Evesham iplayer - the Freeview PVR you've dreamt about!

[chrestomanci]

ext2 partions are normally formatted with a reserved part for admin use, but it is normally only 5%, and as far as I know, it is enforced by the OS, and not the disc format itself.

[Bob Crabtree]

I have the same program you used so I'll try to check what happens here - but this may not be for a day or five.

Please feel free to PM me if I've not reported back by Monday.

[MarkR]

Thanks chrestomanci and Bob. I checked my settings against Bob's EXT2 link jpeg and they seem identical. Its typical there was a 4gb recording on your disk as that would be about the right size to be reserved. Maybe you only thought you did! FYI mine is a 320gb disk, formatted at 298Gb with 50gb already used.

Partition Manager are being very helpful. Even the chaps at Ext2fsd have emailed me about it. I would like the matter resolved before I put a lot of archived media on my disk. The disk is so big I wont be able to get it off again if I need to reformat it.

I do find that I quite often need to reboot accessing the EXT2 drive. Locks the system. It could be related I guess. I read the maximum partition for Ext2 in windows xp is 150gb. My XP doesn't complain at 300gb but that might be the cause of the lock ups.

I have been recording BBCHD films mainly. BLuePlanet on sunday should be good. I currently need to remux them but it is worth it. They play perfectly with 5.1 surround. I think many films are just upconverted but even with these it is DVD quality rather than DVB quality. I hope they will put Planet Earth on again.

Regards.

[Bob Crabtree]

Mark,

If there is such a 150GB limit - and I'd not heard of that and had used a drive of 200GB without any issue (the one that is still not accessible to me!) - then it might be a good idea to create three ext2 partitions (cos your drive is 320GB).

However, I think I may have discovered the cause of your problem after having done some some tests last night with a small HDD (nominally 19GB).

After being partitioned as ext2 by Paragon Partition Manager 8.0 Personal and mounted using Ext2 Volume Manager, this shows 18.2GB of free space under Windows.

But when I partition it using PowerQuest PartitionMagic 8.1, and then mount it with Ext2 Volume Manager, the free space seen under Windows is 18.4GB.

So there is a 0.2GB difference - not big, but, I thought, significant.

I then went back to check the settings that Paragon was using and realised that it was, by default, using two sectors per cluster - which seemed to me to be far too few and likely to lead to wasted space.

So, I zapped the drive and redid it with eight sectors per cluster.

That's the max number of sectors offered by Paragon for ext2 and may, for all I know, be the max that you can have for ext2 whatever tool you use to create the partition.

I hadn't noticed before that there is a "More Options" button at bottom left of Paragon when you are getting ready to partition - but it was this that I clicked to see the option that I changed.



When I then mounted the drive using Ext2 Volume Manager, the capacity shown had increased to 18.4GB.

I'll leave you to do the calculations but I think that this suggests that the lost space was caused by having clusters that were too large in size.

Please let us know what happens after you change the number of sectors per cluster to eight - I'm hopefully that a very large proportion of what you'd lost before will no longer be lost.

[MarkR]

Cheers Bob. Very kind of you.

The 150gb limit is talked about on the Paragon website here
http://kb.paragon-software.com/parag...2711&foLang=en


I will test your theory and get back. It is certainly worth trying. I couldn't transfer a 17Gb file either (disk full!) until I had split it into 15gb and 2gb. It may fix that too. I read in Wiki that block size determine maximum file size.

The other thing you mentioned was 3 partitions. I think with export to 'usb' (which I know you will remember) I might be limiting myself to only one of the partitions. All else failing I might try it and see if netgem shows SDA1,2 and 3 or whatever.

Anyone try EXT3?

[MarkR]

OK mainly good news I guess.

Reformat at 8 sectors per cluster showed only 10Gb of 298Gb used. 288gb free! Yippee. Tried to transfer 17Gb file.........success!!!! What more could one ask for?

Well....When I transfered the file, the little windows box did not come up for about 3 minutes. I could see the drive light flashing but that was the only sign to start with that the transfer was happening. Acceptable. Tried to play the file on Netgem - perfect.

Took the HD back to the PC and the file was only showing 800Mb (instead of 17gb as earlier) but total used space seemed to have grown by another 10Gbs. Partition manager gave another figure. Its seems to work but there is something a bit wrong. Im not trying to be fussy but I wouldn't want to be storing valuable data on this drive as is.

