Ultraplus900HD

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ADKM

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Ultimate Geek

# 83838 21-May-2011 20:41

I'd like to contact any other users of the 900HD and see if this is a pattern, or if other units are OK.

I'm on my second one and both have experienced the same problem - small but frequent audio dropouts. The supplier had no problem swapping the first one, but may be less happy a second time.

So I set up a reasonably solid test. First, 2 dishes/LNBs and cables were compared. No change.

Then I looped the dish feed through the Ultraplus and into an Atom receiver. Both were connected to separate DVD-R's, and recorded the opening of American Idol last night on Optus D1, via their A/V outputs

The dropouts from the 900HD are extremely noticeable, and can be clearly seen on the wave shape after being recorded to the computer.

I have mp3's of the audio from both units for the opening minute. Also a .jpg screenshot of the 'gaps' in Abode audition. Unfortunately I can't post any links here. But if there any way to show these please let me know.

What would the groups advice be? I would really like to have this model in proper working order. And yes, the dropouts are equally on all channels.

Regards, Kirk

Cheers - Kirk

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727 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 472320 22-May-2011 13:46

Hi Kirk.

I hope you get some useful replies to this, and that your issues get resolved soon.
I'm posting mostly so that you are aware that your thread is being read and considered, but that nobody knows what to do to help - at least, that's what I think is going on.

I do have a strong opinion on your best course of action, but to post it now may be construed as inflammatory and may send your thread spiralling off-topic. If you don't get anything more useful in the next couple of days, I'll say my piece then.

Good luck.

ADKM

767 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 472357 22-May-2011 14:33

Thank you for the response. The last thing I want to do is cause controversy. Are these 900HDs perhaps
quite new and so far no one else here has one?

There isn't seem to be a manufacturer listed and no web address in the Users manual. I'd like my test results analysed properly and any necessay corrections made. I can't believe it's a 'design fault' surely?

I should add I have an ear for audio and my wife didn't notice anything wrong - until I pointed it out. It also appeared the second unit was OK immediately after power on... until it had been left on for a few hours.

Audio has always been the poor cousin to video in television and a high number of defects are routinely tolerated. Although these dropouts and very frequent, they are tiny - .022 of a second. A casual listen could miss them. They are most noticable on music or a continuous sound, and least on speech.

I guess the solution is return it and get something else. But I'm getting to like it !!

As I'm new and can't post a link here, if anyone is interested, contact me at britburn@gmail.com and I'll send the mp3's and jpgs by return.

Cheers - Kirk

xarqi

727 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 472367 22-May-2011 14:50

You probably should "mung" your email address so spambots don't pick it up, you know, me (AT) somewhere(DOT)tld.

freitasm

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# 472656 22-May-2011 21:57

ADKM: The last thing I want to do is cause controversy.

What xarqi means is that there are a few people around with these units. A few have posted here about problems.

It seems the local distributor posts here on Geekzone, but there's not much being done with the feedback, apart from some posts recommending users to read the manual and accusations being thrown on the lines of "if you are posting something bad about the product then you must be a competitor trying to discredit it".

Yes, that's sad.

ADKM

767 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 472669 22-May-2011 22:23

Thanks freitasm.

I have made contact with the distributor and passed on my findings.

I like the unit and far from discrediting it, I hope everything can be resolved and it work
nicely. I'm well aware there's a big learning curve e.g. why did it stop recording all by itself after 9mins
to a empty 7GB flash drive, and where have all the Aussie channels suddenly gone... no doubt something I did!

Re the manual - it's very small print and the pictures are way too dark, but a good colour pdf
file is online at Freeview Shop. The manual could have much more useful info for a novice, but that's
true of many things.

If there's a positive response I'll post the details here.

If it all turns to custard, what is a known good unit with similar features to this?

Cheers - Kirk

Jaxson

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# 472794 23-May-2011 09:25

Does it happen on all outputs, including digital output, or just the analogue RCA's?

