I have the StarChoice version of the 4DTV box. With it you can use the generics in the 4DTV to search for channels (manually, trial and error). With the other StarChoice boxes, you are confined to the channel maps that are programmed into it by StarChoice. You can manually turn your LNBF 90deg to get some other combinations of polarity and frequency as well. The 4PLAY software will also work on some of the other Starchoice boxes, (I have used it on the 421B) but it does not seem to be quite as nice to use on the other boxes as it is with the 4DTV box. For me it was much more stable on the 4DTV box than the 421B box, but it does give someting to play with. The BDM cables come in 5V and 3.3V versions, so you need to check the interface voltages of the boxes you want to work on. If I remember correctly, I used a 3.3V BDM on the 421B and had to make a custom cable with one wire removed at the connector to attach to a clip to attach it to a 3.3V point on the board. The 4DTV uses a 5V BDM. ***warning, I might be wrong on this*** Interesting enough, StarChoice uses a simple cable to the serial port (just wires and connectors) to upgrade the software through the BDM port on the 421B and to reset the machine settings. At one point early on, one of their tech people loaded a beta software for me to try out. The 4PLAY software however requires a BDM cable to download/upload the channel maps. I was able to edit some of the channels on the 421B, but found working with the 921 (4DTV) box much easier. I only edited the existing maps on the 421B, did not merge or add new channels.