Amiko Alien2 / SAB / GM / ST7162 ** ENIGMA ** Discussion Thread

how.gareth

deezell wrote: »

K
Make sure the drive partition is actually mounted. When using images it may be that the partition mounted as hdd is from another installation with a different make,and model of drive. Automount should take care of this, check it's ticked on and reboot.Otherwise. unmount the drive, discover your actual drive Partition(s), mount as hdd, reboot, check epg is still pointing to hdd. Also make sure both tuners are enabled, b=c, in order for epg channel to be read.
Second question , make sure you have " new enigma2" file paths set in Dbedit in order to access correct file locations. Haven't tried 5.1 but I'm sure the Dbedit setting are the same, if you just reflashed your box to 5.1 then it should work, unless you ended up with a different ip address perhaps and created a new profile for that ip.

Cheers what's the exact tuner configuration I should have? Which satellite
Edit- seem to have it all going, not sure yet but will report back tomorrow after a full day of use, thanks

Imstuck

Zardoz, did you ever end up setting up the wetek??
If so how do you find it??

Burks_ie

Looking for some advance. My father purchased a alien 2+ box its running enigma 2 and vix4 blue. He has been using the amiko mini hd. Looking for a simple and easy to use interface that features 7day epg and is easy for recording while on another channel. Is it just as simple as flashing the new firmware or does vix4 blue need to be removed. Thanks in advance

deezell

Burks_ie wrote: »

Looking for some advance. My father purchased a alien 2+ box its running enigma 2 and vix4 blue. He has been using the amiko mini hd. Looking for a simple and easy to use interface that features 7day epg and is easy for recording while on another channel. Is it just as simple as flashing the new firmware or does vix4 blue need to be removed. Thanks in advance

As it's an Alien 2 he bought, its should have dual boot, the Spark Operating system, and the Enigma2 system, which in your case is the Vix4 blue project by Lavatronics. This looks like a very nice implementation of Enigma 2, and I'd give it a chance before going off and trying other images. It can do all that the others can, 7day epg, picons, WebIf, lots of plugins. You could always boot into the more basic Spark system, simpler interface with less options, but some people are dedicated to it and Nowso is a strong contributor on its seperate thread on boards. Search this and other fora for information on how to change boot up from one to the other. If your'e not that familiar with the concept, then try out the alien2 as supplied, watch the video tutorials on the Vix4 site, http://www.vix4projects.com, they're very good.

TheDoc

Zardoz wrote: »

I still cant bring myself to change from the Alien 2 for my main large plasmas.
The picture quality is just so much better than any Mips receiver .

I've tried so many different Enigma 2 receivers but have been unhappy with the SD picture on all bar the Aliens .
Its very infuriating that all these higher end receivers have such poor picture quality and the Vu receivers are some of the worst for picture quality.

I've been incredibly impressed with my Alien2. I got it on the recommendation from a poster here Jay who has been a brilliant help. I'd seen boxes in the flesh before but was never really sold on them due to quality.

But this Alien2 is brilliant. I don't know what sort of resolution it runs at, but I'm hard pressed to tell the difference sometimes between which is the lesser quality, some of the stations I have, or my 720p content I run from a HTPC

deezell

TheDoc wrote: »

I've been incredibly impressed with my Alien2. I got it on the recommendation from a poster here Jay who has been a brilliant help. I'd seen boxes in the flesh before but was never really sold on them due to quality.

But this Alien2 is brilliant. I don't know what sort of resolution it runs at, but I'm hard pressed to tell the difference sometimes between which is the lesser quality, some of the stations I have, or my 720p content I run from a HTPC

