Tiviar Alpha Plus Combo STB

whoami1 · 27-02-2019 9:47am

greasepalm wrote: »

What stations are not working and from where?

I noticed no signal, which I managed to improve to a sometimes degraded signal on everything on 2RN Mux 2: RTE One, RTE One +1,RTE News Now, RTE Junior, Saorview Information and Virgin Media 3. Initially, I was tuning to Three Rock, but it got better when I used the generic 'Republic of Ireland' setting as noted above.

sligojoek wrote: »

Did your aerial get hit by anything in the attic? It might need to go a degree or 2 either way.

No, I haven't been up there for a couple of weeks. The aerial is mounted on one of the upright beams, so it's out of the way. If anything falls on it, it'll be the roof and if that happens, I'll have more on my mind than poor signal!

sligojoek wrote: »

Or rats chewing through the cables.

Ah heeyor, leave irrou'

I haven't checked again this morning

GSRNBP · 27-02-2019 10:41am

M007 wrote: »

I’m interested in leaving VM and switching to FTA. This box looks pretty good from looking at some of the threads here. My problem is I wouldn’t no where to start with flashing and updating systems. Haven’t a clue.

Is there anywhere you can buy the box with the latest software etc?

Where can you buy it online or bricks& mortar?

Would I be out of my dept on this trying to do it myself ?

Are you tech-savvy at all? I had zero experience with STBs but I'm ok with computers (like I can use putty to ssh but I don't claim to be a pro); I followed The High Horse Brigade's instructions and was so close to getting it running, but not quite there. I had to do a bit more tinkering, but eventually got it and it's all working perfectly - wouldn't look back.

MileHighGuy · 28-02-2019 1:40am

Just thought I'd write a quick report of my attempts to stream the TA+ situated at the rear of the house, into other rooms around the house.
I had originally thought I would be buying two of the TA+ eventually, once I got the initial one configured, but it's so versatile, I don't think I'll need a second box after all.

The TA+ is wired to the main router via an access point, which is connected to another access point in my main sitting room. Various other PCs scattered around the house will be connected via wifi.

clients I have have tried:
open webif via browser - great tool, and will do in a bind, but not a great user experience. It certainly feels like you are watching TV on a computer. An absolute cinch to set up though, and very fast and responsive. Edit bouquets, set timers, lot's of configuration options. Live pause/timeshifting was spotty to the extent that it was not usable. EPG is utilitarian, but as it matches the TA+ backend, all channels populated the guide.

Nvidia Shield: Dream Player. Fast, easy set up (this will be a pattern!) I wasn't mad about the homescreen with bouquet lists running down the LHS and the ability to go to a quite a nice implementation of an EPG. Capable of setting recordings and auto timers. No pause/Timeshift, although you could record the current program being watched, and access it from recordings folder to as a workaround. This was a clubhouse favourite for a week or so.

NVidia Shield: Live Channels, Android TV native Live TV hub. Ability to set up multiple sources, blazing fast response, a great implementation of an EPG, again, no timeshift and recordings frequently failed, due to a weak signal issue, which did not make sense as the entire thing is ethernet connected. A dealbreaker there then.

Nvidia Shield Plex. I had heard so much about Plex, but had never really dipped my toes in the water, so decided to give it a crack. Absolutely stunning front end, very impressive for this that have a good media collection. By installing the HDHR Plugin on TA+, Plex was able to see it as a supported tuner to add Live TV. You need to pay a premium (PlexPass - maybe try out their month option to see how you like it)to unlock the ability to timeshift and record. Plex has a funny way to create the EPG, it uses a selection of providers and you marry up the channels it receives from the tuner to this preselected list. The result is no one single providers list will contain all of the free channels the TA+ outputs. Not to mention the process is tiresome. As the Plex also seems to fetch channels through their own proprietry connection, the zapping time between channels is 5/6 seconds. Which feels like an eternity. The upside, is again, the way the content is served through their frontend, there is the option of a traditional EPG, but it curates, movies, sports and shows, into what's upcoming, just started etc, and fetched accompanying artwork for the show too. This is by far the best looking of the lot, but the poor response time zapping and the decision you need to make about losing channels made it unsatisfying in the end. Good for show, but would get frustrating in day to day usage. Timeshifting and recording were good, and used a local drive attached to the Shield rather than the TA+ box which confuses things a bit.

