New Gigablue Quad Plus

fat-tony

Box arrived this morning. Just now setting it up. Manual in German only (same as Quad). I'm using the installed OpenMIPs image for now until I ensure the box is functioning. Language set to German so I looked through the install menu for the magic word Sprache!
The default sat tuner setting was for Das Erste on 19.2 and I had my dish aimed at 28.2. Went through the video settings and changed to 1080p. Box crashed while I was browsing through other settings! I scanned in my local muxes on the DVB-T tuner and it found the services but I couldn't seem to navigate the menu to display any. It seems to default to the satellite tuner but I'm sure I'll work it out.
Set sat tuner 1 to Astra 28.2 and started it scanning the transponders. Very slow scan - my old Manhattan Plaza would blind scan quicker. Just waiting for the scan to complete....

The remote control is a multi-function jobbie and will control TV, DVD, amp etc. It doesn't default to the Gigablue when you put the batteries in, so you have to explicitly press the Gigablue button before it will control the Quad. I've seen this issue raised on the ATV forum.

STB

fat-tony wrote: »

Box arrived this morning. Just now setting it up. Manual in German only (same as Quad). I'm using the installed OpenMIPs image for now until I ensure the box is functioning. Language set to German so I looked through the install menu for the magic word Sprache!
The default sat tuner setting was for Das Erste on 19.2 and I had my dish aimed at 28.2. Went through the video settings and changed to 1080p. Box crashed while I was browsing through other settings! I scanned in my local muxes on the DVB-T tuner and it found the services but I couldn't seem to navigate the menu to display any. It seems to default to the satellite tuner but I'm sure I'll work it out.
Set sat tuner 1 to Astra 28.2 and started it scanning the transponders. Very slow scan - my old Manhattan Plaza would blind scan quicker. Just waiting for the scan to complete....

The remote control is a multi-function jobbie and will control TV, DVD, amp etc. It doesn't default to the Gigablue when you put the batteries in, so you have to explicitly press the Gigablue button before it will control the Quad. I've seen this issue raised on the ATV forum.

You dont need to scan. You can just upload a bouquet list from KingofSat using dreamedit. I can mail you my multisat bouquet and favourites later. You will just need to ftp it to the folder on the box.

fat-tony

Thanks for your offer of a bouquet list, but I'm ok for the moment. I have dreamedit but haven't attached the box to my LAN yet.
I've delved into the menus and found AutoBouquetMaker and used it to create a Freesat list and a SKY list. Worked fine.
Have been playing around with the positioner setup and impressed with the auto fine-tuning of the motor under USALS - my old Manhattan doesn't have that feature.
The menu structure/mapping of buttons to OSD is a bit of an enigma (:P) all right. Having to press the yellow button instead of the pause button to "pause live tv" is a bit odd, but I'm sure the ATV and VIX skins will be more user friendly or can be made more user friendly.
In deep standby the power consumption is a very green 0.2 watts, but with the LCD showing the time in normal standby it is 15W!
The niggling issue with the OpenMIPS fimware is that it keeps crashing the user interface anytime you either cancel or accept a changed setting in the System Settings menu. It green screens and dumps and then restarts - about 15 seconds.
Normal user interactions - changing channels, EPG, recording, pausing are all ok.

STB

The latest version of Dreambox Edit is here

Get rid of Openmips and dont even dream of the online update. It will kill the image altogether.

Open ATV is quicker and doesnt crash and has a good plugins directory.

Take one of these

http://images.mynonpublic.com/openatv/nightly/index.php?open=gbquadplus

Unzip to the root of a USB device. Plug into Gigablue front USB, turn box on and off. Use OK button to make it flash when prompted on LCD screen of box. Let it flash. It will reboot. Remove USB device. Confgure from there. Better off configuring from a good image rather than one that is bogey. That shouldnt happen.

fat-tony

I have Dreamboxedit 5.3.1.6 installed on my PC (Ubuntu with WINE) and have played around with it over the weekend. Will attach to Quad Plus on network shortly (or tomorrow).
Have the latest ATV image downloaded, just ensuring the box hardware is working with the supplied image before I blow it away! The OpenMIPS image is distinctly flaky. I won't spend much more time on it

STB

I had only suggested getting rid of openmips so that you can start from scratch and not spend time configuring an already unstable image. I found Openmips, slower and em not very good.

