Traxis DBS 4550 or Pansat 2700A ?

[navagator]

Hi,

I was just curious if possible anyone has had experience with both the Traxis DBS 4550 and Pansat 2700A, and could give me an assesement of how they compare in scanning capabilities and picture quality? The Traxis DBS 4550 and Pansat 2700A are the 2 models that I'm considering for my first FTA reciever, which I will be slaving to my 4DTV system.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Doug

 

[Anole]

May we ask how and why you narrowed down your choices to these two particular receivers?
Were there some particular features (or price) that drew you to 'em ?

 

[navagator]

Well, I've read good things about both receivers and they both fall within my budget.

 

[gabshere]

not trying to discourage you both are from the looks of it good units
the 4550 is almost like the 3500 except that it will hold 6000 channels instead of 4000 and it will do AC-3 ( which the 3500 won't until it gets a software fix). the 2700a is..... what can i say "a pansat" , as long as you not getting a clone is a reliable receiver but both of the listed receivers are already at least 1 year on the market getting closer to two. i know the 3500 is fast blind scanner . i did look at the site that usually sell the 4550 and they don't list it with a price. so i suspect its on its way out.
just some thoughts , choose wisely and enjoy

 

[gabshere]

another thing to consider and read up on is the receiver warranty some manufacturers / distributors are requiring a receipt from an authroized dealer to honor the warranty. The coolsat now has a 5 year warranty but falls into this catagory. so this would make reading up on ebay seller worth the effort. there are also places that have refurbished units if your looking for a low priced unit. these usually have limited warranties also.

 

[navagator]

Hi,

Thank you for your help.

After doing a little more research on the forum I found that the Traxis DBS 4550 has a problem passing AC3 audio like the Traxis DBS 3500. So, I've decided to go with a Pansat.

I read of a "Pansat issue" where the 2700A would scan 13 dummy channels per transponder scanned on DBS (110,119, 129, 148, 61.5).

Does the Pansat 2800A have this issue?

Thank you.

Regards,
Doug Bride

 

[Mr Tony]

2800 I do nto know if that does but the 3500 does not. Not much free on the DBS slots but if you do scan the 1st time its a bear to delet the channels.

I do know that my 1500 after a software upgrade (from 2 years ago) doesn't have that issue anymore. I think the 2700 doesnt either now

 

[Tron]

I need to try that F/W upgrade on my 2700 to see if it fixes the issue. Normally, I don't like to do firmware upgrades unless absolutely necessary as things can go wrong. But in this case, it might be a worthwhile pursuit

I'll be wiping my receiver pretty soon anyway, with new dish installations I want things to be back to factory defaults. When I do that, I'll try the F/W flash at the same time.

 

[mastermesh]

not trying to discourage you both are from the looks of it good units
the 4550 is almost like the 3500 except that it will hold 6000 channels instead of 4000 and it will do AC-3 ( which the 3500 won't until it gets a software fix). the 2700a is..... what can i say "a pansat" , as long as you not getting a clone is a reliable receiver but both of the listed receivers are already at least 1 year on the market getting closer to two. i know the 3500 is fast blind scanner .

You won't need the extra 2000 channels. I have a pansat 3500 and have never come close to finding anywhere near 4k fta channels. If you had a subscription to dish and directv and scan in all the fta stuff in the complete arc, I'm still not sure if you'd have a need for over 4000 channels, assuming you are doing things legally.

The nice thing about the 3500 over the 2700 for the pansat is the sd card. Makes it really easy to move bin files in and out of receiver and computer... just make sure computer has a card reader or one of those cheap (around 20.00) external camera card readers... As far as editing channel lists goes, doing it manually with bin files moved in to computer and then saved on sd card is the way to go since you can move stuff around like you like it, delete what you don't want etc.

3500 does scan pretty fast, but like all receivers, will take a while to blind scan an echostar since there's so many signals on them. I can usually start a blind scan, go to drink a cup of coffee, go check email a little bit, and come back down to living room and echostar scan still has about 2 minutes left. Since there's almost no fta on echostars though, that shouldn't be much of a problem. Just make sure to not scan all echostars and bev signals along with all other stuff w/blind scan without deleting some tps or you may hit tp overload eventually.

 

[tvropro]

I own a Pansat 2700A and Im very happy with it. I don't get the double entries that is spoken about. I also have a friend that has one and loves it. It will work fine with slaving it to your 4DTV. I have swaped bin files to and from my computer using a null modem cable with no problems.

 

[tvropro]

I need to try that F/W upgrade on my 2700 to see if it fixes the issue. Normally, I don't like to do firmware upgrades unless absolutely necessary as things can go wrong. But in this case, it might be a worthwhile pursuit

I'll be wiping my receiver pretty soon anyway, with new dish installations I want things to be back to factory defaults. When I do that, I'll try the F/W flash at the same time.

I flashed mine last December it was a piece of cake. The only thing that can go wrong is if you get a power surge. If you want to be absolutely sure get a UPS and plug your computer and Pansat into it during the flash. I have a UPS but didn't use it. I just rolled the dice and won

 

[Tron]

It's on my to-do list, along with a plethora of other stuff I couldn't find my null cable, but fortunately I found a brand new Belkin one during a local thrift store run for $2.95 No FTA stuff at the thrift store, only a couple of Dish 311 receivers (useless). I keep hoping I can find another GI-650 analog receiver to replace the one Katrina flooded...

 

[tvropro]

It's on my to-do list, along with a plethora of other stuff I couldn't find my null cable, but fortunately I found a brand new Belkin one during a local thrift store run for $2.95 No FTA stuff at the thrift store, only a couple of Dish 311 receivers (useless). I keep hoping I can find another GI-650 analog receiver to replace the one Katrina flooded...

Good price on the null cable. The only one's around here were like $25.00, so I built my own. TX and REC are reversed on a null modem cable, that is the only difference between a serial cable.