MagicTV 3600.. my quick impression report (updated)

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99 posts

Master Geek
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#425458 9-Jan-2011 16:10

I've had a pretty loyal, trouble-free Magic TV for 7 months or so, but think this may be the time to do a firmware upgrade. It's sitting on 3.12

Thinking that 3.13 beta 6 would be best as it shouldn't muck up anything and give the lovely 10 min forward, 6 min back feature (still not quite as good as my S1 Tivo's 30sec button though!). Any negatives on going up from 3.12 to 3.13b6?

One problem I've been having that I've only recently realised really is a MTV problem: At times the EPG button doesn't do anything. I thought it was just bad remote pointing, but realise that other buttons work all the time and it's just that one that doesn't. Any workaround or recommendations on getting the EPG more reliable?

RingoTB

118 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#425487 9-Jan-2011 17:12

Chis: I've had a pretty loyal, trouble-free Magic TV for 7 months or so, but think this may be the time to do a firmware upgrade. It's sitting on 3.12

Thinking that 3.13 beta 6 would be best as it shouldn't muck up anything and give the lovely 10 min forward, 6 min back feature (still not quite as good as my S1 Tivo's 30sec button though!). Any negatives on going up from 3.12 to 3.13b6?

I'd definitely recommend upgrading to 3.13b6.

Chis: One problem I've been having that I've only recently realised really is a MTV problem: At times the EPG button doesn't do anything. I thought it was just bad remote pointing, but realise that other buttons work all the time and it's just that one that doesn't. Any workaround or recommendations on getting the EPG more reliable?

This is something that I have also noticed. Sometimes pressing the EPG button seems to do nothing. I have noticed that if you are very patient, or happen to walk away after pressing the EPG button, it usually comes up after some time. On TV2 or TV3 it seems to work a lot quicker, so I generally change channels to either TV 2 or 3 before pressing the EPG button.

Chis

99 posts

Master Geek
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#425523 9-Jan-2011 19:35

Thanks very much. On 3.13b6 and so far everything looks great (specially the 10 forward, 6 back).

And being very, very patient for the EPG does seem to be worthwhile.

Actually it was more 11 months ago I got it, rather than 7. Some months back I did write up a whole lot of suggestions on this forum for MTV to think through and hopefully build - but nothing forthcoming.

As far as the other topics being discussed, I'm particularly appreciating the hard work and possibilities discussed on these issues on the forum
- 1TB or higher replacement drives
- ethernet access

Loved my Series 1 Tivo with all its hacks, but with no HD it's looking a bit dated.

2lostkiwis

67 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 4

#425902 10-Jan-2011 20:43

Finally cracked it. I can now change the skip forward to what I want in seconds, and the skip back to what I want in hundreths of a second.

Here's the description on how the code is stored in the library libdfmgr.so for v3.14.

Skip back setting
File offset of $1D808: $A0 $15
This is a 16 bit word with the LSB first, so in hex this is $15A0
This is a negative number represented with two's complement
$10000 - $15A0 = 0xEA60
$EA60 = 60000 hundredths of a second = 10 minutes skip back

Skip forward setting
File offset of $1D6F8: $58 $02
This is a 16 bit word with the LSB first, so in hex this is $0258
$0258 = 600 seconds = 10 minutes skip forward

As an example, changing skip forward to 1 minute and skip back to 8 seconds.
Change $1D808 from $A0 $15 to $E0 $FC
Change $1D6F8 from $58 $02 to $3C $00

I have to say, it's so much better to skip ads in this way rather than fast forwarding even at 32x.

Now I just have to figure out how the firmware checksum is calculated in the firmware upgrade file. This would mean anyone could get this change without having to open their MagicTV to enable telnet access.

I am quite worried about the potential for bricking my until while working on this aspect though, currently I'd have no way to recover from a trashed flash memory. I think I will have to work on backing up the flash memory via the JTAG port before starting on the firmware checksum check.

Ian.

fatjulio

90 posts

Master Geek

#425904 10-Jan-2011 20:58

Bravo! Keep up the good work!

Chis

99 posts

Master Geek
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#425913 10-Jan-2011 21:26

Fantastic!

