[mythtv-users] dvb-s vs. dvb-s2 for UK Freesat HD

Andre Newman mythtv-list at dinkum.org.uk
Thu Apr 9 10:29:45 UTC 2009


On 9 Apr 2009, at 11:05, matty.shaw at ntlworld.com wrote:
>
>
> Could one of you lovely people give me some help with the dvbs2  
> issue, also a
> few cpu and graphic cards recommendations would be lovely.

I'm using a couple of Nova S Plus cards, (DVBS) and a Nova HD S2 in a  
separate slave backend so I can muck about with DVBS2, it's dual boot  
with Windows 7 too, it's worth a look while it's free ;-) I just boot  
the salve backend when upcoming recordings tells me there are some  
conflicts coming.

The Nova S plus is cheap and works straight off in most distros, my  
main server is Ubuntu Hardy. The Nova HD S2 works ok with the latest  
v4l svn drivers or reputedly with the kernel in Jaunty.

Currently all the Astra 2 HD FTA channels are using DVBS but this  
could change at any time, there are a few transponder moves going on  
right now as Astra 2C is moving to a different location. Various BBC  
R&D people I've had reason to chat with in the last few months have  
mentioned a major change to "the Freesat HD platform" which should fix  
the current problems with the BBC HD encoding. I don't know if this  
will mean a change to DVBS2 as well but I've recently bought a DVBS2  
card just in case.

I've had the DVBS cards for a while but if I was buying new I'd be  
buying DVBS2 even though S2 can't be used in MythTV yet, they work  
fine for DVBS for now. I have a friend in Germany who has a couple of  
TT3200 cards but I see a few reports of tuning issues with those, he  
doesn't have problems though.

If you buy any of the S2 cards be prepared for driver compiling and  
head scratching, most of my head scratching was caused by buying a  
card that was faulty though!

Cheers

Andre


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