GEOSATpro HDVR3500 - New DVBS2 STB - Photos and Initial Testing

[stargaze]

The newest firmware v. 937 is available for manual USB update: http://marketing.glorystar.tv/update/usb_update.bin

This addresses some errors. Recording and playback. This does not include the motor positions, we have not yet approved that one. You can now drop down the list of Transponders in Manual Scan.

While the receiver will now record with v.937 when you play the recording back it hangs at the end and only turning off the receiver and turning it back on either by unplugging or the rocker arm on the back of the receiver brings back remote controls functions.

 

[KE4EST]

Got mine on Saturday.
Been playing with it, and nothing but a headache so far.
Came with a bad internal Flash Drive.
Watching NBC on 103 and PBS on 125 is rough, and stutters all the time....can't watch that. Hit pause and the receiver goes into spasms, recording the same. Tried different drives the same.
Updated to to the newer firmware and it cleared it up some, but still un-usable in its current state.
Tried XBMC and that is a joke. Fine if I want to stream the things pre-installed, but it has issues finding my external HD.
When it does find it, it will play a movie for about 2 minutes and then black screen for about a minute and then exits back to Satellite Mode.
Same thing with the media "APP" I guess. It has issues finding my HD(yes tried front and rear), other receivers find it fine and play fine.
When it does find it through that method it tries to play and it stutters and jerks.
When watching or trying to on XBMC and I telnet in, and looking at things as it runs....I really don't think this receiver has the resources to pull it off.
When it comes down to it, I use Kodi a lot, but who cares if the Satellite part doesn't work correctly. A Satellite Receiver, should be a Satellite receiver first and foremost.
Get the issues fixed with the satellite side first.
Would be nice to have an all in one box, but a properly working satellite side should be priority.
This receiver should have never been released to the public, it is far from being ready. Also this is far from a $165 dollar receiver.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Sounds like you have a bad box, I have not had any of those issues.

 

[KE4EST]

I have an RMA in I will post about the new box experience.
I replaced the internal drive, with a new one I had, I have plenty lying around.
Still no change, so not sure what to think at this point.
Will try new firmware as it comes out, as I am hanging on to this one until the replacement arrives.

 

[Titanium]

Scott,

In KE4EST's defense, I am seeing the same satellite issues as him and others are reporting during satellite operation. I loaded the current firmware, but was holding off on posting anything until the next firmware was released this weekend. Hopefully it can be released soon as Friday's firmware did not address the main satellite STB functionality issues.

What HD channels are you watching and DVR /time shifting that don't drop audio and video and lick up the STB? My test channels are Velocity on 121w, PBS HD on 125w and NBC on 105w. These muxes will play fine for a short time then start dropping both audio and video. Maybe about 1/2 second every 5-15 seconds.

Press pause on a HD channel and the time counter starts jumping erratically. Press play and if the playback starts, the choppy playback may continue for a while before crashing and rebooting.

Skip between a few DVR files and the STB becomes unresponsive during even SD playback. Let the last DVR file play out and the STB locks-up and requires a reboot.

You are correct, it has a beautiful picture quality. Hopefully the firmware releases will make it a stable and reliable satellite receiver.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

What I normally watch on mine are the NBC feeds on 103. Enjoy watching them prep for the Today show each morning.

 

[Titanium]

I'll check those out. Interesting if the 105w NBC feeds have issues, but 103w NBC feeds did not. Adds to the suspense!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I have only been using it on my KU dish.

Could be a clue, if its doing these issues on C band and not KU.

 

[stargaze]

I'll check those out. Interesting if the 105w NBC feeds have issues, but 103w NBC feeds did not. Adds to the suspense!

I've tried both 103 & 105 NBC feeds and each time after I enter the recording time the receiver stutters and after 30 seconds or so says "failed to record".

 

[KE4EST]

Good News! Just heard from Eugene. He is apologized for my experience and is over-nighting me a replacement unit!
Look forward to putting the new unit in service tomorrow! Will post about my experience then.

 

[stargaze]

I have just gone over and reformatted the receiver, then re-loaded my channel list I saved on a usb stick, then had to power down and turn back on the receiver to get a host of other problems out of the way.
Now recording 105 the stuttering issues are back and at the end it just hangs there and does not go out of the recording till I turn the receiver off and on again.
I believe the 937 version causes more problems then it tried to solve.
I would not recommend anyone loading that version in the receiver.

I'm editing this to say that the one saving grace on this receiver is that is picks up the Music Choice channels on 125. If it did not do those I would be returning it!

 

[jibaro29]

I would not recommend anyone loading that version in the receiver.

Is the problem mostly with the recording part of it? I sure hope so. My unit should be arriving here today and already having nightmares.

