Recommending Gigablue to others?

[Joe_90]

The debug system logs led me to believe there was some form of memory issue initially. Greater minds than mine (well, at least people more familiar than I with linux memory management ) on the ATV forum seemed to be pointing to memory fragmentation issues so it was there that they were discussing the possibility of flushing cache to limit the problem.
I do understand that linux tries to keep as much as possible in memory - the strategy being that it's much faster to retrieve data from RAM than from a device I/O. Something in this particular situation with Gigablue seems to interfere with the normal memory management where a number of contiguous 128k blocks are needed for video handling and were not available due to the file reading process using up almost all the RAM. Forcing the system to keep more free seems to work around the problem. I'm not flushing the cache using the plug-in, though. Just reserving 20480 kB of free memory.

[leshay]

Hi

Just to say that I have watched several programmes, some that were previously completely unwatchable, and they all were absolutely glitch free.

All this just from using CacheFlush, in my case, Uncached memory size setting as 8192kB, and as fat-tony says, after setting up I then disabled CacheFlush and everything works fine.

I may need to adjust the Uncached memory size setting, but for now, it is doing its job well.

I have now had a few hours of pleasant watching instead of hair pulling

[Joe_90]

Glad to be of help. It's good to get feedback that the workaround is working on another Quad Plus. I saw on another thread that Impex (GB manufacturers) have responded to a Quad owner that new drivers will be released in the coming weeks. Hopefully, that will put the issue to bed and give back control over the LCD brightness also

[leshay]

Hi

I did post a copy of this thread on my other forum. I have now made a further update there in light of the recent workaround posted here. Here is a copy of that update from the other forum.
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Hi

Further to this statement, I now need to add some good news. After posting on WoS forum, and a very helpful workaround posted in reply by 'fat-tony', I seem to have overcome the issues I mention above.

Since implementing the workaround, I have had a very smooth and pleasurable experience using the Gigablue.

Although this is only a workaround, the manufacturers are working on replacing the drivers thought to be the cause of those issues and will be implemented in future updates to the software.

These are still a few other less important problems, but in my case, those are mostly cosmetic and/or annoyances.

As things now stand with this box, I would now recommend this box to others who are prepared to do a little tinkering to get it up and running. These are not complicated tinkerings, but at the moment, some may find the box doesn't play smoothly 'out of the box'. Also, it seems that not all boxes suffer the same issues (why that would be the case beats me)

Providing the manufacturer does what they promise, then this can be a really good PVR replacement for the old faithful Toppy.

On the plus side: very good connectivity with LAN and/or wireless. Bookmarks, QuickJump like keys which can be set up to suit. Reasonable handling of timers and auto timers, though NO crid usage for series, only a text like search, but can avoid duplicates. Reasonable GUI for menus and EPG etc.

On the minus side: slightly odd treatment of overlapping timers on occasion, but allows reasonably easy means to edit/alter conflicts. In my opinion, needs to add in some (icons perhaps) to indicate across channels, where a timer has already been set.

Note: the software (in my case VIX) is an ever evolving entity, with updates being issued almost every other day, and work is steadily improving things.

[Joe_90]

@leshay - latest image from ViX contains new GB drivers which resolve the LCD brightness issue and apparently transcoding as well. The memory management settings in the GB range have also been amended which should mean that you no longer need the cacheflush plugin.

[hilly]

Picture quality on sd channels has improved dramatically since the new drivers.

[leshay]

@leshay - latest image from ViX contains new GB drivers which resolve the LCD brightness issue and apparently transcoding as well. The memory management settings in the GB range have also been amended which should mean that you no longer need the cacheflush plugin.

Hi
I did run the last couple of image updates without the CacheFlush - however, I am now having issues with remote keys being very very sluggish - to the point where when trying to navigate menus or EPG, there is a 10 sec pause for each key press with the VIX busy logo running. Anyway I reinstalled the CacheFlush to see if that helped - it didn't. I may have to post in the VIX section of the forum to highlight this new issue.

[Joe_90]

It sounds like either some plugin is causing an issue or you have a network or disk access issue. Debug log would be helpful - but in a new thread as you say.

