Optibox Anaconda HD DVB-S2 Receiver

[tdti1]

Ya this is what roger my local sat dealer always talks about, I like the fact that all the cable, receivers and connectors I pick up are certified and meet all safety standards, when they wired my place I asked about the cat5e cable they used over the cheap one at the local shop, and roger got deep into the discussion of counterfite cable and why this and that is important. From that day on and after some time Googling I have purchased most if not all of my home theatre equipment from him.

 

[PopcornNMore]

Back in the 80's I paid well over $1,000 for each Houston Tracker, DX Antenna, Toshiba IRD analog receiver I purchased. Today, I could purchase a MicroHD, Openbox S9, Openbox S10, Optibox Anaconda, Manhattan and a Pansat 9500 for less money and still have a little money leftover for pizza and beer.

 

[PopcornNMore]

I have the Raptor which is the Anaconda with more bells and whistles. Pricey but worth it, just as the Sonicview 8000 was in it's day. They are both available currently at two other sites. EB is the expert on these two receivers. E2 is currently available for the Anaconda and will be for the Raptor.

422, not sure if it will or not be for both models. Time will tell.

What is E2?

 

[PopcornNMore]

no you can't. You can record two shows from the same transponder but unless its the same transponder you can't record more than one show

Again...other than the youtube or internet please show me something it supposedly does that current receivers can't

I guess thats why I use a Coolsat 5000 to blind scan and move my motor still after 7 years

In post number 16 eastof111 mentions that he ordered his receiver with two tuners, so I guess he can record from two tuners.

 

[PopcornNMore]

Ok, i just ordered the following:

• Optibox Anaconda HD PVR Ready C/KU FTA Receiver
• ESX521FE KU LNB
• Avenger 321 0.1dB Standard Single KU LNB
• F-81 3GHz Barrel Connectors
• 75 Ohm F-Type Terminators

Christmas in May. I always enjoy testing out new receivers and LNB's, so I ordered two new LNB's as well to test and compare against other brands and models I already have in stock.

The Optibox Anaconda will be replacing the Openbox S9 in the living room and the Openbox S9 will be moving to the master bedroom until it is replaced by the MicroHD receiver.

 

[Jim S.]

I've had a Optibox Gekko connected to my system for a few weeks. One difference I noted from my Openbox and Manhattan is that I have not seen the picture stutter or freeze. Even on CHs like eScapes, NBC 103 Ku, and the Canadian services on 107 C. The specs list the memory at 256meg, but I opened up the receiver and found a pair of Hynx H5PS1G63EFR for an incredible 2 gigabytes of SD RAM.[/IMG]

2G seems pretty extreme. I'd be interested in hearing, if the box has a telnet server enabled, or if anyone loads E2 on it if not, whether the whole 2G shows up as available to the operating system.

 

[PopcornNMore]

This afternoon while doing a Google search I found the Shop4FTA site that has several new receivers that I never heard of before. I was surprised to see so many new receivers hitting the market.

Can anyone tell me how many TV/radio channels the Openbox S9 receiver supports? Every site I found doesn't list this information. I'm trying to compare it to the Optibox receiver.

 

[Pixl]

Seems to me those numbers came up when the Manhattan was first introduced, but I can't find it either.

I will say this, I have been using a Optibox Gekko, the little brother to your Anaconda with similar software and features. You are going to like this receiver. There is a learning curve on the user interface and takes time to get to know this box. Everyday I find a new shortcut or feature on it. When you land on a channel there is a lot more info about than other receivers I've seen. Real channel names on most sats instead of a numbers. No freezing or stuttering on even the most changeling channels. It has limitations on Usals 1.2 sat positions, and are automatically assigned. Manual assignment is needed. You cant create new sats or delete them, only edit existing ones, something that the GeoSat Micro has promised will be available. When they get these few issues it will be an even better box. I'm sure you will like the Anaconda as is even with these issues. Looking forward to your report.

 

[PopcornNMore]

What has happened to the cost of external hard drives?

When I purchased my Openbox S9 receiver I also purchased an Iomega 1TB external drive from Tiger Direct which works perfectly with this receiver for under $100. In fact, I believe I paid roughly $69 for it.

