well I started playing with this a little more and have some good and bad (I'll do more trials and testing later today). This is in no way a "review" but a quick "good and bad" of it
Good
-motor control is spot on for Diseqc 1.2 (I refuse to use USALS...force of habit)
-multiple step fine tuning (can step 1,2,3,4,5 or continuous)...made setting up satellites a snap. Set to "5" and press west 4 times...boom you're pretty much honed in on the next satellite 2 degrees away
-adding TP's is a breeze (I'll get to the reason why I'm happy its a breeze)
-press a button while watching TV and the motor option shows up to fine tune if need be
-one button scans from main menu makes it very easy to scan
-simple yet effective menus
-front and back USB ports
-with a hard drive hooked up, one of the options is to have folders set up to put programs in.
-quick access to sat list
-when playing back a program you can change audio settings if need be (this is good when you record a channel that has only one side of audio)
-Works directly with Channelmaster
The not so good
-blind scan is
PAINFULLY slow. I have a feeling it scans 10700-12900. Issue is you cant change it. Its one button to scan so you can't change. Basically I load TP's in after scanning them in the Coolsat 5000
-When you press "play" to bring up the hard drive list, it can take 15-20 seconds to bring up the list depending on how full the drive is. I only have a couple GB on it and it took 20 seconds. Even when empty its 10-12 seconds. I shutter to think what happens when its 1/2 to 2/3 full.
-some transponders will either not scan in at all or take 2-3 scans to log the channel. This is annoying as heck. A couple channels that will not log at all (even though have excellent signal) are the Macy's channel on 105W and the "Mexico" one on 93W. Have 70+ quality and neither scan in. A few news feeds took 2 times to log properly and KTEL took 3 times. Pentagon channel took 2 times and only logged one version. A 3rd scan brought in the other feed (one has normal audio, one AC-3)
-The meter in some cases is real spazzy. It will show a legit number (like 55) then spike to 99 then back to original number then back to 99. There is no rhyme or reason. Some TP's show it just fine
-If you the "sat" button to show the satellite list, it shows it as you scanned in satellites and not in clarke belt order. So if you scan say 93, then 72, then 123, then 91 that is how it shows...not 72,91,93,123. Minor quirk but had to note it (other receivers show them in order regardless)
-There is always power going to the hard drive. The Visionsat cuts power to the hard drive when off (the green "O" ring on the HDD goes off)...SV keeps it on all the time.
-If you add a satellite, you cant put the orbital slot in there. Must use Channelmaster to edit the sat.
Quirks
-For some reason when I plugged in my Hard drive (320GB drive) I had to have something recorded on it already or the SV wouldnt acknowledge it. If I plugged it in clean it says "must be in DOS format" and cant do anything. I recorded 30 seconds of programming from the Visionsat then hooked it up to the Sonicview. While it wont play that program, it allowed the drive to be shown and able to record now
-The satellite at 91W. I dont get this one. The channel numbering starts at 4000 (which is fine) but if I scan in 91W it puts the channels at 2001 and labels them "service 1". So I scanned 4 or 5 news feeds today and all said "Service 1" and was channel 2001. When I scanned on Coolsat 5000 it had different names (and one with no name). I am going to try using Channelmaster to edit the sat and see if that fixes it.
-When recording when you hit record it shows 0:00:00 and the picture freezes. The pic comes back after 5 seconds but sometimes the audio is out of sync. I press the "I" button (info) then exit and the audio usually catches up. This is only one some recordings
-when playing back a program if you fast forward and hit play again, it can take 5 seconds for the audio to come back while video plays fine. The audio plays fine if you dont fast forward.
The one thing I want to try tonight is how it handles sports feeds. My Visionsat seems to choke when I record 4:2:0 sports feeds with symbol rate above 10000. Its weird. When I play it back they will stutter. I want to see if the Sonicview has that issue or not.
