Here are the top most requested features from that thread. Note that I don't try to summarize things very often and I'm not perfect, so if I miscounted or didn't classify something quite right it was unintentional. If anyone else wants to have a go at summarizing that thread, feel free to point out any errors I made. Note that I had to combine similar requests to get the "multiple request" counts, and of course not everyone stated their requests using exactly the same verbiage, so I had to combine similar requests as best I could. Also, because I put this in list format, I generally did not copy the request language verbatim, with a few exceptions. Comments in parenthesis were often made by only one of the requesting parties.
The top most requested features were as follows:
Request by 7 people:
Requested by 5 people:
Requested by 3 people:
Requested by 2 people:
Requested by only one person:
The above is the main list. I also want to group requests by certain categories:
Network connectivity and streaming were big on the list:
Tuners were a hot topic:
The formats the receiver can play are apparently important to many of you:
(Blind) scanning was touched on several times:
Several wanted specific things regarding recordings and the PVR:
A good part of the list was hardware requests of various kinds:
There might be other ways to break this down that I'm not seeing, and please understand that I'm not a statistician or anything like that, I'm just kind of doing this by the seat of my pants! But I thought it might be useful to try and summarize this in case any receiver manufacturers happen by and wonder what types of things we'd like to see in our receivers. Note that I do NOT agree with everything on this list, particularly a few items that would add significant cost but would not be useful to that many people (the DVD Burner being the prime example in my mind - sorry, but that's not something I think most people would need in a satellite receiver, and the tradeoff is increased cost and size). Personally I'm not that big on putting any kind of storage inside the receiver unless the receiver is designed in such a way that the storage device can be easily changed, but that's just me.
When I started the thread I had specifically mentioned suggestions for a low-cost receiver, not a receiver with ever single "Christmas Tree Ornament" feature you can hang on it, but then again, I suppose what's extravagance for one person borders on necessity for another. I would, however, like to see a decent receiver at a price that's significantly lower than some of the receivers we've seen in years past, especially because technology moves so fast that we rarely get more than a few good years out of a single receiver. One suggestion I thought was a good idea was modular design so that an obsolete tuner could be replaced without replacing the entire receiver, but then again, I expect to see more of the work of the tuner offloaded into software as time goes by. So if we can't eliminate the steady march toward obsolesce, I for one don't want to pay a premium price for a receiver that will be yesterday's news in three to five years.
Again, if anyone else feels they can do this better or more accurately, feel free!
The top most requested features were as follows:
Request by 7 people:
- Receive and play 4:2:2 format (Mpeg 4 specified by one commenter)
Requested by 5 people:
- Stream live programs to other computers on the network over the LAN (one person added "so you can watch FTA and recorded events on other DLNA enabled TV's in your house.")
Requested by 3 people:
- ATSC/OTA receiver (recordable)
- Dual tuners
- Sensitive tuner (that receives those "edge case" signals)
Requested by 2 people:
- 16 and 32 PSK demod (maybe 64APSK if that is being used already)
- Accurate clock that does not drift
- Blind Scan that is fast and accurate
- DiSEqC switching that is reliable and will accurately control a VBOX and other positioners / accurate USALS
- Front display (that can show time, recording status, or channel name)
- Gigabit Ethernet connection
- PVR / ability to record anything receiver can process
- Radio channel editing/sorting / TV and Radio full channel edit
- Receive some online streaming services (one person suggested Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu, TuneIn etc.)
- Remote control that works and buttons all function correctly
- Save recordings to share on local network/transfer video recordings to and from PC via network
- USB 3.0 ports (multiple)
- Web interface that can be used from other networked computers to schedule recordings and adjust configuration options
Requested by only one person:
- 30 second skip on PVR playback
- Android based - access to apps + more
- Audio synchronization (lip sync) can be set and stored on a per-channel basis
- Bandstacked support
- Blind scan results are clickable to watch and/or sort
- Case is rectangular and stackable
- Channel preview after blind scan
- Compartment to install 2.5" hard drive inside the case
- Component output for those who don't have HDMI option
- Delete feeds before new blind scan, but with ability to flag certain channels to not delete and have all others wipe out during a scan.
- Detailed stream info: S/S2, fec, snr, etc.
- Dual satellite receiver L-band inputs
- DVD burner
- Extra processing power and memory that are expandable
- Hardware blind scan (wasn't sure what was meant by this)
- HDMI Output (I think this goes without saying!)
- High quality capacitors (won't leak, exploding, or change value)
- LAN access to SMB shares and able to share local drive
- LEDs are not excessively bright
- Limited and Advanced user menu functions
- Modular design - nice to be able to replace a DVB-s2 tuner with next gen if it comes out
- Open source playback and recording standards supported
- Play all audio standards without needing outside converter
- Play all popular codecs (if the receiver plays files from a media server)
- Read SMB/CIFS shares (if the receiver plays files from a media server)
- Receive and play DVB S3
- Receive and play H:264
- Receive and play S2 format
- Recordings accessible from other machines on local network
- Reduced CVT blanking / CVT reduced blank video output setting (or support of xorg.conf file if running Linux) to resolve overscan problems with certain TV's
- Remote / keyboard combo
- Remote control has larger buttons
- Save recordings to internal hard drive
- Save recordings to USB connected external hard drive
- Scan one polarity or both
- Scheduled recording does not affect playback of previously recorded programming (watch a recording while different program is being recorded)
- SPDIF audio output
- Timers for scheduling recordings - should have significantly more than eight of them, if there is any limit
- USA or other non-third-world county designed and built
- USB ports (two)
- USB ports have sufficient power to power a hard drive
- USB upgradeable at bootup
- When exiting playback of recording mark position so it can be started at the same location
- 5 ¼ inch floppy disk drive.
