Australia SmartEPGvu+

[IanL-S(2)]

Greetings from Australia

DeltaMikeCharlie recently posted on the oztoppy wiki about the SmartEPGvu+ plugin on the oztoppy forum. Yesterday I decided to look into the plugin. I have looked through this thread and the wiki maintained by Ricki with great interest.

In Australia the Beyonwiz PRVs (T2, T3, T4, U4 and V2) run Enigma2 (I understand that it is currently using Enigam2 19.3.x). This raises what is to, a very interesting question; would it be possible to port the SmartEPGvu+ plugin to run on the Beyonwiz PVRs?

The follwowing SoCs are used by the more recent Beyonwiz PVRs: Broadcom 7362; Broadcom 7252; HiSilicon Hi3798mv200.

I would appreciate advice on the feasibility of undertaing a port of SmartEPGvu+ to run on the Beyonwiz PVRs.

Ian

[FireBird]

Hi Ian and greetings back to Australia!

The short answer is: I doubt it. But let’s check some details.

My machine uses a Broadcom BCM7278 and it seems to use the Linux kernel 4.1.45. But at the end, it doesn’t matter because SmartEPG is exclusively programmed in Python 2.

As I see the boxes (and I may be wrong on this): we have the Linux kernel with all the device drivers. On top of that, enigma2 is running as a process and is responsible for the low level functionality of the box (making sure that you have a picture on the screen, recordings take place and collects EPG data). On top of enigma2 there is the GUI, mainly programmed in Python but with libraries in C++ or C# (and maybe others). This GUI is responsible for the menus, manages the timer database and EPG display and a lot of other stuff. It also interacts with user provided plugins.

Where I can see the main problem with porting SE is the GUI. There are several out there (the one we are using is called VTi), they all seem to be forks of the original GUI from the different manufacturers and they seem to be mostly incompatible to each other. So even within the vu+ universe, we have to tell users that SE only works with VTi. But because there’s no real documentation and at least some release groups seem to hate each other, it is hard to get good background information.

I’ve just downloaded the firmware images for the Beyonwiz T2, U4 and V2. The T2 image is an UBI file system image and it would take me some time to unpack it. And I didn’t comprehend the format of the V2. But the unpacked file system of the U4 looks quite familiar.

Cheers,
Alex

[IanL-S(2)]

Thanks for the detailed response Alex. Porting to the GUI would seem to be the major issue - not sure which GUI is used by the Beyonwiz. The Python version is compatible with that used on the Beyonwiz. When installed, the firmware of the T2, U4 and V2 looks very similar; I assume the T3 and T4 are much the same. The installation file for the V2 is as you say unusual - it may have something to do with proprietary drivers used by HiSilicon; I understand that the ability to customize the V2 firmware is less than with the other models.

For me, the next step is to work out the GUI used by Beyonwiz. The differences in the GUI may make it more difficult to update the code.

Once again, thanks for all the help.

Ian

[FireBird]

not sure which GUI is used by the Beyonwiz.

I guess it‘s the company’s stock image and their GUI. There is also a stock image for the vu+ but I’m not sure if anyone uses it.

[IanL-S(2)]

not sure which GUI is used by the Beyonwiz.

I guess it‘s the company’s stock image and their GUI. There is also a stock image for the vu+ but I’m not sure if anyone uses it.

I managed to identify the image used by Beyonwiz PVRs. It is called easy-ui-4, and is "written" by the OpenVix team, who also write images for various Vu+ models. In turn OpenVix team is a member of the OE Alliance. I assume that some the Vu+ owners who cannot get plugin to work are using a OpenVix image.

Ian

[FireBird]

I’ve installed OpenVIX 6 on my box and tried to replicate the ConfigDescription import error you’re getting. I didn’t come that far, SE “crashed” while compiling the first file. It took me quite some time until I realised that OpenVIX is already using Python 3 and this can’t work.

So I’m back to my VTi image at the moment. Let’s see if I can find an older version of OpenVIX.

[FireBird]

OpenViX 5.4 still uses Python 2.7.18 and with that one, I get the same error that you've reported.

[IanL-S(2)]

Thanks for the update Alex. I am successfully using SmartEPGVu+ through OpenWebif. Still no joy in attempting to access it throught the Beyonwiz itself.