QBOX HD Beta Test

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The QBOX HD Beta has arrived!

I have just received one of the first QBOX HD receivers provided by the manufaturer for beta testing purposes. The box itself is not for sale yet, only some developers and forums have got them - so no need to panic yet.

As it is a true Beta there are many issues (mainly with the software) to be sorted out yet - but they agreed nevertheless for me to have a pre-view, and I was quite keen to get my hands on one

The image installed does not allow the operation of many of the functions, for instance the triple-antenna wifi cannot be activated, as well as the built in diablo module. But these will be sorted out soonet than later, and I will post myfindings as we go along.

Once the image is more adanced I will start a Qbox "Idiot Guide"

This thread will not be open - if there are questions there will be another thread for his.

 

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Here are some pictures of the receiver. Being very Beta it has no instructions whatsoever. But the good news is: I managed to get it going fairly easily, and thinking about the instructions that came with my old Dreambox - they were basically useless - it is not that big an issue. I do think they will sort out instructions anyway later.

Pictures:
Picture 1+2)
Receiver arrived in a box, had what looks like a god quality hdmi cable, the wifi antennae (I am not sure if the wifi will be included as standard, but I think it will be an option), remote + batteries (at this stage the remote is a Qbox1 remote), and a coax adapter (not sure what for).

Picture 3 +4):
Shows the rear end of the box, where all the connections are.
3 Tuners (one Sat and one DVB-T), 3 wifi w-lan antennae, 2 USB, 1 Lan, one RS232 (forthre beloved null modem cable), one ESATA for had drive (it looks as if there is another one internal - but not sure), 1 HDMI, RGB, S-Video, 2 scart, 1 fibre optic AC3.

Pic 5
Small display at front - one nice feature that it shows the IP adress of the box at startup.

Pic 6+7
This is how it looks inside. There is a lot of room there, so cooling should not be an issue. There would be space to fit in a smaller hard drive internally, but I don't know if this is intended. As the ESATA socket is mounted for the outside it may be intended for external use.

 

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First impressions of operation/setup

As a veteran Dreambox user I did not find working with the box too difficult. Setting up the diseqc rotor, scanning for stations etc was fairly straight forward, also connecting to the network was easy. At the moment I can FTP to the box, but there is no web interface. There are some settings that require a bit more experience, but it does give you a warning in advance, and ask you to confirm if you really want to do these changes.

At the moment I am pretty careful not to change too much as I don't have a backup image yet.

I will play some more with it and post some more pictures - but the main verdict is that the set-up at the moment does not look too difficult, and surely for someone with Dreambox experience not a problem.

Watch this space

 

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There are several youtube videos out there. This video is not mine, it seems to be from a shop which has a beta box for testing - but still will show some of the features.



[TUBE]TvvYNPji_sA[/TUBE]

 

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The official website _www.qboxhd.com/download.html
has published the updater software for the Qbox HD.

At the moment there is nothing there to load up, but it is showing progress.

The user guide seems to be from the Qbox one, maybe a mix up.

 

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Lets have a look at the tuner that is inside my QboxHD. It is not exactly the same one as will be used for the retail boxes, as it is mounted horizontly and blocks off the slot for the third tuner. The retail box will have a vertical monted one, but I am pretty sure it will be the same tuner.
I can't say much else about it, the only thing I noticed is that this tuner has no problems with symbol rates such as 5632, which my old Dreambox did not manage at all. Any questions and discussions in the other thread

The tuner is a Sharp CX24116 DVB-S2. Here are some details for the technically minded, see also the attached PDF data sheet.

Satellite Tuners With Demodulator IC
November 17, 2006 - Sharp introduces two new DVB-S2 tuner modules to the European market, the BS2F7VZ0164 and BS2F7VZ0165, integrating a complete HDTV RF front-end and a demodulator circuitry..

The Integrated demodulator IC provides an 8-bit digital data-stream for further processing. This will spare hardware developers a lot of time, since high frequency developments and optimisation of demodulator circuits usually require a lot of resources. The DVB-S2 tuner covers a typical frequency range of 950 to 2150MHz for satellite TV transmission and is suitable for receiving both HDTV (DVB-S2) and SDTV (DVB-S) signals. There are two choices of demodulators from two cooperation partners: the Conexant CX24116 and the ST Microelectronics STB0899 integrated in the two modules on offer (BS2F7VZ0165 and BS2F7VZ0164 respectively). These two options allow the system integrator and development engineer to be in position to develop a state of the art satellite receiver system for two different backend solutions.

