Ferguson Ariva 150

bmaxi

Got mine up and running too, it does have a clock, programmable in the installation menu. Managed to get YouTube as well but nothing else, the unit seems to eat bandwith as everything was very slow downstream of it in a wired ( powerline adapter) system. Picture and sound very good, didn't notice any lip sync issue but then I didn't have that with the 120 either, seems much easier to navigate than the 120. One thing I didn't like was, it doesn't tell you which favourites menu you are in in the onscreen banner, I'm used to this with the 120 but it's a small price to pay for what seems to be another bargain from Ferguson.

dodzy

ChorleyMatt wrote: »

Right, I've had a little bit of a play around with the Ariva 250 so here's my first impressions:

First off, after unboxing it the first thing you'll notice is it's small - you'll get an idea of just how small from the pics attached. After quickly plugging everything in I stuck in a Cyfra+ card - the channels were already tuned in so away I went. The top of the box has a Conax symbol but I'm reliably informed the card reader can handle Conax, Seca-Mediaguard and Viaccess.

Channel change is speedy enough and menus are clear. HD picture is very nice and clean, SD can look good enough but if you feed it a pixelated mess it's not a miracle worker. I have output set to 720P as this setting seems to suit my TV best, there's options in there right up to 1080P for those that want/need them. Now for a pleasant surprise - the receiver outputs full 5.1 audio (when available) through the HDMI. Brilliant! Audio quality generally is good but I have noticed lip-sync issues at times - very slight but noticeable. Maybe there's a firmware update for this, can't say as I've looked.

The front of the unit displays channel name and is dimmable too in the menus - good for viewing a movie channel in a darkened room. When off the unit just has a single red LED illuminated - no clock if this is something you care about. Menus are clear and operation is slick. From what little I've tried the Web interface seems to work okay - includes YouTube, RSS News feeds and even a Weather app if you can't be arsed looking out of the window. YouTube played a couple of 720P videos through the receiver with no issues at all.

The remote feels nice in the hand (if a little lightweight) and has a rubberised back. The top is shiny plastic but very susceptible to fingerprints - see pic - so I reckon it'll look pretty tired quite quickly. Button response seems fine, unlike my previous Protek MK-I receiver which had possibly the worst remote on the face of the planet. The remote is capable of controlling five devices including the STB and, in addition to a database of preset codes, has a learning function. I've entered codes for my Panasonic plasma and Pioneer blu-ray but it looks like I'll have to teach it the codes for the Yamaha amp.

Motor control appears to be working well (though even I'd struggle to break it this quickly) and a blind scan on 28'E didn't seem to take too long. I couldn't see an option for scanning individual transponders but I might just be being thick (what? me? read the manual?). I've attached a 320gb hard drive but not had chance to set any recordings so far - sorry.


Good Bits
Good picture quality
5.1 audio through HDMI
Multi-function remote with learning facility
Slick interface and web apps

Not so Good Bits
Slight lip-sync issue
That shiny remote won't stay that way for long!


That's about it for now. Hope this helps.

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class job, good first write up mine's delayed till monday. ups pricks

O'Prez

Lads can ye post up images of the onscreen displays for info etc?

ChorleyMatt

O'Prez wrote: »

Lads can ye post up images of the onscreen displays for info etc?

Took some earlier to do a "walk through" on the YouTube bit - hope they're okay?

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20120708_161826.jpg

O'Prez

Thanks a lot. The menus look a lot classier than on the 120. Do you know if you can load a channel list saved from the 120 on to it?

Tony

O'Prez wrote: »

Do you know if you can load a channel list saved from the 120 on to it?

No its not a good idea

bmaxi

O'Prez wrote: »

Thanks a lot. The menus look a lot classier than on the 120. Do you know if you can load a channel list saved from the 120 on to it?

I think you'll find it quite easy to set up a channel list via the remote control. There's a scroll page function and the process for select, move, delete etc. is very user friendly.
One thing I have noticed is, it has the same problem with RTE Junior and RTE 1+1 as the 120 had.

dodzy

Unwraps 250. Plugs in. Greeted with polish menu & manual. Polish language default*

Tony laughs quietly to himself. *

Tony

dodzy wrote: »

Unwraps 250. Plugs in. Greeted with polish menu & manual. Polish language default*

Tony laughs quietly to himself. *

Nah Grab yourself a copy of the english manual (its a common manual for 150 and 250 ) theres a link kindly provided a bit back in the thread.

edit: http://www.ferguson-digital.eu/en/download/HD-Satellite-Receivers/Ariva-150-Combo/manual_EN.pdf/

dodzy

Tony wrote: »

Nah Grab yourself a copy of the english manual (its a common manual for 150 and 250 ) theres a link kindly provided a bit back in the thread.

