i have the chance to get either one of these for a very good price....well pretty much the same price (used)....which one would you choose and why?....it will be used for motorized KU-Band for now and possibly C-band in the near future....im thinking the pansat would be better at blind scanning???
Openbox VS Pansat 9200HD
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I think the Pansat would be a more complete receiver, better performing as a DVR, BUT the Pansats have heat problems and other glitches. I prefer the Opensat, for all it's problems. Of course you could get both, and have the best of both worlds.
Pansat 9200HD alone doesn't have the DVB S2 tuner capacity. Its an additional board that you need to buy in order to get them. Aprox price w/out shipping is $139. For the price of the upgrade board for the Pansat you can get a brand new in box Openbox which has include it the DVB S2 tuner in.
Pansat has a ASTC tuner in it and if you want to use a hard drive for recording requires a esata drive
Openbox has no ASTC tuner, an insanely faster blind scan than the Pansat, and can use any USB drive to record. Also to manually enter a DVB-S2 TP on the SSO you enter it like you would a regular DVB TP...frequency, polarity, symbol rate. Pansat requires what type of S2 it is (QPSK, 8PSK), FEC and pilot
Openbox has no ASTC tuner, an insanely faster blind scan than the Pansat, and can use any USB drive to record. Also to manually enter a DVB-S2 TP on the SSO you enter it like you would a regular DVB TP...frequency, polarity, symbol rate. Pansat requires what type of S2 it is (QPSK, 8PSK), FEC and pilot
Mikey11 said:
Maybe ask him what channels he used to watch or "did the dish channels come in good?"
I am amazed what illegal activities people will talk about to strangers!!!
Mine came with an ILLUMINATI S2 board in from fleabay. This is an OEM hacker board. Usually this hacker board doubles the heat the box generate. This board can't be use for real FTA S2 signals. I tooked it away and now the box is working more cooler but I don't have the S2 capacity. As I mentioned before it will cost me more to get the S2 Premium Kit from PansatUSA than getting a brand new Openbox:up. So I decided to keep the Pansat with HD capacity w/out the S2 for my Family room and got an Openbox for my room.
Mine came with an ILLUMINATI S2 board in from fleabay. This is an OEM hacker board. Usually this hacker board doubles the heat the box generate. This board can't be use for real FTA S2 signals. I tooked it away and now the box is working more cooler but I don't have the S2 capacity. As I mentioned before it will cost me more to get the S2 Premium Kit from PansatUSA than getting a brand new Openbox:up. So I decided to keep the Pansat with HD capacity w/out the S2 for my Family room and got an Openbox for my room.
thanks....that is exactly why im trying to find out what type of board because i dont want it if its a hacker board....like you said no DVB-S2 for true FTA....
yeah but i also been reading that the openbox blind scan misses alot of TPs.....i would rather have a slow scan of good quality than a fast one of poor quality....
It might miss the low symbol rate ones (2170, 1666) but then again the Pansat misses them too in alot of cases.
Having both the original Sathawk and an Openbox (and selling both of them now...1st one because it was so buggy and the Openbox because there isnt enough S2 on KU for me to constitute keeping one when I have an azbox) the blind scan on a 1-10 I would rate a 8 1/2. Yes it may miss some news feeds that are low signal or crammed together (I used the example of 11940, 11945, 11950, 11955, 11960, 11965 all on 91W...it got about 1/2 of them) but it picks up lots of other feeds that are of low quality with no issues. It may miss KTEL on 79W (2170 s/r) but it grabs the S2 news feeds on 74W with a 2799 s/r just fine.
Believe me...having both units (and still have a couple Pansats) the blind scan on the SSO you can scan 5 sats in the same amopunt of time that a Pansat may get one done. And me as a sports feed junkie I don't want to waste 10 minutes scanning a sat only to come up empty
Another positive on the SSO is the "no name" syndrome. Where a feed doesnt have a name attached. The SSO takes all of 5 seconds then will log it as "TV2" whereas the Pansat takes about 2 minutes...only to log it the same way "TV2".
Having both the original Sathawk and an Openbox (and selling both of them now...1st one because it was so buggy and the Openbox because there isnt enough S2 on KU for me to constitute keeping one when I have an azbox) the blind scan on a 1-10 I would rate a 8 1/2. Yes it may miss some news feeds that are low signal or crammed together (I used the example of 11940, 11945, 11950, 11955, 11960, 11965 all on 91W...it got about 1/2 of them) but it picks up lots of other feeds that are of low quality with no issues. It may miss KTEL on 79W (2170 s/r) but it grabs the S2 news feeds on 74W with a 2799 s/r just fine.
