Dreambox One Ultra HD - North America

[el bandido]

I purchased a Dreambox One from DREAMPORTUGAL on Wednesday and it is scheduled to arrive on Monday. This receiver will be different from the other fta receivers that I own. Enigma2 Image Flashing of the Dreambox One is different, and the enigma2 file structure is similar, but different than my other enigma2 receivers.

The Dreambox One is supposed to have Bluetooth 5.0 which I hope allows for the use of headphones. This feature would be especially useful for me and others at night. DVB-S2 Satellite receiver sensitivity is supposed to be good on the Dreambox One, and satellite blindscan is supposed to be good or great depending on who you talk to.

Most of the information and support for the Dreambox One is in German, which is a challenge for me as I neither speak German or write German. Dreambox has been "Closed Source" for many years so trying to build an enigma2 image has its own set of problems when compared to other Brands of enigma2 receivers. Dream Multi Media which is Dreambox has apparently shut down operations, but appears to be wholesaling receivers from some warehouse. Whether we see any new Dreambox receiver models in the future is unknown, but I say "probably not likely".

TNAP images are designed for use in North America. Things like blindscan and being able to receiver transponders on the same polarity spaced 1 or 2 MHz apart are items that are focused on in TNAP images. An attempt will be made to build a TNAP style image for the Dreambox One, but my speculation about how this will turn out is mixed. Probably how well a TNAP style image works in the Dreambox One will depend on how much propriety or Closed Source information has been released about the receiver to the image groups.

Dreambox closed some of their Internet support sites earlier this year, and opensource image support for Dreambox receivers picked up around the same time the support sites were closed. So hopefully enough information is available now about the Dreambox One to build a decent open source image that performs well and doesn't crash every five minutes. I have known about the Dreambox One receiver since it was first released around 2019, but have chosen to wait until now to try it for various reasons.

Dreambox One receivers are not particularly cheap: A person in North America could expect to pay around $300.00 for one delivered. The Dreambox One has some nice specs, but so have some other receivers in the past that were nothing but crappy. How well the Dreambox One performs in North America will depend on how much information has been made available for it. The Dreambox One may be a $300.00 POS. Or it may be a jam-up receiver. Results of what it does or doesn't do will be posted here.

Here are some of the Dreambox One specs:
Highlights of the One Ultra HD:

Amlogic S922X
6-core processor
53 K DMIPS
MALI-G52 GPU
2 GB of DDR4 RAM
16 GB Flash
HDR 10
HLG
2.4 GHz / 5.0 GHz MIMO WLAN
Bluetooth 5.0
1 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0
1 x Mini-USB (Service Port)
HDMI 2.0
Gigabit LAN
4K UHD
MPEG2
Video output up to 2160p
HEVC H.265 & H.264
Smartcard reader
SD card reader
S / PDIF
Web Interface

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[el bandido]

DREAMPORTUGAL ships to the United States using DHL. The shipping adds about 40-50 U.S. dollars to the price but you get the stuff you paid for in a timely manner. Roughly 36 hours later, my Dreambox One has made it from Portugal to Atlanta, Ga. and has cleared U.S. Customs. Cheaper shipping methods could take weeks to travel the same distance with little or no information on the shipment progress.

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[el bandido]

The Dreambox One has the Amlogic S922X Processor.

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The specs of this processor are impressive to me for a fta satellite receiver. But the specs really tell us Nothing!. I have seen people ask for chipsets, chipset numbers, DVB-S tuner types or id's, demodulator id's...etc. None of this stuff really means anything because a particular item may/may not do what it is advertised to do, OR a particular item may do something it is Not advertised to do.

The only way to find out about a particular fta receiver is to buy it. What works in Europe or what is advertised to work in Europe may not work in North America. The tuner or processor specs do nothing more than give an idea of what is possible. The advertised tuner or processor specs mean absolutely nothing! Specs are "Eye Candy".

[el bandido]

Messed around and got all the files needed, plus the information to install them on the Dreambox One tomorrow. These files include a custom builds for Openvix and OpenPli images that were compiled from online sources. I don't know if any of this stuff will work or even boot. Will be interesting to see.

Seems the Dreambox One has a serial port with usb drivers built into it for recovery and debug purposes. I have never seen a fta receiver designed like this for a serial port connection. It will be brilliant IMO if this usb to serial works on Linux.