I reformatted the drive at 4 sectors per cluster. 12Gb used but file would not transfer - PC locked up.

I have now split the drive into 2x149gb and 8 s/c. This could be the perfect combination if Negem understands it. Will report back. Maybe in 100 years someone will come accross this post and find it useful. Who knows.

BTW I have been asking Evesham about how the DVB-T BBCHD service was disabled because I have to remux the DVB-S ts file to make it play. They say it could be the reason it won't play but really couldnt give a hoot or be bothered to ask Netgem. I think if they have disabled all HD transport streams that is unreasonable. This is what he said..


"BBCHD reception was disabled by a recent firmware update at the request of the BBC. Whilst I cannot confirm exactly what changes were made to comply with the request, it seems likely that the issues you are currently experiencing with the DVBS streams are related to this."

I said

"While I appreciate the BBC may have asked you to turn off receiving BBC HD DVB-T transmissions, I am perfectly entitled to watch and record BBC-HD DVB-S transmissions and play them on the iplayer."

He said

"The BBCHD trial is a ‘closed’ trial, that is, it is only meant to be used by specific approved devices. The BBC have been threatened to have the licence to broadcast the trial revoked if they do not restrict the devices it can be viewed on to an approved device list.

I am sure Netgem are very interested in ensuring they are not responsible for this and are cooperating with the BBC to their fullest extent. When the trial becomes open, or the BBC start broadcasting HD on a non-trial basis I am sure Netgem will be delighted to re-enable the content."

So I said

"We know that the BBCHD DVB-T trial is 'closed'. I don't live near Crystal Palace either. I would like to view the 'open' DVB-S BBCHD trial using the iplayer - it has all the right hardware. Please would you be kind enough to confirm with Netgem that watching these streams are not blocked by the firmware update or using the stb in France for that matter.

It is common practice for companies to release details of firmware updates. Given how you were advertising the BBC service on your website I don't understand why you are getting so clever with me about it now. I am simply asking a technical question about my product from a company claiming awards in that particular area."


You'd think I would have something better to do. Actually my HD wiped clean for no reason and my email was mainly to put them on notice that this was not satisfactory.

[MarkR]

The split 149gb:149Gb with 8 s/c seems to be the most stable. In fact it is behaving itself where the others have not. No lock ups and reporting of drive space seems right. Transferring a file between partitions seems a bit slow!

The netgem sees both drives and will play from both. It will always save to the first one. Thats great.

My only problem to date (fingers crossed) has been on XP, the second drive did not get a letter allocated when I attached the drive for the second time. The letter it had before was allocated so could not be chosen. I rebooted and could then allocate the same letter.

This seems good. Big files 17Gb correctly reported. XP relatively happy. The best so far without updating registry. I'm not doing a full back-up to it quite yet but confidence is growing. Thanks Bob. Bet you wish you had the iplayer now

I might not tell Paragon quite yet. See what they come up with.

[buggins]

Funny you should mention hard drive being wiped. My Iplayer is currently with Evesham because it wipes all recordings stored after being switched off, then back on. That means I cannot move the machine from room to room and would lose the stored programmes if there was a power outage.
This only started after download of firmware update number 4,7,24 in mid Feb. There is no mention of this in information made available to me and tech support state that this should not be happening.

[MarkR]

Welcome Buggins. No it shouldn't do that! It usually says "checking hard disk" and after a couple of minutes is back on line. Trouble with the iplayer is that it often locks up and requires a full reboot by stwitching off at the back.

The fact that it is always recording something means when you switch off it is going to be in the middle of writing something. Every so often I assume its going to corrupt the hard drive. Not every time though.

You could try switching off the hard drive recording in Diagnostics. Move it. Switch recording back on. Its still not acceptable though because you will lose everything at the next power cut.

Anyway I am sure they will send you a new one.

[albertyong88]

Hello,

I have been following the this thread. I currently have a Tivo, and would like to consider the iplayer HD. Does anyone knows how to hack deep into the iplayer's linux kernel, so you can enable ssh, or telnet, or use external NFS filesystem ???

Thanks.

[Bob Crabtree]

Hello,

I have been following the this thread. I currently have a Tivo, and would like to consider the iplayer HD. Does anyone knows how to hack deep into the iplayer's linux kernel, so you can enable ssh, or telnet, or use external NFS filesystem ???

