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Originally Posted by billinin
I have a few qestions if anyone can help
1) The system requirements on Twinhan's website call for a P4 2Ghz, 256M ram, 32Mb VGA. The sys requirements here on Sadoun call for a 600Mhz cpu, 128M ram, 8Mb VGA. I have a Dell Inspirion laptop with Celeron 1.5G, 512M ram, not sure of the video. Will my laptop support the Starbox?
2) Will it decode 4:2:2?
3) Can I slave it to my 4dtv DSR922 with hf splitters?
4) Will it blind search?
Any comments are appreciated! |
I'll try on a couple of the above, hopefully others can add. First off, I don't recommend the Starbox at all. It is very lacking in sensitivity, and some of the most useful software out there isn't compatable with it.
Re (1) I think your computer should be compatable for SD and maybe for 4.2.2, but probably not for most
HD. I'm using a 1.9 GHz 64 bit CPU, and it will do some HD, but most of it, it isn't fast enough for.
Re (2) I think so, but some 4.2.2 may be too fast, so you might get stoppages in the video. I'm pretty sure that I tried a 4.2.2 sports feed, that sort of worked, but it froze up a lot. I haven't tried any low speed 4.2.2. It may not work with the built in software, but 3rd party software should do it.
Re (3) You can slave it like any other FTA receiver. Just make sure you use a DC block, or splitter that only passes DC on one outlet.
Re (4) ... NO. I don't know of any PC receiver that does blind search.
But back to the sensitivity. I am really dissappointed with it's sensitivity. I have a Lifetime, a Lifetime Ultra, a Twinhan 1020a, and a Broadlogic card, and this Starbox is by far the least sensitive of the bunch. And I'm not talking the reading of the signal strength meter, which is meaningless, I'm talking about tuning a signal with the other receiver, then switching cables over to the Starbox, and it will not lock on the channel. I'd say that about 1/3 of the channels that I get easily on the other receivers will not lock on the Starbox. I've even added a line amp to try to help it, and that helps a bit, but I still can't get a lot of signals that I should be able to receive. I have noticed, that most of the signals I have problems with are low SR signals, but I've also had problems on weaker wide signals.
Anyway, if the laptop is your only computer, then it will probably work on most SD signals, but if you have another computer to put a PCI card in, I'd recommend the PCI version over the USB Starbox. The PCI cards are also compatable with TSREADER, which will allow you to stream to your laptop anyway, if you have a LAN.
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