The order I do it in for new images is.

• Flash Image
• Connect box to LAN
• Run through the Install menus (English, HDMI, DHCP)
• Set Diseqc for multisat LNBs using Diseqc 1.1 and uncommited ports.
• Set Time Zone in System Menu (otherwise Sat Wont work-it takes its time from the Sats)
• Check Box IP address.
• Export previously configured bouquet list from Dreambox EDit to Box.
• Set Devices to /media/usb- 8g USB Stick for Flash memory - EXT4 format. HDD to /media/hdd.
• Install picons - Transparent Ocram (do not use internal memory)
• Install Skin - Open ATV - Metrix HD is good.
• Install other Plugins & cams.
• Configure EPG to media/usb/epg.dat.
• Set a large swapfile on /USB also.
  
  Tweak it to death, backup the image so you dont have to go through that again!

John896

This sounds like a very good box.

fat-tony

Thanks @STB. I put the ATV image on a stick and it loaded fine. Minor moment of panic after the flashing as the logo disappeared off TV but stayed on LCD display and box became unresponsive to the remote :eek:
Just powered it off at the back and on again. All ok after that.
Ran autobouquetsmaker on Freesat and scanned in the DVB-T muxes. Set a few autorecordings to check the reliability - needs to be able to record the soaps for SWMBO!
I'm having a slight difficulty in getting my head around the channel selection process, though. Because the default bouquets include channels from 19E and 13E it's not particularly easy to just select a list from Freesat or the RTENL muxes. Also no obvious way through the UI to delete sats, transponders or channels like my Manhattan Plaza.
No doubt, once I connect it to the LAN, Dreamboxedit will allow me to fine tune whats there.
Recording is fine to HDD and playback is excellent, smooth without dropouts at 2x, 4x, 8x, 32x or whatever. I like the way I can configure jumps at different intervals on different keys on the remote. This is a great feature on the Foxsat HDR where you can jump through 4 minutes of ads with one click. It's brought to a whole new level on this image where you can specify three different intervals, depending on which button you press.
I'll use the HDD for EPG and swapfile rather than a USB stick. Once installed in its final location the HDD will be on all the time for timeshift in any case.

STB

fat-tony wrote: »

Thanks @STB. I put the ATV image on a stick and it loaded fine. Minor moment of panic after the flashing as the logo disappeared off TV but stayed on LCD display and box became unresponsive to the remote :eek:
Just powered it off at the back and on again. All ok after that.
Ran autobouquetsmaker on Freesat and scanned in the DVB-T muxes. Set a few autorecordings to check the reliability - needs to be able to record the soaps for SWMBO!
I'm having a slight difficulty in getting my head around the channel selection process, though. Because the default bouquets include channels from 19E and 13E it's not particularly easy to just select a list from Freesat or the RTENL muxes. Also no obvious way through the UI to delete sats, transponders or channels like my Manhattan Plaza.
No doubt, once I connect it to the LAN, Dreamboxedit will allow me to fine tune whats there.
Recording is fine to HDD and playback is excellent, smooth without dropouts at 2x, 4x, 8x, 32x or whatever. I like the way I can configure jumps at different intervals on different keys on the remote. This is a great feature on the Foxsat HDR where you can jump through 4 minutes of ads with one click. It's brought to a whole new level on this image where you can specify three different intervals, depending on which button you press.
I'll use the HDD for EPG and swapfile rather than a USB stick. Once installed in its final location the HDD will be on all the time for timeshift in any case.

I am on Vix at the moment but it is much the same core menu items.

You really need to get the Network set up to the box from your Router via DHCP.... 192.168.0.xxx - User:root Pass:either blank or dreambox by default. You can change it in telnet with the o 192.168.0.xxx, root and then passwd. Enter new password.

Once you get that sorted you can just download the kingofsat data for whatever satellite. Rename one of the fav lists and drop what channels you want from each satellite/terrestrial list that you want and re-order, then send it to the box. remeber you will have to tell Dreambox edit your box ip and that it is an e2 box.

Much easier than doing it with a remote. But if you must do it with a remote. Press the up key and then blue, then menu button, add bouquet, give it a name and press ok (Sat & DTT for example). You then go back to your satellite list. Press ok to pull up all the channels. As you are going down through list, pressing menu whilst on the channel name will allow you to add service to bouquet, pick SAT and DTT and its added to that list. Keep doing that until you have your master list in your favs. You can then reorder them by picking that fav list with the blue button, pulling up that list and whilst on the channel are on screen, pressing menu and then enable move mode. Then you can drag and drop in that ordered list.

