Suggestions for terrestrial & satellite combo box

Pininfarina

Hi all,

I currently have a Sky+ HD box and satellite dish with dual LNB running to a single point in my sitting room. Also have a Saorview aerial with coax running to the same point.

I'd like to ditch my Sky subscription soon.

What I would like to get is a box that would allow me to:

- Connect a Saorview aerial for Irish channels
- Connect both connections from my existing satellite dish for free to air UK channels
- Have a combined EPG for Saorview and UK channels
- Hard drive (preferably internal) to allow recording and live pause
- Watch 1 channel while recording another or record 2 channels simultaneously
- Ethernet port for catch up TV services via internet connection (nice to have but not a show-stopper)
- Possibility to record programs remotely via mobile phone app (again, nice to have but not an absolute must)

Does such a box exist?

Closest I could find from my own research is http://www.freetv.ie/amiko-alien-2/ but looks like that wouldn't do the catch up TV or remote record.

Any thoughts?

Pininfarina

FWIW, I've decided to go for the Edision OS Mega from FreeTV.ie

Here's hoping I can master Enigma quickly

Johnboy1951

Post back with your impressions of the box after a few days use

bappelbe

Pininfarina wrote: »

FWIW, I've decided to go for the Edision OS Mega from FreeTV.ie

Here's hoping I can master Enigma quickly

I have the OS Mega a few months now
I previously had the Amiko Allien 2, so my Enigma2 knowledge was there.

It comes with OpenVIX installed (as you are getting it from freetv.ie), all I had to do was tune in the Saorview channels and set up the Bouquets the way I like and it has worked fine since.
(in short no real Enigma2 knowledge was required)

the remote record should be easy enough to set up, I only use it when my phone is on the home network but a bit of router port forwarding knowledge and you should be able to do it from outside the network.

Gerry Wicklow

Another box worthy of mention which I hadn't previously heard of is a 'Formuler F1' triple tuner. The third internal tuner is replaceable so you can choose DVB-T2 or S2. It doesn't have internal wifi but does offer an eSata port and SD slot along with the usual others. It came with openPLI installed which I found fairly limited for plugins so I installed openATV instead. So far it's been rock solid. Handles 3 HD recordings without difficulty and channel changes are instantaneous even on a multisat setup.

Pininfarina

The OS Mega arrived yesterday. Only got around to setting it up this morning and so far, so good.

Connected both connections from my satellite dish together with the Saorview connection.

Took a few minutes to get my head around bouqets but in the end found that editing them through the OpenWebif page made things a lot easier.

Got the Saorview channels, plus the BBCs, ITVs, Channel 4s, etc added in to my "favourites" bouquet.

Connected a 320GB USB HD and tested out recording and live pause which worked well (albeit not entirely as user friendly as Sky).

Applied some channel icons and a Sky skin (I know, I know, but it will help to pass the wife-test).

Only drawback I can find so far is that while I can record one channel while watching another in most combinations, I am unable to watch one Saorview channel while recording another Saorview channel. Presume that is due to there being only one Saorview aerial connection but thought I had read something somewhere about different muxs (I have no idea what that actually is). Any thoughts on this part?

Anyway, first impressions are good and Sky has been cancelled.

Johnboy1951

Pininfarina wrote: »

The OS Mega arrived yesterday. Only got around to setting it up this morning and so far, so good.

Connected both connections from my satellite dish together with the Saorview connection.

Took a few minutes to get my head around bouqets but in the end found that editing them through the OpenWebif page made things a lot easier.

Got the Saorview channels, plus the BBCs, ITVs, Channel 4s, etc added in to my "favourites" bouquet.

Connected a 320GB USB HD and tested out recording and live pause which worked well (albeit not entirely as user friendly as Sky).

Applied some channel icons and a Sky skin (I know, I know, but it will help to pass the wife-test).

Only drawback I can find so far is that while I can record one channel while watching another in most combinations, I am unable to watch one Saorview channel while recording another Saorview channel. Presume that is due to there being only one Saorview aerial connection but thought I had read something somewhere about different muxs (I have no idea what that actually is). Any thoughts on this part?

Anyway, first impressions are good and Sky has been cancelled.

There are two muxes for Saorview, so you should be able to record one channel and view another On The Same Mux.
You would need two DVB-T tuners to have all channels available all the time ...... one tuner per mux.

SteM

Pininfarina wrote: »

The OS Mega arrived yesterday. Only got around to setting it up this morning and so far, so good.

Connected both connections from my satellite dish together with the Saorview connection.

Took a few minutes to get my head around bouqets but in the end found that editing them through the OpenWebif page made things a lot easier.

