New Vu+ Duo owner - first impressions.

[Analoguesat]

Ive just treated myself to a new Vu+ Duo. My old Dreambox 7020 is getting a bit past its best and with more and more channels launching in DVB-S2 Im having problems getting screen caps for the new channels section. I decided on the Vu+Duo as its had good reviews from many folks.

Having never seen or used a Vu+ before I thought you might be interested in my first impressions.

First of all thanks to forum advertiser World Of Sat for a fast delivery. It was ordered late Sunday evening via the website and arrived at my workplace the other end of the country Tuesday afternoon.

I was busy at work so resisted the temptation to open the box and have a peek - that had to wait until I got home!

Out of the carton its a big receiver - a proper sized box not one of the dinky little receivers you see so many of these days. On the front of the carton it says Vu+ donates a portion of their profits to child welfare institutions which impressed me.

In the box ther is the receiver / basic setup instruction booklet / remote control / separate 2 pin mains cable with "figure8" electrical connector / clip in 3 pin adaptor / small bag of screws presumably for the hard drive fitting / hdmi cable / 2 batteries for the remote.

Im not a huge fan of the 2pin - 3 pin adaptors so the electrical cable will eventually either be replaced by a proper uk cable from the spares box or I'll chop the 2 pin plug off and fit a uk plug.

And thats as far as Ive got tonight, its been a long day at work, so more later in the week. The setup is going to be interesting as I'll be doing some somewhat unorthodox av connections to it to make it do what I want it to do - for starters there is no HDTV tv in our house so the hdmi cable will be going straight into the spares box!

 

[Ghostleader]

Its alright mate I'm still getting rubbed for not having a Linux based receiver, I'm quite tempted by the single tuner Xtrend, but I've kind of promised myself that the next receiver would be a twin tuner.

 

[Huevos]

When I got mine I bought a 500Gb internal hard drive, but it is nowhere near enough. Or you can just record direct to the NAS.

 

[Chris76]

When I got mine I bought a 500Gb internal hard drive, but it is nowhere near enough. Or you can just record direct to the NAS.

Where do you get the time to watch some much tele?


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- Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

 

[Huevos]

Where do you get the time to watch some much tele?

I don't, that's the problem, that's why it's all cluttering up my hard drive. It's mainly the wife recording films for the kids. If I had a NAS I would archive them.

But my point is this: I've got a Phillip HDD recorder with a 320Gb hard drive and in 4 years I haven't fill it. That's because it uses lossy compression. E2 recordings on the other hand aren't compressed so the files are huge. Typical sizes are 1.5Gb/hr for SD, and 4.5Gb/hr for HD. So, for example if you are a Formula One fan and you record the qualifying and racing in HD for one season (19 events) that's your 500 Gb hard drive almost full, especially with that fast moving content that consumes even more storage than is typical.

 

[Analoguesat]

When I got mine I bought a 500Gb internal hard drive, but it is nowhere near enough. Or you can just record direct to the NAS.

Ive got a spare 500GB drive lying around for it but thats a very low priority job - I dont record much.

 

[Huevos]

Ive got a spare 500GB drive lying around for it but thats a very low priority job - I dont record much.

I'd put it in. It's not just for recording, it holds the EPG database too. I used to have my picons on there as well but that used to slow zapping a bit so now they are on a USB stick so the hard disc can remain dormant while changing channels.

Also, for my box I bought a s/h Nova-T USB stick from eBay for a fiver for viewing and recording DTT.

 

[Analoguesat]

DTT is irrelevant here - no TV aerial - I removed it after ITV Border DSO as I couldnt get a strong enough signal. Our home is satellite only

Epg is pretty irrelevant as well - Im far more interested in new channels and seeing what I can get out of the receiver than actually watching anything a well it very rare I actually sit down and watch anything - except the F1.

 

[Analoguesat]

My TV card has decided to play silly buggers so looks like there will be no initial installation this evening....

Black screens on all channels - yet it was working fine when I switched the computer off last night......

 

[World-of-Satellite]

Thank you for the order Analoguesat, if you need any help with the setup, please do not hesitate to give us a shout. Even experienced users of Enigma 1 can sometimes get stuck.

 

[World-of-Satellite]

Its alright mate I'm still getting rubbed for not having a Linux based receiver, I'm quite tempted by the single tuner Xtrend, but I've kind of promised myself that the next receiver would be a twin tuner.

The Xtrend Et5000 is a superb receiver, performs as well as any of the bigger twin tuners. Quite a nice looking small compact receiver.

 

[Analoguesat]

Thank you W-o-S. I shall be in touch if I get stuck

First off all - is there a decent manual available for download? - the one in the box leaves a bit to be desired beyons basic setup.....

However Ive finally got the box powered up and started to play. Plug it in, connect it to the av outputs and the lnb cable and switch on

A simple configuration screen appears where you put basic diseqc info in and I hit autoscan. Here is a screenie of the first scan - 28E. First observation - the initial scan is slow - its been going over 10 minutes and has barely done 20% of 28E. No idea if this is a network scan or what atm, but I suspect I'll be setting it to just scan known transponders - I scan almost daily and I dont want scans to be taking an hour per satellite!

At the moment I just want to play with it so Im sticking with 13E, 19E & 28E , which happens to be available on the 4 port switch this cable is connected to. Once Im a bit more familiar I shall connect it to the Dreambox cable which has 9/10E, 23E, & 5E available as well.

 

[Analoguesat]

Before anyone asks - its connected to an av modulator and is being sent to my old tv card in the computer and tv via rf. A terrible thing to do to an HD receiver but never mind

Update - the 28E scan took about 20 minutes, the 19E scan has just kicked off.

BTW yes I know the date is wrong on the screencap - I didnt see an option to configure that before I set the scans off - I shall go and find that when its finished scanning

Update #2 --- Total initial scan time for 28E / 19E / 13E - about 40 minutes, total number of services found (fta & encrypted - just over 4200 including all the tv radio & data services that scan in)

 

[fergyc]

The 28e scan always takes ages. The others are realtively quick.

 

[Analoguesat]

Half an hour and I crashed it

Big time.... its now varying between a green screen & a loading screen. Oh dear.

Back to the 7020

 

[rolfw]

Well done Ross, knew we could count on you.

 

[sonic1]

I genuinely have never heard of anyone crashing a box by scanning.

 

[Huevos]

I didnt see an option to configure that before I set the scans off - I shall go and find that when its finished scanning

I don't recall ever setting it. I think it's OTT. No manual that I know of, which is a shame because there are so many hidden functions in the image that you find by accident.

 

[Analoguesat]

Somehow I managed to set off a recording. God knows where it was trying to record to as there is no hdd in it. Managed to get to another screen, and tried to stop / deleted the ongoing recording. This locked the box SOLID. This was the final screen I saw as it locked. At this point the box was totally unresponsive to any rcu button presses long or short.

 

[Analoguesat]

I had to turn it off at the back to get summat back, and looks like its corrupted the firmware as Im getting these screens alternating every few seconds. Its unresponsive to rcu button presses again.