Amiko Alien 2 Triple Tuner Combobox

deaglan169

FlexMcMurphy wrote: »

For a start what software are you using on your Alien2.. Spark or Enigma? There are people on this forum using Enigma Images: AR-P, HDMU, Open Pli and probably others too. Tuner configuration is likely to be different in each of them.

Flex

im using it with enigma, and hdmu image also think open pli os on there somewere too if thats possible

maik3n

Anyone mind telling me how on earth I get any kind of flash drive/hdd working on these STBS (enigma2 hdmu 10905 image) so that I can record.

I can format and record fine in spark.
However, for the life of me I can't get my flash drive/hdd set up under enigma2?

I've tried PMTs telnet putty guide but I get the following - >

The stb does see the HDD/flash drive but if I try and initialize/check it, she just cr*ps out, lol.
It gives me a timeout elapsed error message?

FlexMcMurphy

maik3n wrote: »

Anyone mind telling me how on earth I get any kind of flash drive/hdd working on these STBS..

Hi maik3n,

Here's how I got my 2GB USB key working to record programmes on HDMU...

1. Used EaseUS Partition Master to format it as a single partition, Ext3 and Primary.
2. Insert key into rear of Alien 2.
3. Open Telnet and run command

fdisk -l

to confirm it is mounted at /dev/sda1
4. Type these three commands one after the other into the Telnet window pressing Enter after each...

mkfs.ext3 -L RECORD /dev/sda1
cd /autofs/sda1
mkdir movie

5. Reboot Alien 2.. Menu > Standby/restart > Restart
6. After this you should be able to press 'Record' on the remote control and record.

I didn't have to go into that Hard Drive initialization menu at all. It seems that in HDMU only the Ext3 filesystem is supported, not Fat32 or NTFS. Using Filezilla I could drag the .TS file onto my computer.

Sources of info:
PogMoThoin (where is he gone??) HDMU Setup guide
Post #6 in Thread 'hard drive wont initialize on HDMU image' at linuxsat-support.com
Thread 'Help setting up hard-drive HDMU IMAGE AMIKO Alien 2' at linuxsat-support.com

Flex

Digidol

Hey I have Open AR-P all set up and running now, just one minor issue, I can't seem to get Cool TV Guide to stick to the EPG button?

When I press the EPG button, at the very bottom of the list I choose 'Select default EPG type...' and then pick Cool TV Guide, but it doesn't seem to stick, as in when I press the EPG button again it brings up the list of options again?

Any ideas anyone?

championc

Digidol wrote: »

Hey I have Open AR-P all set up and running now, just one minor issue, I can't seem to get Cool TV Guide to stick to the EPG button?

When I press the EPG button, at the very bottom of the list I choose 'Select default EPG type...' and then pick Cool TV Guide, but it doesn't seem to stick, as in when I press the EPG button again it brings up the list of options again?

Any ideas anyone?

Digi, look at post #1352

Digidol

championc wrote: »

Digi, look at post #1352

Brilliant championc, that worked a treat! Thanks again for helping

championc

Warning from amiko!!!

IMPORTANT NOTICE! The current weather provider of Spark Online is sending corrupted data to the receivers which might cause the receiver to be unable to boot on startup. We highly recommend all Spark users to remove all selected cities from their Spark Online Weather Forecast menu in order to avoid such issues! Thank you for your understanding and patience.


Solution that worked for me

To fix, LogIn by FTP (username root, password root) and erase file weather.xml from folder /root/spark/AppUserDb/

[pdf]http://amikostb.com/downloads/Spark_Recovery.pdf[/pdf]

maik3n

FlexMcMurphy wrote: »

Hi maik3n,

Here's how I got my 2GB USB key working to record programmes on HDMU...

1. Used EaseUS Partition Master to format it as a single partition, Ext3 and Primary.
2. Insert key into rear of Alien 2.
3. Open Telnet and run command

fdisk -l

to confirm it is mounted at /dev/sda1
4. Type these three commands one after the other into the Telnet window pressing Enter after each...

mkfs.ext3 -L RECORD /dev/sda1
cd /autofs/sda1
mkdir movie

5. Reboot Alien 2.. Menu > Standby/restart > Restart
6. After this you should be able to press 'Record' on the remote control and record.

I didn't have to go into that Hard Drive initialization menu at all. It seems that in HDMU only the Ext3 filesystem is supported, not Fat32 or NTFS. Using Filezilla I could drag the .TS file onto my computer.

