Brentb, Thanks for the info....let me try something on a different computer tonight and if that doesn't work, I'll send ya a PM. Thanks Blind
Reviews: SatHawk PVR800 WorldDVB DVB-S2 HD FTA Receiver
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A new firmware was issued earlier this week. This is what I've found in testing it.
Bugs:
In the Upgrade By USB menu, in order to select any .abs file other than HDS2_*.abs, you have to cycle through the Upgrade Mode selection at least once.
In 480i NTSC mode the color is tinted green in the composite output. (Some of us still have tube-type SD televisions and have no other choice but to use the composite output. Not all DVB is HD and many S2 and 264H channels can't be received on most receivers.)
Feature Request:
When using the receiver as a slave to an analog receiver that controls a C-Band dish motor/polarity skew and powers the LNB, or another DVB receiver that controls a motor and powers an LNBF, there is no way to select which polarity to search when doing a blind scan. There should be a "Dish Control: Master/Slave" selector under each satellite in the Antenna Setup menu that determines whether to show a "Polarity: H/V" selector in the Single Satellite Search menu. If set to "Master", Polarity would be set to "Auto" and selection would be grayed out in the Antenna Setup Menu. If set to Slave, the Polarity is selectable in the Single Satellite Search menu.
As it is, the old settings for polarity in a previously saved TP_PROG.dbs are used. If you wanted to use both polarities to watch and scan on a satellite, you would need to set all satellites to "Auto" polarity under the old firmware; save and reload under the new firmware; and be ready to quickly change the master receiver channel when a blind scan hits 50%. Very inconvenient!
Observations:
-Blind scanning is a bit faster than before, but still seems to miss some of the lower symbol rate channels. Sometimes you have to try multiple scans in order to get a channel.
-Most all Higher symbol rate channels (above 8000 MSPS) broadcast in S2 and 8PSK are now viewable with my system. (On previous firmware many had choppy audio, no or severely broken up picture, and quality that bounced wildly up and down..) Audio is now steady and picture sometimes has brief stops and pixellation, but most programs are totally watchable. It's like I got a larger dish or a lower temperature LNB.
Lower symbol rate S2 channels (below 8000 MSPS), however, now have no picture and severely chopped up/no audio where before they had steady audio and a picture that moved with some brief stops and pixellation.
-AC3 decoded internally--no external decoder needed.
-Manual CCcam/BISS key entry by remote control.(Useful, perhaps, for those using this receiver in the broadcast industry on location where they want something lightweight, easy-to-use and cheap.)
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One more thing I just wanted to mention is how this receiver has always had the best PAL<->NTSC conversion of any receiver I've ever had. None of the stops and starts in the picture that I've encountered on other receivers.
Bugs:
In the Upgrade By USB menu, in order to select any .abs file other than HDS2_*.abs, you have to cycle through the Upgrade Mode selection at least once.
In 480i NTSC mode the color is tinted green in the composite output. (Some of us still have tube-type SD televisions and have no other choice but to use the composite output. Not all DVB is HD and many S2 and 264H channels can't be received on most receivers.)
Feature Request:
When using the receiver as a slave to an analog receiver that controls a C-Band dish motor/polarity skew and powers the LNB, or another DVB receiver that controls a motor and powers an LNBF, there is no way to select which polarity to search when doing a blind scan. There should be a "Dish Control: Master/Slave" selector under each satellite in the Antenna Setup menu that determines whether to show a "Polarity: H/V" selector in the Single Satellite Search menu. If set to "Master", Polarity would be set to "Auto" and selection would be grayed out in the Antenna Setup Menu. If set to Slave, the Polarity is selectable in the Single Satellite Search menu.
As it is, the old settings for polarity in a previously saved TP_PROG.dbs are used. If you wanted to use both polarities to watch and scan on a satellite, you would need to set all satellites to "Auto" polarity under the old firmware; save and reload under the new firmware; and be ready to quickly change the master receiver channel when a blind scan hits 50%. Very inconvenient!
Observations:
-Blind scanning is a bit faster than before, but still seems to miss some of the lower symbol rate channels. Sometimes you have to try multiple scans in order to get a channel.
-Most all Higher symbol rate channels (above 8000 MSPS) broadcast in S2 and 8PSK are now viewable with my system. (On previous firmware many had choppy audio, no or severely broken up picture, and quality that bounced wildly up and down..) Audio is now steady and picture sometimes has brief stops and pixellation, but most programs are totally watchable. It's like I got a larger dish or a lower temperature LNB.
Lower symbol rate S2 channels (below 8000 MSPS), however, now have no picture and severely chopped up/no audio where before they had steady audio and a picture that moved with some brief stops and pixellation.
-AC3 decoded internally--no external decoder needed.
-Manual CCcam/BISS key entry by remote control.(Useful, perhaps, for those using this receiver in the broadcast industry on location where they want something lightweight, easy-to-use and cheap.)
---
One more thing I just wanted to mention is how this receiver has always had the best PAL<->NTSC conversion of any receiver I've ever had. None of the stops and starts in the picture that I've encountered on other receivers.
Copykat, Doesn't sound like we gained much with the update. Thanks to Brent I used the editor last night and loaded the CW and some radio channels in the Sathawk. I'd never used an editor before so after messing around for an hour I figured it out. Finally I must say I'm happy 99% with the Sathawk overall. I got mine when the second batch shipped...so it's come a long way since then. If it got 4:2:2 that would be the icing on the cake. I'm seriously thinking of putting the Fortec Dynamic away for a while as I haven't used it in several months....Blind
Those were both there in the previous version, the one that finally enabled using a motor and switch at the same time.