Recording/Media playback, if you hold down the okay button it will allow you to toggle to a time within that recording to go to (using the < > button on the remote). Its better than FW/RW.

You will need the networking for installing the picons/plugins from the online repository within the menus. It would be tedious to be downloading IPKs on USB stick and installing stuff that way.

fat-tony

Thanks @STB. My Quad is in the bedroom with no network access. I swiped the "on demand" wifi dongle from my SKY box and attached it to the Quad and got the network going. Used Dreamboxedit to download the bouquet listings and edited out the spurious stuff. Will play with plugins manyana!

I did hit an issue with scanning in the muxes on DVB-T. Would scan in either local mux 1 or mux 2, but not both. Didn't matter whether I set clear or not. Did a full auto scan and produced spurious settings at 50MhZ! i recall seeing other postings regarding DVB-T issues and will check in the morning. Nothing overly serious, though. It's recording ok and I'm able to use FTP and Samba and Dreamboxit edit so mostly ok so far.

STB

fat-tony wrote: »

Thanks @STB. My Quad is in the bedroom with no network access. I swiped the "on demand" wifi dongle from my SKY box and attached it to the Quad and got the network going. Used Dreamboxedit to download the bouquet listings and edited out the spurious stuff. Will play with plugins manyana!

I did hit an issue with scanning in the muxes on DVB-T. Would scan in either local mux 1 or mux 2, but not both. Didn't matter whether I set clear or not. Did a full auto scan and produced spurious settings at 50MhZ! i recall seeing other postings regarding DVB-T issues and will check in the morning. Nothing overly serious, though. It's recording ok and I'm able to use FTP and Samba and Dreamboxit edit so mostly ok so far.

Is the DVB-T set to Europe ?

Have you tried manually scanning ?

fat-tony

It's DVB-T Europe. I'm familiar with the band plans.
If I manually scan local Mux 1 I get the usual complement of TV and radio RTE2, TV3 etc. These appear in the "Last Scanned" bouquet when you press the FAV button.
If I then manually scan Mux 2 (with the clear option set to NO) I get RTE 1 etc. If I look in Last Scanned I only see Mux 2.
If I do a full auto scan I pick up all of Mux 1 and Mux 2 from a weaker transmitter which is lower down the UHF band and it skips the services from the stronger local muxes. I guess it's a bug in the scanning process.
I think I can get around it by scanning the local muxes individually, then moving the scanned channels into another bouquet. Or just download a pre-populated bouquet! I see lots of postings about this issue on the Amiko Alien thread. It was definitely ok on the OpenMIPS image because I scanned in my local muxes manually on that.
I've also noticed that the sat positioner setup app does not work on the OpenATV image. On the OpenMIPS image I was able to select a transponder and fine tune the dish position - can't seem to do it on OpenATV. It's again not a big issue as when the box in in its final location I will be using a fixed dish.

Happy enough so far with pic quality, speed of channel change, timed recording.
I would like to see an option in standby where the tuners and processor are inactivated while the clock remains displayed. As it is, normal standby uses 15W of power which is almost as much as when the box is in full operation. Deep standby uses under 1W, but you don't get the clock display. Can't have everything, I suppose!

givecredit

fat-tony wrote: »

It's DVB-T Europe. I'm familiar with the band plans.
If I manually scan local Mux 1 I get the usual complement of TV and radio RTE2, TV3 etc. These appear in the "Last Scanned" bouquet when you press the FAV button.
If I then manually scan Mux 2 (with the clear option set to NO) I get RTE 1 etc. If I look in Last Scanned I only see Mux 2.

Your scanned terrestrial channels should be found under the satellite lists section under terrestrial. From memory press up arrow, green for sat lists and select terrestrial. You can move them from here to the bouquet you want.

The last scanned lists only hold the "last scanned".

STB

Indeed. I didnt know where you were coming from on that.

When you press green for satellites, you will see Terrestrial Services, providers etc at the top, included with all the satellite lists 28/13/etc.

