Rick1980
03-07-2009, 05:59 AM
Well i've had my TM-500 for 2 days now and getting there with it so thought I'd put up a review.
I got one of the first generation models from southern sat, (very fast btw thnx m8) so no manual just a reciever and remote.
First impressions were good, the box looks well and is a nice clean design, the only critisism that I would have is that the front panel picks up fingerprints very easily, though i'll let the missus worry about that :smilielol5:
Initial setup was easy enough with the box going through the menus automatically and within about 5 mins I was watching FTA. It would have been nice if it had asked for the time rather than just the time zone, but the menus are easy to navigate and it didn't take long to finish off the initial setup.
As with every other reciever I have setup I was dissapointed with the built in transponder lists, and I can see myself spending alot of time manually scanning channels. Though regardless of how channels are scanned it puts them in a very strange order, though they are navigable by sat and provider so easy to find the chanel you want and you can make your own channel lists which work very well.
Sound and picture quality are excellent, and the tuner is very sensitive. On my fortec box I could get 35% on 7w 11862V but no lock, the TM gets me 42% so will scan in channels atleast even if the picture breaks up.
Software updating is very easy using the tm500 loader via ethernet, and FTP via Dreambox Control Centre is also straigtht forward once it's all setup.
Software updates are also available direct to the reciever from the tinternet which makes for an easy life.
The Satellite Setup is simple if you have either a motor or a multi lnb setup, though I haven't figured out how to use both, user defined settings seem very complex and I haven't figured out how to have a fixed dish and motorised connected via Diseqc.
Other than the satellite setup thoug everything is very straight foward and even a linux virgin like me can get the box up and running with CCcam within a couple of days. So far it seems remarkably stable.
Overall I would rate this reciever 8/10 based on the build quality, features and price. Definatley worth considering if your looking to get into linux recievers.
Hope this is of use. Rick
I got one of the first generation models from southern sat, (very fast btw thnx m8) so no manual just a reciever and remote.
First impressions were good, the box looks well and is a nice clean design, the only critisism that I would have is that the front panel picks up fingerprints very easily, though i'll let the missus worry about that :smilielol5:
Initial setup was easy enough with the box going through the menus automatically and within about 5 mins I was watching FTA. It would have been nice if it had asked for the time rather than just the time zone, but the menus are easy to navigate and it didn't take long to finish off the initial setup.
As with every other reciever I have setup I was dissapointed with the built in transponder lists, and I can see myself spending alot of time manually scanning channels. Though regardless of how channels are scanned it puts them in a very strange order, though they are navigable by sat and provider so easy to find the chanel you want and you can make your own channel lists which work very well.
Sound and picture quality are excellent, and the tuner is very sensitive. On my fortec box I could get 35% on 7w 11862V but no lock, the TM gets me 42% so will scan in channels atleast even if the picture breaks up.
Software updating is very easy using the tm500 loader via ethernet, and FTP via Dreambox Control Centre is also straigtht forward once it's all setup.
Software updates are also available direct to the reciever from the tinternet which makes for an easy life.
The Satellite Setup is simple if you have either a motor or a multi lnb setup, though I haven't figured out how to use both, user defined settings seem very complex and I haven't figured out how to have a fixed dish and motorised connected via Diseqc.
Other than the satellite setup thoug everything is very straight foward and even a linux virgin like me can get the box up and running with CCcam within a couple of days. So far it seems remarkably stable.
Overall I would rate this reciever 8/10 based on the build quality, features and price. Definatley worth considering if your looking to get into linux recievers.
Hope this is of use. Rick