Thursday, 25 April 2013 14:22

Web Interface Help - Settings

Written by

The 'Settings' section allows you to change various Sky Router Tool settings.

Router Connection

Here you can change the connection details for your router. These must be correct for most features of Sky Router Tool to work.

  • Router Type - The model of your router. The DG834GT is the white router provided by sky, the DG934G is the newer black Netgear router (The label on the bottom will have "NETGEAR" written on it).

  • Router Hostname - The hostname of your router (usualy 192.168.0.1).

  • Router User Name - The username for your router's web interface (the default is 'admin').

  • Router Password - The password for your router's web interface (the default for sky routers is 'sky').

Router Logging

This allows you to change the router polling interval (how often Sky Router Tool logs bandwidth and SNR Margin). It is recommended that this is left at 60 seconds.

Router Log Consolidation

In order to prevent the log files becoming too large it is possible to consolidate logs after a certain period of time. Using this page you can add consolidation rules. Note that rules are retroactive and will take effect immediatly.

Thursday, 25 April 2013 14:21

Web Interface Help - Tools

Written by

Target SNR Margin

This tool allows you to change the target SNR margin (the SNR margin that the DSLAM tries to acheive). This unfortunatly does not work yet for the DG934G.

Increasing the target SNR margin will give you more stability but a lower sync speed. Decreasing the target SNR margin will give a less stable, but faster line.

To change the target SNR just drag the slider to your required value and click "Set and Resync". The values is measured as a percentage of the target SNR set by your ISP; for Sky the default is 7dB.

Speed Test

This tool allows you to test the speed of your connection by getting your router to download a file and time how long it takes to download. As the test is run on the router and not your computer, it is not affected by any problems with your LAN or Wifi connection.

To use it just click "Test".

Ping

This tool allows you to ping a host from your router.

Calculate Sky Password

This tool calculates the default sky values for your router. These values are calculated from your router's LAN MAC address. The most usefull values calculated are the PPP username and password; these can be used in a 3rd party router.

The other values calculated are: default wireless password, default wireless channel and default wireless SSID

To use it just type in your LAN MAC address (if you are calculating details for your router this will already be filled in correctly), select the model of router and click "Calculate".

Thursday, 25 April 2013 14:20

Web Interface Help - Graphs

Written by

The 'Graphs' section is one of the most powerful parts of Sky Router Tool. Here you can display graphs of logged data (bandwidth usage and SNR margin) and advanced ADSL statistics.

All graphs support zooming (using the scroll-wheel on your mouse) and panning (just drag the graph to move around).

Historic Graphs

The historic graphs are the graphs which show previously logged data. Once a graph is selected you can change the time-span displayed using the options at the top of the page.

The table at the bottom of these graphs gives an overview of the data in the currently selected time-span.

ADSL Connection Graphs

These graphs display advanced ADSL connection details. All graphs are available for the DG834GT router; unfortunatly only the 'Bit Loading' graph is currently available for the DG934G. The frequency is measured in kHz.

  • Bit Loading - This shows the number of bits carried by each frequency on the ADSL line.

  • Signal to Noise Ratio - This shows the signal to noise ratio (in dB) for each frequency.

  • Quiet Line Noise - This shows the amount of noise present on the line at each frequency.

  • Attenuation - This shows the attenuation of the signal at each frequency.

Thursday, 25 April 2013 14:20

Web Interface Help - Home

Written by

On the 'Home' page you can access general details about the router.

Connection Details

The connection details page displays basic connection details and allows you to reboot or resync the router. A definition of these details is below:

  • Sync Rate - The currently negotiated rate.

  • Max Rate - The estimated maximum rate achievable with the line (assuming currently set target SNR Margin).

  • Attenuation - The power loss during transmission (dependent on line length).

  • SNR Margin - The difference between the SNR required for the current connection speed and the actual SNR.

  • ADSL Mode - This is the current ADSL mode. This will usually be either ADSL2+, ADSL2 or G.DMT.

  • Channel - This shows whether or not interleaving is enabled (Fast means no interleaving).

  • Average Error Rate - The average number of CRC errors which have been occurring every hour since your router was last reset.

Thursday, 25 April 2013 13:38

Copying Recordings to a New Disk

Written by

Firstly you need to load your planner, see Planner Loading for details.

