AZBOX /Elite / HD / Premium

snaps

Im interested in getting one of these now to play around with for the summer while there is no soccer on the tv. A few questions as im a bit confussed with all the posts and threads, Id be looking at the premium:

Does it play divx from usb?

Will it take a standard IDE 3.5 (Ive loads of older style drives knocking around)?

There is combo units advertised on ebay (By slegs) but it says an additional DVBT tuner needs to be brought?

How sensitive is the tuner?

Does it use USALS and move a motor ok?

Basically want this to replace my TM6900 (Move upstairs) and a HTPC (I use for divx, 422 feeds etc), will this be a good replacement?

slegs

snaps wrote: »

Im interested in getting one of these now to play around with for the summer while there is no soccer on the tv. A few questions as im a bit confussed with all the posts and threads, Id be looking at the premium:

Does it play divx from usb?

Will it take a standard IDE 3.5 (Ive loads of older style drives knocking around)?

There is combo units advertised on ebay (By slegs) but it says an additional DVBT tuner needs to be brought?

How sensitive is the tuner?

Basically want this to replace my TM6900 (Move upstairs) and a HTPC (I use for divx, 422 feeds etc), will this be a good replacement?

1. Yes will play divx from USB, network or internal drive
2. Internal hard drive is SATA
3. Comes with DVB-S2 tuner and a spare slot. Additional tuners available before end May including DVB-T.
4. No reported issues with DVB-S2 tuner sensitivity (quite a few DM and Technomate users on Satpimps hvae AZbox also)
5. Works with 4.2.2 SD presently and firmware fix coming for HD 4.2.2. Plays lots of file formats as media player including high def MKV.

snaps

Nice one so i could use the old TM6900 external usb drive?

gtg60

snaps wrote: »

Does it play divx from usb?

Yes

snaps wrote: »

Will it take a standard IDE 3.5 (Ive loads of older style drives knocking around)?

No, SATA only in the internal bay.

snaps wrote: »

There is combo units advertised on ebay (By slegs) but it says an additional DVBT tuner needs to be brought?

Comes with one DVB-S2 tuner, you have to buy other.

snaps wrote: »

How sensitive is the tuner?

Very, more sensitive than my Mvision HD200 combo which in itself has a sensitive tuner.

snaps wrote: »

Basically want this to replace my TM6900 (Move upstairs) and a HTPC (I use for divx, 422 feeds etc), will this be a good replacement?

IMHO the answer would be yes, some things of course a HTPC would be better at (browsing for example) but as a one box solution this seems to tick all the boxes.

gtg60

snaps wrote: »

Nice one so i could use the old TM6900 external usb drive?

Yes!

Ha, ha, first that time!

snaps

Great, Ill wait for the DVBT tuner to come in and then buy. Ive no experience with linux so looking forward to learning with this receiver.

Just wondering how compatiable it will be with offical cards like digitalb, art, diema etc.

gtg60

snaps wrote: »

Great, Ill wait for the DVBT tuner to come in and then buy. Ive no experience with linux so looking forward to learning with this receiver.

This was my first Linux box, you can do everything you need to direct from the STB and never worry that it's a Linux box and when you want to experiment it can do so much more!

snaps wrote: »

Just wondering how compatiable it will be with offical cards like digitalb, art, diema etc.

I was able to download an EMU through the menus in the box and use a Viaccess card I have in the card slot so I doubt there be any great problem.

gtg60

New firmware just released, includes fixes for some 4:2:2 HD content...

kaisersose77

DTS support aswell which as suprise, thought they might skimp on the dts licence like some of the popcorn hour clones.

mkv's with dts sound seem to work fine on my azbox connected to a lcd monitor through hdmi (pc monitor has speakers)

cormacl

Does AZBOX plan to opensource the code or will the 3rd party extensions only be in the form of extension APIs etc.

Looking at the AZBOX site and others, I have yet to see code tarballs or what not and it makes me think that this is a closed-source system. Anyone confirm this?

kaisersose77

yes it's closed source like all the sigma powered media players, so it will probably only be plugins that we see released.


Dont think its a major problem as aslong as the receivers own features work without any problems. Em* support is there already and thats all most people care about.

MayoForSam

Still no firmware support for the second tuner I see, I'm holding off on getting one until this is working. Will they be able to launch Version 1.0 of the firmware around June I wonder as previously promised, there still seems to be a lot to do?

gtg60

MayoForSam wrote: »

Still no firmware support for the second tuner I see, I'm holding off on getting one until this is working. Will they be able to launch Version 1.0 of the firmware around June I wonder as previously promised, there still seems to be a lot to do?

There was a note with the last firmware release stating that they wanted to perfect the PVR recording and Timeshift before implementing twin tuner support, indeed they have improved it with fixes for a bug in HD timeshifting in this release so looks like they have a plan they are following.

cormacl

kaisersose77 wrote: »

yes it's closed source like all the sigma powered media players, so it will probably only be plugins that we see released.


Dont think its a major problem as aslong as the receivers own features work without any problems. Em* support is there already and thats all most people care about.

OK.. but then is the plugin API published?.. or better still has anyone yet released an extension of their own for the receiver?

I noticed a lot very eager "I expect to see / it would only be a matter of time" this and that messages in this thread about all kinds of extensions like freesat EPG etc.. people need to get real here.. Dream Multimedia did not integrate Freesat into their EPG.. a 3rd party reverse engineered it for Myth TV and the code found its way into the popular enhancements to dreamboxes and others like it. The 3rd party images are the only ones to distribute Freesat support. Sometimes, these features are back-propagated into the head of dev streams bu Dream but only when the feature is generally usable and not tied to commercial or possible copyright infringements etc... and believe me, reverse engineering a mildly encrypted commercial EPG format is definitely venturing into this muddy area.

