Impressed with USB atmega256

[JT]

I just received my first couple USB atmega256's a couple days ago. I have to say, I am pretty impressed with this product. Initial appearance is that it is well made, sturdy and assembled professionally. I'm sure the enigma is a very comperable card, but I just couldn't go with them. The card looks too much like my old A2. :p

I couldn't believe how easy this card was to program. It's so self explanatory I thought I might be doing something wrong. If you want to run public numbers, with either provider, you can. Eprom .bins for both providers with valid tiers on them are provided with the programming software. If your running Charlie your going to want to add your locals, time zone, etc. yourself though. I'm not recomending you run public numbers, but I can confirm that it will run that way with no error 153. The public numbers for both providers can be found by clicking the "setup instructions" button in the programming software.

All in all I think this product holds the most promise for the future. Fab5 has really been staying on top of the software releases and working out the bugs. Even though it's the new guy on the block, with the release of v2.05 of the software I can now highly recomend the USB atmega256.

[fubr]

welcome to the cool club JT :)

Thats is a strong compliment coming from you, you are usually pretty hard to impress because you have have standards.
I think it was the perfection of rom 2' and rom 3's for so long that splolied you. :)

Glad you like the card man, so far I really do to, and that fab5 has done what he says he will do and pretty quick at it. He is still working on the help menus and stuff but he said all along it would be awhile he just through them in there to build the windows around the help buttons.

[Project2501]

I'm going to add my review to the discussion. I'm posting it here because this is where I purchased my USB atmega256 cards. I also am a fairly recent purchaser of the USB atmega256. I've had good results and bad. Here is the break down.

Bell with public numbers-

Setting this card up with Bell using public numbers and the provided bell eprom .bin is a snap. Nothing to it. Just follow the directions. So far no NFL Sunday ticket, but that doesn't matter much because locals are not spot beamed with Bell.

Dish with public numbers-

Setting up this card with Dish using public numbers isn't quite as straight forward. I had tier issues that were not resolved until I edited the .bin provided using enigmaedit software. (this seemed really weird to me) Mr. Tierworks and Dark Angel tier generaters would not remap or write my local in a way the USB atmega256 software would recognize. Other than that, USB atmega256 appears to be running well with public numbers on Dish. I'm getting some freezing, and some spontaneous ppv nags here and there with software v2.07, but I'm sure that issue will be fine tuned once fab5 gets the 3DES engine finalized. He's working on that right now. And to his credit, this is a fairly recent developement and he's pretty much got it dialed already.

Dish with private numbers-

Here's where I'm totally frustrated. I can not for the life of me generate a Dish eprom.bin that will run with private numbers for this card. I've come to the conclusion it is the card and not my ability generate a good private number eprom.bin. I have no problem using my private rom102.bin to generate tsops and rom images that work with Cemu and ST19xl, and I've generated rom and tsop images for both DT08 and SK receivers using my private rom102.bin. After doing extensive reading, this appears to be a pretty common problem. The USB atmega256 appears to be really finicky about what eprom.bin you use. All I've been able to get with private info is black screen. All the tiers are there and the menu captions on all channels are there and remapped properly, just no video.

General quirks-

I've noticed a couple other quirks with the USB atmega256. First, no matter what eprom.bin I use, it recognizes my time zone as being an hour off. The time on the TV is correct, but the USB atmega256 software tells me I'm one time zone earlier than I really am. Second, the smart card not inserted correctly error is very common. (SCNIC error) Some times you may have to pull the card and reinsert four of five times before you start acquiring signal. And finally, I've noticed that the programming software semi regularly spontaneously shuts down when you click the write eprom tab.

Well, that's it. I think this product has tremendous potential and that fab5 is doing a great job of tackeling the issues as they arise. The card still has some growing to do in my opinion however. It's definately on the right track, but this product isn't quite fine tuned yet in my opinion. It's still a work in progress.

[couch patato]

if you had to do over would you make same choice? want to go to new test mode just don't know what