It's hard not to notice the repeated comments in regard to the poor SD performance of MIPs processor based boxes, and how the AA2 is superior in this regard. I came across a long and detailed technical discussion in a similar vein regarding the new 4K VU+ solo Ultra high definition box,
http://forums.openpli.org/topic/39153-vu-solo-4k-support/page-8
and the debate touched on poor SD performance, sometimes poor HD performance when the box is set to deliver UltraHD to a UHD 4K TV. This sounded familiar, but on a level up, and one reason suggested for the poor SD performance is quite a simple one. If you have the output of your box set to HD at 1080p (progressive), but the channel is SD , which is always 576i (interlaced), the box has quite a bit to do to upscale this to 1080, and de-interlace it to progressive scan. The theory is that the TV is better equipped to do this than the box. It occurs to me that some of the problem with the MIPs boxes is the fact that all this work is loaded onto the box processor/video chip. Just by selecting the output as 1080i from 1080p will reduce the box load to just upscaling from 576 to 1080, but not de-interlacing. You could set the box to 576i as its output, the TV will do all the work of upscaling to the TVs HD resolution and interlace setting. Menus will look poor though as they will be downscaled first to 576. You can see how a box like the 4K Vu will have to work to send 576i to a UHD tv expecting 2160p, so its no wonder that SD might look worse than it should. It would be worthwhile for MIPs receiver owners to trial the different settings on their box and TV, and see if the SD performance can be improved by letting the TV take care of upscaling and interlace transcoding. On my own triple, the truly awful 576 by 544 TV3 output is definitely improved by setting box output to 576i. a lot of scaling artefacts disappear, leaving just the blurry TV3 image. Normal SD 576 by 720 is slightly improved also, such as BBC1, and of course 'certain' channels which are SD only will look better. I'd be interested to see if any MIPs box owners can see an improvement in SD using this simple trick

jayo26

As an upgrader from the aa2 to the vu+ solo2 receiver I can honestly say that the sd picture quality on the vu+ is no different from the aa2 and the hd is spot on sharp.

I dont know what it may of been like on previous images but I run hyperion 5.2 now and Have tried nearly all the images from the past year and they been pretty much the same quality.

Saying that for the cost of the aa2 compaired to the solo2 if you aint using many plugins the aa2 is perfect generally I wouldnt notice the difference only i can now run Kodi 16 from the stb.

how.gareth

deezell wrote: »

It's hard not to notice the repeated comments in regard to the poor SD performance of MIPs processor based boxes, and how the AA2 is superior in this regard. I came across a long and detailed technical discussion in a similar vein regarding the new 4K VU+ solo Ultra high definition box,
http://forums.openpli.org/topic/39153-vu-solo-4k-support/page-8
and the debate touched on poor SD performance, sometimes poor HD performance when the box is set to deliver UltraHD to a UHD 4K TV. This sounded familiar, but on a level up, and one reason suggested for the poor SD performance is quite a simple one. If you have the output of your box set to HD at 1080p (progressive), but the channel is SD , which is always 576i (interlaced), the box has quite a bit to do to upscale this to 1080, and de-interlace it to progressive scan. The theory is that the TV is better equipped to do this than the box. It occurs to me that some of the problem with the MIPs boxes is the fact that all this work is loaded onto the box processor/video chip. Just by selecting the output as 1080i from 1080p will reduce the box load to just upscaling from 576 to 1080, but not de-interlacing. You could set the box to 576i as its output, the TV will do all the work of upscaling to the TVs HD resolution and interlace setting. Menus will look poor though as they will be downscaled first to 576. You can see how a box like the 4K Vu will have to work to send 576i to a UHD tv expecting 2160p, so its no wonder that SD might look worse than it should. It would be worthwhile for MIPs receiver owners to trial the different settings on their box and TV, and see if the SD performance can be improved by letting the TV take care of upscaling and interlace transcoding. On my own triple, the truly awful 576 by 544 TV3 output is definitely improved by setting box output to 576i. a lot of scaling artefacts disappear, leaving just the blurry TV3 image. Normal SD 576 by 720 is slightly improved also, such as BBC1, and of course 'certain' channels which are SD only will look better. I'd be interested to see if any MIPs box owners can see an improvement in SD using this simple trick

Excellent bit of info there, I will watch the ball tonight and see if I notice any difference on my Sab putting the setting to 576. I've had it on 1080p on a 42" hd ready plasma

Slevster

how.gareth wrote: »

Excellent bit of info there, I will watch the ball tonight and see if I notice any difference on my Sab putting the setting to 576. I've had it on 1080p on a 42" hd ready plasma

Nice theory there deezell. Makes sense in a way. Would exploring for the craic.

