PLEASE HELP !! Which Digital Receiver to go 4

[tinman73]

Hello all,

I am new to the concept of "Digital Receivers" with CAMs & cards, upto now I've been using a Free to Air receiver and lately I,ve been reading on receivers that can take CAMs & viewing cards that enable you to watch extra progs.

Apart from the Humax F1 Fox , I have a 1m dish & a motor and as I understand I just need one of these receivers with a CAM and a card. I am interested in watching football and maybe some movies.

Can anyone please advise me on what receiver I should go for? I have seen Manhattan, Humax , Echostar , Kaon and some others mentioned. Any of these I should avoid.

Absolutely any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
tinman73

 

[gameboy]

Can anyone please advise me on what receiver I should go for? I have seen Manhattan, Humax , Echostar , Kaon and some others mentioned. Any of these I should avoid.

This is a difficult question to answer as everyone will have their own favourite.

I don't think any of the new receivers are 'bad' but here are a few things i would do to help decide.

1) Decide on a budget (that should thin the list down)
2) What features are essential or just wishes i.e. Record to hard disk, control a motor. more than one CAM slot etc?
3) How much work do you want to do i.e. Program cards,update cards or leave it to the box?
4) Are you confident with computers as some boxes require some complex set up?
5) Do you have a Internet connection that you could use to update the receive or would you rely on Satellite updates?
6) Read all you can on your shortlist.
7) Find the best price.

You have a large dish and motor so you're half way there.

Come back and tell everyone how you got on!

 

[tinman73]

Hi Gameboy,

Thank you for your quick response. Your comments have certainly put me on the right track.

In answer to your comments, I am quite confident with PCs (far better than I am with sat. equipment) &, I have an internet connection and I have downloaded a BIOS upgrade for my F1 Fox before and applied it with no problems.

it's just that I've found it increasingly difficult to find useful information on the Internet to get me started on this "Receivers, CAMs & Cards Quest", I didn't want to go to the shops as most of them want to sell you their preferred stuff.

I would greatly appreciate further help regarding programming cards and CAMs.

Regarding the programmable cards (I have seen adverts on them) do they work
OK and how easy (or difficult as the case maybe) are they to use & what results can be achieved.

Are there any known "better" receivers that would handle programmable cards etc?

Cheers
Tinman73

 

[hussha1984]

surely there are a small shortlist of receivers which come recommended?
ideally you would want it to come with a ci slot, and again ideally with an imbedded cam slot although this is less important.
again, im sure most would like a good effective patch to save money on buying a cam (that is the point of the patch or am i missing something).
other things such as updates by pc or even having to install a motor are things which are pretty simple to do and not all that costly (i think).
im sure i am missing something cos most ppl are of the opinion that the humax 5400 is a gr8 receiver but the 5300 seems just as good in terms of patches and encryptions it can pick up - so why the difference in price?

i have a va-fox and its very annoying have to pick up viaccess only - so i would recommend strongly to anyone to get a receiver with more versatility - even if you think u wont need it now.

 

[loftyj]

Hi tinman73
As gameboy says check your Budget then get a reciver with one or two CI slots. Modern cams like Dragon or Matrix are loaded via a card using software downloaded from hear or toecuttersden the cam is the inserted into the reciver and initialised using the recivers menu. The cam will open a number of encryptions like Viaccess, Conax etc: and providing you have entered the correct software the channels on these encriptions. If the keys are changed by the provider you can enter the new keys via the reciver or card. you will also have to get yourself a programmer like Dayamite to be able to load the card.
Just remember this is a hoby and the providers have an habit of changing there encriptions.