Skybox F5 mini review

why did anyone put up with it?

Because they cost £40 and gave features users wanted.

I'm not having this debate on picture quality again we've done it a few times already, search the forum. I seem to remember Pedro gave a very in depth technical reply to the last episode.
 
well I've no doubt I've saw different quality sd from a built in tv receiver to my sky+ plus so makes me wonder if this would be the same for hd and I've friends who are buzzing about the f5 picture, thanks for help ill look out for Pedros comments
 
I didn't say that a TV's terrestrial tuner should give the same quality as a satellite receiver.
There are few terrestrial HD channels, of varying quality, so they can't be compared with satellite either.
have you got everything going through an Onkyo TX-NR515
Not quite everything.
I'm not having this debate on picture quality again
What debate?
Respond or not as you wish, but if you respond with words like that at the end of #48 you can't expect silence.

I know there are differences but say there shouldn't be, in the one simple thing that receivers are made for.
 
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have you got everything going through an Onkyo TX-NR515

.. Not quite everything. ...

The thought occurred to me that the Onkyo might be making everything look the same to you that keeps you posting this 'all digital pictures are the same from Bush to Panasonic ' ... thing
 
I know there are differences but say there shouldn't be, in the one simple thing that receivers are made for.

Post #47 didn't say that though did it... and the fact you went on to comment about one example of one particular model rather suggested the opposite.
 
There shouldn't be any difference between the picture quality produced by any receiver and that produced by any other receiver.

Am intrigued to discover why you believe there shouldn't or wouldn't be a difference in the picture quality being produced between a low end budget hardware £40 receiver and a top end model?
 
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I know there are differences but say there shouldn't be, in the one simple thing that receivers are made for.

In an ideal world yes all receivers would be absolutely perfect - but they are not - most are only acceptable. All receivers do not use the same chip sets and all the different manufacturers chip sets do not perform exactly the same, they all have their strong and weak points (generally the more expensive the chip set the fewer the weak points) but there is no such thing as a perfect chip set yet.
 
why you believe there shouldn't or wouldn't be a difference in the picture quality
I don't believe there wouldn't.
Producing a TV picture that's similar to the source material is the one important function of any TV, and is the one function that it should do properly, especially with digital sources.
It's a basic property, like saying that a cooker should get hot and cook food, and a fridge should get cold and preserve food.
As dm2 says, perfection isn't required or expected, but satisfaction is, regardless of price.
 
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They regularly change the encryption system, that may make it more difficult for the subscription cards to work in anything other than their own machines, and it's widely considered that such a change is imminent.

This is one of the reasons I got terribly upset with SKY and cancelled my sub. They recently implemented a forced "pairing" of their subscription cards with SKY boxes, meaning a SKY card will only work with one box.

That meant that, suddenly, I could not watch in my bedroom anymore, where I had installed another SKY box I had bought off EBAY. I could not understand why SKY would care where I used my card, since there is one and only card, and I am paying for it - why do they care if I watch in the bedroom or in the living room.

But apparently they do, and they asked me to choose, bedroom or living room, so I cancelled. Their loss.
 
Why do they care? Because they're losing out on a Multiroom subscription.
 
Hi.
The brand name is thoroughly misleading as it has nothing to do with Sky.
It will work as soon as you connect it to your satellite dish and power it on.
That work will consist of producing all the free UK channels that a Sky or FS or any other machine produces.
If you insert a Sky card with a current subscription it will also produce the channels that the subscription covers.
As kevkbuk suggests the card may not continue for long to work that way.
What purposes are you thinking of getting it for, that a Sky or FS or other machine wouldn't provide?

If this machine can, for the time being, decrypt and display encrypted SKY programmes using a SKY card, eg ITV2 HD, then that means you will be able to record onto your own external device this material in HD format *and* unencrypted. Meaning you would *not* need the SKY card and a valid subscription to play back these programmes.

This is in direct contradiction on the SKY "standard" where the subscription card is needed to replay previously recorded material.

I asked a very similar question of a Humax Direct sales advisor and he told me that his machine would indeed "export" and "import", through the USB, recorded material, but in the case of HD it would be scrambled to stop you from replaying HD programmes on other machines.

I am seriously puzzled by all these arbitrary restrictions. Not allowed to record off of a HDMI, needing a SKY card to replay programmes which you have already recorded, artificially scrambling HD programmes. In ALL cases I am paying TV licence fees, SKY subscriptions - why on earth do they impose all these restrictions and penalties ?
 
If this machine can, for the time being, decrypt and display encrypted SKY programmes using a SKY card, eg ITV2 HD

Yip recordings are unencrypted, the excuse with $ky and other end user boxes is always to do with studio copyrights etc.
 