 

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Found this posted in several forums. As the download comes from Duolabs I guess it is genuine. Shame though that they did not bother to notify me. Whatever....


13/02/09 Qbox HD 1.0.0.

This is an update release for the QBoxHD.
The update procedure must be done in two steps:

1. Update the Boot Flash
1.1 Download and install the latest QBOXHD Updater downloadable from _http://www.qboxhd.com/download.html
1.2 Update the receiver with the QBOXHD_UPDATE_COMPLETE_06_02_2009.QHU file

2. Update the USB-based filesystem
2.1 Download the update file qboxhq_update.tar to a USB flash pen
The pen must be VFAT formatted.
2.2 Turn-off the QBoxHD
2.3 Insert the USB flash pen
2.4 Turn-on the QBoxHD
2.5 The update procedure will start automatically.
The LCD will show the procedure status, including when it finishes.
2.6 When the update procedure finishes, turn-off the QBoxHD.
2.7 Remove the USB flash pen
2.8 Turn-on the QBoxHD

IMPORTANT:
The current status of the QBoxHD software is beta.
This update removes all previous configuration and user settings.


_http://duolabs.redballon.us/qboxhd/QBOXHD_UPDATE_1.00.zip



I will try it out and let you know what happens

 

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OK, Image is on - was actually quite easy. I formatted the flash drive with FAT32 as I did not have the option of VFAT on the flash drive formatting menu. Did not take too long, after the update is finished you simply turn on the box and start from scratch. I am scanning channels now, lets see what the new image has new.

 

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Finally there is movement in the images department!! A new official image is available, and also an image with working cams. I will try to get them working today and tomorrow.

In any case, here is a nice explenation about the inner workings taken from the officila 27/2/09 update files:





How QBOX HD Boot works.

QBOX HD has inside two different memories:
The first is the 8 megabytes NOR memory and it is used to make the boot of the system.
The second is a 1 Gigabyte USB Stick used for linux EXT3 filesystem.
Standard NOR memories cannot host a large Linux Operating System and user may run out of space quickly even 32 megabytes are not big enough in most of the cases. This is the reason why NOR has been used for for startup/update procedure only.
Whenever a bigger filesystem is needed it will be enough to exchange the internal usb stick with a bigger USB stick.

Update of Boot Memory.
The boot memory is divided in more partitions:

Genesis
This is the first block of the NOR Memory and it is used to update contents of other partitions in the NOR Boot flash.
A Windows updating tool called "QBoxHD Updater" must be used for this purpose.
It is downloadable from www.qboxhd.com in dowload area.

UBOOT
This is the real complete Bootloader.

Kernel
This is the linux kernel.

RAM Disk
This is a small EXT3 filesystem where some drivers are located and used to access any kind of USB devices to check for updates.
Kernel starts using this filesystem.
Internal USB key is mounted as a folder of this filesystem.
Ram Disk is used to search for update files in USB stick and eventually decompress it and execute the update script.

Updates can be made:

1. A compressed file can be located in the root of a USB stick called qboxhd_update.tgz (compressed way).
2. A folder "qboxhd_update" with all the files already inside (uncompressed way).

Once the update is finished root files will be swapped with the one in the internal usb stick.

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Usage of QBox HD Updater is very simple:

Connect the receiver to a switch/hub/router where also your PC is connected or directly to a PC. Connecting directly to a PC is not raccomended becasue sometimes windows is too slow to detect the connection and may fail.

- Power OFF the receiver.
- Install the software
- Set the IP that the receiver will get during the update (it must be on the same network of your PC).
- Choose "Update QBOXHD"
- Choose a ".QHU" file
- Press YES
- Power up the receiver.

Communication between PC and QBox can be shown if Console is activated.

In about one minute The Updated will be performed.

In next versions update will be possible also from USB stick directly into the receiver without using the PC.

