Is the operating system for the Aura really on the hard drive? On all the earlier Humax PVRs it has been in flash RAM.
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Aura UHD android TV recorder November launch
- Thread starter Luke
- Start date
D
Deleted member 473
And chances are the Netflix app will eventually not be updated, and will become unoperational.
Roku seems pretty universal, except I get unsynchronized sound and vision on some apps, particularly Az Prime, and it seems impossible to correct this.
Roku seems pretty universal, except I get unsynchronized sound and vision on some apps, particularly Az Prime, and it seems impossible to correct this.
Application Version: 1.00_25_201029_0a7a47a
Firmware: 00.09.09
First scheduled recording – success.
Hard disk noise – no.
I-Player – working on the Aura, no longer working on the 4K TV, so I have an upgrade without replacing the TV at this point. Not too many 40 inch sets available, and generally with fewer HDMI ports.
Netflix – appears to be still working on the TV, but for how much longer remains to be seen. We have it on good authority there will be no dedicated app for the Aura. Sideloading has apparently been successful, but only in so far as the mobile app provides SD viewing. If this is a deal breaker, other options need to be looked at, including Fire and Apple TV.
Britbox – still waiting for the app to be rolled out to Freeview PVRs? Radio Times refers to mobile apps, Samsung and Panasonic TVs.
PIP – toggled off.
CEC – toggled off. No issue with the remote control initially switching on the FoxSat as with the DTR-T1000.
Archiving of recordings – at this point, probably on the same unhelpful basis as most current “Free*” devices. The manual doesn’t seem to describe this, or the use of the USB ports.
Playback from external drive (formatted NTFS): in VLC.
Custom Firmware: We can always hope.
Android: Currently version 9. Not sure if there will be an eventual upgrade to Spring Surprise or Crunchy Frog, or how this would help. My TV is stuck on Android 5. I presume the OS is on the 16gb eMMC.
Reliability: Over a dozen power cycles so far. There seem to be always one or two people whose device dies in a day or two. Not sure about the statistics on this. My Samsung was just out of guarantee.
Overall: At this point, probably not worth it if you have a recent TV or Bluray player with the desired streaming functions and/or a newer PVR. This may change if modified firmware becomes available. Like Black Hole (post#2), I have never had much luck with casting. Presumably this would be mobile resolution, anyway. I’m not sure how you format an NTFS drive in Windows. Even with a media keyboard, browser viewing is not particularly satisfying.
Firmware: 00.09.09
First scheduled recording – success.
Hard disk noise – no.
I-Player – working on the Aura, no longer working on the 4K TV, so I have an upgrade without replacing the TV at this point. Not too many 40 inch sets available, and generally with fewer HDMI ports.
Netflix – appears to be still working on the TV, but for how much longer remains to be seen. We have it on good authority there will be no dedicated app for the Aura. Sideloading has apparently been successful, but only in so far as the mobile app provides SD viewing. If this is a deal breaker, other options need to be looked at, including Fire and Apple TV.
Britbox – still waiting for the app to be rolled out to Freeview PVRs? Radio Times refers to mobile apps, Samsung and Panasonic TVs.
PIP – toggled off.
CEC – toggled off. No issue with the remote control initially switching on the FoxSat as with the DTR-T1000.
Archiving of recordings – at this point, probably on the same unhelpful basis as most current “Free*” devices. The manual doesn’t seem to describe this, or the use of the USB ports.
Playback from external drive (formatted NTFS): in VLC.
Custom Firmware: We can always hope.
Android: Currently version 9. Not sure if there will be an eventual upgrade to Spring Surprise or Crunchy Frog, or how this would help. My TV is stuck on Android 5. I presume the OS is on the 16gb eMMC.
Reliability: Over a dozen power cycles so far. There seem to be always one or two people whose device dies in a day or two. Not sure about the statistics on this. My Samsung was just out of guarantee.
Overall: At this point, probably not worth it if you have a recent TV or Bluray player with the desired streaming functions and/or a newer PVR. This may change if modified firmware becomes available. Like Black Hole (post#2), I have never had much luck with casting. Presumably this would be mobile resolution, anyway. I’m not sure how you format an NTFS drive in Windows. Even with a media keyboard, browser viewing is not particularly satisfying.
How large is the partition on the NTFS drive? Somebody over at Myhumax.org is claiming that NTFS isn't supported.
I used a spare 160gb drive and played back a 7gb file from the FoxSat. Not all the way through but I didn't get an error message copying.
Ubuntu reports the file system as "FUSE". I'm having trouble processing the Wikipedia entry.
Last edited:
MartinOnline
Member
#136
Again I am not making myself clear. When I say I plugged my Aura into the Mains then yes that was from a zero power level to the Set Up screen, not from an active standby state.
Although not exactly comparable to an initial mains connection I carried out a comparison of times from the low power state and from a situation where I disconnected the Aura from the Mains and left it for 10 minutes before re-connecting it. Times are to when BBC1 appeared.
From Low Power Mode: 56 Seconds.
From Mains connection: 59 seconds.
For comparison:
From Active Standby: 8 seconds.
