_default _146_pages.indd - TELE-satellite International Magazine

But enough nostalgia, we live in the
21st century now. Not just digital satel-
lite television, but also HDTV made its
way into all parts of the world. There are
lots and lots of different receivers available,
which would perfectly fit the needs
of almost any user already with its original
firmware. So does it make sense to
“think alternative” today?
Especially if we are talking about powerful
Linux-based HD PVR receivers.
ABCom, one of the market leaders in this
segment, even with the original firmware
could reach such flexibility, that hardly
anything was left to be desired. And once
we learned that even ABCom itself is
releasing an alternative firmware for its
IPBox HD receiver family, we decided to
have a look and find out, what made them
do so. We decided to carry out the tests
on AB IPBox 910HD, although, Enigma1
is already available also for 91HD, 900HD
and 9000HD as well.
Installation
The most comfortable and worry-free
way could be an Online Update, which
normally would allow us to download the
image right into the box’s memory from
the Internet, however, we didn’t find
Enigma1 in the list of available updates.
So we had to download the image from
http://download.abcom.sk and upload it
via USB. To do so, first you need a USB
stick, which should be formatted in FAT
or FAT32 just before the image file is
transferred to it. Next step is to rename
the image file to usb_update.img, and
“safely” remove the USB stick from your
PC, stopping it in the OS you use. Now
plug it into your IPBox HD receiver, and
for some time put the remote control
away - now all the operations need to
be done with the buttons on the front
panel.
Simultaneously press “Standby” and
“OK” buttons to reboot your box, then
hold “Standby” and “Up” for a few seconds,
releasing first the “Standby”, then
the “Up” button. The front display should
clearly read “USB Upgrade” now, and if
the receiver finds the usb_update.img
file on the USB stick and no extra files
were left there by the user, the process
should start. In some cases it might
say “ER 10”, nothing is wrong, it could
happen sometimes with earlier versions
of bootloaders. Just try it couple of more
times, and soon you’ll have the job done.
Upgrading this way is safe enough, just
make sure that the power is not shut
off until the new image file successfully
lands in the box’s memory and it’s front
display says “Done”.
Following an upgrade, you’ll first see
“Booting”, then “Loading”, then “Load
Enigma HD”. Then just a black screen.
38 TELE-satellite — Broadband & Fiber-Optic — 10-11/2009 — www.TELE-satellite.com