Gekko Test and Review

[Guest]

Your right Jim, just did a scan on Ses2 this morning:


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[Jim S.]

The Gekko does share files over the network. It has both a uPnP (DLNA) server, which I haven't tested, and an SMB (Windows folder sharing) server. And I'm assuming FTP also, since a port scan shows the FTP port open, but I haven't tested that. The puzzling thing is that someone in another thread said that their Anaconda (I think it was) only shared via FTP, and all these receivers seem to have the same firmware -- even down to having files for supporting things the Gekko doesn't have, like a front-panel display and extra USB ports. The manual is wrong though -- you can't get to the files via a web browser (unless you tell it to use FTP, as they found in the other thread), you have to enter the address of the box in a file explorer address bar or the Windows run command box.

The thing which interests me is that it DOES allow you to play a file which is still recording. This means that you could have near-live TV on another device from a remote Gekko! There's no reason you couldn't play 4:2:2 this way, I don't think, as long as your client supports 4:2:2. The problem is, I haven't found such a client yet. So far, the only player I've found that plays the Gekko's .ts files is KMPlayer, and it doesn't support 4:2:2 -- at least with the codecs I have installed so far. (Does KMPlayer support other codecs, or is it self-contained like VLC? I have no idea right now.) VLC won't play the .ts files, which is disappointing because VLC normally plays everything, including 4:2:2. It plays my Openbox .ts files just fine, so I don't know what the Optibox is doing to the files that makes them non-compatible. I'm going to try my media player box, which I know plays 4:2:2, soon, then I think I'm going to move on to testing E2, at least til we get this bug with the blind scan not scanning without a reboot, or hanging, figured out.

[Jim S.]

Unfortunately, I have to report a triple fail on playing from the Gekko with my media player STB.

First, it won't recognize the Gekko's SMB share. I think this is because my media player insists on making you select a workgroup first before you can select a server, and the Gekko doesn't have any way to set a workgroup name (and apparently doesn't come with one set.) Maybe it would work with a more flexible media player, who knows.

Second, it does recognize the Gekko's uPnP share, but the problem is, unlike the SMB share, the Gekko doesn't appear to want to share a file that's open for recording.

Third, and this is the real killer, although I was expecting it, it doesn't recognize the Gekko's file format. You'd think if they were calling it a .ts file, it would be a .ts file, but obviously not.

OK, enough of that, I have work to do (I wish these boxes had come out in the winter, when I had nothing to do!), the next time I play, it's going to be with E2. But I have another observation, and a question.

The Gekko doesn't seem to want to recognize my USB HD at boot time. I have to unplug it and reconnect it, and then it recognizes it automatically. I have a gut feeling that this could be because it's connected to a hub instead of directly, but I haven't tested that. (And furthermore, they PROVIDE the hub, so they ought to support it.)

The question I have is, has anyone figured out how to mount a network share TO the Gekko, so you can play files from it? I'd like to test the media player capabilities with certain formats I have, but I don't want to have to copy a bunch of big files to the Gekko's drive first. (I never store files on my media player, I always serve them from my PC.) The storage manager menu does have a Network Drive option, but it says Not Available and nothing I've entered into the configuration box will change that. I've even logged into the box by telnet and tried "mount -t smbfs //server/share /STORAGE/NET" and it doesn't work -- it says "no such device". (But it doesn't complain about smbfs, so it must support that.)

[Pixl]

Third, and this is the real killer, although I was expecting it, it doesn't recognize the Gekko's file format. You'd think if they were calling it a .ts file, it would be a .ts file, but obviously not.

I noticed when I was testing the Gekko, the ff and fr "trick play" was very smooth and easy to get around in the file. Reminds me of the TiVo which also operates on Linux. The TiVo was out for quite some time before someone cracked the files it recorded. If I remember right it was a mpeg recording with extra coding tucked into it for handling the ff and fr playback and is why no one could get the files to play outside of the TiVo.

[Jim S.]

I got the mounting of a network drive in the storage manager menu to work. I had been over-thinking it -- the server has to be specified as an IP address rather than a name; also, you don't need the two slashes in front of the server name -- in fact, I don't think it even works if you use them. So if I want to mount my video storage drive, for example, I'd specify the folder name as 192.168.0.2/video (the problem with using addresses rather than names is that if you use DHCP, your server may not have the same address all the time if it's not on constantly, so either give your server a static address or deal with looking up its address when you want to connect to it.)

From the brief amount of time I've had to test it, the supported file formats seem to be as advertised. Unsupported file formats won't even show up in the file list, which is nicer than the way my standalone media player box does it.

One nice little feature that I've never seen elsewhere is that when you're viewing a picture, it gives you the option of setting it as the background image for satellite radio channels.

One thing that I don't like is that although it shows .ts files in the filelist, it won't play .ts files recorded on my Openbox, even though they're the REAL .ts format and the Optibox format is something else. It does offer to "repair" them, but I haven't tested that yet because I don't want my files altered. I'll have to duplicate one and then try it.

[el bandido]

Upload a small video clip made on the Openbox that the Optibox will not play. Do this so the video clip may be sent to Fortis. EB

[Jim S.]

I'll try to get a sample file sometime when I have time to hook the Openbox back up. I tried to upload the smallest one I could find on the drive, but it was 86MB even after zipping and the forum complained that it was larger than 60MB (after I uploaded all 86MB at 300kb/s...)

[Jim S.]

I found a very useful plugin on a European board. I think it's for all the Optibox receivers in the Raptor / Anaconda / Gekko family. What it does is scan all the storage devices attached to your system -- hard drives, USB drives, and even supposedly network shares -- for .ts files, and modifies all the files that it finds so that they play on a computer with any program that plays .ts files, not just the one or two that play the Optibox format. The modified files will also still play on the Optibox. If I understand the machine-translated post that accompanied the file correctly, it will also modify .ts files from other systems to play on the Optibox, although I haven't tested that part yet.

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[Jim S.]

Finally scanned 87W Ku. Contrary to others' experience, Telemundo with the low symbol rate did scan in. In fact, it scanned in as KTEL rather than "Ch-1" or something like it did on other receivers. I wonder if they changed something about the signal since the last time anyone tried?

On the down side, I can find nothing good to say about the extended signal meter. It looked like the one on my Coolsat -- nice big bars that you can see from a long distance, and a beep tone that increases in speed with increased quality. But it didn't behave like it. The Coolsat's extended meter was super sensitive and super responsive. This one, quite a contrast. I can move the dish quite a range before the meter responds, so I can never find the peak. It's as if it tops out too early, even though it tops out far below 100%! (Just like the meter on the Openbox. On the Coolsat, the slightest pressure on the dish would move the meter.) And if I move the dish too fast, the meter overshoots, either going to 100% or 0% before bouncing back and settling -- obviously something wrong with the locking algorithm. This is all when moving the dish manually. Moving it with the DiSEqC 1.2 controls, it does exactly the same as the Openbox -- it cuts out while moving. (This is with a universal LNB, which is supposedly the problem with the Openbox -- something funky with the 22k signal. I haven't tried it with a standard.)

[el bandido]

I think you will have much better results with the signal meters moving the dish by hand.