Amiko Alien2 triple tuner or GiGa BlueHD 800 SE with dvb-t Tuner
Lads tomorrow I basically have a choice between these two boxes and basically I am looking for advice on which one to get, living in Ireland a dvb-t tuner is a must but out of those two boxes which one is the best supported and which one has better cam support.
Do you have one of these boxes and would you recommend it.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
If you are looking for the one with the best support then the GigaBlue is the one to go for - If you can do with just a single dvb-s/s2 tuner. The support is very good at the moment for the GigaBlue SE, with images such as ViX, OpenMips, OpenAAF, SiF team, and more. It has better Cam support, because it has a Broadcom Mips based processor, same as the Vu+ and Dreambox, wheras the Amiko Alien has a different chipset. The Amiko Alien2 is a good option if you want 2 sat tuners and a dvb-t - but there seems to be some teething issues re CrossEPG and some are having other issues. Bear in mind that these issues will probably get ironed out, and the Alien can support Oscam, which will cover most people's needs.
There are other options, such as getting a NewDVB DVB800 and a USB dvb-t tuner. The sponsor used to stock the GigaBlue 800 SE and currently stocks the NewDVB DVB800 and Amiko Alien 2 so I am sure he will have some advice on this. I Have got the GigaBlue 800 HD and for the price it isn't a bad box, and the 800 SE model does have better support than mine!
Gigablue with DVB-T tuner works fine with the SIF Gecko image. Can't comment on the Amiko boxes as i don't have one, but i'm sure i have read somewhere that there are issues with HD channels when using the E2 firmware.
Some people have also been concerned about the build quality of the Gigablue boxes. Mine and the 7 others i have installed for friends and family have all been OK. Please also remember that the Amiko box cannot support CCCam eithe, whereas the Gigablue box can.
OSCam will work fine in CCCam mode on the Amiko but remember that if you want pure simplicity then CCCam is the way to go as OSCam can sometimes be a right bitch to setup dependent on what card you have.
Just a word of warning though, i'm not sure if either receiver can support Ka band if your intending to receive Saorsat from 9e.
Nano
Gigablue with DVB-T tuner works fine with the SIF Gecko image. Can't comment on the Amiko boxes as i don't have one, but i'm sure i have read somewhere that there are issues with HD channels when using the E2 firmware.
There is a slight issue with a small number of HD channels on 28.2 East which is an E2 firmware issue and very close to being solved - there would be no such issue when using Spark firmware.
Some people have also been concerned about the build quality of the Gigablue boxes. Mine and the 7 others i have installed for friends and family have all been OK.
We have supplied 100's of them in the past and yes we have concerns over the build quality of the receiver and also the backup support for the distributor - this is the reason we stopped supplying GigaBlue receivers and have no real regrets in doing so, we'd of course though consider them again in the future should things change.
Please also remember that the Amiko box cannot support CCCam eithe, whereas the Gigablue box can.
True in some respect - if you are using Spark firmware though you have the choice of CCcam and MGCamd for client only or OScam for all aspects.
OSCam will work fine in CCCam mode on the Amiko but remember that if you want pure simplicity then CCCam is the way to go as OSCam can sometimes
be a right bitch to setup dependent on what card you have.
A matter of opinion but there is no better forum than this very one if you need any help with OScam setup, in fact most any socftcam setup.
Just a word of warning though, i'm not sure if either receiver can support Ka band if your intending to receive Saorsat from 9e.
I couldn't say for sure on that one either but I guess the requirement for DVB-T tuner will mean it's mainly the Irish terrestrial service that's the main objective?
QuoteWe have supplied 100's of them in the past and yes we have concerns over the build quality of the receiver and also the backup support for the distributor - this is the reason we stopped supplying GigaBlue receivers and have no real regrets in doing so, we'd of course though consider them again in the future should things change.
Just a small issue I had with my GigaBlue is the HDMI output port is a little bit loose, to the point where upward or downward force on the HDMI lead can cause the output to not work, suggesting a loose connectioin somewhere - so this does suggest the build could be better. Also one or two people have complained about lack of support from the manufacturer.
