Please help me decide - Which Enigma2 PVR?

[Photovoltaic]

I'd been surviving without any sort of PVR for years now, just using my old Humax Foxsat-HD to watch stuff as it aired, but more recently the ability to timeshift stuff to watch later, as well as archiving entire series of things for binge watching, appeals to me more and more. I keep burning up more bandwidth than is sensible on iPlayer etc. as well, when I might as well just get the content via the Satellite, so... I'm looking at getting a DVB-S2/Freesat PVR and rather than just get a standard Humax etc. HD-PVR, the Enima2+OpenVIX boxes I see look pretty appealing, for the extra flexibility they appear to offer.

I'm pretty Linux savvy and not daunted by something that requires a bit of work to get it perfect.

I just need some advice choosing which box to get. The boxes I'm considering so far are;


Xtrend ET9500 2x DVB-S2
Mutant HD1200
Technomate TM-Nano-SE M2
Miraclebox Premium Micro


I only need DVB-S2 (No Terrestrial tuner required...I'm in a very low signal area), Single Tuner required only, since I've only a single-LNB (well I could upgrade it but I'm not sure I can be bothered to tinker with the Dish itself). I want something that will not only Output 1080i/1080p over HDMI to the TV, but also record the HD TS Streams to ..somewhere, that will be fully accessible and not locked/encrypted - though I'm only talking Free-to-Air HD and I have no interest in PayTV e.g. Sky, whatsoever.

The factors that I'm not sure about are;


Internal vs External USB Hard Drive
Buy with Hard Drive versus Add one in myself
Processing Power of CPU
Ability to record to remote NAS?


1. Is there any particular advantage to having an internal HDD versus a USB external drive? Will a USB2.0 2.5" Drive perform fast enough to record 1080i TS Streams? Do any of the boxes support USB3.0 ?

2. I have at least 1 2.5" Drive spare already; is there any reason why adding a drive in myself rather than buying a drive with the unit (where applicable) might be problematic? Will any grade 2.5" SATA disk work fine, or should it be a particular type (eg. those with the firmware designed for PVR/CCTV). Would an SSD work fine or will it run into issues with write levelling on the Enigma2 OS - does it properly handle TRIM etc. ?

3. Of the 4 units I was considering, I notice that some have a substantially faster CPU (in terms of MIPS) than others; is this likely to impact the performance of the box in real terms? Or is the 1100 MIPS CPU perfectly adequate and the 2000 MIPS one just overkill ?

4. Does this Enigma2 system have the ability to record streams to a remote NAS via either NFS or CFS/Samba ? I already have a nice ~20TB NAS which will have a wired Gigabit Ethernet path to where the Satellite Box will be, so if it's capable of doing this, maybe I don't need a Internal or External USB drive for recording? Is this viable?



Can anyone comment on my above questions or offer any purchase advice in general?

Many Thanks :)

[romdut]

Hi there, i personally would recommend a vu solo 2
Why? cos of the twin tuner to watch 1 channel while recording another - you can fit a 2.5 sata HDD into it easily enough and with the unlimited support on here

When you mention Ability to record to remote NAS - I have no idea what that is so I can't help with that one.
Anyway best to best of here for Genuinue products - there only sell genuine products

[twol]

In my view :) adding an internal disk drive to most receivers should be easy (I am only aware of Xtrend which is dead easy) and I think is a better option than external..... Once fitted its always there and requires no further actions once formated to ext3/4.
Todays 2.5/3.5 disks are of sufficient performance to handle your likely requirements ... SSD would be overkill.
NAS is supported, but I think better as a video archive/Store ... I have 3 NAS boxes for movies et al, but my 2 main receivers have their own internal drives.
Faster CPU ... Yes, I would for example go for the ET8000 rather than the 9500
I am sure you will get other opinions:)

[Photovoltaic]

Faster CPU ... Yes, I would for example go for the ET8000 rather than the 9500

It hadn't occurred to me that that 8000 was newer and/or better than the 9500..I suppose I assumed bigger number = better, for some reason...

I take it that's not the case here, then?



So anyway, if that advice so far helps me narrow my choice down to either the Xtrend ET8000 (~£170) or the Technomate TM-Nano-SE M2 (~£100), what advantages do I get with the more expensive Xtrend (given that I only really need 1 Tuner, at least, as far as I can tell, with a single LNB I can only make use of 1 anyway.)

Do I presume correctly that they both run exactly the same software so the features on both boxes should be near-enough identical?

[twol]

For your stated requirements the ET8000 is overkill,but it is a faster better receiver that is (normally) boringly rock solid :)
I say stated because once you get into this, you normally go for more :) , and adding at least dual inputs would give you far more flexibility. Fitting a dual lnb is simple, getting the cabling connected can be more difficult obviously depending on the dish location and the property..... But it would allow multiple recordings and the ability to record at the same time.
This can quickly become a hobby and if you know Linux very simple...... I started with learning to spell Linux and now run my own image builds :)

To answer the Q. They run the same Image apart from receiver specific requirements like drivers.
Ref numbering Xtrend started with the ET9200 (/ 9000 ) so numbering is not a good guide.

[Sicilian]

ET8000 is worth the extra just to have the 1.3GHz CPU, nice universal remote, option to upgrade to 3 tuner modules in the future and can use either 2.5" or 3.5" HDD.

[IAmATeaf]

In terms of hard disk, I use just a regular 500gb 2.5" hard disk in my et10000 and just a few days ago I had 2 recordings being made whilst at the same time my wife was watching a recording off the hard disk and the box and hard disk coped with no issues. As others have said if you want to record then 2 tuners is a must, once you've had 2 tuners you'll definitely think how on earth did you cope before and your never ever go back to a single tuner box.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[nsw9154]

i would also go for the ET8000 i have a ET10k and it is a Superb Receiver that should last you for years and if you fit a 5,400rpm 3TB 3.5" Hard Drive you should never run out of recording space they cost about £80 :thumbsup:

[Photovoltaic]

As others have said if you want to record then 2 tuners is a must, once you've had 2 tuners you'll definitely think how on earth did you cope before and your never ever go back to a single tuner box.

Do you need a Dual LNB for Twin Tuners or is there some way that 2 tuners can share a single LNB? I am a little confused by the difference (if any) between a Pair of Single DVB-S2 Tuners and a 'Dual' DVB-S2 tuner.



...if you fit a 5,400rpm 3TB 3.5" Hard Drive...

Damn, thanks, until you wrote that I hadn't even noticed they took 3.5" drives as well, I was going by the 2.5" options offered in the shop and failed to spot that the spec says 2.5" OR 3.5" Disk. I only have 1 2.5" spare and it's quite small but I have loooads of spare 3.5" drives. That makes the purchase a bit easier, less to spend initially. Might even get a model with more tuners...

[Sicilian]

Do you need a Dual LNB for Twin Tuners or is there some way that 2 tuners can share a single LNB? I am a little confused by the difference (if any) between a Pair of Single DVB-S2 Tuners and a 'Dual' DVB-S2 tuner.

You need at least a twin output LNB to feed a twin tuner receiver.

[Photovoltaic]

I went for the ET10000 in the end. Pretty happy with it so far. Possibly didn't need the extra features it has over the ET8000 but I'm not complaining. It just works :)