I asked a very similar question of a Humax Direct sales advisor and he told me that his machine would indeed "export" and "import", through the USB, recorded material, but in the case of HD it would be scrambled to stop you from replaying HD programmes on other machines.

The custom firmware for Foxsat HDR available from this forum fixes this issue.
 
The TV Licence is not relevant.
 
logiciel said:
I don't believe there wouldn't.

In which case meaning you believe there is. Your point is therefore simply revolving around there shouldn't be a difference?
 
I don't just believe there is - I know there is, as does everyone.
My point is revolving around what I said - that there shouldn't be a difference.
you that keeps you posting this 'all digital pictures are the same from Bush to Panasonic ' ... thing
Not only do I not "keep" posting that all are the same but I do not post that at all - my point is as above - that they should be all the same. Your reference to the AVR is too obscure for me to follow.

Post #47 didn't say that though did it... and the fact you went on to comment about one example of one particular model rather suggested the opposite.
No, it didn't say that there are differences, because that was not the subject of the post, which was about what should be. The fact that I referred to individual faults was an acknowledgement of reality as opposed to theory.
 
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The way I understand it is that the programme material is compressed using lossy compression and there is a combination of hardware and software needed to be able to decompress the content and there is a lot of leeway in how to decompress and how to create frame after frame. In the hardware front there will be DACs and other components whose performance and noise floor will vary greatly from one machine to the other, and of course the software that will take "liberties" and in the end presumably what different receivers output to the HDMI cable is not the same for the same material. I am not sure if I am right, and I am not sure if there are quantitative "tests" to show the output "quality" of different receivers.
 
There shouldn't be any difference between the picture quality produced by any receiver and that produced by any other receiver.
There might be a difference in that one particular example of one particular model gave poor and unacceptable picture quality, and in that case the thing to do would be to have it replaced or refunded.

This IS what you keep posting.

The only way this would be nearer to a factual comment is if... IF.. the Motion Picture Expert Group had originally decided to go down the non Lossy compression route for the digital video compression system they were designing instead of the lossy route they chose...

...had they chosen the much harder but far better (IMO) non lossy route- then each pixel & it's colour information would be preserved throughout from camera &/or computer graphic to your stb &/or TV & you're premise would be nearer factual, I say nearer because it still would have been a fluid market & you'd have still have had companies doing a better job or a cheaper job etc.
 
Yes, that IS what I occasionally;) post, that there shouldn't be any difference.
I don't keep posting what you put into quote marks: "all digital pictures are the same from Bush to Panasonic".
Don't you understand the difference between "should be" and "are"?
All we're talking about here is a picture on a TV screen, not rocket science.
 
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But when someone asks if one STB has a better picture quality over another and you say they "should" be the same it's incredibly misleading. That to me says that if I had two different STBs plugged into the same TVs the picture quality would be the same. But what it actually says is, in your ideal world they would be the same.

What you "should" say is the picture quality is different across all STBs and all TVs but you think manufacturers "should" do a better job in terms of picture quality, but they don't.
 
In my far from ideal world they ARE the same - currently from five different makes of satellite PVR.
If one had not been as good as the others I'd have put that down to a bad example, not a bad model or make.
It would then have gone back for replacement.
If that had been no better then suspicion would have arisen as to the quality of the whole model or make.
Far more evidence would have been necessary though to make a definite conclusion on that point.
Saying they shouldn't be different is far from misleading - it's a simple statement of fact.
If you believe they should be different it's up to you to explain why you think so.

That to me says....the picture quality would be the same
However, if you can't distinguish between "should" and "would" there's nothing more to be said.
 
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There shouldn't be any difference between the picture quality produced by any receiver and that produced by any other receiver.
There might be a difference in that one particular example of one particular model gave poor and unacceptable picture quality, and in that case the thing to do would be to have it replaced or refunded.


Yawn
 
I picked one of these up the other day- just been far too busy to test it properly since but I did test blind scan it on 7.3w- oddly it got the MBC channels on Nilesat 102 but missed the much stronger versions on E7WA & that was from 7.3w so the 7w ones were .3 degrees off position too- the dish would pull them both in anyway but it's an interesting result. The 7.3w ones are 5/6 fec btw & the weaker versions on 7w are the more forgiving 3/4 fec but usually are harder overall.
 
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Ace picture ain't it Pedro ? Pin sharp

Haven't made my mind up yet re the PQ, mainly because the settings were wrong or something initially & it looked really awful at 1st, had a play with the AV settings & the HDMI's looking more like it now, needs a lot more tests though.
 

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