When viewing the list of stations, press the menu button and choose add to service bouquet to add them to a fav list.

fat-tony

givecredit wrote: »

... The last scanned lists only hold the "last scanned".

Well that sort of made sense when I saw it on the bouquets menu screen - as in "It's the last scan you did, dummy"

It was a bit counter-intuitive to press the green button for a satellites list, but there it was - Terrestrial Services, Providers etc. On the auto-tune it definitely only stored the muxes from the weaker transmitter lower down the UHF band. So I did a manual scan on my local multiplexes and it stored them correctly. I moved them into an existing bouquet with the remote.

STB

fat-tony wrote: »

I've also noticed that the sat positioner setup app does not work on the OpenATV image. On the OpenMIPS image I was able to select a transponder and fine tune the dish position - can't seem to do it on OpenATV. It's again not a big issue as when the box in in its final location I will be using a fixed dish.

Is Sat positioner in the menu, under tuner config ? You may have to install it from the plugins. I presume you also have the tuner config set to Diqesc 1.2 ?

fat-tony

Yes it's there in the menu all right. I even checked for updates online this morning. The dish is turning ok to 19E and back to 28E as I select channels from German TV and Freesat as I have my location coordinates set correctly. It's just that the application seems to do nothing when I select it - no option to select specific transponder etc. I'll hack away at it, but I'm going to wait until the VIX image before I do any major tweaking. Thanks for responding!

fat-tony

Downloaded the latest nightly ATV image. Seemed to flash ok, but the splash screen stayed on the TV and no response from remote. Switched off box and on again but no joy. This happened when I flashed the first ATV image but power off/on sorted it. I have now flashed the original ATV image from Monday. Seemed to flash ok, but splash screen won't go away, even after power off/on :eek:


Later update. Powered on afterwards and it came up ok. This morning, same thing - seemed to hang at splash screen. I think it is waiting indefinitely for my wireless adapter to hand out an IP address (DHCP). I disconnected the adapter entirely and it came up ok. More investigation later....

STB

fat-tony wrote: »

Later update. Powered on afterwards and it came up ok. This morning, same thing - seemed to hang at splash screen. I think it is waiting indefinitely for my wireless adapter to hand out an IP address (DHCP). I disconnected the adapter entirely and it came up ok. More investigation later....

One of 2 things.

1. You have set up a swap file on the HDD which is disrupting the boot. Disconnect the HDD.

2. The last flash was corrupt/wrong image. Download a new version again, making sure its for the gigablue Quad plus.

Format the USB stick. Copy the new image to it and do flash sequence again, off insert USB, turn on, press ok. It will overwrite the previous bad flash.

Been there, seen that etc. Dont panic...

fat-tony

I had thought maybe the newer download might have been corrupt. That's why I used the original version again - same stick which worked on Monday and which hasn't been written to since.
No swap file generated so it's not that. I'm 90% sure it's something to do with the network handling (think it's waiting for DHCP response and not timing out). Once I disconnected the wireless adapter it came up ok. I won't get back to it until late tonight.

fat-tony

Just saw a post on wos forum - http://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?37245-where-is-zeus-023

Does this mean that there will be no VIX image for the Quad Plus :eek:
@pheonix - tell me it isn't so!

STB

It means no OpenVix for any box.... Vu+, TM etc.

Tis gone. Strange as Andy Blackburn has been updating stuff this week.

Sad news for Vix fans.

fat-tony

Well, there are existing images for current boxes. None at all for the quad plus!

I've gone back to the OpenMIPS image for the moment. The nightly images seem to have most of the "green screen" problems I experienced last week sorted. The OpenATV images were hanging occasionally at boot time for me. Couldn't pin the problem down - perhaps it was because I was doing on-line updates? I've let the OpenMIPS image settle for the past few days and it's been recording flawlessly and booting up fine.The only issue noted has been an occasional HDMI handshake problem when the screen goes magenta and there is no sound. Switching the TV away from the HDMI input and back resolves the issue. It only seems to happen if I boot the box with the TV turned off.

With the VIX option knocked on the head for the moment, can you suggest an alternative image with a decent EPG? I've been using Autobouquets and CrossEPG and have a good listing of Saorview and Freesat channels with a 7 day EPG although the presentation of the EPG is not as I'd like it where you can scroll left and right through hours and days of programmes (like Freesat (or maybe SKY)).

