Gekko Test and Review

id wait to buy this box if the blind scan is slow and gets stuck or hangs then moves on that means by the time the boxs finishes the scan its over most of what id find might be finished...since im NOT! into C Band and I like lots of live feeds on ku sats i have fixed dishes and if this box wont let me use 1.1 and 1.0 like i use now then 1.2 disec set wont cut it? i use an open box s9 i run 17 fixed sats on 3 dishes i dont think using the 1.2 on the geiko would work?

on my set up for open box i use one 8 disec swich 1.1 then on 3 of the ports i use 3 more single disecs disecs that have four setting on them using disec 1.0 the open box lets me do this.... this way i have 17 lnb's all together on my open box.

and no power off switch thats not good.. sure you can plug it to a cord that you shut off i guess.

my guess in time this box will come along i blind scan a lot i time on how long it takes on the sats that have a lot of live feeds and if you go over say 4 minutes in a blind scan you can miss most of what you scanned in...

i also care about accuracy and do test out many of these firmware for the open box and time them against each other i also DONT THINK! comparing a blind scan using 97 w as anything for speed since its not the type of sat that finds feeds like sat trucks sports games live shots breaking news. remote locations police chases helicpoter shots in the morning like on 99w ku and 103w ku many mornings


i always see on many folks comparing blind scanning to 97w why? its the same what 260 channels somthing in the clear same ole with a once in the while feed with a 6111 symbol rate or a new station launching thats not what one should compare blind scan speed and accuracy to.... for theses lines of fta boxs!




want accuracy speed try 72 w ku in the mornings see if you get in a blind scan all the ones like the 11704v 11711v 11717v etc like if there are 4 or five active does it pick it up in the blind scan rather than some get missed but if you check you tp there active...

also on 72w every morning till 10 am the three spanish telumundo and live feed of washington 12024 v 3197 12028v 3197 12033v 3197 these three are tough to blind scan in if your not pegged and only play to around 10am only mon- fri so not on sat or sunday i average around 3.24 mnutes on this 72w i know there are a few more tp on this sat i didnt write like the h's the religous which i find and the hd feeds also in the 11717 and above range in hd using a symbol rate of 4600 etc. h 264


Here is another good sat to compare blind scan speed and accuracy in ku band 91w ku which is also a sat one should compare blind scan speed and accuracy also live feeds and in most cases takes over 4 minutes to blind scan to five minutes.

and with most boxs say like the pansats of old 2500 2700 3500 etc forgot it over 10 minutes 15 minutes on 91w ku.


blind scan 91 w ku with this gekko or any of these new geko type brands any of them beat 8 minutes lol. of course most of you folks are c banders probaly not pegged on ku sats like me. blind scan mornings8am to 10 am est or 4pm to 10pm est for max tp on most of these sats like 91w or99w or 72w ku.



99w would be another great sat to compare blind scan speeds in ku this sat also has a shit load of feeds more than any one in the ku line most days try hitting a blind scan on 99 ku say from 5 pm est to around 9 pm see how many show up lots! i also average around 3. 2 to 3.5 minutes in a blind scan .

i guess im a rare breed after reading here and most of these places around fta sites you folks are all mainly mostly c band. so since i aim at pretty much every ku sat in the sky and tweek the shit out of them cause i dont like miss somthing i can just get enough quailty to just be above pixlation and picture is what i strive for and blind scanning is VERY IMPORTANT speed accuracy and not judging 97w anymore as a sat to compare blind scans in ku just cause it has so many channels there channels mainly beefed up high quaity nothing new if you blind scan it again in five minutes

On
87w ku does it find the 12009 h i guess telemundo any of the line do they blind scan it? across the board anconda etc...?

my open box does not blind scan it in using any thing i can put on it so i thouhgt except the modded bin from dr zinn for the modded s10 bin this one and only one does blind scan it in! using my open box s9.... but this bin is work in progress but not a regular download bin like we are use to..


since i dont do c band i guess there isnt a lot of live feeds that pop up in blind scans fast like the stuff on ku i dont know and maybe more than 6 minute or 8 or 10 is not important to c banders again not my world..

but most sats again i aim at in a blind scan will finish between 3and 4 minutes except somtimes 91w ku and for the record 97w takes just under 3 minutes to around 3.25 and yes every tp so i guess i just have my open box s9 with its cheap stuff inside from the orient just like every one elses box brand name from the orient but mine works! trick here is every ones box needs to be tweeked even with this brand the s9 has been around a while now its not pefect but does a very good job for what i need.... blind scans in one step not 2 anybody who ever had the pansat line knows how long a 2 step blind scan takes..

