Guide: how to use multiple B2C2 cards(SS2,AS2,CS2) in one PC

[liborc]

Hello. I bet many people have come across the same problem as I: I like the price and the features Technisat's budget dvb cards (SkyStar2, AirStar2, CableStar2) offer but am frustrated by the lack of multicard support in Technisat's drivers. These cards are built around the same reference design and use the same B2C2 chipset, so I refer to them often below as B2C2 cards. This is in most contexts synonymous to "TechniSat DVB-PC TV Star PCI", "AirStar2", "CableStar2", "SkyStar2", and "Technisat budget card(s)".

I am writing this guide upon request mbb made. He found this guide by pobox. Unfortunately, the text is in Slovak only, and you must be registered on the website in order to access it, which isn't really easy to do if you speak no Slovak or Czech, so here's my rewrite in English for Mediaportal folks.

I would like to stress a few things before anyone yells at me calling me plagiator:

• 1) I am not the author of this guide, I only re-wrote it in English. pobox wrote the original guide linked to above.

• 2) I am not the author of the modified B2C2 drivers either. thelogh made them, or at least posted them here. I only fetched them and zipped them. I can email them upon request. For the time being, I have no place where I could post them so it would be great if someone could help hosting these few files (all under 3 megs),

Furthermore:

• 1) I only own one B2C2 device (Airstar2 for that matter), so I was unable to test whether this works.

• 2) For the same reason, I had to re-use the original screenshots pobox made. Unfortunately, these are from his/her Slovak Windows XP machine. if anybody makes English screenshots, please, PM me and I'll post them.

• 3) I also only have Windows XP in Czech and French, so I am not 100% sure my translations of the different screens are correct. Please feel free to contact me with any precisions or English version screenshots.

So here comes the word of advise:

This guide presumes one card is already installed on the target machine using the original device driver. If that is not the case, use the standard procedure to install it and then continue following this guide.

1) download the modified drivers here.
2) turn off the target machine
3) install the new B2C2 card into a free PCI slot
4) turn the target machine back on. Windows XP detects new hardware and starts the install new hardware wizard.


5) Choose "Install from a list" (Image 1)


6) Choose "Do not seek, I will choose..." (Image 2)


7) Choose "Provided disk" (Image 3)


8 ) Click on "Browse" (Image 4)


9) Find the folder with the modified drivers (...and version) you want to use. For most users, this should be the highest/newest version (3.2 at the moment.) Select SkyNETB when installing a second B2C2 card, or SkyNETC when installing a third B2C2 card. (Image 5)


10) Select "TechniSat DVB-PC TV Star PCI B" from the list. Pressing "Next" on this screen will finish the installation. (Image 6)


11) Your Device Manager should now show something like this (two OR three B2C2 cards installed in the Network adapters section). (Image 7)


12) For use with DVBPlayer, select the appropriate B2C2 card within the Setup4PC application (Image 8 )


This should be all that needs to be done. I really do not know whether and/or how well this works. Please help others by posting your experience with it. On the other hand, I hope the moderators of this section will be indulgent to this post (I know only working tips should be posted here)

Also, it is unclear whether MediaPortal detects automatically two cards and switches between them, whether it can record shows on one card and display those received by the second/third one...

Many other questions are in the air too. Please help everyone who can - I can't as I don't own two B2C2 cards.


Hope this all helps you folks,


Libor

[Smirnuff]

Excellent, will be trying this later today. Thanks for taking the time to translate and post.

[rtv]

Wow - too bad I've got no spare multi-switch ports :-/

[rtv]

1. during install I got a bluescreen (driver_irql_not_less_or_equal) - maybe due to the card being already recognised by the installed driver
2. after reboot the card was correctly detected
3. MP doesn't know the device id
4. capture card definitions are only for BDA drivers..
5. adding the id to this file leads to MP detecting the card
6. the card cannot be used "unable to set tuner status"

As SS2 support is hard coded in MP i think this is the end of my testing possibilities..

If anyone wants to add support I'm glad to donate my PVR 500 and offer ultra-vnc access to my htpc for testing purposes...

[mbb]

Just a good news found on http://www.dvbnetwork.com/.

But I didnt find the original source of the information neither the link to the file.

Posted in another forum (dated 31-01-2006):

Technisat DVB-PC 4_3_3_BETA_060130.zip

Mail from BBTI:

Dear *****,

I can't believe 4 months have past since you wrote to us requesting a
multi-device capable software release. We have had something working for
quite sometime but for some reason we have not made this publicly available.
If you would like to try the software in advance of our release next month,
please feel free to download the software from the link provided below. We
would very much appreciate to receive any feedback you might have regarding
this software so that we can correct any errors or omissions before for
releasing it worldwide to all our valuable customers.

With best regards,

Support

[rtv]

You have to register there..
Did you try those drivers?

[mbb]

a link to the new beta driver
http://www.bbti.us/download/beta/Tec...ETA_060217.zip

[ASiDiE]

I have another post over here about my skystar 2. I currently can't even detect my card!!!. Does anyone know if these drivers will help in any way?

[Jusufs]

Does support SS2 driver 0.4.4 more SS2 cards in Mediaportal Server ?