Dreambox Newbie - Help getting channels

[FooFighter]

Hi folks,

After days of trawling the net, I have hopefully found the right place to get some answers

I have read the guides, read the FAQ's read the forums re-read averything and I'm sure Its something real simple, heres the problem :

I have a DM500s, standard Sky dish and LNB, point the DB at 28.2E getting 90% + on SNR + AGC 0 on BER, got Lock and Sync.

If I do an Automatic Transponder Scan it goes through and I can see it identify channels, it finishes with a number in the 200's but only returns about 60 channels which consist of Test, BBC, ITV, so I assume these are the FTA and FTV. I have checked and the "FTA Only" is not selected in the scan options.

Some of these channels are encrypted and I can install a CAM, put my BOXID into the cfg file and run the CAM to view them. But I cant get the majority of the Sky channels to list in the Bouquets !! i've tried scanning transponders again after the CAM is configured but nothing gets added. Sky card is active and current subscription should give all channels.

Using "DreamBoxEdit" when I retrieve the settings from my DB it returns the list and also states that there were 168 errors in the .tv file ??
I assume that these are the channels that I am missing ?

I've also tried editing another bouquet file that had 1000's of transponders and channels and uploading that to the DB but the channels still arent being received.

I am fairly well skilled with computers , networking etc and have tried both the official dream image and the latest Gemini but both do the same.

Please help or point me in the right direction. I'm sure Ill be embarressed by how simple it is as im sure im missing something really basic !

Thanks in advance.

Steve

[Jimdefruit]

If your scan is not finding the channels then it sounds as if your transponder list is out of date.

Have you loaded a current satellites.xml file. If you have installed the latest images then the list should be up to date.

When you did the scan did you select Astra 2 satellite? The default is Astra 1 in the list and that would give you only a few channels.

[FooFighter]

I guess that the satellites.xml is up to date, it is from the latest Gemini Image, it certainly cycles through all the Transponders and is listing the correct channels as it goes along.
( It normally adds 8 or 9 channels to the number at the top and stops with PlayJam BskyB at the bottom and then scans the next one. )
Is there a good source to obtain an up to date xml file from ?

Im not near to the box at the minute so cant remember the exact wording but it keeps a count of the transponders scanned and the number of services. It normally ends with about 220 or so services but these dont all show up after the scan completes.

I am scrolling down and selecting Eurobird1/Astra 2 etc... and it shows as 28.2E which i believe is the right one.

I will check all settings when I get home later.

Thanks for the help. so far.

[Jimdefruit]

Where you are referring to bouquets, have you selected just channels from individual providers? That would give you a limited number of channels.

With the remote, press the down button and then the green button and select 'services'. That will show you all the channels that you have installed.

You should have about 1200 channels from memory.

[FooFighter]

The only provider I see is BSkyB, within this there are 69 services
When I do an automatic transponder scan it says

services scanned : 230
transponders scanned : 106

57 new tv services
5 new radio services
6 new data services

When I load these settings into Dreamboxedit i get a message saying

All files are loaded but with errors

and reports errors in userbouquets.xxxxx.tv (TV) files 168 Errors


When I check the log in DBEdit it says :

Warning 2006-10-26 18:23:16 TV Favourite (userbouquet.33fc5.tv) without corresponding service not loaded
Warning 2006-10-26 18:23:16 -- data: #SERVICE: 1:0:1:6dca:44d:1:c00000:0:0:0:

There are loads of these entries ( 168 I guess ! )

I assume that what should happen is I get a full list of services but the ones that are not FTA will simply not display ?

Once I get them Cam configured the encrypted services should then work, or do I need the cam installed and working beofre doing a scan ?

Would it help if I post here some of the files on the DB, or is there anywhere I can get a good set of files from ?

TIA

Steve

[BGonaSTICK]

Welcome FooFighter

To take a slightly different tack, I think it may be that your Sky minidish is off a little bit and/or the skew is out - even with the readings you report. Possibly the LNB is a little tired?

Can you try the scan on a friends dish? Hopefully a larger dish.

The older Dreambox 500 tuner (i.e. pre-Alps tuner) isn't as sensitive as even some digiboxes. Do you know which version of the 500 you have?

Are you happy that you don't have one of the fake 500s?

I just have a sneaking suspicion that it maybe nothing to do with the Dreambox setup itself. It would also be interesting to find out how much VAR memory you have spare. Are you loading the Gemini 'MaxVar' image?

Can you try a manual transponder scan of say 11307 Vertical 27500 2/3 and tell us if you find any channels, and what SNR/AGC/BER you get?

What happens if you delete every satellite except Astra2 and rescan either the above transponder, or an auto-scan of all TPs on Astra2?

That's maybe a few other things for you to try.

We'll get to the bottom of it

[FooFighter]

Hi Stick,

Thanks for the welcome and for the advise.

Heres answers to some of the questions :

The var space is about 23% utilised certainly no more than 40% with the different CAM's and configs.
It is not the Max Var version of Gemini, should I be using that ?

I am not 100% certain it isn't fake, it was bought from a local supplier but came without the outer box as it was a "Shop Demo".
It has the hologram sticker on the base if that is any indication. I think it is the Pre-Alps tuner it has the older style remote, I will check when I am home again later.

I was starting to suspect the dish/lnb myself so have a mate who I will test the DB on later today and report back to the forum.

Will also test the manual scans and other great advise you have given and provide feedback.

Cheers.

[BGonaSTICK]

Cool. Good luck.

There are plenty of tips to check for a genuine box on this thread and the link in it.

Most people use the MaxVar image for the 500 AFAIK

[Analoguesat]

You should be getting a lot more than 200 odd channels if you are doing a proper scan - including all the data and radio channels theres getting on for 1000 channels on 28E! I wiped my Technomate channels list last night and rescanned all the tp's and got over 800 tv channels.... Ok the majority of them are scrambled, but thats the sort of number you should be seeing

[FooFighter]

Hi Analoguesat,

What would cause it to only scan 230 channels, is it to do with the satellites.xml either being wrong or out of date ? or could it be to do with the lnb/dish ? Ive only got the standard sky dish although the lnb was replaced by a local firm a couple of years ago.

For info I took the db to a friends and ran the autotransponder scan on Eurobird1/Astra2A/2B/2D 28.2E and it still only scanned 230 services, returning no new tv radio or data !!

I think Ill try a factory reset and try it again, or is there a way to clear all the services, or replace them with known good ones ?

Going to try some of the other suggestions about manual scans as well.

Thanks for the help and encouragement so far, I was getting quite fed up with this after 4 days !!!