Sources of info:
PogMoThoin (where is he gone??) HDMU Setup guide
Post #6 in Thread 'hard drive wont initialize on HDMU image' at linuxsat-support.com
Thread 'Help setting up hard-drive HDMU IMAGE AMIKO Alien 2' at linuxsat-support.com

Flex

Patience is a virtue I guess .

Had run them through EaseUS numerous times but never had any luck.

Tried it again, just for the h*ck of it.
Followed your instructions and am happy to report that I have been successful.

Mind you, it might be worth mentioning that the system seems to go through some kind of setup process after
mkfs.ext3 -L RECORD /dev/sda1 and can take a bit of time.
I guess it depends on what size flash drive/hdd you have though.
After that is complete, you can then run the other 2 commands. :cool:

Digidol

Ok so I've been using AR-P for the last few hours, it's a nice little image. Crossepg and Autobouquets working nicely. The hard drive is mounting every time and recording too.

Speed wise it is fast, but I have to admit some of the HDMU images are just as fast. Oscam is very stable too.

Some plugins don't seem to work great on it though, RTE Player and Ice Films are hit and miss and quite slow compared to them on HDMU, does anyone else experience that?

BopperSnr

I agree , best image I 've seen but a lot of plugins green screen like auto timers and any media centre plugin. Still best yet.

championc

I had problems streaming on my setup and so I re-flashed AR-P and it's now "mostly" working. If I have the box watching a Satellite Channel, I can stream a Terrestrial and if watching a Terrestrial I can stream both Terrestrial and Satellite.

With ANY of the various Enigma2 images, has anyone managed to stream one Satellitre Channel while watching another, particularly one on another polarization ? If so, how have you got your Tuners configured ? It appears to me that if you have Tuner B set to "equal to Tuner A", then I'm not sure it looks at it as an independent tuner available for use by the second Tuner. I'm considering setting up both Tuners as separate Tuners, setting both to the same satellite but one to LNB1 and the other to LNB2.

Any thoughts ?

Kenny Powers

championc wrote: »

I had problems streaming on my setup and so I re-flashed AR-P and it's now "mostly" working. If I have the box watching a Satellite Channel, I can stream a Terrestrial and if watching a Terrestrial I can stream both Terrestrial and Satellite.

With ANY of the various Enigma2 images, has anyone managed to stream one Satellitre Channel while watching another, particularly one on another polarization ? If so, how have you got your Tuners configured ? It appears to me that if you have Tuner B set to "equal to Tuner A", then I'm not sure it looks at it as an independent tuner available for use by the second Tuner. I'm considering setting up both Tuners as separate Tuners, setting both to the same satellite but one to LNB1 and the other to LNB2.

Any thoughts ?

I'm trying out the latest release of HDMU E2, It kept crashing when ever I tried to stream the only thing that would work was streaming current.

I did this and all seems to be working 100% now, might be worth a try.

FTP to the box then find the 'inetd.conf' file (/etc/inetd.conf) using wordpad comment out the line - "8001 stream tcp nowait root /bin/streamproxy streamproxy" by placing a # in front of it (i.e # 8001 stream tcp nowait root /bin/streamproxy streamproxy).

championc

Thanks, it's already commented out.

maik3n

Anyone have a Freeview HD bouquet they can share?

Running HDMU 10905 image, which shows up my terrestrial tuner as DVB-T when it should be DVB-T2. After scanning, I do pick up the 4 freeview HD channels but that's it.
On my LG smart tv, I can pick up all the freeview channels, SD and HD.

I know there is a lot of crossover/parity with fta satellite but I'd still like to have the freeview channels in the mix too if possible.

Wcool

Hi,

Just bought this box too and I am off too on this (long?) journey of upgrading from the default Spark image to Enigma2.

Of course, I used Pog's upgrade guide http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056707402&page=13 but I wonder if all the links there point to the latest images?

Is there some repository with all the latest and greates images, plugins and channel list?

Thanks,
Wcool

FlexMcMurphy

maik3n wrote: »

Running HDMU 10905 image, which shows up my terrestrial tuner as DVB-T when it should be DVB-T2.

