Review of Manhattan RS-1933

[Scott Greczkowski]

The diseqc switch in the menu should be
Diseqc 1 for C-Band
Diseqc 2 for KU

Iceberg you might have hit the nail on the head... I was not setting Diseq settings for the C Band side only for the KU band side. That could be the cause of it!

I hope to try it in a few minutes.

Stone since you are having good luck with the DMX741 I am going to order one of them and replace my LNB with it so that it matches yours. There is no saying if the built in switch in the BSC621-2 is working correctly or not.

BTW for the first time tonight in a long long time I am able to tune into SatTalk live.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Iceberg your a Genius! That WORKED. C & KU working (and switching fine) now!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

So now I got things scanning and I am HAPPY!

One suggestion for Jeff at Manhattan to change the message when your scanning and it finds nothing that is usable, instead of saying FAILED like there was a problem change it to something more friendly such as NONE FOUND or even Nothing. Failed makes it sound like there is something wrong when there is actually nothing wrong. It would just make it sound friendlier.

I set my box now to scan only for FTA and the transponders that I was getting scrambled channels on now all say FAILED on them. At least I know now there is no problem when I see failed.

 

[eurosport]

Is it me or does this look like an Openbox S10 at double the cost?

Actually it looks like a new receiver, that doesn't need 16 different software versions to almost get everything working properly!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Looks like I ran into the motor issue someone else mentioned...

I set up the motor (GBOX) and then enabled the motor on the receiver and now I lost all my settings (such as DiSEqC) so I am not getting a signal.. turn off the motorized settings and the DiSEqC settings return as does signal.

I hope this one gets fixed soon.

I am going to try something and take the KU out of the system and see if I can get the motor to work that way.

 

[eurosport]

Thank you all for this informative thread. The Manhattan will probably be my next FTA purchase.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Nope that didn't work. I turn on Motorized dish and I lose signal. I am definately doing to order the other LNB in the morning.

 

[GenBap]

The Openbox says failed as well like this box. I understand they are both built on a linux platform so perhaps they are starting with the same basic open software system layered on top of linux and then writing their own code based on that. Not saying that one is a clone of the other, just that the similarities are striking and I assume it is due to linux. Is the Azbox linux also?

 

[ynnedibanez]

the similarities are due to the fact that both the openbox and the manhattan (as well as a few others) are built with the same chipset, the ALi 3602.
its the heart of the receiver, really, the most part of the differences are just due to firmware.
both receivers' hardware should be capable of the same options, it just takes firmware to make those options work.
firmware will make or break any of these receivers...........

 

[woofy]

the similarities are due to the fact that both the openbox and the manhattan (as well as a few others) are built with the same chipset, the ALi 3602.
its the heart of the receiver, really, the most part of the differences are just due to firmware.
both receivers' hardware should be capable of the same options, it just takes firmware to make those options work.
firmware will make or break any of these receivers...........

Not really, no..it's true they both use the same chip.
But the Manhattan also uses different hardware than the sso and main board.

The Manhattan is not linux based but windows.

Things like these do make a difference on firmware and what they are capable of doing.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I was able to get my motor to work, and now I can scan the entire arc from the Manhattan. But with the motor enabled I can not not switch to KU which is on a 22Khz switch.

I picked up a 320 gig WD Hard Drive last night to use with my Manhattan. and plugged it in and the Manhattan would not see it.

Looks like all these drives now come formatted at NTFS and that is not a format the Manhattan likes. After screwing around for over an hour I finally got the drive to format at FAT32. (Although doing so I was not able to use the full side of the drive.) Once I did that the Manhattan could now see and use the drive. I am told the Manhattan can handle up to a 2 TB drive... how do you do this when you can't format the drive in FAT32 in that size...

This is something else that needs to be fixed.

Also went to NBC on 105 and recorded some Americas Got Tallent as a test. When you press Record The Record Icon stays on screen and so does the info bar on the bottom. Very annoying...

