I mentioned in an earlier post that I wasn’t entirely happy with the AB IPBox 9900HD and intended to order one (or several) alternatives. Well, I’ve been using the Clarke-Tech ET9000 for quite some time but haven’t gotten around to blogging about it. I ordered another Xtrend ET9000 and thought I’d take the opportunity to blog about the steps necessary to get the box up and running with Sky HD UK.

The first step is to download the latest vix firmware. I found the world-of-satellite a great resource so downloaded from there http://www.world-of-satellite.com/forumdisplay.php?209-Clarke-Tech-Xtrend-ET9000-ViX-Team-Images.
Once downloaded you need to unzip the archive and place the et9000 folder on the root of a USB stick.

Ensure the ET9000 is powered off either at the mains or using the switch on the back, plug the USB stick in then power it on.
Open the flap concealing the buttons/card readers etc and when the box prompts "flash image" press OK (the box should now display "flashing…")
Once flashed and booted the setup wizard should automatically start

Configure the basic options as you see fit
When prompted to configure tuner(s) use the configuration shown below

When prompted to run a scan select: No scan later manually
Determine your ET9000’s ip address: Menu, Setup, System, Network, Device, Adapter

Download the latest Sky settings from http://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?8060-ViX-Team-Enigma-2-HD-settings-for-28.2E-amp-UK-DTT
Connect via FTP using the client of your choice (the default username is root and password is blank)
Upload all of the files from the archive to /etc/enigma2

And upload satellites.xml to /etc/tuxbox

Then download the picons from http://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?8056-ViX-Team-ALICE-Picons-For-UK-Channels-28.2E-and-DTT-By-Silverfox0786&p=60088#post60088
Extract the archive and upload the picon folder to /media/usb

Now we need to configure the guide to show the picons. Press Guide, Menu and configure as below

Press green to save then restart the box (Menu, Standby / Restart, Restart)
Now run a Service Scan (Menu, Setup, Service Searching, Automatic Scan)

Once complete you should be able to view free to air channels

The following instructions are from http://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?9735-How-to-Install-CCcam-MGCamd-Others-on-Duo-Solo-Uno-ET9000-ET5000-ViX
Download enigma2-plugin-cams-cccam.2.2.1_1.0-r0_mipsel.ipk from http://www.4shared.com/dir/wnyHV50A/VIX_CAMS.html
And ftp to /tmp

Now install the package (Menu, Setup, Vix, Install Local Extension)
Once installed you need to start Cccam (Blue, Softcam Manager, Green- Start Cccam.2.2.1)
Then enable autostart (Blue, Softcam Manager, Blue- Enable Startup)
You should now be able to view all channels you entitled to by your Sky subscription
If you press Guide you’ll notice the listings are mostly missing

We need to configure CrossEPG (Menu, Setup, System, EPG, CrossEPG, OpenTV providers, Sky UK OpenTV (Astra2 on 28.2)- Green enable

And configure the box to download regular updates (Menu, Setup, System, EPG, CrossEPG, Configure)

We can now download EPG data (Blue, CrossEPG Downloader)
And the guide should now have a complete set of listings

I decided I didn’t want to put a hard disk in my ET9000 but instead wanted recordings to be stored on the fileserver. I won’t go into that now.

L