Rick's b.log - entry 2024/09/01

Some old satellite kit

Old satellite receivers.

Now, I can't do a lot because my remote controls are broken. Corrosion due to battery leakage. The Freesat one looks like it just needs a new metal prong to contact the battery. The Sky one is rather more badly damaged inside in a way that will be complicated to repair, if I even bother. There should be a SkyPlus remote (a chunkier silver thing) but this wasn't with the receivers. No idea where it might be.
I tried loading some codes into the IRplus app on my phone, but they didn't want to work.

It's not just Acorn kit that gets killed by battery leakage.

So, without any further ado, let's get the composite video grabber working on my Android portable and hook these things up.

Pace DS430N

Of course, being Sky, you first had to tell it to ignore the lack of a phone connection.

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

This is from a simpler time when the height of interactive services was a built-in 33k6 modem.

After that, the familiar "twiddle your thumbs" message.

They are around here somewhere, I swear!

This brought back plenty of memories, not good ones, of the final days of my original Digibox with its failing tuner that on some days this would be about as far as it would ever get.

After a short while, nothing useful appears...

This receiver is strictly for bog-standard resolution.

None of these boxes can do HD. So I could watch Legend, FilmFour, and the SD versions of ITV (etc) but pretty much none of the BBC channels that have switched to be HD only.
Ditto with Sky, if you have a valid viewing card.

Pressing the tv guide button brings up the listings. At least the HD channels are marked as being HD.

Sky's famous programme guide.

Choosing a non-HD channel works if it is a free channel.

Fancy food from afar.

Not so much for Sky's channels.

Computer says NO.

Here's the box information...

Model and firmware details.

And here's the signal test. This, too, brings back plenty of memories, watching this thing go from a usable signal to diddly-squat. And sometimes bouncing between the two. Sometimes forced cooling worked. Sometimes it didn't.

Signal test.

Amstrad DRX280

This box takes for-bloody-ever to boot. Like two minutes or so. I recall my original Digibox was also quite lethargic. And it isn't doing housekeeping of the disc, as I took the drive out and it still took an eternity to get to a watchable picture.

There won't be many pictures here as the look and feel of the firmware is almost identical to that of the Pace box. Here is Channel 5, and it looks like subtitles have been enabled on this box. Well, I did get it from an elderly ex-pat (returning to the UK) a long time ago, so...

Such ugly subtitles.

I've noticed, as I often watch things with subtitles in order to follow mumbled dialogue over excessively loud music, that the DVB subtitles are pretty grim. My receiver makes subs that look like this too. Why the solid back background? It's almost as if these boxes are all cheating and are recycling code used for teletext, only with a slightly nicer looking font. They ought to take a look at the subtitling of Netflix, which is a lot less intrusive.

Obviously, not having a valid Sky subscription, the recording facility doesn't work. Nor does pressing the Play button. I don't know if the drive has been cleared or if recordings expire after a certain amount of time. I'd just go out on a limb here and suggest that 15-ish years is probably "a certain amount of time". ☺

Computer still says NO.

Here's the info.

SkyPlus device and firmware info.

I am not aware, by the way, of either of these receivers updating themselves. I'm not going to force it (boot while holding the back up button) because given their age there might not even be firmware available for them any more.

And, finally, here is the signal test, and this is how it is able to record one programme while you are watching something else. There are two tuners, so one data stream can be sent to the screen while the other is sent to disc.

Two tuners for more flexibility.

Unfortunately without a working remote, I can't test any of the red button stuff to see if that still works, and my usual yardstick for this is BBC, but with them now being HD I won't get to try those red button facilities even if I had a remote.

Goodmans GFSAT100SD

As with Sky, it's a curated service. Channels have numbers, and the box is pretty much incapable of working with alternatives - no support for LNB switchers. But, then, it's not aimed at that market. The benefit of Freesat is that it is free and unencrypted, so any free-to-air receiver can pick up the same selection of channels. As for the box, it is designed as a plug-it-in-and-go receiver.

Unfortunately, it seems as if there are no more interactive services or teletext. There may or may not be red button on BBC, but this is not relevant on a box that can't receive any BBC channels.

At startup, it said that it was looking at a data channel.

This... probably isn't right.

After a few moments, this appeared.

There was an update.

There were very few channels. These ones...

Channels, first part.

Channels, second part.

That didn't sound right. So can we add them manually? Yes, we can.

Adding channels.

But this is a clumsy way of adding channels. Surely there's a better option?

Yes, a full reinstallation might fix the problem.

Beginning the installation.

It's the same setup, so it is interesting to see the signal strength reported as 100% rather than the Sky's more realistic 30%-40%(ish).

In order to set up the correct regional channels, it needs a postal code. This is the postal code of the Waitrose supermarket in Yateley, where I used to live.

Let's do this.

After a few moments to scan for channels, it will report how many have been added.

All set up.

This brought in some new channels, such as Channel4/+1...

Channel4+1.

S4C.