 

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There have been some new images with various improvements,

HD CHannels: It seems the problem we had at the begining with the HD channels breaking up sometimes has been solved.

Cardsharing works fairly well: I can connect to a single Cccam server at the moment. I am not to worried, if the wifi will work I will simply connect to my own Dreambox which is then going to do all the serving and connections. At the moment I use the Dexter plugin to get the blue button menu, and then start the Incubus cam (after I edited the server details in the config file, of course). There is a way to automatically start the cam by entering the line "/var/bin/incubuscamd.sh4_e2 &" in the rcs file from /etc/init.d. Then the incubus starts immediately when booting (again thanks to fellow beta tester psykix for this info)


Internal memory upgrade:
I have swapped the internal memory, which is basically a stripped down USB stick for a whopping 8 gig one. What I did is brutally open the case of a brand new stick (got it for 10 Euro at the local electrics shop), cut away some of the steel case that surrounds the contacts. Then I formatted it to FAT32, and named the volume QBOX_HD. Put in box, and a new image on the outside USB - quick prayer and started it up. Took longer than a usual update, but it works now. Scrolling through the menus is MUCH faster and smoother. Also, as if it needed some more lights, the USB stick is flashing inside as well

Wifi
Still issues with the security code, but as far as I understand it is close to being resolved. The wifi has a cool feature where you can tune each of the three antenna to achieve the best signal strength. Mine needed to be about 15° to the left. Cool feature.

Backup to USB stick - works fine, you can save three different directories: The settings in etc/enigma2, the skins in user/share and the complete var directory.

That's it for now dudes

 

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The last few days have seen a number of new images published. I have tried all of them of course, and there have been some progress in some areas - they have been improving the internal structure of the file system and the likes. The most visible at the moment is that the webinterface is now operational (see attached image)- but it has to be activated first through the plugins. The wifi still does not work, there is a major bug in the network setup which they are not getting sorted at the moment - but it will be for sure.

Below is the history of the changes to the image from the beginning until yesterday

Rel. 2009.04.10

- enigma2: Plugins unused were eliminated
- enigma2: Bug resolved when webinterface is active and user go to Network menu

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.04.09

- System upgrade to Python 2.6 (includes enigma2)
- enigma2: WebInterface plugin added
- enigma2: PVR works with the original enigma code path. The workaround was eliminated.
Pause is activated/deactivated when pressing the yellow button.
Forward is activated with the blue button. If pressed again it speeds up. It
has two speeds: 3x and 5x. When pressing a third time the image will freeze
and the green or yellow button returns to 1x.
Rewind is activated with the red button. If pressed the stream will start from
the beginning.
The resume action works as expected when returning to a previously stopped
stream.
If 'forward' is pressed immediately after 'pause', forward slow motion will
start at 1/8x, pressed again it changes to 1/4x.
- Optimized feeder

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.04.01

- New launcher script. The old exec was not flexible for starting custom apps
- Updated scripts for mounting/umounting USB flash drives
- Driver dvbt_gpio.ko was substituted by qboxhd_generic.ko
- Driver dvbt_gpio.ko has been substituted for the more 'generic' qboxhd_generic.ko
- enigma2: wifi: Added new Wireless AP scan and correct a bug when Enter Standby with SenseWheel
- enigma2: wifi: WEP Encryption bug resolved
- enigma2: Added backup/restore enigma settings, skin and var directory
- enigma2: Reduce a timeout in scan.cpp. It is a workaround for crashes in some satellite scans (for example 16E)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.03.27

- This is a RECOVERY package that contains the whole filesystem
updated up to 2009.03.27
- PVR basic functionality. No fast forward/rewind and no pause.
- Automatically mounts any vfat USB flash drive for PVR record/playback.
It can mount simultaneously up to 2 drives in /media/hdd and /media/hdd2.
- WiFi: Bug fixed in Network test. Added signal strength monitor depending on the antenna position

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.03.26

- enigma2: PVR works! The video stops after recording or playing.
After recording, change channel for keep watching.
After playing, exit from the Media Player for keep watching.
- enigma2: Code clean-up

