Nahema. I'd contact Echostar, they are good at engaging with issues.

the echostar is now only £234.53 on amazon, which is a bit of a bargain for what easily the best freesat box on the market.

or £229.99 from Maplin, apparently with free delivery. http://www.maplin.co.uk/echostar-500...nywhere-531725

(I've not used the Echostar, but I much prefer the Samsung to the Humax as a freesat PVR, although the Samsung has problems as an XVID media player and with BBC iPlayer - and, of course, no Slingbox.)

some very good prices about now. when they first came out they were £350 which i think was a bit steep, but at todays prices they are a bit of a bargain.

Currently can be picked up for around £230 with a 2 year warranty:

Is indeed a bargain providing you'll make use of the sling functionality.

Not sure how long it will be this pricethough given that hard drives are becoming expensive and in short supply due to floods in Thailand. Humax have increased their trade prices already.

i still think its a bargain even if you don't use the sling facility, i don't use it and i was still quite happy to pay £299 for mine. i just wanted a good efficient fully featured easy to use freesat box that works like its supposed to, and thats what ive got so i don't mind paying a bit extra. i would have preferred to pay £231 though which it what amazon have dropped it to today.

Hi

Ordered one this morning now they have dropped to around £220 mark.

I already have a slingbox pro I use for a motorised dish - but wanted something that records as well as watch back from abroad - going to states for a month in Jan so it will come in useful.

I assume I just add it as a new device on my slingcatcher?

I have 100 meg bb at home and 10 meg upload sso this hould give me enough quality for a decent pic I assume?

Dave

only £215 now at amazon - Bargain.

but only one left in stock.

Got the box............

Easy to install - just 2 problems.

I already have slingplayer installed on my pc but when I go to add the echostar it says device not compatible - however I can view it through the web based slingbox viewer.

Also my slingcatcher seems incompatible as well...........surely this isnt the case?

Dave

whiteswan,

I've played around with this a bit, and read as much as I can. I don't have all the answers, and I have an older Sling box myself, but maybe this will help...

All new products, features, and updates are via the web-based slingbox viewer. The old software you installed on your PC still works for old slingboxes, but they're not updating it any more, so it doesn't support new sling boxes. There's no need to. The web plug-in works without having to install a new application on your PC - so it'll work on your PC, friends PCs, work PCs etc. There's a web pop-out player that looks a bit like the older desktop application, and you can set this as the default if you want. There's also full screen, which is what I usually use.

The slingcatcher hardware hasn't been supported or updated for a while (you can't even find it now in the UK). I get the impression that it can't be updated - which is probably why they dropped it even though so many people seemed to love it. (Have you seen their forums?) That's the thing I've learned about Sling: with older devices, you must check compatibility, because the codecs get improved over time (see Wikipedia) meaning the newer hardware has wider compatibility, and there are things that the older hardware just can't connect to. That said, the Sling Catcher can connect to some devices that it's "not compatible" with if you configure it manually over a home network. It's worth a try.

I'd love to hear how Sling works for you over a 10MB upstream connection - I only have 350kbps upstream!

Cheers,
David.

The picture is near Broadcast quality over the 100 meg bb line - very very impressed.

I also have a slingbox pro that I use the slingcatcher with and have to say that whilst the pic is excellent the echostar beats it hands down.

Also keypresses on the "virtual" remote using the 100 meg bb is instantaneous - just like being sat in the lounge.

It will be a real shame if the slingcatcher wont work with the echostar as if you are away from home (going to states for a month in January) - its just like having a proper stb there as you have a physical remote control to use !

Just a thought - now that Virgin Media are throttling all speeds if you use a certain amount of bandwith - how does the slingbox affect this?

As I understand it's te upload at the slingbox end that determines the pic quality that you can view I believe - does this affect your limit before Virgin start slowing you down?

Dave

Does this box have the facility to store & play music like the Foxsat does ?

Not with the current software set, no. The USB can only be used to update firmware. There is an "Applications" menu which only has an About screen for the Sling function. Hopefully something useful might appear in future there. Gone a bit quiet on updates though.

Thanks for the prompt response. Bit disappointing as I've just bought one but not unpacked it yet. Might have to go back as I do use the music playing facility on the Foxsat quite a bit. It's bit annoying that companies seem to send their products to market only "half baked" and let the consumer do the testing and flagging up "missing" features.

