Some basic questions on the custom FW

peterh337

Member
Hi All,

I have installed the latest package and it all works great. Congratulations on a superb piece of work!

However I have a few questions / suggestions:

1) I installed the various patches which come up in the list e.g. the one for stopping encryption (I want to make DVDs) the one which blocks the 4am auto update reboot, Samba, etc. Is that sufficient to prevent auto updates wiping the CFW, or is there another step? I cannot see anything in the config.

2) We have a 2TB Buffalo network drive, which the HDR accesses fine (much better than the previous standard firmware did, BTW, which would see only a part of the file system, bizzarely leaving out some folders) but there are two things I would like to see, especially for using the TV as a display device for photos:

a) There is no "file manager" allowing you to go to say one of 100 directories (folders) directly. One has to scroll, and it takes for ever.

b) There is no decent photo playback function, with background loading of the next photo.

A part of the problem may be the low speed of the ethernet connection, which is running over an Edimax EW-7206 WIFI bridge, but the 802.11G speed should be plenty fast enough for a video. The videos seem to play OK when I access the recorder via the PC interface, but of course that is just a small frame size.

Many thanks for any tips etc.

My background: assembler/C programmer, embedded systems, virtually no unix expertise (well I know rm -r...) and running a Nokia 808 phone with a hacked firmware :)
 
OK - I saw that. That workaround doesn't appear trivial. What is the upshot of that? Does it mean that one day you find the original firmware, and will have to reload from the flash USB stick again? If so, will the settings and patches be lost?
 
If your custom firmware got overwritten, you would have to reaload the CF and possibly run the fix flash packages diagnostic to be sure the few packages that are stored in flash are OK (takes about 2 minutes and can be run from within Web-If) but other than that your packages and settings are retained. Setting a daily reminder from 4.20 to 4.40 am on its own should be enough to defeat an OTA update.
 
a) There is no "file manager" allowing you to go to say one of 100 directories (folders) directly. One has to scroll, and it takes for ever.

b) There is no decent photo playback function, with background loading of the next photo.
We wrote it off as a photo dispay mechanism a long time ago. If you have read the Quick Guide to Custom Firmware (click) you would know there is little we can do to change what happens on the TV screen, everything CF goes on over the network (in the main).

For an answer to your first question, see posts 4 and 5 in this thread.
OK - I saw that. That workaround doesn't appear trivial.
What is difficult about setting a daily reminder in the schedule? Just do what it says HERE (click).
 
How/where should one set the reminder and what should the reminder do?

using the Remote control :-

Guide >> Schedule (Yellow) >> +New Reservation >> O.K.
Channel = [Any]
Date = [Tomorrow's date]
Start Time = 04:15
End Time = 04:45
Repeat = Daily
Mode = Reminder

O.K.

Why use 1400 words when you can use 23 :)
 
Because I don't believe in repeating 23 words 1400 times. Information posted in one place can be maintained, posting the information in lots of places makes it almost impossible to maintain.
 
Guide >> Schedule (Yellow) >> +New Reservation >> O.K.
Channel = Any
Start Time = 04:15
End Time = 04:45
Repeat = Daily
Mode = Reminder

It says Invalid Time Values.

Would anybody also be able to suggest the simplest way to get these four files - just discovered I am not allowed to post links or screenshots till I have 10 posts -

.hmt 15kb
.nts 2.55MB
.thm 43kb
.ts 1.25GB

to a DVD? They appear to be encrypted i.e. VLC won't play the .ts file. I have read the decrypt notes but it's not clear how one could just apply it to a single recording. I know how to make video DVDs from say Vegas Movie Studio, and generally the .ts file should be sufficient alone, imported into Vegas and then rendered to a DVD. But it needs to be unencrypted.

I can transfer these files to my PC using FTP, Samba, or the method in the web user interface (not sure what to call it but there is a URL which can be used to download it) and all that works great. Very good work, whoever did it!

I did install both of the decryption related add-ons, but didn't do anything via telnet.
 
Decryption: see Things Every... (click) section 5 and the supplementary information available by following links - you probably want method 3. I find I have to convert to .MPG before my editor will import the video (another WebIF operation).

OTA protection: EP missed out a critical setting. Do it the way it says HERE (click) (also available as supplementary information to Things Every... section 1).
 