If it happens on all audio outputs from the unit, and you've never had an issue with any other device connected to your audio receiver then I'd be suggesting that's a problem with the satellite receiver device. The fact you've had 2 boxes suggests it's a software/hardware issue and not a one off problem where just one box is broken.

If it doesn't work for you then there are several other alternatives for a DVB-S2 capable receiver out there. There seems to be a lot of devices on the market these days with faults of one type or another, but that doesn't mean any of us should live with them, especially given the price of many.

grant_k

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# 472902 23-May-2011 12:06

Jaxson: ...
There does not appear to be many well known/well supported/standout alternatives in the single tuner, DVB-S2 capable, plug in your own hard drive type receiver box.

If you move up to the dual tuner, has it's own internal hard drive receivers then the Vu+ Duo has pretty good reviews and some pretty cool functionality. Though I hear it's considered difficult to configure possibly? I haven't used it myself.

ADKM: If it all turns to custard, what is a known good unit with similar features to this?

Another vote for the Vu+ Duo, although it's a Dual-Tuner unit vs. Single Tuner as Jaxson pointed out.

I have had a Vu+ Duo for just over a week now, and everything has been working perfectly since I got an issue with formatting the hard drive resolved. This is the only configuration issue I have had.

TBH, you really should be looking at a dual-tuner unit if you do any significant amount of recording at all. Before the Vu+ Duo, we had MySky, but every time I wanted to record something, I found that it conflicted with all the recordings my wife had set up, which did not make for a happy situation...

Vu+ Duo can record up to 5 or 6 programmes at once, depending which transponder they are on. Being a Sky subscriber, I have found it best to avoid recording from the FreeView channels if at all possible, as most of the Sky programmes seem to use the same tuner.

After recording around 20 programmes which were mostly one hour in duration, but with a couple of 2 hour movies thrown in, we have only used 2% of the available 2TB hard disk space. This is so much better than MySky that it's not even funny, as we were constantly running out of space for new recordings.

Thanks to the Vu+ Duo, we are able to enjoy HD goodness at last, being way out of range of the DTT signals, which will soon reach Whangarei (still over 70km away).

xarqi

727 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 472936 23-May-2011 13:14

I think I can safely concur with the suggestions that you consider the Vu+ Duo. That is what I (eventually) got, and while I can't say it is faultless, glitches that significantly affect normal operation are rare, maybe once a month during heavy use. The most annoying is a rare failure to grab the signal from the correct transponder when a scheduled recording is started. It's happened maybe 6 times in the 9 months or so I've used the unit.

I had no difficulties with configuration - I read the manual, plugged in the power, two coaxial cables, an HDMI to my TV, and an ethernet cable to my LAN, and that was it as far as installation was concerned. I tweaked one tuner setting to make the two tuners independent, rather than looped from a single cable, and added a network mount point for an external drive attached to my iMac to receive any recordings I made.

I did it that way because I was on a tight budget and got a discless Vu+ Duo; soon though I saw the merits of an internal drive and installed one. Installation was simple, and formatting gave me no particular worries. There was one point where the prompt could have been more explicit, but it was still fairly clear what to do.

While it is a fairly powerful and complex device, the menus and remote buttons are well laid out. Operation soon becomes second nature.

grant_k

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# 472942 23-May-2011 13:20

xarqi: ...
I tweaked one tuner setting to make the two tuners independent, rather than looped from a single cable
...

Does that allow you to record more programmes at once, when used with Sky's external splitter box?

Or is "Internal Tuner Loop Through" effectively the same thing?

xarqi

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Ultimate Geek

# 472951 23-May-2011 13:38

Splitting the tuners allows services from H and V polarisation to be received simultaneously. Looping doesn't. That's important since, in my opinion, there is at least as much good programming on SBS with just two services and half of SBS TWO devoted to foreign language news, as there is on all of Freeview.

I don't know much at all about Sky and their bits and pieces, sorry. What does the splitter do? "Splitter" sounds like it would not allow H+V simultaneously. I have a dual output LNB and a 3 in, 4 out multiswitch, with two cables running to each of two locations. Every tuner can get what it wants without restricting any other.

grant_k

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# 472974 23-May-2011 14:14

xarqi: Splitting the tuners allows services from H and V polarisation to be received simultaneously. Looping doesn't.

