Gekko Test and Review

[Pixl]

The unit comes with a Euro AC plug with no N.America adapter. My wife had one in her international travel pack and I was in business. They do include batteries for the remote, a nice HDMI cable, a bracket for mounting the receiver to the back of your tv, an IR extension with a long cord if you wish to keep the receiver out of sight as there is little need to access the front panel. The IR extension also has a red/green power indicator.
The rear panel has only one usb port, but they have included a two port usb hub for additional equipment. Other connectors are HDMI, RS-232, LAN, Mini AV output, optical SPDIF audio, lnb in, lnb out. There is no hard power switch, so to do a cold re-boot you have to yank the power connector or pull the ac adapter plug.

I powered up the unit, immediately got a display on my flat screen tv thru the HDMI input. Settings were already at 1080i. I was not able to get any output at all from the mini AV jack. I’ll have to investigate this for the users with older NTSC TVs.
The factory software was at v2.09.61 I set up the only sat in the Euro list I can get, 30w. Ran a blind scan that got stuck at 25%.

Thursday, April 12

EB advised me to download and install the latest ver v2.10.29. Re-ran blind scan and brought in 50 fta channels.
The lack of N. American sats is slowing down my tests. The existing sats can be edited using the remote, but not the orbital position. So I put my orbital position in with the sat name and I end up with two positions in the sat list. At this point I really want a channel editor to clean up this list in on pass. EB pointed me to a few channel editors, one of which I downloaded from a site in the Netherlands. None were compatible with the export data from the Gekko. EB had me load in a newer software version that was supposed to have N.A. sats in it. This got me an upgrade to v2.10.31 but no sats West of 45.

Ok, I’ll just start keying in some of my sats, but now I discover I can not specify a existing sat position in my G-box. The Gekko just assigns the next unused number and overwrites the one in the G-box. This will make testing this box and then returning to my equipment quite a job as I have 63 sat positions to re-locate.

Saturday, April 14


The updated software fixed the blind scan. It is now comparable to my OpenBox S-9. I am starting to find my around the menus now. I had been looking for a one button push to bring up the sat list. Found it today by pressing “favorites”. I also like the channel page that acts as “satellite Central”. It has a small picture of the present channel and while that stays up you can highlight other channels in the list and info about the channel is displayed in a box to the right. Nice for searching for a channel that has scanned in with a plain name. (ex. Ch. 1)

Tuesday, April 17

I tried using some of the PVR functions today. The manual, written in Hungarian with English and Romanian sections is actually quite good and helpful. Reading it I was easily able to make a live recording, and a timed recording. The timed recording has a brief “start message” then drops off instead of leaving an annoying bug on the screen. Play back is smooth with no jumping or freezing the way the OpenBox and some other receivers do. Nice clear picture, no pixelazition. Almost as good as a TiVo.


Wednesday, April 18

I'm having a bit of trouble deleting old TPs, so I am working on that. Probably just the wrong menu.
Meanwhile I thought I'd mention one of the guys was having trouble getting CanalLuz HD (12076V, 4000SR, 3/4 8PSK) at 30.0


Saturday, April 28

I did some testing over the past few days with the Gekko connected to my main system of dishes, switches, and motors. It was able to handle a cascade of DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1, and Zinwell switches. Also in my system are DiSEqC 1.2 G-box and V-box controlling actuators on my 8ft. C-band dish and 1.2m Ku. Another dish has a USALS motor. All this can be operated by the Gekko. Switching from one service to another is as easy as surfing cable channels.

I opened up the Gekko to take a look under the hood. There is not much in there. The main processor (under the heat sink) is the only component that gets quite warm, but not hot. The rest of the board runs cool.

Not much marked on the tuner as to make or model. However it sure does work well pulling in signals my OpenBox skips over.

Also comparing to my OpenBox and Manhattan that sometimes stutter or freeze, the Gekko plays channels like eScapes, NBC 103 Ku, and the Canadian services on 107 C without problems. Even though the Gekko specs list on board memory at 256meg, a closer look inside reveals a pair of Hynix H5PS1G63EFR chips for and incredible 2 gigabytes of SD RAM.

I tested the Gekko's lnb output by loading it with a variable power resistor up to maximum rating. It held a steady 18v. @ 400ma. for over an hour without heating up. Even the external power pack only got mildly warm.