And finally, the info screen.

Device and firmware information.

Okay, so how about the hardware?

Here's the heart of the Pace Digibox.

The important parts of the Pace Digibox.

The processor is an STi5517, a low-cost set-top box decoder that has an ST20 processor running at 180MHz (8K SRAM, 8K+8K caches), integrated transport demux for DVB/DES/ICAM, along with audio decoding, video processing, and PAL/NTSC/SECAM encoder with teletext and Macrovision support, IR receiver, and two smartcard interfaces.
To the left and right, a K4S641632 SDRAM. 4Mb × 16, or 8Mbytes (but 16 bit words). So it looks like 16Mbytes onboard.
The tiny chips are M29W160s, 1Mbyte 16 bit Flash memory. Again, there are two.
Just visible on the upper left is a Conexant CX81801 modem.

Here's the SkyPlus box.

Looking inside the Amstrad SkyPlus box.

The harddisc is an IDE type. A Seagate DB35.2 Consumer Storage device of 160 Gbytes capacity.

Here are the insides, in two photos.

In the upper picture, and NEC D61135F1. All I can find on Google are companies offering to sell them. To the left, two HY57V281602FT SDRAMs, 128Mbit, or 4 × 2M × 16 bit. So twice the memory of the older Sky box. Down the lower right, two 32Mbit (4Mbyte?) Flash memory devices.

The lower picture, the smaller chip is a 3.3V 32 bit bus transceiver. This probably acts as a buffer between the SoC and the IDE bus. Under the shield is an NEC D720101GJ. This seems to be a PCI to USB2 interface with a five-port capacity.

Also, not shown, there's a Conexant Dual Demod chip by the satellite input. A Xilinx XC9572XL CPLD (programmable logic chip) with 72 macrocells and 1600 gates. A Sony CXA7002R audio switch.

Finally, the Goodman Freesat receiver.

Looking inside the Goodman Freesat box.

For this, we're back to an STi chip, the 5119ALC. There's no available information on this. It probably isn't that much different to the 5117 used in the Pace Digibox.
Likewise, there's no information on the Zentel SRAM chip, and the Flash has a sticker on it. Let's just assume it's likely pretty similar to the basic Digibox.
On the far left, an SMSC LAN9115 10/100 Ethernet controller, because the Goodman Freesat receiver has a network port rather than a modem.

And my current receiver? A Metronic Touchbox HD3. It has 'reliability' issues, this is my third (one was a return under guarantee) because the power supply stops working correctly so the device can't switch on. Why do I persist with it? Well, it has a clear easy-to-use UI, it's responsive, and it makes it a doddle to record to a USB harddisc.

Channel 6 is FilmFour.

I did look at an Echosat 20500 S which looked quite nice, but the REC button did nothing. It seemed to be a case of "this might record if you manage to track down an updated firmware". It was advertised as being able to record, it can't record, so I sent it back. As far as I can see on Amazon, the Touchbox HD3 is the only device in its price range that I know can record.

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David Pilling, 2nd September 2024, 13:32

I've recently scrapped everything that is not HD - not going to be any use. I have kept some of the cases for possible projects.  Time has gone on, and there's been fragmentation, did they do a good job of planning. Do you expect your BSB receiver to still work.  The end of satellite is appearing over the horizon, and they need a plan for fibre, something that allows flipping channels.

Rick, 3rd September 2024, 21:24

Satellite will only meet its demise when broadcast TV shuts down.  There are enough places in the country where digital terrestrial is somewhere between "iffy" and "impossible" that satellite can easily step in to replace.    Yes, time moves on. A BSB receiver (and its "Squarial") was pretty much defunct the moment BSB threw in the towel and merged with Sky. BSB was wanting to use D-MAC (which later got 'fixed' to be D2-MAC). Sky, on the other hand, just transmitted a crappy PAL signal which was made even worse by the VideoCrypt scrambling. But it was simple and more importantly cheap. It's a bit like the famed Beta versus VHS showdown. Cheap and crappy wins because it is "good enough".   Channel flipping? I was just in an email discussion with somebody who has an *eight* output LNB. If I had a dual output (actually I do, but only the one cable) then that SkyPlus box would allow me to record one channel while watching whatever I like at the same time. I think more recent hardware does better, and can also integrate from online stuff. Like the BBC doesn't appear to have any "red button streams" any more. Well, maybe for certain live events but nothing like they used to. And why should they, when your box can pull it on-demand from the internet?    I think the fact that an MPEG2 digital specification (DVB-S) from around 1997 is still going and how all of the SD channels are transmitted nearly thirty years later is... pretty good going. The only problem with these boxes is that they don't support HD, but DVB-S2 is from 2005 and probably after these boxes were made, a time before HD TVs were common.    Then again, didn't everybody go all whoo-hoo over DAB until pitiful bitrates made the music sound awful, and then they all changed to DAB+ which uses HE-AAC rather than MP2 audio so isn't in any way compatible.    Things change. And unlike the analogue days when colour can be botched into a monochrome signal, digital stuff isn't able to be patched up like that. Each increment is something new. Like HD won't work on an SD set. Like 4K probably won't work on plain HD sets. Like... you get the point.