 

[stargaze]

Is the problem mostly with the recording part of it? I sure hope so. My unit should be arriving here today and already having nightmares.

This is a long thread to travel through so here is the listing of some items.
to be fair, Brian said that he expected a firmware update to come out later this week. No idea as to what items will be corrected.
Once again those buying the receiver at the start are the guinea pigs as I do not feel this receiver was tried out very much beforehand in the real satellite FTA world. Surprisingly the receiver does pull in some channels no other receiver will so that shows it can have potential if things are done right. The rocky start has me doubting though!

Minor issue_ A symbol rate of just 741 will not blind scan in, however, if you manually enter the transponder, it will bring up the channels. So a manual entry is needed on symbol rates lower then 1000. It would be nice if the option was available to lower the blind scan minimum SR to 700.

After a channel scan, the receiver exits the install menu and returns to the channel play mode. If no channel is logged during a scan, it returns to the last played satellite channel.

Buffering issues on select HD channels (121w -Velocity / 125w PBS & 105 NBC channels) and a DVR file end closing glitch.

Weigel 101W channels with the 4MHz spacing using the same SID log the wrong APID/VPID/ PCR and Service Name. Specifically 3953 V logs as Decades with Decades correct pid info but Decades is actually on 3957 V::: on 3957 V logs as H&I with correct pid info but H&I is actually on 3953 V. This is confusing and will lead to many posting incorrect info around. It is not specific to 101W but occurs on other satellites as well.

Reports a lower signal level and quality than other receivers making you believe that your not properly aligned on your satellite.

No FEC display, there is also no indication of the modulation DVB-S/S2, QPSK, 8PSK.

Blind-Scan by polarity is now in there, however, when doing this it appears the channels are not kept in the scanned order. The channels are going in the channel list by the Frequency order and not the order that is scanned in. It would save wear and tear on the servo polarity motors.

125 W music channels display a screen "Not Available" pop up message.

If you want to manually enter a channel each time you start the receiver reverts to 177W instead of where your at. This is about the manual entry of channels not the blind scan part.
The manual add a channel's Satellite List should default to the satellite that you are currently viewing.

Deleting a single TP does not work!
Going into Menu, Settings, and then to Transponder then press the blue key to edit and pulling down the TP listing when I hit the Yellow key to delete a TP the receiver goes into load and when it comes back up the TP I wanted to delete is still there.
Deleting all TP’s works fine but a single one does not work properly!

SES-1 C had several of the same TP’s in it and had to delete all of them and rescan to correct this issue, since you can not delete only 1 or 2 tp’s at a time.

Navigating the sat list - the page up/down buttons on the remote (or the keys that seem most logical to be "page up"/"page down") do not work.

Adding a satellite does not locate the satellite in proper slot. The new satellite ends at the end of the list instead of by the longitude. Adding a new sat should default to Longitude and could be a simple fix. You can not move the sat to the proper position as the move keys do not work, mentioned directly above here.

Adding a Transponder does not show up right away in the TP listing.
Several times tried adding one and when going back into the TP list the one manually entered is not viewable.

Galaxy 25 at 93.1 W C-band is missing from the satellite list.

Recording issues with firmware 935 and v937.

Noticed also when reformatting and then installing your saved satellite channel list the receiver will show up as blank those Eastern sats that I had deleted. Turning off the receiver with the rocker arm on the back and then on again appeared to correct this issue.

 

[jibaro29]

Thanks stargaze, It looks like I better keep my patience in check. Its a good thing I have a working microHD.

 

[. Raine]

With the 937 firmware, I can record again, but not correctly. Any recording will begin to stutter and cut in/out after a minute or so.

I had a issue this morning which I'm not sure what's going on and the receiver has done it before a couple of times before the new firmware install, so I'll mention it. I leave the receiver powered on 24/7, same as I did with my MicroHD, and this morning when I got up it was very sluggish, a button press on the remote would take a good 40 to 50 seconds to show on the screen and a very long time to do any function. Cycling power returns it to normal every time it has done this, it only happens when the receiver has just sat through the night with no one using it and it doesn't do it all the time, obviously. If it happens again, I'll check over things and determine what I can about it.

The receiver is doing this again right now, unfortunately it won't let me telnet into it, the connection times out. It seems that it's so hung it can't even handle that. Shut it off and turned it back on, now it's responsive again, remote is working, can telnet into it, whatever.

Something that is really annoying me with this receiver, which may be just my setup, is that I've had to change batteries in the remote three times since I've had it. I say it may be my setup because I use a RF transmitter in the remote in place of one battery, one of these:

Amazon product ASIN B000C1Z0HA
With my MicroHD, I put the transmitter and a fresh battery in and it worked for months, never had to change it. This receiver, three times already and I don't think I've had it a month yet. Has anyone else had a problem with their remote chewing up batteries?