I ran a test of radio services. 99w C has several channels that come in fine. I then tried service from 139w C, over 400 channels scanned in, many are AAC audio, the others are mpeg, but none would play. Not sure why, but I have no problem getting these services with my OpenBox.


CONCLUSION

The Gekko has a great steady picture in the HDMI mode, scans in even low bit rate channels. The scanned channels have extra information I haven't seen on other receivers such as actual channel name instead of obscure numbers. The information screen has details of who the up linker is, type of encoding, and pids.

AV output... just can't find a kind thing to say about this. I had a Sony camcorder cable that fit the mini jack output, but the video comes out of the white RCA connector instead of the traditional yellow. The audio has a bit of hum, wiggling the mini jack minimized this somewhat. The picture on a SD television is lousy, and so is the HDMI picture in the 480i mode. Something not right about these protocols. There is no video output from the av jack when the Gekko is set to higher picture rates like 1080i, unlike the OpenBox or Manhattan that can output duel video modes simultaneously. You can find yourself locked out, blind to re-set it.

DiSEqC 1.2 sat positions are automatically assigned by the Gekko. I would like to see the ability to key these in manualy, especially for connecting to a positioner box already calibrated to your actual sat positions. The Gekko is currently limited to 58 stored positions, I need 63 and would like to add more. Lack of ability to add or delete satellites should be fixed. You can only edit existing sats or use the generous 4 extra blank positions they give you.

The blind scan is slow, it spends a lot of time looking at blank spectrum or or TPs with scrambled channels. However I must say it is quite thorough, rarely skipping over something. May be worth the time for the accuracy.


I would also like to see a hard off power switch instead of yanking out the power jack.

If they can address some of the above I think we have a good, very small receiver.



.

 

[Jim S.]

It doesn't let you edit satellite positions? That seems very strange for a modern receiver. I see from the manual posted in the Anaconda section (they're all supposed to have the same user interface now, right?) that it has a "user defined" satellite option, but it doesn't say anything else about it, or even how many user-defined satellites you can enter. Now I'm glad I didn't buy an Optibox as soon as they became available. Everything else about them sounds great, but not being able to edit the satellite list is very off-putting, to say the least!

 

[Pixl]

It doesn't let you edit satellite positions? That seems very strange for a modern receiver. I see from the manual posted in the Anaconda section (they're all supposed to have the same user interface now, right?) that it has a "user defined" satellite option, but it doesn't say anything else about it, or even how many user-defined satellites you can enter. Now I'm glad I didn't buy an Optibox as soon as they became available. Everything else about them sounds great, but not being able to edit the satellite list is very off-putting, to say the least!

Well it could be the capability is there and I haven't figured out how to do it yet. There are 4 blank un-defined sat positions. I will have to work with it more.

 

[el bandido]

I am glad you did not buy an Optibox either Jim because I would not want you or anybody else to be dissatisfied.
Here is what the Raptor will allow you to do with the sat file.
Change satellite name
Change satellite degrees
Select either no motor, USALS, or diseq1.2 for each satellite.

The Raptor Will Not let you
Change the 1.2 diseqc position.
Add a new satellite
Delete an existing satellite
You can delete all the channels for a satellite, and you can delete all the transponders for a satellite but you cannot delete the satellite itself.
I count 99 satellite positions in the European sat file. Work is being done to convert these 99 positions to American satellites.

Pixl, what I did was take notes on my diseqc 1.2 positioner before installing the Optibox, and then I took positioner notes again after the installation. IMO, they need to give us a way to change the diseqc 1.2 positions and they need to give us a way to add or delete an entire satellite.
The on-board channel editor is very powerful. It took me a while to understand all of its features. IMO, There is not much need for a separate channel editor IF they would fix the receiver so the web keyboard would work for editing satellites and channels.
EB

 

[el bandido]

Highlight the satellite name in the Dish Setting menu, then use the red or green remote buttons to change the name or to change the degrees.

 

[Pixl]

EB,

Ok I didn't see the "green button" option to edit the degrees. Looks like the built in editing can get me going.
Lack of editing the number assigned to the sat position was a hindrance for me on my first receiver, a GeoSat Pro 1100c. The receiver had amazing flexibility in it's setup menus except this. And with only 32 sat positions automatically assigned I was screwed with the 63 sats I can receive.
The OpenBox was a welcome relief of this but has several other limitations.
This sat position reference will be on my "fix it" list for the Gekko.

