Which cheap linux DVB-S box?

Quote from a_q

Fair point - so the equation seems to be - pay double for a well-supported box (up front), versus pay once for a poorly supported box, and if things go wrong, buy another one a few years later.

But presumably by then the cheaper one will be either Moore cheaper (geddit!) or have Moore functionality.

Moore's law innit?

Another aspect of support is whether the model you have invested in is still supported, Fortec dropped off support on the Passion which was irritating, and concentrated on the newer models. When there is no money in it then support tends to drop off.

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What im saying is this you could go down the route of a clone but then you would need to source out a site that does clone images and remember clone images are usually real images that have been doctored so to speak if you go to ebay then you may be lucky and get a cheap good box from someone selling one on the other hand you could buy someones problem and end up sorting it out.
Codar made a very good point regarding VU they have constantly supported there boxes since they came out so have Dreambox and even Xtrend that i use myself and a few other well known brands but i once bought a box from another source and although its still functional the firmware for it dried up so what im saying is if you check the sponsors site you will see all the boxes they sell are supported for many years not 2 minutes.
As i said in my first post the price of boxes has never ever been cheaper i paid over 1k for my first box in this hobby in 1990 and i consider this the best time to buy a good box as boxes now are at there cheapest if you are thinking well il get one cheaper in a years time if anything goes wrong with the cheap box i buy that may prove to be a mistake as i say boxes now are not only cheaper but come with more features so features cost money and i believe the price will rise --another thing to consider but slightly off the mark is the memory on the box and the processor speed this can make a difference when loading lots of plugins you dont want your box to be bogged down so you have to consider many things while choosing the right box.
Have you any friends near you who have say a VU or other top brand that you can see in action sometimes this can help you decide or go to youtube most boxes are on there showing what they are capable of

Well someother people have said it take a look at the VU+ Duo (the older one) my 6 year old kid can work it. Also support is still great. Price is much cheaper now get a legit box dont get a clone. You can stream off it loads of things extras you can do on it. I run a motor 1 m dish of mine and a sky fixed dish both connected up and running. VU+ boxes are good so take a look

Just to back up my mouth i today ordered the XSPEED LX1 from the forums sponsor as a spare box because support is there and the price is unbelievable

Have you considered the forums sponsors offer of the XSPEED LX2 as i said i bought the LX1 and for the price am well pleased with it and i get to test many boxes and it holds up to some of the more expensive boxes in many ways so the LX2 i think is £109 from the sponsor im considering that myself and just a fraction over what you are willing to pay plus as i said earlier you know where to find continuos support which should be the most important factor as some boxes are only supported for a couple of years -it is honestly worth considering although not yet owning a LX2 yet i know the LX1 is very good

Quote from a_q

I thought about this for a minute but then thought again - no I really do want front panel buttons, or else we will have the wife screaming she can't change channel and where is the bleeding remote gone?

You could always just buy a few extra spare remotes and have them lying around the place ?

In my opinion go for the Z'Gemma Star, my reasons are -

1. It has come highly recommended from someone who's opinion I value, as he is a sat installer by trade so has come across most boxes at some point and says that the tuners on them are really good, better than other brands that cost a lot more even.
2. Its Enigma 2 and its a MIPS based processor add-ons are more stable and better supported than on the SH4's.
3. For the money you can't go wrong, there are backups available and also can be downloaded directly from OpenATV and Euro-Sat, there are also VIX images although seems they are not 100% official, which only becomes a slight issue when there are stability issues with the image and any additional extra's (skin's, cams and plugins etc).

I thought of the zgemma but opted for another LX this time the LX2 it comes tomorrow reason been i place support as top priority the other thing is i like as you can see i love Xtrend which are GERMAN and the LX is GERMAN both though made in Korea so this was the reason but zgemma on reading seem very good value

Quote from a_q

Sorry but the LX has no buttons at all on the unit so not an option. I was looking at the Zgemma star and came across this advice "menu-setup-system-user interface (just go up from a/v settings)-button setup" does anyone know if I can change the front panel volume buttons to do channel up/down using this - in which case it would do the job adequately.

Also can someone confirm the Zgemma will definitely record HD channels to the external HDD?

Zgemma records HD to the HDD.