As everyone by now knows, ZAAPTV has been acting up lately, dropped channels, channels disappearing and reappearing, ones that completely vanished, and many other problems, that made us all quite upset about the service.
But like they say good news awaits those who wait ;)
I received an email from ZAAPTV themselves, I was quite shocked to be honest with you, and in that communique they delivered to me some good and optimistic news. They did indeed run into problems with the increase in demand of their product, and they are very well aware of the problems people are facing, and working very diligently to restore these channels back. In the meantime they were able to add a few new channels ( I can vouch for that..) to compensate for those that disappeared, and inshallah they are hoping to get everything settled before Ramadan.
I know, I know.. Ramadan?! That's almost four months away !!
We have all been waiting too long for these fixes, and this was not the time frame everyone wanted to hear, but to be fair, it's quite overwhelming what they are working on, and finally we got an answer directly from ZAAPTV.
So if you are loosing channels or channels are acting up, please hold on emailing them and flooding their inbox's, unless you have a legitimate issue with your POD.
Let me know what you think, and if you have any problems let us know maybe I and other users on this blog might be able to help.
Salam.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Sunday, April 1, 2012
A working example of how to add channels.
Ok, so many posts are asking how do you add channels, many people are not able to do that. So I decided to walk you through adding a real life working channel and access it through your POD.
The channel we will work with is from NASA Tv. As you will notice it's format is *.asx. As most of you know or will find out is that ZAAPTV POD requires a *.wmv file. The *.asx file is a pointer file (metadata) that points to the actual media file. I don't want to get into much details about that, but the bottom line is that this file points to a windows media file, therefore will suffice the requirement of ZAAPTV of being a *.wmv.
First of all you must register your POD, if you have not yet go to : https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/member/register.php and register your POD.
Now sign in to MyZaaptv at: https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/ .
Once in, you will see four orange buttons on the right. Click on "Add New Channel". The Add Channel page will open up. So far so good.
Now input the following information:
Add in Category: Select "Demo" from the pull down menu.
Channel URL: copy and paste the following URL:
http://www.nasa.gov/145590main_Digital_Media.asx
Channel Name: "NASA TV"
Country: Select "United States" from the drop menu.
Description: Type in "This is a working demo of a live tv, compliments of Masrawy ;)" (It will not work without this description…lol).
Who can see this? Select "Only Me".
Click on Save, a new page should open up titled "NASA TV", and informing you that you have successfully added a new channel, and will even show you a preview of the channel under Channel Video.
That's it you are done. Now we want to see the fruits of our labor.
Go to your POD's Main Menu, select MyTv, select My Channels, Select Demo and you should see your new channel called NASA TV in the lineup. Select it and enjoy it.
You can change any of the information I just gave aforementioned, so experiment and see what happens. If you create new links, let us know so we can add them and enjoy them too.
Salam
P.S: One question I am sure I will get is where I got that URL for the video from? Simply I googled it and found it in a forum for NASA. To actually go through a web page and find the URL of a stream is a very technical issue, and I will not go into actually explaining how it's done on this blog. There are many resources online for doing that. I just don't want to deviate away from the goal of this blog.
Another thing is the format of the files, I have not experimented with anything else yet. I just used what they asked for, just for the sake of getting this post ready. If someone has experimented with other formats and are sure they work please let us know.
The channel we will work with is from NASA Tv. As you will notice it's format is *.asx. As most of you know or will find out is that ZAAPTV POD requires a *.wmv file. The *.asx file is a pointer file (metadata) that points to the actual media file. I don't want to get into much details about that, but the bottom line is that this file points to a windows media file, therefore will suffice the requirement of ZAAPTV of being a *.wmv.
First of all you must register your POD, if you have not yet go to : https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/member/register.php and register your POD.
Now sign in to MyZaaptv at: https://myzaaptv.zaaptv.com/ .
Once in, you will see four orange buttons on the right. Click on "Add New Channel". The Add Channel page will open up. So far so good.
Now input the following information:
Add in Category: Select "Demo" from the pull down menu.
Channel URL: copy and paste the following URL:
http://www.nasa.gov/145590main_Digital_Media.asx
Channel Name: "NASA TV"
Country: Select "United States" from the drop menu.
Description: Type in "This is a working demo of a live tv, compliments of Masrawy ;)" (It will not work without this description…lol).
Who can see this? Select "Only Me".