There is a lot of Drama associated with Dreambox One and Dreambox products as a whole. Dreambox went closed source years ago and adapted the attitude that they were somehow better than everyone else. North American users have reported numerous problems with different Dreambox receivers, so whatever Dreambox was doing for an operating system did not work the best in North America.

I have ran into some arrogance too. Seems there is an audio problem with non Dreambox type images such as OpenPLi., OpenATV....etc. At least one development group claims to have fixed the audio problem, but doesn't want to share the solution with anyone else. "Ours works. Theirs doesn't" they say. Some of this type of attitude(s) have always been present in enigma2 receivers because people will be people. But there seems to be a level of arrogance associated with Dreambox that I haven;t seen with other fta receivers.

[ArloG]

Hey EB. Maybe perhaps you will find the next osmio4k of the USA fta world.
I think you may be throwing a few knives at me. Because the points you stated are exactly what I've been asking in other places.
I'm actually surprised you decided on a receiver with a slodered in tuner. But the specs of it do look promising. Tearing into the binaries, drivers shows revealing text.
The big hold back here is a great blindscan. Very important. Yeah. Europeans seem to live in ku band. And with transponders staying the same for a long time.

You never revealed how you got to the point with the osmio tuner drivers to get where you finally did for TNAP. It still misses some frequencies here and there.
I'm guessing your tap in to an lnbf with an sdr radio showed you at least a spectrum of what's in the LO bandwidth.
If you have worked with open, close source, of have a hotline to the osmio tuner mfgr. to tweak drivers that work well in the USA. It would be kinda interesting to find out.

You see. Developer boards. Meaning you have a bit of access to making an actual demod. IC work versus IF someone like Broadcom released a "here's your tuner and drivers Mr., Take it, of shake it".
Dev. boards with solder pads, documentation, and programming literature. Very cool.

You say, they say, users say. A FBC tuner will never give you blindscan capabilities. But digging deep in the temple of the screaming electron reveals the demod. chip CAN perform blindscanning.
In the very same FBC tuner.
In the case of your dreambox-a-coming. Hopefully not an unexpected clone. Drivers are built into firmware and the .ko is found where expected.
Within the .ko are capabilities of what the driver should be capable of. Yes?
So is it up to the frimware "programmer" to make it happen?
My very limited programming experience. And feedback from Edision engineers. Let's me believe that E2 "programmers" dump out a box of modules. Tweak them a bit.
And snap them together like Lego's and there you have it. Your firmware.
What's closed source is that.

I'll use this lightly. I prefer reverse engineering rather than 'hacking'. If the osmio4k receivers came with an across the board tuner driver. How did you get them optimized for the USA?
Because I still have at least 5 that Edision sent me to try out. One takes for-freakin'-ever to scan. But it gets everything in the LO bandwidth. By lunch. Tomorrow.

Maybe. Just maybe. A person would take a shine to a VU+ or Gigablue top of the line receiver. With a choice of tuners. But WHAT tuners do you pick?
The drivers don't pop into the firmware. Not until the receiver is flashed and the HW is discovered. Not like the mio, dreambox, etc with a tuner that is soldered in. Right?

Can't wait to see your impressions of your new box.
Nothng is meant as criticism. None at all. Just observations and a few unknown answer questions. For sure.

[el bandido]

First, I am not throwing darts, knives or even poking someone with a pin. My apologies if you got cut or felt some sort of pain, but you would have to be a bit more specific for me to understand.

Second, I am not a developer or have any developer relations on some secret website. There is a lot of information on GitHub, GitLab, and on those sites along with other sites, you will find communications between developers, which in turn may lead to useful information.

The FBC tuner is one example of why I say: The advertised tuner or processor specs mean absolutely nothing! Specs are "Eye Candy". FBC tuners are advertised as being DVB-S blindscan capable, and FBC tuners have been proven to DVB-S blindscan --- on transponders that are 10-30,000SR in size. So yes. FBC dvb-s blindscan works. But it is useless in the real world and has been disabled in most distros.

Right now for me, there is no advantage to owning a fta receiver with pluggable tuners because you don't have a selection of tuners to plug in that would work decent in North America. Both Vu+ and GigaBlue sell fta receivers with pluggable tuners, but again, they do not have any tuners worth plugging in for use in North America. Vu+ and GigaBlue as a whole are great subscription boxes, but perform poorly in the DX area that North America needs.

