Saorview / FTA Satellie Installer Recommendations North Dublin

Sleepy

Can anyone recommend an installer who services North County Dublin for an all-in-one Satellite Dish / Aerial / Decent Combo box installation and give me a ballpark figure for the kind of setup I'm looking for?

Googling seems to show packages from around €270 which sounds reasonable enough but I'd want a decent combo box with a responsive interface, 7 day EPG for both Saorview and FTA/Freesat, recording while watching another channel (via an external HD is fine), etc. All of which I'm guessing might push the price up considerably as most of combo boxes I'm seeing listed in the offerings I'm seeing only have Now/Next for the UK Satellite Channels and I remember the ability to record while watching being a premium feature when I last set up an STB?

That was an old Edision OS Mini which we used until a storm took out the old Sky dish last year (just been using Netflix and Web Players etc. since). Recording was a little unreliable on it but the interface (OpenVix iirc?) was perfectly usable. I might consider getting a second connection for that in one of the bedrooms but it's not essential so wouldn't bother unless it was pretty cheap to do. I'd definitely be looking for a tidier install than the old Sky dish though: they had cables over the roof tiles rather than through the attic and wires everywhere (all since removed)!

swoofer

Your best option is to get a Zgemma H7S as it comes with all you need. It has 2 sat tuners and one DTT/Saorview. You can also add an internal HDD. Get an SSD as this is best option. The problem with installers is that they will supply their own box and it wont be as good as the Zgemma. Before Brexit it was easy to get box from UK with virtual address but that has ceased so cost may increase. World of sat will load your image and as you like Openvix stick with that.

here is link

https://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk/satellite-and-terrestrial/digital-receivers/zgemma-h7s

they will send less uk vat. You could ask them to set up skin/epg etc. There is so much help on here you will pick it up.

Once you have box all you need is dish and aerial and cabling done. About €150.00. Try satellite.ie Tony give him a call.

chabsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117838831#Comment_117838831

You mention getting an SSD HDD, does that aid in the speed of fast forwarding through paused HD programming? My current box uses an external HDD and is fine when using FF through SD channels (you get a nice feel for the speed of the FF) but when on a HD channel the FF is basically like a screen update every few seconds and it's easy to miss the ad break and have to rewind.

Also, in terms of moving from saorview source to sat is it seamless or is there a pause? Could I have RTE 1 etc on channels 1-10 say, then 11 be BBC 1 coming from the sat and for the move from 10 - 11 to be unnoticeable?

Gerry Wicklow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117838979#Comment_117838979

A useful trick with Enigma boxes like these is the fast skip buttons. When playing a recording, pressing 3 jumps forward 15 seconds, 6 jumps 1 minute and 9 jumps 5 minutes. 1,4,7 does the same in reverse so you can quickly skip past ad breaks.

You can have any mix of terrestrial and satellite channels in any order you like. EG the RTÉs TG4 etc then BBCs ITVs and so on. Its totally customisable.

chabsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117838998#Comment_117838998

Thanks for the info, do you know if those fast skip buttons work on paused channels too when unpausing them? I ask cause I mainly pause live tv rather than record stuff so it's a more likely scenario for me. In terms of mixing channels, I presume there's no pause then when switching between SAT and terrestrial, that sounds ideal.

Coupled with the fact that they appear to support sabnzbd means I can download directly to the HDD.

Gerry Wicklow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117839487#Comment_117839487

I think the skip function works on paused stuff too but cant check now as my box is recording and I dont want to mess that up. Channel switching is almost instantaneous (it waits a fraction in case you are entering a 3 digit number )

swoofer

What you can do with this box is limitless. There is a big guide for the zgemma h7s lower down on here and worth a read. The idea with these boxes is you combine dtt and sat into one epg and you set up autobouquets so you end up with a number of bouquets. The SSD is lightning fast and silent.

With Openvix you wind on by depressing the right arrow key and each press increase FF speed up to 128k/sec. You can assign number buttons to say 1 = rte1 2 = BBC and so on.

Vix has a nice skin and comes with picons.

Now its your turn to explain how sabnxbd works.

andy1249

The H7S box is great , but there have been changes in models over the past couple of years.

Earlier boxes like mine , you had to take the lid off to put in the hard drive , and it took either a traditional laptop hard drive or an SSD

Later models have a hotplug slot at the rear for the hard drive , and these take SSD only , a traditional hard drive wont fit.