David Pilling, 3rd September 2024, 23:11

Fair enough. Red button - see the schedule online - not just events, they seem to fill it the rest of the time.    At the time, it seemed like analogue TV was forever, but that is a being young effect, it didn't last that long. 405 lines probably only lasted from after the war until the mid 60s.

Rob, 4th September 2024, 15:54

I'm sure 405 lines lasted longer. We still had a 405-only TV when I was very little, but old enough to be upset when "my" programmes were pushed to BBC2, which we couldn't get, for some event or another.    (Just searched, and apparently it was only shut down in 1985! That's way later than I was expecting to find.)

A tree-dwelling mammal, 7th September 2024, 13:07

I thought it was earlier than that too.    I do recall that my grandfather (who had retired by then) was invited up to Stockland Hill transmitter in East Devon to 'flip the big switch' and ceremonially shut it down, at least on the IBA (now ITV) side.    Must have been a year or two later we went back up so he could show me the outside of the transmitter station, by pure chance one of the engineers had just come on site to do some maintenance, so at 8 years old I had a guided tour of the transmitter site. Which was pretty awesome.

A tree-dwelling mammal, 7th September 2024, 13:12

(Hit the Submit button too early again...)    Might have mentioned this before - I get terrestrial TV from the Mendip transmitter. They've jacked the power output up since PAL transmissions stopped, but I still use Freesat. It has more bandwidth and a much higher bitrate.    Actually HD will work on an SD set, if you have the right type of HD box. I have a Samsung Freesat+ HD box in both the living room and bedroom, twin tuner with a 500GB hard disk. I picked the bedroom one up dirt cheap when Richer Sounds were having an open box clearout (in the end it cost £24, completely unused and brand new, just missing the manual, HDMI cable and batteries for the remote). This unit has SCART, S-Video and composite outputs, and would quite happily down-convert HD to 576i analogue and output in RGB mode on the SCART socket. I used it like this for 2-3 years on an old Panasonic 32" CRT until I was 'donated' a Sony HD flat panel. It worked well - and of course all the recordings I'd made were in HD so I could watch them in 1080p on the 'new' TV.

Rick, 7th September 2024, 14:12

"Actually HD will work on an SD set, if you have the right type of HD box."    No, it won't. Because you're mixing up an SD receiver with an SD television.    My HD box has a SCART on the back, and I have run the composite video into that little gizmo that can paste live video into the computer display so it appears on the monitor, either full screen or as an overlay on top of what the Pi is outputting.  A lot of HD receivers support downscaling to old style video outputs for older equipment.    On the other hand, there's exactly zero way that an MPEG2 compatible SD satellite receiver will be able to do anything at all with an MPEG4 HD signal. In fact, given that HD broadcasts can also use additional symbol rates (23000 and 29500 in addition to the usual 22000/27500), there's a pretty good chance that the receiver can't even lock into the signal, never mind trying to make sense of it...

A tree-dwelling mammal, 7th September 2024, 19:01

"Because you're mixing up an SD receiver with an SD television."    I just re-read my previous posting. What I MEANT to say was that you can view HD channels on a SD telly if you have an older Freeview HD or Freesat HD box that can downscale to 576i, which the Samsung will. (Does that make sense? Or am I rambling again?)    On the other hand, I have a Manhattan Freeview HD receiver (picked up for £10) which has, on the back, RF in, RF out, DC in (wall-wart type PSU), HDMI out and Ethernet. That's it. No SCART or composite. Bought to plug into an LCD TV that had a full HD panel but only a Freesat HD receiver, the Freeview was SD (and I don't have a spare satellite feed until I can upgrade to an octal LNB).    Going back to Freesat HD - it seems the BBC have moved EVERYTHING over to DVB-S2, not just the TV channels. So all the BBC national radio channels on Freesat also need a DVB-S2 receiver. From what I've been able to find out, this is due to the BBC changing the audio format on satellite radio from MP2 to AAC, which is far more efficient. Hopefully they'll leave the bitrate at 256Kbit on Freesat as Radio 2 on there actually sounds pretty decent.    Radio 2 on DAB, on the other hand - 128Kbit MP2, not good.    Recommended reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Music_Got_Free    The book referred to in that article goes into some detail about why MP3 was so much better than MP2, but why MP2 still became the 'standard' for DAB and DVB. (MP2 nearly became the standard for DVD Video in Europe, but fortunately the studios saw sense and made AC3 the default codec for all but the earliest releases with DTS being an option.)    So yes, the BBC have shut down all the DVB-S transmissions, which means your old Sky digibox (previously useful for FTA channels) has now become a paperweight. As has the Sky+ model, although with the extra weight of an ATA100 hard drive and a beefed-up PSU, it would probably hold a door open as well.

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