I read that very long article on disabling the OTA updates, and the other one (item 1 in Things ever...) but cannot understand what I am supposed to do.

Re decrypting files, I also cannot understand how to do this. I have read the notes on it here. It says "Standard Definition recordings are decrypted when copied to a USB drive" whcih presumably refers to the programmes I recorded (I don't think they were HD - most TV content isn't) but does that simply mean that copying to USB (which means having to crawl behind the box and pushing a USB stick into it) works but copying using the PC-interface methods (FTP, Samba, etc) will not decrypt the file?
 
I should add that

"For any particular folder, use WebIF media browser OPT+ button "auto-decrypt" option to decrypt any present and future recordings in that folder"

doesn't work because the OPT+ button doesn't have such an option showing.
 
Correction: the OPT+ button in the web interface does show the decrypt option. It is the OPT+ button in the TV interface that doesn't show it.

Does anybody out there bother to read the manual?

Yes, but if you write 1000 words of your best English free flowing prose, it's easy to miss something :)
 
I was referring to the User's manual supplied with the PVR. Setting a reminder is described in it. Nothing to do with the CFW.
 
Correction: the OPT+ button in the web interface does show the decrypt option. It is the OPT+ button in the TV interface that doesn't show it.
Yes it is a bit ambiguous but you have to remember that the decrypt function is only within webif.
You need to be aware that webif does not change any functionality relating to the TV menus and remote control themselves.
 
OK I will investigate the reminder process.

I did a quick test just now with a USB stick in the front (many thanks for pointing that out ;) ) and the speed of the slide show is exactly the same as over a 54G wifi connection. So the bottleneck is somewhere in the box. I am displaying mainly ex Nokia 808 jpegs which are about 10MB each (12MP). I guess it would be a lot faster if one prepared a special file set with every image downsampled to fit into 1920x1080...
 
I read that very long article on disabling the OTA updates, and the other one (item 1 in Things ever...) but cannot understand what I am supposed to do.
I am at a loss.
How to set a Reminder into the schedule manually: Guide >> Yellow >> New Reservation then set Channel to whatever you want it to power up on next boot, Date = tomorrow, Start Time = 04:20, End Time = 04:40, Repeat = Daily, Mode = Reminder.


Re decrypting files, I also cannot understand how to do this.
Again I am at a loss. If you want to decrypt in the process of downloading to the PC, use method 4. Method 3 provides for individual decryption of the recording on the Humax itself, and then you can FTP it. Method 5 is the non-CF method where StDef recordings copied to a USB drive are decrypted in the process.
Method 3 (manually decrypted recordings):
  1. For HiDef ensure auto-unprotect is installed (not necessary for StDef recordings);
  2. Ensure content sharing is turned on (Humax settings, see note 3);
  3. Providing the "Enc" flag is not present (see note 2) and the recording has been indexed (see note 3), use the WebIF media browser OPT+ button "decrypt" option.
Method 4 (recording decrypted on download):
  1. For HiDef ensure auto-unprotect is installed (not necessary for StDef recordings);
  2. Ensure content sharing is turned on (Humax settings, see note 3);
  3. Providing the "Enc" flag is not present (see note 2) and the recording has been indexed (see note 3), use the WebIF media browser OPT+ button "download" option.
Note that this method will result in the downloaded file having the name <number>.TS, which is the DLNA index reference. While one could rename the file manually or assign a different name in the "save as" dialogue, decryption by one of the other methods (1, 2, 3, or 5) prior to WebIF download will result in the default name for the saved file being the same as the recording filename.

Method 5 (recording decrypted by copy):
  1. For HiDef ensure auto-unprotect is installed or use Foxy (see note 6) to clear protection (not necessary for StDef recordings);
  2. Providing the "Enc" flag is not present (see note 2), use the remote control handset to perform an OPT+ "copy" operation to USB drive or virtual drive (not "move"). Multiple recordings and folders containing recordings can be copied as a batch by selecting them using the handset Red button in the media list.
I can only imagine that when reading the relevant articles you are glazing over and failing to recognise the relevant parts.

Readers please note: Please refer to the original articles. If the information needs to be updated for any reason, these extracts will not reflect those changes.
 
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