GEOSATpro HDVR3500 - New DVBS2 STB - Photos and Initial Testing

[Gfox]

I have decided that I don't want to return my HDVR3500. I thought I was getting a quad-core with plenty of RAM so I could use it for both FTA and IPTV. But I didn't expect it to receive ACM when I first tried it -- a very pleasant surprise! I also like the fast blind scan. Since I do a lot of KU feed hunting with my BirdView, the blind scan speed really helps. In addition, the fast forward and rewind functions are the best that I have seen in any FTA receiver.

From the CPU usage tests reported previously here, it doesn't seem like the CPU-intensive portions of the firmware are optimized for multiple cores. Portions of the code where it spends most of its time need to be rewritten to be multi-threaded. This receiver would really benefit from that.


I just tried the UP and DOWN arrows here and it started playing the previous or next recording in my list. Maybe there is a corrupt recording left over from when you had the newest build?

I deleted all of the recordings that were stored by the DVR in case one of them was corrupt and I created 3 new recordings. After making the new recordings I pushed the up and down buttons and the change from one recording to the next DID work as N6BY described. BUT... when I reached the last recording in the list of recordings and when I pushed the down button again, instead of looping back up to the top of the list of recordings the remote control was dead and any inputs that I made would not work. It seems that if you are watching the last recording in the list and if you push the down button again that the unit should loop back up to the first recording in the list and to not lock up the remote control ability requiring a hard reset. The only way to activate any inputs was to reset and reboot the unit using the master off switch on the rear of the unit.

 

[stargaze]

I don't know if this is a know issue or not but this is occurring here all the time.

Going into Menu, Settings, and then to Transponder then press the blue key to edit and pulling down the TP listing when I hit the Yellow key to delete a TP the receiver goes into load and when it comes back up the TP I wanted to delete is still there.

Deleting all TP’s works fine but a single one does not appear to work properly unless there is another way to delete a single TP.

Also I did notice that either SES-1 C or ku had several of the same TP’s in it and had to delete all of them and rescan to correct this issue, since I could not delete 1 at a time.

There are many things to like about the receiver, however these minor bugs need to be put out in hopes they are corrected since no one person can catch them all.

I am using firmware version 935.

 

[Titanium]

There is a strange issue with my 3500; the channel display randomly turn off and the green light and colon flash every 3 seconds until I change the channel, then it displays fine for 5 - 20 ? minutes till it goes off again.

Does this happen on all channels or any specific channel? HD/SD?

 

[Titanium]

It seems that if you are watching the last recording in the list and if you push the down button again that the unit should loop back up to the first recording in the list and to not lock up the remote control ability requiring a hard reset. The only way to activate any inputs was to reset and reboot the unit using the master off switch on the rear of the unit.

I am able to duplicate this. Reported a related problem a few weeks ago. If only a single DVR file is in the list, the STB locks up when the file playback ends or you press Up/Down key.

 

[Titanium]

Welcome to SatelliteGuys!

Halo v1.0.7.0 498 is the latest firmware version. Are you wanting to roll back and install an older version?

 

[skysurfer]

Going into Menu, Settings, and then to Transponder then press the blue key to edit and pulling down the TP listing when I hit the Yellow key to delete a TP the receiver goes into load and when it comes back up the TP I wanted to delete is still there.

Deleting all TP’s works fine but a single one does not appear to work properly unless there is another way to delete a single TP.

I think it's the bug if it's the same issue I have - when I delete a single TP, my receiver reboots but doesn't reboot if I delete all TP's.

Another thing that bugs me is how to navigate the sat list - the page up/down buttons on the remote (or the keys that seem most logical to be "page up"/"page down") do not work. I found myself somehow in the european satellite part of the lengthy SAT list and it takes FOREVER to get back to the north american satellite part of the SAT list when the only buttons that seem to work are up and down one sat at a time.

 

[KE4EST]

Welcome to SatelliteGuys gazzac!!

