Uk Sky Dvb-s ?? (1 Viewer)

[chenks]

has anyone managed to get Sky Digital (UK DVB-S) to work on mediaportal?

i assume a satellite tv card and some sort of CI/CAM will be needed.

i haven't got Sky, but i am looking into it and just wondered if MP can be used with it as well.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

This is a quote from Smirnuff

We used to be able to do this with standard DVB-S, not sure what the situation is with DVB-S2. Around 18 months ago I had a FireDTV-S, Dragon CAM and a valid Sky Digital subscription card and was able to view PPV Sky programmes in perfect quality within MP. Despite all this, the Sky+ box still offered a better solution for me so I no longer own the FireDTV-S.

I too have searched the web for information about this, and found nothing conclusive.

The general concensus is use "sky stb" linked to your capturecard.

If someone has more comprehensive info about this, setup\usage would be great for some feedback.

Thanks

 

[chenks]

how would the STB be connected to the capture card ?
and what kind of capture card would be required ?

 

[Smirnuff]

Since I no longer have the FireDTV and haven't kept up with developments I have no clue as to whether this is still possible but assume so since no new subscription cards have been issued.

Grabbing yourself a FireDTV-S, a Dragon CAM and an appropriate revision of the Predator firmware did indeed allow MP to view encrypted channels when used with a valid Sky Digital subscription card.

Quality was very good, channel change times were okay but nowhere near as fast as a Sky box. Overall it didn't leave me with a watching/recording experience that could match a Sky+ box. This was partly due to the FireDTV being a very new product, at the time the team members who owned FireDTV devices were mostly running private beta versions of the firmware, I was the only guy trying it initially with MP and since I didn't do TV related code I had to turn to frodo to get things working, also the MP codebase was 18 months less mature.

A few others bought the gear shortly after me and were left happily watching full quality Sky broadcast programmes on their MP boxes. Dunno whether any of them still do, are happy with it etc.

how would the STB be connected to the capture card ?
and what kind of capture card would be required ?

You would need a blaster of some sort so that MP can instruct the STB to change channels, the whole reason I wrote the not so great MyBlaster plugin, and a capture card. Its a solution but not the solution for me.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Now your getting into the area were i'm partially unsure.

Analogue TV card, any supported, does not specifically need to be Hardware mpeg encoding, as signal coming in will be mpeg2 anyway.

Now linking the STB channels to MP and the TVGuide is not something i have ever done, so it would be a hit and miss affair on that one.

Linking remote with blaster sounds pretty straight forward, once the channels are setup.

Sky plus, starts to sound attractive. but nothing to tinker with.

 

[Smirnuff]

Sky plus, starts to sound attractive. but nothing to tinker with

Yup Sky+ is pretty boring in most regards. A solution that would fit my needs almost perfectly would be the ability to use a Dreambox type STB sporting ethernet connectivity and user installable hard drives. Haven't spent much time looking into this so don't know if its possible.

Now linking the STB channels to MP and the TVGuide is not something i have ever done

An unpleasant task to say the least!

 

[strontium]

I have been thinking about this as well. You can read up the situation with MCE here, but the principals are the same.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319927

Basically I have decided sky+ is better for me, the benefits being:

2 tuners, watch 1 channel record another
you have to insert your viewing card into a sky STB every 6-8 weeks to keep the channels working.
It works without hassle, important for WAF.

So to get a sky+ like setup would require 2 firedtv units (or 2 satelitte cards) , 2 cams and 2 viewing cards (cost about £300) and a multi room subscription (£10 a month).

I purchased a pvr-150 and have it connected to my SKY+ box via s-video, this allows me to back up, copy off programmes I want to keep.
I find I do not use this facility that much, but it is useful.

 

[davej00]

I use a DVB-S card pointing at the Astra 2 cluster and I get all the unecrypted channels [which suites me].

The advantage to me going the MP route rather than STB was I could have all my media in one box -- MP3, DVDs, recorded TV -- the works.

Once the TV server comes out of beta I plan to get an S2 card for BBC HD [which is also unecrypted].

Enjoy !

- Dave

BTW And you record in digital quality -- and can also blow it onto a DVD if you want.