Zardoz

STB wrote: »

It means no OpenVix for any box.... Vu+, TM etc.

Tis gone. Strange as Andy Blackburn has been updating stuff this week.

Sad news for Vix fans.

Its extremely fishy.
Judging by the reaction on WOS ,it looks like a serious falling out.

stanley1

from WOS

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x6p258nc14w5c3d/Mighty%20Vix%20Has%20Fallen.mp4

Stuxnet

na there will be a new Vix-Helios image I bet

x PHEONIX x

yeah sorry to string it out guys but it had to be authentic, was a belated april fools.

Zeus is gone but Helios will replace him soon enough.

iba

x PHEONIX x wrote: »

yeah sorry to string it out guys but it had to be authentic, was a belated april fools.

Zeus is gone but Helios will replace him soon enough.

There is an old children's rhyme that goes something like this:

April fool's day is dead and gone

So your [WoS/Vix] the fool for carrying it on.

fat-tony

... and I thought that I had a quirky sense of humour!

STB

fat-tony wrote: »

Well, there are existing images for current boxes. None at all for the quad plus!

I've gone back to the OpenMIPS image for the moment. The nightly images seem to have most of the "green screen" problems I experienced last week sorted. The OpenATV images were hanging occasionally at boot time for me. Couldn't pin the problem down - perhaps it was because I was doing on-line updates? I've let the OpenMIPS image settle for the past few days and it's been recording flawlessly and booting up fine.The only issue noted has been an occasional HDMI handshake problem when the screen goes magenta and there is no sound. Switching the TV away from the HDMI input and back resolves the issue. It only seems to happen if I boot the box with the TV turned off.

With the VIX option knocked on the head for the moment, can you suggest an alternative image with a decent EPG? I've been using Autobouquets and CrossEPG and have a good listing of Saorview and Freesat channels with a 7 day EPG although the presentation of the EPG is not as I'd like it where you can scroll left and right through hours and days of programmes (like Freesat (or maybe SKY)).

Yes the magenta screen is the handshaking issue. TV must be tuned on after the box is turned on. You can configure the box to do both in the HDMI menu.

Decent epg - cool TV its in the plugins menu. You can also configure the box in the menus to load Cool TV's epg with the guide button rater than the native epg.

There is also a plugin that will let you reconfigure the button mapping. Also the skin I was using earlier on ATV was fairly good.

ATV - Dont perform online updates, they cause more harm than good and dont ever upgrade to the next firmware. It will just brick the box, albeit until you reflash again with a USB.

fat-tony

I figured as much about the online updates. The box "hang" always seemed to happen at some point after I'd been trawling for updates. I've been back on OpenMIPS now for a few days and it seems pretty ok for the time being until VIX start releasing Helios. Have been getting familiar with the menu structures and config options without adding plug-ins or anything that might destabilise the box. There are new images (I think mostly driver updates) for the Quad plus every two or three days.

fat-tony

The OpenMIPS image seems to be very stable now. Have stopped messing with online updates. Have played around with AutoBouquetMaker and it's really nice at setting up the Freesat genres. VIX have released the Helios images now and are up to version 006, but not for the Quad Plus just yet. ABM on the VIX image seems to incorporate DVB-T so it should be just the thing to merge sat and terrestrial listings for Irish users. Have offered to help andyblac with testing on the terrestrial side once the QUad plus image is available.

One question (probably for @STB). Anyone know why the logfile entries (including debug and crash logs also) don't have timestamps? Is this a consequence of how the image is compiled or can it be enabled through a system setting? It's a nuisance if I'm checking back to see how timers are working and how the machine is performing and I can't see timestamps in the logs.

x PHEONIX x

fat-tony wrote: »

One question (probably for @STB). Anyone know why the logfile entries (including debug and crash logs also) don't have timestamps? Is this a consequence of how the image is compiled or can it be enabled through a system setting? It's a nuisance if I'm checking back to see how timers are working and how the machine is performing and I can't see timestamps in the logs.

Andy is looking into the possibility of implementing exactly this, but it's not a simple task and rite now may not be possible to implement cleanly, if at all.