Lastly, I fired up old reliable Kodi to see what it could do. I installed the Enigma2 PVR add on, configuration is simple, input the open webif ip address. Kodi has it's own PVR settings which allow independent editing of the TA+ backend bouquets which are imported into Kodi. This allows me to set up bespoke versions depending on who will be watching the TV - handy for kids rooms. The EPG looks great, imports all of the channels with ease, a proper "watching TV" experience on a PC or Shield. Zapping is instantaneous, recordings are made on the backend box, and organised and accessible via kodi. Timeshifting is included for no extra cost, so you can pause rewind etc (this can also be disabled of course) This solution ticked all of the boxes for me, simple to set up, fast, full EPG, recording and timeshifting have been flawless, to the extent that I doubt I will require a second TA+ for the main sitting room. I have implemented this on two WIFI only PC's and it works just as well. I'll see if I can add a few screenshots tomorrow to illustrate some of the points made above.

Once again, this box is insanely versatile, give it two more tuners and it would be perfect I think.

robbKer · 28-02-2019 10:23pm

MileHighGuy wrote: »

Just thought I'd write a quick report of my attempts to stream the TA+ situated at the rear of the house, into other rooms around the house.
I had originally thought I would be buying two of the TA+ eventually, once I got the initial one configured, but it's so versatile, I don't think I'll need a second box after all.

The TA+ is wired to the main router via an access point, which is connected to another access point in my main sitting room. Various other PCs scattered around the house will be connected via wifi.

clients I have have tried:
open webif via browser - great tool, and will do in a bind, but not a great user experience. It certainly feels like you are watching TV on a computer. An absolute cinch to set up though, and very fast and responsive. Edit bouquets, set timers, lot's of configuration options. Live pause/timeshifting was spotty to the extent that it was not usable. EPG is utilitarian, but as it matches the TA+ backend, all channels populated the guide.

Nvidia Shield: Dream Player. Fast, easy set up (this will be a pattern!) I wasn't mad about the homescreen with bouquet lists running down the LHS and the ability to go to a quite a nice implementation of an EPG. Capable of setting recordings and auto timers. No pause/Timeshift, although you could record the current program being watched, and access it from recordings folder to as a workaround. This was a clubhouse favourite for a week or so.

NVidia Shield: Live Channels, Android TV native Live TV hub. Ability to set up multiple sources, blazing fast response, a great implementation of an EPG, again, no timeshift and recordings frequently failed, due to a weak signal issue, which did not make sense as the entire thing is ethernet connected. A dealbreaker there then.

Nvidia Shield Plex. I had heard so much about Plex, but had never really dipped my toes in the water, so decided to give it a crack. Absolutely stunning front end, very impressive for this that have a good media collection. By installing the HDHR Plugin on TA+, Plex was able to see it as a supported tuner to add Live TV. You need to pay a premium (PlexPass - maybe try out their month option to see how you like it)to unlock the ability to timeshift and record. Plex has a funny way to create the EPG, it uses a selection of providers and you marry up the channels it receives from the tuner to this preselected list. The result is no one single providers list will contain all of the free channels the TA+ outputs. Not to mention the process is tiresome. As the Plex also seems to fetch channels through their own proprietry connection, the zapping time between channels is 5/6 seconds. Which feels like an eternity. The upside, is again, the way the content is served through their frontend, there is the option of a traditional EPG, but it curates, movies, sports and shows, into what's upcoming, just started etc, and fetched accompanying artwork for the show too. This is by far the best looking of the lot, but the poor response time zapping and the decision you need to make about losing channels made it unsatisfying in the end. Good for show, but would get frustrating in day to day usage. Timeshifting and recording were good, and used a local drive attached to the Shield rather than the TA+ box which confuses things a bit.

