Zgemma H7S First Impressions

soram · 15-11-2019 11:38AM

My first impressions this week are good anyway!

The picture quality seems better than my OS3+ was, it responds immediately to the remote and it hasn't crashed in 4 days which is a first for me!

I only have a 32GB USB in it for recording at the moment and managed to leave the thing on pause so that it filled the USB

It reported an error but then I couldn't delete the recording as the device was full and it wanted to put it in the trash can which of course is on the device.
I then tried initialising the USB again but that hung too. Gave up messing and just watched the telly so I'll have another look this evening.

I will have to have a look at dimming or disabling the big logo on it though. If anybody has a tip here I'm listening!

Gerry Wicklow · 15-11-2019 12:31PM

32Gb is too small for most people. A rough rule of thumb is to allow at least 4GB per hour of HD recording. If you have the box connected to your home network you could try accessing the drive from a PCs file browser and use it to delete content. This normally bypasses the trash bin. Another option would be to FTP into the box using Filezilla or similar utility. If it is a USB dongle simply format it in a PC and then initialise it in the box to return it to EXT4.

soram · 15-11-2019 01:35PM

I have an SSD I want to put into it but haven't had the time so just stuck in the USB stick. I'll sort it out over the weekend.

Gerry Wicklow · 15-11-2019 09:20PM

dulpit wrote: »

I did some limited snooping to see if this can be changed, as far as I could tell it can't. If you come across something that would help, please shout, be great to fix this.

One other thing I have noticed with the front display - the time stops if a recording starts, and will stay at that time until the recording ends and then it reverts to the current time.

In STB DISPLAY settings there is an option to show "nothing" if recording in standby. This in fact showed the static time. I can't get any indication of a recording either in standby or normal use.
Definitely the front display is the main weakness of this box. Apart from that it's working very well. I wonder if it is just an openATV snag. Perhaps other images have sussed it. For me, for now, "if it ain't broke......"

NewClareman · 15-11-2019 09:55PM

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

In STB DISPLAY settings there is an option to show "nothing" if recording in standby. This in fact showed the static time. I can't get any indication of a recording either in standby or normal use.
Definitely the front display is the main weakness of this box. Apart from that it's working very well. I wonder if it is just an openATV snag. Perhaps other images have sussed it. For me, for now, "if it ain't broke......"

I used OpenATV because I was building on the THHB’s image. If I were starting out again I’d try OpenVix as:

1. It has far more comprehensive user help.
2. CrossEPG is now built in.
3. ABM is included by default.

dulpit · 15-11-2019 10:05PM

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

In STB DISPLAY settings there is an option to show "nothing" if recording in standby. This in fact showed the static time. I can't get any indication of a recording either in standby or normal use.
Definitely the front display is the main weakness of this box. Apart from that it's working very well. I wonder if it is just an openATV snag. Perhaps other images have sussed it. For me, for now, "if it ain't broke......"

I'm using openvix, so assume its a general issue...

Zardoz · 16-11-2019 01:49PM

soram wrote: »

My first impressions this week are good anyway!

The picture quality seems better than my OS3+ was, it responds immediately to the remote and it hasn't crashed in 4 days which is a first for me!

Picture quality will be slightly better as the chipset is ARM as opposed to MIPS.
I still believe that there is room for improvement though in the drivers for ARM receivers ,picture quality in SD should be sharper than it is.

Set the picture type to BT709 instead of Auto ,that gives a better picture ,you could try autoresolution too .

Cushtie · 29-11-2019 03:46PM

Would I be correct in saying you need 3 cables coming to your TV location for this unit. 2 from the satellite dish and 1 from the Saorview Aerial.

What if you only have the 2 and no option of running a third?

Cushtie.

soram · 29-11-2019 03:54PM

You can multiplex the Saorview signal and one SAT signal onto one cable and demux it at the STB. Buy them online or PowerCity. Works a treat.

https://www.freetv.ie/tv-aerial-and-satellite-combiner/

Cushtie · 29-11-2019 04:01PM

soram wrote: »

You can multiplex the Saorview signal and one SAT signal onto one cable and demux it at the STB. Buy them online or PowerCity. Works a treat.

https://www.freetv.ie/tv-aerial-and-satellite-combiner/

Cheers, thanks for Info.

emclau · 07-01-2020 10:47PM

My heart is almost broken with this box! It keeps crashing now almost on a daily basis...

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to reinstall openatv? Is there much to it? Will I lose all my existing bouquets etc?

Thanks!

Sconsey · 09-01-2020 12:55PM

Where are you downloading skins from? I know that you can go into Setup > Plugins > and there is an option for downloading plugins, skins is one of the categories in the list there. But this list doen't seem to have the 'Sky' type skins. Is there a site anyone can reccomend?

My First impressions of the Zgemma, got it last weekend: like it, I prefer it to the Tiviar that I am replacing, seems to be much smoother.

dubrov · 09-01-2020 01:07PM

It's in the menu under something like Settings->User Interface->Skins

Sconsey · 09-01-2020 02:20PM

dubrov wrote: »

It's in the menu under something like Settings->User Interface->Skins

Yeah I found a bunch of skins in there but I am wondering where you get other skins from, for example I have seen some videos of a skin called something like 'SkyQ' which looks like the Sky interface. Could'nt find any of thise in the list of skins available from the box's download list.

dubrov · 09-01-2020 02:42PM

They likely won't have Sky in the name.
There should be one called "Blue HD" which is very similar to Sky.

Cyrus · 09-01-2020 02:51PM

Sconsey wrote: »

Yeah I found a bunch of skins in there but I am wondering where you get other skins from, for example I have seen some videos of a skin called something like 'SkyQ' which looks like the Sky interface. Could'nt find any of thise in the list of skins available from the box's download list.

