VU+ Ultimo or Xtrend ET9500?

[czarny]

Hi Folks,

I was wandering if I could get an advice on choosing a receiver.
I'm a complete newbie - it would be my very first one ever and so will my sat system. I'm looking for a twin tuner (at least) with blind search (slightly optional). I was browsing web for a while and got down to two: ultimo and et9500 (dreambox's too pricey). They seem to be very similar, at least to a newbie, so I thought I'll ask someone with way more knowledge and experience than me.
Both of them run E2, use the same processor, have the same amount of memory and have plug and play tuners. Vu offers slot for a third tuner and ET have a blind scan (yep, I know it's still need to get better E2 firmware for it, but hardware is there) and is around £100 cheaper.
Other side of the story is a third party support for them. It seems to me that VU's much bigger, but I've seen xtrend's preview on vu's official (i think) support site, so maybe it means that I could use their plugins as well (like blackhole - I think it would allow me to use other receiver to watch tv from my main one, as long as they're connected to each other and main one would be in a standby mode).
There's a lot to think of and I would appreciate any help and advice to make a right choice.

Thanks a lot in advance for any replies.
Czarny.

[digicon]

They are Nigh on identical they both have 512mb ram both have 1gb Nandflash and both use the Broadcom 7413 chipset, The only difference is the Ultimo has space for a 3rd tuner internally and has a bigger VFD display.

You could of course use a separate USB tuner in both for either DVB-S2 or DVB-T/C which would make the Xtrend 3 tuner compatible and the Ultimo 4 tuner compatible, The Ultimo does have the advantage of having slightly more support as in the Blackhole image.

Apart from those i have highlighted there is not much in it really

[czarny]

Thanks for your insight digicon. I had a feeling that there's not much to it... You mention Ultimo's bit bigger advantage in blackhole image, does it mean that it's kind of vu+ thing or is there similar image for ET but simply not as good yet?

[digicon]

Hi czarny,

That difference on the image side is due to the fact that the Vu has Blackhole team exclusively writing images for there receiver and no one else, So at the moment Xtrend is playing catch up but it still has a fair few images available for it, When i had my Xtrend 9000 i found the Openpli image very stable on the Xtrend receiver and could not fault it in anyway for what i wanted it to do.

The choice really is yours at the end of the day, all i can say is for normal day to day viewing of satellite TV and recording i dont think there is anything in it all to separate these 2

[pr2]

Hi,

Seems that you are not aware that Openpli is building image for both VU+ and Xtrend and Openpli is probably one of the best image for STB.

Pr2

[donki]

OpenPLi is such a nice image but does ffw, rwd & timeshift work on it yet?

[digicon]

If thats aimed at me i am fully aware that OpenPLI build for both, But for being the best image thats questionable for the Vu range that accolade would have to go to Blackhole without a doubt

[kamil]

ET9500 has one big advantage: HbbTV support

[CokeAddict]

ET9500 has one big advantage: HbbTV support

I hear the next firmware update from Vu+ will include iptv.

Which means the next round of images from the various groups that don't already have iptv will have it included.

[kamil]

I hear the next firmware update from Vu+ will include iptv.
I'm sorry but I don't understand. HbbTV = IPTV? I thiked that HbbTv is expecially standard: http://www.hbbtv.org/pages/about_hbbtv/specification.php

[CokeAddict]

I'm sorry but I don't understand. HbbTV = IPTV? I thiked that HbbTv is expecially standard: http://www.hbbtv.org/pages/about_hbbtv/specification.php

Sorry I didn't realise that HbbTV was it's own standard, I thought it was just another / brand name for iptv.

[satwyn]

reported here that the ultimo has crappy tuners not very good on weak signals but not tested personally

[CokeAddict]

I'd say the tuners in my ultimo are slightly better than on my duo

[satwyn]

if the duo tuners are worse then they must be bad need something decent with blindscan for c band

[CokeAddict]

I can't fault the tuners in the duo either, the only thing that makes the ultimo tuners better imo is that they do support blindscan.

I can't think of anything that I can't pickup with the ultimo or duo that I could with my old dm800 (original).

[Friendly-Face]

I have both the Ultimo, Duo and the ET 9200 right now, and i will swap my ultomo for ET 9500 anyday
yes the VU+ range has weker tuners, the ET 9200 is better in lower signals and finds more channels when i scan
Thor 1 west for me on Ultimo i find round 700 channels while on ET 9200 i find over 800 channels

the image is PLI and the satelitte.xml is exactly the same, so yes for me the ET 9200 has beter tuners as it find more channels

[digicon]

I am not sure who makes the tuners in the Xtrend series but the ones in the Ultimo are also used in the Uno (Plug & Play). Considering they all use the same broadcom chipset 7413 in Xtrend, Uno, Ultimo then there should not be a difference only that is if they all use the same tuner build but by the looks of it they dont