I had a similar problem with a 3600. Went to retune it and it would not find any signal on any channels. TV and HDHomeRun box retuned instantly, Magic said no signal. Even tried factory reset, still no luck. I found that I had to manually tune in each of the new Christchurch frequencies, and even then it took a couple of attempts. Signal is strong, quality is very good, and now that it is tuned, everything is fine again. It seems the Magic just couldn't find the channels using the autu tune. running the stock latest firmware.
Ross55: Actually on a slightly different but related problem (issue). I have a 3600 with 3.17nz (modified with Ians mods).
I had no trouble with auto tune BUT it indicated that 22 channels had been found. On checking the channel list I could only find 18!
Anyone have any thoughts on why this might be?
I've noticed the same thing, and I'm not using Ian's mods so it's nothing to do with that. Maybe the count of 22 includes hidden channels, like channel 600?
I'm pretty sure there are some channels that are dedicated for data. I think DishTV has a specific channel, and there may be more. That is what you could be seeing reported.
I recently purchased a Magic TV 3600TD from Trade Me. Just received it yesterday and from the time I've had playing with it so far it is brilliant. I currently also have a Zinwell ZMT-640PVR.
The way it organises everything it so much nicer compared to the Zinwell and I can already tell it will be much more reliable, plus the nicer interface and design is a bonus.
Because I have around 250GB of recordings on my Zinwell I would like a way to transfer these to the Magic TV.
I have installed 2lostkiwis's patch on my device and because of this I was able to see the database files that are on the root of the hard drive. I believe the main one is tv1.db which looks to include all the information on the recordings. I don't think the video files themselves will be an issue for transferring data, but the information with those files will be an issue as I need to get it into the database.
I have no idea about how that database file works, or even what to use to open it. Does anyone know what type of database the Magic TV uses and what I might need to use to open it?
Thanks, and hopefully someone can help as I'd really like to make the most of the Magic TV's interface for my current recordings.
You'll find metadata files in the ./tv1/ directory that correspond to the filenames of the recordings.
The ways you can copy files to the Magic TV is by either removing the hard drive and plugging it into a computer that can access the JFS file system, or to log into the Magic TV via telnet and using the ftp client to download a file to the hard drive from an FTP server on your computer. Both are not something the average person could pull off. The other option is to copy to the hard drive from a USB drive.
See page 70 for more information. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=83&topicid=43120&page_no=70 I meant to write ftp server, not client in that post.
The Magic TV can play back .ts and .m2ts files on either the hard drive or from USB via the "Camcorder Movie" Gadget.
Someone did make a couple of programs for the Hong Kong Magic TV that deal with the metadata files. I don't know whether it works with the NZ Magic TV and I would be wary of running an executable from a blog on a PC with internet access. http://mtvlab.blogspot.com
Someone said the Magic TV recreates a new database from the .tv files if you delete the database file. I haven't wanted to test it out but I guess you could import video into the main list of the Magic if you could figure out how to create a .tv file.
It would be great if 2lostkiwis could add an ftp server to the 3.18 firmware so we could upload files to the hard drive over the network. Is anybody else able to reproduce 2lostkiwi's work without bricking their Magic TV if he doesn't return? The audio delay feature in 3.18 would be useful too.
PimpMyMagic: These TS files can then be viewed on their 3600. However they cannot be copied to the HDD as far as I'm aware
The Magic TV can copy .ts and .m2ts files to the HDD with the "Copy to system HDD" option. Select the file and click Ok to bring up the menu. It may have difficulty playing back some .ts format files from other devices. AAC is probably preferable to Dolby for converting video to playback on the Magic TV as the MTV can sound muffled with Dolby from outside Freeview.
I recently purchased a Magic TV 3600TD from Trade Me. Just received it yesterday and from the time I've had playing with it so far it is brilliant. I currently also have a Zinwell ZMT-640PVR.
