Open Source Software is Alive and Well and Living in My TV Set Top Box

Zgemma H8.2H Plus

Eighteen years ago I purchased a TiVo Personal Video Recorder (PVR). This came with a very sophisticated TV guide, which not only records what you ask it to, and all episodes of a series, but what it thinks you would like (based on past viewing). TiVo stopped supporting this in Australia, but a dedicated band of hackers converted the system to run on a free online TV guide. After a few years I worried this unit would stop working. So I purchased a Fetch Mighty box. This came with a free online TV guide & slightly less sophisticated auto recording system. 

Fetch make their money selling add on subscriptions to online movies & streaming series. The idea is you quickly tire of watching reruns on free to air TV & will sign up for paid streaming and movies (free streaming from the broadcasters is also available). Apparently they were not making enough money this way, and announced they were discontinuing the free service. So I searched around for another free service. 

I came across the Zgemma H8.2H Plus, a small, low cost box (about $100), running free open source software. The box comes with OpenAT, which is sort of the Ubuntu of set box software. There is a library of extensions, which I needed to download some of, to provide the TiVo like guide. I manged to install the EPG Refresh plugin, which will turn on the box in the middle of the night and flip through the channels to collect all the over the air Electronic Program Guide (EPG). Another extension, Autotimer, will the search the EPG for keywords and automatically record matches. There is an alternative guide available via the Internet, but it requires more setting up. 

Like Ubuntu, every thing works fine, up to a point. I reached that point when I tried to update the software. The system warned me to read the manual before proceeding, but I ignored this, & ended up with a box which was stuck on the boot screen. There are many websites explaining how to download a recovery file, copy it to a USB flash drive and restore the system. I thought I had done something terribly wrong, when I tried this and ended up with a completely blank screen. 

I was about to consider the second restoration option, involving purchasing a special tool, and connecting wire to the mother board, when I noted two folders on the flash drive I had not put there. These were where the EPG, and any recorded programs, were stored. If these has been created by the box, then the operating system must have been restored, I reasoned. I wiggled the cables on the back of the box and discovered I had loosened the HDMI plug, while repeatedly pulling out the USB drive to try another recovery option. When I pushed the plug back in the screen lit up. The recovery had worked. 

Now I have to go back and install the EPG extensions again. Then I will try the extension for using ABC TV iView streaming service.