FTA sat/Saorview combobox

PauloMN

Looking for recommendation for a combo box that will allow me to record FTA sat (BBC in particular) with Saorview (or 7 day EPG) to record RTE.

Long story short: I moved from Sky to VM, and while I'm happy overall with VM, there's the inability to record BBC and RTE that I'm aiming to fix via a combobox.

I have feed from antenna for Saorview and sat feeds from hybrid LNB, so all sorted there.

Basically looking for recommendations for a box that will give me the easiest way to record RTE and BBC, with best EPG and series recording if that's even possible on these boxes. Saw the thread on the Zgemma H7, is that the best option? I've a few old USB HDDs lying around (500Gb with one of them), so don't necessarily need a box with built in storage. Are the Zgemma H8 and H9 boxes an option?

andy1249

The H7s is a budget box , it will do everything you want at a reasonable cost.

The box works best with a HDD of some sort , if you get the newer box with the slot in the back then the drive needs to be an SSD.

You " can" use USB but not all USB sticks are created equal and a slow stick will play havoc with the box and make it very unstable. Note that both EPG data and recordings should be saved to storage , and that usually means some kind of HDD , otherwise the internal flash memory fills up fast and the box starts crashing like crazy.

Timer = record once

Autotimer = series link.

Recordings on enigma2 boxes are not encrypted , so can be copied from the box and played back on any app that handles .ts files. Or you can convert them to mkv if thats what you want to do but youll need other software and a PC for that.

Enigma 2 comes in many flavours , the best is openvix simply because it has a manual , no other type does.

https://www.openvix.co.uk/openvix-builds/Guides%20and%20Tutorials/VIX%20Manual%20Vs%201.1.pdf

The latest vix images can be downloaded and installed in less than 5 minutes from the net.

Setting up is

1: run the wizard , set up your sat tuners and saorview tuner ( you will need the details of your local transmitter , for example mine is Dublin Three Rock …. once the tuners are set up exit the wizard.

2: setup and run ABM ( Auto Bouquet Maker ) , a Bouquet is what enigma2 calls a group of channels , like sports , news , entertainment etc.

3: setup and run openepg , this is about as simple as it gets , just follow the instructions and you should have a 7 day EPG for all the Satellite and Saorview channels that ABM found when you ran it.

Thats it.

A Few pitfalls to avoid.

Kodi is plastered all over the box as something it can do , it cant. Dont even try.

Dont use third party skins , the default skin is simple 1080 , stick with that , copycat sky skins always break at some point.

Make sure both EPG and Recordings are too the HDD ( best to have a HDD ) or a good fast reliable USB stick.

PauloMN

Great, thanks for that, sounds like what I'm looking for, I like the OpenEPG idea, having 7 day EPG on both Saorview and FTA sat would be perfect.

Do the Zgemma H8 and H9 offer similar functionality?

Another q now that I think of it: do any of these boxes support automatically resetting to new frequencies when they move them around (like a Freesat box would do)? Or it is always a case of manually retuning if a particular channel moves frequency?

andy1249

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123026605#Comment_123026605

Zgemma H8 is pure muck , stay well away from it. Its cheap , but only has one sat tuner and one saorview tuner , and a cheap crappy chipset. The only storage option is USB.

I bought one to strip apart and see how they work , not much use for anything else really.

Zgemma H7s is the only Zgemma worth considering.

If you want better , look at VU+ , they are built like a tank and have FBC tuners, but you will need your LNB changed to a unicable LNB to take advantage of all the capabilities.

They have 8 sat tuners and 2 Terrestrial , and are to the H7s as Sky Q is to Sky HD. But they cost about 400 euros.

ABM should be set to run at 3:30 am in the morning by default. This catches all channel moves.

Most running enigma 2 boxes like to setup a " Favourites" Bouquet , ABM does not touch this bouquet as its deemed to be user changeable only.

The favourites bouquet lets you have all the channels you usually watch in the order you want them , for example RTE1 & 2 first , then BBC1-2-3-4 etc.

If a channel moves , ABM will have caught it , and its just a question of deleting the old one from your favourites and moving the new one in.

There is a utility called webif , this can be accessed from any device with a web browser and the " Bouquet editor" lets you drag and drop new channels for old into your favourites.