Quick Review: Vantage 1100S HD FTA Receiver

[stogie5150]

Stogie, have you been able to blind scan any low symbol rate DVB-S2 transponders? (What is the lowest symbol rate you have been able to scan in?)

The specs says: DVB-S2: 10-31 MS / s , (but 10 MS/s seems too high for the starting range)

Thanks.

Qwert,

I have not really played with it a whole lot in regards to that, which is why I didn't chime in. I have not had any trouble blind scanning in my uses of the Vantage, but as someone said, depending on the firmware, you will get different results. I have stuck with one firmware since I got it, and I don't really scan that much because it is totally whacked with how it handles the channel lists. One false move and all the transponders shift, making your scanned channel list useless. I find myself deleting all channels quite regularly. Edit a transponder, change a S/R for example, and the Vantage WILL resort the order, screwing the channel order. Its ignorant.

I'd wait to see if any improvements are made in the firmware. Currently, you get different results from Blind Scanning, depending on which Firm you use.

Agreed. Once I got the Azbox, I use it a LOT more then the Vantage. There isn't really a lot more up there I want to see in S2. The Azbox is a LOT more versatile, being a complete media center and being able to play 4:2:2 pretty well.
Although I will say a few more news feeds are showing up in S2. I found one the other night.
The Vantage is a flawed execution of a brilliant idea. But with no other choice right now, its it or nothing.

 

[Gordon Corbett]

The Vantage 1100

Monday update, turns out I made one of the biggest mistakes one can make, blaming problems on the equipment....turns out my switching problems I had experienced before with the Vantage were due to a BAD COAX CONNECTOR, and I didn't notice it until I accidentally bumped my Diamond while it was hooked up....and it lost signal....right after that, a : hit me! The source of my problem! I replaced the end, BANG, switching problem solved, and picked up five quality points to boot.

The Vantage has been flawless since then. It has its own ways of doing things, but man, it has a GREAT picture, and watching those DVB-S2 feeds just pop up is SWEET!

Dear Stogie 5150,

You said in your first report that the Vantage was slow. Has it functioned slowly after you fixed your coax problem?

Thanks.

Gordon Corbett

 

[stogie5150]

Dear Stogie 5150,

You said in your first report that the Vantage was slow. Has it functioned slowly after you fixed your coax problem?

Thanks.

Gordon Corbett

Yes. Its still switches very slow, sometimes not at all, you have to re select the channel and let the receiver resend the disecq command. A pain to be sure. It eventually gets there, though. There is a new firmware that fixes the issue, but it breaks other things important to us over here in the US. (the Vantage was made for the European market.)

 

[qwert1515]

Qwert,

I have not really played with it a whole lot in regards to that, which is why I didn't chime in. I have not had any trouble blind scanning in my uses of the Vantage, but as someone said, depending on the firmware, you will get different results. I have stuck with one firmware since I got it, and I don't really scan that much because it is totally whacked with how it handles the channel lists. One false move and all the transponders shift, making your scanned channel list useless. I find myself deleting all channels quite regularly. Edit a transponder, change a S/R for example, and the Vantage WILL resort the order, screwing the channel order. Its ignorant.

Thanks Stogie!

 

[linuxman]

I thought I would add my two cents to Stogie's excellent review.

After playing with the Vantage 1100S a couple of days, I decided to downgrade to the 2.44 firmware. It seemed to be missing a few of the AC3 channels on a blind scan with the latest 2.50 firmware, and scanning is what I bought it for.

I have it setup on a 10 foot perforated Unimesh dish setting on an AJAK H-H mount that can see from 30W to 148W and all between. I have an ADL RP3-2-2B orthomode feed-horn with an Eagle Aspen .6 Horizontal Ku lnb, a Norsat 4506a vertical Ku lnb, an old style (big) Norsat 8515 Horizontal C-band lnb, and finish off with an old style 35K Norsat Vertical C-Band lnb.

I have a couple of NJR .7 PLL Ku lnbs here and tried them, but the Vantage didn't seem to want to power them up. Seems to be outputting a little less voltage than my Pansat 3500 which used to run this dish. The Pansat powered them very well. If I choose to use them in the near future, I'll need a couple of power inserters.

Now that I have the 2.44 firmware, and scanning under way, I'd like to comment on some of the good things I like about the box.

1. My vantage has not gotten hot. I have read where others have a problem with it heating up too much. Mine hasn't so far. I can lay my fore-arm across the top and it is no warmer than one of my kids when they have a fever, I would guess somewhere around 103 F. I have a temperature probe for my multimeter to check exactly how hot it is getting, but don't feel it is necessary.

2. It is a great blind scanning receiver that has missed very little as far as channels so far.

3. It downconverts to my 15 year old SD TV very well with a great picture even with the 1080i setting.

4. I now have sound working very well through the SCART adapter with AC3 decoding done inside the receiver.

5. The channel switching on the same satellite and between C and Ku switching is very fast with no complications. It also runs my GBox very well.

6. The Channel Editor "WORKS".

7. It scanned in the S2 CW feeds on AMC6 witout problems and plays them well. That's something that neither my AZBox, nor my Diamond 9000 can do.

It does stutter every few seconds on some feeds, but very few.

All in all, I think it is a great HD receiver, and once the AC3 thing is worked out it will be a fantastic blind scanning S2 receiver.

 

[brentb636]

Thanks Linuxman,
It will be on my Christmas list ! I already have the AZbox , which is very competent, and the Vantage would complement it nicely.
As a Christmas wish, my wife has to cough up the money !

 

[brentb636]

Sad to say, It looks like the Vantage can't handle the Big Ten network feed on 91W . Lots of stuttering, and pixelation. Putting the CS8000 on the same cable works out just fine. More research needs to be done, 'cause I don't see tp's as being really high bitrate. [edit] Tsreader shows the video at 39.38 Mbps, so maybe it IS a Hi-bitrate feed. Sad , though, means I'll have to keep the CS8000 in service behind it .

 

[Mr Tony]

Vantage cant handle high bitrate feeds

 

[brentb636]

I didn't think of Big Ten Net as high bitrate. I've watched 72Mbps feeds on my TT-3200 and PC, and thought THOSE were the feeds it couldn't handle. I'm surprised and sad to think they probably won't fix it.

 

[Mr Tony]

I think anything over 20Mbps is considered high bit rate for the vantage

 

[brentb636]

It's funny, apparently an audio handling problem, if the audio offset is high enough, I lose the audio altogether , but the video is fine. You'll note from my SIG that the Vantage is now in the backseat of my CS5000. The AZbox is still in there to monitor either dish.