Otros PVRs: In&Out 4G, AC Ryan

Desde hace tiempo estoy siguiendo este producto,
de hecho, mi intención era esperar hasta que saliera este producto, para hacer la decisión final.
Bueno, pues por fin ha salido, algo fuera de tiempo.
Es de caracteristicas similares al lg, doble sintonizador HD, con disco interno.

Es curioso, pero viendo algunos posts de su foro, he encontrado muchas similitudes con nuestro producto de lg.

1. Procesador realtek similar al nuestro.
2. arq. harw, y soft. similar, ejmplo, usan el mismo sistema de archivo para almacenar la info de canales en
/usr/local/etc/dvdplayer/dtv_channel.txt
3. algunos problmes similares.:
- al inicio se queda en la pantalla de menu( que suerte que nosotros lo tenemos ya resuelto )
- al iniciar una grabación te cambia lo que estes viendo, sea tdt o reproducción.


Que pasa? que todos estos aparatos PVR vienen del mismo sitio .... (china?), son todos copy&paste ...?
Me veo que ya mismo estaran ellos implentandose su propio PipeManagement jejeje

Hi Vic,

I think that Realtek (as other chipsets manufacturers) provides:
- the chipset
- drivers and/or operating system and/or base software (probably RootApp + DvdPlayer) and then manufacturers embeds the chipset onto a PCB, following or not Realtek ref design, and then adapt the software (or get Realtek to do it, or work all together, etc.)

In a previous life I was working on mobile phone prototypes, and we were working that way, with a specific code layer that had to be adapted depending on the target hardware. I believe this could also be the case for all realtek based box (and similar for all STM, for all Sygma Design, etc.).

So, indeed, each progress on one box with similar functions and with the same chipset serie is good for the other boxes...

Cheers,
Matt

Hi Vic,

Speaking about other Realtek boxes, I just saw that one:
AC Ryan ACR-PV76120 Playon!DVR-HD, embedding the new Reatek 1283DD+ (that allows HD audio bitstreaming for Dolby)
This looks heavily similar to our MS.

I don't know how good and stable the firmware is, but it embeds more functions (in theory, at last) than our MS. And I am very amazed by the fact their team answer you, and answer you with good knowledge.
That made me further sad about how LG is managing its customers, both in termes of communication and of firmware realease ("no new abilities, our box is perfect as is" <= actually, no, it is not).

One point of interest for the MS is that there are some web interface natively delivered on this box, perhaps part of it can be ported (depends on whether its compiled or interpreted cgi). Btw, I am seriously wondering about getting one of this box as a primary PVR in replacement of the MS (I will keep it, don't worry ).

Cheers,
Matt

Yes
Lots of similar PVR are appearing,
I have downloaded firmware of the machine you mention from
http://www.acryan.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=132&p=46492

Now, only time is needed to investigate, and try to port to our dear machine
regards

Yes, the firmware is exactly the same structure us the one we have.
YESSSS
I cannot wait till this afternoon to test.....
They have by default the web interface with the remote controller and much more stuff

Sounds really cool
They also support a lot of stuff with their Player, I think, since they can benefit YAMF covers, etc.
I doubt we can actually replace our DVDPlayer by theirs (and anyway we would then perhaps suffer from new bugs), but if we can take benefit of the web part, that would be already a nice thing!

Cheers,
Matt

LOL

[Tienes que estar registrado y conectado para ver esa imagen]

Looks promising...

[Tienes que estar registrado y conectado para ver esa imagen]


The interesting part is in folder /usr/local/www
inside the squashfilesystem.

How did they link that to the DVDPlayer?

On our side, you used a pipe ... if they integrated directly into their main soft, that could be hard to reuse the whole, no?

Cheers,
Matt

jajaja
yes, very difficult.
it is amaizing how fast this is moving.
They have learn the tricks and adapted into DvdPlayer directly,
becuase, as you noted, rcS is plain as
if [ -f $DEFAULT_AP_DIR/DvdPlayer ] && [ -x $DEFAULT_AP_DIR/DvdPlayer ]; then
cd $DEFAULT_AP_DIR
if [ -f $DEFAULT_AP_DIR/RootApp ] && [ -x $DEFAULT_AP_DIR/RootApp ]; then
echo Running dvdplayer with RootApp
./RootApp DvdPlayer&
else
echo Running dvdplayer
./DvdPlayer&
fi
else
/etc/dvdplayer/script/run_tail
fi


Then the interesting part is in script: /cgi-bin/cubermctrl.cgi

And this files is not in the firmware, so, for sure is embedded in the DvdPlayer itself.
So .... bad luck I am afraid ...

