Geekzone: technology news, blogs, forums
Guest
Welcome Guest.
You haven't logged in yet. If you don't have an account you can register now.


joshhill96

1512 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified
Trusted

#208993 8-Mar-2017 10:51
Send private message

Discussion Channel for the Dish TV satBox S8100 FreeviewPlus Satellite Receiver

 

http://dishtv.co.nz/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=162 





Formerly worked at iStore NZ (Rest in Peace), Sky Network Television, Freeview, Apple, Spark New Zealand Trading Limited, DISH TV Technologies. 

 

Travel Geek: Brazil, Chile, New Caledonia, United States, Fiji, Vanuatu, Australia, Cook Islands


Create new topic
robocat
94 posts

Master Geek


  #2284687 27-Jul-2019 21:13

Review: S8100-ZA Freeview Satellite receiver

 

Mostly it works great. There are lots of odd UI choices, but mostly it seems to do what it is told to. Connected up a USB hard drive and it has been retty good at simultaneous recording of one channel and playback of an existing recording, or stream following.

 

There is only one major annoyance, which is that if you are recording then you can only watch another channel in the same group of channels. So we start watching a programme, then half way through a recording starts which is not in that channel group, so the receiver changes channel and you can't keep watching your programme.

 

Bought for $110 on special, so happy with bang for buck.




fe31nz
1228 posts

Uber Geek


  #2284694 27-Jul-2019 21:52
Send private message

robocat:

 

There is only one major annoyance, which is that if you are recording then you can only watch another channel in the same group of channels. So we start watching a programme, then half way through a recording starts which is not in that channel group, so the receiver changes channel and you can't keep watching your programme.

 

 

That sounds like it only has one DVB-S tuner.  Each frequency has multiple channels broadcast on it - you can broadcast as many channels as you like, up to the bandwidth available on that frequency in the DVB-S protocol.  So when the tuner is on one frequency, you should be able (if the software allows) to record any and all of the channels on that frequency.  Or record some and play one of them.  With only one USB (presumably USB 2) hard drive, the limit is likely the USB 2.  Recording more than one channel at once to a USB 2 drive is not a good idea as USB 2 is not fast enough.

 

But if it needs to switch frequency to do a recording, then you are out of luck with just one tuner.  There are three DVB-S frequencies used by Freeview - two are broadcast by Freeview and the other one is broadcast by Sky and has Prime, Prime+1, RNZ and a few other miscellaneous channels.  So to make sure you will always be able to play something and record everything you want at the same time, you need three DVB-S tuners.  Similarly, for Freeview HD (DVB-T) there are five frequencies, so to guarantee no conflicts you need five DVB-T tuners.


Create new topic





News and reviews »

Air New Zealand Starts AI adoption with OpenAI
Posted 24-Jul-2025 16:00


eero Pro 7 Review
Posted 23-Jul-2025 12:07


BeeStation Plus Review
Posted 21-Jul-2025 14:21


eero Unveils New Wi-Fi 7 Products in New Zealand
Posted 21-Jul-2025 00:01


WiZ Introduces HDMI Sync Box and other Light Devices
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:32


RedShield Enhances DDoS and Bot Attack Protection
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:26


Seagate Ships 30TB Drives
Posted 17-Jul-2025 11:24


Oclean AirPump A10 Water Flosser Review
Posted 13-Jul-2025 11:05


Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7: Raising the Bar for Smartphones
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Brings New Edge-To-Edge FlexWindow
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Epson Launches New AM-C550Z WorkForce Enterprise printer
Posted 9-Jul-2025 18:22


Samsung Releases Smart Monitor M9
Posted 9-Jul-2025 17:46


Nearly Half of Older Kiwis Still Write their Passwords on Paper
Posted 9-Jul-2025 08:42


D-Link 4G+ Cat6 Wi-Fi 6 DWR-933M Mobile Hotspot Review
Posted 1-Jul-2025 11:34


Oppo A5 Series Launches With New Levels of Durability
Posted 30-Jun-2025 10:15









Geekzone Live »

Try automatic live updates from Geekzone directly in your browser, without refreshing the page, with Geekzone Live now.



Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.