Reviews: SatHawk PVR800 WorldDVB DVB-S2 HD FTA Receiver

[sanjap]

Glad you posted Sadoun, nice to hear things are moving along.

Sadoun,
To make things neat and tiday, Below are the issues with this receiver. Others can add to it.

1. Unable to use both motor and switch at thesame time
2. Updating software erases all previous settings and channel data.
3. Cannot manually enter PID or VID on a transponder
4. Remote Control is not sensitive at all. Need to be close and directly infront receiver for it to work.
5. LNB setup seems to be applied to all Satellites. Can't individually setup LNB per satellite.

 

[Lak7]

5. LNB setup seems to be applied to all Satellites. Can't individually setup LNB per satellite.

Is that in a Morotized setup?
I have mine setup as Fixed with just 2 Sats, one for Ku and one for C Band, work OK.

 

[Mr Tony]

Lak
motorized you have to have all the same. The setting is in the motor setup

fixed you can have various LNB LO's

 

[Blindowl1234]

Lak7 Thanks for the help. I checked to see what I have and it should be HDS2_flag_all.abs shows as 3,520 KB. That's whats in there as of last night anyway. Not sure if that's what shipped with it at this point. Oh well still seeing if I can get it to store channels etc...and keep them lol...Blind

 

[i4tas]

after chatting with a engineer in china about this box. He told me that they know about the ac3 problem and said they are trying to fix it and he assured me that it can be done with software and the hardware onboard can decode it.

 

[Sadoun]

To update the firmware on the SatHawk PVR800, you will need to go to this page and download the latest firmware:
SatHawk PVR800 USB HD MPEG4 DVB-S2 Satellite Receiver

You can check the f/w version in your receiver by going to the TOOLS menu on your receiver and click on INFORMATION.

The latest version as of the time of writing this post is HDS2-1.0.0-0204-2-MC.
If the version on your receiver is less than 0204, then go ahead and upgrade.
The first thing to do is save the downloaded firmware file on a USB flash disk.
Plug USB disk to the back of your receiver. It will be recognized by the receiver.

1. Before upgrade, do a Factory Reset:

• Go to TOOLS menu and click on Factory Settings
• Click Yes to continue. The receiver will go to factory default and restart.

2. Upgrade Firmware:

• Click on MENU and go to TOOLS menu again
• Scroll down to "Upgrade by USB"
• Click on START
• After the loading is completed, Accept the upgrade.
• The receiver will restart.

3. After upgrade, do another Factory Reset:

• Go to TOOLS menu and click on Factory Setting
• Click Yes to continue. The receiver will go to factory default and restart.

Known issues:

• All channels, satellites, and transponder information will be deleted when you do a F/W upgrade.
• After F/W upgrade, the receiver will list European satellites instead of North American satellites. You will have to re-enter all satellites data manually again.
• These issues will be corrected in future F/W updates.

 

[Jim S.]

[*] After F/W upgrade, the receiver will list European satellites instead of North American satellites.

Actually, the version on your website provides a list of American satellites. No transponders though.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Well, Maybe I'm going to try tonight and load the firmware that Sadoun has on their website. Last night I spent about 4 hours reloading channels after the complete loss of everything from the night before. So far in a new twist now my Sathawk locks up which it didn't before lol. I remain undaunted, one day this receiver will be working like it should be. Hey last night I was tickled just to have a picture on it. Has anyone noticed it sometimes it appears to blind scan some channels twice? Example on 121w I had duplicates of several channels, on 97W Ku I had duplicates on about half the channels. It wouldn't let me view the duplicates until I deleted one of each of them. Perhaps I blindscanned them twice on 97W. Either way if there's duplicates one set has to go or no picture. Then the remaining channels worked fine. Really weird. Blind

 

[Tron]

Has there been any progress on the high bitrate stutter/recording issue?

 

[Lak7]

Has there been any progress on the high bitrate stutter/recording issue?

I've had no less than 4 HD PVR capable receivers, none of them could record High Bitrate Feeds. So I doubt that it will ever be fixed.
Only unit I know of is the Pansat 9200.

 

[Mr Tony]

Has there been any progress on the high bitrate stutter/recording issue?

both my Sathawk and azbox have issues so highly unlikely

 

[Jim S.]

