DM800PVR....Can it record while viewing different channel?

[madasafish]

I was of the belief that the DM800 could record to internal/external hard disk while viewing another channel. I have a sky+ dish with quad LNB and have 2 cables going to living room where the old Sky+ box was. I was contemplating buying a DM800 to give me the same/similar functionality as the Sky+ box (FTA Only). When I review pictures of the back of a DM800PVR it shows two sat connections one is marked as IN and the other is marked as OUT. Yet on a DM8000 the default supplied 2 sat connections are marked Sat Tuner A IN and Sat Tuner B IN.

All very confusing...Can anyone please confirm if the DM800 PVR can provide me the facility of recording one channel while watching a seperate channel having two cables connected from the Sky Dish LNB

Much appreciated.

Madasafish

[wilf]

i think you can but they must be on the same transponder in order to do it, as it only has one tuner. if you want something similar to the sky plus box then you will need a twin tuner box, dm8000 has this as does some technomates but the most popular one and for a decent price is the vu+duo at around 350quid, but thats not with the hard drive they vary in price dependant on size

[madasafish]

Having reviewed the DM800, DM8000 and Vu+ Duo. I can get 2 x DM800 (clones) for the price of a DM8000 (clone) or Vu+ Duo.

If I have the facility to cable the LNB to the living room and bedrooms, then I can't help thinking that 2 x DM800's is better then 1 x DM8000 or 1 x Vu+Duo. Expecially, when you consider I don't need an internal drive because the house is cabled with ethernet connections and I have a centrally located NAS drive that supports NFS/SAMBA/CIFS.

By buying 2 x DM800's, I can record on one DM800 (Bedroom) and watch the other DM800 in the Living room or visa versa.

This has advantage of:...

A) Flexible - Can view recorded material on either DM800's
B) Redundancy - incase 1 goes belly up.
C) I have a dedicated 300 MIPS processor for each box as opposed to a 400 MIPS processor shared for 2 streams on a DM8000 or Vu+ duo.
D) Price - is comparible

What really surprises me about this setup... is my attempt to reduce the price further by buying 2 x DM500HD boxes, but for some bizzare reason they seem to be more expensive than DM800's.

Can anyone see error in my argument?

Madasafish

[mvsroot]

You can add a (supported) USB tuner and watch / record two channell on 2 different transponders at the same time.

[spyrogo]

I agree with your logic on this and thought the same thing about 2 boxes before I purchased a DM800, but the only thing I have found with network recording is on HD channels it is not so good, no issues when recording SD, but the higher bit rate for HD seems to give the DM800 clone a bit of an issue.

Just to throw something else into the mix, I found the DM800 clone not so good as a card server, does work but would fall over quite often (mine is a clone)

Sp

[dctyper]

all the above isnt right, the dm800 can only record the channel it is on. the usb tuner doesnt work


edit: only on the us stick i mean
dc

[mvsroot]

the usb tuner doesnt work

This is not true. Look at i-have-a-dreambox.com | Dreambox - Support | Allgemeines zur 800PVR | usbTuner (multiple tuners on dm800) ipk package (all new images)