Where does the memory go then?

[brain]

Just because I think it is something like my upper/lower button problem that may help others. For example - a Nemesis image is about 50MB. Ok so I upload it into BU and add updater,BA,and three cams. That comes to about another 10MB - in BA it gives me a figure of 117.3M!! Peter pan image is 51M. Same uploads to it plus a couple of things, curtain and mediaplayer extra. That now says 181.9M!!! No wonder I was having trouble with flash. What is happening? I would just love some computer clever person to explain - I have just spoken to someone I now who works for Apple and does Iphone apps, and even with a bit of expansion these figures dont make sense. Any thoughts guys? Great forum for all the help - thanks. Brain

[oldfart]

swapfile?

[jimrare]

Windows 7 on the installation dvd is something around 2.7GB, but once installed on your hard drive it gets to 10GB.

[brain]

@oldfart
Only if Ive done it by mistake! When I go to that feature and open it it always says nothing to do and it doeasnt find one so have not got one there. Since everyone seems to think the 8000 has enough flash to run loads of addons I havent gone there, but perhaps it is not as large as people think once loaded. had no trouble with swap file under old meoboot system but am still learning with BA, but having conquered most of what I need to have it as the all singing/all dancing media centre and all wi-fid from my mac I was just pursuing oddities.
@jimrare
Although it will expand some will be added for system needs as on all HDD and Usb memory. But I do feel that 64 to 181 seems a shade excessive!!

Before anyone asks, to my knowledge I havent even gone down the Picons route. It isnt a problem to run via HDD/Usb but I had just got it into my head that the memory was capable on the 8000 flash, and I do check size of files both compressed and expanded

[jimrare]

@jimrare
Although it will expand some will be added for system needs as on all HDD and Usb memory. But I do feel that 64 to 181 seems a shade excessive!!
I don't understand what you mean by "added for system needs" and why you think that this doesn't require space.

64 to 181 is almost 3 times more, windows 7 goes from 2.7 to 10 which is almost 4 times more. If you extract the .nfi image file you will see its not only 50MB as you say. Also all dreambox downloads are tarred gzipped. My dreambox settings files go from 155kbytes to 1.1Mbytes when extracted, which is almost 7 times more. CCcam 2.2.1 goes from 490Kbytes to 1.2Mbytes which is 2.5 times more. 3 times deson't seem excessive to me

[brain]

Hi Jimrare
I didnt mean to sound rude here but I thought I was reading the expanded MB range - the 8000 has 128MB flash so I understand, so if the image unexpanded was 50M and then expanded up to three times or more on expansion and insertion it couldnt possibly fit could it? My orignal problem was that I was putting a.nfi image in and adding about 10M on top and the box then went to 'no available memory having been told that after putting the image in there was plenty of space for addons - I was just fascinated by the maths. My reference to the system memory was that whenever you open a system or format a usb certain of the memory is taken for system needs - that sort of small bit which seems to be taken from the original, or am I being rather thick here? Cheers - Brain

[jimrare]

I understand, so if the image unexpanded was 50M and then expanded up to three times or more on expansion and insertion it couldnt possibly fit could it? To make things clear the 8000 has 256MB of RAM and 128MB of flash memory. These are two different types of memory, each has its own usage. Your images and downloads are placed in the flash memory so to answer if 180 MB could fit in 128MB the answer is obvious.

I'm not sure what BA is reporting, i've never used it, but it seems that the figure you are getting has to do with the amount of RAM available.

[jimrare]

I just extracted latest Nemesis 2.2 SVN 073 and it is around 108MB, Newnigma2 v3.1.5 is 98MB and gemini icvs is 87MB.

Each cam is around 1MB more or less, settings around 1MB as well, your curtain plugin is around 4.5MB, i don't know what else you have downloaded but they can easily add up.

However if you are running a hard drive inside your box you can intruct your box to install plugins on your hard drive instead of your flash memory.

[brain]

Hi jimrare
many thanks for all that - I really was after some real explanation and you have given it. The only bit that puzzles me is that if the image expanded is 108 why do people say there is plenty of space for addons? Also the info figure I got was after I had expanded the file before installing it, so it expands more when I do that? Anyway, thankyou for the time - I just found it something I wanted to try and understand! Cheers - Brain

[jimrare]

Also the info figure I got was after I had expanded the file before installing it, so it expands more when I do that?Yes

The images you dowload from forums are usualy .zip files or .rar files. When you extract this you get a .nfi file which is the file you install. This .nfi files is a packed version of the operating system that you install on your flash memory. Search for "nfi extractor" if you want to extract it. The unpacked version will have the exact directory structure compared to what you see when you ftp to your box.


The only bit that puzzles me is that if the image expanded is 108 why do people say there is plenty of space for addons?Because it depends on what people define as plenty. For me half a million pounds is plenty of money but for some others it isn't :) To be honest 1million wouldn't be bad either, or am i being greedy? Back on topic, different images have different plugins already installed which you might never use. For me, icvs is the simplest image of all, with minimum plugins installed so i can download whatever suits me, but of course i recommend that you play around with other images and see what suits you.

[Detlef]

If you use DCC in FTP mode (or your favourite FTP utility) you can inspect the expanded files inside the DB.

I created a full directory listing of my DB600pvr and that would go some way to explaining the size of add-ons, etc. [I did it because I can never remember where to put some files when I want to manually update them.]

[brain]

@jimrare
Lots of interesting things and thankyou. I hadnt realised they expanded so much once inserted and the money analogy is good. It has all well explained what I was puzzled about as not a real techy.
@Detlef
I will look as you say - am fairly happy playing around on my mac with idreamx - it really is a good prog and combines FTP with other features. Thanks - Brain