AMIKO Amiko A3 Owners Thread

[Jim S.]

I think this was from the Alien, not the A3, but it states the same thing in the A3 one, if I remember right. I just couldn't find the darn thing right now.

I have a feeling that they just copied their verbiage from the Alien/Alien2. I've never heard of the A3 having dual-boot capability.

Also, there's a big problem with the Enigma images for the Alien/Alien2: no blind scan (unless it's changed recently). Since Amiko seem to like using tuners with no public documentation, I wonder if any supposed A3 E2 would have it either.

 

[. Raine]

I have a feeling that they just copied their verbiage from the Alien/Alien2. I've never heard of the A3 having dual-boot capability.

Also, there's a big problem with the Enigma images for the Alien/Alien2: no blind scan (unless it's changed recently). Since Amiko seem to like using tuners with no public documentation, I wonder if any supposed A3 E2 would have it either.

That could be, just copied. I didn't read a lot on the E2, but I don't think it was a dual boot deal on the A3, but no blind scan would definitely shoot that down as a viable option, pretty useless without that!

 

[Titanium]

Does the A3 have any capabilities for cable and OTA in it, or as a accessory to it? That could be it. Or maybe it's just something that was developed in production, but never actually implemented.

Remember, in the rest of the world the DVB standard applies to satellite, cable and terrestrial. Only difference is the tuner hardware and default modulation. Most differences are only in the displayed GUI. Since Spark is used in combo STBs, I would assume that their base firmware would support all possible DVB implementations. Most SOC development kits build off of a base combo and multiple tuner design.

Recent Enigma releases are including blindscan. Maybe some backwards compatibility.

Maybe drop OpenElec on the A3?

 

[N6BY]

A lot of heartache and angst if only the app corruption was defaulted to recover by restoring from a local back-up rather than check and automatically install the latest online version....

That pretty much sums it up. App corruption coupled with a very poorly designed recovery method.

The app corruption is most likely caused by an errant program that does a lot of writing to the internal flash drive. Doesn't always write where its supposed to, and overwrites the space occupied by other software or data. Without source code it would be a process of trial and error (by selective removal) to determine the culprit.

 

[. Raine]

Remember, in the rest of the world the DVB standard applies to satellite, cable and terrestrial. Only difference is the tuner hardware and default modulation. Most differences are only in the displayed GUI. Since Spark is used in combo STBs, I would assume that their base firmware would support all possible DVB implementations. Most SOC development kits build off of a base combo and multiple tuner design.

Recent Enigma releases are including blindscan. Maybe some backwards compatibility.

Maybe drop OpenElec on the A3?

Ah, yes, I was just thinking of cable and OTA here stateside!

I haven't any real experience with OpenElec, I did load it on one of my Pi's once. There was a problem I was having with EmulationStation being on the same Pi and not liking it, so I switched to Raspbian [I think, was a while ago!] and just built Kodi on it after Estation was setup. If I remember right, it was only a issue with the remote for Kodi and my PS3 bluetooth controller that I was using for E station having silly issues with each other, the remote changing the controllers mapping, something like that. I'd have to change my controller stuff and didn't want to, cause I had that working good and didn't want to rewrite any of it. Nowadays, any one that wants to use a PS3 controller, the support's built in.

I did read something just yesterday or the day before about someone doing some cool stuff with openElec and it caught my attention, I may load it up on a Pi and check it out some more, if I can find the time!

I'll have to try and find where I was reading about Enigma 2 and the A3. If it does blindscan and all the garbage theft stuff can be removed, that could be a option.

 

[Jim S.]

Ugh. After my last crash wiped everything out, I thought that maybe I would test the suggestion I've seen some people make that XBMC/Kodi is what's corrupting the A3s. I figured I'd not reinstall it, but just use the Spark media player. Well, I was quickly reminded why I quit using the Spark media player in the first place -- it's really glitchy on HD videos. (h264 MKV, to be precise.)

So I thought, why not install VLC? VLC shouldn't trash the system, because it doesn't install anything other than a single executable file (at least on Windows.) Unfortunately, VLC was even glitchier than the default media player unless I selected full hardware acceleration. The problem was, with full hardware acceleration it wouldn't play videos full-screen -- no matter which of the format options I selected, it would always play them in a window in the middle of the screen; selecting different options would only change the size or aspect ratio of the window slightly. Also, full hardware acceleration tended to screw up the audio sync (huh?)

My next try was MX Player, which seemed to be the next most popular video player in the app store. Well, I have a big problem with MX Player: it won't let me just select files out of a directory tree, it insists on lumping every file in that tree into a single flat list. Nope nope nope nope nope.

So, anybody have a suggestion for another media player to try before I reinstall Kodi? Requirements: must play (at least) 720p MPEG4 flawlessly, must not try to create a "playlist" unless I tell it to.