Got the Saorview channels, plus the BBCs, ITVs, Channel 4s, etc added in to my "favourites" bouquet.

Connected a 320GB USB HD and tested out recording and live pause which worked well (albeit not entirely as user friendly as Sky).

Applied some channel icons and a Sky skin (I know, I know, but it will help to pass the wife-test).

Only drawback I can find so far is that while I can record one channel while watching another in most combinations, I am unable to watch one Saorview channel while recording another Saorview channel. Presume that is due to there being only one Saorview aerial connection but thought I had read something somewhere about different muxs (I have no idea what that actually is). Any thoughts on this part?

Anyway, first impressions are good and Sky has been cancelled.

Instead of editing the bouquets in OpenWebif try an app called eChannelizer

Johntm

Pininfarina wrote: »

The OS Mega arrived yesterday. Only got around to setting it up this morning and so far, so good.

Connected both connections from my satellite dish together with the Saorview connection.

Took a few minutes to get my head around bouqets but in the end found that editing them through the OpenWebif page made things a lot easier.

Got the Saorview channels, plus the BBCs, ITVs, Channel 4s, etc added in to my "favourites" bouquet.

Connected a 320GB USB HD and tested out recording and live pause which worked well (albeit not entirely as user friendly as Sky).

Applied some channel icons and a Sky skin (I know, I know, but it will help to pass the wife-test).

Only drawback I can find so far is that while I can record one channel while watching another in most combinations, I am unable to watch one Saorview channel while recording another Saorview channel. Presume that is due to there being only one Saorview aerial connection but thought I had read something somewhere about different muxs (I have no idea what that actually is). Any thoughts on this part?

Anyway, first impressions are good and Sky has been cancelled.

How are you finding the box a few months on?
The issue with recording might be due to trying to record on the same MUX. RTE, RTE+1 & Be3 are MUX 2 while the rest are MUX 1. I dont know too much about them but this might be the cause

STB.

Johntm wrote: »

How are you finding the box a few months on?
The issue with recording might be due to trying to record on the same MUX. RTE, RTE+1 & Be3 are MUX 2 while the rest are MUX 1. I dont know too much about them but this might be the cause

That is the cause. There is only one Saorview (dvb-t) tuner in this box. You could buy a USB DVB-T tuner and connect it to the box. They are about 10 euro. Just download the driver from the plugin menu. Only certain USB DVB-T stick will work on them.

Johntm

Hi Pininfarina,

Can I ask what set up your using with Autobouqets or did you just use the webif browser to make up a list?

Could you possibly export your list?

jmcgold

Hi Pininfarina,

Did you buy a USB DVB-T tuner for the OS Mega in the end? I purchased this box and a USB DVB-T tuner to go with it (for a 2xDVB-S, 2xDVB-T setup) but I am having problems getting the USB DVB-T tuner and internal DVB-T tuner to cooperate. Wanted to see if you had similar issues?

Thanks.

STB.

jmcgold wrote: »

Hi Pininfarina,

Did you buy a USB DVB-T tuner for the OS Mega in the end? I purchased this box and a USB DVB-T tuner to go with it (for a 2xDVB-S, 2xDVB-T setup) but I am having problems getting the USB DVB-T tuner and internal DVB-T tuner to cooperate. Wanted to see if you had similar issues?

Thanks.

What problems are you having ?

Are both dvb-t tuners showing up in the tuner list (service searching).

Whats the USB DVB-T stick and did you load the right driver from the plugin feeds ?

jmcgold

The USB DVB-T stick is an AstroMetaTVRplayer stick which I purchased from FreeTV.ie
I have installed the recommended driver, dvb-usb-rtl2832
Once the driver was installed and the box rebooted I see the device listed as a DVB-T tuner and it is also showing in the available tuners list as a DVB-T tuner.
(BTW, I'm using OpenVix)

I tried independently tuning the USB DVB-T tuner and was able to discover all the Saorview channels and it worked fine when it was the main DVB-T tuner; i.e when viewing a channel it was being shown from tuner D (the USB tuner).

The problem arises when I try to watch RTE1 while recording RTE2. Given that I have two DVB-T tuners I should be able to do this, however the box hangs when I try to change to RTE1, then throws an error (don't have exact wording available now), and switches back to RTE2.

It seems that the two DVB-T tuners aren't playing well together. When I do manual scans it's as if one of the DVB-T tuners won't discover channels already discovered by the other one.

The issue got more confusing when I wasn't able to get RTE1 at all. I had to disable the USB DVB-T tuner and rerun an automatic scan to get RTE1 back.

