Captain 8000HD/iks reviews

[arboristman]

c/p

CG's review on the Captain 8000HD
Here is my prelim review on the Captain 8000HD
Once received unit was well packed and came with the usual, except this one also had component cables, which I will not use as I want to test the HDMI cables
First thing I did was take the latest release file and loaded it in on my CPU, CAPTAIN 8000 Hi Def, then proceeded to unrar the file, then I renamed the file as stated, I then dragged the flash file to my USB memory stick. then connected all coax and HDMI cables to the receiver and HD TV. I then proceeded to to flash the new bin to the receiver via USB, once the USB drive was installed the receiver recognized it right away, clicked on file and started the flashing process, took about a minute from start to finish including the reboot, then the receiver said Hi Neusat, LOL which was an inside joke I was told. I then proceeded to set my Dish settings, 119 110 91 82, it ask the usual language, time, location, etc... , then it ask if I wanted the one touch setup, so by mistake I clicked on yes. realizing I had not check marked my Sats so it started setting and searching for all Sat settings, so I tried to exit and cancel and it would not allow , so I turned the unit off from the rear and decide to try the process again. this time made sure only my 4 Sats were check marked incase I wanted to try the one touch setup again down the road. I proceeded to set my 4 Sat Dish settings, quickly noticed that it seemed to have some issues with the 4x4 multi switch 22k's so proceeded to play with the disable and enable and finally got them all in. Then I did a multiple scan with network search on and it took almost 20 minutes and at times the TP numbers would not move but the freq's were moving during the scan same was for the progress bar it would stay either @ 3 or 4 %. Once finally done I set my user settings then exited and tested the receiver, dish took about 3 minutes to roll and Bev took about 5 minutes to do so. I then started checking my usual channels like HBO and PPV and of course our Bev porns also and quickly noticed that all channels did not scan in properly, so I proceeded to do another scan this time one sat at a time, then I got a much better scan. tested channel 1850 TSNHD and was very impressed with the picture and quality. You have to love that HD. I then proceeded to do more testing, played with the step button on the remote which switches from different video formats such as 1080I which is default, 720P 480P 480I, also the EPG sometimes freezes up when updating so this seems to be an issue. I have had some freexing issue and no service also. I then decided to loop out another receiver as you know most of us that test don't all have 16 lines coming in the house like Sarge does so I use the loop out on all my 3 lines that come in the house. I made the Captain the main line in and looped 2 other receivers out, all worked fine till I noticed something, as the main receiver being the Captain that receiver should not be affected by the other receivers being on but it was, quickly noticed that the Venus channels on the Captain were not coming in and showing no signal strength so I turned the other 2 receivers off from the front, and then Venus came right in, this does not happen with any other receiver I am testing here, I understand if it was not the main receiver and it was looped but thus was not the case. another thing I noticed that was annoying at times was if you were on a PPV channel and front display screen would scroll from PPV and channel 517 so the Sarge quickly noticed that by turning the long name off it turned the scrolling off. Another item that needs tweaking by the coders is the signal and quality meters they are set to low, most of my receivers are in the mid 90's and the Captain shows in th ehigh 70's so that is just a matter of tweaking there SW, also a saving of Sat settings and channel list via USB would be great and save on time when doing a factory default. Another item I noticed is that sometimes if you turn the front receiver off and back on the sound goes out you have to channel up or down to get the sound back
I will do a little more testing today and will try something else, will do a fresh scan but with network search off and see if the scan are quicker by not building a new TP list, and if it eliminates some of the inactive channels showing and also to see if it will allow the TP numbers to ascend during the scanning process along with the progress bar

Then I will proceed to setup and test the Captain Premium 7000

I will add more to this as I remember all I did and tested, lol, in the meantime here are some quick screen shots


My prelim rating scale as 10 being the best and 1 the worst

Picture quality on HD 9
Regular channel picture quality 7.5
User friendly 7
Flashing and seting up 8
Remote control 8
Control Navigation 8
Coding to date 6.5 needs much improvement
Overall 8 to date

end c/p

the coding has really picked up and been pretty good since he wrote this review.
coding to date for cardless now i would put it right up there as a 9 all easy.

[arboristman]

fyi:
this unit is also now supported via iks.

[arboristman]

c/p


ICB's Review of the Captain 8000 HD
Finally I have had a chance to play with the Captain 8000 HD, now there was a problem. the unit was returned with no picture and audio nothin would show up, so I flashed the factory by null and loaded the file by USB no issues at all total time to fix the stb was 5 mins, I also popped the top and ensured that all wire harnesses were secure. from what I could tell there was a loose connection in the box. I turned it on and I was ready to set up. So here is the review:

General
The receiver is appealing to the eye. It is sleek and has a simple LED display with a blue accent Light on the front face plate. The face plate drops down to expose manual controls, USB port and a card slot.
The video outputs available are HDMI, Composite, Component. HDMI is a really nice feature and looks great on the plasma. and of course the r232 on the back.

Menu's
The menu's on the receiver are well laid out and easy to navigate. Very simple to get to where you want to go, the install window is well laid out and easy to follow with some sweet options like the port settings nice touch and user friendly.

Loading
The Captain was easy to load with the null and the Usb no problems at all and the display tracks its progress to tell you what stage of loading it is at.

Set up
Very easy to set up all menu's are self explaintory well informative with the options that the sat set up gives you it was a breeze very nice.

Epg
The epg is pleasing to the eye and is easy to navigate very nice and to update the guide you set what epg setting you want in the menu area under user settings----> extended epg after setting what you want go into the guide and press the blue button set your TP and start scan. The pg is well populated days out.

This is a very nice box I am impressed with the picture and OSD. It is very nicely laid out and would recommend the STB on quality and set up.

Overall
Ease of set up 9.5
Menu and OSD 9.5
Scanning 7.5 little slow
EPG 9 (7 days)
Picture quality 9.5

Team Captain I have been waiting for the opportunity to test this product and can honestly say great job now I have to get the dongle and check that out.

Brilliant job and can't wait to see what you come out with next.


..................


Dongle update
well I ordered the dongle and I got it in 5 days, fast wow good job.

Dongle Set up

Very easy and simple r232 out of dongle into the captain could have put securing screws on the r232 was surprised to see it did not have it. Run the ethernet from the wireless adapter to the captain again the should have supplied a cat 5 with the dongle. and pluged in the power adapter.
Loaded the latest Dongle file and went to menu network and enabled the network it rebooted and the green light came on I waited 10 secs and was up and running. Nice......

Overall
Set up 10
Picture 9.8