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Welcome to the pH-Mb wiki! This wiki is about the technical aspects of Sky Broadband and TV. Note that we are not affiliated with BSkyB or NDS in any way.

Contents 1 pH-Mb Links 2 Useful Links 3 Sky Broadband 3.1 3rd Party Routers 3.2 Sky Router Details 3.3 Sky Router Firmware Modification 4 ExPVR 5 Sky TV 5.1 Sky HD Box Models 5.2 Sky+ HD Box Models 5.3 Sky Firmware 5.4 Sky+ Hard Disk 5.4.1 Sky+ HD Databases 5.4.2 Legacy (Pre-Darwin) Databases 5.4.3 Meta Data

pH-Mb Links

• Home Page
• pH-Mb Forums
• ExPVR - Sky+ HD recording extractor.
• Sky Router Tool - Sky Broadband router statistics tool.

Useful Links

• Sky User Technical Discussion

Sky Broadband

3rd Party Routers

• Connecting using MER - (Sky's replacement for PPPoA)
• Sky Broadband PPP Password Calculator

Sky Router Details

• Netgear DG834GT
• Netgear DG934G
• Sagem F@ST 2504
• D-Link DSL-2640s
• SagemCom F@ST 2304n
• SagemCom F@ST 2504n

Sky Router Firmware Modification

• Firmware Kits
• Custom Sagem F@ST 2504 Firmware

ExPVR

• Tested Devices

Sky TV

Sky HD Box Models

• Amstrad_Sky DRX595

Sky+ HD Box Models

• Thompson DSI8215 - 300GB
• Samsung HDSKY - 300GB
• Samsung HDSKY 500 - 500GB
• Pace TDS850NB - 300GB
• Amstrad DRX780 - 300GB
• Amstrad_Sky DRX890 - 500GB
• Amstrad_Sky DRX895 - 1.5TB

Sky Firmware

• Sky Firmware - General information
• Darwin Root File System - The root file system on Darwin devices

Sky+ Hard Disk

Sky+ HD Databases

Newer Sky+ firmwares hold most of the recording details in a series of SQLite databases:

• PCAT.DB - Main recording planner database
• FAR.DB - EPG Cache
• MFS.DB - Video file details
• REMBOOK.DB
• XSI1.DB - EPG Cache for pre-darwin HD boxes (has existed since the new HD planner update)

Legacy (Pre-Darwin) Databases

These have a proprietary format loosely based on dBase. The column definitions and header are in a different format, and the column names are not included, making it difficult to identify all fields. Additionally the data type codes are different and not all are known.

• JOPA - Main recording planner database
• SIGNUP.DBF - Anytime subscriptions (Lists scheduled anytime recordings)
• PMAN.DBF - Scheduled recording details
• CRID.DBF - Unknown
• CMD.DBF - Unknown
• XSETUP.DBF - User settings?
• XCLIENT.DBF - Unknown

On some firmwares these are replaced with files with a "DB3" extension. The format of these is similar but there are a few minor changes.

Meta Data

Each recording folder includes meta data files which contain data required for the box to decode the stream.

• .XMA - Contains records matching certain transport stream packets and references a payload in the *.XMV file.
• .XMB - Temporary XMA for live buffer?

• .XMD - Seems to describe the other files in some way, format unknown

• .XMI - Lists timestamps for each frame to aid in fast forwarding and rewinding
• .XMJ - Temporary XMI for live buffer?

• .XMV - Payload data for XMA records
• .XMW - Temporary XMV for live buffer?

• META_MAN.MTA - On post-darwin firmwares, lists XMA/XMV files
• META_MAN.MTI - On post-darwin firmwares, lists XMI files