Interesting comments from jayo. I'm guessing the vu box is a but zippyer and handles things like multiple HD recordings a bit better. Is it worth an upgrade ? (As you say, if not using too many pluginsperhaps not, but if the box was beefier then perhaps more plugins would be used!)

jamesbhoy

Folks, just bought the Golden Media Hypercube Triple Tuner and I think i just bought the wrong box. Are there different versions of this box? Will the backup images for amiko alien 2 on this thread work?

jayo26

Slevster wrote: »

Nice theory there deezell. Makes sense in a way. Would exploring for the craic.

Interesting comments from jayo. I'm guessing the vu box is a but zippyer and handles things like multiple HD recordings a bit better. Is it worth an upgrade ? (As you say, if not using too many pluginsperhaps not, but if the box was beefier then perhaps more plugins would be used!)

To be honest I'm delighted with it. I wouldnt be plugin mad but the main ones I use is kodi, ts media and ruya iptv and they work flawlessly. The recording of hd channels is a big plus also as is having permanent time shift built into the image that works flawless compaired to the amiko.

Slevster

jayo26 wrote: »

To be honest I'm delighted with it. I wouldnt be plugin mad but the main ones I use is kodi, ts media and ruya iptv and they work flawlessly. The recording of hd channels is a big plus also as is having permanent time shift built into the image that works flawless compaired to the amiko.

Good to have some feed back and direct comparisons.


(Just to note that permanent time shift has been baked into the pli images for a long time now as works smoothly )

Slevster

jamesbhoy wrote: »

Folks, just bought the Golden Media Hypercube Triple Tuner and I think i just bought the wrong box. Are there different versions of this box? Will the backup images for amiko alien 2 on this thread work?

Think you may have. Can you post a link? (The b in l did the same. Bought from tradetv who exchanged it for him)

deezell

jamesbhoy wrote: »

Folks, just bought the Golden Media Hypercube Triple Tuner and I think i just bought the wrong box. Are there different versions of this box? Will the backup images for amiko alien 2 on this thread work?

You think right. That's an android based box, similar to the alien3 which was not a success. Alien 2 is Linux based.EDIT Actually this box is dual boot, Linux e2 and android. The android system has no access to the tuners, just behaves as an android media player, a bit pointless. There are images available for the Linux system, Openpli among them but it's not compatible with Alien2 images, as this box has an Arm processor.

dpjmie

Hi guys,

I have an alien2 and it's the pkteam version which has I found on here roughly 18 months ago. Recently it has started freezing and I'm wondering if someone can recommend
1) how do you backup the current image & settings in case of upgrade issues
2) what is the current best image for this box (note: I use openwebinf for streaming)

Cheers in advance
Dpjmie

deezell

dpjmie wrote: »

Hi guys,

I have an alien2 and it's the pkteam version which has I found on here roughly 18 months ago. Recently it has started freezing and I'm wondering if someone can recommend
1) how do you backup the current image & settings in case of upgrade issues
2) what is the current best image for this box (note: I use openwebinf for streaming)

Cheers in advance
Dpjmie

1. Boot back into Spark and backup e2.
2. I'm happy to recommend Pkteam hyperion 4.5, which is based on openpli. Upgrade to 5.1 if you wish. Zardoz image works well. Get you box running smoothly before backup. If problems have arisen due to changes from original image ( bad plugins, corrupted settings,) these will be saved with the backup. I made a backup at a point where everything was spot on. I'm glad I did, as I messed the box up badly enough that it wouldn't reboot so a known good image is a must to reflash with. If you want you can start with a raw image from the teams, Pkteam, Vix4, Openatv, etc, then update satellites, tune channels, add bouquets, add plugins needed, crossepg, CoolTvGuide, OpenWebIf etc. Configure each to your liking, then when it's just right and stable, make an image backup. This can be a tiresome process, hence using a well tried image saves a lot of grief.

