Humax freesat box dead, new setup suggestions

abedegno

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Hi,

I have the following setup:
- Sky mini dish with quad LNB
- Living room: Humax HDR-1100s Freesat box & Triax TriLink providing RF2
- Bedroom: RF2 feed from Triax with magic eye for IR
- Dining room: Manhattan freesat HD box for spare TV
The storage has stopped working on the Humax HDR-1100s so I need to replace it with a modern alternative:.
- I would like a new PVR in the living room that can be accessed from the bedroom
- triax/RF2 is a dated solution and low resolution
- I want to avoid running new coax and/or cat5e as I've just decorated.

Fronreading it looks like an Enigma2 box is best solution but I will need:
- new lnb Unicable II for the PVR with a classic output for the Manhattan receiver
- maybe a new dish as I have a sky mini dish?
- Enigma PVR box for the living room
- Slave enigma box for the bedroom for live/pvr streaming over IP - or could I just use a smart
- Fast wifi on the LAN or homeplugs

I work in IT so I don't mind hacking to get this working - but I'd like it to be reliable and user friendly (once set up)

Thanks
 
Why not just replace the hard drive in the Humax? It’s still a good lump, and a hard drive swap, for someone who’s worked in IT, should be a doddle.
 
Why not just replace the hard drive in the Humax? It’s still a good lump, and a hard drive swap, for someone who’s worked in IT, should be a doddle.

Ive had this issue, its a commonly reported problem with the 1000s and 1100s, the units report no hard drive, the issue is not the actual drive but some storage controller component on the mainboard which humax want too much money to fix ( wanted 114 from me !)

I ditched it and went enigma 2
My setup works from an old sky HD dish
 
Why not just replace the hard drive in the Humax? It’s still a good lump, and a hard drive swap, for someone who’s worked in IT, should be a doddle.
I've taken the HD out and tested it - it's fine - Humax forums suggest a well known mobo failure that stops the box detecting the drive.
 
Ive had this issue, its a commonly reported problem with the 1000s and 1100s, the units report no hard drive, the issue is not the actual drive but some component on the mainboard which humax want too much money to fix ( wanted 114 from me !)

I ditched it and went enigma 2
My setup works from an old sky HD dish
Exactly this - going the Enigma2 route attracts me as IP based streaming would allow me to go multi room using without new structured cabling.
 
Ive had this issue, its a commonly reported problem with the 1000s and 1100s, the units report no hard drive, the issue is not the actual drive but some storage controller component on the mainboard which humax want too much money to fix ( wanted 114 from me !)

I ditched it and went enigma 2
My setup works from an old sky HD dish
Actually it is only common is 1000's excluding early and late production. cases in 1010s and 1100s are very rare.
 

When you look into enigma 2 ...
CH4 HD
non encrypted recordings that you can watch on anything
sharing over IP
Combo boxes that do FTA Satellite and Freeview on one EPG
Autotimers ( series link )
Plugin availability

Then actually paying for the repair of the humax is a waste of money.
Cant see myself going back to the likes of the Humax
 
The current state of implementation of the Arris Freesat box makes it a poor choice against an Enigma 2 box IMHO.
 
The current state of implementation of the Arris Freesat box makes it a poor choice against an Enigma 2 box IMHO.
When you look into enigma 2 ...
CH4 HD
non encrypted recordings that you can watch on anything
sharing over IP
Combo boxes that do FTA Satellite and Freeview on one EPG
Autotimers ( series link )
Plugin availability

Then actually paying for the repair of the humax is a waste of money.
Cant see myself going back to the likes of the Humax
My thoughts also - the failure of my Humax box is an opportunity for me to upgrade to something "better"
 
Dont bother with a slave enigma 2 box, use a firestick or android box with kodi, does a fantastic job, and you get all the other advantages of the firestick
 
Dont bother with a slave enigma 2 box, use a firestick or android box with kodi, does a fantastic job, and you get all the other advantages of the firestick
Is that the VU+ pvr addon? I assume it works with any Enigma2 box (not just VU+ ones)?
 
Is that the VU+ pvr addon? I assume it works with any Enigma2 box (not just VU+ ones)?

My Enigma 2 box is a Tiviar Alpha Plus, so I can confirm it works on something other than a Vu+.

The Kodi add-on I have installed is 'Enigma2 Client' by Joerg Dembski and Ross Nicholson on both my Android tablet and Windows 10 PC. It takes a little while to load on Kodi start up but then works fine.

It may be worth mentioning that I haven't got anything special installed on the Tiviar box. As far as I can see everything is done by the Kodi / Enigma2 Client installed on the client device, that is the Android tablet, PC or Firestick.
 
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Is that the VU+ pvr addon? I assume it works with any Enigma2 box (not just VU+ ones)?

VU+ works well but think you have an old version of Kodi, as its now called enigma2 PVR cilent in Kodi
 
So I have finished my Enigma2 setup, certainly not plug and play:
  • Replaced my zone-1 sky dish as it was a MK2 with a MK4 - only £16 from CPC
  • MK2 40mm adapter with SCR LNB (Gigablue Ultra) - works really well with 28.2E and getting 100% signal despite the feedhorn mismatch
Went for the Gigablue UHD UE as it was well-featured (FBC tuners, 4k etc) at a good price point. I initially couldn't get the SCR LNB working with the tuner, but upgrading to Openwix 5.4 fixed this so I guess I hit a bug.

UI not as easy to use as the Humax freesat box, not surprising for a retail/consumer item - but I'm everyone's getting used to it.

I did initially try using apps (Kodi, Dreamplayer etc) for multiroom but it didn't provide a consistent user experience, so I bought a cheap second box (ZGemma H9S) and configured it for client mode which works well. Getting it to connect to the Gigablue box for playing recordings (NFS mount) was less straightforward than I hoped, having to resort to ssh and vi to fix some of the configs.
 

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