ALDI HD Kit Impressions

P

pgh13

Specialist Contributor
My Satellite Setup
XTrend ET8000, Dr HD 15, PC/twinhan combination. 80cm dish. GBPVR with 2 DTTV cards +hauppauge Media MVP +Raspberry Pi running XBMC
My Location
Midlands UK
It's the first time I've managed to find any of Aldi's satellite offerings, so bought one to replace the Sky box that I use for FTA. Setup was easy enough and the picture is better than the box it replaced - I know, it should be! Only real niggle is the EPG - looks the part, allowing you to select different days but doesn't do anything when you get there.
It just shows now and next for the channel being viewed. Selecting a channel within the EPG changes channel showing in the small preview window but doesn't change program listing and despite what the manual says, you can't move to the right hand window to select a listed program to view more information. Is this the norm or have I got a dud?
I'd been toying with building a cut down HTPC for that room, but I'd have to pay almost as much as this for a DVB-S2 card, so I'll probably keep it.
Anyone else like to comment?
 
Aldi sells this kit across Europe and I think I'm right in saying that some (all?) of the German offerings have a full EPG transmitted as part of the normal programme signal so that it would populate the EPG fully and (probably) give the information window as well.

In the UK both Freesat and $ly transmit their EPG in a different manner and the STB can only give the Now-and-Next information carried in the programme signal. So it looks like it's working correctly to me.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I haven't got round to hooking up to the Astra1 dish yet, so there's an incentive.
 
There's certainly more HD there.
 
Yup Paul is correct - the full epg's on 28E are only available to Sky & Freesat boxes as they use their own formats. The best you will get on generic kit is now & next.
 
Freesat uses the same MediaHighway version as some German channels so I can pick this up with DVBViewer but don't think it will be set up like that in other boxes as the developers included it but it should be rather than Freesat making you buy their box. I can also get the Sky EPG using a OpenEPGtoDVBViewer by DJBlu so it can be done on PCI cards with a little tweaking.
 
I have a PC based HTPC already....that downloads an EPG from the good old RT using Birtles XMLTV app
 
Yeah, I didn't like it very much, too lazy to sit and figure it out!
 
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