Considering Purchasing the ET9200

[digicon]

i think the Solo, Duo, Uno and Ultimo are made exclusively for Vu+ which are owned by Marusys a little bit like B&W Speaker range (Bowers & Wilkins) are the high end where as KEF are there mid range speakers both the same company.

Unlike the ET Range of receivers which are built in Korea and the Clarke-Tech or Xtrend come in and slap a badge on them.

[GAH]

Hi Digicon,

Thanks for the explanation. My mate is always going on about his B&W speakers!

I came across a Dynavision 9000HD yesterday, which looks as if it came out the same factory as the XTrend/Clarketech, but a good bit cheaper at ?240. Not too sure if there are any decent images for it though!

Anyway, I think I'm going to buy the Vu Duo! I still think it looks ugly, but I'm going with my head here rather than my heart!

GAH

[satlover276]

Definitely listen to digicon mate as he's more knowledgable on this than anyone and you can trust his recommendations. You won't regret the Duo and yes i agree with you on the looks compared to the Xtrend but it really does boil down to the picture quality, the image and the support and the Duo has it over the Xtrend and i have seen this for myself as an owner of the ET9200. Get it mate and enjoy it.

[GAH]

Hi Satlover276,

Thanks for the comments. Have seen contributions from Digicon on other sites, so I'm sure he knows his stuff! As I said, definitely leaning torwards the Vu Duo now!

GAH

[garry1312]

See I would not let the fact that someone else builds the receiver put you off the ET9200 plenty of other companies source other companies to build there products.

PQ on the ET9200 is only a issue with the ViX image there are plenty of other images out there which have perfect PQ.

I cannot say what the PQ is like on the ViX image on the Duo but from what I have read it has the same crash issues.

I would say the Xtrend ET9200 wins hands down over the Duo but it does not work well with ViX image but there are plenty of other images out there that do the same job if not better.

[digicon]

Garry makes a good and valid point about about the ET9200 vs the Duo on spec the hardware blows the Duo out of the water.

In real term tests and i have owned an ET9000 so speak from a little experience that basic satellite viewing the ET and Duo are equal and you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two of them.

Where Garry makes another valid point is spec wise the ET is on par with the Uno and Ultimo as they all share the same Broadcom chipset so basically all have identical features, Hardware Blindscan, Picture in Picture etc..

Now here is the let down and i think that both Garry and Satlover would agree it appears that Picture quality issues have been found with what is probably one of the most popular E2 images and that is Vix, Now when i had the 9000 i ran Vix for a good few months infact nearly a year, It was only when curiosity got the better of me and i decided to try other images to see how they would fair. Well i got my answer the official CT image or as it is known now as Xtrend really showed how crisp the picture detail could be the only downside it is geared more for the German market than ourselves so getting hold of Softcams and such was a real pain, Saying that i believe the latest V5.0 image is superb and is the only image at present to run linux 3.2.0 on any E2 machine (Thats what i liked about CT always the first off the blocks).

Image wise on the ET series i decided to follow development of the OpenPLI image is i found it more stable than a lot of images i tried, also it was how i can only refer to it as in RAW form in other words no real tampering had been done to change certain aspects of the image itself, I like the idea that you could customise it yourself by adding whatever plugins where required without over Bloating it.

I also found the PLI image to give a nice picture on my Plasma so that was half the battle won, To be honest though if someone where to ask me the difference in picture quallity between images then i would personally be hard pressed to tell even now as it was some months ago that i owned my 9000.

I think to aid garrys argument about picture quality then you only have to look at the ET9200, Uno and Ultimo as they all run the Broadcom 7413 chipset so drivers for this chipset should be exactly the same on each model (Video processing) i am not a software engineer so i have no idea how these drivers are implemented in the image and how especially for Garry and Satlover how the drivers for (Video processing) are executed but it does appear that some images are either having an effect on the picture and making it worse where as some of the other images have the opposite effect.

@GAH the only real reason i opted to advise you on the duo is basically at the present time it has more support than the 9200 if like i say you are just going to be using it in a standard "just to watch Satellite TV" mode, if you are wanting to feedhunt say or like to have a PiP function then the ET9200 is your better bet.

Regards

[GAH]

Hi Guys,

Thanks to EVERYONE for their input. After a lot of thought I have gone for the Vu Duo and it arrived yesterday. Not had a lot of time to play about with it yet, but the picture qualiry (using Vix image) is definitely better than my DM800HD.

Thanks again,
GAH

[Midnight Rider]

Picture Quality may also be TV dependent as I have found that the Vix image gives the best PQ on my cheaper LG 720p Plasma.