Since on 99% of the channels up there have no guide data they need to have it ask you how long you want to record when you press the record button. So you press record a screen pops up and says Stop Recording in 15 Minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, 120 minutes, until I press stop... as options.

Since tweeking my dish I can now see the full arc and my signals are in the 80's across the arc. I can see every listed signal and S2 mux across the sky... but the only thing I can't pick up is the one mux I want to pick up and that is the RTV mux on 87.. where I get a zero signal. Ugg! Everything else on that satellite has a great signal. Damn you RTV... I want my PBJ!!!!!

 

[stone1150]

I am told the Manhattan can handle up to a 2 TB drive... how do you do
this when you can't format the drive in FAT32 in that size...

The receiver will split the drive after 1 tb.......

This is something else that needs to be fixed.

Also went to NBC on 105
and recorded some Americas Got Tallent as a test. When you press Record The
Record Icon stays on screen and so does the info bar on the bottom. Very
annoying...

Simply push the info button and the banner will go away. The "bug" however in the upper right will stay. Just like a Pansat9200 has a red dot displayed while it is recording.

Have a great day!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

The receiver will split the drive after 1 tb.......

But the receiver wouldnt even see the drive until I formatted it as FAT32. It should be able to see the drive and tell you it needs to be formatted to work with it and then do the formatting.

 

[woofy]

I was able to get my motor to work, and now I can scan the entire arc from the Manhattan. But with the motor enabled I can not not switch to KU which is on a 22Khz switch.

I picked up a 320 gig WD Hard Drive last night to use with my Manhattan. and plugged it in and the Manhattan would not see it.

Looks like all these drives now come formatted at NTFS and that is not a format the Manhattan likes. After screwing around for over an hour I finally got the drive to format at FAT32. (Although doing so I was not able to use the full side of the drive.) Once I did that the Manhattan could now see and use the drive. I am told the Manhattan can handle up to a 2 TB drive... how do you do this when you can't format the drive in FAT32 in that size...

This is something else that needs to be fixed.

Also went to NBC on 105 and recorded some Americas Got Tallent as a test. When you press Record The Record Icon stays on screen and so does the info bar on the bottom. Very annoying...

Since on 99% of the channels up there have no guide data they need to have it ask you how long you want to record when you press the record button. So you press record a screen pops up and says Stop Recording in 15 Minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes, 120 minutes, until I press stop... as options.

Since tweeking my dish I can now see the full arc and my signals are in the 80's across the arc. I can see every listed signal and S2 mux across the sky... but the only thing I can't pick up is the one mux I want to pick up and that is the RTV mux on 87.. where I get a zero signal. Ugg! Everything else on that satellite has a great signal. Damn you RTV... I want my PBJ!!!!!

Scott, the switch issue is being worked on and will be addressed.

As far as hard drives and recording, as far as I can see this is a hard drive issue and not a Manhattan one.

Some machines are finicky when it come to drives I agree, but I am using a 40g USB powered scan disk @ fat 32.. you can use free software -HPUSBDisk to format fat32 to larger than 32gb.

I also use a FreeAgent 500g USB powered hard drive with no issues with NTSF with all space available. I will attach a few pictures so you can see.

As far as the screen when recording press the info button a few times..If you have more than one recording on the drive you will see that, and can select right there what to view.

Pressing the info button again will clear the info bar. you will just have the small rec logo on the top right corner. It's just showing you that you are in fact in record mode. Myself I don't see it much different than viewing many channels that have the logo showing in the bottom right hand corner..Such as RTV and others.

Hope the shots turn out Okay.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Interesting thanks for posting the pics.

First I did not notice the Yellow Format button... that will help out greatly! Thanks!

When I was recording I was trying to get rid of the info banners by pressing exit and they would not go away... I did not think about pressing the info button a few times.

Will try these tonight when I get home.

 

[Davage]

I moved my motorized Ku dish last night. I was having line of site issues with trees from the neighbor's yard.

The dish now has a much shorter cable run than it did before. The scanning of multiple satellites seems to be going much better.

