Signal Quality / BER Globecast Software update

[ghia]

About two weeks ago I tuned to a channel I subscribe to on my globecast receiver (model SE830) and it downloaded a new version of the software (v1.02) and flashed the receiver without any prompts, as in I did not have a choice in the matter which I found a bit odd. It rebooted and came back up fine and I was able to watch the match albiet a few minutes late.

Tonight I had a chance to play with the receiver and noticed that several improvements and new features are present, or at least I don't recall seeing them before.

1. There is now a BER field next to the Picture quality meter in one of the menus. It has random numbers in it but appears to be another gauge of picture quality. Anyone have more knowledge of what BER stands for how are the numbers decoded?

2. If you hit the signal meter button on the remote it now has variable tone and the front of the display alternates Signal Power (S.P.##) and Signal quality (S.Q.##) on the front LCD of the unit as well as on screen for the current TP. My traxis 3500 has a similar function but I do not rember this receiver having it.

3. The signal quality meter seems to show a couple of more percent on all of the TP's I checked and it is much more stable than before.

 

[PSB]

1. Bit Error Rate (BER) An overall measure of the quality of a received digital bit stream. It is the ratio of the number of information bits that are received in error to the total number of bits received, averaged over a period of time.

2. Cool, I like that feature on the Traxis DBS 3500

3. NICE!

 

[ghia]

Thanks for the info, As an example I am on 11966 H SQ is 73% SQ 82% BER is steady for several seconds with a reading of 1.0e-3 then goes to 9.xe-4 for a second or two and then back to 1.0e-3. Any input on what these numbers?

I have been very happy with the Traxis 3500, I only wish it has a Svideo output and that it would decode AC-3 on the KU side.

 

[hwh]

1.0e-3 is .001
9.xe-4 is .0009x

the smaller the number the better the signal is.

 

[global0]

Thanks for the info, As an example I am on 11966 H SQ is 73% SQ 82% BER is steady for several seconds with a reading of 1.0e-3 then goes to 9.xe-4 for a second or two and then back to 1.0e-3. Any input on what these numbers?

I have been very happy with the Traxis 3500, I only wish it has a Svideo output and that it would decode AC-3 on the KU side.

As already explained, you want as low of BER as possible. So, in your case, it looks like it is seeing 1 in 1000 bits error in average with a jump every once in a while. This is normal behavior.