So if this platform is closed-source, AZBOX may have to be doing all the running around adding freesat support or the like and that may not be their priority.

It should instead be upto 3rd party plugins to make this a reality. But the plugin API would have to be capable of allowing extensions to the onboard EPG as opposed to supporting only separately run add-ons such as youtube etc.

You are very right that cam support may keep most happy along with network file access and media player features etc.. but if thats where it ends, this box is not going to become a DMM killer unless someone ports Enigma to it.

In some respects, although still unproven and "beta", the Qbox is closer to being called a DMM killer as it is already using enigma and can therefore inherit many extensions that exist. Its attraction is 2-tuner support plus 1 expansion slot at literally half the cost of a DM8000.

gtg60

It's ok to be skeptical, in fact it's probably prudent in this day and age but, as I have posted earlier, Freesat EPG will be a reality, DJBlu, the guy who coded it (and the Sky EPG) for DVBViewer has already done the work and has passed it on to Opensat to be intergrated with the Firmware as opposed to a plugin, this will happen fairly soon but, as you have rightly said, it is not a priority for them. I am just pointing out that what I have written is based on facts and first hand information, not the usual 'a guy I know, who knows the friend of a guys brother' misinformation that is so widespread in forums (and the internet in general).

cormacl

gtg60 wrote: »

..Freesat EPG will be a reality, DJBlu, the guy who coded it (and the Sky EPG) for DVBViewer has already done the work and has passed it on to Opensat to be intergrated with the Firmware as opposed to a plugin, this will happen fairly soon..

So have Opensat said that they are going to release official support for Freesat EPG and sell their product stating it supports the Freesat EPG?

And how did he code this if its a closed source system?

Well I hope for their sake, they do not get sued by Freesat for including support for a reverse-engineered EPG.

gtg60

I don't know, I have posted the information I have, time will tell I suppose...

cormacl

Folks,
if possible could someone ssh or telnet into one of these boxes and issue the following command..

first cd to say the hard-disk.. then..

ls -Ral / > ls.txt

..this should perform a recursive directory listing of the root filesystem and redirect it into a file. You might want to cd into the hard-drive before running this in case the file created is large and causes flash space to run out.

I'd like to have a look at exactly what they have packaged into these receivers.. seeing the full directory tree will show libraries, binaries etc and speak volumes.

pissed

I see a new link for cccam released yesterday. Is this the long awaited full version or another version of incubus ?

http://www.azboxworld.com/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=6750

slegs

cormacl wrote: »

So have Opensat said that they are going to release official support for Freesat EPG and sell their product stating it supports the Freesat EPG?

And how did he code this if its a closed source system?

Well I hope for their sake, they do not get sued by Freesat for including support for a reverse-engineered EPG.

Yes, Opensat will include the code to READ the freesat EPG in the main firmware. You know as well as I that it will not be advertised as freesat EPG or supported as such. But yes it will happen sooner rather than later.

There are many products out there reading the freesat EPG stream. These are not THE actual freesat EPG. It may be dubious legally but I can't see how freesat can do anything about it.

AZBox has a plugin module so it can be coded as a third party plugin without difficulty if there are any legal questions.

pissed

Just noticed the DVB T tuner modules are in stock, just placed an order

cramp

@ slegs

do u have a chaNnel list for AZBOX, i cant seem to find it on your forum....i joined a few weeks back....

in particular i was trying to tune ITV HD!!


CRAMP

gtg60

Channel list is here:
http://www.saortv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=117
You need to install the channel list editor on your PC and then load that list then install it to your AZBox.

ITV HD is hard to find because it is listed as channel 15100 (or something like that).

Useless channel anyway, never anything on it

byte

@cramp:
If you've any commments regarding slegs's site, or his/her forum, take it up with him/her pesonally, not via boards.ie

pissed

I seem to have a problem now connecting to my box, was working ok in the past. I have tried filezilla and followed steps posted by slegs, I have also tried the winscp program which worked before but i get network error connection refused. Tried putty too when I enter my root and azbox the characters are coming up on screen . I have done a factory reset and still the same. I can connect to the net with the box, i.e. you tube and can update firmware and plugins but just cannot ftp to box.I can ping the box ok. Anyone any ideas?

gtg60

pissed wrote: »

Anyone any ideas?

Are you using the latest firmware (0.9.2163)?

ethernet

pissed wrote: »

I seem to have a problem now connecting to my box, was working ok in the past. I have tried filezilla and followed steps posted by slegs, I have also tried the winscp program which worked before but i get network error connection refused. Tried putty too when I enter my root and azbox the characters are coming up on screen . I have done a factory reset and still the same. I can connect to the net with the box, i.e. you tube and can update firmware and plugins but just cannot ftp to box.I can ping the box ok. Anyone any ideas?

Does the box have a static IP address or is it using DHCP?

pissed

Yeah i am using the latest firmware, even tried it after I reverted back to factory settings but still no joy. I have tried it using static and dhcp.

gtg60

pissed wrote: »

Yeah i am using the latest firmware, even tried it after I reverted back to factory settings but still no joy. I have tried it using static and dhcp.

On the new firmware you have to go into Settings and then into Network and Enable it, there have been a lot of changes with the latest firmware, for ease of use and reliability I have gone back to 0.9.2032

pissed

OK I have gone into network service, the only one enabled is Telnet Server, which ones should be enabled? Thanks