X300T vs. AZBox Elite Premium Firmware

[tharude]

Hi All!

A lot of googling and forum reading last night and i began to wonder whether this two devices are not quite the same as hardware, since both of them are using the same Sigma processor. Both of them are basically built with PVR option. The only first sight hardware difference is that AZBox have CI installed on board and for X30XT it seems like an option. The good one is that AZBox IS Linux based.
Does someone tried to use AZBox Elite/Premium Firmware on X30xT? It's worth looking at that direction since if they are compatible as hardware we can say "bye-bye" to WinCE a bit faster. Also a lot of patches and software can be found on the Internet  for AZBox already made.

Regards!

[mce2222]

true, the cpu is the same... and with the modchip you could get the azbox firmware to run, but there is a major obstacle... the audio/video uCodes used in the ms mediaroom boxes are "production uCodes" and all known Linux boxes (like the azbox) use "facsprod uCodes".
to get any Sigma firmware working, you need to have the correct uCode version for the firmware... so that means you would need the 2.8.5.1 Prod uCodes ... and the chances that you get your hands on those are very low.

but the good news is... you can already get Linux running on a x300t but we only have the 2.7.127 Prod uCodes. There is no known firmware that uses this old MRUA version... you could create something by yourself but it is not an easy task.

[tharude]

Sounds bad.... but not as bad as it looks
Can't get hardware specs on Sigma Designs SOC. Do they have microcode loader? I'm thinking about a possible opportunity to fake the chip via microcode. The Prod uCode is needed only when something needs it, right? If it can be forced to act as 2.8.5.1 but without the real code check....
Another funny thing: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/1024-bit-rsa-encryption-cracked-by-carefully-starving-cpu-of-ele/
I can hardly believe that the XPU's Private key differs from chip to chip, so..... maybe someone with good programmable power supply will try this 

And just found this: http://en.pudn.com/search_db.asp?keyword=SMP8634
If it is a known source, sorry, but in other case maybe someone will find something interesting inside.

Regards!

[Hoernchen]

The ucodes are needed for audio, video, and irq handling, (= as long as you want video or audio they are needed) and they have to match the mrua version because no one knows the meaning of the offsets used by mrua to communicate with the irq handler so there is no way to modify a mrua to work with a different ucode version. While old ucode versions are not encrypted the are not really helpful because the cpus/the ucode-code does not resemble a known architecture. Nowadays there is not really a reason to put this much effort into deprecated hardware because there are other, more advanced, devices that are far more open readily available.