Lastly, I fired up old reliable Kodi to see what it could do. I installed the Enigma2 PVR add on, configuration is simple, input the open webif ip address. Kodi has it's own PVR settings which allow independent editing of the TA+ backend bouquets which are imported into Kodi. This allows me to set up bespoke versions depending on who will be watching the TV - handy for kids rooms. The EPG looks great, imports all of the channels with ease, a proper "watching TV" experience on a PC or Shield. Zapping is instantaneous, recordings are made on the backend box, and organised and accessible via kodi. Timeshifting is included for no extra cost, so you can pause rewind etc (this can also be disabled of course) This solution ticked all of the boxes for me, simple to set up, fast, full EPG, recording and timeshifting have been flawless, to the extent that I doubt I will require a second TA+ for the main sitting room. I have implemented this on two WIFI only PC's and it works just as well. I'll see if I can add a few screenshots tomorrow to illustrate some of the points made above.

Once again, this box is insanely versatile, give it two more tuners and it would be perfect I think.

Subsequent to your post above I sat down tonight with kodi and set it up with the enigma2 vu iota client. Very impressive and relatively easy to setup. Streaming works very well in comparison to the other options. Only issue I’ve found is getting the picons to load. Only some channels are loading picons for some strange reason. Otherwise fab. Thanks!

sligojoek · 04-03-2019 1:30am

Hi lads.

Just a query for someone who might be in the know.

I got a pair of Sony bluetooth headphones for xmas and have been using them with the phone ever since. With the headphones I also got a bluetooth dongle. I just set it up on the laptop and all is good.

What I'm wondering is, Would this dongle work with the TA+? The documentation seems to be alll Windows orientated with no mention of Mac. As the TA+ is Linux based I'm guessing, No.

Would it be possible to get such a dongle to work with the box?

Johnboy1951 · 04-03-2019 1:47am

sligojoek wrote: »

Hi lads.

Just a query for someone who might be in the know.

I got a pair of Sony bluetooth headphones for xmas and have been using them with the phone ever since. With the headphones I also got a bluetooth dongle. I just set it up on the laptop and all is good.

What I'm wondering is, Would this dongle work with the TA+? The documentation seems to be alll Windows orientated with no mention of Mac. As the TA+ is Linux based I'm guessing, No.

Would it be possible to get such a dongle to work with the box?

It would, I expect, depend on the software available in whatever image is used.

Most BT dongles work in Linux ..... if you get a chance maybe try it out in a Linux PC, or using a Linux Live session from CD/DVD or USB.

sligojoek · 04-03-2019 2:06am

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

It would, I expect, depend on the software available in whatever image is used.

Most BT dongles work in Linux ..... if you get a chance maybe try it out in a Linux PC, or using a Linux Live session from CD/DVD or USB.

Thanks JB. That's great to know. I'll have a look online tomorrow evening. I'll leave this dongle in the laptop for now as it's set up and working fine.

On the Linux thing, I know nothing about it. I've a 10 yr old laptop in the living room that I only use for internet , photos and interacting with the box. I might look into converting it over.

Johnboy1951 · 04-03-2019 11:44am

sligojoek wrote: »

Thanks JB. That's great to know. I'll have a look online tomorrow evening. I'll leave this dongle in the laptop for now as it's set up and working fine.

On the Linux thing, I know nothing about it. I've a 10 yr old laptop in the living room that I only use for internet , photos and interacting with the box. I might look into converting it over.

It does take time for drivers for new hardware to become available in Linux if the manufacturer does not provide Linux drivers from the outset.
Sometimes it might not happen at all.

The usual way to find out if support is available, is to get full hardware details of the product (whether wifi dongle; pci-e network card, or any of a multitude of pieces of hardware) and check on line for reports of the device working in Linux or not.
In some cases there are lists of working devices, but honestly I doubt they can be kept up to date these days due to the number of pieces of slightly different hardware released.
Going by name and version number is not guaranteed either, as manufacturers have been known to change chips in devices while maintaining the same Model Name and Version Number for two different hardware configurations.

So really there is no simple answer to your original question.

tinner777 · 07-03-2019 6:42pm

hi, have the box connected to my router via ethernet. My home server is connected on the same wireless network. Trying to mount server hard drive. Network neighbourhood starts to scan, blue circle spins, then it hangs. No response using remote or box buttons, have to restart box. I'm trying to scan the home server so I can watch those files through the box. I used to use servio but the lip sync has gone crazy with the latest update.

greasepalm · 07-03-2019 11:29pm

On network browser on openvix it takes a few minutes to start finding my boxes and they have samba enabled so can be seen,then expand box and mount hdd save and exit out.Sometimes rebooting box and router makes it run faster.

crasy dash · 08-03-2019 9:29pm

Anybody any ideas turned on my tiviar this evening started up fine ten minutes later it just powered off.

