What Manufacturers....

JayX

Thought it'd be nice to compile a general list of general what manufacturers for various components are good, and which to avoid. Compared to the amount of reviews and general knowledge about more standard AV equipment, there's not always an awful lot of info about various satellite equipment except from stores and the manufacturers. For example, when talking about general consumer hifi gear, most people would say that Sony stuff is generally decent if a bit high priced, Panasonic create some excellent stuff at a more affordable price, and Alba make crap. Considering most manu's for satellite gear are specialist, and only make receivers etc, it might be handy to hear about which companies you trust and which you don't.

:edit: actually, would this be better suited to Digital Systems? i do apologise

rolfw

Will move it to there for you JayX.

Nice idea, will be interesting to see what people have top say, you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be some conflicting opinions though.

Rolf If you enjoy our site, you can help support it by wearing our unique branded merchandise, you can do this by clicking on my baseball cap, making a direct donation with Paypal by clicking on the Donation button below, or using our site supporting advertisers, to do this, click on the central image below. Follow us on Twitter, click on the twitter image.

JayX

oh of course i might try and compile a list of well written reviews from members of various forums. i don't mind buying the occasional mag every now and then, but when you're paying £4 odd and half the mag is taken up with the info i could find on lyngsat or kingofsat etc its a bit of a pain. i've been out of the satellite game for many a year now, so the majority of the manu's are unknown to me (either due to the fact they're new, rebranded or my memory sucks ) and i'm sure this is the case to others too. there's nothing worse than buying something and realising it simply isn't suitable for the job, or its of poor quality and there's a far better alternative out there.

Striker10

Hi,

I had a strong 4375. It was a good box but the last firmware they released for my s/n model was from september '02 and alot of the new cams don't work on it ( I had the matrix reloaded which was a nightmare) so technically they make good boxes but they don't support them enough which is a shame. I was also told I couldn't upgrate through satellite which basically means it's at a standstill which is disheartening. I'm not a fan of their website either, it looks smart but abit scarce and it doesn't even have a forum. I'm now in a position where i'm looking to buy a new reciver but from experiance I wouldn't touch one of strongs boxes if you paid me. It's pretty disapointing that they don't properly support the recievers they make but that's also compounded by the fact it's hard to find great support for their boxes in forums, least not the box that I had. Merry xmas every one.

davidt

strong 4375 same problem mate, 13 september 2002 v1.02 software. nick at strong told me i should be able to do o/a downloads from astra 19.2 .i switch on every few days, try to upgrade but i have had no joy .im going to buy a manhattan blind search st 550 now i will not deal with strong again, they have lost another customer

daveenty

OK here goes. Only from personal experience here, but the Manhattan Plaza ST550 rocks. OTA upgrades (though the last one seems to have problems with initializing cams on certain combinations, good here though)
I was reticent to go for Manhattan again after owning a DSR 5500_M for a few years with the now famous *boot loop*. I was persuaded by my local dealer to try it and now love it. Very friendly GUI, setup is a no brainer with USALS, PVR ready (40 - 120 Gb, even got the screws with it!) and a nice looking bit of kit as well. All for less than £200.
I know that others will say Dreambox, and I will ultimately get one of these, though have an awful amount more homework to do first.
As rolfw says, there could be a fair few conflicting reviews here

julian_1234

Daveenty, I'm interested in the St550. Was your £200 price excluding VAT? (I've seen it for £195 but that was without vat).
Thanks.

daveenty

I think it was £190.00 +VAT. (£228.00 Total) Just looked on my suppliers site and it's now on at £195+
I put it down as *computer equipment* so get my VAT back

Spent a fortune on my *computer stuff* recently. No more upgrades allowed (through the books) for a while now