AW: [mythtv-users] Looking for advice moving to DVB-S

[Joe Ammann]

On Sunday 30 October 2005 07:37, Martin Bene wrote:
[...]
> > I wont need one of these fancy boxes that normally come
> > as a "satellite receiver" together with a dish? Does
> > anybody know if there are offerings here in Switzerland
> > for "only a dish" ? (I was not yet able to find one)
>
> The set you'll need consists of :
>  - dish
>  - lnb
>  - cable(s)
>
> LNB is the thingy that sits in the focus of the dish and has the
> cable(s) attached. If you want to feed multiple cards you'll need an LNB
> with the corresponding number of cable attachments (up to four); since
> the receiver (or DVB card) controls what signal the LNB actually puts on
> the sat cable, ( 4 possible settings) it's not possible to just split
> one cable to feed two cards.

Thanks for this information. I always thought it must be somehow like this, 
but your explanation makes it really clear. I guess here in Europe those 
"combined Astra and Hotbird" satellite dish/LNB is what I should go for. As 
far as I understand, these dish/LNB combination make a compromise on having 
just one dish for 2 (relatively close) satellite against a somewhat weaker 
signal because the dish is not optimally aligned with either satellite.

> You don't need a sat receiver, though a set including  a receiver might
> actually be cheaper that just the dish + LNB.

It thought so :-)

[..]
> > I will buy at least one, maybe 2 (legal) CAM modules. Are
> > there any gotchas or can I just plug them into the CI and
> > Myth will work happily? Is all the decrypting done on the
> > card/driver? Are there well supported  cards with
> > multiple CI slots?
>
> There's a CI module for the Hauppauge nova that supports two CI modules;
> the nova-ci-s just supports one module.

Hm, are you sure about that? The docs fo the Nova-CI-S says that it also can 
fit 2 cards. But I haven't seen it in real life ... Anyway, I will go with 
your suggestion because I prefer having the CAM's accessible from the front - 
the additional CI module is a 3.5 inch module, right?

> One potential problem I 
> encountered is the premiere decryption: the CAM module provided by
> premiere works only in selected receivermodels and doesn't work with any
> DVB cards; you can however get third-party CAM modules that do work with
> premiere.

Never mind, Premiere is not what I'm looking for. But thanks for the info.

[...]
> One other thing you my want to consider: the first stations in germany
> just went on-air with HD content - only problem: noone can creceive it
> yet. They decided to go with DVB-S2 which can't be received using
> currently available DVB cards. (and no, normal sat receivers aren't
> available either). Premiere pay tv will be using the same standard.

This is absolutely new to me. I read up a bit on DVB-S2 and it looks 
interesting. I guess it wont take long until the cards hit the market. Am I 
right in assuming that the dish/LNB I am going to buy now will be able to 
receive DVB-S2? I just will have to buy one of the forthcoming cards to be 
able to enjoy HDTV?

CU, Joe