New File Added: Amiko Alien SHD-8900 Beginners Tutorial

[Arthur Daley]

Download this file and unrar it. Than copy the folder "plugin" to the root of your usb stick, insert it in the box whilst it is powered down then boot the box up in Spark mode.

Once it is fully booted after a few seconds it will ask if you want to install plugins...select YES. These will install and the box will reboot. When you box reboots back into Spark it will keep asking you to install the plugins, just select NO until you are able to remove the usb stick at a later stage It simply goes through the motions of asking you if you want to install plugins if it finds a drive or stick with plugins on.

It will install quite a few plugins, most of the emu's including cccam and a very useful plugin called "plugin_camconfig.s". This is what you use to enter the details of your c line, or n line if you are to use mgcamd.

Simply run this plugin and choose to use cccam. Enter your c line details, server, port, username and password and then when done save and exit, it will make the necessary changes to your files, then make sure cccam is enabled in the plugins menu and reboot the box. Hopefully this will result in a working c line. This does work, I have used it to run cccam and mgcamd.

 

[GavinP]

how does it run any better? hows the epg?

 

[Arthur Daley]

how does it run any better? hows the epg?

I like the Spark side, but since I started using a Neutrino image (blast from the Dbox2 and dm500c days) I only use the Spark as a fall back, if I want to watch/record something and I have been messing with the Enigma2 side and it ain't working

I find crossepg to be hitty missy on Spark, but the developers know this and are working towards a more stable release.

The remote control is as it should be...which is a bonus.

Thing is all this talk is worthless, you need to try these things yourself and determine if YOU like it or not

 

[tomthered]

Guys do I take it this is a full 7 day EPG? and is this a box with satellite tuner and Free To Air tuner, can you record one and watch another channel not on the same transponder. I.E record from FTA and watch any satellite channel?

 

[Arthur Daley]

Guys do I take it this is a full 7 day EPG? and is this a box with satellite tuner and Free To Air tuner, can you record one and watch another channel not on the same transponder. I.E record from FTA and watch any satellite channel?

Hello tom, this thread is concerned with the SHD-8900, which is a single tuner satellite box. What you are talking about sounds like the twin tuner big brother of this one, the Amiko Alien 2. Have a look at the specs here...

AMIKO - ...Our STB definition.

As for the 7day epg, you can have this on the Enigma2 software side, depending on the image used, but as I said earlier on the Spark side is still hitty missy getting it going.

 

[tomthered]

sorry should have said I am aware that the twin tuner is the Alien 2 and the 8900 is single tuner. I was asking questions about the two different boxes in this thread. Am looking at the Alien 2 myself but was curious to get feedback on the EPG side as my Ariva 120 only has now and next which I find very frustrating. The 7 days EPG is what I really want and these boxes sound really interesting!!

 

[Arthur Daley]

As far as I'm aware the Alien 2 can run the crossepg or cooltv just the same as this can, depending on the Enigma2 image and associated plugins used. I believe the Spark side is a work in progress.

I believe that they are also improving the recording abilities of the Alien 2 (recording two different channels at same time) as there were problems with that side of things.

Not having an Alien 2 box tends to mean that I don't pay quite as much notice of threads related to it than to the box I do have so I may have missed some recent improvements

 

[GavinP]

sorry just getting back into this! ive powered box down and moved for a bit and now i cant get crossepg download to refesh and give me epg data if i do it manually. only seems to work if i do it via the timer refresh bit.

and guys im still totally loving this box!

I find the pic quality brilliant! also wired it up with a dolby surround system tonight and im amazed!1

2 things that bug me though

1.The sound on normal channels can some times be hit and miss with some at different levels.................

2. it runs so cool i have to have the heating on lol

 

[GavinP]

oh and i would definately get a alien 2 if arthur daley lived near me!

 

[robbbin12]

I love the this box to channel change fast all hd great I find using mgrand much better than ccam no freezing using satstation e2 image my problem is can not get epg to work downloaded crossepg from menu brill use cooltv fine says recorded nothing there formatted stick to ect3 no good love the image but has a few issues anyone now of good e2 image that works some ive tried dont boot up

 

[GavinP]

my epg did work fine but now its playing up

Messing around with spark today ................trying to get a channel list is proving a little hard!

