Just purchased a new system: Help needed

[irishweeman]

Hi

I have just bought the following

Phoenix apollo multicrypt + 2 common interface

80 cm dish

1 lmb and bracket

1 art card

I mainly want the system for art sports on hotbird. I am getting it installed on Monday

What other options are available

I have no understanding of programmable cards or patching the apollo

I have a sky subscription excluding the movies at 50% discount. Is there any way to get additional channels such as movies, extra sport etc in addition to the art subscription i have bought

Any help would be appreciated

[BGonaSTICK]

Hello m8, welcome to the forum

Right, I know nothing about your receiver, so I think it's unlikely that there's a patch for it :?

I'm also not sure what 'multicrypt' means with respect to your specific receiver, but it's obviously capable of decrypting more than one encryption system (with or without a CAM).

It's likely that if the decoder(s) are built into the firmware, Viaccess is one of them and that should support your ART card directly.

Does your receiver have a card reader slot as well as the 2 CI slots?

Do you have a CAM lined up, or are you expecting it to work without one?

Do you know of/think there may be a patch for your receiver?

I wouldn't worry about programmable cards until you get up and running with ART. We can help you with that later if you feel the need to go down that route.

There is no easy way to expand your Sky subscription other than going to Sky and throwing more money at them, but there are other packages that become open for a period of (unspecified) time, such as Digital + or Premiere.

Plenty of movies and sport on those when they're open. You could get these on a CAM or a programmable card.

Hope that gives you something to think about

STICK

[irishweeman]

What do u mean by what cam am i getting

Saw on the net it was fully patchable.- whatever that means

Receiver is equivilent of technomate 7755 according to the wholesaler

Just want to get into having a wide choice. I will be keeping my sky subscription, but want to get into satellite on other satellites other than astra

[BGonaSTICK]

If it's a true clone (100%) of the Technomate, then you'll be OK for patches for now.

Let us know when you have it set up and we can talk you though patching.

Some of the packages on other satellites will be opened by the patch, if you keep it current. If you want more than that you will have to buy either a CAM or a card or both. Multi-CAMs are programmable like programmable cards, and can open some packages without actually having a card inserted.

I think your plan of Sky/Art/other is a good one, and will give you plenty of viewing.

[irishweeman]

Thanks for your help. I will get the system installed on Monday, hope that Art works and then chat about getting it patched and getting a programmable cam

[nanochickin]

There are patches available in the usual places for this receiver

Does it look like the one below? From what i can find out about this receiver, their are a lot of mixed views about it. :?

A lot of people are claiming that it is not as good in its own right as the Technomate although others say it does have some functions that are claimed to be better than the TM :

Its just going to be a case of personal choice of what you like. Personally i like my TM1500 CI+ but i always stand up in defence of my old FortecStar Lifetime classic which started me on this merry journey of playing with Dishes and stuff. I still use it now for setting up my dishes. I thought it was a fantastic receiver when i first had it, i still do. Its just a pity there are no more patches avaliable for it. I still think its good as a FTA receiver, even more so now that i have installed the last firmware update on it form the FortecStar website. :

There are other members of this forum that would disagree with me about my FS LC but like i said its personnal preference.

With regards to you question about the Sky subscription I think you can use your Sky viewing card in your receiver if you use a "Dragon cam". I'm sure stick will clarify this, although you will need to keep putting it back in the Sky receiver every few weeks to make sure it gets the "keep alive signal" to stop the card not decoding the NDS encryption.

You can link your Sky Dish and New dish together through a DISEqC switch, so your receiver can read from both dishes. I'm sure the installer will tell you all about it. Best ring him if thats what you want to do.

As far as i am aware you should be able to run your Digibox through the IF loop on the Apollo for updating the Sky card. As before i'm sure Stick will correct me if i'm wrong. :?

Hope this helps mate.



Nano

[BGonaSTICK]

Sure thing. Hope your install goes well.

You will need a null-modem cable to patch your box, so you might want to get hold of one in advance.

Please make sure that your box is the same as the 7755 because if it's even slightly different, patching it could trash it totally and permanently Double check with your seller.

You might find that it already has a patch installed.

You can run your Sky card in a Dragon CAM inserted into the CI slot of your new STB, but to be honest it doesn't give you anything extra and you still have to have a digibox to keep it alive, so not a big deal as far as I'm concerned.

As far as loopthrough is concerned, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You can try it, but again, I would keep a separate Sky dish connected to your digibox to receive firmware upgrades and keep the two systems completely independent.

[irishweeman]

Have you any links for reviews on the apollo?

Also what cable do i need to patch it?

Where do i go and what do i do to patch it?

I really need to learn about all this!!!!

[BGonaSTICK]

Don't know of any decent reviews.

The cable you require is a null modem cable as I said in the post above.

a l s a t.co.uk/forum or satdudez.org carry patches for the 7755, and instructions on patching are included in the readme files.

You should also have a read of this thread for lots more information on patching the 7755.

[BGonaSTICK]

Just been having a look at this receiver. It looks pretty good, and it's a good price too.

More to the point, there ARE patches available for it, and they're available at Satdudez, so don't use the 7755 patches!

It appears that support has taken off for this receiver in the last six weeks, only very scr@ppy before then.

Maybe it will take over from the 7755?

It's certainly a lot less ugly! :roflmao: