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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 09-10/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
processor), or to restart the
box. The current IP address
of the receiver is indicated as
well, so that you can flash the
receiver from your browser
on the PC. In that case the
screen goes blank and you
control the receiver from the
PC.
This is when we had to try
out a few things since the
procedure is different from
the one with the AZBox ME.
To start with, we had down-
loaded a firmware version
that was offered as a TAR file.
WinRAR then identified this
file as corrupt, even though
it was perfectly all right and
included the flash image as
well as the kernel file. This
TAR file can be flashed via
the browser on the PC.
Alternatively, you may go
for firmware files that come
in the RAR format. In that
case you will need two files,
one with the flash image
(image0.jffs2) and the other
with the corresponding ker-
nel (zbimage-linux-xload).
Please note that what you
just read is not a typo: Us-
ing the browser you need a
firmware image in TAR for-
mat, using USB you require
two files that are downloaded
as a single RAR archive and
then unpacked onto the root
directory of the USB mem-
ory. Sounds complicated?
You bet, but that’s the way it
works…
Both the AZBox ME and
the AZBox miniMe use a joint
kernel in the flash memory,
that works with the differ-
ent firmware version. While
this certainly has its benefits,
it also means that the firm-
ware version you intend to
install must be compiled for
that particular kernel version
since they all share it.
What follows from this is
that we were unable to keep
the current AZtrino and the
RTI firmware in the flash
memory at the same time,
since the two require differ-
ent kernel versions. If you
do start a firmware with the
wrong kernel your screen will
stay blank. However, the re-
ceiver can still be addressed
via Telnet.
So we had to test the dif-
ferent firmware versions one
after the other. This is not
such a big deal, and we ex-
pect the three firmware ver-
sions to be available for the
same kernel shortly. Consid-
ering the short time that this
receiver is on the market, the
number of available firmware
versions is already very im-
pressive.
We mentioned on several
occasions that the AZBox ME
and the AZBox miniMe are
very similar in many ways,
so we went about install-
ing the ME’s AZtrino v1.7 on
the mini-Me. To that end we
changed the file extension
from IMP to RAR and extract-
ed the two firmware files onto
our USB memory. Installation
was successful and we could
address the receiver via Tel-
net. The TV screen, however,
remained dark.
At this stage we were lured
into a flash tour as we simply
did not want to believe we’d
manoeuvred ourselves into
a dead end. The final result
after some 20 minutes was:
rien ne va plus!
Most other receivers would
have earned the name ‘brick’
by that time, but the AZ-
Box miniMe comes with the
famed recovery button. Sim-
ply switch it to recovery and
reboot the receiver.
The power LED will flash
in orange colour during that
process and when the receiv-
er is all set again it will turn to
blue. After deactivating the
recovery switch we restarted
the receiver and were greet-
ed by the familiar flash menu
soon after.
This allowed us to install
the standard AZtrino v1.6
firmware again. It remains
a mystery to us why other
manufacturers don’t make
use of this brilliant safety
measure as well. Then again,
this is one of the distinguish-
ing features of the AZBox
miniMe and you never need
to despair after an unsuc-
cessful flash attempt.
We continued with the
current v1.85 of RTI. While
installation went smoothly,
you should make a point of