Anyone else lumbered with an old sky digibox?

[jimbobuk]

I was at first -and i guess of course i still am- happy with getting a 2nd sky box in the room with Sage.. we got Sky+ and kept the old box for this usage alone.. everything works ok.. in most ways its so much better than sky+ which has a lot of bugs and were on our 2nd box as the 1st died.. plus they're almost as noisy as my PCs (which i try to quiet but can't quite manage to)

Anyways my biggest problem is something that used to be a minor inconvenience when the box was just for watching on.. basically i come home every day to find that my digibox has crashed and reset itself and is on standby.. so all my IR codes are going to it and doing nothing (why they can't wake it, or at least have an option so they do i dunno) .. meaning lots and lots of programs recorded at 3.5gig/hour and black screen..

I may upgrade my box to get around this.. it'd be nice to have one with SVIDEO output so my PVR could get a bit better signal..

It'd be extra specially nice if Sage could analyse the mpeg stream intermittently, and definately at boot (i've asked for this before but to monitor sound in the stream with a VU as i used to have that problem with recordings being silent) and spot that its pretty much black.. if it stays black for 20seconds at boot then it sends a special signal (in this case power on) and then i would be able to get over this problem.. wonder if its possible..

In light of the lack of xmltv sources (is that RT patch available yet in straight windows?) it seems a minor point but i know its annoying me at the moment..

[jimbobuk]

I thought about this almost immediately after posting last night.. got chance to test it today..

My problems can be solved... the good old SKY button is a suitable prefix to send before any channel numbers.. if my box is on standby it'll wake it up.. if its already on it'll do nothing harmful.. does anyone know how to do this!??! I've searched but can't find anything..

Thanks guys..

Jim

[msm]

You can do it via Girder. You need the exetuner plugin and a copy of girder and i can send you my .gml file and you should be good to go. I have the same sort of issue with NTL box in that i have to send the right arrow before any channels to reset the bit state of the number.

Matt

[jimbobuk]

You have to use girder!? surely something this simple can be done within Sage... however it has to be done i guess it just suprises me.. it must take Sage about 5 mins to put this in.. ok maybe a bit more but its a nice easy feature..

I'll look into girder.. how will your .gml file help me if you are using an NTL box?? sorry i know nothing about girder or exetuner.. i'll have a google for it.. could you attach your .gml file to a post here? or is it quite a big file?

Thanks

[msm]

Don't worry about girder - the basics are very simple! By giving girder support of the usb-uirt you all it to send the commands you want to it. I can send you the exetun plugin and a copy of the .gml file if you let me know your email address, and give you some hints on how to use it if you so require, however there is alot of information on these boards as well that will help get you started,

Matt

[jimbobuk]

All my EPG woes and other hardware failures has really been occupying my time lately.. I finally downloaded girder and the exetuner, presumably i'll need to run the girderDSSTune.reg file or Sage to point to the exe for channel changing.. then i need to change Sage from using Actisys directly in its source/setup ...

Finally presumably i need to configure girder to work with my actisys and also to give it the key press codes that i need it to send, by training it via the actisys.. this then creates the .gml file ??

Have i got everything there.. I couldn't find any guide links on how to do this just yet but i've not tried to do it yet... if anyone could check and point me in the right way to getting this done i'd appreciate it.. MSM?!? or is whats listed above about right!? if so its just the learning of sky remote thats the thing left to do..

cheers

Jim

[msm]

Sorry - completely forgot about this thread. Got to rush now (car going in for a service) but i will reply after work!

Sorry about that,

Matt

[jimbobuk]

thats alright.. i forgot and was busy too... luckily i've not had too many times where the box has been off when i've gotten home so not too many programmes lost...

[msm]

I am sending you an email now....



Matt

[fullofnrg]

MSM,
Could you also send a copy of the GML to me?

[msm]

JUst to say there is no solution for using an actisys and girder as there is no plugin developed for use with teh actisys. If you have a usbuirt i would be more than happy to send you the /gml though,

Matt

[fullofnrg]

Yep, I have the USBUIRT.

[msm]

PM me with your email and i will get it sent over,

Matt

[Xleon]

basically i come home every day to find that my digibox has crashed and reset itself and is on standby..

It's a known problem with several of the chipsets Sky supplies. They run too hot and several STB manufacturers are too cheap to put a heat-sink on them. (and I suppose Sky makes money when they have to sell you a replacement box 13 months later!)

I can't remember the URL right now, but there is a website explaining it. I put a small fan in mine to keep the ICs cool. My box only resets to standby after Sky have sent it an update.

[jimbobuk]

don't even go there xleon.. our sky+ box has gone wrong again.. this is our 2nd box.. probably need a 3rd.. obviously great picture quality from it (well as good as sky can send) but its very inflexibile and as it seems, very unreliable

[msm]

hahaah

well NTL boxes dont go wrong, its just that theres not normally a service to them

They have mastered the interactive button thought- - once you press it you have to get up from the chair and interactivley pull the mains cord out the back to reset it cos it crashes. I then have to interactivley chack i haven't moved it so it can still receive infrared from my USBUIRT...

beat that for interactivness

Matt

[jimbobuk]

generally sky is ok.. it does crash but aside from Sage not being able to send the sky button to turn it on every channel request this is not really a problem.. Sky+ is different.. its a great idea but its poorly done... its inflexibility next to Sage and Tivo is frightening.. its picture quality is superb as its the direct mpeg feed, its twin tuners make it pretty good but god i'm jealous of these americans with cable feed over UF so they can have 6 devices on 6 channels easily.. I assume quality suffers slightly but so much choice... setting up even a dual digibox based tuner would be hell, and expensive

I just give up.. Gotta phone up sky again to try and pester to get an engineer out here... I dunno