Vu+ Uno - initial impressions

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nullpainter

18 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#90427 21-Sep-2011 17:16

Hi guys,

My Vu+ Uno arrived last night (short story: couldn't quite justify expense of Vu+ Duo, but liked the look of the units). DHL Express wasn't all that express, after a week apparently in the air and another with NZ Customs (I thought that DHL were supposed to act as a customs broker?)

I repurposed my old XBox power cable to plug it in and after around 30 minutes of shagging around I had it working. Time mostly attributed to me not knowing the first thing about satellites, and partly because the build-in satellite list contains a large list of useless satellites.

Discovered http://satellites-xml.eu, generated a satellites.xml file for Optus D1, FTPd it to the Vu+ and all became much more straightforward.

Am now tuned into SBS HD, etc. and the Freeview channels, have installed the web plugin and have set up iDream on my Mac so can now stream radio + TV via VLC. Also created a NFS server on my Mac and hooked a couple of NFS mounts on the Vu+ - one so I can play the films on the external HDD connected to my Mac, and the other for recording. All seems to be working really well.

General impressions is that it's a lovely box, but the UI is a bit rough around the edges - it's very very clear that there are components that have been cobbled together from various other open source efforts (there's an odd wallpaper for the radio mode with a random URL on it, the Teletext has another random URL, and the web based interface - despite sporting the Vu+ logo - has the HTML title 'Dreambox WebControl'. Also, this is very much a geek's box - I was pleasantly surprised to see the git logs when downloading plugins, although I suspect that this may terrify others...

So, all good thus far! Now wondering whether I really should install a 3rd-party image and, if so, which one. ViX Team, Blackhole, VTI, etc. All seem to just have poxy forums as their websites so it's difficult to compare features. Anyone had any experience? I'd really like something that looks lovely and elegant too - something which seems strangely hard to accomplish...

M

xarqi

727 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 7

#524262 21-Sep-2011 19:40

Thanks for the report - more details very welcome!

I'm still using openPLi on my Duo - that's what was installed when I got it, and I've had no need to change. The forum I've spent most time on is very much VIX-oriented (said to be like openPLi) and everyone seems to be in raptures over it. If I were inclined to fix something that wasn't broken, I'd try that one myself.

Q. Can you add a USB tuner to the Uno and get a twin tuner unit on the cheap?

nullpainter

18 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#524869 23-Sep-2011 08:20

I installed ViX a few evenings ago but have only had snatches of time to play with it. Immediately replaced the bootlogo, etc. with the VU+ screens (after all, if I pay good $$$ for something, the least it can do is look professional!)

It was a bit crashy around the edges but on the whole looks good. The graphical EPG is lovely. Will tinker more in the weekend and see how usable it is.

Interesting question re: USB tuner! I know at least that it has a terrestrial card that you can buy and plug in. It's a moot point for me, as terrestrial is a bit rubbish where I am. I see that there's been some preliminary work done in this area on the Vu+ Duo.

M

Jaxson

8172 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1332

Trusted

#524890 23-Sep-2011 09:16

Sorry, I haven't unleashed the google, but what's the go with the UNO, like does it share the same main board as the duo, just with only one tuner in it? From mammary the duo had the tuners built in didn't it?

Ok, so found this quickly:
http://linux-tv.com/vu-uno-review/

Adding a HDD seems way to easy, but there doesn't appear to be vacant slots to drop in additional tuners?
I'd heard people were having some success now with terrestrial tuners but unless it's USB there doesn't seem to be space to do this?

If you can drop in a USB terrestrial tuner then this could be a massive winner. Especially as you get the satellite EPG for freeview as EIT.

Image wise I've never really sussed why you'd want to change too much here in NZ. Overseas you seem to be able to catch far more spill over from neighbouring countries and various images allow for BISS encryption cracking etc, but nothing seems to use those basic methods here, where sky is NDS and only available legitimately.

nullpainter

18 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#524891 23-Sep-2011 09:22

Ah yes, sorry - I was mistaken. It seems to be an either-either deelio:

"UNO is equipped with an advanced pluggable tuner system allowing users to insert either DVB-S2 tuner or DVB-C/T hybrid tuner. The DVB-C/T hybrid tuner of Vu+ can be selectively used for the reception of DVB-C or DVB-T broadcast."

I got the impression that the main board was a bit more souped up, but I could be wrong.

M

PS. Connecting to a NFS server and saving to that in lieu of a HDD plugged into the unit is pretty straightforward. I did it by hand, until I realised that there was a nice mountpoint manager. Took 10 minutes to get NFS server+client sorted out, 30 minutes to set up satellite tuning ;-)

nullpainter

18 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#525229 24-Sep-2011 08:13

Jaxson: Image wise I've never really sussed why you'd want to change too much here in NZ. Overseas you seem to be able to catch far more spill over from neighbouring countries and various images allow for BISS encryption cracking etc, but nothing seems to use those basic methods here, where sky is NDS and only available legitimately.

I'm sure that's certainly part of the motivation for different images, however from what I've seen ViX provides far more options than the standard image, outside of the realm of decryption etc. Are they useful? Possibly not. Good if you're a control freak. Bad if you're easily intimidated or just want the damned thing to work.

This is conjecture as I don't know the history, but it looks like the official Vu+ image and the ViX image have the same heritage. It appears that whereas ViX have pulled out all the stops and exposed all options and then some, Vu+ have adopted sensible defaults and trimmed the fat.

One clue that Vu+ is just trimmed down from a common base product is in the initial wizard setup screens. For Vu+ there is an option for displaying a test image screen (actually, brightness and contrast guides), however the screen never appears. For ViX, it does - suggesting that it was trimmed out of Vu+ but they somehow forgot to remove the option from the wizard...

M