OTHER STBs with Web GUI?

engineercarl

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Oct 12, 2023
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Silver Spring, MD
I'm lining out a plan to deploy a fully remoted satellite/BUD setup, as in the STB sits in a NEMA shelter co-located with the dish and all interconnection would be via LAN or L2 VPN. Are there receivers out there that have useful controls exposed via web GUI so you can change satellite or channel that way, versus a remote?

If pushed I can control via the STB's remote as part of the Dante AV-H TX/RX network extension that will bring me the media, but that means going to find the remote every time I want to play around with it.

Ideas?

EC
 
OSMIO4K. I use my PC, laptop, or smartphone running Firefox to select satellites and transponders along with VLC to watch programming. My wife uses an Android TV box to connect to her osmio4k and select programming using dreamdroid.
 
I have two Enigma 2 receivers including the os mio4k.
Both allow receiver control using any device with a web browser.
With addition of a downloadable signal meter app to let you remotely tune your dish geometry.
If your dish is steerable, the various interfaces actuate the dish mover too.
Using VLC, the web interface.
Unless others can pipe in. Enigma 2 firmware has an Openwebif module built in what allows browser control of the receivers it's loaded on.
 
I have two Enigma 2 receivers including the os mio4k.
Both allow receiver control using any device with a web browser.
With addition of a downloadable signal meter app to let you remotely tune your dish geometry.
If your dish is steerable, the various interfaces actuate the dish mover too.
Using VLC, the web interface.
Unless others can pipe in. Enigma 2 firmware has an Openwebif module built in what allows browser control of the receivers it's loaded on.

I hadn't thought of using VLC, that would mean there's a DLNA server in that box advertising streams. If VLC player will find it, I'll bet a garden variety Smart TV would too, and I'd be spared the cost of discretely shipping the HDMI output across the LAN with a $2000 solution.

I need to go keyword searching for screencaps of the WebGUI in these receivers. Thanks!

EC
 
I do as the guys describe above using my Edision OS Mio+ receiver. For selecting the satellite/channel I want to watch and monitoring the dish receive signal, I use the SignalMeter android app. I can do any action I want remotely on the Edision by using the Edision webif via my local wifi. On a PC, I can watch any channel using PotPlayer. I can also wirelessly flip any channel I view on my Android smartphone over to the big screen TV via its Android box.

Once you have an Edision, all of the above can be done without extra charge.

The above is temporary for me. It is nicer and less tedious to use the physical remote in front of the satellite receiver which is how I will eventually operate.
 
A linux version of DLNA basically.
There are a few choices for streaming to remote devices. In the webif of the receiver you can see your "bouquets", or list of satellites that you create and sort with the channels in them.
When you click on stream the chosen channel then VLC launches.
An alternate way is to click on the webif option to save the playlist as an m3u8 file and place it in VLC.
Either way is pretty friendly. Although I still don't have using VLC on a streamer (Firestick, etc.) mastered.
There are apps that let you watch the receiver over your LAN. The free versions with upgrade options seem a bit "klunky" to me.

Edision, or the next best and obtainable for purchase Octagon SF8008 with the Enigma 2 operating system firmware will allow you to stream across your LAN. Bandwidth will be in the 7-8 MBPS range for HD and I think the NASA UHD channel consumes around 14 or so from memory. Flawless and glitch free.
The minus is that the receiver must be put in standby to stream remotely to view channels on other transponders that the receiver might be currently tuned on. Not so sure if the same occurs with a dual tuner receiver. Guys??

Almost forgot to add. If you have another E2 receiver it can be used as a slave. With wifi or Ethernet connection it will act like a coax to dish connected receiver on your LAN. Same rules apply though, the master needs to be in standby.

OpenWebif_Tunersandscanning.pngOpenWebif_Mainmenu.pngOpenWebif_Menu.pngOpenWebif_full.png
 
Almost forgot to add. If you have another E2 receiver it can be used as a slave. With wifi or Ethernet connection it will act like a coax to dish connected receiver on your LAN. Same rules apply though, the master needs to be in standby.
Arlo,

Thank you for the information and the screenshots. This is exactly the information I was looking for. My plans are to completely locate the dishes (C & Ku) some distance away (think miles) and horse everything back on an 11GHz microwave link, so obviously everything has to be remotable. I'm looking into exploiting NodeRED to work the polarization and positioner controls if that isn't something that is already handled by the receiver.

Regarding the master/slave configuration: is there anywhere that speaks more about this, specifically the protocols/bandwidth needed for such operation? The manuals I have managed to download from Edision in Greece are a little light on the subject. Is is available to any Enigma2 running STB, or only the Edision models?

EC
 
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Arlo,

Thank you for the information and the screenshots. This is exactly the information I was looking for. My plans are to completely locate the dishes (C & Ku) some distance away (think miles) and horse everything back on an 11GHz microwave link, so obviously everything has to be remotable. I'm looking into exploiting NodeRED to work the polarization and positioner controls if that isn't something that is already handled by the receiver.

