I have a pansat 3500 and it seems to do fine but I would like to buy another receiver.The viewsat seems to get good reviews here.Which model on ebay would be the best to use?I have the pansat 3500 on dish right now and had thought about a second receiver for direct tv so i can get football ticket.Please I only want sensible remarks I have no interest in bashing only FTA remarks.
bill, The Viewsat Extreme seems to be popular these days, partly due to their ease of use, features, and the fact that they were the first to fix the last ECM issues. Be careful of what you buy on ebay. There have been reports of Viewsat clones and from the sounds of it, they look real and are very hard to distinguish from pictures.
Here's a C/P from Royce:
Viewsat clones flooding the market // 2006-06-17 I have been informed that a website is Passing out cloned Viewsat Xtremes. When flashing these boxes the chip is disabled and as a result it will appear as no power much like clone killer of the pansat clones.
How to tell if it is a clone? Power switch on back is horiontal and no FCC sticker also bottom has horizontal oval vent holes where the real ones have circle vent holes and the boxes the clones come in are smaller than the real ones (clone packaging boxes are more square where real ones are more rectangle).
Go for the Extreme. I bought it and it kicks the Pansat in the azz 100 to nothing. Lots of feature and ez to use. You won't regret it. Color is also much beter on an LCD if you use component vs. S-video. Resolution will not improve since the VS Xtreme is NOT an HD box.