Big Wex fan

Dpjmie, you did well to get 18 months before the image corrupted. I think it's just a quirk of the ALIEN/TRIPLEX that u have to reload the image every now & then. But still a great box for the price.

bappelbe

Big Wex fan wrote: »

Dpjmie, you did well to get 18 months before the image corrupted. I think it's just a quirk of the ALIEN/TRIPLEX that u have to reload the image every now & then. But still a great box for the price.

Interesting, I had an image for about 18months, and recently had to reflash as I was having trouble with it.
My original image was Hyperion 4.0, when I installed Zardoz Hyperion 4.5 and found it very slow (too slow to be wife friendly).

I eventually found an old backup (of 4.0) that is working.

Is it just me that finds 4.5 slow or should I try more images?

deezell

bappelbe wrote: »

Interesting, I had an image for about 18months, and recently had to reflash as I was having trouble with it.
My original image was Hyperion 4.0, when I installed Zardoz Hyperion 4.5 and found it very slow (too slow to be wife friendly).

I eventually found an old backup (of 4.0) that is working.

Is it just me that finds 4.5 slow or should I try more images?

Advantage of using a working image is that all the utility work is done, astra is tuned, picons loaded, plugins setup. A disadvantage is that the image may have settings only required by the original owner. His model of hard disc, his wireless dongle, a particular terrestrial transmitter, sat tuners set up for two cable feeds, box ip address fixed, network share drives etc.. Ideal image would have these deleted before saving, the new user can add them as required.

Slevster

bappelbe wrote: »

Interesting, I had an image for about 18months, and recently had to reflash as I was having trouble with it.
My original image was Hyperion 4.0, when I installed Zardoz Hyperion 4.5 and found it very slow (too slow to be wife friendly).

I eventually found an old backup (of 4.0) that is working.

Is it just me that finds 4.5 slow or should I try more images?

4 and 4.5 are very similar. 4.5 has some fixes included that we would have manually added to 4.0 . so if you had a version of 4.0 with all the fixes done anyway, you won't notice a huge difference. ( when recording multiple channels on 4.5 , I have found that if you are viewing a saorview HD channel , it pixilates on 4.5 , but hadn't this issue on 4.0. )
But overall, I found 4.5 just a a little more stable than 4.0 . I also returned to 4.5 after using 5.1 for about 2 months. (but if it ain't broken and all that. So if you are happy with your setup )
but 4.5 should not be slower. Did you tune the channels for your own setup? Mount your hdd? Direct EPG to hdd?

Big Wex fan

bappelbe wrote: »

Interesting, I had an image for about 18months, and recently had to reflash as I was having trouble with it.
My original image was Hyperion 4.0, when I installed Zardoz Hyperion 4.5 and found it very slow (too slow to be wife friendly).

I eventually found an old backup (of 4.0) that is working.

Is it just me that finds 4.5 slow or should I try more images?

I've been using FreshPots V4.5. Not sure if I got it from here or another site.
The only mod I made was a different version of s*y skin and that was for aesthetic reasons only. Channel switching time is pretty responsive so no complaints from the better half.

Burks_ie

Been searching for a guide to remove vix4 or dual boot to spark for the alien 2 plus. Anyone come across a guide? Cant seem to find one anywhere plenty to upgrade to it but none to remove it.

deezell

Burks_ie wrote: »

Been searching for a guide to remove vix4 or dual boot to spark for the alien 2 plus. Anyone come across a guide? Cant seem to find one anywhere plenty to upgrade to it but none to remove it.

You remove it effectively by re-flashing a new image. This can be done from within the Spark system, or at power on time by going into bootloader mode. You will replace the VIX4 by whatever new image you want, the Spark OS is unaffected.

Imstuck

Had a bit of time on my hands today so played around with the box a little, tried to flash the vix image for no particular reason and it wouldn't flash, the vix screen came on for a while, flashed on and off for a while then a blank screen, no idea why.
Back to 5.1 for me, frosty jims, ultra snappy.
Has anyone successfully ran Iptv on the amiko? Any feedback if so?