here send me one of theses geicos lol i wil test the shit out of it on all my ku sats 72w 83w 85w 87w 89w 91w 93w 95w 97w 99w 101w 103w 105w also 61.5 77 110 119 circular for the hidden pids.. except 77w i cant do turbo with the open box. then i will mail the box back to you folks


o yea dont send me one until they tackle the 1.2 stuff so this box has good hdmi good picture you can edit stuff inside like pids ok plus but if you cant work well with editing sats adding sats or in my case 17 fixed sats (unless i just dont know 1.2disec settings) might not even work...


thank you for the review of this box pixl this box needs work at least for me to ever buy it or set me straight with many points here in this long winded post a bout geko and this new line like the 1.2 stuff i dont understand for my set up like many of these boxs folks deisres might get tackled like improving blind scan and things down the road i waited for the open box for around a year till it was better to buy again for my wants. and im sure there has to be folks close to my wants in blind scanning and settings. etc who do both c band and ku band.
 
Whoa.... First, where did anybody ever say that the Optibox didn't support diseqc 1.0 and 1.1? In fact, I seem to remember someone saying that it did. 1.2 has NOTHING to do with 1.0 and 1.1, it's a STUPID numbering scheme. 1.2 has to do with hard-coding positions in a motor (versus the easier USALS, which computes positions on demand), nothing to do with switches at all.

Second, you and I are actually in the same boat, except you have fixed dishes and I have one motorized dish. I have Ku-band only, and I like news feeds. The reason I suggested testing on 97w Ku was nothing to do with sensitivity, it was all about timing. You can only make a valid comparison of speed if all the test subjects are scanning an identical batch of signals, which is a little hard to do in a forum post! I suppose you could do a comparision on a bird which has a lot of recurring feeds, like 72w or 99w, if you wanted to do speed AND sensitivity. But unless you arranged for everyone to scan at the same time, it still wouldn't be 100% valid.

I do share your frustration at not seeing other people do the sort of tests that you'd like to see done before spending your money, though. You may have seen me, here or on the other boards, asking people to test certain network functions, certain file formats, or other technical things, and for the most part it just hasn't happened. I don't know if I'm the only person who knows anything about Linux, or cares about using their box for anything other than watching live TV, or what.
 
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Be patient with us Jim and I think most of your questions will be answered. Or feel free to start a thread explaining in detail what you would like checked or tested. More people are getting these receivers but user information or feedback is still slow. These receivers have a lot of features and it takes us a while to understand everything. You do not need a degree in fta to operate the Optibox but it is a big step up from the Ali receivers in features.

Pixl did an excellent review on the Gekko, but some of it was lost when we changed servers. The Gekko is the economy model of Optibox and I wanted to see if it had any switch issues. Pixl has what I consider to be a very nice and elaborate dish system with 2 positioners and numerous switches installed in it. The Gekko was able to handle the transfer of signals and antenna movement from this complex dish system without any issues.

The Optibox Gekko has no known 1.0 or 1.1 diseqc switch issues.

The limit of diseqc 1.2 positions is set a 58. The diseqc 1.2 positions cannot be changed in the receiver but they may be changed using a channel editor program. The receiver automatically assigns diseqc 1.2 positions up to 58 which is more than most of us need.

The satellite information may be changed or edited, but you cannot add or delete an entire satellite.
 
Just thought I'd tune in here since the blind scan on the Gekko is identical to the Anaconda which I have had now for almost a month. Initially I had some blind scan issues with the box freezing on certain tp and not being able to complete a blind scan. I'm not quite sure why this doesn't effect my Anaconda any more. I have tested about 30 receivers over the years and of the 6 hd which I have at the moment, the tuner sensitivity on the Anaconda kicks the butt out of the rest- just have a look at my sig to know which ones.
Blind scan is another thing entirely. The Anaconda will scan in all tp with the exception of a couple of really low sr tp which scan in immediately on a manual scan. Its blind scan speed needs to be addressed but goes much quicker when you narrow down your search lets say to 11700-12200 for example. It is a bit pricier then the ali chip boxes but well worth it. The azbox is more expensive and will open 4:2:2 feeds but its blind scan is even slower then that of the Anaconda.
All in all, if the Team Amiko peeps can address blind scan speed and the opening of 4:2:2 feeds in future boxes or with the line up they have now, then they will overtake the North American fta world with such a complete receiver. Multi media center to boot as well.
 