edit: http://www.ferguson-digital.eu/en/download/HD-Satellite-Receivers/Ariva-150-Combo/manual_EN.pdf/

Thank you kind sir. Had it already prepped Was just gonna start on a channel list this evening. Then I had a brain fart and contemplated with taking the list from the 120. Might just take the chance, against my better judgement. Somebody needs to crash this baby !

bmaxi

dodzy wrote: »

Unwraps 250. Plugs in. Greeted with polish menu & manual. Polish language default*

Tony laughs quietly to himself. *

Mine came with a separate English manual, I was very surprised.

givecredit

New firmware for Ariva 150 and 250, Fixes some bugs and lets you connect to your receiver via Android phone using "Ariva Remote" app now available in Google play store.

http://www.ferguson-digital.eu/en/download.html

https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Ferguson

uck51js9zml2yt

Tony
Did you come up with a price for the 250 for boardsies?

If you cant post it, maybe you can pm me.
thanks

Tony

Sorry but I'm still working on that as we have another order of 150 coming in tomorrow , I work with another company now to bring in bigger numbers of boxes so its not my decision alone I'm afraid.

Gwendolyn Unsightly Washboard wrote: »

Tony
Did you come up with a price for the 250 for boardsies?

If you cant post it, maybe you can pm me.
thanks

Tony

givecredit wrote: »

New firmware for Ariva 150 and 250, Fixes some bugs

Thanks. Any idea what bugs ?

yomamasflavour

Has anyone tried the usb dongle function?
As in dongles other than the ferguson one?

givecredit

Tony wrote: »

Thanks. Any idea what bugs ?

Im afraid not.

Text taken from Ferguson website:

"The new system software version introduces many fixes and improvements dotyczas bugs reported by users. We recommend upgrading to the new version and restoring factory settings on it in order to "clean"'s settings.

The main novelty is that, as of this version, m ożliwa the operation of the receiver by means of any device based on Android system by the free application: Ariva Remote"

http://www.ferguson-digital.eu/

Tony

givecredit wrote: »

Im afraid not.

No problem, I wondered as I'm not aware of any bugs so far . That may just be standard ferguson text they put on every new firmware .

Wanaknowmore

Received the 150 last Friday from satellite.ie (Tony: thanks for sorting the cabling out) and installed at the mother in laws.
My first impression was that the box and interface was slicker and more responsive than the 120. Pressing OK gives you the channel listing and the now and next programmes are displayed for the highlighted channel. My mother in law thinks this is great as she doesn't have to mess around with program guides etc. She has issues using remotes so the simpler, the better.
The 150 worked straight out of the box with no issues (lip sync) observed. Looks like its a good successor to my 120.

Tony

Picking up both Kippure and Three rock transmitters now on an indoor aerial in Tallaght . This could be a solution for anyone who can receive both transmitters and is experiencing the RTE +1 problem. What you do is manual scan in one transmitter during the day when RTE jnr is on and the other one at night when RTe +1 is on

denis1501

I'm after ordering one of these babies, due to be delivered tomorrow (thanks Tony!). Now for an external hard drive to go with it.
I believe the HD must have it's own power, can anyone recommend one for me??? 320gb to 500gb would be more than enough.
thanks!

dodzy

denis1501 wrote: »

I'm after ordering one of these babies, due to be delivered tomorrow (thanks Tony!). Now for an external hard drive to go with it.
I believe the HD must have it's own power, can anyone recommend one for me??? 320gb to 500gb would be more than enough.
thanks!

Anything half decent with ext power will be fine, cheap repackaged examples here:

http://www.dabs.ie/category/components-and-storage,hard-drives,external-hard-drives/11157-47120000

Try amazon, adverts, etc; 320-500gb is plenty.

stevek93

Looking to buy one of satsklep for my dad, if tony can match the price ill buy of him even better. What language does it ship with dont want to hand him a box in polish :pac: also any way of removing the youp*rn?

Compton

I can't see why tony should match a polish price tbh.. you get irish warranty and support. with poland you dont.

yomamasflavour

What exactly is Irish warranty and support?

Do the Irish retailers do something different to sending it back to the manufacturer?

uck51js9zml2yt

you can drop it back to a local or national supplier who can deal with you as opposed to having to post it back to poland if a fault occurs.

it will also be set up for you before you get it to get your channels.

and your supporting an irish business for not a lot extra

uck51js9zml2yt

Tony wrote: »

Sorry but I'm still working on that as we have another order of 150 coming in tomorrow , I work with another company now to bring in bigger numbers of boxes so its not my decision alone I'm afraid.

Tony
When will you have the Ariva 250 on your site?

yomamasflavour

Is it not just posting it back to someone who will subsequently post it back to Poland?

STB

yomamasflavour wrote: »

What exactly is Irish warranty and support?

