Fellow Members,
I want to review two really nice enigma 2 receivers that I got in the mail the other day.
They are the zgemma H3 ac and H5 ac receivers that have built in ATSC.
These boxes arrived together in very nice packaging with a remote and an HDMI cable. The boxes are metal and well vented. You can tell they are well put together by the feel and weight as well as the tight plastic wrap that covers the box to prevent scratches etc. Very well packaged and the included manual is helpful, but with E2 boxes it is more based on the user and what they know and learn. But all the specs and safety info is there. The packaging itself really makes it a nice gift box.
They came with an external power supply with an american plug 12 V dc 2 amps.. The receivers are about the size of an openbox s10, smaller than optibox anaconda, and less than half the size of the raptor....for comparisons. The boxes seem identical except that the H5 specs state that it can do h.265 and the H3 will do only h.264. Otherwise they seem identical.
They both have 2 usb ports one in the front and one in the back. The both have a card reader in the front ...both it and the usb port are hidden behind a pull down door. On the back is the HDMI, Real RCA plugs red, yellow, white, and digital audio out. Atsc in and loop out, as well as sat in (no loop out for sat). Ethernet plug in for 100 m connection. On the side of the receiver is a Micro sd card slot for recording etc. That is the first I have seen of those!
For power control there are two power buttons. The one on the front will only put the box into standby mode. There is a push power button in the back that is where many receivers have a rocker switch. It has the same purpose which is to physically turn the power off and on for the box.
The remote control is made of heavy plastic and has some weight and sturdiness to it. A lot like the Raptor remote, but about 3/4 of an inch or so shorter than the raptors. The buttons are laid out in a nice and easy fashion with the most used located in convenient places. There is no clicking on button pushes and it seems like it will take a fall or 2 or more to the floor due to its sturdiness.
I will do the H5 ac first.
Specs: H5ac
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Specification-DVB-S2+ ATSC Tuner for America
FEATURES
Multimedia plug-in supported
HDMI up to 1080p
1 x Smartcard-Reader
2 x USB2.0
100 Mbit Ethernet Interface
Advanced EPG (Electronic Program Guide
User-friendly linux Menu syste Full automatic service scan
Various OSD skins supported
Various Channel Editing Programs
Easy and fast software-upgrade via USB or Internet
7segment display LED
Low deep-standby power consumption under 1 W
Specification
2,000 DMIPS CPU PROCESSOR
BCM73625 Dual core main chipset
More than 4.01x linux kernel
Enigma2 Linux Operating System
Excellent sound quality in Dolby Digital
TwoTunerbuilt-in DVB-S2 + ATSC tuner for America
MicroSD card (TF card) for recording, 8GB, 64GB, 128GB (optional)
HDMI Connection
USB PVR Support of external HDD (HDD Optional)
1xCardreader (MultiCAS)
2x USB 2.0
Ethernet access 10/100 Mbit
256MB NAND Flash / 512MB DDR3
PACKING
1 x Zgemma H3.AC box
1 x Remote Controller
1 x Power Supply
1 x HDMI Cable
1 x User Manual
The box came loaded with openatv 6.0 and booted up very fast ( on avg 70 seconds until channel is showing). The first thing I did was set my preferences in E2, loaded in my sat list, and then scanned in my 2 atsc channels. Wow it was fast...3/4 of a second maybe. No issue scanning in ATSC of course I only have two channels...but no hiccup. Really nice picture. EPG populated and channels had their correct names. Very nice indeed to have that built in. My channels arent the strongest but again no issues. The loop through for ATSC worked great; TV was playing them fine this makes it very nice that you dont need a splitter or two separate lines for the box and the tv..loop thru is a very convenient feature.
I then set up my sats and off I went. Very fast through menus..you can definetly tell it has 2 cores. Very fast. Channels looked fantastic and switching between sats and channels was easy and fast. I looked and could see the H5 on my computer network so samba is working and that is big for me. I can watch anything that was recorded on one receiver on any of the other E2 boxes or on a computer. E2 and other boxes had a lot of trouble with samba for awhile...but not with this one. Glad to have that back and fixed.
I tried using network browser to find my other devices and E2 boxes on the network...but it just sat there. After a couple more things werent as planned I checked the image date and it was December...so I downloaded the latest March Openatv 6.0 image and updated the box. This was a very easy process. Just download the image and extract the whole folder as is to a usb stick. Then turn the receiver off using the push button in the back and put the usb stick in the rear usb port. use the push button to turn the receiver on and watch the led front display for it to say usb and then press and hold the front power button for a second or so until it says loading or something similar and then release...took less than a minute to load new file image and it auto rebooted. Very seamless.
