How to set up your new Vu+Duo. with ViX

PHEONIX

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This is a tutorial i am currently in the process of writing, at the moment it is unfinished and therefore a little rough around the edges. needs a few pictures etc etc etc. any hoo i'm posting it here as even in its current form it may be of some use to those needing a little help and guidance in setting up their new Duo.

if any one has any suggestions edits or just general feedback them please let me know.

thanks.

How to set up your new Vu+Duo.

First let me congratulate you on purchasing what is easily In my honest opinion, one of the best supported satellite receivers on the market.
You have entered a world of many possibilities and I personally welcome you to my hobby.

ok so you have just received you new shiny Vu+Duo and you want to watch some TV but you dont know where to start !.

This tutorial aims to show you what you need to do to setup your new receiver from scratch to the point where you can at least watch FTA/FTV ( Free to Air and Free to View ) channels via Sky uk otherwise known as 28.2 East.

Areas covered will be as follows.
Unboxing the receiver.
Flashing the Bootloader and Image
Using the setup wizard to setup network etc.
Loading a Bouquet or Channel list.
Setting up a EPG or Electronic Programe Guide
Setting up a Softcam to use with a SKY UK FTV or Free To View card.

Getting started.
1. unbox the receiver ( yes i know this is obvious but bear with me ).
2. Along with the receiver you should also have in the box a few other things as listed below.
a. Remote controll and batteries
b. Vu+ instruction manual
c. HDMI cable
d. Internal Hard drive fitting kit including the cradle, screws, rubber grommets and power, data connection leads. ( These may be inside the receiver it self )

Before we go any further i am going to assume you have a HDD you wish to use with the receiver if not you can skip this step and return to it later.
If your using a new freshly unboxed HDD you can go ahead and install that into the receiver now, However if you are using a used HDD make sure it is formatted to FAT32 and all previous partitions removed.

To eliminate confusion as i have seen many forum posts about this the HDD sits on top of the cradle and the cradle then attaches to the body of the receiver.

OK so now the HDD is installed and the receiver has been closed back up we can start connecting the various leads and cables.

Flashing the Bootloader and Image

The receiver will come with a standard factory produced image ( The firmware or operating system for the receiver ) unless you have asked the retailer you purchased it from to load a specific image first, For the purposes of this tutorial i will assume this is the case and will be flashing the latest ViX 2.3 image with the Linux 3.1.1 kernel.

Before we get that far however you will need a few things.
1. A USB stick / key formatted the FAT32
2. The newest Vu+Duo bootloader ( duo_cfe_3_0_usb.zip )
3. The ViX image ( Current public version is ViX-2.3.204-vuduo_usb.zip )
4A. A little patience and some ones hand to hold if you have a nervous disposition.
4B. A clean pair of underpants ( just in case ).

To start we are going to first flash the Bootloader ( duo_cfe_3_0_usb.zip )

1. Power the receiver down by the power switch at the rear on the rear of the receiver.
2. unpack the bootloader file and place the folder ( vuplus and it's contents ) onto the USB stick. ( for this i use 7zip but winrar will do nicely. )
3. place the USB stick into any USB port on the receiver then power the receiver on by the power switch at the rear of the receiver.

IMPORTANT​
WARNING NEVER remove the USB stick from the box while flashing either the bootloader or any image without first seeing the VFD prompt to do so and only then after powering the receiver down first.
Failure to do so could lead to a very expensive hardware failure, more commonly known as a "BRICK". As your expensive receiver is now effectively now only useful as a house brick.


you should now see a message on the VFD display of your Vu+ Duo that the USB stick is being read once this part is complete you will see a message telling you to remove the stick and reboot.
Power off the receiver then remove the USB stick, once again format the stick to FAT32. Now decompress the image file ( ViX-2.3.204-vuduo_usb.zip ) again placing the folder named vuplus and it's contents onto the stick and follow the same procedure as above for flashing the bootloader.

you should see the following displayed on the VFD one at a time during the flahing proccess.

Reading USB, Erasing Flash , Programming , Finnished Remove USB and Reboot

Note that while the bootloader took only a few seconds to flash to your receiver, a full image flash will take a few minutes. Once this has completed and you see the VFD prompt you can again power down the receiver and remove the USB stick.
you can now power the box back on and allow it to boot, This process may take a few minutes but once complete you will be presented with a simple setup Wizard screen that will guide you through the various setup options helping you get started.

Setup Wizard



The First setup screen you see should be the Video input selection screen. Here you are asked to select the input port for your Tv as below.
HDMI
Scart
YPbPr

along with the ability to select your language via the red button, the default language loaded being English.

For example i select the HDMI PORT i am then asked to select the video mode from several choices.

