HOWTO: North americanize your satlist

[crackt]

it appears that the azbox is gaining some popularity. i really hate forum pollution and have seen this question being asked more and more. i hope this helps some new users.

pick a firmware you have good results with.
rename to patch.bin and copy to usb drive
insert usb drive into azbox and reboot
when menu appears select #4 - format application area and press ok
exit when done and select #1 - USB and press ok
press ok to update when patch found
azbox will reboot after 10 seconds
you can power off (back switch) and remove usb

now boot your azbox
you should probly have pal video and the default euro list(if you havent north ameicanized before).

fix your settings... my tv and av reciever both handle pal input so ill leave fixing your video to google.

now, there are 3 methods ive used to edit the list.

#1 for beginners id recommend the remote, its failsafe and proven and a starting point for everyone.
navigate to TV Channel -> Tuners A. DVB-S -> Sat / TP Edit

the first sat should be 4.0E EUROBIRD 4, delete it
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT
now delete the rest of the sats but the last in the list.
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT (since the sat info resides in an indexed array)

when the last sat is selected add the first one for your list.

now delete the last sat that was left before adding your first sat and reboot

you should now have a satlist with your first sat and no tp/diseqc info

this is a good point to backup your DVBS.dat file.(DVBS.dat1)

id recommend creating all needed positions now. you will only be able to use 11 character names with the remote. pay attention to the sat dgrees for ku if you intend to use usals.

#2 for those who can make it work.... generate a satellites.xml file and convert to DVBS.dat using azbox editor.
dont work for me

#3 if you dont like your 11 character names like i dont open your DVBS.dat file with any hexeditor.
browse the data for sat names and edit accordingly.

so now you have a satlist. (DVBS.dat2)
if you never want to see the euro list again then copy this into a telnet window (maz has one)

mount -o remount,rw -t ext3 /dev/hda1 /DISK1

and then ftp you new DVBS.dat file to DISK1/DISK2_backup

now you can enter your tp info and save. when your sure its all stable then again issue the....

mount -o remount,rw -t ext3 /dev/hda1 /DISK1

command in a telnet window an copy your DVBS.at file to DISK1/DISK2_backup and all your hardwork will be forever remembered by your azbox.

ive included two files...
DVBS.dat1 is a one sat list.
and DVBS.dat2 is a pretty good starting point for N/A feed hunters.

zipped to be uploaable.

i saved users some time including them. remember that the sat list is an indexed array so adding a sat @ 107w after you have sats to 67w is usually a source of corruption.

happy scanning.

crackt out,.

 

[crackt]

p.s. please be gentle. these files were something i whipped up over a beer or many. i tried to include every sat available from north america (from my position... you eastern guys can continue my list). cband positions are ++ or inccremented by .1 allowing for the most correct usals calculations. ive also fixed LOF values for the sats listed but tp info is blank. my wasted evening is hopefully one less similar question on the forums.

crackt out,.

 

[Anole]

Nice work.
If I were selling the units in North America, I'd pre-load them this way.

 

[crackt]

well anole. since joshyfun's lists are severely outdated.... and since 9 outta 10 recievers tp info is archaic i thought a skeleton list would suit the masses best. if anyone feels the need not to enter tp info by remote i may blindscan the arc and include tp's but im not sure it aheres to my rules yet. if anything it would be posted in the WUT. i dont get that ambitious too often but this question seemed to be reoccuring. i hope its stickied and ill modify as needed. i woulda like to point to the ntsc video procedure too but i wasnt that ambitious to search it out. haha. let it be known that the azbox is the "little box that could" i t has intense potential but the dev team seems slow these days.

i built these files in a couple hours becuz i know what im doing. when i didnt it took days to accomplish the same task. once a user makes a list and copies it to the backup directory the lists survive an application area format as well. its nice to be able to update firmware and not worry about building a new list.

crackt out,.

 

[B.J.]