Click on Save, a new page should open up titled "NASA TV", and informing you that you have successfully added a new channel, and will even show you a preview of the channel under Channel Video.
That's it you are done. Now we want to see the fruits of our labor.
Go to your POD's Main Menu, select MyTv, select My Channels, Select Demo and you should see your new channel called NASA TV in the lineup. Select it and enjoy it.
You can change any of the information I just gave aforementioned, so experiment and see what happens. If you create new links, let us know so we can add them and enjoy them too.
Salam
P.S: One question I am sure I will get is where I got that URL for the video from? Simply I googled it and found it in a forum for NASA. To actually go through a web page and find the URL of a stream is a very technical issue, and I will not go into actually explaining how it's done on this blog. There are many resources online for doing that. I just don't want to deviate away from the goal of this blog.
Another thing is the format of the files, I have not experimented with anything else yet. I just used what they asked for, just for the sake of getting this post ready. If someone has experimented with other formats and are sure they work please let us know.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Patience Everyone...
Hello Everyone,
I just wanted to say I am very happy to see such a collaboration between everyone on this blog, everyone helping each other out, I know I have not been able to respond to so many of you, like I wanted to, please do not be offended I am swamped here with work and school, but insahllah once I am done with school I will do my best to better maintain this blog. Come to think of it, I dont think you guys need me anymore, you have each other now ;)
Back to business, I know it is very frustrating for everyone to loose their favorite channels and end up with a bunch of useless channels to watch. I know the feeling. Many of us sent countless emails with no response, which makes it worse and have the feeling they are being left out, but to give them some credit I think these guys are working very hard to restore\add channels.
The important thing is that we are not loosing channels, you might not see the channel on your list anymore or it might not work, but as long as someone else can see that channel that's good news. How you may ask? That means they did not completely remove it from their lineup (i.e: they will discontinue to stream that specific channel) that would be bad. But if someone else has the channel in the same geographic area as you, then that means there is a problem with their servers and switches configuration, which is fixable given the time.
What I imagine happened was they did not anticipate the demand on their device's to be that high, and that must have caused very heavy traffic on their servers, and switches, and to top it all off they are increasing their channel lineup, all that while trying to keep as many of the pods working with as many channels as they could. This is a network admins worst nightmare come true. Imagine you own a bus full of people who paid to get on it, and the bus needs to be seriously fixed\upgraded, and that must be done while driving it and you can't tell your customers to get off. (Hmmm.. maybe not the best analogy, but it will make the picture somewhat clearer on the complexity of the issue).
With the thousands ( I am just assuming here of course could be hundreds or even tens or maybe tens of thousands.....we can go forever here, anyways) of emails to slow them down, they just took the easy route of not responding, which is not an efficient one or clever one when you have a business, but I guess they reached that conclusion after being drowned with my imaginary number of emails they receive. I used to get responses from them a day later at the most, now they dont respond back.
I have many channels that were working quit working then came back to life again after a few days. New channels are added, and some I lost for good ( Al-Hayat One). That's evident they are working on it and have not completely gave up on it, I think that's a good thing, dont you think?
Lets give them a chance and not hammer them with missing or not working channel emails, they already know that !! So for any channel missing\not working...etc issues I suggest (of course you are free to do whatever that will make you happy) write the email let out all your frustration and do not send it !!! This will decrease the number of emails they get thus give them the opportunity to respond to those emails who have serious device issues that need to be worked on or looked at.
Wow, that was a lengthy post, I will leave you guys now, have fun enjoy your ZAAPTV and have a great day. Oh and one more thing, if you are missing channels tell us what country you are from so others can verify whether they are missing or working. Just a suggestion.
Salam.
P.S: Please comment and let us all know what you think. I dont think I really need to tell you that, do I?
I just wanted to say I am very happy to see such a collaboration between everyone on this blog, everyone helping each other out, I know I have not been able to respond to so many of you, like I wanted to, please do not be offended I am swamped here with work and school, but insahllah once I am done with school I will do my best to better maintain this blog. Come to think of it, I dont think you guys need me anymore, you have each other now ;)
Back to business, I know it is very frustrating for everyone to loose their favorite channels and end up with a bunch of useless channels to watch. I know the feeling. Many of us sent countless emails with no response, which makes it worse and have the feeling they are being left out, but to give them some credit I think these guys are working very hard to restore\add channels.
