LeroyPatrol
25-06-2007, 11:35 AM
Hey guys, I know this has been done to death a little but I bought a Star 2888B cause it was cheap and just to compare with the Southern Cross (SC for short) 2880.
It arrived today and first impressions are good. It's in a metal box as does the SC2880 which I like. Has buttons on the front panel for Menu, Volume +-, Ch +- and OK where the SC only has ch+- buttons. The remote is not quite as fully featured as the SC missing little features like buttons for pausing,timer,epg,teletext (does anyone still use this??), recall for toggling between 2 channels, list for listing channels which gives more info and options than just pressing the ok button or going into the menu of the Star.
The Star seems to only have the 4:3 output which has been mentioned elsewhere. Wide screen transmissions are letterboxed in the 4:3 screen/box but if you have a 16:9 tv this is not an issue really as you can zoom the pic on the TV. The SC caters for 16:9 TV output and has RF and composite output like the Star but also has a SVHS.
Both have their little idiosyncrasies wrt to operation. Like to manually scan a TP with the SC you seem to have preset FEC settings for the TP freq you input! The SC scans alot faster than the Star and I reckon has friendlier menus plus you can also edit CHANNEL NAMES when you edit your PIDs!!! At least we found out how to edit PIDs on the Star by entering the 'program editing' mode and 'instead of jumping across to the three options (favour, move, delete) simply press "enter" on the selected channel.' (quote pilfered from another thread - don't want to be done for plagiarism!)
Both worked fine with my 4way diseqc switch but unfortunately I don't have a motor to see why mkhannah was having problems. (did I say thanks for the reciever? the remote doens't upset my panasonic tv)
You can do firmware upgrades and download the channel list etc on the SC via the RS232 port. There is a site for the software/firmware at www.dmsiusa.com. I don't know of upgrades or support for the Star even though it has a RS232 post.
The SC cost a little more like $20-30 bucks but I reckon it's worth it.
Leroy
It arrived today and first impressions are good. It's in a metal box as does the SC2880 which I like. Has buttons on the front panel for Menu, Volume +-, Ch +- and OK where the SC only has ch+- buttons. The remote is not quite as fully featured as the SC missing little features like buttons for pausing,timer,epg,teletext (does anyone still use this??), recall for toggling between 2 channels, list for listing channels which gives more info and options than just pressing the ok button or going into the menu of the Star.
The Star seems to only have the 4:3 output which has been mentioned elsewhere. Wide screen transmissions are letterboxed in the 4:3 screen/box but if you have a 16:9 tv this is not an issue really as you can zoom the pic on the TV. The SC caters for 16:9 TV output and has RF and composite output like the Star but also has a SVHS.
Both have their little idiosyncrasies wrt to operation. Like to manually scan a TP with the SC you seem to have preset FEC settings for the TP freq you input! The SC scans alot faster than the Star and I reckon has friendlier menus plus you can also edit CHANNEL NAMES when you edit your PIDs!!! At least we found out how to edit PIDs on the Star by entering the 'program editing' mode and 'instead of jumping across to the three options (favour, move, delete) simply press "enter" on the selected channel.' (quote pilfered from another thread - don't want to be done for plagiarism!)
Both worked fine with my 4way diseqc switch but unfortunately I don't have a motor to see why mkhannah was having problems. (did I say thanks for the reciever? the remote doens't upset my panasonic tv)
You can do firmware upgrades and download the channel list etc on the SC via the RS232 port. There is a site for the software/firmware at www.dmsiusa.com. I don't know of upgrades or support for the Star even though it has a RS232 post.
The SC cost a little more like $20-30 bucks but I reckon it's worth it.
Leroy