If you buy one now , I suspect it will be an SSD only model.

openvix is great , there is a manual you can download , as far as i know its the only enigma variation with a complete manual.

The favourites bouquet is the one you set up yourself , its in here that you set up the channels in your preferred order and switching between DTT and Satellite is seamless.

chabsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117840578#Comment_117840578

I know it's a weird one to keep asking, but the fast forward on my current box would be one of the main reasons for getting rid of it, it's just so annoying and only happens on HD channels. Can any H7S owner tell me, aside from the 3 second, 5 second skip functionality, what is fast forwarding like on these boxes where HD channels are concerned and you've paused the program? I might put a video here of what I'm talking about in terms of annoyance with my current box, it's the fact that you only get an updated screen every few seconds to indicate where you are so it's easy to end up a minute into the program you're trying through the ad break of.

Speaking of ads, is there a way to automatically skip / remove ads from recorded programs?

Someone earlier asked what SABNZBD was....best thing I can do is point you to

https://sabnzbd.org

here.

Just remembered this is a thread hijack, apologies , mods feel free to move my post to the H7S thread in this board.

dubrov

I have used Gigablue Trio, Gigbalue UHD 4k and ZGemma H7S enigma2 boxes.

The rewind/fast forward for live programmes works well.

You can either use the fast forward / rewind buttons or the numbers. The numbers are much better though.

For example, for ads, I generally click the number 6 three times to go forward 3 minutes, then the number 1 a few times moving forward 10 seconds each time until the ad break is over. It is all pretty much instant.

Juut be aware there is a bit of setup with Enigma2 boxes. There are so many configuration options but with a bit of work you can get it to work exactly as you like.

All the boxes I mention above all perform well though. Cheaper boxes will have worse hardware so won't preform as well.

One of the boxes I have has an SSD but I don't think this impacts performance at all. It is a bit quieter but you'd have to put your ear up to the box to really tell the difference.

chabsey

Thanks all, I bought a Zgemma and am currently using it. Have the sat channels and the saorview channels all set up but am finding the channel config a little difficult to setup. Is there a nice way I can configure (maybe on a PC for ease of use?) a channel list that is the default and used all the time? So saorview channels first then the selected sat channels? I presume there is but the amount of menu options in this system is overwhelming

RedCardKid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117843769#Comment_117843769

Dreamboxedit is what I use to manage my channels lists. Once your reciever is in the same network as your laptop it is all very simple and straight forward.

chabsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117843782#Comment_117843782

Thanks, looking into that at the moment, just plugged in the box to ethernet, I'm on a Mac at the moment, I'll try and get something similar to Dreamboxedit for the Mac.

chabsey

So..used my pc and dreamboxedit was easy to figure out, created a bouquet ...now the question is - I'm currently using that bouquet, next time I use the box will this bouquet be the one I default to?

Gerry Wicklow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117844169#Comment_117844169

A very useful utility is called WEBIF or the web interface. Simply enter the boxes network address (192.168.xxx.xxx) into any web browser on the same network. Among the many uses is the ability to edit your bouquets as well as timers, autotimers etc etc.

Compile a bouquet called favourites. When you launch WEBIF select the "bouquet editor". The top right panel is the list of bouquets. Yours will look different to mine but the principle is the same. Grab the 3 lines in front of the bouquet name and drag up or down to whatever order you like. The top entry is the one opened by default on the box. You will also notice when you have a bouquet selected, the list on the bottom right is its associated channels. Again using the 3 lines in front of a channel name you can drag the channels into whatever order you fancy.

Have a good look around WEBIF it has tons of handy features.

Finally my constant mantra, make regular backups of your settings. 10 seconds now will save hours of swearing if/when you mess things up. Look under MENU>SETUP>VIX>BACKUP MANAGER

Oh and welcome to the highly addictive world of enigma boxes 😉

chabsey

Wow, thanks for the info. I'd found WebIf and was messing around with it and dreamboxedit. Couple of small things, well some bigger than others. Channel 4 HD (or Channel 4 at all in fact) no longer works. From googling I can see it was removed a few years ago but is still accessible - is there a simple guide on how to get it back using something like webif or dreamboxeditor?