 

[Titanium]

We requested if a full version of Kodi be installed for the FTA hobbyist user instead of the current neutered version. Hopefully this can be done as I want to install the new Silicon Dust add-on for ATSC (over the air) DVR recording, playback and network file sharing!

 

[stargaze]

I think it's the bug if it's the same issue I have - when I delete a single TP, my receiver reboots but doesn't reboot if I delete all TP's.

Another thing that bugs me is how to navigate the sat list - the page up/down buttons on the remote (or the keys that seem most logical to be "page up"/"page down") do not work. I found myself somehow in the european satellite part of the lengthy SAT list and it takes FOREVER to get back to the north american satellite part of the SAT list when the only buttons that seem to work are up and down one sat at a time.

I ended up doing a factory default due to trying to get a bug I noticed on 125 out of the way. I believe it was due to the 935 firmware upgrade and it refused to scan in any Vertical channels on that sat.
Deleting the sat and then adding it back solved the problem but the sat was out of line then. Very frustrating that I could not add a sat in the right position. So Factory default and then delete all the Eastern sats, now deleting all the TP's on each sat since there are way too many mistakes in them. Then I'll change AMC-1 to SES-3 and then save the new list as my default from here on out.

It's almost like what I had to do to the Azbox when it arrived to get it to the way I wanted it.
I'll never understand why they put in all those TP's when you have a decent blind scan on a receiver.
By the time they add them they have changed!
SES-101 C-band if you look at the TP's in there is a mess! Duplicates and mistakes.

I hope they are keeping track of these things to correct in a future update.

 

[FTA4PA]

Welcome gazzac!

 

[jaytee4320]

Does this happen on all channels or any specific channel? HD/SD?

I see this display problem on both SD and HD and on various channels.
Today the symptoms are different...digits sequence or cascade over and over the 4 channel display and then freeze with random character display.
When I change channel it displays properly again.
I've done a hard reboot a few times but no joy.
Just checked display now and back to flashing green led and display colon as before.
It's not a big deal and I will wait for a new firmware release. Tnx

 

[N6BY]

Odd, one core looks to be at zero, inactive. The other CPU is at 35-38 % on a SD channel, jumps up to between 37 to 45% on LPB HD on 87W....

I just tried the 'top' command on mine. The 'CPU' field is the core identifier and the '%CPU' field is the percentage of time that each listed process is using.

The 'CPU' field is always 0 because it appears that only a single core is present. If there were two cores, some of the listed CPU identifiers would say '1'. But they're all '0'.

This appears to be a single core and not a dual core like I posted on Friday. I was looking at the specs for the Hi3712 here: http://www.hisilicon.com/news/news/20130926.html I saw the 'Dual-Core' but that was for the Hi3716 listed at the top of the page. We have the Hi3712 single core. Sorry I made that mistake.

Here is the 'top' display screen. The highlighted column is the CPU identifier which is always '0'.

 

[fred555]

top commands related to multiple CPUs.

This is from a linux box, not a reciever:

top - 21:02:59 up 17 days, 11:39, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05
Tasks: 82 total, 1 running, 81 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 0.4 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni, 99.6 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem: 3936448 total, 827844 used, 3108604 free, 455200 buffers
KiB Swap: 4787196 total, 0 used, 4787196 free, 138788 cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1 root 20 0 10648 812 680 S 0.0 0.0 0:07.15 init
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.03 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.78 ksoftirqd/0
6 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0

When in linux when in top, I press the 1 key to get this:

top - 21:01:58 up 17 days, 11:38, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05
Tasks: 82 total, 1 running, 81 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu0 : 0.0 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni,100.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
%Cpu1 : 0.0 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni,100.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
%Cpu2 : 0.0 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni,100.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
%Cpu3 : 0.0 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni,100.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem: 3936448 total, 827844 used, 3108604 free, 455200 buffers
KiB Swap: 4787196 total, 0 used, 4787196 free, 138788 cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1 root 20 0 10648 812 680 S 0.0 0.0 0:07.15 init
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.03 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.78 ksoftirqd/0
6 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0

Now you can see all cores, here they are all idle.