(I did not take that one seriously!)
The above is the main list. I also want to group requests by certain categories:
Network connectivity and streaming were big on the list:
- Stream live programs to other computers on the network over the LAN (one person added "so you can watch FTA and recorded events on other DLNA enabled TV's in your house.") (5 people)
- Gigabit Ethernet connection (2 people)
- Receive some online streaming services (one person suggested Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu, TuneIn etc.) (2 people)
- Save recordings to share on local network/transfer video recordings to and from PC via network (2 people)
- Web interface that can be used from other networked computers to schedule recordings and adjust configuration options (2 people)
- LAN access to SMB shares and able to share local drive
- Read SMB/CIFS shares (if the receiver plays files from a media server)
- Recordings accessible from other machines on local network
Tuners were a hot topic:
- ATSC/OTA receiver (recordable) (3 people)
- Dual tuners (3 people)
- Sensitive tuner (that receives those "edge case" signals) (3 people)
The formats the receiver can play are apparently important to many of you:
- Receive and play 4:2:2 format (Mpeg 4 specified by one commenter) (7 people)
- 16 and 32 PSK demod (maybe 64APSK if that is being used already) (2 people)
- Receive and play DVB S3
- Receive and play H:264
- Receive and play S2 format
- Reduced CVT blanking / CVT reduced blank video output setting (or support of xorg.conf file if running Linux) to resolve overscan problems with certain TV's
(Blind) scanning was touched on several times:
- Blind Scan that is fast and accurate (2 people)
- Blind scan results are clickable to watch and/or sort
- Channel preview after blind scan
- Delete feeds before new blind scan, but with ability to flag certain channels to not delete and have all others wipe out during a scan.
- Hardware blind scan (wasn't sure what was meant by this)
- Scan one polarity or both
Several wanted specific things regarding recordings and the PVR:
- PVR / ability to record anything receiver can process (2 people)
- Save recordings to share on local network/transfer video recordings to and from PC via network (2 people)
- 30 second skip on PVR playback
- Recordings accessible from other machines on local network
- Save recordings to internal hard drive
- Save recordings to USB connected external hard drive
- Scheduled recording does not affect playback of previously recorded programming (watch a recording while different program is being recorded)
- Timers for scheduling recordings - should have significantly more than eight of them, if there is any limit
- When exiting playback of recording mark position so it can be started at the same location
A good part of the list was hardware requests of various kinds:
- Accurate clock that does not drift (2 people)
- DiSEqC switching that is reliable and will accurately control a VBOX and other positioners / accurate USALS (2 people)
- Front display (that can show time, recording status, or channel name) (2 people)
- Gigabit Ethernet connection (2 people)
- Remote control that works and buttons all function correctly (2 people)
- USB 3.0 ports (multiple) (2 people)
- Case is rectangular and stackable
- Compartment to install 2.5" hard drive inside the case
- Component output for those who don't have HDMI option
- Dual satellite receiver L-band inputs
- DVD burner
- Extra processing power and memory that are expandable
- Hardware blind scan
- HDMI Output
- High quality capacitors (won't leak, exploding, or change value)
- LEDs are not excessively bright
- Modular design - nice to be able to replace a DVB-s2 tuner with next gen if it comes out
- Remote / keyboard combo
- Remote control has larger buttons
- SPDIF audio output
- USA or other non-third-world county designed and built
- USB ports (two)
- USB ports have sufficient power to power a hard drive
- 5 ¼ inch floppy disk drive. (I did not take that one seriously!)
There might be other ways to break this down that I'm not seeing, and please understand that I'm not a statistician or anything like that, I'm just kind of doing this by the seat of my pants! But I thought it might be useful to try and summarize this in case any receiver manufacturers happen by and wonder what types of things we'd like to see in our receivers. Note that I do NOT agree with everything on this list, particularly a few items that would add significant cost but would not be useful to that many people (the DVD Burner being the prime example in my mind - sorry, but that's not something I think most people would need in a satellite receiver, and the tradeoff is increased cost and size). Personally I'm not that big on putting any kind of storage inside the receiver unless the receiver is designed in such a way that the storage device can be easily changed, but that's just me.
When I started the thread I had specifically mentioned suggestions for a low-cost receiver, not a receiver with ever single "Christmas Tree Ornament" feature you can hang on it, but then again, I suppose what's extravagance for one person borders on necessity for another. I would, however, like to see a decent receiver at a price that's significantly lower than some of the receivers we've seen in years past, especially because technology moves so fast that we rarely get more than a few good years out of a single receiver. One suggestion I thought was a good idea was modular design so that an obsolete tuner could be replaced without replacing the entire receiver, but then again, I expect to see more of the work of the tuner offloaded into software as time goes by. So if we can't eliminate the steady march toward obsolesce, I for one don't want to pay a premium price for a receiver that will be yesterday's news in three to five years.
Again, if anyone else feels they can do this better or more accurately, feel free!
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