I can't say I've seen any improvement in the blind scan speed. (I was hoping they'd have finally stopped it from going above 12.2 GHz, but no such luck.) Its' too early to tell whether it's missing any transponders for me.
The one nice thing that this version adds is that the USALS coordinates are in their own menu where they belong, along with a button to automatically set your entire satellite list to USALS or DiSEqC 1.2.
Also, they finally changed the term "auto scan" to "blind scan".
When Entering Sat's How Do You Change From Letters To Numbers This New Software Has No North American Sat's Having To Enter Them Manually.
How would people scan satellites like Hispasat at 30West if they stopped it from going above 12.2 Ghz? It would work well for us if they did this but it would hurt other parts of the world.
I would like to see an upper limit and a lower limit frequency setting for scanning that is user adjustable but I doubt this will ever happen. GregH
Didn't you save your sat/channels/tp's on a USB stick ?
You could load the previous firmware, dump the chan/tp data to a usb stick, then reload the new firmware and reload the channel/tp dump data. Remember that after reloading the tp_data.dbs file, you must reboot for it to take effect.
To answer the original question, there's no such thing as switching from letters to numbers. You just keep pushing the button and after it goes through all the letters on it, it goes to the number.
P.S.
At http://legalfreetoair.com/index.php?topic=3664.0 is a copy of this firmware with the North American satellite list.
I don't use that version of the list though, I think it's ugly with "C" or "Ku" in front of everything, making you look further down the line to see where you're at, especially since I only have Ku-band. I built my own list that has the longitude first, then the satellite name.
P.S.
At http://legalfreetoair.com/index.php?topic=3664.0 is a copy of this firmware with the North American satellite list.
I don't use that version of the list though, I think it's ugly with "C" or "Ku" in front of everything, making you look further down the line to see where you're at, especially since I only have Ku-band. I built my own list that has the longitude first, then the satellite name.
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I've been running a version of the firmware from late May until this version.
Before I loaded this new firmware I dumped all Misc Files to a thumbdrive and dumped an Image File (.abs) that included all those same files plus the firmware.
Then I copied the .abs file to my computer, changed the name to HD2S_OLD.abs and copied back to the thumbdrive. (For some reason, Vista wouldn't let me change the name of the file on the thumbdrive. Something about being protected...)
Next I loaded the new firmware and then loaded all Misc Files that were saved.
After rebooting after each load, I dumped an Image File (.abs) with all settings included.
Now I can switch between old and new versions to do things on one that the other doesn't do--like blindscan, watch low bitrate S2 channels, and native NTSC with one and watch high bitrate S2/264 channels with the other.
Before I loaded this new firmware I dumped all Misc Files to a thumbdrive and dumped an Image File (.abs) that included all those same files plus the firmware.
Then I copied the .abs file to my computer, changed the name to HD2S_OLD.abs and copied back to the thumbdrive. (For some reason, Vista wouldn't let me change the name of the file on the thumbdrive. Something about being protected...)
Next I loaded the new firmware and then loaded all Misc Files that were saved.
After rebooting after each load, I dumped an Image File (.abs) with all settings included.
Now I can switch between old and new versions to do things on one that the other doesn't do--like blindscan, watch low bitrate S2 channels, and native NTSC with one and watch high bitrate S2/264 channels with the other.
Is there a step by step set of instructions for doing this posted here somewhere?
As I recall, the instructions in the manual were kind of lackluster.
Overall, I'm still enjoying the heck out of my SatHawk
As I recall, the instructions in the manual were kind of lackluster.
Overall, I'm still enjoying the heck out of my SatHawk
Didn't you save your sat/channels/tp's on a USB stick ?
You could load the previous firmware, dump the chan/tp data to a usb stick, then reload the new firmware and reload the channel/tp dump data. Remember that after reloading the tp_data.dbs file, you must reboot for it to take effect.
The Menu, luckily , is pretty simple. There are two USB options, Update and Dump.
Within each of those options are a couple choices, which you select using the green button, and then the yellow button on the remote to "GO" .
In either "Update" or "Dump" you can operate on the whole firmware package, or just the "miscellanous" files ( transponders and channels, for example).
The only tricky thing about the process , is after "Update" on just the channel data, you must re-cycle power to the unit, or reboot it, to have the new channels and tp's in effect.
Within each of those options are a couple choices, which you select using the green button, and then the yellow button on the remote to "GO" .
In either "Update" or "Dump" you can operate on the whole firmware package, or just the "miscellanous" files ( transponders and channels, for example).
The only tricky thing about the process , is after "Update" on just the channel data, you must re-cycle power to the unit, or reboot it, to have the new channels and tp's in effect.
Am I doing something wrong here? I have tried to scan the CW channels and nothing comes up. I have used the Auto Scan and still nothing. My receiver is brand new got it last week from Sadoun. It has the latest upgrade. I wish I could use the manual PIDS input but it doesn't have one. Please help!
No receiver can scan in the CW channels on 91W, because there is no PID info in the satellite stream. You'll have to use the Editor to add those channels . So you'll dump the channel list to a USB stick, I suppose. Change the extension on the TP_PROG.dbs file to "abs", so the editor can find it. Add the channels, save the file, and change the extension back to "dbs", so the receiver will recognize it. What could be simpler !! Oh, the things you miss when you sub to Directv, for example. Then you put the USB stick back in the Sathawk, and do a USB update, Miscellanous files, bring in TP_PROG , and then reboot the Sathawk. The new channels should be in there.
Oh, the things you miss when you sub to Directv, for example. Then you put the USB stick back in the Sathawk, and do a USB update, Miscellanous files, bring in TP_PROG , and then reboot the Sathawk. The new channels should be in there.- Status
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