FAQ: Receivers to avoid buying

[DrSat]

In order to avoid having people wasting money on poor performing FTA receivers, we will be listing brands to avoid purchasing in here. It is sad that some dealers still highly recommend some receivers in this list as they only cater to the piracy market even if the actual receiver itself is a poor performer for FTA use.

As you can notice, a common issue with all receivers in this list is that the only satellites and transponders that tend to be current are the Echostar and Nimiq satellites so it takes a lot of time to update it by hand when setting up the receiver, especially for a motorized system.

FTA receivers to avoid purchasing:

    nFusion Nova & nFusion Solaris:
    - Horrible user interface
    - Buggy software
    - Does not support DiSEqC 1.1 (i.e. 8x1 switches).
    - Outdated satellite list
    - Unable to add new satellites so must re-use existing ones!
    - No blind scan
    - Very hard to bring up satellite list in order to filter channels for only 1 satellite at a time.
    - Company is no longer in business as it lost a lawsuit from Dish Network so no warranty!

    nFusion HD:
    - Outdated satellite list
    - Buggy software
    - Does not support DiSEqC 1.1 (i.e. 8x1 switches).
    - No blind scan
    - Unlike what is claimed in the specifications, receiver does not support DVB-S2 8PSK (even with addon tuner module).
    - Company is no longer in business as it lost a lawsuit from Dish Network so no warranty!

    Sonicview 1000 & Sonicview 4000 & Sonicview 360 Premier & Sonicview 360 Elite:
    - Outdated satellite list and buggy software which makes the satellite & channel list become corrupted from time to time.
    - Unable to assign or edit satellite orbital locations so newly added satellites must use DiSEqC 1.2 instead of USALS for motor positioning.
    - Does not support DiSEqC 1.1 (i.e 8x1 switches).
    - Piracy software on most firmware versions, even with so called "factory firmware".
    - "Update required" error message appears when receiver is used for non-piracy use with newer firmware versions, even with the latest factory firmware file.
    - Company is no longer in business as it lost a lawsuit from Dish Network so no warranty!

    Sonicview 8000 HD:
    - Outdated satellite list and buggy software which makes the satellite & channel list become corrupted from time to time.
    - Unable to assign or edit satellite orbital locations so newly added satellites must use DiSEqC 1.2 instead of USALS for motor positioning.
    - Does not support DiSEqC 1.1 (i.e 8x1 switches).
    - Unlike what is claimed in the specifications, receiver does not support DVB-S2 8PSK (even with addon tuner module).
    Sonicview was contacted in regards to this but they don't care as they only cater to the piracy market.
    - Power supply easily fails due to inferior capacitors being used.
    - Piracy software on most firmware versions, even so called "factory firmware". "Update required" error message appears when receiver is used for non-piracy use with newer firmware versions, even with the latest factory firmware file.
    - Company is no longer in business as it lost a lawsuit from Dish Network so no warranty!

    Viewsat Lite & Viewsat Ultra Lite & Viewsat Ultra & Viewsat Pro:
    - Outdated satellite list.
    - Does not support DiSEqC 1.1 (i.e 8x1 switches)
    - Poor blind scan performance.
    - Company is no longer in business as it lost a lawsuit from Dish Network so no warranty!

    Viewsat 9000 HD & Viewsat Max HD:
    - Outdated satellite list.
    - Does not support DiSEqC 1.1 (i.e 8x1 switches)
    - Poor blind scan performance.
    - Has some switching issues with certain switches
    - Unlike what is claimed in the specifications, receiver does not support DVB-S2 8PSK (even with addon tuner module).
    - Company is no longer in business as it lost a lawsuit from Dish Network so no warranty!

    Nanosat aka Conaxsat CNX nano & Nano Lite & Nano Premium PVR:
    - Outdated satellite list.
    - Does not support DiSEqC 1.1 (i.e 8x1 switches).
    - Unreliable motorized dish operation
    - Buggy software.
    - Some hack shops already have this brand marked as discontinued so BUYER BEWARE!

    Limesat Ultra PVR:
    - Re-branded Viewsat so all its issues are inherited
    - Unit is now discontinued so no more support!

    Limesat HD Air:
    - Re-branded Viewsat HD so same issues as Viewsat HD.
    - Weak power supply does not have adequate current to drive a motorized dish.
    - Unlike what is claimed in the specifications, receiver does not support DVB-S2 8PSK (even with addon tuner module).

    K-box K1 Heros & K-box Prodigy & K-box K1 Prodigy & K-box K2 Prodigy:
    - Outdated satellite list.
    - User is limited in adding 4 new satellites.
    - Poor motor control with "dish moving" message appearing even when unnecessary. Have to wait for the message to timeout as no remote key will clear it unlike other receivers.
    - Does not support DiSEqC 1.1 (i.e. 8x1 switches).
    - Poor blind scan performance.
    - Company is no longer in business as it lost a lawsuit from Dish Network so no warranty!

    I-Link IS-8000 PVR & I-Link IS-9000 Plus PVR & I-Link IS-9100 V.2 & i-Link IS-9500 HD & i-Link IS-9600 HD & I-Link Smart PVR:
    - Outdated satellite list.
    - Buggy software.
    - With so many models released in the past, it's almost impossible to provide adequate support for older models.
    - Some hack shops already have this brand marked as discontinued so BUYER BEWARE!

