Hello everyone, after 2-3 days of trawling forums and getting eye ache and a headache lol I am asking for a little shove in the right direction. I am looking to ditch sky as the £65 per month is getting a bit too expensive now and the repeats are excruciating lol, so I am looking to step into sat boxes. I have a 3D tv and a home cinema set-up, I would also like to send the signal upstairs (RF) ala sky box, I would also like to keep the live pause and record functionality of the slybox if possible. So far, I have nailed the selection down to 3 boxes I "think" would suit: Blade 7000s, VU+ solo twin 2 and the amiko alien 2 HD boxes. blade I know is a single tuner, but it has media streaming which is attractive, not sure about the alien, it doesnt seem as widely supported as the other 2 and the VU+ is highly recommended by everyone from what I read, any additional help would be appreciated. also, has anyone heard of or can recommend ukcardsharecccam ? I am also looking for the unmentionables but finding a genuine and reliable one is a minefield. Thank you all.
For me, the Vu is the winner at the min, twin tuner and also the apps that can be added such 1chan and others such as the ITV players etc it seems to be getting some great support, the amiko is a good box by all accounts to, we dont recommend servers so thats a no no on here and other forums
as MICKAH said, the vu+ is the best of the 3 you named. one thing i would add, make sure you get a genuine box, clone boxes while cheaper can be very hit and miss. i would visit world-of-sat for genuine boxes and lots of worthwhile information. a fair bit of eye-ache right now is a lot better than the headaches you can get later on if you dont research properly. the solo2 is a dual tuner box so you can record one channel while watching another. for recording and live pause/rewind etc (known as timeshift) you will need to buy the box with a HDD fitted or fit one yourself ( easy to do) and i personally collect old skyboxes and rip the HDD out of them for that purpose. would you need dual tuners for upstairs too?.... if not then cut the cost by getting the vu+solo or uno. do you even need the dual tuner of the solo2 downstairs if you are going to have one or more boxes upstairs? you might be happy with the single tuners of the vu solo or uno all over the house to cut costs and record on a box that is not currently watched. you will need internet connection for all boxes so bear that in mind, if you need a wireless connection upstairs ( rather than routing cable around) i would go for homeplugs although i found the official vu+ usb wireless dongle very good. you will need an image installed on the box. official vu image is good but very limited. blackhole images are good and well supported but there are many others. the one i recommend is the openvix image, lots of functionality and the support for it is first class. you could start out with the openvix image, use the support to learn how your box works then if you like to experiment go and try other images, you can always switch back to openvix if you dont like blackhole or other images. all HDD, internet connectivity and image options can be found at checkout of the above site i mentioned. if you intend to buy from there, sign up to the affiliated forum first, you get a little discount off the purchase but you need to list all that you require and budget before taking the plunge. welcome to the adventure, have fun. please note i have no connection to the above named vendor, there are other places you can buy genuine boxes.
Thanks for the replies guys. Yes, I will only be buying a genuine box, most likely from WOS, with vix team image, not going for two boxes, just one, my plasma upstairs has freeview built in anyway so losing the sky feed is not the end of the world, maybe I will go that way later on tho. I too collect sky hd boxes lol, I have 2 spare to remove the HD's from Internet connection is no problem, I have cables in already for the PS3 and the TV, I can just nick the TV feed and that can use the wifi it has. I might however see if I can split the HDMI feed out of the sat box and take it upstairs if possible, or see if I can get 2 out feeds from my amp, the box will be getting connected straight to the amp first anyway. Think I will go for the VU+ tho, I like the media streaming of the blade, but it has its limits and its older tech compared to the newer faster VU+ boxes.
cant see the point in splitting the hdmi feed as the longer the cable the more likely of signal loss might happen,people usually use a max 2 metre hdmi cable from box to amp or tv. on the duo twin tuner one can record and using another vu solo or say max digital to view recording on another location. yes wos a good place
TBH I use a 5 metre hdmi cable now, from my amp to my TV and IMO there is no degredation in PQ, hdmi cables carry a digital signal, so the risk of signal loss is not the same as it is with other "analogue" signals. The hdmi cable if I do split it, would probably be a 5m cable as the TV upstairs is more or less on top of my amp/sat box anyway.
What fintannl referes to is that as we speak sly are rolling out an update to there encryption and its starting to knock boxs out a little at a time. So if its only cs that your interested in and on one satellite only then you may want to think twice before you spend a shed load of money.
AH, an unencrypted answer Yes, I have read stuff about new encryption and card pairing etc, card pairing has been happening for years now and is nothing new, encryption can be a problem, but it can be broken too. My main interest is one particular satellite yes, but, I am also thinking of the possibility of a motorized dish or fixed dish multi lnb's etc, this is why I am researching stuff. There has to be more FTA channels on other sats not just 28e so its just a case of research, read, lol. Thank you for the straight answer Kiaora and thanks too to fintanni for his cryptic concern
