Nostradamus
08-17-2013, 06:35 PM
Thanks to a friend I got chance to look at one of these last night for the first time.
I got to watch the whole thing from the time the shipping wrapper came off until everything was up and running and it is all pretty much straight forward. My buddy did his thing while I made some notes. The first step of course is to power the box up and make sure it is not DOA. This takes a little while before it will display a picture but during the process you will first see "BOOT" on the channel display followed by the word "LOAD" a few more seconds and you should see a picture on your TV.
Everything seems fine so I am sitting back enjoying this show as he decides to beef it up and take it to the next level. In the box that came with it is a second back plate. This has 2 additional holes for RF connectors to protrude through. There is 5 screws holding the cover on and additional 4 more holding the back face plate. Remove all of these and the back face plate will pop off with the aid of a small screwdriver. Replace with the new one and use the 4 screws to secure it.
Now the tuner gets added. Insert the RF outputs through the holes and secure them with the washers and nuts provided. Next the HD module gets plugged into the socket on the tuner being careful to align the pins and not bend then and the two small ribbon cables get plugged into their corresponding slots. That is it for inside the box and the cover can now be re-installed and the unit can be hooked back up permanently.
He had previously downloaded the latest 3rd party file and had it on a flash drive so he inserted that into a USB port and powered the box back up. From the main menu he selected SW Upgrade and then navigated to the file on the flash drive and pressed OK. The unit asked for confirmation and then went into update mode. First the displays an E and a counter. I assume this is ERASE, and then a second counter is displayed followed by the word "DONE!". Reboot the box by pressing OK on the remote and the box will reboot.
You now have a lot more options available to you in the Main Menu. Select Antenna to configure your satellites and switch settings. His whole system is using legacy type LNBs so set up was easy, Select proper sat, LNB freq., 22Khz was left on auto but could have been turned off as well, transponder freq to get a lock on sat, diseqc parameter was left at None (more on this later), diseqc 1.1 was set accordingly and since no legacy switches that was left at None as well. Your settings should now be saying Locked to : in bright yellow at top of the screen. Press the GREEN button on remote to save and then configure other sats in a similar matter.
He decided to eliminate a 22Khz switch and went with a EMP Centauri 8X1 switch instead and it worked fine. Glad he got to finally use it as that switch has been around for ever and never really 100% compatible on anything he was ever messing with when I have been around anyway.
Sat setup went well until trying to configure a HD sat. No way could a lock be obtained on either one until he scrolled through the transponders looking for a SD one. Ok stranger things have happened and maybe that is the way this unit is configured so he locked those 2 sats in that way instead.
Back at the Main Menu he selected Channel Scan and it proceeded to scan in the 5 sats. This takes a little while so made time for a beer break while it scanned its way through the 5 sats. Twenty minutes later and it was obvious that it failed to scan any HD channels but on the SD side it never missed any and they all seemed to be named properly as well.
At this point it was either unhook everything and pull it apart to double check the LS500 module connections or to continue on and do that later. He opted to test the rest of it first and check the module later. So back at the Main Menu scroll over to the APPS option and select SERVER LIST. Here you can enter your private server info. Just delete the default info and plug in your own connect information. Make sure to select the correct NewCAMD or Nimq_NewCAMD for your provider. Press the GREEN button to save and then EXIT. At this point either enter more server info or EXIT all the way back out of the menu section. Put tv on working channel and wait and picture should pop in. About 15 seconds later and we have lift off.
Both up and running fine. I watched for about another 30 minutes and never seen even the slightest freeze while he played with the various options and this is my take on things at this point.
Pros -
* easy to setup
* very stable picture
* high quality on SD video & audio using HDMI
* full screen audio/video while in EPG and many menu options
Cons -
* EPG needs a lot of work as of yet
* Slow channel changes
* Slower provider changes
I am still not sure what Diseqc Parameter option does in the setup menu and he never really played with it once we had things configured, maybe I will hear more this week but all I know for certain at this point is you have options of A, B, C, D, or a number between 1 - 16
I talked with my buddy this AM and he was telling me he still hasn't seen the slightest freeze on the unit 16 hours later. He is in the process of trying to track down another HD module at present and when he gets one of those I will be there for his next round of testing to see what else this new box will do.
I understand there are 3 different models and this is the low end one. I would say this one is a keeper and if it keeps progressing to address the few minor bugs then it could be around a long time. Anybody looking for a new box should certainly take this one into consideration providing they can live with the few cons mentioned above. If those get resolved in the next few files it will be way ahead of anything else out there. At present the Pinwheel Mini is in the HD race and with the proper support could be there for a long time.