Has anyone noticed it sometimes it appears to blind scan some channels twice? Example on 121w I had duplicates of several channels, on 97W Ku I had duplicates on about half the channels. It wouldn't let me view the duplicates until I deleted one of each of them. Perhaps I blindscanned them twice on 97W. Either way if there's duplicates one set has to go or no picture. Then the remaining channels worked fine. Really weird. Blind

I never saw anything like that. Once in a while I'll have a transponder scan as both horizontal and vertical, but I have no doubt at all that this is due to only having a 30" dish and a really screwy multi-LNB mount. The weaker of the two polarities (the wrong one) always scans as a slightly different frequency or SR, so it's never had truly duplicated channels as you seem to be claiming.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Jim, I have that problem too with it scanning both tp's. I'm using a c/ku lnb on my 6 foot dish. Tonight it scanned the Pbs on 125W and it scanned Sd and Hd. I went to watch and only Sd was there. I scanned the Hd tp and the signal popped in. I've had to do that on several sats. I'm convinced my receiver has issues lol. I've tried everything to get some channels I know I should be getting and they aren't there. Oh well tomorrow is another day....Blind

 

[Lak7]

What's your Quality reading for the PBS HD TP?

 

[Tron]

I've had no less than 4 HD PVR capable receivers, none of them could record High Bitrate Feeds. So I doubt that it will ever be fixed.
Only unit I know of is the Pansat 9200.

both my Sathawk and azbox have issues so highly unlikely

Looks like my first DVB-S2 receiver is going to be a PCI card in a powerful PC. That is probably going to be the best bet for recording high bitrate feeds.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Lak7, Pbs is at about 60%....I think. Seems like the meter in these units doesn't mean much. Everything seems to be about 60-65 no matter what it is. Some real weak stuff does show up in the 20-30 range. So far I've got nothing but the stronger HD stuff with my six footer. Ion, PBS, Jewelry, STO HD...etc...not much else. Seems like some of the colors are slighly over saturated with the HD stuff. Happy just to see a picture at this point... Blind

 

[Lak7]

60% may e a little weak, I'm in the mid 70's.
This is on a 6footer with Ku, or dedicated Ku Dish?
Yes, the Colors need to be turned down, it's in one of the Menus.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Lak7, Six foot with Geo Sat c/Ku lnb. I'm waiting til hopefully we can switch between the fixed and motorized easily to use it differently. I've got the 30" for Ku normally. Thanks Blind

 

[DBSat]

I have been following this thread for sometime. Just got my Sathawk last week and it is a work in progress. Thanks to all of the comments so far. It has really helped, and kept my spirit up. It reminds me somewhat of the Traxis 3500, menus etc. Just hooked up an external portable 120gb hdd. Got online for about $43 shipped. Plugged in and went right to work recording, 1080i and h264 video. So far so good. The PVR seems to work best if you just use the "ps" setting. Haven't fiqured out how to make it jump, ie: 30 mins into a recording on playback. Is that a timeshift function? What button do you use to get it to jump? I'm very happy so far with this box. Great pictures on HDM!...

 

[Blindowl1234]

Has anyone else had trouble adding a Tp? And getting the Sathawk to find it?When I first got mine it seemed to work ok on most Tp's. I've never been able to get My Net Tv in the evenings. I've scanned the Tp and nothing. Another example...When I first got it I had My Family Tv on 95W. After my unit crashed and I reloaded the firmware I've had more trouble adding tp's. I tried for 3 days to get it to find My Family Tv. The info is 3745 V 2000. I noticed last night that a couple of transponders had almost the correct symbol rate but the first part of the Tp was plus 600! Example I entered 4345 V 2200....3745 plus 600...and bingo My Fam Tv was there. I tried it on a couple of others and it made no difference so far. Kinda makes it hard to manually add a Tp, and/or blind scan, as it will never find it, using the usual Tp info from "The List" and other sources. I'm telling you my Sathawk is possessed! lol. Anyone else noticing Tp's that are way off? If not well I guess I'll reload the firmware again and start from scratch again. Another 4- 5 hours lost. Sathawk you turkey, I will not go down in defeat!...Blind