Interesting.
I'm not sure that I'd recommend the replacement of the backup file with your new file, as this seems to have a potential for problems, but I find the comment about the "indexed array" interesting. My Azbox came with a corrupted sat list, and I had to use the .xml method to clean it out, and that worked well. But later, after suffering a problem after a firmware update, I attempted to do something similar to what you describe via manual deletion of not everything, but everything except those sats I needed, then added a few more that I needed. This has also worked fairly well, but I have noticed a few strange symptoms seemingly related to the indexing of the sats. This hasn't really caused me any problems, but it has had me confused.
Anyway, I think that the next time I try a new firmware, I may bite the bullet and either go through the .xml thing again, or try your mass manual deletion method, just to see if that eliminates the indexing issues I've observed.

thanks.

 

[stargaze]

i dont get that ambitious too often but this question seemed to be reoccuring. i hope its stickied and ill modify as needed. i woulda like to point to the ntsc video procedure too but i wasnt that ambitious to search it out. haha. let it be known that the azbox is the "little box that could" i t has intense potential but the dev team seems slow these days.

Here is the directions for bringing the azbox from Pal (default format) to NTSC.

for Az box


After a reboot the receiver defaults to pal format
To changed the setting in the Menu from PAL, back to NTSC

[FONT=&quot]You need to do the following steps.

1) Reboot the receiver by the switch on the back of the unit.

After it powers up and you see the menu rolling, follow these steps:

2) Down Arrow 6 Times

3) Hit the OK button

4) Right Arrow 1 Time

5) Down Arrow 1 Time

6) Right Arrow 1 Time

You will now have changed the setting in the Menu from PAL, back to NTSC.

7) The receiver will ask you if you want to save your change and say YES.

[/FONT]

 

[crackt]

Interesting.
I'm not sure that I'd recommend the replacement of the backup file with your new file, as this seems to have a potential for problems, but I find the comment about the "indexed array" interesting. My Azbox came with a corrupted sat list, and I had to use the .xml method to clean it out, and that worked well. But later, after suffering a problem after a firmware update, I attempted to do something similar to what you describe via manual deletion of not everything, but everything except those sats I needed, then added a few more that I needed. This has also worked fairly well, but I have noticed a few strange symptoms seemingly related to the indexing of the sats. This hasn't really caused me any problems, but it has had me confused.
Anyway, I think that the next time I try a new firmware, I may bite the bullet and either go through the .xml thing again, or try your mass manual deletion method, just to see if that eliminates the indexing issues I've observed.

thanks.

ive even corrupted my backup list and had little to no problems fixing it. i simply ftpd a new file to relace it. it did bomb the tuner portion of the azbox tho. ive had zero issues for the last 2 months with my sat lists.

and thank you stargaze for those instructions.

crackt out,.

 

[B.J.]

ive even corrupted my backup list and had little to no problems fixing it. i simply ftpd a new file to relace it. it did bomb the tuner portion of the azbox tho. ive had zero issues for the last 2 months with my sat lists.
.....

I've only had maybe two times since last winter that the satlist got messed up and restored the backup, and I think one of them was related to creating http channels. However, as I mentioned, I did notice some irregularity with the numbering of the sats. I can't remember the issue, but it seemed to number my new sats with numbers up above the numbers of sats I deleted before the new ones were added. I don't think it created any problem, except that I think that 2 or 3 duplicate sats may have been added, when I created sats that had nearly the same names as ones that were on the original list.
But relative to the backup becoming corrupted, I had assumed that there wouldn't be an issue _IF_ the box would boot up long enough for you to get FTP or TELNET access, but my fear was relative to what would happen if the corruption was serious enough to put the box in an endless loop of rebooting, which is what a couple of my other receivers have done in the past. If that happens you won't be able to FTP the file to the Azbox.

It would probably still not be an issue, because you could probably re-load the firmware to recover, but I have never been positive just which files get replaced when you reload firmware, ie it seems like channel data doesn't get wiped out, but I assume that the backup files WOULD get wiped out, but I'm not positive. Even if reloading the firmware didn't work, it would probably work if the reload was done along with reformatting the application area, but again, I just wasn't sure exactly which files get wiped out there either. It's probably nothing to worry about, but then again, it only takes a minute to FTP your own backup back to the Azbox if things go wrong, so it seems unnecessary to take the risk of ending up with a box that's in a rebooting cycle, even if that's a very unlikely result.