One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post. When blind scanning if the sat is a reletively quiet sat with few tp, blind scans take longer. On a sat like at 55w, 58w, 97w and 99w with many tp, blind scan is lightning fast. A scan of Galaxy 19 will take approximately 5 minutes and last time I scanned it about 275 channels scanned in.
 
My Openbox S9 scans in Telemundo on 87 Ku sometimes, depending on what firmware version I'm using. The newer ones seem to do it pretty reliably, as long as the signal strength is high. I seem to remember other people here saying that the Anaconda/Gekko miss symbol rates that low, but the Raptor doesn't, but I don't remember if anybody specifically tried that channel.

CBS Newspath used to scan in, but I can't test it right now because I don't get it at all -- I need to tweak my dish after the windstorms we had last month, but I haven't had time. I'm going to try it today actually, but I don't have all day, I have other things that need to be done around the property this spring that I haven't got to yet.

The Openbox does take a long time to scan some satellites, but I don't think it's taking a long time on dead air -- if I point it at a space there's no satellite, it usually flies through it -- I think it takes a long time on satellites with interference from neighbors. 83w takes a long time usually, but the DBS satellite at 82 is easily within the beamwidth of a 36" dish, and I'm using an LNBF with high gain, so there's probably some bleed-through there.
 
Telemundo on Ses2 scanned in flawlessly this morning on my Anaconda. I do agree with you the my openboxes fly through quiet sats as well- especially Galaxy 28, scans in less then a minute.
 
I just tried for this on the Gekko, blind scan brought in 165 channels, only 3 itc, no Telemundo. Inputed it manualy 12009 H 2170 nothing there using my 1.2m Ku dish. I've seen this in the past on my Openbox when Harold was on it. Don't know why it's not there today. I'll try my Manhattan later when I put my system back together.
 
87W Ku? Should've been more than 3 open channels even without Telemundo. Let's see, Patient Channel, the other education channel that I never see anything other than the slate on, the Bloomberg feed, the whole Arabic mux, and the Florida channel, off the top of my head (system is still torn down from dish tweaking, I'm just taking a break.) Out of those, the only especially narrow one is Florida, I think.
 
The Gekko does share files over the network. It has both a uPnP (DLNA) server, which I haven't tested, and an SMB (Windows folder sharing) server. And I'm assuming FTP also, since a port scan shows the FTP port open, but I haven't tested that. The puzzling thing is that someone in another thread said that their Anaconda (I think it was) only shared via FTP, and all these receivers seem to have the same firmware -- even down to having files for supporting things the Gekko doesn't have, like a front-panel display and extra USB ports. The manual is wrong though -- you can't get to the files via a web browser (unless you tell it to use FTP, as they found in the other thread), you have to enter the address of the box in a file explorer address bar or the Windows run command box.

The thing which interests me is that it DOES allow you to play a file which is still recording. This means that you could have near-live TV on another device from a remote Gekko! There's no reason you couldn't play 4:2:2 this way, I don't think, as long as your client supports 4:2:2. The problem is, I haven't found such a client yet. So far, the only player I've found that plays the Gekko's .ts files is KMPlayer, and it doesn't support 4:2:2 -- at least with the codecs I have installed so far. (Does KMPlayer support other codecs, or is it self-contained like VLC? I have no idea right now.) VLC won't play the .ts files, which is disappointing because VLC normally plays everything, including 4:2:2. It plays my Openbox .ts files just fine, so I don't know what the Optibox is doing to the files that makes them non-compatible. I'm going to try my media player box, which I know plays 4:2:2, soon, then I think I'm going to move on to testing E2, at least til we get this bug with the blind scan not scanning without a reboot, or hanging, figured out.
 
Unfortunately, I have to report a triple fail on playing from the Gekko with my media player STB.

First, it won't recognize the Gekko's SMB share. I think this is because my media player insists on making you select a workgroup first before you can select a server, and the Gekko doesn't have any way to set a workgroup name (and apparently doesn't come with one set.) Maybe it would work with a more flexible media player, who knows.

Second, it does recognize the Gekko's uPnP share, but the problem is, unlike the SMB share, the Gekko doesn't appear to want to share a file that's open for recording.

Third, and this is the real killer, although I was expecting it, it doesn't recognize the Gekko's file format. You'd think if they were calling it a .ts file, it would be a .ts file, but obviously not.

OK, enough of that, I have work to do (I wish these boxes had come out in the winter, when I had nothing to do!), the next time I play, it's going to be with E2. But I have another observation, and a question.