 

[Gfox]

I wonder how many of our problems that we report are possibly caused by other parts of our systems other than the receiver like dish alignment, lnb issues, dish size, internet speed, wifi router type, etc. etc.?

Last night I was wanting to stream from the iTBN add-on, Tony Evans and Dr. Charles Stanley. While watching the streams I would often get the swirling circle indicating that the stream was buffering. Sometimes I could watch the video 5 or more minutes between buffering stops and at other times it would be 10 seconds between stops. I tried to pause the stream for a minute or two to allow it to buffer but that did not seem to help any. I believe that I have an older wireless 802.11 G router with a cable internet connection. I am wondering if I replaced it with a new faster router if that would help or if the buffering might be due to the 256 RAM and single core processor of the 3500 HDVR. I have no problem at all with my wifi speed and buffering when streaming movies to my laptop computer through the same G router. There is a lot of knowledge here so I am just wondering what some of the technically sharp minds on here think?

On some of the XBMC channels that I have connected too I have also run into this same issue. The IPTV for some reason seems to do a lot better without much if any stops for buffering. I am not sure why there would be a difference between streaming IPTV vs. XBMC but there does seem to be. I do not have any problems watching any of the C-band satellite programming that I like to watch, all are smooth, stable, and crystal clear from 135W all the way to 65W. I can actually reach and clearly receive over to 55.5W but the 10ft fiberglass dish and motor arm angle won't lift it back up without help if I go over that far so I stop at 65W.

 

[wallyhts]

It could be the source causing it to if the "pipe" is maxing out or if using CDN that zone could have issues. It could be your ISP having high traffic usage at the time.

So say the source is sending traffic thur let's say a low cost transits provider "he.net"

Your ISP peers with he.net but only with a GigE link your ISP hits 100% across that peer link.

I would say it's safe to say "unless your local cable company / lec / ISP is maxing" the channels that are buffering are not using a quality peer CDN and higher cost transit.

I highly doubt it's buffering because of the 3500.

Have you tried during off peak times?

 

[. Raine]

Of course there could be problems with ISPs, routers, etc, I don't think that's the case for the most part though.

The MicroHD that this receiver is replacing worked great. I have Kodi on two Pi2s and they work fine, two Roku 3s, numerous computers, 3 Kindles, game consoles, etc, etc, none have any problems. The HDVR3500 does. Most of the problems reported are the receiver and not other issues, I believe, but hopefully SatAv will straighten them out in their future firmware updates.

I tried the iBTN app with the last firmware just to see how it would do because it was right on the 1st menu screen and the HDVR3500 crashed, rebooted. In the 937 firmware it's not there anymore, which is good for me, it's not anything I would've ever used.

 

[Gfox]

Of course there could be problems with ISPs, routers, etc, I don't think that's the case for the most part though.

The MicroHD that this receiver is replacing worked great. I have Kodi on two Pi2s and they work fine, two Roku 3s, numerous computers, 3 Kindles, game consoles, etc, etc, none have any problems. The HDVR3500 does. Most of the problems reported are the receiver and not other issues, I believe, but hopefully SatAv will straighten them out in their future firmware updates.

I tried the iBTN app with the firmware just to see how it would do because it was right on the 1st menu screen and the HDVR3500 crashed, rebooted. In the 937 firmware it's not there anymore, which is good for me, it's not anything I would've ever used.

I am working with the latest 937 firmware as well. iTBN is still there in my MENU section. I never had any crashes or lockups with iTBN or XBMC, only had the stop and buffer issue. The only thing that ever locks mine up is when dealing with the last recording in the list. When that last recording finishes it freezes up, or by pushing the down arrow on the remote DVR section while the last recording in the list is selected it will freeze up so the 2 are probably related and are already on the firmware attention list.

Thanks for the help!

 

[wallyhts]

Of course there could be problems with ISPs, routers, etc, I don't think that's the case for the most part though.

The MicroHD that this receiver is replacing worked great. I have Kodi on two Pi2s and they work fine, two Roku 3s, numerous computers, 3 Kindles, game consoles, etc, etc, none have any problems. The HDVR3500 does. Most of the problems reported are the receiver and not other issues, I believe, but hopefully SatAv will straighten them out in their future firmware updates.

I tried the iBTN app with the last firmware just to see how it would do because it was right on the 1st menu screen and the HDVR3500 crashed, rebooted. In the 937 firmware it's not there anymore, which is good for me, it's not anything I would've ever used.

Interesting you could be right.

What would be a fair way of testing?? Say Kodi Pi vs 3500?