Polarization of your lnbf is controlled by the receiver. 13 & 18 volt switching. Using a polorotor would be a different animal. So choosing standard voltage switched lnbf's would be the route to go.
Moving a ku dish with a usals positioner shouldn't be an issue. A DISEqC mover will work like a peach with the receiver.
Your link is intereting. Currently to get a wifi signal to my garage some 200 or so yards away I use an old dishent 18" dish in the cellarway aimed at the garage. I've taken an old 2.4/5 GHz router in AP mode and extended the built in antennas. And fixed them at the focal point. At the garage at first I used another router with DD-WRT. Just the built in antennas mounted to a window inside the garage in direct line of sight to the house setup.
Put the garage router in client bridge mode on the 2.4 GHz wifi network.
That gives me 5 GHz wifi and wired Internet connectivity when I go tinker with my toys.
Later on I built a 2.4 GHz biquad antenna for the garage router. Antennas alone gave me around -65 to-70 dB signal.
The biquad increased it to around -30 dB. Both situations rendered a speedtest.net speed of 45/90 MBPS respectively.
Possibly a limitation of DD-WRT firmware. Getting a WDS connection working was a bit of a bear. I've gotten better.
So perhaps will try that config soon.
Regarding the master/slave configuration: is there anywhere that speaks more about this, specifically the protocols/bandwidth needed for such operation? The manuals I have managed to download from Edision in Greece are a little light on the subject. Is is available to any Enigma2 running STB, or only the Edision models?

EC

I have a link posted below for a tutorial from OpenViX.
Its a TCP/IP link. As mentioned streaming a HD channel, I saw around 7 MBPS or so. NASA UHD 4k on 127W was considerably higher at around 2X the speed. So you will be just fine.
At an original "tweak in mode" wifi link with a marginal -80 dB link. Even 20 MBPS was enough to get a rock solid signal on my PC and the receiver in client mode.
A receiver in client mode is very nice as it acts just like the master receiver. As opposed to opening up a web page for the master receiver, choosing a channel to watch, and then VLC opening to watch it.

Just to add. Full master receiver control remotely will be a bit klunky. There is just a bit of a lag in using the webif to access the menus. Not disastrous, but klunky. So there may be times where you will just have to be at the master to make life easier. You will have full FTP/SSL access to it. And using a program such as E-Channelizer or Dreambox Edtior to arrange and sort, rename scanned in channels will work quite well using the wireless link.

You sound like you're quite "with it". And good questions. We could write a book. The Edision receivers are very good for the USA. But I've become to like the Octagon SF-8008 receiver because it has 2 identical DVB-S2 tuners and opposed to the os mio4k, 4k+ receivers which do not. So you can eliminate "switches" and watch different channels and record at the same time.
El Bandido over on LegitFTA just gave a quickie review and comparison of the SF-8008 vs the os mio.
Don't worry about any "deficiencies" he reported of scanning and missing transponders. The thing is. Guy's here will gladly share their scan files which you can plug into the master receiver quite easily over FTP.
The Enigma 2 OS is Linux based and if you're familiar with the file system. It will be breeze.

 
Ran my C-Band dish remotely between my home and business over about 1/2 mile. Passed 4K and controlled the dish positioning and polarity via IP using a point to point Ubiquity system, an Edision Mio OS and a web based GUI.

Example: A typical HD service uses 6-9Mbps. A demuxed 4K service could use upwards of 35Gbps (depending on the service).If you want to decode the mux locally, use a PC card and push the entire mux. Will require bandwidth exceeding the mux BW.
 
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Arlo,

Thank you for the information and the screenshots. This is exactly the information I was looking for. My plans are to completely locate the dishes (C & Ku) some distance away (think miles) and horse everything back on an 11GHz microwave link, so obviously everything has to be remotable. I'm looking into exploiting NodeRED to work the polarization and positioner controls if that isn't something that is already handled by the receiver.

Regarding the master/slave configuration: is there anywhere that speaks more about this, specifically the protocols/bandwidth needed for such operation? The manuals I have managed to download from Edision in Greece are a little light on the subject. Is is available to any Enigma2 running STB, or only the Edision models?

EC

I have designed and deployed many licensed 11 GHz MW links. What is your channel size? Fixed or adaptive modulation?
 
Ran my C-Band dish remotely between my home and business over about 1/2 mile. Passed 4K and controlled the dish positioning and polarity via IP using a point to point Ubiquity system, an Edision Mio OS and a web based GUI.

Example: A typical HD service uses 6-9Mbps. A demuxed 4K service could use upwards of 35Gbps (depending on the service).If you want to decode the mux locally, use a PC card and push the entire mux. Will require bandwidth exceeding the mux BW.
I'm not that crazy. I'll let the site STB handle the demux and I'll deal with budgeting for 1080i or 4K video (depending on codec). I could use Dante AV-H to ship the audio/video (and use it's built-in H.265 codec). That's a ~25MB transfer rate, and $2,000 an endpoint so it's spendy. That's the primary reason I am now looking at the Webif solution (that I didn't even know about until you guys told me).

EC
 
I have designed and deployed many licensed 11 GHz MW links. What is your channel size? Fixed or adaptive modulation?
Right now I'm only looking at path length and reality right now (as in am I going to have to put up some significant height to make the path work). I'd be stupid to ask for anything less than an 80MHz channel, and I don't think that I really need to stack them for more. 600-700 Mb should be plenty for what I want to do out there.

EC
 

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