Now it's trying to constantly reboot sometimes its successful and you think it's fine then all of a sudden it's back off.
Fan and hard drive spin up and power on would a failing hard drive cause it to crash as the one I used was old and can't remember where I got it

Think myself it could be a power supply issue

greasepalm · 08-03-2019 10:33pm

Quite possible first to try is removing hdd and recheck,some boxes do have power supply issues like zgemma.

andy1249 · 08-03-2019 11:02pm

crasy dash wrote: »

Anybody any ideas turned on my tiviar this evening started up fine ten minutes later it just powered off.

Now it's trying to constantly reboot sometimes its successful and you think it's fine then all of a sudden it's back off.
Fan and hard drive spin up and power on would a failing hard drive cause it to crash as the one I used was old and can't remember where I got it

Think myself it could be a power supply issue

I hard a hard drive die on me and the box behaved like that.
See post 972 onwards.
Replacing the hard drive fixed it.
Watch your fingers, failing hard drives run very hot, give it time to cool.

crasy dash · 08-03-2019 11:20pm

andy1249 wrote: »

I hard a hard drive die on me and the box behaved like that.
See post 972 onwards.
Replacing the hard drive fixed it.
Watch your fingers, failing hard drives run very hot, give it time to cool.

Disconnected the hard drive about half an hour ago powered back up ran fine for a good 20min and then turned off rebooted straight away and working now.

Think I have a dodgy power supply ,only purchased in December and only used a couple of hours a week feckin disaster.Bought on eBay so could be an ordeal to try and send back.

greasepalm · 09-03-2019 12:03am

Was that from a company or private sale,if you can try another matched power supply to see if that works ok,might be a cheaper option than sending complete box package back.If posting back remove BATTERIES from remote as an post destroys packages as hazardous.

Heiser · 09-03-2019 7:50pm

I have the subtitles turned off, but every now and again a subtitle appears and sticks in the screen. This happen to anyone else? How do I stop it?

greasepalm · 09-03-2019 9:39pm

Press audio button and select a different stream.

Trapapony · 11-03-2019 5:15pm

Hello,
I have a new Tiviar Alpha Plus Rxr. Though not yet connected to the internet, it's working well. I still have the following issues and would appreciate any help with them.

1) EPG: This says "No Information" for all satellite channels except when I switch to a channel (highlight the channel and press OK) in which case it gives me only the now/next programmes for that channel. Any way of getting the table fully populated? It populates fine for my terrestrial channels (Saorview via aerial).

2) BBC4 programmes appear on the CBeebies channel and I cannot even get a now/next listing for them.

3) How do I switch off audio description/narration for the visually impaired? I could find no setting for this on the STB. It's off on the TV but this has no affect.

4) I tried using the CH Edit app to sort my radio channels alphabetically. It seemed to work but when I exited the app the channels were back to the same unsorted mess? The move channel function works fine.

Thanks for any ideas.

Trap

Trevord · 11-03-2019 6:29pm

Trapapony wrote: »

Hello,
I have a new Tiviar Alpha Plus Rxr. Though not yet connected to the internet, it's working well. I still have the following issues and would appreciate any help with them.

1) EPG: This says "No Information" for all satellite channels except when I switch to a channel (highlight the channel and press OK) in which case it gives me only the now/next programmes for that channel. Any way of getting the table fully populated? It populates fine for my terrestrial channels (Saorview via aerial).

2) BBC4 programmes appear on the CBeebies channel and I cannot even get a now/next listing for them.

3) How do I switch off audio description/narration for the visually impaired? I could find no setting for this on the STB. It's off on the TV but this has no affect.

4) I tried using the CH Edit app to sort my radio channels alphabetically. It seemed to work but when I exited the app the channels were back to the same unsorted mess? The move channel function works fine.

Thanks for any ideas.

Trap

It seems like you have not flashed the box with the software that has been discussed in the thread.