Believe me...having both units (and still have a couple Pansats) the blind scan on the SSO you can scan 5 sats in the same amopunt of time that a Pansat may get one done. And me as a sports feed junkie I don't want to waste 10 minutes scanning a sat only to come up empty
Another positive on the SSO is the "no name" syndrome. Where a feed doesnt have a name attached. The SSO takes all of 5 seconds then will log it as "TV2" whereas the Pansat takes about 2 minutes...only to log it the same way "TV2".
thanks....so you say there is not much DVB-S2 on ku-band?....so it wouldnt really be worth buying it for ku-band only?....will be going c-band in awhile but only ku for now....i thought alot of stuff was going S2 on ku-band??????????
very minimal. Off the top of my head
-The 3 PBS muxes on 125W (Montana, Louisiana, Oklahoma)..there is 7 channels (1, 4, 2)
-UWTV & TVW on 123W
-There is a Russian channel on 99W (but I think its also in DVB on 97W)
and I know that last weekend on 72W there was a 4 or 5 channel mux that had different camera angles of the Early NFL playoff game
most S2 is on C-Band. As for "is it worth it" only you and your pocketbook can answer that. But here would be my thoughts
-have only a SD receiver and are a sports fan? yes it would be worth it. Even though it doesnt show 4:2:2 there are lots of sports in HD
-have only a SD receiver and want to see PBS stuff? yes I would think so. You can run AC-3 though the RCA outputs or HDMI cable as is
-want S2 and dont have a S2 receiver? yeah I guess....If you are a PBS fan most definitely. Those 3 S2 PBS groups have lots of local programming different than the national PBS
-dont care for sports or S2 and want a faster or better blindscan? nah there are others out there cheaper
I have a azbox so yeah I have to manually enter the info but thats fine. My C-Band is fixed at 99W and the "ghetto moved" one doesnt stay out long enough for me to lock S2 stuff for a while
for those who have C-Band then yes most definitely its worth it...unless you're like me and have a fixed dish at a sat that DOESNT have really any S2 on it
yes it will do AC-3 through both the RCA ouptus, the coaxial output (for audio) and HDMI. Well it plays the3 audio just fine
Will also do AAC audio
Will also do AAC audio
I keep asking myself why in the word the Pansat doesn't fully open some of the low quality channels !!! Sometimes it open channels in the 20 to 30% in one sat and then in others with similar levels won't. I have tried many FTA boxes from CaptiveWorks all the way to the most recent Openbox and I can't hardly beleive that one of the most FTA box mentioned in all the forums has the most important weak point. I don't know if this is a software problem. I'm using the most recent firmware posted in pansatusa. Now I keep asking myself why do someone will like to go and venture to get a $139 DVB S2 board for this unit if at the very end you won't be able to open some of the low quality channels ?(most S2 channels run with low quality). Questions is Does anyone have tried using a h4cker software to see if this box work better??? I recall similar issues with the Coolsat 8000HD which some people (including me) kept their boxes with a hacker firmware because it work a slighly better than the factory.
the FEC (forward error correction) is usually the reason. The higher the FEC (5/6 higher than 3/4) more signal is needed to keep a stable signal as there are less "error corrections" being done in the signal.
3/4 FEC in most cases 25-30 on a Pansat will be fine but any FEC higher wont work
A great example was when Equity Broadcasting had channels on 123W KU Band and 95W C-Band
123W was a 3/4 FEC so a 30 quality is all you needed for it to stay stable
The mux on 95W was a 7/8 FEC so you needed a 72-74 quality minimum to keep it stable....the 6 footer really had to be peaked to keep them stable
This is also why on 125W when I had the SSO I could get Montana PBS locked and stable at a 14-15 quality (2/3 FEC) yet Louisiana PBS I needed a 50 or so (3/5) and why I can't even lock a 9/10 FEC (or 7/8 and some 5/6 are a pain to get)
3/4 FEC in most cases 25-30 on a Pansat will be fine but any FEC higher wont work
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This is what really drive me crazy. The same channels that the Pansat can't handle all other boxes do, even if they're 7/8. Even cheaper boxes such as Captivework 600/700 (pick them with the highest quality), Sonicview 4000 and even the Viewsat Ultra all of them open such channels easily. End of story , my Pansat is going straight to fleabay ASAP!!! OTA tuner is great but the DVB tuner is:down
What a waste of money and time!!!
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