 

[GavinP]

wicked new HDMU version .....ive uploaded it here. ill also upload in on this site if i can work out how............................

 

[Arthur Daley]

Hello, I am adding a slightly ammended version of the tut for preparing an external hard drive for recording, just in case it is deemed an important addition.

The changes in question are in relation to labeling the drive "RECORD", in uppercase letters. Apparently, this dates back to the early days of such things and may still be looked for by some images, as a matter of course. A small difference but might help those that are experiencing recording difficulties.

 

[GavinP]

Would be very handy as I followed your guide to getting a hard drive ready and I still couldn't get the box to work properly with it........ What do you do exactly with the box after you've plugged the hard drive in? I tried initialising it but it just stalls

Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk 2

 

[Arthur Daley]

Would be very handy as I followed your guide to getting a hard drive ready and I still couldn't get the box to work properly with it........ What do you do exactly with the box after you've plugged the hard drive in? I tried initialising it but it just stalls

Hello pillhead, after you have carried out what it says in the tut for the hard drive you don't have to initialise it using the menu in the image, as that is where the problems lay with most images.

If you follow the tut and prepare your hard drive then you simply power your alien down, connect the usb drive up and power the alien back up. If it has found the drive then when you press menu and then system you will be confronted with a menu setting for "Harddisk". This means that it has found the drive OK. Simply go to the other setting for Recording Paths and use it to make sure it is pointing to the "movie" folder we made and when you save and exit using the green button it should not say anything about the location being "not writable" or words to that effect.

Then simply test by pressing the record button on a currently viewing program, select to stop recording at end of programme. Once this far then go back into your Crossepg config and make sure that it is pointing to your harddrive to store the epg data, or if you are running a usb hub with your memory stick then point it towards your stick.

I have had trouble with self powered external 2.5" usb drives on the alien...maybe it cannot supply enough power to run certain enclosures? So now I run a 3.5" sata from a Tivo in a mains powered enclosure and it works better for me. If ever it does not find the drive simply select to put box into "Deep Standby" for a few seconds so that the drive can power down then press stanby button to restart box and hopefully it will find it again

 

[GavinP]

Right ill try that thanks

Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk 2

 

[GavinP]

I cant seem to get my usb stick to work either now lol!

Also crossepg wont download the epg data to the internal flash like you said?

Cheers dude. Hopefully we get out our section soon

 

[Arthur Daley]

Just been experimenting with an old non-powered 4 port usb 2.0 hub.

This is now in the back of the Alien and I have my mains powered hard drive attached for recordings and also a 512MB Lexar JumpDrive Pro usb stick connected and have my crossepg setup to use that.

I can see when the files are downloaded or read from the stick as its built in led flashes. I initially tried formatting the stick to ext3, then to NTFS but the box failed to allow crossepg to use it, although the box could see it. Finally formatted it to Fat32 and crossepg picked it up OK as a storage device to use

 

[GavinP]

so i just need to keep formatting the usb drive on fat32 till cross epg sees it

 

[Arthur Daley]

so i just need to keep formatting the usb drive on fat32 till cross epg sees it

"keep formatting it"? Hopefully once or twice should be enough

My stick is only 512MB but this is way more than you need for just epg data. I think when crossepg downloads it it does the main headers first, about 3.5MB, then it does the detailed explanations, about 13.5MB. Even if this is expanded there will be ample space available for just epg.

If however we want to use timeshift, which I don't, then the bigger the better, in terms of how many minutes or even hours it can have saved to use. Bare in mind that this constant overwriting of the memory stick will no doubt lead to advanced failure rates, but with 16GB sticks now for a fiver...who cares

Try using either the guiformat.exe from the main Alien tut or the boot cd from the hard drive tut to format your stick. You may have better luck and its good practice. Also try using just the memory stick on its own first, till you get crossepg working on it. If it does not see it try putting box into deep standby for a few seconds (current time will be displayed) then press standby button on remote to power back up.

Good luck