Review: Azbox Elite HD FTA Receiver

I didn't update successfully yet , something about file error but I did scan some channels on Hispasat and Got the Uruguayan S-2 mux .

Have 2 run 2 work soon , but I did find a power cord thanks to phlatwoods suggestion forgot my other DGstation receiver had the same type of number 8 shaped plug in type cord.

Doubt original firmware is in it though , looks like some channels were scanned in Europe before being shipped to U.S.

What video input did you use? HDMI gave me a message about unsupported mode or something like that.
 
What video input did you use? HDMI gave me a message about unsupported mode or something like that.
If you saw the Settings Menu, you should be able to change it to NTSC. Otherwise, you can connect via Composite and press the Resolution button on the remote, see if you get a Pic.
If that doesn't work, you "can" do it with the rolling screen, cross that bridge if it comes.

The "funny" UHF output is channel 21, I have not tried it. You can get an adapter from RadioShack
 
If you saw the Settings Menu, you should be able to change it to NTSC. Otherwise, you can connect via Composite and press the Resolution button on the remote, see if you get a Pic.
If that doesn't work, you "can" do it with the rolling screen, cross that bridge if it comes.

The "funny" UHF output is channel 21, I have not tried it. You can get an adapter from RadioShack
I couldn't see any menus on the TV. It said "settings" on the LCD screen on the receiver. Tomorrow, I'll try the other outputs to see if I see anything.

THanks.
 
I was able to change the reslotion by pressing the resolution button on the remote while connected via hdmi. The resolution button cycles through the PAL 50 hz resolutions first 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p and the the NTSC 60hz resolutions of 480i, 480p, 720p,1080i and finally 1080p, if you press the resolution button again, you start over.

The connectors are called Belling Lee connections and are standard connections for standard aerial connections in Europe. See [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Aerial_Plug[/ame] For Satellite connections the use they same as we do.

If you want to adapt the Belling Lee connections to F type connections you can use rat shack part numbers 278-261 and 278-265B. I haven't seen anything in the menus that would indicate that you could setup anything for those connections, and even of you could the terrestrial ofdm tuner is not compatible with our standards. It would be intersting to see if the QAM tuner would work when they add support for it but I don't think it would be compatible either.
 
try the Resolution button first

Thanks. That did the trick. Got it in 1080p mode now. :)

Now off to play with it.


EDIT: Well I *THOUGHT* it was in 1080p mode, because that was what was displayed on the AzBox screen, but I just looked at the info page that came up on the TV, and it says 480i, and the text seems to not be in English, and it's in a weird color (or lack thereof), so perhaps it didn't go far enough, or perhaps I should have hit return or something. But at least I got it on the TV screen, so I should be able to go somewhere from here. Thanks.
 
New issue.
Got the thing in 1080p for sure.
Got the thing speaking English.

Put new firmware on thumbdrive.
Went into SI page, set firmware Upgrade to USB.
Told it to do the upgrade.
It's just sitting there now. THe display on the box is blinking.

I'm thinking that it needs a reboot now, but I thought I'd ask first to see if this was normal.

I'll probably give up and try rebooting anyway, but thought I'd ask first.
 
Well I couldn't wait......
I tried to reboot via remote, which I guess is more of a wakeup. Came back up with same old firmware.
I tried to reboot via switch in back.
Azbox came up, but no display on TV, however the display on the box said something about USB UPDATE, so I was guessing that it was waiting for a response from me. I hit OK on the remote.
It then came back with something like USB found,
and later something like "Patch OK?"

Each time I hit OK on the remote.
Then it said "EXTRACTING"
I waited and waited and waited. NOTHING.
I tried hitting the resolution button at this point. NOTHING.
Tried hitting the OK button on the remote. NOTHING.
I finally turned it off and on via switch in back. Came up again with the same USB UPDATE thing on the display.
I turned it off again, pulled the thumbdrive, and turned it on again.
It came up with the OLD firmware.

So either I'm doing something wrong (likely, but I hate to read 200 posts again), or perhaps my patch.bin file (yes, I extracted the RAR file) was bad.

Any suggestions? I just looked at the manual, and according to it, it should have worked the way I first did it, ie via the System Information page. So I guess I'll head off looking for another version of the firmware.

But if anyone sees anything I did wrong, please post. Thanks.
 
Well I couldn't wait......
I tried to reboot via remote, which I guess is more of a wakeup. Came back up with same old firmware.
I tried to reboot via switch in back.
Azbox came up, but no display on TV, however the display on the box said something about USB UPDATE, so I was guessing that it was waiting for a response from me. I hit OK on the remote.
It then came back with something like USB found,
and later something like "Patch OK?"

Each time I hit OK on the remote.
Then it said "EXTRACTING"
I waited and waited and waited. NOTHING.
I tried hitting the resolution button at this point. NOTHING.
Tried hitting the OK button on the remote. NOTHING.
I finally turned it off and on via switch in back. Came up again with the same USB UPDATE thing on the display.
I turned it off again, pulled the thumbdrive, and turned it on again.
It came up with the OLD firmware.

So either I'm doing something wrong (likely, but I hate to read 200 posts again), or perhaps my patch.bin file (yes, I extracted the RAR file) was bad.

Any suggestions? I just looked at the manual, and according to it, it should have worked the way I first did it, ie via the System Information page. So I guess I'll head off looking for another version of the firmware.