As I learn more about this Linux box I will be adding to my review of the unit. Stand by for that :)
I got to watch the whole thing from the time the shipping wrapper came off until everything was up and running and it is all pretty much straight forward. My buddy did his thing while I made some notes. The first step of course is to power the box up and make sure it is not DOA. This takes a little while before it will display a picture but during the process you will first see "BOOT" on the channel display followed by the word "LOAD" a few more seconds and you should see a picture on your TV.
Everything seems fine so I am sitting back enjoying this show as he decides to beef it up and take it to the next level. In the box that came with it is a second back plate. This has 2 additional holes for RF connectors to protrude through. There is 5 screws holding the cover on and additional 4 more holding the back face plate. Remove all of these and the back face plate will pop off with the aid of a small screwdriver. Replace with the new one and use the 4 screws to secure it.
Now the tuner gets added. Insert the RF outputs through the holes and secure them with the washers and nuts provided. Next the HD module gets plugged into the socket on the tuner being careful to align the pins and not bend then and the two small ribbon cables get plugged into their corresponding slots. That is it for inside the box and the cover can now be re-installed and the unit can be hooked back up permanently.
He had previously downloaded the latest 3rd party file and had it on a flash drive so he inserted that into a USB port and powered the box back up. From the main menu he selected SW Upgrade and then navigated to the file on the flash drive and pressed OK. The unit asked for confirmation and then went into update mode. First the displays an E and a counter. I assume this is ERASE, and then a second counter is displayed followed by the word "DONE!". Reboot the box by pressing OK on the remote and the box will reboot.
You now have a lot more options available to you in the Main Menu. Select Antenna to configure your satellites and switch settings. His whole system is using legacy type LNBs so set up was easy, Select proper sat, LNB freq., 22Khz was left on auto but could have been turned off as well, transponder freq to get a lock on sat, diseqc parameter was left at None (more on this later), diseqc 1.1 was set accordingly and since no legacy switches that was left at None as well. Your settings should now be saying Locked to : in bright yellow at top of the screen. Press the GREEN button on remote to save and then configure other sats in a similar matter.
He decided to eliminate a 22Khz switch and went with a EMP Centauri 8X1 switch instead and it worked fine. Glad he got to finally use it as that switch has been around for ever and never really 100% compatible on anything he was ever messing with when I have been around anyway.
Sat setup went well until trying to configure a HD sat. No way could a lock be obtained on either one until he scrolled through the transponders looking for a SD one. Ok stranger things have happened and maybe that is the way this unit is configured so he locked those 2 sats in that way instead.
Back at the Main Menu he selected Channel Scan and it proceeded to scan in the 5 sats. This takes a little while so made time for a beer break while it scanned its way through the 5 sats. Twenty minutes later and it was obvious that it failed to scan any HD channels but on the SD side it never missed any and they all seemed to be named properly as well.
At this point it was either unhook everything and pull it apart to double check the LS500 module connections or to continue on and do that later. He opted to test the rest of it first and check the module later. So back at the Main Menu scroll over to the APPS option and select SERVER LIST. Here you can enter your private server info. Just delete the default info and plug in your own connect information. Make sure to select the correct NewCAMD or Nimq_NewCAMD for your provider. Press the GREEN button to save and then EXIT. At this point either enter more server info or EXIT all the way back out of the menu section. Put tv on working channel and wait and picture should pop in. About 15 seconds later and we have lift off.
Both up and running fine. I watched for about another 30 minutes and never seen even the slightest freeze while he played with the various options and this is my take on things at this point.
Pros -
* easy to setup
* very stable picture
* high quality on SD video & audio using HDMI
* full screen audio/video while in EPG and many menu options
Cons -
* EPG needs a lot of work as of yet
* Slow channel changes
* Slower provider changes
I am still not sure what Diseqc Parameter option does in the setup menu and he never really played with it once we had things configured, maybe I will hear more this week but all I know for certain at this point is you have options of A, B, C, D, or a number between 1 - 16
I talked with my buddy this AM and he was telling me he still hasn't seen the slightest freeze on the unit 16 hours later. He is in the process of trying to track down another HD module at present and when he gets one of those I will be there for his next round of testing to see what else this new box will do.
I understand there are 3 different models and this is the low end one. I would say this one is a keeper and if it keeps progressing to address the few minor bugs then it could be around a long time. Anybody looking for a new box should certainly take this one into consideration providing they can live with the few cons mentioned above. If those get resolved in the next few files it will be way ahead of anything else out there. At present the Pinwheel Mini is in the HD race and with the proper support could be there for a long time.
As I learn more about this Linux box I will be adding to my review of the unit. Stand by for that :)