Octagon SF8008 Supreme

[eastof111]

Looks like WOS is going to stock them also. Next Monday's pre-order price is £120.95 or at current USD =152.84 less shipping.

[el bandido]

Subtract 20 Sterling Pounds from that price as we are not supposed to pay VAT. Anyway, it is sort of moot point because WOS will not sell to North America unless they have recently changed their policy.

[eastof111]

Seems they have changed their policy or they have not updated their cart. Minus VAT plus shipping to U.S. comes out to £129.95 or 164.22 at current USD. But, obviously the prices will go up after the pre-order expires. The same SR advertising specs are being displayed.

[el bandido]

16APSK 4/5 FEC feed is up on 103wKu. The Supreme plays these feeds without error, providing there is enough signal. The tv picture is respectable too.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[el bandido]

A little more investigating was done this evening, and now everything about the Supreme makes sense. More or less, The Sf8008 Supreme is an Edision 4K! Here is why:

First, this is what is advertised on Octagon's website for the SF8008 Supreme:
SPECIAL OWN FEATURES:
– DUAL OS: E2 Linux OS operating system & OCTAGON Define Linux OS
– DVB-S2X 4K UHD & Multistream (T2-MI Direct input)
– Symbol rates of 100 – 80,000 SR
Both symbol rates of 100 and 80,000 are fiction and can be proved as such. Let's look at something else first.

Octagon's description for the Sf8008 Supreme:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Okay. So Octagon says the Supreme has a new tuner and new demodulator.
Here are the listed SF8008 Supreme tuner specs from Octagon's website:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Octagon has the description listed backwards. The demodulator would be AVL, but it is not AVL62X1, except maybe in a technical sense.

Here is Octagon's SF8008 description from their website:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Okay...Now remember earlier the Supreme was supposed to have a new tuner and demodulator? Why then do they list the tuner( RDA5815m) as being the same for both the SF8008 and the SF8008 Supreme? My guess is they are the same, but it is sort of difficult to properly id the tuner.

But the demodulator, We can properly id it. To id the demodulator, the cover of the SF8008 Supreme has to be removed, then the card reader has to be either removed or cut out of the receiver. The demodulator chip is hidden under the card reader and cannot be seen unless the card reader is removed.

Here is the SF8008 Supreme demodulator chip:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

IMO, setting the id to AVL62X1 in the receiver was nothing more than an attempt to hide the AVL6261. So really the demodulator for the SF8008 Supreme is AVL6261C, Not 626X1.

Let's look a little more...

Here is the Edision OS MIO 4k+ demodulator chip:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

A bit harder to see, but the Edision also has AVL6261C!

Now the Avalink specs for AVL6261C:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

So the real specs for the SF8008 Supreme on symbol rate is 1,000 to 60,000. This is nowhere near 100 to 80,000 that Octagon is claiming for the SF8008 Supreme. Yes, we have modified the MIO receivers so they receive a symbol rate down to around 500. But the satellite blindscan slows way down when you do this.

Can the AVL6261C be modded to go down to 100 in symbol rate? I seriously doubt it. The Supreme is still a good receiver, but there is no reason for Octagon to outright lie like this. it will be interesting to see what others think when they buy this receiver and find the low symbol rates are fiction. (I am sure Rick's boyz will be happy!) In a nutshell, The SF8008 Supreme is an Edision 4K when it comes to satellite reception.

Links used in this post:
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[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[ArloG]

What should happen? How it should happen? The terminology. Any fixes? Whoosh!......right over my head.
What is your opinions on these things? Do they have anything to do with anything?
Without going back to school what is long and short frame and does it apply to the issues?
Questions man, questions.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Edit:

And this too

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[el bandido]

What should happen? How it should happen? The terminology. Any fixes? Whoosh!......right over my head.
What is your opinions on these things? Do they have anything to do with anything?
Without going back to school what is long and short frame and does it apply to the issues?
Questions man, questions.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Edit:

And this too

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Do they have anything to do with anything?

Really I have no good idea of what you are asking. Transponders in Europe are transponders in Europe. We cannot receive the European transponders, so why worry with their problems? DVB-S is DVB-S so the same or similar situation can apply to us, but not today!

As for long frame or short frame in DVB-S satellite, information about this is on the internet. As for the link to the Avalink conversations and files, they do not apply to the SF8008 Supreme because the Supreme system file structure is different. You cannot for example load the Avalink 62X1 firmware file in the Supreme receiver with ease as it does not reside in /lib/firmware in the Supreme's system files.

[el bandido]

Most likely, the SI 2166-D Or SI2166D demodulator chip was not used in the SF8008 Supreme because it is no longer available in an amount large enough for a production run. FTA receivers are manufactured for several different vendors at one time. There are versions of the SF8008 Supreme named uClan and I think GigaBlue. FTA receivers are manufactured in the same manner as cheap Vodkas where you do nothing but stop the assembly line and change labels. Then each vendor will put his bootloader and a few other items in the receiver to make it a bit different.

