Dreambox Purchase Advice

jasmart

jasmart

Member
My Satellite Setup
Sky HD, Dreambox 600 PVR, Intel Core 2 Quad 9500, 4GB Ram, Windows 7
My Location
UK
Morning All,

Been reading the forums for a few weeks now rather than jumping straight in. I'm well aware this will be a slow process of getting up to speed but I'm confident. I'm quite tech savvy and work as a IT Network Admin.

So, advice please. I'll be using my existing S*y dish to initially just get freesat in another room. I'm hoping to get to grips with csh@ring after that. A nice to have would be pause tv and maybe record.
1) Which box? Initially thought the 7020si, but due to cost would I be better starting off on a 500.
2) From where? Dreambox.de list three UK sites, anyone any experiences? There are obviously a lot of psuedo UK sites selling the clone dreamboxes. Should I be avoiding these like the plague.

Go easy on me and thanks in advance for any advice.
 
HI mate, welcome to Satellites. Dream's current range of boxes consists of DM100, DM600PVR, DM500HD, DM800HD & DM8000. All the others are discontinued. If you buy a cheap DM500 it will be a chinese clone. Other boxes currently in the range are also available as clones. Some people don't mind em, some hate em. Buying a clone you'll be limited to the images you can use on it and customer service and support is ALWAYS an issue.

I'd highly recommend the DM800 If you'd rather spend a little less then go for the DM600 (£179), this won't give you HD but you can install a 2.5" hard disk to give you the functions you mention. Dreamboxes never come with HDD's installed, they are extra.
 
Thanks for the welcome and reply.

If I'm limited on the support then a clone, for me, would be best avoided. The more available the better. I've left Mark a message. Do u need to purchase a card for decoding with the box aswell? Any recomendation there? I understand a normal Sly box will work without a card but you are unable to receive ITV and channel 5.
 
I would recommend the DM500HD over the DM800 as it seems more stable, is faster and has the same features (except for USB connectivity) - price £319 and runs cooler. The DM600 is great but not HD.
The DM500HD can be connected to an external eSata hard disk to turn it into a PVR (pause live TV, rewind live TV, record programs). Recorded programs or live TVcan also be watched from your PC.
Be aware you should be at least somewhat computer literate and Linux experience would not hurt.

You can receive all the free to air channels without any card. You can use your Sly card in the dreamboxes to receive Sly channels after installing the relevant software - tutorials are available on this forum. This might change in the future as encryption is tightened.
 
shumifan50 said:
I would recommend the DM500HD over the DM800 as it seems more stable, is faster and has the same features (except for USB connectivity) - price £319 and runs cooler. The DM600 is great but not HD.
The DM500HD can be connected to an external eSata hard disk to turn it into a PVR (pause live TV, rewind live TV, record programs). Recorded programs or live TVcan also be watched from your PC.
Be aware you should be at least somewhat computer literate and Linux experience would not hurt.

You can receive all the free to air channels without any card. You can use your Sly card in the dreamboxes to receive Sly channels after installing the relevant software - tutorials are available on this forum. This might change in the future as encryption is tightened.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Shumifan, I've gone for a clone 500-s with the pli Jade 3 image. Reading some of your posts you recommend the Open XML for EPG. The 500-s will struggle to deal with the amount of data involved due to limited memory. Have u come across a solution? Would I have an option to use a mapped drive from my pc as a remote drive for the linux to use to store the EPG data?
 
The 500S clone is not the best choice and you might suffer problems with loading other images, but that is your choice. The dreambox I was refering to is the DM500HD (note the HD on the back). I would never buy a clone: lack of support, possibility to brick the box if you load the wrong bootloader/image, low quality of manufacture/components and intellectual theft.

You can always map drives onto any NAS device or computer as the dreambox runs Linux. However, several people have reported problems with freezing pictures when running over a LAN. If you use a PC the problem is compounded as the PC has to be switched on to access the drive. I don't know the directory structure on the DM500S, but you should be able to mount the PC drive on the 'hdd' directory.
 
appreciated mate. The advice from you guys was taken aboard. Just to explain, I had decided on the pli jade image which so far has no compatibility issues with clones. I'd also read a lot of arguments from both sides as to 'clone or not'. Finally, it was the cost, a member on this forum was selling this clone for £42 delivered. I thought at that price I've not made too much of an investment should the dreambox route prove not for me. I do plan on going for a better box (pvr, better connectivity) should everything work out well.

I'll go with what you advise regards mapping the drive. I've a NAS attached directly to my router so that should be ok.
 
hi m8
could you let me know where you got the dm500 for £42 delivered, very interested, ,,

regds
 
sproot said:
hi m8
could you let me know where you got the dm500 for £42 delivered, very interested, ,,

regds
Click to expand...

The information is already in the previous post:

jasmart said:
a member on this forum was selling this clone for £42 delivered.
Click to expand...


It was a private sale / purchase
 
As you describe having a NAS drive connected to router will allow you to store the EPG. Not a bad start. As Shumifan says the next stage is to buy a HD box. Options are DM800HD, DM500 HD or DM8000HD. My view is that the biggest issue with the 500HD is lack of USB. But with a network connected drive this isn't an issue. The DM8000HD is the prize, but with Shumifans advice I now have a DM500 and a DM800HD network connected so effectively I can tape and watch (dual tuner in effect). However your initial setup ain't half bad for a newbie
 
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