720p
1080i
576p
480p
576i
480i

I am selecting 720p but this can be changed later if needed. once selected you then greeted with a language selection screen.

you will now be presented with the restore wizard. This can be used to restore settings backups made from a previous installation using the ViX backup manager, as this is a new setup i am selecting the Exit restore wizard option.
Again you will now be presented with another wizard that will allow you to set up some more of the basic features of your receiver.
you can exit from this or follow the wizard i am following the wizard.

The next screen asks me to setup tuner A,by pressing left or right on the remote.
as i am using a fixed sky uk dish for this setup i will choose as follows.

configuration mode. Simple
Mode Single
Satellite 28.2E Eurobird 1..Astra 1N/2A/2B/2D
Send DiSEqC No.

As I am using both feeds from a the same source ( a octo LNB I will set both tuners up with the exact same settings ).

now we are asked if we want to perform a automatic or manual scan, for this part i will select no as i will be loading a bouquet pack later.
and i select no to parental controls.

Setting up the internet connection.
This next part of the wizard asks me if i want to set up the internet connection i select yes ( my duo is connected to my broadband router via a cat5 network cable )

use interface Yes
USE DHCP if yes the box will scan your router and assign a ip address automatically, or if you select no you can set up a fixed ip address manually, i select yes for now.
thats it the box is almost setup.

now to setup a few things before we go any further.

The first screen you will see once out of the setup wizard is the channel list, however as it has no channel list or bouquet loaded yet this will be blank but we can come to that later.
you may notice that the menu or OSD ( On Screen Dispaly ) on your tv screen does not quite fit it may be stretched or off to one side, dont worry this is easy to correct as so.

first exit out of the channel list screen by pressing exit on the remote. you should see the Vu loading screen.

To set the OSD
menu > setup > OSD > OSD SETUP
here you can use the up / down buttons to select each option and the left / right buttons to adjust the setting them selves. once you are happy that your OSD is setup press green to save these settings.

Loading a Bouquet or channel List

To load a bouquet or channel list to your receiver you need a few things.
1. The IP address of the receiver menu > setup > system > network > Device setup > Adapter settings ( write down the ip address in this case we have 192.168.0.6 )
2. A bouquet pack or channel list, for this tutorial i am using the latest Silverfox E2 ( enigma 2 )pack.
3. a bouquet editor. i am using DreamboxEdit 5.0.0.3
4. a copy of winrar ( I personally use 7zip and it's free which is also a good thing )

before we go any further install DreamboxEdit ( DBE ) to your computer.
For this tutorial i am using the silverfox bouquet which is a special set that mirrors the SKY UK channel line up matching the channel numbers to those of a official SKY receiver. to set this up correctly you need to make some changes to DBE before you even download the bouquet pack.

Launch DBE
press tools > options > advanced. make sure the heading allow duplicate entries in ( user ) bouquets is selected then restart the program.

now we need to setup a profile for your receiver in DBE
tools > options > profiles.
first press the new profile button and you will see a new profile appear in the left hand coloum. click on this to open it out.
enter the ip address you noted down earlier keeping the default ports for HTTP and FTP as they already are ( 80 and 21 )
under the heading username on dreambox enter the name root
and for the password type password ( this is the default password until you change it ).

you can also enter a name for this profile, then press the save button. make sure you have it set as enigma 2 under the filepaths heading by pressing the enigma2 settings button.

Take the bouquet file you downloaded and uncompress it using winrar to some where you can easily remember, I create a folder on my desktop ( this can be deleted once the bouquet is loaded to the receiver ).

press file > open and navigate to the location you decompressed the bouquet to. then press ok to load the files.
now in the bottom left hand corner select the profile you just created then press file > fast FTP upload. you may need to reboot the box after this step so the settings take hold.

Setting up a EPG or electronic program guide.


First of all I would recommend you use a dedicated USB stick for this process, I my self use a Sandisk Cruzor Blade 4GB stick for this purpose as it is very small and easily hidden away behind the receiver.

Format your USB stick to FAT32 from your computer.

Place the USB stick in to any of the USB ports on the receiver. ( I use a rear port as it's not in view and therefore hidden away. also as it's behind the receiver the stick is not so easily damaged. ). Then reboot the receiver.

when the receiver has booted up, navigate to the mount manager. Blue button> ViX> mount manager. your USB stick should be shown as Mount: /media/usb if it is not press the green button then highlight the stick and change the mount via the left and right buttons. Then press the green to save.

Exit from this screen using the back button and navigate to menu> setup> system> EPG.

you now have several options to setup your EPG using either CrossEPG or Rytek or both depending on your setup.

To setup CrossEPG as your EPG

press settings
change the EPG location to /media/usb using the left and right buttons. then press green to save.
scroll down to CrossEPG then press ok, Now scroll down to scheduled download and change this option to once a day then select your preferred scheduled download time, best pick a time when you wont be using the box. I use 04:15
you can leave the other options at their default values. press red to go back.