Avalink made some AVL62X1 items public where anyone can build them. There are a couple of custom built AVL6261 drivers in the TNAP feeds for the current Edision 4K receivers. One customized driver made for Europe goes "out of band" and allows reception down to around 700MHz. Normal reception is around 950-2150MHz for a satellite receiver.

Shown below is a comparison of blindscans between the Edision MIO4K and the SF8008 Supreme. The MIO4K with the modded driver finds transponders in the 600-800 symbol rate range and scans their radio channels. The SF8008 Supreme doesn't even know these transponders exist! The SF8008 Supreme will at times scan these transponders in the 600-800 symbol rate range correctly if they are entered manually. But even with manual entry, the SF8008 Supreme is not consistent with transponders in the 600-800 symbol rate range.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]<-------------------->[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Here is what the Edision modded driver looks like in the feeds:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]


I don't see it getting any better than what the modded MIO can produce for the SF8008 Supreme. These two blindscans don't tell us which is the better receiver because blindscan in general is not predictable. But what these two blindscans do tell us is the MIO can find and resolve transponders in the 600 symbol rate range, but the Edision cannot.

The blindscan slows down and to a degree the ServiceScan seems to slow down when using the modded Avalink 6261 driver in the MIO. We can expect similar if the SF8008 Supreme is modded. I plan to keep the current drivers the Supreme has now if any future drivers are released because they may make things worse instead of making them better.

Blindscan logs of the two scans shown above are attached.

[el bandido]

Over 400 scans have been done on the SF8008 Supreme. Most of these scans were satellite blindscan. At times, blindscan will hang, fail to start or fail to complete. There is no rhyme or reason for the blindscan failures: They just happen at random times. My conclusion is blindscan is more similar to the Edision MIO 4K's than the SF8008. We will just have to wait and see if it is improved.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[ArloG]

Do they have anything to do with anything?

Really I have no good idea of what you are asking. Transponders in Europe are transponders in Europe. We cannot receive the European transponders, so why worry with their problems? DVB-S is DVB-S so the same or similar situation can apply to us, but not today!

[I]People in Europe commonly peek at our most eastern satellites that have a footprint which allows them to have at least fringe reception..
The DVB-S, DVB-S2, etc. standards state nothing is different for any continent, region. They are supposedly set in stone standards.
In essence if we were able to receive European transponders nothing special would be needed to do it.
We need a frequency. We need the symbol rate. And the FEC. Modulated or not, if the transponder in space is active. You should get a received signal and lock. Yes?
Take Smithsonian on 127W. It has been active but no video. audio content for a long time. At least from what I can tell from analyzing the signal.
So. Without any ambiguity or confusion. I have not found any tech. that says the standards for us is different than theirs.

Line scan displays and audio frequencies picked out of a portion of the transmission bandwidth are obsolete. NTSC. PAL, CCIR [I]might stillbe used. Beyond me.
But I do know that the receivers used here are the same as every place. Power supplies an exception. You can take your USA Playstation 2 overseas and now that you can play games just fine. Region lock an exception. Something a VPN can fix in a jif.

As for long frame or short frame in DVB-S satellite, information about this is on the internet. As for the link to the Avalink conversations and files, they do not apply to the SF8008 Supreme because the Supreme system file structure is different. You cannot for example load the Avalink 62X1 firmware file in the Supreme receiver with ease as it does not reside in /lib/firmware in the Supreme's system files.

What is interesting to discover is the amateur satellite QO-100 has a DVB-S2 transponder and folks are posting being able to receive it with a symbol rate of 333.
Some mention 333. With the SF8008. Recently.
From the git and links I posted. git looks like the SF8008 drivers are being addressed and updated 2 months ago.
The Octagon forum. It appears as if users are identifying the symbol rate issue. And bringing up the advertised vs actual symbol rate issue.
You're right. Extracting an openpli image shows drivers for the tuner that seems to be tailored for the MPU. Searching for .ko files gives hints that -this must be it-. Opening the file shows that it is the tuner driver.


Sorry. Not familiar with long or short frame. Heck I looked at a satellites.xml file and sure enough. At the end of a line entry there is long and short.
It's been awhile but I didn't know that the .xml file formatting had been changed or updated. Then again. One day multistream popped up in it.

With all of the griping going on about the Octagon I just thought that if folks are not aware that there may be updates. Or a different 'nightly' image that at least experimentally addresses the sr issues. Figured it might open up some eyes. Sorry for that. I ain't even sure if the only image people are using is openatv or what. Tell me please.

It's just that looking at the back and forth chatter going on at least in the Octagon forum. There is interest in addressing the issue and what happened to cause it. Maybe even active fixes coming soon.