3 of the 4 problems you describe will be resolved if you do that.
Your issue with BBC4 and Cbeebies is not really an issue - they share the same channel depending on the time of day.

sligojoek · 12-03-2019 1:37am

Lads I'm having a bit of hassle here. I opened Filezilla today to transfer a few movies over to the box and it's forgotten all the settings. I did a sweep with CCleaner the other day and I suspect that wiped the settings. I know the box's IP is 192.168.1.120. I also changed the username and password a while back. I had a look in the box settings but can't find where to reset them and also what's the port number?

TIA

tinner777 · 12-03-2019 6:52pm

lads, nightmare with mounting network hard drive continues. I have a hard drive connected to a windows 7 pc. Works perfectly. All my other pcs, laptops, MacBook can see and open files. I can see the tiviar on my devices and open files. Tiviar see's files that are shared via servio and i can open them in media player.

Is there a guide anywhere on how I can sort this?? High horse would a guide using vix etc.. work??

Thanks

MileHighGuy · 12-03-2019 9:49pm

sligojoek wrote: »

Lads I'm having a bit of hassle here. I opened Filezilla today to transfer a few movies over to the box and it's forgotten all the settings. I did a sweep with CCleaner the other day and I suspect that wiped the settings. I know the box's IP is 192.168.1.120. I also changed the username and password a while back. I had a look in the box settings but can't find where to reset them and also what's the port number?

TIA

Not sure where you would go to reset the password, but from memory the ftp port no is 21

MenloPete · 13-03-2019 5:11pm

Why would my Tiviar be powering on by itself?
Running NCM's image with no timers and no network connection, yet it starts up every day spontaneously.
I'm not sure yet if it does so at a consistent time of day.

MenloPete · 13-03-2019 6:24pm

MenloPete wrote: »

Why would my Tiviar be powering on by itself?

I'll answer my own question: It's crashing and rebooting. I think the issue is with the MovieBrowser Plugin.
No such file or directory: '/usr/lib/enigma2/python/Plugins/Extensions/MovieBrowser/db/database'

Heiser · 13-03-2019 10:18pm

I put a cable from the antenna out on the box into my TV so i could record an Irish station on the box and watch an Irish station on the TV, but its not working . Is there anything I need to do on the box to activate the antenna out?

NewClareman · 14-03-2019 2:36pm

MenloPete wrote: »

I'll answer my own question: It's crashing and rebooting. I think the issue is with the MovieBrowser Plugin.
No such file or directory: '/usr/lib/enigma2/python/Plugins/Extensions/MovieBrowser/db/database'

Ah, ok, I think I understand.

I don’t know wahat image you’re using, but my image is installed with no movie database, as requested by multiple users. When you first start Movie Browser you are asked for the path to your movie directory and a database is then created. If you don’t complete that task, it may cause problems. Apart from that I’ve being using Movie Browser for nearly a year without issue.

To check if Movie Browser is the problem, open Movie Browser which is the Blue Button, if using my image. When MB is open use the menu key to see setup. Browse down to the entry “Update Database with Timer” and select no. I have set an automatic update for 5am, so that would correlate with your issue”.

If MB is the problem, just select a location for your movies and rebuild the database. Hope this helps.

greasepalm · 14-03-2019 8:39pm

Heiser wrote: »

I put a cable from the antenna out on the box into my TV so i could record an Irish station on the box and watch an Irish station on the TV, but its not working . Is there anything I need to do on the box to activate the antenna out?

When doing this does the tv not need to be tuned to that feed as i think the vcr was the same?

Trevord · 14-03-2019 11:11pm

greasepalm wrote: »

When doing this does the tv not need to be tuned to that feed as i think the vcr was the same?

No.

It should work without issue. The most obvious thing to check is to plug the antenna directly into the tv rather than the box and check that the channels are tuned in on tv's internal tuner. If that is not working then the tv needs to be tuned.

If that is fine then I'd reconnect antennae to box and run the short cable from the box to tv and test again.

The only other potential issue is a problem with the cable going from box to tv - but I think that is highly unlikely.

Johnboy1951 · 15-03-2019 12:00am

Is there an option to turn off the RF out in the software in this box?

MenloPete · 15-03-2019 9:48am

NewClareman wrote: »

If MB is the problem, just select a location for your movies and rebuild the database. Hope this helps.

So if I understand correctly, you store ripped movies in a separate location from recorded TV, and only index these?
I thought it was for all recordings.

Tiviar Alpha Plus Combo STB

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