If you can tune in Freeview channels then I suppose you live in a border region or in the UK. Do you have an Alien 2+ or Alien 2? The Alien 2 has a DVB-T tuner which cannot tune in UK Freeview channels only Saorview. The Alien 2+ has a DVB-T2 tuner which can tune in both.

deaglan169

i still cannot get mine to tune at all, with italy setting it takes up to 10mins to reach 16% and i tried a manual scan find no channels, i wonder has the image corrupted some file system

FlexMcMurphy

deaglan169 wrote: »

i still cannot get mine to tune at all

Maybe your Tuner Configuration is the problem... and did you get an updated satellite.xml file with the 28.2E information? Initially I set my Alien 2 up with only one Cable from the Dish and one from a roof mounted UHF aerial.

What I wanted to do:
Connect just ONE cable from a fixed Satellite dish pointed at Astra 28.2E (Sky dish) and ONE UHF Terrestrial Aerial cable to an Alien2.
I plugged the satellite cable into Tuner 1 and the UHF cable into Tuner 3 of the Alien2.

How to configure the Tuners in HDMU:

Menu > Setup > Service Searching > Tuner Configuration.

Tuner A:
Configuration Mode: enabled
Terrestrial provider: Europe, Middle East, Africa DVB-T frequencies
Enable 5V for active antenna: off

Tuner B:
Configuration Mode: simple
Mode: single
Satellite: Astra 1N/2A/2F/Eutelsat 28A (28.2E)
Send DiSQqC: no

Tuner C:
Configuration Mode: not configured

Regarding where to put satellites.xml:
It seems that you can put it into either /etc/tuxbox or /etc/enigma2 or var/etc/tuxbox

Flex

dr_funk

championc wrote: »

With ANY of the various Enigma2 images, has anyone managed to stream one Satellitre Channel while watching another, particularly one on another polarization ? If so, how have you got your Tuners configured ?

Streaming working fine here on HDMU 10709 (with regular software updates via the menu). I only have one LNB cable from my dish, but I can stream satellite while watching terrestrial and vice versa, and I can stream one satellite channel while watching another on the same transponder.

I tried the receiver in my brother's place, where he has 2 LNBs connected from his dish, and we were able to do pretty much everything - watch any sat channel, stream any other sat channel, regardless of transponder, polarization etc. Very impressed!

This is my tuner config:

Tuner A: Tuner3-T/C (DVB-T)
Tuner B: Tuner1-Sat (DVB-S2) config mode: simple, mode: single
Tuner C: Tuner2-Sat (DVB-S2) equal to Tuner B

championc wrote: »

It appears to me that if you have Tuner B set to "equal to Tuner A", then I'm not sure it looks at it as an independent tuner available for use by the second Tuner. I'm considering setting up both Tuners as separate Tuners, setting both to the same satellite but one to LNB1 and the other to LNB2.

Based on my testing, the receiver seems to be quite intelligent once it's connected to 2 LNBs, even using the 'equal to' setup.

Wisesmurf

Was looking a PogMoThoin's guide last night to refresh my memory when flashing another box and noticed he's closed his account.

Thanks Pog - excellent help.

Redriddick

Hi Lads,
Just a quick one before i pull the trigger.Is anyone using this with an rf modulator to use magic eyes????
i presume it is possible.
Also where is the best place to buy this????

Compton

You will need a Tri-link to make it work with magic eyes.

I got mine from Satworld

http://www.satworld.ie/product-info.php?Amiko_Alien_2_Triple_Tuner-pid554.html

Zardoz

Zardoz wrote: »

After some further testing of the HDMU image (10846) I have noted a few things.

1.The HD picture quality is not as sharp as my other Linux receivers,it looks soft .
The SD picture quality is good,better than my other Linux receivers ,but the difference between SD and HD isnt as good as it should be.

2.The PLI-HD skin is not very stable,seems to slowdown alot ,other skins are much smoother.

3.I was watching a satellite channel ,then recorded it and switched to a Saorview channel .
I switched back to the satellite channel and stopped the recording but when I went back to Saorview ,it says "Service not found" on Saorview channels.
I had to hard restart the receiver to get the Saorview channels back.This happens anytime i try the above.

4.Sometimes when I go into CoolTv and press the menu button to configure it I get a pink screen and the box crashes .

5.If I run timeshift in HDMU and press stop it stops the Timeshift despite I have it set up to show a warning when timeshift is stopped .

6.The audio levels on different channels is all over the place.I have tried the automatic volume adjustment plugin but the audio levels are still inconsistent.

7.Dmconcinnity skin completely locks up on the terrestrial channels ,the spinner keeps going and going.