Whether that would be the case with my more expensive Panny Plasma I dont know as I haven't had a chance to test it with the ET yet. I would expect the Panny to show the differences far more though as it has superior detail compared to the LG.

On the LG though which I dont consider to have great PQ the Vix image and the ET seem to work very well together. The Vix image seems to provide a sharper picture than the openpli image. This sharpness is probally what the LG needs as it has poor resolution.

[garry1312]

See my TV has excellent PQ on all my receivers including the Xtrend. The only PQ issue I have is with the ViX image on my Xtrend ET9200.

Had someone PM me and say they also have poor PQ issues on a Xtrend ET6000 using ViX image so not looking as if it is just a ET9x00 issue.

I would highly agree with Digicon that some images are having an effect on PQ. For me the main image having a huge negative effect on the PQ is the ViX image.

I have tried discussing this matter with the ViX team but all I got was spoken down to, ganged up on, told that I talk nonsense. One second they would blame the drivers the next second it would be my TV that is at fault (A tv that works excellent with PQ on other images and receivers)

Personally if ViX resolved the PQ issue rather than burying there head in the sand I personally still do not think I would use there image or recommend it as they are not a helpful team and certainly cannot take critisism and will blame every fault on anyone else or anything else rather than taking the sensible approach and saying 'hey there seems to be a issue here lets see if theres something we can do to resolve it'.

What makes me laugh the most though is a ViX team member addmitted there was a issue then they claim there is not, its now the users/ drivers/ or TV's fault they cant even make up there mind on what's to blame :/

Ooh there other attitude was 'and what the image cost's you nothing'. Image might cost me nothing same with any other but I did buy my receiver from WOS which supports the image..... Wont be making that mistake again, ungreatful.

[digicon]

Picture Quality may also be TV dependent as I have found that the Vix image gives the best PQ on my cheaper LG 720p Plasma.

Whether that would be the case with my more expensive Panny Plasma I dont know as I haven't had a chance to test it with the ET yet. I would expect the Panny to show the differences far more though as it has superior detail compared to the LG.

On the LG though which I dont consider to have great PQ the Vix image and the ET seem to work very well together. The Vix image seems to provide a sharper picture than the openpli image. This sharpness is probally what the LG needs as it has poor resolution.

Not that i doubt you in any sense of the word but curious here how the Vix image could provide a sharper picture on there image rather than the OpenPLI, seeing as the Vix image is built on OpenPLI source code so a lot of the Vix image is OpenPLI.

I just wish i had a procal and FL meter that the Pro's use to calibrate a TV so then we could do proper image picture quality tests between different teams thats the only sure fire way to determine any Picture quality issue's.

Anyone on the board know or have a mate who has such equipment.

[garry1312]

I just wish i had a procal and FL meter that the Pro's use.

Were do I get my hands on one mate would love to prove what I already know

[garry1312]

The Vix image seems to provide a sharper picture than the openpli image.

If this is true please remind me not to use the OpenPli image. A image with worse PQ than the ViX image..... must not be able to view a thing

[Midnight Rider]

I have an xrite pro meter and use Cromapure software for calibration.

This HW and SW will not be able to determine whether PQ is better on one reciever or another it will only enisure that Greyscale, sharpness and colour are near industry standards.

Ultimately, PQ is subjective and even a TV which is perfectly calibrated may not be to everyones tastes. However, a well made quality plasma, properly calibrated will usually show its quality.

Anyway, my comments regarding Vix on my cheap LG plasma are subjective comments, not to be taken as fact. Somebody else may diagree if they saw my TV. For me though it seemed as if the Vix seems sharper than the openpli image (it may not of been as this isn't scientific).

I'm sure that on my Panny I would be able to give a definitive subjective view as the Panny has very good resolution and has shown the differences between recievers in the past.

Anyway, the ET with Vix on my LG is superior to my old Spiderbox which was good on my Panny. Best Pic on my Panny however, was the Icecrypt S4000 which is has awesome PQ.

Looking forward to trying the ET on my Panny soon.

[Midnight Rider]

Not that i doubt you in any sense of the word but curious here how the Vix image could provide a sharper picture on there image rather than the OpenPLI, seeing as the Vix image is built on OpenPLI source code so a lot of the Vix image is OpenPLI.

Could just be that they use different sharpeness scaler settings?

[digicon]

Could just be that they use different sharpeness scaler settings?

Nope cant be that either every image i have ever loaded is the same in setup A/V settings all are set to default which is 128/256 for main options then all other options are set to off.