I agree, I think the device has promise for the future and Echostar are a name that has been around in satellite gear for many years. I wanted to get an HD PVR and this seemed to have good reports of swiftness in the menus and EPG load speed (where others are described as sluggish). Also being a new box there is a chance of more updates and functionality as time goes by, whereas the ones that have been around a while are less likely to be updated.

Here's hoping anyway ... for now it does what it says on the tin. Having front and back USBs I'm hoping for more than just firmware updates!!

what a ridiculous statement to make, echostar have never said or advertised it will play music and they have never said it is coming in future updates either, so maybe you best send it back. to accuse them of sending a product to market half baked because it doesn't do something you want it to do thats its not even supposed to do is just silly, its a freesat box for watching tv not an ipod. why didn't you read up on it before you bought it, that would be the sensible thing to do. a quick look on their website or ask a question on here and you would have known it wouldn't play music.

Steady boy, no need to get your knickers in a knot ! It's just that the Foxsat and the Samsung Freesat boxes have this facility and I think the Humax Freeview does too so it's not as if I'm expecting something out of the ordinary.

thats fair enough, but don't you think your first statement was a bit over the top using works like 'half baked' and letting the consumer do the testing to find out missing features.

Well I wasn't picking on Echostar in particular, I've had a Foxsat when they were introduced and they certainly had "issues" and missing features, some of which have still not been addressed by Humax. Funnily enough the reason I bought the Echostar without doing my usual amount of research was that my 3 week old Foxsat had 2 lock ups in the same day last Monday. Something I have only seen very,very rarely before. It appears to be something to do with the latest firmware and doing a scan for the new channel line up - which I did at the weekend. Not wishing to have problems over Christmas I just went on-line and bought the Echostar. I'll keep it and hope that the feature is added sometime in the future. I've realised that I can play my music from a USB stick in my Home Cinema system anyway.

I also had a Samsung for a while. Reading up on that before buying I got the impression that they were about to add wireless networking to it but there was no sign off it when I sold it a few weeks ago. So maybe they judged that there was insufficient call for it - not enough folk moaning about the lack of it on various forums perhaps !

ok please let us know your thoughts once you've got it set up, you will be the only person i know of thats owned all three, the humax, the echostar and sammy. i have owned or tried most freesat boxes except the sammy and i think the echostar is easily the best, as a straight forward pvr that is, i don't use the sling feature yet. i know the humax does a lot more like recording to usb and being a media server etc which don't interest me, but as a pvr i think the echostar is much better, it just works like a pvr should and doesn't have loads of work arounds that you wouldn't even know about if you didn't read forums like these.

I'll probably set it up tomorrow then use it for a few days and see how I get on then I'll let you know what I think.

BTW I also built a Windows Media Centre PC and ran that as an HDR for about 9 months as well so you could say I've tried the lot.

I think the Echostar is pretty good (and I also don't use the sling functionality) but I have had some issues. It stopped seeing series links in the EPG and they all stopped recording. I noticed it wasn't recording them and if I set things to record in the EPG which had series links it didn't offer me the option of recording the series. A power cycle sorted it.

Like I say it's new and hopefully as such they will invest time in sorting any niggling bugs out. It's snappy enough in the menus and the EPG loads quickly which is all you can ask really.

i lost a few series links a few months ago as well but it has been perfect ever since, i always think that anything with a hard drive in should be powered down every week or two anyway it seems to keep everything in order, same with my computer as well.

there are only two things i would like to see added to the echostar which are-

once you have watched a recording i would like to see it marked as watched, instead of have to guess which episodes of a series link you have watched. i spoke to an echostar technical engineer a few months ago and he said it was already being worked on and would be in the next software release, which cant be far away now.

i would also like it to be easier to see your scheduled recordings as well instead of having to go through the menus. it needs to have a short cut from the EPG or maybe the library. i mentioned that to the engineer as well but i cant remember what he said.

other than those two things i wouldn't be bothered if echostar never released any updates ever again because i like it that much, i does everything i want it to, i like the live rewind i use it a lot and it works perfectly, but any updates would be welcome though, theres always room for improvement. when i spoke to echostar back in july they said there was some exciting new features coming in the near future so they cant be very far away now.


i might even buy the sling app over xmas and see what its like, ive never bothered before because i didn't have my own internet connection but i have now so i might give it a go, and ive got some money sat in my itunes account doing nothing, i think it costs about £20 which is a bit steep though, i think it should be a tenner at most.

now only £179.99 at amazon, thats an amazing price, don't know how long it will last though it could just be a boxing day sale.

Amazon link here. Unbelievable value!!