    Captiveworks:
    - Outdated satellite list.
    - Does not support DiSEqC 1.1 (i.e. 8x1 switches).
    - Buggy signal level meter
    - Blind scan does not work.
    - This brand is now discontinued

    Dreamlink SD & Dreamlink T4:
    - Re-branded K-Box so all its issues are inherited.
    * Outdated satellite list.
    * User is limited in adding 4 new satellites.
    * Poor motor control with "dish moving" message appearing even when unnecessary. Have to wait for the message to
    timeout as no remote key will clear it unlike other receivers.)
    - NO BLINDSCAN!
    - Promoted as an HD receiver by some retailers, this is nothing more than an SD receiver with HDMI output. Aimed at the satellite piracy market, it is WAY overpriced for an SD receiver so don't waste your money!

    Dreamlink HD V4:
    - Re-branded K-Box so all its issues are inherited.
    * Outdated satellite list.
    * User is limited in adding 4 new satellites.
    * Poor motor control with "dish moving" message appearing even when unnecessary. Have to wait for the message to
    timeout as no remote key will clear it unlike other receivers.)
    - NO BLINDSCAN!
    - MAJOR TUNER ISSUE where transponders with a symbol rate of under 10,000 WILL NOT LOCK!!!
    - Signal and quality level meters not working properly as they indicate 95%+ even if there's no signal lock.
    - Similar to Limesat HD and other satellite piracy HD receiver in which unlike what is claimed in the specifications, the receiver does NOT support DVB-S2 8PSK (even with add-on tuner module).
    - Outdated satellite list with several satellites missing such as AMC 9 @ 83W
    - Some hack shops already have this unit marked as discontinued!
    - In 2013, it's VERY SAD to have such a poor quality HD FTA receiver with no blindscan or DVB-S2 support!

    Jynxbox Ultra HD:
    - Poor build quality
    - NO EPG info on ATSC channels
    - Overheating issues
    - JB200 tuner runs hot and can be a bit unstable

    Pinwheel HD: Manufactured by a fly by night company from China attempting to make a quick buck with satellite piracy in the North American market. Good luck shipping your unit back to Shenzhen if you ever need warranty repair!
    UPDATE: The gmail email address of the person exporting this receiver from China who tried to solicit us in carrying this receiver is already disabled and bouncing email after only 2 months! BUYER BEWARE!!!


Other brands to avoid:

    Satzen / Zoomsat

    NeoSat

    Dreambox DM100 or DM500
    - Most of these units currently being sold are clones made in China as the authentic Dreambox units have been discontinued for quite some time now
    - This means NO official manufacturer warranty so your are SOL if you unit breaks down!


Please note that any retailer recommending or even carrying any of these receiver models as new units is most likely involved with satellite piracy and should be avoided in order to prevent indirectly supporting the piracy market. As well, many of these dealers are getting pursued legally by lawyers working for Bell TV and Dish Network so it is best to avoid doing any business with them.

[DrSat]

Please note that any FTA receiver previously used for satellite piracy can be used to receive FTA channels with some effort. However, as some of these receivers were strictly designed with satellite piracy in mind, they perform very poorly when used for FTA as the software developers of these units typically only test to make sure the receiver works on a non-motorized satellite piracy setup.

The intent of this thread is to inform members which receivers to avoid purchasing as they require significant effort to setup properly, especially on a motorized system due to outstanding defects in the software. Even experienced satellite installers such as us can take over 1 hour just to setup one of these receivers properly and even then, the user experience is not always very good.

Some of the user experience issues that we have seen that these receivers have include:

- Having to go in dish setup every time you want to switch to a different satellite.

- Significant delay when tuning in a different channel and/or satellite.

- "Update required" error message appears when receiver is used to tune in FTA channels forcing the user to reboot the receiver.

- Having to select a channel on an horizontal transponder when changing to a different satellite.

- "Please wait... moving dish" message even though the satellite dish is already done moving to the new satellite

- Inaccurate USALS positioning requiring some satellites to be manually programmed using DiSEqC 1.2

- Unable to easily add or modify existing satellites.

- Channel list corruption after using the receiver for a period of time requiring a factory reset and all channels rescanned. This is not really a big issue for receivers that allow the user to save a channel list backup on USB at it can easily be restored.

- Blindscan has poor performance or does not even work at all.

[DrSat]

DrSat and others, what's the concensus on the Limesat HD Air which is a fairly recent box that is said to support DVB-S2 just fine?

My preferred platform for FTA has been Sonicview but I'm afraid the 8000's PS is coming of age and it's time to move on.

As I posted on the first message of this FAQ thread, Limesat is essentially a re-branded Viewsat and was designed strictly for satellite piracy so it should be avoided. When Viewsat lost their court case and the owner got put in jail for 18 months for satellite piracy, they obviously could not continue selling under the Viewsat brand so apparently, they are now known as Limesat.

I'm not certain that the receiver even supports DVB-S2 even though they claim it does. For example, I know for a fact that the Sonicview 8000 was supposed to support DVB-S2 and even has DVB-S2 listed as an option when adding a transponder. However, it was proven that the DVB-S2 8PSK option in the SV8000HD is NOT implemented and is only there as an attempt to cover themselves legally in regards to 8PSK support. Because of this, I would not count on the Limesat HD receiver to actually have working DVB-S2 even though they claim it does but I could be wrong as I never personally used this receiver.

EDIT: Did some quick research online in regards to this receiver and based on what has been reported by a few people so far, they were NOT able to tune in to DVB-S2 channels using this receiver so buyer beware!