Dish T1020 Freeview HD STB with USB PVR, your experience?

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Dish T1020 Freeview HD STB with USB PVR, your experience?

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121 posts

Master Geek

#513139 28-Aug-2011 18:19

This is from the PDF on Dish TV's website on how to get the update to work

"3. Insert the USB memory device in the receiver USB port.
4. Power ON the box and repeatedly press and release the MENU button on the remote to invoke the boot
loader for downloading the S/W image via USB."

Hope this helps.

And if you want to read the whole PDF file, then go to www.dishtv.co.nz, select aerial box in the menu and you'll find the T1020. Then all you have to do is scroll down the page to the links.

giollarnat

138 posts

Master Geek

#513184 28-Aug-2011 20:28

I'd updated the firmware 3 times to 3 different versions so far without any problems. It was definitely a Bug - the Evergreen LED bug.

In the end i figured out that the only way to turn it off properly (red led) like it used to do was to press and hold the power button on the unit itself for 5 seconds or so. It seems to turn it off properly (and factory reset it BTW) and it picked up the firmware update on the flash drive on first power up after that.

steadysteve

107 posts

Master Geek

#516205 3-Sep-2011 18:22

good to hear that this machine is finally starting to look alright - thank you pioneers!

a question:
on the dish tv site, why is the T1020 refered to as a single tuner PVR, and yet it is possible to record one channel and watch another?

surely it has two tuners?

grolschie

911 posts

Ultimate Geek

#516213 3-Sep-2011 18:53

Possibly both channels have to be on the same mux.

Jaxson

8043 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#516311 4-Sep-2011 02:15

steadysteve: why is the T1020 refered to as a single tuner PVR, and yet it is possible to record one channel and watch another?

surely it has two tuners?

Have a look around the geekzone site. On the satellite system, all freeview channels come on one of only two 'beams' called transponders or muxes.

One tuner gets you one transponder, and then if the software of the unit is smart enough, you can write a TV channel from that mux to a disk and display another channel on this same transponder. That way you can record one and watch another.

You can't watch a channel on the other freeview beam if the unit is already recording off the other one.

Hopefully that makes some sense?

Moving on from that, it also means that, provided the software is smart enough, a twin tuner satellite box can record channels at the same time and let you watch any one of them as well; - because freeview satellite only comes on 2 beams.

Freeview HD comes on 3 beams, so a twin tuner PVR for the terrestrial version of freeview is still not enough to record and watch everything.

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#516568 4-Sep-2011 20:45

Was intrigued enough about this box to possibly buy one, and went into town yesterday with that plan in mind.

However, I had a bit of a chat with the guy in the shop. He advised that their understanding is that SD recordings on the attached drive can be accessed on a PC, but all HD material is encrypted as the Freeview rules (apparently) require this, and can't be transferred to a PC. His advice was "you can record Prime that way, but anything on TV1, 2 or 3 can't be transferred.

As I want to be able to watch material across my network, and on my trusty laptop when traveling for work, it looks like this box is a non-starter. Looks like recording to a PC or an unapproved box are the only options if you want to move content around.

Can anyone suggest a good affordable unapproved box that records to an external hard drive? I had a Visione VE4000, but the only software that was ever able to play the recordings was Media Center Classic (Home Theater) with the K-Lite codec pack and, despite a lot of trying, I was never able to convert the recordings to a mainstream format.

steadysteve

107 posts

Master Geek

#516639 5-Sep-2011 07:02

thanks jaxson, the part i didn't get was that the software separates out the channels from a mux

i am still curious that with the T1020 it is possible to record two channels and watch another. does this mean that the software is clever enough to, for example, record TV1, record TV2 and send TVNZ7 to the TV?

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Klipspringer

2385 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#516827 5-Sep-2011 13:56

JimmyH:
However, I had a bit of a chat with the guy in the shop. He advised that their understanding is that SD recordings on the attached drive can be accessed on a PC, but all HD material is encrypted as the Freeview rules (apparently) require this, and can't be transferred to a PC. His advice was "you can record Prime that way, but anything on TV1, 2 or 3 can't be transferred.

This is partially true.

See this thread for a response to some of my enhancement requests with dishtv.
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=83&topicid=86223
Streaming is a work in progress but we are limited with Freeview HDCP . We cannot allow file transfer of any HD content .

