Sonicview and Coolsat 8000 HD's

[mruk69]

Crowe, can you give us some info on these receivers. Esprecially the HD, which providors and if any bins are available. I have read a review on the Coolsat 8000 on a non pirate site and they didn't test on Dish and Bev but said iworked well especially the OTA HD's and PBS HD on sat.

Thanks

[DrRa]

Sonicview is supported by viewsat. But as for bins from local friends they work better than viewsats bins. Dont ask me why i cannot tell you.

The coolsat 8000 is the first HD box out. It does provide BEV HD channels. You cannot possibly watch Dish HD channels with it. The price is around 429$ which to me is a rip off.

Now down to some nitty gritty Sonicview boxes can be had for 129$ and most any current fta boxes will get bev dish etc.

Captiveworks makes a HD box open source linux that is taking pre-orders and is being shipped out the end of february. With that said here are the Specifications... Ridiculous HD box that gets both Dish and Bev.. Added you have to buy a tuner for dish which you cannot implement on the Coolsat 8000. This box is a DVD burner, PVR, HD, Web Browsing, MULTIMEDIA center, gets updates from FTP even wirelessly

Good Luck on future purchases but if your looking for HD look towards the Captiveworks 3000. For price/support and customer satisfaction I own alot of fta boxes and captiveworks are the main box in my house and friends alike.

c/p

Hardware:
- Processor: Powerful AMD 3000+ 64Bit Processor
- Memory: 512MB DDRII RAM Expandable to 8GB
- Flash Drive: 1GB Fast System Flash
- Hard Drive: Not Included
- Video: MPEG2 and MPEG4 Acceleration
- Satellite Tuner:
- Input terminal: F-type 75 Ohm
- Receiving frequency: 950~2150 MHz tuning range
- Input level: -65~-25dBm
- Support MCPC and SCPC
- Symbol rate: 2~45 Msps
- FEC Codes: 1/2,2/3,3/4,5/6,7/8 and Auto
- QPSK
- ATSC Tuner:
- Latest LG 5th generation tuner for enhanced reception.
- Supports QAM 64 and QAM 256 Cable signals.
- One TV antenna 75 ohm reception port.
- One S-Video input port.
- One stereo connection jack to sound card for analog TV.
- Video Output: VGA/HDMI or DVI/Component/S-Video
- Audio Ouput: Analog and SPDIF Dolby Digital Audio output
- USB Ports: 4 USB v2.0 ports on back panel and 2 USB v2.0 ports on front panel.
- Media Reader: All In One Media Reader. Supports most popular flash cards.
- Ethernet Port: RJ-45 10/100/1000 Mbits compatible.
- DVDRW: Read/Write DVDs and CDs.
Software :
- Open Source and available for download online
- Linux Operating System - Version 2.6 Kernel
- Powerful X Windows Environment
- Java 1.42 Graphical User Interface
- Software Upgradeable Via Internet and/or USB Storage Device
- Firefox browser with support for popular plugins including Flash.
Multimedia Software:
- DVB-S Free To Air Using Open Source Video Disk Recorder (VDR)
- ATSC Reception Using Open Source Video Disk Recorder (VDR)
- EPG (Electronic Program Guide) Support - Stored on Hard Drive
- Remotely Schedule Recordings via Web Based Interface
- Automatic Channel Scanning
- Comprehensive DVR Functionality
- Pause Live TV With Full Fast-Forward and Rewind Capability
- Timer Recording Through Program Guide
- Automatic Timer Recording For Series and Daily/Weekly Programs
- Grid And List Style Electronic Program Guides Stored on Hard Drive
- Updates Download via the Internet
- Internet TV (IP TV) Streaming Video Player (*)
- Peer To Peer TV (P2P TV) Streaming Video Player (*)
- Customizable User Interface via Themes
- Video Player For popular video formats.
- Music Player For popular audio formats including MP3 and WMA.
- DVD Player/Writer
- CD Player/Writer

* Requires Optional Keyboard

[dellsam34]

Will it be able to record HD MPEG2/4 if a hard drive is installed or can just record SD video?

[DrRa]

It records HD video at 5gig per hour.