[BURNSY9999]

Best box on the market deffo have mine running sweet everything just as fast if not faster than my vu+ solo2
Deffo the box to get

[Cougar]

I've had this Box for around a Month and it's a good all-rounder apart from the PVR facility which is absolutely awful.
I'm currently using the latest apollo.78 build and there has been no improvement with the PVR throughout.
Straight playback is ok, but the minute you want to fast forward or rewind it goes into a 'VIX dizzy Fit' with the icon revolving in the top left.
Is this really a gigablue driver issue? or is it better with another image like open PLi?
What cheeses me off is that cheaper clone boxes have a better PVR functionality with the same Apollo build version.

[Rob van der Does]

All code is the same for all boxes, apart from drivers. So yes: this is definitely a driver issue.
Of course you're free to use any image you want to use or try. But they all use the same drivers (although possibly some images may still be using older drivers).
PLi doesn't support GB, so you'll have to look elsewhere.

[divil_a_bit]

I've had the GB Quad+ for about 2 weeks - it's an excellent box!
Would I recommend it to others??? Well that depends: I wouldn't recommend it for my mother for sure. I'd recommend it to others who have a genuine interest in playing around with technology and getting their hands dirty. The GigaBlue (and most E2 receivers) don't just work out of the box.

My plan for the box was to replace Sky. To do that I need to convince the other half which I've done. She's happy to make the change from Sky to E2/OpenVix/Gigablue.
I've now "locked down" the box. No more updates, no more tweaking ... nothing!!! I know for some that will defeat the purpose but I want a PVR that I can rely on everyday to watch TV - not something I have to SSH into to get working all the time.

In the last 2 weeks I've been tweaking it - I've installed Blue-HD skin which is excellent. I've had to modify some of the font sizes for the BlueHD skin directly in the XML and FTP back to the box as some fonts used for the program info are much too small. I've also had to disable all fast-fwd and fast-rewind speeds of 32x and greater. They just don't work on my box. After using fast-fwd 32x, the video and audio would not be in sync. A max of 16x works PERFECT all the time which suits me fine. There is no reason to use 32x anyway since there are so many other better options for jumping to where you want in a PVR recording (using the 1/3, 4/6, 8/9 buttons ... etc).

I've also got no-ip working on the box so Remote Record works just like Sky. This was another important feature.

One of the other things I was hoping would work is streaming to an XBMC box and I'd get multi-room for free. The streaming works perfectly as does the EPG, but it take 3-5 seconds to change a channel. It's not the best user experience to be honest so I don't think it will work for frequent use. It's a great add-on for use with a laptop for very infrequent use and is kinda "cool". IMHO it's a proof of concept but I'm sure it will work eventually. For now, it's not going to be of use to my family. There is a quad LNB on my dish and the other room is cabled so I'm probably going to buy another Gigablue Quad + and set it up there. I'm not going to buy it just yet - I'll probably give the current box 4 or 5 weeks more to ensure there are no issues.

Going back to the original question: would I recommend it to others? If the image I'm using with all my tweaks turns out to be bullet proof, then yes, I'd recommend it for my mother. But I'd have to copy my exact config before giving the box to her.

[Joe_90]

I've had this Box for around a Month and it's a good all-rounder apart from the PVR facility which is absolutely awful.
I'm currently using the latest apollo.78 build and there has been no improvement with the PVR throughout.
Straight playback is ok, but the minute you want to fast forward or rewind it goes into a 'VIX dizzy Fit' with the icon revolving in the top left.
Is this really a gigablue driver issue? or is it better with another image like open PLi?
What cheeses me off is that cheaper clone boxes have a better PVR functionality with the same Apollo build version.

It appears to be a driver issue. I have the same problem. If you use the 3, 6, 9 keys to jump forward or the 1, 4, 7 keys to jump backwards, then no issues. If you FF at all, then when you press PLAY the image stalls and judders. The workaround is to press REW once, then press PLAY - normal service is resumed. It's been reported on other forums and is awaiting a fix from Gigablue.

[divil_a_bit]

It appears to be a driver issue. I have the same problem. If you use the 3, 6, 9 keys to jump forward or the 1, 4, 7 keys to jump backwards, then no issues. If you FF at all, then when you press PLAY the image stalls and judders. The workaround is to press REW once, then press PLAY - normal service is resumed. It's been reported on other forums and is awaiting a fix from Gigablue.

I'm using Apollo.62. 32x and above forward and rewind do not work for me - I end up with horrible jitter and audio/video sync afterwards. I've disabled 32x and above and everything works perfectly.

[Joe_90]

I almost never use FF or REW - I find it so much quicker to skip forward in 15sec, 1 min or 5 min increments (or whatever you set) by using the number keys.