The Gekko doesn't seem to want to recognize my USB HD at boot time. I have to unplug it and reconnect it, and then it recognizes it automatically. I have a gut feeling that this could be because it's connected to a hub instead of directly, but I haven't tested that. (And furthermore, they PROVIDE the hub, so they ought to support it.)

The question I have is, has anyone figured out how to mount a network share TO the Gekko, so you can play files from it? I'd like to test the media player capabilities with certain formats I have, but I don't want to have to copy a bunch of big files to the Gekko's drive first. (I never store files on my media player, I always serve them from my PC.) The storage manager menu does have a Network Drive option, but it says Not Available and nothing I've entered into the configuration box will change that. I've even logged into the box by telnet and tried "mount -t smbfs //server/share /STORAGE/NET" and it doesn't work -- it says "no such device". (But it doesn't complain about smbfs, so it must support that.)
 
Third, and this is the real killer, although I was expecting it, it doesn't recognize the Gekko's file format. You'd think if they were calling it a .ts file, it would be a .ts file, but obviously not.

I noticed when I was testing the Gekko, the ff and fr "trick play" was very smooth and easy to get around in the file. Reminds me of the TiVo which also operates on Linux. The TiVo was out for quite some time before someone cracked the files it recorded. If I remember right it was a mpeg recording with extra coding tucked into it for handling the ff and fr playback and is why no one could get the files to play outside of the TiVo.
 
I got the mounting of a network drive in the storage manager menu to work. I had been over-thinking it -- the server has to be specified as an IP address rather than a name; also, you don't need the two slashes in front of the server name -- in fact, I don't think it even works if you use them. So if I want to mount my video storage drive, for example, I'd specify the folder name as 192.168.0.2/video (the problem with using addresses rather than names is that if you use DHCP, your server may not have the same address all the time if it's not on constantly, so either give your server a static address or deal with looking up its address when you want to connect to it.)

From the brief amount of time I've had to test it, the supported file formats seem to be as advertised. Unsupported file formats won't even show up in the file list, which is nicer than the way my standalone media player box does it.

One nice little feature that I've never seen elsewhere is that when you're viewing a picture, it gives you the option of setting it as the background image for satellite radio channels.

One thing that I don't like is that although it shows .ts files in the filelist, it won't play .ts files recorded on my Openbox, even though they're the REAL .ts format and the Optibox format is something else. It does offer to "repair" them, but I haven't tested that yet because I don't want my files altered. I'll have to duplicate one and then try it.
 
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Upload a small video clip made on the Openbox that the Optibox will not play. Do this so the video clip may be sent to Fortis. EB
 
I'll try to get a sample file sometime when I have time to hook the Openbox back up. I tried to upload the smallest one I could find on the drive, but it was 86MB even after zipping and the forum complained that it was larger than 60MB (after I uploaded all 86MB at 300kb/s...)
 
I found a very useful plugin on a European board. I think it's for all the Optibox receivers in the Raptor / Anaconda / Gekko family. What it does is scan all the storage devices attached to your system -- hard drives, USB drives, and even supposedly network shares -- for .ts files, and modifies all the files that it finds so that they play on a computer with any program that plays .ts files, not just the one or two that play the Optibox format. The modified files will also still play on the Optibox. If I understand the machine-translated post that accompanied the file correctly, it will also modify .ts files from other systems to play on the Optibox, although I haven't tested that part yet.

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Finally scanned 87W Ku. Contrary to others' experience, Telemundo with the low symbol rate did scan in. 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?

On the down side, I can find nothing good to say about the extended signal meter. It looked like the one on my Coolsat -- nice big bars that you can see from a long distance, and a beep tone that increases in speed with increased quality. But it didn't behave like it. The Coolsat's extended meter was super sensitive and super responsive. This one, quite a contrast. I can move the dish quite a range before the meter responds, so I can never find the peak. It's as if it tops out too early, even though it tops out far below 100%! (Just like the meter on the Openbox. On the Coolsat, the slightest pressure on the dish would move the meter.) And if I move the dish too fast, the meter overshoots, either going to 100% or 0% before bouncing back and settling -- obviously something wrong with the locking algorithm. This is all when moving the dish manually. Moving it with the DiSEqC 1.2 controls, it does exactly the same as the Openbox -- it cuts out while moving. (This is with a universal LNB, which is supposedly the problem with the Openbox -- something funky with the 22k signal. I haven't tried it with a standard.)
 
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