Support from the manufacturer was our main real concern to be fair, I don't want to put them down to much because on the whole they were/are a nice receiver but we did have just to many concerns on the build quality, when you take the case off it just has this feeling that they are a little cheaply made, add to this we have other makes which offer similar or better spec. (in some respects) these days for the price, for us it was not the right product any more and just seeing the pictures of the inside of the new Quad receiver gives me the exact same feeling thinking we did the right thing to drop them in favor of other products..... That said though we had one GigaBlue 800SE back last week which had a tuner fault - it's fully repaired and in almost new condition, if someone wants it with a few pounds off then give us a shout, I am sure we still have a few of the DVB-C/T tuners in stock as well so adding this would not be a problem!
There is a slight issue with a small number of HD channels on 28.2 East which is an E2 firmware issue and very close to being solved - there would be no such issue when using Spark firmware.
To confirm on the Amiko Alien 2, the small E2 symbol rate bug that caused this issue has now been solved - one fully working image is already available which includes CrossEPG, 1channel and MGCamd + OScam support, also expect much, much more to appear over the coming weeks now the teething troubles have been solved.
Does 7 day epg work on the Amiko Alien 2?
Any chance of screen shoots of the OS?
Using Enigma2 firmware with CrossEPG yes you will have a 7 day EPG available for 28.2 East - exactly what it looks like on screen will depend on the firmware but more importantly the skin being used, the same as any Enigma2 based receiver.
As far as I'm aware, Enigma2 doesn't properly support the tuners in this box though?
So, just wondering how the EPG works on the Spark official image?
Also, any other screenshoots of the Spark image screens?
Not sure where you have heard that but its wrong, the tuners are fully supported by Enigma2 and now including the small symbol rate bug fix for 28.2 East as mentioned a couple of posts ago.
Sounds good so,
can you upload screen shots of official image EPG screens?
Spark at this moment in time does not support EPG on 28.2 East (and I will remind that as ever this is not a receivers fault but the way some broadcasters transmit EPG data) but a work around is actively being worked on, the EPG on the DVB-T side works fine on UK services, I don't have screen shots to post to hand but Spark firmware is used by many a receiver so I'd think a Google image search would turn up something.
Thanks for all the replies lads, I have got myself the Amiko Alien2 triple tuner box and although I have only set the channels up and connected it to the internet, my first impression of this box is wow what a box, so far it has been every easy to set it up and the screens are a nice colour and easy to navigate. Now the fun really begins trying to set it up fully, trying to find out how to install cams etc and where to put them, so any help on that issue I would really appreciate, thanks again to all for the help so far.
i've had my alien 2 box for about 2 week now. The spark image that comes with it annoys me because it has no epg and you cant even see whats now and next without going into the channel. If they fix this it will be a great image because its really simple and has a clean interface.
Anyway, due to the lack of epg I started using the PKTeam Nebula E2 image available for this box. This image has a great 7 day epg and supports the "crossEPG" plugin. The only problem with this image is that HD channels take 30 seconds to load so it can be quite annoying when flicking through the channels and seeing it saying scrambled on them. But they do load eventually. This is a known bug with the latest pkt image so I expect it to be fixed soon.
I do recommend you install this and try it though. Switching between the 2 (spark & e2) is really simple on the alien 2 box because its duel boot so you have nothing to lose by trying it yourself.
I keep checking and will use which ever image fixes the issues first. Either spark when they get a stable epg or pkt nebula when they fix the HD channel issue.
Check out the image released late last night in the downloads section here: http://linuxsat-support.com/am…w-e2-image-alien-2-a.html - this image cures the symbol rate glitch with some HD channels on 28.2 East - there is a small bug at the moment on this firmware in that the third tuner (for those who have the triple tuner version) will be fixed to DVB-C only, but a fix on this this and Cool TV Guide along with auto updating boquets are promised in the next update, so all looking very good and there will for sure be even more firmware releases to choose from very soon.
Thanks. The image you posted above is now up to the beta 1.00 version and I have it installed. All HD channels come on right away so i'm a happy bunny. This image doesn't seem as stable because it seems to freeze/crash more than usual but it's beta and it might not even be down to the image, suppose it could be due to the mgcamd/plugins i'm using that cause the crashing.
HI,
I'm in the similar boat as you but I'm just beginning do I buy an Amiko triple turner, how did you get on or did you purchase something else. if you did buy a Amiko triple I would be very interested to know how you got on.
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