There are only 2 advantages that I know of, with the hacker firmware.
1) Ability to turn off the annoying dish aiming sound.
2) Diseqc 1.1 support , which was implemented in the hacker stuff around March 09, apparently.
Important to some people, not to others.
as mentioned earlier about the factory vs hacksoft differences.... the 2 mentioned are all i can see as well. too bad coolsat is now defunct cuz there were a few more things they coulda fixed.
-the option to kill the signal tone shoulda been in the factory file
-there is no way to add the numeric location to user sats for usals.
-turn the fan off in standby
-31 diseqc 1.2 position limit. (must be a code remnant from the 31 sat list)
otherwise its a decent unit.
Relative to pirate firmware vs "factory" {which was in reality pirate firmware with pirate options disabled}, as mentioned, NOW, there isn't much difference, however originally, the factory firmware that came on most receivers was extremely deficient, and the fixes came first via the pirate versions, and then made it into the factory versions. I can't remember the big issues, but I *think* that one was that the receiver wouldn't record more than the 4 gig FAT32 limit {sound familiar?}, but the pirate versions brought in the seemless multi-file recording/playback capability. Another issue was that the USB transfer of firmware didn't work right. There was something else big, but I can't remember. I do remember being VERY unhappy with the receiver at first, but that new firmware versions from the pirates slowly fixed things. But for me, the biggest thing was stability. The 8100 seemed to have issues with rebooting and freezing, and those problems seemed to be greatly improved with newer firmware versions.
i dont the need the first 2 steps either when i load my cs8.1k. just the loader and a null modem cable. i tried a few different versions lastnight. 63f, 62f, 2025a. no matter what i load i cant store more than 31 sat positions into my gbox3k or vbox2. kinda sucks now that i have ku on the 10 footer. there is no way to store enuff positions now for sure. i need about 66 locations. .
That's interesting relative to the 31 sat positions. That was certainly true up to about the last 2 or maybe 3 firmware versions, since there was a 31 sat limit on the receiver (one of the issues that the pirates "fixed"), however the last couple firmware versions didn't have the 31 sat limit, so it's surprising that 2025A would have that problem. I don't think I ever ran into that issue with any firmware version, because while I used diseqC-1.2, I tended to use the Coolsat in slaved mode much of the time. This was related to what I think were the BIGGEST problems with respect to the Coolsat, and that was that it didn't really have a channel editor that would work with it, and the receiver itself didn't have any way of specifying the DiseqC-1.2 sat number either. Also, the receiver couldn't specify AC3 audio or MPEG4 video for manual PID channels, which is another thing that a good channel editor would have done.
Related to the lack of a channel editor, even restoring channel lists was an issue with the firmware versions that had the 31 sat limit. Basically you couldn't restore your sats, transponders, channels, favorites, etc, if you upgraded firmware or reset the receiver. People have posted that this was fixed with the new versions, but it didn't work for me. It was much better, but there were still parameters that it didn't restore. I can't remember off hand what was wrong, but I remember that it was a significant enough issue that I never really bothered to load the receiver up with satellites. I just used the thing slaved, and often had channels saved under the wrong sat names, etc.
There are a couple problems with the newer firmware versions, that didn't seem to be a problem with earlier firmware. but my memory is foggy, and I can't remember what the issues were. One issue that may have been just MY receiver was that for some unknown reason, with the newest firmware, I couldn't get stable video on those PBS scpc 4444 SR transponders. Before switching to the new firmware, these were very stable, but they were unwatchable with the newest firmware.
Overall, the 8100 was a great receiver in terms of having a good sensitive tuner, and giving great picture quality, and being capable of recording at high bitrates, and it also had a VERY nice favorites option. But the firmware was really aimed at the pirates, and there were many issues important to FTA'ers that they never bothered to correct, such as the lack of a channel editor.
I've had my 8100 packed away ever since I got my Azbox, but I may just get it out again since neither the Azbox nor my Diamond 9000 will record high bitrates.