The HDD in my Aura is noticeable if I get within half a metre of it but being post-70 my hearing is not as acute as some.
So far I have had 2 missed recordings and one non-stopping recording, all on Channel 5 which has caused problems in the past with the Fox.
I manually tune my Recorders to avoid duplicate channels. There was no duplicate for Ch5 though I did find one for ITV. Obviously I was not quick enough cancelling the automatic search prior to starting the manual tuning. (If there is a better way please let me know.)
I found you can put the Aura into Low-Power Mode when a recording is taking place, without any warning text added to the shutdown confirmation query. Just relying on checking the colour of the LED seems to be a little sparse in error-prevention.
Again I am not making myself clear. When I say I plugged my Aura into the Mains then yes that was from a zero power level to the Set Up screen, not from an active standby state.
Although not exactly comparable to an initial mains connection I carried out a comparison of times from the low power state and from a situation where I disconnected the Aura from the Mains and left it for 10 minutes before re-connecting it. Times are to when BBC1 appeared.
From Low Power Mode: 56 Seconds.
From Mains connection: 59 seconds.
For comparison:
From Active Standby: 8 seconds.
The HDD in my Aura is noticeable if I get within half a metre of it but being post-70 my hearing is not as acute as some.
So far I have had 2 missed recordings and one non-stopping recording, all on Channel 5 which has caused problems in the past with the Fox.
I manually tune my Recorders to avoid duplicate channels. There was no duplicate for Ch5 though I did find one for ITV. Obviously I was not quick enough cancelling the automatic search prior to starting the manual tuning. (If there is a better way please let me know.)
I found you can put the Aura into Low-Power Mode when a recording is taking place, without any warning text added to the shutdown confirmation query. Just relying on checking the colour of the LED seems to be a little sparse in error-prevention.
MymsMan
Ad detector
Since you have succeeded in recording and attaching an external drive have you also managed to install a file manager app that would allow you to attempt to view the files created by recording and to copy them to external disk?
Is the file structure similar to other humaxes with .ts, .hmt, .nts and .thm files for each recording?
I can't locate the folder in File Manager, TV File commander, TV explorer or VLC. It may be hidden.
The file managers were less helpful than VLC in locating files for playback.
Ian Manning
Member
Has anyone tried watching content stored on a NAS or SMB share? (e.g. x264/x265 mp4 files?)
In theory I guess you could use Kodi, or any Android File Manager/media player which supported LAN folders, but I was wondering what the playback experience was like in practice?
I do this alot using a Minix U9H Android box running Kodi, but often have very jittery playback. Since it's not consistent, I guess it's sometimes down to processes running in the background.
I was wondering whether this might be a good replacement....
In theory I guess you could use Kodi, or any Android File Manager/media player which supported LAN folders, but I was wondering what the playback experience was like in practice?
I do this alot using a Minix U9H Android box running Kodi, but often have very jittery playback. Since it's not consistent, I guess it's sometimes down to processes running in the background.
I was wondering whether this might be a good replacement....
In FX Explorer I found my external drive listed as "SD Card" with the test files and the 1TB listed as Main Storage in the top right hand corner. In the Android folder I have DATA>COM.HUMAXDIGITAL.CORONA.TVINPUT.FREEVIEW>FILES>RECORDINGS>~>~.TS and a different set of sidecar files, content.jl, index.bmk, etc. I can't copy the .TS to the "SD card" presumably because it hasn't been formatted by the machine.
Black Hole
May contain traces of nut
Well, you right-click and select "format", then choose NTFS from the formatting options.
So it is possible. I wonder if there is a further option for the right number of clusters. I swear I can read the disk. I remember there was an issue formatting the Ext.3 drive, and it took several attempts. I have lost a low capacity M.2 in the process in experimenting. The poster on Myhumax may be quoting what was advertised. Like you I thought there was something distinctly odd about a 4k device with apparently serious limitations on file sizes.
MymsMan
Ad detector
NTFS is a native windows file format and so windows can easily handle, the ext n series are unix/linux so are not easily handled under windows
I assume most attempts to reproduce my findings are going to be under Windows. I have using Ubuntu since before I acquired the FoxSat. I think Ext.3 was still a standard option but it was still fiddly.
Black Hole
May contain traces of nut
It shouldn't be any more fiddly to format a drive in Linux than it is in Windows, and the range of formats offered is much wider. If it is fiddly, there is something odd about the drive.
That would be a number of drives on a number of machines: the M.2 I trashed completely (Disks reports "no medium"), the 160gb I had to format several times, the old FoxSat Ext.3 on a previous pc. The poster on the other forum mentions corruption. I did wait for the "safely remove" message. A USB stick with files on it just worked. Again Ubuntu reported the file system as "Fuse". Another USB stick formatted "MS DOS" couldn't be read by the Aura.
Black Hole
May contain traces of nut
Could there be a common factor - ie are you using the same USB-SATA adapter each time?
No. M.2 in an enclosure, 160gb in an (obviously different) enclosure, FoxSat Ext 3 purchased in an enclosure.
In this context FUSE is "File System in User Space" ie the file system driver is not in the kernel.