STB

Oi Oi Fat-tony

openvix-Apollo.008-gbquadplus_usb.zip

x PHEONIX x

STB wrote: »

Oi Oi Fat-tony

yes he knows, he's the one who tested the image and fixed the LCD issues that were preventing the release.

iba

Only £259 on WoS at the moment

(talking to myself as I have just seen on WoS (and coz STB is on Apollo 8) that I have to flash my box again to go from Apollo 3 to Apollo 8 - my box is going to start thinking it's a stripper the amount of times it has had to flash in the last few months)

steveon

iba wrote: »

Only £259 on WoS at the moment

(talking to myself as I have just seen on WoS (and coz STB is on Apollo 8) that I have to flash my box again to go from Apollo 3 to Apollo 8 - my box is going to start thinking it's a stripper the amount of times it has had to flash in the last few months)

Still on helios myself is it worth the bother of updating to apollo?

iba

steveon wrote: »

Still on helios myself is it worth the bother of updating to apollo?

I always, with whatever I have, like to have the latest OS - whether it is worth it I can not categorically say but why would new versions be released if they were not improvments?

For example, You could stay on Windows 99 or have updated to XP, Vista, 7 or 8. Or do you update your browsers or stay on old versions.

Personal choice for everyone, I guess.

BenEadir

Hi Guys,

I started a thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057231788 looking for a combo box to replace UPC for TV only as I already have a good media streaming setup with a Minix X7 and local NAS etc. I also have a Freesat (Sagem DTR 94500) which was installed in order to watch the 2010 World cup in South Africa in HD and hasn't been used much since I tried to use it as a UPC replacement but without the Saorview channels that idea was shot down by the family democracy.

IBA, STB and Zardoz have been very helpful and in the end I've decided to go with the box STB originally recommended which is the The Gigablue Quad Plus but I need some help as I want to make sure I don't order the wrong setup/components etc.

I'm therefore hoping to lean on the contributors of this thread to hold my hand as I order and set up the box which I very much hope will be "the one" which finally allows me to ditch UPC once and for all

I'm looking at ordering it from here but need some help to make sure I order it correctly - http://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/...te-terrestrial

Given my requirement is to be able to watch one Satellite channel whilst recording another and watch one Saorview channel whilst watching another can you please help me configure it?

1. What HD Quad extra Hybrid Tuners if any do I need?

2. What HD Quad extra Satellite Tuners if any do I need?

3. I assume a 1tb HDD drive is the best option to select?

4. Whats the best WiFi option to go for? I need the best WiFi capability possible as I stream over WiFi!!!

5. I assume I don't need a special USB flash drive?? I have a million of them floating about my house which I can format to FAT32 for flashing purposes.

6. I assume OpenVix is the best firmware to have preflashed onto the machine?

Anything else I need to know/tweak before I place my order?

Cheers in advance guys,

Ben

BenEadir

^^^ I'd really appreciate some input on the above please guys. I need some guidance on how to configure the options before I place my order.

Cheers,

Ben

STB

BenThere wrote: »

Hi Guys,

I started a thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057231788 looking for a combo box to replace UPC for TV only as I already have a good media streaming setup with a Minix X7 and local NAS etc. I also have a Freesat (Sagem DTR 94500) which was installed in order to watch the 2010 World cup in South Africa in HD and hasn't been used much since I tried to use it as a UPC replacement but without the Saorview channels that idea was shot down by the family democracy.

IBA, STB and Zardoz have been very helpful and in the end I've decided to go with the box STB originally recommended which is the The Gigablue Quad Plus but I need some help as I want to make sure I don't order the wrong setup/components etc.

I'm therefore hoping to lean on the contributors of this thread to hold my hand as I order and set up the box which I very much hope will be "the one" which finally allows me to ditch UPC once and for all

I'm looking at ordering it from here but need some help to make sure I order it correctly - http://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/...te-terrestrial

Given my requirement is to be able to watch one Satellite channel whilst recording another and watch one Saorview channel whilst watching another can you please help me configure it?

1. What HD Quad extra Hybrid Tuners if any do I need?

2. What HD Quad extra Satellite Tuners if any do I need?

3. I assume a 1tb HDD drive is the best option to select?

4. Whats the best WiFi option to go for? I need the best WiFi capability possible as I stream over WiFi!!!

5. I assume I don't need a special USB flash drive?? I have a million of them floating about my house which I can format to FAT32 for flashing purposes.

6. I assume OpenVix is the best firmware to have preflashed onto the machine?

Anything else I need to know/tweak before I place my order?