Now scroll to OpenTV providers and press ok. Highlight and select The sky uk options so you see a green tick next to them, then press the yellow button to download the epg. you will be taken to a radio page where the epg will download. This step will take a few minutes to complete.
You can select to use both 28.2 and 28.4 east in the settings but this consumes a lot of memory and is not needed only select the one that correspinds with your Bouquet pack. so for example if your bouquet points to 28.2 east select this option, The same goes for a bouquet that references 28.4 east.

To setup Rytek as your EPG

Select XMLTV-importer then as above set your preferred download time and set the daily automatic import option to enable. you can keep all other options at their defaults.
Now press blue and tick all the sky uk options once done press green to save. You can now press manual to download this EPG again as with CrossEPG This will take a few minutes, but once done you should have a fully working EPG setup.

Alos not that if you use Rytek as your EPG provider you must have a active internet connection to the receiver as it needs to connect to the internet to download the EPG data. If however you use CrossEPG you do not need a active internet connection as it uses the same source as SKY uk for it's EPG ( a radio channel previously known as the hip hip channel ).


Setting up a Softcam

In this part of the tutorial I am going to show you how to setup CCcam to work with a Sky uk FTV or Free To View card. We will not however show you how to setup a softcam for any thing to do with Card Sharing, If this is what you are looking for Use GOOGLE.

Before we go any further you will need a few things.
( you can place the card in the receiver now using any of the card reader slots but making sure the chip is face down )

1. The softcam you intend to use I am using CCcam for this tutorial.
2. A suitable FTP program, For the purpose of this tutorial I am using FileZilla as it is a free program.
3. A Sky UK FTV card, a deactivated White sky card will work here.
4. A copy of Notepad++ ( you can use the built in windows notepad program but it gives mixed results )
5. Don't forget those clean underpants.

First you will need to download the Softcam a copy of which can be found here.
Code:
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I my self am using enigma2-plugin-cams-cccam.2.2.1_1.0-r0_mipsel.ipk but any version will work.

You will also need to download Filezilla, a copy of which can be found on the forum or direct from the authors here.

Code:
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You want the Client version and not the Server version.

And of course not forgetting Notepad++ which can be downloaded here.
Code:
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making sure your receiver is fully connected to your network and you have a copy of the IP address for the receiver you can proceed to the next step.

Install Filezilla onto your PC / laptop allowing any access your firewall asks of you, then launch it once installed.

For this step i am going to use the Quick connect option but you can at a later date create a profile for your receiver so you can connect at the press of a button or two.

Along the top of the program you will see the following boxes.
Host: ( enter the IP address of your receiver here )
Username: This is set to ROOT by default so enter that.
Password: by default this if left blank or password, unless you have changes this. for now enter password.
Port: The default port is 21 so enter that then press the connect button.

If all goes successfully you should now be connected to your receiver. the boxes on the left of the program are your PC those on the right are the internal file structure of your Receiver. navigate to the TMP/ folder on your receiver and drag the softcam file ( must be in .ipk format ) to this location. once done you can exit from Filezilla. ( although you will need to use it once more before we are done ).

On your receiver navigate to the ipk installer. this can be found as so. Blue button> ViX> install local extension. If your file transfer via filezilla went correctly you will see the file listed here. Highlight this file and press the green button to install the file, you should see a conformation box just follow the directions selecting yet to reboot once complete.

While the receiver is rebooting install and launch notepad++
make a new file by clicking on File> New. you do not need to enter any thing into this file for use with a FTV card but the file is needed by the cam.
with this new file open again click on file but this time select the save as option and you will see another box popup.

In this new box select the location you wish to save this file to using the icons on the left hand side then under the File name heading enter the file name as CCcam.cfg Making sure it is this exact spelling as it is case sensitive then under the heading Save as type select the following All types (*.*) and press the save button. Once again open your FTP program and login as above but this time navigate to /ETC on the receiver and copy the file you just created there, exiting the program once done.

Now we can activate the Cam via the blue button. Blue button> softcam manager. press green to start the cam and blue to enable auto start.

Thats pretty much it. you should now be setup to use your Sky uk FTV card Via CCcam.

So there you go, If you have made it through this tutorial and not needed to use those spare pair of underpants. Give your self a huge pat on the back and maybe go for a cuppa. you deserve it.
 
Hi Phoenix,

I have just read through your tutorial above, it is very helpful.

At the start you say it is unfinished and that you may update it. I was just wondering if you have since updated it.

I only ask as I have recently purchased an E2 box, and need a very detailed guide to follow on how to set it up.

Many thanks,
 
due to many changes to images,is the box an original or clone .it is an old box if its vu duo or is something else?
 
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