AZBOX /Elite / HD / Premium

My Azbox premium will resolve the msnbc ntsc signal on Telstar 12 okay. Not sure if it transposes to pal but the image is crisp and their is no juddering. Also resolving the nbc dad feeds as well. The receiver front end seems good as my Technomate TM5500 and TM9100. Very pleased.

gtg60 wrote: »

Ok, I have achieved another of my personal goals with the AZBox, central PVR storage! Basically I have my Elite and Premium recording to the same folders on my PC's hard drive so that either box can watch what the other has recorded! Plus I can edit the files directly with VideoRedo, up 'til now I have been lugging the USB drive to the PC or FTP'ing them back and forth.

My NAS arrives on Monday so will set that up so I don't have to have the PC on all the time, plus it can live in the attic beside the router, out of everyone's way (high WAF!).

Hi gtg60, was wondering if you had any more feedback on how you got on
with intergrating a NAS into your network and having the AZBox record directly onto it? were you able to get it to work? I am quite interested in having a similar setup where I would have a central NAS with a PC and the AZBox connected to it, the AZBox recording TV onto the NAS for me to access on the PC and burn to DVD if required, and my PC backing up DVD's ect so the AZBox can play them back without me having to get up from the sofa to change disks!

Plus, has there been any update on playing back Blu Rays, HD-DVD's? From what you said previously it seemed that you currently are only able to play Blu ray's that are ripped to folders by AnyDVD HD and saved onto the Hard Drive in the AZBox (and HD-DVD's currently arent supported as they have no sound), is this still the case?

gtg60 wrote: »

Yes this is the set up I want too, after my successful experiment with both AZBoxes recording onto the PC's hard drive I never got 'round to doing any more with my new NAS only moving all my movie files to it, in fact it's still here on the floor beside the PC! My plan is to leave it in the attic so it's well out of the way. I might just experiment again with it this weekend but there's a ton of other thing's I'm playing around with at the moment and it's the fact that I don't see it as difficult is why it is getting left alone.

There seems to be an improvement in Media playing in the last firmware release, it's can now do 23.976 fps mkv's which is pretty significant.
The bandwidth limitation on ethernet and usb is still there but is expected to be lifted soon.

Thanks for the update, incidentally I assume that you are the same person as gtg60 over at AVForums who helped me with my question on a NAS that you can also access via USB drive as well? If so many thanks for all your help and for pointing me in the direction of this box! It seems to do everything that I am looking for so I have taken the plunge and bought a premium version, am now trying to decide if I want to add the Hard Drive into the device or add a NAS and do what I described above!

Anyway, thanks again

gtg60 wrote: »

Yep, that's me, thought you were stalking me :eek::D

Haha, no I promise im not! After you mentioned that you had switched to an AzBoz HD I thought id have a look at it, found some information on google, found this thread, posted and then thought "hang on, that name looks familier...." Thanks for the help!

gtg60 wrote: »

Why not do both? Or how about this? You could always record to the internal hard drive and then transfer the files to the PC (from the AZBox) or move them from the AZBox ( by the PC) then you wouldn't need a NAS.

You can make this as simple or as complicated as you want

True, I may do both, I had buildt a HTPC but it was rejected by my girlfriend for being too complicated (typical), so im breaking it back down to sell, I may pull the 750GB WD Greenpower from that now and plug it into the AzBox, and later on get the NAS.

Actually received my AzBox Premium yesterday, not had a huge amount of time to play with it but so far I have been very impressed! Downloaded and installed the newest firmware I could find (0.9.2371) by downloading to my PC, unzipping and putting onto a USB stick, very easy to do. Also set up my TV channels, currently I am only using it for FTA in the UK on an old Sky Dish so have only set up the Astra 28E so far but it still found a rediculous number of channels, but I like that you can set up a favourite channel list so you can flick between only the channels that you want, may come in handy if i ever get a sky subscription to use with it (Does anyone actually watch all those channels!!!)

Youtube functionality I like very much, easy to search for videos with the remote in my opinion, although I wonder if it is possible to get Youtube HQ to stream?

Not even started to look at plugins and the like, just waiting to be allowed access to the saorTV forum where I read earlier is a good place to check out for epg's and the like.

Anyway, thanks again for pointing me in the direction of this box!

guv69 wrote: »

Good point - and reminded me my account still hasn't been activated! (From 31 May!)

Maybe try contacting them again, ive had my activation through now after about a day? Also the EPG is giving me a bit of a headache, if I have understood what has been said earlier then a feed from the freesat EPG is being worked on to be included in the firmware (hope that comes soon) so the 7 day EPG is not currently working, however at the moment im not even getting the most basic EPG (i.e. what is on and and what is on next)!

How do you download an EPG?