Overview

VDR-M7x0 is a VDR port for Siemens Gigaset M740AV, M750T EPG and M750S created in 2006 by German developers from open7x0.org (now defunct).

VDR-NG-EM (Video Disk Recorder - Next Generation - Edición Mejorada) is a VDR-M7x0 fork enhanced since 2007 by Spanish developers from vdr-m7x0.foroactivo.com.es with many fixes, new features and better performance.

In 2021, the VDR-NG-EM project was migrated from Assembla to GitHub (Wiki, Tickets and Repositories included the unstable branch for historical reasons).

Main features

• Backports from VDR 2.6.x with a lot of fixes and improvements.
• Many VDR plugins available (e.g. epgsearch, epgfixer, scheduler, osdteletext, rssreader, vdrmanager, xmltv2vdr, parental control with PIN plugin, etc.). See complete list.
• Permanent TimeShift very configurable.
• Record HD channels using MPEG-TS files (including DVB and Teletext subtitles).
• Edit recordings ultrafast using hard links.
• USB hard disks to 2 times faster.
• Kernel with Real Time scheduler, Low Latency, and many fixes and speed ups.
• Using LTO (Link Time Optimization), Graphite loops optimizations and aggressive compiler flags when possible.
• FTP, SSH, Web, NFS and DLNA servers, a NTP client and a send-only sendmail emulator.
• Two versions of the firmware are provided: Pro is a full version with network support and Lite is a smaller version without network packages and minimal Kernel and BusyBox.
• You can compile extra programs (Bash shell, BitTorrent client, VPN, SAMBA server, dvbsnoop, htop, lynx, smartmontools, etc.) enabling them in .config file.

You can read the complete list of features in Wiki (only in Spanish).

Download Nightly Builds

GitHub Actions Artifacts ONLY can be downloaded by GitHub logged users.

Nightly builds are built automatically by GitHub Actions (GitHub's integrated CI/CD tool) every time a new commit is pushed to the master branch.
The latest nightly build is always up-to-date with the latest version of the code, but is less stable and may contain bugs.

To download the latest nightly build, go to the GitHub Actions tab, enter the last run of workflow VDR-NG-EM Nightly Build, and download the artifacts generated from the run.

You can download WSW firmwares for each hardware (M740, M750T and M750s) and each version (Pro and Lite), a Windows Builder to customize the firmware and the SAMBA binaries.

Generate firmware on Windows

Download the latest VDR-NG-EM-<version>-Firmware-builder.rar file from releases, extract it, run firmware-builder.bat and follow the steps on the wizard.

If the firmware isn't generated, check the firmware-builder.log file to detect the problem and if you can't fix it, open a new issue attaching the log file.

This builder uses precompiled binaries and Kernel, so it generates the firmware very fast, but it doesn't include latest changes (like nightly builds).

Compile firmware on Linux

1. Install dependencies

You need to have installed gcc, binutils, patch, flex, make, automake, autoconf, autotools-dev, pkg-config, bison, gettext, genext2fs, bzip2, unzip and libz-dev.
If you want network support (Pro version) you also need libtirpc-dev and the java binary (jre-openjdk).

$ sudo pacman -Sy base-devel unzip jre-openjdk

$ sudo apt-get install -y build-essential pkg-config m4 automake libtirpc-dev libz-dev default-jre

$ sudo dnf install -y make automake gcc gcc-c++ flex bzip2 zlib-devel libtirpc-devel java-latest-openjdk

$ sudo zypper install -y make automake gcc gcc-c++ flex patch wget bzip2 unzip zlib-devel libtirpc-devel java-11-openjdk

2. Get Toolchain source code

$ umask 022
$ git clone --no-checkout --depth=1 --filter=tree:0 https://github.com/bittor7x0/VDR-M7x0 vdr-ng-em
$ cd vdr-ng-em
$ git sparse-checkout set --no-cone /toolchain
$ git checkout
$ cd toolchain

3. Configuration

If you want a version with network support (Pro version), run:

$ cp configs/default-config-pro .config

or if you don't use the network (Lite version), run:

$ cp configs/default-config-lite .config

Edit the .config file and change parameters if it's necessary (e.g. CONFIG_LANGUAGE).

4. Compilation

$ make

Finally, you'll get two firmware files with extension:

• .wsw: Install from the 4x unplug menu. Recommended.
• .ofi: It's an executable file that installs itself. Only for advanced users because it's run with ssh/telnet or using the Filebrowser plugin and problems can arise.

If you have any problems or doubts you can send them in English to our international forum or open an issue.

License

VDR-NG-EM is licensed under the GPL v3 license.
This license covers all VDR-NG-EM specific parts like Makefiles, configuration files, scripts, patches and other files and it doesn't cover the packages VDR-NG-EM is based on or VDR-NG-EM is able to build, because they may, of course, be used on their own under their own terms.

Warranties

The VDR-NG-EM firmware is distributed without warranty of any kind.
You assume all responsibility for its use.

Directory structure

Directory	Short description
dvb-kernel-m7x0	Some USB DVB drivers for M7x0
toolchain	Toolchain for build the VDR-NG-EM firmware
vdr-m7x0	VDR-NG-EM source code
vdr-m7x0-plugins	All plugins that work with VDR-NG-EM
webif	Web interface server for VDR-NG-EM