Do the Irish retailers do something different to sending it back to the manufacturer?

yomamasflavour wrote: »

Is it not just posting it back to someone who will subsequently post it back to Poland?

When you brick the box you will find out perhaps and not just on postage alone.

Irish issues/compatibility tweaks are raised initially on this forum and then back through Ferguson agents, i.e. "Someone" like Tony for fixes so that "someone" can avail of same. An individual will not have that much clout as Ferguson deal with agents.

Does "Someone" in Satsklep have a English speaking forum for Irish issues ?

"Someone" may be able to fix the box without it going back to Poland, hence minimal time delays.

Supporting "someone" in Irish business is not a bad thing either.

Thank god I dont sell boxes! Thankless when you read these type posts.

dodzy

stevek93 wrote: »

Looking to buy one of satsklep for my dad, if tony can match the price ill buy of him even better. What language does it ship with dont want to hand him a box in polish :pac: also any way of removing the youp*rn?

Buying from satsklep benefits - save about 20quid

Negatives -
4 days for delivery
Polish menu
Polish manual
No channels preset
No FAV groups
No 3 pin plug adapter
Expensive phone calls if you want direct phone support (although the English speaking female customer service agents sounds cracking )
About 20quid postage to return in the event of issue which you can't fix locally
A longer than 4 day wait for repair or replacement

You decide;)

And no way to remove youporn from the menu yet, although it is locked. FW upgrade with option disabled is unavailable at this point.

Compton

I think its a polish manual too (think i read it here somewhere)

givecredit

I see a "patched" version of firmware is already released for 150 and 250.

STB

givecredit wrote: »

I see a "patched" version of firmware is already released for 150 and 250.

Well stay the feck away from unless you want a messed up box.

The people releasing this stuff have no doubt ported over some of the code from the 102E's like they did with the 120s.

Some of these unofficial firmwares have no way back and are inadvertently disabling software functions like diseq function, USB recognition and the media player stability.

Trust me, I put the 120 through the ringer and I then found out the source of the half arsed porting. People guessing.

Tony

yomamasflavour wrote: »

Do the Irish retailers do something different to sending it back to the manufacturer?

Well I know I do, can't speak for other retailers

Tony

Gwendolyn Unsightly Washboard wrote: »

Tony
When will you have the Ariva 250 on your site?

I'm sorry I cannot answer that here as commercial interaction is not allowed.

dowtchaboy

Got my 150 from Tony yesterday. Came with Irish/UK 3 pin plug converter and batteries for the remote. Got it setup today but as SWMBO is watching stuff I haven't got round to trying out every function.
First impressions are of a rock-solid unit, switching between channels is pretty fast (not as slick as I remember Sky though). Colours seems pretty natural, but I'd like to try sharpening up later on. Only 1 SCART (there were 2 on the old Freesat box) - but that's probably not important any more as (a) there's only 1 unit required for Saorview and Freesat (OK OK - FTA !) and (b) there's a HDMI output I will probably use instead of the SCART especially if it sharpens up the picture.

Unit came preset to all the usual UK channels, though these will need some pruning as there are 2 or 3 versions of ITV in the early channel numbers. One peculiarity is channel 001 and 002 - these were set for BBC HD and BBC One HD - but when I select these channels they show "no signal" for 15 to 30 seconds, and then it starts working like nothing ever happened. Odd - maybe tweaking the tuning parameters will help. I'll wait till SWMBO is having a lie-in...

Autotuning the Saorview channels was painless - it placed them at the end of the FTA channels. 7Day EPG info as expected - adaquate but not as nicely formatted as Sky.

Accessing the Radio channels seems a bit awkward - there's no direct remote control button for this (we tend to have Radio on during the day rather than TV).

Manual is well-written (the English is much better than I expected) though the photographs are all so dark it is hard to make out menu details.

As far as the Internet access is concerned I am going to try a different approach - I happen to have a Netgear WiFi Internet Adapter WNCExxx something - it's a dead simple box that has a WiFi antenna at one end and an Ethernet RG45 connector at the other - it's designed to add WiFi to older stuff like games consoles that only have wired Ethernet. The games console should be fooled into thinking it is connected to the wired Ethernet without any need for USB plug-ins or firmware/software. Maybe others who have old games gear lying unused might try this. It's not worth buying it new though - a USB WiFi dongle will be much cheaper.

lafors

Ordered mine from Tony on Friday afternoon and got it first thing this morning....must remember to not order stuff for delivery when I'm sleeping after nightshift I've never had to complain about too fast shipping before

I got the compact outdoor aerial too as indoor signal is not great for Saorview even though I'm in Dublin, need to put it up beside my sat dish now.

