Fortec Star Platinum NA Review.

[diefledermaus]

I recently bought this receiver after owning a coship receiver. I purchased this receiver for the AC-3 and the common Interface abilities. Hook up was easy to deal with , and the interface is easy to use and well layed out and can be color modified to three different schemes which is nice. it came with the latest software. It has three games which I find amusing at best and think the programmers could put their time to better use on this product. So how does the unit do what it was purchased for.

The first and most important question is how well does it program satellites does it blind scan and how well. I received the receiver with 90 percent of the satellites in place those that are fully C band are not there, the Echostar sats that do not have FTA are not there. Also the C / KU band birds are just one satellite so you have to program a new satellite if you want each and are using a DISEqC switch. Now two sats are separated out G10 and IA 5 but that is it. If you need to add sats then you have to use one of the 10 open sat slots available.

So with the pre programmed sats I began to seach for programming. This was somewhat lack luster, the antenna setup menu is clear enough. Except for the first option scan next to it says something like 48-press okay. This is the button to scan your current satellite after you have set it up. So to set your dish on the satellite you wish you arrow down to position. Click okay and you are presented with a new position menu. If you are using a positioner that excepts USALS then this is easy. Set your location lat and Long and make sure you read the manual because goto ref I figured pointed me at the sat so I could check my signal level, nope it takes it to Zero on the H to H once you hit save or save and exit it moves the antenna to the sat. The DISEqC function has been loosing locations when hooked to my Aston controller for my BUD, so I cannot give a solid review of that function. Now you are back at antenna setup and can pick sat lock which does not lock to best signal it is a parental lock. Set your scan mode for FTA, ALL or POWER SCAN.

Power scan leaves something to be desired. With any pre-programmed receiver things can be out of date and this was purchased to hunt for the wild feeds. The biggest problem is the steps they are 4 6 10 12…the search jumps it does not scan all frequencies, and it is slow. To scan one sat on the c band using default and a four frequency jump takes approximately 20 minutes. Also you have no option to scan the whole arc. On the KU side if you adjust the freq range this can jump from 250 transponders, 125 for each Vert and horz, to 450 or more.

So I have programmed my receiver and I have now used it for about two months. I have had several times where the unit will lock up and restart or will stop responding to the remote until I hit the TV button then SAT and I get control back. The clock is inaccurate up to three minutes even using time sync. If you set it your self it gets off very quickly and very badly. There is no day light savings time setting I had to shift my location one hour to compensate. The timer which just gives you the ability to turn on and off the receiver based on a schedule has no way to activate the VCR. I would like to see the games removed for just this option. Going from sat to sat is also a bit annoying. You can tell it to go to a sat it will move to the location then 15-30 seconds later the picture comes up. If you are surfing the same satellite then it is responsive. Picture quality is spot on, and the AC-3 make watching PBS and other AC-3 channels a joy. I would like to see the option if the channel can be heard in non AC-3 the option be available. DW on AMC 1 can be heard without AC-3 but on this receiver it only comes in AC-3. The menus as I said earlier are well laid out the box has a nice small foot print. You can edit and add channels easily. I would like to test the CI functions on legal programming but I have not been able to come up with the cash necessary.

I would rate this receiver with the current software 6 out of ten. Its not that I so much want more, it is that I want better from this receiver. The company needs to revisit how the unit does what it does in the next software version. If an older receiver can do functions such as a full satellite arc scan and keep time accurately then I think a more modern receiver should excel at this. This is a decent receiver for the money.

[elgemcdlf]

I also have a couple Platinum NA receivers. As far as the games go. Ditch them. No need and I agree time would be better spent resolving other issues. Until just recently I have had no problems keeping time but here in the last 2 weeks I can not get the thing to maintain time at all. Just gave up on that one.

Both of them locked (parental) G10R for no apparent reason. Once unlocked the problem has not reoccured. The sat arrangement I am very disappointed with. You have no way to add sats beyond the preprogrammed slots. This becomes a problem if you are in a location that affords you view of many sats. Having to make multiple entries for a sat based on the lnb used just does not make sense to me.

Would be much easier to have a seperate db for sats and one for lnbs and merge the two based on tp. With that you could use one lnb for tp1, a different lnb for tp2 and so on. DiSeqC settings should also be settable per tp not per lnb. This would make for only one entry per sat. Now why would this be so much better? Ok choose G10R. Whoops I meant G10R for Ku band, no not that one for the standard lnb I have out there.

We do not choose our channels by lnb. No reason to set our sats that way. Scanning the entire arc would be nice but enter a new problem. What about those of us who are just riding on the coattails of a 4DTV system? We now can not move the big dish to each sat as the arc scan goes through. Perhaps the option to arc scan and then define what sats to scan in the arc.

The no picture for a delay after landing is annoying. I did install factory channel edit software which was a joke. Ended up causing a total reset of the receiver. I should check for an updated version of software. As far as usage goes I much prefer BEC to the Fortec. For features (operational or not) the Fortec wins.

Picture quality goes to my Coship but it has it's own issues with setup