 

[Corrado]

I was thinking if it was possible without risk of damaging the receiver perhaps the A3 might work out for others on Enigma 2 if it was the factory software crashing for whatever the reason. I'm pretty sure I ran across E2 versions for the A3 but wouldn't want anyone to ruin their box trying it out if it's a one way flash with no way back to the factory A3 software.

I have a Amiko Alien 8900 with the dual boot giving me the choice of booting with Spark or E2 and have tried several different versions and builds of E2 over the last couple of months. A few a like and many I do not. Running on either system this unit is stable as can be. I have yet to see it crash, lose anything or even reboot itself. Perhaps the Linux is more reliable than Android.

I love the advanced choices the operating system has over Spark and it's been a steep learning curve adjusting to this sort of receiver. The largest obstacle was getting versions that have video resolutions that have at least 60hz for NA televisions. Many do not and end up with video and menus off the visible screen with no way to see the buttons to change them without guessing. I like the idea of the open source and that others can improve upon it.

This receiver has the best video output of any box I've ever owned, even the remote just feels right. Clearly not for everyone and obviously built for the opposite side of the world. But I like it because it's different. Many different flavors of media players also that have worked just fine in my setup.

 

[Jim S.]

No matter how many times my A3 has seemingly wiped itself, I'm still having the following network problems:

1) If I connect to the ftp server, I can't do anything. The first attempt returns "500 OOPS: socket" (yeah that's helpful!), the second attempt returns "500 OOPS: priv_sock_get_result" and then the connection gets closed. Tried Windows 7 and Linux clients.

2) If I connect to the SMB server, every file of any major size (i.e., recordings) is reported as having a NEGATIVE size. I can't view any such file because I get a "bad file descriptor" error, and I can't copy any such file to Windows because it claims I don't have enough space. (I've tried to see what happens from a Linux client, but can't even get a connection -- however, the only Linux client I've tried so far is in Virtualbox, and I've had trouble with flaky SMB connections from Virtualbox in the past.)

I know the ftp server used to work, because I used to use it to benchmark my network throughput. I'm pretty sure the SMB server used to work too. However, I have no idea which version they last worked in (currently using 2.0.78), nor do I know whether the failure coincided with an upgrade or is just another flaky post-crash behavior (although everything else is working fine at the moment.)

 

[gpflepsen]

Has anyone done the complete wipe and reinstall everything, I'm not talking about the update.zip restore. Would this get it back to a more stable state? If not for a day...

 

[Babadem]

Has anyone done the complete wipe and reinstall everything, I'm not talking about the update.zip restore. Would this get it back to a more stable state? If not for a day...

Yes... see instructions from the link found in this post.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/posts/3885428/

 

[Comptech]

I have done the low level format on mine three times now. Still a POS. No apps installed nothing and still get services stopped working and settings stopped working. The DBS side works for awhile until it reboots and I have a European box again. And of course Joe's website is a ghost town with more people repeating the same problems, but no answers. I think I know why he is in hiding! Big buck boxes that are crashing and no support.

 

[Comptech]

Also his last big thing the A3 combo, hyped it up and gave a member one with similar results. Man up and try to help us fix these things.

 

[Comptech]

No hope now, Joe is shutting his site down.

 

[KE4EST]

Yeah saw that this morning.

 

[N6BY]

Also his last big thing the A3 combo, hyped it up and gave a member one with similar results. Man up and try to help us fix these things.

The A3 Combo uses the same HiSilicon 3796 as my U4 Quad which both have problems that make them obsolete before launch. Namely, they can't do 60 FPS UHD without stuttering. They can't record UHD, and they don't handle 10-bit (High Dynamic Range).

So I think he made the right decision not to release it.

At this point I think our best hope is a HiSilicon 3798 box which is supposed to overcome the UHD compatibility problems of the 3796.

 

[Titanium]

With the demise of FridgeFTA, I am moving away from using the EuroTrash "cleaner" as it is no longer supported. Probably best just to run on native firmware release. Since the A3 reloads the default Euro firmware if the database is corrupt, why keep "cleaning" the firmware?

I am still running .72 and have yet to have a Euro firmware update... Knock on wood!

 

[pacificrim]

Too bad to lose that knowledge base. A lot of people contributed ideas (though quite a bit of hate as well) and those insights and tech resources will be forever erased. Also a shame that the A3 and A3 Quad were dogs.

 

[Babadem]

Just like I saw it coming. I downloaded most tools and instructions related to Amiko A3 a few weeks ago. Anyone know why he's getting out of the business?

 

[FTA4PA]

Joe is shutting his site down.

I know support for the A3 had all but ended but didn't see that coming.

 

[Lehman bud farm]

Anyone know why he's getting out of the business?

I heard he took a job offer elsewhere and no longer had the time to devote to this hobby.
I don't believe he had a real FTA system for the past few years anyway where he lives.

Shame that in closing the site down there will be a lot of information that will be lost forever.