I agree with most of what I read above. I have both a CS 8100 and a Diamond 9000. The Coolsat records fine at all rates, however that is only with the recent firmware. With the original firmware, the PVR function didn't work. Re the reboot problem, I have had 2 Coolsats, my first (used EBAY unit) worked fine, never did the reboot thing. It died a painless death during a thunderstorm. It's replacement, a "NEW" unit, had the rebooting problem right out of the box.
The Coolsat does not have a functional channel editor, and neither does it's firmware allow you to even restore channel data to it's original condition. It is getting better, but it's not perfect. Once set up though, the Coolsat is VERY user friendly, and was the first sat receiver I've ever had that my wife actually had no problems using, with only 2 minutes of instruction. The Coolsat also has a problem in that sometimes if you delete a channel (possibly only if you delete all channels on a sat), it will reboot, reboot, reboot, then reset to factory conditions, forcing you to completely reprogram all your sats back in. This is only with the newest firmware, however the newest firmware in necessary to correct other bugs.
The Diamond is sort of the mirror image of the Coolsat, although I'm not sure to what extent the firmware is an issue for me. Do NOT buy a used Diamond, as it will likely have pirate firmware on it which cannot be replaced. The problems with the pirate firmware is that it suffers from occasional video freezes that last a fraction of a second. These video freezes are mainly on fast bitrate video, but I've seen them on slow SD video as well. The faster the video, the more frequent the freezes. As mentioned above, the PVR function works perfectly on OTA ATSC channels, and usually on low bitrate satellite stations. I cannot record the very high bitrate network HD with it at all. I can record medium bitrate HD perfectly, but it won't play back without the above mentioned video freezes. I CAN play the recorded files back on other devices though.
One problem with the diamond is that you cannot scan in a DVB-S2 transponder using the remote, as there is no way to select that mode. The Diamond does have a GREAT channel editor though, and you can enter the DVB-S2 parameters in the editor very easily. The Diamond isn't quite as user friendly as the Coolsat. One quirk with the Diamond is that I can't seem to find a way to display channel data, like PIDs using the remote, but again, it's easy to display these using the channel editor.
Bottom line is that when working, and when set up, the Coolsat outperforms the Diamond on the high bitrate channels, but it is so unstable that I seldom use mine. I use other (PC card) receivers for high bitrate stuff, and I use the Diamond for OTA and low bitrate stuff. Too bad, because if either of these receivers worked as they were supposed to, they would be great receivers. I keep hoping for firmware fixes for the Coolsat. The come out occasionally, but while they fix some things, other things seem to get broken. THe Diamond basically doesn't have firmware updates apparently. I think the one on their web page is from 2007. I've emailed them, asking if they could come out with a new one which might correct the issues caused by the bad pirate firmware, but they never responded.