The proper sky q theme has to be downloaded outside the plugins section and ftp it over

Google it the 1080 version

swoofer · 10-01-2020 09:18PM

@emclau, what exactly is wrong? did you set it up yourself? what image and skin are you using? How old, maybe you got a faulty box

Pyro Boy · 12-01-2020 05:54PM

Just a quick question. How many channels can you record and view at the same time? Say for satilite and terrestrial.
Could you record 2 sat and 1 terrestrial at the same time?

Gerry Wicklow · 12-01-2020 06:00PM

Pyro Boy wrote: »

Just a quick question. How many channels can you record and view at the same time? Say for satilite and terrestrial.
Could you record 2 sat and 1 terrestrial at the same time?

Yes. I have done often.
In theory you could actually record more if they were on the same mux or TP.

dulpit · 12-01-2020 09:58PM

Im using the Pure2 image on my H7S, I've noticed that the default audio output is (when available) audio description, I keep having to switch it to the normal audio. Any ideas how to switch the default?

Gerry Wicklow · 12-01-2020 10:03PM

dulpit wrote: »

Im using the Pure2 image on my H7S, I've noticed that the default audio output is (when available) audio description, I keep having to switch it to the normal audio. Any ideas how to switch the default?

Dont know about pure2 but normally under audio settings you can change the preferred language to ENG (english)

Easygoin · 17-05-2020 04:24PM

Ive came across this in lock down .Ive had a h7s for few of years now ,and while they have a few niggles, for the money I cannot complain
Im a big fan of triple tuner and when Edision dropped their OS Mega ,This has been my main (H7s) ,,bit wary at first ,I have to say but once u get used to its Quirks ,very good .Ive played around with skins but it crashed ,so after re-flash Ive stuck with generic .Also re flashed from ATV to OpenPli ,, for me it works ,steady and reliable . The commentary comes back after a re-flash and even though I change settings to "English" and prefer AC3 , it take's a while to disappear (That's one Quirk).
One thing I had to change was the remote , one supplied is very narrow beam (?) and while I hadn't any bother changing channels ,it drove the missus bonkers .
Something ye might find useful , my little one has special needs and a built in homing bacon for indoor Ariel ,,so I got a Quad LNB with built in dip-lexer .One Saorview Ariel outside (beside dish),Saoirview is piggybacked on ALL sat cables ,split-er before STB and you have RTE on every sat TV .
Picture is better than any box Ive had previously ,, never went to VU ,too expensive for me but I believe this is value for money ,,I even bought one for my Mother ,as she gets confused with a lot of remotes ,,so I have saorview and free sat on one menu ,, epg is easy to navigate and record is a breeze .

cian_r · 19-05-2020 07:43PM

Easygoin wrote: »

One thing I had to change was the remote , one supplied is very narrow beam (?) and while I hadn't any bother changing channels ,it drove the missus bonkers .

I have the same issue and its really annoying. I had originally thought it was the receiver on the box that had a narrow angle, but I guess it could also be the remote that was supplied.

What remote replacement did you go for?

cian_r · 02-06-2020 01:36PM

cian_r wrote: »

I have the same issue and its really annoying. I had originally thought it was the receiver on the box that had a narrow angle, but I guess it could also be the remote that was supplied.

What remote replacement did you go for?

Just for anyone else with the same frustrations with the ZGemma H7S remote. I bought a Logitech Harmony 350 remote. It already had a profile in its database for the H7S, so it was just a case of configuration to get it working. No need for "learning" individual buttons (which I had tried to do with an old universal remote and had lots of problems getting it to learn from the H7S remote).

The harmony remote is working well now.

MarkR · 28-08-2020 10:01AM

I've made great progress in setting this up, thanks. :-)

Anyone find their box intermittently freezes? Perhaps daily, but at no particular time, i'd see the screen is frozen, audio would still be going.

emclau · 28-08-2020 10:03AM

I’ve the same issue also.. would love to know how easy it is to re image - software hasn’t been updated in a year..

swoofer · 28-08-2020 12:31PM

emclau, it is very easy to re-flash the image using a usb stick when you know the steps. To get the best out of your box you should use the image Openvix, it comes loaded with pretty much with what you need. So as a start can you say what image is in the box already?

That box has a multiboot function which means you can have 4 different images loaded.

There is also a way to flash box online but I would suggest start with Openvix.

Say image and how techie are you re FTP etc.

MarkR · 28-08-2020 02:59PM

In case anyone is interested, I was able to flash openvix via the openwebui web interface.

https://www.techkings.org/threads/flash-vix-via-command-line-from-the-creators-grogbuild-freerange-leading-the-way-to-simplicity.144800/

I wasn't able to do it via USB, and I tried loads of times!

Instructions were dead simple, only issue I had, was I didn't realise it was already setup for multiboot, so when asked what partition I wanted, I left it blank, and it did nothing.

You can store several images, as said above, so check which one is in use, and select another one to write to.

I emailed world of satellite about my random freeze question, and they gave me an RMA code. Not sure is it a common issue that they just replace as a matter of cause, or if they RMA everything without troubleshooting.

swoofer · 28-08-2020 04:11PM

With vix and multiboot you can go Menu, setup, vix,image manager, yellow button, and it downloads images that you can flash to box or it will search and if it finds nothing then no image.

Also if you do a long press on power button it brings up multiboot image selector and that will show you partitions free or full.

I have an AX61 box with 4 images.

You may already know all this but with different images you may find one that works with no freezes but I find VIX tops and easy.

MarkR · 17-09-2020 10:25AM

Minor update, after contacting world of satellite, and telling them of the freezes, they issued me an RMA code. I sent it back to them, and got a replacement. Did have to pay postage though.

Zgemma H7S First Impressions

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