 

[fred555]

Also when in top I press the f key to get this menu:

Fields Management for window 1ef, whose current sort field is %CPU
Navigate with Up/Dn, Right selects for move then <Enter> or Left commits,
'd' or <Space> toggles display, 's' sets sort. Use 'q' or <Esc> to end!

* PID = Process Id
* USER = Effective User Name
* PR = Priority
* NI = Nice Value
* VIRT = Virtual Image (KiB)
* RES = Resident Size (KiB)
* SHR = Shared Memory (KiB)
* S = Process Status
* %CPU = CPU Usage
* %MEM = Memory Usage (RES)
* TIME+ = CPU Time, hundredths
* COMMAND = Command Name/Line
PPID = Parent Process pid
UID = Effective User Id
...
...
* P = Last Used Cpu (SMP)

Then I can scroll down and select P with the spacebar, then esc, now the top display shows the active cpu for the process:
top - 21:13:04 up 17 days, 11:49, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05
Tasks: 82 total, 1 running, 81 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu0 : 0.0 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni,100.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
%Cpu1 : 0.0 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni,100.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
%Cpu2 : 0.0 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni,100.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
%Cpu3 : 0.0 us, 0.0 sy, 0.0 ni,100.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem: 3936448 total, 827844 used, 3108604 free, 455232 buffers
KiB Swap: 4787196 total, 0 used, 4787196 free, 138788 cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND P
19930 root 20 0 23172 1556 1116 R 0.3 0.0 0:00.32 top 1
1 root 20 0 10648 812 680 S 0.0 0.0 0:07.16 init 0
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.03 kthreadd 3
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.78 ksoftirqd/0 0
6 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0 0
7 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:02.53 watchdog/0 0
8 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.09 migration/1 1
10 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.52 ksoftirqd/1 1
11 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:17.76 kworker/0:1 0
12 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:02.55 watchdog/1 1
13 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 migration/2 2
14 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:12.03 kworker/2:0 2
15 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.81 ksoftirqd/2 2
16 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:02.15 watchdog/2 2
17 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.25 migration/3 3

The last number on the row will be active cpu for the process.
I don't know if any of this is helpful, but I thought I would show top
commands related to multiple CPUs.

M will sort display by memory usage.
P sorts by CPU usage.

 

[N6BY]

Thanks Fred. I telnet'ed into my HDVR3500 and got the new display as you suggested. I highlighted the single core in yellow:

 

[fred555]

Yes that would indicate a single core.

 

[Titanium]

A few weeks ago during a Telnet session to find out why the RCU response was sluggish on a sample unit provided by Satellite AV, toggled between CPU 0 and CPU 1. This is really bugging me... Headed back to the shop to remove the heat sink on the sample and also grab a new unit out of a master carton to test.

 

[. Raine]

Thanks Fred. I telnet'ed into my HDVR3500 and got the new display as you suggested. I highlighted the single core in yellow:

View attachment 108916

Ack! It looks like you are right, single core. I was looking at the ID column and % column and thinking two cores.

Could it be two cores and one is disabled at the moment, to be enabled in future firmware? A single core for the streaming features seems foolishly optimistic, especially with the low ram.

I really, really like this receiver, but I think it's going to be like Wallyhts said earlier, in a few months time we'll be saying great sat receiver but not so great for streaming. Hope not.

As others have mentioned, I too have had the issue where if you delete one TP the receiver will reboot.

 

[fred555]

Will the following command run on this receiver?

cat /proc/cpuinfo

If so please post the result.

 

[. Raine]

cat /proc/cpuinfo shows ARMv7 processor, rev. 1, [V71] Were there any single core arm7 processors?