The important thing is that we are not loosing channels, you might not see the channel on your list anymore or it might not work, but as long as someone else can see that channel that's good news. How you may ask? That means they did not completely remove it from their lineup (i.e: they will discontinue to stream that specific channel) that would be bad. But if someone else has the channel in the same geographic area as you, then that means there is a problem with their servers and switches configuration, which is fixable given the time.
What I imagine happened was they did not anticipate the demand on their device's to be that high, and that must have caused very heavy traffic on their servers, and switches, and to top it all off they are increasing their channel lineup, all that while trying to keep as many of the pods working with as many channels as they could. This is a network admins worst nightmare come true. Imagine you own a bus full of people who paid to get on it, and the bus needs to be seriously fixed\upgraded, and that must be done while driving it and you can't tell your customers to get off. (Hmmm.. maybe not the best analogy, but it will make the picture somewhat clearer on the complexity of the issue).
With the thousands ( I am just assuming here of course could be hundreds or even tens or maybe tens of thousands.....we can go forever here, anyways) of emails to slow them down, they just took the easy route of not responding, which is not an efficient one or clever one when you have a business, but I guess they reached that conclusion after being drowned with my imaginary number of emails they receive. I used to get responses from them a day later at the most, now they dont respond back.
I have many channels that were working quit working then came back to life again after a few days. New channels are added, and some I lost for good ( Al-Hayat One). That's evident they are working on it and have not completely gave up on it, I think that's a good thing, dont you think?
Lets give them a chance and not hammer them with missing or not working channel emails, they already know that !! So for any channel missing\not working...etc issues I suggest (of course you are free to do whatever that will make you happy) write the email let out all your frustration and do not send it !!! This will decrease the number of emails they get thus give them the opportunity to respond to those emails who have serious device issues that need to be worked on or looked at.
Wow, that was a lengthy post, I will leave you guys now, have fun enjoy your ZAAPTV and have a great day. Oh and one more thing, if you are missing channels tell us what country you are from so others can verify whether they are missing or working. Just a suggestion.
Salam.
P.S: Please comment and let us all know what you think. I dont think I really need to tell you that, do I?
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Device continuously rebooting
***Disclaimer: Try at your own risk, I have not tried any of this, so I really can not say if it will work or not, brought to you from the ZAAPTV Knowledgebase website.***
As for the box that is continuously rebooting, we have a solution. Please do the following:
(i) Immediately after the box starts reboot, PRESS AND HOLD DOWN THE "OK" KEY for about 20-30 secs(till the screen in (ii) appears).
(ii) A screen with heading "System Diagnostics" will appear.
(iii) In this, there are different options. Select the last option of "Run Previous Software"[Press Stop Key].
Please press the STOP key.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Che (05 September 2011 02:35 PM). Device continuously rebooting. Retrieved from http://zaaptv.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/3/0/device-continuously-rebooting
As for the box that is continuously rebooting, we have a solution. Please do the following:
(i) Immediately after the box starts reboot, PRESS AND HOLD DOWN THE "OK" KEY for about 20-30 secs(till the screen in (ii) appears).
(ii) A screen with heading "System Diagnostics" will appear.
(iii) In this, there are different options. Select the last option of "Run Previous Software"[Press Stop Key].
Please press the STOP key.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Che (05 September 2011 02:35 PM). Device continuously rebooting. Retrieved from http://zaaptv.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/3/0/device-continuously-rebooting
Buffering Issues
***Disclaimer: Try at your own risk, I have not tried any of this, so I really can not say if it will work or not, brought to you from the ZAAPTV Knowledgebase website.***
If you have Buffering issues please see this Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0W2KRaVoUc and change the DNS to 8.8.8.8.
Notice you should only change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 not the IP Adress.
Update 2011-12-01: If the above is not working try to replace DNS with the down listed, (DO NOT CHANGE THE IP ADRESSES).