This setup is for upstairs and for the attic room (UPC downstairs). Currently I have a humax freesat hd pvr which is superb and then use analog on the Sony LCD which doesn't have the right tuner for saorview unfortunately.
Plugged the ariva in alongside the humax and picture quality is definitely as good. Not as much delay as I had heard on channel change again similar to the humax.
The full epg will definitely be missed, the now/next seems to be a bit slow at appearing for some channels. Tuned in the Saorview channels straight away with the external aerial lying on the floor in the room. Picture is vastly better than the analog picture was obviously but no surprise there.

All in all very happy with the setup and will probably order another box for the projector in the attic soon.

dowtchaboy

Anybody else with a 150 unit getting these problems?
RTE+ 1 - sound but no picture (picture is whatever was on the last channel)

BBC One HD and BBC HD take ages - 15 seconds to 1 minute - to go from "no signal" to full operation. I've tried to change from 22000 to 23000 per recommendations elsewhere (digital spy?) but the box does not seem to want to allow this.

Is there much commonality in symptoms and cures between the 120 and the 150? I.e. is is worth trawling back through the 120 threads?

Tony

The RTE +1 problem is known about, its an audio pid change . If you can access two saorview transmitters this is a workaround or you can also use the ariva editor .

Not sure about what the problem your are having with BBC Hd though, it comes on right away here as we use it as the first channel when loading a list.

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Anybody else with a 150 unit getting these problems?
RTE+ 1 - sound but no picture (picture is whatever was on the last channel)

BBC One HD and BBC HD take ages - 15 seconds to 1 minute - to go from "no signal" to full operation. I've tried to change from 22000 to 23000 per recommendations elsewhere (digital spy?) but the box does not seem to want to allow this.

Is there much commonality in symptoms and cures between the 120 and the 150? I.e. is is worth trawling back through the 120 threads?

khumbu

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Anybody else with a 150 unit getting these problems?
RTE+ 1 - sound but no picture (picture is whatever was on the last channel)


Is there much commonality in symptoms and cures between the 120 and the 150? I.e. is is worth trawling back through the 120 threads?

On 120 I was able to work around this issue. Delete RTE1 +1 from channel list. Dump userDB to a USB memory device. Use ariva 120 editor & open the userDB file. Manually add the PID & AID details for RTE 1+1. Save file, then update userDB on the 120 with the modified file.

STB

khumbu wrote: »

On 120 I was able to work around this issue. Delete RTE1 +1 from channel list. Dump userDB to a USB memory device. Use ariva 120 editor & open the userDB file. Manually add the PID & AID details for RTE 1+1. Save file, then update userDB on the 120 with the modified file.

Do not use the 120 Editor on a 150 or vice versa.

STB

This is a Channel List for the Ferguson Ariva 150 HD. Its based on firmware version V1.18B6.

If you haven't got that firmware, upgrade that first.

If you have that version of the firmware, you just need to load this channel list to a USB stick and choose "Upgrade by USB" in Tools menu, then right click on upgrade mode til you get to "User DB", click down to start (file displayed should be DumpFile STB 07-12.abs).

Favourite Lists
DTT & Sat Channels General (Saorview are Mt Leinster, rescan for your local TX and edit/delete as necessary)
BBC HD Olympic Streams
BBC Red Button Channels
Music Channels
All Channels 28.2

File here

STB

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Anybody else with a 150 unit getting these problems?
RTE+ 1 - sound but no picture (picture is whatever was on the last channel)

BBC One HD and BBC HD take ages - 15 seconds to 1 minute - to go from "no signal" to full operation. I've tried to change from 22000 to 23000 per recommendations elsewhere (digital spy?) but the box does not seem to want to allow this.

Is there much commonality in symptoms and cures between the 120 and the 150? I.e. is is worth trawling back through the 120 threads?

I have neither of these issues. On version V1.18B6.

Twodogs

Hi Tony,
Does the 150 play .AVI and .MP4 files from external HDD?

Thanks

Tony

Twodogs wrote: »

Hi Tony,
Does the 150 play .AVI and .MP4 files from external HDD?

Thanks

I'm not sure to be honest as I've not had time to try those formats. heres the ferguson spec http://www.ferguson-digital.eu/en/hd-receivers/368-ferguson-ariva-150combo.html

Twodogs

Has anybody else tested .AVI and .MP4 files from external HDD on the 150?

Thanks

lafors

Twodogs wrote: »

Has anybody else tested .AVI and .MP4 files from external HDD on the 150?

Thanks

I'll try in a while and get back to you.

Twodogs

Thanks Lafors

STB

Twodogs wrote: »

Has anybody else tested .AVI and .MP4 files from external HDD on the 150?

Thanks

I have, they all play fine. DIVX/XVID (AVI) MKV and MP4.

lafors

Twodogs wrote: »

Thanks Lafors

Yeah, played everything I threw at it

Edit: STB got there before me