Xtrend ET 9200 or Vu+ Ultimo what to buy?

[Sicilian]

Told him about the silverline on the barcode label and his box as not got it, he is so p*ssed as he was told its 100% a bug free silver line edition

Should have purchased from our sponsor

[CyberCrime]

Well thats where i'm buying my box from today.
I like the Ultimo but think it will be the et9200 as its £200 cheaper for almost the some spec if you take away the extra tuner and the fancy display.
Only thing that makes me want to go for the Ultimo is FPGA and the 1GB, but isn't the 1GB just for image data? as both have 512MB ddr?
Can a user take advantage of the extra flash space?

[Sicilian]

Ultimo has 1GB Flash/512 ram. ET9200 has 256mb Flash/515mb ram. In all honesty not quite sure why VU+ made the flash larger than the ram, would have been better the other way round imo. You would need to have an awful lot of plugins installed just to fill the ET9200's amount of flash!

You could always turn a ET9200 into a triple tuner. For instance you can buy a DVB-T2 tuner for £55 here

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/pctv-nanostick-t2-290e-hdtv-usb-tv-tuner-card-10962120-pdt.html?srcid=867&cmpid=comp~Google~~10962120&istCompanyId=9a35962d-802d-4e67-9721-0a3328ca1f02&istItemId=wqllalmr&istBid=t

So then you would have 2x DVB-S/S2 & 1x DVB-T2 for freeview HD.

[Rob van der Does]

Half of the 1GB flash of the Ultimo is reserved for later use. So 512MB is available atm.

[Johev]

Hi everybody, as this is my first post here I have many questions. I have been wanting to buy a box and to set up satellite TV from scratch for a long time. My friend already has a Vu+ duo with a rotating satellite and he is very happy with it. Nevertheless some 1080p mkv do not run as smoothly all the times.

I was thinking of getting the ET9100, but a few months ago I found out about the ET9200 and I thought I buy it as soon as I decided about all the components (satellite needed). Today I found out about the VU+ ultimo, it looks nice but as someone pointed out it has a 200GBP difference and I would be lucky if I get use of both tuner cards, let alone 3.

I have also learned today about the ET9200 silverline edition (SE), and I was wondering if there was a justifiable argument to go straight to the VU+ ultimo instead of the ET9200 SE.

My questions are:
1) Do they have the same CPU? I know the 400Mhz is the same, but is the architecture different, sometimes clock speeds are not everything?
2) Do you think that ET9200 will benefit from the community support (firmwares and updates) for some time, or will most developers just work on the VU+ ultimo?
3) Are the tuners in VU+ ultimo much better than the ones in the ET 9200 SE?
4) I did not understand the 1gb ROM, but only 512Mb are available so far, can someone explain it?
5) Is the FPGA worth upgrading? What kind of functionalities might that bring to the box that ET 9200 SE will not have?
6) Does VU+ ultimo have a built in Wifi or do we need a USB dodge for it?

Sorry for all these questions, but in order to take my decision I would like to have as much information as possible.

Thank you in advance for all your help

[CyberCrime]

good questions Johev
2) you have the work of the vix team so got the best
6) usb dodge going by the support page
thats me done lol

[Stanman]

Hi everybody, as this is my first post here I have many questions. I have been wanting to buy a box and to set up satellite TV from scratch for a long time. My friend already has a Vu+ duo with a rotating satellite and he is very happy with it. Nevertheless some 1080p mkv do not run as smoothly all the times.

I was thinking of getting the ET9100, but a few months ago I found out about the ET9200 and I thought I buy it as soon as I decided about all the components (satellite needed). Today I found out about the VU+ ultimo, it looks nice but as someone pointed out it has a 200GBP difference and I would be lucky if I get use of both tuner cards, let alone 3.

I have also learned today about the ET9200 silverline edition (SE), and I was wondering if there was a justifiable argument to go straight to the VU+ ultimo instead of the ET9200 SE.

My questions are:
1) Do they have the same CPU? I know the 400Mhz is the same, but is the architecture different, sometimes clock speeds are not everything? Not sure if there 100% identical but more than enough for the job
2) Do you think that ET9200 will benefit from the community support (firmwares and updates) for some time, or will most developers just work on the VU+ ultimo? VIX is supporting the ET range and we will continue to so as are other teams as for what they will do long term only they can say but I see no reason why they will not be support for the ET for long time to come

3) Are the tuners in VU+ ultimo much better than the ones in the ET 9200 SE? Not got either so cant say but have a ET9K and VU and really no difference between the two but no doubt some one with eagle eyes will see a difference

4) I did not understand the 1gb ROM, but only 512Mb are available so far, can someone explain it? 1GB is flash so you can stick things like PICON there rather than using USB etc.

5) Is the FPGA worth upgrading? What kind of functionalities might that bring to the box that ET 9200 SE will not have? Not sure, its more image driven, obvisoulsy things like PIP are box dependent ala VU+.

6) Does VU+ ultimo have a built in Wifi or do we need a USB dodge for it? USB dongle aAFAIK no box has built in WIFI at this price point.