Google
8.8.4.4
Level 3 Communications (Broomfield, CO, US)
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6
Verizon (Reston, VA, US)
151.197.0.38
151.197.0.39
151.202.0.84
151.202.0.85
151.202.0.85
151.203.0.84
151.203.0.85
199.45.32.37
199.45.32.38
199.45.32.40
199.45.32.43
GTE (Irving, TX, US)
192.76.85.133
206.124.64.1
One Connect IP (Albuquerque, NM, US)
67.138.54.100
OpenDNS (San Francisco, CA, US)
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Exetel (Sydney, AU)
220.233.167.31
VRx Network Services (New York, NY, US)
199.166.31.3
SpeakEasy (Seattle, WA, US)
66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2
Sprintlink (Overland Park, KS, US)
199.2.252.10
204.97.212.10
204.117.214.10
Cisco (San Jose, CA, US)
64.102.255.44
128.107.241.185
OpenNIC
202.83.95.227 (au)
119.31.230.42(au)
178.63.26.173 (de)
217.79.186.148 (de)
27.110.120.30(nz)
89.16.173.11 (uk)
69.164.208.50 (us)
216.87.84.211(us)
---------------------------------------------------------------
Nick Danielsson (09 March 2011 07:16 PM). Buffering Issues. Retrieved from http://zaaptv.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1/0/buffering-issues
If you have Buffering issues please see this Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0W2KRaVoUc and change the DNS to 8.8.8.8.
Notice you should only change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 not the IP Adress.
Update 2011-12-01: If the above is not working try to replace DNS with the down listed, (DO NOT CHANGE THE IP ADRESSES).
8.8.4.4
Level 3 Communications (Broomfield, CO, US)
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6
Verizon (Reston, VA, US)
151.197.0.38
151.197.0.39
151.202.0.84
151.202.0.85
151.202.0.85
151.203.0.84
151.203.0.85
199.45.32.37
199.45.32.38
199.45.32.40
199.45.32.43
GTE (Irving, TX, US)
192.76.85.133
206.124.64.1
One Connect IP (Albuquerque, NM, US)
67.138.54.100
OpenDNS (San Francisco, CA, US)
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Exetel (Sydney, AU)
220.233.167.31
VRx Network Services (New York, NY, US)
199.166.31.3
SpeakEasy (Seattle, WA, US)
66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2
Sprintlink (Overland Park, KS, US)
199.2.252.10
204.97.212.10
204.117.214.10
Cisco (San Jose, CA, US)
64.102.255.44
128.107.241.185
OpenNIC
202.83.95.227 (au)
119.31.230.42(au)
178.63.26.173 (de)
217.79.186.148 (de)
27.110.120.30(nz)
89.16.173.11 (uk)
69.164.208.50 (us)
216.87.84.211(us)
---------------------------------------------------------------
Nick Danielsson (09 March 2011 07:16 PM). Buffering Issues. Retrieved from http://zaaptv.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1/0/buffering-issues
Loosing Channels
Salam everyone,
For the last couple of weeks ZAAPTV has been loosing some Arabic channels. The latest ones we lost are Al-Haya (Egyptian channel) all three of the them. I noticed that while I was searching through the channels a message would pop up saying something in the lines of " Please be patient we are updating our services and we will be adding another 200 channels soon" !!
So I am not sure if that's what's causing these problems or not! Maybe they are just working on adding new channels and in that time taking down some of them. I will send them an email today and let everyone know what their response is.
Here are a couple of tricks to help out, if the icon disappears and the channel is still broadcasting.
If you lost some channels from the front menu, and you recently watched them, try looking through your history and open it from there. Another trick is to Favorite all the channels you like, this way if the icon disappears and the channel is still broadcasting, you can still pull it up and watch it.
Salam
For the last couple of weeks ZAAPTV has been loosing some Arabic channels. The latest ones we lost are Al-Haya (Egyptian channel) all three of the them. I noticed that while I was searching through the channels a message would pop up saying something in the lines of " Please be patient we are updating our services and we will be adding another 200 channels soon" !!
So I am not sure if that's what's causing these problems or not! Maybe they are just working on adding new channels and in that time taking down some of them. I will send them an email today and let everyone know what their response is.
Here are a couple of tricks to help out, if the icon disappears and the channel is still broadcasting.
If you lost some channels from the front menu, and you recently watched them, try looking through your history and open it from there. Another trick is to Favorite all the channels you like, this way if the icon disappears and the channel is still broadcasting, you can still pull it up and watch it.
Salam
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Coming Soon... A tutorial on how to connect ZAAPTV to a Windows 7 Media Server
I will be talking in this tutorial on how you can connect your ZAAPTV to a Windows based media server, where all your movies, songs and photos from that computer can be streamed and viewed on your TV using ZAAPTV, very beneficial for those who do not have a computer hooked up to their TV's.
Stay tuned...
Stay tuned...
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