 

[crackt]

i understand where your coming from bj. when the backup became corrupt (it was a maz issue) it simply would not list the dvbs tuner in the azbox menu. the box booted fine and all other menu items were normal.

one thing to note... if you do place your own satlist in the backup folder it will survive formatting the application area. this is nice if you test alot of firmware versions. simply load the new firmware and scan. your list becomes the default list. the euro list no longer exists anywhere on the box.

crackt out,.

 

[B.J.]

i understand where your coming from bj. when the backup became corrupt (it was a maz issue) it simply would not list the dvbs tuner in the azbox menu. the box booted fine and all other menu items were normal.

one thing to note... if you do place your own satlist in the backup folder it will survive formatting the application area. this is nice if you test alot of firmware versions. simply load the new firmware and scan. your list becomes the default list. the euro list no longer exists anywhere on the box.

crackt out,.

That actually sounds more dangerous if the list survives the format application area. Another fear I've had is that if problems occur, and it's necessary to reload firmware or change to a new firmware, it seems like it could come up with FTP and Telnet not enabled, then you couldn't get in to fix things.

Really makes me wonder just where some of these things are stored, and how you can ever wipe the slate clean. Something just doesn't add up.
I've saved some old messages regarding replacing the memory module in the Azbox with a hard drive, and it seemed like maybe a safe thing to do would be to save a working version of the system on a module, because it seemed like you could start over from a complete factory setup by starting with a new module or hard drive, but if this sat data and other things in that backup directory are surviving both firmware updates and formatting, then that info must not be on the memory module, so it really sounds dangerous to mess with it. I agree it seems like a good idea to replace it with a good working copy but until I better understand where and how that info is stored, I'm still a bit nervous to mess with it.
I mess with my TIVOs all the time, going in an changing RO directories to RW, changing things, and changing them back to RO, but with the TIVOs, I know all that stuff is on the hard drive, and if I mess it up, all I have to do is reformat the drive and put the image back on there and all is as before. But with this Azbox, I'm confused about how it all works.

 

[crackt]

i think you misunderstood me bj. the way the azbox works is more like a pc and less like a sat reciever. if you delete the dvbs.dat files, the azbox will boot normally and allow you to make any changes in the setup menus one would like to. the only effect is that the dvbs tuner will not be listed under the tv channel setup menu.

id never recommend doing something your uncomfortable with. the items that make you fearful of this procedure are indeed the reasons why i have done this to my azbox. im always testing and changing things so being able to flash and scan without loading another file simply saves me time. this post was in response to an ever growing question being asked by north american azbox owners. that is all.

crackt out,.

 

[boomer_106]

ive even corrupted my backup list and had little to no problems fixing it. i simply ftpd a new file to relace it. it did bomb the tuner portion of the azbox tho. ive had zero issues for the last 2 months with my sat lists.

and thank you stargaze for those instructions.

crackt out,.

What do you mean by.. it did bomb the tuner portion though? What exactly did this do and how did you fix it? Also when I try to open your zip files, they are saying it's corrupt.

 

[jsattv]

Crackt sorry for my ignorance but what kind of a file is that? Ie do I need to use Winrar or 7-Zip to uncompress it?

 

[crackt]

they were zipped with winrar. ill reupload them if needed.

crackt out,.

 

[crackt]

What do you mean by.. it did bomb the tuner portion though? What exactly did this do and how did you fix it? Also when I try to open your zip files, they are saying it's corrupt.

the tuner wasnt listed in the tv channel menu. replacing the file again with a working file fixed it.

crackt out,.

 

[boomer_106]

Crackt, I took your DVBS.dat 1 file ( from my understanding there is only supposed to be 1 sat in there) and connected via maz. I opened the disk 2 folder in the FTP tab deleted the existing dvbs.dat file and then loaded your .dat 1 file. I then rebooted the Az. It still came up with all of the Euro sats??

Am I doing something wrong?

 

[crackt]

Crackt, I took your DVBS.dat 1 file ( from my understanding there is only supposed to be 1 sat in there) and connected via maz. I opened the disk 2 folder in the FTP tab deleted the existing dvbs.dat file and then loaded your .dat 1 file. I then rebooted the Az. It still came up with all of the Euro sats??