Back in my initial review of the receiver I had noted that the dish seemed to return to the true south home position a lot while scanning. That no longer happens now that the dish is on a much shorter run. Likely one of the couplings along the run was causing a bit of noise and sending the dish to the wrong position.

I have my Manhattan doing a scan for all FTA signals from 125 to 58 on Ku right now. It is moving from satellite to satellite without going to the home position.

The Manhattan has some quirks in it, and it takes some time to get used to, but I'm still absolutely loving it.

 

[brentb636]

Mine is working well , in the limited mode that I use it for. It's my Cband receiver, and it runs the Gbox just fine. I'm using my Solomend 800 for the Ku dish, and also monitor the Cband ( since it's Diseqc motor problems were solved long ago. ) . I'll be happier once the Rs-1933 can handle both the Gbox and the USALS motor at the same time, via Diseqc switching, but for now, it's very useful, and nice to have a blindscan box on each dish.

 

[skysurfer]

Curiosity question for those who know... why does FAT32 formatting work with the manhattan? I thought the limitation was 4 GB sized files (i.e. .TS files) and you can easily exceed that in about 20 minutes recording a good sized MPEG2 HD feed. Does the Manhattan chunk the .TS files about every 4 GB to get around that filesize limitation? I'm trying to figure out why not just format the drive NTFS so you don't have that 4 GB filesize limitation. My manhattan came Monday, I"m still playing with it, and haven't gotten to the PVR stuff yet because I want to check out other things first but I still have the curiosity question for when I get to doing PVR tests.

 

[stone1150]

Curiosity question for those who know... why does FAT32 formatting work with the manhattan? I thought the limitation was 4 GB sized files (i.e. .TS files) and you can easily exceed that in about 20 minutes recording a good sized MPEG2 HD feed. Does the Manhattan chunk the .TS files about every 4 GB to get around that filesize limitation? I'm trying to figure out why not just format the drive NTFS so you don't have that 4 GB filesize limitation. My manhattan came Monday, I"m still playing with it, and haven't gotten to the PVR stuff yet because I want to check out other things first but I still have the curiosity question for when I get to doing PVR tests.

You must of completely missed the post by woofy above........ The Manhattan does NTFS.... I use NTFS on my 500 gig Westerndigital. Click on the pics that woofy posted to see for yourself.

Now to make an observation... There seems to be many that are reporting trouble that is actually nonexistant. As an example I will use the post a couple above where the dish was moving to true south alot. As it seems now that was an isolated problem with a certian setup... Not the fault of the receiver. And again with the NTFS question.... People seem to pass judgement if something isn't right with their particular setup when the answer is right there in front of them. Everyone needs to be a little patient here and let the legitamate problems, (Like the 22khz not working right for example,) get worked out. Then with a little more time everything should fall into place. People might say "We don't have any info so we don't know what we are doing! Don't blame us!" Well my friends the fact is that with new firmware being worked on at the present, so we've been told, It kinda puts the kabash on any further tutorials as the implimentation of new firmware can change the way the receiver is operated. Maybe it won't but chances are it could and if that happens then the info posted at this time on the operation of the receiver will be obsolete. Maybe people will disagree with my view, but I tend to do things once, not two or three times as that simply wastes time and causes more confusion. Just my little ole humble opinion.....

Now back to the hard drive.... Last night I erradicated a drive and plugged it in.. Didn't see it. Just like any computer. My computer didn't see it until I went to the "Disk management" area. I gave it a quick format in NTFS and then plugged it in and the receiver saw it straight away. It has been my experiance in the past that some drives that say they are "pre-formatted" simply do not work until you format it for your machine weather it is a computer or a receiver. Have a great day!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

There seems to be many that are reporting trouble that is actually nonexistant.

If you plug a 320 gig NTFS formatted drive into the Manhattan and the Manhattan does not see it THEN IT IS A PROBLEM WITH THE MANHATTAN. Especially when you reformat the drive as FAT32 and the receiver sees it.

Please do not call it a nonexistant problem, it's a problem with the Manhattan.