Erf, bad news ... for their own community as well since this means they will not be in position to mod the http serveur if everything (or most) is within DVDPlayer :-/

And I presume that brutally replacing our DVDPlayer program by theirs is not going to work (excepf it RooApp is a pure abstraction layer, but I am not sure of that, looks more like a watchdog )

Cheers

I already play with this idea. Only issue I see is handling the all tuners available. Is DvdPlayer application so versatile to automatically handle all tuners? Where are the DVB drivers for tuners? (I know this, compiled in kernel) Did the AC Ryan kernel have different drivers compiled in?
I think using only DvdPlayer from other box is not enough but I could be wrong (I hope, I should). And you know, the DvdPlayer application is not all.

Keltek escribió:I already play with this idea. Only issue I see is handling the all tuners available. Is DvdPlayer application so versatile to automatically handle all tuners? Where are the DVB drivers for tuners? (I know this, compiled in kernel) Did the AC Ryan kernel have different drivers compiled in?
I think using only DvdPlayer from other box is not enough but I could be wrong (I hope, I should). And you know, the DvdPlayer application is not all.

I do agree, but DVDPlayer part is one of the "obscure" parts (with RootApp). Most of the other parts are open source, data, etc. In order to have access to the screen, you need to hack DVDPlayer (see http://consumerelectronicshacker.blogspot.com/ for example), same for accessing the hardware, etc.
I was at first thinking that RootApp could be an abstraction layer, used to adapt to the hardware and that DVDPlayer was then all the "user oriented software", using virtual ressources thanks to RootApp, but I am afraid this is not the cas. So, indeed, DVDPlayer can probably not be just copied from an other box, et voila!

It can be tested by the way (at the very beginning of Realtek based products, there were such experiments, where there were a lot of clones and part of their functions or all were working correctly with other firmware ... but indeed, there were no tuners, etc.), but I am also afraid this is a dead end. I was just hoping that all their web based functions were using a standard http server + www folder or similar so that we could grab most of what was already written and easily adapt it to the LG ... No chance.

Cheers,
Matt

By the way, did you know that thread (and its conclusion)?
http://forum.xtreamer.net/topic/3846-open-source-dvdplayer-sources/

It's too low level for me to understand, but I know some of the names of the guys who are writing there, since I followed a lot of their threads on their respective blog/forums, and I think these are serious.
Dunno if someone here is able to understand all what they write, and what they managed to do, as reported at the end of the thread is just "waw":
playing a .mov on their device (without DVDPlayer)

And that one (dunno whether the guy is serious or not):
"Using ketlaer, after a couple of hours I managed to get live TV from a DVB-T USB stick attached to my Xtreamer onto the Xtreamer's TV via HDMI" (NB: Xtreamer has no tuner, as far as I know ... nice performance if real).

And here is their production: (A open source media player for the rtd1073 / rtd1283 linux based media players. Based on my media system. Also includes a stand alone frontend for vdr / xineliboutput.)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ketlaer/

Any chance it could be of any help for you?

Cheers,
Matt (am afraid I am just a lamer :-/ )

WOWWW
Yes, very interesing.
Wish I have more time...
I will keep that open source project in my check to-do list

Sorry to load you with all sort of stuff ^^

I'll try to have a look at it too, but I am afraid it is far beyond my skills.

Cheers,
Matth

Vaya,
habia escrito un post pero se ha perdido en el foro.
bueno re-escribo.



Ayer, intente sin exito, instalar firmware ACRyan 76120 en nuestro querido LG,
ya sabia que no iba a ir casi seguro, pero bueno, habia que intentarlo.
Resultado: el proceso de instalacion no avanza y se obtiene una bonita pantalla, ver abajo.

Asi,que apaga / enciendo el LG, y listo OK, de nuevo con el soft de LG
[Tienes que estar registrado y conectado para ver esa imagen]

So, installing directly the firmware of acryan is not working.

So, the task now, will be to adapt the pieces we want to a LG-like firmware

Since the first realtek NMT, where you could flash a firmware from one box to an other, they have put some magic codes or firmware checks to avoid that, so now you can no more do that, just extract the firmware and install it by hand (not a straight task ^^).
So, unfortunately, these securities are expected :-/

vic1972 escribió:So, installing directly the firmware of acryan is not working.

So, the task now, will be to adapt the pieces we want to a LG-like firmware

Indeed. I would like to help there, but I have so much forgotten about development/systems :-/

vic1972 escribió:So, installing directly the firmware of acryan is not working.

