Christmas Wish List

[SatelliteGuy]

Which currently available FTA satellite receiver do you recommend I place onto my Christmas wish list this year?

Openbox S18
AZ Box Mini Me
X2
Optibox Spider
Any Other

I currently have an Optibox Anaconda and Openbox S9 and wanting to upgrade.

[cpr43]

It will be better to see a new box with most of the features on the optibox and the X2 that can do 4:2:2 with ATSC OTA tuner.

[eastof111]

Which currently available FTA satellite receiver do you recommend I place onto my Christmas wish list this year?

Openbox S18
AZ Box Mini Me
X2
Optibox Spider
Any Other

I currently have an Optibox Anaconda and Openbox S9 and wanting to upgrade.

Unless Fortis comes out with a knock out receiver in the near future, there's not to much out there that we haven't seen. Or, a company in China releases an X2 type receiver with a faster and better chip with more capabilities. The Openbox S18 is a clone of a receiver that's more than a year old. It doesn't do anything special that the current Fortis receivers do.

The Vu+ Duo2 is similar to the Fortis Raptor, Octagon, Icecrypt, Openbox Relook, etc., but with more capabilities for the future. It runs on Linux and has a faster chip and more memory that will be able to keep up with future demands in coding. I don't know if the Broadcom chip it utilizes is capable of 422. As it sits right now, it can run about five different images and they all seem to be getting better. So far, Xtrend has jumped on the bandwagon and is mimicking Vu+, so the trend seems to be in that direction.

There are others out there using Android and hybrid XBMC with Linux. But, they're off to a slow start. Unless someone in the U.S. releases a receiver specific to our needs, I don't really see any thing special for us. By Christmas, I think the gremlins will be removed from the Vu+ receiver and the price will drop a bit. If nothing better comes down the pike, I probably will get one of these. For now, the X2 seems to be the one for speed and the Raptor for it's diversity and reliability.

But then again, China may surprise us with a knockout.

[rrob311]

If you are on a budget the X2 and Openbox X5 receivers aren't bad. They are both in the 50-60$ range. The X2 has a little bit better tuner. They both have a very fast blind scan. I have both of them and they both have bugs. I like the multimedia functions that the X5 has. The X2 just added some multimedia functions as well. At the rate the price of the X5 has been dropping maybe it will be under 50$ by Xmas. Hopefully the firmwares for both will be a lot better by the end of the year. Just make sure you get a good warranty with whatever you buy.

[SatelliteGuy]

Thanks guys!

I like the graphics and Internet TV + of the Optibox Anaconda, but the 30 minute blind scans makes the receiver useless as a FTA receiver. The Openbox S9 has fast blind scans, but the graphics are basic and doesn't have Internet TV features.

Do newer model Optibox receivers such as the Spider have faster blind scans?
How well does the AZ Box Mini Me perform?

[el bandido]

Some of my receivers do not blind scan at all, but that does not keep me from using them for fta! All I do is blindscan with another receiver, then copy the transponders over to the receivers that do not blindscan. Doing this takes a little bit of time, but it is no big deal to me. The X2 has the best overall blindscan of any receiver that I have. You may want to pick one of them up and see for yourself. They do not cost much.

I passed on purchasing the Optibox spider because it is an Ali receiver. I have several different receivers that are Ali and they all do about the same thing, and they all have about the same bugs. So why should I buy another Ali based receiver?

AzBox now belongs to a China company. Nothing that I have seen posted about the latest AzBox receivers impresses me either. Pixl purchased one when they first came out and sold it within weeks. You may want to look closely at what has been written about the blindscan of the AzBox if you do not want a repeat of the Anaconda's blindscan.

We are seeing more receivers being released with Enigma 2 firmware as the main operating system. Enigma 2 has a lot of advantages over most fta firmwares but the blindscan has been developed very slowly. Overall, I like the E2 firmwares and find them superior in most ways to other fta firmwares. I expect to see more new receivers released with E2 as the operating system in the foreseeable future.

The Vu+ Duo2 has my attention more than any other fta receiver on the market right now. This will probably be my next new fta receiver. The main problem is the price of the Duo2 makes it unattractive or unaffordable for the average fta user. EB

[Costactc]

I will input my 2 cents by saying the X2, can't beat its blind scan time and it rarely misses any tp.