What would YOU recommend for me?

[cnull]

As per my intro post....newbie so please take it easy it's my first post lol.

Current situation
I have a bog standard cheap Ross satellite receiver single feed (two of these in fact).
Tvs are all dumb, but receive Saorview via powered cats ears plugged into the TV.

What I'm looking for.
Reliability - I don't need any headaches. Must be ultra reliable and proven make / model.
Usability - for the kids and especially easy to use for my wife! Or I'll never hear the end of it!
Customisation - something that's main steam and used en mass. Will mean more choice customising with flashing firmware etc (I think anyhow)

Q
Saorview DVB-T Combo or not?
Would it be better to have the receiver to serve up the Saorview? Or stick with the TV?
I'm not sure if this would be a waste of money, or will it bring any advantages?
One thing is that during some bad weather the signal may become fringe and I have to mess with the cats ears or even auto retune the TV. Doesn't happen to often though.
So would the receiver be more forgiving if the signal becomes weak?

Dual sat or single receiver?
I have a quad LNB but am only running 2 single lines to 2 separate rooms.
So there's the opportunity to run a second line to the receiver *at a later date* (yep I'm lazy)

However I have no current interest to record, mostly watch what's on now or watch when something interesting is on eg footie.

Will I need 2 lines for HD picture in picture?

What do you recommend?
I don't need all the bells and whistles but more middle of the road.
I started out thinking technomate nano combo.
However now I'm looking towards spending a little more and perhaps going for the VU+ Solo SE V2.

Again reliability, usability and popularity/customisation are important.

Thanks to anyone/everyone who takes time out to guide me through this initial step!

[Stanman]

The TM 3T will give you 2 sats and also terestrial or cable on the same tuner.

Depends on your budget. Could also look at the xtrend 8k

[cnull]

Cheers Stanman.

OF the two, which would you recommend, the VU+ Solo SE V2, or the Technomate 3T?

[Sicilian]

If you need Satellite and Terrestrial you should look at the Xtrend ET8000 or ET100000.

[Joe_90]

@cnull - just to mention, in case it's important to you - none of these receivers support MHEG5, which is what is used to provide the old "Aertel" replacement on digital. If you're not a big user of Aertel (same as Ceefax/Red Button news for our UK cousins :)), then no biggie. You can always use the TV tuners for that in any case. I use a Quad Plus with two terrestrial and two satellite tuners as an integrated replacement for a separate Freesat DVR and Saorview tuner which we had been using for years. Works well, but there IS a learning curve. I get the occasional nag from her indoors about the added complexity, but it works well 98% of the time. You gain a lot of flexibility over dumb receivers, though.

[cnull]

Thanks guys!
@fat-tony yep the odd nag is what I'm trying to avoid!

Her good self just wants to point and click. She's just about gotten over the learning curve for having to change the input from Sat/hdmi to aerial for Saorview.... and now I'm about to throw all of that out the window!

MHEG5 shouldn't be an issue, thanks for pointing it out nonetheless.

How do the Xtrends fair? Are they reliable? Is there any issues with them that I should be aware of? eg some users report random freezing in some boxes (can't remember which but not Xtrend)

[Joe_90]

No problems. You definitely need two DVB-S2 tuners, plus at least one DVB-T to cover most eventualities. If you don't have two DVB-T tuners, though, you'll be stuffed if you wish to record RTE1 or UTV Ireland at the same time as RTE2/TV3/TG4. Having a tuner feed to the TVs will cover you where you want to want on one multiplex and record on the other, though.

I would suggest you get rid of the amplified set-top aerial (aka rabbit's/cat's ears), though. If you can you should really install an aerial in the attic and run a cable down to the receiver and TVs. A cheapo contract aerial will do if you are mounting it indoors.