What is a BT box good for without BT sub?

[vda]

Hello,

I am new here. I got a BT box on car boot sale, primarily for the hard drive. I was about to give the box (without HDD) away when I came across this site. I've read the posts but I still don't see what the point is to have a modded box that needs HDD to operate but cannot record any programme? Of cource, I am talking about using the box without BT subscription. Although the box has HDMI output it does not seem to support DVB-T2, so why is it better than any cheap Freeview box you can get for a few quids?

vda

[is0-mick]

Aint that much you can do with it currently.. its the same hardware as a popcorn hour, but with added tuners.

I haven't had a lot of time to mess with the box lately.. but we had it working as a basic freeview box but without pvr working.

You can write / change run your own software on it, if you want to write some tho


Mick

[vda]

Thanks, Mick, for the answer. Having read the posts, I have a feeling that the WinCE way would lead to nowhere. Who wants trouble with BT or M$ after investing lot of efforts writing a C# client that makes the box useful and be knocked on the door? I would go the Linux way, find the tuner driver and port the Engima to this box.

Sorry for not being helpful with my post, guys.

[mce2222]

it is not so easy to get enigma working because all the hardware access is suposed to be done with a closed source user-land lib.
to get enigma, neutrino or vdr running, you need to implement standard linux dvb api drivers, but you cannot? access user-land libs from kernel drivers.

just some days ago there was a new release of Enigma for the AzBox HD, which has the same sigma chip as the mediaroom boxes... but unfortunately the sources for the dvb api drivers are not made available to the public (which really sucks)

I think they reverse-engineered parts of the user-land lib and reimplemented it in a kernel driver

anyway .. here is a link to the thread http://www.satpimps.com/showthread.php?t=135894&page=64

[vda]

Maybe I think too simply, but in my eyes this box is nothing but a computer equiped with some specific hardware. The hardest part was to break the protection to get it run our own code. From that point what code we run on that machine depends purely on our knowledge. We don't even need to reinvent the wheel as all the codes are available with or without reverse-engineering. The bigest problem I can see here is not the lack of knowledge but the lack of interest in playing around with it as not every one has the proper soldering skill to make the modchip, especially on those models with no JTAG points.

We could say a big THANK YOU to BT in making landfill materials.

[hawesa]

Hi,

There doesn't seem to be many answers to getting a BT Vision box working after leaving BT so I thought I'd add a simple solution that may work for people with a mate using BT Broadband and BT Vision working on it.

I left BT broadband and when my BT VIsion box rebooted (after about 30 days) it wouldn't get beyond a error screen trying to locate an internet connection.

However I have found a simple work around which involved taking my BT Vision box round to a mates house who had a working BT Vision service. I simply plugged it in at my mate's house and let it do it's updates then when I brought it home again, I was able to skip another upgrade screen (i selected the 'remind me in 3 hours' option). I also had to skip the initial scan for TV channels screen by selecting the 'BT Vision' button and immediately got the full menus back again.

So far (about 2 weeks later) the BT vision box has been working with no problem using a different broadband provider. Stuff like I-player works, I can also record and watch previous recordings again. I just must remember not to turn the power off. Standby seemed to work ok.

So, if you know someone with BT VIsion then see if you can give your old Vision box a jump start again.

Hope this helps someone. I know it doesn't solve how to hack it and get working independently but it might just allow people to use their BT VIsion boxes for a little longer.