[mythtv-users] HW CAMs, CI support, legal subscription viewing (DVB-S2)

[Jurgen Kramer]

On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 13:00 +0100, David Kubicek wrote:
> Hello to you all.
> 
> I'm bringing up "the big" question - there is some general knowledge 
> about some cards' CI's (mostly KNC1) working with Linux - at least 
> Kaffeine, if not MythTV. Most of these reports are rather old so I 
> looked into MythTV sources and current dvbcam.cpp seems to support CAM 
> menus, selections, etc. I guess the developers came a long way since 
> those dark days. There must have been people actually testing this code, 
> I'm kindly asking these people and anybody else with some experience to 
> step up and share their tips. :) Like you, I don't want to settle for 
> less - MythTV is the best in this area.
> 
> However, there aren't many DVB-S cards with CI slots supported by Linux 
> and my impression is that those which work are incompatible with MythTV. 
> I've searched and read the whole -dev and -users lists and it seems to 
> me that most MythTV enthusiasts are eventually forced to turn to the 
> "dark side" and end up using borderline-legal sortcam setups. After 
> that, nobody will respond to their questions, because such discussions 
> are forbidden here. I conclude that there are basically two options - 
> watch FTA (useless) or go rogue and loose all sympathy and support, 
> which is impractical to say the least. :)
> 
> I'd like to prevent this happening to me. I'm going to build a new 
> MythTV box and I would prefer if everything was stable, clean, legal and 
> without non-documented hacks like DVB loop devices. MythTV code shows 
> there have been some development in this area and there were people with 
> some HW CAM's writing and testing the new code. This means there really 
> is a working HW CAM for MythTV. Also, with the majority of people here 
> against softcams, there must be many users with HW CAM cards. I don't 
> think people would have gone all the way to polish (rather complicated) 
> MythTV setups just for FTA viewing.
> 
> My question, my plea is to hear from you what you've been through, how 
> you ended up realizing your setup and any tips along the way. Everything 
> to do with DVB-S2 (or even DVB-C) and MythTV. I really hope to collect 
> some hard-to-get information and put it up on the MythTV wiki for other 
> people like me. Please, do let me know.
> 
> Thank you,
> David Kubicek
> _______________________________________________
OK, a bit late...

MythTV 0.22
2x Mystique CaBiX-C2, DVB-C, HDTV, CI-Connector with
2x Mystique View CI-Interface (f. 1 CAM) for PCI and/or 3.5" with
2x Alphacrypt
2x Ziggo smartcard (The Netherlands)
Fedora 11 x86_64

Very stable, works great out of the box including HD channels. Only the
HD channels are an extra subscription on top of the basic digital
channels and it seems that the enable/update codes for the smartcards
are not working so I have to regularly (every couple of weeks) put the
smartcards in my Cisco settop box to re-enable them end keep my HD
subscription working. 

Jurgen