Re: New Spiderbox - What are thoughts on this box?
Here is my unbiased review of my own Spiderbox 9000HD
I am not a Sat Techie of any kind my last box was a Humax and before that a Manhatton, many others, obviously had many Sky digiboxes.
Sat- Triax 90cm Disec 1.2 with best quad 0.1 lnb
Loc- Scotland East
Spiderbox price Paid - £251 direct from supplier
(included shipping, hdmi lead and homeplugs as I needed new ones anyway)
Before purchase I called the seller asking that the box be setup before delivery as was disabled and since having my strokes I have great difficulty following the forums, instructions, downloads and installing patches.
No problem I was told "just put a note on the purchase when buying" so I did I put the request on via google checkout. and again via an email... no response.
(item was sent a day late but still arrived fast I had purchased it early in the morning and expected it to go that day but it didn't it went the next day)
Box arrived
I unpacked it and immediately plugged it in swapping it over with my old box that I left positioned on 28e with a very strong signal.
To my disapointment they had done nothing to the box at all, no patch loaded no channels loaded, nothing.
Now remember most of you guys reading this are quite technical and know how the scene works and what to do with a new box.
Anyway I get the manual out and start reading, there is no info on the gift, where to get patches or how to connect, oh wait there is a slip of paper with a string of numbers on it so I decide to give the supplier a call to ask what to do with the numbers.
They must use an Indian call centre or something as they were very hard to understand. All I got asked was "have you installed the patch yet?" me "no" them "install the patch and call us back" click they'd hung up.
Luckily a friend of mine had bought one and was struggling with his as well but he emailed me the "patch" with instructions on how to load it on the box.
I decided to read the manual again and install the box and set it up as a clean install first.
I go into motor setup onto 28e where i'd left it and noticed theres no signal, (strange thats where I'd left it) so I position it again no problem, great signal in fact fantastic signal 84% on both signal and quality, so to make sure i'm on the right sat I change TP... no signal down to about 20% christ I must have been on the wrong sat, so I moved the dish again got another great signal changed the TP and bang off it goes again. To cut a LONG story short unless you save the sat position as soon as you get a lock or good signal the sat will move if you do anything other than save the position. This must be a new thing as my other sats never done this. Maybe i'm just not up to this new fangled stuff, but then again i'm a typical end user remember not a techie. (The Manual isnt very informative if you dont know what a feature is. Like I don't know what the Disecq section is for)
So after setting up the box and scanning all the sats I wanted to store I had a good look at it and a play around with it as a Manilla unit. (which it will be when the gift runs out)
As a sat receiver its good enough (ish) I've seen and had a lot better boxes.
In my opinion...
The box looks are spoiled by the the big chrome buttons on the front it ends up making the box look cheap like something out of Lidl but I can see past that, but guests in my house have thought it was a retro box of somekind.
The display is unreadable from across the room due to it being so dim, this is a feature that you would have thought you could adjust via the menu but you cant. (If you can I haven't found it)
That brings me to the internal menu...
Most of you will have seen the screen shots of the menus that are kicking around and can make your own opinion of the quality. I don't know if I have been spoiled by the boxes I've had in the past but I found them to be amateurish and lacking in something. To me there is a feeling of a lack of control, I must apologise I know this is meant to be a review but I can't pinpoint what it is, but there are definately a few things missing.
The channel manager, well there's not a lot to say about this other than if you have a LOT of time on your hands you can probably get a list of channels the way you want them, there are no auto sorting features of any kind. You can Rename, Move, Lock, Delete and add to favourites.
The favourites is one of the best or most useful features on the box as you are able to set the favourites up as categories but again this is available on other boxes. (I beleive with one of the patches there is a mass delete function, again I have not found it)
All the other features (apart from Network) are pretty standard for a box nowadays like mp3 playback, jpg slideshow and games via usb.
I cannot review the network as I have never had a box with this facility but this seems to be the bit everyone raves about, but other reviews I've seen say it is quite limited in comparison to Dreambox and Linux boxws but would be great for a beginner. Well I'm a beginner and its one of the reasons I bought the box and one of the reasons I don't like it... because I don't understand it, but the real problem is unless you've been on the sat scene for a while and understand all the terminology like ccam, newcamd, cline etc you end up clueless. But the worst thing of all is that everything is a SECRET and your not allowed to ask anything cos thats a bannable topic.
Back to the box, everything is working ok I have good strenth signals like before excluding the ones outside the footprint for my area as usual.
So I install the patch, well that was painless... but nothings changed no extra channels, no difference, what next? I decide to search google as by this time its too late to phone "the seller" I find this site obviously but with no info that I was looking for but manage to find reference to the main spiderbox site, well thats no good as you cant read anything unless you log in and it was asking too many questions for me.
I went to the sellers website and found they had a forum and you didnt have to reg to see the info well some you did but at least I found a setup guide for the network and found a use for that slip of paper that was in the box. Aah! there's a secret menu (1111) and you have to activate stuff.
There was also a softcam file my mate had sent over so I now installed that.
I followed the instructions found the list of channels the gift was supposed to open however a lot of them were not opening or had gone off air.