The exception in pluggable tuners could be Dreambox, but you have the Closed Source thingy to contend with, which probably translates to little or no help with their products. I prefer a soldered tuner receiver because of the items mentioned above, plus the fact that you don't have to worry as much about extra problems such as turning on the receiver and finding your tuner is not recognized because of a crappy slot connection.

The Dreambox One I think id's the tuner as SI2166, which should be similar to some other fta receivers and have capabilities of receiving low symbol rates, and providing a decent blindscan for DVB-S. This is why I chose the Dreambox One along with the bluetooth headphone capability which may/may not work. Other reasons I chose the Dreambox One are the features or specs highlighted in red in the first post of this thread.

I am very skeptical of the Dreambox One, and expect to have problems making it work the way I want it to work. Let's see if the thing actually gets delivered tomorrow, and then let's see what it does or doesn't do. Either way, it ought to be a helluva learning experience.

As for purchasing a Clone, I say No Way!!! Not from DREAMPORTUGAL. I have purchased more than one receiver from DREAMPORTUGAL and find them to be very professional people. But they only sell receivers and other electronic type equipment. They don't write code or even know how things work here in North America. DREAMPORTUGAL is one of the best for promptly supplying you with a FTA product. It is up to you to know what you are buying, so you can't hold the seller responsible for something that does not work the way you think it should!

[el bandido]

OpenATV Has One entry for a Dreambox One image. This receiver is listed as "unsupported" on the OpenATV forum. A Public OpenATV image for the Dreambox One has not been previously available that I know about. There may have been images claiming to be OpenATV, but I don't recall the Dreambox One image being in normal OpenATV downloads even a month ago. This is a recent addition.

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[Titanium]

If you have worked with open, close source, of have a hotline to the osmio tuner mfgr. to tweak drivers that work well in the USA. It would be kinda interesting to find out.

Long-term relationship with Availink on other projects proved to provide driver assistance beyond that, which was available through a platform developer. Hope that @arlo can sleep easier...

[el bandido]

Okay
So now we Know WHO was responsible. (It wasn't me.)

[el bandido]

I have been using the Dreambox One for roughly a day and have concluded it was nothing but a waste of money at this point in time. The Dreambox One recovery is based on an Internet connection with a direct computer connection to the receiver. A major recovery using this console depends on the official Dreambox website which no longer exists. I am sure there are other ways to recover the receiver if a major disaster happens, but the whole idea was to have this receiver depend on an official website that no longer exists.

The factory images that are available for the Dreambox One are antiques and appear to be designed around 2008-2010. Dreambox went private with their enigma2 images years ago and it shows when compared to image groups that share information. Dreambox was all about Dreambox and it shows in a bad way.

Most of the other images that are made from Open sources either don't work or have a tremendous amount of bugs. The only decent image is the one shown earlier from OpenATV which will probably improve over time as long as work is being done to improve things. Obviously what happened is Dreambox closed and left stacks of unsold receivers in the warehouses of resellers and distributors. So the resellers turned to the Open Source image groups in hopes of reviving desire or interest in these unsold Dreamboxes and the results so far are crappy at best.

The bluetooth headphones connection I wanted to try does not exist. The only thing I have found so far even related to bluetooth is a remote control which is very depressing. Maybe some bluetooth connection exists in an ancient image for the Dreambox One somewhere, but I am in no hurry to find it from what I have seen. My opinion of the Dreambox one so far is it is an unfinished receiver and should be avoided for use in North America. I more or less wasted my money buying it.

The interest or desire to purchase a receiver with pluggable tuners should be put to rest now because there is nothing viable for North America in that area. VU+ and GigaBlue has nothing we can use in the way of pluggable tuners. You would need to spend around $500.00 U.S. to get a Dreambox receiver with pluggable tuner capability, then you would need to spend hundreds more for the pluggable tuners. So at the end of the day, you would have a Dreambox equipped with pluggable tuners that cost around $800 to $1000.00 U.S. Someone may actually want to do this, but it aint gonna be me! No Pluggable Tuners in FTA receivers!

I will work some more with the Dreambox One and see what can be salvaged from it. But the way it runs and works right now, it is not replacing Any of my currently installed fta receivers. I wasted the money I spent buying it unless something changes.