Advice Needed Feed Hunting gear?

excollier

excollier

Bikes, Booze, Rock & Blues
My Satellite Setup
TD 64 and Humax Foxsat HDR with Raydon's custom firmware
My Location
County Donegal - furthest outpost of the EUSSR
Can anyone recommend a basic feed hunting set-up please? I am in the North West of Ireland, and I think I am looking at a minimum of a 1.5m dish for 12.5w, and it will do for the others. It's mainly for football feeds.
What sort of receiver do I need - I see references to 4.2.2 feeds but I have no idea what they are, and I assume that most sat receivers don't do this (TM5402HD specifically).
I have no interest in football personally, but the demand here is high (as it seems to be everywhere) and I am constantly asked about ways to watch the footy so I am checking the options.
Maybe the price will stop the questions.
 
Yep ..I think CJ is right ..the AZbox being the only commercial box available to joe public that can handle 4:2:2 and 4:2:0.
..without exporting a stream to a PC.
If memory serves...The original openbox could also do this but wasn't HD ..and a bit of a rarity these days
Sadly they are not the most high gain boxes.
..As DXers and feed hunters we still search for the Holy Grail when it comes to that high storage capacity ..high gain tuner...open platform...SD/HD - 4:2:2 box ..
Maybe one day ..????
We can only dream.

Till then cards like the TDS6925 are the best all round option.
Perhaps one day they'll put one in a box...
 
Thanks! Most of what you said there went way over my head. Looks like I have some reading to do.....and then tell them it's way beyond me!
 
excollier said:
Thanks! Most of what you said there went way over my head. Looks like I have some reading to do.....and then tell them it's way beyond me!
Click to expand...
..
Well ..in simple terms ..
If you lock a feed into your box ..and it has sound but no picture ..
ie just a blank screen with audio ..and no encryption flags are indicated Irdeto etc ...
Then chances are it's in the clear but using 4:2:2 video ..
Few boxes were ever made that can deal with this ..

Often a solution is to export the stream in real time via the network connection ..assuming it has one ...to a PC ..where suitable codecs with a player like VLC will allow the picture to be displayed ..
It works but isn't a very elegant solution..
boxes like the AZ box can do all this internally ...but are few and far between.
Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for that. So, essentially, a TM5402HD could do it via a pc with VLC in some cases?
 
excollier said:
Thanks for that. So, essentially, a TM5402HD could do it via a pc with VLC in some cases?
Click to expand...

Sorry buddy ..I'm not familliar with the TM5402 ..but if the boxes software allows steam export ...then yes ..
Perhaps a TM owner would clarify..?
 
last time i looked an AZ-box premium+HD (clone) can be got for around £150 and are well made compared to others and an original is £350ish. you could pick up a second hand quali-tv reciever for less than £100 off E*** but these are sd only. best bet would be a TBS card running crazyscan ect . a TM5402HD can stream via lan once set up with the stb daemon although again its not ideal. if your want this for installs then i guess the azbox is what you need although the F/W leaves alot to be desired
 
Thanks for all the info - I think I will discourage anyone who asks me in future.
 
If they want to know about the Prem feeds they are often encrypted, and the keys are not generally available..
 
If the TBS PC cards are way out of your range, there's a cheaper solution like Technotrend TT-1600 Budget pc card, directly opens 4:2:2 feeds via VLC player, also good for feedhunting.
 
gibertini said:
last time i looked an AZ-box premium+HD (clone) can be got for around £150 and are well made compared to others and an original is £350ish. you could pick up a second hand quali-tv reciever for less than £100 off E*** but these are sd only. best bet would be a TBS card running crazyscan ect . a TM5402HD can stream via lan once set up with the stb daemon although again its not ideal. if your want this for installs then i guess the azbox is what you need although the F/W leaves alot to be desired
Click to expand...

Can the clones view 4:2:2?

Also I think the TM-5402 streaming is one way into the box.
 
Re: AZbox. Most of them don't have a blind-scan capable tuner so are no good for feed hunting, and the one that does is pretty slow.

TBH, for feeds you are better off looking for a box that has a fast blind-scan rather than thorough. Otherwise by the time the scan has finished the feed has already gone (DX is a different matter).

Personally for feeds I like the Vu+ Ultimo/Uno or CT/Xtrend 9200/9000. Tuner is not that thorough but not bad for feed hunting, and with the Vix blind-scan plugin you can be very selective about what it finds. And 4:2:2 feeds play fine and are accessible from any computer on the same LAN via the web interface.
 
Back
Top