The softcam was working fine though.
I called the supplier the next day, THIS IS NOW WHY I REGRET BUYING THIS BOX.
Me "Hi there I've just bought a spiderbox from you and I am having problems clearing channels, its like the gifts not working" them "do you have the latest patch and softcam installed" me "Yes" ok he takes me through a few things most of which are your std IT questions you know the type.
I'm then asked about signal strengths and I tell him I have great strengths so we go to Thor check a few channels great strengths again we check digi they clear, we check fta they clear, we check a gift channel... nothing. He asks if I have fixed or motorised I say motor and we move to either 16e or 13e and start checking gift channels, now all these gift channels strengths are all between 74% and 84% for signal and quality but are not clearing just says scrambled channel, so he tells me to go to an fta channel *****TV and I get No Signal he then says that your problem you need to get an engineer out to fix your dish, your dish is the problem. I say what about all the others that had a signal and he says "not our problem its your dish" we then have a back and forth where he becomes very rude and at one point calls me an idiot and hung up on me. Everytime I tried calling back it was hung up immediatley or not answered.
I decided to do a bit of investigating and if he had know anything about the product he could quite simply have told me that they were having problems with 13 & 16 east at that time and they were working on getting it fixed. (Which I found on their website)
I have also since found out that Yes they have been able to clear more channels and more are coming soon. What they haven't told anybody is that they are losing them as well some are gone for good others by changing their encryption method.
As far as I am aware if you have a Linux or other net box you should be able to get the same if not more than the spider. But I look forward to the reviews of the professionals.
I was always told to end on a positive so I will try...
Cons:
Front Buttons
NO CARD PAIRING - your "Official" card wont work properly
Channel Manager and Editor
Menu Features
Only 1080i
Navigation
Initial Setup
I don't think the price is that good
The Gift is good but it is NOT as fantastic as the sellers make out
Pros:
2xUSB
MP3 Playback
Seemingly "beginers" network
PVR of your choice
Nintendo Games
Blind Scanning (Really is Good)
Fast Channel Change
The Remote Control
Now remember this is just my opinion and it has obviously been soured by my contact with the "Support Call Centre" whereever it is. And I am just a non technical end user with no knowledge of the network stuff, and if they change the servers I'll never know, because I am not online enough. That and the fact I have a brain injury makes it hard to trawl through the forums to try and piece together the secret info.
Seemingly this box was aimed at the beginner like me with simple network setup. I'll wait to see the techie reviews from Digi etc.
If I had my choice again I would wait on one of the more technical HD Linux boxes to come out and pay one of you lot to set it up.
Here is my unbiased review of my own Spiderbox 9000HD
I am not a Sat Techie of any kind my last box was a Humax and before that a Manhatton, many others, obviously had many Sky digiboxes.
Sat- Triax 90cm Disec 1.2 with best quad 0.1 lnb
Loc- Scotland East
Spiderbox price Paid - £251 direct from supplier
(included shipping, hdmi lead and homeplugs as I needed new ones anyway)
Before purchase I called the seller asking that the box be setup before delivery as was disabled and since having my strokes I have great difficulty following the forums, instructions, downloads and installing patches.
No problem I was told "just put a note on the purchase when buying" so I did I put the request on via google checkout. and again via an email... no response.
(item was sent a day late but still arrived fast I had purchased it early in the morning and expected it to go that day but it didn't it went the next day)
Box arrived
I unpacked it and immediately plugged it in swapping it over with my old box that I left positioned on 28e with a very strong signal.
To my disapointment they had done nothing to the box at all, no patch loaded no channels loaded, nothing.
Now remember most of you guys reading this are quite technical and know how the scene works and what to do with a new box.
Anyway I get the manual out and start reading, there is no info on the gift, where to get patches or how to connect, oh wait there is a slip of paper with a string of numbers on it so I decide to give the supplier a call to ask what to do with the numbers.
They must use an Indian call centre or something as they were very hard to understand. All I got asked was "have you installed the patch yet?" me "no" them "install the patch and call us back" click they'd hung up.
Luckily a friend of mine had bought one and was struggling with his as well but he emailed me the "patch" with instructions on how to load it on the box.
I decided to read the manual again and install the box and set it up as a clean install first.
I go into motor setup onto 28e where i'd left it and noticed theres no signal, (strange thats where I'd left it) so I position it again no problem, great signal in fact fantastic signal 84% on both signal and quality, so to make sure i'm on the right sat I change TP... no signal down to about 20% christ I must have been on the wrong sat, so I moved the dish again got another great signal changed the TP and bang off it goes again. To cut a LONG story short unless you save the sat position as soon as you get a lock or good signal the sat will move if you do anything other than save the position. This must be a new thing as my other sats never done this. Maybe i'm just not up to this new fangled stuff, but then again i'm a typical end user remember not a techie. (The Manual isnt very informative if you dont know what a feature is. Like I don't know what the Disecq section is for)
So after setting up the box and scanning all the sats I wanted to store I had a good look at it and a play around with it as a Manilla unit. (which it will be when the gift runs out)
As a sat receiver its good enough (ish) I've seen and had a lot better boxes.