But if anyone sees anything I did wrong, please post. Thanks.


Sounds like you did it correctly. Make sure that the firmware is the only thing on the usb stick too.

Here is the latest firmware for your pleasure. If I can get it zipped up...LOL...this is the latest, 2238.

Well for some reason it wont let me post the file....:(

Send me a PM with an email address and I'll email you the file.
 
Last edited:
make sure Firm is decompressed
should be named:
patch.bin

If that does not work, try to get it to boot
Then press "home"
Look for the Update in the bottom right of the menu
It should be set for "Internet"
You can change that to USB, it should then show the Firm on your stick
after it loads, be sure to remove USB Stick before rebooting, a good time is while it's counting down to Reboot.
 
Well, I couldn't wait again...

I was thinking about maybe doing it via internet, even though I really wanted the most recent firmware, and after checking, what I had seemed to be most recent.
However, I hadn't set up the internet yet, and the SI page gave me an error on internet page each time I booted up.
So I set up my static IP#, etc, and got internet connected. However before trying to upgrade that way, I decided to once more do what I did before, ie tell it to upgrade via USB in the SI window.
This time, it seemed to work, ie it showed the patch file as before, but this time, when I told it to start, it really started, and although the manual said that I should be seeing a progress bar on the screen, it was just a little rotating circle or something, and on the BOX it was giving a % indication.
WHen it was done, it rebooted, and came up with a screen that said that it had found a patch file on my thumb drive, asking if I wanted to update the firmware.

I assumed that it had already been updated, so I told it to boot without updating.
It rebooted again, however again, it was without anything on the TV screen.
So I tried the "Resolution" button again, but this time it just popped up something like "Composite", and hitting resolution again didn't give any options.
So I tried the arrow buttons (just guessing lucky), and it took me through the various outputs, so I chose HDMI. At this point, I hit OK, which took me to another place (still nothing on the TV) where I could change the display via the arrow keys, so I took it to "NTSC", and hit return. Then I had to choose 1080p via the arrow keys, and BINGO! :) . Screen popped up with the SI page, and I was running the new 2238 firmware.

So all is well. Although I thought I had killed the thing on at least 2 or 3 points in this exercise. :rant:

:)
 
Glad it worked out for you. I have never had that type of problem before, using the internet or USB..weird...
 
Glad it worked out for you. I have never had that type of problem before, using the internet or USB..weird...

Well I'm used to weird things happening to me, suggesting that I'm usually responsible.

New problem though.....

I just scanned in two of the 4.2.2 S2 8PSK transponders (4 channels) on G28.
After reading multiple posts the last few days until my eyes were blurry, I seem to remember that there was some HD trick to get it to work, however it popped right in, and I got nice HD video. HOWEVER, NO AUDIO. I know that there are two audio PIDs, one of which is something like Dolby-E or something (TSREADER reports it as PCM), however the Azbox ignored that one, and loaded the one that TSREADER lists as being MPEG, so it seems like it should be giving me audio..... but it isn't.
In fact, I KNOW the audio is there, because I just streamed the channels to my ROKU from my 3200, and I get audio (no video, since it's 4.2.2).
I am using the HDMI output, and assume that the audio would go through the HDMI, but I've tried a couple different audio settings, and nothing gives me audio.
I just pulled up the Pentagon channel.... no audio on that either, so I must have some setting wrong, or else it won't go through the HDMI for some reason.

Anyway, is there a trick to getting audio through the HDMI cable???? I know the cable is good, because I've been using it on two other devices.
 
No longer need to do the "HD Flag" thing!

I use HDMI for sound, but what you described happened to me on Sat.
If you APID matches the one from the 3200
- hit the OK button on the AZ, at the bottom should show PIDs
Then re-load the Firm, that's what worked for me.
 
No longer need to do the "HD Flag" thing!

I use HDMI for sound, but what you described happened to me on Sat.
If you APID matches the one from the 3200
- hit the OK button on the AZ, at the bottom should show PIDs
Then re-load the Firm, that's what worked for me.

Thanks again. THat seems to have worked, ie the reboot.
When I first tuned in the 4.2.2 channel though, it had really weird sounding audio, but I changed channels, and back into it, and it was OK.

Also, the reloading the firmware went differently this time. I never lost video at any time through the process, except for the initial loading/booting/checking thing during rebooting.

Since I was re-doing the firmware via USB, when it DID reboot, it detected the patch file on the thumb drive, as before, giving me the same list of 5 options I got before, which were:
1 usb
2 network
3 ota
4 format application area
5 boot without update

As before, I chose 5. However I was curious what option 4 does? Ie format application area? In fact, what IS the application area? Is that a partition where 3rd party programs are loaded, like the /var partition on a TIVO or something?? Just curious.

Anyway, it's a bit harder than most FTA receivers to get this thing running, but now that it's up, it looks like a nice unit. Now, I'm going to have to try the channel editor to see what that looks like.

Thanks for the help.
 
Do you have the AZBox connected to your network?

If so, You need to re-set the password so the editor can upload back to the AZBox:

Telnet to the AZBox
- I used a command prompt in XP
- "telnet 192.xxx.xxx.xxx"
Login "root"

Now need to reset password:
At the AZBOX{~}$
enter "passwd"
(without the quotes)
re-enter password: azbox
confirm
should be good to go
 

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