From the list of recordings displayed you can select the ones your wish to copy by clicking the check box next to each recording. You can also right click the recording list and click 'Check All' to select all of the recordings.

Once you have selected your recordings, click the hard disk icon on the toolbar.

ExPVR Screenshot

You will then be asked to specify a target hard drive. You can also copy to a disk image by clicking "Create Image", this will backup the selected recordings to your computer.

If you have attached your target hard drive and it is not showing up, make sure that it contains no partitions. Hard drives with partitions are not shown in the list so that a loss of data is prevented.

ExPVR Screenshot

After clicking next, the copy process will start. For large drives this can take some time.

ExPVR Screenshot

Thursday, 25 April 2013 13:37

Extracting Recordings to Your PC

Written by

Firstly you need to load your planner, see Planner Loading for details.

From the list of recordings displayed you can select the ones your wish to extract by clicking the check box next to each recording. You can also right click the recording list and click 'Check All' to select all of the recordings.

Once you have selected your recordings, simply click the computer icon on the toolbar.

ExPVR Screenshot

Once you have selected a destination for your recordings, they will start to copy to your computer.

ExPVR Screenshot

Note that unregistered versions of ExPVR will only extract the first 200MB of each recording.

Thursday, 25 April 2013 13:37

Loading your Sky+ HD Planner

Written by

Warnings:

The XTV file system is based upon FAT32 but has some important changes. Some utilities try to treat it as a standard file system which is 'broken' and attempt to 'fix' it. For this reason please read these warnings:

  • It is highly recommended that you use an external hard drive caddy. If you choose to install the drive internally you need to watch the windows boot up process carefully and cancel any disk check operations. Windows sometimes tries to 'fix' the hard drive on boot up, corrupting all the recordings in the process. Using and external caddy will negate this risk as you can plug it in once the computer has booted up.

  • Some anti-virus applications can try to write to the disk, so it is recomended that you disable these while your hard drive is connected.

  • Automatic disk defragmenters should also be disabled as these can corrupt the disk.

Firstly you need to make sure you have connected your PVR's hard drive to the computer correctly. A guide on how to do this can be found in the tutorials section.

On opening the application you will be greeted by the following screen:

ExPVR Screenshot

A list of detected Sky+ HD hard disks will be shown the left hand pane. Checking one of these will load it's planner:

ExPVR Screenshot

All of the recordings in the planner will now be shown in the right hand pane. Clicking on a recording will show more detailed information about it at the bottom of the window.

Recordings with a red background are encrypted and will not be viewable on a PC (they can however still be copied to a new Sky+ HD hard disk). Recordings with blue text are Anytime Showcase recordings, and were recorded automatically by your box. Recordings with grey text are deleted recordings which are still in the Sky+ box's recycle bin.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 18:01

Supported Devices

Written by

Sky Router Tool currently supports the Netgear DG834GT and DG934G routers. Other routers may work if they are similar enough. If you would like support for your (preferably linux-based) router then send me an email and I'll see what I can do.

Router TypeComments
DG834GT Netgear DG834GT All features supported.
DG834GT Netgear DG934G Changing the target SNR, viewing the SNR (not SNR margin), QLN and Attenuation graphs and resyncing are not supported. All other features work.
Sagem F@ST 2504 Sagem F@ST 2504 All features except speed test and sky password calculation work. Requires custom firmware from http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/technical-discussion/44101-custom-sky-v2-8-firmware-sky-v3-sagem-f-st-2504-router.html.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013 18:00

Features

Written by

Sky Router Tool Screenshot

  • Supports the first 3 routers provided by Sky
  • Works with stock sky firmware. No firmware updating required!**
  • Fully AJAX web interface
  • Bandwidth usage, ADSL Error and SNR margin logging
  • Advanced statistics display, including full SNR and Bit Loading graphs*
  • Ability to alter the target SNR margin on the router*
  • Speed testing tool which runs from the router
  • Full router process listing
  • Uses password-protected HTTP to connect to the router instead of telnet
  • Sky Username, Password, SSID, Wireless Password and Default Channel calculator for both the DG834GT and the DG934G (calculated from LAN MAC address and serial)
Page 1 of 2