Blind scan works well except for low SR's, gets touchy below 3000
but have entered some manually and they all have locked right in.

I agree. I was able to lock a DVB-S2 transponder that was 2800 but would lock scan in KTEL (2170) or My Family (2206)

4) Blind scanning DVB S-2 seems to be working well but as been stated
in many posts I've read, it takes a healthy signal. This one did
scan in a mux (scrambled) on 125 that I had in my AzBox a while
back and thought it had disappeared and the AzBox is on the 36"
and still shows no signal on that mux.

yep. I had it lock a TP but no channels until I fine tuned the dish to get more signal. It did lock and show OETA even with a 20 quality

5) Also on the blind scan, when I scanned 83 and 91, I also pick up
several transponders from the Nimiq birds. Would be nice to be able
to limit the upper scan limit. I had one clear up to 12661.

yeah it scans the whole upper KU Band which for the world is 11700-12900. I usually select "yes" for FTA only when scanning 91...or I just go into the TP list and delete the DBS TP's that show up. That removes the channels too

 

[Hindu55]

...or I just go into the TP list and delete the DBS TP's that show up. That removes the channels too

I've been doing the same thing. On a plus note, if they had not turned off
the freebies on DN this would have worked well for those. Signals are strong
on my 30".

 

[Mr Tony]

the meter I question because most signals read 71-72 with 76 being the max

 

[Hindu55]

the meter I question because most signals read 71-72 with 76 being the max

Have that noted here also. Just tried a feed with a SR of 1000 and no
signal at all. I know it's up and very strong cause I'm viewing it on the
Dynamic.

 

[Lak7]

Just tried a feed with a SR of 1000 and no signal at all

On the Sathawk's sister units, Scan Rate of 2000 is the bottom

 

[Mr Tony]

Interesting
It will lock KFTL on 72W and its 1666 symbol rate but it cuts in and out. Has major issues with it

 

[Lak7]

It will lock KFTL on 72W and its 1666 symbol rate but it cuts in and out. Has major issues with it

Same here.

 

[i4tas]

Well i like how it can lock that cw mux on amc 6. I believe only the vantage could get those before. Won't blind scan it (very low SR), but works great.

It still can't play hd feeds smoothly yet. ESPN feeds for example.

 

[Hindu55]

Just switched to DiSEqC 1.2 so I could run the dish to Telstar 12 (15W) and do
a scan. It pulled in two transponders with SR's as 44999. First I ever saw one
that high. Must be S-2 cause I don't see it on the fortec with the 36" thier
all scrambled channels but it's interesting that the Sathawk is finding them.

 

[Hindu55]

Can't even get a sniff of those transpoders on the AzBox on the bigger
dish. I'm starting to think somewhere in the later updates mine started
not picking up some of the S-2 stuff that it had. Reading posts about the
prem +, it has problems with high FEC's on S-2. They run the same update
so makes me wonder....

 

[Lak7]

They run the same update so makes me wonder....

Different Tuner, but you never know.

 

[i4tas]

anyone able to get the .tv mux on galaxy 16 c to scan in on this thing?
When scanning I get four scrambled channels that don't play on that tp, but my other receivers get 8 channels and play them fine.

 

[sanjap]

Got my receive today. It didn't come with the power adapter. So far, i like the box. Small compact and most of all, it doesn't get hot like my pansat 9200HD. This box stays cool. Another thing i like is the fact that you can blindscan multiple satellites with a motor at once.

 

[Lak7]

anyone able to get the .tv mux on galaxy 16 c to scan in on this thing?

What's the TP info?

 

[Blindowl1234]

Ok well I've played around with the Sathawk for the last few days. Well once you figure it out it's not as bad as first thought. My six foot dish doesn't cut it for 99% of the feeds or RTV/RTN. Ion Tv, Jewelry Tv, ST Ohio are fine. Hooked up Hdmi cable to my 1 1/2 year old Sanyo Tv and AC3 audio passes thru...a definite plus there. Nice updates would be
1. A backup and restore function 2. A better channel sort function. If you scan new channels it dumps them at the end of channel list, not in the list of channels with a correct satellite. 3. Manual Pid entry. 4:2:2 is a dream maybe. Has anyone tried it with a hard drive to record 4:2:2? and playback?Blind

 

[warnerwlf98]

Has anyone tried it with a hard drive to record 4:2:2? and playback?Blind

Yes. It does work - you can record an 4:2:2 feed as an MPG file using the PS recording option and play it back normally on a computer.

This is my first venture into using a PVR type device as a STB as opposed to my computer's TV tuner, but I found out that (on this receiver) I can only record 1080i channels as .dvr files that I can't play on the computer - it'll just play back on the receiver itself. All other formats are recorded as MPG files. I've looked for all kinds of software to convert it to something playable, but had no luck.

 

[starman345]

I can only record 1080i channels as .dvr files that I can't play on the computer - it'll just play back on the receiver itself. All other formats are recorded as MPG files. I've looked for all kinds of software to convert it to something playable, but had no luck.

Did you try changing the extension from .dvr to .ts? I can't remember if I did that with a 1080i channel but I know I did change the extension on a dvr file to ts and then I could play it on the computer.

 

[Lak7]

I've looked for all kinds of software to convert it to something playable, but had no luck.

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