Which terrestrial receiver

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Which terrestrial receiver

Rikkitic

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#81299 11-Apr-2011 11:38

Anyone have any opinions on the Yess DVB-T9900HD or Orton7000? I'm currently following these on Trade Me. Have also been looking at the Vesta 6200 and the Akai AD185X. I found some reviews on a couple of these but they were from 2008. Just wondering if anyone has experience with more recent versions.

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bfginger

1237 posts

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#457660 11-Apr-2011 23:09

Only the YESS unit mentions support for MHEG-5 which is required to use the EPG. If recording is important you can get a double tuner Homecast with internal HDD for another $273.

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Jaxson

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#457687 12-Apr-2011 08:22

If it were me I'd stick to a name brand (as much as possible when they're names like zinwell, jc matthew, magic TV, homecast etc - not exactly Sony, Panasonic, Samsung etc).

And I'd buy from a proper store as I've found terrestrial to be quite a difficult beast to decode and you really want good hardware to do this properly. And you want good support if it doesn't work quite how you expect it to.

my 2c only there.

ObidiahSlope

260 posts

Ultimate Geek

#457721 12-Apr-2011 10:19

An acquaintances experience.

They were early adopters of DVB-T with a Zinwell stand alone box.

The experience was not satisfactory with screen freezes, pixelation, and some times complete failure of reception. Their location in a fringe reception area and being surrounded by trees most likely explains their difficulties.

They upgraded to a new Panasonic TV with a built in Freeview tuner. Their troubles went away.

Maybe your best option is to get a TV with a built in tuner.

Obsequious hypocrite

scuwp

3762 posts

Uber Geek

#457739 12-Apr-2011 10:47

My experience with 'no name' or near 'no name' brands has also been disappointing. Reliability has been very poor IME and simply not worth the trouble.

Like ObidiahSlopes' aquaintance, I would go main stream brands without a doubt and pay the few extra $$$...its well worth it.

Why not get a TiVo?

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Rikkitic

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#458123 13-Apr-2011 09:24

Thanks for the responses. After some thought I decided to go for the Orton anyway in the first instance. It has some features I wanted and if it works, I have the satisfaction of knowing I did it on the cheap. If it doesn't, I can always onsell it and consider upgrading to something better.

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stoch

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#463499 28-Apr-2011 20:24

How is the Orton working out for you? Am faced with the same decision viz receivers on TradeMe.

illicit

553 posts

Ultimate Geek

#463585 29-Apr-2011 08:09

Why don't you guys ring a (reputable) local installer and see what they have on offer?

Chances are that they will have a preference for one (or two) over others based on experience, you'll likely find they won't sell the inferior ones because its too costly to keep returning to fix the issues.

Rikkitic

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#463626 29-Apr-2011 09:43

I did buy the Orton and it looks pretty reasonable to me at first glance but I haven't actually used it yet. I bought it as a birthday gift so haven't installed it yet. We live rural and this involves a major aerial-mounting effort. What I did do is unpack it and hook it up via the HDMI connector just to check that it functions. Menus and everything look good and it doesn't have the 'feel' of a cheapie, but I haven't actually received anything on it. I did run a scan with the aerial in the room but didn't pick anything up and didn't really expect to.

So why not go to a 'reputable' installer? First, not all are that reputable. Second, we live a long way from town. Third, it's more fun to see if I can work it out for myself and do it on the cheap. Fourth, Geekzone is such a great source of information for things like this.

If this was really all that important to me, which it's not, I would probably spend a fistful of money and have it done properly. But it's just an experiment to see if we can get high definition programming without paying Sky through the nose for it.

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bfginger

1237 posts

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#463782 29-Apr-2011 17:02

DSE is selling DVB-T receivers cheaper than the new ones on Trademe. No recording though.