So, the task now, will be to adapt the pieces we want to a LG-like firmware

I think you can try to start Ryan's DVDPlayer by copying to LG, issue the "stopall" and then start "RootApp DVDPlayer". Without any FW modification...
And you'll see...

thanks
OK, I will try late this afternoon, with the mount trick alonso_c provided

bye for the moment

I see one big issue for our LG - the FW flash memory is too small. If I create FW bigger than 17MB, it will always fail to flash. I think, it is impossible to install all the stuff from Ryans FW as 51MB fw image or 36MB squashfs filesystem We should use some tricks (like I).

vic1972 escribió: thanks
OK, I will try late this afternoon, with the mount trick alonso_c provided

bye for the moment

Don't hurry I try it. And it not works.
First, it fail searching TV tuners

Código:


open pli interface twice...
[TP0] WARNING,
******************************************************************
[TP0] WARNING,    TS channel 0 is occupied by other appliction
[TP0] WARNING,
******************************************************************

[TVCTL] INFO, creating tuning thread
MXL5007T : -----------------------------------
MXL5007T : - TUNER    : MXL5007T
MXL5007T : - Addr    : c0
MXL5007T : -----------------------------------
[TP0] WARNING,
******************************************************************
[TP0] WARNING,    TS channel 0 is occupied by other appliction
[TP0] WARNING,
******************************************************************
TP buffer register mutex created

[DEMOD] WARNING, [RTL2832] use optimized setting for tuner - MXL5007T


#################################################
SendWriteCommand : i2c 1 : FETAL : send write command to target(20) fail
Write[20] 00 00
#################################################


[DEMOD] WARNING, RTL2832 Init Failed

[TVFE] WARNING, Init Frontend Failed - Init Demod failed
OpenTuner 0 (nil)

[TVCTL] WARNING, src/DTVTunerControl.cpp : 232 : GetTunerHandle : FAIL, tuner 0 doesn't exist
Tuner 0 not exist


Second, it will search for all tuners (this is only one positive)

Código:


[TVCTL] INFO, creating tuning thread
MXL5007T : -----------------------------------
MXL5007T : - TUNER    : MXL5007T
MXL5007T : - Addr    : c0
MXL5007T : -----------------------------------

MXL5007T : -----------------------------------
MXL5007T : - TUNER    : MXL5007T
MXL5007T : - Addr    : c6
MXL5007T : -----------------------------------


But it all fails

Código:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tuner count:0

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


And next, there are some errors and then reboot

Código:

open "/dev/cdrom0" failed
 Open device(/dev/cdrom0) failed
start[0-3] = {7001a500, 7001a504, 7001a508, 7001a50c}
end[0-3] = {7001a510, 7001a514, 7001a518, 7001a51c}
MediaServer.cpp , 433 bind local IP fail !!error = Unknown error 125
Error in pid value: 117, 549...
WatchDog does not receive signal for 4 seconds, value: 64
MediaServer.cpp , 433 bind local IP fail !!error = Unknown error 125
MediaServer.cpp , 433 bind local IP fail !!error = Unknown error 125
Error in pid value: 117, 549...


I try it with LG RootApp and with Ryan's RootApp but the result is the same.

ok, thanks for your work.
Yes, this saved my time, thank you.

Then we need to adapt.

so, in LG squashfs is around 11 megas, and this acryan is around 35 megabytes.

Which is the actual size of LG? isnt it 128 Megas?

I will test today to put inside a lg firmware a blank file of size 35-11=24Megas, to see what happens.

Sorry to bother you with that but I read in one of the thread that the stopall command was not sufficient on some of the realtek boxes and that it should be preceded by one/some kill -9 (of the RootApp application?).
Could it be that some remaining software is locking the tuners? Or is it just a driver question?

Ref:
http://rtd1261.wikidot.com/forum/t-102026 (no kill -9 but special launch of DVDPlayer: ./DVDPlayer * )
http://forum.xtreamer.net/topic/3846-open-source-dvdplayer-sources/ (post #14)

Also, there is a thread about AC Ryan locking their firmware / their hardware:
From release r2901: http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showpost.php?p=175790&postcount=4
For release 2388: http://emtec.mhdworld.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?start=10&topic_id=4355&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&type=&mode=0

Edit: example of guys pushing unlocked AC Ryan firmware over an EMTEC: http://emtec.mhdworld.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?start=70&topic_id=4355&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&type=&mode=0
Guess these are old versions of AC Ryan firmwares btw.

Dunno whether this can help!

Cheers,
Matt

I have tried to put a zipped file in /usr/local/temp_www in the firmware process,
it start the updat, but finnally que a FAILED in the display.
So it seems Keltek is right ....

But I have several ideas to work around this issue:

1. an auto download from inet of all the modules .... (as a negative, is that it will take some seconds,
and some users will note this, and say is not working

2. in the same usb key where firmware resides, we can add a compressed files with all the modules,
then in the boot process we can add a process that do the install process reading from the usb key.

More ideas .... concerns ...