First let me say between 2 others and I we help 12 or so people with their FTA stuff. I have not done any FTA stuff since NAGRA2 but have stayed semi current thur these friends and relatives. The three of us that help just enjoy the hobby and no money is ever received for our efforts. This group has 7 - V2 or V1 Jynxboxes plus 2 of what I will call Jynxbox v5 although they are not close to being the same as our v1 or V2s.
I have recently set up 2 of the v5s for people and spent some time at each of their houses and a lot of phone time. I do not recommend these boxes for new people and even if you are experienced you WILL NEED a power inserter (I have installed dp44 ones) and heat seems to sneak into this equation so I will strongly recommend a fan solution other than what comes in these STBs. Both these boxes came with a JB200 and current firmware (3.2.45) installed.
The boxes are smaller than the earlier models and the on off switch is the first indication of just how cheap the boxes are. I would like to point out a few other things about this box
1 The jb200 is mounted sideways and in spite of the specs showing you have or could
have a second tuner I could not envision any way to install one
2 When you turn on the switch (did I mention how cheap it feels) it takes 8 to 10 seconds
before the blue light comes on but it boots in a reasonable time after that
3 And THEN you may hear a loud funny sound – that is the fan. It tends to get more quiet
but the “hum” (if the loud noise stops) will eventually bother most users. I mounted
one upside down and that seemed to help. It also does not move much air and and for
just a few cents more…..
4 The remote appears to have a unique feature – what appears to be the channel up/down
will take you to some strange channel and “might” remove all the SATS chosen and
remove all but a VERY few channel choices. Not a big deal but a pain.
5 Like our other Jynxbox units adding a USB drive will make the EGP work much better
6 Now for some really fonky stuff – “sometimes” if you use the up/down button on the
remote a channel may not come in – it may show a strong signal and it may show 42%
but no picture comes on the screen. You can enter the channel # and most times the
channel will come in (not always) and I mean the channel you are on. This seems to
happen more on HD channels but entering the channel # from another channel is no
guarantee that it will come in although going up/down then back seems to help.
7 Heat causes many “mystery” problems and freezing is certainly the most common. I
found that setting the unit on it’s side seem to take care of many of those.
Now for some of the good stuff. If you try my solutions the unit will put a good picture on the TV and do what most people want their box to do. The box that has been running for about 2 weeks seems ok – it did need a new coaxial cable but we found that early. All in all I just don’t have a good feeling about the long term reliability of the box. The question is- $120 (plus $25 or so for a power inverter if you don’t have one) and some fixes and hope it holds up or just pick another box. If you like the challenge and want to save a few bucks – go for it.