Thanks.

If this info is available, then it will probably be available in Netgem's own support forums - trouble is, you'd need to speak French as well as Linux to understand any instructions you find there.

Let us know, though, if you would, any useful info you do find out over there.

I don't have a link but there are a number, I think, in the early pages of this thread.

[chrestomanci]

Hello,

I have been following the this thread. I currently have a Tivo, and would like to consider the iplayer HD. Does anyone knows how to hack deep into the iplayer's linux kernel, so you can enable ssh, or telnet, or use external NFS filesystem ???

If it is running linux, not that deep, It won't be that easy though, especially as it is probably a stripped down version of linux, with the system binaries you would expect left out.

Apple TV hackers where able to get SSH working on that very easily by putting back the binary for the SSH demon, and adding a start-up script so it got started at boot. Then all they had to do was connect, and all the other system binaries they needed where allready there.

The iPlayer will be harder, but as a quick run down, you will need access to the iPlayer's filesystem (probably by removing the drive and mounting in a linux box). Then you will need to add sshd, a shell, and system binaries. I would check out busybox, as it acts as a one stop shell & system binaries all in a compact package. Finally you will need to hack the start scripts to get sshd to start, and to create an account for yourself.

NFS will be harder because you will need a suitable kernel module to mount a remote filesystem, and you will need to find a way of integrating the NFS files into the GUI. Unless you have a copy of the source for the iPlayer's kernel it will be impossible. Even with it it will be hard, though in principle possible by rebuilding the iPlayer's kernel, with NFS enabled. You will need to setup for cross compiling though which can be tricky, and diagnosing any problems will be hard.

[damianw]

I did a bit of googling on that a while ago, and someone claimed to have hacked a previous gen iplayer but said it was fraught with danger - the iplayer checksums part of the OS and refuses to boot if it doesn't match up. Guru level stuff I think, I'll be leaving mine well alone (pity though, wouldn't it be great to have a web service where you could remotely set timers).

Been playing a bit more with video streaming on mine. As you may recall I now have a Synology CS406 NAS device with around 1Tb of storage. I use it to store home movies and TV recordings etc. I'd also used it to store a few torrents.

Originally this was connected via a wireless bridge to my network, I was probably lucky to be getting 10Mbps. It was enough to be able to stream a 300Mb torrent and watch it though. However what I really wanted was to stream home movies, which are on the order of 2.7Gb. The iplayer wouldn't do this, it would show the first 10 seconds or so and then start stuttering, badly. Note: this is all streamed via an SMB share, not through uPnP.

Decided an upgrade was in order, I bought two devolo 200 LAN ethernet-over-power adapters. These are fabulous bits of kit, plug in and they just work. The adapters report through put of 142Mbs up and 127Mbs down - surely plenty enough to play my movies?

No. Whilst the web browser and directory browser on the iplayer are very brisk now, I have exactly the same problem with video streaming, 10 seconds and then it all stops working. Any ideas here? I get the feeling, as Bob reported way back when, that the iplayers network adapter is completely useless.

[albertyong88]

chrestomanci

I am ok with linux given the tools, but i am not willing to open up my box (which cost me £300) just to do that.

pixelmagic's MB100 uses sigmadesigns chipset as well, and it plays mpeg2 HD files without problems over NFS. This is a lovely piece of kit, I think. I hope the netgem people will enable this feature because then we can all record freeview into the external NAS with NFS, and having to worry about diskspace on the unit.

[MarkR]

Please could sombody tell me how to set up FileZilla Server so I can access files on my V: drive from Netgem. I have netgem looking at the right address but see no activity on server and then iplayer doesnt find it.

Please help this has been driving me mad for some time.

Mark

With this sorted I will see what I can stream down my ethernet connection.


Edit: Just wiped my hard drive again. Second time in about week. I do like the player, particularly now the USB HD is sorted, but I cant have the HD being wiped every few days. Yes - I was playing different test files to see which ones worked but the problem remains - If the hard drive is always recording (in a completely full state) then problems will occur with regular lock ups.

[buggins]

Just received a new/replacement machine as the techie types could not stop my hard drive self wiping. (See earlier posting.) Dear old Evesham had the machine actually in their workroom from 21st of March until 17th April without success at repair. Here's hoping this one is more successful.