Sorry for all these questions, but in order to take my decision I would like to have as much information as possible.

Thank you in advance for all your help

Please always start your own thread with questions rather than injecting into someone elses as its good eitquette. I have aswered next to your questions

[Rob van der Does]

Hi everybody, as this is my first post here I have many questions. I have been wanting to buy a box and to set up satellite TV from scratch for a long time. My friend already has a Vu+ duo with a rotating satellite and he is very happy with it. Nevertheless some 1080p mkv do not run as smoothly all the times.

I was thinking of getting the ET9100, but a few months ago I found out about the ET9200 and I thought I buy it as soon as I decided about all the components (satellite needed). Today I found out about the VU+ ultimo, it looks nice but as someone pointed out it has a 200GBP difference and I would be lucky if I get use of both tuner cards, let alone 3.

I have also learned today about the ET9200 silverline edition (SE), and I was wondering if there was a justifiable argument to go straight to the VU+ ultimo instead of the ET9200 SE.

My questions are:
1) Do they have the same CPU? I know the 400Mhz is the same, but is the architecture different, sometimes clock speeds are not everything?
2) Do you think that ET9200 will benefit from the community support (firmwares and updates) for some time, or will most developers just work on the VU+ ultimo?
3) Are the tuners in VU+ ultimo much better than the ones in the ET 9200 SE?
4) I did not understand the 1gb ROM, but only 512Mb are available so far, can someone explain it?
5) Is the FPGA worth upgrading? What kind of functionalities might that bring to the box that ET 9200 SE will not have?
6) Does VU+ ultimo have a built in Wifi or do we need a USB dodge for it?

ad 2: no worry s there mate
ad 3: No
ad 4: atm only 512MB of flash is available; the other 512MB has been reserved for possible future use.
ad 5: One MUST always use the latest FPGA.
FPGA is the firmware in a chipset, that can be upgraded, allowing for better communications with the tuner-boards. Only UNO & Ultimo have this: other makes depend on a fixed-hardware config.
As an example: the recent SR30,000 problems for the UNO could be resolved witj a FPGA upgrade; the same problem on ET's lead to hardware modifications.
ad 6: The Ultimo comes with a dongle

BTW: Please be aware that NO STB will ever be as good in plying all kinds of mediafiles as a "real" mediaplayer. All video decoding is done in hardware, so the results will depend on the way the files are coded.
MKV (and AVI and several other) are "containers", so the term in itself means nothing: they can be coded by all kinds of codecs. If coding has been done up-to-standard playback will be fine. You might consider re-coding using a PC.

[Johev]

First I want to thank you all for your replies and answers to my questions. I know I am a new guy here, but the world of forums is not something I am new to.

Please always start your own thread with questions rather than injecting into someone elses as its good eitquette. I have aswered next to your questions

I am not sure how things work in this particular forum, but I think I had pertinent questions regarding the topic that is being discussed in here. If everybody opened a thread with different questions about the same equipment it would be a mess (my personal opinion). I don't think I hijacked the post, I only complied what for me (and I think that for other people too) are the most important questions when deciding which box to buy. Hopefully the OP did not mind, as that is what I interpret from his post.

Rob van der Does thanks for the FPGA explanation, I have read about it on the wikip before posting, but I could not see a practical example of how the end user could benefit from it. Now I do

Regarding the dedicated media player, for my needs I think any of these two boxes would be more than enough. I understand the codec thing, as I have studied IT for a while, but in my opinion the CPU in the vu+ duo might need a bit more power (333mhz) to play all the current formats perfectly. Hopefully the one in the ET9200 and in the Vu+ Ultimo meet the minimum requirements for smooth playback of most files

[Rob van der Does]

Regarding the dedicated media player, for my needs I think any of these two boxes would be more than enough. I understand the codec thing, as I have studied IT for a while, but in my opinion the CPU in the vu+ duo might need a bit more power (333mhz) to play all the current formats perfectly. Hopefully the one in the ET9200 and in the Vu+ Ultimo meet the minimum requirements for smooth playback of most files

No STB-CPU's is capable of any video decoding, in spite of having dual core CPU's @ 405MHz.
For that reason video-decoding is done in hardware; hence the files must comply with the codecs that are in that hardware. If that is the case, playback is just fine. If not (as is often the case with files 'found' on the internet), re-doing is required.

[Johev]

Are they really dual core CPU's? I have never read that in any place, and I think it would be worth marketing. Could you confirm it?

[Rob van der Does]

UNO, DUO, Ultimo and ET9x00 are; not sure about the rest.

[Sicilian]

Are they really dual core CPU's? I have never read that in any place, and I think it would be worth marketing. Could you confirm it?

Spec sheet for the BCM7405

http://www.avs.org.cn/fruits/Doc/%E5%8D%9A%E9%80%9AAVS%E8%8A%AF%E7%89%877405-PB04-R.pdf

Dont forget forum members discount http://www.world-of-satellite.com/sh...1591#post91591

[Rob van der Does]

Link doesn't work: file attached.

[Larry-G]

downloaded fine for me this morning and just now too. but not to worry it's a very small file