Am I doing something wrong?

did you rename it to dvbs.dat ? if not then your azbox defaulted to the dvbs.dat file in the backup folder.

crackt out,.

 

[B.J.]

Re renaming, Linux is generally case sensitive, so it's probably important to name it DVBS.dat and not dvbs.dat .

Also, was this file inserted when the receiver already had channels saved? I may be wrong, but from what I've observed, the Azbox seems to revert to the old list when it encounters incompatability between the sat list and the channel list, although not always... sometimes it just grays out the channels. For that reason, I think I would recommend deleting the channels first.

I've created my own good channel lists 2 ways, first by using the .xml method, and later I did it manually by deleting most of the sats via the remote. Then I saved working versions of that DVBS.dat file, and the other 2 dat files periodically. On the one or two occasions when my Azbox got messed up, and the Euro sats came back, I generally could get back to normal just by inserting the DVBS.dat file that I had saved, but on one occasion I also had to revert to the last copies of the other two files too, thus reverting to an older working copy of the channels as well as the sats.
In other words, it's sometimes necessary to have the DVBS.dat file compatable with the all_channel.dat and antenna_list.dat files, or the Azbox won't like it, and will revert to the backup.
It's really worth the time to start from scratch, get a short list of the sats you need in there, start saving a few channels, then save the dat files, and as you save more channels keep making your own backup files, then, if you have a problem, you can get back to a good working condition without losing too much. But also, once you get a good sat list, the Azbox will be more stable, and you probably won't run into problems that cause it to revert to the backup list. I think mine has only reverted to the backup list maybe twice in the past 6 or 7 months, one time (or maybe both times) when I was experimenting with HTTP and UDP channels, and severely confused the Azbox.


One other thing... I do not trust MAZ at all for anything other than grabbing screen shots. MAZ does some mount/remount RW of RO directories like has been described for replacing the default backup files, which I think is very risky for a program which is pretty obviously not very well written. I think that the use of MAZ is just asking for problems. I really don't see ANY reason for MAZ to mess with any RO directories. I also don't like that it calls half a dozen different internet sites before it starts up. Basically I just don't trust the program.

I do all my transfers via generic FTP programs, not via MAZ. I have used AzboxEdit a few times to transfer (not edit) files, however that was when I had older firmware versions installed.

 

[boomer_106]

did you rename it to dvbs.dat ? if not then your azbox defaulted to the dvbs.dat file in the backup folder.

crackt out,.

Yeah, I just tried and it says...

failed to put DVBS.dat
Ready

How critical is it to do a format application area before all of this ? I have not done it in fear of locking the Azbox up


BJ, I did make sure to use DVBS.dat I do not have any channels saved. I don't mind doing things with the remote but, it's frustrating cause it takes all that time and 2 days later my power glitches and I have to start over. I want to get it to where i recover quickly or, IF it's not too risky, I'd like to make my own list the default like crackt explained to do. Before I attempt that, I need to get a good understanding of how to do this. Basically I'm in the trial and error learning mode right now

 

[B.J.]

.....

BJ, I did make sure to use DVBS.dat I do not have any channels saved. I don't mind doing things with the remote but, it's frustrating cause it takes all that time and 2 days later my power glitches and I have to start over. I want to get it to where i recover quickly ....

If you go to the trouble to manually delete things, there is no reason why you should have to start over from scratch later if things go wrong. If you save the new DVBS.dat file, and the other 2 .dat files, then you can always go back to that configuration. Only takes about 1 minute to recover.
I try to make a habit of saving those 3 .dat files whenever I've scanned in new channels or made any changes. If I have problems, I just turn on the FTP program, and FTP the newest version of the DVBS.dat file back to the Azbox. If that doesn't work, then I FTP all 3 files. I haven't done the whole process for about 8 months or so, and I only had to do it that time because I had forgotten to save the .dat files since upgrading firmware, and I was afraid to use old dat files with new firmware, even though it probably would have been OK (I think that there was a change of format for the dat files at some point, and I just didn't want to take chances, so I just started over, because it only took a few hours anyway).
But there is no reason why you should repeatedly have to start over. If I had remembered to make backups, I basically would have never needed to start over after first setting up the sat list.