Gekko Test and Review

[Jim S.]

I was moving it by hand most of the time, it still wasn't as responsive as I was expecting it to be.

[Pixl]

[QUOTE=Jim S.;32162 In fact, it scanned in as KTEL rather than "Ch-1" or something like it did on other receivers. I wonder if they changed something about the signal since the last time anyone tried? [/QUOTE]

I don't think it is a change, seems that the Gekko picks up more detail for channel labeling such as KTEL, that comes in as Ch1 on my Openbox.

[Jim S.]

KTEL is the only one like that that I found so far though.

[SatelliteGuy]

KTEL also scans in that way on my Anaconda.

[Jim S.]

Not surprising since they seem to be pretty much the same firmware.

I found something useful today: how to do a hard reboot without pulling the plug! (In case of the scan process getting screwed up, which it seems to do far too often.)

Under the "A/V Output Setting" menu (why there? I have no idea) there's an option that says "Power Saving in Standby Mode". If you turn that to On, shutting the receiver off with the power button totally resets it (so you have to endure the red/green flashing repeatedly on bootup, unfortunately), instead of just putting it into a state where it comes on instantly like normal.

[Jim S.]

Not sure if I posted this already anywhere or not... the Optibox does the opposite of the Openbox when running a motor. The Openbox, with recent firmware, would leave the "moving motor" message up a long time after the motor has stopped moving. The Optibox seems to only leave it up a limited amount of time, so that on long moves it disappears before the final location is reached. This is kind of annoying if you're expecting a picture and get 0 signal instead!

[Jim S.]

KTEL is the only one like that that I found so far though.

Two of the PBS feeds on 125W Ku scan as "PBS" instead of their service number. The rest of them just scan as numbers like on every other box though.

[SatelliteGuy]

Not sure if I posted this already anywhere or not... the Optibox does the opposite of the Openbox when running a motor. The Openbox, with recent firmware, would leave the "moving motor" message up a long time after the motor has stopped moving. The Optibox seems to only leave it up a limited amount of time, so that on long moves it disappears before the final location is reached. This is kind of annoying if you're expecting a picture and get 0 signal instead!

True, but I prefer the message going away faster. This allows changing menu options faster rather than waiting for the motor message to go away.

[el bandido]

Not sure if I posted this already anywhere or not... the Optibox does the opposite of the Openbox when running a motor. The Openbox, with recent firmware, would leave the "moving motor" message up a long time after the motor has stopped moving. The Optibox seems to only leave it up a limited amount of time, so that on long moves it disappears before the final location is reached. This is kind of annoying if you're expecting a picture and get 0 signal instead!

Is there anything at all on the Optibox that you like or does every feature have some sort of problem?

[Jim S.]

I like the picture-in-graphics menu, the multi-channel picture menu, I like that it doesn't overwrite edited channel names when I scan, the tuner sensitivity seems fine, network access is a nice feature. If it seems like I'm being overly critical sometimes, it's because I don't understand why some things made it to release time without being caught. Hopefully some of it will be fixed with future software releases. The box certainly has lots of potential.