Advice needed motorised multibox system

[RichardW1975]

At our school we have currently have

1 Motorised dish (dont know about size but it works)
1 Echostar DSB-709-FTA (controlling motorised dish)
1 Nokia analogue sky box (connected thru echostar)
1 Sky digital box

3 VCRs
1 DVD recorder

Now recording anything analogue from astra is a PITA as you have to get the dish pointed to Astra then put the Echostar in standby turn the Nokia on and then set your channel up and I hate it.

What we really want is a single box solution (I realise we will still need the Sky digital box) I'd like a hard drive recorder STB that will also move the dish as necessary and do analogue and digital we record a fair bit of RTL thru the old Sky box and it's not on the Echostar.

So long story short I want a hard drive recorder STB that will move the dish to replace the old sky and this Echostar (which is god awful painfully slow) and it would be even better if it also had a DVD burner in it that burns stuff off quicker than real time but that would just be a bonus or even better an ethernet interface to rip recordings out through

We don't mind spending what needs to be spent to do this as at the moment I cant stand keep being asked to record german news etc and having to set everything up.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as would any recommendations of supplier/installer in/around Norwich (UK)

Ta

 

[Robbo]

At our school we have currently have

1 Motorised dish (dont know about size but it works)
1 Echostar DSB-709-FTA (controlling motorised dish)
1 Nokia analogue sky box (connected thru echostar)
1 Sky digital box

3 VCRs
1 DVD recorder

Now recording anything analogue from astra is a PITA as you have to get the dish pointed to Astra then put the Echostar in standby turn the Nokia on and then set your channel up and I hate it.

What we really want is a single box solution (I realise we will still need the Sky digital box) I'd like a hard drive recorder STB that will also move the dish as necessary and do analogue and digital we record a fair bit of RTL thru the old Sky box and it's not on the Echostar.

So long story short I want a hard drive recorder STB that will move the dish to replace the old sky and this Echostar (which is god awful painfully slow) and it would be even better if it also had a DVD burner in it that burns stuff off quicker than real time but that would just be a bonus or even better an ethernet interface to rip recordings out through

We don't mind spending what needs to be spent to do this as at the moment I cant stand keep being asked to record german news etc and having to set everything up.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as would any recommendations of supplier/installer in/around Norwich (UK)

Ta

Hi, I question the need for a motorised dish, which satellites do you actually use?

If it was only Astra1 (19.2E) and Astra2 (28.2E) you'd be better off with a two LNB setup off one dish.
With TWIN or QUAD LNBs having more than one receiver connected would be a doddle.

Also, Do you really need the analogue box, are there channels that you want that you can't get via digital satellite on 19.2E?

A sky+ setup (£10/month for non subscribers) could do all your recording from 28.2E for you.

and another digital sat reeciver with built in PVR could do the other satellite/s

An LNB for 13E could easily be used on the same dish also.

Robbo

 

[RichardW1975]

I think but i'm not sure that the German RTL is only on the analogue Astra system I have had a good look thru the Echostar and I cannot find it anywhere and tbh it's driving me nuts the EPG is painfully slow and changing channels takes ages.

We have on the motorised system

Hotbird
Astra
Thor
and a couple of others I don't know if we need them as such but I am loathed to change things so we lose any channels as a teacher is bound to come to me at some point and whinge and I want to hit this with one big spend and get it sorted, if it was me setting it up from scratch then the motorised dish would not have been my first choice but its here and installed now so it's gotta be used really.

I don't really want to go down the Sky+ route as there are a lot of foreign language channels recorded from the other sources and I was fancying something a bit more "open" than sky+ and getting stuff on in real time which is a pain too.

I may be after too much I don't really know too much about it all I know is I have come into the job of Network Manager and all this stuff falls under my remit and i'd like to make life a lot easier (obviously) hehehe.

 

[Robbo]

Hi,
RTL Deutschland is also on digital satellite from 19.2E on 12188H.
_http://www.lyngsat.com/astra19.html.

so you should be able to pick it up OK with the Echostar, without messing about with the analogue box.

Is your sky box on a totally separate dish?
It is better that way as the Sky dodgybox can get a bit finnickety if connected to a motorised dish.

Changing channels would take ages if the channels you were flicking through were on different satellites, so its best to either group them together or on ly view one satellite in the EPG at a time.

If it is still slow, it sounds like that the box needs upgrading to a newer one.

 

[RichardW1975]

Hmmm dont know why but its not on the echostar system and doing an add channels doesnt add it and theres no option to add one manually.

The channels are all grouped together already by satellite what it is is in the background it keeps the channel you were last on playing and then loads the EPG over the top very very slowly and whilst its doing this the box is really slow and unresponsive. I've checked the software and its current.

I've called a local sat co to come in look at what we have and advise us as its a mess right now.

The Sky digi is on its own fixed mini dish its just the old system thats on the motorised one.

The main channels im concerned with are

Kika
RTL (German)
TV5 Monde

I dont think the others would be missed too much.

We have clickview installed (video server) so I would like to be able to get clips off the STB via the network and dump them into Clickview so everyone can then see them instantly. I've seen a few boxes around that claim to be able to do this hard drive + ethernet so i'll see what this guy says next week when he comes out for a look

Thanks for the advice so far

 

[Robbo]

Kika
RTL (German)
TV5 Monde

I dont think the others would be missed too much.

We have clickview installed (video server) so I would like to be able to get clips off the STB via the network and dump them into Clickview so everyone can then see them instantly. I've seen a few boxes around that claim to be able to do this hard drive + ethernet so i'll see what this guy says next week when he comes out for a look

Thanks for the advice so far

Those 3 channels are all available digitally according to Lyngssat, in fact I can't find TV 5 Monde on Analogue on 19.2E anyway. So it sounds like it would be a good move to dispense with the analogue box, that would certainly make things easier.

I don't know much about the Dreambox range of receivers, but they sound like they're up your street.
Available with Twin tuners ( Digital Terrestrial, and Digital satellite), HDD, and they also have a network port also. Probably a bit of a learning curve I would imagine, but everyone seems to rave about them.

 

[RichardW1975]

Thanks yeah I don't know what she's on about TBH we just keep getting moaned at to record this stuff without telling us what channel its on and when it's driving me nuts, on top of that how confusing the setup is with everything connected via RF leads in series its bizarre.

I had a google around for the Dreambox and it sounds like the right kinda thing just need to wait till Weds to see what this bloke has to say and then take it from there.

Thanks for the advice it's been really useful

I shall post up when I have more info