The way it organises everything it so much nicer compared to the Zinwell and I can already tell it will be much more reliable, plus the nicer interface and design is a bonus.
Because I have around 250GB of recordings on my Zinwell I would like a way to transfer these to the Magic TV.
I have installed 2lostkiwis's patch on my device and because of this I was able to see the database files that are on the root of the hard drive. I believe the main one is tv1.db which looks to include all the information on the recordings. I don't think the video files themselves will be an issue for transferring data, but the information with those files will be an issue as I need to get it into the database.
I have no idea about how that database file works, or even what to use to open it. Does anyone know what type of database the Magic TV uses and what I might need to use to open it?
Thanks, and hopefully someone can help as I'd really like to make the most of the Magic TV's interface for my current recordings.
You'll find metadata files in the ./tv1/ directory that correspond to the filenames of the recordings.
The ways you can copy files to the Magic TV is by either removing the hard drive and plugging it into a computer that can access the JFS file system, or to log into the Magic TV via telnet and using the ftp client to download a file to the hard drive from an FTP server on your computer. Both are not something the average person could pull off. The other option is to copy to the hard drive from a USB drive.
See page 70 for more information. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=83&topicid=43120&page_no=70 I meant to write ftp server, not client in that post.
The Magic TV can play back .ts and .m2ts files on either the hard drive or from USB via the "Camcorder Movie" Gadget.
Someone did make a couple of programs for the Hong Kong Magic TV that deal with the metadata files. I don't know whether it works with the NZ Magic TV and I would be wary of running an executable from a blog on a PC with internet access. http://mtvlab.blogspot.com
Someone said the Magic TV recreates a new database from the .tv files if you delete the database file. I haven't wanted to test it out but I guess you could import video into the main list of the Magic if you could figure out how to create a .tv file.
It would be great if 2lostkiwis could add an ftp server to the 3.18 firmware so we could upload files to the hard drive over the network. Is anybody else able to reproduce 2lostkiwi's work without bricking their Magic TV if he doesn't return? The audio delay feature in 3.18 would be useful too.
PimpMyMagic: These TS files can then be viewed on their 3600. However they cannot be copied to the HDD as far as I'm aware
The Magic TV can copy .ts and .m2ts files to the HDD with the "Copy to system HDD" option. Select the file and click Ok to bring up the menu. It may have difficulty playing back some .ts format files from other devices. AAC is probably preferable to Dolby for converting video to playback on the Magic TV as the MTV can sound muffled with Dolby from outside Freeview.
bfginger:The Magic TV can copy .ts and .m2ts files to the HDD with the "Copy to system HDD" option. Select the file and click Ok to bring up the menu.
Have you actually done this? When I tried I could only achieve a duplicate copy of my selected file back onto my Stick I couldn't find any way to direct the output to my HDD.
bfginger:The Magic TV can copy .ts and .m2ts files to the HDD with the "Copy to system HDD" option. Select the file and click Ok to bring up the menu.
Have you actually done this? When I tried I could only achieve a duplicate copy of my selected file back onto my Stick I couldn't find any way to direct the output to my HDD.
Am I missing something?
So you're selecting copy to system HDD? Worked fine for me. The text of the file shows in black if it is on the HDD.
The app mentioned above (from a blog) won't open my .tv files, although the files it created are very similar. I will keep trying to figure out how this file works, but there are random characters in the file that are different between recordings, and there int valued don't seem to make sense either.
I'll have to have another look at this when I have some spare time.
I spent some time analysing the .tv files, but was overtaken by more urgent chores.
The first collection in the file has bytes indicating if the file is new, viewed or part viewed and I guess stores an index for the resume point. Also holds deleted indicator.
That's followed by the .TS file name which of course is made up of the record time (in GMT) and date and then 3 bytes for the channel number (after the underscore). The final digits are the segment section number.
Further on down the file you'll find the "info" description data.
While they're easily viewed with Hexedit, I suspect that the format is proprietary and so not easily parsed with any standard db prog.
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