Contest: Amiko Mini HD RE

[chadg2]

Congratulations Jim S.

Thanks so much for the contest KE4EST You rock Bud!

P.S. I'm not calling you a Big Ugly Dish.

 

[Cham]

Congrats Jim!
Thanks for the contest Michael! Might just have to order one of those... Miss my MicroHD I gave to a friend who loves it, but now there's an empty spot under the big Trinitron CRT TV in the hamshack with a cable feed from the dish array not doing anything...

 

[KE4EST]

Congrats Jim!
Thanks for the contest Michael! Might just have to order one of those... Miss my MicroHD I gave to a friend who loves it, but now there's an empty spot under the big Trinitron CRT TV in the hamshack with a cable feed from the dish array not doing anything...

It would fill the void nicely!

 

[navagator]

Congratulations to Jim S.

Thanks for for the contest Michael.

 

[Larry1]

Congratulations Jim S. and Thanks for the contest KE4EST. I just placed my order for one. Note: if needed, please email me as I work a changing shift at work..... sometimes asleep during the day, thank you Larry.
Can you explain the two files? Do I need both?
ke4est_re_2.4.19.zip
ke4est_re_20170420.zip

 

[KE4EST]

Can you explain the two files? Do I need both?

You will not need either. I will ship it with current firmware ans NA satellite list. I hand test and upgrade each one for a couple of hours, before marking it ready to ship.

 

[JFOK]

Hi All,

Just wanted to congratulate Jim S on his win and thank Michael for sponsoring this contest.

John

 

[Jim S.]

I finally had time today to set up the Mini and I scanned in about half the arc. So far the receiver is looking pretty nice! The menus are quick to respond and I was pretty much familiar with the structure from previous Ali receivers such as the Openbox line. Picture looks fine and sound is fine as far as I can tell -- I have to wait til I find a channel that I know has Dolby 5.1 audio though because so far all the channels that I've found with Dolby are only registering as 2.0, so I need to figure out whether they're really broadcasting that way, or if it's user error, or a bug. But the audio sync is dead-on on both Dolby and PCM channels, video is always in the correct aspect ratio no matter what format it is, and so on. (It did scan in one encrypted channel when it should've only been scanning FTA channels, but I'm thinking maybe it's an encryption type the box doesn't know or a mis-flagged channel because I'd never seen the channel before. It's a whole lot better than the Alien series polluting the channel list with BISS channels!)

I haven't tried recording yet because I have to reclaim my drive from the A3, copy whatever files I want to keep, and find my USB enclosure. That'll be a project for when I have more free time...

Looks like the Mini will become my full-time receiver since it doesn't have any show-stopping issues. Thanks again Michael for the contest!

 

[KE4EST]

Very glad to hear it is working out for you!

 

[Jim S.]

Day 2 and still working great. I recorded one of the channels that was only giving me 2-channel Dolby and the recording only showed 2 channels on my computer too, so hopefully it's really coming down like that and not 5.1.

Recordings are playable in VLC without any editing, unlike some receivers that don't provide proper headers.

It does still scan some encrypted channels in FTA scan mode. Specifically, all the PowerVu channels on 103W Ku and some of the PowerVu channels on 91W Ku. It doesn't catch any of the PowerVu channels on 30W Ku though.

 

[Jim S.]

OK, stupid question time: does the channel editor program only work on a full dump rather than a channel dump? I seem to remember it being that way on my Openbox S9 too, but it seems crazy that they wouldn't have done something about it after all this time -- I mean, having to reload the firmware to load a channel list?

 

[KE4EST]

I agree. When you backup do a full backup. It goes pretty quick. Open the .abs with the channel editor. When you go to update via USB you can select channel list only.

 

[Larry1]

You will not need either. I will ship it with current firmware ans NA satellite list. I hand test and upgrade each one for a couple of hours, before marking it ready to ship.

Very quick shipping, the unit arrived at the door a few minutes ago and it is now playing COZITV.

 

[KE4EST]

Very quick shipping, the unit arrived at the door a few minutes ago and it is now playing COZITV.

Always glad to hear of a happy customer! Enjoy!

 

[Jim S.]

The box is still working nicely, hasn't crashed once!

I've also verified that it works with transponders with a 45000 symbol rate. The more complex Amiko receivers that aren't based on the Ali chipsets have always had a problem with those.

I'm still not sure it's sending all 5 Dolby channels out the HDMI cable though... I did find one channel that's using 5.1 (verified by checking a recording on my PC), but my audio receiver still only says 2.0.

 

[Larry1]

I tried the trick of programming multiple channels of the same channel to try to get it to allow overlapping recordings (like the GeoSatPro microHD) and it would not record. Also had it miss some timers for recording (must be an ALI issue as others have had this issue with the microHD this was after a software reload of the box to clear out any settings that I had that might be an issue). Reloading the software yet again cleared this issue for me.
Very pleased with this box.