 

[el bandido]

The Channel List Manager will help you edit and delete the channels that you have scanned. You can also input PIDS in the Channel List Manager. Again, look at the functions for the remote's colored buttons at the bottom of the screen in the Channel List Manager.

What I did with the Raptor's sat file is renamed a few of the satellites with custom names for the family, changed the degrees of the satellite, deleted all of the existing transponders and then did a blind scan. But I do not have as many satellites as you do.

 

[Jim S.]

I'm glad that there is indeed a way to edit satellite names and positions, even if it doesn't make any sense to not be able to delete a satellite. I only use DisEqC 1.2 for one satellite, which I can barely get through the trees anyway, USALS for the rest, so I would've been able to get by after all if I had bought an Optibox. Keying in a satellite list by hand doesn't really bother me, since it's the sort of thing you usually only have to do once. I did it with my Openbox even though it came with a western-hemisphere list, just because I thought it was ugly! (I like positions listed with my names, I can't stand all upper case, and I didn't need C-band taking up every other slot in the list.)

I'm looking forward to more of the Gekko review! I'd like to see a test of the blind scan speed on 97W Ku, because it's a good standardized place to test -- almost always the same number of live transponders, and no DBS satellite bleeding through above 12.2GHz (although that shouldn't be an issue since you can limit the scan range.)

 

[Guest]

The sat list menu is identical to that of the anaconda. I have all c band sats saved with proper degree and now almost all ku sats as well. I just used up the extra 4 that come with the list and all unused sats like the circular ones of bell, dish network and directv.

 

[el bandido]

Very good Costa!
How about posting your sat file somewhere so I can take a peek at it?

 

[Guest]

Definitely EB, just let me finish up on ku on the Atlantic birds and will do, all American ku sats are already on the file- I also used sats on the far west that aren't part of my arc(129w and up).

 

[Pixl]

Today I keyed in without much trouble 97w Ku to see what and how fast ch would scan in.
But now I'm stuck trying to delete the existing TPs on the sat I'm overwriting. I go to dish settings-frequency and see a list of TPs. At the bottom of the page is an option to delete TP (red button), but does nothing. How do I get rid of old TPs?

 

[el bandido]

Highlight the satellite name in the Dish Setting menu, then press the yellow remote button to erase all transponders for that satellite.
A pop-up window will appear after you press the yellow button so you will have to verify that you actually want to delete all transponders for the satellite.

 

[Pixl]

EB sent me some files today for the Gekko. I updated my review (first post this thread)

 

[el bandido]

So the Gekko can handle a cascaded mixed system of switches, motors, and lnbs.

Thanks. You just answered a question that I have been wondering about for a long time! EB

 

[Pixl]

Today I keyed in without much trouble 97w Ku to see what and how fast ch would scan in.
But now I'm stuck trying to delete the existing TPs on the sat I'm overwriting. I go to dish settings-frequency and see a list of TPs. At the bottom of the page is an option to delete TP (red button), but does nothing. How do I get rid of old TPs?

Highlight the satellite name in the Dish Setting menu, then press the yellow remote button to erase all transponders for that satellite.
A pop-up window will appear after you press the yellow button so you will have to verify that you actually want to delete all transponders for the satellite.

OK, The delete all TPs works, but how about individual TPs or individual channels?
I see buttons to do this but they don't seem to work?

 

[el bandido]

To delete 1 transponder,
Go to the Dish Setting menu, then arrow down and highlight the transponder frequency.
If this is the transponder you want to delete, press the red remote button and follow the instructions in the pop-up window.
If the highlighted transponder Is Not the transponder you want to delete, then use the arrow keys to change transponders or press the OK button on the remote and a transponder frequency pop-up window will appear. Select the transponder you want to delete from the list, then press the red remote button.

Note: You cannot delete transponders if they do not exist(previously erased), and you cannot delete every transponder.
1 transponder frequency of some type will remain no matter what you do.



Deleting one or more channels was discussed today. Look in the link below for information about that. EB

http://www.legitfta.com/forum/showthread.php?9762-Optibox-Anaconda-Question-Thread/page5

 

[Pixl]

The final review is up. See post #1.

 

[el bandido]

That is a very good review! We appreciate your time making it.
I agree, yanking out the power jack is a very crude way to do a hard reset. It would be much better to have a rocker switch on the back or a push button switch that could be used for a hard reset.

 

[el bandido]

Also, There is a another operating system called Enigma 2 or E2 for short that runs on the Gekko. You may want to explore that operating system and see what all is available in it.