Lego

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katipo

35 posts

Geek

#426088 11-Jan-2011 12:34

Sounds like real progress. Yes, it would be nice for the rest of us to be able to tweak our firmware too. Does this mean unpacking the squashfs file, tweaking the values, repacking, and then fixing the checksum?

2lostkiwis

67 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 4

#426116 11-Jan-2011 13:47

katipo: Sounds like real progress. Yes, it would be nice for the rest of us to be able to tweak our firmware too. Does this mean unpacking the squashfs file, tweaking the values, repacking, and then fixing the checksum?

It's actually another file system image in the binary file. There is a jffs2 read/write partition at the end of the file. This has all the executables the Magic TV uses. As a side effect we can easily enable the telnet server as well. Aside from that your synopsis is correct - it would be a very elegant solution. It might be a little tricky to work out the checksum, but who knows...

Like I said though, when you're playing around with this aspect of the system you're much more likely to "brick" a unit - and the only recovery in that instance is reprogramming the flash by removing it from the PCB or using JTAG. So this is what I am going to look at next - I don't want to "brick" mine without being able to recover it first, that would make my wife pretty angry :-)

Cheers,
Ian.

PS which I could get my status up from wannabe geek...

mail2mm

91 posts

Master Geek
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#426415 12-Jan-2011 09:46

Ian, 2lostkiwis, I would think your Magic activities would at the very least confer super-GEEK status. For those of us who are not programmers your exploration of the Magic software/firmware falls in the category of black magic. I look forward to reading more of your adventures on the trail of the elusive 4 minute fast-forward.

kiwidownunder

33 posts

Geek

#426649 12-Jan-2011 21:34

Hi guys. I have had my Magic TV since March last year. I have just noticed the channel number part of the LED display is a little dull. That is, some of the bars which make up the numbers are a little dull. Hope that makes sense. Has anyone else got this problem?? I have 2 months left on the warranty, and am a little worried in case that part of the display fails after that period... Thanks.

Nutts

65 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 8

#426665 12-Jan-2011 22:15

Yes mine is the same. Looks like the same bars in the channel number and a some of the HDD level is dull as well just the same as yours.
N.

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evanh

152 posts

Master Geek

#427934 17-Jan-2011 11:29

evanh: At this point in time I still think it's buggy software causing the crashes though.

Very confident of buggy software now. The MTV has performed flawlessly recording programmes on it's own for the last three weeks, then within two days of me channel surfing again it locks up on me. Time to clear out the settings me thinks, maybe even try that HDD formatting idea ....

Jimmy22

377 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 40

#428102 17-Jan-2011 17:01

The Aussie MTV 3700 looks good , i dont understand how its 3D tv ready without an HDMI 1.4 port though. Im liking the 1TB HDD. Works with Xbox 360 remote too.

There is also a nice power saving feature on the Magic TV 3700, it can be set to power down most functions when in standby , the 3600 uses about 20 watts when on and about 16 when on standby currently which i found a bit frustrating considering it should only need minimal power to sit and wait. I think it takes about 30-40 secs to power up to be ready to record so just a power up of -1 min should do to stop missing the start of programs and save some penguins some where in the process perhaps ?

Jimmy22

377 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 40

#428439 18-Jan-2011 14:09

the Official word about the 3700 model.. @ http://www.magictv.com/au/

" At this stage there is no provision for the 3700 to be released with NZ features. As it requires a lot of software engineering to suit Freeview and then reapproval, we have no plans for it."

Im thinking its more like the 3700 is not locked down hard enough to suit Freeview , worst case the EPG and tuning would not be compatable some how .

question is: Will someone take the risk of importing the superior spec'd 3700, if so please post the results. It looks like the importer is not aiming to have cutting edge products and you cant blame them in a shifty economy so it will take some one with an Aussie connection or brass ones to find the answer.

mentalinc

3385 posts

Uber Geek
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#428539 18-Jan-2011 18:22

Aussie has a different frequency stepping so it may not work if that is built in hardware.

CPU: AMD 5900x | RAM: GSKILL Trident Z Neo RGB F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC-32-GB | MB: Asus X570-E | GFX: EVGA FTW3 Ultra RTX 3080Ti| Monitor: LG 27GL850-B 2560x1440

Quic: https://account.quic.nz/refer/473833 R473833EQKIBX

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