Dreambox 7025+

4tothefloor

Hi Lads,

I've just bought a Dreambox 7025+ to replace my sky+ box as I'm sick of it breaking down and giving problems. I'll also be able to work my own multiroom and stream the box to my pc etc.

I'm about to venture in to programming and flashing it but I'm finding the amount of info out there a bit mind boggling. Does anyone here have a 7025+ running SKY (legitimately)? Would just be interested to know what is the best image/emulater/cam and EPG combinations to use. Also any useful plug-ins that may be out there. Any advice would be appreciated before I attack it this wknd! Cheers

watty

It's best for Free to Air use or at a pinch subscriptions to non-Sky PayTV for Mainland europe.

Basically a Hobbyist box.

You can get Sky working on it with a legitmate Sky card. But that is likely to stop working for a good while shortly as Sky issue new cards.

cormacl

Try the Gemini image at i-have-a-dreambox.com. You can use a serial cable to flash but its slow. Best advised to have the box Internet connected for flashing and also for downloading cams required to get it to work with Sky sub card.

See the following for instructions on how to flash the software over a LAN..
http://www.dream-multimedia-tv.de/dm7025/eng_browser.php

Get the latest 4.10 of Gemini.. that has Freesat EPG support (under the blue panel EPG menu) which means it will get the 7-day guide for some of the Sky services, at least the ones that are also on Freesat.

For reading the Sky card, put the card chip facing down into one of the card slots. Then from the Gemini Blue panel (blue button/settings/addons/download) download the latest CCcam version available. Then when this completes, exit all the way out of the blue-panel and go back in again.. the first option selected is the Cam.. use the left/right arrows to select the CCcam cam.. you don't need to include the CCcam/NewCs variation. Then press the green button to restart the cam. Exit the menu.

Then go to a Sky service you are subscribed to say Sky one.. it should appear shortly after that. I don't think you will need to get the box id into the cam settings.. I've long since cancelled Sky a few years ago.. so I could be rusty on this. Maybe someone else can chime in.

strongman

Yes I agree with "cormacl". Gemini and EMU CCcam are the way to go. You don't need the box id. for it to work.

4tothefloor

Cheers lads. I followed all that but went for the Nabilosat Blackhole image, which I was recommended because I was told it has a full 7 day EPG for all channels. It does, but it keeps crashing the box when I try set programs to record, so basically it's useless. I'm going to try Dreamforum image next, and then Gemini. The EPG is everything really, without it it's not worth having

Signac

Is it possible to configure a dreambox with Freesat (inc EPG) an MPEG DTT Receiver and a PVR? I think this would be a great combination for Ireland when the DTT service is up and running. A seamless solution with one remote control

JD

cormacl

Signac wrote: »

Is it possible to configure a dreambox with Freesat (inc EPG) an MPEG DTT Receiver and a PVR? I think this would be a great combination for Ireland when the DTT service is up and running. A seamless solution with one remote control

JD

Yes but only with the dm8000 model. It has 2 HD sat tuners and slots for two more. Mine has a dtt tuner fitted running Gemini 4.3. I have freesat epg and a single channel list that seamlessly spans sat and terrestrial services.

The box cost a grand however and that was without a hdd and extra dtt tuner. The 7025 is a non runner as it lacks the mpeg4 support for Irish dtt. The only other dreambox with mpeg4 is the dm800 but it has only one tuner and hence lacks sat/dtt combo capability.

Signac

Thanks for the answer, probably won't spend a grand

Regards

Signac

Apogee

I suppose it might work if you tried an Neotion MPEG4->MPEG2 CAM. Although I'm not sure how well it would handle playback of programmes from the hard drive i.e. would it correctly route the .ts through the CAM again?

A more interesting prospect is the QBox HD - comes with DVB-T, DVB-S2 tuners and can accomodate a third tuner, but a bit cheaper than the DM8000. However, I don't think Freesat EPG has been incorporated into the current images.

Anyone know how hard it would be to apply the path mentioned in this thread to an enigma2 image?
http://www.i-have-a-dreambox.com/wbb2/thread.php?threadid=99448

Apogee

Thinking about this again, the receiver would have transcoded the mpeg4 stream into mpeg2 before writing the .ts to the harddrive, so there shouldn't be any issues playing the file back. How well the cam could handle the data rates is another question though.

cormacl

That might work actually.

When mpeg4 went live on 3-Rock, and I still had only my 7025, usual mpeg2 scenario... unable to view the picture but at least hear it and record it, I could stream or just access the recordings off the HDD and view them with VLC on my computers.. so it seemed it was able to record the steam without issues.

And again, bear in mind, its SD not HD.. so the mpeg2 produced will definitely be no larger than it can handle and I would doubt the input steam bandwidth is higher than a normal good quality mpeg2 stream.. mpeg4 is supposed to be more efficient and requiring less bandwidth... and again remember these are 720x576 mpeg4 streams.. they are not HD.

Also, and this was an element of madness that was going on at the time of the 7025's release in 2006.. but there were mpeg2-based HD services being trialed.. and because of the chipset used, it could actually display these. They looked noticeably sharper than regular services.. but with only RGB scart as the best output, it seemed a little pointless. But that stream was using a significantly higher chunk of data bandwidth for a single mpeg2 service in 1920x1080 resolution and the box could handle it and the scaling fine.

So maybe the cam is worth a try.. if its doing the jobs for TVs, then why not.. if it can get the box to display Irish DTT, its 40-50 euro well spent over replacing it with a 1000 euro alternative and lets face it, HD is probably not coming overnight from Montrose.

watty

THE output of the neotion converter is high bitrate MPEG2. This because it hasn't the time or resource for efficient compression.

Likely 50% to 100% more than the normal equivalent MPEG2, so you only want to record MPEG4 and transcode on playback, otherwise you wast 2/3rds of the space at least.

This partly why it can't do HD as the resulting MPEG2 would be over 100Mbps.

3Mbps MPEG4 is thus likely close to 9Mbps transcoded MPEG2, though professional encoded MPEG2 of same quality would be closer to 6Mbps.

H.264 on newer encoders is claimed to approach 1/3rd of equivalent MPEG2, thus the Neotion with that content will expand it to x4 or more. Typically 8Mbps to 9MBps.

I used the Neotion in a Technisat. Quality poorer than an MPEG4 native box, especially on captions and sharp moving edges.

JHMEG

I have the 7025's simpler brother, the 500, and I use PLi Jade. Works flawlessly for me and I can't recommend it highly enough.