CNX DUO gets 5 Stars from RagingBull - ABA DSS

**RagingBull** · October 9th, 2008

I own many FTA SD boxes. I have a cw800, a Neosat Ipro2000, 2 Nfusions, a Sonicview 360,and a CNX Mini Each have their good points and bad points. Of those boxes I would have to say the Sonicview 360 is probably the best. Good picture, overall nice functionality and good support. The functionality of the PVR could be improved upon though and a download button for EPG should be added. Next would be the Mini. It has great support and overall funtionality is also very good but PVR was added as an afterthought and quite frankly it shows. It would have been my favorite box however the with the 2.1GB file limit on playback and the illegal character issue on Movie names I can not reccommed it to anyone who plans to do any amount of recording.

I am pleased to say that after purchasing the CNX DUO I am very pleased to see that it has none of the downfalls of the mini and all of the good points. I can see very little indeed to complain about on this box. It would even playback 2.1GB files that were actually recorded on the MINI. I have finally found a PVR box that I can give my full reccomendation to my friends. In my opionion it is worth shelling out the extra $40 over the MINI to have this box. For anyone who needs a PVR box and cannot afford the DUO my reccomendation would go to the Sonicview 360. Although the playback options are not as good as the MINI it does not have any of the file issues that the MINI has.

Must finish in saying however I am very pleased with the DUO and would purchase another one no problem and would definitely recommend it to my friends considering an SD PVR box.

**arboristman** · October 9th, 2008

hey cool.
i had a feeling you where gunna grab one of these.
good to see you like it buddy.
its like a mini on steroids.

**RagingBull** · October 9th, 2008

Yea, no more need to file split when recording those 3 hour boxing matches and can record the comedy shows with the colon in the name. Ran it through the paces last night recording every type of scenario I could think of and it never missed a lick.

**Itaintrite** · October 9th, 2008

So Mini > Premier? heh.

Question, how is Duo better than Mini other than the file playback thingy.

**RagingBull** · October 9th, 2008

I would rate the premier just slightly ahead of the MINI due to the recorded file issues. They are a pain for anyone that does lots of recording. Other than that the MINI is a great box.

The 2.1GB playback thing you can get around by file splitting the show into segments that are less than 2.1Gb. The illegal character thing has no way around it as far as I know and it is a bigger deal. A show like say Boxing: Jones vs Calzage would not record giving a USB full message. The Duo has no such problem. There are also some other small differences such as the mini will stop recording after 4GB and the DUO will start recording a second file, the DUO has 30 record timers instead of 10 and 2 USB ports front and back but otherwise they are pretty similar. It has all the good points of the MINI with none of the bad points.

**arboristman** · October 9th, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by RagingBull

The illegal character thing has no way around it as far as I know and it is a bigger deal.

yeah,that sucks lol.

flip the rear switch off.(once you took note of what you wanted to record)
dumping the epg info.
now when you flip the rear switch on,hit record before it loads.

yeah,the chip in the mini is a basic virgo sm but the duo sports the virgo se chip(so iv read).the popular pvr chip used in coolies/panny's/visionsat and such for example.

they did pretty good tho adding in some basic pvr to a non pvr unit.
you just don't want to expect an actual full featured pvr system or anything from the mini.

**RagingBull** · October 9th, 2008

Yes, other than the issues I mentioned the PVR works flawlessly. With the DUO everything is flawless. Really liking this box.