New Gigablue Quad Plus

fat-tony · 07-04-2014 03:33PM #1

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 · 07-04-2014 04:51PM

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 · 07-04-2014 06:11PM

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 · 07-04-2014 06:19PM

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 · 07-04-2014 07:19PM

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 · 07-04-2014 07:32PM

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 · 07-04-2014 08:31PM

This sounds like a very good box.

fat-tony · 07-04-2014 10:31PM

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 · 08-04-2014 12:09AM

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 · 08-04-2014 01:18AM

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 · 08-04-2014 09:18AM

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 · 08-04-2014 11:47AM

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 · 08-04-2014 12:02PM

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 · 08-04-2014 12:18PM

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 · 08-04-2014 12:42PM

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 · 08-04-2014 12:51PM

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 · 08-04-2014 01:19PM

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 · 09-04-2014 11:51PM

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 · 10-04-2014 12:44PM

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 · 10-04-2014 01:04PM

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 · 15-04-2014 10:19PM

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 · 16-04-2014 09:47PM

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 · 16-04-2014 11:51PM

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 · 16-04-2014 11:51PM

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 · 17-04-2014 01:29PM

from WOS

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

Stuxnet · 17-04-2014 02:06PM

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

x PHEONIX x · 17-04-2014 02:22PM

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 · 17-04-2014 02:55PM

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 · 17-04-2014 03:28PM

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

STB · 19-04-2014 11:04AM

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 · 19-04-2014 01:02PM

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.

New Gigablue Quad Plus

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