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.03.20

- This is a RECOVERY package that contains the whole filesystem
updated up to 2009.03.20
- enigma2: Volume based on ALSA
- enigma2: Stand-by works (no Deep Stand-by yet)
- WiFi: It works with DHCP. One IP address is assigned to both network ifaces: eth0 and ra0
- Recovery procedure: A new rootfs can be installed in a non-labeled and non formatted USB flash drive
Previously, an ext3 fs labeled QBOX_HD was needed.
- Recovery procedure: Supports large USB flash drives (>1G)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.03.16

- This is a RECOVERY package that contains the whole filesystem
updated up to 2009.03.16

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.03.13

- enigma2: Mute/Unmute works
- enigma2: Recording of SD and HD channels in a USB flash drive works
(Playback does NOT work yet).

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.03.12

- LD_LIBRARY_PATH is exported correclty
- starci2win_mod.ko: New polling timeout fixed
- enigma2: bug fixing

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.03.11

- enigma2: Faster because it consumes less resources
- 2lcamd: Bug fix: Check if the card is inserted and then read the ATR
(before the check status was not used)
- smartcard.ko: Correct the EGT (Extra GuardTime). Added to the Default GuardTime
- starci2win_mod.ko: Polling timeout fixed

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.03.06

- Recovery update.sh script fixed. Ticket #104
- WiFi support added

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rel. 2009.03.04

- Fix HDMI - SCART issue. Ticket #76 and #95
- New busybox-based filesystem
- Removed unneeded libs
- Added libcrypto.so
- Added latest smartcard driver

 

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The latest image has a YouTube player as a plugin, this is a nice little toy. To get it to work, you need to be connected to the internet - at the moment on my box it is only possible with the LAN cable. Then you have to start VLC on your computer that needs to be connected to the network as well, so that the VLC operates as a server.

This is quite easily done as well: Make a shortcut of the VLC program to your desktop. Then right click on the shortcut, properties in the target line put the following command (obviously if your VLC is not in C:\Program Files you need to modify it appropriately):

"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --intf=wxwin --extraintf=http


After that, you start the Tube plugin, search for clips (this is quite easy to understand, there are several settings to change regarding video quality and other). The last thing you need to do is to tell the plugin on which IP address the VLC server is, and then you can watch clips

Big thanks to Artii for helping me with the VLC server

 

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I have received a replacement box from Duolabs, this seems to be a retail box and looks far better than the beta box I had previously.

One interesting new feature is that the internal USB stick is now on the outside, this makes changing it to a larger one much easier.

Also, the packaging and the instructions book supplied are of good quality. The English language used in it is pretty good and fairly easy to understand.

It gives instructions of how to install the WIFI to the box, which is very intersting as you would have to unscrew the box. Other manufacturers will not allow you to do so as it will affect their warranty. It is nice to be able to look inside and still retain the warranty....

Another new feature is that it has a rubber dust protector for the CI slot. This makes it look much nicer.

Appearance wise, the all black box looks really nice compared to the white one I had before, the coloured display (which is adjustable for colour and brightness) looks much better now - before it was a bit "cheap" looking, now it actually looks more like "quality". You can adjust everything about the sense wheel and board lights, colour, strength, when they come on etc. At the end of the day it is a matter of taste, and it is just a toy. I turned them down quite a lot, and when the box is off they are also off as I found the blinking a bit too much.

More reports will follow

 

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Wifi setup is fairly easy, here are some screenshots. Once initiated it keeps the settings and comes on automatically when booting.

 

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Recording to an external USB2 drive is fairly easy: You format the drive to FAT32 , put a folder inside called movie and that's it, no need to do anything other than to connect it to the USB slot and reboot. After that just press on the "record" button. The files recorded are .ts files (same as when recording with Dreambox).

There is a facility to format and initalise the hard drive through the setup menu, but that did not work.


How to format a USB2 hard drive: Windows does not usually do FAT32. You can try formatting it by going to the dos command window, and typing in format /FS:FAT32 x: (x being the drive letter of the USB drive). This however does not always work, so it is easier to simply download a free utility such as EASEUS Partition Master 3.5 Home Edition (I got it from c-net) and it does an easy job.

Playback is easy, press media on the remote, choose hard drive and select your recording, easy