I am thinking of giving ARP a go ,does anyone using it know if it has the same issues ?

I flashed a newer version of HDMU ,11012 and it seems to have resolved a few of these issues,it seems a more stable image .

The timeshift stopping bug is gone,it now asks the user what to do when timeshift is stopped as it should do.

The Cooltv menu crashing is gone too although i still cant map the red button to cool TV ,it doesnt work.

The audio level adjustment seems to work better on this rev ,although I only checked it on a crt tv ,it may not work as well via hdmi .

The Saorview "Service not found" bug is still present though and switching between the terrestrial channels seems slightly more fluid.

All in all 11012 seems better .

Apogee

Zardoz wrote: »

The Saorview "Service not found" bug is still present though and switching between the terrestrial channels seems slightly more fluid.

Try the following:

Menu->Setup->System->User Settings->"Hide Zap Errors" and set to "ON"

Wcool

I found the link to the post with all the latest firmwares and plugins.
Just repeating it here: Most upto date resources

But I hope someone can help me here, I am already falling over the first hurdle.

First of all, go to Menu-->Spark-->Upgrade Software. Do a downgrade to 1.2.51 E2 Boot Upgrade. You can flash back to the latest Spark later if you wish to continue using Spark.

I am on a very old Spark image (1.2.53) and try to downgrade to E2 boot image upgrade to Enigma2 per Pog's guide. But everytime I go into the Spark Menu, my network connection times out. But I am sure I am connected to the network (Opera is working). Is there some password or user name I need to configure?

Also I used the automatic channel finder, but I can't spot BBC3 and BBC4. I thought those would be on the astra 28.2 satellite?

Thanks for any help in advance

Zardoz

Apogee wrote: »

Try the following:

Menu->Setup->System->User Settings->"Hide Zap Errors" and set to "ON"

Makes no difference unfortunately.
No signal on any of the saorview channels when you do the following.

I was watching a satellite channel ,then recorded it and switched to a Saorview channel .
I switched back to the satellite channel and stopped the recording but when I went back to Saorview ,it says "Service not found" on Saorview channels.

Gerry Wicklow

@Zardoz
For what it's worth I've been getting similar snags with 11021. When you stop watching some recordings, some tuners report no signal. The most recent while recording terrestrial, switched to sat and got the "no PAT.." message. A reboot was the only way to get all tuners back.
Otherwise I would agree that 11021 seems more stable with certain functions working far better than any previous version.

FlexMcMurphy

Wcool wrote: »

But I hope someone can help me... everytime I go into the Spark Menu, my network connection times out. But I am sure I am connected to the network...

There was a problem recently with the Weather App in Spark that was causing some peoples Alien boxes to get stuck on boot.

Click here and here for more info about this problem and how to fix it if you are affected. Basically you shouldn't have any cities listed in your Spark Weather App. If in doubt, disconnect your Alien from the internet then boot into Spark and FTP to /root/spark/AppUserDb/ and delete weather.xml if it is there. You can then reconnect Alien to net.

Because of the Weather App problem the Spark Online feature is now disabled if your Spark firmware is less than 1.2.64. To see what Spark firmware you have go to Menu > System > Basic Setting > System Information

If your firmware is less than 1.2.64 and you want to upgrade to a newer version you now have to download the firmware from somewhere else and upgrade by USB. Spark firmwares are available for download from this site. To install this firmware from a USB key I followed the instructions on this site and it worked for me.

If you plan on using coolepg on Spark you're better off using Spark 1.2.63 because there is a bug in more recent versions that make some of the text garbled.

Flex

Wcool

Thanks for that Flex, much appreciated.
As I was on Spark 1.2.53 I thought the reason Menu->Spark->Update is not working as it has been switched off by Spark due to the weather.xml bug

I ftp'ed to the box but I have no weather.xml.

So I decided to upgrade to Spark 1.2.64 as it says it is enabled for that. But even after upgrading to that, I still can't get into Menu->Spark->Update

Is there a way to install E2 boot upgrade from USB? All I want is booting to E2, and then upgrade, I don't want to stay on Spark anyway.

I am going to try a full factory reset now, even if i lose the couple of things that I configured.

Wcool

This link describes how to upgrade to an E2 image from USB
E2 upgrade from USB

What is I don't understand is: why does Pog's guide downgrade first to 1.2.52 first? Does that improve stability or something?