Advice or assistance will be appreciated

M

Morphosis

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I am still wet behind the ears on this subject so please be gentle.

One of my workmates recently saw a package called europe online (www.europeonline.com if anyone is interested).
The package does look pretty good and the price has just dropped from 150 euros to 56 euros.
This package includes a DVB card and software to access 199 channels and claims you can download over the old Astra Satellite at speeds of up to 200MB/Sec (free until August - 15 euros per month thereafter).

I have read some of the threads and there is obviously other cards and sofware available.

(Getting to the point)

In you opinion(s) is this package popular, typical, worth it or a complete waste of money.

For a starter like me, is it worth trying it out (like taking advantage of AOL for the free 100 hours even if you have no intentions of staying with them).

And do you think the DVB card will be usable without the provided software.

Thanks in advance.

Morph.
 

rolfw

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Hello Morphosis,

I had the EOL package some time ago and didn't find it too useful,it really depends on what your downloading need is. The card is I think a Skystar II, this is a free to air only card. The service is no use for browsing, there are ways of downloading from FTP sites, but the main download facilities are either file fetch or from their archive.

They seem to do a lot of streaming media, but why bother when you have satellite TV.

See also this forum http://pub75.ezboard.com/funofficalssfrm1 and search the threads for EOL or Europe online.

Rolf
 
M

Morphosis

Guest
Thanks for your advise, I must admit that the download speed for me is the biggest attraction as I cannot get ISDN, DSL or Cable in my area for at least 3 more years and I already have digital sat.

The company I work for also has its own web site server and many companies have been pushing for us to add satellite connectivity as the way of the future.

Are the any other combination packages that you are aware of or would recommend that is more flexible than europeonline?

Thanks for the link I will have a good look.

Morph
 

rolfw

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Yes there are a couple of others, but all are somewhat disappointing, if not in performance, in the restrictions they impose on their customers. Have a look at the following links and read the small print.

Also if you buy your own DVB card, make sure it is one that has reasonable other uses, as the data only is very restricting.

Rolf


http://www.xantic.net/

http://www.ipviasat.net/

http://www.digio.co.uk/

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/tiscalisat/
 
M

Morphosis

Guest
I see what you mean about them being disappointing, as the Europeonline has dropped to 56 euros I will give it a go and let you know what I think.

Once I have built up a bit of experience with the system I will spend some more money and graduate to a better card.

Thanks very much for all your help.

Morph.
 

rolfw

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If you go for EOL, go to this link and look at the EOL threads http://pub75.ezboard.com/funofficalssfrm1 it is far from easy to get it all working and there are lots of work arounds to enable downloading from non-standard sources.

Rolf
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

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hello morphosis and rolfw :)

Well being a former disgruntled customer of europe online i took a look at there website again to see whats new.
They have certainly improved there website design using flash (very nice) but thats just the sales pitch. Cant see anything wrong with the price as regards getting a dvb card, bear in mind it will only be free to air and will not have a cam add on support (my guess anyway)
You should be able to pick up all the free to air channels atleast.
I do not think they have changed much though. On their site they show their top 5 downloads etc, mainly shareware stuff i think, On there site you can download at top speed these files but go to another website on the net and you may find like i did that it wouldnt work very well at SEEING the file never mind downloading it, they used to call it the file fetch system as i recall. I tried various file sharing programs but none of them would seem to work and/or set up correctly with a proxy. I see no indication of any major changes as regards this, perhaps someone knows different? Has the file still to be queued up for download at a certain time? Do you still need to be connected to an isp to connect? i would imagine so as this was the case with myself. See related threads on europeonline.

I would think though to summarize that its a good way of getting a cheap dvb card for not much less than what you would pay anyway for a slightly better cheap dvb card :)

yours sincerely
a disgruntled former europeonline customer

ps. i wonder if there channel 18 xxx channel really is xxx? or just a soft version of playboy
 
M

Morphosis

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Thanks for your comments starman,

I have been playing with EOL for a month or 2 now and I am still finding my way, I picked up a shareware program called eol file fetch manager (thanks to rolfs link - cheers!!) which gives me access to everything that is due to be sent over the satellite during off peak times by all of the eol members, i pick from the list (if it looks interesting) and abracadabra its on my pc the next morning along with a load of stuff that i havent picked to download.

Most of the people seem to be using this service to download films in DIVX format from foreign FTP sites - new, old and a fair amount of soft mature content (not that i look at that at all....ha) still havent worked out how to put it all back together yet though - it comes a scene at a time.

Although the service is pretty crap other than that I am getting it for free till october and I only shelled our £38 for it including the DVB card.

The Elert service is a waste of time, the emailed customer support is crap which means an international phone call, but when done from work it doesnt hit me in the pocket, and the eol skyserver software has more bugs than windows and crashes almost everytime you switch off.

Other than that as the moto of this forum goes "Its just a Hobby!"
 

s*t*a*r*m*a*n

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Hi Morphosis :)

Glad to see you are getting some use of the service. I believe the customer service number is in holland? or atleast it used to be. It was possible to get them to phone you if you asked them in the past, not sure now though. Still a good little deal at the moment, but lets hope when you go to unsubscribe you do not keep getting billed as i assume you payed by credit card like i did. In fact the problem i had was that they werent actually billing me atall at one point :) that was ofcourse after they had billed me twice on there website when i originally subscribed :) which while reminising was also when a hacker intercepted a cookie that was sent to me from there website containing some of my credit card info etc. I had to cancel my credit card for security reasons.... (rolling about on floor laughing) The hacker emailed my telling me this as apparently he was not malicious just enkoyed regularly hacking into there system or so europeonline told me. I think they may have solved this security vulnerability now though so i wouldnt worry if i was you :) I think i will stick to my cable broadband. Not sure what you ment by frame at a time when downloading divx films? If you need any help converting divx to an mpeg or making it into a video cd etc then i suggest you try a very good site called http://www.vcdhelp.com

bye for now :)
 
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