I'm thinking it could be one of:
- I have a tuner config setting wrong somewhere (although there is a very limited set config items for DVB-T tuners)
- The order I have run setup/scans on the tuners is somehow confusing things (should I need to run manual scans at all?)
- There is a conflict between the USB and internal DVB-T tuners
- There is a conflict between USB drivers.

jmcgold

So I resolved this by disabling and re-enabling the USB tuner, rebooting the box, and re-running autobouqetmaker.
I suspect at some point I had pulled out the USB tuner and not re-run autobouqetmaker after plugging it back in and this may have made a difference. Not absolutely clear why this would have such an impact though.

I also had to set the internal tuner as the preferred tuner for DVB-T and the USB tuner as preferred for DVB-T recordings before it would all play nicely together. The logic for these settings appears to be the reverse of what I expected as when I start a recording on a Saorview channel the internal tuner gets used for recording and the USB tuner for viewing channels - either way it now works.

banie01

Will a "magic eye" work with either the Ediso or the Formular boxes?

STB.

Autobouquets.

There is something in the back of my head where you have to make the tuners equal to each other. when you have twin tuners. I find that autoboquets confuse the box. I have a channel list stored in my PC, that I flash to any new and existing image, especilly when I want to update channels as its all done within the software of dreamset/echannelizer and flashed to the box over the lan.

banie01 wrote: »

Will a "magic eye" work with either the Ediso or the Formular boxes?

You'll have to use a seperate RF modulator as they dont have RF mod on many E2 boxes, if any. Also check the back of the box for an RF loop out. The Tiviar definitely has RF Out, so that you can simply connect an RF cable to a seperate modulator without chopping cables.

banie01

STB. wrote: »

You'll have to use a seperate RF modulator as they dont have RF mod on many E2 boxes, if any. Also check the back of the box for an RF loop out. The Tiviar definitely has RF Out, so that you can simply connect an RF cable to a seperate modulator without chopping cables.

Thanks for the heads up STB, Is that the Tiviar alpha+ ?

vidapura

Folks,
thanks for this thread. I'm looking at buying the os mega too.
Does anyone know if this new saorview connect service will have any effect on it?
Would there be a way to make use of the catchup tv bit? Will the rte player be going away as a result?

I just asking cos I haven't bout the edison yet and don't want to get into something that is left behind.

Thanks
Vida

Pininfarina

Johntm wrote: »

Hi Pininfarina,

Can I ask what set up your using with Autobouqets or did you just use the webif browser to make up a list?

Could you possibly export your list?

Sorry, only seeing this now. I used echannelizer to put my channel lists together. If you still need the list exported, let me know.

Pininfarina

jmcgold wrote: »

Hi Pininfarina,

Did you buy a USB DVB-T tuner for the OS Mega in the end? I purchased this box and a USB DVB-T tuner to go with it (for a 2xDVB-S, 2xDVB-T setup) but I am having problems getting the USB DVB-T tuner and internal DVB-T tuner to cooperate. Wanted to see if you had similar issues?

Thanks.

Apologies, just saw this now. As it happens, I just bought a USB DVB-T tuner recently and will be installing it soon. Looks like you got your problem sorted in the end. Thanks for posting your experience.

Johntm

Pininfarina wrote: »

Sorry, only seeing this now. I used echannelizer to put my channel lists together. If you still need the list exported, let me know.

Ye if possible, are you just running Saorview and UK FTA? I have downloaded and tried a few options but I'm unable to run a scan with just the above channel list. Would be great to have a head start as I've two boxes on the network.

Thanks in advance

STB.

Johntm wrote: »

Ye if possible, are you just running Saorview and UK FTA? I have downloaded and tried a few options but I'm unable to run a scan with just the above channel list. Would be great to have a head start as I've two boxes on the network.

Thanks in advance

You dont need to run any scan.

I use dreamboxedit

It downloads the channels for a particular satellite from the internet. You can then edit to your own content. Set up fav groups etc. You can then flash to your box. Then scan your terrestrial channels. I then receive the files back to Dreambox edit and combine my terrestrial channels with the previously sorted and flashed sat channels and flash it back when I am happy with the order of both.

You can save it on your PC so you can flash that to any E2box.

Johntm

STB. wrote: »

You dont need to run any scan.

I use dreamboxedit

It downloads the channels for a particular satellite from the internet. You can then edit to your own content. Set up fav groups etc. You can then flash to your box. Then scan your terrestrial channels. I then receive the files back to Dreambox edit and combine my terrestrial channels with the previously sorted and flashed sat channels and flash it back when I am happy with the order of both.

You can save it on your PC so you can flash that to any E2box.

Thanks I'll give it try this weekend, much appreciated