Cheers in advance guys,

Ben

These boxes come with a normal config of 2 x dvb-s (satellite), but they sell in them in various configs on websites as deals with the extra tuners (as the other 2 are plug and play - they slot into a board on the box).

For this reason you may wish to check with WOS's claim of being reduced from £350 to £259 is not disingenuous especially given its headed GiGaBlue HD QUAD+ PLUS Linux Enigma 2 HD PVR Satellite Receiver 2x DVB-S/S2 + 2x Plug & Play Tuner Slots

This gives the impression that you get 2 x dvb-s and 2 dvb-t2 tuners. When I added the 2 x dvb-t to the config the price shot up to £317. So check what price it is. If it is £259 (€325), then this is a good price as I think they dont charge for postage to Ireland. They are €359 on hm sat in Germany.

1&2. You will need 2 sat and 2 terrestrial in order to cover all combinations of watch and record.

3. The hard drive. You can get a 1TB 2.5" SATA HDD on Amazon for £40 if you want to put it in the box yourself (its fairly easy). Its up to you.

4. You can buy a wifi dongle if your box will be far away from your router. I run a cable to my router from the box. Its then on my LAN. I can then stream from and two it with other wifi devices. If your NAS is wireless then you will also be asble to stream from that with the box. Twonky via android works well with this using a plugin for the box called Open Airplay, so you can beam youtube from a handheld device wirelessly. You also have lots of pluugins for Youtube streaming anyhow for the box.

5. Yes most USB pen drives will work no issue. I have a Kinsgston 8Gb permamently attached to the back USB port on my box which stores the picons (Channel pictures) and EPG data and swapfiles so the internal memory wont be eaten up.

6. Openvix is the easiest and best setup for UK Ireland.

Have you used linux boxes before ? They require a bit of setting up. A little technical knowledge and patience is key. They arent as plug and play as a normal off the shelf box. They require tweaking, but once you have it the way you want it, then it will be fine. You can backup an image of your setup.

BenEadir

Hi STB,

Thanks for the feedback.

STB wrote: »

For this reason you may wish to check with WOS's claim of being reduced from £350 to £259 is not disingenuous

I configured the machine as (I think) I need it and it comes out at £415



I hope I've configured it correctly??? Is there a discount code I can use? I signed up as a member of WOS but don't recall receiving a discount code.

At this price am I better spending a bit more and getting the Vu+ Duo2?

I already have a good media streaming box set up so I don't think I'll need the Sat box to run YouTube or stream online content etc. Does that mean the Wifi dongle will only be used for automatically updating the channel list and EPG?

Yes, this will be my first Linux box. I'm handy enough with all things Android including media boxes. This will be a brand new learning curve for me but I'm up for the challenge.

Appreciate your help.

Ben

STB

£415 sterling. No that's crazy money.

The price is not deducting the 2 hybrid tuners.

What the WOS site says is that it is £259 for 2 sat tuners and 2 terrestrial tuners.

When you are adding these tuners it is bringing the price up. It shouldn't be. It should remain at £259.

Given you are also paying for the HDD and Wifi then I would also be asking for free shipping. They have done this in the past. Should bring your price down by £60/80 or so.

Email Stef in WOS and ask him why the price is not changing at checkout. (His email is sales at world-of-satellite.co.uk). They are prompt enough with replies.

gtg60

STB wrote: »

Email Stef in WOS and ask him why the price is not changing at checkout. (His email is sales at world-of-satellite.co.uk). They are prompt enough with replies.

I'd also be interested to hear their response although the way I'm reading it is that:

+ 2x Plug & Play Tuner Slots

While slightly misleading, just means there is space for 2 more tuners...

STB

@gtg60. Very subtle alright. I hadn't picked up on the word "slots".

These boxes are €359 with 4 tuners on HM SAT. There is no way they were ever £349 stg for just the basic 2 tuner config.

Anyhow that being the case its £317stg (€400) for the 4 tuners from WOS. Far too dear. Also €88 euro for a 1TB Sata HDD. Hmmmm.