But it is my understanding, and I have even tested this. TV1, 2, 3 HD channel recordings work when the program itself is not in HD. Ie, the regular stuff off these channels (95%) of it, can be transferred and will play elsewhere.

diamonddata

15 posts

Geek

#516930 5-Sep-2011 15:54

steadysteve: thanks jaxson, the part i didn't get was that the software separates out the channels from a mux

i am still curious that with the T1020 it is possible to record two channels and watch another. does this mean that the software is clever enough to, for example, record TV1, record TV2 and send TVNZ7 to the TV?

yes, i can confirm this neat little feature works. you can record two channels and watch a third as long as they are all on the same mux (eg record TV1, plus record TV2, and watch TVNZ7 simultaneously)

steadysteve

107 posts

Master Geek

#516940 5-Sep-2011 16:03

thanks, good to know

diamonddata

15 posts

Geek

#516955 5-Sep-2011 16:28

not quite as good as having twin tuners but still a neat feature on a budget model

AKLWestie

641 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#517151 5-Sep-2011 21:22

diamonddata:
steadysteve: thanks jaxson, the part i didn't get was that the software separates out the channels from a mux

i am still curious that with the T1020 it is possible to record two channels and watch another. does this mean that the software is clever enough to, for example, record TV1, record TV2 and send TVNZ7 to the TV?

yes, i can confirm this neat little feature works. you can record two channels and watch a third as long as they are all on the same mux (eg record TV1, plus record TV2, and watch TVNZ7 simultaneously)

From memory I think I can record two programmes and playback a recording at the same time, if my memory is correct.

I could be wrong.

The latest firmware is pretty good (ver 1.1a). Have been using it for a few weeks now, it is solid.

sunfolk

62 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#517870 7-Sep-2011 02:09

AKLWestie:
The latest firmware is pretty good (ver 1.1a).? Have been using it for a few weeks now, it is solid.

Hi AKLWestie,
It is pretty good, but not solid.
for anyone else following this thread have a look at this one also: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=83&topicid=86223&page_no=2

Its a shame these two threads are running in parallel when they are covering pretty much the same topic....Hyperthreading threads!!!

Zipdisk

200 posts

Master Geek

#527781 30-Sep-2011 17:05

T1020

Purchased one the other day has 1.1B firmware Dated 18th Aug, on special at HN for $146.

Noticed that you need Fast USB sticks for it to work without glitches, and the Manual leaves a lot out, far to many items missing.

I have a WD Elements 500GB drive but had to backup the dater on in and remove the partitions and format it FAT32.

Used EASEUS Partition Master, this is a free program for home use, and is very good, the Only program that I could get to reparation my System HD on my PC.

Had problems with the EPG recordings, all showed listed as being done but showing no Frames, but some how it now sort of working, but have not tested it with 4 continuous EPG recording on the same TV channel, when I had this problem tried to look as the USB HD menu it locked up and had to re power the unite.

The Other problem it turns it self on now and again, but noticed that Auto OTA was on, so as of now have set this to off to see if this fixes the problem.

Have noticed that the Firmware file names are very similar to the DRACO HDTV5500 and Sanyo TUHD1010, also the timer menu is the same.

The HDTV5500 and Sanyo TUHD1010 are the same as they use the same manual and firmware.

Funny that the T1050 Ultra has the same manual and has a 27th Sep firmware update called 1.13.

Ralph

33 posts

Geek

#529445 5-Oct-2011 11:00

Overall, I'm very happy with the T1020. So far it's done all that I want it to. I'm not a heavy TV user, so probably not the best to quantify this, but it's easy enough for the family to use, and technical enough for me to muck about with the output files.

I've done a bit of testing with the output files. Most video players have some sort of issues with parts of the video, but it generally plays fine on my ubuntu or Win PC. Looks to be AAC and AVC with h.264 which should be standard enough, but ffmpeg gives back heaps of funny bits to it, so I presume it's something of a tweaked standard. Nevertheless, I was able to ffmpeg the files into a standard h264 container with normal audio as well, without too many glitches in the video. Still working on the best transcoding, have tried numerous m2ts transcoding tools and ffmpeg still seems to do the best job.

I'm pretty sure vlc and media player classic were able to open all the files on the HD that I saved - certainly the footy from Maori TV has come through fine.

Recording and watching other channels also works partly, like discussed previously, only channels on the same provider work, so don't expect to see TV1 when you're recording Maori TV or whatever. It's a limitation, but something that's ok to deal with and if you really want to record and watch something else, go for the T1050 which has the dual channel support.

I wonder whether we should start a whirlpool or geekzone forum specifically on the T1020? Interesting to hear that the image filename is similar to other PVRs. I'd be interested in knowing more about the underlying platform.

Also wonder when there'll be a new image. The media browser consistently gets wrong images and funny displays when scrolling multiple lines...

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