The newer image solved most of the problems...which tells me if there are issues then they are 99% apt to be software related. The network browser worked this time and found all of my mounts...however it did not mount them all or keep all of them mounted continuously....this seems like a software issue as mentioned above. I was able to stream several different forms of files and lay them with easy media player that I like to use and downloaded in the plugin section. All the files that normally played streamed and played great. Mpeg, ts, and some others seemed fine. It did not play some older formats .vob or .flv I believe. But really streamed and played well.
I then really started to push the box some. i went after low symbol rates. The box found and played the Fox News audio programs on Ku G16 with a SR of 1000.....11857 H 1000. It also found and played the audio programs on C G16 3770 H 1220. It also played the echostar test channel on AMC KU 15 12123 H 1000. It did not however find the tp on C g16 3744 H 741. So the limit may be somewhere around 1000 or so..this may be software or hardware..I do not know which it is.
I did find an issue with the FEC of channels. I loaded my channel list from my azbox that tunes every channel fine. The zgemma would not see tp's that had certain FECs. It seemed that it does not like FEC's of 3/5 or some others. Once I used satfinder and changed fec to 1/2 the tp would be recognized. Also I found that the lower the SR the more strange the tp had to be configured to be recognized, and the longer it took to do a manual scann and get channels. Some had to be DVB S some DVB S2 1/2 or 3/4 it just seemed to vary and didnt seem to be related to the actual fec of the tp. But after adjusting all scanned in and tuned great....NOW THIS DOESNT SEEM UNIQUE TO THE ZGEMMA BOXES! I noticed this several moths ago when I got my edison os mini's. It did the same thing. I think it is an image kernel hing and not HW related. The zgemma boxes loaded nd played every tp except for the 750 sr one. I tried every combo I could and it just wouldnt recognize it.
I then put the box thru the ringer recording wise. I put a 250 gb usb 2.0 powered external hdd in the front usb slot. It was immediately recognized. I set it up for recording and off I went. I tuned in C G19 4080 V 29860 CBS 4:2:2 sid 1. Now this box WILL NOT PLAY 4:2:2 but I wanted to see if it would record it as it is a labor intensive stream. I set a 25 minute manual recording. I then changed to my HD CBS channel on the atsc tuner. I started recording it as well, and then changed to the FOX atsc sub channel and watched it. So the Zgemma was recording 4:2:2 HD , recording HD ATSC, and watch another sub channel HD station all at the same time. Pulled it off easily!!! I then used my azbox to stream the recorded files from the Zgemma to the azbox across my network to really test the lan port and see if the recordings were good. Passed with f;ying colors...the 4:2:2 recorded great and streamed and played beautifully on the azbox and the ATSC recording as well. So it seems this is a recording dream..ATSC and otherwise. Really impressed. Same HDD I cant get to record 4:2:2 from azbox mini...changed to Zgemma and it records not only it, but ATSC at the same time, and I checked the ATSC recording with playback while it was still recording CBS 4:2:2 and it played it back great and had no impact on the recording of the 4:2:2.
The box played all the audio codecs I could get. Ac3, AAC (tested on ASL on CBand C G19), MPEG ETC. No issues I could see with any audio types. Also it seems that you can finally switch from right to left to sterio and it works. Great job!
I did find that the box may be a little under powered. I have a very complicated system of switches , splitters and multiswitches. To move my ku dish using usals or diseqc commands it must go through a diseqc switch, 4 way splitter, to motor, then to multiswitch and back. Only my openbox s10 and prof 7500 with upgraded power can move the dish. No E2 Receiver I have has been able to do it. The Zgemma tried, which is a plus for it....and was able to move it inconsistently with another receiver powering the lnb. It used usals and diseqc positions and did fine. I think it should be able to move most dishes as it seems to have the most power of any e2 receiver I have. But having a 13 or 14 V power supply might help but I will leave that to the engineers at Zgemma. But it does issue the commands fine and should be great for 99% of the setups out there.
I am trying to find a 16apsk feed to test. Hopefully I will find one and it will pass that test as well.
As far as I know there is no functioning blindscan plugin on this receiver. Here in North America we need that and hopefully the developers who have done so much for these E2 receivers will come thru again for these. It will help take them across the finish line!
I am really impressed with these receivers. Very impressed. I will keep testing them and report more findings. If you want something tested please let me know. Thanks and hope to keep you informed...
Neer
edit:
1 more quick thing...the zgemma will output through the HDMI and the RCA at the same time(Had two TVs going at the same time.) which is nice if you want to pipe the picture to other places in the house. Nice!