ITV2 and 4 are just showing no signal....now this might be my sat source or the channels I've added to the bouquet - I don't really watch either channel but for a nice sequential flow to my channels I had added them.

When pausing TV for a length of time It dulls the screen and an OpenVix logo bounces around. I've an OLED and am a little paranoid about screen burn - is there a way to change the behaviour of this screensaver?

Thanks for all the help. Oh...and SABnzbd no longer appears to be part of openvix....ah well.

UPDATE: So channel 4 and the two ITVs are now working. But C4 is not HD and I can't find the HD version anywhere in the listings. Also the IMDB lookup always returns 'no details' even when it's matched the film or TV show title...which is odd.

Gerry Wicklow

CH4 HD should be in there somewhere. However if you only did a freesat search it will not show up as CH4 HD is not on the Freesat platform. (note there are several other FTA channels not on Freesat such as +1s) If you cant find it do a manual scan on

11127 V 22000 5/6 DVB-S QPSK

If you look at the lower left hand panel in WEBIF bouquet editor you will see the complete list of channels the box has scanned. If you do a manual scan it will create a new bouquet called "Last Scanned"

This site is useful for finding channel frequency details https://en.kingofsat.net/freqs.php?&pos=28.2E&standard=All&ordre=freq&filtre=Clear

I dont use IMDB so cant help with that. Others may know more.

chabsey

Something weird about my setup...manual scan I can't change the satellite - it's only showing 9.0E ka-band Eutelsat 9b & ka-sat 9a...no other options

Gerry Wicklow

The quick and dirty option is the select "user defined transponder" and the above TP settings. It should work unless you have a multisat setup configured. The actual satellite name is just derived from a list of preset frequencies. I guess this list is corrupted somehow. The actual frequencies are often the same for many satellites.

It is possible to replace that list but that means in depth tinkering which I wouldn't recommend just yet.

EDIT: double check that the tuner "A" settings are set to 28E like this

Tuner "B" should be "equal tuner A"

chabsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846064#Comment_117846064

Hmmm..tried this but it instantly return 'no channels found' once I press scan, it's immediate so it's not scanning. Here's what my screen looks like

Gerry Wicklow

Symbol rate typo it should be 22000 and set FEC 5/6

chabsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846518#Comment_117846518

Thanks, pretty sure I did have 22000 (could it change on it's own?) I'll try again to be 100%

Update: Yeah, tried it again with the corrected settings and it's instantly telling me there's no channels found. I might need to reflash this.

Gerry Wicklow

did you also check the tuner setting is set to 28E

chabsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846545#Comment_117846545

Yeah both of them are 28E. I asked the guy in the shop to install openvix for me so maybe there's something weird about his image.

Gerry Wicklow

Ok if you are determined to reflash make a backup of your settings first to save any bouquets, timers etc you already have.

You do not need to nuke the existing image, the Zgemma can have 4 different images at once. When you download the new image go in to SETUP>VIX>IMAGE MANAGER and choose FLASH. It will ask which slot you want to install the new image on.

https://www.openvix.co.uk/index.php/downloads/zgemma-images/zgemma-h7/

copy the zip file to the IMAGEBACKUPS folder on the HDD

chabsey

Do you know, given that the box has an internet connection can it download the image to the box directly rather than through a usb stick? Being lazy here :)

Gerry Wicklow

you should be able to access your HDD from a PC on the same network and just copy the file direct to it. Look under network in file explorer. Dont ask me if you are an apple person

No need to unzip it first

chabsey

Any idea why I'm getting this error consistently appearing on some channels despite the channel being tuned in correctly?

Service not found! (SID not found in PAT). Why would Pat let Sid in? Is it a cohabiting thing or a relationship thing? Eitherway Sid apparently has left and Pat has no idea where he is, but he's definitely not inside him. So, we can rule that one place out. Inside Pat is entirely devoid of Sids.

Gerry Wicklow

That is because BBC4 shares the same channel as Cbeebies. If you click BBC4 during the day you see that warning. Click on Cbeebies at night you would also get an error message.

chabsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117864052#Comment_117864052

Thanks, any way of getting rid of it?

dubrov

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117865192#Comment_117865192

Not really. It's basically a warning that the service you are looking for isn't currently broadcasting.

To avoid it, only use BBC4 after 7pm and CBeebies before 7pm