In my opinion...
The box looks are spoiled by the the big chrome buttons on the front it ends up making the box look cheap like something out of Lidl but I can see past that, but guests in my house have thought it was a retro box of somekind.
The display is unreadable from across the room due to it being so dim, this is a feature that you would have thought you could adjust via the menu but you cant. (If you can I haven't found it)
That brings me to the internal menu...
Most of you will have seen the screen shots of the menus that are kicking around and can make your own opinion of the quality. I don't know if I have been spoiled by the boxes I've had in the past but I found them to be amateurish and lacking in something. To me there is a feeling of a lack of control, I must apologise I know this is meant to be a review but I can't pinpoint what it is, but there are definately a few things missing.
The channel manager, well there's not a lot to say about this other than if you have a LOT of time on your hands you can probably get a list of channels the way you want them, there are no auto sorting features of any kind. You can Rename, Move, Lock, Delete and add to favourites.
The favourites is one of the best or most useful features on the box as you are able to set the favourites up as categories but again this is available on other boxes. (I beleive with one of the patches there is a mass delete function, again I have not found it)
All the other features (apart from Network) are pretty standard for a box nowadays like mp3 playback, jpg slideshow and games via usb.
I cannot review the network as I have never had a box with this facility but this seems to be the bit everyone raves about, but other reviews I've seen say it is quite limited in comparison to Dreambox and Linux boxws but would be great for a beginner. Well I'm a beginner and its one of the reasons I bought the box and one of the reasons I don't like it... because I don't understand it, but the real problem is unless you've been on the sat scene for a while and understand all the terminology like ccam, newcamd, cline etc you end up clueless. But the worst thing of all is that everything is a SECRET and your not allowed to ask anything cos thats a bannable topic.
Back to the box, everything is working ok I have good strenth signals like before excluding the ones outside the footprint for my area as usual.
So I install the patch, well that was painless... but nothings changed no extra channels, no difference, what next? I decide to search google as by this time its too late to phone "the seller" I find this site obviously but with no info that I was looking for but manage to find reference to the main spiderbox site, well thats no good as you cant read anything unless you log in and it was asking too many questions for me.
I went to the sellers website and found they had a forum and you didnt have to reg to see the info well some you did but at least I found a setup guide for the network and found a use for that slip of paper that was in the box. Aah! there's a secret menu (1111) and you have to activate stuff.
There was also a softcam file my mate had sent over so I now installed that.
I followed the instructions found the list of channels the gift was supposed to open however a lot of them were not opening or had gone off air.
The softcam was working fine though.
I called the supplier the next day, THIS IS NOW WHY I REGRET BUYING THIS BOX.
Me "Hi there I've just bought a spiderbox from you and I am having problems clearing channels, its like the gifts not working" them "do you have the latest patch and softcam installed" me "Yes" ok he takes me through a few things most of which are your std IT questions you know the type.
I'm then asked about signal strengths and I tell him I have great strengths so we go to Thor check a few channels great strengths again we check digi they clear, we check fta they clear, we check a gift channel... nothing. He asks if I have fixed or motorised I say motor and we move to either 16e or 13e and start checking gift channels, now all these gift channels strengths are all between 74% and 84% for signal and quality but are not clearing just says scrambled channel, so he tells me to go to an fta channel *****TV and I get No Signal he then says that your problem you need to get an engineer out to fix your dish, your dish is the problem. I say what about all the others that had a signal and he says "not our problem its your dish" we then have a back and forth where he becomes very rude and at one point calls me an idiot and hung up on me. Everytime I tried calling back it was hung up immediatley or not answered.
I decided to do a bit of investigating and if he had know anything about the product he could quite simply have told me that they were having problems with 13 & 16 east at that time and they were working on getting it fixed. (Which I found on their website)
I have also since found out that Yes they have been able to clear more channels and more are coming soon. What they haven't told anybody is that they are losing them as well some are gone for good others by changing their encryption method.
As far as I am aware if you have a Linux or other net box you should be able to get the same if not more than the spider. But I look forward to the reviews of the professionals.
I was always told to end on a positive so I will try...
Cons:
Front Buttons
NO CARD PAIRING - your "Official" card wont work properly
Channel Manager and Editor
Menu Features
Only 1080i
Navigation
Initial Setup
I don't think the price is that good
The Gift is good but it is NOT as fantastic as the sellers make out
Pros:
2xUSB
MP3 Playback
Seemingly "beginers" network
PVR of your choice
Nintendo Games
Blind Scanning (Really is Good)
Fast Channel Change
The Remote Control
Now remember this is just my opinion and it has obviously been soured by my contact with the "Support Call Centre" whereever it is. And I am just a non technical end user with no knowledge of the network stuff, and if they change the servers I'll never know, because I am not online enough. That and the fact I have a brain injury makes it hard to trawl through the forums to try and piece together the secret info.
Seemingly this box was aimed at the beginner like me with simple network setup. I'll wait to see the techie reviews from Digi etc.
If I had my choice again I would wait on one of the more technical HD Linux boxes to come out and pay one of you lot to set it up.