Aha, got ya.

xarqi: I don't know much at all about Sky and their bits and pieces, sorry. What does the splitter do? "Splitter" sounds like it would not allow H+V simultaneously. I have a dual output LNB and a 3 in, 4 out multiswitch, with two cables running to each of two locations. Every tuner can get what it wants without restricting any other.

I have a dual-output LNB, but there is only one cable coming from it, so Sky installed a splitter to connect both inputs of the MySky (original silver box).

Therefore, I guess the splitter will do exactly the same thing as internal loop-through in my case, and we won't be able to watch SBS at the same time as recording a channel on Sky. Given how infrequently that will probably occur, I'm sure we can live with that limitation.

xarqi

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Ultimate Geek

# 473001 23-May-2011 14:59

Horses for courses, I guess. SBS is pretty important to me - decent movies and documentaries, and not so completely ad-plagued as to be pointless to try watch in real-time. Mind you, it's not as good as it used to be apparently. From what I hear the move to in-programme advertising on SBS coincided with the appointment of Shaun Brown, ex-TVNZ. Looks like the start of the same slide in quality there. Oh well. TANSTAAFL I guess.

If you find that SBS is only a relatively minor contributor to your viewing diet, your situation could be very different.

You could however consider adding another stretch of cable and a multiswitch. The costs should not be high, assuming no major hassles in routing the cable.

ADKM

767 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 473070 23-May-2011 16:40

Spent some time talking to the distrubutor. End result was inconclusive. He suspects the cause was the Pioneer DVR 720H the audio was connected through. That there's never been a problem with analogue audio with anything isn't valid as the 900HD is more sophisticated.

He suggested confirming the 571i output was set it PAL. It was (and didn't seem adjustable anyway) and to try Dolby Digital both on and off. Then to bypass the 720H and connect straight to TV (Panasonic 42PV30) and record only via USB. I'll use this configuration for a few days and see if anything changes. Of course the 720H was intended as the recording device.

He was adamant the unit itself is faultless and the trouble is caused by something else. His offered his continued help as needed. That's pretty good.

I should mention my comment about the Aussie channels disappearing was my fault. After daising chaining the Atom Rx to record the audio from both, I could no longer receive vertically polarised signals. And the recording stopping after 9mins was because 'instant' recording by default stops when the current programme ends.

Thanks to all for comment, very interesting reading. I'm not sure what's best to do, and choices are limited.
Perhaps plug n'pray and not listen too critically. Sound issue aside, some other features do appeal as does High Definition when I can use it.

Regards, Kirk

Cheers - Kirk

Jaxson

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# 473302 24-May-2011 09:00

Does it happen on all outputs, including digital output, or just the analogue RCA's?

If it happens on all audio outputs from the unit, and you've never had an issue with any other device connected to your audio receiver then I'd be suggesting that's a problem with the satellite receiver device. The fact you've had 2 boxes suggests it's a software/hardware issue and not a one off problem where just one box is broken.

If it doesn't work for you then there are alternatives for a DVB-S2 capable receiver out there. There seems to be a lot of devices on the market these days with faults of one type or another, but that doesn't mean any of us should live with them, especially given the price of many.

ADKM

767 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 473414 24-May-2011 13:06

I don't have any means of using the digital audio outputs. They may be OK. I'm returning the unit and not replacing it with anything for now. It's obvious if Rx A has a problem and Rx B doesn't which one is faulty! The distributor blamed my Pioneer DVD recorder which I fed the A/V through. I think that's a copout as everything else works perfectly with it including other sat receivers. If if is the cause, and I can't see how, then the 900 should have been designed better and been less suseptible to intereference.

Their offer to help, on thinking, is rather meaningless as they don't acept the unit has a problem. My conclusion is the analogue audio on the 900HD falls well short of the specification and is prone to frequent dropouts which spoils any viewing enjoyment.

Cheers - Kirk

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