While I'm waiting for the Optibox receiver to arrive I thought I would check out the same Iomega 1TB external hard drive and possibly purchase another to use with this new receiver. WOW $222!!! http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=253220&CatId=136

I think I'll use the existing Iomega external hard drive with the Optibox and simply won't use an exteral hard drive with the Openbox S9 until prices come back down.

 

[brentb636]

Big problems in Thailand , where many drives are manufactured. Weather wiped out some factories. I've been shopping for 2TB drives ( bought some a year ago for $80 each) and I haven't been tempted lately.

 

[rv1pop]

Has your "discount code" expired or deleted from you cookies? At tiger?
Western Digital WDBACW0020HBK-NESN My Book 2TB Essential External Hard Drive - 2TB, USB 3.0 at TigerDirect.com
would this one at $119 work?

 

[FaT Air]

That WD MY BOOK drives has WD SmartWare software on a 'Virtual CD-Rom'. Doesn't play well with a Linux box. (Not even with my UBUNTU machines) Stay away, You want a bare external HDD.
Previously: http://www.satelliteguys.us/fta-shack/263191-western-digital-usb-hdd-openbox-s9.html

 

[brentb636]

Agree about the WD drives. I've gone so far as to buy an external WD drive, gut it and put the bare drive in an external enclosure. About 1/2 the WD external drives I've had don't even work well with Windows !

 

[melgarga]

Is it a "feature" in the drive's firmware that makes it incompatible or can you not wipe the drive, repartiton and reformat it to loose the vendor software/autorun.inf (if that's how it is working) on the drive? If it's embedded in the boot sector there are utilities for that too.

I picked up WD external USB 1.5 TB some time back because the price was right. Really havent messed with it other than to function check it and set it aside for later. Guess I need to check it out.

 

[rv1pop]

I did use a WD Book years ago but it was only 350 or 500 GB. It had sleep and some other junk on it. It was used and also had pictures I did not want. Some suggested a program to remove partitions and to reformat it to Fat32 I think. It was written for the WD drives and was from a gamers website (warex or something like that). The drive worked fine after that for what I needed -- it let a 386 use windows XT.
My point was, however, Tiger uses cookie to set prices and I was getting sale prices. I did not get to the page referenced, but was redirected to a page with $169 being, as I remember, the highest price.

 

[Tron]

The Western Digital Elements drives will work well as PVR drives. They are simply bare, external drives with no frills such as LCD displays and capacity meters which require the software that makes the MyBooks incompatible.

 

[brentb636]

Is it a "feature" in the drive's firmware that makes it incompatible or can you not wipe the drive, repartiton and reformat it to loose the vendor software/autorun.inf (if that's how it is working) on the drive? If it's embedded in the boot sector there are utilities for that too.

I picked up WD external USB 1.5 TB some time back because the price was right. Really havent messed with it other than to function check it and set it aside for later. Guess I need to check it out.

I suspect the "feature" may be the drive controller in the case, itself. I recently picked up a 3TB WD external, which is working just fine, it's a USB 2.0/3.0 drive. An earlier version ( about 8 months ago) of the same drive was not reliable at all, always dropping off line and faulting out. I gutted that box and installed the 3TB drive in my computer and it is just fine in there after being reformatted and re-partitioned. Using Paragon GPT Disk Manager for the 3TB partition ( Windows XP, 32 bit) .

 

[truckracer]

Let us know the FCC Part 15 compliance and UL/ETL certification. Then we will know it is a legal citizen.....

ST does provide some good chipsets. Looking forward to your review.

what is the deal with part 15 rules that says something like - the device must accept interference that could make it non functional or non working etc?

 

[melgarga]

what is the deal with part 15 rules that says something like - the device must accept interference that could make it non functional or non working etc?

That's the point of Part 15. It allows authorized RF emissions at or below specified strength often only in specified portions of the spectrum...AKA "licensed by rule"
.... two of which Rules are, (paraphrased), "...may not cause harmful interference to other services" and "...must accept interference caused by other services" (no actionable recourse for being interfered with)

EVERYTHING that consumes electricity radiates RF somewhere in the spectrum, except maybe an incandescent bulb....admittedly, I've never swept one...lol

PS...Note, "harmful" can be a very subjective term.........

 

[PopcornNMore]

The Openbox S9 receiver supports 5,000 channels vs the Optibox which supports 10,000 channels.