Zardoz

Imstuck wrote: »

Zardoz, did you ever end up setting up the wetek??
If so how do you find it??

I installed Pbnigma on it ages ago ,must be 4-5 months ago and found it pretty decent for Enigma 2.
I also bought the Enigma 2 remote which works much better than the normal controller .

I havent used it much since ,truth be told I have been too busy with other things .
I mostly use the android side of it for Kodi and watching the odd movie/netflix .

But this Alien2 is brilliant. I don't know what sort of resolution it runs at, but I'm hard pressed to tell the difference sometimes between which is the lesser quality, some of the stations I have, or my 720p content I run from a HTPC

Yip its great for picture quality and video processing ,that's what the SH4 chip was originally designed for.The Sega Dreamcast used an early SH4 CPU.

As an upgrader from the aa2 to the vu+ solo2 receiver I can honestly say that the sd picture quality on the vu+ is no different from the aa2 and the hd is spot on sharp.

Nope,there is definitely a difference .
It might not be as noticeable on a smaller set but its definitely noticeable on a larger set and on stuff like golf,soccer,and lower quality sources in general.
I've ran two identical 50 inch plasmas beside each other ,one with a Solo 2 and the other with an Alien 2 and there is a difference.
The wife thinks I'm mad trying all these receivers and constantly tweaking picture settings on the tv's.

It would be worthwhile for MIPs receiver owners to trial the different settings on their box and TV, and see if the SD performance can be improved by letting the TV take care of upscaling and interlace transcoding. On my own triple, the truly awful 576 by 544 TV3 output is definitely improved by setting box output to 576i. a lot of scaling artefacts disappear, leaving just the blurry TV3 image. Normal SD 576 by 720 is slightly improved also, such as BBC1, and of course 'certain' channels which are SD only will look better. I'd be interested to see if any MIPs box owners can see an improvement in SD using this simple trick

There is actually a plugin to automatically change the resolution on the receiver for you Deezell.
Its called Autoresolution ,and it makes the box output 576i on sd and 720p or 1080i on HD.
I'm not sure if its available for the Alien 2 .
I used to use it on a Dreambox 800 but its kind of annoying as it takes a few seconds to switch from sd to HD and vica versa.

jayo26

Mines a new Samsung 48 inch and I honestly can't see a difference but hey that's just my opinion. I do use a lot more hd channels now then I did on the amiko but I really haven't seen any less quality in the SD.

Zardoz

jayo26 wrote: »

Mines a new Samsung 48 inch and I honestly can't see a difference but hey that's just my opinion. I do use a lot more hd channels now then I did on the amiko but I really haven't seen any less quality in the SD.

Ok ,fair enough ,different people will have different opinions I guess.
Out of curiosity what image are you using on the Solo 2 ?
I found the Vix image produced a picture with far too much contrast ,everything was too bright.

jayo26

Zardoz wrote: »

Ok ,fair enough ,different people will have different opinions I guess.
Out of curiosity what image are you using on the Solo 2 ?
I found the Vix image produced a picture with far too much contrast ,everything was too bright.

Hyperion 4.5 I always kept going back to it and it's same on solo 2 I've tried them all but I always end up back with hyperion 5.2

amikoalien2

Jeez
I must really be the poor cousin
My now seemingly small 32" in toshiba with a vu+duo2 looks every bit as good in Hd and Sd as the AA2 on the tv in kitchen
Hyper 4.5 on AA2 & vix on vu+

But having said that i dont watch football or snooker or any sport of any kind :-)

deezell

amikoalien2 wrote: »

Jeez
I must really be the poor cousin
My now seemingly small 32" in toshiba with a vu+duo2 looks every bit as good in Hd and Sd as the AA2 on the tv in kitchen
Hyper 4.5 on AA2 & vix on vu+

But having said that i dont watch football or snooker or any sport of any kind :-)

Don't watch football? Don't watch football??! There's a forum where you can get treated for that. It's quite a painless process. Excuse the shKy writing, couldn't find any football on any channel last night.