Enigma 2 FTA replacement for a Freesat PVR

[manic01]

What are you comparing it to?

[ashhinton]

Have taken the plunge and ordered a VU+ Duo2 with 2x twin DVB-S2 tuner modules (4x tuners)
Can't wait for it to arrive, its going to be a brave new world after so many years of walled-garden systems (and yes, I even count Freesat as that)
In the past I've had Sky, Sky+ (my wife jokes she married me for Sky+), Sky HD, Virgin, Virgin TiVo, Freesat, and now finally something truly open source.

Again thanks to all who have helped me in this thread.

Cheers,

Ashley

[ashhinton]

Just thought I'd post an update!
Have had the Duo2 now for a month or so. 3x feeds from the Quad LNB (28.2E) and the 4th output from same LNB feeding a 2nd bedroom. I've put the old freesat box in there which will keep my mum very happy when she visits as its the same box they have at home (only 1x feed, but better than nothing!) - yes it might be failing, but for now it seems stable.

Back to the Duo2:
It has many, many, good points:
- Auto Timer is one of them - far more flexible, and able to look in a "window" rather than rigidly stick to times. This has been very useful recently when programmes were overrunning due to recent news or sports events.
= Network access - backup the settings, even the entire OS image, fantastic stuff!
= User Bouquets - a lot more flexible than plain old favourites.
= Simultaneous recordings, sensibly 1x tuner per transponder. - I think the other evening, briefly, was the only time it had to use all three tuners - exiting a recording to Sky News (what we tend to "park" on) resulted in a "sorry, i'm using all three tuners!" message. And it has never, yet, had to report it can't record something due to a clash - something the Freesat box was always doing.

Some niggles:
- The remote, by all accounts, can behave like its haunted. I think its a common complaint for the Duo2. Oddly enough this was much worse with my original choice of Black Hole but better using OpenVIX, not sure why, but have settled in with Vix now. One day I might get around to trying other images again, but for now the box is set-up and stable, if a little random sometimes in deciding which button on the remote is being pressed.
- Autotimer defaults don't seem to stay as default. It might be a Vix thing but in the end I just removed the possible alternates which could mess up a recording (non FTA like Channel5 HD) and ensured the remaining channels didn't have alternates set anyway. Then the "use alternates' can remain default, on, and not bother any of the timers. Having set-up my own bouquet, putting all the HD FTA at the top, followed by our next-most-used channels etc, also made sense here.

Advice for anyone considering an Enigma2 box (not just a Duo2..)
- Initial set-up can be a little more challenging than "plug & play" platforms (i.e.: sky, freesat, freeview branded kit) but this is to be expected. Read the Instructions (find a suitable online guide for whichever image you're using - often in forums). Take it slowly. Set up things in the correct order and don't rush. Choose 1x EPG provider, and make sure its stored somewhere not in Flash (the latter I did, onto a HDD, but the former I had too many ticked!) - make sure you've got enough time to set things up properly, decide beforehand the order and print-off or have handy on a laptop/tablet any info you need.
- With flexibility (and freedom) you have to do some work yourself, but do take advantage of things like settings backups etc. That way if you're trying something, or doing a software update, and it goes horribly wrong you've got a way to recover things. Obviously if you accidentally format your hard disk and lose your recordings you're in big trouble with your family,.. and no, I didn't actually do that!

The future? well I've been looking at other satellites including Greek (not much being broadcast, it seems)
I Have come to the conclusion, apart from interesting news feeds, its probably not worth another dish/motor/multi LNB arm unless I want to learn German for 19.2E - in the end I might just get a 8x output LNB (the next up from 4x output) and feed 4x 28.2E into the Duo, keeping the 1x 28.2E into the guest bedroom. Its time more than anything.. if I had enough of it I'd try some feed hunting, Maybe in the future!

Cheers,

Ashley

[echelon]

I would recommend you buy a 16 gig or 32 gig small size usb stick, like these I recommended in here (if you havent done so already)

https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthrea...e-on-USB-stick

these go in the back usb slot, formatted to ext4 using the box menus and inserting it when prompted

if you use openBH in the flash, you can install openvix , openVTI , openPLI , openATV and BH 2161 in multiboot, storing the images to the usb stick and using multiboot to select the chosen image of choice to boot from (as well as being able to boot from openBH in the flash)

then you can easily compare images

as for this usb stick, use it to store the picon folder, crossepg data and any other epg data too, for instant access (so not using the hdd)

it can also be used for backups (but dont leave the image backup on it as it will try to reprogram the box on booting up)

so multiple uses and instant access and leave the hdd to so its own jobs

regards