You can only ask will they will match HM SAT price or just go with HM SAT as the four tuner config plus a 1TB drive is coming in @ €429 with HM SAT.

gtg60

Must admit, I'm quite tempted by one of these, can anybody who has one please let me know how it is as a media player, specifically HD and 3D mkv's from a NAS?

fat-tony

Price from WoS is a bit strange as I paid about €430 odd for 4 tuners plus 1 GB disk and courier from HM-sat in Germany back in April. As a media player, I'm less than impressed as it pales in comparison with my openelec xbmc media player as regards support of the advanced Dolby and DTS multichannel codecs and doesn't work at all with PCM multichannel and has issues with navigation and playback of DVD ISO files. However, as regards recording and playback of TV it's the dog's danglies - never fails to record, huge flexibility with regard to programme start time and end time, timeshift is smooth as is skip and FF and RW - something the xbmc PVR is crap at!

STB

fat-tony wrote: »

Price from WoS is a bit strange as I paid about €430 odd for 4 tuners plus 1 GB disk and courier from HM-sat in Germany back in April. As a media player, I'm less than impressed as it pales in comparison with my openelec xbmc media player as regards support of the advanced Dolby and DTS multichannel codecs and doesn't work at all with PCM multichannel and has issues with navigation and playback of DVD ISO files. However, as regards recording and playback of TV it's the dog's danglies - never fails to record, huge flexibility with regard to programme start time and end time, timeshift is smooth as is skip and FF and RW - something the xbmc PVR is crap at!

Does downmix not work ?

Because they are licensable codecs there must be third plugins (someone must have figured this out on openpli) for playing these media files. Its not a hardware limitation.

EDIT: Try "enigma2-DTSplugin.ON_OFF-ET9000-OpenPLI.ipk" Its a pugin that was written for the Xtrends, no harm to try it.

gtg60

fat-tony wrote: »

Price from WoS is a bit strange as I paid about €430 odd for 4 tuners plus 1 GB disk and courier from HM-sat in Germany back in April. As a media player, I'm less than impressed as it pales in comparison with my openelec xbmc media player as regards support of the advanced Dolby and DTS multichannel codecs and doesn't work at all with PCM multichannel and has issues with navigation and playback of DVD ISO files. However, as regards recording and playback of TV it's the dog's danglies - never fails to record, huge flexibility with regard to programme start time and end time, timeshift is smooth as is skip and FF and RW - something the xbmc PVR is crap at!

Thanks fat-tony, pulled the trigger on one of these at the weekend, hopefully have it before the week is out.
As I have a Multi-Sat setup, I went for 3 x SAT and 1 x Terrestrial tuners as this should provide me with the greatest flexibility.
Looking forward to getting it now

fat-tony

STB wrote: »

Does downmix not work ?

Because they are licensable codecs there must be third plugins (someone must have figured this out on openpli) for playing these media files. Its not a hardware limitation.

EDIT: Try "enigma2-DTSplugin.ON_OFF-ET9000-OpenPLI.ipk" Its a pugin that was written for the Xtrends, no harm to try it.

I've two boxes - the Quad Plus and a Miraclebox Twin Premium. The Quad Plus is in the bedroom at the moment while I test image releases, but will be moved into the living room where I can test out the multichannel capabilities more. The Miraclebox is actually sitting in the living room and doing temporary service as a Saorview box and is connected to my Onkyo AV amp. It seems to downmix everything (DD 5.1 or DTS) to 48kHz stereo PCM no matter how I set it and will not process my 96kHz or 88kHz FLAC multichannel PCM recordings. This may be just a driver issue and is of no real consequence to me as I will be moving this box back to the bedroom as my machine for tweaking and testing releases without upsetting the family machine. I tried to find the specs of these Broadcom SoC devices to see if they are capable of processing 88, 96 and 192kHz multichannel files and outputting the data over HDMI but I failed to find anything relevant. There was a long slog with xbmc to get proper multichannel PCM audio working on my openelec box which uses a AT5IONT-I board from Asus, but the devs got there in the end. I'm assuming that if the Broadcom SoC is hardware capable of uncompressed multichannel audio, we'll also get there eventually. I just need more testing time!

gtg60

STB wrote: »

• Set Devices to /media/usb- 8g USB Stick for Flash memory - EXT4 format. HDD to /media/hdd.
• Install picons - Transparent Ocram (do not use internal memory)
• Install Skin - Open ATV - Metrix HD is good.
• Install other Plugins & cams.
• Configure EPG to media/usb/epg.dat.
• Set a large swapfile on /USB also.

I like your methodical approach Quick question though, why favour a USB stick over a portion of your HDD?